Why do shields have a damage threshold before recharge delay? I really don't understand the need for that.

I love Judge's videos. I do think he does a better job of pointing out problems than proposing solutions though. For one thing he seemed to be a big fan of the nerfs to swarms in 1.7 as show in this video of his. In that video he ignores the fact that swarm range isn't a cylinder that extends to the sky, but is a dome. At normal dropship altitudes, the radius of the circle of effective lock-on range is actually much smaller than what he shows. The ability of dropships to quickly buzz in-and-out of lock range before you are able to fire is also an issue, not to mention being able to light an afterburner and speed away from the swarms.

I also think he got the suggested fix wrong with his Redline Rail Tank Video. I think the man focus for fixing that mechanic is changing how the redline works instead of nerfing turret elevation, which would leave dropships with very few viable options to counter them (teams of forge gunners and ramming with cheap dropships). A rail tank with a low turret elevation would be forced to the redlines and edges of the battle to hit anything in the air, which is counterproductive. It should be encouraged to engage closer to the action by adding falloff mechanics and changes to the redline.

i think that we are all just humans and after some time he found out that his first thinking was wrong.

to the marked part..

if we have suits where you can carry a AA weapon and a light weapon (in caldari case a railrifle and a swarm) then it would fix the problem that you fight with lower numbers if people have to use AV gear. if one tank/dropship forces out 3 AV gears (and you can call in like 4-5 tanks) then there is something wrong. I would also like to see the fighterjets released.

for those who never saw them.. here is a youtube vid where you can see that they allready had them done:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ED-YF-v7WCw&feature=player_detailpage#t=339s

you can also see the concept art here:
http://imgur.com/a/4bKjz#9
line3 second picture

So us dropship pilots love to complain about rails but to be honest in relation to the python - since the triple hardener meta has surfaced its nearly impossible to kill pythons with anything else BUT a railgun....

CCP ~balance~ for you.

I think they should just make it really simple.

2 options but I prefer A over B personally.

A - All vehicles are really cheap but all die very easily (Similar to battlefield)
or
B- All vehicles keep there awesome power but their prices goes up really high.

I say just make vehicles something cheap and something more easily killable then how they are now. I'm not saying I want this game to turn into Battlefield 514 but I do think we could definitely take a few of the really great features of BF and adapt them to dust.

This is the wrong approach. We should CARE about our vehicles, it should feel like something we own and worked hard for (like in EVE). That doesn't mean it should be godmode though. Someone with a proto swarm fit should also care a lot about their suit too. The way to balance vehicle price is the average ISK value of what they're able to destroy before dying. ISK efficiency should be the metric.

Why do shields have a damage threshold before recharge delay? I really don't understand the need for that.

The sad fact is that I did not even notice those swarms... They need to hire Judge .

Because before AR could stop a Gunnlogi from recharging any shields. It was changed so things like bumps in the road don't stop regen. The side effect is that Swarms that do piece meal damage got shafted. I made a thread about it a while ago. Solution is to have the 'theoretical damage' count for the threshold limit.

Say the Threshold is 110 damage. A Swarm hitting for 225 damage is reduced to 100 damage from hardeners. It doesn't stop the regen of the Shields at them moment. Instead have the 225 count as the Threshold damage so even if it does do less than 110 damage, it still stops the regen.

Balancing by ISK has never worked for EVE nor DUST. It didn't work for heavies in beta, it didn't work for tanks before 1.7, it doesn't work for Titans in EVE or anything else you can possibly bring up.

There will always be someone with enough cash to say "lol wtf eva".

Though the ISK value of something should make a player care whether they lose it or not, it should not determine the relative balance of something.

I agree with CommanderBolt's point A.

Vehicles should be powerful against infantry, as they are now, but weak against AV. Vehicles should be a bit more expensive than dropsuits, but not millions of ISK. It should be viable to run tanks or dropships only, lose a couple, and still make a bit of ISK.

Rock is tanks, Scissors is Infantry, Paper is AV.

Each should be quite effective against the next, but weak against the one that precedes it.That's balanced.

Yea hire the guy who was all about the swarm nerf, range and damage but now is singing a different tune because rail tanks are a problem for him. yea.

First off, stop it with the ad hominem. That has nothing to do with this subject and you know it.

Second, Judge is didn't post that video from the point of view of the dropship pilot. He posted that video from the point of view of the very players that are trying to kill him (swarm launcher users).

I am not a dropship pilot nor a tank pilot. In fact, I have absolutely no skills at all invested in vehicles. But I do have skills invested at least up to the Advanced Swarm Launcher and I have had to deal with vehicles constantly.

One can easily assume that teamwork is needed. But as Judge pointed out in that video at least 2-3 times on 2-3 separate situations, even teamwork wasn't enough. A team of swarms engaging a dropship for 44 seconds non-stop should have resulted in that one dropship from getting destroyed even with hardners active. But instead, the hardener is just too strong or at least the hardener is lasting too long.

But that's probably not the main issue here.

Take a look at this part of the video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=ls7hOEdNgXE#t=935

The main issue it seems is that swarm damage is not being applied properly. A total swarm damage of about 880 from a militia swarm being reduced to no more than 300 damage is a 66% reduction in overall damage. That's a 34% efficiency rating for the swarms even though the efficiency rating listed (earlier in the video) on the hud says it's suppose to be 55%. At least 484 damage should be applied. But the main issue doesn't stop there.

There is also the issue of the damage threshold. It's not reading the swarm damage as a volley or within a per-second basis. It's reading the swarm damage on a per-rocket basis and it's treating the rockets like a typical non-AV as opposed to a typical AV. This is a problem as well that's adding to the issue.

Then there is the issue that not even a dedicated team of swarms is able to take on a hardened DS or tank as seen at least twice in the video. If the pilot is smart enough, they will only enter the battlefield or near the danger zone with the hardeners on which last approximately 1 minute. If they run out of hardeners, they pull out and fall back to cooldown in relative safety leaving the swarms with nothing. The same is true to tanks. So far, as an AV swarm user myself, I have seen tanks only come in with hardeners active, destroy us, and then leave.

Before I read your post, just where exactly is the ad hominem? Seriously. That's exactly how it happened.

Let the truth be the truth. Judge was very vocal and happy about the swarm range and damage nerf...now he is all for increasing damage? Why? Because his dropship is getting blown outta the sky now? So he's all for it because it benefits him. Just like he was all for the swarm nerf, since he can camp flight objectives. C'mon now, I'm not even making this up.

Do you even know what an ad hominem is?

Anyways, he's not calling for direct buff to swarm damage. He even says to be careful about saying that. He's calling for a rework on how that damage is applied. As far as I can see, the base damage for swarms seems fine. The problem is how the system applies that damage. This shouldn't be too hard to understand as the evidence that backs up his point is evidently clear.

But you seem to ignore that in this discussion and thus resort to an ad hominem by saying "oh he's just a butthurt DS pilot mad at tanks" which is NOT related to this discussion. This discussion is about the application of AV swarm damage and nothing more. Also, as the video clearly shows, he puts a lot of focus on AV swarms which look like absolute **** when pitted against dropships. Judge seems to want the AV swarms to be as equally affective against his own dropship as they are against other vehicles.

Do you even know what an ad hominem is?

Anyways, he's not calling for direct buff to swarm damage. He even says to be careful about saying that. He's calling for a rework on how that damage is applied. As far as I can see, the base damage for swarms seems fine. The problem is how the system applies that damage. This shouldn't be too hard to understand as the evidence that backs up his point is evidently clear.

But you seem to ignore that in this discussion and thus resort to an ad hominem by saying "oh he's just a butthurt DS pilot mad at tanks" which is NOT related to this discussion. This discussion is about the application of AV swarm damage and nothing more. Also, as the video clearly shows, he puts a lot of focus on AV swarms which look like absolute **** when pitted against dropships. Judge seems to want the AV swarms to be as equally affective against his own dropship as they are against other vehicles.