Buff this, nerf that--what happened to just dealing with it?

Everyone, from every faction, complains about balance. This should be nerfed, or that needs to be buffed, or the Devs love them and hate us.

I play primarily TR, and from my POV overall the game is fairly balanced. Sure, every faction has some aspect of their arsenal that is slightly OP, but that's as it should be. It's up to the other factions to come up with a way to deal with it. That's what makes the game exciting, challenging, and innovative. How boring would it be if whenever the NC pulled up in their Vanguards the response from the other factions is, "Bah, no problem. I'll just pull a ****." The fun comes in developing methods and tactics to deal with the other faction's strengths.

The problem only comes when one faction has something that's so OP that it's potentially game breaking, and by that I mean so powerful, effective and easy to use that the faction uses it as the answer to almost all situations.

Believe it or not, the Striker was not OP. Wait, hear me out. If you could hit an ESF with all 5 missiles you still didn't do enough damage to destroy it. Same went for a tank (lightning or MBT). It took at least 2 complete volleys to take out an ESF and slightly more to take out a tank, and trust me it was easy to break lock. All an ESF had to do was break line of sight (sometimes a swear a leaf in the way would do it) or dive toward the ground. Even if it didn't break lock the Striker missile would "anticipate" the ESF's trajectory and explode harmlessly into the ground. On average you might get a couple of hits per volley. Same with tanks--dodge behind a rock; lock broken. And remember, you had to stand out there in the open to achieve lock-on. This was back in the days when an HE round or Lolpod would kill any infantry within a km of impact. (Slight exxageration.) Often you'd get off one or two rockets only to be lolpodded, tank shelled, or sniped.

All in all the Striker wasn't significantly better than the Annihilator (which was pretty good itself before it got nerfed.) The reason the Striker seemed OP is because everyone used it. Why wouldn't you use a faction specific weapon if it was just as good as the NS weapon, given the choice? It was new, and showed pride in your faction.

Of course, everyone armed with a Striker can do a lot of damage--the same way everyone armed with an Annhilator can, or a Lancer, or...20 or 30 rockets hitting your MBT is going to destroy it, no matter what launcher you're using.

And, as one final bit of ancedotal evidence that the Striker wasn't OP, from all accounts I've read only a handful of people ever Aurax'd it. Seriously, there are die-hards out there who Aurax weapons within a day or two or its release, but even though the Striker was supposedly OP for such a long time only 10 or so players Aurax'd it?

IMO the only thing in this game that was truely OP--game changing OP--was the ZOE Max. It was so good and easy to use that it practically became the default class for the VS. The presiding thinking seemed to be, "Why pull a Heavy when you can pull a ZOE?" Got a tough fight? Pull a ZOE. Those tanks giving you a hard time? Pull a ZOE.

On numerous occasions my squad would fight off hordes of Vanu (Vanu travel in hordes, right?) while defending a cap point. We'd hold out for 10-20 minutes or more, when suddenly they'd pull a ZOE or two. They'd be up the stairs, past your emplacements and outrunning your C4 before you could get more than a few rounds into them. Once they were amongst you they could take out a squad or two. Game over. And they stayed that way for months (6 or more?)

Mind you, when the nerf came it came hard. Too hard IMO. As I said before, every faction should have something that's difficult to contend with. Thei problem is the took the ZOE from "near impossible to deal with" to "meh."

You know, maybe we'd have more fun playing the game if we just embraced the other faction's abilities, and then--you know--learned to kill them.

That's the exact moment where you started talking nonsense.

"IMO the only thing in this game that was truely OP--game changing OP--was the ZOE Max. It was so good and easy to use that it practically became the default class for the VS. The presiding thinking seemed to be, "Why pull a Heavy when you can pull a ZOE?" Got a tough fight? Pull a ZOE. Those tanks giving you a hard time? Pull a ZOE."

Same thing was said about the striker It was so good and easy to use that it became the go to weapon for TR. Why pull a tank to deal with those Magriders, use a Striker you or someone in the platoon will get the kill... Why pull a Mossie (which got nerfed due to its over performance when it wasn't over performing its just every Reaver and Scythe was dieing to Strikers in part) to deal with air, just use a striker. The only things the Striker couldn't lock onto was max units and infantry...

Yes it got nerfed but not as much as the Zoe got nerfed, does using a striker actively reduce your health pool, make you more visible to everyone and reduce your ability to see targets?

It's easy to say "each faction should have unique advantages" in general, but when you introduce any specific advantage, the people who are hurt the most by it are going to speak up. No is going to say to themselves, "well, my ESF is just going to get shot down twice as often by TR and their strikers than it is by the VS and their standard lock-ons, but I'm okay with that because I could spend 2,000 certs on Ravens and have the best long-range MAX AV weapon."

I'm not actually judging the old Striker, by the way. It was nerfed before my time.

I don't even know what the difference is between current and old striker besides the bug of invisible missiles and the bug of missiles going through terrain. Today those bugs are fixed and all lock-on missiles have been nerfed in range and in ability to hit (the worst method I have ever seen).

ZOE I just wanted to increase the damage taken for. Make one default rocket set them to red and a decimator kill it.

Naejin, you consider ZOE game braeaking. What about old p2 HE and p2 HEAT with 1000 splash damage? Old rocket pods that destroyed frontal tank armor with ease? Saron and enforcer killing infantry with 1 shot? Old magrider.

Age of entitlement = Age of Nerf it killed me.

Fact is though some things do need balancing otherwise it becomes the only option which isn't good for the game.

Easy to use? The Annhilator was easier to use. I didn't have to stand there trying to maintain visual to fire my 5 rockets before reloading. I could fire and forget, and load another rocket. It generally only took 2 Annhilator rockets to take out an ESF. Same for tanks. If everyone had just switched over to the Annhilator and used it en masse like they did the striker the result would have been the same. The problem was that they nerfed all lock-ons the same time they nerfed the striker, so you didn't see the resulting hordes of ESF dying to the Annhilator.

Whine why people want x nerfed and x buffed > whines about ZOE being op.

But I totally agree , this is a bloody war.
Zoe , Strikers , shotguns , PPA , c4s ,Fury , Marauder , HE cannons and etc are all instruments of war! WHY BALANCE OUT THE CHAOS AND BEAUTY OF WAR?!?!?!! WHY?! -dramatic music playing in the background-

I agree the Heat and HE rounds were rediculously lethal. I should know, I died to enough of them. But at least every faction had them, sort of, kind of, almost, in a way.

So a lock on launcher with fire and forget 5 rockets, insane range and the ability to clip through terrain and buildings wasnt OP?

TIL some TR players are funny.

The best players do deal with it, and choose the strongest weapons to defeat their enemies.

The wisest players then make suggestions to improve balance on the forums, understanding it's best for game depth.

So the fact that the Striker wasn't unbeatable was never really a factor. It was too strong and deserved a reduction (but not to become underpoewred, obviously.) Not all balance changes are absolutely required, but the closer things come to being balanced at their respective roles, the better the game will be.

Well you could always deny the freedom of speech on forums or get rid of the forums. People who don't know how to adapt would be shooed away.

If it kills me it is OP

Deal with that

It happened the second games development didn't stop when you bought the game.

Before I game shipped and that was it. You had no choice you deal with it our you quit.

Now changes can be made after the game is live so you can talk about what changes need to be made

Balance is important, you can argue that asymmetric balance is part of having three different empires and I will agree with that.

What I can not agree with is when that asymmetric balance overly favours or discriminates one empire against common-pool NS equipment. (This is a generalised statement, you can interpret it in any way you want)

It was only "forget" after you'd launched that 5th rocket, it had the same relative range as all anti-air launchers (which is why they were all nerfed" and clipping through buildings and terran was a bug, not a design feature. It also tended to turn around and hit the person who fired it--I'm glad they didn't keep that part either.

I kind'a agree with the OP about the Striker. I hitched a ride on the bus long ago and the got the Striker as early as I could because I heard it was very effective for it's cert cost.
It wasn't really. It wasn't THAT effective. What it was, though, was buggy.

Breaking lock by dodging behind a hill didn't always save you because my lil 5 pods of tickling would climb up and over them because they would bug out and not hit scan for ground collision. I'm sure many remember that. Volleys of Strikers shooting armies of little red rockets that snaked over terrain in any direction.
Oh and at times they'd simply go THROUGH the obstacles.

That's what made the Striker OP. However without those issues? It wasn't OP at all.
Everyone was using it because 50% of the time, you'd get glitched rounds that'd continue to pursue the target due to their amazingly similar physical properties to nuetrinos. However the striker did nothing besides play mind games with Pilots who if they were flying over a Sea of Red, would complain how'd they automatically see "G-Lock" on their HUDs and whine about it.

To this day I still use a Striker. Why?
Same ********. Same mind games. Almost every pilot I see will bug out when I lock them and fire a SINGLE SHOT which means unlike other single fire lock ons, I can do this Over.. and over... and over... and over. It's called Area Denial. Even if I'm doing little damage, the fact that I'm forcing you to bug out, forcing flares and making disengage is a win. My tiny red orb is also tracing your positions and bursters will finish you off.
Team Work is OP.

That's what people usually don't get.
Too many people still feel that the game should be balanced on a 1v1 scenario. My striker should be just as even as everyone else's system and my Tank should be just as effective as everyone else's too.

That's ********.

Complete and utter ********.

This is a huge, larger scale team death match with objective based play that in the next few major patches, will become even MORE objective and strategically based. It should be balanced faction vs faction, not 1v1. This forces co-op play and faction based dynamics.

You know how sick of it I am that the only differences I find in different factions being my opponent is usually "**** it's night time, lets not fight the Vanu...". You know how deflating that sounds? Like it's a mere inconvenience. Why not "Ok so we're opening up a front against the Vanu to get to that Tech Plant. Remember, we need to assembly load outs and squadrons that hit hard and fast and get as close as possible because Vanu are agile and accurate." or vs the NC "Ok lets get ready to hammer and anvil. This is the NC, they hit harder and take bigger hits but they move slower. Blitz the line to hold their screen Alpha and Bravo, meanwhile Charlie and Delta prepare a heavy Galaxy drop at a flank."

See, here's where you lose any credibility whatsoever.
The striker was OP, and at times also bugged.

The fact that you're TR only goes to show how blind people can be of their own faction's OP toys.


Edit:
To clarify, what the striker did was that if it could lock on for 2.25 seconds on any non-stealth vehicle (for which it'd be 3.25), it was a guaranteed 2500 damage, which is more than the descimator and AV Mana turret.
Couple that with what was an absurdly effective lock-on system that you realistically couldn't ever break sans flares/smoke to the point where running those weren't an choice for NC and VS but a requirement (meanwhile it wasn't for TR). There were a handful of situations where you might be able to break it but they were so rare that comparing it in a ratio would quickly become meaningless, it was that rare.

And if you can't see how the striker was an OP and (not 'or') also for a time broken weapon I can't trust your judgement on anything else in this regard.

I deal with all the so called 'imbalance' all the time really, though it wasn't the power that these weapons had, its just the appeal they gave that made so many people use it more and more.

Harassers were probably the one thing that bugged me at the time, still do but not as much as they did before, it wasn't cause it was too good at doing its role, its just that everyone used the same thing, which made other options just pointless to use. At the time, people used Halberd, Turbo, and Composite armor. Every single harasser I've encountered before the time they were 'balanced out' were equipped with that. VS, TR, and NC, when something like that happens, personally I think there is something wrong.

Suppose what can be said is that, if it doesn't make other options viable, then it needs to be modified. The striker was a pretty good launcher in bulk, but personally I think all launchers need to be reworked given that they dumb fire. A weapon that's too versatile needs to be changed, as for a weapon that has no special mechanics to it needs to be modified, and if a weapon that just doesn't work despite what its for and uniqueness needs to be improved.

Though its difficult to determine this, as many people want different things, one would say a weapon is too powerful from getting killed with it, while the person with the weapon says its too weak and needs to be improved. To understand the balance of things, trying out other factions can help as well as seeing if the weapon or equipment works would you choose it over something else? Does the weapon you have on you have a specific function that no other weapon has? Does it cater to a specific play style, skill cap, role? Can it effectively deal with certain threats? Though there is also the controversy of Uniqueness vs Balance, such as empire specific equipment. Some people want more differences while others want more of the same. Which can be cleared off by using every faction and trying to get an idea how things work for them.

It was guaranteed 2500 damage if you could hit it with all 5 rockets, which you rarely could. And even before the big nerf, they quickly upped the lock on time. The big nerf added the fact that you had to maintain lock to fire the rest of the missiles, upped lock on time, and lowered the damage per missile and decreased the range.