a way to buff sensors and nerf mines at the same time

[Kuciwalker]

cf thread title

[Armonddd]

Inefficient at both without solving the core problems of either. Therefore, overall poor design.

[Kuciwalker]

Regarding "it's been done well in other games":

 

In order for sensors to mean something, at least one of the following has to be true:

 

1. You spend an appreciable amount of time unable to see the enemy.
   
2. You would spend an appreciable amount of time unable to see the enemy, but that would put you at a serious disadvantage, so your team invests in scouts.
   

 

Combine these with the following premise:

1. The game does not let you be shot at by enemies you cannot target. (i.e. keep the 15km min detection distance.)
   

 

(1) + (A) necessarily implies that you spend an appreciable amount of time not actually fighting, which sucks unless you get to do some other thing while you aren't fighting. But if there is some other fun, useful thing you can do while not fighting, that probably forces (2).

 

But (2) does not work in GSF without truly radical overhauls to the nature of the game. Consider the two game types:

 

TDM

 

Even with bombers, GSF and TDM have few mechanics that really enable one team to establish a durable strategic advantage, especially not one strongly linked to the spatial distribution of forces. There is generally minimal advantage in attempting to muster forces outside the enemy's detection range and then attack en masse from an unexpected direction. There is some advantage in the mustering itself - holding back briefly so you aren't flying into the enemy piecemeal - but very little of this advantage depends on the enemy not knowing where you are.

 

That last bit is crucial. The strategic "terrain" is ephemeral, not durable, and so while things like flanking attacks can be useful, they occur (and have to occur) on timescales too small for detection to matter much. A ship can reorient within seconds.

 

Compare 8v8 Slayer in Halo. This is essentially the same gametype as TDM, with weapon and vehicle drops substituting for powerups. What's different about Halo that makes scouting useful?

 

If my team controls the ridge on Ragnarock, that provides a durable advantage. It's a lot easier for us to get kills, and it's harder for them to take the ridge precisely because we have it. If they can sneak a force through the gully to hit the ridge-defenders from behind, though, that could help them take the ridge and the associated advantage. But if we see the sortie in time, we may be able to attack it while it's en route and vulnerable.

 

If GSF had slow lumbering capital ships (or even slow lumbering corvettes), or TDM had map features like capturable turrets things might be different. But they don't, and those would be huge changes.

 

(Additionally, sensors don't actually help with detecting powerups.)

 

Domination

 

Domination could make detection useful, but it would require substantial map changes and I don't think they would improve the game.

 

The advantage of knowing that enemy forces are incoming to a node before they get there is small. The distances between nodes are short enough, and the time to destroy turrets + capture long enough, that the disappearance of a turret on the score panel is generally enough warning to respond in time. If it weren't enough warning - say capture time was reduced, there were fewer turrets, whatever - then you would still prefer to invest in a node defender than in a scout. Adding one (competent) ship to defend a node will definitely extend the capture time enough that you can respond.

 

How could this be changed? Well, you would have to increase map sizes a lot and sensor ranges commensurately. That might make detection useful. But to what end? It doesn't make the gameplay much more interesting or strategic. You are still ultimately just deciding which of three nodes to fly to.

 

Conclusion

 

Attempting to make detection relevant to GSF requires substantial changes to the game (far more than the sort of balance patches we see Bioware do; the probability of them actually redesigning the maps is basically 0) and probably wouldn't make it more interesting anyway.

Edited April 18, 2014 by Kuciwalker

[Verain]

But introducing secondary effects adds bloat and complexity without solving the inherent problem.

Disagree, it's been done well in other games. And if the changes to sensors aren't intended to address the problems with sensors, why make changes at all?

Inefficient at both without solving the core problems of either. Therefore, overall poor design.

 

All of these things.

 

Essentially, the sensors would cease to be sensors, and would quickly become mandatory side picks for whatever their power is. The best we've seen might be sat comm range, mine detonation range, and friendly buff range. These would likely all dominate over the actual intended purpose of these components, right? Like you'd never take comms for the comms, you'd take it for capture range or whatever.

Edited April 19, 2014 by Verain

[Kuciwalker]

All of these things.

 

Essentially, the sensors would cease to be sensors, and would quickly become mandatory side picks for whatever their power is. The best we've seen might be sat comm range, mine detonation range, and friendly buff range. These would likely all dominate over the actual intended purpose of these components, right? Like you'd never take comms for the comms, you'd take it for capture range or whatever.

 

Sensors qua sensors are already almost meaningless.

 

You could delete the component from the game, and remove the Tactical crew passive buffs, and it would make very little difference.

 

The game could, in theory, redesigned to change this... but the redesign would make the game worse and/or be far too large to ever actually happen.

 

I am only concerned with changes Bioware might actually make.

 

And the only such change that I can see that might make this meaningful would be to add ancillary benefits to the components - benefits that are at loosely thematically related to the original component. Bonus points if these changes also help fine-tune other balance issues currently in the game.

[Pilgrim_Grey]

I'm inclined to agree with Kuciwalker with this. Yeah, there are some negatives about giving them added characteristics, but they need some kind of flavor to make them worthwhile and more of an interesting choice (and yeah... not sure I want the game to move toward having drastically lowered radar range if we're going to keep gunships working as they are, and I don't really want them changed from how they work at long range). I don't know that I agree that this is the best way to make them more interesting, but the idea is worth pursuing.

[Korithras]

@OP if you want to talk about a way to deal with mines, they need to give that red bubble around them an accurate range. So that you know "if you cross this bubble, the mine will detonate." right now it's just very hard to see the mines to begin with, and even if you do spot the red bubble, it's totally ineffective in marking the blast radius for the mine.