Agree, except the aim assist. I think they were going in the right direction with its removal, as it does make it harder to hit smaller targets (which is a good thing). The ROF increase exacerbates the spread though, which is what sent it way too far. I genuinely believe that putting it back to 38, whilst leaving the aim assist off will still have the effect of making it harder to hit light fighters whilst retaining its effectiveness against everything else, and more importantly, make it feel like a hard hitting cannon again.
Problem is they sold us a sniper and now we have some type of brawler. Plus it does say it kills smaller ships in matter of seconds. The nerf was completely unwarranted the Ion was good against AI not players any skilled fighter pilot could beat a ion. Also it made sense for it’s role high alpha dmg at range now it’s triple the rate of fire and inaccurate. They should have gone the other way way slower rate of fire, more range…. That would have made sense and stayed in bounds of what they sold us.
"Problem is they sold us a sniper and now we have some type of brawler." Don't disagree. My goal with this was purely to see if the claims its now useless hold any water is all (which they really dont) I don't think the reduction of ROF alone would have addressed the issue CIG were having in that the Ion quickly became a meta, because whilst it was useless against highly skilled players, that's really only a small percentage of players, and you have to balance against the majority. Hell, I'm not huge into PVP, and i only lost against another player once.
@@RobotSpartan I have not seen anyone says it completley useless, just its was Nerfed and is not forfilling its role anymore. What it is, is exretemely disheartening.
@@OTCaptainSean Oh i've seen plenty, hell just in the comments on this video. It was mostly concentrated to the patch note thread, and a few seriously aggressive posts that CIG (and quite fairly) went on to delete from spectrum. Disheartening is the whole Ion lifecycle has been to be honest. First it lost the 3rd shield (and gained no armour) and now the cannon is a repeater.... If same value CCU still existed mine would be an inferno already
I strongly believe CIG's Vehicle experience team should stop trying to use the Gladius as the baseline control for all ships to be balanced around. They need to realize Star Citizen is'nt just exclusively dogfighting. But maybe I just bought into the wrong game.
I think its inevitable with the Gladius being the star of S42, that it ends up being the baseline. But i agree, its not a good baseline to use. Actually, i don't think there IS a good baseline to use... Thankfully non-combat ships (think prospector, cat etc) don't seem to get affected by all this
i agree with that last bit, before the nerf the gun looked pretty damn perfect when fired but now it looks stupid cause of how fast it shoots and goes through the animation almost instantly in comparison, PLEASE DO A CHARGED SHOT CIG that would be a lot better than this, the fire rate is my biggest gripe cause it looks quicker than weapon size smaller than a size 7
It doesn't even go through the full animation haha, it stops half way through and restarts. After a shot the parts are meant to close back up and return (they still do if you do a single shot)
@@RobotSpartan I think you pointed it out perfectly. my problem is that the glaive with it's two size 5s has a higher accuracy and alpha damage (about 3k) than the s7 on the ion. it doesn't need 6k alpha but it should clearly outsnipe the glaive still.
@@tommygunraw_6566 totally agree. I get making it harder to hit small fast ships, but dont need to make it feel like a wet noodle at the same time! At least CIG have heard the complaints (a few comments from them in that regard) and are looking at alternatives
Ion was fine as it was in 3.15.1. Every light fighter can out maneuver it. Don't see why it was an issue as solo light fighters are currently meta when they shouldn't be. They should fly in squadrons. I say take it back to 3.15.1, and just slightly reduce the maneuverability and acceleration a bit so even the dumb light fighter pilots stand a bit more of a chance til they get good.
100% agree, reducing agility would have been a much more sensible way of nerfing the ship, especially considering its only meant to fight things substantially bigger and thus far slower than itself.
The aim assist needs to be reworked, as a matter of fact I'd say the very first change they made after the initial release on PTU was perfect. Any fighter should be able to out fly it the way it is now, it's already slow enough. A size 7 weapon should at least 2 shot a fighter, it's a freakin' size 7!
Not sure how else they could do the aim assist though? The way it works is that fixed weapons just have 1° of gimbal that snaps, so maybe slow the slew rate like they did with gimbals?
@@RobotSpartan how about .5 degrees or something else, it's still a little help but would be less lethal for smaller ships. I'd actually like to see a full out repeater version like an attrition.
@@StarlancerAstro That could work aye, reduce rather than remove. Although that would be a LOT of balance passes to fine tune it! I think giving players the choice of repeater or cannon is a good idea, IF they can balance them in the right way. Like, bring the repeater version if you're fighting valks and whatnot, or the cannon for big targets
i just bought the ion after dozen of hours farming vhrt in my aurora. This ship is horrible. I knew it was nerfed but wtf ? I played a lot before with fixed weapons, i like to be very precise and pixel perfect, and i thought it would be like that with the Aion, just hard. But it's not... the shot are full random, there are hurricanes in like every bountys and they are near impossible to kill with this ship... i don't understand why they have transformed a sniper into a blind drunk thing that can't hit a thing. I'm sad to go again in my aurora to farm for another ship :'(
Yup. Yogi has said several times they do intend to put some time into it, but its lower on the priority list. For now its... I mean its great for hammerheads. buuuut thats about it. For now, she gathers dust in my hanger (yeah, i'm holding out hope)
@@RobotSpartan yeah, it's fine for hammerheads, except that they are never alone in bountys... My Ares is my first ingame ship since the whipe, so that the only thing i have if i don't wanna get my aurora, so i'm continuing training with it.. maybe with better gear it will be nicer, but even gather the auec for that is a pain in the A^^
@@DarkAntheos Thankfully you don't have to upgrade the weapons eh! But aye you have a point about the HH not being alone. That said, i tend to fly EHRT bounties in a group; if i'm in the Ion i'll deal with the HH and valks whilst the small fighters handle the hurricanes and whatnot
Removing the aim assist and keeping the rate of fire and alpha damage from 3.15 seems the way to go. Yeah, you may get a lucky shot for a 1 shot kill on occasion. There's wiggle room here to increase the rate of fire slightly and reducing alpha slightly while letting the Ion be the ship it should be. Turning it into a repeater instead of a sniper seems counter to what this ship is meant to be.
Glad I'm not just spouting nonsense! I think bringing it to 50 rpm (so in line with the M9A) is about as far as can reasonably be done without risking turning it into a repeater, though that then raises the issue of differentiation between the two (made more difficult by both being Behring).
I think a nerf is good, but this one is kinda silly. I wouldn't say that it takes skill at all in 3.16, rather the ION is a flying pepper spray can. It's spray and pray, and reducing the ammo would make it less spray more pray. It's a completely skill-free ship now. There really is no aim that is relevant since you can't land a shot based on aim. You actually hit when you aim badly since the weapon doesn't fire exactly where you aimed it. Aim assist is not the full story, it is also now firing in a random cone shape. I missed the broad side of a hammerhead a dozen times from less than 1k with dead-accurate aim... I would have reduced the alpha damage of the weapon by like 20 percent though. The pilot of a smaller fighter should be allowed ONE chance to park itself in front of the ion's nose before learning, just to be kind. The ION is and was in fact terrible against smaller ships, and I dare say it never once hit a smaller ship. Rather the smaller ships ran into the ION fire.
Gonna split my reply into two, for obvious reasons "I think a nerf is good, but this one is kinda silly... It's spray and pray... It's a completely skill-free ship now"
Oh man. I can go on and on why this Nerf sucks. But I will make a few points rather than all of them. Fist the one shot people. The ION couldn't one shot light fighters in PVP. You had to hit them twice at full sheilds. 2 the idiots that say now it fits more to it's roll couldn't be more wrong. To fit into it's roll would mean slower fire rate and higher alpha damage more range. Not faster firing at close range. Let's look at real combat. Do ships use cannons to shoot down aircraft? No they use faster firing machine guns. They use slow fireing hard hitting cannons that can fire 20 miles to take out big targets. So the ION in fact is now the complete opposite of it's roll. It is fast firing close range and if they didn't Nerf the aim it would actually be better for dog fighting which is NOT it's roll. What's funny is the ION was not nerfed. It handles exactly as it did. A size 7 gun was Nerfed to the power of a size 5. What does this mean for size 8-10 guns. The bottom line is you will eventually have weapons that can kill a light fighter in one shot. If you don't want that to happen you might as well stop at size 6. The power should scale up the way it does with every other gun. The speed should be reduced as the power goes up. Very simple. If a light fighter happens to die in one hit because it can't avoid a slug round. Who's fault is that? You can't have diversity of ship rolls and balance. If you want blanace you might as well make every ship the exact same and all weapons the exact same. The ION is just another knife fighting pos but worse because it has not assist. If all they want is knife fighting. What about bigger gun ships? Where do they fit in. No big ship with a big gun should be able to kill a light fighter. This is such a stupid mentally. It's like the complete opposite of how it should be. A light fighter shouldn't be able to kill things wayy above it's weight class. It should be high risk high reward. If you are willing to go up against a size 7 in a light fighter and if you win it is proof you are a good pilot. Because you destroyed something much more powerful with aglity. The changes to the ION are awful. The way it was in 3.15 was perfect. It was strong and nerfed where it couldn't one shot. Even though in reality it should because scaling as the other guns go. In all reality it should have more range all the guns should like the old build. This is more realistic with combat. This every gun is only effective at 1000meters carp is boring and lame makes ever ship and dog fight the same. It basically sucks. But that's a whole other story.
The entire combat system has been ruined, they reduced the range of all the weapons to short range, So you now have large ships that turn like a brick trying to "dog fight" and it is absolutely hysterical. All ballistic weapons have now become completely useless, and also any type of cannon is now useless. How they thought "yes, this is a great idea" is beyond words.
The logic behind the "flattening" is actually sound. Make everything the same, tweak until you have a baseline you're happy with, then diverge from there. Problem is that the divergence part is um... what's the phrase? Oh yeah, Soon TM Side note; disagree on cannons being useless. I generally fare better with M5A's than i do with CF337's. Though that's maybe down to playstyle
@@RobotSpartan With what they call the "flattening" i bet they have no plan to de-flattern. The laser cannons also now have less range than laser repeaters, but they also have very low ammo before recharge, and even perfect shots on target just dont register half the time. Take the Ion for example, what they did on that ship, is just beyond words. Turning the cannon into a repeater and literally the majority of shots dont even register, and even when they do they are pathetic for a size 7. They turned a sniper ship into a laughing stock, and lets not even talk about the inferno, that poor thing has the projectile speed of a turtle and the spread of a blunderbuss. Again the problem is not the plan they had, reseting everything to build up again that makes perfect sense. But this is CIG, and they have a tendency to not fix things, it will get a plop on a roadmap and keep getting moved until it fades from reality.
@@willydapooh I dont think its ever going on the roadmap; tuning passes have never ended up there historically. It's frustrating as hell ,as a combat focused player, that everything is still ballsed in terms of weapons. However, I suspect they're not prioritising fixing the weapons until desync (the reason cannons can suck ass sometimes) and the physical damage stuff is done (whenever that happens...) which does make sense from a time spent perspective. Until then, i'll just do other stuff. But perhaps I'm simply playing devils advocate here. Now, if and when those two things are sorted they still leave it in this state, then believe me when i say i'll certainly be on the vocal side of calling them out
@@RobotSpartan It's only because in a report they did about combat, the guy was stressing about how he wants all combat to be "close range dog fighting" and thats the direction he wants, now i am like hold up there. You cant be doing that, because that would be an absolutely horrible experience, and completely unrealistic. That is the reason for my concern, because this guy who is in charge of combat is pushing this direction.
@@willydapooh Oh i think i know what you're referring to, when they said they wanted it to be like WWII in space right? If they keep that restricted to the light/medium fighters i'm okay with that. But yeah if theres a possibility that ends up applying to anything larger i share your concern
Great video! The objective, methodical approach is great! Here’s something the community also needs to accept, balancing is irrelevant this early on - we don’t even have armour in the game yet, and desync plagues balancing. As time goes on, ships will be buffed, nerfed and the cycle will continue. And that’s a good thing!! It means that the game evolves, and is being actively iterated upon! The core issue I have - weapon diversity. The Ion is almost a sniper, and that’s a new weapon type. With these changes it’s a cannon. I want to see more diversity, such as beam weapons, tesla guns, charged weapons, and, eventually, hitscan weapons bought back.
" balancing is irrelevant this early on - we don’t even have armour in the game yet, and desync plagues balancing. " completely correct there! I disagree a little that the changes make it a cannon, only because the M9A (the only other S7 laser cannon) is less than half the RPM. It sorta sits between the M9A and where the CF777 would be (would be around 175), so I'd lean more towards repeater if anything. Definitely agree we need more diversity though
@@Tryxst3r or auto cannon? See the Oto Melara iirc. As for people crying poor over the sniper it only said long range iirc and it's kind of hard to snipe when they can spot you at over double the max range I've been able to hit at.
@tryxster yup, 110RPM currently! @Gyrating Wolpertiger Just looked into the Oto Melara and that was 85RPM, with a later model managing 120. So yeah, auto cannon would certainly be an appropriate term here. Actually, I'm sure the knightbridge sword series were original listed as autocannons!
@@gyratingwolpertiger6851 nah, it's a repeater @ 110RPM, if it was a auto-cannon/rotary cannon ( since these where supposedly inspired from the A-10 warthog) then alpha still needs upped, and the gun needs a cosmetic redesign or alpha maintained and RPM up even higher to 130-160. frankly the high alpha low RPM IMO was perfect, the projectile was slow, the rate of fire allowed you to be hit multiple times, and dodged as you where tryin to aim, and it provided balance against the meta fighter ships, cause suddenly they had a real threat if they did get hit. meaning their survivability in dog fights went down, like it SHOULD have.
I haven't played since the nerf and just started playing recently. The nerf ruined the ship so badly. No company would greenlight a ship you built around a laser cannon that does little damage and isn't even accurate. It took me 5 minutes to kill a hammerhead the other day. It feels like I am fighting in a light fighter lol.
How about CIG change the Ion in this class ship to work on mass basis and call it ion little doctor. Stating it works on a mass the larger the mass the bigger the damage then they can reset the accuracy. What say you?
That would need a metric fuck ton of coding to be done to make it work. Also, whilst the figures are all there (mass etc) they are completely arbitrary at the moment (i.e. the MSR weighs as much as a reclaimer, which is half the mass of a hammerhead. because SC logic)
With the lower alpha, is it now useless against an Idris or HH? I wanted to be able to solo an Idris without having to resort to a Retaliator all the time.
Because the RPM was boosted at the same time, effective DPS is no different to before the nerf. Idris is a big enough target that the removal of fixed assist isnt too big of an issue either
So the way to balance the Ion is not to nerf its damage. Smaller light fighters just need to be harder to hit. This can easily be done by making the projectile round slower. Another way to balance without taking away its accuracy or damage would be to make it so shields must be at zero before the physical damage affects the hull. So there would be no one-shoting but currently in 3.16 the way the nerf has been implemented itis awful.
I agree, sort of. Reducing the projectile velocity would start to impact its ability to hit larger ships too, so might not be the best way. Slowing rotational velocity of the ship itself might be better. The shields blocking hull damage from bleeding through when they drop (aka shield gating) is something I myself have mentioned a few times, so i very much support this idea. Though I'd suggest shields below 50% don't trigger gating, rather than all the way to zero, as due to small shields having instant regen, it would make small ships invincible!
U comment somewhat of “…Light fighter has the chances of surviving as medium fighter against ares…” lyes out problem i have with cig. They keep zeroing on standardizing combat to light fighters that they forgot what use medium fighters have. In my opinion medium fighters should be more of treat than light fighters. And ur comparison of the titan to ares having the same kill time is a joke that both have the same. It’s like comparing US Abrams TANK to SWAT armored tank lol. Cig should have nerfed ares mobility and maybe speed
I agree that light fighters seem to keep ended up as the be all end all. The only real exception is the vanguard, and even that's sort of fallen from grace (except the sentinel thanks to the EMP) I think light and medium fighters should present the same threat to be honest (I'm considering light as the gladius, medium as the hornet in this instance). Light are faster and quicker to get guns on target. Medium take longer to get on target, but hit harder. Importantly however, is that they are still both small, single seat craft; they fundamentally fill the same role but cater to different play styles (i actually prefer medium fighters for that exact reason). Heavy fighters, like the Hurricane, Ares, Vanguard etc is where it should be a real difference in threat level, not just between heavies and lights, but within the heavy category as well, i.e. what the Ares threaten shouldn't be the same as what the Hurricane threatens. "comparison of the titan to ares having the same kill time is a joke that both have the same." I don't disagree, and for most players its relevant. However, keep in mind the point i made that some of that is down to my inability to make fine adjustments to the aim, and thus the lack of aim-assist of the Ares is exasperated. Against a large vessel like the hammerhead, there would be a night and day difference between them.
@@addis504 Oh god that would turn into a dumpster fire in a heartbeat. In my experience, about half the people there don't like seeing evidence their opinion is wrong. Sort of like reddit but worst. But aye, i will do so when i next venture into that quagmire
Why are all y'all giving CIG a pass?!?! "oh the balancing this or aim assist that.." NO!!!! it was advertised with a..."DEVASTATING" SIZE 7 ENERGY CANNON " that's what they said...... Now they've made it a size 1 energy repeater! That is a MAJOR FUCKING NERF!!! The only reason they did this is cuz of ALL the whiny little bitches that were getting popped! (they even say this in the patch notes!) I WANTED THIS SHIP.... I DON'T ANYMORE! I WON'T EVEN RENT IT!
This video is in no way giving CIG a pass, otherwise i wouldn't have specifically asked them to return it to 38 RPM whilst keeping the aim assist change. To quote, "You had the nail lined up perfectly, but then you used a sledgehammer to drive it in", that is to say, they fucked it up. I hate the change to ROF, and because mines a referral ship CCU, i can't melt it (that's why i mentioned it at the start) so trust me when i say, i have more horses in this race than most. As for "Now they've made it a size 1 energy repeater! That is a MAJOR FUCKING NERF!!!", that hyperbole is the whole reason i made this video, as that claim is systematically false. The alteration to the RPM and Alpha has absolutely zero effect on the ships DPS (they actually increased it). Against poor light fighter pilots its just as effective (as i showed), and It kills large ships like connies and especially hammerheads just as fast as before; I did say in the video that i didn't test those ships because the TTK there was unaffected. I also stated that TTK on medium ships like the vanguard and valk was only slightly longer than before, and that was a consequence of my aim, so again, not a major nerf in any way. "The only reason they did this is cuz of ALL the whiny little bitches that were getting popped!". Not entirely wrong; i don't doubt the community had some sway, though i also don't doubt CIG saw was far too effective against light fighters. Think of it like rock paper scissors, only replace it with Gladius Ares Hammerhead. Light fighters should be the counter to the Ares, so they were doing the right thing by reducing its ability against them, they just did it in an asinine way (again, hence "I would implore CIG to try and keep the aim assist changes, whilst putting the firerate back to 38")
@@RobotSpartan a gladius on the original high alpha 38 RPM has no issues against an ares if piloted right, and frankly the ION is a decent balance to the gladius and arrow meta's cause these pilots never had any decent threat of their ship going POP before, go up against a ship with a S7 CANNON, frankly they should expect to get popped if they mess up, IE a high risk high reward thing. they didn't like being kept on their toes, and needing to give their piloting skills a full work out for survivability is the reality.
Please Take no offense to what I'm about to say.... You HAVE to defend this ship cuz you purchased it and can't melt it or get a refund for it.,,, so you're gonna have some skin in the game for it, and I get it, that's fine. But Let's say you but a 12 core cpu, you've been watching videos on the performance of it and go to the website and look at the STORY of how it came to be in existence.... You're ready to buy it... And do.... Put it into your desktop pc and then....... VERY SHORTLY after you turn it on and start to run programs and games with it...... There's an "update".... Uh oh... What going on here instead of getting 100+fps in games..... You NOW get 10-15fps. This is how we felt when they NERFED it. Now full disclosure ; I have an account, but I can't play the game as of yet cuz I don't have a laptop with a great cpu/gpu. but my feelings or opinions still reflect that of the MAJORITY of the Star Citizen community/backers.... That being said.... I respect the fact that you took the time to show us what was what. Thank you for the video. Because I like you.... I will give you a late LUMINALIA gift.... I liked the video. I subscribed. Keep up the great work sir! YOU ROCK! Also...... WELCOME TO UA-cam DUDE! I hope your journey is a wonderfully successful one!
@@PhillipLemmon you could submit a ticket for a refund within 30 days of purchase. it's under their refund FAQ, i bought warbond during IAE, next patch they took it's balls, i had 4 days left so i submitted a ticket and got Paypal involved, they locked my account. so, F CIG, i hope they go under.
a gladius or arrow flying right at you should NOT be considered for the nerf, as that is a stupid tactic agaisnt an ion, and as it is SUPPOSE to have a LARGE BESPOKE CANNON, it SHOULD die quickly trying that. HOWEVER, using the gladius actual nimble manuevarability, liek a decent pilot would, it can stay out of the cannons cross hairs and move out of it's slow moving projectile with ease. just cause NPC bounties don't do this, and some player pilots don't do this, didn't mean the ion needed a Nerf to a faster RPM with a lower Alpha takign it from Cannon to REPEATER. and minimal aim assist on the fixed cannon. Maybe instead dev's should work on optimizing code so the server doesn't struggle, and the AI can work properly.
In terms of balance its not, but in terms of feel? Yeah... Thats why i said at the end i want CIG to keep the nerf and return the low ROF. I think thats the ideal compromise, as for most people its the ROF thats the kicker here
@@62saki91 thats.... what i said? " in terms of feel? Yeah... i want CIG to keep the nerf and return the low ROF".... (nerf meaning the aim assist removal)
@@RobotSpartan problem is they can't do aim assist removal due to server desync, that was why it was implemented to begin with. they honestly should have left it alone, and when you say ROF ( rate of fire) that applies to just rate of fire, and doesn't mention the shot Alpha damage. so DPS went up, big deal, in reality the ship was a balance to the meta fighter classes making them have to consider the risk/reward factor. and give their pilot skills a work out, and in reality in a space altercation, the ions and infernos would be engaging fighters, and capital ships since they are damage SUPPORT classes, with the ion staying further back and hammering shields and any small fighter unfortunate enough to get in the cross hairs. the inferno would be up close doing splash based damage ( due to higher armor) and peppering the ships with ballistics. for sustained damaged to the area of operation. that is how it should work, that is how it WOULD work in a militant scenario, and they screwed the whole thing up with everything they did in 3.16.
@@62saki91 They actually added aim assist back before desync became a major issue in 3.10. Its original intent was to break the meta that had developed around auto gimbal, as they were just that much better. Of course, they have since broken auto gimbals so... "that applies to just rate of fire, and doesn't mention the shot Alpha damage"
It can't do what it was designed too doo, some ships will be more powerful has to be this way, put the damage back up, increase its price but stop nerfing stuff
But it can do what it was designed to do? This is literally the first line on Ion's page on the RSI website: "Spark fear in the corridors of the most formidable gunships and frigates with the Ares Ion". It kills hammerheads and Idris' just as well as it did before, ergo, does exactly what it was designed to still. People saying "it can't do what it was meant to anymore", is only going to make CIG look at the metrics, say "well, the facts say otherwise" and ignore the other half of the argument which is the fact they made the ship feel nothing like what we all were sold. The rest of your argument is completely valid (except increasing the price, lets not make the P2W argument stronger eh ;) )
@@jeoffelectron2537 Oh i don't for a moment disagree that a large weapon should destroy a small vessel instantly! Its just a question of ensuring that that statement can always be followed with "if it hits"
Well shouldn't that have to do with the skill of the pilots aim? They didn't just mess with the targeting. The guns is weak the power of a size 5. And because of the spread much much worse because even the best pilot will miss half the shots dead on target. This isn't a nerf it's a castration. Also what people fail to realize it's not the ION that was nerfed. The ION flys exactly as it did. It's size 7 guns that were nerfed and messed with spread and aim so they cant hit anything. Also the argument that it fits it's roll better is the stupidest one. It actually is the complete opposite of it's roll. It is now a close range rapid fire fighter. If they didn't nerf the assist it would actually be better as a dogfighter which isn't it's roll. Look at real combat. Battle ships use fast firing guns to take down aircraft. They use slow firing long range cannons to destroy large targets. That means for the ION to fit it's roll. It need more dps slower fire rate and more range. Not less range faster fire rate and close fighting like a dogfighter. For this reason. The nerf actually makes it the complete opposite of it's intended roll. If you knew anything about traditional military combat.
This is great 👍. Funny that many people on the forums were complaining that their ion is shooting in random directions and that all light fighter pilots had no skill because their aim skill was too good. But there is no RNG, they just don't get aim assist an now their aim sucks because of it.
I wouldn't say there is no RNG;. With 0-0.25° of spread, that's up to 4.4m at 1km. Not a lot granted, but enough to pass a gladius side on, and it's certainly going to be exasperated by desync. That in mind, I think the claims of RNG hold some water, but in a rather leaky container. As a note, 1° of aim assist at that range is 17.5m (which just so happens to be the length of a gladius!) so that essentially triples the size of a light fighter target. As for light fighter pilots having no skill; if they fly straight at you, they still die, and almost as quick as before. Just needs 4-5 hits perfectly on target instead of 1 with some leeway. So yeah that bits total nonsense, as no skill pilots are still going to melt :D
The vanguard is where it's at in this patch. GVSR's for smaller ships, takes about 3 seconds, fast and accurate. Ballistic under the nose with a reasonable spread for the hammerhead. You can do both large and small ships in 1/4 or less of the time it take you to do it in an ARES, and flies slightly better too.
@@erickruse4679 +1 for the vanguard and GSVR. I do prefer the MVSA if using fixed S5's though, as its slower velocity matches the S5's, so only have 1 PIP under thrust
Your all idiots for sleeping on the distortion cannons by far the most powerful thing the game right now. The sentinal is the King right now. So powerful two shots with size 5 lazer cannon and 4 size 2 EODs and it's over.
ion is broken 3.16 patch melted mine after having to hit a orbital sentry 20 times on a claim jumpers class 7 (damage would be over 2400 per second with a range of over 8 km) that's from the ares Q&A I think some one is telling porky's?
@@RobotSpartan using inferno now 2-3 seconds on each sentry my friends are taking them down faster than the Ion in smaller ships like Gladius & Arrows Ion is this regard is broken what is even the point of the class 7 laser cannon now that it cant hit the side of a barn.
@@ckcjool Inferno will always kill sentries faster. They have sod all health but decent shields which the inferno will take advantage of. As for hitting the side of a barn, you realise the Inferno has double the spread of the Ion right? If you can land a shot with the inferno, you can definitely land a shot with the Ion
Alas, can't melt mine; because it was CCU'd from a referral bonus, its stuck as is. Unless support will let me melt the CCU... I'm willing to stick it out for the time being and see what happens to be honest. Worst case scenario, i just CCU it to a vanguard sentinel with store credit
When I first tested Ion version 1 on the PTU the day it appeared there along with the Infy and Redeemer, I did not like it. My very first comment was "It is shooting next to the crosshair instead of in it". The laser cannon never was very accurate to begin with. Now that it has a higher firing rate and less aim assist it feels even more inaccurate. Mind you I can still take out small fighters with it no problem- there just are better options for doing so now as even a Constellation with dual S5 and S4 repeaters is MUCH quicker at taking down small stuff. The Ion's real power though still remains and it is still as good for taking down those Hammerheads in ERT missions. For PVP other than padcamping the Ion never has been a good choice as dogfighting really hasn't ever been its forté. I have picked up using my Constellation and Super Hornet for VHRT missions again and upgraded my Ion to a Valkyrie - but only because I already had the S Hornet and Constellation already. The nerfed Ares Ion is by no means a bad ship right now when using it as intended - to take out larger targets.
The shooting outside of the crosshair thing is something i never noticed. I tended to take calculated snap shots (i.e. turn ahead of the PIP and let them pass through the crosshair) rather than track the target, so that may be why? Convergence distance also plays a part, as if you hit something at 500m with a 1500m convergence set, the shot wont actually be central, due to the off-axis placement of the weapon (we really need a better way to set that....) I think there were always better options for taking out small fighters (as well there should have been), but this certainly cements it. In PVP I imagine that was especially true, as good players weren't stupid enough to sit in front of the Ion! "The Ion's real power though still remains and it is still as good for taking down those Hammerheads in ERT mission"
@@RobotSpartan disagree, the ship feels like crap now, and it was not what was advertised or sold to us. so DPS took a small bump, don't care, the original design was FINE, if not Perfect, a small fighter SHOULD get one shot with a bespoke CANNON at 38RPM pumping out 6-7K alpha damage, Especially if said small fighter is using strafing tactics rather than dog fight tactics. or is sitting still and pew pewing, like an idiot. the only reason they moved from Cannon to Repeater is because of all the non moving whiners, their shite AI due to server struggle from their crappy code in NPC bounties, making it the go to ship to make bank to buy other ships like the prospector or mole, or caterpillar. IMO, the small fighter peeps who thought they where aces got mad cause suddenly they had a threat to their meta, where if they made one mistake they where toast, and frankly, that threat was a good thing, not a thing to be removed and nerfed. in a way it actually provided balance AGAINST the META.
@@62saki91 At what point did i say that the ship feels good? And at what point did i say a small fighter shouldn't get one shot by an S7 cannon? Because i hate how it feels currently (i said that in the video) and i agree, a small fighter should get one shot if they park in front of a giant ass cannon. "the small fighter peeps who thought they where aces got mad cause suddenly they had a threat to their meta"
Wrong you don't balance anything. You just make a giant gun and make it fire slow and do more damage. And if people get hit with it too bad. This big guns are too dangerous is nonsense. Then don't put big guns in the game. Because let's be honest the ION was not nerfed at all. It flys just the way it did. The size 7 guns were nerfed. This is about the future of all guns size 7 are larger not just the Ares.
@@jasonmaxwell9762 fair point, and again i think the S7 gun needs to be brought back to 3.15 specs. and the ion itself just needed to be left alone. the gladius meta pilots are literally whining about flying into a projectile, because they are whining about the decoupled tactic to counter them.. the reality is a max speed ares ion, going backwards while facing the fighter has a projectile with negative momentum still. the ares is going backwards, the projectile is going forwards since the ares velocity is 1200m.s backwards, that means we apply a -1200 m/s speed to the projectile fired. the projectile fired has a positive 700m/s speed, so -1200+700=-500m/s the gladius pilots are literally flying into a projectile that is moving away from them at 500 meters per second.. and whining about their poor piloting choices getting them killed.
Honestly, CiG should've reduce the rate of fire, put back the aim asist and increase the alpha. Its a cannon and should feel like a cannon.
Agree, except the aim assist. I think they were going in the right direction with its removal, as it does make it harder to hit smaller targets (which is a good thing). The ROF increase exacerbates the spread though, which is what sent it way too far.
I genuinely believe that putting it back to 38, whilst leaving the aim assist off will still have the effect of making it harder to hit light fighters whilst retaining its effectiveness against everything else, and more importantly, make it feel like a hard hitting cannon again.
Problem is they sold us a sniper and now we have some type of brawler. Plus it does say it kills smaller ships in matter of seconds. The nerf was completely unwarranted the Ion was good against AI not players any skilled fighter pilot could beat a ion. Also it made sense for it’s role high alpha dmg at range now it’s triple the rate of fire and inaccurate. They should have gone the other way way slower rate of fire, more range…. That would have made sense and stayed in bounds of what they sold us.
"Problem is they sold us a sniper and now we have some type of brawler." Don't disagree. My goal with this was purely to see if the claims its now useless hold any water is all (which they really dont)
I don't think the reduction of ROF alone would have addressed the issue CIG were having in that the Ion quickly became a meta, because whilst it was useless against highly skilled players, that's really only a small percentage of players, and you have to balance against the majority. Hell, I'm not huge into PVP, and i only lost against another player once.
@@RobotSpartan I have not seen anyone says it completley useless, just its was Nerfed and is not forfilling its role anymore. What it is, is exretemely disheartening.
@@OTCaptainSean Oh i've seen plenty, hell just in the comments on this video. It was mostly concentrated to the patch note thread, and a few seriously aggressive posts that CIG (and quite fairly) went on to delete from spectrum.
Disheartening is the whole Ion lifecycle has been to be honest. First it lost the 3rd shield (and gained no armour) and now the cannon is a repeater.... If same value CCU still existed mine would be an inferno already
I strongly believe CIG's Vehicle experience team should stop trying to use the Gladius as the baseline control for all ships to be balanced around. They need to realize Star Citizen is'nt just exclusively dogfighting. But maybe I just bought into the wrong game.
I think its inevitable with the Gladius being the star of S42, that it ends up being the baseline. But i agree, its not a good baseline to use.
Actually, i don't think there IS a good baseline to use... Thankfully non-combat ships (think prospector, cat etc) don't seem to get affected by all this
i agree with that last bit, before the nerf the gun looked pretty damn perfect when fired but now it looks stupid cause of how fast it shoots and goes through the animation almost instantly in comparison, PLEASE DO A CHARGED SHOT CIG that would be a lot better than this, the fire rate is my biggest gripe cause it looks quicker than weapon size smaller than a size 7
It doesn't even go through the full animation haha, it stops half way through and restarts. After a shot the parts are meant to close back up and return (they still do if you do a single shot)
@@RobotSpartan fr fr it felt way to quick
@@RobotSpartan I think you pointed it out perfectly.
my problem is that the glaive with it's two size 5s has a higher accuracy and alpha damage (about 3k) than the s7 on the ion.
it doesn't need 6k alpha but it should clearly outsnipe the glaive still.
@@tommygunraw_6566 totally agree. I get making it harder to hit small fast ships, but dont need to make it feel like a wet noodle at the same time! At least CIG have heard the complaints (a few comments from them in that regard) and are looking at alternatives
Ion was fine as it was in 3.15.1. Every light fighter can out maneuver it. Don't see why it was an issue as solo light fighters are currently meta when they shouldn't be. They should fly in squadrons.
I say take it back to 3.15.1, and just slightly reduce the maneuverability and acceleration a bit so even the dumb light fighter pilots stand a bit more of a chance til they get good.
100% agree, reducing agility would have been a much more sensible way of nerfing the ship, especially considering its only meant to fight things substantially bigger and thus far slower than itself.
The aim assist needs to be reworked, as a matter of fact I'd say the very first change they made after the initial release on PTU was perfect. Any fighter should be able to out fly it the way it is now, it's already slow enough. A size 7 weapon should at least 2 shot a fighter, it's a freakin' size 7!
Not sure how else they could do the aim assist though? The way it works is that fixed weapons just have 1° of gimbal that snaps, so maybe slow the slew rate like they did with gimbals?
@@RobotSpartan how about .5 degrees or something else, it's still a little help but would be less lethal for smaller ships. I'd actually like to see a full out repeater version like an attrition.
@@StarlancerAstro That could work aye, reduce rather than remove. Although that would be a LOT of balance passes to fine tune it!
I think giving players the choice of repeater or cannon is a good idea, IF they can balance them in the right way. Like, bring the repeater version if you're fighting valks and whatnot, or the cannon for big targets
i just bought the ion after dozen of hours farming vhrt in my aurora. This ship is horrible. I knew it was nerfed but wtf ? I played a lot before with fixed weapons, i like to be very precise and pixel perfect, and i thought it would be like that with the Aion, just hard. But it's not... the shot are full random, there are hurricanes in like every bountys and they are near impossible to kill with this ship... i don't understand why they have transformed a sniper into a blind drunk thing that can't hit a thing. I'm sad to go again in my aurora to farm for another ship :'(
Yup. Yogi has said several times they do intend to put some time into it, but its lower on the priority list.
For now its... I mean its great for hammerheads. buuuut thats about it. For now, she gathers dust in my hanger (yeah, i'm holding out hope)
@@RobotSpartan yeah, it's fine for hammerheads, except that they are never alone in bountys... My Ares is my first ingame ship since the whipe, so that the only thing i have if i don't wanna get my aurora, so i'm continuing training with it.. maybe with better gear it will be nicer, but even gather the auec for that is a pain in the A^^
@@DarkAntheos Thankfully you don't have to upgrade the weapons eh!
But aye you have a point about the HH not being alone. That said, i tend to fly EHRT bounties in a group; if i'm in the Ion i'll deal with the HH and valks whilst the small fighters handle the hurricanes and whatnot
Removing the aim assist and keeping the rate of fire and alpha damage from 3.15 seems the way to go. Yeah, you may get a lucky shot for a 1 shot kill on occasion. There's wiggle room here to increase the rate of fire slightly and reducing alpha slightly while letting the Ion be the ship it should be. Turning it into a repeater instead of a sniper seems counter to what this ship is meant to be.
Glad I'm not just spouting nonsense!
I think bringing it to 50 rpm (so in line with the M9A) is about as far as can reasonably be done without risking turning it into a repeater, though that then raises the issue of differentiation between the two (made more difficult by both being Behring).
It did not need nerfing
tweaking, yes, nerfing, no
I think a nerf is good, but this one is kinda silly. I wouldn't say that it takes skill at all in 3.16, rather the ION is a flying pepper spray can. It's spray and pray, and reducing the ammo would make it less spray more pray. It's a completely skill-free ship now. There really is no aim that is relevant since you can't land a shot based on aim. You actually hit when you aim badly since the weapon doesn't fire exactly where you aimed it. Aim assist is not the full story, it is also now firing in a random cone shape. I missed the broad side of a hammerhead a dozen times from less than 1k with dead-accurate aim... I would have reduced the alpha damage of the weapon by like 20 percent though. The pilot of a smaller fighter should be allowed ONE chance to park itself in front of the ion's nose before learning, just to be kind. The ION is and was in fact terrible against smaller ships, and I dare say it never once hit a smaller ship. Rather the smaller ships ran into the ION fire.
Gonna split my reply into two, for obvious reasons
"I think a nerf is good, but this one is kinda silly... It's spray and pray... It's a completely skill-free ship now"
"Aim assist is not the full story, it is also now firing in a random cone shape"
Oh man. I can go on and on why this Nerf sucks. But I will make a few points rather than all of them. Fist the one shot people. The ION couldn't one shot light fighters in PVP. You had to hit them twice at full sheilds. 2 the idiots that say now it fits more to it's roll couldn't be more wrong. To fit into it's roll would mean slower fire rate and higher alpha damage more range. Not faster firing at close range. Let's look at real combat. Do ships use cannons to shoot down aircraft? No they use faster firing machine guns. They use slow fireing hard hitting cannons that can fire 20 miles to take out big targets. So the ION in fact is now the complete opposite of it's roll. It is fast firing close range and if they didn't Nerf the aim it would actually be better for dog fighting which is NOT it's roll. What's funny is the ION was not nerfed. It handles exactly as it did. A size 7 gun was Nerfed to the power of a size 5. What does this mean for size 8-10 guns. The bottom line is you will eventually have weapons that can kill a light fighter in one shot. If you don't want that to happen you might as well stop at size 6. The power should scale up the way it does with every other gun. The speed should be reduced as the power goes up. Very simple. If a light fighter happens to die in one hit because it can't avoid a slug round. Who's fault is that? You can't have diversity of ship rolls and balance. If you want blanace you might as well make every ship the exact same and all weapons the exact same. The ION is just another knife fighting pos but worse because it has not assist. If all they want is knife fighting. What about bigger gun ships? Where do they fit in. No big ship with a big gun should be able to kill a light fighter. This is such a stupid mentally. It's like the complete opposite of how it should be. A light fighter shouldn't be able to kill things wayy above it's weight class. It should be high risk high reward. If you are willing to go up against a size 7 in a light fighter and if you win it is proof you are a good pilot. Because you destroyed something much more powerful with aglity. The changes to the ION are awful. The way it was in 3.15 was perfect. It was strong and nerfed where it couldn't one shot. Even though in reality it should because scaling as the other guns go. In all reality it should have more range all the guns should like the old build. This is more realistic with combat. This every gun is only effective at 1000meters carp is boring and lame makes ever ship and dog fight the same. It basically sucks. But that's a whole other story.
"The ION couldn't one shot light fighters in PVP. You had to hit them twice at full shields"
The entire combat system has been ruined, they reduced the range of all the weapons to short range, So you now have large ships that turn like a brick trying to "dog fight" and it is absolutely hysterical. All ballistic weapons have now become completely useless, and also any type of cannon is now useless. How they thought "yes, this is a great idea" is beyond words.
The logic behind the "flattening" is actually sound. Make everything the same, tweak until you have a baseline you're happy with, then diverge from there.
Problem is that the divergence part is um... what's the phrase? Oh yeah, Soon TM
Side note; disagree on cannons being useless. I generally fare better with M5A's than i do with CF337's. Though that's maybe down to playstyle
@@RobotSpartan With what they call the "flattening" i bet they have no plan to de-flattern. The laser cannons also now have less range than laser repeaters, but they also have very low ammo before recharge, and even perfect shots on target just dont register half the time. Take the Ion for example, what they did on that ship, is just beyond words. Turning the cannon into a repeater and literally the majority of shots dont even register, and even when they do they are pathetic for a size 7. They turned a sniper ship into a laughing stock, and lets not even talk about the inferno, that poor thing has the projectile speed of a turtle and the spread of a blunderbuss. Again the problem is not the plan they had, reseting everything to build up again that makes perfect sense. But this is CIG, and they have a tendency to not fix things, it will get a plop on a roadmap and keep getting moved until it fades from reality.
@@willydapooh I dont think its ever going on the roadmap; tuning passes have never ended up there historically.
It's frustrating as hell ,as a combat focused player, that everything is still ballsed in terms of weapons. However, I suspect they're not prioritising fixing the weapons until desync (the reason cannons can suck ass sometimes) and the physical damage stuff is done (whenever that happens...) which does make sense from a time spent perspective. Until then, i'll just do other stuff. But perhaps I'm simply playing devils advocate here.
Now, if and when those two things are sorted they still leave it in this state, then believe me when i say i'll certainly be on the vocal side of calling them out
@@RobotSpartan It's only because in a report they did about combat, the guy was stressing about how he wants all combat to be "close range dog fighting" and thats the direction he wants, now i am like hold up there. You cant be doing that, because that would be an absolutely horrible experience, and completely unrealistic. That is the reason for my concern, because this guy who is in charge of combat is pushing this direction.
@@willydapooh Oh i think i know what you're referring to, when they said they wanted it to be like WWII in space right?
If they keep that restricted to the light/medium fighters i'm okay with that. But yeah if theres a possibility that ends up applying to anything larger i share your concern
Great video! The objective, methodical approach is great!
Here’s something the community also needs to accept, balancing is irrelevant this early on - we don’t even have armour in the game yet, and desync plagues balancing. As time goes on, ships will be buffed, nerfed and the cycle will continue. And that’s a good thing!! It means that the game evolves, and is being actively iterated upon!
The core issue I have - weapon diversity. The Ion is almost a sniper, and that’s a new weapon type. With these changes it’s a cannon. I want to see more diversity, such as beam weapons, tesla guns, charged weapons, and, eventually, hitscan weapons bought back.
" balancing is irrelevant this early on - we don’t even have armour in the game yet, and desync plagues balancing. " completely correct there!
I disagree a little that the changes make it a cannon, only because the M9A (the only other S7 laser cannon) is less than half the RPM. It sorta sits between the M9A and where the CF777 would be (would be around 175), so I'd lean more towards repeater if anything. Definitely agree we need more diversity though
@@RobotSpartan I wasn’t even aware it was that fast! Definitely more a repeater.
@@Tryxst3r or auto cannon? See the Oto Melara iirc. As for people crying poor over the sniper it only said long range iirc and it's kind of hard to snipe when they can spot you at over double the max range I've been able to hit at.
@tryxster yup, 110RPM currently!
@Gyrating Wolpertiger Just looked into the Oto Melara and that was 85RPM, with a later model managing 120. So yeah, auto cannon would certainly be an appropriate term here. Actually, I'm sure the knightbridge sword series were original listed as autocannons!
@@gyratingwolpertiger6851 nah, it's a repeater @ 110RPM, if it was a auto-cannon/rotary cannon ( since these where supposedly inspired from the A-10 warthog) then alpha still needs upped, and the gun needs a cosmetic redesign or alpha maintained and RPM up even higher to 130-160.
frankly the high alpha low RPM IMO was perfect, the projectile was slow, the rate of fire allowed you to be hit multiple times, and dodged as you where tryin to aim, and it provided balance against the meta fighter ships, cause suddenly they had a real threat if they did get hit. meaning their survivability in dog fights went down, like it SHOULD have.
I haven't played since the nerf and just started playing recently. The nerf ruined the ship so badly. No company would greenlight a ship you built around a laser cannon that does little damage and isn't even accurate. It took me 5 minutes to kill a hammerhead the other day. It feels like I am fighting in a light fighter lol.
Yeah it feels super bad now. The temptation to CCU from mine is real
How about CIG change the Ion in this class ship to work on mass basis and call it ion little doctor. Stating it works on a mass the larger the mass the bigger the damage then they can reset the accuracy. What say you?
That would need a metric fuck ton of coding to be done to make it work. Also, whilst the figures are all there (mass etc) they are completely arbitrary at the moment (i.e. the MSR weighs as much as a reclaimer, which is half the mass of a hammerhead. because SC logic)
With the lower alpha, is it now useless against an Idris or HH? I wanted to be able to solo an Idris without having to resort to a Retaliator all the time.
Because the RPM was boosted at the same time, effective DPS is no different to before the nerf. Idris is a big enough target that the removal of fixed assist isnt too big of an issue either
@@RobotSpartan glad to hear it! I’ll see about purchasing one in-game then.
@@smartwulf918 Best of luck with it! (i really should finish that arlington mission myself now i think about it...)
So the way to balance the Ion is not to nerf its damage. Smaller light fighters just need to be harder to hit. This can easily be done by making the projectile round slower. Another way to balance without taking away its accuracy or damage would be to make it so shields must be at zero before the physical damage affects the hull. So there would be no one-shoting but currently in 3.16 the way the nerf has been implemented itis awful.
I agree, sort of. Reducing the projectile velocity would start to impact its ability to hit larger ships too, so might not be the best way. Slowing rotational velocity of the ship itself might be better.
The shields blocking hull damage from bleeding through when they drop (aka shield gating) is something I myself have mentioned a few times, so i very much support this idea. Though I'd suggest shields below 50% don't trigger gating, rather than all the way to zero, as due to small shields having instant regen, it would make small ships invincible!
U comment somewhat of “…Light fighter has the chances of surviving as medium fighter against ares…” lyes out problem i have with cig. They keep zeroing on standardizing combat to light fighters that they forgot what use medium fighters have. In my opinion medium fighters should be more of treat than light fighters. And ur comparison of the titan to ares having the same kill time is a joke that both have the same. It’s like comparing US Abrams TANK to SWAT armored tank lol. Cig should have nerfed ares mobility and maybe speed
I agree that light fighters seem to keep ended up as the be all end all. The only real exception is the vanguard, and even that's sort of fallen from grace (except the sentinel thanks to the EMP)
I think light and medium fighters should present the same threat to be honest (I'm considering light as the gladius, medium as the hornet in this instance). Light are faster and quicker to get guns on target. Medium take longer to get on target, but hit harder. Importantly however, is that they are still both small, single seat craft; they fundamentally fill the same role but cater to different play styles (i actually prefer medium fighters for that exact reason). Heavy fighters, like the Hurricane, Ares, Vanguard etc is where it should be a real difference in threat level, not just between heavies and lights, but within the heavy category as well, i.e. what the Ares threaten shouldn't be the same as what the Hurricane threatens.
"comparison of the titan to ares having the same kill time is a joke that both have the same." I don't disagree, and for most players its relevant. However, keep in mind the point i made that some of that is down to my inability to make fine adjustments to the aim, and thus the lack of aim-assist of the Ares is exasperated. Against a large vessel like the hammerhead, there would be a night and day difference between them.
@@RobotSpartan post on spectrum this is good research and relay u opinion if u haven’t done so
@@addis504 Oh god that would turn into a dumpster fire in a heartbeat. In my experience, about half the people there don't like seeing evidence their opinion is wrong. Sort of like reddit but worst.
But aye, i will do so when i next venture into that quagmire
Couldn’t agree more. You said everything I think about
Aaaargh! Go away from my head :-)
nope. gonna keep stealing them brain waves ;)
Why are all y'all giving CIG a pass?!?!
"oh the balancing this or aim assist that.."
NO!!!!
it was advertised with a..."DEVASTATING" SIZE 7 ENERGY CANNON "
that's what they said......
Now they've made it a size 1 energy repeater!
That is a MAJOR FUCKING NERF!!!
The only reason they did this is cuz of ALL the whiny little bitches that were getting popped! (they even say this in the patch notes!)
I WANTED THIS SHIP....
I DON'T ANYMORE!
I WON'T EVEN RENT IT!
This video is in no way giving CIG a pass, otherwise i wouldn't have specifically asked them to return it to 38 RPM whilst keeping the aim assist change. To quote, "You had the nail lined up perfectly, but then you used a sledgehammer to drive it in", that is to say, they fucked it up. I hate the change to ROF, and because mines a referral ship CCU, i can't melt it (that's why i mentioned it at the start) so trust me when i say, i have more horses in this race than most.
As for "Now they've made it a size 1 energy repeater! That is a MAJOR FUCKING NERF!!!", that hyperbole is the whole reason i made this video, as that claim is systematically false. The alteration to the RPM and Alpha has absolutely zero effect on the ships DPS (they actually increased it). Against poor light fighter pilots its just as effective (as i showed), and It kills large ships like connies and especially hammerheads just as fast as before; I did say in the video that i didn't test those ships because the TTK there was unaffected. I also stated that TTK on medium ships like the vanguard and valk was only slightly longer than before, and that was a consequence of my aim, so again, not a major nerf in any way.
"The only reason they did this is cuz of ALL the whiny little bitches that were getting popped!". Not entirely wrong; i don't doubt the community had some sway, though i also don't doubt CIG saw was far too effective against light fighters. Think of it like rock paper scissors, only replace it with Gladius Ares Hammerhead. Light fighters should be the counter to the Ares, so they were doing the right thing by reducing its ability against them, they just did it in an asinine way (again, hence "I would implore CIG to try and keep the aim assist changes, whilst putting the firerate back to 38")
@@RobotSpartan a gladius on the original high alpha 38 RPM has no issues against an ares if piloted right, and frankly the ION is a decent balance to the gladius and arrow meta's cause these pilots never had any decent threat of their ship going POP before, go up against a ship with a S7 CANNON, frankly they should expect to get popped if they mess up, IE a high risk high reward thing. they didn't like being kept on their toes, and needing to give their piloting skills a full work out for survivability is the reality.
Please Take no offense to what I'm about to say....
You HAVE to defend this ship cuz you purchased it and can't melt it or get a refund for it.,,, so you're gonna have some skin in the game for it, and I get it, that's fine.
But
Let's say you but a 12 core cpu, you've been watching videos on the performance of it and go to the website and look at the STORY of how it came to be in existence.... You're ready to buy it... And do.... Put it into your desktop pc and then.......
VERY SHORTLY after you turn it on and start to run programs and games with it...... There's an "update".... Uh oh... What going on here instead of getting 100+fps in games..... You NOW get 10-15fps.
This is how we felt when they NERFED it.
Now full disclosure ; I have an account, but I can't play the game as of yet cuz I don't have a laptop with a great cpu/gpu.
but my feelings or opinions still reflect that of the MAJORITY of the Star Citizen community/backers....
That being said.... I respect the fact that you took the time to show us what was what. Thank you for the video.
Because I like you.... I will give you a late LUMINALIA gift....
I liked the video.
I subscribed.
Keep up the great work sir!
YOU ROCK!
Also......
WELCOME TO UA-cam DUDE!
I hope your journey is a wonderfully successful one!
@@PhillipLemmon you could submit a ticket for a refund within 30 days of purchase. it's under their refund FAQ, i bought warbond during IAE, next patch they took it's balls, i had 4 days left so i submitted a ticket and got Paypal involved, they locked my account. so, F CIG, i hope they go under.
@@62saki91 oh damn! that sucks dude!
yeah they shouldn't have done that and refunded your money
a gladius or arrow flying right at you should NOT be considered for the nerf, as that is a stupid tactic agaisnt an ion, and as it is SUPPOSE to have a LARGE BESPOKE CANNON, it SHOULD die quickly trying that. HOWEVER, using the gladius actual nimble manuevarability, liek a decent pilot would, it can stay out of the cannons cross hairs and move out of it's slow moving projectile with ease. just cause NPC bounties don't do this, and some player pilots don't do this, didn't mean the ion needed a Nerf to a faster RPM with a lower Alpha takign it from Cannon to REPEATER. and minimal aim assist on the fixed cannon.
Maybe instead dev's should work on optimizing code so the server doesn't struggle, and the AI can work properly.
"didn't mean the ion needed a Nerf to a faster RPM with a lower Alpha"
Ion was great! Now is a bunch of garbage! Nice video!
In terms of balance its not, but in terms of feel? Yeah... Thats why i said at the end i want CIG to keep the nerf and return the low ROF. I think thats the ideal compromise, as for most people its the ROF thats the kicker here
@@RobotSpartan it's the ROF and Alpha damage reduction.
@@62saki91 thats.... what i said? " in terms of feel? Yeah... i want CIG to keep the nerf and return the low ROF".... (nerf meaning the aim assist removal)
@@RobotSpartan problem is they can't do aim assist removal due to server desync, that was why it was implemented to begin with. they honestly should have left it alone, and when you say ROF ( rate of fire) that applies to just rate of fire, and doesn't mention the shot Alpha damage. so DPS went up, big deal, in reality the ship was a balance to the meta fighter classes making them have to consider the risk/reward factor. and give their pilot skills a work out, and in reality in a space altercation, the ions and infernos would be engaging fighters, and capital ships since they are damage SUPPORT classes, with the ion staying further back and hammering shields and any small fighter unfortunate enough to get in the cross hairs. the inferno would be up close doing splash based damage ( due to higher armor) and peppering the ships with ballistics. for sustained damaged to the area of operation. that is how it should work, that is how it WOULD work in a militant scenario, and they screwed the whole thing up with everything they did in 3.16.
@@62saki91 They actually added aim assist back before desync became a major issue in 3.10. Its original intent was to break the meta that had developed around auto gimbal, as they were just that much better. Of course, they have since broken auto gimbals so...
"that applies to just rate of fire, and doesn't mention the shot Alpha damage"
It can't do what it was designed too doo, some ships will be more powerful has to be this way, put the damage back up, increase its price but stop nerfing stuff
But it can do what it was designed to do? This is literally the first line on Ion's page on the RSI website:
"Spark fear in the corridors of the most formidable gunships and frigates with the Ares Ion". It kills hammerheads and Idris' just as well as it did before, ergo, does exactly what it was designed to still.
People saying "it can't do what it was meant to anymore", is only going to make CIG look at the metrics, say "well, the facts say otherwise" and ignore the other half of the argument which is the fact they made the ship feel nothing like what we all were sold.
The rest of your argument is completely valid (except increasing the price, lets not make the P2W argument stronger eh ;) )
A small ship needs to get destroyed by a bigger ship or weapon I'm okay with that, I doo rate ur reply though very tastefully done.
@@jeoffelectron2537 Oh i don't for a moment disagree that a large weapon should destroy a small vessel instantly! Its just a question of ensuring that that statement can always be followed with "if it hits"
Well shouldn't that have to do with the skill of the pilots aim? They didn't just mess with the targeting. The guns is weak the power of a size 5. And because of the spread much much worse because even the best pilot will miss half the shots dead on target. This isn't a nerf it's a castration. Also what people fail to realize it's not the ION that was nerfed. The ION flys exactly as it did. It's size 7 guns that were nerfed and messed with spread and aim so they cant hit anything. Also the argument that it fits it's roll better is the stupidest one. It actually is the complete opposite of it's roll. It is now a close range rapid fire fighter. If they didn't nerf the assist it would actually be better as a dogfighter which isn't it's roll. Look at real combat. Battle ships use fast firing guns to take down aircraft. They use slow firing long range cannons to destroy large targets. That means for the ION to fit it's roll. It need more dps slower fire rate and more range. Not less range faster fire rate and close fighting like a dogfighter. For this reason. The nerf actually makes it the complete opposite of it's intended roll. If you knew anything about traditional military combat.
"Well shouldn't that have to do with the skill of the pilots aim? "
This is great 👍. Funny that many people on the forums were complaining that their ion is shooting in random directions and that all light fighter pilots had no skill because their aim skill was too good. But there is no RNG, they just don't get aim assist an now their aim sucks because of it.
I wouldn't say there is no RNG;. With 0-0.25° of spread, that's up to 4.4m at 1km. Not a lot granted, but enough to pass a gladius side on, and it's certainly going to be exasperated by desync. That in mind, I think the claims of RNG hold some water, but in a rather leaky container.
As a note, 1° of aim assist at that range is 17.5m (which just so happens to be the length of a gladius!) so that essentially triples the size of a light fighter target.
As for light fighter pilots having no skill; if they fly straight at you, they still die, and almost as quick as before. Just needs 4-5 hits perfectly on target instead of 1 with some leeway. So yeah that bits total nonsense, as no skill pilots are still going to melt :D
The vanguard is where it's at in this patch. GVSR's for smaller ships, takes about 3 seconds, fast and accurate. Ballistic under the nose with a reasonable spread for the hammerhead. You can do both large and small ships in 1/4 or less of the time it take you to do it in an ARES, and flies slightly better too.
@@erickruse4679 +1 for the vanguard and GSVR. I do prefer the MVSA if using fixed S5's though, as its slower velocity matches the S5's, so only have 1 PIP under thrust
Your all idiots for sleeping on the distortion cannons by far the most powerful thing the game right now. The sentinal is the King right now. So powerful two shots with size 5 lazer cannon and 4 size 2 EODs and it's over.
But here we are whining about the ION which any decent pilot could beat.
It doesn't matter. This ship is dead to me now. The gun is just pathethic. Delete.
*But Daddy I want an Oompa Lumpa Meta NOW!*
"But we have meta at home!"
meta at home: Gladius
ion is broken 3.16 patch melted mine after having to hit a orbital sentry 20 times on a claim jumpers class 7 (damage would be over 2400 per second with a range of over 8 km) that's from the ares Q&A I think some one is telling porky's?
That sounds rather quite.... yeah that sounds like you had major desync issues. Even now i take them down in maybe 4-5 shots?
@@RobotSpartan using inferno now 2-3 seconds on each sentry my friends are taking them down faster than the Ion in smaller ships like Gladius & Arrows Ion is this regard is broken what is even the point of the class 7 laser cannon now that it cant hit the side of a barn.
@@ckcjool Inferno will always kill sentries faster. They have sod all health but decent shields which the inferno will take advantage of.
As for hitting the side of a barn, you realise the Inferno has double the spread of the Ion right? If you can land a shot with the inferno, you can definitely land a shot with the Ion
R.I.P Ares Ion pointless ship 3.16 bait and switch CIG?
Gladii?
its roman right? so Gladii I think would be right
Gladia? Gladiopodi? Dont sound right!
@@RobotSpartan I am *totally* down for Gladiopodi
So melted, lost of money...........pfffff
Alas, can't melt mine; because it was CCU'd from a referral bonus, its stuck as is. Unless support will let me melt the CCU...
I'm willing to stick it out for the time being and see what happens to be honest. Worst case scenario, i just CCU it to a vanguard sentinel with store credit
You should demand refun then to make the message clear.
When I first tested Ion version 1 on the PTU the day it appeared there along with the Infy and Redeemer, I did not like it. My very first comment was "It is shooting next to the crosshair instead of in it". The laser cannon never was very accurate to begin with. Now that it has a higher firing rate and less aim assist it feels even more inaccurate. Mind you I can still take out small fighters with it no problem- there just are better options for doing so now as even a Constellation with dual S5 and S4 repeaters is MUCH quicker at taking down small stuff. The Ion's real power though still remains and it is still as good for taking down those Hammerheads in ERT missions. For PVP other than padcamping the Ion never has been a good choice as dogfighting really hasn't ever been its forté.
I have picked up using my Constellation and Super Hornet for VHRT missions again and upgraded my Ion to a Valkyrie - but only because I already had the S Hornet and Constellation already. The nerfed Ares Ion is by no means a bad ship right now when using it as intended - to take out larger targets.
The shooting outside of the crosshair thing is something i never noticed. I tended to take calculated snap shots (i.e. turn ahead of the PIP and let them pass through the crosshair) rather than track the target, so that may be why? Convergence distance also plays a part, as if you hit something at 500m with a 1500m convergence set, the shot wont actually be central, due to the off-axis placement of the weapon (we really need a better way to set that....)
I think there were always better options for taking out small fighters (as well there should have been), but this certainly cements it. In PVP I imagine that was especially true, as good players weren't stupid enough to sit in front of the Ion!
"The Ion's real power though still remains and it is still as good for taking down those Hammerheads in ERT mission"
@@RobotSpartan disagree, the ship feels like crap now, and it was not what was advertised or sold to us. so DPS took a small bump, don't care, the original design was FINE, if not Perfect, a small fighter SHOULD get one shot with a bespoke CANNON at 38RPM pumping out 6-7K alpha damage, Especially if said small fighter is using strafing tactics rather than dog fight tactics. or is sitting still and pew pewing, like an idiot. the only reason they moved from Cannon to Repeater is because of all the non moving whiners, their shite AI due to server struggle from their crappy code in NPC bounties, making it the go to ship to make bank to buy other ships like the prospector or mole, or caterpillar. IMO, the small fighter peeps who thought they where aces got mad cause suddenly they had a threat to their meta, where if they made one mistake they where toast, and frankly, that threat was a good thing, not a thing to be removed and nerfed. in a way it actually provided balance AGAINST the META.
@@62saki91 At what point did i say that the ship feels good? And at what point did i say a small fighter shouldn't get one shot by an S7 cannon? Because i hate how it feels currently (i said that in the video) and i agree, a small fighter should get one shot if they park in front of a giant ass cannon.
"the small fighter peeps who thought they where aces got mad cause suddenly they had a threat to their meta"
Wrong you don't balance anything. You just make a giant gun and make it fire slow and do more damage. And if people get hit with it too bad. This big guns are too dangerous is nonsense. Then don't put big guns in the game. Because let's be honest the ION was not nerfed at all. It flys just the way it did. The size 7 guns were nerfed. This is about the future of all guns size 7 are larger not just the Ares.
@@jasonmaxwell9762 fair point, and again i think the S7 gun needs to be brought back to 3.15 specs. and the ion itself just needed to be left alone. the gladius meta pilots are literally whining about flying into a projectile, because they are whining about the decoupled tactic to counter them.. the reality is a max speed ares ion, going backwards while facing the fighter has a projectile with negative momentum still.
the ares is going backwards, the projectile is going forwards since the ares velocity is 1200m.s backwards, that means we apply a -1200 m/s speed to the projectile fired.
the projectile fired has a positive 700m/s speed, so -1200+700=-500m/s the gladius pilots are literally flying into a projectile that is moving away from them at 500 meters per second.. and whining about their poor piloting choices getting them killed.
Lol the ares ion sucks 😂, now I can easy kill it with just a starter ship . So funny I am happy it got nerfed.
I mean, you could kill them with an aurora from the get go if you flew it right ;)