' Wrote:especially with the usual tactics people use.
getting shot at? -> do nothing but dodge and become virtually unkillable
all friendlies on one enemy fighter -> why? because otherwise you simply can't get decent DPS in. thus eliminating the 'duel furrball' fights. where every fighter picks a single opponent and duels him.
Low on BB? -> request botts from allies et voila, another half hour of dodging to look forward to. and another half hour of mindlessly chasing the very same ship around trying to kill it for the enemy.
I completely agree that these facts make a change necessary!
It's no fun for all parties involved:
Only dodge, no attack = boring for the attacked and you would like to yell out "gank! Omg, why always me first?!?!?!" => not having fun.
All attack one = "This ship is unhittable! Grrrrr....", "shield runner!", "Face me, coward!" => not having fun.
Fight for half an hour and nothing has happened (after a refill / npc feed / kill feed) => no fun for those that have already been chasing for a much too long time.
Fights that are not 1on1 and that include people avoiding incoming fire actively are an almost ridiculous waste of time. I find myself just taking unnecessary risks after about 30 minutes because it sucks and I am fed up with it. I die often in these insane attacks while being attacked (ah, did I already say: I am always attacked by all enemies first, which kind of sucks, too). =)
I remember when we had a completely opposite discussion during 4.84 where people complained about getting instakilled too easily. Remember, that was the age of missiles/mines on fighters instakilling other people with one hit, the age of bombers with SN that could hit anything on your screen with a fast hand and a good eye, and the age of gunboat missiles which would instakill fighters or at least blow off all their equipment in one hit. Now after the instakill ability was removed, several years later we have people screaming to bring back faster fights like in 4.84... but I guess that is predictable.
Below is my position on this as member of the balancing team:
As far as balancing goes there is nothing wrong with the bot/bat count of fighters at the moment. So I doubt it will be changed.
But lets go along with this thread. The main issues people are experiencing with fighters right now is server lag or the tactics that people employ (one person being targetted by a group = that person will dodge fire without firing back = shield runner :@@@@@ and i complain on forums). Neither can be influenced by the dev team. If the bot count was halved, the side effect of said halving would be that the mini razor and mines would become even stronger than now due to faster bot drainage. While hitting with guns wouldn't really improve anyway (most razor/mine hits are luck or lag and only some skill). What WOULD help is increasing the dps of fighter level 8 and 9 guns (and possibly missiles as well) instead so that they drain targets faster.
However there is another problem, mainly that none of these "across the board" fixes are easy to successfully implement and balance. I am not talking about the ini editing itself, but the main problem that is on our minds right now is that people mix and match ships and guns to such an extent that it is nigh impossible to balance guns properly. Changing bots/bats number would fall into that category. And we still have the gunboats with new gunboat turning and the turret split to test exhaustively. So until that problem is solved I doubt there will be any changes to fighters other than small fine tuning.
Quote:I remember when we had a completely opposite discussion during 4.84 where people complained about getting instakilled too easily. Remember, that was the age of missiles/mines on fighters instakilling other people with one hit, the age of bombers with SN that could hit anything on your screen with a fast hand and a good eye, and the age of gunboat missiles which would instakill fighters or at least blow off all their equipment in one hit. Now after the instakill ability was removed, several years later we have people screaming to bring back faster fights like in 4.84... but I guess that is predictable.
Blodo, this isn't entirely true. No one complained about 'fast fights'. Problem was that some ships were more vulnerable to instakills then others.
So, for example, an Odin would have an advantage over Wraith. However, that was pretty well balanced with vulnerable ships being quite faster. So, the Odin never had an advantage, we both know this.
Same goes for Viper-Sabre. Viper could instakill a Sabre, but Sabre was so fast (faster then now) that it was almost unhittable.
Yes, some fights did end faster, but not all of them.
I still remember having quite a few fights that ended after few hours.
As far as I remember, it was quite the opposite. Fights did last too long, and that's why we rebalanced fighter guns.
Bombers are a different story, and I think they'd be perfectly fine with fighter guns. What nerfed bombers more then their slow guns is the inability to pick up a full load of bots/bats from a dead target.
If you take a look at bombers then and now, you'll notice they were nerfed like hell with more then one change.
1. They were not vulnerable to nuclear mines, so they could nuke vanilla ships and win the fights with that. Now they don't have that advantage. Most people would just nuke-ram at that time.
2. They had fighter guns, easier to kill the shield - more chances to SNAC or nuke. Now they use very slow guns.
3. They could pick up bots/bats after they made one kill and start all over again. Now, even if you make a kill, you'll most probably die after it.
4. They could use a dual mini. I never used it, but I know it was a fighter-killer, especially on some ships like Catamaran.
5. They could use a mini + SNAC = best way to surprise a fighter, switching targets a lot and trying to 1-2. Similar to current pulse/razor gunboats.
Now, I agree with you that the fights last even longer now, due to inability to instakill other then shotgun here and there, or nuke+missiles, or nuke+mini.
I agree that removing bots/bats will only make people shield-run even more. It won't speed up the process, it will just make the shields much more important then the hull.
So, yes, I also think the guns need further upgrade. Or even better, but obviously less popular - make nuke mines instakilling weapons again.
Lucendez Wrote:
It is every Corsair's responsibility to die a beautiful death in defense of Crete, regardless of how OORP or how capwhoring the opposition is. Launch your fighter, joust the battlecruisers and die a beautiful death. Then, drink it down in the bar.
' Wrote:This issue is not so much directed at realism ( a battleship can ista-repair all damage by pressing 1 button. wow!) but more so at gameplay. Dogfights right now aren't dogfights but RSI-marathons. Snubs just-don't-die if they play it even moderatly safe.
Idea. Make the b/b on capships repair damage over time. I don't know if it's possible, but make it so that when you press G (or whichever button people have bots stuck to) it takes a while to repair a ship, say 10% hp per second? It'd balance stuff a little, since I can't see the exploitation happening in any way.
Sucks to be a weight on the wrong side of the brilliance-insanity scale.
' Wrote:Blodo, this isn't entirely true. No one complained about 'fast fights'. Problem was that some ships were more vulnerable to instakills then others.
So, for example, an Odin would have an advantage over Wraith. However, that was pretty well balanced with vulnerable ships being quite faster. So, the Odin never had an advantage, we both know this.
Same goes for Viper-Sabre. Viper could instakill a Sabre, but Sabre was so fast (faster then now) that it was almost unhittable.
Yes, some fights did end faster, but not all of them.
I still remember having quite a few fights that ended after few hours.
As far as I remember, it was quite the opposite. Fights did last too long, and that's why we rebalanced fighter guns.
Bombers are a different story, and I think they'd be perfectly fine with fighter guns. What nerfed bombers more then their slow guns is the inability to pick up a full load of bots/bats from a dead target.
If you take a look at bombers then and now, you'll notice they were nerfed like hell with more then one change.
1. They were not vulnerable to nuclear mines, so they could nuke vanilla ships and win the fights with that. Now they don't have that advantage. Most people would just nuke-ram at that time.
2. They had fighter guns, easier to kill the shield - more chances to SNAC or nuke. Now they use very slow guns.
3. They could pick up bots/bats after they made one kill and start all over again. Now, even if you make a kill, you'll most probably die after it.
4. They could use a dual mini. I never used it, but I know it was a fighter-killer, especially on some ships like Catamaran.
5. They could use a mini + SNAC = best way to surprise a fighter, switching targets a lot and trying to 1-2. Similar to current pulse/razor gunboats.
Now, I agree with you that the fights last even longer now, due to inability to instakill other then shotgun here and there, or nuke+missiles, or nuke+mini.
I agree that removing bots/bats will only make people shield-run even more. It won't speed up the process, it will just make the shields much more important then the hull.
So, yes, I also think the guns need further upgrade. Or even better, but obviously less popular - make nuke mines instakilling weapons again.
Okay I'll have to interrupt you there. BOMBERS. DO. NOT. KILL. FIGHTERS. Period. Bombers kill BIG things.
Sucks to be a weight on the wrong side of the brilliance-insanity scale.
Right, and where did I say they were supposed to kill fighters?
I just compared the old bombers to the current ones.
Even back then you wouldn't die to a bomber unless you made mistakes. Sadly, people tend to do that.
Lucendez Wrote:
It is every Corsair's responsibility to die a beautiful death in defense of Crete, regardless of how OORP or how capwhoring the opposition is. Launch your fighter, joust the battlecruisers and die a beautiful death. Then, drink it down in the bar.
Bombers are fine as they are. While bombers (especially the more manuverable ones) can kill average pilots, it's not their primary purpose.
If we go back to mounting fighter guns on bombers, the number of players ditching their VHFs will increase. And again the skies will be darkened by codewep, swiss army knife bombers.
Again: less bots, less bats, increased projectile velocity, slightly less mine and missile damage, shorter lockout upon pvp-death.
Oh, and everyone sticks to factional equipment and guns.
I can't wait for Freeworlds.. can't pull this crap with TIE fighters...
Look, everybody wants to "win" but if you actually want something that makes any kind of sense, the current system has to go out the window. Bombers MUST die to fighters, 9 times out of 10. Fighters MUST be able to tar each other in a matter of minutes, where one mistake happens and you're out, no if's and's or but's. Capital ships are mostly fine, although gunboats are horridly ineffective against fighters; they should be fighter killers, not prey.
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