Shield Booster Diminishing Returns- Stop the Stack

DemiserofD

D
[VR] Jay Le Chardon said:
So the answer to mitigating the ridiculous powercreep is, more power creep?

I'm surprised to see this, the Cascades are one fo the few ways to mitigate magashields, and corrossive's massive debuff mitigates hull tanking, so surely removing those effects would effectively buff defenses increasing the invulnerability this thread is complaining about?
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I'd like to see them replaced with things that are more broadly available.

Feedback Cascade: Remove it, and make ANY damage to an SCB during the windup cancel it. Let players engineer them to require more damage to cancel it, if they want.

Reverb Cascade: Let Torpedoes at least, and potentially ALL missiles, penetrate shields to some extent. This removes the requirement for one particular experimental. Players could then target whatever they want on the enemy ship, not just the shield generator.

Corrosive Shell: I don't think anyone thinks hull tanking is really an issue; certainly not one on the same scale as shield tanking, if for no other reason than that hulls don't regenerate. Even if it were, the solution shouldn't be one single effect on two weapons.
 

Several Puffins

S
I feel that the real problem is that there is no diversity in combat objectives. Every fight is a dogfight. There is no meaningful close air support, escort, interdiction, suppression of enemy defenses so everything is about how you dogfight.

The FdL is king because everything is a dogfight. Whilst other combat ships (apart from the Mamba) have more ability in other roles this doesn't matter because there's something that's better at all of those roles too (usually a Krait or Python). Good range + combat doesn't matter. Good hull + personel space doesn't matter.

Taking your Chieftain 30LY behind enemy lines? Nah, fly the FdL and buy fuel, there's functionally no enemy territory.

Is the iEagle a great interceptor? No, the role doesn't functionally exist.

Is the courier good at getting important messages through dangerous territory? I mean, it's okay, I guess? In so much as that's important (not at all).

Is the dropship a great dropship? We don't know, we don't transport personel to battlefields (but still probably not).

Is the gunship good at close air support for troops? Is the assault ship good for taking over installations? Erm, what troops? Which installations?

What is that Diamondback scouting for exactly??
 

Elpapo

Elpapo
Rat Catcher said:
Missiles are not good PvP weapons but can be great fun in PvE (as long as one is not a 'serious' payer) and Packs even more so. (one of the few PP modules I kept hold of)
With the 'Drunk Missile' launch of Packs (particularly a salvo of 5 from a Beluga) a smile is just about guaranteed as they weave their way toward the target... They are not particularly effective, but, does it really matter?
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Wrong. Missiles are very good PVP weapons since at PVP almost no one bothers with PD or EMC. They stick to boosters, chaff or sinks at most.
At PVE is when are missiles are usless a bit, since NPC carry lots of countermeasures, as thier loadouts are more randomized.

While meta FDL is most common, some still are flying bi-wave hybrid bulids like cheftains or staight hulltanks bulids... Those are absolutely wrecked by missiles if used correctly against them, and ships like even meta FDL, they dont really wanna get hit by missiles once lost thier shields. Weapons, any utility and drives can be shot out with just few salvos, no special skill required, but its really shines when attacker takes into acount ship posititon toward him, in order for missiles hit exact module where is it was launched for. Things like sending missiels into weapons if they face you directly, or drives if they running away etc.

There is reason why I almost never get attacked by hybrid or hulltank bulids or they wake right away if I interdict them, with bulids of mine that use dual or single packhounds. Those who are bit experienced, knows the outcome.
 

Achtung-Goomba

Achtung-Goomba
I’ve got four high-capacity seeker racks on my battleconda on the small and medium hardpoints, fire group 1 is incendiary multi-cannon turrets on primary trigger and two seekers on secondary, fire group 2 adds the other two seekers in the mix for big targets. Sure enough they seem brutal in PvE for wrecking external modules! Plus I can pretend I’ve ripped the Oswald Cyning straight out of the Expanse...
 

Several Puffins

S
Achtung-Goomba said:
I’ve got four high-capacity seeker racks on my battleconda on the small and medium hardpoints, fire group 1 is incendiary multi-cannon turrets on primary trigger and two seekers on secondary, fire group 2 adds the other two seekers in the mix for big targets. Sure enough they seem brutal in PvE for wrecking external modules! Plus I can pretend I’ve ripped the Oswald Cyning straight out of the Expanse...
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PvE packhounds are great fun, and good for external modules. In less "optimal" ships I have used them for disarming/de-boostering something in a CZ. The problem is it lengthens TTK over other builds and doesn't even have more staying power. It's not common to want something you have attacked alive. Piracy, maybe?

BGS wars could do with incapacitation/capture missions!
 

Sucette

S
FYI the last most impactful things regarding the pvp meta are.
  • engi 3.0, a massive buff to everything, where prismo rise as the meta
  • thermal conduit, which come from fdev finally patching the heat bug.

The drag thing was a "please don't over buff" and not "please nerf"

So each person saying that pvp meta was designed around nerf just say how much he don't have any clue about what he's speaking about.
 

Starshot_Jigawatts

S
[VR] Jay Le Chardon said:
So the answer to mitigating the ridiculous powercreep is, more power creep?

I'm surprised to see this, the Cascades are one fo the few ways to mitigate magashields, and corrossive's massive debuff mitigates hull tanking, so surely removing those effects would effectively buff defenses increasing the invulnerability this thread is complaining about?
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Yeah he has no idea what he's talking about
Also "power-creep" is just a talking point honestly. My suggestion makes sense, it's all proportional. So what does power matter?
 

bladebss

bladebss
May i refer this thread to beta 1.2... they tryed it and people cryed so now we just have to live with it.. we are invincible, death is by consent only. Npcs are just ballons we get to pop for credits and pvp can just be garbage too because the comunity hates them cus they are risk averse and just want to haul poop in peace and face no risk from anything walst they do it. (Sorry the bitterness runs deep lol)

In truth this is a multifaceted problem that cant be fixed by back peddling.
The lack of balance in engeneers is a huge factor, power used to keep alot of stuff in check untill you could engeneer the power plant. This alowed unchecked shileds and module madness with shiled boosters also having an insaine boost from engeneers bluprints and unlimited power.
But you cant go back now, that power plant creep is baked in now, people cant suddenly find that the powerplant has 30% less power and are stranded. You cant have boosters taking 40% more power for the same reason.
They could make it so it stays the same untill you dock.. but this will only halve the problem as once docked they may not be able to leave the system for the same reasons as before.

Diminishing returns on boosters was a great idea, and woud have eased this booster problem a bit as it curbs exesses walst leaving the bottom rung free. It leaves no one stranded and requires no further engeneering. People may have to dump a booster or two but they wont loose power or be stranded and they can slap the spare boosters that no longer benefit there build on another ship.

This will however, shift the meta to cell banks! And we will be in the same 30-40 min pvp battles and invincible pve builds.

They could however side step the whole issue if shields were not as effective of a defence as they are currently.
If phasing sequence was on all weaponry and was a little more effective shields would only provide cursory protection to hull and complete protection to modules. Untill they buckled and then the modules would be open for attack and ultimately the loss of modules is the reason people go boom in pvp and it rewards skill as they are much smaller than a ships hull. In pve the same could be said tbh.

Perhaps even missiles could harm external modules slightly thrugh shields making a big case for having point defence and ecm in some of those precious booster slots and making shields not the best missile defence to the point they negate the need for point defence and ecm.. i mean who uses these right now exept on hull tanks wich are a fun gimmick right now.
This sugestion on the missiles is perhaps a bit too far, but the bleed thrugh shileds damage would realy put a stop to the shields being the be all end all of defence and having such a huge inpact on combat out comes to the point they are prioritised over all else.

Another option is to change the way the shields soak up damage so that it drains the systems cap as they take damage, and are less effective when at the bottom of the capacitor.
This may also make the choice of distributors engeneering a bit wider as system focused builds would be relevant and a choice would need to be made rather than just slapping carge enhanced on there. It would also reward sustained fire and help brake up burst damage and sustained fire as options and plasma and other burst damage weapons would have a different dynamic in battle and a more diverse array of options may arise.
 
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Neilski

Neilski
Snoiperman said:
How long do you want to shoot at someone's shields? 1 minute? 2 minutes? 10 minutes?

https://s.orbis.zone/coue (My build)
This build can handle 23 minutes of 200 mostly absolute damage per second coming at it. The counters to waiting 30 minutes to drop the shields is to use Reverb Torps or Mines, both of which can be countered easily, or building a super DPS machine like this (https://s.orbis.zone/couj) that has 1200 DPS a second yet still takes a minimum of 8 whole minutes of overheating to drop the shields. Nobody wants to fight for upwards of forty minutes.

This one can handle again, 22+ minutes of constant damage per second, with the only counters better DPS or reverb cascade torpedoes or mines. Nobody wants to fight for 40 minutes.

This is not fun; who wants to wait 30-45 (accounting for breaks while in jousting, etc.) minutes to drop the shields on a cutter? I propose a solution; Make the shield booster and engineering have greatly increased yields for the first 2-4 boosters, (depending on ship) but exponentially decrease returns for the rest. This is to give greater incentive to players to take advantage of other utilities, and to give greater diversity. Fdev could even use this to create new content, like new combat utilities that can be used for certain things. Second, if implemented correctly, this change would drastically change the abnormally high kill times for ships of large and medium sizes, and allow for quicker, yet still long enough battles.

Hypothetical shield booster values:
1a G5 HD
1x +55%
2x +60%
3x +64%
4x +50%
5x +39%
6x +24%
7x + 20%
8x +12.5%
Even this may not be enough to stop the shield meta, since a 200% increase in shields with 4 boosters is still extremely high.
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OK, I think I may be missing something here.
On Coriolis, your build has a headline DPS of around 200. When pitted against itself, it's true that I'm seeing "shields will hold for 23:33". However, that's with pips set to 4/0/2.
When the attacking ship is set to 2/0/4, I get the shields down in 11:46. That's still a really long time, but I'm not done yet. The WEP capacitor only lasts for 5 seconds even with 4 pips. If I'm reading the figures on Coriolis correctly, this means that the DPS will drop by more than a factor of 2 once the WEP capacitor is empty.
So for sure it's still a totally extreme length of time for the shields to hold, but maybe not quite as extreme as it first looks? (Apologies if I have indeed totally missed the point :))
 

Snoiperman

S
Neilski said:
OK, I think I may be missing something here.
On Coriolis, your build has a headline DPS of around 200. When pitted against itself, it's true that I'm seeing "shields will hold for 23:33". However, that's with pips set to 4/0/2.
When the attacking ship is set to 2/0/4, I get the shields down in 11:46. That's still a really long time, but I'm not done yet. The WEP capacitor only lasts for 5 seconds even with 4 pips. If I'm reading the figures on Coriolis correctly, this means that the DPS will drop by more than a factor of 2 once the WEP capacitor is empty.
So for sure it's still a totally extreme length of time for the shields to hold, but maybe not quite as extreme as it first looks? (Apologies if I have indeed totally missed the point :))
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Wep capacitor for defending ships does not matter, only the loss in pips in sys. If the other ships has a total of 200 DPS, corolis will treat the build as if it has 200 SDPS, even when it does not. The reason why it goes down to 11:46 if not because the 4 pips to weapons, but the loss in pips to shields.
 

Neilski

Neilski
Snoiperman said:
Wep capacitor for defending ships does not matter, only the loss in pips in sys. If the other ships has a total of 200 DPS, corolis will treat the build as if it has 200 SDPS, even when it does not. The reason why it goes down to 11:46 if not because the 4 pips to weapons, but the loss in pips to shields.
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No, you misunderstood me. 11:46 is when the attacker has 2/0/4 and the defender has 4/0/2.
 
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