"When Ambush Comes to Shove" - Week 2 is being tested this weekend! (change log)

[Ayetach]

Hi guys,

For our unblind testing, here is the change log for this week's changes for balances on ships weapons, and ammo. Be sure to join us at 12pm Eastern time (5pm UTC) for testing and let us know what you think at feedback@musegames.com. Thanks!

Balance Changes:

• Mobula bottom guns fanned out 10 degrees, top guns fanned out 5 degrees—to increase the difficulty of full weapon’s platform functionality without disallowing common builds.
  
• Spire reduced turn acceleration to 10d/s2 (from 15), reduced top turn speed to 8d/s from 12—to make it easier for other ships to flank the Spire.
• Squid back gun turn inwards (towards right side of ship) 40 degrees from 0—to make it easier for less experienced players to use the Squid in normal play.
• Squid increased forward/backward acceleration to 8m/s2 (from 6.66)—to make it easier for the Squid to change position and react effectively in close range combat.
• Heavy Flak has more damage moved to direct hit for a 70/30% split between direct and AoE (from 45/55%). Higher clip capacity to 4 (from 2) means damage per shot is reduced (115/50 explosive, from 150/180 explosive), BUT damage per second is the SAME due to increased RoF of 2 shots/s (from 0.8), and reduced reload time of 4.5s (from 5), reduced camera shake—to increase ease of use in both range (more damage in direct for within arming distance shots) and aiming (more shots to judge arc before reload.)
• Lochnagar Shot reduced clip size reduction to -60% from reduction to 1 shot, reduced damage increase from 62.5% from 125%, reduced rotation speed reduction to -70% from -90%, changed damage to gun model so that is deals proportional damage per shot until gun is destroyed e.g. if gun has 2 shots then each shot deals 50% damage vs a gun that has 4 shots were each shot deals 25% damage—to ensure that Lochnagar has use cases after Heavy Flak changes.
• Harpoon has right click to reel in with increased harpoon force to 1500000 (from 230000)—major feature request.
• Hwacha reduced projectile speed to 250m/s from 400m/s, decreased camera shake—to give receiving players more time to react to Hwacha volley.
• Pyramidon hull health increased to 700 (from 550), mass increased to 300000 from 200000 while preserving all other steering characteristics—you said you missed ramming, right?  Also affected less by Minotaur and other physics related systems due to increased mass.

[Letus]

• Squid back gun turn inwards (towards right side of ship) 40 degrees from 0—to make it easier for less experienced players to use the Squid in normal play.
• Squid increased forward/backward acceleration to 8m/s2 (from 6.66)—to make it easier for the Squid to change position and react effectively in close range combat.

With gunner stamina, the turned gun can give squid a trifecta for a brief moment.  I'm not too sure if I'm for this or not, due to the fact that a gat + banshee + tar barrel is a rather hellish combo when pulled off in regular play.  The angle may make it harder to jockey in that tar...or might make it easier...I rarely use the rear gun in normal play as it is.

The speed might be good if the rear gun change happens, due to most squids flying straight at first.
Just wait for the generation of reverse flying Squids now...

• Lochnagar Shot reduced clip size reduction to -60% from reduction to 1 shot, reduced damage increase from 62.5% from 125%, reduced rotation speed reduction to -70% from -90%, changed damage to gun model so that is deals proportional damage per shot until gun is destroyed e.g. if gun has 2 shots then each shot deals 50% damage vs a gun that has 4 shots were each shot deals 25% damage—to ensure that Lochnagar has use cases after Heavy Flak changes.

Charged rounds are better on heavy Flak due to the fact that they give half the damage, and don't break your gun and need a repair, so retaining their Rate of Fire.
The only two guns that seem to profit from new Loch, as stated in another thread, is Hades and, ironically, Flamethrower...overall, it can do more damage, but that's heavily negatable.

• Hwacha reduced projectile speed to 250m/s from 400m/s, decreased camera shake—to give receiving players more time to react to Hwacha volley.

Well...now this gun is more close range...no point trying to Heavy Clip Disable from a distance when your rounds now travel 60% of the distance they used to, which means instead of blowing up at 1200m, they'll blow up at 750m.
And saying that Most Hwatcha engagements are already in-your-face.

This one is tough to call really.  I'm a fan, and a hater of the Hwatcha...but I really miss having a good heavy-clip-disable from a long distance...mostly due to engagements with this gun always winding up being very close...(seriously, I could try to disable a gun or two with the feeble heavy clip from a distance, but how fast we're going, and they're going...by the time I get my hwatcha reloaded, they already repaired and are shooting...)

[BlackenedPies]

You need a balance moderator this is unacceptable

I love you guys, I want to be positive about you guys, but you keep making the same irrational, irritating mistakes over and over and it pisses me off.

You've done well with the support of a community, but you're skating on thin ice. You guys can't keep leaving balance to the whims of this amateur, it's going to destroy your company.

Stop wasting our time

[Dementio]

This calls for some "I need to post random stuff about the stuff that is being changed, without having the ability to test said stuff in an environment where it should be tested!"-post! Which just includes a bit of my impression regarding the changes:

So nobody wanted the Spire to be nerfed and the conclusion from the feedback was to nerf it, sounds great. An increase of armor, as has been suggested before me, to 500 or so would propably work well with this nerf, as the Spire would still be flankable, but not die instantly if the reactions and player skill on that Spire are on a decent level.

That poor Mercury/Hades bifecta on the Mobula, it is not getting easier, but I don't disagree with the changes made to the ship. I just don't like the idea that two or so of my 20+ Mobula builds cannot be executed anymore, or at least not so smoothly.

Glad the gun thing on the Squid was addressed properly and not ridiculously, but does it really need a speed buff? Can we give the increase of 1.34m/s^2 from the forward/backward acceleration to the Pyramidion instead? You know, a ship that actually needs it even with a hull buff?

The change to the Pyramidion doesn't make it more of a ram ship, it makes it more of a fat-butt with a pointy nose hopping over to the enemy ship, hoping to get a body slam going and not miss it, because the anatomy of a butt does not allow for easy repositioning and no matter how fat that butt gets, it will always die due to its inability to react in any way once the enemy decides to move an inch. That sounds way more angry than I meant it to be, but I believe it gets the message accross, somehow at least.

My beloved harpoon. The one thing that I want is for it to toggle "reel-in-mode" by clicking right click, so a crew member doesn't have to waste time sitting on a gun while holding down the right mouse button for 7 seconds, which doesn't even take skill, while he could be doing something more impactful, like shooting a gun that actually does damage or repair the ship. I mean, the harpoon does have impact, but more often than not it will move the own ship out of arcs, meaning there are likely two guys that can't shoot, but can't repair either because the guy that is supposed to repair is also the guy with the task to quickly get on the harpoon. Within those 7 seconds your can ship easily get destroyed. But maybe that is just me.

[VomAct]

Lochnagar Shot reduced clip size reduction to -60% from reduction to 1 shot, reduced damage increase from 62.5% from 125%, reduced rotation speed reduction to -70% from -90%, changed damage to gun model so that is deals proportional damage per shot until gun is destroyed e.g. if gun has 2 shots then each shot deals 50% damage vs a gun that has 4 shots were each shot deals 25% damage—to ensure that Lochnagar has use cases after Heavy Flak changes.

But muh Loch mines!   

Spire reduced turn acceleration to 10d/s2 (from 15), reduced top turn speed to 8d/s from 12—to make it easier for other ships to flank the Spire.

Not really sure this is necessary, Spires seem to be in a decent spot right now, and probably don't need to be nerfed.

Squid back gun turn inwards (towards right side of ship) 40 degrees from 0—to make it easier for less experienced players to use the Squid in normal play.
Squid increased forward/backward acceleration to 8m/s2 (from 6.66)—to make it easier for the Squid to change position and react effectively in close range combat.

Definitely not my favorite adjustment.  Squids are one of the few ships in the game that have a relatively high skill ceiling and these changes seemed entirely focused on lowering that, by making an already fast ship faster and much easier to get bifecta on.

[GurasOguras]

Pyramidion seems to be good enough, though I would still vote to add a little bit of armour to compensate for how easy it will get to outmanouver it, especially for that new squid. Spire will suffer from too many ships countering it (squid, galleon, mobula, junker, maybe even hwachafish) I know you dont want hwachaspire to turn too quickly and shoot back at flanker, but there are other heavy guns often used aswell. It would be good to compensate it with something else. People don't use spire often in current meta anyway but if you really insist then watch out to not turn it into another thing like what pyramidion has become in current patch. H.Carro is overnerfed. Restore its arcs back so we can see it on the spire back again and to compensate using lochnagar on it.

[Solidusbucket]

Right now i feel like 5/7 ships are balanced.

The pyramidion needs a buff to hull, armor, and acceleration.
The spire needs a buff to armor and gun arcs.

The mobula is fine but could use a nurf to armor and buff to its hull.

Thoughts?

[DrTentacles]

Nerf the ship that sees 0 legit competitive play.

Still a great idea.

[Richard LeMoon]

Hades Funhouse is no longer valid. All the meta builds are still easy. I refuse to fly the meta builds, so will not be using the Mobula any more if these changes come to pass. All this is doing is eliminating the fringe builds with super tight arcs. *shrug*

[BlackenedPies]

All the meta builds are still easy. I refuse to fly the meta builds, so will not be using the Mobula any more if these changes come to pass. All this is doing is eliminating the fringe builds with super tight arcs.

Yeah it doesn't address why mobula is OP or even really affect the skill cap. It's just restrictive and harder on new players. The most asinine balance change I recall

But at least Keyvias' hades double banshee wasn't harmed

[Dementio]

One of the Mobula's strengths is its ability to use multiple ranges with ease, because arcing guns is no problem. Making it harder for non-artemis guns to stay in arc might make it weaker to close range, if people go double artemis with a Gatling on the wing top deck. This may also be an indirect buff to the Minotaur, as it now needs less force to disrupt gun arcs completely. If we buff the Spire after nerfing its speed, I can see it  being a risky, but viable counter, if you put the Minotaur on it, but that may also be wishful thinking.

[HelFyre]

This would make that spire stronger, for example, though this is a fringe case- given the difficulty of use (a mobula with first strike advantage would be a lot more deadly than a minospire with first strike, given the minotaur's slow turning speed when slightly damaged, and the nature of the spire. I don't see the need for detailed analysis of this one case..

I want to make a detailed post with regard to all of the changes, resources need to be gathered though, if anyone is interested in the problems with the mobula changes, though most of it boils down to the mobula being near useless at close range against close range ships, and the restriction to meta builds whilst we were beginning to see a plethora of new, interesting mobula builds in both public and competitive matches.
Just to clarify, at higher levels, close ranges ships like the fish (not the pyramidion) will be able to approach mobulas with fair ease without too much danger, at which point the mobulas will be too vulnerable with the modified gun arcs (they already lose 1v1 against a fish at the higher levels of play, it would just be more difficult). [Insert tedious explanation of last point with information about gatling and explosive weapon(flak, banshee) gun arcs here upon request]. The exact same argument applies for lower level play, with a different explanation for the points made.
At mid level play, I am not entirely sure, though I don't think we see enough mobulas to induce this change. Even if it in some way improved play at this level (which I don't think it would), it wouldn't be worth the trade-off for the current complexity of viable mobula builds currently available, and its effects on mobula numbers in both higher and lower levels of play. I think this is a very bad proposed change for the game in general.

I'll post later about the other things, though the other change that really bugs me is the lochnagar one, since it's not a viable ammo choice for anything but the minotaur, and it spoils current builds, in particular the carronade fish (which isn't really considered overpowered or such), and drastically weakens lochnagar mines.

I agree with most of the feedback here, other than that concerning the squid, and whatever Solidus said 

[Richard LeMoon]

After everyone mulls their thoughts over, make sure to email them to Muse. They don't read the forum much.

[Ayetach]

They do Richard, but they are also a small team so they won't always be able to get to every single post (especially the ones that count) so it is much better to email since me & Matt personally see to that those feedback emails make it into the discussions when reviews are made on these changes.

[nanoduckling]

Does no one at Muse know how to characterise non-linear systems?

I'm not bothered by any of the changes in particular here, and some changes I get are being made the make qualitative changes in how the game is played (the loch change for instance). Those are going to be big and need constant balancing and there is nothing else for it. But once again we have nerfs and buffs which elevate some ships by absurd degrees and pound others into the dirt. If you want to characterise a non-linear system you need to make small changes. This is especially true when testing the system. You need to do this even if you think a component of the system is seriously out of whack because small changes in non-linear systems can have a big impact.

The pyra buff is a 150/550~=30% change in hull health before we ignore the effect of the other adjustment. It is also a de facto admission that the pyra was massively over-nerfed in the last meta-shifting patch, which is what every single tester said at the time. 30% is not small. 30% plus other changes is really not small. I have no idea how to interpret any of the feedback on this because it will take me 4-6 weeks of theorycraft and testing to work out what impact such a radical metashift will have. As an aside if this was pushed in its current form I'd be pretty darn annoyed that once again I'm having to learn the top tier play all over again for what should be small balance fixes.

Learning how to use stamina I'm fine with. Learning what might be an interesting new loch mechanic I'm fine with. Relearning the whole meta without substantial qualitatively new problems to solve just wont be interesting.

As a final note, a squid buff? And a double squid buff at that. The squid is a popular and effective competitive ship with several top tier pilots considering it their signature ship. Buffing it because novices don't spend enough time in the blastyard with it before taking it out is going to make competitive play less interesting. I'm not especially happy about that.