Minor GSF Tweak Suggestions

[Puja]

I fly all 3 ship types for both factions. I have 91% of the GSF achievements (early access). All in all the game seems fairly well balanced so far, but these are my tweak suggestions.

 

1. Make companion ability options exact mirrors for both factions. Currently this favors pub side in at least three ways and may very well be the primary reason pubs win more. Please match the imp side to the pub side rather than vice versa. The imp side options are gimped.

 

2. Make C in Shipyards equidistant to both start spawns. C is much easier to defend than capture, but is closer to the pub start spawn.

 

3. Increase range of all strike fighter weapons by 5%. May ultimately need to be boosted to 10%, but I would try 5% first. Strike fighter variant of same weapon should have longer range than scout variant.

 

4. Reduce lock time on concussion missiles by 0.2 seconds.

 

5. Reduce lock time on ion missiles by 0.2 seconds.

 

6. Reduce lock time on sabotage probes by 0.2 seconds

 

7. Reduce lock time on proton torpedos by 0.5 seconds.

 

8. Reduce lock time on thermite torpedos by 0.5 seconds.

 

9. Give ion cannons a default non-stackable 5% slow that lasts 8 seconds.

 

10. Reduce Bypass to 30% shield piercing for 12 seconds.

 

11. Debuffs from Ion Railguns should scale based on how charged they were. Simply clicking on the ion railguns should not give the full debuff. AOE should only work at 50% charge and greater.

 

12. Slightly reduce accuracy and damage of spawn turrets.

 

13. Give objective points for holding a node blue.

 

14. Siege medal should be 4 turrets. Demolisher medal should be 6 turrets. Crushing the Defense achievement should be 10 turrets destroyed. Having these as high as they currently are requires potentially losing the game for your team in order to accomplish them. I farm these with a gunship on an alt on the imp side since it is more likely the imp side will be losing anyway.

 

15. Autoboot "players" AFKing at spawn. Give no credits, XP, or req for players with zeros across the board. [Note this only works fairly if players get objective points for holding nodes blue]. This has become a really annoying issue imp side on The Harbinger. Are they AFKing for the credits? Experience? To troll? I have no idea, though one of the regular AFK players is named such as being AKF in PVP matches seems to be the point of that character's creation. I have just started leaving games that have regular afk'ers in them. I'll go play pub side until their bed time.

 

16. I don't switch guns or missiles on either of my strike fighters. So in each case the 1 ability is wasted. Unlike with Gunships where clicking a target twice with ions and then switching and doing a full slug is very effective, switching weapons on strike fighters is not nearly as useful. The strike fighter ion lasers/missiles just don't compete with the OP gunship ions. Plus, with the ion lasers having shorter range than the heavy lasers they don't make sense as the opener. I would much rather have a strike fighter with a custom 1 ability like the scouts have. I still struggle to find a reason to fly a strike fighter other than to accomplish the achievements that require them. I fly a strike fighter when the games are hopelessly mismatched and we will win regardless of what I fly.

 

17. Ships returning to spawn for safety should be put in time out for 12 seconds giving them time to gather their courage and re-enter the game. Cooldowns should be paused during this time. If the player had 25 seconds left before they could use an ability again when going in to timeout, they should have 25 seconds left when they are respawned out of timeout.

 

18. Evasion should scale to some degree with speed. It doesn't need to be 1:1. Stopped could be 75% of evasion value compared to full, 100% of evasion value.

Edited January 13, 2014 by Puja

[renegadeimp]

Missile lock on times are fine. Reducing them will give fighters a MASSIVE buff.

 

I agree with the ION cannon nerf though. it really needs it.

 

Spawn turrets are fine. They are there to stop you 'base camping' the enemy spawn. Similar to huttball and the safe areas at the start.

 

The non stackable ion slow is a waste of dev time. 5% is absolutely NOTHING in GSF. It is very easily negated.

 

Regarding holding a node blue. Nope. At that point, the node doesnt belong to any team so you shouldnt get points for it. However, if it is half green, then yes, you should get it.

Edited January 5, 2014 by renegadeimp

[-Streven-]

Reducing lock on times not a good idea. They are all very balanced at the moment. Game shouldn't be about sitting back and spamming missiles.

[Puja]

I actually thought my suggested lock on time reductions were on the low side of what they probably need to be. Note that cluster missiles (what the vast majority of players use) are not on the list above. Those are the only functional missiles for me in the game having less than half the lock on time of any other missile. Even with my suggestions above I would still only use cluster missiles. Edited January 5, 2014 by Puja

[Puja]

Holding a node blue often wins the game and is generally more difficult than holding one green that has turrets on it.

[Zharik]

1. Agree. Not sure if that is the "reason pubs win more"... but agree.

2. Also agree. Hate having to try to pry it from decent pilots' hands when I fly Imp side. Also, possibly make A closer to Imp starting area instead? There are asteroids in the Imp's path but nothing in the Pub's path.

3. A 5% boost isn't much, really... 10% starts to make the Strike Fighter sound like a viable mid-range option.

4-8 No... bad idea. Though I would like the option for "fire automatically if you achieve lock" to help prevent lag from making you miss your window.

9. Who uses ion cannons? Perhaps better than a 5% slow, a small (like 2-3 points per hit) engine/weapon energy drain would make them a bit more appealing.

10. Shield piercing needs more than just a minor tweaking. In the same regard, armor piercing is a bit too prevalent as well.

11. No debuff unless fully charged. A fully upgraded ion canon is the "I win" button vs pretty much everything 1 v 1. (disruption fields could counter this long enough but during a match most gunships get to pick and chose their targets while they're busy fighting others)

12. Turrets are fine.

13. The only thing that matters is how many ship requisitions you earn, not objective points. If that's what you meant, then contesting a satellite should count as offensive points, yes. (maybe instead of a green aura, you get a yellow one when an enemy ship is also near the satellite. With more for actually damaging said enemy ship when it has an aura around it)

14. Medals mean jack... killing turrets actually nets a lot of requisitions.

15. You forgot this one. Running back to your own capitol ship while being hunted is such a ***** move that I'd love to see it punished (somehow). ESPECIALLY if you are a gunship and you're being hunted by a scout/fighter. You should NOT be able to shoot at someone while "safely in the capitol ship's turrets' defense area." Maybe the turrets mark you as a traitor for fleeing the fight and open fire... (this is really no different than flying too far out of bounds)

[Puja]

15. You forgot this one. Running back to your own capitol ship while being hunted is such a ***** move that I'd love to see it punished (somehow). ESPECIALLY if you are a gunship and you're being hunted by a scout/fighter. You should NOT be able to shoot at someone while "safely in the capitol ship's turrets' defense area." Maybe the turrets mark you as a traitor for fleeing the fight and open fire... (this is really no different than flying too far out of bounds)

 

I couldn't come up with a good solution for that, but it is why I think the turrets at the spawns, not on the nodes, should be weaker; so I can at least have a chance to kill two gunships that have run back to momma before the turrets kill me. Getting sniped is an annoyance I'm willing to live with, but then having that annoyance be compounded by the source of it running back to the spawn is annoying to the nth degree.

[Helig]

Definitely agree on the ion railgun suggestion. AoE only past 50% charge, no full debuff at button tap.

 

Spawn turrets must be nerfed considerably., at least in the accuracy department.

 

The rest - nah. Especially missile lock timers. Upgraded missiles are scary enough already.

Edited January 6, 2014 by Helig

[Puja]

The thing is I would be willing to wager that for every 100 kills made with a cluster missile there is 1 kill made with all the other missiles I listed combined. They simply aren't viable in dogfights with lock on times such as they have.

 

In the time it takes some of those missiles to lock I could have killed two or three ships swarming me with my lasers instead.

Edited January 6, 2014 by Puja

[Kaivers]

I couldn't come up with a good solution for that, but it is why I think the turrets at the spawns, not on the nodes, should be weaker; so I can at least have a chance to kill two gunships that have run back to momma before the turrets kill me. Getting sniped is an annoyance I'm willing to live with, but then having that annoyance be compounded by the source of it running back to the spawn is annoying to the nth degree.

 

Any ship flying back to the Capitol ships for protection should be "timed out" for a certain period of time i.e. not able to re engage or fire weapons. This gives the pursuer time to retreat and penalizes the escaping ship by taking them out of action for some time. Perhaps Capitol ships should enforce this time out via a tractor beam that will hold any friendly ship in stasis as soon as they come in range of turrets.

Edited January 6, 2014 by Kaivers

[Puja]

Any ship flying back to the Capitol ships for protection should be "timed out" for a certain period of time i.e. not able to re engage or fire weapons. This gives the pursuer time to retreat and penalizes the escaping ship by taking them out of action for some time. Perhaps Capitol ships should enforce this time out via a tractor beam that will hold any friendly ship in stasis as soon as they come in range of turrets.

 

I like that. They can run to timeout to gather their courage.

[Kaivers]

I like that. They can run to timeout to gather their courage.

 

It would be awesome and hilarious if the Admiral berated them while in stasis. Rep Admiral could say "get back out there pilot...I have zero time for cowardice!" While an automated message could come from Imp Ship saying something like "Imperial pilot you have mistakenly disengaged from battle, please report to your squadron immediately...any pilot refusing to report will be court marshaled upon our victory."

[Helig]

It would be awesome and hilarious if the Admiral berated them while in stasis. Rep Admiral could say "get back out there pilot...I have zero time for cowardice!" While an automated message could come from Imp Ship saying something like "Imperial pilot you have mistakenly disengaged from battle, please report to your squadron immediately...any pilot refusing to report will be court marshaled upon our victory."

Would be hilarious if you lose the match though:D

[Kaivers]

Would be hilarious if you lose the match though:D

 

Exactly! Fits perfectly with the Imperial mindset.

[Puja]

Updated.