Before I state my business, I’ll it’s all my personal opinion about the state of pvp right now. You don’t have to agree, but if you do, please make discussion civil and at least give some arguments. I’ll try to describe problems as much as possible with possible solutions to return SC back into a skill, competitive game. Note, I will only focus on two types of matches I only que for, queuing as R15+ and Sunday R9 tournament.
1. General
After all this time game is around, MM still can’t properly shuffle the teams. One-sided massacres happen to often to be just coincidence. And since we can’t see what affect the MM rating, I can’t really suggest what to change. Only thing I can suggest to devs to play incognito themselves (not testers, you!) a couple (like 15 in a row) too see what is happening and make adjustments. Bonuses for low rank need to be revamped, some more confident in skill players choose low ranked ship on purpose to get increased damage output/survivability.
Look also at Dread battles. Sometimes happen the dreaded 1 man + bots vs wings “matches” that should never happen.
2. Fleet upgrade and overdependence on premium ships
Fleet upgrade was needed, no doubts. ‘Normal’ ships were neglected for too long. But when we finally got our precious new content for ships that are covered by dust, new issue came up. Yes, to get the most of the upgrade, you have to use premium ships. Most of the ships just got one or two modules, while premiums can use all of them, so ability to make combinations you couldn’t before (and therefore broken). Examples: double regen Imperial gunships, Adaptive Plugin + deconstructor cannon (sure crit module with weapon very dependent on crit), Critical Counter + Tracer plasma gun (same thing), Boarding Charger/Ram Attack + Phantom (pull/push and no selfdamage facetorp). Assasin + Tac retreat CovOps (warp, plasma arc, retreat, no flying required). The intention of fleet upgrade was to make individual ship unique and that was destroyed allowing premiums to use all equipment.
Solution A: Disallow premiums to use all fleet upgrade modules and make special kit just for them. Pros: no more broken module combos. Cons: requires more devpower to develop and add more modules.
Solution B: Divide all added equipment to factions and this way allow more ships to use more modules. Pros: normal ships will be less in disadvantage. Cons: broken combos still exist.
3. Module-specific talk
Here I describe in my opinion most broken modules and what their problems are.
Energy destabilizing system
No doubts nr.1 hated module. Completely shuts down whole enemy team that gets into range, on open fields, there is no escape. Fits guard theme by protecting the team from enemy modules, but it’s too efficient, lasts too long, has too much range and recharges too fast. Have no counter at all, whenever you press the button it won’t stop as long you are alive.
Solution A: Turn it into aura like pulsar, so ECMs and Commands can shut it down. Pros: adds a counter Cons: all the other cons still remain and makes it dependent on having 2 classes in the match to counter 1 ship.
Solution B: Leave it as is, but remove range shrinking, so leaving 1km base range. Pros: 1km away from Object is easily manageable. Cons: Makes module almost useless, only countering very close attacks.
Solution C: Leave it as is, but it affect only base regen. All other energy generating sources like energy recuperation system, energy emitter, and absorber works normally. Pros: doesn’t shut down completely the enemy team. Cons: all other cons remain.
Quantum defence
Clears all negative effects, long duration, short cooldown, defence against almost all attacks. Combat reboot on steroids on a ship that should reward good piloting skills.
Solution A: reduce duration to 2s. Pros: turns into only getaway module. Cons: none, other than thinking 2 times before mindless charge.
Solution B: leave as is, but doesnt clear negative effects. Pros: more damage effects work, victim can still be stopped, disabled etc. Cons: all other cons remain.
Remote ammo detonation
ECM ships have a theme to interfere with normal ship functioning. This module breaks that, adding ability to unavoidable, instant damage depending on what missiles you have in slot.
Solution A: doesn’t detonate but forces to reload with increased time. Pros: no more I win button. Cons: less useful.
Solution B: detonation damage is constant. Pros: no more instant frag button against covops and frigs. Cons: still not fitting ecm theme.
Moriarty virus
Maybe fits an ECM theme with interfering with ship functioning, but from other hand its inverted old A1MA. Absolutely devastating on high damage beam weapon that you can’t stop other than proton wall. Too easy to kill teammate with this. There is only solution here at moment.
Solution A: auto aims at closest ally, but doesn’t shoot automatically. Pros: stops enemy from firing that still can kill teammate when not careful enough. Cons: none.
4. Weapon-specific talk
Here I talk about in my opinion most broken weapons or weapon combos.
Deconstructor cannon
Very high instant damage with shield piercing capabilities. On paper it might have same DPS as Phase Supressor, but alpha damage multiplied with Orion combined with kinetic type, works just too good, especially on ship that have innate high crit and crit damage – Cutter.
Solution A: Remove secondary effect. Pros: less dependance on R9 implant to survive longer, less instant damage. Cons: makes weapon less unique.
Solution B: Reduce hit damage, increase secondary effect turning it into DoT. Look as Plasmer – it deal 6k extra damage, but it doesnt as much destructive due to DoT effect. Pros: less instant damage, more time to hide and heal up Cons: dependance on crits to do maximized damage
Front Blaster
Very high dps weapon with slight autoaim capabilities, with double damage on high speeds. In most cases, especially with Orion, damage is simply too high while being too easy to aim this thing. The whole point of this gun was to have very hard aiming with very high damage.
Solution A: raise dps by 1k, remove double damage on speed. Look how well Geyser works this way. Pros: high difficult high reward still remains, no more stupidly high damage outdpsing gunships on overdrive. Cons: autoaim?
Solution B: add increasing spread, remove autosnapping to crosshair. Pros: high damage remain, but adds some skill to it. Cons: absurd damage on targets that can be easily hit like frigs or destros.
Thermal Energy Burner
Gun itself is ok, only certain ships that have access to projectile speed module completely denies the gun’s drawback.
Solution: Simple make projectile speed module affect only allies, not command itself.
Dazzler railgun
Broken thing in this gun is not the damage – damage I could say is even too low. Increasing module cooldowns may remain forever whenever you just keep firing at target. Complete and free enemy shutdown should not happen – even stasis cost energy and last only 3s.
Solution: add a cooldown to increase cooldowns, like Project 1011’s disorienting gun. Increase dps to compensate. Pros: gun will be usable to kill, but will at least allow enemy to return fire. Cons: obvious. Less usefull.
Energy gun
Again, problem is not the damage, but secondary effect. Energy burning is too strong compared to for example Destructor.
Solution: make energy burning effect less efficient.
Focusing laser
The drawback of this gun is not noticeable compared to the stats it has. There is completely no reason to have that high critical damage with that range.
Solution A: decrease dps. Make it depend on critical hit. Pros: you need more skill to hit. Cons: abnormal high range
Solution B: reduce range, reduce critical damage. Pros: more consistent and less broken alternative to Ion emitter. Cons: none.
I think I covered the most things that in my opinion are breaking current pvp. I hope that devs finally realize that stuff they added works well in most cases on normal ships and it breaks whenever try to combine modules and weapons that shouldn’t work together on premiums. There is chance to fix all of this. Just look closely in your statistics and make adjustments. Overall health of game is better for your wallets.
