Please don't get all mad at me Serco, I've thought about this a while before posting, and please read everything I have to say before posting.

A while ago I PvPed a lot, and when the new prom came in I got frusturated and turned to trading and mining for a while. I came back the other day and still stood little chance against proms. There are players who were better than me before the prom came in, and I have no problem losing to them when they use proms now.

But multiple times I've encountered a player who I could beat 99% of the time before the new proms came out. But now that there are new proms, I can barely get them down to 75%. Maybe some of them have really practiced and gotten better, but there are a lot who this has happened to and based on the break I took from PvP I don't think they all got better in that short amount of time. Now here's where I'm going to sound all braggy, but please try not to take it that way.

This game should be based on skill, not the ship the other player has access to. The fact was I was better than these other people to the point that I could always beat them. Now why should that change because they chose their nation differently?

Whether the valks need to be improved now or the proms nerfed, I feel something has to happen. As I mentioned in another post, Proms are THE way to go for any Serco who wants to fly something heavy, but Valks are not neccessarily THE way to go for any itani who wants something light anymore. I think this needs to change

One final note, I'm sure many of you will think I'm talking about you when I say "I could beat them 99% of the time" but please don't get all pissy and post something rude, because I would say there is a good chance it is not you. A very good chance. I again have thought about this a long time, and tried as hard as I could to not generalize into "I always beat ____"

Thanks,
Smittens

Were you around in alpha or beta? Not to be elitist or anything, but if you were this wouldn't be that big of a deal.

To put this bluntly: the game after release HEAVILY favored ONE of the styles of fighting, namely tachs. Previous to the N3 and weights, there were many different ways to fight. Now that the ship changes are in, many of them are viable again. The player didn't get better, and you didn't get worse - he just switched tactics. You have to as well. The old ways of fighting no longer apply in every situation.

And I have seen a vult take down a new prom. It can be done, you just have to learn to dodge the new set of weapons, and learn to deliver yours in new ways. It sucks to go from godly to a student again, I know, but they are beatable.

Very good post Smittens, and I completely aggree.

I have no problem to losing to players that are better than me, but players that aren't and missile swarm and send barrages of AGT? Doesn't make me happy. :-(

The new Prom is the ultimate heavy ship, a "tank." It can literally roll over a lighter, less armored ship. In a valk or cent, I can fly in circles around a prom, but they still have the firepower to kill me. And they can fight almost forever, with the rediculous amount of armor. The skycommand has 21,000 armor!!! Thats rediculous!!! And its only 10,000 kg's! A rag mark 3, with only 19,000 armor, is 16,000 kg's!! Thats almost a 1:1 armor to kg ratio, while the skycommand is over 2:1.

Now, to give a better picture of the rediculous armor of a prom, let's do a little math. A Neut III, arguably the best blaster in the game, does 600 damage per shot. Divide 21,000 by 600...35 hits to kill a prom. Thats 35...1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30,31,32,33,34,35.

Thats a lot of hits. With a delay of .14s on the Neut III, thats 5 seconds of continuous shooting and hitting to kill a prom. Thats 1 one thousand 2 one thousange 3 one thousand 4 one thousand 5 one thousand. Of continual hitting.

Now batterywise, 35 Neut III shots takes 2 WHOLE CAPACITIES of a Fast Charge Battery.

I think the Prom has too much armor.

And it's too light.

I think I have made my point.

*Thank you math*

And starfisher, your "style of fighting" idea is nice, but some of the pilots in a prom don't HAVE a "fighting style." They just unload on us pilots with a "fighting style."

I agree more with Starfisher one this one. The prom (and the many other new ships that people complained about) are not uber by any stretch, they just require different tactics to beat. The thing with people is we don't like change.

Note: I will however agree that the proms are a little over powered but they are still beat able. Just member as long as some thing bleeds it can die.

You're not hearing me. You can defeat a prom with AGT, wihtout taking much damage, if you know how to dodge it. This is NOT the same fight as the N3 fights of the past few months. You can't get close to it. In a light fighter, you have to stay just inside the range of the AGT and dodge it while hitting the prom.

This is hard. It takes lots of practice. It can be done.

Don't get me wrong, I think the lights are probably going to get a slight boost in armor to compensate for the fact that a rocket prom can take them out in one salvo without dying itself. (If he rammed). However, these complaints are the same thing you would hear from people in alpha who hadnt yet discovered the Valk. Now that the prom actually doesn't suck, no one knows how to handle it.

The AGT might need a slight tone down of its accuracy as well, now that heavy fighters are more agile than they were in the past.

However, my fighting style comments are more than valid. You simply cant expect the old N3 roll bonanza to work on these new ships. You have to try new weapons or new styles, and accept the fact that you are not really a godly pilot. The ships just got balanced so that other styles are viable - you need to adapt.

I've been fighting lots in a Prom SC. My experience (about 200 battles worth) is that if a light fighter pilot tries to get close and fight head to head then obviously they're going to die. Often not to the GT as a good pilot can dodge the GT in any decent ship but very often to flares.

People how are prepared to fight with different tactics fare much better. My fights with Osiris-X often come down to who's having a better day. He really knows how to take a Prom with an IBG and our fights are so close it's ridiculous.

In my opinion, the Valk is terrible. Either a centurion or a prom can take one down pretty easily. Even a centaur or warthog will threaten one.

Eldrad took me down to 9% in my SCProm GT Flare.

No to renerfing the Prom yet again. If has just been unnerfed (finally). Adapt and move on.

I find Proms are quite well balanced, and I'm an Itani!

As Martin said about our fights, fighting a Prom now involves a certain tactical element rather than going in with your guns blazing. Hell, I got Martin down to 2% with him in his Sky Command and me in my IBG. A couple of times I made some mistakes yet still managed to get him to 2% without backrolling and making it a boring fight.

All you gotta do is make a plan for the battle ahead.

-Osiris-X-

OK, so in the cases where I have clearly outclassed a pilot in a prom, I have still been unable to kill it in a cent3 with gauss due to the large amount of shots I have to land to even get it to half health.

This is similar to Smittens situation and can be taken two ways... Either I am using the wrong weapon/ship combination/strategy to defeat a prom, or the prom has waaaay too much armour to be defeated with anything and needs to be nerfed. Both these points have been expressed adequately in this thread.

The answer is a combination of the two, but I tend to agree more with starfisher that you need to be able to adapt your strategies quickly, and not try to rely on something that may have worked previously. However this does not solve the problem -- Proms are still hard to beat! While I dont think nerfing the prom is the answer, there does need to be more weapon/ship combinations that are effective against it.

It is this lack of diversity (or specialisation) of weapons that also applied previously when serco fighting valks were at such a disadvantage (or whenever an 'unbalanced' ship exists). There is also the argument whether the proms have too much armour, and I believe they still do. Plus you cant argue with tboyz logic that 35 is a lot of numbers :P.

The solution I propose, is the seeming oximoron of -- a greater diversity of more specialised weapons. Obviously we dont want to get to the point where one setup will only be effective against one set up, but in my opinion this would make PvP as it currently stands far more interesting and go a long way to balancing the game.

Anyway just my two cents, trying to break this argument down into something more constructive... However both the devs and players agree that it is a never-ending, windy, treacherous, road to the nirvana of complete gameplay balance, and everything is temporary. So why do we even argue? :D

Infinite_Skillz

35 is a lot, but no-one uses a single neut 3. These days 2 is the common amount which means 18 shots have to hit (assuming you hit with both neuts)

Interestingly it also takes 18 hits with the GT to kill an IBG.

I'd actually really like to see a lighter, less damaging weapon with a very high velocity that light fighters can use to peck away at largers ships. That would require the heavy ship pilot to resort to more offensive measures.

I think perhaps the real deal here is that prom pilots currently don't look like they have to do much adapting at all.. a super-armored ship with decent maneuverability and an AGT just has to point and spray, decent dodging techniques are sufficient. The person on the other side of the gun barrel, on the other hand, has to greatly adapt their fighting style so their not blown away. I've used AGTs recently and they're WAY too easy to use. no wonder why all proms are hard to beat. Combine the nasty AGT with rockets and you don't have a fight, you have a massacre.

I'm noticing that in most given situations, a prom pilot can only be beaten by 2 fighter pilots. I have no problem with a large ship that requires team tactics to beat, that's actually pretty cool.. the problem is, that any one serco can grab a prom, if you had a 3v3, the serco would probably win because the proms are so nasty.

Another way maybe to balance this, is to have a larger ship much like the prometheus that the Itani can impliment as well, as an answer to the prom. The itani valkerie is a deathtrap. I can't even put my finger on what it is that makes it suck, but I die in them constantly now. Orion Centurions seem to be one of my only other choices, and frankly, I don't find them that fun to fight with, but I have to in order to compete with the new ships.

I know the devs are all about diversity between the two sides in ship style. But that's gotta be REALLY hard to balance. so why not just have 'equals' on both sides, that have just slightly different specs? I hate how I can't grab a prom to compete with a prom....

I hope I explained my ideas pretty well, it's tricky because of balance.

I really think weapons are what need balancing really.. Velocity is what it's all about now. which is why neuts and positrons are all people seem to use for energy weapons. Lets see more weapons that have velocities with tighter differences.. the way we have most weapons velocity range frfom 150-170 and then have like 3 guns with velocities from 200-210 just kinda nullifies the rest, regardless of their specs. Like I say about armor and damage, It doesn't matter how much damage you can do if you can't hit your target.

> 35 is a lot, but no-one uses a single neut 3. These days 2 is the common
> amount which means 18 shots have to hit (assuming you hit with both neuts)

I use a single N3 about as often as I use dual.

I would disagree about the lack of diversity in S port weapons. First there are at least 4 different and effective light weapons (neutrons, positrons, gausses and flares). Second, slow and low energy weapons have their use too. They are not meant for duelling - but there are other PvP situations than duelling. You guys are aces fighting in duel situations. It is normal that you end up with few choices of weaponry and ships. Lesser mortals can fight with less effective or more multi-purpose set-ups. Final remark: I would find normal that a heavy ship takes down a light one in a duel situation at equal skills; heavy must mean more armor and more firepower. They should be slower and/or less maneuverable than lighter ships though - which is perhaps the only real point to revisit about the Proms - but not to a point that a centurion or a vult would beat a Prom at equal skills.

*sigh* n00bs. Proms are just as easy to kill as they always were. You're just rushing in like it's a light vs. light fight, of course your gonna get the crap blown out of you. As mentioned before, use some other tactics. For example. 1 Rocket and 1 n3. hit the prom with a rocket, it spins around, then nail it with n3 while it's coming back to the front. Rinse and Repeat. You could also use seekers and an energy weapon.

Take it from me, proms HATE seekers.

I know I do...

"This game should be based on skill, not the ship the other player has access to. The fact was I was better than these other people to the point that I could always beat them. Now why should that change because they chose their nation differently?"

Tee hee hee.... /me thinks back to the Valks at release.

tboyz007: I notice that you neglect to mention that the Valk Vengeance has 11600 armor and a mass of 3100 kg, giving it an armor:mass ratio of nearly 3:1. Stop complaining and learn to adapt. Yes, the prom is a lot faster, and a lot better armored than it used to be. But if you ever tried to fly the prom, it was like a flying brick. A suicide box. I used to fly Warthog IVs against swarms of Itani flying Valks. Considering that nearly all of the valks have more armor than the hog, are at least 2000kg heavier, and have 3s ports to the hog's 1l and 1s, it was very very difficult, and you just have to adapt to it.

If you're finding that fighting the Prom is not like shooting fish in a barrel anymore, I'm sorry. My vote goes towards keeping the Prom how it is.

Good post Apex and Infinite_Skillz, but otherwise I think that you guys aren't getting Smitten's original point.

He originally said that it wasn't fair that n00bs in proms with 0 player kills could take him out in any other ship. (He has +100 pk's). And this isn't just one incident, this repeats over and over and over. Sedina B8, for example, when not controlled by GOOD pilots in proms, is controlled by BAD pilots in proms, and its STILL hard to get through. As of now, my "changed tactics" is just to not bother fighting a prom.

Finally, remember a few months ago when Serco were gushing complaints about the Valk? Now the Valk is useless and the Serco seem satisfied with their new and improved Prom. And what do you expect the Itani to do now? The scale has been tipped too far. It's gotta be an extremely tough job, to balance the ships, but my reccommendation would to either nerf or improve both unique ships to the same extent.

Phoenix> Nice idea, too bad that proms (at least Skycommands) are only 10,000 kg's. Thats easily a weight where dodging is useful. The prom is no longer like a flying 18-wheeler, it's light. And the only way to fight a light ship is close combat (right?, you can't hit it from +100m) and now try beating a prom in close combat! I think you'll get pummeled by AGT's and rockets before you manage to fire your one measly rocket.

Let's do some more math =p. First, rockets.

You have a jackhammer rocket and neut III and a warthog. I think that's a change of "tactics." We have already deemed that one Neut III is pretty useless against proms, so let's see the jackhammer rocket (arguably the 2nd best rocket in the game). The jackhammer does 2,000 damage for a direct hit. Now, fire jackhammers at a prom, directly hitting the hull. 21,000/2000=10.5, but since it's rockets, you can't fire half a rocket, so it will take 11 jackhammer rockets to kill a prom. There are only 12 jackhammer rockets in the launcher. That leaves you with 1 left as you return to the station after your "victory"

But wait!, did you win? Let's see the ship vs. ship. Let's go with a warthog MkII, because it is the best one with infiniturbo. It has 9,000 armor and it weighs 5,700 kg's. Thats a 3:2 armor to weight ratio, compared with the 2:1 armor to weight ratio of the prom (which, being a bomber, should be much heavier.) Weapons ports: Prom has 2,1; Warthog has 1;1. Cargo-wise, the prom wins with 18 vs. 14. The prometheus is an all-out winner. (Note, it will only take 5 jackhammers to take out the warthog)

I'd also like to take the time to note that the prometheus MkII has 40 cargo space. Thats nearly as much as a centaur.

So, lets go with another ship. Warthog didn't work, and you guys say that light ships don't work, so let's go with a ragnarok.

In my first post, I already touched on the fact that the ragnarok is a lot worse than the prom. With the MKIII with 19,000 armor and 16,000 kg's, it has almost a 1:1 armor to weight ratio. Note that this is 2000 less armor than the skycommand and 6,000 more kg's. Already the ragnarok has no chance.

Well, the ragnarok DOES have 3/2 weapons ports, so maybe that'll help. But you need explosive weapons to kill a prom, and those are heavy. An experienced pilot would probably not fill all the weapons ports. So that doesn't help.
So I think the ragnarok is stuck in a rut.

Any other ship configs/"fighting tactics" ? I'd love to tear them dow...I mean, hear them. =p.

In response to CrippledPidgeon, yes, let's look at the Valkyrie Veangence.

It has 11600 armor and its only 3100 kg's, making for just under a 3:1 armor to weight ratio. Pretty good? But then the whole special part is that is MEANT to be light...Let's compare other aspects:

Turbo energy- 70/s, ten more than the Skycommand 60/s.
No heavy weapons ports-no fiery explosions, except for adding on Sun Flares, which would drastically increase the Valk's weight (they are 1,200 kg's) thereby drastically decreasing its maneuvaribility. Remember, Valks don't have uber engines like proms; they can't take much weight before handling poorly. Also note that sunflares would take 14 direct hits on a prom to kill it (no damage left over), and it can only hold 16 rockets. That means, with sunflares, you need an accuracy of 87.5% or better OF DIRECT HITS to kill a prom. Good luck with that.

If you used energy weapons, namely the Neut III, it would still take 35 hits to kill a prom. The fact that it could hold 3 neut III's doesn't decrease the amount of hits you need martin.mac. And you are not going to hit with all three neutrons every single time. Also, neut III's are 400 kg's, not much, but 3 neut III's is 1,200 kg's which would make it about a 5:2 armor to kg ratio, (thats 2.5:1, not much more than 2:1).

Cargo space?- Skycommand: 18. Vengeance: 4. Thats 4.5 times as much cargo space. Try doing CtC with a vengeance! The valk with the most cargo space is a rune, with 8 spaces. But it only has 9500 armor. That is less than half of that of a prom.

So i don't think valks work against proms, CrippledPidgeon.

My Prom V Niki in his IBG (I think, it was some kind of cent with 2 s)

I Lost, a few days ago in a 3vme i shot him up a lil, today in a him v me situation? I wished I was just a lil lighter, with a lil more turn (my old hog =p not like the crappy excuse for a hog we have now, but i will wait....)

Why dont we all just fly round in different coloured busses, or ya know? you could actually get a prom, like we used to have to get valks.

[Edit]

Wait till they say, thats it, were balanced, then moan. I know I will, heh

Yah, lets wait and see what they do to the light fighters.

I think AGT is a little absurd, considering the skill it takes to use vs the skill it takes to beat it. (did anyone miss the fact that Eldrad lost to one of these in a previous post? he's no noob, he's fought old school proms, and must conceivably have worked out the tactics then to fight them)

I would like to point out though that there's a problem with the statement "well you just need to learn the tactics..."

It's true that there are ways to take a light fighter against a prom. However, the strategies generally involve keeping your distance, staying just out of weapons range, and trying to tag them with N3's... a lot.

As far as phoenix's rocket/neut combo. Well, if that works, great. But I've been flyin a prom recently, and if you actually set it up so you can hit them with rockets, they'll hit you with rockets. The prom dodges em fine at any distance.

Lets consider that this prom is (in the numbers at least) totally superior to the prom of old. Its a fun ship to fly too.

But, when I can take on Apex, Smittens, and Another itani with a prom with neut 3's and jacks, there's an issue. It can outfight a lightfighter, on the lightfighter's terms.