DUST Search - Sticky:Hotfix Delta

Alena Ventrallis wrote:

CCP Rattati wrote:

Yes, I would like to deploy a few tactical tweaks over next two weeks, concerning the viability of dropships.

Let's state a few data points.

1) Fact. The sky did not fall down, the ADS is not being instapopped all over the place, that much is clear. So swarm vs ADS does not need any specific attention. It's scarier for sure for pilots, but not untenable.

2) Small Blaster Turrets are better in Delta, our data shows that clearly

3) Incubus is less efficient than the Python, in effective kills per spawn, or K/S. (i.e. Shield better than Armor)

4) Myron is less efficient than the Grimsnes in K/S. (Shield better than Armor)

3 and 4a) K/S is not an absolute measure of dropship efficiency as they are used for different things, but they are still a useful metric. WP/S is another and ISK destroyed/ISK lost is the third. Any other smart metric that comes to mind?

3a) Can a veteran pilot please post indisputably competitive fits for all 4 dropships for us to study internally. Protofits link will do nicely.

4) Yet, people complain that the Python is worse than the Incubus, even after the rail ROF nerf.

Let's get to some more discussions.

Players have been asking, "what is the role of the ADS", and to that I only have one answer, "we provide the sandbox, you play in it". We have no intent to shoehorn in an exact playstyle. We have broadly defined the HAV Large Turrets to be "AV", and that's it. Same goes for the Dropships, they should be durable and slow, and be able to deliver their payload of a full squad to an objective while under fire, and while suppressing enemy infantry, basically a Huey.

However, we can define some gameplay where the ADS should excel. Of course the Apache is the "blueprint" for the Close Combat Infantry suppression and/or Tank hunting, and the AC-130 for long range suppression.

A) First contact. ADS, being the most mobile unit, rapidly deploys two 2 man units on Objectives with uplinks, while the rest wait to spawn, or even 3-4 solo units. It can then reinforce weak spots and support infantry, that in turn supports the ADS against infantry AV.

B) Harass and Suppress enemy airforces by destroying recently delivered dropships on the ground

C) Destroy enemy HAVs - the firepower should be enough to to identify a hostile target, and take it out in a single run, even under light Anti-Air resistance. If an HAV is deployed in the middle of the map, the ADS should be able to take it out unless 2 Anti-Air units are defending it (give or take), if an HAV is deployed in the redzone and comes rumbling into battle, the ADS should be able to put a hurt on even the toughest Madrugar. If the ADS flies into a trap and 2 Small Turret gunners pop out with Forges or Swarms, the ADS should probably be destroyed.

D) Recon - Utilizing speed and equipping scanners to provide intel

E) Objective Suppression, stay out of the 175 meter lock range, at 300 out of Forge Range and pummel an objective or spawnpoint with missile fire/rail fire

F) All the Delta changes were intended to do was reduce the ADS's OP efficiency at almost everything, Now we can carefully bring tactically chosen efficiencies back.

These are a few playstyles that should work. I hear that the Incubus ROF is not enough currently to properly be able to do C). What is the effective ROF necessary at full skills, to be able to kill a fully skilled solo Madrugar in a "single" strafing run, or DPS necessary? Can it be done by Pilot alone? At 2 or 3 gunners, it should be relatively easy as you have invested 3 players to kill 1 in the HAV, the HAV should then have 2 Anti Air infantry to defend him. Tank players, where is your line, you don't want to be instapopped do you?

Please support your ROF/DPS proposals with the fits you are using and also the Madrugar/Gunnlogi you are attacking.

Finally!!!!!!

A) I think this shouldn't be a function of the ADS. It should be an attack vehicle with no passenger support save a gunner. Apache's job is to kill, Huey's is to transport.

B and C) that's going to necessitate returning things to how they were. Or how about this:

Here's the thing, you can't have a gun be both AV and AP. That's the large blaster with no dispersion. So what you need to do is specialize each drop ship with a role. Python is about infantry suppression with missiles. Therefore, give them a splash radius bonus instead of ROF. Say 10% per level, like the old ROF skill. This ups a 2.5m splash to 3.75m, which if I remember correctly is about the range of a standard nanohives resupply for visual aid. Now it can kill infantry easy, but suffers against vehicles, lacking the DPS to break their tank. Now the incubus could be the vehicle buster. In order to bust vehicles in a single run, you either need to return the ROF bonus and unnerf small rails to their old ROF, or you need to give incubi a large (~12.5%) bonus to hybrid damage. It needs high DPs to bust tanks in a single run. There is no way around it.

D) Again, ADS are Apache's. They don't do recon, they attack. You call them in after the recon ship provides the Intel. I'd say a return of SLAVs would fill this role nicely.

E) Again, this would be the Python's role. The incubus could do it, but the Python would do it better. With a splash radius bonus, it makes suppression much easier.

F) And again, if you want them to kill tanks in a single pass, we need to way ramp up their DPs, which means they will slaughter infantry. There's no way to stop this. My suggestions mean that the high DPs one will have some difficulty engaging infantry, but in the end, the high DPs needed to bust tanks is high enough to rip apart infantry.

"As well as stupid, Rattati is incredibly slow and accident-prone, and cannot even swim"


Author	Thread Statistics \| Show CCP posts - 8 post(s)

CCP Rattati C C P C C P Alliance 8214	Posted - 2014.09.28 09:18:00 - [1] - Quote Pilots and anti-Pilots some numbers are in. Overall it seems that we successfully toned down the Assault Dropship power, and buffed the Dropship power. Looking at dropships compared to other vehicles, we are fairly happy with how the Python is playing out right now. There is a good solid spike of efficiency for the Small Blaster as well, correlating with the Grimsnes taking a leap upwards. The Incubus is still very powerful but not as powerful as the Python. The Myron is just not very good at all, and nothing changed with the increased EHP/PG/CAP and Turret changes. Let's explore together simple ways to tweak these two. Personally, not a fan of the rapid fire railgun turrets, please keep that in mind. Also keep in mind that the ROF on railLAV's was reduced on purpose, due to infantry sniping. Maybe a combination of increasing the Incubus bonus to ROF slightly, or simply removing the 70% rail turret inefficiency against vehicles and then increasing chargeup time rather than decreasing ROF to balance? Or heat? On the Myron/Grimsnes, someone advocated more maneuverability without increased speed, sounds like a fine idea. Experienced Myron pilots, what about it's fitting style or bonuses makes it so much worse than the Python. (A similar question but off topic, the Gunnlogi is quite less efficient than the Madrugar, bonus points to explain why) Appreciate the feedback "As well as stupid, Rattati is incredibly slow and accident-prone, and cannot even swim"


CCP Rattati C C P C C P Alliance 8214	Posted - 2014.09.28 09:30:00 - [2] - Quote I think we should also establish a few rules of thumb Small Turrets Blaster: Anti-Infantry Railgun: Anti-Vehicle Missiles: Dual Purpose Current Best to Worst by Type Anti Infantry Pilot: Missiles, Blaster, Rails Sidegunner - Dropship: Blaster, Missile, Rails Sidegunner - ADS:Blaster, Missile, Rails Anti Air Pilot: Missiles, Rails, Blaster Sidegunner - Dropship: Rails, Missile, Blaster Sidegunner - ADS: Rails, Missile, Blaster Anti Vehicle Pilot: Missiles, Rails, Blaster Sidegunner - Dropship: Rails, Missile, Blaster Sidegunner - ADS: Rails, Missile, Blaster Or something along those lines, to see if there are holes/unintended inefficiencies. Feel free to edit this, or expand, this is just to get the discussion going, please don't go off the rails because of my selections. "As well as stupid, Rattati is incredibly slow and accident-prone, and cannot even swim"


CCP Rattati C C P C C P Alliance 8434	Posted - 2014.10.04 13:37:00 - [3] - Quote I'm still listening "As well as stupid, Rattati is incredibly slow and accident-prone, and cannot even swim"


CCP Rattati C C P C C P Alliance 8462	Posted - 2014.10.06 04:21:00 - [4] - Quote Yes, I would like to deploy a few tactical tweaks over next two weeks, concerning the viability of dropships. Let's state a few data points. 1) Fact. The sky did not fall down, the ADS is not being instapopped all over the place, that much is clear. So swarm vs ADS does not need any specific attention. It's scarier for sure for pilots, but not untenable. 2) Small Blaster Turrets are better in Delta, our data shows that clearly 3) Incubus is less efficient than the Python, in effective kills per spawn, or K/S. (i.e. Shield better than Armor) 4) Myron is less efficient than the Grimsnes in K/S. (Shield better than Armor) 3 and 4a) K/S is not an absolute measure of dropship efficiency as they are used for different things, but they are still a useful metric. WP/S is another and ISK destroyed/ISK lost is the third. Any other smart metric that comes to mind? 3a) Can a veteran pilot please post indisputably competitive fits for all 4 dropships for us to study internally. Protofits link will do nicely. 4) Yet, people complain that the Python is worse than the Incubus, even after the rail ROF nerf. Let's get to some more discussions. Players have been asking, "what is the role of the ADS", and to that I only have one answer, "we provide the sandbox, you play in it". We have no intent to shoehorn in an exact playstyle. We have broadly defined the HAV Large Turrets to be "AV", and that's it. Same goes for the Dropships, they should be durable and slow, and be able to deliver their payload of a full squad to an objective while under fire, and while suppressing enemy infantry, basically a Huey. However, we can define some gameplay where the ADS should excel. Of course the Apache is the "blueprint" for the Close Combat Infantry suppression and/or Tank hunting, and the AC-130 for long range suppression. A) First contact. ADS, being the most mobile unit, rapidly deploys two 2 man units on Objectives with uplinks, while the rest wait to spawn, or even 3-4 solo units. It can then reinforce weak spots and support infantry, that in turn supports the ADS against infantry AV. B) Harass and Suppress enemy airforces by destroying recently delivered dropships on the ground C) Destroy enemy HAVs - the firepower should be enough to to identify a hostile target, and take it out in a single run, even under light Anti-Air resistance. If an HAV is deployed in the middle of the map, the ADS should be able to take it out unless 2 Anti-Air units are defending it (give or take), if an HAV is deployed in the redzone and comes rumbling into battle, the ADS should be able to put a hurt on even the toughest Madrugar. If the ADS flies into a trap and 2 Small Turret gunners pop out with Forges or Swarms, the ADS should probably be destroyed. D) Recon - Utilizing speed and equipping scanners to provide intel E) Objective Suppression, stay out of the 175 meter lock range, at 300 out of Forge Range and pummel an objective or spawnpoint with missile fire/rail fire F) All the Delta changes were intended to do was These are a few playstyles that should work. I hear that the Incubus ROF is not enough currently to properly be able to do C). What is the effective ROF necessary at full skills, to be able to kill a fully skilled solo Madrugar in a "single" strafing run, or DPS necessary? Can it be done by Pilot alone? At 2 or 3 gunners, it should be relatively easy as you have invested 3 players to kill 1 in the HAV, the HAV should then have 2 Anti Air infantry to defend him. Tank players, where is your line, you don't want to be instapopped do you? Please support your ROF/DPS proposals with the fits you are using and also the Madrugar/Gunnlogi you are attacking. "As well as stupid, Rattati is incredibly slow and accident-prone, and cannot even swim"


CCP Rattati C C P C C P Alliance 8463	Posted - 2014.10.06 04:49:00 - [5] - Quote medomai grey wrote: CCP Rattati, I think it would be faster to go in game and get another player to lend you ADSs to experience it for yourself. Don't ask me because I'd charge you isk for each one. Trying to balance the interactions between A and B while only having experience with A seems... difficult. Let's get one thing straigh, this is not about me. Period. "As well as stupid, Rattati is incredibly slow and accident-prone, and cannot even swim"


CCP Rattati C C P C C P Alliance 8474	Posted - 2014.10.06 07:37:00 - [6] - Quote medomai grey wrote: CCP Rattati wrote: medomai grey wrote: CCP Rattati, I think it would be faster to go in game and get another player to lend you ADSs to experience it for yourself. Don't ask me because I'd charge you isk for each one. Trying to balance the interactions between A and B while only having experience with A seems... difficult. Let's get one thing straight, this is not about me. Period. It's about trying to achieve balance, the job you were tasked with. If you took offence to my post, know that it was not written with the intent as an insult. I was merely suggesting a method of getting a better view of the "bigger picture". And you are putting effort into seeing a "bigger picture" to achieve a more balanced game; I respect that. You were right in that the ADS rate of fire bonus was oddly high. But you lacked the ADS experience to know how adversely it would affect ADS's effectiveness against other vehicles. Having experience with not only ADS, but all items in Dust514 will go a long way in helping you balance items. Increasing the rate of fire bonus isn't the only solution to increasing ADS effectiveness against vehicles. For example, you could tweak the damage efficiencies against vehicles; although I am strongly against that idea because it's counter intuitive. I knew, but the community refused to propose ideas or numbers to affect the decision. Noone can be an expert in everything and I don't pretend to. However, thinking that my ability with the ADS or that I need to see something with my own eyes, to properly balance, is silly. You are the experts, you describe the problem and how to change it, or in this case, you admit there is a problem and propose ways to reduce the problem. "As well as stupid, Rattati is incredibly slow and accident-prone, and cannot even swim"


CCP Rattati C C P C C P Alliance 8481	Posted - 2014.10.06 11:47:00 - [7] - Quote Alena Ventrallis wrote: CCP Rattati wrote: Yes, I would like to deploy a few tactical tweaks over next two weeks, concerning the viability of dropships. Let's state a few data points. 1) Fact. The sky did not fall down, the ADS is not being instapopped all over the place, that much is clear. So swarm vs ADS does not need any specific attention. It's scarier for sure for pilots, but not untenable. 2) Small Blaster Turrets are better in Delta, our data shows that clearly 3) Incubus is less efficient than the Python, in effective kills per spawn, or K/S. (i.e. Shield better than Armor) 4) Myron is less efficient than the Grimsnes in K/S. (Shield better than Armor) 3 and 4a) K/S is not an absolute measure of dropship efficiency as they are used for different things, but they are still a useful metric. WP/S is another and ISK destroyed/ISK lost is the third. Any other smart metric that comes to mind? 3a) Can a veteran pilot please post indisputably competitive fits for all 4 dropships for us to study internally. Protofits link will do nicely. 4) Yet, people complain that the Python is worse than the Incubus, even after the rail ROF nerf. Let's get to some more discussions. Players have been asking, "what is the role of the ADS", and to that I only have one answer, "we provide the sandbox, you play in it". We have no intent to shoehorn in an exact playstyle. We have broadly defined the HAV Large Turrets to be "AV", and that's it. Same goes for the Dropships, they should be durable and slow, and be able to deliver their payload of a full squad to an objective while under fire, and while suppressing enemy infantry, basically a Huey. However, we can define some gameplay where the ADS should excel. Of course the Apache is the "blueprint" for the Close Combat Infantry suppression and/or Tank hunting, and the AC-130 for long range suppression. A) First contact. ADS, being the most mobile unit, rapidly deploys two 2 man units on Objectives with uplinks, while the rest wait to spawn, or even 3-4 solo units. It can then reinforce weak spots and support infantry, that in turn supports the ADS against infantry AV. B) Harass and Suppress enemy airforces by destroying recently delivered dropships on the ground C) Destroy enemy HAVs - the firepower should be enough to to identify a hostile target, and take it out in a single run, even under light Anti-Air resistance. If an HAV is deployed in the middle of the map, the ADS should be able to take it out unless 2 Anti-Air units are defending it (give or take), if an HAV is deployed in the redzone and comes rumbling into battle, the ADS should be able to put a hurt on even the toughest Madrugar. If the ADS flies into a trap and 2 Small Turret gunners pop out with Forges or Swarms, the ADS should probably be destroyed. D) Recon - Utilizing speed and equipping scanners to provide intel E) Objective Suppression, stay out of the 175 meter lock range, at 300 out of Forge Range and pummel an objective or spawnpoint with missile fire/rail fire F) All the Delta changes were intended to do was reduce the ADS's OP efficiency at almost everything, Now we can carefully bring tactically chosen efficiencies back. These are a few playstyles that should work. I hear that the Incubus ROF is not enough currently to properly be able to do C). What is the effective ROF necessary at full skills, to be able to kill a fully skilled solo Madrugar in a "single" strafing run, or DPS necessary? Can it be done by Pilot alone? At 2 or 3 gunners, it should be relatively easy as you have invested 3 players to kill 1 in the HAV, the HAV should then have 2 Anti Air infantry to defend him. Tank players, where is your line, you don't want to be instapopped do you? Please support your ROF/DPS proposals with the fits you are using and also the Madrugar/Gunnlogi you are attacking. Finally!!!!!! A) I think this shouldn't be a function of the ADS. It should be an attack vehicle with no passenger support save a gunner. Apache's job is to kill, Huey's is to transport. B and C) that's going to necessitate returning things to how they were. Or how about this: Here's the thing, you can't have a gun be both AV and AP. That's the large blaster with no dispersion. So what you need to do is specialize each drop ship with a role. Python is about infantry suppression with missiles. Therefore, give them a splash radius bonus instead of ROF. Say 10% per level, like the old ROF skill. This ups a 2.5m splash to 3.75m, which if I remember correctly is about the range of a standard nanohives resupply for visual aid. Now it can kill infantry easy, but suffers against vehicles, lacking the DPS to break their tank. Now the incubus could be the vehicle buster. In order to bust vehicles in a single run, you either need to return the ROF bonus and unnerf small rails to their old ROF, or you need to give incubi a large (~12.5%) bonus to hybrid damage. It needs high DPs to bust tanks in a single run. There is no way around it. D) Again, ADS are Apache's. They don't do recon, they attack. You call them in after the recon ship provides the Intel. I'd say a return of SLAVs would fill this role nicely. E) Again, this would be the Python's role. The incubus could do it, but the Python would do it better. With a splash radius bonus, it makes suppression much easier. F) And again, if you want them to kill tanks in a single pass, we need to way ramp up their DPs, which means they will slaughter infantry. There's no way to stop this. My suggestions mean that the high DPs one will have some difficulty engaging infantry, but in the end, the high DPs needed to bust tanks is high enough to rip apart infantry. A) I am fine with a small transport capability. Is removing that down to lets say pilot plus 2 gunners viable and feasible? D) I disagree, an ADS can cover way more ground, sure a LAV can too, but again, I don't like shoehorning, the ADS can do that fine even though its not an Apache job. I like the splash damage increase instead of ROF, but we can increase dps by increasing damage instead of ROF on incubus, making them less spammy and more powerful. The spam makes it way easier to kill infantry than high powered and fewer shots. We can also introduce a slight dispersion to rails so less accurate against infantry. What is the effective DPS to kill a Madrugar, that remains unanswered. "As well as stupid, Rattati is incredibly slow and accident-prone, and cannot even swim"


CCP Rattati C C P C C P Alliance 8492	Posted - 2014.10.06 13:37:00 - [8] - Quote a brackers wrote: Rattati, ran out of characters to do a quote. What I would recommend as we currently can't do B or C is re introducing turret variants. Give us an av and an ai of each turret and maybe a half way in between. Av should be high direct damage but no splash. Ai is moderate splash damage with not much higher direct damage. You are trying to encourage ads to strafe. This means we need a similar mechanic to the large Missile turret for all our turrets. We need to fire a lot of damage over about a second or two and then take a while to reload. Then the ads skill can be too increase mag size to increase the length of the strafe we can do. One suggestion for the av variants is you could have no magazines. Total ammo such that the total damage of proto max skills can kill a heavily tanked proto tank if most of the shots hit. Then you have to go to a supply depo to rearm. This also means the tank can dodge some of your fire then doesn't have to worry about you for a bit. (Don't make it so we can kill the tank in like 5 seconds though. At least 20 seconds of hovering to kill it so if there is any enemy av the tank will survive as the ads gets thrown off course by the av) Sounds very interesting, indeed. Huge DPS, very small clips, long reload times for tank hunting. Are you suggesting AV missile variants with no splash. I like it, but there won't be a rail anti infantry version, though, I don't see how that would fit. This is getting the creative juices flowing. "As well as stupid, Rattati is incredibly slow and accident-prone, and cannot even swim"