PvP combat used to be exciting, skill-based and risky.
Now it seems that the most important skill is knowing when to activate shield cell banks, and how many your ship has fitted. Fights nowadays seem to be minutes of attrition followed by whoever loses their shields first fleeing.
Compare that to Beta, when you had canopies cracking, thrusters and weapons sparking, and one wrong move leading to your death. A true seat of the pants experience, that made me fall in love with Elite.
I struggle to recapture that feeling. I feel forced to use SCBs to be viable in PvP, and it makes combat a slow slog rather than a death-defying duel. It's making me lose in combat, and the game in general.
We've come too far from the "solid base" of combat gameplay that we once had. Big changes were added seemingly without regards to balance, most notably Shield Cell Banks but also Shield Boosters, the current state of Railguns, the pre-nerf Python, and the power of the Fer-de-Lance and the Vulture's shields.
Are the devs still testing and balancing PvP combat on an iterative basis? I doubt it, judging by the former examples.
Of course, you may disagree with me. It'd be interesting to see how the rest of the community feels.
(and please no anti-PvP trolling. Too many other PvP balance threads have been derailed by the whole Solo vs Open debate)
Now it seems that the most important skill is knowing when to activate shield cell banks, and how many your ship has fitted. Fights nowadays seem to be minutes of attrition followed by whoever loses their shields first fleeing.
Compare that to Beta, when you had canopies cracking, thrusters and weapons sparking, and one wrong move leading to your death. A true seat of the pants experience, that made me fall in love with Elite.
I struggle to recapture that feeling. I feel forced to use SCBs to be viable in PvP, and it makes combat a slow slog rather than a death-defying duel. It's making me lose in combat, and the game in general.
We've come too far from the "solid base" of combat gameplay that we once had. Big changes were added seemingly without regards to balance, most notably Shield Cell Banks but also Shield Boosters, the current state of Railguns, the pre-nerf Python, and the power of the Fer-de-Lance and the Vulture's shields.
Are the devs still testing and balancing PvP combat on an iterative basis? I doubt it, judging by the former examples.
Of course, you may disagree with me. It'd be interesting to see how the rest of the community feels.
(and please no anti-PvP trolling. Too many other PvP balance threads have been derailed by the whole Solo vs Open debate)
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