Power Play - Weapon balancing - Good job

[Ben Ryder]

So in summary: its good that these new modules are worthless, that way they don't effect balance... That's one of the dumbest things I've ever heard.

Why did you write it then? No one else said that. Summerize your own words Sir don't go putting words in to the mouths of others.

Looks like a lot of unhappy customers didnt get what they were hoping for when the opened the mystery prize.

Well I leave you chaps to it. Was hoping for some discussion on overall game balance but it seem people are still sore and need to vent and pick over details. Plenty of other threads for that kind of thing.

 

[yul7896]

A discussion of balance is still possible, keep fighting the good fight, Mr Ryder. Your enforcer cannon is better than my pulse disruptor!

 

[Ian Skippy]

Why did you write it then? No one else said that. Summerize your own words Sir don't go putting words in to the mouths of others.

Looks like a lot of unhappy customers didnt get what they were hoping for when the opened the mystery prize.

Well I leave you chaps to it. Was hoping for some discussion on overall game balance but it seem people are still sore and need to vent and pick over details. Plenty of other threads for that kind of thing.

It is just a generic MMO mentality: "I grinded a lot, I want big toys in return. If I dont get big toys, why would I have grinded in the first place?" It is the same mentality that relegates small ships to 'noob ships', causes people to be angry when their Python is killed by a Vulture and and causes people to be confused for what to do after reaching elite status in trading.

 

[jonny taco]

So in summary: its good that these new modules are worthless, that way they don't effect balance... That's one of the dumbest things I've ever heard.

lol, pretty much this.

 

[Ben Ryder]

A discussion of balance is still possible, keep fighting the good fight, Mr Ryder. Your enforcer cannon is better than my pulse disruptor!

The wonderful thing is I haven't even got one and the game play hasn't gone all skewed and what I read from no PP players seems like they are getting along just fine. I haven't read anyone one demand things being drastically dubbed down because new players and non PP players don't stand a chance against the new weapons. I haven't read anything saying one weapon is drastically superior in some kind of dooms day way, I've read that they are mostly smallish weapons that are a bit quirky. Ive read a lot of 'my god it's not amazing, it's useless, I wanted more for all my hard work!' threads and I'll leave it for those threads to get together with their pitchforks but for me and plenty of others the game goes on nicely and just to put it in to a bit of context, I'll have been rank 5 for 3 weeks and have done a total of 4 week power play, because it was fun and not for a mystery prize. I'm really happy the scales have not been tipped and a nice bunch of little quirk weapons have been added, especially as they are not worth defecting over. The game balance could have been ruined and thankfully, it wasnt.

 

[Rottcodd]

I don´t know what was the logic behind the pp "weapons" really. With the exception of the mining laser the imperial stuff is too pricey for beginners, and the prismatic shield can be useful for big ships unlike many pp weapons.

And a small fixed beam laser that can´t damage shields and the heat effect is of no use on npc:s...
I dunno who that can be useful for?
Shields >> armour and even more so in pvp since players tend to go for strong shields, and this weapon is useless outside pvp.

 

[Djinn144]

I agree that game balance is important but i have to also say playing/grinding PP for 4 weeks for that "enforcer cannon" only to get a small fixed Multi cannon has infact made me take a break from the game and play other games again for the first time in months (and no its not i didnt get something i wanted and took a tantrum, it was just the final nail in the coffin for me for a while). I had hoped something called a cannon would have been an actual cannon with higher projectile rate(slower reload). Out of all the powers 3 modules out of 10 ARE direct upgrades to exiting modules, 2-3 of the remaining 7 are at least are fun/interesting the rest are almost worthless, this is the reason so many PP players feel as they do and hence the amount of negative posts.

Still checking the forums every couple of days to see whats new.

 

[jou84]

I just took out the Enforcer Cannon on a cobra. 1 class two beam (gimballed) and 3 enforcer cannons (class 1 fixed). I can report that it does not kill big ships any quicker, in fact I run out of ammo very quickly shooting pythons. They may be a bit better on a ship which has its hardpoints less spread out than the cobra, but it is not my go to projectile weapon.

I too believed this would be a cannon. Just slow firing with a bit more power. And also available/practical for my vulture.

 

[CMDR Derrida]

I mean all the weapons (not the shield) It's not a weapon. Come on chaps. Stop with the knee jerk reactions.

He said JEHOVAH!!!

 

[Ceekay]

I have to side with Ben on this one although I appreciate that most of us were expecting an enhanced version of the current weapon types or something entirely new, however if Frontier had added new weapons with dps increases of more than 10% (or even 5%) then the majority of the player base would have eventually acquired them and ignored the existing weapons, then there'd be rants about no weapon choice .
I've seen this happen in modded versions of Freelancer, you end up with practically everyone tooling around in the same ship and weapon loadout so no one has the advantage they imagined the new weapon would bring and suddenly the NPC's become trivial cannon fodder (if they're that weak why bother having them?).
I haven't had a chance to try any of these weapons but lately I've been doing some mining and it seems to me that having a mining laser that can damage ships is a useful thing to have (after all the current mining laser is just dead weight in combat), or perhaps using the heat ray laser against ships that naturally run hot(like the Imperial Cooker (Courier ) could prove effective.

 

[Rottcodd]

or perhaps using the heat ray laser against ships that naturally run hot(like the Imperial Cooker (Courier ) could prove effective.

I have a courier and it has the strongest shields for a ship of its size, and since the heat ray laser isn´t causing any damage to shields... and to heat up the other ships the shields must be gone.

I can only see it being used as a sadistic terror weapon versus explorer ships that has ditched shields when they went out and visit Saggitarius A*, but now we are taking situational to a whole new level.

 

[GluttonyFang]

EDIT - to title. Power Play - The weapons have not ruined overall game balance

I think FD did a good job on the special weapons in power play.

It keeps the balance. They give some rewards to new players and small ship owners and rather than handing out large weapons that would make the divide between small ships and big ships even bigger - new players and part timers are not getting left further behind.

I'm looking forward to getting the enforcer cannon tomorrow. It would have been nice if it was a cannon and not a multi cannon but hey it's no big deal. I'm going to fit a couple on a cobra and have some fun.

EDIT - Just to save people ranting.

It's okay, but you've missed my point. My point is not about the grind (not even a little bit.. not even a tiny tiny bit), my point is simply about not dishing out large weapons and unbalancing the game. That's all I feel very sorry for those that didnt get the gun they want and hope they learn from this recent storm in a tea cup. It could easily have been much worse.

Um... Ben with all due respect, how do you justify the Imperial Hammer and Plasma Plus when compared to the Cytoscrambler?

I don't see a single bit of balancing.

Hammer comes in Medium and Plasma comes in Large.

If we set the standard of caring about small ships to be Medium hardpoints, why isn't the baseline of all weapons Medium class?

Also, how can it be any worse?

The Cytoscrambler was suppose to be a burst laser and we got a disco ball with no accuracy and extends no further than 500m, it's everything but a piracy specialized weapon. I would take the Hammer and Plasma over it any day for being much more practical.

I tried to see it from a non-complaining perspective, but I failed, terribly.

The PP weapons to me are either FDevs intentionally trying to troll players or something that was quickly scribbled onto paper and implemented with no play-testing against actual player and with professions and their interactions in mind.

 

[yul7896]

The PP weapons to me are either FDevs intentionally trying to troll players or something that was quickly scribbled onto paper and implemented with no play-testing against actual player and with professions and their interactions in mind.

Like I said, everyone at FDEV has either not played PowerPlay or they are all aligned with Imp factions. I cannot understand any other way to explain the current ridiculousness. It's almost like they're trying to get rid of all the Indy's and Fed's.

 

[Midian27]

Side grades would be fine. I think most were expecting side grade weapons that had interesting twists, what we got instead was mostly straight downgrades and a handful of useful modules. How is that balance? Yes its great they didn't break the game, but that's no excuse for making most of them useless.

 

[geoffrey.hdt]

The PP weapons to me are either FDevs intentionally trying to troll players or something that was quickly scribbled onto paper and implemented with no play-testing against actual player and with professions and their interactions in mind.

The Cyto/Disco/ sounds definitely like a bad joke. I still believe it could be tweaked to get somehow useful.
I do agree that some of these weapons should be available as class 2 as well as gimballed and turret version.

Now telling that FD has been trolling is a bit hard. Out of these 10 new toys, 2 are completely useless, 2 are not going to be used. The other ones are either alternative or slight upgrade coming with a drawback. So 6/10 is not a so bad score, right?
More details: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=164596

Oh and i am also pretty sad about Archon's fate...

 

[Ben Ryder]

Um... Ben with all due respect, how do you justify the Imperial Hammer and Plasma Plus when compared to the Cytoscrambler?

I don't see a single bit of balancing.

Hammer comes in Medium and Plasma comes in Large.

If we set the standard of caring about small ships to be Medium hardpoints, why isn't the baseline of all weapons Medium class?

Also, how can it be any worse?

The Cytoscrambler was suppose to be a burst laser and we got a disco ball with no accuracy and extends no further than 500m, it's everything but a piracy specialized weapon. I would take the Hammer and Plasma over it any day for being much more practical.

I tried to see it from a non-complaining perspective, but I failed, terribly.

The PP weapons to me are either FDevs intentionally trying to troll players or something that was quickly scribbled onto paper and implemented with no play-testing against actual player and with professions and their interactions in mind.

"Um... Ben with all due respect, how do you justify the Imperial Hammer and Plasma Plus when compared to the Cytoscrambler?"

No problem. I was hoping to talk about game balance in general in relation to the power play weapons. I'm not really interested in comparing the weapons. I think people have really got the wrong end of the stick with this thread. There are loads of weapon comparison threads and I was hoping for something a little different with this. A step back and looking at the much bigger picture.

 

[yul7896]

"Um... Ben with all due respect, how do you justify the Imperial Hammer and Plasma Plus when compared to the Cytoscrambler?"

No problem. I was hoping to talk about game balance in general in relation to the power play weapons. I'm not really interested in comparing the weapons. I think people have really got the wrong end of the stick with this thread. There are loads of weapon comparison threads and I was hoping for something a little different with this. A step back and looking at the much bigger picture.

In terms of overall game (PowerPlay) balance, I think FDEV seems to have missed the point in a specialty weapon for a pirate, and they seem to have buffed Empire specific combat abilities. The game is less balanced when speaking of these 3 weapons, and their in-game implementation, especially when considering their faction specific design status.

 

[LetoAtreides2]

You seem to miss the point of what people are saying about the weapons.

People aren't annoyed that the weapons weren't "all powerful" (we knew this from the start), but rather, that many are in fact downgrades from existing modules.

 

[andyraptor]

In terms of overall game (PowerPlay) balance, I think FDEV seems to have missed the point in a specialty weapon for a pirate, and they seem to have buffed Empire specific combat abilities. The game is less balanced when speaking of these 3 weapons, and their in-game implementation, especially when considering their faction specific design status.

You need to take the "special weapon" blinkers off and read through the faction briefs and attach yourself to the one that will benefit yourself and your own goals... the "special weapon" is just a bit of side fluff

it's the biggest mistake being made at the moment

 

[Ben Ryder]

You need to take the "special weapon" blinkers off and read through the faction briefs and attach yourself to the one that will benefit yourself and your own goals... the "special weapon" is just a bit of side fluff

it's the biggest mistake being made at the moment

Well said.

Power play is a tiny part of Elite. That could have messed up the balance with an arms race and so far it hasn't. I think that's a good thing.