Balance issues with combat that I've noticed

[Johnny Spaceboots]

Hey guys. With the event going on in Ho Hsi at the moment, and at other events such as Durius, Sorbago, etc, I've been getting my fair share of PVP lately. I've been having a lot of fun, but some things are really starting to bug me about the balance of things, mostly centering around how easy it is to not die.

****Please note that this applies to PVE just as much as it does PVP****


As I'm sure most of you know at this point, you can buy a module for your ship, shield banks, which rapidly recharge your shields faster than anything except a direct hit by an anacondas Plasma Accelerator can damage them. Normally, I suppose you might have just one of these, a size 2 comes loaded with 5 uses of basically fully healing your shields.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-HG4MbSDzY

Pretty cool right? Well, what if you do this?
http://puu.sh/dKL1L/cd488b9d91.jpg
4 of them, I have 28 uses to basically heal myself entirely. There is no cooldown between uses. If I wanted to, I could add another 5 of them for 33 resets. In a Cobra, I can absorb fire from multiple vipers indefinitely. In all of my pvping, my shields haven't gone down once. And then once you add chaff to the mix, which makes homing missiles and gimbals useless, such a ship is essentially indestructible.

I find this undesirable, because it makes pvp essentially pointless. If both of the participants are geared similarly, it takes ages, and the fight is determined by who runs out of shield banks and chaff first. What it reminds me of is in Runescape, where pvpers would have an inventory filled with lobsters, which restored significant chunks of health instantaneously, basically turning each fight into an eating contest with both participants stuffing their gob with food until one ran out and had to run away.

So basically, since I have kitted myself out in such a way, I can waltz into a conflict zone with three player vipers and pick the opposite side of them with no concern. If things get hairy, I have enough shield banks and chaff to keep me perfectly fine, since weapon damage just... isn't that much, and it's highly, highly unlikely that someone would be able to pop my shields. I've done this several times today, with groups of players peppering me with lasers, and I've had nothing to worry about.

I have no need to dodge fire apart from an anacondas enormous plasma accelerator. All forms of lasers or ballistics are no threat whatsoever.

When I contrast this with the state of PVP in Beta 1, for instance, I feel that it lacks some of the well... danger. Granted, Beta 1 had similar problems with vipers being uncatchable, but when two viper pilots or an anaconda were committed to fighting back then, I felt like it could get pretty intense due to the lack of a massive heal button, and the punishment weapons could dish out to careless pilot made you consider your moves carefully.

For instance,

* I had reason to fear an Anaconda's beam lasers
http://puu.sh/dKMXB/ceef06d53c.webm

* I couldn't just heal my shields after getting cocky and taking a full load of missiles to the face
http://puu.sh/dKN7b/891aa9e34a.webm

* And landing your shots was a [lethal, rewarding success, which could resolve a fight in a matter of moments
http://puu.sh/dKNge/e160359850.webm

But now, with weak weapons, and extremely powerful and almost unlimited defensive measures, combat has lost that exhilarating sense of danger to each encounter for me. Not only that, but it makes each battle a battle of attrition, and if a purely combat oriented cobra were to attack a peaceful multipurpose cobra, the multipurpose cobra would stand little chance of retaliating.

What do you guys think?

 

[Zaerion]

Shield cells need a cooldown or something , i just had my first pvp vs another viper and i almost made him use all the shield cells but he made it alive because he had 2 left and he charged FSD and bye... , long combats in pvp are amazing but ... plz... atleast put a 1 min CD for shield cell banks or maye make them use shield energy from the shield systems so you need to put more pips on sys to use them just like chafs.

 

[anikaiful]

Hey guys. With the event going on in Ho Hsi at the moment, and at other events such as Durius, Sorbago, etc, I've been getting my fair share of PVP lately. I've been having a lot of fun, but some things are really starting to bug me about the balance of things, mostly centering around how easy it is to not die.


As I'm sure most of you know at this point, you can buy a module for your ship, shield banks, which rapidly recharge your shields faster than anything except a direct hit by an anacondas Plasma Accelerator can damage them. Normally, I suppose you might have just one of these, a size 2 comes loaded with 5 uses of basically fully healing your shields.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-HG4MbSDzY

Pretty cool right? Well, what if you do this?
http://puu.sh/dKL1L/cd488b9d91.jpg
4 of them, I have 28 uses to basically heal myself entirely. There is no cooldown between uses. If I wanted to, I could add another 5 of them for 33 resets. In a Cobra, I can absorb fire from multiple vipers indefinitely. In all of my pvping, my shields haven't gone down once. And then once you add chaff to the mix, which makes homing missiles and gimbals useless, such a ship is essentially indestructible.

I find this undesirable, because it makes pvp essentially pointless. If both of the participants are geared similarly, it takes ages, and the fight is determined by who runs out of shield banks and chaff first. What it reminds me of is in Runescape, where pvpers would have an inventory filled with lobsters, which restored significant chunks of health instantaneously, basically turning each fight into an eating contest with both participants stuffing their gob with food until one ran out and had to run away.

So basically, since I have kitted myself out in such a way, I can waltz into a conflict zone with three player vipers and pick the opposite side of them with no concern. If things get hairy, I have enough shield banks and chaff to keep me perfectly fine, since weapon damage just... isn't that much, and it's highly, highly unlikely that someone would be able to pop my shields. I've done this several times today, with groups of players peppering me with lasers, and I've had nothing to worry about.

I have no need to dodge fire apart from an anacondas enormous plasma accelerator. All forms of lasers or ballistics are no threat whatsoever.

When I contrast this with the state of PVP in Beta 1, for instance, I feel that it lacks some of the well... danger. Granted, Beta 1 had similar problems with vipers being uncatchable, but when two viper pilots or an anaconda were committed to fighting back then, I felt like it could get pretty intense due to the lack of a massive heal button, and the punishment weapons could dish out to careless pilot made you consider your moves carefully.

For instance,

* I had reason to fear an Anaconda's beam lasers
http://puu.sh/dKMXB/ceef06d53c.webm

* I couldn't just heal my shields after getting cocky and taking a full load of missiles to the face
http://puu.sh/dKN7b/891aa9e34a.webm

* And landing your shots was a [lethal, rewarding success, which could resolve a fight in a matter of moments
http://puu.sh/dKNge/e160359850.webm

But now, with weak weapons, and extremely powerful and almost unlimited defensive measures, combat has lost that exhilarating sense of danger to each encounter for me. Not only that, but it makes each battle a battle of attrition, and if a purely combat oriented cobra were to attack a peaceful multipurpose cobra, the multipurpose cobra would stand little chance of retaliating.

What do you guys think?

I think this: balancing things based on PvP should never happen, unless game is pure PvP.

 

[Johnny Spaceboots]

I think this: balancing things based on PvP should never happen, unless game is pure PvP.

This isn't just pvp. But also applies to PVE. It's why Anaconda's are a trivial encounter. Combat in general is completely safe and lacking in riskiness, danger, or punishment for poor piloting skills when a player abuses shield cells. Defense is so extremely powerful right now, that offensive measures have no reliable method to penetrate them.

 

[DraigUK]

Should only allow 1 shield bank and it should have a 30 second cooldown on it's use, and that has nothing to do with balancing for PvP it applies equally to PvE.

 

[Remiel]

I think you just haven't come up against good enough pilots to take your shields down yet. Give it time.

 

[Hurlbag]

I've never used shield cell boosters yet, amazed to discover they don't even have a cooldown.. that's shockingly ridiculous. Sounds like going back to Diablo 2 PvP potion spamming to see who runs out first, hope they throw in a cooldown or at least a large overheat to prevent it from being spammed.

 

[anikaiful]

or at least a large overheat to prevent it from being spammed.

Cooldowns aren't really a "thing", except for FDS (I hate arbitrary cooldowns in about every game which have them). But something like supercharging shield regen would indeed call for heat issues, which I see as much better mechanic than some oddball cooldown timer.

 

[Johnny Spaceboots]

I think you just haven't come up against good enough pilots to take your shields down yet. Give it time.

I'd disagree. I'm not a particularly skilled pilot by any means, and I've been outmaneuvered plenty of times this week, to the point where I knew I was out of my league and ran away (easily, since I still had enough shield banks). The problem is that, so far, it seems to be almost mathematically impossible to down shields with shield banks on. The rate of recharge exceeds most ships maximum DPS output.

 

[anikaiful]

This isn't just pvp. But also applies to PVE. It's why Anaconda's are a trivial encounter. Combat in general is completely safe and lacking in riskiness, danger, or punishment for poor piloting skills when a player abuses shield cells. Defense is so extremely powerful right now, that offensive measures have no reliable method to penetrate them.

Ah... I tend to stop reading when a post has "PvP" mentioned, the rest of it going into TL;DR. Mainly because "balancing" something around something has ruined oh so many games. But now that you snapped me out of that, aye- defense is too easy. In this - like posted a bit above, we might want to take a peek at Mech Warrior, and heat issues...

 

[xxThe_Dice_manxx]

Said it before and I say it again, one shield cell module per ship,problem solved.

 

[Sargon]

Said it before and I say it again, one shield cell module per ship,problem solved.

I agree with you... No need for a cool down period. One shield cell per ship... Then the rest would be determined by other factors.

 

[Johnny Spaceboots]

Said it before and I say it again, one shield cell module per ship,problem solved.

I agree. I also think that either the recharge rate should be reduced, or the weapon damage should be increased slightly, more towards beta 1 levels (although the cannons shouldn't be so OP). You should still be able to pop somebodies shield, even if they're using a shield bank if you can land all of your shots.

 

[anikaiful]

I agree. I also think that either the recharge rate should be reduced, or the weapon damage should be increased slightly, more towards beta 1 levels (although the cannons shouldn't be so OP). You should still be able to pop somebodies shield, even if they're using a shield bank if you can land all of your shots.

I don't think the cannons are OP - I couldn't hit a barn with a cannon even if I was INSIDE the barn XD

 

[Alienami]

Another solution is to make Shield Batteries act as an extra energy buffer/capacitor, increasing your System's power bar, so you can divert power to other systems like weapons for larger periods of time. Also, limit it to one of these per ship... your choice is to then put in the biggest and best that your ship can handle, which is a bit more balanced.

The heat mechanic idea could work as well, but that would just make spamming Heat Sinks important and give a bigger combat edge to ships with more Utility racks, like Asp Explorer and above, which are tougher to kill anyway.

 

[Johnny Spaceboots]

I don't think the cannons are OP - I couldn't hit a barn with a cannon even if I was INSIDE the barn XD

Cannons in beta 1, not beta 2/afterwards, were somewhat OP compared to the rest of the weapons, to the point where you could take out a hauler in one well placed volley with them. I personally found that sort of combat, at least in vipers, back then to be pretty exciting, but it was somewhat excessive and needed tweaking. That said, I think that current cannons could use some tweaking as well.

 

[anikaiful]

The heat mechanic idea could work as well, but that would just make spamming Heat Sinks important and give a bigger combat edge to ships with more Utility racks, like Asp Explorer and above, which are tougher to kill anyway.

Why should there be balance in the first place tho? A quick ship can outmanouver the slow, but "tougher" anyhow.

 

[Sargon]

I don't think the cannons are OP - I couldn't hit a barn with a cannon even if I was INSIDE the barn XD

If you aim at the cows... you'll always hit the barn.. it's Murphy's Rule in Space..

 

[sgurr]

Johnny, did you know that B2 shield cells have 9 charges? See how many you can got on your cobra now

Imho they're broken as an implementation, even as a single charge they double shield strength with no real cost.

I'd be in favour of boosting shield strength by loading up whole shield generators, with the associated power and weight cost, our having a single charge shield cell occupy a weapon slot.
With something so powerful there needs to be a real power/weight/slot cost to their mitigate their benefit.

Even as a single charge they could trivialize what are supposed to be hard npc encounters.

Edit: I like alienami's first suggestion too, buff the capacitor, not the shield directly.

 

[SuBSynk]

Rail guns one shot shields even on a class 6/A. You obviously have not been fighting players/NPC's with superior firepower.