Shield Nova Nerf... Why?

[seekeronos]

Preface: Yes, I'm a tad annoyed.

Not necessarily looking for a flame war either; just some honest answers and perhaps some justification for a change that at first look seems a bit unreasonable.

The Issue:

I'm hoping that the Dev (or Devs) who decided to nerf the PW/PP max level shield inversion skill "Shield Nova" with a lengthy recast timer would explain why s/he thought this would be a good idea, or as some have allegedly been told that this skill was used as an "exploit".

I'm really hoping that the reason is something beyond a presumption that the skill as it was ... was an "exploit", when it was used in Live™ (and here in EMU) to farm faction for RD gate access.

And I reallllllly hope.... that we (or rather, the Devs) are not going to start getting into the sort of obsessive class balancing that WoW has been known for, or the legendary nerf-fest-for-the-sake-of-class-balance that was SWG (with much quoted "Got Nerf Bat? Swing wide, swing hard, swing often".

Respectfully yours,

Seeker~

Edited May 18, 2010 by -Seeker-

[Tienbau]

I was told by someone that Shield Nova had a lengthy cooldown in live, so I changed it.

Maybe I ought to follow the rule "just because joe90tt on the server says something it must be true"

although you have to agree it was ridiculous just being able to sit there shield nova-ing as fast as you can click and shunting energy to shields using the infinite shunt bug (now fixed ). So there has to be a cooldown. Is 30 seconds too long?

Could we perhaps reach some agreement as to a suitable cooldown value that is balanced? Clearly instant recast is crazy, 30 seconds just seemed reasonable.

Arguments (as in, logically argued statements rather than actual rants) for a reasonable cooldown time please:

(EDIT: or any alternative system you can think of - perhaps one where you CAN have rapid recasts but extra recasts within the cooldown period cost progressively more and more shield energy, giving the player choice as to how to use their energy but keeping a good balance).

[Lars[IS]]

I was told by someone that Shield Nova had a lengthy cooldown in live, so I changed it.

Maybe I ought to follow the rule "just because joe90tt on the server says something it must be true"

although you have to agree it was ridiculous just being able to sit there shield nova-ing as fast as you can click and shunting energy to shields using the infinite shunt bug (now fixed ). So there has to be a cooldown. Is 30 seconds too long?

Could we perhaps reach some agreement as to a suitable cooldown value that is balanced? Clearly instant recast is crazy, 30 seconds just seemed reasonable.

Arguments (as in, logically argued statements rather than actual rants) for a reasonable cooldown time please:

(EDIT: or any alternative system you can think of - perhaps one where you CAN have rapid recasts but extra recasts within the cooldown period cost progressively more and more shield energy, giving the player choice as to how to use their energy but keeping a good balance).

Hello,

Well I believe in live there was no timer and to say this is crazy then you would have to also put a timer on the TT/PP shield recharge as well. He is why a timer will not work the shield nova/inversion:

A PW who knows how to use it correctlly will use he's/her shield inversion until there shields are at 50%, then turn it off, hit shield sap and fill up there shields and start shield inversion again. With any timer this combat tactic will not work and the shield nova now becomes more useless. Now yes you can farm for faction with the shield nova, but I can also farm for faction almost as fast with my JE and 2 sec beams. With the high lvl mobs having very long weapon range compared to what it was in live (FB mobs in live had around 3.5k compared to 8k now), the non-terran races need all the help they can get. TTYL :-)

Merlin

[Tienbau]

Hello,

Well I believe in live there was no timer and to say this is crazy then you would have to also put a timer on the TT/PP shield recharge as well. He is why a timer will not work the shield nova/inversion:

A PW who knows how to use it correctlly will use he's/her shield inversion until there shields are at 50%, then turn it off, hit shield sap and fill up there shields and start shield inversion again. With any timer this combat tactic will not work and the shield nova now becomes more useless. Now yes you can farm for faction with the shield nova, but I can also farm for faction almost as fast with my JE and 2 sec beams. With the high lvl mobs having very long weapon range compared to what it was in live (FB mobs in live had around 3.5k compared to 8k now), the non-terran races need all the help they can get. TTYL :-)

Merlin

ah I see that makes sense.

I think the original problem was that people were complaining how they could sit there all day shield nova-ing using the infinite shunt bug.

So you can shield nova as much as you want but your shields will deplete?

[seekeronos]

Merlin's got it right.

I didn't know about any shunt bug ... in Live, as in Emu, using any form of Shield Inversion causes shields to deplete.

Edited May 18, 2010 by -Seeker-

[bondct]

imho the problem here is not the timer... its the length of time that we are required to engage in a repetitivie action that is at question here... can you imagine farming rd faction (or any faction) one even level mob at a time... it could take months... so now put it in perspective...

lets say it takes 25 days played (average?) to get to L150... at 3 hours a day playing 7 days per week... that is 200 real life days of play time... now lets say by killing even level mobs for rd faction (which is just one of the many factions you need)... takes 4 days played... at 3 hours per day 7 days per week that is 32 real life days of play time...

now lets pretend we are not all video game addicts and have a real life and play say only 4 days a week (which is still partially addicted)... now we are looking at 14 months to get to L150 and have rd faction... and that is if we did nothing else... no raids nuttin... you want to get another faction as well now... you want to level past 150 to get more skill points... keep adding months...

the question here is, how many years do you want it to take to get all your possible skill points and all the needed reps and still be able to do other stuff? How many years was this game live again? How often do we have pwipes... and keep in mind most of this time is now being spent doin a repetitive mostly solo action...

we need some quick and dirty ways to do things... and this is why imo some of these things exsisted...

Edited May 18, 2010 by Avani

[seekeronos]

Additionally - PWs typically level Shield Inversion (hereinafter: SI) as among the last skills to cap (beams and MLs not being too far behind)

It really is a sort of a limited use skill, IMHO.... but dashed effective for farming faction.

And JDs (and any Jenquai for that matter) can farm faction effectively w/ beams from the mid 80s onward.

My Live JE had RD faction at L105, after about 40 hours of farming (my twitch skills aren't the greatest for swapping targets and pointing myself the right way)... a JD with five turbo beams and decent twitch skills could probably have green RD faction in about 3-4 hours of solid killing.

[Tienbau]

ok then - so would you agree to the following solution:

Instant cooldown on shield nova but with increased shield energy cost. At the moment the required shield power for nova is very small - about 150 units. Would a more reasonable cost be around 1000 units? Then if you've got a shield power of 150000 (or however big the lvl9's are) then at least you've got 75 uses or so to 50%.

[seekeronos]

now lets pretend we are not all video game addicts and have a real life and play say only 4 days a week (which is still partially addicted)... now we are looking at 14 months to get to L150 and have rd faction... and that is if we did nothing else... no raids nuttin... you want to get another faction as well now... you want to level past 150 to get more skill points... keep adding months...

In Live, this is EXACTLY the model EA (and really, any other MMO game company worth its salt) wanted to keep you feeding $$$ into their bank accounts.

Here, (assuming that this will be a free/donate-able game in its live state) there would have to be a balancce between prolonging the agony of the grind for money's sake... and keeping things just difficult enough to warrant being able to say proudly "I have RD and Bogeril faction, and five-inch thick thumb and fingertip calluses to prove it!"

Edited May 18, 2010 by -Seeker-

[seekeronos]

ok then - so would you agree to the following solution:

Instant cooldown on shield nova but with increased shield energy cost. At the moment the required shield power for nova is very small - about 150 units. Would a more reasonable cost be around 1000 units? Then if you've got a shield power of 150000 (or however big the lvl9's are) then at least you've got 75 uses or so to 50%.

I'm definitely cool with that.

[Tienbau]

In Live, this is EXACTLY the model EA (and really, any other MMO game company worth its salt) wanted to keep you feeding $$$ into their bank accounts.

Here, (assuming that this will be a free/donate-able game in its live state) there would have to be a balancce between prolonging the agony of the grind for money's sake... and keeping things just difficult enough to warrant being able to say proudly "I have RD and Bogeril faction, and five-inch thick thumb and fingertip calluses to prove it!"

yeah we've got a lot of ideas for gaining RD faction more quickly and also people with RD faction will be able to help others gain RD faction quickly but at risk to both (contraband smuggling, spying etc). There's no reason for it to take AGES! Back in live I worked out how long it would take me to get RD faction and didn't bother as I only had about 6-8 hours per week of game time and intended to enjoy it.

I'd be much happier getting my fingertip callouses from playing guitar or some such.

[Tienbau]

I'm definitely cool with that.

done. It'll be set up like that when we restart next.

[pull4rise]

Mr merlin this is not to diss u....but in live u didnt need to cancel shield nova in order to use sap...in live u could multi skills since i powerlvled alot of noobs in live that way until they made a 10cl difference gap for clvling i used shield nova and sap at the same time...the biggest difference here is u cant use multi skills and u can use sap more then once on the same mob....this wasnt the case in live if anyone used sap on a monster then no1 else could use it on the same monster.And to come back on the main issue SI never had a cooldown the only PW skill which did was SD.

[Tienbau]

Mr merlin this is not to diss u....but in live u didnt need to cancel shield nova in order to use sap...in live u could multi skills since i powerlvled alot of noobs in live that way until they made a 10cl difference gap for clvling i used shield nova and sap at the same time...the biggest difference here is u cant use multi skills and u can use sap more then once on the same mob....this wasnt the case in live if anyone used sap on a monster then no1 else could use it on the same monster.And to come back on the main issue SI never had a cooldown the only PW skill which did was SD.

sorry I didn't understand this paragraph beyond the bit about not dissing Mr Merlin. It looks like there might be relevant info in there but my babel fish isn't translating from the dialect you're using.

[Lars[IS]]

ok then - so would you agree to the following solution:

Instant cooldown on shield nova but with increased shield energy cost. At the moment the required shield power for nova is very small - about 150 units. Would a more reasonable cost be around 1000 units? Then if you've got a shield power of 150000 (or however big the lvl9's are) then at least you've got 75 uses or so to 50%.

Hello, I would also agree with this, but with the added cost to shields would that also meen more damage? Right now it only does about 191 dps with lvl 7 SI. It would be nice if you are to incress the cost 600% that the damage would also incress by 600% or around 1100 dps. Also, with raising the cost from 150 to 1000 it will drain the shield fairly quickly if you use SI for fighting high lvl mobs. Ofcourse not many players problie mess with SI when fighting high lvl mobs, but some do and with a cost incress that high the only thing SI will be good for will be farming.

On your other note as how to help with rd and other factions, there is always the option of the whole combat group gets RD faction and not just the one that does the kill as it is now. That would greatly speed up the process of getting good faction. TTYL :-)

Merlin

[pull4rise]

sorry I didn't understand this paragraph beyond the bit about not dissing Mr Merlin. It looks like there might be relevant info in there but my babel fish isn't translating from the dialect you're using.

well in this case sap is the so called pw only skill Shield Sap which converts shield energy from the mob into the shield from a pw so if 10000 shield is taken from a mob the pw gets 10000 shield from it in his own shield.

[afrodub]

On your other note as how to help with rd and other factions, there is always the option of the whole combat group gets RD faction and not just the one that does the kill as it is now. That would greatly speed up the process of getting good faction. TTYL :-)

Merlin

-1

[r8rsfans75]

It would be nice if you are to incress the cost 600% that the damage would also incress by 600% or around 1100 dps.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't this negate the whole reason for making the change?

[seekeronos]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't this negate the whole reason for making the change?

My opinion on this:

Energy exchange is rarely a 1:1 event in the real, physical universe. There is a lot of degradation/energy loss as heat or EM radiation; applying the brakes on your car loses about 70% of your car's deceleration energy via friction through heat escaping your brake pads and rotors, for example.

Seeing all the sparking going on when Shield Inversion is used - especially with the AOE Shield Nova might imply a rather significant energy loss; given also that Progen Engineering may not always be skewed toward energy efficiency as much as the other two races are (huge, fat, slow engines that can be seen for kilometers being a prime example)... it might follow that the underlying philosophy behind SI was a "spare no expense all-out DPS" move.

HOWEVER...

...if I am not mistaken, the literature for the skill actually describes the ability as converting 130% of the shield's energy to damage.

If I read that correctly, that would mean that a typical L9 shield (regardless of cap) draining at 1,000 units per sec. should yield 1300 DPS (not accounting for any resists or boosts).

[seekeronos]

Coming back to the original reason for the nerf, it was connected to the possibility of exploiting it using the (now fixed) shunting bug whereby a PW could indefinitely fire off Nova with little concern for his shield cap.

A higher rate of drain would also have little effect on faction farming (although over time, the PW would have to stop to let his shield charge up).

Farming lowbie mobs for faction would still be as it was in Live and how it should be; but farming mobs at exp-granting levels (and for a CL50 PW, this would be in the Lv. 40+ range) would be markedly more difficult given the exponential increases per level for mob shield caps, even taking into account the use of shield sap and normal DPS from using PLs.

To put a finer point on it, a typical upper-L40's hulled mob can have substantially thicker hulls and shielding than even a very well equipped OL150+ PW.

[seekeronos]

Exact wording of the skill (courtesy of Zulibubba's EnB Info Repository) is as follows:

Shield Inversion

Type: Active

Max Level: 7

Description: Shield Inversion abilities allow the shield to be used as a short-range weapon, inflicting heavy damage but depleting shield energy.

"...

Level 7: Increases range to 2500 units and enables the Shield Nova ability, in which 21 units of shield energy per skill level are drained per second, damaging all targets within 2,500 units with 130% shield energy to damage conversion."

[Terrell [BT]]

yeah we've got a lot of ideas for gaining RD faction more quickly and also people with RD faction will be able to help others gain RD faction quickly but at risk to both (contraband smuggling, spying etc). There's no reason for it to take AGES! Back in live I worked out how long it would take me to get RD faction and didn't bother as I only had about 6-8 hours per week of game time and intended to enjoy it.

I'd be much happier getting my fingertip callouses from playing guitar or some such.

There were RD trade runs in Live (essentially contraband smuggling, but it awarded Trade XP without faction). In order to do them, you had to have +2000 or better RD faction, if you had insufficent faction, the NPC wouldn't offer you his inventory. The NPCs that gave the goods were in the Lobby of specfic stations. Chernevog to Paren was one such RD trade run (RD NPC in Lobby, give goods to Trade vendor in Paren). There could always be more of such runs added, where going through Smuggler's Run was the shortest route (especially with Paramis open now, and the future Sho'da'kan Nebula). (you still could not use WH on those because they would get damaged.) Missions to smuggle things from place to place is IMO another good idea. (JE's make pretty good smugglers, sure our holds are small, but we can warp while cloaked and are pretty fast in our own right. )

[seekeronos]

Of note is the math here:

Merlin said that Nova does 191 damage per second (per mob, btw).

This equates to 21 (damage per skill level) * 7 (the level of SI needed to engage Nova) * 1.3 (the 130% damage return factor) = 191.1 DPS

By the numbers... this is correct.

[Gobblu]

Ok, if the infinite shunt bug has been squashed, take the shield inversion skill back to what it was. Simple as that isn't it?

[GenghisBob]

Of note is the math here:

Merlin said that Nova does 191 damage per second (per mob, btw).

This equates to 21 (damage per skill level) * 7 (the level of SI needed to engage Nova) * 1.3 (the 130% damage return factor) = 191.1 DPS

By the numbers... this is correct.

And, the PW's shields would go down by 12 * 7 = 147 per second until empty if the skill is not turned off.