Goodbye Open til SCB issue is sorted

[SandTrout]

Let me reframe this: If I wanted long, drawn-out fights that were determined by resource management rather than pilot tactical skill, I'd still be playing EvE.

I don't want to play something that amounts to Eve without an economy, player-owned infrastructure, community support tools, or significant content.

 

[Kastor]

'Everyone' is going to get slaughtered without contest by any real threat. This issue is not a symptom of SCBs, it's a problem with the AI. Petition to bring SJA back, not reduce/remove SCBs.

I meant in PVP. When using SCBs in PvE players just curb stomp the AI regardless of strategy.

In PvP the most successful strategy is for the bigger ship to just full reverse and keep firing on target as it doesn't care about return fire because of SCBs. Hence, the slugfest you may keep hearing about.

- - - Updated - - -

Let me reframe this: If I wanted long, drawn-out fights that were determined by resource management rather than pilot tactical skill, I'd still be playing EvE.

I don't want to play something that amounts to Eve without an economy, player-owned infrastructure, community support tools, or significant content.

This guy gets it, couldn't agree more.

 

[Durden T.]

I guess someone should already have come up with this but: What about only allowing one SCB module installed per ship? Like the shield generator itself.

That way you'll ensure a maximum of 3 or 4 recharges per ship, both PvP and PvE, and the fight would be more equal.

Another idea would be to have an energy consumption penalty whenever you install more than one module.

Just some thoughts...

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Actually, I believe PvE is more broken and unchallenging than PvP.
Do you want to unify the experience?

I am all for improving the AI for PvE battles, that is not what I said (at least it is not what I meant) BUT the answer to this is not to let the AI simply install SCBs up the wazzo imo

 

[CaptainKremmen]

When it comes to PvP stuff, I'm with Jack Schitt, who posted this in the (recently closed) parallel SCB discussion...

Every time I watch an "epic PvP battle" video on YouTube that turns out to be ten minutes of face-tanking interspersed with right-panel module clickery, my heart sinks a little further. That wonderful, versatile combat model reduced to a drawn out game of chicken. Solely because of multiple SCBs.

Indeed, when I load up a YT vid of two skilled CMDRs fighting and see them both firing off cells (and cycling through multiple banks), I invariably start clicking forward on the red timeline control... trying to find the point after all the spammage.

Seriously, even the FA Off stuff, when pilots are holding fixed multicannons on target in reverse without stabilisation... even those vids are boring for me to watch when they just go on and on and on with endless banks being cycled.

 

[Asrar]

Mmhhh,

i like the SCB how they are atm.. As soon you fly a more expensive ship and you fit in total 4 scb and turn 2 of them off to have 10 shield filling boosts in total, you feel that you sitting in a more expensive ship.
6 month ago you had no reason what so ever to change ship from an 300k ship to an 30mio or even higher ship.. the scb didnt use any grid compared to now so you could fit on every ship max scb.. they didnt heat that much by firing them.
today you need to manage them.. they make the difference between a pvp/merc fit and a pve/mission fit, or just a lousy i fit with no plan what so ever fitting..

if you get punished with a lousy fit by a pvp fit and you took the fight instead of high waking out, why you need to cry about "you just had 4x 140mj and he had like 10-15x 300+mj"
you wont drive a car race with 50 horse power when you opponent has 500 and expecting to win with your eco CO2 car.. its just the same.

sure there are some psychos out there but from the point on where you have a ship properly fitted and you submit to an interdiction you wont die if you high wake out.

 

[mugendo]

The op already uses the solution......log into solo.

 

[CaptainKremmen]

Mmhhh,

i like the SCB how they are atm.. As soon you fly a more expensive ship and you fit in total 4 scb and turn 2 of them off to have 10 shield filling boosts in total, you feel that you sitting in a more expensive ship.
6 month ago you had no reason what so ever to change ship from an 300k ship to an 30mio or even higher ship.. the scb didnt use any grid compared to now so you could fit on every ship max scb.. they didnt heat that much by firing them.
today you need to manage them.. they make the difference between a pvp/merc fit and a pve/mission fit, or just a lousy i fit with no plan what so ever fitting..

if you get punished with a lousy fit by a pvp fit and you took the fight instead of high waking out, why you need to cry about "you just had 4x 140mj and he had like 10-15x 300+mj"
you wont drive a car race with 50 horse power when you opponent has 500 and expecting to win with your eco CO2 car.. its just the same.

sure there are some psychos out there but from the point on where you have a ship properly fitted and you submit to an interdiction you wont die if you high wake out.

500hp won't do it. All the pro "racers" have 25 bottles of nitrous oxide as well as that base 500hp...

Turning up with only 10 large bottles of nitrous oxide? lol, weak. Vin Diesel will make fun of you.


Gak, nooooo, I've fallen into a CAR ANALOGY! Help me, please help me!

 

[Genar-Hofoen]

When it comes to PvP stuff, I'm with Jack Schitt, who posted this in the (recently closed) parallel SCB discussion...



Indeed, when I load up a YT vid of two skilled CMDRs fighting and see them both firing off cells (and cycling through multiple banks), I invariably start clicking forward on the red timeline control... trying to find the point after all the spammage.

Seriously, even the FA Off stuff, when pilots are holding fixed multicannons on target in reverse without stabilisation... even those vids are boring for me to watch when they just go on and on and on with endless banks being cycled.

Indeed.

I'm no PvP'er, but even I can tell when Something Has Gone Awry with the gameplay.

I've watched quite a few of those PvP videos and they all have a common theme;

1) Spam SCB's, when bank is finished, quickly power that down and power up new bank.

2) Repeatedly try to ram the opponent in the vague hope that their shields will go down faster.

3) At the same time splay opponent with shield-depleting weapons, again in the vague hope that opponent's shields go down faster than yours.

4) Stalemate for 10-15 minutes because both players are using the first three tactics.

Eventually both opponent's SCB's are drained and then the fight reverts back to what it would have been had SCB's not existed in the first place - i.e. who has the best piloting skill combined with who has the best power & heat management skill.

 

[Scudmungus]

When it comes to PvP stuff, I'm with Jack Schitt, who posted this in the (recently closed) parallel SCB discussion...



Indeed, when I load up a YT vid of two skilled CMDRs fighting and see them both firing off cells (and cycling through multiple banks), I invariably start clicking forward on the red timeline control... trying to find the point after all the spammage.

Seriously, even the FA Off stuff, when pilots are holding fixed multicannons on target in reverse without stabilisation... even those vids are boring for me to watch when they just go on and on and on with endless banks being cycled.

Truth. Choosin de only option nah smart nah rewardin choice.

Borin. Borin to play. Borin to watch. No creativity.

Dem sayin, 'But SCB choosin Cmdr! Dem choosin fight! Smart choosin! Betta fightin!' HA!

Remindin mi. Dat experiment wid Monopoly. Dem give 2 guys dice - Guy A 2 dice. Guy B 1 dice.

Den dey play. Suprise! 2 Dice winnin.

Yuh tell mi now. Guy 1 or Guy 2 be crowin? Actin like dey smarter. Betta. Winna? HA!

Game loaded fram de start. Battle alredi won. No choice here. Only ego an boostin.

Aal de rest respectin. Recognizin truth. SCB - borin. Needin change.

More options so wi gat to tink - reaaaaaly tink - wat dem oders may be packin!

Livin tings up Frontier! Addin ickle spice! Aal gud!

"..but mi choosin fight! Mi smart!"

HA! Yuh dull mon. Borin be an dull!

 

[Maelkhor]

What would everyone think of a single module that would dump all the energy of the SYS capacitor into the shields with one button press similar to what boost does for ENG? Get rid of the shield cell banks all together. The power distributor would scale well with the size of the ship and its shields.

Or does that make too much sense?

You have my +1 sir, this would be coherent, would add a new layer of tactical depth on power management.
So players who love the health potion oriented combat would still be happy, but it would need to take power management into consideration, and put defense on par with offense and agility in term of gameplay.

Installing more than one module should be useless of course, different grade could be used to tweak the power/Mj recharged ratio. Maybe even make this feature standard in all ship (no need for module, like engine boost) but barely efficient unless you use the appropriate module, poor power to Mj ratio by default, not enough to sustain fire against a combat fitted ship, this would of course need extensive test to find the right balance.

You should create a suggestion poll for this idea sir.

 

[Mephane]

In what reality should a smaller, weaker ship be taking on a larger more powerful one at equal skill?

In the reality where speed and agility scale directly inversely to size, and you don't end up with an Eagle almost as slow as Python.

Indeed.

I'm no PvP'er, but even I can tell when Something Has Gone Awry with the gameplay.

I've watched quite a few of those PvP videos and they all have a common theme;

1) Spam SCB's, when bank is finished, quickly power that down and power up new bank.

2) Repeatedly try to ram the opponent in the vague hope that their shields will go down faster.

3) At the same time splay opponent with shield-depleting weapons, again in the vague hope that opponent's shields go down faster than yours.

4) Stalemate for 10-15 minutes because both players are using the first three tactics.

Eventually both opponent's SCB's are drained and then the fight reverts back to what it would have been had SCB's not existed in the first place - i.e. who has the best piloting skill combined with who has the best power & heat management skill.

QFT.

The funny thing is, of all the way to address this issue, FD could have at least in the meantime tried the simplest of them all, to limit SCBs to one per ship.

My very personal favourite suggestion so far has been, however, that an SCB should consume no ammo, but immediately dump the entire SYS bar into the shields, and have a significant cooldown (minutes). And when the SCB becomes powered up, it would have to wait for that cooldown/charge-up period, too. So with this solution you could put several of these into a big ship, but only make use of them if you keep them powered all the time. And while we are at it, it would also remove the "fight until all SCB depleted, then immediately return for more ammo" effect.

 

[Maelkhor]

In what reality should a smaller, weaker ship be taking on a larger more powerful one at equal skill?

In ours. The tendency has been toward faster maneuverable ships instead of heavy boats of mass destuction for long, destroyer class was literally an anti-heavy ship weapon and is nowaday so efficient that almost no heavy capital ships are built other than carriers, dreadnought almost doesn't exist since long, and the last battleships in the world where decomissioned in 1990. Same goes for intermediate heavy like cruiser and battlecruiser. Frigates and Destroyer own the sea now.

 

[Gédéon_Lecanard]

And ,as usual, not a word from devs regarding that...very sad thing.

Don't worry, it does not mean they are indifferent to the debate. I got used to watch them being relatively silent over problems or requests that were vocals on the forums, and then suddenly come with a generally very good solution that pleases everyone. In this case, maybe they will maybe they won't, but point is, their silence does not mean indifference

 

[Genar-Hofoen]

My very personal favourite suggestion so far has been, however, that an SCB should consume no ammo, but immediately dump the entire SYS bar into the shields, and have a significant cooldown (minutes). And when the SCB becomes powered up, it would have to wait for that cooldown/charge-up period, too. So with this solution you could put several of these into a big ship, but only make use of them if you keep them powered all the time. And while we are at it, it would also remove the "fight until all SCB depleted, then immediately return for more ammo" effect.

Yep totally agree - a Dump All Your Jiggawatts Into Your Shields module would be far superior than these SCB's in my opinion as well. Perhaps this additionally causes a lot of heat buildup, as well as the time-to-recharge penalty.

 

[defekt]

My very personal favourite suggestion so far has been, however, that an SCB should consume no ammo, but immediately dump the entire SYS bar into the shields, and have a significant cooldown (minutes). And when the SCB becomes powered up, it would have to wait for that cooldown/charge-up period, too. So with this solution you could put several of these into a big ship, but only make use of them if you keep them powered all the time. And while we are at it, it would also remove the "fight until all SCB depleted, then immediately return for more ammo" effect.

I like ^this idea. I like it a lot.

FD: consider it! Please give me a reason to change my sig!

 

[Soliluna]

I like ^this idea. I like it a lot.

FD: consider it! Please give me a reason to change my sig!

Just make it so that it uses 1 internal module but allows you to dump sys into shields. Less SCB stacking, more fun.

 

[Asrar]

TBH,

yes atm its a bit boring to watch, but thats because, there are very few real battles and already pretty expensive ships in use.. where many wings fights eachother.. i mean 1v1 yes you can last very long.. fights over 10min are comon, but as soon the clans growing bigger and the numbers that accept pvp raises.. if you then fly a 100mio fitted ship, you want to last at least 10min in no ? i think soon we will see battles with 20+ blowing em up in vipers, cobras, couriers, sidewinder, eagle, adder probably even hauler... and a python, FDS, Anaconda, Clipper then should be a matchmaker and not be killed in 10sec because only 1 scb could be fired..

the ships, fittings etc. are meant to support such battles.. i mean a fully pvp fitted viper only cost 200k to replace if blown up.. a 100mio ship cost 5mio, so there has to be a gap of survival, firepower and options to choose from.

 

[Harrius]

How about every time you use a SCB it does some internal damage to your distributer? I prefer some of the other ideas out there, but just throwing that out there.

Or how about instead of a shield cell bank, it was an 'energy cell bank', and it simply gave you extra pips for a while to do what you want with? Higher ratings would give more pips, higher classes would giver longer durations. There'd still have to be some limiting factor or you'd end up with Pythons, Clippers and Condas have extra pips pretty much permanently when in combat, but at least it would provide some tactical flexibility and be less powerful/boring than the current SCB system.

 

[mbar]

You have my +1 sir, this would be coherent, would add a new layer of tactical depth on power management.
So players who love the health potion oriented combat would still be happy, but it would need to take power management into consideration, and put defense on par with offense and agility in term of gameplay.

Installing more than one module should be useless of course, different grade could be used to tweak the power/Mj recharged ratio. Maybe even make this feature standard in all ship (no need for module, like engine boost) but barely efficient unless you use the appropriate module, poor power to Mj ratio by default, not enough to sustain fire against a combat fitted ship, this would of course need extensive test to find the right balance.

You should create a suggestion poll for this idea sir.

Thank you! I took your advice and created the poll here:
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=177867