Do you think the lev and weasel settings need to be changed? (Poll)

[Duster8]

I think weasel with smaller teams (4 v 4 and smaller) is just annoying as hell and we have small numbers in pub 95% of the time it seems. Levs I can deal with, but weasels can just disappear and run away infinitely (even from a terr) with no skill required. Just curious what an actual poll will show.

[nefrina]

you're painting with broad strokes to say it requires no skill to run & live as a weasel, plenty are terrible at piloting the ship. you are constantly in survival mode playing ship 6 after firing an attack (considering the abundance of ships that can have x-radar on-spawn or from greens), never-mind the endless personality types that will hunt you on sight (simply for playing the ship) or award bounties relentlessly to provoke others to do the same. weasel would likely go back to being rarely/never played if stealth & cloak cost energy to use at the same time.

while i love the ship because of the delicate balance of maneuvering through tiny openings on the map to escape/enter combat, eluding death from vengeful players (see above), and attempting to snipe unsuspecting ships, i think the energy REGEN while stealth & cloaked is completely unnecessary. energy should not regenerate until you drop stealth & cloak (making you vulnerable, so you need to be strategic about where & when you become visible to regen health).

perhaps another balance change would be to allow all ships to randomly spawn with x-radar, but make the percentage chance lower than it currently is for spider/jav/lanc, etc.. it's nearly a given and safe to assume that the ships that "can" (but don't always have) x-radar, usually have it.

re: levi feedback/changes, i don't play the ship much at all, but i agree the bomb is very powerful (at the expense of movement speed). if anything levi likely needs more counter measures for survival.

[Nockm]

Agree with what you say but ultimately weasel is a wait-to-regen-until-you-are-OP-again ship. Let's break that down into the two steps:

1. Wait
2. Be OP

Both parts require no skill. That's why it is annoying. The game becomes not fun and, at least for me, I just look to do something else.

i think the energy REGEN while stealth & cloaked is completely unnecessary.

Agree and appreciate the acknowledgement. Can we fix this? Have a petition? What does it take?

[cubone]

you're painting with broad strokes to say it requires no skill to run & live as a weasel, plenty are terrible at piloting the ship. you are constantly in survival mode playing ship 6 after firing an attack (considering the abundance of ships that can have x-radar on-spawn or from greens), never-mind the endless personality types that will hunt you on sight (simply for playing the ship) or award bounties relentlessly to provoke others to do the same. weasel would likely go back to being rarely/never played if stealth & cloak cost energy to use at the same time.

while i love the ship because of the delicate balance of maneuvering through tiny openings on the map to escape/enter combat, eluding death from vengeful players (see above), and attempting to snipe unsuspecting ships, i think the energy REGEN while stealth & cloaked is completely unnecessary. energy should not regenerate until you drop stealth & cloak (making you vulnerable, so you need to be strategic about where & when you become visible to regen health).

perhaps another balance change would be to allow all ships to randomly spawn with x-radar, but make the percentage chance lower than it currently is for spider/jav/lanc, etc.. it's nearly a given and safe to assume that the ships that "can" (but don't always have) x-radar, usually have it.

re: levi feedback/changes, i don't play the ship much at all, but i agree the bomb is very powerful (at the expense of movement speed). if anything levi likely needs more counter measures for survival.

This dude just hides in tunnels and warps whenever someone comes near him. Any talk of skill from this idiot is hilarious.

[Duster8]

Nef, you aren't being hunted "simply for playing the ship." It's because of how you play the ship. I agree with you on the regen being OP for sure. It was more skillful when cloak/stealth burned energy because you had to time your attack perfectly to make it to the flag. Also, even though spooked just added the ability to buy xradar, this still doesn't fix the inherent problem. Constantly having to turn xradar (which does burn energy in a jav, or allows no regen in the spider) on and off is very irritating, and again, is not a skill. It's tedious.

[SpookedOne]

Howdy yall! We're constantly looking at balance and typically willl release patches every week or so, which are announced on our discord. Join us here https://discord.com/invite/hDj7ec6P

Cloaking/steath/xradar are all core mechanics in SS so it's hard to sympathize if you want to ignore altogether. One of the main objectives with the Weasel is to discourage duelers from loitering in base and promote more basing ships. So how you play with definitely impact your experience against Weasels. I typically play flag game with Terrier and have 0 issue dealing with cloakers.

However, I think Duster has made some good points as well. Having drain from XRadar on certain ships is not intended and something we'll can look into immediately. Nefrina also mentioned the recharge may be a touch high for stealth+cloak on weasel too which we may adjust in near future.

We appreciate all yalls feedback and patience! Keep the comments coming and have fun out there.

[Viruk]

I don't fully agree with any of the poll options here:

Yes, current weasels and levi's are annoying as hell in a low-pop game. But for very different reasons they are *supposed* to be annoying as hell! They are the ships I love to hate (as opposed to sharks, which I just hate) They can spice up my pubbing experience as well as wreck it. It feels damn good to see some lamer explode! (although currently I am not sure you even *see* a cloaked weasel explode!)

It isn't the prox on a lev bomb that makes a low-pop FR battle with lots of levs around such a painful experience, it is the bomb radius that allows a hit on a wall half a screen away to devastate you, your terrier or your entire team.


Also:

From the flagging point of view, it doesn't really matter if you kill or chase away the threat as long as it can't come back soon.

Yes I don't see much need for weasel regen when stealth-cloaked.

As long as you can buy/green Xradar I don't think it needs to have as high a chance of getting spawned with it (except for Terrier which needs it unless you have an attachmode on). It would make sense to make it more easy to get in low-pop games though. (Not so many greens about then and a cloaker can disrupt a flag game easier)

I think it is as lame as hell for slow radar-less lev's to be (almost) totally vulnerable to weasels but this is definitely the lesser of two evils as far as keeping the flagging game alive. Maybe if you reduced weasel energy/recharge a lev could defend itself better by bombing nearby walls or you could give lev a super-draining xradar that would give them a chance to know a weasel was heading in their direction and port (or recharge and warp if they have time) to 'safety'.

I do find having to regularly 'blip' my xradar sometimes tedious (and it limits your ship's effectiveness and survivability slightly) but knowing when to do this *is* a skill.

As for using Discord, I am not convinced it is helpful to split a discussion over multiple platforms.

[Nockm]

Cloaking/steath/xradar are all core mechanicsin SS

Nope. It's actually quite niche and plenty of games in any zone will occur without any cloaking/stealth/xradar whatsoever. Duel/HZ/Deva/Powerball/T3G.

One of the main objectives with the Weasel is to discourage duelers from loitering in base and promote more basing ships.

This isn't promoting more basing ships. It's promoting fewer basing ships as they have to perma-hunt weasels after getting annoyed randomly dying to some invisible threat.

I typically play flag game with Terrier and have 0 issue dealing with cloakers.

So everyone should be a terrier?

However, I think Duster has made some good points as well. Having drain from XRadar on certain ships is not intended and something we'll can look into immediately.

Not intended? How did it happen then?

Nefrina also mentioned the recharge may be a touch high for stealth+cloak on weasel too which we may adjust in near future.

A touch? It's the core of the problem. And may adjust in the near future? So potentially not address the core problem?

Keep the comments coming and have fun out there.

Nah. It's not fun out there, unless you're a weasel. Been playing other zones and Free Infantry, and will continue so.

This is my last post on the matter, not that it has any impact, but probably because it has zero impact, so not gonna waste any more effort. As I keep saying, the settings show that either someone doesn't know about balance, or doesn't care about balance. I thought it was the latter but now I am really thinking it's the former.

[Duster8]

Howdy yall! We're constantly looking at balance and typically willl release patches every week or so, which are announced on our discord. Join us here https://discord.com/invite/hDj7ec6P

Cloaking/steath/xradar are all core mechanics in SS so it's hard to sympathize if you want to ignore altogether. One of the main objectives with the Weasel is to discourage duelers from loitering in base and promote more basing ships. So how you play with definitely impact your experience against Weasels. I typically play flag game with Terrier and have 0 issue dealing with cloakers.

However, I think Duster has made some good points as well. Having drain from XRadar on certain ships is not intended and something we'll can look into immediately. Nefrina also mentioned the recharge may be a touch high for stealth+cloak on weasel too which we may adjust in near future.

We appreciate all yalls feedback and patience! Keep the comments coming and have fun out there.

Spooked I appreciate the effort, but I think you've missed the fundamentals of the game. You can't really encourage flag games with the ship settings. Settings need to be balanced, and then flag games will naturally occur as a result. As for cloaking/stealth/xradar, I never said "ignore altogether." I merely said stealth/cloak should cause a drain on nrg so Im not having to endlessly check xradar. Pub is more dead than ever 95% of the time btw. Proof is in the pudding.