Guns Of Icarus Online
Main => Gameplay => Topic started by: Queso on July 13, 2013, 10:17:51 pm
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So there has been some discussion lately about whether the weapons as they stand are just too specialized. Whether they do one thing too well and everything else not well enough. Now this was less true earlier in the game's life back in beta, but balance does always have a tendency to drift in certain ways. The question however remains of what the game would be like if the damage types weren't so different as they are now. What if you weren't just waiting for that hull armor to go down for the flak kill shot? What if firing on the balloon didn't need an entire dedicated gun to be at all possible? That's what I intend to find out. Currently the dev test gives us such an opportunity. At my request awkm has put up more normalized numbers for the modifiers that damage types do to certain components.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0As7KK0xlixIbdFlGMFIwdmZLSXJvQUlpcFJaSGF3ZVE&single=true&gid=21&output=html
Now I've been trying to get people together to test this, but I am just one person. I want to use this thread as a discussion on the idea of normalizing damages, organizing tests, and a place to discuss results. Gentlemen (as in players of Icarus, although the clan is certainly invited), let's throw science at the wall, and see what sticks.
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I'm in and when I'm up and at a viable computer more than willing to test it all out.
I know we will be in for some much longer matches because of normalized stats.
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I'm in for the testing.
Although I'll be honest, I don't want a general normalization of damage modifiers, and from what I see in that chart ( 0.7 explosives on armor) we will probably be going back to the age of the Heavy Flak.
0.7 for the explosive weapons that already deliver huge chunks of damage is a bit too high.
Since this was brought up though, here is an idea I had some time ago, was planning to send Muse a mail about it, but I think it's still a bit messy, but I'll post it here.
Typhon Heavy Flak Cannon: Increased magazine size to 4 (from 2), increased reload time to 7 seconds (from 5)
Echidna Light Flak Cannon: Increased magazine size to 6 (from 4)
Manticore Heavy Hwacha: Explosive damage reduced to 18 per shot (from 25)
Explosive armor modifier: increased to 0.45 (from 0.3)
Explosive hull modifier: decreased to 1 (from 1.4)
Piercing armour modifier: decreased to 1.25 (from 1.5)
Reduced chances of instakills, explosives more effective against armor, Heavy Flak becomes a better stand alone weapon, Mortar is now the definite close range explosive king, Light Flak keeps its killing power but rewards accuracy more, Hwacha's armor breaking power tweaked a bit so it doesn't get out of control with armor breaking, encourages usage of explosives to help with armour breaking by reducing the piercing modifiers.
What is needed, in my opinion, is more of a nomalization between explosives and piercing as you see above OR at least toning down the disabling element of the Gatling and the Mercury, turning them in pure armor strippers, since if you are to keep them specialized, at least for these kind of weapons that take down such an important component so fast, go all the way and just make them be just that, armour strippers.
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The merc's component disabling isn't a problem. The problem (well, there isn't one really, but this is the only thing I can conceivably imagine as being one) is that it does loads of piercing at a very long range. This hurts teams rushing against mercs, since the sniping team will get a big advantage on hull by the time the engagement starts.
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The merc's component disabling isn't a problem. The problem (well, there isn't one really, but this is the only thing I can conceivably imagine as being one) is that it does loads of piercing at a very long range. This hurts teams rushing against mercs, since the sniping team will get a big advantage on hull by the time the engagement starts.
It was more of a suggestion to at least make it do only one thing if we go full in specialized since these weapons already take out a lot more things than they should.
But I can't be arsed to mix this suggestion with the Artemis-Merc role swap I sent to Muse as an E-mail, I'm too lazy and this is probably not the thread for it, I'm gonna make one.
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These were just some initial test numbers awkm threw on there in a few minutes. It's a fairly simple change so if after we do some testing you want to suggest a few changes it shouldn't be too hard to do. That being said I think balloon damage should be a little less all or nothing than it is now as well. Otherwise it just turns into a giant piece of armor OR a giant weak spot depending on other team's gun loadout.
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These were just some initial test numbers awkm threw on there in a few minutes. It's a fairly simple change so if after we do some testing you want to suggest a few changes it shouldn't be too hard to do. That being said I think balloon damage should be a little less all or nothing than it is now as well. Otherwise it just turns into a giant piece of armor OR a giant weak spot depending on other team's gun loadout.
Balloon damage output is something that is there to reward the difficult task that it is to close range with the carronades, the only weapon that breaks that law is the LJ, so with balloon damage you might want to take a look at the weapon rather then the modifier itself, if the Heavy carronade can't two shot the balloon then you end up with a very time consuming weapon which will be detrimental to its usage due to how risky it is to put yourself in range to use it already.
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I think one of the first things we may need to look at is breaking the game up into different phases when considering damage normalization. We have the start, the long range/support/buffing phase, the Medium range/repair/positioning phase followed by the Weapon Melee/Ship Triage repair finished with death/retreat/repair.
When examining each of the weapons we can consider their respective role in each phase, and adjust accordingly what their values may be depending on their value in each phase and what they would best do to keep in their respective phase, this will also bring into consideration the various ships and how well they perform in each phase.
The Mobula would plainly do good in the Long range phase, while the Squid may be able to bring the fight to the Melee phase much faster before a team has a chance to buff up and get into a good position.
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Yeah about that Heavy Flak age.. forget it..
All I have to say is that the Hellhound, with these modifiers would instantly break Junker level and below armours in one shot with Lochnagar loaded and buff.
(340*0.6+220*0.4)*(2.25+0.2) = 715.4 armour damage in one shot.
Also, PermaHull damage = 632.1
So about that Junker.. how do you like getting 2 shotted out of the sky? :P
(http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/919016319225839474/22545B6886EBCF33F8823F7D775B9909F7B44088/)
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Alright, now that we have some math down, want to see what the game is actually like in this state? How about Tuesday night for testing? Around 8PM EDT? After we do some testing we can play around with the numbers a bit and see if it's an interesting idea still or if I get forced to walk the plank.
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Alright, now that we have some math down, want to see what the game is actually like in this state? How about Tuesday night for testing? Around 8PM EDT? After we do some testing we can play around with the numbers a bit and see if it's an interesting idea still or if I get forced to walk the plank.
Not sure what timezone EDT stands for as I am european, I am in GMT+2, hope that helps.
After I did the math, I tested it, as you see in the screenshots, Lochnagar destroyed my heavy gun instantly instead of just damaging it.
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EDT is the same as EST
The numbers will take quite a bit of playing around with to make sure we don't have silly situations like Junkers getting two-shotted.
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My concern is that Flechette is already fine where it is, so I don't think it needs any changes, no damage type other than probably explosive and piercing need any changes what so ever, explosive to a lesser extend, I support that we lower piercing to 1.2 and get done with it instead of messing with a lot of delicately balanced weapons. If the Carronade one shots armor, just think what the LJ could do, destroying balloon, armor and hull like its nothing, from range.
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Agreed. Flechette is nice in that it deals lots of balloon damage while still doing a decent amount to armour, so the main focus should be to lengthen engagements and diversify strategies by making piercing and explosive less specialized.
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What's the HP of a target dummy compared to, say, a pyra?
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What's the HP of a target dummy compared to, say, a pyra?
When I tested the Gatling on it some time ago, it took around 43 bullets to destroy its armor in one go.
Current Gatling does 17 armor damage per shot, so 43*17= 731, so the Dummy probably has 700 armor. Also it must have around 600 permahull as well cause it got one shotted with a Lochnagar round from the Hellhound after armor went down.
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So the test is going on tonight. Make sure your Dev App is up to date.
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I've had a concept of them making the ammo types change the dmg being done. It would make gunners a must have commodity and make other weapons more attractive. But it would need a bit of work to implement it.
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Last night's test was interesting. Certain weapons ruled when normalized. Overall, I'd say those numbers last night need to be brought down quite a bit.
Also, as we spoke about it last night, what is the real goal of normalization? Is it just for the sole purpose of ending the supposed dominance of gat/flak?
I'm a huge fan of certain weapons being much better at certain things and horrible at others. It makes weapons synergize a bit more, and makes crewmates have to coordinate to pull off serious combos.
The real issue some people may be having is that piercing damage isn't as ubiquitous as they feel it should be.
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Well the point of all these tests are to see if the game can be more fun if we totally screw with things. It's not to achieve any other goal than that. That's my only agenda right now. If we find something that could really improve the fun of the game then we might try and make it work and get it balanced. There is no problem I'm trying to solve. I like the game now, otherwise I wouldn't play it. That however doesn't mean we can't try new things.
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So guys, what weapon combinations and ship combinations did you try?
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Goldfish w Lumber: crazy stupid damage
Mobula w Mortars: insane idiot damage
Carronades: ridiculous retarded damage
6 shots from a Lumber completely destroyed a Junker from full health. Less than a full clip of Mortars took out a full Pyri. Think we had a double mortar Pyri that was wrecking as well.
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Goldfish w Lumber: crazy stupid damage
Mobula w Mortars: insane idiot damage
Carronades: ridiculous retarded damage
6 shots from a Lumber completely destroyed a Junker from full health. Less than a full clip of Mortars took out a full Pyri. Think we had a double mortar Pyri that was wrecking as well.
did you try double shotting a Junker with 2 Loch shots from the Heavy Carronade? That was hilarious.
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I think it's been pretty well established that flechette changes were not productive. That's why we're testing.
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Flechette was pretty normalized as it stood, definitely did not need tweaking from there. When's the next series of tests? I'd be glad to attend if I can make it.
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I think the next test is pretty much 1.3 with reduced damage to the perma-health by everything. Basically more perma-health.
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Why not just bump up perm health then? Seems easier.
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I might be able to get that done. It really depends what numbers are easier to change on awkm's end. I know for sure that modifiers are just database side. Less sure on hull health numbers.
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Oh you meant messing with modifiers. That sounds even worse to get down right. Back when they tried buffing flechette the modifier was something like .2 off and it made a big difference.
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Just a short announcement that tonight (Monday, June 22) at 8PM EDT we are going to run another test with modified perma-hull health. Feel free to stop by the dev app and test it out.
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I will do my best to be there.
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I think I'd still rather see ammo type determine damage. It would help address this issue while also giving gunners more of a purpose. Still, I'm willing to give anything a try!
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Well that test wasn't a test at all. It's currently rescheduled for Wednesday, 7/22, same 8PM timeslot. Watch the experimental crew group or bug me for updates.
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Well, that test was interesting, but I think I liked some of the changes.
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I'm telling you guys, quad flak Galleon.
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Oh yeah, I quite liked the look of the Galleon's durability, by the way. Triple ship health for the win!
(http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/633039016640589058/54DFA03153FF86D7A32231A14B7365D632EF3C4B/)
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Are all of those dynamic, I wonder? Also definitely want to try a double health test as well at some point.
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Yeah... Triple health seemed like a little bit too much. We want engagements to be longer, but having matches drag out could end up being a byproduct.
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I had a fantastic time in the triple health test - it was a heck of a lot more fun when the life expectancy without armor is greater then 1 second :P
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I have to say I greatly enjoyed it as well, I've not had that much wild fun with strategies in a while. I really had to pull out the bag of dirty tricks to score a kill with a Hellhound goldfish, and I don't usually get to use those tricks against players who are as good as the names we had in that test match because they take time and good positioning to execute.
With the 3x health I just saw a lot more utility and versatility horizontally rather than vertically (more options that all could work vs what does more damage faster.)