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Problem with gunner/Two engineering slots on gunners?

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MightyKeb:

--- Quote from: Daft Loon on July 01, 2015, 08:07:41 pm ---Beyond making the title "Gunner" used more often I'm not sure what this achieves. In most cases it seems like the gunner would play the same role as an engineer would but substituting marginal use of the 3rd engineering tool for marginal use of 2 more ammo types. I'm not sure that a solution of making the gunner more like an engineer makes sense when the problem is underuse of the gunners abilities.

Imo the solution should be to make the gunners abilities a superior choice to the engineers for the third crew slot rather than reducing the difference in engineering abilities. The main obstacles to this are the buff hammer and ammo utility. The buff hammer on guns should be moved into the same engineering cycle type role as chem spray and buffs to other components, at the simplest making it +10% damage and double current duration, more complicated would be moderate buffs to turning speed, arcs etc instead of damage. The ammo types and guns need to be tweaked to make each gun get real benefit from the second choice at least, 4 or more would be ideal so you actually have to think about gunner ammo choices. I think adding 1 or 2 new mechanics into the mix would help this ex - post clip reload time and recoil jitter debuffs (i tagged a suggestion to add a recoil debuff to burst to restore the burst + heavy hwacha combo onto some other suggestions i sent in).

The extreme option - remove gunner and engineer and replace them with "crew" class with 2 ammo's 2 tools + spyglass. Its an interesting thought although i can see it being difficult to adjust to.

--- End quote ---


"In most cases it seems like the gunner would play the same role as an engineer would but substituting marginal use of the 3rd engineering tool for marginal use of 2 more ammo types." - It already functions that way, the only lacking factor is that the gunner has to roll around with Pipe Wrench only, which happens to be inferior to literally every viable loadout engineer gets. And yes, it is supposed to be this way. But in comparison to Pilots, Gunner functions much more like a Crewman than a specialist who functions through a disable-proof helm. This buff is meant to help the gunner adapt to the crew role.


"Imo the solution should be to make the gunners abilities a superior choice to the engineers for the third crew slot rather than reducing the difference in engineering abilities" - This exists, but only in a select few guns. I'd love to spread the ammo love around too, but you would have to fundamentally revamp the entire balance around ammo types to accomplish this.


"more complicated would be moderate buffs to turning speed, arcs etc instead of damage." - I think the problem with Buff Hammer is that while the gun buffs are powerful, next to nothing can replace the bonus. When you want to buff guns, you want something simple and universally beneficial for all guns. A turning speed buff would simply be a slight buff to those Artemis junkers and less so for Banshees, for instance, while a damage buff works well for both guns.


"I think adding 1 or 2 new mechanics into the mix would help this ex - post clip reload time and recoil jitter debuffs" - That doesn't sound like a bad idea, it could potentially force the engineer meta to revolve around Heavy Clip as a utility, thus making the extra two slots matter to an extent for the gunner and should the meta continue as normal, it could slightly increase pilot skill ceiling.



"The extreme option - remove gunner and engineer and replace them with "crew" class with 2 ammo's 2 tools + spyglass. Its an interesting thought although i can see it being difficult to adjust to." - As established by the many before us, gunner fits very well within the few niche guns it has going for him ,but can hardly keep up with anything outside of that. This buff's intention is to to expand it without making gunners the top dogs of Icarus. I can see where it's coming from, but I just have faith in the current system in general.

Richard LeMoon:
No DPS gun buffs. Most problems solved. With buff, engineers get 4 ammo types. Standard, special, buff standard, buff special. That breaks the paradigm.

I would be ok with gunners having two tools, as long as one of them was pipe wrench by default. And NO DPS GUN BUFFS by any tool. Faster turning, lower recoil, more armor, slightly better arcs, a combination of all of those, whatever. Just get rid of the damage buff.

Mr.Bando:
The balance of it all is more complex than it can be fixed by tweaking just a part such as adding an extra tool for the gunner and has to be seen as a whole.

Give a gunner an extra tool, it can be seen as a nerf to disable weapons to have an extra spanner mallet crewmember on board. Or a fireX + wrench will see flamers being less effective. It will be harder to keep a ship immobilised or unable to fire back. It's all theorycraft tho. A gunner forced to repair, albeit more effectively, is still considered disabled cos the ship that doesn't have crew shooting is a target rather than a threat.

By natural extension, should engineers get a second ammo slot as long a ordinary ammo type is added? It would make a gunner pointless on any ships that uses heavy guns cos most need only 2 ammo types to work effectively. Or how about a wrench given to all gunners without taking up a tool slot. Then that's a nerf to disable as mentioned earlier.

Dieter Sprockets:
The real problem isn't the number of slots, the problem is that most of the time gunners are completely redundant.  The people who use that are just trying to get achievement unlocks, nothing more.  Why?  Because there isn't a ship in the game that ever requires more than three different types of ammunition buffs, and a coordinated group of three engineers is perfectly capable of doing that.  Combine this with the fact that anyone can man any weapon and that engineering tools are always in demand far more often than ammo swaps, the end result is that gunners are moot.  Irrelevant.  There is nothing that they can do that intelligent engineers using teamwork can't do just as well, on top of all their engineering perks.

However, that's only one facet of the problem.  The other is that this is a player skill based game, not a stats-driven RPG type game.  A player with excellent marksmanship is just as deadly behind the sights of a weapon regardless of what character class they choose.  Likewise, a player with terrible aim gains nothing by choosing gunner as a profession.  It is entirely plausible, and in fact quite common to see, veteran engineers who are far deadlier with a ship's weapons than novice gunners.  This only further exacerbates the problem of gunner being an inherently inferior choice.

The real solution, then, isn't to give them more engineering slots.  That only admits that they're basically useless and is a cheap ploy to make them more like their clearly superior engineering counterparts.  This solves nothing and would only limit gameplay by forcing everyone to be even more alike than they already are.  What gunners really need is more diversity - something that sets them apart from engineers instead of beneath them.

What I propose is actually much simpler: Instead of trying to turn gunners into discount, second rate engineers, how about we enhance the gunner's abilities to be a better gunner?  (Mind blown!)  To that end I suggest that we consider perks of the more direct variety.  For example, how about increased gunsight zoom for gunners (compared to engineers and navigators)?  The ability to zoom in farther would lead to better weapon accuracy and more precise target placement, and it would be the simplest thing in the world to code into the game (FOV zoom).  Or perhaps an inherent decrease in projectile dispersion simply from being a gunner?  Say, 25% reduction on top of any specific magazine buffs applied.  Again, the gunner is now able to deliver much more accurate weapon's fire, and over longer range, than his counterparts.

If you like, you can make these into gunner exclusive magazine buffs that only gunners would be allowed to choose (although there is already such a buff for dispersion, currently anyone can use it).  As long as we're doing those, how about another unique gunner power - the ability to load exclusive defense buffs into weapons as well (thus helping alleviate the helplessness of a gunner who's weapon has been hit).  Meaning moving the Heat Sink into a new category of "defense" buffs that can be loaded alongside an offensive, magazine buff (thus each weapon could have two item buffs, one magazine and one gunner exclusive defense).  Add in "Increased Armor/Damage Resist" as an option so that a gunner's weapon is less likely to be crippled while they're manning it.  Or perhaps a "Fast Reload" buff that does exactly that & reduces reload times by 25% or more? 

These are just a few ideas that I am tossing out there.  By no means should they be considered the definitive solution.  They are, rather, simply a proof of concept to prove my original point: That the fix to gunners isn't turning them into 2nd class engineers.  The fix to gunners is to improve gunners ability as gunners.

BlackenedPies:
The extra zoom idea is interesting, but I caution against reducing jitter because it effects guns differently. It would have a major effect on guns like the hwatcha and little or no effect on most other guns.

Muse has shied away from passive buffs and I don't think they will be implemented. There is a good medium for gunner buffs and that is stamina. Currently gunner stamina has potential but it's weak due to brief use and slow recharge. Extra zoom could be added to the list of stamina effects, such as +20% zoom while zoomed in. Other suggestions have included resisting the effects of damage/fire on a gun while using stamina.

Another addition could be rangefinder effects added to the spyglass when used by gunner. The issue is that we are trying to balance gunners compared to +20% damage from a gun buff. Until gun buffs are addressed gunners will always have a utility role. Buffed regular does higher DPS than greased...and I love it.

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