1.3.3 GUNS AND GUNNER SKILL BALANCE

[Nidh]

This game is not, and should never be about insta-killing imo, even at close range. It a should be a delicate dance of opponents attempting to get the upper-hand on the other through positioning and tactics. This is not a traditional FPS. You only get 5 lives between you and your teammate so you better make them count.

I don't know what you were expecting out of game with ships in the sky, but this is most definitely a "nautical combat in the air" kind of game.

[Sammy B. T.]

Nidh, if you get your ship within 400 meters of an enemy and have both guns up and facing the enemiy then you already did a delicate dance.

[-Mad Maverick-]

This game is not, and should never be about insta-killing imo, even at close range. It a should be a delicate dance of opponents attempting to get the upper-hand on the other through positioning and tactics. This is not a traditional FPS. You only get 5 lives between you and your teammate so you better make them count.

I don't know what you were expecting out of game with ships in the sky, but this is most definitely a "nautical combat in the air" kind of game.

nidh im not trying to fight the nautical combat idea, im accepting it.  all i was saying was IF the intention was to have close combat dog fighting like engagements, the short range weapons are not rewarding enough.  both the disables and the DPS

A duel of heavy sniping skills would be great to watch. 

yeah man i mean it isnt my cup of tea but i think muse agrees with you

[-Mad Maverick-]

Nidh, if you get your ship within 400 meters of an enemy and have both guns up and facing the enemiy then you already did a delicate dance.

yup

[Nidh]

Against a sniping team maybe, but against another brawling team I disagree.

Sniping ships have huge disadvantages that can be exploited when within 400 meters, so in that case after the "dance" you don't need to do much else but take advantage of their weakness. Though insta-killing them is still not exactly a fair fight.

That said, I don't think sniping teams should be able to insta-kill either and sniping should just be a support kinda thing. However I don't see how sniping is that much of a problem right now when all you have to do is disable them.

[The Djinn]

So here's a question for people that may help us a bit...

Let's assume we have the following combat ranges: Distant, Long, Medium, Close, and Intimate, just to pick names out of a hat. What would your ideal gameplay involve at all ranges?

My thoughts:

Distant: Primarily a game of distant disabling. Shots at this range should require highly skilled gunners to be effective but should, with enough reliable harass, be able to threaten to kill a ship.

Long: Long range should be the standard range for any long-range hull-killers (although a good gunner should be able to hit at a "distant" range with practice and good conditions). Guns at this range or longer should be unforgiving of mistakes: emphasis on precision strikes over AoEs, and damage should be compressed into high-value shots rather than spread out over large clips. Reward accuracy while allowing a target to recover during the window of any missed shots. At this range and higher Engineering is fairly easy due to the time gained from a missed shot, and emphasis is on the gunner's skill and the pilot's avoidance abilities.

Medium: Most Distant and Long range weapons begin to be extremely unreliable, due to either arming time or simply turning arc/reload times. A few more disablers appear at this range, but medium range shouldn't have a lot of actual killing power by itself: this allows a sort of "no man's zone" where Long range and Close range ships can play a disabling distance game with each other where each strives to close/increase distance to the ideal combat point. The pilot, gunner, and engineer all shine at this range, as everyone's abilities are needed to gain the advantage.

Close: Close range belongs to brawling and disabling. Weapons here shouldn't be fast armor killers, but they should deal considerable damage to hulls and components. Close range fights should really require good engineers and good piloting ability to avoid crippling disables and keep the hull alive. If a long-range ship lets an enemy get this close, they should have to be a good team to be able to pull out successfully.

Intimate: Intimate range should be brutal: closing in on this range should bring to bear the strongest and fastest ways of killing the enemy ship. These weapons should be mediocre at even close range, but managing to get them into intimate range should reward you with the ability to sow devastation and chaos. I'd like for the closest ranges to not be about damage though: I'd love for this closest of ranges to become the area of powerful disabling effects and constant fire damage, so that being this close to a close-range enemy basically shuts your ship down except in the face of very good teamwork.

[-Mad Maverick-]

Against a sniping team maybe, but against another brawling team I disagree.

Sniping ships have huge disadvantages that can be exploited when within 400 meters, so in that case after the "dance" you don't need to do much else but take advantage of their weakness. Though insta-killing them is still not exactly a fair fight.

That said, I don't think sniping teams should be able to insta-kill either and sniping should just be a support kinda thing. However I don't see how sniping is that much of a problem right now when all you have to do is disable them.

cool bro once i have done my "dance" and got within range to take advantage of his  "weakness" and im busy NOT killing him quickly his teammate kills me since i am already banged up from my approach, good call.  again nidh you theories like others only make sense in pick up game against uncoordinated teams.

[Nidh]

Sorry if my theories don't include running blindly straight at a target.

[Subarco]

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.

But player skill is a variable that cannot be ignored in balancing. Balancing has to take into account the experiences of people that either just started the game or are playing it casually. If there is a particular combination/build that dominates the game from the lower to mid-tier teams, then the game will either drive the newer players away or become boring for the older players. There needs to be diversity for the game to be fun. That's why I asked if there is a way for the gat/mort to be competitive for upper-tier of play, but not overshadow the game for the majority of the other players.

[Echoez]

"nautical combat in the air" kind of game.

Well here's the thing, real naval combat has nothing to do with what GoI offers, if that was the intention of Muse devs, then do us all a favor and remove the light ships, replace them with real Cruisers and Battleships that can actually take a beating, give us massive maps so we can have some real naval combat like it is supposed to be, from extreme ranges. Give us the titanic guns that real ships have equiped on them, torpedoes (missiles in our case) that can can cause significant harm equiped on Destroyer like ships but are slow traveling.

Point in case, GoI has nothing to compare to a real naval combat situation, not even close. GoI is an arcade game, point and click and fly around, which is why I'm finding it increasingly difficult to like the changes. Sure fine, we'll find a new meta that works, I'm just realy asshurt that the Goldfish is pretty much dead in my eyes now, the Squid is probably not that good either with the massive cut in carronade range now.

[RearAdmiralZill]

I feel the need to again put my disclaimer as I haven't played yet and am working off theory.

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.

Well since your gun would otherwise be sitting there looking pretty since no other ammo will let you shoot past its maximum range, yea, it's remotely useful. That said, I'm hopeful you know that no one is going to sit at that lesmok range and try to kill something. If so, well you have other issues.

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.

Might want to think about taking that breath before posting like I suggested. Do not put words in my postings. Yes, it'll require more thought into your approach. No, it was never a 100% sure thing to just charge in and win previously. Doesn't mean it didn't happen either.

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.

Yea I do like feel over numbers. I can have 10000000000 damage, but if it doesn't do anything, I'm not going to like how it feels now am I?

Beyond that, I have nothing good to say about your post so I'll just leave it. It does nothing to help anybody except let you vent.

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.

Unless Im fighting the Paddling, not really. Sure you seem some here and there but they are not this staple of competitive play. One does not require a long range Galleon to win games.

I'll just post after tonight's exploits. I honestly doubt brawling is dead, and only different.

[-Mad Maverick-]

Sorry if my theories don't include running blindly straight at a target.

apology accepted

[Garou]

Against a sniping team maybe, but against another brawling team I disagree.

Sniping ships have huge disadvantages that can be exploited when within 400 meters, so in that case after the "dance" you don't need to do much else but take advantage of their weakness. Though insta-killing them is still not exactly a fair fight.

That said, I don't think sniping teams should be able to insta-kill either and sniping should just be a support kinda thing. However I don't see how sniping is that much of a problem right now when all you have to do is disable them.

Go play against the Gents or the Paddling or the Merry Men or Cohort. Then talk to me about disabling them or how dis-advantageous it is to be a sniper.

Sniping is very, very potent ATM at the upper levels. Not much else is.

Yeah, the patch will bring variety to the pubs. At the competition level, not much has changed and there are even fewer counters to the galleon/junker combo. Frankly, I'm fine with it being that potent. Again, the skill/reward ratio is fine there. However, if I can close that range by a combination of skill and luck, now what? The galleon/junker can turn close range on me, and now they're even more able to completely disable me. What options do the brawlers have really? Damage output was it. Disabling ships have always had the ability to disable, against both brawlers and snipers, and a good pilot and crew have always been able to make that work. Brawlers have frankly very few viable options, and with this nerf, even less so.

To me, it doesn't make sense. If the idea is to promote variety, why not make the other guns more viable? Consider the light weapons for a moment:

Four have any real hull stripping capability: The mercury, carronade, gat, and hades. Of those only one is mid range, and now it's been nerfed to close range. Of the others, one is extremely close range, and the others are extremely long range and extremely long range with a difficult learning curve and an arming time.

Then you have your three 'killing' weapons, the explosive high-DPS that take care of the rest after the hull is down: The flak, morter, and artemis. Again, one was mid range, but is now only effective at close range. The other two are long range and long range with an arming time.

The rest I'd consider 'disablers', though I'll grant that a banchee -can- kill (in fact, I have a junker that proves it). My point is, there's very little middle ground any more. You're either long range or very close, and those who choose the latter are going to have a rough time of it with these nerfs.

The point is, while I'm all for options the close range player hasn't exactly had a ton of variety to choose from, and for the new players, a lot of the weapons either aren't that effective (disable builds take a long time to kill), or are difficult to use (ever watch a newbie ship try to pull off a flak/hades build?). If the complaint is that too many close range builds use gat/morter, then why hasn't the answer been to give them somthing else that works instead of taking away the few things that do?

[Garou]

Unless Im fighting the Paddling, not really. Sure you seem some here and there but they are not this staple of competitive play.

I respectfully disagree. I've seen them from COx, Gent, your own clan, and the Ducks of course. Though COx isn't as involved in the competitive scene, that's more or less a who's who of the current competitive circuit. I can't help but feel I'm also leaving someone out (apologies if I am), but frankly you're going to face one, if not all of those clans in any given competition, and they're likely to have a galleon in tow.

[Salous]

 If the complaint is that too many close range builds use gat/morter, then why hasn't the answer been to give them somthing else that works instead of taking away the few things that do?

Get out of my head already!

 The answer is not to nerf the weapons that work well, the answer is buffing up the useless weapons so they can come into play. You saw this when they first buffed the art a few months back. We in The Cohort had a week worth of fun with the Art, then it was overly nerfed. It was fun, and made us try new builds that worked well, but after the nerf, it was back to the Gat/flak.

You're spot on Garou.