CIG Dev response to Ares Ion nerf
- Thread starter Montoya
- Start date
Yeah not impressed with this nerf.
It's not even the damage reduction, the accuracy is absolutely atrocious now. It's a freaking energy weapon ship for crying out loud.
For what's it worth, they're definitely listening to the 'Ace' types more than the general community. 5 bucks says that these guys weren't happy that Ions were popping their precious Gladiuses and Talons.
The meta at the moment is Light Fighters and there are many in the SC community who are loathed to see this change.
Disclaimer: I actually enjoy flying light fighters and aren't the worst at it. I also do believe we should have variety in gameplay and counters to 'metas'.
It's not even the damage reduction, the accuracy is absolutely atrocious now. It's a freaking energy weapon ship for crying out loud.
For what's it worth, they're definitely listening to the 'Ace' types more than the general community. 5 bucks says that these guys weren't happy that Ions were popping their precious Gladiuses and Talons.
The meta at the moment is Light Fighters and there are many in the SC community who are loathed to see this change.
Disclaimer: I actually enjoy flying light fighters and aren't the worst at it. I also do believe we should have variety in gameplay and counters to 'metas'.
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I only fly the Talon for any combat, low sig, good weapon, no reason to fight with anything else.
all the Ace's can go blow each other i just want to clean up their space parts with my reclaimer but it feels like salvage is never comming into game even though the reclaimer has been in the game for 100 million years.
You shouldn't enjoy getting hit by a S7 cannon.
That's the point of having a S7 cannon.
Restore the Ion, nerds.
That's the point of having a S7 cannon.
Restore the Ion, nerds.
i agree with this but they need to up the price in game most likely this ship needs to be a glass cannon
KuruptU4Fun
Vice Admiral
Insightful, droll and seriously off topic but insightful.
Not a fan of the Glass cannon idea. A heavy fighter with a heavy gun makes sense.
It had a slow ROF and slow projectile speed. Light fighters with good pilots can take advantage of that. If you can't, take this opportunity to get better. So many pilots on this game think they're really good but they make too many mistakes. If you're in a light, nimble fighter and get hit by a huge gun on a heavy fighter it should hurt. It was your fault. Learn from it and work on improving your skills instead of whining about balance. An engagement with a lethal ship should be exhilarating, not a "I should win 100% of the time no exceptions" snorefest.
If you were in a Vanguard you might've thought twice about engaging. It's a dangerous opponent. Not every ship needs to have an even matchup against every other ship.
The benefit a Vanguard has is its full interior and other uses (like the Sentinel's E-Warfare station). The Ares sacrifices that for pure combat performance.
I know I said "you" a lot but my comments aren't directed at you but at anyone reading this in general. I'm not saying anyone in particular is a bad pilot but I can say the times I popped a light fighter in PVP, it was their fault. They maintained a steady flight path for too long or became predictable.
I want the old Ion back. It was a uniquely powerful ship. Now it's just a weaker Vanguard with no interior.
This.
If it were up to me I'll bring back the original gun. Maybe implement some charging mechanism (before the gun fires) so as to give lighter ships an advantage.
Nerf the agility of the ship to oblivion or something to compensate. Hell give it the Connie's maneuverability or something.
If you get hit by a Size 7 gun while you're in a light fighter it's your own damn fault. Learn to 'cockscrew', minimize jousting, hell...stop flying straight at the enemy
I probably have the unpopular opinion that the Ion was fine as it was. Maybe take a few degrees off its handling in each category and knock down its acceleration a bit.
The light fighters already have an advantage. They're basically unhittable in the hands of a truly skilled pilot. The person flying the light fighter is responsible for getting to that level but they'd rather complain and get things nerfed instead of spending the time to improve.
Piloting a light fighter should be a lot of work. You need to be constantly maneuvering or you're done for. That's how it should be. The Ion in its original state didn't change that, it just exposed the holes in a lot of their games.
I think it was fine too but well, the general consensus is that it was too strong. Fair enough...give and take. In this case CIG took away the wrong thing, that being the Size 7 energy weapon that made the ship unique.
would a better fix be to make it so noisy that small, maneuverable ships have time to take evasive measures?
No. You can see the Ion/Ares coming a mile away. There really isn't any point to making the ship have a larger EM sig.
Small ships shouldn't be hit at that distance anyway. If I'm piloting an Ares against a light fighter, the fighter's pip should be all over the place at distance.
The issue is that too many players make a bee line at the enemy, get themselves popped, then cry nerf.
You should never fly directing at the enemy anyway. Figure S maneuvers, Cockscrews, hell even strafing/Yawing slightly as you close in on the enemy. The whole point is to close the gap rapidly. Once your light fighter is less than 2km to a sluggish ship like the Ares, the latter is toast.
*************** NEWS FLASH ******************
Here are todays balanced news about balance
************************************************
First out..
You can not write one good reason that hold up,
why balance in a game is not waste of time.
BUT you can easy write a 1000 reason why balance is a waste of time..
Lets hear what the field have to say?
Field reporter BalaBalance is saying:
Balancing in game is BULL SHIT, cause it is never gonna be balanced...
Why?!
Ace pilots/players will always keep practice until even a smallest to biggest is OP in their hands..
AND
YOU CAN'T BALANCE SKILL....
Lets hear from our corespondent in Japan:
********************** 検閲された言葉。***************************
********************** 検閲された言葉。 ***************************
********************** 検閲された言葉。 ***************************
********************** 検閲された言葉。 ***************************
********************** 検閲された言葉。 ***************************
LIFE IS NOT BALANCED so get the F**K over it.
Okay.. - moving on to planet news...
Like a planet only have one city not even small towns serious....!?!?
How about make some (outpost) more like small towns which is how human populate,
we spread like cockroaches... where is the focus on that..
oh I know making a town/city in game don't involve killing or blowing shit up...
So how does that fit in?
Balance... LMAO... balance yeah it's nice word to hide behind.. but serious..
WHO IS THE FOOL?
THE FOOL!
OR THE FOOL WHO FOLLOWS?
Thank you now back to the studio...!
Personally I don't care either way I adapt.
Then move on and learn the new way...
And tomorrow?... well.... I do it all over again....
...Great. 
Thank you for flying with 316 Alpha,
Please remain seated until we are at a full stop.
have a nice day....
CHEERS!
Here are todays balanced news about balance
************************************************
First out..
You can not write one good reason that hold up,
why balance in a game is not waste of time.
BUT you can easy write a 1000 reason why balance is a waste of time..
Lets hear what the field have to say?
Field reporter BalaBalance is saying:
Balancing in game is BULL SHIT, cause it is never gonna be balanced...
Why?!
Ace pilots/players will always keep practice until even a smallest to biggest is OP in their hands..
AND
YOU CAN'T BALANCE SKILL....
Lets hear from our corespondent in Japan:
********************** 検閲された言葉。***************************
********************** 検閲された言葉。 ***************************
********************** 検閲された言葉。 ***************************
********************** 検閲された言葉。 ***************************
********************** 検閲された言葉。 ***************************
LIFE IS NOT BALANCED so get the F**K over it.
Okay.. - moving on to planet news...
Like a planet only have one city not even small towns serious....!?!?
How about make some (outpost) more like small towns which is how human populate,
we spread like cockroaches... where is the focus on that..
oh I know making a town/city in game don't involve killing or blowing shit up...
So how does that fit in?
Balance... LMAO... balance yeah it's nice word to hide behind.. but serious..
WHO IS THE FOOL?
THE FOOL!
OR THE FOOL WHO FOLLOWS?
Thank you now back to the studio...!
Personally I don't care either way I adapt.
Then move on and learn the new way...
And tomorrow?... well.... I do it all over again....
...Great. Thank you for flying with 316 Alpha,
Please remain seated until we are at a full stop.
have a nice day....
CHEERS!
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It was meant to be a sniper, so it should be. But yeah, it was too strong in fighter vs fighter fights.
Nerf its manoeuvring (they did it to the Cutty, they can do it to the Ares), make the gun a charged weapon, but keep the rest. Problem solved.
Nerf its manoeuvring (they did it to the Cutty, they can do it to the Ares), make the gun a charged weapon, but keep the rest. Problem solved.
I haven't played since the new nerf, but the second iteration felt great to me, if I as an Ares pilot can hit a M50 or Razor or similar small ship, then that would either because I got the jump on it, or that other pilot does not know how to avoid incoming fire and deserved to get lit up. Leave the low accuracy high fire rate for the Inferno, and the high accuracy slow fire rate for the Ion and let people get better at knowing how to counter things properly.
If not all we are stuck with is a bunch of Zapp Branigans...
View: https://youtu.be/KfU69_up02Y
One thing I feel is people latch on way too much to a ships archetype and expect everything to be the same or closely similar, so while the Ares is classified as a fighter, it doesn't really fit in execution and should be a gunship akin to an A-10 than a F-18.
If not all we are stuck with is a bunch of Zapp Branigans...
One thing I feel is people latch on way too much to a ships archetype and expect everything to be the same or closely similar, so while the Ares is classified as a fighter, it doesn't really fit in execution and should be a gunship akin to an A-10 than a F-18.
[Theorycrafting=]
For big lazer canon designed for taking out big targets, a potential balanced solution is having the beam/bolt spread the further it gets from the ship shooting it.
To explain:
Problem - S7 sniper one-shotting light fighters from 3km away.
Answer - Have the beam/bolt spread so the delivered energy to a LARGE target would remain high as the spread would all still all hit the large target, but a SMALL target would take a smaller hit as the energy in the spread is not not all hitting them...
Not sure I have explained that... Let me draw a picture...
The issue:
A solution:
Spread over distance from a Sniper Energy Weapon can protect a smaller target from an S7 while still delivering the full damage to the larger target. We have something very much like this for Scatter Guns but on a much smaller distance scale.
We can have our cake and eat it too, as the closer the light fighter gets to the Ion the more likely the Ion is to one-shot it so closing distance is still risky but the Ion can still snipe it from distance it's just a longer time to kill. No need to mess with fire rates, no need to mess with accuracy. The Ion still hits, it still does perceptible damage, just less of it at distance.
[/Theorycrafting]
That's the 'BobFace solution straight from the desks of TWRL! Someone call Mr. Roberts!
For big lazer canon designed for taking out big targets, a potential balanced solution is having the beam/bolt spread the further it gets from the ship shooting it.
To explain:
Problem - S7 sniper one-shotting light fighters from 3km away.
Answer - Have the beam/bolt spread so the delivered energy to a LARGE target would remain high as the spread would all still all hit the large target, but a SMALL target would take a smaller hit as the energy in the spread is not not all hitting them...
Not sure I have explained that... Let me draw a picture...
The issue:
A solution:
Spread over distance from a Sniper Energy Weapon can protect a smaller target from an S7 while still delivering the full damage to the larger target. We have something very much like this for Scatter Guns but on a much smaller distance scale.
We can have our cake and eat it too, as the closer the light fighter gets to the Ion the more likely the Ion is to one-shot it so closing distance is still risky but the Ion can still snipe it from distance it's just a longer time to kill. No need to mess with fire rates, no need to mess with accuracy. The Ion still hits, it still does perceptible damage, just less of it at distance.
[/Theorycrafting]
That's the 'BobFace solution straight from the desks of TWRL! Someone call Mr. Roberts!
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Amazing how patient people are for new ships to get balanced......
I 100% agree with Glorius Leader over the Ion nerfed.
Ion already have a balance pass, a small one, at first release when the ROF was lovered and the alpha damage bumped, THAT was the right spot for that ship.
Player with small fighter that complain about being blowed up by a S7 are just crying kid: if you get it by an anti-CAPITAL ship in a small fighter you are suppose to be vaporize, if not then there is something wrong IMHO.
If those "ace" pilot complaing about that then they are not so "ace" as they think about: being good at pin-pont pixled is not enought to be an ace, evaluate the situation and choose the right equipment is also a requirement. An example? Take a small fighter, setup a full stealth setup and you are done: your ship wan't pop up on radar until 1,8-2km.... sniping problem solved.
Considering the reason given from CIG for this non sense nerfing I wonder what capital ship will became: will they nerf the Idris' railgun and the Javellin weapons too? Since there is no reason that a capital size weapon won't blow up a light fighter....
While CIG always claim that the goal is to force choice and conseguences on player choices, I don't think the Ion balance (and the whole ship weapons balance IMHO) is going down to this route: flattening of the weapons and component characteristics aside the whole direction of differentiation beteween cannon and repeater is just heading the opposite way, or at least that is what I feel about it.
Ion already have a balance pass, a small one, at first release when the ROF was lovered and the alpha damage bumped, THAT was the right spot for that ship.
Player with small fighter that complain about being blowed up by a S7 are just crying kid: if you get it by an anti-CAPITAL ship in a small fighter you are suppose to be vaporize, if not then there is something wrong IMHO.
If those "ace" pilot complaing about that then they are not so "ace" as they think about: being good at pin-pont pixled is not enought to be an ace, evaluate the situation and choose the right equipment is also a requirement. An example? Take a small fighter, setup a full stealth setup and you are done: your ship wan't pop up on radar until 1,8-2km.... sniping problem solved.
Considering the reason given from CIG for this non sense nerfing I wonder what capital ship will became: will they nerf the Idris' railgun and the Javellin weapons too? Since there is no reason that a capital size weapon won't blow up a light fighter....
While CIG always claim that the goal is to force choice and conseguences on player choices, I don't think the Ion balance (and the whole ship weapons balance IMHO) is going down to this route: flattening of the weapons and component characteristics aside the whole direction of differentiation beteween cannon and repeater is just heading the opposite way, or at least that is what I feel about it.
Like a scattergun...? Perhaps a HD Dominance 7 scattergun (no such thing in game right now) and give it a smaller spread than shorter-range scatterguns have, e.g. so the area covered by their spread at max range is similar to the area covered by the spread of other scatterguns at their max range.
But I liked the Ion's gun before, don't like it so much now, and think Montoya is right. I'm miffed they nerfed the Ion so soon after it was released. That was a misstep. If you've got to nerf a ship - and absolutely sometimes you do - do it before release or give people a few months to enjoy what they think they bought after its release, and then perhaps rebalance it in six months time.