Spire is more fun. I like the changes. Feels better off in a fight, but still an easy ship to kill.
Minotaur... Well, everyone I was in matches with agreed that it only started feeling a little effective once we had two on a Galleon. Even then, it's utility and damage were mostly underwhelming. It had very little effect on most ships. The only ship that was really effected was the Goldfish, which also could not use the gun very well. It was mostly described as "Somewhat of a nuisance, but not threatening." Gunners felt like they were not really doing anything for the most part. Pilots said it was easy to compensate for. Galleon pilots asked if it was being used yet. It only started to show a little promise when used with Greased rounds close range against a Goldfish.
My thoughts are to double the clip size and make it shoot faster. Change one of the damage types to Impact.
Stamina is.... unnecessary complexity. This game is already quite complex to learn. Adding another level of skill to master is only going to hurt gameplay. It is really just another push button tool that is activated by pushing a completely different button than the rest of the tools. We are getting into feature bloat territory. All of these effects could easily be achieved with tools, with the exception of engineer stamina making you run faster... which we will get to.
First off, the stamina bar is massive and annoying. I was just told a few months ago that you did not want to add any more UI elements because it was already too cluttered. Then the hull was added... then this thing.
Pilot stamina.... silly in the extreme. It makes no sense at all as it is. You want a supercharged effect? Make a helm tool for it. Put all the bonus stuff on that tool, and make it last a few seconds after release. Most new pilots would use it a 'easy mode'. More advanced pilots would use it to boost ship performance. Other would not use it at all and stick to other tactics.
Engineer stamina... unanimously described as mostly useless. Movement is so buggy that you just get stuck in new and interesting places. What is desired is faster hits for rebuilding and somehow improving repair. But really, not needed at all. The engineer game is already pretty balanced.
Gunner stamina... where to start? Actually, just no. Out of all of the class buffs, I dislike this one the most. Moving fast is one thing, but ripping the guns off the mounts because your character yells "Yahooooooo!"? What? I don't even know what to say. I mean, I though you were working on ammo types to do that type of thing. Binding it to a moment of passion that ONLY gunners have makes no sense. You want gunners to be more useful, then make the ammos that do these things. Make arc shifting ammo. Standard ammo that allows you to shift the gun right, left, down, or up at the expense of the other directions. Make sitting in the seat reload the gun faster by default, or other bonuses for not getting out of the gunner seat. Progressively more steady shots, faster gun movement, whatever. Just reward the person staying on the gun for being on the gun. And for the love of Odin's right nipple, don't make the buff hammer increase DPS in any way. That alone would get rid if half the gungineers.
Finally, don't make anything class specific. This is really... jarring to a game that always prided itself on the equality of the characters. Especially in the 'magicy spell' feeling way this is.
Capture points... The changes seemed to make little difference in the two KotH maps. They were a little (sometimes a lot) confusing on the CK maps. Half the time we could not tell if someone was blocking, or we were just not on the point. A Squid hid under a point at one time, and I spent about a minute trying to 'find' where the new capture zone was. A visual indication of whether your ship is on the point or not would be greatly helpful. A small icon next to the score or something similar.
In conclusion, I like the ship changes, but really think everything could be sped up some, including gun speeds. No stamina needed. Just make it faster. Don't implement stamina in any way, and go back to the ammos we were helping develop. I saw a lot of promise there. And make the capture points more clear as to what is actually happening.
