Nemarus Posted January 10, 2014 Share Posted January 10, 2014 Deathmatch, power-ups, requisition breakdowns, stats boards.... much to be excited about! Though I wonder if Deathmatch takes place in the existing maps or a new map. STUPID WORK. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Itkovian Posted January 10, 2014 Share Posted January 10, 2014 Deathmatch, power-ups, requisition breakdowns, stats boards.... much to be excited about! Though I wonder if Deathmatch takes place in the existing maps or a new map. STUPID WORK. I'm betting existing maps. They would certainly have touted new maps with much fanfare. That said, I'm a bit troubled by power ups: will this end up as yet another situation where scouts have an advantage? After all, if these things drop randomly, will it be a race to pick them up? If so, scouts will definitely have the edge in that arena. Granted, in that case Strikes will be next in line, so maybe I shouldn't complain. I'm eager to see how the bombers work out, and all the little balance changes that have been made to existing stuff (usually they don't bother telling us when they fiddle with numbers). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sangrar Posted January 10, 2014 Share Posted January 10, 2014 I know man I was only expecting the new gunship and the bombers had no idea they had so much more to add, they must have suffered holding their their breathe trying not to spill the new gamemode, I am so happy!!! Thanks bioware people! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nemarus Posted January 10, 2014 Author Share Posted January 10, 2014 I'm betting existing maps. They would certainly have touted new maps with much fanfare. That said, I'm a bit troubled by power ups: will this end up as yet another situation where scouts have an advantage? After all, if these things drop randomly, will it be a race to pick them up? If so, scouts will definitely have the edge in that arena. Granted, in that case Strikes will be next in line, so maybe I shouldn't complain. I'm eager to see how the bombers work out, and all the little balance changes that have been made to existing stuff (usually they don't bother telling us when they fiddle with numbers). Think of it this way: the strengths of each ship are determined by where they stand on several spectrums/pillars. In my opinion, those pillars include: close-range combat, long-range combat, survivability, and map-wide mobility. Certainly there are other aspects, but I'd say those four are the Big Pillars. If we were to simply rank rate ship type on how it stands up in each area, it'd be something like this: Scout Close-range: Good (3) Long-range: Poor (1) Survivability: Poor (1) Mobility: Good (3) Total: 8 Strike Close-range: Okay (2) Long-range: Okay (2) Survivability: Okay (2) Mobility: Okay (2) Total: 8 Gunship Close-range: Okay (would be poor but for Burst Cannons) (2) Long-range: Good (3) Survivability: Good (3) Mobility: Poor (1) Total: 9 Bomber Close-range: Good (mines and drones) (3) Long-range: Okay (2) Survivability: Good (3) Mobility: Poor (1) Total: 9 (Note that these estimates are rough enough that I don't consider 8 and 9 to be "unbalanced", though I would note that if you took away Burst Cannons from the Gunship, it'd be brought down to 8 ) The thing is, for Mobility to be one of the Big Pillars, the game mode has to provide a reward for being mobile. In Domination, the reward for Mobility is being able to move quickly across the map from node to node, adjusting to defend and attack as necessary. In DeathMatch, if there was no reason/reward for being Mobile, then Scouts would have a total score of 6 and Strikes would have a total score of 7, and that would start to put them at more of a disadvantage against Gunship and Bombers, who are designed for more sustained, stationary combat. With Powerups, Scouts and Strikes alike will be rewarded for their ability to suddenly break from combat, afterburst away to grab a power up, and afterburst back to the fighting. Scouts a bit moreso, but like you said Strikes would be second in line. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Itkovian Posted January 10, 2014 Share Posted January 10, 2014 Well, to be fair, Nemarus, mobility is its OWN reward. It doesn't really need extras. With mobility you can come and go where you please, you dictate the terms of engagement (you can retreat whenever things are unfavourable), go where the fight is taking place rapidly, and so forth. Beyond that it is a good post, though I dare say the gunship has Okay mobility as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Svarthrafn Posted January 10, 2014 Share Posted January 10, 2014 (edited) *********** deathmatch...really? I guess GSF isn't going to be about starfighter combat after all. Just "Generic MMO PVP Clone #1098". Domination is bad enough. I was hoping for something a little more "starfightery". I'm not really impressed with bioware's creative vision on this lately. Also powerups sound stupid. What is this? Galaga? Edited January 10, 2014 by Svarthrafn Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
renegadeimp Posted January 10, 2014 Share Posted January 10, 2014 GSF should always be about objective based combat. If Deathmatch is included, do NOT allow any rewards from it at all. At the most, just have a GSF leaderboard. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lymain Posted January 10, 2014 Share Posted January 10, 2014 (edited) I'll be curious to see how deathmatch works out. I could see a team of strike fighters and gunships sticking together and completely dismantling a less organized team. While bombers sound extremely powerful in domination, I'm not sure why people couldn't just avoid them in a deathmatch. EDIT: Really, I'm expecting to see long-range combat be just as important in deathmatch as short-range is in domination, which obviously doesn't bode well for scouts. Edited January 10, 2014 by Lymain Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Svarthrafn Posted January 10, 2014 Share Posted January 10, 2014 One of my favorite multiplayer game modes is from Rise of Flight on the New Wings server. Basically, there are several ground targets, spread quite a ways apart, some stationary air targets (observation balloons), some recon objectives, and two teams (Allies/Central Powers). Both teams have to defend their objectives, while at the same time eliminating the enemy's objectives. The team that eliminates all of the enemy targets first is the winner. Pretty simple stuff, and much more flavorful than a deathmatch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Armonddd Posted January 10, 2014 Share Posted January 10, 2014 Glancing over the patch notes (before jumping on to the PTS), I'm seeing some good things and some bad things. Unlike some, I don't think deathmatch is an inherently bad decision - it seems to work well enough for WoT, at least. Powerups sound silly, though - and not because of the damage powerup. In fact, because the game announces to everyone when you pick one of those up, I expect it'll be one of the least useful powerups. Engine Overcharge, on the other hand, turns you into an amazing dogfighter for its duration, and lets you get back to wherever you were before you picked it up. Oh, and a defense bonus? lol Weapon Overcharge seems useless. Either you know how to manage your blaster power or you don't. If you do, you don't need it. If you don't, you're probably dead before you can pick it up. Shield Overcharge turns you into a massive tank... and I hope by now everyone knows to avoid tanks in PvP. They're still separating kills and assists. I asked a while ago for a K + A column, and I don't think that was heard very well. Shame, really. At the same time, though, breaking down requisition earned is very nice. Battle record is excellent - some players have already gotten Space Ace and Fleet Admiral and can't track their win/loss ratio any longer. Lifetime kills, damage, etc. make for great bragging rights. Kuat Drive Yards sounds like it'll be easy, so I'll do it once, enjoy the story, and go back to my GSF. /squad will never be used; it serves the same function as /group right now, and how many people use that? I advise people to never touch auto-roll ever. Keeping proper orientation is too important to leave up to the computer. Target of target in the targeting computer! Oh man, that's great. Now to figure out where I can put it on my UI. Looks like they took out some force fields around C in the asteroid map. Not sure I like that; it's certainly an appeal to less experienced players, though. Overall, I think it makes the point harder to defend (unless people come streaming in one by one, in which case it might make it easier to defend). Buffs to Running Interference and Wingman sound decent. I will probably continue to not use them, though I have for a while considered trading out Concentrated Fire for a defensive cooldown. The bigger problem is that I can't customize my passives and actives very well; in fact, my republic character has an advantage because the way the republic crew members are set up, you get more choices of active abilities for the same passive abilities. and some buffs for knife spec awww yeaaah Think of it this way: the strengths of each ship are determined by where they stand on several spectrums/pillars. In my opinion, those pillars include: close-range combat, long-range combat, survivability, and map-wide mobility. Certainly there are other aspects, but I'd say those four are the Big Pillars. If we were to simply rank rate ship type on how it stands up in each area, it'd be something like this: You could literally write a book about how to do this kind of thing (and in fact there's a very important one already out there). Short version: you're not weighing stats by importance. Mobility and close-range combat are, by current mechanics (i.e. objects existing in various, often largely separated, points in a large space plus all blasters doing more damage close up) more important than the other two, especially in combination. Trying to get this kind of a mathematical model accurate gets very complicated very quickly. (I'd also argue that you should consider things like heavy lasers and concussion missiles to be mid-range weapons and railguns and protorps to be long-range, but that's me.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sangrar Posted January 10, 2014 Share Posted January 10, 2014 GSF should always be about objective based combat. If Deathmatch is included, do NOT allow any rewards from it at all. At the most, just have a GSF leaderboard. Deathmatch is GOING to be included, and there WILL be rewards. I like objective based combat too but still deathmatch will appeal to people who want an all out fight to the death thing, and more options for play is ALWAYS a good thing and people have been demanding more gamemodes and deathmatch seems like the easiest and fastest to release while they work on more. Lastly no rewards would mean no one would like it, no one would play it, and more fire for Bioware to deal with. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DroidDreamer Posted January 10, 2014 Share Posted January 10, 2014 Not thrilled about the changes to Abandoned Shipyards. That node is awesome as-is, except that it is closer to the Pub side and is easier to defend than the southern-most node which is closer to the Imp side. But I've yet to see them so we shall see. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RebekahWSD Posted January 11, 2014 Share Posted January 11, 2014 Could someone post a link to these notes please? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Armonddd Posted January 11, 2014 Share Posted January 11, 2014 Could someone post a link to these notes please? Patch notes for current PTS build Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RebekahWSD Posted January 11, 2014 Share Posted January 11, 2014 Patch notes for current PTS build Thank you Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Verain Posted January 11, 2014 Share Posted January 11, 2014 Not thrilled about the changes to Abandoned Shipyards. That node is awesome as-is, except that it is closer to the Pub side and is easier to defend than the southern-most node which is closer to the Imp side. But I've yet to see them so we shall see. The node is very hard to take. While Republicans have a solid shot at C and Imperials have a solid shot at A, the defensibility is the issue. If it was moved closer to center, then A would be as well, but the core problem is that it's essentially gunship and strike fighter proof, not merely challenging like B in Kuat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DanNV Posted January 11, 2014 Share Posted January 11, 2014 Deathmatch does nothing for me at all. It's as bad as an arena, and those were a foolish idea. So far I'm not seeing much to be excited about because they have ignored feedback on things that are currently broken and just pushed out more stuff instead. The OP combinations of weapons mods and abilities desperately needs work, and before the patch next week, but as far as I can tell they haven't even looked at it. (They seem to be just as bad on the PTS as they are live now.) They haven't taken into account any feedback on need9ing to redesign bombers, instead they look and play exactly like they did in BETA (they may be slower and have longer cooldowns, but that doesn't fix basic bad design choices.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Helig Posted January 11, 2014 Share Posted January 11, 2014 (edited) *********** deathmatch...really? I guess GSF isn't going to be about starfighter combat after all. Just "Generic MMO PVP Clone #1098". Domination is bad enough. I was hoping for something a little more "starfightery". I'm not really impressed with bioware's creative vision on this lately. Also powerups sound stupid. What is this? Galaga? You're everything that's wrong with MMO communities. There's little more "starfightery" than sheer annihilation. If you don't have any constructive suggestions, kindly shut the hell up. The game isn't perfect, but they seem to be listening to at least some of our feedback. GSF should always be about objective based combat. If Deathmatch is included, do NOT allow any rewards from it at all. At the most, just have a GSF leaderboard. Oh, and why is that exactly? Edited January 11, 2014 by Helig Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Svarthrafn Posted January 11, 2014 Share Posted January 11, 2014 (edited) Helig, scroll three posts down from the post you quoted, you petulant little troll. I described a game mode from another game which would be fantastic if it were included in GSF. What we are getting instead is the same rehashed MMO garbage. Deathmatch, Domination, Capture the Flag...they are exactly the same whether your sprite is a soldier or a spaceship. Edited January 11, 2014 by Svarthrafn Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Helig Posted January 11, 2014 Share Posted January 11, 2014 Helig, scroll three posts down from the post you quoted, you petulant little troll. I described a game mode from another game which would be fantastic if it were included in GSF. What we are getting instead is the same rehashed MMO garbage. Deathmatch, Domination, Capture the Flag...they are exactly the same whether your sprite is a soldier or a spaceship. Ok, that was a knee-jerk response to what I thought was knee-jerk whining. The circle is complete. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Svarthrafn Posted January 11, 2014 Share Posted January 11, 2014 Ok, that was a knee-jerk response to what I thought was knee-jerk whining. The circle is complete. It's all good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luneward Posted January 12, 2014 Share Posted January 12, 2014 They're still separating kills and assists. I asked a while ago for a K + A column, and I don't think that was heard very well. Shame, really. At the same time, though, breaking down requisition earned is very nice. Yeah, I would have liked to see a combined column because of how misleading the kill auto-sort is. But we'll finally be able to actually document what earned what requisition, and it should hopefully help avoid another round of 'They're stealing my kills!' posts. I advise people to never touch auto-roll ever. Keeping proper orientation is too important to leave up to the computer. Actually this is a nice little out of combat tweak for more spatially challenged players like myself. I use the minimap to navigate a fair amount, and if I'm turned upside down nine times out of ten I start going the wrong direction. I think my record was taking about forty five seconds to get going in the right direction once. In the middle of a fight, I couldn't care less what direction I'm facing (well for maneuvering yes navigating no), but once I leave a fight and try to head to my next objective, this is a nice thing to have. Target of target in the targeting computer! Oh man, that's great. Now to figure out where I can put it on my UI. Shoot, how did I miss seeing that? Sweet. Though I imagine squad/team players such as yourself will get a lot more use out of it than I would. I imagine Death/Black squadron games will start resembling some kind of hive mind now instead of merely a locust swarm. Looks like they took out some force fields around C in the asteroid map. Not sure I like that; it's certainly an appeal to less experienced players, though. Overall, I think it makes the point harder to defend (unless people come streaming in one by one, in which case it might make it easier to defend). It will probably make it similar to defend as B in the ground map. Though probably gives gunships more of an opportunity than that one. Not sure I care for the change either. That was supposed to be the point to C. Near immunity to being sniped. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RebekahWSD Posted January 12, 2014 Share Posted January 12, 2014 Actually this is a nice little out of combat tweak for more spatially challenged players like myself. I use the minimap to navigate a fair amount, and if I'm turned upside down nine times out of ten I start going the wrong direction. I think my record was taking about forty five seconds to get going in the right direction once. In the middle of a fight, I couldn't care less what direction I'm facing (well for maneuvering yes navigating no), but once I leave a fight and try to head to my next objective, this is a nice thing to have. . I agree. It reminds me of some tank sims I used to play. They usually had a command to automatically realign the turret to the front of the tank. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Armonddd Posted January 12, 2014 Share Posted January 12, 2014 I use the minimap to navigate a fair amount... Stop that. The HUD is there for a reason. It's definitely a big mindset shift to start using it, but it's infinitely more useful. Shoot, how did I miss seeing that? Sweet. Though I imagine squad/team players such as yourself will get a lot more use out of it than I would. I imagine Death/Black squadron games will start resembling some kind of hive mind now instead of merely a locust swarm. Eh, maybe. The level of coordination in space PvP (in my groups, anyway) isn't nearly as much as it has been in various ground games (where I'd be calling out "target this guy, spike him in three, two, one... dammit, bubble"). Probably the best use I can think of for this feature is knowing whether that gunship is actually looking at you or if he's looking at another guy near you. After that, I'm hoping pugs will use it to realize that things are attacking their support ships and they should help defend those support ships unless it costs them the node. But I don't hold out too much hope for that. It will probably make it similar to defend as B in the ground map. Though probably gives gunships more of an opportunity than that one. Not sure I care for the change either. That was supposed to be the point to C. Near immunity to being sniped. Thinking about it more, it's probably not good that an entire class is neutralized on that point... even if that class has massive problems. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarthVindictus Posted January 13, 2014 Share Posted January 13, 2014 Think of it this way: the strengths of each ship are determined by where they stand on several spectrums/pillars. In my opinion, those pillars include: close-range combat, long-range combat, survivability, and map-wide mobility. Certainly there are other aspects, but I'd say those four are the Big Pillars. If we were to simply rank rate ship type on how it stands up in each area, it'd be something like this: Scout Close-range: Good (3) Long-range: Poor (1) Survivability: Poor (1) Mobility: Good (3) Total: 8 Strike Close-range: Okay (2) Long-range: Okay (2) Survivability: Okay (2) Mobility: Okay (2) Total: 8 Gunship Close-range: Okay (would be poor but for Burst Cannons) (2) Long-range: Good (3) Survivability: Good (3) Mobility: Poor (1) Total: 9 Bomber Close-range: Good (mines and drones) (3) Long-range: Okay (2) Survivability: Good (3) Mobility: Poor (1) Total: 9 (Note that these estimates are rough enough that I don't consider 8 and 9 to be "unbalanced", though I would note that if you took away Burst Cannons from the Gunship, it'd be brought down to 8 ) The thing is, for Mobility to be one of the Big Pillars, the game mode has to provide a reward for being mobile. In Domination, the reward for Mobility is being able to move quickly across the map from node to node, adjusting to defend and attack as necessary. In DeathMatch, if there was no reason/reward for being Mobile, then Scouts would have a total score of 6 and Strikes would have a total score of 7, and that would start to put them at more of a disadvantage against Gunship and Bombers, who are designed for more sustained, stationary combat. With Powerups, Scouts and Strikes alike will be rewarded for their ability to suddenly break from combat, afterburst away to grab a power up, and afterburst back to the fighting. Scouts a bit moreso, but like you said Strikes would be second in line. Gunship survivability is a little less than strike fighters actually. Only having barely more health if they max out reinforced armor (having barely more than a scout if they don't use that but use lightweight armor or deflection armor), and having less shields unless a gunship takes a shield without 30% penalty (which most use distortion field that does) and the strike fighter uses a 30% penalty shield. Burst lasers are good close range yes, but by themselves won't make it so you can dogfight. I'd rate Gunships as poor in close range, and survivability of strike fighters at Good, and long range of strike fighters at poor. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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