GSF : Gunship and Bomber Cooldowns

[RAZIM]

I believe GSF could add some death mechanics to the advanced ship types to keep matches from becoming overloaded by one or two powerful ship types. It'd add some risk factor to the more valuable ship types.

 

Gunships and Bombers would have a set number of "allowed deaths". Once the player uses up those allowed deaths, that specific ship would go on a 10 minute cooldown. The player could queue with another gunship/bomber if they had another version in their five ship lineup though. The scout and strike fighters would remain the base ship options without cooldowns.

 

If a player loses a substantial number of gunship or bomber charges quickly to an opposing force they are more likely to move to a strike fighter or scout rather than lose their advanced ship option to that one match.

[Icebergy]

That is a horrible idea for Gunships at least, because they are such an incredibly easy kill for my Nova that no one would get to play their Gunships ever.

 

We'll see about Bombers, they certainly seem OP at first glance.

[RAZIM]

That is a horrible idea for Gunships at least, because they are such an incredibly easy kill for my Nova that no one would get to play their Gunships ever.

 

We'll see about Bombers, they certainly seem OP at first glance.

 

It'd all depend on what numbers they use to tune the system. They'd have to vary based on the ship type.

e.g. 18-25 deaths for Gunships and 8-12 for Bombers

 

If you have 2 Gunships unlocked, that'd be 36-50 deaths between them. With a cooldown they could justify buffing them up a bit probably.

[Nempo]

Actually...going by the typical use on ships...lets put scouts at 2 deaths then locked out for 10 min so these fights resembled PROPER fight scenes?

 

Aka...strike fighter swarms backed up by heavy artillery (gunships) and none of these scouts in the way that if it was remotely realistic the scouts would die in 2 shots (or one salvo from quad lasers).

 

BTW...I main a scout ship and am saying this.

[Icebergy]

Actually...going by the typical use on ships...lets put scouts at 2 deaths then locked out for 10 min so these fights resembled PROPER fight scenes?

 

I'd be fine with that, because on my Scout I almost never die more than once during a match, usually not even once.

[Muljo_Stpho]

I'd be fine with that, because on my Scout I almost never die more than once during a match, usually not even once.

 

Yeah, maybe I just haven't played enough of it (I've certainly been lax about it this month, and last month I didn't grind out much beyond getting the weekly completed) but I have rarely in any of my best (no deaths) or worst (at least 5 deaths) matches seen anybody on either team get a kill count or a death count into the double digits. (I can think of one time I noticed a double digit kill count. I can't think of any time I've seen a double digit death count.) The post that talked about death counts in the 20s or higher just left me thinking "Nobody would ever hit that limit anyway."

 

(Hmmm, come to think of it, I think all of my no death runs have been played as a scout. I seem to get the fewest kills as strike fighters, get the most kills but get into the most trouble as gunships, and do the best overall as scouts.)

 

Aside from that it's an interesting thought though. Some limits of some sort (on all ship types) would enforce a bit of strategic thinking about which ship to choose each time we spawn.

 

It might need a bit more thought and planning put into it though, for balance. I mean, some variables to consider:

 

Does the player have access to 2, 3, 4, or 5 ships? Should the limits depend on how many alternatives the player can fall back on? (Especially if they stack their lineup with as many of a specific type as they can. If the rule is 6 scout ship spawns and a player can choose from 3 scout ships, does each of their scout ships get 6 lives or do they get 6 lives total between them all before they get locked out of all of their scout ships?) And suppose that someone does burn through their extra lives super quick and they exhaust all of their alternative options before the 10 minute cooldown that someone suggested, should that reset the cooldowns and counts or are they just unable to respawn / out of the match completely?

 

Taking another approach, should the game count up how many of each type are currently in play and enforce some restrictions based on that? (In other words, situational limits instead of giving each ship a set number of lives. Stop players from respawning as a scout if 4 or more allies are currently scouts, or something like that. But lift that restriction if too many enemies are currently gunships. Have the system work off of who counters who in an attempt to help push both teams towards a balanced arrangement.) Enforce restrictions dynamically.

 

(Of course the ideas in the previous paragraph may rub some players the wrong way if they like specializing in just one type of ship through the entire fight. Someone wouldn't like getting forced out of their favorite role.)

[RAZIM]

Yeah, maybe I just haven't played enough of it (I've certainly been lax about it this month, and last month I didn't grind out much beyond getting the weekly completed) but I have rarely in any of my best (no deaths) or worst (at least 5 deaths) matches seen anybody on either team get a kill count or a death count into the double digits. (I can think of one time I noticed a double digit kill count. I can't think of any time I've seen a double digit death count.) The post that talked about death counts in the 20s or higher just left me thinking "Nobody would ever hit that limit anyway."

 

(Hmmm, come to think of it, I think all of my no death runs have been played as a scout. I seem to get the fewest kills as strike fighters, get the most kills but get into the most trouble as gunships, and do the best overall as scouts.)

 

Aside from that it's an interesting thought though. Some limits of some sort (on all ship types) would enforce a bit of strategic thinking about which ship to choose each time we spawn.

 

It might need a bit more thought and planning put into it though, for balance. I mean, some variables to consider:

 

Does the player have access to 2, 3, 4, or 5 ships? Should the limits depend on how many alternatives the player can fall back on? (Especially if they stack their lineup with as many of a specific type as they can. If the rule is 6 scout ship spawns and a player can choose from 3 scout ships, does each of their scout ships get 6 lives or do they get 6 lives total between them all before they get locked out of all of their scout ships?) And suppose that someone does burn through their extra lives super quick and they exhaust all of their alternative options before the 10 minute cooldown that someone suggested, should that reset the cooldowns and counts or are they just unable to respawn / out of the match completely?

 

Taking another approach, should the game count up how many of each type are currently in play and enforce some restrictions based on that? (In other words, situational limits instead of giving each ship a set number of lives. Stop players from respawning as a scout if 4 or more allies are currently scouts, or something like that. But lift that restriction if too many enemies are currently gunships. Have the system work off of who counters who in an attempt to help push both teams towards a balanced arrangement.) Enforce restrictions dynamically.

 

(Of course the ideas in the previous paragraph may rub some players the wrong way if they like specializing in just one type of ship through the entire fight. Someone wouldn't like getting forced out of their favorite role.)

 

I'd rather see individual performance-based cooldowns than enforced groups. It'd let groups continue to have a variety of tactics instead of being restricted in their fleet makeup. The cooldown time would fluctuate based on the number of deaths they determine is balanced. Could be 2 minutes, 4, 5 or 10 depending on the gameplay feeling they want it to have.

 

The cooldown would need to be per ship so players have some benefit to unlocking/buying new ships. It'd make upgrading your variant gunships/bombers important so you have a reliable backup if you lose your primary ship. A player could stack a specific ship type but they'd only have so much utility by removing others from their lineup. If they are a proficient gunship player, for example, a backup would be a smart move as they'd end up with less downtime in a match that goes against them.

 

If it was a cooldown per ship type, the lineup would stay pretty much the same as it is now. There wouldn't be a benefit to having a backup ship of that type.

 

Some ship type would have to be a base option (unlimited lives) so you're not stuck without a ship to spawn with. The lineup would require 1 of those unlimited types to be present. Scouts are the smallest and probably the cheapest to produce justifying the infinite supply... not that realism really needs to matter. If they introduced a cooldown system in GSF, I'm sure there would be a new balance patch to buff ships that receive death penalties anyhow.

Edited January 30, 2014 by RAZIM