Fer de lance and expected python nerf

[Max Rockatansky]

So..you should be communicating with colleagues WHAT you actually say to the public.

if you look closely at Sandy's post, very closely ... you will see that the little world 'only' is missing between 'dropping' and 'it's'


@Mike Evans
I love your posts. You don't take all the nonsensical moaning that happens on the forums !
You have my full support.

 

[CATPAIN KIRK]

I am a doctor, if I make a mistake a lot worse happens then people arguing on a forum...so not the best analogy; also the example stands, if I take a patient to surgery more than once for the same issue I will probably get sued, maybe my standards are too high but if I alone can diagnose, treat and sugically remove a potentially life threatening cancer, shouldn't an entire team be able to come up with a solution to balancing there game that isn't based on trial and error. And really, we are balancing ships because the python is "the ship to rule them all" when the professions are so off balance, trading right now is like a team of pythons against the cobra that Is bounty hunting or smuggling or piracy and the sidewinder that is expooration...but that isn't getting addressed...no let's nerf the python...red alert some people are whining that the Python is too tough... nerf it!

Actually, as much as I enjoy my python at the moment, I too thought it was too strong. There was no ship I was really striving for in the current roster and that was less than one month after release.

I'm sure the ships will need many more balancing passes and I disagree with the notion that a ship costing less than a single gun on a python should be able to stand a realistic chance against it and certainly not be able to obliterate it within seconds. I expect lots of moaning on the forums once wings have been introduced and dumbfire sidewinder gank squads finish off pythons in under a second.

On a less related note, I'm an internist and I'm convinced that no matter how evidence based our approaches and how good our intentions may be, we unfortunately make more mistakes than we realise.

 

[Xanador]

They have to make the vulture (the dedicated fighter ship) cheap, so that every viper pilot can afford it, otherwise this starts again, lol

To be constructive : The nerf for the shield is ok, currently it's stronger than the anaconda's - this is too much in my opinion. The mentioned -17% in agility is - I don't know, let's test it (expensive testing by the way ;-)). The -17% speed seems too much..., but I'm exited to test the new "stats".

 

[landario]

What you propose is - 1 ship to master them all. This is very wrong and makes the game boring. What's the purpose of having any other ship? Is it interesting to play if everyone flies the same ship because it outclasses all the rest?

And do you really believe that a much larger ship than a Viper/Sidewinder/Cobra should not have any problems in outmanoeuvring the smaller ships?

Your comparison is absolutely wrong. Bugatti is a car that is built for high speeds on the motorways and you would never use it to go to the nearby store for shopping, whereas you would use Mini for that purposes.

Hello,

you don't get what i try to tell you Aleksej. Right now. A fully decked out Viper with two beam Lasers and two DFires can take out an Elite Anaconda NPC without ANY problems. Try it ?

I assure you, you can do it. Now, if things go wrong you lose what when you die in a Viper ? 500k ? I guess less. Now...if things go bad and you die in a decked out Python ....how much you pay for that ? Or if you "scratch" your Python how much you pay for that ? Or if you refuel ? etc.

I don't even want to get into the "PVP" because let's face it, the "PVP" in this Game is not balanced or in any State to be called "PVP" anyway. The big Problem about Elite right now is the magic word "BALANCE" ! But to balance the Game you actually need to add CONTENT not to nerf existing things. That's just my two coppers. Right now, there is not even a point getting big ships like a Python. The whole Bulletin Board Mission design is such a joke that you can do anything it offers with a fully "no risk" Viper anyway. Why not add some Missions for bigger Ships ? Throw an Anaconda and some additional Ships at us and give us a greater Reward. As a Developer i have to ask myself how you can not add SIMPLE content additions which don't even need complicated coding to solve some of the obvious Problems.

And don't get me wrong i love the foundation of this Universe, but i think you have bigger Problems on your hands right now than "ships balancing"

Cheers

 

[Aleksej]

Hello,

you don't get what i try to tell you Aleksej. Right now. A fully decked out Viper with two beam Lasers and two DFires can take out an Elite Anaconda NPC without ANY problems. Try it ?

I assure you, you can do it. Now, if things go wrong you lose what when you die in a Viper ? 500k ? I guess less. Now...if things go bad and you die in a decked out Python ....how much you pay for that ? Or if you "scratch" your Python how much you pay for that ? Or if you refuel ? etc.

I don't even want to get into the "PVP" because let's face it, the "PVP" in this Game is not balanced or in any State to be called "PVP" anyway. The big Problem about Elite right now is the magic word "BALANCE" ! But to balance the Game you actually need to add CONTENT not to nerf existing things. That's just my two coppers. Right now, there is not even a point getting big ships like a Python. The whole Bulletin Board Mission design is such a joke that you can do anything it offers with a fully "no risk" Viper anyway. Why not add some Missions for bigger Ships ? Throw an Anaconda and some additional Ships at us and give us a greater Reward. As a Developer i have to ask myself how you can not add SIMPLE content additions which don't even need complicated coding to solve some of the obvious Problems.

And don't get me wrong i love the foundation of this Universe, but i think you have bigger Problems on your hands right now than "ships balancing"

Cheers

I'd like to see how you are going to complete a bulletin board mission which would require you to carry over 30-50 of cargo using a Viper, not to mention over 100t of cargo missions. Having a Python I have no troubles in earning far more money then it is required to maintain it with 0% chances of damaging my ship, not to mention destroying it. While destroying Elite Anaconda requires at least some effort and skill it does not require nor efforts nor skill if you do the same on Python. Having a Python Elite is absolutely safe for me.

And don't get me wrong i love the foundation of this Universe, but i think you have bigger Problems on your hands right now than "ships balancing"

I do not have any of these problems.

 

[Kongou]

Please provide a link to a shield cell modifications? I've searched for any indication on that matter but was not able to find anything.

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=86856&page=13&p=1555047&viewfull=1#post1555047

I believe this is it.

 

[Aleksej]

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=86856&page=13&p=1555047&viewfull=1#post1555047

I believe this is it.

Thanks. We'll see how this is going to affect the gameplay after all changes are made.

 

[BigBadB]

I am a doctor, if I make a mistake a lot worse happens then people arguing on a forum...so not the best analogy; also the example stands, if I take a patient to surgery more than once for the same issue I will probably get sued, maybe my standards are too high but if I alone can diagnose, treat and sugically remove a potentially life threatening cancer, shouldn't an entire team be able to come up with a solution to balancing there game that isn't based on trial and error.

As a doctor, I'm sure you appreciate that the reason that you can diagnose, treat and surgically remove a potentially life threatening cancer is because of the hundreds (if not thousands) of years of experience and learning by countless physicians, scientists and crazy amateurs who came before you, much of which involved a great deal of trial and error. (Trial and error being fundamental to the scientific method, after all.)

And even after all that, we're still a long way from understanding everything about the human body, how it works and how it goes wrong, and how to cure all the ailments that can befall it. Mistakes are stil made, and not every medical procedure goes as planned.

In contrast, computer gaming is little more than 30 years old, massively multiplayer online gaming is still in its infancy, and game design is still in the process of being recognised as a unique discipline in its own right. Gaming is also a highly subjective field, where the very thing that one player may enjoy the most about a given game is the exact same thing that another loathes.

Don't get me wrong, I am not in any way suggesting that medicine and game development are comparable fields, but the fact is we know a hell of a lot more about one of them than other, at this point. Doctors get years of training, and if they have a question about something, they normally have easy access to a vast body of acquired knowledge, either in the form of written material or more experienced doctors that they can turn to.

Most game designers are self taught, have to learn 'on the job' and if they run up against a problem that neither they nor their team has bumped into before, they generally have to work out how to handle it themselves.

And really, we are balancing ships because the python is "the ship to rule them all" when the professions are so off balance, trading right now is like a team of pythons against the cobra that Is bounty hunting or smuggling or piracy and the sidewinder that is expooration...but that isn't getting addressed...no let's nerf the python...red alert some people are whining that the Python is too tough... nerf it!

Erm, how do you know that things like profession balance aren't being worked on?

 

[zaccheus44]

Actually, as much as I enjoy my python at the moment, I too thought it was too strong. There was no ship I was really striving for in the current roster and that was less than one month after release.

I'm sure the ships will need many more balancing passes and I disagree with the notion that a ship costing less than a single gun on a python should be able to stand a realistic chance against it and certainly not be able to obliterate it within seconds. I expect lots of moaning on the forums once wings have been introduced and dumbfire sidewinder gank squads finish off pythons in under a second.

On a less related note, I'm an internist and I'm convinced that no matter how evidence based our approaches and how good our intentions may be, we unfortunately make more mistakes than we realise.

Ya everyone makes mistakes...that wan
Snt why I brought up the Dr thing, in fact I didn't someone else did and I stated it's a poor comparison because the stakes are higher.

My whole issue is with the absurd notion of balance, especially in a sim type game. A Boeing 747 has no chance against an apache, an apache has no chance against an f-22. Different things have different uses. Number one balancing ships based on half the ships available seems premature, especially when the primary professions earning potential are no where near balance. So no ultimate ship, that makes the game boring, that means there's an easy mode blah blah blah, but trading earning way more way faster way easier than any other peofession...fine...no easy mode there...it just reeks of poor planning and poor focus on what they are working on. Two I thought the python was a combat ship, ends up its an armed trading vessel, fine my mistake, it seems weird someone missed the mark so far when he designed it and no quality control caught it. Third, ya trial and error is a good balancing technique in some situations, for example when you don't know what your starting points are, or when you don't have a set goal in mind, or when you are designing your first few ships. We should be light years beyond the trial and error phase, we should know what we want a ship to do and have a pretty good idea of what the build can do by comparing it to other ships, then fine tune if things don't pan out right...I'll admit maybe my trial and error is another man's fine tuning and we'll just have to leave it at that...but J like the intimidation a python evokes...I fly an asp because I'm into exploration atm...but if I see a python when ever I return to populated systems with cmdr in front of his name my heart rate goes up...I really hope they don't take that away with the nerf bat, so I try to fight to keep the python strong, nerfs to a min and if things need balancing it should mostly come in the form of buffs in my opinion

 

[Vidicus]

I work with many doctors, and all of them know the difference in words like.. than, then, there, and their. Try again.... Doctor.

 

[Kadius]

Just because a ship can fit on a medium sized pad doesn't make it a medium ship as far as I'm concerned. That's just a bonus given its slimmer profile compared to the boxier traders. If the artists had made the type 7 a little slimmer or what have you they would be allowed to dock at medium pads too. The python has the stats of a large ship, can be heavy like a large ship and has the module customisation of a large ship.

I swear, if the only thing keeping the T7 off a medium landing pad are those damn fins.... *shakes angry fist*

 

[Ian Skippy]

if I see a python when ever I return to populated systems with cmdr in front of his name my heart rate goes up... [...]nerfs to a min and if things need balancing it should mostly come in the form of buffs in my opinion

Please consider what you just said and let me know if you still stand by that statement. I can understand the first part, I can understand the second part but the two just don't mix.

 

[Johnny Spaceboots]

Ya everyone makes mistakes...that wan
Snt why I brought up the Dr thing, in fact I didn't someone else did and I stated it's a poor comparison because the stakes are higher.

My whole issue is with the absurd notion of balance, especially in a sim type game. A Boeing 747 has no chance against an apache, an apache has no chance against an f-22. Different things have different uses. Number one balancing ships based on half the ships available seems premature, especially when the primary professions earning potential are no where near balance. So no ultimate ship, that makes the game boring, that means there's an easy mode blah blah blah, but trading earning way more way faster way easier than any other peofession...fine...no easy mode there...it just reeks of poor planning and poor focus on what they are working on. Two I thought the python was a combat ship, ends up its an armed trading vessel, fine my mistake, it seems weird someone missed the mark so far when he designed it and no quality control caught it. Third, ya trial and error is a good balancing technique in some situations, for example when you don't know what your starting points are, or when you don't have a set goal in mind, or when you are designing your first few ships. We should be light years beyond the trial and error phase, we should know what we want a ship to do and have a pretty good idea of what the build can do by comparing it to other ships, then fine tune if things don't pan out right...I'll admit maybe my trial and error is another man's fine tuning and we'll just have to leave it at that...but J like the intimidation a python evokes...I fly an asp because I'm into exploration atm...but if I see a python when ever I return to populated systems with cmdr in front of his name my heart rate goes up...I really hope they don't take that away with the nerf bat, so I try to fight to keep the python strong, nerfs to a min and if things need balancing it should mostly come in the form of buffs in my opinion

A 747, apache, and F-22 all occupy vastly different roles in which they excel. An Apache wouldn't even be attacking a 747 because it's an attack helicopter with only light defensive air-to-air capabilities.

The problem with the Python, and to an extent, all of the ships, is that they all pretty much occupy the same role right now. You either trade in them or you fight in them, they can all do the same things as the other, just more or less effective. The Python just so happened to be the best at all kinds of combat instead of excelling at a certain kind of combat, while also being great at trading, or exploring.

They need to really define the roles and advantages of ships a bit more, and give them a reason to be used even after you have tons of money instead of everybody just flying type-9's and anacondas for trading and combat.

Otherwise they have a bunch of assets that are basically wasted. Very early in the game, sidewinders, haulers, eagles, adders, vipers etc just become useless stepping stones to objectively superior ships. Maybe I'd like a reason or a situation that calls for flying a sidewinder at some point past the first hour again. Make the ships a bit more interesting than just being tiers, for heavens sake.

 

[zaccheus44]

As a doctor, I'm sure you appreciate that the reason that you can diagnose, treat and surgically remove a potentially life threatening cancer is because of the hundreds (if not thousands) of years of experience and learning by countless physicians, scientists and crazy amateurs who came before you, much of which involved a great deal of trial and error. (Trial and error being fundamental to the scientific method, after all.)

And even after all that, we're still a long way from understanding everything about the human body, how it works and how it goes wrong, and how to cure all the ailments that can befall it. Mistakes are stil made, and not every medical procedure goes as planned.

In contrast, computer gaming is little more than 30 years old, massively multiplayer online gaming is still in its infancy, and game design is still in the process of being recognised as a unique discipline in its own right. Gaming is also a highly subjective field, where the very thing that one player may enjoy the most about a given game is the exact same thing that another loathes.

Don't get me wrong, I am not in any way suggesting that medicine and game development are comparable fields, but the fact is we know a hell of a lot more about one of them than other, at this point. Doctors get years of training, and if they have a question about something, they normally have easy access to a vast body of acquired knowledge, either in the form of written material or more experienced doctors that they can turn to.

Most game designers are self taught, have to learn 'on the job' and if they run up against a problem that neither they nor their team has bumped into before, they generally have to work out how to handle it themselves.


Erm, how do you know that things like profession balance aren't being worked on?

Fair enough the professions maybe getting worked on and balanced and we may not be hearing about it because the Squeeky wheel gets the grease and all that, all we can do is wait and see I guess, I like the game just not the type of person that's going to sit and wait, sometimes it helps motivate people if you point out the problem. Ya there are world's of difference between medicine and game design, you'll notice I said it wasn't a good analogy, and it wasn't my analogy...so I'm not really going to defend a pretty poor analogy, my point just was if it was clear what they wanted the ship to do when they designed it shouldn't need all that heavy handed of a nerf....I don't know how the nerf will actually pan out but Aleksej stared their process is heavy nerf then heavy buff then tweak rinse and repeat until you get to where you want. That is an awful way to manage balancing your game once it's released...it's lazy at best, incompetant at worst

 

[remosito]

33% is huge. It will be a sitting duck. It will be nothing more than a trading ship with better guns than a type 7. They should rename the game Elite Trading

I think not, but I think maybe you need to learn to fly if that is what you think....

it will still be a force to be reckoned with in the hand of somebody who knows what he's doing. But it ain't gonna turn a noob into a steamrolling everything demigod..

... and before you ask, nope, not an ace meself, barely beyond sucky. but glad they'll tune the iwin button down

 

[zaccheus44]

I work with many doctors, and all of them know the difference in words like.. than, then, there, and their. Try again.... Doctor.

Ya doctors never make typos...

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

A 747, apache, and F-22 all occupy vastly different roles in which they excel. An Apache wouldn't even be attacking a 747 because it's an attack helicopter with only light defensive air-to-air capabilities.

The problem with the Python, and to an extent, all of the ships, is that they all pretty much occupy the same role right now. You either trade in them or you fight in them, they can all do the same things as the other, just more or less effective. The Python just so happened to be the best at all kinds of combat instead of excelling at a certain kind of combat, while also being great at trading, or exploring.

They need to really define the roles and advantages of ships a bit more, and give them a reason to be used even after you have tons of money instead of everybody just flying type-9's and anacondas for trading and combat.

Otherwise they have a bunch of assets that are basically wasted. Very early in the game, sidewinders, haulers, eagles, adders, vipers etc just become useless stepping stones to objectively superior ships. Maybe I'd like a reason or a situation that calls for flying a sidewinder at some point past the first hour again. Make the ships a bit more interesting than just being tiers, for heavens sake.

I 100% agree with you. I know nothing of real world combat...sorry if the Apache was a bad example....still balancing 15 ships in a game that's meant to have 30, where only 2 are combat ships, 4 are multilevel and the rest are trade vessels...well I guess the orca is a luxury vessel whatever that means in a game with no luxury economy...it's folly to try and balance them now...

 

[Shanaeri]

To add some facts into the discussion. These are the actual changes proposed to the Python https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=102717&page=5&p=1593196&viewfull=1#post1593196

I've put them in a table and worked out the actual % reduction. As you can see there are some significant changes, esp to speed, pitch and roll. It's also pretty easy to see how new python will fly. Just fit lesser specification thrusters that give pretty much the same reduction as the below and fit a D5 shield to match the shield strength. Make of the below what you will

		From	To	% reduction
Base Shield Health		390	360	7.69
0 Pips to engines
Maximum Speed		160	140	12.50
Max Boosted Speed		280	220	21.43
Max Forward Acceleration		32	30	6.25
Max Retro Acceleration		19	18	5.26
Max Transverse Acceleration		19	16	15.79
MaxPitchRate		30	22	26.67
MaxRollRate		100	90	10.00
4 Pips to engines
Maximum Speed		250	200	20.00
Max Boosted Speed		330	280	15.15
Max Pitch Rate	38	27	28.95

 

[darshu]

Whinge whinge whinge, moan moan moan etc. Doesn't really inspire us to take what you're saying seriously.

Anyway I don't recall ever saying exactly what I was going to do to address the fact that the python is way better than I intended it to be so chill out, step back and think rationally for a second. -33% to base shield strength is a minor change. No one is going to be suddenly exploding where they were once owning because of that. The game has all the tools available to you to ensure that your shields never get low enough to even fail so if you expect you were always just about to lose your shields in your python before you won the fight yet again then perhaps you want to invest in some more shield cells, a better generator or ensure you're not just taking that many hits.

Wow... I'm sure you don't care but you just lost my respect. To talk to a customer like that for expressing his opinion in a public forum? He is as well as others are shocked but that's to be expected with the severe lack of communication with your player base.
Your not at home typing in some random forum your at work. Maybe next time someone is shocked by surprise content or balancing you can treat them with respect like a professional is supposed to.

I fully expect to get flamed by white knights but it wont change that i AM right...

"I don't think I should be professional" ~Mike Evans

 

[remosito]

...it's folly to try and balance them now...

makes sense to me to remove the uber-fighter medium ship capabilities from a multipurpose ship that should never have had those. in preparation of introducing a real focused medium fighter that will take over that role.

I do not believe the recent fer-de-lance sneak peek is a coincidence...

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

To add some facts into the discussion. These are the actual changes proposed to the Python https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=102717&page=5&p=1593196&viewfull=1#post1593196

I've put them in a table and worked out the actual % reduction. As you can see there are some significant changes, esp to speed, pitch and roll. Make of it what you will

		From	To	% reduction
Base Shield Health		390	360	7.69
0 Pips to engines
Maximum Speed		160	140	12.50
Max Boosted Speed		280	220	21.43
Max Forward Acceleration		32	30	6.25
Max Retro Acceleration		19	18	5.26
Max Transverse Acceleration		19	16	15.79
MaxPitchRate		30	22	26.67
MaxRollRate		100	90	10.00
4 Pips to engines
Maximum Speed		250	200	20.00
Max Boosted Speed		330	280	15.15
Max Pitch Rate	38	27	28.95

I thought 30% reduction in shields, not 30!

only 30 would hardly make a difference!

edit: checked the link you included and you copied wrong. base shield now is 260, not 360 as you have in table!

 

[DYSEQTA]

You've obviously not been on this forum for long but you're both right and I shouldn't write posts with that tone (even if in my head it seemed perfectly in jest and typical of a Mike Evans post).

I disagree, I don't think they were right at all.

This belief that being a customer gives one the right to be abusive and obnoxious without consequence, where the "professional" is expected to take said abuse as part of their job is just disgusting.

I found your post refreshing and appropriate considering the context, regardless of whether you meant it in jest or not.