Flash/sting counter

[Kuciwalker]

5. Yaw and pitch value are ridiculously impossible. 1.8°/s yaw rate for a scout would mean that it takes him 200s to do a full yaw turn (360°). That's obviously wrong.

 

Eyeballing those numbers, I think they are actually in radians, not degrees (contra dulfy). i.e. multiply by ~57.

Edited September 8, 2014 by Kuciwalker

[Altheran]

Eyeballing those numbers, I think they are actually in radians, not degrees (contra dulfy). i.e. multiply by ~57.

 

Seems plausible.

 

But UI definitely says "degree". On more thing to add to the list of "to fix", next to the missing values in GSF tooltips.

 

EDIT : it effectively makes much more sense with radians. The strike yaw rate becomes ~90 degree per sec.

Edited September 9, 2014 by Altheran

[Verain]

Was thinking radians all day, finally got home to post and you guys already figured it out.

 

Went to training, pretty convinced it's that.

[Gavin_Kelvar]

Actually, my main gripe with the idea is that it's a balance move that is done hazardously. Some ships are inherently too strong/weak, some are only in specific loadout, and these moves try to balance it around some loadout that may change at some point. It's not organized, it's messy.

I mean, if doesn't replace fine tuning of components, how to balance a common component, if the ships using it are not going to behave similarly anymore ?

 

Obviously balancing components would take priority over using a ship specific component to tweak individual ships instead. What I was thinking was that it would give the devs the ability to tweak ships to give them greater distinction/playstyles that can't be achieved through components. The Starguard being tweaked to be more agile than a Pike for example. Another benefit would be that the devs could tweak stats so that they wouldn't have to use a component type to follow the ship's description. The Pike for example is described as being "well armored" which I think is the main reason it got the armor component instead of the reactor (which, IMO, makes the Pike slightly weaker defensively than a Starguard since it doesn't play to the shield strengths of the striker class in general and only synergizes well with Charged Plating whose value is very situational). Now I doubt that the devs would swap out an entire component type of existing ships at this time but at the very least it would allow them to make tweaks to the Pike's base stats so the gap between a Starguard and Pike's shields would be lessened.

 

The point being that the devs wouldn't have to rely on components alone to remedy problems of ships being under/overtuned. They'd also be free to tweak individual ship stats to give them more distinct playstyles.

 

The other way isn't that good either. Tuning down a Flashfire defense this way, I assume to put it at the same level of a Novadive, would solve the issue of stacking both great offense and defense, but would likely make the Flash

just a Nova without sensors in case of similar loadout. That lack may not be that perceptible, but it's present and undeniable - so not really desirable.

 

I was thinking more of tweak the Flashfire so it's midway between a Nova and Spearpoint defensively. That way it wouldn't have the exact same defensive capabilities of a Spearpoint while retaining all of the offensive abilities of a Nova. They'd be free to tweak the Nova and Spearpoint too (for example buff the Nova to have a slight speed advantage over a Flash). Like with the strikers the devs could tweak the individual stats to give them more unique playstyles.

Edited September 9, 2014 by Gavin_Kelvar

[Verain]

I think it's too late for many of the serious changes. I mean, it would be nice if ship X could have its engine component cooldown reduced by 2 seconds or whatever, but going and redesigning the flashfire would be really bad at this stage in the game.

 

More importantly, the ships that had a REAL identity crisis did eventually get some meaningful choices to distinguish them.

[Altheran]

I think it's too late for many of the serious changes. I mean, it would be nice if ship X could have its engine component cooldown reduced by 2 seconds or whatever, but going and redesigning the flashfire would be really bad at this stage in the game.

 

And why would it be bad ?

 

Because people would get upset as some of their ships would be directly or indirectly weaker ?

We can't really say it would change the role or philosophy of the ships, so it has to come from *this* reason.

It's really not like what Shadow/Assassin tanks had, where the tanking method had its core shifted from self-healing to maintaining damage reductors, it would not be that kind of change where the perception of the ship is at stake...

And oddly enough, this one has been implemented at a much later stage than current GSF, even if it was more drastic.

 

In the end, the effect is more like some trivial rebalance than redesign. Even if people react a bit strongly (like often when nerfs are involved) it's not that late either. So, can it really have *so* bad consequences ? Isn't it actually quite trivial compared to other balance passes/redesign that happen in MMOs ?

 

 

If like me, you see Scouts as a class, Flashfire/Sting being a spec, components being skills/talents, and upgrades being intricated talents, then even my proposition of changing armor into magazine or sensor which would probably be the most drastic/invasive of all proposed changes (I admit) is just as trivial and "soft" as removing DR talents from a DPS spec that happens to be the only one to have greater resilience without any offensive drawback.

 

More importantly, the ships that had a REAL identity crisis did eventually get some meaningful choices to distinguish them.

While some others *cough* Pike *cough* Quell *cough* lost exclusivity on everything that was allowing them to do something special/unique to them, and now have an identity crisis they did not have (even if at that time, the exclusivities was not worth).

 

One step front, one step back.

Edited September 10, 2014 by Altheran

[Gavin_Kelvar]

And why would it be bad ?

 

Because people would get upset as some of their ships would be directly or indirectly weaker ?

We can't really say it would change the role or philosophy of the ships, so it has to come from *this* reason.

It's really not like what Shadow/Assassin tanks had, where the tanking method had its core shifted from self-healing to maintaining damage reductors, it would not be that kind of change where the perception of the ship is at stake...

And oddly enough, this one has been implemented at a much later stage than current GSF, even if it was more drastic.

 

In the end, the effect is more like some trivial rebalance than redesign. Even if people react a bit strongly (like often when nerfs are involved) it's not that late either. So, can it really have *so* bad consequences ? Isn't it actually quite trivial compared to other balance passes/redesign that happen in MMOs ?

 

 

If like me, you see Scouts as a class, Flashfire/Sting being a spec, components being skills/talents, and upgrades being intricated talents, then even my proposition of changing armor into magazine or sensor which would probably be the most drastic/invasive of all proposed changes (I admit) is just as trivial and "soft" as removing DR talents from a DPS spec that happens to be the only one to have greater resilience without any offensive drawback.

 

I agree with all this and personally I'd love it if Starguards could compete with Flashfires in space superiority, just as a different playstyle (kinda like how Gunslinger and Sentinels are, to my knowledge, the best DPS ACs but use different playstyles).

[Ryuku-sama]

I agree with all this and personally I'd love it if Starguards could compete with Flashfires in space superiority, just as a different playstyle (kinda like how Gunslinger and Sentinels are, to my knowledge, the best DPS ACs but use different playstyles).

 

lil tip.. currently the 4 PvE slinger specs are in the low end of the game.

[tommmsunb]

I agree with all this and personally I'd love it if Starguards could compete with Flashfires in space superiority, just as a different playstyle (kinda like how Gunslinger and Sentinels are, to my knowledge, the best DPS ACs but use different playstyles).

 

They can if you're good.

[Fractalsponge]

They can if you're good.

 

Only if you cherry pick examples. I don't think taking a huge amount of extra effort to get the same result is really being "competitive" as a class. It would be one thing if the extra durability offered by strikes offset all the negatives, but it really doesn't. The only strike I really enjoy playing now is the Imperium, because of the team utility and real extra tankiness.

[tommmsunb]

Only if you cherry pick examples. I don't think taking a huge amount of extra effort to get the same result is really being "competitive" as a class. It would be one thing if the extra durability offered by strikes offset all the negatives, but it really doesn't. The only strike I really enjoy playing now is the Imperium, because of the team utility and real extra tankiness.

 

The same way that ranged DPS has its roles and melee dps has its roles, scout DPS attack different targets than strikes do. Scouts can easily take out strikes/gunships with a little bit more trouble on scouts/bombers, strikes with the ion/heavy build can easily take out bombers/scouts with it being a little harder on other strikes/gunships.

[Fractalsponge]

The same way that ranged DPS has its roles and melee dps has its roles, scout DPS attack different targets than strikes do. Scouts can easily take out strikes/gunships with a little bit more trouble on scouts/bombers, strikes with the ion/heavy build can easily take out bombers/scouts with it being a little harder on other strikes/gunships.

 

Oh yeah, there are different roles, but the strike roles are pretty niche in comparison. Assaulting a bomber-held node is probably the only thing they can do easier than a scout with the right use of cooldowns. Meanwhile scouts have decisive advantages as a class...everywhere else.

 

Kinds of targets:

vs strikes - scouts win due to mobility and close-in advantage

vs gunships - same as above, and scouts are much less vulnerable to being gimped by ion railgun fire, and are intrinsically harder to hit with railguns in general

vs scouts - also same as the first - strikes have a harder time maintaining optimal range with their weapons, burst damage is king vs an evasive target, and scouts just burst a lot harder and more frequently than strikes

vs bombers - strikes only win when a bomber has fully set up, otherwise a scout can chase and burst down a bomber just as well if not better than a strike

 

Heavy/ion build is great vs bombers but I don't know where you get it being good vs scouts...a good scout will rapidly close out of effective HLC range and ion/cluster doesn't hit hard enough vs quads/pods or BLC/cluster (with TT/BO to boot) to win up close. Never mind the fact that scouts have an extra missile break and that a strike loses overall mobility to make up for slower turning, so it can either enter a turning fight but have a scout disengage at will or keep overall mobility but get outperformed even more up close.