Lets talk a bit about that Disto bug

[Ahsh]

I think the missile break on DF should be removed permanently. I think it helps out the strikes especially having it this way. They could add some type of other ability to it in lieu of the missile break but I think this "feature" is actually a good thing. Every ship gets at most one missile break. Just my two cents.

[Ryuku-sama]

I think the missile break on DF should be removed permanently. I think it helps out the strikes especially having it this way. They could add some type of other ability to it in lieu of the missile break but I think this "feature" is actually a good thing. Every ship gets at most one missile break. Just my two cents.

 

Then cluster now on will have a 5 sec CD, Conc will have a 8 sec CD.... Or Barrel Roll will have a 15 sec CD and half its current cost. Disto is a forced choice for the T1 Gunship for one reason.. BR.

[MiaowZedong]

Then cluster now on will have a 5 sec CD, Conc will have a 8 sec CD.... Or Barrel Roll will have a 15 sec CD and half its current cost. Disto is a forced choice for the T1 Gunship for one reason.. BR.

 

You're assuming the T1 GS shouldn't be more vulnerable to missiles. To be honest, I'd say missiles other than Clusters and Interdictions need some help (to various degrees, obviously).

 

Also, Barrel Roll is kinda...bad. I get that some people use it out of habit and because they don't really need better, or because they really really value that small burst of speed advantage it has over Power Dive, but it's still a weak ability. I'm OK with the T1 GS being stuck with that, but it shouldn't be something the starter scout gets (especially stock, when BR is basically a non-ability you don't get to use).

Edited December 12, 2014 by MiaowZedong

[Ryuku-sama]

You're assuming the T1 GS shouldn't be more vulnerable to missiles. To be honest, I'd say missiles other than Clusters and Interdictions need some help (to various degrees, obviously).

 

Also, Barrel Roll is kinda...bad. I get that some people use it out of habit and because they don't really need better, or because they really really value that small burst of speed advantage it has over Power Dive, but it's still a weak ability. I'm OK with the T1 GS being stuck with that, but it shouldn't be something the starter scout gets (especially stock, when BR is basically a non-ability you don't get to use).

 

Giving the T1 and T2 Sheep Power Dive.. I like this idea.

[Ahsh]

Then cluster now on will have a 5 sec CD, Conc will have a 8 sec CD.... Or Barrel Roll will have a 15 sec CD and half its current cost. Disto is a forced choice for the T1 Gunship for one reason.. BR.

 

I think all of these are great ideas but not sure on the numbers. I do think they nerfed BR too much and cluster need a bit of a longer CD. I am sure as a community we could test and provide feedback. I have a feeling though they will fix all the bugs and look at changes soon .

[Fractalsponge]

Having played numerous games since the patch broke everything, in my mainstays (T1 GS, T2 scout), as well as T2 strike to test the effects on missile use, I have a few comments about it all.

 

1) The world did not end with loss of second missile break. Well, this wasn't at all surprising, but it bears mentioning. Leads into ...

 

2) Dfield losing missile break actually has not dramatically changed the flow of play for most ships. Now of course it's all in the context of much additional broken-ness - quite possibly a lot can change when ships get access to refills and protons/thermites get access to their speed boost options again, and there are more seekers out there.

 

3) T2 strikes are finally OK. Not OP, or even top-flight, but just OK. That tells you just how broken the strike situation was before. People losing their second missile break was critical for this.

 

4) That said, dfield permanently losing missile break should only happen in the context of other changes: gunships need improved missile defense options, either a buffed BR or access to power dive. Now, why do this when I say that the loss of missile break hasn't changed things much? Because I have 3k matches played and adapted quickly. Most veterans will, but most new players do not have the experience to deal with a much more missile-heavy environment.

 

Cluster is the most dangerous thing to gunships. This might seem like a crazy view, but hear me out. Quads/LC and pods may allow for cheap kills against bad (most) gunships, but look at gunship/scout play at the highest levels. I never die to opening scout burst - well, so infrequently that it's basically never. Quads-n'Pod me all you like, but unless I'm really distracted, really damaged, a scout has DO AND cooldowns or the approach is gosh darn perfect, a scout won't kill me on its first pass. I *will* die to a scout pilot of equivalent skill, but it's attritional, not because of opening burst. Cluster attrition is also a much surer way of killing even bad gunships, if a scouts opening burst can't cheese the encounter. In that context, cluster is far more dangerous in most encounters than rockets. The balance pre 3.0 was pretty good between scouts and gunships (I say this as both a GS and battlescout pilot). If dfield changes post 3.0 are going to be real, something else needs to change to keep things just as balanced.

 

5) Dfield missile break needs to have a viable replacement. We could grant a passive evasion boost equivalent to on-CD use of the active with increased duration, but that might just reintroduce too much evasion into the meta. Passively increasing missile lock time (as I believe Verain suggested once) would be nice.

 

6) I totally agree about buffing BR even in isolation from DField. I always thought they over-nerfed it for all classes.

Edited December 12, 2014 by Fractalsponge

[Altheran]

Giving the T1 and T2 Sheep Power Dive.. I like this idea.

 

I don't think he meant that.

 

Then cluster now on will have a 5 sec CD, Conc will have a 8 sec CD.... Or Barrel Roll will have a 15 sec CD and half its current cost. Disto is a forced choice for the T1 Gunship for one reason.. BR.

 

If Distortion Field now becomes unable to break missile locks permanenty, some things will indeed have to be tweaked, with Gunship defense being too weak. I agree with that.

But increasing missiles' CD is not a good idea in my opinion.

 

As they are now is pretty well balanced against people with a 15s CD engine ability like Koiogran or Retro.

Barrel Roll, on the other hand... Yes, a BR user is missile fodder, mostly because of CD.

 

So increasing missiles CD because of ships only having BR ?

Why would you break the balance achieved with other ships having components granting a 15s CD, just for making the life of BR users easier ? Also at the same time, you'd break what was just achieved for Strikes as their missile has more weight in their damage than Scouts for example. Instead of having DF users (and PD users) being immune to Strikes, we'd have almost everyone being near immune to Strikes

And lately, you'd make Power Dive even stronger than it already is (which is too much as for now in my opinion).

Maybe the CD of Cluster can be increased given how short it is, but that about all you can do without breaking the weapons efficiency as you'd make the average "lock and reload" time too close if not longer than one lock breaker.

 

Putting back the CD of Barrel Roll to 15s, like you said in your second proposition would be much more adequate. However the cost... Maybe something can be done in that area, but putting it back where it was before the Engine balance pass... ...Well, I don't want to go back to the time when everyhing was about having BR to win, do you ?

(For the cost, I propose that the cost is turned back where it was, with the standard on-use cost, BUT using it would disrupt Engine regen for a few secs, likely for the 3s of maneuver and immunity to make for the boost/mobility advantage of BR over other components)

 

 

Overall, I think that missiles are a far too important part of some ships gameplay to have engines CD to be anything else than 15s. With a longer CD like with BR, you become an easy target. With a shorter CD like with Power Dive, you become overly resilient.

(Yes I imply that 10s PD is no-good)

[Ryuku-sama]

I don't think he meant that.

 

To the Troll, you fell.

 

If Distortion Field now becomes unable to break missile locks permanenty, some things will indeed have to be tweaked, with Gunship defense being too weak. I agree with that.

But increasing missiles' CD is not a good idea in my opinion.

 

As they are now is pretty well balanced against people with a 15s CD engine ability like Koiogran or Retro.

Barrel Roll, on the other hand... Yes, a BR user is missile fodder, mostly because of CD.

 

So increasing missiles CD because of ships only having BR ?

Why would you break the balance achieved with other ships having components granting a 15s CD, just for making the life of BR users easier ? Also at the same time, you'd break what was just achieved for Strikes as their missile has more weight in their damage than Scouts for example. Instead of having DF users (and PD users) being immune to Strikes, we'd have almost everyone being near immune to Strikes

And lately, you'd make Power Dive even stronger than it already is (which is too much as for now in my opinion).

Maybe the CD of Cluster can be increased given how short it is, but that about all you can do without breaking the weapons efficiency as you'd make the average "lock and reload" time too close if not longer than one lock breaker.

 

It was a suggestion means to be completely stupid. And any pilot with half a brain can see it.

 

Putting back the CD of Barrel Roll to 15s, like you said in your second proposition would be much more adequate. However the cost... Maybe something can be done in that area, but putting it back where it was before the Engine balance pass... ...Well, I don't want to go back to the time when everyhing was about having BR to win, do you ?

(For the cost, I propose that the cost is turned back where it was, with the standard on-use cost, BUT using it would disrupt Engine regen for a few secs, likely for the 3s of maneuver and immunity to make for the boost/mobility advantage of BR over other components)

 

BR currently takes one third of your engine (stock) and one fifth (upgraded). Other 15s takes less... I didn't say anything about bringing it back to what it was pre nerf.. Just to bring it back to Retro and Koigran level.

 

Overall, I think that missiles are a far too important part of some ships gameplay to have engines CD to be anything else than 15s. With a longer CD like with BR, you become an easy target. With a shorter CD like with Power Dive, you become overly resilient.

(Yes I imply that 10s PD is no-good)

 

Problem with Power Dive is the skill floor. Koigran, Snap and BR are almost impossible to screw up. Retro is kinda hard to screw up, you just need to be aware of what is behind you for the next 6km. POwer Dive awareness is much higher... Screwing up a Power Dive is much easier.

[Altheran]

Okay my sarcasm sensor is broken it seems.

 

BR currently takes one third of your engine (stock) and one fifth (upgraded). Other 15s takes less... I didn't say anything about bringing it back to what it was pre nerf.. Just to bring it back to Retro and Koigran level.

But Koiogran and Retro level, is exactly where Barrel Roll used to be before the nerf, if I'm right.

 

In the patch note if i recall correctly, Power Dive had cost and CD lowered, and Barrell Roll had cost and CD increased, and that was all. And before that patch all engine costs and CD were standardized.

So, if "post change Koiogran" = "pre change Koiogran" = "pre change Barrel"...

 

Problem with Power Dive is the skill floor. Koigran, Snap and BR are almost impossible to screw up. Retro is kinda hard to screw up, you just need to be aware of what is behind you for the next 6km. POwer Dive awareness is much higher... Screwing up a Power Dive is much easier.

That's why it could keep an advantage on Engine cost to make for that.

 

It's just that when most missile can't be launched under 9s (3s lock + 6s reload) or 15s (4s lock + 11s reload), having the counter every 10s intead of 15s has a huge impact on combat.

 

Also, while not entirely related to ship-to-ship combat considerations, the mobility boost Power Dive provides at the moment thanks to the combination of CD and cost is a bit ridiculous, if you ask me.

A PD Sledgehammer reaches B of Denon faster than a Koiogran Starguard, and with lots of engine power left on top of that, where the Starguard is dry exhausted somewhere before that point. Only a Quick-charge Shield Scouts can perform a similar feat without relying on Power Dive too.

I don't mind PD improving engine efficiency and mobility, but that much ? In all honesty, isn't it a bit overkill ?

[Ryuku-sama]

But Koiogran and Retro level, is exactly where Barrel Roll used to be before the nerf, if I'm right.

 

In the patch note if i recall correctly, Power Dive had cost and CD lowered, and Barrell Roll had cost and CD increased, and that was all. And before that patch all engine costs and CD were standardized.

So, if "post change Koiogran" = "pre change Koiogran" = "pre change Barrel"...

 

False.. Pre nerf all engine used to be at Koigran cost and have 10s CD.... Power Dive was already free since launch.

 

They raised Koigran/Snap/Retro CD and raised BR cost and CD.

[Gavin_Kelvar]

5) Dfield missile break needs to have a viable replacement. We could grant a passive evasion boost equivalent to on-CD use of the active with increased duration, but that might just reintroduce too much evasion into the meta. Passively increasing missile lock time (as I believe Verain suggested once) would be nice.

 

While I agree it would need a viable replacement a passive increase to missile lock time is, IMO, not the way to do it. It will basically make it near impossible to get a proton or thermite lock on a half decent scout and could cripple concs with proton torpedo-like lock on times (assuming it's not a stupidly low value). In essence it would still trivialize some of the best strike missiles (since even half a second additional lock on time could be the difference between an engine ability coming off CD in time and it hitting the target). You'd basically ensure that, unless the guy had BR, a strike would still never land a proton on a scout (between flight time, lock on time, and reload an increase lock on time would basically ensure that a proton would never achieve a lock before an engine break came off CD). I also very much doubt the wisdom of giving DField basically the ability to nullify (or partially nullify) an upgrade on the missile tree (namely the 10% reduction to lock time). I don't think it's good policy to give a component the ability to basically say "nope for all intents and purposes you don't have that upgrade."

 

Personally I think a "poor man's" tensor field like effect increase to agility would be best (obviously not as powerful as tensor field). It would improve a craft's ability to manually evade/break a missile lock while not trivializing missiles.

Edited December 12, 2014 by Gavin_Kelvar

[SammyGStatus]

Increasing missile reload times seems counter to bring strikes into the fray. I haven't logged in in over a week (decided to give RL human interaction a try again... Decided its superfluous), but in the few matches I played since the case of the disappearing dfield utility, the bad's are still bad and the vets still overcome problems.

 

The huge benefit is though that strikes matter! Well, slightly. The T2 got the biggest boost, but even t1s can take some scouts down too. It's a neat dynamic that needs to be kept in mind going forward, because we all know strikes are LoLz. Missile lock time or CD increases would only harm them more.... maybe the devs should look into ship-by-ship components instead of weapon specific.

 

Either way, I've made 6 posts in the Facebook and called customer service to try and fix GSF. In the mean time, Elite goes on sale for all on the 16th, and Drako seems to be rocking a stiff amount of admiration for Dragon Age, so we're all able to be kept happy while we wait. Happy Friday

[Altheran]

False.. Pre nerf all engine used to be at Koigran cost and have 10s CD.... Power Dive was already free since launch.

 

They raised Koigran/Snap/Retro CD and raised BR cost and CD.

 

Galactic Starfighter

 

General

• The cooldown on Koigran Turn, Snap Turn, and Retro Thrusters has been increased.
  
• The Power cost of Power Dive has been reduced.
  
• The cooldown and Power cost of Barrel Roll has been increased.
  

 

From 2.7 Patch notes

 

It seems Power Dive wasn't free afterall. Seems we were both wrong.

 

That aside, I think that one of the problem with BR at that time was that it cost significantly more to boost than using BR*.

It probably made the ability too beneficial for the user on top of the inherent effect value (lock and evasion), not only for movement, but also in combat by inducing a significant tax for a following attacker to keep attacking the B.Roller if he did not have BR as well, unlike for -let's say- Koiogran where the attacker mostly just have to turn to keep attacking, making Koiogran much more neutral in all aspects.

Since the discrepancy on engines is so huge, that's probably why they came with the CD thing so that we exhaust our engines instead of plainly increasing the cost and making the ability way too expensive to use.

 

So, even if the that new Barrel roll would not be at the same place as the old Barrel Roll, that engine efficiency discrepancy would be strengthened and made as it was back then, erasing all kind of nerf that was specifically directed at Barrel Roll. Even if made relatively weaker to its old self, the superiority of BR over other components (beside Power Dive) would be reinstated since it was the only difference at that time too.

I'll admit that why I came up with temporary engine regen disruption, so that the ability is as available as others maneuvers, both in CD and pool, and the regen disruption would be here to tax the extra mobility it would have otherwise given to the user.

 

*Using BR meant consumming 15 (or 10 ?) engine points, with the possibility to have full regen after the 3s if not boosting.

Following the hard way meant consumming 35 engine points (5 + 10*3) with mandatory lower regen rate.

Edited December 12, 2014 by Altheran

[nyghtrunner]

There are some interesting ideas in here, but I'm noticing a trend in a lot of places....

 

A lot of people seem to be arguing for reducing cost/CD of various engine components as a "counter" or perhaps way to offset the change that losing the DF break imposed on us all. Here's kind of my issue with a lot of the arguments that follow this line...

 

You're effectively arguing for a way to get the DField break back without it having to be attached to DField. So from the standpoint of strikes, it's arguing to push them back into the hole they were already largely in.

 

As for whether or not it's "OK" to have the DField break be gone... I'm almost fine with the idea, with the exception of Bombers, and in particular, the dronelayer (girl bomber? I never understood where that came from, or the rationale for which is which, but that's a different conversation...) outfitted with a missile sentry and 3 seekers. I've seen a few people knock the Seeker because it's weak, and in part, they're right... A single seeker won't do much unless you're already hurting. But then neither will a Cluster.

 

I feel much more like the problem is having a bunch of missiles flying at you in quick succession, so that you end up eating 2 seekers (out of 4 which could theoretically be launched after closing distance, 3 out when you close, and 1 more pooped out as you engage and the first 1-2 is consumed with your engine), and a missile + lasers from a sentry. Add in Turrets, and you're making it really, REALLY hard for most things to tangle at a sat. Maybe that's what you want, but it would be somewhat crushing to scouts in a Dom match from an offensive standpoint. Losing the DField break already hurt scouts a lot in Dom matches trying to take a sat from a bomber. It SHOULD be hard, but it shouldn't be impossible to do, and I'd argue that it's already getting close. Give bombers their top 2 tiers back, and it will get worse.

 

I'm still very much more of the mind that we should get things fixed, and then tinker with Disto to see the effect of not having break #2 in that environment. With so many things broken, we can't really make any decent observations on what the meta would be like in a fully powered environment, sans DF break. Any talk about adding slows back to concs or speed back to torps between us is guesswork. Granted, educated guesswork, but still guesswork. The upgrade breaks are subtle, but they're universal, and there are enough of them that it has altered the environment.

 

All that said, I'm totally cool with losing the Disto break if you give the T2 Scout Charged Plating in its place.

Edited December 12, 2014 by nyghtrunner

[Fractalsponge]

I think it's also sort of off the mark to say that the dfield missile break feature (and missiles in general) is determinative of strikes' place in the meta. The current bugs makes the T2, and only the T2, significantly better. The problem with getting strikes to be top-tier at high levels of play goes way beyond just the missile meta. It's telling that T3 bombers and gunships play a much better "strike" (multirole) game than actual strikes, for the most part, because of the advantage of their secondaries and systems.

[Ryuku-sama]

I think it's also sort of off the mark to say that the dfield missile break feature (and missiles in general) is determinative of strikes' place in the meta. The current bugs makes the T2, and only the T2, significantly better. The problem with getting strikes to be top-tier at high levels of play goes way beyond just the missile meta. It's telling that T3 bombers and gunships play a much better "strike" (multirole) game than actual strikes, for the most part, because of the advantage of their secondaries and systems.

 

My T3 TrollDor (Condor BLC/CLuter/Inter) is a much better strike than most strike build.. GIve it the same engine efficiency and I would outclass any strike. And I'm using Directionnal.. Not Disto.

Edited December 12, 2014 by Ryuku-sama

[nyghtrunner]

I think it's also sort of off the mark to say that the dfield missile break feature (and missiles in general) is determinative of strikes' place in the meta. The current bugs makes the T2, and only the T2, significantly better. The problem with getting strikes to be top-tier at high levels of play goes way beyond just the missile meta. It's telling that T3 bombers and gunships play a much better "strike" (multirole) game than actual strikes, for the most part, because of the advantage of their secondaries and systems.

OK, then let me put it another way...

 

A lot of the posts are seeming to say, "I want the ability to break more missile locks than I currently have now that DField is broken. So let's change the CDs and costs of Engine abilities so that I have more missile breaks than I currently have without DField."

 

I didn't make it explicitly clear, but the bit about strikes directly following the entire point of my post was kind of a joke, since so many people are talking about how the strikes are better situated in general (not just the T2, which you mentioned earlier) now that DField can't be a 2nd break. To those people, I would say that following through on cutting CDs and costs for engines would have a similar effect that the existence of the DField break already has. IE - there would not be much of a change if we removed DField break, but shortened costs and CDs of Engines.

 

The ultimate point of my post was simply to point out that a lot of people seem to be looking at something to replace the functionality of DField without it being DField. The other part was, "Let's get things back in working order, and then we can see about trying to get them to build us a world without the DField break."

 

I was not making the argument that DField is determinative of the Strike's place in the meta...

 

EDIT - If yours wasn't directed at me, then disregard. But since it followed my post, and seemed to address it, I assumed.

Edited December 12, 2014 by nyghtrunner

[Altheran]

OK, then let me put it another way...

 

A lot of the posts are seeming to say, "I want the ability to break more missile locks than I currently have now that DField is broken. So let's change the CDs and costs of Engine abilities so that I have more missile breaks than I currently have without DField."

You have a wrong idea of what it was about lately.

 

It was more about tweaking Barrel Roll specifically because that one has become rather weak as a missile counter. It was never about improving Engines in general. I even suggested to nerf Power Dive.

 

I don't think anyone advocated for increasing missile CD as a serious suggestion. Ryuku did suggest it, but he was trolling.

[Fractalsponge]

OK, then let me put it another way...

 

A lot of the posts are seeming to say, "I want the ability to break more missile locks than I currently have now that DField is broken. So let's change the CDs and costs of Engine abilities so that I have more missile breaks than I currently have without DField."

 

I didn't make it explicitly clear, but the bit about strikes directly following the entire point of my post was kind of a joke, since so many people are talking about how the strikes are better situated in general (not just the T2, which you mentioned earlier) now that DField can't be a 2nd break. To those people, I would say that following through on cutting CDs and costs for engines would have a similar effect that the existence of the DField break already has. IE - there would not be much of a change if we removed DField break, but shortened costs and CDs of Engines.

 

The ultimate point of my post was simply to point out that a lot of people seem to be looking at something to replace the functionality of DField without it being DField. The other part was, "Let's get things back in working order, and then we can see about trying to get them to build us a world without the DField break."

 

I was not making the argument that DField is determinative of the Strike's place in the meta...

 

EDIT - If yours wasn't directed at me, then disregard. But since it followed my post, and seemed to address it, I assumed.

 

No, it wasn't directed at you specifically, just in general, since I wanted to make sure the issues were separated.

 

And yes, engine cd tweaking was largely directed at barrel roll (and power dive) in the context of dfield losing break. I think barrel roll should be buffed (and *especially* if dfield loses missile break), and I'd prefer the buff to be in the form of keeping the increased post nerf energy cost but with the cd dropped to 15s. That way it would be more expensive than koiogran/retro but have the same cd. Also, I do agree that power dive is a little bit too powerful - it should be lower cd than the others to compensate for the usage difficulty, but perhaps not 10s vs 15s.

[Gavin_Kelvar]

 

I feel much more like the problem is having a bunch of missiles flying at you in quick succession, so that you end up eating 2 seekers (out of 4 which could theoretically be launched after closing distance, 3 out when you close, and 1 more pooped out as you engage and the first 1-2 is consumed with your engine), and a missile + lasers from a sentry. Add in Turrets, and you're making it really, REALLY hard for most things to tangle at a sat. Maybe that's what you want, but it would be somewhat crushing to scouts in a Dom match from an offensive standpoint. Losing the DField break already hurt scouts a lot in Dom matches trying to take a sat from a bomber. It SHOULD be hard, but it shouldn't be impossible to do, and I'd argue that it's already getting close. Give bombers their top 2 tiers back, and it will get worse.\

 

To some degree I think this is true because since early access the meta has been such that scouts basically being able to do everything a strike can. We've never really established what strikers are for because we've never had a case where they could consistently do something better than a scout could. IMO what you're talking about (scouts basically being ineffective on a sat) would be a desirable thing since it would give strikers a niche they otherwise lack. (Barring them basically getting buffed to have similar mobility and agility to a scout along with a crippling nerf to scout's burst they're really not going to supplant scouts in the role of space superiority which really leaves them with the attacker role; arguably strikers already have the tools to be very good in the attacker role, it's just that scouts are so effective in all but a limited number of situations on a sat there's almost no cases where a striker would be a better choice). I think in an ideal balance you'd have scouts as space superiority fighters but largely ineffective on a sat when it comes to removing bombers in which case strikers would clearly shine as the superior of the two (basically to win you'd need a good balance of the two; too many scouts and the enemy can lock down sats in dom with little fear of having them taken from them, too many strikers and they're unable to keep up with enemy scouts in the space superiority game; bombers and GS obviously performing the roles they do now).

Edited December 13, 2014 by Gavin_Kelvar

[Danalon]

Nerfing scouts so strikes become better in close combat would be the same as nerfing rails so strikes would become better at ranged combat or nerfing mindes/drones so strikes become better in defending satellites.

 

If I would need to describe what a strike does I would say: A strike is the base model of all ships. It is a scout without agility, a gunship without railguns and a bomber without deployables combined.

 

There is simply no niche a strike could fill because every other ship is way more specialzied.

That is also the reason why a stock strike is relatively strong compared to other stock ships but a mastered strike is not as useful as other mastered ships. If a pilot likes to specialize in something there is in almost any case a non-strike ship that is better than any of the strikes. There may be some minor exceptions but in most stiuations there is another ship that can do the job better than a strike.

Edited December 15, 2014 by Danalon

[Ramalina]

The problem with a second missile break on Distortion Field is that it trivializes avoiding damage from an entire class of secondary weapons (with the exception of cluster missiles).

 

Think for a moment about how the meta would change if strikes and bombers got a change to a component that they all take anyway for other reasons, that when used properly made them immune to getting hit by Rocket Pods, Cluster Missiles, and BLCs for the entire game. That's the mirror of what the double break does for scouts and gunships against strikes and bombers. Basically some classes of ships get to use weapons that fill a secondary role, and other ships have weapons that should fill a secondary role, are balanced around filling a secondary role, but in practice are useless in a secondary role because they're so easily countered that they might as well not exist.

 

I almost never fly with more than a single break, and I can't remember the last time I got hit by a torpedo. In a bad month I might get hit by once or twice by Concussion Missiles. This is with a habit of using engine components to maneuver instead of break locks. Even clusters aren't threatening unless used by a battlescout, as that's the only ship that can keep up a cluster spam on a running target.

 

The strength of defensive flying and a single break against missiles indicates that removing double breaks probably isn't enough on its own to make missiles in general a viable secondary weapon option in competitive games, but it's definitely a prerequisite.

 

Mostly a very minor decrease to lock times, say 5-10%, and a major decrease to reload times, 25% -50% for the 12 second base reloading missiles, is what missiles as a weapons class could use. (The exception being Clusters, which could probably use a small increase in reload times).

 

It's similar to what we saw with primary weapons before the evasion stacking nerf. Defenses that provide high resistance are ok, defenses that provide damage immunity to entire classes of weapon damage are usually unbalancing. Charged plating would be pretty unbalanced in a similar way if there weren't armor piercing all over the place.

 

To be clear, I don't think that missiles need to make a significantly larger contribution to overall DPS. They do need to be dangerous enough to force targets to fly defensively when targeted, rather than just being an annoying beep that goes away when you press the, "shut up," button.

 

It's not that hard to avoid getting hit by a secondary weapon like rocket pods, but if you don't fly evasively they can maul you. It's also not that hard to avoid getting hit by non-cluster missiles, but if you fail to fly evasively they're not a threat as long as you have a pair of, "press to ignore," buttons.

 

What about seeker mines though? Well, if you really want to cheese past mines pick up a mine-cheesing component like EMP Field, EMP torpedoes, or use a Charged Plating build. For general use you can fly around mines or shoot them down. Taking a scout and trying to face-tank a bomber is just as reasonable as trying to take a scout and kill a gunship from 14 km. Manage your position and distance well, and you can take a bomber with scout at minimal risk to yourself. The bomber is not going to implode quickly, but you shouldn't expect it to, as the bombers are designed to be tanky. As long as mines are a strictly opt-in form of damage, you don't really need a, "get out of jail free," card to counter them.

 

Of course, a balance pass that removed the break from D-field would have to come up with a replacement T5 upgrade. I think something that temporarily addressed the low hull health of D-field builds would be interesting.

Damage reduction could work. Temporary health like: increases hull health 30% for the duration of D-field, when the effect ends this excess health is removed, but hull health does not drop below 200 as a result of this removal. Even a small heal might work, add hydrospanner (possibly slightly buffed in magnitude) to D-field and replace the crew active with something worthwhile.

Edited December 16, 2014 by Ramalina

[nyghtrunner]

In large part, I agree with you, Ramalina. And in general, I'm fine with scouts not really being very good at dislodging bombers from satellites, but right now, it's just not really an option with the seeker mines, more than anything. I think if EMP Field actually worked, I wouldn't be as annoyed, because then I could just rock the T1, and at least have some utility in terms of breaking up all the mines and drones, but since that's not working, the scouts don't really have an option. I guess maybe EMP Missile on the T3, but with Tensor and Healing Drone broken, flying the t3 is less and less appealing.

 

That's one of the reasons I'm just arguing that we should get things fixed and normalized (tooltips match abilities) before we start looking too deeply at balance tweaks with regards to removing Disto break. In general, I'm perfectly fine without having Disto break, but the seekers and missile drone are a lot scarier without it in 3/5 of matches (all DOM maps). And I will say I'm incredibly wary of pulling back on Barrel Roll's nerfs too much, if at all. Maybe if it were split and had different characteristics based on the ship it was on, but I definitely remember the days where a Gunship could outrun a scout using Barrel Roll alone, and I absolutely do not want to return to those days, and it has absolutely nothing to do with breaking missiles quickly or in succession.

 

I agree that nerfing BR hurt the T2 Strike a lot, which is why I would agree to have separate BR behaviors on different ships, but I'm very wary about reducing the CD of BR for all the ships, because I don't want to start those chases up again.

[Gavin_Kelvar]

Nerfing scouts so strikes become better in close combat would be the same as nerfing rails so strikes would become better at ranged combat or nerfing mindes/drones so strikes become better in defending satellites.

 

In case it wasn't clear I don't think strikers should be better at close combat per se, rather they should be distinctly superior to scouts when it comes to dislodging tanky ships like bombers from a sat/nest. You might think of the balance between strike and scout playing out that a scout would be the better of the two to counter a GS and a strike would be the better of the two to counter a bomber. As it stands though scouts a generally as capable as a strike fighter in countering bombers except in a limited number of situations where you need either the range of HLC/torpedoes/railguns or another bomber if you're going to have any chance of killing the bomber. Those situations in my experience are generally bordering on lost causes though.

 

There is simply no niche a strike could fill because every other ship is way more specialzied.

That is also the reason why a stock strike is relatively strong compared to other stock ships but a mastered strike is not as useful as other mastered ships. If a pilot likes to specialize in something there is in almost any case a non-strike ship that is better than any of the strikes. There may be some minor exceptions but in most stiuations there is another ship that can do the job better than a strike.

 

Granted most ships are more specialized but to be fair scouts (especially the battle scout) are able to perform their own role (interceptor) along with any possible attacker role a strike fighter might be able to fulfill. In this case it's a matter of scouts being able to perform both their specialized role and be equally as good (or nearly as good) as a strike fighter in the multirole fighter niche in most cases.

 

In any event I think a reason a stock strike is strong compared to a stock scout is because the scout lacks the disto break to effectively trivialize a major source of strike damage (missiles). It's hard for a strike to establish a niche when the main ship they compete against (scouts) can effectively ignore the major sources of strike damage. Disto basically does what Ramalina says below:

 

The problem with a second missile break on Distortion Field is that it trivializes avoiding damage from an entire class of secondary weapons (with the exception of cluster missiles).

 

Think for a moment about how the meta would change if strikes and bombers got a change to a component that they all take anyway for other reasons, that when used properly made them immune to getting hit by Rocket Pods, Cluster Missiles, and BLCs for the entire game. That's the mirror of what the double break does for scouts and gunships against strikes and bombers.

 

I think in such a meta we'd likely not see many scouts since they'd basically have no way to efficiently kill a strike fighter or bomber. I don't think their superiority in hunting GS would be enough on it's own to justify them being flown much when half the ships (including the main ship, strikers, they'd be dogfighting with) would basically ignore their damage.

[Fractalsponge]

Major source of strike damage? Only for T2. I'm pretty sure most of my T1 and T3 damage come from primary weapons, not missiles.

 

In any event, we are now back to pre 3.0. Looks like fixes are going through tomorrow:

http://www.swtor.com/patchnotes/12162014/game-update-3.0.1-patch-notes