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Pile Driver or some other hack = game imbalance


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we have a big problem in GSF, where a handful of players have mastered the Pile Driver maneuver so well, it basically becomes a one-shot mechanism. This causes a massive imbalance in the game, where these same players just play the game all day, and farm the frags and commendations. Most importantly, it is very frustrating, I can't defend my ship against these shots. My only defense is to copy the strategy...

 

Please, FIX THIS. I am baffled that even though I have played this game for years, my experience is trumped by a broken game mechanic.

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we have a big problem in GSF, where a handful of players have mastered the Pile Driver maneuver so well, it basically becomes a one-shot mechanism.

 

It definitely is not. You have to land a bunch of shots with two guns, each of which has a separate optimal range and projectile flight speed. It's impossible to pile drive a target that is moving laterally *even slightly*, as the reticule will not be in the same place due to the differing flight speeds. Basically, if you avoid doing any of these three things:

1- Not moving

2- Moving directly at them

3- Moving directly away from them

Then you are completely impossible to piledrive. The ship will have to use whichever gun can actually hit you, as your lateral movement will mean that being under one reticule will keep you away from the other.

 

If you are trying to joust a joust build with a worse joust build, then yes, you will lose. Note that piledriver isn't even exactly at the top of that stack though. Also note that piledriving can be disabled with EMP field or slicing.

 

This causes a massive imbalance in the game

Good players crush bad players in GSF, and it has nothing to do with piledriver. Out of all the strange burst mechanics that GSF has ever brought up, "just shoot them with lasers if they are holding still" is very low on the exploitative list.

 

I am baffled that even though I have played this game for years, my experience is trumped by a broken game mechanic.

 

I'm sure you'd lose versus really good pilots regardless of what they are flying, and I doubt piledriving is resulting in anything going on here.

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that's the problem, what you are saying is not situational.... it is ALL the time. I literally use pile driver for every kill, and I shred people with it. It just takes a couple of seconds.

 

It also takes away the fun in the longer dogfights I used to have... running way or chasing someone.

Edited by CommanderOtto
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I wanted to kindly ask the devs to please look at this. It's really changed the game, and I only see the same people winning every match with this exploit. It is cheap, unskillful, and there aren't any defenses against it. It also completely invalidates other weapon options like Ion cannon.... why bother when you can just exploit doubleshotting people.

 

See a working example here.

 

Nothing needs to happen. But if devs acknowledge that it will be reviewed, that is a start.

Edited by CommanderOtto
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I wanted to kindly ask the devs to please look at this. It's really changed the game, and I only see the same people winning every match with this exploit. It is cheap, unskillful, and there aren't any defenses against it. It also completely invalidates other weapon options like Ion cannon.... why bother when you can just exploit doubleshotting people.

 

See a working example here.

 

Nothing needs to happen. But if devs acknowledge that it will be reviewed, that is a start.

 

1st, it's not an exploit. Just because someone keeps winning a lot is more the fact they are actually skilled at GSF, and know what they are doing.

 

Not to mention as is shown in your own video, if an opponent is taking evasive action is the counter to being killed in a few shots. You simply need to know when your shields are being hit and fly evasively.

Edited by Toraak
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First thing's first: pile driver is fine and you can even run ion cannon with it if you want iirc so I don't get the argument that it makes ion cannon worthless.

 

I do think you're onto something here; you're just focused on the wrong thing. The problem is that you do not get good feedback that someone is shooting at you with blasters vs missiles. Missiles are crazy obvious and it's impossible to miss it. Blasters? Most players don't notice, and they die quickly for it, piledriver or not.

 

I wouldn't mind seeing changes to the feedback you get when someone shoots you. Some way to make it more obvious would go a long way toward helping new players out.

Edited by DakhathKilrathi
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First thing's first: pile driver is fine and you can even run ion cannon with it if you want iirc so I don't get the argument that it makes ion cannon worthless.

 

I do think you're onto something here, you're just focused on the wrong thing. The problem is that you do not get good feedback that someone is shooting at you with blasters vs missiles. Missiles are crazy obvious and it's impossible to miss it. Blasters? Most players don't notice, and they die quickly for it, piledriver or not.

 

I wouldn't mind seeing changes to the feedback you get when someone shoots you. Some way to make it more obvious would go a long way toward helping new players out.

 

Your ship flashes, a red arrow appears showing you the direction the shot came from, and your shields or health drop. How much more feedback that you’ve been shot do you need?

 

As for piledriver, I’ve seen three pilots in the six years I’ve played this game who could use it effectively. Three. And they were the kind who could kill you in any ship, so piledriver wasn’t the factor in their success. It’s no more an exploit than guard canceling in a fighting game or animation cancelling in most other MMOs. And if you can consistently use it to kill someone who is actively moving and dodging, congrats…you are a deity and can kill them with literally anything.

Edited by Enticy
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Your ship flashes, a red arrow appears showing you the direction the shot came from, and your shields or health drop. How much more feedback that you’ve been shot do you need?

 

While I don't disagree, it's clear that most players don't react to it. If you never lock on with missiles your DPS is going to go way up because people take much longer to try to get away.

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While I don't disagree, it's clear that most players don't react to it. If you never lock on with missiles your DPS is going to go way up because people take much longer to try to get away.

 

There are multiple reasons for why people don’t react fast enough, if at all, to being shot. Often, it’s tunnel vision. They lock onto a target and decide they can kill it before dying. Sometimes, people think they can just turn around address the threat instead of trying to get away. And some newer players will just freeze up and forget their controls for a second.

 

The problem is that veteran pilots like myself get shot a lot. Aggressive warnings can potentially become spectacularly annoying and even distracting. Hell, I’ve known people who’ve found the missile lock beeping irritating enough to actually make them avoid GSF at times.

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The problem is that veteran pilots like myself get shot a lot. Aggressive warnings can potentially become spectacularly annoying and even distracting. Hell, I’ve known people who’ve found the missile lock beeping irritating enough to actually make them avoid GSF at times.

 

I have a disability that means some sounds (such as the missile lock tone) can be physically painful. The change that meant missiles were more common was a hard one for me to get around, and it's not something I'm going to get used to. I more or less have to play with SWTOR sound turned way down and it's part of the reason I stopped streaming/recording; it's not a good representation of the game if I have it muted.

 

I also didn't say it needed to be an audio cue for this reason, just more noticeable. The game already uses damage flytext for when you deal damage, and it's how you know you actually scored a hit. If it was also visible when you take damage (you know, like it is in the rest of the game) it would solve the problem in a fairly unobtrusive way.

Edited by DakhathKilrathi
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I have a disability that means some sounds (such as the missile lock tone) can be physically painful. The change that meant missiles were more common was a hard one for me to get around, and it's not something I'm going to get used to. I more or less have to play with SWTOR sound turned way down and it's part of the reason I stopped streaming/recording; it's not a good representation of the game if I have it muted.

 

I also didn't say it needed to be an audio cue for this reason, just more noticeable. The game already uses damage flytext for when you deal damage, and it's how you know you actually scored a hit. If it was also visible when you take damage (you know, like it is in the rest of the game) it would solve the problem in a fairly unobtrusive way.

 

That’s valid. I think the issue with adding more visual cues is that it could get distracting. If you put it somewhere out of the way, it may go unnoticed. If you put in the middle of the screen or use flytext, you risk obscuring the pilot’s vision or distracting them. The game just needs to do a better job of pointing out the cues, among other fundamental aspects that GSF’s tutorial is woefully unequipped to cover.

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That’s valid. I think the issue with adding more visual cues is that it could get distracting. If you put it somewhere out of the way, it may go unnoticed. If you put in the middle of the screen or use flytext, you risk obscuring the pilot’s vision or distracting them. The game just needs to do a better job of pointing out the cues, among other fundamental aspects that GSF’s tutorial is woefully unequipped to cover.

 

SWTOR gives you really fine-tuned control over flytext, so if it was distracting you could just turn it off for damage to self while still seeing it for damage from self. You can already disable outgoing damage that way if you want to, and it works even in GSF.

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  • 2 weeks later...
First thing's first: pile driver is fine and you can even run ion cannon with it if you want iirc so I don't get the argument that it makes ion cannon worthless.

 

I do think you're onto something here; you're just focused on the wrong thing. The problem is that you do not get good feedback that someone is shooting at you with blasters vs missiles. Missiles are crazy obvious and it's impossible to miss it. Blasters? Most players don't notice, and they die quickly for it, piledriver or not.

 

I wouldn't mind seeing changes to the feedback you get when someone shoots you. Some way to make it more obvious would go a long way toward helping new players out.

 

I pay a lot of attention to the feedback, and I think that's not it.

I know of a couple of folks that take this to such a level, that it almost feels like a one shot. I just don't get it.

 

I even doubt that those defending pile driver actually use it the way it is being used by some people. One thing is to pile drive and hit a few times, quite another is to melt people in one shot or 2 shots (or at least that's what it looks like).

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it almost feels like a one shot. I just don't get it.

 

Being stationary and not seeing stuff coming can absolutely feel like that. A heavy and a quad, which can basically hit at the same time, is nowhere near as damaging as a lot of other burst attacks though, and the piledriver does need time to get his other shots in. It's even less damage if he's running the less bursty heavy/rapids. If you're worried about an enemy piledriver, you definitely need to not be stationary along his direct line of fire. The moment you break that line, piledriving becomes, first more difficult, and then completely impossible, as the reticule jump will make it so that the second shot will miss if the first hits and vice versa.

 

I've flown as and against them plenty, I dunno, I don't think it's any kind of problem. It's also been in the game for years at this point and it has always had the exact same pile of counters. Slicing totally disables it. EMP totally disables it. Lateral movement hoses it worse than any other build. Every debuff that affects accuracy and everything that affects weapon pool totally screws it up, so there's a huge pile of crewman that disrupt it heavily.

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I pay a lot of attention to the feedback, and I think that's not it.

I know of a couple of folks that take this to such a level, that it almost feels like a one shot. I just don't get it.

 

I even doubt that those defending pile driver actually use it the way it is being used by some people. One thing is to pile drive and hit a few times, quite another is to melt people in one shot or 2 shots (or at least that's what it looks like).

 

You do realize Scouts can do the same thing, except instead of laser swapping to piledrive with two primaries, they simply combine their primary (usually either Lights or Quads, not sure how LC's fair in 7.0) with Rocket Pods, which in a lot of cases is even more dangerous than a piledriving T1 Strike. A T1 or T2 Scout piledriving with Pods and burst cooldowns like Targeting Telemetry and even Concentrated Fire can absolutely vaporize anything that they have a clear line of fire at, and they don't even have to adjust their aim for a bouncy reticle like a T1 Strike does, which means they can piledrive a target that's moving laterally and/or off center (though Pods have big penalties for being off-center, so consider using Wingman to compensate). It's genuinely scary the kind of burst damage a Lights/Quads/BLC and Pods Scout can put out with the right cooldowns, sometimes you're dead before you even know you're being fired at.

 

Which is why it surprises me that there are so few Scout mains these days, especially compared to Strikes. I know they have paper thin defenses but their killing power is something else in capable hands, so why they're not more popular these days is a mystery.

 

The point that Verain and others have been trying to make here though, is that the ship and its components don't make the man in GSF, the pilot does. An Ace pilot running a stock ship will always outmatch a Rookie pilot running a fully mastered ship, on the basis of their aim and flying skills alone.

Edited by Loadsamonie
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  • 1 year later...

my piledriver guides ......just swap quick charge shield for directional once ur used to it

HOW TO

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ot4nru3QlNY&t=12s

Heavy/Quad

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhTkkg-5Lbs&t=1s

Heavy/Ion1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBqtfDc0kds&t=5s

Heavy/Rapid

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xGOaRL4eo4

Edited by Deadria
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Agree -- lots of piledrivers and most of them are deadly.  My preferred counters to it:

-type 1 scout with max evasion (counters all primary weaps and railguns too!)
-type 3 SF with max self-heals
-any ship and avoid "jousting" - heavies and quads have punishing tracking penalties and so if you aren't letting them run straight at you they miss a lot

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