(12-03-2024, 01:25 PM)Synts Wrote: At the moment, a average VHF player kills a normal GB player 1v1.
I haven't seen it in a VHF, however I have a personal experience with a bomber.
I've heard that the Corvo is not a good ship for pvp, but I've won versus a Corvo with an Upholder with minimal chance for the Gunboat to recover due to a very tiny difference in skill. That player and I have a very minimal skill gap, in basically any other pvp game the results of our combat would be a high effort competition with a coin toss result, and in Discovery it's a low effort beatdown with a guaranteed result.
The exact same thing applies the other way around. There are some players who have a very small difference in skill above me. They are effectively untouchable for me in pvp. I'm guaranteed a low effort, one-sided beatdown every single time. The only time I've ever bridged even the tiniest of skill gaps above me was when borderline-miracle occurrences of chance, things like someone's early turn line carrying them into a mine that was dropped two turns ago, or a tiny bump that spun them to face away from me and spun me to face towards them. And to win against a skill mismatch requires these insane luck occurrences to happen a huge number of times in a row.
I'm notoriously pretentious, but assuming that I am the exact center of average is a lot, even for me. My experience of the state of PvP being either a low effort one-sided beatdown of someone barely below my skill level or a low effort one-sided beatdown from someone barely above my skill level matches what your experience of old PvP. From where I'm standing, the only thing that's changed is that you're forced to fight with no hope for 15 minutes instead of 3 or 4. On top of that, knowing that even with this extended TTK from removing instakills, it requires an actual act of God to punch even slightly out of my designated skill area makes underdog wins incredibly sour. I cannot gaslight myself into believing that I locked in and clutched up when a simple check on a recording shows me that my enemy was statistically struck by lightning three times in 15 minutes. Finally, cinematic moments like chainfiring Hurricane FWGs or uncloaking an Ishtar close enough to hear the sound effects are also simply gone, I cannot just engage in living up the fantasy, no matter the battle results, either.
I'll do something about my superiority complex when I cease to be superior.
"Whatever happened to catchin' a good old-fashioned passionate ass-whoopin and gettin' your shoes, coat, and your hat tooken?"
