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Ander Thedas
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Posted - 2014.04.11 17:32:00 -
[1] - Quote
1.7 the complaint was tanks. 1.8 it's scouts. There's a very large and fairly obvious shared issued with both these roles which exacerbates the problems to the level that it's in and is a FUNDAMENTAL balancing ideology that needs to be addressed for this game to reach the level I know it can and should be.
That issue is simply this: The best counter to a play style should almost never be itself.
With 1.7 tanks and the way that AV was currently being utilized the only thing that could really handle the tanks on the battlefield were other tanks. It was, to put it diplomatically, problematic. It hindered the general flow of play and having tanks on the field on either side proved to be more of a detriment to a battle than an improvement of variety and circumstance. Many people complained. Several switched to red line rail fits just to try to do something about it. The infantry was furious at the tanks, the vehicle pilots were furious at the red line rails. Not too many people were happy and it showed. The way to defeat tanks WAS tanks and the battle trends followed that logic to just compound the issue.
Now with 1.8 most people complain about scouts. And there's a problem with cloak times, sure, and brick tanking a scout, fine. But those are NOT the main issues. The problem with scouts is that the things that best counter a scout is another scout. The main weakness of a scout is being seen and not having the option to cherry pick their fights and dictate the battle conditions. The only suits that can rob a scout of his or her ability to do so reliably is another scout suit that's kitting ewar modules, and therein lies the problem almost entirely. People hate having to deal with scouts so in an effort to combat them their option is to become the thing on the battlefield that bothers them. It's the same with the way tanks progressed in 1.7. And with everyone converting over to scouts to solve their own personal scout problem it just adds more to the battlefield, increasing other peoples issues with them.
The solution is one that creates a healthy dynamic of game play and allows for fluidity across play styles: the best counter to a scout needs to be a different suit, which is then countered by something else entirely and so the clockwork mechanisms of war spin.
My personal thought on the issue is that the logical heir to the mantelpiece of counter-scout is the logistics suit. The Gallente is already semi-poised in the right direction with having a bonus to active scanners, but largely speaking it's not enough. I run scout suits (not Gallente) undampened and uncloaked and I get under more than 50% of all scans without too much issue. A think a smallish buff in passive scanning on a logistic suit might go a long way into making passive modules more functional for them (small steps here, it would be way too easy for the pendulum to swing the other way and make the scouts undesirable, too), or even a small buff to the angle that active scanners can sweep, which would make them more reliable without necessarily making them any stronger, which incentiveizes using them more.
All in all there are options, for sure, but the bigger issue to be addressed here is the crux of my argument. When the best counter for a play style is the same play style then the battle trend will always settle there. When you keep the gears moving you keep the fight fresh and I think most people will be happier with a robust theater of war.
Omnia mutantur nihil interit
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Ander Thedas
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Posted - 2014.04.11 18:18:00 -
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Ace Boone wrote:My commando wrecks scouts
My logi wrecks scouts
My heavy wrecks scouts.
If they don't get the jump on me with a shotty to the back, I will be at an advantage. What are you on about?
Yes, any suit can kill any other suit under the right conditions. But balance is a different topic as to what CAN beat something else. You have to take a statistical approach and not a personal one.
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Ander Thedas
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Posted - 2014.04.11 22:24:00 -
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A'Real Fury wrote:One concern that jumps out me here is that currently:
1. gal scout has the best ability to stay off the radar or to brick tank
2. The suggestion that gal logi should be granted an even greater ability to active scan their surroundings.
This is effectively changing the racial balance even more in the Gallentes favour. They will have the ability to see everybody with only their scouts being able to avoid the active scans.
I never said anything specifically about changing the racial bonuses of the Gallente suits at all. I said a small passive bonus to all logis or a bonus to scan angle of ALL scanners. Neither of these hit the Gallente specifically, but they could potentially benefit the most from it being used properly.
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Ander Thedas
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Posted - 2014.04.11 22:29:00 -
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A'Real Fury wrote:One concern that jumps out me here is that currently:
1. gal scout has the best ability to stay off the radar or to brick tank
2. The suggestion that gal logi should be granted an even greater ability to active scan their surroundings.
This is effectively changing the racial balance even more in the Gallentes favour. They will have the ability to see everybody with only their scouts being able to avoid the active scans.
I will add this, though: the Gallente already have the bonus to armor reps that no other suit seems to have matched. It's just a free thing they get that maybe all other races need an analog for. For the purposes of this topic if, hypothetically, all Caldari suits got a 10% bonus to scan precision (and the scout had it's bonus slightly reduced to compensate) then that might help shift the battle trends over to Caldari as your counter scout, even outside of the scout role itself. Amarr with a bonus of plate penalty reduction (maybe half the penalty other suits incur?) and Minmatar with let's say a 20% bonus to shield reps (either amount repped or delay time, could be either). Now everything has a very defined role that highlights their race's strengths and gives a bit more combat dynamics.
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Ander Thedas
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Posted - 2014.04.11 22:31:00 -
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GunBunnie wrote:Let's just hope CCP doesn't go down the path of wargaming and make something FOTM to get people to dump Aurum into it, then nerf it later then rinse repeat.
I doubt it. That's a short term strategy for a game that has a very defined long term goal. They want to get everything in place as much as possible as SOON as possible so they can work on other things and build the player base. They stand to make WAY more money out of a functioning machine of player activity than a short con nickle and dime scheme. There's not a chance they're that short sighted.
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Ander Thedas
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Posted - 2014.04.13 18:53:00 -
[6] - Quote
Ahahaha. This guy's got the right idea.
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Ander Thedas
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Posted - 2014.04.13 18:54:00 -
[7] - Quote
ZDub 303 wrote:Light frames and heavy frames seem well balanced against each other. All that we really need is the unfinished buff to medium frames they couldn't get around to for 1.8.
I agree with this, mostly. And there is a certain balance to cloaked shotty scouts taking out heavies. The balance is CLOSE, I will give it that, but there needs to be some changes to the design philosophy to make sure it carries over in the right direction.
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Ander Thedas
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Posted - 2014.04.13 19:09:00 -
[8] - Quote
Marston VC wrote:
1.7 did nothing to fix tanks though..... hardners were subtly nerfed and ambush is mostly free of their spam now.
The hardener nerf was a pretty solid step in the right direction, though. I field a forge gun when I need to run AV and I find that I'm doing a bit more to keep the tanks out of crucial areas if not entirely off the map from me popping them (need to hit every shot perfectly to accomplish this, however). The biggest buff to AV is the AV damage war points that you're now granted, though. With that, many more people are willing to run AV without feeling like they are wasting their time, and just the act of having more AV on the field means that all AV becomes more powerful with the ability to synergistically combine their efforts. The balance, while not perfect, is in a much better place.
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Ander Thedas
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Posted - 2014.04.13 19:49:00 -
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Doshneil Antaro wrote:Doshneil Antaro wrote:The ewar imbalance has been on my mind for awhile now. As it stands a medium suit with complex mods for precision and range are useless and a waste of isk/sp. This is even more exagerated with the dampening bonus from cloaks on scouts. Presision mods and/or scanners should be viable counters for scouts and cloaks. As it stands, the only answer is to run scout yourself.
If scouts are best suited to kill heavies, heavies for mediums, mediums should be the scout killer. To acheive this an increase to the medium suits precision is needed. Make it high enough so one complex precision mod will scan a scout with one enhanced dampener or below. This move would also help curve tanked scouts, as they would have to decide to dampen and be stealthy, or tank and be seen.
Also, the dampening bonus from cloaks has proven too much, if only one suit out of twenty has a chance to counter it, than it is OP. idea I posted from https://forums.dust514.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=155385
The balance is delicate. If the single complex precision module is balanced against the Gallente scout then every other scout suit couldn't even be bothered to try to run dampeners. If it's against every other scout's natural profile then those who want to continue to get under the range would just switch to (or continue to use) Gallente suits. I think Logi's make more sense. They could relay the information to their squads if it's passive, or actively scan their targets which is a pretty fair way of pointing out a scout provided they can get under their signature. And just to reiterate once more: the buff would have to be pretty minor. Going overboard would practically dismantle the class.
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Ander Thedas
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Posted - 2014.04.13 21:28:00 -
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Adipem Nothi wrote:How can you compare Scouts to Tanks in good conscience?
Anything and Anyone can take out a Scout.
Lots of things can do it in under a second.
Easily. Read the OP. That's how I did it.
As I said before what CAN take something out isn't always as important as what is currently happening statistically. Both examples are just two different variants of a similar balancing issue.
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