Guns Of Icarus Online
Info => Feedback and Suggestions => Topic started by: N-Sunderland on March 04, 2013, 06:23:53 pm
-
As somebody who's put over 100 hours into the engineer class, I've always been underwhelmed by the effect of the buff kit on the balloon. It takes a long time to buff, it runs out quickly, and a similar effect can be reached much more easily by using hydrogen. There's simply no point in buffing the balloon when you could be doing something more productive instead. And then there's an achievement for buffing 150 of them. This is pointless.
So I think that the buff should be changed to make it useful. Maybe have the buffing time shortened, the effect time lengthened, or something else. As it stands, there is no good reason to buff a balloon.
-
Does it stack with hydrogen?
-
It makes it look shiny-pretty.. is that not reason enough?
Mr Shine, him diamond
-
Does it stack with hydrogen?
I would think so.
-
The time you most need to buff the balloon is the time it's getting popped faster than you can buff it. Carronades are just awful.
-
The time you most need to buff the balloon is the time it's getting popped faster than you can buff it. Carronades are just awful.
Carronades are an engineer's worst enemy.
-
The time you most need to buff the balloon is the time it's getting popped faster than you can buff it. Carronades are just awful.
But it takes so long to buff it and in that time you'll be under fire and have to repair it and other stuff.
-
I vote, buff time reduced by 20% effect time increased by 100%. Hopefully awkm sees this. He'll never admit it but sometimes he draws inspiration from the forums.
-
But it takes so long to buff it and in that time you'll be under fire and have to repair it and other stuff.
Exactly. As I said, there's no point in buffing the balloon, since there's pretty much always something better to do.
I vote, buff time reduced by 20% effect time increased by 100%. Hopefully awkm sees this. He'll never admit it but sometimes he draws inspiration from the forums.
I like the sound of that idea!
-
Altitude shifting is a key strategy against long range opponents. A game can be played in the clouds and debris to get into knife fighting range, as I prefer to fly, but the amount of movement needed kills the balloon with pilot tools, and certainly isnt strong enoigh to rely on an engineer buffing it.
-
buffing balloons is largely pointless unless you buff it 90% then coordanate with your captian to actully get any use out of it
-
buffing balloons is largely pointless unless you buff it 90% then coordanate with your captian to actully get any use out of it
This is what happens 99% of the time on my ships, I just buff it and when I notice the captain's trying to rise I'll smack the buff in. Doesn't seem like it pulls us up much faster, though. It's certainly underwhelming even when you do manage to get it in.
-
iv noticed a difference when the captian uses hidrogen while the balloon is buffed, they usally shoot up much higher than they were ment to be.
i think the buff is slightly more effective when its active just before the ship starts going up as apposed to activateing it just after
-
I vote, buff time reduced by 20% effect time increased by 100%. Hopefully awkm sees this. He'll never admit it but sometimes he draws inspiration from the forums.
I see it and I will always admit that changes are due to player reaction from the forum or anywhere else.
The effects should stack. At the end of the day, there is very little I can do with balloons without instituting feature requests. I'll poke around and see what I can get.
-
With blenderfish (Hell hound armed Goldfish) prowling the skies perhaps a balloon buff would be more lustful if it could increase damage resilience instead of lift speed. If a captain needs lift speed, there is always Helium and Chute vent.
-
A buff to the balloons resilience would be great, similar to the hull. I'm playing my Goldfish with a carronade since the flak nerf, and this would make popping balloons a lot more interesting. Might be a much better solution than just sending both your engineers up there with spanners, and give you a lot more time for countermeasures!
-
A buff to the balloons resilience would be great, similar to the hull. I'm playing my Goldfish with a carronade since the flak nerf, and this would make popping balloons a lot more interesting. Might be a much better solution than just sending both your engineers up there with spanners, and give you a lot more time for countermeasures!
It sounds like a good idea, but it's unintuitive. Buffed engines should move you faster, buffed hull should be tougher, buffed weapons should give you more pew pew, and a buffed balloon should do balloon shit. Is there another solution that keeps that "common sense" setup while making carronades not such horrible bastards?
-
It sounds like a good idea, but it's unintuitive. Buffed engines should move you faster, buffed hull should be tougher, buffed weapons should give you more pew pew, and a buffed balloon should do balloon shit. Is there another solution that keeps that "common sense" setup while making carronades not such horrible bastards?
That depends on how you view the balloon. I played the original Guns of Icarus. The balloon and rigging were the two components you had to keep up to prevent your untimely demise. You could ignore the cargo and engines indefinitely if you were focused on survival. I view the hull as the rigging and the balloon as the balloon. Both are required to prevent you from dying.
-
It sounds like a good idea, but it's unintuitive. Buffed engines should move you faster, buffed hull should be tougher, buffed weapons should give you more pew pew, and a buffed balloon should do balloon shit. Is there another solution that keeps that "common sense" setup while making carronades not such horrible bastards?
That depends on how you view the balloon. I played the original Guns of Icarus. The balloon and rigging were the two components you had to keep up to prevent your untimely demise. You could ignore the cargo and engines indefinitely if you were focused on survival. I view the hull as the rigging and the balloon as the balloon. Both are required to prevent you from dying.
Yeah, but the hull does nothing other than not die. The balloon can make you die in the indirect "Captain, why are we descending all of a sudden" sense, it seems sort of odd that its ability to float wouldn't be the one being buffed. I definitely like the HP idea but I want to hold out a bit longer for something that'll keep the current logic.
-
All right, time to bring this topic back.
I still think there's a major problem with the balloon buff. Even when you make a small altitude adjustment with it, it's incredibly easy to overshoot a target. If we look at the other buffs:
There is no downside to a hull buff.
There is no downside to a gun buff.
There is no downside to an engine buff (the extra manoeuvrability is much easier to control than a balloon buff).
As a result of this, the balloon buff is the only buff that can be genuinely detrimental to leave running (apart from a buff on only one of the turnings, but that's irrelevant).
All this is because of how the buff reduces vertical drag, which makes it hard to slow the ship down once it starts rising. Having the buff increase vertical acceleration instead would provide the extra rising/falling speed without being detrimental.
TL;DR: Buff the balloon buff.
-
Hmmm, good idea. I've kind of enjoyed the challenge of trying to learn to deal with the balloon buff mechanics as they stand since they're pretty darn tricky but really useful if used correctly.
Your idea would be just as useful but well, much more useful since it would involve more precision.
Good idea.
-
You could make it immune to the negative effects of the pilot's tools. Still get the rise from Hydrogen, same drop as Chute Vent, just no damage to the balloon.
Or perhaps make it so that a damaged balloon still handles like a fully repaired one.
-
You could make it immune to the negative effects of the pilot's tools.
Giggidy...*falls over in euphoria*
-
You could make it immune to the negative effects of the pilot's tools. Still get the rise from Hydrogen, same drop as Chute Vent, just no damage to the balloon.
Or perhaps make it so that a damaged balloon still handles like a fully repaired one.
Good ballance there, only issue I see with it is it requires tools that aren't always used. Could counter it with a heal over time, counters ballon damaging tools whilst still having a use for those without it.
Overall the balloon buff really need some thinking about, as is the time to buff is just too high to have the time for in combat and the duration is too short to throw up pre-combat. It's the only non-gun buff that has to be applied in combat, even a reduced effect with increased duration would be good (and fit more with the general feel of the buff hammer being longer term smaller boosts rather than the pilot being short term high intensity boosts)
-
Well, don't forget about the magic of the prebuff. Buffs can be done 90% of the way and finished with one hit when you need them. With a well coordinated crew I can often get a buff in the middle of combat.
And while I continue to play devils advocate, you should have seen the old balloon buff. It was like 20 seconds of buffing for 5 seconds of effect; we've come a long way.
-
Agreed. The old balloon buff was the most pointless thing in GoIO history next to the old hwacha.
-
Did the old Manticore not have Shatter Damage or something?
-
It did, but there were a few things that limited its effectiveness. For example, engine and gun rebuilds used to be considerably shorter.