| Author |
Kluth from the eyes of Ravens |
Lark of Serenity
Grand Admiral
Raven Warriors
Joined: June 02, 2002
Posts: 2516
|  Posted: 2010-08-12 12:28
The following are a series of reviews posted in the Raven forums. No names are attached directly to any review to maintain anonymity. the first section is somewhat of an amalgamation of many different inputs to give a main idea, with the rest offering other inputs.
This will be PM'd to a couple devs in case this post is viewed as flame bait of some kind.
post 1
combat:
offense: its very interesting. you usually have to try really hard to die i found. even in a dread, escaping from a fight wasnt terribly difficult. the fact that people tend to target what they can see also means you can save someone whose about to die simply by decloaking (which was the case in one dramatic example where a dread at 1% was saved by me decloaking as he cloaked. they did try to continue tracking the other dread momentarily but cloak allowed him to evade fire, and i represented a bigger threat). occasionally i made mistakes and got killed or the enemy fleet was very clearly out to get me or someone else, in which case yeah youll get killed. but survivability is pretty high. its also interesting that there is really honestly no reason to fly anything other than a dread or dictor. you see stations out now and again but they arent really necessary
when attacking a fleet around a planet cluster you could essentially discount the planets except for their dictor as well. on repeated occasions a group of dreads moved into the heart of a planetary cluster with a dictor, and trapped and killed a station and its support - this despite there being 5 planets with multiple ECCM bases on each, or the station having combat support nearby. on one occasion we repeated this 3-4 times and lost 1 ship in the entire run, and really it was his fault.
defense: its more or less impossible to lose a system if you have even a handful of competent people on. stealth tranny rushes mean you can undercut the gains the enemy makes fairly easily. planetary assaults also tend to necessitate a small group of ships being somewhat seperated from the rest, or for the entire fleet to move at once: it isnt very difficult for 1 or 2 ships to disrupt bombing or inf drop runs.
the only time combat got difficult was when each side had in excess of 10 ships, but in that case all you needed was a bit of planning. it was also interesting to see that, if you had fleets big enough that humans were taking out scouts and other support craft, it really didnt matter: the more scouts, dictors, supply ships, and ECCM boats there were the more imbalanced the fight was in kluths favour because the humans combat ability went down. this was the case in offense and defense operations. it was especially true in defense however, because human bombing vessels, even the SCB, are incredibly weak and cannot withstand 1 or 2 dreadnaughts attacking them. cloak also rendered many defensive and offensive strategies and weapons moot or severely limited their ability, such as the MD or planetary defenses. the only thing it was earnestly difficult to do was stop a supported bombing run with fewer ships than the enemy had. ICC and UGTO could probably do this to one another or to kluth. the only downside being that, of course, due to cloak its impossible to tell without scouting first if the bomber is surrounded by siphons.
planetary assault:
dropping: as mentioned inf drops are absurdly easy. kluth also have a very critical advantage: on human sides you bring 4 transports because you have to move at full speed to drop and might lose some inf. the result is you drop 40 inf but only 32 will make it max and several might die. on kluth you can get in as close as you like and decloak. since youre undetected it also means the fourth tranny can wait to drop, pitting 40 inf against 32 guarenteed. this makes the likelihood of a cap much higher on the first drop
bombing: kluth also have an interesting take on this. on human factions you are constantly running ECCM to detect cloaked or ECM vessels. on kluth this isnt really a concern - theres nothing cloaked, and ECMd ships just need to be pointjumped once or can be ignored. thus when bombing the entire fleet can take part, with everyone running ECM. at one planet i had a sig of -45 because of our fleet. essentially ECM bombing is absurdly easy as well. 2 bio bombs kill an entire stack, and one clavate can hit 10 targets. it was also possible to get 4-5 clavates and take down a planet in a matter of seconds. really this wasnt necessary though, you can run a single bomber with a full combat fleet and essentially take a planet with minimal planning or effort. so long as everyone runs their ECM and keeps close you win. this also has the effect of making cloaking instantaneous.
EW:
as mentioned: cloak provided very high survivability and very good defense. if the enemy fleet was large enough to take out beacon scouts, if you had even numbers you could safely ignore the beacons - every scout was simply a hit to human firepower. the only ships i ever felt remotely threatened by were the AD/EAD and LS/BS, and even then it wasnt really a big deal.
since its impossible for human ships to tag an enemy kluth ship to the point that it cannot potentially escape unless simply totally surrounded, it was also possible to save other pilots simply be decloaking. in one instance a kluth dread was being hit by multiple missiles, cannons, and other weapons, but successfully cloaked. i decloaked in response and redirected human fire. the amount of time it would have taken them to track down and kill the other dread, even at 1%, would have been enough for me to line up a jump and kill one of their pilots and guarenteed the other ships escape. truly, the survivability of kluth vessels is absurd.
Glitches:
was able to jump through a dictor, was able to jump while cloaked, was able to load and unload units while cloaked. was able to fire while cloaked though this had no visible effect to client. do not know how to make these glitches happen. fixed by quicklog
Culture:
the gaming culture on Kluth is.... sporadic. even more so than ICC. on ICC even if someone doesnt like you, you can expect them to stick with the main fleet. on kluth if someone didnt like me they actively undermined teamwork and command, and did not follow the fleet anywhere.
kluth players have a very big entitlement culture. often decisions were made not because they were necessary or because they were intrinsically a good idea, but because they wanted to "let" the other factions do something. capturing planets was considered so easy people didnt want to do it because it wasnt even considered a challenge. all players wanted to do was kill ships, and in many circumstances it was very easy to do so. case in point: myself and another dread stayed cloaked at the luyten-cinci gate and waited for damaged ships to return from a fight on the other side, normally with their JD spent. we decloaked and killed them outright, making their previous escape meaningless. we managed to destroy 2 stations in one instance of this.
planets were left uncaptured to keep the other factions happy so they would come back to be farmed. ships were left undestroyed in order to manipulate the fight between ICC and UGTO. in fact, kluth intervention could single handedly decide the luyten/cinci fight, but because it was easier to farm other players at the gate we instead selectively attacked UGTO and ICC in order to keep their fight balanced and give us more targets. it was possible to make this sort of effect even with a small handful of ships. ICC and UGTO are, in this instance, there to be farmed for fun and prestige and little else. as the third wheel, for kluth there is no challenge, no clear need for teamwork or coordination, and no threat.
Psychology:
on ICC and UGTO, the main thing you have to worry about is tunnel vision. on more than one occasion i have been fighting doggedly, only to lift my head up and realize i was trying to solo a small fleet in a cruiser. on kluth this is not the case. fights do not last long enough for tunnel vision to set in. instead the real killer is simply greed: the ships are so powerful and so capable that players misjudge what the limit of them are, and will try to go that extra mile to kill someone when they shouldnt. this was mainly a problem when a pilot tried to solo a leftover target when the rest of the fleet was withdrawing to recharge and repair. very rarely did a kluth ship die when taking part in a fleet action. even then however, the amount of damage a kluth ship can put out offsets any lost prestige for its death. death is meaningless.
Downsides:
ECCM pinging can get very difficult to deal with if numbers are imbalanced. 1 or 2 ECCM ships can keep you visible enough that a couple other ships can kill you. however, this is 3-4 ships, 5 including a dictor, to guarentee the death of 1 other. no other faction really needs that high a ship to target ratio to guarentee a kill. in one or two instances it was also possible to simply evade fire long enough to escape dictor, or kill it outright.
the lack of more heavy frontal armour was really the main drawback. the ships are generally capable of firing more shots than the frontal armour will last you, meaning i often left a fight not because of energy problems or even because all my armour was down, but simply that the frontal armour had given out and i was taking hull damage. using the 2 side armour plates to some extent could extend your combat time but then energy did become a problem. this same problem exists on UGTO assault vessels
the only reason energy was ever a problem was because the other guy hadnt died yet. after a couple hours experience, i never had it flatline on me to the extent that it got me killed. in one or two instances i had to wait a bit longer to cloak, or i cloaked and then cloak failed a few seconds after. this never cost me a ship though. the only thing you had to watch for was flatlining energy before the JD was charged, that was usually bad.
(2 others agreed completely to all of the above)
*********
post 2
K'Luth have been killdozers since they got armor and giving them more armor is a terrible idea. Not to mention, organic armor has a ridiculous recharge rate. You can be back up to combat-ready armor IN THE SAME FIGHT right now.
*********
post 3
Death did not come but by my choosing,
Death also is a swift reward for any mistake made.
Armor recharged way faster with double AHR than with no AHR.
One scout and one dicto effectively shuts down luth operations, assuming you have the muscle to back it up.
Kluth tranny rush is undefendable. save, building a redonculuse amount of sensor plats or bases.
Most kluth players I ran across were not team players.
that being said, the best kluth pilots I saw, and they are extraordinary, were the {Vier} brothers on wolf.
If larco picked a target, i was able to make it dead. Thats something thats not always possible with icc.
Kluth hit and run tatics dont apply too well against ICC, as ICC has Def mode.
Kluth are only truly effective in superior numbers of 2/1 or better.
where as on icc I can fight 3 luth at once no problem, as a luth, one assault class ship poses problems.
*********
post 4
When chosing my faction, I skipped over UGTO rather quickly (EVERYONE plays UGTO. I like to be different) and went to Kluth. Aliens are cool, right?
I passed them up a week laters simply because it was TOO EASY. You have the best offense, your armor repairs from 0% in minutes, and you can engage and leave battle at will.
The only problems I had as Kluth is when you run into a good AD/EAD that wants you DEAD, and they have a scout around. You WILL NOT survive without help.
I was trying to outrun a BD for 10 minutes, every few seconds he'd get a ping from a scout next to him, and I'd either be taking full hits on weak armor or near misses CONSTANTLY. They had a dictor up, so I basically just flew around till I died. Was extremely annoying. (for the record, it was krim....good god he never misses)
Kluth can easily move through a splintered fleet (do UGTO ever use tactics? =P ) and force a dictor to disengage.
My thoughts differ from (post 1), in that I believe EW can be used to great effect, especially if the scout is experienced. The number of ECCM and rate of recharge on a scout effectively neutralizes cloak on all ships. Problem is, you have to give the kluth a reason to stay cloaked long enough.
(Ed: I personally have a bit of an issue in that this means the most experienced pilots have to be flying scouts in order for them to be effective. if you consider it, a scout pilot has to A) evade fire, with most alphas killing it immediately, B) cycle 3-5 ECCMs at a constant rate to afford maximum detection, C) if beaconing, also be aiming and firing at the same time, D) also maintain range on the target and try to plan where to go next. the amount of work being done by this single pilot in this single ship is probably the most intensive of any ship in the entire game. this also presumes any individual ping lasts long enough for someone to get a bearing on the enemy target, its speed and direction, which is often not the case. on the flip side, a kluth pilot hits V and then zigzags to safety.)
[ This Message was edited by: N'kra The Wolf on 2010-08-12 12:37 ]
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Admiral Larky, The Wolf
Don't play with fire, play with Larky.
Raven Division Command - 1st Division
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Lark of Serenity
Grand Admiral
Raven Warriors
Joined: June 02, 2002
Posts: 2516
| Posted: 2010-08-12 13:17
As Draf brought up:
the other downside is that from a newbies perspective kluth are probably very difficult to get into quickly. as one of our posts noted though it was easy even from that perspective though, and with some guidance a newbie can be on his or her way very quickly.
however, the concept behind kluth is not nearly as difficult as many people make it out to be. all you need to learn is when to cloak and how much time and energy it takes. on the flip side human players need to learn when to pulse, when to ping, when to rotate shields, etc. so it balances out complexity wise imo.
newbie retention on kluth *is* another problem of its own accord though, which should be fixed somehow: a complete and robust tutorial that fully introduces everyone to the three factions would be a good place to start.
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Admiral Larky, The Wolf
Don't play with fire, play with Larky.
Raven Division Command - 1st Division
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BackSlash
Marshal
Galactic Navy
Joined: March 23, 2003
Posts: 11183
From: Bristol, England
| Posted: 2010-08-12 15:07
We're already looking at changing the cloak mechanic to add a cooldown to enforce a little risk in when to cloak or decloak. Couple this with a potential no-cloak zone around enemy planets, and you can solve quite a few issues with relative ease. However, a lot of thought has to go in before any of these changes remotely make it to code.
Planetary changes will solve all forms of tranny rushing, so that's already fixed to some extent.
All in all, I've received VERY good feedback today both from yourself and Pakhos into what steps we need to make to solve some issues on K'luth.
Thanks.
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Azure Prower
Chief Marshal
Joined: March 14, 2006
Posts: 309
| Posted: 2010-08-12 15:24
Quote:
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On 2010-08-12 12:28, N'kra The Wolf wrote:
The following are a series of reviews posted in the Raven forums. No names are attached directly to any review to maintain anonymity. the first section is somewhat of an amalgamation of many different inputs to give a main idea, with the rest offering other inputs.
This will be PM'd to a couple devs in case this post is viewed as flame bait of some kind.
post 1
combat:
offense: its very interesting. you usually have to try really hard to die i found. even in a dread, escaping from a fight wasnt terribly difficult. the fact that people tend to target what they can see also means you can save someone whose about to die simply by decloaking (which was the case in one dramatic example where a dread at 1% was saved by me decloaking as he cloaked. they did try to continue tracking the other dread momentarily but cloak allowed him to evade fire, and i represented a bigger threat). occasionally i made mistakes and got killed or the enemy fleet was very clearly out to get me or someone else, in which case yeah youll get killed. but survivability is pretty high. its also interesting that there is really honestly no reason to fly anything other than a dread or dictor. you see stations out now and again but they arent really necessary
when attacking a fleet around a planet cluster you could essentially discount the planets except for their dictor as well. on repeated occasions a group of dreads moved into the heart of a planetary cluster with a dictor, and trapped and killed a station and its support - this despite there being 5 planets with multiple ECCM bases on each, or the station having combat support nearby. on one occasion we repeated this 3-4 times and lost 1 ship in the entire run, and really it was his fault.
[...]
the more scouts, dictors, supply ships, and ECCM boats there were the more imbalanced the fight was in kluths favour because the humans combat ability went down.
[...]
EW:
as mentioned: cloak provided very high survivability and very good defense. if the enemy fleet was large enough to take out beacon scouts, if you had even numbers you could safely ignore the beacons - every scout was simply a hit to human firepower. the only ships i ever felt remotely threatened by were the AD/EAD and LS/BS, and even then it wasnt really a big deal.
since its impossible for human ships to tag an enemy kluth ship to the point that it cannot potentially escape unless simply totally surrounded, it was also possible to save other pilots simply be decloaking. in one instance a kluth dread was being hit by multiple missiles, cannons, and other weapons, but successfully cloaked. i decloaked in response and redirected human fire. the amount of time it would have taken them to track down and kill the other dread, even at 1%, would have been enough for me to line up a jump and kill one of their pilots and guarenteed the other ships escape. truly, the survivability of kluth vessels is absurd.
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The above points are what I've been trying to emphasize for a while now. Takes a minimum of three ships on ICC or UGTO to kill one K'Luth. Even then the K'Luth can still kill the interdictor and/or escape. I don't even fear AD/EAD... I just decloak, hit them from behind, cloak again before they can turn their ships main guns around on me.
In the time I have been playing K'Luth, I have not died once. Not once due to being under fire and unable to escape. The only time I did die is when I jumped away with 25% hull in my mandible from a UGTO station. Saw the station was almost dead, jumped back and self destructed right on top of it.
I also love being able to AFK almost any where I want. Just hit cloak and bam, instant safety.
If K'Luth are kept the way they are. I'm going to play it permanently. I'm lovin' it.
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Wild Cat
Fleet Admiral
Joined: August 28, 2004
Posts: 109
From: The Netherlands
| Posted: 2010-08-12 17:22
Thanks for sharing N'kra The Wolf,
It pretty much sums up why I don't play K'luth. It felt to much like "Easy Mode" and "Over Kill". (No flaming intended)
When playing UGTO (or ICC) I find it a challenge when facing K'luth in combat, a certain thrill of excitement. I'm never really sure if I'm alone or have a K'luth stalking about. Attacking K'luth is never with out risk, for your never fully certain if he's alone or has more allies lurking about.
I'm happy to hear that the cloaking mechanic is being looked at
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Wild Cat
Dutch Time
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Jar Jar Binks
Grand Admiral
Joined: December 25, 2001
Posts: 556
| Posted: 2010-08-12 18:40
Quote:
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On 2010-08-12 15:07, BackSlash wrote:
We're already looking at changing the cloak mechanic to add a cooldown to enforce a little risk in when to cloak or decloak. Couple this with a potential no-cloak zone around enemy planets, and you can solve quite a few issues with relative ease. However, a lot of thought has to go in before any of these changes remotely make it to code.
Planetary changes will solve all forms of tranny rushing, so that's already fixed to some extent.
All in all, I've received VERY good feedback today both from yourself and Pakhos into what steps we need to make to solve some issues on K'luth.
Thanks.
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you do know that the recloak isnt whats making us imbalanced right?
i still think that cloak in any useful form is going to make k'luth imbalanced, and no amount of cloak cooldowns are going to stop them from setting up perfect ambushes. and its generally those that win us the battles, being able to recloak and escape a death wont do anything but save us pres as we don't recloak untill were deep in hull anyway.
and at that point were generally out of the action until we have repaired, so the situation wont change drastically other then that we might die a tad more often.
so were still gonna end up doing pretty much anything we please with the enemy and their dog...
the thing that makes k'luth imbalanced is the cloak iteslf, nothing else.
/edit: adding a recloak timer only serves to balance it against 1v1 battles, not fleet versus fleet.
[ This Message was edited by: Jar Jar Binks on 2010-08-12 18:44 ]
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Fatal Perihelion
Chief Marshal
Fatal Squadron
Joined: April 15, 2010
Posts: 308
| Posted: 2010-08-12 18:48
Thats interesting, thank you for the big effort you guys made!
To me the most important thing you say is this:
The more small ships are used against Kluth dreads, the fewer the chances to prevail and the higher the threat for those who are in a big ship themselves.
The only thing that bothers me at all, is that Kluth save a lot of credits, surviving any time. Or the other way round: Fighting Kluth is expensive.
Like WildCat says: Fighting Kluth is thrilling and i dont want it to be changed.
+ It is possible to deal with them, all it takes is enough dreads (esp. AD and EAD) and teamwork.
About tranny rushing: Anyone can do it:,2 bomber frigs and 1 ECM support make it happen very easy, maybe not as easy as Kluth.
Taking 5 ADs and give Kluth hell.
This is essential: Kluth are very strong, but with the right set up and command humans are even stronger.
I will go even further: This it what makes the game fun!
Now we have a kind of scientific examination here on Kluth.
Disapointing: The first week nothing happend, then in just ONE day ICC was kicked out of Sag.
So there was no real showdown between Raven and PB, the transfer gate
between Cassiopaia and Sagitarius stopped all real battle.
Raven did not proove Kluth is op in COMBAT.
And you changed your name... not brave. I understand that raven just dont have the numbers, so your big Kluth experiment had to fail anyway.
Numbers are too important, you had no chance, hope you realize.
[ This Message was edited by: Fatal Perihelion on 2010-08-12 19:31 ]
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Sopwith Camel
Grand Admiral
Galactic Navy
Joined: March 07, 2002
Posts: 651
From: Toronto
| Posted: 2010-08-12 18:48
How about putting in a slightly longer delay between uncloaking and weapon firing? That would give the humans a bit more time to react, either by jumping or by firing the first volley.
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Fleet Commander, Galactic Navy
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Fatal Perihelion
Chief Marshal
Fatal Squadron
Joined: April 15, 2010
Posts: 308
| Posted: 2010-08-12 19:02
Hey, now its the other way round: 3 Kluth decloaking cause a lag-freeze-die-shock-aw-miracle-fluxx
(sometimes).
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$yTHe {C?}
Grand Admiral
Sundered Weimeriners
Joined: September 29, 2002
Posts: 1292
From: Arlington, VA
| Posted: 2010-08-12 19:09
Quote:
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On 2010-08-12 18:48, Sopwith Camel wrote:
How about putting in a slightly longer delay between uncloaking and weapon firing? That would give the humans a bit more time to react, either by jumping or by firing the first volley.
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That's what we had last time, and it was far too easy to avoid K'Luth. The cooldown is a better idea because instead of just adding suck to cloak, it adds a tactical element. It is a bit more subtle than a "nerf".
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Jar Jar Binks
Grand Admiral
Joined: December 25, 2001
Posts: 556
| Posted: 2010-08-12 19:16
Quote:
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On 2010-08-12 19:09, $yTHe {C?} wrote:
Quote:
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On 2010-08-12 18:48, Sopwith Camel wrote:
How about putting in a slightly longer delay between uncloaking and weapon firing? That would give the humans a bit more time to react, either by jumping or by firing the first volley.
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That's what we had last time, and it was far too easy to avoid K'Luth. The cooldown is a better idea because instead of just adding suck to cloak, it adds a tactical element. It is a bit more subtle than a "nerf".
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just that it wont do anything against the real issue of the imbalance 
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MrSparkle
Marshal
Joined: August 13, 2001
Posts: 1912
From: mrsparkle
| Posted: 2010-08-12 19:43
Where's the ICC fromthe eyes of PB thread? I want to see how their opinions on ICC are formulated to support their preconceived opinions of that faction.
(IE I don't expect anyone involved to give honest, non-biased opinions on the two factions. I rather expect them to come up with opinions that best support their own factions and are close to what they thought before the switch, like "Kluth is too easy just do this this and this", or "ICC just has to do this this and this so what's with all the QQ")
EDIT: To put it another way, I don't expect anyone's opinions on the enemy faction to have changed. I'd love to be wrong though! It's just that my experience in other games has shown that people stick to their opinions and do whatever it takes to try to prove them correct, even in cases like this 2 week switch.
[ This Message was edited by: MrSparkle on 2010-08-12 19:45 ]
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Talien
Marshal
Templar Knights
Joined: May 11, 2010
Posts: 2044
From: Michigan
| Posted: 2010-08-12 21:11
Quote:
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On 2010-08-12 19:43, MrSparkle wrote:
Where's the ICC fromthe eyes of PB thread? I want to see how their opinions on ICC are formulated to support their preconceived opinions of that faction.
(IE I don't expect anyone involved to give honest, non-biased opinions on the two factions. I rather expect them to come up with opinions that best support their own factions and are close to what they thought before the switch, like "Kluth is too easy just do this this and this", or "ICC just has to do this this and this so what's with all the QQ")
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Yeah, that's what I'm waiting for, the PB players opinions on what it was like to play ICC. I asked a few of them in game and didn't get anything real concrete, a couple saying they'll be glad when they switch back, and a few jokes about finally being able to kill some annoying people they couldn't kill before because FF is illegal.
Though honestly, I laughed at that and briefly considered going luth for a while with my other account for the same reason.
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Mint Ice Cream[+R]
Grand Admiral
Joined: December 05, 2009
Posts: 43
| Posted: 2010-08-12 21:30
just make everything the same if u want a balanced game...
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Azure Prower
Chief Marshal
Joined: March 14, 2006
Posts: 309
| Posted: 2010-08-12 21:57
The answer is not to nerf K'Luth cloaking. The answer is to provide better/improved ways of detecting them.
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