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Loch changes and effect on overall gameplay

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Eldarion Telcontar:
So, I found out the loch ammo changes finally went live today.  They've had a relatively interesting and overall detrimental effect on the game.

For starters, if you aren't prepared to cycle through several lobbies waiting for experienced crew members and an experienced ally without running you will die.  Repeatedly, quickly, no two ways around it.  This is because the loch buff has left zero margin for error.  Prior to the buff when armor went down you could still generally recover, especially if you were a halfway decent pilot.  Now, If your engineer cannot keep your hull up at all times, you die.  If your gunner doesn't know how to deal maximum DPS with whatever arc you have, you die. This has immediately made the game very unfriendly to new players, and it's made it very unfun for vets as you can either spend 30 minutes lobby stacking (against any new players on your team) or have a 90% probability of a loss.

Secondly, it's placed a heavy emphasis on sniping matches.  I hate sniping matches, always have and always will.  Personal preference, yes, but I suspect locking the game into two basic strategies (snipe and pubstomp) is going to make other people unhappy as well.

Third, the changes seem to amplify any difference in crew member / ally skill level versus the other team into a match deciding factor.  Typically this has come down to pilot decisions such as ship loadout and overall strategy / ally coordination.  Now the matches are decided almost purely by crew member and ally skill level; to paraphrase "the only winning strategy is not to play".

Finally, it's really amplified the discrepency between the time spent playing "Lobbies of Icarus" and actually playing a match (tedious 50 minute sniping sessions where the environment decides the victor excluded).  Something needs to be done to lower the lobby times.  Perhaps a "AI crew" mode where all ships agree to give up two slots to AI in exchange for a balanced, faster start?

P.S.  I'm also seeing a sudden spike in captain and crew ragequits since this change.  Perhaps this indicates even more strongly that something is now way, way out of whack.... :o

DJ Logicalia:
I disagree on it putting an emphasis in sniping. It changes the brawl meta, but long range is relatively unchanged

That being said, the loch changes are disastrous as a whole

DrTentacles:
I'm not playing until Loch is fixed.

Eldarion Telcontar:

--- Quote from: DJ Logicalia on March 19, 2016, 10:40:20 pm ---I disagree on it putting an emphasis in sniping. It changes the brawl meta, but long range is relatively unchanged

--- End quote ---

Yeah, and I guess my point was mostly that if you don't like the new brawl meta (who really wants to spend half an hour hunting around for good players per match) your only other option is sniping.  Since sniping also requires good players, all the sudden it's very difficult to just hop on with a couple of friends and have something that isn't going to lead to an instant loss.  That's not even bringing up the fact that as a direct result of these changes no one can tolerate new players on their team unless the other team has basically the same number of new players per ship....


--- Quote from: DrTentacles on March 19, 2016, 10:42:07 pm ---I'm not playing until Loch is fixed.

--- End quote ---

Yeah, that was my conclusion as well.  If Muse doesn't unwind this soon I guess I'd best start hunting for a new game to play; it's a shame because I always enjoyed the skill based aspect of this game from a pilot perspective. :'(

Alette Pegasus:
I agree. I admit I had a lot of fun with loch gats and mortars as a gunner today, but I was flying all with experienced players on my team. As soon as I tried flying as a captain with a couple novice engineers and a novice teammate, I was dying left, right, and sideways.

And as you said in a separate conversation, it does make it basically pointless to have a gunner in a lot of situations. It's simple to keep the light guns repaired (as long as they aren't destroyed on the first shot, like a Merc) and the range is better, the recoil is better, and the damage is insane compared to other ammo types.

As much fun as it was, I think loch either needs to be removed from light guns, or have the damage dealt to the weapon itself increased.

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