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2.6 Galactic Starfighter updates


-KeggER-

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Strikers getting some love with a new EMP missile, and railguns taking a hit that require a minimum charge to be fired... Im also excited about the new req gain breakdown!

 

Ships and Hangar•The dialog for new purchases within the Hangar has been enhanced to show the exact breakdown of Fleet and Ship Requisition to be used.

•Bomber base shields have been reduced to be on-par with Gunships, while their hull remains stronger than Strike Fighters.

•Selected ships can now be removed from the Readied Ship menu.

•Railgun weapons now require a minimum charge before firing.

 

Environments•Several force fields have been removed from the Abandoned Shipyards level in Domination mode.

 

Components and Crew•New Component: EMP Missile – The EMP Missile is now available for the Pike and Quell Strike Fighters!

 

•The EMP Missile is a counter to clustered enemies or mines and drones.

•On impact, it emits a 3000m radius pulse which damages and disables mines and drones.

•Any player ship caught in the blast will suffer minor damage, but have their systems rendered unusable.

 

read them al here: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=715988

Edited by -KeggER-
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Most of the changes seem decent.

 

I think Strikes could still use a buff to mobility, but the EMP missile sound like it could gives Strikes the utility that they so desperately lack right now.

 

Depending on how much of a charge you need to fire railguns, that could help w/ the Ion Railgun issue, but I'm guessing it's still going to be OP just because the AOE slow/energy drain is unrivaled by other abilities.

 

Looks like they fixed the bugged turrets in Domination, but I don't see anything about the invisible enemies bug, which absolutely needs to be fixed.

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EMP missile will have the same main problem as ion railgun: it's not fun to play against. Fortunately, because it's a missile, it's fifty times harder to land one than it is the ion railgun... oh, wait, people are already encouraged to throw these at drones and mines. Well, alright then.

 

Minimum charge on railguns solves nothing, even if that minimum is 100%. Love taps might be gone, but banning a target from the game from outside of LoS is just unfair. Also, how does this interact with the current mechanic of a railgun firing when you run out of energy? Are love taps going to return in the form of intentionally draining your own weapon power so the game spams your shots for you? And, of course, there's half a dozen other problems with railguns that this doesn't even pretend to address.

 

I would give various unspecified favors to get into a teamspeak conversation with one of the devs, just so I can at least confirm whether or not they care about our feedback.

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Oh dear. What's this about, then?

 

I'm not exactly sure. People complain about how much CC there is in ground PVP, and it looks like the devs are obsessed w/ overloading GSF w/ it as well. Oh, and all the recent dailies, including the new Rakghould Event, are littered w/ mobs that spam CC as well... it's like they don't understand how being unable to control your character/ship is simply not fun.

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I'm not exactly sure. People complain about how much CC there is in ground PVP, and it looks like the devs are obsessed w/ overloading GSF w/ it as well. Oh, and all the recent dailies, including the new Rakghould Event, are littered w/ mobs that spam CC as well... it's like they don't understand how being unable to control your character/ship is simply not fun.

 

I wouldn't mind CC nearly so much if I felt like there was something I could do to make it end early, similar to how GTAV lets you mash buttons to respawn faster or SSB:Brawl lets you use the sticks to control where you fly and break out of grabs early.

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Glad they are experimenting with a counter to bombers and mines/drones. I hope it's a reasonable counter.

 

Due to very rare que pops on the PTS, I haven't been able to check out the reduced force walls in Lost Shipywards but I don't like the concept at all. That's one of the best nodes in the game as is. It doesn't need to be tweaked.

 

Excited for this patch!

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Logged onto the PTS and they are also buffing Ion missiles it seems they had a 7km range instead of a 5km range so it looks like strike are really getting buffed. The nerf to shield piercing is also likely to help out with the ships that have beefier shields such as the Strikes and bombers.
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EMP missile will have the same main problem as ion railgun: it's not fun to play against. Fortunately, because it's a missile, it's fifty times harder to land one than it is the ion railgun... oh, wait, people are already encouraged to throw these at drones and mines. Well, alright then.

 

Minimum charge on railguns solves nothing, even if that minimum is 100%. Love taps might be gone, but banning a target from the game from outside of LoS is just unfair. Also, how does this interact with the current mechanic of a railgun firing when you run out of energy? Are love taps going to return in the form of intentionally draining your own weapon power so the game spams your shots for you? And, of course, there's half a dozen other problems with railguns that this doesn't even pretend to address.

 

I have to agree with this. Even though my main is a Pike, I think that the new missile will just add frustration to the game, just like any CC.

 

The more these "disable component use" abilities are added (and we know there's more coming, based on mined info), the more frustration is added to the game.

 

I guess we'll see how this develops, but I think systems like these are introduced to counter overpowered systems (mines/drones, scout system abilities), when the proper fix is to adjusted the offending system in the first place, not introducing NEW system whose main purpose is to make sure other players can't press buttons.

 

Granted, its nice to see the Pike get some love, though we'll see where this leads (the fact it's 300+ damage to health, and used like a concussion missile is pretty good, I admit).

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Full disclosure: I have not tested in the PTS since launch, so I'm not familiar with how the mechanics work, but assuming they work as advertised:

 

I think the EMP missile will be a direct counter to satellites that are defended by bombers. Since you can aim the missile at a turret and essentially remove all mines near the sat, plus temporarily disable systems for people orbiting, you open a window off opportunity for your team to assault the sat without having to worry about a chain of mines going off and wiping your team. I like it.

 

The minimum charge setup for gunships solves, or at least mitigates, the love-tap problem with ion guns in my view. It might still be better in the long if they are able to scale effects to the percentage of charge, but maybe that's more complicated than it sounds. Barring that, this is the next best thing. Especially if the minimum charge required could be set on a per railgun type level to allow for tweaks in balancing.

 

Overall, pretty solid changes directly related to feedback they are getting. There are still other issues that need to be addressed, but this is a step in the right direction in my view.

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I saw the PTS info on dulfy showing the slight reduction to shield piercing in some of the upgrades but they also mentioned base damage to weapons that automatically shield pierce without upgrades so now I'm worried about Proton Torpedoes. Takes considerable skill to land one and I'd hate to see them nerfed at all. I didn't seen anything mentioned about the Cluster and Concussion missile 5% range upgrade being changed to 10% either which means I hope it isn't going away. Edited by Kain_Turinbar
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Also, how does this interact with the current mechanic of a railgun firing when you run out of energy? Are love taps going to return in the form of intentionally draining your own weapon power so the game spams your shots for you?

 

I would imagine a railgun would simply fail to fire if someone doesn't have enough energy and fails to have enough charge. Not to mention aiming by energy exhaustion tends to be rather more difficult than releasing the shot when you are ready to release. Anyone with a fair degree of skill doesn't sit still, after all.

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EMP missile will have the same main problem as ion railgun: it's not fun to play against. Fortunately, because it's a missile, it's fifty times harder to land one than it is the ion railgun... oh, wait, people are already encouraged to throw these at drones and mines. Well, alright then.

 

Minimum charge on railguns solves nothing, even if that minimum is 100%. Love taps might be gone, but banning a target from the game from outside of LoS is just unfair. Also, how does this interact with the current mechanic of a railgun firing when you run out of energy? Are love taps going to return in the form of intentionally draining your own weapon power so the game spams your shots for you? And, of course, there's half a dozen other problems with railguns that this doesn't even pretend to address.

 

I would give various unspecified favors to get into a teamspeak conversation with one of the devs, just so I can at least confirm whether or not they care about our feedback.

 

just wait till you run into an interdiction mine. it completely kills your movement reducing you to an almost stopped pace. An enemy will drop behind you and boom. Your a sitting duck.

 

Its about to get a whole lot harder in space.

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So I posted this in the PTE forum but I'm copy/pasting here as I think it's worth discussing here too.

 

While the EMP missile looks interesting I have several concerns:

 

1)when it is introduced what will make ion missiles an appealing option to take instead of EMP missiles? To my knowledge Ion missiles are already considered worthless and I think EMP missiles will just devalue Ion missiles further.

 

2) the AOE looks balanced for TDM where no one has to cluster close together. However, in domination you HAVE to cluster within 3,000 meters of each other in order to cap a sat. This basically sets up a perfect recipe for EMP spam that discourages people from playing the objective.

 

3) if I understand things right the bomber doesn't have an engine evasive to dodge missiles. If that's correct the bomber just got turned into a big EMP magnet that will be a hindrance, not an asset, in domination mode since any bomber that gets within 3,000 meters of allies orbiting a satellite could basically get their entire team EMPed.

 

4) mines/drones far from adding a new tactical dynamic to defending (or attacking) just became EMP magnets that can be used to cripple a team protecting a sat. It won't be fun for defenders if deploying mines/drones to buff the sat defenses just ends up regularly crippling their defenses and leaving them weaker than if they had no mines/drones.

 

Overall it sounds neat but IMO the system disabling feature should've just been added to existing striker Ion weapons (buffing both striker variants equally and making ion weaponry much more appealing) while leaving the drone/mine destroying job to existing conventional striker weapons and expand the Ion Railgun's AOE to include the EMP's drone disabling/damaging function.

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I would imagine a railgun would simply fail to fire if someone doesn't have enough energy and fails to have enough charge.

 

You would hope so, but this is absolutely something the devs need to consider. A gunship that does nothing but spam ion on a turret for half the match is still contributing more than any strike fighter can currently (though emp missiles might change that, we'll see).

 

just wait till you run into an interdiction mine. it completely kills your movement reducing you to an almost stopped pace. An enemy will drop behind you and boom. Your a sitting duck.

 

Why do people think answering "<mechanic> is broken and here's why" with "<upcoming mechanic> is even worse" is going to cheer me up? :/

 

1)when it is introduced what will make ion missiles an appealing option to take instead of EMP missiles? To my knowledge Ion missiles are already considered worthless and I think EMP missiles will just devalue Ion missiles further.

 

It's possible that if EMP missiles are short range (4k-5k max), ion will be more valuable because of their longer range (7k on PTS, I believe). Also, and I could be remembering this wrong (but everything's subject to change anyway), EMP missiles don't do much in the way of shield damage, meaning they won't combo into kills in the same way. (Of course, by the time you get a lock, you could have just shot out their shields, but...)

 

2) the AOE looks balanced for TDM where no one has to cluster close together. However, in domination you HAVE to cluster within 3,000 meters of each other in order to cap a sat. This basically sets up a perfect recipe for EMP spam that discourages people from playing the objective.

 

3) if I understand things right the bomber doesn't have an engine evasive to dodge missiles. If that's correct the bomber just got turned into a big EMP magnet that will be a hindrance, not an asset, in domination mode since any bomber that gets within 3,000 meters of allies orbiting a satellite could basically get their entire team EMPed.

 

I completely agree. I don't want to get EMPed because my bomber ally is forced to abuse the system if he wants to get any significant req gain. However, if the EMP is short enough range, fighters should (should) be able to take out the offending strike fighter before he launches the missile.

 

4) mines/drones far from adding a new tactical dynamic to defending (or attacking) just became EMP magnets that can be used to cripple a team protecting a sat. It won't be fun for defenders if deploying mines/drones to buff the sat defenses just ends up regularly crippling their defenses and leaving them weaker than if they had no mines/drones.

 

I dunno if I agree. It seems more of a risk/reward thing to me (how risky is it to place these mines on the satellite? are they more likely to blow up an enemy scout or get EMPed by an enemy strike? should I instead place them closer to the enemy capital ship, creating a hazard my opponents are forced to deal with when they attempt to reinforce this point?), but it could very well end up being a "build wars" thing (does the enemy have strikes? if so, my bomber is useless; if not, my bomber is great).

 

Overall it sounds neat but IMO the system disabling feature should've just been added to existing striker Ion weapons (buffing both striker variants equally and making ion weaponry much more appealing) while leaving the drone/mine destroying job to existing conventional striker weapons and expand the Ion Railgun's AOE to include the EMP's drone disabling/damaging function.

 

Please no buffs to railguns ever. On the other hand, I agree that putting this functionality into existing non-railgun ion weapons would be a more elegant move.

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You would hope so, but this is absolutely something the devs need to consider. A gunship that does nothing but spam ion on a turret for half the match is still contributing more than any strike fighter can currently (though emp missiles might change that, we'll see).

 

 

 

Why do people think answering "<mechanic> is broken and here's why" with "<upcoming mechanic> is even worse" is going to cheer me up? :/

 

 

 

It's possible that if EMP missiles are short range (4k-5k max), ion will be more valuable because of their longer range (7k on PTS, I believe). Also, and I could be remembering this wrong (but everything's subject to change anyway), EMP missiles don't do much in the way of shield damage, meaning they won't combo into kills in the same way. (Of course, by the time you get a lock, you could have just shot out their shields, but...)

 

 

 

I completely agree. I don't want to get EMPed because my bomber ally is forced to abuse the system if he wants to get any significant req gain. However, if the EMP is short enough range, fighters should (should) be able to take out the offending strike fighter before he launches the missile.

 

 

 

I dunno if I agree. It seems more of a risk/reward thing to me (how risky is it to place these mines on the satellite? are they more likely to blow up an enemy scout or get EMPed by an enemy strike? should I instead place them closer to the enemy capital ship, creating a hazard my opponents are forced to deal with when they attempt to reinforce this point?), but it could very well end up being a "build wars" thing (does the enemy have strikes? if so, my bomber is useless; if not, my bomber is great).

 

 

 

Please no buffs to railguns ever. On the other hand, I agree that putting this functionality into existing non-railgun ion weapons would be a more elegant move.

 

EMP missiles currently ignore shields and armor just like Protons and have 7km range and 3 second lock on time. (300 damage directly to hull)

 

 

Edit: I like the idea of build wars it means no build will be cookie cutter any more. The more rare components that have only rare uses should become more and more common while common builds still stay relevant and i think thats great.

Edited by tunewalker
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Edit: I like the idea of build wars it means no build will be cookie cutter any more. The more rare components that have only rare uses should become more and more common while common builds still stay relevant and i think thats great.

 

Having played Build Wars for a year, it's not like you think. There are still cookie cutter builds - in fact, there's more of them: one for each gimmicky loadout the playerbase can dream up. If you're not playing the most optimized version of one of these gimmicks, you're probably losing. You can't afford to run niche components/skills because you can't afford to run a skill that's strong against one of the ten possible compositions you'll be facing and useless (thus a liability because opportunity cost) against the other nine. And there's nothing more frustrating than loading into a match just to see that your team as a whole doesn't have a counter for what the other team is running, which means you need to wait through at least ten minutes of deaths and pointless fighting before the game realizes that the match is officially over, even though you lost back when you loaded in.

 

Of course, this game doesn't have thirteen hundred skills to choose from as Guild Wars did, which means there aren't literally a thousand skills that are never worth taking. You also get to bring five ships with you to a fight, but the game is a long way from that being a solution to build warsing - players are having trouble mastering one ship, much less building five for specific uses against the current meta. And new players will continue to have this problem until requisition gain is multiplied tenfold.

Edited by Armonddd
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Please no buffs to railguns ever. On the other hand, I agree that putting this functionality into existing non-railgun ion weapons would be a more elegant move.

 

Fair enough and I certainly respect not wanting ion railguns to have a buff. Still I'd rather see the existing and much hated ion railgun remain the only AOE CC by adjusting it so it disables mines/drones too than have more AOE CCs added (operating on the theory that AOE CCs will just make GSF progressively less fun as more are added).

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Another Change many have probably not noticed, but a fully upgraded Charged Plating now only has 20% bleed through instead of 40% meaning Charge Plating is also likely to be more useful then it has been in the past. Especially since i dont think mines have armor piercing, and Shield Penetration is becoming much weaker across the board. Edited by tunewalker
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Another Change many have probably not noticed, but a fully upgraded Charged Plating now only has 20% bleed through instead of 40% meaning Charge Plating is also likely to be more useful then it has been in the past. Especially since i dont think mines have armor piercing, and Shield Penetration is becoming much weaker across the board.

 

Oh wow I was actually thinking such a buff would be a good thing, if this makes it to live I might try charged plating again.

 

That being said I still think they need to give both striker types access to the armor and reactor components so both striker types can equally benefit from charged plating.

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Oh wow I was actually thinking such a buff would be a good thing, if this makes it to live I might try charged plating again.

 

That being said I still think they need to give both striker types access to the armor and reactor components so both striker types can equally benefit from charged plating.

 

Or other shield ones. for the Pike since it would definately benifit from having a reactor for Directional or Quick charge shields.

 

 

And in addition to the overall nerf to Shield pen (heavily on bypass) means that little bleed through should be MUCH less painful also with the addition to Repair probes from bombers. all of this is adding to to bringing Charge plating in line with other shields.

Edited by tunewalker
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