I am SICK AND TIRED of missing 41% of my shots because of Evasion

[DarthVindictus]

Scout effective HP isn't much different from the effective HP of a strike fighter, even counting in *only* the evasion.

 

950 hull @ 41% evasion is 1610 HP

1450 hull @ 11% evasion is 1629 HP

 

If you count in damage reduction it's up to 1715 HP for the strike fighter.

 

And that doesn't count in the shields which are much stronger on the strike fighter, both shield strength and shield regen. Strongest shield you can get on a flashfire(if you want to keep the 41% evasion) is 1300. Strongest shield you can get on a starguard is 2340 (80% stronger than the scout, along with ~40% faster recharge).

 

The only saving grace for the scout is the increased maneuverability. I'd say the craft are pretty well balanced *with* the scout passive evasion.

 

against a strike fighter that might be a valid point, but against a gunship where each shot is really going to make or break you, missing a shot against an oncoming scout is not going to matter, evasion is a BIG deal then.

[Sharee]

against a strike fighter that might be a valid point, but against a gunship where each shot is really going to make or break you, missing a shot against an oncoming scout is not going to matter, evasion is a BIG deal then.

 

Well, that's the price you pay for being able to one-shot scouts.

[Nemarus]

I am curious to know how you are equipping both HP armor and Damage reduction armor at the same time.

 

DR comes from Crew (see Xalek).

[DarthVindictus]

Well, that's the price you pay for being able to one-shot scouts.

 

That's only from bypass, which I think we can all agree, needs to be removed.

[Nemarus]

That's only from bypass, which I think we can all agree, needs to be removed.

 

It isn't being removed, but it's being dramatically nerfed.

[DarthVindictus]

It isn't being removed, but it's being dramatically nerfed.

 

Please tell me it's going down to 10% shield pen.

[Nemarus]

Please tell me it's going down to 10% shield pen.

 

I think it's 16% now.

[Kuciwalker]

Because that would effectively remove the scout from the game, turning it into a strike fighter. If you want that - hey, be my guest. Maybe we should remove gunships also while we are at it. Make everyone fly exactly the same ship. That will make it the most skill-based game, right? (and also the most boring)

 

... this from the person who just argued that they're already identical?

 

In case you've never played GSF before, I'll give you a hint: the difference between a scout and a strike fighter is not just in the mitigation statistics. They actually, you know, fly different. In particular scouts are faster and more maneuverable. People should be using that - their actual flying skill - to evade shots, and their opponents should be using aim - the actual aiming skill, not the statistical mechanic - to counter that evasion.

 

I am not sure many would appreciate if the scout could manually dodge out of the way on-demand. We already have something with similar functionality, and it's not generally well-received.

 

... dude, scouts are already dodging out of the way of shots. What do you think all of that weaving is for?

[Itkovian]

Not really, your argument of 'well they allow it, thus it's viable' is pretty ridiculous.

 

It's actually a very good argument, but using ground game gear is not an appropriate comparison,

 

Why? Because if you want to compare GSF loadouts to the ground game, gear is NOT what should be used... Skill Trees are. Components are basically like skill talents that you unlock with reqs (the equivalent of leveling up), and you have a limited series of components to choose from tied to your ship type (basically your class).

 

And what happens when a class in the ground game only has a build that is clearly superior to all the others? It becomes a balance issue, and the devs do something to fix it.

 

Well, it's the same thing with components. If on a given ship there is a "build" that is clearly superior to the others, that's a balance issue. To say this is OK is little different from saying that all Jedi Guardians should go Defense, and all those other talents were added for ***** And Giggles.

 

The Devs added these components for use to DO something with them. If a component is utterly useless, then it means there's a problem. They did not just add a component to the game just to give bad players the opportunity to prove they are bad players. They add components because they think they can add value to the gameplay, and if it doesn't then that's a problem.

 

Take the Strike's shields right now: Charged Plating is practically useless due to the huge amount of armour piercing in GSF. The proper response is not to just shrug and pick something else. This is actually a flaw in the game balance, and the devs SHOULD do something that makes the component more useful. Likewise, if a component is so powerful that the vast majority of people who have access to it use it, this means something is unbalanced.

 

All it comes down to is there are flavours of the month in GSF, and just like in any other game the proper response is to have them balanced. Other FotM will crop up as some other setup becomes optimal, but as time goes on the peaks and valleys of game balance will get shallower and shallower, and more and more builds will become viable (or only marginally more or less effective than others).

[hadoken]

It's actually a very good argument

 

No it pretty much never is. Just because you can, doesn't mean you should, after all. There are always unintended design issues and exploits in anything involving free choice. The more freedom they give us, the more we can screw it up either against ourselves or against everyone else. Perhaps his particular example is viable, I have no idea. But the concept that because the devs allow us to, therefore it is viable/balanced is just ludicrous thinking. You're thinking games are balanced perfectly - they aren't, ever.

[tunewalker]

It's actually a very good argument, but using ground game gear is not an appropriate comparison,

 

Why? Because if you want to compare GSF loadouts to the ground game, gear is NOT what should be used... Skill Trees are. Components are basically like skill talents that you unlock with reqs (the equivalent of leveling up), and you have a limited series of components to choose from tied to your ship type (basically your class).

 

And what happens when a class in the ground game only has a build that is clearly superior to all the others? It becomes a balance issue, and the devs do something to fix it.

 

Well, it's the same thing with components. If on a given ship there is a "build" that is clearly superior to the others, that's a balance issue. To say this is OK is little different from saying that all Jedi Guardians should go Defense, and all those other talents were added for ***** And Giggles.

 

The Devs added these components for use to DO something with them. If a component is utterly useless, then it means there's a problem. They did not just add a component to the game just to give bad players the opportunity to prove they are bad players. They add components because they think they can add value to the gameplay, and if it doesn't then that's a problem.

 

Take the Strike's shields right now: Charged Plating is practically useless due to the huge amount of armour piercing in GSF. The proper response is not to just shrug and pick something else. This is actually a flaw in the game balance, and the devs SHOULD do something that makes the component more useful. Likewise, if a component is so powerful that the vast majority of people who have access to it use it, this means something is unbalanced.

 

All it comes down to is there are flavours of the month in GSF, and just like in any other game the proper response is to have them balanced. Other FotM will crop up as some other setup becomes optimal, but as time goes on the peaks and valleys of game balance will get shallower and shallower, and more and more builds will become viable (or only marginally more or less effective than others).

 

Just a note they are Buffing Charged Plating though nothing is being done about distortion as of yet.

[Sharee]

... this from the person who just argued that they're already identical?

 

I argued that their overall survivability is, all things considered, similar, just achieved in a different way. And if the survivability is similar, there is no need to replace the scout survival mechanic(hard to hit) with the strike fighter survival mechanics(hard to kill), 'just because'.

 

I am all for balancing the game, but replacing mechanics that are working just fine because some players don't like them isn't the kind of task i would want the devs to spend resources on.

[tunewalker]

I argued that their overall survivability is, all things considered, similar, just achieved in a different way. And if the survivability is similar, there is no need to replace the scout survival mechanic(hard to hit) with the strike fighter survival mechanics(hard to kill), 'just because'.

 

I am all for balancing the game, but replacing mechanics that are working just fine because some players don't like them isn't the kind of task i would want the devs to spend resources on.

 

The problem again most have is with the Faster more Maneuverable ship that can disengage fights as well as potentially deal out more damage when it is in the fight having=Survivability to the Slower less maneuverable ship.

 

The slower ship should have overall MORE survivability then the Faster ship. Its as simple as that. The Strike and the Scout SHOULDNT have equal survivability even if achieved in different ways. The Strike should be more survivable, the Scout should be able to get from place to place faster and disengage fights easier, but any time its getting shot at it should die faster. EI if it takes 20 shots to kill a Strike it should only take 15 to kill a scout on average with RNG and all.

Edited January 24, 2014 by tunewalker

[Itkovian]

Just a note they are Buffing Charged Plating though nothing is being done about distortion as of yet.

 

Oh? What are they buffing it to? Haven't read anything about it.

[tunewalker]

Oh? What are they buffing it to? Haven't read anything about it.

 

They are making the shield bleed through down to 20% instead of 40% when fully upgraded. So only 20% of the damage will bleed through shields now.

[Armonddd]

Funny that your in-flight experiences seem to notice how horrible it is everytime that your shot against the scout got evaded, but not the times when you fired at the scout 2 times and he exploded.

 

Whenever you fire at a scout, and your aim well, he is more likely to get hit than not. And when he does get hit, he HURTS. A lot. Sometimes i kill an incoming scout at a node 0.6 seconds after he enters weapon range. That is MY in-flight experience. And it is just as valid as yours. That is why you use math to balance a game, and not perceptions.

 

I absolutely remember the times I've blown people up in two shots. I also remember the times I've been blown up in two shots. All of those cases are (mostly) fair, because it's the skill of one player triumphing over the skill of the other.

 

Anyone who says you can't use perceptions to balance a game is automatically a joke at game design, because the entire point of a game is to create experiences, which can only be observed with perceptions. Listening and interpreting are the two most important skills of a game designer. Math is important too, but only when it's accurate. When it's not, you need to look, listen, and interpret in order to fix it.

 

I'm NOT ignoring maneuverability. I am saying maneuverability is what balances that 40% EHP deficit the scout has compared to a strike. I did that twice already, in posts #14 and #19.

 

Then you're wrong, because as I said earlier, strikes often die twice as quickly as scouts. Removing maneuverability, yes, it can take longer to blow up a strike - but that's neither realistic nor appropriate.

 

False. I ran the numbers. The EHP for an evasion scout is 79% of the EHP of a health and shield boosting strike fighter. That is far too much given the massive non-statistical advantage scouts get from being harder to hit before evasion.

 

Evasion as a statistical mechanic is not fun. Evasion as a skill-based mechanic is.

 

Absolutely this.

 

Well. Maybe i made a mistake. But whether 79% is too much or not is a matter of debate, and far from being a fact.

 

[EDIT] yea i made a mistake. Shields are protected by evasion as well, not just the hull. Still, scout EHP is lower than that of a strike fighter. Whether the difference is too low is arguable.

 

Taking a moment out of the debate to say +1 respect for being up front like this.

 

One point - the 41% evasion is only achievable if you include crew member bonus(6% from response tuning)

But if you are including crew members in the calculation, you should also include offensive crewmember of the attacker, which effectively cancels out the defender (6% accuracy from pinpointing)

 

Is that a thing? I thought we were still confused on that.

 

But you're right, if GSF works the way the ground game is advertised to work, you're comparing 41% evasion to 123% burst cannon accuracy... and to 93% burst cannon accuracy, because range is hard.

 

The end result is a lot of misses outside of your control, which isn't fun.

 

Shield pierce doesn't really cut into EHP numbers unless the shot kills the craft while it's shields are still up. Otherwise it just redistributes the damage between hull and shields. Also, a strike hull can handle the damage leaking through shields a lot better than a scout hull can.

 

For a strike this is true. However, I've taken to bringing as much shield piercing as possible because I tend to run into good pilots who escape with half their hull and come back with full shields..

 

Luck-based...

 

Your weapon does 100 damage per shot.

 

If enemy has 2000 health and no evasion, then you need to fire 20 accurate shots to kill him

If enemy has 1000 health and 50% evasion, then, on average, you also have to fire 20 accurate shots to kill him

 

The same amount of actual piloting skill is required to be able to consistently kill either of those enemies.

 

Yeah sometimes it takes more shots to kill the second enemy, sometimes less, but it's not like the game suddenly became skill-less.

 

Numbers-wise, these are the same. However, one is much more fun than the other, because it doesn't arbitrarily punish the player.

 

Because that [removing evasion] would effectively remove the scout from the game, turning it into a strike fighter. If you want that - hey, be my guest. Maybe we should remove gunships also while we are at it. Make everyone fly exactly the same ship. That will make it the most skill-based game, right? (and also the most boring)

 

The scout would still be a significantly more mobile and maneuverable ship than the strike, and would get different components loadouts. It would still be interesting.

 

I am not sure many would appreciate if the scout could manually dodge out of the way on-demand. We already have something with similar functionality, and it's not generally well-received.

 

I would love it. As Fezzik said, "Skill against skill alone." Besides, that's... kind of already available in the game. Ever bob your mouse around when charging a gunship head-on? That's exactly what he's talking about.

 

against a strike fighter that might be a valid point, but against a gunship where each shot is really going to make or break you, missing a shot against an oncoming scout is not going to matter, evasion is a BIG deal then.

 

Quoted for emphasis.

 

That's only from bypass, which I think we can all agree, needs to be removed.

 

No, I disagree. Bypass is fine as-is on scouts and strikes. Bypass is only a problem when you add in railguns... and railguns are problematic anyway.

 

No it pretty much never is. Just because you can, doesn't mean you should, after all. There are always unintended design issues and exploits in anything involving free choice. The more freedom they give us, the more we can screw it up either against ourselves or against everyone else. Perhaps his particular example is viable, I have no idea. But the concept that because the devs allow us to, therefore it is viable/balanced is just ludicrous thinking. You're thinking games are balanced perfectly - they aren't, ever.

 

Not what Iktovian said. He said that if there's a problem with game balance, it should be fixed - not that it's ok to just accept problems with game balance because they're inevitable.

 

(also you guys this is a lot of thread to be exploding while I'm trying to reply)

[Sharee]

The problem again most have is with the Faster more Maneuverable ship that can disengage fights as well as potentially deal out more damage when it is in the fight having=Survivability to the Slower less maneuverable ship.

 

The slower ship should have overall MORE survivability then the Faster ship. Its as simple as that. The Strike and the Scout SHOULDNT have equal survivability even if achieved in different ways. The Strike should be more survivable, the Scout should be able to get from place to place faster and disengage fights easier, but any time its getting shot at it should die faster. EI if it takes 20 shots to kill a Strike it should only take 15 to kill a scout on average with RNG and all.

 

You probably didn't read the thread(not that i blame you) but the above is already the case. It takes less accurate shots to kill a scout than to kill a strike fighter, even after accounting for the scout's evasion. The scout compensates by being more maneuverable, and thus making accurate shots harder to achieve.

[tunewalker]

You probably didn't read the thread(not that i blame you) but the above is already the case. It takes less accurate shots to kill a scout than to kill a strike fighter, even after accounting for the scout's evasion. The scout compensates by being more maneuverable, and thus making accurate shots harder to achieve.

 

You are correct i did not read the whole thing only a couple things here and there. When i start seeing the longer posts I start looking for the TL: DR portion lol.

Edited January 24, 2014 by tunewalker

[DEATHICIDE]

Every reply can be summed up with this:

 

A: Scouts should NOT be able to pop evasion and blaster overcharge cooldowns then two shot anything in the air while being invincible.

 

B: Scouts SHOULD be able to pop evasion and blaster overcharge cooldowns then two shot anything in the air while being invincible.

 

I wonder which side the all round players are on, and which side the Req converters who rely on cheap-to-win are on in this argument.

 

Pretty hard to tell.

 

Once again, OP for the win.

[Armonddd]

Every reply can be summed up with this:

 

A: Scouts should NOT be able to pop evasion and blaster overcharge cooldowns then two shot anything in the air while being invincible.

 

B: Scouts SHOULD be able to pop evasion and blaster overcharge cooldowns then two shot anything in the air while being invincible.

 

I wonder which side the all round players are on, and which side the Req converters who rely on cheap-to-win are on in this argument.

 

Pretty hard to tell.

 

Once again, OP for the win.

 

Your reading comprehension skills need a checkup.

[Itkovian]

No it pretty much never is. Just because you can, doesn't mean you should, after all. There are always unintended design issues and exploits in anything involving free choice. The more freedom they give us, the more we can screw it up either against ourselves or against everyone else. Perhaps his particular example is viable, I have no idea. But the concept that because the devs allow us to, therefore it is viable/balanced is just ludicrous thinking. You're thinking games are balanced perfectly - they aren't, ever.

 

The idea is they SHOULD be. They're not, of course. If they were we wouldn't be having this discussion, and pigs would be flying. Either way, that certain components are clearly inferior to others IS a problem.

 

So yeah, there SHOULDN"T be builds that are so clearly superior to others that not using it is gimping yourself. That's what FotM usually boils down to, and it's something devs constantly struggle to minimize.

 

Game balance is the ideal state any game strives to achieve, and just because it is impossible to attain perfect game balance does not mean we should just give up and stop pointing out balancing flaws to the devs. Ground game balance has gone a long way from initial release, for example, and that's a good thing.

[Kuciwalker]

I argued that their overall survivability is, all things considered, similar, just achieved in a different way.

 

Achieved in a way that you argued was statistically identical and therefore didn't merit complaining about. You argument that they were identical was a rebuttal to the complaint that one of them was really annoying. You said "but it's really just exactly the same as this other thing, and you aren't complaining about the other thing, so why complain about this?"

 

Except, of course, you were wrong that they're identical, because you only looked at the first moment (average).

 

Regardless, you keep somehow missing the point that we want scout survivability to come not from statistical mitigation but from active evasion by the pilot via skilled flying.

[Drackly]

You know the funny thing is, I thought about this. If they really did take out the evasion mechanic, I would be seriously unstoppable to anything but a combined force of several enemy gunships. The game would devolve into "ship of the line" gunship battles with a front line slowly pushing back and fourth until it overtook the satellites. Anyone stupid enough to cross into no mans land, regardless of ship, would be instantly obliterated. Even more interesting would be factoring in Ion Cannon in its current state, which would promote each gunship to spread apart from the others lest they be rendered useless. WHAT TIMES WOULD BE HAD THEN. Edited January 24, 2014 by Drackly

[Sharee]

Achieved in a way that you argued was statistically identical and therefore didn't merit complaining about. You argument that they were identical was a rebuttal to the complaint that one of them was really annoying.

 

My rebuttal was to the claim that evasion makes the game 'luck-based'(as opposed to 'skill-based'). I pointed out that even with evasion replacing toughness as defense mechanic, the same amount of piloting skill is still required to deal with the enemy on a consistent basis.

 

As for it being annoying - i am not really arguing about that. It comes down to personal preference and that isn't something that can be argued.

Edited January 24, 2014 by Sharee

[Armonddd]

You know the funny thing is, I thought about this. If they really did take out the evasion mechanic, I would be seriously unstoppable to anything but a combined force of several enemy gunships. The game would devolve into "ship of the line" gunship battles with a front line slowly pushing back and fourth until it overtook the satellites. Anyone stupid enough to cross into no mans land, regardless of ship, would be instantly obliterated. Even more interesting would be factoring in Ion Cannon in its current state, which would promote each gunship to spread apart from the others lest they be rendered useless. WHAT TIMES WOULD BE HAD THEN.

 

Thank you for explaining why railguns are excessively stupid.