I haven't thought this fully through yet, but I figured it's an interesting topic for discussion. Let's assume, at first, that the reduction is the same. A Tracking Penalty that currently reduces Accuracy by 1% per degree instead reduces Damage dealt by 1% per degree.

At first blush, I feel like it would be an overall improvement to the game. Let's first just consider the effects we'd see if we made this change just for Primary Weapons...

* New players get a more consistent, predictable and rewarding shooting experience. Aim at target, shoot at target, see damage numbers. Over time, they learn that they'll do more damage by centering their target if possible. But most importantly, GSF simply works like you'd expect. There's a crosshair, and if you put it over a ship and shoot, you'll do some damage. I feel like this would immediately increase new pilot enjoyment and retention.

* Evasion is gently nerfed, since it no longer stacks with the shooter's Tracking Penalty.

* Laser Cannons, Quad Laser Cannons, and Heavy Laser Cannons become more viable weapons for fighting under satellites. They will still be outclassed at short-range by Burst Laser Cannons and Light Laser Cannons, but it won't be so binary. This, in turn, will make Strikes more competitive with Scouts under satellites.

* Heavy Laser Cannons, will their shield-piercing, will become decent anti-Scout weapons, since they'll deliver consistent hull damage attrition, even at close range and high angle. This is good, since Scouts themselves cannot get HLC's.

* Every cannon gets a buff, but that buff is smallest for BLC's (since they have the lowest Tracking Penalty).

* Turbo Reactor and Directional Shields become more useful, since average time between suffering damage will decrease.

* Mines are slightly easier to kill. They will always require just one hit, but it will be easier to score that hit.

Now all of the above represent the effects of just having Primary Weapons' Tracking Penalty reduce Damage instead of Accuracy. I think that question should be considered separately from whether the same change is made to Tracking Penalty for Rocket Pods and Railguns.

In the case of Rocket Pods, I think Tracking Penalty should continue to reduce Accuracy and not Damage. This is consistent with Rocket Pods dealling the same Damage regardless of range, but suffering a severe Accuracy penalty at long range. This keeps Rocket Pods as a weapon that is best used against a centered target, and it makes them even more distinct and unique, instead of just being a second laser cannon.

In the case of Railguns, I could go either way. It really depends on how much you want to emphasize Evasion as the defense against Railguns. If you want to emphasize that relationship, then keep Railgun Tracking Penalty as a reduction to Accuracy.

For my part, I think I'd prefer that Railguns should also use a Damage-based Tracking Penalty, instead of Accuracy-based. It would make Railgun firing less of a high-risk/high-reward gamble against Evasion. Instead of always either missing outright or dealing full damage, you'd see a variety of Railgun damage values, based on a combination of charge and Damage-reduction due to Tracking Penalty. It would be a slight buff to all Railguns, but perhaps most to Plasma, which would be able to more easily land its DOT's.

As for those who might say that it makes no sense (from a 'lore' perspective) to change Tracking Penalty to Damage instead of Accuracy, I counter that we are now in a world where Fragmentation Grenade is a single target attack. Any sense of "lore" must yield to balance.

I'm curious what you all think. Personally I feel like this would be a great change that would have broad but subtle effects, targeting many of the biggest problem areas in the current game. Not just the high-level meta, but also new pilot accessibility issues.

Can't read the whole thing right now, but I definitely think this idea has merit. It would require some rebalancing, because right now scouts really rely on that extra miss from off center as a primary defense, and a mere reduction by percent wouldn't come close to that.

You couldn't do it as a flat 1% for 1%. I mean, 10% miss reduces your damage taken by a lot more than 10%.

So I'll be a bit of devils advocate in terms of side effects:

For strikes and bombers this removes between half and all of their miss based defenses and replaces it with what's basically charged plating with 50 to 100% bleedthrough.

Scouts and gunships suffer the same effect but in in smaller proportion as most of their miss based defenses are preserved, and they more likely to be positioned or able to maneuver in ways that counter their loss of defense.

Ships with high burst damage now have much more reliable high burst damage.

Everyone dies quicker, 'cause TTK in this game is way too high. You know how everyone hates stock nights and strike nights cause it takes so long to kill anything.

I think the goals are pretty laudable, but I also think the changes to mechanics would be big enough to risk forcing a fairly large re-engineering of both offense and defense for all of the ships in GSF, both mechanics and numbers tuning. Of course, that could be a potentially great thing if it's done well.

I think that the tricky part here is that you're talking about significant alterations to defense (which is currently pretty tightly tied to ship class and type in balancing) by tinkering with weapons (which are spread around and not very closely tied to ship class and type).

So it might work, it might be good, it might also require a complete defensive rebalancing of GSF as a result.

Oh, and it'll annoy everyone who dislikes the RPG shooting mechanics and thinks you ought to hit or miss based on actual aim.

It would allow new flavor text for all of the cannons though:

"Laser Cannon!? What are you talking about son? This here is a Laser Howitzer! It's all about the frag radius kid, aiming is for sissies."

Edit: Also you should should have named the thread, "Space shotguns for everyone!"

So I'll be a bit of devils advocate in terms of side effects:

 

For strikes and bombers this removes between half and all of their miss based defenses and replaces it with what's basically charged plating with 50 to 100% bleedthrough.

 

Scouts and gunships suffer the same effect but in in smaller proportion as most of their miss based defenses are preserved, and they more likely to be positioned or able to maneuver in ways that counter their loss of defense.

 

Ships with high burst damage now have much more reliable high burst damage.

 

Everyone dies quicker, 'cause TTK in this game is way too high. You know how everyone hates stock nights and strike nights cause it takes so long to kill anything.

 

I think the goals are pretty laudable, but I also think the changes to mechanics would be big enough to risk forcing a fairly large re-engineering of both offense and defense for all of the ships in GSF, both mechanics and numbers tuning. Of course, that could be a potentially great thing if it's done well.

 

I think that the tricky part here is that you're talking about significant alterations to defense (which is currently pretty tightly tied to ship class and type in balancing) by tinkering with weapons (which are spread around and not very closely tied to ship class and type).

 

So it might work, it might be good, it might also require a complete defensive rebalancing of GSF as a result.

 

Oh, and it'll annoy everyone who dislikes the RPG shooting mechanics and thinks you ought to hit or miss based on actual aim.

 

It would allow new flavor text for all of the cannons though:

 

"Laser Cannon!? What are you talking about son? This here is a Laser Howitzer! It's all about the frag radius kid, aiming is for sissies."

 

Edit: Also you should should have named the thread, "Space shotguns for everyone!"

No offense Ramalina (I have great respect for you), but I don't really understand a single thing you said in your reply, and I think perhaps you misunderstood my suggestion?

How does changing Tracking Penalty equate to a Charged Plating defense?

Unless you are counting the Tracking Penalty of a shooter as a "miss-based defense" of a Strike or Bomber. But even so, I don't understand how it has anything to do with a Charged Plating effect. Instead the defense all ships get from a shooter's potential Tracking Penalty is one of damage mitigation--that applies to damage done to both shields and hull.

Also, you said:

Oh, and it'll annoy everyone who dislikes the RPG shooting mechanics and thinks you ought to hit or miss based on actual aim.

Actually it'll do the exact opposite. It will significantly remove a lot of the RNG impact on whether you hit or miss--that will largely be determined by aim. But shooting someone "off center" will just have a lower damage potential than shooting someone who is centered.

As for the TTK comments... are you being sarcastic? I think TTK is generally too low, and that's why Strike Nights are enjoyable. Depending on how much of a damage reduction Tracking Penalty would apply, it could increase TTK (which I view as a good thing) significantly. More than anything, it would even out damage, instead of it being so chancy.

I don't think that the current Accuracy Tracking Penalty extends TTK at all. It just makes one out of every few (very few) burst kills be a burst cripple instead of a kill, because one shot misses. A Damage Tracking Penalty would have a similar effect--one out of every few kills would have its damage reduced just enough so as to require an extra shot to kill. But for most attacks, TTK would be the same.

In short, I see this change as having only subtle and limited effects in terms of balance. The biggest effects would be to nerf Evasion-stacking builds and make non-4km range weapons more viable in close combat.

But most importantly, it would make GSF seem more predictable and reliable, experientially. New pilots will point and shoot, and they'll see damage numbers if they pointed well. Right now, even aiming at a Bomber with zero Evasion, a new pilot can fail to score a hit if they are aiming too wide. And without a solid understanding of Firing Arcs and Tracking Penalty (which very few new players have), they get frustrated and quit and post about how dumb GSF is.

And at some level, they are correct. It's dumb to have a mouse-based twitch-shooter space game that makes you think aiming is king, but then applies largely invisible penalties based on nuances few players know about. And that's before Evasion comes into play.

Okay, so, NPE, Evasion, cannon buffs in general, HLC buffs in particular, DS buff, Mines being less annoying to shoot.

NPE: Maybe. Better information fixes this though. I don't believe it's easier to learn than the current tracking mechanic; it's poorly explained either way. GSF should have a guide available in-game that very clearly explains what each game mechanic does.

Indirect evasion nerf: Why beat around the bush here? If evasion is a problem, nerf evasion.

MLC/QLC buffs: These guns are supposed to be generalist, I think. I don't know whether they're underperforming when engaged in close quarters, but I would figure a less fiddly way to address this would be to just plain give them a lower tracking penalty.

HLC buffs: Doesn't this kinda make it a very powerful generalist weapon? HLCs are not bad guns. They fill a vital role in armor pen, have the best cannon range in the game, and do a bundle of damage. Making them a stable option for fighting under a satellite seems like it could broaden their strengths too much.

Directional Shield/Turbo Reactor buff: Does it need a buff? I won't pretend to know. It's also worth noting how it affects the other shields; particularly Quick-Charge and Overcharged. QCS would probably benefit quite a bit under a damage-based tracking model, while Overcharged would suffer.

Mines getting shot down easily: awesome

The problems you cite; Railguns, Rockets. This is a general problem because you are suggesting making exceptions to the rule. Exceptions to the rule are bad because they negate the NPE benefit.

Railgun being changed to a damage-based tracking model would probably not be a good idea I don't think. Ion is buffed significantly by the change because the debuffs and secondary damages are what matters for it, not the shield damage. Plasma is the same to a lesser extent; its penalties are not altered, though initial damage is still knocked down. Slug would probably not feel very good because slug crits on those gosh darn battlescouts feel good at the moment and slugcritting an evasion battlescout and it surviving would suck.

Rockets don't make much sense because rockets explode when they hit their target and presumably fly into space forever if they don't. I don't think it's very possible to get a glancing hit with a rocket. Idk about balance lol

As for those who might say that it makes no sense (from a 'lore' perspective) to change Tracking Penalty to Damage instead of Accuracy, I counter that we are now in a world where Fragmentation Grenade is a single target attack. Any sense of "lore" must yield to balance.

Clearly they are altering frag grenade design to shatter into smaller chunks of shrapnel which causes them to shred their primary target more effectively, yet due to wind resistance the chunks do not travel as far and thus cannot damage secondary targets easily.

Nemarus,

Yeah, I'm definitely counting tracking penalty as basically "evasion for strikes, and to a much lesser degree bombers."

Their primary source of evasion. Evasion for scouts and gunships too of course, but they still have a lot left over if tracking penalties go away.

It's impossible for us as players to measure exactly how the amount of damage avoided during defensive flying breaks down between LOS, misses outside the firing arc, and tracking penalty misses. Without that info, I find it hard to discount tracking penalty as a significant defense in a dogfight. Maybe it's small, maybe it's large.

On a scout I wouldn't be too worried, between available boost and evasion on demand from cooldowns, there are tools to cope if tracking penalty is a significant defense. You can claw back those misses if you really need them to survive.

On a strike though, you face the possibility that the greatest portion of your "effective evasion" is suddenly transformed into damage reduction. There's a lot of difference between 0% damage and 70% damage getting through. Not over the long term average, but the, "saves your butt when it counts most," effect does matter.

Keep in mind the nature of how miss rates stack with themselves. Strike evasion plus a nice chunk of tracking penalty can put you above base scout evasion. Strike evasion by itself is not worth that much.

What I do know is that being an elusive bastard while flying gives huge gains in survivability, and this change could be a hard counter to a big chunk of defensive flying skill.

Or it might be trivial, I can't say for sure.

If it were sizable though, it might be enough to make even me say, "screw it, I'm giving up on strikes." I don't think they have a big margin of excess survivability in the current meta.

They also might have to code an entirely new form of damage reduction to do this. The current one doesn't protect shields at all.

Of course if tracking penalty is insignificant as a defense then everything is fine, and as a bonus, everyone gets to earn the 65% or greater accuracy GSF achievement really quickly.

I was being very sarcastic about TTK. I'm very much on the same page as you when it comes to burst damage being overdone in GSF.

I guess my summary message is: be very careful when monkeying around with core defensive mechanics across all ships. This is removing one chunk of defense, and replacing it with another that acts in a different fashion, and interacts with the rest of the defensive package in a different fashion.

If the defensive balance doesn't come up with all sort of side effect problems the rest all sounds great.

Also minor tweaks might cure any side effects. If you took Strike evasion away entirely and turned it into this new Shield + Hull damage reduction, or did something similar, that might pretty much take care of my concerns.

The actual defensive effect of tracking penalty will be much easier to measure if we see 'miss' in floating text when the RNG has to decide if we hit or miss. Otherwise, it could just be the lag monster eating all our shots for all we know.

Sometimes floating text doesn't show up even when you're on target, cause I'll sometimes light up a drone and see its shields go down in time with my shots, but no flytext.

It will make gunshipwalls even stronger than before... ion rail ftw!

Thanks, I'll pass.

This is interesting, but I think tracking penalties are not the kind of accuracy we should touch, or rather not the one we should transform.

For example, take LLC or QLC and compare the base accuracy of each. The thing you'll notice is that while one will have a minimum accuracy of 95% (HLC), the other one has 80% or so.

It means that a short range cannon, meant for dogfighting, if built on any non-Scout will be inferior to HLC, the cannon not meant for dogfighting, at dogfighting a Scout because the non-Scout will barely be able to maintain range and evasion.

Also, the other risk is that evasion could become the new "weak stat". Evasion is as good as other stats as HP only if there's an healthy amount of misses already existing to offset the weakness towards missiles and mines.

If some common weapons such as HLC and rails suddenly are unable or almost unable to miss... Then what's the point of Evasion as a stat and strategy ?

Wouldn't the stat be in a spot as bad as DR, being useful only against a certain set of builds ?

Considering the "accurate weapon" (HLC) is also the one packing Armor penetration, the choice of cannons would be even more biased than it is currently.

That aside, I agree on the intention. But that's not how I'd handle the situation.

I haven't thought this fully through yet, but I figured it's an interesting topic for discussion. Let's assume, at first, that the reduction is the same. A Tracking Penalty that currently reduces Accuracy by 1% per degree instead reduces Damage dealt by 1% per degree.

 

At first blush, I feel like it would be an overall improvement to the game. Let's first just consider the effects we'd see if we made this change just for Primary Weapons...

 

* New players get a more consistent, predictable and rewarding shooting experience. Aim at target, shoot at target, see damage numbers. Over time, they learn that they'll do more damage by centering their target if possible. But most importantly, GSF simply works like you'd expect. There's a crosshair, and if you put it over a ship and shoot, you'll do some damage. I feel like this would immediately increase new pilot enjoyment and retention.

 

* Evasion is gently nerfed, since it no longer stacks with the shooter's Tracking Penalty.

 

* Laser Cannons, Quad Laser Cannons, and Heavy Laser Cannons become more viable weapons for fighting under satellites. They will still be outclassed at short-range by Burst Laser Cannons and Light Laser Cannons, but it won't be so binary. This, in turn, will make Strikes more competitive with Scouts under satellites.

 

* Heavy Laser Cannons, will their shield-piercing, will become decent anti-Scout weapons, since they'll deliver consistent hull damage attrition, even at close range and high angle. This is good, since Scouts themselves cannot get HLC's.

 

* Every cannon gets a buff, but that buff is smallest for BLC's (since they have the lowest Tracking Penalty).

 

* Turbo Reactor and Directional Shields become more useful, since average time between suffering damage will decrease.

 

* Mines are slightly easier to kill. They will always require just one hit, but it will be easier to score that hit.

 

Now all of the above represent the effects of just having Primary Weapons' Tracking Penalty reduce Damage instead of Accuracy. I think that question should be considered separately from whether the same change is made to Tracking Penalty for Rocket Pods and Railguns.

 

In the case of Rocket Pods, I think Tracking Penalty should continue to reduce Accuracy and not Damage. This is consistent with Rocket Pods dealling the same Damage regardless of range, but suffering a severe Accuracy penalty at long range. This keeps Rocket Pods as a weapon that is best used against a centered target, and it makes them even more distinct and unique, instead of just being a second laser cannon.

 

In the case of Railguns, I could go either way. It really depends on how much you want to emphasize Evasion as the defense against Railguns. If you want to emphasize that relationship, then keep Railgun Tracking Penalty as a reduction to Accuracy.

 

For my part, I think I'd prefer that Railguns should also use a Damage-based Tracking Penalty, instead of Accuracy-based. It would make Railgun firing less of a high-risk/high-reward gamble against Evasion. Instead of always either missing outright or dealing full damage, you'd see a variety of Railgun damage values, based on a combination of charge and Damage-reduction due to Tracking Penalty. It would be a slight buff to all Railguns, but perhaps most to Plasma, which would be able to more easily land its DOT's.

 

As for those who might say that it makes no sense (from a 'lore' perspective) to change Tracking Penalty to Damage instead of Accuracy, I counter that we are now in a world where Fragmentation Grenade is a single target attack. Any sense of "lore" must yield to balance.

 

I'm curious what you all think. Personally I feel like this would be a great change that would have broad but subtle effects, targeting many of the biggest problem areas in the current game. Not just the high-level meta, but also new pilot accessibility issues.

An interesting idea, but not one that I am in support of. In a world without tracking penalties HLC's become the one-stop shop for primaries. The combo of shield piercing and armor penetration make them a supremely powerful weapon. The only thing that limits their dominance in the current meta is the fact that they have large tracking penalties which makes using them in close range very difficult. If that tracking penalty is substituted with a damage penalty they become extremely powerful unless the damage penalty is huge. This is simply owing to the shield penetration. Every. Single. Shot. Will do hull damage. Even if you reduce their damage by 2/3, that is still ~50 hull damage a second against an enemy with full shields that cannot be mitigated in any way, shape, or form. 50 DPS doesn't sound like a lot, and it isn't if it is being applied to shields, but damage to hulls tends to have a psychological impact on people's play (at least it does to mine), with pilots going out of their way to avoid hull damage lest they be fragged.

This constant pecking at ship hulls will absolutely be effective against scouts, that is true. And owing to their low hull strengths it will probably be MOST effective versus scouts, but it will be also be crazy effective against any other ship that you encounter under a satellite. I will say, the one thing that has the potential to limit this dominance is the small firing arc, but I still think that Heavies would be far too powerful with this switch.

To address another of your statements. I actually think this would nerf the effectiveness of shield regen. If there is a time when regen or regen delay is beneficial (and there are many who think there is not) it is when you can have relatively frequent gaps in fighting of about 1.2 - 8s. Getting rid of tracking penalties shortens to the time window on all of these gaps in fighting thereby making regen less effective. This is simply because if you can't count on getting these gaps in a fight in order to regen it is better to have larger shields from the get-go.

This change would also unfairly punish the short-range weapons (BLCs, LLCs, RLCs) because they still have the same Draconian accuracy penalties at range and same hard cap on range. In essence, every long range weapon becomes more effective at close range, but no short range weapons become more effective at long range. I think that this would eliminate RLCs from the meta (if they are even there) and greatly reduce LLCs.

I think you are missing a bit of the point here.

As it is, every shot DOES to damage to hull. Statistically, that is.

The problem is that, as proposed, it's a nerf to scouts and a buff to high tracking penalty weapons (like the heavy lasers you point out).

On live, you could easily have 30% passive evasion, and your foe could be shooting you dead center, with, say, 100% base accuracy. 70% of shots will hit- you will take a decent amount of damage. Certainly, you wouldn't want to tank 700 out of every 1000 damage shot at you.

So lets pretend you are bobbing and weaving and many shots take place with the enemy having a -20% tracking penalty. Now you are taking 500 out of every 1000 shot at you.

But the comparison here isn't that you went down from 1000- that was never on the list. The comparison is that you went from 700 taken to 500 taken, a loss of 30% damage incoming. If this was replaced with a mere 20% damage penalty, you would have taken more damage.

So a system that replaced the accuracy penalty with a damage one couldn't be a 1% damage for 1% tracking tradeoff. In fact, if was any kind of damage for tracking tradeoff that was constant, you'd have to either buff scouts or nerf most everyone else (unless your goal was to nerf scouts- and while I think scouts could use a nerf, I would want to discuss balance separately from root mechanics, because, for instance, I don't think that scouts are overly tanky, but I do feel they can be overly bursty- while others disagree, so it's another convo entirely).

But the core idea of transforming tracking penalties into reduced damage is an interesting one- I think even a good one. I don't like to say "GSF would have more players if only (pet peeve) was addressed" because that's such a formulaic cop out, but I really do feel that player stickiness is related to how much agency the player feels they have, and the fact that the UI can't even tell you the difference between "good shot, but your character missed" and "you didn't aim correctly" is a serious distortion- and something like the tracking penalty is both subtle, not obvious to new players, and actually hard to even be sure we are modelling correctly (whereas reduced damage numbers we would be able to check pretty easily- important in a game where the display XML and the mechanic data are at best loosely related beasts).

So if your heavy laser shots at the edge of the arc- the ones that right now hit 40% less of the time- were hitting for 210 damage, but only missing the 30% from evasion instead of the 70% from evasion plus tracking penalty- the fact that some small amount was hull damage wouldn't matter, because those shots already deal hull damage when they hit, and the average case is the same.

The problem is that, as proposed, it's a nerf to scouts and a buff to high tracking penalty weapons (like the heavy lasers you point out).

I guess my problem with it is that it because it is a buff to high-tracking penalty weapons and changes low-tracking penalty weapons very little, it is effectively a nerf to low-tracking penalty weapons. I don't think it is just a nerf to scouts. It is a nerf to anyone who is likely to be a target of a high-angle shot. Scouts are certainly one of those targets, but I would argue that bombers are very often the target of those sorts of shots since they are often circling satellites. Realistically, the only class that is not very often the target of high angle shots are gunships. Again, I feel like a nerf that disproportionately impacts all classes but gunships, is a stealth buff to gunships: something that I don't feel is warranted.

I understand the frustrations of not understanding why you didn't land a shot. I have only been playing GSF for <2 months or so and thus I can remember quite vividly my games with <10% accuracy. A UI change that gave information about on-target misses and/or evades would be much appreciated and would help newer players understand why they failed to do damage, but I don't feel that a change of this magnitude is necessary.

I think this idea work be terrific at getting new players into the game but overall would make the game a bit less fun and "ace" friendly.

Also as others stated, the ion railgun would be super OP.

I guess my problem with it is that it because it is a buff to high-tracking penalty weapons and changes low-tracking penalty weapons very little

You are getting hung up on a detail, and you are doing a bit of math wrong.

If the heavy laser deals 40% less damage at the edge of its arc, the burst laser deals like 15% less and the quad like 30%- or whatever. The point is that the reduced damage would of course have to scale with the high tracking penalty weapons, because the tracking penalty is becoming damage reduction instead of accuracy reduction in this model.

I don't think it is just a nerf to scouts. It is a nerf to anyone who is likely to be a target of a high-angle shot.

No, it's a nerf to scouts. It's a nerf to scouts because of the way the numbers add. That's what I was addressing about having to do some rebalance.

Here's an example:

On live, a scout with 30% evasion in your center takes X. If you have a 20% tracking penalty because of his position, he's actually only taking 0.71X. By his position, he reduced his damage taken by about 30%.

On live, a bomber with 0% evasion in your center takes Y. If you have a 20% tracking penalty because of his position, he's actually only taking .8Y. By his position, he reduced his damage taken by 20%.

So if you make it fair for the bomber (and the OP suggestion mostly does), then the tracking penalty becomes 20% less damage- the same for the bomber as live, but the scout is losing a LOT of his survival, because he currently gains 30% defense out of his maneuver and the bomber only gains 20%.

Meanwhile, if you make that penalty 30% to keep it constant for the scout, the bomber is getting a buff, because his 20% damage reduction becomes 30%.

So two things at work here: the first is that you would definitely need to have high tracking penalty weapons still have that, the second is that you would be making adjustments to class balance however you do it- it's an inherent part of it.

Also as others stated, the ion railgun would be super OP.

Anything that does a second effect would likely need a bit of tuning- the simplest would be to make the debuff or effect scale with the angular tracking penalty.

I'll also point something else out- it could be less than a global change, or it could be done partially.

For instance- railguns could still work with the evasion, and blasters could work half and half (ex- part accuracy penalty, part damage).

Anyway, the details I don't think are too important- if this was being taken seriously, the devs would already know how they wanted that to go, and brook no discussion. The point I'm making is that once you've handled the situation where the classes are effected differently (or embraced it as a feature, or whatever), you end up with a system that is solid.

I think my number one thing that this game needs is flytext to distinguish miss (character) from miss (player). Knowing that on click is something that experienced players know, and new players don't. How many players just come to the conclusion that the game is laggy? Would they even post? Would we know?

More importantly, things that offer instant feedback are MUCH easier to learn and master, and in games that's almost universally a good thing. Obfuscation is not difficulty.

I overall like this idea a lot, it would be a pretty decent buff to strike fighters that typically use high tracking blasters. Mostly though I like that it reduces the role of RNG and makes evasion stacking not as powerful.

Just to add to this idea they could take RFLs and give them no tracking penalty. Having the lowest damage already it wouldn't, in my opinion, be seriously unbalancing to have them with no tracking penalty. This would further fit their role as newbie spray and pray guns since they'd be hitting at full power no matter the deflection (since one can assume that with the altered function of tracking penalty newbies would still not know the best option is to center their crosshair for shots). They might even no longer be complete traps since there might be use for a close range weapon with no damage loss on deflection shots. (Granted in the current meta you could probably remove tracking penalty entirely and barely be making them useful so they still might need a damage per shot buff).