Evasion problem

[catapral]

Ok so I've been playing GSF since release now and it's absolutely beautiful. Very nice control, the ships are quite nicely done, abilities fire the way they are supposed to, there's rarely any lag but there are some things that have no sense. Since I already put a title on this one (EVASION) I will start with this one.

 

Evasion it's a passive ability

 

Really? How could evasion be passive? So if you are in a Flashfire and your friend is also in an identical Flashfire but your friend is dogfighting and you're standing still both of you have the same evasion?

 

1. EVASION SHOULD SCALE WITH SPEED!

 

- no pilot would ever miss someone who's standing at point blank range, because the guy standing would not have ANY evasion, makes no sense!

 

You're standing still, evasion drops with 80% or more... you're going faster you should be harder to hit.

This would also fix the gunship issue...

 

Which brings me to the other issue. If you are trying to lock a cluster missile on someone they get a warning right?

Cause the missile is dangerous... but it only dose like 600-700 damage? Correct? Good.

Now using the same logic... why don't you get a warning that a gunship is locking on you, How is getting a 1.2-2k hit that goes trough your shields or drains most of (or all of your power) stopping the regen. for 6 seconds (an eternity in combat terms) is less dangerous than a missile...

 

IF I AM TRYING TO LOCK ON A GUNSHIP - HE KNOWS!

IF A GUNSHIP IS LOCKING ONTO YOU (with something more dangerous than a rocket) - YOU DON'T KNOW!

 

How is that fair? Trust me, I play my Gunship sometimes and it's ridiculous how you can kill players... they never see it coming... Not to mention the burst fire capabilities of a gunship on a head-on dogfight - which is better than most strike fighters.

 

2. GUNSHIP LOCKING SHOULD GET YOU A WARNING!

[MaybeEvil]

Usually what I do is tab around and look to see who the closest gunship(s) is targeting.

 

If it is me (or a teammate in my immediate vicinity) I take a run at them ...or if I don't have the engine power I try to find some cover.

[Altheran]

The gunship can miss. It's manually aimed, like cannons. In that regard, the absence of warning is normal.

 

However, I believe they do not deserve having shots stronger than missiles (speaking of Slug only), and believe their damage should be similar (Slug ~ Concussion Missile)

Beside this thing about Slug and the ridiculous drain of Ion, I think Gunship are otherwise okay.

[DeputyConvict]

Really? How could evasion be passive? So if you are in a Flashfire and your friend is also in an identical Flashfire but your friend is dogfighting and you're standing still both of you have the same evasion?

 

 

 

Yes. You ever take a Physics course? No worries if you haven't, but I am not going to explain why evasion would not make no difference depending on speed(speed form your point of view).

[Kalphitis]

How could evasion be passive? So if you are in a Flashfire and your friend is also in an identical Flashfire but your friend is dogfighting and you're standing still both of you have the same evasion?

 

1. EVASION SHOULD SCALE WITH SPEED!

 

- no pilot would ever miss someone who's standing at point blank range, because the guy standing would not have ANY evasion, makes no sense!

 

I believe you're confusing evasion with skill/reflex. It is harder in this game to hit a moving opponent because it requires faster reflexes and better skill. Would it make sense to make it even harder to hit a moving target to add evasion?

 

Think of it this way: If I fire a laser at a point in space -- on the first shot it hits a stationary ship, on the next shot it hits a ship that is moving -- realistically it shouldn't be harder to hit the moving ship. Both ships were at the same spot at the same time the laser intersected the point in space, and therefore the odds of hitting them should be the same.

 

Think of evasion like distortion...your super sci-fi ship has the ability to distort time and space around it to make the opponents targeting systems miss.

 

Which brings me to the other issue. If you are trying to lock a cluster missile on someone they get a warning right?

Cause the missile is dangerous... but it only dose like 600-700 damage? Correct? Good.

Now using the same logic... why don't you get a warning that a gunship is locking on you, How is getting a 1.2-2k hit that goes trough your shields or drains most of (or all of your power) stopping the regen. for 6 seconds (an eternity in combat terms) is less dangerous than a missile...

 

IF I AM TRYING TO LOCK ON A GUNSHIP - HE KNOWS!

IF A GUNSHIP IS LOCKING ONTO YOU (with something more dangerous than a rocket) - YOU DON'T KNOW!

 

How is that fair? Trust me, I play my Gunship sometimes and it's ridiculous how you can kill players... they never see it coming... Not to mention the burst fire capabilities of a gunship on a head-on dogfight - which is better than most strike fighters.

 

2. GUNSHIP LOCKING SHOULD GET YOU A WARNING!

 

The two are very different...

 

Here is a pro tip for playing a GS: Charge up your weapon, and do not target the person you intend to shoot until after it is ready to shoot. Then you can hit them right away without them realizing they were even being targeted.

 

In this situation, you would not get a 'warning', even if the Devs made it so you did.

[Gavin_Kelvar]

I believe you're confusing evasion with skill/reflex. It is harder in this game to hit a moving opponent because it requires faster reflexes and better skill. Would it make sense to make it even harder to hit a moving target to add evasion?

 

I think what he's talking about is perhaps best explained by a tactic that was used pre-2.6 Back then when evasion was super powerful you could literally sit completely still, pop distortion field and for the duration become completely immune to enemy fire. It made no sense back then why something called "evasion" was equally powerful when you were sitting completely still as when you were actually moving. Ultimately dogfights devolved to where evasion heavy fighters would come to full stops and just rotate around like turrets shooting at their enemy while they were immune to return fire.

 

Among the many solutions proposed making evasion scale with movement speed was one. It wasn't a matter of making it harder to hit a moving target but rather making it easier to hit a stationary target and act to discourage ships from coming to full stops relying on evasion to not make that a completely suicidal dogfighting tactic.

[Ramalina]

Well, this is an MMO, and Star Wars is really more space fantasy than science fiction, so there's a lot of completely illogical stuff.

 

For example, you couldn't fire ions or plasma with a real railgun. Electromagnetic accelerators, sure, but not a railgun.

 

Laser cannon/Blaster bolts would travel at speeds of 100,000,000 to 299,000,000 meters per second instead of speeds of 30 - 1000 meters per second. (Blaster bolts in the ground game are so slow that you can pass them if you're taking a taxi). The animations are completely wrong, and you wouldn't need to lead the target at all if this were physics based.

 

The list goes on, and it is VEEEEERRRRY long.

 

The solution, is to just not worry about it. If you want to complain about evasion or railguns, you're better off complaining about how they affect gameplay, because the fact that they seem a bit ridiculous if you've ever passed a physics course isn't likely to change. They are the way they are for storytelling and cinematic/aesthetic reasons. Often for very good storytelling and aesthetic reasons, which makes change unlikely and perhaps even undesirable.

[SammyGStatus]

The gunship can miss. It's manually aimed, like cannons. In that regard, the absence of warning is normal.

 

However, I believe they do not deserve having shots stronger than missiles (speaking of Slug only), and believe their damage should be similar (Slug ~ Concussion Missile)

Beside this thing about Slug and the ridiculous drain of Ion, I think Gunship are otherwise okay.

 

Slug is fine - it's the Ion drain making a ship become a paperweight in 2 shots that's the issue. The slug's power is part of the ship - I have low mobility, low hull / shields, and can't compete on a level other than damage (in which case the GS is king).This is the point of the class. Strike fighters can take a beating while still delivering payloads and attacks, scouts have speed, bombers have defense / mines / drones, and GS is strictly offense. Lesser pilots of the GS are easy to slay because of the lack of mobility options / the difficulty of understanding tactical awareness. Once you get to the higher levels of piloting, GS pilots learn how to stay alive and deliver devastating results BECAUSE THAT'S THEIR CLASS ROLE. Sometimes I'll pop 5 shots full charge at a scout and miss every one (when he's not even popping disto field / running evasion). Slug's should remain more powerful than missiles, unless you want to propose taking away from the defenses of the strikes so that I only need to one-shot BLC you, because 2 missiles will destroy a GS (though if you get hit with a proton, you're in trouble).

 

To OP - Evasion is fine. It's a big of an issue, but for the most part, it's nothing that can't be overcome with a little bit of tactics and piloting. Once they nerf the ion a bit, it'll be even better because then I can whip out my ion on a scout and leave it dead in the water WITHOUT FEELING LIKE AN OP @&^$ tool. If you're having trouble, you may consider targetting telemetry / wingman (I think that's the one that gives the accuracy boost). Alex and I were talking about it b/c I run disto field / running evasion / hae a natural 23% evasion, so when everything is up, I have around ~55% (can't remember exactly how much disto field gets with the first tier). That's only for a few seconds though, so if you can manage to not get destroyed in that time, your next hits will probably land. Just all about recognizing the situation

[Devrius]

How can Evasion be passive?

 

Simple, if you think of it like any defense that needs to be circumvented to land a blow it becomes obvious.

 

"Evasion" can be explained in the case of the ships as the difficulty for the targeting computers in charge of laser firing to establish a proper lock, be it by having a hard time recognizing specially coated reflective armor plating (light armor), having electrical fields making the lock fail (running interference and disruption field) and finally by having crew members use targeting jammers.

 

Keep in mind the reason weapons have different damage and accuracy rating at different ranges is because, while we still fire them manually and target them manually they still have a built in targeting computer that does part of the job.

[Gavin_Kelvar]

Slug is fine - it's the Ion drain making a ship become a paperweight in 2 shots that's the issue. The slug's power is part of the ship - I have low mobility, low hull / shields, and can't compete on a level other than damage (in which case the GS is king).

 

While I agree that ion is the real problem I could see a case being made for rebalancing the slug so that there is some appeal to taking the plasma railgun. Right now it seems like the slug is so good there is really no reason to pick the plasma railgun instead.

[Altheran]

While I agree that ion is the real problem I could see a case being made for rebalancing the slug so that there is some appeal to taking the plasma railgun. Right now it seems like the slug is so good there is really no reason to pick the plasma railgun instead.

That's it.

 

How Slug damages for now outperforms any other rail in most situations :

- Although supposedly weaker than Plasma, Slug being one hit will most of the time lead to a faster death of the target because you don't have to wait for the DoT.

- Its armor perforing property will make it as strong as Plasma, numerically speaking, against a target with 10% DR, and better against better armored targets.

- Its shield penetration will allow to dispose of most hull damaged (sometimes up to 30-40%) targets while having full shields in one shot, and instantly. Its the only rail able to do so.

- Only Ion is in theory able to do better, if hitting shields, because shields don't have DR, and result in a gain of 200 damage. But even this bonus isn't much worth, and is not significant enough to save a shot against most targets as very few have effective HP above 3200 (Bombers only)

 

As a result, Slug can be used exclusively without inducing any significant loss. Sometimes (facing no bombers) it hasn't even a drawback.

Edited April 5, 2014 by Altheran

[Gavin_Kelvar]

That's it.

 

How Slug damages for now outperforms any other rail in most situations :

- Although supposedly weaker than Plasma, Slug being one hit will most of the time lead to a faster death of the target because you don't have to wait for the DoT.

- Its armor perforing property will make it as strong as Plasma, numerically speaking, against a target with 10% DR, and better against better armored targets.

- Its shield penetration will allow to dispose of most hull damaged (sometimes up to 30-40%) targets while having full shields in one shot, and instantly. Its the only rail able to do so.

- Only Ion is in theory able to do better, if hitting shields, because shields don't have DR, and result in a gain of 200 damage. But even this bonus isn't much worth, and is not significant enough to save a shot against most targets as very few have effective HP above 3200 (Bombers only)

 

As a result, Slug can be used exclusively without inducing any significant loss. Sometimes (facing no bombers) it hasn't even a drawback.

 

Personally I think removing armor penetration from Slug would go a long way towards also balancing damage reduction to actually be worthwhile. If my below changes were made to plasma they might be able to also remove slug's shield penetration too. I guess my thought here is that if it became a pure damage weapon that needed another railgun to pierce shields/armor it might become a less obvious weapon choice. Kinda the quad lasers of the railgun world, great damage dealers but lacking in the shield and armor penetrating perks of more niche weapons like heavy cannons.

 

Maybe a good way to fix Plasma would be to make it like Thermite torpedoes whose impact causes shield penetration and weakening of damage reduction to occur? I think if such rebalancing was done it might make plasmas good opener alternates to ions while also being the only way for GS to get passed heavily armored targets. It would probably allow it to synergize well with slugs by basically serving to weaken enemies for a slug shot and the DOT serving to keep a ship damaged while you switch and charge railguns.

 

I honestly don't know how best to rebalance the GS but my impression is that slugs are preferred because they can pretty much do everything you could want in a hull damaging weapon with no drawbacks to that choice.

[Altheran]

Personally I think removing armor penetration from Slug would go a long way towards also balancing damage reduction to actually be worthwhile. If my below changes were made to plasma they might be able to also remove slug's shield penetration too. I guess my thought here is that if it became a pure damage weapon that needed another railgun to pierce shields/armor it might become a less obvious weapon choice. Kinda the quad lasers of the railgun world, great damage dealers but lacking in the shield and armor penetrating perks of more niche weapons like heavy cannons.

 

Maybe a good way to fix Plasma would be to make it like Thermite torpedoes whose impact causes shield penetration and weakening of damage reduction to occur? I think if such rebalancing was done it might make plasmas good opener alternates to ions while also being the only way for GS to get passed heavily armored targets. It would probably allow it to synergize well with slugs by basically serving to weaken enemies for a slug shot and the DOT serving to keep a ship damaged while you switch and charge railguns.

 

I honestly don't know how best to rebalance the GS but my impression is that slugs are preferred because they can pretty much do everything you could want in a hull damaging weapon with no drawbacks to that choice.

 

I agree that Plasma should probably have Thermite Torpedo's debuff. But I don't think that Slug should lose Armor Pen and Shields Pen...

That's what would make the Comet Breaker work : if you put aside his future Thermite Torpedo's that will make her somewhat viable soon but turn her into a fake Pike, the only weapon available (for now) are Slug, Plasma, and Proton.

Two options remains : Slug + Plasma or Slug + Proton. I don't consider Plasma + Proton as they have absolutely no synergy regardless of improvements. (Plasma is bad as a stand-alone Rail, and Proton would ignore the buff from Plasma)

The two combinations would work as they'll allow to quickly damage very hard the hull, without caring that much about shields and armor, either by allowing Slug to do massive direct hull damage thanks to induced bleedthrough or allowing Slug to complement Proton's massive hit (there's a lack of synergy in this last option because of pratical use issues, but that's another matter that can be solved - I believe).

 

 

Back on Slug Rail (and gunships in general) :

I'm pretty obstinate on the fact it's Slug's damage value that should be tuned down. Because as long as Slug will deal so massive damage, whether it penetrates shield and armor or not, Ion Railgun's advantage on shields will not matter (or very few) and it will still need its ridiculous drains/AoE/stunlock to have a chance to be interesting...

Edited April 5, 2014 by Altheran

[GokenX]

Plasma when paired with slug is deadly since when you spec into the 20% damage reduction for plasma. At the most 2 shots, the reason why GS pilots pick ion is that is better is most situations as it can slow enemies or stop energy regen. and if I'm not mistaken that same damage reduction is on the thermite torpedos. Edited April 6, 2014 by GokenX

[Kuciwalker]

Plasma when paired with slug is deadly since when you spec into the 20% damage reduction for plasma. At the most 2 shots, the reason why GS pilots pick ion is that is better is most situations as it can slow enemies or stop energy regen. and if I'm not mistaken that same damage reduction is on the thermite torpedos.

 

The 20% armor reduction on plasma does NOTHING to help slug, which has native 100% armor pen.

 

Plasma is garbage.

[Gavin_Kelvar]

The 20% armor reduction on plasma does NOTHING to help slug, which has native 100% armor pen.

 

Plasma is garbage.

 

That's why I was thinking removing the 100% armor penetration from slug might help. Basically make plasma the weapon if you want a build for using slugs to take out armored targets and ions if you want slugs to take out targets with heavy shields (this assumes ion is balanced so the energy drain is a nice perk rather than defining feature similar to how with other ion weapons the energy drain is nice but not one of the main reasons you take them).