GSF Balance according to Verain (long posts!)

[Magira]

 

Any other ideas that aren't just "it's cool to make this ability worthless against missiles"? I really think that would shift the meta hard and unpredictably, and make distortion field go from best shield to relatively poor shield, from generally good choice to niche choice, and that's a massive shakeup that I think would be bad for the game.

 

As a shield it IS already poor. Without missile break that would noticed more.

[MiaowZedong]

As a shield it IS already poor. Without missile break that would noticed more.

Without missile break it would still have, by far, the best active and passive effects (discounting Charged Plating because every single ship has at least one weapon that ignores CP). Yes, it only lasts six seconds, but with a 20 sec CD it's got a 30% uptime—it's not like the ground game where effects of comparable duration and strength have cooldowns of a minute or more.

 

Of course, without the missile break, it would no longer be clearly the best. Which is the entire point.

 

There's also the "little" issue of lock-on missiles being a natural counter to evasion, so it's really not a good idea to give evasion ships an extra missile break. If someone should have more missile breaks, it's anyone but evasion stackers.

Edited October 15, 2014 by MiaowZedong

[tunewalker]

I had another balance discussion with Stasie. He brought up the idea of the ship specific powers again, and I like that. But he also think that the game would be better with much less defense on missiles for distortion. I still disagree, and I like ideas that give a missile defense to distortion field.

 

In the post above, I went with "weapons take an extra 0.25 seconds to lock on". This change would continue to provide defense against missiles, but not immunity. It would also hurt the rather better short lock on missiles a lot more than the longer lock on missiles.

 

But there's other ideas.

 

 

Easiest: Simply increase the cooldown of distortion field. You could also increase the duration and dodge to maintain similar defenses versus lasers. A much less frequent distortion field would definitely remove a lot of the inability to lock missiles on these ships.

 

Interesting: Missiles have a chance at missing a distortion shielded target. The missile fires and breaks, but the break is random. The upside is that you can easily tune how much missile defense you want, the downside is that it's a rather large coin to flip.

 

Decent but hard to phrase: Lock-on weapons deal reduced damage to distortion fielded targets. This reduction needs to be real, though- it can't be armor, because then it does nothing at all versus proton, thermite, concussion, EMP, and sabotage probe.

 

Worst thing ever: A distortion field has a small chance every tenth of a second to make a target missile locking them lose the lock. This would give you your missile defense, but oh, the agony!

 

A decent idea: Distortion field is nerfed to either only cancel missiles IN FLIGHT, or only cancel MISSILE LOCKS ON SHIPS. The wording of the ability actually implies one of these. By making it a lesser version of the break you would have to use it much more carefully and skillfully. You could not, for instance, hold it until the last second so as to cancel as many missiles as possible, if it offered no defense against the ones in flight, meaning you would have to trigger it earlier.

 

An interesting idea: Pretend it has no effect on missile in flight, and did not cancel missile locks, but for its WHOLE DURATION (six seconds) made it so no one could start a NEW missile lock. This would mean the moment you started to hear the click tone it would be too late for disto to help you, but if you blasted out from behind a rock with it active the guy trying to click you would be unable to.

 

 

 

Any other ideas that aren't just "it's cool to make this ability worthless against missiles"? I really think that would shift the meta hard and unpredictably, and make distortion field go from best shield to relatively poor shield, from generally good choice to niche choice, and that's a massive shakeup that I think would be bad for the game.

 

To be fair, no other shield does ANYTHING to Protons. So the arguement of "disto field being weak as a shield and thus should get something extra against missiles" doesnt hold water for Protons (same with EMP it has 100% shield piercing as well)

Edited October 15, 2014 by tunewalker

[Verain]

Without missile break it would still have, by far, the best active and passive effects

 

You definitely leave out a lot. Does it have the best active and passive versus a point blank scout with TT and Wingman up? Definitely not! Would it have the best active and passive versus concussion mine, railgun sentry drone, interdiction drone, missile sentry drone, seeker mine, and ion mine? Absolutely not!

 

And your parenthetical "discounting charged plating" because "every single ship has at least one weapon" is also a bit arbitrary. I mean, the damage reduction versus a non armor piercing weapon is NINETY NINE PERCENT. That's immunity, and it's for MOST of the time (charged plating is up much more often than it is down). I think we all agree that charged plating is a bit flutey at times with its Manichean functionality, but doesn't stop it from being an interesting part of the game. Do you exclusively find that weapons that can pierce charged plating are the only viable ones? This is not my experience, as I find seismic mine, seeker mine, quad laser cannon, light laser cannon, laser cannon, ion cannon, cluster missile, interdiction sentry drone, and interdiction missile all useful weapons, despite their inability to harm a charged plating build during his active plating.

 

Of course, without the missile break, it would no longer be clearly the best. Which is the entire point.

That's not my point, actually. I'm fine with it staying the best. I think the delta should be brought a lot lower.

 

I think anyone who wants this missile break gone without compensation doesn't consider that it would totally change EVERYTHING. It's easy to offhand "ya sure, it would nerf type 2 scout type 1 gunship, those are too strong", but EVERY GOOD SHIP would change, and you can't say to what- but there's no reason to assume that the meta wouldn't actually get WORSE with this change.

 

 

Again, I'm asking- what other ways to give disto an edge versus missiles, while still nerfing it, can you come up with?

 

 

 

There's also the "little" issue of lock-on missiles being a natural counter to evasion

 

Why would you assume this? The one shield that gives evasion also breaks missiles 100%. It sounds like evasion is meant to be the natural counter to lock on missiles. Again, that's just guessing the design from the finished product, but it's a 100% missile break.

 

 

 

To be fair, no other shield does ANYTHING to Protons.

 

Actually, shield to engine, repair probe, and quick charge shield both offer reasonable defenses against torpedoes of all sorts, certainly proton.

 

More importantly, and I don't know why I have to keep stating this, it is intended that this shield be the best in the game versus missiles. It's not like the devs slapped "breaks missile instantly on it" while drunk and it went live and they've been too high to fix it since. My suggestion- adding a quarter second to lock ons instead of a solid break- could be so far against the design that it is not even something the devs would consider. It could make the shield too terrible versus missiles.

 

 

But don't EVER assume that this is supposed to be "just good versus blasters and railguns, it's supposed to be bad versus mines and missiles". If that was EVER their intent, they wouldn't have put FULL IMMUNITY to missiles on a very short cooldown. The design is OBVIOUSLY that it is at least good and possibly the BEST versus missiles. And yes, given the number of ships that run it, it is unquestionably overtuned. And yes, missiles are generally undertuned, or it feels that way because of this ubiquitous component. But I'd like to get some suggestions that fit inside the obvious and clear design of this shield.

 

 

The devs just nerfing it to the ground could happen, and if you really want to rally for that, well, bully for you I guess. I just think it's annoying to hear that over and over again. It's not interesting or necessarily correct, and it's usually based on a profound confusion about the design.

 

 

 

 

I do get that it feels frustrating because it's without doubt the one great shiny thing that strikes can't have, that holds them back. But it would be nice to have a conversation without everyone just pretending that they have a tablet from Zeus with "remove disto field missile break, and LET THE SCOUTS EAT SAND" engraved upon it.

[tunewalker]

You definitely leave out a lot. Does it have the best active and passive versus a point blank scout with TT and Wingman up? Definitely not! Would it have the best active and passive versus concussion mine, railgun sentry drone, interdiction drone, missile sentry drone, seeker mine, and ion mine? Absolutely not!

 

And your parenthetical "discounting charged plating" because "every single ship has at least one weapon" is also a bit arbitrary. I mean, the damage reduction versus a non armor piercing weapon is NINETY NINE PERCENT. That's immunity, and it's for MOST of the time (charged plating is up much more often than it is down). I think we all agree that charged plating is a bit flutey at times with its Manichean functionality, but doesn't stop it from being an interesting part of the game. Do you exclusively find that weapons that can pierce charged plating are the only viable ones? This is not my experience, as I find seismic mine, seeker mine, quad laser cannon, light laser cannon, laser cannon, ion cannon, cluster missile, interdiction sentry drone, and interdiction missile all useful weapons, despite their inability to harm a charged plating build during his active plating.

 

 

That's not my point, actually. I'm fine with it staying the best. I think the delta should be brought a lot lower.

 

I think anyone who wants this missile break gone without compensation doesn't consider that it would totally change EVERYTHING. It's easy to offhand "ya sure, it would nerf type 2 scout type 1 gunship, those are too strong", but EVERY GOOD SHIP would change, and you can't say to what- but there's no reason to assume that the meta wouldn't actually get WORSE with this change.

 

 

Again, I'm asking- what other ways to give disto an edge versus missiles, while still nerfing it, can you come up with?

 

 

 

 

 

Why would you assume this? The one shield that gives evasion also breaks missiles 100%. It sounds like evasion is meant to be the natural counter to lock on missiles. Again, that's just guessing the design from the finished product, but it's a 100% missile break.

 

 

 

 

 

Actually, shield to engine, repair probe, and quick charge shield both offer reasonable defenses against torpedoes of all sorts, certainly proton.

 

More importantly, and I don't know why I have to keep stating this, it is intended that this shield be the best in the game versus missiles. It's not like the devs slapped "breaks missile instantly on it" while drunk and it went live and they've been too high to fix it since. My suggestion- adding a quarter second to lock ons instead of a solid break- could be so far against the design that it is not even something the devs would consider. It could make the shield too terrible versus missiles.

 

 

But don't EVER assume that this is supposed to be "just good versus blasters and railguns, it's supposed to be bad versus mines and missiles". If that was EVER their intent, they wouldn't have put FULL IMMUNITY to missiles on a very short cooldown. The design is OBVIOUSLY that it is at least good and possibly the BEST versus missiles. And yes, given the number of ships that run it, it is unquestionably overtuned. And yes, missiles are generally undertuned, or it feels that way because of this ubiquitous component. But I'd like to get some suggestions that fit inside the obvious and clear design of this shield.

 

 

The devs just nerfing it to the ground could happen, and if you really want to rally for that, well, bully for you I guess. I just think it's annoying to hear that over and over again. It's not interesting or necessarily correct, and it's usually based on a profound confusion about the design.

 

 

 

 

I do get that it feels frustrating because it's without doubt the one great shiny thing that strikes can't have, that holds them back. But it would be nice to have a conversation without everyone just pretending that they have a tablet from Zeus with "remove disto field missile break, and LET THE SCOUTS EAT SAND" engraved upon it.

 

Considering the fact that Missile break is an OPTION not a mandatory thing I highly doubt the intent of the shield overall was "best against missiles" nor do I think its supposed to be "best against blasters" at least not in its current state. From the way it went live (when it first went live to now essentially) I was always under the impression it was supposed to be not best at anything but a well rounded shield that is great when its CD is up but not so good when the CD was down. the CD being down being the "weakness" of the shield so to speak as pretty much ALL of the upgrades to the shield are based around the upgrade. The one "down fall" to the shield is its passive negative strength.

 

Quick Charge doesnt provide any defense against Protons it sacfrifices shield strength (makes itself weaker against EVERYTHING, missiles included) for the option to move better, same with STE, now am I saying Disto needs 0 missile defense, no, but I dont personally like the idea of giving a ship the ability to reduce damage of Proton's, they are hard enough to lock on a target with just 1 missile break that they should always do full damage, same to an extent Thermites. Concussions while they CAN have Armor piercing not every one takes it especially when fighting scouts since the engine target is kind of big. who honestly gives 2 shakes about EMP.

 

(and trust me its no where near the "only shiny thing" strikes dont have I could list several and you know it)

 

 

Edit: to be fully clear I actually like both the "easiest" and the final idea you put forth, both of those are fine, the other one I would like is the one where it cancels locks but not in flight As that would provide similar defense to what you are talking about with Quick charge and STE as it buys time.

Edited October 15, 2014 by tunewalker

[Verain]

Many powerups have options that aren't really options. It would be top tier because it's the best ability, and note that the second power used to DOUBLE the duration (and now increases it by 50%) a frankly ludicrously powerful upgrade. Could you picture if the final tier of blaster overcharge had an option for double duration, or even 50% extra?

 

By that logic, heavy laser and burst laser aren't meant to ignore armor (after all, it's a choice), and slug railgun isn't meant to have the accuracy talent, etc. Many things have a vastly superior option on the table, which doesn't really mean it's a problem with that option.

[tunewalker]

Many powerups have options that aren't really options. It would be top tier because it's the best ability, and note that the second power used to DOUBLE the duration (and now increases it by 50%) a frankly ludicrously powerful upgrade. Could you picture if the final tier of blaster overcharge had an option for double duration, or even 50% extra?

 

By that logic, heavy laser and burst laser aren't meant to ignore armor (after all, it's a choice), and slug railgun isn't meant to have the accuracy talent, etc. Many things have a vastly superior option on the table, which doesn't really mean it's a problem with that option.

 

And at one point the double duration WAS the option every one chose. The options are meant to be a choice, if one is a non choice its one of 2 things, A. One choice to strong of a choice or B. the second option is to weak. But they were both meant to be a choice and again through out its ENTIRE history. Disto has gone back and forth as to which of those 2 powerful choices is the best, clearly showing the intent is both but neither. Its intent is to have a powerful CD but be vulneralble when the CD is down, that is all way truly know.

 

But yes, Heavy Laser and Burst Lasers arent meant to only ever take Armor Piercing, since by the words used in most of the Development of the game shows missiles (like Proton torps) and Railguns (like Slug) were more intended to be the anti-armor weapon but a few other weapons (like burst lasers and Heavy lasers and Conc missiles) were meant to have the OPTION of becoming anti armor as well.

 

Again the slug accuracy is supposed to be an OPTION its just evasion and accuracy have become such a big part of game with the FOTY Scouts and GS that it is the best option. If you were to fire at less evasive targets like Bombers or strikes to a lesser degree, the energy efficient option might be good as you can effectively fire more shots, which you need against those beefier targets. The accuracy has become such a prevlant choice not because of imbalance between the options but imbalance between the ship preferences.

Edited October 15, 2014 by tunewalker

[Verain]

I've picked missile break the entire duration of this game. I still maintain that 6 seconds up from 3 was better for dueling situations, but not ganged up on situations. In other words, it was a choice.

 

More importantly- I don't find that argument very compelling. Yes, obviously it would be NICE if all the choices truly were- and you'll see me repeatedly trying to say this (for instance, I am in favor of baseline armor piercing for all arp weapons, coincident with a nerf in weapon dps to be compensated by the current thing, thus allowing you to choose to have the weapon as it stands or a weapon that gives up a bit of damage, not arp, in exchange for its other talent, which is often a different kind of damage, AND, in this VERY THREAD, I'm in favor of the baseline 0.25 duration lockon plus a talent that clearly is better against long range weapons and one with increased duration).

 

But this fact- what would be nice- doesn't change reality. Reality is, they wanted this to be the best shield against missiles, and it is. The fact that there is an incorrect choice sitting next to it isn't some crazy "lets go nerf the move" button. You didn't "catch a devver by the toe". The move grants a missile break, since beta. That is clearly intended. Unlike most most moves in the game, this one has been adjusted twice, and at no point did this get touched in any way.

Edited October 15, 2014 by Verain

[Verain]

AAgain the slug accuracy is supposed to be an OPTION its just evasion and accuracy have become such a big part of game

 

It was intended to be a choice, sure, but there's a bigger truth- most of these talents have a very similar budget to each other, but many of them have very different magnitude of effect.

 

If you look at accuracy, it is UNIVERSALLY undervalued. The game will give you 36% crit (an 18% damage increase) for 6 seconds, only with primary weapons. At the same cost, it will give you 20% accuracy (often a 30% damage increase) for OVER DOUBLE that time. The offensive crew passives, however, are where this really glares- the mandatory +6% accuracy talent is intended to be in a similar bunch as the rest. The few weapons with a straight +accuracy option normally get a large boost to that as well.

 

Meanwhile, the 10% less cost is on several weapons as if it is a good talent. In some cases it is mandatory, and often those are weaker weapons in general (plasma, rapid fire laser, both have mandatory cost reduction).

 

 

 

But, is accuracy only good because of scouts? NO WAY! Gunships have a massive tracking penalty with their railguns, plus the accuracy on slug stop being good at long range. This is all BEFORE enemy evasion. That's not a meta call, that's just a mechanical one.

 

 

 

My bigger point is, you are only on this rampage because you hate disto field, in its dev-intended form. You don't apply this logic to anything else- you aren't asking that heavy laser lose its armor piercing or shield piercing, you aren't asking that quads lose their +16% hull damage, you aren't asking for slug railgun to lose its accuracy or for the 10% cost reduction to be increased to whatever monster it would need to be to actually make it a choice.

 

 

So no, that doesn't bother you. That's not your issue. You just want a crowbar you can try to use to bash disto.

[tunewalker]

It was intended to be a choice, sure, but there's a bigger truth- most of these talents have a very similar budget to each other, but many of them have very different magnitude of effect.

 

If you look at accuracy, it is UNIVERSALLY undervalued. The game will give you 36% crit (an 18% damage increase) for 6 seconds, only with primary weapons. At the same cost, it will give you 20% accuracy (often a 30% damage increase) for OVER DOUBLE that time. The offensive crew passives, however, are where this really glares- the mandatory +6% accuracy talent is intended to be in a similar bunch as the rest. The few weapons with a straight +accuracy option normally get a large boost to that as well.

 

Meanwhile, the 10% less cost is on several weapons as if it is a good talent. In some cases it is mandatory, and often those are weaker weapons in general (plasma, rapid fire laser, both have mandatory cost reduction).

 

 

 

But, is accuracy only good because of scouts? NO WAY! Gunships have a massive tracking penalty with their railguns, plus the accuracy on slug stop being good at long range. This is all BEFORE enemy evasion. That's not a meta call, that's just a mechanical one.

 

 

 

My bigger point is, you are only on this rampage because you hate disto field, in its dev-intended form. You don't apply this logic to anything else- you aren't asking that heavy laser lose its armor piercing or shield piercing, you aren't asking that quads lose their +16% hull damage, you aren't asking for slug railgun to lose its accuracy or for the 10% cost reduction to be increased to whatever monster it would need to be to actually make it a choice.

 

 

So no, that doesn't bother you. That's not your issue. You just want a crowbar you can try to use to bash disto.

 

when you calm down and can have an actual conversation about balance let me know. I you should no me better I say what I mean I dont sugar coat anything. Was talking about Disto right now, not because "i hate disto" but because it was what was being talked about, if you want to talk about what needs to be done to balance those other things let me know I will talk about them, but until you can actually have an intelligent conversation without making presumptions about me... shut up.

 

 

Edit: all I am trying to say man is no solution is perfect right now, no mater what you do people are going to wine. Honestly I think Disto needs less touching and missiles need more. Scouts need damage burst to be nerfed first and foremost devs have already said that, the rest we can see after. The only reason I wasnt talking about the other stuff, is cus no one brought it up, if you want to we can but that is a whole nother monster. Beyond all of that we can not presume intent until devs say something so presuming Disto is supposed be "best xyz or Worst XYZ" or what have you is pointless and presumptious.

Edited October 16, 2014 by tunewalker

[Verain]

It's not that you are talking about disto, it's that I asked:

 

Any other ideas that aren't just "it's cool to make this ability worthless against missiles"? I really think that would shift the meta hard and unpredictably, and make distortion field go from best shield to relatively poor shield, from generally good choice to niche choice, and that's a massive shakeup that I think would be bad for the game.

 

 

I asked this for a reason- because if someone (you and some others) consistently state, time and time again, that disto shouldn't have a missile break, that's been in the forums a million times, including this thread. It isn't interesting either- obviously "nerf distortion with no competition" would weaken distortion field. But we've had that convo (specifically, you and I, and in this thread).

 

 

And yes, I think it's safe to say that the devs meant it to be the best at missiles. I do agree that reading dev intent is always haruspicy, but in this case it is pretty clear- the game launched with missile breaks way too good and common, and distortion the best at everything. They nerfed it massively, reducing the passive benefit of the evasion and also the active benefit, but left the missile break untouched. Then there were more complaints, and they did nothing, and finally started doing stuff like "nerf ion cannon in code, leaving the xml data unchanged" and "nerf ion missile with no patch note", and we STILL have this thing breaking missiles every time you right click a scout. I mean, maybe it's an oversight, but I doubt it. They would have addressed it if it was an accident, sometime back when they had budget or whatever.

 

 

Personally? If the patch notes hit and we find that distortion field no longer breaks missiles- it is some kind of redesign, that's my opinion. Not that this is bad, but it's a very different ability to go from "best guy in game against missiles, especially proton torps" to "not useful at all versus any of those". Again, why do YOU have distortion field, you might ask, to anyone... and some will say "this is here to break missiles", because, well, it's the best at that. Just removing that straight up would be shocking.

Edited October 16, 2014 by Verain

[tunewalker]

It's not that you are talking about disto, it's that I asked:

 

 

 

 

I asked this for a reason- because if someone (you and some others) consistently state, time and time again, that disto shouldn't have a missile break, that's been in the forums a million times, including this thread. It isn't interesting either- obviously "nerf distortion with no competition" would weaken distortion field. But we've had that convo (specifically, you and I, and in this thread).

 

 

And yes, I think it's safe to say that the devs meant it to be the best at missiles. I do agree that reading dev intent is always haruspicy, but in this case it is pretty clear- the game launched with missile breaks way too good and common, and distortion the best at everything. They nerfed it massively, reducing the passive benefit of the evasion and also the active benefit, but left the missile break untouched. Then there were more complaints, and they did nothing, and finally started doing stuff like "nerf ion cannon in code, leaving the xml data unchanged" and "nerf ion missile with no patch note", and we STILL have this thing breaking missiles every time you right click a scout. I mean, maybe it's an oversight, but I doubt it. They would have addressed it if it was an accident, sometime back when they had budget or whatever.

 

 

Personally? If the patch notes hit and we find that distortion field no longer breaks missiles- it is some kind of redesign, that's my opinion. Not that this is bad, but it's a very different ability to go from "best guy in game against missiles, especially proton torps" to "not useful at all versus any of those". Again, why do YOU have distortion field, you might ask, to anyone... and some will say "this is here to break missiles", because, well, it's the best at that. Just removing that straight up would be shocking.

 

To be clear on my intent, I didnt disagree with most of what you said except the "real Damage reduction" one because I think anything that reduces damage of a successfully locked and launched Proton that isnt broken by an engine manuever is bad. Clearly Proton has always been intended to be exceedingly punishing to who ever it hits. Having some one that can pop a cd and ignore it, when its easy enough to dodge with out any extra break I think would be bad design.

 

But several of the other solutions are just going to leave people complaining.

 

I think the Easiest solution you have listed is probably the best and .... well easiest to implement, make it a 1 Min CD double the duration and the duration increase on the left, but you do it and people will whine I garantee it.

 

GS will whine about how a scout can close on them with their evasion buff up and get in before the buff even falls off, (not like they honestly cant kind of do that now) Scout pilots will Whine about how the CD is to long and it leaves them with out defense for to long.

 

Honestly I think a better solution would be decrease P. Torp, Thermite Torp, EMP and Ion missile reload time, or increase the effectiveness of the reload crew member. (the second being my prefrence) and double the length increase on the left side of disto.

 

The other stuff for using everything would probably take a lot more, but no solution is perfect we know that.

 

I still do not believe Disto's sole purpose is to be the best missile defense shield, but I also absolutely do not believe its ever intended not to have the Option to have some form of defense based on our conversations, but I want it to be just that an option one that people think about, and one that isnt so powerful as to trivialize most missiles and any other shield option. Because what we have both agreed on is it is currently a little over tuned compared to missiles right now, my solution would be more towards the missile side of things then the Disto side.... maybe both I dont know.

 

 

I would also like to see other options become real options that wasnt me talking out my rear, but if its the meta that makes them less so then I consider them less needing balance and just a EH it serves a niche that just doesnt happen to be needed.

Edited October 16, 2014 by tunewalker

[caederon]

What if there was a co-pilot ability that was something like...

 

Targeting Computer

Your missiles cannot be evaded by missile breaks, lockon time reduced 50%

Duration: 6s

Cooldown: 1min

 

Wouldn't that solve the whole problem of Distortion Field being too powerful against missile based builds, by giving them a hard counter to it that would be useful even against ships not running DF? It would certainly make protorps more attractive, giving you a guaranteed hit (though it theoretically could still be out-distanced if the target had the juice to run away, which seems fair) and would make concussion missiles a lot more deadly. It would particularly be a boost to T2 and T3 strikes, T2 gunship. It'd make life harder on T1 gunship and T2 scout.

 

- Despon

Edited October 16, 2014 by caederon

[Fractalsponge]

What if there was a co-pilot ability that was something like...

 

Targeting Computer

Your missiles cannot be evaded by missile breaks, lockon time reduced 50%

Duration: 6s

Cooldown: 1min

 

Wouldn't that solve the whole problem of Distortion Field being too powerful against missile based builds, by giving them a hard counter to it that would be useful even against ships not running DF? It would certainly make protorps more attractive, giving you a guaranteed hit (though it theoretically could still be out-distanced if the target had the juice to run away, which seems fair) and would make concussion missiles a lot more deadly. It would particularly be a boost to T2 and T3 strikes, T2 gunship. It'd make life harder on T1 gunship and T2 scout.

 

- Despon

 

I don't think missiles can be outrun, period.

 

I like the idea of a cd boosting protons, but I don't like hard-win buttons. A railgun crit can be evaded, but a guaranteed proton hit takes a bit too much agency out of the target's hands imo.

 

Plus, who wants guaranteed sabo probe trolling?

Edited October 16, 2014 by Fractalsponge

[caederon]

I don't think missiles can be outrun, period.

 

I like the idea of a cd boosting protons, but I don't like hard-win buttons. A railgun crit can be evaded, but a guaranteed proton hit takes a bit too much agency out of the target's hands imo.

 

Plus, who wants guaranteed sabo probe trolling?

I could swear that I've outrun unupgraded protorps or thermites, I don't think they just keep chasing you Terminator-style forever until they hit, but I could be wrong. I'm sure someone will correct me shortly if I am.

 

I'm not a huge fan of rock-paper-scissors hard counters either, but given that DF and engine abilities are already a hard counter to missiles, it seems like it would be easier to balance it out with an analogous opposite ability... and it wouldn't be an automatic choice since it would eliminate the possibility of you having Wingman or CF or whatever. You can always LOS a missile lock, too, they're really not very easy to land compared to other weapons.

 

As for Sabo Probe... as much as I hate the stupid thing, I only see it in about... 2% of the games I play. Maybe its not getting much use because it's broken currently, or because other options are almost always far better. If it meant enduring more 'death by flying slowly straight into a canyon wall' scenarios now and then, I could put up with it.

 

- Despon

[Verain]

What if there was a co-pilot ability that was something like...

 

Targeting Computer

Your missiles cannot be evaded by missile breaks, lockon time reduced 50%

Duration: 6s

Cooldown: 1min

 

No, I think that would be ruinous. It WOULD solve that problem, but it would definitely outperform all other copilot abilities, hands down. It would also be mysteriously terrible for concussion, ion, and EMP, the only guys that are just slow enough to only have one shot under the buff while not being amazing like a torp.

 

I actually WOULD like a copilot ability that would reduce lockon time, and I suggest it in my balance thread, but a longer duration and a smaller magnitude would be good- but the "can't be evaded" is terrible.

 

 

The bigger issue is that it would really disconnect you from your intention- you'd hear a missile tone, but not be able to break it. It would feel like a bug, and you really wouldn't have much guarantee about it.

 

 

 

(though it theoretically could still be out-distanced)

 

I will assure you that this is not a thing. If you do fire a missile break, you will absolutely be hit, and unlike the terminator, it has a max amount of time before it hits you.

 

Now, there IS a bit of debate about whether the missile calculates time to strike based on your initial position and nothing else or not- I actually believe you are allowed to add some amount of time by running from the missile point, but it is definitely capped.

 

Missiles launched towards you are not objects, will not collide with walls, sats, or other ships, will never run of gas, and will inevitably hit you unless you press a missile break.

 

 

As for Sabo Probe... as much as I hate the stupid thing, I only see it in about... 2% of the games I play.

 

With that suggestion, you would see it a lot more, but that's just far too strong anyway.

 

 

 

If the UI was amazing, you COULD do something like: A copilot ability that gives you crazy sensor range plus a destealth, and during that time (probably 15 seconds) you can make a normal red triangle missile lock, or KEEP HOLDING it for an extra couple seconds and it will turn into like a yellow angry triangle, and THAT kind of missile lock can't be broken. Basically, your normal lock is unchanged, but you can "super lock" during the duration. But again, the UI would need to be very clear about this craziness, or the game just feels bugged and dumb.

[caederon]

The bigger issue is that it would really disconnect you from your intention- you'd hear a missile tone, but not be able to break it. It would feel like a bug, and you really wouldn't have much guarantee about it.

...

If the UI was amazing, you COULD do something like: A copilot ability that gives you crazy sensor range plus a destealth, and during that time (probably 15 seconds) you can make a normal red triangle missile lock, or KEEP HOLDING it for an extra couple seconds and it will turn into like a yellow angry triangle, and THAT kind of missile lock can't be broken. Basically, your normal lock is unchanged, but you can "super lock" during the duration. But again, the UI would need to be very clear about this craziness, or the game just feels bugged and dumb.

I know you hate the 'can't be evaded' concept, but what if it was paired with your UI idea for the super-lock from the onset, it wouldn't feel like a bug if you suddenly saw the Yellow Death Triangle locking you, you'd know that you had to get out of LOS or you'd be eating a missile for sure. Would it be as ruinous in that circumstance, if you clearly knew you were about to be hit with an unavoidable missile?

 

What about a copilot ability like....

Lockon time reduced by 25%. Reload time after successful lockon reduced by 100%

Duration 10s

 

I didn't do the math to see how many cluster missiles you could spam out in that duration assuming you could keep locking your target, but I'm guessing that it wouldn't necessarily yield the same burst as a CF beatdown from BLC. The positive thing is that it actually would give the T2 strike burst damage capability of a sort.. I don't think it would be stronger than CF or Wingman on a T1 or T2 scout (particularly since I worded it to avoid giving rockets the reload reduction).

 

I'll take your word on not being able to outrun missiles, though it makes little sense to think that for example a T1 scout with Booster Recharge or S2E couldn't outrun an unupgraded protorp. Maybe in the instances I am recalling that happening, I kept ahead of it long enough to get a missile break back from cooldown. I wish the game mechanics were more transparently explained overall, or there was some means to test these things outside of real matches.

 

- Despon

Edited October 16, 2014 by caederon

[Verain]

I'll take your word on not being able to outrun missiles, though it makes little sense to think that for example a T1 scout with Booster Recharge or S2E couldn't outrun an unupgraded protorp.

 

I'm not sure if you mean in lore or in game. In game, the missile animation is there to help you make decisions, but the missile is not a physical object, it's just drawn in to represent the tone and give you an approximation of the timing.

 

In lore, there's no way even the fastest scout could outrun a torp or missile. The ship itself has all manner of systems, such as hyperdrive / shields / life support / weapons / targeting, in addition to its own payload. The torp is either all thruster or partially energy- it can likely go further than the ship, discounting hyperdrive, and over a long enough distance should be able to outrun the scout.

 

Maybe in the instances I am recalling that happening, I kept ahead of it long enough to get a missile break back from cooldown.

 

This is almost assuredly the case. And yes, the inability to test anything is a serious issue.

[Kuciwalker]

Now, there IS a bit of debate about whether the missile calculates time to strike based on your initial position and nothing else or not- I actually believe you are allowed to add some amount of time by running from the missile point, but it is definitely capped.

 

It is absolutely the case that you can buy huge amounts of extra time. I have done this plenty of times with slotons.

Edited October 16, 2014 by Kuciwalker

[MiaowZedong]

You definitely leave out a lot. Does it have the best active and passive versus a point blank scout with TT and Wingman up? Definitely not!

Actually, if we're assuming an optimal build for DF use, like you do for Charged Plating, then it absolutely is. Perhaps only because most shield abilities are either easily countered (like Charged Plating, which has litterally no active effect against a burst/pods scout) or just not very good (Quick Charge Shield, Fortress Shield..).

 

However, on a pure defensive evasion scout build with DF+RI up, you've got 88% evasion—even if TT is specced for the evasion debuff and used close enough to debuff you, you're making a third of his BLC shots and half his pods miss. Directional Shields can about equal that if you include even more assumptions, but spiking evasion is at least on par with Directionals against even the highest accuracy combo in the game.

 

Besides, if you survive, the cooldowns are 20 secs on DF, versus 45 secs on TT. Directionals is always available, but comes with a high use cost since you're strengthening one arc at the expense of another.

Would it have the best active and passive versus concussion mine, railgun sentry drone, interdiction drone, missile sentry drone, seeker mine, and ion mine? Absolutely not!

No, but "the best" without any qualifier implies the best overal. As powerful as area denial can be, it hardly dominates the meta.

 

And your parenthetical "discounting charged plating" because "every single ship has at least one weapon" is also a bit arbitrary. I mean, the damage reduction versus a non armor piercing weapon is NINETY NINE PERCENT.

Not on all ships that can equip it.

Do you exclusively find that weapons that can pierce charged plating are the only viable ones? This is not my experience, as I find seismic mine, seeker mine, quad laser cannon, light laser cannon, laser cannon, ion cannon, cluster missile, interdiction sentry drone, and interdiction missile all useful weapons, despite their inability to harm a charged plating build during his active plating.

No, but the vast majority of kill shots on me (regardless of ship, for that matter) come from one of BLC, rocket pods, HLC, slug railgun and railgun drone; more importantly, though, if a player is dominating in a charged plating build, any decent opposition will simply swap ships to had counter him. If a player is dominating in an evasion build, the hard counter just isn't available, unless it's a Dom match and his entire team is two-shippers or some other extraordinary circumstance which would force him to charge into area denial or lose.

 

You can kinda half-assed soft counter evasion, but really even at that point it's still at least competitive with the other "good" general purpose option. Charged Plating is really a niche component and it works well within its niche, but is far too easy to counter to perform well outside of it.

 

That's not my point, actually. I'm fine with it staying the best. I think the delta should be brought a lot lower.

Rephrased, you are saying "I'm fine with it being overpowered, at long as it's not TOO overpowered". I disagree strongly. Ideal balance may not be achieved, but when in doubt, it's better to at least usher in a new flavour of the month than undernerf and fail to achieve your goal (leaving the game stale and dominated by the same classes).

 

Why would you assume this? The one shield that gives evasion also breaks missiles 100%. It sounds like evasion is meant to be the natural counter to lock on missiles. Again, that's just guessing the design from the finished product, but it's a 100% missile break.

Except evasion is a counter to blasters. Evasion may well be intentionally overpowered (devs playing favourites) but that's not a good thing. Naturally, lock on missiles ignore evasion—except that fully upgraded, the evasion ability also breaks a missile lock, largely negating its own counter. It may be that this is intentionally too strong, it may well be that the devs didn't actually realise it was stronger than other shields against blasters, it may well be that the devs simply thought it was a cool idea and reconsidering the missile break never made it to the top of the to-do list (they cancelled/put off indefinitely a whole ship class, after all). We don't know the intentions and the intetions don't matter; we know the effects and the effects definitely matter.

 

Would you be OK with gunships having an 'anti-scout field' that heavily debuffed any scout within 5,000m if that was intentional imbalance on the devs' part?

 

 

More importantly, and I don't know why I have to keep stating this, it is intended that this shield be the best in the game versus missiles. It's not like the devs slapped "breaks missile instantly on it" while drunk and it went live and they've been too high to fix it since. My suggestion- adding a quarter second to lock ons instead of a solid break- could be so far against the design that it is not even something the devs would consider. It could make the shield too terrible versus missiles.

 

 

But don't EVER assume that this is supposed to be "just good versus blasters and railguns, it's supposed to be bad versus mines and missiles". If that was EVER their intent, they wouldn't have put FULL IMMUNITY to missiles on a very short cooldown. The design is OBVIOUSLY that it is at least good and possibly the BEST versus missiles. And yes, given the number of ships that run it, it is unquestionably overtuned. And yes, missiles are generally undertuned, or it feels that way because of this ubiquitous component. But I'd like to get some suggestions that fit inside the obvious and clear design of this shield.

Again, speculating about dev intentions is pointless. Devs can and do make mistakes. The point of balance suggestions is to make suggestions that would be beneficial to the game. If it's more beneficial to the game to redesign something, or even to remove it as having been a bad idea from the start, then that is what should happen.

Edited October 16, 2014 by MiaowZedong

[caederon]

I'm not sure if you mean in lore or in game. In game, the missile animation is there to help you make decisions, but the missile is not a physical object, it's just drawn in to represent the tone and give you an approximation of the timing.

I went poking around elsewhere to see if anyone else was under the assumption you could outrun torpedoes, and found this bit on Dulfy's scout guide:

 

"Unless you can rip the shields off your enemy target, your Thermite Torpedoes won’t be very effective and that is assuming you managed to get a lock-on to fire them and they don’t outrun the torpedo (happens a lot vs enemy scouts). " ( link )

 

Though an old thread from several patches ago also explored this topic and got a dev to comment that missiles in flight are unavoidable ( link )

 

I wouldn't even bring it up again, except there is anecdotal evidence suggesting that people have avoided slow missiles without using breaks, but I'm also entirely willing to accept that it's a bug and under certain conditions things don't work as the devs intended.

 

I also went back to read Verain's initial suggestion for revamping DF, and I think I could live with the missile break being removed if DF increased missile lockon time by 25% (instead of the .25 seconds he suggests) which would give you extra time to avoid being locked by a torpedo and still help vs. short range missiles. Coupling that with a copilot ability that counters DF and (at least) decreases lockon time would make missile-centric builds a lot more interesting and competitive.

 

- Despon

Edited October 16, 2014 by caederon

[tunewalker]

I went poking around elsewhere to see if anyone else was under the assumption you could outrun torpedoes, and found this bit on Dulfy's scout guide:

 

"Unless you can rip the shields off your enemy target, your Thermite Torpedoes won’t be very effective and that is assuming you managed to get a lock-on to fire them and they don’t outrun the torpedo (happens a lot vs enemy scouts). " ( link )

 

Though an old thread from several patches ago also explored this topic and got a dev to comment that missiles in flight are unavoidable ( link )

 

I wouldn't even bring it up again, except there is anecdotal evidence suggesting that people have avoided slow missiles without using breaks, but I'm also entirely willing to accept that it's a bug and under certain conditions things don't work as the devs intended.

 

I also went back to read Verain's initial suggestion for revamping DF, and I think I could live with the missile break being removed if DF increased missile lockon time by 25% (instead of the .25 seconds he suggests) which would give you extra time to avoid being locked by a torpedo and still help vs. short range missiles. Coupling that with a copilot ability that counters DF and (at least) decreases lockon time would make missile-centric builds a lot more interesting and competitive.

 

- Despon

 

Dev's came out and said it a long time ago, those posts were wrong then and are wrong now, they didnt knwo what a barrel roll break/ Disto break looked like at the time. Suffice to say Verain is right.... you can not nor could you ever break a missile with out hitting a missile break.

[Altheran]

Dev's came out and said it a long time ago, those posts were wrong then and are wrong now, they didnt knwo what a barrel roll break/ Disto break looked like at the time. Suffice to say Verain is right.... you can not nor could you ever break a missile with out hitting a missile break.

Even some of us have already seen people trying to out run a torpedo, to see its damage appear while the graphics disappeared mid flight.

Edited October 16, 2014 by Altheran

[Verain]

I mean, the torp thing is TRIVIAL to test. Just get on a type 1 scout with shield to engine, booster recharge, speed thrusters, and barrel roll set to speed. Get any missile launched at you and just boost until it hits you. It always will, and it won't take long. Torpedos are no different.

[caederon]

I guess Dulfy's guide ought to be corrected, then. I had thought they were a pretty reputable source of info for GSF.

 

So, what's the point of having the missile speed upgrades in the talent tree of the torpedoes? Are they there just to give targets less of a chance to recover their missile breaks before it hits? I'd always (apparently wrongly) assumed torps could be outrun, so the investment in speed seemed a wise one, but it seems like the firing arc talent is a much better choice in that case. Given that a whole class of likely torpedo targets (T1 or T2 bombers) don't even have missile breaks, that seems to make the missile speed talent even less interesting or useful.

 

- Despon