I'm not usually one to bitch about balance too much, but...damn.

Today has really been the only day I've gotten some decent PVP in, and I must say, these new seeker weapons are totally and completely unbalanced.

I'm currently at level 4/6/x/x, and using the best energy weapons available to me,Tach Mk.IIs and a Mk. III Vulture. Some guy, random serco dude, is 4/3/x/x, and uses the best missle weapon available to him, and a hornet. Now, I dont mean to boast, but I'd say I've got quite a bit of a skill advantage on this guy. We fought several times, and I only actually killed him once, and that was due to a major miscalculation on his point.

Before I had always described Vendetta as a skill-based MMORPG set in space. However, missle system weapons have been constantly upgraded, and upgraded, and upgraded some more, and hey, some more. What little changes there has been, if any, have been insignificant at balancing the energy/missle weapon systems.

I really don't know what more to say. I'm kinda dissapointed that the game is headed in a direction that does no longer support actual skilled fighting, and caters to those who want to win battles by simply launching missles and running away. Is this intentional? Do you guys have any plans on further balancing the energy/missle gap? Please let me know.

It's not intentional. a1k0n did it accidentally. He said that he's going to reduce maneuverability.

Personally, I hope that he also reduces Gemini speed. They are way too uber for lvl5.

Though this could have been said a bit more diplomatically I do agree with the statement. There have been 2 things that have kept me playing VO for so many years. 1) The devs 2) The skill based combat system.

It would be nice to see energy and missile weapons equal at the same level.

i like the new seekers, they atually track a target.

they DO need to be less agile tho. if their turn radius was increased some and their speed decreased just a bit. i think it would even them out.

They don't need any improvements- just a touch of nerfing. I mean, I was damaging a valk using Geminis. And he was trying to dodge them...

I agree in general, and particularly with Durgia. A more useful title would have been nice too.

is this what distinguishs the chaos and swarm missiles from each other? (they look very similar in stats, but chaos is definitely harder to dodge... if you're trying to dodge/not run away from them)

Everyone knows homers in their previous incarnation were broken. You could barrel roll or boost and the things would never hit you, not in a million years. Only when 24 swarm missiles were in the air around you would they connect.

Now seekers actually do their job and some people are up in arms about it. They are not uber, they just work. (I've been on both ends of geminis and swarms and I don't think they are unbalanced at all compared to the gauss mkII, sunflare launcher, or tachyon mkII)

Is someone plans on actually sitting still and fighting I don't have a problem with them. The problem is, it was easy enough for a pirate to flee from a losing battle before. With homers the way they are now it's almost impossible to stop someone from running.

Phaserlight is correct. They finally work. As for those PvPers out there, specially
those who feel they have to right to force PvP on the unwilling, look out. The next
guy may have a brace of seekers ready...

If they have seekers of their own you're screwed RattMann, as long as they're facing your nose your centaur is a sitting duck.

The missiles are too good, but should be, what we need is not maybe a degrade, but maybe some kind of chaff/flare system? IMO this is the next logical step, going off current millitary tacticts, who invents a weapon without some kind of counter?....

Both of you clearly did not actually finish reading my post.

Hear hear. If you can't dodge the missles and stay in the fight, it's not a fight any more. It's what the devs have stated in the past they DIDN'T want out of the game - guided missle duels.

They needed to be improved from their pre 1.0.8 levels, but after that the game went from a primarily skill/twitch based system to hit x and spam system. Since nearly all of us have been playing for quite some time now where aim and dodging skill mattered, we are somewhat non-plussed that all that is out the window.

Again, a1k0n has said that they are broken and need to be fixed. Has anyone tried them in 1.0.9 to see if there are changes?

Yes I have and no there aren't. But I still get my tachyon kills in. :P

Phaser: Yea. I could barrel-roll and dodge, and boost away and take no damage untill someone spammed. The damage the other guy took, however, was also minimised, unless I focused on him, in which case, I DID take damage from the homers. They worked great as a distraction, and as a skill-less weapon, that's all they should be.
I have no problem with that system, and I have no problem with not being able to hit bots. Take'em back to what they were before.

I have been trying to pvp a fair amount in the last few days. I fought many pirates as a viper and I think they would agree with me that it was just silly.

I'd shoot a gem they'd shoot some swarms and we'd fly around in circles for a bit repeat until ammo runs out, zip off reload come back repeat. I'd get one or two rail shots in, they'd catch me with the edge of a swarm, no more than 20% dammage on either side unless somone was typing or talking on the phone.

I agree that the seekers should be less agile. Before you could dodge them without turbo with some effort, but to do so and fight risked losing concentration and taking a missile hit.

In my mind I can't really seperate this issue from the instant sector warp out thing, they both make killing anything but a tradeship imposible. If fighters can't fight each other, well, that would suck.

I don't personally think the gemini's needed changing from the old way, my battle hog in the 3.3 days i could hit someone dead on with gemini you just have to know the "sweet spot" angle to fire them at for them to swing the proper direction and pop the target. the new ones i can just like fire them off and have a 60% hit ratio. i probably only had 40% in the old days but it was better than most other people were getting.

The Geminis probably need some arc of vision in order to track. Get within a good angle out of that arc and they go dumb.
Swarms I can slightly forgive because they're L-port, but geminis are really a pain. S-port fighter based homers shouldn't track as well as L-port ones.

But I think the problem with the homers isn't so much the homers themselves as it is the ease of running away from a fight. The improved homers just make that a whole lot easier.
I think a good start would be using my infini-boost idea from before where every loadout has a slower "cruising speed" (maybe about 80% max speed) where you get infinite boost and a regular speed where you get energy drain. Then adjust the engine/batt drainage by the necessary amount, require that you cannot jump while you have missiles about, put a 5 second delay between jumps, and extend the range to see where someone is jumping by another 500 to 1000m.

I would have to agree with Magus, if anything perhaps the turn radius could be reduced, but I definitely think the improved AI was a much needed change. Before I could barrel roll to kingdom come and a pair of geminis would never hit me, perhaps I was just exceptionally lucky.

The real issue lies in running away. I trust (almost to the point of fanatic devotion) the devs know what they're doing but when they gave everyone the ability to infiniboost at 200 m/s and warp instantly, I kind of had to wonder what exactly they were thinking.