The 1hour farm experiment - Fixer vs Speeder!

Sure its a balance. Not one that is favourable to a Fixer dedicated to fixing though. Here is the most absurd example I've seen recently;
48k healing is not worth the 11k damage differential between him and Orpheus and Echorara? Neither of them are running slow or fire debuffs, so its great example of how some game scenarios make it virtually impossible to gain a star reward. In terms of the actual game, their fixer was by far their Mvp and the only reason it turned into a 5min game.

 

Wrong screenshot?

 

No! Check the fixer on the losing side.
7k damage + 48k healing --- Which according to the ´contribution´ formula is worth less than 18k damage (which is what my two teammates needed to get the above average 2nd star).

I'm not going to challenge whether Fixers (on average) get more or less stars than other boats, Miika says fixers are doing alright so I'll reluctantly accept that. I'm saying that Fixers lack control of their own destiny --- If 48k healing can be worth less than an 11k damage differential, then the way healing is scored is absurd and relies far too much on the actions of those you heal. It is not Ziixth's fault that his teammates didn't deal a ton of damage (which is why his healing is counted as worthless), yet his score is totally dependant on their actions.
If the top damagedealers on your team aren't the one's taking damage, there is nothing a fixer can do -- Regardless of how strategically important the healing of a low damage boat might have been.
----
I have a funny edition of the Meta Snapshots coming up -- An early spoiler is that most of the oldtime top fixers have long since abandoned the class. Whether thats because of the Repair Pulse slaughter (always great when a boat that isn't dominating gets shafted!), the slow farm speed, or because Fixer just isn't the boat to play if you want to fight for top spots, I don't know.
I get them though, I've come to the same conclusion; fixing is not worthwhile at the moment.

 

You've got my vote.
Fixers often win us the battle and I'm often baffled by how poor their returns can be on massive contributions, especially to my little torpedo magnet.

 

I can do this all week Consider the fight below and tell me why the other Fixer contributed more than me please.
I know he got the bonus star because his side did more damage, but how is that a relevant factor in judging our individual performances? The only reason the fight dragged out is because I (till a shooter went yolo) was able to cancel out their teams higher damage output.



Disclaimer: Im only fixing to get a few quests done. And no, I don't know how their Fixer did 18 damage with a mine (without it being a killing blow) Kudos to him for doing very respectable healing considering his items though!

 

Mines that expire explode, so someone was probably just slightly (like a pixel or two) within blast radius of one just as it expired. Impressive though

 

There have been tons of examples where fixers do an absurd amount of healing and get zero stars. If the devs still don't see the problem, they never will.

 

That's probably the most extreme example of this I've seen so far. If you put both the healing and damage numbers together, the total is over triple the damage done by each of the 2-star DPSers on your team. I hate to say it, since I don't want to go against what I said 1 page ago, but that does indicate that there might be something wrong with the contribution formula. Fixers don't have the choice of only healing people that are doing damage; keeping your entire team topped up is a much better strategy than only healing one or two guys. Even the worst player still serves as a shield or a distraction, and timeouts go to the team that has more people alive.

There's a lot of stuff that directly contributes to a win that doesn't count towards "contribution". If indiscriminate healing is one of them, it only promotes a more selfish play style on the most selfless ship. The play style it promotes isn't limited to strapping on a Duct Tape and giving a middle finger to Speeders, it also includes dropping Fixer as a class and playing something else. There's no reason healing should be so reliant on Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How when damage obviously isn't.

 

Honestly I only play to get the daily quests done now and I main a Fixer. Hooray glad I'm not the only one!

 

except the fact that he got 400 infamy less than you, and not in nightmare league), i don't really understand.

 

He did a great job, fully agreed!
He gets the "contribution" star because the people he healed outdamaged the people I healed (if I understand the logic of the system). I just want to show how demoralizing it can be to fix. Perhaps the example with me is not so bad (I know it was 1* before the game ended), but the screenshot from yesterday is a great example of how the current logic has far too little emphasis on rewarding healing (rather than what the healed people do... which has very little to do with the Fixers performance or contribution).

I doubt we will see changes though, primarily because Fixers (according to Miika stats) are doing ok in terms of average stars pr game. Messing with a calculation that is providing a satisfactory outcome is unlikely to happen, regardless of its current flaws.

I do hope that they will put some serious consideration into gold/star farming speed for Fixers - But again, perhaps everyone else have vastly different outcomes from mine.

 

Devs don't see a problem but personally feel my rewards are underwhelming. Doesn't help I forego a lot of damage in favour of CC (Napalm) so my contribution looks even less, maybe I should try a speeder.

 

True lol scandinavian countries Are Expensive especially us here in Norway ... But oh well can't do anything about it

 

Make each heal equivalent to 0.3 dmg (or something like that) #MyMathSucksAss

 

Forgot to answer this! It's difficult to give solid suggestions on ways to improve an unknown system though.
I'd suggest a rebalance that puts more emphasis on the value of healing in itself (and less on what it leads too) - More than anything I think Fixers are too reliant on how their team is doing (which is fine for infamy, less so for measuring personal contribution). The current system creates scenarios where a Fixer can be MVP and still get 0*s, as the Ziitxh match above. It appears (to me) that all damage is given some value regardless of its usefullness, I'd like to same to be the case for healing.

But again, its difficult to suggest alterations to a system you have no idea what looks like

 

Could make all healing contribition but to an extent. Say 1 healing has a contribution of X. And you have 4 teammates. At end result every heal you gave to 1st place teammate could be 1.2 X. Every heal you gave to the 2nd place teammate could be 1 X. Every heal you gave to 3rd place teammate could be 0.7 X and every heal you gave to 4th place teammate could be 0.5x. (Or something like this)

 

Too complex to design I think, also you are missing the point, we need a system where the fixer can get his due share of contribution WITHOUT having to rely on his,her teammates performance.

 

.

I have seen shooters and speeders shoot at afk ships looking for an easy kill, A LOT. Hell, back in my old days I used to do it too, stopped doing it for a while but recently started again cause sometimes the afks come back to life and I don't wanna risk it, I don't know what game you have been playing all these days but I have neither seen nor heard of a fixer running to heal an afk ship.

Also note, all ships spam their weapons when they realize they are gonna die and lose the game. Your logic seems highly theoretical and highly impractical to me, I find that the exact opposite of your statement to be true.

As a noob player who has lost several matches cause he wasn't shooting at the ship two other allies were focusing on, as somebody who wasted a lot of time and hp shooting at a fixer with self heal or a ship very near a fixer, or a defender, and ships with tons of bandage, sometimes I have ditched my team to kill a weak and fleeing target leaving my teammates to die. Sometimes I've made stupid selfish decisions which led me to do maximum damage but lose the game. I always use my mortars to do maximum dmg even though sometimes it's necessary for me to deliberately miss my mortar shells in order to separate the team and fish out enemies from hiding places.

I have been all these players and I have played with all players like this. I can assure you that all "HEALS" contribute to victory, CERTAINLY NOT all damage. As a matter of fact, it is dmg that must be taken the way healing is right now, the game needs and deserves people who can do smart effective damage, not brute blunt pointless damage and nerfing dmg contribution is the best way to get quality damage dealers. The game needs the kinda players who'd play shooter cause they love playing shooter, the way players currently play fixer.

I bet most people pick shooter simply cause it has most weapons, easy to farm gold, sugar and stars with.