Guns Of Icarus Online
Info => Feedback and Suggestions => Topic started by: Balisarda on August 15, 2013, 04:17:54 pm
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Something that might be nice in the Ship Customization screen would be the display of fields of fire per gun mounted. Since the ship is a model which can be rotated around the Y-axis, a three dimension pyramid (which could be toggled on and off) of each gun's firing arcs as mounted would allow one the ability to figure a good estimate of interlocking fields. This might also be beneficial to put in the ability to rotate the ship around the X-axis as well, as to allow a top-down perspective of gun arcs.
Just a machine gunner's thought.
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You know, I forget exactly who mentioned this, but there was a very experienced vet who brought up the exact same suggestion last night in game.
Not sure how hard this would be to implement but there seems to be a demand for this from new and old players a like.
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That would've been me. And seeing this thread today made me believe in mind reading. Almost.And Muse is behind it somehow.
Anyhow back on topic, I agree this would be quite useful as its very difficult to figure out which guns can aim where
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This could go along with optional color coded hit markers and help teach newbies.
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Agreed -- this would be very helpful. Though the pitches and yaws of every weapon are available online, there is no way to visualize it when customizing a ship. Such a view would allow players to easily see any weapon blind-spots or overlaps.
I would also add the ability to rotate the view of your ship up and down so all manner of viewing angles are available. Left-right motions of the mouse would rotate it like it already does, while up-down motions would tilt it.
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If they implemented this, some people would complain that it removes the intelligence factor from the game. Real gamers find their gun's traverse limits by hours of experimentation in game, not by looking at a handy chart.
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If they implemented this, some people would complain that it removes the intelligence factor from the game. Real gamers find their gun's traverse limits by hours of experimentation in game, not by looking at a handy chart.
They just gotta decide, do they want a healthier game community with better uptake and retention of players or not? Not like every proposal is mandatory or game changing. There are some I'd raise a fuss over but if it was optional then I couldn't care less as long as it would be helping in this way.
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If they implemented this, some people would complain that it removes the intelligence factor from the game. Real gamers find their gun's traverse limits by hours of experimentation in game, not by looking at a handy chart.
It's fine if it's in the Ship Customisation screen.
On the HUD it would be terrible. Most of the complaints are about dumbing down the HUD in-game.
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"...removes the intelligence factor from the game. Real gamers find their gun's traverse limits by hours of experimentation in game, not by looking at a handy chart."
I'm not going grind into the meat and potatoes of that (I lie), but from that little quote, apparently every grunt who's ever drawn up a field of fire diagram to figure where to lay their guns for fire interlocking and terrain masking clearly have no idea what they're doing. Hell, I utilize fire overlays for live-fire ranges with fixed lateral limits and known distances just to see what the effective distance and possible errant travel that a round can do. Clearly, I'd much rather find out the traverse limits of my M240 on my vehicle in combat rather than beforehand. /sarcasm
You talk about removing the intelligence factor from the game, but what you describe is more a matter of experience, but seeing as guns' traversal can be changed from patch to patch (I give you the Field Gun for 1.3.1), experience is subjective. This would actually put into the game a legitimate intelligence factor, seeing as it is an inject of data that allows you to better equip and focus your firepower prior to stepping off. Hell, a real tidbit of intelligence would be allowing players to look at enemy airships while still in the Game Lobby (but that would eliminate a lot of the fun factor and add way too much frustration).
Hence my suggestion that it be a toggled option, to allow young hard-chargers who don't need to look at a handy chart or read the instructions from getting their "hours of experimentation" and those of us who like to spend a few minutes configuring an airship that has good fields of fire and hours honing effective air combat getting our, well, hours effectively honing our air combat.
Just saying. :)
Edit: Also to note, no ill will is meant in my commentary, I usually come of pretty direct and intonation never translates well when typed.
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It is a good suggestion.
I am doing some sarcastic ribbing Captain Phoenix for his post in this thread:
https://gunsoficarus.com/community/forum/index.php/topic,2043.0.html
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To be clear though, this suggestion would be for Ship Customization only. I am a sparse or no HUD type of player. Honestly, I'd like to see the HUD compass go away and be replaced by a legitimate helm compass to the left of the ship's wheel. I'd like to see the impact markers go away and be replaced with physical indications of the damage that I'm doing (honestly, it does a pretty good job of damage modeling for the game type). I'd like to have everyone understand things like port, starboard, stern, bow, and location call outs with highs and lows. I'd like to see the HUD names go away and legitimate and unique ship visual customizations come into play.
To pull from "Master and Commander", I'd like that experience of dread that Captain Aubrey realized when he looked through his spyglass into the fog and the Acheron emerged with her cannons ablaze, and I'd also like that satisfaction when you take her down with experience, wit, and good teamwork over that of rapidly clicking away hoping that she'll pop up on your HUD and then plastering a reticle in the clouds.
But I'd also like a million dollars. :P
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We will give out more gun information in a form of expanded unlocks (achievements will be relatively easy to get by just using the guns). Information includes gun arcs and a smart way to display them.
However, it's tricky to display all gun arcs on a gun (in fact, we can't do it ourselves) that isn't just the game editor running. It's just not user friendly. And all of you who know me from the gameplay section of the forum, you know that I don't like giving full information. I advocate learning by feel. Having the gun arc degrees will be a boon but you'll still need to see how they are placed on each ship. I want to maintain that level of feel, which means you have to play the game to earn it.
I understand the yearning to min/max from a pure data standpoint because that's what I like to do. But honestly, looking at all the data on a spreadsheet (what my job requires) takes a lot of fun out of the game. However, we will indulge a level of min/max interests via these expanded unlocks.
This goes for ship stats too. By just being on these ships and shooting things with guns, you'll get the info in no time at all.
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I just want to be clear: I don't think ANY of us suggested having the fields of fire display as part of the HUD. That would just be silly.
We were suggesting it for the ship customization screen.
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The solution to this one is easy. Its called sandbox and memory retention.
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The solution to this one is easy. Its called sandbox and memory retention.
Ehhhh.... that takes a 1 minute task and makes it a 3 hours one. Its fine to test the visual reference for where to hold a ship to fire a trifecta, its an entirely different matter to try out the literally hundreds of weapon combinations looking for overlaps.
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OK, we can make it even easier then. Buy a mic and use these simple phrases.
Need left rotation
Need right rotation
Target to high
Target to low
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Ah, I think you may just be misunderstanding the suggestion - this isn't about helping the pilot get guns in arc while flying. This is a suggestion just for the design screen to aid in making builds with overlapping fields of fire. None of these arcs would show up in game - the gunners would still need to tell the pilot to turn if they were out of arc.
As a point of reference, there are 161051 different gun combinations on a Mobula - realistically its 32768 when taking out flares, harpoons, and mine launchers. Even further drastic reductions come from common sense building principles. Checking out which combinations give double and triple firing spots quickly on the several hundred interesting combos sounds like a valuable thing to me *shrug*.
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I got it. We went into the sandbox and saw what we needed to see. It took about 5 minutes. We did the same thing with a galleon so the pilot coud get a visual of where they need to be. Its called putting a little effort into it, Its been dumbed down enough, I mean we even have gun movement with a lochanger round. Easy is boring.
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I got it. We went into the sandbox and saw what we needed to see. It took about 5 minutes. We did the same thing with a galleon so the pilot coud get a visual of where they need to be. Its called putting a little effort into it, Its been dumbed down enough, I mean we even have gun movement with a lochanger round. Easy is boring.
So your logic is "Why should we make it only take a few seconds to check gun arcs when we can already do it in a way that takes a few minutes?" We can already check the gun arcs by firing up the Sandbox. This is just making it quicker to check what we already can. I don't understand why you hate the idea of a convenient, time-saving feature.
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I just want to be clear: I don't think ANY of us suggested having the fields of fire display as part of the HUD. That would just be silly.
We were suggesting it for the ship customization screen.
I totally agree with this suggestion.
I'm a new player, but that is one of the first things I thought about when looking at the ship customization screen.
Viewing solid angles could be confusing in the 3D interface, but even a few 2D schematics would be helpful (e.g. TOP, PORT, STERN).
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its an entirely different matter to try out the literally hundreds of weapon combinations looking for overlaps.
You're going to be matching weapons to ships, where the positioning will limit the kind of gun you will be using - for example a mercury on the right side of a squid or the lower wing mounts of the mobula - yes you can fit those guns there but you would probably be better with something else. Then you'll be looking at the damage types. So while potentially any gun will fit in a mount point of the right type, you won't be going through them alphabetically.
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I agree with that it makes the game less intelligent
But what if we show fields of fire in ship build mode, that would help out
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I agree with that it makes the game less intelligent
But what if we show fields of fire in ship build mode, that would help out
How does it make the game less intelligent? Don't you think any intelligent player has figured out that practice mode is the best currently available tool for testing gun arcs and overlaps of arcs?
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Something that might be nice in the Ship Customization screen would be the display of fields of fire per gun mounted.
Ugh, I can't believe that I'm quoting myself, but I guess it has to be done. From my OP, bolded, italicized, and underlined for emphasis.
To all those who say, "Test it out in Practice or Sandbox." Yes, understood, but it is time consuming, particularly if you lack a full crew. This way, you could easily and quickly whip together a loadout in Ship Customization, and then give it a test in Practice without having to bounce in and out of Practice sessions to make one little change. As Thaago smartly stated, just because the weapon variety is there, doesn't mean that certain combinations benefit each other, even if their arcs would overlap.
This is merely a suggestion for another tool in a toolbox. I don't understand how this would be dumbing down anything.
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I apologise for the slight detour but y'know everytime I see this thread title I can't help thinking Big Country never played guns of Icarus but I'm pretty sure they would have cared about Fields of Fire too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0GAhe_9Was
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This is merely a suggestion for another tool in a toolbox. I don't understand how this would be dumbing down anything.
My response to people who are reacting to this suggestion by saying it would "dumb things down" is: "So?"
This is a game. It should be played and enjoyed as a game. No, players shouldn't have access to every little bit of information about every gun and ship. But, we're not talking about some hidden variable that only the elite players will seek out and use- this is basic information about a gun, alongside "What kind of damage does it do" and "How fast does it fire." Putting a small arc representation on the ship loadout screen will hardly break the meta.
The most common argument against such a change, that I can see, is "Well, you can just figure it out after 30 minutes in Practice." Okay. Or, here's a thought, I could learn that in 30 seconds in the lobby before a game, then spend the next 29.5 minutes actually playing the game. Even putting how many degrees the arc can turn would remind captains, new and veteran alike, just where their guns will be able to fire.
There are real, legitimate coding issues with implementing this- I think awkm pointed them out earlier in the thread. Everyone else, though, seems to oppose it simply because doing things the hard way makes them feel smarter.
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This is merely a suggestion for another tool in a toolbox. I don't understand how this would be dumbing down anything.
My response to people who are reacting to this suggestion by saying it would "dumb things down" is: "So?"
Who has said that this specific idea would be dumbing down?
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Who has said that this specific idea would be dumbing down?
I got it. We went into the sandbox and saw what we needed to see. It took about 5 minutes. We did the same thing with a galleon so the pilot coud get a visual of where they need to be. Its called putting a little effort into it, Its been dumbed down enough, I mean we even have gun movement with a lochanger round. Easy is boring.
TWINKIE DID, TWINKIE DID!!!!!!!!