1.3.3 GUNS AND GUNNER SKILL BALANCE

[dragonmere]

This is a question for people in the competitive scene.

How do you propose to balance it so that brawling with gat/mort becomes viable once again among the upper tier teams, but not have it dominate the pub scene for the lower to mid tier teams?

20 bucks says the response could be condensed into "Doesn't matter because they don't know how to play."

How about neither the competitive nor the new/casual players attack the other side?

This thread should be used for discussion on balance and the changes to the guns. Thats it. Not for a debate of "New players are terrible"/"Experienced players are mean". Please don't troll, or try to 'start something'. Tensions are high enough already.

Thanks buddy!

[Kriegson]

This is a question for people in the competitive scene.

How do you propose to balance it so that brawling with gat/mort becomes viable once again among the upper tier teams, but not have it dominate the pub scene for the lower to mid tier teams?

20 bucks says the response could be condensed into "Doesn't matter because they don't know how to play."

How about neither the competitive nor the new/casual players attack the other side?

This thread should be used for discussion on balance and the changes to the guns. Thats it. Not for a debate of "New players are terrible"/"Experienced players are mean". Please don't troll, or try to 'start something'. Tensions are high enough already.

Thanks buddy!

Apologies for being blunt, but frankly it's true. Inexperienced players who pug and do not communicate do not really benefit or detriment from the nerf to any extreme, but the issue is that you cannot divide the playerbase into two, overly simplfied groups of "new, unskilled. Experienced, skilled".

I hope to be able to provide some relevant, OT feedback later today when I get some hands on with the patch.

[awkm]

Okay, it's time for me to step in.  Before I start, and for the record, we have Dev App testing where all these changes are vetted and discussed.  Although it kind of ticks me off to see some of you here with Dev App access who didn't let me know of their opinions ahead of time.  That's not incredibly useful to me.  However, if you were busy during testing week... well then you were just busy and we can't do anything about that.  We're exploring opening up Dev App for longer and with more stable test times each week.  Anyway...

The line of thinking "when will gat/mortar become viable again" is the wrong way to think of things.  It was a collective decision by the team to put gat/mortar in a place that will force players, you guys, to think twice about using it.  Regardless of how much skill it required, because that's all subjective, it was the most common build and the go-to strategy was Pyramidion gat/mortar charge.  Tons of people did it and therefore overshadowed more than 2/3 of the weapons in the game.  If it was your go-to build then it meant that there was no choice and no choice is no fun.  Gat/mortar can still be a successful build after the various changes.  Its risk reward model has been changed though.  It's more even now, before it was too little risk for huge reward.

The gat/mortar combination represented a lot of problem for balance from the lack of viable builds, ease of use, broken risk reward models, and also the gunner vs engineer argument.  Same with builds, if a gun has a default ammo then it's not a choice.  This also means you don't need a gunner.  Guns should accept multiple ammo types to cater the weapon to multiple situations.  E.g. Lesmok on the Gatling for increased range.



Now, as you know, I am always open to feedback.  However, if you really want a say in what goes in an actual patch then you should get yourself into Dev App testing.  For now, we release patches at the end of every month.  Dev App testing happens the week before release.  That's when a ton of balance changes happen.  Trust me, a lot of things got cut and scaled back.  Go to the Steam group and ask Keyvias for keys.

http://steamcommunity.com/groups/GoIEC


Dev App isn't the only way though.  Know that I watch the threads I create very closely.  So when you say stuff like Muse doesn't care or whatever, you're very wrong.  We've been taking feedback and will continue taking it.  Therefore, anything that's said now is always taken into account.  Things can change since we usually drop a hotfix after the 1st or 2nd week after the patch.  Gatling jitter too large?  Maybe I can drop it to 2.5 (we tested at 2 on Dev App and it caused a bunch of issues). 

So please keep things professional.  Go into the game and actually play several rounds with a particular goal in mind like "I'll take my usual gat/mortar combo, how do I need to adjust my strategy given the changes.  What is the risk reward like now?"  My work is very scientific and that's how you should approach this if you want to give me good feedback.

[awkm]

Regarding noobs vs. elite players.  I cannot balance the game for either.  If I do... that's not balance.  I strike at the middle ground.  There are builds that will not be used in competitive as there will be builds that won't be used in pub matches.  Each group of players are good at finding flaws in the balance.

Competitive players push the mechanics to really weird exceptions and cases like drawn out sniper battles from months ago.

New players fall into the meta to show what choices are overshadowed by the safest, but not always most efficient (DPS, whatever), builds... like Pyramidion Gat/mortar, which got to the point where its also used in competitive (BAD BAD BAD).

So yeah.  Competitive vs. noob has no place here.  Instead, you should present to me metas that are appearing in each subset of the player base so that they can be observed and perhaps addressed.

[Nidh]

I for one am having a blast with the new patch. Had a little duel with Squash and his Galleon, was challenging but I didn't find it OP at all. The game just needs a different way of thinking about engaging now. If you're going against a sniping team, you're going to want a disabler.

Disablers are integral to team compositions, YAY!

No more blindly running around trying to double team ships for a quick kill, heck you could quick kill with a single ship pre-patch. Close range engagement time is longer now and I love it! It really makes you feel like there is a chance for a comeback if you play your cards right.

This patch is awesome. <- my opinion

[awkm]

Disablers are integral to team compositions, YAY!

Yes.  Disabling wasn't a big thing before because it was far easier to flat-out kill someone with gat/mortar.  Hopefully these changes will make disabling a more viable and perhaps needed strategy, at least at higher level play anyway.  One thing I'll monitor is time to rebuild guns and guns (since that was made difficult as a way to make disabling more useful) and also offering other guns the ability to disable too like gat/carronade since they have piercing damage.  They might also need some ProjectileExpansion... MAYBE. 

This is only an idea.  Don't freak out yet.

[Echoez]

Carronades had it coming. Now one might think of lesmok over heavy, which balances their "long range."

Oh you mean giving up more than half your maximum damage for a meager range extention that you can't even use fully cause half your pellets will mostly miss? I mean, not to sound rude, but do enlighten me on how the hell is this even remotely useful? With the long ass reload this gun got going for it and the ammo reduction of Lesmok, you might as well bang your head against the wall, it will do more damage.

Now to the complaints about short vs long. Idk. Need to play and see. It's easy to look at the changes and throw up your hands and say "MEH, LONG RANGE OP." In reality, it'll require more finesse to get close and utilize the short loadouts.

And before you quote me and try beating me with a "YOU'RE WRONG CHANGE IT BACK" stick, take a breath and think about your post.

Well, I've played against it. Require more finesse, right, because it didn't already require finesse to do it right? It was hard disabling weapons of Goldfishes or something, or even hitting a Pyra with an LJ. No you just charged head on, that's definately what happened (/sarcasm)... Now we have to do it with crippled weaponry, perfect.

Now do keep in mind, I'm not saying it's impossible, but it's just too much of a drag and not even worth my time anymore, it's not a game, it's a job every time I have to face snipers. It had a reasonable difficulty before and they STILL held the advantage, now their advantage is just that much bigger. Explain to me how is it enjoyable to play against that with the brawling guns we get now? It's not ALL about balance either, it's simply not fun anymore. My guns don't feel like guns, I hate how the game 'feels' if you want, since both you and Mr.Akwm like throwing that word around a lot.

[Chrinus]

Yes.  Disabling wasn't a big thing before because it was far easier to flat-out kill someone with gat/mortar.  Hopefully these changes will make disabling a more viable and perhaps needed strategy, at least at higher level play anyway.  One thing I'll monitor is time to rebuild guns and guns (since that was made difficult as a way to make disabling more useful) and also offering other guns the ability to disable too like gat/carronade since they have piercing damage.  They might also need some ProjectileExpansion... MAYBE. 

This is only an idea.  Don't freak out yet.

I absolutely love this idea Eric. Though I'd like to see better close range light slot disables... perhaps a second look at the light carronade at some point?

While we're on the light carronade.. why such a big hit to the range? As I said after testing last night "Well, there's no reason to use heavy on this anymore - your range is so close it's not worth losing shots for the accuracy." 375 might be the common ground we're looking for so this weapon maintains the plethora of ammunition types that makes the weapon attractive. The same goes for the heavy carronade: middle ground to not knock additional ammunition out of the frame. Lesmok doesn't extend the effective range of the weapon, plain and simple.

Also the gatling could use a touch more range than where she sits right now; just a bit overnerfed with that change compounded with the others. Overall the dps of the weapon feels about right, it only needs to be able to apply that pressure a touch earlier than current.

I don't know where it happened, but it feels the brawling nerf just went too far finally and the long game has total dominance. Though this brings me back to my original agreement with disabling now being completely viable - let's get some support weapon tweaks and have something really engaging to fly once more!

[Sammy B. T.]

This is a question for people in the competitive scene.

How do you propose to balance it so that brawling with gat/mort becomes viable once again among the upper tier teams, but not have it dominate the pub scene for the lower to mid tier teams?

As much as I love to assume I am famous in the GOIO, I'll give some back story so you know where I come from. I a very long competitive brawler (when I started a brawling ship meant a gat flak Pyramidion with mercs on the side, I pushed it to include Junkers.) As a Duck I've spent a lot of times playing against Ducks both casually as well as practicing for competition. That means facing against the Paddling who I can say have the possibly best Galleon in the game in terms of experienced crew, worked out gun placements, and amazing map positioning. Basically when I tell you that I have spent a lot of time figuring out how to use brawl tactics to beat range tactics, it should be pretty believable.

A disclaimer though, this patch is actually relatively good for my brawl style. I currently fly an asymetrical Junker, Gat/Mortar left hand side and a Carronade/Banshee right (dominant) hand side . The light carronade changes aren't too bad especially with how I get so close anyway. I've always called myself a disabler but in reality I am an overwhelmer. I remove your systems to make sure none of your crew even has a chance to fire back. This is done with my right hand side. Occasionally I use the turning abilities of a Junker to finish with the left side, however considering my crew often asks me whether the should bother preloading and prebuffing the left hand weapons, I think its fair to say I am hardly a user of the Gat/Mortar.

The reason I say all this is to establish that even though I am a brawler, a player who has learned how to close in on an enemy and kill him up close, a gat mortar nerf doesn't really hurt my competitive chances and honestly, kinda helps. The thing is, I've chosen a build and playstyle that excels at the long game.

So let me paint you the picture. Me and my other brawler cousins, charge in to hell. We have both just flew through a killing floor, constantly losing guns, armor and engines all along the way. Its amazing we made it here alive and if the guns are actually up, that means the brawl Gods have granted us a miracle. Now my ship takes some time to win but as an overwhelmer, that is fine, your balloon is down and your engines are gone so you can't even turn your broken guns towards me. I do not have to kill you on the first clip. I get to take my time. A gat mortar though does have to kill you in one clip. The reason why is the enemy just had three or four clips into you. People think that one clip kill combinations in brawl are unfair but what they do not realize is that the engagement began long before that one clip kill.

I like the idea of gatling mortar being extremely close range. 400 meters may be a little too short, 450m, what was lasted tested in dev ap seemed fine.The thing though is if you are going to have a game balanced for I don't know lets say 30 second engagements and a gun combo can't fight for 20 seconds, then it needs the 10 second kill. That is how high reward high risk works. For gatling mortar to be high reward high risk you have to have the high reward. You need to reward them. The range isn't what is killing the gat/mortar, the damage is. This patch there was a significant dps nerf as the damage was lowered and the patch before that saw a massive rate of fire nerf. All these combined have taken away any chance for reward as it is now taking an absurd amount of time to kill.

TLDR, Brawl has to have short kills because they have been silent in a long engagement. This is something that can be balanced with small range, but ferocious DPS. Currently though gat mortar doesn't have the DPS to warrant the tiny range.

[-Mad Maverick-]

"TLDR, Brawl has to have short kills because they have been silent in a long engagement. This is something that can be balanced with small range, but ferocious DPS. Currently though gat mrotar doesn't have the DPS to warrant the tiny range.".

this is what I have been saying for many posts now.  I don't mind the range nerf I mind the dps nerf

[HamsterIV]

As a recent victim of Sammy B T's brawling junker I can attest that brawling is still effective in this game. The Gatling gun + heavy clip however is not. I ran a 2x Gatling Pyramididon with heavy clip and experienced gunners and was only able to strip the hull armor off a junker after two reloads. Experimentation with greased/charged ammo may be in order but for now the light carronade is taking the place of the Gatling gun for my close range fighting builds.

I am in Garou's camp about the skilled Gat use and the pride one takes in mastering that weapon for mid range. The old Gat will be mourned. A new meta will eventually arise for Awkm to one day crush beneath his Nerf hammer, such is the way of things. I am just glad the Artemis wasn't touched.

[Garou]

This is a question for people in the competitive scene.

How do you propose to balance it so that brawling with gat/mort becomes viable once again among the upper tier teams, but not have it dominate the pub scene for the lower to mid tier teams?

TBH, that is not, nor never was it the discussion I intended to have, and seems to be a question for another thread.

My intention in referring to competitive teams was simply to eliminate variables. If both teams are on equal footing in regards to skill and coordination, it's a lot easier to discuss balance in terms of tactics and loadouts.

Now to the complaints about short vs long. Idk. Need to play and see. It's easy to look at the changes and throw up your hands and say "MEH, LONG RANGE OP." In reality, it'll require more finesse to get close and utilize the short loadouts.

Personally, at no point am I saying 'long range OP'. I feel it has a sufficient skill/reward payoff. I'm merely referring to viable methods of countering it that don't involve using it. Let's face it, if you're going to get into the competitive scene, countering the long range galleon is a thought at the front of the collective mind of any clan.

[Sammy B. T.]

Hamster's gatling pyra was actually very useful for me to see the new weakness of the gatlings. It felt like a one gatling pyra.

[-Mad Maverick-]

 offering other guns the ability to disable too like gat/carronade since they have piercing damage.  They might also need some ProjectileExpansion... MAYBE. 

Awkm i never said you dont care, and i dont think anyone else did either.  what i said was i have a sinking suspicion that the kind of game i and some of the other brawlers want to play is not the kind of game you are intending to design.  that isnt like a shot at you or an insult or anything!  let me use and analogy from another game type;

 in a FPS you have many types of guns and loadouts and depending on the map certain loadouts are better than others.  certain players like to utilize the best weapon/loadout for the specific map they are on.  some players though, like to play a certain playstyle sooo much that they will use it regardless of map even if to their detriment.  in an FPS the "shotgun" is a high risk high reward type gun, and on specific maps one could argue it is downright dumb to use.   The nice thing about using a shotgun is though if you are one of those players that refuses to bend to convention and are able to close the gap on a longer range gun you are rewarded with a quick kill. 

it seems clear to me awkm that you guys at muse dont want a "shotgun" to exist. (please use the analogy, the caronade is not a "shotgun") in other words, it seems to me you do not like the mechanic of an acrobatic player working hard to get close and being rewarded with a devastating dps.  it seems like you would rather reward them with devastating disable. (which a close range that trumps the long range doesnt exist yet)

now if my assumption is incorrect, that you actually do want to see close range be viable you are doing it wrong.  see close range NEEDS to feel OP at close range!  no one complains about being one shot-ed by a shotgun at point blank, or they shouldnt.   shortening the range of the gat mort made sense to me but cutting its damage by 25% and having killed its RoF many times over at this point makes no sense.  the shorter the range you make a weapon the more dmg output it should be given. 

at this point no short range weapon, disabling or otherwise, is better than its longer range counterpart (see LJ vs caro) that is just a fact.  all i am saying is i believe that has been done by design.  nautical combat in the air is not a bad thing its just not my thing

[zlater75@hotmail.com]

My 2 bullets.. i mean cents.

I must say i'm not that experienced nor can i realize what the game mechanics were for over 2½ months ago. but what the feel is after the patch for some guns i can try say personal views on as gunner (when allowed).

+ Hades with burst now is more accurate, drops less and has range close to lesmok. Or so it feels. It was a great gun when it got released and still is. I bet more people will use it now. To be ok with aiming it gives the work reward some emphasis, which i like. greased ammo feels fairly similar to before. it was good before. Need to try heavy sometime too. it's still a slow ammotype so that needs some fancy aiming to get those hits in properly at mid range.
+ Heatsink on heavy carronade is such fun when in fairly close range. Also makes one want to try what it's like on other weapons.
+ Mortar is still a great support weapon and feels ok. The combination was very common so i understand that maybe to get other weapons used for a change something had to be done. Like with ships for balance.
- Hwatcha and charged: The charged ammo feels totally different from before the patch. does not give the same up close volley award as before for some reason and feels like half a clip. So with a typical loadout of heavy, burst, charged on it i rarely use charged due to it.
- Gatling with heavy was nice before and appealing as it gave you that extra bonus on targeting and damage. But maybe the range was a bit too long then and now it feels very short. The AoE should be pretty small but maybe give it some slight upward recoil instead of the largeish AoE? DPS can be as is if given more ammo and a little range increase imho. I'd also love to feel some more difference between the ammotypes, but too early to tell since it takes time to get used to all changes to get the right feel.


Glad about the diversity and opening options. A bit disappointed in the rangenerf for gat.

Against sniper galleons i feel a squid combo with fish/junker combo or another squid is effective. A duel of heavy sniping skills would be great to watch.