I LOL'ed!

Seriously, Shape especially (I know Tumble's an illiterate douche-bag and beneath my acknowledgment): the bulk of the player base likes the game to do the aiming for them, and they like the inflated target provided by prox fusing. That's why the flares & AGT are popular. They're easiest to use well and that's what you're looking for if you're flying to survive. And if you're IC, you're most likely flying to win.

Let's say tomorrow the Devs said "Look, we've thought about it and we just don't like how the concept of auto aim meshes with our ideal combat model. We want players with better connection and better reflexes to consistently win fights, because that's what 'skill based' means to us. So, the AGT is no longer in existence (or has severely reduced auto aim, which would cause it to become unused; same effect) and flares have their prox distance narrowed to 10m. Nothing else has changed."

We all know that the eventual response, probably after a period of testing and diverse load-outs, is one that provides the closest performance to the old preferred combo. I'd guess that's jacks and gauss. Best auto aim on your energy, most likely to hit with your explosives because of the re-fire rate.

The title of this thread essentially says "Hey! These things are too effective and players aren't using the other energy weapons because of that... let's fix it by making everything closer to the lowest common denominator." All I'm saying is (1) that will only cause migration to the next closest to preferred setup, an effect only preventable by doing away with prox and auto aim more or less altogether, and (2) unless this is a space dueling game where any two pilots who encounter each-other, regardless of ship or weapons load out, should be evenly matched except for ping, reflexes and experience... that's not a great ideal to chase.

You want to explain where I'm wrong, rather than just saying NINNY? The tension in VO between its RPG nature and its skill based combat model has always been present and compromises in each ideal have always been made. Why is the suggestion advocated by this thread the right approach?

Hear hear, Dr. Lecter. I am (for once... happens rarely enough) inclined to agree with you.

Well, I don't really play that much right now, so I don't know that I'm all that entitled to my opinion, but,

Its true that much of so called "balance"-suggestions are directed toward a dueling environment (mostly because the dueling environment gets disrupted by imbalances)

However, the AGT is more than that, its a far more effective weapon in multis than any of the blasters. And doubled up with flares, it makes multis effectively impossible. (The only counterbalance to which is either ANOTHER agt/flares, or swarmers)

I understand the issue with fast reflexes/fast connections. But in the outline that you proposed, I really think the light fighters have NO role whatsoever. With the possible exception of a few of the vultures, which have some chasing ability.

I'm not arguing that all weapons should use the same skillset. I think flares are a wonderful example of a weapon that requires a different one (even if they are far more powerful in a multi).

My issue is that AGT does not require a skillset, and I think one should be developed for it. If you have an issue with people having to interact with their computer, zonked out on energy drinks, to win a fight, then put your thinking cap on and find a way for the AGT not to require that kind of split second judgement.

I actually disagree with this thread, I think the energy weapons
(with the exception of the really light ones) are very nicely balanced.

N2's are great for Energy efficiency and rate-of-fire (I use these more often than N3's or Laws)

N3's are faster for a rather drastic energy increase and far more available than Laws

AAPS: The fastest, but also a low rate of fire.

Laws, the cream of the crop, have to be harvested. Ideally I'd like to see these harvested from a mission rather than from station bots, but hey... I'm not picky.

Gauss, the energy weapon that gives you an advantage in a multi, autoaim, but low rate of fire and high energy cost.

In this group the only ones that stick out are the AGT and the Plasdev. The AGT for its incredibly high rate of fire, and excellent energy usage, and the plasdev, for being a really crappy AGT.

I don't want perfect balance, I want lots of new things, so that the answer to "Such and such is broken" is "Well have you tried ****** against it, might work"

To this day, the only sure win against AGT and flares is more AGT and flares.

There aren't that many ships than can effectively deploy the N3s or the AAPs. Try flying anything with an L-port, an all-energy loadout and not use an AGT. They're all great ships, until you face off with any decent pilot in a RevC/IBG, the 107 or a CV/SVG (the only possible exception being the posi-hog).

So, if you ask me, the problem is too many good pilots are using light fighters with N3s or AAPs.

Nerf Shape.

(edit: I agree with Shapes comment: I don't want perfect balance, I want lots of new things...)

What I would like to see is some balance differentiation. What this would do is to forever unbalance every ship in the game. Let me explain.

Take for example a very well balanced RTS Age of Myth. It has three types of attack damage. Hack for swords and such, pierce for arrows, and crush for buildings. Different units have a higher and lower tolerance to each type of damage. Lets convert this idea to VO.

Armor type.

When a ship is purchased now, all you have is the basic HP's . What would be much more fun, and much simpler to balance due to the very nature of its design, is armor that is more effective at absorbing, or tolerating, different kinds of damage.

So on one side you have three types of damage, energy, mass/penetration, and concussion. Different weapons do different amounts of one or two of these types.

On the other you have types of armor. I will start with 4, but there is no reason to not add more.

Light carbon, Hardened carbon, Heavy metal, and Xithrite alloy.

Balance it off with varying degrees of weight, and tolerance of damage type.

Light Carbon is similar to a Graphite composite, made light and fast, is vulnerable to all types of damage. However it almost instantly recovers from concussion effects, and is very hard to hit.

Hardened carbon is very vulnerable to energy as carbon constructs, even diamonds, burn. The deflection strength of its Diamond/Graphite hull makes its mass/penetration strong. Its light weight allows it to recover from concussion very quickly, and speed from its light weight makes it hard to hit.

Heavy Metal is very tolerant to energy, almost ignoring it, reasonably tolerate to mass/penetration, but is totally useless against concussion due to the amount of recovery time needed to stop being affected (spinning). Larger and heavier ships are harder to effect with concussion, so this disadvantage is felt mostly by the mid size heavy ships. Additionally, ships with this load out are harder to maneuver, relying more on overall durability than getting out of harms way.

Xithrite alloy is very middle of the road average to mass/penetration, reasonably tolerant to energy, but heavy enough that concussion causes problems. Its middle of the road mass makes these ships slower and heavier than the Carbon models.

If shields are brought into it, then they would be all but immune to mass/penetration (deflects most of the force rather than absorbs), even on energy, but very weak to Concussion. (lots of energy to be absorbed over a large area tends to severely weaken shields)

Allow any ship purchased to equip an armor type at purchase, and determine mass and basic armor strength based on that.

Control the speed vs. agility factor more by adjusting the auto aim radius of weapons, based on their damage type(s), making the weapons that are effective against light fighters (energy) have a broader range of acquisition to compensate for difficulty to hit.

This way you end up with a rock paper scissors type of relationship.
Type A ship has an advantage over type B, but is weak to type C. While Type C is weak to Type A ships etc...

More variety, and no one thing is really better than another, and no matter what you are in, you could get owned by someone in a ship designed to take out your type of ship.

I also agree with Shapes comment: I don't want perfect balance, I want lots of new things..

balance is what's killing this game.

they balanced all the light fighters to a near-flat equilibrium while leaving some ships totally out of the scale (prom to name one).

I said it before and ill say it again:

Uniformity=bad
Diversity=good

(I know Tumble's an illiterate douche-bag and beneath my acknowledgment)

Gee Vern, I don't know what any of them there words mean!

Ninny.

Thanks for reinforcing my point.

Lecter: Your (big) post on nerfing the N3s and AAPs, is quite good and I for one completely agree with it too.

Now if all your posts were as polite it'd be great ;)

Twit.

I should add to that "Duh."

I should also include some long, wordy, and quite literate explaination of sarcasm, followed by a plea for you to learn the difference between a joke and a genuine insult, but it all seems pointless, doesn't it? You aren't smart enough to figure it out.

Ninny.

Will Roberts:

I've done it: its called a posihog... and it rocks, even against good pilots. But its a bitch to learn to fly.

I'll never understand your preference for the AAP in there rather than an N2 or a law, Shape, even with the enhanced damage.

But yeah, that set up is sweet, for chasing and up front spray n' pray.

I feel that balance in this game has tilted towards the dueling spectrum of PvP. As Lecter so succinctly put it,

"No more nerfing. Of anything. Everytime I see this game digress towards matched pistols at dawn it pisses me off more and more."

Well gee, okay! Maybe we should make N3's and AAP's a little more powerful, just in case they're not popular enough. I'd sure hate to see PvP digressing into "Matched pistols at dawn". (Wait a minute...)

In real life, if two people duel, one's got a pike, and the other's got a couple of knives, who do you suppose is going to win 9 times out of 10? VO's changed the real world balance around, making 'knives' good in every situation, I suspect for the sake of dueling, and making large unwieldy but fierce weapons good in... some situations. So, the AGT's there to help make up for very large ships' vunerability to small ships with quick guns. Unfortuanately, now the medium class of ship has the best of both worlds, relatively agile maneuvering, and large unwieldy weapons with huge spray. The only thing cheaper would be if Centaurions could equip Mega Positron Blasters. Oh well. It kinda' sucks that the Gatling Cannon, Popcorn Makers, Firefly and Yellow Jacket Missles, Mk I and II Railguns, Plasma Cannons, Ion Blasters, Phase Blasters, Mk I Gauss Cannons, and Mk I Plasma Devastators are all but practically obsolete, but it's better that we just keep those guns up on the shelves than face the risk of digressing into "Matched pistols at dawn".

Still, who needs all those guns when you can pick up N3's and AAP's floatin' around Sedina?

The Good Doctor speaks : "... unless this is a space dueling game where any two pilots who encounter each-other, regardless of ship or weapons load out, should be evenly matched except for ping, reflexes and experience... that's not a great ideal to chase"

Heh. This is *exactly* what's going on now, since everyone migrates to the best weapons. So you face the same weapons....with the same weapons.

The problem with guns are that progressively better guns get better in the specs that are important : better firing rate + better damage. So why fly N2s when you can fly N1s? Why fly N3s when you can fly N2s (don't gimme that crap about N2s being better : it's not and yeah I fly n2s more than n3s.). Why fly Gatling Cannons when you can fly AGT?

So, everyone migrate (like Lecter put it) towards the "best" combo. And everyone duels in the "best combo" : and, wait, look! That's your "duels with matched pistols".

(Anybody who says "AGT is for people who don't have uber aim and reflexes, but hey, this is a skill-based game after all." should carefully examine the sentence and write a report on the meaning of "non sequitur".)

Actually, the Nuetron Mk III and the AAP are the guns that fire very fast bullets, and the AGT and Flares are the weapons that have excellent range of fire. Alot of people have commented that you still need to aim with these guns, and that's true. However, that doesn't really constitue an arguement, since you need to aim every gun, even missles. The truth is, these are the weapons that you need to aim the least.

Ah, WWL, but you deliberately fail to mention the key difference between the fact that currently many people choose the same combo and what I said you and your ilk want: currently, there's a range of possible weapons styles from which the 'best' combo for a large number of players may be selected. That's not the game slouching towards space quake, that's a natural and inevitable function of diverse weapons.

What you are talkin about doing, however, is to ensure a narrower range of diversity. You want to lower the damage or speed stats on N3s or AAPs, or raise the mass or drain stats on the same, in order to make them suck enough that maybe some people will say 'Gee, I think that Phase Blaster from TPG *is* just the best way for me to go!'

Moreover, your approach says that *above any other consideration* VO is skill-based. Therefore, AGT (and gauss for that matter) must go! But VO' isn't a skill-based shooter above all else: if that were the case, we'd all be fighting with blasters without any signifigant autoaim. That would be (1) really silly from an RPG aspect and (2) annoying as hell when you consider the number of people who hate straight energy rigs. But you're right, if we nerfed it all just right, and did away with anything outside the narrow band of what you want, we could probably force diverse weapons loadouts... more than now, anyway. But the key is making the stats for all weapons so similar that no one modifier is clearly dominant for a bulk of players. And that just sucks.

Heh, Doc, my ilk turns out to be just me!

Actually, oral arguments aside, what's the "range" of possible weapon styles you see other than the ones I've listed? Sure you have the odd weird combo that people fly for fun once in a while (like a posihog), but simply look at the ships they fly when they have to really win, and I bet my N2's that they will drag out their "best combo", which invariably turns out to be the usual suspects.

Also, you are right that I want people to consider other weapons that are viable, but they don't lead to "narrower diversity", they lead to greater ones. I think even you would agree that a "high velocity, high damage" != "low velocity, low damage" != "low velocity, high damage" + various other permutations.

At the moment, everyone uses the "high velocity, high damage" weapons, so where's the tradeoff? A truly diverse weapon systems will make people fly differently when armed with different weapons. Right now, plonk a centurion pilot with N3s/Laws/AAPs and I bet they fly exactly the same way.

On the uber-ness of the AGT, sure you don't want to marginalize those who can't aim. But you should make them use *other* skillsets* instead of doing the aiming for them. Oh yes, I think autoaim should go too (even for regular blasters, and I am saying this even though the only weapon I ever beat shape consistently with is with the uber-aiming gauss), but imagine what kind of flames I'll get for suggesting *that*!

Finally, we should also stop the "dueling" mindset and start thinking multis. Not all weapons have to be born equal in a duel-setting. Make some weapons deadly in a duel, but useless in a big fight and vice versa. At this moment, weapons that suck in duels suck in multis, and some weapons that are awesome in duels are uber-awesome in multis (read AGT + rockets). I must admit, though, that N2s are better than N3s in multis than duels but not by much.

*say, a skill-based missile system, or a guided missile system etc.

I suggest the devs remove the current energy weapons (thus removing the points of conflict), and introduce 256 new weapons!
Here are some stats for you gentle folk to chew on:

Sorta Dark Blue Gun

Damage: 200
Speed: 200
Drain: 55
AutoAim: Good
Colour: Sorta Dark Blue

Slightly Dark Blue Gun

Damage: 200
Speed: 200
Drain: 55
AutoAim: Good
Colour: Slightly Dark Blue

Not Really Dark Blue, More of a Medium Blue Gun

Damage: 200
Speed: 200
Drain: 55
AutoAim: Good
Colour: Not Really Dark Blue, More of a Medium Blue

Repeat 253 times. Now talk about diversity! Every single energy weapon would be utilized!

Shiny.