Was thinking about an old wow encounter while responding to another thread, and that got me thinking how a super tough fight in WoW compares to a super tough fight in Elite.
In Elite a hard encounter is usually made hard by the quantity and equipment level of NPC enemies. Personally, in the FAS, I can handle any of the following combinations... 2 elite anything at the same time, even corvettes, Annies, no problem. 1 big ship and 2 small ships, no problem. Up to 4 small ships, no problem. It's when the numbers start ramping up that no amount of skill will help, you simply can't stayout of everyone's weapons arc at the same time and still do effective DPS.
In WoW a hard encounter is made hard by mechanics. Extra enemies come in the middle of the fight, in this way, it is similar to Elite, or certain players get disabled temporarily at a time when everyone has to move together, etc etc.
In WoW and other MMOs, we are given tools to deal with this, roots which hold enemies in place, temporary invulnerability on a very long cooldown, etc etc.
And I got to thinking... Where is our crowd control? How can a small ship get to feel like a true ninja and take on, say, 10 enemies and win? Only with CC and area of effect attacks. Some quick examples of how I see this potentially working in Elite...
EMP - Obvious really, a 500m area of effect attack on a very long cooldown (10 minutes), that disables all ships it comes into contact with for 10 seconds.
ElectroMagnetic munitions - If you have an EM special on your weapon, each time you hit the enemy you add to a stack of 'EMP overload', each stack decays after 5 seconds. When 5 stacks is reached, the next shot has the same effect as described above, the enemy is disabled for exactly 10 seconds. Electronic Countermeasures, if activated while having 5 stacks, will reduce the disabled time by 60%.
Gravity Bomb - Another pulse type weapon that sends a bubble of extreme gravity out of your ship which repels enemy ships (sends them flying across the abyss out of control). This will buy you a few seconds on a particular target while the others try to get back to you.
Plasma bomb - Simply does decent damage to every ship within a kilometer.
Ablative energy armor - A special energy based armor that increases hardness by 100% temporarily to cope with heavy damage from multiple wing mates while taking out the main target.
Purge Energy Banks - removes all effects on you immediately, recovers 20% of nominal shield strength and provides a 50% hardness bonus for 15 secs. Half an hour cooldown.
I might post more ideas as they come to me...
On the subject of balance, don't forget that these would be difficult to use in CZs and RESes, without attracting more attention than you might like. That is also why I want to have the EMP effect applicable on a single target (EM munitions for say, railguns and PAs) as well as on multiples (AoE EMP bomb)
That kind of stuff. Let;s hear your ideas for crowd control and AoE attacks that might be doable (and feasible in canon) in Elite to help with those multiple contact situations.
In Elite a hard encounter is usually made hard by the quantity and equipment level of NPC enemies. Personally, in the FAS, I can handle any of the following combinations... 2 elite anything at the same time, even corvettes, Annies, no problem. 1 big ship and 2 small ships, no problem. Up to 4 small ships, no problem. It's when the numbers start ramping up that no amount of skill will help, you simply can't stayout of everyone's weapons arc at the same time and still do effective DPS.
In WoW a hard encounter is made hard by mechanics. Extra enemies come in the middle of the fight, in this way, it is similar to Elite, or certain players get disabled temporarily at a time when everyone has to move together, etc etc.
In WoW and other MMOs, we are given tools to deal with this, roots which hold enemies in place, temporary invulnerability on a very long cooldown, etc etc.
And I got to thinking... Where is our crowd control? How can a small ship get to feel like a true ninja and take on, say, 10 enemies and win? Only with CC and area of effect attacks. Some quick examples of how I see this potentially working in Elite...
EMP - Obvious really, a 500m area of effect attack on a very long cooldown (10 minutes), that disables all ships it comes into contact with for 10 seconds.
ElectroMagnetic munitions - If you have an EM special on your weapon, each time you hit the enemy you add to a stack of 'EMP overload', each stack decays after 5 seconds. When 5 stacks is reached, the next shot has the same effect as described above, the enemy is disabled for exactly 10 seconds. Electronic Countermeasures, if activated while having 5 stacks, will reduce the disabled time by 60%.
Gravity Bomb - Another pulse type weapon that sends a bubble of extreme gravity out of your ship which repels enemy ships (sends them flying across the abyss out of control). This will buy you a few seconds on a particular target while the others try to get back to you.
Plasma bomb - Simply does decent damage to every ship within a kilometer.
Ablative energy armor - A special energy based armor that increases hardness by 100% temporarily to cope with heavy damage from multiple wing mates while taking out the main target.
Purge Energy Banks - removes all effects on you immediately, recovers 20% of nominal shield strength and provides a 50% hardness bonus for 15 secs. Half an hour cooldown.
I might post more ideas as they come to me...
On the subject of balance, don't forget that these would be difficult to use in CZs and RESes, without attracting more attention than you might like. That is also why I want to have the EMP effect applicable on a single target (EM munitions for say, railguns and PAs) as well as on multiples (AoE EMP bomb)
That kind of stuff. Let;s hear your ideas for crowd control and AoE attacks that might be doable (and feasible in canon) in Elite to help with those multiple contact situations.
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