They could have had the interceptors adapt in other ways to counter it, such as using special abilities randomly during the combat, not just scripted on rails where everyone knows exactly what they’ll be doing at the exact time.
On the contrary, "randomly used" abilities are a far worse situation, and are way more derided.
If they are random and overall ineffective, then they may as well not exist.
If they are random and actually pose a threat to whether a commander is effective or not, then you can expect a contingent of people complaining that, despite all their application of skill, whether they win or not comes down to a flip of a coin.
There's a time and a place for random. This is not it.
Maybe even using their swarms so that when the CMDR’s ship goes cold, the swarm will disperse rather than bunch up in an effort to track down the ship to better target it. These would be more interesting solutions but I guess it’s too much effort.
So, can you come up with an alternative that can:
- Threaten the cold-orbit meta; and
-
But Cold Orbiting is not limited to Gauss use. I also use Cold Orbiting with Mod Plasmas, Mod Shards and Human AX weapons.
It is a flying technique, independent of the type of weapon chosen and even of weapon use at all.
OK, so we can fit out to do cold orbit with AX weapons and render the biggest threat posed by the Glaive useless.
This is normally when people complain that this is an ineffective fit against larger interceptors. Again... there should be no "god fit" that just deals with everything.
So, you used it without using weapons, which is in line with what I have referred above.
But what do you mean with "random nature of it" ?
I meant random nature of tissue sampling, sorry, realise that wasn't clear.
Actually it kind of does.
It still sees the CMDR, it still attacks and the CMDR has to steer accordingly, to avoid most of the Swarm projectiles. They do fail more often because of the low heat + FA OFF + lateral + vertical thrusting, but they do still hit the ship.
Most demonstrations I see, the swarm is rarely a concern.
It does reach the ship.
It works exactly like when using FA ON and no Cold Orbit. Only distance to Interceptor counts. Lower than 800m and you get zapped. No difference whatsoever. I know because I got zapped, several times, for not keeping enough distance while using FA OFF + Cold Orbit.
Almost all cold-orbiting I've seen, you'll operate between 1000-3000m. The only exception to maintaining that range is against multiple interceptors.
Now I am confused. What do you mean with that ?
I believe that, unless the throttle isn't working, speed and distance to Interceptor is always manageable, independent of what flying technique one is using. FA ON or FA OFF, Cold Orbing or not.
I mean exactly what you wrote. It's manageable.
As I replied to your quotations above, not the only thing left and not as clear cut as you claim.
The main canon might be less effective because of the low temperature making the weapon lock harder, but bellow 1000m, even at 0% temperature the CMDR will get hit. Everytime I do not control the distance to keep the interceptor at more than 1000m I get blasted with canon fire.
Meanwhile, it's entirely possible to disengage long enough to do synthesize heatsinks, chuck a repair limpet etc. without taking any damage. See why I'm skeptical?
But answering directly to your observation, a series of vulnerabilities was observed by attentive and intelligent CMDRs. Then a technique to exploit those vulnerabilities was elaborated. As it would have happened in any war. It makes perfect sense. I see absolutely no problem with that.
And so too would Thargoids, which i'll get to at a later point.[1]
That claim, of shard-ganking being an exploit, is just silly.
What Armed Forces would not explore the possibility of destroying your opponent faster, by being able to use overwhelming firepower ? None.
The more ways to defeat your opponent, the better.
Tell that key proponents of the cold-orbit meta I guess
I think it's silly as well.
Only for Cyclops. You couldn't do that easily to the other Interceptors.
And, since you can only use them in Large ships, that are incapable of Cold Orbiting, the damage taken, while blasting the Interceptors, was very significant. That is why 6x Mod Shard / 6x Mod Plasmas ships were only ever used in Planetary AX CZs. Put those gib-boats in a Space / Starport / Outpost AX CZs and the swarms would annihilate them pretty fast.
Sounds like, to take a page out of the logic book your using, bigger interceptors are OP and need a nerf, since there's a combination of features in their design that put a weapon type that people have invested time in to obtain, which is rendered useless.
I am not disagreeing with that, but, as I have repeated countless times before, it is not the innovation of a Thargoid ship that can bypass the Cold Orbiting or catch fast ships, that is the basis for my observations and recommendations.
Coming back to [1], what's your expectation then?
That FD implement a the full Skynet experience and create an AI that can organically evolve and innovate constantly to everything going on? Obviously that's hyperbolic because that's totally unreasonable, but genuinely, what are you expecting?
That some interceptors simply moved faster
What makes the Glaives unbalanced, is the way they became a lazy cop-out, to the previously mentioned problems, by making them have all the Thargoid abilities, at the same time, without having weaknesses. The biggest imbalance in them, is having all of these 3 abilities working simultaneously:
- Guardian Degeneration Field;
- FSD Reboot / Containment Missiles;
- Mass Lock Factor of 20.
Let us elaborate:
1 - Stops any pure Guardian Weapons Build to effectively fight back. In a AX CZ, after less than 60seconds, High Waking or landing and waiting at the station, are the only solutions:
- Meta Chieftain is gone, replaced by a 2x C3 EN AX MC + 1x C2 EN AX Missiles build that will only kill Scouts, Glaives and, with a lot of effort, the occasional Cyclops;
- Challenger 3x Mod Shard / 3x Mod Plasma / 3x Gauss is no longer viable. Replaced by a 1x C3 EN AX MCs + 3x EN AX Missiles build that will struggle with Scouts, hold its own against an isolated Glaive and will be limited against Cyclopes;
- All Medium ships, other than Kraits, are severely gimped for solo play;
- 6x Shards / Plasmas gib-boats are dead. Large Ship Hybrid builds will survive only in Planetary AX CZs, with a lot of damage, lack of effectiveness and the frequent run for cover at the station.
Got no problems with Guardian builds being rendered useless. What if FD instead just released a type of Thargoid immune to guardian damage instead? Like they did with the whole Thargoid
What you know I agree with is that they should probably be taken out of AX CZs, with the exception of very high ones (Or arguably, since AX weapons are very effective against Glaives, maybe they only belong in low CZs alongside Cyclops and a rare basilisk)
2 - Almost all of the ships (other than very fast Racer or Maelstrom Explorers) that suffer an Hyper / Interdiction and are hit by a FSD Missile will have to fight because Low or High Wake will not be possible:
- Guardian weapon builds will be unable to fight after 60 seconds, so their only option is High Wake and that might not be possible;
- Fast + Cold Evac / Cargo will have to immediately use ECM + Silent Running + Heatsinks and be piloted by a skilled CMDR to deflect the FSD Missile and to gain enough separation to Low Wake or High Wake;
- Slow Large Evac / Cargo ships will have to use ECM constantly, while tanking damage, until being able to Low or High Wake.
3 - All ships will be unable to Low Wake, other than Anaconda, Cutter, Corvette and T-10:
- Small and very fast Racer or Maelstrom Explorer ship builds will be able to escape. All other small ships will be unable to jump, will not outrun the Glaive and will lack the fire power to defeat it;
- No Medium ships can escape the Glaives. Other than Kraits, most Medium Hybrid Combat Builds will struggle to destroy a Glaive. The others, even escaping the FSD Missile, will be unable to Low Wake, will have to High Wake or be destroyed.
As I've suggested before, I would suggest a reduction in their masslock effect would resolve this. They're meant to be high-speed tackle ships, they can't also be dense warships (I'm looking at you, Anaconda...)... lowered enough to allow medium-size ships would suffice, since small ships have very little survivability in, say, the maelstrom.
Having sat there tanking one of way too long because of the masslock effect... once the first FSD disruptor is shaken off, you're very likely to get away with a low wake
if you can low wake. Their damage isn't that large (but their lightning will rip shields, obviously) and a relatively light tank on a rescue ship would be enough.
All of this together, compounds a risky situation in to an almost impossible situation, for a lot of CMDRs and a lot of ship builds.
It is the conjunction of all of these abilities, together, that I say it is unbalanced and counterproductive to the game.
TBH, I'm only hearing one build type affected here... ones that use purely guardian weapons. But hey, that's
probably going to change at some point. This is just the bit that puts us on the back foot like in the previous iterations of the Thargoid story.
I am in total disagreement with the yellow highlighted part. It has the same 2-3% damage / second degeneration effect that is encountered in the Maelstrom systems. It is waaaay overdone and overly powerful for a single ship.
If it remains, it should be lowered in effect.
There's an ongoing narrative at play here. Guardian Tech was the big winner for humans pre-war, and then we went all-in with Azimuth on their genocidal bent underpinned by a substantial amount of Guardian Tech. So when the proverbial pooch got screwed, things flipped and our biggest investment was rendered fairly useless. This effect becoming portable on Glaives/Orthrus is just a continuation of that narrative. For it to be muted would, imo, run counter to that narrative, but also do nothing to challenge the meta, at the core of which is Guardian weapons. Nerfing the damage of the field (even from a glaive) is just an exercise in finding the sweet spot where players can still kill it with no change to their current builds... i.e just rendering it useless and not producing any noticeable effect in the game
Which is why my suggestions are:
- Reduce the masslock; to facilitate easier escape, particularly for non-com craft
- Remove appearance of the Glaive in all but the most dangerous where there's multiple target types; the Glaive is only OP when present in-concert with other threats where a Guardian fit is highly preferred.
It gives non-com ships a chance, which a pure guardian fit would become when encountering one... in the same way that for other threats like Hydras and Medusas, an AX-fit ship basically has no choice but to flee as well. (incidental note: Funny nobody has ever complained about that one...)
Glaives are meant to be a "pursue and disable" craft, not a frontline warzone fighter, so the fact it's in CZs is a bit incongruent. I guess in that regard, it's also a bit chonkier than I'd expect, so maybe a nerf to it's HP or Armour. But that's it.
Cold Orbiting is difficult and - as I understand it - requires the CMDR to choose a specific control scheme - relative mouse or HOTAS? Pretty far from an “off button” in my book, more a complex procedure that takes time and dedication to learn and has to be maintained for the duration of the fight.
The mere fact that it relies on a
specific control scheme, instead of being achievable with just any control scheme, screams of major bug, poor design, or outright exploit, to me
It's this idolisation and sanctification of the cold orbit meta that's the problem here, not the Glaive.
EDIT: Oh, I should probably clarify.
But I don’t resent other people who can being able to do so: it’s an impressive skill.
As for Glaives, nothing will convince me that them having a passive ability to delete weapons - requiring no skill whatsoever on their part to use - is a positive addition to the game.
I don't resent those who can do it... I resent those who could do it
and actively tried to shut down things like shard-ganking, who are now pearl-clutching about their precious tactic being threatened. Just to be clear on that one.
