Higby tweets incoming fixes!

[basti]

http://twitter.com/mhigby/status/289987967466995713

We are going to be hotfixing up some anti-air changes tonight ahead of the update. Flak damage tuning and a fix to missiles not detonating.


http://twitter.com/mhigby/status/289988526655823873

This is the first of a couple quick patches you'll see before the big end-of-month update to address some of your highest priority requests



http://twitter.com/mhigby/status/289989107336237058

For flak we've changed the explosion mechanic to give more consistent damage results and buffed all flak dmg sources by 6-20%, skyguard most



http://twitter.com/mhigby/status/289989252752744448

On missiles we found a bug that was causing them to not detonate properly past a certain range that had been eluding us for a while.



http://twitter.com/mhigby/status/289989685957255168

Please give us lots of feedback on how the vehicle vs infantry combat feels after this hotfix.


http://twitter.com/mhigby/status/289990197700071424

This hotfix will also fix the Reaver deceleration from afterburner bug. Hope no more angry NC pilots tweet me (except about the flak change)



All via Higby Twitter.

[Chewy]

"Sits and waits while stroking his beard to see the outcome"

[TehCandyMan]

GOD I hope these changes are effective... I swear I will spend a week just trying to take out air if they are....

[Sunrock]

After played SOE games now for 13 years.... I fear that every time they try to fix a game they totally ruin it, consider there track record with other games.

Maybe we dodge a bullet and they don't make things worse this time at least. The 20% buff to skyguard sounds on paper as a positive thing at least.

[seanman]

General

Bonus of Composite armor for ESF reduced by 5% each rank (10/15/20/25 down from 15/20/25/30)
Base time to reload increased by approximately 25% for tank HE
Fixed an issue where lock-on rockets and missiles would sometimes not damage the target they hit
Fixed bug with Lightning 100mm AP where its outer radius was set to high
Reduced amount of decelerating that occurs after afterburning
Acceleration of Reaver afterburner increased
Addressing a server memory issue

Flak Mechanics Changes

We now remove the flak projectile when it bursts near an enemy aircraft. Previously the projectile was allowed a chance to continue and strike the aircraft directly, which would deal additional damage (burst damage + direct hit damage). We have increased burst damage to compensate for the loss of direct hit damage. This should result in an overall increase to flak damage and make it more consistent

Skyguard

Flak burst damage increased by 20%
Direct hit damage against infantry and other targets increased
Turret movement is now slightly smoother

Phalanx AA

Flak burst damage increased by 14%
Turret movement is now slightly smoother

MAX Burster

Flak burst damage increased by 6%
Burster projectile adjusted to more reliably hit infantry that are in close range
Direct hits with the MAX Burster can no longer damage the heavy armor of tanks, Sunderers and Phalanx Turrets

good one :D

[Boomzor]

Love what they promise. A few of them are among my pet peeves and I'd love to see them gone.

The cynic in me fears what they might break while fixing this :p

[Canaris]

Missile fix for those not detonating on impact...... *DOING MY HAPPY DANCE!!* :groovy:

Air & tank spam beware, you've been let off almost 50% of shots..... no longer! :evil:

[Sunrock]

We now remove the flak projectile when it bursts near an enemy aircraft. Previously the projectile was allowed a chance to continue and strike the aircraft directly, which would deal additional damage (burst damage + direct hit damage). We have increased burst damage to compensate for the loss of direct hit damage. This should result in an overall increase to flak damage and make it more consistent

BTW does that mean that now AA do flak damage or direct hit damage? Or that it only do flak damage now?

PS: And if it's only flak damage and not also direct hit damage does the ESF flak armor nerf really make the ESF more fragile or not?

[Canaris]

BTW does that mean that now AA do flak damage or direct hit damage? Or that it only do flak damage now?

sounds to me that they now just do proper flak damage as it does state "removed flak projectile"

[Sunrock]

Maybe it's that I don't understand flak damage. Is not flak damage the explosion damage from the projectile? Now removed flak projectile I understand as they are saying that explosion damage + hit damage is not just 2 damage into one. But the armor did not protect the hit damage before just the explosion damage.... Just confused about what this really mean.

[Sturmhardt]

FINALLY. All changes there are good, looking forward to play it.

[Sunrock]

Ok have tested it now and AA turrets at least do slightly less damage per shot but as the flak is more consistence the DPS is slightly higher.

[Chewy]

"Direct hits with the MAX Burster can no longer damage the heavy armor of tanks, Sunderers and Phalanx Turrets"


WHAT?! No longer do damage to armor!? This must be one hell of a buff to flak for that to be done. The damage was already weak as hell and Iv only gotten 1 single assist from peppering armor with a burster.

Hell Id rather use a burster on armor than try and use those god awful, cross-eyed, and slow as hell AV weapons NC MAXes have. May do shit damage and give no points but at least I could take some kind of a fight to the ranges those vehicles engage me at. Those things are so cross-eyed that past 75M or so you have to aim twice if using dual or you'll hit both sides around the target.

Im loving the AA love, but didn't see this happening. To be honest I didn't think higher damage was all the needed. Up to 5%-10% maybe. All it needed was a faster bullet speed on SGs to match the burster and Id be a beast. Maybe a range boost as well to shoo off a libby sitting at max shell range killing vehicles while immune to flak.

[Sunrock]

Hell Id rather use a burster on armor than try and use those god awful, cross-eyed, and slow as hell AV weapons NC MAXes have.

Yea because TR AV MAX weapons are so greate too, not. The bullet drop on them makes me wonder if not the weight of the shell is close to 5 metric ton.

[Sledgecrushr]

Was it the skyguard that got the 20% damage buff? Because I think this would be kind of an interesting change. For me skyguards are pretty difficult to use.

[ShadetheDruid]

Nice, might finally be able to stick that Skyguard turret on my pimped out Lightning and cause some chaos.

[ringring]

A couploe of comments from our forums.
In general buff to AA is good but:
1. Buff AA max flak before buffing render distances?
2. ESF composite armour reduced seems a little excessive
3. Libs untouched where libs are a problem, a slight nerf would have been welcome

[Sturmhardt]

"Direct hits with the MAX Burster can no longer damage the heavy armor of tanks, Sunderers and Phalanx Turrets"


WHAT?! No longer do damage to armor!? This must be one hell of a buff to flak for that to be done. The damage was already weak as hell and Iv only gotten 1 single assist from peppering armor with a burster.

Bursters are an AA weapon, not AV. They are not supposed to damage tanks and that's fine.


Hell Id rather use a burster on armor than try and use those god awful, cross-eyed, and slow as hell AV weapons NC MAXes have.

1. Again: Bursters are not supposed to hurt vehicles. The only thing you can do to a tank with them is to take their vision because the burster bullets really take a lot of the screen when fired at.

2. Dual falcons are actually pretty good if you can get close to a tank. 4 shots in the back kill an MBT (that is only once reloading because you have 2 guns). The only thing I don't like about them is the short range because they explode at a certain range in the air.

[Sunrock]

Was it the skyguard that got the 20% damage buff? Because I think this would be kind of an interesting change. For me skyguards are pretty difficult to use.

Still pretty difficult to use. IMO mainly because of two things; first of all it have a bit too slow bullet speed so you need to lead infront of a ESF with allot and secondly the gun is placed next to you so you shoot from the right into the center witch if close does not always align with the crosshair.

But if you manage to hit something it does some more damage now... A ESF that hovers infront of a skygaurd now is quite dead.

[ShadetheDruid]

I went and took a look at the official forums (obviously I hate myself), and the ESF pilots are already flipping their shit over these changes. :rolleyes:

[Beerbeer]

I talked about the inevitable balance see-saw back in beta: they won't get it right and it won't work.

[Legolas]

I talked about the inevitable balance see-saw back in beta: they won't get it right and it won't work.

Yeah, you're never going to be able to balance things when fundamental concepts automatically screw it all up irregardless, like constant overaccess to vehicles, one-man MBTs, overabundance of spotting, too many hex territories and ridiculously overeffective ESFs.

[Beerbeer]

Agree.

They should have left everything as-is, overpowered vehicles and all, but just nerfed the crap out of vehicle access, which they will never do and so this game will flounder under the weight of nerfs/buffs or flounder if they don't change a thing.

They cannot win.

[Rahabib]

I think nerfing resources made more sense. Oh well. At least this is better than before.

[Hamma]

https://twitter.com/mhigby/status/290180943786946560

https://twitter.com/mhigby/status/290183960426840064

[Strategy]

Da big homie Higby is winning right now.

Fret not ESF pilots Higby left you yummy Lib targets in the sky for you to shoot down.. you get to actually be pilots now. For those who do not know how to be a pilot (likely there are lots of you.) Iron a pro ESF pilot has flight school tutorials on his channel:

http://www.youtube.com/user/LMSTVx

He has some good videos. The thing I dislike about flying is that there's so many different AA sources that it's just annoying to fly some days. It's all good though. I still enjoy finding ways to be a better pilot.

[FreeSpeech]

Sooooooo there's nothing in there about actually making the Reaver competitive vs the other fighters, just a bug fix that didn't even affect everyone and yet flak damage is now buffed so that Reavers can die even easier.

[igster]

Overall balance feels better. Libs are still wtf bbq pwning ground targets and AA seems a threat to Aircraft rather than being ignored. Still lots of ESFs up which is very good. Just not dominating the ground like they were.

[DirtyBird]

First thing I noticed was there was more ESF's and more AA around so obviously everyone involved was pretty keen to test stuff out.

Bit of bad luck if you happened to be an ESF pilot who entered into the airspace being protected by those rarely used Skyguards.
I know the group I was with was rolling lots of AA, a hell of a lot more than usual just to test it.

So I can understand those ESF tears but realise just how much more AA is out testing atm.
There were still plenty of good pilots who got away repeatedly but those who insisted on following the same path or just had to release that last pod often came off second best.

I felt the Skyguard was more usable than prior to the hot fix.
Not something I will run with each time I am on but in its current form I wont hesitate to spawn one if the need arises.
At least now I know it will be an effective deterrent with the possibility of a couple of kills on the unsuspecting.
Previously I would just grab a Burster MAX and the Skyguard just sat in the garage.


(be funny if Highy comes out and says it was a placebo patch)

[Eliphas]

I went and took a look at the official forums (obviously I hate myself), and the ESF pilots are already flipping their shit over these changes. :rolleyes:

:rofl:

[james]

I went and took a look at the official forums (obviously I hate myself), and the ESF pilots are already flipping their shit over these changes. :rolleyes:
Welcome to the problem of making something op, and then trying to fix it.
I can't wait to see when they bring out the faction balance patch, and how much complaining on how they can't have a 2 kd any more becuase they are now on par with the rest.

[Chewy]

Bursters are an AA weapon, not AV. They are not supposed to damage tanks and that's fine.



1. Again: Bursters are not supposed to hurt vehicles. The only thing you can do to a tank with them is to take their vision because the burster bullets really take a lot of the screen when fired at.

2. Dual falcons are actually pretty good if you can get close to a tank. 4 shots in the back kill an MBT (that is only once reloading because you have 2 guns). The only thing I don't like about them is the short range because they explode at a certain range in the air.

Flak rounds in PS2 are 40mm explosive shells that shower an area with metal fragments to shred aircraft and the persons inside them. Think about that. A 40mm high explosive shell made to kill, not with the explosion, but with the shrapnel alone. Something that big will fuck up anything in front of it. A real world Tunguska fires just 30mm shells and can eat armor if needed. Im not saying flak rounds need to be AV weapons, just that they should do damage. It can be under 1% for all I care, just so that it does damage.

At the ranges tanks engage all targets MAX AV weapons are useless for more than one reason. Why should I have to wait for the tanks to finish killing everyone and move in before I can reliably do damage? Those AV weapons may be strong as hell (they are) but they are NOT useable at range do to how slow they travel, how cross-eyed they are, and how hard it is to aim for the insane amount of drop they have. I don't use my dual falcons I paid for because of the same reasons I hate shotguns. They are near useless at the ranges this game needs you to play at unless you're inside of a tech plant or bio-lab.

[GrmlZ]

Well, flying went ok today, AA feels more potent, but as far as i can tell not too potent. Needs more than a day of testing to get to a real conclusion of course.

However, i dont think we will have a truly good Air/ground balance until they start balancing the air weapons first instead of AA.
I think since the beta too strong air weapons where the problem that always prevented proper air/ground balancing.

ESF/libs are extremly powerfull and can take out an insufficiently protected target very fast.
Yes, air should be able to take out a target that is not properly protected,but not that fast.
I kill a tank in a second when i can hit it more or less from behind, and even attacking the front armor a tank dies fast against pods.

Of course you need powerfull AA if you want to "balance" this, the problem with this is that this leads to too much of a rock/paper/scissor balancing, one that would be more suitable for a RTS game than a shooter.

In order for AA to protect properly against decent pilots it needs to be so strong that new pilots get instagibt before they know what hit them.

[Sunrock]

Sooooooo there's nothing in there about actually making the Reaver competitive vs the other fighters, just a bug fix that didn't even affect everyone and yet flak damage is now buffed so that Reavers can die even easier.

Reavers not competitive Vs other ESF? :lol: good one. Reavers are on equal standing dogfighting the mosquito easily.

[Belhade]

Well these changes make sense. Considering, last night I was MAX Bursting and some Inf comes out of nowhere. I turn to hose him down, forgetting that my left-hand is a shotgun. Blasting away at this guy, who has his back to a wall, I couldn't kill the sumbiatch. Bursters did nil. I finally remembered how to aim with shotty, but not until he'd already taken me down to about 10%. Sigh.

[ShadetheDruid]

I took my Skyguard for a spin today, it was definitely eating up a good half health off hovering ESFs before they decided maybe hovering wasn't a good idea. Once the XP-for-damaging comes in, at least they will be doing a decent enough job and be rewarded for scaring people off.

Still, I wish the buff was for accuracy (less spraying everywhere) and not damage, though.

Reavers feel a bit better now too since the afterburner bug was fixed.

[Rockit]

I took my Skyguard for a spin today, it was definitely eating up a good half health off hovering ESFs before they decided maybe hovering wasn't a good idea. Once the XP-for-damaging comes in, at least they will be doing a decent enough job and be rewarded for scaring people off.

Still, I wish the buff was for accuracy (less spraying everywhere) and not damage, though.

Reavers feel a bit better now too since the afterburner bug was fixed.

Used to love the Skyguard in beta but that vehicle was tuned on so much it got frustrating to keep adjusting. I saw someone complain about range is still short. Did you find that true? I'll have to give it another whirl tomorrow for the first time in a long time to kick the tires.

[ShadetheDruid]

I saw someone complain about range is still short. Did you find that true?

The range is quite limited, yeah. The cone of fire combined with the slow projectile speed makes it a bit hard to hit things far away or moving at decent speeds (i'm still getting used to using it though at the minute).

Personally I don't mind the projectile speed too much, but if they tightened up the cone of fire a bit I think that would be great. It would naturally increase the accuracy at range and make it a bit more deadly, but still have it rely on the driver's skill at leading targets and not so much on luck/the randomness of the projectiles.

[Assist]

If this change was for Infantry vs. HE Tanks then I think it did nothing relevent. If it was changed for HE Tanks vs. Other vehicles, then I think it made a big difference.

Was still averaging 100 kill/hour with the HE lightning/mag, so not enough of a nerf IMO

Flak changes, I really don't get. Basically they nerfed ESF survivability more. Which isn't the complaint about them, it's their damage output that most people have an issue with.
Liberators still need a nerf, they can still sit a mile away and destroy an armor column. I don't understand why they changed the air this way, would of been much easier to just nerf the libs and buff projectile accuracy on AA.

[FreeSpeech]

Reavers not competitive Vs other ESF? :lol: good one. Reavers are on equal standing dogfighting the mosquito easily.

Lol even better one. Equal standing!! Reavers die so dam easily and their damage still requires at least 2 full salvos of gun/rockets to kill one Scythe. And vs Libs oh god, the Lib pilots don't even have to be concerned with a Reavers upgraded weaponry!

I am aware of those vids Eclipse, that ain't the issue. The other factions have far better ESF's in general, it's an obvious fact. Scythes are just insane, so easy to pilot and turn (and you're essentially a thin disc so turn in the right way and you're a hard to hit target) and because of their "laser" style effects, it's easier to track your shots.

We're closer to the TR than the VS, but the TR's extra speed is a big help and it's a smaller ship, ours are like giant bulleyes in comparison. What was our faction specific benefit again? Certainly wasn't damage!

[Duskguy]

the skyguard is viable now. and with just 1-2 AA units my lib was neaarly dead and only survived due to some fancy maneuvers and good flying (i pride myself on lib piloting).

there is a video of a single skyguard shooting down a gal on youtube somewhere.

the fighters are a bit more fragile, but not so much that they are useless. im not a great ESF pilot, but i was able to dart in and get out again if i flew tactically. those people who bull rush ahead are going to need to adapt however.