5.2.0.9

[Lythrilux]

I still largely disagree with the counter points raised in this thread but before I bow out there's one thing I want to address.

What you find fun is irrelevant to the fact that plenty of people still do this and they are adversely affected by it. Just as there are new players adversely affected by decades of skill gap there's also players that are just starting out that keep having to readjust to complete overhauls of balance and snub feel. Whether or not duelists are the minority is not for me to say. On Saturday I was in a VC with 10 people in the PvP discord across all the skill ranges, that were all in conn dueling. There are people that enjoy it and make progress because of it. I also don't really think you can say that it's unrealistic to have duels out of conn since there are snub players that fly alone and you aren't really allowed to gank them anymore. Besides that there are also plenty of situations in group brawls where knowing how to duel helps you.

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.

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[Cherenkov]

I want to share my perspective on the recent changes to snubcraft mechanics and how they've impacted my experience, especially as someone who was still on the journey of learning and improving.

For months, I invested time in understanding the nuances of snub combat—maneuvering, aiming, countering, and all the intricate skills that make these small ships such a rewarding challenge. Though I’ll admit I wasn’t close to mastering them, I felt that every hour spent was progress. The practice had meaning.

With the recent adjustments, however, the fundamentals I worked so hard to grasp seem to have been flipped on their head. The changes feel so dramatic that the techniques I was building on are now irrelevant, or worse, outright ineffective. It’s frustrating to realize that all the time I dedicated to improvement feels like it has been invalidated.

What made snub combat enjoyable was the rewarding feedback loop: the more effort you put into learning, the more improvement you saw. But now, it feels like that incentive has been removed. The balance changes not only altered how snubs handle but also changed the skill ceiling itself. For me—and I imagine others who are still in the learning phase—it’s disheartening.

I understand that updates aim to address balance and create a better experience for everyone, but it feels like this time the pendulum may have swung too far. Snubs now feel alien compared to what they were before, and the learning curve has been replaced with a sense of futility.

I’m reaching out to see if others share this sentiment and to ask the development team for insight into these changes. Were they intended to make snubs more accessible? To curb dominance by highly skilled players? Or is this a step toward something bigger that we just don’t see yet?

Ultimately, I hope we can find a middle ground that rewards players for their dedication to mastering this unique and challenging aspect of the game.

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts,
Burnsie

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FORWARD TO THE STARS!
"Comrades of Earth, we do not aim to conquer space — we liberate it!"

VICTORY THROUGH SCIENCE
Red banners wave where gravity once ruled.

The cosmos belongs to the workers.

[Leeon26]

Why is there no discussion before applying large changes such as "Ship Mass Changes" ....?
Please consider the players' opinions before applying large changes affecting everyone—for God's sake!
and special thanks to developers like @Antonio and others who collect players' opinions first, before f'king up their game-play by unilateral forced decisions in the name of balance!!

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.

When the lead balance dev himself votes for his change being good, Honourwolf doesn't vote, and a newbie says he could dodge more with more mass on a bomber, I really question myself if those votes are anywhere projectable to the live patch.

[Leeon26]

I still largely disagree with the counter points raised in this thread but before I bow out there's one thing I want to address.

What you find fun is irrelevant to the fact that plenty of people still do this and they are adversely affected by it. Just as there are new players adversely affected by decades of skill gap there's also players that are just starting out that keep having to readjust to complete overhauls of balance and snub feel. Whether or not duelists are the minority is not for me to say. On Saturday I was in a VC with 10 people in the PvP discord across all the skill ranges, that were all in conn dueling. There are people that enjoy it and make progress because of it. I also don't really think you can say that it's unrealistic to have duels out of conn since there are snub players that fly alone and you aren't really allowed to gank them anymore. Besides that there are also plenty of situations in group brawls where knowing how to duel helps you.

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 bridge you're talking about will very quickly turn out different than you think. This patch serves better players more than anyone else, and the higher the level, the better the outcome of a fight will be. You might hit a few more shots, while the better opponent hits way way way more. This is not proportional and will lead to a bigger gap than before. Turning feels shit and the better someone is, the easier it is to just abuse loadouts that're gonna be in favour of this patch eg. shotgun MR / SNAC.
More time to accelerate your ship = more time for the enemy to aim the shot.

[Hemlocke]

Holy strafe speed batman, tokyo drifting. (cool patch)

Can we downscale the Wild Fire (Class 1 Codegun) effect so I don't give the CDI)- rat gang permanent blindness? (Still uses the big boom 3.03 effect it had prior to being made an 8.33)

K thanks

[Eternal.Journey]

Having tested this out in a few duels and one skirmish I can agree that the mass changes make ships fly more like they're flying though honey than empty space. Got behind a bomber and sat about 300-400m out while pumping out damage. Reliably hit (~60%, give or take) and was quite literally able to sit there and take no damage in return for my efforts. Shield boosting changes meant that my shots punched through his boost before it was cooled down, it just took a few extra moments holding RMB in his direction. Got to shoot a VHF in the same skirmish. Almost the same result, albeit with interruptions. Caps can reliably hit snubs again (at least, true in the case of bombers), even ones that dodge semi well. Not that sure its a bad thing, cause it makes things much easier to hit. But it also means harder to move, meaning newer players who are getting used to controls will also struggle with combat more. They'll take more damage faster, despite being able to hit their opponents more. Probably needs some tweaking.

I know this ain't part of this patch, but it kinda needs bringing up anyway. Several patches ago, bomber guns got mass. Ever since, using bomber tech is just as much a hindrance to a bomber as it is to a Fighter. Sure, the extra thruster helps but it still doesn't mitigate the weight addition. Its depressing that there's no viability to use actual bomber guns on a bomber and this is just being made worse with adding even more mass to bombers (the trade off in mass just isn't worth it. using 4x redeemers and 2x Antimatters/Bomber heavies gives you a whopping 100 extra mass, almost an entire Light Fighter's worth of mass, on top of your already struggling ass). Recommendation: Maybe something akin to the recent 'mining volume changes of certain goods in certain ships' can be done to reduce/remove the mass of Bomber guns on Class 4 (Bomber Class) ships Only? As it stands, only people like me (people who use things for cosmetic reasons) or people who aren't familiar with mass and its effects will use them, and are either deliberately or unintentionally adding yet another hindrance to their combat by using them.

Shield buffs. Not that much different to be protected by nor shoot through, but a free ten percent is more than welcome.

Powercore change is good. Who doesn't like getting extra RMB time?

Shield Boost Nerfs. Having experienced them a few times, they're less like "I'm not doing anything for the next (insert duration)" and more like "Now that ship moves worse, and the shield boost has been reduced, just click anyway". It's no longer a waiting game to wait for the protection to be over. More often than not I can rip right through the shield boost with a couple of passes, before the duration even ends. Feeling like this is more positive than the stopping of shooting to not waste the energy against the shield boost. Works both ways though. Others will do the same.

Swatters have become a faster accelerating, less punchy shredder. Lol.

Batts and Bots. Don't know if its for better or worse that you get less HP return on a snub from nanos (meaning your unchanged snub nano count will cover you for about 16% less total damage taken) and shield batts recharging more so that your anything not Light Fighter snub will have more charge capacity (trade off being shield boosts are now virtually ignorable and just click target anyway now.). Probably an annoying change when coupled with mass. Like. You already eat more shots from being more sluggish. Now you aren't repairing so much as you were before, either.

I'll refrain from commenting on torps for now. Would like to test these more thoroughly. I will however, say this: So far, its looking like torps are back to being for hitting npcs and that's pretty much it. Maybe they're more usable in a group environment, not sure yet.

Its going to be one of those updates where I spose fine tweaking will be a necessity to keep the vets/aces interested and not hinder the newer players. Some things seem like a blessing, while also being a curse.

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[Oggdo Bogdo]

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.

That doesn't invalidate their opinion. I already told you I'm not saying they are the majority, I'm saying there's a large enough group of people that do it. Why are you so intent on making it seem like their opinion is worthless and trade their fun for yours? I really don't see how this is hard to understand. Why does someone have to compromise? I already told you there are ways to make everyone happy that doesn't involve extreme overhauls.

And this idea that people can't notice it is pure gaslighting. 33% increase in mass is not insignificant. Even players who are still learning can notice it. That's why there's people who aren't aces disagreeing with it. It's a significant change that is immediately noticeable to many people that are familiar with snubs, good or not. Your failure to recognize it doesn't mean nobody else can, no matter how hard you pretend everyone who can is a super elite tryhard with some kind of abnormal talent. If we had raised mass to 50k I would assure you anyone with basic eyesight would notice it.

Nobody wants to address the issues I brought up previously either in the other thread made. It's just campaigning for this newbie vs ace thing and pretending all other issues don't exist. I've given alternative solutions for the skill gap, when is anyone actually going to answer the balance concerns given instead of yelling their own stance louder?

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[Stewgar]

Are light fighters commonly used in PVP?

I'm not in the PVP scene but everything I see, and even what I have done in the past, is go straight for the VHF ship (some great PVP'ers have used HF's as well or bombers). I ask this because is it possible that the balance team wants to create greater variety which creates pro's and con's for each ship type? Light fighters possibly going up against VHFs if they use their speed to get angles on the VHF which the VHF can tank to turn and fire back at the LF?

As a side note and this probably isn't the place to put this, but kudos to the devs (past and present) who have or are working on the plug-ins to make these events possible. I've heard that at times it's clunky (c'mon, the game is from 2003 after all) but other than that the events seem to be fun and most of the complaints are nuanced toward other things unrelated to the event itself. This is making me motivated to lean in and check out the next event. I'll drum up others as well.

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It ain't about what you are capable of, it's about what you're willing to do.

[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.

[Xenon]

Why is there no discussion before applying large changes such as "Ship Mass Changes" ....?
Please consider the players' opinions before applying large changes affecting everyone—for God's sake!
and special thanks to developers like @Antonio and others who collect players' opinions first, before f'king up their game-play by unilateral forced decisions in the name of balance!!

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.

I am afraid, you didn't get what I mean
I meant "Discussion" on forums, open for all players to participate in their opinions.
I appreciate the voting part, thank you for that indeed.

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