Target Lock Breaker spamming needs adjusted ASAP

[Miko]

I know there was mention of this in the stream for the upcoming update to the game but I would like to emphasise how impossible it is to fend off a wing of multiple foes using this in a fast agile ship such as the FAS or FDL.

In my Corvette being hit by engine killing mods, target lock spamming etc this is the most frustrating part of being attacked by groups. You simply cannot fight back with any degree of efficiency unless it's 2vs1 at most.

Again, this brings me back to why I argue that the core gamers should have access to engineering as how they manage to survive without the proper resistances etc I'll never know.

Any word this will be adjusted? Even a giving the impacted ship an immunity to it for 10 seconds might help somewhat.

 

[Deleted member 38366]

AFAIK they'll look into that (one of the recent Beyond Streams or Forum Posts, unsure).

If anything, they're aware that this is one of the issues in Combat.

 

[Darty]

Honestly I think the game would be better if they removed every debuff/special effect experimental including feedback and reverb cascade. The only "good" (as in not brokenly OP) experimentals IMO are the ones that change damage types with additional positives and negatives, or add heat damage. This whole meta of putting a butt ton of magical debuf spells on your weapons is just stupid. If shields are a problem add some engineering mods that give +150% DPS at g5 but a 50% cut in armor piercing, creating a weapon that is more effective against shields than most weapons, but crap against most hull tanks. To top it off, give some weapons an experimental that converts some of certain weapons damage to absolute, but again decreases their armor piercing (but by a small amount) and there you go, super-shields have a viable counter that isn't just "lol 2 torpedoes hit you now you can't use your shields", hull tanks have become much more viable (due to the effective armor buff and the removal of all the special effects that kill hull tanks) and players will have actual dilemma when it comes to what weapons to use and what mods to put on them.

 

[GraXXoR]

Honestly I think the game would be better if they removed every debuff/special effect experimental including feedback and reverb cascade. The only "good" (as in not brokenly OP) experimentals IMO are the ones that change damage types with additional positives and negatives, or add heat damage. This whole meta of putting a butt ton of magical debuf spells on your weapons is just stupid. If shields are a problem add some engineering mods that give +150% DPS at g5 but a 50% cut in armor piercing, creating a weapon that is more effective against shields than most weapons, but crap against most hull tanks. To top it off, give some weapons an experimental that converts some of certain weapons damage to absolute, but again decreases their armor piercing (but by a small amount) and there you go, super-shields have a viable counter that isn't just "lol 2 torpedoes hit you now you can't use your shields", hull tanks have become much more viable (due to the effective armor buff and the removal of all the special effects that kill hull tanks) and players will have actual dilemma when it comes to what weapons to use and what mods to put on them.

This...

I hate magic potions and magic charms.

Type-10 with nine hardpoints could field nine major magical effects at any time... Worth considering...

 

[ebbrell]

In beta I didn't know why at the time. Cheiften took my corvette out attacking power plant.

I couldn't stay targeted on it... an with it turning so fast turrets had no chance. Each time i target it would unselect within a second.. know I now why.

I just have hit it 3 times, its shields didn't go down....

It was like a fly round s...t

Seems a little unfair to put this on smaller class PAS, smaller ship move so quick, already hard to target... why have they made them impossible.

 

[Miko]

They've made them possible because they really hadn't thought some of the Engineering effects through as much as they should have. The fact they're sometimes so slow to change things people have highlighted ruin the game, such as the heat cannons creating over 200% with a single volley or two sometimes, it's quite frustrating.

 

[dfgqsb]

In my Corvette being hit by engine killing mods, target lock spamming etc this is the most frustrating part of being attacked by groups. You simply cannot fight back with any degree of efficiency unless it's 2vs1 at most.

If I understood it correctly, you can still fight 2 opponents in smaller ships with TLB without too much difficulty. Since it is PVP, there is no reason you should be able to take down multiple opponents just because your ship is more expensive.

Blaming a fixed projectile weapon with only 875m/s and an anti lock on effect, which can be easily denied by good key binding, is not convincing enough imo.

 

[Kaocraft]

I know there was mention of this in the stream for the upcoming update to the game but I would like to emphasise how impossible it is to fend off a wing of multiple foes using this in a fast agile ship such as the FAS or FDL.

In my Corvette being hit by engine killing mods, target lock spamming etc this is the most frustrating part of being attacked by groups. You simply cannot fight back with any degree of efficiency unless it's 2vs1 at most.

Again, this brings me back to why I argue that the core gamers should have access to engineering as how they manage to survive without the proper resistances etc I'll never know.

Any word this will be adjusted? Even a giving the impacted ship an immunity to it for 10 seconds might help somewhat.

I only want to hear from people who are using the tactic and are complaining that it makes their fights too easy because it gives them an unreasonable advantage that none of their opponents are able to cope with.

I am supremely disinterested in posts written from the perspective of someone who got killed by someone who was employing a particular tactic. If you think it's overpowered then you should use it for a while and see how easy it is, then get back to us.

Al these "I got killed, FDev please nerf ASAP!" posts are counterproductive.

 

[nosleepdemon]

If I understood it correctly, you can still fight 2 opponents in smaller ships with TLB without too much difficulty. Since it is PVP, there is no reason you should be able to take down multiple opponents just because your ship is more expensive.

Blaming a fixed projectile weapon with only 875m/s and an anti lock on effect, which can be easily denied by good key binding, is not convincing enough imo.

Focussed PAC travels faster than that. What's worse, is I have encountered issues fighting other players where their PAC and rail rounds display no projectile on my screen. Presumably due to latency and diabolical net code.

I fought a guy last night who, at the end of the fight, said he didn't realise what I was attacking him with until he heard the ping of the railgun hit. He flat out didn't know I was shooting PACs until I told him my ship loadout.

It's a bit hard to avoid being hit by a focussed PAC when you can't reliably spot the shot.

 

[dfgqsb]

Focussed PAC travels faster than that. What's worse, is I have encountered issues fighting other players where their PAC and rail rounds display no projectile on my screen. Presumably due to latency and diabolical net code.

I fought a guy last night who, at the end of the fight, said he didn't realise what I was attacking him with until he heard the ping of the railgun hit. He flat out didn't know I was shooting PACs until I told him my ship loadout.

It's a bit hard to avoid being hit by a focussed PAC when you can't reliably spot the shot.

That is a known bug since long ago, invisible projectiles. And yes, it's very likely caused by poor network connection.

The thing is, you simply can't spam focused/long range pa, cuz their low dpe and high heat generation.

 

[Truesilver]

Although, as an experienced PvP-er, in Beta 3.0, flying a Cutter, I was able to defeat all medium ships 1v1 ... even though all were hitting me with continuous TLB ... there is no denying that this effect is overpowered against ships larger/slower than a Python.

Currently if flying a big ship, every aspect of the ship's build and game-plan has to be orientated around dealing with this one single special. One special that doesn't even carry an adverse side effect. That is disproportionate. For an entire ship class to have to put everything into dealing with one single special is absurd, even if you can still achieve victory. It's affecting this aspect of the PvP game far too much.

Conversely it's underpowered imo against ships of FdL-level evasiveness and up. It literally does nothing against a Courier.

The problem with TLB is that it's one of a number of specials of which the game asks only one question: "Did you hit the target?" ... and in respect of which hit points are irrelevant.

Because big ships are built to tank shots, not evade them, these specials have a disproportionately great effectiveness against them.

Frontier need to find a way to scale these effects against large and slow targets without making them useless against smaller, faster ones.

Fortunately the game probably does contain sufficient material already. Big ships have much larger and more massive sensors than other ships. So scaling a cooldown or similar by sensor size and class could be one possible solution.

 

[Miko]

If I understood it correctly, you can still fight 2 opponents in smaller ships with TLB without too much difficulty. Since it is PVP, there is no reason you should be able to take down multiple opponents just because your ship is more expensive.

Blaming a fixed projectile weapon with only 875m/s and an anti lock on effect, which can be easily denied by good key binding, is not convincing enough imo.

Are you for real? I didn't die, I'm merely emphasising that target lock breaker spamming is a thing and it's ridiculous. I'm talking scenarios where four opponents having this making it impossible to lock onto anybody and fight effectively. It's ridiculous and that's my personal opinion, but for you information I win almost all of the fights started by people who attack me.

It has nothing to do with anything but the spamming needing a cool down of sorts. Try being on the receiving end for a while and tell me you still still its OK as it is then?

I only want to hear from people who are using the tactic and are complaining that it makes their fights too easy because it gives them an unreasonable advantage that none of their opponents are able to cope with.

I am supremely disinterested in posts written from the perspective of someone who got killed by someone who was employing a particular tactic. If you think it's overpowered then you should use it for a while and see how easy it is, then get back to us.

Al these "I got killed, FDev please nerf ASAP!" posts are counterproductive.

Missed the mark a mile off. This was nothing of the sort.

 

[nosleepdemon]

That is a known bug since long ago, invisible projectiles. And yes, it's very likely caused by poor network connection.

The thing is, you simply can't spam focused/long range pa, cuz their low dpe and high heat generation.

Eh? I have a pair on my DBS with thermal load reduction secondary at -45% each (actual reduction is less though, due to the inherent increase in thermal load that comes with the blueprint). The only problem is the capacitor draw. I imagine if you stack like four of them things will get toasty, but you can definitely pop them off at a decent pace, even if it's not quite the barrage that efficient mods might be capable of.

 

[NascentChemist]

At the very least, TLB shouldn't be allowed on APA's. The low fire rate of normal PA's provides some balancing, but efficient APA's on a FAS can fire these indefinitely. Pair it with the Dispersal Field and large ships are neutered.

I support the cooldown mechanic that Truesilver suggests. Or maybe a significant damage reduction, like the 50% reduction that FSD disrupt missiles get.

Perhaps there could be some more consideration for TLB in PVE. Beyond breaking missile lock, it doesn't do a thing to NPC's.

Regarding the cap draw of rails and PA's, wait until 3.0 goes live with G5 Wep enhanced blueprints. This might be insignificant, but I never got to test it in Beta.

 

[CMDR The Riz]

Although, as an experienced PvP-er, in Beta 3.0, flying a Cutter, I was able to defeat all medium ships 1v1 ... even though all were hitting me with continuous TLB ... there is no denying that this effect is overpowered against ships larger/slower than a Python.

Currently if flying a big ship, every aspect of the ship's build and game-plan has to be orientated around dealing with this one single special. One special that doesn't even carry an adverse side effect. That is disproportionate. For an entire ship class to have to put everything into dealing with one single special is absurd, even if you can still achieve victory. It's affecting this aspect of the PvP game far too much.

Conversely it's underpowered imo against ships of FdL-level evasiveness and up. It literally does nothing against a Courier.

The problem with TLB is that it's one of a number of specials of which the game asks only one question: "Did you hit the target?" ... and in respect of which hit points are irrelevant.

Because big ships are built to tank shots, not evade them, these specials have a disproportionately great effectiveness against them.

Frontier need to find a way to scale these effects against large and slow targets without making them useless against smaller, faster ones.

Fortunately the game probably does contain sufficient material already. Big ships have much larger and more massive sensors than other ships. So scaling a cooldown or similar by sensor size and class could be one possible solution.

Hit the nail on the head here. Target Lock Breaker (among other effects) is one of the main reasons I am very reluctant to use my Cutter in any situation that involves other players due to the near omnipresence of PA-packing FDLs in high-traffic systems - and that's even considering I generally run 5 fixed Multicannons on the Huge, Large and 2 Medium hardpoints (darn nacelles!). I've since experimented with various small ship builds (Courier, Eagle and iEagle) and was able to avoid a few PA shots from a player FDL with an Eagle build.

To illustrate Truesilver's point about small ships and TLB effectiveness, I managed to dig up a video of when I was running that Eagle build to specifically evaluate how player-flown FDLs compare to their NPC counterparts (as I had no prior experience to go off of):

[video=youtube_share;Bp5TQ-xFyfc]https://youtu.be/Bp5TQ-xFyfc[/video]​

Notice how the other player was only able to fire off his PA's once and miss. It's fairly difficult to hit a small, high-speed target with the equivalent of glowing bowling balls; conversely, it's easy to hit slow-moving space whales with said bowling balls. Scaling the effect to the target's scanner class/size could be a way of balancing TLB for both classes of ships.

 

[Y2K]

agree with OP. Every single time im jumped by a wing its constantly 'target lock broken' almost as soon as you lock on - its crazy. Every 30 seconds maybe but constantly as fast as you can target? Only way to counter is to get outa dodge.

 

[Bortas]

Yep, TLB urgently needs fixing... hope they will include it in the 3.0 release. Until then I'll just leave TLB-users to themselves.

 

[dfgqsb]

Try being on the receiving end for a while and tell me you still still its OK as it is then?

I have been on the receiving end since 2.1 and it's ok imo, as long as you are not lazy 4-0-2-blue-zone-face-tank, you would be able to dodge a lot of pa shots by flying evasively, even in an 1v4.

 

[Arthur Shappey]

I disagree with the OP. It shouldn't be possible to win every fight. Part of the skill in the game should be to know when to run away to fight another day. It is surely players insane need to have the uber, unbeatable ship that is actually the unhealthy aspect of the game?

The OP was outmatched, out-flanked and should run. There is no shame in this, and only idiocy in staying. What's there to complain about? Finding a piece of real danger in the game?

Go wing-up and get revenge.

 

[Imo]

I already made a report to this a long time ago: >click here<

"during a time period of 255 seconds (0:45 - 5:00) I had a total of around 50 (!) target disruptions. In addition to these target disruptions my targets made use of chaff 20 times."

[video=youtube;QowMzKUmzes]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QowMzKUmzes[/video]