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1.73 cloak changes |
Borgie
Chief Marshal
Pitch Black
Joined: August 15, 2005
Posts: 2256
From: close by
|  Posted: 2013-12-22 07:08
i have a few questions reguarding the proposed cloak changes.
First, if these changes make it live can you put a timer on the HUd saying how much time i have left in cloak.
Second am I correct to assume that if on dreds i can cloak for 90 seconds i can recloak a minute later( 2/3 of 90 is 60 right?)
Third, why are any more changes to cloak really needed, since 1.7 the devs have pretty much took everything that was fun about luth and shat on it with cloak changes, now the these upcomming changes make luth play more like ugto with weaker armor.
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Jim Starluck
Marshal
Templar Knights
Joined: October 22, 2001
Posts: 2232
From: Cincinnati, OH
| Posted: 2013-12-22 10:09
Quote:
On 2013-12-22 07:08, Borgie wrote:
i have a few questions reguarding the proposed cloak changes.
First, if these changes make it live can you put a timer on the HUd saying how much time i have left in cloak.
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I plan to have that added before release.
Quote:
Second am I correct to assume that if on dreds i can cloak for 90 seconds i can recloak a minute later( 2/3 of 90 is 60 right?)
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Correct. Dreadnoughts take 12 seconds to activate the cloak, can spend up to 90 seconds cloaked, take a mere 1.5 seconds to decloak, and then have a 60 second cooldown. All of these vary by ship-level, but the proportions are the same.
Quote:
Third, why are any more changes to cloak really needed, since 1.7 the devs have pretty much took everything that was fun about luth and shat on it with cloak changes, now the these upcomming changes make luth play more like ugto with weaker armor.
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The intent here was to make the choice of when to cloak far more tactical, something you had to put thought into, instead of just a get-out-of-combat-free card like it is now.
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Raini
Commander
My Little Pony
Joined: December 27, 2012
Posts: 2
| Posted: 2013-12-22 12:55
I personally like playing as a luthie with the cloak. It's not as easy as it was before, and I prefer tactical challenges presented by this faction. The cloak is effective as long as you know your limits.
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Orkan [OO-XII]
Grand Admiral
The Myrmidon Legion
Joined: April 22, 2010
Posts: 201
From: A Point Perfectly Computed Yet Never Repeating
| Posted: 2013-12-22 14:42
Quote:
On 2013-12-22 10:09, Jim Starluck wrote:
The intent here was to make the choice of when to cloak far more tactical, something you had to put thought into, instead of just a get-out-of-combat-free card like it is now.
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Sup Darkspace!
Well, this is a 'game changer' indeed.
Jim is correct about the K'luth faction being able to have this 'get out of combat free' situation. Something has to change.
To use an analogy it seems as if we are moving back in time (eg tech is getting worse) from the age of the 'true submarine' of modern day Navys back to the 'submersible' ship capability of subs during the second world war. Now no longer able to stay submerged (cloaked) indefinately K'Luth pilots will have to adapt to a new way of using cloak paired with E-War to be truly effective.
I never thought I would be saying this as ICC but perhaps this is not the best way to go. (!) (more on this later...)
This new approach means that K'luth are forced into truly making use of E-war to hide their vessels as the other factions are. That is a good thing and how it should be.
K'luth have presently been treating E-war role as a novelty rather than a necessary part of team survival and have been able to concentrate on combat ships that do extreme damage as well as Supply support and have largely neglected the use of E-war to mask their signature and make them untargettable. This combined with their ability to do massive damage and then melt away rendering missiles, fighters, mines and all other weapon types that require an autolock useless has saved their skins way too many times. Blind firing with harpex is nice though and most satisfying when it works but who is gonna sit in a Missile Dread and take that risk with the present cloak system (!)
Presently hardly anyone at 'the missile faction' ICC deploys missiles against K'luth as not only is the damage lame (on sub-Dread class ships - good to hear that's changing) remember that around two to four missiles of each salvo will be PD'ed even by K'Luth ships, but also a salvo is rendered obsolete with a quick tap of the 'V' key. This change will stop that and will make missiles more of a viable option versus the K'Luth.
The new cooldown and time-limit of active cloak will make cloak tactics reliant upon E-war to be effective as I had said before and that will make our indirect fire much more deadly than before - just watch for that blue ping people and mass fire there. Good for ICC and UGTO, bad for K'Luth.
For the rapid attacking efficient K'luth pilot not much will change however as their pattern will still be:
Jump in
cloak
setup attack run
uncloak
engage
disengage
cloak
begin exit vector or make another pass
set jump location or setup 2nd attack run
uncloak
jump out or reengage
etc.
In fact not following this pattern will be hazardous to their hull.
It will totally remove their creep/lurk tactic which to be honest is most probably their best loved eg
Jump in
cloak
slowly/quickly approach target at sub-light
wait for opportunity (lurk - this presently can be a long time!)
setup attack run
engage
disengage
cloak
wait for AHR (Auto Hull Repair) to repair damage
wait for opportunity or setup 2nd attack run or set exit jump location
uncloak
engage or jump out
etc
To deny them this is a big thing and will make DS lose something great it had. As ICC if you don't see them jump out you have to know they are still there, you just don't know when they will strike!
With the proposed changes you will know that the attack will come 90 - 75 seconds (Dread - Cruiser) or less after you heard the warning of Enemy contact in sensor range or saw the K'luth jump in and 'go under'. This will force K'luth to use cloak as an immediate 'about-to-stike' or 'about-to-leave' option rather than as a 'get-out-of-combat-free' card as mentioned above. You'll also know exactly how many Luth you are dealing with as their typical ambush tactics will be rendered obsolete. No longer will they be able to have one 'bait' craft with 2 or more others creeping into perfect ambush position - the good ol' bait and wait.
This timing will enable the human factions to accurately approximate the attack time of new hostiles and will make the pattern of their attacks predictable. Especially in Planet defense scenarios - A grave disadvantage for the Luth.
I should be whooping for Joy as K'Luth have needed a change to their present OP Cloak to return the balance of Power but I am not convinced that this is it.
I can think of 2 other changes that would perhaps balance the game and preserve the ability for K'luth to cloak indefinately without it being OP.
1 - Make K'luth more squishy again - decrease the HP of their armour, especially on one particular arc (eg rear for most front based attack ships or front for minelayer types, side for others)
2 - Make K'Luth ships much more susceptible to cloak 'burning' (loss of energy and subsequent damage to cloak device) much more possible to achieve with E-war ECCM from ship, planet and platform based gadgets.
EG no Enemy ECCM = indefinite cloak. 1 Enemy sensor frigate or 2 sensor plats in range after 90/75 secs (according to energy thus hull class) = "whoa, where did my cloak go, oh no! it's gone red! I better get away to planet/supply plat to rep up!"
On the other hand regarding ICC two following options could be considered to make combat against K'luth more fair (as isn't this ultimately why cloak changes are being brought about?).
Let's face it ICC combat versus the K'luth in 1.702 is like suffering a Home Invasion armed with only a gun with rubber bullets for defense versus your masked camo-clad attacker(s) armed with Shotgun(s) and Machine gun(s). Everytime. Jumping out is like getting to your panic room and even then if they've brought the C4 and d(K)rill you've had it - if that analogy works : /
The real issue here is that K'luth damage output in teamwork is so far greater than ICC damage output in teamwork. Let's for a moment remove the cloak from the equation entirely. 4 ICC combat dreads vs 4 Kluth Dreads (of same rank class). 4 Luth dreads focus firing on a single ICC Dread will make short work of it. 4 combat dreads focus firing on a single K'luth dread will take considerably longer to destroy it. In a 4 on 4 matchup assuming all 8 pilots are of equal skill I feel I can safely assume that the K'luth will win every time. We should even setup an experiment that proves if this assumption is correct. This is why I think that the present 1.702 release is not quite right in terms of balance. If it is balanced 2 ships should be able to destroy 2 ships on both sides, a stalemate. Any other combination should indicate that the winning side has the statistical and definate advantage. Of course there are many factors at play in combat but this should serve as a good rule of thumb.
Two other ideas, a and b could go some way to balance the game rather than changing the K'luth cloak in this way.
a - K'luth have 6 ship types with core weapon Stellar Incinerators, even a set on a Ravager Destroyer (yes tier 3 but a Destroyer nonetheless) compare that with only 2 ICC ship types that have core weapons, Ion cannons, on ICC - Combat Dreadnought and Strike Cruiser and that is a tier 3 Marshal ranked ship. So effectively for most players you only get to use Ion Cannons on a Dangerous Dread. More ICC ships should have these core weapons as ICC damage output (is meant to be the lowest of the three factions I know) is feeble and gives K'luth too much time to tank damage and leisurely employ cloak to escape or jump out - 2 possible exit strategies where other factions have one.
b - Increase ICC shield HP across the board OR/AND give them greater resistance to Energy weapons.
I will leave the balance details up to the those who design the ships - In Devs We Trust! : )
UGTO in my opinion has no such need of tweaks as they are fairly balanced. The K'luth prefer engaging us (ICC) I feel as the damage on UGTO weapons is far more serious and the Flux wave is the close range deterrant which they are wary of. Pulse wave helps ICC against Luth exactly how? (sarcasm : P)
These are just my feelings as this new cloak change will totally change and shake up the game - remember this is coming from an ICC player.
In short I think making cloak drain faster from ECM and decreasing Luth armour HP overall as well as buffing up ICC defense in combat ( I am aware of the 4x shield regeneration out of combat bonus as well as the recent buff but that does not help when you cannot get out of combat due to sustained organized, often multiple, enemy attacks) and redeploying Ion Cannons on a few more ship types will be enough to balance the game. How these details are balanced is as ever up to the Devs.
Laters All - Take care of yourselves.
[ This Message was edited by: Orkan [OO-XI] on 2013-12-22 15:59 ]
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Raini
Commander
My Little Pony
Joined: December 27, 2012
Posts: 2
| Posted: 2013-12-22 16:32
Sounds to me like a glorified way of saying "I want to nerf the cloak and the survivability of the K'luth EVEN more!"
Even now the cloaking device is only effective when you know YOUR limits and your SHIP's limits. If you cloak at 45% hull with no armor, chances are pretty slim that you will survive, as almost every player blind fires against the k'luth nowadays, you need to give yourself some buffer time so you don't die mid-cloak.
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Enterprise
Chief Marshal
Joined: May 19, 2002
Posts: 2576
From: Hawthorne, Nevada
| Posted: 2013-12-22 17:03
Quote:
On 2013-12-22 14:42, Orkan [OO-XI] wrote:
For the rapid attacking efficient K'luth pilot not much will change however as their pattern will still be:
Jump in
cloak
setup attack run
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By the way, they better hope they get in range before they run out of cloak time. Lets assume they do.
Depending on the signature, how long they fought and burned through their energy, and what condition they are in they may not have
a. the energy to cloak because their energy is too low
b. the energy to cloak because their signature is too high
Otherwise, they will be
c. Doing a victory lap because they totally played their cards right and smoked the enemy
d. Looking for a way out because they're a sitting duck (which, since JD still charges during cloak, should not be too hard)
Not to mention, how stupidly good cloak gets when you have zero signature. Zero energy cost to cloak. And now that cloak takes no energy while cloaked, you can regen energy freely that whole time.
But, that means actually using EWAR, and teamwork, etc. And if humans decide to deploy EWAR, they're giving up some combat functionality (Kluth hit harder to begin with). But most importantly, it means you cannot spam it. It is not something that gets you out of combat for free, it is not something that lets you get into combat for free, it means you have just as much risk as everyone else does.
It does still mean however, you get the first strike.
[ This Message was edited by: Ent on 2013-12-22 17:44 ]
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Orkan [OO-XII]
Grand Admiral
The Myrmidon Legion
Joined: April 22, 2010
Posts: 201
From: A Point Perfectly Computed Yet Never Repeating
| Posted: 2013-12-22 19:34
To add to what I stated above, after some discussion, It has come to my attention that perhaps it is the HP strength of Chitin armour in itself which is the real balance breaker.
I believe Jhomes brought up the issue of its signature decreasing as it takes damage thus negating its signature penalty.
The strongest weapons coupled with a hardy carapace with a dab of invisibility mixed in does not for balance make.
Perhaps it's HP should be decreased. In some cases it is stronger than ICC defences, I shall have to look into this in more detail...
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Borgie
Chief Marshal
Pitch Black
Joined: August 15, 2005
Posts: 2256
From: close by
| Posted: 2013-12-22 20:22
i think most people are forgetting to see the real issue with this new changes, it plays right in to the hands of both icc and ugto who planet camp. if these changes goes though human factions mind set will now be luth combat. fall back to our sensor forts and watch them not be able to cloak.
its no big secert that the cloak on luth is the most hated gadget in the game, even jack has mentioned a few times that he would love it removed. now with this current change, and 1.70 changes the cloak is extremly useless, pretty much forcing luth to play like ugto then hit and run like we used to.
what i would like to see be done with the luth is return them to a hit and run faction. lower are armor down quite a bit give us faster regen to make up for the low hp and a cloak that is based on sig, the more eccm in the area the harder it is to cloak, and uncloak. removing chit armor as a upgrade path would be a good start have it be an option for ahr not organic armor.
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Ignorance
Grand Admiral
Joined: October 27, 2012
Posts: 85
| Posted: 2013-12-22 23:44
I give up. Do what you want with the cloak, I just won't play K'luth anymore.
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-xTc- ExisT
Chief Marshal
Army Of Darkness
Joined: March 20, 2010
Posts: 534
From: Red Lobster
| Posted: 2013-12-22 23:55
Quote:
On 2013-12-22 20:22, Borgie wrote:
i think most people are forgetting to see the real issue with this new changes, it plays right in to the hands of both icc and ugto who planet camp. if these changes goes though human factions mind set will now be luth combat. fall back to our sensor forts and watch them not be able to cloak.
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I was sort of thinking about this today.
These changes might make large stagnant fleet standoffs more common, for kluth at least. And kluth already sucks at standoff situations.
We will still have the ability for a first strike, although it will be much more limited in scope and we will have to move very quickly to gain positioning/reach optimal ranges once cloak is initiated. I do believe the act of waiting around for that perfect opportunity/an enemy to isolate itself, will be eliminated entirely, do to the timer of how long cloak is maintained. At least it won't drain energy while cloaked.
Escaping with cloak will be entirely much much harder, which I think is the point of this change. Especially if the enemy brings ECCM, which they usually aren't smart enough to bring(even in release,, ECCM is crippling to us and I just don't understand why humans don't use it more!LOL)
Energy management will be huge, timing your attacks.....and ELF will be more critical to use than ever, to maintain energy levels.
I have yet to play with it in beta, so I don't have a feel for these new numbers and how reasonable they seem yet. This will change soon
Little off topic here, but kluth feels extremely powerful vs icc, and I think the main issue with that is chit armor! Do you know how many icc cruisers I can take on with my parasite and a few plates of chit armor!?? My current record is 6!
It also doesn't help that icc only flies heavy cruisers, it's cannons doesn't hurt our cruisers at all, and torps are no good if your enemy can dodge them! You should be flying storm cruisers vs lobsters! Beams eat our ravagers and scythes for breakfast.
Anyway.
Before 1.7 was released, I was fairly worried about the cloak changes, but once released I quickly adapted and I felt like it made me a better kluth player. We will see what 1.703 brings, I've always enjoyed a new challenge:) I've already got a few dirty EWAR mods in mind to help my team, we will see how it plays out!
-x
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Azreal
Chief Marshal
Joined: March 14, 2004
Posts: 2816
From: United State of Texas, Houston
| Posted: 2013-12-23 05:08
This is a better cloak. I approve.
The problem with your cloak now, you silly kluth, is it doesnt break as it was intended. So quit your crying. Your cloak is more op now than it was supposed to be.
I hope it will curtail some more of the dread use, an issue that continues to bust the balance of the factions. (refer to killboard for your proof)
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Kenny_Naboo
Marshal
Pitch Black
Joined: January 11, 2010
Posts: 3823
From: LobsterTown
| Posted: 2013-12-23 10:10
IMO, the changes has it merits.
But there are a couple things wrong. So these are the problems I see:
Kluth will have to jump in relatively close to the enemy and immediately cloak. There are two things going on, and the clock is ticking:
- The problems are:
>> Your JD may not be fully charged
>> Your cloak is still in cooldown
>> You may not have enough energy after all that shooting to even cloak
- You have a limited time before your cloak runs out
- If the enemy is on the move, you may not get into optimal weapons range before the cloak timer runs out. You'll probably abort the approach midway once you realize it.
- Your JD is still not charged after you jump in and cloak, and it actually takes a lot longer to charge the JD than for the cloak to run out.
- Once your cloak timer runs out, you may be forced to engage or run. And given the inherent weak armor of Kluth, you will probably have to run or hide once you get damaged enough. But since the JD is out, and the cloak is still in cooldown, you'll most probably die. So why even bother starting the attack?
In the end, if this idea was meant to encourage Kluth to engage more, I honestly think it won't work.
As a Kluth player, I'll simply wait only for the best possible opportunities to strike. Other than that, I'll simply sit out combat and wait.
- If there's a group of human vessels travelling together, spamming ECCM, I'll sit it out.
- If they're around a planet with sensor bases or sensor plats, I'll sit it out.
- If I jump in and the enemy turns tail and increases speed, I'll probably turn tail and open the distance too. Because there's no way I'll catch them before my cloak expires, leaving me vulnerable with no JD and a long cooldown.
End result: Less combat overall. Because Kluth players will simply refuse to engage human ships unless conditions are completely optimal.
IMO, the cloak time limit needs to be set substantially long enough to allow a Kluth ship to make its approach. A dessie jumping in at 800 gus from a group of enemies need at least a minute to properly get into optimal firing range while avoiding counterfire.
A dread takes even longer than that. Given a 12 seconds cloak time, the pilot will choose to jump in further out from an enemy group to avoid counterfire. And given the acceleration and speed of a dread, it may well take a few minutes to get into firing range.
My suggestion: The cloak time limit should be set at around the same length of time as the JD recharge for that class of ship. This way, you won't disincentivize a Kluth from engaging the enemy. As it is, having a short cloak time, long cooldown time, coupled with an uncharged JD. It's a deathtrap situation.
Would you attack an enemy given those constraints? I know I wouldn't.
Next, the cloak cooldown. IMO, there's no point to adding too long a cooldown.
Once a Kluth ship decloaks to attack, it will begin spending its energy shooting. In addition to that, it's sig will be raise substantially with all that activity. It is highly unlikely that he will be able to cloak again, given the fact that he/she is also in such close proximity to an enemy radiating ECCM. If he wants to cloak, he will have to cease firing to conserve energy and open up the distance.
[ This Message was edited by: Kenny_Naboo on 2013-12-23 19:16 ]
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Talien
Marshal
Templar Knights
Joined: May 11, 2010
Posts: 2044
From: Michigan
| Posted: 2013-12-23 19:52
ICC isn't the only faction that has ECM available, bugs and thugs have it too. Just use ECM while stalking the targets and cloak before starting the attack run.
Of course, removing the graphic effect of ECM would help greatly. Those stupid rings being visible even when the ship itself takes a bit of usefulness away.
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Kenny_Naboo
Marshal
Pitch Black
Joined: January 11, 2010
Posts: 3823
From: LobsterTown
| Posted: 2013-12-23 20:37
Quote:
On 2013-12-23 19:52, Talien wrote:
ICC isn't the only faction that has ECM available, bugs and thugs have it too. Just use ECM while stalking the targets and cloak before starting the attack run.
Of course, removing the graphic effect of ECM would help greatly. Those stupid rings being visible even when the ship itself takes a bit of usefulness away.
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Still iffy. After cloaking your energy is partly or mostly drained, and it's questionable that when you decloak to strike (or when the cloak runs out) if you have enough energy to sustain the strike, much less cloak again if you last the entire cooldown period. The only option is to escape after your attack, which will probably be short. One to three strikes?
A Kluth player could wait it out in ECM until his JD is half charged or almost ready before he cloaked and made his attack run. That is one possibility. But too short a cloak time still limits his energy option once he decloaks to attack.
Will probably find the time to test this in Beta.
Other than that, if lengthening the cloak time limit is not an option, another suggestion I would have is to revert the Kluth JD recharge (and JD speed) back to its old pre 1.7 state.
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Pantheon
Marshal
Palestar
Joined: May 29, 2001
Posts: 1789
| Posted: 2013-12-23 21:21
I think all are valid points, but using arguements that other factions are forced to deal with as reasons for the new cloak being bad isn't exactly... yeah.
I know a lot of K'Luth are going to see this as a 'taking away' (and why wouldn't you, cloak is insanely powerful, and overpowered in many situations, in its current form), but we're trying to curb play styles that are only affecting K'Luth right now, and certain situations wherein K'Luth have an unfair advantage (free get away card, for example).
I honestly think this is one of the better implimentations we've seen of Cloak, but as with everything, numbers are subject to change, and we need feedback regarding it.
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