PVE Ship Impact of Initial "Rebalancing" = Nothing Good As Expected

Kubicide · Dec 10, 2016

Just sharing the initial results of how my current PVE ship is being impacted by the initial set of upcoming changes. Note this is the unpopular FDS but a good generic example of what players can expect if one is not driving the top PVP builds, and it's a simple comparison of stats between live and beta (same ships, same gear):

- overall shield value down 11%
- overall resistance down >3%
- power up ~2% (but am running MCs which have very little draw - would likely be far worse with energy weap's)
- max weight up slightly
- jump range down slightly (from weight)
- DPS + damage down significantly >30% (which is like taking 1.5 guns off my ship LOL!)
- armor benefit removed -22% (forgot this one - more loss!)

LOL I better also look for a chunk of coal in my stocking on the 25th! Must have been naughty to get this gift! [big grin]

These will no doubt change as new betas get posted. But the point here is that as expected/predicted there's certainly nothing beneficial for PVE players and so far it's simply a negative impact for my gameplay as it will likely be for many others. Can only shake my head and try to imagine what FDev is thinking here... Waiting for the "fooled ya!" comment to be posted but it's not close to April 1st is it? (Unless that's when this 2.2.03 version will actually be released...)

Kriidah · Dec 10, 2016

Can you explain where you are losing 30% DPS?

GunnerBill · Dec 10, 2016

Because gimballed?
Or maybe secondary effects stripped from engineered mods.

Kubicide · Dec 10, 2016

Kriidah said:
Can you explain where you are losing 30% DPS?

Nerfing of the rapids and OC MC's. (Also losing secondary effect bonuses - this may be a bug but the dev hasn't gotten back to verify. But that's only a small hit versus the big changes to the gear.)

Earth Ultimatum IV. · Dec 10, 2016

Oh no, that's so bad. You will shoot 40 braindead AI ships per minute instead of 41. So terrible.

Actually no. It's "rebalancing", not "nerfing". If you used fixed weapons, your efficiency would climb up higher with this patch.

Spek61 · Dec 10, 2016

It is a pity if they are makng everything more difficult again. I have just adjusted to the latest version.

GunnerBill · Dec 10, 2016

Earth Ultimatum IV. said:
Oh no, that's so bad. You will shoot 40 braindead AI ships per minute instead of 41. So terrible.

Actually no. It's "rebalancing", not "nerfing". If you used fixed weapons, your efficiency would climb up higher with this patch.

Should have rebalanced in favour of gimballed so we could apply the same crass arguments to a heap of whining PvPers

mistohise · Dec 10, 2016

I tested a bit of pve and didn't notice much difference tbh.
I agree, though, that nerfing shields and boosters further as some of the PvP crew are shouting for would be fairly rubbish for the casual or pve player.

Kubicide · Dec 10, 2016

GunnerBill said:
Because gimballed?
Or maybe secondary effects stripped from engineered mods.

Gimbal cone nerf just makes things even worse by reducing the amount of hits from the already reduced firepower that's produced by the ship. So it would be fair to say this ship is likely losing ~40% of it's combat effectiveness for firepower. LOL thank you FDev?

- - - Updated - - -

Earth Ultimatum IV. said:
Oh no, that's so bad. You will shoot 40 braindead AI ships per minute instead of 41. So terrible.

Actually no. It's "rebalancing", not "nerfing". If you used fixed weapons, your efficiency would climb up higher with this patch.

It's nerfing. There was nothing wrong with the balance on this ship. Call it like it is. [rolleyes]

Kriidah · Dec 10, 2016

Kubicide said:
Nerfing of the rapids and OC MC's. (Also losing secondary effect bonuses - this may be a bug but the dev hasn't gotten back to verify. But that's only a small hit versus the big changes to the gear.)

OC change from 1.4x-1.7x to 1.35x-1.45x, that's a ~17% damage reduction, the RF actually lost less damage from the nerf. So.. Can you show me any before and afters of this 30% loss from secondary effects? It sounds like you have 1.9x DPS on your guns, which is nuts.

Earth Ultimatum IV. · Dec 10, 2016

Learn to use fixed then and stop crying. This update for once promotes skill, and skill should be rewarded. To hell with gimbal lords.

And stop pretending that fixed weapons are only for PVPers. I do 95% PVE and 5% PVP, fixed weapons all the time. Besides, you CANNOT do PVP without PVEing, you must hoard money, rebuys, ships and ranks, and engineer modifications first. PVPers are also PVEers at the same time. This isn't a balance patch for PVPers, this is a balance patch for skilled players regardless of their playstyle.

Bryan K · Dec 10, 2016

Best get in all the PvE combat you can now before this crap drops. Anyone know when this stuff goes live?

Kubicide · Dec 10, 2016

Kriidah said:
OC change from 1.4x-1.7x to 1.35x-1.45x, that's a ~17% damage reduction, the RF actually lost less damage from the nerf. So.. Can you show me any before and afters of this 30% loss from secondary effects? It sounds like you have 1.9x DPS on your guns, which is nuts.

Depends on how you look a the math: in live the DPS increase over base is ~+62% while in the beta this increase is reduced to ~+45%. What's the difference here? Roughly 37% drop from live. That's the change. You're looking at the total gun DPS; I'm reporting on the change in the benefit that we have today versus what it will become.

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Earth Ultimatum IV. said:
Learn to use fixed then and stop crying. This update for once promotes skill, and skill should be rewarded. To hell with gimbal lords.

And stop pretending that fixed weapons are only for PVPers. I do 95% PVE and 5% PVP, fixed weapons all the time. Besides, you CANNOT do PVP without PVEing, you must hoard money, rebuys, ships and ranks, and engineer modifications first. PVPers are also PVEers at the same time. This isn't a balance patch for PVPers, this is a balance patch for skilled players regardless of their playstyle.

Hehe No crying here I can assure you! It's actually almost comical to watch this progress. I don't use fixed so I simply don't care about what happens to their stats. FDev can double their performance for all I care. Only thing I care about is what's happening to the things I enjoyed using and it's simply being nerfed. Too funny as this is really not the way to make customers happy.

Kriidah · Dec 10, 2016

Kubicide said:
Depends on how you look a the math: in live the DPS increase over base is ~+62% while in the beta this increase is reduced to ~+45%. What's the difference here? Roughly 37% drop from live. That's the change. You're looking at the total gun DPS; I'm reporting on the change in the benefit that we have today versus what it will become.

If you increase ~145% Damage by +37% you get ~198.65% Damage.. Just because there's a 30% difference between raw number of 45 and 62, does not mean that's a 30% damage loss. Your numbers are highly misleading.

thorn- · Dec 10, 2016

Earth Ultimatum IV. said:
Besides, you CANNOT do PVP without PVEing, you must hoard money, rebuys, ships and ranks, and engineer modifications first.

+1000

I love it when PvE players think that someone doing PvP, doesn't do PvE. How the hell do you think we afford all the rebuys, equipment, etc? PvP only costs you money, you never make any sort of decent profit.

ShadowWolf Kell · Dec 10, 2016

thorn- said:
+1000

I love it with PvE players think that someone PvP doesn't involve PvE. How the hell do you think we afford all the rebuys, equipment, etc? PvP only costs you money, you never make any sort of decent profit.

They assume you're all somehow exploiting various loopholes to get money, or that piracy against players pays *cough* well *cough*.

It doesn't dawn on them that PvPers tend to be efficient at PvE to the point of being able to do it with their eye closed and still do it quicker than your average PvE player can.

As for OC and RF being nerfed... we already knew that was coming. They devs even said as much during the previous two betas with a wait and see and adjust as needed caveat.

Bieltan · Dec 10, 2016

Earth Ultimatum IV. said:
Learn to use fixed then and stop crying. This update for once promotes skill, and skill should be rewarded. To hell with gimbal lords.

And stop pretending that fixed weapons are only for PVPers. I do 95% PVE and 5% PVP, fixed weapons all the time. Besides, you CANNOT do PVP without PVEing, you must hoard money, rebuys, ships and ranks, and engineer modifications first. PVPers are also PVEers at the same time. This isn't a balance patch for PVPers, this is a balance patch for skilled players regardless of their playstyle.

Quick question - are Turrets being tweaked at all? I'm sure you can deduce why I find this a pertinent question.

Kubicide · Dec 10, 2016

Kriidah said:
If you increase ~145% Damage by +37% you get ~198.65% Damage.. Just because there's a 30% difference between raw number of 45 and 62, does not mean that's a 30% damage loss. Your numbers are highly misleading.

Okay, if you want to dig into the full story then include the changes to armor values, rates of fire, affects of reduced gimbal arc, power consumption, etc. This would be hard to do accurately and repeatedly as everything in the instance would have to stay the same for a real apples-to-apples result. At the end of the day - using your math and if everything was finely controlled - you'd still likely see >25% drop or perhaps even greater than 30% in total effective DPS all things considered. Now, is that any better? Is that still a positive thing? I think not.

Earth Ultimatum IV. · Dec 10, 2016

Bieltan said:
Quick question - are Turrets being tweaked at all? I'm sure you can deduce why I find this a pertinent question.

Some turreted weapons got buffed (cannons 15% damage, don't know about others), but that's it. They're thinking about making sensors have effect on turret accuracy aswell, but it's not real yet. Turrets are pretty bad already.

Kriidah · Dec 10, 2016

Kubicide said:
Okay, if you want to dig into the full story then include the changes to armor values, rates of fire, affects of reduced gimbal arc, power consumption, etc. This would be hard to do accurately and repeatedly as everything in the instance would have to stay the same for a real apples-to-apples result. At the end of the day - using your math and if everything was finely controlled - you'd still likely see >25% drop or perhaps even greater than 30% in total DPS all things considered. Now, is that any better? Is that still a positive thing? I think not.

I don't care about positive messages or not (I actually think it's a good thing, so take it for what you will) but accuracy is key. That's the difference between a good reporter and a fear mongerer. Btw, RoF plays into DPS already, no need to double count it. Firing arcs are player skill so may limit some a lot, may not limit others at all. Armor is also shifting build to build.. which is called variance, not a sudden loss.