Cael Autumn
e X i l e
The Initiative.
3
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Posted - 2013.09.04 22:32:00 -
[1] - Quote
I, Cael Autumn, would like to formally dissent to these changes proposed herein.
I would further like to formally refer to said changes as "non-emergent regressive quackery"
What these "non-emergent regressive quackery" attempt to accomplish is merge skirmish tactics with brute-force, maneuverability with immobility, and tankiness with vulnerability. It is a goal not impossible to accomplish, but one that should simply not be accomplished.
It is not feasible in PVP to 'harass" a hostile fleet by jumping in, scooting a hundred kilometers away, then activate a module that immobilizes you for over a minute. Regardless of damage projection bonuses, without ludicrous damage application bonuses, you become a sitting duck waiting to be tackled and killed.
What it does do is create a hard-counter to the sole hindrances in various types of NPC farming, such as Guristas' jamming, Sansha's Tracking Disruption, or Serpentis' Sensor disruption, and make a vessel already obscenely niched for pve, even more so niched.
In this context, niche is the opposite of emergent. Emergent gameplay is critical to the function of a sandbox. You should be given tools to do with what you want, not given tools that can do one thing. If you want marauders to be good at PvE, do so in a manner that makes them viable for those same qualities in other types of gameplay. If you want them to have a drawback, make it one that affects it in all situations (see: sensor strength, doesn't really affect pve, makes them useless in pvp.)
Theorize with me, now, let's give them comparable, hell, let's give them 'good' sensor strengths of around 30 points, and make their drawback their scan resolution. Give the bastion module a bonus to scan resolution to counteract that. It would be a drawback for PVE, causing longer lock times for NPCs, and also give a drawback in PVP.
Now, are we keeping this micro-jump-driving-skirmish gameplay? Then it needs to jump, 'siege' quickly lock up approaching tackle, use damage application (tracking, explosion radius & velocity, etc) to kill it BEFORE it's in web range, then leave siege and warp out.
There's other possible options, like giving them a bonus to ECM burst strength to get-out-of-dodge, or perhaps moving Deep-space industrials +2 warp core strength over to them. Also, the bastion module could instead of being a simple siege-module, lock in the marauders align and velocity similar to the spool up of a mjd, not allowing it to turn around or slow down. That would be more dynamic than current siege mechanisms. A MWD would cycle down by mid-cycle and the marauder would slow down to it's normal speed (or perhaps 50% normal, requiring some re-warp time after exit).
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