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

Guess the OP would be screaming at all the Anti - Air VG Videos I've done =P.

An AA Weapon will always be better at dealing with air then an AV weapon.

The fact that an AV Weapons CAN one shot doesn't not make it instantly better because of how little you actually kill air with it. I'm lucky to get more then 3 air kills on any given day with my AP VG. With the SG I can get that in like 20 mins.

Time for me to destroy my lib? liberators plain old suck at A2A. maybe minus the shredder. But a smart ESF will stay 1100 meters away where they can see the lib but the lib can't see them. My daltons have all been on idiots tha fly in straight lines and the occasional shots that hit the guys afterburning in all directions.

The problem starts when you use "requires more skill" as the only way to balance a weapon, vehicle or mechanic. For the sake of having an example I can actually relate to, I'll use dumb-fire launchers vs G2A launchers as an example.

For the majority of players G2A launchers are clearly the preferred option against ESF's. The reason is not because G2A launchers are actually more effective, but just that the alternative is incredibly hard to use by comparison. For most players this way of balancing things will work. The problem is that once players do actually reach the skill level required to be more effective with the dumb-fire the whole system breaks down for them. For these people there is no reason to roll with G2A since they can be more effective with the dumb-fire launcher in every situation.

So is the solution to not make dumb-fire launchers OHK ESF's? No. A solution that involves nerfing the high skill ceiling weapon might be useful in some cases, but it isn't the only or best way to deal with this. The real problem is not that people can get more skilled with dumb-fire launchers. It's that people can't become more effective with G2A launchers past a certain point. Unlike what some people seem to believe it isn't a problem that G2A launchers require little skill, it's that you can't become more skilled with it once you hit the rather low skill ceiling.

I know it's kind of a poor example in the sense that I can't actually think of anything that would increase the skill ceiling on G2A launchers without also drastically increasing the skill floor or basically nerfing the weapon. (which would not solve the problem either, you are just making the weapon less effective for the unskilled instead of more effective for the skilled) It's just an example though. I just used it to convey the general idea of why using skill requirements to balance things is a bad idea and how the proper solution is not to make high skill ceiling weapons less effective, but instead to allow players to become better with the weapons that are meant for the job.

I've also seen some people say that hovering ESF pilots basically deserve to be killed instantly. While I wholeheartedly agree with that I need to point out that this only makes the problem worse. By lowering the skill requirement to be effective with dumb-fire launchers you create more situations where using them is preferred over G2A launchers.

I myself started to occasionally use the dumb fire mode on my G2A launcher to avoid getting flared or just because I had no time to lock on with an ESF coming straight at me. Then I realized that if I'm going to dumb-fire it anyway I might as well use my standard launcher instead. So far I've had some moderate success with it and while it doesn't work against all pilots I've found that there are many who are very good at avoiding lock-ons yet have terrible hovering habits. I don't think I've reached the point where it really is more effective to use the dumb-fire launcher, but I feel like it's definitely possible.

I agree OP, a lot of the weapons in this game are poorly attributed to being "skilled" and as a result players feel like they need to be absurdly powerful, or broken. The biggest offenders for me, right now, are rocket launchers and sniper rifles.

The rationale behind RLs being powerful against infantry, for some reason, seems to be that it's "risky," or is hard to do. It's neither of those things. In fact, RLs are one of the safest AI weapons in the game, and in the situations where they become the biggest examples of bad game design, are not at all difficult to use either. The problem with RLs comes into play in close quarters IvI situations, so in and around bases at close quarters. The problem, being, that if an HA can land a direct shot on any other infantry class, outside of MAX, it is a guaranteed one hit kill. The other contributing factor is that some of these RLs are extremely fast, the defaults travel somewhere around 100+ meters/second. At close range that might as well be histscan. I cannot count the number of times when I see an HA, they run around a corner only to return seconds later to take pot shots at me with their rocket launchers instead of their LMGs. It's ridiculous.

Sniper rifles are bad for similar reasons. The people crying and clamoring for a 150+ meter headshot kill zone are, chances, not reliably getting headshots at 150 meters anyways. They probably aren't at 100 meters, or even less, on moving targets. Allowing long range sniping is basically encouraging players to take up a play style that isn't effective in the game, will certainly barely reward them, is frustrating and unfun to fight against, just because they think that "skilled" shots should be rewarded according to the skill. That's ridiculous.

Do you consider yourself an "expert" level liberator pilot? If not then this post doesn't apply to you. There are certain libs on Mattherson that, when I see them, I just leave in my ESF because I know that they will shoot me down in just a few tries with a dalton.

I agree partly, but i laughed at ESF drivers thinking they have skill. There is less than a dozen skilled ESF pilots / server. All the others are just lolpod (which is one of the easiest weapon to use in the entire game while being one of the most powerful)

The problem with the post however is that people who say ''skill'' most of the time aren't skilled http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect. For example, the sniper brigade that went on the forums during the last few weeks. They want a more powerful gun because sniping needs skills in their opinion. But they never played other classes or even tried to. If the sniper was balanced around how much skill it takes, it would do the same damage as a pistol. ESF would not have a single air to ground weapon, MAXes would be much weaker, etc. In other words, the average K/D for every single weapon or vehicle would be of 1.00. Which we know is not the case, when you see tank drivers with daily K/Ds of 100+

But then you're gonna tell me, but this would still ruin the game! Ofcourse it would, you can't make a competitive game with so many players and unstable pops. And one of the biggest problems with this game is that there are separate classes, and you can always spawn with any weapon you want in your hands. If you take halo for example, weapons spawn on the map, and everyone starts the game with the same one, and part of the tactics are holding map areas to be able to have your team always take the ''power weapons'' which are easier to use and have more power (sniper and rocket launcher, etc).

SOE made a game with a huge potential, but they put in so much random and different stuff at the same time that balancing all of it would take months of work, but they ruined everything with their money milking and immensely incompetent staff. This game will never be skilled based, and will never be balanced either as long as SOE doesn'T remove their thumb from their a$$

In other words, this game will never and should never be entirely skill based. It's just impossible. Just like communism is the best theorical society organisation but ended up being the worse in real life. We need to make concessions and accept less skilled weapons to be powerful because the company needs $ from people, and by making the game hard to access for all the casual and players who don't want to no-life until they become great, will greatly reduce the already dwindling pop of the game.

One good way to help the game balancing, make continents or islands that are only accessible by infantry only / vehicles only / aircrafts only. With the current way things are with vehicles spamming spawns and killing new players to the point where they quit the game, if there was an infantry only island, a big majority of players, including myself would go there because we are tired of getting spammed by vehicles, which would kill Indar, which would leave only the vehicle users by themselves, which would make them have no easy farm, which would make them forced to do what they don't want (play vehicles) and go infantry.

This makes it too late to separate the combined arms. It won't fix anything and only bring more problems with pops. What SOE needs to do is balance the current combined arms to make the game as much FUN (not skilled base only) for everyone. There should be a good challenge for people who want it, and there should be an easy mode for others (the easy mode shouldn't be as powerful as it is right now though)

This is only a noob's opinion.


YuukikunVS

I disagree heavily. I think this:

Is great because the people with less skill have a viable option to use and the people with more skill can have a better option because they are better. Removing the difference between skilled and non-skilled players is a very bad move and is also the reason why weapons such as the UBGL are hated (because they remove this barrier)

Nerf skill??? What is the point in playing??

Point is to use right tool for the right job.

It is the right tool if you can use it to get the job done. Nothing wrong with using something difficult for high reward

You think lancer should kill with headshot? Just curious.

That has nothing to do with anything.

The OPs point was that, You should not have items that are difficult to use reward you more then a version that requires less skill because it's unfair to the people that can't use the high skill version

It has to do with all. It's not intended for infantry just like dalton is not for ESF. Hitting in the head with charged shot without zoom takes skill just like hitting ESF with dalton.

Read, The op. Figure you the point he was trying to make and then try again.

See. That's nonsensical, because you can't hit aircraft with 100% accuracy even if you are a perfect shot with those weapons, because they have significant travel time and a small radius of effect. All aircraft has to do is change one vector (or the scalar corresponding to it) and it will successfully dodge.

Dumb fire and tank cannons are only useful against oblivious aircraft... which kind of renders your point moot, because you're arguing that things should be balanced around high skill ceilings (or correct me if I'm wrong).

This is not true. Once again you have to assume incompetence on the part of the ESF. Roll with the dalton, don't just stand there stationary like a dummy. It's not a boss fight where the only weak spot is the dalton. Although it would be cool if it were and it is kind of reminiscent of a megaman boss fight.

While I agree with the gist of your post, I can't help but disagree with almost every example you brought up, because they assume incompetence at least one end therefore having no relevance to your argument.

There are plenty of weapons that fall short under the skill ceiling, especially when it comes to AP vs. HE, but dumb fire.. seriously?

Maybe not. Maybe you're pulling my leg and that's not a bad thing. So good job if that is the case.

Well we're not talking about average players because with them there's not much to discuss.

We're talking about players whose skill crosses the line which takes the Liberator from "countered by ESFs" to "invincible Sky-god". Maybe not invincible, but strong enough that a single ESF can really only hope to zone the thing out, and killing it is only possible with 2 expert ESFs or 3+ average joe pilots. Which is clearly a balance issue, especially since the risk for the pilots is extremely high against an expert Dalton user 1-shotting them.

So the data that you get shot at frequently by these weapons by bad players, and they almost never hit, isn't really useful to a discussion on balance.

Meanwhile what matters is that once a Liberator reaches that skill level they will literally kill their counter unless overwhelmed. The ideal balance is for Liberators to be lethal to ground forces, but vulnerable to ESFs and especially vulnerable to AA-specialized ESFs (which is why I think another skill-based A2A weapon needs to be added as a secondary weapon.) When that's true, the Liberator will no longer be an invincible wrecking ball but will require ESF escort of its own (and due to the Lib's armor, a friendly ESF escort will kill enemy ESFs faster than they can kill the Lib, so it will be a good relationship overall.)

Which is why increasing Autorepair's cooldown was one of my suggestions earlier, since you can easily spend 8 seconds not hitting the Lib when you attempt to avoid sitting in front of the Dalton, and now autorepair has kicked in.

Realistically due to the TTK of the ESF Nosegun (long) and the TTK of the Dalton (1 shot), you can't really sit at close range against an expert Liberator or you're going to take too many chances and die before you finish doing enough damage. Which means you have to fly away a bit to gain some range, which again triggers autorepair.

If the sky is sufficiently empty a good Liberator pilot will also simply follow you, and you'll quickly realize that there just isn't enough continent for you to be able to get another 1km attack run on the guy if he's hanging behind you so your speed advantage is now only around 30-50kph. If he has plenty of support you'll likely find other fights before getting another run on him anyways.

I personally don't believe that Liberators need to be a free kill for ESFs, but they do need to scale more reasonably with skill. It just shouldn't be a situation where an Elite crew is hardly even vulnerable to what counters them while average players really can't use the thing effectively at all.



Also to all the people who spout stupid stuff like "Nerf skill". That's not what this is about, it's about not having weapons that break the system of strengths and weaknesses in place in the game by being considerably stronger than any of the weapons actually designed for a certain task if you pass a skill threshold where you can reliably use them.

If a tank shell has a considerably better chance of killing an aircraft than a barrage of Flak because the average player isn't going to hit aircraft with a tank shell then a competitive high end player doesn't have any incentive to get better at using flak, instead they train themselves to use tank shells to kill aircraft. It's not high skill that is the problem, it's a game system that only rewards high skill if you're using something outside of its intended purpose.

Why do you never see elite tank crews driving with HE and anti infantry top guns? Because mechanics wise the game allows them to use their high skill to wreck infantry with AP cannons and Halberds, but wouldn't allow them to wreck an enemy tank with an HE cannon and a Cobalt. Some weapons reward high skill, others don't. That's the problem.

I would just like to say, but I can solo expert lib teams, it is quite fun.

Not an expert by far. But NUC, has really good crews that can make insane shots. Still My ESF can kill them. what makes me leave my sythe and switch continents is when PREY comes to kill everything with Augr as bait.

But at the same time they will come here demanding buffs or nerfs cuz they feel something is not balanced......Majority of Forumside dont know what they want or whats happening.

Basing balance off some sort of realism beats what SoE is doin now. Its like.....40mm grenade blast....10...sounds good....release...

ZoE? Lets make it a glowy pink super suit....k? k...