Valks were banned from the Deneb run because no matter what happened, a Valk racer would always beat another racer of equal skill. There were no different strategies involved, you simply went faster in a Valk.
In Nation Wars it's different. There are so many different strategies and tactics to use that banning one ship based on one tactic alone doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

Valkyries were banned from the deneb run because it was a race, not combat. Valyries were the fastest ship and not everyone had access to them, so there wasn't much point in racing if you didn't have a valk.

When you throw combat into the mix, it's much different. Only one thing matters in a race: speed. The ship with the most speed stands the best chance to win. If not everyone can get the fastest ship, its clearly not fair.

In combat, what matters is: size (big or small target), speed, armor and firepower (speaking strictly in terms of stats and leaving tactics and coordination out of the mix). Not everyone can get the fastest ship, but they might be able to get the smallest ship or the most powerful ship, etc. My point is that there are other viable options in a combat setting, not having access to one ship should not severely hamstring you so long as you have access to another. Banning the ship with the largest advantage in one of these areas moves us closer to a homogenized style of combat where everyone flies the same ship. We should be working in the opposite direction.

That being said, as you can tell from my earlier post, I do agree that the valk may be too easy to use in group combat, or the SCP is too difficult and there is some balancing that remains to be done with these two ships in particular so that they better fit their roles (specifically, that the SCP better fits its role). But I think the banning of any ship is going to take away from the game. I have more thoughts on this, but I'm at work and have to run for the moment. Bascially that there are a lot of skilled light pilots out there right now and not very many skilled heavy pilots. This may be skewing the results to make it seem like the valk is a stronger advantage than it actually is. This is an incomplete thought right now though. Boss coming, must run. More to come.

Cont...

So what I was trying to get at the other night is that this may be more pilot related than equipment related. There are very few expert heavy pilots playing the game right now. People have proven in the past that heavy ships can more than balance out the valk in the nation war. However, most of those pilots are gone at the moment and no one has really stepped up to fill their shoes. As a result, it may seem like the valk is dominating when the reality is that it's the pilots using the valks who are dominating. Just because there aren't very many pilots around who can use a prom to its fullest potential doesn't mean we should ban the valk.

Granted, this is just a theory of mine. But I would suggest an experiment. Have all the players who normally fly valks fly proms instead for a nation war. If my theory is correct, you will still see the same pilots coming out on top. This is not so much because of the ship, but because of the skill.

The best pilots in nation wars work well together, focusing their fire on one target at a time to neutralize it as fast as possible. The point being that while having 6 valks focus fire on you makes you feel like the valk is overpowered, having 6 anything focus accurate fire on you is going to ruin your day real fast. And having six proms focus fire on you will have you sent back to your home station thinking, "What just happened?" It just so happens that the people flying valks right now are the ones who coordinate the best within the current active player base, making the valk seem overpowered when the real issue is more about the skill of the pilots flying the valks and their competition.

P.S. MR. GORBACHEV, TEAR DOWN THIS WALL (of text)!

See: http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/23612

Thanks for the replies.

Thinking about how things should work in general is fine, but I think we are obliged to not lose sight of the episode that sparked this recent discussion. Here is a recap:

Itani and UIT allied. Serco and Grey had no agreement. Serco was the only team without any X-1s. I cannot see how Grey could have won if peytros and I weren't able to choose the terms of engagement as much as we did. Likewise, it seems quite plausible that if denji had been in an X-1, he would have been able to do as Grey did, and have a real chance at winning. What other ship would have given him a chance? Even if he was the best SCP pilot in the world, in a prom he would have eventually succumbed to a patient swarm of light fighters. I don't see how any other tactic or strategy besides "stall and wait for the NAP to fall apart" would have worked. Therefore, peytros and I having access to valks gave us an unfair advantage over denji who abstains from them on RP grounds.

Banning the ship with the largest advantage in one of these areas moves us closer to a homogenized style of combat where everyone flies the same ship.

9/19 in Valkyries is pretty homogeneous especially when you consider that 4-5 probably didn't have levels for one. People fly what they think is best.

Then change the Valkyrie, don't change the rules. :)
Playing Starcraft II has made me realize that there are a LOT of ship-weapon combinations as well as tactics and strategies that people simply don't try in Nation Wars. Maybe it's time for people to experiment.

The most common valks in combat have an insane amount of armor for their mass. Perhaps this is a place to start, if valks are to be changed.

Actually, that's my inclination as well, Nahin. I think we'd still need to give viable combat chase ships to the other nations, though. I should post in that other thread.

But there definitely is an onus on the players to experiment with new tactics and strategies.

9/19 in Valkyries

... would possibly be the coolest battle in the history of history.

since its impossible to control NAPs (as much as i hate the cowardly things) and taking the valk away means the prom is once again king.. why not just go the way of the UWT and ban all nation specific ships?

Then it will probably be some Vultures and... oh wait, more Vultures. :p

That's the other part of the problem is if you ban the valk on the basis that it's superior, what about the other superior ships? Prom is superior to a warthog. Do we ban the prom too?

The point that I admittedly didn't make very well in my last post is that with 9/19 in valks, of course the valks are going to seem superior, there's 9 of them. 9/19 in proms, I'd say there's a strong chance the proms are going to be pretty dominant.

Fast ships will always be able to run. Even with the changes suggested in the other thread, the valk will still be able to choose when it wants to engage. The counter to this is patience. You have to remember that a valk can't win a fight by running. It has to engage eventually.

This is not to mention that fact that you can stall just as long in a Vult with a heavy bat if you know what you're doing. Yes, the valk is better at it, but I can tell you right now that if I don't want to engage you and I'm in a vulture, there's not likely to be an engagement. Do we ban the vult too then? We can't ban a ship just because it has the ability to run. How good do you think a cent would be if it couldn't put distance between itself and its attackers when it needs to?

You have to remember that a valk can't win a fight by running. It has to engage eventually.

Yeah, it engages for about 2 seconds before turning tail and running away as its target comes about to shoot back.

Tactics. :P

Tactics. :P

Indeed, and if this was IRL, I'd either be pleased about my ability to kick my opponents' asses with such impunity, or really pissed at my inferior technology. But last I checked, this was a game. Tactics that annoy the shit out of 2/3s of the game's player base need to be gutted.

I understand that's a problem for you, because you can't actually fly a ship in a heads up fight. But this isn't about you and your 16 year old's hormone ravaged face, Estrogen.

For the record, I do agree that the valk needs to be adjusted or that the prom needs to be adjusted to give it some competition. I would prefer the latter. But I'm against banning ships from the nation war. Once you ban the valk, why wouldn't you ban the next superior nation specific ship as well?

You would; next question.

Get your usernames straight, Lecter. ;) And I've beaten you in most of our 1v1s, iirc.

Eh, whatever, y'all look pretty much alike to me.

You might have seen Estrian, but you've never seen me before.

Back to nerfing the Valk, I think.

EDIT: I didn't notice the "you can't actually fly a ship in a heads up fight."

Editing your posts after the other person has responded is low, Nahin.