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Message Edited by NasherUK on 02-03-2005 05:28 PM

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Imaridril wrote:

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Ducimus wrote:

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Imaridril wrote:

Not to be rude Ducimus, but hitting other players in JTL is not nearly as hard as you seem to be making it out to be. I have never participated in or whitnessed a single dog fight where the spacing between hits was much more than 10 seconds tops.

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It can be very hard. But then, you don't fly against an A wing do you?

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I fly against A-wings all the time, and I do it in a Rihk, a TIE Advanced, and a Firespray. Heck, I went 6 and 0 against a-wings in Deep Spacejust last night. 4 of the fights ended on the first pass, and the other two ended about 20% into the first turn.

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You've never flown against me

I think your math is a little off. First off, you're leaving out Weapon Overload 3, which doubles your gun's damage. Secondly, you're using a 75% damage reduction, which is argueably on the extreme end. Personally I've been argueing for the damage reduction to be 50%. Thirdly, your example gun is actually a little low for what most people can easily get. And fourthly, you're only taking into consideration single gun fighters, which are supposed to have low firepower. A single RE'd level 8 reward gun will right now in PvP do an average of 3200+ damage. That's enough to cut through a crafted 1900 shield AND mark III armor. And that's only if the fighter is using a single gun. If he's flying a two gun fighter, such as a TIE advanced, he can easily up his PvP damage by another 1000 just by throwing on an average RE'd level 4 gun. It gets even worse with the heavier fighters.

Now, letsdo some math concerning your arguement that Cap to Shield Shunt will make players invicible if damage is reduced at all. For the sake of the argument, lets assume that its a single gun a-wing going up againsta heavy fighter with an RE'd 2554 f/b level 8 reward shield, 2000 protection armor,an uber 9.0 second droid interface, and avery nice 1500energy/50 recharge capacitor. For the A-wing, let's assume it does an average 3200damage hit each time. Also, let's assume that the heavy fighter pilot is using Capacitor Overload 4, which in essense gives him a 3000 energy/100 recharge cap.

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I have a capacitor very similar to that, not quite, but very close. DI is low 14's as well, fast enough. 3200 damage average each time (pre WO3) is a totally unreasonable assumption. AVERAGE damage per shot of a RE'd borstel, after shield and armor modifiers, is going to be closer to 2200 damage per shot, if you have super vs shield and armor, in the .75+ range, you might get that up to 2500 damage per shot average. Even with 0.750 vs armor and shields, the most damage you can do in one shot is just under 3000 for a RE'd borstel. I will make changes to your following argument in yellow, based on these new, much more reasonable assumptions, based on actual numbers, not something you pull out of thin air. You assumed an average of 3200, I'm going to assume the actual average of the gun you described, exceptionally RE'd at 2500,

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After the first hit, the heavy fighter has its shieldsdown to 54on one side, and its 2000 protection armor is still in pristine shape.Thepilot them immediately uses Capacitor to Shield Shunt 4. This returnsthier shield to 1554. In14 seconds he's able to use Cap to Shield Shunt again, however in14 seconds,thier uber cap will only have recharged up to 1200, which givesthem another600 to dump intothier damaged shield side. That, plus his shield's normal recharge wouldput him at around2355 shields. Its very unlikely that they'll be able to evade long enough to get off a third Cap to Shield Shunt before taking another hit. After the second hit,thier shields are once again down to zero, and now his armor is at about only 1950. Now, once again lets assume that theyare able to evade fire long enough to get two more Cap to Shield Shunt 4s off. This putsthier shields back up around 1500.They then takes a third hit, which once again cuts through all his shields, takes out half ofthe rest of his armor, and doesnodamage against his components. More than likely he will be critically crippled at this point, or even destroyed. Either way thefight is probably over. If he's very lucky he may have only lost a non-criticle component, and he'll be able to stick around until the next hit. More than likely they can survive another hit at least.

Now what you've failed to take into account in the above paragraph is the likely hood of recieving multiple blows on the same side. In about 90% of the fights I've been in, where I've taken multiple hits, the hits have been fairly evenly distributed between both sides of the ship. Not this keep pounding one side you just described.

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Now, keep in mind, the above example was only against a single-gun fighter. Against any of the two-gun fighters, the fight will most likely end on the second hit, instead of the third. Furthermore, remeber in this example the target was in a heavy fighter. Dodging incoming fire in a heavy fighter long enough to get off two Cap to Shield Shunts is not an easy task in the least. Now, let's redo the math with an A-wing vs. an A-wing. In this example, the A-wing being attacked isusinga1900 shield,500 protection armor, a 1200 energy/45 recharge cap, and a pre-nerf 14.0 second droid interface. Also, like before, let's assume that the target ship is running Capacitor Overload 4.

In this example, the first hit takes out all his shields and armor, and does 800 damage against his components. Most likely he'll be out of the fight at this point, but depending on what component gets hit, he might still be kicking. He then does Cap to Shield shunt once, which puts his shields back up to 1200, and 14 seconds later he does it again, which gets his shields back up to about full recharge. He then takes a second hit, which once again knocks his shields all the way back down and then does 1300 damage against his components. At this point only an extremely lucky pilot will still be able to fight. Now, there is one thing to keep in mind.Assuming that Capacitor Overload is suppposed to use more reactor energy in the same way that the Engine Overload and Weapon Overload does, then itsquite likelythat the A-wing pilot will have to give up using Engine Overload and Weapon Overload if he wants to be able to use Capacitor Overload 4. If the A-wing in question is only running Capacitor Overload 2, then the limited survivability he can get from Capacitor to Shield Shunt 4 is even lower. Not that this really even matters, since even if he is able to fully recharge his shields between hits he its still most likely going down on the second shot.

Now, how would the two example fights above turn out if the PvP damage reduction was 50% instead of 25%? In the first fight, the heavy fighter would be able to completely shrug off the first hit with the use of Capacitor to Shield Shunt 4. If he is then able to evade incoming fire long enough to run Cap to Shield Shunt a second time, then he'll be able to shrug off the second hit with only shield damage. However, after that, he'll start taking about 1000 none-shield damage with each hit, and that's assuming he gets off two Cap to Shield Shunt 4s between each hit. If he does all that, he'll probably go down after4 to8 hits, depending on what components get hit after his armor is gone. In the second example fight, the target A-wing would lose about half his armor on the first hit. The second hit, if he evades long enough to fully recharge his shields, will take out the rest of his armor. After that every hit he takes will likely damage or disable a component or two, meaning that he'll probably go down after 3-5 hits.

I think all this math clearly demostrates that a further reduction of PvP damage WILL NOT result in unkillable players.

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Were you assuming 25% reduction with the 3200 average damage you were touting before? Because if that's the case, then the real numbers I should have been using were 1875, not 2500, as I was assuming deep space with no PvP reduction. Half of 2500 is 1250, which if you look, IS completely healable every 14 seconds! I guarantee no a-wing out there will be able to hit meconsecutively with any repeatability. 3:1 is generally recognized as an even match for me on my server, sometimes 4:1, in order to reliably take me out it generally takes 5:1 odds. That's me, under the current 1-2 sometimes 3 shot kill system we have now, avoiding incoming fire from as many as 5 player targets for long enough for me to CtSS 3 times, so 30-45 seconds of evading on average 10-15 guns pointed at me. Reduce this to half damage, I will be imortal.

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There's also a few other things to consider...

1. In the above examples, the aggressor was always a single-gun fighter. Replace that ship with a two or three gun fighter and the fights will go even quicker.


2. The defending fighter in both of the above examples is assumed to not be taking any shots of his own. Once WO3 is fixed, a single use of Capacitor to Shield Shunt 4 will severely limit your ability to return fire.


3. Both example fights assume that the defending fighter is able to evade incoming fire for significant lengths of time. If at any point the defending fighter takes an extra hit, his survivability drops significantly.


4. In the 1st example, the defending fighter is using some pretty nice equipment. In order to fit all that stuff onto his ship, and still have room for some decent guns, he's going to have to be using one of the bigger, slower fighters, meaning he's a huge target in space.


5. In the 2nd example, the defending fighter is using a pre-nerf Droid Interface. If he is forced to use a modern D.I., then he'll be lucky if he can do Capacitor to Shield Shunt twice in the entire battle, much less two times between each hit.

Now, even if we took things to the extreme, and went witha 75% damage reduction, I still can't see there being unkillable players. The only exception would be an A-wing set up in a defensive configuration and using a pre-nerf Droid Interface. And even then that would only be if he was going up against another single-gun fighter. Take away his pre-nerf D.I. and there's no way he can dodge shots long enough to fully recharge his shields, or put him up against a multi-gun fighter and the damage from each shot will be enough to wear him down even with Cap to Shield Shunt 4 every 14 seconds.

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In regards to #4 above, ever seen an oppressor? Not the highest mass ship, but it's the same size as a normal TIE, actually with the folded wing design, it's smaller. And that super ship you're describing, with all the armor and guns and super everything, yeah, that's my ship.

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Eaca wrote:

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Imaridril wrote:

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Ducimus wrote:

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Imaridril wrote:

Not to be rude Ducimus, but hitting other players in JTL is not nearly as hard as you seem to be making it out to be. I have never participated in or whitnessed a single dog fight where the spacing between hits was much more than 10 seconds tops.

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It can be very hard. But then, you don't fly against an A wing do you?

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I fly against A-wings all the time, and I do it in a Rihk, a TIE Advanced, and a Firespray. Heck, I went 6 and 0 against a-wings in Deep Spacejust last night. 4 of the fights ended on the first pass, and the other two ended about 20% into the first turn.

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You've never flown against me

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Well, that would make sense since we're not on the same server. If you do have an alt on Starsider, come on out to Deep Space, I'm there as Adonis all the time. I have no idea if I'm a truely good pilot or not, since every fight I've been in has lasted less than 20 seconds. All I know is that I win a lot more than I lose, and the guns on my ship do an average of 14k damage per shot in PvP, which means even if I go against someone with an exploited shield and mark V armor they're going down on the first hit.

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I think your math is a little off. First off, you're leaving out Weapon Overload 3, which doubles your gun's damage. Secondly, you're using a 75% damage reduction, which is argueably on the extreme end. Personally I've been argueing for the damage reduction to be 50%. Thirdly, your example gun is actually a little low for what most people can easily get. And fourthly, you're only taking into consideration single gun fighters, which are supposed to have low firepower. A single RE'd level 8 reward gun will right now in PvP do an average of 3200+ damage. That's enough to cut through a crafted 1900 shield AND mark III armor. And that's only if the fighter is using a single gun. If he's flying a two gun fighter, such as a TIE advanced, he can easily up his PvP damage by another 1000 just by throwing on an average RE'd level 4 gun. It gets even worse with the heavier fighters.

Now, letsdo some math concerning your arguement that Cap to Shield Shunt will make players invicible if damage is reduced at all. For the sake of the argument, lets assume that its a single gun a-wing going up againsta heavy fighter with an RE'd 2554 f/b level 8 reward shield, 2000 protection armor,an uber 9.0 second droid interface, and avery nice 1500energy/50 recharge capacitor. For the A-wing, let's assume it does an average 3200damage hit each time. Also, let's assume that the heavy fighter pilot is using Capacitor Overload 4, which in essense gives him a 3000 energy/100 recharge cap.

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I have a capacitor very similar to that, not quite, but very close. DI is low 14's as well, fast enough. 3200 damage average each time (pre WO3) is a totally unreasonable assumption. AVERAGE damage per shot of a RE'd borstel, after shield and armor modifiers, is going to be closer to 2200 damage per shot, if you have super vs shield and armor, in the .75+ range, you might get that up to 2500 damage per shot average. Even with 0.750 vs armor and shields, the most damage you can do in one shot is just under 3000 for a RE'd borstel. I will make changes to your following argument in yellow, based on these new, much more reasonable assumptions, based on actual numbers, not something you pull out of thin air. You assumed an average of 3200, I'm going to assume the actual average of the gun you described, exceptionally RE'd at 2500,

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All of my calculations included WO3. In my previous paragraph, I specifically mentioned that Ducimus had forgot to include WO3. I'm sorry if that was confusing when it got to the math part, but I thought that it was a given that I was going to be including WO3 in the calculations. As for the gun itself, an RE'd Level 8 Borstel is what I was using. The one I'm looking at right now is 2507-3876, .68/.68. With WO3 it will do an average of 3255 damage per shot in PvP. I rounded that down to 3200 to keep things easier. The math you just put above and changes you made to my examples are pointless because you didn't include WO3. Even after WO3 is fixed most players will still be able to use it, especially single gun fighters who are using an RE'd Borstel which only has an energy per shot cost of 13.4.

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Were you assuming 25% reduction with the 3200 average damage you were touting before? Because if that's the case, then the real numbers I should have been using were 1875, not 2500, as I was assuming deep space with no PvP reduction. Half of 2500 is 1250, which if you look, IS completely healable every 14 seconds! I guarantee no a-wing out there will be able to hit meconsecutively with any repeatability. 3:1 is generally recognized as an even match for me on my server, sometimes 4:1, in order to reliably take me out it generally takes 5:1 odds. That's me, under the current 1-2 sometimes 3 shot kill system we have now, avoiding incoming fire from as many as 5 player targets for long enough for me to CtSS 3 times, so 30-45 seconds of evading on average 10-15 guns pointed at me. Reduce this to half damage, I will be imortal.

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3200 damage is what an average RE'd level 8 Borstel will do in PvP right now. (That's with WO3 and the 25% damage reduction.) If the damage reduction was 50% instead of 25%, than an average RE'd level 8 Borstel would do 2133 damage per shot in PvP. (Again that's with WO3.) As for you bragging about how it takes 5 players to take you down, what does that have to do with anything? Unless you have an exploited shield, a pre-nerf 108 speed engine, or an uber reactor that lets you run EO4, then the only reason it takes 5 other players to take you down is because your opponents are poor pilots compared to you. If you're not using any of the three components that I listed above, then you opponents have no excuse for not having a comprably equipped ship. A level 8 Borstel is not hard to get at all, since every Rebel and Freelancer gets one as a quest reward. The best shield most players will ever see is also a quest reward that everyone gets. The Tier III level6 quest reward engine and the Tier IV level 8 freelancer quest reward engine are both near the top end as far as engines go now days. If you want to go with a level 10 engine, that's not a hard task either. Any master player who hunts in either Kessel or Deep Spaceshould have no trouble looting level 10 engines.REing a respectable level 4 or level 6 capacitor is one of the easiet RE's in the game, and pre-nerf level 1 Droid Interfaces, while slowly getting more rare, can still be found on lots of vendors and they even still show up on the bazaar from time to time. Anyways, the point I'm trying to make is that the components I just listed are what should be considered average. Any master player who's not using the parts listed above is just being lazy and doesn't deserve to be coddled. As for your 5 to 1 odds above, I'll say again, if you're holding your own against that many pilots than it means they're poor pilots. It has nothing to do with the level of damage in PvP. If even one of those pilots is flying a two-gun fighter with two RE'd level 8 Borstels, he only needs to score one hit. Even if you have a 2554 shield and 2600 mark V armor, that one hit will be enough to go through all of your shield, all of your armor, and stilldo over 1200 damage to your components.

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Ducimus wrote:

Ok so it stands to reason that Cap shunt, Shield programs, and E shield would also have to be reduced.

(intrestingly enough this reminds me of AO. They reduced the PvP damage there, but did not reduce the effectiveness of healing. End result. Doctors became PvP gods because they were neigh unkillable)

Now heres the problem Can you reduce These "healing" programs only for PvP, or is the only change possible a sweeping change that will effect PvE and PvP.

I hardly expect sony to nerf these in PvE that the majority engage in, for PvP of which is the minority intrest. But if theres no way to desceren PvE vs PvP usage of these programs, then reduce damage and we all become "unkillable doc's".

I dont see this as an easy change to make no matter how you slice it. I still think PvP damage is fine how it is, or rather, all player situational awarness equal, is about as balanced as i think they can get it without having to rewrite the whole system. Besides, JTL was designed as a twitch game, i for one would like it to stay that way instead of becoming the space version of beating on 80% composite for 5to 10 minutes ala maxtrix style fighting.

Message Edited by Ducimus on 02-03-2005 11:54 AM

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Certainly the twitch part should be the main focus, but there must also be some form of advantage and disadvantage in choosing different ships. As it is now, small maneuverable shipsare in fact the "composite in space". Without tinkering with the damage/shield ratio some more,choosing any other ship than these small ones will just give you the weaknesses of said ships, not the strength.

Though, I do in fact think that much of how JTL works needs to be rewritten from scratch. Obviously, this is too late now. When I first started to read about JTL, I envisioned a system where the components on your ships didn't matter as much as they do. I envisioned a system where each ship has their own stats which are adjusted by the components, not governed by them. Each ship would have its own stats similar to the X-wing games, for instance, but with the small addition that an engine component might alter your speed, maneuverability and such within a limited span of parameters, possibly at the cost of something else (as an example,shield strength). That way PvE and PvP in JTL would have been much more easy to balance. Of course, it's all too late now...

Considering the droid programs for cap to shield, I wouldn't mind if they were removed completely. They make things too easy, IMHO. That's of course just my opinion though. /eshields is not as good as it might seem, due to the long timer, the disabled weapons and reset droid programs. I did use it during PvP testing during JTL beta, and found that it was just not worth it in PvP. Shield reinforcement isn't that much of an issue either, since it takes shield strength from one angle and adds to the other. It's just cap shunt together with capacitor overload and weapon overload 3 that makes everything so simple.

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Eaca wrote:

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Imaridril wrote:

Well, that would make sense since we're not on the same server. If you do have an alt on Starsider, come on out to Deep Space, I'm there as Adonis all the time. I have no idea if I'm a truely good pilot or not, since every fight I've been in has lasted less than 20 seconds. All I know is that I win a lot more than I lose, and the guns on my ship do an average of 14k damage per shot in PvP, which means even if I go against someone with an exploited shield and mark V armor they're going down on the first hit.

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Is that 14k with WO3 after 25% reduction?

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Yeah, that's 14k with WO3 and after the 25% reduction. However my guns are far from average. I use three RE'd level 10s that are each about 3000-4800 with .8/.8 vs shields/armor. I realize that's a lot of overkill for PvP right now, but since PvP fights are so infrequent, I spend most of my time in deep space hunting NPCs inbetween PvP fights, and running a triple level 10 setup lets me cut through the NPCs like they're made of paper. I should also add that when I use all three of those level 10s I have to go without armor, since all together they use 134k mass, which is 70% of my ship's total mass. So while its true that I have a garaunteed one-shot kill against anyone, my defenses aren't nearly as high as they could be.

As far as weather or not we need more PvP damage reduction, I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. However I think we can both agree that WO3 definately needs to be fixed, and that the MP ships definately need to be beefed up. What I'd like to have happen is for the new Pilot Coorespondant to organize some larger PvP events for the purpose of testing out different damage reduction amounts. This could be accomplished without any assistance from the devs simply by having all the participants use pre-selected guns that simulate different reduction amounts.

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Imaridril wrote:

Yeah, that's 14k with WO3 and after the 25% reduction. However my guns are far from average. I use three RE'd level 10s that are each about 3000-4800 with .8/.8 vs shields/armor. I realize that's a lot of overkill for PvP right now, but since PvP fights are so infrequent, I spend most of my time in deep space hunting NPCs inbetween PvP fights, and running a triple level 10 setup lets me cut through the NPCs like they're made of paper. I should also add that when I use all three of those level 10s I have to go without armor, since all together they use 134k mass, which is 70% of my ship's total mass. So while its true that I have a garaunteed one-shot kill against anyone, my defenses aren't nearly as high as they could be.

As far as weather or not we need more PvP damage reduction, I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. However I think we can both agree that WO3 definately needs to be fixed, and that the MP ships definately need to be beefed up. What I'd like to have happen is for the new Pilot Coorespondant to organize some larger PvP events for the purpose of testing out different damage reduction amounts. This could be accomplished without any assistance from the devs simply by having all the participants use pre-selected guns that simulate different reduction amounts.

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Imaridril wrote:

Well, that would make sense since we're not on the same server. If you do have an alt on Starsider, come on out to Deep Space, I'm there as Adonis all the time. I have no idea if I'm a truely good pilot or not, since every fight I've been in has lasted less than 20 seconds. All I know is that I win a lot more than I lose, and the guns on my ship do an average of 14k damage per shot in PvP, which means even if I go against someone with an exploited shield and mark V armor they're going down on the first hit.

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Is that 14k with WO3 after 25% reduction?

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3200 damage is what an average RE'd level 8 Borstel will do in PvP right now. (That's with WO3 and the 25% damage reduction.) If the damage reduction was 50% instead of 25%, than an average RE'd level 8 Borstel would do 2133 damage per shot in PvP. (Again that's with WO3.) As for you bragging about how it takes 5 players to take you down, what does that have to do with anything? Unless you have an exploited shield, a pre-nerf 108 speed engine, or an uber reactor that lets you run EO4, then the only reason it takes 5 other players to take you down is because your opponents are poor pilots compared to you. If you're not using any of the three components that I listed above, then you opponents have no excuse for not having a comprably equipped ship. A level 8 Borstel is not hard to get at all, since every Rebel and Freelancer gets one as a quest reward. The best shield most players will ever see is also a quest reward that everyone gets. The Tier III level6 quest reward engine and the Tier IV level 8 freelancer quest reward engine are both near the top end as far as engines go now days. If you want to go with a level 10 engine, that's not a hard task either. Any master player who hunts in either Kessel or Deep Spaceshould have no trouble looting level 10 engines.REing a respectable level 4 or level 6 capacitor is one of the easiet RE's in the game, and pre-nerf level 1 Droid Interfaces, while slowly getting more rare, can still be found on lots of vendors and they even still show up on the bazaar from time to time. Anyways, the point I'm trying to make is that the components I just listed are what should be considered average. Any master player who's not using the parts listed above is just being lazy and doesn't deserve to be coddled. As for your 5 to 1 odds above, I'll say again, if you're holding your own against that many pilots than it means they're poor pilots. It has nothing to do with the level of damage in PvP. If even one of those pilots is flying a two-gun fighter with two RE'd level 8 Borstels, he only needs to score one hit. Even if you have a 2554 shield and 2600 mark V armor, that one hit will be enough to go through all of your shield, all of your armor, and stilldo over 1200 damage to your components.

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Message Edited by Eaca on 02-04-2005 01:13 AM

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Rebelcapt wrote:

AS far as MP ships go, i think they need their own catagory of equipment. The way it is now MP ships and fighter arnt really tat differant equipment wise and its gimped with its heavy mass. By creating differant types of sheilds weapons and armor, designed just for MP ships they would server a more usefull purpose.

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