Godslayer Balance Essay

[Enko]

Skill ceiling has just got lower over time to try and make it more fun for everyone. I remember back when I last played you could get away with 1+ hour long snub brawls easily because people were just so difficult to kill, but that just doesn't happen very often anymore.

Roll back the mod 10 years and these players will body people even harder than they do now, when I came back I was pretty trash again but with things like missiles and now CL1 weapons I was able to contribute much easier until I started being able to switch over to different loadouts more and more.

If you can barely kill anyone now, rolling back the mod 10 years isn't magically going to change this.

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[Chenzo-]

Skill ceiling has just got lower over time to try and make it more fun for everyone. I remember back when I last played you could get away with 1+ hour long snub brawls easily because people were just so difficult to kill, but that just doesn't happen very often anymore.

Roll back the mod 10 years and these players will body people even harder than they do now, when I came back I was pretty trash again but with things like missiles and now CL1 weapons I was able to contribute much easier until I started being able to switch over to different loadouts more and more.

If you can barely kill anyone now, rolling back the mod 10 years isn't magically going to change this.

A decade ago there was 200 people fighting for a slot almost 100% of the time.

Changes in pvp, ship nerfs(mostly in capitals) since the 4.84 era have sucked the fun out of the game. The ‘top 1 percent’ skilled pvpers are all that remain who engage in combat- everyone else no longer has the insta-kill guns to have a hope in hell in hitting back and thus don’t bother pvp’n at all.

I’ve literally been present when on my OC char, RP’n with other’s chars for a good 30 minutes all for a pvpwhores to come in and other players literally just type “//yeah, just kill me we can come back in an hour and keep RP’n”.

I used to be a player who was in regular fights a decade ago and you’ll always have somebody complain, but now the mechanics are just too complicated and broken.

Going back to a previous era’s mechanics and systems will see players return in masses, I’m sure. Battleships with 22 guns of freedom, primary’s, secondaries, various special guns like mortars, razors, flaks, pulses etc- it was fantastic. Made it entertaining. Everyone had their own preferred loadout. Now, at base level “Yaaay, I get to fire one gun for about eight seconds then I’ll go make a cup of tea whilst my energy recharges”
Oh, wait, my Dredanaught has just been killed off by a lone gunboat”(obvious exaggeration to highlight the point being made)

I will say however- whoever is responsible for the PoB stuff, general aesthetics of the game m(and that’s listing them without anywhere near as much credit as they deserve) are the only things keeping this mod alive. Kudos to those who do those things especially.

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[Lythrilux]

I’ve literally been present when on my OC char, RP’n with other’s chars for a good 30 minutes all for a pvpwhores to come in and other players literally just type “//yeah, just kill me we can come back in an hour and keep RP’n”.

Ehhh feel like this isn't true. Granted I understand it's not always the case but can vouch I've had experiences since being back where players have arrived to an interaction clearly with the intent of PvP and they've been more than happy to just sit and chat than just go for the kill.

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[Enko]

A decade ago there was 200 people fighting for a slot almost 100% of the time.

Changes in pvp, ship nerfs(mostly in capitals) since the 4.84 era have sucked the fun out of the game. The ‘top 1 percent’ skilled pvpers are all that remain who engage in combat- everyone else no longer has the insta-kill guns to have a hope in hell in hitting back and thus don’t bother pvp’n at all.

I’ve literally been present when on my OC char, RP’n with other’s chars for a good 30 minutes all for a pvpwhores to come in and other players literally just type “//yeah, just kill me we can come back in an hour and keep RP’n”.

I used to be a player who was in regular fights a decade ago and you’ll always have somebody complain, but now the mechanics are just too complicated and broken.

Going back to a previous era’s mechanics and systems will see players return in masses, I’m sure. Battleships with 22 guns of freedom, primary’s, secondaries, various special guns like mortars, razors, flaks, pulses etc- it was fantastic. Made it entertaining. Everyone had their own preferred loadout. Now, at base level “Yaaay, I get to fire one gun for about eight seconds then I’ll go make a cup of tea whilst my energy recharges”
Oh, wait, my Dredanaught has just been killed off by a lone gunboat”(obvious exaggeration to highlight the point being made)

I will say however- whoever is responsible for the PoB stuff, general aesthetics of the game m(and that’s listing them without anywhere near as much credit as they deserve) are the only things keeping this mod alive. Kudos to those who do those things especially.

I was there, it wasn't as good as you remember it to be.

BAF in 2008 was Templar spam, Templars could do everything. You brawl a group of Templars and caps got eaten alive, caps often died within the first 5-10 minutes of every fight that happened, BAF vs KNF often devolved into brawls that lasted 40+ minutes if not over an hour.

Mechanics that let you instakill people tends to suck always, and realistically who benefits more from those that can use them? Skilled pilots that have the situational awareness, evasion and aiming skills or people starting out?

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[Chenzo-]

A decade ago there was 200 people fighting for a slot almost 100% of the time.

Changes in pvp, ship nerfs(mostly in capitals) since the 4.84 era have sucked the fun out of the game. The ‘top 1 percent’ skilled pvpers are all that remain who engage in combat- everyone else no longer has the insta-kill guns to have a hope in hell in hitting back and thus don’t bother pvp’n at all.

I’ve literally been present when on my OC char, RP’n with other’s chars for a good 30 minutes all for a pvpwhores to come in and other players literally just type “//yeah, just kill me we can come back in an hour and keep RP’n”.

I used to be a player who was in regular fights a decade ago and you’ll always have somebody complain, but now the mechanics are just too complicated and broken.

Going back to a previous era’s mechanics and systems will see players return in masses, I’m sure. Battleships with 22 guns of freedom, primary’s, secondaries, various special guns like mortars, razors, flaks, pulses etc- it was fantastic. Made it entertaining. Everyone had their own preferred loadout. Now, at base level “Yaaay, I get to fire one gun for about eight seconds then I’ll go make a cup of tea whilst my energy recharges”
Oh, wait, my Dredanaught has just been killed off by a lone gunboat”(obvious exaggeration to highlight the point being made)

I will say however- whoever is responsible for the PoB stuff, general aesthetics of the game m(and that’s listing them without anywhere near as much credit as they deserve) are the only things keeping this mod alive. Kudos to those who do those things especially.

I was there, it wasn't as good as you remember it to be.

BAF in 2008 was Templar spam, Templars could do everything. You brawl a group of Templars and caps got eaten alive, caps often died within the first 5-10 minutes of every fight that happened, BAF vs KNF often devolved into brawls that lasted 40+ minutes if not over an hour.

Mechanics that let you instakill people tends to suck always, and realistically who benefits more from those that can use them? Skilled pilots that have the situational awareness, evasion and aiming skills or people starting out?

The length of snub brawls was always attributed to time to slowly eat away at capital hulls… pounding them bit by bit.

Snub only fights rarely ever lasted that long.

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[Leeon26]

Based on many opinions, I have come to the opinion that why are bigger ships nerfed all the time, it turns out that most snub PVP Ace's are shit on big ships and they just can't figure out why VHf or LF can't kill bigger ships. Okay, you wanted to give smaller ships a chance to kill bigger ships but it should take at least 6-8 LF, VHF and at least 1 hour to kill an average cap player and against a good cap player even more time. If these headless LF players really want to attack a big ship, then fine but they still have to sweat a lot for it. At the moment, a average VHF player kills a normal GB player 1v1. GB's are now completely useless. Snub's should be afraid of GB's but not the other way around. 4 VHF players will kill BS without even having to put in the effort. This is just a big joke.

NB: I'm not even a cap player. Very rarely do I log into a ship bigger than a cruiser.

"average VHF player kills a normal GB player 1v1"
I hope that's what you meant when you said "This is just a big joke."

[Petitioner]

snip

I was there, it wasn't as good as you remember it to be.

BAF in 2008 was Templar spam, Templars could do everything. You brawl a group of Templars and caps got eaten alive, caps often died within the first 5-10 minutes of every fight that happened, BAF vs KNF often devolved into brawls that lasted 40+ minutes if not over an hour.

Mechanics that let you instakill people tends to suck always, and realistically who benefits more from those that can use them? Skilled pilots that have the situational awareness, evasion and aiming skills or people starting out?

The length of snub brawls was always attributed to time to slowly eat away at capital hulls… pounding them bit by bit.

Snub only fights rarely ever lasted that long.

This is objectively incorrect. In 2009 and 2010, snub-only groupfights would last upwards of an hour if either side had at least one skilled player, meanwhile caps would go down within minutes to either enemy caps or to bombers. These aren't just rose-tinted glasses you're wearing, Chenzo, these are beer goggles. There were innumerable threads complaining about this exact thing; "how do we shorten snub TTK while increase cap TTK, it makes no sense that a Bismarck goes down quicker than a lone Sabre". If you want to provide input, please make sure that it is not straightforwardly factually wrong.

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[Enko]

Snub only fights rarely ever lasted that long.

Considering the most memorable fight I had BAF vs KNF in Leeds in this era lasted 3 hours, while the caps lasted 10 minutes, no. They did last a long time, a very long time compared to today.

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[Levenna]

At the moment, a average VHF player kills a normal GB player 1v1. GB's are now completely useless.

lol

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[03.07.2024] LNS-Beast***: we can do this every day but you have to buy bigger stronger ships...and i'll help you

[Ruairi]

even as someone who has played FL for like 3/4 of their life at age 25, that stagnant water thing really is what kept me from sticking around most of the time. the skills you need/build for singleplayer/PVE (90% of my playtime) do not compare to the demands of PVP like at all, so ive basically always been a rookie in that regard

could i train to get better? yeah
do I want to do that when i have a full time job, other games i want to play, + Im often on during the wee-hours where server pop is like 20 or below? not really.
kinda why i gravitated to k'hara as my first faction since they were heavy RP focus.

doesn't help playing with high ping makes things tenfold more difficult with all the jittering and whatnot. if i dedicated time to it, i could get better, but i hate having to do dedicated training just to be baseline competent in a game that isn't even competitive. at that rate, i'd rather just play CS2 or something.

i dont blame the balance of the mod for that though. i dont care for balance, i care for fun, but most fights are just overly stressful to me since i have to put my brain on full throttle constantly and there's a bajillion things im trying to juggle in my head (only to get prankt on 9 times out of ten) just kinda an inevitable facet of this niche game being two decades old.

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hamburger