SCBs, boosters and the "Shield Meta": Still not OK

[fantasmic]

I haven't heard this one yet.

What about putting the SCB's on a recharge like the shields themselves? Instead of having them act like a pre-charged one-use burner device, make them act like they are literally a bank of deep cycle batteries onboard the ship that siphons off some power for a rainy day. So there's no one-shot charge for using them, and they will recharge over time in the field, but when your PP is already being taxed in a fight you're not going to be able to recharge the batteries effectively after you've used them once. Activate them, and however many you have all repair your shields at once. If you want to carry SCB's worth 300% of your shields, thats fine. You can charge yourself to 100% while sustaining rediculous fire for a few seconds, but then it's gone and there's no hope of recharging it until he fight is long over wheras if you had used a wimpier boost you could maybe eek out 2 shots by flying evasively.

That eliminates the problems of people stocking up 5 sets of SCB's for PvP without taking away the PvE motivation for them to have done so (staying power in the field), and if you really want a money-sink element to them then give them a hefty repair cost and have them degrade with every use (and be immune to reboot repairs) so you have to spend your money on maintaining them.

I'm sure it's too late for such a radical change, but that's what I would suggest for the shields.

As for the armor, well, I definitely agree that the internals need to be waayy better protected by armoring up than the external components, and if it's possible for the engine than I would love to see angles play a more prominant role in subsystem damage (I was actually under the impression that they did, but I haven't tested). There is no way I should be knocking out condas with 58% hull remaining unless I'm specifically using a penetrator like the railgun to snipe internals. I just feel bad for doing it even if I've been dominating the engagement.

 

[Na'Qan]

Very entertaining to read these... It's only a few months old and I think the stealth build is the answer.. for now...

 

[Kitiara]

Must say, I do think that the ease of targeting the power plant is silly. Were I designing a ship designed to be able to go into combat, that carried significant armour - the power plant would be at the centre of the ship, surrounded by thick armour to protect it from damage.

 

[FuzzySpider]

Agreed, the current armor upgrades are worthless, all they do is add unnecessary weight as they do not help protect subsystems. I'd like to see subsystem damage only after a certain hull % is dropped, armor upgrades increasing the % needed to be dropped.

As long as they can fix the armor/subsystem problem, I would definitely agree with dropping the current shield power along with the scb and sb. (keep them in game but scale them down somewhat)

I totally agree here.

I think SCBs are an idea that was monumentally terrible, and whomever is behind it should swallow their pride and admit the mistake. The fact that you can flip over to your module panel and turn them on and off makes it even worse. I've run into an Asp in my Anaconda and nearly been toasted. Why? Because that Asp seemed to have infinite shields. They just kept on coming back, and back, and back.

Any game where you can win by just filling your inventory with health potions and chugging at them is terrible. It basically becomes a cheat mode.

Adding powerplant headshots to the game is just the icing on the cake. It completely nulifies armour and hull reinforcement and makes the entire defense metagame about who can pack the most shields, with the most boosters, and who can flip the module tab fast enough to switch on/off SCBs.

 

[Rubbernuke]

I totally agree here.

I think SCBs are an idea that was monumentally terrible, and whomever is behind it should swallow their pride and admit the mistake. The fact that you can flip over to your module panel and turn them on and off makes it even worse. I've run into an Asp in my Anaconda and nearly been toasted. Why? Because that Asp seemed to have infinite shields. They just kept on coming back, and back, and back.

Any game where you can win by just filling your inventory with health potions and chugging at them is terrible. It basically becomes a cheat mode.

Adding powerplant headshots to the game is just the icing on the cake. It completely nulifies armour and hull reinforcement and makes the entire defense metagame about who can pack the most shields, with the most boosters, and who can flip the module tab fast enough to switch on/off SCBs.

Having recently discovered what you describe (scb switching), I agree with what you say. But, in places like violent protests, it's not uncommon to jump in and have nearly all enemy Ai shoot at you at once, and thus scb are a necessity to even jump out without firing a shot in anger.

 

[FuzzySpider]

Having recently discovered what you describe (scb switching), I agree with what you say. But, in places like violent protests, it's not uncommon to jump in and have nearly all enemy Ai shoot at you at once, and thus scb are a necessity to even jump out without firing a shot in anger.

Look at this guys idea.

 

[Rubbernuke]

Look at this guys idea.

Nice. It kind of feels like what the DDF was going on power management.

 

[Mephane]

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)

I totally agree with this from a PvE player's perspective as well. Just imagine if they ever made NPCs stack SCBs, too, it would be horrible.

 

[bendover]

The issue is to my mind some lmpatiant PVPers who are not killing ship as fast as they think they should,combat is not fun any more because its not happening as fast as i would like,well i really dont care, combat is only part of the game .I am sure CQC will be much better suited to a faster type of game play and whats better Its pure combat so every body is there for combat so its a win/win

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

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.

I somewhat agree but it is a tough one to balance imo.

It is a fine line because before SCBs etc , the "winner" in any non-consensual PvP was always the aggressor because you could fly up to a player - sometimes a green one in a conflict zone, and by shear weight of being the one to shoot in the back it was a certain "win".

But I do agree with you that as it stands now is too much imo. I have said in other threads, my solution would be 1 shield booster per ship and 1 SCB. Each SCB can only hold 1 charge but its capacitor can recharge off of main engines after the ships shields are full. IMO this gives players some chance to run from gankers, but without making every PvP affair who has the most amount of SCBs.

At the very least imo it would be worth a try by the beta testers.... but it would seem FD are happy with the status quo. It does not really effect me. I am not interested personally in PvP so i rarely bother with SCBs and when I do I only use 1 (a couple of my ships have them) but I can see those who actually like PvP having an issue with it and sympathise.

 

[Frenotx]

I agree that the current shield meta is really... dull. I don't want to see SCBs and boosters removed from the game, however. I propose that boosters suffer serious diminishing returns as you stack them. For instance, first booster: 20%, second booster: 10%; third booster: 5%, etc. As for the shield cell banks, I think my alterations laid out here would make them far more interesting.

Look at this guys idea.

Thanks for pimping my thread. Would love to see SCBs altered to work that way. I think it would add a lot to ship fitting and combat.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Look at this guys idea.

great minds and all that (or should that be idiots? ) but yeah I fully agree, at the very least it should be worth a trial in the beta group imo

 

[Mephane]

Thanks for pimping my thread. Would love to see SCBs altered to work that way. I think it would add a lot to ship fitting and combat.

Honestly, your idea is the best so far that preserves the idea of SCBs and the option to stacks SCBs with actual and sensible drawbacks while still getting rid of the SCB spam meta.

 

[CMDR Commander]

The whole scb chaining, double chaffing, PP headshotting, crazy gutamaya ramming techniques and constant boosting meta is incredibly sleazy. It's enough cheese to make 400 billion double cheese pizzas.
What happened to segmented shields anyway? One day they're on the to do list, then everyone forgets about them. They scrapped this idea or what?

 

[zeq]

Here is an idea. Not necessarily a good one, but an interesting one. What if we compensated for SCBs and shield boosters with equivalent slots for weaponry. Like a weapon overcharger as an internal slot, which increases the damage output of (laser?) weapons, and something like cooling systems, which increase the time it takes to empty the weapon coolant, as maybe a utility slot? Maybe a spare ammo pool as an internal slot or utility slot, which increases the ammunition of all weapons that have limited ammunition.
There are pretty much two merits I see to this. First, that it offers more damage to compensate for shield stacking, and second, that it offers an incentive to shield stack less with other alluring options.
The drawbacks, however, are numerous. Firstly, with how weak subsystems are currently, more damage stacking would just make things brutal for anyone the second their shields drop. It might have the effect of actually increasing the desire to shield stack. Some serious tweaking to shield/hull/subsystem health values could fix that, but then it likely has side effects on people who aren't damage stacking, especially people who can't afford to yet. This isn't so much fixing an poor mechanic as much as trying to counter it with another one.

Still, as I look back on it, the coolant pack and ammo box as utility slots are actually pretty cool ideas. I don't really think the overcharger can be justified in any way, and regardless of what happens, I think anything that works to make combat less shield centric is a step in the right direction. Changes to the way the subsystem damage works, either allowing ways to protect them, or reducing the severity of having them damaged feel like they are the first steps that need to happen. Reducing the shield values achievable would be the next one. Maybe compensate by increasing recharge rate while the shield is still up, making them about as tanky, but more susceptible to burst damage. Also, adding shield zones to larger ships, like they talked about so long ago would do wonders, as shields become less of a binary factor.

Actually, here is an interesting idea: what if shields started letting damage through after concentrated bursts. So a beam laser constantly hitting the shield, or a concentrated volley of hot lead, would start to bypass the shields and directly hit the hull and subsystems. It might be reduced some while the shield is still up, but shield up doesn't make you immune to hull damage anymore. If you want to avoid taking hull damage, you need to have a shield up, and not stay in the line of fire for very long. Perhaps the longer you remain under fire, the less damage reduction the shield grants. The idea being that while the shield as a whole remains up, it can't sustain itself in a local area under constant fire. In this way, perhaps rolling and twisting around could be effective to make sure the damage is spread out across the shield to minimize how much hits the hull.

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The whole scb chaining, double chaffing, PP headshotting, crazy gutamaya ramming techniques and constant boosting meta is incredibly sleazy. It's enough cheese to make 400 billion double cheese pizzas.
What happened to segmented shields anyway? One day they're on the to do list, then everyone forgets about them. They scrapped this idea or what?

Shield sections are probably scrapped, but know one knows anything about the DDA features anymore. They could still be coming, they could be long gone. FDev is tight lipped, and doesn't seem to want to say one way or another anytime soon. My guess is they still plan to do most of the DDA stuff, but not until years into their 10 year plan for the game. Shield segments, however, would be a significant rework to the system the currently have. I too would like to see them, but I don't think they are coming, at least, not anytime soon.

 

[aws357]

Are there many people out ther who think shields should not exist? Period.

It might seems trollastic, but shields are "scifi magic" when you think about it.

Shields are the space sim equivalent of the "rest until cured" epidemic that made FPS boring to play.

They are also the reason why 80% of ED arsenal is useless 50% of the time during a fight.

Armor is tangible and its effect are tangible on the gameplay.

Want a tank? Add armor. Go slow.

Want a scout? Go light. Go fast.

Shields are a bit like having your cake and eat it and **** the baker's wife.

Probably not the most popular opinion with scifi fans though...

 

[Stealth Gamer92]

Are there many people out ther who think shields should not exist? Period.

It might seems trollastic, but shields are "scifi magic" when you think about it.

Shields are the space sim equivalent of the "rest until cured" epidemic that made FPS boring to play.

They are also the reason why 80% of ED arsenal is useless 50% of the time during a fight.

Armor is tangible and its effect are tangible on the gameplay.

Want a tank? Add armor. Go slow.

Want a scout? Go light. Go fast.

Shields are a bit like having your cake and eat it and **** the baker's wife.

Probably not the most popular opinion with scifi fans though...

I think(like someone posted earlier in this thread) that shield's other than E & D class should be a luxury item and cost alot, with armor & bulkhead's being cheaper and better protecting your internal equipment.

 

[Commander Silex]

Raise the number of shots per SCB, greatly increase the power requirement and give it a warm up time that makes toggling them on and off preclusive to combat snap management. This ought to do a good job of making them a poor choice for anyone but non combat vessels, so the trader types get a higher survival chance whilst combat ships have more dynamic engagements with their counterparts.

 

[Renegade Roach]

Are there many people out ther who think shields should not exist? Period.

It might seems trollastic, but shields are "scifi magic" when you think about it.

Shields are the space sim equivalent of the "rest until cured" epidemic that made FPS boring to play.

They are also the reason why 80% of ED arsenal is useless 50% of the time during a fight.

Armor is tangible and its effect are tangible on the gameplay.

Want a tank? Add armor. Go slow.

Want a scout? Go light. Go fast.

Shields are a bit like having your cake and eat it and **** the baker's wife.

Probably not the most popular opinion with scifi fans though...

No, I'm totally with you on that. Shields are a cheap, unimaginative science-fantasy gimmick. The game would be vastly better without shields.

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I think(like someone posted earlier in this thread) that shield's other than E & D class should be a luxury item and cost alot, with armor & bulkhead's being cheaper and better protecting your internal equipment.

Cost doesn't work as a mitigating factor because credits are too easy to gain. It would also just reinforce the 'rich = win' paradigm which is bad for overall gameplay.

 

[woodhouse]

I also think that SCBs and SBs should be removed altogether and bulkheads should reduce armor penetration significantly.

It would already help a great deal if SCB's, chaff launchers, shield boosters and the like had a maximum of 1 per ship. FD could make that change today, because shield generators and fuel scoops are already limited to 1 per ship.