Tebu Gan
Dem Durrty Boyz
General Tso's Alliance
1040
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Posted - 2014.06.30 18:12:00 -
[1] - Quote
It would seem that there is a lot of butthurt over these new changes to the railgun and blaster large turrets. I myself, in my first take with the changes after a week of forging tanks down, was butthurt by these changes. Though I suspected it was the same as with the uprising with 1.6. I needed to adapt and adjust to the new changes laid out before me.
I'm certainly past that point of butthurt now. I've found a new niche with the changes, and have come to realize that it really isn't all that bad. Well done with increasing the TTK among tanks CCP. In the process you have weeded out many lesser tankers, and made a large impact on the usefulness of MLT tanks. I'm still advocating for more diversity among tanks, new mods and turret types to advocate a wide range of play styles.
But I'm content with what you have done thus far, yet I do have a few issues I want to bring up.
Blasters
So many have complained of these new changes. And I most def can see why. You go from being able to drop infantry with impunity, to struggling just to land a few shots. I've found that I'm king of the assists when using the blaster (yet I've not ever been a fan of blasters to start with).
Is this a bad thing?
The role of the turret has shifted. Rather than being heavily AI focused (while maintaining good AV capabilities), it has predominately become an AV focused weapon. Why? With the changes to the rail, a blaster actually stand a very good chance against rail tankers.
A rail tankers worst nightmare are blaster that outmaneuver it's turret rotation. And considering a rail hits overheat at the 4th shot, a railgun won't win in just one volley, and will need to manage that overheat. Additionally, it must work with reload if it can't manage to win the engagement with the ammo available. All this while, the blaster can continue applying damage, and typically win the engagement before a reload. The most one would need to worry about is overheat and positioning.
So due to rail changes, blaster have become far more viable in an AV role (especially against gunnlogis).
But what of it's AI capabilities? They are horrendous for the most part, but I consider this a good thing. Either the thing is good in an AV role or an AI role BUT NOT BOTH. While with my railgun I can occasionally manage to go 20 - 0, with many infantry kills, it is VERY rare and not the norm. Much like I see the blaster going 20 - 0 now on occasion but certainly not the norm.
While true that the blaster needs some tweaking with the dispersion (IE the time it takes to reset said dispersion) I think that it is in a fine spot for the moment. Tanks fight tanks while infantry fight infantry... and tanks? Wait, why would infantry even need to bother with a tank anymore!
So the next step I think is maybe to introduce new turret variants. We have an ok AV focused blaster, now we just need us an AI focused turret. One that is pretty good at killing infantry, yet falters against other vehicles that come in to play. You could even give it high PG/CPU requirements that emphasizes it's intended for use against infantry (as it would be unable to fit as much tank making it easier to deal with for AV).
In a nutshell
I mean if you want to sit in something invincible to over half of what people run in the game, you need to make a trade off if you want to deal with infantry. I also don't think a single turret type should have good AV and AI capabilities. They should be limited in some way to place an emphasis on what role that turret plays on the field. AV blaster or AI blaster BUT NOT BOTH.
Tanks - Balancing Turrets
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Pokey Dravon
OSG Planetary Operations
Covert Intervention
2170
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Posted - 2014.06.30 18:24:00 -
[2] - Quote
As someone who has specced rather heavily into vehicles since closed Beta, I have to say the changes to the turrets feel very appropriate. Blasters being a short range weapon had FAR too much accuracy, and while you can still get infantry kills, you need to be at a much closer range to do so consistently.
I'm also a fan that the overheat on Rails makes them far less effective at close range. I often complained that Rails outclassed Blasters even at point blank range due to their extremely high sustained DPS. Rails are still effective at long range as powerful AV weapons, but their reduced sustained DPS has made them a good choice, but not the ONLY choice for AV options.
Further tweaking is of course needed, but overall the changes have been very solid form my perspective.
Like my ideas?
Pokey Dravon for CPM1
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