Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I don't see a problem with them affecting missiles and drones. ECM and sensor dampeners both affect both turrets and missiles as well as all other targeted EWAR and logi, and while they affect these indirectly they can still completely remove a ship's ability to use these things. It doesn't seem at all unbalanced for weapon disruptors to be one module with scripts for missiles and turrets, or for defender missiles to attack either missiles or drones.


I was thinking defender missiles by default could attack enemy missiles and drones indiscriminately, destroying missiles of their own size or smaller in one hit, or dealing a small amount of damage to and stunning any drone they hit. The stun damage could be based on the percentage of the drone's hit points dealt in damage by the missile stacking indefinitely (maxing when you kill the drone) which could have other interesting effects such as:
* allowing you to increase the stun duration with webs/painters
* defender missiles of the right size for the drone would offer the longest stun duration
* drones with a long stun timer remaining could be repped to remove or reduce the time remaining
The defender launchers could have two scrip options: one that forces them to only target missiles, one that forces them to only target drones.

So the real conversation is about balancing the tristan (since that's the only example anyone keeps giving), not introducing new modules.

Adding a new class of modules because CCP can't balance a single frigate is kind of crazy, isn't it?

And yet again, the ability to take damage completely off the field (and not have it be able to be brought back once the drone is destroyed) is the counter.

We're talking in circles. Don't add a second counter because you personally think the first counter isn't balanced.

It's only a counter if it actually works. I'm not sure if you're trolling or just really, really dense.

Honestly, I'm not totally sold on the idea either. Originally I had this idea for defender missiles before missile disruptors were added to the game. Back then, tracking disruptors were already more popular than sensor dampeners as far as I could tell--the missile disruptors seemed to do more to fill a gap in missile disruption than a gap in the use of Amarr disruption ships. Maybe it would be better to take out the missile disruptors and keep defender missiles as able to shoot missiles. Or maybe I just like the idea of missiles shooting missiles too much.




I am quite certain it will not slippery slope into hitting players. WoW did stun overload because the developers had little experience with MMO PVP, and they learned quickly that nobody liked that. Now they have a broken system in which your stuns work in PVE but they're just a bunch of almost useless buttons on your UI in PVP. No developer worth their weight in copper is going to purposely snag themselves with PVP stuns after watching that trainwreck. But giving stuns to drones can be very kind to the player, in fact, as that player will be so much happier that the drones aren't actually destroyed.




I came up with the idea when I was writing up my original proposal for defender missiles hitting drones. I noticed that it would take many defender missiles to kill a single small scout drone. My first reaction was to check their damage against light missiles, since at the time I thought you could kill a scout drone pretty easily with those--but actually defender missiles already did almost as much damage (70 vs 83, a bit weaker much like a F.o.F. missile), so it pointed out to me that in order to make defender missiles kill drones easily, they would have to not only auto-target the drones but also deal far more damage than light missiles. This is clearly unbalanced because if it is okay to have defender missiles killing drones that easily, it must then be okay for regular missiles and turrets to kill them that easily--but they were given a lot of HP for a reason. But clearly nobody is going to use a defender missile that hurts drones and never actually kills any of them.

So then I came up with the idea of stunning them. You deal damage and also temporarily disrupt the drone. It's useful if you don't kill them, but you still can if you keep hitting them. Also it doesn't have to be a full stun, it could just shut down their weapons/EWAR/logi but still allow them to move and lock targets.

I later realized that drone HP is high for smartbombs and that it is clearly too high for direct attacks. It would make sense to reduce drone HP to perhaps half or less, and then give them a resistance to smartbombs and bombs. Then the damage-only defender missiles could kill them. But by the time I came up with that, I was already realizing that having defender missiles stun the drones really has a nice aspect in that it reduces the headache of being a drone ship pilot. I don't like to see balance changes that push drone ship pilots to constantly replenish their drone stocks because that's a headache other ship pilots don't experience, hence it is unfair. My stance: Should we be able to kill drones? Yes. Should we be encouraged to kill drones? No.




I also came up with some ideas for defender missile scripts:
1.) a script that makes them hit only missiles, and spread out to hit different missiles/groups
2.) a script that makes them hit only missiles, and focus on one missile/group until it hits or is destroyed
3.) a script that makes them hit only drones, and focus fire on one drone at a time until it dies or goes out of range
4.) a script that makes them hit only drones, and spread out to multiple drones

I was also thinking that the missiles that survive a defender missile hit could be stunned, they might just fly forward for a few seconds before coming back online and chasing the target. Their stun time would be much shorter than for a drone but it would take precious seconds off their flight time and potentially put them too far off course to reach their target.

All this is in the name of avoiding binary combat. I am trying to make suggestions that blur the boundaries of what you can do.

Hardly.
My statement was a demonstration of why shooting drones is rarely a valid strategy, unless you have high defense, in which case you would outlast them if you ignored them anyway.

TDs and MDs are instant.
To start reducing drone DPS you have to first go through the spare available flights + 1.

Whether it's a new module or what not is just odd detail. You can for example attempt to rubber band drones, and if it were up to me, I would emphasize this strategy, rather than bring a new magic bullet into the game. MDs was just another example of a kneejerk reaction to draw parallel from one module type to another (we have anti turret EWAR - lets bring an anti missile EWAR, even though they function differently). This OP seems to want the same.

A buff to small SBs, easier rubberbanding, a dedicated drone disruptor - whatever.

Tracking disrupting a drone boat require up to 5 TDs fitted on your ship. It's not exactly efficient...

So you're saying we should propose ideas that allow targeted effects to counter drones effectively without making those targeted effects overpowered against ships? Seems like that's the more difficult way to do it.

Decreasing the HP of drones is hardly more difficult than introducing an entirely new module. It would literally be changing a few numbers in a database

So then drones die too easily to smartbombs. I suggested earlier that drones have reduced HP and smartbomb/bomb resistance, but you seemed to be against that one.