Governor Odius
Doomheim
177
   |
Posted - 2012.10.14 14:32:00 -
[1] - Quote
I think we're going about this the wrong way. Instead of asking "How can we make it possible to kill a dropship while it's doing the only thing that could be considered 'evasive actions' allowed by its flight physics?" we should be asking "How can we make it so 'swarm dodging flight' and 'warfighting flight' aren't the same thing?" In other words, let's make it so that flying around at top speed isn't the way for dropships to earn warpoints.
1) Range penalties on the turrets. The turrets need to be there, because that's how a dropship provides support and cover to troops it drops off, but it should lose effectiveness past 15m or so. Reduced damage, reduced accuracy, something.
2) Transport assist points. CCP has mentioned before that they're planning this, or something similar. For those of you not familiar with the idea, they'll have pilots get a portion of warpoints earned by anyone they recently dropped off.
3) Remove the swarm starter suit. As it is now every time a dropship or HAV appears on the field every d-bag grabs his swarm starter suit and goes to town. This is why you rarely see HAVs anymore and dropships are forced to behave the way they do.
What does this change?
You still won't be able to kill a dropship that is moving at max speed around the map. Not with swarms, anyway. But that pilot won't be able to make any money that way anymore. Instead, he or she will be taking position over cap points and supporting troops with rapid transport and acting as a mobile spawn point that shoots missiles. Maybe even fitting a remote rep, who knows? The point is that its role is being changed from "doofy looking AC-130" to "ground support aircraft" like it's supposed to be.
And while it's doing that ground support it's not flying at max speed, and a vigilant AV troop has an opportunity to do damage. Thus avoiding swarms becomes about situational awareness and reflexes, not holding the joystick forward and slightly to the left.
I believe that these three things (one of which CCP has all but stated is coming) are the best way to get the gameplay to where we want. |