EXP nerf

[Zruty]

Well, I understand that interceptor is the funniest ship to fly. I partially agree with this too. But hey, at the recent PUGs the expansion complex is practically a requirement for a competitive game.

This means EXP should be nerfed, if only for the game variety. Do you agree with me?

I see the following two ways of doing this.

1. The old idea of separating boosters for ints and figs. The initial boost1 will be the same, but then fighters get figboost2 and figboost3, while interceptors get intboost2 and (maybe) intboost3 (I'm not sure how Belters fit in yet).
* This makes EXP tech slightly more expensive.
* The boosters may be individually tuned, so that fighters become more competitive against ints (not in combat, but in, say, running away).

I like this idea since it fits into my view of techpath purpose:
- EXP is very good at defense, but bad at base killing.
- SUP excels in point strikes: killing small bases, miners, bombers, worse in dogfights.
- TAC is extremely good at economy killing early on, and then SBs are good for endgame, but their defense is really bad.

2. Another idea I came up just now, and less revolutionary, is: make miniguns do even less damage to the utility hull. This will cripple the ints' ability to rush and kill enemy miners. On the other side, it may make pushing cons easier against EXP, but hey, you can decimate the con D first, and then just keep the constructor rammed, can't you?

Please, let's get constructive. A simple "No. ### you" is not what I expect

[Makida]

Well the previous int-nerf that was agreed on was raising their sig to 100%. Did that have much of an impact at all? Should it be un-done if another, more serious nerf is implemented?

For my part I like the booster idea. Though really, I always liked the idea of giving interceptors less fuel, so they can't boost for as long. It's simpler than creating an entire new branch of the tech tree, though it's not as flexible in terms of fine-tuning ints' abilities.

[SouthPaw]

Exp is fine.

Straight sup wins plenty of games. Dual tech with Tac wins plenty of games. Hell, I have won two straight tac games in the last couple of weeks.

Expansion endgame is whoring into submission, this is perfectly acceptabe. If the other team doesn't submit it retains a chance to win.

Exp vs Exp might not be everyone's cup of tea, but straight exp end game requires some of the best coordination and teamwork in alleg. HTT and recap battles are some of the most exciting moments around.

The fact that Exp is currently in fashion, does not make it overpowered. Buffs and nerfs should not be applied to ensure that all factions and techpaths are played an even number of times. Rather they should ensure that there is an overall balance when factions or tech paths are played.

If you are sick of Exp, go command a ton of SY rush games.

[Shizoku]

Stfu.

[spideycw]

Reasoned discourse if you can please, shizy

[Clay_Pigeon]

<<Copy/paste SouthPaw here>>

[Jimen]

QUOTE (SouthPaw @ Aug 26 2010, 09:11 AM) Expansion endgame is whoring into submission, this is perfectly acceptabe. If the other team doesn't submit it retains a chance to win.

Played properly, expansion midgame is whoring your miner d into submission, then whoring your miners into submission. In which case it doesn't much matter whether your pilots submit or not.

The issue IMO is that exp has the strongest early-game and mid-game, being damn near guaranteed to not just out-whore but out-economy a non-exp team of the same faction, thanks not only to yield upgrades, but to pps and prox upgrades which make miner d easier. And then there's the fact that ints absolutely devastate attempts to end the game with conventional bomb runs, to the point where the other team can plant an op in my exp sector and I won't even care (in fact, it often helps because most voob comms will do nothing but bomb over and over when presented with that "opportunity").

Which goes into Exp's other weakness. Namely, it requires a somewhat higher standard of situational awareness, because the lack of rip ability means that if you're not good at being in the right place at the right time and the comm doesn't micromanage you, it's a lot harder to get your int somewhere near the right place before it's too late. However, "people who suck at Alleg also suck at Exp" isn't really a techpath weakness so much as a symptom of the fact that Exp doesn't have a "win button", nor can it use tools like carriers to herd an incompetent flock.

Sup's advantage is its late-game, but to get there you're going to have to keep both your miners and your bases alive against a good half hour worth of int rushes - though a lot of PUGs set the money so high that it's more like ten minutes. As for Exp vs Tac, pulse probes. gg nextmap

[Freyja]

QUOTE (Zruty @ Aug 26 2010, 12:55 PM) * The boosters may be individually tuned, so that fighters become more competitive against ints (not in combat, but in, say, running away).

Actually no, it's actually counter to that, or should be.


ints are meants to be very fast, take out their target and return to base however they usually shouldn't have a long combat loiter time nearly as long as a...

fighter which is generally slower, less deadly, more versatile, and is able to attack ground targets effectively (ala galvs on bases).


My main issue with ints has been and always will be that they carry so much fuel that you can stay out of base for excessively long periods of time.

Ways to fix this if people are interested;

1) Reduce the longevity of the fuel for ints, let them be the fast sobs they are but if they want to fly 5 sectors make them pay for that fuel.
2) Seperate the boosters, either simply by having ints mount only lt boost and a new version of hvy boost in exp, or a new concept.
3) Marginal increase in mg damage for an effective 2x reduction in ammo for that increase.



I'm pretty much in favour of #1, though I do like #2 as an idea in broad strokes, and #3 could be interesting.


Is any of this needed... well, I think #1 is. I don't think any of this is a game breaker of course.

[the.ynik]

QUOTE (Jimen @ Aug 26 2010, 06:12 PM) As for Exp vs Tac, pulse probes. gg nextmap

Same goes for Exp vs Sup - just fly around in your sector and pulse out those tp2 scouts (fortunately for sup, most people drop those pps only right next to the base, where they won't eye a scout behind a rock).


Just to add some options for possible exp nerfs:
- reduce PP scanrange - 3.5k or 4k would still be good enough to eye miners anywhere in the sector, but allow sbs/tp2 scouts to hide more easily
- slightly reduce int fuel (maybe 15% reduction?)
- change damage classes/hull types so that figs don't get completely outwhored by ints. So either increase gat damage on int hull, or decrease mini damage on fig shield/hull. This would probably require adding a new hull type to avoid changing other stuff at the same time. Ints should still be better dogfighters than figs, but not by such a large margin.

[ThePhantom032]

my ideas (personally i think all 3 should be done):

lower pulse probe scanrange to 3.6k (Garrison scanrange), which still keeps them useful (especially for ints) but won't spoil every attemt to sneak something somewhere.

Lower int fuel. Even hvy ints should not be able to boost 3 sectors straight, find a miner using a pulse probe, then kill a fig on miner d, then kill 2 nans on miner d and then kill the miner.
.75 of the current fuel should be a change that keeps them competive in close combat but disables them from boosting so far. Most important is that you still can attack miners 3 sectors away if you load another rack of fuel - but then you might run out of ammo if you're doing it alone.

Make ints a little easier killable for figs. Be that more damage for figs, less damage from the ints, larger/less agile ints or just less hull on the ints. A side thruster nerf would probably be best for players with higher ping.

TL;DR:
set pp scanrange to 3.6k
set all ints fuel to .75 its current value
set all ints rear/side thrusters to 0.9 instead of 1.0