Let's talk about Strike Fighters

[DresG]

Obviously I'm not in favor of adding the class defining weapons of other classes to strikes. But I am interested in pointing out that it's pretty hard to be a generalist in a game of specialists if you fundamentally don't have access to their toolkits, even slightly. Lets be real- the strike fighters are the X-Wings. The Clarion even looks like one. A very pretty one too. That's the real kit behind the design, and the hope that they can be generalists from a game mechanics perspective is going to have a lot of mountain to walk up, because they just lack access to the pieces that normally define that sort of thing.

 

A SF won't kill faster than a Scout (T1 SF) or be better at defending than a Bomber (T3 SF) or shoot from as far as a Gunship, this is ok. It's not bad design to have a multi-role ship, you can't buff the damage too much without putting SFs in the same niche as Battlescouts. While your argument about Super Serious Night (SSN) makes sense at first, you have to keep in mind that such games are very rare (and non existant in some servers). Balancing around SSN would be like ground PvP and Arenas, it just creates the need for constant fine tuning of highly specialized builds. We both know the devs won't be seen around here for a long long time after whatever patch we get.

 

SFs don't need a new role.

 

You are right, I've been vague about my request for better mobility, what I meant was better engine efficiency. As much as I keep disagreeing about the kind of buff SFs need, I'm happy my ship is getting some attention, but I feel it needs to keep the current paradigm, jack of all trades. A buff to Power Systems would fit this, higher damage(F1)/shields(F2)/engine(F3), it is already like this, but I mean a higher gain than the rest of the ships. This way SFs get buffed without giving them any components that make them over the top.

[Ramalina]

Edit: Bleah, I forgot my pet peeves!

 

So there are nerdy game balance theory items that largely boil down to, "W.T .F were they thinking when they designed this." But that's only relevant to my forum posting pleasure, and in fact the flaws are a bit of a plus in that regard.

 

From a player's perspective the pet peeve is that if I choose a ship class where I like the theme and playstyle "feel" of the ships, I'm being penalized heavily in performance in the game. Aside from not being the best in any particular category, in terms of helping my team I'm worse off picking a fully mastered strike that I have 10 times as much experience and flying time in than I am if I pick one of the meta defining ships from any other class that's only 1/3 of the way to being fully geared..

 

The, "jack of all trades," theme for strikes isn't the problem. The problem is that Jack's truck, tools, and workshop got impounded and he was handed an old and very dull Swiss-army knife as a substitute.

 

This peeve extends to the other underperforming ships too. The Dustmaker/Cometbreaker theme of an anti-armor gunship is fine, but dedicated anti-armor isn't an important role in GSF and the T2 gunship still wouldn't be good enough at it to be worth taking even if it were.

 

 

 

Most GSF play is basically a race to DPS an enemy ship to zero before it can DPS your ship to zero. The biggest problem that strikes have, is that facing an opponent of equal skill and gear level, they will invariably lose this race by a very large margin. The margin doesn't have to disappear entirely perhaps, but it does need to be reduced to a slim margin.

 

 

Reasons strikes have this problem:

 

They have a secondary weapon system that in a game with lots of LOS near objectives and the mechanics of Distortion Field does incredibly poor DPS (for a good strike pilot you could just remove the missile weapons and it would be more of an annoyance than a crippling blow to the ship, that's how non-functional missiles other than Cluster Missile are right now in skilled play). Distortion Field is a particular problem in that it is so effective against strike weapons that often the optimal play for a ship with Distortion Field is to ignore an attacking strike and finish killing their current target because the strike is not capable of being a significant threat no matter what it does.

 

In a game where burst damage is king, and the norm for ships is to have a primary weapon, a secondary weapon, and a system or system-weapon that contributes additional damage in some way, strikes are effectively stuck with primary weapons only against more than half of the targets you'd expect to find in a competitive game.

 

 

They have fewer powerful components, and those components interact in ways that do not generate significant combat advantages from interaction (especially when it comes to burst DPS and survivability). This is a fundamental problem of every poorly performing ship type in GSF. I'm relatively ok with not having quite as large an interactive effect for, "jack of all trades," thematic reasons, but if that's going to be the case then they really need to have the best components available so that their stand-alone components aren't too far behind the component combinations of other ships that are interacting to produce much higher power levels than the individual components.

 

 

In practice strikes are the least survivable ship class. Strikes function as dogfighters, so to be productive they are forced to fly into areas where they are easily targetable by other ships, they can't hide behind Line Of Sight obstacles and still do their job in the way that Bombers can. If not cowering behind LOS a strike relies on either shields or armor for defense.

 

Armor is pretty useless because armor piercing counters armor by 100%, and the scouts and gunships that are the biggest threat to strikes have enough armor piercing on their preferred weapons that equipping armor is generally a significant defensive disadvantage for a strike.

 

That leaves shields. There's nothing fundamentally wrong with how shields work in GSF in terms of mechanics, the problem is that they represent nothing but raw health. When competing against the dominant scouts and gunships raw health loses badly to the combination of not getting hit at all by virtue of high evasion (especially an issue with avoiding snares or other debuffs for "free"), having an extra missile break, and easily being able to control the range of a fight with boost endurance or railgun range. By exploiting the ship's ability to control range in a fight a scout or gunship can arrange to have very near to 100% uptime of evasion cooldowns when fighting a strike, which effectively eliminates the weakness of, "vulnerable when the CD is unavailable," that is supposed to be part of the balance equation of ships with evasion builds.

 

 

 

Ways to address the problems.

Nerf components that give other ships an excessive advantage:

Not going to be a popular route with pilots of other ship classes. Personally, I think that the extra missile break on Distortion Field needs to die. Stake it, cut off it's head, stuff it's mouth with garlic, put it in a jar of Holy Water, and bury it under a well travelled crossroads. Replace it with something else that enhances survivability. Maybe a snare removal combined with a small shield repair or something like that. Verain has made suggestions in the past that had nothing to do with impairing missiles, and most of them seemed ok to me. Aside from axing the DF missile break I don't think nerfs to other ships are really called for.

 

Optionally some evasion CDs could be lengthened a bit, but it's not something I'm really convinced is needed.

 

If Distortion Field losses the missile break, an increase of 1-2 seconds on the reload time of Cluster Missiles might be called for as an act of mercy toward gunships, and it would also help solve cluster missiles being vastly overtuned compared to every other missile.

 

 

 

Buff components that strikes can use more effectively than other ship classes:

 

Missile lock times for most missiles could stand to come down a bit. The 3 second base lock times could probably be cut to about 2.75, and the 4 second locks on torpedoes could be cut to 3.5 seconds or so.

 

What I've been calling the, "futility," missiles could be buffed a large amount. Interdiction missile is a strong utility missile, the next best utility missile is probably Concussion missile and utility isn't even its job.

 

Shield component max shield points could be stronger, or shield regeneration effects could be buffed.

 

Increasing the range of Ion Cannons to 5 km would be nice, but that's sort of a luxury item and only for the T1 strike.

 

 

Give strikes access to better components in the component slots they already have:

 

T1 Strike - BLCs

 

T2 Strike - Interdiction Missile, Power Dive, Retro thrusters, Distortion Field.

 

T3 Strike - Cluster or Concussion missiles.

 

 

Change the component types available in strike builds:

 

I'd restrict this to the T2 strike (Pike/Quell) in defensive secondary components. Armor is vastly inferior for strikes compared to a reactor. Especially if you don't have the option to combine lightweight armor and Distortion field. I think that removing the Armor from the T2 strike and replacing it with a Reactor would be a more, "strike like," choice, but if that's not done the T2 really needs Distortion Field as a shield option.

 

Buff the strike spaceframe/chassis

 

Mostly what the strike needs in terms of spaceframe is better boost endurance. Something along the lines of reducing afterburner power consumed per second by a range of 0.5 to 1, and increasing engine power regeneration and recently consumed regeneration by a range of 0.5 to 1. Summing the buffs I'd aim for about 1.5, as 1 might be insufficient, but 2 might be a bit much.

 

Optionally minor increases to shield power, shield regeneration, and turn rate would be nice, but the strike isn't seriously hurting in those areas.

 

Create a new type of strike:

The other ship classes have types where the ship has either a perfectly optimized offensive build, or something very close to that. Those optimized or near-optimized builds are the ones that have ruled the GSF meta for its entire existence. The Quarrel/Manger, Sting/Flashfire, and Rampart/Razorwire. There is no optimized strike type, and that's part of the reason they aren't competitive in the meta at high skill levels.

 

An optimized strike type would look approximately like this . . . .

 

Example type 4 Strike component options:

Primary: HLCs, Quads, BLCs

Secondary: Cluster, Concussion, Interdiction, Proton, Thermite

Engine: Power dive, Barrel Roll, Retro thrusters, Koigran Turn

Systems: Remote slicing, Combat Command, *New system that buffs missile performance*

Shields: Quick Charge, Charged Plating, Directional

Thrusters: Turning, Regeneration, Speed, Power

Reactor: Large, Turbo, Regeneration

Armor: Deflection, Lightweight, Reinforced

Capacitor: Damage, Frequency, Range

 

Example for the new system (note, these are bullsh*t numbers, you'd have to do serious balancing work on it, might also have to change what the mechanics do)

 

Rotary Launcher: CD 90 sec, 15 sec duration, Reduces missile reload time by 25% and lock time by 5%

t1 CD reduced 20 sec

t2 Increases missile range by 10%

t3 Ability duration increased by 5 seconds

t4 Increases ammo pool by 4 or Increases missile crit chance 15%

t5 Increases missile damage 10% or Reduces lock time an additional 10%

 

A near-optimized version would drop the Armor slot for a Sensor slot.

 

 

Concluding thoughts:

 

Fixing missile balance with respect to Distortion Field would help strikes, the T2 gunship, the T3 scout, and all of the bombers, so I'd make that a top priority in terms of helping strikes.

 

The next biggest item would be to help out the Pike/Quell, which at the very least needs: interdiction missile, retro thrusters, and defensive help in the form of either distortion field or replacement of the armor slot with a reactor slot.

 

Beyond that, use your professional judgement, but err significantly on the side of using an overly heavy hand. Also make sure to keep in mind how mechanics interact with each other during gameplay, as that's where the biggest source of balance issues in GSF tend to come from.

 

In a TDM with both Damage Overcharge and Engine Booster power active at the same time a strike feels almost as powerful as one of the meta scout builds. If every change I listed above got implemented, I'd be pretty surprised if even a "type 4" style optimized strike build actually exceeded the performance of a T1 gunship, T2 scout, or minelayer in terms of competitiveness in the meta. There's a lot of space for buffing strikes, so use it all up if you can scrounge the developer time needed to do so.

Edited June 8, 2015 by Ramalina

[Nemarus]

I've been making grandiose, sweeping suggestions, but I thought I'd make some super simple ones. These would not balance Strikes, but they would help, and they are simple and low risk. These really should happen regardless of whatever chassis buffs are made.

 

1) Remove Charged Plating from the Star Guard and replace it with Feedback Shield. Charged Plating is a trap on a ship that can't stack damage reduction. Feedback Shield is a good, solid shield that would synergize great with Ion Cannons and Cluster Missiles, and give the Star Guard some extra teeth against Scouts.

 

2) Give the Star Guard Burst Laser Cannons. Not every Strike should have them, but this Strike--the primary weapon specialist--should have them.

 

3) Give the Pike Retro Thrusters. They synergize extremely well with aquiring missile locks, and they would give the Pike another medium cool down missile break.

 

4) Give the Pike Interdiction Missile. Currently, a Condor using both Clusters and Interdiction Missile can do quite well, due to both missiles having wide arcs and short lock-on times. You basically spam Clusters to drain lock-breaks, then hit with Interdiction. As the missile specialist, the Pike should have access to this combo. Alternatively (or maybe in addition), you could give Pikes Rocket Pods. Just keep in mind their effectiveness will be limited without Targeting Telemetry.

 

5) Give the Clarion Concussion Missile. Concussion Missile is not the ace dog fighting super missile it was originally conceived to be. There is no danger giving it to the Clarion, and it would give the ship a bit more offensive capability against all kinds of targets.

 

6) Give the Clarion Heavy Laser Cannons. HLC's are the quintessential Strike weapon, and every Strike should have them. They would cement the Clarion as a great anti-minelayer ship, as well as giving it more capability to assault satellites that have turrets.

 

Some may think that #5 and #6 make the Clarion too much of a dogfighter, when it is supposed to be a support ship.

 

I disagree. The fact that Clarions lack Thrusters will always be a hit against their space superiority credentials--do they really need to be so offensively neutered as well?

 

Giving them HLC's and Concussion Missiles would open up the kinda of Clarion you could make. You could make an anti-Bomber Clarion, a healing/support Clarion, a jousting specialist, or a mid-range harasser. And on that last option, you could complement the HLC's by taking Combat Command, or you could complement your Concussion Missiles using Remote Slicing, or you could just stick with Repair Probes for extra survivability.

Edited May 30, 2015 by Nemarus

[DresG]

If Distortion Field losses the missile break, an increase of 1-2 seconds on the reload time of Cluster Missiles might be called for as an act of mercy toward gunships, and it would also help solve cluster missiles being vastly overtuned compared to every other missile.

 

This is a change I would love to see (except that I think increased CD on DF instead of losing missile break is more balanced)

 

1) Remove Charged Plating from the Star Guard and replace it with Feedback Shield. Charged Plating is a trap on a ship that can't stack damage reduction. Feedback Shield is a good, solid shield that would synergize great with Ion Cannons and Cluster Missiles, and give the Star Guard some extra teeth against Scouts.

I like this one a lot

 

2) Give the Star Guard Burst Laser Cannons. Not every Strike should have them, but this Strike--the primary weapon specialist--should have them.

I don't agree with the idea of more ships having BLCs, I would even remove them from Battlescouts and leave them only on GSs. Besides, you have to be really close for them to be effective, which we all know SFs have a big problem with that.

 

3) Give the Pike Retro Thrusters. They synergize extremely well with aquiring missile locks, and they would give the Pike another medium cool down missile break.

 

4) Give the Pike Interdiction Missile. Currently, a Condor using both Clusters and Interdiction Missile can do quite well, due to both missiles having wide arcs and short lock-on times. You basically spam Clusters to drain lock-breaks, then hit with Interdiction. As the missile specialist, the Pike should have access to this combo.

 

5) Give the Clarion Concussion Missile. Concussion Missile is not the ace dog fighting super missile it was originally conceived to be. There is no danger giving it to the Clarion, and it would give the ship a bit more offensive capability against all kinds of targets.

 

6) Give the Clarion Heavy Laser Cannons. HLC's are the quintessential Strike weapon, and every Strike should have them. They would cement the Clarion as a great anti-minelayer ship, as well as giving it more capability to assault satellites that have turrets.

 

Interdiction would work great on a Pike, I would also give them to T3 Scouts, but that is not being discussed here. Clarion does need some more offensive power, as it stands right now its mostly an annoying (really tanky) ship that only does damage when people completely ignore it.

[Enurrsha]

I've been making grandiose, sweeping suggestions, but I thought I'd make some super simple ones. These would not balance Strikes, but they would help, and they are simple and low risk. These really should happen regardless of whatever chassis buffs are made.

 

1) Remove Charged Plating from the Star Guard and replace it with Feedback Shield. Charged Plating is a trap on a ship that can't stack damage reduction. Feedback Shield is a good, solid shield that would synergize great with Ion Cannons and Cluster Missiles, and give the Star Guard some extra teeth against Scouts.

 

2) Give the Star Guard Burst Laser Cannons. Not every Strike should have them, but this Strike--the primary weapon specialist--should have them.

 

3) Give the Pike Retro Thrusters. They synergize extremely well with aquiring missile locks, and they would give the Pike another medium cool down missile break.

 

4) Give the Pike Interdiction Missile. Currently, a Condor using both Clusters and Interdiction Missile can do quite well, due to both missiles having wide arcs and short lock-on times. You basically spam Clusters to drain lock-breaks, then hit with Interdiction. As the missile specialist, the Pike should have access to this combo.

 

5) Give the Clarion Concussion Missile. Concussion Missile is not the ace dog fighting super missile it was originally conceived to be. There is no danger giving it to the Clarion, and it would give the ship a bit more offensive capability against all kinds of targets.

 

6) Give the Clarion Heavy Laser Cannons. HLC's are the quintessential Strike weapon, and every Strike should have them. They would cement the Clarion as a great anti-minelayer ship, as well as giving it more capability to assault satellites that have turrets.

 

Some may think that #5 and #6 make the Clarion too much of a dogfighter, when it is supposed to be a support ship.

 

I disagree. The fact that Clarions lack Thrusters will always be a hit against their space superiority credentials--do they really need to be so offensively neutered as well?

 

Giving them HLC's and Concussion Missiles would open up the kinda of Clarion you could make. You could make an anti-Bomber Clarion, a healing/support Clarion, a jousting specialist, or a mid-range harasser. And on that last option, you could complement the HLC's by taking Combat Command, or you could complement your Concussion Missiles using Remote Slicing, or you could just stick with Repair Probes for extra survivability.

 

 

All of these - yes, please.

[CommanderKiko]

If u wanna push SF, simply nerf Scouts.

 

All of the real good pilots choose to play Flashfire in op build. Why ? Tons of dmg, nearly indestructable. So for what reason they should play a SF, slow, bad dmg ?

 

Scouts should be scouts, fast in capturing satelites, and strong vs mines with emp for example.

 

100% agree. People can claim "Class Bashing" but it isn't. I've said over and over that the sting/flashfire "Type 2 scout" is basically the reason why no one plays strikers. The type 2 can fill every striker role save the clarion's on it's own, do it better, and have a better chance of surviving it.

 

Want to fix the striker? The striker isn't what needs fixed. Sure things could be done to make them more viable, but unless you make them literally gunship proof, they will never be picked over the type 2 scout unless you need a mobile tank/healer, which few people use ever because of how clunky and slow it is.

 

If almost everyone who is considered a "big name" uses a flash/sting, there's a reason for it. And that reason is because it is over powered and unbalanced. People tend to admit to this in GSF chat, so why suddenly are they not in this thread? Because people like the type 2 being overpowered. Being all but invincible and able to 3 hit anything makes people feel good and they don't want that to change.

[Verain]

No, that's not why.

 

1)- A dev came in and explicitly asked us how to buff strikes, ideally along a generalist platform. Deciding to make this about top meta ships, and what NERF would be best, is not only an overly broad discussion, it's explicitly the one we were NOT asked to have in this thread. So we aren't coming up with the perfect battlescout nerf because it's absolutely and unarguably offtopic.

 

2)- Most in the community do want some adjustments that include class and component nerfs.

Here's my thread on the topic:

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

And we've had that discussion, and will continue having it.

 

3)- For every reasonable nerf discussion, there's three unreasonable ones. If the moment a dev stops by and asks you what improvements can be made to strikes, your fingers start to type "remove distortion field missile break", you know something went terribly, terribly wrong in your head.

 

4)- The meta right now is reasonably deep. Most of the 1v1s, 2v1s, 2v2s, and group fights within that meta are interesting and generally resolve around player skill. This holds true for type 2 scouts, type 1 gunships, type 3 gunships, type 1 bombers, and type 2 bombers. Even type 1 scouts and to some extent type 3 strikes and type 3 scouts show up, perform their role, etc. This is the space of GSF that has actually been tested by players. The reason that this keeps coming up, is that, in reality, this is GSF. Rage induced crap like removal of disto's missile break, gutting nerfs to mines or railguns, or the wholesale destruction of burst laser cannon will destroy the meta, and build a new one in its place... but there's no reason to suspect the new one will be good. That list of good and rather good ships up there is notable because of how poorly strikes place on that list. NOT because all the good pilots correctly choose good ships.

 

5)- Implying that the good pilots only play the good ships is flatly untrue. They play them in the most competitive games, then come to the forums and ask that the ships that aren't worth playing, be buffed to be worth playing. The devs ask exactly how to do that, and suddenly Captain Class Hater comes in blubbering about the unique and interesting parts of the other classes, and how the game would be sooooo much better if everything was a strike fighter, as tested by no one, ever.

 

6)- Buffs generally make people happy and add depth. Nerfs never make people happy, and very often subtract depth (even nerfs meant to increase depth often do the opposite). And fundamentally, everyone knows this.

If you are in this thread asking for distortion field to have its missile break removed (not the cooldown increased by a massive 50%, or there to be a different benefit offered that helps against missiles without being so binary), you're doing it because you hate the players using this against you, and secretly want them to be sad. That's literally it: you aren't trying to improve the game, or have more fun yourself, you're actually out hunting other people's fun instead. That is why these posts are off topic, unasked for, answered elsewhere, tried briefly on live due to bugs (ruining the game), and ultimately just based on bashing people playing ships you don't like, in ways that frustrate you personally.

[DresG]

Rage induced crap like removal of disto's missile break, gutting nerfs to mines or railguns, or the wholesale destruction of burst laser cannon will destroy the meta, and build a new one in its place... but there's no reason to suspect the new one will be good.

 

Agreed, but the current meta just scares new pilots away, which means queues are going to die sooner rather than later. No tantrum regarding hypothetical nerfs can help us avoid that.

[Verain]

If almost everyone who is considered a "big name" uses a flash/sting, there's a reason for it.

 

 

And on this precise point, there's several reasons for it.

 

1)- The type 1 scout trades firepower for speed, and the meta doesn't really reward this entirely. It does to a reasonable extent, but the type 1 scout simply can't do what a type 2 scout does. It's close, and note that we do ask for fixes to this- for instance EMP field fixes.

 

2)- The type 2 scout has access to all the meta components that can go on a scout. Power Dive, Barrel Roll, and Retro Thrusters each makes for a very different set of evasion and offensive tricks, and burst lasers and distortion are definitely too strong. But they aren't a mile too strong. They don't need to lose their armor piercing, or missile break, to make them chosen a bit less often. It's clearly intended that this ship be so good at dogfighting. It even has backups- if directional or quick charge ended up too good, he's got those too. If the fact that LLC is the highest dps ever matters, that's ready to go. If clusters or rockets ends up better, he can swap. It's clearly the design that this ship spawn, and punch everything until he's all out of punch.

 

3)- The type 3 scout relies on undertuned lock on weapons. This appears intended, and is an uphill battle. We have made our case for buffing these weapons, and in the case of ion missile, fixing a likely bug that removes much of the utulity of the "futility" missile. But we've gone further in other threads, asking for increased range or decreased lock on time for EMP and Ion, and increased pretty-much-anything-minor for thermites and protons. None of these missiles seem to do their job very reliably. In the case of EMP missile, it should probably lock on to a mine or drone almost instantly, or have a longer range when targeting these enemies, but there's plenty of ways to fix that.

 

4)- The type 1 strike deals massive damage to most targets... but only under unrealistic or farm situations. It absolutely shreds bombers in open space, but being in open space is either a risk taken on for the good of the team, or lazy or noob play, depending. Hence, buff discussion.

 

5)- The type 2 strike engages in ceaseless missile locks, but most are fruitless, even in open space. Without retros to lock missiles like the ships that are better at missiles than him (a list which includes a scout and a gunship), he can't be a real missile boat, and he's mostly limited to one unsupported playstyle. Denied interdiction missile, thermite, and rocket pods, and bloated with a missile list including the meritless Ion and EMP, his potentially huge numbers of builds fold down into a couple toy builds. Hence, buff discussion.

 

6)- The type 3 strike is the best strike because it has a heal button. Really, because it has a system button- if repair probes was broken for some reason, the Clarion wouldn't be discussed as a possible meta ship, but it absolutely would still be better than the previous two strikes, because its system ability button is just going to be better than the 1 button of the previous two, because it can still actually help your allies in some meaningful fashion.

 

7)- The type 1 gunship has synergy between his secondary choices, as well as access to the overtuned BLC and the overtuned distortion field. This makes him the best at supporting fire, and so he's the top gunship.

 

8)- The type 2 gunship is in need of pretty serious help, because he ended up with the torpedos, which, again, aren't very reliable at their presumably intended job. It's not the topic of the thread, so we don't talk about it much, and, at the end of the day, it can at least sit around and throw slugs, something the strikes don't have as an option. I'm also a lot more forgiving of this ship because the dropping of cruise missile before launch changed its role, and the hope that torpedoes would offer synergy with a railgun didn't work out. This ship is poorly tuned because its design changed. I'd like to see some fixes, but it's just not the priority the strikes are. If torps are improved, maybe he'll be better.

 

9)- The type 3 gunship is probably a top tier ship at this point. Several good type 1 gunship pilots now main this ship, even on super serious night. While not as specialized as the type 1 gunship, it has access to a bunch of overtuned components, and the engine choice of power dive is a very welcome Knight Move alternative to the Bishop that is the type 1 gunship. This ship risks being hurt by overly large nerfs to its stable of moves, but it could stay playable if the nerfs aren't unreasonable.

 

10)- The type 1 bomber sees very heavy play. The combination of charged plating, beacon, and seismic mine mean that most attackers have to solve a puzzle to peel this bomber off a node. The combination of terrible engine manuevers and no offensive secondaries means that it's a team effort to get these things to where they need to be. The ability to switch interdiction to concussion and plating to overcharged means that this ship even has a couple different approaches, with different power managements and playstyles, all focused on the same goal. This ship is very on/off- very good at their job, very not good at anything else. A true specialist. We discuss different ways to let him keep his job without charged plating being as disruptive to new players, over several threads.

 

11)- The type 2 bomber sees pretty heavy play, and is the best bomber in TDM generally. With repairs helping ammo and health in a game where both of those matter, and the ability to choose different drones, each with a different area and specialty, this ship has to pick what type of area it is defending, and from whom. It still gets chewed up my missiles for free in open space, and can't pick plating at all. This is a strategic and interesting specialist.

 

12)- The type 3 bomber is lightly undertuned. As a hybrid ship, he's basically what the strikes were trying to be. Buffs to some components that he has access to (light lasers, lasers, protons, possibly concussion, interdiction field) that are generally not super great, would go very far to help him. He's the only ship on the list that I wouldn't be surprised if someone popped in with a new playstyle that makes him totally top tier. I think he would be helped by fixes to several components.

 

 

 

Battle scouts dominate the field, but it's not just because they are too good. It's in large part because the rest of the field doesn't offer compelling reasons to play X instead of a battle scout... unless you are trying to be a gunship or a bomber.

[Nemarus]

No, that's not why.

 

1)- A dev came in and explicitly asked us how to buff strikes, ideally along a generalist platform.

 

I don't think this is accurate. Alex said the original design was to make it a generalist. At no point did he imply that should be the design going forward. He said the ship should be valuable in either Game Type, but that is not a "generalist". After all, Flashfires and Quarrels are both useful in Domination and Deathmatch, but both are specialists.

 

I think the generalist design needs to be abandoned. It will never, ever make sense so long as we can switch between five specialists during a match.

 

The Clarion gets played because it has one component, Repair Probes, which is the best healing ability in GSF. The Clarion is a healing specialist, and that is the only reason it ever gets played. For a Star Guard or Pike--or a Clarion without Repair Probes--to earn one of the five hangar slots, then it needs to have a defined specialization besides "fly this to go easy on newbs". And even in that silly purpose, a double torp Comet-breaker is arguably the superior specialist.

 

I really don't see how a generalist would ever make sense, and I don't think Alex is expecting us to solve that intractable problem.

Edited May 30, 2015 by Nemarus

[Verain]

I agree it's not a good design, and I've spent some posts explaining why (including adorable Sam The Strike). But I still made suggestions towards that effect, because I read the dev post as asking for that.

 

Plus, I don't want to make the same mistake as before, where I basically said "why would EVER assume they were meant to be a jack of all trades?", pointing to their lack of ability to do anything scouts cannot also do. But now we KNOW their original design, so we should at least try to address that.

 

 

Heh, patch notes incoming:

> Strikes can now shoot through obstacles

> Every ship now has burst laser cannon

> Vette still unplayable

> We fixed the t5 left sab probe talent, but broke the right. Overall buff, right?

[Etrii]

Thanks again Alax for adresing the community, you coused some panties hiting the floor with mach 7...and not only ladies ones

 

So few of us sat down and we started to think about strikes(we liked it, so we did it again)

 

First, our think tank loves strikes, but we fly other ships in hard games, no suprise there right?

 

So here is our little proposal(keep in mind that we were sticking to KISS rule, so no new comoponets)(But all gods now that T2 needs some)

 

Chasis:

 

1)10% Critical chance flat bonus to all lasers

2)15% Critical chance flat bonus to missiles

3)-2,5 sec shild regen deley

4)25% Engine power pool increse

5)15% Incressed engine regen

6)15% Incresed range of all lasers

 

Componets

(We all now that RFL need the boost, or pack their bags on home, and even crit and range boosts will not help them)

 

1)Kaiogan turn cooldown reduced to 12 seconds

2))Kaiogan turn cost reduced to 1/2 cost of retro thrusters

 

I will adress all points in a second but to avoid flying tomatos i`d like to give my reasoning.

- K-turn is horrible, strictly defensive engine manouver, with only one thing to offer staying on sat Sats B(mesas) and C (Lost)

-all live and dead gods know that t2 Strike needs any defensive manouver

-All other ships that can use K-turn have better options(powerdive, retro, and for scouts barrer roll, which does not work good for strikes)

 

 

Ad 1. Critical chance flat bonus to all lasers

 

The discussion was harsh between flat dmg boost and crit boost, but in the end crit won.

 

-Heavy lasers on strike would get 10-13% which joined with CF would give a nice 46-49% buff with shild penetration. With incresed range avery interesting choice

-Quad lasers would have 18% crit chance , that would make the significantly stronger then t2 scouts ones and Laser Canons

-T3 strike might consider an over 60% crit build but still it wouldent change the fact that rep probes are to good to swap them out

-T2 LLC using incresed range and crit bonus would be a viable choice with more punishing power

 

Ad 2. 15% Critical chance flat bonus to missiles

 

Missiles are crap, and 15 % dosent change much...So KISS rule

 

-It would give protons 25% crit chance, a bit more rewarding vs bombers and insta kill ona scout/gs/strike that missplayed and allwed himself to be hit by a torp

-15 Ctit on clusters would put them in similar league that TT bosted clusters of scout. No crit magnitude, but 100% uptime

-Thermites would get a crit and every DOT tick as well

-Concs would be able to hit for 1700 with 20% of dmg going to hull(340 dmg ,1/3 of scouts hull points)

-Emp and ion will still be crap

 

I know it`s not a perfect solution but i gives a chance to have rewarding missile hits. I think we all agree that i massive chnages missiles need be easier to land

 

Ad 3. )-2,5 sec shild regen deley

 

It`s a small defensive buff, it will not help very much vs Burst dmg (BLC and Slug) and it wont help vs Quads/pods, but with regen rate lower then BLC rate:

-it restores 90 shilds between BLC shots,

-It adds a bit of surviviablity in close qouters fights

-It decresess (waiting till shilds are good-ish time) before going back to combat

-If you will be able to survive ion hit you get back to fight faster

-you can clear a minefield lossing some ships and return to fight in a decent shape faster

-it buffs strike fighters cp builds

 

 

Ad 4. 15% incresed range

 

-Heavy lasers would reach almoest 8k range a bit over half of GS range andvantage

-Quads on strike would get 6610 advantage and still have 18% crit chance

-LLC and ION would be in 6,5+ k range still able to deliver punishment outside of even pod range

-Incressed range means that GS`s safe zone is at least 2k smaller now

-Increesed range means that strike dont have spend so much time "going places"

-Incressed range means that a strike can pop mines form a safe distance

-15% incressed range means that he can ,with no problem kill missile drones(i know that they are not the problem)

-They can take out out rail drones with only 1,1 k in its range, so they prolly wont be able to shoot even once(no need of burning enigine to get much closer)

-Mid range combat for strike vs scout jumps from 6-4 km to 8-4k

 

 

Ad 5.

 

Strikes have the same power pool as scouts but lower base speed, scouts still will be mobilty kings(especialy with booster overcharge(

 

. But strikes problem is that he is always "going places" and ion hit or GS chase make him "dead in the water" far to oftern.

 

Bigger power pool would alow:

 

-with proper energy menagment tank an ion hit

-get to sats faster

-go places and still have some fight in them

-have a chance to run if the fight is going badly

 

Ad 6.

Strikes regen rate sgould be better. pouses to regain breath afact both thier utility and thier dps

 

all of the ad 5 points +

 

-If you manage to tank ion and LOS get out of range you will be abl to participate faster

 

COMPONENT

 

Ad 1 and 2

 

In my personal opinion t2 strike needs an idvidual apraoch but in keeping it simple that could be a good start:

 

Kaiogan turn offers only:

-Defensive m-break

-Staying power on satelite B mesas and C(lost)

 

with buffs to it other monovers would still be a better option(thou it could be interesting for t3 scout)

 

-Lowering the engine cost and cooldown to 12 seconds gives a valid missile break for a T2 strike

- It incresess it`s "staving power" on satelites

-alows a faster" from the top and from the bottom" atacks on bombers on nodes

-If hit by ion at max range(with good engine menagment) it can easily out range the shooter

 

Regards

 

Etrii

(And some other pilots from pregonitor, hwich i`ll not list, to not be percived as a cheap trick to boost my opinion)

Edited May 30, 2015 by Etrii

[theaspie]

Something that had arisen in the forum discussion which produced Etrii's recommendations was the concept of a increase to Strike Fighter primary weapons accuracy, of perhaps up to 30%, as a possible counter for scouts with a large amount of evasion.

 

Although this was not in the final post, I feel that it is an idea worth considering to somewhat adjust the balance between those two groups of fighters.

Edited May 31, 2015 by theaspie

[HopingForBest]

Strike fighters are supposed to be the backbone of the fleet, they are supposed to be space "superiority" fighter. In short, they should pack a punch at short to moderate range. Bombers should fear them. Scouts should hit and run from them, hoping to get away before they get blown to bits. Gunships, well, they should be targeting them first out of concern for them getting TOO close, not because they are easy kills.

 

They can still be a "jack of all trades" but should be able to do all those jobs a bit better. Out maneuver a scout? No way. But out maneuver a bomber and gunship? They should without too much trouble...and they don't. Out damage a type 2 scout? Always, and they don't. Blow a bomber out of the sky, should be their primary job...but they cannot do enough damage.

 

Why does it take so long to re-arm a torpedo (which are pretty useless overall due to long lock on times, long cool-downs, and small firing arc.) and missiles? Between cool-down and locking target, a scouts evade ability is active again. How does recharging thrusters or a shield operate faster than arming another missile?

 

I suggest slight improvement to maneuverability and increase to damage for blasters and reduced cool downs on their missiles/torpedoes. This cool-down reduction should apply only to the strike fighters, not to the other ships carrying similar weapons. Strike fighters should be designed to deploy these weapons quickly.

[Verain]

Etrii kindly forgot to add the 30% accuracy buff to strikes primary guns, for some reason.

 

Do you guys understand how big a buff this would be?

 

Evasion would be useless versus strikes. That's a legit recommendation, but make sure you know what you are asking for. If strikes got this, they would likely not need anything else. Nemarus had a similar suggestion for JUST rapid fire laser, with no other buffs to the gun, and that's a lot more reasonable.

 

 

If you have a 60% chance to hit a target, and you up that to 90%, you have increased your damage by two thirds. It's over 65% damage increase.

 

Is that what you meant to say? Note that if you increased damage by 10%, accuracy by 30%, and crit chance by 20%, you would be increasing damage on evasive targets by like 80%.

 

 

No real change, but it will have an effect on those little disto scouts when they try a head to head run.

 

No, it's a HUGE META SWEEPING CHANGE. Do the math on accuracy before you suggest that.

[Etrii]

Agreed ,and i had no such stupid idea in mind,

 

Thou i cant wait on your opinion Verain,

 

same as constructive opinion of others, as well

Edited May 30, 2015 by Etrii

[CommanderKiko]

The biggest argument I keep hearing is "oh but this would change the meta." Would changing the meta really be that bad of a thing? Let's examine.

 

The meta is losing players, it is difficult to bring new players into it. I run a guild on bastion based in part around getting people interested in GSF. You know what every new players complain about? T2 scouts and T1 gunships being impossible to contend with. The entire training process for my guildies revolves completely around teaching people how to handle type 1 gunships and type 2 scouts. Completely. I barely have to teach people about bomber balls other than "ion spam them." My guild on their own learn how useless strikes are, how easy you can kill them, ect. Most of my guildies use the striker simply to master the controls, then they move into either bombers to take on scouts, or gunships/scouts to take on everything else. That is how the meta is set up. It isn't friendly to new players, and old players get tired of having the same old thing happen every time they join a match.

 

So maybe what we need is to shake up the whole meta. Again, feel free to call me a classbasher, I'm not. I just keep coming back to the obvious problem: The only way to make strikes useful is to nerf the t2 scout. Why? Because the t2 scout is the definitive "striker." One scout replaces the entire striker class by being unbalanced and overpowered. Everyone who says otherwise is lying. Either to themselves, or to everyone else.

Edited May 30, 2015 by CommanderKiko

[caederon]

Everyone who says otherwise is lying. Either to themselves, or to everyone else.

Far be it from me to contradict the bringer of universal truth and arbiter of equivocation, but... no. Let's say you nerf T2 scouts hard. What's going to deal with gunships? Well, better nerf gunships, too then. But then what will deal with bombers? Uh oh. We better nerf bombers as well. Then strikes will rule the day! And be OP! ... ... Better nerf strikes.

 

How about instead, we just make strikes better, like the whole content of this thread is trying to do? If strikes become a viable platform for doing something, anything, it will shake up the meta because people will have a reason to choose them and there will be more legit choices for what to fly.

 

More mobility. More firepower. Better Strikes. New meta. Mission Accomplished.

 

Despon

[Verain]

No, we don't need to shake everything up. Yes, we do need to balance those ships. No, this isn't the thread for it, nor is it the problem with strike fighters.

 

Here's who can win a dogfight with a strike:

 

Type 1 Scout

Type 2 Scout

Type 3 Scout

Type 3 Gunship

Type 3 Bomber

 

Here's who can kill a strike before it's able to hurt them:

 

Type 1 Gunship

Type 2 Gunship

Type 3 Gunship

Type 2 Bomber

 

Here's who beat a strike on a node fight:

 

Type 1 Scout

Type 2 Scout

Type 3 Scout

Type 3 Gunship

Type 1 Bomber

Type 2 Bomber

Type 3 Bomber

 

 

So no, rolling the dice on wild nerfs to the playable ships won't help. It will just garbagebutt up everything. The nerfs needed to the top tier components are in some cases rather mild, and in other cases are a side effect of the meta not allowing their natural counters any breathing room at all.

 

 

 

Oh, also: this isn't the thread for the class bashing, which has now segued into generally claiming that those who disagree with you are either deluded or manipulators. Solid work there.

[Etrii]

As a member of that guild when i`m logging into to Bastion to get late night pops, andi`m in the mood to ignore killer latency...You are teaching wrong things to wrong ships.

 

I`m having problems with thinking serius about a pilot who sad <semi qute>?

 

"My bomber didnt work, i`ll go pike" And it was during a "super serius night"

 

As for strikes i stand y ground.: Crit chance, engine pool, engine regen and shild regen + buff for Kaiogan

Edited May 30, 2015 by Etrii

[Devrius]

The only fear I have is that after all this the buff is going to come down to: "We increased base Evasion by 5%!"

[CommanderKiko]

Far be it from me to contradict the bringer of universal truth and arbiter of equivocation, but... no. Let's say you nerf T2 scouts hard. What's going to deal with gunships? Well, better nerf gunships, too then. But then what will deal with bombers? Uh oh. We better nerf bombers as well. Then strikes will rule the day! And be OP! ... ... Better nerf strikes.

 

How about instead, we just make strikes better, like the whole content of this thread is trying to do? If strikes become a viable platform for doing something, anything, it will shake up the meta because people will have a reason to choose them and there will be more legit choices for what to fly.

 

More mobility. More firepower. Better Strikes. New meta. Mission Accomplished.

 

Despon

 

Your point, solid as it is, means either we need to buff everything to even the playing field or nerf everything to even the playing field. Same problem both ways, no?

 

Any one ship that can replace an entire class is unbalanced. We all know this, because we all play them all. Most of us have every possible ship mastered, and know that most don't fit into the current meta and are only viable when a skilled player is using them against mediocre players.

 

The entire meta has an issue. Type 2 scouts are the worst of it because they utterly replace strikers. That's the end of it. You can't literally can't buff strikers enough to make them useful without making them the most overpowered ship in the game, and having the same exact issue as we have now but with a different class.

 

And the cycles continue.

Edited May 30, 2015 by CommanderKiko

[Etrii]

In a dogfighght

t1 scout is better the strikes

t2 scout is better then strike

t3 bomber is better the strike

2x missile troll build t3 GS is better then strikes

2x missile t2 GS is still a bit better then strikes

 

 

So...how come are

 

t2 scouts to blame?

Edited May 30, 2015 by Etrii

[CommanderKiko]

t1 scout is better the strikes

t2 scout is better then strike

t3 bomber is better the strike

2x missile troll build t3 GS is better then strikes

2x missile t2 GS is still a bit better then strikes

 

 

So...how come are

 

t2 scouts to blame?

 

T2 scouts aren't to "blame." They are "unbalanced and utterly replace the entire striker class."

 

There is a difference.

[Etrii]

Ships that kill "op scouts:" on regular bases

 

t1 GS(if they lay an ion hit first)

t3 GS if they mange to dmg scout at least a bit with rail

t1 bombers with seismic

t2 bombers with rali/seekers

 

yeah...scouts are so op...

 

 

Most good pilots agree on fact tthat strikes (t1 and t3) arent bad. They are just not good enough

IF you can aress the matter as simple a buffing one class =/= nerfing others i`lltell you what would happen:

 

GS would kill you all, couse even Drako in imperium cant chalange a decent GS, who has and knows how to use ion

Edited May 30, 2015 by Etrii