A few improvements I'd like to see to GSF

[Tenacity]

These are mostly just quality of life improvements, but a few are balance related. Be aware that I only fly strike fighters (I've tried out gunships, bombers, and scouts, and while scouts are fun to fly I prefer my strikes over all of them).

 

Changes to Bombers:

 

1. Drones and Mines need bigger targetting circles around them. Unless you're at point blank range, they can be extremely difficult to see, much less hit. I understand that they're supposed to be 'traps' of a sort, but if you're getting anywhere near the 1.5-3k range that a mine can target you at, you should at least be made readily aware of it's presence. Same goes for drones.

 

2. Give railgun and missile drones a firing arc for their respective special weapons. It's fine having the laser cannons on drones fire any direction with perfect tracking, since they arent overly powerful, but part of the counter to gunships or missile-equipped enemies is that you can get out of their firing arc (if you notice them targetting you) in order to avoid the attack. A railgun drone has no limitations on turning rate (pitch/yaw) to keep you in it's targetting circle while charing a railgun attack against you, meaning even if you notice it about to shoot at you there's nothing you can do to avoid the shot short of line-of-sighting it with terrain/obstacles.

 

3. Currently, the exact same lock-on alarm sounds and the exact same lock-on warning icon are used regardless of whether you are being targetted by a missile (player or drone missiles both), a torpedo, or a mine. The lack of information provided by the warning sound/icon means that you're forced into blowing your evasive manuvers to break the lock even though it could be something not immediately threatening. Being hit by a drone missile is not a huge deal (usually), but being hit by a proton torpedo or a concussion missile definitely is.

I would suggest the following:

Seperate sounds (even if only slightly different) for:

-Player missile lock-ons

-Drone missile lock-ons

-Torpedo lock-ons

-Mine lock-ons

Also, color-coding the warning icon that appears on your screen when being targetted by these sources should be used. Currently, all lockons provide you with a red triangular warning icon, which is surrounded by a dashed border when the weapon is actually fired at you (full lock). I'd say keep them red for player-fired missiles, change to orange for drone-fired missiles, yellow for torpedoes, and blue for mines. This will allow the player enough information to make a decision as to whether or not an evasive manuver is needed, or simply a boost or line-of-sight.

 

Changes to Strike Fighters:

 

1. Primary strike fighters (those that get two primary weapon types) need more weapon variety. I'd like to see the addition of burst lasers and light lasers for all of these strike fighter types.

 

2. Secondary strike fighters (those that get two secondary weapon types) also need a bit more variety. I'd suggest adding rocket pods, thermite torpedoes, and possibly even sabotage probes to these strike fighter types. Even moreso than primary strikes, the secondary strikes need versatility in their armament considering their effectiveness in combat is almostt entirely ammo-based.

 

3. All strike fighters should have access to EMP missiles, currently only secondary strikes have access to them.

 

4. Given the fact that strike fighters are supposedly intended to be the most versatile vessels ("Multi-mission fighters"), I think all of them need some additional engine and shield components, and possibly secondary components, added. I'd like to see them get access to overcharged shields and interdiction drive engines at least.

 

Changes to Gunships:

 

1. It's pretty much universally agreed on that the 'secondary' gunships (comet breaker, dustmaker, and the like) are horribly designed. They seem to lack any focus - their weapon systems and components just dont mesh well together. I'm not sure exactly what needs to be done here, considering I dont really fly gunships very often, but I'm sure someone can chime in with suggestions.

 

2. One of the biggest complaints since gunships were added for general use was that they frequently abuse their capital ship defense zone to stay alive when being pursued by hostiles. Granted, this tactic can be used by other ship classes as well, but it is most frequently abused by gunships due to their long range focus - I dont think that this extra layer of survivability/defense was really considered in their balance, and gives them an advantage they were not intended to have. Dont know what can be done about it, but something should.

 

 

Cartel Market Ships

 

After buying the enforcer (which I do love, btw), I was extremely disappointed to discover that there are no model changes to the vessel when swapping engine or weapon components. I feel that, for the 20$ pricetag on these cartel market ships, they should at the very least have the same level of customization that the basic ships do. That means model alterations for primary weapons, secondary weapons, and engines.

[Tenacity]

Another change that I thought about tonight:

 

when using a primary strike fighter, if you have quad lasers and ion cannons as your two primary weapons, there's pretty much no way to quickly identify which gun you've got selected without firing. Both of them have identical firing arcs and targetting reticules.

 

Would be nice if they were color coded or something - ion weapons could show a more blue ring or something, while blasters show red?

[Nemarus]

All very solid, reasonable suggestions.

[Armonddd]

All very solid, reasonable suggestions.

 

I was gonna tl;dr, but if Nemarus approves, I'll give it a read in the morning.

[Luneward]

Pretty good suggestions overall. From a purely practical standpoint, however, I'm not so sure about the missile lock one. It's a good idea in theory, but probably a bit of an awkward implementation in practice. I'm of the school of thought that UIs in a game as visually cluttered as GSF need to be kept as streamlined and efficient as possible.

 

You already need to make a snap judgement within the space of about two seconds whether to attempt to break a lock/missile already, and putting in color judgements just adds to the layers of time required to process the threat. At best it might help avoid a proton torp, but would probably create a lot of false positives as you jumped the gun as you normally would not. The current system of judging the length of the lockon time already covers that to some degree. Not to mention you would probably need separate areas on the target hud for the different colors since you now may have to make room for multiple different types of locks if they are happening at the same time.

 

tl, dr; I just feel it would add additional clutter for minimal actual benefit in practice.

[Bleeters]

Genuine question time: are bursts and light lasers on a strike actually going to be all that game changing for them? They're exceptional on scouts as a result of their ability to get right up in someone's face and stay there. Strikes always struck me as being a it too ponderous for that.

 

I mean I'd be fine with it if they got them, just wondering. Strikes aren't really something I've had much experience or success with.

 

 

2. One of the biggest complaints since gunships were added for general use was that they frequently abuse their capital ship defense zone to stay alive when being pursued by hostiles. Granted, this tactic can be used by other ship classes as well, but it is most frequently abused by gunships due to their long range focus - I dont think that this extra layer of survivability/defense was really considered in their balance, and gives them an advantage they were not intended to have. Dont know what can be done about it, but something should.

Whilst not quite a universal solution, EMP components specced to disable engine abilities do counter this pretty aptly. I've enjoyed the last couple of days of playing a novadive built specifically to ruin the day of gunships that rely on barrel rolling away the second anyone so much as looks at them funny.

Edited February 6, 2014 by Bleeters

[Lyet]

EMP NovaDives with the engine option make gunship and bomber hunting so fun!

 

/devilish laugh

[steyates]

Some good suggestions there.

 

I like the idea of different colours for the targeting triangles. I'm not sure different noises would work as I think it would be far too confusing with all the other sound effects.

 

I definitely agree on giving the Strikes more weapon options. If they're supposed to be multirole then make them truly multirole by giving them all the options.

 

@Bleeters. Strikes regularly end up in close range turning matches with scouts so the close-range weapons would be very handy for those split second firing opportunities (although I would like to see a slight damage nerf to BLC's. They're still the best for dogfighting by a large margin.)

 

In Deathmatch I'd like to see the Capital ships removed entirely which would stop the strategy of bringing the battle over to a spawn point where the gunships can easily run for cover. Instead make it so that ships within the spawn area can't be attacked, but if you try to return you get timed out in the same way as travelling outside the field of play. I don't mind the strategy too much in Domination as it still takes the gunship out of the Satellite capture game.

 

Different weapon options should definitely be visible on cartel market ships.

Edited February 6, 2014 by steyates

[Zharik]

Would be nice if they were color coded or something - ion weapons could show a more blue ring or something, while blasters show red?

 

I don't disagree with your premise/suggestion, but there is a symbol next to your missile count that is the currently selected weapon. And in the case of ion vs quads there are differences in the symbol.

[Armonddd]

It'd be nice if railgun drones didn't also have perfect aim. Twice in one match I was blown up in the middle of a barrel roll by one of these guys. No human can reliably do that, why should a fire-and-forget drone be able to?

[Delta_V]

It'd be nice if railgun drones didn't also have perfect aim. Twice in one match I was blown up in the middle of a barrel roll by one of these guys. No human can reliably do that, why should a fire-and-forget drone be able to?

 

Same goes for Missile Drones. Apart from the bug where they hit you through engine abilities, they also seem to be able to hit you no matter what kind of maneuvers you pull. A player has to keep the target in their sights for several seconds to get a missile lock, meaning that one of the defenses against missiles is simply being a good pilot. Drones that hit you no matter what simply devalue piloting skill.

[Tenacity]

Genuine question time: are bursts and light lasers on a strike actually going to be all that game changing for them? They're exceptional on scouts as a result of their ability to get right up in someone's face and stay there. Strikes always struck me as being a it too ponderous for that.

 

I mean I'd be fine with it if they got them, just wondering. Strikes aren't really something I've had much experience or success with.

 

It depends, but I'd like them simply for the versatility factor. I tend to fight at long/medium ranges with my strikes, relying on quad lasers, heavy lasers, and ion cannons. However, it would be nice to have good options for both long range and short range so that you can hit that enemy gunship at 7k with your heavies/concussion missiles, and then swap to burst lasers for those scouts and bombers that like to get in your face.

 

It'd be nice if railgun drones didn't also have perfect aim. Twice in one match I was blown up in the middle of a barrel roll by one of these guys. No human can reliably do that, why should a fire-and-forget drone be able to?

 

agreed, but this is also where my suggestion of giving them a firing arc and limited turning rate come into play. If you can get out of the relatively small firing arc of a railgun, you're able to avoid it's damage completely - that's how I end up fighting gunships: I get behind them or to the sides to close range without them being able to hit me.

 

Right now, we cant do that at all with drones, because they can fire in a full 360 degree arc (Or whatever you call full 3 dimensional radius/sphere areas) and will never miss.

 

Same goes for Missile Drones. Apart from the bug where they hit you through engine abilities, they also seem to be able to hit you no matter what kind of maneuvers you pull. A player has to keep the target in their sights for several seconds to get a missile lock, meaning that one of the defenses against missiles is simply being a good pilot. Drones that hit you no matter what simply devalue piloting skill.

 

Agreed here as well. I think that in the case of missile drones, perhaps limiting their firing range to 3 or 4k would be best - that keeps them effective in close quarters area denial where they're supposed to be used, and stops them from covering a larger area with a weapon that cannot be defended against.

[Armonddd]

agreed, but this is also where my suggestion of giving them a firing arc and limited turning rate come into play. If you can get out of the relatively small firing arc of a railgun, you're able to avoid it's damage completely - that's how I end up fighting gunships: I get behind them or to the sides to close range without them being able to hit me.

 

Right now, we cant do that at all with drones, because they can fire in a full 360 degree arc (Or whatever you call full 3 dimensional radius/sphere areas) and will never miss.

 

That only kinda solves the problem, though. If my thrusters are suntanning a gunship's nose and I barrel roll, the gunship has to be extremely lucky or extremely good to hit me with a slug. If I do the same with a railgun drone, lol wut's AI handicapping

 

Of course, this extends to AI turrets never missing anything ever. It's ok when it's defense turrets, because those spawn predictably, are enormous and thus easy to hit, don't do too much damage, are fairly simple to clear out, and players are rewarded for their destruction (well, kinda; it makes up for the rich-get-richer setup, but still). Bomber drones, on the other hand, have none of these characteristics, but maintain the perfection of execution that comes with having an AI designed to perform flawlessly instead of on a similar level to a human player.

 

This actually leads to a bigger problem with bombers: their performance cap is limited in part by these perfections of the AI, and thus is fairly high. And when a novice player's drones do so much more damage on their own without player influence than the player could do in a scout or strike fighter, well... problems arise.

 

I'm actually starting to see signs of problems in GSF that contributed to the decline of Guild Wars around the Nightfall/Eye of the North era. In that game, the AI was so good that there was very little reason not to abuse it (so player vs player turned into player plus AI vs player plus AI, which isn't nearly as fun), newly introduced mechanics were problematic and went unaddressed for months (even years) at a time, and some of the most effective builds did much, much more than the more skill-intensive builds.

Edited February 7, 2014 by Armonddd

[Kaivers]

Destroying a drone counts as a kill...best guess is that its supposed to serve as an incentive to Gunships and fighter's with EMP. I was disappointed when I found out about this and I refuse to destroy them simply based off principle. Edited February 7, 2014 by Kaivers

[HoloGrinder]

Very nice thread. I agree with the OP on a lot of things.