Devs: Please explain Ion Railgun vs. Ion Missile discrepancies

[Kuciwalker]

Have you tried Quad'n'pods? Very bursty.

 

Yes, but I have just generally found that I have more difficulty hitting good players with quads than with BLC.

 

It may be that BLC is just compensating for a lack of skill on my part, and as I get better I'll switch back to quads.

 

The problem with the overshooting game, is that it leaves your target time to reorient to you, which I'm willing to guess means that you undertake quite a few head-to-heads, which is fine as long as you have DcD available.

 

It doesn't necessarily mean head-to-heads if I am faster and more maneuverable than they are.

 

But no matter what its costing you heavily in offensive potency. Generally with my setup, while I might be more vulnerable to gunships, I get payed back with the ability to go through whole clumps of fighters a wreck havoc. Generally in particularly dense dogfights I can pull a kill every ten seconds.

 

Yes... and the price you pay for that is being more vulnerable to gunships (and to a lesser extent other fighters in general). Which is why I have relatively little sympathy for the cries that gunships are OP, etc. - you've made a choice to be more vulnerable to them, and as long as you get the benefits of that choice you should also feel the consequences.

[Zoom_VI]

Yes... and the price you pay for that is being more vulnerable to gunships (and to a lesser extent other fighters in general). Which is why I have relatively little sympathy for the cries that gunships are OP, etc. - you've made a choice to be more vulnerable to them, and as long as you get the benefits of that choice you should also feel the consequences.

 

My grief with gunships is they are more offensively potent than any other craft in the game by a significant margin, which might be fine if they where glass cannons, except they are not. Also ion rail is just stupidly overpowered no matter how you look at it.

 

On a side note, I would really recommend learning a few other dogfighting methods because in a dogfight between "elite" pilots, overshooting is probably one of the fastest ways to get yourself killed.

[Kuciwalker]

I do just fine, defensively, against enemy scouts regardless of skill.

[Ramalina]

A scout that is engaged in combat is probably going to be running at 50% engine pool, a 35 point reduction would still hurt them a lot but it wouldn't leave the scout dead in the water like the current 50 point drain does.

 

I agree with the general principle of Kuciwalker's point on tradeoffs. That's why I think that 35 drain is maybe a bit too weak. I also think that 50% engine pool is basically running on empty, which is a bit risky if there are gunships within 20 km or so.

 

Aside from the math of figuring out time and number of shots needed to get a ship from full engine power to unable to use engine abilities and from there to unable to boost, there's the subjective feel. I personally might be willing to eat an ion blast at 35 drain, but would always evade if possible if it's at 40 engine drain.

 

The idea of wanting to always avoid an ion blast if possible doesn't bother me, that's in line with always wanting to avoid a slug railgun shot or proton torpedo. Right now though, I find myself adjusting how I fly around ion railguns moreso than I would for any other weapon in GSF, even the ones in the 'always avoid' category.

 

As much as I'd be happy with a 35 point drain if I were trying to chase down Sammy' s gunship with my Starguard, I think a 18 point reduction to a mastered ion railgun's drain would be slightly too much. My first choice for an adjustment would be for drain proportional to charge, but for a flat nerf to the drain I think that 37-45 per shot is probably the acceptable zone from a balance perspective.

 

If they do increase engine maneuver activation costs maybe I'll change my mind on whether 35 drain is too weak. Or maybe not, it's probably good design to limit the number of times a scout can boost across the map on the energy remaining after taking a couple of ion hits.

[Zoom_VI]

I agree with the general principle of Kuciwalker's point on tradeoffs. That's why I think that 35 drain is maybe a bit too weak. I also think that 50% engine pool is basically running on empty, which is a bit risky if there are gunships within 20 km or so.

In every situation not involving ion railgun running at above 50% pool is suboptimal play. Scouts are runners, they are melee there very performance is based off of their maneuverability and speed. Hedging your engine pool to stay at high levels of power is basically a DPS and general performance loss.

[Kuciwalker]

In every situation not involving ion railgun running at above 50% pool is suboptimal play. Scouts are runners, they are melee there very performance is based off of their maneuverability and speed. Hedging your engine pool to stay at high levels of power is basically a DPS and general performance loss.

 

This is an argument against ion railguns... how? All you are saying here is that ion railguns provide additional strategic depth.

[Altheran]

This is an argument against ion railguns... how? All you are saying here is that ion railguns provide additional strategic depth.

 

It's an argument to say that even if the drain would be 35 instead of 53 (by removing AoE drain from main target), it would still be harsh/punishing... because Scout and Strike caught in action hardly have Engine and/or Weapon pool above 50%.

[Zoom_VI]

This is an argument against ion railguns... how? All you are saying here is that ion railguns provide additional strategic depth.

 

I was correcting the person I quoted. If your running around without using much of your resource pool your doing it wrong. Also see above post.

 

Right now the mere possibly of ion rail means you have to gimp yourself in order to safeguard against the possibility against being hit with it. It would be like if BW introduced a raid mechanic where random DPS or healers would have 50% of their total resource pool taken away, at random points during the fight with little to no warning, I think you can imagine what it would do to the poor dps.

Edited March 27, 2014 by Zoom_VI

[Ramalina]

I was correcting the person I quoted. If your running around without using much of your resource pool your doing it wrong. Also see above post.

 

Right now the mere possibly of ion rail means you have to gimp yourself in order to safeguard against the possibility against being hit with it. It would be like if BW introduced a raid mechanic where random DPS or healers would have 50% of their total resource pool taken away, at random points during the fight with little to no warning, I think you can imagine what it would do to the poor dps.

 

You were not correcting me. You were wishing that what you would like to be optimal was not different than what currently is optimal play.

 

In every situation not involving ion railgun running at above 50% pool is suboptimal play. Scouts are runners, they are melee there very performance is based off of their maneuverability and speed. Hedging your engine pool to stay at high levels of power is basically a DPS and general performance loss.

 

Unless somewhere in the above post you explained where I can find GSF play that is free of ion railgun equipped gunships. Outside of the tutorial that is. (If you have, I want to queue for it!)

 

It's sort of like saying that carrying flares and chaff on an F-15 gimps it's performance because it's useless surplus weight in an environment free of anti-aircraft missiles.

 

You love flying scouts, I know. Gunships are a giant pain in the rear for scouts, I know. But in a gunship rich environment, and thankfully from the forums it sounds like Jung Ma isn't as bad as some servers, not having an engine pool buffer is a high risk proposition unless you fly very defensively. Thanks to respawns, it's not an unacceptable risk, but it is one that you can choose to avoid if you really want to by keeping a buffer.

 

Being at 0 engine power doesn't have an exact analogue in the ground game, it's part way between a stun and an extreme snare. Some of your defensive cds are disabled, and you can't move very fast when you desperately need to move as fast as you can, but you're not fully paralyzed. It's not fun to be on the receiving end.

 

The way the gunships and ion railgun are set up though, it seems that the stun-like experience is an intended design. If they're determined to keep it, and so far it looks like they are, the issue is tuning the ease and rate of stunning vs how easy it is for the target to escape being stunned. The way it's tuned right now, I'd agree with you that it's too favorable for mastered ion railguns. At 35 drain per shot though, it's weak enough for type 2 scouts pilots to think that it's fine. As we all know, anything that a type 2 scout pilot thinks is fine on another ship is in need of a buff.

 

In terms of balance, it's really tricky if you go with flat drain per shot because there's a very narrow range where the drain is enough to be seriously scary, but not overpowered. That's why I'd like to push for a scaling that achieves a drain/second rate equal to the rate of a fully charged shot no matter how charged the shot is when it's fired. It fixes the problem with partially charged shots giving an advantage that gets better as the charge amount decreases toward the minimum.

 

Failing a scaling system though, I'd aim for an effects table that looks something like this:

**Table edited for consistent format

Ion shots       Full engine energy                                     Mid engine energy (50-60%)
1                    partial energy drain                                 engine cd unusable, some boost left
2                    engine cd down, some boost left            engine cd down, no boost
3                    engine cd down, no boost                       what 3rd shot? they switched to slug already.

In essence, I think that with a flat drain level, it should take one more shot than it currently does to achieve those outcomes. With +10% power pool and +13% efficiency at present 35 drain wouldn't be enough to do that, 40 would, and 45 would be overdoing it.

 

Increasing engine maneuver cost mucks up that scenario, and pushes what I consider an ideal flat drain level toward 35. I might still be ok with 40 drain per shot though, because it wouldn't change the amount of boost available, and against a gunship I'm more concerned with having boost available than having an engine maneuver available.

 

Last thing to consider: if they completely balance gunships, WHAT WILL WE HAVE TO COMPLAIN ABOUT?

 

Oh, right, matchmaking.

Edited March 28, 2014 by Ramalina