Variety: Spice of Victory

posted on February 4th, 2012, 1:12 pm

You are already helpless when you have to retreat. As far as I understand it the new system gives also ships with weak defense a chance to retreat, since you can tank for them(B'rels for example). So I don't see your problem XT. Right now FO isn't "doomed for failure", why should improvements concerning fire on the move change that?

posted on February 4th, 2012, 1:21 pm

You are already helpless when you have to retreat. As far as I understand it the new system gives also ships with weak defense a chance to retreat, since you can tank for them(B'rels for example). So I don't see your problem XT. Right now FO isn't "doomed for failure", why should improvements concerning fire on the move change that?

I knew someone would ask even tho its pretty dam obvious.

The old targeting system had your ships target the weakest ship so while you were retreating altho you couldn't switch targets without stopping you could still get kills and their faster weaker ships would be forced to turn off or be destroyed.

Now your fleets will target their strongest ships thus achieving nothing and not getting any kills and therefor giving the opposing fleet no reason to stop killing your ships. Again i don't see anyway this new targeting system will work without some change with the re-targeting on the move issue because there is no room for micro management in this instance if you manually switch fire to a weaker target you will stop and then your dead.

I can tell already your not willing to listen and your going to stick to your guns and deny there is a problem here but i guarantee you will bitch and moan when dragonfire is chasing your fleets like this and your not getting any kills because your auto targeting a tanker and cant switch targets without stopping.

posted on February 4th, 2012, 2:45 pm

Usually you should have tankers in your fleet already. Yes it is annoying that those Monsoons, KBQs and Rhienns deny kills, but that's the way it is. If you are chasing someone you already won the fight, I think the new system gives room for losing a fight without losing the whole battle because all of your ships are wiped out when fleeing.
I don't see a big difference here, only that tanks become more obvious and useful.

posted on February 4th, 2012, 3:08 pm

XT, we really don't know how the patch is going to play until it comes out, so saying it's doomed to fail is rather ridiculous.

It also swings and roundabouts, your defensive ships will also tank for you while retreating, making retreating stronger than before as far as I can tell. When moving the enemey has to autotarget too, so if you have any sense you will retreat a defensive ship or 2 when retreating your weaker ships. Retreating isn't about getting kills after all.

[MrXT]

posted on February 4th, 2012, 3:17 pm

Last edited by MrXT on February 4th, 2012, 3:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Usually you should have tankers in your fleet already. Yes it is annoying that those Monsoons, KBQs and Rhienns deny kills, but that's the way it is. If you are chasing someone you already won the fight, I think the new system gives room for losing a fight without losing the whole battle because all of your ships are wiped out when fleeing.
I don't see a big difference here, only that tanks become more obvious and useful.

Well if that's the way they are aiming for and what you want then everyone will be too afraid to attack because if you don't gain an advantage or you run into a turrent and are forced to retreat you just lost the game.... is that what you want out of this? kind of stupid imo.

XT, we really don't know how the patch is going to play until it comes out, so saying it's doomed to fail is rather ridiculous.

It also swings and roundabouts, your defensive ships will also tank for you while retreating, making retreating stronger than before as far as I can tell. When moving the enemey has to autotarget too, so if you have any sense you will retreat a defensive ship or 2 when retreating your weaker ships. Retreating isn't about getting kills after all.

Well iv commented on what we do know....

If the targeting system or the way to click to fire isnt modified so you dont just stop and turn when you target a ship then this new targetting system wont work... fine if your facing them and winning not so good if you must fall back or face doom.

The problem we have in the current patch is you cant target a new ship without stopping and turning around, then there is also the problem of having your target locked even if its slightly out of range and so your fleet just stops firing..... if a new targeting system isn't made so you have a choice to turn or find pick a new target without stopping then we have a problem.

No we wont know EXACTLY what is coming until it comes but its better to get our concerns out rather than they make this major patch and release it then find out this wasn't a good idea and we have to wait another 10 months for a fix for that.

Im not saying the new targetting system wont work... what im saying is it wont work very well if we cant pick new targets on the move if we automatically stop and turn everytime we click fire on this target, there will be no escape.

posted on February 4th, 2012, 3:29 pm

I do wonder how the engine will decide on which of two ships with the same profile will be auto-targeted. Weakest first, as before?

posted on February 4th, 2012, 4:56 pm

Thought we addressed some of these issues the last several times  .

From last to first

No, ships of the same profile are randomly attacked - if you have to Defensive Profile units, one or the other will be randomly attacked first. If you have 6 different types of non-Defensive Profile units, 1 of those 6 will be randomly attacked first.

No, ships no longer have an issue with trying to fire at stuff slightly out of range: they immediately switch to an in-range target.

As Unleash Mayhem pointed, both players can have Defensive Profile units in their fleets and prevent auto targeting on their other ships. This is how it has always been, but we wanted to destroy the very new-player unfriendly factor that the weakest ships were always targeted first. That just made it far too easy for experienced players to take advantage of hidden mechanics and also punish people severely for mixing fleets in many situations. The majority of times people complain about a unit it's because it's getting auto targeted - not because it's actually weak.

If you want to target specific ships, yup, you're going to have to stand and fight: when you're chasing those Monsoons and Intrepids with your Dodecahedrons, you're already doing the same now.

As in the newspost, Defensive Profile units are not something you really want to spam in most cases (unless you like having little firepower), and unless your micromanagement is good, you might still have a lot of your fleet picked off because you failed to keep those ships at the back of your fleet. Likewise, Defensive Profile units get hit more with torpedoes - in many circumstances you do not want your Defensive Profile units getting hit first, because they'll be the fastest to die comparatively. It's up to the player to make informed tactical decisions - just as a player does that now with knowing which ships tank.

posted on February 4th, 2012, 6:49 pm

just to clear up the targeting mechanics, it runs in 3 phases:

[list type=decimal]
[*]Select the ships with the most favoured profile (defensive vessels if available)
[*]If multiple ships apply, select those with the fewest hitpoint percentage
[*]If multiple ships apply, select one randomly
[/list]

posted on February 4th, 2012, 8:01 pm

Very nice.  It's not full-random targeting, but it's much better than what we have now and I like not having full-random targeting in my game anyway.

posted on February 5th, 2012, 2:15 pm

I generally despise randomisation features too, but this looks like it will spread the damage out across multiple defensive ship types as opposed to always monsoons and kbq first. Guess what, fleet composition will actually matter next patch! building one monsoon doesn't make you invincible against fleets of sangs and dodes anymore...

posted on February 5th, 2012, 4:37 pm

...And Disruptor Rhienns.  I played a game last night where Monsoons tanked for Charghs, it was awful    I'm ready for the defensive passives to drop to 30%, I really am.  The only reason they're so steep right now is because they don't always get autotargeted, without that problem they'll be just right at 30%

...Although, I also think that ADAI should stay at 30% and not go lower.  While the idea of "medium range is more common so it should be harder to counter" makes sense, most races do NOT use medium range as their core.  I think it should be counterable just like the others, and the supply cost and support weakness are big enough drawbacks to warrant the bonus.

posted on February 5th, 2012, 5:04 pm

I must admit, if this does work out as planned then I do look forward to more varied fleets in future.

posted on February 5th, 2012, 6:05 pm

...And Disruptor Rhienns.  I played a game last night where Monsoons tanked for Charghs, it was awful    I'm ready for the defensive passives to drop to 30%, I really am. 

See it the other way around: +70% for some phase plate Rhienns in between (who get auto targeted) is quite the same, even harder to micro the fire on them. And of course, if two people work together, and use the best of both worlds to counter the enemy single unit spam, it should have some kind of benefit, besides outnumbering you 

posted on February 5th, 2012, 9:04 pm

Yes but with Phase plates they can just leave and come back when the plates are off, and they are off for a VERY long time.  Also Rhienns have about half the hitpoints of Monsoons.

The problem with the Romulan tech tree currently is that you can't change ships very easily.  The combination of powerful anti-long tanking and powerful anti-short damage dealing with single-target engine disables meant there was nothing we could do.  It was surely a good strategy, but their micro wasn't any better than ours and they decimated us with hardly a single loss.  I killed every miner in both of their bases besides 2-3 topmeys, but they were still perfectly fine because of warpins and such.

All I'm saying is, I have hope for the future.

posted on February 6th, 2012, 1:24 am

There are always two sides of the medal.
So, even if you can build tanks in future versions, it will be pretty much the same "problem" with your example.

Well, anyways...