Version 5.1 - Aftershock. Things I DISLIKED

[Dark Chocolate]

Should I call it Discovery Restrictlancer now? Coz everything is so nerfed and restricted that It is becoming more and more tiresome to play.
I'm a Cap Main, and my opinion will kinda reflect that. Please Allow me to rant about everything that bothered me this patch.

:::Yet Another damn Cruiser Update NERF:::
-Cruisers were too OP before, I thought they had been nerfed enough in the previous update with the strafe punishing power core and guns speeds reduced. Now it’s even worse for the following reasons.

-Cruiser Engines are made up of paper.
-They will go BOOM even if people sneeze at it. This is worsened by whatever changes have been made to snubs. Sometimes the gun placement of Agincourt would allow it to hit components even when fighting face to face.

Power Core change
-The recharging shield mechanic that consumes power core is interesting. The line “switch all reserve power to weapon systems” makes much more sense now. I had good hopes when I heard of this, But in the current built I hate this mechanic for two main reasons.
1. how much impact it has and the absolute need to learn it.
I would have preferred it If learning the mechanic would give you an advantage, but it’s not mandatory and it is actually possible to fight without learning it. Wasn’t this how it was initially intended to be? I don’t remember.
But No, That’s not the case in the current built.
In the current version, without disabling the shield recharge (and being shot at) Cruiser Pulse Cannons can’t even Kill the shield of other cruisers in a one on one. So You absolutely have to learn this mechanic no matter how cumbersome it is. It sucks and forces player to a specific playstyle.
2. Why are only cruiser power cores affected by this?
Why don’t Battlecruisers and Battleships or any other ship require to “Switch Power to Weapons” to have better energy recharge?
--I think this mechanic should be much less punishing if not used and everyone should suffer this, if it exists, not just cruisers.

Cruiser Head and Tail Guns Thing.
I absolutely hate this restrictive feature that came with this update. The division of this Cruiser heavy and Cruiser Defense category leaves you with very little options on what you want to mount.

For Heavy hardpoints:-
-Missiles are quite unpredictable on cruisers in my experience. Many a times they will fail to lock on to target when I fly cruisers. This didn’t happen so often before.
-Light Mortar has very slight difference of 150m in range but much worse efficiency and very limited arc.
-the only good option is Tachyon Lance. No wonder why everyone goes for Code-Guns..

-Bretonians get special heavy gun which is basically old shards. It’s good. But I wish it was something new and more unique instead of a white painted shard.
-Cerberus Cruiser gun finally feels great. And atleast makes Donau a bit unique.

For Defense Guns:-
-Impacts have much higher efficiency to shield and hull compared to Shards and Storms, with similar projectile speed and Range. So it’s the best out of the three non-code options.
-It is even better than Mauler since it sucks at shield damage for some reason, so you have to use Mauler + Ion Blaster for best results which restricts them to heavier cruisers.
Even with that Mauler would give you just 50 more projectile speed for slightly worse anti hull efficiency. You’re better off mounting 2 Impacts lol. 2 Impacts will give you decent enough shield stripping power and best hull damage efficiency.

-So basically just forget everything and mount 2 tachyons and 2 impacts and you’re good. Maybe 1 tachyon and 1 missile if you really want to missilelancer. No need for variations. No diverse loadouts. This is all you need.
-I miss the old times with simpler mechanics before the very first major cruiser update. Was it so bad? Was this much radical changes needed?

:::The goddamn Rear facing Guns. ::::
I don’t understand this obsession with tail guns that devs have. First the Battlecruisers, now the Cruisers. Are you gonna do the same with Battleships when they get a component update? I can already see a lot of Battleship arcs NERFed to favor “sideways combat”.
Yeah, the cruiser defense guns can be and are supposed to be used for “sideways” combat, which is being favored now as compared to the previous chase and kite combat.

But it’s just that I fail to understand WHY would a space civilization design a class of ships to have their most efficient guns situated only to fire in the rear 180ish degrees. Why would it not have the guns rotate full 360 degrees.

Even when you look at the guns on their hardpoints and see how much open space they have. It feels there is no real reason why they would not rotate full 360 degrees. Who came up with this.

What’s even more funny that some cruisers like Dragon Cruiser and Liberty Siege Cruiser do have Forward Guns designed to work well against large capital ships. Earlier the Cumbersome Aiming which did put you at risk of eating mortars was highly rewarding if done correctly as these guns had high dps and efficiency. But now the rear guns are still much more efficient than these forward guns and you can dodge with full freedom while shooting. So I just end up using the rear guns against large targets which makes me wonder what’s the point of having Large Intimidating Forward guns

Why do Gunboats still have Forward Guns tho? Are they going to get converted to Rear guns in the future?
Is there going to be a variation of Liberty Siege Cruiser with rear facing main gun with much more efficiency?

:::Removal of Iconic Features and making each cap of same class feel more or less the same. :::
-This affects most of the caps, like all light battleships kinda feel the same except Core BS. You can have the same loadouts on all Battlecruisers, Light Cruisers, Heavy Cruisers and what not. I miss the times when the guns were situational and I had different set ups of the same ship to play different playstyles. Nowadays Ships of same class feel more or less the same.

-The Coalition “Hurricane” class Battlecruiser had it’s Iconic Forward gun removed. WHY. I just can’t look at the Coalition Battlecruiser the same way as I used to.
I first saw the Coalition Battlecruiser in the opening Intro cutscene of Vanilla Freelancer. To have that ship playable in Discovery Freelancer felt like a dream come true. And now after all these years you feel necessary to remove its Iconic Forward Guns? Why are you so keen to remove fun and iconic elements of the game.
You could have easily kept the forward guns and given two less heavies. And these forward guns would be destructible as the front power component thing blows up. Doesn’t seem like it would affect balance that much.
Oh wait. The Nomad Battlecruiser does have a forward-facing Battlecruiser Special gun that is destructible. So Nomad Battlecruiser can get special design but the Iconic Coalition Battlecruiser cannot? That’s not Fair.
Without the forward guns, the Hurricane doesn’t feel like Hurricane. May be you should just rename it to ‘Monsoon’ or ‘Rain’ or may be just ‘Wind’ or something.
-Every human Battlecruiser feels the same to fly basically. Not much difference.
Why can’t there be some variation.
Iconic ships such as This one should have it’s iconic features.

-I would even say that Triumphs should have a functional downward facing cannon like mentioned in the description.

:::Restrictive Battleship gameplay:::
-Yeah. Most of the Battleships have their all arcs restricted. This plus the Ship mass thing which makes it super tedious to maneuver, be it heavy or light. And ofcourse most of the turret rotation speed is slower than the sloths of that animated Zoo movie. All of which make me feel as if someone up there doesn't want people to play caps.
-And any fleet deciding to kite puts it at a major disadvantage. There is a push towards specific side to side combat for all caps. This sucks because, even if enemy has slightly more ships than you, you're gonna have a very hard time.

-Valor FWG was very very intimidating in the past. Getting too close and in front of a Valor would put you at a serious disadvantage. But now it is just a Heavy mortar with a bit more damage. I didn’t fly the Hessian Battleship as much before this patch, but I guess it’s more or less the same situation.
You can ignore these big mighty Forward Guns altogether and you won’t be missing anything much during battles.
I think using the FWGs should be more Rewarding considering the Cumbersome Aiming you have to do for it.

-I hear Battleships are going to have thursters and engine components in the next patch. Not sure how that’s going to turn out but it makes me wonder why can’t battleships mount Cruise Disruptors when they can literally mount everything else? Such Big flying fortresses with most heavy power core and hull hardpoints capable to mount the largest of guns, with cargo space enough to store heaviest of ammunition and somehow cannot equip a tiny little cruiser disruptor?


:::Whatever that was done to snubs:::
-I’m not sure what is going on. But ability to mount SNACs on light fighters is obnoxious. Snubs shield regeneration is quite fast and their guns deal significant damage to caps now. Even if you manage to hit them, you won’t kill them fast enough most of the time. They’ll just retreat and grow their shields back very quickly and bother your or go restock.
-Somehow fate of all fleet battles is decided by who has the better or more snubs.
-So basically, you buy big Capital ships that you dream of with all the tedious money grind, spend more money on guns, docking bays, cloaks and what not. Only to have swarms of shield-running snubs chew your engines off surprisingly effectively in every damn fleet battle. It sucks. It barely seems possible to do anything against even a small number of snubs. Shouldn’t snubs be afraid of getting near caps?
-Even light fighters are a threat now for caps which makes me laugh at my misery when fighting against them.
-Many of you might not agree with me but It’s my personal opinion that I preferred how things were before in terms of Snubs vs Caps.

:::Everything is so damn Expensive:::
-All guns, ammunition, regens and commodities are quite expensive now. POB supplies are much more expensive than it used to. Is it really necessary.

-I hate the fact that Jump drive batteries still cost 200,000 (20 million old money) and cloaks still cost 50,000 (5 million old money) Despite all the the restrictive JD and cloak nerfs.
-Moreover, the plugin that saved this ammo in your ship when you got destroyed is also disabled. So if you might potentially lose about 250,000 to 300,000 on a fully supplied capital ships which might compel you to just combat dock. Is it really necessary to punish players who fly capital ships?

-The last time I asked this question, someone answered by saying, It’s so that people would do trade/fly transports which would result in more pirates which would result in more lawfuls and so on.
But that doesn’t seem the end result considering how much the server population has fallen. People would just use the JDs to bare minimum or won’t bother to have ammo at all. No one wants to grind transportlancer just so they can afford losing 250,000+ everytime their Cap dies. You can try as much as you want, but if you’re gonna try to make people play to your specified way, more and more people gonna stop playing the game altogather.

-I suggest either bringing back that plugin that saved your ammunition when you died OR reduce the overall price of ammunition, atleast the JD and Cloak ammunition.

:::Omicron Theta Storyline.:::
-Whatever storyline made the Freeport 9 in Omicron Theta become Corsair base, I hate it.
-For whatever reason Outcasts decided to abandon the battle after a victory to focus on Sigmas, It makes zero sense to me. Okay the sigma thing was important for Outcasts, but I think The Maltese Navy would have first capitalized their victory, ceased Corsair resources and then left to sigmas or whatever. Everytime I see ‘Corsair base’ written in front of “Freeport 9” I am reminded that all the big event and the awesome battles and victory over the Freeport 9 was ultimately pointless. It has left a bad taste and I barely participate in events anymore.

:::Summary:::
-The game has become very restrictive. It forces player to play in a very specific playstyle. It takes the fun out of the gameplay. Until the devs realize this we’re gonna have more and more people leaving.
I’m sticking around barely becoz of the nostalgia factor I have with this game and becoz of the friends I made here. Sooner or later I’m gonna get tired of all of these radical changes every patch and just play Halo or something with my friends idk.

-In my opinion the development focus should be more on how to make all ships more fun instead of restrictive, over-complicated and cumbersome.
I want to be able to play this game becoz it is fun and not becoz I can’t get over my nostalgia or have a crippling fascination to torture myself.

-Thank you for listening. My apologies If I was offensive in anyway.