Edit: This is weird place to put an edit, I know.. but...
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And it doesn't matter how big his numbers under the avatar.
End of Edit:
One more thing: i tend to take every statement about psychological side of changes with a grain of salt. Humans have a strong defensive mechanism called "Impriting". It makes us very clingy to all old things. "Users generally prefer systems similar to those they learned on and dislike unfamiliar systems."
Yeah... about regenerating health... ah.. I'm very certain that also pops onto the very same concept you're pushing... ahem FPS games...
Current system: Hwacha barrage deals 80% damage to the hull. Your hull have 50% You have rebuilt the armor and wasn't killed. You have retreated form battle.
My system: Hwacha barrage deals 45% damage to the hull. Your hull have 35% You have rebuilt the armor and wasn't killed. Hull took 15% damage. You have retreated form battle.
Let me point out that a ship in your system would be either above 50% at all times, or be dead at all times. But that's not what I'm confused about. How does a ship take 80% damage (note a hellova lot of missiles hitting the ship) and NOT take any hull damage? Which, with current multipliers, probbably take it down to 35-30% range? For your system, I understand "Armor is all-holy and almighty god of defense" but whyyyy would a ship's crew fire a hwacha barrage AT THAT MOMENT? Everyone can see the "Ship A's armor is destroyed!" marker in their top right, and to my knowledge, three engines whacking with spanners takes about 3-4 rounds of whacking, not to mention with two and a third gunner firing back it's usually 4-3. In my opinion, that's more than enough time to decide "FIRE!" is a good idea or not, and even then, you can see when their armor is repaired, allowing you to instantly halt the barrage and wait a few secodns for side gun armor strip magic, and then badamaboom with the remainder of weapon or a whole new clip. And in the last scenario, let us not forget: Hwacha barrages still can do some damage towards the armor & hull with the damage, meaning there's still the chance the ship can be seriously damaged before turning the other guns, which maybe just enough to finish it off. My feeling is that you can't point the heavy gun of the Goldfish like the death-ray of The Lord. Heavy use, yeas, but there's a reason no ship has just one gun. And with the assumption that base-armor near destruction is around 50%, and taking into account current multipliers (which would make an assumed average of about 75%, maths class!) that would mean that the ship would take a crap-ton more than 15 damage. Approximately 26-25%. Which would definitely put it into the dooms-day range. If, it weren't repaired back to full by a kite-around through all the sandstorms and buildings. *ahem previous post*
Now, let's look at it from the other side of a barrel.
Example 2: Goldfish in 1 v 1 fight against other Goldfish. The second one is critically damaged and disabled. G1 strips G2's armor with a side gatling then turns to finish it with Hwacha.
Current system: G2's engineers furiously whacking the hardpoint, rebuilding armor right before the barrage. Hull takes no damage and it could be repeated indefinitely.
My system: G2's engineers furiously whacking the hardpoint, rebuilding armor right before the barrage but some damage bleeds trough. Eventually G2 would be killed.
The question: Why a combined efforts of 3 people from the first Goldfish should be completely nullified? Why should they be frustrated?
I hope by critically damaged you mean by 25% or so, because above that is "Heavily damaged". Critically is the point where you sweat every time you see a ship. And for me, that's 25%. Assuming a Hwacha still has an unchanged 1.3 modifier when smacking the armor for such limited time, that's a large amount of damage. Repeat to my first response to first example for armor whacking time, and that's a large amount of boom. How the hell you'd not get a single rocket to scratch their hull in time is beyond me. And, following YOUR logic of "You can keep up with the other ships if they try to repair" which shouldn't have been changed in the current system, a follow-up barrage can easily whittle away at them. Completely nullified? NONONONO! Somewhat nullified? Yes. If it were completely nullified, should they be frustrated? In my opinion, that would be so, but it would be justified as a bad attack. Because the only natural scenario is a ship blowing straight past another one or breaking cover, and the former is human error, the latter is tactical.
I recall the first example you gave was the galleon surviving on 5% permahull. I can't see how this would be any different except that it would now be even more likely that the galleon will survive.
That example just proves that exploiting the hull damage is very difficult and there's not too much difference between a new ship and the one that was a hair away from death. I think critical hull condition should make the ship very, very vulnerable.
BUT- BUT- FIVE PERCENT- MERC PIERCE- HWACHA BARRAGE-
Seriously though, you can't pop the armor quick enough for a 5% hull repair? Kite around to either the front or back with light guns, and hell, with just two gats you could probably get any remaining hull to crumble with just that. *ahem junker broadside build ahem* Heavy weapons could still be fired, doing some damage to the armor and potentially pushing it enough to get right on up to the last 5%. And in addition, any ship with less than 5% has to play the caution game in the current system. The chance of a scenario like this where a galleon
happens upon a goldfish intentionally? . With your system, the caution game would be replaced with the flight game. Again, highly unlikely that a galleon could outrun a goldfish. After killing a goldfish, and flying away? And in most maps if one isn't looking for a fight they could easily avoid their enemies? Quite the valid option indeed.
Why will this not work?
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Good captains who adapt to this new system will not give any ship the option to retreat and will hunt down and kill the opposing team. They have to, or any advantage they hand in the engagement will be lost. This means that the only "repairing to full" will be done by the team that hunted down and killed the other team and are just waiting on re spawns.
Do you think the current situation "just assume the best position and wait until they come to us" is better? I think no. Waiting game is boring to play and boring to watch. Besides, spawncamping would be much harder because campers would lose a chunk of hull with each fight and won't be able to repair it quickly enough.
"Just assume the best position and wait until they come to us" is actually the base of CP. Which... depending of the skill of both teams, could either make or break a team. Imagine a vet team against a bad team. Bad team can't quite get that kill, but the vets are repairing while obliterating them. Sure, you've put a timer on their lifespan, but that timer still isn't very short. After they die, the bad team goes in. Surprise, they can't hold out at all against the vets. Their hull can barely scrape by a single fight, but with the new update, they're ultimately doomed. Doesn't really change much there. This ignores any potential hidden tactics that I don't know about because assuming the best position and waiting would be how I play.
Waiting game is boring to watch? Weeeeeelllll then, let me introduce you to the sniper!
In seriousness though... people will do that to keep themselves out of harm and win at the same time, to the point of pilots grabbing donuts and beers mid-match. I will use this again if you bring up wait times again.
You are damn right spawncamping would be so much harder when campers lose a chunk of their hull. What you don't take into account is what happens when they swap in and out. Imagine, if you will, a gat-mortar pyramidion team. Both spawncamp, and the kill-limit is about 20 or so, so the match just drags. The non-camp team manages to scrap up a pyramidion to about 60% perma. No biggie. Fly away hile your teammate still gets the drop on unsuspecting spawns. Then, when he's back to 80%+, he replaces his teammate. Every system is exploitable, it's just that some seem easier to exploit than others. Armor exploit? Problem, because you have to need some loss of repairs to do that. Hull exploit? Fly around, dodge fights, and boom, you can get back in.
Now to push a question of my own.
How would your system affect players? As in, "How will a new player feel that this system is easier than before?", and "How will a veteran player, who's well versed in tactics and skill, be changed by this system"? I feel that it cuts the current divide deeper by making veteran players who know piercing weapons still remove armor quickly can now use both pierce and explosive at opportune, while players who still do a "shoot all the things" logic will be troubled like before, and the health of every battle is recharged slightly, extending fights like these?
