PvP PvP Noob Etiquette...?

[Wolf Starslayer]

I've found PDT's to be unreliable on a lot of my more hull-tank style ships because of utility placement.My FAS for example only has bottom mounted utilities with lots of 'junk' like fins in the way; I found that PDT's would refuse to even fire at incoming missiles 90% of the time.

And that's with being aware of their position and trying to mitigate it by flying bottom down to incoming missiles.​

 

[Bortas]

I'd be very happy to see emissive removed, or changed to be only applied when striking the target, otherwise no effect, certainly not this 40+ seconds bull we have currently. But seekers would still need a serious ammo reduction to be remotely in line with other weapony.

Well, the problem is, the game doesn't revolve solely around PvP. PvE players also want to use missiles and for that purpose the ammo count / total damage potential of a full launcher is already rather low compared to other ammo based weapons, while synthesizing missiles is pretty expensive on mats. Balancing them for PvP would make them completeley useless for PvE, where they are borderline useless already. One reason for the rather high ammo count is probably the ridiculously low damage of individual missiles. Just try to kill a few NPCs with missiles and note how many of them it takes even if you use them only on hull. It's disgusting.

Maybe, to make them more useful for PvE and at the same time make them easier to handle in PvP, the damage per missile should be doubled or tripled and the rate of fire reduced to 1/2 or 1/3 respectively, without changing the actual ammo capacity. This would increase the total damage potential per launcher, increasing their utility in PvE, and at the same time make them easier to shoot down for point defence or ECM as they could no longer be spammed in short order. Missiles shouldn't be spammed but if a missile hits, the damage should be noteworthy.

 

[Crimson Kaim]

This applies to TLB, too, though.



True. Maybe it's emissive which needs a balance pass... maybe limit the effect to a relatively short period followed by a cooldown.



Which isn't a problem in this case, because if your shields are up, missiles won't hurt you anway.



Personally I got good results with point defence when I put one on top and one on the bottom of my ship, unless the opponent is really stuffed with missile launchers. This would of course completely disable him to fight anything else but hull tanks, so probably not the best choice. Pack hounds are an exception of course, but they are also easier to outrun.



True, but seekers are very short-lived. If the speed difference is not too big, they usually can't catch up in time.



I don't think it has anything to do with skill... it's a typical rock/paper/scissor thing... Seekers are useless against anything but hull tanks, which are only used by a minority of PvPers. And if you are in a hull tank, don't attack a ship with seekers... just as you wouldn't attack a ship with reverberating mines, when flying a slow shield tank There's a lot of annoying stuff in the game, but we have to live with it.

Personally I'm using seekers on some of my more cumbersome builds (i.e Python/Dropship) because I don't like fighting agile hull tanks in them, so I bring seekers... if they attack me anyway, well... their choice. If that qualifies me as a noob then so be it.

1. Yes.
2. Yes or remove entirely.
3. It is because you can shoot a salvo of missiles when the shields are up and then finish off low shields. The results are tracking seekers with no shields.
4. If your ship has C0s on both, top and the bottom side, that is good. But take the FAS for exaple, a strong hulltank that only has C0s mounted on the bottom.
5. Doesn't matter. You must run to avoid seekers, showing off your dirty drives that get sniped by the hitscan/seeker combo and you die.
6. It's not rock-paper-scissors. In that matchup, seekers would be the well which counters both, scissorcs AND the rock. Only the paper (in this case the shield) would counter the well.

It's OP and too easy to use for its effect. Wheather you like this or not. I could potentionally give a whole damn proof of why this is OP with creating reference to numbers but no, I save my precious time for something more important.

 

[TheMegaTurnip]

Well, the problem is, the game doesn't revolve solely around PvP. PvE players also want to use missiles and for that purpose the ammo count / total damage potential of a full launcher is already rather low compared to other ammo based weapons, while synthesizing missiles is pretty expensive on mats. Balancing them for PvP would make them completeley useless for PvE, where they are borderline useless already. One reason for the rather high ammo count is probably the ridiculously low damage of individual missiles.

Maybe, to make them more useful for PvE and at the same time make them easier to handle in PvP, the damage per missile should be doubled or tripled and the rate of fire reduced to 1/2 or 1/3 respectively, without changing the actual ammo capacity. This would increase the total damage potential per launcher, increasing their utility in PvE, and at the same time make them easier to shoot down for point defence or ECM as they could no longer be spammed in short order. Missiles shouldn't be spammed but if a missile hits, the damage should be noteworthy.

Yeah I get you, but in a game that suports PvP and PvE, the general trend is to balance things around the PvP element, simply because those players are the ones who are going to feel the majority of the brunt of said balancing, I think that is the issue with such things like missiles in ED. They have balanced it to the NPC ships, not the capability of the player owned ships. Hence resulting in some weapons seeming wildly overpowered and also the TTK on an engineered ship being so ridiculous. Even the small ones can go toe to toe with the bigger vessels for 20+ minutes now.

I see where you're coming from though, I'm against them being made absolutley unusable, but I would also advocate a reduction on the amount of splash damage delivered to modules when an MRP is present, but maybe a slight increase to actual hull damage. HYS was nerfed because it was to easy to cake modules, I'm not sure it's right to let seekers continue on with rampancy.

I noticed how you did'nt touch on Emissive though? Any reason?

 

[Bortas]

I would also advocate a reduction on the amount of splash damage delivered to modules when an MRP is present, but maybe a slight increase to actual hull damage. HYS was nerfed because it was to easy to cake modules, I'm not sure it's right to let seekers continue on with rampancy.

Sounds reasonable. Splash damage is probably what makes them particularly dangerous for hull tanks. The raw damage is rather low, especially since everyone is running thermal resistant reactive armor with even resistances, negating the usefulness of explosive damage as well as the overload munitions special. I'm fine with reducing the splash damage, but the damage itself should be increased by a considerable amount to make up for it, otherwise they could end up completely useless very easily. The ability to engineer the typical weaknesses (shields - thermal; hull - kinetic/explosive) away has put some weapons into a really difficult position.

I noticed how you did'nt touch on Emissive though? Any reason?

I mentioned it in another post and suggested a massive nerf to the effect.

 

[TheMegaTurnip]

Sounds reasonable. Splash damage is probably what makes them particularly dangerous for hull tanks. The raw damage is rather low, especially since everyone is running thermal resistant reactive armor with even resistances, negating the usefulness of explosive damage as well as the overload munitions special. I'm fine with reducing the splash damage, but the damage itself should be increased by a considerable amount to make up for it, otherwise they could end up completely useless very easily. The ability to engineer the typical weaknesses (shields - thermal; hull - kinetic/explosive) away has put some weapons into a really difficult position.



I mentioned it in another post and suggested a massive nerf to the effect.

Ah yes you did, my apologies.

Yeah pretty much, the ability to destroy essential exterior modules before significantly denting the total ammo count is for sure thier biggest issue. As you say the average armour stats are low 40's to high 50's on pretty much every vessel, so maybe even adding impact damage (Taken as raw), even if it was only a small amount, and not applied to modules would be the way to go as opposed to a flat damage buff.. Say 15% is applied to the hull as raw "impact" damage. That way they can retain some sembalance of usefulness but not the detriment of a balanced fight.

I'd imagine the sweet spot with your reduced fire rate therory would be to drop splash by 30ish%, without the fire rate reduction it would have to be significant, IE: upwards of 60% to reduce the efectiveness of spamming hundreds of them.