Vrain Matari
Mikramurka Shock Troop
Minmatar Republic
1889
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Posted - 2014.03.27 13:56:00 -
[2] - Quote
CCP Saberwing wrote:I-Shayz-I wrote:KenKaniff69 wrote:Why not buff AV and leave hardeners alone?
Hardeners are the only way to survive against mod'd rails
If you take away their effectiveness, vehicle combat will consist of two shot engagements that require no tactility or skill. Yeah nerfing tanks just messes up with the tank v tank balance...it's actually at a good place right now. Okay, thanks for the feedback guys. A couple questions then (and I'll relay this to the team): - How would you suggest going improving the tank situation? Increasing the viability of AV? - How would you go about fixing Railguns, if not range reduction? I believe damage fall-off is not an option for a server-side hotfix.
Hi Saberwing, interesting question indeed. To address your specific questions:
- How would you suggest going improving the tank situation? Increasing the viability of AV?
Judge taught us the issues involved with changing the damage model and the complications that arise when comparing across various vehicle systems. Imo the best thing to do at this point is trust your(CCP's) WOO(waves-of-opportunity) model. The two primary variables in that model are vehicle mobility and the hardener active/cooldown ratio. These are the variables to adjust. Adjusting other factors would actully be working against your model and most likely have complicated ramifications.
Mobility variable: Hotfixable would prolly be tank turn rate, acceleration, top speed. I would temporarily nerf these for tanks until you can get a web grenade or equivalent into the game.
Hardener active/cooldown variable: Here the ideal adjustment is hopefully a hotfixable one: For stacked hardeners, keep the active time the same but increase the cooldown time. Works for dropships, tanks and LAVs. Allows tanks to still play an important role but gives AV infantry a chance to do their jobs and push back tanks.
- How would you go about fixing Railguns, if not range reduction? I believe damage fall-off is not an option for a server-side hotfix
I wouldn't fix them because i don't think they're broken. It's the redline and the warpoint/passive skillpoint model that i'd look at as the ultimate 'cause' of redline rails. For a hotfix i would remove warpoints/skillpoints from the redline completely for 1.8. For everybody, infantry and vehicles. In and of itself it's a worthwhile experiment, but it will have a big enough effect on redline rails to make tham not an issue anymore.
Imo it is well worth running the experiment to see the overall effect on gameplay. With Gallente scouts and cloaks there's really no reason for a team to be redlined anymore.
Here's an agrument from another thread about 'soft' changes to vehicles that would have a positive impact on the vehicle/AV question. Some or all of this is not hotfixable but this is definitely the way i would prefer to proced before touching vehicles or infantry.
Copypasta follows:
Since CCP is looking at a hotfix for the Tank/AV situation, it's time for all of us to be very careful about what we're proposing.
I want to see things happen before any kind of AV buff(the one exception to this is CCP needs to think about what Judge demonstrated re: swarms, damage threshold and shield recharge).
1) Recall mechanic(proposed: no recall if modules active or in cooldown, or if taking fire)
2) Warpoint/skillpoint mechanic(proposed: bulk of your team close to redline, redliners get points, otherwise no)
3) Entry/Exit animation(proposed: small window of vulnerability. This is devhour hungry, so do later)
4) Give infantry a mechanism to slow down tanks temporarily(proposed: web grenade)
5a) Introduce a hardener stacking penaly that increases subsequent cooldown
-and/or-
5b) Give infantry a mechanism to partially debuff hardeners.
We've gone past the point of being able to balance on damage. The list above introduces mechanics that balance tanks/AV, introduce layers of gameplay, and decouple tank/AV balancing from the existing damage model, allowing our developers freedom to tweak in the future without unbalancing other systems(e.g. tank/dropship/LAV balance).
I support SP rollover.
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