J Lav
OSG Planetary Operations
Covert Intervention
192
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Posted - 2013.09.03 22:09:00 -
[1] - Quote
Hello CCP,
I have built a spread sheet for calculating the damage my vehicles can take from AV weapons, and it's not complete, but some alarming discrepancies are showing up in the durability of some of the vehicles and the amount of damage put out by Swarms and AV grenades in particular.
For the most part, damage from weapons moves at a rate of 5-10% from tier to tier. Even the Forge Guns have a difference of ~300 in base damage between base and proto tiers. (DPS is another story, but relies on the user and circumstance of encounter)
AV Grenades move in a similar interval as, but not as potent as swarms. Swarms move up 330 damage per level, and I'm not going into DPS with the adjustments in 1.4, since they are limited by the clip size, which wasn't the case before. The step up represents a 25% jump from 1st tier to second, and a 20% jump into proto, resulting in a difference of 660 base damage between basic and proto.
The gap becomes an issue when trying to balance vehicle durability because with 2 damage modifiers, the gap between basic and prototype grows to ~1010 damage against arm (assuming a 120% efficiency against armour), while staying at ~660 against shields. How does this manifest in game?
First, the common knowledge of the community is that the Charybdis is significantly more durable than a Limbus. So much so that it can take 1 extra shot from an Adv swarm than a Limbus without any skills or modules, and 2-3 more shots more when both are well outfitted. As Tiers and fits increase, this discrepancy is exasperated, and basic swarms can barely dent them because of the gap.
I think you'll agree that the larger this discrepancy, the more difficult it is to balance the whole system.
What I would propose is to bring the tier advances down to 10-15%, on these weapons, controlling the damage curve, by bringing proto down, or basic up. This would need to be accompanied by adjusting the vehicles as well.
In whole numbers, we're presently looking at basic HAV's being destroyed in 2 shots. Standard fits (since we don't have proto) can be downed in 4-6 shots. At that rate, proto vehicles would be nigh indestructible at 8-10 proto swarms needed. In this case I would bring the standard variants of HAV's up, and decrease the need for resistance modules. At present, the dominance of resistance modules creates little variety in fits, since everyone has to stack on the resistance skills and modules to survive. This is because in most cases the resistance modules survive more damage than extenders or additional armour.
Additionally, there is no anti-shield AV weapon at the moment, though this could easily be accomplished with a "homing" AV flux variant and/or a heavy laser.
TL;DR, The tier advancement of damage done by Swarms and AV grenades advances more drastically than any other weapon in the game, and so does the durability of vehicles. The subsequent gap between basic and prototype variants makes balance impossible, and highly frustrating to players facing either AV or vehicles. Decreasing the gap to be in line with the advancement of other weapons in the game would make it more manageable to find balance. |