Tune's Balance Suggestions

[tunewalker]

The barrel roll nerf was more interesting than just the obvious, "it hurt the Pike because the Pike got screwed on engine components". Pikes used barrel rolls to close distance and counter enemy barrel rolls. The fact is, an enemy with barrel roll was generally confident that he wouldn't face an immediate second missile lock, and would often wait until the last second to barrel, and wouldn't really care where he landed. This created a meta with a bunch of targets for Pikes that would launch clusters, get a barrel (one cluster hits) and immediately begin locking proton on a target really far away.

 

The fact is that with the barrel roll nerf, players are much more likely to have moves that put them somewhere safe, or to use barrel roll to disengage. This means that the emergent situations for the Pike are much fewer.

 

 

 

Anyway, this thread has the same issues in the "lets nerf battle scouts" threads, mirrored. In those threads, everyone agrees they are overtuned, and then one guy brings up that they are a bit too mobile, someone else thinks the mobility defines them but they are too tanky, and someone else just doesn't like all the burst. So each of those guys is playing a different battlescout- one guy is playing the mobile scout that also gets burst and distortion for free, and he thinks the first one is the identity and the second and third might just be tuning, the second guy has a very different opinion about what is the core of the scout, etc.

 

In this thread, it's more like "well, strikes could really use buffs", and tune starts with the "lets increase boost efficiency" argument, and is immediately beset by folks who want to boost offenses or instead nerf every ship down to the Pike (again, the worst ship in the game, and as poor a balance target to pull everyone down to as could be imagined). Tune sees a good ship that can be used correctly but has a serious weakness about being left out of breath- a barrel of purple lasts the strike fighter only marginally more than a gunship, and increasing that delta would be good.

 

But at every point, this thread has redesign stuff that I consider overdone, and some that I consider garbage. From "leave an empty talent for targeting telem lol" to "basically delete burst laser cannon" to an absurd and game breaking "crew reload to 50%", we have huge sweeping proposals right in the first post, and then the thread turns into "hey here's this idea, and also delete evasion because it's fundamentally broken". Is it useful to redo the combat system and every single ship system, and every single ship? Again, remember guys, they haven't fixed a bunch of basic XML data errors in six months.

 

 

Will the devs buff strikes? I hope so. Will they tone down scout burst? Again, I hope so, and also probably. Will they nerf burst laser cannon? I don't know, and I don't really want them too. I definitely don't want them to make it miss a lot more at angles, that would be the wrong direction to go in. Will they buff rapid fire lasers? I sort of doubt it. Some things in the game are overpriced, and some underpriced. A talent that gives you 8% accuracy is pretty much fine, even though it's MUCH more damage than a typical talent, and a talent that reduces the cost of lasers by 10% is routinely dropped into the talent tree as if it was a fair choice compared with that. Obviously, the devs undervalue accuracy and overvalue reduced energy cost, and any weapon that chooses to be accuracy is hella good, and any weapon that chooses to be efficient is generally poor. It's true at EVERY level of the design.

 

So I think we might see changes to THAT sort of thing, but that's what needs to be talked about. A 50% reduction in railgun cooldown isn't a good idea (and if your next statement is to make the rapid reload not mod railguns, sod off), and the problem with long cooldown weapons isn't that they don't have enough motivation to take some terrible offensive crewman, it's that their reload is too damned long. Clusters don't need a faster reload, protons do. And yes, 8% is too little for a crew passive. What if it was 15% and boosted your firing rate by 5%? Oh wait, now we are actually talking about fixing the totally broken offensive passives, like in ( http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=7338365 ).

 

 

Anyway, I don't think anyone is going to agree on exactly which buffs strikes need, and the community is divided on pretty much any of the mildly optimal components, normally begging to nerf the HECK out of them. I think community opinion on Burst Laser Cannon is particularly hysterical, for instance. BLC is overtuned, but most nerf suggestions go overboard.

 

 

 

Another problem is this- we kind of see how the components work in play, and the game is built around them. If you nerfed the most common and best components, you are really hurting the playstyle that the players have learned over this year of GSF. That's a radical shift.

 

The left talent in Target Talem would not be empty, I suggest reading the FULL talent, it increases Magnitude 25% AAAAAAANND increases Crit chance buff by an Additional 10%. Leave the 10% crit increase, drop the Magnitude... done, why do you think I suggested it. Even then with it just giving 10% crit and no magnitude its still largely better then the right talent "10% range". Ya I know so many people took it for the magnitude, but lets think. Devs said Scout burst was to high, especially when things like TT and CF got stacked... well, then you ask why.... well the answer there is stupid obivious, maybe an increase in crit magnitude on a talent that every one was going to take for the 10% crit any way was stupid.

 

 

Yes the main problem with long reload missiles is their reloads are to darn long. Their is a crew member that reduces it, but the amount he reduces it by is garbage.... Solution 2 birds.... 1 stone. Solves both problems at the same time and solves a 3rd problem in increasing amount of missiles long lock/ reload missiles that hit.... 3 Birds.... 1 stone.

 

 

Your exagurating about Burst lasers. They would have greater Shield Piercing (since they would be able to take both shield and Armor Pierce) and they would still have the best tracking accuracy right next to Rapids. If its to much revert the Tracking Penalty change back to .5% the "5% increased range" will do similar to the 2% accuracy 5% crit minus the Crit (which is unneeded in such a hard hitting weapon) and gives slightly longer range. Everything else is still in the tree and just moved around so as to force choice, rather then just being the best gun for every situation all the time.

 

 

Also Rapid Reload as far as I am Aware NEVER effected ANYTHING but missiles. So it already does nothing for Railguns, or Rocket pods, why would you change how it already functions. This is just a numbers tweek. And as I said in the suggestion, clusters reload is 3 seconds, Engine manuevers stop people from locking on to you for 3 seconds, even if Clusters had a 0 Second reload, the amount that hit would not change much if at all. Same with if they went from 3 to 1.5, such a reduction would be a waste of the person who picked it ups time.

Edited October 29, 2014 by tunewalker

[Verain]

Before the BR nerf, Barrel Roll had the same CD as Power Dive currently has, so every one was just as "immune" to missiles as a Power Dive person is.

 

More and less. Because you could always barrel roll, you would often go very far off target, and in theory you'd be immune to missiles. In practice, ships would shoot off into space, which was normally not a misplay as it would be today.

 

Missile Frequency hasnt changed, mobility has. Yes those that lost mobility were hurt by the Barrel Roll Nerf. Lets see who it effected.[

 

All Scouts, but because they have the best engine efficiency this was effectively a Buff, not a Nerf as they could now more easily keep up with all ships

 

I think this is the MOST underrated part of this nerf. Everyone had mobility from barrel roll, and now very few do, and those that kept it have less. This was also the stated dev reason- not the delta betwixt scout and strike growing, but that all movement in the game was mostly barrel roll.

 

This change was a pretty massive buff to scouts. The Pike lost its ability to switch what node it was on or where it was aiming, but the Starguard kept its ability to be relevant in melee. The scouts netted a big buff.

 

 

Gunships, this hurt them a little, but not to much since they dont have to chase down targets they can Railgun, and if they are left alone they are fine. Barrel roll Nerf hurt their survivability, with out effecting their offensive potential.

 

This is not true. Gunships absolutely need to play much more defensively than before, and a focused gunship has a hell of a time doing really anything. That being said, it didn't hurt gunships as much as it hurt the Pike.

 

Bombers dont have BR or engine manuevers of most kinds.

 

I don't think they were in the game when the nerf hit, were they?

 

Strikes fire at "mid range" ,meaning less then half the range of GS, and 50% more then Scouts (not double scouts), they rely on engines to both get to targets and to run from them. This is the issue, this is why Barrel Roll nerf hurt them more then any other ship.

 

Completely agree.

 

Strike fighters went from being "alright" to "dead" because that's what happened to their mobility.

 

Well, I think it's more "the Pike". The Starguard's niche is mostly unchanged, and it was not amazing before. Meanwhile, the Clarion, which didn't exist, came in later and has a decent role now.

 

I think the problem is with the Strike base chassis, but at every level there are things that just attack it a bit. Like, every strike has these dumb engine components that don't make you mobile. Who is like "I was going to joust him, but he has weapon power converter, and that would be suicide". Were these intended to be good? They look like traps. Who put the charged plating on the starguard? You take TWENTY TIMES the damage as a starguard with this active as you do as a bomber with this active, and that requires expert knowledge on a starter ship to NOT fall into this trap. Why did the peppering of the scout distortion component hit zero strikes? Why did the peppering of the gunship burst laser component hit zero strikes? Why did these cool components miss the whole class?

 

 

Personally?

 

I'd make strikes have more efficient boost, just as Tune says, and I would think it would be entitrely reasonable if they had a passive that reduced their lock on times by a few percent, and/or increased their blaster damage done by several percent. Even though the Clarion is good, it's very mediocre offensively, and the offensive strikes have vastly less damage capability than would be expected, given their lack of utility.

 

 

And finally, if we want to talk design? I think all the midrange weapons are oddly balanced. I think their tracking penalty is too high- this means quads and lasers. These weapons are supposed to be solid mainstays, and they ARE worth using, but the midrange combat with them seems just weak, and their cone of effect is much narrower than it looks, or honestly should be, given the prices they pay. I think that the difference between a close range and a mid range weapon is that the close range weapon mostly requires you be positioned well with burst, or more maneuverable than your target, or at a node, and the mid range weapon is just kind of there. You take it if you won't be able to rely on the other things, or if you don't have a good close range weapon. The only gun that feels correct to me is the heavy laser- you can shoot a target at a reasonable range, and the gun doesn't randomly put out "3", and the inability to fire at high deflection is barely important because that is largely a trap on everything but BLC anyway.

[tunewalker]

Just a Quick note Verain.

 

With GS I was talking how they rely on their engines for Defense, but not so much for offense. The Engine nerf hurt their Defensive capabilties, with out to much of an effect on their offensive capabilities (obivously their was SOME hit to offense since staying alive is required to be offensive)

 

Where a Strike needs its engines for both which effectively doubled back and forth on itself resulting in dead strikes.

 

Yes the Clarion works, but not offensively, it works because PD adds the mobility the others lack, and it works because it isnt meant to really be offensive in the current meta. Even with such a change it would still basically have its same role, but could contribute a little more to the offensive field, which I think it kind of should. i dont think it should just be the "heal *****"

 

 

But you know how this goes at this point, now we are just going to go in circles. I honestly dont think DF needs much of a change to anything as long as you do appropriate things with strikes.

[Verain]

The left talent in Target Talem would not be empty, I suggest reading the FULL talent, it increases Magnitude 25% AAAAAAANND increases Crit chance buff by an Additional 10%. Leave the 10% crit increase, drop the Magnitude... done, why do you think I suggested it.

 

I misread you, sorry. I approve of that. The range talent is a bit better, but it's close. But I dislike that you are talking about TT but not BO. That's only because TT is a bit more common in the meta, because it's so good versus evasion. BO is actually the more potent cooldown in many cases, just not the ones we see a lot.

 

Both burst systems should be tuned down a bit, but it wouldn't be unreasonable to grant scouts some compensation if that happened. You do know that most of TT isn't that exciting, it's all about that crit magnitude.

 

Yes the main problem with long reload missiles is their reloads are to darn long. Their is a crew member that reduces it, but the amount he reduces it by is garbage.... Solution 2 birds.... 1 stone. Solves both problems at the same time and solves a 3rd problem in increasing amount of missiles long lock/ reload missiles that hit.... 3 Birds.... 1 stone.

 

The problem is that LONG missile reloads are too long. Clusters are probably overtuned, for instance- if a scout isn't taking clusters, its because he has a cunning rocket pod plan. If a strike doesn't take it, its because he can't chase a target down with them like a scout. I would hate a meta where someone could halve their cluster cooldown.

 

In other threads, people have suggested just flat out reducing the proton and thermite cooldown, and EVERYONE wants faster Ion cooldown (EMP is a bit more controversial). The problem shouldn't be "make an overpowered crew passive that is mandatory. The game has too damned much of that already. The problem is the cooldown time. One bird, one stone, because stones are cheap.

 

best tracking accuracy right next to Rapids

Who cares about rapids? Rapids are trash and need buffs. You could safely REMOVE the tracking penalty on rapids. Just completely remove it, and the game would be totally fine. Not even joking.

 

The problem is that BLCs give you something that actually works, and you want to break that. What it gives you is the ability to take snap shots at close range for real damage. That is a very important thing that this game needs, and it's GOOD that it has them. The firing rate increase? Yea, that sounds good, make them a dash less bursty. But don't start nerfing their core thing. The game would be a little bit worse with a .8% tracking penalty on BLC.

 

Everything else is still in the tree and just moved around so as to force choice, rather then just being the best gun for every situation all the time.

 

It's not, though. It has low dps, it has low range, it falls off with range faster than anything else. You take it on a bunch of ships because the meta says you will always have scouts at 1500m because scouts are kind of too good. That's a big part of the problem.

 

 

Also Rapid Reload as far as I am Aware NEVER effected ANYTHING but missiles. So it already does nothing for Railguns, or Rocket pods, why would you change how it already functions. This is just a numbers tweek.

 

It has always worked on railguns. Also, multiplying something by four is not a "numbers tweak", it's a core redesign, and would make that talent vastly too good.

[tunewalker]

I did do something to BO, I swapped the Energy talent and the Damage talents locations, so that you could only get Rapid fire OR Damage instead of both, and the final becomes a choice between energy and Range... of which we all know range will be the one chosen.

 

 

Well I am an extremely Cheap man, and Bioware stones apparently cost 500 Million Credits, since we havent seen a stone thrown into the GSF cog in a while, so not so cheap.

 

Reducing the Reload time of Cluster by half WOULD DO NOTHING... thats the point i am trying to make. Most missile breaks (save for disto) lock you out of being able to lock on that target again for 3 seconds. As their CD is already 3 Seconds lowering that CD at all is a waste of time. Cluster effectiveness would have a net 0 change in efficiency. What you should be complaining about is the fact that Concs would now have Cluster Reload times, and Protons would have Conc reload times. Is it possible this is overtuned... maybe. Would this become mandatory hell no. If a person with clusters took it I would be laughing at them, cus it truly didnt help them at all, I am going to Barrel roll away even if they stay on my tail they stil have to wait 3 seconds (same time they would have to wait with out the upgrade) and then I am going LoS the same way that I always do, except it might be easier now since they didnt go for the Arc, or I they didnt go for ammo, so they are going to be out pertty quickly and I am laughing at them still for picking useless reduction in reload times on a missile with 3 second reload.

 

 

Burst lasers correction

The purpose is to bring Burst lasers in line with other 4k meter lasers. they would have better burst, but be harder to use, this is why the Rapids was brought in (which if you read the FULL first post you would know the got a significant buff) because all 3 (Burst, Light and Rapid) would be just as useful. Rather then Bringing all lasers up to Burst I brought them all on par with Light. The middle of the road laser that is on par with other lasers currently in game. I even specifically state that the hit to Burst Tracking MIGHT be to much because of its fall off, and if so suggested to revert it back to .5. The rest I dont think needs to be changed. The first talent didnt change at all. The second lost its crit and 2% accuracy for 5% range (which as you just noted and so has so many others, this is the weapon with the worst fall off, but that also means it scales better with range then any other laser, so this is a good talent for it) and then the rest just got rearranged so that you had to pick between Tracking.... and Armor Pen (like you do for every other weapon with a choice of reducing tracking, you have to CHOOSE it), bringing it much more in line with Light Lasers, which should be the Bench mark for close range weapons as they are well balanced against "mid" and "Long" range lasers in the game.

 

 

 

Finally Multiplying a number by any other number is a tweaking of numbers. it may be a LARGE tweak in numbers....but its still just a tweak in numbers.

Edited October 29, 2014 by tunewalker

[Verain]

I did do something to BO, I swapped the Energy talent and the Damage talents locations, so that you could only get Rapid fire OR Damage instead of both, and the final becomes a choice between energy and Range... of which we all know range will be the one chosen.

 

I just like, I think that those systems should just change a bit more of their character. They clearly represent a lot of what the scouts are.

 

 

Reducing the Reload time of Cluster by half WOULD DO NOTHING... thats the point i am trying to make.

Uh... no, this would be huge. HUGE. Disgustingly huge. You'd just hammer those things out like nothing.

 

Most missile breaks (save for disto) lock you out of being able to lock on that target again for 3 seconds.

So, ONE of the two missile locks the good ships have grants this three seconds, right? Distortion is a lot of missile defense, and clusters are especially absurd against gunships. Now, stop for a second: what about when a ship can't dodge? The gunship doesn't have distortion, and he barrels sorta close . You swap to him, you lock clusters, bam, he's running. You start to lock again, he gets behind a rock. With half the cooldown, you DOUBLED your shots against him- you DOUBLE the dps of cluster missiles, which have too damned much dps already.

 

 

As their CD is already 3 Seconds lowering that CD at all is a waste of time.

A waste of time versus a Pike who barrel rolls away. As long as you stop your simulation there, and forget that he gets hit with four clusters instead of two before his barrel comes up, etc. As long as you aren't playing any of the actually good ships, who have a missile lock break that doesn't grant immunity as a core part of their play.

 

No, this buff is wild and silly. You want to buff proton? Yea, they should do that. Ion, thermite? Sure.

 

And yes, concussion doesn't need this buff either. Basically because it is way too good.

 

 

"Hey guys, I found a way for battle scouts to rule even harder, gather round!"

 

Sigh.

 

 

 

The purpose is to bring Burst lasers in line with other 4k meter lasers

No, don't. Those aren't the standard. Burst lasers are the standard. If the game had seventeen terrible lasers no one used, would you be like, "lemme find the worst two of those. Ok, everything should suck exactly THAT hard." No? Then forget about the other fifteen lasers, and stop doing it now. THIS GAME IS PLAYED WITH BURST LASER CANNON. Rapid Fires aren't the ideal. Light lasers aren't the ideal. Nerfing BLC a lot is nerfing close ranged dogfighting a lot.

 

 

much more in line with Light Lasers, which should be the Bench mark for close range weapons as they are well balanced against "mid" and "Long" range lasers in the game.

 

I feel that lights are weaker than they should be. Certainly, the bulk of the game is not played with lights.

 

 

 

Finally Multiplying a number by any other number is a tweaking of numbers. it may be a LARGE tweak in numbers....but its still just a tweak in numbers.

 

No. It is not. This one I'll go to the mat on, because it's not an opinion. Are you saying it would be technically an easy change, because it just is changing a number? Yes, that's true. But a "numbers tweak" is changing a number by some reasonable amount. Your change doubles cluster dps, proton dps, thermite dps, concussion dps, ion dps and debuff uptime, EMP dps and debuff uptime (to over 100% uptime on many targets), drastically changes the values of offensive crewmembers, increases railgun dps by 15%, and makes a bunch of crew choices wrong. Which of those sound like good ideas? Maybe those could be done independently? That is multiplying a cooldown reduction by 6.25. What would happen if you divided strike fighter hit points by 6.25? Is that also a numbers tweak?

 

Well, it would be less impactful on the game than the 50% one. Because your change would screw the meta up totally, and leaving strikes with 288 hit points would only just take away the Clarion.

[tunewalker]

Edit: you know what, I dont care. Just suffice to say you arent accounting for Lock on times, and you really need to get on a pike Barrel roll and then Avoid missiles for 20 seconds, its not hard to do even clusters. If a Pike can do it, a ship with an extra missile break can do it, thus neutralizing the Lock reduction on clusters any way. If A scout pilot wants to be stupid enough to drop AMMO on Clusters (which this is a problem they do have if they dont take it) or Accuracy (cus ya lets drop accuracy) then more power to him for being stupid and getting a Crew member that only helps him in extremely Rare scenarios that should never happen against a good pilot. Does it buff strikes a lot as a good option for Concs and the rest.... yep, consider this my awnser to "buffing strikes" and "nerfing DF" (3 birds 1 500 Million Credit stone)

 

Edit 2: Burst laser new change (for verain) Increase Rate of Fire to 120 RPM increase DPS 2%.

Edited October 30, 2014 by tunewalker

[Gavin_Kelvar]

If they didnt change Engine efficiency it would do a whole lot of squat.

 

And I'm pretty sure I didn't at any point advocate buffing agility and not engine efficiency too

 

Honestly the effectiveness of strikes abilities to keep targets in their sights and chase them down pre BR nerf suggests that extra turning is unneccisary. The problem is "threat range" the range at which a Strike is threatening, boost efficiency and the ability to close distance is apart of that. You can pretty much get exactly what you are wanting out of the turning options, which if boost efficiency was increased, then people like you COULD choose those turning options, while others like me could stick with regen, or still others could go for Speed.

 

Well my experience was from flying T1 and later T3 strikers. For whatever reason I never found the T2 to my liking. Anyway with the T1's best weapons having high tracking penalties I found that at least 10% buff to turning to be essential in giving me the ability to reliably hit targets that were trying to be evasive. Far more so than engine efficiency which was minimally useful in keeping tracking penalties low once the fight started (although it helped chase guys down if they rabbitted). Unlike a T2 where it doesn't matter whether an enemy is at the edge of their firing arc or in the center so long as they get a missile lock it matters a great deal on a T1 since it directly impacts whether they hit their target or miss (to some degree the T3 as well since it impacts 50% of their weaponry and offensive potential and just generally makes it easier to get a torpedo lock at mid range). I generally preferred retros on my T1 to barrel roll and T3s never had it so my experience is from someone who didn't notice a sudden drop in mobility post-nerf due to not frequently using the component pre-nerf.

 

The point being is that mobility is, IMO, only one part of making the strike as a class effective in their threat range(s).

Except for HLCs T1 strike weaponry is the same range as the scout threat range (depending on the scout's build) and engine efficiency is going to have a minimal effect on improving their competitiveness in that area. While engine efficiency will do much for the T2 I think it will be less of a meaningful buff to the blaster focused T1 or the T3 which is severely limited in it's options due to not having a thruster component.

 

I subscribe to the idea of change 1 thing big at a time, rather then changing many small things all at once. This way when something gets over tuned. Its easy to spot what it was rather then trying to guess what it was that got over buffed, or over nerfed. The less variables that change, the easier it is to tell when something changed to much.

 

normally I'd agree with this but the way balance passes go I think we're kinda screwed one way or the other. Either we get a buff that isn't sufficient so we keep the current FOTY meta (unless they get crippled in the same balance pass) or we get too much of a buff which worse case scenario makes strikers the new FOTY (or more likely they just join the ranks of existing FOTY ships). So I guess it's just pick your poison.

[Ramalina]

I rather doubt that strikes will be over buffed.

 

I've been playing a bit on Bastion to gear up a GSF alt there, and in an effort to grind req a bit faster I'm flying all the ship classes instead of just strikes.

 

As far as I can tell, a stock Novadive is about as powerful as a mastered Starguard or Pike.

 

Balance wise, that's not just behind a bit, that's flat out broken. Really, with the same pilot, 150k of req spent in optimal places ought to put you ahead of zero req spent and some sub-optimal component and crew selections. Especially when you haven't flown the scout class in about six months.

 

Granted, some skills transfer, if you can hit at point blank with HLC's then stock Rocket Pods are almost impossible to miss with. Coming from a strike you also don't really feel that missing the Disto missile break is a problem, and for that matter neither is using barrel roll on cooldown as a mobility tool, because scouts really don't need ANY missile breaks (seriously they don't, it's stupidly easy to outfly a lock on a scout).

 

I still LIKE strikes better, but getting some time on stock scouts and GSs when the majority of my recent flying has been on mastered or nearly mastered strikes has been a bit of an eye opener for me. Strikes are not o.k. balance wise at this point in time.

 

I still wouldn't recommend going crazy with strike buffs, but I think that if the Devs go with the most aggressive set of whatever strike buffs they might be seriously contemplating it's not going to do more than put strikes about even with T1 scouts and T3 gunships.