category Let's Discuss Game Balance

[alkyng 3,080]

I don't understand what do you mean!! You say Railgun now is a weak because the number of protections used against it, well? So why you want to nerf it? Because it's OP? you said it's not OP.

So why you want the nerf? As I understand you see Railgun should be nerfed (to be UP) so its popularity will decrease, so players will stop using Falcon modules, or what?

Btw, either this or that, even if Railgun get nerfed, players will take a way much time to change their protections set, I profusely see players with Freeze protection though Freeze users aren't that much, but maybe because one day was OP something. This is with Freeze, though it get a nerf. But what about Raaailgun!! I doubt players will change their protections against it ever, I don't think players will think about changing the protection against it, maybe didn't even realize the nerf. A significant amount of players didn't care about their protections and didn't change it.

Btw, I don't see Railgun is OP neither LCR, it's just Scout who is OP. LCR is what Railgun used to be for most of Tanki years, strangely players now asking for the nerf.

Lastly, using protections is an act by players, Tanki didn't have to intervenes to change something far from balance just to change players acts. Btw, I think it's something Tanki accustomed to do to strengthen some unpopular turrets from time to time, like one day they buffed Ricochet something and its popularity has increased. But not to do something really obvious that directly affect the game balance like nerfing the Railgun (Stock) more than it's now. And what about the players who didn't know about your suggestion and zapped by the nerf on Railgun, also how Marcus will announce that? will say we will nerf Railgun to decrease its popularity?

P.S: when I say they strength Ricochet and many turrets in the past, I just mean the slight buffs that happened before 2017, that wont directly terminate the game balance. And for sure strongly disagree about now incredibly OP like Hopper and EMP Gauss.

[Tanker-Arthur 2,971]

As long as I get more chances to do full damage with Railgun, I'm all in.
Nerfing Railgun, will, in time, discourage more players from equipping the Falcon Module. It may be unorthodox, but it's a decent way to make Railgun viable in Matchmaking battles again, though it will take time for players to save up crystals to buy new Modules.

Legit, nowadays, my Smoky does more damage per shot than my Railgun because everyone has a Falcon Module, Double Armor, and sometimes Crisis/Defender equipped!
It's crazy that my Railgun sometimes only does 300-500 damage due to all these protections hindering it.

[Spy 14,687]

The main problem with Hornet is that it's too easy to counter its Overdrive. It also feels really inconsistent - sometimes I do apply the AP effect on enemies and sometimes I don't.

[EmeraldCat 562]

8 hours ago, Maf said:

What do you think about Hyperspace Rounds?  

That is Hyperspace's power, yes. But, with my idea in action, Hyperspace will have a constant penetration of 150%. It does suck that my M0 Railgun can't deal extra damage if my penetration goes from 50% to 100%, meaning I'm just dealing full power with every shot. I wanna be able to deal extra damage.

Here's a question for you, what do you think about "Round Stabilization" at Mk7 20/20? I'd say it's a pretty good augment, -25% max damage, but +50% minimum damage, so the damage spread is a lot shorter. But, penetration =100%, meaning no matter your Railgun's upgrade, it will always be 100. But wait, my Railgun M4 already has 100 penetration, I don't need this augment.

 

8 hours ago, Maf said:

Thing is, if game balance was that easy, @Opex-Rah would be out of a job. In reality, balancing turret upgrades throughout the ranks is far from just making sure that the damage and reload increases in a linear and proportional fashion for all turrets. All turrets have vastly different shooting mechanics, and other major differences such as effective range, ability to shoot multiple enemies, application of status effects, impact force, and even turret rotation speed. All of this needs to be taken into account when balancing the game, and I'm sure there's a good reason for why Thunder and Railgun have different reload speed increases.

I'm not saying that balance in Tanki is perfect, but I am saying that your approach towards judging it is not quite right. I also don't really understand why penetration is the stat you decided to target in your nerf. To me it feels like a mechanic that doesn't come into play often enough to drastically affect balance with the change you suggest.
Most people will agree with me here that if Railgun were to get a nerf, it should be regarding things like LCR, Scout and AP augments, as opposed to penetration.

But, the thing is, there's always a rhythm to upgrading. For example, from M0-M4, every hull gets doubled the amount of hp at M4, from M0. So, Wasp has 1000HP at M0, it will have 2000HP at M4. How do we balance that out with the turrets? Have the turret's damage increase be doubled. For example Freeze deals 450 damage at M0, and deals 900 damage at M4. How do we balance out the fact that every turret gets a reload about -20% at M4? We increase hull speed by about 20%. For example, Thunder. You already know about Thunder, but for example, Wasp, 10m/sec at M0, 12m/sec at M4. 10 + 20% = 12.

I decided to look through every turret's impact forces and I found that Striker, Gauss, Railgun, and Magnum all nearly triple their Impact Force from M0-M4, compared to the other turrets that only get theirs doubled. As far as reload time goes, Striker and Gauss are fine when comes to decrease from M0-M4. But Magnum. Oh boy. Magnum's M0 Reload Time is 5 seconds, but Magnum's M4 Reload Time is, are you ready, 2 seconds! 2 seconds, that's a 60% decrease in the turret's reload. Not to mention its impact force is multiplied by 2.8 M0-M4. No wonder Legend ranks never use it as an artillery turret anymore, because you can go full on assault with the little amount of reload there is, and be able to knock off everyone's aim with direct hits.

Well, if impact force increase every upgrade, what opposes impact force? Bingo, weight, rotation speed, and turn speed, but mainly weight. Rotation and turn speeds are just just like hull speed, and should all increase by 20%, but I'll save that for another topic. Anyways, weight. Weight helps prevent how much impact force will knock you off, and by the looks of it, weight is doubled for every Hull, M0-M4. Not sure why Viking weighs as much as Hopper, but whatever. If weight is doubled, then impact force should also be doubled, so that there's no imbalance. Thank you for helping me realize that impact force is also a mega problem, I now believe that Railgun's M4 Impact Force should be 440, instead of 650.

The thing about the augments is, if you nerf the turret itself, it will nerf the Augments as well. LCR, in fact, had an unannounced nerf. You will now increase your reload by 50%, instead of whatever it was before. I think it's quite balanced now. Scout should definitely get a nerf itself, and AP Augments should get deleted, Death Herald needs more logic(But it's a cool and balanced Augment), and Stabilized Rounds should be more useful at Legend ranks.

[EmeraldCat 562]

9 hours ago, krish123_super said:

ha ha ! i use scout ! i just spam my shots even he has protection ! at least he get flipped , ,turned , turns into a trash can that cant do anything

Scout needs a definite nerf. 

[EmeraldCat 562]

9 hours ago, TheCongoSpider said:

If the turret has consistently been the most popular and so were the protection modules, why nerf it? That will only hurt the ones that stick with the turret after the nerf. 

 

What needs to be nerfed is its augments and not the base turret, but I'm afraid they're justified since they're called "Augments" now. 

I believe, in a game where there are many combinations to use, I believe there shouldn't be a popular turret or hull. The fact is, there are so many protection modules against it because it IS the most popular turret, not because it's overpowered. I find this super annoying. If you nerf the turret itself, it will become less popular, but people won't just never use it again, the turret will still be used. These aren't severe nerfs. Also, the Augments will get nerfed as the turret gets nerfed, because they have percent increase/decreases that depend on the turret itself. Which is why Augments aren't upgradable.

[wolverine848 13,097]

21 minutes ago, Emeraldcat345 said:

I believe, in a game where there are many combinations to use, I believe there shouldn't be a popular turret or hull. The fact is, there are so many protection modules against it because it IS the most popular turret, not because it's overpowered. I find this super annoying. If you nerf the turret itself, it will become less popular, but people won't just never use it again, the turret will still be used. These aren't severe nerfs. Also, the Augments will get nerfed as the turret gets nerfed, because they have percent increase/decreases that depend on the turret itself. Which is why Augments aren't upgradable.

Why is it "annoying" that players use modules against the most popular turret?

And you think nerfing Rail will somehow make the game better because fewer players might use the module?

Makes no sense.

Scout augment is broken because it retains very high impact with faster reload.  Nerf the scout impact and all will be well. Stock Rail should not be touched - it is fine.

[EmeraldCat 562]

8 hours ago, asem.harbi said:

I don't understand what do you mean!! You say Railgun now is a weak because the number of protections used against it, well? So why you want to nerf it? Because it's OP? you said it's not OP.

So why you want the nerf? As I understand you see Railgun should be nerfed (to be UP) so its popularity will decrease, so players will stop using Falcon modules, or what?

Btw, either this or that, even if Railgun get nerfed, players will take a way much time to change their protections set, I profusely see players with Freeze protection though Freeze users aren't that much, but maybe because one day was OP something. This is with Freeze, though it get a nerf. But what about Raaailgun!! I doubt players will change their protections against it ever, I don't think players will think about changing the protection against it, maybe didn't even realize the nerf. A significant amount of players didn't care about their protections and didn't change it.

Btw, I don't see Railgun is OP neither LCR, it's just Scout who is OP. LCR is what Railgun used to be for most of Tanki years, strangely players now asking for the nerf.

Lastly, using protections is an act by players, Tanki didn't have to intervenes to change something far from balance just to change players acts. Btw, I think it's something Tanki accustomed to do to strengthen some unpopular turrets from time to time, like one day they buffed Ricochet something and its popularity has increased. But not to do something really obvious that directly affect the game balance like nerfing the Railgun (Stock) more than it's now. And what about the players who didn't know about your suggestion and zapped by the nerf on Railgun, also how Marcus will announce that? will say we will nerf Railgun to decrease its popularity?

P.S: when I say they strength Ricochet and many turrets in the past, I just mean the slight buffs that happened before 2017, that wont directly terminate the game balance. And for sure strongly disagree about now incredibly OP like Hopper and EMP Gauss.

You're absolutely right, why nerf something that is "not op?" Well, to decrease the amount of people using it, that is. When there's a decrease in the amount of people using Railgun, there will be a decrease in the amount of people using the module. Also, you're right again, it will take a while for Falcon Modules to decrease, I estimate a year or so to finally reach a specific amount per battle, but it's all about patience.

I'm simply widening the variety when it comes to modules per game. I hate it when I see that more than 50% of each enemy has Railgun protection every single battle, this seriously changes game balance. As far as Freeze go, it's pretty alright in terms of balance. I do believe it needs a few changes, but, it's pretty alright. Which is why you don't see as many Freeze modules compared to Railgun Modules.

Yes, I know it's a player's act. For me, I like defending from Firebirds, Vulcans, and Shafts. I don't target the most overpowered turret. But in most cases, players pick their modules by defending against the most overpowered turret there is, or the most used turret. It's less about being annoyed when it comes to Railgun, more about how it's popular.

Simply announce that Railgun will get a nerf, if the devs decided to go into detail about these changes, then so be it, explain to them what's wrong.

 

[EmeraldCat 562]

59 minutes ago, wolverine848 said:

Why is it "annoying" that players use modules against the most popular turret?

And you think nerfing Rail will somehow make the game better because fewer players might use the module?

Makes no sense.

Scout augment is broken because it retains very high impact with faster reload.  Nerf the scout impact and all will be well. Stock Rail should not be touched - it is fine.

The thing is, Railgun itself is being targeted by all these protection modules. I made an account just so that I can use Railgun, and it's almost every battle where there's more than 50% of the enemies using a Railgun protection module. This isn't because of 1 single Augment, it's because the game decided to make Railgun super popular. Giving it its own mode which apparently is fun, giving it tons of augments, giving it a lot of skins. Also, nerfing the actual turret will nerf the augments. Instead of M4 Scout having a 1.3 second reload, it will have a 1.65 second reload. Instead of M4 LCR having a 3.9 second reload, it will have a 4.95 second reload. Plus, Railgun's nerf would actually benefit Stabilized Rounds in a way. Stabilized Rounds makes your penetration =100%, but an M4 Railgun already has 100%, so there's no point in having Stabilized Rounds.

I'm not opposed of the idea that Scout should get an Impact Force nerf, it would make a lot of sense, but I do believe that Standard Railgun should get nerfed in order to lessen the amount of modules are being used against it per game.

Not sure what's so bad about Railgun's M4 stats being changed to: Reload =3.3sec, Penetration =50%, and a new one because someone made me realize how op Railgun Impact Force actually is... Impact Force =440.

Everything for M0 will stay the same.

[EmeraldCat 562]

10 hours ago, Tanker-Arthur said:

As long as I get more chances to do full damage with Railgun, I'm all in.
Nerfing Railgun, will, in time, discourage more players from equipping the Falcon Module. It may be unorthodox, but it's a decent way to make Railgun viable in Matchmaking battles again, though it will take time for players to save up crystals to buy new Modules.

Legit, nowadays, my Smoky does more damage per shot than my Railgun because everyone has a Falcon Module, Double Armor, and sometimes Crisis/Defender equipped!
It's crazy that my Railgun sometimes only does 300-500 damage due to all these protections hindering it.

This is basically what I'm tryna tell everybody. Notice that I didn't mess with Railgun's damage at all? I think Railgun's damage is quite fine, though a tiny change for M0 Railgun's damage making it "400-800" instead of "390-810" would be greatly appreciated.

[wolverine848 13,097]

33 minutes ago, Emeraldcat345 said:

The thing is, Railgun itself is being targeted by all these protection modules. I made an account just so that I can use Railgun, and it's almost every battle where there's more than 50% of the enemies using a Railgun protection module. This isn't because of 1 single Augment, it's because the game decided to make Railgun super popular. Giving it its own mode which apparently is fun, giving it tons of augments, giving it a lot of skins. Also, nerfing the actual turret will nerf the augments. Instead of M4 Scout having a 1.3 second reload, it will have a 1.65 second reload. Instead of M4 LCR having a 3.9 second reload, it will have a 4.95 second reload. Plus, Railgun's nerf would actually benefit Stabilized Rounds in a way. Stabilized Rounds makes your penetration =100%, but an M4 Railgun already has 100%, so there's no point in having Stabilized Rounds.

I'm not opposed of the idea that Scout should get an Impact Force nerf, it would make a lot of sense, but I do believe that Standard Railgun should get nerfed in order to lessen the amount of modules are being used against it per game.

Not sure what's so bad about Railgun's M4 stats being changed to: Reload =3.3sec, Penetration =50%, and a new one because someone made me realize how op Railgun Impact Force actually is... Impact Force =440.

Everything for M0 will stay the same.

My default modules are shaft/gauss/rail and I might switch one of those out if magnum is more prevalent in a battle.

I don't equip those modules because they are popular - I equip them because they are high damage turrets, and without a module I might be one-shot more often.  So tweaking reload on Rail will not cause me to change my defaults. I would still equip rail.

Nerfing stock turret to indirectly nerf an augment unfairly punishes those who use stock.

Thirdly your argument is missing an important fact - that modules themselves now have less of an impact in battles due to ODs and augments.  Wasp bomb, hornet OD, viking OD and AP augments have decreased the effectiveness of modules by a lot.

I don't think nerfing of stock rail will have the impact you claim it will, and I don't think it is necessary.

[EmeraldCat 562]

1 hour ago, wolverine848 said:

My default modules are shaft/gauss/rail and I might switch one of those out if magnum is more prevalent in a battle.

I don't equip those modules because they are popular - I equip them because they are high damage turrets, and without a module I might be one-shot more often.  So tweaking reload on Rail will not cause me to change my defaults. I would still equip rail.

Nerfing stock turret to indirectly nerf an augment unfairly punishes those who use stock.

Thirdly your argument is missing an important fact - that modules themselves now have less of an impact in battles due to ODs and augments.  Wasp bomb, hornet OD, viking OD and AP augments have decreased the effectiveness of modules by a lot.

I don't think nerfing of stock rail will have the impact you claim it will, and I don't think it is necessary.

I never said everyone chooses the Railgun Module because Railgun is popular, but I do believe it's a very common reason players have it.

My plan was never to indirectly nerf the Railgun Augments, I simply wanted to nerf Railgun, and decrease the amount of Modules are used in battles. All of you keep saying that the Augments are the problem, and if you all think that, then Stock Railgun's nerf will indeed nerf the Augments as well. There's nothing unfair about it, every Railgun is getting nerfed.

Thank you for stating out the fact that ODs are too overpowered, and should not exist in Tanki. I'm pretty sure I said something about the fact that Hull ODs should be deleted and reverted back to Zero Supply. I do admit that Overdrives seriously counter Modules. As a matter of fact, they even counter Drones, which are also a big problem in the game.

I say it will have the impact that I think will happen. We can always do a 2 week testing event just to find out, the Devs had no problems doing that twice.

[wolverine848 13,097]

1 hour ago, Emeraldcat345 said:

My plan was never to indirectly nerf the Railgun Augments, I simply wanted to nerf Railgun, and decrease the amount of Modules are used in battles. All of you keep saying that the Augments are the problem, and if you all think that, then Stock Railgun's nerf will indeed nerf the Augments as well. There's nothing unfair about it, every Railgun is getting nerfed.

Of course it is unfair - especially if the stock Rail is not the problem.

It's like when Devs nerfed Vulcan because of Icendiary Band.  Stock vulcan suffered because of that and it was just dumb.

Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater - fix the actual issue.  Scout having full impact with very short reload is the issue. You don't nerf all rails to fix scout.  Lower the impact of scout to fix scout.

[Tanker-Arthur 2,971]

Just now, wolverine848 said:

It's like when Devs nerfed Vulcan because of Icendiary Band.  Stock vulcan suffered because of that and it was just dumb.

Actually, stock Vulcan was nerfed because of the Isida-Vulcan combo. An Isida healing a Vulcan would give it infinite ammo, and this was further strengthened by Incendiary band.

Incendiary Band, at the time, was a below-average turret-alt combo on it's own. The base damage decrease was not that worth it for a burning effect that only applies when you do self-damage. 

Of course, the Isida-Vulcan combo no longer works as effectively today due to Isida having its healing drastically reduced over the past 2 years.

Spoiler

Ironically, the Isida-Vulcan combo is no longer needed.
Heat immunity basically does the same as this.

So the developers literally reverted the changes they did to Vulcan...but also made Firebird suffer for it. 

 

Edited January 18, 2021 by Tanker-Arthur

[EmeraldCat 562]

1 hour ago, wolverine848 said:

Of course it is unfair - especially if the stock Rail is not the problem.

It's like when Devs nerfed Vulcan because of Icendiary Band.  Stock vulcan suffered because of that and it was just dumb.

Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater - fix the actual issue.  Scout having full impact with very short reload is the issue. You don't nerf all rails to fix scout.  Lower the impact of scout to fix scout.

What's unfair is the fact that Railgun has to have so many protection modules against it. I do agree that Scout is broken, but Scout is not the main problem here. The main problem is that the Devs give it so much clout, i.e. skins, augments, its own mode, many sports events using it, and don't get me started with the Terminator. Railgun is favored by the Devs, and because of that, it's been popular with the players. Heck, even Youtubers love showing off their luck shots doing a 360 degree spin on an XP/BP match. Because of this, the amount of modules have increased. People are mistaken because they assume since it's favored by so many people, it's considered overpowered, which is why you see even more modules against it. "You don't nerf all rails to fix scout," why do you still think my main focus is on Scout? Like I said, Scout isn't the main issue, the main issue is the turret itself.

Could you recall a time when Railgun was discouraged? More specifically, could you recall a time when it was ever given a nerf? Can you tell me a time when Railgun has never been promoted? Because I haven't. I've only seen updates where Railgun gets a massive plus.

You got a point, Tanki has had a bad history with afterburn. But you got that all wrong. The devs didn't nerf Vulcan because of Incendiary Bands, it was because the Isida-Vulcan combo got super strong when Vulcan got the buff from the indirect burning nerf. Lemme go in depth on what I mean...

In late 2018, Firebird's afterburn was increased to 300 per second. However, the max burn duration is now 10 seconds, no matter if the CFT alt is equipped or not. This would also apply to other turret alterations with heating abilities. This is actually a major indirect nerf to Compact Fuel Tanks, as default M3 Firebird now gives practically the same effect, but with double the ammo. The new burn also unintentionally affected Vulcan's overheat, making it deal extremely high damage to itself when overheating. Instead of making Vulcan's overheat use a separate heating mechanic/code, Vulcan was seriously buffed to compensate for the high self-damage. Vulcan was nerfed to oblivion after it went OP for a few months. It would spend most of 2019 in this trash state. In 2020, Vulcan was reworked to actually be good and more versatile in battles. It is the version of Vulcan we see today. Meanwhile, after over a year of the new burn-based alterations being out, most people had bought Firebird Modules to protect themselves against various burn effects from Smoky, Hammer, and Vulcan, as well as Firebird itself. this in turn, cause Firebird to be extremely weak due to so many people having a protection module against it. Instead of making each turret's respective modules protect against their specific burn effects(like a Smoky module protecting the burn from a Incendiary Smoky, or a Hammer module protecting against Dragon Breath's burn), developers decided to completely nerf the Firebird Module by removing it's ability to reduce heating effects. The same was done to the Freeze Module for the freezing effect, to keep Firebird and Freeze on par with each other. Firebird ended up being pretty strong....not as overpowered as, a Gauss for instance, but just annoyingly strong in battles due to this. To nerf Firebird being strong again, developers released Hull Augments, including Heat Immunity. This actually killed Firebird, because people weren't gonna give up their Firebird Modules so easily after spending tons of crystals to upgrade it. Additionally, the only hull augment that everyone wanted was Heat immunity, cause no one likes being burned apparently. Thus, a Module stacked with Heat Immunity made Firebird useless. Hull Augments gave the developers the idea to just turn all Turret Alterations into Augments as well for some reason. This means, it's perfectly alright for an alteration to be overpowered in battles, something that 2016-2019 developers would've never allowed to persist for more than a few months. Since all alts are augments now, developers removed them from purchase, and made them only available in containers. Everyone got extremely angry about the container augments update, and as such, developers were forced to revert the previous change... but with a catch... Augments were once again purchasable... but... their prices were increased dramatically. Most of the augments(alterations) are now 245,000 crystals to obtain. To put this into perspective, before all these augment updates ever happened, the most expensive alts in 2018-2019 were Hammer's Adaptive Reload and Ricochet's Berserk, which each costed around 235,000 crystals. Additionally, every turret practically had one 20,000 crystal alt prior to the augments update. Additionally, the rank restrictions on turret augments were completely removed. Meaning, alterations that normally took lots of skill to adapt to (such as Smoky's Autocannon or Hammer's Duplet) were now available starting from recruit. New Players don't know how to fend off so many different gameplay mechanics at once. Meanwhile, in the background, word had spread about the interaction between Vulcan's Incendiary Band and Heat immunity. In no time flat, this combo dominated most battles due to how it literally turned Vulcan into an infinite-ranged Firebird with infinite Ammo. With other various updates including major buffs to mid and long-ranged turrets such as Magnum, and game-breaking alts such as Gauss' EMP, along with the still prevalent widespread use of the Firebird Module and Heat immunity, Firebird is the worst turret in the game and is very well "Dead" in matchmaking battles above the Brigadier rank.

But yeah, afterburn didn't have to be like this, and no, my plan for Railgun is nothing like what happened with the afterburn.

[Blutaar 1,904]

22 hours ago, krish123_super said:

what if the hulls having AP immunity reflects the AP effects like mirrors ? it will spread ...but way more complicated 

As Spy already said, the new mechanic of Scout Radar is already inconsistent, and personally it is not too reliable either. Making it so that players with AP-immunity will reflect the AP-status to others will make things even more complex. 

Adding battle points to the tanker who applied AP does sound like a fair solution to counter kill-steals, but it does not solve the awkward usage of Scout Radar - most of the time it is a wild guess what exact tanks I am applying AP to - hence I tend to skip over Hornet and use other hulls instead

[SONIC-BOOM 326]

Well i think the devs should come out with another experiment, ditch OVERDRIVES, AP, EMP for a whole month, that wil deff sort the noobs out from the skilled. 

To many players rely on these to affect the outcome of battles, let's see the FLYING HACK users dominate by using skill instead of their OP overdrive.

I don't need any of those, unlike you LEGAL HACK users. 

Lol, i can hear you all crying into your milk and cookies screaming, THIS IS NOT FAIR. 

And for you hornet users, i can only hope your battle experience becomes even worse over time. You had it easy for to long with that legal hack overdrive you all used to win battles, go join the flying hack in crying if this experiment ever happens. here's hoping it does. 

 

[wolverine848 13,097]

On 1/17/2021 at 10:45 AM, Spy said:

The main problem with Hornet is that it's too easy to counter its Overdrive.

Aside from the AP-immunity hull augment (only available via TK or Challenge reward) how does one counter this status effect?

[wolverine848 13,097]

7 hours ago, Emeraldcat345 said:

Could you recall a time when Railgun was discouraged? More specifically, could you recall a time when it was ever given a nerf?

Rail used to be like what LCR augment is today.  Then they nerfed the damage and increased the fire-rate some. Rail players hated that, and had to buy the LCR combo to get back what they had before.  Kinda like Twins had to buy an alt to avoid self-damage due to the silly splash introduced.

For Vulcan, I'm talking about the change that nerfed regular damage when Vulcan was overheating.  They did this specifically because Vulcan+Incendiary band was doing overheat damage AND (a slightly reduced) regular damage.  So the Devs nerfed any regular damage during overheating to oblivion.  But this was also applied to stock vulcans, so they became useless the moment they started to overheat.  Sacrificing themselves to take out a flag carrier was no longer an option. They had to stop firing since they were basically doing no damage.

In any event, wouldn't bother me if they made your suggestion permanent.  I don't use rail, and I would still be equipping that module because of the high damage it can do.

Edited January 18, 2021 by wolverine848

[Spy 14,687]

5 minutes ago, wolverine848 said:

Aside from the AP-immunity hull augment (only available via TK or Challenge reward) how does one counter this status effect?

There are a few ways, such as hiding behind subjects or being above or below the player with the overdrive. Just to clarify, countering the AP effect it self is impossible (unless you have AP immunity equipped), but avoiding Hornet's OD is easy.

[wolverine848 13,097]

3 minutes ago, Spy said:

There are a few ways, such as hiding behind subjects or being above or below the player with the overdrive. Just to clarify, countering the AP effect it self is impossible (unless you have AP immunity equipped), but avoiding Hornet's OD is easy.

Well, you can say that about most ODs then.  A wall protects you against wasp bomb, hunter EMP, viking OD, etc.  Hornets are not unique in this "weakness".

The fact is, hornets activate their ODs when they have a target in sight - it's useless otherwise.  Then they press space-bar and the target is likely dead.  Target probably has less than 1 second to find cover when they see the AP status on their hull.  Only target safe at that point is a mammoth with OD ready - and I'm not sure it retroactively erases the AP.  It might just prevent it if already activated.

[Spy 14,687]

5 minutes ago, wolverine848 said:

 

That's true, but it's so much easier to escape Hornet's OD than the rest of the overdrives you mentioned

[Tokamak 1,021]

To nerf it is easier to change only one parameter, but you want to touch 2 parameters.

Thunder has splash damages (can damage severals tank at the same time) and it is medium range with shell takings time to fly. Railgun is instantaneous at any range (till infinity) and penetration only work it 2 tanks are aligned, which doesn't happen that often so you would have to force these situation and be more patient. e.g. waiting for the right shot.

1/ You can't compare thunder and railgun reload without adding the 1.1 s delay of the railgun in your calculation, which in the end makes about 34% decrease between 2 shots and not 40%.

2/ Regarding penetration it requires alignment of 2 tanks while thunders only need other thanks in the vicinity - this makes thunder more effective a making damages. Furthermore splash damage can wounds tank not in sight while railgun need a clear line of sight.
 

Last but not least, Hornet is popular for many reasons, not only the quick high damage at long range (when you do not miss the target) but also because of XP/BP and the skills it require to time the shot. If the falcon protection module is also popular does this not nerf the turret already?

Edited January 18, 2021 by Tokamak

[wolverine848 13,097]

35 minutes ago, Spy said:

That's true, but it's so much easier to escape Hornet's OD than the rest of the overdrives you mentioned

It's easier to escape a hornet-rail shot than a hunter or wasp that needs to get up close-and-personal?

I find these reasonings interesting - as they often ignore the range "of reach" of the tank using the OD.

[wolverine848 13,097]

33 minutes ago, Tokamak said:

Last but not least, Hornet is popular for many reasons, not only the quick high damage at long range (when you do not miss the target) but also because of XP/BP and the skills it require to time the shot. If the falcon protection module is also popular does this not nerf the turret already?

The reasoning (as I understand it) is... nerf rail = fewer players using turret = fewer players using rail module == net buff to rail 

I don't buy it as part 3 (fewer players using module) certainly won't apply to me.  I use it because of the range and damage Rail can do.