DUST Search - [Feedback] Swarms and Dropships

Judge Rhadamanthus wrote:

We seem to be limiting our thoughts to too small an area. Vehicle balance has a major problem. One that might not even be surmountable. The variables we have to tweak are limited. Perhaps too limited to actualy reach a suitable balance without client updates that are not coming.

Perhaps there are other ways to adjust swarms outside of speed, range and damage. I am just throwing stuff out here, these are not well thought out or even practical, there purpose is to inspire lateral thinking (trying to work within the no client update restriction):

1) Special swarms that also do damage to the pilot

2) Missiles that do more damage the slower a dropship is going. Say double damage it it is hovering, half damage when it is at full speed. Then you could remove the afterburner completely

3) Low damage but high impact physics swarms

4) Change the after burner to not change speed but make its heat throw swarms off so they miss (increase cool down too)

5) Link damage to altitude and remove the afterburner. Low altitude = high damage.

6) Remove the afterburner but increase dropship HP

7) increase swarm damage if a dropship has its afterburner active.

Theres are just ideas to get you considering other options.

The idea for example with 2 and 5 is to stop dropships just hanging there raining unfair death. If I do that I take a great risk of getting hit with 440 hp damage swarms. But if I am moving, say flying to drop off troops, like dropships should, then I take far less damage, say 100 per missile. So swarmers can time their attacks for when the dropship reaches it's destination. At the point when we are a threat to the team; rather than just blasting away from long range the whole match.

Both players have to be more strategic. We can remove the afterburner, buff swarm damage. Over to you......

Hand/Eye coordination cannot be taught. For everything else there is the Learning Coalition.


Author	Thread Statistics \| Show CCP posts - 12 post(s)
Fox Gaden Immortal Guides 3666	Posted - 2014.06.10 14:33:00 - [1] - Quote Hobo on Fire wrote: but the low end swarm launchers need a little buff. I'm thinking a reduction to the base lock on time (with balanced reduction to the operation lock-on bonus) to give entry level swarms a better DPS, while keeping wiyrkomi users where they are now. That would actually make sense. Have a Lock On time per missal, so that while the Proto Swarm with more missals does a lot more damage, the Standard Swarm would lock faster and not be as far behind on DPS. Hand/Eye coordination cannot be taught. For everything else there is the Learning Coalition.
Fox Gaden Immortal Guides 3666	Posted - 2014.06.10 14:39:00 - [2] - Quote Adipem Nothi wrote: Fox Gaden wrote: Hobo on Fire wrote: but the low end swarm launchers need a little buff. I'm thinking a reduction to the base lock on time (with balanced reduction to the operation lock-on bonus) to give entry level swarms a better DPS, while keeping wiyrkomi users where they are now. That would actually make sense. Have a Lock On time per missal, so that while the Proto Swarm with more missals does a lot more damage, the Standard Swarm would lock faster and not be as far behind on DPS. o/ Fox Tell me, have you ever danced under tank fire while trying to get a target lock? Most definitely, although I have not been using Swarms very much since the week of testing I did after 1.7. I used to enjoy dueling with LAVs in an open field back in the Murder Taxi days. Hand/Eye coordination cannot be taught. For everything else there is the Learning Coalition.
Fox Gaden Immortal Guides 3669	Posted - 2014.06.10 18:09:00 - [3] - Quote AV damage resistance: It has been stated several times in this thread that certain (Gallente) dropships experience reduced damage from Swarm Launchers. This is a problem because on the one hand the damage reduction is to great, and on the other hand because it is not applied to all dropships. However, if the damage reduction could be adjusted it could be a useful tool in AV balance. We could balance AV against HAVGÇÖs, and then use the AV damage resistance of dropships to balance them against the AV that has been balanced against HAVGÇÖs. It would have to be applied to all dropships though. Swarm Launchers: - I think that Swarm Damage should be adjusted to 250 per missile. - I think that lock time on Swarm Launchers should be applied per missile, so that Lock time increases with each additional missile, just as Damage increases as you move from Militia/Standard, to Proto. The balance of Time to Damage should be such that the increase in DPS from Militia/Standard, to Proto should be comparable to the increase in DPS of Standard Forge Guns to Proto Forge Guns. One of the challenges of balancing the Swarm Launcher has always been that making the Proto Swarm Launcher balanced meant that the Standard Swarm Launcher became completely ineffective, and balancing the Standard Swarm Launcher made the Proto version OP. This change would salve that problem, without getting ride of the unique damage per missile setup which makes Swarm Launchers unique. Proto Swarms would still have much higher Alpha, but the difference in DPS would not be as extreme. Missile Speed: Judge Rhadamanthus has explained that the first indication a Dropship pilot often has that there is a Swarm Launcher targeting them is when the first Swarm hits, and by that time there is already more swarms in the air. It occurs to me that if Swarm Missiles moved fast enough, the first Swarm would hit while the Swarm Launcher was still trying to acquire its second lock. So faster swarms would actually give Dropship pilots more time to react. On the other hand it would be harder to get away from the Swarms once they are in the air. So when looking at it that way, would faster missiles be better or worse? From a Dropship pilot perspective? From an AV perspective? Hand/Eye coordination cannot be taught. For everything else there is the Learning Coalition.
Fox Gaden Immortal Guides 3669	Posted - 2014.06.10 18:29:00 - [4] - Quote Sir Dukey wrote: Also, while an incubus can take unlimited volleys of militia swarms and not budge, the python has to run away with max two swarms. I would also like to say the shield collision damage is through the roof. Landing takes away 400 shield minimum, accidentally bumping a wall just a tad takes off over 1000s of shield and swarms throw pythons around like tennis balls. The heavier incubus is resistant to collision, has more EHP, better repair, doesn't turn upside down due to one volley of swarm. Obviously Incubus is the best ADS just like Madrugar is the best tank. I have not flown Pythons enough (because I am cash strapped) to comment on them, but recently I got 50 free Caldari Dropships from the PSN store (the Red ones) which I think had the same operating characteristics as a Python (despite being standard configuration) because what you posted describes them perfectly. Hand/Eye coordination cannot be taught. For everything else there is the Learning Coalition.
Fox Gaden Immortal Guides 3671	Posted - 2014.06.10 18:51:00 - [5] - Quote Judge Rhadamanthus wrote: We seem to be limiting our thoughts to too small an area. Vehicle balance has a major problem. One that might not even be surmountable. The variables we have to tweak are limited. Perhaps too limited to actualy reach a suitable balance without client updates that are not coming. Perhaps there are other ways to adjust swarms outside of speed, range and damage. I am just throwing stuff out here, these are not well thought out or even practical, there purpose is to inspire lateral thinking (trying to work within the no client update restriction): 1) Special swarms that also do damage to the pilot 2) Missiles that do more damage the slower a dropship is going. Say double damage it it is hovering, half damage when it is at full speed. Then you could remove the afterburner completely 3) Low damage but high impact physics swarms 4) Change the after burner to not change speed but make its heat throw swarms off so they miss (increase cool down too) 5) Link damage to altitude and remove the afterburner. Low altitude = high damage. 6) Remove the afterburner but increase dropship HP 7) increase swarm damage if a dropship has its afterburner active. Theres are just ideas to get you considering other options. The idea for example with 2 and 5 is to stop dropships just hanging there raining unfair death. If I do that I take a great risk of getting hit with 440 hp damage swarms. But if I am moving, say flying to drop off troops, like dropships should, then I take far less damage, say 100 per missile. So swarmers can time their attacks for when the dropship reaches it's destination. At the point when we are a threat to the team; rather than just blasting away from long range the whole match. Both players have to be more strategic. We can remove the afterburner, buff swarm damage. Over to you...... 1) Special swarms that also do damage to the pilot Perhaps it delivers a massive electrical charge which damages the pilot and disrupts the dropshipsGÇÖ engines causing it to go ballistic for half a second before the engines come back online. (Not long enough to crash the Dropship unless it is really low to the ground, but enough that they pilot will have to manoeuver to recover and will want to gain more elevation.) 2) Missiles that do more damage the slower a dropship is going. Say double damage it it is hovering, half damage when it is at full speed. Then you could remove the afterburner completely Perhaps have damage proportional to relative velocity, so a dropship standing still will take more damage than a dropship flying away, and a dropship flying toward the missile will take more damage than a dropship standing still. (Like a head on collision doing more damage than when you hit the car in front of you.) 3) Low damage but high impact physics swarms Kinetic rather than Explosive missiles. 4) Change the after burner to not change speed but make its heat throw swarms off so they miss (increase cool down too) Basically adding flairs without a Client patch. Might as well make it an After Burner variant. 5) Link damage to altitude and remove the afterburner. Low altitude = high damage. Having trouble coming up with the physics explanation for that one. 6) Remove the afterburner but increase dropship HP 7) increase swarm damage if a dropship has its afterburner active. Make the Afterburner blow up if a swarm hits when it is active? Or backfire or something? Hand/Eye coordination cannot be taught. For everything else there is the Learning Coalition.
Fox Gaden Immortal Guides 3671	Posted - 2014.06.10 18:57:00 - [6] - Quote medomai grey wrote: CCP Rattati wrote: Point: A common complaint is that Dropships boost out of trouble and are hard to kill. Counterpoint: Dropships have no other viable way of tanking damage, and are very easily killed if not incredibly careful. We can change the assault swarm launcher to have fast, long range missiles so there is a way to chase dropships away, but pilots have also told us that sometimes infantry isn't rendered properly so they don't even appear to pilots before the missiles are hitting their dropship. Please discuss, we want both sides to weigh in. (For the record, I only fly pythons. Don't know about incubus. As such, ADS opinion below only applies to pythons.) You can't simply improve swarm launcher flight speed without reducing tracking ability. Swarm launchers are only deficient in their lower tier damage. They have a flight speed that can only be outrun by using after burners and a tracking ability that makes them virtually impossible to shake. Increasing swarm launcher flight speed to the point that It could outrun a dropship with afterburners active without drastically reducing tracking ability will result in a swarm launcher that is impossible to evade. If your goal is to create a swarm launcher that can chase dropships away, you already have it. Higher tier swarm launchers deal sufficient damage to force me to run away. Lower tier swarm launchers do a negligible amount of damage were it is easy to track them down and kill them, and it shouldn't be that way. Lower tier swarm launchers need to be a threat to my ADS. Killing an ADS can be tricky because most pilots will run away when things get to hot because pythons are squishy. Judge Radamanthus made this video on this topic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxwLQAFLbJM&list=UUy11xToip47aIW0M9TSOKrQ It would be logical that faster moving missiles would have a wider turning radius, so if this was the case higher speed while making them harder to outrun, would make them easier to out manoeuver. Of course where that falls short is the question of whether they will render well enough for you to see them, in order to get your timing right to out maneuver them. Hand/Eye coordination cannot be taught. For everything else there is the Learning Coalition.
Fox Gaden Immortal Guides 3672	Posted - 2014.06.10 21:36:00 - [7] - Quote bogeyman m wrote: Fox Gaden wrote: Adipem Nothi wrote: Fox Gaden wrote: Hobo on Fire wrote: but the low end swarm launchers need a little buff. I'm thinking a reduction to the base lock on time (with balanced reduction to the operation lock-on bonus) to give entry level swarms a better DPS, while keeping wiyrkomi users where they are now. That would actually make sense. Have a Lock On time per missal, so that while the Proto Swarm with more missals does a lot more damage, the Standard Swarm would lock faster and not be as far behind on DPS. o/ Fox Tell me, have you ever danced under tank fire while trying to get a target lock? Most definitely, although I have not been using Swarms very much since the week of testing I did after 1.7. I used to enjoy dueling with LAVs in an open field back in the Murder Taxi days. A Militia Gallente Scout suit with Advanced Swarms, AV nades and REs is an interesting dance partner for a LAV... Or a HAV. I believe I covered that in the most recent update to my Swarm Launcher guide. Recently I have done most of my dances with LAVs in my Sentinel suit with an HMG. Hand/Eye coordination cannot be taught. For everything else there is the Learning Coalition.