#Neuroforge, Engineer, and You

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limber carbon
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I'm kind of lost on how all engineers end up on 106 drone ops at max class skills and DD23

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Nvm just needed to think for 1 second lol

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60 from class skills, 46 from DD23

limpid raptor
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2 percent per level from dd and 60 from engi. Yeah

keen roost
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For me personally, yeah. I do DGs on my ShM and it takes me longer. I'm not hyper optimizing to get the fastest farm rate possible though.

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I've sat and played for a couple hours straight just chain DGing on my ShM, with my bots to pick up some random creds.

And my bots are geared towards crits/crit str and sustaining, so its pretty much the same idea Dorian has with his drones. And even though I can maybe gear/mod for more sup intel im not overcoming the crit resist changes. So my bots are gonna be even slower the moment neuroforging drops, and I don't have a ton of gear to neuroforge with. So I'm getting nerfed on my ShM's bots.

abstract nexus
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how do you feel about the suggestion in another thread of adding a small amount of drone ops% to an existing mod to allow engi to scale their dps hober?

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I wish I could get my phone to stop autocorrecting hober to homer

keen roost
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I can't judge it effectively atm but I can't say I'm very excited by the idea.

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Sounds pretty boring

abstract nexus
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that's a fair point, but it's no more boring than evil or forceful mods right?

zinc hawk
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No but the designers of those mods ages ago didn't relize that they were gonna be as important as they are.

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We debated just removing them given how one dimensional they are. That was the original mod revamp that we adopted when we really started working on it again.

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But went with a different approach where people's mods are all compatible with the new system instead of all being trashed.

abstract nexus
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mind you I think it's more interesting than it seems on the surface, because drone ops is already an interesting stat in that it allows you to customise your drones to your liking via augs

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rather than just being a straight +% of a particular stat

zinc hawk
abstract nexus
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I was just curious as to what your thoughts on it are, I know the team is already brainstorming ways to allow engi to scale with mods better, but I'm a firm believer in simple solutions rather than complex ones yknow?

zinc hawk
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Same as hober. I want some level of buildcrafting that an engi can get involved in like the rest when it comes to enhanced mods and the like

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rather then just chasing some secondary mod on all of their pieces

abstract nexus
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that's pretty fair

zinc hawk
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That's like, the type of thing that would be added on the previous(current) mod system

abstract nexus
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perhaps it could form part of the solution? I'm guessing that you ideally want multiple mods that engi could benefit from so that some effort has to go into working out which ones to go for?

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I just think drone ops is a pretty interesting stat to play with too, as its benefit is dictated entirely by your choice of augs

zinc hawk
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I actually think drone ops is even less interesting then evil/damage.

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at least evil is only one stat of a characters DPS/elec profile.

keen roost
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I'm just not interested in giving drone ops as a mod

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We're not saying we won't add any mods, but we're pretty sure drone ops as a mod isn't the way to go

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drone ops is a stat that unlocks other stats

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and it isn't even consistent in how it does it across all setups, because its effect depends on your setup

abstract nexus
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fair enough, I just wanted to ask about it

abstract nexus
keen roost
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there are stats that don't matter for drones

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so certain aug setups just won't scale as hard from +drone ops as others would

abstract nexus
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that's true, but I think that would be a valid choice when considering what augs to use or what mods to aim for

keen roost
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thats fine, but we're not going to go down that route

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I understand what you like about it

abstract nexus
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no I know, I'm just discussing hypotheticals

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I'm not saying "no I disagree you should just shut up and do it" or anything like that

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do you have any rough ideas you would like to see personally?

zinc hawk
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Nothing ready for public yet

abstract nexus
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just out of curiosity

zinc hawk
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other then what i've said alrady here

abstract nexus
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I don't mean as devs, I mean as players 😛

limber carbon
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Lol

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I mean as a player Roh could say anything to everything

abstract nexus
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yeah, that was the idea

zinc hawk
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Probably being able to mod the literal drones

abstract nexus
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I'm not asking them to divulge what they're currently discussing internally, just if they had any wildcard ideas they like the sound of personally

zinc hawk
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could be cool

abstract nexus
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but also anyone can share, not just specifically hober and roh

zinc hawk
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and then those drone mods being interesting. Doesn't make that much sense with neuroforge tho

limber carbon
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I appreciate the feedback on the drone ops post. Had no idea it would be viewed like that or even the history behind our current mod system

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That adds a very new perspective to things for me

zinc hawk
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nah ur good. I'm not one to respond to like.. suggestions instead of feedback

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But I was asked directly so

abstract nexus
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as much as I moan about drones being too papery, I still think they're hugely interesting as a vehicle for the class's abilities, it's why I've always liked engi

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someone else suggested being able to actually gear drones yourself, which would be a ton of fun, but also probably a massive headache to balance

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but I like hearing the fun 'what if' ideas as much as the actual plans for the class

zinc hawk
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It's tough to throw out "as ifs" as devs as people can get upset that the idea that they liked isn't actual apart of the final design.

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So usually we only share things we've gotten pretty dang close to final.

abstract nexus
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yeah I understand that

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although as fun as the idea of equipping drones with gear of your choice would be, I also totally understand why it's something you'd never contemplate 😂

limber carbon
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That's a very hard pill to swallow.
If you look at past sniper for example, it's hard to say that no compromises could have been made for how long it was such a useless class

zinc hawk
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It definitly wasn't useless. Just more niche then the more general classes.

limber carbon
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Then for all the changes to collimate into ranger

abstract nexus
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it was pretty bad to be fair

limber carbon
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It was basically on life support

abstract nexus
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I like the concept of classes being able to use hulls outside of their class choice, but for sniper it was pretty much a necessity

zinc hawk
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Ranger was just being designed for far far too long

abstract nexus
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my hot take of the evening is that all combat hull types should have the same number of aug slots

zinc hawk
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and hidden away on a branch

zinc hawk
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then they'd all be the same

abstract nexus
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nah, there's still a lot you can differentiate hull types by

keen roost
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Yeah that's not gonna work

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We can find other ways to give hulls power that don't involve extra aug slots

abstract nexus
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it's just that with augs being easily the largest power modifier in the game, I've always found it odd to have such a big disparity between slots

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but this is just my own personal thoughts, not something I'm saying you should actually do

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I recognise it would be far too big of a shake-up to consider at this point

zinc hawk
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We'd have to do another every aug and every ship and potentially every item changes again project.

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The game barely survived one of those

abstract nexus
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that's why I'm saying I recognise it's far too big of a shakeup to actually consider

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I did say it was a hot take!

twin slate
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I'm sorry.. my setup.. are you suggesting you can make a working setup with More dps?
It's a simple fact that I'm losing massive dps because of the lack of consideration that not all classes can scale mods... seriously pathetic.

As far as crafting goes engi can still target all shield mods, all res mods, all mobility mods. All elec mods, all hull mods... there is no shortage of things for us to scale with the exceptions of scoops and shield chargers... please by all means add some scalable mods there for us.
You've effectively added a 100% crit chance accessibility to anyone with a few bindo, not to mention the evil scaling...

I showed you what a non crit setup looks like.. it's roughly the same dps.. with less QoL because of the balance around crit with modern augs...

limber carbon
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With what Hober and Roh said above recently, I don't think this is a fair assessment anymore. What they have alluded to is that evil/SI scaling was an unintended oversight, which is probably one of the biggest emissions anyone is going to get from a dev.

To me that alone justifies the extreme causing to add engineer drone scaling of any kind to the NF gauntlet

zinc hawk
keen roost
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Yeah from 13+ years ago its an oversight

zinc hawk
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It's possible that augs were multilicative then.

keen roost
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Anyway, no Dorian I'm not telling you that I can make a "working setup with more DPS" than the setup you came up with. I don't know what you consider to be working, your priorities wouldn't be the same as mine first of all. And second, I was just pointing out that the crit resist changes significantly effect certain types of setups rather than just investment levels.

zinc hawk
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They probably just forgot to make mods additive when they made augs additive.

abstract nexus
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was it ever considered to make crit resistance a reduction in the damage taken from crits rather than a reduction of the chance to crit? I feel like the former could have been a better solution

limber carbon
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And when that was realized it was too late to correct course because every player was utilizing that oversight

zinc hawk
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But we decided it was better to let things stay more status quo and work with it

twin slate
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While other classes are gaining literal millions of dps...

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So the solution is remove SI/evil scaling and just make the game worse for everyone, brilliant

zinc hawk
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There was a previous mod rework design where we did that, but it was redesigned from the ground up what the mod rework would be since that point

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You can see this in that original post from 5 years ago or whatever

abstract nexus
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personally I think the crit res thing should have been saved until T24 when you'd have much more of an opportunity to entice players away from just relying on crit str to carry their dps

twin slate
zinc hawk
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Dorian can you explain the original comment you made

twin slate
# abstract nexus personally I think the crit res thing should have been saved until T24 when you'...

The issue is accessibility to stats.
The crit res change is good, and it currently denotes increased investment to do current content.
I thinknitnstill scales a bit too hard imo... and idk what they plan to do for t25, 125% crit res?
The problem is they thought they understood a problem and they did not consider everything it would impact.
It stems from them not actually understanding the game or classes.. I can guarantee Hober wouldn't prioritize the same things as my build.. but that is because he is straight up bad at the game and has no concept of min/max, stat efficiency, content priority... the list goes on...

twin slate
zinc hawk
twin slate
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To get perfect gear even post rework requires dozens if not hundreds of copies of items.

At the end game we are chasing 1% gains and spending billions and hours of grinding to get it.

By removing the value ofnthose you are basically deincentiving actually pushing your builds.

zinc hawk
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Where was it stated that that would happen?

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I stated no such thing

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it's what devs probably should have done 13 years ago when they made augs addititve.

twin slate
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And the new crit res effectively mandates it without massive power losses... except for the few classes you straight broke the power curve on.

zinc hawk
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But no such thing is being considered now

abstract nexus
# twin slate The issue is accessibility to stats. The crit res change is good, and it current...

that's what I've always argued. T23 items are largely balanced around crit, and the content you obtain them from has been balanced around the gear and augs avaliable. I agree too that crit strength needed addressing, but as I say, I think the ideal solution would have been to wait for the next tier so that the gear and augs from that tier of content can be balanced around shifting away from heavy investment into crit str

limber carbon
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This is a very fair point, to adjust a meta in the middle of a solved season isn't something any established MMO has done without significant backlash

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This is like if LoL deleted and added a whole new stat in the middle of a worlds format

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Bronze - Diamond probably wouldn't care

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But masters+ players would essentially have a meltdown

abstract nexus
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it would have been much more palatable to the player base too, since we wouldn't perceive changes to crit as a nerf to our power and investment as we'll be changing our gear and setups at that point anyway

twin slate
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Or like.. jus give engi a way to scale, extra drone ops solves survivability and dps issues, as does buffing controllers, as does giving us Aug mod, as does giving us mods bonuses... I mean ther is a ton of options... but it's a bit late for most now.

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You also negated to consider the impact of it on engi hps.. even the buff you gave doesn't impact that and now a friendly targets crit res (almost certainly 50% or more) is a hindrance.

sonic sphinx
twin slate
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Mind you it's not AS severe as they basically can't scale crit due to lack of available options....

abstract nexus
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the whole issue could have been solved if drones inherited mod bonuses from the mainship, nobody would have cared if some of those stats weren't useful to drones

sonic sphinx
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I’ve had no issues with my build on test. So maybe it’s a skill issue

abstract nexus
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bro went there

twin slate
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Trash builds aren't impacted much tbf

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They're now on par with good ones

keen roost
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Nothing in the game is balanced around expecting players to have high critical hit strength setups or having the dps that those setups unlock, in conjunction with other setup desires/needs/wants/requirements/etc.

sonic sphinx
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Trash builds? The only hope you ever have at killing someone was while they was on autopilot to another galaxy and didn’t notice you. I NEVER seen you deeper than 1 jump off Anatolia . I’m sure if killing players was an issue for you then ai must be especially hard

keen roost
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If you want to talk about people's skill issues or whatever please take it to #general

abstract nexus
keen roost
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Not T22, T23 stuff that doesn't drop from Matriarch and GEE.

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But Celestial Encampment and Red Rogue trackers were designed with the idea that people who were T22 would be trying to do them.

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Ruined Sanctuary was also made at the same time as CE, and everyone was in T22 stuff back then.

abstract nexus
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and a good portion of the stuff from those zones lean into crit

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the stuff that people actually use, anyway

twin slate
zinc hawk
twin slate
twin slate
zinc hawk
abstract nexus
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it's not just matriarch gear that has lots of crit

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just look at some of the entry level T23 zerk builds like cele mark, cele rage, symmetry for example

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if the crit res change had come at the same time as T24 there would have been much less upset because you'd have ample opportunity to give players more choices other than crit builds

twin slate
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The thing is there is no choice for other classes, crit is just a given if you use a weapon. In fact this change makes crit a MORE needed stat..
Instead of hitting 100% and then getting creative with your build and diversifying stats and augmod you now have to chase 150% which is very limiting to build diversity.

abstract nexus
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I mean yeah, that's a pretty valid point; the change has the opposite effect of forcing people to get more of it rather than encouraging them to use less of it

limber carbon
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There's no shortage of things that could have made crit resistance as fair of a slowdown to everyone equally

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Hard limiting crit chance to 100%

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For 1

abstract nexus
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which is why T24 and all its accompanying new gear, mechanics etcetera would have been a far more logical point to introduce it

abstract nexus
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that would affect everyone equally and make crit str a less attractive stat, which as far as I can tell is the intention

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it's also better for other reasons too, ie: predictability

limber carbon
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Well tbh any way that crit resistance could have been implemented to counter the establishment meta would be met with contempt

abstract nexus
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reducing crit chance makes damage output vary wildly, which feels pretty bad

zinc hawk
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The final blog post coming shortly will include the intention behind the change so we can stop playing guesswork.

abstract nexus
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nobody wants to have to make another blog post saying "sorry guys, we mightve got this one wrong"

abstract nexus
limber carbon
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True, I agree

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I've long since advocated for a meta shift from crit+crit damage

abstract nexus
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the big part of the anger behind doing it now is because it's going back on the gear and stat choices people were given to work with after they've already invested into them. nobody is going to be upset about their T23 builds being made less powerful if they're going to be moving up to T24 gear anyway, yknow?

limber carbon
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Even in team chat I've suggest different ways classes could scale other stats to leverage into new DPS formulas

abstract nexus
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I totally agree with the idea to make crit str a less desirable stat compared to other dps stats, I just think it was the right decision at the wrong time

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this is different from the gyro change. with the engi-specific issues solved (ie: drone weight), it's a lot fairer, and I think it makes other mods like composite and amorphous much more attractive than they were before

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(honestly composite is actually a great mod now)

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but with this change, there aren't any alternatives which can compete, so rather than making crit str less of an attractive stat, it's just forcing them to stack more crit to negate it

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which is naturally where the engi specific issues come in

limber carbon
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I thought Hober addressed that when it was brought up, I don't remember the conclusions he came to tho

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Stacking more crit to bypass the crit resistance changes. Or stacking more crit damage to equalize the crit chance loss, I honestly don't remember

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Too tired to check atm

abstract nexus
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stacking more crit damage isn't a viable option because it comes mainly from augs, which people using crit builds have already built towards

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so there's not much more you can do to offset it with more crit damage

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but the stated objective from way earlier in the thread was to make crit and crit str less attractive compared to other stats, which I think it falls flat on in practice

limber carbon
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That's our guess Xantra even if it's 1 or 2 devs saying it in and out of context, let's hear their official dev post on their reasoning then we can judge if it truly worked or not

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I'm not hedging my bets tho

abstract nexus
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since the main source of crit increase with this patch will be mods, it doesn't entice people to make compromises or trade-offs, because they aren't having to give up other, more beneficial mods; they can aim for more SI alongside their other mods

twin slate
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The way crit res works is that the negative impact on your dps increases with your crits chance up to 50% effective crit rate.
The impact then decreases inversely as you approach 100% effective crit rate.
So there is no impact at 0% crot or 100% crit. The biggest impact is at 50%, 49% is slightly more impacted than 51%, 25% is signifigantly impacted more than 75%.

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It's just silly to build anything around a mid impact power spike with the already serious issue of early and mid-game progression.

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Oh... and the impact is then multiplied by your crit str... but that is a separately charted value.

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Crit res does.literally nothing to change crit str... so I can't wait for that blog post.

abstract nexus
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yeah, that's why I think the option of making it reduce crit chance is a jank solution, because it makes your damage less smooth and predictable over short fights

zinc hawk
abstract nexus
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what?

zinc hawk
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Crit res is a stat that has been in the game for a long long time

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and has worked just like this.

twin slate
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It was in the game before there were ways to really scale crit str iirc lol.

abstract nexus
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right, but that doesn't mean it couldn't be changed since the intentions for its use have changed

twin slate
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Didn't Lion have crit res

abstract nexus
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putting it that way makes it sound like even more of a band-aid solution

limber carbon
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It probably wasn't noticable because we didn't have the level of crit chance and crit damage we have now

twin slate
abstract nexus
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oh I'm not disputing that the reasons may be valid, I'm just criticising the way it's been done

twin slate
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They may be doing it right depending on their goal and just overlooked some impacts... I'll give them the benefit of the doubt on that...
But if that's the case I want a hotfix... not a we'll fix your class eventually

abstract nexus
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nobody wants another sniper case

limber carbon
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It's either it's fixed fully or not at all

zinc hawk
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Nope there were zero compromises made anywhere

twin slate
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Like sorry... bandaids have a purpose... mostly to prevent infection and festering when you've made a mistake lol

limber carbon
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I'm joking 🤣

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Well half joking, I honestly think you guys could of met halfway on the sniper to range thing

twin slate
limber carbon
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But that's conjecture

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And I mean I can always say you guys could currently compromise by allowing some kind of drone DPS scaling to the NF mod package

abstract nexus
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the buff to engi class was a compromise

limber carbon
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Just until you make it more unique and better in the soonTM future

zinc hawk
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We gave damage to the class. That alows us to be flexible unlike doing something with items.

twin slate
abstract nexus
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but it's just disappointing that it wasn't flagged up sooner so that more time could have been spent out on hashing a more meaningful solution

twin slate
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And every other class gets stronger.. we get slightly less weaker

zinc hawk
abstract nexus
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nor would I expect you to be

limber carbon
zinc hawk
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There's a whole slew of things that could have happened that would make this project as a whole better.

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But here we are. With it exactly how it is. I am not going to try to rewrite the past.

abstract nexus
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but it doesn't help when feedback is given that it doesn't appear to be taken seriously until it gets to the point where people are taking hours of their time to break it down in explicit detail

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and I'm not aiming that at you or anyone in particular

zinc hawk
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Going to step away before I say something i regret.

abstract nexus
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I said that wasn't aimed at you

zinc hawk
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Don't matter.

abstract nexus
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in fact I very much appreciated the fact you took the time to actually talk to me and get my views on the gyro change

twin slate
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It is in fact Hober that's been the problem. He is making it build agnostic, he is trying to compare apples to apples when every other class got +130 Oranges and the question is how many fruits lol.

zinc hawk
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He may not be the best with his approach or tact, but it doesn't mean that feedback isn't received and discussed.

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Nor does he speak for us all or have some sort of higher power then the other design leads.

limber carbon
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That's not true Dorian, he was the actual the first dev to step in and take your post seriously Well I guess not directly but they were all receptive feedback

abstract nexus
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which is a fair point, but we can't react to things we don't know are happening

zinc hawk
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You also shouldn't think the otherside. Those were assumptions that were made.

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anyways this is exactly what I don't want to get into.

abstract nexus
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I'm not making assumptions, I'm basing it on the initial response we got in this thread

zinc hawk
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Which was for us trying to gather data on the situation. I was the one who made the vast majority of those initial responses. Hober effectively left me to dry.

abstract nexus
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that's precisely the kind of thing I'd like to see more of from others

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I apologise that I've upset you, that absolutely wasn't my intention

zinc hawk
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I'd just like the misunderstanding earlier to be one to be understood as happening equally and not one sided.

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The devs could have been clearer that they heard the feedback from the very beginning and were considering it.

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But it very much so was considered from the very beginning and was not ever brushed off.

abstract nexus
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I'm glad to hear that, I hope this thread can serve as a learning experience on both sides

keen roost
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I mean, if ya'll wanna know why I wasn't in here earlier its because the temperature of the conversation was ripping hot and I've been on the dev team long enough to know that you dont jump into the flame that is feedback until the temperature cools down...

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We spent a long time internally really coming to understand the issue.

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And working off the feedback Roh and JechtZ collected

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Their interactions with you all resulted in everything that came after, including my 4-5 hours worth of work really understanding exactly how this effected live players setups.

abstract nexus
zinc hawk
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OK well we discuss everything

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Should I say it as the first message in every feedback channel?

keen roost
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And to be even more transparent, I had some crazy stuff going on in real life last week. Both personally and professionally.

abstract nexus
limber carbon
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This issue hit very close to home for a lot of engineer players

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Sniper for example never got this level of pushback from players mainly because it was met with indifference on the player side rather then pure outrage

zinc hawk
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From what I gathered, the anger from the beginning was that we didn't consider it beforehand

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Which is pretty much just true.

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It was not considered enough that engineers had the level of crit investment that they would be more heavily impacted then others

twin slate
abstract nexus
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because I don't know what is or isn't being discussed internally

zinc hawk
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Really, from my point of view I should have said less

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and just worked with the teams and pushed some changes to test a few days later once we discussed things

abstract nexus
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and when I found out that yall had actually been listening from the start, I reached out to apologised for my initial anger

zinc hawk
abstract nexus
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it's not, I've said multiple times that engi feels much better now on test

twin slate
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My issue is I still don't feel like the actual issue is being addressed.
Engi just can't scale crit effectively.. we could barely hit the old thresholds and that went up by 50% with no way for us to compensate.
Like the damage buff is fine.. but the issue always has been that we just can't scale a key stat.

abstract nexus
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and that I'm broadly happy with where it is on test currently

zinc hawk
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For that Dorian you can read our response in the coming post.

twin slate
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In fact the damage buff isn't even enough to keep us in line with other classes... let alone the the crit issue.

abstract nexus
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obviously it remains to be seen how much the rest of the classes will improve as they push neuroforging further on their gear, but for now I'm satisfied

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or at least satisfied enough that I'm not going to cancel my sub in a fit of rage

twin slate
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I could roll an SD or a seer... I've seen some f10s and videos... they are absolutely broken strong.

keen roost
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Yeah makes sense we're not getting any feedback about them lol

twin slate
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Gunner... it's something... and I have no idea what to think on Ranger.. and I was a sniper main.

abstract nexus
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the vast majority of my input in the thread since then has just been discussing it with other players, wondering why it wasn't just saved for T24 and spitballing ideas for improvements in the future

keen roost
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No one's gonna bother making a feedback post that amounts to "This class is OP"

abstract nexus
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yeah, I've said before that SD was the last class which needed a drastic buff

twin slate
twin slate
keen roost
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You mean killed in seconds right?

twin slate
limber carbon
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Hot take:
I think this embargo the dev team has to never see player ships and builds should be lifted. It's draconian and really hinders the progress that could be made to correctly balance the game.

twin slate
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The dps scaling you're unleashing is bananaananas.

zinc hawk
abstract nexus
twin slate
abstract nexus
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people, rightly or wrongly, are very guarded about sharing their setups in public, you can't fault the devs for that

twin slate
zinc hawk
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posts dorians full inventory

twin slate
twin slate
abstract nexus
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I mean sure, they could, but I dunno, perhaps there is some sort of internal rule about just snooping on people's builds without due reason

zinc hawk
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But like. that's not just player builds

limber carbon
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Oh nvm then, I guess there's no misunderstanding about what the balance of the game looks like from the very min-maxed perspective

zinc hawk
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I can know any aspect of the game if I wanted. i can't play it the same way ya'll do.

abstract nexus
zinc hawk
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also tbh can't really enjoy it the same way either.

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it's weird

twin slate
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I haven't gotten a tarnished chest in a couple weeks.. are they broken..... nope.. I'm just bad

keen roost
#

Knowing all the stuff we know about the game makes playing it a lot less rewarding

abstract nexus
#

nah I kinda get it, it's the same reason why reading up on the minutiae of any game spoils the fun, because it robs you of the mystery and the fun of learning

keen roost
#

Having a really good understanding of what is and isn't optimal really robs the fun out of the game.

zinc hawk
#

We just get different kinds of rewards. Like if someone makes some sicky LF gunner that uses drones on live once this all goes live. That would all be worth it hehe

keen roost
#

We could literally, as players, come up with setups that are pretty tuned to doing each particular bit of content.

zinc hawk
#

And of course that they had fun doin it

keen roost
#

A long time ago I didn't know very much about the end game, I was a new dev and was just learning. Kanga helped me fully appreciate the power of mod stacking in a visceral way, which was really helpful.

twin slate
keen roost
#

Yeah but its different when you know what the stats are and how the fight was designed lol

twin slate
#

But like.. I have purpose built stuff for gee and aurora

twin slate
limber carbon
#

I think you guys are obviously spread too thin

keen roost
#

Which is exactly why you don't want devs using the setups they make to evaluate the impact of changes 🙂

twin slate
zinc hawk
#

while doing reworks like the neuroforge while also churning out new things to fight

keen roost
#

And why its good to get players who made those setups to use them in testing rather than trying to use them ourselves because they're designed around a particular playstyle 🙂

twin slate
viral sleet
#

People should stop doing testing for the devs imo they don't have a clue about what a working setup looks like til you show them then they tweak based on the upper 1% I suggest never doing any testing on behalf of the devs

keen roost
#

I've seen people do strange things in the same exact instance

#

Nah we don't tweak exclusively based on the upper 1%

viral sleet
#

Yea ok hobo

twin slate
viral sleet
#

I've watched whole playstyles dismantled based on things you've seen and would have never thought of else wise

limber carbon
#

Well that's the thing, you guys should just cheat and play at the min-maxed level Dorian does, I definitely get that it bypasses the fun factor but like I said originally it hinders balance when your only way to judge balance is through cold statistics of player feedback

zinc hawk
keen roost
viral sleet
#

Yup fair warning to everyone don't test for these fools

keen roost
#

Like when the invisible SD with blossoms technology came out started getting used I took it to the team and we tried to figure out what was going on and if there was anything bugged. Knew about it for years, didn't find anything wrong.

#

We didn't touch it though because it didn't seem right to just kneejerk change it if nothing was wrong, even if we didn't like the gameplay implications.

hallow jasper
twin slate
limber carbon
#

I'm a hypocrite in that regard, I'm not going on test because I want to actually feel things fresh when things drop live and it's meaningful

twin slate
#

I feel duty bound to try to prevent a bad release... occupational hazard

limber carbon
#

I'm also a player that hates the end of games

#

When I feel like I can even perceive how a game is going to end or the moment i understand the gameplay loop for single player games, they stop being enjoyable

hallow jasper
twin slate
abstract nexus
foggy dune
#

Honestly i think a lot of the shock of the change and outrage came because of lack of player testing. If we just went by the stuff in the pax disciples meeting doc or the helpful google doc that Doman made you'd NEVER have even heard of the crit changes coming so it hit us all at once.

I never even considered playing with my engi because from everything presented it was far more important to try and test the ranger revamp.

That could be something to take home and think about making more detailed notes to test by, It may have been something mentioned in a meeting at some point but i sure as heck never saw it when i had joined or id have asked more questions.

The only things you could see from any of it was that drone ops was getting changed, Droney was changing and that was it. I had the false impression that id get to choose another adv skill to try and get after drone's horrific weakness to anything splashy but the other adv skills are useless again and im relegated to keeping Droney to stay even partially effective with my time grinding.

#

Nobody is perfect..but if the PD are supposed to help you guys find points of view or things you hadn't noticed from a player's point of view..maybe more transparency would assist that venture.

keen roost
#

PD are there to provide a player perspective and bring things to our attention as they choose. It's hard for us to keep track of everything in the neuroforge, so I can imagine it would be harder for them.

foggy dune
#

Sure, but if it was better organized maybe we could have brought something to your attention before you had to deal with the flames..just saying, it's a resource, Use it or don't. The people who joined do so because they love the game as much as you.

zinc hawk
#

This is a very unprecedented situation as well.

keen roost
#

We can easily hold off on giving anyone access to anything until after we've had a chance to post about them, if that would be useful.

#

I don't know how useful that would be considering we've gotten a lot of value out of the broader player base interacting with things on the test server and giving us a heads up about some interesting issues.

viral sleet
#

Coming up with a detailed list of changes for a testing period isn't hard other mmos do it you guys are just largely incompetent

foggy dune
#

A larger testing pool will always do that. What i meant is if the PD was informed about stuff they probably could have spotted some of this a ways out and saved you some time or helped with some theory crafting. If you are just keeping the PD around to fluff your egos then by all means, disband it and be more proactive with opening test events and giving out more structured info for people to test on.

Your responses are why i was hesitant about joining the PD in the first place, because i wasn't certain why it was necessary if you really listen to players and use anything from the feedback channel.

From what i have seen the people who joined that group did it because they love the game as much as you and want to support you in it since we know you guys do a lot to make this stuff work. If you don't respect their time or value their input there isn't a reason for anyone to participate and we can go back to feeling like player input isn't valuable unless it lines up with your personal vision or large numbers of us threaten to leave out of frustration.

viral sleet
#

Idk about that alot join pd to get a jump on market changes 😆

foggy dune
#

its never helped me any

viral sleet
#

Every rework has been like this you guys are failures at communication while other mmos will wait until a content patch, or expansion pack,season pass what ever you may call it you guys choose to just live drop bombs that change the whole landscape of what everyone was in the middle of doin.

limpid raptor
#

Other mmos are not our size. They have hundreds of just paid QA and tester staff. It's not a realistic comparison.

viral sleet
#

It's kind of wild to watch a dev team refuse to learn anything from previous experiences

#

I understand that jectz but plenty could be done to minimize the impact of stuff like this

foggy dune
#

thats kind of what i was suggesting

limpid raptor
#

Like what? We literally talked to dozens of folks. We had dedicated pre-reveal testing by players. We took partners in respective classes

#

Hundreds of hours of work you don't see.

foggy dune
#

all i am saying is use the PD as a resource.. or dont..

limpid raptor
#

We do. Xantra just joined and I think everyone and their mom can say vastly over reacted. The idea there was turn around in days shows we were moving quickly..whether they quit or not did not sway us.

foggy dune
viral sleet
#

Saying everyone is "over reacting" is wild and something you guys seem to say everytime mostly because you know they will stick around

limpid raptor
#

They clearly did not have faith in us doing anything about that and we can't control that when we already said repeatedly we were looking into things.

#

There's nothing to do there.

#

Now let's move on.

viral sleet
#

I think most not directly involved in testing or pd meeting knew only whispers of changes and nothing about the actual scope of things

limpid raptor
#

Unless you're a trusted partner we know will keep things under wraps as we constantly change stuff

#

Healing revamp we let people know every little change and that made people angry. It's not useful or fair to players to bring them through every little change.

#

Once things have been steeled through testing and ideas. Then we move forward. But we can't think of everything and more people get involved. The more things get challenged. That's normal and fine. We small game.with small population.

#

Again engineer had no items planned to change..so there was no need for consult. We identified the problem and we made changes once opened to a greater group.

#

That's the ideal outcome.

abstract nexus
# limpid raptor We do. Xantra just joined and I think everyone and their mom can say vastly over...

I discussed this with hober and roh last night. I was pretty angry because I feared my class was about to become hot garbage, and looking at how long sniper has been hot garbage I feared it would probably stay that way. I dont think it was an overreaction because nobody had any indication things were already being discussed in regards to engineer, but when it turned out they were, I reached out and apologised for how I reacted

foggy dune
limpid raptor
#

I do appreciate you.

zinc hawk
limpid raptor
#

Ideally we would of outlined everything in blog posts and then opened this and testing up

#

But it's hard enough to get to the finish line

#

So we gotta take the good with the bad.

abstract nexus
#

I think this whole thing has a lot of learning opportunities for both sides though

foggy dune
#

you dont necessarily have to write out whole blog posts..but 99% of the things covered are all over voice. there isnt enough note taking done to flesh out details for anyone who missed something said on one meeting or another. You just kind of hope they cover it again at the next one.

I can help with some of it if you'd like, i cant do the math to save myself but notes i can help take.

abstract nexus
#

on the devs side for communicating wide ranging changes more clearly, and on the players side to acknowledge that the devs do listen to feedback and act on it

limpid raptor
abstract nexus
#

In some respects I have a lot of respect for the dev process here in SS

limpid raptor
#

We could do better. But in other ways it's crazy what we get done.

abstract nexus
#

I can't think of any other game where you'd get such open and frank discussion with developers

limpid raptor
#

And we feed off player sentiment too, not pay. So if you guys are upset our productivity drops.

#

We crave players enjoying the game and ensuring people can continue have the nostalgia of returning to this generational game that scratches an unique itch.

abstract nexus
#

I think there are maybe a few more tweaks engi could use, but honestly it's much in a much better place on test now than it was

#

not just in regards to damage output, the weight change on drones made a huge difference as well

#

some of the other changes have made mods like composite and amorphous much more attractive also

#

composite is actually a great mod to have on heavy engines and weapons now

#

part of the reason I've been so active in giving feedback is because I know how long the mod rework has been in active development, and honestly it would suck for both dev and player morale if such a huge and long-awaited patch was overshadowed by a few of the smaller, less-visible changes

twin slate
# limpid raptor That's the thing. You'd never notice or be upset if testing wasn't open and if i...

The dev stack is only weird in that you're all volunteers.
Generally you'd have a Product Owner overseeing 4-5 devs and a single QA as a vertical stack. Realistically that is about what we have here... but, you obviously can't all dedicate 8+ hours a day to this 5+ days a week.

The way a stack like that functions is largely due to management and content control. Product Owner writes a story about a desired change that outlines the overall goal, the criteria that must be met to achieve that goal, and the technical requirements to meet the criteria. They will present that story to dev, get feedback on the requirements and update the story as needed. Get an idea of hours it would take to implement, and set a priority for the story.
Once the dev work is done on the story another dev would check the work real quick, make sure there is no obvious issues with the code, then pass it to QA.
QA then uses the Acceptance Criteria and Requirements to build a testing plan consisting of test cases that would be impacted. They run though all the test cases and denote any failures, those get kicked back to dev to fix. Once there are no kickbacks the Product Owner reviews the final story implementation and test plan ensure coverage. Once that is done it can be marked complete and await merge.

I don't know your branching strategy or ticket management, your feedback or code review process, etc etc. I'm just providing context for normal dev cycle.

Now what is interesting to me is that if you rely on PD or player QA, you also need to provide them the context of the story like you would a dedicated QA. You need to have the goal outlined, the reason for the change, the user value, the criteria that must be met and any technical requirements or limitations. That is where the communication breakdown generally happens, and most of that should already be outlined in the story process.
Now I understand you wear many hats so some of those responsibilities that would be split are all on one person... and I'll tell you from experience... one man teams tend to run wild and cause chaos.

abstract nexus
#

Does this include drones with area effect, chain, bounce etc weapons?

image.png
zinc hawk
#

So it all changes together

abstract nexus
#

I was asking, because drones which use any of these stats still have the same value as live

keen roost
#

The AoE of the fallen forerunner weapon was what changed.

abstract nexus
#

and it says chain/bounce/etc effects have been increased, but drones with these weapon types haven't changed from live

#

test vs. live

image.png image.png
#

both are identical

#

am I missing something?

keen roost
#

I don't think you are, its certain weapons. Divine Immolation, for example. Or Red Bullets Alpha.

image.png
#

I will edit it to indicate its for some weapons

abstract nexus
#

Yeah, those are area effect weapons which have been reduced

#

I'm asking about chain/bounce/splash weapons

keen roost
#

Some weapons with chain/bounce/splash have been adjusted

abstract nexus
#

why only some? out of curiosity

keen roost
#

Because there were some that were fine.

#

There were some chain and bounce that were OK.

abstract nexus
#

I would have thought they would have all had the same stat allocations as each other

#

I don't mind the forerunner aoe nerf, I said myself aoe effects are a bit too powerful, I'm just wondering why only certain ones were chosen

twin slate
#

The AoE/Splash/Chain changes already went into effect on live some time ago I thought.
This was adjustements to more weapons?

abstract nexus
#

yeah that too

#

the aoe change happened a while back on live

#

are there any examples of chain/bounce/etc weapons which have been changed? I'm just curious what about them has changed

twin slate
abstract nexus
#

that was a while ago though right? I'm just wondering which weapons have actually changed

keen roost
#

Let me double check, I might be referencing something that is already live

#

Nope, there's further changes on test. Its not already live.

twin slate
#

Any chance we can get a list of effected items then?
With the wiki already being out of date from the last change it's going to be pretty hard for the player base to know what is impacted.

keen roost
#

I'll see if we can have the wiki updated again, on our end.

twin slate
#

Looks like it is mostly the damage scalars on them specifically.

#

So AoE/Splash/Chain it looks like the damage mods on the hit effect are down.
Bounce/Ricochet/Spray appear largely unchanged as I'm not really seeing damage mods on them.

It's very hard to really check the impact.

From my understanding the above 100% scaling was because they couldn't crit at some point right, then they could but the values weren't adjusted?
Always seemed weird that the on-hit was stronger than the hit.. made for some interesting targeting with certain weapons though.

limpid raptor
#

The wiki is mostly automated to /mc. Luckily most items are on test. I'll have yugi update accordingly using it when we get closer.

mild sentinel
#

Before F2P tech levels, how do you expect that things would feel like to level up?
Should I expect things to generally feel harder to beat as well?

Do T20 level players get in fights with T21+ enemies while being F2P? Like to which extent?

keen roost
#

You're not going to notice any changes to the AI you fight

#

It's tech 22 and above AI that are changed

abstract nexus
#

I don't think there are any AI above T21 anywhere that's accessible to F2P

mild sentinel
#

As for this rework is my impression right that the crit related features are deep and can't havet hsoe specific parts shelved or it'd hamper the Seer class as an example?

#

I mean, to which degree can the crit features be isolated and delayed until Engineer fixes exist that can make them perform suitably well to have these features fully released.

I wasn't able to follow the big discussion all the way but think this would be a good way to summarize what is and isn't feasible at the moment.

abstract nexus
#

The method behind the addition of crit resistance is to reduce the power of crit stats compared to other damage stats at endgame levels

#

it doesn't really have anything to do with seer, which will get a proper mechanic to work around it

#

whether it achieves that aim is up for debate, but the real purpose of this thread was to discuss the affect it'll have on engi due to our limited means to acquire more crit or offset the loss with other dps stats

#

(also the complete lack of ability to give our drones any of the new power that neuroforging unlocks)

mild sentinel
#

Does this open up the possibility of delaying the crit feature changes and perhaps includes isolating them away from the neuroforge update, perhaps until there's a decent solution for engineers for the time being?

limpid raptor
#

No.

mild sentinel
#

Will bonnet bosses like Levasseur be affected? I'm checking weather anything F2Ps would try won't be extra hard when they try to push the boundries if they are possible to defeat currently

limpid raptor
mild sentinel
#

Will drones inherit ship bonuses onto deployed drones? Transference bonuses, damage, RoF, Shield, recharge, energy, regen, etc?

#

Because most bonuses on the main ship won't be taken advantage off by droners and this way they would get used far more, at least in regards engineers levelling, not sure how much p2Ps use their weapons on engineers.

limpid raptor
#

Your asking random questions now instead of checking dev blog

mild sentinel
#

Blog mentioned integrating skill inherit not needing the adv skills for these features and trans beam bonus as well as some crit resistance.

#

It does not cover topics of considering the main ship's inherent bonuses or anything extra you'd want to add like the effects of capacitors and armor getting inherited to some amount, with adjustments made for the inheritance of bonuses from capitalships because their banks and resistances are very noticeable.

limpid raptor
#

Because that's not happening.

#

Smh..

mild sentinel
#

Lastly I wonder about if the dev team's goal is by the purpose of promoting build variety make no adv skill alwasy mandatory for some classes like droney is for engineers in practice before the coming update.

#

Or do you expect for some classes that certain adv skills will sort of alwasy be mandatory?
I wonder about this both for the implications for this class and others.

Like I don't know if 15% controller bonus would be considered mandatory from droney making engineers use it when maxing performance or if other ways would be opened or this purpose as well.

mild sentinel
# limpid raptor Because that's not happening.

Wouldn't it be reasonable to not sort of put a hard lock on Engineers to use SFs only if they want to maximize drone performance?
They loose a few equip slots and 1 aug in capitalships, would you tell me why it's not being considered that they'd inherit X% amount of the capital ship class bonuses of their ship?
I'm currently just thinking about the bank bonuses which would indeed set you up to focus on buffing other areas other than the banks.

I believe the limitation that currently exists does reduce build versatility of engineers when using capital ships. I seek an understanding of why this isn't being considered to be changed.

limber carbon
#

Capital ships (from the dev teams perspective, not the players as most of us have pointed out numerous times) are inherently better then SF at a base level

#

That is reason enough for them not getting the same bonuses as SF for a support focus class which zen skill is for SFs

mild sentinel
#

While levelling normally my thought was that it'd be an easy access to inheritable bank bonuses to drones without the need to aug for banks. You get 1 less aug in exchange for that and less drone equip slots, I think it can be balanced fairly

limber carbon
#

So you would have drones inherited ship stats along with Aug stats?

#

Which they currently do not

mild sentinel
#

Yes, though for the sake of teh discussion I'm limiting myself to teh bank bonuses of capital ships because it was a hard no to inherit stats in general from the main ship.
as in the degree of the bank stat bonuse inheritance as the thing to balance in exchange for less equip slots and aug

limber carbon
#

In your opinion what's the value of using a capital ship in the first place over a Support freighter?

#

Wouldn't it be better to use the 4th augmenter slot gained in a SF to fix your bank issue?

mild sentinel
#

My opinion is opening up the possibility of putting them more on par with each other, perhaps keeping capital behind enough to make the 4th aug valuable enough on SF, but on budget or levelling with subpar augs capital would be more ideal.

limber carbon
#

Ideal for your main ships survival or your drones?

#

Or both, the distinction here, imo pushed this suggestion from being reasonable to being too powerful

mild sentinel
#

As I said the degree of inheritance can balance this to a satisfactory degree I'd think

limber carbon
#

Ok, and how would they find that satisfactory percentage that a capital ships 4th Aug slot should gain?

#

Any precedent for that based on any other class?

mild sentinel
#

I never proposed 4 augs on capital

limber carbon
#

Ah, sorry you mean the bank bonuses on capital ships going to drones

#

How much would you suggest go to drones?

mild sentinel
#

That's where I don't have a good idea of which degree would match the value of the missing extra aug and no bank inherit

#

I don't know the implications of play and how peole tend to build capitalship engineers at high levels, but some variant of this woudl increase build versatility.

limber carbon
#

Well in higher levels of play the linear bank bonuses become significantly underpowered when faced with high damage numbers from AI and significantly more energy cost to equipment

#

To the detriment of capital ships

mild sentinel
#

Would 100% bank bonus inheritance be too strong early on?

#

MAybe addon equippable shield and energy bank bonuses being inheritable, their amounts are fixed and unaffected by augs?

#

There's also teh option of the inherited stats scaling up, I suspect 100% inheritance is too strong early on, then again maybe not, have no way of knowing if this will mess up teh balance of engineers too much that they'd automatically favor capitals and that is not where I want to go.

#

At best with inheritance offering an alternative way to aug due to this, at worst not being too far behind a 4 augged SF in regards to drone's bonuses.
To some extent the effect on the ship build needs to be taken into consideration I'd imagine and you'd also gain access to fighers as much as possible as non FC.

limber carbon
#

There's no class restrictions on add-on DPS such as fighters, missiles or bots

#

Just to be clear, any ship type from light fighters to capital ships have access to all of those forms of damage

mild sentinel
#

didn't say there was but you can never maximize fighters outside of capitals, just saying this opens up the possibilty if fielding some more fighters which means yiou need to balance you energy economy and they can properly be considered an option

#

On SFs fielding so few they won't affect you much anyways

limber carbon
#

Considering on engineer, capital ships and SF both get two energy bank slots, I don't think energy economy is much of a problem

#

But this is, like you said, a mutually exclusive benefit to capital ships vs SFs

mild sentinel
#

What I'm imagining is that by going capital you now can focus on other things than bank bonuses on augs and not have bad bank bonuses.

limber carbon
#

For drones. Sure I can see that. And I agree, drone banks have already been something engineer players have considered when auging their SF, class locked augs like the Offensive Ops line all the way to cosmic symmetry have tried to accommodate that

#

The problem lie in how this will scale, as you cannot isolate a bonus for low level gameplay from high level gameplay

#

Not that it would be too strong, but it will not be enough to be considered for high level play

mild sentinel
#

How about the scaling increasing with ship tech level? perhaps going past 100% on these bank bonuses?

limber carbon
#

We haven't even decided on if 100% would be ok

#

These are the real reason as to why the devs haven't considered this line of balance

#

Because it's a bit hard to balance in the grand scheme of the game, only to solve the problem of drone bank in capital ships

mild sentinel
#

It does more than that, it opens up build diversity in augs towards other stats you wouldn't have picked due to needing banking augs on SF.

limber carbon
#

If the problem is build diversity give capital ships a 4th Aug slot to accommodate drones in whatever way we'd like

mild sentinel
#

then you get issues of over banked main ship

keen roost
#

If we really wanted a Capital Ship to be a compelling option for drones we could let you put 2 Drone Controllers on it. We haven't made that decision though.

#

We're just not going to do this right now Weimond.

limber carbon
#

Until you look at the other problems with capital ships

#

But as for drones, it would be equivalent, nothing about their balance while being on SF or capital ships, even light fighters, would change

#

Since they will now all have 4 slots to work with.

abstract nexus
median jewel
#

Honestly any class using a ship type outside of its primary will never be as good. Which is a good thing in my opinion. Since it makes the classes more unique and makes sure the different types get used.

limber carbon
#

That would be ideal if they added new classes beyond the 8 we have

mild sentinel
limber carbon
#

yes, since currently nothing of the ship a player pilots effects the usability of drones they deploy

#

so the only differentiation between making the decision to use any ship type would be the practically of any given ship

zinc hawk
limber carbon
#

i've only encountered 1 such item in the whole game

#

and it's on a support freighter

zinc hawk
#

Kuhani, Scutum, Zenith all have such items.

#

Which are the three most recent engineer focused ships

limber carbon
#

yes and all Support freighters

zinc hawk
#

Most times an engineer focused ship that gets super items that effects it's drones are going to be made as support freighters.

limber carbon
#

Nothing wrong with that, but does that mean a capital ship without an inbuilt to support drones in anyway would be more powerful if it had 4 equip aug slots to a SF?

zinc hawk
#

Probably not.

#

the cap ship wouldn't get zen of support freighter, has less hull space, is heavier and is a bigger target.

limber carbon
#

I think those are justifications enough to consider giving capital ships a 4th aug slots to compete drone wise to SF. Since the player ship will always have to deal with those compromises.

zinc hawk
#

I've given this opinion a few times in this server, but I generally do not like the throw tons of bonuses at capships to make them useful approach. Capships need to stand on their own and they really don't rn.

#

Doubling their aug slots to make them useful for engis is far too ham fisted for me.

#

To me that's coming back to the inherent underpowered-ness of cap ships. Not something that each class should solve with it's own special capship bonuses

#

I have this same opinion for basically any other approach to capship usefulness cross class/for bots.

limber carbon
#

at some point, capital ships on engineer was a serious playstyle consideration, enough to devote an extra aug slot for them in the first place. Maybe at that time capital ships were meeting the expectations that such a buff intended.

#

but not anymore

#

and we agree that this isn't the failing of the class or its buff, but the current usability of capital ships

#

but giving them 3 base aug slots is far from the primary solution, infact it seems like the last resort before anything else can be fashioned

mild sentinel
#

That would power up gunner and FC, it could start making them a choice for bots again, maybe the main ship would become too strong on FC and gunner I don't know'

limber carbon
#

Isn't that the purpose of the class zen focus, to favor the intended ship type, too strong compared to what?

mild sentinel
#

Getting 3rd aug and zen of FC or Gunner is a double thing

#

As for support classes it makes sense that they don't normally use light and heavy fighters, in universe it'd make sense for them to tinker with larger ships, realism wise.

limber carbon
#

I don't think realism has any place here
If any notions are prescribed to why engineers don't use fighter classes, it remains practical; a lack if hull, equipment slots, resistance, ect.,

#

but as for giving capital ships a 3rd aug slot, yes it should remain a last resort

#

but i haven't really seen any progress of making them better, that most likely is time and the priority of the NF rework

mild sentinel
#

I'm confident enough for it on Engineer so it can reach 4 augs and they'll have a harder time catching up to other classes anyways after neuroforge.
As for Shm there could be a reason for 3rd aug on capitals but I'm not familiar enough with the class and how it plays and various builds.

foggy dune
#

I think capital ships themselves need a rework and rebalance. There used to be utility in using them for their support auras but realistically even with added augs they are not a good choice for solo play. Lack of mobility and a huge hitbox is a major detriment in end game where agility and the ability to evade incoming fire becomes more important. I don't believe they will ever be usable or should even be comparably as strong as SFs. It's not the designed primary ship class. Many of the changes implemented have been done to foster players favoring the ship classes their class is designed around in part because in the past LF became the default for combat classes leading to very limited choices and nobody using the intended ship classes. The Hoberly-one described this pretty well in his little podcast dealie regarding this patch and the upcoming changes.

median jewel
#

Yeah. If you decide to use a ship class outside of your classes standard. You should expect sub-par performance. That’s part of what makes them unique.

icy sierra
#

Cap ships are not cap ships in this game

#

I get away with playing Gunner bc I'm a freak. I actually DG and roam KD on my Gunner, but I haven't recently due to work so I just focus on lockouts with my zerk and shm (far easier and requires less APM).

#

Still, it doesn't help that cap ships are made of paper when being big and bulky should mean your macro positioning is more important than the micro (not to say none bc you need to do things like push mines in Matriarch and chart a smart course around Haraka Station, but Matriarch still 3-5 shots with her undodgeable primary guns and Haraka station will annihilate you)

#

I'm sure it's possible to do Ruined on Gunner and FC but I just CBA. It's not worth my time.

#

As for what DemonShadow said about getting less performance using ship classes outside the standard, I think that should only be... about 80% true. Sub-classing is an artform both from a design and developer perspective, and from an artistic and gameplay perspective.

I lament the inability for shm to have a competitive playstyle in a capship. A true fleet protector, I would give capital ship Shm special mantles prevent ethereal weapons and have damage mitigation towards AOE effects for stuff inside, but cost significantly more elec (on par with FC supers or even higher like 3k EPS) so that it can't be on 24/7 like a regular mantle. Its HPS would be a lot less, in exchange for it being an upfront wall. Give it the ability to use drones more with your massively increased hull space and equip slots. I kinda like the 2 drone controller idea (1 drone controller is basically like an aug, so 2 augs + 2 DC, vs 3 augs + 1 DC). Though drone controllers are significantly more limited in terms of options, I'd prefer if every ship class could have the same amount of customizability (3 everything, 4 on LF).

limber carbon
# icy sierra As for what DemonShadow said about getting less performance using ship classes o...

How would you feel about giving Capital ships a unique resistance ability like found in games like Star sector?

Where they start out with extremely high base resistance for their themes (a cap with base 20% energy resist would turn to 80%, and follow that jump across all resists) then have the effect of being able to "crack" or degrade resist to whatever damage type they're taking over time?

#

I wasn't around when armour was experimented but I believe if it's anything like how it was in LoL, what I'm proposing is way different for capital ships

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So essentially capital ships would start out with extremely high resists but have the downside of having those resists erode over the course of a fight with there being scant abilities to regenerate what's lost during combat

icy sierra
#

Yeah the dynamic between big and tanky vs fast and squishy ships is usually:
Big ship always wins the 1v1 vs the squishy ship if it overstays.
Fast ship can get away from big ship.
Big ship gets whittled down, so must chart a course to safety, otherwise fast ship will guerilla and eventually kill.

#

The win con for fast ships is outmaneuvering while big ships fortify.

#

But atm in SS fast ships always win

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Some kind of degrading armor might work. On the other hand, if SS's engines were better balanced, big ships could get exploited by being outmaneuvered.

limber carbon
#

I think that's fair tho, I wouldn't make it so LFs couldn't use their strengths when fighting big ships, but make it more balanced

icy sierra
#

Yeah

limber carbon
#

The time it takes for LF to currently exploit capital ships is mere secounds

icy sierra
#

:kekw

#

How about a zerk sitting on top with vervs?

limber carbon
#

This would turn it to multiple minutes at best

icy sierra
#

And also, try to use Gunner in matriarch and let me know how it goes

#

I've done some successful meme runs using Gunner as DPS

#

But it's far from optimal

limber carbon
icy sierra
#

😛

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Capships were supposed to have the ability to push stuff off of them with the +tractor power on Fleet skills

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But try pushing an Edge that hits Matriarchal Vigor or Blitz Turbo

#

It's basically moot, you will be eating optimal DPS from verv setups if you are a big fatty.

#

The way SS works, mobility and DPS is king. You cannot be tanky in this game, unless you give up other facets to achieve it. Even then, the tankiest things in this game are Engis and Shms in Support Freighters, not FCs.

abstract nexus
#

to be fair even engi can't control an edge with tractors

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MAYBE if you completely auged and modded for it

icy sierra
#

Even the push tractor change did not give me enough power

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I made a proper, well modded tractor ship and it just could not compete against the Matriarchal Drive

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...max bar imp skilled character, etc

#

A capital ship stands no chance against ververs

keen roost
#

And, why is it not ok to do something like this to get more tanky? Or push into Bank/Resist/Regen? Or just put a tank aug on with a DPS aug? My real concern is that if we keep pushing for capital ships to be super duper tanky we're going to get into pretty much the same position we have with Shield Monkey and Berserker where the classes just never are at threat of dying in most content.

image.png
icy sierra
#

34mil EHP disappears in like 10 seconds the way the game works right now

#

I would be okay with the F10 being lower. It doesn't matter that I hit 600k or 800k DPS. It's all relative to TTK between players, AI, and other players. Your number bloat with shield rework puts us in this situation.

#

But my god

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It feels like I'm playing a completely different game

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You die... so freaking fast.

wicked flicker
#

The better solution is just allowing them to be more mobile, but they've apparently decided capital ships must be bricks if they want to do any damage

icy sierra
#

lol 2 Ambit Gunner is the way to go because you get two choices: do 1mil DPS and die in 3 seconds, or do half of it and die in 4 seconds.

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Or worse a quarter of it with a regen setup, and die in 5 seconds

#

I like the change to Gunner to bring the artillery salvo meta in line so that we actually play the game and interact with other entities on the playing field. Fight, brawl, and contest with the mechanics of the game. Until you realize capital ships, for how fat and slow they are, can't last long at all.

#

Take Gunner to Matriarch.

#

Do stuff on Gunner

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Every other space game: Capital ships are powerhouses that dominate the areas they can affect. As a balancing metric they are outmaneuverable, susceptible to guerilla tactics, and can predictably be swarmed and crippled since they are fat and slow.
Meanwhile in this game: Go into the Matriarch boss room with a Gunner and see how long you last.

limber carbon
median jewel
#

Hmmm. Ever thought about a adv sub skill that allows a second diffuser to be equipped?

limber carbon
#

An engineer just hitting t23 gets more then this without NF or even matriarch & exotic rr gear

median jewel
#

Would make an interesting way to increase survivability in ships.

icy sierra
#

The issue is capital ships as a hull class

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*Player capital ships, may I adjust.

#

Some AI cap ships are appropriate, while some aren't

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The Cyborg Capships are powerful (zerk can still solo kek), but the Crystal Abomination and Jelly Mothership KD bosses are entirely non-threatening.

limber carbon
#

It's still wild that a crystal shard is more tanky then a crystal turtle

icy sierra
#

Yep

#

Jechtz told me it's due to the regen, but I can promise it goes down to way more than that. Actually hitting it, and its own resist profile.

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If you can't handle those things super fast, they are suboptimal KD bosses to fight. Cut them out of your DG route

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Lucernes are at least tolerable because they tweak and sit still.

keen roost
#

With regards to the AI in DGs, I plan on spreading out their stat distribution on a case by case basis. When they were made they were made universally high regen, which makes fighting all of them kind of the same for the most part.

icy sierra
#

Masalas, I think, are the most balanced

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To touch on this point very briefly

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Threatening damage, but not BS. You can dodge the mag and play around the laser. Their tankiness is just right.

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Remember, these are AI meant to be grinded casually. They're not end game bosses that should be challenging and then rewarding us with the best items.

#

Pretty Things, Cyborg Dropships and Crystal Shards are cancer

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Especially Pretty Things. I hate those guys.

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Dropships are okay but the side propulsion makes them annoying at most. The pulse is somewhat threatening but not like Masalas.

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I can get away with keeping them on my DG route, but that's just due to my own play methods. Not everyone can kill them quickly.

limber carbon
#

An engineer with twisted condemns and madd kid+ make short work of every Kalthi DG with ease

icy sierra
#

Well that's engineer xD

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Engi tends to have no issue hitting stuff

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Plus you can always use your drones to sandbag

limber carbon
#

Yeah it's bosses done on 5.0 that give us the hardest time

#

😭

abstract nexus
icy sierra
#

Maybe. But in reality, a full tractor strength tractor ship will die quickly. You need absurd EHP to be a tractor ship.

#

You get your TractorPower from gear and augmods primarily.

abstract nexus
#

yeah, that's the other issue

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it'd be completely impractical to aug for tractor strength anyway because an edge zerk would laugh at your petty attempts to crowd control them and kill you in seconds

icy sierra
#

TLDR: Capital ship lifespan is summarized as: (TTK of attacker) + (Time to gap close after hitting microwarp * Number of microwarpers)

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Which is usually like 4 + (3 * 2) seconds.

#

Yayyyyy

limpid raptor
#

I'll take a look at the engine. I wonder if somebody did something naughty

abstract nexus
#

I think it's always been like that

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thing has 400k thrust, it has the equivalent thrust of like 3 ordinary engines

abstract nexus
limpid raptor
#

Yeah I see the problem

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well not problem

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But how its achieved. Its pretty eh

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But we probably looking at engine rebalance to solve.

abstract nexus
#

is that to say there's another issue at play beyond the engine itself just having absurd stats?

zinc hawk
#

Just how the balance sheet works. Super high quality, kinda low turning allows for a lot of stat allocation all towards thrust

abstract nexus
#

I wouldn't even say it has low turning, it's solidly average against other comparable engines

limpid raptor
#

Its not even that.

abstract nexus
#

I think the issue could probably be summed up as like

#

balanced according to the balance sheet doesn't necessarily mean it's actually balanced 😛

limpid raptor
#

That's not what we were implying 😛

#

We were implying the formulas are probably out of date. It looks like there's a lot of old school stuff in here and it hasn't been modernized. We've already mentioned several times engine choice isn't very interesting and it needs to be redone.

abstract nexus
#

yeah,no disagreements there

limpid raptor
#

And looks like there's some.. gaming of the system for matriarch engine that probably needs to be kneecapped.

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While raising the floor for a bunch of others.

icy sierra
#

🙏 Please make Quadruple Thruster OP as hell so my DF+ can be unnecessarily luxurious

limpid raptor
#

Maybe in 1.1 or 1.2 if we get Hober in a good mood.

abstract nexus
#

the matriarch drive isn't a huge issue in isolation, it's just one of the things which contributes to zerk being hyper mobile, uncontrollable and having all the benefits of high mobility, hefty tank and extreme dps with none of the downsides

#

it really is the only class which gets all three and loses nothing in exchange

limpid raptor
#

I'm less focused on that.

#

We are tackling that via other levers longer term if things continue to be an issue

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Outside a select few engines archetypes - they kinda suck

abstract nexus
#

agreed there, engines that aren't big and heavy just tend to suck on the whole

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this is kinda why I argued the gyro change should have been left for the engine rework, but honestly amorphous and composite are pretty much going to fill the hole the gyro nerf left

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as for capships, I don't really know what to say. they should be more tanky, but at the same time I think the damage potential of a couple of classes heavily skews the picture overall, which isn't helped much by those classes also being the most dominant in pvp for the same reason

#

and the changes in this patch will only make it worse, not better

#

if you removed zerk, SD (and soon ranger) from the picture, the relative tankiness of cap ships compared to other classes would be much different I think

limber carbon
#

I think the crit resists given to capital ships do help a little for PvP, but for PvAI it makes no difference as bosses and AI don't crit at all, just overwhelming damage

abstract nexus
#

with those three in the picture, it's hard to really argue for a change to capships to allow them to survive for a reasonable amount of time against those three classes which wouldn't make them ridiculously overtuned everywhere else

abstract nexus
#

spacebar classes will have no trouble getting close enough to the 'new' crit cap

limpid raptor
#

Some are now but they're fairly rare

coral grove
#

zerk getting turning nerfed (everybody), speed nerfed, dmg tweaks reduced from 2 to 1 and now you also want to maybe nerf the matriach engine? bruh SadRat

mild sentinel
#

Speaking of capships, I find capship only weapons to be severely underwhelming while just taking up a bunch of space when loking at the wiki page

abstract nexus
limber carbon
#

I'd also like to point out that the issue with capital ships is not solely with the ship type itself, independent of a class.

For LF scout classes, SD gets speed as a defensive mechanic, and Seer gets a portion of that along with range and stealth (+considerable DPH to finish 1v1 engagements more quickly than anything else).

In HF combat classes, you have Zerker, which provides not only resistance bonuses to an already tanky base ship type but also Lifesteal, and now Grit for Ranger.

This theme of defensive capabilities has been missing from capital ships and their fleet-focused class for a while, since many of the unique bank bonuses are not exclusive to fleet classes—they're available to all classes through Zen of Shielding and Energy.

keen roost
#

Zerk is going to continue to have insane lifesteal after this, we have to do something about that. We're not going to nuke it from orbit but we have to make a reasonable change. I don't see the class being bad at any point during any changes we're making.

abstract nexus
#

i think many people just come away with the perception of class favouritism

limpid raptor
#

Just takes time.

abstract nexus
#

i get that, but when some classes which need help feel like they're ignored, while other classes which are grossly overpowered either get gentle changes which haven't even shifted the needle in the case of zerk, or even get massive buffs in the case of SD

#

i hope there is no class favouritism, but you can't blame people for coming away with that perception

icy sierra
#

If you plan on keeping lifesteal do the Valve method. Tiny incremental number changes, introduce defensive mechanics for other class.

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The class favouritism sentiment comes from what classes the devs actually play imo

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I dont think there are any seer or gunner mains on the dev team. I mean actively do everything on said class.

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You got mainly shms, zerks, and engis

zinc hawk
keen roost
#

Speed Demon got a damage buff cause enk favoritism 🌶️

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👀

icy sierra
#

Well its important to highlight mains because those are the players that tend to understand the quirks of the class more. Tend to, but anyway I understand what Xantra is feeling.

keen roost
#

Lol no, we got feedback in our first change that some players testing it felt like it didn't have enough damage to make up for the target tracker and tweak stacking adjustments.

icy sierra
#

But yeah Hober I recommend if you think lifesteal is OP just slightly dial it back until you get a good value

keen roost
#

We've got a very good change lined up that will let us do the tuning you're talking about.

icy sierra
#

I know the SS patch cycle isnt as dynamic but I think its better than the "balancing" Riot games does

keen roost
#

Frankly, even without lifesteal I think Berserker would still be strong as hell. It would just be a lot more difficult/impractical to solo almost all content.

icy sierra
#

Gut, overbuff, gut, overbuff, gut, overbuff

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The self sustain zerk and shm get lets them solo stuff, because again, unless you can hide or completely outmaneuver (Sd and Seer) you simply dont have enough durability to last the encounter (Gunner, Sniper)

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At least Sniper -> Ranger has Grit and SCharge. Enough SCharge to make it work with HF resista

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FC can get away with building tank and regen, but regen on a capship has significantly less value per unit of SCharge due to your massive bank

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I tried to solo CE on my Sniper but I literally cant hide due to Celestes (why is their radar so uber???), and Sniper is paper anyway lol

abstract nexus
#

yeah, and then you have the cyborg AI in KD with admin radars, it just makes it a frustrating place to be for classes where stealth is the first line of defense

keen roost
#

You can't neccessarily go full shield regen like a Shield Monkey does, because they have insane multipliers to shield regen, but having high bank bonuses on capital ships (as augmods) devalues stacking more shield bank vs Resists and Shield Regen.

#

I don't think its completely closes the gap, but it brings you closer to the point where 1% more Shield Regen has more of an effect on increasing your effective shields than 1% more shield bank

icy sierra
#

No, it is true.
15k regen on 2mil shield bank is more value than 15k regen on 5mil shield bank. It's doubly true because Gunner cap ships get 10-25% less resist profiles, and FCs get less or comparable resists.

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You can have less bank, what gives you "time for your regen to actually work" is escaping combat and higher resists to make each unit of shields have more value 😛

abstract nexus
#

not to mention capships end up soaking more damage just by virtue of their size

icy sierra
#

You're stupid if you just sit there and tank if you have mobility. Cap Ship cannot dodge outside of microwarp, unless the incoming fire is really poor tracking, so you are guaranteed to take damage. Every other hull class can be mobile and dodge, which also gives value to SCharge.

#

^

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I've been trying to shop a fast but effective Eclipse Gunner on Test. So far, no success on what I like, but I hope to find one eventually.

#

For now I just stick to my dreadnaught Shujaa.

abstract nexus
#

even engi/shm are reasonably small enough to dodge a lot of shots, but you ain't dodging nothing in a shujaa or chelonia

icy sierra
#

I'm going to take damage anyway and I can't find an effective 500 spd setup, so why not just max out my initial tank and damage.

#

¯_(ツ)_/¯

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I would love a sub-class of cap ships that were smaller but faster for particular playstyles in cap ship classes. Comparable to Cruisers, if we use naval classes as an analogy I guess?

#

A midground between cap ship Gunner and HF Gunner

abstract nexus
#

something akin to BPCs, which trade hull space for smaller size and higher speed

icy sierra
#

Yep, but for t23 main ship.

#

I actually really like Ranger and how Grit and SCharge work together

#

HF have high resists so you can actually make it work

#

But on cap ship? Nah. lmao

#

Plus cap ships aren't as flexible. 2 augs 😭

abstract nexus
#

my honest feeling is that capships wouldn't be out of line with 3 augs + the hull bonuses

icy sierra
#

mmm Gunner might become out of line in terms of DPS with 3 augs because you know I'd throw at least another adarage on 😛

#

Maybe it's okay to keep it 2 augs with how we have rn

#

The hull class being squishy needs fixing

abstract nexus
#

yeah, either that or a significant beef to either hull resists, or the hull augmods

#

imo capships should have the highest base resists of the 4 hull classes

icy sierra
#

That's what I've always said xD

#

It makes no sense for them to have less resists than HF

abstract nexus
#

it doesn't really make any sense for HF to have so much hull resist to begin with

icy sierra
#

It's okay imo, because HF need to be up in there and brawl

#

The RPG trifecta has been trashed anyway. Boss tanking with a "tank" isn't really a thing anymore except for GEE, but you are actually less effective being a "tank" if you build a hostility tank due to the way his aggro works and just by the very nature of how OP zerk is. Steal shm can tank, and the only other boss that "needed" (tbh it was more helpful than a necessity) a traditional tank was Polemarchos (he is gone now).

abstract nexus
#

that's true for most classes tbh

#

maybe not so much brawling, but most combat tends to happen within reasonable ranges

icy sierra
#

Yeah but you can't run off like SD or Seer 😛

#

Engi seems to be doing fine with the right augs

#

Shm... obviously no problem, you can just become immortal if enemies don't stat check your regen or stealing

#

Zerker can die between lifesteal cooldowns at least

abstract nexus
#

yeah, engi mainship survivability is totally fine, it's more drone survivability that's the issue there

icy sierra
#

zerk feels like Trundle lmao

#

He's a stat checker character.

#

But then you also get skill in terms of dodging and mobility 😭

abstract nexus
#

zerk can run away, it just can't hide like SD/seer

#

all the T23 HFs have hefty mobility supers

#

actually tell a lie, the gladius doesn't

#

but the gladius is pretty niche I think

mild sentinel
#

About capital ships, woudl it make sense if every class gained at least dual shields on it? also consider dual energies, I'm not proposing support classes being able to increase these further.
It'd enable people to have one bank and regen shield and energy at base letting the capship bank bonuses be of some use.
I don't think it's a complete solution but should help with its usability and help distinguish its benefits from other ship classes.

What do you imagine with the term capitalship? I imagine a beast of a ship and likely they'd have backup generators and other systems. Being more resistant to grems and effects, etc.

foggy dune
#

I think the best way will be to identify exactly what role they are supposed to play in the game then tweak the classes and ships to promote that capability without just making them automatically better than the mainships for those classes. It seems to me they were initially added for most classes as a secondary to play in more passive support roles using the new field generators in group/squad play but the combination of bad stats, no ability to evade fire and no new unique auras left them in the past. Engineer generators give regen and energy bank but maybe super items that launch engi specific aura drones, healer drones or maybe even grem or debuff drones that affect speed, rof, or other stats.

limpid raptor
#

This seems beyond NF feedback as Cap ships aren't changing directly in NF. May need to post #1034461065376964699 with suggestions or ideas.

#

This thread is very very long and I think that topic deserves its own light

median jewel
#

Yeah. I would suggest another topic for this. Also I think this one was specifically for engineer and the update.

abstract nexus
#

forwarding to the correct thread

#

on test 1 they were about 40-50%? of their current live weight, on livetest it's more like 80%

icy sierra
#

😭 Matriarch Healers are so heavy

limpid raptor
#

Yeah its a server specific param

#

I have it marked for patch and to be updated for livetest. Good call out. SOmething we can update on the fly.

mild sentinel
abstract nexus
#

yes

#

well, you'll likely notice having improved mobility due to drones weighing less, and slightly more damage from the buff to engi class 1, but in regards to the crit resistance changes, you won't notice any changes because it doesn't affect anything that's accessible to F2P players

mild sentinel
#

Just a thought, have you guys given any thought to being able to get drone ops past 100% and thus getting more than 100% of the aug bonuses?
at high levels

abstract nexus
#

it already goes up to 106% at DD23

#

(and will presumably increase to 108% when DD24 comes out)

#

as an aside, I think drone ops is a nice stat to tweak for engi balance, since it's dependent on aug stats

hallow jasper
#

Still seeing useless mods for energizing tractor beams in the NF pool

image.png
limpid raptor
#

This thread should be closed and we re not making changes to buff tractors at this time.

open storm
#

just my pair of pennies.. modded drone controllers giving their modifications to the drones? like sleek gives mobile drones more speed or something like that. not sure what things would be forgeable or not but this is an idea to limit engineers to a "testable level" for mods on drones.

abstract nexus
#

I think this thread is meant to be locked

zinc hawk
#

Nah we'll lock all the threads when needed

#

you just can't make new ones