Scrap or redesign shield cell modules, they are too overpowered and trivialize PvP.

[Johnny Spaceboots]

What a joke indeed. From the video description: "Several of us band together and attack. Brilliant fun" ... guess it must have been terrible and everybody is angry. They loved the battle, had a ton of fun. That would have been boring as hell if he didn't have cells. Yay, "4v1 he ded".

THAT is exactly what I want to be a part of.

The problem isn't how long they last, I think for 100m ships flying around, that's perfect. The problem is they get away and people don't get their kill.

I believe with the way insurance and such is in this game, it's not designed to have people dying left and right every 45 seconds. Their should be another type of reward for damage done to a player instead of just paid on death, that way "death" itself isn't the only option to gain credits with PVP.

I don't know, I loved that video. I loved the fact he kept using cells, it would have been another 1 minute 'kill' video if he hadn't. That looked like exactly the type of fighting I like, even the player getting away.

Judging from his post in his thread about shield cells, he didn't seem to enjoy the shield cell aspect of the fight very much.

I don't know, man. Something about a player being at zero risk of dying seems to take away a bit of the tension of the fight a bit.

I liked the video for the teamwork involved. I did not like the video for how all that teamwork amounted to nothing

 

[Captain N]

What if instead of restoring the shields while they're still on SCB's made shields recharge faster when they're down?

That way you couldn't use them indefinitely to avoid getting hull damage while still accomplishing their original purpose of increasing ship survivability. Moreover it would make people less likely to automatically run the moment their shields went offline, making it more of an interesting tactical decision whether to continue fighting or make a run for it.

Edit: There would also be diminishing returns to stacking them.

 

[bassman]

Why not make it a skill based mechanic instead of a simple shield potion? Instead of shield cells rapidly replenishing, have shield cells temporarily bolster your shields significantly for a short period of a second or so, with a reasonable cooldown to prevent spamming. This way, it becomes more context sensitive. You only want to bolster your shields when you're about to have some dangerous smackdown heading your way, right?

Great suggestion IMO. It brings a nice element of anticipation into it and would reward planning ahead rather than being a purely reactive thing plus a skilled player could potentially bluff an opponent into using one at the wrong time. It also means that of your shields get low your still in trouble and it would make them a good counter balance to dumbfire missiles as someone would have to be much sneakier about using them against you.

 

[Sandro Sammarco]

Hello Commander bassman!

AI using shield cell banks is something I really hope we get around to adding (it's in the "big list of cool stuff").

Hello Commanders!

One more thing to note before I leave (sorry, I really do have to go home!) is that the advantage of a shield cell is primarily defensive in nature. Of course, in a perfectly matched battle between ships otherwise equal, the cell bank, if used at the right time, is a very large advantage.

However, their main advantage is that they allow you to not die, which is not quite the same thing as being victorious. If you are being outgunned, chances are that cells aren't going to tip the battle completely in your favour. But they can prolonge the fight, potentially giving all combatants more time to obtain/retain the upper hand.

This is why rather than simply remove them, or add in an arbitrary limitation of modules, I'd prefer to first explore more subtle rules that injected more player skill, in terms of timing their use, so that you could still use many of them, but if you use them "poorly" their benefit might be reduced, removed or countered by some other penalty.

Just my take at the moment. Thank you all for the ideas though!

Have a great weekend, and remember, stay civil!

 

[Flyinpiranha]

Judging from his post in his thread about shield cells, he didn't seem to enjoy the shield cell aspect of the fight very much.

I don't know, man. Something about a player being at zero risk of dying seems to take away a bit of the tension of the fight a bit.

Again, I think the escape is the problem, not the length of the fight. Maybe if you use a SC you disable FSD for 1 minute or something. I don't know. But I think the escape is fine, too. I don't think you should die that often in this game.

From most of the PVP threads you'd get the impression they just want WoW duels where it lasts for a minute or so and it's whoever pops off their CDs faster. It sucks, they got away, but that's the type of play I want to see in this game. These ships are millions of credits and hours upon hours to earn. It makes no sense to just have them blow up if you are tactically trying to avoid it.

Regarding the video, he may have said on the video he enjoyed it but now he doesn't in the thread. I don't know, I watched it completely and I enjoyed it. I was almost happier to see him get away than a kill would have been. I don't want this game to become a ship PEZ dispenser where death means little and/or it comes very often.

He had a risk of dying, he could have not hit the cell in time, he could have had fighters besides the cameraman actually hitting him, he could have somebody using a ship with all beams coupled with somebody who had missiles. I don't know, that video doesn't make me look at the game and think anything is wrong. It shows me that everything is right. That a player can get out of a situation if need be or he could have made a mistake and died.

Death seems to be the ONLY answer, and I disagree with that. I think they should change other facets of the game, rules and ways to attain credits from fighting that won't always end in death because I know if I had a 100m ship, I'd be doing everything in my power to make sure 3 dudes who have Vipers couldn't take me out.

 

[Defacto]

What a joke indeed. From the video description: "Several of us band together and attack. Brilliant fun" ... guess it must have been terrible and everybody is angry. They loved the battle, had a ton of fun. That would have been boring as hell if he didn't have cells. Yay, "4v1 he ded".

THAT is exactly what I want to be a part of.

The problem isn't how long they last, I think for 100m ships flying around, that's perfect. The problem is they get away and people don't get their kill.

I believe with the way insurance and such is in this game, it's not designed to have people dying left and right every 45 seconds. Their should be another type of reward for damage done to a player instead of just paid on death, that way "death" itself isn't the only option to gain credits with PVP.

I don't know, I loved that video. I loved the fact he kept using cells, it would have been another 1 minute 'kill' video if he hadn't. That looked like exactly the type of fighting I like, even the player getting away.

I've been part of enough fights with sky-god Python players using SCB's right now. It's about as fun as playing catch the 500 m/s Viper in Beta 1.

As we could see from this video, the Python is quite a beast and Kremmen + his Comrades had quite a lot of trouble fighting the Python (do mind that even here, the Python would have to wait around 8 seconds from pressing J to going to supercruise if he wanted).
Then the SCB'ing started, and we got to see all 4 ships constantly unloading their entire WEP energy onto the Python without ever breaking through, and then finally, after around 7 minutes, the vessel of the immortal sky-god decides to move onwards into another plane of existence and poofs away.

IS GREAT FUN
The way it is meant to be played...

 

[Johnny Spaceboots]

Hello Commander bassman!

AI using shield cell banks is something I really hope we get around to adding (it's in the "big list of cool stuff").

Hello Commanders!

One more thing to note before I leave (sorry, I really do have to go home!) is that the advantage of a shield cell is primarily defensive in nature. Of course, in a perfectly matched battle between ships otherwise equal, the cell bank, if used at the right time, is a very large advantage.

However, their main advantage is that they allow you to not die, which is not quite the same thing as being victorious. If you are being outgunned, chances are that cells aren't going to tip the battle completely in your favour. But they can prolonge the fight, potentially giving all combatants more time to obtain/retain the upper hand.

This is why rather than simply remove them, or add in an arbitrary limitation of modules, I'd prefer to first explore more subtle rules that injected more player skill, in terms of timing their use, so that you could still use many of them, but if you use them "poorly" their benefit might be reduced, removed or countered by some other penalty.

Just my take at the moment. Thank you all for the ideas though!

Have a great weekend, and remember, stay civil!

But the problem is that they require no skill for you to not die. There is currently no skill regarding their use, and you give no way to counter them for either the players or the NPCs. Yeah, sure, if you're only 50% shields, you don't get the full benefit. But you still get a massive benefit.

I really hope that instead of it basically being a health potion, that it turns into more of a skill based blocking mechanic.
Because come on. I want to have at least a little danger in my game. I haven't felt legitimately threatened even if surrounded by 12 enemy npcs, or up against several players. I can just pop shield cells and run away without even bothering to pull evasive maneuvers. In beta 1.06... I at least had to pilot to some degree...

Additionally, it absolutely shifts the battle in your favor. Maybe if it was a temporary boost, it wouldn't, but its effect is that it basically replenishes HP. You have more HP than the other player now. That shifts the battle in your favor.

 

[Johnny Spaceboots]

Again, I think the escape is the problem, not the length of the fight. Maybe if you use a SC you disable FSD for 1 minute or something. I don't know. But I think the escape is fine, too. I don't think you should die that often in this game.

From most of the PVP threads you'd get the impression they just want WoW duels where it lasts for a minute or so and it's whoever pops off their CDs faster. It sucks, they got away, but that's the type of play I want to see in this game. These ships are millions of credits and hours upon hours to earn. It makes no sense to just have them blow up if you are tactically trying to avoid it.

Regarding the video, he may have said on the video he enjoyed it but now he doesn't in the thread. I don't know, I watched it completely and I enjoyed it. I was almost happier to see him get away than a kill would have been. I don't want this game to become a ship PEZ dispenser where death means little and/or it comes very often.

He had a risk of dying, he could have not hit the cell in time, he could have had fighters besides the cameraman actually hitting him, he could have somebody using a ship with all beams coupled with somebody who had missiles. I don't know, that video doesn't make me look at the game and think anything is wrong. It shows me that everything is right. That a player can get out of a situation if need be or he could have made a mistake and died.

Death seems to be the ONLY answer, and I disagree with that. I think they should change other facets of the game, rules and ways to attain credits from fighting that won't always end in death because I know if I had a 100m ship, I'd be doing everything in my power to make sure 3 dudes who have Vipers couldn't take me out.

I'd prefer it if surviving a fight was a matter of skill instead of chugging potions. How about instead of getting hit by everything in the game... you try to avoid some of it? He had no reasonable risk. He would have to be braindead to not press the button in time, considering there is no requirement to only use shield cells if you are at like 1% shields.

I don't want to be instagibbed in this game, but I also want there to some very real danger in a game called Elite Dangerous. Sometimes, I would like to be punished for being a bad pilot. Right now, a decent pilot with shield cells can escape any encounter in the game with no damage 100% of the time. That's frankly stupid. Doing everything in your power to avoid dying should amount to more than "press x to not die"

 

[Defacto]

Hello Commander bassman!

AI using shield cell banks is something I really hope we get around to adding (it's in the "big list of cool stuff").

Hello Commanders!

One more thing to note before I leave (sorry, I really do have to go home!) is that the advantage of a shield cell is primarily defensive in nature. Of course, in a perfectly matched battle between ships otherwise equal, the cell bank, if used at the right time, is a very large advantage.

However, their main advantage is that they allow you to not die, which is not quite the same thing as being victorious. If you are being outgunned, chances are that cells aren't going to tip the battle completely in your favour. But they can prolonge the fight, potentially giving all combatants more time to obtain/retain the upper hand.

This is why rather than simply remove them, or add in an arbitrary limitation of modules, I'd prefer to first explore more subtle rules that injected more player skill, in terms of timing their use, so that you could still use many of them, but if you use them "poorly" their benefit might be reduced, removed or countered by some other penalty.

Just my take at the moment. Thank you all for the ideas though!

Have a great weekend, and remember, stay civil!

It feels a bit like some kind of blasphemy to say this to the Lead designer... but I think you are wrong. Completely wrong. SCB's don't help you stay alive, they help your shields stay up until your run out of shield charges, which is a lot more than just staying alive.
And as I have experienced myself, SCB's do tip the battle in your favor if you're outgunned. By a lot.

Now for the constructive side of the discussion - I think it's great that you consider ways to change how the SCB's work! I think that they have a place in this game, just not the place they have right now.
There are a lot of suggestions. My preferred way would be to have the SCB require some SYS charge, then empty the SYS bar, and refill your shields as much as that amount of SYS energy would have regenned the shields with normal regeneration. You gain a short term shield boost, but now you SYS bar is empty, which not only prevents further SCB use, but also stops the slow regeneration until there's power in the capacitor again.

It would also lead to considerations like: My SYS bar is at 50%, so I'll just gain a small shield boost from using an SCB, but maybe I still want to use it, because otherwise my shields might break because of energy fire? Or they might not, and I'm better off charging up the capacitor for a short time and then fire off the SCB?

 

[deMangler]

Hello Commander bassman!

AI using shield cell banks is something I really hope we get around to adding (it's in the "big list of cool stuff").

Hello Commanders!

One more thing to note before I leave (sorry, I really do have to go home!) is that the advantage of a shield cell is primarily defensive in nature. Of course, in a perfectly matched battle between ships otherwise equal, the cell bank, if used at the right time, is a very large advantage.

However, their main advantage is that they allow you to not die, which is not quite the same thing as being victorious. If you are being outgunned, chances are that cells aren't going to tip the battle completely in your favour. But they can prolonge the fight, potentially giving all combatants more time to obtain/retain the upper hand.

This is why rather than simply remove them, or add in an arbitrary limitation of modules, I'd prefer to first explore more subtle rules that injected more player skill, in terms of timing their use, so that you could still use many of them, but if you use them "poorly" their benefit might be reduced, removed or countered by some other penalty.

Just my take at the moment. Thank you all for the ideas though!

Have a great weekend, and remember, stay civil!

Thanks for taking the time to explain this. Seems balancing the game is one of those things you have to take so much into consideration.
It isn't even as easy as being fair for everyone. For example I have noticed some tweaks to balance over the dev process that have indirectly made a big difference to when I am playing mouse and keyboard but not when I am HOTAS. I would not have expected this.
Personally I would prefer if the stealth / heat mechanic was more prominent as a defensive measure than health potions but I do understand why it is appealing and will probably stay as a feature in game.

 

[Draven Darken]

I'd prefer it if surviving a fight was a matter of skill instead of chugging potions. How about instead of getting hit by everything in the game... you try to avoid some of it? He had no reasonable risk.

Bingo! This is the thing, as far as I am concerned. The existence of shield cells destroys my suspension of disbelief in the game ... from my perspective they are exactly akin to drinking magical healing potions in D&D, or even running over power-up dots in Pac-Man, rather than anything that feels like an authentic technology with caveats and limitations. As such, I just pretend they don't exist and completely refuse to load them onto my ship ... which then also serves to give me another reason not to play in Open, where I know my survival in any combat situation would be near-impossible without resorting to the same load of magic potions/shield cells that everyone else apparently carries around.

 

[Mr_Blastman]

Please consider completely removing shield cells from the game. Thanks.

 

[Sandro Sammarco]

Hello Commander Johnny Spaceboots! and Commander Defacto!

Argh, just saw this as I was turning stuff off in the office! Must... Reply... (don't worry, that just means I enjoy the conversation).

Don't worry, we don't have to agree! And also, you may be right!

Sure, cells keep your shields up, but in my experience, when I'm taking a lot of hits from a ship I can't hit very well, having more shields doesn't help me destroy them...

Although at it's heart there will always be a whiff of the restorative about shield cells (because, well, they're consumables), it has always been the intention to involve timing skill in their use: this is why there is a delay when using a cell before the regenerative effect kicks in.

When the tweaks roll out, Commanders will have less of them, using them will be more expensive, and potentially they might have to alter or mess with their power plant settings to carry them.

If this proves to have little to no effect (and honestly, the jury is out for me at the moment, I will look forward to seeing the results) then we'll go further.

My first line of thought runs to some additional negative effect that triggers if a cell is used and the shield is not badly damaged, coupled with a longer delay between triggering a cell and receiving its benefits. In theory, this would mean that you would need to use a cell within a window of opportunity or risk A) leaving it too late and having the shield break or B) using it too soon and having something bad happen (like damage to your shield generator, or no benefit of the cell, etc.)

But, one step at a time.

And now, really for real this time, have a great weekend!

 

[bassman]

Hello Commander bassman!

AI using shield cell banks is something I really hope we get around to adding (it's in the "big list of cool stuff").

Hello Commanders!

One more thing to note before I leave (sorry, I really do have to go home!) is that the advantage of a shield cell is primarily defensive in nature. Of course, in a perfectly matched battle between ships otherwise equal, the cell bank, if used at the right time, is a very large advantage.

However, their main advantage is that they allow you to not die, which is not quite the same thing as being victorious. If you are being outgunned, chances are that cells aren't going to tip the battle completely in your favour. But they can prolonge the fight, potentially giving all combatants more time to obtain/retain the upper hand.

Slacker, surely you have internet at home . Seriously though, your assertion about them being a defensive measure is wrong IMO, this is because of the power management mechanic and the way it normally forces you to compromise between speed, defence and offence. This tradeof is really a core tactical mechanic in ED combat but cells subvert it by allowing someone to take pips out shield and put them in weapons, so it that sense shield cells increase effective offensive capability.

 

[Defacto]

That sounds interesting. I wish you developers and designers good luck!

 

[Jorlin]

Hello Commander Johnny Spaceboots! and Commander Defacto!

Argh, just saw this as I was turning stuff off in the office! Must... Reply... (don't worry, that just means I enjoy the conversation).

Don't worry, we don't have to agree! And also, you may be right!

Sure, cells keep your shields up, but in my experience, when I'm taking a lot of hits from a ship I can't hit very well, having more shields doesn't help me destroy them...

Although at it's heart there will always be a whiff of the restorative about shield cells (because, well, they're consumables), it has always been the intention to involve timing skill in their use: this is why there is a delay when using a cell before the regenerative effect kicks in.

When the tweaks roll out, Commanders will have less of them, using them will be more expensive, and potentially they might have to alter or mess with their power plant settings to carry them.

If this proves to have little to no effect (and honestly, the jury is out for me at the moment, I will look forward to seeing the results) then we'll go further.

My first line of thought runs to some additional negative effect that triggers if a cell is used and the shield is not badly damaged, coupled with a longer delay between triggering a cell and receiving its benefits. In theory, this would mean that you would need to use a cell within a window of opportunity or risk A) leaving it too late and having the shield break or B) using it too soon and having something bad happen (like damage to your shield generator, or no benefit of the cell, etc.)

But, one step at a time.

And now, really for real this time, have a great weekend!

Hope you get some weekend as well

For me the first step would be to make them "unique"...not able to fit more than one launcher at once.
Which throws up another question... what to fit instead when you're a pure fighter?

 

[CATPAIN KIRK]

Hello Commanders!

Just a quick heads up: we've been looking at the stats for shield cell banks and have made some tweaks, which should filter out in a near future update. Basically, cell capacities have been reduced, cost per cell has been increased, and the passive power draw for having a cell bank active has increased.

We're not totally convinced this is the end of tweaking shield cell banks, but we think it will be a move in the right direction.

Just limit it to one and if you don't, increase their weight by 33% in addition to above changes.

 

[lorenz18]

Hello Commander bassman!

AI using shield cell banks is something I really hope we get around to adding (it's in the "big list of cool stuff").

Hello Commanders!

One more thing to note before I leave (sorry, I really do have to go home!) is that the advantage of a shield cell is primarily defensive in nature. Of course, in a perfectly matched battle between ships otherwise equal, the cell bank, if used at the right time, is a very large advantage.

However, their main advantage is that they allow you to not die, which is not quite the same thing as being victorious. If you are being outgunned, chances are that cells aren't going to tip the battle completely in your favour. But they can prolonge the fight, potentially giving all combatants more time to obtain/retain the upper hand.

This is why rather than simply remove them, or add in an arbitrary limitation of modules, I'd prefer to first explore more subtle rules that injected more player skill, in terms of timing their use, so that you could still use many of them, but if you use them "poorly" their benefit might be reduced, removed or countered by some other penalty.

Just my take at the moment. Thank you all for the ideas though!

Have a great weekend, and remember, stay civil!

I made a forum account just to reply to this, please, PLEASE limit the number of cell banks, they are like HP pots in any sub-par mmo and a problem some mayor mmo also encountered ( THE HP POTS CHUGGING) where every pvp encounter becomes SLOW, LONG and PAINFUL and the one who wins is the one WITH MORE POTS. That's just bad design, there's no way you can balance a "heal me" key around skills, it's just dumb by concept. Do a favour to every player who wants to do pvp and NOT ONLY trading, limit the cell banks. Thank you.

 

[Mr_Blastman]

Hello Commander Johnny Spaceboots! and Commander Defacto!

Although at it's heart there will always be a whiff of the restorative about shield cells (because, well, they're consumables), it has always been the intention to involve timing skill in their use: this is why there is a delay when using a cell before the regenerative effect kicks in.

When the tweaks roll out, Commanders will have less of them, using them will be more expensive, and potentially they might have to alter or mess with their power plant settings to carry them.

How about two consequences:

1. Damage to your hull if you use one
2. BIG spike in heat onboard--i.e. put you at 150 - 200% heat.

If they are truly a defensive item, then taking away your ability to shoot should not be of consequence. If you resort to using them, you must run. Otherwise, if you want to stay in combat, they will become a losing proposition quickly since you can't shoot back.

As is right now they are all pro, no cons. The above are big cons. Use too many and you trash your hull.

 

[darshu]

And why should a Python be able to take the abuse of several players and NPCs without even bothering to avoid fire for 5 minutes straight and escape with absolutely no hull damage

I can think of about 56 to 255 million reason why. That fight was epic i would love to be on either side of it. Complaining that ships that cost 1% of the the python have a hard time killing is pretty ridiculous.