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Ships with the power to kill
Echoez:
--- Quote from: TimTim LaBaguette on September 01, 2013, 06:32:39 am ---When I take a disabler, although it can be very fun to see the other ship being totaly incapacitated, I often wonder why going through such trouble ( in a gameplay perspective, not a "fun" one ), because I figure, taking a gat/mortar setup would have given me the kill twice if not three times as fast, because killing the ennemy ship is the most effective disabler since gatling can take away armor so quickly and one mortar clip can destroy any ship's health.
That said, having one type of playstyle very effective makes it much more satisfying to use the other ones, like getting a kill with a heavy flak spire for example, using mines, the slow and painful full banshee, dominating with a squid...
But, I still want to see something to make disabling a bit more viable, be that a buff to it or a nerf to killing ( double health ? less ammo in mortar/gatling ? more jitter ?... )
--- End quote ---
Nerfing killing isn't the way to go, it will just make the game boring. I'm also against any sort of hull buffs, adding engagement length in such a way is ridiculous when you consider the bigger ships and how much they benefit from it compared to other ships.
Disablers just need their completely uneeded restrictions gone so they can work in their enviroment. Ships that focus on disabling should be allowed to function by themselves with relative safety just like Piercing+Explosive ships do, they have the fastest way to kill, well should be allowed to disable them safely, which is not the case with ANY disabling weapon right now.
So let's take a look at the disgustingly stagnated meta of this game:
Durable ships that can pair Piercing+Explosive combos (Pyra+Junker) and maybe a disabler or two if you have enough space (Junker) or a powerful Disabler+Piercer like the Lumberjack (Galleon)
3 Ships out of 7
The Spire is too weak, Mobula is also too weak, both of them extremely weak against anything that pops their balloon moreso than any other ship. The Goldfish can't pair weapons effecively so only focuses on support and its gun is exposed, the Squid doesn't have nearly enough firepower, let alone durability.
Why is killing so much more favored? Cause disabling is so risky and inefficient in what it does that there is no point in having a pure support ship since the moment its ally messed up their targets or dies, they are in grim danger and can't kill by themselves nearly as fast as the enemy can. They have zero 1v1 potential since the enemy can just repair over and over again and point Piercers and Explosives on you.
So I'm going to be blunt about it. Piercing and Explosive weapons aren't too powerful, Disablers are just shit and not worth any dime or trouble unless it's a Lumberjack on the tankiest ship in the game or a support side Junker in which case you still hold killing power.
Carronades can't aim down hence always putting you in the line of fire of the enemy.
The Artemis can't aim up for some weird reason that nobody understands.
Fire is absolute crap by itself, it doesn't disable anything (unless you sit there frying them for 10 seconds), just provides an extra bit of damage and confusion, which is easily ignored if it's a Flamethrower or a Banshee. Fire only works with other guns if paired with incediary rounds.
The Hwacha is still very hard to aim properly in order to get a nice disable at range so you can engage and the Heavy Clip change hurt it a lil' bit.
So, why would you bother arming a ship with these guns to provide support when you can just equip Kill guns and just finish it earlier? What is the point? None of these guns is nearly powerful enough to warrant focusing around. The only respectable piece of a disabling weapon is the Lumberjack and the Hwacha on a Galleon and again, it only works on the Galleon cause you have a crap top of weapons to fill in.
/rant
Thaago:
Hmm - I strongly disagree that nerfing killing will make the game boring, at least to me. In fact, I'd argue the opposite! I find the most exciting parts of the game are firing on an enemy ship, running around like mad repairing things, out maneuvering an enemy in combat, or even desperately trying to escape. At the moment 80% of the game is either flying back to the engagement or flying around hunting for the enemy... not very interesting imo. From engage to kill takes what, 30 seconds for a pickup game? 15 seconds with an expert crew? A little more for enemy galleons? Sure there is satisfaction in watching enemies evaporate, but I want my combat to last a little longer than a single pass in a Pyra.
I want to point at that the Squid and Mobula are not at all weak. The Squid can mount the piercing/explosive combo with just a little bit of attention from the pilot (gatling front, mortar/flak side - I'm torn between the two) and get kills very quickly. In the right hands they are much much harder to kill than Pyras/Junkers.
The Mobula just seems weak because only a few people have figured out how to play it effectively. I've run into several builds (artemis, flak, merc, gat, artemis is one, or go for a gat/gat/mortar close in constant trifecta) that require an expert crew and absolutely Destroy enemy ships. Even without a buffed balloon or pilot tools you can dodge lumberjack/flak/hwacha shots with ease at range.
I hope the Spire gets a hull buff - I know its a "glass cannon" but I call shenanigans. It doesn't have that much more firepower than anything else, give it a strong hull to compensate for its massive hitbox.
Echoez:
I'm going to put it simply:
Nerfing what works won't make people switch off of it cause you aren't fixing anything, you are just breaking more things.
Nerfing Piercing-Explosive won't drive people off of it, they will just use the same thing with slightly reduced efficiency while everything else is pretty much, still broken and unusable.
The Builds you described are still the same old Piercing-Explosive, that's all that works, that's the problem, can't you see it? Also the Mobula doesn't work, just like the Spire doesn't work, these ships just need to be balanced in entirely different way. Ship combat has no place for fragile ships that can't move fast enough, the Mobula also has terrible handling.
(Waiting for people to pop in and say the Spire works in 3v3, but realy, I disagree, just because it appeared on one tournament and the team that had it won, realy proves nothing, it was still just one tournament and nothing can prove you didn't just get lucky, consistency proves points, that tournament proves nothing about it.)
Thaago:
Making engagements last longer is not breaking more things. I think the way things currently work is "broken" - a good crew on a pyra can kill every ship except the Galleon in 1 pass. Maybe this is just a fundamental difference between us, but I think the disabling weapons work just fine. Could some use a few tweaks? Yes. Flamethrowers are a little weak imo, and the Hwacha might need a tweak. However, you can drop a ship out of the sky with 1 clip of the light carronade up close (or blow out the engines/gun), knock out the guns of any ship at range with the artemis, and drop/kill a ship with the lumberjack.
What makes these awesome weapons not work in a build is that killing is too effective. Disabling ship can already knock out engines and guns and pop balloons with relative ease. The only way to buff disablers is to make them basically be able to "lock down" an enemy so they can't do anything (Heavy Carronade can basically do this, though there are ways to get away from blenderfish). To be honest with you, thats never going to happen because its such a terrible experience for the team on the receiving end. Its bad gameplay.
You say you want to make disabling ships able to operate with relative safety by themselves? The answer to that is to make it so they have a chance to disable before being killed!
Yes people will still use piercing explosive. They always will. It is the most direct, brute force way to get kills. However, if you make it mildly less effective then disabling has a chance. Not only that, but if killing is nerfed then teamwork is buffed. One of the key strategies of the disabler is 'disable one, help ally with other'. But thats not needed at the moment because killing is just so effective - the ally is either dead or won by the time you have disabled.
The reason I gave you piercing-explosive builds is because that was how you seemed to be judging a ship playable. I personally fly a carronade/mortar/carronade squid because I find it more fun. As to the Mobula... it is not a weak ship. At all. It is very hard to crew on, requires a different philosophy (kill now, repair later), and is very weapon placement sensitive. However, in probably 30 matches crewing the above build, only once did it lose in a 1v1 situation (and is even better at long range support).
Echoez:
--- Quote from: Thaago on September 01, 2013, 01:50:14 pm ---Making engagements last longer is not breaking more things. I think the way things currently work is "broken" - a good crew on a pyra can kill every ship except the Galleon in 1 pass. Maybe this is just a fundamental difference between us, but I think the disabling weapons work just fine.
--- End quote ---
I'm sorry, they don't.. but let's continue.
--- Quote from: Thaago on September 01, 2013, 01:50:14 pm --- Could some use a few tweaks? Yes. Flamethrowers are a little weak imo, and the Hwacha might need a tweak. However, you can drop a ship out of the sky with 1 clip of the light carronade up close (or blow out the engines/gun), knock out the guns of any ship at range with the artemis, and drop/kill a ship with the lumberjack.
--- End quote ---
I already stated that they only acceptable 'disabler' is the Lumberjack and by itself still takes a long time to kill, hence why it's balanced.
The carronade is a very close range weapon, the pilot will have to struggle to bring them close to the enemy in a match with equally skilled players without getting shreded at range, yet, the weapon repays the pilot with an extreme innability to shoot at an enemy balloon from above unless you are fighting a Galleon, hence, forcing you to get within a killing weapon's arcs. That's horribly inefficient as you basically offer yourself to the enemy in a tight wrapped package unless you don't keep the pressure on, which nullifies the effect of your disable since the balloon can be up and running realy fast again.
The Mercury is much more proficient at taking down both guns and engines at range and does so instantly and if you miss, well, you still get the armor piercing, the Artemis' only upside is that it makes an explosion, which isn't all that big unless you bring Burst, in which case you give up a lot of range. Again, not that efficient since if you miss, you basically are wasting your time since it's Explosive/Shatter does nothing to armor.
--- Quote from: Thaago on September 01, 2013, 01:50:14 pm ---What makes these awesome weapons not work in a build is that killing is too effective. Disabling ship can already knock out engines and guns and pop balloons with relative ease. The only way to buff disablers is to make them basically be able to "lock down" an enemy so they can't do anything (Heavy Carronade can basically do this, though there are ways to get away from blenderfish). To be honest with you, thats never going to happen because its such a terrible experience for the team on the receiving end. Its bad gameplay.
--- End quote ---
It promotes teamwork even moreso that nerfing what already works fine, I'm not favoring the carronades being able to aim straight down, I'm favoring reasonable buffs to all disablers. Unless a disable can keep you locked so your allies have to come to rescue, there is no point in going for that disable in the first place, just arm yourself to kill said person, that locks them out of the fight for some time, neat huh?
--- Quote from: Thaago on September 01, 2013, 01:50:14 pm ---You say you want to make disabling ships able to operate with relative safety by themselves? The answer to that is to make it so they have a chance to disable before being killed!
--- End quote ---
They already have that chance, it just doesn't work cause no matter what, the enemy can still kill you faster than you can kill them and if you are left alone, you are basically helpless. Disablers promote teamwork, straight out kill builds while still requiring teamplay, have absolutely no counter-play to them, all enemy ships can kill and since disablers force you into their arcs are are simply not efficient enough to keep them at bay, you end dying anyway at some point.
People make a huge deal out of stun-locks while it realy isn't as bad, I don't see anyone complaining when a Lumberjack has them pinned down on the ground, that's basically stun locking, so what gives, a weapon can already do it, why not the other ones as well?
--- Quote from: Thaago on September 01, 2013, 01:50:14 pm ---Yes people will still use piercing explosive. They always will. It is the most direct, brute force way to get kills. However, if you make it mildly less effective then disabling has a chance. Not only that, but if killing is nerfed then teamwork is buffed. One of the key strategies of the disabler is 'disable one, help ally with other'. But thats not needed at the moment because killing is just so effective - the ally is either dead or won by the time you have disabled.
--- End quote ---
Focus fire is buffed if anything, the more it requires to kill, the more you force people into kill builds that specialize in that, just killing, so they can take you down faster than you can.
--- Quote from: Thaago on September 01, 2013, 01:50:14 pm ---The reason I gave you piercing-explosive builds is because that was how you seemed to be judging a ship playable. I personally fly a carronade/mortar/carronade squid because I find it more fun. As to the Mobula... it is not a weak ship. At all. It is very hard to crew on, requires a different philosophy (kill now, repair later), and is very weapon placement sensitive. However, in probably 30 matches crewing the above build, only once did it lose in a 1v1 situation (and is even better at long range support).
--- End quote ---
Fun? Sure, balanced? No.
I fly a double carronade Pyramidion with Moonshine when I want to have 'fun', doesn't mean it's half effective when you are playing against opponents that are equally skilled as you. That's where balance matters.
No matter how you look at it, you are were still crewing on a ship with Piercing-Explosive as it's basis. FlakSpire can kill too you know, it's pretty good against thick headed opponents that think charging you is a clever idea, yeah, a Mobula can work in those circumstances as well, now I'm not saying those were the types of enemies you were flying against, but from my experience, Mobulas are weaksause, along with a Spire it's probably the only two ships you can simply point an LJ or a Carronade at them and expect them to break the moment they touch the ground, don't even get me started on how easy it is to rid of them with Gat/Mortar.
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