I posted this a long time ago, and the idea was generally liked, but as often happens, discussion broadened it into something far too complex. I think there were higher hopes of more dev support then.

 

In case a dev happens to wander into this forum, I wanted to re-present the original idea -- because it's really, really dead-simple to implement (we're talking XML changes here), and it would have such a positive effect on the game. Would it fix all problems? No, but I don't think I've seen any other suggestion that hits so many birds with one simple-to-code stone.

 

The proposal: Replace every Strike's Capacitor with an Advanced Capacitor.

 

The Advanced Capacitor, like the normal Capacitor, would let you choose ONE of three primary weapon buffs. Exact numbers can be debated, but let's start with:

 

+50% Damage (+20% base, +30/40/50% upgrades)

+50% Accuracy (+20% base, +30/40/50% upgrades)

+30% Range (+15% base, +20/25/30% upgrades)

 

The Damage buff is significant, and lets a Strike pose more of a burst-damage threat, even in close combat under a satellite. This makes them useful against just about anyone, if they can close distance -- which means stopping Strikes from closing is actually critical, instead of "I'll get to that Strike when I'm bored" like we have now.

 

The Accuracy bonus makes the Strike a stronger anti-Scout platform, and if used widely, could sway the meta away from Evasion. Also, I'd start this off as the default selection for a new Strike -- the starting 20% would let new pilots essentially ignore passive Evasion, which will give them a better initial impression.

 

The Range bonus allows a Strike to really own its mid-range role and exert pressure and threat from a distance. It also allows better synergy between HLC's and torpedoes. The stretching of Range also supplies a secondary buff to Damage and Accuracy--but neither is as significant as the bonuses provided by the dedicated Damage or Accuracy choice.

 

Depending on your choice of Advanced Capacitor, you can tune your Strike as you want. Close-range bruiser, Scout hunter, or long-range artillery. And since your opponents would not immediately know which one you chose, you'd have the threat potential all three--meaning each Strike would have more battlefield influence. Regardless of your choice, your primary weapons (even Rapids!) become menacing. Strike HLC is best HLC. Strike Quad is best Quad.

 

The best part is that it's dead-simple to implement. Just make a new minor component and only give it to Strikes. Swap out their normal Capacitor for an Advanced Capacitor. No change in UI infrastructure or mechanics needed.

 

Some may wonder why the Advanced Capacitor doesn't have a Frequency option. It could, I suppose, but I'm not sure anyone would take that instead of one of the above options, so I omitted it. It feels like a trap.

 

I know others built on this before, but I really think we need to be realistic with our expectations. If we get a dev, we want them to do something quick, simple, and impactful. I think the above fits that need.

 

Idea originally posted here: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=836984

Edited April 20, 2016 by Nemarus

This sounds good, let's do it.

 

I also still vouch for giving the strike fighters much better strafing capabilities to help keep them on target during high level play as well.

50% damage or accuracy buff to my quads...

 

Wow, I would wreck absolute face.

 

*Spams support button*

 

~ Eudoxia

Edited April 20, 2016 by FlavivsAetivs

What would also be nice addition would be distortion field. One one strike of their choosing.

 

Though I would LOVE to pair it with Starguard/Rycer and their retro's. Because...I like retro's...

 

But yeah, a nice SF buff would be cool!

The numbers would need to be adjusted so that the Clarion/Imperium isn't OP, but yes.

 

/signed.

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=880070

 

The Devs do seem to be acknowledging there are problems. Nothing GSF, but hopefully maybe someone will take notice of this forum.

 

~ Eudoxia

Maybe the question should be - how long does it take to execute one day of work =p

The numbers would need to be adjusted so that the Clarion/Imperium isn't OP, but yes.

 

/signed.

 

Out of curiosity, in what builds/circumstances do you think the Clarion in particular would be OP with the Advanced Capacitor?

 

Obviously Power Dive makes it a bit more squirrely than the other two Strikes, and it's definitely more hardy than either of them (with or without Charged Plating). But offensively, it's much more limited than the Star Guard or Pike.

 

The lack of HLC means that it can't really get absurd ranges, even if it takes the Range Advanced Capacitor. It also means that it can't have easy Armor Piercing, which means that even if it has the Damage Advanced Capacitor, it still couldn't really deal with other Charged Plating ships.

 

The lack of Thrusters means it's still going to get outmaneuvered by Scouts and the other Strikes.

 

Basically, it'd be a really tough tanky ship, but its offensive potential (even with one of the Advanced Capacitors) would still be limited compared to other ships (but much better than it is today).

 

As for what could counter it, in open space it would still need to worry about Ion Railgun. It'd also need to worry about other Strikes using AP HLC's with the Range Advanced Capacitor.

 

On a satellite, just like today it can be tough to kill, but is still very vulnerable to Interdiction Drone/Mine snares.

 

Am I missing something?

Edited April 21, 2016 by Nemarus

Out of curiosity, in what builds/circumstances do you think the Clarion in particular would be OP with the Advanced Capacitor?

 

Obviously Power Dive makes it a bit more squirrely than the other two Strikes, and it's definitely more hardy than either of them (with or without Charged Plating). But offensively, it's much more limited than the Star Guard or Pike.

 

The lack of HLC means that it can't really get absurd ranges, even if it takes the Range Advanced Capacitor. It also means that it can't have easy Armor Piercing, which means that even if it has the Damage Advanced Capacitor, it still couldn't really deal with other Charged Plating ships.

 

The lack of Thrusters means it's still going to get outmaneuvered by Scouts and the other Strikes.

 

Basically, it'd be a really tough tanky ship, but its offensive potential (even with one of the Advanced Capacitors) would still be limited compared to other ships (but much better than it is today).

 

As for what could counter it, in open space it would still need to worry about Ion Railgun. It'd also need to worry about other Strikes using AP HLC's with the Range Advanced Capacitor.

 

On a satellite, just like today it can be tough to kill, but is still very vulnerable to Interdiction Drone/Mine snares.

 

Am I missing something?

 

A lot. A Charged plating clarion is pretty much a stupid build because freaking everything has armor piercing, with only one niche role and that's being a one-trick pony with 90ish% DR holding a sat. People build clarion this way and I tell them not to, and they still do. It works great for me because every new gunship I encounter thinks I'm running charged plating and then are surprised to find a ship with more powerful shields than a T1/T2 bomber and enough engine power/maneuverability to make hit-and-run or hit-and-LOS attacks, or chase them around the map. You put a 50% damage buff on a Clarion you're talking about a protorp that hits for about 1350 (its current crit size) and crits for about 1900-2000, meaning it could one-shot pretty much anything short of a bomber. Granted, it actually needs this because it's annoying as hell when it hits a scout and leaves a tiny sliver of health left, and would also make the protorp far more worthwhile against bombers/gunships/strikes. The protorp wouldn't be so much of a trap component. The buff to quads would give the ship the burst it needs or the accuracy it needs to take out battlescouts. Clarion would quickly become an all-around ship, good against everything. It wouldn't be OP I think, because other than protorp with its long lockon time, it can't do **** against CP.

 

What you're mainly missing here though is that HLC is going to be stupidly overpowered. I wreck bombers, strikes, etc. who running HLC all the time because it can't eat away the shields or pierce them fast enough in a joust. You're now talking about guns that engage at a range of 8000 meters, do something like 260 damage average per shot, pierce shields, and ignore armor. You put that damage buff on and they do an average of about 390 per shot, engage at (6000m? 6500m?) and still pierce shields and ignore armor. And they're far more accurate than quads and the ships have the turning rate to stay toe-to-toe with scouts if they use thrusters. Bombers would be forced into a very different role because they're facing something that can hit them with concussion missiles and HLC from 8000m away completely out of the range of mines or interdiction drones.

 

~ Eudoxia

Edited April 21, 2016 by FlavivsAetivs

/signed x 1,000,000+

 

@Nemarus.... This sounds great to me. It seems like a very elegant solution to the strike buff need.

 

@Eudoxia - based on the OP... the Advanced Capacitor would only apply to the guns, not the missiles/torpedoes.

 

Yes this would buff HLCs a lot, but all that really does is what is intended... to make strikes more valuable & force everything else on the field to treat them as the threat they always should have been. Power Dive, Repair Probes, etc give enough to the Clarion/Imperium imho to offset any disparity that may arise HLCs v Quads or whatever, especially when you consider how close to "being there" the T3 strike already is.

 

@DEVS ... please Please PLEASE take the time & give this a shot ... save copies of the files you change & if GSF falls apart you can always copy/paste back to the way it was, but honestly, I just don't see this as doing anything more than what is intended... bringing strikes back into the competitive mix across the board.

It frankly needs to apply to missiles too, but I'd say nerf the total damage/accuracy buff to like 30%. The range one is debatable.

 

If you do this you can truly turn the Clarion into a jack-of-all-trades ship. Pike and Starguard will become very viable and the latter will also serve as a good anti-Clarion ship (due to HLC/Ion).

 

~ Eudoxia

Edited April 21, 2016 by FlavivsAetivs

Out of curiosity, in what builds/circumstances do you think the Clarion in particular would be OP with the Advanced Capacitor?

 

I don't really have any grand theory crafting idea behind it. But basically my thought process is that the Clarion is close to being meta right now (especially in TDM) while the Starguard and Pike are not close at all. If you upgrade the Starguard and Pike to become meta and you use that exact same upgrade for the Clarion, logic says that upgrade would be too much for the Clarion. I could be wrong, it's hard to tell until we actually play it. But I do think the Clarion would be pretty nasty vs gunships.

Edited April 21, 2016 by RickDagles

Is it wrong that I keep reading your name as "Rick Bagels"?

 

I'm not concerned about the Clarion being overpowered because it's near-meta because it has crappy options for firepower, but fantastic survivability (again, arguably the most survivable ship in the game). As long as its best options are quad and protorp, it won't be meta. If you slapped HLC and Conc on it, it would be meta, and then if you put the buff it would be OP.

 

Protorp's long lockon time and quad's meh accuracy and lack of armor piercing would keep it relatively balanced. The only thing that would have to be worried is gunship, and that's what ion gunships are for.

 

~ Eudoxia

I might be nit picking a bit here, but I'd like to see that accuracy capacitor become something closer to +10% accuracy and have it also apply -30% evasion (or something like that) for the Strike VS target. I want GSF to reward players which can keep a target centered to be rewarded.

You want it to put a -30% evasion debuff on the strike? So how exactly is it supposed to help against BLC scouts then? They wreck strikes.

 

20-30% accuracy would be fine, it would allow Strikes to use something other than wingman.

 

~ Eudoxia

The numbers to me definitely need tweaking, but the base idea isn't bad.

 

Advanced damage cap- (5 base 10/15) 15% maxed

Advanced Acc cap- (5 base, 10/15) 15% maxed

Advanced range cap- (5 base, 10/15) 15% Maxed

 

The reason I believe 15% is high enough is mainly because.

 

1) any change they make if they do it at Damage/acc 50%, range 30% makes those ships OP they won't fix it for months if ever.

 

2) My concern with the accuracy even at 30% is that your now making evasion useless. (base weapon accuracy, + 50% from advanced, + wingman= scout with full evasion build is now completely irrelevant. 15% in this case would definitely help strikes, without completely altering the meta.

 

3) the biggest problem here that I see however is the T2 Strike (Pike/Quell) really gets no major advantage out of any of these options, so it would still be the useless stepchild ship it is considered now. It's main focus are missiles, and none of these options affects Secondary weapons, so the T2 SF isn't effected as much as the T1/T3. The prim weapons would get boosted, but it would still be the weakest of the 3 Strikes do to the lack of improvements to it's missiles.

Edited April 23, 2016 by Toraak

The numbers to me definitely need tweaking, but the base idea isn't bad.

 

Advanced damage cap- (5 base 10/15) 15% maxed

Advanced Acc cap- (5 base, 10/15) 15% maxed

Advanced range cap- (5 base, 10/15) 15% Maxed

 

The reason I believe 15% is high enough is mainly because.

 

1) any change they make if they do it at Damage/acc 50%, range 30% makes those ships OP they won't fix it for months if ever.

 

2) My concern with the accuracy even at 30% is that your now making evasion useless. (base weapon accuracy, + 50% from advanced, + wingman= scout with full evasion build is now completely irrelevant. 15% in this case would definitely help strikes, without completely altering the meta.

 

3) the biggest problem here that I see however is the T2 Strike (Pike/Quell) really gets no major advantage out of any of these options, so it would still be the useless stepchild ship it is considered now. It's main focus are missiles, and none of these options affects Secondary weapons, so the T2 SF isn't effected as much as the T1/T3. The prim weapons would get boosted, but it would still be the weakest of the 3 Strikes do to the lack of improvements to it's missiles.

 

15% is too low.

 

15% damage will still leave strikes a joke compared to any other ship... Consider that strikes can only use blasters, no systems (apart for the Clarion that can run CC). Scouts can all get TT (which increases burst by more than 15%), T2 scout can also get BO and both the T1 and T2 can get pods, which are much stronger than any secondary a strike can get.

 

Strikes will still not be able to kill scouts easily, even with the 50% added accuracy. They still lose a turning war hands down, and still lack BLCs to fight close range (don't forget that if you take the 50% accuracy you can't take 50% damage increase, so RFLC are still practically useless).

 

The range increase is the least problematic one. 50% increase to range will still leave strikes at the mercy of gunships, just not as much. Scouts will still have the evasion advantage, and bombers will LoS as always. I really don't see a problem with any of those numbers.

Edited April 23, 2016 by Greezt

The numbers to me definitely need tweaking, but the base idea isn't bad.

 

3) the biggest problem here that I see however is the T2 Strike (Pike/Quell) really gets no major advantage out of any of these options, so it would still be the useless stepchild ship it is considered now. It's main focus are missiles, and none of these options affects Secondary weapons, so the T2 SF isn't effected as much as the T1/T3. The prim weapons would get boosted, but it would still be the weakest of the 3 Strikes do to the lack of improvements to it's missiles.

 

Good point on missiles and the Pike/Quell.

 

I would propose something like....

 

Advanced Missile Capacitor

-50% Missile Lock-On and Reload Times (-20% base, -30/40/50% upgrades)

 

(might also have an ammo capacity boost)

(or whatever numbers)

Good point on missiles and the Pike/Quell.

 

I would propose something like....

 

Advanced Missile Capacitor

-50% Missile Lock-On and Reload Times (-20% base, -30/40/50% upgrades)

 

(might also have an ammo capacity boost)

(or whatever numbers)

 

The logical place to put that would be as a new Magazine option rather than as a capacitor.

 

It would also likely make torpedoes very OP. They'd lock almost as fast as clusters currently do, and fire every 6 seconds.

 

11% would be about them maximum that I think would work for lock times, that'd give you a 3 second lock for a mastered torpedo with the capacitor/magazine. Reload would still be a bit slow, but maybe you could double the reload reduction percentage?

 

 

This is the sort of thing that makes me prefer real balance fixes rather than band-aids.

 

 

If I wanted to put a finger on the scales of GSF balance to maximum effect, and spend less than a day doing it, I'd do a little bit of cut, copy and paste instead of putting in large flat buffs for strikes.

 

Swap the tier 3 Slug Railgun upgrade with the tier 2 Plasma railgun upgrade.

Swap the tier 4 left side BLC upgrade with the tier 2 RFL upgrade.

 

Study questions to go with this:

 

Would this knock any ship that's currently competitive out of competitive games?

Would variety of build choices and tactics for ships affected by such a change increase or decrease?

Would the nerfed components still be good enough to remain popular?

Would the buffed components go from undesirable to desirable for some builds?

How many ships in the GSF meta would be more balanced, and how many less balanced as a result?

Would CP be any better for strikes after this change?

 

Band-aids might be better than nothing, but they aren't nearly as powerful a medicine for out of whack balance as changes to the mechanics that are creating imbalance in the first place.

 

Do it in the right places, and you get a lot of effect for very little input.

 

The swaps aren't ideal of course, and replacing the transferred AP with more suitable traits than regen or crit would be preferred. Accuracy perhaps. It would be a bit unfair to the T3 gunship as well, but the T3s of every other class are both weak and niche, so making it strong and niche wouldn't be out of line (if you can call still being murderously effective against more than half of the ships in the game niche).

Edited April 23, 2016 by Ramalina

Remember that the Pike does have one other thing that the Starguard doesn't - deflection armor. That opens up some huge potential for the ship to be a domination specialist. I sometimes run a double turning CP Pike with HLC AP and it works quite well against Razorwires. Imagine those HLC had enough accuracy that you could shoot them at high deflection? That would be almost as good as having BLC.

 

I still think it would be just as easy to give the Pike BLC and interdiction missiles and the Clarion either cluster missiles, DF, or HLC. Starguard could get BLC as well and be dangerous at all ranges with the BLC/HLC combo.

 

Of course, the underlying issue will always be the weakness to ion railgun.

Edited April 23, 2016 by RickDagles

Remember guys--the goal is not to come up with the perfect comprehensive solution. The goal is to come up with something that can be done by a junior dev in a day or two. Advanced Capacitor does that. Any attempt to balance missiles is far more complicated.

 

Fortunately, if enough people used the Advanced Accuracy Capacitor, it would make Distortion Field less desirable. That would mean less Evasion ... and also fewer missile breaks. That would indirectly buff missiles for all ships, including the Pike/Quell.

 

And as Siraka noted, the Pike/Quell has combinations of other components unique amongst the Strikes--namely Charged Plating + Thrusters + HLC + Cluster Missiles. That alone (if it had an Advanced Capacitor) would give it a unique niche and role to play, and the second missile is just gravy to apply pressure at longer ranges.

 

As for the Clarion/Imperium, I really don't think it would be too OP. The lack of armor piercing and thrusters means it will always be offensively limited. It would remain a support and defense ship ... albeit with a little bit sharper teeth.

 

As for Ion Railgun ... the goal here is to make Strikes exceptionally powerful in one axis--primary weapons. But even if they have tremendous offensive threat, a team should still be able to counter them. Ion Railgun is one means of doing so. Shield-piercing or snaring mines are another. Or simply good Scout outmaneuvering. All these would still be possible--it's just that the penalty for not countering a Strike would be far more dire (whereas currently you can safely ignore them in most cases).

Replacing QCS with feedback would be a defensive boost vs scouts, QCS seems more fitting on a scout and a feedback hit would be a free shot. Another thing I was thinking since RFLS are the starting components make them ignore evasion, they may need reduced damage but keep a tracking penalty so that new people can actually do some damage (death by a thousand cuts) Also would make them pair well with ion cannon.