Expectations of the Game

[HamsterIV]

I want to start a discussion about what we expected this game to be vs what it is. Most of us have been playing for a while and our perception of the game and its mechanics match pretty closely to how the game actually works. What I am interested in are your thoughts about Guns of Icarus based on what you knew before you started playing it and during your first few matches.

Here were my misconceptions:
Every one will want to be captain.
People are going to whine if I take the captain spot as a noob.
There will be boarding.
Most captains will not be forgiving of newbie mistakes so I should master the game mechanics in single player.
There will be a single player for me to hone my skills.
There are so many gun/tool options that I will never be able to find an optimized build without resorting to a wiki on the game.
The Pyramidion is an ugly ship and is vastly outgunned by every other ship (except the squid).
Medium weapons are vastly superior to their light counterparts.
The Galleon is overpowered.
Tar barrel must be useless, the enemy can just aim for the tar.
Every one will be using the buffkit because there will be down time between combat.
The pipe wrench is the best of the three repairing tools.
The harpoon will prevent my opponent from getting away.
Popping my opponent's balloon is the fastest way to victory.

Here are my correct assumptions.
Exploiting an opposing ship's blind spot will be a common tactic.
You would have to be crazy to fly a squid.
You would have to be crazy good to win a match with a squid.
The Devs will release regular updates.
Flame throwers are the best way to mess with the enemy crew.
There will be a small group of people who play this game way too much.

[Oliver Colt]

Most captains will not be forgiving of newbie mistakes so I should master the game mechanics in single player.
There will be a single player for me to hone my skills.

This is what scared me the most when I first played xD It's why I had the game just sitting there for so long and never really played until recently. Then I was expecting a bunch of really good guys just wrecking everyone, which happens but not as much as I thought, and sometimes we newbies get to play with them too so yeah that I wasn't expecting at all, it's nice

I didn't really know much of the game aside from that because it was a gift from a friend, I had no idea it existed or anything so regarding boarding and all that I didn't imagine much. I thought that there were small clans (the really good guys wrecking everyone) and everyone else, and that everyone was on their own just trying to get as many kills as possible and that you could only play with your friends/clan or AIs, but I soon realized it wasn't like that. And now I love this game even though I still suck at it!

[redria]

"I will never want to pilot. Being responsible for my ship and team doing well? No thanks." - I played as a main engineer on pyramidions for a good amount of time before getting a little tired of it and trying to fly. The rest, as they say, is history.

"This game is so chaotic. I don't understand what is going on, we can't find anybody, I'm not sure how to tell if we are dying... what is even going on?" - I first played with a group of 3 other friends about a year ago. We played a couple matches. Only on of us had a computer that could handle the game even at minimum settings, so 3/4 of us were running about 2-3 fps. I think we played canyon ambush. None of us had done prior research into any of the mechanics. We couldn't find anybody. It was... trying.

[James T. Kirk]

"this game sounds like a good solid weekend of fun."

[awkm]

This thread is potentially very helpful.  Thanks HamsterIV for posing this question.  A lot of new features are going in to facilitate some of the problems that some of you went through at the beginning (newbies and pilots etc...) as we are focusing heavily on player retention as we move into Co-Op Mode Expansion.

We'd love to hear more about your honest initial opinions in order to improve the game for future players and our future games.

[Squidslinger Gilder]

Went in with the idea of the captain spot being the most difficult in the game. Afraid to touch it. Think this is pretty common among newbies. It is the only spot that is demanded to make matches happen but the spot most newbies fear.

It is an age old stigma that there really isn't any way around. Probably the only thing that could be done is making it more attractive. Making it an aspect of the game that newbies want to try out.

[HamsterIV]

I was happy to stay in the engineer roll until I got too board of waiting for some one else to take the helm. I started GOI after just coming off playing medic in TF2. I liked the idea of being the unsung hero that stands behind the team as it pushes for victory. I initially thought the pilot/captain roll would be the most desirable because it is the one with the most power. However I did not desire it for myself.

[Zander Broda]

"me and my group of friends who bought this game will play together all the time!"


i post this because i've heard the same exact story over and over, you or a friend found out about the game, word of it spreads across the social circle, a whole bunch of you buy the game, and then only you log in more than once.

[HamsterIV]

I too am the only one of my IRL friends who play this after the initial introduction. Part of it were some false expectations. The friends I tried to rope in all worked at the San Diego Maritime Museum and did historical reenactment. I thought they would enjoy of manning a ship together, but the whole experience did not match their historically accurate notions of what naval combat was about.

That is another thing I wanted to add to the list. I had the expectation that a crew member could be hurt by ship to ship fire. The Gatling gun especially has this connotation since it was an anti personnel weapon in real life.

[Omniraptor]

"Misconceptions" that I think are correct-

The Pyramidion is an ugly ship that will get outgunned at range by anything except squid and goldfish.
Every one will be using the buffkit because there will be down time between combat.
Medium weapons are vastly superior to their light counterparts (with the exception of the hwacha)
There are so many gun/tool options that I will never be able to find an optimized build without resorting to a wiki on the game. This is mostly because the wiki sucks, but I've seen people seriously use stuff like flakfish.

And yes, it makes a lot of sense that explosive shells should strip the reactive armor, while chaingun should kill the crew. Muse just has it backwards. Still, if crew damage was a thing nobody would ever use anything except the mercury.

[Wundsalz]

impressions before picking up the game:
- A generic shooter that involves airships. It'll probably be good to waste an hour or two of my spare time before I forget about it again. Your steam advertisement really did not tease me at all. I've ended up playing this game in the first place because Phelan repetitively pushed me to get involved in a 4pack purchase (good marketing option for this game!).
- I've confused Guns of Icarus with GoIO. I've watched gameplay videos of GoI (that single player game of yours) and frankly I've been less than unimpressed. If I recall it correctly I've found one or two GoI-videos on steam back in the day. If that's right, you seem to have removed those. Good call.

first game impressions:
- What's the purpose of the minigun? It doesn't do anything! those Artemises are cool however - they seem to wreck everything! (I think muse did a pretty good by adding visual effects for breaking hulls as well as the red hit markers.)
- this community is friendly and communicative. (Special thanks to Arnox who elaborated quite some game mechanics to lvl 2-3ish Phelan, Tolarin and me.)
- the game mechanics are rich and seem to require skill in front of the monitor.
- piloting is confusing... way to much stuff to keep track of - enemy movements, my allies movements, these thingies in the 1234 slots that are supposed to help me flying this vessel, guns, mini map, repairs, structure everywhere, why are we sinking? - oh I forgot to deactivate hydro again. How the hell are some pilots able to calmly organize their crew while taking care of all this stuff?
- mouse wheel scroll is an absolutely dumb default setting for steering tool selections. (And I still firmly believe this. So in case muse didn't alter that already - it's way overdue)
- teamplay wins! (after Phelan and I have flown fairly successful against some far more experienced pilots)
- 3v3s are absolutely chaotic! - there's no way to keep track of 6 ships at the same time! (I've needed quite feel comfortable with those, even after I've gotten the hang on 2v2 matches already. Especially as a pilot)
- That Shinkurex guy surely has fucked up quite some stuff.

[redria]

"All these piloting tools damage my ship! Who would even use those? What a terrible thing." - Anyone who flies with me knows how much my opinion has changed on that...

[Oliver Colt]

"All these piloting tools damage my ship! Who would even use those? What a terrible thing." - Anyone who flies with me knows how much my opinion has changed on that...

I still think that xD My pilot loadout is spyglass, impact bumpers and the most radical: phoenix claw

[ramjamslam]

To use pilot tools, I originally thought that you had to left click to activate it.  So I did fly around the map with kerosene on and then clicking when I wanted to use it once or twice before I figured it out.

[Kestril]

Original perceptions:
-Piloting tools damage stuff. Who would use that?
-These ships are all near-invincible. They won't go down!
-The junker is the best ship evar
- Everyone will hate me if I fail as captian
-The lumberjack is useless
-The spire is unique, interesting, and looks fun.
-The squid seems fun.
-Flying high = always advantageous. Always.

Changed Perceptions:
-Pilot tools are so useful. Who wouldn't use them?
-The only ships that can take some punishment are the junker and the galleon.
-The junker is the best ship evar.
-So long as I communicate with my crew, they'll usually stay on board with me captaining.
-The lumberjack is godly with a good gunner.
-The spire is usually a sitting duck
-The squid is an absolute blast.
-Flying high = gives you some big blindspots and allows crafty captains to sneak up from below.