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.
So, can you come up with an alternative that can:
- Threaten the cold-orbit meta; and
-
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.
I meant random nature of tissue sampling, sorry, realise that wasn't clear.
Most demonstrations I see, the swarm is rarely a concern.
Almost all cold-orbiting I've seen, you'll operate between 1000-3000m. The only exception to maintaining that range is against multiple interceptors.
I mean exactly what you wrote. It's manageable.
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?
And so too would Thargoids, which i'll get to at a later point.[1]
Tell that key proponents of the cold-orbit meta I guess
I think it's silly as well.
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.
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
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)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
- “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”.
