Primus Core
Searing Winds
23
   |
Posted - 2013.06.03 21:09:00 -
[1] - Quote
Alright, I wanted to start with the heavy, at least in regards to the HMG and its current play. The HMG is, hands-down, supposed to be the strongest anti-infantry ballistic weapon in the game. It's an HMG, that's what their intended for. However, it feels like with each patch, the HMG is nerfed further and further into the ground. An assault rifle is far more useful than an HMG in just about any scenario at this point, because the AR is more accurate, has more range, and due to the hit-detection bug (that still hasn't been fixed entirely) will land far more bullets on a big, fat heavy than a heavy will land on a small, fast assault/scout suit.
The final stats on my heavy suit brought me up to about 500 shield hp, and about 700 armor hp through modules and skills. And yet going toe-to-toe against one or two assault suits with assault rifles and me with my prototype HMG, I'll be lucky if I can kill the first one and at least damage the second. The point of the heavy suit is to be able to soak up as much damage as possible, and that's just not happening at all in any scenario other than against militia-grade gear, and even that's arguable. All in all the HMG has only seen its real usefulness when I somehow manage to get behind the enemy team and get the surprise on them - the range on the HMG is next-to-useless beyond close range, even if only for suppressive fire.
Continuing onward towards assault dropships, I decided to give them a try with my respec since I use to like flying dropships. Let me start with this - don't waste SP specializing into assault dropships. The control scheme is just about as counterintuitive as it gets. Any time you tap one thumbstick or the other, the whole damn thing attempts to do a barrel roll - you spend more time trying to get control of your aircraft than you do actually flying it. Furthermore, once you've got some semblance of stability in your flight patterns, it's now a game of figuring out how to manage your speed. Short of flying ten feet off of the ground, if you're drying to get across a large map fast odds are you're going to overshoot it by a mile because there is no proper way to slow it down. Even real helicopters can slow themselves from breakneck speeds and have an easier time of it than these dropships.
More specifically on the assault dropships, what this all means is that it's essentially impossible to ever get the pilot's turret trained on a target for more than a few seconds at best. I still wish we'd go back to the pre-E3 control scheme for dropships, which was far easier to control and manage than this crap.
Long story short, this isn't balancing the game. This is nerfing for the sake of nerfing. On top of that, we're focusing on balancing the game for solo and new players, not for team play. It really feels like we're trying to make each class the exact same class in terms of performance 1v1, rather than make each class unique and efficient in their respective roles. |
Primus Core
Searing Winds
23
|
Posted - 2013.06.08 23:29:00 -
[2] - Quote
Ser Chard wrote:Aiming assault drop ships ain't bad - use a scattered blaster and strafe targets for assists and the occasional kill on a wounded enemy, or use accelerated missile launchers (never cycled on the front turret) and aim carefully for kills on direct hits (try to get DMG to one-shot-kills on most suits) or assists with splash damage. Get up close, just be ready to pop boosters and get out of there at the first threat of damage.
Also learn to "swing" the drop ship up and down like a rocking horse to hit targets at odd angles.
My beef is with how its literally impossible to hover in one spot. I'd like altitude to lower ONLY if you pivot (turning jets to side) or lower using the bumper.
I've been flying dropships for months, and this is the kind of stuff I'm talking about. In regards Derrith's comment, you can't possibly have been flying dropships that long with a comment like that. I'm not taking it as an insult, mind, but I've flown dropships in each build for over a year now, and the sensitivity on the dropships controls feels more and more sensitive with each build. Furthermore, if you're not coming into the battle moving at two miles an hour, you're already moving too fast and go straight over it.
In general, I'm not saying that the dropships need to be so easy for everyone to fly - the E3 build they were still difficult to control but not so difficult as to actively punish players for rotating the yaw five degrees too far to the right. To my understanding, physics was in for one build, though minor, with the old control scheme before being changed to the current (which, might I add, was still easier than it is now). The current control scheme - while I admit it is rewarding for players who dump the time and isk into it by being able to say "Ha! I can do it and you can't!" - is not very effective. The whole reason why afterburners a pretty much a staple on dropships is because they're ONLY effective when essentially immobile or moving at low speed.
Generally speaking when I see a vehicle in a video game, I expect it to work at least as well or better than other games and/or real. Currently, dropships are trash. Maybe the current control scheme and movement mechanics will work better when maps are increased to their full intended size, we'll have to see. Stopping/slowing down a dropship from full speed is too inefficient and too slow, aiming with the ADS is still a little too touchy to properly justify it, etcetera.
Derrith - you fail to understand the point of feedback. Furthermore, us complaining has very little effect on CCP's release schedule. They have a plan for when they release what content, any comments we make only have an effect on their next patch if it's something they're already working on, save for a handful of minor scenarios. The bombers/fighter jets were actually in the game already back in the fall of 2011 before they were removed and replaced with the dropships. CCP has always had issues with the flying vehicles though, and at the rate they're going, they're never going to get flying vehicles right. |