Pilot Archive
Thread: JTLS PVP INSANITY BALENCE
Tumbler2002
Sat Apr 02, 2005 10:48 pm
#27
First off, PVP is almost never one-shot kills. Maybe it is if you're flying straight at an X-Wing (in which case it's still not one shot and you're dead, it's 2-4 hitting you so fast it just feels like one shot), but if you've got level 7 or 8 shields and any armor at all you'll be able to survive a shot from just about anything but a lucky hit from a level 10. And if you're pulling evasive maneuvers, that first shot can be incredibly difficult to land in the first place; hitting with two in a row even against something as sluggish as a Y-Wing can take multiple seconds. Against something like an A-Wing or an Advanced, it can take multiple minutes. People who can fly that well are rare, but they're out there, and need to be taken into consideration in any suggested changes, as anything that decreases damage too much will effectively render them invincible.
I'm really happy to hear your server (starsider?) has an active space pvp community. Unfortunately most of us are all on different servers and have to work with what we have.
I think you'll find a ton of people that disagree with you regarding pvp not being a 1 shot kill. This evening I ran into several Xwings, a Bwing, several A-wings, and a KSE Firespray. The Firespray was the only ship that needed a second shot. I fly an oppressor and it is one mean SOB. One blast from my twin guns to all those ships except the firespray and they exploded. My guns are a lvl 8 and a lvl 9 reversed. So it definitely isn't just feeling like 1 shot, the folks on the business end of my guns were down in one shot.
But we're not talking about reducing damage done to light fighters. We're talking about increasing the shields and armor to heavy fighters so they don't blow up so quickly. If I'm attacking an awing it should blow up with very few hits (as they are VERY hard to hit if flown well) If I'm attacking a bwing it should take a lot more damage before blowing up (as they are NOT hard to hit at all)
Halyn
Sat Apr 02, 2005 11:50 pm
#28
If PvP is too easy for you, why don't you try using lighter guns to limit yourself? 
Again, any adjustments you do to damage may and probably will lead to invincible pilots because of WCO and Shunt.
Again, any adjustments you do to damage may and probably will lead to invincible pilots because of WCO and Shunt.
Kitten_Starsider
Sun Apr 03, 2005 1:42 am
#29
I agree with feller on this. Constructive feedback should never be denied nor turned down. This should not become a personal fight but rather a constructive discussion (even though the title of the post does not indicate that 
)
)
Tumbler2002 wrote:
@Kitten_Starsider
What I would suggest though is implementing a system that at highest introduce defense modifier of 1x-3x (at most, maybe even lower) for lightest fighters - heaviest fighters, and 5x for multiplayer ships. Additionally, Weapon Overloads would no longer affect missiles (missiles should have a fixed detonation power which are not defined by the reactor of the launching starship). Reducing the maneuverability of heavy ships might be an idea too, but don't forget that most of these ships already are heavily affected by interia (B-Wing!) which already makes it hard to aim and requires a lot of training. Maybe an increase for some imperial ships might be an idea though as they received a mass increase, making them superior to any compareable rebel ship in maneuverability with equal mass.
I think looking at the numbers will show why my idea of 6-8x for bombers and 20-30x for mp ships is more appropriate.
(I'm assuming bombers have their manueverability capped so they don't move like fighters)
An a-wing has 1 gun:
2000-3000 damage (Most should have more dmg...)
Refire rate of .33 (Most will fire faster...)
.6 Shields and armor (Most will do more)
3 Shots (1 second) he has done an avg of 7500 Shield/Armor dmg.
6 Shots (2 Second) he has done an avg of 15000 shield/armor dmg.
Most Heavies will be using the 2500/2500 reward shields in a larger ship and Armor is 1200/1200
With a 3x bonus to shields and armor you lose your shields in 1 sec, armor in 1 sec or less. (Ship destroyed in 2 seconds.)
(Just like now)
With a 6x bonus to shields and armor you lose shields in 1-2 seconds, armor in 1 second. (Ship destroyed in 2-3 seconds.)
(Not much different from now)
With a 8x bonus to shields and armor you lose shields in 2-3 seconds, armor in 1-2 seconds. (Ship destroyed in 3-5 seconds.)
(Starting to see a change now)
For MP Ship 20x bonus using same shields as above. Armor is 2000. (remember u are facing off against 4 players now)
Shields go down in 6-7 seconds, armor down in 5-6 seconds.
30x bonus.
Shields go down in 10 seconds, armor down in 8 seconds.
Now imagine that one a-wing is using weapon overload 3. 150% boost to weapons. Reduce all those numbers to 1/3 of the ones above.
Imagine if 2 a-wings are working together.
I must emphasize that I do not want these bonus's given to all ships. JUST BOMBERS and MP ships. These ships in particular have seperate roles from the standard dogfighter ships and if we want to make scenarios where a group of bombers has to take out a cap ship or something more interesting than just a big dogfight these ships need to have boosted defenses because the standard ships can take them out almost instantly.
Anyway, from my experience 0.33 is quite good for a normal gun already so you will rather face slower guns if they are actually RE'ed (crafted guns can get that fast but they usually only have 0.48 efficiency which is quite crappy).
You also forget the pvp damage reduction of 25% in your calculations and from my experience WO3 is 100% extra and not 150%... but i will need to run some testing on that as the FAQ is quite inaccurate (compare the testing results on RO3 and 4).
From my experience most heavy ships rather have armor above 1.5k as well if they go up for PvP exactly because they can go with few lower weapons at the same efficiency as higher weapons and still conventionally kill most other ships in few shots.
Finally, 3 seconds in a fight take actually ages. You usually have less than 1 second before either he flies and evasive maneuver and gets out of your crosshair for a bit, boosts out of range due to heavier engine and heavier boosters he can carry, shieldshunts again or before you have to fly evasive maneuvers to avoid his wingmens firing at you or even worse getting a missile lock at you.
Thats exactly something i enjoy greatly about space pvp as it is fast paced and you always have to fly evasively to avoid fire and survive long enough. You always have to be aware whats going on around you and react quickly. Ultimately, this is a great adrenaline kick 
While Bombers need some additional defense against multiple gun attackers like X-Wings, they also need to be more vulnerable to single gun attackers like A-Wings. Due to the single, strongest weapon in PvP that only bombers possess in the required amount - missiles - it is extremely hard for such a small ship to avoid these and actually be able to get more than a single shot out themselves.
Therefore bombers have a very important role in a dogfight, namely ending the dogfight for your side against small ships.
Trust me on this, if you are facing multiple ships and go for any type of ship you will not even get 3 hits in before you have to break and fly evasive for a bit. This is kinda the difference for space pvp as you can not say at the beginning of a fight by the weapons and armor someone has who will win like you can in ground pvp.
Kitten
Tumbler2002
Sun Apr 03, 2005 6:52 am
#30
Halyn wrote:If PvP is too easy for you, why don't you try using lighter guns to limit yourself?
That is your input on dealing with components not being effective enough and heavies blowing up to fast?
Use lighter guns and everyone will be happy...?
I'm beginning to think our "experts" on starsider aren't the sharpest tools in the shed...
And why are you talking about adjustments to damage? We're talking about boosting shields/armor so that larger ships can take more hits.
JediNg
Sun Apr 03, 2005 6:56 am
#31
I like pvp as it is. Quite canon. I prefer space to be canon over 'overly fun' I'd hate to pvp if it meant someone had to be hit 4598475937 times like the ground game. Infact I'd probably stopplaying in space.
Zaax
Sun Apr 03, 2005 8:18 am
#32
JediNg wrote:
I like pvp as it is. Quite canon. I prefer space to be canon over 'overly fun' I'd hate to pvp if it meant someone had to be hit 4598475937 times like the ground game. Infact I'd probably stopplaying in space.
i /agree
u CAN survive a couple hits.
yes i have been killed in one sec (while typing) and killed in one sec (the guy was parked near the ISD) but the duels thats both participants know is about to start, are darn fun. its all about adrenaline, and nothing get the adrenalin going like juking and rolling like heck trying to evade in an X-wing and also trygin to land a few shots..
my (admitadly) few serious duals lasted 10-40 secs... and even though in these i am still losing more than i won (your only teacher is your enemy - Ender's Game and old chinese proverb - and i have still to meet enough good enemies) man was it FUN!! (Gelaar - i WILL beat you in my X-wing one day )
)
Kitten_Starsider
Sun Apr 03, 2005 9:24 am
#33
The problem about missiles is less that they aren't avoidable but that they do not have inertia. Countermeasures are effective against missiles but the problem about them is that you need so many of them that fast to avoid a three missile volley fired at close proximity. With inertia you would have time to actually use countermeasures against missiles if you react quickly. Due to the small amount of Countermeasures you can carry (about 12 shots equals 4-6 missilevolleys deflected while most missile launchers have about 7 missiles loaded) you still run out of countermeasures over time.
All i ask is for the time to react to the threat of missiles by using the apropriate counter method instead of being able to avoid missiles entirely.
Heavy ships with equally good equipment /can/ survive for a long time against the more common, nicely equipped small fighters. The way of dogfighting in heavy ships is totally different though. Against small ships you usually boost out with your superior boosters and engine to prevent your possibly damaged front from being hit and prepare a capacitor to shield shunt with your superior capacitor at the same time. Then you go back to receive a missile lock against the small ship while your own laser fire prevents them from getting an aim at you long enough. I've seen firesprays (you know, huge profile!) do just that and be very efficient at it, soaking up up to 7 shots! While a small ship may need good low level equipment such a big ship needs superior higher level equipment to gain an advantage.
Just as small ships are vulnerable to missiles of heavy ships and medium ships are vulnerable to small ships, heavy ships are vulnerable to medium ships.
As it stands right now it is near impossible though for a ship to fight a superior type starfighter. Missile inertia makes it slightly easier for small ships to fight heavy ships... but increased defense of heavy ships with the multipliers that you suggest make it exponentially harder again as they do not have the firepower to counter that.
This is why i suggest smaller modifiers at most. They give heavy ships the ability to survive a single volley against medium ships, giving them the ability to fire back once or twice with their stronger weapons. As all ships have to have weaknesses (we do not want composite armor in space) these would remain for heavy ships but just as light ships against heavy ships they would have a chance to beat medium ships.
Light against medium ships is quite hard for me to evaluate, since imperials focus more on light and some heavy ships. As medium ships would also get small modifier they would still get superior shields and armor to light ships which might help them a bit as well.
As you realize from playing mmorpgs for a while, small changes, progressing over time are the way to go instead of huge increases that tend to cause collateral damage and turn entire systems upside down. As this is intended with the CU for example i am sure they will succeed, but there will be bugs and design flaws in the new system that eventually need to be ironed out again.
Kitten
Tumbler2002
Sun Apr 03, 2005 10:36 am
#34
Currently Engine overload programs are making heavy fighters (Bombers) able to turn and manuever way too fast.
2 Ideas I came up with:
Put caps on manuever speeds of larger ships. (Give these ships a limit to how fast they can turn)
or
Take away the pitch/roll/yaw bonus in EO1-4.
This would give small fighters a huge edge as they are not dependent on EO programs to manuever well. Taking a heavy ship into combat without engine overload running is suicide. But once you have engine overload 3 or 4 running that huge ships turns on a dime and has little trouble defending itself from small fighters. This is another problem I want to see fixed and when it does these ships will need more protection. (hence the need for defensive bonus's)
I agree with you on the missles issue. I wish they would fly straight for a few seconds then turn and go after the target. During those 3-5 seconds the target would be getting the missle warning sound and have a chance to respond to the missles.
2 Ideas I came up with:
Put caps on manuever speeds of larger ships. (Give these ships a limit to how fast they can turn)
or
Take away the pitch/roll/yaw bonus in EO1-4.
This would give small fighters a huge edge as they are not dependent on EO programs to manuever well. Taking a heavy ship into combat without engine overload running is suicide. But once you have engine overload 3 or 4 running that huge ships turns on a dime and has little trouble defending itself from small fighters. This is another problem I want to see fixed and when it does these ships will need more protection. (hence the need for defensive bonus's)
I agree with you on the missles issue. I wish they would fly straight for a few seconds then turn and go after the target. During those 3-5 seconds the target would be getting the missle warning sound and have a chance to respond to the missles.
Kitten_Starsider
Sun Apr 03, 2005 11:02 am
#35
There curently is a cap on how fast a heavy ship can accelerate in all direction (including PYR acceleration) while the max turning speed is defined by the engine/engine overload.
As I already stated before i feel that the Tie Oppressor is very maneuverable for its mass while for example the B-Wing turns very hard for a master level ship (it has the same maneuverability as the Tie Bomber for you imperials to compare ). Whether that is good or bad i don't know, but i'd rather be beaten by a good pilot who knows how to fly his heavy ship to his or her full advantage by flying prospectively to counter the huge inertia by their ship than being beaten by the pilot who equips his ship with the best shields available (which are exactly not available to anyone). This added shield strength would then be multiplied, resulting in few pilots being overpowered just due to equipment, leaving out good pilots who do not have these shields.
). Whether that is good or bad i don't know, but i'd rather be beaten by a good pilot who knows how to fly his heavy ship to his or her full advantage by flying prospectively to counter the huge inertia by their ship than being beaten by the pilot who equips his ship with the best shields available (which are exactly not available to anyone). This added shield strength would then be multiplied, resulting in few pilots being overpowered just due to equipment, leaving out good pilots who do not have these shields.I would also be very careful with touching Engine Overloads as they both increase the importance of a good engine (due to the multiplier the difference between a bad and a goodPYR gets bigger) and also play a defining role in curent PvP for all ships and not just heavy ships.
Ultimately this could result as well in bomber pilots just having to endure enemy fire, no matter how good they are, unable to defend themselves against other ships behind them. This could result in bombers only being useful against gunboats and capital ships, further reducing the ships that are useful in PvP.
Kitten
Tumbler2002
Sun Apr 03, 2005 1:23 pm
#36
Ducimus wrote:
Mark my words. In several months hence there will be a rebalance in JTL.
JTL which was meant to mimic the old sim series or Xwing Vs Tie fighter in gameplay (IE, TWITCH gameplay) will be reduced to being a mimic of the ground game. (IE matrix style fights that last forver)
Nothing quite like watching two melee's go at it on the ground for 10 or 20 mins with no sign of a victor. Such is the future of space PvP because of rookie ignorance.
Lets hope sony keeps to the design.
Space = twitch based on the skill of the human player involved (much like a FPS)
Ground = skill based, based on the skill of the human players character, (much liek your standard D&D inspired turn based RPG's)
But sadley, i don't see it happening. Equipment already plays a huge role in PvP right now, after the voices of ignorance ruin JTL, the equipment gap will be even larger.
Sometimes I wonder if we are playing different games... I don't understand how some people have no problem with the current system. Deep Space is all but dead. PvP doesn't have any purpose or reward. Rebels/Imperials almost all fly the same ships. Awings vs Oppressors. Xwings occasionally show up but so far have been very easily dispatched. Freelancers rarely go up to deep space as there is no reward besides loot for them. The MP ships are good for RP'ng and that is it. And once making master the only thing you can do is hang out in deep space or start a new pilot tree.
But the most apparent problem is the lack of players. It's great that one server has some events once in a while but there are somewhere around 20 servers. JTL wasn't made for the hardcore fighter jocks only. I'd start thinking about changes that would keep you (people who think things are perfect) the happiest and still make the game more enjoyable for more people. Because there is no denying that JTL isn't getting enough players.
Ducimus
Sun Apr 03, 2005 1:31 pm
#37
The biggest problem with space PvP, is ignorant rookies who thnk JTL PvP is like ground PvP when its not. They go up unaware, and unprepaired for what they are getting into- and when they get smoked for those very reasons, they come here and whine.
My new pet theory is if people were informed beforehand, they would fare better. I loath the idea of a fun and exllerating seat of the pants thrill, be turned into a boring and tedious 10-20 min task in order to score a kill.
My new pet theory is if people were informed beforehand, they would fare better. I loath the idea of a fun and exllerating seat of the pants thrill, be turned into a boring and tedious 10-20 min task in order to score a kill.
Kitten_Starsider
Sun Apr 03, 2005 1:43 pm
#38
On Starsider we have quite a lot of X-Wing pilots. This results autmatically in an increased number of Tie Interceptors and Tie Advanced to balance that out which again makes us rebels plan to bring some Y-Wings and B-Wings (but they are so sluggish :smileysad.
.Yes, multiplayer ships do need to be buffed up, no one doubts that. But Starfighters have come to a balance that should not be turned upside down suddenly. I seriously hope you are not right Ducimus.
Kitten
Ducimus
Sun Apr 03, 2005 2:40 pm
#39
Kitten_Starsider wrote:On Starsider we have quite a lot of X-Wing pilots. This results autmatically in an increased number of Tie Interceptors and Tie Advanced to balance that out which again makes us rebels plan to bring some Y-Wings and B-Wings (but they are so sluggish :smileysadYes, multiplayer ships do need to be buffed up, no one doubts that. But Starfighters have come to a balance that should not be turned upside down suddenly. I seriously hope you are not right Ducimus.Kitten
I hope im not right either. It's just that ive been down the MMO block enough to become very cynical.
In all the PvP balance discussions/rantings i will concede two things that i beleive (hope) will not turn Space PvP into the much dreaded ground PvP scenario, acutally.. i take that back.. there one thing i will concede as an idea mentioned on the forums before that has merit.
Some sort of defensive bonus to ships. I thought, well, a bomber is usually tougher and can take more punishment, (thinking of B17is in WWII for example) so ya they should be a bit tougher. THen i thought, why? Well, because their not very manueverable and tend to have more armor. Ok, then i thought, well how do you gauge this? THen the idea occured to me, YPR value.
So, my thought is, a defenisve bonus to chassis using its YPR value as a modifer. MP ships would obviosly be at the top end of this bonus, followed by the B wing and Tie bomber and on down from there. Of course at some point there has to be a cut off. For example, should Xwings and Tie aggressors be candidates for such a bonus? My gut feeling is no. However this would have to be extensivly tested befire i as an indivudual would acutally agree to it being in live form, and even then i dont think the modifer should be anything too dramatic (ie ship now requires a couple more shots than it did before to kill), otherwise we'll have the exact opposite of what we have now in space PvP (IE the recpical of fast and manuverable being favored).
Message Edited by Ducimus on 04-03-2005 02:44 PM