General Class Balance

Game Discussion PvP
1

I figured that since the forum’s become so much more active in recent weeks, we could use this opportunity to discuss the state of things that definitely need balancing. This thread is for classes/shiproles and, naturally, their respective modules.

 

I’d make a poll to help determine if we all agree on the following, but it’d be longer than the opening post itself, so I’ll skip that. Please leave your feedback if you think I’ve omitted anything or if you disagree with any of the items listed (I kind of expect that).

 

Disclaimer - this thread excludes destroyers, as there are too many threads about them already, and focusses on pre-destro T3 or T4/5 gameplay, which thankfully is not that much affected by destroyers so far. Keep that in mind. Also, please note that while these are all suggestions, I’m putting them in the Game Discussion section for a reason.

 

Interceptors

  • as I suggested in another thread, the only thing that makes them OP even in the hands of a complete random is the turnkey gimmick. Solution - remove the ability to turn your ships using your keyboard.

 

CovOps

  • cloak should either make you unable to capture beacons at all or have a greatly increased beacon capture duration;

  • pilots debuffed with White Noise should have the effect neutralised when within the range of a friendly micro-locator. If, however, the debuffed pilot’s targets escape the area of micro-locator, they become unlockable upon again.

 

Recons

  • I feel only micro-locator needs a rework: other than the feature mentioned above, micro-locators should not remove tacklers’ cloaks, but make the tacklers appear on your HUD - for comparison, think cloaked captains in CR.

 

ECM’s

  • invulnerability after bubble is a bad idea;

  • I feel there need to be more ways to counter ECM stuns, or any debuffs in general, but I’ll get to that later.

 

Fighters

 

Gunships

  • in my opinion, Combat Reboot needs a rework - while not exactly that problematic in skirmish, competitive gameplay shows that one of the most damaging ship roles in the game should not be granted a second life every couple tens of seconds.

  - simply make CR consume all of your energy upon use and disable energy regeneration for the duration, so it can be actually used defensively instead of enabling the regular ‘yolo, im unkillable’ mode in which you can heal and use other modules all you want.

  • I’ll leave it as a question, but does anyone else feel like Empire gunships are too damn tanky in T5?

 

Commands

  • I think this ship role is probably the most balanced one in the game at the moment. Perhaps one could do something about them being the most efficient bomb runners by increasing the duration of capping beacons and bomb/SQ stations while Diffusion Shield is active.

 

Tacklers

  • drones. Make them self-destruct if line of sight with their owner is broken;

  • cloak/micro rework as mentioned before.

 

Frigates

 

LRF’s

  • no surprises here: cloak. Having given it some thought, I think the perfect solution would be to only allow module use while the cloak is active. In other words - ‘no’ to using main guns while cloaked, and ‘yes’ to using active and special modules while cloaked. RT should count as moving your ship.

 

Guards

  • MPI should be a line of sight module. Its range could be boosted to compensate for that - otherwise frigballs are too effective;

  • I still hate Pulsar with a passion, especially when combined with MPI… any opinions on this one?

 

Engineers

  • I would like to see their barriers work like destroyer shields, except only one active at a time and not shootable-through from either of the sides.

 

General

 

Cruise Engine (the surprise)

  • reduce acceleration to 1/10 of the current value;

  • reduce max speed boost it gives by 20-30% (so e.g. down to 600-550 m/s on Fed tacklers).

 

A non-CPU-based anti-debuff passive module

  • really, if there’s a way to trade off dmg for utility, utility for dmg, tank for speed, speed for tank, etc., there needs to be a way to counter debuffs that doesn’t take a CPU slot. There are just too many standard non-frigate ships that have just one CPU slot that needs to be wasted on a Proton Wall.

 

Torpedoes

  • they should be visible on your HUD and possibly shootable, so as to reduce their efficiency from 14 clicks away. Too efficient vs random people in skirmish and vs structures in SQ.

 

2

Interceptors

  • as I suggested in another thread, the only thing that makes them OP even in the hands of a complete random is the turnkey gimmick. Solution - remove the ability to turn your ships using your keyboard.

I can agree to that, or i’ll just abuse it, it’s been ‘OP’ since forever against certain guns

 

CovOps

  • cloak should either make you unable to capture beacons at all or have a greatly increased beacon capture duration;

Don’t really feel a need for this

  • pilots debuffed with White Noise should have the effect neutralised when within the range of a friendly micro-locator. If, however, the debuffed pilot’s targets escape the area of micro-locator, they become unlockable upon again.

Interesting, some testing would be nice

Recons

  • I feel only micro-locator needs a rework: other than the feature mentioned above, micro-locators should not remove tacklers’ cloaks, but make the tacklers appear on your HUD - for comparison, think cloaked captains in CR.

50-50 - i hate cruise engines, so i’d rather decloak them, otherwise it’s a good suggestion

ECM’s

  • invulnerability after bubble is a bad idea;

Terrible actually

  • I feel there need to be more ways to counter ECM stuns, or any debuffs in general, but I’ll get to that later.

Dunno, maybe i got used to playing against them… no comment

Fighters

 

Gunships

  • in my opinion, Combat Reboot needs a rework - while not exactly that problematic in skirmish, competitive gameplay shows that one of the most damaging ship roles in the game should not be granted a second life every couple tens of seconds.

  - simply make CR consume all of your energy upon use and disable energy regeneration for the duration, so it can be actually used defensively instead of enabling the regular ‘yolo, im unkillable’ mode in which you can heal and use other modules all you want.

<3 YOLO, it would affect fed too much compared to empire ones, so there’s that

  • I’ll leave it as a question, but does anyone else feel like Empire gunships are too damn tanky in T5?

Either that or too maneuverable for empire, haven’t played T5 in a long while

Commands

  • I think this ship role is probably the most balanced one in the game at the moment. Perhaps one could do something about them being the most efficient bomb runners by increasing the duration of capping beacons and bomb/SQ stations while Diffusion Shield is active.

no comment

Tacklers

  • drones. Make them self-destruct if line of sight with their owner is broken;

rather out of range than LOS

  • cloak/micro rework as mentioned before.

damned cruise engines

Frigates

 

LRF’s

  • no surprises here: cloak. Having given it some thought, I think the perfect solution would be to only allow module use while the cloak is active. In other words - ‘no’ to using main guns while cloaked, and ‘yes’ to using active and special modules while cloaked. RT should count as moving your ship.

50-50 to RT counted as moving; ehm, maybe no to the rest, it’s the enemy team’s fault for letting a LRF get close or that sorta thing

Guards

  • MPI should be a line of sight module. Its range could be boosted to compensate for that - otherwise frigballs are too effective;

thought of this myself as well and agree, tuck a colldown reduction bonus guard in the smallest crack in the map behind 7 armor plates of some debris and you have a ‘strolling through the park’ bubble for the duration of the game

  • I still hate Pulsar with a passion, especially when combined with MPI… any opinions on this one?

actually it’s good as it is, better if you do the above to MPI with LOS effects, then it’s perfectly fine

Engineers

  • I would like to see their barriers work like destroyer shields, except only one active at a time and not shootable-through from either of the sides.

or keep them as they are, except blocking bullets both ways as you said, in which case the could do with some HP increase; don’t really care about them

General

 

Cruise Engine (the surprise)

  • reduce acceleration to 1/10 of the current value;

  • reduce max speed boost it gives by 20-30% (so e.g. down to 600-550 m/s on Fed tacklers).

all-round nerf and agree, but can’t say what numbers

A non-CPU-based anti-debuff passive module

  • really, if there’s a way to trade off dmg for utility, utility for dmg, tank for speed, speed for tank, etc., there needs to be a way to counter debuffs that doesn’t take a CPU slot. There are just too many standard non-frigate ships that have just one CPU slot that needs to be wasted on a Proton Wall.

combat reboot 2.0 + rank 14 and 8 implants - would probably be too much, especially if you add it to the annoying 8-invulnerabilities-Jaguar - if you refer to ECM, then i don’t know, no comment

Torpedoes

  • they should be visible on your HUD and possibly shootable, so as to reduce their efficiency from 14 clicks away. Too efficient vs random people in skirmish and vs structures in SQ.

SQ - enemy should use a guard in anticipation; random pvp games, dunno, maybe a subtle sound effect would do - my 2 cents

3

Disagree with everything. These are problems that we worked hard to achieve and should not be tampered with. Though I must admit 1.5s of invincibility after un-bubbling in an ECM is a bit long. Maybe .75s instead.

Also micro locator is indeed a bit too effective. Maybe substantially lower the range.

And do people not realise that you an hear a flying torp from across the map? As well as see it??? XD

4

I pretty much agree with everything in the original post.

Here are a few changes I would do myself…

Global changes

Remove keyboard turning. Stated already, but let me say it again.

Add a hard cap of 180 for ship turn rate.

Proton Wall passive module

This is pretty much just an anti-ECM-class module now, and picking it means that your build will suck against most enemies. Also, it doesn’t really help ships that don’t care about the paralysis as much as modules being dropped, such as Guard frigates. The module needs some additional benefits.

Add 35% chance to prevent currently running active module from being disabled.

Add +10 to hull EM resistance.

ECM

While not OP in itself, becomes the most OP thing in the game when it brings any friends along. Current ECM modules are bad design, offer no counterplay to speak of, and are just plain aggravating to be in the receiving end. ECM interceptors are also pretty much the hardest to kill ships in the game. Considering their staying power, all their stuns could be adjusted to be less potent, but at much shorter cooldowns.

Remove invulnerability after Metastable Forcefield.

Adjust Ion Diffuser to be mostly about interrupting currently running modules, and less about paralyzing weapon and module use. Paralysis duration should be reduced by atleast 50%, but cooldown should be reduced by a similar amount as well.

Change Stasis Generator to put enemy into something alike Metastable Forcefield for a couple of seconds. Instead of making the enemy an easy target, it would put him out of combat. Cooldown could perhaps be reduced slightly.

Command

Ion Beam Warhead missile reload time should be increased to 8 from 6, and paralysis duration reduced to 2 from 2.6.

Gunship

As already stated, ships as murderous as these should not be given an invulnerability button. The speed button is too good as well.

Change Combat Reboot to not give invulnerability, but instead just +50 to all resistances.

Reduce Engine Overcharge speed boost to +50% from current +65%.

LRF

I would prefer the ship class to not be balanced around the use of Reverse Thruster (and EM Scattering Field). Both of those modules need nerfs, and the class needs some overall buff to balance out.

Reverse Thruster charge up time should be increased by 50% and jump distance reduced by 20%. Cooldown time should be increased by 20%.

EM Scattering Field should be lockable from within 2 km distance, but locking should take twice as long. (Some flickering HUD effect for locking would be nice I guess.)

Add class bonus of +20% range for main guns. (Relative to default values, not after modifiers.)

5

The point of ECM as a class (at least in this game) is to be as annoying as possible. They suit this, though I do agree that teamwork does make them a bit OP.

And I also do think that the whole stasis thing like you suggest would be cool.

Long-range class does indeed need some buffs and changes, but I don’t think that this is how to go about doing it. Reverse thruster is a module to move about without breaking cloak, not a gtfo button. A simple increase in prep time would suffice. EM scatter is fine as is.

6

White noise is currently stupidly good. It’s basically an IR Pulsar that you can’t avoid, that completely removes all information from the HUD. Which is… Dumb.

Adaptive camo could use some balance as well. Capturing beacons under cloak is ridiculous. But besides that, the cooldown and effect seem to be pretty good.

Plasma arc should have a quicker cooldown, in my opinion. It requires a silly amount of luck and skill to use, and makes the ship very vulnerable while using or preparing to use.

 

I hate spy drones with a passion right now. If I had my way, they’d be a 10 second debuff with the same effect, but not be able to be bumped off. And also have a longer cooldown, because why the heck is it faster than particle purge and flares?

Microlocators should have some visual indication of their area of effect, since it’s so easy to find one outside of sensor range that decloaks you all of a sudden. Also, bigger hitbox and less tank, pls.

Parasitic remodulator should take resistances into account. Currently it’s a death sentence to all things Jericho (and some things Fed), and not even hard to use.

 

ECMS shouldn’t have a period of invulnerability after bubbling. They can now stasis and drop a doomsday into somebody, then bubble and doomsday again, and fly out with minimal damage.

I still don’t like their stuns, but I will admit that they are pretty balanced as of right now. Not that a four second stasis is fun for anyone, but, y’know…

 

Combat reboot really should be reworked a bit. It’s a bit of an I-win button right now. At the very least, a visual indication of its use would be helpful in not wasting missiles and modules.

 

Commands are pretty alright right now.

 

I would highly enjoy a sentry drone that consistently dies to one or two singularity bubbles, rather than sometimes taking three shots if you fail to crit on all of them.

Heavy sentry drone is… a bit tanky for a deployable. It’s also really quite useless against anything but frigates at a beacon, but I think both of those issues could be fixed at once.

 

Everyone says LRF is OP. I am not as sure. The only thing I’d change would be making RT count as movement under cloak.

 

MPI should not be nearly so long ranged or long lasting. It’s an area of denial the size of most fighter guns’ range, with the ability to be chained between two guards for 100% uptime. Anybody else remember that T3 tournament meta? I do.

 

Warpgate should have a shorter cooldown. Two minutes for mobility that teammates will often shun is a bit much. It doesn’t even see much use in competitive play, since it’s wasting a valuable slot.

Static barrier is a mystery. I have no idea how to make it viable, and I can’t be bothered to figure it out. But either way, it’s ridiculously underpowered.

7

If RT is going to break cloak, then cloak CD needs to be shorter. Because, as I said, it isn’t a get out of jail free card. It’s meant for repositioning and avoiding slow-moving incoming fire. A longer prep would more than counter this.

8

Disclaimer - this thread excludes destroyers, as there are too many threads about them already, and focusses on pre-destro T3 or T4/5 gameplay, which thankfully is not that much affected by destroyers so far. Keep that in mind. Also, please note that while these are all suggestions, I’m putting them in the Game Discussion section for a reason.

 

Unfortunately this disclaimer renders the whole thread obsolete, since you must take them into account when considering balance. They have such a large impact on PVP.

9

@Astraal

 

[CovOp cloak rework]

Don’t really feel a need for this

Yeah, I get it, it’s not something I’d insist on. Though I remember way too many times when I successfuly capped a beacon just because of the cloak and won the match in the process. I’d be willing to argue that those matches were won thanks to that one module alone.

 

[Combat Reboot rework]

<3 YOLO, it would affect fed too much compared to empire ones, so there’s that

Well yeah, but that’s kind of the point, too. Remember all those matches vs ESB with 4 or more Fed gunships rushing in, taking out a frig and then running away? The CR I’m thinking of here would offer a trade off of escaping the most immediate danger at the cost of being more vulnerable afterwards.

 

Vohve’s idea also works for me, as long as it includes the immunity to debuffs. Otherwise Nanocoating is better.

 

[Tackler drones]

rather out of range than LOS

How would it work though?

 

[Torps]

SQ - enemy should use a guard in anticipation; random pvp games, dunno, maybe a subtle sound effect would do - my 2 cents

Yup, there already is a sound effect. However all items visible on HUD can be ping-able - I find the ability to ping torps in random skirmish very useful, even more so in actual wingplay (rather than just screaming TOOOORPP!!!). Plus, torps are annoying in leagues. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could shoot them down before they reach your beacons’ drones?

 

@Vohve

 

[Proton Wall]

Add 35% chance to prevent currently running active module from being disabled.

Other than this bit, I agree. I don’t really like when too much is left to sheer chance.

 

Adjust Ion Diffuser to be mostly about interrupting currently running modules, and less about paralyzing weapon and module use. Paralysis duration should be reduced by atleast 50%, but cooldown should be reduced by a similar amount as well.

This is something I’d like to test out. I’m pretty sure it would would make ECM’s even more annoying vs any buffs, but I do like the idea of active disruption of targets much better than just using a module on basically anything you’re attacking.

 

Change Stasis Generator to put enemy into something alike Metastable Forcefield for a couple of seconds. Instead of making the enemy an easy target, it would put him out of combat. Cooldown could perhaps be reduced slightly.

Also very interesting, but all-in-all it’s a complete rework of the most important ECM module… Not sure about it.

 

EM Scattering Field should be lockable from within 2 km distance, but locking should take twice as long. (Some flickering HUD effect for locking would be nice I guess.)

Wouldn’t this make this module next to useless though?

 

Add class bonus of +20% range for main guns. (Relative to default values, not after modifiers.)

Pls don’t buff 'em more. I do agree LRF’s aren’t really long range-y at the moment, but it’s an immense buff to the ship role. Maybe instead of that, make a passive addition to how they work - the furthey they are from their target, the more damage they deal, or something like that. But that’s only after their cloak gets nerfed.

 

Other than those points, I agree.

@Statue

Welp. I agree with everything, I guess. I haven’t really taken into consideration modules that are rarely used, so thanks for bringing that up.

 

MPI should not be nearly so long ranged or long lasting. It’s an area of denial the size of most fighter guns’ range, with the ability to be chained between two guards for 100% uptime. Anybody else remember that T3 tournament meta? I do.

Yeah, there’s also that. How would you change it, then?

 

@millanbel

Not exactly. There’s the discussion going on about whether or not destros should be able to enter certain gamemodes in the first place, plus most of these modules affect destros just the same as any other ship class.

 

10

@Statue

Welp. I agree with everything, I guess. I haven’t really taken into consideration modules that are rarely used, so thanks for bringing that up.

Yeah, there’s also that. How would you change it, then?

Like you said, line-of-sight would probably be the best solution. Either that or a reduced range and longer cooldown.

 

 

Unfortunately this disclaimer renders the whole thread obsolete, since you must take them into account when considering balance. They have such a large impact on PVP.

As for destroyers, oh boy. Pyro emitter should have a longer effect with lower DPS (lower burst damage, basically) so that it’s not a 5300m long plasma arc with half the cooldown. Turrets should have lower rate of fire, and possibly less spread to compensate. Tempest launcher shouldn’t have so many missiles. Wormhole projector should have a bigger and more obvious wormhole, as well as leave a visual effect on any destroyers with wormholes out. Multiphase is basically the only module that doesn’t need tweaking.

 

Also modules should be greyed out when there’s not enough energy to use them, just like it is with every other ship in the game.