Guns Of Icarus Online
Main => Gameplay => Topic started by: treseritops on August 30, 2013, 01:18:45 pm
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Hey, I'm trying to see if we can sort the discussion from "Pyra is OP" to what seems to be the root of the problem: Kill ships vs. support ships.
As of right now
Kill Ships:
Pyra
Junker
Mobula (honorary support)
Spire (honorary support)
Support:
Goldfish
Galleon
Squid
The problem becomes that two of the kill ships (Mobula and Spire) are difficult to repair and made of glass, dreams, hopes, and kisses. No meat.
The balance issue is that 1v1 the kill ships can all kill each other, but during a 2v2 (the bulk of the match) they have to take more of a support role because if they get in the center of the brawl they can easily be focused and killed, leaving a teammate alone.
So you'd rather take Pyra/Support, or Junker/Support rather than Spire/support, or Mobula/support. I think this is the root of the "Pyra is OP" complaint.
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I think it's pretty simple, Piercing + Explosive takes out a ship very quickly. 2 ships with Piercing + Explosive take out a ship even quicker. Disabling is slower, missing a disabling shot has very dire consequences, and if your ally dies a disabling ship can rarely stand on it's own. Any ship that can make the most of Piercing + Explosive has an edge over all other ships in dps and efficiency.
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The balance issue is that 1v1 the kill ships can all kill each other, but during a 2v2 (the bulk of the match) they have to take more of a support role because if they get in the center of the brawl they can easily be focused and killed, leaving a teammate alone.
So you'd rather take Pyra/Support, or Junker/Support rather than Spire/support, or Mobula/support. I think this is the root of the "Pyra is OP" complaint.
Risk / Reward.
That's all it is about. Both the Pyramidion and the Junker are low risk / high reward ships since they can kill fast and provide solid support as well while being pretty durable.
The Mobula and the Spire can potentialy be better, but only on paper, in the real game, they just too weak and too easily disabled to have potential in a 2v2.
The Galleon's weaknesses are more than offset by its immense firepower hence why it's a brutal enemy with a good ally.
The Pyra is not OP, just overused because it's simple.
The Junker has way too many upsides with just 2 major weaknesses, its relatively 'slow' speed and weak hull, with the second one not realy mattering that much since in order to not die in one armor break you need a hull that will survive the burst of damage you will receive as long as your armor is down, only 2 ships realy can do that reliably so far and that's the Goldfish and the Galleon.
Here is a simple example (Caution, very basic.) of why focusing on disabling isn't realy as efficient as straight out kill builds:
Enemy team runs: 2 Kill
Your team runs: 1 Kill, 1 Disable
Enemy team has double the killing power. You have 1 disabling power though.
So in a normal fight if everything goes according to plan (Very rarely) you will disable on of their ships, meaning their kill power should be 1 instead of 2 for a short time. So basically you just slightly prolong the fight and rely on your ally to take them out.
Now if they take out your ally, even if you killed one of them they still have 1 killing power, you have 1 disable power, but because things aren't that simple, they can still kill you while you can't, so you will have to run away.
Not sure if my point made it across.. explaining it is hard. xC
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I think it's pretty simple, Piercing + Explosive takes out a ship very quickly. 2 ships with Piercing + Explosive take out a ship even quicker. Disabling is slower, missing a disabling shot has very dire consequences, and if your ally dies a disabling ship can rarely stand on it's own. Any ship that can make the most of Piercing + Explosive has an edge over all other ships in dps and efficiency.
Nidh is a superior ninja than I..
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I think it's pretty simple, Piercing + Explosive takes out a ship very quickly. 2 ships with Piercing + Explosive take out a ship even quicker. Disabling is slower, missing a disabling shot has very dire consequences, and if your ally dies a disabling ship can rarely stand on it's own. Any ship that can make the most of Piercing + Explosive has an edge over all other ships in dps and efficiency.
Nidh is a superior ninja than I..
Learned from the best :P
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The Junker has way too many upsides with just 2 major weaknesses, its relatively 'slow' speed and weak hull
And its bad vertical acceleration and oversized balloon, not to mention that it can't control the range of an engagement.
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I've done alright on Goldfish that go Hwacha/Gatling, where we fire the Hwacha once, swing to the side to take down their armor, then swing back when the Hwacha finishes its reload. Not the same punch as a Gat/Mortar setup, but it does the job.
I also flew a Gat/Flak Squid the other day that did fairly well, too. I think a lot of it has to do with the quality of your competition and what your secondary weapons are. I know I've survived extended periods while having a Heavy Carronade/Flamer Goldfish basically take free shots at me. They could keep popping my balloon, but as long as we were quick on repairs they couldn't finish us off. And Spire can totally do Piercing/Explosive with a Gatling/Heavy Flak combo- as long as you hang back and let the other ship(s) tank, you'll be swatting them out of the sky with no problem.
That's not to say a Pyra or Junker isn't straight-up better in a fair fight, just that you're not 100% useless when using other ships.
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I've done alright on Goldfish that go Hwacha/Gatling, where we fire the Hwacha once, swing to the side to take down their armor, then swing back when the Hwacha finishes its reload. Not the same punch as a Gat/Mortar setup, but it does the job.
I also flew a Gat/Flak Squid the other day that did fairly well, too. I think a lot of it has to do with the quality of your competition and what your secondary weapons are. I know I've survived extended periods while having a Heavy Carronade/Flamer Goldfish basically take free shots at me. They could keep popping my balloon, but as long as we were quick on repairs they couldn't finish us off. And Spire can totally do Piercing/Explosive with a Gatling/Heavy Flak combo- as long as you hang back and let the other ship(s) tank, you'll be swatting them out of the sky with no problem.
That's not to say a Pyra or Junker isn't straight-up better in a fair fight, just that you're not 100% useless when using other ships.
With the examples you give you're suggesting that one is not %100 useless when using a Piercing + Explosive combo, with no emphasis on support. The problem doesn't appear to be the ship you use, but Piercing + Explosive is the only combo that makes a ship reliable. The ships that can best exploit Piercing + Explosive reign supreme. That I think is the real problem. A true support setup that relies on giving your ally an edge, and not looking for a kill is just not as effective as outright killing the enemy ship.
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The Junker has way too many upsides with just 2 major weaknesses, its relatively 'slow' speed and weak hull
And its bad vertical acceleration and oversized balloon, not to mention that it can't control the range of an engagement.
Balloon buff solves the problem more than enough I think (also most ships have bad vertical acceleration anyways, so I do not consider that a legit downside, everyone and their mother knows default vertical is not fast enough for anything anyway in the heat of battle no matter which ship). Oversized balloon is just an exaggeration and the same thing goes for all ships with exposed balloons, basically every ship that isn't the Pyra. Balloon size helps the Junker if anything cause the moment you are lower than your enemy they will have to shoot your balloon, giving you a reliable shield. (Don't even bring up the LJ argument cause the Spire would like to have a word with you about 'oversized' balloons.)
I can't control the range of an engagement but it can reliably approach with a gun on the target, so it's half an issue, considering you can out manuver most ships close range cause of the ridiculous turning rate (which defies all laws of physics btw :P )
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1. I know I've survived extended periods while having a Heavy Carronade/Flamer Goldfish basically take free shots at me. They could keep popping my balloon, but as long as we were quick on repairs they couldn't finish us off.
2.. And Spire can totally do Piercing/Explosive with a Gatling/Heavy Flak combo- as long as you hang back and let the other ship(s) tank, you'll be swatting them out of the sky with no problem.
That's not to say a Pyra or Junker isn't straight-up better in a fair fight, just that you're not 100% useless when using other ships.
1. I think that's a perfect example. A goldfish without its kill ship can never win a match. I've been in games (although not in awhile) where people brought all support ships and after 10min of 0-0 I just quit. That match will never end until an engineer gets bored and forgets to repair the hull. In short, every death match is required to have at least one kill ship per team unless you have extraordinary teamwork which is not as common in a regular pick-up match.
2. But even then it's essentially a support ship where its support role is "killing". It's not the star of the show, it has to have another ship cover it. And so if your teammate goes down you're in trouble, not dead, but you're going to need to be on your toes compared to a pyra or junker.
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I have skipped the whole conversation merely to say that it does not matter what the ship is, merely the load out and the way the captain and crew use them. Squid can kill very easily, in fact, I find a well piloted Squid (Galleon right there with it) to be the most fearsome thing out there. Every ship can kill, every ship can support.
AND WHAT THE FRICK IS THIS THING ABOUT GALLEON BEING SUPPORT? Two Medium weapons and a Light weapon on one side and you say SUPPORT?
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I had good killing results with Galleon, Spire, Squid, Pyramidion, Mobula and Junker so far. Depends on map, gun loadout and teammate thought.
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I have skipped the whole conversation merely to say that it does not matter what the ship is, merely the load out and the way the captain and crew use them. Squid can kill very easily, in fact, I find a well piloted Squid (Galleon right there with it) to be the most fearsome thing out there. Every ship can kill, every ship can support.
AND WHAT THE FRICK IS THIS THING ABOUT GALLEON BEING SUPPORT? Two Medium weapons and a Light weapon on one side and you say SUPPORT?
Let's see..
Crappy manuverability, relatively slow, moving a lot causes your gunners to miss a shitton of shots, has a huge vertical and horizontal profile and is easily shut down by disablers unless you have an ally to take them off of you.
Yeah I think that is classified as support despite the firepower, by itself, the Galleon is easy prey.
and yet again, people are missing the point, it's not about ships, it's about piercing+explosive being the only reliable loadout choice with disables only coming in when you have 'enough' gun slots to afford them which completely screws over a lot of ships and loadout variety.
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and yet again, people are missing the point, it's not about ships, it's about piercing+explosive being the only reliable loadout choice with disables only coming in when you have 'enough' gun slots to afford them which completely screws over a lot of ships and loadout variety.
No, piercing+explosive isn't the only real thing to kill. I run carronades instead of piercing+explosive and use them with the same killing power. You just gotta know when to use what. Lumberjacks can be deadly too, much more reach than a piercing+explosive combo.
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I have skipped the whole conversation merely to say that it does not matter what the ship is, merely the load out and the way the captain and crew use them. Squid can kill very easily, in fact, I find a well piloted Squid (Galleon right there with it) to be the most fearsome thing out there. Every ship can kill, every ship can support.
AND WHAT THE FRICK IS THIS THING ABOUT GALLEON BEING SUPPORT? Two Medium weapons and a Light weapon on one side and you say SUPPORT?
I think the difference is "on paper" vs. "in a normal match" here. On paper a galleon, squid, or goldfish can mount a gatling gun and then use a flak, hwacha, or mortar to finish the job. In reality this tends to be much more difficult and less efficient than using the ship for support (don't worry about making the kill, just disable, or let some other ship take the armor down and you finish them), and less efficient than killing with what I consider a standard "kill ship".
I don't have hard numbers but it seems like in the dps war the time it takes for a squid or goldfish to turn to their explosive gun would negate any previous advantage, especially if you have good engineers on the enemy ship. And in my experience the galleon has the ability to kill on paper but is so often out maneuvered that it isn't reliable as a killing ship. All you need to do it be higher than the galleon and it's lost all arc.
I mean technically I can eat a steak with a spoon but why would I when there are knives and forks?
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I mean technically I can eat a steak with a spoon but why would I when there are knives and forks?
Because eating a steak with a spoon is a challenge, and although frustrating, could be a hilarious experience for those who like to try odd stuff, ie. The Cake Clan!
I think that's a big reason I don't fly a typical 'kill ship', everyone else does, and I like to fly outta the box. Getting a Gat/mortar kill is like "Meh, easy." But getting a kill with Mine/Flamer? "Hah! Did you guys see that! It worked!"
So much more satisfying when people are surprised and/or repulsed by the fact that you ate that steak with a spoon.
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Eat the steak with bare hands and your teeth I say. More effective than the spoon but still no fork and knife needed.
Caution: Might lead to strange situations when taking this too literally.
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Like I said in the Pyra OP thread, disablers need a strong buff.
In terms of winning, piercing/explosive is a low-risk/high-reward build and disablers are a high-risk/moderate-reward build.
A disabler/brawler team needs to outclass a brawler/brawler team.
We have all these fantastic disableing weapons, and it pains me to see most of them go underused because gat/mortar not only leads to faster kills, but is much easier to kill with.
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Okay, here's a sad thought. If the Carronade, flamer, Artemis and other disabling weapons were removed from the game, most matches wouldn't change. It's RARE for me to see someone on the other team using a disabling weapon as their primary, Pub or competitive. It's 80% gat/mortar, 10% merc/flak or LJ, 10% disabling. Such a shame, but hey, whatever works best.
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Double Carronade Ramidion never gets old with some moonshine.
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Oh yes, removing disablers would also remove most of the fun from the game, but that's probably not a surprise coming from me.
I just want to see disablers get themselves a nice little niche in the competitive field. Preferably flamers, but at this point, I'd be happy for anything other than merc/LJ.
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There is one downside to buffing disablers. The moment that happens, a lot of the same people who complain about gat/mortar (I don't mean anybody in this thread, I'm referring rather to the type of person who plays one match and decides "HWACHA OP") will start complaining that they can't do anything against disablers, they're OP, they take the fun out of the game, they should get nerfed, etc. Anybody who was around for old fire (or more recently, the old carronades) will know what I'm talking about. Fire was never OP, carronades weren't either. It's just that once you got caught in them and didn't know how to deal with them, you were stuck. Sorta like the current double hwacha Galleon, which isn't actually that hard to deal with.
So yes, I would like to see disablers brought back. I do think it would help balance the game. However, Muse always has to cater to everybody, and sadly I can say from experience that powerful disablers make the learning curve steeper for newcomers.
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Anybody who was around for old fire (or more recently, the old carronades) will know what I'm talking about. Fire was never OP, carronades weren't either.
Which fire are you talking about? I think I started two patches before Mobula. Didn't they get buffed during the last patch? Plus having extinguishers respect cool-downs helped fire become very powerful.
I just remember basically ignoring fire when I first started playing because it didn't seem to do much damage and was so easily dispatched. I was cranky when fire got harder to put out but then I realized it had actually made the flamethrower and incendiary rounds work now and was pleased with the expansion and development.
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Fire used to disable guns with a single charge. It was that way from release until February.
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It's a zero-sum game. If brawlers are strong, people want stronger disablers. If disablers are strong, people will want stronger snipers. When snipers are strong...you get the picture.
I certainly agree that, as things are, it's far more efficient to simply roll Gatling/Mortar or Flak and just blow things up than it is to try and disable first. But I think others are right when they say that if we buff disabling, it'll just make things harder on newer players who don't know how to counter it. How do you break the cycle? I don't think you can. When one thing gets stronger, everything else gets relatively weaker.
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Disabling wasn't stronger than outright brawling, it was viable and just required the enemy team to think and cooperate to counter it, something that people don't realy do on Pubs, which is sad.
Sure having a steeper learning curve is harsh, but in the end it makes the game far more interesting to play that just seeing the same loadouts used by practically everyone. Newbies will always think disablers are OP no matter how you look at it, so if you decide to cater for those people, you will ruin it for others that actually dedicate time and willpower into playing it more and learning about it, you will never make the newbies stop crying about something they deem OP, so for me, it's useless to try and please those people, because seriously, they will never be pleased.
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This game's too complicated.
Let's just give everybody guns and allow boarding. :P
Joking aside, (because that was a joke) maybe cycling through possible loadouts and metas is the way to go until we find the perfect balance.
Maybe not. I'm not really sure. The only meta cycle I've been through was gat/flak to gat/mortar.
Any input from some of you older air dogs?
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This game's too complicated.
Let's just give everybody guns and allow boarding. :P
Joking aside, (because that was a joke) maybe cycling through possible loadouts and metas is the way to go until we find the perfect balance.
Maybe not. I'm not really sure. The only meta cycle I've been through was gat/flak to gat/mortar.
Any input from some of you older air dogs?
The most famous is probably the Heavy Flak era.
Other than that.. I miss old Kerozene.
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I think that we should also think about what could be done outside of balance. Since the learning curve can be rough, better tutorials (pretty sure that's being worked on), making tutorials mandatory, and adding other touches like loading screen tips could be hugely beneficial to making the game easier at lower levels.
I think it was Howard who said in the fireside chat that they're working on revamping beginner matches, so we'll just have to wait and see if that helps.
@James T. Kirk
As Echo said, there was the heavy flak era earlier this year. That gun was... Well... Insane. The projectile was faster, it did a sizeable amount of armour damage, and there was no arming time. If you stayed away from a heavy flak, it would tear you to shreds with lesmok. If you got close, it only got more powerful with charged. And that's only one. A single heavy flak could dismantle a Pyra. When you consider that you could fire four at once using Galleons...
There was also the extremely short-lived Artemis era (more like Artemis week), during which a single Art was a better disabler than the hwacha, and a trifecta Junker loaded with three was literally unbeatable. Or you could look back to the other Artemis era, where the thing was heat-seeking. No explanation needed.
The worst one was in November. The only viable gun was the merc. That's all. You couldn't take any other gun or you'd lose. The double merc Pyra had no counters, and people had to make gentlemen's agreements not to use them.
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I think that we should also think about what could be done outside of balance. Since the learning curve can be rough, better tutorials (pretty sure that's being worked on), making tutorials mandatory, and adding other touches like loading screen tips could be hugely beneficial to making the game easier at lower levels.
I think it was Howard who said in the fireside chat that they're working on revamping beginner matches, so we'll just have to wait and see if that helps.
So much this, can't beliebe how right you are right now. For one more time I will feed you with a salute..
Tutorials need to be MUCH more elaborate than they are now and loading screen tips would also be hugely beneficial.
(Also Sunderland now your Salute meter shows the exact ammount of temperature in which water boils in Fahrenheit degrees.)
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I'm not saying we need to cater to every little complaint or issue, but just ignoring concerns wholesale because "those people are never pleased" isn't a hugely productive strategy, especially for people (Muse) who actively want/need new players to get invested in the game. Not saying that's what you're saying, but often whining has a grain of truth to it.
I definitely agree that there needs to be a more robust training system. Right now, I think the vast majority of new players end up in games before learning anything about how to play. I think making the tutorials much more elaborate and instructive, making it required to complete the tutorial for a class before you can take that class into the real game and adding a wider selection of loading tips (or even putting the tips on the main/in-game lobbies; do we have that? Would make the 10-30 minutes between each match a little more useful) would do a lot to raise the bottom end of the bell curve.
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My point is, people will not complain about something they know has counters and work-arounds.
So bloody well teach them how to do it, punch it into their skulls that teamwork is an essential skill into playing this game. Tutorials need a lot of work.
I realy think tutorials should be a requirement before you can play any class, starting with the Engineer tutorial to unlock that class, then you will have to complete both the Engineer and Gunner tutorial to unlock the Gunner and you will have to complete all tutorials to unlock pilot as piloting requires knowledge of engineering and gunning beforehand.
It's ridiculous that people are allowed to pilot without even knowing how the guns they put on their ships even work.
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It's ridiculous that people are allowed to pilot without even knowing how the guns they put on their ships even work.
Amen. We were in a casual match filled with a lot of assorted clan level people and a level 1 captain came in and was like "yeah, I'll give it a try, I want to practice captaining." We had to figure out how to tell him that this was an awful idea without being rude. He was understanding, they aren't always unfortunately.
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Like I said in the Pyra OP thread, disablers need a strong buff.
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Something we discovered when we tested triple hull health was that it made disabling weapons more viable. When the killing weapons couldn't kill so easily on the initial charge (1 clip explosive = dead) the disablers had their chance. That said, triple health was too much - the matches just took a really long time, even though we were all having a fantastic time. A general hull health buff might do the trick, or slightly lowering the damage explosives do to hull.
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When I take a disabler, although it can be very fun to see the other ship being totaly incapacitated, I often wonder why going through such trouble ( in a gameplay perspective, not a "fun" one ), because I figure, taking a gat/mortar setup would have given me the kill twice if not three times as fast, because killing the ennemy ship is the most effective disabler since gatling can take away armor so quickly and one mortar clip can destroy any ship's health.
That said, having one type of playstyle very effective makes it much more satisfying to use the other ones, like getting a kill with a heavy flak spire for example, using mines, the slow and painful full banshee, dominating with a squid...
But, I still want to see something to make disabling a bit more viable, be that a buff to it or a nerf to killing ( double health ? less ammo in mortar/gatling ? more jitter ?... )
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When I take a disabler, although it can be very fun to see the other ship being totaly incapacitated, I often wonder why going through such trouble ( in a gameplay perspective, not a "fun" one ), because I figure, taking a gat/mortar setup would have given me the kill twice if not three times as fast, because killing the ennemy ship is the most effective disabler since gatling can take away armor so quickly and one mortar clip can destroy any ship's health.
That said, having one type of playstyle very effective makes it much more satisfying to use the other ones, like getting a kill with a heavy flak spire for example, using mines, the slow and painful full banshee, dominating with a squid...
But, I still want to see something to make disabling a bit more viable, be that a buff to it or a nerf to killing ( double health ? less ammo in mortar/gatling ? more jitter ?... )
Nerfing killing isn't the way to go, it will just make the game boring. I'm also against any sort of hull buffs, adding engagement length in such a way is ridiculous when you consider the bigger ships and how much they benefit from it compared to other ships.
Disablers just need their completely uneeded restrictions gone so they can work in their enviroment. Ships that focus on disabling should be allowed to function by themselves with relative safety just like Piercing+Explosive ships do, they have the fastest way to kill, well should be allowed to disable them safely, which is not the case with ANY disabling weapon right now.
So let's take a look at the disgustingly stagnated meta of this game:
Durable ships that can pair Piercing+Explosive combos (Pyra+Junker) and maybe a disabler or two if you have enough space (Junker) or a powerful Disabler+Piercer like the Lumberjack (Galleon)
3 Ships out of 7
The Spire is too weak, Mobula is also too weak, both of them extremely weak against anything that pops their balloon moreso than any other ship. The Goldfish can't pair weapons effecively so only focuses on support and its gun is exposed, the Squid doesn't have nearly enough firepower, let alone durability.
Why is killing so much more favored? Cause disabling is so risky and inefficient in what it does that there is no point in having a pure support ship since the moment its ally messed up their targets or dies, they are in grim danger and can't kill by themselves nearly as fast as the enemy can. They have zero 1v1 potential since the enemy can just repair over and over again and point Piercers and Explosives on you.
So I'm going to be blunt about it. Piercing and Explosive weapons aren't too powerful, Disablers are just shit and not worth any dime or trouble unless it's a Lumberjack on the tankiest ship in the game or a support side Junker in which case you still hold killing power.
Carronades can't aim down hence always putting you in the line of fire of the enemy.
The Artemis can't aim up for some weird reason that nobody understands.
Fire is absolute crap by itself, it doesn't disable anything (unless you sit there frying them for 10 seconds), just provides an extra bit of damage and confusion, which is easily ignored if it's a Flamethrower or a Banshee. Fire only works with other guns if paired with incediary rounds.
The Hwacha is still very hard to aim properly in order to get a nice disable at range so you can engage and the Heavy Clip change hurt it a lil' bit.
So, why would you bother arming a ship with these guns to provide support when you can just equip Kill guns and just finish it earlier? What is the point? None of these guns is nearly powerful enough to warrant focusing around. The only respectable piece of a disabling weapon is the Lumberjack and the Hwacha on a Galleon and again, it only works on the Galleon cause you have a crap top of weapons to fill in.
/rant
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Hmm - I strongly disagree that nerfing killing will make the game boring, at least to me. In fact, I'd argue the opposite! I find the most exciting parts of the game are firing on an enemy ship, running around like mad repairing things, out maneuvering an enemy in combat, or even desperately trying to escape. At the moment 80% of the game is either flying back to the engagement or flying around hunting for the enemy... not very interesting imo. From engage to kill takes what, 30 seconds for a pickup game? 15 seconds with an expert crew? A little more for enemy galleons? Sure there is satisfaction in watching enemies evaporate, but I want my combat to last a little longer than a single pass in a Pyra.
I want to point at that the Squid and Mobula are not at all weak. The Squid can mount the piercing/explosive combo with just a little bit of attention from the pilot (gatling front, mortar/flak side - I'm torn between the two) and get kills very quickly. In the right hands they are much much harder to kill than Pyras/Junkers.
The Mobula just seems weak because only a few people have figured out how to play it effectively. I've run into several builds (artemis, flak, merc, gat, artemis is one, or go for a gat/gat/mortar close in constant trifecta) that require an expert crew and absolutely Destroy enemy ships. Even without a buffed balloon or pilot tools you can dodge lumberjack/flak/hwacha shots with ease at range.
I hope the Spire gets a hull buff - I know its a "glass cannon" but I call shenanigans. It doesn't have that much more firepower than anything else, give it a strong hull to compensate for its massive hitbox.
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I'm going to put it simply:
Nerfing what works won't make people switch off of it cause you aren't fixing anything, you are just breaking more things.
Nerfing Piercing-Explosive won't drive people off of it, they will just use the same thing with slightly reduced efficiency while everything else is pretty much, still broken and unusable.
The Builds you described are still the same old Piercing-Explosive, that's all that works, that's the problem, can't you see it? Also the Mobula doesn't work, just like the Spire doesn't work, these ships just need to be balanced in entirely different way. Ship combat has no place for fragile ships that can't move fast enough, the Mobula also has terrible handling.
(Waiting for people to pop in and say the Spire works in 3v3, but realy, I disagree, just because it appeared on one tournament and the team that had it won, realy proves nothing, it was still just one tournament and nothing can prove you didn't just get lucky, consistency proves points, that tournament proves nothing about it.)
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Making engagements last longer is not breaking more things. I think the way things currently work is "broken" - a good crew on a pyra can kill every ship except the Galleon in 1 pass. Maybe this is just a fundamental difference between us, but I think the disabling weapons work just fine. Could some use a few tweaks? Yes. Flamethrowers are a little weak imo, and the Hwacha might need a tweak. However, you can drop a ship out of the sky with 1 clip of the light carronade up close (or blow out the engines/gun), knock out the guns of any ship at range with the artemis, and drop/kill a ship with the lumberjack.
What makes these awesome weapons not work in a build is that killing is too effective. Disabling ship can already knock out engines and guns and pop balloons with relative ease. The only way to buff disablers is to make them basically be able to "lock down" an enemy so they can't do anything (Heavy Carronade can basically do this, though there are ways to get away from blenderfish). To be honest with you, thats never going to happen because its such a terrible experience for the team on the receiving end. Its bad gameplay.
You say you want to make disabling ships able to operate with relative safety by themselves? The answer to that is to make it so they have a chance to disable before being killed!
Yes people will still use piercing explosive. They always will. It is the most direct, brute force way to get kills. However, if you make it mildly less effective then disabling has a chance. Not only that, but if killing is nerfed then teamwork is buffed. One of the key strategies of the disabler is 'disable one, help ally with other'. But thats not needed at the moment because killing is just so effective - the ally is either dead or won by the time you have disabled.
The reason I gave you piercing-explosive builds is because that was how you seemed to be judging a ship playable. I personally fly a carronade/mortar/carronade squid because I find it more fun. As to the Mobula... it is not a weak ship. At all. It is very hard to crew on, requires a different philosophy (kill now, repair later), and is very weapon placement sensitive. However, in probably 30 matches crewing the above build, only once did it lose in a 1v1 situation (and is even better at long range support).
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Making engagements last longer is not breaking more things. I think the way things currently work is "broken" - a good crew on a pyra can kill every ship except the Galleon in 1 pass. Maybe this is just a fundamental difference between us, but I think the disabling weapons work just fine.
I'm sorry, they don't.. but let's continue.
Could some use a few tweaks? Yes. Flamethrowers are a little weak imo, and the Hwacha might need a tweak. However, you can drop a ship out of the sky with 1 clip of the light carronade up close (or blow out the engines/gun), knock out the guns of any ship at range with the artemis, and drop/kill a ship with the lumberjack.
I already stated that they only acceptable 'disabler' is the Lumberjack and by itself still takes a long time to kill, hence why it's balanced.
The carronade is a very close range weapon, the pilot will have to struggle to bring them close to the enemy in a match with equally skilled players without getting shreded at range, yet, the weapon repays the pilot with an extreme innability to shoot at an enemy balloon from above unless you are fighting a Galleon, hence, forcing you to get within a killing weapon's arcs. That's horribly inefficient as you basically offer yourself to the enemy in a tight wrapped package unless you don't keep the pressure on, which nullifies the effect of your disable since the balloon can be up and running realy fast again.
The Mercury is much more proficient at taking down both guns and engines at range and does so instantly and if you miss, well, you still get the armor piercing, the Artemis' only upside is that it makes an explosion, which isn't all that big unless you bring Burst, in which case you give up a lot of range. Again, not that efficient since if you miss, you basically are wasting your time since it's Explosive/Shatter does nothing to armor.
What makes these awesome weapons not work in a build is that killing is too effective. Disabling ship can already knock out engines and guns and pop balloons with relative ease. The only way to buff disablers is to make them basically be able to "lock down" an enemy so they can't do anything (Heavy Carronade can basically do this, though there are ways to get away from blenderfish). To be honest with you, thats never going to happen because its such a terrible experience for the team on the receiving end. Its bad gameplay.
It promotes teamwork even moreso that nerfing what already works fine, I'm not favoring the carronades being able to aim straight down, I'm favoring reasonable buffs to all disablers. Unless a disable can keep you locked so your allies have to come to rescue, there is no point in going for that disable in the first place, just arm yourself to kill said person, that locks them out of the fight for some time, neat huh?
You say you want to make disabling ships able to operate with relative safety by themselves? The answer to that is to make it so they have a chance to disable before being killed!
They already have that chance, it just doesn't work cause no matter what, the enemy can still kill you faster than you can kill them and if you are left alone, you are basically helpless. Disablers promote teamwork, straight out kill builds while still requiring teamplay, have absolutely no counter-play to them, all enemy ships can kill and since disablers force you into their arcs are are simply not efficient enough to keep them at bay, you end dying anyway at some point.
People make a huge deal out of stun-locks while it realy isn't as bad, I don't see anyone complaining when a Lumberjack has them pinned down on the ground, that's basically stun locking, so what gives, a weapon can already do it, why not the other ones as well?
Yes people will still use piercing explosive. They always will. It is the most direct, brute force way to get kills. However, if you make it mildly less effective then disabling has a chance. Not only that, but if killing is nerfed then teamwork is buffed. One of the key strategies of the disabler is 'disable one, help ally with other'. But thats not needed at the moment because killing is just so effective - the ally is either dead or won by the time you have disabled.
Focus fire is buffed if anything, the more it requires to kill, the more you force people into kill builds that specialize in that, just killing, so they can take you down faster than you can.
The reason I gave you piercing-explosive builds is because that was how you seemed to be judging a ship playable. I personally fly a carronade/mortar/carronade squid because I find it more fun. As to the Mobula... it is not a weak ship. At all. It is very hard to crew on, requires a different philosophy (kill now, repair later), and is very weapon placement sensitive. However, in probably 30 matches crewing the above build, only once did it lose in a 1v1 situation (and is even better at long range support).
Fun? Sure, balanced? No.
I fly a double carronade Pyramidion with Moonshine when I want to have 'fun', doesn't mean it's half effective when you are playing against opponents that are equally skilled as you. That's where balance matters.
No matter how you look at it, you are were still crewing on a ship with Piercing-Explosive as it's basis. FlakSpire can kill too you know, it's pretty good against thick headed opponents that think charging you is a clever idea, yeah, a Mobula can work in those circumstances as well, now I'm not saying those were the types of enemies you were flying against, but from my experience, Mobulas are weaksause, along with a Spire it's probably the only two ships you can simply point an LJ or a Carronade at them and expect them to break the moment they touch the ground, don't even get me started on how easy it is to rid of them with Gat/Mortar.
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I agree with Thaago. The only way to improve the attractiveness of disable builds is to make combat last longer, giving you a reason to want to shut down the enemy's weapons. Muse has repeatedly said that they don't balance for 1v1 in this game- they don't worry about whether a Squid can go up against a Galleon one-on-one or whatever...and therein lies the problem.
Most engagements in this game are 1v1. And in 1v1 battles, the Piercing/Explosion combo wins. Period. This is why the Pyramidion is currently so popular/overused- against anything but a rather experienced crew, the Pyra has an edge in 1v1.
Increasing hull strength, so that an individual ship has a harder time of simply killing another ship, would do a lot to make disabling a more viable strategy. Two direct-damage ships will always have an edge in sheer DPS, but if my Blenderfish teams up with a Spire, we're less likely to get separated and torn apart by the dual Pyra team we're facing. If it takes me longer to kill something on my own, that's an incentive for me to work with my allied ship and concentrate our fire.
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(http://i.imgur.com/PySxAuV.png)
I'll just post this here and say that, buffing hull health is a stupid idea, just because of this.
On the other side, if you buff disablers to a usable level, you prolong engagement legth by default (disablers being naturaly non-lethal by themselves hence they naturaly prolong a battle), without pissing on kill weapons.
And that should conclude my contribution to this thread, you beautiful people.
TL;DR: Let the people that want to play kill loadouts play that and have their game, but buff disablers so people that prefer an other playstyle aren't crapped upon by everything else. Variety is what we want, no need ot nerf something that works well.
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I'll try to put this diplomatically: that chart completely undermines your position. You've put up a neat chart, gave it a sarcastic comment about how it backs you up, and completely ignored what the chart is actually showing. Observe that the red bar is longer. Guess what? Thats time that a disabler can successfully disable before getting blown up. And once it gets a disable, the kill ship's bar grows enormously. Yes the blue bar grows proportionally longer. But the scenario is more complicated than just trading DPS. Its all about how long it takes to disable, and the effect that disable has on the other ships killing power.
Throw in allies and the situation still favors more hull. Example scenario: Red team has two kill ships. Blue team has 1 kill, 1 disable. If they go 'man to man' (not optimal, but usually what ends up happening), then the disable ship now actually has the opportunity to disable one ship and help with the other: the kill vs kill fight is not already over. Other example scenario: focused fire. The kill ships bear down on 1 of blue team. At the moment this is an instant destruction of blue ship. With more hull health, the ship has time to climb/dive or disable or tar or something before being blown up. In that time, the ally can engage one of the other ships, either disabling or forcing them in turn to break off.
We are both trying to do the same thing: make disablers more attractive. However, there is a strong limit on how much you can buff disabling weapons: if you make the other side so completely screwed that they are not having fun, then that is bad game design and it will never stay. If however you make it so that disabling can tip the balance, but both sides still have fun, then you can have disabling be competitive. To me buffing disablers is the first option and will never happen. Lowering the kill ships power a little is the second option.
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I simply disagree.
I have personaly tested the added hull health on the App already anyway and it wasn't enjoyable in the least.
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I have to make mention that the cascading effects are quite large to any tweak in weapon specialty and strength, however there's an acceptable medium that we should be making an effort to correct here. Simply throwing perfect case scenarios will provide counter arguments to any idea. What I'd like to see are some proposed ideas to field in a test server and check the effects they actually carry into the game. Some maths or at least an idea of what exact adjustment seems to work well with the game rather than some basic generalizations.
We've already proven health buffs to be ineffective at what they need, why not try some adjustments to piercing and explosive weapons as well as some boosts to the secondary power of disabling weapons to see how both pan out. Really both sides here are targeting the same idea with a different approach. Maybe something new will come to light.
Another proposal I would like to see is the possibility of expanding the light weapon hitboxes to some degree to make them easier to hit (I cant tell you how many times I've fired a merc through a gatling and received no weapon kill), which in turn can make disabling weapons more powerful in the same method you mentioned, Thaago: by extending the engage time for the kill ship by dropping a vital part of the ships loadout and keeping it down.
Anyhow, thought I'd chime in here and try to introduce a different approach to the issue as well. You all have a good day/evening/night, I'll be around tomorrow to check the thread again.
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We are arguing about a video game on the internet. Let's keep this in perspective, please.
Echoez, please appreciate the fact that, even if you have personally tested things like more hull armor, we have not. Simply saying "No, doesn't work, trust me" is not the kind of argument that wins people over. Perhaps if you described what happened in matches with increased hull, it would help us understand better why you think it's a such bad idea. Things like that chart are just going to make people mad, and that's not constructive.
The problem is this: In any given situation, the most efficient tactic is always to simply kill the enemy. At the moment, this typically means stripping armor with a Gatling and then blowing up the hull with Mortar/Flak. All guns that disable the enemy ship do is merely prolong the engagement and decrease your chance of getting a kill. (through lost potential killing power by replacing a Gatling-Mortar/Flak with something else) Working together with an ally simply compounds the problem- it is still better to bring two "finishers" than to bring one "disabler" and a finisher. After all, why disable, then kill when you can just kill twice as fast?
The question is, how can we make disabling builds more viable without going too far and making them required? How do we make Disable/Finisher more on par with Finisher/Finisher? Right now, it's easier to kill than it is to disable. Making the hitboxes for weapons a little bigger might aid in that- if it doesn't require such crazy good aim to take enemy guns individually, a disabler can potentially last longer against a killing ship. However, you're still relying on player skill rather than simply making the fight longer (as flatly increasing the hull would do).
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We are arguing about a video game on the internet. Let's keep this in perspective, please.
Echoez, please appreciate the fact that, even if you have personally tested things like more hull armor, we have not. Simply saying "No, doesn't work, trust me" is not the kind of argument that wins people over. Perhaps if you described what happened in matches with increased hull, it would help us understand better why you think it's a such bad idea. Things like that chart are just going to make people mad, and that's not constructive.
Simply put, what happened in that test:
Disables were even less of an issue than they are now. When you have even more health than the current one, since disables aren't that much of a threat on your health already, you pretty much know that the disabler now can't kill you no matter how hard he tries. Sure engagments were longer because the disabler didn't die fast either, but in the end, the people that brought kill builds won and the disablers didn't realy have a chance after all.
It was a horrible experience, not only did it worsen the condition of disablers vs killers, but it made disablers the most frustrating thing to fight against since they didn't kill you but just prolonged the fight with absolutely no other effect than prolonging it, we just rebuilt our guns and kept firing cause they couldn't kill us at all this time.
You have to realize that by increasing hull and armor totals you buff the ships across the board, what is already the best, will remain the best, no matter how much health you have.
The more health the killers are allowed to have, the worse disables will work against them since it enlarges the gap of kill time between the two types of weapons even more.
There. Constructive enough? I realy don't want to sound patronizing to anyone, but I'm realy getting bored of how stagnant the meta of this game is where mostly all weapons are ignored in place of Piercing and Explosive.
My frustration is towards the game, not you guys, so I'm sorry about that.
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There. Constructive enough? I realy don't want to sound patronizing to anyone, but I'm realy getting bored of how stagnant the meta of this game is where mostly all weapons are ignored in place of Piercing and Explosive.
My frustration is towards the game, not you guys, so I'm sorry about that.
Yes, it was. And we share your frustration- that's why we are here, trying to help find a solution. :)
What you said makes sense. The problem is still that in any given engagement, the ship with the most killing power is probably going to win. (barring large disparities in crew skill) A disabling build can potentially reduce the enemy's abilities, but only temporarily, and unless the ship also has a way to kill them (or is working closely with an ally who does) will eventually slip up and get murdered. The only ships that can really do both jobs are the Junker, Galleon and Moblua, and they're all pretty good in the right hands. (though the Galleon and Mobula have more obvious weaknesses) Ships that can just straight-up kill are also very strong; those that focus on disabling/support are the weakest. (i.e. the Goldfish) Having some way to break armor is also mandatory- I cringe when I see that a ship that doesn't have at least one Gatling.
So what's our solution here? Buffing hull damage (to try and give disablers more time to do their work) merely prolongs the inevitable. Buffing shatter damage could work, making disabling easier, but could also backfire and make outright killing too hard- nobody wants to spend the entire match rebuilding their guns only to have them immediately destroyed. (what was it called- peaching?- is fine in small doses, but I don't want to always have to do it) As I said, I also like increasing the hitboxes for guns and such. Make the Banshee and the Artemis more viable.
I think reducing explosive damage could also be useful. Not a lot- you still need to be able to get kills, but I've flown enough Pyramidions to see a lot of hulls dissolve under a single mortar barrage. Should anything but the most fragile ships be dying to one clip of anything? (and I'm not talking Spires here- I mean Pyras and Goldfish) Or perhaps nerfing piercing damage slightly, so that it takes longer to get them vulnerable.
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I still think that guns like the Artemis and the Carronades have stupid restrictions on them that simply don't allow them to do their job properly if your ship is focused around them.
People think that if the carronades were able to aim slightly further downwards, suddenly balloon camping would be easy, well, it realy isn't that easy staying above someone in the correct position, I suggest you try doing it before calling out the gun being too easy.
I still don't get why can't the Artemis can't aim up :/
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The Artemis can't aim up because it was OP for a week, and it got an unnecessarily harsh nerf.
The whole balloon camping thing used to happen all the time and was pretty balanced, but this brings us back to the aforementioned problem: new players couldn't deal with it, and complained that it was broken. So once again, yeah, better tutorials and things please.
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An idea for testing is where the damage goes once the gun is down.
It's my understanding that any component that is already damaged sends any damage it is currently receiving to the hull (if balloon is down and you shoot it again with carronade it damages the hull). However, is this done at the "carronade vs. balloon" damage amount, or the "carronade vs. hull armor" calculation?
Testing how the damage once the gun is down is transferred is probably an easy thing to test. Ideas I've thought of in the last 2 minutes are:
1. Transfer damage calculated at the components level. If the round would have done 50dmg to the balloon, it does 50dmg to the hull, instead of 50dmg to the balloon, balloon goes down and not only does 25dmg to the hull.
2. A risky idea is transferring the damage to a different component than the hull. After a component drops future damage goes to the engines, if all engines are down it goes to front guns, side guns, etc.
3. Totally insane idea- damage to a dropped component goes straight to hull, not hull armor? Seems like an awful idea but I'll throw it out.
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Okay, and then a second testable idea I have is changing the secondary damages of some of the "disabling" weapons. Seems straight forward.
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While the Manticore is considered a "Disabling weapon," when paired with a piercing damage it becomes a killing weapon. This can be done on one ship like the spire or galleon, or with two ships like a goldfish and a 2x gat pyra, junker, or squid. The gat pyra + hwachafish is one of the deadliest combos I have ever played with. However this is anecdotal evidence and the disparity in crew skill may have played a part in the many fast one sided victories I won with that combo.
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While the Manticore is considered a "Disabling weapon," when paired with a piercing damage it becomes a killing weapon. This can be done on one ship like the spire or galleon, or with two ships like a goldfish and a 2x gat pyra, junker, or squid. The gat pyra + hwachafish is one of the deadliest combos I have ever played with. However this is anecdotal evidence and the disparity in crew skill may have played a part in the many fast one sided victories I won with that combo.
While effective on paper, 2Gat Pyra with Hwachafish is practicaly worse than Gat/Mortar Pyra and Hwachafish cause like this your ally can't kill by themselves either, if one of you is down, you can't kill anyone either.
That's the primary problem we are discussing here, either all ships need to become this connected, hence any loadout has to rely on their teammate to finish the job or every loadout realy needs to be self sufficient by itself and I think the second option is better.
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I would like to see kill ships work harder to get said kill. One gatling clip takes out armor, less than one mortar clip finishes the ship off. Seeing that it takes only a few seconds to empty a gat clip, the ship getting shot really doesn't have enough time to fight back, escape, call for help, etc.
If two kill ships (two gats, two mortars, any ship) focus on one ship, even if that target has an ally right next to them, that ally ship can't do anything before their ally is dead. Nothing short of a Hwacha volley or getting in the way can help your ally.
Lower piercing damage, lower explosive damage, give players a few more seconds to try and counter the situation. Make it so that it takes more than one clip to kill a ship. Currently, the game is focused around who can shoot fastest and most accurate, not maneuverability or tactics, which, I feel, should be the focus.
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I'm honestly not sure that lowering damage is a good solution. If your engineers are doing it right, it can take more than a full clip to get that armor down. I've hit with every shot in a 45 clip, and the damn armor never went down, cue other ship booking durning my reload.
I think the current situation requires great engineers. I'd love to see it timed so that as long as the hull engineer has split second timing, he can at least get the gat to re-load before the armor goes down. However, I foresee it being too easy to keep the armor up if the piercing damage is lowered.
Something to test out in the dev app maybe? Also I like quick kills and prefer a quick game where every tactical decision has dire consequences, so it might be down to a difference in desire here! To me, tactics happen before a single shot is fired!
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With top notch engineering by an entire crew; all ships other than the goldfish, spire and squid can survive a full clip of heavy ammunition before their armor breaks.
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A proper Galleon is most definitely a kill ship. As for the damage vs hitpoints talk, meh. People take piercing because it has the longest range weapons available with that purpose. People take mortar because it's OP. And that's that really. There's no point in spending brainpower on the issue.
If the pilot wants, he could be running a much more brawly build by using carronade flamer, or he could go longer range and use lumberjack + explosive weapons. Though both of these options are vulnerable to the range of a ship with gatling+mortar on board (effective range vs arming time).
I do however think, and have thought for a while, that the repercussions on killing a support ship is too high. The ships would be balanced around this concept, but not really. And since hull is zapped the first time the armor goes down(by the OP mortar+greased rounds) anything with a low armor value is not really viable. That is why Pyramidions and Junkers are so common and why the Galleon is picked over Spire.
Instead of having it cost one full point to lose a squid or goldfish, it would make much more sense to lose just a fraction of it. Then the hull life on these ships can also be lower and the ships would see a lot more use far more easily(because then they are cheap). In comparison now, a ship that gets lasered out of the air like nobody's business, like the spire is now given the same worth as killing a Galleon that can stay in the air almost indefinitely, doing the exact same thing, just better.
The point system I'd propose is the one used in the Gundam VS games. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CX4qE5FhfjU In the loading screen you can see their points (2500, 3000, 3000, 2000), the max points to be expended in that game is 6000. That is the green and red bar you see in game. When a suit dies, it's points are taken from the amount of points a team has to spend. So if a 3000 ship dies, 3000 points will remain, if it dies again 0 points remain, if either ships dies then they lose. Support suits in that game are far less costly than the mid range and high range suits in that game, which is also why they see quite a bit of use in there.
The same thing could be done in GoIO making it much easier to balance the game and balance certain ships in the competitive context of the game.
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With top notch engineering by an entire crew; all ships other than the goldfish, spire and squid can survive a full clip of heavy ammunition before their armor breaks.
Does it realy matter? Now that they added visual effects of the armor being weak (few smoke clouds here and there indicate that their armor is low) you just begin spamming mortar shots before the armor goes does, break it and procceed to maul their hull, not too hard to learn and pretty damn effective.
Again, that's not realy the problem, but I think I've wasted enough brain power explaining it already so do excuse me.. I'm not doing it again.
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I've avoided using heavy clip on a gatling in favor for greased. (I know, I've heard the arguments, I still prefer greased)
It seems that every gun has a weakness except for the gatling and mortar. Artemis can't aim up, carronade has short range and can't aim down, flamer has incredibly short range, flak is inaccurate and has a relatively small clip, Mercury can't aim down and has low ammo, Harpoon is useless, hwacha has a long reload, heavy flak has only two shots and is only long ranged, heavy carronade has two shots and can't aim down, lumberjack has a small Horizontal arc, etc.
The mortar is supposed to be short range, but Lesmok rounds turn it into a laser gun which still has enough ammo to kill a ship outright. The gatling is 'inaccurate' but ships are big enough that most shots will hit unless you're at max range.
I can't think of any other weapon that can kill a ship in one clip, not to mention so easily. Any ship that can get a gatling and mortar on a target becomes a kill ship, so I still think the issue isn't with the ships, but with these two guns.
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Yeah, they should reduce the spread on almost every gun. It reduces their effective range to less than a carronade's effective range.
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Ok, just had to come to the defense of the Mobula, which with my load out is a long range disabler and a close range killer. I use 2 artemis out wide and a merc on top. This means from about 1000 yards out, I can start taking out all your precious guns you use to get an easy effective kill, then I can close and finish the job or just sit at range and keep disabling and eventually kill you, and it doesn't take that long.
If you use disabling to take out those pesky piercing/explosive combos by taking out the guns, or the engines, so they can't get in position to use said guns, or take out the balloon so they can't use the same said weapons, then that effective killing machine is not so tough.
If a ship has his gats on you and is just waiting for the hull to drop, the disabler has not done it's job.
Disabling can happen much faster than a kill, in some instances only takes one shot. But it is risky. You have to stay on them with the disable, keep guns down, and hope you don't miss that shot when the guns come back up.
Maybe this is why I have such success with my Mobula, it is meant to disable and kill. Loading out my Junker in a very similar fashion with disable from longer range and killing power up close.
In this sense, the pyri is actually underpowered as it really can't bring disable along with kill power, at least not nearly as effectively as a Junker or Mobula or Galleon.
Side note: Putting the Mobula and Spire in the same category is ridiculous. The Spire is really quite useless. Has to have a special tournament just to get some play. IIRC the Mobula has won at least 2 Sunday Rumbles. Just because almost no one knows how to properly engineer the ship doesn't make it bad. I'd put my Mobie one on one with any ship in the game and I'm fairly certain I would win that match 90% of the time. The Mobie is a proper glass cannon, the Spire is just glass, no cannon.
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Coolstory Roman.
Sunday Rumble is a good indication...lolwut?:D
P.S i've already heard about some guy with 100+ win streak...
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@Roman: I actually agree about the Mobula. I'd say it's the best ship outside of the top 3 (Junker, Pyra, Galleon). If you can use all five guns effectively, you have one hell of a ship.
And if you wanna test that 1v1 thing, I can ask Frogger to bring out the Dancing Feather so we can see what happens :P
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Ok, just had to come to the defense of the Mobula...
Having personally had my ass kicked by your mobula I agree and think that your mobula is more or less the "meta" for the mobula. However, it is *really* difficult to set-up and use in a pub match. Yesterday I was in a match with two Mobulas (mobuli?) and the load-outs were about a step away from nonsensical. And even if you get the load-out correct you have to make sure the crew understands that this is not a pyramidion or junker, it has its own rules. And in a pub match the number one goal seems to be hitting ready and getting the game started ASAP, rather than setting up the game to work. We tried to explain putting piercing weapons here, using artemis for this, etc. And in the end we got a merc up top, one on the bottom right, a flamer on the other bottom, and I think the other guns were flak. The only luck we had was when another mobula turned to face us and for some reason literally never fired a shot.
For most people (unfortunately) the mobula seems to be reduced to a silly/weak support ship with little to no purpose in its usage. The mobula has a very high reward for having the skill to use it, and a very high punishment for those who lack the experience.
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The mobula has a very high reward for having the skill to use it, and a very high punishment for those who lack the experience.
Just like any ship in the game.
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The mobula has a very high reward for having the skill to use it, and a very high punishment for those who lack the experience.
Just like any ship in the game.
I think the galleon is pretty forgiving. The amount of health you have means that if you make a mistake you can usually heal your way out of it/all is not instantly lost.
If anything the Pyra and Junker have a lower reward than the mobula (less versatility in one build) but also take less skill as a whole crew. And inversely, if you really mess up your build for pyra or junker you can still mostly get around whereas a mobula is almost worthless without coordination.
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For argument's sake I'm gonna say that staying under a Mobula is very easy and totaly screws it up, I've totalled a helluva lot of these ships by simply going bellow and popping their balloon with my Blenderfish, it's stupidly easy, takes one guy off the guns, easily campable balloon since the carronade has a massive upward arc and the mainframe is so weak, the moment you touch anything you are basically dead.
Now you can argue that you can stay at range and snipe, well good to luck to you, your ship is slow, unmanuverable and your ally will be helpless since you go down faster than a Goldfish.
Only the Galleon has the power to stay at range idefinately, never forget that and stop using it as an argument, by the time I get close you will have 2 people busy repairing your weak ship, you won't have 3 guns on me, ever unless I, for some reason, decide to stay away.
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I sense a Falconeers vs Gentlemens match coming right up!
Though the match won't say a damn thing :D RomanKar: your words sound pretty fancy, but can you tell me what happened a few days ago when my Pyramiddion ran you through several times? And please don't tell me the devs can't aim:P
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Don't we already have a Mobula thread somewhere?
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I don't think that anyone's disputing that smart people who are good at the game often have tactics to face other ships. Some people are good at the Mobula, some prefer Junker, whatever, and they each have reasons for doing so. What's being argued here is that in general, some ships are better at outright killing than others, and that fact is shaping the manner the game is played in ways that some of us think is boring/detrimental. One good ship doesn't really change that, again in general, the Pyramidion is by far the most popular ship, and that's because it uses some very simple, effective tactics.
I think that Zenark is right; the issue isn't so much with the current ships, but the current very strong status of the Gatling and Mortar guns. Every ship that can carry both at once has an advantage- not an insurmountable one, but an advantage nonetheless- that must be either countered or evaded. Simply put, a single Gatling and Mortar can kill most ships faster than almost anything else in the game...and they're also two of the easiest guns to use. A single Gat/Mortar combination can strip armor and blow up a hull faster than anything but an entire engineer team can repair. And if all your engineers are busy keeping the hull together, you're unlikely to be be able counterattack very effectively.
Now, some people have cautioned against lowering the damage of either gun, but I'm not sure what else to do. I just plain don't think any light gun should able to kill a ship in one clip- and the mortar needs less than a clip to kill most things.
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For argument's sake I'm gonna say that staying under a Mobula is very easy and totaly screws it up, I've totalled a helluva lot of these ships by simply going bellow and popping their balloon with my Blenderfish, it's stupidly easy, takes one guy off the guns, easily campable balloon since the carronade has a massive upward arc and the mainframe is so weak, the moment you touch anything you are basically dead.
Now you can argue that you can stay at range and snipe, well good to luck to you, your ship is slow, unmanuverable and your ally will be helpless since you go down faster than a Goldfish.
Only the Galleon has the power to stay at range idefinately, never forget that and stop using it as an argument, by the time I get close you will have 2 people busy repairing your weak ship, you won't have 3 guns on me, ever unless I, for some reason, decide to stay away.
His disable build might break your weps and engines before you get the chance. ;)
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Now, some people have cautioned against lowering the damage of either gun, but I'm not sure what else to do. I just plain don't think any light gun should able to kill a ship in one clip- and the mortar needs less than a clip to kill most things.
I'm all for lowering the effectiveness of these. i ran with Gat mortar when my pilot refused to use flak during the META stages of gat/flak.
In my opinion
The Mortar's ammo clip and fire rate is ridiculous. Add Greased Rounds into the mix and you've got a recipe for disaster.
The Gatling gun could do with quicker fire rate yet less damage.
People please note that i said in my opinion.
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Greased round mortar is ridiculous. But when I reported it people disagreed and said that taking down the hull of a Galleon in one clip(after its hull armor is down) is a normal thing. If anything, the damage of the mortar should most definitely be reduced. Though I wouldn't change the gat. The problem with the gat is that it doesn't have any alternatives. If you're trying to build a kill ship, you're going to use a gatling, even if it would have worse dps than the fieldgun. We should probably wait for the new gun to see what that does as far as that goes.
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For argument's sake I'm gonna say that staying under a Mobula is very easy and totaly screws it up, I've totalled a helluva lot of these ships by simply going bellow and popping their balloon with my Blenderfish, it's stupidly easy, takes one guy off the guns, easily campable balloon since the carronade has a massive upward arc and the mainframe is so weak, the moment you touch anything you are basically dead.
Now you can argue that you can stay at range and snipe, well good to luck to you, your ship is slow, unmanuverable and your ally will be helpless since you go down faster than a Goldfish.
This is more a matter of if I let you below me. The Mobula has the most vertical mobility. And if I can keep your Med. Carronade down while you approach, which, if I can't with a merc and two Artemis, then I deserve to die.
Yes, if a pyri gets the right angle and approach and gets a good ram, it will destroy a Mobula. But I'm pretty sure everyone has been ram killed by a pyri in every ship, including a pyri, so, QKO, that really means nothing.
If we are talking about what ship can bring the most killing power, the Mobula is the best and has to be because of how squishy it is. Yes, it gets double teamed a lot, first, because of what it is and does. Just needs to be protected a bit.
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The Galleon has much more killing power than both the Spire and the Mobula, both of which are classified as Glass cannons for the most part.
So, no, the Mobula doesn't have the most killing power. It might have a lot more of it in the future though.
This is more a matter of if I let you below me. The Mobula has the most vertical mobility. And if I can keep your Med. Carronade down while you approach, which, if I can't with a merc and two Artemis, then I deserve to die.
Peaching, realy easy to do as well, problem with your ship is that when you lose your balloon, you lose any advantage you might have had.
Also I'm not as stupid as to approach anyone from straight on, so hold onto that argument :P