Guns Of Icarus Online

Main => Gameplay => Topic started by: Squidslinger Gilder on March 01, 2014, 06:46:40 pm

Title: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Squidslinger Gilder on March 01, 2014, 06:46:40 pm
Now its time to go back to more arcade style PVP gameplay. Seriously.

This movement is growing and I know I'm not the only one. I keep running into players in game who want the faster gameplay back and now I run into newer ones who wish it was too.

So I'm talking today to another and they point out something that really made me stop and think.

How many clans we had a year ago vs now? How many team startups we were seeing vs now? It pales in comparison and we've actually lost more than gained. Players come in fired up, then find out how dull competitive is, get pwned, and then off they go.

Then it hits ya...we're stagnating but its not due to dull ranged combat like everyone suspects. We're stagnating because the game just is too dumbed down. We've had a growing trend to nerfing. Slower ships, less powerful weapons, and arming timers up the wazoo. Everything done to prevent teams from being too strong but at the same breeding a community of range fighters.

When you look at that, it is a no brainer why teams say the heck with heavy brawling and go with range builds. Muse keeps trying to nerf and tune to make ranged play less optimal but we've got a game that makes it so that pilots who take risks have a much greater chance to fail than ever before. We don't just have 1 ship OP, we have a bunch that are under performing and make guns seem more OP than they actually are.

I've been on the fence at times but generally I'd rather see the faster action days back. Yes this coming from one who has done plenty of attrition Merc battles and won with them. But again, had Muse not touched the ships, we'd have never shifted to Merc combat. When it is clear snipers have nothing to fear from cqc teams and cqc teams are left with little to no option of combating a ranged team, something is wrong.

We've had a year under the iron boot of the realism crowd and it isn't working. All too often I hear,"wouldn't it be cool if this could do..." and then have to tell them, "yeah, that is how it used to be!" Then hear the predictable response of,"Why did it change?!!"

Muse you can do it. You've had a year to learn and to fine tune. You can bring back speed to the game without making 2hr flak battles a thing again. Realism has had it's fun ruling the PVP scene. But now you got COOP for that. Isn't it time arcade returns, loads their HF barrels with fistfuls of fun, and then crams it straight up some unsuspecting foe's engine at pointblank range and unloads with fury?!
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: The Churrosaur on March 01, 2014, 07:41:09 pm
*starts jumping up and down and cheering energetically*
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Thomas on March 01, 2014, 08:56:52 pm
I'm not sure realism has had all that much of an effect on the competitive scene. Slowing the ships down, dealing with the maneuverability, changing the weapons, etc is all game balance; and very often the complete opposite of realism. I'm no weapons expert, but as far as I know, arming times aren't a thing. If you shoot a rocket, it's going to explode when it hits something regardless how close. As soon as it's fired, it's armed (I believe some of these weapons are based on velocity, which is often achieved immediately after leaving the barrel. This is more of a safety measure so they don't explode when you drop them).


For the competitive scene, there's a lot other bigger factors that affect it.

First is that it's mostly forum based. A lot of players are from steam and couldn't be bothered to check the forums if you paid them to. Most players aren't even aware of the GoIO forums.

Second, and also tied to the first, is the lack of in game clan support. Setting up a clan is a hassle, keeping track of clans is a hassle, keeping track of clan members, organizing them, etc; is a hassle. It's all on the players to do these things and more. Although this will likely see a huge improvement in the near-ish future.

Third is the competitive structure itself. Due to the relatively small population, everyone is put into the same competition. This makes it really hard for newer clans and teams to actually compete; as there's a -massive- learning curve. Hopefully matchmaking will help ease this learning curve, as the players get better, they'll get grouped with better players and get into more intense matches. Instead of being forced to pub-stomp and think you're good; or going through the hassle of setting up a scrimmage with another clan. Then of course there's the casting. Don't get me wrong, I love the competition being streamed, but they tend to be very harsh and unforgiving to any kind of mistake. I've actually seen a clan fall apart and stop playing the game from how the casters acted towards them.

Fourth is the clans, which is actually an odd one. Quick, list all the clans you know! You probably got a fair amount of them before you finished reading this sentence. Now how many members do those clans have? And there's an issue. Some clans just have an incredible amount of players, especially the ones that are well known for competing. It's not the clans' fault really, as most players just like larger clans (or want to be on the winning team). Which is why some clans have well over 100 members, and other clans struggle to get 10. This is where the competitive scene got a little weird, changing from competing clans, to competing teams. Accommodating the large clans who can support multiple teams, and in turn removing some of the disadvantages of joining a large clan (if each clan could only have one team, players would be more likely to join a smaller clan so they could compete. Instead they can join a large clan and still compete).


But that's me going off on a tangent.


--------------------------------

Personally I wouldn't mind ships being a little faster and more maneuverable. But of course you have to consider what that will do to the game. Long range becomes a lot less powerful since ships are more difficult to hit. Close range engagements take longer as well because ships make sudden movements easier to dodge attacks and slip out of bad positions.

Now I do love a brawly build myself, and really enjoy the faster ships (squid), even though it feels like we're flying through mud sometimes with how easy we are to hit, even at top speeds with sudden bursts of movement (hydro, chute, moonshine).

I wouldn't say to go back to a time where ships could dance around each other, but I could get on board with a moderate boost to maneuverability and speed, especially for the ships that rely on those.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: RearAdmiralZill on March 01, 2014, 09:28:37 pm
https://gunsoficarus.com/community/forum/index.php/topic,767.msg13544.html#msg13544

- Rebalanced ship acceleration/speed profiles
-- Top Forward Speed (fastest to slowest): Squid, Goldfish, Pyramidion, Galleon, Junker, Spire
-- Forward Acceleration (fastest to slowest): Squid, Junker, Goldfish, Spire, Pyramidion, Galleon
-- Top Turn Speed (fastest to slowest): Squid, Junker, Goldfish, Spire, Pyramidion, Galleon
-- Turn Acceleration (fastest to slowest): Squid, Spire, Junker, Goldfish, Pyramidion, Galleon
-- Mass (largest to smallest): Galleon, Pyramidion, Spire, Goldfish, Junker, Squid
-- Vertical Acceleration (fastest to slowest, all top vertical speed is 12m/s): Squid, Spire, Goldfish, Junker, Pyramidion, Galleon


- Fixed a bug where ships used different mass values for damage/momentum calculations and for engine acceleration (caused several peculiar situations)

The big one is the last line. Previous to Guns as we know it, all movement was literally bugged, and was thus fixed and balanced. I don't know how you think just making everything faster wont break the balance of the game in some aspect, and you'll just get your nerf hammer back to "realism."
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Raskolnikov on March 03, 2014, 06:44:24 pm
I don't have much comp GoI experience outside of watching streams, but I have played competitively in other games. I think the limiting factor is that there's only one "weight class" as far as ships go. Each ship having four people and each ship having to be balanced against each other makes it difficult to branch out across the spectrum of speed versus heavy. It's like putting heavy weight boxers against a bunch of welter weights and telling them to only use one hand.

I think it would definitely help to implement two-man ships and a game mode that would limit ship choices. This would be much more accessible as it's far easier to find one friend than it is three. It would also provide a more involved experience for both people instead of staring at a mallet, which is a hard selling point for newcomers. You could keep the games base mechanics, but with less focus on a sort of "attrition warfare" based gameplay.

That's obviously a lot of work, but what should immediately be added is ranked matchmaking with a deterrent on leaving. This would create a stronger incentive to win and involve yourself in the competitive scene and discussions more. If not a per person rank system, than at least a clan based one.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: -Mad Maverick- on March 04, 2014, 12:21:31 am
gilder you know how much i agree with you but honestly no matter how much noise we are able to raise it wont matter because muse does not want the same type of game you and i want.  they dont want a dog-fighting game they want a "naval" battle in the air.   "get your guns in range and in arc and do your best to hover in that position" is the kind of game muse wants.   sure they will throw in some minimal maneuverability in there because it is in the air after all but as you and i know to attempt to RELY on maneuvering as part of your strategy really does not work very well. 

i would love for any of the MUSE folks to jump in here and tell me they really do want the feel of dog-fighting aerial combat to be part of the game because then maybe we could explain to them that at this moment it does not exist.  maybe then they would ask for feedback on how to make it better and we could tell them about the times when sliding to the back of a junker mattered or how much fun it used to be doing a strafing run on a galleon and getting out before he could turn his guns to bear on you.  but honestly i dont think the problem is a broken game but a game that is heading in a direction you and i (and unfortunately many others) dont like...
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: redria on March 04, 2014, 08:42:34 am
they dont want a dog-fighting game they want a "naval" battle in the air.
The concept of dog fighting is the same as shooters these days. Things die with a couple clicks and you move on. Your initial positioning and response decide the fight, then it is over and you move on to the next fight. Maybe I am missing something here, but when matches are played to 5 kills, that is clearly not the style Muse wants, and I'm not sure where you got that idea in the first place. But the idea that a naval battle is just a slow slug fest is absurd as well, especially with the additional cover we have in our matches. Captains in the old style naval battles with galleons etc had to be absurdly good at what they did. The entire crew had to work like a well oiled machine, and one slip up could give an opponent the chance to take victory.

Quote
"get your guns in range and in arc and do your best to hover in that position" [...] as you and i know to attempt to RELY on maneuvering as part of your strategy really does not work very well.
I... what? Are we playing the same game? 95% of my play style is about maneuvering. Get in fast, take out their balloon, and maneuver so you can respond to their ally if need be while working down your initial target. The few times I am not closing distance, I will be maneuvering around trying to find the best place to open fire on one ship, with cover from the other, along with several options for escape into cover. I take piloting to be a very active role. My engines are almost always doing something. I am never just hovering. Sounds boring.

Quote
strafing run on a galleon and getting out before he could turn his guns to bear on you.
I mean... you still can, but what's the point? The game is established in having engineers and having repairable armor covering the only actual permanent health on the ship. A strafing run will get you approximately nowhere as any damage you can do in one run will be quickly repaired.

I guess I'm just confused by what you are obsessing over Gilder. If the dev app reverts for a period I'll try it out, but I honestly just don't understand where the misconnection is here. I am playing a game featuring airships kept in the air by large unwieldy balloons, not by speed and aerodynamics. The game feels very balanced right now, and I feel like the changes you want, while they might be fun, would take the game from being thought-out, strategic battles where winning depends on teamwork between ships and in the crew, and turn the game into a pinball derby.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Imagine on March 04, 2014, 11:02:19 am
gilder you know how much i agree with you but honestly no matter how much noise we are able to raise it wont matter because muse does not want the same type of game you and i want.  they dont want a dog-fighting game they want a "naval" battle in the air.   "get your guns in range and in arc and do your best to hover in that position" is the kind of game muse wants.   sure they will throw in some minimal maneuverability in there because it is in the air after all but as you and i know to attempt to RELY on maneuvering as part of your strategy really does not work very well. 

i would love for any of the MUSE folks to jump in here and tell me they really do want the feel of dog-fighting aerial combat to be part of the game because then maybe we could explain to them that at this moment it does not exist.  maybe then they would ask for feedback on how to make it better and we could tell them about the times when sliding to the back of a junker mattered or how much fun it used to be doing a strafing run on a galleon and getting out before he could turn his guns to bear on you.  but honestly i dont think the problem is a broken game but a game that is heading in a direction you and i (and unfortunately many others) dont like...
The way the game plays in regular pug matches and the way they play in top level competitive matches are two very different things. Most pug matches are super brawly.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: redria on March 04, 2014, 11:06:03 am
The way the game plays in regular pug matches and the way they play in top level competitive matches are two very different things. Most pug matches are super brawly.
Even competitive matches can be brawly. Half the fun of competitive is seeing who will bring what and if they will be able to force their range on their opponent. There are team(s) that love to brawl and will do anything they can to force the issue.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Dementio on March 04, 2014, 11:19:11 am
What exactly is this thread about?

How clans are not supported?
How much competitive and not competitive currently does/doesn't suck?
What needs to be changed on (certain) ships to make scenario X happening?
Why new players will never be old players?
What impossible thing NEEDS to be added to make scenario X happening?

I am seriously confused here...
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: GeoRmr on March 04, 2014, 12:22:20 pm
Good thing I play this game because I enjoy it's unique naval style combat and strategic coordinational demand. The world has enough generic twitch shooters and dogfighting games for me to choose from, where I'm sure I could have a great time being insta-gibed by caffeine fueled teenagers.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Spud Nick on March 04, 2014, 01:09:40 pm
What exactly is this thread about?

How clans are not supported?
How much competitive and not competitive currently does/doesn't suck?
What needs to be changed on (certain) ships to make scenario X happening?
Why new players will never be old players?
What impossible thing NEEDS to be added to make scenario X happening?

I am seriously confused here...

It's about how some players want the fast paced dog fighting action the game had back in the day.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Imagine on March 04, 2014, 01:28:36 pm
What exactly is this thread about?

How clans are not supported?
How much competitive and not competitive currently does/doesn't suck?
What needs to be changed on (certain) ships to make scenario X happening?
Why new players will never be old players?
What impossible thing NEEDS to be added to make scenario X happening?

I am seriously confused here...

It's about how some players want the fast paced dog fighting action the game had back in the day.
There's some serious Rose-colored glasses syndrome going on with that.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Alistair MacBain on March 04, 2014, 01:48:52 pm
Ive played the game in the beta and i never experienced any fast dogfighting game style ...
Besides some small things the balance is at a great state atm.
Im quite happy that you cant just charge head on to an enemy atm and hope to win. Sure there are things that would need adjustment so some things are viable outside pub games atm. But i havnt seen any game that achieved that completly.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Urz on March 04, 2014, 02:46:34 pm
GOIO was never a "dog fighter", and never a "twitch shooter". The game was faster before the ship mass bug was fixed, but not War Thunder fast. "Realism" is also not really the word to use when arguing the relative speed of airborne warships. For the sake of not misconstruing the points people are attempting to get across, let's try to use more accurate terminology.

Whenever someone complains that the game is slower than it used to be, Zill always mentions that it was a bug, and that the ships were intended to be (about) as fast as they are now. That is irrelevant to this discussion. The question is not whether or not ship mass was bugged, but whether the game was more fun before it was fixed.

Right now we're in a place where long range conservative play is dominant. The ships sit, and they fire across the map. Sometimes the opposing team will survive into close range, but usually they will die with the sniping team not even having to move. This is as true in PUG matches as in tournament matches.

If you look at what ships people are flying successfully, we have the Junker, Galleon, and Pyramidion at the top. The Junker is certainly the best ship in the game in part due to it being the only competitive ship with reasonable close-range maneuverability. The squid and goldfish as the two other high maneuverability vessels are more or less unplayable in competition.

This leaves us with the following (simplified) strategies which are the most effective (by ship):

Junker - sit across the map and snipe. Sometimes turn to kill something at close range.
Pyramidion - get into effective range for your guns and then point at enemy until one of you is dead.
Galleon - sit across the map and snipe.
Mobula - sit across the map and snipe.
Spire - sit across the map and snipe.
Goldfish - do nothing and then die.
Squid - gank unexpecting Galleons (otherwise do nothing and then die).

There is nuance of course, but these are the prevailing dynamics of the game as it is. I would love to see the goldfish and squid be relevant again, and for Pyramidions to be able to go head-to-head with Junkers. Piloting as an engineer should be a sin. You should need those maneuverability tools.

So my opinion is that GOIO could do for some speeding up. Which changes would best accomplish that I'm not sure (speeding up some ships, all the ships, changing map geometry or gun mechanics, among other possibilities), and any significant change would of course require an on-going effort to keep balance.

I want this game to be more exciting.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Alistair MacBain on March 04, 2014, 02:54:08 pm
I remember several SR where for example the Thralls used a dual gat + top mortar mobula to great effect on fjords when they manage to get close.
And they often paired it with a closerange pyra ...

Yes you need to think about your engagement and cant just charge head on in. Yes squid and goldfish need adjustment but i wont say that the issue of the goldfish for example is that it cant snipe ...
Its its 1 gun focus which is just outperformed in most situations by other ships.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: RearAdmiralZill on March 04, 2014, 02:56:58 pm
I swear I log into a different game then you guys do sometimes.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: redria on March 04, 2014, 03:29:21 pm
Urz, the problem with your simplified strategies is that the most effective strategy will always be to sit at range and snipe from your spawn. No matter what changes are made, the safest bet is to sit at range and take pot-shots. The range is more forgiving, meaning you are less likely to die from a small mistake. You have back-up if one of you dies. It is harder to be ambushed because you control the area.
As long as there are sniping weapons, there will be a lot of people that take sniping builds. Because it will always work. If it reaches a point where it doesn't work, then the devs will have broken the game. Both long range and short range builds should be viable for every map.

However we don't only see sniping matches. We see a lot of them, but not just sniping matches, and the snipers don't always win. If the snipers were consistently winning, your argument would hold water, but the sniping team doesn't always win. GwTh took a recent rumble with a close range mobula/pyra and close range spire/pyra combo.
As long as there is a serious competitive scene, there will be a lot of sniping simply because it is effective. Just like teams can let overtime end a match in a tie just to move on to a better map. It is an effective strategy.
It is just a really lame one.
Some teams commit to using close range builds regardless of their opponent, and do it effectively because they know how to.
The game is fairly balanced because on almost every map (I'm looking at you dunes) there are several options available for closing in on a sniping enemy. Brawling is just naturally a much higher risk. You put yourself that close to the enemy and only one of you is getting out a live. Small mistakes will kill you. It is more interesting, but some teams just won't want to take that risk.

This is such a unique game that balancing is absurdly difficult to manage. It is in a remarkably good spot right now. Ships don't need to be faster. Guns are pretty balanced. The competitive scene is seeing different builds (a spire in competitive that wasn't Museosaur? Whaaaaat?). On any given day you can't really tell if the sniping team or the brawling team will have the advantage.
Some ships and builds require very different tactics that aren't as apparent as turn ship, sit still, and fire. Goldfish is one of those. Someday soon I want to see OVW bring Shadowsword to competitive and see if we can change some minds.

Like Zill says, I'm not sure what game you guys are playing, but there is a lot going on here that seems to be ignored because of a few outliers.

(also, pyramidions can go head to head with junkers. It isn't that hard. I'm not sure where everyone keeps getting that idea.)
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Urz on March 04, 2014, 04:40:14 pm
However we don't only see sniping matches. We see a lot of them, but not just sniping matches, and the snipers don't always win. If the snipers were consistently winning, your argument would hold water, but the sniping team doesn't always win.

Here are the matchups from the finals of the last month of weeklies I have run.

The Sunday Rumble #26 - 03/02/14
Finals: The Gents vs Crimson Sky Riders
Game 1 Fjords - sniper Galleon/Junker vs double sniper Mobula
Game 2 Canyon - sniper Galleon/Junker vs Metamidion/Hadesmidion
Game 3 Dunes - sniper Pyra/Junker vs double sniper Mobula

The Saturday Box Social #7 - 03/01/14
Finals: Crimson Sky Riders vs The Mandarins
Game 1 Duel - Metamidion/Hadesmidion vs double sniper Junker
Game 2 Canyon - Metamidion/Hadesmidion vs double sniper Junker

The Sunday Rumble #25 - 02/23/14
Finals: Glowwater Thralls vs Crimson Sky Riders
Game 1 Dunes - sniper Spire/Metamidion vs sniper Mobula/Hades Pyra
Game 2 Paritan - brawl Spire/Metamidion vs Metamidion/Hadesmidion
Game 3 Fjords - Metamidion/brawl Mobula vs Metamidion/Hadesmidion

The Saturday Box Social #6 - 02/22/14
Finals: The Gents vs Crimson Sky Riders
Game 1 Fjords - sniper Galleon/Junker vs Metamidion/Hadesmidion (TIE GAME)
Game 2 Dunes - sniper Galleon/Junker vs double sniper Mobula
Game 3 Canyon - sniper Galleon/Junker vs Metamidion/Hadesmidion

The Sunday Rumble #24 - 02/16/14
Finals: Glowwater Thralls vs The Gents
Game 1 Duel - double Metamidion vs sniper Galleon/Junker
Game 2 Paritan - double Metamidion vs sniper Galleon/Junker
Game 3 Fjords - Mercamidion/Metamidion vs sniper Galleon/Junker

The Saturday Box Social #5 - 02/15/14
Finals: Sacrilege vs The Mandarins
Game 1 Dunes - sniper Galleon/Junker vs double sniper Junker
Game 2 Fjords - sniper Galleon/Hadesmidion vs double sniper Junker

The Sunday Rumble #23 - 02/09/14
Finals: Glowwater Thralls vs SIRI
Game 1 Fjords - brawl Mobula/Metamidion vs sniper Junker/Mobula
Game 2 Paritan - brawl Spire/Metamidion vs sniper Junker/brawl Galleon

The Saturday Box Social #4 - 02/08/14
Finals: The Mandarins vs Sacrilege
Game 1 Canyon - double sniper Junker vs sniper Junker/Metamidion
Game 2 Duel - double sniper Junker vs double Metamidion

The Sunday Rumble #22 - 02/02/14
Finals: The Gents vs Glowwater Thralls
Game 1 Canyon - sniper Junker/Mobula vs sniper Spire/Galleon
Game 2 Dunes - sniper Galleon/Junker vs sniper Spire/Galleon

The Saturday Box Social #3 - 02/01/14
Finals: The Mandarins vs The Gents
Game 1 Dunes - double sniper Junker vs sniper Galleon/Junker
Game 2 Duel - double sniper Junker vs sniper Galleon/Junker



That is 11 sniper vs sniper games, 2 brawl vs brawl games, 6 wins for sniper over brawl, and 4 wins for brawl over sniper (32 snipers and 14 brawlers, 70% of teams in the finals run snipers). The two most competitively successful teams in the game (Gents and Ducks) exclusively run sniper builds (Skrimskraw has also told me that he would run sniper builds if he wanted maximum win rate). If you want to go back to the last major tournament, Anvalan Conflict, the two teams in the finals were The Paddling (sniper Galleon + Pyra/Junker) and The Gents (sniper Galleon + sniper Junker). Both teams 3-0'd brawling opponents in the semifinals.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Imagine on March 04, 2014, 04:57:07 pm
So, two things (and keep in mind here that yes, as a caster I would love for more brawls because it tends to be a lot more exciting to commentate, and no, the nuances of sniping aren't lost to me, just saying this from a what's more entertaining to watch perspective).

1) Can we really say that if long range didn't exist, those two particular teams still wouldn't be the top two teams?

2) Once again, the amount of percentage these matches make up is probably what... 5% of the matches played? Leaving competition aside, is any of this that big of an issue for what almost everyone else plays the game like?
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Urz on March 04, 2014, 05:03:24 pm
2) Once again, the amount of percentage these matches make up is probably what... 5% of the matches played? Leaving competition aside, is any of this that big of an issue for what almost everyone else plays the game like?

The competitive matches matter because those are the matches which carry enough significance for teams to be willing to play long patient games. You don't see very many 30 minutes 2v2 PUG games because people just don't care as much.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Dutch Vanya on March 04, 2014, 09:05:56 pm
What game are people playing that involves sitting still and sniping? When i do end up in sniping matches it involves moving around to every bit of the map that normally gets ignored and trying to use the terrain effectively. I have a feeling it is you guys and your competetive matches that are making it boring for yourselves. In those matches urz listed it seems to be the gents and ducks perpetuating the sniping meta's. I'm bad at turning all my thoughts into coherent posts, but i agree with everything redria has said in this thread. There's a lot more i could say on these matters too. And don't tell me people don't CARE in "pug" matches. Some people are just playing a game here.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: GeoRmr on March 05, 2014, 04:21:19 am
Just because sniping is a more popular choice does not mean that brawling is not viable. Don't forget about capture point games, there is a competitive scene for them emerging and snipers are NOT popular choices in them. The current leading team has not lost a single cp match thus far in the tournament  using 2 brawling ships and one mid range ship.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Sammy B. T. on March 05, 2014, 08:58:11 am
Also calling the Mandarins double sniper junker is a bit disingenuous.  Our long range engage is physically limited at around 1300 meters and we generally try and fight around 900 when we are using our "long range" side (we call it mid range).  In addition the mere fact we have a mid range side doesn't mean it is all we use.  Our right sides aren't contingencies in case the enemy gets close especially since we quite often are the ones that charge.

Furthermore we rarely simply sit even when using our left side. We could not play our build without frogger and myself as pilots as we maneuver far to much. 

I can sympathize with changes made to remove the power of camping.  However the mandarins are really not a good example of conservative play.  Hell even the gents have been playing more aggressively as of late.  The presence of longer range guns does not necessarily mean camp fests
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Urz on March 05, 2014, 11:42:24 am
I can sympathize with changes made to remove the power of camping.  However the mandarins are really not a good example of conservative play.  Hell even the gents have been playing more aggressively as of late.  The presence of longer range guns does not necessarily mean camp fests
While I realize that you prefer dynamic engagements which involve close range weapons, that certainly did not happen in your last set vs the Gents. Your right side only came into play when 1) the Gents ill-fatedly attempted to spawn behind you, and 2) in the third game they had to charge facing a time limit loss, which also ended poorly for them.

VOD:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcnWn_8_RL4
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: redria on March 05, 2014, 12:26:26 pm
I can sympathize with changes made to remove the power of camping.  However the mandarins are really not a good example of conservative play.  Hell even the gents have been playing more aggressively as of late.  The presence of longer range guns does not necessarily mean camp fests
While I realize that you prefer dynamic engagements which involve close range weapons, that certainly did not happen in your last set vs the Gents. Your right side only came into play when 1) the Gents ill-fatedly attempted to spawn behind you, and 2) in the third game they had to charge facing a time limit loss, which also ended poorly for them.

VOD:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcnWn_8_RL4
Key words there: The Gents. Not trying to be down on the gents, but they are notorious for finding their sniping spot and not moving.
Factor A: The gents employ a not-very-popular strategy. Almost no-one takes their path. We won't go into that, but suffice to say that they make for a unique opponent.
Factor B: The best situation for brawling teams is if their opponent tries to advance a little as well. This shortens the time of closure, and helps a brawling team find effective range faster while taking less damage on the approach. This means that against a team like the gents, the brawlers are immediately put in a less favorable position. Not screwed, but less favorable than against almost any other team that will move forwards at least a little bit.
Factor C: The ducks take winning seriously. They are probably the most organized and practiced team in every factor of their game. They will take risks, but the ducks are going to take the optimum route to victory 9 times out of 10.

Put these factors together, and there is no way the ducks are going to charge a sniping line in an unfavorable situation when their ships are already set up for a much better engage.

There won't be much variation in how these 2 teams engage one another. With the gents so stuck in their ways and the ducks playing the calculated strategy game, nothing will change. Recently the ducks have had a slight upper hand, and you can see the gents being a little more mobile as they look for the happy medium between their classic play and the more dynamic fighting everyone wants.

The most recent sunday rumble from a few days ago shows good evidence of this from the gents-CsR canyon ambush fight. Yes, the galleon was set up with a sniping build. But the gents flew it inside the canyons. The junker was using its short range side as often as not. We saw much more interesting gameplay, and an amazingly tense finish, simply due to the gents not camping at the back of their spawn. The map helped significantly because if both teams leave their spawns, the map is set up to favor dynamic play.
This was followed up by dunes. The gents looked to be playing their classic sniping. CsR took mobulas to disable/range out the gents. The gents switched to even longer range to range out the fire from CsR. This was a case of the worst map in the game taking 2 teams just out of a thrilling match and shoving them into something that, in all honesty, I couldn't be bothered to watch at the time.

There is a notion in the game that when the other team brings a sniping build, the only counter is more sniping. Some teams challenge that. It doesn't always go well, but it is not a fore-gone conclusion that the snipers have won. Realistically it makes some of the best matches, as you have completely different weapons being used on different sides. It isn't a case of who can empty their clip faster (2x metamidion vs 2x metamidion...). It is a case of who can utilize the weapons they took and force their range on their opponent.

The biggest problem is that if the brawlers fail, they respawn back at their own spawn and now have to charge again.
It is hard to be excited for a fight if you know that your enemy is just going to wait around for you to make the first move.
The spawn points on duel at dawn, while broken, make this aspect more interesting.

TLDR: Ships and builds aren't the problem, maps are. Make dunes more dynamic, and do something to make spawning work better. I have no ideas on the spawning situation, but it hurts.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Alistair MacBain on March 05, 2014, 01:09:30 pm
Redria points it out.
The current issue isnt the guns. The issue is that most maps just punish you for a charge.
The current LoS spawn system on every map except duel forces you to either charge and be in a bad spot cause your enemy can spawn much closer to the fight than you. Or wait for the enemy to move in a less favorable position.

Dunes with its pretty much 0 hard cover is just the extreme of this. There are 2 ways to charge a sniping team on dunes. Both of them are pretty well known and so obvious at a certain point that most teams even the more brawly ones tend to stick to sniping on that map.
Canyon has a different issue.
1. Spawns are so hard covered that you can never assist your ally in a fight when you died. You need to move through the whole canyon because of all that hard cover.
2. All the clouds in the actual canyon can lead to 2 brawl teams moving around each other cause they cant se anything in the canyon.

Alot of teams just dont utilize the map very well. That is something that is kinda glued to the toplvl games.
Thralls showed how good it can be with their mobula pyra charge gainst us (the gents).
Mandarins showed it aswell. ITs something that newer teams have to learn when they start in the competetive teams.

I mean no offense gaisnt anyone but i remember a gents vs wolf game (could be anvalan) where the wolfs just charged our sniper build head on with just some clouds as cover.
This is a kinda optimal situation for a sniper. Barely any cover and the brawl team charges you head first on a pretty long way. Open fire.

Not sure about you guys but i am kinda happy that the game doesnt forgive such a mistake.

The mandarins showed that you can charge a sniper team even on dunes. When more people start to really utilize the map gainst a sniper the sniper builds will have a much harder time.

Sniping isnt the most effective strategy. We spend alot of time to improve our style of play and thats why we do so good.
We have proven that it takes alot of efford to optimize this by beating alot of teams trying to outsnipe us.
The Crimson Sky Ryders found a counter build for our style of play for certain maps. Sure we wont use that again if we realized that it just cant work out ...
A well practiced brawl team can surely beat a sniper team. It just takes alot of effort to utilize what is given by builds, maps and loadouts.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Thomas on March 05, 2014, 01:31:10 pm
I think this was about ship speeds? And how faster ships would be better. I think.

In my opinion, ships can be pretty maneuverable and zippy. It really depends on how you choose to fly. Personally I move my ship around a lot, and I love fighting sniping teams because my playstyle generally works really well against that. Someone brought up how certain maps aren't ideal for brawly ships, and that's absolutely true, but you can still make them work; although you have to try a lot harder with a lot more risk involved.

One reason that most competitive teams turn to sniping is because of the high skill level involved, and the lower risk. Highly competitive teams have very skilled crew. You try using some of those sniping builds with a pub crew, and it usually doesn't go so well (especially with a hades). It takes a crazy amount of accuracy to hit ships consistently at that distance. Another reason they tend to go sniper builds is to focus more on attack, and less on defense. Ships used tend to be those with at least a trifecta (galleon, junker, spire, mobula, and sometimes pyra). They want to burst down their enemy, and sacrifice having someone constantly watching the hull/other components. This is another reason for a long range build, as you should be taking less hits at a greater range, allowing your team to focus on shooting and less on repair. You can obviously go with a close range build with a trifecta, and while that tends to be ridiculously effective, you're often putting yourself at a huge risk.

Competitive teams just tend to play it safe, because they know that if they make one little error in judgement, it will end with their ship in pieces. By keeping it at long range, they give themselves a little more leeway in decision making.

And of course that's not always the case. I've seen a sniping match turn abruptly into a brawl match when one of the teams realized they had another match coming up shortly and decided they didn't have time to play it safe. They rushed the other team who was also long range heavy and ended up defeating them at 5-3 or 5-4. It was a very risky way to play, and the score reflected that. Had they continued the long range fight, it might have ended 5-0 or 5-1.


------
Long story short(er) is that my opinion is that it's the teams that choose to play that way, and the spawns, maps, and ships have only a minor effect on that.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: redria on March 05, 2014, 03:33:07 pm
One reason that most competitive teams turn to sniping is because of the high skill level involved, and the lower risk.
A good summary of a lot of what I tried to say.

Quote
Long story short(er) is that my opinion is that it's the teams that choose to play that way, and the spawns, maps, and ships have only a minor effect on that.
I tend to agree. I think the ships have the least effect. I think the ships are pretty close to being balanced (which was the point of this thread).
The more I think about it, the more I believe that spawning is a problem that is affecting build and play style choice to a greater amount, though I really have no good solution.
Most maps I am pretty okay with, though Dunes I have a real problem with. You can charge a sniping team and get within brawl range. And there should be maps where sniping is favored over brawling. But the difficulty of getting within effective range of a sniping team when you have a brawling build is absurd on dunes, and sometimes downright impossible. There are places where a sniping team would be nigh on unapproachable on dunes. But that is a discussion for a different thread really. You could probably say that the current paritan rumble is the brawling counter to dunes.

The bottom line here is that Muse is trying to walk the line between fun and balance, while trying to maintain their vision for the game. While I would support the dev app running an old update for a week just to see what this old timey arcade style flying was like, I also don't think it is a direction we should be going. Muse is developing this game and pushing forwards: looking ahead and adding to the game and maintaining what we already have. This entire discussion is originating from a mindset of looking backwards and trying to go back to something we left behind.
Keep in mind. It has been a year. Muse made the change for a reason and has not gone back for a full year. Maybe it was incredible. Maybe there were serious flaws. Whatever the case may be, the developers for the game felt this change to be so important that they have not looked back for 12 months.
That is 12 months of pub matches, competitive events, dev games, and 1 or 2 people making a fuss about their old ship.
As someone who admittedly did not play during that time before, and who quite enjoys the current balance and game style, I am inclined to trust that Muse payed attention to what effects their update had and decided that it was best for the game. And I am inclined to say that they are probably right.

All other arguments aside, every ship has the opportunity to beat every other ship 1 on 1. Maybe not easily. But all things being equal, no 1v1 scenario is a given, or even very easily predictable. And that tells me that the game is in a good place.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Frogger on March 06, 2014, 09:44:44 pm
While I realize that you prefer dynamic engagements which involve close range weapons, that certainly did not happen in your last set vs the Gents. Your right side only came into play when 1) the Gents ill-fatedly attempted to spawn behind you, and 2) in the third game they had to charge facing a time limit loss, which also ended poorly for them.

VOD:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcnWn_8_RL4

It's a definite mischaracterization to say that we are purely a sniping team. If you look at our videos, well over two-thirds of them are brawls, and almost all of them involve us moving out of our spawn to engage the enemy in or around theirs.

The entire point of the Mandarins is to have both options available - to be able to brawl and snipe with equal fluency. If I were assigning labels, I would call our format "double hybrid junker".
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Frogger on March 07, 2014, 01:21:33 am
To address the OP, in general I agree with Gilder. One of the reasons I enjoy flying the junker is that it is one of the last ships that doesn't feel like a flying brick to me, despite its relatively slow speed. As others like Byron and Gilder have stated, moving forward I very much hope that Muse will view balance in terms of buffs (to speed and maneuverability, namely), instead of reducing the pre-existing abilities of ships, which most players generally seem to regard as being in a good state of balance.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Spud Nick on March 07, 2014, 02:12:12 am
How do you balance the game so that every play style can be competitive? How do you balance the weapons and ships so that brawling and disabling is just as strong as sniping?
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Captain Smollett on March 07, 2014, 02:17:35 am
How do you balance the game so that every play style can be competitive? How do you balance the weapons and ships so that brawling and disabling is just as strong as sniping?
]

A lot of trial and error and a bit of luck. 
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Dutch Vanya on March 07, 2014, 04:05:12 pm
Yeah i want to commend Muse for their balancing efforts, It cannot be easy to do with such a unique game.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Queso on March 07, 2014, 04:52:35 pm
It takes PAX East dinners and crazy ideas.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Spud Nick on March 10, 2014, 08:38:57 pm
Do we need every ship weapon and play style to be balanced in competitive play? I would like to say yes but I don't It's high on Muse's list. The game is balanced for general play and I think that is good enough for them. Until the long awaited Adventure mode/co op is finished.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: -Mad Maverick- on March 20, 2014, 01:19:58 am
the point of this post was to suggest how the game could be made more fun.   some of you have responded about ballance.  my guess is because you believe that ballance=more fun.   but you see that isnt the point gilder and I are trying to make.  there are many ways to ballance a game and making a game faster does not necessarily make it unbalanced or even more close range.   if the speed is taken into account it could simply make the piloting simply (wait for it) faster!   I propose that this added speed would make the game more (wait for it) fun! 

keep fighting the numbers but the lobby has the exact same wait times and number of people waiting now as it did months ago.  we keep bleeding players!  this game has so much potential to be so much more fun; I know because I played it when it was...
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Squidslinger Gilder on March 20, 2014, 05:50:51 am
Thumbs up Janeway.

What makes vehicles in BF fun? There is a sense of power, of speed, of being able to crush little bugs trying to shoot you with rockets/missiles. People don't mind slow vehicles if they feel they can put some steak on it whenever some lowly peasant gets in front of their boomtubes.

Galleon, you need that sense of raw power. Of being the big dog with all the guns. Unfortunately, most of them have been crippled due to balancing concerns. I've seen more captains charging broadsides than ever before because there is just no reason to fear them that much. Newbies love taking these things but then they quickly hate them.

Goldfish, the blend of speed with power. A ship completely rendered barely viable to not viable at all because of the reductions to heavy weapons. It can't even use it's stronger light weapons effectively because they cannot effectively support the heavy with their firing arcs.

Spire, raw power ship that does suffer from the same problems the Galleon and Goldfish do except it can make up for it due to all the small gun mounts. Without those small gun mounts being turned more forwards, the Spire would still be totally non viable.

Mobula, the beached whale of the skies...yet viable because of all the little gun mounts. But still, notoriously poor at handling for how weak it is. This ship either needs a mobility buff or it needs a survivability buff. Bring it up to being a heavy warship and it would make sense for how slow it moves.

Junker, again, its slow and lumbering and looks like a tissue paper hull yet takes forever to cut through. Best arcs in the game. This is a ship that doesn't need work other than armor reduction. If it is a light warship, it shouldn't be soaking so much damage like a heavy. At the same time, it could move a bit faster to compensate for the lack of survivability. But simply put, its a weak light ship that should reflect that.

Pyra, the bloated lawn dart. Now we have the speed, but the turning is infuriating. This ship was nerfed to answer the cries of the community which complained about how OP it was. Well, good job people, you got what you wanted. But at the same time we've got teams that have left the game because they just can't stand it anymore. Its a weak vessel and instead of supplementing it, Muse nerfed it again with hull hp reduction and 20% weight reduction. Pyras are not ships to fear anymore, nor are they liked as much. They're slow, lumbering and completely at the mercy of their opponents being morons that don't see them as an easy kill.

Squid, the little engines that can't and the tissue paper hull of iron. What the heck? This ship needed speed, raw speed and maneuverability. It was able to get up to top speed quickly and able to reverse quickly to avoid ramming things. It lost it in exchange for...more hull HP. Yeah, that doesn't work when you have Junkers out turning it and ships outrunning it. It should be a challenge to fly and kill a squid, the highest risk for reward. I should be absolutely terrified of ramming with a squid or getting it in front of any arc, not charging straight in and giving love taps. SERIOUSLY WHAT THE FREAKEN HECK?! I came to dogfight and risk everything on one maneuver, not play bumper cars. I remember a time where I'd fall apart barely touching another ship!! I want those times back!!

Now the heavy ships we don't really need much faster but they could use slight improvements on their evasion capabilities. Give captains a reason to be excited to fly the lumbering slugs! Knowing that if someone zones them out, they have a means of combating it without risking too much. Hydro/Chute shouldn't be giving such diminishing returns that they do. We don't have to take them completely back to 1.1 but making them work again so pilots have ways of evading shots when closing range would go a long way.

Ships should not require a buff hammer to make them flyable. They should be fun to fly and give proper risk for rewards. Buff hammer should only be necessary to give a proper temporary buff that makes it more fun or allows them to beat out a tough enemy. Many of these ships show little to no improvement with buff hammer while others depend almost completely on it and even then they don't feel like they are really buffed.

When I look back at BF series, my most favorite game was the first Bad Company. Why? Because vehicles moved better and shots actually felt like they did something. I was known for taking light tanks against heavy and win consistently due to speed and driving skills but it was fun because your gun actually could hurt them decently. In BC2 and BF3, the vehicle speeds were nerfed and so was weapon power/reload speed. I found myself needing to bring engineers along just to keep the tank alive and ya know what really sucked...was being unable to kill a stationary tank because that tank had a whole crew out behind him with repair tools just negating all the damage I'd cause.

That isn't fun. When it becomes more viable to just sit still taking punishment while people repair...its just a game of turrets and its boring. The great advantage BF has is it has other vehicles which can bomb the crap out of a repair crew and break the cycle. We don't have that in GOIO. Which is where GOIO is. We've got a game of flying turrets, engineer captains, and teams which just can't change that because if they try, they get chopped before they even get close.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: -Mad Maverick- on March 20, 2014, 11:25:44 am
same page dude... my only thing is I think you and I and all the people that no longer play the game after each and every steam sale have a different idea of fun than muse and the 150 people who play this game regularly...(number have been used hyperbolically)
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Echoez on March 20, 2014, 10:15:16 pm
Just popping in to say I actually agree with Gilder for once, lol.

Also I've been away for a long time, still no new heavy guns? Like, you know, something for CLOSE range? :P
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: -Mad Maverick- on March 20, 2014, 11:33:18 pm
Just popping in to say I actually agree with Gilder for once, lol.

Also I've been away for a long time, still no new heavy guns? Like, you know, something for CLOSE range? :P

who  needs close range when we can just long range?!
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Sammy B. T. on March 20, 2014, 11:47:22 pm
Yeah, the H Carronade is sooooo bad at close range.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Imagine on March 20, 2014, 11:49:14 pm
Yeah, the H Carronade is sooooo bad at close range.
So is the Hwacha, just literally the worst.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Spud Nick on March 21, 2014, 01:06:37 am
Close range is still a option in competitive play. Many teams have become very passive with their long range setups giving brawling teams a lot of options on how to approach.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Echoez on March 21, 2014, 09:22:25 am
Yeah, the H Carronade is sooooo bad at close range.

I detect the sarcasm, but quite honestly, if a certain someone never touched them since 1.2, they would be at a much better place that was BALANCED if I may add. But no, they got buffs in places nobody asked for and then nerfed to an even worse state than they were in 1.2, with less range and longer reloads.

They are not bad, but to me it felt like shit when I had to put up with this.


So is the Hwacha, just literally the worst.

Again, the sarcasm is easily detected, but on a serious note, your 14 second realod rocked battery is not my definition of 'fun' for a close range build, which is probably the case with Janeway as well, I would ask you respect our opinion just like we respect yours without sleazy sarcasms.


Close range builds to me are all about the DPS, to keep the guns firing and over-stress the enemy, not firing a single rocket barrage and wait for a long ass reload, this is not fun for me as a pilot or my gunner, at least in my experience in the game and when I played with my teammates, the least favorite gun was the Hwacha for the most part, it's simply not as fun as the Carronades or the sniper guns. The Hwacha also heavily restricts your manuvering as you HAVE to keep the ship still in order for your gunner to get a good shot, unlike weapons like a Gatling or a Carronade that can keep up with the ship's pace.

Anyway, this is a thread discussing ships, so I will not further go into this, but do mind where you throw your sarcasm around, it doesn't help anyone.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Imagine on March 21, 2014, 11:09:11 am
Yeah, the H Carronade is sooooo bad at close range.

I detect the sarcasm, but quite honestly, if a certain someone never touched them since 1.2, they would be at a much better place that was BALANCED if I may add. But no, they got buffs in places nobody asked for and then nerfed to an even worse state than they were in 1.2, with less range and longer reloads.

They are not bad, but to me it felt like shit when I had to put up with this.


So is the Hwacha, just literally the worst.

Again, the sarcasm is easily detected, but on a serious note, your 14 second realod rocked battery is not my definition of 'fun' for a close range build, which is probably the case with Janeway as well, I would ask you respect our opinion just like we respect yours without sleazy sarcasms.


Close range builds to me are all about the DPS, to keep the guns firing and over-stress the enemy, not firing a single rocket barrage and wait for a long ass reload, this is not fun for me as a pilot or my gunner, at least in my experience in the game and when I played with my teammates, the least favorite gun was the Hwacha for the most part, it's simply not as fun as the Carronades or the sniper guns. The Hwacha also heavily restricts your manuvering as you HAVE to keep the ship still in order for your gunner to get a good shot, unlike weapons like a Gatling or a Carronade that can keep up with the ship's pace.

Anyway, this is a thread discussing ships, so I will not further go into this, but do mind where you throw your sarcasm around, it doesn't help anyone.
Look, I get it, you don't like the hwacha. Yes, it's a slow reload, and yes, heavy guns are very much in danger of getting knocked out of commission by art/merc/gat pretty easily. I understand that you may not like the way the hwacha forces you to play, but here's the thing: they're still viable. You made a crazy hyperbolic statement along the lines of there's no good close range heavy weapons, and you got about an equal quality response.

You could make an argument that light guns are just inherently better than heavy currently in general, that may have more ground to stand on, though I'd venture to point at the gents love of the galleon and their tournament win record.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Echoez on March 21, 2014, 01:54:26 pm
Look, I get it, you don't like the hwacha. Yes, it's a slow reload, and yes, heavy guns are very much in danger of getting knocked out of commission by art/merc/gat pretty easily. I understand that you may not like the way the hwacha forces you to play, but here's the thing: they're still viable. You made a crazy hyperbolic statement along the lines of there's no good close range heavy weapons, and you got about an equal quality response.

You could make an argument that light guns are just inherently better than heavy currently in general, that may have more ground to stand on, though I'd venture to point at the gents love of the galleon and their tournament win record.

You misunderstood me, I'm simply stating it's not a fun weapon.

I am not arguing against it's viability in certain situations, but it doesn't change my opinion that it is a very boring weapon to use and or equip on my ship.

I am also not the guy that is making arguments about the current close range weapons not being viable, that was Janeway, or at least you guys interpreted it to be so. I am simply stating that in my long absense, there still hasn't been a new heavy gun released to accomodate Close range fighting more and no I do not consider the Hwacha a 'Close range fighting' weapon, it is just a burst disabler and that is all there is to it.

As a final note, I'm talking about both weapons in conjuction with ships, since as I said in my previous post, this is more about ships. The Goldfish specifically for me, when I left the game I seriously felt that the faster ships just weren't fast enough and that my ship specifically was getting absolutely no love what so ever in terms of weapon changes/additions especially after the absolute JOKE that were the changes to the Hellhound after 1.2 , making everyone badshit insane about it and nerfed it more than it deserved. Is it still viable? I honestly don't care, the game just felt like shit after that, this is my honest opinion on this, which is why I'm even posting in this thread, to see if something is actually going to change to make this game more fun for me again.

Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: -Mad Maverick- on March 22, 2014, 01:37:02 am
yeah, hopefully more fun for you and the thousands of people who have left in less than two years...  and yes I keep talking about fun.   I have posts back on the old forum site about how we need new heavy weapons that are more interesting ever since they took away our flak us brawler/dog fighters used to use.  this is a drum I have been beating since I first joined beta and it hasn't changed anything which is why I am resigned to believing muse and I don't agree on what fun looks like...
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: -Mad Maverick- on March 22, 2014, 01:41:24 am
I'm gonna start a new thread called "how is it that a game the requires no monthly fee to play and is owned by thousands of people around the world can't get anyone to continue to play?"   and the first reply will be "maybe it's because of how awesome sniping is!" 

and the second will simply read: "it's the ducks fault"

(p.s. I don't mind sarcasm)
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Imagine on March 22, 2014, 03:00:25 am
I'm gonna start a new thread called "how is it that a game the requires no monthly fee to play and is owned by thousands of people around the world can't get anyone to continue to play?"   and the first reply will be "maybe it's because of how awesome sniping is!" 

and the second will simply read: "it's the ducks fault"

(p.s. I don't mind sarcasm)
Yeah so, that's not sarcasm, that just petty spite and completely false. I suggest stopping before you make a real fool of yourself.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Spud Nick on March 22, 2014, 04:29:12 am
I'm gonna start a new thread called "how is it that a game the requires no monthly fee to play and is owned by thousands of people around the world can't get anyone to continue to play?"   and the first reply will be "maybe it's because of how awesome sniping is!" 

and the second will simply read: "it's the ducks fault"

(p.s. I don't mind sarcasm)
Yeah so, that's not sarcasm, that just petty spite and completely false. I suggest stopping before you make a real fool of yourself.

Too late...
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Wundsalz on March 22, 2014, 05:30:50 am
While I do not share Echoez and Janeway overall point of view, I can see where they are coming from - Hell, muse managed to make me quit playing GoI for a couple of months myself with 1.3.3. Muse has got a history of blatantly nerfing or fundamentally altering stuff they reckon to be out of line - without recoiling from forcing their playerbase to fundamentally adjusting their playstyle.
The most recent and drastic changes have probably been the pyra-hull nerf combined with the altering of the gat/mortar behaviour. By this muse has basically taken away the most popular build from the game. Players who specialized on gat/mortar builds more or less had to relearn the game from scratch as their build didn't work the same way it did before.
Regarding the heavy weapons: I don't think they lack diversity - yes more guns and diversity are always nice to have, but I can't see a gun that's missing. However I do agree with the point that heavy guns have been indirectly nerfed too much and I doubt anyone argues that they are spotted less frequently than before 1.3.3. Like Echoez I mostly blame the Artemis for this. There's just too much disable power in the current meta. I think heavy guns and the goldfish would be seen more frequently again if the Artemis was nerfed and maybe the rebuild time of heavy waepons was decreased a bit.
I also dislike the shift to sniper heavy loadouts since 1.3.3. Again I think a lot could be done here by nerfing the Artemis.

Despite all these negative aspects of the current balance, I do believe it is the best one we've ever had so far. Mostly because of the diversity it provides - there have never been more viable builds than today.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Omniraptor on March 22, 2014, 05:34:12 pm
I agree about reducing heavy gun rebuild time, and possibly increasing their health so they take 3 direct artemis shots to kill, not 2.

Hellhound and barking dog need hitscan projectiles, or at least tracers. Currently it's very difficult to hit components with them. Their other stats are imo fine however.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: GeoRmr on March 22, 2014, 09:30:47 pm
I agree about reducing heavy gun rebuild time, and possibly increasing their health so they take 3 direct artemis shots to kill, not 2.

Hellhound and barking dog need hitscan projectiles, or at least tracers. Currently it's very difficult to hit components with them. Their other stats are imo fine however.

Tracers would be nice, I find it far more fun having to give lead to carronade shots, originaly I believe they were straight up hit-scan weapons but I remember they were changed in a patch that also allowed them to be manipulated correctly by ammunition such as lesmok.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Captain Smollett on March 22, 2014, 10:17:52 pm
I think tracers could definitely help.  You get used to leading the shots after firing it for a bit but tracers could definitely help new players get a grip on the weapon faster.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Queso on March 22, 2014, 10:20:13 pm
I'm way too late to this thread, hence why I am posting this in thread rather than taking action as events unfold, but regardless, any targeted attacks at any individuals or groups of people will not be tolerated. If you believe someone has broken this rule that does not give you the right to break it yourself. Report the post, and move on.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Twinkie D-Lite on March 23, 2014, 11:57:51 am
Maybe they will fix GoI so I can return. It is no longer worth my time as it is, to bad because I really enjoyed it once.

There is no correlation to weapon ranges whatsoever. A flamer going 200m and a gat only 450m, while a light carronade goes 350m if I remember right. Get a baseline or something.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: GeoRmr on March 23, 2014, 12:49:18 pm
Psst guys, want to know a secret?








Brawling is still viable; please stop whining.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: -Mad Maverick- on March 24, 2014, 01:04:05 am
I'm gonna start a new thread called "how is it that a game the requires no monthly fee to play and is owned by thousands of people around the world can't get anyone to continue to play?"   and the first reply will be "maybe it's because of how awesome sniping is!" 

and the second will simply read: "it's the ducks fault"

(p.s. I don't mind sarcasm)
Yeah so, that's not sarcasm, that just petty spite and completely false. I suggest stopping before you make a real fool of yourself.

I don't understand how to more
underline sarcasm than I did,  I literally said "i like sarcasm" at the end.   geez here just in case http://youtube.com/watch?v=mSy5mEcmgwU
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: redria on March 24, 2014, 05:57:10 am
Psst guys, want to know a secret?








Brawling is still viable; please stop whining.
Hahaha. I just noticed that you put text down in the bottom right. I thought you asked the question then were just gonna wait for someone to bite. XD
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: -Mad Maverick- on March 24, 2014, 05:44:18 pm
this not for or against brawling this for faster more maneuverable ships leading to more fast and fun gameplay
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Spud Nick on March 24, 2014, 05:46:41 pm
We just want to feel the wind in our hair again.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: -Mad Maverick- on March 24, 2014, 05:50:23 pm
exactly
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: JaegerDelta on March 24, 2014, 06:13:40 pm
personally i think those darn nostalgia goggles are coming into play when it comes to certain peoples memories.  If the problem as people stated is the fact that all ships are slower now; well frankly ALL ships are slower now, it doesn't actually change ships in relation to each other.  So that must mean that ship speed is only a problem when the other ship's speed is not a factor, i.e. going up against long range guns. So lets be honest about it, this is a complaint against sniping weapons.  And its a valid concern to be sure, but here is where the nostalgia comes in. Those long range guns have always been there, the viability of long range combat has always been in the game. The determining factor in any long range engagement is the skill of the gunner, that is what has changed the most in GoI:O.  Gunners have been getting better and better and better ever since the game was released. To be clear, im not saying an increasing pool of skilled gunners is the only factor in the golden age of sniping, balance changes have played their part as well. I am suggesting, however, that the growing pool of skilled gunners is the major factor at play. Pilot and engineering skill sets and cooperation now have to catch up.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: -Mad Maverick- on March 24, 2014, 06:23:48 pm
no this not a thread about balance this is a thread about how when ALL ships were faster the game was more fun
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Echoez on March 24, 2014, 06:31:09 pm
Pilot and engineering skill sets and cooperation now have to catch up.

There's a problem with your argument there, a gunner's aimming skill can keep getting better and better until they become a ballistics genious or something.

Pilots are extremely limited by what their ships can do and Engineers are even more limited by repair times and their tools. AKA, navigation is limited by the physical capabilities of the ship and engineer play is purely number and cicle based, something that after one point, you can't get any better at. Weapons are only and I repeat, ONLY limited by their effective range, once within effective range, the weapon will do as good as the gunner can do with no limits.

This game is simply more of a turret gunner's game now than a pilot's game and engineer play was never something extremely exciting anyway (at least for me it wasn't, never found it interesting, I just did it when I wanted something more relaxed).

Tools like Claw/Hydro/Chute aren't fast enough and ships by themselves don't realy have large enough differences in speed unless you take the complete opposites in the spectrum, for example the Goldfish is faster than a Pyra, but it is irrelevant when the Pyra can easily keep up with you for more than enough time to finish you off if you make a run for it for example, the supposedly agile ships can't even manuver enough to avoid shots when you move in the enemy gun's sweet spot, there are just too many limitations.

If you ask me, aside from the fact that the ships don't feel as fun to fly anymore than to gun on them, I will heavily blame the extreme focus people on both Pubs and Competitive have on the TDM gamemode. Curse it to hell and all the way back, it is the primary reason that the meta has stagnated so much to this stationary sniper mode (at least when I was playing). TL;DR : TDM is boring, Objectives force confrontations and encourage movement and mobility, there is also that magical point clock ticking to discourage people from camping forever.




PS: You know what else I miss? Good ol' bugged Kerozene. Which honestly felt much of a medium between the purely speed or turning focused Moonshine and Phoenix, which allowed more diversity in pilot builds without having to sacrifice ALL your mobility or ALL your utility.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Thomas on March 24, 2014, 07:16:08 pm
I can say that faster ships would be more fun, but that's from a pilot perspective; and of course you don't want them going -too- fast, which is what I think most people are worried about.

By increasing ship speeds, you will change the balance of the game. That's not to say it will imbalance the game, but things will definitely be different. We can always adjust other things to compensate, but that's a pretty large effort; and you have to ask if changing all/most other aspects of the game is worth the change? Faster ships would be more difficult to hit. Do we reduce the hp of components? Would tools make the ships be way to maneuverable and have to reduce their effect? Would tools still provide enough of a difference to be useful, or would players switch to utility tools instead of maneuverability tools? Would we need to increase gun arcs and shell velocities? Would the ship masses need to be adjusted so ramming doesn't do crazy huge amounts of damage from the velocity? What about the really slow ships or guns with small arcs, would they even be competitive anymore? Would the small maps be too small now?




Increasing the ship speed would increase the skill cap for gunners, and probably pilots, but likely reduces it for engineers. Faster movement means you need better reaction times and coordination, because things are changing at a faster pace. With ships moving faster, you need to be able to lead them a lot better -and- compensate for your own ship movement more. Now with shots being harder to land, and ships having an easier time getting out of arcs, this ideally gives engineers less to do. Sure there's always going to be repairs, but there's no 'you need to get this exactly right or we're dead', since there's a higher chance of error on the pilot and gunner level.

Or perhaps engineers will have to do better, with their pilots more likely to smack into obstacles and enemies able to suddenly appear and hit you hard. Engineering will probably be about the same really.

Right now pilots are less about flying skill, and more about decision making and strategy. Once you're in a situation, there's not a whole lot you can do to change that. If the enemy sneaks up on you with a metamidion, you can hydro, vent, phoenix claw, etc; but mostly it's "Oh, guess we're dead now." Because any movement you make isn't fast or dramatic enough to throw them off enough to spare you. You need to be prepared ahead of time for that kind of event, and no amount of skill will save you (most of the time).
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: N-Sunderland on March 24, 2014, 07:20:53 pm
PS: You know what else I miss? Good ol' bugged Kerozene. Which honestly felt much of a medium between the purely speed or turning focused Moonshine and Phoenix, which allowed more diversity in pilot builds without having to sacrifice ALL your mobility or ALL your utility.

I'm with you on this one. It opened up so many more loadout possibilities. I miss my kerosene/tar/chute Pyra...
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Captain Smollett on March 24, 2014, 07:44:31 pm
Well I haven't posted on this thread until now, and I must say I really do see both sides of this argument; but I really feel like I need to interject just one clarification.

The ships in GOI are all traveling at the same max speed they always have ever since the games release.

It's not the speed that's changed, it's the acceleration.  Ships can't change direction, juke or achieve max speed as easily as they used to, however they all go just as fast as they always have.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Spud Nick on March 24, 2014, 07:59:32 pm
The vertical movement has changed a lot from the old days as well.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Battle Toads on March 24, 2014, 10:24:44 pm

Pyra, the bloated lawn dart. Now we have the speed, but the turning is infuriating. This ship was nerfed to answer the cries of the community which complained about how OP it was. Well, good job people, you got what you wanted. But at the same time we've got teams that have left the game because they just can't stand it anymore. Its a weak vessel and instead of supplementing it, Muse nerfed it again with hull hp reduction and 20% weight reduction. Pyras are not ships to fear anymore, nor are they liked as much. They're slow, lumbering and completely at the mercy of their opponents being morons that don't see them as an easy kill.


I obviously haven't played anywhere as much as you or most people in this thread, I have only been playing since December or so. I have however, played the majority of my games flying a Pyramidion. And if the pyra is considered "nerf" now, than I honestly feel terrible for anyone who had to fly against before. Clearly the pyra has problems, but it also has major strenghts.

The pyra is still  very viable, and you can watch competitive play to see some skilled crews work very well with it (see redria). The pyra is slow to turn (makes sense that the faster you go, the slower you turn) and is easier to be hit by disabling weapons, but the "weak" hull health really doesn't make me feel vulnerable in a pyra.

 I do agree with you that pyra should be increased in mass to make it feel more like a vanguard and a ramming ship. I understand how you want ships to feel faster and sniping to be less viable, but change takes time and this game is FAR from an unplayable state, so I will continue to play and enjoy GoIO
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Dementio on March 25, 2014, 04:47:20 am
Right now pilots are less about flying skill, and more about decision making and strategy. Once you're in a situation, there's not a whole lot you can do to change that. If the enemy sneaks up on you with a metamidion, you can hydro, vent, phoenix claw, etc; but mostly it's "Oh, guess we're dead now." Because any movement you make isn't fast or dramatic enough to throw them off enough to spare you. You need to be prepared ahead of time for that kind of event, and no amount of skill will save you (most of the time).

Isn't that what a pilot is supposed to do? Prepare for certain situations so your team can get the upper hand and just win?
When I think about it all pilot tools, with the exception of spyglass and range finder, are only for emergency. Dodging with hydro/vent, escaping and making the enemy unable to follow with tar, getting the advantage in speed with kero/moonshine, making the enemy unable to fly around me with some lucky claws, and more stuff.
If you can utilize those tools just right with your current ship, then you are good to go.

Another thing to consider is your ally (this game is about teamwork, right?). If you can't survive in a close range 1v1, get your teammate to help you out. Getting sniped at? Get your ally to kill them from behind. What else is he here for? To look pretty?
Also, you are the pilot and thus most likely the captain and the one responsible for the communication between ships in your team. So you better communicate.

If you could get away with everything in every situation without any help what so ever then, and only then, would I consider this game boring.

Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Thomas on March 25, 2014, 06:25:56 am
That's one way of interpreting it. I do love the tactical part, but beyond that there's not a lot of skill in the actual piloting part. There's not a lot of high skill maneuvers to perform or fancy flying. Most of the time I hear players say "Wow! You're a great pilot" is when I move my ship through a narrow area without getting glued to buildings and losing half the armor. That's a pretty low bar.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: The Djinn on March 25, 2014, 12:17:01 pm
That's one way of interpreting it. I do love the tactical part, but beyond that there's not a lot of skill in the actual piloting part. There's not a lot of high skill maneuvers to perform or fancy flying. Most of the time I hear players say "Wow! You're a great pilot" is when I move my ship through a narrow area without getting glued to buildings and losing half the armor. That's a pretty low bar.

Interesting. *I* hear that when I ram ships off gun arcs to save allies, survive for 3+ minutes sitting on point with a 10% health Squid by excessive use of Hydrogen and Chute Vent to dodge incoming attacks, ram ships into buildings and spin just enough to glance off them and bring guns into arc faster than usual...

In short, there are a number of skilled piloting tricks that are still an active part of the game. It's just not a lot of super reactive piloting tricks. You need to predict the enemy and be moving before they enter their commands.

The way I see it, Engineer and gunning are largely games of micro: you have to be fast on your feet, able to respond to changes the instant they occur, and have a good eye for prioritization. Piloting, however, is mostly about macro: you have to know the game state, your opponents gun arcs, and your opponents *strategy,* and you have to be planning and executing the counter-strategy before they've even really started to act.

It's just a different set of skills from the fast-paced reaction game some people on this thread seem to want.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: -Mad Maverick- on March 27, 2014, 03:56:10 am
yes a more fun set of skills
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Echoez on March 28, 2014, 04:22:19 pm
Piloting, however, is mostly about macro: you have to know the game state, your opponents gun arcs, and your opponents *strategy,* and you have to be planning and executing the counter-strategy before they've even really started to act.

That's being a tactician, not a pilot, I do accept the fact that you have to assume the position of the 'commander' which also includes tactical decisions, but the actual piloting part lacks a great deal. Positioning is not a piloting skill, it's simple tactics and strategy that has nothing to do with how good you actually are at steering the vessel you are piloting. What is being asked for here is to make the piloting bit better.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: -Mad Maverick- on March 29, 2014, 02:23:23 am
yup and more fun
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Dutch Vanya on March 29, 2014, 03:05:34 am
I might be mistaken, but dogfighting games exist too.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Spud Nick on March 29, 2014, 04:37:33 am
I don't think I have been playing the same game as Janeway and Gilder. When has this game ever been about dog fighting?
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Squidslinger Gilder on March 29, 2014, 05:04:37 am

Another thing to consider is your ally (this game is about teamwork, right?). If you can't survive in a close range 1v1, get your teammate to help you out. Getting sniped at? Get your ally to kill them from behind. What else is he here for? To look pretty?
Also, you are the pilot and thus most likely the captain and the one responsible for the communication between ships in your team. So you better communicate.

If you could get away with everything in every situation without any help what so ever then, and only then, would I consider this game boring.


But that is not how the recipe is right now. The current recipe is widdle enemy down, kill, then move to next, rinse repeat. There is no if you can survive CQC or rewarding good pilots who can fly evasive. That is boring. 1v1s rely more and more on who gets the key shot off vs tactics or piloting skill. Because...the boats are broken.

Back when this game was fun...pilots were rewarded if they learned how to 1v1. That in turn helped support their allies better and allow boats more options during engagements. I did this all the time back then. People would see squid and think easy kill. So i'd have 2 boats chasing me all over which allowed Brick to just come in and sweep up kills. They'd usually realize what I was doing and then switch to him. He'd in turn do the same trick, dodging and weaving, buying me time to rip them up. Both boats had to have crews which were in tune with us. If one person missed a repair or rebuild, we'd die. But we'd pull it off and it was beautiful. I had engineers, new players, learn more during those matches than in any other match they'd join.

The ship, should not define the pilot or crew. Each should be approached with a different mindset and each should allow a pilot or crew to shine. Opposing pilots should be more afraid of the opposing players than of their ship. I should have to enter a match and know from reputation that my opponents are going to be tricky. Not look at the boat and go...ok can counter that with this or that.

This is how Brick and I first met and started flying. I'd see his Pyra, he'd see my Squid. We'd see the pilot and crew behind the ship, not the ship. I'd fly to counter him, he'd fly to counter me. When 1.2 came and the game slowed down, this changed completely. The worry went from how to beat the pilot and crew to just how to beat the ship. Which spawned: Qwerty throws water bottle and Polaris falls asleep, 1hr+ Merc battles.

We had to change our mindset because the ships just couldn't work anymore. They were the limiting factor in what we could do. End of that Cogs S2 taught us that fast. When the ships become the limiting factor, you become a turret. You sit there with your little mercs and peck away until they finally give up and go all in. Then it just comes down to who gets the better engagement.

If I could take everyone back who joined this game post 1.2 and show them the difference, they'd realize it right away how much GOIO has lost in this last year. Yeah you can look at vids now and chuckle, that isn't what I'm talking about. I'm talking about actually flying it and experiencing it in person. Vids are pointless and cannot replicate how great this game was when the airship reflected the skill of the pilot + crew. To see that again, we need speed back, we need mobility back.

We don't have to take this game to planes dogfighting to do it. I swear this is the #1 broken record complaint by the realism crowd. "Airships shouldn't be dogfighting!" Blah blah blah...make that a bumper sticker and stick it on your wheelchair and shut up.

Squid were the only, ONLY!!!!, ships that could dogfight to some degree, TOTALLY RELIANT ON GOOD PILOTS AND CREWS TO PULL IT OFF, and they needed it because they were tissue paper fighters.

You don't have to turn this game into dogfighting to make it fun. Stop it QQing about dogfighting and go play Warthunder or whatever it is passes for flight sim combat nowadays. No one is saying GOIO should become that. In fact, bring it up in game, I'll welcome you to my block list cause I'm tired of you people.

But you do have to speed it the hell up to make the players the ones to be feared, not the ship.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Spud Nick on March 29, 2014, 05:33:17 am
I think this post is going in circles.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Sammy B. T. on March 29, 2014, 10:14:05 am
Y'all think this is an airplane game when really it is closer to a navy game. While a few ships could use a slight maneuverability buff, y'all just was blimps to be space fighters. I enjoy that just because I am a great pilot I can't win without a good teammate and crew. I think y'all could learn to enjoy that to.

Meta changes. Better to learn it than moan about it. Your glory days only reflected the skill of the pilot.  You didn't need a good engineer.  Pop on hydrogen and you were a mile high to leisurely repair. I didn't find that fun at all.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Alistair MacBain on March 29, 2014, 12:48:40 pm
That sounds alot like you have those fancy pink glasses when remembering back.
And there was no peeking with mercs at Cogs S2.
Cogs S2 was barely a sniper battle.
The only real team that snipe back in those days were the ducks.
Even the gents were brawlers.

Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: The Djinn on March 29, 2014, 01:23:46 pm
...But you do have to speed it the hell up to make the players the ones to be feared, not the ship.

How much would you suggest speeding things up then? What's your suggestion? I'm honestly curious, as I'm not sure to what degree you'd want things changed (having not played in the era you remember so fondly).

As an aside, however, I *always* fear players rather than ships. Zill's Squid is far and away more threatening than Random Squid Pilot A's ship, and my match against Redria's Pyramidion in my Goldfish was one of the most piloting and crew intensive fights I've ever had...much more so than when I'm up against a mediocre Pyra pilot.

So I guess I'm just not seeing the issue you are. In my experience a skilled pilot is STILL ten times (or more) more frightening than an unskilled pilot. I know I can literally run circles around unskilled pilots, often coming out relatively unscathed in even 2v1 brawling situations (if I'm in a Squid, Goldfish, Junker, or Pyra), whereas skilled pilots and crews pose a much harder challenge on both my piloting, my positioning, and my tactics. I personally don't think an increase in ship speed would change this much, but I would (as mentioned above) be interested to see how dramatic a change you'd be looking for.

So can you give me some idea of what exactly you'd like to see changed, as well as how (or why) those changes specifically would make the game feel better to you? Are we talking 10% greater ship mobility across the board, for example? 20%? 50%? If a Galleon with Phoenix Claw currently takes about 15 seconds to switch broadsides completely, what would a BETTER value be for you? How would this translate (approximately) across other ships?
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: macmacnick on March 29, 2014, 01:44:29 pm
...I think gilder wants more acceleration on the squid, with less permahull...along with chute/hydrogen giving faster acceleration so they're more effective and worthwhile...
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Omniraptor on March 29, 2014, 10:04:57 pm
Squid acceleration is fine IMO, but the top speed and turning acceleration/speed are too slow.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: GeoRmr on March 30, 2014, 08:21:16 am
Squid acceleration is fine IMO, but the top speed and turning acceleration/speed are too slow.

But like, the old squid was able to break the sound barrier... I know this thread is about: "Who needs realism? #yoloswag" But I think supersonic blimps are pushing it a little ~

I stand where Sammy and Spud do - I like floating around in balloons and acting like a pirate, the pacing of this game and speed of the ships is intrinsic to that aesthetic, if I wanted to dogfight in spaceships I would play something like Vector Strike or myriad of other dogfighting games that are out there, but then it would be weird to act like a pirate. ^^

Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Tanya Phenole on March 30, 2014, 06:08:45 pm
And the airships danced around each other, slowly and depressively....
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Sammy B. T. on March 30, 2014, 07:11:45 pm
And the airships danced around each other, slowly and depressively....


Then the captains that they should play less passively.

Y'all act like just because you can't have a space fighter blimp that you have to just barely move at all and limp everywhere. Get over yourself.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Dutch Vanya on March 30, 2014, 08:25:03 pm
Maybe you guys should also be happy that Muse listens to the extent that they do, and accept that they will make the game however they want to make it.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Queso on March 30, 2014, 10:45:03 pm
Keep it civil people. Everyone has their own ideas about the game, and none of them are wrong.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: -Mad Maverick- on April 01, 2014, 12:13:58 pm
Y'all think this is an airplane game when really it is closer to a navy game.

wait wait wait,  havent i literally said this many times?  havent i also stated that i believe that is the type of game muse wants to make?  arent all im doing is suggesting that it could be MORE fun?
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: -Mad Maverick- on April 01, 2014, 12:15:25 pm
gilder you know how much i agree with you but honestly no matter how much noise we are able to raise it wont matter because muse does not want the same type of game you and i want.  they dont want a dog-fighting game they want a "naval" battle in the air.   "get your guns in range and in arc and do your best to hover in that position" is the kind of game muse wants.   sure they will throw in some minimal maneuverability in there because it is in the air after all but as you and i know to attempt to RELY on maneuvering as part of your strategy really does not work very well. 

i would love for any of the MUSE folks to jump in here and tell me they really do want the feel of dog-fighting aerial combat to be part of the game because then maybe we could explain to them that at this moment it does not exist.  maybe then they would ask for feedback on how to make it better and we could tell them about the times when sliding to the back of a junker mattered or how much fun it used to be doing a strafing run on a galleon and getting out before he could turn his guns to bear on you.  but honestly i dont think the problem is a broken game but a game that is heading in a direction you and i (and unfortunately many others) dont like...
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: snor-laxatives on April 01, 2014, 01:09:47 pm
My only fear with changing speeds or maneuverability of the ships is that we'll get exactly what everyone is saying... games that are FASTER and more fun.  Yes good pilots will be rewarded, which is good, and I do like feeling like an air ninja, but once a handful of people learn how to do that games will be much quicker.  A lot of us are talking about how now its more of a "whoever gets the first hit/ surprise in wins", which in many causes is true.  But if we scaled up some of the ships speed and maneuverability I dont know if it would fix the problem as much as turn matches (from my PUG opinion) from nice 10-15 minute games to 5 minute charge straight in and get kills, and when you cant just slip out.

Is the game perfect, no, is it fun yes!  (then again i havent been in a tourney in awhile).

Maybe if we just increase some of the yield of the tools?  Make kero and moonshine pack a lot more kick.  Make claw give a little more spin.  However.... that could just make the pyra and junker into gods, lol.

Not an expert, not as much play time as many on this thread.  Just wanted to toss my two cents.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Alistair MacBain on April 01, 2014, 01:48:57 pm
More fun for you does not imply more fun for all.
While i dont say the game is perfectly balanced atm and there things that need a change for sure i dont think its bad how the game behaves atm.
You cant just blindly rush into a situation and easily evade when things get messy.
Also by adding speed you may make the game more fun for pilots but not for everyone else.
Where is the difference from one engineer to another when your captain is able to get you out of fight/ out of arcs that easy? Wouldnt make much of a difference. Instead now you need a perfect timing and a really good coordination to tank through the damage.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Tanya Phenole on April 03, 2014, 01:17:01 am
And the airships danced around each other, slowly and depressively....


Then the captains that they should play less passively.

Y'all act like just because you can't have a space fighter blimp that you have to just barely move at all and limp everywhere. Get over yourself.

"Slowly and depressively " was actually a compliment. Personally, I love strategic matches more than blitz-attacks with metamidions.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Velvet on April 03, 2014, 07:10:33 pm
brawling would be no fun if it was easy. I don't know the best way to phrase it, particularly considering that I'm hardly the most experienced pilot, but, well.. just the fact that your brawling build doesn't work for your team does not mean that brawling is no longer a viable strategy. Yes, the balance has made certain tactics and builds less effective but in my opinion "turret fighting", while perhaps more common than it should be, is nothing like the best tactic and brawling remains pretty viable. In fact in my experience the most mobile and versatile teams who show the most willingness to adapt, to develop new plans midway through matches and surprise their enemies tend to come out on top.

I think that the frequency of sniping is not due to its superiority as a strategy but because many players consider close or midrange engagements too risky, especially in important competitive matches. And that risk is due to the unpredictability inherent in brawls being decided too quickly. While I think this risk is a good thing and should remain, I don't think faster ships would make brawling better, since the risk would remain, and possibly increase, and many teams will still prefer to take the safer option of a slow engagement at long range, presuming you managed not to obsolete sniping completely.

Of course, faster ships might just slow down engagements because it's even easier to dodge the finish. I personally don't think it's good for the pilot to have that much evasion capability. They are only one member of a 4 man crew yet already have a hugely disproportionate share of the power and responsibility to control their ship's fate - if gunning is becoming increasingly important then I'm not going to complain.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: -Mad Maverick- on April 03, 2014, 07:33:39 pm
this is not a brawler vs sniper thread.  e.g.  I think an increase in speed could make sniping more fun also.  get with the program;  more agile flying is more fun flying in our opinion.  this opinion is of course supported with our correlating the lack of player retention with the lack of fun/speed
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Erheller on April 03, 2014, 08:09:07 pm
this is not a brawler vs sniper thread.  e.g.  I think an increase in speed could make sniping more fun also.  get with the program;  more agile flying is more fun flying in our opinion.  this opinion is of course supported with our correlating the lack of player retention with the lack of fun/speed

I'd just like to pop in and say that correlation does not imply causation.

Early in the game's life when the ships were more responsive, much of the playerbase had spent quite a bit of money on Guns of Icarus (Kickstarter, buying full price, buying for 10 dollars). It was around the April 30th patch when GoI started going for about 5 dollars. Of course, if you pay more money for a game, you're going want to keep playing it to get your money's worth. If you pay less money, you're more likely to just throw it away after playing a couple of hours. Concluding that player retention went down because of lower ship movement is just....silly.

tl;dr: Ship speed and player retention are not necessarily correlated. Personally, I don't think they're correlated at all.

I'm not as experienced as other people in this thread. But faster ships doesn't necessarily mean that everyone is going to be happy. Some captains might like the speed boost, but what about everyone else on the ship? What about the hades gunner that can't hit enemy ships at all because they keep juking the shots? What about mid-range combat? Ships will be able to close distance faster, giving mid-range guns a smaller window of effectiveness. Pilots aren't the only people playing this game. Engineers and gunners exist, and increasing ship speed won't necessarily make the game more fun for them.

The game is in a good spot right now in terms of balance and funness. Increasing ship speed can ruin it.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Captain Smollett on April 03, 2014, 08:33:27 pm
I'm not sure there's any evidence supporting a decline in player retention after mass started to be applied to ships other than a few very outspoken critics leaving the game.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: -Mad Maverick- on April 04, 2014, 10:25:07 am
yeah I know there is no way to actually prove causation (short of a statistically accurate survey) I and gilder are suggesting the possibility.  but let's remember there is also no way to disprove it either.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Spud Nick on April 04, 2014, 10:52:37 am
1.3.2
- Pyramidion: Mass 200t (from 260t), Hull Health 700 (from 800)
- Mortar: Spread 1.5 degrees (from 0), Range 550m (from 1875m), Pitch and Yaw speed 65 degree/s (from 60 and 50 degree/s, respectively), 35 Explosive Direct / 60 Explosive AoE (from 20/60)

1.3.3
- Mortar: Jitter increased to 3 degrees (from 1.5 degrees), Yaw Speed decreased to 30 degrees/s (from 65 degrees/s), Max range reduced to 400m (from 600m), Clip size reduced to 12 (from 16)
- Gatling Gun: Jitter decreased to 3 degrees (from 3.5), Muzzle speed increased to 500m/s (from 200m/s), Range decreased to 450m (from 700m), Clip size increased to 80 (from 60), Direct damage reduced to 7.5 Piercing (from 10 Piercing)

After these two patches I noticed a drop in the player base. Mostly from competitive teams that only used pyramidions.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Imagine on April 04, 2014, 11:19:09 am
After these two patches I noticed a drop in the player base. Mostly from competitive teams that only used pyramidions.
Which also happened to coincide with various big name youtubers making videos and various steam sales/humble bundle deals. Throughout the length of the game whenever something like that has happened there's been a large surge of players of which most end up moving to the next big sensation.

Don't cherry pick your information.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: -Mad Maverick- on April 04, 2014, 01:10:33 pm
1.3.2
- Pyramidion: Mass 200t (from 260t), Hull Health 700 (from 800)
- Mortar: Spread 1.5 degrees (from 0), Range 550m (from 1875m), Pitch and Yaw speed 65 degree/s (from 60 and 50 degree/s, respectively), 35 Explosive Direct / 60 Explosive AoE (from 20/60)

1.3.3
- Mortar: Jitter increased to 3 degrees (from 1.5 degrees), Yaw Speed decreased to 30 degrees/s (from 65 degrees/s), Max range reduced to 400m (from 600m), Clip size reduced to 12 (from 16)
- Gatling Gun: Jitter decreased to 3 degrees (from 3.5), Muzzle speed increased to 500m/s (from 200m/s), Range decreased to 450m (from 700m), Clip size increased to 80 (from 60), Direct damage reduced to 7.5 Piercing (from 10 Piercing)

After these two patches I noticed a drop in the player base. Mostly from competitive teams that only used pyramidions.

yup and if you remember i compared that change to something

im not trying to fight the nautical combat idea, im accepting it.  all i was saying was IF the intention was to have close combat dog fighting like engagements, the short range weapons are not rewarding enough.  [long range] isnt my cup of tea but i think muse agrees with you

so yeah if you are using yet another example of muse moving away from faster "dog fighting type" combat as a reason people left i would say that you are and i are in agreement.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: -Mad Maverick- on April 04, 2014, 01:19:36 pm
Don't cherry pick your information.

im confused how this disproves this conversation;  gilder and others are suggesting that a fast game would attract more players.  The fact that new players have come because of sales and youtubers does not answer the question of why they left.  Many games experience new comers for the same reasons and are able to retain those players, why not GOIO?  i cant answer that question definitively but neither can you.  you say "maybe such-and-such reason" and i say different.  we are both essentially picking information and extrapolating conclusions that cant be proven or disproved. 
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Imagine on April 04, 2014, 01:57:00 pm
Don't cherry pick your information.

im confused how this disproves this conversation;  gilder and others are suggesting that a fast game would attract more players.  The fact that new players have come because of sales and youtubers does not answer the question of why they left.  Many games experience new comers for the same reasons and are able to retain those players, why not GOIO?  i cant answer that question definitively but neither can you.  you say "maybe such-and-such reason" and i say different.  we are both essentially picking information and extrapolating conclusions that cant be proven or disproved. 
Please, show me a non-major multiplayer-only title game that, after a set of youtube exposure videos has managed to retain a substantially larger amount of players than Goio has. I'm well aware what you and gilder and a few others have suggested, but there's zero evidence that something like it would actually have any sort of positive influence and would magically get all the peoples.

All I did was point out what else was going on at those times which resulted in supposed player loss which directly contradicts the doom and gloom of awmahger nerfed the pyra and everyone left spew that was happening.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Velvet on April 04, 2014, 02:55:33 pm
Don't cherry pick your information.

im confused how this disproves this conversation;  gilder and others are suggesting that a fast game would attract more players.  The fact that new players have come because of sales and youtubers does not answer the question of why they left.  Many games experience new comers for the same reasons and are able to retain those players, why not GOIO?  i cant answer that question definitively but neither can you.  you say "maybe such-and-such reason" and i say different.  we are both essentially picking information and extrapolating conclusions that cant be proven or disproved. 
Please, show me a non-major multiplayer-only title game that, after a set of youtube exposure videos has managed to retain a substantially larger amount of players than Goio has. I'm well aware what you and gilder and a few others have suggested, but there's zero evidence that something like it would actually have any sort of positive influence and would magically get all the peoples.

All I did was point out what else was going on at those times which resulted in supposed player loss which directly contradicts the doom and gloom of awmahger nerfed the pyra and everyone left spew that was happening.
I know a guy who lost interest in the game because of the Pyra/gat nerf. :P
enough anecdotes and it can become a statistic!
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Imagine on April 04, 2014, 03:04:05 pm
Don't cherry pick your information.

im confused how this disproves this conversation;  gilder and others are suggesting that a fast game would attract more players.  The fact that new players have come because of sales and youtubers does not answer the question of why they left.  Many games experience new comers for the same reasons and are able to retain those players, why not GOIO?  i cant answer that question definitively but neither can you.  you say "maybe such-and-such reason" and i say different.  we are both essentially picking information and extrapolating conclusions that cant be proven or disproved. 
Please, show me a non-major multiplayer-only title game that, after a set of youtube exposure videos has managed to retain a substantially larger amount of players than Goio has. I'm well aware what you and gilder and a few others have suggested, but there's zero evidence that something like it would actually have any sort of positive influence and would magically get all the peoples.

All I did was point out what else was going on at those times which resulted in supposed player loss which directly contradicts the doom and gloom of awmahger nerfed the pyra and everyone left spew that was happening.
I know a guy who lost interest in the game because of the Pyra/gat nerf. :P
enough anecdotes and it can become a statistic!
Congrats, you know a guy. Singular.

Yep, that surely means literally everyone who's ever left the game did so because of that too.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Spud Nick on April 04, 2014, 03:08:37 pm
Can we talk about the squid moving faster again?
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: N-Sunderland on April 04, 2014, 03:54:59 pm
@Imagine: I'm fairly certain that Velvet was agreeing with you on that.

yeah I know there is no way to actually prove causation (short of a statistically accurate survey) I and gilder are suggesting the possibility.  but let's remember there is also no way to disprove it either.

I can't disprove that my entire life is actually a dream, but there's no evidence to suggest that it is.

The person making the assertion has to provide evidence, not the other way around.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Dutch Vanya on April 04, 2014, 06:41:37 pm
I think the reason this game doesn't retain players well is because it is 100% reliant on working together with other people. They don't like that.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Velvet on April 04, 2014, 07:38:29 pm
I think the reason this game doesn't retain players well is because it is 100% reliant on working together with other people. They don't like that.
I think that's fairly right. To elaborate, the focus on cooperation, tactics and teamwork necessitates longer lobbies and a slower pace of match as well as meaning that no individual can gain the satisfaction of claiming sole responsibility for some skilled move, because any truly skilled move is achieved by working together with the other 7+ members of the team. I don't think adjusting ship handling could ever really change that; anything that could be done to retain the impatient FPS crowd would destroy the character of the game and isn't really relevant to this discussion imo.

I think this should be approached from the perspective of what creates a fun and satisfying flow of matches and gamebalance, not ideas about fundamentally altering the base appeal of the game.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Imagine on April 04, 2014, 07:56:54 pm
The thing is, most people have gamer ADD. Everyone is always moving onto the next biggest thing, hell, it's something that I did with this game. I liked it quite a lot, played for like a month or so back in December of '12... and then I didn't play for like 6 months. Didn't have anything to do with balance, didn't have anything to do with relying on others, I just moved onto playing other stuff.

Yes, I returned, but most others won't. And there's nothing to blame for that, that's just how most people do.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: AbbyTheRat on April 04, 2014, 08:40:32 pm
I joined up via pewdiepie's video. Soo.. er..

I'm still here.. just saying.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Captain Smollett on April 04, 2014, 09:32:43 pm
This game has more players on avg after the ship mass changes and gat mortar changes than before it.

But honestly it is irrelevant to the debate. 

One person's fun is another person's torment (I'm looking at you shopping).


In a debate about what is fun, there is no correct or incorrect side, no tangible arguments and no side that can win.  It's just opinion.  Feel free to state an opinion but know that it will be only that, and unlikely to sway anyone else to change their held beliefs.

Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: -Mad Maverick- on April 05, 2014, 12:33:41 am
this is literally what im saying.  my opinion is that for me and many others this game isnt as fun as it used to be.  that is what i meant that we cant prove and disprove each other we both are using conjecture and not facts (since no survey exists) 
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: -Mad Maverick- on April 05, 2014, 12:35:05 am
Don't cherry pick your information.

im confused how this disproves this conversation;  gilder and others are suggesting that a fast game would attract more players.  The fact that new players have come because of sales and youtubers does not answer the question of why they left.  Many games experience new comers for the same reasons and are able to retain those players, why not GOIO?  i cant answer that question definitively but neither can you.  you say "maybe such-and-such reason" and i say different.  we are both essentially picking information and extrapolating conclusions that cant be proven or disproved. 
Please, show me a non-major multiplayer-only title game that, after a set of youtube exposure videos has managed to retain a substantially larger amount of players than Goio has. I'm well aware what you and gilder and a few others have suggested, but there's zero evidence that something like it would actually have any sort of positive influence and would magically get all the peoples.

All I did was point out what else was going on at those times which resulted in supposed player loss which directly contradicts the doom and gloom of awmahger nerfed the pyra and everyone left spew that was happening.
I know a guy who lost interest in the game because of the Pyra/gat nerf. :P
enough anecdotes and it can become a statistic!
Congrats, you know a guy. Singular.

Yep, that surely means literally everyone who's ever left the game did so because of that too.

just like its my opinion that imagine has a hard time not sounding like an aggressive a-hole
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Imagine on April 05, 2014, 01:14:16 am
Don't cherry pick your information.

im confused how this disproves this conversation;  gilder and others are suggesting that a fast game would attract more players.  The fact that new players have come because of sales and youtubers does not answer the question of why they left.  Many games experience new comers for the same reasons and are able to retain those players, why not GOIO?  i cant answer that question definitively but neither can you.  you say "maybe such-and-such reason" and i say different.  we are both essentially picking information and extrapolating conclusions that cant be proven or disproved. 
Please, show me a non-major multiplayer-only title game that, after a set of youtube exposure videos has managed to retain a substantially larger amount of players than Goio has. I'm well aware what you and gilder and a few others have suggested, but there's zero evidence that something like it would actually have any sort of positive influence and would magically get all the peoples.

All I did was point out what else was going on at those times which resulted in supposed player loss which directly contradicts the doom and gloom of awmahger nerfed the pyra and everyone left spew that was happening.
I know a guy who lost interest in the game because of the Pyra/gat nerf. :P
enough anecdotes and it can become a statistic!
Congrats, you know a guy. Singular.

Yep, that surely means literally everyone who's ever left the game did so because of that too.

just like its my opinion that imagine has a hard time not sounding like an aggressive a-hole
Says the guy who continues to throw around personal insults like candy.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Piemanlives on April 05, 2014, 01:25:27 am
Can we prevent an argument here people? We all have our opinions about the subject but insulting each other over it will not help at all.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Mr. Ace Rimmer on April 05, 2014, 09:01:51 am
You know in all honesty I think this thread is done anyways. We are just arguing in a perpetual circle with insults being thrown in for good measure. It's not conducive to a constructive discussion really is it?
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Spud Nick on April 05, 2014, 09:03:27 am
Lets get a lock for this thread. I think we have all had our fun.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: -Mad Maverick- on April 05, 2014, 11:47:54 am
sounds good to me, i mean as i have said at the beginning of this thread no amount of noise was gonna matter.  the people who agree with gilder and i have already quit and muse doesnt want to head in this direction anyways...
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: GeoRmr on April 05, 2014, 01:45:38 pm
Personally I was getting bored playing guns of metamidions, after the gat mortar nerf I got much more enjoyment out of the game as more and more builds became viable.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Piemanlives on April 05, 2014, 01:57:32 pm
I'll request one of the mods to lock this thread than.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Dutch Vanya on April 05, 2014, 01:58:47 pm
Personally I was getting bored playing guns of metamidions, after the gat mortar nerf I got much more enjoyment out of the game as more and more builds became viable.
I have yet to ever fly a metamidion, because i got bored of crewing them before i ever started piloting.
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: -Mad Maverick- on April 05, 2014, 02:27:46 pm
again as a reminder this thread has nothing to do with metamidions... this thread was about speeding up flight speed and maneuverability
Title: Re: Realism has had it's fun...
Post by: Queso on April 08, 2014, 09:02:02 am
Thread is now locked due to the end of non-circular on topic discussion.

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