Balance ideas for Pyramidion and Junker

[pandatopia]

I don't really know what to say here, except that "taking people off guns to rebuild means you're losing" is pretty much the same for every single ship?

I haven't played too many competitive matches or scrims but I can tell you there is at least 1, if not 2, or 3 pyras in every single match I've seen. And it is by far the easiest to keep up in a fight.

Its easy to say "a junker can turn circles around a pyra" but you don't also say "or a pyra can just zoom in and ram it out of arc".

Its easy to say "you can shoot the butt of a pyra" but you don't say "a pyra can also shoot your butt...?" and also "if you're in that position you have done something wrong".

You talk about both disable and hull strip as if it is a pyra's job to be hit by both with no counter, as if it is sitting there in a 1v2 with enemies on its butt with no forward acceleration, as if the pyra isn't usually the one dictating the state of engagement with its "lawn dart" zoom in focus.

I hope we can at least agree that the pyra's setup is by far the easiest ship to repair.

I think you will also find that there is a reason it is called the metamidion and that you see an overwhelming majority of pilots fly pyras and do well with them, with a variety of gun setups.

[Devinstater]

Pyra is definitely easy to use and get everyone on the same page with, even new players. In fact, some of the more popular and effective loadouts are very user friendly.

Additionally, it is the most requested ship when I fly, because you essentially get two gunners - and shooting guns is awesome.

Definitely strong / almost overpowered at lower skill levels, but I've flown with some better crews when my friends aren't on and those and other ships are really good, but harder to use / need gunners that can fire harder to aim weapons.

[Dementio]

So you are essentially saying the pyramidion can move forward and that leads to victory? Simply shooting at a charging pyra does enough damage for it to back up and if not most ships dodge it. Not to mention how many times a pyra has rammed its own guns out of arc or destroyed its engines in hope to finally get the ram just to then be stuck with no engines while beinh shot at, even on competitive level.

I don't really know what to say here, except that "taking people off guns to rebuild means you're losing" is pretty much the same for every single ship?

Exactly, how does that make the pyra better than any other ship? Because it's "easier"?

I hope we can at least agree that the pyra's setup is by far the easiest ship to repair.

It's easy to repair because it's weak.

[pandatopia]

I am unsure what you mean by weak, is the problem.

And my point was entirely that the pyra can fire longer while maintaining its level of "tankiness" while other ships cannot.

Furthermore no other ship can have a fully sprayed and repaired ship (what I mean by this is the distance in the spray circuits) with only 2 engineers, nor the division of duty the pyra can bring.

And as to "easier"...sure! I'd gladly say the pyra is easier, and this makes it good. I don't think the "harder" ships bring anything more to the table that a well piloted pyra cannot counter.

[Echoez]

Uh, every other ship in the game brings something different, countering said things is not a matter of ship vs ship arguments only since this is a team game.

 The Pyra will never be as fast and nimble as a Squid

 It will not be as fast as the Goldfish nor have it's tremendous hull power with a fast rebuilt armor, it also doesn't have a heavy gun.

 The Junker will always outmanuver a Pyra at close range and it's also a better sniper since it can starfe while firing thanks its broadside guns, it also turns way faster than a Pyra could dream of turning. Its armor hitbox is only its tiny frame which makes it very resistant to anti-armor guns

 It will never match the sheer firepower of a Galleon

 It also doesn't have the awesome dodging abilities of a Mobula in open spaces, or 5 guns on the front.

 The Spire is still bad, we do not talk about the Spire.


See, the Pyra is a jack of all trades but master of none, it's a medium ship, it's effective and easy to run, but it's not better at specific roles than any other ship, it's not a spectacular ship by any margin, it's just effective.

I agree its easy to run, but that doesn't make it better, it's still a lawn dart, a heavy one at that.

[redria]

Just to point out, the 2 ships most commonly accused of being OP are the Pyramidion and Junker. The only ships with 2 light guns facing exactly the same direction are the Pyramidion and Junker. Coincidence? I think not.

These ships give you easy weapon combos along with respectable maneuverability and respectable repairability. The Galleon is next in terms of guns facing exactly the same direction, but with such a maneuverability problem that it is often left helpless. Spires have guns facing together, but have maneuverability and durability problems. Mobula has guns facing together but has mobility and repairability problems. Goldfish and squid don't have good arcs.

These 2 ships are strong because of the damage type gameplay that GoIO features. A single gun is insufficient (almost) always. You need to blend 2 guns together. Pyra and Junker offer this without serious drawbacks, or rather without drawbacks that can be partially covered with piloting tools.

The fact that these ships have a high skill ceiling and such strong relevance in high level play is a better indicator that other ships are lacking in payoff than that these 2 are lacking in drawbacks.

Consider these 2 ships to be the beginner ships. In a normal game, you beginner ships will be your warrior, your melee type, the average brute. Once you have done well with this you might branch out and try a more skilled character type, like magic or ranged. These types have clear drawbacks, but also the potential to be stronger or more helpful to a team. We have seen teams do this with the Galleon and Goldfish, and a very few teams work it with a squid or spire. Mobulas have also made an appearance.

If these ships aren't doing so well, it indicates that they have insufficient reward for their drawbacks. Like a squishy mage without a powerful area of effect spell, or a weak bard who can barely buff his allies. It isn't that these 2 ships are too good, it's that all the other ones don't have quite enough upside, or maybe a little too much downside.

Consider a random example - take the squid, remove 4/5 of its permahull and add a 4th gun on the front-right of the ship pointed 45 degrees right of forwards. Huge downside, but what an upside. The killing power of the squid would skyrocket, but it would die so very easily. Is that balanced or even a good idea? Probably not. But now the squid gets an upside worthy of its downside - the ability to kill quickly.

TL;DR: Pyra/Junker are fine, other ships just don't have enough upside - buffs/radical changes to ships give more real changes than nerfs of what we have.

[-Mad Maverick-]

TL;DR: Pyra/Junker are fine, other ships just don't have enough upside - buffs/radical changes to ships give more real changes than nerfs of what we have.

i cant agree with this more and have been saying this for soo long about so many different subjects!

[Echoez]

TL;DR: Pyra/Junker are fine, other ships just don't have enough upside - buffs/radical changes to ships give more real changes than nerfs of what we have.

Stop talking wisdom redria

[redria]

Stop talking wisdom redria

i cant agree with this more and have been saying this for soo long about so many different subjects!

Please also note that I didn't say that speed is the answer. I think that the ships are actually pretty well balanced in terms of speed. And the guns are mostly in good places right now. I rewatched a video or two from a year ago and laughed at how absurdly far gatling guns and mortars fired.
No, the solution to any perceived imbalance is not going to be as easy or simple as reverting to any old numbers or buffing a single aspect of something. The best solutions are going to be outside-of-the-box. Perhaps Muse already has a solution or two in mind.

The trickiest part is how intricately everything is linked. Changing something to help a weak ship might make an average ship overpowered.

Consider the Galleon. The upside is the massive firepower and durability. The downside is the awful maneuverability and easy disabling.
My first instinct would be to buff the upside. But making the Galleon more durable won't really help it. It is already tanky enough. Adding to that will just make you take longer to die with no guns and no balloon. Buffing the guns' firepower would be good, but then you inherently buff the goldfish firepower too, which could easily make it OP.
The alternative is to reduce the downsides. Buffing maneuverability or preventing disabling. However, a maneuverability buff sufficient to help the galleon would quickly make it to difficult to fight. It is in a good place for maneuvering. A solution might be a new tool that does double Claw turning speed, but triple damage. Galleons have more engine health and could handle a harsher tool. Another solution might be something that helps protect the guns from being disabled. This would give Galleons the opportunity to use their guns when they have the chance.

I want to see what Muse pulls together to help change the meta before I advocate any real change suggestions. I think there are clever ideas and solutions already being worked on and I'd love to see them in action before thinking any further on this.

[pandatopia]

Possible solution to the galleon is to have the side heavy guns be moved slightly inward into the ship, so they cannot so easily be disabled from the front/skewed angle.

If they can be disabled from the side thats fine - because the galleon is capable of broadsiding at that angle too.

But on the approach the guns are very vulnerable.

For squid I think adding a walkway between the two turning engines will go a long way to making it easier to repair.

You then also have a neat separation of duties - back engie takes all 4 engines and back gun, mid engie takes side gun and balloon/hull, front takes front gun+hull/balloon.

The spire I think is just too big of a target and too flimsy - more armor is needed, or otherwise you'll never get the 3/4 guns firing for more than a second once you start taking damage. I'm okay with the spire instapopping as soon as hull is down.

Mobula I think a corridor in the middle of the ship between the hull and balloon would be awesome, might make it too easy to repair though.

[-Mad Maverick-]

I don't think speed is necessarily the answer (as I have said previously I think speed would make things more fun. I never thought speed was an auto fix).  I do think there are times when we have reverted to the way things were in the past and it was for the better(see flamer).  the main thing I want us to do is shift out mindset, I have been saying this since beta.  when we find a ship, weapon combo, or play style, used often and effectively I think we should not have the mentality of "let's make this thing weaker" but rather, as you have said, "let's make something else better or create something entirely new"

[Dutch Vanya]

I'm starting to think the pyra is only unbalanced in competitive, mainly because it is too easy to repair, chem spray and buff.

[GeoRmr]

I'm starting to think the pyra is only unbalanced in competitive, mainly because it is too easy to repair, chem spray and buff.

The pyramidion is not unbalanced in competitive, it is merely popular, many of the competitive pilots flew pyramidions pre-allofthenerfstopyramidion and are comfortable flying them and so continued to fly them, I am still far more afraid of junkers which are even easier to repair, chem spray, and buff, and have more armour along with more guns.

Popular =|= OP

DO NOT NERF THE PYRA AGAIN PLEASE.

~GeoRmr's Secret instantly balance the game completely and forever ~

Buff spire armour and nerf its hull, buff squid hull, nerf junker turning speed, and add another close range heavy weapon.

[Spud Nick]

Would the game be too unbalanced if all the ships were easy to buff and spray like the pyra?

[Replaceable]

I for one am so ready for a change to the pyra.

I am absolutely so sick of being able to predict a loadout as soon as i see a pyramidion. As well as pretty much expecting to see pyramidions whenever I play. It's getting a little bit boring to be totally honest. Talking of boring, I agree with everyone about engineering on a pyramidion being far too easy. For me engineering is about running around like a mad man during a firefight having to make split second decisions on what to repair etc. and therefore feeling really rewarded for manging to stay alive. This simply does not happen on a pyramidion.

As for junkers i agree with what has been said about junkers only being good with the correct crew. Their massive balloon is a massive counter to them and a buffed artemis w/ burst is pretty effective against it's closely spaced components on bottom deck (whatcha gonna do with like 1 gun and no main engine).

I do think that the hull 'sweet' spot is pretty stupid though either remove it or give the underused (UU) ships 'sweet' spots too.

In summary. Nerf pyra- engi too easy. Junkers are okay. UU ships will be good with sweet spots.

And some thoughts about other ships.
Spires are too squishy.
Galleons are too easy to disable and the view whilst pilot is quite obstructed, they are fat and slow, but perhaps too much so?.
Squids die too easily.
Goldfish are good on the whole tbh. Just co-ordinate with your co-engi. Since the side guns are by no means vital. Leaving 2 engis to do things.
Mobulas cannot cope under fire as there is only realistically going to be one engi on hull/balloon. Making them also too squishy. (Alternately pyra can still have a gun firing and still be tanky.)

Oh and yeah Phoenix claw OP.

Feel free to let me know if I'm thinking about this all wrong cos I probably am.