Beta Closing Statement

[Colonel Kenney]

It was simple.. don't nerf anything. Don't nerf gimbals - buff fixed weapons. Reward skill. Don't penalize non skill.

 

[Marc_Hicks]

Thanks for removing the commodities from Engineers. Great improvement!

I do hope they bring them back when we get limited commodity storage.

 

[Earthquake McGoon]

Great patch. Interdictions are fixed. My Gunship feels a lot more fun to fly.

Thankyou FD.

Looking forward to the next one!

 

[Cosmos]

I did take a quick look at the gimbals and on the FDL I tested it really wasnt that bad, at least for me with low class scanner. It did affect larger ships though. I can see the point about fixed and if anything I'd say rather than nerfing gimbals future changes should consider buffing fixed if needed. Theres already a hard counter to gimbals, that being chaff.

Nevertheless whilst it certainly takes more effort, skill being arguable, I have never enjoyed using fixed because I spend too much time focusing on shooting at target, read little dots in the distance (not much fun for me at least), than enjoying the combat situation and dogfighting in my ship. Some people enjoy fixed and I agree that given the effort required it deserved a bit of a buff.

Not an unwise decision to step back and consider it again.. That being said, full testing would require two pilots of equal ability and ship load out to determine the right balance. Where I think fixed should shine is agianst larger ships..

 

[biohazard15]

Sandro, not going through with the shield booster changes was an incredibly dumb decision, especially in conjunction with actually increasing shield regeneration.

Instead of making godships slightly weaker, you've made them even more rediculous. PvE is a joke at the moment in the big ships.

My Corvette went from 5 Gj to 3 Gj in beta. I wouldn't call it "slightly".
Also, shield regeneration speed never mattered for heavily boosted shields, especially prismatics. It can soak an incredible amount of damage, but it can't be recharged in field - you need to RTB in order to recharge.

If you don't like it, then don't use it. I spent about 800M and many hours of grind to get my Corvette, so I kinda expect it to be a goddamn godship.

 

[Mephane]

It was simple.. don't nerf anything. Don't nerf gimbals - buff fixed weapons. Reward skill. Don't penalize non skill.

This phrase doesn't become true just by repeating it more often. It is rarely just so simple. For example, NPCs use mostly fixed weapons and have superhuman aim with them, buffing fixed weapons would automatically buff all NPC damage, too, affecting PvE as well.

 

[fruitbat]

My Corvette went from 5 Gj to 3 Gj in beta. I wouldn't call it "slightly".
Also, shield regeneration speed never mattered for heavily boosted shields, especially prismatics. It can soak an incredible amount of damage, but it can't be recharged in field - you need to RTB in order to recharge.

If you don't like it, then don't use it. I spent about 800M and many hours of grind to get my Corvette, so I kinda expect it to be a goddamn godship.

Being able to go for a dump whilst leaving my corvette in a cz is a joke, hardly engaging gameplay. Also I don't care about how long you spent to get your corvette, it's just the same amount of time that I did. And no amount of time spent means its ok to leave a broken mechanic in game, which is what shield boosters have been since engineers.

 

[Stupid_hippy]

Gotta laugh at some of the responses here. Do people really think that SHOUTING and ranting and raving at the devs will get them taken more seriously?

Seriously? lol

Kudos to the devs for the good changes which were made, for not enacting changes without feeling certain that they had been sufficiently tested, and for not being pressured into making detrimental changes.

This sums up my thoughts quite nicely.

 

[biohazard15]

Being able to go for a dump whilst leaving my corvette in a cz is a joke, hardly engaging gameplay. Also I don't care about how long you spent to get your corvette, it's just the same amount of time that I did. And no amount of time spent means its ok to leave a broken mechanic in game, which is what shield boosters have been since engineers.

As I said, if you don't like it, then don't use it. Get yourself an unshielded Vulture or something and go into CZ.

I always wondered why some people insist on removing something due ot it being "broken" in their own view, instead of simply not using it. How exactly "being able to go for a dump whilst leaving corvette in CZ" breaks your own experience? Right, it doesn't.

 

[Lazerus Artificial]

Hello Commanders!

As some of you may have noticed, we’ve decided to hold back on a couple of elements that we trialled in this beta: specifically changes to shield booster stacking diminishing returns, hull armour hardness increases for the “big three” ships (Anaconda, Federal Corvette and Imperial Cutter), and linking gimbal tracking angles to ship sensors.

Regarding the shield stacking and hull armour changes, we always said that this was very much an experiment that we were just as likely to back off from as go live with. The feedback we received for these changes was, in the round, extremely positive. But In the end, we felt that we didn’t get enough of it, or the time to finesse the changes further at this point to risk pulling the trigger on such a significant change.

We believe that it’s on the right track though, and we’re likely to look into it again in a future update, when we can add to the feedback we already have, and plan for more tweak time as part of the beta.

The reason we held off degrading gimbal weapons was because, again thanks to feedback, we felt that it was too blunt a tool to try and create better parity between fixed and gimbal weapons. The extra weight from upgrading sensors, and the general sentiment that the change made game play feel less appealing, lead us to hold off letting this change go through; it is certainly not our intention to entice players to consider fixed weapons by making gimbal weapons less fun.

We appreciate that the idea of linking the effectiveness of gimbals to sensors in some way is appealing, but we want to spend a little more time looking at options.

Finally, thank you again for all the feedback we received, it has been invaluable in shaping the results of this update and improving the game, we hope everyone can enjoy the results.

Great statement, thanks for that.
Also im kinda glad that the gimbal changes didnt made it, because as a hotas player i just feel that i need it to balance the missing precision compared to mouse control. Not to mention that some ships (Clipper, Cutter) just dont work with Fixed. If the fixed angle would be like it is in CQC i would totally use them though, even if i would need to engineer them that way.

Maybe in a future version then you can find a balance between all the systems, shield and armor, fixed and gimbal, kinetic and laser...

personally i think the next thing we need after the changes that made it into the game (thanks for T5 Missile engineering btw) is a complete bounty and crime rework that works as intended without exploits

 

[Mephane]

As I said, if you don't like it, then don't use it. Get yourself an unshielded Vulture or something and go into CZ.

I always wondered why some people insist on removing something due ot it being "broken" in their own view, instead of simply not using it. How exactly "being able to go for a dump whilst leaving corvette in CZ" breaks your own experience? Right, it doesn't.

The thing is, FD don't like that there are 5GJ shields. Diminishing returns is literally the best kind of nerf for this, because it means you can still engineer your shields and boosters, and just not fill as many utility hardpoints with boosters then. If they nerfed the engineer mods or (hell) base stats of the items, it would be much worse - you'd still have to have as heavily engineers boosters and shields but get less out of it.

 

[racer1]

Hi Sandro

Thankyou for the statement and the patch. Some forum angst could have been avoided if you had made it at the same time as the patch went live

Just an example of how OP shields still are in PvE combat.

In my Corvette (all g5 mods but only one roll at each mod) last night I took on both sides of a High CZ i.e. I attacked both sides simultaneously. I did not try to place myself in a good tactical position I simply opened fire on arrival.

The strength of my shields made the whole thing undramatic. I had a connection error after about 10 minutes but based on how things were going at that point I could easily have stayed there for 30-40 minutes before I ran out of SCBs. I had 2 7A SCBs installed and had used just one recharge from each when I was disconnected.

I hope you will revisit shield strengths in future.

 

[NeilF]

...Maybe we can have an option to fix/lock gimbals/turrets forwards maybe next time then to test?

I'm certain it will have minimal combat benefits, and instead simply prove more of a QoL feature that will reward CMDRs instead. ie: By retaining your HUD (because you no longer have unlock the target to fix gimbals forwards), you actually then get confirmation if you're hitting the target or not, which is reward a CMDR.

Speaking personally, I don't find it rewarding for example simply shooting away at medium to long range not knowing if my shots are on target or not, simply because I can't have my HUD while locking my gimbals forwards...

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

I do hope they bring them back when we get limited commodity storage.

Or do more radical Engineers shakeup and change way they're done - while adding back commodities in meaningful way.

But removing them is ok for now.

 

[racer1]

As I said, if you don't like it, then don't use it. Get yourself an unshielded Vulture or something and go into CZ.

That argument never really holds water.

What is the point of having god like ships in the game? I would be happy if there was somewhere in game to take my Corvette for a challenge, but there just isn't PvE or PvP.

It is far better to balance different ability levels around different in game challenges that players can choose to engage in.

I have every intention of taking a shieldless vulture to CZ as well - that will be good fun

 

[sgurr]

Thanks for removing the commodities from Engineers. Great improvement!

This and the buff to lightweight weapon mods, but mostly this ^^ is a great quality of life improvement.

 

[Keanson]

How about tying higher rated sensors into effective subsystem targeting instead for gimbals and turrets. Lower rated sensors would obviously be less precise at damaging modules than now but higher rated ones would bring that effectiveness back up somewhat, and along with the MRPs, that might even the balance between fixed weaponry and the others.

 

[CATPAIN KIRK]

Hello Commanders!
Regarding the shield stacking and hull armour changes, we always said that this was very much an experiment that we were just as likely to back off from as go live with. The feedback we received for these changes was, in the round, extremely positive. But In the end, we felt that we didn’t get enough of it, or the time to finesse the changes further at this point to risk pulling the trigger on such a significant change.

Thanks for the clarification, but what I can't get my head around is why you decided to substantially increase shield recharge rates without introducing booster stacking penalties.

I tested the new shield recharge rates and found them to be a very good change, however it was clear it needed some counterbalancing adjustments since engineered shields already are far too strong. It's all the more peculiar as you're clearly aware of the problem yourself:

The issue we see is how stacking shield boosters, and heavily engineering them, creates shields that can be an order of magnitude more powerful than improvements available to weaponry.

This presents most obviously when flying the “big three” and FDLs, thanks to their abundance of booster-capable utility mounts. As an aside, these changes won’t affect smaller ships unless you are cramming all your utility mounts with boosters.

The end result is top tier ships with shields can be almost impossible to break in 1v1 PvP engagements, and can make PvE engagements somewhat risk free.

So I'd understand not introducing any changes at all because you want to reiterate.

What I have trouble following is only introducing the part that aggravates the underlying problem whilst leaving out the part tackling it.

Introducing both would have tackled the problem.
Introducing stacking penalties without enhanced recharge rates would have tackled the problem.
Leaving everything untouched at least wouldn't have made it worse.

However, I must admit that opting for the combination that increases the base problem the most is beyond my capability to comprehend.

 

[Midian27]

My Corvette went from 5 Gj to 3 Gj in beta. I wouldn't call it "slightly".
Also, shield regeneration speed never mattered for heavily boosted shields, especially prismatics. It can soak an incredible amount of damage, but it can't be recharged in field - you need to RTB in order to recharge.

If you don't like it, then don't use it. I spent about 800M and many hours of grind to get my Corvette, so I kinda expect it to be a goddamn godship.

It will be nerfed. Get over it.

 

[floc]

We appreciate that the idea of linking the effectiveness of gimbals to sensors in some way is appealing, but we want to spend a little more time looking at options.

dont touch A-grade sensors and then make engineer mod for all sensors:

- accuracy mod-> for enhanced gimbal arc, penality on power/integrity (no effect or very small effect on A-grade)
- lightweight mod-> reduce weight, penality on power/integrity

so we can have a boost on lighter module while still enjoy current tracking setup