What will the meta be like post engine component nerfs?

[Verain]

This has been brought up around here before, but it definitely needs its own thread.

 

 

So, on live: Barrel Roll is almost always chosen. Once talented, it shares a 10 second cooldown with:

 

 

Power Dive

Koigran Turn

Snap Turn

Retro Thrusters

 

 

It appears that the talent cooldows will become:

 

Barrel Roll 20 seconds (up from 10)

Koigran Turn 15 seconds (up from 10)

Snap Turn 15 seconds (up from 10)

Retro Thrusters 15 seconds (up from 10)

Power Dive 10 seconds (stays same)

 

Power Dive is essentially never taken on live, as it is the worst. It will keep the niche of 10 second missile break, however.

Koigran and Snap are similar, with the benefits mostly be a break in a small area plus pushing you somewhere that your tails can't shoot. These are rarely taken on live, as this benefit is not great and has little offensive benefit. Retro Thrusters ARE taken on live sometimes, as they grant some advantages in a dogfight, including the ability to finish locking on a powerful missile.

Barrel Roll keeps its power to boost away, but the very big CD nerf is... well, it's game changing. This game will no longer play the same post BR nerf.

 

 

 

So, here's some predictions at the metagame level:

 

1)- Missiles will become much scarier, the longer lockout, the more the effect.

-Playing in the open will be more dangerous

-Missiles with interesting effects will be more often chosen, as they will land more

-Ships with powerful missiles will make more use of them.

-Ships that currently ignore protons or concussions will be fans.

-On live, if you press barrel roll at time 0, it's time 3 before you can be locked on again. Assuming a three second lock, a lock started at time 3 to time 7 will be able to shoot you- any later and it runs into your BR cooldown. This means that barrel roll goes from having a 4 second missile window to 14, and the other components go from 4 to 9.

2)- Distortion Field will become an even MORE powerful choice.

-Ships that have this option already always take it, but a second missile break will become even better than on live.

-Without distortion field, barrel roll will almost always get you hit with a missile, and all components but power dive will probably need to be pressed in such a way that you are not being locked on right away.

3)- Strikes and Scouts will consider the other components very strongly.

-Power Dive will have some fans, as it will allow much more aggressive, out in the open play, and allow you to bait missiles.

-Retro Thruster will probably be better than the two 180 degree turns, because it allows for missile locks to be finished.

-Someone will figure out whether snap turn or koigran turn is better, and the other will be entirely ignored.

4)- Gunships will be weaker

-The other gunship engine components are wretched in their filth.

-Barrel Roll is the only mobility component, and is taken by every gunship build for both gunships.

5)- The map will be larger

-Crossing the map will take more time

-Scouts will be materially better at crossing large distances than strikes and gunships.

-Responding to calls will be harder

-Regeneration Thruster will probably have more fans

 

 

What else do you guys thing is changing about this? Given the fact that in general the game sort of assumes it's "easier" to land a missile hit than it actually is, this is probably bringing things in line with dev intent.

 

 

What will your scouts run? Your strikes?

[DamascusAdontise]

For me it means I can no longer afford to run 20% turning rate, will have to go back to regen thrusters again. So this means less build diversity (as most people will have to spec into engine related talents)

 

You will see a lot more retro usage

 

Stikes and gunships will suffer from less mobility

 

Missiles will be more powerful (and ammo upgrades likely more prevalent)

 

People who know how to manage their power systems will be even more dominant than they are now.

 

And yes maps will "feel" larger and the game will feel "slower". All in all I sense much frustration from these changes. Really wish they would use their brains and think this through.

[Verain]

For me it means I can no longer afford to run 20% turning rate, will have to go back to regen thrusters again. So this means less build diversity (as most people will have to spec into engine related talents)

 

Err... objectively this will mean far MORE build diversity. On live, regen thrusters are never taken, and most of the non barrel roll components are ignored.

 

You will see a lot more retro usage

 

I kind of feel he's the #2 guy right now, so him sharing the same cooldown as the turns sort of means he'll be a lot more common.

 

And yes maps will "feel" larger and the game will feel "slower". All in all I sense much frustration from these changes. Really wish they would use their brains and think this through.

 

I do feel it will actually nerf the fun. Right now it really feels slow to get around without barrel roll. I guess that's not the game mode we are supposed to be used to, but it is.

 

I sort of wish we'd seen stuff like "cruise mode" as a talent- if you are boosting for seven seconds in a mostly straight line, your booster cost goes down and maybe your speed goes up. This could be a talent for a non-barrel roll engine type, or whatever. Versus just kind of reducing the power.

[Armonddd]

Err... objectively this will mean far MORE build diversity. On live, regen thrusters are never taken, and most of the non barrel roll components are ignored.

 

lolwut, I run it on anything that doesn't have a great justification for 20% turning rate

 

I kind of feel he's the #2 guy right now, so him sharing the same cooldown as the turns sort of means he'll be a lot more common.

 

I could never abandon my retros. We're engaged, gonna get married once we both have some more money. I love her. I could never leave her.

 

But... Power Dive and I might go get drinks every now and then. Guy's night out, and all. And he's single, so maybe I can guilt trip him into treating me every now and then.

 

I sort of wish we'd seen stuff like "cruise mode" as a talent

 

CRUISE ELROY?!

[Bleeters]

At the very least, I'm hoping it leads to a sharp decrease in kill ratios for asteroids.

[-Streven-]

It means people will no longer ignore the missile lock tone and will be much more judicious about charging into a group of enemies without full power. I think you're definitely right about distortion field being much more attractive. It means gunships will die more. It means sabo probes will get a lot scarier. Lockdown and other power killing crew skills will also become much more powerful. I think it will actually be fun but many of us will have to overcome some pretty ingrained habits. Flashfire pilots may start opting for thrust recharge (name?) instead of blaster overcharge. People might actually use power dive, ha ha. I wonder what it will be like in type two strikes now?

[Ramalina]

Well, I don't think my engine component choices will change.

 

Barrel roll: Novadive, Pike, Gunships.

 

Kiogran or Retro (depending on mood): Starguard and flashfire.

 

Power dive and Snap Turn: not equipped on any ship. I might consider Power Dive on a type 3 scout or strike, will have to see after they come out on live.

 

The sort of ship that would make power dive actually good would be a dive bomber that actually dive bombs to release a bomb that follows a ballistic trajectory after release. Given that there's no altitude = energy component to the flight model, there's really no other reason to pull that sort of maneuver. Charging off in a direction that you can't see obstacles in because your ship obscures the view? Why aren't people taking it, because even the worst pilots in GSF have at least a little bit of brain function. Even in the command scout/strike it's not a really desirable option in terms of the maneuver, but it's possible that their reduced maneuverability and endurance will make it a mandatory choice for missile evasion. Or to put it another way, they're trying to make a poorly designed engine more attractive by handicapping the better designed options. The problem is, that even if they do that, there's still no ship that power dive fits well. With a real dive bomber it would be great, and you'd mostly use it as an offensive cooldown to run in on the target (though they might have to give some sort of HUD tool that showed x distance and z distance to target rather than just slant range if that were to work. Probably too hard to eyeball where to start the dive otherwise).

 

It's not that any of the existing ships need to start taking Power Dive, it's that Power Dive needs a ship that will benefit from the maneuver. Honestly, if they make a missile break engine slot component called Chaff and Flares -or maybe Power Flare would be a more Star Warsy name- that provided no movement effects at all, I would expect that to be more popular than Power Dive. It comes with undesirable tactical maneuvering, whereas it's competitors all come with tactical maneuvering that is desirable in at least some situations/flying styles. I suppose I could see some gunships taking it, because they don't really dogfight, so the inconvenient maneuver effect is less of a drawback.

 

Aside from still not being interested in using an offensive cooldown for a real bomber as a defensive cooldown in other types of ships it mostly looks like a buff to missiles with long lock-on times.

 

So good for strike fighters in general, some secondary weapon options on scouts will be more attractive, gunships will probably still default to railgun usage.

 

May be a slight buff to strike long range maneuverability relative to other classes, haven't mathed it out yet so I'm not sure about that. I suppose ship builds that rely on boost will have more parity with ships that previously relied on barrel roll.

 

If they want people to not all pick distortion field when it's available, they may need to either nerf it again, or slightly buff the other options. As it stands DF is already a bit stronger than it's competitors and this change will give it a very substantial relative boost. Of course, DF is mostly available to ships that take barrel roll as a mandatory option, so in a few cases this may somewhat close the gap where some ships were much more able to avoid missiles than others (and yes, I'm frowning at all those scouts and gunships from the cockpit of my Starguard).

 

Over all for the meta game, probably good for balance between common ship builds. As far as component viability in ship builds, missile secondary weapon diversity may not go up, but it will be much more feasible if people want to try it. Engine/shield options will be slightly more balanced, but diversity may actually go down. In ships that can do it there will be even less incentive to pick anything other than barrel roll + distortion field than there was before.