Nova Knife
Seituoda Taskforce Command
Caldari State
789
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Posted - 2012.08.29 22:35:00 -
[1] - Quote
At first I didn't like the new handling, but having spent more time with it I kind of dig it. It does still need some love, however.
One of the coolest things added was the ability to take evasive action. The problem is.. They don't evade anything. I can prevent a swarm volley from hitting me, making them miss by doing a barrel roll but they still turn, track and hit me when I come out of the spin. I will say it is very nifty for avoiding missile installations and missile tanks though. Plus it's just damn plain fun.
On the topic of the new movement possibilities, it seems inconsistent. Sometimes I can be going straight forward, attempt a barrel roll and lose a ton of altitude, maybe bouncing off the ground.. Others I can be doing the same thing moving forward and the roll is perfect, with no loss of height to speak of. This is very noticable when trying to do a back or frontflip. Sometimes you completely stall out when your ship is facing straight up/down... Which is usually a bad thing and requires some skillfull recovery to prevent you from falling to your ship's doom. So, a more consistent flight pattern would be a great thing.
Other stuff:
Hovering.... This is damn near impossible to do now, which is kind of bad. I spent damn close to an hour trying to hover somewhat stationary, and I just couldn't do it. I could get close, but I'd always be drifting in a pretty obvious way and even minor correction attempts simply reversed the direction of the drift and were incredibly awkward. Assigning a button to 'hover' or level your ship out would be absolutely amazing.
First person camera - This needs some serious work. It is too awkward to use, provides no useful UI to the pilot, and is just plain bad. (Sorry art/UI team, you know I still love you!) There is really no reason to use this camera at all, as the third person view just gives you a much better view of the field. If the option to 'look around' in first person view was there, perhaps being able to see to the sides or below easier than the third person view, there would be much more incentive to use it and it would be much more helpful.
Third person camera - This is still a problem with seeing to the left or right, or even directly below without altering the flight path of your ship. It makes gaining situational awareness awkward as for you to look around, you're messing up your gunner's shots. As I've suggested before, a 'camera modifier' or 'look around' button that used the right stick to move the camera instead of the ship's directions would be amazing, both for general flight and for the ease of logistics modules.
Friendly Gunner Impacts - It's cool that the ship's gunners can affect flight tracjectory, from the force of a missile firing, even if it doesn't hit the ship. If it hits the ship, the amount it affects the ship's trajectory can be pretty obnoxious at times, though. This could probably be toned down or removed though. With the current turret vectors being offset my movement the way they are, the gunners can hit the ship a lot accidentally, and can seriously put the ship at risk at times. Even when they do not hit, they are one of the main reasons why hovering in one general spot is impossible right now,
Hostile impacts - This needs to be toned down by a lot. I've had a swarm launcher impact turn my ship almost a full 360. I'm all for impacts nudging or bumping a ship, but the amount it does so for even small missiles is pretty obnoxious. A railgun impact spinning me 360 I could see... But swarm launchers? Not so much. There isn't nearly as much force there! Either way, It's cool to be able to be knocked off course, but with the current camera shake that happens, A lot of times recovery simply isn't possible when you get hit, and even if you have plenty of health left, you can easily be forced to crash from the smallest of impacts.
Warpoint/Skillpoint gain.. This is still a massive issue- Dropship pilots gains are a bad joke that forgot its own punchline. Incentive to fly these beyond them being totally cool... simply isn't there. For example, I can sit there attemping to hover/circle over an objective/area, and have my gunners go 8/0 and 12/0 a piece. From the assists there, I get about 7-8 kills worth of points. So, I should still get a decent amount, right? Wrong. In a round of flying, my gunners getting kills, I have yet to see more than an 8k SP gain. The next round I can go 15-30 kills in my HAV and get 60-140k Skillpoints at the end. Why would anyone bother with dropships?
This thread details an idea to give dropships a more concrete role on the battlefield and a way to gain more points for them. I've also suggested in the past that the dropship pilot should get shared credit for every kill his gunners make. So, if a gunner makes a kill, both pilot and gunner get +50(*squad bonus modifier if one is applicable) points and a kill on their stats. Note: Only the pilot and gunner who made the kill would get credit, other gunners and passengers would only get the assist. You might not think this is important, but a lot of people actually care about their stats. People see dropship piloting as a way to ruin their KDR, so they avoid it even if they would've made a great pilot!
Logistics Dropships - All these pan out to be are dropships with built in CRU's. They get no discernible bonus to remote repairs, and are actually penalized for trying to do so in practical situations! This penalty comes from the impossibility of actually maintaining a line of sight on something long enough to gain a lock, and then staying in range. You just can't do it in any practical sense. It's been suggested in the past to replace these modules with new variants of turrets, and I highly recommend this option! (cont)
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Nova Knife
Seituoda Taskforce Command
Caldari State
789
|
Posted - 2012.08.29 22:36:00 -
[2] - Quote
Continuing on the logistics modules.. As said in my previous post making them a turret class instead of a module would work much better and would require the least tweaking of current assets. Changing the modules or aiming mechanics for dropships themselves would be awkward and a lot of work. Changing the current scripts and UI to a turret would probably be much less work as you'd maybe only need to make a new art asset, hell you could even copy one of the other turret types in the meantime and just paste the repair module's scripts into their event set and most people wouldn't notice/care about the shortcut, while loving you for making these modules actually viable to use! (Please do this if it means we will have workable logistics modules sooner! Functionality > appearance, every time!)
While on topic though, these modules need some serious work to their range. While I was firmly against the 360 degree repairing for infantry repair tools, vehicles arguably need it more, and it makes more sense with their rotating turrets. Simply put... It's a nightmare for vehicle drivers to maintain line of sight while doing their best to not die from things shooting them. It just can't happen. Give them a wider berth to how far off camera something can be before it loses lock so long as there is nothing between the vehicle and their target. Also, reduce the time to lock by about half. It's brutal as it is. Worth mentioning is the horrid range of these modules. I can see it being small for normal vehicles but logistics variants should have a massive increase to their range. In current iteration you need to sacrifice a large portion of your tank in order to fit these modules, and the short range forces you to be directly in harms way as you need to be such low altitude that you're practically landing to heal something. Increasing the range for logistics variants is an absolute must
EDIT : Dropship on its side - This is a very common occurance now that there is a myriad of things that can affect a ship involuntarily, as well as with people being adjusting to the new controls. A way to right your ship, even if it was slow and cumbersome is necessary. Right now, we get a lot of dropships on their side, which do not die but remain compltely useless until a teammate bumps them with an LAV or something. Thrusters should not go completely inert because the ship is on its side!
TL:DR of post
- Stop swarms from tracking ships completely during/after an evasive action
- Make it possible/easier to hover in one general spot without constant drift/recorrecting... ' hover or level' button would work.
- Tone down/remove the ability for a dropship's gunner to affect their trajectory
- Tone down (Do not remove) the effect of hostile impacts on tracjectory
- Add a method to right an upside down or sideways ship! This is a must.
- Make it possible for dropship pilots to gain a reasonable amount of points. (Shared kill credit with gunners instead of assists, create incentives for transport actions)
- Adjust remote repair modules for logistics variants, increasing range and ease of use. (Replace with modules with turrets please!!!)
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Nova Knife
Seituoda Taskforce Command
Caldari State
789
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Posted - 2012.09.06 01:45:00 -
[4] - Quote
Sees-Too-Much wrote:
You don't seem to have a good handle on the way dropships actually work. Check out the Dropship Flight School thread in general discussion. Skihids (an actual irl pilot, apparently) does a good job of explaining what a vector thrust aircraft is and why it won't behave like a fixed wing aircraft. The tl;dr of it is that you really can't perform any sort of evasive actions with these dropships. The only way to avoid swarms is to fly fast and fly high when you see them coming. That said, that strategy works exceptionally well and I rarely lose dropships anymore.
Have you tried doing backflips, barrel rolls, etc? It's totally possible and you completely avoid swarms. You can watch them fly past you, too. The problem is their perfect tracking makes them immediately turn 180 on the spot and come back and hit you. Flying fast is a terrible counter. Flying in a straight line or even a relatively small curve circling the map should get you shot down 100% of the time. Without intentional action to evade, the missiles should hit you. Even now just pitching or rocking can avoid them in most cases, but again like I said they just immediately turn and hit you.
Quote:
I'm not a fan of the idea of easy mode piloting.
Who's asking for easymode? The drift currently is pretty obnoxious and you need to make exxagerated movements to stay in relatively one spot. Maybe I misworded. I'm not asking for a way for a dropship to stay stationary without effort. I'm asking for a way to hover without constant corrections completely ruining your gunners' aim. (though, fixed gunner vectors would also fix this and make it less of an issue)
Quote:
Call in a free LAV and ram it until it's facing right-side up. It's not an elegant solution, but what're you gonna do?
I don't know, maybe ask for a solution to a bad/buggy situation that doesn't require a cheap workaround? It makes no sense my thrusters become completely useless with I am on my side. if anything I should be doing donut burnouts on the ground! (That would be awesome tbh) |