Neoxx wrote:So how do your actions as a player affect when their mag guns/lasers miss the target because of the size disparity? Your miss chance comes from bot size disparity, while our damage is lowered from it.
Part of the tactics involved in being a missile user is getting the terrain advantage wherever possible. Especially when it comes to fighting Nuimqol, if we dont have a terrain advantage we stand no chance of survival.
You have every chance to back away from a fight where you assess that the terrain is not in your favor. I think thats the key thing for you to learn. You are not forced to fight on any particular terrain. Sure, you may be slower and possibly get demob'd, but in that case if you didnt consider the possibility of being slower and having bad terrain around you, you're doing it wrong.
You also have to take into account that missiles have the lowest DPS. Sure, they have fairly high alpha, but take a long time to cycle. They also have much more delayed DPS, especially at ranges of 500m or more. If you can properly determine who the missiles are aimed at, you can have enough time to lock that person in preparation for repairs, or have that person put up a shield.
And no more about "ignoring LOS" because its not true at all. They do have an arc, and they do get interrupted by terrain/plants/buildings. Obviously buildings affect everyone the same way, because they are taller than missiles can reach, and with the addition of TONS of buildings throughout the world, that has negated the Pelistal advantage in those areas. Popping around a corner of a building results in the same LOS loss for everyone.
I wont say if I think things are balanced or which weapons I think are better than others, because I just dont know. I have been a missile user since I started in beta, and this wasnt because I thought they were OP, but because the person who brought be into the game used them. I have used the other weapons up to mech level, but I have always preferred the terrain tactics involved in using missiles over the run and gun mentality of mags, and the sniping of lasers.
Neoxx, you are indeed right in assuming that I'm ***, but it's kind of silly to think that pointing out an opponent controlled damage reducer on los dependent weapon systems will do anything other than support my contention that the lack of opponent controlled damage reducers (other than high vertical structures) for missile weapons is an issue. If your opponent goes light bot and you're using turrets rather than missiles, you can fit a weapon stab (TE in Eve terms). If your opponent goes missiles, your *** is locked to a building -- which also happens to nuke your ability to inflict non-missile dps on him. See the lack of interplay? There's no defensive terrain option that won't hurt you as much as him, and many that will hurt you and your turrets more than him and his missiles. Is that really a good thing?
The reason missiles aren't devastating in pvp at the moment is the lack of a critical mass of players in a given group willing to alpha targets out with them. Once you've hit that critical mass, reps (local or remote) won't matter, dps won't matter, terrain mostly won't matter, just pure tank and who has enough players to maintain critical mass of alpha strike longer. Shields will let you survive an extra barrage, but I think you'll agree with me that trading all your accum to survive an alpha won't help you win a fight, since you need that stuff to, you know, fire guns and run reps and such. Plus, next volley _will_ get you. Higher base alpha means fewer players are necessary to reach that critical mass. And the fewer ways players can screw up their spike, the lower the barrier to entry for filling those spots with warm bodies who can push butan on command. Hence, missiles will end up the alpha spike weapon of choice eventually.
Switching them to a secondary role now precludes that as a possibility, and would allow every faction even access to this potentially devastating platform. Plus, it allows for much cooler specialist bots. Yay specialists! Spiking people out isn't nearly so simple with non-missile systems, as they've got los issues in far more areas.
Finally, yes, their ability to ignore most of the los interrupting features is an issue. There are indeed plenty of buildings that can stop missiles, but if the only viable areas for combat against missile firing blobs are areas with defensible los occluding structures, the missile blob has already won the terrain domination battle by precluding operations elsewhere. Combat games of this type are about area denial, time and player morale. If one side can deny their foes much of the map without firing a shot, that's a bad bad thing for balance.
Missile alpha will eventually be the meta. Better to strike it from the list early with a couple of balance changes than wait for it to come and eat face for a while.
Again, I'm not arguing in bad faith here. I appreciate and respect your input, and I'm aware that you have a good head start on killing stuff in game. Conversation is an important part in figuring out what is and is not a good thing for the game; if we don't debate this sort of stuff, then it ends up just being opinion and assumptions. And you know what assumptions do. They *** your cat and steal your stuff. Fight cat *** with honest debate!
