5.2.0.9

[Chxlls]

I wanted to take a couple of days to (truly) test the changes made to snubs in the most recent patch, and look at these changes with an open mind. I have, and I'd like to share my 2 cents, and respond to some people's comments in this thread. Since I originally tested the concept of added mass to fighters, I have been dead-set on this change being a bad idea. When it was first discussed on-paper, I thought it might be a good idea. As soon as I went into testing with it, there were a few things that stood out to me.

On a positive note - added mass to fighters made movement feel somewhat smoother. This is really the ONLY redeeming quality of this change. Ships certainly feel a bit less "twitchy" than they did before.

However, the trade-off is extremely costly. On live currently, every fighter right now feels like a mini-bomber. Changing directions quickly feels miserable, and turning feels extremely sluggish unless you have your cursor permanently on the edge of your screen.

This is a game. We play it to have fun. I don't want to go through the equivalent of dragging my balls through broken glass to only just start to enjoy the game. 10 players in VC on the PvP Server in conn is hardly indicative of the wider server population. The current process to get better at the game right now is just simply not enjoyable. I tried it, and didn't like it. And I strongly feel that sentiment is shared. The time investment right now vs what you get out of it is hilariously skewed. Anything to bridge that gap is most welcome.

The amount of drama people make over a few changes that 90 percent of the community can't even feel (and if you are that good that you can really feel it, it means these changes are made for you) is in my opinion a little bit ridiculous. I bet if they'd silently reverse the changes right now, people would keep on repeating the same mantras over and over again. Perhaps they already did... can you tell the difference? can you really?

The time investment of snubs is ALWAYS going to be a negative ROI. Snubs will be forever the "tryhard", "zoomer", or "sweaty" class. They are the most mechanically intensive class in the game. I can say with confidence that there isn't a patch in the world you can create to make it any easier to learn snubs. I think what you've said here is irrelevant when discussing these balance changes, which I will explain why later in the thread.

To anyone who thinks these changes are not that noticeable, I'd encourage you to join @Culbrelai's 4.86 server, fly a fighter, and then log back into live. I'm sure you will notice the difference mass changes make. You will feel like you're running with ankle-weights on live. I don't think this is a good direction to take snubs. Freelancer is an arcade-shooter/space sim. Making the "small, fast, hard-to-hit" ship-class feel demonstrably slower is a net negative, not only in terms of "fun factor", but also in regards to overall balance.

Can you hit more? Maybe. I guess if you don't hit very well, it might feel better for you. Keep in mind, that Aces can hit MUCH, MUCH better with this change. If you think you're doing to do better against aces because it's easier to land shots, you're sorely mistaken. When I dueled "average" level players post change (I asked specific people to duel with me to test this theory in particular) they didn't notice that I was significantly more hittable than on the prior patch. They actually failed to take any nanobots off me. I, however, was able to kill them much faster, as they were much more hittable to me and they ran out of bots faster due to the bot-to-HP nerfs. That is not a pat-on-the-back at my skill level, but I wanted to point out that these changes may FEEL better for less-skilled players when looking at purely shooting the crosshair, but when they get chased, or get caught in a duel with a higher-level player, they're going to die 20-30% faster, or more depending on the setup they're playing against.

High alpha (burst) damage loadouts like Shotgun-MR or Shotgun-SNAC are going to become commonplace again, and lower-level players are going to get sealclubbed in 3-4 passes because this change exponentially benefits aces (who already have good aim to begin with), and will bring TTK (time-to-kill) down immensely in group settings. I don't think that's a change snubs really need at this point. There is an argument to be made that perhaps lesser-skilled players will hit more in groupfights, but those same players have access to Railguns, Class 1 guns with up to 900 m/s velocities, and missles with nearly 200 ammo count to compensate for lack of aim. What I think we will find, and are already finding out, is that aces will benefit in a much more meaningful way than newer/average players, which is the exact opposite of the intended change. Additionally, while the Aces "benefit", most of them are unhappy. I've only talked to two Ace-level players who are actually happy with this change, one of them being the dev who pushed these changes through.

Just wanna point out that the current playtest vote about mass is 9/13 in favor, 3/13 against, 1/13 indifferent. Arguably also more people did not vote on this due to also being indifferent. Now I don't know how much @Haste bases his opinions on playtests, but people were indeed consulted. If you want to be as well, then join the playtest group.

As far as I know, one of those votes was Haste himself (which shouldn't count). I'm not sure of that entirely, so feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. I would also like someone to confirm if that vote was just for mass changes, or if it was for mass changes + something else. If it was for mass changes only, I'm curious as to WHY players voted yes to the change. Maybe there's something I'm missing as a result of these changes, and would love to hear the "Yes" people explain why they specifically voted for mass to be added, so perhaps I can get a different perspective.

As someone who was a playtester and balance dev, I find that during playtest sessions, players are either A) ready to agree with the first person to say something or B) ready to agree with the loudest person in the room. I don't know if that's the case here, and I'm not going to assume it was, but it's certainly something I noticed during my original playtest sessions of these changes. In any case, I'm going to take these results with a grain of salt, and a hint of skepticism, until I hear some reasoning on someone who voted yes. I'm extremely doubtful of the results.

As @Oggdo Bogdo stated in this thread and in others, this change is one that requires an entire overhaul of balance to be implemented properly. I think the testing, execution, and communication behind this patch are subpar at best and downright careless at worst. @SeaFalcon brings up a great point in regards to communication with the community. As a former dev, who is friends with current devs, one of the biggest issues that plagues this community is the substandard communication and feedback loops between the devs and the community at-large. Releasing massive balance passes when some of the most prominent snub players, and current (now former) balance devs, are opposed to the changes is foolhardy. Releasing them without any sort of warning before a PvP-event is even worse.

When you have some of the current most-active snub players, who have spent hours teaching others how to fly snubs and, in my case, make content in regards to teaching snub PvP, opposed to these changes, I would like to think that should lead to some pause and discussion before bludgeoning through changes that clearly require more work than were given during testing. I just think it's irresponsible and does no one any favors. People in this community deserve to have their opinions not only heard, but valued, especially when changes directly affect them. That doesn't mean the devs need to kowtow and bend the knee to them, but I wish there was more of a discussion between the dev team and the players who have been opposed to this since the beginning.

Am I going to continue playing snubs? I have no idea. I find them extremely unfun and boring to play compared to prior patches. You'll likely all get to watch me struggle to learn caps as long as these mass changes are in the game.

I will make a separate post about how I would go about reworking snubs, but I will save that for another time. I appreciate all the devs do for this game and this community, but I think that this change was unwarranted, unwanted, and foolish to make, and I think ALL snub players, not just aces, or noobies, are worse-off after this change. I'm happy to have an open-minded discussion on why anyone would think the opposite.

Thank you.