Nerfing the Reverse Manuver

[Hamma]

Those of you who are unaware they have implemented a nerf to the reverse maneuver on Public Test. What is the reverse maneuver you ask? Check the video below:

This is a maneuver that makes aircraft pretty hard to hit and allows them ways to really get out of tough situations. This particular maneuver is not really that easy to do, and requires an aspect of player skill in order to master.

Do you think SOE should be nerfing aspects of the game that require skill and patience to master especially in a game destined for eSports? Is it a mistake to make some aspects of the game easily accessible to the masses?

By the way here is the patch notes from test: http://wiki.planetside-universe.com/...e_(2013/08/01)

New ESF Weapons and Reverse Thrust Tweaks

• We’re also trying out a change to the lift factor granted by afterburners when in hover mode. We’ve reduced it from a factor of 8 to a factor of 2. This should make the reverse thrust still doable but will lower its abruptness and diminish your top speed while doing so.

[NoXousX]

This subject has been beat to death, and there are two sets of opinions:

Opinion #1 (experienced pilots and players that generally value skill and dedication):

• Leave it alone.
• It won't help new players.
• The manevuers add depth to gameplay.
• Nerfing it won't help bads become good suddenly.

Opinion #2

• It's hard.
• I can't do it.
• I don't fly.

Sorry for the sarcastic answer but seriously... this change won't help new players. It simply won't. It will dumb down dogfighting and upset experienced players.



Copy/paste from the forums:
Even if they go through with these changes, they won't help new players. An ESF pilot takes probably a good 40+ hours of play to even be a threat. It takes hundreds of hours to "master," and by master I mean think you've mastered it. The reality is good pilots are always improving, and that will forever stack against new players.

I have 24,000 kills in an ESF, and almost 346 hours. How long will it take for a new player to be a threat against me withor without these changes? It will take them months.

I would break down ESF success as follows:
1) Situational Awareness/Air Sense: 50% (the hardest thing to learn)
2) Aim 25%
3) Aircraft control 25%

If you take a new player and give them excellent aim and excellent aircraft control, they will still get farmed and killed. The hardest thing to learn is #1. Knowing when to retreat, when afterburner, fly low, fly high, be aggresssive etc etc... now THAT takes a lot of time to master and no amount of changes will affect that. New ESF pilots CAN be successful. I've seen players go from straight up noob status to quite the threat, and I've progressively watched them improve. The one thing they all have in common is they fly A LOT. A few of them I've even let fly off and live because I respect what they are up against. But what have they done different than the average "flying is too hard" whiner? They dedicated the time, certs, and effort to be great. The learning curve is steep, but so is the payoff. Soleks for example was scrounging around for tips a long time ago, and he has drastically improved. I always watched him fly and now he's a prominent reaver threat who is fun to run and gun with.

A bit off topcic there, but lets say hypothetically this change does goes through... new ESF pilots are still going to get absolutely obliterated. Stack that with the fact that lock-on weapons are rampant, flares aren't baseline, good ESFs takes 5k certs minimum, and good players will always be around to mop them up. All the odds are against them. This change won't help them. It will only negatively impact the versatility, the freedom, and the depth of combat ESF pilots enjoy, and the skill-gap. Many of us have spent months mastering the hover mode, and the maneuvers it brings are used in far more than just air to air combat.

I really don't want to start my sentences with "remember the good days when ESFs..." I can't stress enough how BAD and borderline insulting these changes will be to every decent pilot in this game that sunk too much time dealing with this nonstop bipolar balancing. It's too late in the game to make a change like this, and there is nothing to make up for it.

[KesTro]

Originally Posted by NoXousX

This subject has been beat to death, and there are two sets of opinions:

Yeah, completely ignore any reasons stated for the latter.

[snafus]

Originally Posted by NoXousX

This subject has been beat to death, and there are two sets of opinions:

Opinion #1 (experienced pilots and players that generally value skill and dedication):

• Leave it alone.
• It won't help new players.
• The manevuers add depth to gameplay.
• Nerfing it won't help bads become good suddenly.

Opinion #2

• It's hard.
• I can't do it.
• I don't fly.

Sorry for the sarcastic answer but seriously... this change won't help new players. It simply won't. It will dumb down dogfighting and upset experienced players.



Copy/paste from the forums:
Even if they go through with these changes, they won't help new players. An ESF pilot takes probably a good 40+ hours of play to even be a threat. It takes hundreds of hours to "master," and by master I mean think you've mastered it. The reality is good pilots are always improving, and that will forever stack against new players.

I have 24,000 kills in an ESF, and almost 346 hours. How long will it take for a new player to be a threat against me withor without these changes? It will take them months.

I would break down ESF success as follows:
1) Situational Awareness/Air Sense: 50% (the hardest thing to learn)
2) Aim 25%
3) Aircraft control 25%

If you take a new player and give them excellent aim and excellent aircraft control, they will still get farmed and killed. The hardest thing to learn is #1. Knowing when to retreat, when afterburner, fly low, fly high, be aggresssive etc etc... now THAT takes a lot of time to master and no amount of changes will affect that. New ESF pilots CAN be successful. I've seen players go from straight up noob status to quite the threat, and I've progressively watched them improve. The one thing they all have in common is they fly A LOT. A few of them I've even let fly off and live because I respect what they are up against. But what have they done different than the average "flying is too hard" whiner? They dedicated the time, certs, and effort to be great. The learning curve is steep, but so is the payoff. Soleks for example was scrounging around for tips a long time ago, and he has drastically improved. I always watched him fly and now he's a prominent reaver threat who is fun to run and gun with.

A bit off topcic there, but lets say hypothetically this change does goes through... new ESF pilots are still going to get absolutely obliterated. Stack that with the fact that lock-on weapons are rampant, flares aren't baseline, good ESFs takes 5k certs minimum, and good players will always be around to mop them up. All the odds are against them. This change won't help them. It will only negatively impact the versatility, the freedom, and the depth of combat ESF pilots enjoy, and the skill-gap. Many of us have spent months mastering the hover mode, and the maneuvers it brings are used in far more than just air to air combat.

I really don't want to start my sentences with "remember the good days when ESFs..." I can't stress enough how BAD and borderline insulting these changes will be to every decent pilot in this game that sunk too much time dealing with this nonstop bipolar balancing. It's too late in the game to make a change like this, and there is nothing to make up for it.

Couldn't agree more Nouxous, I just hope they go through with consulting top tier pilots before implementing the changes in the future.

[Lonehunter]

I think it's very sad they put nerfs in like this. You can't give us tools and limitations to work with to find our own strategies, never once say something is wrong or even poll the people, then make changes to remove it in the name of "balance"

[GamerDJ]

As a pilot, I think nerfing this mechanic will greatly impact more experienced pilots, and not for the better. New players will still have to do the exact same thing to do the maneuver, they will have to learn the exact same things to become a good pilot, and when they DO get to this part of their piloting experience, they will only have a harder time learning the maneuver.

Nobody complained about this mechanic (besides just some inexperienced pilots in stock ESFs that get shot down because they flew somewhere they shouldn't have), and it doesn't make any one faction or ESF unbalanced because ALL ESFs can do this exact same maneuver the exact same way and get nearly the exact same outcome. You may be noticing a pattern here: it's that everything is the same with this maneuver and 'balance.'

Even if this change does go through, everything that is the same now will remain the same. It will just be stupidly hard to do the exact same thing, and there is no reason to make things like this harder.

TL/DR: Nerfing this will make things much worse, and the only thing changing will be the difficulty. There is no unbalance, no real complaints, and no good reason to go through with this nerf. Experienced pilots will be the only ones effected, because newer players don't do this type of thing until much later in the game.

[Ghoest9]

The flight model in PS2 is ridiculous and the reverse maneuver is an absurd artifact of the flight model.

[Redshift]

Originally Posted by Ghoest9

The flight model in PS2 is ridiculous and the reverse maneuver is an absurd artifact of the flight model.

What you'd have it more realistic? because then you'd be blowing up tanks from half a cont away with lock on missiles.

The flight model is fairly fun and engaging, which is about as much as you can hope for in a game. if you try to make it too like real physics then you have to give weaponary that works with real physics.

[Ghoest9]

Originally Posted by Redshift

What you'd have it more realistic? because then you'd be blowing up tanks from half a cont away with lock on missiles.

The flight model is fairly fun and engaging, which is about as much as you can hope for in a game. if you try to make it too like real physics then you have to give weaponary that works with real physics.

Weapons systems are NOT the flight model.

And Im not suggesting perfectly realistic flight. But it would be nice to have a flight model that at least suggested the laws of physics and principals of aerodynamics.


It would be fine these aircraft were basically jet powered helicopters like PS1, but what were flying just seems like magic carpets with guns.

[Hamma]

It's been beaten to death for sure - just trying to consolidate the beating. :P

[Fenrys]

I think its a good change, it will improve faction v faction balance, it will provide incentive to use diverse loadouts, and I hope they go through with it. At the moment there is little reason to fly anything but a Reaver with Vortek, Hover Stability, and AB Tank.

[DirtyBird]

Unwelcome changes come and go, the game moves on.
Pilots should just enjoy the farm while the placebo effect lasts.

[Javelin]

My 2 cents from the O-PS2 forums

Originally Posted by Javelin6

Every time a "l33t" ESF pilot has shed a tear over a change to their playstyle, it has been good for the game.

• Rocket pod nerf.
• Flak/Skyguard changes.
• Thermal/NV vehicle sight changes.
• MBT armor improvements.
• Deconstruction changes.
• XP from "bailers".

The takeaway here is, you will adapt as you always have and the game will be better for everyone else.

Stand by for incoming rage.

[Purestorm]

The biggest problem is that in order to have a decent chance of winning a 1v1 fight against a good pilot, you have to know this one maneuver. The ESF metagame should not be entirely built around having Hover frame and being able to perform a certain maneuver.

[PredatorFour]

Originally Posted by Purestorm

The biggest problem is that in order to have a decent chance of winning a 1v1 fight against a good pilot, you have to know this one maneuver. The ESF metagame should not be entirely built around having Hover frame and being able to perform a certain maneuver.

Altho the move is visually impressive, it can be countered easy by just taking the fight to them. They fly backwards? You chase them. They shoot ? You spin/dodge. You don't have to know the move to be good against 'leet' pilots who think moving backwards makes them awesome.

I think the move is for the better. This is a nerf to hover frame really and i think what they need to do is buff racer frame (increase top speed) and then we might have some decent choices to make with air frame loadouts and some variety.

You can still do the reverse move anyway just not as good and i'm sure decent pilots will still be able to use this to their advantage.