Pilot Archive
Thread: Test server patch notes
Feynan wrote:
Meeuki,
You're right, I've never PvP'd against a Eta-2 with level 3 guns, but I have PvP'd since the introduction of lighter ships, infact the majority of my PvP has been since then.
My problem is with the lighter fighters. They should not be the be-all end-all of PvP that they are. When I learned of the space expansion before AED even launched I invisioned giant battles with all the classic Star Wars ships, from the A-Wing to the B-Wing, from the TIE Fighter to the TIE Bomber, not Jedi Starfighters and Greivous' ship (which hadn't even been created at the time), not because they don't really fit the mood of our timeframe (that's a whole nother issue) but because it was both light and heavy ships, not just little light things flying around destroying everything.
I don't like it that an Eta-2 can destroy a bomber before it can even maneuver to defend itself. It's not right. I mentioned the PvP reduction because it would give larger fighters more time to maneuver and defend themselves against smaller fighters. Let's face it, ships like the A-Wing were never known for actually blowing up ships, they're the pea-shooters, they're the bugs that fly aroudn you're ear, they're there to help take down targets and put pressure on the enemy if they're on your tail. They're a support craft. The only other type of craft that light fighters should be efficient at destroying are other light fighters. They can take down larger fighters, but it should take time, not a matter of 1-5 seconds (your battle lasted 20 seconds, but that was two light fighters against each other, meaning both are very fast and agile and very few shots actually landed - when you have a light fighter shooting at a large slug like a bomber they're hitting much more often, and therefore the battle is over much faster).
The other idea I'm for though and have mentioned various times is giving ships damage mitigation based upon their mass, ie. the more mass a ship has the higher damage mitigation it has. This is in the hopes that the heavier ships, including but not exclusive to the POB ships, become more viable in PvP. I feel PvP reduction does a similar job seeing as it is a similar system, but like anything it would need to be fine-tuned to make it perfect.
Maybe you're right in that I should've put a preface stating what ships I think the reduction should before the rest of the post, but I wouldn't say it is just for POB ships. I would say it is for POB ships and heavier ships, because they have the same very large and frustrating problem in regards to PvP: they suck.
yeah it's true, the older ships did kind of fall by the wayside, but you gotta remember the devs have already stated they are going to take a look at the old ships and modify them appropriately.
i agree 100% that it kind of sucks that to get people to PVP alot they had to introduce those EPIII ships. i hate all of them. i think JSFs are training wheels honestly and i take no small satisfaction in blowing them up with a heavier ship.
but we got to be soooo careful about what we ask for because it could really hurt the game in a way that could possibly be unrecoverable. it's rare the devs do something, decide it sucks and change it back. very rare.
quadpers0n wrote:
TomoRainer wrote:
At the risk of being spat upon by many of my favorite pilots, I do think it's worth looking at a damage reduction for some of the larger, slower fighters.. B-Wings, Y-Wings, TIE Bombers, Krayts, Ixiyens. Things like that.
You know, ships that aren't any good in PVP.
After a couple hundred PVP kills, I'm a zealoutrous advocate of the current system when it comes to light fighters, but it's not ideal for heavies and, to a lesser degree, mediums. I'd much rather keep things exactly as they are if changes could potentially screw with the incredible dogfighting potential many of us have realized, but if there's a fair way to increase the survivability of the "bad" ships by just a little, I'd do it. (The problem with damage reductions for some ships and not for others, though, is there is going to be an unavoidable level of arbitrariness as to which ships you grant that reduction and which you don't.)
O' course, fixing WO3 might up the survivability of those ships quite a ways, which is why I'd never advocate any form of damage reduction for fighters before we see how such a fix would play out. But as it stands right now, I do think certain ships could use a little (and I DO mean little) help.
yes, definately. by all means some manner of reduction to help out those heavier/large hitbox ships should be pursued. players have to realize that nobody protesting damage reduction is against this either. what we are against is people who think PVP should last an inordinate amount of hits, and what we are against is a uniform damage reduction across the board, which noobs in here constantly are clamoring for.
all it takes is to preface your request with that and you aren't going to hear a peep out of me. but coming on and saying "they need to make PVP more like PVE." or "i think a 90% dmg reduction is a good idea" ... ugh it's just flawed logic, and has the possibilty of totally crushing what is imo the best part of SWG atm.
and i understand the repsonse to that "well i think it's the worst part" but believe me, you have not thought it through. players who think they die too fast now will be obliterated if damage reduction across the board goes in. you'll be absolutely miserable and that's why people get riled up at the mention of it. i don't want you to be pushing to ruin the game for yourself.
Message Edited by quadpers0n on 07-07-2005 11:21 AM
Message Edited by Feynan on 07-07-2005 01:04 PM
The grouping with droids fix is purely for Entertainers on POB ships, there is no group xp bonus in space, you know that by now Kayl.
KaylBreinhar wrote:
You missed something, Duc...
We can group with droids now in orbit for the xp boost (I think), which is then compounded by the inspiration award.
Yay for the first sign that Prestige will never be worth a goddamned useful thing (due to if it ever will be, people abusing this to take advantage of it), plus the fact that it's pretty difficult for Privateers and non-JSFed Imperials to get that bonus.
Feynan wrote:
quadpers0n wrote:
TomoRainer wrote:
At the risk of being spat upon by many of my favorite pilots, I do think it's worth looking at a damage reduction for some of the larger, slower fighters.. B-Wings, Y-Wings, TIE Bombers, Krayts, Ixiyens. Things like that.
You know, ships that aren't any good in PVP.
After a couple hundred PVP kills, I'm a zealoutrous advocate of the current system when it comes to light fighters, but it's not ideal for heavies and, to a lesser degree, mediums. I'd much rather keep things exactly as they are if changes could potentially screw with the incredible dogfighting potential many of us have realized, but if there's a fair way to increase the survivability of the "bad" ships by just a little, I'd do it. (The problem with damage reductions for some ships and not for others, though, is there is going to be an unavoidable level of arbitrariness as to which ships you grant that reduction and which you don't.)
O' course, fixing WO3 might up the survivability of those ships quite a ways, which is why I'd never advocate any form of damage reduction for fighters before we see how such a fix would play out. But as it stands right now, I do think certain ships could use a little (and I DO mean little) help.
yes, definately. by all means some manner of reduction to help out those heavier/large hitbox ships should be pursued. players have to realize that nobody protesting damage reduction is against this either. what we are against is people who think PVP should last an inordinate amount of hits, and what we are against is a uniform damage reduction across the board, which noobs in here constantly are clamoring for.
all it takes is to preface your request with that and you aren't going to hear a peep out of me. but coming on and saying "they need to make PVP more like PVE." or "i think a 90% dmg reduction is a good idea" ... ugh it's just flawed logic, and has the possibilty of totally crushing what is imo the best part of SWG atm.and i understand the repsonse to that "well i think it's the worst part" but believe me, you have not thought it through. players who think they die too fast now will be obliterated if damage reduction across the board goes in. you'll be absolutely miserable and that's why people get riled up at the mention of it. i don't want you to be pushing to ruin the game for yourself.
Message Edited by quadpers0n on 07-07-2005 11:21 AM
First off, avoid the "noob" thing. I've been around sincea year and a half before launch, was in beta 3, have been playing non-stop since the day after launch (couldn't subscribe first day), was in JtL beta, and since JtL launched I have spent the majority of my time in space. You have a different opinion then me, that doesn't make you better then me or me any better then you or anything.Originally, in your response to my post, you said if I was going to talk about damage reduction I should put a preface in saying it is only for POB ships, though now you seem to agree that heavier ships need it to, which is basically the whole reason I'm arguing this point: heavy ships, including POB ships, are nothing compared to the lighter fighters in PvP.Personally, I do prefer the whole damage mitigation thing rather then straight up PvP damage reduction, because as has been stated then the lighter ships would be indestructable because you cannot hit them enough. But look at it this way: if you were to balance it properly, it would take a light fighter 10 shots to take out a heavy fighter, but it would only take a heavy fighter one good shot to take down a light fighter. With the way weapons are right now, that's not out of the question with the PvP reduction system (I'm not saying that's the best way to go, but you are way too fast to push it aside).Now, I'm no good at math, but look at this:Say a B-Wing is loaded with some nice RE'd blasters, with a total of approximately 13000 damage. If there were 75% damage reduction, one volley would do around 3000 damage: enough to take out a light fighter (this is assuming all the bolts hit though, which is unlikely against such a small chassis).Now there is an A-Wing loaded with a 3000 damage blaster (could quite easily get higher, not to mention ordnance, which the A-Wing could use against the B-Wing but not vice versa due to not have time to lock on). A 75% damage reduction for PvP would mean the A-Wing would do750 damage a shot. Let's say the B-Wing had 2500 shields: it would therefore take only 3.3 (so 4) shots to take down that B-Wing. Is that unreasonable, at all? Personally I think it should take quite a few more, considering how fast you can get 4 shots off.Let's say it were to take the A-Wing 10 shots to take down the B-Wing with 2500 shields (which would mean a 120% damage reduction in PvP). That's not an unreasonable amount I don't think, considering how easy it would be to land that many shots on such a large, slow fighter, and how fast you can get 10 shots off (especially on a blaster that only does 3000, meaning it probably has a faster refire rate then the high-damage ones, and you'd probably have a 90-100% hit rate). But the key is it also allows the B-Wing pilot time to shunt power, letting them survive even longer, giving them more time to either get to help or to hit the A-Wing, as the more time the B-Wing spends alive presumably the more chances it has to hit the A-Wing.Message Edited by Feynan on 07-07-2005 01:04 PM
yeah i see what you are saying but what happens when people don't have the gun strength? 2 b-wings go up against each other and one guy dies because the other guy spends more time looting? right now there is parity in that regard. if you can aim, if you can juke, you have chance even at tier 3 to blow a master out of the sky.
believe me, put in damage reduction and i'll beat everyone. like 3 other people on my server have guns like i do, i don't want to decimate everyone just because i've maxed out every available option on my ship, i want to compete, i want there to be parity.
also, the thing you aren't considering is the application of the math in practice. it does sound about right I suppose (although it discounts the speed at which larger fighters would take out the same b-wing) but if you want to see how it plays out why not try it?
take a gun equivelant to reduction and put it in the awing then take the same equivelant and put it in the b-wing x3 and go duel. switch up your components and try again. have one person use better equipment and try again.
these are tests that i've actually done in the game and believe me, it's not fun. once the fast pace of PVP is gone equipment is king and unfortunately so is manuverabilty, the bombers you are trying to help out would become even more useless.
when we talk about mitgation for bombers i'm not talking about 10 shot pvp. i'm talking about allowing bombers to survive a hit or two more. remember, a bomber is not a fighter designed to be taking out it's lighter counterparts. it's a fighter designed to deliver massive ordinance against large targets the problem is A) people don't realize this is the bomber's role and B) there is no PVP realization of this role. we need POB ships to be fixed and implemented to have the proper role of a bomber realized. our goal shouldn't be to make a-wing vs b-wing an even fight.
in PVE this role is already realized. no single light fighter can be as efficient in PVE as a large bomber class ship. does it rock vs a-wings? maybe not exactly but can it blow up a gunboat/nova in 10 seconds? yes.
TomoRainer wrote:
JanuHull wrote:
Why are the Devs so hung up on making PvP and PvE such unrealistically different animals? Where is the logic of me taking on a Tier 5 fighter and needing a dozen shots to blow up and 3 shots to take down a Master Pilot in his ship?
As long as there are two systems, you can't balance one and make the other work.One system, one set of rules. If that means PvP fighter combat takes ten shots to kill an opponent, so be it. If it means that soloing in Kessel and Deep Space are no longer possible, so be it, but dammit, they need to make up their minds already.
Two systems didn't work on the ground, and its not doing anything up here but making the Tier 4 and 5 missions more of a time sink and PvP utterly futile without endless hours out in space loot whoring for high maneuverability engines.
Problem with changing PVP so it requires more hits is it is literally physically impossible to land those 10 consecutive hits on something like an Eta-2, an A-Wing, or even the relatively large but still small and nimble Interceptor. It's practically impossible to land 2 swift hits, lol.
You'd have to do something like inflate every ship to the size of X-Wings at least, and/or remove engine overloads (or at least make it so nothing is moving faster than about 900 speed or turning faster than about 70 PYR), and/or remove cap to shield shunt to create a situation where human reflexes could hope with the speed and size of ships in JTL well enough to ever kill anyone.
I guess you could change PVE to be more like PVP, but that'd be pretty nuts too--you'd need to drop NPC accuracy from the ludicrous rate it is now to be more in line with how it is in PVP (~0.2-1% ratio of hits:shots fired on light fighters), and even then, I have the feeling any tough missions would become a gankfest of you where the only way to complete it is to run it over and over until the NPCs don't land a lucky shot the entire time and wipe you out halfway through despite you having run it flawlessly up till then. I don't think that would be much fun for anyone.
Honestly, I completely agree that having two separate systems creates a number of balance problems, but when I'm thinking about how you could make them one and the same, the only ways to do that would be so nuts I think it'd cause many more problems of vastly greater scale than the kinds we're running into now.
Feynan wrote:
Iknow what you're talking about with the revamp of the older ships, but I'm not putting much faith in that. Really all that was was a question on the chat and D.P. mentioned he'd look at it, for all we know he's looked at it and moved on. Even then the feeling I got from that was that it was in regards to the maneuverability of the Eta-2 and Bellabub being greater then any other ship in the game, when really they should be no more maneuverable or faster then the light fighters already in the game, such as the A-Wing.
I completely agree that we've got to be careful with what happens, because like you said the Devs almost never spend time on creating something and then scrap it, but that's what discussion is for. Tomo is a great corr and he'll tell the Devs what is best for pilots, Devs won't just decide to do something from reading one persons opinion on it here. There have been petitions with hundreds of signatures on them and they haven't even been recongized by the Devs. It's going to take a lot more then one post to get the Devs to do anything (which is both a good and a bad thing at the same time
)
I agree Tomo is a great correspondant, but I don't agree the devs won't do something on a whim based on the protestations of players on the forums.
Take Kessel for instance, now it sucked that some players were forced into PVP and gated from mastery, but if you actually go back and read some of those old posts protesting Kessel you'll find a plethora of misinformation and outright lies coming from some of the people claiming to be gated from mastery. Some of them were claiming to be gated and weren't even at tier 2 yet in reality. One of the major points was how unfair load killing was, but literally the following week load killing was fixed across the board. There were other examples used as well to rile no-forced PVP proponents up, like claiming the master mission was the culimination of a large escort mission and it was unfair they'd have to repeat it, or claiming you had to go back and get the mission again, neither of which were true at the time.
All it takes is a few people PM'ing the wrong people and things can happen for the worse. IMO, if they had moved the vette out of kessel we might not even be having this discussion at all now. For me, lack of experience (in PVP only mind you) from the start is responsible for most people's opinions on the pace of PVP. if that opinion is based soley on preferring to fly a heavy bomber with little success, well then I take that back, it does suck, but again, mitigation across the board isn't something that will work in practice, with a system like we have containing variable equipment.
Also, I wouldn't expect D.P. to just dismiss the pass on the old ships, to say that is akin to saying he isn't capable of seeing the disparity between the larger ships and the smaller ones that exists (to an extent) at the moment. The disparity is real, and if is the root of most of the people protesting PVP now then that explains alot. He'll be able to see it so if the old ships don't change it's either because he has something planned that will let those old ships fullfill their roles, or he doesn't have time to fix things period.
But nobody can look at the old interceptor, the old tie advanced, the b-wings and old a-wings and say "nope they are fine, leave em'" The guy isn't an idiot.
I have three master pilots now and when I do fly the only time I head into deep space is for looting. SHowing the new guy the ISD or for full repairs. I never go there looking for PVP. Either I will die he he will die in well under the 20 secs that was talked about earlier. And then you are stuck chucking space dust till your opponite can redo all his programs dn get back into the sector to fight again. My friend got me in a PVP event in deep space a few weeks ago. And my exp was exactly the same as it has always been just boring with glimmers of highlights thruout the day.
Maybe the ones who do fly it like it in the current system. But if sony doesnt make drastic changes you will never see space PVP is anything else than an after thought and most people who play will never get involved. Wouldnt it be great to be able log in and head to space and find countless hours of PVP like it is in the gnd game?
JanuHull wrote:
Ehm, just to resummarize for Tomo. Please, lets not retrace the steps that screwed PvP before. Modify armor and shield defenses based on chassis like we already do with maneuverability and speed. NPCs already underperform in the damage department as it is, increase that modestlyand make lightfightermaneuverability as important in PvE as it is in PvP.
bingo. perfect.
Arialias wrote:
PVP in space is drastically borked. There are thousands of people that play the game who never even bother to fly. Why because word of mouth is that space PVP is borked.
I have three master pilots now and when I do fly the only time I head into deep space is for looting. SHowing the new guy the ISD or for full repairs. I never go there looking for PVP. Either I will die he he will die in well under the 20 secs that was talked about earlier. And then you are stuck chucking space dust till your opponite can redo all his programs dn get back into the sector to fight again. My friend got me in a PVP event in deep space a few weeks ago. And my exp was exactly the same as it has always been just boring with glimmers of highlights thruout the day.
Maybe the ones who do fly it like it in the current system. But if sony doesnt make drastic changes you will never see space PVP is anything else than an after thought and most people who play will never get involved. Wouldnt it be great to be able log in and head to space and find countless hours of PVP like it is in the gnd game?
thousands? prove it.
query your server forum and ask what the reason is people don't pvp. you know what you'll find?
1 or 2 people say it's too fast.
a bunch of people will give the smartassed "what? there's a space game?" response.
probably more than a few people will claim they go overt every day and never see any pilots.
a bunchwill say they mastered and got boredwith space.
a few more people will decry decay. a HUGE number of people will protest the absurdity of missions to get to master.
a few might take objection to the mistaken notion that equipment is king in space
and a few more will simply claim they don't like PVP.
nowhere, EVER, has there been a majority consensus of space pilotsprotesting the speed of PVP.
query those few pilots who do and ask what they fly and their experience with PVP. i'm willing to bet that over half of them have little to no experience and are just going off word of mouth of uninformed pilots like you. the other half may have a legitimate gripe in that they, like faynan here, love flying heavy fighters or POB ships exclusively and have not found a way to perform with those ships to their satisfaction.
that's a FAR cry from saying "thousands of pilots don't like pvp". that's completely absurd and another example of uninformed BS that some people in here spout. a few # of people play jtl to begin with. like Thunderheart loves to reiterate, only a small % of people who play the game as a whole even like to PVP, given that, i'd say the % in space exceeds the % on the ground. Hey as long as we are just making annecdotal assumptions about things I might as well say that from now on.
Message Edited by quadpers0n on 07-07-2005 12:48 PM
KaylBreinhar wrote:
You missed something, Duc...
We can group with droids now in orbit for the xp boost (I think), which is then compounded by the inspiration award.
Yay for the first sign that Prestige will never be worth a goddamned useful thing (due to if it ever will be, people abusing this to take advantage of it), plus the fact that it's pretty difficult for Privateers and non-JSFed Imperials to get that bonus.
Freelance can use it with the ARC-170
Why I would want to, I have no idea.... woopee, more pilot prestige... I already have enough to go to deep space a bazillon times... I'm so happy they added this....
I hope that the being an absolute lack of death penality will encourge more people to PvP in deep space. Although theres going to be an increase in social issues with people who seem to think that PvP exists only in deepspace, which is a totaly false.
in regards to a few posts calling for damage reduction
Heres what i think:
To reduce PvP damage, and not create impbalances or making us all unkillable, the ENTIRE SYSTEM would need to be reworked from the ground up. It starts with weapon overload3, from there it goes into engine overloads, players top speeds, right down to chassis, and outfiting of chassis with parts. To reduce PvP damage, and not bork the game would require an entire rewrite of how JTL works - which given Sonys track record, would probably bork the game
. Im sure Tomo will agree with me when i say that this is not an exaggeration.Personnaly i highly doubt sony will put the manhours and resources into flipping JTL upside down, just to accomidate the MINORITY of us who PvP in space.
Message Edited by Ducimus on 07-07-2005 10:53 AM