Nemarus Posted February 12, 2014 Share Posted February 12, 2014 (edited) I'm enjoying 2.6. I think the game is in a better place than it was, mainly due to the variety Deathmatch brings and the adjustments to Evasion. But since 2.6 I exclusively fly a Bomber in any competitive Domination match. Why? Because I know it offers the best chance at winning and because usually multiple people on the other team will be doing the same. So consider all that I'm about to say to be coming from a confessed Bomber abuser. I have plenty of fun and I win plenty of matches flying my Bomber, but I still think some additional balance changes might be due at BioWare's next feasible opportunity. Some anecdotal data: My Minelayer can usually hold a node alone against 3+ attackers for minutes at a time, and while it will slowly die from hull attrition, its mines will take out multiple Scouts and Strikes before it gets down. EMP Missiles/pulses are of little concern to me--they are more inconvenience than hard counter. They do trivial hull damage (compared to my 2400 hull). They do destroy my mines, but my mines rarely live more than a few seconds before exploding on someone anyway, and I can redeploy them every 20 seconds. The EMP effect may prevent me from deploying my System mine, but I can still deploy my Secondary Mine. Even Gunships are minimally threatening, because I'll just switch sides on the satellite to break their LOS. Honestly the scariest single-ship counter to my Minelayer is another Minelayer. It can come in and drop mines on me even as I hit it with my own... but since it's fresh, it's going to win a war of attrition with me. I also find that my own Minelayer is an especially good counter to Dronecarriers--a single seismic mine will destroy every drone around a satellite. All of the above assumes just a single Bomber is guarding a satellite though. All of the above, while not "balanced" is playable. But if there are two Bombers on a node, it's not flipping. The amount of fighters needed to counter multiple Bombers goes up geometrically. That's because all the damage/healing from mines or drones just stacks on that satellite. Suggestions: I'm a pragmatist. At this point, I know Bombers are not going to be changed dramatically from what they are. So no, drones won't be turned exclusively into debuffers. And no, they won't cap how many of any class of ship can play in a match. But I do think there are 3 targeted changes that can be made to address specific issues: 1) Reduce Bomber hulls by 10%. They should still have more hull than any other class, but right now the base hull is 2000 compared to a Strike's (second highest) base hull of 1450. And because Reinforced Armor scales with hull, that means a Bomber can get a hull up to 2400, compared to a Quell at 1740. And remember that the Bomber still gets 10% inherent damage reduction (for what it's worth) and powerful shields (especially with Overcharged Shields). If the Bomber base hull were instead 1800, then with Reinforced Armor they'd max out at 2160. 2) Reduce effectiveness of Bomber stacking. I'm not sure exactly what to suggest here, but it'd be nice if two Bombers working together had significant diminishing returns instead of synergizing together. For Drones, make some kind of "radio interference" mechanic. It could outright prevent deploying a Drone within a certain radius of another Bomber's drone ... or if that is too severe, make it so that drones placed too close together suffer interference which reduces their rate of fire/healing by 60%. As for mines, there's a simple solution: make ALL mines trigger each other (meaning they explode in a "dud" without dealing damage), even if they are on the same team (or from the same Bomber). Make it so that if I place my Interdiction Mine too close to my Seismic Mine (or too close to a Dronecarrier's drone), the Interdiction mine will dud-explode immediately. This would inject some skill requirement into drone and mine placement. You'd have to make sure the area you're placing is relatively clear. To be clear on this: I'm not saying ally drones should shoot ally mines. I'm just saying mines should dud-explode when any mine or drone is in their radius. And because it's a dud detonation, it would not have the potential to mess up anything an ally has already placed. 3) Increase cooldown of Mine deployment to 40 seconds. Right now Seeker Mines can be deployed every 15 seconds, and other bigger mines can be deployed every 20 seconds. This really makes it so that I don't have to be very careful or thoughtful when placing my mines ... if one gets shot before detonating, I don't really care because I've already got another one only a few seconds away. With this change, Mines would still be "faster" than Drones, but they'd also be an "investment" of sorts... and having them destroyed without dealing their damage would be dealing a large blow to the Bomber's effectiveness, and its ability to defend itself. Again, I say this all as someone who is only too happy to continue winning Domination matches using my Razorwire. But for the betterment of the game, I think adjustments like the ones above need to be considered. Edited February 12, 2014 by Nemarus Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AirmanJoo Posted February 12, 2014 Share Posted February 12, 2014 I've got an easy one that we were tossing around today, Friendly Fire. I'm not saying friendly ships should set off mines, but if they're caught in the blast radius... This mean the mine layer too! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Applejacxs Posted February 12, 2014 Share Posted February 12, 2014 actually i would go for the second suggestion. When stack bombers some kind of interference debuff occurs cause there drones and mines to become less effective by a certain % Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nemarus Posted February 12, 2014 Author Share Posted February 12, 2014 I've got an easy one that we were tossing around today, Friendly Fire. I'm not saying friendly ships should set off mines, but if they're caught in the blast radius... This mean the mine layer too! I would say "sure" except that it could be used for griefing your own teammates. That being said, I see no reason why a Bomber shouldn't be able to trigger its own mines and suffer damage from them. Doesn't help with drone stacking though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nisdain Posted February 12, 2014 Share Posted February 12, 2014 There are literally a ton of different things that could be done. Friendly fire being enabled, EMP being buffed to useful levels, timers, changing drones to buffing (not going to happen). At least they're fixing the maneuvers bug. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Itkovian Posted February 12, 2014 Share Posted February 12, 2014 Good suggestions all around, I especially like options that force bombers to EXPAND their minefields as more bombers are combined, instead of just making existing minefields denser. So if there are 3 bombers, they'll have to lay 3 separate minefields, instead of just making 1 impenetrable minefield. That said, I should point out the I have been in games where we've cleared a 2-bomber minefield and capped the sat, and that without having half the team trying. It's hard, but doable. A combination of gunships and strikes can definitely do it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zoom_VI Posted February 12, 2014 Share Posted February 12, 2014 they really need to fix the mine stacking. Right now a minelayer can just drop a sesmic and conc together and instantly kill anyone around them. The best nodetaking strategy I see these days is zerging a node with a couple minelayers dropping the payload which kills anything on the node and takes out any remain defensive sats. Plus any fighter that zooms in the stop the cap only has a few seconds to live before the minelayer's next batch of mines go out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nemarus Posted February 12, 2014 Author Share Posted February 12, 2014 Good suggestions all around, I especially like options that force bombers to EXPAND their minefields as more bombers are combined, instead of just making existing minefields denser. So if there are 3 bombers, they'll have to lay 3 separate minefields, instead of just making 1 impenetrable minefield. That said, I should point out the I have been in games where we've cleared a 2-bomber minefield and capped the sat, and that without having half the team trying. It's hard, but doable. A combination of gunships and strikes can definitely do it. Oh, definitely Bombers can be dislodged by good pilots who coordinate. The problem is that for GSF to really be successful and get as much continued investment as we want it to get ... it needs to be fun and playable for solo pilots of average quality as well. And right now I feel like it just requires too little skill to entrench a Bomber compared to the coordination and skill required to dislodge one. And honestly, while I do enjoy flying a Bomber (it's a nice, relaxing change of pace from the manic intensity of flying my Blackbolt in Deathmatch), I would like Bombers to have a higher skill ceiling. Right now, I feel like most of the skill involved with Bombers happens at build time. After that, it's just intelligent use of cooldowns, basic power management, and satellite maneuvering. If the team I'm playing isn't made up of Itkovian's, Kvikorma's and Large's, I can rest pretty easy knowing no one is going to take my satellite. About the only way I can say that I'm a "more effective" Bomber pilot is that I'm also fairly good at using my Minelayer to assault an enemy node, but again that all comes down to build selection and boost/shield/energy management. It's like flying a 747 vs. an F16 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Armonddd Posted February 12, 2014 Share Posted February 12, 2014 Honestly, I'm glad we have a pragmatist around who offers solutions less drastic than my "rework gunships into healers" and "replace drones and mines with lock-on weapons". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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