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Oh boy, another gunner balance thread

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MidnightWonko:
I wouldn't argue that gunners are pretty optional on a ship.  What I WOULD say is that they are easily capable of maximizing the efficiency and potential of pretty much every gun on the ship, making their ships that much deadlier.  As I said in a previous post, in a game like this, we solve our problems with violence, so why not do it right?

I would also assert that gunning is only simple if you're not doing it right.  There's a lot of things to think about, like which ship in your arc deserves to die first, what part of the enemy's ship to aim for, how to lead the shot, what ammo to use based on range of visible enemies or predicted range of unseen enemies, when it is safe to change ammo types, and whether or not to hold fire.  Having to think about all that as well as whether or not to temporarily abandon the guns to help the engies repair during emergencies or to keep shooting until the thing causing the emergency explodes makes for a highly interesting and deep class in my opinion.

So what is the real issue here?  Is it that so many people desire engineers on their ships for improved repair ability?  Or is it that buff hammer on guns is so powerful?

BlackenedPies:

--- Quote from: MidnightWonko on March 11, 2015, 03:50:17 pm ---So what is the real issue here?  Is it that so many people desire engineers on their ships for improved repair ability?  Or is it that buff hammer on guns is so powerful?

--- End quote ---

I doubt that in most circumstances a captain would prefer a standard engineer to a gunner. The buff hammer makes gunners obsolete for all but mines and (sometimes) lumberjacks.

nhbearit:
So, firstly, I don't see a problem with gunners being underused or underpowered. They are a single facet of an extremely complex game.

With that said, to all players that think gunners should be a more attractive option:

There are several changes that wouldn't work. The first is simply making gungineers less attractive. This wouldn't work because all it does is move the choice further into the engineer's court. When a gungineer is selected for a position there are two reasons for it. Repairability and damage. With this kind of change you're basically trying to remove the increased damage from the equation. Well alright then, let's think this idea through. Without the increased damage output the choice becomes one of repairability and general versatility versus versatility on guns. This is probably the most ironic option available because the outcome of the choice is exactly the same as it would be now. On the guns that benefit from having gunners, you'd take a gunner. On guns that don't really benefit from a gunner, you'd take an engineer, but now that gungineers aren't really an option, you'd just take a normal engineer. Your ship is now doing less damage and engagements take longer, you've also not made gunners any more prolific. This is the reason that ideas like BlackenedPies's, and to a lesser extent Caprontos's, wouldn't solve any problem.

The second would be to do anything too big. Anything potentially game breaking goes into this category. For example, things like the stamina system. Or anything asymmetric. Changes that would change the name of the game more than they would fix it. There's a lot I would like to say about changes that fit into this group, but for the sake of brevity and to remain polite to Muse, I'm going to leave it at game breaking.

The only options are to introduce changes that make gunners easier to incorporate into the rest of the ship. Make gunners easier for the rest of the crew to work around. While it's a bug, an example of this is the 90s buff on guns. When buffs last long enough for a buffgineer to keep two guns buffed throughout an engagement, it allows gunners to have both versatility on guns AND benefit from the extra damage of the buff. It makes bringing a gunner a much more attractive option. While 90s is a bit long, if it was increased to around 60s it would be long enough to last throughout most engagements. And because you can keep buffs up on a gun almost indefinitely (by rebuffing between reloads) It doesn't have much of an effect overall. The gun is buffed either way, but now you can bring the gunner and the extra ammos for one of the guns.

Richard LeMoon:
Hmmm. Just had a curious thought. What if we added another stat to guns. 'Dirt/soot/grime'. The more it was used, the more dirty it would become, causing it to work less efficiently. The only way to remove this would be with ammos that had 'swabbing' properties rather than 'soot' properties.

Perhaps increase gun damage a little as base, and make a fully grimed gun do slightly less damage than current. Perhaps move more slowly. In effect, it would be a buff that the gunner would maintain by keeping his guns clean.

An ammo like Greased would add a lot of grime in a hurry. Heatsink could remove some, Lesmok as well. Most others would add to a varying degree. A new 'Swab' ammo would remove everything. This would fit right in with 'Gunnery' equipment, and would make the gunner more needed around the ship. Even a pilot could take this as the +1 ammo to make a gun cleaning run. One Goldfish engie could take it if you wanted your gunner to have all three regular ammos.

It would not make sense as an engineer tool, as you would have to be on the gun 'cleaning' it.

Hoja Lateralus:
@up
This sounds like an option to 'force' gunners on ship rather than make them more useful.

Personally, I think that Guns of Icarus is fundamentally "broken", badly constructed, in its design as a game in a few ways that cannot be fixed anymore (it would take too much effort to do so). And class balance belongs to that category - it's just the way it is and, mostly, we must just accept it as it is.

Also I think that map balance makes a role too. On the most maps the most popular builds are either very close-range builds or long-ass-range "sniper" builds (artemis, merc mostly, sometimes big flak and lumberjack). Neither of those can fully use gunner's potential most of the time. Gunner shines in mid-range combat, especially when conditions are changing and you need to, say, change hades from lesmok to greased because enemy is rushing at you. The best maps that allow good mid-range combat are Fjords and Hazard.

// off topic - goio being 3-dimentional game where there are several ships with different speeds, turning rates etc. is a pain in the ass to make balanced maps

One suggestion, from top of my head, is changing buffer's place from Engineer Slot to Gunner Slot. Sacrificing (mostly useless) third ammo type for a buffer seems like a reasonable idea. But then again decreasing engineer's options is never a nice thing.

Other suggestion, we need more interesting ammo types, that can be more situational and make up for lacking repair power of an extra engineer. But I guess there's a thread for that.

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