Balance thoughts from a competitive gamer

Game Discussion Balance
#1

I’ve been playing the game for a week or so now, and so far it’s been pretty fun. There are some development pains that are showing through but that’s to be expected in a beta, after all the point of one is to smooth those out. Now I can’t tell for certain what the design goal of this game is, whether that be a skill based twitch game with equipment supporting players, or more eve like where equipment is the game. It may not be a good sign that I can’t quite tell. I’m going to give my rundown of things I’ve seen in the game thus far assuming that the goal is the former and not the latter. This will be in no particular order, just bits here and there that have struck me as needing improvement.

 

Stasis Modules

 

This’ll be the first of a few “I win” buttons I’ll be going over. Essentially if I’m fighting an interceptor or if I have a few allies targeting something of a heavier class, I can just hit this module and win. It doesn’t matter if they’re the worst or best player in the game, I can just stop them completely and they can do nothing. The recent nerf to duration and the conservation of momentum is nice, but not quite right in my opinion. With Ion Beams having the same function - minus the movement restriction - they don’t have a real role in the game if you do something like make the target invincible for the duration of the effect. I would personally remove these, and the main tactical role one would use them in (stopping bomb carriers in detonation) could be accomplished another way. E.g. a module that forces the target to drop a bomb if they’re carrying it (or detonates it pre-maturely or something). This would seem a bit strong except for the fact that you would be replacing any number of other useful modules with one that has only one purpose and you can’t even intentionally pick that game mode.

 

Pulsar Modules

 

These things do an obscene amount of damage to interceptors and have no counter other than distance, which of course opens them up to attack. Fighters can generally tank the damage and still lay down a hurt on frigates but are screwed if multiple frigates trigger them. In large furballs a single frigate could potentially cause tens of thousands of DPS, massively shifting the battle in their side’s favor. Personally I feel these modules are far too strong, but at the same time if you nerf them in damage they lose the effect of forcing opponents to a distance. I would propose an alternate solution where instead of raw damage it simply pushes away anything within the distance around your frigate. Either make it one burst that swats people away or a very short term field that does so. Increase the range a bit and this would allow frigates to open up some distance on opponents close by, as well as serve more tactical roles like forcing people away from a beacon to break their capture, or forcing a bomb carrier away to reset their plant timer.

 

Jericho Torpedoes

 

First of all the range is absurd with the 75% bonus. A weapon like this should not be able to cover the entire battle area end to end. Second of all, the recharge on the module starts the moment you fire the torpedo, not when the torpedo is detonated. That means if your target is far enough away the instant your torpedo explodes you can launch another one. This I feel should be changed so that the cool down starts when the torpedo explodes (it could be reduced to compensate). As far as counters go, the drones on the Fed frigates are good, and the missile defense system is good (though not present in T1/2), but IR Flares are nearly useless even though the last patch was supposed to make them work. I haven’t experienced this yet myself, but from what I’ve seen/read they simply make you unable to see or move the missile for 2-3 seconds, but can still detonate it. The time on this should be increased (even 4-5 seconds would be good) and missiles should not be able to detonate while under the effect. Finally, friendly fire on these things should be reflected back on the person who shot it. I can’t count how many times I’ve been TKd by these, or how many times I’d be in the middle of a losing fight with a captain and 3 other ships only to have one of their team torpedo me and kill their own captain. It should do 2x - 3x as much damage as would have been dealt to a friendly to the launcher instead. Do it twice in a row or detonate it in the middle of a bunch of friendlies and you die from self-damage.

 

Disintegrator

 

The refire rate on this thing needs to be halved or more. You have a hit scan weapon that shoots nearly across the entire map and does enough damage to two-shot an interceptor. It should take more time between shots and you should actually have to aim, missing should be a serious penalty with this on the order of 10-15 seconds between shots.

 

Tachyon Cocoon

 

Personally I’d like to see these changed to be an area wide ion rather than an area wide stasis (and maybe increase the duration a bit to compensate). I’ve seen plenty of people have no trouble outrunning the radius in the 6 seconds you get, but like the stasis module it’s something that pushes the game away from skill and towards equipment being the primary influence.

 

Plasma Web

 

This ability doesn’t know what it wants to be. The damage it does is pathetic and can be out-regenerated in most cases, yet at the same time if you increase the damage it turns into another “I win” button where you just hit “F” and the target dies. The only use I’ve found for it so far is that you can pull fed fighters out of their Armada and generic cloak (since the Vanguard one ignores damage). This ability should be re-designed or replaced, perhaps with something that fits the interceptor’s nature as, well, an interceptor. Maybe something that leeches a target’s agility or speed, something that reveals all enemies via radar for a brief period (like the Captain gets), allows you to steal missiles from a target or something. I can’t really say what would be a better ability for the Fed int but it needs one.

 

Lasers

 

Specifically that they are hit scan. No real aiming and no leading required. Just hold your mouse over the opponent’s ship and click. I knew second hand how bad this really seemed, but it wasn’t until I hopped in a frigate with a set and racked up around 20 kills and equally as many assists (using just lasers) in my first battle with them did I actually know how bad it is. Now there are a few ideas I had tossing around in my head on these. For one the damage could be nerfed. This would hurt laser frigates when fighting faster ships because they can only keep one or two of their six lasers on the target. At the same time fighters and interceptors that use them will still do a decent amount since they’re more able to face their target and have all guns on them. The best solution in my mind though would be to make them more like lasers in say, Star Wars. Projectiles that you can see, that you need to lead with. Rather than a straight beam make them rapid pulses, basically assault plasma with very low spread, faster projectile and refire speeds, and lower damage (and thermal instead of EM of course). If you give them the fastest refire rate and fastest projectile speeds, they can still be effectively used at taking out smaller, quicker targets but still require some skill in leading and aiming (or at least pointing at the lead indicator).

 

Interceptors

 

This one is a bit tricky, the balance on these is oh so close to feeling “right” but there are a few things here or there that I can’t quite pin down. Their agility is their lifeline (at least with Fed ints that have paper thin hull and shields) so reducing this would dramatically drop their effectiveness. At the same time they’re quite hard to hit when your ship can’t even attempt to keep up with them. Their damage seems a bit high when used against ints, good against fighters, and practically nothing on frigates who take forever to kill. I don’t know if I have any real complaints on them overall yet, but perhaps some attention to fixing the above points would need to be looked at first to see how they would affect interceptors.

 

Frigates

 

These things feel like the fighter and interceptor classes were figured out then everything else was dumped on frigates. Empire and Jericho frigates are very tanky considering their special abilities should make them the opposite of that. At the same time Federation frigates have lower shields than either side, and only barely have more hull than Jericho frigates. Their ability however would suggest a more front-line tanky role which they don’t have. It almost seems like there should be a fourth support class, the Fed frigate should be buffed a good 30% in hull and shields and moved into this class, the Jericho and Empire frigates should drop 30% shield / hull respectively, the Feds should get a new frigate with some sort of long range ability to match the Empire and Jericho, and both the Empire and Jericho should get a tanky support ship to match the Fed one. Weaponry wise they either melt targets (in front of them) or hardly scratch them (ints circling them). Obviously making all their weapon mounts 360 degree would turn them into death boats, but what about making it so that their arcs are more spread over the ship so any direction should have three of the six turrets firing (with say, four for the front 45 degree cone or so). That way they’re able to wade into battle and help out rather than have to hide back and snipe, yet won’t be able to dominate anything that flies in range of them.

 

Whew. Well I think that’s all I have for now. As I’ve only had the game for a week or so I’m sure there is plenty of stuff I haven’t seen yet or gotten a feel for to report on. I may update this post with more in the future. If you read through the whole thing, thanks, whether you agree with me or think I’m insane. I’d like to see this game succeed, even if only because I love the genre, and perhaps my input could help in the beta in some way.

 

#2

Not a competive player but I agree with alot of points.

Some stuff I would like to add to yours:

 

Proposed Pulsar Modul change

Some maps have like really narrow capture points etc. If you could use a pulsar to shove everyone into objects it seems too powerful and could become one of the “I win” buttons again.

 

Jericho Torpedo

Should also have a minimum arming time, like 1~1.5km. I’m sick of jericho frigates with almost 20k shield just shooting a torpedo and immediatly explode it, just to damage an interceptor around them. While they will not lose alot of health relative to their healthpool, the interceptor, especially when the interceptor already got hit by mines/pulsar.

 

Ship explosions

Interceptors, as they are designed for really close range combat, should have some sort of protection vs. the damage done by the explosion of a ship (not self destruct modul).

As someone said in another thread, even if he dies in his frigate he will often take the interceptor with him, because the damage he did, is most of the time enough to take the rest of the interceptor with him once he explodes.

#3

Well how about a way to move all frigates closer to battle? Friend suggested turning Jerichos to missle boats, Empire to wave cannon guns. Something you don’t necessarily snipe with but sweep areas with. 

#4

Lasers are tricky but compared to other weapons they do less damage, it could do a little less but really that wont make them as usable. From what this game states it seems that lasers are that ‘middle’ weapon, one that is easy to use but does not do as much as other weapons.

#5

Are there people playing this game that aren’t competitive?

#6

First off, what Tier do you play TwitchingCheese? The balance greetly vary from one to another. I’m going to assume you are T4, so disregard my post if you are not because I’m purely speaking from a T4 POV. 

 

Stasis Modules

 

This’ll be the first of a few “I win” buttons I’ll be going over. Essentially if I’m fighting an interceptor or if I have a few allies targeting something of a heavier class, I can just hit this module and win. It doesn’t matter if they’re the worst or best player in the game, I can just stop them completely and they can do nothing. The recent nerf to duration and the conservation of momentum is nice, but not quite right in my opinion. With Ion Beams having the same function - minus the movement restriction - they don’t have a real role in the game if you do something like make the target invincible for the duration of the effect. I would personally remove these, and the main tactical role one would use them in (stopping bomb carriers in detonation) could be accomplished another way. E.g. a module that forces the target to drop a bomb if they’re carrying it (or detonates it pre-maturely or something). This would seem a bit strong except for the fact that you would be replacing any number of other useful modules with one that has only one purpose and you can’t even intentionally pick that game mode.

 

I agree this mod is ridiculous, we need crowd controls but they should be monitored better. I completely disagree with your idea about bomber dropping, it would only fit in one game mod and seriously this game isn’t about who’s the best ball carrier or stopper. 

 

It should be all about PVP, the objectives are just a way to encourage encounters. This ability could be properly balanced if it had effect during 1 or 2 seconds max, with a shorter cooldown and a slow effect instead. It would then require good timing and skill to makes the best of it. 

 

Pulsar Modules

 

These things do an obscene amount of damage to interceptors and have no counter other than distance, which of course opens them up to attack. Fighters can generally tank the damage and still lay down a hurt on frigates but are screwed if multiple frigates trigger them. In large furballs a single frigate could potentially cause tens of thousands of DPS, massively shifting the battle in their side’s favor. Personally I feel these modules are far too strong, but at the same time if you nerf them in damage they lose the effect of forcing opponents to a distance. I would propose an alternate solution where instead of raw damage it simply pushes away anything within the distance around your frigate. Either make it one burst that swats people away or a very short term field that does so. Increase the range a bit and this would allow frigates to open up some distance on opponents close by, as well as serve more tactical roles like forcing people away from a beacon to break their capture, or forcing a bomb carrier away to reset their plant timer.

 

They have an easy counter as you said : distance. It’s not because you run away as a fighter that you’ll automatically get hit. Get behind, push the booster and move intelligently. 

 

What I agree is that they do an absurd amount of damages on a short period of time. The bumping idea is horrible gameplay wise, I mean it’s not a bad idea per say but the matches would really becomes chaotic at low tier and it’d be completely useless at T4 where the fights takes place at very long range for the most part. At high tier it’s already a very situational tool although way too effective when it’s necessary to use it. 

 

The simple solution would be to keep their damages high but extend it over a longer period of time with a longer re-use time, this way it puts ints/fighters at bay while not being used as a huge tool to kill. (i.e from 600/s over 8s to 300/s over 16s for example)

 

Jericho Torpedoes

 

First of all the range is absurd with the 75% bonus. A weapon like this should not be able to cover the entire battle area end to end. Second of all, the recharge on the module starts the moment you fire the torpedo, not when the torpedo is detonated. That means if your target is far enough away the instant your torpedo explodes you can launch another one. This I feel should be changed so that the cool down starts when the torpedo explodes (it could be reduced to compensate). As far as counters go, the drones on the Fed frigates are good, and the missile defense system is good (though not present in T1/2), but IR Flares are nearly useless even though the last patch was supposed to make them work. I haven’t experienced this yet myself, but from what I’ve seen/read they simply make you unable to see or move the missile for 2-3 seconds, but can still detonate it. The time on this should be increased (even 4-5 seconds would be good) and missiles should not be able to detonate while under the effect. Finally, friendly fire on these things should be reflected back on the person who shot it. I can’t count how many times I’ve been TKd by these, or how many times I’d be in the middle of a losing fight with a captain and 3 other ships only to have one of their team torpedo me and kill their own captain. It should do 2x - 3x as much damage as would have been dealt to a friendly to the launcher instead. Do it twice in a row or detonate it in the middle of a bunch of friendlies and you die from self-damage.

 

The range is ridiculous. But  so is the sniper one. It is a general issue at T4 and makes this braket the least fun of all four. No fights under 5000-6000 range for the captain mod, rarely on the capture beacon mod either even though one would think it’s quite mandatory the few fights that takes place around the beacon don’t last long, it’s usually one ship taking it and half of the team covering from long range… thanks god we have the bomb mod to get some fights and even that you get half of the team camping with frig trying to shoot down the ball carrier from distance. 

 

All the range mods and improvements from T4 and the skill tree should be removed altogether imho and the torpedo should have a much shorter range (5000/6000 sounds fair to me) so should the sniper one (at T4 isn’t as damaging so it’s less of an issue) and the frig drones should have increased range (2700 sounds balanced) 

 

I have no issue with making the re-use time on explosion but then you’d have to give something else in return if we decrease their range because let’s be honest it isn’t OP’d at all at T4. I’d say let’s makes them not damage friendly target and have a minimal travel range of 800 before being able to explode it so it cannot be abused to destroy ints around the ships. 

 

 

 

Disintegrator

 

The refire rate on this thing needs to be halved or more. You have a hit scan weapon that shoots nearly across the entire map and does enough damage to two-shot an interceptor. It should take more time between shots and you should actually have to aim, missing should be a serious penalty with this on the order of 10-15 seconds between shots.

 

I agree something needs to be done about it, I disagree with the way you want to balance it though. At T4 their damages isn’t high enough to be as much of a big deal and an int has tools to deal with it. What is insane is that we can’t answer to that threat so you basically have to cover an insane range to be able to worry the disintegrator user.

 

What needs to be done imho is what I suggest above, reduce their maximal range down to 6000-6500 max to encourage dynamic fights and put the frig user in immediate danger of being attacked just like the rest of us and just like the jericho one should be. 

 

Tachyon Cocoon

 

Personally I’d like to see these changed to be an area wide ion rather than an area wide stasis (and maybe increase the duration a bit to compensate). I’ve seen plenty of people have no trouble outrunning the radius in the 6 seconds you get, but like the stasis module it’s something that pushes the game away from skill and towards equipment being the primary influence.

Agreed

 

Plasma Web

 

This ability doesn’t know what it wants to be. The damage it does is pathetic and can be out-regenerated in most cases, yet at the same time if you increase the damage it turns into another “I win” button where you just hit “F” and the target dies. The only use I’ve found for it so far is that you can pull fed fighters out of their Armada and generic cloak (since the Vanguard one ignores damage). This ability should be re-designed or replaced, perhaps with something that fits the interceptor’s nature as, well, an interceptor. Maybe something that leeches a target’s agility or speed, something that reveals all enemies via radar for a brief period (like the Captain gets), allows you to steal missiles from a target or something. I can’t really say what would be a better ability for the Fed int but it needs one.

 

I think it should keep its original effect which is to prevents shield regeneration (doesn’t do much damages) and the armada one has a longer duration so it really doesn’t need a change while the vanguard one should have a slowing effect instead of an additional damage effect. That would solve the issue. 

 

Lasers

 

Specifically that they are hit scan. No real aiming and no leading required. Just hold your mouse over the opponent’s ship and click. I knew second hand how bad this really seemed, but it wasn’t until I hopped in a frigate with a set and racked up around 20 kills and equally as many assists (using just lasers) in my first battle with them did I actually know how bad it is. Now there are a few ideas I had tossing around in my head on these. For one the damage could be nerfed. This would hurt laser frigates when fighting faster ships because they can only keep one or two of their six lasers on the target. At the same time fighters and interceptors that use them will still do a decent amount since they’re more able to face their target and have all guns on them. The best solution in my mind though would be to make them more like lasers in say, Star Wars. Projectiles that you can see, that you need to lead with. Rather than a straight beam make them rapid pulses, basically assault plasma with very low spread, faster projectile and refire speeds, and lower damage (and thermal instead of EM of course). If you give them the fastest refire rate and fastest projectile speeds, they can still be effectively used at taking out smaller, quicker targets but still require some skill in leading and aiming (or at least pointing at the lead indicator).

 

They already have an inferior DPS. I agree to some extent because it require less skills to use but at the same times it is a necessary evil since frigs are really in need of an weapon that makes up for their horrible agility. 

 

I think the close range no heat laser one should be a frig weapon only, it is way too unbalanced for any other ship. I also believe the mid range one should simply be a HEAT one instead of a no-heat weapon. Which means it would require much more skill to use but it’d still be useful to cover blind spots and make up for the lack of agility. The long range one would simply have a better range for less DPS as it already is. It would solve the main issue. 

 

Interceptors

 

This one is a bit tricky, the balance on these is oh so close to feeling “right” but there are a few things here or there that I can’t quite pin down. Their agility is their lifeline (at least with Fed ints that have paper thin hull and shields) so reducing this would dramatically drop their effectiveness. At the same time they’re quite hard to hit when your ship can’t even attempt to keep up with them. Their damage seems a bit high when used against ints, good against fighters, and practically nothing on frigates who take forever to kill. I don’t know if I have any real complaints on them overall yet, but perhaps some attention to fixing the above points would need to be looked at first to see how they would affect interceptors.

 

Ints are fine by themselves aside from what we’ve discussed so far which is more of a mod and ability issue than anything. 

 

Frigates

 

These things feel like the fighter and interceptor classes were figured out then everything else was dumped on frigates. Empire and Jericho frigates are very tanky considering their special abilities should make them the opposite of that. At the same time Federation frigates have lower shields than either side, and only barely have more hull than Jericho frigates. Their ability however would suggest a more front-line tanky role which they don’t have. It almost seems like there should be a fourth support class, the Fed frigate should be buffed a good 30% in hull and shields and moved into this class, the Jericho and Empire frigates should drop 30% shield / hull respectively, the Feds should get a new frigate with some sort of long range ability to match the Empire and Jericho, and both the Empire and Jericho should get a tanky support ship to match the Fed one. Weaponry wise they either melt targets (in front of them) or hardly scratch them (ints circling them). Obviously making all their weapon mounts 360 degree would turn them into death boats, but what about making it so that their arcs are more spread over the ship so any direction should have three of the six turrets firing (with say, four for the front 45 degree cone or so). That way they’re able to wade into battle and help out rather than have to hide back and snipe, yet won’t be able to dominate anything that flies in range of them.

 

As I said in all of the above, here is how I see the balance : 

 

  • Fed frig : improve shield/Hull + improve drone range

  • empire frig : reduce sniper range

  • jericho : reduce missile range, remove friendly on bombs, add minimal explosion range at 800, add cooldown on explosion instead of launch

 

I don’t think anything else should be done. I disagree with the 360° arc even as you suggest, their blind spot is what makes them challenging to play but that’s just me. Also at the same times you’re asking for tanking frig for jericho and empire and you’re saying they should have their stats decreased. Hence why we should leave them at what they already are. At T4 we have enough mods to makes any frig a tanking one and seriously the vanguard or armada drones don’t make up for the lack of shield/hull even if it were to be buffed remember that jericho/empire have a secondary ability that makes up for it way more than the drones will ever do. 

 

Whew. Well I think that’s all I have for now. As I’ve only had the game for a week or so I’m sure there is plenty of stuff I haven’t seen yet or gotten a feel for to report on. I may update this post with more in the future. If you read through the whole thing, thanks, whether you agree with me or think I’m insane. I’d like to see this game succeed, even if only because I love the genre, and perhaps my input could help in the beta in some way.

 

Good read even if I don’t agree on all counts. The game is still in its infancy, it’ll improve. 

#7

In my opinion:

 

Stasis Modules

join the club:

http://forum.gaijinent.com/index.php?/topic/17516-stasis-generator/

 

Pulsar Modules

I don’t have a problem with this. The only ship that you don’t have to tail so close is the frigs, ant 5k damage in T3 is not much (1 octopus rocket’s damage)

 

Jericho Torpedoes

there are easy ways to shot them down

 

Disintegrator

op in low tier, not a problem from T3

 

Tachyon Cocoon

after the nerf, i don’t have a problem with it

 

Plasma Web

Never tried the vanguard type, but the armada’s plasma web is a good debuff against any ship, and a decent damage against ceptors.

The thermal damage scales with the main weapon damage.

 

Interceptors

strongest offensive modules weakest “defense”. Maybe op if the pilot is a pro.

#8

Jericho Torpedoes

 and the missile defense system is good (though not present in T1/2), 

 

I’ve seen quite few frigates with that in T2, as well as got one myself. They are there, but only come from loot. Alligator-M + MDS and you’ll have 1-2 very annoyed jericho frigate pilots in enemy team :slight_smile:

 

Can’t speak for T1 as i didn’t stay there long enough to get any loot, nor do i know if there are any T1 loot.

#9

First off, what Tier do you play TwitchingCheese? The balance greetly vary from one to another. I’m going to assume you are T4, so disregard my post if you are not because I’m purely speaking from a T4 POV. 

 

I mainly stick to 2/3 due to multiple reasons, like ones you mentioned later on. I tend to find these more fun, not to mention it’s easier to grind out some credits when of the 100k you earn only 10k or so goes to repairs / rearming.

 

Stasis Module:

 

I agree this mod is ridiculous, we need crowd controls but they should be monitored better. I completely disagree with your idea about bomber dropping, it would only fit in one game mod and seriously this game isn’t about who’s the best ball carrier or stopper. 

 

It should be all about PVP, the objectives are just a way to encourage encounters. This ability could be properly balanced if it had effect during 1 or 2 seconds max, with a shorter cooldown and a slow effect instead. It would then require good timing and skill to makes the best of it. 

 

The suggestion was probably my Tribes experience coming through where the objective is all that matters and kills/deaths are meaningless other than to accomplish an objective. Most of these suggestions I throw out are just off the top of my head to encourage discussion more than things I think should definitely be implemented.

 

Jericho Torpedoes:

 

The range is ridiculous. But  so is the sniper one. It is a general issue at T4 and makes this braket the least fun of all four. No fights under 5000-6000 range for the captain mod, rarely on the capture beacon mod either even though one would think it’s quite mandatory the few fights that takes place around the beacon don’t last long, it’s usually one ship taking it and half of the team covering from long range… thanks god we have the bomb mod to get some fights and even that you get half of the team camping with frig trying to shoot down the ball carrier from distance. 

 

All the range mods and improvements from T4 and the skill tree should be removed altogether imho and the torpedo should have a much shorter range (5000/6000 sounds fair to me) so should the sniper one (at T4 isn’t as damaging so it’s less of an issue) and the frig drones should have increased range (2700 sounds balanced) 

 

I have no issue with making the re-use time on explosion but then you’d have to give something else in return if we decrease their range because let’s be honest it isn’t OP’d at all at T4. I’d say let’s makes them not damage friendly target and have a minimal travel range of 800 before being able to explode it so it cannot be abused to destroy ints around the ships. 

 

Honestly my biggest complaint with these is the friendly fire. I really would just like it to reflect back, not happen, or give me friendly-fire capable guns so I can return the favor. Some of these frigate pilots are so desperate for that kill they don’t care if they take out the 2-3 people who are about to kill their target anyway. It’s especially egregious in Regular when you have no respawns.

 

Disintegrator:

 

I agree something needs to be done about it, I disagree with the way you want to balance it though. At T4 their damages isn’t high enough to be as much of a big deal and an int has tools to deal with it. What is insane is that we can’t answer to that threat so you basically have to cover an insane range to be able to worry the disintegrator user.

 

What needs to be done imho is what I suggest above, reduce their maximal range down to 6000-6500 max to encourage dynamic fights and put the frig user in immediate danger of being attacked just like the rest of us and just like the jericho one should be. 

 

The refire rate means that to cover the distance I have to use every scrap of cover and even then still need to worry about possibly taking 6-8 shots if they’ve positioned themselves well. Lowering the range would be a good way to resolve this. Perhaps it could use a damage buff at higher tiers with the shorter range, but it definitely shouldn’t be able to kill something in one hit so that’d need to be carefully done.

 

Interceptors:

 

Ints are fine by themselves aside from what we’ve discussed so far which is more of a mod and ability issue than anything. 

 

That’s kind of what I’d felt. The biggest example of things needing addressed being stasis and cocoon. You’d think the ability to stop the fastest ships would be on the slowest ships that actually would need it in order to hit them.

 

Frigates:

 

As I said in all of the above, here is how I see the balance : 

 

  • Fed frig : improve shield/Hull + improve drone range

  • empire frig : reduce sniper range

  • jericho : reduce missile range, remove friendly on bombs, add minimal explosion range at 800, add cooldown on explosion instead of launch

 

I don’t think anything else should be done. I disagree with the 360° arc even as you suggest, their blind spot is what makes them challenging to play but that’s just me. Also at the same times you’re asking for tanking frig for jericho and empire and you’re saying they should have their stats decreased. Hence why we should leave them at what they already are. At T4 we have enough mods to makes any frig a tanking one and seriously the vanguard or armada drones don’t make up for the lack of shield/hull even if it were to be buffed remember that jericho/empire have a secondary ability that makes up for it way more than the drones will ever do. 

 

I think I could have worded my suggestion there better. It was to create a class and have four classes instead of three. It just seems like the fed frigates serve a more front line support role (though they ideally need a buff to hull/shields to do this) and the Jericho and Empire ones sit back and snipe (but have the hull/shields of a front line tank). My thought was this seemed like it should be two different classes (a long range bombardment and a front line support) instead of saying they’re the same one. Granted this would be quite a bit of work and probably isn’t feasable.

#10

Even though your post seems a bit biased towards playing as an Interceptor I agree with you on alot of things.

The Pulsar is a big one.  It’s just one of those things that requires -0- talent to use.  Pushing a button and driving away any Frigate or Lighter ship else they die is not something that should be in the game.  Especially when you cannot line of sight it.  At least the mines have less range than this thing and I can visibly see them to avoid them(unless they use them when I’m on top but at least then I can leave).

 

The friendly damage thing is insane too, very annoying on Jericho’s.

#11

Eh this game needs to properly count FF damage against your score, like any other game that has an FF option. BF for one. 

#12

Eh this game needs to properly count FF damage against your score, like any other game that has an FF option. BF for one. 

 

Negative score while it gives a feedback for a new player, does nothing to prevent abusive team killing. They don’t care about their score (also score has no impact on the money you gain it seems).

#13

Even though your post seems a bit biased towards playing as an Interceptor I agree with you on alot of things.

The Pulsar is a big one.  It’s just one of those things that requires -0- talent to use.  Pushing a button and driving away any Frigate or Lighter ship else they die is not something that should be in the game.  Especially when you cannot line of sight it.  At least the mines have less range than this thing and I can visibly see them to avoid them(unless they use them when I’m on top but at least then I can leave).

 

The friendly damage thing is insane too, very annoying on Jericho’s.

 

Try flying a frigate without pulsar.  They really should not Nerf Pulsar other than maybe an LOS check without some type of buff to Frigates that don’t hang way back.   

#14

Frigs are far to powerful vs cepis. Esp the jericho one, just detonate a jericho misssile right on top of you, kill cepi.

#15

Frigs are far to powerful vs cepis. Esp the jericho one, just detonate a jericho misssile right on top of you, kill cepi.

 

So watch your surroundings, and don’t get hit torps are very very easy to dodge. If your not watching your surroundings, I’m sorry but you deserve to die.

#16

Frigs are far to powerful vs cepis. Esp the jericho one, just detonate a jericho misssile right on top of you, kill cepi.

I can’t tell you how many Interceptors i killed with that “exploit” when defending Beacons. 

 

Pulsar + Inhibitor + MInefied + the self-damaging Torpedo scares almost anyone away. Howver it has been suggested multiple times that torpedos can only be exploded after a flight of several hundred meters, which i completely agree with.

 

@Airsuicide: You didn’t get it. 

#17

Even though your post seems a bit biased towards playing as an Interceptor I agree with you on alot of things.

The Pulsar is a big one.  It’s just one of those things that requires -0- talent to use.  Pushing a button and driving away any Frigate or Lighter ship else they die is not something that should be in the game.  Especially when you cannot line of sight it.  At least the mines have less range than this thing and I can visibly see them to avoid them(unless they use them when I’m on top but at least then I can leave).

 

The friendly damage thing is insane too, very annoying on Jericho’s.

 

The pulsar is a requirement on frigs, otherwise we would not be able to kill figthers or intercepters at all, we cant hit you all with our main weapons when your zooming around us, That is the reason the Mod is in Game and it actually needs a damage boost more then anything. an inty can 3 shot a frig if they are set up to kill frigs, a frig is “lucky” if he can kill an inty.

 

And if your getting hit by a pulsar back out of its range… or die,  I mean seriously, what do you expect? Fighters and Inties are NOT supposed to be able to solo a frigate, yet you all can if you know how and are fit correctly.

 

Each ship in this game has a role, 1 ship is not supposed to be able to kill every other ship, What ship you fly directly effects what you can kill, Most people who want to kill other frigates… Fly frigates. or Inties set up specifically to take out the enemy frigates. _ This game is not about Easy mode for you, its about planning, and tactics and useing the right ship for the job. _

 

So as I tell everyone else who has a problem with frigates:

 

_ It’s not the ship, It’s you don’t know how to fight one. _

 

_ Dev reply to another post awhile back on complaints about frigates: _

 

_ “Working as intended” _

#18

The issue people have with frigates is that they bring the pain at extreme range with no risk to themselves. And if you do manage to get close to them … they still bring the pain. 

 

I have no problem with frigates being massive tanks with big damage, but they shouldn’t also have max range support abilities. It’s one or the other, not both. Snipers don’t carry riot shields. Tanks don’t have pyroblast, ya’kno?

 

And please stop saying everyone can three shot a frig, that can happen once per battle per ship geared specifically for that.

#19

Oh please Airsuicide I want to see a video of you charging a frigate and clicking the mousebutton 3 times to kill it. 

ROFLMAO. You are the most delusional person in this board.

 

I’ve played with you so many times, you spawn, enter snipe mode, and… well no, thats about it. Of course you come in here and tell everyone how we don’t know how to play.

#20

Eh the moment a Frig can properly solo another becomes overpowered when in groups. If this game want’s to have distinctions with strengths and weaknesses to encourage teamplay, then there will have to be inherent weaknesses to any setup.