@Devs- Stabilize your rear deflectors!

[Verain]

@Devs: I'm going to assume you are reading this thread. I'm going to make fast balance suggestions. They aren't uncontroversial, but if I wasn't convinced I was right, I wouldn't bother!

 

@Players: Respond in this thread as if you were talking to devs. That's normally not a useful way to talk, but the forums aren't spammed with junk like that so a thread that IS like that will probably add some value. These forums have gotten a lot better since the days of spam nerfherding and QQing.

 

In general: This is FAST balance suggestions- numbers tweaks or things you judge likely to be able to be simple to execute technically. Ideally, they wouldn't require huge amounts of testing either. If you want to suggest whole new features, and ESPECIALLY if you want to request big money items (cross server, PvE, redesign of combat system), please make a thread for that instead of filling this up with that sort of thing. Even new features ("miss" text on correctly aimed shots that miss due to RNG) shouldn't be in here!

 

 

Bugs: This isn't the bug thread, but the following should be addressed:

> Ion Railgun Tier 5 have the tooltips from summer and the values from winter. These things should match. Either change the tooltips to say "40% snare for 6 seconds" and "100% energy lockout for 6 seconds", or change the actual effect of the talent points to be a 55% snare for 12 seconds and the energy lockout to 65% for 6 seconds. Or rebalance them entirely, whatever.

> Sabotage Probe "reduce enemy ship speed" talent also make sabotage probe stop locking out steering (aka, the move is useless with this talent selected). The workaround is to not pick that talent, but it would be good if it worked again.

> Ion Missile had a patch-noteless change where it went from a 12 second snare to a 6 second snare. The effect and the tooltip were both changed. If this was intended, good. But I sort of doubt it, given that the rest of the patch was data errors and desyncs, and that this nerf was to a really niche and mediocre weapon.

> EMP Field's effect is from spring, and the tooltip from summer. The effect is much smaller than the tooltip states- it was reverted to an older behavior while leaving the tooltip unchanged. The effect and the tooltip should match.

> Snare behavior in general seems odd.

> Tooltips with duration just sort of stop printing.

> Tooltips are our only way of getting components short of hours of cross-queuing ghetto unit tests out in space. Please insure that they are accurate, because we really can't keep up with them.

 

 

 

On to the races.

Note that a few things in here are in a bit of conflict with my thread here:

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=752949

But that's because there I was trying to talk about the "right" way to solve things (again, by my own reckoning), some of which may be hard to do or require a decent amount of testing. This represents just values changes, not redesigns, even minor ones.

 

 

Components:

 

Cluster Missile

Verain Recommends: Mild nerf

Double Volley is a lot of damage and feels unavoidable. Consider nerfing one or more of these values: reload time, damage of missile, damage of double volley, lockon time. This is definitely the best lockon missile from a dps point of view.

 

Burst Laser Cannon

Verain Recommends: Mild nerf

BLC can crit to the moon at times, and in general is a lot of damage. It also ignores armor, making it generally solid. Consider nerfing either the dps slightly, or increasing the rate of fire by a little bit to reduce the burst damage.

 

Rapid Fire Laser

Verain Recommends: Moderate buff

This gun loses out compared to the other short range options. Being efficient at firing is not good enough to make this weapon strong. It also is a default component on the two stock ships and a lot of players assume it's a good gun. It is a big trap. Literally buff anything about it.

 

Distortion Field

Verain Recommends: Moderate nerf

This is the best shield because it erases a missile lock. Evasion is also good on top of it. I suggest lengthening the cooldown. The active duration could be increased, and the active magnitude could also be increased if needed, but if this was a 30 second missile break instead of a 20 second missile break, the game would be a LOT better. When the game didn't have this missile break working it was pretty garbage and I hated it, but it is still a bit out of control on live.

 

Blaster Overcharge / Targeting Telemetry

Verain Recommends: Moderate nerf / rebalance

These components are too good. While TT is very commonly run, that's usually because almost every target worth punching has some evasion. Combined with the crit tricks, the damage can be really wild. This has the added bonus of reducing the burst dps of the scout, which is IMO out of line. If you go for a deeper nerf, consider turning part of these systems into a mild passive bonus and reducing their on-use ability.

 

Slug Railgun

Verain Recommends: Mild nerf / rebalance

In the other thread I recommended doubling the critical chance talents and changing all railguns to crit at 1.25x instead of 1.5x. I still like that idea. I also recommend reducing slug's damage by a small amount.

 

Plasma Railgun

Verain Recommends: Mild buff

This cool railgun is almost never the right call. There's only three railguns in the game, and this one is the only one with a dot. Just buff any part of this gun. I'd recommend buffs that continue taking it in a direction of being different than the slug.

 

Proton Torpedo / Thermite Torpedo

Verain Recommends: Mild buff

These weapons are very hard to lock on with and use, but are not punishing enough for their investment against any targets except type 1 and type 2 bombers. Consider slightly reducing the lockon time or upping the range slightly.

 

Ion Missile / EMP Missile

Verain Recommends: Strong buff

These missiles are very poor. Just buff anything about them, or many things about them.

 

 

 

Crewmembers:

 

I've cried about these guys for a long time. The game balance from these guys is actually just fine right now, but only a SMALLL subset of crewmembers are any good at all. Given that these characters are a HUGE part of the SWTOR experience, it's VERY frustrating that so many are just trashcan. The delta between good and bad crewmembers is too large, and there's not even very many situational crew members.

 

I cry about engineering passives here:

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=736226

And I moan about offensive passives here:

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=7338365

 

Verain begs: Buff the trash passives, buff the trash actives.

6% accuracy is far too good. Either bring the other offensive passives up to snuff or bake in 5% accuracy to everything in the whole game and turn this into something else. Buff or replace the shield regen passive and the extra magnitude engineering passives. Try hard to make it so it doesn't feel punishing to run, say Risha, on at least one ship. Since this is a fast recommendations, you could just make the numbers that are too small, larger.

 

Secondaries:

The capicitor is a perfect set of choices. Sensors, while weak, are also a great set of choices. Armor is very well done. Reactor is dominated by Large Reactor, with Regeneration needing a pretty large increase to stay in the fight and turbo just generally a bit behind large in every situation. Magazine does feel like a choice for clusters. Thrusters is a three way choice.

Verain Recommends: Buffs for turbo reactor, regeneration reactor, the extra blaster energy magazine, and the extra engine energy thruster.

 

Ship Types:

 

Strike Fighter:

Verain Recommends: Moderate buff

Buff anything about the strike fighter. The best pick would be the pitch/yaw and boost cost if there isn't much time. The other changes to components all end up buffing strikes, but strikes aren't just bad because the only top shelf components they have are heavy lasers and cluster missiles, they are generally a kind of "heavy scout" that doesn't have enough dogfighting ability to seriously dogfight anything except a bomber in open space. If this isn't the direction you want for strikes, then do something else.

 

 

 

Post Script:

These aren't the only changes I would suggest if I had all day. But they would really broaden the meta and remove a lot of play barriers. I'd love to go into detail about some of the wonky components, suggest different cosmetic options, talk about the ship roles, etc. But if we really do have the attention of the devs momentarily (the premise of the thread), well, these are the most important issues to me, the real stand outs.

[Ardaneb]

I more or less agree with all of Verain's suggestions.

 

The starter strike and scout are in desperate need for buffs, even if they do not carry through to the final ships. The baseline razorwire and mangler are much stronger in the hands of a beginner. A rapid fire laser buff would help a lot. If you buffed accuracy, it would also reduce one of the top complaints of new pilots in chat (they clicked the circle but it did not register a hit).

[zaskar]

I wish you luck. Maybe they will read this after whatever 'better than cross-server queues' is done.

[DamascusAdontise]

Agree with a lot of it, went ahead and made my comments finally. I have some additional suggestions that I will put below:

 

 

 

Components:

 

Cluster Missile

Verain Recommends: Mild nerf

Double Volley is a lot of damage and feels unavoidable. Consider nerfing one or more of these values: reload time, damage of missile, damage of double volley, lockon time. This is definitely the best lockon missile from a dps point of view.

 

Disagree - I think its usefulness is balanced well against: ammo and its "hull only" nature which lets them slide off shielded targets with ease - its a quantity over quality weapon and it has limited ammo

 

Burst Laser Cannon

Verain Recommends: Mild nerf

BLC can crit to the moon at times, and in general is a lot of damage. It also ignores armor, making it generally solid. Consider nerfing either the dps slightly, or increasing the rate of fire by a little bit to reduce the burst damage.

 

Agree (with exceptions) Addressing through multiple angles is dangerous Id love to see a slight ROF increase

 

Rapid Fire Laser

Verain Recommends: Moderate buff

This gun loses out compared to the other short range options. Being efficient at firing is not good enough to make this weapon strong. It also is a default component on the two stock ships and a lot of players assume it's a good gun. It is a big trap. Literally buff anything about it.

 

Suggestion - remove / reduce tracking penalty (like BLC) - increase accuracy - make all those little pin *****s land more easily (and this could be much more useful)

 

Distortion Field

Verain Recommends: Moderate nerf

This is the best shield because it erases a missile lock. Evasion is also good on top of it. I suggest lengthening the cooldown. The active duration could be increased, and the active magnitude could also be increased if needed, but if this was a 30 second missile break instead of a 20 second missile break, the game would be a LOT better. When the game didn't have this missile break working it was pretty garbage and I hated it, but it is still a bit out of control on live.

 

Agree (with exception) suggest: add 5 seconds to cooldown or reduce evasion

 

Blaster Overcharge / Targeting Telemetry

Verain Recommends: Moderate nerf / rebalance

These components are too good. While TT is very commonly run, that's usually because almost every target worth punching has some evasion. Combined with the crit tricks, the damage can be really wild. This has the added bonus of reducing the burst dps of the scout, which is IMO out of line. If you go for a deeper nerf, consider turning part of these systems into a mild passive bonus and reducing their on-use ability.

 

Disagree (Exception) - I think BO is largely ok as is, its balanced against a short active duration and cooldown. TT however is up frequently and has multiple benefits. Consider toning down evasion component or replacing with something accuracy related - if this stands to make it too powerful then mess with active duration or cooldown

 

Slug Railgun

Verain Recommends: Mild nerf / rebalance

In the other thread I recommended doubling the critical chance talents and changing all railguns to crit at 1.25x instead of 1.5x. I still like that idea. I also recommend reducing slug's damage by a small amount.

 

Disagree / Not Sure - It seems like slug railguns are in a good place, they do good damage and crits can be enormous but IMO still feels right

 

Plasma Railgun

Verain Recommends: Mild buff

This cool railgun is almost never the right call. There's only three railguns in the game, and this one is the only one with a dot. Just buff any part of this gun. I'd recommend buffs that continue taking it in a direction of being different than the slug.

 

Agree - Suggestion - Increase accuracy - increased AOE radius - AOE applies dot to all ships / drones / mines in radius - high accuracy "nebulous" plasma attack that applies damage/dot to target and small dots to a moderate radius (bleed them to death)

 

Proton Torpedo / Thermite Torpedo

Verain Recommends: Mild buff

These weapons are very hard to lock on with and use, but are not punishing enough for their investment against any targets except type 1 and type 2 bombers. Consider slightly reducing the lockon time or upping the range slightly.

 

Agree - reduce cooldown - consider arc increase for thermite (as it is really hard to lock with)

 

Ion Missile / EMP Missile

Verain Recommends: Strong buff

These missiles are very poor. Just buff anything about them, or many things about them.

 

Agree - EMP - Increase EMP missile damage to drones / mines (these should destroy drones not just disable (especially for the difficulty of getting one off - Increase range to 10k // ION Missile - Increase range - increase shield damage - reduce cooldown (drastically) - Change snare back to pre-nerf values

 

 

 

 

Suggestions:

 

Rotational Thrusters: This is a neat power but without the missile break and with the cooldown at 10s its not that effective.

 

Reduce talented cooldown to 5 seconds - reduce T3 left side power regen (25% for 3 seconds) or rethink it as an accuracy bonus.

 

Why: This would allow gunships to give up a missile break and instead get rot thrusters that could effectively let them switch from target to target every 5 secs IE shoot the gs in front of you then hit RT and hit the one behind you.

 

Strike Fighters: These guys need a lot of love, but to start I suggest:

 

Faster acceleration / Deceleration (like nearly instant on both accounts)

 

Minor Increase in turning

 

Why: Strikes are currently setup as heavy scouts (for the most part) if as a base they had better acceleration and deceleration they could be better at dogfighting, the ability to stop or start quickly indirectly helps turning and weapon tracking. The extra turning will just accentuate this more, essentially making them into tankier / slower / slightly less maneuverable scouts with better acceleration and deceleration.

 

 

T1 Strike: Burst laser cannon (HLC + BLC nuff said - make this ship viable please)

 

T3 scout: Interdiction Missile (some people have stated this would be OP IMO not so much, gives this ship additional "non damage" spoort type usefulness.

Edited January 25, 2015 by DamascusAdontise

[Ramalina]

 

Components:

 

Cluster Missile

Verain Recommends: Mild nerf

Double Volley is a lot of damage and feels unavoidable. Consider nerfing one or more of these values: reload time, damage of missile, damage of double volley, lockon time. This is definitely the best lockon missile from a dps point of view.

 

Signed. At one point I figured a 4-5 second reload would probably be enough to do the trick. Neutering Double Volley would also work. Both together would be too much. Stock cluster missiles already tend to the slightly underperforming realm of weapons.

 

Burst Laser Cannon

Verain Recommends: Mild nerf

BLC can crit to the moon at times, and in general is a lot of damage. It also ignores armor, making it generally solid. Consider nerfing either the dps slightly, or increasing the rate of fire by a little bit to reduce the burst damage.

 

I could take this or leave it. In isolation BLCs aren't really that bad.

 

Rapid Fire Laser

Verain Recommends: Moderate buff

This gun loses out compared to the other short range options. Being efficient at firing is not good enough to make this weapon strong. It also is a default component on the two stock ships and a lot of players assume it's a good gun. It is a big trap. Literally buff anything about it.

 

Signed. Signed, signed, signed, and signed again.

 

Distortion Field

Verain Recommends: Moderate nerf

This is the best shield because it erases a missile lock. Evasion is also good on top of it. I suggest lengthening the cooldown. The active duration could be increased, and the active magnitude could also be increased if needed, but if this was a 30 second missile break instead of a 20 second missile break, the game would be a LOT better. When the game didn't have this missile break working it was pretty garbage and I hated it, but it is still a bit out of control on live.

 

Edit

 

O.k. Verain asked for numbers tweaks, numbers tweaks he gets. Increase the cooldown on distortion field to at least 90 seconds.

At that point the missile break probably isn't a problem, and lets be honest, no one is really going to be that upset that battlescouts and gunships are suddenly a lot easier to kill.

 

 

My more serious ideas on this are here. The second post.

 

 

Missile vs missile break interaction is screwing up balance and the ease of balancing for strikes, scouts, and gunships. It should go in the high priority pile for significant balance fixes. I don't think numbers tweaks will do the job.

 

/Edit

 

 

Blaster Overcharge / Targeting Telemetry

Verain Recommends: Moderate nerf / rebalance

These components are too good. While TT is very commonly run, that's usually because almost every target worth punching has some evasion. Combined with the crit tricks, the damage can be really wild. This has the added bonus of reducing the burst dps of the scout, which is IMO out of line. If you go for a deeper nerf, consider turning part of these systems into a mild passive bonus and reducing their on-use ability.

 

 

Agreed. I don't really have a problem with average DPS from these, but the time it takes to get a burst damage kill could be increased by a large ratio. Going from less than a second under ideal circumstances to a range of 1.6 to 3 seconds for example. Don't overdo it though, scouts deal with hull attrition poorly and need to be at the bursty end of the spectrum of GSF unless wholesale ship class re-engineering is done.

 

 

Slug Railgun

Verain Recommends: Mild nerf / rebalance

In the other thread I recommended doubling the critical chance talents and changing all railguns to crit at 1.25x instead of 1.5x. I still like that idea. I also recommend reducing slug's damage by a small amount.

 

I'm probably one of the few people that don't really hate Slug railgun in its current incarnation when flying against it. Possibly it could survive a mild nerf to its peak damage, but its average DPS doesn't need to go down.

 

Plasma Railgun

Verain Recommends: Mild buff

This cool railgun is almost never the right call. There's only three railguns in the game, and this one is the only one with a dot. Just buff any part of this gun. I'd recommend buffs that continue taking it in a direction of being different than the slug.

 

 

Signed. Call it Thermite Railgun, make the appropriate changes and be done with it.

 

 

Proton Torpedo / Thermite Torpedo

Verain Recommends: Mild buff

These weapons are very hard to lock on with and use, but are not punishing enough for their investment against any targets except type 1 and type 2 bombers. Consider slightly reducing the lockon time or upping the range slightly.

 

As the meta currently stands, I'd agree with this. For the effort involved they really ought to one-shot distortion field builds of scouts and gunships. They could also stand to be slightly stronger against bombers, given that bombers tend to spend most of their lives in heavy cover. However, if clusters missiles are tuned to be less outrageous and the distortion field missile break is removed, then they become appropriately strong for the level of difficulty. Fix missile-missile break balance in general, and I suspect that torpedo buffs are not needed, or should be extremely mild.

 

 

Ion Missile / EMP Missile

Verain Recommends: Strong buff

These missiles are very poor. Just buff anything about them, or many things about them.

 

Signed. I'd amend it to buff the snot out of something about them or solid buffs to many things about them. Make us cry about them, and then dial it back down if you have to.

 

 

Crewmembers:

 

I've cried about these guys for a long time. The game balance from these guys is actually just fine right now, but only a SMALLL subset of crewmembers are any good at all. Given that these characters are a HUGE part of the SWTOR experience, it's VERY frustrating that so many are just trashcan. The delta between good and bad crewmembers is too large, and there's not even very many situational crew members.

 

I cry about engineering passives here:

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=736226

And I moan about offensive passives here:

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=7338365

 

Verain begs: Buff the trash passives, buff the trash actives.

6% accuracy is far too good. Either bring the other offensive passives up to snuff or bake in 5% accuracy to everything in the whole game and turn this into something else. Buff or replace the shield regen passive and the extra magnitude engineering passives. Try hard to make it so it doesn't feel punishing to run, say Risha, on at least one ship. Since this is a fast recommendations, you could just make the numbers that are too small, larger.

 

Basically 25 to 30 % of the crew members are worth unlocking and the rest are mistakes to pick no matter what kind of ship you fly.

 

I don't think the good crewmembers are too good except in comparison to the crew members that are not good. Buff the underperformers.

 

Secondaries:

The capicitor is a perfect set of choices. Sensors, while weak, are also a great set of choices. Armor is very well done. Reactor is dominated by Large Reactor, with Regeneration needing a pretty large increase to stay in the fight and turbo just generally a bit behind large in every situation. Magazine does feel like a choice for clusters. Thrusters is a three way choice.

Verain Recommends: Buffs for turbo reactor, regeneration reactor, the extra blaster energy magazine, and the extra engine energy thruster.

 

Agreed.

 

Ship Types:

 

Strike Fighter:

Verain Recommends: Moderate buff

Buff anything about the strike fighter. The best pick would be the pitch/yaw and boost cost if there isn't much time. The other changes to components all end up buffing strikes, but strikes aren't just bad because the only top shelf components they have are heavy lasers and cluster missiles, they are generally a kind of "heavy scout" that doesn't have enough dogfighting ability to seriously dogfight anything except a bomber in open space. If this isn't the direction you want for strikes, then do something else.

 

With burst tuned down and missiles and missile breaks balanced, I think I'd just reduce the difference between strike and scout Afterburner energy consumed by 40 to 50%. Then turning thrusters actually becomes a reasonable choice, and by customizing turning vs thrust options on engine components the strikes have a nice continuum of choices between thrust and maneuverability. Strikes aren't hurting that badly when it comes to turn rates, but in terms of thrust they're weak enough that it's hard to view the available turn rate upgrades as anything other than mistakes. GSF dogfighting is hugely boost centric, so being slightly short on boost endurance is pretty painful.

 

 

Gunships:

 

I think that at the very least, the T1 gunship needs a viable defensive option other than Barrel Roll + Distortion Field. Part of the problem with their lack of options is that they live or die based almost entirely on the strength of those two components, so there's almost no leeway in tuning the components. You'd need to ask a gunship expert what exactly it would take to get that done. Could an improved fortress shield combined with reinforced armor make a gunship tanky enough to stand and fight? Would you need to increase turn rate based on damage taken after fortress shield is activated to make that work? Can interdiction drive be buffed enough to help gunships without becoming overpowered for bombers? Or do gunships just need a new defensive component for their exclusive use?

 

I don't know, but I see lack of viable defensive options for gunships as the primary barrier to getting a workable fix for the Cluster Missile-Distortion Field balancing mess. Having zero leeway for adjustment is not a good thing, and zero leeway is pretty much where defensive balance for T1 gunships stands right now. The T2 gunship could also use some help. Well, a lot of help.

 

 

 

In conclusion:

Get to everything in the list, and I think GSF would be solid enough balance wise to move on to new maps, new game modes, and a better introductory experience without feeling like chunks of the core of GSF are still in a Beta software state of quality.

 

Edit: Wait, I just agreed with about 90% of Verain's balance suggestions? I should probably wander off and find a couch to faint on. To put it another way, the list is very solid and probably not really that controversial in content.

 

Nicely done Verain.

Edited March 26, 2015 by Ramalina

[BDragonSith]

I agree with these ideas.

 

Unchanged Cluster Missiles are pretty weak, but I didn't think about Double Volley.

Rapid Lasers definitely needs a buff. I use them on my main Scout and even when they're almost fully upgraded, they still don't hit hard enough.

I think that Ion/EMP Missiles need a shorter lock-on time. They do almost no hull damage and only hit one side of the shields. they're even weaker if the ship has Shield Recharge.

[Verain]

Rama, could you go put all the "remove disto missile break" stuff in another thread? It's definitely not a numbers tweak. You could put it in the thread I linked to, where I also suggest removing the disto missile break, along with a bunch of other changes. The whole point of this thread is NOT to do what you did in that part

[caederon]

Many great suggestions, Verain. How about...

 

Concussion Missile

Despon Recommends: moderate buff

They are pretty hard to land on anything but bombers ranging in the wild before they roost. Things are very missile-breaky now, as discussed ad infinitum. It would be a boon to strikes if this missile locked a little quicker, hit a little harder, and came with a more plentiful magazine. Maybe make the armor-ignore a tier 1-3 option in the talent tree so it always has it. Would doing all of this make the missile OP? I kinda doubt it, given that the platform it usually shoots from is so underwhelming to begin with. Make it good enough that people have to deliberate over whether to pick it over clusters or torpedoes.

 

- Despon

Edited January 24, 2015 by caederon

[Verain]

Concussion missile could use a mild buff, maybe, but not a moderate one. I actually had a bunch more stuff in my notepad for this post, but I heavily expunged everything that was "just nice".

 

The thing is, concussion missile has a reload time that FEELS right, a range that feels right, and a lockon time that is a little challenging- however, the missile offers solid shield piercing and decent armor ignoring hull damage.

 

I think it would be reasonably rewarding if disto didn't break as many missiles. Concussion is definitely a threat to most ships on the board right now, even if it is overly hard to land against disto targets. I think the disto break at 20 seconds is the biggest threat to missile play, but when the game briefly had no disto missile break it was just awful to behold. So anything that changes that will definitely buff the missile all by itself.

[Linuxizer]

Change the conquest rewards to discourage the useless non-contributing players/bots.

[Ramalina]

Rama, could you go put all the "remove disto missile break" stuff in another thread? It's definitely not a numbers tweak. You could put it in the thread I linked to, where I also suggest removing the disto missile break, along with a bunch of other changes. The whole point of this thread is NOT to do what you did in that part

 

Changing the number of missile breaks on DF from 1 to 0 is a numbers tweak. I went ahead and edited it anyhow.

 

Re: the Concussion buff suggestion.

 

As far as concussion missiles go, they're definitely strong enough as is. While they're not as easy to land as clusters, they're easy enough with the lock time reduction. They're not as effective against bombers as one might wish, but that's something that should be addressed in terms of torpedo and EMP missile balance, and missile balance in general. Concussion is basically the only missile that they got right for the current meta.

 

If they ever do a serious fix to the missile/counter missile mechanics they might even have to nerf concussion missile a little bit.

Edited January 24, 2015 by Ramalina

[RickDagles]

I think these rebalances are taking too much away from scouts and not taking away enough from gunships or bombers. The game is nicely balanced the way it is. If you tinker with the formula at all I think it's going to hurt the game. If you nerf Targetting Telemetry then you definitely need to nerf T1 Gunships (Ion Railgun) and T1 Bombers (Seismic mines).

 

I say don't nerf anything. Just buff the stuff that sucks like Plasma, Rapid Fire Lasers, all missiles/torps except cluster missiles, and the type 1 and type 2 Strikes.

 

Plasma - give it the same passive accuracy as the other railguns

RFL - give it a more forgiving damage drop off - maybe similar to light laser cannons

Missiles/Torps - reduce lockon times

T1 Strike - give it power dive

T2 Strike - give it retro and powerdive

 

 

Also I think every ship should have early access to some kind of armor piercing component. It's absolutely nuts that heavy laser cannons need nearly 20k requisition to get armor piercing.

 

 

EDIT: To go into more detail on missiles..

 

Protorp - I agree with the previously mentioned idea that 1 hit should kill DF builds of both scouts and gunships. Or maybe increase the critical hit chance so that it's more possible.

Thermite - fix the buggy firing arc issues

Ion - restore back to its original state

EMP - increase the blast range to cover the entire satellite

Edited January 24, 2015 by RickDagles

[Bolo_Yeung]

> Ion Railgun Tier 5 have the tooltips from summer and the values from winter. These things should match. Either change the tooltips to say "40% snare for 6 seconds" and "100% energy lockout for 6 seconds", or change the actual effect of the talent points to be a 55% snare for 12 seconds and the energy lockout to 65% for 6 seconds. Or rebalance them entirely, whatever.

55% snare for 6 seconds would be OK; in my opinion the T5 effect should be applied only on full rail charge.

otherwise /signed

> Sabotage Probe "reduce enemy ship speed" talent also make sabotage probe stop locking out steering (aka, the move is useless with this talent selected). The workaround is to not pick that talent, but it would be good if it worked again.

> Ion Missile had a patch-noteless change where it went from a 12 second snare to a 6 second snare. The effect and the tooltip were both changed. If this was intended, good. But I sort of doubt it, given that the rest of the patch was data errors and desyncs, and that this nerf was to a really niche and mediocre weapon.

> EMP Field's effect is from spring, and the tooltip from summer. The effect is much smaller than the tooltip states- it was reverted to an older behavior while leaving the tooltip unchanged. The effect and the tooltip should match.

/signed; EMP field should be 4,5K and LoS ignoring in my opinion - otherwise getting close enough to destroy mine means getting into trigger radius.

 

> Tooltips are our only way of getting components short of hours of cross-queuing ghetto unit tests out in space. Please insure that they are accurate, because we really can't keep up with them.

/signed

 

Cluster Missile

Verain Recommends: Mild nerf

Double Volley is a lot of damage and feels unavoidable. Consider nerfing one or more of these values: reload time, damage of missile, damage of double volley, lockon time. This is definitely the best lockon missile from a dps point of view.

880 damage at the cost of half ammo vs 560+15% DOT.

mildly disagree.

 

Burst Laser Cannon

Verain Recommends: Mild nerf

BLC can crit to the moon at times, and in general is a lot of damage. It also ignores armor, making it generally solid. Consider nerfing either the dps slightly, or increasing the rate of fire by a little bit to reduce the burst damage.

I'd rather improve other laser cannons at short range - especially the 'can't hit at point blank range' behavior. However, BLC needs nerf. Or give it to strikes as well to buff'em.

 

Rapid Fire Laser

Verain Recommends: Moderate buff

This gun loses out compared to the other short range options. Being efficient at firing is not good enough to make this weapon strong. It also is a default component on the two stock ships and a lot of players assume it's a good gun. It is a big trap. Literally buff anything about it.

Not so bad, especially in a dogfight; buff would be nice though.

/signed

 

Distortion Field

Verain Recommends: Moderate nerf

This is the best shield because it erases a missile lock. Evasion is also good on top of it. I suggest lengthening the cooldown. The active duration could be increased, and the active magnitude could also be increased if needed, but if this was a 30 second missile break instead of a 20 second missile break, the game would be a LOT better. When the game didn't have this missile break working it was pretty garbage and I hated it, but it is still a bit out of control on live.

/DISAGREE. The concussion / cluster missiles can still be locked on DF ecuipped ship and hit it. Torpedos on the other way aren't for shooting down small ships

Leave as it is now.

 

Blaster Overcharge / Targeting Telemetry

Verain Recommends: Moderate nerf / rebalance

These components are too good. While TT is very commonly run, that's usually because almost every target worth punching has some evasion. Combined with the crit tricks, the damage can be really wild. This has the added bonus of reducing the burst dps of the scout, which is IMO out of line. If you go for a deeper nerf, consider turning part of these systems into a mild passive bonus and reducing their on-use ability.

/mildly disagree about TT (I'd reduce T5 talent maybe - maybe increased crit chance w/o increased magnitude?), indifferent about BO.

 

Slug Railgun

Verain Recommends: Mild nerf / rebalance

In the other thread I recommended doubling the critical chance talents and changing all railguns to crit at 1.25x instead of 1.5x. I still like that idea. I also recommend reducing slug's damage by a small amount.

The problem is not a GS but their numbers. Nerf railguns (except maybe ion), and 1-2 GS will have too much problems while 4-5 will dominate the gameplay.

suggestion: make a warning sound when someone is charging a railgun within 15k range.

 

Plasma Railgun

Verain Recommends: Mild buff

This cool railgun is almost never the right call. There's only three railguns in the game, and this one is the only one with a dot. Just buff any part of this gun. I'd recommend buffs that continue taking it in a direction of being different than the slug.

On the contrary - I'd give one talent that slug has - armor ignore instead of damage reduction decrease. Then it would be pretty good (nothing funnier than the panic "where all this damage come from?"...

Like EMP missile, plasma rail is pretty underestimated.

 

Proton Torpedo / Thermite Torpedo

Verain Recommends: Mild buff

These weapons are very hard to lock on with and use, but are not punishing enough for their investment against any targets except type 1 and type 2 bombers. Consider slightly reducing the lockon time or upping the range slightly.

/agree. Leave the short circle though.

 

Ion Missile / EMP Missile

Verain Recommends: Strong buff

These missiles are very poor. Just buff anything about them, or many things about them.

/agree about ion missiles Should have power at least equal to ion rail.

/disagree about EMP missiles. They aren't for dogfighting, they have a specialized role - and are really good in it. Maybe a slightly decrease lockon time , to the level of interdiction missile. Nothing else is needed.

 

Crewmembers:

Verain begs: Buff the trash passives, buff the trash actives.

6% accuracy is far too good. Either bring the other offensive passives up to snuff or bake in 5% accuracy to everything in the whole game and turn this into something else. Buff or replace the shield regen passive and the extra magnitude engineering passives. Try hard to make it so it doesn't feel punishing to run, say Risha, on at least one ship. Since this is a fast recommendations, you could just make the numbers that are too small, larger.

/agreed

 

Secondaries:

The capicitor is a perfect set of choices. Sensors, while weak, are also a great set of choices. Armor is very well done. Reactor is dominated by Large Reactor, with Regeneration needing a pretty large increase to stay in the fight and turbo just generally a bit behind large in every situation. Magazine does feel like a choice for clusters. Thrusters is a three way choice.

Verain Recommends: Buffs for turbo reactor, regeneration reactor, the extra blaster energy magazine, and the extra engine energy thruster.

/agreed. Not too much buffs though, BTW turbo reactor is a lifesaver in sat humping situation (unless you have directional shields, that is).

 

 

Strike Fighter:

Verain Recommends: Moderate buff

Buff anything about the strike fighter. The best pick would be the pitch/yaw and boost cost if there isn't much time. The other changes to components all end up buffing strikes, but strikes aren't just bad because the only top shelf components they have are heavy lasers and cluster missiles, they are generally a kind of "heavy scout" that doesn't have enough dogfighting ability to seriously dogfight anything except a bomber in open space. If this isn't the direction you want for strikes, then do something else.

Give BLC and DF as an options and strikes can be competing pretty good against any other ship type.

[Verain]

55% snare for 6 seconds would be OK; in my opinion the T5 effect should be applied only on full rail charge.

 

So you just want it nerfed. That's a fair opinion.

 

/signed; EMP field should be 4,5K and LoS ignoring in my opinion - otherwise getting close enough to destroy mine means getting into trigger radius.

 

The community begged pretty hard for the EMP buff. We had it for a couple months, and then the EFFECT (not the tooltip) got broke in the same patch that broke a bunch of unrelated tooltips and nerfed Ion missile. This appeared on the PTR, we begged, we cried- but our devs were already on hiatus, so we got nothing.

 

Personally, I'm convinced the EMP field is a versioning bug, and the effect should just be repaired to what it was before that accidental patchnote-less patch that ruined EMP field and Ion missile. I believe both of those changes were unwarranted and bad. But, I don't *really* care- if we get dev attention at some point, they could do anything they want with EMP as long as they are testing it and it does what they intend.

 

880 damage at the cost of half ammo vs 560+15% DOT.

 

It's too much damage, too often. Again, I don't care WHAT they nerf about it, but it does need a (mild) nerf. And it costs 10 ammo, not half. It especially needs a nerf if disto gets one, which I also recommend, so don't take it all by itself.

 

 

I'd rather improve other laser cannons at short range - especially the 'can't hit at point blank range' behavior.

 

I dunno man, I can hit at point blank range with most weapons. I agree that the GUI is a bit off about where you should shoot, but that doesn't mean the weapon can't hit, merely that you have to learn that behavior and compensate.

 

However, BLC needs nerf. Or give it to strikes as well to buff'em.

 

I wouldn't be too cross to see BLC and/or LLC appear on the Starguard, or the BLC on the Pike. But I'd love for them to NOT do that. BLC is a gunship weapon, and it's already poor that they let it slip to a scout. Instead of throwing the hands up and making the whole game into space shotguns, it would be nice if they would buff the competing choices and maybe even nerf BLC just a bit.

 

The ability to eventually hit a scout or gunship with concussions and clusters does not justify the constant missile drops that are cycled by these ships- in my opinion. Distortion to cancel a proton as it is fired feel just OP to me- it's so hard to line that crap up anyway. Disto missile break with a low cooldown becomes this offensive trick to routinely pop offensive cooldowns as a scout or to squeeze of shots as a gunship. With a larger cooldown, this offensive pressure would be minimized, and lockon missiles would need to be respected more.

 

 

/mildly disagree about TT (I'd reduce T5 talent maybe - maybe increased crit chance w/o increased magnitude?), indifferent about BO.

 

BO is very powerful. It's just not being used as much right now, which does NOT make it bad. If TT was nerfed, BO needs to go along with it. And both need some kind of nerf or redesign. The budget on the two moves is similar.

 

The problem is not a GS but their numbers.

 

No, that's fine. Everyone can play whatever ship they want.

 

suggestion: make a warning sound when someone is charging a railgun within 15k range.

Not at all a numbers change, and similar to options already discussed in linked threads (check my idea in my thread about gunship icons changing during charging, and ships having different icons). But a 15km range limit is bad for a few reasons- first, you could not have detected the ship, second a ship charging would make noise for a BUNCH of people, meaning that everyone would be assaulted by meaningless tones, third not every railgun will be 15km necessarily, fourth it would have to handle going in and out of range. It's NOT a numbers change, and NOT appropriate for this thread.

 

Like EMP missile, plasma rail is pretty underestimated.

 

Plasma is appropriately estimated. I can go into more detail about why it's bad later, but it requires a confluence of events for it to be worth using over slug, and it shouldn't.

 

/agree about ion missiles Should have power at least equal to ion rail.

Those two things have nothing in common, so no, it should not. But it should be better than it is now. Just because they both start with "ion" doesn't mean anything. The comparison point is concussion and EMP missiles, with the assumption that concussions are "supposed" to be better- I'd just argue that they are TOO much better.

 

/disagree about EMP missiles. They aren't for dogfighting, they have a specialized role - and are really good in it.

 

They really don't. I know they SHOULD, but they don't.

 

Give BLC and DF as an options and strikes can be competing pretty good against any other ship type.

 

Your solution to a thin meta with several too-good components is to hand them out to all ships and homogenize the game even more? Then EVERYONE can run BLC and DF, right? Even the strikes? That means you actually agree with my "nerf DF" and "nerf BLC" suggestions- if you think they are so good that the fix for weaker ships is to hand them over, then there's no clearer way for you to state that they are more powerful than similar components.

 

Nerf'em some!

[Bolo_Yeung]

It's too much damage, too often. Again, I don't care WHAT they nerf about it, but it does need a (mild) nerf. And it costs 10 ammo, not half. It especially needs a nerf if disto gets one, which I also recommend, so don't take it all by itself.

 

and 5k range... possible to outmanevuer or boost away

 

I dunno man, I can hit at point blank range with most weapons. I agree that the GUI is a bit off about where you should shoot, but that doesn't mean the weapon can't hit, merely that you have to learn that behavior and compensate.

With BLC yes (though even BLC won't hit as often @ 100m). With other lasers it often starst to hit after 2-3 seconds of shooting.

 

(...)BLC is a gunship weapon,

So GS has to have long range best weapon and short range best weapon?...

 

and it's already poor that they let it slip to a scout. Instead of throwing the hands up and making the whole game into space shotguns, it would be nice if they would buff the competing choices and maybe even nerf BLC just a bit.

As did I say, I;d like more buffing other wapons, especially with mentioned problems at short range.

 

The ability to eventually hit a scout or gunship with concussions and clusters does not justify the constant missile drops that are cycled by these ships- in my opinion. Distortion to cancel a proton as it is fired feel just OP to me- it's so hard to line that crap up anyway.

Thats why PT should have lock and CD reduced... Also, I land protons systematically in TDM, it is enough to fire it at close distance

 

BO is very powerful. It's just not being used as much right now, which does NOT make it bad. If TT was nerfed, BO needs to go along with it. And both need some kind of nerf or redesign. The budget on the two moves is similar.

Agree with BO (though dont care that much) - not with TT (except, maybe, mentioned removing of increased crit magnitude)

 

 

No, that's fine. Everyone can play whatever ship they want.

And it boils down to gunshipwall tactics ... while single GS will be a scout meat.

 

 

But a 15km range limit is bad for a few reasons- first, you could not have detected the ship(...)

That big ion cloud means some EM emission, right? So GS actively charging rail should be detectable easier than one just flying...

 

(...)second a ship charging would make noise for a BUNCH of people, meaning that everyone would be assaulted by meaningless tones

So let's say 'only in front 90degree arc of charging GS

third not every railgun will be 15km necessarily

can you elaborate? Sorry, sometimes I can't understand what do you mean.

fourth it would have to handle going in and out of range.

Yes... but where's the problem with it?...

It's NOT a numbers change, and NOT appropriate for this thread.

Possibly. I assumed that in time... someone will work on GSF

 

Plasma is appropriately estimated. I can go into more detail about why it's bad later, but it requires a confluence of events for it to be worth using over slug, and it shouldn't.

Personally I found ion hit then lovetap with plasma (even with minimum charge DoT goes in full amount). The only thing that makes plasma a bad choice for me is the lack of armor ignoring.

 

Those two things have nothing in common, so no, it should not. But it should be better than it is now. Just because they both start with "ion" doesn't mean anything.

So let's list the 'nothing':

 

- High damage to shield, low to hull

- Weapon/engine energy drain

- T5 upgrades are practically the same

- Blue color

 

For me those weapons are similar... the payload is nearly the same, only a carrier different.

 

The comparison point is concussion and EMP missiles, with the assumption that concussions are "supposed" to be better- I'd just argue that they are TOO much better.

EMP missile have a specific role - cleaning bomber nests under sats, and in that it beats nearly every other weapon (except maybe AoE ion rail, but still better in some aspects. Fire one at turret:

- all turrets and drones nearby disabled

- only one seeker/seismic mine per bomber remain (assuming the bombers will drop them after EMP)

- bombers can't use CP and drop interdiction mines...

T1 scout with EMP can quickly finish the rest.

Concluding - EMP missile is pretty good for a team weapon, though quite terrible in playing solo. But again, there are other weapons for solo players.

 

I wouldn't mind buffing EMP missile (love it on my Spearpoint and Clarion), so I win't cry if it will get a buff - but seriously, in my opinion it does not neet buff - properly used it rocks already.

 

They really don't. I know they SHOULD, but they don't.

 

 

 

Your solution to a thin meta with several too-good components is to hand them out to all ships and homogenize the game even more? Then EVERYONE can run BLC and DF, right? Even the strikes?

"Even" the strikes? It suits dogfighters much better than gunships. I am against both components on bombers, but seriously, all the rest should have it.

So - Why not? ...

That means you actually agree with my "nerf DF" and "nerf BLC" suggestions- if you think they are so good that the fix for weaker ships is to hand them over, then there's no clearer way for you to state that they are more powerful than similar components.

Well... adding any components to ships choice , even niche one (like current EMP missiles ) is a buff, right? So you're seriously over-interpreting my words...

 

They may be good (though directional shield is a nice alternative) but not 'the truly best and only choice'. If someone has problems with shaking missile locks with LOS-ing, he/she can take DF. If not, directionals are pretty go... you can tank pretty much double clusters on directionals - especiallu on T3 strike.

 

Nerf'em some!

Nope!

Edited January 25, 2015 by Bolo_Yeung

[DamascusAdontise]

this thread seriously needs some spoiler tags lol (the replies that is) anyways finally put up my .02 - A lot of good ideas floating around and these are all easy to add.

 

Also wanted to stress that while I support a lot of the changes, these should not all be done at the same time. For instance scouts burst damage could be reduced by simply changing the ROF on burst laser, if that is the case there is no reason to touch the offensive abilities. I think these (if done at all) should be done in stages, without touching more than two components on a given class at a time.

 

This way changes can be rolled out. and the meta can re-settle and after all that we can see what if anything else needs to change. Dev's frequently make the mistake of changing too many things at once, this way it is impossible to predict the results and whether or not they are effective.

Edited January 25, 2015 by DamascusAdontise

[Verain]

There is some confusion over burst laser cannon being a gunship weapon. My reasoning is:

 

1)- It's been on the gunships since the earliest stages of development. The scout stuff came later.

2)- It's described as a heavy weapon.

3)- It does serious damage at close range and has very little tracking penalties.

4)- It is probably overtuned, hence my repeated "mild nerf" recommendations. It was never intended to be "the best weapon", nor is it really- just too good at its role.

 

These pretty solidly imply that they should be on a frame that in lore is large enough to bear the guns, a frame that is offensively optimized- the gunship. While obviously no one wants to see the battle scout have components removed, the fact remains that it was a late development addition and changed the ship dramatically, plus it stacks its strengths with the strengths of the scout.

 

 

You can tell it's too good because everyone knows that putting it on any other ship would really help that ship. If you logged in tomorrow and your strikes could unlock it, strikes would be better, especially the type 1 strike which could switch from it to heavies. If your bombers could play with it, they would be better at hurting enemies on nodes than they are with heavies, at a cost- but a cost you'd probably be willing to pay.

 

This means you should NOT ask for BLC to be handed out to every ship, but for other weapons to be increased in power, or BLCs to be reduced, or some combination of these.

 

 

The BLC is a gunship weapon. A lot of the balance oddities are because a scout has access to it as well, because the scout does not have the gunships maneuvering and turning limitations.

[Pherdnut]

Speaking as a newcomer to GSF but one whose played a fair bit of space/combat sims and tactical/strategy stuff (this game has elements of both, IMO) and has been gaming generally since like 1980, I'd like to add some input from recent learning curve compensation.

 

Non-Dilemna: Accuracy

 

To me it seems there is no smart choice but accuracy buffs. I was completely ineffective without them until I plugged in every passive and special available to me. I'd tighten up the curve such that no amount of passive evasion stops hits to the degree they currently can. Every sound in-the-crosshairs shot from a fresh rookie should hit half the time no matter how good passive evasion is, IMO. I suspect part of the reason for this is that a similar non-dilemna exists for evasion. I can appreciate the role these passive stats have in the game of bridging the distance between highly skilled players and the general MMO crowd but when they're the duh choice, what use are other choices at all to any of us?

 

Not-Moving/Crawling Seems Less Dangerous Than it Should Be

 

If there is any evasion penalty for moving below a certain speed, it doesn't seem severe enough. Turrets seem to have 0% evasion, but I don't get the impression players do, at least not when moving at a crawl. Scuttling around the base of a station should at least make you easier to hit and crit by the guy waiting for you on the other side of it even if it does make it easy for a much faster ship to overshoot. I don't hate that it's sometimes a smart tactic for a bomber to apply. I just hate that it doesn't seem to have tradeoffs that would make sense. In that brief window a scout has to take shots at an almost stopped bomber in close quarters, missing with a lot of them is really frustrating.

 

Gunships: It's Not That They're OP, It's That They Overly Inform Gameplay

 

I'm not sure gunships are as OP as a lot of noobs seem to think right off the bat but a large group of them well-played can take all the air out of a dogfighter's tires in terms of having any fun and makes the game feel a lot more like Call of Duty than X-Wing or Wing Commander. If dampers somehow semi-nerfed effectiveness at long range, ships with damper-boosting options could at least dogfight in semi-open space knowing that we won't be first-priority and that they'll have to move in to a range we can cover in a second if they want more reliable hits. Teams largely composed of one or two ship-types should be easier to mess with than they are, IMO.

 

What the Crap Just Killed Me?

 

I've played a crap-ton in the last week, done a lot of reading, and 25 to 60% mastered on a lot of components for my three fave ships so far and I still have no idea what's killing me sometimes or where that yellow flashy crap came from. Feedback in the form of "Killed by <name> using <weapon/effect that made the kill>" would be a huge help here. Some sort of status indicator for special attacks would be nice too if I'm not missing one somewhere in the excitement.

 

What the Crap Were They Flying?

 

It would be nice to able to inspect the ships people flew with in the Summary Stats. Wynter on Shadowlands for instance shows up with what appears to be a posse. They do something coordinated looking and beyond that enemy ships just seem to explode randomly, his kill rate triples anybody else's on the post-game summaries and I still don't know what's going on. I've flown with and against the guy. I asked what he was killing with. Somebody said "Nova Flux." Not panning out in Google or a reading of various ship weaponry descriptions for me. More information would be extremely helpful to rookies.

 

Torpedoes/Thermite

 

I'm able to use torps at medium range to some degree fairly regularly against slower opponents. Thermite is almost impossible if you're not almost at max-range. My only success has been with a well-dampered Nova that can lock-on beyond visual or shortly after popping up on it, then cross the 10k in a hurry if you manage to launch but burning across 10k can put you in a nasty position if the enemy isn't isolated and his friends engines are fresh.

 

And Now Programmer to Programmer

 

Really guys, you're pulling tooltip data from a different souce than the game mechanics data? Why would it occur to any developer to store the same information in two different places? I'd throw a hissy-fit if somebody told me to do that. DRY that stuff out already.

 

All That Said

 

I love this game. It's one of the best things to happen to SWTOR. It's fun even to lose most of the time. The revelation that I had 16,000 accumulated Cartel Coins got me active again, but GSF, convenience of strongholds, and collections are the main reasons I'm staying active right now.

[Verain]

I'd like to add some input from recent learning curve compensation.

 

This is a top quality post, but totally not what I wanted in this thread. None of these are numbers tweaks, and this should just be its own damned thread. Whatever, I'll discuss, because it really is compelling.

 

To me it seems there is no smart choice but accuracy buffs.

 

You are completely correct. The budget for hitpoints or damage dealt is high, the budget for evasion or accuracy is low. They sort of "raised" the cost of evasion as well. Because so many shots are taken with a serious accuracy penalty, any accuracy stacked is a huge deal. I mean, you can see when the devs were pricing components, things like "5% crit" are similar in power to things like "6% accuracy". But 6% accuracy is often an 8% damage increase, and 5% crit struggles mightily to even touch 2% increase to damage. Similar budgets, but the delta in results is almost always triple in favor of the accuracy- only because miss chance is often very large.

 

Not-Moving/Crawling Seems Less Dangerous Than it Should Be

 

Stationary ships are really a lot more vulnerable than it seems. They are bait for railguns and rocket pods, as well as heavies and quads, and in general being stationary is largely a death sentence. However, I would say that at average skill levels, it isn't punished appropriately. I routinely see even reasonably experienced players nestle close to satellites pointing outwards, a strategy that MUST work versus a lot of opponents or they would never have learned such a ludicrous strat in the first place. I think that it would be good to make it easier for a newer player to punish a stationary player than it is, though I don't feel accuracy is the correct place to do this- it would wreck gunships, who are forced to be stationary, etc. But it would be nice to be able to pelt some low damage grenade into a satellite and hurt all enemies close to it by some small degree, or something. That would prevent needing some skill watermark to be able to get rid of stationary strategies.

 

 

If there is any evasion penalty for moving below a certain speed

 

There is not. The penalty is that the enemy can easily line you up to his center line and just open up, and that you can't turn easily when stationary. If an opponent is in a nook, you can slowly creep towards them from out of LOS, using their angle of attack as knowledge about where they will be able to attack. This can force them to shoot useless max deflection shots at you, while your shots are all dead on. This counters this play completely, but it is hard to explain and should probably not be the best way. When mines ignored LOS we saw none of this play.

 

 

Gunships: It's Not That They're OP, It's That They Overly Inform Gameplay

 

I feel this is true mostly on lost shipyards TDM. I feel that bombers inform strategies on domination. If you have 2-3 gunships working in tandem against you, what are your other 1-2 allies doing to stop that? If you yourself can't break down a gunship wall, well, good.

 

 

What the Crap Just Killed Me?

 

We've long asked for:

> Shots that miss due to RNG to display "miss"

> A combat log to analyze, including RNG misses, crits, and damage done by component, ship type, and player name.

> A GUI that uses different icons for at least different ship classes- red triangles show enemies, but how do I tell from the dimness whether that far away target is a gunship charging, or a bomber holding position?

> A better scoreboard that shows who is dealing damage to what, breakdown of shield and hull damage, and what everyone is flying, ideally including the ability to view their ship in a hangar interface (this also lets others see your cosmetic upgrades)

 

Some of these are in the thread I linked in my OP. But it was long, so you probably didn't read it, instead using the "please post numbers fixes" thread to post your own long thing.

 

Torpedoes/Thermite

 

I ask for mild buffs to these in the OP. It is worth pointing out that these are all pretty devastating to be hit with, so it should not be an assumption that you can force an opponent to tank one- if everyone you right click on dives away or hides, that's you being highly effective (note that this is not on the scoreboard AT ALL of course). I will say that my best bet at landing these is to release sub 1km. If they engine break before, great, I can line up another shot on them or their friends immediately, if they engine break after then they have at least had to time it properly and likely aren't effective for a bit, and if they screw up they've just eaten a torp. Point blanking torps is the only real way to hit non-bombers with them.

 

 

And Now Programmer to Programmer

 

Really guys, you're pulling tooltip data from a different souce than the game mechanics data? Why would it occur to any developer to store the same information in two different places? I'd throw a hissy-fit if somebody told me to do that. DRY that stuff out already.

 

They have taken steps to unify this. The plasma dot "deals 900 damage over" and it used to say 6 seconds, and then a sentence about the rest of the move. The data error that ruins this printout seems like it was an attempt to mean "read from the duration" (like a %d equivalent in C), but it was partly implemented. I don't personally care if they store their actual values separate from their tooltips as long as they actually have a step where they sanity check them with a script or vdiff it with an intern, but they obviously have neither of those things.

[Pherdnut]

This is a top quality post, but totally not what I wanted in this thread.

 

Apologies, should have read your OP more carefully. I tend jump straight to lists of things and make assumptions.

[DamascusAdontise]

redacted (because it serves only to derail a good thread.) Edited January 26, 2015 by DamascusAdontise

[Verain]

(removed in compliance with Pincer Protocol) Edited January 26, 2015 by Verain

[DamascusAdontise]

redacted (because it serves only to derail a good thread.) Edited January 26, 2015 by DamascusAdontise

[Lendul]

There is some confusion over burst laser cannon being a gunship weapon. My reasoning is:

 

1)- It's been on the gunships since the earliest stages of development. The scout stuff came later.

2)- It's described as a heavy weapon.

3)- It does serious damage at close range and has very little tracking penalties.

4)- It is probably overtuned, hence my repeated "mild nerf" recommendations. It was never intended to be "the best weapon", nor is it really- just too good at its role.

 

These pretty solidly imply that they should be on a frame that in lore is large enough to bear the guns, a frame that is offensively optimized- the gunship. While obviously no one wants to see the battle scout have components removed, the fact remains that it was a late development addition and changed the ship dramatically, plus it stacks its strengths with the strengths of the scout.

 

 

You can tell it's too good because everyone knows that putting it on any other ship would really help that ship. If you logged in tomorrow and your strikes could unlock it, strikes would be better, especially the type 1 strike which could switch from it to heavies. If your bombers could play with it, they would be better at hurting enemies on nodes than they are with heavies, at a cost- but a cost you'd probably be willing to pay.

 

This means you should NOT ask for BLC to be handed out to every ship, but for other weapons to be increased in power, or BLCs to be reduced, or some combination of these.

 

 

The BLC is a gunship weapon. A lot of the balance oddities are because a scout has access to it as well, because the scout does not have the gunships maneuvering and turning limitations.

Does that equate to you answering yes? To the "Should gunships have the most powerful long and short range weapon?" question. Come on Verain try to stop waxing Tolstoyic and answer this one question with a simple yes or no.

[Verain]

@Lendul- If you can't read my plain words I can't help you. Edited January 26, 2015 by Verain