Guns Of Icarus Online
Info => Feedback and Suggestions => Topic started by: Van-Tuz on September 29, 2014, 09:17:14 am
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Greetings again. This is a restart of my previous thread about overhauling the armor/hull system. The discussion there went off course. Here i gathered all of my arguments in one place together with a few more points and examples.
First, let me explain the flaws of the current system:
Ridiculously powerful explosive weapons.
Scylla mortar deals 237 raw explosive damage per second. Paired with greased rounds it ups to 425 real DPS against exposed hull.
Typhoon heavy flak deals 330 raw damage per shot. Loaded with charged rounds it can two-shot any ship except for Galleon. ((330*1.3*1.4)=600*2=1200)
The reason for such power is that anti-hull guns need to operate in the very small time window. This window can range from 15 seconds (roaming engineer and Galleon's armor) to as little as 2 seconds (2 engineers camping squid's armor)
Inconsistent Time To Kill.
The time to kill can be calculated only for perfect conditions. But if you ease the pressure for a few seconds (for example your gatling was disabled) then enemy armor would be completely repaired and you'd have to start over because enemy ship isn't taking any long-term damage while its armor is up.
But even if you destroyed its armor and dealed 50% of damage to the hull it doesn't mean that its TTK is halved. TTK for a ship with 50% hull hp left is only a few seconds less than the one with a full hull.
As a proof to that point: Yesturday i have played a very intense match as a Galleon captain. At some point enemy ship destroyed our armor and damaged our hull by 95%. However, he was killed shortly after giving us enough time to fully repair armor before the next attack. And despite the critical hull condition we have survived and won the batlle because the armor has endured all the attacks.
My suggestions:
Hull:
- Always vulnerable.
- Have a large health pool (much larger than now)
- Repairable
Armor:
- Acts as a damage reducer.
- Damage is divided between armor and hull HP with appropriate damage multipliers.
- The percentage of damage absorbed by armor is defined by armor class.
- When armor is destroyed 100% of the damage directed at the hull.
Armor classes:
I suggest making 3 armor classes:
- Light armor absorbs 30% of damage
- Medium - 50%
- Heavy - 70%
The armor class is its quality, not thikness (hp).
Weapons:
Damage multipliers against hull increased for every type except explosive by the same factor as hull HP.
Explanations:
Because the time window when the hull is vilnerable is eliminated, it should be able to withstand a lot more damage. Multiplying the hull HP by 2 (for example) would make it two times more resistant to explosive damage but at the same time it would take 2 times more time to repair. I'd like to make repairing hull during combat almost a waste of time and the full repair to take about 1-2 minutes. However other weapons already have a hard time dealing any conciederable damage to the hull. Increasing the damage multipliers for other damage types would compensate for that. I'd like other weapots to maintain their limited usability against hull.
My assumption is that making different armor classes would open 2 possible "kill builds"
- Armor stripping (AS) - gat + mortar goes here
- Brute force (BF) - double explosive weapons.
I expect both builds to be equally effective against medium armor. But AS would require more time to kill lightly armored ship than BF. BF on the other hand would be quite ineffective against heavily armored ships.
Do not take it as finalised though. These calculations may change drastically depending on what numbers do you choose for armor DR values.
Why making hull repairable is better than permanent damage:
Current system doesn't make damaged ship an easy target. Taking permanent hull damage is supposed to act as handicap to make you much easier to kill for a losing team. But as shown by Galleon example you could survive just fine even with critically damaged hull.
Current system doesn't force or even allow to change your tactics very much. The state of your hull doesn't change anything. There's no point in waiting.
On the other hand my system is really making badly damaged ships an easy target. But to explot that enemy must act quickly. And defenders may take evasive actions and slowly return to maximum combat capability.
What is this system is supposed to accomplish:- Stabilise TTK. Ships would always take some long-term damage. So even if you got your guns disabled enemies won't be able to fully recover in a few seconds.
- Allow for more possible builds. More ways to fight = more depth. Gat+mortar as universal solution is deadly boring to me.
- More (possible) customisation options. Changing armor type may open a wide array of possibilities. For example you may equip medium armor on squid to sacrifice some mobility for increased resilience. But you can't equip an armor type that is not supported by ship type.
- More combat situations and tactics. We may even learn the word "tactical retreat". Currently we can't do that because there's not much space between "we're fine" and "o'shi..." And harpoons may become very useful to prevent it.
Constructive criticism is welcomed. If you see a weak point in my system - point it out. But please refrain from being fanatical. Do not post something like "it's fine as it" or "i just don't like it".
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I feel your system is designed to heavily on time to kill rather than the team orientation which is the primary focus of GOI. In games like COD or mechwarrior you want time to kill to be reliable based on the weapon your using and the amount of hits you land, But the big difference between GOI and those games is that each soldier and giant mech is a single entity under the control of one person. GOI on the other hand is an entity under control of multiple people and the reason your system is not an effective one for this game is because it focuses too much on the gunner and forgets that the engineers play just as an important role when two vessels are trading shots.
with the armour absorbing all the hits it allows the engineers to save a doomed ship from taking one more explosive round that would kill them and possible win them the gunfight, because they had good crew management and both engineers where where they needed to be.
Your system doesnt allow that as far as I can tell, with armour only absorbing some of the damage and the perma hull being repairable it comes down to whoever got the first shot. EX one ship(1) sneaks up behind another ship(2) and gets a full clip of damage into the rear of the ship (2) by the time ship (2) turns to bear guns ship (1) doesnt even have to worry about bothering to repair because they will kill ship (2) before he can kill them and then ship (1) just fully repairs everything before the next engagement.
the battle is already decided as soon as ship (1) spotted ship (2) and started firing. In the current system ship (2) can go on full repair mode with no gunning to keep their armour up and get their engines working so they can turn, after they tanked abit they can focus on fighting back, the fight is still winable by them if they use their cards right.
TL:DR I strongly dislike your system because it detracts too much from the teamwork of the game and focuses too much on turning the airship fights into dull slugfests.
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My system doesn't change much in terms of teamplay. I doubt it would change anything noticeable.
Everything that SirNotlag have said is true for the current system as well.
If a duel between two identical ships happens then the first who shot is winning.
The ambushed ship would take some hull damage anyway. Probably the same percentage. But it would be much more tolerable in my system because the hull would have much more HP and it is repairable. Ships would be able to survive for some time even with their armor stripped. Currently losing armor = quick explosive death incoming.
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You are right that the current system requires perfect conditions for reliable time to kill. However you incorrectly call this a flaw. This requirement of having to hold the explosive for offensive or avoid/disable the explosive for defense greatly increases the teamwork aspect of the game. Having to create perfect conditions forces teamwork both for offence and defense. Knowing when to maximize the damage window for offence by good timing or minimize the damage window for defense by disables, double repairs, and so on.
You also incorrectly state that the state of the hull doesn't matter. It most certainly does. Armor doesn't last forever and against good enemies you can expect it to go down quickly once engaged in direct combat.
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Pretty much what sammy said.
The current system is totally based on teamplay. It takes alot from a team to know when to focus their fire and when to split fire.
Alot of this is know the correct time, realize it and do it. Thats not a flaw. Thats great. It allows more than one style.
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This requirement of having to hold the explosive for offensive or avoid/disable the explosive for defense greatly increases the teamwork aspect of the game.
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You also incorrectly state that the state of the hull doesn't matter. It most certainly does. Armor doesn't last forever and against good enemies you can expect it to go down quickly once engaged in direct combat.
These teamwork aspects aren't going anywhere. But they would be less mandatory. Experienced teams would still hold the mortar fire until the armor is stripped to deal 2x more damage. But inexperienced teams would not be punished so hard for the imperfect performance. They would deal less damage but would still deal it.
Besides, i think that the situation with 5% hull Galeon should not be normal. It was very thrilling for me but i bet it was frustrating for my opponents to not being able to kill my barely duct-taped ship.
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Example: you're on a Junker against a Spire and something else. No matter how much Spire's teammate bitten off your hull you'll still die from a single charged Hflak shot once your armor go down.
Does it really matter how many time pass between armor going down and hull going down under mortar fire: 2.5 or 3 seconds. Your tactics and combat actions aren't changing. Your survival is dependent on your luck more than on your skill.
I think the possibility of evading combat to repair critically damaged hull opens up much more strategic choices. Currently you have no other choice but to engage in combat.
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I love the current influences from one engagement into another by simply dealing permahull dmg in the first encounter.
Id hate to see that pass. It would also punish inexperienced teams much harder gainst mediocre experienced teams. They wouldnt be able to get a single kill just because their enemy can repair up fully.
Just because of one weird game you cant state the system doesnt work. In a similiar skilled environement those fight influences are pretty important. Positioning, dmg dealt ... Those things matter and are part of the tactic.
And yes a hflak will kill you if you let the spire stay at his range and dont punish him. Thats totally fair and wanted. If you let one of the enemies do what he pleases then youve done sth wrong.
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More combat situations and tactics. We may even learn the word "tactical retreat". Currently we can't do that because there's not much space between "we're fine" and "o'shi..." And harpoons may become very useful to prevent it.
Don't presume to speak for all of us. I have successfully escaped from many bad engagements, and have seen others do it too. A lot of close games are decided by a loosing captain knowing when and how to cut his losses and retreat. I will agree that there is not much time between when an engagement goes bad and the time a captain must act to effect a proper escape. You don't see many escapes among newer players because they don't know what a bad situation looks like until it is too late to do anything about it.
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More combat situations and tactics. We may even learn the word "tactical retreat". Currently we can't do that because there's not much space between "we're fine" and "o'shi..." And harpoons may become very useful to prevent it.
Don't presume to speak for all of us. I have successfully escaped from many bad engagements, and have seen others do it too. A lot of close games are decided by a loosing captain knowing when and how to cut his losses and retreat. I will agree that there is not much time between when an engagement goes bad and the time a captain must act to effect a proper escape. You don't see many escapes among newer players because they don't know what a bad situation looks like until it is too late to do anything about it.
I can vouch for this. As a mid/long range pilot half of my time at the helm is spent driving in reverse at a funky angle to keep my port side guns on target while I back the f*** away because my short range escort got chewed up.
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I can also attest to this, as I typically fly a close range vessel I often find moments where my wingman has suddenly gone down and I'm about to get engaged in a 2v1 with no hope of victory, depending on the map and environment I find myself in there can be a variety of ways to escape. Most of the time it's running kerosene and making a mad dash for whatever location my ally has decided to spawn in.
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Please answer a few questions. Some of them almost rhetorical, some are related to basic knowledge but trust me, they're all important for the discussion.
- How much time does it take to kill an exposed hull with mortar? Assuming that gunner is competent.
- How much time does it take for a destroyed team to engage into battle after the last ship was destroyed?
- How much damage your ship is supposed to take for you to recognise a "bad" and "really bad" battle situations? Assuming that's you're not outnumbered.
- How much time does it take to perform all necessary repairs to return to a "good" condition from that states? Assuming that your engineers are competent.
- How does your damaged (by 50%) hull changes your tactical and strategic behaviour?
I shall answer these questions myself after seeing some answers from my opponents. Otherwise it would be (again) a discussion about my skill level.
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There's no definite answer to any of these questions as they are extremely abstract and generic.
1. How much time a mortar takes to kill an exposed ship? It depends on range, ammo being used on mortar, mortar being buffed or not, evasive movement of enemy pilot, your own ship's movement, reaction, tools and coordination of enemy engineers. If you're shooting an average crew at point blank range with a greased buffed mortar it will take 2 seconds. If you're shooting a highly skilled and well organized crew it's not unlikely you won't do any perma damage at all.
2. That depends on the team itself. Were they fighting away from their spawn? Will they choose to spawn closeby? Will the ship to have died first try to spawn as close as possible in an attempt to assist its' ally? Is the enemy team chasing the surviving ship into your team's spawn or are they retreating?
3. None at all. An experienced pilot can tell when he can't earn anything from a situation before the first shot has landed against his own ship. Certain ships perform at certain ranges or need to approach the enemy from specific angles to be effective. Certain ships aren't built around killing an enemy at all. Certain ships are almost absolutely countered by others. All ships are unable to perform 1v2 (assuming equal skill level and non-shit builds on both sides)- so being able to recognize your ally either dying or being controlled means you have to consider an escape option beforehand.
4. What does that even mean? Since you mostly complain about gatling/mortar I'll assume that's what you specifically are wondering about. A broken hull takes varying time to fix depending on ship and crew but a pyra is able to get his hull rebuilt, fixed and even rebuffed in almost no time time with enough people who know their shit participating. A junker not as much, but breaking the junker's hull is an achievement by itself and should be rewarding. Galleon neither, but it can soak up a ton of permadamage before dying so it's perfectly viable. If more parts are disabled the time obviously increases but there's no average answer to cover all possible scenarios.
5. A damaged hull simply means you have to change your priorities and look into engagements more carefully. You can have the other ship try to act as a meatshield assuming that's viable. You can avoid head to head engagements until you see a chance (a flank, a disabled target, a target whose guns are reloading, a ship out of its' effective range, a ship that's just bumped into something etc). You can shift your goals from killing the other ship to doing as much damage as possible before dying so that you put him at a disadvantage at the next fight. In a few circumstances, mostly in CK matches but not only, a very valid option might be to commit suicide simply to respawn with a fresh hull.
Instead of trying to prove the current system problematic try adapting to it instead. As you keep playing and if you're willing to learn you'll notice people doing stuff that render all the above questions and ideas silly. Yes the game is hard to learn and master but that's what makes it rewarding and enjoyable.
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This requirement of having to hold the explosive for offensive or avoid/disable the explosive for defense greatly increases the teamwork aspect of the game.
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You also incorrectly state that the state of the hull doesn't matter. It most certainly does. Armor doesn't last forever and against good enemies you can expect it to go down quickly once engaged in direct combat.
These teamwork aspects aren't going anywhere. But they would be less mandatory. Experienced teams would still hold the mortar fire until the armor is stripped to deal 2x more damage. But inexperienced teams would not be punished so hard for the imperfect performance. They would deal less damage but would still deal it.
Besides, i think that the situation with 5% hull Galeon should not be normal. It was very thrilling for me but i bet it was frustrating for my opponents to not being able to kill my barely duct-taped ship.
It is majorly game altering to go from needing to wait for armor breaks to kind of wanting to. Making it so that basically any weapon combination can work for a team is great for individual based games like your average fps. However it takes away from the team work based dynamic. Yes you do loads better in your average fps if you are on a team, using team working and theory crafting which guns you bring. However its not as necessary.
Example: you're on a Junker against a Spire and something else. No matter how much Spire's teammate bitten off your hull you'll still die from a single charged Hflak shot once your armor go down.
Does it really matter how many time pass between armor going down and hull going down under mortar fire: 2.5 or 3 seconds. Your tactics and combat actions aren't changing. Your survival is dependent on your luck more than on your skill.
I think the possibility of evading combat to repair critically damaged hull opens up much more strategic choices. Currently you have no other choice but to engage in combat.
The Junker is a horrible example for this as it has the lowest perma hull in the game as a balance to its high armor, maneuvering, and weapons. Without tar barrel, all things being equal it can't really escape anything, damage systems being irrelevant. However there are plenty of things you can do to alter your tactics to prevent Hflaky death. Balloon blocking, dodging (the junker is a great dodger), calling extra engineers to hull, buffs, tar or just outright killing. So basically in your scenario I am not strategically limited and if I wasn't, it isn't from the damage system.
How much time does it take to kill an exposed hull with mortar? Assuming that gunner is competent.
Assuming 100% accuracy, unbuffed mortar using normal rounds and discounting air time delay (the mortars begin hitting the moment armor is down
Pyramidion 700 perma
6 shots, 2.75 seconds
Squid 850 Perma
7 shots, 3.3 seconds
Junker 500 perma
4 shots, 1.65 seconds
Goldfish 1100 perma
9 shots, 4.4 seconds
Galleon 1400 perma
12 shots 6.05 seconds
Spire 750 perma
6 shots, 2.75 seconds
Mobula 700 perma
6 shots, 2.75 seconds
A lot of assumptions here, especially the 100% accuracy, the mortar is a hard gun to shoot when the enemy is popping hydro for one of those mythical escapes that apparently never happen.
How much time does it take for a destroyed team to engage into battle after the last ship was destroyed?
Dozens of variables, most of them having to do with map and how close one is to spawns. You can generally expect at least 30 seconds though.
How much damage your ship is supposed to take for you to recognise a "bad" and "really bad" battle situations? Assuming that's you're not outnumbered.
None. This is whats the most stressful part of being a captain. The split second an egagement begins you have to run a big equation in your mind comparing who began the egagement, the amount of time it takes for a ship to react to the engagement and then how long before a ship wins the engagement (kills, achieve better positioning, disable etc) and captain tricks to fudge these numbers (balloon blocking, escape tools, cover, ally, etc). Armor break is not the definitive "you've lost" moment, sometimes is too late and sometimes its too early.
How much time does it take to perform all necessary repairs to return to a "good" condition from that states? Assuming that your engineers are competent.
Since escape point is varaible, ship damage is variable. Some ships like a galleon can tank all day with downed components (I've gone minutes without the main thruster of a galleon) Others ships like squids and junkers need their components up and running and thus need to escape before those go down. Waaaay to many variable to consider.
How does your damaged (by 50%) hull changes your tactical and strategic behaviour?
"Whats your perma?"
"Full, you?"
"About 50, you take lead?"
"Sure"
Changes how much I'll request a hull engineer to watch hull vs shoot weapons, esepcially relevant on junkers and galleons.
Also that equation I mentioned earlier is great effected by this.
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And as typing mezhu responded and basically said the same thing, damn. Now I look like a copy cat. Esepcially on point 3.
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How much time does it take to kill an exposed hull with mortar? Assuming that gunner is competent.
How much time does it take for a destroyed team to engage into battle after the last ship was destroyed?
How much damage your ship is supposed to take for you to recognise a "bad" and "really bad" battle situations? Assuming that's you're not outnumbered.
How much time does it take to perform all necessary repairs to return to a "good" condition from that states? Assuming that your engineers are competent.
How does your damaged (by 50%) hull changes your tactical and strategic behaviour?
1. Dependant on alot of factors. the ship you fly, the state of your ship (permahull), the positions of your engineers, the movement of your captain and the enemy captain ...
A pyra can be killed in one clip without any chance assuming 100% accuracy on the hull and not one hit closeby and no evasion on the receiving end. A squid or goldfish can survive more than one armordown if the engineers are fast enough.
2. Depends on the map, the spawn they choose the position of the fight and their way of approaching. It can take no time or a long time. Thats sth youve got to take into account. When you fight inside the enemy spawn you have to count on your enemy spawning closeby and killing you right after the engage was won.
3. Dependant on ship, actual position, skill etc etc no time or alot. Its hard to judge. A clearly bad situations like an enemy in your back is easy to judge as "holy crap im dead". A straight forward engage with both ships with gunarcs can take longer to decide as of who gets the gun superiority. For example 2 goldys facing each other, one with a hcarro and one with a hwacha. If the hwacha hits first and correct youre fine. If the carro gets the first disable the situations turns to really bad.
4. Dependant on crew and the coordination within the crew aka are they used to each other to the point they know blind who does what ... barely any time.
5. Depending on ship not alot to alot. A Goldy with half perma gives me headaches and needs a crew to be onspot with its tanking or it dies in the first armorbreak. A galleon with half perma isnt that much of a worry. I know that the guns have to hit correct to save me anyway. Similiar for a spire ... But i admit i fly on strange and kinda unusual spires.
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Okay, here's a recap:
- 2 of 3 people are evading to give me straightforward answers like they're in the court and i an the judge.
- 2 of 3 people are possessing an inhuman calculations capabilities. Average human can only make brief assumptions here. Throw in 4 human factors per crew too. Sure, you could classify the situation but i doubt anyone is capable to precisely tell the result.
- Captains and crew skills are halved when the hull is on full health. I might start thinking that the awkward movie trope, where a hero absolutely needs to take a few punches before he could start fighting back, is actually true.
- I should have asked some of the questions in other way.
But hey, at least i've got some straightforward answers that proved my points:
Taking 50% hull damage decreases your TTK only by 0.8-3 seconds. (1.68 seconds average) Throw in greased rounds for a better effect.
Taking 50% hull damage doesn't change anything major in your behaviour. Sure, you'll fly more carefully but still you don't have any choice but to fight.
Exploiting the enemy's permanent damage is difficult
Yes the game is hard to learn and master but that's what makes it rewarding and enjoyable.
It is majorly game altering to go from needing to wait for armor breaks to kind of wanting to. Making it so that basically any weapon combination can work for a team is great for individual based games like your average fps. However it takes away from the team work based dynamic.
There's a catch: "work" and "work effectively" are 2 significantly different things.
Easy to learn, hard to master.
This is the design paradigm used by many good games. It is implies that a game should be easily accessible and have a room to grow.
Imagine you've got a powder monkey on your team. He occupies mortar and shoots continuously dealing little to no damage. The result: you lose, everyone frustrated.
Why is it happening? Because the game isn't asking you to play as team. It punishes you for not doing so.
The other facet here is choice vs calculations
I won't make a wall of text describing the difference between the two of these. Just watch this video. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lg8fVtKyYxY)
In a game choice is always more engaging for a player than a calculation.
Here's an example for you: Your ship was destroyed and you're moving towards your ally. But when you almost arrived your teammate was destroyed too. What's your actions? Only one: run. By the time you'll engage enemies would be completely repaired and this is a logical calculation to regroup and attack together.
Now, imagine the same situation but if it's a CP game, not a deathmatch. You may want to move forward to block the point. Or wait for your ally. You're making a choice.
Calculations are engaging only the first time. Next time you'll know the correct answer and just execute it. Choices are always engaging.
My system can allow for a choice to be made in the first situation. In my system exploiting hull damage would be much easier and if know that one of the ships has sustained heavy damage you may consciously choose to take a risk. You may easily kill damaged ship and turn it into 1 v 1 battle. The other team would also be presented with a choice: retreat to repair hull damage or risk to lose one ship if you decide to exploit it.
"To be or not to be" that question weren't so engaging if it would've had a definitive answer.
Now give me straightforward answers to these 2 questions:- Would it be better for a game if it would stimulate players instead of punishing them?
- Do you want to have more opportunities to make a meaningful choice in the game?
No more "depending on..." please. Just "Yes" or "no"
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I'm not sure how many more times you can ask a question which almost everyone has responded to be saying that, basically, you're simplifying gameplay and not actually taking how matches play out, without it getting old.
Personally I just wonder what this infatuation with TTK is, a term which, in all my years of gaming, I have never heard of.
Anyways, in terms of your... inquiries, I'm not going to answer either with yes or no because it's a pretty obvious bait to strengthen your arguments without the willingness to actually consider what the counter-arguments are.
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But hey, at least i've got some straightforward answers that proved my points:
Taking 50% hull damage doesn't change anything major in your behaviour. Sure, you'll fly more carefully but still you don't have any choice but to fight.
Exploiting the enemy's permanent damage is difficult
But you always have to fight. Your ally can't carry the team.
Exploiting the enemies permanent damage is sometimes difficult and sometimes not at all, it depends (eg.: from what angle you meet your enemy), that's just how it is.
My system can allow for a choice to be made in the first situation. In my system exploiting hull damage would be much easier and if know that one of the ships has sustained heavy damage you may consciously choose to take a risk. You may easily kill damaged ship and turn it into 1 v 1 battle. The other team would also be presented with a choice: retreat to repair hull damage or risk to lose one ship if you decide to exploit it.
I can't see how your system changes how the game plays once a ship sustained permanent damage, especially not if there is no definite way of repairing the hull. Could I not repair my hull from time to time in the middle of combat like I can repair the armor? Can I not fully repair my hull during the duration between "end of engagement 1" and "start of engagement 2"? The damaged ship might not be damaged at all anymore, by the time both teams meet each other again, how does your system make it "easier"?
The team with the damaged ship is always presented with a choice. If it engages it might lose due to one ship being damaged already or it retreats to get a better engagement in which the damaged ship may not even get its armor destroyed at all.
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All ships having the same time to kill or the ability to repair Perma hull makes the game horribly bland, and the Crazy king matches that go on for long enough already would go on for an eternity if this was implemented, literally.
And seriously, what's up with this "Time to Kill" Fetish of yours?
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without the willingness to actually consider what the counter-arguments are.
All the "counter-arguments" i hear are the same sentences repeated over and over again. Most of my answers were just ignored. Like now. You just ignored 90% of my previous post.
*sigh* okay starting over again.
C-A #1: Making hull always vulnerable would take away "teamwork"
Answer: - In my system holding explosive barrage until armor is stripped would be a valid way of working in a team. However, sometimes it would be wise not to. This would actually require more skill from gunner because he would need to adapt to situation instead of relying on the "shoot only when red" definitive answer.
- Armor would still be a valuable part (especially on heavy ships) and every possible way of working as a team around it would stay in place.
C-A #2: Making hull repairable would eliminate its influence on the next battle
Answer: - The repair speed won't be fast. But other team would have to act quickly to exploit it. The exact numbers are discussable.
- In the current system to exploit the permanent damage you need to break trough armor. In some cases (Galleon) it's so difficult that 90% of the battle it's not giving any advantage.
C-A#3: Ships would die quicker.
Answer: They're not. Increasing the hull health pool would decrease the damage/ hull hp ratio of explosive weapons. That should increase the time needed for hull destruction. Currently this ratio is so high because explosive weapons need to operate in a very small time window.
The other counter-arguments (unless i have missed something) are just "i don't want it to change". That's just a Baby duck syndrome
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imprinting_(psychology)#Baby_duck_syndrome)
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Now it's time for a counter-offensive move. I would make a quick recap of the current system's flaws.
The current "shoot only when red" system is:- Very punishing for newcomers. The game has lost a lot of new captains and gunners because of that.
- Limits the skill ceiling for explosive weapons by presenting only one valid option.
- Makes exploiting hull damage much more difficult than it should.
- As a result of previous point it limits the number of tactical choices. (Examples were presented earlier (https://gunsoficarus.com/community/forum/index.php/topic,4869.msg81185.html#msg81185))
Do you have anything to say in its defence?
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Do you have anything to say in its defence?
It gives me a way to fight back and validates the efforts of the pilot, gunners, and engineers.
In any situation if my crew can keep the armor up just long enough to sneak around a corner and out of sight, or if I disable their piercing weapon (s), then I can escape no matter what my permahull is at. If you remove the capability of armor to completely protect the permahull, then last-ditch engineer, pilot, and gunner efforts can't succeed because you lose health no matter what you do.
With your modifications, a heavily damaged ship is a dead ship. I win a battle and have 2 choices - hide in a corner of the map to repair my permahull, or enter a fight knowing I have literally no way to prevent death.
Currently a heavily damaged ship can be used successfully (and almost nothing is more exciting than nursing your 1% health ship through a match) with the recognition that it is open to exploitation. Armor is very easy to break, and with no way to repair permahull you can expect the next engagement to go badly (but it isn't as guaranteed).
Nothing is worse than feeling helpless. In the current system you can always escape through skills and excellent play. The proposed changes here would take away that capability and leave damaged ships feeling helpless.
Consider - you are an engineer rebuilding the armor. You finish rebuilding it and hit it with your mallet. Would you rather know that you just bought your ship several seconds of immunity from permanent damage, or would you rather watch your permahull continue to drop despite the effort you just put in?
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Would rams/terrain still do any significant damage with your new system?
In the current system to exploit the permanent damage you need to break trough armor. In some cases (Galleon) it's so difficult that 90% of the battle it's not giving any advantage.
Destroying a Galleon's armor is supposed to be difficult. Destroying armor never really gives any ship an advantage, only the ability to kill. Do you want to kill them and risk being shot by them?
The repair speed won't be fast. But other team would have to act quickly to exploit it.
The other team might not even have a chance to exploit it at all, if the enemy team quick on the draw and picks them off 1by1 at the spawn directly, while they mindlessly rush in to get the chance to exploit. If they don't rush in like that or the enemy team just moves back a bit, there is a high chance that all the effort of getting hull damage has brought nothing at all since it is getting repaired, bit by bit.
Basically, there is a very high chance that exploiting hull damage will be nigh impossible and just plain pointless. If this is positive or negative is debatable.
The current "shoot only when red" system is:- Very punishing for newcomers. The game has lost a lot of new captains and gunners because of that.
- Limits the skill ceiling for explosive weapons by presenting only one valid option.
- Makes exploiting hull damage much more difficult than it should.
- As a result of previous point it limits the number of tactical choices. (Examples were presented earlier (https://gunsoficarus.com/community/forum/index.php/topic,4869.msg81185.html#msg81185))
Yes it is punishing if you refuse to understand the basics. They might not be explained well enough though in the tutorials at the moment. But if the hull can be repaired and armor stays and continues to take little to no damage, while also absorbing a relatively big amount of hull damage on certain ships that choose to have the most DR.
Your suggestion is in contrast very punishing for the own ship. If the hull engineer shoots the guns, he can't shoot the gun because the hull will get damage, even when the armor is up. In the current system your armor takes damage, but not your hull and on a dodge ship you can, at some points, afford this damage.
This might make the life of an engineer a tiny bit more stressful, just an assumption though.
It may limit the skill ceiling, but I can't see how your system "unlimits" it. Shooting while the armor is up is more of a desperate move to get a kill quickly before bad stuff happens.
You can't see how much armor damage the enemy ship took, so it, to me, sounds less like "adapting" and more like "being desperate". Especially since destroying the armor is still a viable option, why would I risk not killing it during the armor break?
Disagree on point 3. In the current system there will always be hull damage to be exploited, until the ship does die.
In your system, the "repairable hull" is actually the exploitable part, because you won't die that easily if you just camp in a corner for 2 minutes and then be back at full health.
Your system introduces a new tactic: "Camp in a corner for 2 minutes to be back at full health".
Edit: Redria and I are hiveminding on how to exploit a repairable hull.
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A good solution to non-regenerating health is powerup spawns (like halo:ce had), but they would be next to impossible to work into the game in terms of theme and aesthetics.
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A good solution to non-regenerating health is powerup spawns (like halo:ce had), but they would be next to impossible to work into the game in terms of theme and aesthetics.
*cough*co-ophaspowerupspawns*cough*
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With your modifications, a heavily damaged ship is a dead ship. I win a battle and have 2 choices - hide in a corner of the map to repair my permahull, or enter a fight knowing I have literally no way to prevent death.
Currently a heavily damaged ship can be used successfully...
That's the intended behaviour from the beginning. Taking hull damage is supposed to make you easier target next time. That's a handicap for a losing team to make matches more even. But currently it's not quite exploitable. Many people here (including me) said that a ship with a damaged hull isn't an easy target. That means the intended feature is not working or working not effectively enough.
1) Would rams/terrain still do any significant damage with your new system?
2) The other team might not even have a chance to exploit it at all, if the enemy team quick on the draw and picks them off 1by1 at the spawn directly, while they mindlessly rush in to get the chance to exploit.
3) Your suggestion is in contrast very punishing for the own ship. If the hull engineer shoots the guns, he can't shoot the gun because the hull will get damage, even when the armor is up.
4) It may limit the skill ceiling, but I can't see how your system "unlimits" it. Shooting while the armor is up is more of a desperate move to get a kill quickly before bad stuff happens.
You can't see how much armor damage the enemy ship took, so it, to me, sounds less like "adapting" and more like "being desperate". Especially since destroying the armor is still a viable option, why would I risk not killing it during the armor break?
5) If they don't rush in like that or the enemy team just moves back a bit, there is a high chance that all the effort of getting hull damage has brought nothing at all since it is getting repaired, bit by bit.
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In your system, the "repairable hull" is actually the exploitable part, because you won't die that easily if you just camp in a corner for 2 minutes and then be back at full health.
Your system introduces a new tactic: "Camp in a corner for 2 minutes to be back at full health".
1) Sure. I don't see a reason why not. But with increased hull health ships would be able to take a few more hits.
2) That situation is much more likely to happen in the current system. You just don't have enough time in 2 v 1 to break trough armor and exploit hull. With the ability to exploit hull right from the start it would be easier.
3) Same situation with the current system. Engineer can't shoot the gun when trying to keep armor repaired.
4) Actually you can. When ships take hull damage they do show visual damage. The ability to find out the enemy hull's status and knowing when it's easier to make a finishing blow ignoring the armor would become the parts of the gunner "skill"
5) The key word is "bit by bit". The repairs are supposed to take time. Sometimes it would force players to retreat instead of proceeding to spawncamp. And sometimes you just won't have a time to completely repair. When you need to hold the captured point for example.
The exact amount of time needed to repair the hull is not strictly defined and could be tweaked.
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You're interpreting it all wrong. It works, you must be more cautious when you are damaged. If you are the damaged ship, you take a risk entering any engagement, and are the higher priority target. Your views on gameplay are flawed as sometimes the objective is to disable and not to immediately kill, as disabling makes it easier to defeat the enemy, giving the weapons enough time to strip armor off and reveal their hull, and then allowing for the kill.
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I think I'm hearing something saying that newcomers are having difficulties. I'm not trying to be mean, but it really is just what it sounds like, that people who just picked up the game can't manage to grasp the concept of "flee before destruction" or "use your allies" or "use ammo the right way".
For me, in particular, when I started, it wasn't really like that. I guess I could see if you see big white marks when shooting the galleon with a mortar it does mislead you, but then again, I decided to read before I play on the forums and figured that sort of stuff out.
The main argument is that armor specialties should be spread out, not by taking away weapon capabilities, but by taking away armor resistance. If you feel the need, use this, because I can't change it and am occupied.
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C-A #1: Making hull always vulnerable would take away "teamwork"
Answer:
In my system holding explosive barrage until armor is stripped would be a valid way of working in a team. However, sometimes it would be wise not to. This would actually require more skill from gunner because he would need to adapt to situation instead of relying on the "shoot only when red" definitive answer.
Actually I do believe most explosive weapons in GoI are a good example for a game mechanic thats easy to pick up, but hard to master. The main purpose of explosive weapons is to inflict permanent damage on enemy ships, so you want to hit with them while the armor is down. That's why we hear the phrase "SHOOT only when the armor is down" so often. However this request is a very dumbed down version of how explosive weapons are handled properly. What you really want is to HIT the enemies hull when the armor is down. The difference between these two statements is where players can improve their skill and situational awareness. Due to the travel time of the projectiles it's usually required to shoot explosive weapons before the armor is actually destroyed. Estimating the right time to shoot involves a lot of variables (e.g. The targets ship type, the targets hull and armor state, the targets and your own ships position and movement, the performance of your own and your partners hull-striping weapons...) and hence requires a lot of experience and coordination with your team to master.
Allowing explosive damage to inflict hull damage all the time would severely lessen the importance of well timed shots and hence dull down a well established and well working game mechanic.
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It looks like you want to make the game more intuitive for new players. But with your new system, you will probably confuse them. Many novices allready prefer only explosive damage ships, when they are captain. I guess it is because the gun says "good vs hull" and with your system they would be able to kill easily pyras, squids, mobulas, spires and goldfishes with double mortar on their pyras. They will probably take even more time to learn, that an exposed hull is better for them to finish off heavy armored ships, what a galleon and a junker would be.
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Actually I do believe most explosive weapons in GoI are a good example for a game mechanic thats easy to pick up, but hard to master.
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What you really want is to HIT the enemies hull when the armor is down. The difference between these two statements is where players can improve their skill and situational awareness. Due to the travel time of the projectiles it's usually required to shoot explosive weapons before the armor is actually destroyed.
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Allowing explosive damage to inflict hull damage all the time would severely lessen the importance of well timed shots and hence dull down a well established and well working game mechanic.
I'm not convinced.
Mortars and hwachas are used at point blank range and have more than enough ammo to allow for some mistakes.
Hflak is no more difficult to use than another long range guns like Mercury field gun.
It would "lessen the importance" of this top gunners' "skill" only because it would not be the only one. This trick would stay as it is and would allow to deal maximum damage. But there would be more tactical tricks to learn.
It looks like you want to make the game more intuitive for new players. But with your new system, you will probably confuse them. Many novices allready prefer only explosive damage ships, when they are captain. I guess it is because the gun says "good vs hull" and with your system they would be able to kill easily pyras, squids, mobulas, spires and goldfishes with double mortar on their pyras. They will probably take even more time to learn, that an exposed hull is better for them to finish off heavy armored ships, what a galleon and a junker would be.
I think it would be better than a situation when said newbie can't kill anyone at all. Much better.
Besides, after having troubles with killing a Junker, newbie may want to know why and see a "heavy armor" note. After that he may think of bringing an armor-piercing gun himself. This process would be much more "natural" learning process than a note saying "you MUST bring gatling gun" and new players would feel clever and rewarded.
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Ever shot a Hflak at longer ranges? 1k+?
I doubt it if you call it as easy as a merc ...
Bullet speed, bullet drop ... Hflak is much harde rto shoot.
And I still cant agree that this system is more rewarding or obvious.
Its much easier to realize that a piercing gun is needed than to figure out which ships have light and which ships have heavy armor ...
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Hflak is no more difficult to use than another long range guns like Mercury field gun.
Now I want to see a video, where you hit 80 % of your Hflak charged shots on sniping range in a real match.
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Would a junker, with only light guns, have light armor? Or heavy armor because it has so many guns? Or a standard armor because it strikes a medium?
I'm a beginner, and again, it is semi-sort-of misleading when you see those big marks show up on your screen while pounding on someone with mortars. Then again, this is a team game. People will actually, for the sake of success, do one of two things: 1) Complain that you're not doing it right and then do number 2, 2) Tell you that piercing weps come before explosive weps.
The Gatling gun is an easy weapon to use, it's a "Point and watch your enemy's armor die" weapon. Kinda like every other gun in the game should your system be put into place. The question would then be a "should I leave for saftey's sake?" Doesn't the hades cannon also melt armor? And spread fire stacks as well, making it a more viable weapon than gatling?
Hwachas are like shotguns when it comes to their spread in my experience. Maybe you're talented enough to be able to hit all of them in a single volley of normal ammo, I don't know. I use heavy, always preloading the ammunition on Hwachas so the second a ship is spotted I can unleash a volley, then get close and use other stuff.
And finally... H flak is not easy. I can't snipe. Whatsoever. If it were as easy as you were saying, then lots of people would be using H flak. Besides others complaining of patches long before my time, I don't see a lot of mention about it.
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I still don't understand why "these guns are better against armor" is harder to learn than "these guns are better against balloon" or "these guns are better at sniping out components".
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Here comes the "you are noob" arguments again. Both from CAs... *sigh* I won't even try to reply to that because you haven't even read the whole sentence. No use speaking for the deaf.
Next time you want to reply - start it with something like "The current system is better than suggested here because..."
or "Your system have these flaws: ... "
Would a junker, with only light guns, have light armor? Or heavy armor because it has so many guns? Or a standard armor because it strikes a medium?
I'm a beginner, and again, it is semi-sort-of misleading when you see those big marks show up on your screen while pounding on someone with mortars. Then again, this is a team game. People will actually, for the sake of success, do one of two things: 1) Complain that you're not doing it right and then do number 2, 2) Tell you that piercing weps come before explosive weps.
Whichever armor class Junker would have in my system it's supposed to be shown in the ship description. This information is easy to show and easy to understand.
On the other hand, a newbie captain may be completely misleaded. His learning is completely dependent on the other people. If his mistakes were noticed and were politely explained and he didn't took it as insult then good. But if not? What if he have all AI or other newbies on the crew? They would shoot and white marks would pop up showing that damage is dealt but in fact they would deal no damage at all. The current system is just counter-intuitive in this case.
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Cant see a anyone saying youre noob.
We ve just got a different opinion.
And besides the argument "this system would" i dont see any reason i can agree with that your system would be better.
Its much easier to realize that a piercing gun is needed against armor than to figure out against which armorclasses i might need a piercing gun.
I agree that the current tutorials are sub optimal but i know that there was a plan to fix that issue. Just dont know how far it is atm.
And youre system would simply be a way bigger benefit for experienced teams than for newer players.
By taking away the ability to deal permanent damage to the enemy you disallow newer players to benefit from a previous engage. It would lead to singled out engages where no benefit is taken into the next fight if you ve dealt serious damage to the enemy.
It would rather end in the experienced team always repairing up and then starting the engage at 0 and cutting the ability to get a kill or two even against more experienced teams.
And im not talking bout a competetive/highlvl crew vs novice players. Thats a different issue.
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I don't like your system because it would make being an engineer a nightmare and a very boring job. In the current system an engineering crew could save the day by keeping components running and managing to get the armour back up in the nick of time allowing the ship to stay afloat.
In your system I don't see that happening if the armour goes down and the engineers get it back up is there really a point? The hull is still taking damage and the massive extra damage they sustained has probably already lost them the fight. You system focuses too much on the aggressive side and takes away from the engineers capabilities and effectiveness.
I feel your system would lead people to just flat out refuse to engineer because they wouldn't feel like they had any control on the outcomes of the fight like the gunners and pilots would.
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I just don't like the system because it means my Squid would be all but useless, no matter what. Either it gets slaughtered, or the damage it deals in the brief hit-and-run attacks I make is repaired between runs. Either way, I lose.
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To derail this topic towards something interesting I would like to propose a rhetorical question:
Why aren't action movies all action?
With the budgets some of these movies have it is entirely possible to shoot 90 minute long Friedie Wong Video:
https://www.youtube.com/user/freddiew
Yet even the the most brain dead action movies insist on throwing in dialog and attempts at character development when they could just show more punching and blowing stuff up.
The reason is pacing. The human mind can only take so much intensity before it gets inured to the experience and treats it as white noise. The most interesting movies understand this and have peaks and valleys to the action to allow the human mind to better appreciate the action. The audience may only remember the peaks but without the valleys the whole experience would be lesser. See Graph:
(http://solest.org/images/misc/pacing_01_star_wars.gif)
This pacing is the reason for rechargeable shield and heath mechanics becoming so popular in FPS games since it was first introduced in Halo (I think). At the start of the encounter the shield is full and the player is relaxed as the shield drops from enemy fire the encounter becomes more intense due to impending failure state. Eventually some action restores the shield at which the player can relax a bit.
The shield mechanic accounts for an individual spike on the intensity graph but it can not accomplish the gradual rising of intensity. For that you need some way of raising the intensity between engagements. Single player games do this by increasing the enemy difficulty, but that is not an option in multi player games. Multi player games can do this through proximity to end state. Such as the Battle Field ticket system where there is a countdown to end game.
However considering how many GOI games end in 5-0 this isn't always the case. The perma hull mechanic is another way to create the rising intensity since the entering a brawl on 5% perma hull is a much riskier situation than entering a brawl at 100%.
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I'm not even going to ask about the Heavy Flak thing since you've taken to it harshly.
Whichever armor class Junker would have in my system it's supposed to be shown in the ship description. This information is easy to show and easy to understand.
On the other hand, a newbie captain may be completely misleaded. His learning is completely dependent on the other people. If his mistakes were noticed and were politely explained and he didn't took it as insult then good. But if not? What if he have all AI or other newbies on the crew? They would shoot and white marks would pop up showing that damage is dealt but in fact they would deal no damage at all. The current system is just counter-intuitive in this case.
But what if you have to unlock the ship description? Like the gun descriptions in your (admittedly far back) post?
And for me... I didn't learn from AIs or newbies. Hell, I didn't ask pilots what weapons did what. I actually looked it up first on the website (you know, the one that links to the forums, the one you're viewing this on) to learn that piercing weps were really effective against armor, and explosions are a hull's worst enemy. Again, that feels like a tutorial issue, but for me, that wasn't a problem.
Unlike everyone else I'm going to just ask about the system and see if your idea could either replace /
combine with GoIO and not jepordize the game.
1.) How will the possibility of repairing the hull change gameplay tactically?
2.) With a armor of mortar-strip-possible, and a squishy hull, would the squid become flat out useless?
Or would it gain an insane speed buff or something?
3.) Utilizing high armor and hull (to my memory) and a bunch of heavy weapons that now become more useful in killing rather than disabling, what would happen to the galleon?
4.) Would repairing the hull be done with a completely different tool? Would people have to hit the current hull area? Or somewhere else? And would it be like the current system of whack and wait, or like the buff hammer, where people can all start smacking away but for low low hp?
5.) How would this add more focus to other weapons? As in change the current metas like gat-mortar? This adds power to all weapons, not just a select underpowered / underused few. Weapons I'm looking at include the artemis, banshee, H flak, carronades (both of them), hades, and flamer.
6.) Would damage taken from components go as a percentage into the hull while dealing some damage to components? Or would it still do full damage to the components before going to the armor / hull? And even then, would damage from broken components go to just the armor, or the hull / armor hybrid? This question is asked with burst rounds in mind, due to AoE capabilities.
7.) What happens to flame stacks? Do they do direct percentage damage to hull because they hit the armor? Or do the stacks do their own small little percentage damage to armor and flaming the armor does no damage to hull?
8.) What sort of tactical moves would be created besides retreat and repair? Please name 2 because I would like to see if these types of mindsets aren't already going through pilots' heads in similar scenarios in the current system. (btw, retreat and repair is already a given mindset, I usually retreat if the armor, guns and an engine or two are down, everything else damaged, and a pyramidion looming.)
9.) Sandstorms. Those things that whittle away everything on the ship. What do those do to the ship? Or is it suddenly possible to now get constant perma-damge from the sandstorm? (which would suck)
10.) What would be the use of piercing weapons if perma-damage can be pushed through armor anyway? (Galleons are a iffy response because piercing weapons would have been needed before this change in the first place)
11.) Would buff hammer add on a reduction on damage taken to the hull too? This is considered due to weapons piercing the armor regardless of it's state.
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...Imbalance and all the other horrible crap would happen. The way the current hull armor and permahull system is implemented works quite fine, does not need any changing whatsoever. Period. It allows for suspense, tactics and a change in dynamics if your ship has low permahull, such as squid tanking (The damn things can be near immortal with good engis and pilots, along with teamwork), collaboration with your ally to utilize the damaged ship in the best way possible, or even as a bait and distraction by using the ship as the bait, and the other ship(s) as the trap.
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When I was a novice, I really hadn´t any problem to figure out, how correct builds should look like. Reading the manual, doing the tutorial and checking the informations you get, when you click on a ships name and hover your mouse over the guns you can choose. The guns even say, what they are supposed to do, when you look at them. The only real problem I had, was, that I haven´t tried all guns in practicemode, so I missed my first 4 volleys with mortars and hades, because I wasn´t used to their bulletdrops.
I even trained maneuvers with the first guys I played regularly in sandbox mode. After that, the novicematches went boring, because winning 5 to 0 or 1 in 90 % of the matches is not really satisfying.
But I am pretty sure, when I had to check additionally the ships for their armoreclasses and had to calculate, if doubleexplosive or explosive+piercing would be better, I wouldn´t really had known what to choose.
Also I am not sure, what will happen to extreme weak armored ships and to extreme tanky ships with your new system. Matches with squids could for example turn into endless hunts. They are the fastest ships out there and when they realise, they are not able to kill the enemy fast, they could just turn around and hide until they are fully repaired. When they deal enough damage to other ships, the fight could last one hour, before the squids get the first kill. They could deal just enough damage with each engagement to scratch the permahull a bit more, retreat, recover and come back to scratch it a bit more, until their thousands needles tactic gets the first kill.
Also, the Galleon wouldn´t be able to follow up escaping enemies to give them the deathblow. Or the galleon could be the new best choice for each fight. It got enough tankyness to simply don´t care about the hullintegrity and keep shooting. After the enemy has been defeated, they would focuse on repairs and wait for the next engage. As long as a Galleon gets 2 kills for each death, they will win.
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By taking away the ability to deal permanent damage to the enemy you disallow newer players to benefit from a previous engage. It would lead to singled out engages where no benefit is taken into the next fight if you ve dealt serious damage to the enemy.
1) If one team weren't able to break armor then absolutely no permanent damage is dealt and no benefit for them in the next engagement.
2) Making hull slowly repairable promotes quick actions in order to exploit it. If you let your enemies too many time to repair (like 2-3 min) - it's your fault.
If you really-really don't like the idea of being able to repair the hull between battles then try to think about my system without this component. It would lose quite a bit of depth but still would have benefits over the current system.
if the armour goes down and the engineers get it back up is there really a point? The hull is still taking damage and the massive extra damage they sustained has probably already lost them the fight.
A knowledge that hull could withstand 2-3 times more damage is not enough? Besides, in my system the "massive damage" you mentioned would only count as "moderate damage"
Unlike everyone else I'm going to just ask about the system and see if your idea could either replace /
combine with GoIO and not jepordize the game.
A set of really good questions. If only more people could do that.
1.) How will the possibility of repairing the hull change gameplay tactically?
-If by "tactically" you mean "in the middle of the battle" then not much. I expect the hull repair speed to be slow enough to not affect the outcome of the battle.
3.) Utilizing high armor and hull (to my memory) and a bunch of heavy weapons that now become more useful in killing rather than disabling, what would happen to the galleon?
-Well... it would become able to use his main guns to actually kill someone. Right now medium guns alone are useless in this role because of absence of piercing damage.
4.) Would repairing the hull be done with a completely different tool? Would people have to hit the current hull area? Or somewhere else? And would it be like the current system of whack and wait, or like the buff hammer, where people can all start smacking away but for low low hp?
-Sitting in one place smacking one thing for minutes is not fun (*glance at carronades*) So it may be usual repair scheme or a passive regeneration. It could be done in a way that's best for the players. As long as repair rate is under control.
I didn't planned to create any new tools for that purpose.
New hardpoint won't be required if hull regeneration would be passive. Otherwise a new point should be made. No other options here.
5.) How would this add more focus to other weapons? As in change the current metas like gat-mortar? This adds power to all weapons, not just a select underpowered / underused few. Weapons I'm looking at include the artemis, banshee, H flak, carronades (both of them), hades, and flamer.
-All explosive (full or partial) weapons would be able to kill lightly armored targets without the help of armor-stripper. Other guns' roles aren't supposed to change.
6.) Would damage taken from components go as a percentage into the hull while dealing some damage to components? Or would it still do full damage to the components before going to the armor / hull? And even then, would damage from broken components go to just the armor, or the hull / armor hybrid?
-My system is not supposed to change any of damage redirection rules. Any damage redirected or delivered via AoE is supposed to affect both hull and armor.
7.) What happens to flame stacks?
-Damage from flame stacks on armor should not damage the hull.
8.) What sort of tactical moves would be created besides retreat and repair? Please name 2
-Hit and Run would be improved because every shot would deal some long-term damage.
-Strategic withdrawal. The difference from tactical is that you need more than 15 seconds and have to break off the chase.
-Engaging in 2 v 1 battle if one of the ships is heavily damaged.
9.) Sandstorms. Those things that whittle away everything on the ship. What do those do to the ship? Or is it suddenly possible to now get constant perma-damge from the sandstorm? (which would suck)
-Not intended. Sandstorms currently affect only guns and engines but not armor.
10.) What would be the use of piercing weapons if perma-damage can be pushed through armor anyway?
-Won't be required against lightly armored targets but stripping armor allows to deal 2-3 times more damage against medium and heavily armored targets.
11.) Would buff hammer add on a reduction on damage taken to the hull too? This is considered due to weapons piercing the armor regardless of it's state.
-The hull is not supposed to be buffed. But i just got the idea to make buff hammer much more useful for that role. Just an idea though.
2.) With a armor of mortar-strip-possible, and a squishy hull, would the squid become flat out useless?
Or would it gain an insane speed buff or something?
such as squid tanking (The damn things can be near immortal with good engis and pilots, along with teamwork),
I just don't like the system because it means my Squid would be all but useless, no matter what. Either it gets slaughtered, or the damage it deals in the brief hit-and-run attacks I make is repaired between runs. Either way, I lose.
Squids...
First of all, let me point out that Squid have third strongest hull. Only surpassed by Galleon and Goldfish. Also, its armor can be rebuilt momentarily making the hull even more difficult target. And don't forget about its evasion capabilities too.
Doesn't matter how much teamwork (not too much BTW) the "squid invulnerability" requires it should be limited. It's just the rule of design.
-In my system Squids would get a substantial boost to its hull HP.
-The best Squid's defence would be as it is now: not get git at all.
-Hit and Run tactics implies that you deal more hull damage than you take. But currently dealing ANY hull damage means you have to break trough armor. In this case Hit and Run would actually be easier to execute in my system.
Also, the Galleon wouldn´t be able to follow up escaping enemies to give them the deathblow. Or the galleon could be the new best choice for each fight. It got enough tankyness to simply don´t care about the hullintegrity and keep shooting. After the enemy has been defeated, they would focuse on repairs and wait for the next engage. As long as a Galleon gets 2 kills for each death, they will win.
I expect harpoons to be more valuable for slow ships. (Assuming devs would make them usable) Also i have suggested to make a separate turrets just for utility guns so they won't use the light turrets.
Galleons won't turn into a "best choice." It still can be outmanoeuvred by other ships and medium guns are still lacking piercing damage making them ineffective against heavily armored ships.
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I really don't get why you just don't understand you are the ONLY person interested in this system. Everyone else has more or less said no to it so far. I haven't seen a single person agreeing with it. As far as the Squid having a large hull, I would like to point out that it doesn't matter in the SLIGHTEST. If the Squid loses it's hull, if the engies don't get it back up fast and keep getting it up, I die. Simple as that. ARMOR is the only thing that keeps any ship alive in this game. Reworking the system in the way you want would screw everything up.
Even assuming numbers were adjusted to take this system into consideration, the simple fact remains ships that are mostly hull with very little armor WILL die far faster with this system than any other ship, to the point where no one would play them because they are too fragile. Your system would require Muse to not only spend months of time working to make it, but also probably twice the length of time they spend making it just to BALANCE it, and in the end it would almost certainly make the game worse. On top of that, no one seems to like the idea. I'm sorry, but there is 0 chance anything like this will ever happen. There are just far too many problems for far too few benefits.
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Chillex man, it was just an idea, a more thought through than others and a rather nice one, even though most people don't like it, wether the current system is better or not.
Mind you that with this change of system the Squid might actually be less fragile than in the current system, because it could repair its hull after it successfully backed off for a little while.
Although Van-Tuz arguments kinda are not too correct, I think:
"Making hull slowly repairable promotes quick actions in order to exploit it. If you let your enemies too many time to repair (like 2-3 min) - it's your fault."
If the enemy manages to kill both of your ships, than it often takes far longer than 2-3min. to get into an engagement that is adventagous to you, which means not a meat grind. It takes even longer when the enemy moves back.
"-Hit and Run would be improved because every shot would deal some long-term damage."
But how is it some long term damage if it is repairable?
I say it would have been a good idea, if the current system hasn't established itself already as much like it did and there are still enough problems to be dealt with, leaving barely to no room for a change like this, for now.
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Whoaaa Milevan, calms...it is an idea. Opposable idea, yes. However, one does not burn an idea down with fire, he does it with logic. Back to work...
-Well... it would become able to use his main guns to actually kill someone. Right now medium guns alone are useless in this role because of absence of piercing damage.
But the medium weapons... wait.. they're called medium? I call them heavy. You don't say light, and then medium. But that's for an entirely different thing. Anyway, I'm calling them heavy.
I personally consider heavy weapons to be specialized disabiling tools. They aren't the "Okay, now we point the carronade at the enemy and they die", it's the "Okay, now we pop their balloon over and over again with the carronade". (*hopes to finally utilize a light carro like that on a mobile squid*)
I feel like if a gun with high shatter and explosion goes nuts on a ship, not only is the ship now taking considerable hull damage, but now all the guns are broken. From (albiet limited) experience, Hwacha's specailty is saying nope to "Shoot back" tactics, so I can envision all Hwacha galleons unleashing broadside after broadside to not only disable their opponents, but kill them as well.
-Hit and Run tactics implies that you deal more hull damage than you take. But currently dealing ANY hull damage means you have to break trough armor. In this case Hit and Run would actually be easier to execute in my system.
But I like my opinion of Hit and Run tactics more, which is piss off the enemy enough with minor disable and damage, and let your teammate with that weird dual-mort build and gats on the side obliterate them while they're busy trying to repair things like balloon or guns or engines or...
In seriousness, I believe that Hit and Run isn't doing hull damage. I think that ships that proclaim themselves Hit and Run don't outfit themselves with explosive damage only having it as a little side-note-other-team-is-using-non-stop-gat scenario. I use carro and flamer on my squid because I think of it as a hit and run. Why? I pop their balloon with carro, and add flame stacks with squid, and then float away, They have to deal with a popped balloon, and (depending on skill) some flame to extinguish. If this happened as a quick run by with another goldfish at it's side, who the hell cares? Pick it up and fly after the idiot who rushed you. If it happens in a fierce battle however, that's putting your team at a high advantage (no pun intended). With the new hull addition, it wouldn't pull this idea forward, because a passive regeneration has absolutely no affect on components.
I guess if your idea is a charge with a pyramidion and simply flying right by when the gap is closed, I could see that being a way to push Hit and Run tactics. Then again, I feel that's not Hit and Run; That's being offensive and trying to get some heft on your opponent next round. If you do that, then, and not to be rude to the system you're proposing, you've done something wrong. Why drop the chance to attack unless your "hit and run" turned out to be a "got hit and ran"?
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I feel a bit of the rage Milevan expressed every time I see this thread. I have refrained from doing a similar angry post on several occasions because I do not want to feed the OP's ego.
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I apologize for my angry rant. I was upset at other stuff and it kind of bled into this. That said, I still feel like this suggestion isn't a very good one.
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If you guys want to go on a complete "This system is bad" rant, that's okay, but make sure you have evidence to support it, and that you stay civil. I really don't like screaming, especially in a nice community like this. Anyhow, the squid's armor is still bad, bad enough that a mortar clip or two of concentrated fie could destroy it. [Proof on both ends of high hull and crap armor: http://gunsoficarus.com/gameplay/ships-3/ ] But that doesn't justify having high hull hp.
Assuming 100% accuracy, unbuffed mortar using normal rounds and discounting air time delay (the mortars begin hitting the moment armor is down
Pyramidion 700 perma
6 shots, 2.75 seconds
Squid 850 Perma
7 shots, 3.3 seconds
Junker 500 perma
4 shots, 1.65 seconds
Goldfish 1100 perma
9 shots, 4.4 seconds
Galleon 1400 perma
12 shots 6.05 seconds
Spire 750 perma
6 shots, 2.75 seconds
Mobula 700 perma
6 shots, 2.75 seconds
Bit of a blast from the past, but to my point, instead of showing TTK it shows how many shots could land on a ship in a given amount of time. Ignoring accuracy of course. (Tis a biggy, I know, but bear with me) A spanner can repair at approxximately .75 seconds. Multiply by 4 because squids need 4 whacks... 3 seconds. Able to pass the TTK it is. However, keep in mind, squid's horrible armor. Rest of clip, maybe continuous fire still going on from some heatsink gatling on the other pyra gun, and boom, ship just said bai. Now, let's factor in the occasional miss or so, and say the other ship was doing one of two things.
1.) Pilot booked it after armor went down and up with moonshine, or 2.) Everybody got a spanner on that thing!
1.) Pilot now has to deal with a lowered hull armor. This is the one ship where "Armor can easily tank shots" does not do fair play, and they have to be more careful now.
2.) Everybody except/including pilot can't do anything but repair. Again, more people, less opportunity to strike, but what if both engies weren't rebuilding? A squid needs it's engines, and a proper disabling blow makes a squid a sitting duck. (No offence Sammy) What if 3 people are rebuilding? No guns, can't defend, can't repair engines, such probs. 4? Damage everything on the ship. Engines, balloons, guns... because all excess damage from those goes to the armor as well. More excess damage = more chance of damaging something that isn't moving. Not to mention look out if a "slow squid tank" gets in the way of a hwacha barrage on low armor (lord have mercy if greased, but then again, who would do such a thing) , at least 3-5 rockets are going to slip past the rebuild.
Again, my view is "What ideas can we find from this?" It is not agreeing with changing, just a simple "How would this work?"
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If you guys want to go on a complete "This system is bad" rant, that's okay, but make sure you have evidence to support it, and that you stay civil. I really don't like screaming, especially in a nice community like this. Anyhow, the squid's armor is still bad, bad enough that a mortar clip or two of concentrated fie could destroy it. [Proof on both ends of high hull and crap armor: http://gunsoficarus.com/gameplay/ships-3/ ] But that doesn't justify having high hull hp.
Assuming 100% accuracy, unbuffed mortar using normal rounds and discounting air time delay (the mortars begin hitting the moment armor is down
Pyramidion 700 perma
6 shots, 2.75 seconds
Squid 850 Perma
7 shots, 3.3 seconds
Junker 500 perma
4 shots, 1.65 seconds
Goldfish 1100 perma
9 shots, 4.4 seconds
Galleon 1400 perma
12 shots 6.05 seconds
Spire 750 perma
6 shots, 2.75 seconds
Mobula 700 perma
6 shots, 2.75 seconds
Bit of a blast from the past, but to my point, instead of showing TTK it shows how many shots could land on a ship in a given amount of time. Ignoring accuracy of course. (Tis a biggy, I know, but bear with me) A spanner can repair at approxximately .75 seconds. Multiply by 4 because squids need 4 whacks... 3 seconds. Able to pass the TTK it is. However, keep in mind, squid's horrible armor. Rest of clip, maybe continuous fire still going on from some heatsink gatling on the other pyra gun, and boom, ship just said bai. Now, let's factor in the occasional miss or so, and say the other ship was doing one of two things.
1.) Pilot booked it after armor went down and up with moonshine, or 2.) Everybody got a spanner on that thing!
1.) Pilot now has to deal with a lowered hull armor. This is the one ship where "Armor can easily tank shots" does not do fair play, and they have to be more careful now.
2.) Everybody except/including pilot can't do anything but repair. Again, more people, less opportunity to strike, but what if both engies weren't rebuilding? A squid needs it's engines, and a proper disabling blow makes a squid a sitting duck. (No offence Sammy) What if 3 people are rebuilding? No guns, can't defend, can't repair engines, such probs. 4? Damage everything on the ship. Engines, balloons, guns... because all excess damage from those goes to the armor as well. More excess damage = more chance of damaging something that isn't moving. Not to mention look out if a "slow squid tank" gets in the way of a hwacha barrage on low armor (lord have mercy if greased, but then again, who would do such a thing) , at least 3-5 rockets are going to slip past the rebuild.
Again, my view is "What ideas can we find from this?" It is not agreeing with changing, just a simple "How would this work?"
As I've stated many times, the squid's hull HP and such was tweaked after 1.2 in response to how crappy 1.2 made the squid. In 1.1 it was a beautiful advanced vessel with the perfect balance of speed, mobility, and weak armor/hull to make sure it would never be OP unless in the hands of the most skilled pilots and even then they'd have to work hard. When the retooling of weight happened, the squid wasn't rebalanced back to where it was before. There is even some who note that the engines were swapped out with weaker ones. I'm not 100% sure cause I didn't take pictures of the old ones to tell but the vessel is much weaker.
Now in response to this, Muse slapped on more hull HP hoping it would make folks happy. Then over the course of the year there have been minor tweaks which have improved it slightly but most of these were not direct tweaks but just general game tweaks.
Muse has stated they are happy with how the game is balanced. If they're happy, we've got no hope of seeing a great game again. We've got multiple ships which are a mess atm along with the squid, but they are happy. Arming timers on everything, but they are happy... This is just one of those love/hate moments with Muse. They are great people, I love supporting their product, but then theres times like this when I wish there was another game like GOIO to get into. Just goes to show that for how broken GOIO is, there is no title like it.
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If you guys want to go on a complete "This system is bad" rant, that's okay, but make sure you have evidence to support it, and that you stay civil.
That's the point of view that i respect. I salute you for that.
Indeed, the best way you could convince me is to find a logical argument that i won't be able to counter. So far the only thing that i wasn't able to answer is the "no need to change anything" protective behaviour.
If the enemy manages to kill both of your ships, than it often takes far longer than 2-3min. to get into an engagement that is adventagous to you, which means not a meat grind. It takes even longer when the enemy moves back.
It took me 1:15 min to meet with the other team in the canyon Ambush. Galleons from both sides. Just an example from random game.
I also expect the respawn system to be tweaked a bit to make this time more concistent. It's needed for the current system too. Right now the only situation when you could exactly predict how much time it would take for reinforcements to arrive is the CP game mode.
"-Hit and Run would be improved because every shot would deal some long-term damage."
But how is it some long term damage if it is repairable?
"Long-term" damage means it can't be repaired quickly. For example a gun could be rebuilt in less than 10 seconds. That's a short-term damage. For a game a few minutes is quite a substantial amount of time.
I personally consider heavy weapons to be specialized disabiling tools.
I feel like if a gun with high shatter and explosion goes nuts on a ship, not only is the ship now taking considerable hull damage, but now all the guns are broken. From (albiet limited) experience, Hwacha's specailty is saying nope to "Shoot back" tactics, so I can envision all Hwacha galleons unleashing broadside after broadside to not only disable their opponents, but kill them as well.
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But I like my opinion of Hit and Run tactics more, which is piss off the enemy enough with minor disable and damage, and let your teammate with that weird dual-mort build and gats on the side obliterate them while they're busy trying to repair things like balloon or guns or engines or...
I don't think that it's a bad thing. Galleon can be easily outmanoeuvred and if you disable his engines (which are exposed when broadsiding) he turns into a big stationary target. So Galleons can be outplayed in a number of ways and i don't see a reason to make staying into his firing sectors a safe thing. Right now Hwachas on the right side of Galleon are like fireworks. It burns but it's not lethal.
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The "disabling hit and run" tactics is a valid one and nothing about it is supposed to be changed in my system.
But i have responded to Milevan Faent's message. He's complained that damage that his Squid dealt in the attack would be repaired. But he forgot that to deal some permanent damage in the current system you have to break trough armor first
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Again, my view is "What ideas can we find from this?" It is not agreeing with changing, just a simple "How would this work?"
Well, you just confirmed how ridiculous "squid tanking" can be. His armor can be rebuilt in less than 2 seconds (2 engies) and then repaired to full HP. That's 230 hp in 2 seconds with a very small window to deal some real damage and no "cooldown". Or 0.75 seconds if the whole crew does it. Ridiculous isn't? Even though Squid can't fire back at this time it should not be treated as "balanced".
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squid op pls nerf
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Well, you just confirmed how ridiculous "squid tanking" can be. His armor can be rebuilt in less than 2 seconds (2 engies) and then repaired to full HP. That's 230 hp in 2 seconds with a very small window to deal some real damage and no "cooldown". Or 0.75 seconds if the whole crew does it. Ridiculous isn't? Even though Squid can't fire back at this time it should not be treated as "balanced".
I never really looked at squid tanking like that. I always looked at it as "If everything's shooting then something's going to sneak in" and "We've got a free disable!"
For me, squid tanking seems absurd. Then again, haven't encountered one, but hey, life's a b----- and it'll come round to me eventually. It just feels like sacrificing mobility, firepower, and outright movement (in increasing order of people on hull) isn't the way to go. Again, if everything's shooting at it at the same time, explosives can do damage with their damage. Flame can make all the guns go to crap (and considering most pub gunnars have a wrench) and unsuable in case of tanking. Hades cannons can do a number on armor and hull. A goldfish pointing it's Hwacha at the enemy is still deadly because try blocking a 20 rocket barrage while under gat fire. Which actually brings me back to the other thing I want to talk about. Hwachaaaaas! Breaks your engines AND your guns AND your hull at the same time!
...okay maybe not so much engines, but still. Take a galleon with a merc sniper (which to my memory is a long-range piercing wep) and the same hwachas.. maybe with heavy to keep the accuracy, and badam, you've done a number on that approaching pyramidion before they've had a punch.
Back to the system, this would empower all the heavy weapons (some with lesser, some with more) the power of punching through a hull. Can you imagine the bypass? All the heavy weapons with the ability to damage a hull? That's the point of the thread though, isn't it...
Anyway, I'm gonna stop talking about the guns. I'm satisfied there. The other thing I'm going to focus on is regeneration. The hull recharging is a bit expolitable. This makes a squid's (albiet now proven to be large) hull to be a problem. If it can take quite the amount of damage, then fly away, good luck finding it if it decides to say "Screw you, I've got 125 health left" and begins flying around. Fun? For both teams, no. Will it happen? Let's look at something also involving in staying as far away from enemies as possible. Called... you guessed it, lumberjack/merc sniping. I've read several threads (some funny some pissed) about how people got bored in competitive matchess just sitting and wating for one to pop out of the clouds of Dunes. If they do that, what's not to say that tar-squid-bolts will be a problem? We've already distinguished that a squid has high hull and it's fast as hell. Trying to catch up to it in anything but? Especially if it's burning moonshine and pooping out loch mines at you? No thanks!
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Indeed, the best way you could convince me is to find a logical argument that i won't be able to counter. So far the only thing that i wasn't able to answer is the "no need to change anything" protective behaviour.
Yeah... right. By now I'm fairly sure any attempt to convince you the "problems" you want to "fix" are game mechanics which work well and as intended is futile due to your tendency to either outright ignore arguments or to "counter" them by trying to sell bullshit as fact. Pretty much the same goes for the criticism of your system.
For me, squid tanking seems absurd. Then again, haven't encountered one
Me neither.
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I never really looked at squid tanking like that. I always looked at it as "If everything's shooting then something's going to sneak in" and "We've got a free disable!"
For me, squid tanking seems absurd. Then again, haven't encountered one, but hey, life's a b----- and it'll come round to me eventually. It just feels like sacrificing mobility, firepower, and outright movement (in increasing order of people on hull) isn't the way to go.
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Back to the system, this would empower all the heavy weapons (some with lesser, some with more) the power of punching through a hull. Can you imagine the bypass? All the heavy weapons with the ability to damage a hull? That's the point of the thread though, isn't it...
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The hull recharging is a bit expolitable. This makes a squid's (albiet now proven to be large) hull to be a problem. If it can take quite the amount of damage, then fly away, good luck finding it if it decides to say "Screw you, I've got 125 health left" and begins flying around. Fun? For both teams, no. Will it happen?
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Trying to catch up to it in anything but? Especially if it's burning moonshine and pooping out loch mines at you? No thanks!
It is indeed very close to absurd. But this absurd has happened to me many times giving enough time for a third person to repair the central engines. Then i could move and drop a tar cloud or something. Some damage indeed sneaks in but not too much. It's something you have to experience yourself to believe.
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Not exactly. Heavy carronade and Lumberjack won't be affected at all. But all light guns with explosive damage would.
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1) Don't let it escape. Harpoons (reworked, i hope), engine disable etc.
2) Goldfish can (40 vs 47 m/s) chase Squid for quite some time. Mines are mines but a good Hwacha barrage and it's stopped.
On the other hand, escaped Squid leaves his teammate alone. Also, in case of CP mode you don't have the luxury of unlimited time.
Yeah... right. By now I'm fairly sure any attempt to convince you the "problems" you want to "fix" are game mechanics which work well and as intended is futile due to your tendency to either outright ignore arguments or to "counter" them by trying to sell bullshit as fact. Pretty much the same goes for the criticism of your system.
Ahem... I'm trying to answer every more or less logical argument. Please point me to the ones that i've missed.
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Please point me to the ones that i've missed.
Do you have anything to say in its defence?
It gives me a way to fight back and validates the efforts of the pilot, gunners, and engineers.
[...]
Nothing is worse than feeling helpless. In the current system you can always escape through skills and excellent play. The proposed changes here would take away that capability and leave damaged ships feeling helpless.
Consider - you are an engineer rebuilding the armor. You finish rebuilding it and hit it with your mallet. Would you rather know that you just bought your ship several seconds of immunity from permanent damage, or would you rather watch your permahull continue to drop despite the effort you just put in?
It is an interesting thought experiment, but I would basically refuse to play main engineer on any ship ever. The main redeeming quality of main engineer gameplay (for me) is the moments you save the ship. This change would remove that option.
Additionally, I guarantee that a weakened ship could and would hide for as long as it took to heal up before entering another engagement. There are no time limits, no outside factor urging players to engage. A weakened ship has nothing to lose by hiding for 30 minutes (okay, even just 5). Pick any map and if you want I can give you the run-around for 30 minutes.
Some of the resistance you are meeting comes from the tone you take in many of your posts, stemming from experiences you have had that many on here have not had, or disagree with. It is hard to calmly enter a discussion when you start off by denying that a tactic regularly used by many posters here doesn't currently exist (retreat).
What you did post that got drowned out was something interesting:
But inexperienced teams would not be punished so hard for the imperfect performance.
You sort of poke this once in a while but for the most part you leave it alone, even though it is something that has been discussed in other threads and is an open discussion.
Currently if I pay attention to my armor and hydro out of a situation every time my armor starts to get low, I can go a match against an inexperienced pilot without taking any permanent damage. This is cool for me, but probably discouraging for the other team.
Your system would change that so, assuming I didn't hide to fully repair after every engagement, I would probably be slowly whittled down over a match and killed, though this doesn't change the outcome of the match at all.
As a tool to balance the skill level between teams, this is interesting, but only if I ignore logic and don't ever hide and repair. So now instead of a quick 5 minute 5-0 match it becomes a 20 minute 5-0 match with lots of time spent staring at a wall in a corner.
You have recognized a problem and proposed a solution, but it wouldn't actually change any of my matches against less experienced teams for the better. Personally it would make the matches less fun and more drawn out. I can't imagine it being more fun for the enemy team.
Look at it from a different perspective. There have been a lot of criticisms of different factors of your system. What changes could you make/implement in it to neutralize some of those criticisms? If you think you are on to something but everyone disagrees, maybe there is a middle ground that actually has a solution?
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I see. I have replied to that post but it looks like i've slightly misunderstood it.
Basically, you'd like the engineer to provide absolute protection to the ship, am i right?
In that case i'd like to ask you: is the absolute protection really necessary to provide satisfaction?
In my system medium armor allows the hull to take 2x more damage. Heavy armor allows to take 3.5x more damage. With this numbers keeping armor repaired provides the ship with substantial boost to its survivability. I think this gives engineer's job a lot of importance.
Also, with the increased hull hp pool ships won't die in seconds after armor break. So if main engineer was distracted (needed to shoot for example) when armor was broken, he would have more time to go back and rebuild. Again, it would forgive mistakes a bit more.
Some of the resistance you are meeting comes from the tone you take in many of your posts, stemming from experiences you have had that many on here have not had, or disagree with. It is hard to calmly enter a discussion when you start off by denying that a tactic regularly used by many posters here doesn't currently exist (retreat).
That wasn't actually denial.
What is "retreat" currently: You hide behind a corner then turn around and go back to fight fully repaired. It requires very little time and full repair could even be done in battle if enemy has eased the pressure a little. That's why i don't really consider it a proper "retreat"
When you need to really break off the fight and require a lot more time to repair then it's much closer to "retreat" as i see it.
Additionally, I guarantee that a weakened ship could and would hide for as long as it took to heal up before entering another engagement. There are no time limits, no outside factor urging players to engage. A weakened ship has nothing to lose by hiding for 30 minutes (okay, even just 5).
In the CP game this is not a problem at all. In the DM... Ideally some kind of detection and intercept system need to be made to limit the mobility of fast ships but i can't think of a good one for now. Such system can benefit the game in its current state too.
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Many complains are about repairing the hull. But i don't want to drop this bit of a system.
1) Ships would become prone to wearing down.
2) You won't have any choice but to fight no matter how badly your hull damaged.
3) You won't have a reason to make a "long retreat". Only short ones behind a corner.
I hope my motives are clear. I don't want a Squid equipped with a light flak to slowly and painfully wear your ship down.
In the meantime i can suggest 2 solutions:
1) Hybrid system where you can repair only 50% of taken hull damage. I don't like it much this because the possibility of wearing down still exists and becomes even more painful.
2) Material pool system. You have a supply of "spare parts" to repair 40% of the hull. Then you need to replenish it at the specific point. (1 in the centre for DM and 2 at team spawns for CP) so your enemy would know where to catch you. That one is different from the system where you pick up the hull hp directly. (it was suggested somewhere here but i can't find it now)
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I see. I have replied to that post but it looks like i've slightly misunderstood it.
Basically, you'd like the engineer to provide absolute protection to the ship, am i right?
I think you're missing the point. Currently an engineer can buy the ship another few seconds of hull-invulnerability by repairing the hull and applying a mallet whack. These rebuilds can be decisive in outgunning situations or when fleeing the scene. It's quite satisfying as a main engineer to save the day by rebuilding the armor just before the impact of the killing blow which can often turn the tide of an entire engagement.
Your system would lacks the clear cut between tension (stripped hull-armor while shots rain in) and relief (bought a couple of seconds after the rebuild) and replace it with a attrition mechanic. Sure hull maintenance will probably still be an important job for the main engineer, but those dramatic moments where multiple crew members rush to the hull to patch it up asap in order to make a qualitative difference would be gone.
Currently a striped hull puts the entire ship into a different state, forcing crew members to act entirely differently than a second ago when the hull was up. It's a good mechanic to build up tension and to mix things up. The game would lack this element with your system.
In my system medium armor allows the hull to take 2x more damage. Heavy armor allows to take 3.5x more damage. With this numbers keeping armor repaired provides the ship with substantial boost to its survivability. I think this gives engineer's job a lot of importance.
how so?
What is "retreat" currently: You hide behind a corner then turn around and go back to fight fully repaired. It requires very little time and full repair could even be done in battle if enemy has eased the pressure a little. That's why i don't really consider it a proper "retreat"
It is impossible to outrepair damage while the enemy points guns into your direction and is in an effective range to use them. This is true for both, battle situations and when trying to shake an enemy tailing you during a retreat. Retreats are usually used to regroup with your ally and to initiate an entirely new positioning of your ships. It's a fundamentally different maneuver to dodging a couple of shots behind the next best cover.
Additionally, I guarantee that a weakened ship could and would hide for as long as it took to heal up before entering another engagement. There are no time limits, no outside factor urging players to engage. A weakened ship has nothing to lose by hiding for 30 minutes (okay, even just 5).
In the CP game this is not a problem at all. In the DM... Ideally some kind of detection and intercept system need to be made to limit the mobility of fast ships but i can't think of a good one for now. Such system can benefit the game in its current state too.
In there current system there's nothing to gain by hiding for prolonged times. This problem is exclusive for your system.
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I've been monitoring this thread for a while now, and I'm surprised (and slightly disgusted) at how people are discussing this as if the extremely remote possibility that muse would consider implementing a complete redesign of game mechanics would ever actually happen.
(They barely have enough time to give us more maps)
P.S. Its a terrible idea that would completely screw up game balance. (Maybe you can tell by the number of positive responses that agree with it in the thread? Heck, even Milevan doesn't like it.)
Edit: Before everyone tells me to chill out because - its just an idea-
Can we get a mod to move this to the pit? The continued discussion of things like this in a serious board sometimes makes Awkm do strange things to the game.
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I feel a bit of the rage Milevan expressed every time I see this thread. I have refrained from doing a similar angry post on several occasions because I do not want to feed the OP's ego.
Sorry Hamster, I gave in. The repeated bumping with huge walls of text pushed me too far.
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What exactly are the problems you're trying to solve? Inconsistent ttk, and tactical options?
Problem: Inconsistent ttk
Solution: All weapons deal direct damage to hull (reduced by armor), larger hp pools, permahull repairable.
Thoughts: Well, if all weapons could get damage past armor then the repairable permahull and larger hp pools would definitely be a must. But I don't see how that's much different from a single large hp bar that you can apply a debuff to (breaking the armor).
Why is this bad? There is nothing to gain from damaging your enemy because if they get away they can tank, repair to full, and be even harder to kill then they would be with the current system. I recall the first example you gave was the galleon surviving on 5% permahull. I can't see how this would be any different except that it would now be even more likely that the galleon will survive.
Problem: Limited Tactical Options
Solution: Repairable Permahull to allow for retreating.
Thoughts: Retreating is already used a lot. Captains who know what they're doing will rotate out the aggressor of the team if one of them has taken too much damage. I know that's not the kind of retreat you're talking about though. You want to have periods of downtime where the ship fully repairs and re-analyses the situation before returning to battle.
Why will this not work? In the proposed system, the only way to take advantage of damaging a ship, you must act quickly and keep up the pressure. Instead of creating more tactical options, this system will only create one: "kill them before they get away" Good captains who adapt to this new system will not give any ship the option to retreat and will hunt down and kill the opposing team. They have to, or any advantage they hand in the engagement will be lost. This means that the only "repairing to full" will be done by the team that hunted down and killed the other team and are just waiting on re spawns. Retreat can only be afforded by the victor, in the proposed system.
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I've been monitoring this thread for a while now, and I'm surprised (and slightly disgusted) at how people are discussing this as if the extremely remote possibility that muse would consider implementing a complete redesign of game mechanics would ever actually happen.
(They barely have enough time to give us more maps)
That's not a reason to not discuss this. Otherwise you could just go in every thread in this section and post the same message.
P.S. Its a terrible idea that would completely screw up game balance. (Maybe you can tell by the number of positive responses that agree with it in the thread? Heck, even Milevan doesn't like it.)
Edit: Before everyone tells me to chill out because - its just an idea-
Can we get a mod to move this to the pit? The continued discussion of things like this in a serious board sometimes makes Awkm do strange things to the game.
How? Why? Care to explain. With numbers.
The quantity of people saying "no" doesn't matter for me. The "quality" is. If a person can't back his statement with logical explanation then all his ranting matters not to me. And it doesn't matter how big his numbers under the avatar.
This is also a serious thread. I'm not suggesting guns shooting lazorz here.
One more thing: i tend to take every statement about psychological side of changes with a grain of salt. Humans have a strong defensive mechanism called "Impriting". It makes us very clingy to all old things. "Users generally prefer systems similar to those they learned on and dislike unfamiliar systems."
I have asked a question:
is the absolute protection really necessary to provide satisfaction?
Example 1:
Current system: Hwacha barrage deals 80% damage to the hull. Your hull have 50% You have rebuilt the armor and wasn't killed. You have retreated form battle.
My system: Hwacha barrage deals 45% damage to the hull. Your hull have 35% You have rebuilt the armor and wasn't killed. Hull took 15% damage. You have retreated form battle.
How major is the difference? In both cases engineer has saved the ship right before the killing blow. So the engineer should be satisfied in both cases. Sure, taking no damage is a bit better but still.
Now, let's look at it from the other side of a barrel.
Example 2: Goldfish in 1 v 1 fight against other Goldfish. The second one is critically damaged and disabled. G1 strips G2's armor with a side gatling then turns to finish it with Hwacha.
Current system: G2's engineers furiously whacking the hardpoint, rebuilding armor right before the barrage. Hull takes no damage and it could be repeated indefinitely.
My system: G2's engineers furiously whacking the hardpoint, rebuilding armor right before the barrage but some damage bleeds trough. Eventually G2 would be killed.
The question: Why a combined efforts of 3 people from the first Goldfish should be completely nullified? Why should they be frustrated?
I recall the first example you gave was the galleon surviving on 5% permahull. I can't see how this would be any different except that it would now be even more likely that the galleon will survive.
That example just proves that exploiting the hull damage is very difficult and there's not too much difference between a new ship and the one that was a hair away from death. I think critical hull condition should make the ship very, very vulnerable.
Why will this not work?
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Good captains who adapt to this new system will not give any ship the option to retreat and will hunt down and kill the opposing team. They have to, or any advantage they hand in the engagement will be lost. This means that the only "repairing to full" will be done by the team that hunted down and killed the other team and are just waiting on re spawns.
Do you think the current situation "just assume the best position and wait until they come to us" is better? I think no. Waiting game is boring to play and boring to watch. Besides, spawncamping would be much harder because campers would lose a chunk of hull with each fight and won't be able to repair it quickly enough.
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"I think critical hull condition should make the ship very, very vulnerable."
A ship with 5% permahull IS very, very vulnerable, especially if the other team recognizes that it is on low health and focuses fire on it. Your system would make it less vulnerable if the Galleon was given the chance to repair.
"Do you think the current situation 'just assume the best position and wait until they come to us' is better?"
By "current situation" I'm assuming that's the kind of matches you face a lot of the time. I don't face those matches very often in pub games. They are more common in higher level games, but they have a huge weakness. If the enemy is sitting and waiting, they are extremely vulnerable to a bait and switch flanking maneuver that I find very satisfying to pull off. "Boring to play and boring to watch" is an opinion and is not a valid argument. I find flanking and tactically outwitting camping teams very fun to play AND watch.
"spawncamping would be much harder"
I have never been spawn camped in this game, except in Duel, but that map has weird spawns anyway.
"campers would lose a chunk of hull with each fight and won't be able to repair it quickly enough."
That sounds like permahull that can't be repaired to me.
"Current system: G2's engineers furiously whacking the hardpoint, rebuilding armor right before the barrage. Hull takes no damage and it could be repeated indefinitely.
My system: G2's engineers furiously whacking the hardpoint, rebuilding armor right before the barrage but some damage bleeds trough. Eventually G2 would be killed"
You forget that the armor takes damage from the hwacha as well, and that it cannot be sustained indefinitely. In the current system, G2 would be killed eventually as well.
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"How? Why? Care to explain. With numbers."
Enough people have done that already.
"...And it doesn't matter how big his numbers under the avatar."
One more thing: i tend to take every statement about psychological side of changes with a grain of salt. Humans have a strong defensive mechanism called "Impriting". It makes us very clingy to all old things. "Users generally prefer systems similar to those they learned on and dislike unfamiliar systems."
I apologise for whatever perceived gravitas my levels added to the last post, but now that you mention it: Yes, I've played this game a lot, I enjoy this game. You want to drastically change the game that I enjoy for no good reason - I don't want you to do that, because I'm quite happy playing the game as it is. (I think the changes you suggest sound shit, and I wouldn't want to play this game with the adjustments you're suggesting) Sure change is good - if its to fix something broken. Change for the sake of change is always shit, if you support it you should probably consider a career in politics.
Do I really need to back that statement up with numbers? I hope you can grasp the concept.
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Edit: This is weird place to put an edit, I know.. but...
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And it doesn't matter how big his numbers under the avatar.
End of Edit:
One more thing: i tend to take every statement about psychological side of changes with a grain of salt. Humans have a strong defensive mechanism called "Impriting". It makes us very clingy to all old things. "Users generally prefer systems similar to those they learned on and dislike unfamiliar systems."
Yeah... about regenerating health... ah.. I'm very certain that also pops onto the very same concept you're pushing... ahem FPS games...
Current system: Hwacha barrage deals 80% damage to the hull. Your hull have 50% You have rebuilt the armor and wasn't killed. You have retreated form battle.
My system: Hwacha barrage deals 45% damage to the hull. Your hull have 35% You have rebuilt the armor and wasn't killed. Hull took 15% damage. You have retreated form battle.
Let me point out that a ship in your system would be either above 50% at all times, or be dead at all times. But that's not what I'm confused about. How does a ship take 80% damage (note a hellova lot of missiles hitting the ship) and NOT take any hull damage? Which, with current multipliers, probbably take it down to 35-30% range? For your system, I understand "Armor is all-holy and almighty god of defense" but whyyyy would a ship's crew fire a hwacha barrage AT THAT MOMENT? Everyone can see the "Ship A's armor is destroyed!" marker in their top right, and to my knowledge, three engines whacking with spanners takes about 3-4 rounds of whacking, not to mention with two and a third gunner firing back it's usually 4-3. In my opinion, that's more than enough time to decide "FIRE!" is a good idea or not, and even then, you can see when their armor is repaired, allowing you to instantly halt the barrage and wait a few secodns for side gun armor strip magic, and then badamaboom with the remainder of weapon or a whole new clip. And in the last scenario, let us not forget: Hwacha barrages still can do some damage towards the armor & hull with the damage, meaning there's still the chance the ship can be seriously damaged before turning the other guns, which maybe just enough to finish it off. My feeling is that you can't point the heavy gun of the Goldfish like the death-ray of The Lord. Heavy use, yeas, but there's a reason no ship has just one gun. And with the assumption that base-armor near destruction is around 50%, and taking into account current multipliers (which would make an assumed average of about 75%, maths class!) that would mean that the ship would take a crap-ton more than 15 damage. Approximately 26-25%. Which would definitely put it into the dooms-day range. If, it weren't repaired back to full by a kite-around through all the sandstorms and buildings. *ahem previous post*
Now, let's look at it from the other side of a barrel.
Example 2: Goldfish in 1 v 1 fight against other Goldfish. The second one is critically damaged and disabled. G1 strips G2's armor with a side gatling then turns to finish it with Hwacha.
Current system: G2's engineers furiously whacking the hardpoint, rebuilding armor right before the barrage. Hull takes no damage and it could be repeated indefinitely.
My system: G2's engineers furiously whacking the hardpoint, rebuilding armor right before the barrage but some damage bleeds trough. Eventually G2 would be killed.
The question: Why a combined efforts of 3 people from the first Goldfish should be completely nullified? Why should they be frustrated?
I hope by critically damaged you mean by 25% or so, because above that is "Heavily damaged". Critically is the point where you sweat every time you see a ship. And for me, that's 25%. Assuming a Hwacha still has an unchanged 1.3 modifier when smacking the armor for such limited time, that's a large amount of damage. Repeat to my first response to first example for armor whacking time, and that's a large amount of boom. How the hell you'd not get a single rocket to scratch their hull in time is beyond me. And, following YOUR logic of "You can keep up with the other ships if they try to repair" which shouldn't have been changed in the current system, a follow-up barrage can easily whittle away at them. Completely nullified? NONONONO! Somewhat nullified? Yes. If it were completely nullified, should they be frustrated? In my opinion, that would be so, but it would be justified as a bad attack. Because the only natural scenario is a ship blowing straight past another one or breaking cover, and the former is human error, the latter is tactical.
I recall the first example you gave was the galleon surviving on 5% permahull. I can't see how this would be any different except that it would now be even more likely that the galleon will survive.
That example just proves that exploiting the hull damage is very difficult and there's not too much difference between a new ship and the one that was a hair away from death. I think critical hull condition should make the ship very, very vulnerable.
BUT- BUT- FIVE PERCENT- MERC PIERCE- HWACHA BARRAGE-
Seriously though, you can't pop the armor quick enough for a 5% hull repair? Kite around to either the front or back with light guns, and hell, with just two gats you could probably get any remaining hull to crumble with just that. *ahem junker broadside build ahem* Heavy weapons could still be fired, doing some damage to the armor and potentially pushing it enough to get right on up to the last 5%. And in addition, any ship with less than 5% has to play the caution game in the current system. The chance of a scenario like this where a galleon happens upon a goldfish intentionally? . With your system, the caution game would be replaced with the flight game. Again, highly unlikely that a galleon could outrun a goldfish. After killing a goldfish, and flying away? And in most maps if one isn't looking for a fight they could easily avoid their enemies? Quite the valid option indeed.
Why will this not work?
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Good captains who adapt to this new system will not give any ship the option to retreat and will hunt down and kill the opposing team. They have to, or any advantage they hand in the engagement will be lost. This means that the only "repairing to full" will be done by the team that hunted down and killed the other team and are just waiting on re spawns.
Do you think the current situation "just assume the best position and wait until they come to us" is better? I think no. Waiting game is boring to play and boring to watch. Besides, spawncamping would be much harder because campers would lose a chunk of hull with each fight and won't be able to repair it quickly enough.
"Just assume the best position and wait until they come to us" is actually the base of CP. Which... depending of the skill of both teams, could either make or break a team. Imagine a vet team against a bad team. Bad team can't quite get that kill, but the vets are repairing while obliterating them. Sure, you've put a timer on their lifespan, but that timer still isn't very short. After they die, the bad team goes in. Surprise, they can't hold out at all against the vets. Their hull can barely scrape by a single fight, but with the new update, they're ultimately doomed. Doesn't really change much there. This ignores any potential hidden tactics that I don't know about because assuming the best position and waiting would be how I play.
Waiting game is boring to watch? Weeeeeelllll then, let me introduce you to the sniper!
In seriousness though... people will do that to keep themselves out of harm and win at the same time, to the point of pilots grabbing donuts and beers mid-match. I will use this again if you bring up wait times again.
You are damn right spawncamping would be so much harder when campers lose a chunk of their hull. What you don't take into account is what happens when they swap in and out. Imagine, if you will, a gat-mortar pyramidion team. Both spawncamp, and the kill-limit is about 20 or so, so the match just drags. The non-camp team manages to scrap up a pyramidion to about 60% perma. No biggie. Fly away hile your teammate still gets the drop on unsuspecting spawns. Then, when he's back to 80%+, he replaces his teammate. Every system is exploitable, it's just that some seem easier to exploit than others. Armor exploit? Problem, because you have to need some loss of repairs to do that. Hull exploit? Fly around, dodge fights, and boom, you can get back in.
Now to push a question of my own.
How would your system affect players? As in, "How will a new player feel that this system is easier than before?", and "How will a veteran player, who's well versed in tactics and skill, be changed by this system"? I feel that it cuts the current divide deeper by making veteran players who know piercing weapons still remove armor quickly can now use both pierce and explosive at opportune, while players who still do a "shoot all the things" logic will be troubled like before, and the health of every battle is recharged slightly, extending fights like these?
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How major is the difference? In both cases engineer has saved the ship right before the killing blow. So the engineer should be satisfied in both cases. Sure, taking no damage is a bit better but still.
Now, let's look at it from the other side of a barrel.
In your system the engineer could say "Haha! I've just whacked the hull with my mallet - you now need to hit us 6 times with the morter instead of 4 times to kill us - take that!"
In the current system the engineer could say "Haha! I've just rebuild the armor and now the enemy needs to use a hull-striping weapon against us before he can harm us. This has probably bought us enough time to secure the kill ourselves"
The latter is way more satisfying for the engineer as he made a qualitative difference rather than a pure quantitative one as in the first statement. Whether or not the repairs of the engineers have got more or less the same actual effect when it comes to buying time for the ship isn't even most important. The feeling is. Stripped hulls put the entire crew into a dramatic state - everyone knows that shit is about to hit the fan now and the priorities for the tasks each crew member has to fulfill shifts for a moment. Not only does this state help to build up excitement, but it also contributes to building up team-spirit (focused repairs 'n stuff). You know, these "Well I've got no idea how we've survived this, but somehow we did. Good job everyone, we rock!"-moments.
In your system this dramaturgical element of rapid state-shifts would be eliminated and replaced by a pure attrition system. Sure, the main engineer will still make a difference by keeping the hull clocking during his repair cycles, but I don't see how it can create the same excitement as the state-shift in the current system.
Example 2: Goldfish in 1 v 1 fight against other Goldfish. The second one is critically damaged and disabled. G1 strips G2's armor with a side gatling then turns to finish it with Hwacha.
Current system: G2's engineers furiously whacking the hardpoint, rebuilding armor right before the barrage. Hull takes no damage and it could be repeated indefinitely.
This is exactly the kind of bullshit-statement I've referred to two posts earlier.
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A Goldfish is not meant to be the killship.
Its a support ship that provides distraction and disable on an enemy. It destroys balloons and takes enemies out of the fight. It disables whole ships with one hwacha barrage.
Its the bigger brother of the squid. It provides distraction for the enemy. Has a bigger gun but less mobility. And it can survive longer.
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A Goldfish is not meant to be the killship.
Its a support ship that provides distraction and disable on an enemy. It destroys balloons and takes enemies out of the fight. It disables whole ships with one hwacha barrage.
Its the bigger brother of the squid. It provides distraction for the enemy. Has a bigger gun but less mobility. And it can survive longer.
Still in the described situation Goldie 1 shouldn't have a problem to secure the kill. Even if the maneuver is poorly executed.
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I think were forgetting the gameplay Value of having armor as opposed to constant damage.
The thing about armor is that it rewards not being damaged at all. For the whole time you got shot at and recieved damage to your armor, and not your perma, you are actually untouched.
Why? Because this game holds huge easy to hit ships. Armor forgives that aspect with making it OK to be hit.
Its a wind up before getting killed. And learning to notice and play against different armors makes shooting more smart, instead of just... shoot.
So with armor, the game makes sure you will not live on forever with permahull being unrepairable. That is going to make ships die eventually guranteed.
With every ship, the armor is always a windup before you are in any real danger. Its the ships surviveability as a target. The permahull is the ships lastability.
With this change, you have a blurred lines in what guns are most effective (between armor damage weapons versus explosive) and a blurred lines between what really you should be worried about.
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While it is fun to play arm chair game designer, the changes Van Tuz suggests would constitute an entirely new game. Combine this thread with the other threads he has created proposing drastic changes, and I think there are enough new ideas to make a new Airship Combat game that has nothing to do with Guns of Icarus.
If he is right his new game would be bigger than Gun of Icarus and those that doubted him will all have to eat crow. If he is wrong then nobody will care about the new game and we can keep enjoying Guns of Icarus.
The bar to enter the game development field is lower than it has ever been in human history. The Indie version of Unity 3D is free to publish with as are a wide variety of 3d and 2d art tools (Blender and Gimp). The big limiting factor to game development is time and expertise; Van Tuz seems to lack neither. So I request Van Tuz make his masterpiece of an Air Ship Battle Game and show these new game dynamics in action.