AOE weapons

[Anonymous]

posted on January 5th, 2010, 12:45 pm

Last edited by Anonymous on January 5th, 2010, 3:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.

So you decided to split the damage of aoe weapons between the targets to prevent them from being overpowerd. Sorry to say this but i dont like the solution. When i use aoe weapons i want to make tons of damage with them and not only scratch the shields a little bit. But i understand your reasons. I also dont want them to be overpowerd so i spend some time searching a solution, and i think i found one. Maybe not a perfect solution but pleas give it a try, think about it and dont say directly no

Let them work like the Ion Storm, only damaging ships near your vessel. So you must move your Norway, for example, into the enemy fleet to make damage with Plasma Coil. This gives your opponent the chance to move his ships away to a safer location. "Oh a Norway is heading toward my fleet, seems like he want to use Plasma Coil on me. I better move back to a safer location" So you see the damage is avoidable if you are able to micro your ships. And remember that your ship could became primary target when making this so its risky but if you successfully unload your aoe weapon the damage will be worth the risk. "Ok but what about ships with short weapon range?" you may ask. I know this ships must stay close to make damage and the risk to be target of an aoe weapon is much more higher. Let them simply take less damage. Maybe 30% for short ranged vessels, 60% for medium ranged vessels, 100% for long range vessels and 100+% for artillery ranged. 100+% because of the range. Normally you let your artillery ranged vessels only attack on maximum range so there is enough time to react. If you miss the chance to retretat your vessels you must pay for this fault

So what dou you think about this "solution"?

( And by the way this shall not be a discussion about the Norway or the Plasma Coil. I only use this ship and this weapon as an example. I could switch "Norway" and "Plasma Coil" to "ship X" and "aoe weapon Y" if you want )

posted on January 5th, 2010, 1:32 pm

well, i dont think thats a real solution for area damage weapons, it just removes them and replaces them with an "aura style" area weapon. that would reduce the variety of specials.

There are no nukes in Star Trek, and the current area effect handling seems to be quite fitting for me. Some special weapons deal flat damage-per-vessel again by the way, but on a limited number of targets. I'm quite confident that we will stick with the current implementation, but keep the ideas coming, they are always good ideas for a special weapon

[tom]

posted on January 5th, 2010, 1:36 pm

Last edited by tom on January 5th, 2010, 1:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.

i mostly agree. they dont need to be used only near a ship (norway in ur example) imo. the area of affect should be small and it should be avoidable with micro and thats it.

for instance sc balances aoe offensive abilities like psi storm by making it small area and it deals damage over time. coh's grenades have a count down time and can be dodge, dow2 abilities either have a count down time or deals damage over time or both. (thats pretty much all i play so i dont know how other games balance it).

as for FO's idea. it will balance them better then now imo.still i find abilities like field of fire to be a bit brain dead. u point and click -> enemy receives damage. there is (almost) no micro involved, no way do dodge it, and no thinking or timing needed. i would like them to be removed or redesigned but they have less and less impact on the game so it does not matter

EDIT: Optec posted while i was typing      

posted on January 5th, 2010, 5:59 pm

I agree Tom: I really hate point and click abilities for the most part, which is nice when you have an ability like Plasma Coil which lasts over time (though not nice that you can't avoid it really). Abilities like Hyperspace Artillery, or the Isotopic Subspace Bomb are quite nice because they are avoidable and the Hyperspace even does damage over time, so if you are on the periphery and can get out... you might survive. Mainstream abilities (because they are on easy to mass-produce units) like Field of Fire, Sensor Blackout, etc, I think should not be so easy to just choose a location and obliterate units. I think that it should also be possible to avoid these weapons, or at least mitigate the damage they cause rather than just wait for your ships to finish suffering. I guess we'll just have to see if the current balance makes things nicer - as it seems the area of effect weapons will become quite variable in how they do damage

posted on January 5th, 2010, 8:28 pm

in my sight the main problem is that those area weapons just pop out of nowhere in space and so cant be evaded. If the oponent needs to fire em from the ship (means the effect does move in the enemys direction) it could solve alot trouble. Also it would make the game more interressting, at least in my sight. See: that way u wont get much trouble if u pay attention to your forces, but if you dont do it, your enemy will eleminate your fleet faster than you can say ouch. With splitting the dmg just over the targets the most "nukes" will become quite useless against bigger fleets. Actually the special abilities make the game interressting, with nerfing em, the game will end up in a: "i got more ships, u loose, doesnt matter what you do". Powerfull special abilities and counters to em make the game so good.

posted on January 5th, 2010, 8:38 pm

It's not really that nerfing is a solution I think, it's just that certain special weapons are so good that you don't even need to use the other ones in your fleet once they are out. Take Field of Fire for instance - once you've got enough LuSpets, it used to be (and still can be) that everything is instantly vaporized. No need or even use for building other special units (or using other special abilities) because a fleet of FoF wielding LuSpets is just so much more effective. It's these "one size fits all" special abilities that really damage game play because everybody just knows that you have to use them. Even now, most people know that Blackout is important, but most of these same folk ignore Plasma Coil or the Remore's abilities because they just have teeny effects when compared to these "super" special weapons.

posted on January 5th, 2010, 8:53 pm

Even now, most people know that Blackout is important, but most of these same folk ignore Plasma Coil or the Remore's abilities because they just have teeny effects when compared to these "super" special weapons.

When REALLY ... if you ask me ... it should be a multitude of teeny specials that COMBINED will do excellently - encouraging a balanced and mixed fleets of supports to buff your units and hurt your enemies, with vessels made for fighting to take advantage of it.

  Example:

Canaveral uses Blackout (the way I think it should be): 20% reduced reload for 15 seconds.
Remore uses ECM (the way I think it should be): 25% miss chance for enemies.
Norway's use Plasma Coil on a section of the fleet: Better damage spread over few targets.

  And Voila!  You have an enemy fleet that is hampered powerfully (but not COMPLETELY) for the first half of the fight and an aoe special doing respectable aoe damage to a section of their fleet.

posted on January 5th, 2010, 10:18 pm

When REALLY ... if you ask me ... it should be a multitude of teeny specials that COMBINED will do excellently - encouraging a balanced and mixed fleets of supports to buff your units and hurt your enemies, with vessels made for fighting to take advantage of it.

  Example:

Canaveral uses Blackout (the way I think it should be): 20% reduced reload for 15 seconds.
Remore uses ECM (the way I think it should be): 25% miss chance for enemies.
Norway's use Plasma Coil on a section of the fleet: Better damage spread over few targets.

   And Voila!  You have an enemy fleet that is hampered powerfully (but not COMPLETELY) for the first half of the fight and an aoe special doing respectable aoe damage to a section of their fleet.

Indeed: rather than one blanket effect, and the rest being trimming on the cake, we have a group of special abilities that work nicely together and are not so powerful by themselves that they can be a crutch for poor micromangement (*cough* Shield Recharge, Sensor Blackout, Sensor Jammer, usually Multi-Target etc ). When that happens we get "easiest-way out" situations, where one person discovers a powerful ability, and everybody in Fleet Ops quickly follows. That is exactly what happened with Plasma Coil, and then of course, when that was nerfed...

posted on January 5th, 2010, 10:29 pm

Good word to describe it.  Special abilities should not be a "crutch" or a "wheelchair".  They should not make up for poor management and *cough* negligible skill.

  They should be bonuses that allow a player with maybe less firepower who didn't spam "overall ships" to tactically make use of their skills and their bonuses to achieve and underdog victory in battle.  THIS is most like Star Trek to me.  Effective use of strategy and minor abilities to tip the balance in your favor.