Dogfight Balancing
I just read through the list of improvements, which mostly look great. In considering how the balancing will be affected, something doesn’t make much sense. From my experience playing the game, a hit from an ion missile on an xwing completely eliminates the shields, and with it over 80% of it’s health. Tie fighters on the other hand are simply disabled, without losing much health at all. It already gives an unfair advantage to one side, that seems to be ignored by balancing changes.
Now we will have ion rockets in the game?
While this may give more options vs capital ships, it looks like it will unbalance dogfights even more. I am failing to understand how a tie fighter and xwing will be expected to have a fair joust at this point. It was already a bit ridiculous to have an assault shield on a tie fighter. If the ion rockets are this effective against shields, and the same rockets do not cause the same catastrophic damage to tie fighters, it seems like this will cause some major balancing issues. As I understand, Star Wars was supposed to be WW2 in space. Using that analogy, tie fighters would be more like nimble zeroes unable to absorb much damage, while the xwing has more firepower and durability like a wildcat. If tie fighters have the great speed and maneuverability, as well as a strong hull, with the ability to easily down the shields of the new republic fighters, it seems dogfights will be unbalanced further with this change. I think it’s a great idea vs capital ships, but if ion rockets are as effective as the ion missiles are vs shields on fighters, it could be a serious issue. At least with ion missiles, you have countermeasures to avoid an ion missile hit, which is already terribly unbalanced if it hits as described above. From what I have read, jousting will be over if a tie fighter simply has ion rockets equipped. Ties don’t have shields, but a repair droid instead (ok??), that restores its health in similar fashion. Tie fighters should not have shields of any type or repair droids. Speed, maneuverability, with quick power transfer ability. Xwings should be a bit slower, tougher to take down, but more firepower. I am curious how other experienced pilots view this change. This is just my observation from playing, yet the balancing seems to be tilting towards the wrong direction in dogfights with the addition of ion rockets. The game seemed well balanced with the exception of the tie bomber and fighter hulls, and the ion missile advantage. This change makes it worse from what I am seeing. People were already complaining it was unbalanced towards imperial because the hulls are too strong. Now tie bombers will have shield penetrating torpedoes, and tie fighters will have ion rockets too? Thoughts?
