"What's wrong with the Pyramidion? What's wrong with the Hwacha?" - Awkm

[Urz]

From last Friday's dev chat:
http://www.twitch.tv/gunsoficarus/v/18801561?t=50m9s

This man is in charge of game balance.

[Hunter.]

Haha - I wouldn't take the comments on Pyra and Hwacha too seriously, however the minotaur comments are quite interesting - they need to be careful with it since I have taken it out 4 times so far, and in the lobby afterwards I have been told "minotaur OP" "turny gun OP". So it clearly does its job, however its use is limited due to how little damage it does. If it could damage components such as engines it would be nice to use and something I would take more seriously. Additionally it is nice and balanced imo against spire, mobula, galleon etc but it needs to be a little better at turning pyras and squids somehow.

[DrTentacles]

The comments about the Pyra and Hwatcha were sarcastic, I believe.

The Minotaur, meanwhile, is walking a careful line-I'm starting to think the gun may simply be non-viable in the game. This is not at all related to it's actual power.

Nearly every time I take a Minotaur against a pilot who doesn't know how to use Moonshine effectively, I will hear complaining and salt afterword. This is because it (seemingly) denies them the ability to participate in the combat. Even if they break the lock, you'll often hear something about lucky shots, or see people quit during the time they're locked during the engagement.

Carronades and Lumberjacks also have this effect, but not nearly to the extent, because they at least, on their own, promise a kill. The Minotaur offers no such promise.

It reminds of counterspells, or worse, mass-land destruction tactics in Magic the Gathering. For those unfamiliar with the game, Counterspell control is one of the most widely hated archetypes, disproportionate to it's actually effectiveness. Counterspells do exactly what they say-the counter an action, or a spell, effectively preventing another player from taking action. Now, they require careful timing to use effectively, since you're sacrificing your own resources to prevent your opponant from winning, rather than advancing your own victory, but newer players don't see that. They also tend to view getting a spell countered, and getting that same creature removed from the board, even if the outcome is exactly the same.

The other strategy, mass land destruction, relies on destroying both your enemies and your own resources, with the understanding that your deck has been tuned to function under in a resource-poor environment.

Over time, Mass Land destruction has been phased out, and counterspells have been drastically nerfed.

People hate tactics that stop them from playing the game, is my TL:DR.

If the minotaur is to exist in any capacity, and not endure the hatred of newer players much like the flamethrower did, it needs to be severely re-worked, not just have numbers adjusted.

[Urz]

I wouldn't take the comments on Pyra and Hwacha too seriously

The comments about the Pyra and Hwatcha were sarcastic, I believe.

8 months ago there was a patch which unnecessarily nerfed the Pyramidion and buffed the Hwacha. In the time since, there has been no indication that they are considering fixing the balance of those two items.

Pub games turn into drawn-out disable nightmares with Hwachas on both sides. I find the dynamic of those matches to be extremely unfun, and it has slowed the pace of the pub metagame in a detrimental way.

His statement, presented in awkm's typical dismissive/borderline trolling fashion, falls in line with the (lack of) action they've already taken.

[DrTentacles]

Pyramideon nerf was absolutely necessary. I hate WOW-style rotating balance patches, but it was waaaay to big a part of the meta. Go look at the Season 2 Aerodrome finals. Three rounds of 3v3 Pyramidion combat.

What probably should have been done it should have been nerfed to it's current state of uselessness to force people to try other ships, and shake the metagame up heavily, then buffed to a in-between point. Six months is a bit excessive, however, but small-dev-team. What can you do? At least it has shaken the metagame. We've got Squids, Mobulas, Spires, and Goldfish in nearly every single competitive tournament/matches. That's a lot more healthy than Pyramideon, and occasionally, Pyra with support ship.

Beats me on the Hwatcha buff. I don't know if it was an accident from the Carronade Nerf, or an intentional thing, but it's pretty annoying.

[MightyKeb]

awkm lost his razor


I'd argue that squids would be in the meta anyway if pyra wasnt nerfed simply because the rampant presence of Mobulas and Carro nerf which ruined the classic squid and forced people to move onto a more reliable kill build. I think it wouldve been much more satisfying for everyone to take the buffed squid against the old pyra and challenge the age old meta not by nerfing it to oblivion but showing that there's another good ship out there for competitive play, just like the Junker age.


Spires were used fairly often in the buff days due to the hype, but to my knowledge they've only been used twice over the course of roughly 20-25 matches consisting of the first two weeks of Blood and Brass.


Mobula being slightly closer to meta due to the patch only brought it more awareness as to how powerful it was (Mobula OP), and by the time it happened it was too late for the pyra because at the very least a matchup between them was more or less equal with slight favor for the mobula, whilst now its capable for out 1v1ing it everytime.


Goldfishes are cancer right now simply because hwachafish is more popular than ever.


This has been said time and time again since the patch - it's much better to make it so that other ships challenge the old meta than simply kill it and have the high level players look for something else in the ensuing panic.

[DrTentacles]

You should look up old Hephestus records-I'd link if the forum hadn't been deleted.

Mobula and Junkers *were* brought to finals, but Pyra was still incredibly dominant. I know it's great to talk about how the Meta just hadn't developed appropriate counters, but the usage statistics were hilariously one-sided. Had the nerf hadn't happened, more ships would have been used, but I suspect Pyra would have been a one-of in every team. The question would just be Carrot or Gat/Art, Meta or Hades/Art, or Double Merc. It's strengths were just too glaring. The gimmick of "perfect forward bifecta, hidden balloon, and easy-to-the-point-of-falling asleep repair cycles" add up just subtly enough to push it over the top.

I think a thorough shake-up was in order. People are complacent-not just competitive pilots, as well. The nerf shouldn't have stayed this hard, this long, however.

[Dementio]

Go look at the Season 2 Aerodrome finals. Three rounds of 3v3 Pyramidion combat.

Because the Pyramidion is arguably the best ship for crazy king. Two forward facing guns, which often are Gat/Mortar, which is the most powerful light gun combination when it comes to killing a ship, 3rd fastest ship in the game, which it still is even after the nerf and being easy to crew and pilot all around. Back then, in crazy king a point could be blocked by one ship while three of the enemy ships were inside the point too, so you were required to be able to kill your enemies very quickly to get as many resources of the points as possible.

You can also see in the Aerodrome 2 finals that even I took a Pyramidion instead of my most favourite Mobula or trying to ram with a Galleon or Spire, that is because even I realized that the Pyramidion was the most appropriate ship to take, merely because of its design. And against a team as good as SPQR, I would not have wanted to handicap ourselves with a less appropriate choice.

Nowadays people have noticed Squids can actually kill and that disable is viable with how capturing a point currently works. A Spire and Galleon may still be too slow for stuff like this though.
And when a team actually wants to kill a ship and be at a point quickly, chances are that said team would go triple Pyramidion even now when it is supposedly so weak, because Gatling and Mortar are not weak.

But Crazy King is not Deathmatch and when looking at a ship that looks like the Pyramidion you would expect that ship to have some hull health, which it may deserve. And also some forward speed.

Beats me on the Hwatcha buff. I don't know if it was an accident from the Carronade Nerf, or an intentional thing, but it's pretty annoying.

The Hwacha buff was to compensate for the new heavy clip, since heavy clip Hwacha is so utterly uselss. There was not much testing done on that though, I believe, so burst Hwacha sniping turned out to be a thing.

[DrTentacles]

I tried to fly gat/mortar squid pre-buff. It worked out alright against pubs, but the stamina and other buffs were needed to push it out of niche use. Pyras could also out-turn it pretty well with Claw.

[MightyKeb]

I tried to fly gat/mortar squid pre-buff. It worked out alright against pubs, but the stamina and other buffs were needed to push it out of niche use. Pyras could also out-turn it pretty well with Claw.

We're not even talking gat mortar when we say squids can kill. Banshee is a very reliable option and I think it has always worked, much better so than the mortar and it does to this day, still better than mortar. This was also a problem back in Aero days- People thought the only squid that could kill was the insanely unpractical Gat Mortar squid, but I believe the banshee was worse back then and flak still had arming time, so I don't blame the people who were playing back then.

[Hunter.]

Does anyone know if Muse ever considered taking on some volunteers from top clans to discuss balance changes? It sounds like it would be a good idea - only issue I can see is that clan leaders would never agree on changes because the sniping teams would vote for buffs to range tactics and vice versa. Maybe take on someone who watches a lot of competitive and has been around for a long time. Just something I am throwing out there.

As for Pyra nerfs, I wasn't around in the closing months of the Pyra age however I showed Newbluud (a newer GOIO player) a series for the classic Sunday Rumble where Pyra would do stupid things with their mobility and we agreed the changes were warranted - however I also believe they were a little strong.

Personally, in the future I would like to see less flat nerfs, and more "buffing the counter to OP stuff" style of balancing, such as "Squid is strong, let's buff Galleon mobility a little", "Hwacha is strong, let's buff Artemis shatter damage a little".

Once again, just throwing this stuff out there - would love to hear some opinions.

[-Anakin-]

"Make mines more powerful" - Clan Clan Representative, 2015

[nanoduckling]

I don't think the problem would be that the top players would disagree Hunter. Even if there is a bit of disagreement most top players have consensus positions, especially on the big issues. Even when they disagree on what they want they often agree on the facts, they just disagree on what would be fun or interesting. One team might (as an example) want a spire buff for some reason, and another might want it nerfed, but often they agree on what the consequences of those changes would be, they just have a different ideal meta.

The problem is Muse seem to have minimal interest in optimizing the game for higher level play. In pub games against low level enemies the metamidion is still extremely effective (it also still works in high level play situationally but that is beside the point), all you need to operate it is a decent gungineer, a gunner who fires into the hull, and a pilot who points the ship at a target. Most novices don't repair or shoot efficiently and many, many novice pilots cant design builds or keep guns in arc. Two forward facing light guns are horrifically effective against them if players have just paid attention to the tutorial and know what piercing and explosive damage does.

The metamidion is a first-order optimal strategy in GoI, that is a strategy which is relatively straightforward to pull off and pays off highly. Problem before the nerf was that it wasn't simply first-order optimal, it was just optimal, any fleet composition needed a meta. The nerf fixed one problem but generated at least two more. It made the pyra basically worthless for experienced players most of the time, and it still left a massive skill gap between the meta and the next tier up of ships. Successful operation of a lumber- or blender- fish or a meta-junker or a brawling spire requires a fair chunk more skill than a pyra does. This is part of why vets get frustrated with novices, you cant use a lot of builds because they are just too complicated to explain during a 5 minute lobby timer.

To make the pyra interesting in higher level play it needs a small buff, otherwise only a small number of builds work with it. My worry is that one way to fix the skill gap between the pyra and other ships is to raise the skill required to operate the pyra successfully in low level lobbies, that is nerf the pyra even further. I suspect they will just leave it where it is and the pyra will end up as the noob-tube of GoI. I think that is a shame for what is a potentially very interesting ship.

I just hope for once if things are nerfed or buffed the changes are small. The hwacha isn't crazy overpowered, remove one rocket from it and see how it goes. The pyra isn't stupidly weak, give it 5% more armor or a little extra turning speed and see what happens.

[BlackenedPies]

Does anyone know if Muse ever considered taking on some volunteers from top clans to discuss balance changes?

Once again, just throwing this stuff out there - would love to hear some opinions.

Muse members have gone around asking for feedback. They get many different opinions and as Muse says: it takes us 6 months to implement changes.

Pyra was my most played ship and it needed a nerf. The hull nerf was a good answer but taking away its acceleration was not. Pyra doesn't need hull or turning, and the medium armor and mediocre vertical are fine. What it needs is speed. The pyra is not a ranged ship so it doesn't need hull. It's a close range brawler that relies on speed. Revert the hull and sure it's better in pub matches but not high level play. It needs speed. I'd gladly fly a pyra with 500 hull but not 2.25 m/s^2.

Hwatcha is easier to use and more effective. It should be reverted to the old jitter of 6. Because I'm biased to buff burst hwatcha I say give it 5 jitter. Revert heavy carro jitter to 6 from 8. The jitter increase only hurt galleons that use charged flak left - carro right. And increase up arc.

[Thomas]

I think just about everyone agrees the pyra needed a nerf, but it was taken a little far. Having more speed would make it a nice glass cannon, being able to pack a punch and keep up with the other ships. Right now it's just basic target practice.

As for gun balance, the small change to hwacha had a pretty big impact. I'm not sure why the jitter was changed at all. They say it was due to the heavy clip adjustment, but that's still totally stupid. Why didn't the other guns have their jitter changed then? Why bother changing heavy clip if you're going to compensate by changing the jitter? And when it comes to the carronade nerf, there were some comments made that made it seem that it was partially to compensate for gunner stamina. Why weren't other guns adjusted for gunner stamina in a similar fashion, particularly the heavy guns? Lumberjack is still as powerful as ever, and the stamina gives the hwacha a surprisingly huge boost with the reload speed.

I think Muse just kind of makes changes without thinking about them too much or at all.