Observed Yamiks and his combat stream

I would so very much support this. Unfortunately FD already once tried to nerf shield booster engineering. Not as strongly as you suggest, it was just a case of diminishing returns at the very upper end. A small but very vocal group of people on the forum created a lot of noise against it during the beta. (Most of those who made all the noise were console players who had no access to the beta at all, along with some players who openly stated that they never even were on the beta server but simply hated it. )

So under the massive pressure of a small group of players, FD canceled even such a minor nerf. Now imagine what would happen when FD would try to implement a nerf of significant impact.

Dont know that that was console players so much as big ship/fdl bois who were terrified at the prospect of getting sunk by eagles and vipers lol.
 
Dont know that that was console players so much as big ship/fdl bois who were terrified at the prospect of getting sunk by eagles and vipers lol.

Uh. I guess I have to clarify: my point about console players was not that all console players would want the power creep while PC players would not. It seems like you understood it that way, so I failed to explain properly.

The point I tried to make, but obviously lacked to give in full detail was that many people actually tested the changes during the beta. Of those who tested them, almost everybody was happy. Many even stated that the nerfs were very gentle and should have been much broader and stronger.

But while those who actually tested and evaluated the changes did welcome them and often even wanted more of them, a number of players who either did not ever test or did not even have the option to test flooded the test feedback forum with an endless stream of "it's bad and I hate it" postings.

And this high volume of postings by a rather small number of players, who didn't even have any experience with the changes implemented on the beta forum, was enough for FD to cave and not roll out these rather moderate nerfs.
 
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Uh. I guess I have to clarify: my point about console players was not that all console players would want the power creep while PC players would not. It seems like you understood it that way, so I failed to explain properly.

The point I tried to make, but obviously lacked to give in full detail was that many people actually tested the changes during the beta. Of those who tested them, almost everybody was happy. Many even stated that the nerfs were very gentle and should have been much broader and stronger.

But while those who actually tested and evaluated the changes did welcome them and often even wanted more of them, a number of players who either did not ever test or did not even have the option to test flooded the test feedback forum with an endless stream of "it's bad and I hate it" postings.

No.. My point was that the people most likely to complain about shield changes are FDL fanbois and Big ship pilots as they will feel any changes far more than us biweave mortals, well outside of how bad most of them are without thier umpteenmilliion MJ of shields.

A fair amount were indeed happy, but I saw a LOT of whining during that time regarding big ships now becoming "useless" and the FDL being "underpowered" as a result, that was equal from all parties, PC and console, same result as every other post where people suggest nerfs to shielding.

It should definatly be implemented but due to said squalling kids, its pretty unlikely.
 
Curiously enough, some of those who opposed any shield nerf also agree any time somebody says anything about the game not being challenging enough.

This sometimes makes me ponder about their capability of logical thought. But I guess that's a different topic. :D
 
Curiously enough, some of those who opposed any shield nerf also agree any time somebody says anything about the game not being challenging enough.

This sometimes makes me ponder about their capability of logical thought. But I guess that's a different topic. :D

Indeed. Though goddamn if the NPC's dont seriously need a buff.
 
Indeed. Though goddamn if the NPC's dont seriously need a buff.

Buffing NPCs is a problem. Making them more of a challenge for the fully engineered player turns them into absolute death machines for the beginner in a not engineered ship.

That's why all the actual challenges we have by now are hidden behind opt-in mechanics. The game already now has a problem with player retention. Having threats of high power level randomly attack people, including beginners, would make the situation even worse.

Reducing the power gap is the only viable solution. Only with engineering effects being reduced, there could be a middle ground again where either side can find appropriate gameplay.
 
Buffing NPCs is a problem. Making them more of a challenge for the fully engineered player turns them into absolute death machines for the beginner in a not engineered ship.

That's why all the actual challenges we have by now are hidden behind opt-in mechanics. The game already now has a problem with player retention. Having threats of high power level randomly attack people, including beginners, would make the situation even worse.

Reducing the power gap is the only viable solution. Only with engineering effects being reduced, there could be a middle ground again where either side can find appropriate gameplay.

I'm not sure about that.. The game already scales the ships and NPC pilots to the player ranking as far as them interdicting you goes, if you're a new player and you start pewing at an elite NPC you're likely going to get meltoed engineering or not, merely that improving the bots in such a way that they perform better in late game.
Even as far as non-Horizons owners go it can be scaled, IE: If player has Horizons then higher ranked NPC's are engineered, if they do not, then the NPC's are not, should be easy enough a fix, moreover it could be instanced as such that a player with engineering feels like the target has some, whereas the guy without feels as though they do not. Sure there would need to be a little bit of fiddling to find a middle ground with thrusters and the like but on a purely defensive basis this is more than workable.

Don't get me wrong though, I'm all for better scaling with engineering but thats more from a PvP standpoint, IE the weapons and effects need to be balanced around that aspect because they are the players which are actually going to feel the brunt of the balancing.
 
And yet there's so much in between. The classical example is good old StarCraft. Three very different races, with very different playstyles, yet all were viable on all levels of gameplay, without one being seen as overpowered. (Edit: I have to correct, one was seen as rather overpowered by players early in the game, with limited knowledge about it. But while some people stagnated at that level, most grew out of it. ) So while the set of options is different, depending on which race you pick, victory or defeat in the end is determined by the players skill.

Directly transferring this to ED is hard. But it would already be great if FD would just sometimes strive for it, instead of following the path of power creep, leading to a very limited range of optimal choices.

I feel there is a lot of room for more variety, more flexibility, and better balance.

ED's current attempt a balance consists of collection of hard counters bolted to a

The purpose of it is necessary. Offense and defense were too close to each other before. This meant that it only took a wing of two to attack a single pilot and that pilot did not have a chance.

I don't agree.

In one vs. many combats, TTKs are probably lower now than they were before Engineering. The defensive inflation that is most predominant in 1v1s is superseded by the synergistic effects of many offensive augmentations when faced with multiple attackers.

Some examples that feature pre-Engineer focus fire and/or asymmetric engagements, in no particular order:


I've got some Vulture and Clipper footage somewhere, but my channel and my archives are a bit of a mess and I originally reuploaded most of these to illustrate the difference between the pre (1.4) and post (1.5/2.0) FDL.

Anyway, escape used to be as simple as dumping a heatsink; staying evasive was much more effective when all weapons had damage falloff and default projectile velocities; when nothing could amplify sensor signature; and when SCBs couldn't be canceled.

Not saying Engineering was all bad, but I never felt that ships were too fragile before, and the defensive inflation is most noticeable in 1v1s, where it's more tedious than anything.

The only way to curb the stupidly over shielded ship problem is to either disallow ships from having more than a set number of boosters or banks.

The diminishing returns that were in the 2.3.10 beta test (that I did play heavily) worked well, and if resistances were hit a bit harder (if deminishing returns started at something lower than 30% above the shield gen's values), I think they'd be almost perfect.

SCBs have a long and storied history, but they were probably most balanced around 1.3-1.4...they had reached their current number of charges, but restored less per charge at the higher classes, and could not be activated independently without being disabled or placed in different fire groups, which made heatsinks even more critical. Lake of PP modifications (and the smaller size of PP on the FDL) were also constraints on how many SCBs one could effectively employ. It wasn't perfect by any means, as they had no real counters, but it was at least possible to hammer through them with the damage available at the time and if someone had multiple SCBs, you knew they took a hit somewhere else to be able to use them.
 
Since we're seeing several posts on the same rough bent, I feel a need to point out that the genie can never be returned to the bottle on engineering.

The purpose of it is necessary. Offense and defense were too close to each other before. This meant that it only took a wing of two to attack a single pilot and that pilot did not have a chance. By increasing defense 1000% and dps only 100%, they gave the lone pilot at last a chance to survive an organised 4 man gank. This was necessary to keep (regular mortal, non master) players playing in Open. If just being seen by a wing of 2 or more is instant death, since the interdiction game and the balance of power are in favour of the attacker, who would bother? I say it's better now.

The side effects of that may not be desirable (10 minute pvp fights, 20 if you are absolute dog poo), but the main effect is 100% necessary and ing and moaning about it isn't going to change a thing.
There are other way to survive beyond just having a insurmountable wall of health.
 
And they used to be even more viable to leverage before infailable counters to stealth and and LR/focused weapons.

Its these counters that can cause equally horrendous balance issues an all, it would be far less noticable if one class of ship, IE: Shield tanks, didnt get off so much easier than the others.
 
What I do like about Elite combat in general that TTK is long, as it should be. I always perefer longer TTK, because that's where skill ceiling is most crucial and obvious.

I never dabbled deep into PVP myself, but been watching some pro PVPer wing skirmishes. It shows how skilled you must be with ship movements, aiming, team coordination, etc. But meta and balance kills it dead in it's tracks. There's barely any variation and I think EVERY SINGLE one of these guys ran only PAs in each of these fights. Seriously...
 
As a combat newbie I must say that I fully agree with:



I would propose an option to create at least a set of six macros that allow me to continue to have my eyes on the combat main screen instead of switching to panels. It would make the experience much more immersive IMHO.

AutoHotkey or VoiceAttack will allow you to set such things up.
 
I admit, I never watched a stream by anyone. Tried it a few times, got bored, switched of. Why shoud I watch someone playing when I can play myself?

But in regard to pvp I came to the exact same conclusion.

I love combat in ed I should maybe add. PvE combat, both against human an thargoid npcs. I'm not even that teribly bad at it. The flight model is excelent, the combat mechanics are solid. The best thing though is the hugh number of viable combat builds. You can take almost any ship and make a fun combat vessel out of it. Add the large number of different weapons and modules you can add and on top the different engineering options and you can build 20 completly different combat builds out of the same hull and everyone works and is fun. I have at least 30 completly different, fully engineered combat ships.

But pvp is like watching paint dry. There are a handfull of meta builds, if you want to win you need one of these. I have them all. Havent touched them in at least a year. My last few pvp experiences ended with me waking out at 80% shield simply because I couldn't stand the prospect of continuing the jousting for another 30 minutes
 
Speculation mode ON

I don't think Engineers were put into the game for PvP. I think it was put into the game for us to prepare for the Guardian AI war that will unfold at some point.

Speculation mode OFF
 
Speculation mode ON

I don't think Engineers were put into the game for PvP. I think it was put into the game for us to prepare for the Guardian AI war that will unfold at some point.

Speculation mode OFF
Nah, it's just there to rise player retention. Or is it retardation? Words just look so similar.
 
So OP realized what PvErs already knew, and what PvPers knew PvEers already felt about PvP?

Ok

PvP isn't like PvE, it's almost purely PvP. I think the fights that last a long time are the most interesting to PvPers because there's a real person making a real stand against them.
 
Speculation mode ON

I don't think Engineers were put into the game for PvP. I think it was put into the game for us to prepare for the Guardian AI war that will unfold at some point.

Speculation mode OFF
Back on again.

I think it was put into the game as another carrot on a stick because grinders in every video game need more grind walls. Never enough grind walls. So you're a lifer? You'll need to chase lifer +1
 
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