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GUNS Balance Questions and Concerns v1.2

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HamsterIV:
Even after the carronade angle nerf the weapon remains a viable galleon/spire killer. The balloons on those ships are so high above the main gun deck that a squid or goldfish can park in the pocket level to the balloon but above the fire arc of non lumberjack medium guns and go to town. It is extreamly difficult to get in position and stay there, but it is possible. I see the nerf as a piloting challenge. I don't particularly like it since in a game of Vets the carronade primary weapon is very rarely a viable strategy, but I can see how newbies would get sick of getting stuffed into the ground with no way of retaliating.

RearAdmiralZill:
It's like the fire nerf to me. I didn't really see a need to nerf it, so the fact it had been was kind of confusing to me. I'll even go so far to say that fire was more of an issue than carronades seemed to be. The trick was always first have a lot of altitude to begin with, and to get under the boat trying to lock you down.

Of course, in something like a galleon, that's nigh impossible, but an unsupported Galleon is like sending a battleship in to fight a squadron of torpedo bombers alone. You coordinate and get past it. The range of the carronade alone is debilitating enough i thought, when compared to even a hwacha.

I realize its now a pilot's challenge, but I'm obviously missing why it needed to be made harder in the first place.

HamsterIV:
I listened to this talk on good game design. One of the things that stuck with me is that in a multiplayer game like this an ability/mechanic has to be both fun to use and fun to be used on. In the case of the carronade it is fun to use because you can take an opponent out of the fight, but it is not fun to have used on you since there is no way to retaliate once the enemy ship is in position (calling for help doesn't count). Now that the carronade requires the attacking ship to be almost level with the balloon it is possible for the defending ship to ram the attacking ship by suddenly changing direction. Thus the mechanic  becomes similar to bull riding where the squid (cowboy) tries to stay in position and the galleon (bull) tries to shake them off. Hopefully fun will be had by all.

Either that or I am trying to rationalize a stupid decision made by devs who are drunk off their own power.

MetaFive:

--- Quote from: RearAdmiralZill on May 13, 2013, 03:24:54 pm ---It's like the fire nerf to me. I didn't really see a need to nerf it, so the fact it had been was kind of confusing to me.

--- End quote ---

That's actually a very apt analogy, because I feel like they were both changed for the same reason: to add more design space. (This is just my postulation, I obviously can't speak for Awkm here)

The carronade was always balanced on a razor's edge because there are two important factors to consider:

A. It needs to be able to keep a ship's balloon suppressed even against repair efforts, and drive a ship into the ground under its own power. If it doesn't, it's of no use as a weapon.
B. It needs to be able to give the opponent a reasonable chance at counterattacking or otherwise recovering. If it doesn't, it's a game-breaking weapon.

Between them, there isn't a lot of 'wiggle room' to balance the carronade. Previously, one could consider making it weaker, but then you risk botching point A; and every point of damage you add to it complicates issue B exponentially. But, since it presently can't point downward to pop an enemy ship's balloon while remaining out of range of any sort of counterattack, Issue B is now far less of a factor. And consequentially this opens up a lot more room to work with the carronade as a weapon. Not only does it make it so that its use has higher risk, but it means that it can also be given higher reward. Heck, now that engagement against a carronade-ship is more of a direct option, this means it could actually be made stronger and faster in doing what it does- do you think we, as a playerbase have ever even considered that as a reasonable possibility before?

Similarly, the changes to the way fire worked did more than just reel back the damage and effectiveness of flamethrowers; they made it so that fire had more factors involved in how it would impact a battle. And with each of those factors comes another way to make it work in a way conducive to good gameplay and good game balance.

And, like I'd said before, I consider both the changes to be incomplete solutions; but thanks to the fact that they're there, we can now look at fire and say, for example, "hmm, what if the amount of stacks to disabling a gun was raised/lowered/dependent on the weight class of the weapon"- something that would have been impossible if it had the binary effectiveness it had before- or look at a carronade and say "What if it popped balloons faster and forced enemies to disengage quicker/did more shatter damage to help slow down counterattacks/had a wider arc to make flybys more of a possibility and still give the enemy a chance to retaliate"- something that wouldn't have just been ridiculous if you were still able to fire it at a ship from high up and practically out of range.

The important thing about both changes is that they've opened up these possibilities, and brought about new ways to improve the game.

RearAdmiralZill:
I see where you are trying to go with it, but something doesn't sit right with your analysis. You're basically telling me they have left me with a half-baked idea in my lap to use, which I wouldn't want to believe. Sure it open up more possibilities, like more shatter to break the guns that can now easily find you as you try taking them out, but then why wasn't that added along with the patch?

The risk with a carronade was never low. At least not for me. It takes a lot of positioning and sometimes brute force to get yourself in range to even start being effective. Then you have to maintain that position, a lot of times with their ally giving you funny looks with their guns.

God forbid you add more damage to a carronade's ability to pop balloons. It takes 2-3 shots currently. That would mean closer to 1-2, which is a clip size. Then its raycast, so missing isn't typical. The only thing I couls see adding to it is more shatter, which is dangerous because then you just clip their engines and lock them that way, which is stomping on hwacha's territory. You're left with its balloon killing power, and armor stripping to a lesser degree. Well killing the balloon happens fast enough, its just the arc that will kill you because you won't kill them fast enough. They will ignore the fact the balloon is gone and hit you till you have to bail. So that leaves the armor shredding. Up the armor modifier and then you go in for a ram kill? Maybe, but you will probably get more OP calls from that vs the way it was previous to the arc nerf. It's a possibility though, but I'd like to think they would of added that along with the arc nerf if that's what they really wanted. Not leave it halfway.

I get where you are trying to go with this, but I can't wrap my head around them patching it half way to see what happens. It comes off as a nerf.

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