Hwacha Tweek

[Richard LeMoon]

I have had quite a few players join my Galleon crew, and instantly ask "Why so many hwachas? They are not very good. Can't you put X gun here?" I tell them we can change after the next match, and to follow my orders exactly. When the match is done, I ask what they want to change. Most simply say something like "I am fine with them where they are."

As I stated before, the Manticor is a heavy communications gun. If you don't have good communication, it is terrible.

[Nidh]

I've shot a hwacha before, and I talk to my crew thank you very much. I hate how this community keeps talking about people like Echoez and I like we are incompetent and don't even play this game. I ask for a small buff to make the hwacha more forgiving at longer ranges and accessible to people who aren't trained snipers. A lot of responses are saying this buff is unnecessary. Fine. But the buff I'm asking for is not a bad thing, and it's not going to break the game.

[Captain Smollett]

I've shot a hwacha before, and I talk to my crew thank you very much. I hate how this community keeps talking about people like Echoez and I like we are incompetent and don't even play this game. I ask for a small buff to make the hwacha more forgiving at longer ranges and accessible to people who aren't trained snipers. A lot of responses are saying this buff is unnecessary. Fine. But the buff I'm asking for is not a bad thing, and it's not going to break the game.

Sorry if my previous post came off as an attack because it certainly wasn't intended as such. 

I've noticed very similar problems with the gun when I fly in pub matches however when I'm shooting it myself or have trusted gunners I don't have any difficulty achieving significant disables with it at mid range and I've seen the best gunners make extraordinary full range disables in competition.

[Echoez]

Sorry if my previous post came off as an attack because it certainly wasn't intended as such. 

I've noticed very similar problems with the gun when I fly in pub matches however when I'm shooting it myself or have trusted gunners I don't have any difficulty achieving significant disables with it at mid range and I've seen the best gunners make extraordinary full range disables in competition.

Since I was mentioned in Nidh's post I do feel like I have to reply, no offence taken, it's all good.

BUT!

I think that this is an issue that needs to be adressed a bit.

We all can agree that the Hwacha's accuracy is total bongers, realy bad. Because Heavy Clip is the only ammo type that affects a gun's spread, the Hwacha can only choose between Perfect and Crap accuracy, my problem main lies in the fact that 'Perfect' accuracy is only good at very long ranges of over 700 meters or so, anything closer and Heavy clip loses out a lot of its flair. Burst is still not in effective range since it has to deal with the crap effective range of the Hwacha that is mostly around 150-200 meters, just to be on the safe side. There is a massive range gap between those two extremes that leaves the weapon with no optimal ammo choice.

Now, old Heavy clip had this covered cause it didn't turn the weapon into a laser precision gun, by retaining some spread, the range gap was basically non existant, or handly noticable.

Can someone compesate for that? Yes, but not optimaly, since both the shake and the time it will take to empty the clip in multiple bursts have many downsides like longer cycle time which is very bad on a weapon with an already punishing reload time, also it gives the enemy more time between bursts to repair their guns in order to withstand more shots.

This is why I insist on getting some of the old spread Heavy Clip had (85% reduction instead of 100% or something). This will probably also help silencing some complaints about the carronades being too 'easy' to use as well since they won't be essentialy a lazer gun anymore.

I believe I'm being reasonable at least, I will bid everyone a goodnight at this point, see you all tomorrow good chaps.

[DMaximus]

     So, I gun a lot. It's kind of my thing. I'm not awful at it either. The Hwacha's not really my best gun (I'll blame it on my laptop seizing up due to the firing animation), but I do end up shooting it a lot. And I think what's happening here is kind of a clash of expectations for what the gun's role should be.

     Long range Hwacha disables are hard. I haven't really noticed the screen shake people are mentioning, but walking your shots across the front of a pyra from a km out is very difficult. And I think it should be. Previously, long range disables with old heavy were fairly easy. The firing method for long range was almost exactly the same as short range, fire and forget. If you point it in the general area things will break. With new heavy LR hwacha is now a lot more difficult and requires more skill. It was certainly a nerf to the gun if you consider the gun's purpose to be long range disabler. 

     I've always thought of it as a mid to close range disabler. I'm of the school that switches to burst as quickly as possible. You'll miss more shots but usually break more things. I've never seriously considered it as a true long range weapon except in the hands of a skilled gunner. I'm still pretty poor at it, look to someone like Lambert if you want to learn it. However, the hwacha is a paragon of reliability once you close to mid range and load burst.

My Suggestions:

• Change the listed range. The 1200m max range technically makes it long range, but it really isn't.
• A slight buff to the shatter damage. It won't really be noticed at short range, but at long it'll be the difference between quite badly damaged and disabled.

TL;DR: I guess I consider long range hwacha hits a bonus that requires a bit of luck and a lot of practice. I am content with the mayhem and destruction it causes once you get into mid or close range. And I'm apparently either blind or way too focused since I've only noticed the shake if the pilot is full throttle.

[Dutch Vanya]

Keep in mind that some newbs tend to think the hwacha is OP. Probably means it's pretty balanced, at least i think so.

[Alistair MacBain]

U mean cause ppl overestimate what the hwacha does cause they dont understand all mechanics is a hint for a gun to be balanced? Sorry but that is just crap.
The hwacha is supposed to do extreme shatter dmg and be a good disabler.
The current problem is either a to high spread for anything thats not right in ur face so u dont get the disable u want. Or a spread of zero causing bullets to be in nearly the same spot which also leads to to few disable.

[Echoez]

My Suggestions:

• Change the listed range. The 1200m max range technically makes it long range, but it really isn't.
• A slight buff to the shatter damage. It won't really be noticed at short range, but at long it'll be the difference between quite badly damaged and disabled.

Nerfing it's actuall max range while giving it nothing in return is a no-no and the gun IS long range for as long as this same listed range remains, it doesn't matter what the default spread is, the gun IS long ranged, it has the range to be so please stop denying it. Again, my point does not lie in the absolute long ranges from above 700 meters, I'm starting to believe people realy don't read my posts lately.

Shatter damage buff won't do cause then everyone else will cry on how it's not more effective against armor, hull, balloon and who knows what else! because it does more damage right? (This realy makes me wish Muse would finally drop this flawed damage type system and just give each weapon their own damage values against specific components, would make everything so magically easier.)

So, I'm gonna point it out again, my problem with this gun lies into the fact that both of the viable ammo types for it currently only work effectively at their extremes, either too close and too far away, mid range is a PITA using Heavy with this gun, I don't know what you consider mid range but for me personaly that's over 450 meters at least and Burst is horribly ineffective to anything further away than 200 meters, but Heavy is also horribly ineffective to anything closer than 600-700 cause the spread is too low (note: non-existant).

I feel like the game cheats my gunners on that gun, not sure about you, but I can go any other gun and have all 3 ammo types be used for different purposes and ranges, the Hwacha only has 2 choices that matter, Heavy and Burst and NOTHING in between.

Keep in mind that some newbs tend to think the hwacha is OP. Probably means it's pretty balanced, at least i think so.

You know what else these people think is OP? The Carronade, but it realy isn't OP is it? When you realy think about and how many ways there are to counter it, it realy isn't.

Newbies think a lot of things are OP, period, doesn't make them balanced by any chance, they are just clueless as to the simplest ways of actually countering said weapons because they couldn't be arsed to do some reasing up on the game.

[Sprayer]

[Way too long, did not read]

I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. Both heavy and burst work fine for me. Burst from very close to ~300m and Heavy on everything farer to disable entire pyras, junkers and half a galleon. The camera shake is a joke. Just learn to deal with it and move your mouse manually to draw the line you want. Your personal ineptitude to disable things with heavy clip is no reason to change anything. I know a lvl5 gunner who has no trouble doing it at all and everything you write seems more like a fixation on wanting the gun buffed than an actual issue.

[Echoez]

[Way too long, did not read]

I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. Both heavy and burst work fine for me. Burst from very close to ~300m and Heavy on everything farer to disable entire pyras, junkers and half a galleon. The camera shake is a joke. Just learn to deal with it and move your mouse manually to draw the line you want. Your personal ineptitude to disable things with heavy clip is no reason to change anything. I know a lvl5 gunner who has no trouble doing it at all and everything you write seems more like a fixation on wanting the gun buffed than an actual issue.

Thank you for trying your absolute best to sound as patronizing as possible.

I will not even try to reply with something constructive as your only argument is to 'Learn to play noob' and you also seem to have ignored everything in my post as you very comicaly present in your quote of my post.

Good day to you sir, I'm done discussing balance on this forum, have fun!

[Sprayer]

[...]
I will not even try to reply with something constructive as your only argument is to 'Learn to play noob' [...]

In response to the only argument you ever brought was "the gun is too hard to shoot, make it easier".
Also I don't feel like reading your 100 line posts each and every time you put them especially since they always come down to the very same thing and all the "content" you add is just rephrasing what you said before already.

[Echoez]

In response to the only argument you ever brought was "the gun is too hard to shoot, make it easier".
Also I don't feel like reading your 100 line posts each and every time you put them especially since they always come down to the very same thing and all the "content" you add is just rephrasing what you said before already.

If you don't feel like reading then don't reply, it's that simple, because your reply here obviously shows you never actually read what I posted hence it's riddled of misconceptions. You are obviously not fit for such a discussion if you can't even be arsed to read other people's posts.

I didn't say the gun is too hard to shoot, I said it's too inconsistent and that there is no optimal ammo choice to use for it mid range, no matter what, Heavy Clip IS NOT an optimal ammo type for mid range because the perfect accuracy does more bad that good for your shots. I don't get why that's so HARD to grasp for you.

This is something that WASN'T a problem before, in fact, the gun worked as inteneded so I'm asking for it to be brought back because there was NO good reason to take it out in the first place.

[Sprayer]

[...]
I didn't say the gun is too hard to shoot, I said it's too inconsistent and that there is no optimal ammo choice to use for it mid range, no matter what, Heavy Clip IS NOT an optimal ammo type for mid range because the perfect accuracy does more bad that good for your shots. I don't get why that's so HARD to grasp for you.
[...]

Because it is just not true.
Besides I read your first three posts entirely. Read them yourself again, you will notice there is not much difference in what they say. Your posts became longer and longer with less and less actual new ideas or arguments.

[Echoez]

Because it is just not true.
Besides I read your first three posts entirely. Read them yourself again, you will notice there is not much difference in what they say. Your posts became longer and longer with less and less actual new ideas or arguments.

Because there realy isn't much to say, just one idea, the only reason multiple posts were made is to further analise or present the same idea in a different way for others to better understand what I was trying convey. That's the whole purpose of this thread if you didn't notice.

In the meantime your posts displayed absolute disrespect for the people that have been supporting the idea, you come in here with an openly offensive post calling people out on their skill and making them look bad when in reality they aren't. So here, you added nothing to this conversation.

So to conclude this little derailment, I agree with you, don't change anything, leave everything as is, all is good. I will be arguing about it no more.

[The Churrosaur]

Completely ignoring the flame war above me, I find that rapidly tap- firing bursts of two or three rockets at a time both increases spread with heavy and mid-range accuracy with anything else.