Typhon, Heavy Flak Discussion.

[QKO]

I am going to join an earlier poster in saying that my crews with charged rounds have had no issue hitting at 2000+ range. Some crews can even do this while I'm circling around with the Galleon, so the issue definitely isn't in hitting the flak cannon. And with charged rounds, it still does a lot of damage at those ranges. I'd much rather focus on getting a heavy gun that accompanies the flak in that it takes care of armor. That way we can leave the fieldgun as it is for the Spire and outfit the Galleon with some proper ranged weaponry.

The arming time of 1 second is ridiculous however, it means that together with the mortar with arming time of 0.8 seconds, I have a huge blind spot on my Galleon that I can't even turn away when they get close enough(as they just bounce me back by hitting my balloon). This again could be fixed by having a heavy piercing weapon so that the small mount can be used for shotguns or other self defense weaponry.

[Captain Smollett]

Charged Flak rounds explode in mid air after just over 1km, which can only be overcome with lesmok ammunition (by increasing speed so that they travel farther within their limited lifespan).

[QKO]

Aha, I just saw the tiling thing. The Mortar's aiming system is off. Well, easy to fix this issue with flak, just increase the detonation range(to 2000m). If they want a different firing arc they can still use Lesmok.

Maybe it's also an idea to revert back to the previous lesmok and try to figure out what makes the fieldguns as strong as they are. From what I've seen is that it's very hard to get close to ships when they employ fieldguns. Aside from a bumrush, there aren't many options due to flares and open distance.

The other guns have an effective range that is less than 1000 meters giving fieldguns a very distinct advantage. Being that the fieldguns are sniper rifles firing relatively normal bullets, a range of 3000 is excessive to begin with. Maybe impose an effective range of 1000 and have damage drop off after that rather than changing the amount of shots available.

Secondly, pilots need ways to get close against ranged fighters, even in organized fights. Maybe it's an idea to put a smoke gun in the game that can facilitate in creating smoke screens for ships to fly behind?

[RearAdmiralZill]

The arming time of 1 second is ridiculous however, it means that together with the mortar with arming time of 0.8 seconds, I have a huge blind spot on my Galleon that I can't even turn away when they get close enough(as they just bounce me back by hitting my balloon). This again could be fixed by having a heavy piercing weapon so that the small mount can be used for shotguns or other self defense weaponry.

There is a very good reason for that arming time, and that is so short range brawlers can get in that bubble and survive. You make the choice to have great long range guns, at the cost of the very weak damage you'll do within that arming.

Adding any kind of full-on heavy piercing weapon will just result in galleons with it and heavy flak for broadsides. I honestly don't think we ever need to see a heavy piercing gun. Flechette does decently, and maybe a heavy fire weapon will come around which is also good vs hull armor. Beyond that though, there is a reason the port side of a galleon has that light mount.

Maybe it's also an idea to revert back to the previous lesmok and try to figure out what makes the fieldguns as strong as they are. From what I've seen is that it's very hard to get close to ships when they employ fieldguns. Aside from a bumrush, there aren't many options due to flares and open distance.

The other guns have an effective range that is less than 1000 meters giving fieldguns a very distinct advantage. Being that the fieldguns are sniper rifles firing relatively normal bullets, a range of 3000 is excessive to begin with. Maybe impose an effective range of 1000 and have damage drop off after that rather than changing the amount of shots available.

We already know what made mercs strong, and that was the accuracy at max ranges far beyond that of any other gun. This lead to people using that to chip away at boats until they just died from the dps. Now you have to really dial in the arcs of your mercs, and the drop at longer ranges is enough to make accurate shooting much harder, yet someone will always get hurt/die if they charge into a long range gun line straight on. That just makes sense else long range wouldn't be viable to use at all.

I always look at gun's effective range vs its max range. If your max is 3km but you cant hit anything accurately till 1.5km, then go with that 1.5km. With the merc changes, their effective range surely went down, both for just hitting the hull for dps, followed by even lower ranges for precise component disables.

[QKO]

[There is a very good reason for that arming time, and that is so short range brawlers can get in that bubble and survive. You make the choice to have great long range guns, at the cost of the very weak damage you'll do within that arming.

Great long range? 1000m isn't that long. And with a full second you already cover something like 500m before reaching arming time. For a gun that has a very specific purpose and doesn't do much damage when the hull is up, 1 second is just too long.

Adding any kind of full-on heavy piercing weapon will just result in galleons with it and heavy flak for broadsides. I honestly don't think we ever need to see a heavy piercing gun. Flechette does decently, and maybe a heavy fire weapon will come around which is also good vs hull armor. Beyond that though, there is a reason the port side of a galleon has that light mount.

I do not see how this is a problem, it would turn the Galleon into a little bit less of a joke in 2v2 fights. Not only Galleons, but spires and goldfishes have use for a gun like this. Next to fire, it's the only type not represented by heavy weaponry.

We already know what made mercs strong, and that was the accuracy at max ranges far beyond that of any other gun. This lead to people using that to chip away at boats until they just died from the dps. Now you have to really dial in the arcs of your mercs, and the drop at longer ranges is enough to make accurate shooting much harder, yet someone will always get hurt/die if they charge into a long range gun line straight on. That just makes sense else long range wouldn't be viable to use at all.

I always look at gun's effective range vs its max range. If your max is 3km but you cant hit anything accurately till 1.5km, then go with that 1.5km. With the merc changes, their effective range surely went down, both for just hitting the hull for dps, followed by even lower ranges for precise component disables.

You missed the point. Think about this for a second: How would they chip away at a ship they cannot see? You have to be really careful with how you think about balance, there's only a few games who'm have gotten it well and nearly all of them do the least things with the damage of their playable entities. If you want, you could pull up the change list between Guilty Gear XX Accent Core and Guilty Gear XX Accent Core +R. The latter is a rebalance, but rather than tuning damage alone, they changed the properties of some moves to allow characters to deal better with disadvantageous situations. Being outranged is such a disadvantageous situation and dealing with it without touching the weapons that seem overpowered may balance everything a lot better than just damage tuning or projectile tuning.

[RearAdmiralZill]

Great long range? 1000m isn't that long. And with a full second you already cover something like 500m before reaching arming time. For a gun that has a very specific purpose and doesn't do much damage when the hull is up, 1 second is just too long.

The max range on the flak is greater than 1km. Once they get close you use ammo that slows the projectile, thus lowering the arming time. Even within the arming time, you still do 50% damage. So get the hull down and pelt away, avoid the situation to begin with by killing them as they charge your gun lines, or turn your short side early.

do not see how this is a problem, it would turn the Galleon into a little bit less of a joke in 2v2 fights. Not only Galleons, but spires and goldfishes have use for a gun like this. Next to fire, it's the only type not represented by heavy weaponry.

No offence, but there is nothing wrong with a galleon in a 2v2 fight. And Im fully aware the other ships can use a gun like that, but the point is a galleon can take four, and shoot two at the same time. It'll only lead to galleons sitting in the open, gunning down people with that flavor of heavy gun and a flak. Not to say they won't ever come out with one, but its my opinion that we don't need it given the options we have available (which is always growing.)

You missed the point. Think about this for a second: How would they chip away at a ship they cannot see? You have to be really careful with how you think about balance, there's only a few games who'm have gotten it well and nearly all of them do the least things with the damage of their playable entities. If you want, you could pull up the change list between Guilty Gear XX Accent Core and Guilty Gear XX Accent Core +R. The latter is a rebalance, but rather than tuning damage alone, they changed the properties of some moves to allow characters to deal better with disadvantageous situations. Being outranged is such a disadvantageous situation and dealing with it without touching the weapons that seem overpowered may balance everything a lot better than just damage tuning or projectile tuning.

I didn't miss any points. And use the flare gun to deal with clouds. Hell, the clouds move too, so there is always going to be gaps that you can use. I know how balance works, and I truly want a totally balanced goio. Besides not agreeing with the heavy flak arming times and I guess thinking the merc changes are bad, I don't know what you are trying to get at here balance wise.

[naufrago]

Max range of heavy flak is 1008m with normal ammo. Arming distance of heavy flak is 240m with normal ammo.

People seem confused about that, so this is just to clarify things.

[RearAdmiralZill]

Must of been thinking lesmok range then. My opinion doesn't change though. Arming is fine, though obviously shell life could go up to increase its range.

[QKO]

The max range on the flak is greater than 1km. Once they get close you use ammo that slows the projectile, thus lowering the arming time. Even within the arming time, you still do 50% damage. So get the hull down and pelt away, avoid the situation to begin with by killing them as they charge your gun lines, or turn your short side early.

Yes, the distance is 1008m, I stand corrected. I even bothered testing to see whether the rounds shoot further but they don't.  Lesmok range can be longer than normal range, but  the gun should not be balanced around lesmok, but lesmok around the gun. So what if people get a giant range extension with lesmok or their rounds become easier to aim? They trade that off with less damage or by lacking other properties. Having a flak cannon by itself reaching across the field isn't even threatening provided your crew keeps your hull armor up. If anything, I would be much more worried about the fieldgun or a heavy long range piercing gun I'm suggesting than something that only does good damage when the hull is down.

No offence, but there is nothing wrong with a galleon in a 2v2 fight. And Im fully aware the other ships can use a gun like that, but the point is a galleon can take four, and shoot two at the same time. It'll only lead to galleons sitting in the open, gunning down people with that flavor of heavy gun and a flak. Not to say they won't ever come out with one, but its my opinion that we don't need it given the options we have available (which is always growing.)

That should be their choice to make. If they want to hang in the air like that, that is fine. It's not even unbalanced in itself. And we come back to:

I didn't miss any points. And use the flare gun to deal with clouds. Hell, the clouds move too, so there is always going to be gaps that you can use. I know how balance works, and I truly want a totally balanced goio. Besides not agreeing with the heavy flak arming times and I guess thinking the merc changes are bad, I don't know what you are trying to get at here balance wise.

You missed the point again, eventhough you say you don't, you still miss the point. My point was that it wasn't the guns themselves that force a playstyle that the players people use right now. The Galleon will still be equipped with flak and LJ regardless of how badly you nerve those specific weapons because they will always keep their purpose. Their purpose is giving the Galleon means over distance. Because thanks to its most rotten acceleration and requirement to turn the broadside towards the target, the Galleon cannot move. If people wanted to play brawler with almost any ship they will rapidly find out that they can get bursted down rather easily from a distance. Even now with fieldguns; and if fieldguns is not an option, two chainguns and a mortar launcher will get a Galleon down before it is able to turn its broadside. Any player will confirm this to you. And rather than nerfing the weapons themselves, it would be better to give people means to get closer. Smoke screens can work. I know how a flare gun works but this is something you can balance. Maybe we can give ship shields that they can place in a weapon slot that will prevent rounds from reaching the ship. There's tons of ways you can solve the same problem and at the same time fix the actual problem rather than patch it a little with a damage nerf.

[Moriarty]

In relation to the Zill QKO back and forth i have to go with Zill (feel dirty) - Galleons don't need any help atm, and the arm time is a solid mechanic which although at times inconvenient is an absolute necessity (the fjord vids should still be hosted on qwerty's channel if you don't believe me).

On another note, I tested the 4 shot heavy flak, I don't mind the idea but here's my main issue with it:

1. To use this gun effectively you have to fire during the window when the armour's down, i think we can all agree on that.
2. The window you have to shoot is on average something like 5-8 seconds, and less on a goldfish and squid.
3. Considering the insanely slow speed of the Heavy flak rounds its difficult (and impossible at medium distance) to fit 4 rounds into the window if you have to aim the shots.

I *think* this was an oversight. In any course if (as is my understanding) the flak damage was spread across 4 shots rather than 2 - then this change would still be a nerf to the flak with regards to lesmok and i'm fairly sure that wasnt the point of the recent changes.

I back smollets suggestion to give it two rounds, either through a float as suggested by hamster? or just giving it 2.4 rounds total (i am informed this is the correct math to make a 30% reduction equal 2).

[RearAdmiralZill]

@QKO, I honestly can say I have no idea what you are wanting out of your posts. Call me thick, but all it sounds like is that you want to use new mechanics instead of nerfing gun damage, which just leads to more variables that can break other things. The end goal is to get these guns performing the roles that we know they do in a balanced way that makes it so it's not the only thing to ever take.

The sooner you stop using absolutes in this game, the better. Every pilot won't confirm that if an enemy ship gets close to a galleon, that it will die, because i prove that wrong on a daily basis.

While a smoke gun wouldn't be a bad concept, it certainly wont get you closer to anything. How is it going to move forward? What is stopping me from seeing a giant artificial cloud, and immediately shooting at it?

So let's focus on what is happening here, and that is potential Heavy Flak changes, because it's apparent that it was using lesmok as a crutch to make itself useful, which is flawed.

[Spud Nick]

I think we can all agree that the flak needs more range in order for it to preform it's role as a long range weapon. If lesmok stays the same than I think that we can all agree on the second point witch is to give the flak more ammo.

[Crafeksterty]

No, i believe that the flak is very good in what it is doing now.  A quicker shot maybe, but other than than i think it is viable as it is, even with the new lesmok changes. It is a killer, and with a good lochnar shot, any ship is ded

[QKO]

@QKO, I honestly can say I have no idea what you are wanting out of your posts. Call me thick, but all it sounds like is that you want to use new mechanics instead of nerfing gun damage, which just leads to more variables that can break other things. The end goal is to get these guns performing the roles that we know they do in a balanced way that makes it so it's not the only thing to ever take.

Yes, I'm pushing for mechanics that enable players to force a close range fight. And preferably I want it in a way that those that want to play a ranged ship can still defend against it. I also want to make sure that ranged ships keep doing their proper damage rather than getting nerfed into oblivion in hopes to achieve the best balance with the fewest mechanics. I'm saying that the current set cannot be balanced properly and is going to favor brawlers as it is now. And when it favors brawlers, you can just as well remove anything except for chaingun and mortar, because the rest is just pointless.

The sooner you stop using absolutes in this game, the better. Every pilot won't confirm that if an enemy ship gets close to a galleon, that it will die, because i prove that wrong on a daily basis.

I just won a 2v2 with my team being spires and the opposing team being pyramidions. One of my crew took a picture of that. The game that followed was dual spire against two galleons, which we also won. When I'm talking in here, I expect players to be competent; and when a competent crew mans a ship that gets into the galleon's dead zone, the galleon is dead.

While a smoke gun wouldn't be a bad concept, it certainly wont get you closer to anything. How is it going to move forward? What is stopping me from seeing a giant artificial cloud, and immediately shooting at it?

You shoot the smoke ahead of you, two clouds in different directions. You then use either of those clouds for cover and you repeat the process. Then when you're finally close enough, you come out of the cloud and attack your target. This balances out because said target can use a flare gun to spot inside those clouds, but if he guesses badly, you've already moved up a bit on him. Now, you're not making tiny clouds here, if you make them to small, of course they know where you are, hence you need to make them big enough so the ship can avoid being shot at even inside the clouds.

So let's focus on what is happening here, and that is potential Heavy Flak changes, because it's apparent that it was using lesmok as a crutch to make itself useful, which is flawed.

Exactly, but it's flawed because the guns are balanced around the currently existing mechanics and around the metagame we would like to see. This gives us a very narrow area to balance in and within that area the gun can be correctly balanced to the preferred meta. That is also the point of my posts, it's not that these guns ever were really strong, it's just that players are unable to deal with ranged fighters because they lack the tools to do so. Give them these tools and the balance of ranged weapons will fall into place quite handsomely.

[awkm]

More ways are being added to allow ships to approach long range ships.  I've added additional cloud cover and reduced the effectiveness and easy of use of the Field Gun.  They're small steps but I think are important ones.  Hyper long range (1500m or more) engagements (with killing at those ranges) doesn't really differentiate GoIO from other shooters.  This game really shines at close to mid range combat when you see ships moving tactically, broadsiding, etc...  Long range is still pretty interesting though but there are fewer options for those engagements to take place (Heavy Flak after the coming hot patch).  In general, yes I want to bring combat closer.

The way guns behave (damage, damage types, etc...) will need to be changed in order to facilitate the move in this direction.  Things aren't going to change drastically, that's not what I want either.  Gentle nudges and realignments.  Some potential changes and effects are regrettably missed, but sometimes it reveals other issues (like Lesmok + Heavy Flak crutch).  Also, we'll need to implements new mechanics as well to ensure that these engagement ranges are possible and can be pulled off not easily but with medium amount of effort.  A cloud creation skill is in the works, we have the hooks for it so it just needs some tweaking (Tar Barrel).  Other ideas include the addition of impulse force (like when you hit a mine you get pushed a little) to weapons or specialize it to a single weapon so that you can deny angles to some extent.  This will also be important as we reexamine CP maps and how they do and don't work for us.

Some ideas I've mentioned are very experimental so take what I've said with a grain of salt.  This is just to give everyone an idea of where the game is going and what things we're working on to improve it.