Bad design strategy: If it's hard to do it should be extremely powerful

There are lots of weapons and items in the game that are extremely powerful against certain targets with the justification "Well, it's really hard to actually hit". A lot of people think this is great, because it introduces a high skill ceiling, but in reality, it is extremely game breaking. It makes it so that skill in to power out scale up exponentially, and high end players are generally better off using weapons in a difficult way outside of their intended purpose than actually using the weapons that are meant for that task.

For example, for an average player the Skyguard or Burster, or GtA lockon are good go-to units for shooting down aircraft, but for really high skilled players those weapons are virtually useless, because if you have the skill to reliably use a tank cannon or dumbfire launcher against aircraft they are hugely more powerful for anti air.

The Liberator is a unit that has a similar problem. For average players it's nearly completely unusable because it gets destroyed so easily in air combat. An elite Liberator team on the other hand outclasses ESFs by a huge chunk since once you get past a certain skill threshold where the Dalton becomes a reliable AA weapon it's much more powerful than any actual AA weapon for that task.

When a lot of weapons in the game are designed with the philosophy that "if something is hard to do it's ok if it's overpowered" all that leads to is that in high end play where everyone can do the hard things reliably they are just plain overpowered. It also fundamentally breaks the relationship between players of different skill levels. Nobody is ever known as an absolutely lethal Skyguard gunner, because everyone with extremely high skill simply abandons the Skyguard and goes for a weapon that produces more damage. A lot of fundamental concepts to the game simply break down when player skill passes over a certain threshold. Tanks become the best AA guns, anti armor projectiles become extremely effective anti-infantry weapons, and all the tools that are actually there to do those jobs are simply abandoned.

It's a bad situation that needs to be addressed. It's simply stupid that a lot of weapons aren't actually the best at their specialized task in the hands of highly skilled players. I would prefer if those weapons had a higher skill ceiling rather than making weapons absurdly powerful if someone manages to use them against other targets than they are primarily designed for.

I will get this out of the way before anyone else gets here:

But skillllll weheheheheheeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!

It's a large problem in game design that a lot of players with certain mindsets have trouble understanding, to them 'power' should always scale with 'skill', all the way to it's logical conclusion.
In a game like this a lot of weapons should be balanced more along a tactical 'rock, paper, shotgun' model were certain weapons are very strong counters to certain things.

The thing is that the player group who have it completely ingrained in their mind that 'power = skill' will cling on to this and will fight anything that doesn't fit into it.
That's why ESFs for example are still so powerful, instead of having a dedicated air superiority fighter and ground support craft we have a single ESF that does it all and is on it's own more powerful then any other single man unit in the game... all justified by 'skill'

If people want a completly skill based game, they should play a game build up around that, an arena shooter, quake, unreal or CS which from their core are designed as 'skill' based games and are completely build and balanced around that.

I absolutely agree with with you Roth.
This has been an ongoing problem since release.
Smg infils/Harrassers/Esfs are great examples of this

Yes, please, dumb the game down to faceroll levels so that skill wouldn't matter.

If you're able to shoot down ESFs with tank cannons, or even Daltons for that matter, then all I can do is clap, because whenever I try that I fail miserably.
If I get my scythe shot down by a tank I PM the guy saying "NICE!", because damn that really is nice.


Take those away and all you're left with is Call of Battlefield 2.0

You should also pre-add an aimbot to the game, because aiming well is very unbalanced. I mean, shooting down enemies just because you' aim better? Blasphemy!

My ZOE extended Bursters are great at AA.
Magrider can't hit esf's, they can't aim up for sh*t
They don't have the raw power of a tank round or dalton, but I'll flak them as soon as they render hundreds of meters away, there's no escape

Man. You would've hated the Galaxy Gunship.

I think his point is that weapons should have strict roles. That no matter the skill of the user, a dedicated AA gun should be better than a dedicated AV gun for AA duty. It can always be solved by adding a sharp rock-paper-scissors damage system. It's an interesting subject, I look forward to more posts.

Which did you play longer: Tic-Tac-Toe or Chess?

In short, the time spent mastering a game is the reason it's fun (A Theory of Fun, Koster). With a low skill ceiling, a game is mastered rapidly and players leave the game. With a high skill ceiling, players continue playing a very long time (essentially as long as they feel they're still learning new tricks.)

Certainly the ratio of skill:effectiveness needs to be controlled so that increases in skill don't make a player dramatically more powerful.

My comments on the existing balance:

• (too good) An expert Liberator beats even above average ESF pilots which is broken because ESFs are the only reasonable counter.
• (by design) Skyguards and Bursters are generally intended to be area denial, providing a fairly consistent threat but not being excessively lethal.
• (needs redesign) ESFs currently don't have very good weapon balance between A2G and A2A capabilities (you basically get to take both your best A2A and best A2G option at the same time.) It would be better if ESF weaponry worked on a sliding scale between the best A2A and best A2G loadouts. (As a lock-on weapon, A2A missiles are outside of this spectrum; lock-on weapons by design need to be weaker but easier to use than other weaponry.)
  • Maybe the simplest way to achieve this would be to allow pilots to equip a second Rotary in their secondary weapon slot (which means you don't get A2G rockets, but you essentially get nonstop rotary fire.)
  • Either that or provide more variation in noseguns. One which is worse against aircraft but better at piercing vehicle armor. Another which is weaker against armored targets but better against aircraft (which is really what the rotary should morph into.)

So basically skill ceilings should be high, but shouldn't allow a weapon/vehicle to become so powerful that it beats its counter (although it's fine if it's able to evade its counter, with enough skill discrepancy.) The effectiveness of a counter should also remain pretty even at various skill tiers (a newbie ESF should beat a newbie Liberator at about the same effectiveness as an expert ESF beats an expert Liberator.)

Let's see...

A single Burster Max can deny airspace (if they are not dumb).

A single HA with a lockon can deny airspace (if they are not dumb).

A single Skyguard can deny aispace (even dumb ones... really.. just point and click.. wheee!)

This assumes one ESF versus one AA unit. A VERY good or lucky pilot might take out an average played AA unit but usually it's not a smart idea to try. This does not take into consideration teamwork however. You want to run that Skyguard all by itself in the mountains to sneak pot shots at passing planes near my warpgate? Assume I will be back with 4-5 ESFs and maybe a Lib or two to remove you.

Do I find getting dalton'd or AP tank round'd annoying? Sure. But frankly it happens so little to me I barely notice it. Only the truly stupid get owned by tanks on a regular basis and if you can land shots against my ESF on a regualr basis with a Dalton from the range I will be fighting you at while strafing...? Kudos.

The 3rd nose guns kills ESF much faster than the 2nd. The 2nd kills heavy vehicles much faster than 3rd. So it is the way you wish.

So a Dalton should not kill an ESF? Ok, lets take that just a tiny bit further. Following this logic, a burster MAX should not be able to kill enemy infantry.

Killing an enemy with Dalton is not hard, nor is it easy. It's just very situational, and unless you get a really lucky shot, pretty much all ESF kills will occur because the ESF pilot got too close to your Liberator.

Now, double bursters are extremely good against air, but can also retaliate against enemy infantry. However, if the enemy is anywhere beyond 5-10m, your bursters will be rendered useless. It's pretty much the same as the Dalton example I just made. If the enemy does not know his own limits, he's going to have to pay the appropriate price.

It's not about something acting outside of its intended role, it's about people lacking knowledge & skill.

I guess that proves that portion of my post was meaningless then since noseguns being that way certainly doesn't prevent my taking the best anti-ESF one (and also killing infantry with it) while also having rocket pods, so I have the best weapons against everything (which is the root of the problem.)

Just because it CAN kill infantry doe not mean it's the BEST at it. Also... I love it when people use Rockpods/Rotary when I fly against them. It means they sacrificed mobility and the ability to have another viable Air to Air weapon system open to them. It usually ends with them a smoldering ruin.

Not specializing your loadout will in fact lessen it's effectiveness and make you lose out on points as well as get you killed easier.

In fact they need to make it possible for ESFs to change loadouts like MAX units. Would make flying even more fun as the battlefield changes and my loadout is less effective for the targets at hand.

Only a handful of people will attain the skill level to regularly use, say, AP tank rounds against liberators. Yes, higher skilled people will be very dangerous. Heck, there are people out there who can break bones with magazines; they know the way to roll it up tight enough that it becomes almost solid wood again. Most people can not do that. So...nerf magazines?

There's nothing wrong with very skilled players doing large amountes of damage utilyzing weaponsystems in ways they may not have been intended. Those players become legends in the game...and if you DO kill them, you may well get a sense of accomplishment.

I dont see how your post is an argument against the OP's post. Shooting ESF with dalton sure is usage outside its role.

Its a matter of preference for how strongly a game should stick to the idea of specific roles. Some people are not interested in skillful use of weapons outside their intended role. I bet some people wouldt mind going so far as making it black and white. Dalton cant harm anything but ground vehicles.

Oh, I agree with you fully Pikachu. Of course, the corrolary applies as well; there will be people who WOULD mind making it black and white. So, who do you try to make happy? I'm in favor of status quo; it's what people are used to. When you start making changes to please one group, you alienate the group that was already pleased. It turns into a death spiral of trying to make individual groups happy until you end up with a dead game. DAoC went that route, hate to see PS2 follow.