Guns Of Icarus Online
Main => Gameplay => Topic started by: Queso on June 14, 2013, 10:03:55 pm
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Right now, fighting the enemy has stopped being as fun as it used to be. Against certain gun combos, my hull feels like swiss cheese. All other component damage numbers feel right (except maybe fire, need to play more with that). Everything is too fragile. Against a gat, armor becomes irrelevant. Against a flak, hull health becomes irrelevant. The reason we see so many pyramidions is because they can combine the two. Now I'm not going to pretend everything was better long ago, but way back when in beta, carronades did the armor damage and gatling did the balloon damage. Now what was interesting about carronades doing armor damage is that it was closer range and far more dynamic. Your armor would be removed in slight chunks. If you planned it right and saw it coming you could deal with it both between their shots and their reloads. It kept a rhythm going. A good fight had a rhythm you had to manipulate to gain the lead and chip his hull to nothing. Right now, to win a fight, you either drain their armor into a boring death; kill them too fast to get in a fight; or disable them into a more different boring death. It's a slow paced game in every other regard. Now it's a multifaceted problem, but that doesn't make it unsolvable. It requires big shakeups to the way the game is played, but for the sake of fun.
That's the part that I truly believe up there ^
Now onto the theorycrafting on how to get things super fun again.
- Gatlings are the least interesting armor piercing. They set the other ship on a timer till you shoot them. It's too predictable, and doesn't lend itself to emergent properties.
- Hull health is too low for everything. The only ships it really matters on are the pyra and the galleon. On other ships, your armor's down, it's a crapshoot whether you live for another ten seconds to be gat'd down again or if you die from explosives there and then.
- Gat's being so ubiquitous, have set the range for long range engagements. There is no advantage to moving in closer, limiting tactical options.
Keep things civil.
Keep things focused on fun.
Let's have a nice clean discussion!
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I think this might be the balance between realism and gameification at play.
Realism: Weapons have fantastic ranges and leathality. Often a single shot decides the fate of a vessel.
Gameification: My damage 10 weapon takes 10 hits to remove your 100 armor.
I am pretty new to the game, but I love the combinations!
So, gat and merc are the only real piercing weapons in the game right now, but there are so many other strategies!
This isn't one-on-one ship combat. I could do dual mercs while my ally does a Typhon and rule the sky. Or brawlers could sneak in under us and we die.
There are so many more axis for this game to be played along!
With really good matches, yeah it's going to take a long time. You are careful, precise, and know that a misstep spells your doom.
But I only really feel like that in competitive play. Often times I'll go for more fun tactics like pinning someone to the ground then then Chute-vent ramming (a.k.a. Teabag of Destiny) into oblivion.
Or I will take my Galleon and use Hawacha's to ruin their day! (No guns = No damage from gat-flak).
Yeah, Muse could tweak health and armor and I'd be okay with it, but you've got options and I consistently play a wide variety of matches: From 2 minute death tornadoes to twenty minute sniper-fests.
I think it could change or not, and either way, I'd still love this game.
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I think the main problem is that people don't dare to use other strategies. Everyone just wants to rush in, shoot until the enemy dies and keep on doing that until they win. That's not how you should play this game. Just my opinion.
Depending on the map there are so many other choices! Do a far range Galleon with Lumberjacks or a Spire with a heavy flak and merc. Or go into CQC with a flamer-carronade squid on those thight cloudy maps. But to win with them you need to know some different tactics except for rushing to the enemy and shooting. To learn them you just have to try! Don't see your losses as "Oh my god I'm so bad", try to enjoy them so you can learn from them. Reflect why you lost! There are many possibilities to win against two gat/flak pyras. Don't just blame them!
Also speak with your co-captain. Don't just join match and instantly press ready. That's why this button is called "ready" - you press it as soon as you're good to go, which implements talking about your tactics. I've seen so many people lately yelling "ready! ready!" and then leaving the game because they see they're losing. That's a pity because I'm sure they could do better if they just took their time.
But that might be a fault of the modern gaming industry too, only focusing on quick one man armies in games.
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Sorry Queso, gatt+flak isn't going anywhere until there's more piercing options.
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Double Carronade Pyra, Double Merc Pyra, Carronade/Mortar Pyra, Carronade/Banshee Junker, All Banshee Squid, Merc/Flak Pyra, Double Merc side Junker with a CArronade/Banshee other side.
There's lots of stuff that can be used, people are just bored to learn how to use them effectively. Though I do agree the gatling is a boring weapon for a gunner cause if they are realy good, it's a waste of their talent, I know that I got bored of it after 5 tries and always take the Flak or Mortar ( can't aim it though :P ) on any Gat/Explosive combo ship now if I'm gungineering.
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Sorry Queso, gatt+flak isn't going anywhere until there's more piercing options.
I'm not saying gat flak IS the issue, but it certainly is a symptom. To able to win a fight consistently these days, the best option has been to kill them as quickly as possible. Gat flak just happens to be the best at doing this. The issue, in my opinion, is that getting the quickest kill is almost always the best way to win. Disabling simply takes too long and opens you up to attack. Hit and run strategy results in the attack taking more damage than the target. The quick kill may be boring, but as long as it's the best strategy, people will constantly use it, reducing game depth, and making it less fun for everyone.
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I'm not saying gat flak IS the issue, but it certainly is a symptom. To able to win a fight consistently these days, the best option has been to kill them as quickly as possible. Gat flak just happens to be the best at doing this. The issue, in my opinion, is that getting the quickest kill is almost always the best way to win. Disabling simply takes too long and opens you up to attack. Hit and run strategy results in the attack taking more damage than the target. The quick kill may be boring, but as long as it's the best strategy, people will constantly use it, reducing game depth, and making it less fun for everyone.
No. You don't have to use gat/flak these to win. You can win with so much more. And it's really fun too, because you need to think and really need to use everything you have.
But that's what makes it so interesting. A Lumberjack Galleon can be devastating if there's just 2 gat/flak Pyras coming.
Gat/flak isnt always the quick kill. It's just the easiest. And since most people use the same ship and tactics it's mostly effective since they need to be in the same range.
Why not use tactics? Your environment? Different ranges? There's so much more, people!
Double Carronade Pyra, Double Merc Pyra, Carronade/Mortar Pyra, Carronade/Banshee Junker, All Banshee Squid, Merc/Flak Pyra, Double Merc side Junker with a CArronade/Banshee other side.
There's lots of stuff that can be used, people are just bored to learn how to use them effectively.
Totally agreed, same as I said before!
Though I do agree the gatling is a boring weapon for a gunner cause if they are realy good, it's a waste of their talent, I know that I got bored of it after 5 tries and always take the Flak or Mortar ( can't aim it though :P ) on any Gat/Explosive combo ship now if I'm gungineering.
That's why I like my gunner on the flak: You can vary the different ammo types. Heavy is always the best for beginners, agreed. But charged, burst, incendiary (even tried lochnagar once) are so much better in a gat/flak pyra fight. You don't just have to simply put the crosshair on the enemy and press the fire-button.
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Also, you have to not confine your tactics to just a singe ship's loadout, that's a bad thing.
For example, I just had a match where I took a Squid with a Carronade front and 2 Banshees, was spotting targets for my Galleon ally to take them down from afar all while doing a little disabling myself, popping balloons, taring them all while they couldn't point their guns at me and our Galleon ally was raining death on them. There's many manu combinations in this game, some are just more risky than the Gat/Flak, hence, Metagame is born.
It's not the best, it's just the most 'effective' in a sense that it works and it's easy to carry out.
PS: It was my second time flying a Squid.
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What I'm trying to say is that anything that takes down ships that fast isn't fun. Gat flak just being the easiest example. Balance is secondary to fun (but a necessity in long term game health and fun), and being shot down that fast by anything isn't fun. I never want to be able to shoot something down without it being able to fight back. That's incredibly boring. I don't want to get shot down like that either. It's not impossible to win against people with these super high DPS ships, it's not even that hard, but it just isn't all that fun. It doesn't matter if it's balanced and the metagame shifts away for a time, because it will come back and it won't be fun again.
There's a good example I have from my days in tf2. There was a weapon called Natascha. It was a minigun for the heavy. Every time you got hit it slowed you down for a brief period of time. Originally it stacked with itself, causing the slowdown to be inconsistent as some bullets hit and some missed. Now this was terribly unfun as you had no idea how fast you would be moving at any given point. However, from a gameplay standpoint it was perfectly balanced. Now they could have left it as it was and been done, but people were having a bad time. So valve changed it so it would apply a constant amount of slowdown whenever you were getting hit by any amount of bullets from it. Still balanced, but a lot more fun for everyone. If I was complaining about the balance I would be on any other number of the forum threads here.
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Erm, just out of curiosity, has the topic of slightly lowering the gat's damage come up (1-2 pierce damage per shot less)? Would that ruin its ability to take down armor? I realize 1-2 pierce damage is actually a significant portion of its dps, which is why I'm curious.
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Yeah, I will be forced to agree since you put it like this.
Gat/Explosive weapon is pretty boring, I agree with this. Then again I wasn't here before it happened, so I have no idea how it was. Personaly I wouldn't mind if the Gat/Flak combo was nerfed, it would enable smaller ships to stand more chances against the brawlers and it might even make the Spire viable :P
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If I understand correctly what Queso is saying is that the damage output of weapons are disproportionately high compared to the survivability of ships. I don't agree with this, but I think that's what he's saying.
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If I understand correctly what Queso is saying is that the damage output of weapons are disproportionately high compared to the survivability of ships. I don't agree with this, but I think that's what he's saying.
It isn't? Armor goes down like nothing if a Gat is pointed at you and health is wiped instanly after armor goes down from a barrage of explosives while you can do nothing to bring it up fast enough cause even the spanner has a limit and most ships can't dodge gatling fire that easily since it's a raycast weapon.
I think what he is trying to say is that weapon damage types are attributed to the wrong weapons, the gatling is the main armor stripper, it's the most boring weapon ever and it's the easiest to aim at your enemy. Just an example of what I think he is trying to say at least.
Uninteresting gameplay is his concern.
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An easier to use armor piercer? Definitely the merc. The gattling gun takes a while, it takes almost a complete clip to strip the armor off most ships, and if even a small number miss it needs to reload and fire more before the armor drops. This is also after a ship gets into gattling gun range which isn't easy against some builds. I just don't see it as a problem I guess.
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An easier to use armor piercer? Definitely the merc. The gattling gun takes a while, it takes almost a complete clip to strip the armor off most ships, and if even a small number miss it needs to reload and fire more before the armor drops. This is also after a ship gets into gattling gun range which isn't easy against some builds. I just don't see it as a problem I guess.
It's not overpowered, it's just not interesting. This is what the OP is talking about. The current armor strippers are not all that fun, they are basic, plain weapons and very easy to use and they are a very basic component of killing other ships cause nothing is quite as effective at taking down armor like these two. Of course, there are many choices as I stated earlier, but the OP just thinks that these specific two are the most boring and un-fun we could have.
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You know what, yeah, you're right. I'll have to agree with you. All the guns with the actual piercing damage type are very direct fire and uninteresting. I'm on board now, I agree.
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If I understand correctly what Queso is saying is that the damage output of weapons are disproportionately high compared to the survivability of ships. I don't agree with this, but I think that's what he's saying.
It isn't? Armor goes down like nothing if a Gat is pointed at you and health is wiped instanly after armor goes down from a barrage of explosives while you can do nothing to bring it up fast enough cause even the spanner has a limit and most ships can't dodge gatling fire that easily since it's a raycast weapon.
I think what he is trying to say is that weapon damage types are attributed to the wrong weapons, the gatling is the main armor stripper, it's the most boring weapon ever and it's the easiest to aim at your enemy. Just an example of what I think he is trying to say at least.
Uninteresting gameplay is his concern.
It's a bit of both really. The armor strippers are uninteresting AND the hull armor and health are fairly low. Both of those factor contribute to less fun fights.
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Right now it is easy to train a new crew to be effective with the gat/flack than any other gun combo. With flack timing and turn compensation there is a little extra to master before you can optimize the meta. I also like how the need for separate ammo types encourages the use of ships where more people can shoot. I do not fondly remember the days when heavy flack goldfish ruled the skies. Mostly because I never had a good gunner.
I would like to see some viable weapon/weapon combos that have a greater skill in to effectiveness out than the gat flack, but the game needs the gat flack to always be viable as a way to help newbies get acclimated to the game play.
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Gatling might be boring for us, yup, I agree.
But speaking in terms of getting to know the game they're good starter weapons because they're so easy and boring. Everyone will quickly know how to use it. It's a smooth start for new players.
Sure it is boring for experienced players, but that should not lead to just calling it boring and demanding changes but using other guns that aren't as boring! Like getting better with a Lumberjack. Or try two lochnagar light flaks on a pyramidion. Go with two burst mortars. use a flamer/carronade Junker, heck there are so many possibilities.
But just because those piercing guns are too boring for you, don't make it harder for new people.
What I would suggest are new piercing guns which need an experienced player and thus have an increased difficulty.
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Hold on, I agreed they're uninteresting direct fire weapons, but there's nothing easy about the gattling gun, it's one of the harder guns in the game to use to its best effect.
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Honestly I can't see an easy solution.
Gat-flak combo is basically the only thing in this game that has reasonable ttk on the enemy, without piercing damage taking down an enemy ship takes so long that it becomes a bit boring. Also, gat-flak in my opinion makes teamwork more important. You really don't want to find yourself alone against 2 gat-flak ships, sticking to your teammate becomes essential.
And to defeat a gat-flak ship you are encouraged to run a disabler ship and wreck their weapons before they can wreck your armor.
Gat-flak is healthy for the meta in my opinion, but I agree that as a combo it's a bit too boring and easy to master, mostly because of certain ships like the pyramidion which is by itself incredibly easy to fly.
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It's still a direct fire weapon and it's still harder to miss with than even a flak cannon. Generaly speaking, it's not the best skill indexed weapon. You just point it towards you enemy's armor and it goes down. I want to see a piercing weapon that can take down armor as fast as a current Gat but require more effort from the gunner's side and nerf the gat a bit so it is still a reliable armor stripper but doesn't destroy the whole armor in one clip.
Seeing armor go down any faster than it already does would make me leave the game, seriously, it's already way fast and makes me sigh each time my hull goes down as a deck engineer cause all the mallet strokes in the wolrd wouldn't keep it up against the damage number generator than is the gatling.
Personaly if you ask me, I want to see the range on that thing get lowered. I would prefer it if it was just like the Heavy's minigun from TF2, DPS machine up close, but severely loses effectiveness over at its max range.
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Hold on, I agreed they're uninteresting direct fire weapons, but there's nothing easy about the gattling gun, it's one of the harder guns in the game to use to its best effect.
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It's still a direct fire weapon and it's still harder to miss with than even a flak cannon. Generaly speaking, it's not the best skill indexed weapon. You just point it towards you enemy's armor and it goes down. I want to see a piercing weapon that can take down armor as fast as a current Gat but require more effort from the gunner's side [...]
Seeing armor go down any faster than it already does would make me leave the game, seriously, it's already way fast and makes me sigh each time my hull goes down as a deck engineer cause all the mallet strokes in the wolrd wouldn't keep it up against the damage number generator than is the gatling.
Agreed, but you can prolong the time it takes until your armor gets destroyed - and just hope that the enemy's armor will go down first. Afterwards it also depends on what ammo you use in the flak.
Personaly if you ask me, I want to see the range on that thing get lowered. I would prefer it if it was just like the Heavy's minigun from TF2, DPS machine up close, but severely loses effectiveness over at its max range.
That might actually be a good solution. This would boost merc/flak a little bit I guess.
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Remove heavy clip from the equation and the Gat would be balanced. Right now you drop in heavy and you have a laser beam cutting through armor and some pretty silly ranges sometimes.
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I would prefer it if it was just like the Heavy's minigun from TF2, DPS machine up close, but severely loses effectiveness over at its max range.
I'd just like to take a moment to appreciate how awesome this concept is. Depending on the degree, the gatling having damage falloff would mean more payoff with a mortar combo and limit heavy clip's effectiveness to being used almost solely as a component laser since up close, there are better ammo types to drop armor. I'd expect something similar to Rainer's statement showing up. Merc/Flak and Gat/Mortar being prominent with the change.. ideally.
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Again, only very top tier gunners can drop a ship's armor with one clip of gattling fire, it's a difficult skill, and without it a quick kill turns into a long kill.
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Again, only very top tier gunners can drop a ship's armor with one clip of gattling fire, it's a difficult skill, and without it a quick kill turns into a long kill.
Well, let's look at numbers.
The Gatling deals: 10 Piercing and 10 Shatter damage per shot.
On the armor, that is: 15 Piercing damage and 2 Shatter for a total 17 damage per hit on a ship's armor.
The Gatling has 60 bullets per magazine, so assuming you are actively looking to hit armor only, it can deal a total of 1020 damage on an enemy's armor. Assuming your whole magazine goes into the armor and no components.
Even if you take components into account, that is still more than enough to take out any ship's armor even if you miss a lot of shots, unless you are aimming at a Galleon or the Junker, both of which have their componenets set up in a way that they can easily absorb some damage and one being extremely slim.
So no, I don't believe it is a great skill, it just takes a minimun ammount of practice if your pilot doesn't turn around at full speed all the time like a drunken idiot, then even an average gunner should have no problem taking out a ship's armor in less than a clip, heck, I'm not even top notch, but I can manage to do it easily.
The only ships that have armor even close to match that tremendous number is the Galleon and the Junker, one of which has 800 and the other 700 armor and that's still at least a 200 damage difference. meaning, those ships are the only ones that can legitimately avoid having their armor reduced to nothing from a single gatling clip (One mallet stroke included which means +250 more damage needed). On every other ship, your armor is hilariously exposed and that's only assuming you are only getting hit by a gatling mind you.
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Again, only very top tier gunners can drop a ship's armor with one clip of gattling fire, it's a difficult skill, and without it a quick kill turns into a long kill.
That's assuming you're only taking damage from that single source, which is highly unlikely. The math works out to around 8 seconds of every bullet hitting to take down a Galleon's armor with no engineer whacking the hull and no special ammo.
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You're forgetting a rubber mallet hit on the hull, and I can't speak for you, but I definitely have a lot of trouble landing even 80% of my gattling shots on the hull.
You know I'd really like to get Fluitaire in this discussion, he's really devoted himself to that gun in a way nobody else has, and I consider him the best gattling gunner in the game.
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You're forgetting a rubber mallet hit on the hull, and I can't speak for you, but I definitely have a lot of trouble landing even 80% of my gattling shots on the hull.
You know I'd really like to get Fluitaire in this discussion, he's really devoted himself to that gun in a way nobody else has, and I consider him the best gattling gunner in the game.
Most ships won't survive a full clip even with the mallet stroke. You will need to hit less than 80% of you shots for this to happen and that would be just one more ship, the Pyramidion. Still, you are assuming only one gatling is pointed at you, which is wrong as there are always 2 ships in one team at least, which means that even if both gunners are terrible and only hit 50% of their shots with a raygun, then your armor is still down, you get blown up and then they procceed to murder your ally, the meta is basicaly who can do this the fastest. There is no thinking behind poiting a gat at someone and generating damage from its max range with not incencitive to go closer besides having a steady hand.
I'm not trying to say that there aren't amazing Gatlers in this game and I know Fluitaire can hit almost all of his shots, I've played along him in a ship, but that doesn't mean anything since the Gatling, no matter what, is the most simple weapon to fire at someone and that simple weapon does one of the most major jobs, which is taking the armor down and does that at a significant range for an automatic, point-an-click weapon.
Chirnus makes a very good point as well:
I'd just like to take a moment to appreciate how awesome this concept is. Depending on the degree, the gatling having damage falloff would mean more payoff with a mortar combo and limit heavy clip's effectiveness to being used almost solely as a component laser since up close, there are better ammo types to drop armor. I'd expect something similar to Rainer's statement showing up. Merc/Flak and Gat/Mortar being prominent with the change.. ideally.
Heavy clip is need sot be nerfed on the Gatling and this is the best way, nothing that can fire that accurately in full auto and cause some much damage to one of the most important components on a ship should have this much range with no drawbacks.
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I'm not going to go all into detail here and just toss in some "meat" for you guys to think about.
What if heavy clip reduced firing rate (or if it does, to a greater %)? I can't see that "hurting" many guns besides gat/flak. It'll hit carronades but well placed shots are killing that balloon anyway, and most other guns use it for arming reduction or long shots, which slower fire rate wouldn't really hinder.
It's also know by awkm that the firing arc of a gatling gun is a bit, large. He won't touch it due to lack of piercing options. I think once another option rolls its way into the game, this all will be a moot point.
I also just came up with this on the fly and haven't thought it through 100%, so yea.
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Heavy clip doesn't reduce firing rate, it reduces projectile speed, which is probably why it's a no brainer for the Gatling since projectile speed doesn't matter at all on one. Not sure about the firing rate downside though as it would hurt both the Carronades and the Hwacha a lot, especially the Hwacha since you want all the missles to be close to each other for the long range shot.
Would be nice to see how it would handle if it decreased clip size by around 25%. Wouldn't harm the Hwacha and Carronades much, since the Hwacha would still have 15 missiles loaded and the Carronades would just lose out on one more shot, the Gatling on the other side would lose out on 15 bullets, equalling to at least 255 armor damage, which is a whole other mallet stroke.
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I'll never back a change that would reduce a heavy carronade shot down to one (except loch of course). Heavy is its only way to make effective use of its max range, which is obviously short enough at it is.
Also, heavy in a hwacha barely breaks anything now with a full barrage hit (hit is even more rare). Reducing the clip would be more detrimental than a slight firing rate reduction.
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I'll never back a change that would reduce a heavy carronade shot down to one (except loch of course). Heavy is its only way to make effective use of its max range, which is obviously short enough at it is.
Also, heavy in a hwacha barely breaks anything now with a full barrage hit (hit is even more rare). Reducing the clip would be more detrimental than a slight firing rate reduction.
Well I don't know, I also meant down one shot, I meant the light ones, the Heavy one wouldn't lose a shot since it's only 25% less and not 40% or something, it only has 2 shots after all. As for the Hwacha Barrage I don't mind it being less effective at range right now tbh, but that's for an other thread.
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I think reducing the gat's range would pretty much help on like...say...300m. That would lead to a much higher use of other guns and combos again!
Changing ammo wouldn't probably lead to anything since other guns would be getting worse too. Just look at the Hwacha (as already noticed).
What about reducing the gat's arc and giving us a new piercing gun?
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What about reducing the gat's arc and giving us a new piercing gun?
I've tried. Quotes from me and awkm.
Awkm, I only meant the firing arc of the gun itself, not the damage. I can see why you don't touch it with a 10ft pole currently, though one could argue a merc can perform the same result with some finesse.
Firing arc? Maybe later when there are other piercing options.
And yes, the Field Gun is great at taking out armor. Although it does require some planning and therefore skill.
While merc does give another option, people seldom use it for, I guess the arc?
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I'm not so sure a change in heavy ammo would necessarily harm the other guns it's popular on besides the gat/flak. At least after some consideration of adding say a 20% damage decrease instead of (or in addition to) the 25% reduced muzzle velocity.
The manticore and carronades both benefit far beyond the gatling and flak from the 80% recoil reduction, which for those weapons makes up for that damage loss. The point of this change being to extend the engage time for the gatling to peel armor at max distance because of the damage reduction. It would also make it take an extra reload of flak for most ships to down by using it. This turns these medium-long range engagements to a battle of positioning, precision, and time on attack. Something I feel there isn't a lot of outside ranked matches.
Besides increasing engage time and offering risk/reward for firing non heavy flak, this also promotes the use of gunners. Gunners who can bring damage enhancing ammunition for these weapons to switch to once their opponent is close enough to engage with full effect. Also, I could see higher use of buff engineers to offset the damage reduction rather than make it all the more deadly (which I admit, I'm a huge fan of doing... 30-50 round armor peel is devastating at max range with a good flak gunner waiting).
Anyhow, just thought I'd share the idea.
While merc does give another option, people seldom use it for, I guess the arc?
That arc is the main reason I see it not used much. However it also takes longer to achieve a strip compared to a good shot on the gat due to the need to reload. Also a single miss is devastating to it's efficiency.
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Is there a way to increase recoil the longer a gun is fired? That could solve a few issues. It could require the user to slow down their firing by giving some cool down.
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Changing ammo wouldn't probably lead to anything since other guns would be getting worse too. Just look at the Hwacha (as already noticed).
After sleeping and having an average day so far, I can say I think more clearly now than myself at 2 AM in the morning and I realize that nerfing clip size on the Heavy rounds would be a horrid idea, kinda feel silly for proposing that.
Anyway, for me, the arc of the gatling isn't the main problem, the stupid range it has for an automatic weapon is and how it doesn't matter how close you are to the enemy for it to deal maximum damage.
Of course, Heavy clip is the main reason for the gatling's extreme range efficiency, without it, the gatling spread is quite large and it can use Heavy rounds with absolutely no downside, maybe it IS Heavy clip that is the problem after all though, since it is extremely useful on way too many guns.
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Why not just decrease the clip size? Not by a whole bunch of course, but perhaps enough that gunners would want to bring ammo that would increase its capacity.
Frankly, before they eventually nerf it, I think they'll have released another piercing weapon.
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I'm not so sure a change in heavy ammo would necessarily harm the other guns it's popular on besides the gat/flak. At least after some consideration of adding say a 20% damage decrease instead of (or in addition to) the 25% reduced muzzle velocity.
As already noted, a Hwacha with heavy deals almost no component killing damage. Nerfing it more would just make it a CQC weapon like the carronade (which would suffer from it too since you can't aim down with it and you would be loosing the additional help you might have gotten by concentrating the pellets much more on the aim). That wouldn't be so bad, but there still would be the same proportion between those guns too. It would help keep the hull armor up longer, sure. But since you won't able to fire back as efficient as before...where would it lead to? Maybe guns that dont need heavy clip would be more common then, like a heavy flak fish. Since almost everyone will still be using it there's just nothing gained. The fight won't be getting any closer except people would start using greased - but your engineer has to think about using greased or heavy for the ranges, since he may only take one. That may add more tactics into this loadout but unexperienced players would have a really hard time. And since other guns would be nerfed too (Hwacha being only CQC with greased/burst/charged like the carronade) no one would use heavy anymore. You could just take it out of the game. The light flak would be a CQC weapon too. Which weapon would you use with the merc now? Almost completely useless too (except for a Spire).
To sum it up: It would lead to many changes, helping the strategic parts of the game but probably killing some fun (especially for beginners), making some guns and ammo types close to useless and destroying even more balance of the game.
It may have many ups but also many downs. I'm right now neither saying that I think it's good nor that it's bad.
The manticore and carronades both benefit far beyond the gatling and flak from the 80% recoil reduction, which for those weapons makes up for that damage loss.
Look above.
Besides increasing engage time and offering risk/reward for firing non heavy flak, this also promotes the use of gunners. Gunners who can bring damage enhancing ammunition for these weapons to switch to once their opponent is close enough to engage with full effect. Also, I could see higher use of buff engineers to offset the damage reduction rather than make it all the more deadly (which I admit, I'm a huge fan of doing... 30-50 round armor peel is devastating at max range with a good flak gunner waiting).
Look above.
That arc is the main reason I see it not used much. However it also takes longer to achieve a strip compared to a good shot on the gat due to the need to reload. Also a single miss is devastating to it's efficiency.
If you stay far away with a flak as second gun there is nothing wrong with that arc. I'd like to see those two in combination, and the gat and mortar in combination. That would be pretty awesome. They would just have to decrease the effective range of the gatling, which would lead to the increased engage time you mentioned before but without the problems of having other guns suffering from it too. Also you could change the firing speed of the gat, which then might lead to the also already mentioned specialization of either greased or heavy. Said that I'd prefer them to nerf the gatling instead of a whole ammo type in favor of the balance.
Changing ammo wouldn't probably lead to anything since other guns would be getting worse too. Just look at the Hwacha (as already noticed).
Anyway, for me, the arc of the gatling isn't the main problem, the stupid range it has for an automatic weapon is and how it doesn't matter how close you are to the enemy for it to deal maximum damage.
Of course, Heavy clip is the main reason for the gatling's extreme range efficiency, without it, the gatling spread is quite large and it can use Heavy rounds with absolutely no downside, maybe it IS Heavy clip that is the problem after all though, since it is extremely useful on way too many guns.
The arc might be a problem too since you may keep on firing the gatling on a pyra for example even if the enemy is almost at 180° on one of your sides. I agree though that the range is a real problem.
Heavy clip is used in many guns - but it's pretty useless in others like heavy flak, lumberjack, merc, mortar... So it's pretty even. Nerfing heavy clip would lead to a dominance of these weapons which, after all, would lead to another balance issue.
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Rebalance the per shot damage of the Gatling, that way no other weapon is affected by the change.
Piercing 8 (down from 10), Shatter 10
That wipes 20% off the armour-stripping power (regardless of ammunition choice) and tilts the strategy slightly more towards component damage. No need to fiddle with Heavy Clip modifiers.
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First of all, Pickle, I don't think your idea is bad. It's simple, which is good! But it is based on the fact (as the gat is used nowadays) that the gat is a far range weapon. But with your idea it'd still be used like that, almost no one would even use greased or something like that. Which is a shame I think.
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I like the smaller clip idea (not drastic of course), which then promotes ammo clips that increase it, which also lower its accuracy by default. It'll also open up the gunner game on it.
Gatling is mid-range at best, in my opinion.
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I really like your idea Zill! It looks solid and there are more pros then cons.
If the gat itself had less ammo we would need clips to even it out which decreases the accuracy. And heavy wouldn't give us anything towards that except accuracy. Thinking of the gat using a strip of bullets maybe the reload time might be a bit higher?
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Eh, I don't see the need initially to also increase the reload, else we go overboard. I prefer slight tweaks that open up lots of options, like the clip idea. It keeps gatling as it is in terms of role and use, keeps heavy useful but not the sole option, and would make it less pray and spray, requiring more skill.
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Sounds logical. I really like it!
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The arc might be a problem too since you may keep on firing the gatling on a pyra for example even if the enemy is almost at 180° on one of your sides. I agree though that the range is a real problem.
Heavy clip is used in many guns - but it's pretty useless in others like heavy flak, lumberjack, merc, mortar... So it's pretty even. Nerfing heavy clip would lead to a dominance of these weapons which, after all, would lead to another balance issue.
I guess you are right, I was mostly thinking light weapons, but you make a valid point and it's nice to see you agree on the range of this weapon being a major problem. I'd like to see more piercing options soon tbh and the gatling changed ot be the CQC option for armor striping.
Also liking Zill's idea with the reduced clip size for the gatling.
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+1 for reduced clip size on heavy. A good compromise that makes the penalty work out well while not causing a severe domino effect.
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+1 for reduced clip size on heavy. A good compromise that makes the penalty work out well while not causing a severe domino effect.
Just to be clear, I'm referring to lowering the clip (slightly) of the gatling only, not heavy clip. Too many guns still utilize it with balanced results to warrant nerfing it like that.
My opinion of course.
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I'm with Zill.
As said, nerfing heavy would actually to a domino effect.
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First of all, Pickle, I don't think your idea is bad. It's simple, which is good! But it is based on the fact (as the gat is used nowadays) that the gat is a far range weapon. But with your idea it'd still be used like that, almost no one would even use greased or something like that. Which is a shame I think.
It's not long-range. Long-range is the Mercury. The Gatling is a mid-range component-killer and armour-stripper. The only complaint seems to be with it's armour-stripping abilities, so any fix must be directed at that aspect only.
I would hate to see the range or component-killing abilities of the Gatling diminished - it's a significant counter to the Goldfish forward weapon mount, and is moderately effective against the gundeck of a Galleon. Tinkering too much with the Gatling risks upsetting balance elsewhere.
The Gatling is not overwhelmingly OP, it's perhaps a touch OP and proving very popular due to this, ease of use and synergy with the Flak.
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If we had more piercing, the gattling would be used less and wouldn't be seen as a problem, it's not overpowered, it's popular.
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You have more piercing though. It's the merc.
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I wouldn't be too surprised if the gatling gun had just a bit less rounds, but there is a line between enough...and too much with such a gun. Saying that the Gatling Gun is boss with incendiary rounds, too many removed would take away my favourite round to use in the gun...
As with the heavy clip, reducing the clip size would hurt just about every gun...however...reducing firing rate may not. It makes sense that a heavy round should be fed through the clip at a slower rate to reduce damage to the gun, let alone explain the lack of spread it would create at the same time (because it's being fired at a slower pace.)
Just my two cents on the heavy clip
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For those who are familiar with Battlefield 3, Heavy clip is like a gun attachment. You nerf that and it throws off weapons behaviour for all the other guns in the game.
So if you want to nerf the gattling, then nerf the gattling only. There's seem to be lots of good ideas thrown around by everyone else, why not use a bit of all of them? Damage per round, rate of fire, magazine size, arc, max range. All of them can be tweaked to lessen its effectiveness.
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For those who are familiar with Battlefield 3, Heavy clip is like a gun attachment. You nerf that and it throws off weapons behaviour for all the other guns in the game.
So if you want to nerf the gattling, then nerf the gattling only. There's seem to be lots of good ideas thrown around by everyone else, why not use a bit of all of them? Damage per round, rate of fire, magazine size, arc, max range. All of them can be tweaked to lessen its effectiveness.
Tweaking everything a little bit has proven in the past to overdo it in terms of nerfing. Seeing as how the gatling is one of two dedicated piercing weapons, anything over a small change to one aspect would potentially throw balance way out of whack.
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That's why I've suggested only dropping the Piercing damage per round.. that only affects the problematic armour-stripping over-ability whilst leaving all other weapons unaffected. And has no impact on the effectiveness of Incendiary, etc. with the Gatling or the other tactical uses the Gatling is put to.
Re-balancing has to be done carefully, in small increments and whilst thinking about the unintended consequences of wide-reaching changes.
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I want to know what would happen in a match without piercing weapons. Anyone want to try it some time?
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I'd imagine you'd see a lot of carronades, which seem to be the best bet for armour stripping after piercing weapons.
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I'd imagine you'd see a lot of carronades, which seem to be the best bet for armour stripping after piercing weapons.
Maybe we just need to make more weapons viable in armor stripping, but just not as good as the real armor strippers. Then loadouts other than Gat/Flak would be more popular.
I myself love the double carronade loadout.
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You pretty much answered your thought there.
Flechette is the next best thing for armor stripping.
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You pretty much answered your thought there.
Flechette is the next best thing for armor stripping.
I know, but, why not something else as well? That's what I was saying.
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Well fire does a decent job at it, but chem spray nips that if they get smart. Then all that's left is shatter and explosive, which have no business doing well vs armor.
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Remember the old explosive damage? All the guns used to break armor; but there was a sort of heavy flak problem if I recall.
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I see, you are indeed right.
Well, I guess I'll have to wait till some other weapon to cover mid range piercing will be out, then I expect to at least see a firing arc and range nerf on the gatling gun cause It's realy silly how a Pyra is not even facing me but the gatling is still onto me and at range as well. Honestly, after some thinking, nerfing the gatling will do more damage than fix anything right now, so I guess we will have to wait till we see any form of update on this subject.
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I've been trying out double Gats on the front of my Crimson Chin (Pyramidion) and just testing away there armor while another ally does all the hull damage. Its quite evil and I only do it with a good ally and enemy team, otherwise it's no contest.
I do agree that the gat is overpowered, but like any ship setup, it can be countered with good teamwork.