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

[Armonddd]

It's balanced by the fact that if you get within 5000m range of a gunship their best option is to make a run for it, in the slowest ship in the game, because their turning is even worse,

 

Yes, I shall certainly do that the next time I spend five minutes staying alive with half hull due to my own skill and a gunship blows me out of the air because he has the dexterity of a five year old.

 

and they don't have any secondary missiles they can fire on the run much less lock on fire and forget.

 

Missiles are only fire and forget after you manage to hold a lock. Besides, slugs are strictly superior to every missile in the game. For the same charge time as the missile's lock on time, you get more damage, more range, eliminated flight time, eliminated cooldown, and you don't need to worry about maintaining line of sight to keep the lock. Oh, and if the target's low on health, you don't even have to fully charge the railgun.

 

You know why the new gunships are jokes? Because they get proton torpedoes - a secondary missile, in case you forgot - but never use them because they're strictly inferior to railguns. In exchange for this secondary missile, they give up the ridiculously broken ion railgun. Yes, adding missile capabilities to a gunship makes them stronger, you're quite right about that.

 

And just in case your argument wasn't laughable enough, burst lasers can end a dogfight with no missiles fired.

 

You can get from 15000 to 5000m in one barrel roll in under 3s.

 

Again, not the point. This does nothing to address the fact that gunships make combat unfun. Also, it's hard to barrel roll while dead.

[Bleeters]

At the very least though it needs to be toned down significantly to make it an alternate, but in no way superior, option to damage reduction armor. Between evasion protecting both hull and shields and there not being a 100% passive counter to it the way armor piercing counters damage reduction evasion is inherently better than damage reduction armor in it's current form.

Honestly, I'd rather see damage reduction be made to be more useful than have evasion brought down to its (generally useless, due in no small part to the wide availability of 100% armour ignoring weaponry) level.

[Gavin_Kelvar]

Honestly, I'd rather see damage reduction be made to be more useful than have evasion brought down to its (generally useless, due in no small part to the wide availability of 100% armour ignoring weaponry) level.

 

I could see both happening, ie. buff armor to be better and then nerfing evasion to be on par. It's unlikely that we'll see a dramatic reduction in the availability of 100% armor piercing weaponry as at least some of the weapons that have them seem geared towards use against heavily armored targets (I agree some weapons probably shouldn't have it but my money would be on most of the weapons that currently have 100% armor penetration keeping it). Ergo it's unlikely that, sort of a huge buff to armor, you'd see it reach the current levels of evasion. I'm not convinced that the amount of buffing that would be required to bring armor to a level of being equally viable to evasion would be something people would ultimately enjoy fighting against.

Edited January 26, 2014 by Gavin_Kelvar

[Bleeters]

Well, sure, but if every ship type besides default scouts can shoot right through armour of any level in full with - in most cases - their best available weaponry, it doesn't matter what buffs they make to passive reduction.

 

Kinda getting away from evasion though, so I'll hush D:

Edited January 26, 2014 by Bleeters

[Sharee]

Evasion also absolutely needs to be removed. It's a classic problem among game designers - when there's a problem, the designers say "what do I need to add?" instead of "what do I need to remove?" It actually extends beyond game design into any sort of art or literature design, but that's slightly besides the point.

 

There is no logical argument for the devs to not remove broken mechanics unless they simply do not see why they are so broken.

 

Extra hitpoints, extra damage reduction, and extra evasion essentially all do the same thing - they increase the effective hitpoints of a ship. None of those mechanics are broken. They all do exactly what they are supposed to do.

 

It *is* possible that some of the three EHP increasing mechanics maybe provide more (or less) effective hitpoints than intended. However if that is the case the values of all three can be tweaked up or down as necessary. Nothing needs to be outright removed.

 

The only valid reason for outright evasion removal presented throughout the entire thread is that some people do not like it. There however are other people who *do* like it, which is just as valid a reason for keeping it in.

Edited January 26, 2014 by Sharee

[tunewalker]

Extra hitpoints, extra damage reduction, and extra evasion essentially all do the same thing - they increase the effective hitpoints of a ship. None of those mechanics are broken. They all do exactly what they are supposed to do.

 

It *is* possible that some of the three EHP increasing mechanics maybe provide more (or less) effective hitpoints than intended. However if that is the case the values of all three can be tweaked up or down as necessary. Nothing needs to be outright removed.

 

The only valid reason for outright evasion removal presented throughout the entire thread is that some people do not like it. There however are other people who *do* like it, which is just as valid a reason for keeping it in.

 

Honestly I think the issue is the strength of Armor Piercing weapons. If they only pierced 50% (save for the rare secondary weapon here and there) we might see points when DR and Evasion became better balanced. Honestly I am all for the mechanic just think it needs a little tweeking .

[DarthVindictus]

Yes, I shall certainly do that the next time I spend five minutes staying alive with half hull due to my own skill and a gunship blows me out of the air because he has the dexterity of a five year old.

 

 

 

Missiles are only fire and forget after you manage to hold a lock. Besides, slugs are strictly superior to every missile in the game. For the same charge time as the missile's lock on time, you get more damage, more range, eliminated flight time, eliminated cooldown, and you don't need to worry about maintaining line of sight to keep the lock. Oh, and if the target's low on health, you don't even have to fully charge the railgun.

 

You know why the new gunships are jokes? Because they get proton torpedoes - a secondary missile, in case you forgot - but never use them because they're strictly inferior to railguns. In exchange for this secondary missile, they give up the ridiculously broken ion railgun. Yes, adding missile capabilities to a gunship makes them stronger, you're quite right about that.

 

And just in case your argument wasn't laughable enough, burst lasers can end a dogfight with no missiles fired.

 

 

 

Again, not the point. This does nothing to address the fact that gunships make combat unfun. Also, it's hard to barrel roll while dead.

 

Railguns are superior to missiles for sniping yes, but if you're in an active dogfight you can't really make a dead stop to go into railgun mode to get off a shot.

 

Locking on with cluster missiles is so easy you could do it sleeping, it's 1.3s. The only reason you should ever lose a cluster missile lock on on a gunship is if they use a defensive cooldown to break the lock or they're humping the satellite running in circles. When I play strikes, it's easier for me to get locks than it is for me to hit with blasters. Using blasters, I'll at most hit 1/3 to 1/2 of my shots, while I'm able to lock on over and over and if they're 3k or less away from me, they'll get hit faster than they can use barrel roll if they wait for the lock on to finish.

 

When you get into 5000m range, railgun shouldn't even be in consideration unless you're almost dead and the pilot thinks 1 partially charged slug shot can finish you off before you kill him.

 

If you're full shields and full health at 5000m range, trying to use a railgun is a death sentence for that gunship, especially if you're a T2 scout and can pop distortion field when you see him charge and literally cut engines in front of them using burst lasers with bypass and blaster overcharge. He'll get through about 1/3 of a charge before he's blown up if he's committed to try and use a railgun in close combat. Hell, rocket pods will actually have a good chance of hitting a stationary gunship trying to use a railgun at close range.

 

What have you never played a gunship and just assumed they were all lazy when they sat still charging their shots? You thought we just held right mouse button down then released to shoot like any other secondary weapon?

[DarthVindictus]

Extra hitpoints, extra damage reduction, and extra evasion essentially all do the same thing - they increase the effective hitpoints of a ship. None of those mechanics are broken. They all do exactly what they are supposed to do.

 

It *is* possible that some of the three EHP increasing mechanics maybe provide more (or less) effective hitpoints than intended. However if that is the case the values of all three can be tweaked up or down as necessary. Nothing needs to be outright removed.

 

The only valid reason for outright evasion removal presented throughout the entire thread is that some people do not like it. There however are other people who *do* like it, which is just as valid a reason for keeping it in.

 

It's actually not quite the same thing. It's not a simple EHP thing because there are on hit effects of weapons

 

If I'm targetting a strike fighter with Ion Railgun, or Plasma Railgun, they're going to get debuffed someway when I hit, they may take more direct hits to destroy than if I hit every single shot against a scout, but I can lock down another gunship or strike fighter to where they have no engine, shield, or weapon power, right? Scout that is much harder to do, because they evade a lot of shots, so those on hit affects do not apply.

 

I'd rather fight a more armored opponent with higher HP, than one that avoids 41% of my attacks through RNG.

[Sharee]

It's actually not quite the same thing. It's not a simple EHP thing because there are on hit effects of weapons.

 

That is correct. Maybe i should have used the word 'survivability' instead of EHP.

 

So to rephrase, extra hitpoints, extra damage reduction, and extra evasion essentially all do the same thing - they increase the survivability of a ship.

 

The point is still the same tho. If one of the mechanics provides more survivability than the others, that can be tweaked. For example, evasion enabling the craft to avoid weapon effects can be compensated by damage resistance providing more 'raw EHP' than evasion does.

 

After that it becomes a matter of preference, do i want to be able to avoid special effects(and possibly survive a gunship ion blast that would leave a high HP but evasion-less craft a sitting duck), or would i rather be able to take more raw punishment (and possibly survive a minefield or a missile barrage that an evasive craft couldn't)

Edited January 26, 2014 by Sharee

[cantstopmeh]

Hahahahahah you're all just butthurt over statistics that make dogfighting challenging. IF GSF WAS ABOUT DOGFIGHTING SCOUTS WOULD BE USELESS! IF you could target a scout for longer then 3 seconds you would destroy if, before it ducked behind a sat. IF you only realized that GSF was an objective based game. You're just upset that I fly around a sat never even shoot a blaster, and sill win.

[JadedJasper]

I'd rather fight a more armored opponent with higher HP, than one that avoids 41% of my attacks through RNG.

Yeah, and I'd rather fight an opponent that doesn't have a hitscan weapon at 15k.

[Brewski]

Neither of those are going to be anywhere near enough. I've enumerated on this multiple times in multiple places. All railguns are inherently broken because they can't effectively be countered by other ships, are significantly more powerful than other weapons, and are the easiest weapons in the game to use. Until those issues are addressed, bandaid nerfs like these are going to solve nothing.

I disagree with your math, and think you're overreacting in away that would be destructive to the game. You disagree with me, which is your right. I believe these fixes are a step in the right direction, and you believe we need to jump off the cliff. i guess we'll have to agree to disagree, but on the plus side, we do get to see the ultimate effect of the nerfs on the game when they go live in a little more than a week.

 

They were? It sure as hell doesn't feel like it. They literally ignore mechanics that are crucial to other guns. Leading your target, having line of sight on your target, being close to your target so you can maximize your damage, hell, even actually aiming at your priority target - all of these are mechanics railguns ignore to various degrees.

As someone who played GSF all through the closed beta, I can say they absolutely fit in, and the game would be poorer without it.

 

If you have fun being able to do almost literally nothing because you have no power to engines, no power to weapons, and no power to shields, good on you.

This happens to me on occasion, but about half the time i survive it. Evading the second shot under these circumstances is difficult, but not impossible. It's also a great argument for the active DF ability, since I can wait three seconds, pop it and be relatively certain I will not be taken down by a slug until after the Ion effects have worn off and I can boost away.

 

It's a bit of a rush, actually, and even better now that I know exactly where the gunship that tagged me is.

 

There is no logical argument for the devs to not remove broken mechanics unless they simply do not see why they are so broken.

There's a perfectly logical reason for them not to remove it. It's not broken. Just because the game is not what you want it to be does not mean it's broken. If you don't like it find a game you do. If evasion and gunships were as broken as you suggest, the game would already be a flop. Instead queues pop quick, and we have a very active community.

[Gibblets]

Evasion should be based on your current speed and evasion rating through parts/upgrades, a parked player gets 0% evasion while a player moving at W key speed (fastest without boost) benefits from 100% of their evasion rating. Doesn't make sense that lighter armor makes a sitting duck stronger.

[DarthVindictus]

Yeah, and I'd rather fight an opponent that doesn't have a hitscan weapon at 15k.

 

You must not play a lot of first person shooters, because snipers are in most of them and they have long range hitscan weapons. You had to deal with them in HAWKEN as well

[cantstopmeh]

It's also not a broken mechanic. Sabotage probe that's broken. The gunships ability to take out a scout IN A SINGLE HIT, that's broken.

[DarthVindictus]

It's also not a broken mechanic. Sabotage probe that's broken. The gunships ability to take out a scout IN A SINGLE HIT, that's broken.

 

again that's not a gunship thing that's a bypass thing.

 

A tier 2 scout can take out a gunship in less time than it takes to fully charge a rail shot by stacking blaster overcharge with bypass.

[Armonddd]

again that's not a gunship thing that's a bypass thing.

 

A tier 2 scout can take out a gunship in less time than it takes to fully charge a rail shot by stacking blaster overcharge with bypass.

 

There's no weapon in the game with enough damage and shield penetration to one shot a scout with bypass besides the slug railgun.

 

Bypass is a symptom, not the disease.

[Brewski]

There's no weapon in the game with enough damage and shield penetration to one shot a scout with bypass besides the slug railgun.

 

Bypass is a symptom, not the disease.

 

Without bypass, it is not possible for a slug to one shot a scout. By definition it is a cause, not a symptom. It's actually one of two causes for the one shot with no critical and no chance to survive, the other being the weapon damage itself.

 

Bypass is also one of three causes for a tier 2 scout being able to take down any ship in the game in three bursts, with the other two causes being Blaster Overcharge and Burst Lasers.

 

Nerfing Bypass helps solve two problems with one go, and gets at the real root of the problem.

[Armonddd]

Without bypass, it is not possible for a slug to one shot a scout. By definition it is a cause, not a symptom. It's actually one of two causes for the one shot with no critical and no chance to survive, the other being the weapon damage itself.

 

That's not the bigger problem, though. The problem isn't specifically that a gunship with slug and bypass can take a scout from full shields and full hull to dead - it's that a gunship can take a scout with full shields and whatever amount of hull to dead without the scout realizing he's in danger. A scout -- actually any craft! -- that's escaped an engagement with some hull damage and is using his piloting skills to evade attacks from other starfighters is still extremely vulnerable to a gunship. It's just as not fun to be "one-shot" from full shields and hull when you're on your way from the spawn as it is to be shot out of the air in one hit after escaping a dangerous dogfight, especially if you scored a kill or two before the gunship got you.

 

Slug gets the frankly insane combination of inherent damage, range, shield penetration, and armor penetration, all in huge amounts. Bypass helps with that, sure, but it's not as big a culprit as the slug itself.

 

Bypass is also one of three causes for a tier 2 scout being able to take down any ship in the game in three bursts, with the other two causes being Blaster Overcharge and Burst Lasers.

 

Let's talk about this one a bit. I don't think the issue here is Bypass providing melting power; rather, I think the issue we're both worried about is scouts (or anyone) having large amounts of melting power.

 

Given the melting power as the main point of discussion, let's consider the BBB (Bypass, Blaster Overcharge, and Burst Lasers). It's a very prevalent build in the current meta, but I disagree with your assertion that the cooldowns are an important component. Fully upgraded burst lasers two shot scouts, four shot strikes, and three shot (at most) anything you can hit with clusters or pods at the same time.

 

So now we're saying that BBB provides a potentially imbalanced amount of burst damage. Well, does it actually? Just watch Scrab melt gunships with quads and pods. Now, I'm not saying BBB is ok because quads'n'pods provide similar levels of burst (and that discussion goes beyond the scope of what we're talking about), but I will say that I'm much more likely to run quads'n'pods than BBB once the patch hits.

 

Let me be clear, I don't think Bypass (or shield piercing in general) is in a perfect place right now. I have said in the past that I think Bypass is fine on scouts and strikes, and I've changed my mind on that since. I think shield piercing as a mechanic is inherently problematic because it allows the attacker to... well, ignore shields. The problem is, these shields are designed to make the defender safe (see also: directional shields, which trade "safe from the back" for "safe from the front" or vice versa). It's not fun when the defending player has full shields and dies in one hit, no matter how much hull he has left.

 

I think shield piercing should be removed in its current form. Right now, in every case but Bypass (which is arguable, because 15s up/45s down), it's a passive counter to an active defense (a lot of good flying involves mitigating incoming damage and finding the time and buttons to regen your shields), and I'm not quite OK with that. It's one thing when I'm using the 9% shield piercing on burst cannons to wear down Scrab a little bit at a time so I can eventually get a kill, but it's something else entirely when I'm moving from C to B and pop two guys on the way because they had the misfortune to escape the dogfight in my general direction.

 

Maybe if shield piercing only worked under a certain range?

[DarthVindictus]

There's no weapon in the game with enough damage and shield penetration to one shot a scout with bypass besides the slug railgun.

 

Bypass is a symptom, not the disease.

 

It isn't about the 1 shot, it's also about just the amount of time to kill.

 

That ship you're flaunting in your avatar, that you probably think is perfectly balanced, can kill just as fast as a fully charged rail shot, due to bypass.

 

Slug railgun won't oneshot anyone when bypass is nerfed., burst lasers and rocket pods with blaster overcharge and even the nerfed bypass will end up killing faster than a railgun when bypass is nerfed.

[Armonddd]

It isn't about the 1 shot, it's also about just the amount of time to kill.

 

That ship you're flaunting in your avatar, that you probably think is perfectly balanced, can kill just as fast as a fully charged rail shot, due to bypass.

 

Slug railgun won't oneshot anyone when bypass is nerfed., burst lasers and rocket pods with blaster overcharge and even the nerfed bypass will end up killing faster than a railgun when bypass is nerfed.

 

Please read my previous post. Also, flashfires are in no way balanced, they're just the most fun viable class.

[dancezwithnubz]

Without bypass, it is not possible for a slug to one shot a scout. By definition it is a cause, not a symptom. It's actually one of two causes for the one shot with no critical and no chance to survive, the other being the weapon damage itself.

 

Bypass is also one of three causes for a tier 2 scout being able to take down any ship in the game in three bursts, with the other two causes being Blaster Overcharge and Burst Lasers.

 

Nerfing Bypass helps solve two problems with one go, and gets at the real root of the problem.

 

Nerfing Bypass would make it a lot harder for me and my Blackbolt to defeat gunships. if nerf Bypass, gieb rocket pods a buff pl0x?

 

i've toyed around a bit with a gunship lately and dropped a ton of requisition into it (capped Ion + Slug).

 

strike fighters and other scouts counter the 41% evasion 'issue' simply by drowning through it with multiple shots. Gunships, as one-hit-wonders, by definition can't do this. so, scouts appear 'omg, keep missing, so OP' to newb gunny pilots.

 

to nub scouts, the problem is reversed, 'omg, one-hit, so OP'.

 

once you've played both ships a bit, especially once you've got some upgrades into both of them, you'll recognise their inherent strengths and weaknesses for what they are: differences between ships. different ships, different flavor of gameplay. I've come to quite like gunships actually (i quite like Plasma railguns too, actually......).

 

While everyone's getting all hot under the collar about Slugs & Bypass, don't discount the awesome power of the Ion Railgun's AoE. so far as I can tell, evasion doesn't count against it. getting annoyed by the flimsy scout ducking around a sat? just love-tap a turret or, ideally, a strike/gunny ALSO hugging the sat with the Ion Railgun until you've drained all their weapon & engine power (4-5 oughta be more than enough). switch to Slug, take out turrets, back to Ion, tap scout, switch to slug, hope you cut the evasion.

 

if Evasion really upsets you, try low-power taps with an upgraded Plasma railgun for 10% penalty? (omg, 31% evasion so OP.....)

 

I understand there's to be some (badly needed) change coming on the Ion railgun abuse front, but the same basic tactic will still work.

 

if you REALLY want to start owning the battlefield, get some friends (omg, Guilds with teamspeak, so op!) together and co-ordinate. GSF really shines when you and your squadron CO-ORDINATE your efforts. I generally pug it on Harbinger Imp side and I can tell you, poor communication is at the root of all that factions problems. thankfully, it seems to be improving.

[Brewski]

That's not the bigger problem, though.

...

First off, you and I are getting a bit carried away with the quoting, so I'm going to leave just the above and respond to it all.

 

It is no fun to be one, or even two, shot. It happens to the best pilots out there, but the truth is it can be avoided most of the time with smart play. Are there times when you will simply be outplayed and there's nothing you can do to prevent it? Sure. But in those cases it's not because they have OP ships, it's because you were outplayed. I don't resent gunships their railguns because I know how easy it is to take them down once I spot them. They trade survivability for long range damage, and I trade survivability for speed and evasion.

 

As to your point about Quads'n'Pods versus BBB, I actually think it's a good thing you (and hopefully others) are considering changing load outs after these go live. Right now BBB is simply the best load-out, and flying anything else is a self-nerf. I hope for a world where I see a FF or Sting and I don't know what he's flying with until the first volley. BBB will still be the best build in certain situations like satellite humping, but after the nerf, other builds will be better in other situations.

 

What this really comes down to is that it's not so much railguns, Bypass, BLC or Evasiuon that need huge nerfs. (though all could use some minor adjustments) What we really need is a buff to strike fighter range and survivability. Right now I consider scouts and gunships fairly balanced against each other, as who wins in a one on one match usually comes down to who sees the other player first. Strikes get a bit hosed in the one on one matches, though, so that's where I think we should be focusing.

 

Well, unless that strike pilot is Thirsha on The Shadowlands. That guy is unstoppable in his Starguard...

 

Nerfing Bypass would make it a lot harder for me and my Blackbolt to defeat gunships. if nerf Bypass, gieb rocket pods a buff pl0x?

 

This is a great illustration on why big nerfs are a bad idea in a game that's fairly well balanced like GSF. Nerfing Bypass too much would definitely hurt builds that are not currently OP. If they dropped it to 10%, for example, it would become one of the least useful copilot skills. Leaving it at 16%, if that's where it ends up, should still keep it viable and useful without making it too OP.

 

Slow and steady wins the race when it comes to this kind of adjustment. I hope they keep making tweaks like these at a steady pace.

[cantstopmeh]

I'm not going to quote Brewski, he typed too much; in that short story he did make one good point. Vs scouts and gunships, to whom sees the other first wins. If a scout sneaks up and hits X right behind a gunship, it's dead; if a gunship gets a bead on a scout from a distance, it's dead. A dogfight when both parties is aware of the other, because of evasion, it's a fair fight. If you don't understand that evasion is in no way op, you can't adapt and instead of thinking you're just getting angry.

[Zoom_VI]

Imo bypass should not have its penetration nerfed. Bypass should just be made to only affect primary weapons. Pretty much every secondary weapon (except sab probe and ptorp) becomes a monstrosity when combined with bypass.

 

Honestly tho I think the co-pilot abilities shouldn't be offensive cooldowns anyway, Co-pilot skills should be utility things, not a weapon.

Edited January 27, 2014 by Zoom_VI