GSF Balance according to Verain (long posts!)

[Verain]

I don't hate scouts...

 

I guess not, but you DO get pretty worked up about what is (IMO) a reasonably large power gap. You enjoy dogfighting and prefer your strikes greatly, so I think this is natural and reasonable.

 

I don't want Disto to be OMG terrible... that wasn't the intent. the intent was to find a balance. Adding - Sheild pierce to a shield doenst help it a tremendous amount against missiles. It helps a little yes but not a tremendous amount. Are you saying scouts and GS should still always take Disto if that's the case then the Disto nerf wouldn't be enough.

 

I think the type 1 gunship would "always" take distortion, and that's fine. The other shield components on a type 1 gunship are very niche, with fortress requiring you to hold still and feedback being an offensive component. These two just got buffed generously and are no longer trap components, but neither is meant to be your go-to shield choice on that ship. I would argue that you would see a few more fortress and feedback users, just because the power of disto wouldn't be everything (and because fortress might even offer some shield hardness), but I wouldn't expect that change to make you change your type 1 gunship.

 

 

But scouts and type 3 gunships? These have more than one "real" shield component each, and right now they almost exclusively use distortion. Are you saying that not only would you still use distortion, but you would feel compelled to, on all these ships?

 

 

In Verainiverse, here's what you get when picking a shield component:

 

Distortion: -20% class base shield power, +9% evasion, all missiles take 0.25 seconds longer to acquire a lock. 20 second cooldown: +35% evasion. Choice: +5-20% evasion based on range (5k->15k), or +3 seconds of duration on use.

 

Quick Charge Shield: -10% class base shield power, +60% class base regeneration, +45% engine recently consumed rate (boosting essentially costs less), 30 second cooldown: recharge 36% of class base to front and back shield arcs. Choice: 60% of regeneration continues even when under fire, or reduce the cooldown on the active to 20 seconds.

 

Directional Shields: +10% class base shield power. On use: Shift some large undefined amount of shield power between fore and aft shields (seems like at minimum 90% of shield arc- it is definitely very large), no cooldown. Each arc gains either 0% shield hardness if not energized, 5% if the shields are set to balanced, or 10% if the shields are energizing that arc. Choice: -3 seconds to shield regeneration delay, or +10% shield regeneration [this second choice could go up quite a bit]

 

Now... do you feel that the type 3 gunship would always pick distortion there? Do you feel that the type 2 scout would always pick distortion (he has all three to pick from)? The type 1 scout also gets to pick shield to engine, which is a bit stronger with 5% shield hardness, and the type 3 scout also gets to pick between a buffed repair drone (his final talent can actually boost his defenses) and a buffed shield projector (he gives shield hardness during the active to his allies and himself).

 

Is the distortion, as outlined above, that much better?

 

Maybe you think it is. I just don't. I think that's nowhere close to the compare on live. But if those WERE your choices, wouldn't you feel pretty good about the others? If not, why not? Is shield hardness not an attractive stat, as outlined in this thread?

 

If we assume people take and hand half as is intended by the devs (because we know the devs actually WANT us to choose between the left and right upgrade)

 

Whoa whoa whoa. There's NO WAY that the devs designed every intent with the assumption that "half" of people would take each choice. That's silly. I'm not sure what their criteria is for the choice things, but "having a difficult and interesting choice" is often cited as a design goal in other games, but I've never heard a dev come out and say a talent point or setting should be 50/50 as an example of balance.

 

Many of the talents let you choose between something that is situationally good and something that is generically good, or things that are good at different situations. Heavy Laser tier 4 is a choice between armor piercing (situationally good) and improved crit and tracking (generically good). Almost everyone takes the armor one, but that's because there's enough armor to generally, in the meta, make it better. If literally everyone was flying scouts and starguards, heavy lasers would normally be the tracking one. Many lasers offer a choice between 16% hull damage and 18% shield damage, with shields being most of what you strike in this game, so you get a choice between something that is situationally good (attacking a hull and dealing much more lethal damage) or something that is generically good (a larger damage bonus against most targets). I exclusively pick that hull damage one, personally, and I doubt the ratio is 50/50, though neither is wrong.

 

So I don't expect that the intention is that "half" of distortions pick the left and half pick the right. I expect the intention is that if you don't worry about missiles for whatever reason, but you DO care about gunship railduels, you pick the right talent, and if not, you pick the left. There's definitely talent choices with less real choice than this one.

 

But we all agree that left talent is too good on live, and I would argue that the right talent is too weak. I would argue it was much stronger when it doubled what was essentially a blaster and railgun invulnerability field.

 

 

I am trying to find a way to appease the masses.

 

I'm just trying to suggest changes that will, I think, make the game deeper, have more choices, and generally be more fun. I want there to be less wrong buttons, and more right ones, and I want new players to have less trap choices and veterans to have more strategies. I want there to be "soft counters" for some strats, because I think some strats are decently strong enough that they are safe to lean on. Not rock paper scissors, but just like, "man, everyone is running X tonight, I'm sick of dying to that crap so I'll get my Y". The game has a lot of that, but it could use a bit more.

 

 

We have never seen EVASION based on range implemented Accuracy is there and if they can do so great

 

The point is more that they are the same stat, and neither seems to have any kind of cap. They could code it as accuracy internally, or whatever.

 

We haven't seen them implement something on a player as a defensive technique to increase Missile lock times

 

Yes, of course not. This thread is full of design ideas, and I tried to limit myself to what their existing codebase appears capable of. That doesn't mean it's the only solution, or even the best one, but it kept my suggestions grounded. Just because increased missile lock time isn't available in that fashion isn't a reason to assume the code can't do it- in fact, the fact that it is variable is already in the game, so I figure they could use something else with it. I'm surprised you are talking yourself out of it. I actually think that such an effect would be pretty spot on, and I'm pretty pleased with the idea, but it's far from the only way to solve the perceived problem of disto being too good against missiles.

 

I asked if you thought 0 loss in shields was reasonable because it was a serious question

 

Actually, I don't really. I don't feel any mild generic shield buff will work when the answer is that the shield needs defenses against specifically missiles. You're hoping to design a shield that is overly good against blasters and railguns, while being as weak as non-defensive choices like feedback shield against missiles. I don't think that the whole defensive shield component should throw its hands up in the air when faced with a missile, and clearly neither do the devs. This is, on live, the STRONGEST component against missiles. A redesign of it to the WEAKEST is IMO crappy, and will just absolutely crap on every scout and the two useful gunships.

 

So no, I wouldn't want that, I don't feel a 20% shield swing that the shield doesn't need versus railguns and blasters is good, and I don't feel that the 20% base shield bonus would help much versus missiles at all. I think there's a lot of ways the devs could approach this without having a full missile lock break, and even plenty of ways they could WITH a missile lock break. For instance, if the devs believe that disto is an issue in the missile meta, they might try having a much bigger cooldown (35 seconds talented) with a larger passive boost, and a greater duration of active and maybe even a better active boost, but keeping the break. There's a lot they could do. Just erasing that the shield was ever good against a missile is not cool or fun, though. IMO the whole point of the shield is really that missile break.

 

I was under the impression these changes were supposed to make it OK for Flashfires to choose Directional instead of DF, if not then whats the point besides "buffing strkes.... oh but the best shields in the game are still DF" I would feel like the job is half done man...

 

Actually, it wouldn't be the end of the world if every flashfire continued to run disto. It's much more in flavor for scouts and synergizes better with them in concept. Unlike a strike, they don't have a large shield amount to play off of. Doubling a tiny shield is weaker than doubling the strongest one in the game. Meanwhile, evasion pays off the more you have- each 1% is worth progressively more and more than the last one, and strikes start with 5% evasion (and the starguard can't even get the 9% from armor), while every scout can have 19% with just a secondary component upgraded to max. Starting at 10 SHOULD make distortion really good for scouts.

 

But I think that with the buffs above, you could run the others too. QCC would make your more mobile and not result in paper thin shields as on live. Directional would be a lot stronger and if you DID get pegged with a slug on approach, it would be not the 493 of live to hull, but 307.

 

Edit: oh and both Directional and DF have the same "base regen"

 

I was pointing out the 3 second regen delay being more regeneration. That's the one everyone takes, and it is strictly better than the 10% regeneration. Needing 6 seconds with no hit versus 3 is not a small deal.

 

 

 

Uh, really? Back in the days of ion love tap the +3s was way more important than the missile break.

 

You reported this back then, and we had the conversation back then. The short version was, it was vastly superior for railduels, which you obviously found yourself in plenty, and vastly inferior for if you had scouts and strikes in melee range a lot, which was clearly not the issue you found yourself with. I will argue that it was a reasonable uncommon choice, because I saw very few gunships with it and only a few more scouts. When I tried it, I would simply have to run more and more often versus anything but an enemy gunship. I know that some solid scouts used it for extra relief from railguns and enemy attacks, because with a 10 second barrel roll missiles that weren't cluster would hit infrequently enough.

[tunewalker]

Ok bud, on this whole "dsito would become the 'worst' against missiles" even if it was buffed to be equal base shield strength is a load of bull..... If we honestly want to look at your suggestion on a scout....

 

Disto shield strength PWR to Weapons or engines

 

1170 (just like now)

950 hull (just like now)

 

Base evasion 33%

 

Active evasion vs close range enemies: 73%

Active Evasion vs railguns (the burst damage most fear): 83-89%

Active vs cluster missiles: 6% decrease in dps 20% decrease burst speed

Active vs Concussion: 3% decrease in dps, 10% decrease burst speed

Active vs Thermite/proton: 1.75% decrease in dps, 8% decrease burst speed

(if you are wondering DPS is taking into account reload times, these are all rough numbers not 100% accurate cus I am not wasting that kind of time)

 

EHP vs lasers and rails passive: 2700(just like now)

EHP vs lasers active: 3600 (slightly higher then now realistically it should be slightly higher)

EHP vs Railguins: 4000 (again realistically you should nearly unhittable unless an enemy stacks some serious Accuracy buffs)

EHP vs clusters with active (will only work on 2 before wearing out): 2200

If 0 missile defense was offered EHP vs Clusters would be: 2120 (aka yours wouldn't change how missiles really effect them all that much anyway. The primary limiting factor for missiles isn't lock time its reload time which is why I laught at everyone who some how thinks your plan is "to strong a defense against missile" but its not something I believe the devs can do easily which is why I tried to find an easy work around that would come with an equal result..)

 

My suggestion stream lines

 

1300 shields

950 hull

 

33% evasion

 

EHP vs Rails and lasers Passive: 3000

EHP vs Missiles: 2250

EHP vs Rails and lasers with active: 4050

On Use EHP vs Missiles: 2250

 

On average, mine will have just as much defense against missiles as your plan.... though this again is "on Average" I am sure yous is built more around the idea of Missile burst while also providing better railgun and laser defenses...

 

 

VS directional

 

Power to engins or weapons

 

Shield strength= 1690 (just like live)

Hull Strength= 950

Additional -5% shield bleedthrough added making burst shield damage slightly less threatening..

 

Evasion 24% (calling it 25 for ease of my math)

"Doubled on location" 2730-3180 around (going to assume the second one) 10% shield hardness again little help against shield pierce burst (most worried of is Pods and Rails.... you may notice something about the DF in this that means rails aren't as threatening..)

"blind side location" 100-250 or so shields (again going to assume the higher number)

 

 

base overall EHP (no direction or anything): 3200 (just like now)

Double front EHP: 4500-5000

Blind Side EHP: 125-325

 

(strength just like on live is its face can tank more then anything.... its base is strong enough though that it can do all right on both angles, BUT if it gets blind sided the thing explodes quickly it comes with a risk reward system built in.)

The only thing it has to lean on for "missile defense" or any of the like is its own strength. How many times have you been passing some one thinking the missile wont go off just to get hit in rear unlike suspected... or be head to heading one guy and get hit in the rear by another you didn't know about losing half your hull in under a second....

 

You talk as if other shields have a "missile defense" they don't quick charges "missile defense" is able to eat half of 1 missile that hits shields, if it ignore shields it does nothing. Directionals "Missile Defense" leaves it vulnerable to All other weapons including Missiles on the other side. Shield Projector in your world would have no Missile defense and would still have shields just as weak as Disto..... Overcharge shield has a lot of shields to bleed through but its poor regen means sustained damage is its enemy not burst. Charged plating great against 1 missile type but oh so vulnerable and worthless against the others... the same reason you don't want DR on Disto.....

 

The fact that its a choice means it wasn't meant for ALL Disto's to take it, even if a majority take it, it wasn't meant for all.

 

As I said in an edit a while back, its just like TT the reason TT is so strong is not its base design but the final upgrade. The base design and intent of a shield or weapon or engine can be seen in the mandatory upgrades the ones that EVERYONE has to take and has no choice in. These base uses and base upgrades are meant to be on every version of that item, but sometime one of the bottom tiers which are supposed to be fun little Icing on the cake for those that want it start to override the rest of the item all together....This like TT is an example of Buff the Cake... Nerf the Icing. The missile break has become the only thing people care about on Disto... that is wrong the biggest appeal to it should be the evasion, everyone should talk about how awesome it is at avoiding getting shot and how they don't want to lose that, not about how they want to be able to some how make more trivial lock-on weapons or the like....

 

 

Edit: I agree that the regen need sto go up on the "regen choice" on directionals something like 30% would be kind of awesome...

Edited July 24, 2014 by tunewalker

[SammyGStatus]

Uh, really? Back in the days of ion love tap the +3s was way more important than the missile break.

 

No wonder our duels always had me missing more than I thought they would have! The truth comes out

 

As far as the changes, I'd love to see some testing go on for this. Unfortunately, I don't see it happening soon, which is a downer.

Edited July 24, 2014 by SammyGStatus

[tunewalker]

I think the type 1 gunship would "always" take distortion, and that's fine. The other shield components on a type 1 gunship are very niche, with fortress requiring you to hold still and feedback being an offensive component. These two just got buffed generously and are no longer trap components, but neither is meant to be your go-to shield choice on that ship. I would argue that you would see a few more fortress and feedback users, just because the power of disto wouldn't be everything (and because fortress might even offer some shield hardness), but I wouldn't expect that change to make you change your type 1 gunship.

 

 

But scouts and type 3 gunships? These have more than one "real" shield component each, and right now they almost exclusively use distortion. Are you saying that not only would you still use distortion, but you would feel compelled to, on all these ships?

 

 

In Verainiverse, here's what you get when picking a shield component:

 

Distortion: -20% class base shield power, +9% evasion, all missiles take 0.25 seconds longer to acquire a lock. 20 second cooldown: +35% evasion. Choice: +5-20% evasion based on range (5k->15k), or +3 seconds of duration on use.

 

Quick Charge Shield: -10% class base shield power, +60% class base regeneration, +45% engine recently consumed rate (boosting essentially costs less), 30 second cooldown: recharge 36% of class base to front and back shield arcs. Choice: 60% of regeneration continues even when under fire, or reduce the cooldown on the active to 20 seconds.

 

Directional Shields: +10% class base shield power. On use: Shift some large undefined amount of shield power between fore and aft shields (seems like at minimum 90% of shield arc- it is definitely very large), no cooldown. Each arc gains either 0% shield hardness if not energized, 5% if the shields are set to balanced, or 10% if the shields are energizing that arc. Choice: -3 seconds to shield regeneration delay, or +10% shield regeneration [this second choice could go up quite a bit]

 

Now... do you feel that the type 3 gunship would always pick distortion there? Do you feel that the type 2 scout would always pick distortion (he has all three to pick from)? The type 1 scout also gets to pick shield to engine, which is a bit stronger with 5% shield hardness, and the type 3 scout also gets to pick between a buffed repair drone (his final talent can actually boost his defenses) and a buffed shield projector (he gives shield hardness during the active to his allies and himself).

 

Is the distortion, as outlined above, that much better?

 

Maybe you think it is. I just don't. I think that's nowhere close to the compare on live. But if those WERE your choices, wouldn't you feel pretty good about the others? If not, why not? Is shield hardness not an attractive stat, as outlined in this thread?

 

 

Ok to answer your questions 1 by 1.....

To "would I feel compeled to on all ships with Disto?" probably yes

Would type 3 gunship always take it? This one I am leaning towards no actually. Directional MIGHT be the more appealing here since it lacks armor for lightweight but both could certainly be argued

Type 2 scout always choose ditso: Absolutely there is little to no incentive to switch, it still provides the best overall defense against all kinds of burst of all components available. Directional potentially getting blindsided... though quick charge may become a niche build....

 

The type 1's choice of shield to engine will still be niche. Buffed shield projector and repair drone makes me laugh, one of the main reasons to take repair drone is completely gone with ammo replacement and shield hardness is nice and all but its main help would be found on things with much more shields then Hull IE Strike other ships will find little benefit from it outside unexpected Slug railguns which Disto is better against any way since that slug likely missed with your suggestion... both are still niche.

 

(remember Niche IS still an option its just a rare option only few will take but an option none the less)

 

I again feel you mostly miss understand my purpose here or with the argument in general. I am not trying to "nerf it further" I am trying to come up with an EQUAL nerf/buff that would be easier for the devs to implement. I think its ok that Most aren't going to want Directional on T2 scouts. I think its ok that Disto is what most prefer and others become niche builds that a few select people go "this is awesome I love this combo more then the generic Disto" and I truthfully believe your idea gets there. I am trying to find an EQUAL idea that achieves the same goal while being potentially easier for the devs to put in....

Edited July 24, 2014 by tunewalker

[Luneward]

Would I use directional on my t2? Probably not, but that's part of my build. I spec for mobility and not getting hit, and distro is still best option for that. At least directional would be an option if I wanted to make a more offensive build at that point so I could try to head to head with something while burning cooldowns. Would I use it on my t3 gunship? Hell yes. Only reason I use distro right now is the lock break. If I were better at evasive flying in my t3 I might still favor distro for better blaster defense, but as it stands I really don't have much of an option when distro offers better defense against both blaster fire and missiles.

 

You still haven't answered WHY a semi specialized anti-blaster/railgun shield needs special missile defense. Quick charge and directional aren't specialized toward any kind of fire and don't get any bonuses or penalties to any kind of weapon. Why should distro? It stands to reason to me if something has a slight advantage against something, it should be balanced out with a small disadvantage somewhere else. And while the devs may not intend 50% of the population to choose either of the upgrades, neither of the upgrades should be so niche that people wouldn't take it 90-95% of the time. There needs to be reasonable comparison between the two or you might as well not even give a choice at all.

Edited July 25, 2014 by Luneward

[Verain]

Would I use directional on my t2? Probably not, but that's part of my build. I spec for mobility and not getting hit, and distro is still best option for that. At least directional would be an option if I wanted to make a more offensive build at that point so I could try to head to head with something while burning cooldowns. Would I use it on my t3 gunship? Hell yes. Only reason I use distro right now is the lock break. If I were better at evasive flying in my t3 I might still favor distro for better blaster defense, but as it stands I really don't have much of an option when distro offers better defense against both blaster fire and missiles.

 

You still haven't answered WHY a semi specialized anti-blaster/railgun shield needs special missile defense.

 

It doesn't need "specialized" missile defense. It needs missile defense.

 

Everything that other shields do works against missiles, blasters, and railguns. Distortion field grants evasion, and missiles aren't on the evasion table.

 

Here's on live:

 

Directional:

Power versus missiles: Can double strength shields. Good shield strength.

Power versus blasters: Can double strength shields. Good shield strength.

 

 

 

Quick Charge Shield:

Power versus missiles: Can regenerate shields rapidly. Has instant shield heal. Can boost more.

Power versus blasters: Can regenerate shields rapidly. Has instant shield heal. Can boost more.

 

 

 

Distortion Field:

Power versus blasters: Gains passive evasion. On use, gains more evasion.

Power versus missiles: Can break a missile.

 

 

Obviously, distortion wouldn't need this if evasion worked against missiles.

 

 

 

 

On live, disto isn't a specialized thing versus railguns and blasters- it's the best anti-missile component.

[Magira]

 

2a- Distortion Field.

This is the best shield component in general. The few ships that don't run it when they can normally choose something very interesting instead, such as shield-to-engine (type 1 scout only, and a rather overbudget component that would be way overpowered if it was available on many other ships), or repair drone (for a type 3 scout that wants to go full support and plans to hug nodes and escort bombers only)...

 

This is not a shield (or very little ^ ^). This is a RNG factor in the game, which is out of place in PVP.

My big suggestion: Complete deletion of all RNG elements and thus abolition of Evasion, precision and the Distortion Field.

Small suggestion: Get rid of the missiles break, then it will anyway no longer used.

 

 

2e- TDM Powerups

 

I was personally sad to see the Damage Overcharge (“DO” or “red”) nerfed down to the mere 200% it is on live, but this change was reasonably popular. I really enjoyed learning the spawns from Drako and playing “Pac Man Scout” builds that would tear around and eat powerups whilst being able to deal devastating burst when the DO was found. But the bigger problem is that the powerups are too mixed a bag. This change set makes it worthwhile to get one in your vision without making the players primarily seeking out “the quad damage” instead of focusing on the correct objectives- enemy players...

PVE items in PVP. Get rid of it.

2f- Scout Burst Rebalance / Nerf

 

Scouts remain too bursty, especially in the hands of good players, especially with certain builds. A scout who has a bit of latency on his side (200-500ms) can launch several to-hit rolls of missiles and pods with no UI warning until many of the dice have been rolled (a target on the receiving end can see the damage play back once he has escaped, as a multiplier on the latency of the enemy client). Even without this technical issue, scout burst simply is the highest dps and shouldn't really be up there...

The burst of the Scouts is one of the few ways to annoy as a solo player a VOIP Premade. Should remain so.

2i- Remote Slicing

 

Verain Suggests: Increase the range on this ability.

Consent. Namely 10 km, in order to correspond to the range of the thermite torpedoes.

 

2k- Shield Power Converter and Weapon Power Converter

 

 

 

...All my ideas here are “give the user a buff when this component is pressed, and the buff lasts a few seconds”. These abilities are fundamentally underbudget because they give you a nice power, but you don't gain an engine maneuver. Even if you ignore the large tactical advantage of moving around rapidly and being able to dive out of line of sight of enemy blasters and rails, the three seconds of missile immunity combined with a missile lock break is just far too much to give up without real compensation...

 

I have no idea where the exaggerated fear of missiles coming from. The ships have a Shield Power Converter are only two torpedoes and one rocket really dangerous. (Thermite, Proton, concussion) the torpedo can (when not combined with remote slicing) easy to dodge. Concussion is a problem, absolutely. Always comes out to much enemy ships with these rockets are traveling. If there are many, change your ship, you have 5.

[Verain]

This is not a shield (or very little ^ ^). This is a RNG factor in the game, which is out of place in PVP.

 

The existence of everything in GSF having RNG means that they definitely intend for it to be here.

 

 

And for what it is worth- I absolutely want RNG in PvP. I don't download or play fully deterministic games normally, and SWTOR has never been like that at all.

 

My big suggestion: Complete deletion of all RNG elements and thus abolition of Evasion, precision and the Distortion Field.

 

So, you want literally everything redesigned. I mean, that's honest, but they'd tick off a lot of people, me included, to revert a large design like that.

 

Small suggestion: Get rid of the missiles break, then it will anyway no longer used.

 

This would be very unfair.

 

 

PVE items in PVP. Get rid of it.

 

PvE items are items earned through PvE. Anything happening in a battleground is definitely not PvE! Plenty of gunships barrel rolling to a damage overcharge and I blow them up on their way... not a PvE item for sure!

 

The burst of the Scouts is one of the few ways to annoy as a solo player a VOIP Premade. Should remain so.

 

Why not add a bunch of really powerful other things, like slug railgun does 4k?

 

Also nothing allows a solo player to survive versus a good premade- certainly this shouldn't be used as justification for broken anything.

 

 

I really think a lot of your ideas come from a set of terrible places- you want the game redesigned from the ground up, with wildly powerful burst patched into the game because somehow that's supposed to mess up a premade. These two things are actually opposite- if you hate premades and want a solo player to be able to do well despite being substantially outskilled, RNG is the way to go, for instance.

 

But both ideas are really bad.

 

 

I have no idea where the exaggerated fear of missiles coming from. The ships have a Shield Power Converter are only two torpedoes and one rocket really dangerous.

 

That's not really true. Are you thinking of just bombers, who have a playstyle that backs this up? Remember this component is also on the Pike and Clarion. The missiles that players use in this game are: cluster, concussion, proton, thermite, ion. Of those, three of them devastate a shield power converter, and the other two aren't bad.

 

But the big thing is, why would you take these things over a missile break?

 

If there are many, change your ship, you have 5.

 

Your solution to imbalance is to just play the good ships? Super, great, I know how to get on my good ships, thanks.

 

 

Are you posting from bizarro world?

[tunewalker]

verain, my question to you is with the loss of a missile break, with out having the shield change the lock on time damage or reload time of the missile (lock on times and reload times having only recorded being modifiable OUTSIDE a match and DR as you said isn't a REAL defense against missiles)

 

What other method could we take with DF to make missiles meaningful, but not devastating? any ideas.... buffing shield strength? Making it specialized? (if they made is specialized I would think the ones that don't have a proper defensive shield would need a new one for more generic defenses so specialized may not be the proper way to go)

Or some other method I haven't thought of that currently exists in game, maybe the on use regens some of the shield like Quick charge or something.....

Edited July 25, 2014 by tunewalker

[Altheran]

On live, disto isn't a specialized thing versus railguns and blasters- it's the best anti-missile component.

 

Please, do EHP simulations with excel or something.

 

You'll see that as far as only shots are involved, when active, Distortion is ages ahead of even Directionals, and when passive, Directionals barely stand the comparizon.

You'll even see that when meshing a Concussion missile (/!\ a huge one there /!\) in the calculation, Directional is still not ahead. You'll also see that in their passive state, with that Concussion Missile, Distortion will be in the worst case, only lagging behind by a single blaster shot.

 

 

Examples of my numbers :

 

EHP against shots while Distortion is active or Directionals "doubles" shields.

 

Lack of Accuracy	FlashFire w/ DF	FlasfFire w/ Dir	"Real" HP Diff *	Percieved Dmg **				
0%				7438			5370			662				1718
1%				7677			5441			693				1687
2%				7933			5513			726				1654
3%				8207			5588			760				1620
4%				8500			5664			794				1586
5%				8815			5743			829				1551
6%				9154			5824			866				1514
7%				9520			5907			903				1477
8%				9917			5993			942				1438
9%				10348			6081			981				1399
10%				10818			6172			1022			1358
11%				11333			6265			1064			1316
12%				11900			6362			1108				1272
13%				12526			6461			1152				1228
14%				13222			6563			1199				1181
15%				14000			6669			1246			1134
16%				14875			6779			1295			1085
17%				15867			6892			1346			1034
18%				17000			7008			1399			981
19%				18308			7129			1453			927
20%				19833			7254			1509			871
21%				21636			7384			1568			812
22%				23800			7518			1628			752
23%				26444			7657			1691			689
24%				29750			7802			1756			624
25%				34000			7952			1823			557
26%				39667			8108			1894			486
27%				47600			8270			1967			413
28%				59500			8439			2042			338
29%				79333			8615			2122			258
30%				119000			8798			2204			176
31%				238000			8989			2290			90
32%				∞ 				(Do we really need a comparizon here ?)

* "Real" HP difference is EHP difference translated back into HP
* Percieved damage is the difference between Full HP and "Real" HP diff.

And that is assuming damages always come on the right arc.

 

EHP passively

Lack of Accuracy	FlashFire w/ DF	FlasfFire w/ Dir	"Real" HP Diff *		
0%				3552			3597			-30
1%				3606			3645			-26
2%				3662			3693			-21
3%				3719			3743			-16
4%				3778			3795			-11
5%				3839			3847			-5
6%				3902			3901			0
7%				3967			3957			6
8%				4034			4014			11
9%				4103			4074			17
10%				4175			4134			23
11%				4250			4197			30
12%				4327			4262			36
13%				4407			4328			43
14%				4491			4397			50
15%				4577			4468			57
16%				4667			4541			64
17%				4760			4617			72
18%				4857			4695			79
19%				4958			4776			88
20%				5064			4860			96
21%				5174			4946			105
22%				5289			5036			114
23%				5409			5130			123
24%				5535			5226			133
25%				5667			5327			143
26%				5805			5431			153
27%				5950			5540			164
28%				6103			5653			175
29%				6263			5771			187
30%				6432			5894			199
31%				6611				6022			212
32%				6800			6156			226
33%				7000			6295			240
34%				7212			6442			254
35%				7438			6595			270
36%				7677			6756			286
37%				7933			6925			303
38%				8207			7103			320
39%				8500			7289			339
40%				8815			7486			359

 

Edited July 25, 2014 by Altheran

[Magira]

if you hate premades and want a solo player to be able to do well despite being substantially outskilled..

 

Nope, I do not hate me himself ^ ^. Meanwhile, I'm about 60% in groups go, but I am also quite happy to have a decent solo gaming experience.

 

In contrast to Ground PVP Premades in GSF are indeed strong but not completely overpowering. The situation should continue, please.

[Magira]

And for what it is worth- I absolutely want RNG in PvP. I don't download or play fully deterministic games normally, and SWTOR has never been like that at all.

 

SWTOR is here in the bad tradition of MMOs such as WOW, which were first conceived as PVE and PVP have received only as a supplement.

As PVP games designed MMOs like Guild Wars (1, not 2) contain no RNG elements, no crit or surge.

 

Where i am for 8 years PVP (without Gear differences, RNG, and all other PVE nonsense) is obvious.

Edited July 25, 2014 by Magira

[Ryuku-sama]

This is not a shield (or very little ^ ^). This is a RNG factor in the game, which is out of place in PVP.

My big suggestion: Complete deletion of all RNG elements and thus abolition of Evasion, precision and the Distortion Field.

 

Do you even understand WHY there is RNG in GSF??? Or are you too lost in your no-RNG PvP to understand???

The game needs RNG. Without it it would be easier to hit anything at long range than at short range. Well... It is already the case... It would be worst without RNG. Another RNG factor.. the ships' size. Scouts and small crafts have higher evasion than biggger crafts, like bomber, to make them harder to hit. The game translate everything as dots. Simple dots moving on the map. That's why there is no collision detection.

Without RNG, this game would be unplayable.

 

If there are many, change your ship, you have 5.

 

Now I know you're trolling us... Change your ship seriously. That's your answer.

So you're saying to change ship if your ship isn't adapted for the situation. Well there is two problems with that. First of all, NEWBIES!!!!! The game is already far from newb-friendly. And now to perform relatively well in a match you need 5 builds mastered??? This is ********. Simple. Every ship should have a chance in every situation. Sure there is and should have soft counter, but no hard counter. Skill is much more important than a counter. (Between I'm the guy slaughtering Gunnies on a fricking Bomber when they dare come around My sat and Gunnies ARE Bomber best counter.) And this lead us to our second point. The time needed to die and get on another ship, then get back to the fight can

a) put your team at a huge disadvantage.

b) have changed the meta around an objective enough that your ship isn't optimal anymore.

[Kuciwalker]

Do you even understand WHY there is RNG in GSF??? Or are you too lost in your no-RNG PvP to understand???

The game needs RNG. Without it it would be easier to hit anything at long range than at short range. Well... It is already the case... It would be worst without RNG. Another RNG factor.. the ships' size. Scouts and small crafts have higher evasion than biggger crafts, like bomber, to make them harder to hit. The game translate everything as dots. Simple dots moving on the map. That's why there is no collision detection.

Without RNG, this game would be unplayable.

 

Without RNG, this game would be Freelancer, which was eminently playable.

[Ryuku-sama]

Without RNG, this game would be Freelancer, which was eminently playable.

 

Well... Not having played Freelancer I can't really comment here. But from what I've seen in a quick search... Ships' size actually change with distance making them harder to hit.. GSF doesn't even have this feature!!! That's why distance are so huge in GSF... To hide the simple fact that the engine doesn't consider the whole ship but only a small dot, dot which NEVER change size no matter the distance.

[Kuciwalker]

Well... Not having played Freelancer I can't really comment here. But from what I've seen in a quick search... Ships' size actually change with distance making them harder to hit.. GSF doesn't even have this feature!!! That's why distance are so huge in GSF... To hide the simple fact that the engine doesn't consider the whole ship but only a small dot, dot which NEVER change size no matter the distance.

 

That effect was largely mitigated by a form of autoaim where your cursor would gently lock to the center of the lead indicator if it was close enough. (Note though that in Freelancer the shots were actual projectiles, not hitscan.)

[Verain]

Everything in GSF could be done without a combat table roll (miss/hit/crit), with the ONE exception of ion railgun's final talent. You'd simply replace all that math with magnitude math.

 

And that game would be ok, but I'd be a lot less interested in it. In my opinion, ALL good pvp games have this RNG built in. WoW launched with PvP, but raids had to be patched in later. Warcraft and Starcraft have damage rolls that happen on each hit, nothing is fully deterministic. League of Legends has a combat table. Would hit/crit help Halo? I think the players of that game would tell you no, but I would tell you yes. How well do you think I'd be received going over there and telling them that crit would make their game better, and that it should have it?

 

 

It's not a pvp versus pve thing. It's that fundamentally, if you pull the trigger and don't know what's going to happen, that means you had to consider more information to get there. If your whatever deals 400 damage and you can tell the enemy has 500 hit points, a game without a hit/crit table lets you understand that the first attack WILL hit (if you play it correct) and you won't kill him, and if you can get a second attack, THEN you win. So if you have a choice between launching an attack that will result in fatal counterfire, staying hidden, and running, you can safely excuse that first option.

 

If there's a combat table, this is much richer. I can decide on the average case, but I can also ask questions like "is it worth chancing it?", because even if we are both good and will hit our shots, I'm making the dealer show the river if I chose to hop on out there. My character could crit him, and failing that, my character could dodge. My situation becomes, in this example, much more interesting.

 

 

 

The other way isn't wrong either. I don't think you'd make Chess a lot better if you randomly determined move outcomes (my bishop is attacking, so that's a +6, but knights get a +2 to defense versus bishops, so I need 8 or better on this d20...). But I do feel that games that involve characters running around necessarily involve a level of simulation anyway, and I like it thematically (my character choice matters, not just me) and from a play perspective (situations don't become trivially understandable and solvable with enough experience).

 

 

 

Anyway- this conversation is veering off topic. None of my suggested changes involve huge redesigns of combat systems, or churlishly abandoning people who use components or strategies that I personally have some vendetta against, and I'd like you to keep it out of here. If you want a suggestion with distortion, do it with the spirit that the devs have offered us distortion- it uses RNG, it's generally the best against missiles, it offers a very strong average case defense against blasters and railguns while shrinking shield reserves such that the successful shots hurt more and being vulnerable to active abilities such as In Your Sights, Wingman, Combat Command, and Targeting Telemetry- these abilities don't increase damage versus a bomber anywhere in the manner that they do against a scout, for instance.

[Verain]

Ion Cannon- This is a strange guy.

 

Ion Cannon is generally bad on live. As everyone knows, its two limitations- that it is ineffective against hull, and that it goes to 4000m max instead of the 5000m you would expect- greatly reduce its offensive potential. It also has some really terrible talent choices- in order to get any kind of system drain you have to give up extra range AND extra damage, and the drain is not consequential.

 

The final nail in the coffin is that you "lose" your left click when you press 1. This is interesting because it is likely unintended, and it is also not an issue depending on your access to niche hardware (there's no difference on a type 1 strike between holding down a left mouse button and pressing it every tenth of a second, but the second choice is both achievable through macros and gets around the button 1 limit).

 

 

But when people ignore the ion cannon, are these even the reasons? Certainly removing some of these restrictions would be a buff on the weapon, but...

 

1)- The weapon does unreasonable dps. It's honestly ludicrous, blowing away the dps of anything else. Obviously, this is only to shields.

2)- The weapon "should" be strong against ships that rely on shields, and weaker against ones that rely on not being targeted much, or evasion. In the current meta, those types of ships are overrepped a bit, so ion's lack of use could be in part just because scouts are so good.

3)- The weapon "should" be strong against ships that can't outmaneuver a strike fighter, and weaker against more mobile ones. Again, with scouts being the preferred dogfighters, a closer range weapon is just more dangerous to select- if the meta didn't have so many, it would be different.

4)- The weapon would have synergy with burst laser cannon, light laser cannon, or a version of rapid fire lasers that is not awful. The lack of these weapons really limits the potential of the gun, and these weapons are kind of addressed in the rest of the post. A rapid fire laser / ion strike would be pretty scary if RFL was good.

5)- The weapon "should" be strong against ships that don't sit at really long distances sniping. While an ion cannon is actually really devastating to a gunship, you'd generally prefer heavy lasers because of how much time you spend chasing an enemy gunship or diving at one.

 

 

 

This is why I didn't really list it. If you take ion cannon to strike night, you will cause a lot of tears, because the ships can't just zip away from you immediately, and the lack of shields is meaningful to enemy strikes. I don't propose the game becoming strike night at any point, but if the ships were a bit more balanced you would not expect to see flashfires as the only "good" dogfighter. In a world where you were afraid of a Pike with a good pilot in the same way you currently fear a Flashfire with a good pilot, you might be happy to select an ion cannon with NO buffs applied.

 

 

Anyway, I would have preferred the gun be modal. Like, a heavy laser length one (6km max range) with reduced dps as a choice, etc. I think the issue with ion cannon isn't really related to ion cannon, is my point, so I'm just concerned any buffs would make it way too good.

Edited July 26, 2014 by Verain

[Altheran]

Ion cannon only needs the range to be set at 5000m, nothing more, IMO.

 

The "thing" with switching weapons is and never has been a thing at all (releasing a button while switching is easy task) and is not abnormal either (missiles and rails do not lock/charge while switching, button has to be released, before holding it once more)

Edited July 26, 2014 by Altheran

[caederon]

I'll echo that if Ion Cannon's base range was 5k, I'd at least be tempted to field a Rycer every now and then. There are other issues that, if they were improved, would make it more attractive. For a short range cannon (in its current state) it also has rather small firing arc (24deg) and heavy tracking penalty (-1%/deg). It has always felt rather inaccurate to me.

 

Why not give the weapon some interesting choices that are meaningful to your style of play instead of the uninteresting ones it has now... switch up the talent tree so you could end up with one of these two variants:

 

* Tier 4 - choose between Long range, high accuracy, harsh tracking penalty, small arc (ala HLC) or low range, lower accuracy, small tracking penalty, large arc (like BLC)

 

* Tier 5 - choose between doing extra shield damage or sacrifice shield damage to get meaningful system drain.

 

I also really think it ought to be available on the 'support' ships, Bloodmark and Imperium. It would fit character-wise and if it had some options like the ones above, it could be a really interesting weapon people would field more often.

 

- Despon

[Ramalina]

With the whole Distortion field back and forth I think there's a bit of viewpoint issue that's hard to resolve due to the range of possible scenarios.

 

From a strike perspective, nerfing the **** out DF's missile defense on scouts would be a lovely thing to behold.

From a gunship perspective, loosing any of DF's missile defense is an absolute disaster.

From a scout perspective, loosing DF missile break is painful if other scouts fire missiles (probably clusters) at you, but not really that big a deal otherwise (provided you're a very good, very situationally aware pilot).

 

While I don't think the boost cost reduction suggested in the Verainiverse would be quite enough to make strike pilots want to put away the nerf-hammer in regards to scouts, it would help in making the dogfighting gap feel more like, "noticeable, but not too big." I mention that because currently that gap is big enough that a strike pilot really tends to want missiles to be more effective against scouts when maneuvering plus blasters just isn't quite cutting it (and in strike-speak "not quite" can mean "not even close to").

 

As incredibly annoying as it is on scouts, I think that some combination of generic scout nerfs or generic strike buffs in the dogfighting arena might be a better choice for overall balance than removing the missile break from DF.

 

If you could separate it out and keep the live version of DF on Gunships and the Verain version on scouts that would be some very nice tuning balance wise. Maybe just about perfect even.

 

The strike pilot in me would want to tweak the Verain version a bit and have the delay be calculated as X/(missile lock time) to make it more punishing for things like clusters and less punishing for things like torpedoes. I'm not sure if that's really hypothetically warranted balance wise though.

 

As to the suggestions in general, some don't appeal to me but other than the ammunition one (where I agree with Stasie that the balance ramifications would be far bigger than you're anticipating) none of them strike me as really objectionable, and most do address real improvements that GSF could use.

[Kuciwalker]

I'll echo that if Ion Cannon's base range was 5k, I'd at least be tempted to field a Rycer every now and then. There are other issues that, if they were improved, would make it more attractive. For a short range cannon (in its current state) it also has rather small firing arc (24deg) and heavy tracking penalty (-1%/deg). It has always felt rather inaccurate to me.

 

TBH the accuracy doesn't matter because of the damage and ROF. Ion cannon is basically "if you are on target their shields don't exist anymore" button.

[wvwraith]

If feedback shields could be re-buffed to include bouncing back missile damage(which they should anyways) then I wouldn't mind a debuff on distortion fields. Gunships could use some sort of defense buff anyways and rework or new option for fortress shields. I'd like to be able to use some different load out packages and right now its very limited as it is for t1s. Condor is a nice looking gs, but I don't care much for it really. Engine packages kind of turned me against it and no protons or quads. lol Edited July 27, 2014 by wvwraith

[AceFirstCav]

If you could separate it out and keep the live version of DF on Gunships and the Verain version on scouts that would be some very nice tuning balance wise. Maybe just about perfect even.

No, it would be the worst. GS has already best defense in the game, impenetrable for any other ship except another GS. It is gap of fire range (5000m at least and even at this distance has GS warning about lock). That´s no balance if you give ship ability to destroy oponent at unreachable distance and also ability to counter him at short distance. If you want to "balance" DF, do it same for all ships

[Verain]

TBH the accuracy doesn't matter because of the damage and ROF. Ion cannon is basically "if you are on target their shields don't exist anymore" button.

 

Yea. And the weapon is actually VERY accurate- with a talented and crewed accuracy of 122/107/102, it compares very well to burst laser cannon at 123/93/78. The extra 0.5% accuracy / angle still means that at 20 degrees and 4000m an ion cannon will have 92% accuracy, while BLC in that situation is 73.

 

It's just really wild dps, and a range buff to 5000 would maybe make it too good, assuming that any of the other issues were addressed (ex: imagine if you already HAD a reason to play your Starguard, which you mostly don't on live- this buff could make the gun mandatory). That's not to say I'd be sad to see the range go up to be similar to the weapons that the Starguard is actually decent at using- merely that there are other Starguard buffs present in my list.

 

 

No, it would be the worst. GS has already best defense in the game, impenetrable for any other ship except another GS.

 

This is not really true. The thing is, each point of evasion is better than the last, so the scout distortion is much better than the gunship version- it offers much more survival. That's not to say it should be special cased IMO though.