I’m going to break the trend we’ve all continued since early access and be the first honest person here:

 

 

I’m going to prove this with screenshots and researched information that validates my claims and then offer some solutions to the issues. You may ask: Why are they overpowered, Stasie? Well, this is for a variety of reasons. First I’ll discuss those reasons, then I will offer solutions. What is the point of listing the problems with no way to solve any of them? As Hearthstone's Valeera Sanguinar says, "Here we go..."

 

 

The Problems

 

 

1. Strike fighters do ridiculously well when facing overwhelming odds.

 

Why should any fighter facing a premade do so well? How can a Pike get a 5.33 K/D ratio without showing cooldown text on their ability bar? If I play my scout, I get focus fired to death so frequently I can’t pull any of these numbers! And I use cooldown text! I’m surprised this strike fighter didn’t win the game single-handedly. It must have been piloted by a new player. I’m just thankful that I didn’t queue into this, I’ll never complain about a bomber or gunship-stacked game ever again.

 

 

2. Strike fighters don’t even need upgrades to deal large amounts of damage, and even then they still don’t die!

 

How is it that I can try my best on a nearly-mastered Flashfire to qualify for that GSF Leaderboard garbage but can then turn around and use an almost stock Star Guard to get nearly the same amount of damage out? How can this thing live through so much? It isn’t fair, even my bomber dies eventually. My poor gunship is jealous of this thing’s K/D ratio and my Flashfire just cries itself to sleep most nights. Someone once told me, “Show me where the evil strike fighter touched you.” I broke into tears, no joke. Is it OK for strike fighters to cause this much sorrow and grief?

 

 

3. Strike fighters can survive balanced ability combinations like Seismic and Interdiction Mines and heal to full as if nothing happened.

 

Why should any strike fighter survive such a lethal combination? Bombers rely solely on these two mines to defend themselves, their allies and the area they are in! If I rush in on my FoTM Flashfire I die instantly to this combination, but strike fighters can typically live over 20 seconds in the same scenario! One strike variant, the Clarion, can even heal itself up, negating my mine damage! This is completely unfair and unbalanced, Flashfires get nothing this overpowered. Raph Koster, author of A Theory of Fun for Game Design believes that "learning is the drug," but how can we learn when we're being one-shot by strike fighters we can't kill?

 

 

4. Strike fighters can gather requisition faster than anyone else through medal farming.

 

By now, everyone knows that getting medals means more requisition. It’s clear. It’s been stated a multitude of times. EVERYTHING depends on how many medals you get at the end of a match. So how is it that strike fighters can simply get medals faster than anyone else? It just doesn’t seem right that I can spend 10 or more minutes on a node as a bomber to earn less requisition than my strike fighter counterparts. I can strive to do my best on a Flashfire in TDM and barely beat out a stock strike fighter’s medal count.

 

 

5. Other ships try and pretend to be strike fighters because that’s how overpowered they are.

 

It’s obvious I’m not the only one who thinks this is completely unfair. Bombers are now roleplaying strike fighters in the hopes that they too can be ridiculously unbalanced. Why scare off enemies with mines and heavy armor when you can do it by just being a strike fighter? I’m considering just trying to change components on all my ships to make them look more like a strike fighter. Enemies will flee en masse! Maybe I, too, can be fortunate enough to make it on to the strike fighter leaderboards.

 

 

6. Charged Plating is B.S.

 

Charged Plating gives enormous shields and even higher damage reduction. If you don’t have burst lasers equipped you may as well be

the strike fighter. Seriously. Have you hit a strike with charged plating up? I give up after about 10 seconds and go ram myself into a wall to save the strike some time. If you do happen to have burst lasers, you won’t be able to use them because the strike fighter can hit you from friggin’ 6k meters or even farther than that! Good luck living through their extremely overpowered offensive burst! They put gunships to shame, and people complain about slug railguns.

 

 

The Solutions

 

If you've read this far and followed along I hope it’s clear that strike fighters are horrendously overpowered. That means we need solutions. They don’t really need to solve the reasons listed above, they just need to reduce the awesome, almighty power of strike fighters. As much as possible. In every way possible. Clearly, you can see we have our work cut out for us. Ugh.

 

 

1. Greatly increase the tracking penalty of Rapid-Fire Lasers, Quad Laser Cannons & Heavy Lasers.

 

Why should I put up with this when I can get this? Remove armor penetration from Heavy Lasers while you’re at it, they need more power efficiency, not more damage. There’s nothing more to be said on the issue, just like the comparison between Slug Railgun and Concussion Missile found here. If that’s a valid argument, this one is doubly so.

 

 

2. Remove the armor penetration from Concussion Missiles and Proton Torpedoes.

 

OK, what’s up with all the shield penetration on strike fighters? They can bunker behind Charged Plating builds and almost 100% damage reduction while also firing weapons that can pierce enemy armor? Their weapons have longer range than my Flashfire’s? Those same weapons also have armor penetration? Who balanced this ship type? Do you realize how absurd this sounds? This is just poor game design. Jesse Schell, author of The Art of Game Design would probably agree with me. Matches are decided solely by how many strike fighters your team has relative to the enemy team. Remove the armor penetration from these weapons so non-strikes actually have a chance at doing anything at all.

 

 

3. Remove all shield options from strike fighters other than Fortress Shield and Feedback Shield.

 

I never really understood why strike fighters were given awesome abilities like Directional Shield and Quick-Charge Shield. Why should they get mobility, ridiculously high shield strength and the ability to regen it all at once? It counters my mines. It counters my railguns. Is there something it doesn’t counter? Fortress Shield lets them keep shields but it also immobilizes them, providing enemies an opportunity to deal damage to these quick, agile and heavily armored ships. Feedback Shield’s additional damage makes up for solution #2’s relatively small cut to strike damage.

 

 

4. Remove all engine options from strike fighters other than Weapon Power Converter and Shield Power Converter.

 

It never really made sense that Pikes and Quells can sit there and poop missiles at you endlessly while also being able to counter missile launches against them. This finally fixes that issue. Now Flashfires, Novadives, Dustmakers and other ships can actually deal damage to these invincible things. I almost debated asking for the removal of Weapon Power Converter and Shield Power Converter too, because they are also fairly powerful.

 

 

Conclusion

 

Anyway, that’s really all I have to say on the issue. I’m going to step down from the soapbox before I get crucified by the strike fighter forums for telling the truth no one else is willing to tell. It’s like they say: If, tomorrow, I tell the forums that, like, a gunship will be shot, or a truckload of scouts will be blown up, nobody panics, because it’s all ‘part of the plan’. But when I say that one little old strike fighter will die, well then everyone loses their minds! If I've convinced you this far that strike fighters are overpowered, we can make another conclusion: The devs clearly play strike fighters. We can now find out where they play. Look to your servers: Do you see a 4-man premade of strike fighters queuing often? There's your devs. Thank you for your time.

 

 

 

 

Edited May 3, 2014 by TrinityLyre

No mention about how rapid fire lasers basically GUARANTEES A HIT? How you can just WAVE YOUR MOUSE AND CONNECT? How there's NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT?

 

 

Still, even with such egregious an omission, 5 star thread.

Edited May 3, 2014 by Verain

OH not to mention a Proton Torp can Crit can one shot scouts, or a Pike with Proton Concussive combo will kill any scout full to dead.... Rediculous.

You forgot to mention how they need to buff BLC scouts and minelayers because those ships are so underpowered its not even funny.

Well done. Do not forget that Pikes and Clarions are faster than any other ship because they have more engines.

Well done. Do not forget that Pikes and Clarions are faster than any other ship because they have more engines.

 

 

So much <3

Looks like the Dustmaker brigade is out in force again.

 

If a single one of your suggestions is implemented, it'll delete Strikes. I don't know about you, but I don't want Huttball to be dominated by Comet-breakers again.

 

Also, your text color choices are abhorrent. Nothing is better than sky blue to make a point.

Luke Skywalker flew a Strike Fighter, and he blew up a death star. Of course, he was able to shoot missiles without attaining a targeting computer missile lock...I can't do that on my SF

Looks like the Dustmaker brigade is out in force again.

 

If a single one of your suggestions is implemented, it'll delete Strikes. I don't know about you, but I don't want Huttball to be dominated by Comet-breakers again.

 

Also, your text color choices are abhorrent. Nothing is better than sky blue to make a point.

I love you. These responses are all making me laugh, thanks guys.

Looks like the Dustmaker brigade is out in force again.

 

If a single one of your suggestions is implemented, it'll delete Strikes. I don't know about you, but I don't want Huttball to be dominated by Comet-breakers again.

 

Also, your text color choices are abhorrent. Nothing is better than sky blue to make a point.

 

Seriously effing everyone in mumble was having problems breathing, nice post A++

Luke Skywalker flew a Strike Fighter, and he blew up a death star. Of course, he was able to shoot missiles without attaining a targeting computer missile lock...I can't do that on my SF

 

No one told me strike fighters had to "lock missiles." I think you're referring to scouts. Strikes just delete b****es from the game.

If you hear the tone of a strike fighter locking, it's like the Jaws theme. No matter what you do, where you run, or what buttons you press, that missile will come along....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and then.....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CHOMP

Indeed, nerf the Clarion's engines. It's waaaay more thrust than any pilot should handle safely.

There is worst!!!!! Ion Cannons... They are so OP that even an overcharged bomber melt in no time!!!

 

They eat every mine and keep shooting... now my boy bomber doesn't even want to get out of his hangar... he is scared by the big, bad StarGuard.

 

Ion + Rapid + Cluster destroy everything... even the battle scout trying to shoot them down with burst.

 

Not, sure if it made it into the patch notes, but I heard that they're going to fix the bug where shield ramming doesn't work properly in GSF.

 

Pretty soon strikes won't even need weapons to kill scouts and maybe even gunships. The balance for this, the strike fighter takes damage too. Right, just like body armor and tank armor are balanced against each other.

 

GG Bioware, going from pay to win to log in to win.

 

Was gonna do the, "I do not think that means what you think it means," thing, but then Trinity shoots that down by using farce correctly in the thread title.

wat?

 

Strikes are the weakest of the ship classes, by far.

 

I mean uhh....Buff Scouts!

Edited May 3, 2014 by Icebergy

 

 

Not, sure if it made it into the patch notes, but I heard that they're going to fix the bug where shield ramming doesn't work properly in GSF.

 

Pretty soon strikes won't even need weapons to kill scouts and maybe even gunships.

 

I heard a rumor they were copying Guild Wars 2 using shields as weapons. That's total B.S., strikes need NERFS, not buffs! GET ON THIS, DEVS!

 

I'm tired of entering games that end up matched like this:

 

Anastasie

Blackbolt x11

 

vs.

 

:csw_xwing: :csw_xwing:

:csw_xwing: :csw_xwing:

:csw_xwing: :csw_xwing:

 

Total. Garbage. Seriously! How can you expect to win ANYTHING like that? If this is all people on the Empire queue into, it's no surprise GSF is dominated by pubs on every server. I've already begun convincing Empire pilots to switch to the elite Rycer to turn GSF "games" into something other than a complete farce.

Edited May 3, 2014 by TrinityLyre

@OP I think the problem is you, not strike fighters. I as a scout have no problem dogfighting one and ripping them apart. They have great firepower and decent shielding/armor but unlike a scout, they lack in sustained speed. Unlike a bomber, they can't take THAT much of a beating and no ship has the range of a gunship. So yeah. You just need to learn to fly better, that's all.

@OP I think the problem is you, not strike fighters.

 

Look Korithras, as a fellow Strike Fighter pilot, I get it. You don't want the devs to nerf the SF, so you come on here and make up this nonsense about being able to kill a SF with your scout. Even though you never play a scout.

 

I used to spill lies like that to our devs....while simultaneously lmao and destroying any and all competition with my HLCs and BFGs. And it worked. The devs said the game was in a healthy state. They have no idea the unfairness going on...

 

But I cannot do it anymore...the time has come for the truth to come out. I'm willing to put my rofl-scout-stomping days behind me and admit that the SF is ridiculously overpowered -- for the good of the game.

 

I hate to call you out like this, since I used to make the same claims...I guess you could say I'm sort of a hypocrit....but I just can't live with the lies anymore. It eats you up inside man....eats you up...

@OP I think the problem is you, not strike fighters. I as a scout have no problem dogfighting one and ripping them apart.

 

That's confirmed to be a display glitch. You didn't actually beat the strike fighter. Pay attention to the scoreboard and you'll see that you are actually counting as dying in these display glitch situations.

Edited May 4, 2014 by Verain

That's confirmed to be a display glitch. You didn't actually beat the strike fighter. Pay attention to the scoreboard and you'll see that you are actually counting as dying in these display glitch situations.

Strike fighters are easily capable of defeating and distorting scoreboards. Duh. After at least 10 games, haven't you noticed this by now?

Lmao!!!!!!! So true - the entire post! Nerf strikes! :D:D Edited May 6, 2014 by SammyGStatus

Lmao!!!!!!! So true - the entire post! Nerf strikes! :D:D

 

BTW Aimbot, I wanted to compliment you on branching out from your Comet-breaker and trying out the Quarrel lately. It's nice to see someone who recognizes a broken build and chooses not to exploit it.

My god this is really a mess.