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How are Flashfires/Stings not Overwhelmingly OP?


DarthVindictus

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They combine the speed and maneuverability of a scout, with the firepower and quick lock on missiles of a strike fighter. Yes, they're not as armored as a strike fighter, but considering they're a lot harder to hit It makes me wonder if SOMETHING should be taken from them. Yes, they lose the upgradable sensors, but people who fly Flashfires aren't looking for actually scouting out enemies for their teammates, they're looking at topping killboard charts, and they do.

 

I'd remove their ability to use cluster missiles to be honest.

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Totally agreed.

 

Alongside with Gunships they're the joke of GSF so far.

 

Gunships at least have a very tangible weakness, their maneuverability is bad and they have to remain still to snipe. A scout can get in range of one then avoid it, but it flags that gunship for all their other teammates, you know, doing a scout's job, which is to find the enemy, and be first to the satellites to capture. Scouts aren't supposed to fly circles around people while also topping the killboard with superior firepower.

 

Leave the superior firepower to the air superiority fighters. That's their job. Scouts are for.. scouting, and capturing mission objectives.

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This game has three ships in it and all everyone does is QQ about two of them.

 

 

Gunships seem a design choice. If they nerf them such that they can't one shot, that'll probably be fine. If they nerf them such that they can't 2 shot, then they are trashcan and no one will play them.

 

Of the strike fighters, no one seems to complain about them. This probably means they need some buffs, because if some cluebag isn't making a giant cry thread, it's safe to assume the thing is toothless.

 

The rapid fire blaster thing seems to pack too much damage into a very small space on the Flashfire. They also don't seem to give up anything meaningful compared with the Novadrive. I'm not sure what adjustments should be made without making the rapid fire trick dead, however.

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They combine the speed and maneuverability of a scout, with the firepower and quick lock on missiles of a strike fighter. Yes, they're not as armored as a strike fighter, but considering they're a lot harder to hit It makes me wonder if SOMETHING should be taken from them. Yes, they lose the upgradable sensors, but people who fly Flashfires aren't looking for actually scouting out enemies for their teammates, they're looking at topping killboard charts, and they do.

 

I'd remove their ability to use cluster missiles to be honest.

 

Really the only reason they're so good is because the evasion stat is so out of place in this game type. In addition to speed and turn rates which give pilots the ability to manually be hard to hit they have evasion that grants them RNG dodges just in case they aren't doing a good enough job manually evading fire. They can boost evasion to passively apply a 40% accuracy penalty to an enemy (so a weapon with 100% accuracy when fired from the dead center of the firing arc automatically only has a 60% chance to hit). Combined with blaster tracking penalties this can cause an enemy's lasers to rapidly drop to 50% chance or less accuracy and that's before any defensive abilities are used. Evasion quite simply offsets any weakness in having paper thin armor by artificially increasing their ability to absorb damage through RNG dodges.

 

That's also why scouts, despite having paper thin armor, are better at taking out turrets than strike fighters. Scouts have abilities that buff evasion to the point of being literally unkillable for 3-6 seconds so they can make an attack run and escape with little/no damage whereas a striker will take a beating unless they just sit firing torpedoes (and asking to be shot down by defending fighters)

 

Simple solution: eliminate evasion entirely or if it's there to compensate for poor hitbox design (as I've heard), eliminate components, abilities, companion buffs that increase evasion beyond the ship's base stats. Good pilots that know how to manually take evasive action will survive, however the pilots that fly sloppy and need RNG dodges to stay alive will get ripped to shreds by other scouts and strikers.

 

Their firepower isn't the problem, the problem is that they have incredible firepower + evasion RNG dodges that make them disproportionately hard to shoot down. Remove evasion RNG dodges and the offensive firepower won't be a big deal because their paper thin armor will become a genuine weakness as intended.

Edited by Gavin_Kelvar
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It is still an issue, because even without the RNG evasion, they can manually evade everything except another scout, while locking on missiles and unloading a lot of laser firepower.

 

As a gunship, fighting Novadrives/Blackbolts is more annoying than threatening, yes they can stay on me for a long time, but its hard for them to actually kill me.

 

Flashfires get on me and I either have to flee straight for spawn point and hope they're stupid enough to follow or break pursuit, or I'm pretty much dead. I won't be able to get distance on them to rail gun, and I won't be able to hit them with lasers because of their maneuverability, and they can spam cluster missiles and use burst and quad lasers on me.

 

The weakness for gunships is that they're terrible in close range and have to blow as much evasion and engine power as possible to try and run away if engaged in close range. The weakness for strike fighters is they have poor sensor detection, and don't maneuver as well as scouts. The weakness for a normal scout is that they have paper thin armor/shields AND weak weapons.

 

Flashfires relegate that to just weak shields/armor, but with their superior moving and good firepower that's not even really a weakness. I think giving them a better selection of blasters was enough of a tradeoff for losing upgradable sensors. It still makes them offensively powerful, but giving them 1.3s lockon missiles is just too much.

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Flashfires relegate that to just weak shields/armor, but with their superior moving and good firepower that's not even really a weakness. I think giving them a better selection of blasters was enough of a tradeoff for losing upgradable sensors. It still makes them offensively powerful, but giving them 1.3s lockon missiles is just too much.

 

In theory this is true. However, the evasion stat essentially negates this weakness by requiring more blaster hits to shoot them down than would appear based on their hull/shield stats as they appear on paper. EDIT: I'm pretty sure that left to rely only on pilot skill the paper thin armor would become a significant liability and trade off for that firepower even though they would remain the fastest and most agile ships in the game.

 

Take a comparison between a striker and a scout with passive evasion maxed. Now a (default) striker may have 10% passive evasion whereas the scout has 40% passive evasion. Now let's assume that neither pilot is stupid enough to fly in a straight line with an enemy on their tail so the enemy has to fire 5 degrees off center. For quads (both striker and scout available) they come with a 1.5% accuracy penalty per degree so that's 7.5% accuracy penalty. At 3K meters quads have about 100% base accuracy.

 

So against that striker the penalties are 10% passive evasion + 7.5% tracking penalty for 17.5% accuracy penalty. Against the scout that's 40% passive evasion + 7.5% tracking for 47.5% accuracy penalty. So right off the bat only slightly more than 50% of your shots will land on the scout assuming the pilot has perfect accuracy and only RNG dodges are in play. Compare that with 82.5% of your shots landing against the striker in identical scenarios.

 

So to do the same amount of damage to both ships the scout will require far more shots, which also means you'll have to stay on their tail longer than you will against the striker (a difficult proposition considering the scout's maneuverability).

 

Which is my point, scouts on paper have weak defenses but that gets artificially increased by evasion which requires you to shoot far more shots at them than against a striker to do comparable amounts of damage. Which is why scout's heavy hitting offense is such a problem, their supposed weakness is offset by the evasion stat so they have minimal trade off for their firepower. Again remove the evasion stat or at minimum components, abilities, companion buffs that increase it, and suddenly scouts will have a distinct trade off for their heavy firepower.

Edited by Gavin_Kelvar
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and they'll still be OP being that maneuverable with that much firepower.

 

The default scout ships are not a problem. They're offensively weak. They have just as much evasion as the Flashfire/Sting, they just don't have cluster missiles and quad lasers.

 

Take away evade, and they will still be OP, because taking away evasion also affects the default scouts, and gunships. A gunship can get 31% passive evade, and can go into over 100% evade for 3-6 seconds as well.

 

Evade is not the problem with flashfires/stings. Giving the fastest ship the best blasters and fast lockon missiles is.

 

Note the reason i don't complain about strike fighters is even though they have the same firepower as a flashfire/sting, you CAN lose them, you can outmaneuver them, I can get distance on them, with a lot of dampening, if I fly off to where no other ships on their side are, they lose track of me, I can then turn around and rail shot them. They don't have evade, but I still don't dare try to fight them laser to laser. They WILL win that way. That's not using the strengths of each ship. The evade is a moot point. You can use the advantages of your ship against a strike fighter, either gaining distance on them on a GS, or being able to fly circles around them and avoid a lot of their laser fire on a scout, whittling them down even if your own attacks are weak.

 

It's checks and balances between the ships.

 

There is no check or balance against a flashfire or sting. Neither a gunship nor a strike fighter is particularly effective against them, evade or no.

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Three ships total.

Two are overpowered according to him.

Guess the one he flies is perfectly balanced. ;)

 

There's actually 5 ship types.

 

2 strike fighters which are fine (there's a 3rd type but it is identical to the default just faster ship req), 2 scout types, one which is fine, and the one I'm talking about in this thread that combines the strengths of both scouts AND strike fighters, without having any real weaknesses, and 1 type of gunship, which some people find OP, but I think they have obvious weaknesses that are easily exploited. Though I will agree that maxed out ion railgun needs some changes (depleting weapon energy/engine energy/snaring/disabling recharge should be scaled based on charge level of the shot, just tapping a shot for a split second should not result in a 6 second disable/40% snare, and the loss of all that weapon and engine energy)

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and they'll still be OP being that maneuverable with that much firepower.

 

The default scout ships are not a problem. They're offensively weak. They have just as much evasion as the Flashfire/Sting, they just don't have cluster missiles and quad lasers.

 

Take away evade, and they will still be OP, because taking away evasion also affects the default scouts, and gunships. A gunship can get 31% passive evade, and can go into over 100% evade for 3-6 seconds as well.

 

Evade is not the problem with flashfires/stings. Giving the fastest ship the best blasters and fast lockon missiles is.

 

Note the reason i don't complain about strike fighters is even though they have the same firepower as a flashfire/sting, you CAN lose them, you can outmaneuver them, I can get distance on them, with a lot of dampening, if I fly off to where no other ships on their side are, they lose track of me, I can then turn around and rail shot them. They don't have evade, but I still don't dare try to fight them laser to laser. They WILL win that way. That's not using the strengths of each ship. The evade is a moot point. You can use the advantages of your ship against a strike fighter, either gaining distance on them on a GS, or being able to fly circles around them and avoid a lot of their laser fire on a scout, whittling them down even if your own attacks are weak.

 

It's checks and balances between the ships.

 

There is no check or balance against a flashfire or sting. Neither a gunship nor a strike fighter is particularly effective against them, evade or no.

 

We'll just have to agree to disagree then. I maintain though that evasion is the problem. I primarily play a striker and I've focused my components on dogfighting and I shoot down a fair few scouts. I'm pretty sure that I'd shoot down even more scouts if my shots didn't miss by virtue of RNG dodges. Even in my flashfire I find strikers easier targets, not because i can out maneuver them but because my shots are more likely to hit and not miss because of RNG dodges.

 

when you have stats that permanently offset your ship's weaknesses of course it's strengths will seem even more powerful. It doesn't mean they are more powerful though. Why for example are clusters + quads not OP on a striker? Because strikers have distinct weaknesses they can't completely offset with components (I can offset the agility a bit but I can't offset the speed too or visa versa). In comparison the major (only?) weakness of scouts is their paper thin defenses which they can almost completely offset with evasion.

 

If I could boost a striker to have the speed + agility of a scout clusters + quads would appear OP on a striker too. It wouldn't be because offensively it is OP, it'd be OP because I effectively offset every weakness the striker has. When the weaknesses of any ship are almost completely nullified of course it's strengths get magnified.

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We'll just have to agree to disagree then. I maintain though that evasion is the problem. I primarily play a striker and I've focused my components on dogfighting and I shoot down a fair few scouts. I'm pretty sure that I'd shoot down even more scouts if my shots didn't miss by virtue of RNG dodges. Even in my flashfire I find strikers easier targets, not because i can out maneuver them but because my shots are more likely to hit and not miss because of RNG dodges.

 

when you have stats that permanently offset your ship's weaknesses of course it's strengths will seem even more powerful. It doesn't mean they are more powerful though. Why for example are clusters + quads not OP on a striker? Because strikers have distinct weaknesses they can't completely offset with components (I can offset the agility a bit but I can't offset the speed too or visa versa). In comparison the major (only?) weakness of scouts is their paper thin defenses which they can almost completely offset with evasion.

 

If I could boost a striker to have the speed + agility of a scout clusters + quads would appear OP on a striker too. It wouldn't be because offensively it is OP, it'd be OP because I effectively offset every weakness the striker has. When the weaknesses of any ship are almost completely nullified of course it's strengths get magnified.

 

A striker is not considered OP because as we both agree, they have weaknesses, they're not as fast and mobile as a scout, and they don't have a scouts' sensors. A scout can outmaneuver them, and a gunship can speed out of sensor range and lose them, turn around, and rail shot them. From a gunship perspective, a flashfire you can't do much about.

 

You can't outrun them for more than your barrel roll lasts, so they will always catch back up to you and spam you with cluster missiles, exceeding your ability to evade them, and even if you can get some distance on them, getting out of their sensor range even with max dampening is near impossible. So escape is very hard, your options are to fly them into your allies and hope they take out your bogey, fly them into friendly satellites and get them hit by turrets, or fly them to your spawn point and hope they break pursuit or get whacked by capital ship turrets.

 

You might think well, turn and fight them, but again, they maneuver so much better that even with evade, they're hard to hit, meanwhile they have lock on missiles and stronger blasters. They simply outrun and outgun you. Evade wouldn't solve that.

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Just to better define the terms of our discussion, I thought I'd point out the 2 possible ways the Flashfire/Sting/Skybolt/Ocula could be considered overpowered:

 

1. Flashfire/Sting could be OP when compared to the basic scout types, Blackbolt/Novadive.

The only major advantage I see from the Blackbolt/Novadive is the sensor array, while the Flashfire/Sting has various extra options in blasters, missiles, shields, and cooldowns to make it more dangerous.

 

2. Flashfire/Sting could be OP when compared to the strikers.

This is the tougher argument to make because the strikers have a definite advantage in hull strength, shield strength, and damage reduction. The strikers also get to choose from a wider array of missiles and blasters, although you might argue that the Sting gets access to the best ones. Of course, the Sting gets 10% base evasion, better turning, blaster overcharge, and access to both armor and shield reactor upgrades (the strikers only get one or the other).

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If you insist. I have to wonder whether people have detailed weapons tooltips enabled, however.

 

I do, and still. If I'm shooting at someone who has 41% evade chance at a 10 degree away from center arc on a gunship using ion railgun with the accuracy upgrade, and an accuracy companion, at 15000m (104% accuracy before penalties), I will have an 8% chance to hit them.

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A striker is not considered OP because as we both agree, they have weaknesses, they're not as fast and mobile as a scout, and they don't have a scouts' sensors. A scout can outmaneuver them, and a gunship can speed out of sensor range and lose them, turn around, and rail shot them. From a gunship perspective, a flashfire you can't do much about.

 

You can't outrun them for more than your barrel roll lasts, so they will always catch back up to you and spam you with cluster missiles, exceeding your ability to evade them, and even if you can get some distance on them, getting out of their sensor range even with max dampening is near impossible. So escape is very hard, your options are to fly them into your allies and hope they take out your bogey, fly them into friendly satellites and get them hit by turrets, or fly them to your spawn point and hope they break pursuit or get whacked by capital ship turrets.

 

You might think well, turn and fight them, but again, they maneuver so much better that even with evade, they're hard to hit, meanwhile they have lock on missiles and stronger blasters. They simply outrun and outgun you. Evade wouldn't solve that.

 

Ok well in that case I'll concede that example. I think we may have been talking from two different perspectives. I'm talking from the view of a striker pilot who has to dogfight the little suckers, you're talking from the gunship view and as I don't fly one I can't comment. I would hesitatingly suggest though that scouts are meant to be gunship hunters so theoretically what you just described is them performing their natural function, not being OP. Again I don't fly gunships so I can't comment of what it's like on the receiving end.

 

My main complaints of scouts (again from a striker point of view) is that evasion nullifies their weakness in a dogfight which complicates things when flying my striker as I have to stay on their tail longer to do the same amount of damage I would do to a striker with less evasion. In theory if strikers could more easily shoot down scouts by virtue of not having evasion to deal with on top of the natural agility advantage gunships would have an easier time as scouts might be more likely to die.

 

I also have a serious issue with how evasion allows scouts to be more effective at taking out turrets than strikers. There seems something horribly wrong when a ship with paper thin armor can make an attack run against a defensive hardpoint with little to no risk of getting shot down. I'm not saying that they shouldn't be able to destroy turrets but it should require cooperation with a striker drawing fire.

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Just to better define the terms of our discussion, I thought I'd point out the 2 possible ways the Flashfire/Sting/Skybolt/Ocula could be considered overpowered:

 

1. Flashfire/Sting could be OP when compared to the basic scout types, Blackbolt/Novadive.

The only major advantage I see from the Blackbolt/Novadive is the sensor array, while the Flashfire/Sting has various extra options in blasters, missiles, shields, and cooldowns to make it more dangerous.

 

2. Flashfire/Sting could be OP when compared to the strikers.

This is the tougher argument to make because the strikers have a definite advantage in hull strength, shield strength, and damage reduction. The strikers also get to choose from a wider array of missiles and blasters, although you might argue that the Sting gets access to the best ones. Of course, the Sting gets 10% base evasion, better turning, blaster overcharge, and access to both armor and shield reactor upgrades (the strikers only get one or the other).

 

also faster speed than the strikers.

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Just to better define the terms of our discussion, I thought I'd point out the 2 possible ways the Flashfire/Sting/Skybolt/Ocula could be considered overpowered:

 

1. Flashfire/Sting could be OP when compared to the basic scout types, Blackbolt/Novadive.

The only major advantage I see from the Blackbolt/Novadive is the sensor array, while the Flashfire/Sting has various extra options in blasters, missiles, shields, and cooldowns to make it more dangerous.

 

2. Flashfire/Sting could be OP when compared to the strikers.

This is the tougher argument to make because the strikers have a definite advantage in hull strength, shield strength, and damage reduction. The strikers also get to choose from a wider array of missiles and blasters, although you might argue that the Sting gets access to the best ones. Of course, the Sting gets 10% base evasion, better turning, blaster overcharge, and access to both armor and shield reactor upgrades (the strikers only get one or the other).

 

I would like to point out a wider array of blasters only matter if you can hit your enemy, which becomes problematic when scouts can automatically reduce your accuracy by 41% before any tracking penalty is applied. While I haven't done any number crunching I'm not sure that once you factor in the amount of damage evasion allows scouts to dodge outright that the difference between the hull strength & shield would be as different the numbers on paper would suggest.

 

You should also add that they may be considered OP when they have an ability that literally makes them invulnerable to damage for 3-6 seconds when stacked with maxed out passive evasion. The only way strikers could achieve something similar is if they had an ability that boosted hull and shield strength to 50,000 points.

Edited by Gavin_Kelvar
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Ok well in that case I'll concede that example. I think we may have been talking from two different perspectives. I'm talking from the view of a striker pilot who has to dogfight the little suckers, you're talking from the gunship view and as I don't fly one I can't comment. I would hesitatingly suggest though that scouts are meant to be gunship hunters so theoretically what you just described is them performing their natural function, not being OP. Again I don't fly gunships so I can't comment of what it's like on the receiving end.

 

My main complaints of scouts (again from a striker point of view) is that evasion nullifies their weakness in a dogfight which complicates things when flying my striker as I have to stay on their tail longer to do the same amount of damage I would do to a striker with less evasion. In theory if strikers could more easily shoot down scouts by virtue of not having evasion to deal with on top of the natural agility advantage gunships would have an easier time as scouts might be more likely to die.

 

I also have a serious issue with how evasion allows scouts to be more effective at taking out turrets than strikers. There seems something horribly wrong when a ship with paper thin armor can make an attack run against a defensive hardpoint with little to no risk of getting shot down. I'm not saying that they shouldn't be able to destroy turrets but it should require cooperation with a striker drawing fire.

 

GSF isn't rock paper scissors. You don't have that kind of system at work. A striker can beat a scout, a scout can beat a striker, a gunship can beat a scout, a scout can beat a gunship, it's scenario dependent, it's also component dependent.

 

A gunship vs a default scout, the gunship may be able to beat the scout if they're using fortress shields and using the active. they can sponge the scout's puny damage while they lay them out with a charged shot. Not possible with a flashfire, they have too much firepower.

 

Against a default scout, a gunship can also evade lock on from thermite torpedos just by boosting, avoiding a lockon of cluster missiles is much much harder and usually requires using an engine component skill. Avoiding a cluster missile lock on from a strike fighter is also easier, as you have more of a chance to stay out of range, a flashfire you have very little chance of staying out of their range and you'll find yourself unable to stay out of range after about 8s.

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GSF isn't rock paper scissors. You don't have that kind of system at work. A striker can beat a scout, a scout can beat a striker, a gunship can beat a scout, a scout can beat a gunship, it's scenario dependent, it's also component dependent.

 

A gunship vs a default scout, the gunship may be able to beat the scout if they're using fortress shields and using the active. they can sponge the scout's puny damage while they lay them out with a charged shot. Not possible with a flashfire, they have too much firepower.

 

Against a default scout, a gunship can also evade lock on from thermite torpedos just by boosting, avoiding a lockon of cluster missiles is much much harder and usually requires using an engine component skill. Avoiding a cluster missile lock on from a strike fighter is also easier, as you have more of a chance to stay out of range, a flashfire you have very little chance of staying out of their range and you'll find yourself unable to stay out of range after about 8s.

 

Fair enough and I concede to that logic. Like I said I don't fly a gunship so I can't comment on what needs changing from that end. Personally I don't like that you can't evade missiles by getting them to run into the environment but that might be a coding issue (for example they couldn't code the missiles to be smart enough to not automatically ram into the environment).

 

I can only comment from flying strikers (primarily) and scouts. From that seat the biggest problem is evasion since I encounter them dogfighting. I have heard that blaster overcharge is OP but I can't really comment yet on whether it needs to be toned down (not having upgraded my scout much) and I'm rarely, if ever, on the receiving end. Personally I think it's quite probable that both are equally problematic but which appears more problematic depends on whether you're in a striker or gunship.

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I also have a serious issue with how evasion allows scouts to be more effective at taking out turrets than strikers. There seems something horribly wrong when a ship with paper thin armor can make an attack run against a defensive hardpoint with little to no risk of getting shot down. I'm not saying that they shouldn't be able to destroy turrets but it should require cooperation with a striker drawing fire.

 

You can pop them if you actually defend the turrets. A scout flying in a straight line pops just the same as any other ship. Evasion doesn't come out to a straight 41% chance to miss. If a scout flies straight in front of me without maneuvering, nearly all of my shots hit. As a scout pilot, if I fly in a straight line, nearly every shot coming my way hits.

 

I have the suspicion that what evasion actually does is amplify the accuracy penalty on incoming fire that originates from outside the center of the targeting circle by a set percentage.

Edited by Svarthrafn
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Fair enough and I concede to that logic. Like I said I don't fly a gunship so I can't comment on what needs changing from that end. Personally I don't like that you can't evade missiles by getting them to run into the environment but that might be a coding issue (for example they couldn't code the missiles to be smart enough to not automatically ram into the environment).

 

I can only comment from flying strikers (primarily) and scouts. From that seat the biggest problem is evasion since I encounter them dogfighting. I have heard that blaster overcharge is OP but I can't really comment yet on whether it needs to be toned down (not having upgraded my scout much) and I'm rarely, if ever, on the receiving end. Personally I think it's quite probable that both are equally problematic but which appears more problematic depends on whether you're in a striker or gunship.

 

Overall, they're just an overly dominant ship type with no real weaknesses.

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