The Dreadnought Dilemma - the ideal role of heavy caps in disco

[Slimalou]

I think people are attracted to the BBs and Dreads because many players like the feeling of being the big bad imposing ship in (even if they are really can only do consistent damage to other BBs and dreads.) As it is in fleet composition BBs and Dreads primary roll is to set the base for the fleet, and support fire IF the enemy fleet decides to push.

As it stands BBs and Dreads are easy targets for the lighter ships as the smaller ships have no problem dealing damage to them while staying out of the range of the BBs and Dreads ability to do effective and constant damage. They have NO method to deal with any snubs, flacks can be easily avoided and all other weapons cannot consistently hit them. They cant event get away from the smaller ships, as the only defense they have its the amount of HP they have. I know some heavy cap players who just sit and wait for the enemy snubs/smaller caps to kill them as their is nothing they can do other then kill the other players fun by doing nothing. As other people have said the really only way for a heavy cap to deal with the smaller ships it to have someone on call or friendly player to deal with them.

So the question becomes how do we fix this, what are the problems. Well as Discovery is now, the game is solely focused around skill over equipment meaning that the game is balanced to make every ship every weapon to be a similar as possible so a player cannot say "Oh you have weapon X/ship X and that is the only reason you won". In a game where players are allowed to fly everything from a light fighter to a dead the focuses of skill over equipment demands that the smaller ships MUST have a way to deal with the bigger ships (Running away not included). As it stands that takes the form of bigger class have a harder time hitting smaller classes with each difference in class making it harder and harder for the bigger to hit the smaller (This is further made true by the simple fact that Freelancer's combat system was not made with caps in mind, that is simply a limitation of the game and moders can only do so much to fix this).

So how do we fix this? That's there it becomes tricky while keeping the current style of game balance. One way is, as Barrier stated, is to make getting a BB or Dread much harder. The how of course can take many forms. do we jack up the price of these ships so players REALY have to work for them. Are we talking prices in the 100 mill ( I mean most codes are fare more expensive then the ships they go on if you check that players are asking for them (most of them just leaning into one aspect, or a slightly more user friendly version of base weapons but that is another rant)). If the devs do this then their has to be a fair expectation of how effective they are in combat and that may shatter the current balance style of the game thus leading to a bunch of lighter class players complaining about "heavy cap OP" (but then again as it is your just trading off who is complaining heavy or light class players).

do we make them more tricky to get? We kinda see this with a few code name weapon being dropped as blueprints and needing a POB to build them. This could take the form of Official Factions being given (and non-official-factions having to build) a special type of POB shipyard which would be the ONLY place where players may get a BC and up ship. This would make it harder for solo players and indie plays to get the bigger ship true but it would fit into the RP sense that "we don't just hand out these things to anyone. Do you know how much goes into running one of these things?!" Of course this would be a lot of dev work to switch up the system and it would mean that the payoff for spending all that time to do this reflected in ship stats which would lead to the aforementioned complaining as "I should be able to effectively kill bigger ships even though I spent less time and money to get my snub ship!".

To sum all this up. As it stand Heavy caps are at the bottom of the ranking for PVP engagements (and even some PVE). New players will most likely find this out the hard way and be disappointed with how weak heavy caps really are. As it is now, heavy caps have no method to punish smaller ships, there is no "I got to to close to that cap before the fleet could help me and thus I took a lot of damage for it." and more "I will just sit just outside their effective range and kill em slowly its not like they can do anything about it." Making heavy caps more effective against their smaller counterparts will mess with the current balance style of the game and people who are used to this will complain about it. (Cap players would have less to complain about spam snubs if they had some way to kill some of the little buggers before they went down.) Bottom line, people are going to play that works and what is effective. In the current state of the game the BBs and Dreads are the cool thing that is not effective but people still play em because hey I like driving the big ships and I feel cool.

And that concludes my Tedtalk.

[Wesker]

Snubs are just too unforgiving for newbies, too useless for PvE and the skill floor is too high for PvP which is part of the reason why they gravitate towards caps

Currently fighters are the most forgiving to new players they have ever been, and the skill ceiling is closer to the newest player than it has ever been in the past. Deshielding is cakework with the bomber weapon arsenal as well as new debilitators that do the job equally as fast. Fighter models have been upscaled & strafe force has been reduced, simplifying the ability to connect shots. Missiles with immense AOE render long-term dodging in group fights impossible.

Haste has made it so that if you are a new player you have legitimately all the tools needed to succeed in the shortest time ever seen. I have 10 years of experience, and Haste has even more yet there are players that have played for a year or less that can now measure up against us. If you invest the time in improving to at least a moderate level you will be more than suited enough to bring down veteran players, if not alone - than in groups or with a friend.

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[Amba]

Snubs are just too unforgiving for newbies, too useless for PvE and the skill floor is too high for PvP which is part of the reason why they gravitate towards caps

[...] If you invest the time [...]

I'm not disagreeing with you on any of your points, mind, just highlighting this. We are talking about newbies here. People who have just started playing the game casually without any specific focus. I feel like most snub aces are so completely disconnected from this experience that they don't realize the massive gulf that exists between that and knowing something as basic as what a weapon group and jousting is. And what most new players will think is "Oh I died in 15 seconds. I need a bigger ship with bigger number."

[A Magpie]

@JasonRedBloom gave me several insights to the mentality of a "casual" Discovery player RE: Caps.

• Caps are just more fun to play for a solo player who can play maybe ~2-3 hours a day.
  We mostly run missions around Liberty when he's on, the BC as it is is a nice casual ship that's easy to play, so he gravitates towards it. Furthermore, the massive health pool of a cap (especially a Battlecruiser; NPCs will always target the center of the hull and ignore hardpoints) gives him the survivability, or perceived survivability, to get to safety if it's a fight he can't win. He sees the massive damage output on paper, and thanks to NPCs being braindead, gets close to 100% of that damage output landing, and them having to chew all the way through his hull makes him feel invincible.
  Furthermore, a cap has the damage output to chew through missions while a bomber (especially thanks to now needing ammo for Scorchers) is pretty much hard capped at anti-fighter missions. He actually described it as "man this thing gonna kill all" (sic).
  
• That's it. For people having neither the time nor desire to train to "git gud", caps are the casual Discovery gameplay experience.
  

[monmarfori]

The current meta seems to favor heavy battleships somewhat due to several factors.

With the blindfire rework, heavy battleships now have more room for sniping smaller capital ships. This means long-range heavies like the Heavy Mortar are more viable than ever before.

Furthermore, they also carry a great deal of utility should they equip a docking module, as snubs can restock without the need to fly to a faraway station, which can decide fights like what happened in Dublin several days ago.

The general halving of capital stats and the addition of destructible components to cruisers also favors heavy battleships, despite the addition of shield toggling to give cruisers more powercore regen. Cruiser swarms have historically countered battleship swarms thanks to their agility and long-range weapons. Though in general, snub swarms are now more deadly to caps in general, as fighters and freighters can mount bomber weapons like SNACs.

So I'd support some rebalancing to give lighter battleships a chance. Their primary advantages were strafing and maneuverability, of which strafing was nerfed back in 5.0 by consuming thruster energy, and the fact that some heavy battleships can strafe at a higher velocity for some reason.

For factions that do not have access to battleships, they can use the Bustard, which is very expensive. It functions as a battlecruiser in many aspects, but has more bulk and a slower turnrate.

[HUMPHRESS]

Personally, I dont know if there needs to be more restrictions on heavy caps, but I dont think it is a bad idea to increase the price. I remember buying my first Dreadnought and the feeling of accomplishment that came with it, I barely flew it, but it was still fun to have. So having Dreads/BS cost like 10-13 Million wouldnt be terrible in my eyes to make it feel more worth it and powerful and perhaps less spammy if it is a problem.

But also, I really dont think there is much wrong with Battleships currently, save that they feel slightly bland compared to their Cruiser and BC counterparts. They could use some spice in the future imo. But from what I can tell, BS seems pretty balenced right now.

[LuckyOne]

Perhaps the main problem is not so much in the need for inRP restrictions, but the fact that the game lacks any kind of information of your fleet composition at a glance. Maybe if we could get classes of ships shown on the contact list (custom icons by class, anyone ?) it could be easier to know when it's time to switch to another kind of ship to make the best move for your group.

Personally, heavy caps for me aren't that attractive. Sure they have their role as fleet anchors, and have lots of health, but what do they really have going for them ?

Maybe the fact that the big BBs are left as arguably the easiest class to play - little need for thruster / shield / positioning management while all the other caps seem to have gained complicated mechanics players need to keep track of in order to enjoy them is what draws so many players to fly them.

[Traxit]

balance just needs to figure them out, so BS spam isn't a win-all solution.

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[Czechmate]

Most heavy battleships mains have either quit the game, play much less or do something else like playing other classes.

The class was made unfun to play already, I wouldn't add any further restrictions.I don't even think they are played in fights very often besides the need for docking modules - it's been more your murmillos, kirks etc.

[Czechmate]

Snubs are just too unforgiving for newbies, too useless for PvE and the skill floor is too high for PvP which is part of the reason why they gravitate towards caps

[...] If you invest the time [...]

I'm not disagreeing with you on any of your points, mind, just highlighting this. We are talking about newbies here. People who have just started playing the game casually without any specific focus. I feel like most snub aces are so completely disconnected from this experience that they don't realize the massive gulf that exists between that and knowing something as basic as what a weapon group and jousting is. And what most new players will think is "Oh I died in 15 seconds. I need a bigger ship with bigger number."

I tried learning snubs, it seems utterly pointless unless you want to grind a lot - to what end? So you get to a stage where you aren't having fun because there's nobody at your level to fight besides 4 other guys?

The meta also now removed luck like nova instakills weaker players like me at least did something from time to time with - snubs experience is - I go in, I get chipped down slowly with an inevitable outcome. It's boring.

You can tell the cap balance has been done by snub players with the same philosophy unfortunately, but at least you last a lot longer and have a chance at lucky big shots.

The only frequent PvP now are big mixed fleet fights- another reason why learning fighter vs fighter seems even more pointless.


And to the disconnect - yeah, it's like snub aces can't even remotely fathom how casuals think and operate, the worlds seem completely detached