What scares me about Striker Buff

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by a-koo-chee-moya, Oct 8, 2014.

  1. a-koo-chee-moya

    First off, this is not some "Striker OP thread". Striker needed buffs. However, the immediate buffs set a pretty scary precedent.

    The Problem? There was not enough time to develop stats to compare.

    What happens when a pretty convoluted weapon comes out, one that is niched/has a different role? Players don't know what to do with it, complaints start circulating, and a buff comes out. Then, about a month later, everyone realizes what to do with it, and now everyone is complaining about the weapon. It gets sledgehammer nerfed, and a fun, niched weapon, is destroyed.

    The point? We need to let the weapon have time to settle in to the PS2 meta. A new a strange weapon might not seem right from the beginning, and time will have to be taken before any evidence for balance can be produced. Striker was just flat out worse, but some buffs/nerfs might not.
    • Up x 2
  2. Schwak

    So what you are saying is that it should be left unusable and unused for a length of time before they touch it again?
  3. a-koo-chee-moya

    Yep, your first impression of a weapon may be correct, but I'd hate to risk a sledgehammer nerf due to overbuffing.
    • Up x 1
  4. GhostAvatar

    The thing was, it wasn't a niche weapon. It was poor alternative. Against infantry it couldn't kill them even if you unloaded a entire clip into there face. Where as with the dumbfire you could with surprise alpha damage. Against vehicles it didn't do any more damage or DPS for the lack of alpha damage. And against air, even with the lock on, was only usable at ranges you could dumbfire. And all that was based on landing all five shots.

    So now it is no more effective against infantry than a dumbfire. But you do trade alpha damage for being able to miss a single shot and still get the kill in a single clip (and you can last that long). That makes it a niche weapon in that regards. Against ground targets, it trades alpha damage for a higher DPS. Which also makes it a niche weapon in that respect. And against air, it is still weak. But then again so are the other ESRL when used on their own.

    Overall it is becoming a niche weapon that is a real side grade. In most cases trading alpha damage for something else. Its still feels a bit lackluster and needs something to make it shine a little bit more in a single role. But at the moment I am not sure what is actually needed to achieve that. Only more play time with it will tell. But I can definitely see some more tweaks to it further down the road once they get a bigger data set to examine. Maybe downscaling one aspect and upscaling another.
    • Up x 1
  5. Schwak

    It's currently worse then a sledgehammered weapon. There is nothing to risk.
    • Up x 5
  6. cruczi

    I don't see it being weak against air tbh. It's very potent at harassing anyone floating around looking for easy kills. It's great for opportunistic attacks on aircraft in situations where you don't have enough time to acquire a lock. It can be spammed from a longer distance than you can even acquire a lock with G2A lockons. And in all these cases it rewards good aim with good results, making it a more skill based option. Lockons will be easier to use for players with poor aim or prediction, but in choosing a lockon you give up versatility.
  7. Flag

    Even so, he has a point.

    And just to be controversial, why didn't the spiker get some love within a week?
    (probably because lots of people already had a striker and few got the spiker - still, should stick to the same principles regardless of the # of owners).
    • Up x 4
  8. cruczi


    Why not buff the Spiker in a week? Probably because AMP and Pocket Shotty™ suck too and everyone's still rolling with their Underbosses and Commies
    • Up x 4
  9. Ransurian

    Eh, who cares about some lousy sidearm? I couldn't care less if all sidearms in the game were arbitrarily deleted, and I probably wouldn't even notice they were gone. Empire-specific ones in particular are are pointless most of the time, and they're really, really boring and underwhelming to use.
  10. a-koo-chee-moya

    Eh, who cares about some lousy rocket launcher? Every faction has anni and deci anyways...
    This is why... Everybody is so focused on their own shortfalls that they take little notice of both their own faction's good things and the other faction's bad things.
    • Up x 9
  11. Leer

    They are doing it with ZOE. The only in game nerf toggle.
    • Up x 2
  12. a-koo-chee-moya

    The problem with Spiker was that VS was expecting their answer to Desperado and Repeater, or a PS1 ish Spiker, but they got a gimmicky, useless, chargeup.
  13. Flag

    Yeah so what?
    By that logic the striker could have been left in it's pre-buff state "because everyone has ML-7s and possibly Annihilators".

    Besides, the AMP is just bad because it has to stand up to the Repeater. It's not actually a bad side-arm.
    MagScatter? Might be a bit on the weak side, but it's functional.
    The Spiker on the other hand is flawed and bad, though and through.

    The point was that if it's fine for the Striker to get attention this fast after the change, why is it taking so long to do something, or -anything- to equally or even worse weapons (or abilities)?
  14. Ransurian

    Except rocket launchers play a much, much, much bigger and more prolific role in this game than some goofy pistol that every class has access to.
  15. Ransurian

    In all seriousness, the Striker received common-sense buffs that didn't come close to making the weapon overpowered. It's still not in line with its competition. There was no harm whatsoever in today's hotfix buff, and the only precedent it set was the affirmation that SOE is going to start baby buffing underpowered equipment from now on.
  16. Shadowomega

    Before this I posted a better way to fix the Striker with out overhauling it. They didn't do it as it would take time to recode its lock on system instead of stripping out one code and dropping in another one.
  17. Jube

    Your fears are unfounded.
    I just finished trying out the New Improved Striker. It is somewhat better than before, but if the Dev;s intend for it to be a A/A niche weapon they have more work to do.
    The projectiles are simply too slow. You have to aim so far ahead of your intended target it's ridiculous. Forget hitting all five rockets, it simply isn't going to happen unless the target is hovering.
    All it takes to avoid them is for the pilot to turn slightly and they fly off into space.

    A defensive tactic I saw being employed worked quite well. The ESF's stayed near to a Galaxy and let him take the hits. When they saw where the rockets came from the attacked and killed the HA's

    So as it stands I'll be putting my Striker back in the closet until or unless they buff it again.
  18. GhostAvatar

    In theory it rewards good aim. But at any kind of distance, due to the velocity and therefore travel time. If the pilot makes any kind of correction to their flight path, even a slight nose up or down, the predicted aim will be way off. In other words you need to lead you aim a lot and hope that they fly in a straight line. Anything closer and you start getting into dumbfire range, which does vastly more damage which cannot be avoided if hit. Where as the Striker, with a quick tap of the afterburner, can be avoided for the majority of the damage.

    If you have ever used a Burster, you will know what I mean. As soon as an target changes its flight path, you have to readjust you aim. In the mean time, the previous shots you have fired will be wasted as they will no longer intersect the new flight path. However these attributes are vastly more noticeable on the Striker. Considering the burster has proximity detonation, they both work essentially the same way. Near misses counts as hits, so you don't need to be right on target. Now imagine a single arm burster that had less than half the velocity. Thats how effective the Striker is against air. So ranged engagement becomes a game of pure luck. It only really becomes effective at ranges that someone with real aim would be using dumb fire for a far better result.

    Personally I was hoping for a weapon that rewarded skill towards the mid range against air. Right in the middle between what I would consider to be a good dumbfire range and effective burster range. For me it doesn't fill that role. I am far better off using a dumbfire for the same effective range of the Striker is at present.
  19. bookbook

    Request reduction Striker :(
  20. a-koo-chee-moya

    So? I thought everyone was hounding about "BALANCE BALANCE BALANCE NOW!!!" Just becuase a weapon doesn't make as much of an impact as the others doesn't mean it shouldn't be buffed. Anyways, a bad weapon makes no impact as everyone uses other options.