Giving all players multiple easy escape techniques, just makes the game boring and combat(pvp, or pve, for that matter) pointless.
Spit-balling ideas to fix and balance PvP
- Thread starter Daffan
- Start date
Splitting my response to give thoughts on pirating and PVP since I regard them as two entirely different things:
Pirating:
There seems to be the theme across all discussions I've been in where pirates say "Pirating is too hard" and traders say "Pirates are too powerful".
Looking at the cause and not the symptom It would seem that the main problem is 99% of traders won't stop and drop cargo for pirates, they submit and run to Supercruise/hyperspace.
Why do they do this. Because any enemy ship can boil them up in less than 30 seconds since trade ships are terrible for combat & defence making running or stopping the only option.
I refer people to my post in this thread about "honourable pirates" who don't destroy ships they don't have to. I'd stop and drop cargo but I have no idea if the player interdicting is "honourable" or some psycho out for target practice. Give traders a way of seeing how bloodthirsty a player is (possibly show number of player kills next to their name) and I think we will see that pirating becomes much more reasonable all around...
Yes the hyperspace exploit/bug/whatever not taking masslock into account should be fixed but I think the submitting and running should be a legit tactic for avoiding "bloodthirsty players".
Make it too easy to escape (like it is now) and there will be almost no pirates since its not a viable profession.
Make it too hard to escape and the only people left in Open will be those with 150mil A rated combat ships, no one left to pirate.
Looking at the cause and not the symptom It would seem that the main problem is 99% of traders won't stop and drop cargo for pirates, they submit and run to Supercruise/hyperspace.
Why do they do this. Because any enemy ship can boil them up in less than 30 seconds since trade ships are terrible for combat & defence making running or stopping the only option.
I refer people to my post in this thread about "honourable pirates" who don't destroy ships they don't have to. I'd stop and drop cargo but I have no idea if the player interdicting is "honourable" or some psycho out for target practice. Give traders a way of seeing how bloodthirsty a player is (possibly show number of player kills next to their name) and I think we will see that pirating becomes much more reasonable all around...
Yes the hyperspace exploit/bug/whatever not taking masslock into account should be fixed but I think the submitting and running should be a legit tactic for avoiding "bloodthirsty players".
Make it too easy to escape (like it is now) and there will be almost no pirates since its not a viable profession.
Make it too hard to escape and the only people left in Open will be those with 150mil A rated combat ships, no one left to pirate.
combat on the other hand will get more interesting now shields don't insta-recharge in supercruise. It will be much easier to chase players and finish them off if they run after their shields drop. If they fix the hyperspace masslock bug/exploit/whatever I think it will be pretty decently balanced again.
A possible future addition could be an FSD blocker with a single charge and high cost like a torpedo which stops all FSD's inside 2km or so for 15 seconds (limit it to 1 per ship like the shield generator).
I don't think that would be OP since any fast ships can escape outside 2km and run away as they should be able to. For any slow ships 15 seconds isn't too long to hold out and try and escape yet it allows people to stop enemies running as soon as their shields drop.
A possible future addition could be an FSD blocker with a single charge and high cost like a torpedo which stops all FSD's inside 2km or so for 15 seconds (limit it to 1 per ship like the shield generator).
I don't think that would be OP since any fast ships can escape outside 2km and run away as they should be able to. For any slow ships 15 seconds isn't too long to hold out and try and escape yet it allows people to stop enemies running as soon as their shields drop.
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As I said - I don't think there is a one size fits all answer.
If you effectively nerf all escape avenues making it a fight to the death then that could work for the pirate v bounty hunter scenario.
But for the pirate v trader it basically means the traders lose 95% of the time (yes it's a totally made up %). Why would traders bother going into a scenario the game has coded they will lose - every time?
I'd like to add a point to the mix:
Remove the ability to shoot out the power plant. It makes the game lean too heavily to shields and makes armour pretty pointless. Sure I use it all the time too but I don't feel it adds enough to combat to make up for what it prevents. It would be good if armour mods strengthened modules too.
Remove the ability to shoot out the power plant. It makes the game lean too heavily to shields and makes armour pretty pointless. Sure I use it all the time too but I don't feel it adds enough to combat to make up for what it prevents. It would be good if armour mods strengthened modules too.
Agreed - it makes it so that shields, boosters and SCBs are the only really important (defensive) things.
Once they're gone you have no protection for your modules and you don't even know easily which ones are being targeted and dropping health without faffing around in the side panels whilst you're being shredded even more.
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Agreed. Sure, some times the interdictor turns out to be a decent pirate who actually gives you a chance to escape by dropping some cargo, which is a fun experience - a reason in itself for a trader to go "open". The times you get interdicted by someone who just blows up your obviously inferior ship, it's just frustrating.
The way I see it, "fixing" trader/pirate-interaction needs to focus on the stuff happening BEFORE the interdiction - once the interdiction sequence is activated, the interdictor has basically won anyway as winning the interdiction minigame in a T9 is impossible.
The most fun I'll have in open as a trader is the "cat and mouse" thing you'll get when Community Goal systems become congested with pirates actively going after you. Staying in SC from the star until you reach the destination is guaranteed to get you interdicted (esp as you slow down upon approaching the destination), and if you're flying a "space truck" (T9), there's no point in fighting the interdiction - you'll lose no matter what. So you need to find an approach that minimises the risk of interdiction. At the moment, the most effective way is the emergency dropout "bunny hopping" (considered an exploit by some, but really the only option a trader has when pirates are clustering the CG destination). IMO, the focus here should be on strategy - give traders real options to approach destinations in relative stealth, and give pirates realistic means to counter this. And do this in a way that ensures success or failure is determined by brainwork and strategy, not unimaginative mini-games like the interdiction mini-game.
Weapon size modifiers are fine as is.
There are numerous ways to protect your power plant (moving is a good start), and I don't feel any change is necessary, or particularly desirable, other than allowing armored bulkheads to reduce weapon penetration by a modest amount. This would in turn make hull reinforcements useful, as the hull would absorb proportionally more damage.
I feel that submitting and other graceful exits from SC should retain a faster FSD cooldown than forced drops. However, I think masslock should be adjusted a bit, and should apply to hyperspace jumps as well as entering SC. Masslock is too binary at the moment and I like to see it's magnitude depend on range; the closer the distance the more profound the effect, possibly with a greater maximum range (though at low factors) than is currently possible.
I'm fairly indifferent to the logout timer, though detailed connection telemetry needs to be logged and patterns of disconnections during combat needs to flagged, reviewed, and if found to be intentional, punished harshly.
I don't have enough experience with wake scanner to really comment on them at this time.
Supercruise maneuverability being tied to the normal flight model of the craft never made much sense to me. Personally, I'd like to see SC manuverability and manuverability in normal flight be completely decoupled. All ships should either behave the same in SC, or should have speed and maneuverability based on their FSD vs. their mass.
There are numerous ways to protect your power plant (moving is a good start), and I don't feel any change is necessary, or particularly desirable, other than allowing armored bulkheads to reduce weapon penetration by a modest amount. This would in turn make hull reinforcements useful, as the hull would absorb proportionally more damage.
I feel that submitting and other graceful exits from SC should retain a faster FSD cooldown than forced drops. However, I think masslock should be adjusted a bit, and should apply to hyperspace jumps as well as entering SC. Masslock is too binary at the moment and I like to see it's magnitude depend on range; the closer the distance the more profound the effect, possibly with a greater maximum range (though at low factors) than is currently possible.
I'm fairly indifferent to the logout timer, though detailed connection telemetry needs to be logged and patterns of disconnections during combat needs to flagged, reviewed, and if found to be intentional, punished harshly.
I don't have enough experience with wake scanner to really comment on them at this time.
Supercruise maneuverability being tied to the normal flight model of the craft never made much sense to me. Personally, I'd like to see SC manuverability and manuverability in normal flight be completely decoupled. All ships should either behave the same in SC, or should have speed and maneuverability based on their FSD vs. their mass.
I disagree with this entire concept. Each ship should fill a role depending on it's loadout, and each ship should have some measure of viability. An Anaconda set up for trading should be able to be interdicted by a wing of 3 Eagles, disabled, and have it's cargo hatch torn off and lose it's load. It doesn't matter that the Anaconda is higher on the chain and costs more money, he's out there trading with no Interceptor support and no light Frigate set up to fight smaller craft.
Though you can set up your Anaconda to be effective against smaller craft (Size 1 Turrets, for example... this would require a turret/gimbal rebalance that decreases tracking speed based on weapon size), this should make you much easier prey for a larger craft if that's what you go up against.
The whole system should be set up so that the most effective wing is one made up of multiple ships types with multiple roles as determined by their loadout.
There are many things that need to go into it; protecting certain interior modules with hull reinforcement while making exterior modules like drives, cargo hatches, weapons etc. as vulnerable as they are now to make disabling of ships equal to the current Time To Kill and increasing the TTK to destroy larger vessels, while simultaneously decreasing the effectiveness of multiple SCBs.
This. So much this.
The weapons system needs to be rebalanced so you need to use an appropriate weapon against an appropriate target. multicannons should be useless against large ships, and cannons useless against small.
Class 3 or 4 gimballed and turrets should have a hard time hitting small ships, but be accurate vs large ships. Equally, class 1/2 gimballs and turrets should be able to hit all targets, but only really effectively damage small ones.
Then you have different weapon types. Going up against large ships? Cannons, dumbfire missiles, plasma etc. all should bypass the 'small hardpoint' damage debuff because they're designed to be used against big ships. They're already difficult to use vs small ships, and with the gimball/turret changes suggested above, it would be near impossible to hit a small ship with them. Because they're designed to counter big ships.
Equally, multicannons and class 1/2 lasers should have minimal effect on large ships.
I'm not saying one eagle should be able to take down an anaconda. even if the anaconda had only cannons, plasmas or dumbfires and the eagle had plasmas. He shouldn't be able to hit the eagle, but the eagle wouldn't be able to drain his shields fast enough. Stalemate. But a wing of 3 eagles with plasmas vs same target? That's where things get interesting...
I also think Armour should be taken into account when shooting the power plant, or other internal subsystems. But that's another arguement.