Godslayer Balance Essay

[Haste]

While I don’t enjoy getting instakilled, something that happened to me just yesterday from a missile launched by a capital ship in the first five minutes of the event, it does give players who would otherwise stand no chance a fighting opportunity. If players feel they have no chance of winning, they’re likely to lose interest and stop participating altogether.

The loss of the respective "Noob Tubes" from the game, SNACs, SHFs, and Battleships from roughly the 4.91 era, have been tragic for new players and unskilled players participation in the game environment. The new mechanical intensity has driven the skill floor up, and pulled the rug out from under the feet of many players, most of which I'm guessing don't play anymore.

The noob tube I used to win against 1v6-and-worse odds for the better part of a decade? The one you could shieldrun away from in the vast majority of fighters in the game, hinging entirely on implied fair play rules to even be viable? Yes, there's some sick shots on Antonio's Youtube, but as someone once (well-) described as "a bomber abuser with no fighter skill" (this was before I learned to mash WASD in an Odin), I can say that the common outcome of using SNACs was one of the below options:

• Dumpstering twelve Judges in California, solo.
  
• One-passing a couple-week-old player in a Guardian next to West Point.
  
• Venting your frustrations about [Insert Veteran Player Here] shieldrunning away from your EMP+SNAC bomber all the way from the Freeport in Magellan to California Minor with five highly skilled bombers in pursuit.
  
• Killing twenty-three Battleships with six Bombers in the span of eight hours, suffering zero losses.
  

Whenever SNAC instakills are brought up as some sort of comeback mechanic I can't help but feel like players are actively lying to themselves. They weren't. Their primary use was punching down better than any other weapon ever could. Take off your nostalgia glasses, or simply admit that the power fantasy of taking down a dozen players solo is why you want them back -- don't attribute magic superpowers to a weapon that never had them.

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