Tanky Spire Beings for Wild Week!

[Ayetach]

Join us on Dev App to test out some wild designs! This week (13, Jan. 2017 - 15, Jan. 2017) featuring the Spire! Stat changes below:

New Spire:
- Armor: 900
- Hull: 700 (emphasis on keeping armor up, it is a lot of armor, more than Galleon)
- Turn: same
- Top speed: 24m/s
- Forward acceleration: same 4.5m/s2
- Vert accel: 6m/s2
- Top vert speed: same 17m/s
- Side guns fanned from 40 to 50, so more outwards

Old Spire:
- Armor: 400
- Hull: 950 (emphasis on keeping armor up, it is a lot of armor, more than Galleon)
- Turn: 12.08 deg/s
- Top speed: 28.01 m/s
- Forward acceleration: 4.50 m/s²
- Vert accel: 3.75 m/s²
- Top vert speed: 17.00 m/s
- Side guns fanned from 40 to 50, so more outwards

[Atruejedi]

For clarity (and because I used symbols!):

#TANKSPIRE:
- Armor: 900 HP (was 400)
- Hull: 700 HP (was 950)
- Acceleration: 4.50 m/s² (same)
- Max Turn Speed: 12.08 deg/s (same)
- Top speed: 24 m/s (was 28 m/s)
- Forward acceleration: 4.5 m/s² (same)
- Vertical acceleration: 6 m/s² (was 3.75 m/s²)
- Top vertical speed: 17 m/s (same)
- Side guns fanned outward from 40° to 50°

Personally, I'd like to see the top speed reduced further (to become the slowest ship in the game) and turning speed increased. I want a spinning death dreidel. Can I hashtag that? #SpinningDeathDreidel?

Pre-testing session thoughts:

50° is too much. It disallows FlakSpire with Double Gat and Heavy Flak. I think 45° is acceptable because the closer the enemy gets, the harder it will be to "cross the streams" with Gatling fire and hit him. But, honestly, I don't think gun arcs need changed.

[Byron Cavendish]

Holy shit! It took like 3 years, but you guys finally came around. I agree on the arcs though, what is even the point of that? What is with Eric and ridiculous gun arcs nowadays?

[BlackenedPies]

Rule of thumb: don't touch arcs. It makes gat/flak no longer viable for pubs. It hurts new players and limits gun choices without affecting balance. More unique ships become nonviable while metas remain unchanged, or creates a new meta

A 60% buff to vert accel is excessive. For reference, squid vert accel is 4 m/s2, and this gives spire by far the best vertical in the game (all ships have the same top vert speed). I thought a buffed balloon and hydro made you shoot up like a rocket before, but now you don't even need a buff. Spire can already outmaneuver most ships in close range, less it's awkward profile, but now it's much easier to dodge and juke ships, if it wasn't already easy enough before. Top speed nerf is fine. 900 HP is huge, a 225% increase, and more than a galleon (800). Now you buff the hull and maybe even bring up another engi when necessary, whereas before you rarely buffed hull and almost never had another engi on hull

Previously, the spire was weak to kill and disable, now it's only weak to disable. In short, reduce the severity of the changes. If it needs more vert accel, buff it 10-20%. If it needs less hull and more armor, nerf 20% buff 30%, or anything but 50+%, which is overly excessive. Small but important changes have big effects. Top speed nerf is good but do not touch the arcs

[Dementio]

I pretty much agree with BlackenedPies, like the direction of a tanky Spire, but want to add something that may turn out to be a big deal: If it really should be a tanky Spire, it needs more hull or keep its old value, otherwise it will always die during the first armor break, because it will take too long to rebuilt the armor. Don't forget, the more health a component has, the longer it takes to be rebuilt.

[Rareform K. Rozhkov]

oh

[Richard LeMoon]

Holy shit! It took like 3 years, but you guys finally came around. I agree on the arcs though, what is even the point of that? What is with Eric and ridiculous gun arcs nowadays?

That is on me. My original set of stats was "Yup. Make it the slowest ship with the highest armor and weight. Galleon be damned. Spire is made out of metal, not flimsy Galleon wood. Metal I tells ye! Armor to 850 or whatever 11 spanner hits is. Health to 1500. Raise the mass to 330 tons. Raise the vert to 6m/s2. Leave the turning alone. And finally, fan the side guns out to 45 to 50 deg. "

So, we got the 850 (well, 900) Armor. Exactly 11 hits. Feels fine. You don't have to rush to the hull the second you start taking damage. However....

Hull was dropped to 700 instead of raised to 1500. y u no understand tank? This combo of armor and hull forces you to run to the hull with 3 crew, hoping you can get the armor back up before your attacker eats the hull. This removes almost all crew from their places and puts your ship on the backpedal since you only have one mallet's worth of armor from then on. This turns it from a Spire Tank (SPANK) to a Spire Junker (Spunker). No one want to fly a Spunker. Double the hull before we do more tests, please. Moving on. 

The mass was not changed because that would mess with all of the thrust and movement formulas, so would have taken more time. I am fine with leaving it out.

We got the 6m/s2 vertical, which is great! Damn those Squids! You still get hit by almost everything aimed your general direction, but you can shift your guns out of Art/hwacha paths. This is a much needed game changer.

And we got the guns moved out to 50 degrees, which I admit is too much. 45 is likely too much. But it was worth trying.

[Solidusbucket]

The spire should get a second balloon so it looks more masculine.

[BlackenedPies]

[...]

Someone speaks Eric's language

To be clear, I don't think the spire needs a buff. It's powerful at brawling, highly maneuverable, and easy to repair. If the spire does need a buff, don't go crazy and change stats by multiples. 30% is more than plenty. This doesn't change it's fundamental weaknesses - vulnerable to disable and easy to hit. You'll end up with an OP ship that'll get nerfed in subsequent patches and piss off the community again

[Richard LeMoon]

To be clear, I don't think the spire needs a buff. It's powerful at brawling, highly maneuverable, and easy to repair. If the spire does need a buff, don't go crazy and change stats by multiples. 30% is more than plenty.

Does the Spire need a buff playwise? No. It is fine as it plays, if it was a different ship. This is about testing a fundamental shift in its entire purpose to match its design. All the other ships pretty much play like they look they should. It looks like a Warrior/Paladin/Guardian, but acts like a Wizard. A very large, fat Wizard. That is very bad game design. Seriously, look at this and tell me it looks like a glass cannon.




Just the balloon guard has more metal and bracing than the entire Galleon. It has more structure and mass than the next three ships combined. It was a bad balance decision to not make it a tank on release. Then the guns pointing out at 90 degrees would not have mattered as much. We would be having the opposite discussion if people were suggesting nerfing the hull, pointing the guns all forward, and making it a glass cannon if it started out as the tank it is even described to be in the game lore.

Wild week is about taking player suggestions and testing them, not about upcoming changes. It is fan service to the "What if we....?"

[MightyKeb]

Wild week is about taking player suggestions and testing them, not about upcoming changes. It is fan service to the "What if we....?"

But the feedback was significantly better than the squid change, wasn't it? Wouldn't there be some chance that this could somehow be in the game with such demand?

[Richard LeMoon]

Could be. If we come up with something really game changing in a good way, there is no reason it should not make it into the game. If our "what if...?" stinks, then we can only rage at ourselves.

[Kestril]

I liked the direction of the spire changes. I just think it needs more Hull HP to be able to trade blows a little more after that armor goes down.

Spire as the "up and down galleon" is a good direction for the ship and gives it a role that is both useful and not covered by the other ships. I would love to see a tanky spire in game.