Yes, X, I know it's a beta release (Might need to remind Goekhan later, though
). However, I do have a reason for my response. It's a trained reflex from World of Warcraft. Playing a class,
any class, as a hardcore player from start to the second expansion was a painful ordeal, because it took Blizzard three years to realize that players also wanted some say on the balance, and after playing for three and a half years, it became a second nature to react with this magnitude against heavy nerfs. I also agree that a 5% decrease doesn't just cut it either.
What I've learned from WoW is that a group of codes and pixels isn't
that important unless I'm earning money from it (I do, but I'm not a game developer and I definitely don't earn money from AI wars), but when something that can affect my fun in a game that I care about is made, I react. Apparently, a lot of other people do, too
And Keith, I'm indeed spoiled by the response time from you guys, but maybe this time the speed was a bit too high instead
It's just that the overall tone was a bit too set-in-stone here with 'old crusties' and 'spoiled newcomers' clashing a bit, and of course, without enough warning. You might want to sprinkle some more numbers in changes like these when you announce them in suggestions
All in all, I find the 'hardcaps' arbitrary in most conditions, and would rather see the fleet ships complement a fleet instead of some measly amount of ships, with soft-caps placed to preserve the balance, just like the stacking penalty (the penalty is there, but changes with ship amount).
If you guys are fine with the munition boosters as per pre-3.028, then it should be possible to shoehorn some more fleet utility to fleet starships while lowering the fleet line's boosting (not axing in half!). A percentage of attack bonus, speed boosting, shield boosting, a combination of all, or something new and fabulous, even - I'd be happy if I could use a cheap, weaker but useable alternative to munitions boosters without making any of the alternatives obsolete. Ship caps prevent that with the total multiplier way of boosting. Also, what will be the baseline amount? We can get 150+ ships from just the basic triangle. Adding a swarm type of ship (infiltrators, raiders maybe) to the mix along with a non-swarm ship (anti-bombers) with just mark 3 line necessiates the use of munitions boosters as I've said a few posts earlier due to ship costs. Boosting is a powerful boon - too powerful prepatch, still too powerful with the MB's but obsolete with fleet starships - when attacking and defusing core/homeworlds, and sometimes you really do need to blot out the sun. After you defang and dismantle one homeworld, you will encounter more resistance in the other if you're solo, and if you're going at it with more than one people, the munitions boosting will be a huge bonus at x5 on mkIII/IV ships.
What I'm getting at it is that the munition boosting fleet starships isn't the problem - the amount of boosting percentage is. It can be altered and it's effects monitored much, much easier than an arbitrary amount of ships being boosted, imo.
Also, bulletproof fighters might be too powerful against ion cannon II's, just sayin'.