SDC Presents: Operation Healies4Feelies

[verminstar]

Do you even know how to use critical thinking?

I suspect you don't think world hunger is a problem either because you've got a full plate of food every night?

I tried using it once, but one simply couldnt use enough lube...kept getting jammed halfway in...

You suspect? What are ye? Some sorta psychic medium. Or we gonna just sit and play the projection game?

All this talk of food has made me hungry...time fer bacon ^

 

[Han_Zen]

The PvP balance conversation has been going on for 2 years now..and i never expect it to go away. I'm not a pve or pvp player and have no bias. Personally i do not want to see dev time wasted & the point i was making is should we expect FD to spend their time trying to "balance PVP" when its only a tiny minority that enjoy playing the game that way and many people consider "PvP balance" -in a game like this- to be a flawed concept either way.

PvP is not that important in itself. I does not as a stand alone activity, justify huge resources for balancing.

I view the PvP meta as a realism mirror. Mini-maxers actually represents evolution.

If a build is successful in PvP, we should expect to see the same build from realistic NPCs.

If that leads to poor game play, the build should be balanced.

If this is done correctly, there will be no difference between the PvE combat meta and the PvP combat meta.

If this 'common combat meta' is properly controlled, it would also leave the ships(at least the larger) with excess capability for other types of game play.

A maxed out combat Conda, would still have room for cargo, SRVs and SLFs.

A philosophy like this would lead to more of the 'magic' emergent game play that everyone really wants. It would give the option to do several different activities without changing ships or build.

This is just my opinion. I know that others prefer the specialized LvL 70 ships that are perfect for a single task.

 

[SuBSynk]

Its more about broken combat mechanics than some sort of PvP vs PvE imbalance. I mean are you seriously suggesting players are so bad they need pre nerf thermal cascade missiles and OP healing beams to take on the brain dead NPCs? Thermal cascade didn't even work against NPCs as it did players, and if you think those heat missiles were aight before there is no helping you. Frankly its little do with some false dichotomy of PvE/PvP but more about the inabilitiy of Frontier to design combat mechanics that aren't broken.

Heat and healing are fine concepts, its not the players fault Frontier constantly fail at balancing their own game. This would likely be a different story if the NPC bots werent brain dead and were allowed to use the full suite of engineer mods. My god, the forums went into melt down after 2.1 because the NPCs were too hard, they didn't even use torps or heat missles..

The heat mechanic balance was never great but now unfortunately all the heat related specials been nerfed into irrelevance.

If players had the ability to cause the healer to overheat and therefore stop firing i think this would be a valid counter but due to the overreaction from a vocal minority further nerfs were brought in when none or a very small nerf at most were needed.

The heat specials are now almost completely pointless & it could have been a valid counter. Balancing should and will be an ongoing process, there is no big hurry and when kneejerk reactions take place -usually because of player pressure- mistakes such as the massive overnerf of the heat special effects occur.

ps..NPC's did suffer from having their modules melted & if you think they were immune there really is no point in continuing this "debate" ...next you'll be telling me they still have unlimited chaff ammo

 

[sewerratuk]

The heat mechanic balance was never great but now unfortunately all the heat related specials been nerfed into irrelevance.

If players had the ability to cause the healer to overheat and therefore stop firing i think this would be a valid counter but due to the overreaction from a vocal minority further nerfs were brought in when none or a very small nerf at most were needed.

The heat specials are now almost completely pointless & it could have been a valid counter. Balancing should and will be an ongoing process, there is no big hurry and when kneejerk reactions take place -usually because of player pressure- mistakes such as the massive overnerf of the heat special effects occur.

ps..NPC's did suffer from having their modules melted & if you think they were immune there really is no point in continuing this "debate" ...next you'll be telling me they still have unlimited chaff ammo

Heat wasn't used as a counter though. It was an I win button.
Now if it was redesigned to only work well against someone using a heal beam then you would have an effective counter without making it OP as an offensive weapon

 

[Morbad]

If players had the ability to cause the healer to overheat and therefore stop firing i think this would be a valid counter

Indeed it would, but it's not any more and isn't likely to be restored.

We are left with a situation where defenses are extreme enough to allow ships to survive unattended for protracted periods of time even against focus fire and where HPE can outpace DPE by roughly five to one. It can take a whole wing of decent CMDRs in equivalent ships upwards of a full minute to take two rings of shielding off my FDL, without me even needing to be unusually evasive. All of that damage can be erased by one healing FDL in 15-20 seconds, while under fire.

Every buff to effective damage per MJ of WEP and every buff to shield resistances, has been an implicit buff to regeneration sequence. Instead of reining this in, they directly buffed concordant sequence as well. Precisely because of some of the things you've mentioned, the counters are very few and hard to leverage.

All that's needed to restore regeneration sequence to a state where it's still useful, still desirable, but not impractical to counter or superior to any other effect for lasers as part of a wing, is to add a fractional multiplier to the amount they restore.

Heat wasn't used as a counter though. It was an I win button.

Heat was a counter to raw shield strength. The problem was that it was better than every other option, which made it mandatory, which meant that everyone had to build around it, or be left with something sub-standard.

Balance comes when you have multiple viable, often hard, choices between options. 2.1s thermal shock was an extreme outlier, and if wing PvP (or even non-castrated NPCs) were more common and the effects of healing weapons better understood, regeneration/concordant sequence would be in the same ballpark.

 

[lecorsobreton]

The question for me is should FD tailor the balance toward PvP whilst ruining the balance for PvE especially considering that PVP is such a tiny proportion of the player base.

How is fixing an obvious broken mechanic ruining balance for PvE/PvP?

 

[sewerratuk]

Heat was a counter to raw shield strength. The problem was that it was better than every other option, which made it mandatory, which meant that everyone had to build around it, or be left with something sub-standard.

Balance comes when you have multiple viable, often hard, choices between options. 2.1s thermal shock was an extreme outlier, and if wing PvP were more common and the effects of healing weapons better understood, regeneration/concordant sequence would be in the same ballpark.

Sorry meant to say
'Heat wasn't just used as a counter'

 

[SuBSynk]

Heat wasn't used as a counter though. It was an I win button.
Now if it was redesigned to only work well against someone using a heal beam then you would have an effective counter without making it OP as an offensive weapon

I agree that the heat specials were a little too strong but also it is relevant that Concordant Sequence caused heat to rise when used. I'm not a dev, do not know the hidden values or what is coming on the horizon as far as new specials or weapons go but i assume that heat was considered to be one of the counters to a ship using a healing beam...

This is why i do not try to be a backseat balancer as we cannot decipher how all the different weapon special effects were designed to counter one another. Making suggestions and pointing out a big discrepancy is all good but asking for one thing to be essentially removed from the game without understanding the knock on effects it will have across the board is what surprises me.

 

[Bortas]

Another station gun buff incoming... phasing sequence with 100% damage bleedthrough for internal station lasers.

Hopefully they will remove healing lasers instead, but the above guess is probably more likely to happen

 

[Morbad]

I agree that the heat specials were a little too strong but also it is relevant that Concordant Sequence caused heat to rise when used.

It's was a simple increase to the thermal load of the weapon...which was rendered moot by higher-end efficient BPs on beams and never mattered much on anything else.

I have concordant and regeneration weapons with much lower thermal load than stock.

 

[verminstar]

But I laughed, and that's a positive response.

Although you are right; there's some definite negativity, almost hatred, brewing.

I laughed too, though not fer the same reasons I suspect...its a funny example of a classic storm in a teacup. The pvp minority of which SDC are a very small, but highly vocal part of, are being griefed by another pvp wing...are told that the other wing is breaking no rules by using this mechanic...are not able to get much traction with their complaints, so they setup a salt mine to create a lot more noise and salt to further a cause that nobody but a very small group of players consider gamebreaking.

I dont hate SDC...I just regard them as being a bit like that kid pulling a wheelie on a bike only to watch the front wheel drop out the second it leaves the ground. Cant help but laugh at their antics, and when ye laugh hard enough and loudly enough, one of them always loses the plot and hilarity ensues on the forum.

But hate them? oh good heavens no...they great fer morale when they pull stunts like this which is why I truly hope FD ignores this issue entirely fer another 6 months, in the interests of milking yet more salt outta them fer minimum effort. Its all good karma...just a good laugh at the end of the day at their expense ^

 

[floc]

I always wondered how will do a self healing mechanics... This is the answer, it's broken Thanks to point that out, I hope that will not be used to grief anyone besides poor people taken by force "for science" making this video lol

 

[NeilF]

I laughed too, though not fer the same reasons I suspect...its a funny example of a classic storm in a teacup. The pvp minority of which SDC are a very small, but highly vocal part of, are being griefed by another pvp wing...are told that the other wing is breaking no rules by using this mechanic...are not able to get much traction with their complaints, so they setup a salt mine to create a lot more noise and salt to further a cause that nobody but a very small group of players consider gamebreaking.

I dont hate SDC...I just regard them as being a bit like that kid pulling a wheelie on a bike only to watch the front wheel drop out the second it leaves the ground. Cant help but laugh at their antics, and when ye laugh hard enough and loudly enough, one of them always loses the plot and hilarity ensues on the forum.

But hate them? oh good heavens no...they great fer morale when they pull stunts like this which is why I truly hope FD ignores this issue entirely fer another 6 months, in the interests of milking yet more salt outta them fer minimum effort. Its all good karma...just a good laugh at the end of the day at their expense ^

Imagine in a years time, if/when you can undertake a mission in ED a bit more advanced and interesting than what we currently have. Imagine you can sign up NPC wingmen (maybe ones you've earned a stateful relationship with?) and undertake more interesting combat scenarios such as protecting a VIP ship as it's repaired, or a convoy flying in standard space between nav beacon A and B etc...

Now imagine if FD expanded on that so you could even - shock horror - undertake these sorts of scenarios with - and I know it's a loft crazy goal - other CMDRs. I know! I know! It's bleeding edge gameplay we're talking about here... and to go into total scifi dream land, if other CMDRs could even undertake missions against you! Crazy do I hear you say?

Anway... Imagine now what you witnessed taking place in the first part of that SDC video, happening regularly in more standard ED gameplay. The VIP ship made immortal by a single sidewinder firing at it, and the enemy NPCs too dim to know otherwise, and hence the gameplay becomes a joke. Or if enemy CMDRs turned up and simply sat there shooting either other with repair beams to become immortal and allowing their turrets to fire away...

SDC have highlighted the kind of dreadful balancing going on in the game. This shows itself to lesser or greater degrees depending on what the balancing issue is, and therefore how often you encounter it, and to what degree it undermines common sense balanced gameplay.

But the issue is, if the gameplay in ED ever moves forwards to more involved deeper stuff - and for Gods sake I dearly hope it does after two+ years of nigh on treading water - then these sorts of balancing issues (lack of consideration) will only be magnified.

Note: Some of what I'm talking about here I suspect is already making areas of ED's limited gameplay a mockery. ie: Imagine the two immortal FDLs shown later in the video, in a combat zone?




IMHO? Healing beams were ill-considered. They were yet another example of "this sounds cool" being allowed to run away with itself and somehow get out of a design meeting to an actual coders desk seemingly unquestioned... This seems to be happening too much and too often and just means more time is wasted trying to patch problems that shouldn't be there in the first place!

 

[Pauciloquent]

I think it would be way better if the healing beam was self canceling rather then needing a another effect to couner it...

Like say that the healing beam cuased heat on the ship it was healing, and maybe on the ship doing the healing as well...

And if you heal a ship with 100% shield it would damage the shield boosters and shield generator...

 

[verminstar]

Imagine in a years time, if/when you can undertake a mission in ED a bit more advanced and interesting than what we currently have. Imagine you can sign up NPC wingmen (maybe ones you've earned a stateful relationship with?) and undertake more interesting combat scenarios such as protecting a VIP ship as it's repaired, or a convoy flying in standard space between nav beacon A and B etc...

Now imagine if FD expanded on that so you could even - shock horror - undertake these sorts of scenarios with - and I know it's a loft crazy goal - other CMDRs. I know! I know! It's bleeding edge gameplay we're talking about here... and to go into total scifi dream land, if other CMDRs could even undertake missions against you! Crazy do I hear you say?

Anway... Imagine now what you witnessed taking place in the first part of that SDC video, happening regularly in more standard ED gameplay. The VIP ship made immortal by a single sidewinder firing at it, and the enemy NPCs too dim to know otherwise, and hence the gameplay becomes a joke. Or if enemy CMDRs turned up and simply sat there shooting either other with repair beams to become immortal and allowing their turrets to fire away...

SDC have highlighted the kind of dreadful balancing going on in the game. This shows itself to lesser or greater degrees depending on what the balancing issue is, and therefore how often you encounter it, and to what degree it undermines common sense balanced gameplay.

But the issue is, if the gameplay in ED ever moves forwards to more involved deeper stuff - and for Gods sake I dearly hope it does after two+ years of nigh on treading water - then these sorts of balancing issues (lack of consideration) will only be magnified.

Note: Some of what I'm talking about here I suspect is already making areas of ED's limited gameplay a mockery. ie: Imagine the two immortal FDLs shown later in the video, in a combat zone?




IMHO? Healing beams were ill-considered. They were yet another example of "this sounds cool" being allowed to run away with itself and somehow get out of a design meeting to an actual coders desk seemingly unquestioned... This seems to be happening too much and too often and just means more time is wasted trying to patch problems that shouldn't be there in the first place!

Its a cool scenario but highly unlikely to see the light of day. Fer one thing, its assuming FD are capable of creating such a non buggy and instanced situation in the first place. Its also assuming ill still be here, and at the rate things are going, thats not looking good right now, although even if I am, one would hope my chosen career in ED would have gained a few small scraps from the pew pew biased updates, and I wouldnt be taking missions anyway because Id be out enjoying the new shiny stuff well away from the stress of open play in ganktown.

Players can have as many green lightsabre battles as they want, from now till the end of creation...I really couldnt care less at this point because it doesnt affect me or the game I play. Pretty sure thats not gonna change in 12 months unless fairly groundbreaking changes are made...

Its a pvp problem and I dont pvp...not on this game anyway...I get that itch scratched elsewhere because this game isnt setup fer pvp...enginners destroyed my motivation to try a long time ago as it removes the need fer skill. Now, the best advantages go to those with a talent fer grind...heaven forbid, I way too much of a noob fer all that caper...I prefer a much more laid back approach ^

 

[CMDR Zadian Lichtfrost]

Hey SDC,
if you really want to get the healing special effect balanced or fixed I think you need to create a different video. While the "kill-randoms-in-station" is a good demonstration of the problem for players in Open Mode it will only motivate Open players to oppose the use of healing special effects on weapons.

Now, if you want to reach a wider audience show the Solo and PvE players why healing special effects are bad. If you are wondering how to do that, I will tell you: By showing them how effective that special effect is.
Show them how you can farm a CZ while "AFKing-Netflixing". Two or there Anacondas or Cutters healing each other in a CZ and using the rest of the weapons as turrets to kill everything in range. No need to move or do anything.

Then post on this forum about making 100 Mcr in a short period of time. This is what will "trigger" PvE and Solo players - someone making more money. Not somebody getting killed in Open Mode. They know that there is always somebody getting killed in Open mode.

 

[verminstar]

Hey SDC,
if you really want to get the healing special effect balanced or fixed I think you need to create a different video. While the "kill-randoms-in-station" is a good demonstration of the problem for players in Open Mode it will only motivate Open players to oppose the use of healing special effects on weapons.

Now, if you want to reach a wider audience show the Solo and PvE players why healing special effects are bad. If you are wondering how to do that, I will tell you: By showing them how effective that special effect is.
Show them how you can farm a CZ while "AFKing-Netflixing". Two or there Anacondas or Cutters healing each other in a CZ and using the rest of the weapons as turrets to kill everything in range. No need to move or do anything.

Then post on this forum about making 100 Mcr in a short period of time. This is what will "trigger" PvE and Solo players - someone making more money. Not somebody getting killed in Open Mode. They know that there is always somebody getting killed in Open mode.

Id rep ye if I could because yer hitting the nail squarely on the head...absolutely 100% correct ^

 

[Morbad]

I thought CZ's already worked like that without healing beams.

They mostly do, but you have to at least check in every few minutes.

 

[CMDR Zadian Lichtfrost]

Why would you do that?

I thought CZ's already worked like that without healing beams.

"Staying power" is very important for PvE and Solo players. Everything that makes it easier will catch their interest and since it requires a wing this will surely "trigger" a lot of the Solo players.

 

[Bortas]

"Staying power" is very important for PvE and Solo players. Everything that makes it easier will catch their interest and since it requires a wing this will surely "trigger" a lot of the Solo players.

I doubt that... I never felt the need for any additional healing ability when farming RESs oder CZs. I usually leave those out of boredom after an hour or two with plenty of/all SCB charges left.