Oh boy, another gunner balance thread

[Indreams]

Gunners do need a tweak. Because gunning is about the most static thing in the game.

• A ship will almost always have one gunner.
• That gunner will almost always be told to man the heavy guns.
• If there is no heavy gun, the gunner will almost always be told to man that one gun (that usually faces front).
• The gunner will use heavy on hwacha and carronade
• The gunner will use lesmok on flamethrowers and other range-limited guns.
• The gunner will use one ammo that they like on long-range guns (lesmok/charged/lochnagar) and never find a reason to use a different ammo.
• Greased will work with almost all guns.
• If the gunner is GeoRmr, the gunner will insist on heatsink, and do a really fine job. 

That's about it. One gun, one ammo for most of the game. And a lot of gunners (including myself) forget about loading the gun and runs with normal ammo.

My belief is that the solution lies in making Gunner more complex. Add more guns, add more ammos, or modify how ammos work. Anything that makes gunning more dynamic would be a good fix, in my humble opinion.

[Ayetach]

Just a crazy thought but lets say nothing about the gunner changes except that, unique from the other two classes, the gun they sit on reloads about... lets say 10-15% faster than any other class does. That could be a game changer in that their ability to keep shooting makes them more important especially for certain guns that suffer long reload times. I don't think that would make them too overly powerful and it incorporates a hint of the stamina system elements in the role yes?

Therefore buffs don't have to be touched and ammo types don't have to be touched. Just a simple characteristic suited for that class; And to be perfectly fair to those arguing against the idea, one can also say that piloting is unique to the other classes as they control the ships movement, as much as an engineer has uniqueness applied to their control over rebuild/repair/fire fighting simultaneously, contrary to what the other classes can do in that area.

[Lanliss]

Each class is unique, but all of them can do the others jobs. None as well as the class meant for that job, but well enough to get by. The only problem is that gunner has such a simple job, and there are so many various guns, that an engie can do almost as well as a gunner in any weapon, and a buff engie can do better than a gunner in some. Also, Muse does not want something that makes each class a "unique butterfly" so gunner getting a bonus 10-15% on reload speed is not too likely.

If the different ammo types were adjusted a bit, making more applicable to multiple situations, a gunner would be more useful. The current issue is that you can get three engies, give them all the separate ammos you want them to have, and they can replace the gunner. Really, you could do the same by giving three gunners separate repair tools, instead of default pipe wrench.

[Crafeksterty]

And this is why gunners need a bit of attention.

We only have 3 classes, 2 of which are requiered (Pilot and engie) and an optional gunner.
This is not a good balance. What we want is to have the gunner up in the level of pilot and engie. That way, all classes (except pilot) are optional.
Having the gunner be as usefull as maybe wanting to bring 2 gunners should be a thing because then we have options and flexability amongst the classes.
Both engie and gunner need to be deemed optional in the sense of how you want your ship prioritized.

Some captains bring themselves as Engie, why wouldnt we want the same flexability happen with gunner? I mean highly unlikely, and the reasoning to it is pretty shallow
But a captain need to want to bring a gunner on all ships. Or more... But because of how static ( see above ) gunners are to the guns, they will always only or mostly be for heavy weapons like the HF, LJ, Mino and Barely hwacha.

The only other light gun which the gunner excells at is the minelauncher just for the sake of playing with its range.

[Ayetach]

Each class is unique, but all of them can do the others jobs. None as well as the class meant for that job, but well enough to get by. The only problem is that gunner has such a simple job, and there are so many various guns, that an engie can do almost as well as a gunner in any weapon, and a buff engie can do better than a gunner in some. Also, Muse does not want something that makes each class a "unique butterfly" so gunner getting a bonus 10-15% on reload speed is not too likely.

If the different ammo types were adjusted a bit, making more applicable to multiple situations, a gunner would be more useful. The current issue is that you can get three engies, give them all the separate ammos you want them to have, and they can replace the gunner. Really, you could do the same by giving three gunners separate repair tools, instead of default pipe wrench.

Yeah, the main problem that exists with gunners from my observations is that each class has at-least 2 ammo types; They can use 'standard' and whatever secondary ammo they wish to bring (sure more ammo types *might* mitigate that but I'm skeptical) - gunners just happen to offer two more slots beyond that. The problem is mainly centered around that - most guns won't need more than one ammo type if you want to benefit from engineering as well.

There are select guns and ship loadouts that require a gunner because their ammo type helps enhance the performance of more than one gun or augment those few guns that stand to benefit (i.e. mine launcher or lumberjack) - beyond that most other guns can be handled by the other two classes because although its nice to have a few different ammo types to choose from, one is generally satisfactory enough to do the job. Observing this disparity, a gunner is further gimped by the fact that they only offer one repair tool and so generally most players see this as the optional third class if it suits their design.

[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]

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?

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.

[MidnightWonko]

Well what if the gun buff from the buff hammer varied depending on whether or not a gunner was on it?  Perhaps the hammer's buff could be just a max HP buff without a gunner, and an additional damage buff as well when a gunner is on it?

I wonder if that would be a pain to implement.

[Dementio]

Prediction: Nothing will happen

[Indreams]

Prediction: Nothing will happen

True. We've been suggesting gunner balances for quite some time now. The best muse have come up with seems to be the Stamina.

[Kamoba]

Prediction: Nothing will happen

True. We've been suggesting gunner balances for quite some time now. The best muse have come up with seems to be the Stamina.

The thing is the stamina was intended as a feature, and not solely a gunner buff or classes balance.

I personally feel gunners are pretty well balanced, 1 pilot one gunner and 2 engineers makes for a very handy team.

Third ammo not used enough?
If using a Gatling or Hades Gatling pyramidion with Artemis, its important to have the Artemis shooting, so make the third ammo burst, this way in emergencies (engines down for example) balloon emgi can run down stairs and gunner can disable enemy.and do emergency repairs on the balloon while still shooting effectively.

Heavy guns are most effective with multiple ammo types.

The biggest problem that would occur if gunners were to be buffed: Encouraging people to go gungineer would be impossible, making double gunner ships a much more common problem :\

[Sammy B. T.]

Why do gunners need to be "balanced" or more accurately required.

They have a place in the game. You don't always want a gunner but whenever you want one its because its a gun that absolutely needs a gunner to function.

Want more gunners, add more guns with drops, arm times, recoil, jitter, and/or long ranges.