Alena Ventrallis
Ahrendee Inc.
Negative-Feedback
2688
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Posted - 2015.03.13 19:06:00 -
[1] - Quote
I want to make the case to limit hardeners to one per vehicle, not just to Rattati, but to the whole community. I think a single hardener will give us an easier time finding balance, it will stymie some complaints of OP tanks, and it could actually allow for a buff to shield. I will outline my case in several points.
1. Eve Precedent
I understand that Eve is a sandbox game and we want players to build a variety of different fits, but a hardener limit has Eve precedence. Take a look at the Bastion Module. This module is very similar to Dust hardeners. Take note of the last miscellaneous stat is has. "Max Modules Of This Group Allowed: 1" Bastion would be ridiculously OP if you could stack multiples. But limiting it to one allows it to be powerful without breaking the game. Hardeners in Dust can follow this model very easily. Now, we can balance hardeners around the fact that only one can be used at a time.
2. It enforces the "waves of oppurtunity" concept of vehicles.
The 1.7 vehicle concept gave us the idea of "waves of oppurtunity" Basically, a vehicle would be a powerhouse when it's modules are on, but very vulnerable while it's modules are on cooldown. A lot of mistakes were made, and I believe a lot of grief could have been avoided if we had had a hardener limit from the get-go. The tank to have back then was a triple-hardened Gunnlogi. You simply turned on one hardener at a time to have a perma-hardened tank. This meant that there was no "wave of oppurtunity." A hardener limit would have stifled this from the get-go. I understand people want to be able to build whatever they want, but some things should be a limiting factor. PG/CPU is a limiting factor. Slot layout is another. Sometimes limits are needed in order to make a fun game for everyone, and a hardener limit is one of those things.
3. It encourages fitting diversity.
Counter-intuitive as it seems, a hardener limit also means we can se more fitting diversity. Back in 1.7, the meta was to stack as much hardening as you could, and either run one at a time for perma-hardening or run several at the same time to make you near impenetrable t everything. With a hardener limit of one, that is no longer an option. You now have to fit other things besides hardeners. Again, I understand the sandbox gaeplay of Dust, but this encourages module use beyond stacked hardeners, meaning I have to find a balance around plates, extenders, regulators, reppers, scanners, and all the other modules. Tanking will be more varied; Will you run a Maddie with lots of plates and a hardener to be the ultimate fortress, or will you run mainly reps to repair through the damage? Will you give you Gunnlogi lots of HP, or have scanners, fuel injectors, and other utility mods and rely on your hardener for protection? It's no longer "Throw on hardeners and become immortal."
4. It allows us to buff hardeners to an appropriate level.
Make hardeners stronger, you encourage stacking which leads to the 1.7 problem we had. Nerf them, they become useless unless you stack them. With only one hardener to worry about, we can balance tuffing shield hardener resistance, for example, doesn't have catastrophic effects on balance because I cannot stack them into OP territory. Now tweaking is easier, because you only have one hardener on a vehicle to worry about. Balance becomes easier since there is no way to compound any given buff to hardeners by stacking them.
5. We can buff shield hardeners to be useful on Gunnlogis without breaking them.
Currently, armor hardeners are completely superior to shield ones. Shields naturally have lower health, so the same 40% hardener gives less ehp overall than the same 40% hardener on armor. So with one hardener limit, we can buff the shield hardener to give more ehp than it does now. And because we only have to worry about one, we can buff it to a useful level without returning to perma-hardened Gunnlogis of 1.7.
Conclusion
For the reasons above, I think a hardener limit is an acceptable limit on sandbox gameplay for the benefits we gain. Vehicles should be strong when hardeners are on, but too many hardeners makes balance too difficult to achieve. Please keep commentary civil, we need to have a decent discussion on this idea.
Listen to my muscle memory
Contemplate what I've been clinging to
Forty-six and two ahead of me
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Alena Ventrallis
Ahrendee Inc.
Negative-Feedback
2692
|
Posted - 2015.03.13 22:14:00 -
[2] - Quote
Harpyja wrote:How about just add capacitors to vehicles? It will seriously fix so many problems and balance issues.
If you want to run three hardeners at once, great! But don't expect them to all last as long as they will consume three time as much capacitor. The current cooldown model is flawed because the duration of three hardeners is the same as the duration as a single hardener.
Seriously, I think it's time to transfer vehicles to the capacitor model. You can stack powerful modules in exchange for shorter active run times, or use "lesser" modules for smaller benefits over longer periods of time.
I would love this, but I think my idea is more realistic. That would require such an extensive overhaul...
Listen to my muscle memory
Contemplate what I've been clinging to
Forty-six and two ahead of me
|