A few suggestions to balance the PVP meta

[CMDR DUANES]

These really are my views, and a two-cents to devs. The fact is, PVP meta is too one-sided today, arch-dominated by Plasma/Rail, the Meta FDL and more generally Shield-tanks, to the point that it is becoming annoying. Balancing is a difficult act and I obviously won't solve it, but I reckon these small steps are the most pressing and would go in the right direction :

• Lowering the percentage of PA absolute damages to 30% of total would help limit their edge and assure PA is not the by-default weapon anymore (20% would be better if you ask me)
• Rail Guns are too versatile: they can do very good damages short range, they are the best long-range weapon, they can suppress banks and they have great piercing ability. It is too much: they should be modified to imply some trade-off. Cancelling banks and piercing ability should remain, but either suppressing the long-range experimental effect choice or reducing their damage output (40% lower would be a minimum) would limit their usage by forcing a range choice
• Cannon speed should be increased by 50% so that they become a real low-management projectile alternative to PA and RG aiming at mid-range gameplay
• Shield banks should lose one charge across the board to limit their effectiveness (exception could be made for class 7 and 8 as banks on big ships make sense to offset their poor manoeuvrability)
• FDL should get one less utility slot

 

[Gordon Freeman IV]

These really are my views, so any CMDR is welcome to disagree. The fact is, PVP meta is too one-sided today, arch-dominated by Plasma/Rail, the Meta FDL and more generally Shield-tanks, to the point that it is becoming annoying. Balancing is a difficult act and I obviously won't solve it, but I reckon these small steps are the most pressing and would go in the right direction :

• Lowering the percentage of PA absolute damages to 30% of total would help limit their edge and assure PA is not the by-default weapon anymore (20% would be better if you ask me)
• Rail Guns are too versatile: they can do very good damages short range, they are the best long-range weapon, they can suppress banks and they have great piercing ability. It is too much: they should be modified to imply some trade-off. Cancelling banks and piercing ability should remain, but either suppressing the long-range experimental effect choice or reducing their damage output (40% lower would be a minimum) would limit their usage by forcing a range choice
• Cannon speed should be increased by 50% so that they become a real low-management projectile alternative to PA and RG aiming at mid-range gameplay
• Shield banks should lose one charge across the board to limit their effectiveness (exception could be made for class 7 and 8 as banks on big ships make sense to offset their poor manoeuvrability)
• FDL should get one less utility slot

Nah. I run a pvp gunship and have little issue stomping a meta fdl. Git gud maybe?

 

[CMDR DUANES]

Nah. I run a pvp gunship and have little issue stomping a meta fdl. Git gud maybe?

OMG, the guy who casually tells you to git gud without even knowing you to brag indirectly because he thinks saying it implies he himself is, such a cliché

Funny thing is, if you were any gud in PVP, then you would understand my post and know that the fact that you can dispose of some meta FDLs has absolutely nothing to do with what I'm talking about here.

 

[Imo]

it is not that easy. to get pvp more balanced again they must remove the whole engineering which they won't. the pvp "experience" from the weak pilots view can not be solved. you can't even call that "play": "target lost, chaff, chaff, target lost, target lost, chaff, target lost, target lost, drive malfunction, fsd not charging, scb not loading, eject, eject..."

 

[CMDR DUANES]

it is not that easy. to get pvp more balanced again they must remove the whole engineering which they won't. the pvp "experience" from the weak pilots view can not be solved. you can't even call that "play": "target lost, chaff, chaff, target lost, target lost, chaff, target lost, target lost, drive malfunction, fsd not charging, scb not loading, eject, eject..."

I don't get your post? I'm not talking about weak players or new players who get ganked, but about high level PVP. The imbalancing is about the high end, it forces players to get the strongest build and there are only two but a few changes would help balance builds. It is marginal, but it would make a difference. At lower levels, you can win a fight with an Eagle against a Corvette. And no, they don't need to remove engineering, why would they? They just need to nerf the all-dominant builds.

 

[Screemonster]

• Lowering the percentage of PA absolute damages to 30% of total would help limit their edge and assure PA is not the by-default weapon anymore (20% would be better if you ask me)

• FDL should get one less utility slot

Both of these are symptoms of "stacking a gigantic pile of engineered shield boosters allows you to have frankly insane health pools".
If stacking resistance boosters for huge positive resists in all categories wasn't trivial, the absolute damage of PAs wouldn't be as much of a gamechanger. It's not such an issue for hull, since getting those massive resists isn't quite as easy on most ships unless you want to sacrifice your optional internals that could be running SCBs, MRPs, and so on.

If piling an absolute ton of HD boosters onto a ship to obtain an obscenely huge health pool wasn't equally trivial, the FDL would be on more even ground with other medium ships - it'd still be good mind.

Personally, I'd say change the way booster stacking works as follows:

• You gain the resistance boost of your largest individual booster.
• You gain the MJ benefit of your largest individual booster, or the sum of the unmodded shield boost of all your boosters, whichever is greater.

This would bring high-tier engineered ships used by PvPers and hardcore grinders back down to a more sensible level, while having a minimal effect on smaller ships (which don't have enough utilities to run stacks of boosters) and unengineered and lightly engineered ships (those flown by the majority of the playerbase).

One thing that often comes up when discussing the removal of booster stacking is someone inevitably saying "but it'll make ganking easier! All the newbies will be easier to destroy! You're just encouraging seal-clubbing!"
To that, I say that the people that get ganked aren't the ones flying G5 8-booster-stacked prismatic cutters. Victims of a seal-clubbing tend to be unengineered. Hell, the ganking hotspot is Felicity Farseer, the first engineer most players visit. It's not possible for them to have any engineering. Therefore: this change would not affect them. At all.

 

[Imo]

I don't get your post? I'm not talking about weak players or new players who get ganked, but about high level PVP. The imbalancing is about the high end, it forces players to get the strongest build and there are only two but a few changes would help balance builds. It is marginal, but it would make a difference. At lower levels, you can win a fight with an Eagle against a Corvette. And no, they don't need to remove engineering, why would they? They just need to nerf the all-dominant builds.

because until maybe ed 2.1, before the engineers, every pilot just fitted a shield, some weapons and then had a blast. now we spend more time with malfunctions because of magic special effects happen than acutally fighting. instead of target and fire each other everyone focuses on being the first one who magically disables the opponent with special effects to make the win.

 

[CMDR DUANES]

Both of these are symptoms of "stacking a gigantic pile of engineered shield boosters allows you to have frankly insane health pools".
If stacking resistance boosters for huge positive resists in all categories wasn't trivial, the absolute damage of PAs wouldn't be as much of a gamechanger. It's not such an issue for hull, since getting those massive resists isn't quite as easy on most ships unless you want to sacrifice your optional internals that could be running SCBs, MRPs, and so on.

If piling an absolute ton of HD boosters onto a ship to obtain an obscenely huge health pool wasn't equally trivial, the FDL would be on more even ground with other medium ships - it'd still be good mind.

Personally, I'd say change the way booster stacking works as follows:

• You gain the resistance boost of your largest individual booster.
• You gain the MJ benefit of your largest individual booster, or the sum of the unmodded shield boost of all your boosters, whichever is greater.

This would bring high-tier engineered ships used by PvPers and hardcore grinders back down to a more sensible level, while having a minimal effect on smaller ships (which don't have enough utilities to run stacks of boosters) and unengineered and lightly engineered ships (those flown by the majority of the playerbase).

One thing that often comes up when discussing the removal of booster stacking is someone inevitably saying "but it'll make ganking easier! All the newbies will be easier to destroy! You're just encouraging seal-clubbing!"
To that, I say that the people that get ganked aren't the ones flying G5 8-booster-stacked prismatic cutters. Victims of a seal-clubbing tend to be unengineered. Hell, the ganking hotspot is Felicity Farseer, the first engineer most players visit. It's not possible for them to have any engineering. Therefore: this change would not affect them. At all.

This is an elegant solution, I agree. And it would help a lot. However, I still think PA is an issue in itself: most PVP players we do run spreasheets about damages to simulate DPS on various builds, and once you do that then you realize there is only on weapon you can really use: PA, because they can do absolute to both shields and hull, s whatever you use out of PA will be less efficient, hence the one-sided meta that dosen't leave you any real choice anymore (at high level). It's no secret that the PVP league had to enact its own rules, and we did it because without that there would be 100% PA-conduits... That would stay the same if you change resistances on shields, because PA is good on hull too. So instead of changing everything around, I think amending the PA by lowering the absolute damage percentage is a much simpler solution.

Now, you are right to point out that would concern only a limited number of CMDRs.

 

[CMDR DUANES]

because until maybe ed 2.1, before the engineers, every pilot just fitted a shield, some weapons and then had a blast. now we spend more time with malfunctions because of magic special effects happen than acutally fighting. instead of target and fire each other everyone focuses on being the first one who magically disables the opponent with special effects to make the win.

Mmmm I see what you mean, used to be much ore "brute", but focusing on disabling is not my experience, I must say?... Apart from scramble, other effects like heating have been nerfed to not much. Except for powerplant sniping, of course, which is one of the reasons why I included RG in my "suggestions".

 

[Gordon Freeman IV]

Both of these are symptoms of "stacking a gigantic pile of engineered shield boosters allows you to have frankly insane health pools".
If stacking resistance boosters for huge positive resists in all categories wasn't trivial, the absolute damage of PAs wouldn't be as much of a gamechanger. It's not such an issue for hull, since getting those massive resists isn't quite as easy on most ships unless you want to sacrifice your optional internals that could be running SCBs, MRPs, and so on.

If piling an absolute ton of HD boosters onto a ship to obtain an obscenely huge health pool wasn't equally trivial, the FDL would be on more even ground with other medium ships - it'd still be good mind.

Personally, I'd say change the way booster stacking works as follows:

• You gain the resistance boost of your largest individual booster.
• You gain the MJ benefit of your largest individual booster, or the sum of the unmodded shield boost of all your boosters, whichever is greater.

This would bring high-tier engineered ships used by PvPers and hardcore grinders back down to a more sensible level, while having a minimal effect on smaller ships (which don't have enough utilities to run stacks of boosters) and unengineered and lightly engineered ships (those flown by the majority of the playerbase).

One thing that often comes up when discussing the removal of booster stacking is someone inevitably saying "but it'll make ganking easier! All the newbies will be easier to destroy! You're just encouraging seal-clubbing!"
To that, I say that the people that get ganked aren't the ones flying G5 8-booster-stacked prismatic cutters. Victims of a seal-clubbing tend to be unengineered. Hell, the ganking hotspot is Felicity Farseer, the first engineer most players visit. It's not possible for them to have any engineering. Therefore: this change would not affect them. At all.

My 7000 mj 34% thermal resist corvette has distain for this idea.

 

[Gordon Freeman IV]

Coriolis EDCD Edition

A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous

s.orbis.zone

Great for hurting cutter pilot's egos

 

[Gordon Freeman IV]

Coriolis EDCD Edition

A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous

s.orbis.zone

Great for hurting cutter pilot's egos

Wrong one, heres good https://s.orbis.zone/irzl

 

[Rebel Yell]

Wrong one, heres good https://s.orbis.zone/irzl

This works much better... guaranteed.

Coriolis EDCD Edition

A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous

s.orbis.zone

 

[mephisto9466]

These really are my views, and a two-cents to devs. The fact is, PVP meta is too one-sided today, arch-dominated by Plasma/Rail, the Meta FDL and more generally Shield-tanks, to the point that it is becoming annoying. Balancing is a difficult act and I obviously won't solve it, but I reckon these small steps are the most pressing and would go in the right direction :

• Lowering the percentage of PA absolute damages to 30% of total would help limit their edge and assure PA is not the by-default weapon anymore (20% would be better if you ask me)
• Rail Guns are too versatile: they can do very good damages short range, they are the best long-range weapon, they can suppress banks and they have great piercing ability. It is too much: they should be modified to imply some trade-off. Cancelling banks and piercing ability should remain, but either suppressing the long-range experimental effect choice or reducing their damage output (40% lower would be a minimum) would limit their usage by forcing a range choice
• Cannon speed should be increased by 50% so that they become a real low-management projectile alternative to PA and RG aiming at mid-range gameplay
• Shield banks should lose one charge across the board to limit their effectiveness (exception could be made for class 7 and 8 as banks on big ships make sense to offset their poor manoeuvrability)
• FDL should get one less utility slot

tbh, i say a complete overhaul of the engineering system is in order. keep the way that the engineering happens mat grind, adding the experiemental, the literal action of engineering but change the effects of many experiementals, get rid of useless base mods, etc

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

Rip out the power creep. No one ever had asked for that crap.

 

[SergMx]

These really are my views, and a two-cents to devs. The fact is, PVP meta is too one-sided today, arch-dominated by Plasma/Rail, the Meta FDL and more generally Shield-tanks, to the point that it is becoming annoying. Balancing is a difficult act and I obviously won't solve it, but I reckon these small steps are the most pressing and would go in the right direction :

• Lowering the percentage of PA absolute damages to 30% of total would help limit their edge and assure PA is not the by-default weapon anymore (20% would be better if you ask me)
• Rail Guns are too versatile: they can do very good damages short range, they are the best long-range weapon, they can suppress banks and they have great piercing ability. It is too much: they should be modified to imply some trade-off. Cancelling banks and piercing ability should remain, but either suppressing the long-range experimental effect choice or reducing their damage output (40% lower would be a minimum) would limit their usage by forcing a range choice
• Cannon speed should be increased by 50% so that they become a real low-management projectile alternative to PA and RG aiming at mid-range gameplay
• Shield banks should lose one charge across the board to limit their effectiveness (exception could be made for class 7 and 8 as banks on big ships make sense to offset their poor manoeuvrability)
• FDL should get one less utility slot

There must be some other conditions.
On my Corvette I've been killed many times by ganker units, but I don't remember dying from a single FDL.
There were reversed players, but after a firefight with them I jumped away. Other than that, the FDLs died.

 

[V'larr]

Both of these are symptoms of "stacking a gigantic pile of engineered shield boosters allows you to have frankly insane health pools".
If stacking resistance boosters for huge positive resists in all categories wasn't trivial, the absolute damage of PAs wouldn't be as much of a gamechanger. It's not such an issue for hull, since getting those massive resists isn't quite as easy on most ships unless you want to sacrifice your optional internals that could be running SCBs, MRPs, and so on.

If piling an absolute ton of HD boosters onto a ship to obtain an obscenely huge health pool wasn't equally trivial, the FDL would be on more even ground with other medium ships - it'd still be good mind.

Personally, I'd say change the way booster stacking works as follows:

• You gain the resistance boost of your largest individual booster.
• You gain the MJ benefit of your largest individual booster, or the sum of the unmodded shield boost of all your boosters, whichever is greater.

This would bring high-tier engineered ships used by PvPers and hardcore grinders back down to a more sensible level, while having a minimal effect on smaller ships (which don't have enough utilities to run stacks of boosters) and unengineered and lightly engineered ships (those flown by the majority of the playerbase).

One thing that often comes up when discussing the removal of booster stacking is someone inevitably saying "but it'll make ganking easier! All the newbies will be easier to destroy! You're just encouraging seal-clubbing!"
To that, I say that the people that get ganked aren't the ones flying G5 8-booster-stacked prismatic cutters. Victims of a seal-clubbing tend to be unengineered. Hell, the ganking hotspot is Felicity Farseer, the first engineer most players visit. It's not possible for them to have any engineering. Therefore: this change would not affect them. At all.

This idea deserves its own thread.

One of the biggest, glaring flaws in combat in Elite has been hitpoint inflation (as has been pointed out for years by the likes of CMDR Truesilver, for instance).

Overall the combat experience has, for me at least, been the weakest part of the game, owing to the almost complete lack of balance. I've had my next goal in Elite set to attain Elite combat rank for the past 4 years*, and I'm still having trouble motivating myself to make the push because of all the nonsense it entails, even ignoring the abysmal Engineering grind that I finally completed earlier this year. (I mean, I can blame Lost Ark for showing up too, but I digress.)

Many things I feel would have to change before I'd feel comfortable choosing to do combat for actual fun in Elite, but this would make an interesting first step.

*I'm somewhere around 75% Dangerous now for those curious.

 

[CardioTherapy]

These really are my views, and a two-cents to devs. The fact is, PVP meta is too one-sided today, arch-dominated by Plasma/Rail, the Meta FDL and more generally Shield-tanks, to the point that it is becoming annoying. Balancing is a difficult act and I obviously won't solve it, but I reckon these small steps are the most pressing and would go in the right direction :

• Lowering the percentage of PA absolute damages to 30% of total would help limit their edge and assure PA is not the by-default weapon anymore (20% would be better if you ask me)
• Rail Guns are too versatile: they can do very good damages short range, they are the best long-range weapon, they can suppress banks and they have great piercing ability. It is too much: they should be modified to imply some trade-off. Cancelling banks and piercing ability should remain, but either suppressing the long-range experimental effect choice or reducing their damage output (40% lower would be a minimum) would limit their usage by forcing a range choice
• Cannon speed should be increased by 50% so that they become a real low-management projectile alternative to PA and RG aiming at mid-range gameplay
• Shield banks should lose one charge across the board to limit their effectiveness (exception could be made for class 7 and 8 as banks on big ships make sense to offset their poor manoeuvrability)
• FDL should get one less utility slot

Plasmas are perfectly balanced. they are difficult fixed and slow projectiles weapons with limited ammo and average DPS.

Rails are also difficult weapons with super high heat generation and even less ammo.
FDL is a good combat ship but definitely not great.
Cell banks are in a good place considering the low amount of shield regeneration and high heat they generate.
The only thing need balancing are the shield boosters. The insane amount of HP and resistances they give is ridiculous.
balancing the shield booster is the way that will fix all of the above-mentioned problems. If ships cannot boost high resistances and extreme HP all other weapons will become more viable in pvp. Shield booster max effect at grade 5 should be not higher than grade 3 currently. This will make hull tanks and hybrid builds more viable too.

Edited: alternatively every additional module of the sme type (Shiel booster, hull reinforcement, guardian shield booster etc. will deliver only 70% (or even 60%) of the benefits of the previous modul of that type.

 

[Cmdr. Numa]

Give heavy duty shield boosters the same diminishing returns as resistance boosters have. FDEV tried that a few years ago, but a vocal minority of 14000 MJ Cutters, most of which have meanwhile vanished from the forums and might not even play anymore screamed that down. Engineering balance hasn't been touched anymore ever since.

 

[krusty23]

I believe medium ships should be capped at four boosters.
IMO, the FDL shouldn't be a better combat ship than the Fed or Alliance official 'combat' ships.
I switched from an FDL to Chieftain because in PvE the FDL is OP, plus the Chief is more fun to fly.