I can speak from experience, that this notion to have a hard cap comes from frustration.
Allow me to explain.
Yesterday, I was in a “Losing Streak”, where me and my single squad mate were thrown into battles, were we faced 1. a kill squad. 2. Unbalanced SR on each side. 3. Unfair ship layouts. It was the MM fault we lost, as in each of the battles, I myself was synergizings ships, So I was more focused on objectives and kills.
There was one battle were there were 4. Yes 4 LRF. Needless to say, the enemy triple capped us and literally, 3 other players, including myself, just decided to sit in spawn with the LRF and wait till the match was over. Unfair right? Sure, but I looked at there roster of other ships, and each were not synergized 1 or 2 levels. Thus they were just trying to raise there levels. But you can clearly see, that if you have too much of a ship type for the wrong game mode. Then you will lose.
I think there is a lack of incentive to cap the beacons as a LRF. Imagine if LRF got 500 points instead of the normal 300 points for capping, Mabye they would move up and use there 6 guns?
Also its impossible to cap people nor is it wise to do so, UNLESS its a specific game mode separate from the normal Q.
Recently I figured I’d try to queue for T4 with some ships on the off chance I’d get a match. I didn’t look at the queue first and actually got a match. I died once, and then choose an Empire LRF. Then I realized it was fitted for PvE with 1800m range heavy blasters. The game mode was capture the beacons. I followed a frigball as carefully as possible and captured beacons! Other than pure sniping, which I skipped because I know I’m rusty on it, I had no other choice.
LRF need to be punished for not getting stuck in. Ideally, the Class should be removed entirely. However, a simple fix would be that their main gun only works within 1000m of a live beacon. At least then they would be forced to attack / defend, not sit in spawn with a thumb up their arse.
Then, what do they do in matches without beacons? If a beacon’s captured are they suddenly powerless to defend themselves? If they’re outnumbered and outgunned they’ll be unable to run while defending themselves? Anyway, 1000m range is less than any interceptor’s weapons, 700m is the capture range if I remember. Sounds more like a guard’s role.
OH, better Idea, the farther you are from spawn, the BETTER or more powerful your weapons become!
That could actually encourage spawn campers. Maybe the closer you are to the enemy’s spawn the weaker your weapons get? It might help some of the spawn camping issues in the game.
The difference is that no other class, when played badly, hurts the team as a whole as much as a bad LRF.
With any other class, a moron is at least capable of being a bullet sponge and distracting people from more important targets. The LRF can’t even do that.
Moreover, even bad players do cap now and again. Even if they buy their team just enough time to capture, or they stall the enemy from capping just long enough, they can make a difference in game. Pug LRFs don’t do that. Pug LRFs can’t do that.
Lemmings hurt their team no matter what. If the player sucks bad enough, I’d rather them be in an LRF hiding and not feeding kills.
Quick fix for the LRF - friendly fire enabled. If I see someone spawn as LRF I can just use CovOps to plasma arc then and constantly grief them until they change class. It works in Sector Conquest, so it should work in Skirmish!
Gave server code of conduct IV.6.d: intentionally inflict damage to members of your own team. Shall be punished by blocking the account for 24 hours.
Intentionally killing any teammate is a bannable offense, for understandable reasons. It doesn’t matter if it’s PvP or sector conquest. Maybe you lack the understanding to see why. We get it, you hate LRF’s. ICBM’s exist, and before that was Big Bertha, and before that was arrows. Long range capabilities will always exist on the battlefield.