I’ve just played a bunch of games over the last two days and I have to say I am having a lot of fun. Many people are having fun and some not so much.
I’ll give my opinion once:
The changes will kill a good game.
The mod makes it a one-strategy-game. If ur strategy doesnt bases on frigates u will have no winningchance. Vanilla has so many possibilities and just some small problems.
Just the biggest weaknesses of the mod:
The games are much longer now - too long and boring. Building BCs or Destroys is just a small Addition to you Frigate-Fleet. Frigs are way too strong against Destroyers. The authors of the mod obviously dont understand what “rock-paper-scissors” mean. Destroyers are frigate-killers. BCs are destroyer-killers. No we have Frigates as Frig/Dest and BC-killers. No sense at all. Spending tousands or RU on BCs is stupid now. I would give the advice to delete them out of the game. Destroyers too. U can build maybe 2 in 10 Minutes. In that time, the enemy has 20 Frigs which kill them so easy that u dont need them anymore. Gravwell-Generators are useless now too.
Only working: Frigate-Fleet supported by some fighters. Congratulations. Months of work to eliminate all the strategies that whining people in the forums were killed by were succesfull. now they have what they want. Everyone can slowly build up there frigate-fleets and dont need to be afraid of dest-, bc-, grav-… or other tactics!
I dont want to discuss this. I gave my opinion. If this happens to the game i will focus on other games.
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I still don’t make fighter anymore though as a Hiigaran. This worries me.
Since I can go vette, why should I go fighter? I have not bothered to build them lately.
This worries me because I liked playing with fighters. I’ve seen others use them, but they get chewed up by vettes in general.
And why do missile vettes perform so well against fighters now?? I can’t imagine their role as being anti fighter?
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For anyone wondering how the minor DD and BC nerfs shake down. Here’s some test results with Hiig, full upgrades and no micro:
4 Ion Frigs vs 1 DD (2800ru vs 2000ru)
->HWRbm: 0.2 DD
->hw2c: 0.4 DD
5 Ion Frigs vs 1 DD (3500ru vs 2000ru)
->HWRbm: 1.2 Frigs
->hw2c: 0.15 DD
6 Ion Frigs vs 1 DD (4200ru vs 2000ru)
->HWRbm: 3.1 Frigs
->hw2c: 2.5 Frigs
10 Ion Frigs vs 1 BC (7000ru vs 4000ru)
->HWRbm: 0.1 BC
->hw2c: 0.4 BC
11 Ion Frigs vs 1 BC (7700ru vs 4000ru)
->HWRbm: 1 Frig
->hw2c: 0.2 BC
4 DDs vs 1 BC (8000ru vs 4000ru)
->HWRbm: 0.1 BC
->hw2c: 0.2 BC
I still go for destroyers before ion frigates most games. Hiig DDs also got a silent buff since you no longer need the advanced research module for lv2 upgrades. Vaygr DD’s are also much more desirable now that Vaygr capital ship upgrades aren’t so expensive.
They were always good vs fighters in hw2c. I can run some comparison tests tomorrow, but last time I checked they were about the same - if not then it may need fixing! =)
Yeah, it is funny to see people reaction, psychological effect maybe, I even heard some myths about 5 assaults killing a dd in 30 seconds, most of the hw2 ships still have pretty much the same stats, only bcs that got a bigger health nerf, and lvl1 upgrades are closer to level 2 before, but on cost still close to level 2, about the might frigates, only hw1 frigates got a heavy change, but that is expected since they were so bad, and so good on the classic.
The only strat that is “not so good” anymore is bc rush. However they still rule late game.
And imo longer fights are more fun, I rather build in 20 minutes and fight for 5~10 minutes, instead of build for 20 minutes and fight for 1~5 minute, that sounds like a time waste for me
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I’ll say it again in this thread, Strikecraft & Support only does nothing on my end.
I think I see where people are coming from though. I mean if you’re falling behind in the strikecraft war at your door, and you then pull out some multi-guns or even a single flak frigate; that’s a huge swing in your favour. This is what people think of when they think of “natural counter.”
Meanwhile, if the enemy has 4 Ion frigates at your door with a bread-crumb trail of reinforcements coming in as they’re being built, then building a destroyer does not counter that as it will take a lot of free damage before it comes online to engage. Even worse, you just rushed the research so its health is not upgraded. In this case, the destroyer is not acting as a natural counter.
Only comparing RU cost of Destroyers Vs. Frigates doesn’t really work because it doesn’t factor in the fact that the Frigates were there first potentially doing other economy and combat damage. In an even battle, both sides need to keep making frigates. As soon as one lowers his production to start researching DD’s, the frigate balance will swing into the other person’s favour. As a result, the un-upgraded DD reward needs to be strong enough to push back the other way from behind.
Either that, or we need to stop calling destroyers counters for frigates, and then what are they for? I still think that DD’s and BC’s should hit Frigates harder, and the response is to back-tech/produce to bombers/ant-cap squadrons to hard counter back again. Afterall, strike-craft are currently being ignored for corvettes in the early game, so lets give them a strong end game role.
[Strong disclaimer] DD’s may in fact be fine as is! I still need more MP experience! I’m just thinking out loud about combat craft roles and people’s perceptions.
I think you may be right. I suppose I just never acquired a habit of using them against fighters. The fact that they are “missile” corvettes should have clued me in. Ha.
[quote=“raynernycz, post:43, topic:564892”]I still don’t make fighter anymore though as a Hiigaran. This worries me.
Since I can go vette, why should I go fighter? I have not bothered to build them lately.
This worries me because I liked playing with fighters. I’ve seen others use them, but they get chewed up by vettes in general.[/quote]
Ya I’ve been getting this feeling too.
Defenders, Light Corvs, Gunships, and even Missile Corvettes - are all very early game mobile units, that counter fighters - maybe a bit too strongly… I’m going to do a lot of testing around these 4 ships vs fighters this week.
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When you put it like that, the interceptor becomes like a glorified scout without the speed. 
Yea I wonder if maybe jacking up the speed and ROF (to compensate for attack run time) of all fighters could help here. Something to improve the fighters survivability and make them seem faster and harder to hit, but if they stay in the area where there is strong anti fighter units they get toasted.
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Not a bad idea.
Now that gunships actually work and vettes in general have been buffed, fighters have been relegated to a very diminished role. I guess fighters were always so useful in the past because gunships were pretty useless against them making them premiere units.
The knee jerk reactions scare me. We’re already talking about buffing fighters a bit, but IMO there has been very little time to play with them in their current state.
It’s funny how for months in vanilla folks claimed under powered, then over powered, then under powered of various units.
Remember launch? HW1 fighters sucked and couldn’t stand up to HW2 fighters. Then not long after, with no change to balance the opposite became true? Now I see claims that vanilla was great. It isn’t great, players have just had months to adapt to what can work and not work.
Your point about gunships is probably one of the most valid. They didn’t work as advertised before and were never used. They also weren’t used at all by the HW1 races in vanilla. Players are conditions to send fighter head first into a ship that is designed as a straight up counter and expecting to win with it because they always have. Yea it was fine before to bring a knife to a gun fight when there’s no bullets.
The one consistent gripe that I do agree with is DDs needing to be more effective against frigates. If your fielding frigates and you see a DD hit the field you should be thinking “oh damn a DD” not “lol DD” but also not “DD! gg : (”
I wish we had more time to let these things cook before making changes, but we don’t. Time’s going to run out on us.
I hope the next drop cooks for a few weeks while the testing with formations takes place.
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Perception and meta game. There’s always going to the that noise of percieved strenght or weakness to one unit or another.
You know what would be cruel? To announce a buff to some unit (say accuracy, so it’s not something visible), do in fact nothing at all and watch the placebo effect of all the people claiming it’s so OP after the patch. 
I can only repeat what was already said. I didn’t build gunships in vanila and the current DDs might use a tiny buff against Frigates.
With respect to fighters, I would say the perception is accurate. They have lost their place as an integral unit due to corvette balancing and effectiveness which is extremely unfortunate. I am sure it is being looked at, but it should be placed as a top priority.
As far as DD’s, more umph against frigates would be helpful. Someone spamming frigs should have some worry about someone going destroyers.
Other than this, everything else is looking fine to me… so far!
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Fighters vs corvettes is being rebalanced.
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I haven’t played the last patch too much, but what about bombers ? Aren’t they effective against frigate ?
Reading you it seems like all the balance is fighter vs corvette; corvette vs frigate; frigate vs destroyer vs cruiser; but nothing like fighter against frigate or destroyer whereas in HW2 bomber were really effective as anti frigate.
Sorry if what I say is inaccurate or have been talked before, it just my current feeling.
Bombers got pumped against frigates, a lot, they really hurt frigates bad now, it is they way we found to punish players that were doing straight frigates strategys, ignoring swarms, and fighters in general are great against DD and Cruisers, subsystem killing still is very effective. Fighters vs Fighters seems to be working well also.
Dunno if i got or point, or aswered this like you expected, let me know.