Godslayer Balance Essay

[TheSauron]

Unless you're assuming a fringe case where the newbies are all playing Freelancer for the first time, this outcome is genuinely impossible. Any players putting in a genuine effort will just grind the ace down with missiles alone, not even accounting for what gun damage they'd be able to put in as well. If you're so helpless that you cannot kill a single dude with ten missile launchers supported by twenty guns, then there's nothing balance can do for you.

You're arguing things on the basis of a scenario that is simply not a thing anymore.

The specific case I'm talking about is a Partisan coalition LF in O-41. I don't recall a single missile landing, neither the light missiles or the guys with firestalkers and sidewinders. Half of the time when I fired mine, he'd quickly wiggle up and down and they'd lose tracking from 2 or 300m and fly off into the distance. I don't think anyone hit guns, his shield was off maybe twice in the whole engagement. I hit his shield a few times myself but that was it. I'm not sure if he took hull damage because I died third.

Is there a recording of that fight?

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One MD Admiral

[The_Godslayer]

Unless you're assuming a fringe case where the newbies are all playing Freelancer for the first time, this outcome is genuinely impossible. Any players putting in a genuine effort will just grind the ace down with missiles alone, not even accounting for what gun damage they'd be able to put in as well. If you're so helpless that you cannot kill a single dude with ten missile launchers supported by twenty guns, then there's nothing balance can do for you.

You're arguing things on the basis of a scenario that is simply not a thing anymore.

The specific case I'm talking about is a Partisan coalition LF in O-41. I don't recall a single missile landing, neither the light missiles or the guys with firestalkers and sidewinders. Half of the time when I fired mine, he'd quickly wiggle up and down and they'd lose tracking from 2 or 300m and fly off into the distance. I don't think anyone hit guns, his shield was off maybe twice in the whole engagement. I hit his shield a few times myself but that was it. I'm not sure if he took hull damage because I died third.

Is there a recording of that fight?

No idea. The last recording of mine that worked was a Daumann vs Hessians. It may be one of the ones that is only a black screen, but I don't know how to recover files that do that.

Edit: I have one where I can hear MRs landing so I might have it, but it's a black screen because Gamebar doesn't like to play nice with freelancer.

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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?"

[pillow]

Give snubs the same treatment as capital ships: Remove bots and bats, add them to their hull/shield values. Nothing worse than people avoiding PvP because they are afraid of feeding the enemy, being actually a handicap to your group.

As far as I remember, only 6 nanobots or batteries drop when someone dies regardless of how many nanobots or batteries they have. So that's not as bad nowadays. It would be REALLY hard to contribute less than that in a fight.

[AuruemSaber]

As far as I remember, only 6 nanobots or batteries drop when someone dies regardless of how many nanobots or batteries they have. So that's not as bad nowadays. It would be REALLY hard to contribute less than that in a fight.

[Insert anakin skywalker you underestimate my power image/gif here.]

[FoeHammered]

I think what would be really cool to see would be something along the lines that allow snub players to be "Support" Snubs kinda like Battlefield Medics since something like the repairship is essentially useless due to the way it handles and cant defend itself. Suggesting with only the idea of fleet fights in mind.
Maybe something that can be added on top of current balancing.

Like say make a gun that can Repair a snub like 1 hit = 1-2 Nanobot/batts

And definitely would play around with added debuffs associated with it like added mass or significant powercore drain (which will overall reduce DPS on top of taking up gun slots)

maybe something like:
HUELERBALL: 20Mass Class 4 600ms 2.0/4.0/8.33 Heals 100/75/50 Hull per hit (Shields must be down)
PARIAT: 15mass Class 3 650ms 0.5/1.5 Reduces Shield recharge cooldown by .5 second With Shields down Restores X amount of Powercore with shields up
GDTMW9L: 15mass Class 3 700ms 8.33 Restores shield energy by 30

Im throwing out arbitrary values and amounts but SOmething along those lines that can add variety

Mass added as if they were bomberguns so it nerfs down people that would mount these on an LF/HF so they cant be UBER impossible to hit
And if mounted on a bomber the bomber still gets to dish out a severely kneecapped DPS With the swapout of 2/4guns Alongside giving up SNAC but theyre a bomber so they are still
Very killable but are tankier. The gist would be to require 2 of the gun for it to be impactful so it counters survivability over DPS

So you would essentially be giving up 4 DPS Gun slots for Support guns
So an LF would have to make a choice between 2SupGuns 2 DPS Guns or all 4 Support guns
HF+ would be giving up their 2 heavy weapon slot or 4 slots (or all 6 if they're wanting to be a walking power core distributor)

The values would need a good amount of tinkering to make it be impactful but not OP
Its really a matter of altering/Offering a different playstyle. Aces will be aces that will never change.

I think that any gun buff will only benefit aces more due to their superior positioning . Any nerfs will only hamstring noobs than it ever will for the aces.

So rather than nerf/buff DPS, Maybe an option to increase survivability for others?
I can see a couple of Very apparent effects that this would have in groupfights in terms of Decision making

Forcing Damage dealers to shift their focus on killing the support player (Allowing for friendlies to chip away at dealers)
Support player will not have to focus so much on getting an enemy within their screen but their friendlies (which would probably be easier to do)
Support player will have to learn to be VERY evasive all while trying to keep their teammates alive

Potential pitfall:
Will force support player to be the one who runs the rabbit or get immediately deleted in a groupfight from getting focused.
Possible Solution?:
Maybe possibly add in the ability for whenever the Support player fires the respective gun it Self applies to the support player at a reduced affect. To increase survivability as they will be inevitably be getting focused on sight and support players are essentially gonna be MASTER shieldrunners if something like this ever were to be implemented.

So if the support player ends up being the first to die they could bank on the fact that they did a good job and possibly saved their teammates from having to use bots/batts so there's that reward. I usually find myself in that sort of role in multiple other games if given the choice. But eventually end up becoming a DPS due to "Fuck it, I'll do it myself" mentality/frustration

So there's my brainstorm, Something I think would be really cool to see put in the game. Would really like to know if something like this has been done or considered before/Could be implemented. And think would make things really interesting in snub groupfights.

[Sombs]

Give snubs the same treatment as capital ships: Remove bots and bats, add them to their hull/shield values. Nothing worse than people avoiding PvP because they are afraid of feeding the enemy, being actually a handicap to your group.

As far as I remember, only 6 nanobots or batteries drop when someone dies regardless of how many nanobots or batteries they have. So that's not as bad nowadays. It would be REALLY hard to contribute less than that in a fight.

Huh, that's cool. I had no idea. By the time I see someone die, people immediately suck up the bots/bats so there is usually no way to tell how many they scooped up. When was that added?

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Uncharted System Stories: 18 | 32 | 34 | 37 | 38 | 85

Templates: Character | Transmissions

Alternative Soundtracks

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[pillow]

Give snubs the same treatment as capital ships: Remove bots and bats, add them to their hull/shield values. Nothing worse than people avoiding PvP because they are afraid of feeding the enemy, being actually a handicap to your group.

As far as I remember, only 6 nanobots or batteries drop when someone dies regardless of how many nanobots or batteries they have. So that's not as bad nowadays. It would be REALLY hard to contribute less than that in a fight.

Huh, that's cool. I had no idea. By the time I see someone die, people immediately suck up the bots/bats so there is usually no way to tell how many they scooped up. When was that added?

Some time ago already. A year? I dunno. A while.

[Petitioner]

So there's my brainstorm, Something I think would be really cool to see put in the game. Would really like to know if something like this has been done or considered before/Could be implemented. And think would make things really interesting in snub groupfights.

From what I understand, we have the tech for healing/"negative damage" weapons pretty well figured out. The notion of those support weapons applying to the wielder as well is a different matter entirely.

Of course, this would be a drastic balance change. And it would be rather difficult to integrate this into Freelancer's lore as well -- but this is a thread about balance, not about lore.

I wish I had something meaningful to contribute, but I'm not skilled enough at pvp to identify the problems with it myself or come up with ideas on how to improve it, only to hear others' takes and think "yeah that sounds right" or "this guy's smoking crack".

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[Haste]

I randomly began writing some incoherent thoughts on this. Quick disclaimer: I'm keeping up with this thread, and I don't want this post to come across as dismissing players' criticisms, as that's very much not the intent.

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On Snubs:

The notion that fighters have somehow changed to cater more to veterans, in my opinion, is incompatible with reality. Almost every major change we've made to the class was done explicitly to close the gap:

- Standardized, vanilla-sized shield hitboxes to help weaker aimers get through shields so they can chip away at hull.
- Several passes on missiles designed to encourage their use, reduce the degree to which they are stigmatized, and generally integrate them properly into the snub landscape.
- Loads of individual ship balance passes. The reality is that outliers in power level are usually found by the best players, and then also exploited by the best players. A more even playing field benefits the average player more than the ace.
- Near removal of Nanobots and Shield Batteries dropping on death, which was a mechanic exclusively used by aces punching down to refill their supplies and fight ridiculous odds -- or at the very least to abuse the fact that Jimmy The Newbie came to help his friends and instead accidentally ended up helping Wesker -- on the enemy "team".
- Most recently, the changes to Class 1 fighter guns, normalizing 800+ m/s velocity guns. I have seen many players with weaker aim literally double their effective outgoing DPS by using them. Their hybrid nature also benefits players that hit less, as getting through shields is often a challenge for them, while aces can trivially deshield without a single dedicated anti-shield weapon.
- And yes, the removal of various types of instakill loadouts, whether they're SNACs or Mini Razor shotguns that could one-tap ships up to a certain armor threshold. Of course, aces were intimately familiar with these thresholds, while that fresh-faced LN ID fighter might not have realized that the Guardian's 11,000 was in fact well below it (while the Lynx' 12,400 was not).

The notion that weaker players could snatch a win from the jaws of defeat using things like SNACs is, to me, a seemingly very severe case of nostalgia glasses. For many years, I myself wouldn't lose shields in the vast majority of fights I took. Shield hitboxes were miniscule, strafe forces were absurd, and microscopic, insanely responsive ships were available if you knew where to look for them. In the rare case that anyone managed to deshield me, the odds of them also landing a SNAC on a small, barely-functional hitbox moving extremely evasively rounded down to zero percent. Instead, I remember cases where the SNAC allowed me or other bomber abusers to take on a literal dozen players at once, and by refilling my regens over and over, come out victorious. I wouldn't describe that as a friendlier PvP environment for the casual player.

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On Capital Ships:

I'm very surprised to hear claims of increased keyboard-fu being a necessity for Battleships, of all things. I still have most of my old Battleship keybinds as they occupy a part of the keyboard I don't really use: I have five keys dedicated to firing weapons 1-5 manually. You absolutely needed six weapon groups as you needed to dedicate several groups to various kinds of blindfire, including a completely empty group for blindfire without convergence. Nowadays, I can both make do with one less weapon group and those manual fire keys are just entirely obsolete and are instead replaced by an infinitely more intuitive "toggle snap" key. Add to that a key to toggle shields, and if you're really sweaty, a set of subtargeting keys. In theory you could make do with one (or none, if you mostly participate in fleet fights), but let's say you want two to really minmax. You're still down net keys. Top it all off with a manual reload key -- the most luxury of luxuries, in my opinion -- and you've almost arrived back where we were ten years ago. Except for toggle reticle snap, all of these are also more optional than those blindfire keys ever were. You'd literally never drop the shields of anything smaller than a Bismarck without them, back then. By comparison, you get small incremental gains to your efficacy from mastering each of these mechanics now, and if you don't find yourself getting into duels often you can make do without half of them (or more).

Similarly, we deliberately moved away from STS in Gunboats, Cruisers and Battlecruisers because of the carpal-tunnel-inducing nature of the mechanic. That, and the fact that you could fairly easily macro it without anyone ever finding out, getting a massive advantage for automating a chunk of the game. I personally swapped four keys out that I used to strafe with for two that I use to roll -- and in many fights in many capital ship classes I don't really bother to use them. So, sure, we've added keys that can potentially increase your effectiveness in combat, but we've also removed some highly APM-intensive button mashing to make up for it.

I have to just assume that players who claim there are so many more keybinds required these days chose to use neither STS nor blindfire. But then that means they were heavily gimping themselves. How exactly is that different from playing today's Discovery with half of the newly-added keybinds not bound -- except for the fact that you're probably losing less power doing that nowadays? Not blindfiring in the low-mass-high-response capital ship era or not STSing in an era where that casually doubled your ability to dodge fire was a huge loss.

In my opinion, all of the mechanics we added create a nice gradual curve to climb when it comes to skill expression, as each only really adds a small, incremental advantage once mastered. That's always been the goal we set out with, and I feel like it's one we achieved.

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In my experience since 5.0 released (I've probably been in three (?) fleet fights ever since) anything above a 3v3, maybe a 4v4, gets so complicated with how many things you need to keep in mind that at this point it's just better to not bother with it.

In my humble (and quite possibly wrong) opinion, the fact that it's virtually impossible to keep up with all the mechanics in a fleet fight is a triumph of the system, as it simply means that you can ignore the vast majority of micro mechanics and focus entirely on good positional and tactical play, only choosing to subtarget in the most niche of situations. The advantage of crazy-high-APM, absolutely optimal play in fleet fights compared to simply not doing so is very small, in my opinion, and unless you're doing a line of coke or something I don't think it's worth the loss in focus elsewhere.

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I do agree, wholeheartedly, with the notion that some of the more explosive moments of old Discovery -- no matter how rare they were in reality -- lent themselves better to "Youtube Highlight Reels", and I also understand that that's something people miss. I'm all for suggestions on how to add some of it back. I just don't think instakilling SNACs are the way -- largely because I genuinely don't know how to balance such a weapon in modern-day Discovery with much, much higher hitrates in snub land, mostly by virtue of upscales and actually functional hitboxes. Any stats even remotely similar to the old ones would result in five-second fights at high skill levels -- especially, of course, punching down.

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As for support roles: fire away with suggestions. It's something I'm definitely interested in implementing, and if we somehow managed to make support tools much less skill-testing than conventional weapons, that'd be even better.

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[Chuba]

I will write exactly what I told Haste earlier today.

I believe that currently the game is easier than it has maybe ever been in terms of getting into pvp and actually achieving something - you no longer have people that can't be deshielded, you no longer have ships with holes in their hitboxes that'll let shots go through. There are no more instakills that Haste, Wesker, Pillow, I or literally anyone good can abuse.

The gap between "aces" and the "bad" players was unsurmountable most of the time. People like Haste just did not get deshielded by 99% of the playerbase.

The true unfortunate matter of the fact for people that aren't good currently: You would be so much worse in the old pvp system. If you think it's hard to kill someone good now, please properly remember how it was.

I hope one day the developer team can somehow host a day / couple days of .85/86 server so people lose the rose tinted glasses of delusion.

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