Higby Asks : Balance Changes

yeah but having them not be revivable is the thing that opens the door for balancing with resources. If they can be revived it is meaningless even if they cost 750.

If they aren't willing to look at the level of cloaking they could at least look at how far away/noise level of the cloaking.

Small tweaks:
-Lock-ons exit the barrel in the direction you are looking at, instead of in the direction of an intersection course to the target which means it will hit that wall or tree you were specifically aiming passed.

-There is too large a variation between pistols effectiveness. Ofcourse there need to be different stats for long/mid/short range or accuracy, but currently there are just some weapons that overperform in comparison to the others.

-Betelguse is a much, much better auraxium LMG than the other two factions. Either buff the other two or nerf the Betelguse to equal power.

-HE and maybe HEAT need something to be competative with the AP cannon. Either return their original AOE's to get balance again or give them some kind of special. The HE could for instance cause players in the AOE to walk slower or similar small concussion effects. HEAT I don't know.

-Sunderers need to be balanced. A 2/2 MBT should be able to defeat a 3/12 Sunderer regardless of the Sunderer setup.
-Sunderer backside needs to be brought in-line with the rest of the vehicle. It's just weird design to give it's backside a higher resistance %

-Don't tweak the HA's. Their abilities are balanced compared to the other classes.


Bigger tweaks:
LA needs a big overhaul. Except for his jumpjet he's got no special abilities. You might count his C4 as an ability but the LA needs more specials that aren't AV weapons, or are competitive with the C4 in the utility slot.

More viable ESF tactics, make sure that the reverse maneuver and hover fighting become less powerful by increasing other aicraft maneuvers their strength and usefulness.

Less power to aircraft. ESF especially are the strongest unit in the game that can consistenly get high killingstreaks against infantry and vehicles. Either they need to be more specialised and good against only one particular unit (infantry, tanks, aircraft) at a time, or they need their total ammo capacity greatly reduced. A higher dependancy of nearby places to re-arm creates a better strategy on the ground, and makes aircraft battles far more stragetic. A much better idea of the amount of opponents and your total ammo capacity will be needed to be able to fight properly. Otherwise you might get gunned down while you don't have ammo.

More actual Aircraft killers. No stupid deterrents. "tweak" the skyguard to have two different versions. One can be the current one, and one can have decreased flak range (so it needs to be closer to hit) and tighter COF. Preferably increase it's ROF at the expense of some other feature.

Change the MAX. We need one high-health version to tank and one more risky version with strong weaponry but much lower health to balance out.

I posted this to Higby on numerous occasions over Twitter, no response.

T32 Bull revamp, increase fire rate and make it 125 damage tier with a minimum damage of 112 (Similar to TORQ)

Because the Lasher is arguably UP and to buff something when it does not need it when something else may well benefit from msuch an improvement seems to be SOE's standpoint, at least before they sledgehammer it. Take the PPA, for example. So if you buff the MCG and making it better, it becomes better at any range (more DPM and higher probability of kills in a mag, higher kills per mag).

Anywawy, it wouldn't be OP but compared to the Lasher it wouldn't be far off. Sorry or that.

But what are they gonna come up with for the never coming HA update then?

Just remove it from all of them.... 0.75 ADS'ing should only be available to slow ROF Semi-Autos
otherwise it breaks all Risk vs. Reward formulas like ZOE did where there's no technical way around it.

...SMG's also need a higher penalty on their Range-Falloff, they're too effective at Mid-Range which, is why most LMG's feels so marginalized in the first place, like they don't have a "Role" anymore outside of the super-versatile Orion. .....AR's are probably too good as well but Medics need a real Update first that gives them something else in exchange for any AR nerfs.

Raven nerf, debris nerf, Striker buff versus ground vehicles, HEAT / HE buff for tanks.

I think redeployside needs looked into.
I love big fights but there is something that needs adjusted imo.

I think the HA shield is too advantageous, nerfing it would probably make a lot of players ragequitl2p.

Where to even begin... not in order of importance:

1) base desing, map design: no shelling spawn rooms, no shelling inside buildings, shelling inside bases... Anti-air must be possible from inside bases,...
This allows vehicles to be buffed when playing to their strengths: outside, frontal armor,..

2) Burst weapons: lower first shot recoil multipliers for nearly all of em.
Something like 1-1.6
To give an idea of the difference:
the Sabr-13 has a FSRM of 0.75
The Gauss Rifle Burst; which is the NC medic burst rifle, also 2x burst... has 2.15.

3) Semi-auto sniper rifles: buff the muzzle velocities (the Bull LMG has 670 m/s muzzle velocity; the starting sniper rifle, semi-auto has 550m/s. Both semi-auto's: +75m/s muzzle velocity; they're sniper rifles, and for short range engagements people like Elusive1 are using bolt actions for the 1-shot potential anyway...
Also buff ADS moving; current 0.55; buff to something like 0.4. (0.3 would be very good)
Last, buff hipfire; current moving hipfire is 6.5.. worse than a bolt action

4)
LMG:
Carv-S vs SVA-88. Really?
Give the Carv-S something extra over the SVA-88.
Flare: burst-weapon LMG for the vanu. 1.85 FSRM.. higher than the EM6 .. in fact, highest of the 167 LMG's.
-> EM6 loses burst fire mode; goes to Gaus Saw S; Flare lower first shot recoil multiplier. (1.65? Like Gaus Saw S)
Flare drops down to 60 round mag,
so does the SVA-88;
this is to increase faction specificness.
75 rounds and faster reload > the 100 round TR LMG's.
It still leaves the NC with 100 round mags, but at least they "pay" for it with long reloads.

652 dmg weaponry: make it more accurate ADS moving.. the Rhino has 0.4 for example at the moment.. so does the EM1, and the Polaris. Also consider better standing still starting accuracy; 143 dmg weapons have 0.1; 167 0.03. how about 0.65? (Halfway..)
ADS moving: 0.3.
Not perfect, but a noticeable improvement over other LMG's.


5) Side-arms: commie owns for most people. ES pistols could use some buffs.
NC Rebel: damage increased so that it is a 4-shot kill vs nanoweave. This means 315 dmg/shot.
Underboss still has an advantage when considering headshots (body-shot+headshot kills vs non-nanoweave; also 3 bodyshots vs non-nanoweave vs 4 still for the rebel).
I'd have to look back pretty deep in my post history; I've proposed a list of changes for side-arms; basically buffs for non-NS sidearms.

6)
Nerf sundy, buff tanks. Short sentence, I have plenty of ideas posted; others have other ideas, but yeah..)

7)
MOUSEYAW.
Bonus points for removing hover-duels, wishlist I know.

8)
Flash nerf actually. Flash currently has 1500 health, and 80% small arms damage resistance. For comparison, a max has 2000 hp, and also 80% small arms damage resistance. Add cloak, aim at the cloaked flash, fire and.. nothing much really happens.
A counter option: "wraith cloak" makes the flash more vulnerable. Again, mainly to small arms.
Try at 70% dmg resistance or something.
And a sniper rifle should really damage something like a flash; not blow it up; but what is wrong with a bolt action dealing 1/3rd of flash health? Current sniper rifle, say 650 dmg. x 0.2= 130 dmg. So , you'd need over 10 shots to destroy the basic flash.. what?
I like playing as flash, but it should be a fragile vehicle, even to infantry fire.

9) Making sure max AI weapons are better than max AV weapons for AI work:
pounders less splash; ravens.. something;
Fractures: drop acceleration mechanism; see what happens.
VS comets: better starting accuracy or lose the bloom? I'd like comets to get 3-round capacity btw. (and falcons at 2 rounds; to deny a "1 volley kill")


10)
Liberator and galaxy shouldn't be flying tanks.. pick two: mobility, firepower, armor.
Food for thought: the lib has 86% dmg resistance vs ESF noseguns; the valk 85%.
Isn't an ESF "supposed" to counter the lib?

11) after better base-design (-> no shell-ville spawn camp; firing into buildings from a convenient nearby hill, onto points etc)
-Flak user sees a HE 150mm shell land half a meter from his feet.. loses shield. Wut?
-non-flak user stands at 1.2 m from the HE shell and.. survives. Wut?
I say this as an infantry player.
Buffing infantry AV weapons /whatever won't change the equation until tank rounds don't kill infantry anymore with a direct hit.
But it is silly to go bunnyhopping at a lightning whilst reloading the RL, knowing he can only shoot every 3 seconds..
Indoor, Bases-> Infantry territory.
Outdoor: Vehicle > infantry.*
*Mostly. Quantity has a quality of it's own etc. Even with upgraded frontal armor, stronger splash guns, a few enterprising heavies sneaking to the back of an _outdoor_ tank should give the crew a rattle.

Alternative: no base defenses at all.
Bases serve as spawn points; to spawn as infantry, to spawn vehicles, but bases become completely undefendable.

12)
ZOE: +50% forward movement speed, take 10% more damage, fire 10% faster.
TR Lockdown: 1.5x zoom and "zoom aim speed", more projectile velocity and more reload speed, 50% movement speed and forward movement only (no strafing; I'd say no sprinting). Lockdown has a duration.
Lockdown halves the AI weapons CoF.

13)
Air vs Ground.
Take Tomcats. ESF gets 6? starting out, enough to destroy 2 ESF's with them. Less of other aircraft.
Take hornets, get 40. With perfect accuracy, enough to destroy 10 2-man tanks... not counting the nosegun.
--> Lower capacity for anti-ground.

You really think the fractures are in line with the other factions? Screw the resource system, TR AV is good to about 100m.

Outside of weapons tweaks a change that's needed IMO is to limit the height that you can safely drop from a Gal / Val as a spawn ,, Or limit the height that the spawn works at ..

Make the valkyrie OP. Every vehicle has had its time on the top, id hate to see the valkyrie left behind to be useless forever..

Just make a difference between L-PPA (scythe) and PPA (ground), so whiner player won't stop to call for ground PPA nerf whenever it's a crappy weapon.

Buff :
Allow harasser 3rd crew to shot on a 360° angle.
Improve PPA (ground) accuracy
Striker effectiveness at longer range against ground vehicles


Nerf :
Banshee

What need to be looked at :
Valkyrie
Shotgun on MAXes
Make LA useful in teamplay (give them a real role)

Banshee got nerfed? When? Like a few days ago it seemed pretty amazing......its still just brrt dead....

Turn MBT ES AI secondaries into AV weapons.

Carv -s is broken. Gun is the worst thing I have ever tried to araxium apart from the rhino which is up next and already having nightmares. TR carbines are good but our LMGs are terrible compared to other factions.

It hasn't been changed at all on Live ... PTS might be a different matter ..

Game balance changes?

Buff HEAT to be atleast mildly useful. Maybe give HEAT an improved resistance rate against Lightning, Har, aircraft and other non-Sundy or MBT vehicles. Improve blast radius a bit.

EM6 to 600m/s velocity....<<pipe dream