Star Conflict OBT v 0.8.2 Update # 1 Discussion

Mercenary Center Patch Discussion
81

Good changes. Balancing and softening the counters will only make the game better in the end as it diminishes the power of any optimized min/max setup.

 

What we have curently (as I see it):

 

Interceptors - low DPS, high speed/maneuverability, low survivability, beacon capture speed

>CovOps - High burst damage kept in check by cooldowns

>Recon - Support and debuff with increased beacon capture 

>ECM - Crowd control through stuns/silence

 

Fighter - medium to high DPS, decent speed/maneuverability, decent survivability

>Command - buff support with increased survivability

>Tackler - front line focused support

>Gunship - high burst dps and maneuverability, slightly decreased survivability

 

Frigate - Medium to high DPS, low speed/maneuverability, (generally) high survivability

>Guard - Highest EHP, front line area control

>Engineer - decent area healing, excellent burst healing, team movement support

>Long Range - LR Damage support, high sustained DPS at the expense of survivability

 

Every class has its advantages and disadvantages with some roles being better at attacking different roles/classes than others setting up a system of soft counters. In a system of hard counters, rock beast scissors every time - in a system of soft counters rock is more likely to beat scissors but scissors still has a decent shot at winning.

 

The more refined SC gets, the more we get away from simple rock-paper-scissors scenarios (bring more engineers to out-tank their damage!) and move towards more complex team-work and coordination based tactics (bring an engineer to heal, but make sure we have a guard to protect it from covops and an ECM to stun/silence frigates we attack and a gunship to blast through any guards and etc etc etc).

 

If you look at all changes in a pure “how does this effect ships of that role” point of view, chances are they’ll usually seem bad. Then the obvious solution is to do something to do something to another class/role to counter-act that change, and then something else to balance that… on and on, which really only leads you around in circles never really improving. To me atleast it seems the dev team has the broader scope in mind and is doing their best to factor in player opinions/suggestions/complaints/criticism while not losing scope of the macro picture.

82

Well said, Madeix.

 

As always, these tweaks take time. Data must be collected, feedback must be heard, discussions happen, more consultation. At the end of the process the project’s vision is revisited and the cycle continues.

 

Calling it a beta is not an excuse. It is, however, a way to describe the dev team’s modus operandi.

83

Hypothesis: Frigates are too weak to fly, no one flies them now. Also they do not take top score, ever.

 

Reality: 6/9 games or so today for me were against frig balls. Some were our frig ball vs theirs. Several games in a row in the end were nothing but frig balls which annoyed everyone in the squad because it’s just boring to play a frig ball to counter a frig ball.

 

Screens:

 

screenshot130613230912.th.jpg

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screenshot130613225252.th.jpg

screenshot130613223705.th.jpg

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screenshot130613221102.th.jpg

screenshot130613221059.th.jpg

screenshot130613220706.th.jpg

 

Oh and the guy persistently above me on score board? Yes, he’s an engineer.

84

The change to the guard healing modules is about 20%, not 15%, but I quibble.  The healing was slow enough that if you were going down, you were going down.  After a few games today I don’t see it making a huge difference, but boy did I notice the change to the rapid rails.  It feels like they can actually hurt things now.  That was long overdue.

 

What I would like to see is the ship bonuses fixed.  Right now the bonuses seem inconsistent and spread out.  Empire and Fed have lots of bonuses on ships that Jericho does not.  The Katana AE has 10% bonus damage for example, while the feds have that + bonus to range or effect.  

85

Antibus - these are the needed tweaks to engineers:

 

  1. better module range

 

  1. change to % based healing

 

  1. nerf remote heals

  1. No. See screenshots above.

  2. No. See screenshots above. We do not need massively sweeping frigate buffs and massive sweeping nerfs to everyone else.

  3. They are fine now. Skill-based single target remote heal is great because it allows good engineers to actually shine over bad ones.

 

We appear to have a small group of T2 players that asked a few friends and got convinced that everyone supports %-based healing without appropriate balancing of weapon power. The situation would be - frigate takes a few shots, recovers instantly, interceptor takes a few shots, takes a minute to recover - frigates remain combat worthy on the front lines, everyone else must pull out after getting hit, sometimes even once. Essentially a sweeping frigate buff. Something we most definitely do NOT need right now.

 

 

Personally I like the direction of few last patches. The game is becoming significantly better balanced and teamwork is starting to really matter over “I’ll just solo everything in my imba frigate”.

 

P.S. On topic of “give me one more active mod slot”. Nothing is stopping you from taking 2 directed heals (hull and shield) and using them on yourself. They are both exceptionally powerful right now, and I’ve seen them used in this way today several times. It’s yet another thing that separates a good engineer from a bad one.

86

We appear to have a small group of T2 players that asked a few friends and got convinced that everyone supports %-based healing

Confirming that scaling healing with ship size [totally wasn’t the most popular result of a a poll](< base_url >/index.php?/topic/19534-engineering-poll/) on engineering.

 

(please don’t vote on that poll btw, since it’s from 0.8.0 so adding votes to it now will produce weird results from across patches. I’ll make a new one if you really want).

87

The change to the guard healing modules is about 20%, not 15%, but I quibble.  The healing was slow enough that if you were going down, you were going down.  After a few games today I don’t see it making a huge difference, but boy did I notice the change to the rapid rails.  It feels like they can actually hurt things now.  That was long overdue.

 

What I would like to see is the ship bonuses fixed.  Right now the bonuses seem inconsistent and spread out.  Empire and Fed have lots of bonuses on ships that Jericho does not.  The Katana AE has 10% bonus damage for example, while the feds have that + bonus to range or effect.  

Math. Harder than it looks. Even for machines. Rapid-fire rails were relatively overpowered at the hands of a capable pilot. Now? Now they ARE overpowered at the hands of any pilot.

 

Have you given time to notice the dozen or so ships that don’t even HAVE bonuses, as well?

 

 

We fixed range because it didn’t fit the intended role behaviour. We fixed rate, because you wanted it.

And you’re still coming back capsing and yelling. 

 

I will once again repeat - your opinion and feedback is not the only one. And once again - work on this role is not finished.

No, my friend. You BROKE it. AGAIN. We wanted to see a fixed repair rate because all ship classes were receiving the same heal rate. Frigates receive the exact same hp boost as Ceptors. Giving this much hp to Ceptors puts them on-par with Fighters and give Fighters similar hp to Frigates.

 

And you’re right, because all the community can do is give tips that devs usually don’t follow (with very good reasons, seeing as 90% of these feedbacks usually involve overpowered things). The problem comes when the 10% good pieces of advice are ignored. 

 

The healing mechanics in this game are value based. “Repairs X armor/shield through Y seconds” or “Increases armor/shield resists by X for Y seconds”. This is a very simple mechanic. Then pilots notice the fact that other things aren’t quite done with that mechanic, such as Offensive modules. “Increases x stat by y% for z seconds”. This percentage is a fixed value that is actually helpful to the pilot handling the ship. It might take a few cpu cycles to figure out the end value and might be affected by other AoE effects given by other ships around yours but, ultimately, it’s also an incredibly simple mechanic in itself. What the community has been suggesting is that it is better to replace the current healing modules on Engineer/Guard Frigates with this percentage value.

 

Trying won’t kill you. After all… this game is still in Beta development, is it not?..

 

Ah… That took a load off my chest… Had that on me since the Ceptor revamp…

 

+1 for the Development team just coming out and saying “This is our vision for Engineers” and being done with it. Would probably help out alot in trying to figure out just what direction their attempting to go in… but looking at it logically. 

 

(…)

 

But, maybe im wrong in thinking this but bear with me. The engineer ‘should’ be able to hang back from the front lines. Fitted with mid-long range guns, and the ability to support its allies. That actually works with what seems to be the Interceptors role, as the rock paper scissor methodology presented says.

 

Intys -> Frigates

Fighters -> Intys

Frigates -> Fighters

 

So the Inty should be busting through, or circumventing the “Battle line” to get at its choice targets. Using its speed, disabling mods etc. It may even give a little bit back to the LRF class. Sniping out healers. 

Except they DIDN’T say what their vision of the Engineers is. Nor of any ship, tbh. All we keep hearing is “it’s not quite what we’re looking for… so we’ll tweak it further.” I still stand by my opinion that this, despite this being the right way, it’s being done the wrong way.

 

And, despite the RPS methodology also being the right one in theory, it’s being woefully ignored in this game. Currently, it’s:

 

Frigates -> Fighters (if the pilot is very bad) / Ceptors

Fighters -> Ceptors (again, poor flight skills) / Frigates

Ceptors -> Frigates / Fighters / Ceptors

 

Most of my 1v1 encounters while flying most of the classes (the only ones I have next to no experience at flying are Snipers, Engineers and Gunships) end up with that exact outcome. And… to be honest, it’s not very balanced. Of course, I’m also taking into account pilot skills and module quality, which I really shouldn’t, but it’s what happens.

88

Confirming that scaling healing with ship size [totally wasn’t the most popular result of a a poll](< base_url >/index.php?/topic/19534-engineering-poll/) on engineering.

 

(please don’t vote on that poll btw, since it’s from 0.8.0 so adding votes to it now will produce weird results from across patches. I’ll make a new one if you really want).

And when you count all people together, a tiny minority voted for such an option as a myriad of options was presented and many of them also got votes. Tiny enough to ensure that it could be frigate only player votes only voting for this option.

 

Not to even mention the whole “statistically insigficant” part.

89

a tiny minority

Also confirming 44% is a “tiny minority”.

 

Am I being lectured on statistical significance by someone that just submitted 2 screenshots and a bunch of anecdotal evidence for his claim? Edit: AND who just flamed someone in another thread for “ignoring whatever facts are in his face”?

You have no basis for your claim of sampling bias.

 

Also stop voting on that poll please. Looking at you #26.

90

i won’t bother putting anymore money into this game. Just screwing frigates over even more. EVEN WITH my Engineer frigate maxed out blue’s (heal/shield) i still get destroyed easy enough. AND yes i know how to play the game. But to the fact that the healing range was reduced and now the healing itself was reduced make’s it ridiculous. if i wanted modules to improve my defense, increase only my own shields by what… 8% of it’s full charge, i would just fly a damn fighter. I’M in it for the heals and i think i’ve just wasted my time trying to level up my frigs some more. 

 

Engineering

  • Mass Shield Generator: effectiveness reduced by 15%

As if we had a hard enough time healing…

Guard

  • Emergency Shield Boost: Effectiveness reduced by 15%
  • Liquid Metal Injector: Effectiveness reduced by 15%
  • Slightly reduced speed

 

what are these devs thinking? really. as if FRIGATES don’t move slow enough as it is.

 

 

 

 

Honestly this patch was a HUGE let down for me. Sure you “get feedback” from what? polls in the game ? cause recently always on the forums reading you guys have terrible feedback and from alot of what the ACTIVE community is saying, your doing the opposite. where most of the players are new or fairly close and don’t know a single damn thing about this game so you go off what they nag about? ffs.

 

Sure i’m NOT in T3 yet. i have enough to afford T3 ship and modules, but i don’t want to be. not with your crazy unbalancing and prices make’s it a sore sight. 

 

"Engineers  had overpowered healing. By your own feedback and statistics.    (really? you reduced it then had to go at it again???)

We do not position them as frontline fighters. We do position them as team players.     (well considering the damn 2600m range on blue modules that’s only 2-300m from a fighter getting in range of you… OF COURSE IT’S FRONTLINE.)

We have changed the mechanics of healing in order to solve the problem of frig spheres.     

We have tested this internally. (highly doubt that. either that or your “testing” team is bad.)

T1/T2 Are mostly for learning how to fly."    (T1 sure. T2 is probably the most populated area. And i ENJOY flying in T2 no crazy high prices, repair costs are not to bad, and the gameplay is fun yet challenging still. i hope you don’t expect people to start flying T3 in their first couple of months playing unless they drop 100$ on overpriced ships/modules.)

 

 

 

I might check in the next patch to see if any REAL improvements are done. until then i think i’ve wasted my money. GJ losing another customer…

 

91

Also confirming 44% is a “tiny minority”.

 

Am I being lectured on statistical significance by someone that just submitted 2 screenshots and a bunch of anecdotal evidence for his claim? AND who just flamed someone else in another thread for “ignoring facts presented to him”?

You have no basis for your claim of sampling bias.

Mathematics. They’re wonderful. Also, you do not know how they work. First of all, there are six times more screenshots in above post ALONE then you claim. Second, 8 out of 4 digit number of players in the game is significantly less then 44%, and likely less then error margin of any study you’d conduct on the topic.

92

Mathematics. They’re wonderful. Also, you do not know how they work. First of all, there are six times more screenshots in above post ALONE then you claim. Second, 8 out of 4 digit number of players in the game is significantly less then 44%, and likely less then error margin of any study you’d conduct on the topic.

Statistics. They’re wonderful. You don’t need a census to draw conclusions, you can base them on samples.

 

I only see 2 scoreboards there, which are the only screenshots that show anything relevant.

93

Math. Harder than it looks. Even for machines. Rapid-fire rails were relatively overpowered at the hands of a capable pilot. Now? Now they ARE overpowered at the hands of any pilot.

 

Have you given time to notice the dozen or so ships that don’t even HAVE bonuses, as well?

 

I’ve been using RFRs for a while, and they are quite hard to use.  Short range, long time between bursts, big spread.  I would argue that like long range rails and hail plasma, people think they are OP because they get hit a handful of times and die.  Unlike spread laser and plasma, which spray out continuously and have a much smaller spike.  You don’t notice your shield is down or how much damage you’ve taken and then you get popped and complain they are OP.  

 

Because of the extra difficulty, I’ve always maintained that RFRs should do more DPS then the other two. Before the patch, RFRs did less damage then assault rails and were well behind their counterparts.  Clearly they were in need of a buff.  

 

Also, I fly a bunch of ships with no bonus, so yeah, I’m aware.  Dev’s please give some love to my Katana S!

94

Statistics. They’re wonderful. You don’t need a census to draw conclusions, you can base them on samples.

 

I only see 2 scoreboards there, which are the only screenshots that show anything relevant.

In that case, I assume you made a good effort to ensure a proper random sample, as is required and typically taught in the very first class where they teach you about statistical calculus and probabilities?

 

Would you mind sharing how you managed this epic feat on an internet forum. I’m sure statisticians all over the world would LOVE to hear from you about those methods. To the point where you would be an instant multi-millionaire as that would mean they could drop all the exceptionally expensive staff related to actually gathering random samples that can be statistically relevant.

 

Also, personal score is all that matters? Really? So the fact that half to two thirds of the team is flying frigates or the obvious fact that side with more frigates wins says nothing?

95

I’ve been using RFRs for a while, and they are quite hard to use.  Short range, long time between bursts, big spread.  I would argue that like long range rails and hail plasma, people think they are OP because they get hit a handful of times and die.  Unlike spread laser and plasma, which spray out continuously and have a much smaller spike.  You don’t notice your shield is down or how much damage you’ve taken and then you get popped and complain they are OP.  

 

Because of the extra difficulty, I’ve always maintained that RFRs should do more DPS then the other two. Before the patch, RFRs did less damage then assault rails and were well behind their counterparts.  Clearly they were in need of a buff.  

 

Also, I fly a bunch of ships with no bonus, so yeah, I’m aware.  Dev’s please give some love to my Katana S!

Notably Katana type S like most ships that show no bonus actually has a hidden bonus that can’t be displayed with the current system. For example, Katana type S has +10% speed.

Source: http://forum.star-conflict.ru/index.php?/topic/35167-%D1%81%D0%BA%D1%80%D1%8B%D1%82%D1%8B%D0%B5-%D0%BC%D0%BE%D0%B4%D0%B8%D1%84%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%B0%D1%82%D0%BE%D1%80%D1%8B-%D0%BF%D0%B0%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%BC%D0%B5%D1%82%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B2-%D0%BA%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%B1%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%B9/

 

As for rapid fire rails, I’ve used them for a long time (before the current roles and after), and I currently find them to be great on gunships and covert ops ints. I think they were fine the way they were and last buff was too much - taking 2/3 chunks out of other interceptors under orion module with crits is too powerful imho. About 1/2 which is what I was doing before was fine. I tend to agree that sustained DPS was a bit too low for the negatives of the weapon (spread, range, low-ish fire rate). Perhaps they should have buffed only DPS, but leave reduced the fully charged damage to somehow match the old one?

96

Oh, you’re happy now that you can use samples? Lovely, we’re making progress.

Since the questionnaire is available to 100% of forum users, yes, it’s pretty random. The other thing they’ll have taught you in that stats class is that no sample method is purely random unless you can force people to answer. In this case the only sample biases are that the respondents are forum users that browse the suggestions section and self selected to answer, meaning they have an interest in engineering healing. I see no reason why that last part would skew the results since it affects all players no matter what they fly. If you have some data of your own that’s better (hint: not anecdotal evidence or a smattering of screenshots) I’d like to see it, otherwise you’re just razzle dazzling my data with no reason to disbelieve it except that you disagree with it. Until then I have nothing more to say on the matter.

 

Dev’s please give some love to my Katana S!

They covered this in a http://forum.star-conflict.com/index.php?/topic/19954-hidden-ship-bonus-parameters/’>dev blog. Katana S is listed as having 10% faster movement speed.

97

Oh, you’re happy now that you can use samples? Lovely, we’re making progress.

Since the questionnaire is available to 100% of forum users, yes, it’s pretty random.

Game, set, match. You simply do not know what you’re talking about. There is a reason why essentially all companies that run complex polling schemes maintain a large and fairly expensive polling infrastructure instead of a cheap internet forum. That reason being that internet forum is the exact opposite of “random” as required by statistical calculus for reason of it being “opt in by interested parties”.

 

If you are actually interested, here is a fairly decent quick guide on how to gather a random sample: http://www.columbia.edu/itc/statistics/w1111/maintext/random_sample.html

98

Another SUGGESTION to the nerfing of frigates i suppose. 

 

The healing module is a SET variable for all ships. Meaning Frigate heals all other ships for 140 let’s say. now 140 can go along ways for a interceptor and a little less for a fighter. Then comes the Frigate healing itself which very very very slowly goes up since there is so much armor. 

 

 

 

(note i know these values are not correct as different ships have different values depending on buffs. this is just a what if using some generic numbers FOR ARMOR only, as i am frustrated with the patch and would rather not log in right now.)

 

So let’s say the rate is 140

Interceptor has 4k armor   = 28 seconds full recharge

Fighter has 8k armor         = 57 seconds full rechage

Frigate has 16k armor       = 114 seconds full recharge

 

Instead of reducing the healing buff why not change the rate it heals certain ships? and make it even. Otherwise our frigates would take (well at least mine with 12k shields and 10-11k armor with blue shield/hull regen modules) a very long time.

 

So the lower the MAX armor/shield capacity of a ship the less the healing rate is. So frigates could be back to normal.

 

Interceptor 4k armor @ 130  = 30 seconds full recharge

Fighter 8k armor @ 150        = 53 seconds full recharge

Frigate 16k armor @ 170      =  94 seconds full recharge

 

 

So it might not make the biggest difference. but that way frigates can still support themselves (because with that range, you can die VERY quick.)

so the healing for frigates can be the normal rate, but then just lower the healing rate for the fighters and even lower for interceptors because they have less armor so theoretically the REGEN amount will base itself on the ship class/amount of armor/shields. that way the healing is not OP for smaller ships and not NERFED to hard for bigger ships. 

 

I think this could be a good idea. maybe someone else can go more in detail then what i have. but it’s a suggestion. 

99

Negative scaling on resists is a VERY bad idea because people will stack hull/shield amount instead of resists instead.

 

The ground work for this is done to death by guys who’re developing WoW. They had to make the choice on making resilience (WoW’s damage reduction in PvP stat) affecting incoming healing or not. There was a very long discussion on the topic several years ago and they explained in great detail why they chose not to.

 

Short version: Negative scaling on the positive stat makes the stat undesirable for players and makes alternative stats much better.

100

Game, set, match. You simply do not know what you’re talking about. There is a reason why essentially all companies that run complex polling schemes maintain a large and fairly expensive polling infrastructure instead of a cheap internet forum. That reason being that internet forum is the exact opposite of “random” as required by statistical calculus for reason of it being “opt in by interested parties”.

If you are actually interested, here is a fairly decent quick guide on how to gather a random sample: [http://www.columbia.edu/itc/statistics/w1111/maintext/random_sample.html]http://www.columbia.edu/itc/statistics/w1111/maintext/random_sample.html](http://www.columbia.edu/itc/statistics/w1111/maintext/random_sample.html]http://www.columbia.edu/itc/statistics/w1111/maintext/random_sample.html)[/url]

Neither do you. The ‘evidence’ you posted has no relevance or meaning until you actively point it out to us. Which you haven’t. All you said is that the engineer got higher points than you. Notice that how in many previous games, engineers often came high up on the score board due to their assist count. Now, their range is far too small to give them these points: they are there merely to give other players 100 points for a kill. The previous mass shield and nanodrone cloud were perfectly fine (though their healing was OP for interceptors), as whilst they could tank a decent amount of damage - about as much as a command fighter, if they were targeted they had to pull themselves out of a fight quickly. The energy consumption of the ms and nc allowed for a good time on the afterburners, just enough to get into range of allies. They had hardly any problems in Tier 2.

How often do you play frigates, Luckyo? How often did you play them before the patch? And in what Tier? Notice how most of us are complaining about Tier 2 problems rather than Tier 3. In Tier 3, I’ve recognised that frig balls are the problem due to remote shield/hull cycling. If this is becoming so irritating for players that none of us simply WILL NOT shut up about it, either remove it from the game completely or give it a backlash effect to discourage its use en masse. Simple, when you look at it in that light.

And Luckyo, don’t resort to challenging other people’s intelligence and claiming you know more than them. It’s incredibly disrespectful. You never know: they may be twice as intelligent as you, or half, or whatever. It’s the internet. No-one is themself.