Hating the Minotaur

[Clockeye]

Im playing for quite some time now, amd one thing hit me. Noone uses minotaur.
I didnt yet have anyone to ask about it, so Im writing here.
Whats wrong woth that weapon? Am I just lucky enough not to meet a captain that likes it, or is
it a regular thing to hate the weapon?
Does it have any horrible side efects?

[Daft Loon]

Fanatical Minotaur proponent here, with oddly the main reasons not to use the Minotaur.

-On average its less effective than choosing another heavy gun

-Its very difficult to use, hard to aim, slow to turn and slow to fire, the wrong choices of ammo cripple it horribly etc

-Because its relatively new and weak fewer people know how to use it, making the previous point worse

-When it is used too well it can absolutely ruin the match for the opposing team, pushing them around the map until the eventually die, so those of us who don't want to be too mean try to avoid that too

-Those of us who do want to be really mean use mines instead

-Any idiot can negate the push effect of the Minotaur by using kerosene/moonshine and the stupidly high mass of the pyramidion (mass is used in the games background calculations to resolve collisions and the effects of mines, Minotaur hits and harpoons)

-0% of idiots can do the same to a well used minelauncher

Reasons to use it

-Its not the Hwacha or Gatling + Mortar

-It can break the front gun on a goldfish and turn it backwards at the same time

-Using lochnagar it can potentially deal 810 armor damage in 2 shots (Galleon has 800)

-At least its better than the harpoon (I dream of the day when a balance patch makes the push-pull Mino-poon spire a workable ship)

[Clockeye]

Woah, thanx a lot for such quick reply!
To be honest, I'm surprised to see that many negatives. Do they plan to somehow balance it in the future?
IT's also really tempting to master it. Not that I'd like to be a b-hole, but I kindof like investing my time in weapons
that are hard to aim and such

Still struggling with Lumberjack >.<

[MightyKeb]

As a moderate hater of mino, the real problem with it is that it doesn't fit into some of the game's fundamental mechanics. Hwacha is noob tube and more or less the meta heavy gun when you're in doubt, a good lumberjack is overpowered and only held back by the glaring weaknesses of the ships that can mount it but even so, Hwacha interacts with the engines, which pilot need, which crew can help with, and LJ interacts with the balloon ; which again, pilot needs and engies can interact with.

Mino screws with the ship's position - which pilot needs, but the crew can't help with. Repeatedly malleting engines on full kero under mino fire is still the same thing as just repeatedly malleting engines on full kero. It affects the pilot much more personally than it does the crew, and doesn't provide the crew anything interesting to challenge their engineering abilities with. A new component that could determine the stability of the ship/determine mino's effectiveness at the given time would be nice I guess, but it could make the game more complicated.

Another one is the unfortunate direction it takes you in. LJ pushes you down - you eventually hit the ground and die. Mines push you around in almost any direction given the angle and do a substantial amount of damage/fire stacks - you eventually either die from the repeated mines or get knocked into something. Mino just does the forward/backward push as opposed to the up/down of LJ. Because of how relatively safe going forwards/backwards in this game is due to map designs, if you're not in canyons/paritan and have a decent distance with the nearest terrain, Mino can push you around indefinitely and -still- not get the kill for doing well.

Going by these I'm under the belief that in most cases, Mino only exists to stall the game, which I usually don't like doing.


rant over.

[Solidusbucket]

The mino feels like a support weapon to me. However, that is really all it can be used for.

Ill give you other weapons I feel are support weapons:
artemis
mercury
harpoon
mines
lumberjack


I feel these weapons are support weapons because they alter the course of the game by breaking components necessary for maneuvering and shooting. However, except for the harpoon, these weapons also have the capacity to cause a target to blow up.

The minotaur has the ability to break armor, but the ship has to be very close for it to work. Another weapon choice is more comforting at the range needed for armor breaks with the minotaur (hwatcha for spire, carronade or hwacha for galleon, and hwacha or carronade for goldfish).

It is not a bad weapon. IMO it simply does not do enough damage to be viable. I can't say increasing its ability to strip armor would be a balanced option but I will say that if it could strip armor the same way a mercury or gatling does then you would probably see it on the right side of a galleon more frequently or even a spire armed with light flaks.

[Spud Nick]

Im playing for quite some time now, amd one thing hit me. Noone uses minotaur.
I didnt yet have anyone to ask about it, so Im writing here.
Whats wrong woth that weapon? Am I just lucky enough not to meet a captain that likes it, or is
it a regular thing to hate the weapon?
Does it have any horrible side efects?

Players want to use weapons that are more effective at the disable role. Hwacha and the artemis provide more disable power than the mino. The mino is more of a disruptor weapon than a disabling one.

[Clockeye]

Thanx a lot for your comments! Now the Minotaur mystery is preety much solved to me ^^
I still find it weird as what you gentleman describe sounds like an imbalanced annoy-inducing weapon.
Do you think they are gonna fix it? And if yes, then in what way? Nerf it, or change it's properties?
Depending on the upgrade, it could end up either as a reverse harpoon, or an easier version of Lumberjack.

[Solidusbucket]

Honestly, if they made the minotaur a light gun it would probably see a lot of use. Again, it would probably cause some balance issues and it would definitely make us lose a heavy gun.

[Clockeye]

And what if they made it for example, dealing less damage but keep the blow?
It could also be like even harder to shoot.

I know it's not a threat for ideas, but I don't want to start a whole new threat if I'm not yet experence enough ^^;

[Daft Loon]

Looking at some of the previous versions of the Minotaur gives an idea of what probably won't work and what might (its had a few direct and indirect changes)

Initial release - Projectiles were much faster (800m/s compared to current 550m/s), armor damage was much lower (both per shot and over time), rate of fire was higher, knockback per shot was lower making knockback over time slightly lower overall, turning arcs were wider - 45 every way instead of 30. It was widely hated as OP because it could knock ships around and break components at considerable range (for reference at 800m/s its projectiles were faster than the mercury field gun at 750m/s).

It got nerfed heavily within a month - Speed dropped from 800m/s to 350m/s, shatter damage (gun and engine) dropped from 35 to 28. The reduced speed made it really hard to hit with because although other guns have a similar speed they have visible projectiles allowing gunners to correct their aim.

Heavy clip got nerfed - Minotaur lost even more of its long range capability, Hwacha got buffed to 'compensate' for the change meaning even less reason to use a Minotaur instead.

Minotaur got overall buffed but lost some things - Stats were changed to their current state, damage and knockback increased significantly, rate of fire decreased (not so much as to cancel out the buffs), turning arcs were reduced, shot scatter was increased and shot speed increased to the 550m/s middle ground. The loss of turning arcs killed my attempts at making Minotaur fish work since the side guns were now out of arc when the Minotaur was in, it also made it less useful as a defensive weapon on a galleon. Lochnagar became useful for long range sniping due to the increased damage and speed and its -100% scatter.

Lochnagar changed - Minotaur got 2 shots instead of 1 meaning it can do some serious damage but the scatter reduction went from -100% to -60% (the difference being between mostly hitting the ship and entirely hitting one of its guns)


My preferred option for balancing the Minotaur

-Reduce scatter from 3.5 degrees to somewhere around 2, this will increase its range, damage and knockback in practical effect

-Reduce knockback more than needed to compensate for the above, if the Minotaur becomes widely used while having a high knockback it will be hated, knockback should be a secondary effect

-Increase turning arcs back to 45 degrees so it can be used on goldfish again, increase turning speed somewhat to match