Artemis

[Squidslinger Gilder]

I'd just like to mention that if we destroy the arcs on this weapon, we throw the Mobula yet again into the same position as the old spire. She needs those defenses to survive long enough as it is. I'm not saying it's a bad idea, but watch how far toned down it goes: if they cant bifect their sides at long range you kill the most competitively viable Mobula build.

Thats because Muse needs to fix the ship, not fix the guns so that a terrible ship is usable. They said they were working on this.

[Byron Cavendish]

Well they nerfed the mobula's bottom two arcs in the dev app when we were using three mercs on it. Then they nerfed the arcs on the merc anyway, so ya, there's that...

This is what I'm afraid of now with the artemis and all this whining, making another gun and/or ship un-usable, or un-competitive.

[Frogger]

To be honest, I feel like the difficulties that teams opposing triple artemis junkers face are rather due to their own poor tactics rather than some inherent overpoweredness of the build. I may come to regret these words, of course.

The concern that I am detecting here is that on the PUG level, where anti-artemis tactics are less known, the slow, grinding, helpless deaths so frequently incurred by triple artemis builds cannot help but cause a lot of frustration for newer players. It's this fact that may be the eventual undoing of the artemis in its current state. I have no doubt that the Gents have fine-tuned the build to a high level of refinement (even simple things can be done well and taken to the next level; gat-mortar is another example), but it's also true that a moderately experienced pub captain can put three noobs with burst on those suckers and cause a lot of frustration, in a much different way than something like gat-mortar, where your armor just drops and you blow up without any prolonged maiming. That may be part of what's fueling the frustration here.

As awkm stated in his discussion of changing the reload dynamic, waiting is the worst for gameplay dynamics - and helplessly waiting for your ship to explode is likely the worst of the worst

[Thomas]

The change of a single gun should not overtly affect the performance of any ship. If it's arc would be reduced, it depends on how drastic the change is.  Right now it has 65/65 for left and right, and 10/35 for up and down (angles in degrees). The field gun has 15/15 for Left/right and 15/5 for up/down. That's a pretty big difference between the two.

Even if they cut the left/right in half, you'd still have a greater turning arc than the field gun.

For the mobula, the far right gun appears to be about 35 degrees off forward facing. Which means you'd need at least that much to point it forward, although you'd need a little more than that to hit things directly ahead of the ship (since the gun is off center). The bottom deck guns are angled just a tad less, maybe around 30 or so? So you'll have an easier time shooting forward and even scoring hits at enemies directly ahead.

Personally I think chopping it to somewhere around 45-35 for left and right, along with reducing the downward to 25-30. This still allows for the spread out mobula guns to hit a center forward target (and thus not really affecting it on this ship), but makes it harder on the junker. The junker side guns are 90 degrees from facing forward, and not centered with each other. While the front gun points directly forward. Around 35 it would be difficult to impossible to score a trifecta, but nearing 45 it's still difficult, but you generally hit the same ship. (You need something with more than 45 left/right degrees to get something approaching an effective trifecta)


At the very least getting 3 on a single target would be difficult on anything except a mobula, and that's probably fair considering the mobility weaknesses of the mobula (it actually has the best vertical acceleration of any ship, one of the best forward accelerations (average top speed), with an average turn speed and slow turning acceleration) and massive blind spot.

I'm sure there's a whole 'nother discussion about the weaknesses and strengths about each ship, but a single gun change shouldn't overtly reduce the effectiveness of any ship. Of course this idea is to reduce the ability to get this gun into a trifecta on most ships, making it easier to approach the ship / requiring more teamwork to use. There's plenty of other viable options that don't include carrying only artemis.


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Overall changing any gun is going to affect both the public games and the competitive scene, but allowing a weapon choice or combo to absolutely dominate in -either- of those is a bad thing. Making a little more difficult to use doesn't greatly affect the competitive play (I've done some 'silly' matches with high skilled clans and they've shown ability to use seemingly poor weapon choices to great affect), but should have a greater effect on the pub matches, where the greatest concern for this weapons abuse is.

[Byron Cavendish]

You know, there's always talk about balance, and it usually equates to changing something negatively. Has anyone ever considered an overall better balance change? What if instead of reducing the artemis arcs, a lot of the existing gun arcs were improved? More options, more builds. To me that sounds a whole lot more interesting than just punishing yet another build so people feel comfortable gat/mortaring until the end of time.

[Thomas]

Generally it's easier to change one gun at a time rather than a bunch at once. You could make other weapons more favorable to compensate for what appears to be an overpowered gun, but that's a quick way to run into more trouble. While it seems a lot of changes are negative, those are just the ones that are easier to remember.

The mortar used to be just about unusable unless you were scraping their paint, the rockets never used to set as much fire, the artemis wasn't all that great until the hitboxes were changed recently, the gatling gun and flaks have constantly been up and down as well. It's just easier to remember the massive outcry when a favorite weapon or weapon combo is reduced, than when something that is hardly used gets made useful.


Personally I don't feel the artemis is all the overpowered, but the more I look at it, the more it seems to go against the principle of risk and reward. It's a long range weapon that's effective at short range, with a great arc that gives it a large area of coverage. It even has a better turning radius than any close range gun, which just feels weird.

[Feast on Thrones]

To be honest, I feel like the difficulties that teams opposing triple artemis junkers face are rather due to their own poor tactics rather than some inherent overpoweredness of the build. I may come to regret these words, of course.

The concern that I am detecting here is that on the PUG level, where anti-artemis tactics are less known, the slow, grinding, helpless deaths so frequently incurred by triple artemis builds cannot help but cause a lot of frustration for newer players. It's this fact that may be the eventual undoing of the artemis in its current state. I have no doubt that the Gents have fine-tuned the build to a high level of refinement (even simple things can be done well and taken to the next level; gat-mortar is another example), but it's also true that a moderately experienced pub captain can put three noobs with burst on those suckers and cause a lot of frustration, in a much different way than something like gat-mortar, where your armor just drops and you blow up without any prolonged maiming. That may be part of what's fueling the frustration here.

As awkm stated in his discussion of changing the reload dynamic, waiting is the worst for gameplay dynamics - and helplessly waiting for your ship to explode is likely the worst of the worst

Thank goodness you see sense here too. A lot of people here are trying to justify rash actions based on spur of the moment ideas without a real engagement with what is going on. Much easier to nerf what we cannot be bothered to try and understand than to actually work hard at something. It all comes down to tactics and if you are not prepared to adapt or be more ingenious then you will have to be content i guess.

[The Sky Wolf]

Artemis

[Coldcurse]

Artemis

Artemis?

[Mattilald Anguisad]

Thank goodness you see sense here too. A lot of people here are trying to justify rash actions based on spur of the moment ideas without a real engagement with what is going on. Much easier to nerf what we cannot be bothered to try and understand than to actually work hard at something. It all comes down to tactics and if you are not prepared to adapt or be more ingenious then you will have to be content i guess.

This is like saying we need tri-artemis so very dissably, becouseyou'll luuse otherwise 1-1 in brawling range otherwise. And exactly the same as if I told you in respnse that you are are realy bad player becouse junker can't loose against metamidion in brawling.

[Captain Smollett]

Took me a while to get caught up with this thread but here's my takeaway:
To me I think there is an inherent problem with a weapon if a team can use 1 gun exclusively in competitive play and win.  It just doesn't feel to me like it fits in the spirit of the game.

To that effect it would be nice to see the artemis changed in a way that doesn't stop its utility or usefulness but rather makes it so that single gun tactics aren't ideal and teams have to balance their attack with other  weapons.

I think geggis' suggestion of slower turning rates is extremely interesting and something worth testing. 
Also never underestimate what a very small damage nerf will do.  Lowering the shatter to 100 from 120 and the explosive ever so slightly down to 60 would still give it 1 hit kills on light weapons but would make it tougher to take out heavy weapons.  This might serve to not only allow a LJ to be a reliable counter but also reduce the armor damage per hit from 45 per shot down to 38 per shot and hull damage from 110 per hit down to 94 per hit.

[Squidslinger Gilder]

Took me a while to get caught up with this thread but here's my takeaway:
To me I think there is an inherent problem with a weapon if a team can use 1 gun exclusively in competitive play and win.  It just doesn't feel to me like it fits in the spirit of the game.

To that effect it would be nice to see the artemis changed in a way that doesn't stop its utility or usefulness but rather makes it so that single gun tactics aren't ideal and teams have to balance their attack with other  weapons.

I think geggis' suggestion of slower turning rates is extremely interesting and something worth testing. 
Also never underestimate what a very small damage nerf will do.  Lowering the shatter to 100 from 120 and the explosive ever so slightly down to 60 would still give it 1 hit kills on light weapons but would make it tougher to take out heavy weapons.  This might serve to not only allow a LJ to be a reliable counter but also reduce the armor damage per hit from 45 per shot down to 38 per shot and hull damage from 110 per hit down to 94 per hit.

How dare you make a rational response that makes me see you as a human being and not a corkscrew with feathers!!

Seriously though...yep.

And with what Byron said...yeah this is why I posted this first in the dev app forum so we'd keep the convo between the devs and not have a big mess that leads to nerfing that isn't totally needed. But I'm sure they are getting plenty of e-mail feedback reports in on it as it is.

[Crafeksterty]

IF anything, i actually hope they dont touch the artemis too much. The arcs are great, and its purpose to disable is nice.
But i dont want less builds. Im quite build experimenty with ships constantly. And all i can say is that even mercury can win fights versus a trip-art-junk.

MY only complaint is the artemis ability to fire 5 degrees higher than the merc. That 5 degree extra is alot. Give it an up aim equalent to the mercuries down aim then you have a more obvious to read weapon.

The mercury shoots in an arc so even at mercs lowest aim, it can still shoot lower becase of its arc in range. But an artemis shoots straight so it cannot shoot up at all unless its being janked by the ship. I dont really want the artemis touched now. I just want a small nerf that tells pubs "Oh hey, that gun cant aim up. Maybe wanna play the vertical game?".

[geggis]

I think geggis' suggestion of slower turning rates is extremely interesting and something worth testing.

Thanks Smollett. I just think it would make gunners and pilots really have to work for those trifectas and vectors without hitting any of the gun's other attributes. A slower turning rate would really make you think twice about hopping off the gun and resetting its position once you'd got a lock on your target as well. That could be a really interesting dilemma on a disabling weapon. I'm really keen to see other ammo types being considered for the Artemis too -- burst by default is a bit dull. With this change heatsink would be very attractive and greased might be a possibility too if it can empty a clip faster while you've got that hard won lock (it would also allow you to hop off the gun sooner to attend other things).

Also never underestimate what a very small damage nerf will do.  Lowering the shatter to 100 from 120 and the explosive ever so slightly down to 60 would still give it 1 hit kills on light weapons but would make it tougher to take out heavy weapons.  This might serve to not only allow a LJ to be a reliable counter but also reduce the armor damage per hit from 45 per shot down to 38 per shot and hull damage from 110 per hit down to 94 per hit.

Yeah, this could make charged more desirable at the expense of burst's AoE too, opening up more options.

[Captain Smollett]

I was just remembering there is one tried and true alteration to the artemis that keeps its ability but stops it from being a noob toob.

In the past anytime the speed of the shot was lowered the gun generally got much less use due to the difficulty in landing long range shots.  At high level play, experienced gunners can lead targets and make the shots but experienced pilots can dodge to some extent.

I also rather like the idea of reducing its upwards arc by 5 degrees since that will more or less strictly make it have to shoot on the level or downwards.