Diminishing returns, experimental effects, mission rewards and signal sources - The current state of the missing info
Well this will be a constructive post, so no negativism whatsoever (at least from my side), i will keep that rambling for another time (because there is other stuff that i would argue about). I would like to speak about the current state of some things, and the changes that might make those things better (from my point of view). This is mostly about the lack of info that is badly needed. I will split my thinking into sections, so it will be easier to put it out and to be read. It will be a longer post and i will not have a tl;dr because I can’t really get this shorter. So let’s begin.
A. Weapons.
In 2.1.03 update log we can see that:
My thoughts.
In the same update log at the weapons section we can see that ”having an active shield now statically prevents 25% of the heat from getting through”.
As QA-Mitch posted here, ”there is an additional step to prevent damage resistances stacking too far however - up to 50% resistance nothing further is done, but the range of 50-100% is remapped to 50-75%. It is impossible to reach or exceed 75% static resistance to a damage type.” And "to clarify with numbers, if you had a lot of sources of 20% damage resistance (Not something you can actually do in game, but it illustrates the maths easily), the final resistance value would end up being:
1 * 20% => 20%
2 * 20% => 36%
3 * 20% => 48.8%
4 * 20% => 54.5%
5 * 20% => 58.6%
6 * 20% => 61.9%
7 * 20% => 64.5%
8 * 20% => 66.6%
9 * 20% => 68.3%
10* 20% => 69.6% "
Again, this info is not shown ingame, and I don’t really see a reason why not to. Someone who doesn’t check the forums has no idea that his shield prevents 25% of the incoming heat for example. What i would like to see is the exact resistances I have on my ship. For example in Diablo 3 (i dislike many things about the game but parts of it are just really well done) i can see exactly what my char’s resistances are (diminishing returns calculated) and that changes realtime when fighting/buffing/being affected by modifiers, that character detail info is just great. A ship resistances/stats detail info would be great in E.D. also.
When i did my first thermal shock upgrade i had no idea that it will come with a -25% damage penalty. When i saw that -25% damage i had a shock myself. Also many other experimental effects come with other downsizes, less ammo, slower fire rate etc.
Let’s take corrosive shell for example: Experimental rounds that temporarily weaken hull hardness and increase all damage taken, at the cost of reduced ammo capacity. So how weaker % hull hardness? How much % reduced ammo capacity? How much % damage penalty? etc. etc.
So we know that multiple corrosive shell mc’s don’t stack (also missing info), or that scramble spectrum has a less obvious way of working as Mark said here. So "each hit with scramble spectrum has a chance (what % chance?) to cause a random module to malfunction, but once a module does malfunction that ship becomes immune to the effect for 10 seconds. More weapons will mean you tend to cause malfunctions sooner (as a roll will succeed sooner after the immunity fades) but it's not possible to cause multiple simultaneous malfunctions. It's worth pointing out though, that malfunctions with a longer duration *can* overlap, they just can't be triggered at more than 1 per 10 seconds."
My thoughts.
All that info is not ingame also. I would like to see for example how much % heat per second my thermal vent beam dissipates on succesful hits. I would like to see all this info listed as it should be (well many of us already know most by now), maybe even showing the before/after capacity/penalty etc. This will just make us less searching for it and less alt-tabbing (let's play more, let's alt-tab less).
I love them mods, and i would like more info here also. When we are changing/upgrading different modules in the ship and select them in the menu, we can see the difference them in ship stats. Just like that, i would like to see when selecting “modification > remove modification” the difference in with or without them. Why would i find this useful? Well removing some mods changes power draw/weight etc and that is very important sometimes. A "with and without mods" info would be great.
3. Mission rewards and signal sources. It can be better.
B. Signal sources and the eye candy.
I love the new added variation in signal sources, and i hope there is more to come. The issue i have with this is that they all look the same. Either unidentified, RES, nav beacon, high grade, encoded etc, basically all FTL drop points are a circle. How about adding some variation? Like some small icons with question marks for unidentified, some signal waves for encoded, some bottle of wisky for high grade (j/k) ?
I loved what you did with the planet salvage search zone animation, i would love to see something like that for signal sources too. It would make them less boring from my point of view.
Well i wanted to talk about more things but this took me a while to write so i’ll wrap it up here. But not before other mentions:
E.D. is a great game and i'm sure it will be even greater. I’m not sure if the missing or incomplete stuff is from the lack of people or time, but i think if F.D. would need something and appeal to the community, there would be people willing to help with ideeas or whatever. What we all want is that before anymore content to just fix/implement the things already in the game. If anyone wanna add something useful to this, be my guest [alien]
Well this will be a constructive post, so no negativism whatsoever (at least from my side), i will keep that rambling for another time (because there is other stuff that i would argue about). I would like to speak about the current state of some things, and the changes that might make those things better (from my point of view). This is mostly about the lack of info that is badly needed. I will split my thinking into sections, so it will be easier to put it out and to be read. It will be a longer post and i will not have a tl;dr because I can’t really get this shorter. So let’s begin.
1. Diminishing returns for ship stats/resistances. This is both for weapons and outfitting.
A. Weapons.
In 2.1.03 update log we can see that:
- Diminishing returns now applies to impulse attacks within a short space of time. This resistance will drain to zero after at most 5 seconds, but within that window the more a ship is pushed around the more it becomes resistant to it.
- Balancing for heat attack weapons (Retributor, Thermal Shock and a few others), overall intention is to keep single weapons having a purpose, while reducing the power of heavy stacking.
- Adjusted the diminishing returns curve, getting someone to 100% is easier, getting them past 100% is harder, getting them into hull damage is MUCH harder, and the final cap is now 220% rather than 300%
My thoughts.
- I am not talking about heat weapons specifically and i assume that these are not the only diminishing returns for weapons/effects. I feel like a blind man while trying to do a build and not knowing about this stuff and needing to do a lot of research about it, because theres no info in the game that lists/shows this. Someone who doesnt check the forums has no ideea about this stuff. I love that the engineers involve RNG (unlike some other people), it makes my builds feel unique, but equipping weapons should not be an RNG situation (like let's equip this and see what happens, maybe it works). When i put a weapon on my ship i should know exactly what i will get.
- What i would like is to see is the numbers and exact percentages of diminishing returns while using a weapon/effect who has it, via weapon info / effect info. Icons for it would be great also (just like for effects). For example if i am hit with an impulse attack, something should show me that for the next 5 seconds i will be less (or more in other cases) vulnerable to the same attack. Listing these changes in the update log was great, but we need (all of) them ingame also.
B. Outfitting.
In the same update log at the weapons section we can see that ”having an active shield now statically prevents 25% of the heat from getting through”.
As QA-Mitch posted here, ”there is an additional step to prevent damage resistances stacking too far however - up to 50% resistance nothing further is done, but the range of 50-100% is remapped to 50-75%. It is impossible to reach or exceed 75% static resistance to a damage type.” And "to clarify with numbers, if you had a lot of sources of 20% damage resistance (Not something you can actually do in game, but it illustrates the maths easily), the final resistance value would end up being:
1 * 20% => 20%
2 * 20% => 36%
3 * 20% => 48.8%
4 * 20% => 54.5%
5 * 20% => 58.6%
6 * 20% => 61.9%
7 * 20% => 64.5%
8 * 20% => 66.6%
9 * 20% => 68.3%
10* 20% => 69.6% "
My thoughts.
Again, this info is not shown ingame, and I don’t really see a reason why not to. Someone who doesn’t check the forums has no idea that his shield prevents 25% of the incoming heat for example. What i would like to see is the exact resistances I have on my ship. For example in Diablo 3 (i dislike many things about the game but parts of it are just really well done) i can see exactly what my char’s resistances are (diminishing returns calculated) and that changes realtime when fighting/buffing/being affected by modifiers, that character detail info is just great. A ship resistances/stats detail info would be great in E.D. also.
2. This is about experimental effects info/penalties and engineer mods.
A. Experimental effects and the non listed info/penalties.
When i did my first thermal shock upgrade i had no idea that it will come with a -25% damage penalty. When i saw that -25% damage i had a shock myself. Also many other experimental effects come with other downsizes, less ammo, slower fire rate etc.
Let’s take corrosive shell for example: Experimental rounds that temporarily weaken hull hardness and increase all damage taken, at the cost of reduced ammo capacity. So how weaker % hull hardness? How much % reduced ammo capacity? How much % damage penalty? etc. etc.
So we know that multiple corrosive shell mc’s don’t stack (also missing info), or that scramble spectrum has a less obvious way of working as Mark said here. So "each hit with scramble spectrum has a chance (what % chance?) to cause a random module to malfunction, but once a module does malfunction that ship becomes immune to the effect for 10 seconds. More weapons will mean you tend to cause malfunctions sooner (as a roll will succeed sooner after the immunity fades) but it's not possible to cause multiple simultaneous malfunctions. It's worth pointing out though, that malfunctions with a longer duration *can* overlap, they just can't be triggered at more than 1 per 10 seconds."
My thoughts.
B. Engineer mod stats.
3. Mission rewards and signal sources. It can be better.
A. Mission rewards.
There was some talk in other topic about this, and my opinion is that they need to be changed according to the latest 3x material patch. I really find that the time invested in doing a mission for 1x material does not worth compared to getting 3x from the source locations. The cargo rewards are fine, so leave it like it is.
B. Signal sources and the eye candy.
I loved what you did with the planet salvage search zone animation, i would love to see something like that for signal sources too. It would make them less boring from my point of view.
Well i wanted to talk about more things but this took me a while to write so i’ll wrap it up here. But not before other mentions:
- BB loading/icons loading – faster would be better
- CQC – better matchmaking would be better
- Pinned blueprints – "view blueprints" instead "pinned blueprint" would be better (less alt-tab on Inara, more time ingame - great work to Inara guys btw)
E.D. is a great game and i'm sure it will be even greater. I’m not sure if the missing or incomplete stuff is from the lack of people or time, but i think if F.D. would need something and appeal to the community, there would be people willing to help with ideeas or whatever. What we all want is that before anymore content to just fix/implement the things already in the game. If anyone wanna add something useful to this, be my guest [alien]
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