Messages

16

Guides / Re: Hardcore Parkour: A Quick and Dirty Engineer's Guide to Getting Around

« on: June 16, 2013, 02:54:45 am »

Just found a new jump tonight I haven't heard of.

On the pyra, you can jump over the railing as you approach the balloon from the ladder and hit the balloon in mid air before falling back onto the same platform as the helm.

Be sure to hug the left wall on the approach, else you will get stuck. It saves a second or so off of those rare main engi balloon repairs, but is fun nonetheless.

Also, falling off the ship is very, very easy, but once you get the right angle, it isn't too bad.

17

The Signal Tower / Re: Falconeer Stream and youtube

« on: June 06, 2013, 07:22:07 pm »

If you all want to see some of Falconeer's antics from an engineer's point of view, check out my youtube. Videos will be up shortly.

youtube.com/EnjixGaming

18

Guides / Re: Aboard a Goldfish

« on: June 04, 2013, 06:15:39 pm »

Just felt like adding to the goldfish jumping fun, but you can jump on the left turning engine and squeeze though gap between the armor plating and the staircase. It shaves 2 seconds off the run from turning engines to main engine, but it's unfortunately so glitchy that it only works half the time.

19

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: Flagship Battle Mode

« on: June 04, 2013, 05:22:03 pm »

The ONLY issue I see with this is how long it would take muse to design the flagships in a functional and balanced fashion... it would be a pretty long ways away, they would most likely adapt the boss ships they design for adventure mode for the design aspect. They would need to change them to accommodate player foot-traffic though, depending on whether the ships we fight in adventure mode are autonomous or are crewed by the AI we all know and love. And yeah, balancing will be tough.

Still, I would play the heck out of that game mode if they had it, would be loads of fun. I'm still hoping for a VIP type game mode, would be way easier to implement, and is very similar in form to a flagship mode.

Flagships are epic, just take a long time to build, digitally or otherwise.

20

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: Boiler Room in Skirmish Mode

« on: June 03, 2013, 04:39:51 pm »

Yeah, the balloon thing is just wording, it should just affect what the pilot wants the balloon to do, not how the ship acts when the balloon is completely out.

Doesn't sound like the boiler room would be AS critical as I hoped, haha, but if you can get it down to a few seconds to make adjustments, it would definitely still be a part of strategy... similar to buffing, only anyone can change them and you have a limited amount of resources available.

21

General Discussion / Re: I get the impression I have a strange crew

« on: June 03, 2013, 02:23:14 pm »

It's definitely not the norm, but as you are a pre-made ship, there is nothing wrong with it.

As long as 1) Everyone is on the same page, and 2) You are not failing horribly, keep it up!

Just out of curiosity, what ship are you using? Sounds like a spire to me.

22

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: Harpoon

« on: June 03, 2013, 02:12:30 pm »

Allow the person on the harpoon to be able to reel in or give ships slack at will.

23

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: Boiler Room in Skirmish Mode

« on: June 03, 2013, 02:09:06 pm »

Balloon: once you get a very skilled balloon popper on you, you are basically doomed unless you get assistance from an ally. Adding power to the balloon should help make it less impossible to get out of that situation without making balloon popping tactics obsolete.
1: -80% vertical movement. 2: -40% vertical movement. 3: normal. 4: 15% vertical movement and 10% rebuilt after balloon is destroyed. 5: 20% vertical movement, 25% of the balloon automatically rebuilt after it is destroyed, and is rebuilt with 15% additional health.

I know this is a very minor point, but in the current game state, wouldn't reducing vertical movement by 80% help ships with no balloon, equivalent to how people use the negative effects of moonshine when they are ramming to protect their rotational momentum? It won't help with mitigating the damage to the hull, but it would cause the ship to not hit the ground so fast, all while freeing up resources to actually put toward the hull itself. I know it's just semantics but I felt the need to point that out.

As for the core of the idea itself, I really like it. Having someone in a semi-permanent position, similar to the pilot, who delegates power resources in the same way the captain delegates human resources is really interesting. I think it could be made to fit to skirmish mode in time and all of the suggestions you made seem pretty reasonable to me. I like that it's more about pushing your ship to the limit depending on what you are doing rather than of just boosting meta-offense or excessive-hull-tanking. May require some tweaking, but most of it is there. The only real issue I see with it is who exactly is going to be in charge of the boiler room out of the four people on the ship... the real balancing is going to involve whether the crew is going to be sprinting to the hull to rebuild it faster, or sprinting to the boiler room to rebuild it better. It's effectiveness as a tool is going to directly effect how much time is spent there, and therefore, how much the ability to tweak the smaller systems will be used, compared to setting it at the beginning of the match and forgetting about it.

24

General Discussion / Re: No tolerance for Deviation from Strategic norm

« on: June 03, 2013, 12:43:23 pm »

Unfortunately you will find people who will want you to change your entire ship if the set-up doesn't make much sense to them. The good and the bad part of this is that it's largely driven by player rank, as that's the first impression that is made. If people see that the pilot in question is rank 1-3, they often assume they don't know the most accepted builds and will try to sway them in that direction, one way or another, if the captain is rank 5+, then they can run some pretty ridiculous things and no one will call them out on is, because it is assumed they know what they are doing. Note, this is all thrown out the window after the first match, as then everyone sees what your real skill level is, be it better or worse than what the players in the lobby assumed.

As far as not listening to your own captain in the lobby... please do. Their ship is designed to work a certain way and everyone does have a distinct role, both of which is determined by the captain. Who fills that role is a different story, and you can request to swap positions, but it is there regardless. There is also a mathematical limit to how much one engineer can do, no matter how skilled, and by forging your own path and not listening to your captain, all you are doing is causing more stress for everyone else in the ship.

25

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: Minimap

« on: June 03, 2013, 12:28:01 pm »

I know this game isn't about realism at all, but...

What's caused you to be looking at your map in the middle of a firefight? We don't have time for that! Shoot the ship! Fire the cannons! They're right there in front of you gunner! Bombs away!

In seriousness though, some of the finesse of piloting is keeping track of where ships are in respect to yours, and sneaking into a blind spot can be a great advantage during an engagement.

Is the map clunky? Yes. Is that a bad thing? Not necessarily. Though this is coming from someone who feels spyglass spotting is a bit cheap too, as it let's you see through walls at times.

26

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: Ragequitting pilot captains and what to do about it

« on: June 03, 2013, 12:15:23 pm »

I like the 5 minute lock-out idea. Yes, it may not last as long as a normal match, but it doesn't need too, it still brings up the question of "Would I still want to play in this match if it was the only match I could play right now?" It wouldn't be all that much of an inconvenience to the average player (I agree harsh punishments would be out of muse's character), but it does add a considerable amount of time to the testing phases of those who are just joining and leaving to mess around with different builds or the like. As far as this deterrent goes, if it were implemented, I would like to see it affect any member of the crew. Yes, the captain does have the most responsibility, but that's not to say the rest of the crew has none.

I love the "press I to Captain" idea too. As the captain slot only has a 1/3 chance of landing on the person who is going to take the helm, and neither of the people can effectively bring out the ships full potential anyway, it would just make the whole transition process a lot smoother. As far as changing load-out mid match goes, it would make the transitional period a lot longer, and leave your teammate out to fight 1v2 for more than they probably feel comfortable with. Maybe have it so that the ship stays the same, but the guns automatically change to the new captain's build? As little downtime as possible is best, as that transitional period between when the captain leaves and when one of the other crew decides to take the helm is one of the most vulnerable times in the game. Pausing the game would pretty much equate to sending everyone back to the lobby to ready up a second time, which is to say, not an valid option in my book.

Final notes: Taking over the ship after the captain leaves is some of the most fun I've had piloting, as it's purely about working with what you've got. I still sucks, but it can be fun.

Also, to answer it dragonmere, it gives you a second gunner, which means you're at the accepted 2 engineers and 1 gunner if your gunner takes the helm, but unfortunately left with 1 engineer and 2 gunners if an engineer takes the helm.

27

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: We need more badass titles.

« on: May 29, 2013, 05:02:20 am »

Zeb pretty much nailed it.

28

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: Custom Sized Crews - Adventure Mode

« on: May 11, 2013, 03:02:49 pm »

The ships are designed for four people, you're right. And having less than optimal crew members would also very much mess with balance, as going from 4 crew to 3 means you either have 1/2 your healing power or 1/2 your attack power at any given time, but as it's adventure mode, I think the balance can be messed with a bit to give new options to the players to how they go about adventuring.

Yeah, I'm definitely not saying people should opt for soloing, or even duoing, but I think that doing something like working a goldfish with 3 crew members would be a fun challenge without having the 4th slot filled by an AI. You're still lacking the 4th person, but you do have all the roles covered, so your gunner or pilot doesn't have to jump off their post as soon as the enemy shoots back

A lot of how viable this idea is comes down to how the crew-matching works and how the ai director works.

In regards to crew matching, if it's similar to how match-making works in skirmish mode, then we don't have much choice in the matter. On the other hand, if captains are given a base payment of money, reputation or some type of currency, and they have to negotiate prices with their crew, it could add a very important choice into the mix.

In regards to the AI director, if it's as hard as a lot of the players are in skirmish and goes all out, then yeah, it will blow you out of the sky without a second thought if you don't have full crew. If it goes easier on you for certain missions (think fighting starving peasants turned raiders vs royal navy special forces), then you could try it for whatever difficulty you feel comfortable with.

29

Feedback and Suggestions / Custom Sized Crews - Adventure Mode

« on: May 11, 2013, 12:22:50 pm »

One idea I had to make adventure mode's difficulty vary a bit and to make the captain's hiring process more interesting, is to let the captain set the size of their crew.

People in smaller crews would get larger rewards, but would have a much harder time staying in the air than a ship with a full crew. While those who dream of 6 people on a galleon could do just that, but the reward would need to be split accordingly.