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[Feedback] Forge Gun changes missing the point

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Kallas Hallytyr Skullbreakers 156	Posted - 2013.12.05 16:21:00 - [1] - Quote TL;DR The 1.7 Forge Gun changes will not solve the issues that current plague Forge Gun-Vehicle balance in 1.6. The changes will, in fact, exacerbate some of the issues and leave entirely alone others. First off, I am a casual vehicle user with a focus on dropships but am primarily a Logibro. With that in mind, my primary concern with this thread is addressing how the 1.7 Forge Gun changes will not improve the state of the game and will, in actuality, negatively impact balance. I do not want vehicles to be all-powerful, but in turn I do not want vehicles to be utterly useless because there is a single AV user half-awake. I am skilled into Forge Guns on one alt and I am skilled into vehicles on my main, but I do not claim to be the most knowledgeable player ever. With that said, I will try to put forward the issues I see and try to be as impartial as possible. What are the 1.7 changes? Regular Forge Guns: a, roughly, 10% damage reduction; 15% charge time increase. Assault Forge Guns: a, roughly 10% damage reduction; 25% charge time increase. Breach Forge Guns: a 600-odd damage reduction (roughly 20/25%) across the board; 0% charge time increase. What are the balance issues? Forge Guns Assault Forge Guns are, currently, far and away the best. They have more damage than regular Forge Guns and have a substantially higher damage-per-second than all other Forge Guns (not counting the Gastun's Officer weapon.) Forge Guns can quite comfortably sit a top a tall building and 'Forge Snipe' with relative impunity. Being on a heavy frame, it is incredibly hard to remove the Forge user with a dropship (since it will be batted out of the sky in seconds) and they can effectively lock down a portion of the battlefield with equal power versus vehicles (preventing vehicles from entering an area because of the inability to retaliate in kind) and infantry (because of their range, accuracy and power threatening every infantryman in the area.) Vehicles Polarised contribution: tanks will often either dominate a battlefield or have next to no impact because of extreme AV; dropships can be incredibly potent at air support but even a single Swarm Launcher or Forge Gun can drive them from being effective. LAV's function well as a short-term transport.
Kallas Hallytyr Skullbreakers 156	Posted - 2013.12.05 16:21:00 - [2] - Quote So, to compare, I'll list the damage per second (DPS), factoring in charge times, and damage per clip (DPC) of the current 1.6 and future 1.7 Forge Guns below. (#### OPV) is the equivalent value with Operation and Proficiency Five. CCP Logibro wrote: Base STD - Damage: 1320 to 1200 \| Charge time: 3.5 to 4.0 ADV - Damage: 1452 to 1320 \| Charge time: 3.5 to 4.0 PRO - Damage: 1584 to 1440 \| Charge time: 3.5 to 4.0 Regular 1.6: STD 1320 damage, 3.5s charge, 4 round clip = DPC 5280 (6072 PV) \| DPS 377.14 (578.29 OPV) 1.7: STD 1200 damage, 4.0s charge, 4 round clip = DPC 4800 (5520 PV) \| DPS 300 (460 OPV) 1.6: ADV 1452 damage, 3.5s charge, 4 round clip = DPC 5808 (6679.2 PV) \| DPS 414.86 (636.1 OPV) 1.7: ADV 1320 damage, 4.0s charge, 4 round clip = DPC 5280 (6072 PV) \| DPS 330 (506 OPV) 1.6: PRO 1584 damage, 3.5s charge, 4 round clip = DPC 6336 (7286.4 PV) \| DPS 452.57 (693.94 OPV) 1.7: PRO 1440 damage, 4.0s charge, 4 round clip = DPC 5760 (6624 PV) \| DPS 360 (552 OPV) Regular Forge Guns in 1.7 will have been reduced to support weapons. They lack the damage output to threaten tanks, LAVs are sufficiently nimble to make repeated hits incredibly difficult and dropships will be able to survive thanks to hardeners. Regular Forge Guns do not provide a significant threaten alone to deter a vehicle. CC Logibro wrote: Assault STD GÇô N/A ADV - Damage: 1525 to 1375 \| Charge time: 2.5 to 3.0 PRO - Damage: 1663 to 1500 \| Charge time: 2.5 to 3.0 Assault 1.6: ADV 1525 damage, 2.5s charge, 4 round clip = DPC 6100 (7015 PV) \| DPS 610 (935.33 OPV) 1.7: ADV 1375 damage, 3.0s charge, 4 round clip = DPC 5500 (6325 PV) \| DPS 458.33 (702.78 OPV) 1.6: PRO 1663 damage, 2.5s charge, 4 round clip = DPC 6652 (7649.8 PV) \| DPS 665.2 (1019.97 OPV) 1.7: PRO 1500 damage, 3.0s charge, 4 round clip = DPC 6000 (6900 PV) \| DPS 500 (766.67 OPV) Assault Forge Guns remain more powerful than regular Forge Guns and their 'downside' of no held charge is still a none issue. With a very small reduction to their power, the change does not achieve anything with regards the Assault Forge Gun. It is still the best option for dealing high damage to a vehicle before it can retreat out of range. The 1.7 Prototype Assault Forge Gun is still doing more damage per second than the 1.6 Prototype Breach. CCP Logibro wrote: Breach STD - Damage: 2310 to 1750 \| Charge time: 6.0 to 6.0 ADV - Damage: 2541 to 1925 \| Charge time: 6.0 to 6.0 PRO - Damage: 2772 to 2100 \| Charge time: 6.0 to 6.0 Breach 1.6: STD 2310 damage, 6s charge, 4 round clip = DPC 9240 (10,626 PV) \| DPS 385 (590.33 OPV) 1.7: STD 1750 damage, 6s charge, 4 round clip = DPC 7000 (8050 PV) \| DPS 291.67 (447.22 OPV) 1.6: ADV 2541 damage, 6s charge, 4 round clip = DPC 10,164 (11,688.6 PV) \| DPS 423.5 (649.33PV) 1.7: ADV 1925 damage, 6s charge, 4 round clip = DPC 7700 (8855 PV) \| DPS 320.83 (491.94 OPV) 1.6: PRO 2772 damage, 6s charge, 4 round clip = DPC 11,088 (12,751.2 PV) \| DPS 462 (708.4 OPV) 1.7: PRO 2100 damage, 6s charge, 4 round clip = DPC 8400 (9660 PV) \| DPS 350 (536.67 OPV) The Breach has been inexplicably beaten with the nerf bat when it was already the most difficult to properly utilise out of the three Forge Gun options. With its long charge time and the inability to move while charging the Breach relied on frontloading its damage to deal a lot in the very few chances it gets. With the 1.7 damage reduction the Breach can no longer even destroy a standard LAV in one hit, let alone take down a tank because it simply cannot output damage at a fast enough rate. Compared to the Assault, the Breach is obsolete. CCP Logibro wrote: Officer - Damage: 1584 to 1440 \| 2.1 to 2.4 Officer 1.6: OFF 1584 damage, 2.1s charge, 6 round clip = DPC 9504 (10,929.6 PV) \| DPS 754.29 (1156.57 OPV) 1.7: OFF 1440 damage, 2.4s charge, 6 round clip = DPC 8640 (9936 PV) \| DPS 600 (920 OPV) The GastunGÇÖs can effectively be considered an Assault Forge Gun, but at least it has great rarity as a balancing factorGÇª So what do all of those numbers actually mean? Very bloody little. What they do tell us is that the alterations being made to the Forge Guns come 1.7 are entirely unnecessary because they do not do anything but exacerbate the issue: the issue being that all Forge Guns are overshadowed by the Assault variant which has negligible downsides for great improvements. Simply put, the changes will make the only viable Forge Gun the Assault variant, and even that will be the only variant able to keep a well fit tank at bay, considering the new hardeners, shield boosters and repairers. I am all for balance, but this is not the fix: it is, in fact, not a fix at all and will only lead to there being many more tanks on the battlefield and only seeing Assault Forge Guns being deployed. Regular and Breach Forge Guns should be just as viable against vehicles as the Assault, or there is no point in their being present in the game. Perhaps this is intentional, maybe CCP is trying to encourage more Tank versus Tank combat, and to that I can only speculate on. But right now, these Forge Gun changes are a bad idea.
Alena Ventrallis Osmon Surveillance Caldari State 213	Posted - 2013.12.05 17:05:00 - [3] - Quote The Breach was not beaten with the Nerf bat. I'll point to the flaylock and old mass drivers as examples of being beaten senseless. As a primarily vehicle pilot, I like the idea of the changes, because it shows CCP is aware of the issue of forge guns, and how the new vehicles won't survive against them. However, I think they went about it the wrong way. I think some sort of telegraph, like the sighting laser that was proposed in another thread, would have been better, because a telegraph let's us anticipate the threat and get our hardeners up, which means we can take his hits for a number of seconds before cool down. These damage reductions still mean the forge gun can ambush me and wipe me out before I can respond, especially assault forge guns. I'd return forges to their original laser, and instead have a marker indicate that a forge gun is charging, and mark him on the minimal and possibly have a circle or arrow on his head as well. Let us turn those hardeners on, and have 35 seconds to do our business and get the hell out of dodge.
Kallas Hallytyr Skullbreakers 156	Posted - 2013.12.05 17:14:00 - [4] - Quote Alena Ventrallis wrote: These damage reductions still mean the forge gun can ambush me and wipe me out before I can respond, especially assault forge guns. With a single Standard 120mm Plate, a Madrugar or Soma requires three max proficiency Ishukone Assault Forge Gun rounds to destroy. Assuming the vehicle pilot is even half awake, you will still have more than two seconds to react after the first round connects in which to activate the Hardener. The Breach and the Regular take substantially longer between shots, giving the pilot immense amounts of time in which to Harden Up. But this is besides the point, which is that the only viable Forge Gun is the Assault, which applies damage the fastest. There is no advantage to taking the Breach or Regular if you have access to the Assault.
Alena Ventrallis Osmon Surveillance Caldari State 213	Posted - 2013.12.05 21:52:00 - [5] - Quote Kallas Hallytyr wrote: Alena Ventrallis wrote: These damage reductions still mean the forge gun can ambush me and wipe me out before I can respond, especially assault forge guns. With a single Standard 120mm Plate, a Madrugar or Soma requires three max proficiency Ishukone Assault Forge Gun rounds to destroy. Assuming the vehicle pilot is even half awake, you will still have more than two seconds to react after the first round connects in which to activate the Hardener. The Breach and the Regular take substantially longer between shots, giving the pilot immense amounts of time in which to Harden Up. But this is besides the point, which is that the only viable Forge Gun is the Assault, which applies damage the fastest. There is no advantage to taking the Breach or Regular if you have access to the Assault. Shield tanks, with their low HP ceiling, will lose almost all of their shield in the first hit. There won't be anything left to harden. Return their damage and charge times. Reduce range to 200m. Have warning system if a forge gun is charging. To make railgun tanks less op in light of this, reduce railgun range to 250-300.
Kallas Hallytyr Skullbreakers 159	Posted - 2013.12.06 01:19:00 - [6] - Quote Alena Ventrallis wrote: Shield tanks, with their low HP ceiling, will lose almost all of their shield in the first hit. There won't be anything left to harden. Return their damage and charge times. Reduce range to 200m. Have warning system if a forge gun is charging. To make railgun tanks less op in light of this, reduce railgun range to 250-300. EDIT: Also remove/DRASTICALLY reduce splash on both forge guns and railguns. This reduces effectiveness to infantry by a considerable degree, and as the AV weapons, they shouldn't be any sort of good vs infantry, save for a direct hit. Right, so a vehicle fitted with the largest portable anti-vehicle weapon available is the best answer to vehicles? I see no issue with that. The issue is that, of the available Forge Guns, the Assault variant is the best in 9/10 situations and this is a problem because it removes the choice that has been placed into the game (that being the option of using the Regular to hold the charge and the Breach for higher damage but great restriction.) Point being, the changes being made in 1.7 do not fix the problems. All we are seeing a numbers rejiggering that is not solving what needs fixed - that being that the Assault is, and will be even more so come 1.7, the best for almost all situations which should most definitely not be the case. EDIT: As far as shield tanks are concerned, remember that a Hardener for shields is 60% reduction, so even that 1898 damage hit (PV and 1 Complex Damage mod) will actually only do 1024.92 damage: - Shields resist Hybrid - Rails by 10% naturally - Shield Hardener reduces the damage by a further 60% Even if the hit connects, a Heavy Shield Booster kicks you back up to 1950 Shields and kick starts your Shield Recharge, which is, base, 168/second. Assuming you hit the Booster a second after the first AFG round lands, you've actually just gotten back over 2000 HP in shields and had enough time to activate your Hardener if it wasn't on for said first shot. A Gunnlogi with a single Basic Booster, Extender and Hardener sits at 3338 Shields and 1500 Armour. A single Assault Forge round will do less than that Booster can regenerate and the Booster will generate enough shields to tank two AFG hits if your Hardener is running. Shield tanks are not designed, as has been stated by CCP, to stand in the middle of a fight and expect to survive for a long time: they flip their Hardener just as they enter the hot-zone, kick out as much fire as possible (Large Missiles = perfect) then pull out to recharge their modules and reload before those modules have quite finished cooling down, with the added security of Boosters if their primary tank is depleted or becomes dangerously low.
DeadlyAztec11 2503	Posted - 2013.12.06 03:18:00 - [7] - Quote Yeah, the Breach is looking really weak. Madness is the emergency exit. You can just step outside, and close the door on all those dreadful things that happened.
AP Grasshopper The Unholy Legion Of DarkStar DARKSTAR ARMY 54	Posted - 2013.12.06 05:28:00 - [8] - Quote shield hardeners are only 40% and assault forge gun tower sniping is why the weapon is over powered. The forge gun is the only weapon that doesn't follow the trend of other standard/assault/breach variants in that it has higher rof and higher damage then the standard.
Kallas Hallytyr Skullbreakers 161	Posted - 2013.12.06 05:37:00 - [9] - Quote AP Grasshopper wrote: shield hardeners are only 40% Shield Hardeners apply a 0.4 damage modifier. Maths says that this means all damage is multiplied by 0.4 which is equivalent to a 60% reduction. AP Grasshopper wrote: assault forge gun tower sniping is why the weapon is over powered. The forge gun is the only weapon that doesn't follow the trend of other standard/assault/breach variants in that it has higher rof and higher damage then the standard. Agreed.
THUNDERGROOVE ZionTCD Public Disorder. 356	Posted - 2013.12.06 05:38:00 - [10] - Quote AP Grasshopper wrote: shield hardeners are only 40% and assault forge gun tower sniping is why the weapon is over powered. The forge gun is the only weapon that doesn't follow the trend of other standard/assault/breach variants in that it has higher rof and higher damage then the standard. Not only this but if you take it in reverse, a dropship can be seen pretty much anywhere on the map to a forge gunner on the ground let alone one on a tower. Pretty crappy considering how much less HP a dropship can have. My advanced assault forge one hits Vipers, it's kinda funny. ZionTCD Director & Ammar Loyalist Amarr Sentinel \| Amarr Logi \| *Losematar* Scout What is a signature?

Kallas Hallytyr Skullbreakers 162	Posted - 2013.12.06 14:36:00 - [11] - Quote Bump because maths is still right...
Draco Cerberus Brutor Vanguard Minmatar Republic 569	Posted - 2013.12.06 15:28:00 - [12] - Quote Can I carry a mirror shield around to protect my bumble bee butt from a forge sniper? Maybe the glare will throw off his shot (back at him). LogiGod earns his pips


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