I think the desintergrator is OP vs. Ace ships with factory equipment. But even at tier 1, a fighter with Mk2 guns that gets behind the Harpy will kill it quickly. The Harpy is way too sluggish to evade. Don’t know yet how it plays out at higher levels, I’m still on Tier 1.
I think the desintergrator is OP vs. Ace ships with factory equipment. But even at tier 1, a fighter with Mk2 guns that gets behind the Harpy will kill it quickly. The Harpy is way too sluggish to evade. Don’t know yet how it plays out at higher levels, I’m still on Tier 1.
Smartbomb.
Also, that’s not really true… if you know how to use the disintegrator you can basically hit people in any direction with it… even at close range. It’s pretty straight forward. Point and click. Since there’s no leading it’s fairly easy to do. It actually gets stronger at higher tiers because the frigates get more defensive capabilities.
Actually, I just played a match where someone had a T2 harpy and I was in a T2 interceptor (with pretty good gear too, actually) and the harpy basically single handedly killed my whole team (we had no harpies on our team, including bots :P).
Only thing that’s good at killing a harpy, is another harpy (or hitting it hard with several big missiles).
He was shooting me with lasers from across the map for 1/3rd of my life every half a second…
The desintegrator balance is still worked on, there were already a few changes since closed beta.
Another way to kill the harpies is to use the stealth fighter and get the target painter module. With that and the help of 1 or 2 players the harpies will die in seconds, because in a dogfight they have no chance.
so u only need 3 guys with specialized equip to kill this freaking ship. omg no comment…
the balance is so important… if the balance fails the ppl wont play it beside harpy pilots
You only need a group to kill the harpies if there are more than 1. If you are fighting only 1 Harpy you will win in most cases, but if there is a group of harpies you cant expect to kill them all alone, because if you could this would make another ship type overpowered.
You only need a group to kill the harpies if there are more than 1. If you are fighting only 1 Harpy you will win in most cases, but if there is a group of harpies you cant expect to kill them all alone, because if you could this would make another ship type overpowered.
The problem is since the Desin is so powerfull you are seen mass Harpy balls that are next to unkillable since you have most games 5+ at best close to each other on semi good teams and they can just wipe the battlefield with any thing at long range and when they ball up become next to immune at close.
The same can not be said of 5 raptors yes in close they are stronger due to all the added drones but they lack any real range firepower and what they do have can be mounted on the Harpy and thats the problem.
Harpy balls give up little to control the whole map why a Raptor ball can not do the same they can cluster up and be next to unkillable at short range but only when behind cover other wise the Harpy ball will just shoot them down with out any fear of been attacked back and should 1-2 make it there going to lose to the Harpys due to numbers anyway.
The Smartbomb is not OP by it self but when you got 2-3 Harpys going in is going to end badly given the GFX delay you are hit by the first wave before you know they have used it as if 2 are used at once its a next to instant death for Intys and real bad damage for attack ships and for the most part even high damage to frigs.
In close range the harpies are easy to kill, but the problem is to find a good balance. If you nerf the desin to much it will be useless and noone will use it.
At the moment the damage seems to be ok, the only problem is to fight more than 1 harpy.
In close range the harpies are easy to kill, but the problem is to find a good balance. If you nerf the desin to much it will be useless and noone will use it.
At the moment the damage seems to be ok, the only problem is to fight more than 1 harpy.
It is more the range it has than the over all damage it allows you to take control over all the map that has little to no cover and give`s up only been abit weak in close range and due to the free cam its not that weak a good smartbomb and use of the free cam allows you to track and shoot back might not all ways beat that inty but its enough most of the time to force them off.
The Raptor lacks that the drone`s are only semi usefull vs bad players or at close range vs frigs to slow to avoid them or just out right kill them and even its slightly higher speed offer no real way to control parts of the map.
It’s the range. As long as your maps are this open, having a sniper weapon that is uncounterable (unlike missiles) is questionable design to say the least.
Also in close range harpies are anything but easy to kill especially if they smarten up and pack plasmas (your desintegrator already covers your long range fighting need having close to the same dps as lasers with way higher range): high attack, high defenses (especially considering a good amount of “tanking” skills are in the frig tree), high range…why do we have other ships exactly?
Perhaps this issue can be avoided by creating special maps.
Perhaps this issue can be avoided by creating special maps.
That sort of just covers the problem up with out fixing it.
It would all so mean the maps we have need to be reworked or removed due to balance problems.
For me it is hard to find a solution without making the desintegrator totally useless, but I hope the devs will find a good solution.
I think a large part of why the Harpy is OP is actually caused by the existence of the smart bomb… and gearing your ship out for higher rof.
Maybe make the disintegrator a charge and release weapon. Charge it up by holding down left click (draining energy as it goes) and release to shoot. The damage will depend on how much you charge it (but it’ll also cost more energy).
If this is designed correctly (designing the damage/charge ratio to be on a curve that plateaus (levels off)) so that spamming weak shots is useless, and shooting over charged shots is inefficient. This way the players need to charge and release with in a sweat spot. This would give players who see that they’re about to be sniped an idea of when to dodge, but also give the shooter enough control to trick them. It’d also force you to show your opponent that you’re aiming at them before shooting, instead of turning the scope on and shooting right as you turn it on. This could make the weapon require more skill and lower the firerate while preserving the dps.
Also: Nerf the smart bomb
-Make it visible (so you know where it’s coming from and where to run to get out of it, and how big the radius is)
-Massively reduce the damage per blast (reduce it to about 20-30% of what it is now)
-Increase the duration to about double
As I see it, the smart bomb is meant to be an area of denial weapon… Not instantly kill everyone around me with zero skill (one of the main reasons harpies and other frigates are so broken).
How about nerfing empire frigates hp. Currently they got highest hp in game.
The Smartbomb is not OP by it self but when you got 2-3 Harpys going in is going to end badly given the GFX delay you are hit by the first wave before you know they have used it as if 2 are used at once its a next to instant death for Intys and real bad damage for attack ships and for the most part even high damage to frigs.
Of course smartbombs are not op, you can just win every 1 v 1 situations against any ship class in game with one. And when massed by any frigate, you can create a no fly zone. But they are not op, no sir.
IMO there are 3 problems with the disintegrator:
- range, leading to map control: a harpy parked in the middle of your beacons can usually shoot enemys that fight at the other beacons. So there is no adverse effect to camping on one central beacon
- scan-hit capability, where no other weapon has this (on the Ace level at least)
- harpy blobs providing each other close in assistance. This is made worse by two additional factors:
a ) you can not avoid the blob because of the range the disintegrator has. You can not cap another beacon because the sniper can shoot you unless you hide behind the beacon, but you can not dogfight while hiding behind a beacon, so any other enemy ship will kill you.
b ) you can not engage the blob with equal numbers, especially when the blob camps a beacon.
The solutions to me would be either
- to remove the ability for good, replace it with some kind of close range ship buff.
change all of the following:
- switching into sniper mode causes the harpys energy reserves to be set to zero, no regeneration in sniper mode or for 10 seconds after. The disintegrator takes no energy to fire. (a harpy will have to commit to sniping, no ducking into cover and quickly healing or using main weapons for close in defence against a surprise attack once committed)
- firing the disintegrator offlines all guardian bots in a 5000m radius for 30 seconds (this means that 1-2 harpys can not rely on guardian bots for additional close in firepower and makes camping beacons useless, counter productive even.)
- firing the disintegrator makes the harpy visible to the sensors of every enemy ship
- add an alternative module to replace the disintegrator for people who want to use their harpy in a close assault role. You know, in a game about spaceships dogfighting, I’d like to get close and personal with my enemy. Suggestion: 30sec armor hardener.
Or remove smartbombs and make divebombing frigate formation actually possible.
Desintegerator isn’t problem at t2+, long range lasers get 11km range(laser mod descriptions are bugged thou, lenses that are supposed to give range shortens it, and lenses that are supposed to shorten increase it).
Desintegerator isn’t problem at t2+, long range lasers get 11km range(laser mod descriptions are bugged thou, lenses that are supposed to give range shortens it, and lenses that are supposed to shorten increase it).
Players start at t1 when you enter game as a Ace. Having this trend put in your face from flight one will guarantee that you will lose potential players to bad game balance.
Also, at t2+ the problem is closely tied to smartbombs, remove them.