Making snubs more appealing

[Doria]

We have an expression here in Brasil (something gets lost in translation, but oh well): "The dirty talking about the badly washed."

Let's go back to the snubs subject, plox?

For an instance, adding to my other post I also agree that is something to consider having caps defense based on shields rather than hull.

[Hidamari]

"Snub fights last too long" -> How many threads have been made about caps wanting exactly that situation on their fights, complaining they're too short. Snub pvp doesn't take long, people being trash and hiding behind npcs does.

ye but people want snub fights so that even people that are garbage can finish each other off in ten minutes, so to more skilled players its like a western quick draw contest at high noon... instant death

[TheJarl]

Please stay on topic people.

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[Moberg]

From the perspective of a new player, I imagine that snub combat is no fun initially. You join a fight in your brand new 25mil ship, excited to kill a few people, and get oneshotted/facemelted by atleast half of the server. Other games solve this problem with matchmaking, the amount of players doesn't allow us this luxury. So the new player puts a few hours into practice, tries to get better. Mh, atleast the new player can survive for a while now, but it's still rather frustrating, especially with the amount of opportunities that can still kill you in just a few seconds or less. Assuming this will cause a lot of frustration, what is the first thing that comes to mind?
The large capital ships Discovery is also advertising itself with. Why would you desire to practice a few hours in a snub when you can have even more impact in a larger, more epic ship, without even having the need to practice much. And yet, you can definitely influence a fight that way, as all the complaints about caps barging into snub fights show.
So, what is the choice for the new player? Lots of practice paired with potential frustration for an alright impact in fights, or flying in epic caps and influencing fights without much practice? Especially when it pairs you with lots of players on your skill level who can't be bothered to use snubs either or can't use many of their snub skills in capital ship combat.

It's not really surprising to me when these players choose capital ships over snubs.

I've tried some concepts around distinct support weaponry earlier this year, but it's really difficult to find a balance that makes it useless for good players and useful for bad players, if it even exists.

[Haste]

This illustrates my opinion pretty well:

[13:52:42] Haste: In general the bomber class is extremely limited and bland atm while it's one that should see a lot of use in a server filled with cap and gb spam
[13:53:02] Haste: Giving it more love might see more people climbing into the natural counter, fighters, as well

There are quite a few plans to do this in the works.

As for fighter-versus-capital balance, I don't think it's very far off as it is. Make fighters better against capitals and bombers have no reason to exist. Make fighters worse and you make capitals/GBs - that already offer more value-per-player, if we're perfectly honest - even more appealing to the average player.

Fighters have a really good niche already which is taking on other fighters and bombers. It's just that without a good pool of bombers to shoot at, there's very little reason to grab a fighter. I think addressing that "issue" will increase the number of fighters we see zipping around.

There are also some plans in the works to create more interesting loadout options for the various fighter types, and you should see more of those plans soon. It's quite likely the whole "noobtube argument" will be addressed by that as well.

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[Oldum]

This illustrates my opinion pretty well:

[13:52:42] Haste: In general the bomber class is extremely limited and bland atm while it's one that should see a lot of use in a server filled with cap and gb spam
[13:53:02] Haste: Giving it more love might see more people climbing into the natural counter, fighters, as well

There are quite a few plans to do this in the works.

As for fighter-versus-capital balance, I don't think it's very far off as it is. Make fighters better against capitals and bombers have no reason to exist. Make fighters worse and you make capitals/GBs - that already offer more value-per-player, if we're perfectly honest - even more appealing to the average player.

Fighters have a really good niche already which is taking on other fighters and bombers. It's just that without a good pool of bombers to shoot at, there's very little reason to grab a fighter. I think addressing that "issue" will increase the number of fighters we see zipping around.

There are also some plans in the works to create more interesting loadout options for the various fighter types, and you should see more of those plans soon. It's quite likely the whole "noobtube argument" will be addressed by that as well.

So basically, from making bombers worth to fly should we be expecting the increase of fighters, as caps wouldn't be able to safely counter bombers, while fighters couldn't do much about fighters ? I thought it was suppose to be like this for long now.

[Sanctions]

Why would you desire to practice a few hours in a snub

Power has to be deserved.

you can have even more impact in a larger, more epic ship, without even having the need to practice much

Not to mention that these cows are large, slow, expensive and painful things to fly which give no guarantee to get a blue at all. And anyway rookie will end up camping nearest PoB cus of 2 VHFs.

[Moberg]

What if I told you that newer players do not care as much about blues as you seemingly do. The point is that caps allow unskilled players to survive and fight without risking to be instantly ravaged by just about anything. And by not dying 20 seconds into the fight, they can have more fun in caps than in snubs at much less effort and time required. They have 'earned' the large ship not by practice, but with trading. If it's more fun, then sure. I'm the last person that would force players into a role/shipclass anyway.

[Hidamari]

if people dont want to learn then thats their damn fault, curbing the entire game because of this is dumb.

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[Jack_Henderson]

From the perspective of a new player, I imagine that snub combat is no fun initially. You join a fight in your brand new 25mil ship, excited to kill a few people, and get oneshotted/facemelted by atleast half of the server. Other games solve this problem with matchmaking, the amount of players doesn't allow us this luxury. So the new player puts a few hours into practice, tries to get better. Mh, atleast the new player can survive for a while now, but it's still rather frustrating, especially with the amount of opportunities that can still kill you in just a few seconds or less. Assuming this will cause a lot of frustration, what is the first thing that comes to mind?
The large capital ships Discovery is also advertising itself with. Why would you desire to practice a few hours in a snub when you can have even more impact in a larger, more epic ship, without even having the need to practice much. And yet, you can definitely influence a fight that way, as all the complaints about caps barging into snub fights show.
So, what is the choice for the new player? Lots of practice paired with potential frustration for an alright impact in fights, or flying in epic caps and influencing fights without much practice? Especially when it pairs you with lots of players on your skill level who can't be bothered to use snubs either or can't use many of their snub skills in capital ship combat.

It's not really surprising to me when these players choose capital ships over snubs.

+1
That's exactly how I think it works for many new players.