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+--- Thread: Who is in charge of balancing caps? (/showthread.php?tid=115543)
RE: Who is in charge of balancing caps? - Highland Laddie - 06-03-2014
(06-03-2014, 05:21 PM)Lonely_Ghost Wrote: ...First of all, let's just devide few things. One thing, is real life, with current technologies, other is history facts, like WWII, WWI, other historical naval battles, and another thing is game, which has no solid base on anything we have. Judging actions, which taking place in Disco, and comparing them to current or historical real actions, seems a bit naive to me. I think, that reason is obviouse.
And Laddie, no offence, but you just misunderstood my point, however, it could be my fault too, so sry.
Okay, fair enough, and I'm sorry if I misunderstood you as well. My point in bring up WWII (as with many other points made when it is usually used by folks) is that, even though this is a space simulation shooter and not real life, we can STILL draw examples of human thinking, behavior, and strategy from RL examples. Sure, NOBODY alive can tell you what a battle between two space-faring battleships SHOULD be like, because it thus far has never happened. But that doesn't mean we can't or shouldn't make inferences based upon history.
So, let's come to the understanding that, yes....this is a game and not RL, and not all RL and history examples are necessarily useful, BUT neither are they all irrelevant either. In my example, I was more addressing the mentality of naval commanders who, after WWI were highly skeptical that air power could ever sink a large battleship, until Admiral Billy Mitchell proved them wrong (READ THIS, history is certainly useful!)
(and then the Japanese air force proved the US Navy wrong again at Pearl Harbor)
Quote:...IMO, battleship should not be immunent from damage against bombers completely, nope. Othervise, bombers would loose their job, doesnt they? I'm saying, that battleship should have slightly increased their surviveability. So, 3-4 bombers would just not have enought firepower to harm BS that much. Players would rather fly to base and log couple of cruisers, rather trying to deal with battleship.
Yes..and the purpose of my suggestions were to help increase that survivability against snubs without necessarily making them just "stronger" in terms of ability to resist punishment, but ability to prevent it as well as dish it out more.
Quote:...And I think, that it's because of battleship's sizes. Battleship has very tight multylayer armor, to defend all the crew, and withstand other physical loads.
WWII battleships had no such armor, to maintain floatage, as far as i know, if Im wrong, I appologise. For same reason, aircrafts has no armor, and simple screwdriver can make a hole in it's hull. So, that would be with hull.
No, WWII battleships were much more heavily armed and armored than other naval combat ships. What made them so vulnerable to air power was that most of their armor was designed to resist OTHER battleship hits onto her broadsides, and not on her top, which is where most dive-bomber attacks came from, as well as below the water line, where most torpedo attacks came from.
So...based on that kind of logic, it wouldn't be a stretch to assume that space-borne battleships must have some sort of weakness/disadvantages somewhere. It's just a matter of us hashing out what/where those disadvantages are.
Quote:Then let's talk about sheilds. Battleships should have high yield reactors, with large enough power to maintain strong enough sheild, which would hold significant fire and other streses.True...but you also have to figure that the power of her weapons and engines and shields in a combat role would put stresses on the power plant. And...a power plant big enough to provide that much power is probably going to be vulnerable to combat stresses unless it's heavily protected. Let's take nuclear-powered ships, for example. Sure...the power output is going to be great...but if you run into severe engine damage and it's *POOF*...nuclear explosion. There's going to have to be some give somewhere.
Also, from a gameplay point of view...If the shields are going to be significantly stronger (and that part of the ship and regenerates itself the most), then there should be no botts/batts on it, or you reduce Hull strength to compensate for it. Otherwise...you just make BSs the end-all combat ship and that doesn't help with diversity or tactics. It just becomes a boring tank-fest. I like the approach of keeping the Hull strengths HIGHER, keeping the shields about the same, and you reduce the number of repair botts to reduce bott-feeding.
Quote: Battleship would also have a onboard repair team....
For game play purposes...this role is fulfilled by Botts/Batts. Perhaps an interesting proposal (which has been brought up before by others) would be to replace this with Repair Crew that is only available to Caps and can only repair caps (which would also prevent bott-feeding to snubs), but I think the devs have said this is hard-coded into the game and would be difficult to replace.
Quote:So, to summarize all this, I'd just say, that bomber's powerplant not generating enough power, to break throught much stronger energy defence, and multylayer armor of battleship. So, 1x bomber powerplant just not, but 5x should be. Like, 5x bomber powergenerators total pike output power could be equeal to normal level poweroutput of a battleship's reactor, feeding sheild projector.
See, I just think that places to bomber role at too much of a disadvantage from what is intended to be its primary target. And I don't think the details lie in the bomber's power plant, but the nature of the weapons, themselves. Ex. - the SNAC shoots focused streams of "anti-matter" at ships...which is probably not properly protected by simple armor alone. Maybe reducing SNAC damage at bit, while also making it so a SNAC drains all bomber energy entirely would be a good counter-balance (while making it use very little energy to launch a nova torp...but giving that a bit longer reload time to compensate).
5-1 just seems too high a ratio just to be able to drop a BS shields...I'd say 3-1 is still good.
RE: Who is in charge of balancing caps? - Highland Laddie - 06-03-2014
One more interesting read on Battleships from wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battleship#Value_for_money
RE: Who is in charge of balancing caps? - Jinx - 06-03-2014
i do sometimes wonder...
... if we had abandoned the ww1 and ww2 classifications entirely - and invented totally different names - if people would still try to compare them to real life....
especially annoying when people mix entire eras in order to make a point [and/or mix different classes of warfare ( like air / naval )]
if we just took the top capital ships from "master of orion 3" - as classes...
- courier ( gunboat )
- behemoth ( destroyer )
- titan ( battleship )
- leviathan ( carrier )
i just wish we had done that long long ago - maybe ppl would not try to squeeze their idea of ww2 warfare into freelancer too much anymore. but i am sure someone would come up with something to re-classify them to "what they know" from ww1/2 sooner or later. - so nothing gained, i guess.
[you guys DO know that the freelancer battleships have nothing in common with a ww2 battleship, ww1 battleship or even a fleetcarrier of today... they are spaceships - and there is absolutely NO evidence that they should be vulnerable to bombers ( ships that did not exist in freelancer )
i daresay, one of the great critizisms of balance is not so much that a swarm of bombers kills a battleship. - it is more that they run VERY little risk of getting killed in the process.
IF for example - 4 bombers would be a good match vs. a battleship - and the EXPECTED loss of life on the bomber side was at least 2 bombers at the time the battleship blows up - things would not be that bad. but the expected loss ATM is zero - provided both sides operate on similar average levels]
anyway - the OP questions answer: "at the beginning it was Mjolnir, which passed to Blodo, which passed to Aerelm" - so that is the ( probably rethorical ) question answered. - so if you have problems with the balance, you should probably contact Aerelm.
RE: Who is in charge of balancing caps? - Kiith - 06-03-2014
(06-03-2014, 08:29 PM)Jinx Wrote: [...]
there is absolutely NO evidence that they should be vulnerable to bombers ( ships that did not exist in freelancer )
[...]
Yep. Instead they're vulnerable to a small group of not-so-good fighters, as a situation existing in vanilla FL shows...
RE: Who is in charge of balancing caps? - Highland Laddie - 06-03-2014
Quote:... if we had abandoned the ww1 and ww2 classifications entirely - and invented totally different names - if people would still try to compare them to real life....
Well, in the absence of RL examples from which to draw from, we have to draw them from what we DO know...so I don't see it as worthless to draw the comparisons.
Quote:...i daresay, one of the great critizisms of balance is not so much that a swarm of bombers kills a battleship. - it is more that they run VERY little risk of getting killed in the process.
IF for example - 4 bombers would be a good match vs. a battleship - and the EXPECTED loss of life on the bomber side was at least 2 bombers at the time the battleship blows up - things would not be that bad. but the expected loss ATM is zero - provided both sides operate on similar average levels
This IS why I made these my first two suggestions:
Quote:1) BS Zappers - give them a long reach (1k or so) but minimal damage and make them an effective anti-torpedo weapon, kinda as an alternative to Flaks, but without the area damage. (Heck..I'm not even sure if this is possible already...but would be good if it was)
2) Solaris Gatts - give them longer range (maybe 1.5k) and high refire rate with moderate damage to help BSs not be completely vulnerable to bomber swarms.
I believe one of the major problems many BS pilots run into, is that they try to equip their ships as an anti-BS fighter and probably tend to ignore the anti-snub elements entirely (or maybe just throw 1 Flak on there just in case), which leaves them screwed and frustrated when they get caught by enemy bombers without snub support of their own. I think if you made the anti-snub weaponry a bit better, as I described, it would help offset that a bit.
RE: Who is in charge of balancing caps? - NonSequitor - 06-03-2014
Back in the olden days (4.84), I could give 4 Corsair bombers a fair run for their money in a Core BS. They eventually forced me to dock, but I killed a couple of them in the process. I think the encounter lasted about 20 minutes.
That, imo, is an optimal outcome. Both sides get challenged. The fight could have gone either way.
This was back when bombers could use fighter guns and caps didn't have hardpoint restrictions.
When I think about it in retrospect, I think assigning hardpoints for caps was a significant nerf. Not a game killer, but a definite buzzkill. The hardpoint decision was, for the most part, response to some BSes getting kitted out as anti-snub platforms. The argument, that an AA-dedicated BS would get annihilated by an anti-cap BS/BC fell on deaf ears.
If I had one wish concerning cap balance, it would be reverting the hardpoints back to being multi-use hardpoints and let the powercore determine what works and what doesn't.
RE: Who is in charge of balancing caps? - Highland Laddie - 06-03-2014
Quote:If I had one wish concerning cap balance, it would be reverting the hardpoints back to being multi-use hardpoints and let the powercore determine what works and what doesn't.
That's another possible solution, but then it really just becomes a race to the BS with the most gun slots and highest powercore, doesn't it?
RE: Who is in charge of balancing caps? - NonSequitor - 06-03-2014
(06-03-2014, 09:35 PM)Highland Laddie Wrote:Quote:If I had one wish concerning cap balance, it would be reverting the hardpoints back to being multi-use hardpoints and let the powercore determine what works and what doesn't.
That's another possible solution, but then it really just becomes a race to the BS with the most gun slots and highest powercore, doesn't it?
It's kind of like that right now, tbh. Only now, bombers (and maybe cruisers to a degree) can engage a BS even more cost-effectively than previously.
Without exagerating too much, if a single bomber and a destroyer show up and your BS is reasonably far from a safe haven, you might as well type "All hands abandon ship" and get up and get a snack from the fridge, and wait for the respawn.
RE: Who is in charge of balancing caps? - Trogdor - 06-04-2014
(06-02-2014, 07:30 PM)Highland Laddie Wrote:Quote:They are meant for fighting other battleships. Period.Quote:They can be used for supporting others with regens or docking rights or to provide a "safe area" where you can run to because the enemy chasing you won't dare to come that close to a BS.
Okay...that's actually two uses. And don't forget base sieges as well.
Quote:Everything else pretty much wrecks them.
Let's get on the same page first, because this is a ridiculous statement. Non-bomber snubs, freighters, and all transports certainly don't wreck them at all, so let's keep the emotionally-charged wording to a minimum and stick with actual facts.
I think the sentiment he was trying to express was that battleships are only effective at killing other battleships and bases. Everything else will either kill the battleship or run away.
(06-02-2014, 07:30 PM)Highland Laddie Wrote: So the problem as you see is they are too easily beaten (I assume... as I haven't flown any in 4.87) by other small caps (GBs to Cruisers/Destroyers)...also assuming that these smaller ships are ALSO in the hands of very skilled pilots. This is not really an issue because, as with most games involving a certain level of skill, the more skilled will do better. Just because some noob in a Battlecruiser gets beaten by a PvP expert in a Gunboat does NOT mean that Battleships are unbalanced and worthless. It means that you suck, and you need to get better, or change your tactics.
Very skilled? No. The Cruiser (maybe the gb - don't have any experience with GB-BS combat) pilot doesn't have to be 'very skilled', he just has to be competent, and know what his advantages are - weapon range and maneuverability.
(06-02-2014, 07:30 PM)Highland Laddie Wrote: Now, if in the case of 2 PvPers theoretically identical in skill, one might expect the larger, more powerful ship to emerge victorious in a majority of cases, which I would assume is true. If this is not the case...then we could talk about what specific fixes might help that instead of getting on here and just whining about how unbalanced things are, if they even are at all.
A cruiser using mortars at max range can hit the battleship because the battleship is large and slow. The battleship cannot hit the cruiser, because the cruiser can easily move out of the way before the BS's mortar can reach it.
Missiles would be the logical anti-cruiser weapon in this scenario, but the cruiser has 70(?) countermeasures and BS can only carry -20- missiles.
(Because of this, a battleship mounting missile turrets is quite effective against a cruiser that has chosen to equip a cloaking device instead of a CM dropper, but this is not the norm)
Assuming the cruiser pilot is competent and has set up his ship with at least one mortar, the cruiser always wins because the battleship can't hit it.
(06-02-2014, 07:30 PM)Highland Laddie Wrote: Based on some of what I've heard, I have a few ideas that might help out some of the balance issues that people seem to complain about (remembering that there is no real substitute for practice and just getting more skilled)Zapper turrets are useless due to technical limitations.
1) BS Zappers - give them a long reach (1k or so) but minimal damage and make them an effective anti-torpedo weapon, kinda as an alternative to Flaks, but without the area damage. (Heck..I'm not even sure if this is possible already...but would be good if it was)
(06-02-2014, 07:30 PM)Highland Laddie Wrote: 2) Solaris Gatts - give them longer range (maybe 1.5k) and high refire rate with moderate damage to help BSs not be completely vulnerable to bomber swarms.I assume you mean regular Solaris turrets. Solaris Gatling turrets are completely useless and never hit anything because of their wide spread.
I wouldn't mind having more effective solaris turrets but I think it's a lower priority; bombers are supposed to be strong vs battleships and even small buffs in this area could tip the balance seriously in the battleship's favor.
(06-02-2014, 07:30 PM)Highland Laddie Wrote: 3) Increase the range of either BS Secondary or Tertiary weapons so that they can hit Cruisers firing at their own maximum range. The trade off is that their heavy weapons are still only suited for closer combat with other BSes, but they are not completely at the mercy of a Cruiser who can fire out of range.
Pretty much this. If you've got a huge ship with a huge powercore and huge guns, I don't see why you should be both outmaneuvered and outgunned by a smaller ship. We need BS weapons, either heavy or primary, that are intended to combat cruisers. Either long-range low damage missiles that you can fire a bunch of, or sniper turrets that have long range, fast projectile speed, low damage, and slow turret rotation rate. Or significantly increase the amount of ammo we can carry for our existing missile turrets.
(06-02-2014, 07:30 PM)Highland Laddie Wrote: 4) Increase damage of BS Razors, Trebs, Mortars, and Forward Guns...but have them eat up more energy. Makes them a harder-hitting punch...but folks will have to learn how to manage their energy use better (thus, still involving skill)Why do you think this is necessary? Razors aside, all of those other guns are good at doing what they're intended to do - hitting other battleships.
(06-02-2014, 07:30 PM)Highland Laddie Wrote: 5) Significantly increase damage of Cap-ship missles, make them use very little energy, but keep them relatively slow.They are not really intended to be anti-battleship weapons, they're more suited for attacking cruisers, and their damage is fine for this purpose. The problem is, as I said above, that unless the cruiser has no CM, you will run out of missiles and have never hit the cruiser.
There are other turrets for fighting battleships, and I am fine with having to choose whether to set up my battleship for fighting cruisers or battleships, just as I believe the cruiser has to make this choice.
(06-02-2014, 07:30 PM)Highland Laddie Wrote: 6) Decrease the number of botts that BSs carry, but increase their Hull points by 30-50%S'fine. BS's health really isnt an issue. Fights already last a good long time. The problem is that most fights are long, drawn-out slaughters where the BS has no chance and may as well just be a punching bag, while the battleship's offensive capabilities amount to, well, this guy:
![[Image: 1234778504_amazing_fighting_skills.gif]](http://gifs.gifbin.com/1234778504_amazing_fighting_skills.gif)
RE: Who is in charge of balancing caps? - Highland Laddie - 06-04-2014
Trogdor...a very good reply, thank you, for starters. You tried to at least address every point I made, and that's a good start for having a discussion.
Okay, let's address a few things:
Quote:I think the sentiment he was trying to express was that battleships are only effective at killing other battleships and bases. Everything else will either kill the battleship or run away.
Okay...but this also seems to equate the enemy running way as losing a fight, when in-fact, area denial can be considered a victory. People need to learn that not every win ends with a blue message. As a Zoner, I'm sure you're aware of that.
Quote:The Cruiser (maybe the gb - don't have any experience with GB-BS combat) pilot doesn't have to be 'very skilled', he just has to be competent, and know what his advantages are - weapon range and maneuverability.
Quote:A cruiser using mortars at max range can hit the battleship because the battleship is large and slow. The battleship cannot hit the cruiser, because the cruiser can easily move out of the way before the BS's mortar can reach it.
Missiles would be the logical anti-cruiser weapon in this scenario, but the cruiser has 70(?) countermeasures and BS can only carry -20- missiles.
(Because of this, a battleship mounting missile turrets is quite effective against a cruiser that has chosen to equip a cloaking device instead of a CM dropper, but this is not the norm)
Assuming the cruiser pilot is competent and has set up his ship with at least one mortar, the cruiser always wins because the battleship can't hit it.
Quote:We need BS weapons, either heavy or primary, that are intended to combat cruisers. Either long-range low damage missiles that you can fire a bunch of, or sniper turrets that have long range, fast projectile speed, low damage, and slow turret rotation rate. Or significantly increase the amount of ammo we can carry for our existing missile turrets.
Right, and I did address the weapon range short-comings in my suggestions. Maybe one addendum would be to return BS missles to unlimited ammo like back in 4.85? That might help counter the CM/CD abilities on the cruisers.
Quote:Zapper turrets are useless due to technical limitations.
Well, they DO cause damage...just not effectively when it comes to hitting an enemy ship. My thought was...instead of being an anti-ship weapon, would they be better if they served as a sort of aiming countermeasure, like a flak turret, but without the area damage? Given a longer range and their high refire rate, I think they would become an EXCELLENT point-defense counter-measure against Novas.
Quote: I assume you mean regular Solaris turrets. Solaris Gatling turrets are completely useless and never hit anything because of their wide spread.
I wouldn't mind having more effective solaris turrets but I think it's a lower priority; bombers are supposed to be strong vs battleships and even small buffs in this area could tip the balance seriously in the battleship's favor.
As I said, I haven't piloted a cap in 4.87, but back in 4.86 (and on another server) I did fly a Bret BS that was out-fitted with about 12 Solaris Gats, which actually did a decent job at hitting snubs...just not damaging them greatly. Do they still use Solaris Gatts in 4.87, or have they just been replaced with straight Solaris turrets? I would say...why not make the Gatts actually effective by increasing their damage (just enough so that they are effective against snubs, but wouldn't be overwhelming against other caps..maybe this would also call for increasing their energy use to compensate?) and their range so they could potentially hit bombers before they get within prime SNACing range (about 1.5k range). As of now...the favor seems to be tipped a bit more in the Bombers favor...and I would see this as more of an equalizer...especially since the BS pilot would have to sacrifice his firepower vs. other caps by using a Gatt.
Quote:Why do you think this is necessary? Razors aside, all of those other guns are good at doing what they're intended to do - hitting other battleships.
Well, my primary thought was to make effective BS combat much more dependent on skilled energy usage and not just weapon loadout. Right now, the big craze seems to be for everyone to use Cerbs because among the heavy weapons they give the best bang for the buck.
I think it might be interesting to give BSes the option of being more of a "shot-gun" type fighter if some of their weapons had greater damage, but at the cost of much more energy usage...and maybe even shorter range (or maybe split...some have long range and do more damage (Sniper fighter) but eat way more energy, while others have much smaller range and do less damage but are more energy efficient.
Now...maybe this ALREADY exists and I just haven't been as aware of it, because I haven't been flying BSes, and if so then I apologize and those suggestions should probably just be ignored.
Quote:S'fine. BS's health really isnt an issue. Fights already last a good long time. The problem is that most fights are long, drawn-out slaughters where the BS has no chance and may as well just be a punching bag, while the battleship's offensive capabilities amount to, well, this guy:
Well, the bot removal plus Hull increase idea would serve two purposes that I think also need addressed: a) making BSes less effective bot feeders, but b) countering by giving the BS more hull (aka staying power) in the fight, which would hopefully help satisfy the "NO NERFING" crowd.