GUNS Balance Questions and Concerns v1.2

[Squash]

No you understood wrong. He was hitting us with double carrorade, but when Zil went against your team with the same build, Captain Smollet was hitting Zil with hawacha and LJ and that is an anthithesis for Blender-Galleon.

Smollett did? I'll have to rewatch that.

[Mattilald Anguisad]

No you understood wrong. He was hitting us with double carrorade, but when Zil went against your team with the same build, Captain Smollet was hitting Zil with hawacha and LJ and that is an anthithesis for Blender-Galleon.

Smollett did? I'll have to rewatch that.

Sorry thought he was piloting the galleon.

[Squash]

I'll be honest I didn't really understand the quad carronade thing, I've never really had any success with it, what's the principle?

[Ofiach]

Squash... just stick to your dickhead build! I'll figure out a way to beat it eventually! XD

[Mattilald Anguisad]

I'll be honest I didn't really understand the quad carronade thing, I've never really had any success with it, what's the principle?

You basicaly gat/flak galleon that can pop baloons at the same time. At least that's what impression I got from being on the receiving end. 2 heavy carrorades should be able to chew thru pyra armor and baloon faster than pyra's gat will chew thru galleon's armor (also forces the guy on flat to help with repair). Zil should know best what the exact idea behind that build of his was.

[Squash]

You're right Mattiland that actually does make sense, thanks!

[RearAdmiralZill]

I'll be honest I didn't really understand the quad carronade thing, I've never really had any success with it, what's the principle?

At first it was an experiment to see if it was even feasible. Once I got that out of the way, I started considering the strategy behind it. Pretty much, it shreds balloon's and hull armor pretty fast. This sends engineer's everywhere. Don't forget the shatter too, so you can still disable guns. Since it's raycast, you can move full throttle, and still hit shots, thus making you a harder target. I put a flak on the top left for kill shots once armor goes.

[Squash]

That week we were working a lot on a light carronade double manticore combo, hoping the light carronade would get quick raspberries, we would of brought it but then we came up with our harpoon strategy.

[Machiavelliest]

Raspberries?  You mean butt soup.

It has always frustrated me that there aren't enough hits from either carronade to really make that shatter effective.

[Twido]

I have a suggestion for improving the balance of guns that may not be popular with veteran players. I have only been playing for a week though so I fully accept that I could be wrong or it is not the direction people want the game to go in.

I would slightly normalise the weapon damage against different components matrix. That is to say, taking flak for example, increase its effect against armour but reduce its ability against exposed hull. Currently, there are a lot of guns available, but it doesn't really feel like you have much choice if you want to be competitive. I am finding the gat/flak combo to be too effective to leave behind and try something more interesting.

It could be argued that this lowers the skill cap because at the moment it is vital that you chose the right gun for the job and the captain brings that gun to bare. Such a change would lessen the importance of this decision making process. Personally, I don't think it does reduce the skill cap; I don't think choosing the right gun to shoot at the right component is as an important skill has engaging in the correct manor and range for the type of guns being used by you and your opponent. Currently I feel the damage multipliers are just a little too large and too many guns are counter intuitively poor in too many situations, I am not advocating drastic changes.

The main benefit as I see it would be to improve diversity among the ship load outs. I know that there are very successful exceptions, but most successful ships seem to be using the same guns. The worst thing is new players getting grief for not running with the "correct" set up. New players are the lifeblood of any game and such elitism very off putting.

Anyway, these are my thoughts after limited play time. My aim with this post was not to insist that my ideas are the best and the game should be changed to cater for me, but rather spark some more debate on the issue.

Thanks for reading!

[RearAdmiralZill]

I would slightly normalise the weapon damage against different components matrix. That is to say, taking flak for example, increase its effect against armour but reduce its ability against exposed hull. Currently, there are a lot of guns available, but it doesn't really feel like you have much choice if you want to be competitive. I am finding the gat/flak combo to be too effective to leave behind and try something more interesting.

While gat/flak might be one of the most direct approach to getting kills, it certainly isn't the only option. I haven't ran a gat/flak on my pyra for....quite awhile.

It could be argued that this lowers the skill cap because at the moment it is vital that you chose the right gun for the job and the captain brings that gun to bare. Such a change would lessen the importance of this decision making process.

And that pretty much sums up why I disagree with the idea of making all the guns average at roughly everything. And not just from a skill level, but also a tactical one. Currently, you can come up with plenty of strategies with the many guns available. Team strategy with both your crew and fellow captains opens a lot of possibility. I think the gat/flak is so prominent because it's a very direct way to be self-sufficient. Some strategies involve 2-3 boats working together to achieve kills rather than everyone fending for themselves. Problem is that getting total strangers to listen to you is hard on the internet, lol.

You're welcome to join any of my matches to see that gat/flak is not your only option to win, and that pyramidions aren't an invincible force taking over the galaxy. They have their place of course, but you don't always need a gat/flak boat to take on another gat/flak.

Thanks for posting your thoughts though. I try to offer my disagreement in the nicest way possible.

[Letus]

In response to Zill, granted I still use a gat, but I'm getting more aquainted with using a mortar...why not?  Probably wind up ramming you in a Pyramidion anyways, might as well go for max DPS.

Even a gat-gat pyramidion can be brutal in happenstance...imagine that ship tearing out your armour while a hwatcha fish disables you and a flak fish snipes you....
You can try to focus onto the Flak fish to take out the massive damage, but you'd still have the insane disability power of the hwatcha that would be covering them, and toppled with a double gat pyarmidion...well....

you won't have fun.

Still keeping my Carronade-Flame Squid, though...flaregun back.

[awkm]

Ummm WHAT? 2 LJ's rip hull armor faster than 2 gats can! not to mention every permahull shot takes ~ 95 damage! I'm sorry but to bring the lumber in line it needs to lose 2 shells! it penalizes you for missing. and rewards you for hitting.

Congratulations! We have our new medium piercing weapon!

Before, the LJ only had 4 shots.  However, this was increased because most players could not hit with the LJ before their clip ran out.  The first few shots were always used as gauging ones.  I don't have plans changing this because it doesn't seem like a lot of other players are using the LJ in this manner be it difficulty or what.  Until it becomes an issue, when a lot of players are abusing it, then there is no reason for me to change it.

Until then, I applaud your skill with it and please continue to ruin people's days with it.

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Can we move seriously in-depth meta discussions to another thread?  Please?  I know it's hard but I want this thread to be clean.  Meaning if there are a lot of replies that means I'm fucking up somewhere.  So seeing my inbox pile up with notification emails makes me poop my pants.  I love the discussion that y'all are having but it's getting too off topic for my purposes.

Here is what to do:
—If someone posts a balance concern and there are fewer than 3 replies addressing that specific concern (not counting me) then please go ahead and post your thoughts
—If you see that a concern has more than 3 comments towards it, please spawn a new thread and post a link to it.

This is the exact reason why I wanted threaded and collapsible forums like Reddit.   Alas, I am not in charge of managing the forums so it's not my call.  So please respect  the brevity of this thread.  It makes my life easier to hunt down your actual concerns.  14 pages is a lot of stuff to read.

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I would slightly normalise the weapon damage against different components matrix.

Regardless if old players like it a lot (for the record I do a lot of things old players don't like), I don't think I will normalize the damage matrix.  It was rather normalized in previous versions but over many many iterations and live testing since the release of the game, we have arrived here.  In fact, drastically skewed damages is what I think the proper thing to do is in a first pass for damage matrices.  It makes balance easier and more clear, weapons don't tend to overlap in rolls, and potentially allows for more depth and build choices.

On top of the new ship movement model, I think there are enough options at play.  Again, in order to kill a ship a Gatling is the most obvious choice (lack of piercing already noted).  The next obvious pair is Heavy Flak.  And in traditional deathmatch, especially in tournament play, players will use this build (or swap gat for Field Gun) and stay at distance.  It is risk averse.

Other game modes and casual play in general will facilitate more risk and therefore stranger builds.

[Twido]

Thanks for posting your thoughts though. I try to offer my disagreement in the nicest way possible.

Thanks for your reply. As I said, I am reasonably new this game and therefore I join random groups rather than organised teams. I can see weapon selection being more diverse when you have a team strategy, but for random games it is very important to be self sufficient which often seems to translate as gat/flak. I can fully appreciate your point of view and admit that it is one I might share if I played in your meta.

Regardless if old players like it a lot (for the record I do a lot of things old players don't like), I don't think I will normalize the damage matrix.  It was rather normalized in previous versions but over many many iterations and live testing since the release of the game, we have arrived here.  In fact, drastically skewed damages is what I think the proper thing to do is in a first pass for damage matrices.  It makes balance easier and more clear, weapons don't tend to overlap in rolls, and potentially allows for more depth and build choices.

Thanks for your answer. As a newish player I don't have the benefit of having tried the earlier versions with more normalised damage and if those versions were not as good or diverse then I accept that. I still think there could be some benefit to a very very slight normalisation of the matrix, especially for newer players (that do not understand how the matrix works). I certainly would not like to see the matrix to be further skewed since many new captains will find themselves in situations where their guns are ineffective and this leads to frustration.

However it is normal for these games to change around and for balance to improve. This is in my opinion a very good game and further skewing the damage matrix is not going to ruin it for me at all!

[Queso]

Yeah moderating and discussing in these threads is a nightmare. We really should split more off into their individual gun or question threads.