[2021] nerf the cvs, not the players

So, this is an answer to your question, and you can take the same concepts and stretch them out to Unicum DD/BB/Cruiser/whatever play.

I don't thinking reducing player capability is something that's an easy decision to make, so please understand this is academic in nature.

Recognize what the differences are, and then try to reduce the performance gap. This can also be called "Normalization" as it's bringing outliers in to a more normal center.

A Unicum/High-End player is going to have 2 main advantages: Decision-Making and Specialized Skill

First, Specialized Skill:

What is this? It's an ability to do very specific things with a high or exetreme amount of talent. This could be dodging, aiming, mechanics manipulation, and other outlier-esque situations

Flak: Some super-unicum CV drivers can avoid all, or nearly all flak. This is a Skill Check, in that a person who has the route planning/execution can mitigation most or all of this problem, whereas those with less capability in this area can not. As a way to reduce this gap, you could remove Flak and replace it with Continuous Damage that ramps simply based on distance. It removes the randomness/variety, but it brings on the players on the same conceptual field. In effect, you'd tune the losses to what an average player was experiencing and make it so the Unicum experiences the same amount of losses.

Accuracy: An average player may land half their rockets/bombs/torps, whereas a Unicum may land most or all of their ordinance. You could automate drops so that an AI takes over at a set distance to target and executes a drop the same way regardless of playerskill.

Saturation/Damage Normalization: If a Unicum is going to land 80+% of damage, and an average player 50%, then reduce the damage from hitting more then 50% of your ordinance. A 50% reduction in damage after the first half hit, or some other scaling measure. This draws damage totals more into line with standard play, but still rewards higher accuracy/execution

Specific Mechanics (ie: Slingshotting Windows): Removal of smaller, lesser known mechanics to reduce inherent knowledge-gap advantages

In general, recognize that there are a few players that will enevitably be able to perform "perfect play". Reducing the opportunities for "perfect" to yield significantly higher outcomes is required.

Second, Decision-Making Impact:

A CV's main strength is its ability to make designs spanning the entire map. Primarily, the limitation is time, but it could be argued that high-end decision making can outperform losses due to flight time.

So the question is, "How do you make the wrong choice be more impactful, and the correct choice more impactful?

Spotting: Spotting/Detection is a tool that a "Correct choice" makes matter. Spotting for the sake of it doesn't mean much, but targeted vision on specific enemies at specific times can be Very Impactful. This is a specific strength of the Class, but as decision-making is a gate here, the Normalization answer would be to reduce/remove spotting. This removes any extra reward from performing the Correct play, which would allow it to stay relevant to a less impactful decision.

There's really not much that can be done for Decision Making, as that's something outside the bounds of automation. Short of having an AI take over for a period of the match to normalize players that way and reduce player agency.

There are people that have made that point, sure.

The Rework was done for a variety of reasons though, which included making the CV game feel more in-line with other ship experiences. Also, reducing the need for high APM/task juggling. The APM of an RTS system is a physical limiter/skill problem as some humans just don't do that stuff well.

It was about a great deal more than just damage application.

A player can always do more with more.

A surface ship could have each turret be independantly aimed, for instance. Most folks wouldn't be able to break their mind up into three-or-four different firing solutions, but some "New Gen" high APM monster could. This game isn't about high-APM monsters, it's about decision-making and execution over time. This is why it has such a strong appeal across such a wide age range.

Other games aim for high-input skill checks as their base-level of gameplay. Our game does not.

To further reinforce this point, the entire question posed in this thread is "How can we bring Unicums down to a more normal level without making CVs extremely hard to play?"

He likes to argue in very precise, cold terms. It can come off as extremely sharp and is quite good at making people get passionately angry.

He toes the line while other people get angry and cross it. It's a form of fun for him.

Best advice, either stay frosty in the conversation or back away from the edge while you still have some sanity left.

You're referring to automated drops? Sure, I mentioned that earlier in the thread.

---

The 13 hour Moderation-fest? Sure thing~

Just because topics are contentious doesn't mean people don't want to talk about them. The biggest hurdle is being able to provide a civil environment to have that conversation in.

The first three pages of this topic actually addressed the topic. Namely, "How do you alter CVs to be playable, but not too OP in hands of a Unicum player"

As the last 2 pages have devolved into word parsing and unproductive bickering, this thread's met her fate.

Thanks for playing and we'll see you on the next one~