Guns Of Icarus Online
Main => Gameplay => Topic started by: awkm on October 28, 2013, 01:24:35 pm
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Balance changes here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/14-1AnOLfaEKuPvbthlY1WfNvL8_0nijTRHZDCq8XAuA/pub
Guns and gunner skills balance only. Refrain from speculation, theory crafting, etc... it is not helpful to me. Instead please test and then discuss.
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Wait, I though the Heavy carronade's range would be 425, not 375. Is this for real?
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No. Old number. Fixed.
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I'm a little concerned about the Heavy Carronade having comparable range to both the Gatling and the Mortar, although I'll admit I haven't flown against Carronades much today.
All I know is that I'd use the threat of armor shred + mortar damage to discourage Carronade ships from getting to close, as they'd often realize that there was a decent chance I could really damage their ship before falling. The severe range nerf to both the gatling AND the mortar means that the Carronade now hits me before I can reliably get any real damage on their ship.
I guess I'll give it a while to settle, but the Carronade seems like it's simply winning the Brawling war vs Gat/Mortar by a good margin, as it can cripple a balloon and put you on the defensive before any Gat-based brawling set-up has really had time to do any actual damage.
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Quite honestly after taking a shot to try and beat a competent team with a Galleon/Junker combo (mind you it was a fully fitted out Gents lobby, so no randoms) using brawling guns, not only did it feel completely underwhelming to use any of them, but they weren't doing as well either.
Gatling takes forever to empty a clip even with Greased cause it has 80-92 bullets in the magazine, Mortar too slow and low ammo count plus less range, Carronade range is completely borked down and the reload timer is ruining it, in the meantime, sniper builds have more than TRIPLE the range of our guns and due to our guns' spreads, we can't even use something like Lesmok to get a slight edge.
Brawling is sucessfully locked within 450 meters range and very easily prone to weapon disablers.
But nobody listens to me when I say that Carronades are fine, or anything else right?
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Sniping buff. It was so underpowered before, yeah?
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Let's look at the guns that got nerfed:
-Light carro
-Heavy carro
-Gat
-Mortar
And the ones that got buffed:
-Hades
-Flak
-Merc
-Artemis
I don't want to pass judgement prematurely, but this all looks very concerning.
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I don't want to pass judgement prematurely, but this all looks very concerning.
I agree. I'm actually okay with the more auto-hit weapons (Gat, Carronade, etc) being limited to extremely close ranges (although I'm still not happy with the Carronade's ability to pop a balloon before a Gat/X combo can really do anything to threaten it), but I wish our options for dealing with long-range harass were a bit better. On maps like Dunes I know I struggle when forced to close against a well-captained sniper build, and I don't really feel like the pilot tools at my disposal are really enough to, say, get my Pyramidion across the map when the sniper Spire is constantly bombarding me. I think this may exacerbate the issue.
Of course, this is theory-crafting. I'll probably swing by this thread against after I've messed around with the new options a bit, and played against them a few dozen times.
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I don't see a point to brawling anymore, especially against a sniper team. Don't know about you boys, but I don't like being forced to snipe to have a chance at winning a match.
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I don't see a point to brawling anymore, especially against a sniper team. Don't know about you boys, but I don't like being forced to snipe to have a chance at winning a match.
I don't like being forced to snipe, but I do enjoy sniping. :D
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Let's look at the guns that got nerfed:
-Light carro
-Heavy carro
-Gat
-Mortar
And the ones that got buffed:
-Hades
-Flak
-Merc
-Artemis
I don't want to pass judgement prematurely, but this all looks very concerning.
sund hasnt this been the pattern since beta? pattern is as follows: introduce new long range guns> buff said long range guns> nerf brawlers' boats> nerf brawlers' guns> add arming time on long range guns> repeat.
i just wish muse would come out and clearly say, "we dont want a dog fighting game, we like the idea of nautical combat in the air." that way i cant stop being frustrated and just go and play different game like war thunder or something....
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Balance changes here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/14-1AnOLfaEKuPvbthlY1WfNvL8_0nijTRHZDCq8XAuA/pub
Guns and gunner skills balance only. Refrain from speculation, theory crafting, etc... it is not helpful to me. Instead please test and then discuss.
tested, worked as designed: gat has become less useful than merc. galleon takes almost 3 clips of gat to strip (through repair) but this is actually impossible because you have been disabled by hwacha over and over again since you have to be ridic close to do anything with a gat. Spire is viable now which is awesome(no sarcasm).
sniper teams that have Sniper sides and brawler side boats have been buffed because shortening their brawler side has no effect and boats that can only choose one type of load out e.g. goldie pyra that prefer to try and fly close and dog fight have been nerfed again for the 2nd straight patch.
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Let's look at the guns that got nerfed:
-Light carro
-Heavy carro
-Gat
-Mortar
And the ones that got buffed:
-Hades
-Flak
-Merc
-Artemis
I don't want to pass judgement prematurely, but this all looks very concerning.
Let's get real here for a second, other than the light flak, a weapon which was vastly under utilized because mortar was just a better option, can you really call any of the rest of those buffs? I mean, I guess the Hades a minor amount, but really, will that actually make that huge of a difference?
I'm also getting kinda tired of people whining how carronades/gat+mort is sooooo super op and then bitching about them getting a nerf.
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5 extra piercing is quite a bit, and 50m/s is enormous. You cannot underestimate what small buffs can do.
Anyways, enough talking. Let's get down to actually seeing what happens here.
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Speaking from a pug perspective, the changes are good, especially for the Spire. For example, the triple gat or hades +hwacha finish is pretty deadly if done right. Definitely living up to the title of glass cannon. Also, its good to see a bit more variety other than the usual mort+gat or carronnades that one sees in every game.
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I'm also getting kinda tired of people whining how carronades/gat+mort is sooooo super op and then bitching about them getting a nerf.
never in my life have i whined that gat mort was op
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o also the vlog was really well done great job squash and team!
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I'm also getting kinda tired of people whining how carronades/gat+mort is sooooo super op and then bitching about them getting a nerf.
We aren't, really. We're discussing the ramifications of several rather large changes in combination, and whether or not we think the combination of those changes leaves the weapons in a good place.
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-We now have a short, medium and long range option for the famous piercing/explosive combo.
-Disable builds can compete with brawlers even better now.
-You can quad gun a spire.
-We have cakes on our ships
Looks like a great patch!
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-We now have a short, medium and long range option for the famous piercing/explosive combo.
-Disable builds can compete with brawlers even better now.
-You can quad gun a spire.
-We have cakes on our ships
Looks like a great patch!
the long range combo had always been fine in no need of buff but got one anyways.
mid range already had gat mortar, gat flak, merc flak, and hades flak.
short range which has plenty of built in drawbacks (like having to get in close in order to even hit, being easily disabled on the way into range) was nerfed for a second time in a row...
in short terrible patch
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It has always been very hard to get in on a good sniper ship. Good gunners on long range weapons have always been extremely hard to counter. Now we need to get within 450m to do any damage whatsoever without a sniper build? That makes the approach a whole lot more difficult. It could quite literally be impossible against an extremely good enemy team. All sniper weapons now gain hitbox as they get further out? That lowers the threshold of skill on a sniper ship. A mediocre merc gunner now has the potential to be extremely successful. This means there are more 'good' sniper ships. More good sniper ships, which were hard enough to counter before patch, that are even harder to engage than they were before the patch.
I totally understand the desire to balance the game more towards the new players. I get it. There's not that many excellent sniping ships in matches with new or uncoordinated players. This patch doesn't really seem like a big deal for the pub matches. But we now have a trump card. The best counter to a good sniper has always been a better sniper, but now it looks like it's not the best counter - it's the only one.
I understand that the hades is supposed to be the new mid-range brawler setup. It's too awkward to consistently be a viable armor stripper. If you have a gunner good enough to hit more than 80% of your hades shots, you might as well be using that gunner on a lumberjack.
It just looks like with a good enough gunner setup on a sniper ship, you have a true trump card. There is no counter. It's not balanced.
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The increasing projectile size seems interesting, and viable actually. Granted you may consider a sniper ship to counter a sniper ship, but you don't need people who have been playing for a year to hit what you want over and over to keep your enemy sniper ship's main gun down.
Hades is still decent...didn't really see a boost or not, but I'm guess I'm too busy keeping my shots on one spot (the hull) than bothering to see what damage I'm doing. So far, been realizing that...it does its job.
I have noticed that the Lumberjack's sight has been flipped...again. Instead of the red line being at top, and with the 1 below it, there is no mark at top, and the 2 is the first number on the drop. Was that intentional? (It doesn't change anything to balance or anything else, it was just...a rather confusing thing to see for a moment.)
As for argument on the sake of all these changes with guns that have been buffed and nerfed repeatedly: We're in a dynamic world were innovation is a necessity and factions are trying to out power each other, let alone pirates flying about. Things will get buffed, pirates steal the plans, and distribute it across the world, but to keep such guns at such a level takes resources, and once the resources get depleted...well then the gun can't be the same as it was....
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I must be missing something.
I haven't played nearly as long as others, but I find myself quite a competent gunner. My experience boils down to:
First started playing before the 1.3.2 patch and found I could hammer away at very long range, completely concealed targets, and the mortar allowed me to do so with impunity requiring no spotting to keep the target 'marked' with hits. This felt too easy.
Come 1.3.2 long range wasn't as viable but close range became a no brainer against anything other than a Pyra head on, and if it was a Pyra, it was a matter of who saw who first. I never lost a match on mortar...kinda took any tension away. I started jumping on in-progress games to help crew-less ships...often the receiving end of a mortar Pyra.
So I have no real sympathy for mortar nerfs, I've found the risk/skill -> reward to be very skewed.
A little bit in 1.3.3. I find I have to think a little more with the mortar. However, I have been at the receiving end of a sniper team, and can sympathize a bit... but here's my problem.
I feel I have a respectable record, and they have been with pilot ranks all over the map. And I have to say my record is far better with 1-3 ranked pilots that worked to keep targets in the cone of fire and coordinated with their teammate(s) than with lvl 10+ that have strict loadouts and try to duke it out in a slow furball.
The last straw for me was a pilot who wanted me to bring Inc ammo instead of my loadout and had me keep it loaded... meanwhile he charged in and with the ramming and over shooting I got maybe 5 or 6 shots before the target was either out of range or out of arc. When I could have loaded exp and caught them running, or greased to at least get far more shot off and be reloading. And no more engi only for me, every single one I've been on I've seen opportunities to end the match far sooner if I had the right ammo.
My experience isn't extensive but it has been very consistent. I liken it to Heavy + Medic in TF2. It is a core synergy that when used in PUBs tears teams up (and it's supposed to) CG and mortar is very much like this. Thing is the skill requirement for using CG and mortar together has been way too easy to use. I'm not convinced that this patch has been 'tested' by the right pilots enough to warrant an up-cry yet.
And if we are concerned about new players...then everything needs to be nerfed. Nothing puts off new players than quick kills. And to me I find that a moot concern, I've seen how experienced players treat random pubs.
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I I'm not convinced that this patch has been 'tested' by the right pilots enough to warrant an up-cry yet.
And who would these "right pilots" be?
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I I'm not convinced that this patch has been 'tested' by the right pilots enough to warrant an up-cry yet.
And who would these "right pilots" be?
Ehh, dangerous and strange question. What would one hope to do with the answer to it. This is an opening to asking for people to be put on the spot for no reason.
The idea was that it is pretty obvious that it is not the ones who say it can't be done, within 6 hours of a patch release, where it's too soon to "call the game." As it were.
The answer may in fact be, no-one. I have my own ideas, but don't have the feel (or desire) for it...they will be tried by those who do...and we'll see what happens.
Edit: I don't want to sound like I'm on the side of sniping. As far I know it's always been there, to me it just seems brawling has been nerfed and it was the more popular tactic since...well it's easier to do. But now that it's not as easy, maybe people are going to the next easier fast-kill, being sniping. Which may need to be toned down as well.
Or maybe an unthought of new mechanic to defend against it.
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Doc Jones, you realize that there was dev app testing and many of these people who are too soon to make calls were part of that process. Also there number crunching is important as well as experiments.
Sniping has always reigned supreme. A few brawly teams could beat the snipe if we really had our stuff together.
Gats were originally brought to a better spot by the heavy clip reduction. More recently they had a fantastic fire rate nerf that really balanced them. Why they needed both a range and damage decrease is mind boggling. I would understand the range decrease if they were at least fearsome at short range. They are not however.
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Doc Jones, you realize that there was dev app testing and many of these people who are too soon to make calls were part of that process. Also there number crunching is important as well as experiments.
Sniping has always reigned supreme. A few brawly teams could beat the snipe if we really had our stuff together.
Gats were originally brought to a better spot by the heavy clip reduction. More recently they had a fantastic fire rate nerf that really balanced them. Why they needed both a range and damage decrease is mind boggling. I would understand the range decrease if they were at least fearsome at short range. They are not however.
perfectly said...
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All right, here we go. Impressions from my playing on day one:
Issue #1: Hades vs. Gat
I did feel that the gatling was a little much, in the past, but this nerf went absurdly far. Meanwhile, the Hades, a well-balanced weapon, got a significant buff. The result?
-Hades has more than triple the range of the gat
-Vanilla Hades does almost twice the DPS of vanilla gat
-Hades has a fire ignition chance to add to its armour damage. This also affects components within its AoE.
-Hades can deal solid balloon damage if the enemy ship tries to drop low. Gat is virtually ineffective against balloon.
-Hades has no spread, so assuming that the guy on it is a good shot, it'll have a much higher hit rate than the gat (unless the gat has heavy, in which case it loses 20 shots)
The two first points are the big issues that have come up in this patch, the others are just for emphasis.
So, why would I ever take a gat? As it stands, the gun is pretty much useless. It has a more damaging, more versatile, longer-range alternative.
Issue #2: Mortar
I just don't see the point in it anymore. Like the gat, the nerf was too much. With 3 degrees (3?!?) of spread and 400m range, you need to get up in their face to have a chance to use it. That'd be fine, but there are some glaring issues: with a lot of longer range weapons getting buffed, it's extremely hard to close 400m in without taking significant damage first. Also, because of the clip size being reduced to 12, the mortar's options are a little more restricted. You can't really take lesmok to extend the range, since that's leave you with 8 shots. That barely gives you enough to kill a Pyra plus a couple of extra shots, but with the increased spread you can't expect consistent direct hits. So it loses out to other explosive options (mainly the light flak and banshee) by quite a lot.
I'll have other thoughts ready once I've played around with the guns some more. So far, I think that the Hades should be brought back to 1.3.2 numbers, and the gat and mortar need to have some of their nerfs scaled back.
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All right, here we go. Impressions from my playing on day one:
Issue #1: Hades vs. Gat
I did feel that the gatling was a little much, in the past, but this nerf went absurdly far. Meanwhile, the Hades, a well-balanced weapon, got a significant buff. The result?
-Hades has more than triple the range of the gat
-Vanilla Hades does almost twice the DPS of vanilla gat
-Hades has a fire ignition chance to add to its armour damage. This also affects components within its AoE.
-Hades can deal solid balloon damage if the enemy ship tries to drop low. Gat is virtually ineffective against balloon.
-Hades has no spread, so assuming that the guy on it is a good shot, it'll have a much higher hit rate than the gat (unless the gat has heavy, in which case it loses 20 shots)
The two first points are the big issues that have come up in this patch, the others are just for emphasis.
So, why would I ever take a gat? As it stands, the gun is pretty much useless. It has a more damaging, more versatile, longer-range alternative.
Issue #2: Mortar
I just don't see the point in it anymore. Like the gat, the nerf was too much. With 3 degrees (3?!?) of spread and 400m range, you need to get up in their face to have a chance to use it. That'd be fine, but there are some glaring issues: with a lot of longer range weapons getting buffed, it's extremely hard to close 400m in without taking significant damage first. Also, because of the clip size being reduced to 12, the mortar's options are a little more restricted. You can't really take lesmok to extend the range, since that's leave you with 8 shots. That barely gives you enough to kill a Pyra plus a couple of extra shots, but with the increased spread you can't expect consistent direct hits. So it loses out to other explosive options (mainly the light flak and banshee) by quite a lot.
I'll have other thoughts ready once I've played around with the guns some more. So far, I think that the Hades should be brought back to 1.3.2 numbers, and the gat and mortar need to have some of their nerfs scaled back.
i agree completely with all of this. but as i have already stated; i believe muse does not want dog fights, rather they want nautical battles in the air. i dont want us to keep arguing for a game that the devs never intended to make.
with that being said if they had simply nerfed the range of the gat and mort i would have been fine with that, but nerfing its damage and clip size respectfully also?! what?! it makes no sense unless as i theorize dog fights are not what the devs intended
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The gat/mortar distance nerf does seem a big excessive given the added strength of the longer distance weapons. Just like others have said, against those with any amount of skill on long distance weapons can really stop any ship coming in on them before they even arrive unless they are equipped equally. I can see the distance nerf making more sense with the carronades, which are shotgun style weapons, and did happen, but not for guns that seemed to be medium ranged. What is a good counter against ships who can simply move backwards firing long distance just as fast as you and avoid any gun that is not long distance? Sneaking up may work, and some maps help that, but not many.
Do ships move backwards just as fast as they move forward? Maybe this can be changed to help balance? Just a thought if it is logical.
The hwacha has become interesting as well with the ship parts being easier to hit on ships. Any thoughts on that so far? It pounds very hard.
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The thing that irritates me about the gat nerf is that it took real skill to nail a gat clip from that far away (750m). I sincerely doubt that enough people were able to do it reliably enough to the point that it was an issue, and more to the point, I -liked- the fact that the gat took skill. In fact, I prided myself on it. Not to sound cocky, but very few people in the game were able to do what i could do with the gat, and it felt good to have that kind of mastery over it. Now you can only hit from so close a range that anyone can do it, and that, to me, just sucks.
As it stands, why even bother using a gat? You could take a carronade for hull stripping, and it has the added benefit of being able to pop balloons. It's only a 75m difference. I'll give this patch a chance but frankly I feel the gat had been tweaked enough by the last patch. It was already to the point that it took more than one clip to strip a hull against a moderately effective engineer.
I enjoy brawling. It's intense and it takes a skilled crew to do well. I'm all for giving long range players options, but I feel like those of us who prefer mid-to-short range engagements are getting the short end of the stick here. More to the point, look at the top competitive teams right now. They all use long range to great effect. Yeah, it takes skilled, coordinated crews, but it -should-. Do we really want the game to devolve into constant sniping matches? Matches that take 15 minutes per kill because everyone is camping, because you -have- to?
With all due respect to the programmers and devs (and I sincerely have a lot for you guys), I feel like some of these changes should get some input from the community before they go live. It's your game, but we're the ones playing it.
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The hwacha has become interesting as well with the ship parts being easier to hit on ships. Any thoughts on that so far? It pounds very hard.
I personally feel that's another negative change. The hwacha didn't need the help. Regardless of what weapon you use to do it, disabling guns -should- be a skill shot. It shouldn't be 'easy', and it's another way that brawling has been made nearly obsolete. Now that it's easier than ever to completely disable a ship while it's on it's way in, why bother going in at all? Just camp on opposite sides of the map with lumberjacks and artemis rockets and go to town. Good long range galleons were hard enough to take down before, now they're ridiculous.
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The thing that irritates me about the gat nerf is that it took real skill to nail a gat clip from that far away (750m). I sincerely doubt that enough people were able to do it reliably enough to the point that it was an issue, and more to the point, I -liked- the fact that the gat took skill. In fact, I prided myself on it. Not to sound cocky, but very few people in the game were able to do what i could do with the gat, and it felt good to have that kind of mastery over it. Now you can only hit from so close a range that anyone can do it, and that, to me, just sucks.
I agree with you Garou, the gat was a skill based weapon. I have not seen many people who could hit the shots at long distance. If you were able to, then it was an advantage. In no way was it standard for people to do so.
Now, with this new patch, brawling is not worth it. Just take a long ranged ship, sit back, and snipe. It seems that this patch is taking a step back from opening up the options for combat.
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There's always uproar with every patch from players, normally the GoIO community being split down the middle with people favoring different styles. This patch, however, has struck a nerve with pretty much all higher level players of this game. Almost unanimously, both brawler and sniper teams combined feel as if the brawler nerf was way out of balance. It seems like every patch, the pattern has been the same. Nerf the pyra, nerf the gat. This patch, they ignored the pyra, yay. But the range reductions on the gats and mortars, along with the damage reduction and jitter increase for both guns respectively, don't just balance the metamidion, they render it completely inept in any given fight.
I'm sorry, but I see no purpose to cutting the range of the gat, especially not by the amount that they did. I've flown with Salous for quite a while, and I know him to be pretty much one of the best gat gunners in the game. He would have those shots on target the second they were within range, something that most players couldn't do. I can only assume Garou is right up there with him. To say that the gat is NOT a skill weapon is an insult to them in this game. The point is, the gat has been rendered completely useless. And yes, I was in the developer's app, I've known about this for longer than today, don't tell me the right pilots haven't tested it yet.
For the sake of this game, I can't wait to see what develops as the new meta, however I feel as if the pyra's finest days are behind it. I fear that the competitive scene will devolve into the "15 minute per kill" sniping battles where everyone camps forever. One of the reasons why the Wolves were just so damn scary was because they were different from the norm in the competitive scene. They took one thing, mastered it, and threw it at their opponents every time. That wasn't a sign of imbalance, that was a tribute to their players, and my hat's off to them. We'll see what comes, but needless to say I am not happy with this most latest patch.
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This patch, they ignored the pyra, yay.
Not entirely. They made the guns on the pyra bigger, easier to hit targets.
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This patch, they ignored the pyra, yay.
Not entirely. They made the guns on the pyra bigger, easier to hit targets.
True, however I will admit this was well needed. I'm a pyra pilot myself (well... I was), and I even know the hit boxes were kinda messed up.
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I still haven't tested this new patch as much as others, but I think that a gat-mortar nerf was in order.
They might have overdone it though. The ideal result to me would have been no more one-clip kills, requiring metamydions and similar builds to have at least the time and skill to empty two magazines on the target before getting a kill. The range nerf wasn't really needed.
I don't like the idea of a sniper buff, mostly because sniper ships are awfully boring to pilot and totally dependent on their gunner's skill to defend and attack. We'll see how the meta developes.
Special thanks to Muse for nerfing the mortar right when I have to grind 2 achivements for it, that was nice. :'(
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The ideal result to me would have been no more one-clip kills, requiring metamydions and similar builds to have at least the time and skill to empty two magazines on the target before getting a kill. The range nerf wasn't really needed.
why is that the ideal? why is it that after crossing an entire map taking fire the entire way in(from MULTIPLE clips i would bet) giving ample opportunity to my opponent to kill me WAY before i even get in range in order to return fire, i then have to make sure my boat is at the perfect angle because my pyra is not only has the fewest amount of guns on a single arc but it is also one of the least maneuverable ships, but dont worry i can offset that by damaging my engines and inhibiting my hull repairs, which is no problem because i have less HP than the ship i am charging, to keep anything in arc, giving my opponent another opportunity to buy time by using vertical or horizontal movement in order to unload yet another clip into me, and you think after ALL that the "IDEAL" is that with your engi doing absolutely nothing i should have to wait through an entire clip and a reload to bring down your ARMOR? and that is to say nothing about your perma hull that i now have less shots to take down than before, do you see how ridiculous that is? the balance already existed, long range has LONG RANGE and brawlers have to traverse that range, and mines, and WHEN WE FINALLY GET THERE YOU HAVE A SET OF BRAWLER GUNS ALSO!!!
i have never played a game where the tankiest character is also the DPS the disabler AND the range. i mean you want 2 of the 4 that's fine but ALL 4? cmon galleon. i have also never played a game where a character that has the second best HP in the game can out DPS someone BOTH at range and melee, AND is also one of the most agile. you ever heard of that? junker... oh and our melee/barbarian/rogue friend will not only have some of the worst HP but will also have the least amount of DPS suck it up squid/pyra
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I still haven't tested this new patch as much as others, but I think that a gat-mortar nerf was in order.
They might have overdone it though. The ideal result to me would have been no more one-clip kills, requiring metamydions and similar builds to have at least the time and skill to empty two magazines on the target before getting a kill. The range nerf wasn't really needed.
One-clip kills on the 'metamydion' (a phrase I personally loathe...) required skill. It took coordination between gunners, knowing your arcs and angles, and knowing how much clip to save for those kill shots. Gats required skill to land the shots needed for the strip and morters required patients, reflexes, and keen timing to be effective, especially at the competition level. Additionally, they require you to get up close and stay there. Charging in is difficult even for seasoned pilots, and on top of that it takes a rock solid engineer to keep the ship in one piece until you get there.
For everyone bemoaning how 'easy' gat/morter was and how 'OP' it was, I submit one simple, yet valid, question: Why are they so rare in upper tier competition teams? Let's ignore pubs for a moment and speak strictly of competitions and well organized clans, because pubs are a wildcard. You get players of varying skill and ability, and even when you get a ship of skilled players together there's no guarantee they're going to be on the same page.
Morter/gat pyras were never invincible. Granted, the ram kills needed to be toned back, but the gat/morter was neither as easy or as fool-proof as many have made them out to be, and for those who preferred alternatives there were equally effective options. There were also plenty of counters to them. Artemis, hwacha, lumberjack/heavy flak, or a skilled merc or mine gunner were all quite capable of dismantling a pyra, even pre-nerf. I speak from experience. We in Wolfpack are pretty well known for our 'metamydions', and I've been on the losing side a few times against very skilled teams. They could always be beaten if one was willing to design a ship to do just that.
I've said it for a long time, the crew makes the ship, not vice-versa. We've all seen both good and bad pyras, and everyone posting in this thread now has beaten at -least- one gat/morter pyra. They weren't nearly as imbalanced as they were made out to be, they just frustrated people because the tactic is basic: rush in and try for the quick kill. Because it's basic, everyone assumes that equates to not needing skill. However we've all seen what a bad gat/morter pyra looks like, and again I'll poise a question: If it requires no skill to use, and it's as OP as everyone says, why doesn't everyone who uses one win every time?
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@ Mad Maverik
The opponent had "ample opportunity" to kill you only if it had a longer range loadout, which it's not always the case. Before this patch gat-mortar was medium range after all.
The rest of your post is incoherent rambling so if you don't mind I'll just skip it.
@ Garou
No, it never required skill, you are deluding yourself if you think that's the case. It just required crew coordination, minimal crew coordination I might add.
Charging in is difficult? Seriously? Going in a straight line towards an enemy ship is difficult? Exactly HOW desperate are you guys to keep the meta inside your comfort zone?
Again in your argument both of you are assuming an opponent on a sniper ship that is aware of your position all the time. This is a pretty big fallacy and shows how limited you are in your thinking. Let's not even adress the strawman argument like "pyramidions were never invicible" (who even said that?) and just move on.
If your posts accomplished anything is convincing me that this nerf was in fact exactly what this game needed.
Still not convinced about the sniper buff, but I bet you can manage that in a couple of posts.
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If it requires no skill to use, and it's as OP as everyone says, why doesn't everyone who uses one win every time?
Funny thing you should pose this as your argument, yesterday I was playing the early access of contagion (A slow, return to romero style zombie game) when a speedhacker showed up on the map. So I climbed into a room that forced him to use a ladder or window to follow me and watched both with a shotgun, waiting for him to come up. Getting the first hit as soon as he climbed, and then getting the second to finish him off as he panicked.
Moral of the story? Even with a massive advantage, you can still lose if you're outsmarted or outplayed. "If it's op, then why does it lose?" is not a good argument.
That said, can't wait to get off work and give the patch a shot. I imagine mortar/gat will still be viable in general play.
@Serenum
Scathing, but I also feel this is accurate. A great wailing and gnashing of teeth over a few degrees of inaccuracy and other elements, claiming that the devs are "removing options" when before pretty much all anyone used was gat/mortar.
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@ Garou
No, it never required skill, you are deluding yourself if you think that's the case. It just required crew coordination, minimal crew coordination I might add.
Charging in is difficult? Seriously? Going in a straight line towards an enemy ship is difficult? Exactly HOW desperate are you guys to keep the meta inside your comfort zone?
Oh get off your high horse. You know what, I'm fine with experimentation. I'm fine with wanting to try different things. More power to you. But complaining about 'meta' when you use bad ship builds just smacks of hurt feelings and a fundamental misunderstanding of the game's core mechanics. You know why you have trouble with 'meta' builds in Cake? It's because you go into a match with 3 banchees and 2 flame throwers and can't figure out why that doesn't work.
I love the Cake guys I play with, you know who you are, but I'm sick of hearing some of you whine so vocally about meta because your broken, self-nerfed builds don't work. Guess what, explosive damage doesn't work with explosive damage. Using a banchee/flamer might be fun, but it's not effective with how the mechanics are designed.
Try something that actually strips a hull some time. You'd be amazed at the results.
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@ Mad Maverik
The opponent had "ample opportunity" to kill you only if it had a longer range loadout, which it's not always the case. Before this patch gat-mortar was medium range after all.
The rest of your post is incoherent rambling so if you don't mind I'll just skip it.
there are two things that are clear from you serenum,
1. you are unaware that this entire debate is about close range vs short range. it is stupendously obvious that we aren't talking about how a nerf will effect the combat between two ships using the same weapon types. we have been discussing at length at this point about how this patch has made long range load outs far TOO effective and rendered the short range options crippled. the fact that you havent pick up on this ALMOST makes me dismiss you but because for the sake of other people who may be reading this i will continue.
2. that you are not a very successful competitive player. this is made obvious by 2 things:
A. you believe charging in on a team of sniping ships is easy. this makes it painfully obvious you have not faced an actually good team at sniping yet. (charge a duck or gents team, see how "easy" that is
B. (and the most obvious) you are a cake member and you guys dont win anything of note, ever
now that i have successfully established that you are ignorant about competitive play allow me to explain why this clarification is important; I am of the belief that this game should not be balanced based on what new or relatively inexperienced players find OP. for instance, when i play in a match with random players i use double caros because of how easy it is for my newer players to use those particular guns successfully. now would i say that a dub caro pyra is OP? of course not! if i tried to roll that load out i would most likely lose badly. (see sunday rumble #10 i believe it was when the MM crushed me) it is for this reason i believe that looking to the competitive scene where coordinated crews face off is a more accurate testing ground for balance. and it is in this scene that gat/mort pyras have NOT reigned supreme for quite some time now.
i also want to be clear on one other thing, just because something DOESNT work in game doesnt mean it isnt broken, it may mean that a team may just not know how reading works...
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Additionally, given your aversion to anything 'meta' in Cake, you'll forgive me if I don't take your assessment of the skill required to use one seriously. If the topic was incendiary rounds I'd be all ears. In this case, you're talking out of the part you should be sitting on.
Let me put it this way: I don't sew, so I damned sure wouldn't give my opinion on the skill required to crochet. At best I'd be a fool for trying, and at worst I'd just be full of it. Dig?
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that was a tribute to their players, and my hat's off to them.
o and i almost forgot thanks wuffo that was too kind man
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Ok, as much as I'd like to be weighing in on this debate, I do need to take a step back here and try to keep the peace. Much of this is devolving into rather heated and pointed attacks. Keep discussions based on the patch balance, please no attacks in any direction. Ya hear?
That being said, the nerf was very much imbalanced.
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i dont mean it to be personal i apologize allow me to edit my response to further explain why i mentioned competitive play
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Ignoring the whole clan debate.. you guys better keep it civil.
Cold truth is that close range is finally close range, very close if I might add, hooray. Or not?
Time for Echo rant.
I think it's clear that the difference in power of the long range builds and shorter range builds has become quite obvious and I'm realy enjoying the combustive atmosphere, you know that thing with napalm in the morning? Yeaaah, that's the stuff.
So, I've been busy this month before the patch, to the best of my ability, trying to explain and reason with people (even those of subpar understanding of the game at the Steam forums) on why short range loadouts are fine as they were in 1.3.2 and needed no changes. You know what people did? They just kept repeating the same thing to me:
Carronades are OP, take no skill, Gat/Mortar takes no skill, you can't nerf the LJ cause it takes skill to fire, or this or that, blah blah I can't counter that, they charge me head on but I'm too stupid to take their gun out.
Well congrats, you nerfed the shit out of them, the Goldfish is back to useless status, can't even ambush withouth getting seen due to the retarded range cuts and the hitbox enlargement makes it even more braindead to snipe my gun out, BECAUSE IT WAS SO HARD BEFORE DUHH ECHO! Let me guess which ship doesn't care about close range range cuts... oh yeah the Galleon, cause you will have to use the same guns as them so you will be in range of their short side if they need to aim at you and guess what, they have more guns, Goldfish goes pop in a second.
Gatling has such a slow rate of fire even with greased that it takes forever to empty a clip, its disabling power is shit now that it doesn't have much of a range and gives the enemy all the time they need to destroy you faster. Mortar nerf was, litteraly, not needed, maybe reduce the clip by a shot or two, but 4? seriously..
I don't get it guys, the game was pretty fine in 1.3.2, why did brawling have to get shafted again? Close range builds could finally utilize carronades and banshees on par with Gat/Mortar, sniping was still as fucking powerful as ever but now they had more obvious counter play in the form of carronades and fire.
In the meantime it's okay for the Heavy Flak to one-shot Pyramidions, it's okay for the LJ to be able to do the carronade's job at triple the range and doubly as effective. Because those guns take skill and piloting your ship and taking the risks of trying to spot good snipers by poking your nose in there JUST take a glimpse didn't take skill right? It's all fine.
Some people say it's too soon to 'call the game', well that time is now for me I'm sorry, I simply can't go through this shit each time a horrible balance change goes in and the light ships keep getting shafted one patch after an other. Let's all fly skybricks ya?
Junker turning rate still not nerfed ya?
/endrant
In b4 echoez yells at me for carronade nerfs.
Just for you Eric, because I love you.
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So, it is time to replace gat/mort, a combo which pugs picked up on well, and could be taught to aim and shoot fast, with a hades/flak, arming time, I can't even fire the hades, and I no longer can close in to 100m, and still be useful at 400-500m.
OOOOHHHHHHH.....
I see what you did there. The gat was a bit excessive, and the mortar didn't need a range or clip nerf, it's hard enough to aim, and lesmok (the round most noobs use) brings it down to like 13 already. But putting two types of pierce/explodey damage types, that was kind of smart, I guess.
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Time for Echo rant.
dude i totally agree it has been like this since beta, and really the squid gets no love?! i think it is fairly clear that muse doesnt want dog fights they want naval battles in the air.
BF4 comes out today and instead of being excited to celebrate with the game ive been playing since beta i will be playing a game that encourages dog fighting with a number of different aircraft...
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I want to echo Echoez's rant... but I won't because that would be ironic.
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Ok, as much as I'd like to be weighing in on this debate, I do need to take a step back here and try to keep the peace. Much of this is devolving into rather heated and pointed attacks. Keep discussions based on the patch balance, please no attacks in any direction. Ya hear?
My apologies for going off topic, and I'd like to just go on record as saying that I respect most of the guys in Cake and I have a lot of fun flying with you guys when I get the chance.
Echoez makes a lot of good points. A good LJ/Flak duo with Loch rounds and a floating engie with a buff hammer can easily hull strip and one-shot essentially anything that isn't a galleon pretty reliably. Add a merc and a tri-artemis junker to the mix and just getting into the -old- gat/mort range was a Sisyphean task. With the range cuts combined with the previous hull nerf to the pyra (really the only ship that had the speed and armor to withstand the bombardment somewhat and get into brawling range) and the bigger weapon hitboxes (which I'll concede needed to be fixed), what answer is there?
I've never complained about sniper setups (match length aside) because I always felt that with skill, tactics, and a little luck, they could be beaten or at least countered. Now, I'm not so sure. It really feels like now the only way to combat sniping is with sniping, and that's just never been my preferred play style. Again, I'm going to give the patch a fair shake, but from what I've seen so far, I honestly don't see another outcome.
And again, I'm not speaking of pubs, but rather the upper tier teams who use sniping and do it well (MM, Gents, Paddling, and COx come to mind, much respect to each). Maybe I'm wrong, but I just don't see an alternative to combating it.
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Ok, as much as I'd like to be weighing in on this debate, I do need to take a step back here and try to keep the peace. Much of this is devolving into rather heated and pointed attacks. Keep discussions based on the patch balance, please no attacks in any direction. Ya hear?
My apologies for going off topic, and I'd like to just go on record as saying that I respect most of the guys in Cake and I have a lot of fun flying with you guys when I get the chance.
Echoez makes a lot of good points. A good LJ/Flak duo with Loch rounds and a floating engie with a buff hammer can easily hull strip and one-shot essentially anything that isn't a galleon pretty reliably. Add a merc and a tri-artemis junker to the mix and just getting into the -old- gat/mort range was a Sisyphean task. With the range cuts combined with the previous hull nerf to the pyra (really the only ship that had the speed and armor to withstand the bombardment somewhat and get into brawling range) and the bigger weapon hitboxes (which I'll concede needed to be fixed), what answer is there?
I've never complained about sniper setups (match length aside) because I always felt that with skill, tactics, and a little luck, they could be beaten or at least countered. Now, I'm not so sure. It really feels like now the only way to combat sniping is with sniping, and that's just never been my preferred play style. Again, I'm going to give the patch a fair shake, but from what I've seen so far, I honestly don't see another outcome.
And again, I'm not speaking of pubs, but rather the upper tier teams who use sniping and do it well (MM, Gents, Paddling, and COx come to mind, much respect to each). Maybe I'm wrong, but I just don't see an alternative to combating it.
^^THIS!
Also, this patch has more or less killed the squid on open maps like Dunes! (well, outside 3v3 maybe) as it will get focused down and destroyed before it even gets close to being close enough to do ANYTHING! so MUSE, I too will be playing BF4 instead the next couple of days!
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Really now? If you're going to play Bf4 by all means do so, but not because of the theoretical uselessness of everything other than sniping against a handful of incredibly good snipers. Might want to actually play first and see how it pans out, maybe try some combinations you haven't before, who knows!
You don't have to justify playing some other game to us -_-
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Really now? If you're going to play Bf4 by all means do so, but not because of the theoretical uselessness of everything other than sniping against a handful of incredibly good snipers. Might want to actually play first and see how it pans out, maybe try some combinations you haven't before, who knows!
You don't have to justify playing some other game to us -_-
I have (I also am in the Dev app) but as a very dedicated squid pilot (mind you I usually play in your face style squid) nerfing my approach and my main gun (light carronade) might not have made my "job" impossible but it has damn well made it close to it!
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Really now? If you're going to play Bf4 by all means do so, but not because of the theoretical uselessness of everything other than sniping against a handful of incredibly good snipers. Might want to actually play first and see how it pans out, maybe try some combinations you haven't before, who knows!
You don't have to justify playing some other game to us -_-
(http://images.wikia.com/dragonball/images/a/a7/Facepalm_227785.jpg)
Look, do us a favor and follow the line of discussion before replying to it and making a ham fisted attempt to invalidate someone else's opinion. We're talking about the patch in regards to competitive play. That 'handful of incredibly good snipers' accounts for a solid portion of the teams currently engaged in the competitive scene. We are not talking about just hopping into pub matches and playing randoms.
If you have an opinion on the patch, by all means, please share your thoughts, but if you're going to try to tear down someone else's thoughts on the matter, at least have the courtesy to do it in context.
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@Garou
If I was quoting you or anyone else specifically, I would have done so, but after the third or so "I'm going to play Bf4 instead!" it gets a bit ridiculous. All I was saying is "If you're going to play another game, go ahead and do so for the enjoyment of the game, not in spite of a balance patch that you haven't even tested yet."
Metagame or not aside, you can stop acting like the game is ruined because of a handful of changes you haven't actually experienced yet. If you really consider yourself "The elite, Competitive group" then you can adapt your strategy to a few balancing tweaks.
So before invalidating someone's opinion and accusing them of not reading, you might actually want to read what they said and consider what their opinion actually was.
(http://www.gifsforum.com/images/gif/facepalm/grand/facepalm_asian_gif.gif)
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Ill toss in the disclaimer that I haven't tried these changes out yet so I'm working off theory and just knowing what Muse is trying to do.
Rewind before the Hades was here. All we had was merc and gat for pierce. Anyone who was in the dev app knew this was a big stickler for awkm since changing either (kinda like flak/mortar) would change a lot of things.
Fast forward to now and you have fairly distinct methods here. Merc for your long range pierce, hades for mid-long, and gat for short. Options.
Just looking on paper, I think the gat could stand to have its old RoF back, just to balance out the other changes. Otherwise, I have to try out the range to get a feel for it.
Light flak needed a buff. It was rare to see it, since it was always outshined by the mortar. Again, need to try out the ranges to get a feel. I can't really complain about the mortar changes. Lesmok in them was just too simple. Now you really get that trade off, and you will probably want a gunner on it to change ammo for your range.
Carronades had it coming. Now one might think of lesmok over heavy, which balances their "long range."
Now to the complaints about short vs long. Idk. Need to play and see. It's easy to look at the changes and throw up your hands and say "MEH, LONG RANGE OP." In reality, it'll require more finesse to get close and utilize the short loadouts.
And before you quote me and try beating me with a "YOU'RE WRONG CHANGE IT BACK" stick, take a breath and think about your post.
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This is a question for people in the competitive scene.
How do you propose to balance it so that brawling with gat/mort becomes viable once again among the upper tier teams, but not have it dominate the pub scene for the lower to mid tier teams?
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This is a question for people in the competitive scene.
How do you propose to balance it so that brawling with gat/mort becomes viable once again among the upper tier teams, but not have it dominate the pub scene for the lower to mid tier teams?
20 bucks says the response could be condensed into "Doesn't matter because they don't know how to play."
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This is a question for people in the competitive scene.
How do you propose to balance it so that brawling with gat/mort becomes viable once again among the upper tier teams, but not have it dominate the pub scene for the lower to mid tier teams?
20 bucks says the response could be condensed into "Doesn't matter because they don't know how to play."
How about neither the competitive nor the new/casual players attack the other side?
This thread should be used for discussion on balance and the changes to the guns. Thats it. Not for a debate of "New players are terrible"/"Experienced players are mean". Please don't troll, or try to 'start something'. Tensions are high enough already.
Thanks buddy!
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This is a question for people in the competitive scene.
How do you propose to balance it so that brawling with gat/mort becomes viable once again among the upper tier teams, but not have it dominate the pub scene for the lower to mid tier teams?
20 bucks says the response could be condensed into "Doesn't matter because they don't know how to play."
How about neither the competitive nor the new/casual players attack the other side?
This thread should be used for discussion on balance and the changes to the guns. Thats it. Not for a debate of "New players are terrible"/"Experienced players are mean". Please don't troll, or try to 'start something'. Tensions are high enough already.
Thanks buddy!
Apologies for being blunt, but frankly it's true. Inexperienced players who pug and do not communicate do not really benefit or detriment from the nerf to any extreme, but the issue is that you cannot divide the playerbase into two, overly simplfied groups of "new, unskilled. Experienced, skilled".
I hope to be able to provide some relevant, OT feedback later today when I get some hands on with the patch.
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Okay, it's time for me to step in. Before I start, and for the record, we have Dev App testing where all these changes are vetted and discussed. Although it kind of ticks me off to see some of you here with Dev App access who didn't let me know of their opinions ahead of time. That's not incredibly useful to me. However, if you were busy during testing week... well then you were just busy and we can't do anything about that. We're exploring opening up Dev App for longer and with more stable test times each week. Anyway...
The line of thinking "when will gat/mortar become viable again" is the wrong way to think of things. It was a collective decision by the team to put gat/mortar in a place that will force players, you guys, to think twice about using it. Regardless of how much skill it required, because that's all subjective, it was the most common build and the go-to strategy was Pyramidion gat/mortar charge. Tons of people did it and therefore overshadowed more than 2/3 of the weapons in the game. If it was your go-to build then it meant that there was no choice and no choice is no fun. Gat/mortar can still be a successful build after the various changes. Its risk reward model has been changed though. It's more even now, before it was too little risk for huge reward.
The gat/mortar combination represented a lot of problem for balance from the lack of viable builds, ease of use, broken risk reward models, and also the gunner vs engineer argument. Same with builds, if a gun has a default ammo then it's not a choice. This also means you don't need a gunner. Guns should accept multiple ammo types to cater the weapon to multiple situations. E.g. Lesmok on the Gatling for increased range.
Now, as you know, I am always open to feedback. However, if you really want a say in what goes in an actual patch then you should get yourself into Dev App testing. For now, we release patches at the end of every month. Dev App testing happens the week before release. That's when a ton of balance changes happen. Trust me, a lot of things got cut and scaled back. Go to the Steam group and ask Keyvias for keys.
http://steamcommunity.com/groups/GoIEC
Dev App isn't the only way though. Know that I watch the threads I create very closely. So when you say stuff like Muse doesn't care or whatever, you're very wrong. We've been taking feedback and will continue taking it. Therefore, anything that's said now is always taken into account. Things can change since we usually drop a hotfix after the 1st or 2nd week after the patch. Gatling jitter too large? Maybe I can drop it to 2.5 (we tested at 2 on Dev App and it caused a bunch of issues).
So please keep things professional. Go into the game and actually play several rounds with a particular goal in mind like "I'll take my usual gat/mortar combo, how do I need to adjust my strategy given the changes. What is the risk reward like now?" My work is very scientific and that's how you should approach this if you want to give me good feedback.
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Regarding noobs vs. elite players. I cannot balance the game for either. If I do... that's not balance. I strike at the middle ground. There are builds that will not be used in competitive as there will be builds that won't be used in pub matches. Each group of players are good at finding flaws in the balance.
Competitive players push the mechanics to really weird exceptions and cases like drawn out sniper battles from months ago.
New players fall into the meta to show what choices are overshadowed by the safest, but not always most efficient (DPS, whatever), builds... like Pyramidion Gat/mortar, which got to the point where its also used in competitive (BAD BAD BAD).
So yeah. Competitive vs. noob has no place here. Instead, you should present to me metas that are appearing in each subset of the player base so that they can be observed and perhaps addressed.
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I for one am having a blast with the new patch. Had a little duel with Squash and his Galleon, was challenging but I didn't find it OP at all. The game just needs a different way of thinking about engaging now. If you're going against a sniping team, you're going to want a disabler.
Disablers are integral to team compositions, YAY!
No more blindly running around trying to double team ships for a quick kill, heck you could quick kill with a single ship pre-patch. Close range engagement time is longer now and I love it! It really makes you feel like there is a chance for a comeback if you play your cards right.
This patch is awesome. <- my opinion
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Disablers are integral to team compositions, YAY!
Yes. Disabling wasn't a big thing before because it was far easier to flat-out kill someone with gat/mortar. Hopefully these changes will make disabling a more viable and perhaps needed strategy, at least at higher level play anyway. One thing I'll monitor is time to rebuild guns and guns (since that was made difficult as a way to make disabling more useful) and also offering other guns the ability to disable too like gat/carronade since they have piercing damage. They might also need some ProjectileExpansion... MAYBE.
This is only an idea. Don't freak out yet.
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Carronades had it coming. Now one might think of lesmok over heavy, which balances their "long range."
Oh you mean giving up more than half your maximum damage for a meager range extention that you can't even use fully cause half your pellets will mostly miss? I mean, not to sound rude, but do enlighten me on how the hell is this even remotely useful? With the long ass reload this gun got going for it and the ammo reduction of Lesmok, you might as well bang your head against the wall, it will do more damage.
Now to the complaints about short vs long. Idk. Need to play and see. It's easy to look at the changes and throw up your hands and say "MEH, LONG RANGE OP." In reality, it'll require more finesse to get close and utilize the short loadouts.
And before you quote me and try beating me with a "YOU'RE WRONG CHANGE IT BACK" stick, take a breath and think about your post.
Well, I've played against it. Require more finesse, right, because it didn't already require finesse to do it right? It was hard disabling weapons of Goldfishes or something, or even hitting a Pyra with an LJ. No you just charged head on, that's definately what happened (/sarcasm)... Now we have to do it with crippled weaponry, perfect.
Now do keep in mind, I'm not saying it's impossible, but it's just too much of a drag and not even worth my time anymore, it's not a game, it's a job every time I have to face snipers. It had a reasonable difficulty before and they STILL held the advantage, now their advantage is just that much bigger. Explain to me how is it enjoyable to play against that with the brawling guns we get now? It's not ALL about balance either, it's simply not fun anymore. My guns don't feel like guns, I hate how the game 'feels' if you want, since both you and Mr.Akwm like throwing that word around a lot.
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Yes. Disabling wasn't a big thing before because it was far easier to flat-out kill someone with gat/mortar. Hopefully these changes will make disabling a more viable and perhaps needed strategy, at least at higher level play anyway. One thing I'll monitor is time to rebuild guns and guns (since that was made difficult as a way to make disabling more useful) and also offering other guns the ability to disable too like gat/carronade since they have piercing damage. They might also need some ProjectileExpansion... MAYBE.
This is only an idea. Don't freak out yet.
I absolutely love this idea Eric. Though I'd like to see better close range light slot disables... perhaps a second look at the light carronade at some point?
While we're on the light carronade.. why such a big hit to the range? As I said after testing last night "Well, there's no reason to use heavy on this anymore - your range is so close it's not worth losing shots for the accuracy." 375 might be the common ground we're looking for so this weapon maintains the plethora of ammunition types that makes the weapon attractive. The same goes for the heavy carronade: middle ground to not knock additional ammunition out of the frame. Lesmok doesn't extend the effective range of the weapon, plain and simple.
Also the gatling could use a touch more range than where she sits right now; just a bit overnerfed with that change compounded with the others. Overall the dps of the weapon feels about right, it only needs to be able to apply that pressure a touch earlier than current.
I don't know where it happened, but it feels the brawling nerf just went too far finally and the long game has total dominance. Though this brings me back to my original agreement with disabling now being completely viable - let's get some support weapon tweaks and have something really engaging to fly once more! :)
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This is a question for people in the competitive scene.
How do you propose to balance it so that brawling with gat/mort becomes viable once again among the upper tier teams, but not have it dominate the pub scene for the lower to mid tier teams?
As much as I love to assume I am famous in the GOIO, I'll give some back story so you know where I come from. I a very long competitive brawler (when I started a brawling ship meant a gat flak Pyramidion with mercs on the side, I pushed it to include Junkers.) As a Duck I've spent a lot of times playing against Ducks both casually as well as practicing for competition. That means facing against the Paddling who I can say have the possibly best Galleon in the game in terms of experienced crew, worked out gun placements, and amazing map positioning. Basically when I tell you that I have spent a lot of time figuring out how to use brawl tactics to beat range tactics, it should be pretty believable.
A disclaimer though, this patch is actually relatively good for my brawl style. I currently fly an asymetrical Junker, Gat/Mortar left hand side and a Carronade/Banshee right (dominant) hand side . The light carronade changes aren't too bad especially with how I get so close anyway. I've always called myself a disabler but in reality I am an overwhelmer. I remove your systems to make sure none of your crew even has a chance to fire back. This is done with my right hand side. Occasionally I use the turning abilities of a Junker to finish with the left side, however considering my crew often asks me whether the should bother preloading and prebuffing the left hand weapons, I think its fair to say I am hardly a user of the Gat/Mortar.
The reason I say all this is to establish that even though I am a brawler, a player who has learned how to close in on an enemy and kill him up close, a gat mortar nerf doesn't really hurt my competitive chances and honestly, kinda helps. The thing is, I've chosen a build and playstyle that excels at the long game.
So let me paint you the picture. Me and my other brawler cousins, charge in to hell. We have both just flew through a killing floor, constantly losing guns, armor and engines all along the way. Its amazing we made it here alive and if the guns are actually up, that means the brawl Gods have granted us a miracle. Now my ship takes some time to win but as an overwhelmer, that is fine, your balloon is down and your engines are gone so you can't even turn your broken guns towards me. I do not have to kill you on the first clip. I get to take my time. A gat mortar though does have to kill you in one clip. The reason why is the enemy just had three or four clips into you. People think that one clip kill combinations in brawl are unfair but what they do not realize is that the engagement began long before that one clip kill.
I like the idea of gatling mortar being extremely close range. 400 meters may be a little too short, 450m, what was lasted tested in dev ap seemed fine.The thing though is if you are going to have a game balanced for I don't know lets say 30 second engagements and a gun combo can't fight for 20 seconds, then it needs the 10 second kill. That is how high reward high risk works. For gatling mortar to be high reward high risk you have to have the high reward. You need to reward them. The range isn't what is killing the gat/mortar, the damage is. This patch there was a significant dps nerf as the damage was lowered and the patch before that saw a massive rate of fire nerf. All these combined have taken away any chance for reward as it is now taking an absurd amount of time to kill.
TLDR, Brawl has to have short kills because they have been silent in a long engagement. This is something that can be balanced with small range, but ferocious DPS. Currently though gat mortar doesn't have the DPS to warrant the tiny range.
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"TLDR, Brawl has to have short kills because they have been silent in a long engagement. This is something that can be balanced with small range, but ferocious DPS. Currently though gat mrotar doesn't have the DPS to warrant the tiny range.".
this is what I have been saying for many posts now. I don't mind the range nerf I mind the dps nerf
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As a recent victim of Sammy B T's brawling junker I can attest that brawling is still effective in this game. The Gatling gun + heavy clip however is not. I ran a 2x Gatling Pyramididon with heavy clip and experienced gunners and was only able to strip the hull armor off a junker after two reloads. Experimentation with greased/charged ammo may be in order but for now the light carronade is taking the place of the Gatling gun for my close range fighting builds.
I am in Garou's camp about the skilled Gat use and the pride one takes in mastering that weapon for mid range. The old Gat will be mourned. A new meta will eventually arise for Awkm to one day crush beneath his Nerf hammer, such is the way of things. I am just glad the Artemis wasn't touched.
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This is a question for people in the competitive scene.
How do you propose to balance it so that brawling with gat/mort becomes viable once again among the upper tier teams, but not have it dominate the pub scene for the lower to mid tier teams?
TBH, that is not, nor never was it the discussion I intended to have, and seems to be a question for another thread.
My intention in referring to competitive teams was simply to eliminate variables. If both teams are on equal footing in regards to skill and coordination, it's a lot easier to discuss balance in terms of tactics and loadouts.
Now to the complaints about short vs long. Idk. Need to play and see. It's easy to look at the changes and throw up your hands and say "MEH, LONG RANGE OP." In reality, it'll require more finesse to get close and utilize the short loadouts.
Personally, at no point am I saying 'long range OP'. I feel it has a sufficient skill/reward payoff. I'm merely referring to viable methods of countering it that don't involve using it. Let's face it, if you're going to get into the competitive scene, countering the long range galleon is a thought at the front of the collective mind of any clan.
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Hamster's gatling pyra was actually very useful for me to see the new weakness of the gatlings. It felt like a one gatling pyra.
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offering other guns the ability to disable too like gat/carronade since they have piercing damage. They might also need some ProjectileExpansion... MAYBE.
Awkm i never said you dont care, and i dont think anyone else did either. what i said was i have a sinking suspicion that the kind of game i and some of the other brawlers want to play is not the kind of game you are intending to design. that isnt like a shot at you or an insult or anything! let me use and analogy from another game type;
in a FPS you have many types of guns and loadouts and depending on the map certain loadouts are better than others. certain players like to utilize the best weapon/loadout for the specific map they are on. some players though, like to play a certain playstyle sooo much that they will use it regardless of map even if to their detriment. in an FPS the "shotgun" is a high risk high reward type gun, and on specific maps one could argue it is downright dumb to use. The nice thing about using a shotgun is though if you are one of those players that refuses to bend to convention and are able to close the gap on a longer range gun you are rewarded with a quick kill.
it seems clear to me awkm that you guys at muse dont want a "shotgun" to exist. (please use the analogy, the caronade is not a "shotgun") in other words, it seems to me you do not like the mechanic of an acrobatic player working hard to get close and being rewarded with a devastating dps. it seems like you would rather reward them with devastating disable. (which a close range that trumps the long range doesnt exist yet)
now if my assumption is incorrect, that you actually do want to see close range be viable you are doing it wrong. see close range NEEDS to feel OP at close range! no one complains about being one shot-ed by a shotgun at point blank, or they shouldnt. shortening the range of the gat mort made sense to me but cutting its damage by 25% and having killed its RoF many times over at this point makes no sense. the shorter the range you make a weapon the more dmg output it should be given.
at this point no short range weapon, disabling or otherwise, is better than its longer range counterpart (see LJ vs caro) that is just a fact. all i am saying is i believe that has been done by design. nautical combat in the air is not a bad thing its just not my thing
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My 2 bullets.. i mean cents.
I must say i'm not that experienced nor can i realize what the game mechanics were for over 2½ months ago. but what the feel is after the patch for some guns i can try say personal views on as gunner (when allowed).
+ Hades with burst now is more accurate, drops less and has range close to lesmok. Or so it feels. It was a great gun when it got released and still is. I bet more people will use it now. To be ok with aiming it gives the work reward some emphasis, which i like. greased ammo feels fairly similar to before. it was good before. Need to try heavy sometime too. it's still a slow ammotype so that needs some fancy aiming to get those hits in properly at mid range.
+ Heatsink on heavy carronade is such fun when in fairly close range. Also makes one want to try what it's like on other weapons.
+ Mortar is still a great support weapon and feels ok. The combination was very common so i understand that maybe to get other weapons used for a change something had to be done. Like with ships for balance.
- Hwatcha and charged: The charged ammo feels totally different from before the patch. does not give the same up close volley award as before for some reason and feels like half a clip. So with a typical loadout of heavy, burst, charged on it i rarely use charged due to it.
- Gatling with heavy was nice before and appealing as it gave you that extra bonus on targeting and damage. But maybe the range was a bit too long then and now it feels very short. The AoE should be pretty small but maybe give it some slight upward recoil instead of the largeish AoE? DPS can be as is if given more ammo and a little range increase imho. I'd also love to feel some more difference between the ammotypes, but too early to tell since it takes time to get used to all changes to get the right feel.
Glad about the diversity and opening options. A bit disappointed in the rangenerf for gat.
Against sniper galleons i feel a squid combo with fish/junker combo or another squid is effective. A duel of heavy sniping skills would be great to watch. :)
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This game is not, and should never be about insta-killing imo, even at close range. It a should be a delicate dance of opponents attempting to get the upper-hand on the other through positioning and tactics. This is not a traditional FPS. You only get 5 lives between you and your teammate so you better make them count.
I don't know what you were expecting out of game with ships in the sky, but this is most definitely a "nautical combat in the air" kind of game.
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Nidh, if you get your ship within 400 meters of an enemy and have both guns up and facing the enemiy then you already did a delicate dance.
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This game is not, and should never be about insta-killing imo, even at close range. It a should be a delicate dance of opponents attempting to get the upper-hand on the other through positioning and tactics. This is not a traditional FPS. You only get 5 lives between you and your teammate so you better make them count.
I don't know what you were expecting out of game with ships in the sky, but this is most definitely a "nautical combat in the air" kind of game.
nidh 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. both the disables and the DPS
A duel of heavy sniping skills would be great to watch. :)
yeah man i mean it isnt my cup of tea but i think muse agrees with you
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Nidh, if you get your ship within 400 meters of an enemy and have both guns up and facing the enemiy then you already did a delicate dance.
yup
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Against a sniping team maybe, but against another brawling team I disagree.
Sniping ships have huge disadvantages that can be exploited when within 400 meters, so in that case after the "dance" you don't need to do much else but take advantage of their weakness. Though insta-killing them is still not exactly a fair fight.
That said, I don't think sniping teams should be able to insta-kill either and sniping should just be a support kinda thing. However I don't see how sniping is that much of a problem right now when all you have to do is disable them.
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So here's a question for people that may help us a bit...
Let's assume we have the following combat ranges: Distant, Long, Medium, Close, and Intimate, just to pick names out of a hat. What would your ideal gameplay involve at all ranges?
My thoughts:
Distant: Primarily a game of distant disabling. Shots at this range should require highly skilled gunners to be effective but should, with enough reliable harass, be able to threaten to kill a ship.
Long: Long range should be the standard range for any long-range hull-killers (although a good gunner should be able to hit at a "distant" range with practice and good conditions). Guns at this range or longer should be unforgiving of mistakes: emphasis on precision strikes over AoEs, and damage should be compressed into high-value shots rather than spread out over large clips. Reward accuracy while allowing a target to recover during the window of any missed shots. At this range and higher Engineering is fairly easy due to the time gained from a missed shot, and emphasis is on the gunner's skill and the pilot's avoidance abilities.
Medium: Most Distant and Long range weapons begin to be extremely unreliable, due to either arming time or simply turning arc/reload times. A few more disablers appear at this range, but medium range shouldn't have a lot of actual killing power by itself: this allows a sort of "no man's zone" where Long range and Close range ships can play a disabling distance game with each other where each strives to close/increase distance to the ideal combat point. The pilot, gunner, and engineer all shine at this range, as everyone's abilities are needed to gain the advantage.
Close: Close range belongs to brawling and disabling. Weapons here shouldn't be fast armor killers, but they should deal considerable damage to hulls and components. Close range fights should really require good engineers and good piloting ability to avoid crippling disables and keep the hull alive. If a long-range ship lets an enemy get this close, they should have to be a good team to be able to pull out successfully.
Intimate: Intimate range should be brutal: closing in on this range should bring to bear the strongest and fastest ways of killing the enemy ship. These weapons should be mediocre at even close range, but managing to get them into intimate range should reward you with the ability to sow devastation and chaos. I'd like for the closest ranges to not be about damage though: I'd love for this closest of ranges to become the area of powerful disabling effects and constant fire damage, so that being this close to a close-range enemy basically shuts your ship down except in the face of very good teamwork.
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Against a sniping team maybe, but against another brawling team I disagree.
Sniping ships have huge disadvantages that can be exploited when within 400 meters, so in that case after the "dance" you don't need to do much else but take advantage of their weakness. Though insta-killing them is still not exactly a fair fight.
That said, I don't think sniping teams should be able to insta-kill either and sniping should just be a support kinda thing. However I don't see how sniping is that much of a problem right now when all you have to do is disable them.
cool bro once i have done my "dance" and got within range to take advantage of his "weakness" and im busy NOT killing him quickly his teammate kills me since i am already banged up from my approach, good call. again nidh you theories like others only make sense in pick up game against uncoordinated teams.
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Sorry if my theories don't include running blindly straight at a target.
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This is a question for people in the competitive scene.
How do you propose to balance it so that brawling with gat/mort becomes viable once again among the upper tier teams, but not have it dominate the pub scene for the lower to mid tier teams?
TBH, that is not, nor never was it the discussion I intended to have, and seems to be a question for another thread.
My intention in referring to competitive teams was simply to eliminate variables. If both teams are on equal footing in regards to skill and coordination, it's a lot easier to discuss balance in terms of tactics and loadouts.
But player skill is a variable that cannot be ignored in balancing. Balancing has to take into account the experiences of people that either just started the game or are playing it casually. If there is a particular combination/build that dominates the game from the lower to mid-tier teams, then the game will either drive the newer players away or become boring for the older players. There needs to be diversity for the game to be fun. That's why I asked if there is a way for the gat/mort to be competitive for upper-tier of play, but not overshadow the game for the majority of the other players.
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"nautical combat in the air" kind of game.
Well here's the thing, real naval combat has nothing to do with what GoI offers, if that was the intention of Muse devs, then do us all a favor and remove the light ships, replace them with real Cruisers and Battleships that can actually take a beating, give us massive maps so we can have some real naval combat like it is supposed to be, from extreme ranges. Give us the titanic guns that real ships have equiped on them, torpedoes (missiles in our case) that can can cause significant harm equiped on Destroyer like ships but are slow traveling.
Point in case, GoI has nothing to compare to a real naval combat situation, not even close. GoI is an arcade game, point and click and fly around, which is why I'm finding it increasingly difficult to like the changes. Sure fine, we'll find a new meta that works, I'm just realy asshurt that the Goldfish is pretty much dead in my eyes now, the Squid is probably not that good either with the massive cut in carronade range now.
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I feel the need to again put my disclaimer as I haven't played yet and am working off theory.
Oh you mean giving up more than half your maximum damage for a meager range extention that you can't even use fully cause half your pellets will mostly miss? I mean, not to sound rude, but do enlighten me on how the hell is this even remotely useful? With the long ass reload this gun got going for it and the ammo reduction of Lesmok, you might as well bang your head against the wall, it will do more damage.
Well since your gun would otherwise be sitting there looking pretty since no other ammo will let you shoot past its maximum range, yea, it's remotely useful. That said, I'm hopeful you know that no one is going to sit at that lesmok range and try to kill something. If so, well you have other issues.
Well, I've played against it. Require more finesse, right, because it didn't already require finesse to do it right? It was hard disabling weapons of Goldfishes or something, or even hitting a Pyra with an LJ. No you just charged head on, that's definately what happened (/sarcasm)... Now we have to do it with crippled weaponry, perfect.
Might want to think about taking that breath before posting like I suggested. Do not put words in my postings. Yes, it'll require more thought into your approach. No, it was never a 100% sure thing to just charge in and win previously. Doesn't mean it didn't happen either.
Now do keep in mind, I'm not saying it's impossible, but it's just too much of a drag and not even worth my time anymore, it's not a game, it's a job every time I have to face snipers. It had a reasonable difficulty before and they STILL held the advantage, now their advantage is just that much bigger. Explain to me how is it enjoyable to play against that with the brawling guns we get now? It's not ALL about balance either, it's simply not fun anymore. My guns don't feel like guns, I hate how the game 'feels' if you want, since both you and Mr.Akwm like throwing that word around a lot.
Yea I do like feel over numbers. I can have 10000000000 damage, but if it doesn't do anything, I'm not going to like how it feels now am I?
Beyond that, I have nothing good to say about your post so I'll just leave it. It does nothing to help anybody except let you vent.
Personally, at no point am I saying 'long range OP'. I feel it has a sufficient skill/reward payoff. I'm merely referring to viable methods of countering it that don't involve using it. Let's face it, if you're going to get into the competitive scene, countering the long range galleon is a thought at the front of the collective mind of any clan.
Unless Im fighting the Paddling, not really. Sure you seem some here and there but they are not this staple of competitive play. One does not require a long range Galleon to win games.
I'll just post after tonight's exploits. I honestly doubt brawling is dead, and only different.
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Sorry if my theories don't include running blindly straight at a target.
apology accepted
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Against a sniping team maybe, but against another brawling team I disagree.
Sniping ships have huge disadvantages that can be exploited when within 400 meters, so in that case after the "dance" you don't need to do much else but take advantage of their weakness. Though insta-killing them is still not exactly a fair fight.
That said, I don't think sniping teams should be able to insta-kill either and sniping should just be a support kinda thing. However I don't see how sniping is that much of a problem right now when all you have to do is disable them.
Go play against the Gents or the Paddling or the Merry Men or Cohort. Then talk to me about disabling them or how dis-advantageous it is to be a sniper.
Sniping is very, very potent ATM at the upper levels. Not much else is.
Yeah, the patch will bring variety to the pubs. At the competition level, not much has changed and there are even fewer counters to the galleon/junker combo. Frankly, I'm fine with it being that potent. Again, the skill/reward ratio is fine there. However, if I can close that range by a combination of skill and luck, now what? The galleon/junker can turn close range on me, and now they're even more able to completely disable me. What options do the brawlers have really? Damage output was it. Disabling ships have always had the ability to disable, against both brawlers and snipers, and a good pilot and crew have always been able to make that work. Brawlers have frankly very few viable options, and with this nerf, even less so.
To me, it doesn't make sense. If the idea is to promote variety, why not make the other guns more viable? Consider the light weapons for a moment:
Four have any real hull stripping capability: The mercury, carronade, gat, and hades. Of those only one is mid range, and now it's been nerfed to close range. Of the others, one is extremely close range, and the others are extremely long range and extremely long range with a difficult learning curve and an arming time.
Then you have your three 'killing' weapons, the explosive high-DPS that take care of the rest after the hull is down: The flak, morter, and artemis. Again, one was mid range, but is now only effective at close range. The other two are long range and long range with an arming time.
The rest I'd consider 'disablers', though I'll grant that a banchee -can- kill (in fact, I have a junker that proves it). My point is, there's very little middle ground any more. You're either long range or very close, and those who choose the latter are going to have a rough time of it with these nerfs.
The point is, while I'm all for options the close range player hasn't exactly had a ton of variety to choose from, and for the new players, a lot of the weapons either aren't that effective (disable builds take a long time to kill), or are difficult to use (ever watch a newbie ship try to pull off a flak/hades build?). If the complaint is that too many close range builds use gat/morter, then why hasn't the answer been to give them somthing else that works instead of taking away the few things that do?
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Unless Im fighting the Paddling, not really. Sure you seem some here and there but they are not this staple of competitive play.
I respectfully disagree. I've seen them from COx, Gent, your own clan, and the Ducks of course. Though COx isn't as involved in the competitive scene, that's more or less a who's who of the current competitive circuit. I can't help but feel I'm also leaving someone out (apologies if I am), but frankly you're going to face one, if not all of those clans in any given competition, and they're likely to have a galleon in tow.
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If the complaint is that too many close range builds use gat/morter, then why hasn't the answer been to give them somthing else that works instead of taking away the few things that do?
Get out of my head already!
The answer is not to nerf the weapons that work well, the answer is buffing up the useless weapons so they can come into play. You saw this when they first buffed the art a few months back. We in The Cohort had a week worth of fun with the Art, then it was overly nerfed. It was fun, and made us try new builds that worked well, but after the nerf, it was back to the Gat/flak.
You're spot on Garou.
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I don't see how attacking my knowledge of the competitive scene gets us anywhere. Don't forget that I too have flown competitively and have faced the bet of the best in sniping as well. Flew against Squash just yesterday as a matter of fact.
Not to put you on the spot Squash, but you're by far the best in Galleon sniping that I know of and the best I could think of to be an example.
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If the complaint is that too many close range builds use gat/morter, then why hasn't the answer been to give them somthing else that works instead of taking away the few things that do?
Get out of my head already!
The answer is not to nerf the weapons that work well, the answer is buffing up the useless weapons so they can come into play. You saw this when they first buffed the art a few months back. We in The Cohort had a week worth of fun with the Art, then it was overly nerfed. It was fun, and made us try new builds that worked well, but after the nerf, it was back to the Gat/flak.
You're spot on Garou.
This is a good alternative, but one problem I see is that buffing all the other weapons is much harder to balance for than to simply nerf a couple of weapons. Perhaps the solution is a bit of both?
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Play some matches. Stop the dissing. Stop the speculating.
When issues like this come up every time the patch is just released, I make it a point to always use the combination that's most heatedly discussed. This round it's gat/mortar nefs and hades/flak buff. Gat/mortar is still effective. It'll require some additional coordination with gunners since their ammo is very beneficial now, but that's also why the change was made. Was still getting some good kills and approaches with gat/mortar Pyramidion.
Then playing the intended buffed build Hades and Light Flak, on a Junker no less, it was still relatively difficult as gat/mortar Pyramidions were still able to close on me even though I also had an Artemis on the front for disable. Furthermore, was getting disabled constantly by a blenderfish.
Play some matches and talk about your experience. Not about what you think your experiences will be.
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@ Mad Maverik & Garou
Congratulation for showing to the world your elitist bs point of view and going into a personal attack against a whole clan.
By the way, Garou, I'm pretty sure I've whooped your ass in pubs more then once. But I guess you hadn't your try-hard pants on. And I know how important they are to "pros" like you in order to accomplish something. ;)
It's incredibly sad how involving yourselves in a couple of events and sucking the fun out of the game make you think that you have any authority or expertise in this game. The truth is that you don't know anything more then the average experienced player, you just EXPLOIT more, and once you find the "optimal" way to play you get stuck in it like it was quicksand.
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If someone throws a comeback or disses someone else, I am locking this thread.
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Play some matches. Stop the dissing. Stop the speculating.
When issues like this come up every time the patch is just released, I make it a point to always use the combination that's most heatedly discussed. This round it's gat/mortar nefs and hades/flak buff. Gat/mortar is still effective. It'll require some additional coordination with gunners since their ammo is very beneficial now, but that's also why the change was made. Was still getting some good kills and approaches with gat/mortar Pyramidion.
Then playing the intended buffed build Hades and Light Flak, on a Junker no less, it was still relatively difficult as gat/mortar Pyramidions were still able to close on me even though I also had an Artemis on the front for disable. Furthermore, was getting disabled constantly by a blenderfish.
Play some matches and talk about your experience. Not about what you think your experiences will be.
awkm its been 24hours! i dont think you understand how many matches we fit in 24hours :-). we ARE speaking from experience. we set up higher level matches to test things, cmon man we know what we're doing.
one suggestion, when something is working well that means you have made a good synergy of guns, you should then build off that success and create ANOTHER set of weapons that work. breaking what works is not the answer you silly billy.
but i digress i wont be playing GOI for awhile i hate to say this but in spite of all the 4 packs i have purchased over this past year and a half i have finally accepted that my play style is not the way the devs intend the game to be played. i think that the way nidh is thinking and plays is what the devs are looking for which is cool, i love the way nidh flies, just isnt for me. i know most of you dont care but i just want to let anyone who did care know that they can find me on BF4 flying jets and helicopters under the SN theDMVchamp.
oh and i want to reiterate, the best devs in the business are found here on GOI, love you guys!
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I don't see how attacking my knowledge of the competitive scene gets us anywhere. Don't forget that I too have flown competitively and have faced the bet of the best in sniping as well. Flew against Squash just yesterday as a matter of fact.
Not to put you on the spot Squash, but you're by far the best in Galleon sniping that I know of and the best I could think of to be an example.
Squash's Galleon come down to the perfect storm of things. A good knowledge of how the weapons work, a good knowledge of how the ship works and the crew having an excellent knowledge of how to get the best out of it it. Good communication between all four crew is also a massive part of why it works so well.
I'm pretty sure that it can be beaten. Cake/Overwatch have won a few games against Squash's Galleon, we need practice to fine tune how and why we beat them when we do.
Now, about the patch. From my perspective having played about 15 to 20 games now is the following:
Gat Mortar/Carronade Mortar (Brawling) has now been made a fine art form of high risk, high reward. *If* you can get close enough to your opponents *and* have the skill to out fly them, you will reap the rewards. If they disable you just as you get in, you are in trouble.
Disabling now seems much more viable owing to the hit box changes and brings back an aspect I missed. It again carries risks, especially at range but when utilized properly can be absolutly devastating.
As to sniping. It is what it is. I strongly dislike it but that's more from a boredom point of view rather than wah wah wah I can't counter it. (that is not aimed at anybody by the way!) I will say, it now carries the high risk high reward tab as well now since if you miss those shots and those brawlers or disablers get in range, it's more than likely going to be good night Vienna.
I like that new patch, and perhaps it could do with a few tweaks here and there but for the most part I can see what Muse are trying to do.
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I'm not going to dignify this with a response. Feel free to message me privately if you want to hash this out further.
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Play some matches and talk about your experience. Not about what you think your experiences will be.
I'll admit that some of what I'm saying is speculation, clearly I haven't had the opportunity to play in a competition since the patch went live, however I have played some matches and my concerns about the gat in particular stem from that.
That said, I will be taking your advice, and in all fairness, it's a valid request. I'll give it a week and give everything a chance, and come back to comment then.
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I'd also like to reiterate that despite the heated nature of the conversation at hand, I really do have a lot of respect for the Muse team. I feel you guys are far more involved than most game developers, and it's very seldom you'll see a dev actually join in a conversation on the boards to discuss these sorts of things with the community. It's a big part of why even if I find I hate the changes, I'll probably still play regardless xD
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A friendly reminder from my Mod side that we keep things civil here guys.
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Well since your gun would otherwise be sitting there looking pretty since no other ammo will let you shoot past its maximum range, yea, it's remotely useful. That said, I'm hopeful you know that no one is going to sit at that lesmok range and try to kill something. If so, well you have other issues.
I'm pretty sure nobody would sit at Lesmok range poking at the enemy, the fact is though, that all Lesmok will do is poke the enemy and probably just give away your position. Which is why I said, it's pretty useless, opinion though.
Might want to think about taking that breath before posting like I suggested. Do not put words in my postings. Yes, it'll require more thought into your approach. No, it was never a 100% sure thing to just charge in and win previously. Doesn't mean it didn't happen either.
All I was implying is that there was no need to complicate it further, I was not trying to put words into your post. If charging straight on a sniper build is netting you kills then what is the enemy doing? If they are not landing their shots, well, I'm pretty sure you deserve to just charge them straight forward, no? It's never been easy and if you charge straight forward you are just gambling on whether the enemy gunners are competent, but that's for an other topic I guess..
Beyond that, I have nothing good to say about your post so I'll just leave it. It does nothing to help anybody except let you vent.
After what feels like the millionth nerf to brawling guns and especially after an update that was one of the most balanced to have in the game with all guns working properly, I honestly think I have every right to be frustrated by the changes, that said, I honestly don't mind it over all, I just don't like the direction it's headed and deem the changes unecessary at best, but again you could argue it's just opinion, you would be right.
I honestly doubt brawling is dead, and only different.
It's not, it's just not nearly as rewarding as it was, definately needs tweaks on guns like the Gatling and the Carronades that got their ranges cut and got nothing in return, their damage was lowered as well for apparently no reason, I don't see why.
Fine, range was a problem I guess for you (as in the people that were butthurt about the carronades/gat)? Where's the power-up that they get for being even more restricted in range than they were in 1.3.1? Where is my old 4 second reload on the Heavy Carronade? Why cut the damage of the Light carronade? Why did the Gat get no compesations for the damage and range cut other than larger clip that takes forever to unload?
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Gat Mortar/Carronade Mortar (Brawling) has now been made a fine art form of high risk, high reward. *If* you can get close enough to your opponents *and* have the skill to out fly them, you will reap the rewards.
The thing is with the new DPS changes to the Gatling (its direct damage went down 25% with a clip increase of 20%) as well as the obliteration of the mortar (Twice the jitter, third the range, half the rotation speed, and losing 25% of the clip) you don't reap the rewards.
I think what people are not understanding is that these were not just range changes. Those would have been an awesome way to bring in specialization of the high reward risk we continue to mention. Now you get close and I'll need a moment to do some math but it isn't looking any better than other piercing explosive combos that work at range.
If you want high reward risk then the two have to be proportional. The reward is just not there.
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I played a few matches and I liked most of the changes so far. The gat/mortar was used just a crazy amount more than other guns pre-patch. They're still very viable, you just have to work at it a little harder. Basically it just takes more skill and teamwork. If you can manage that, you can still absolutely shred other ships.
I have noticed a lot more players using the artemis and field gun however. Some players are saying it was buffed too much, but reading the patch notes, the 'buffs' seem relatively minor. It just makes it slightly easier to hit targets at great ranges; although in all honesty, these guns have always been pretty easy to hit targets with.
While the sheer amount of disables is frustrating, I haven't seen anything overwhelming or unbeatable.
Personally I'd recommend just dealing with the changes for a week or so, get used to it, and most importantly: try to adapt. Things have -just- changed, you gotta give it some time to sink in. People are still experimenting and trying to find what works in what situations, just like the last patches. Once things settle a bit and players have a better of what works well where, when, and why; we can really start discussing balance. Right now it's just first impressions.
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I am just glad the Artemis wasn't touched.
Shut up! SHUT UP!! Don't draw attention to this fact, I don't want it nerfed next go-around!!
I think the patch has been up for long enough to have pretty solid first impressions. There will be continuous updates and shifts in favors over the following weeks. The point is, there are a lot of people unhappy with the severity of this patch. I hope a hotfix comes out soon to give a little bit of power back to the gat/mortar (either range or damage, not both) since I think it was nerfed too hard. I like the sniping buffs, I want to see more of the Hades, and I like attempt at making more viable gun combos.
I think I'll be trading in my pyra for my good ol' Junker, or my mobula, or hell maybe the new Spire. It saddens me though that yet another patch roles around and the ship taking the most heat is the brawler Pyra. Good night, RamRod.
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I have some questions, and I'm really curious for serious answers. I can't give input on weapon balance if I don't understand what balanced means. I'd really like to clear up any misunderstandings so I can take a fresh look at this patch.
How are we supposed to be playing the game?
The argument is that gat/mortar was too powerful, and too quick. Exactly how long is a kill supposed to take? How long is an engagement supposed to last? How long is a match supposed to last?
The argument is that the gat/mortar was over used. What is the desired distribution of weapon usage? What about ship usage? How often am I supposed to switch my weapon loadouts?
Have I been playing the game the wrong way for the last six months?
I've been attempting to find the best, most efficient weapon combinations for each ship to get the quickest and most reliable kill. I look at what the most accurate weapons are at reasonable ranges, and what setups maximize the damage.
I've then been practicing those loadouts to make them as efficient as possible. Timing the gat fire so that exactly as the final bullet takes down the hull, the clip is getting reloaded. When that gat bullet connects with the armor, the majority of the mortar clip is already in the air.
Am I playing this game wrong? What am I supposed to be getting better at, if not quick, reliable kills?
What is the perfect balance we're aiming for?
Matches where no matter what combination of ships, weapons, and crew load outs, the matches always last 40 minutes, and always end 4-5?
We're supposedly balancing for new players to feel comfortable, and this is possibly at the expense of the highly competitive scene. What are new players supposed to aspire towards? What do they do when they are no longer new? Competitive matches that are admittedly not the focus of balance?
Where do I go from here?
Am I just supposed to shut up, learn and practice a 'new meta', which will then be labeled unbalanced, and subsequently nerfed? Thats how it's been the entire time I've been playing.
Or am I supposed to start picking guns and ships completely at random and having a silly, 'balanced' time? That's not what I had in mind.
It's hard for me to be objective about weapon balance if the game I'm attempting to play is vastly different from what developers intended.
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Played some today....
Yeah, you guys have zero ground to stand on. Brawling will be just fine.
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Well thats a solid argument sure to change hearts and minds.
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Played some today....
Yeah, you guys have zero ground to stand on. Brawling will be just fine.
You know, you're right. I hadn't considered that point before. I retract all of my previous arguments.
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The heavy flak and mercury field gun are still a powerful combo but not as strong as they use to be. The same can be said about the gatling gun and mortar.
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This is the point at which I semi-quote Zill and say we should do our best to avoid a slug fest, in other news Imagine, you haven't really told us anything other then brawling still works, elaborate.
On another point, I shall refer to field guns only as howitzers.
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Well thats a solid argument sure to change hearts and minds.
No less valid than any of the baseless the-sky-is-falling posts I've seen here.
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Ran a hwacha fish with my favorite hwacha gunner yesterday and I must say that it is far easier to disable parts on airships.
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Did some more testing today.
I maintain that there is a serious issue with the gat. It's completely overshadowed by the Hades, a gun that outranges it by a long way and still outperforms it at close range (150m arming is very small, and with greased it's all the way down to 120m).
As others have said, it's fine if you limit the range of brawling guns, but the reward needs to be there, and in the gat's case it simply isn't. The DPS on that gun is gone.
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How are we supposed to be playing the game?
Gat/mortar was overused because it was the safest way to win at the game, by killing another ship. 'Easy' means there is little to no risk involved. You're supposed to kill ships but this strategy negates all the other cool things we want to do with the game like disabling components to effect ship movement. So we've failed you there. Ultimately, this game is about gaining the positional advantage on your opponent to set up your kill. Gat/mortar made kills too easy to set up. Someone with little experience in the game can easily charge in with a gat/mortar Pyramidion and get a kill very quickly. The weapon decision choice collapsed to these two guns. It was too safe to use in their previous balance.
People like safe and will go with what they think is safest. The thinking is important. The decisions collapsed too quickly because this strategy and combination was easy to pull off. Therefore, no more thinking needed to occur. We want more. We want you to always think about your build and how it will interact with your team and the opposing team.
Furthermore, the way that these two weapons were balanced also collapsed gunner skills so you'd only need one ammo... and therefore no need for gunners. The nerf to gat/mortar as a multi-pronged attack.
In general, I want the ship that died to say "Damn, that was a good kill. We messed up and they totally deserved it. I've got a plan for the next time around." This is wishful thinking but you can see how things like former gat/mortar and heavy carronade made this almost impossible at times.
Have I been playing the game the wrong way for the last six months?
You are playing correctly. As I said, the decision space collapsed way too quickly. Everyone knew that gat/mortar was the pretty much the most effective thing you could do. It overshadowed ammo choices and gun choices and went in for the kill too quickly. It cut out a lot of designs and ways to play out of the equation. You and everyone else played correctly. I just failed everyone and making this too easy to figure out.
What is the perfect balance we're aiming for?
Kills should be tough to pull off. Our matches are between 5-12 deaths when normal FPS rack up kills in the 100's per match. Again, this is about gaining the positional advantage over your opponent. We've designed in a lot of ways you can do that through disabling. We want you to disable. We want you to fly into position. Deny others' positions. Get denied. Retreat. Reform. Only until you execute your build effectively or catch an opponent unwary will you be rewarded with the kill.
Ships should be hard to kill. Point blank gat/mortar, again, negated gaining the position on someone to a great degree.
Where do I go from here?
We will keep balancing until we've reached our goals. Nerf, buff, whatever it takes. Options are important. Supporting the decision space so it doesn't collapse so easily is important. Because we're indie, we don't have a QA team. Everyone who was with us since beta knows how much change the balance has gone through. It's been a year and finally it's very close to something that offers numerous valid choices. It will still take a while but we're almost there. Problems will be nipped in the bud and I personally have to thank everyone for putting up with the issues.
I'm not going to lie, gat/mortar was an great way to beat the game and even I abused it a lot. However, it was unsustainable. Lots of weapons, ammo, ships, loadouts, were being forgotten. Ultimately, this means a lot of hard work was slowly going down the drain. Whatever changes that may drop in the future will all be an effort to support the decision space to make the game interesting.
Our goal is for you to be able to choose some guns and cater them to your own play style. Not have the gun or ship dictate entirely how you play. There's enough room with gunner skills, pilot skill, and engineer builds to do this now—again it's really close to perfect. Just think if gat+heavy/mortar+greased was the only viable weapon in the game. The gat/motor was forcing you how to play a certain way—they were telling you to Pyramidion brawl all the time. People use other things because they're bored of gat/mortar... see too much of it, used it too many times, it's not challenging, etc...
To be honest, this is not easy work. The hardest thing is not to piss everyone off so that they quit the game. However, everything is done to improve your experience overall. Again, I strike at the middle ground. I want competitive players, the people who spend the most time in the game, to have experience the full depth of the game has to offer. I want new players to mull over builds and come up with their own creative way to play and explore... hopefully reaching the depths that competitive and veterans are diving and swimming around in.
Not many people get to balance competitive games so I'm humbled to be one of those people. This is my first time doing it so yeah I made a crap ton of mistakes but thanks to everyone here I've learned a crap ton. Obviously, it'll be better in the next competitive game I do (NEVER, lulz) :P
All I have to say is that I'm really effing glad I don't have to worry too much about balance in Co-op and Adventure. I'll give you those damn gat/mortars then... you'll just have to grind for it puahahahahah.
Again... sign up for Dev App is you have a very big investment in this game and the balance. Getting feedback before the patch drops is... ideal.
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How are we supposed to be playing the game?
Gat/mortar was overused because it was the safest way to win at the game, by killing another ship. 'Easy' means there is little to no risk involved. You're supposed to kill ships but this strategy negates all the other cool things we want to do with the game like disabling components to effect ship movement. So we've failed you there. Ultimately, this game is about gaining the positional advantage on your opponent to set up your kill. Gat/mortar made kills too easy to set up. Someone with little experience in the game can easily charge in with a gat/mortar Pyramidion and get a kill very quickly. The weapon decision choice collapsed to these two guns. It was too safe to use in their previous balance.
People like safe and will go with what they think is safest. The thinking is important. The decisions collapsed too quickly because this strategy and combination was easy to pull off. Therefore, no more thinking needed to occur. We want more. We want you to always think about your build and how it will interact with your team and the opposing team.
Furthermore, the way that these two weapons were balanced also collapsed gunner skills so you'd only need one ammo... and therefore no need for gunners. The nerf to gat/mortar as a multi-pronged attack.
In general, I want the ship that died to say "Damn, that was a good kill. We messed up and they totally deserved it. I've got a plan for the next time around." This is wishful thinking but you can see how things like former gat/mortar and heavy carronade made this almost impossible at times.
Have I been playing the game the wrong way for the last six months?
You are playing correctly. As I said, the decision space collapsed way too quickly. Everyone knew that gat/mortar was the pretty much the most effective thing you could do. It overshadowed ammo choices and gun choices and went in for the kill too quickly. It cut out a lot of designs and ways to play out of the equation. You and everyone else played correctly. I just failed everyone and making this too easy to figure out.
What is the perfect balance we're aiming for?
Kills should be tough to pull off. Our matches are between 5-12 deaths when normal FPS rack up kills in the 100's per match. Again, this is about gaining the positional advantage over your opponent. We've designed in a lot of ways you can do that through disabling. We want you to disable. We want you to fly into position. Deny others' positions. Get denied. Retreat. Reform. Only until you execute your build effectively or catch an opponent unwary will you be rewarded with the kill.
Ships should be hard to kill. Point blank gat/mortar, again, negated gaining the position on someone to a great degree.
Where do I go from here?
We will keep balancing until we've reached our goals. Nerf, buff, whatever it takes. Options are important. Supporting the decision space so it doesn't collapse so easily is important. Because we're indie, we don't have a QA team. Everyone who was with us since beta knows how much change the balance has gone through. It's been a year and finally it's very close to something that offers numerous valid choices. It will still take a while but we're almost there. Problems will be nipped in the bud and I personally have to thank everyone for putting up with the issues.
I'm not going to lie, gat/mortar was an great way to beat the game and even I abused it a lot. However, it was unsustainable. Lots of weapons, ammo, ships, loadouts, were being forgotten. Ultimately, this means a lot of hard work was slowly going down the drain. Whatever changes that may drop in the future will all be an effort to support the decision space to make the game interesting.
Our goal is for you to be able to choose some guns and cater them to your own play style. Not have the gun or ship dictate entirely how you play. There's enough room with gunner skills, pilot skill, and engineer builds to do this now—again it's really close to perfect. Just think if gat+heavy/mortar+greased was the only viable weapon in the game. The gat/motor was forcing you how to play a certain way—they were telling you to Pyramidion brawl all the time. People use other things because they're bored of gat/mortar... see too much of it, used it too many times, it's not challenging, etc...
To be honest, this is not easy work. The hardest thing is not to piss everyone off so that they quit the game. However, everything is done to improve your experience overall. Again, I strike at the middle ground. I want competitive players, the people who spend the most time in the game, to have experience the full depth of the game has to offer. I want new players to mull over builds and come up with their own creative way to play and explore... hopefully reaching the depths that competitive and veterans are diving and swimming around in.
Not many people get to balance competitive games so I'm humbled to be one of those people. This is my first time doing it so yeah I made a crap ton of mistakes but thanks to everyone here I've learned a crap ton. Obviously, it'll be better in the next competitive game I do (NEVER, lulz) :P
All I have to say is that I'm really effing glad I don't have to worry too much about balance in Co-op and Adventure. I'll give you those damn gat/mortars then... you'll just have to grind for it puahahahahah.
Again... sign up for Dev App is you have a very big investment in this game and the balance. Getting feedback before the patch drops is... ideal.
So, what I get from this post is that this patch is a sign of things to come. Am I reading this correctly? If so, I'm not sure if its worth wasting my time on this game anymore.
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No less valid than any of the baseless the-sky-is-falling posts I've seen here.
Imagine, as someone who is interested in getting into the casting business for this game, you may wish to actually try deeper analysis than that. People who watch will want right long thought out analysis, they might even appreciate incorrect, but still thought out analysis. I doubt heavily they want a one liner dismissive opinion devoid of any rationale. As a major member of the community, lets step up to elevate conversation instead of resorting to sinking to a level you evidently find "baseless."
Awkm, hugs and kisses
I think most of would agree that there was an issue with the pervasiveness of the Gatling/Mortar combination and that is was too much an all rounder as it was equally effective at mid range and close range. I never rose a fuss in dev app as I didn't realize the extent of the DPS loss of the Gatling and the decreased clip of the Mortar. In addition, these aren't guns I've every really used so I didn't spend much time testing them. I guess I never thought such a defining feature would be hit so hard.
I can understand why a lot of the people in this thread are saying Gat/Mortar had its time, it was too pervasive, it needed a nerf, what have you. I to an extent agree with this.
Now I believe the thought Awkm was having with all this was to specialize the piercing/explosive combos. Merc Art; long range, Magma Flak; Medium Range, Gat Mortar; Short Range. Each represents their own risk reward paradigm. The long range is less risky but less damage do to the enemy do to hard hits and low clip weapons. The short range is the oppisite, risky due to close proximity but much damage due to powerful weapons. The range nerf was fantastic for this. A gatling gun with heavy was able to disable the big guns at far too big a range and those lesmok mortars might as well have been flaks. I dig the range nerf, I dig it a lot. My issue, and I think the issue for a lot of people, but don't exactly realize it, is the fact that getting in close isn't giving the reward that is worth the risk. You mentioned in your most recent post that a kill should functionally be from one team either messing up or the other team doing exceptionally well. In my experience getting withing 400 meters with both weapons in tact, engines in good enough repair to keep you on target, and armor left to kill before getting killed, requires either a great stroke or a doom mistake. The long range should have been able to take out your weapons or engines and/or the medium range should have crippled your ship enough to kill you in the close despite your better suited weapons. The reason that this has happened is something beyond the pure numbers game which I think was always your intent (after all if this was to be a numbers game, health and damage stats would be much more accessible.)
If we want the gat/mort to be a solely short range, it needs to be exceptional at it to reflect the exception ability to get so close. That is why I think the damage nerfs are the real issue here. While I understand the desire to buff gunners by making guns need more than one ammo, you're never going to have people take a gunner for a chain when you have functionally forced the mortar to be a gunner. If a weapon combo needs two gunners, then it really isn't workable with how this game plays.
Reducing the range of these guns has done a beauty to destroying their place as the go-to win any scenario scene. However, I worry the damage nerfs make the combo unworkable even in a niche way. The last patch's ROF nerf to the gatling was honestly a perfect balance on top of other balances throughout the months to the combo (heavy changes and lesmok changes come to mind). The damage changes made to these guns seemingly unworkable and so I urge you (Awkm) to keep a very close eye to this subject. Gat mortar need not die for other weapon combos to emerge.
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No less valid than any of the baseless the-sky-is-falling posts I've seen here.
Imagine, as someone who is interested in getting into the casting business for this game, you may wish to actually try deeper analysis than that. People who watch will want right long thought out analysis, they might even appreciate incorrect, but still thought out analysis. I doubt heavily they want a one liner dismissive opinion devoid of any rationale. As a major member of the community, lets step up to elevate conversation instead of resorting to sinking to a level you evidently find "baseless."
I can only speak from what I experienced today. Carronades still hit and murder from farther than you'd think, gat mortar still murdered the same way. Sure, we've yet to see a tournament played in this patch, so we'll all have to wait to see how it'll all shake out, but right now it's a select few people howling about how this is terrible and how bad it will make everything when all we have is idle speculation, and that's not how I roll. From the play today however, I haven't seen a single indication that it's going to be that drastic of a change.
Also, if you actually bothered watching anything I've casted, you'd know that I do quite a bit of analysis. What I do/say on cast, however, does not have to reflect the same way write on the forums.
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I feel it's too blanket a statement to say that other builds/setups/strategies were 'forgotten' with point blank gat/morter. Frankly, putting it that way is simply wrong. I didn't see that at all in my experiences. Our clan was one of the only ones using it at the competitive level. In pubs, I constantly see a variety of different builds. I personally use a variety of different builds. The gat/morter was never about 'safe', it was about play style and strategy, at least to me.
At this point, I'm simply tired of trying to defend it. I personally enjoyed aggressive play and the intensity of a close, brawling dogfight, but apparently I'm in the minority, and that isn't what the spirit, nor the future, of this game is about. I'm afraid I'll have to retract my earlier sentiment, I don't feel I'll be playing this game much any more.
Muse, you've done a great job so far and I wish you the best in your future endeavors, I still respect you guys very much as a development team. I want to be clear that I'm not doing this as a way to influence or push any decisions you make with the game, I'm simply not interested in the direction the intended spirit of the game, as you described it, will be taking it and I find it disheartening that I've been defending a tactic that I and my clan mates enjoyed very much that, evidently, was 'broken'. My apologies to those I've argued with on the subject, clearly I was in the wrong.
To the community at large, I've enjoyed your company and I've had a lot of fun flying with you guys. Those who are inclined, my steam is garou1911, feel free to keep in touch, and maybe we can play other games together.
My time in Icarus was fun and I'm sad to see it end. I hope the rest of you have fun and are excited for the developments that are on the way. Keep the community classy, it's one of the better ones out there.
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I never have much to add to these conversations, but i just wonder why a nerf to these weapons is being perceived as if they are completely removed from the game?
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How are we supposed to be playing the game?
designed in a lot of ways you can do that through disabling. We want you to disable. We want you to fly into position. Deny others' positions. Get denied. Retreat. Reform. Only until you execute your build effectively or catch an opponent unwary will you be rewarded with the kill.
Ships should be hard to kill. Point blank gat/mortar, again, negated gaining the position on someone to a great degree.
awkm, thanks again so much for responding, always confirming and reconfirming you guys are the best dev team out there. it does seem like you are confirming what i believed to be true, that the type of strategy that i want to employ is not the strategy you want in the game. im not mad about that at all and im glad you came out and said it! knowing this allows me to relax on trying to beat the drum i was beating and allow you guys to make the game YOU want to make. sure it does suck that it isnt the type of game i want to play but that really is ok, i dont play COD either and they are doing just fine without me :).
i do want to give one last piece of feedback though. as you move forward in developing the game and players start learning how to make guns and ships synergistic to a very effective degree i would suggest that instead of nerfing something that you create a new alternative. for instance, if you find that after this patch the hwacha becomes very effective when combined with hades/merc on a spire (not saying it will be, just a hypothetical!) instead of nerfing it i think you should create a new ship or gun that could be a good counter for it. and if that becomes too effective create another ship or gun to counter that. i know this is more time consuming than just changing numbers but i think the effort will be well worth it when you look at how dynamic your game will be. but hey ive never developed a game before so im kinda just talking out my ass.
good luck to you muse, you guys are the best and im sure to be back when my kickstart investment comes back to roost. :-P
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This right here is why I dislike strong based online games. the moment that something goes awry, the way the devs never wanted it to go... they change it on a whim. it isn't just this game. Games like Natural Selection 2, Hawken(granted it was just fully released, but will see this 'balance' bs happen still), Mechwarrior online, or ANY OTHER game where the dev's change things as they see fit. whats the point of releasing a game that isn't "balanced" to begin with? it's a joke. see, if you had released the game that WAS balanced, and completed you wouldn't have players complain each time you did this. on top of that it would also limit your player base to that of which you want.
Just because to made a shinny little gun that does the same thing as the gat, but is an all around eye sore trying to find and shoot a target makes you upset, you turn around like a 5 year old whine that it isn't what you want. why even put out the Pyramidian (THE DAMNED THING HAS A SWORD ON A STICK IN THE FRONT! does that say "don't ram!"?) out in the first place if you didn't want to include up and close combat. its been pointed out that you have nerfed close range EVERY TIME you patch. I will not deny that you haven't done this to long range on occasion but you seriously think that you have played to both sides of the fence?
You say that a ship shouldn't go down so quickly. then what is the point of dropping the armor on the pyramidian? you know what you have done now to that ship right? exactly the opposite of what you want and what you did with the spire. you are constantly making it more weak and unusable to the play style of your players.
We spoke out a bit about the last patch, but we did our damnedest to work around the patch and we did, alright... but eventually it became something beatable. and have you even been watching comp matches lately? the double Pmid style fell flat on its face in a high comp setting. gat+mortar was insanely underwhelming in any match with double pmid. just because it worked doesn't mean its broken... it could mean that other things are broken. and I cant believe you are upping light flak AGAIN. you DO know that auto kills anything after armor is stripped right?
on a last note, I want you to know... you have basically taken 3 months of hard work that Wolfpack members had put into logos, lore, and developing a strong connection with the community. I and many other members are deeply saddened that this game has taken this grave turn... we wanted to much out of this game and worked hard to be there and have a good time. many have and are now looking into other options away from this game. I wont say we are gone for good, but until you can learn the value of your players and their opinions, we may not show much presence anymore.
and remember, when you release something like this to the world know that it is never going to be YOURS again. This is a lesson all artist must learn.
All the best to everyone out there,
Rutger Shaw of the Wolfpack Mercenary Squadron
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Reducing the range of these guns has done a beauty to destroying their place as the go-to win any scenario scene. However, I worry the damage nerfs make the combo unworkable even in a niche way. The last patch's ROF nerf to the gatling was honestly a perfect balance on top of other balances throughout the months to the combo (heavy changes and lesmok changes come to mind). The damage changes made to these guns seemingly unworkable and so I urge you (Awkm) to keep a very close eye to this subject. Gat mortar need not die for other weapon combos to emerge.
I've always liked to mess with Sammy and the Ducks, but I'm completely with him on this point. This last paragraph sums up the situation pretty perfectly. awkm, Bubbles, Keyvias, MetaFive, I'm speaking to you directly, please watch for how the impact of this patch affects the gameplay. I don't think you nerfed the gat/mortar power combo, I believe you may have killed it in higher level play. I know you guys normally follow up any big patch with a hot fix, and I hope this issue is addressed in the coming weeks to see if there can be a re-work for this hot fix.
On a more personal note, In the past few months I've developed a growing respect and friendship for the Wolvies and many of their members. We only got to face off against them once (we thumped them btw...), but they were always good sports and I admire their tenacity and indomitable spirit. I hope things swing back into balance where their play style becomes viable again and they return. If not, well I know I'm going to be playing with them in other games but I feel like the competitive scene just lost the most aggressive clan in the skies. Take care, Wolvies! Blue Skies...
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Surprisingly, I've been finding the changes to be pretty great, personally speaking. Though, I am concerned since I've lately been on Artemis ships for the majority of my time and it seems to be a stronger than I expected (?). In the hands of a good gunner and pilot, you can effectively shoot down a ship with Artemis/Merc and never have them shoot you back. This might be due to the fact that most of the ships I was up against were Brawler combinations of various kinds that needed to get up close to shoot at us and when they did they didn't do nearly enough damage to warrant me to jump off my gun and repair. I could have easily been a second Gunner instead of an Engineer since one Engineer was enough to maintain the ship.
The damage on the Gat/Mort combo might need to be looked at further if they're hardly scratching us when they actually get in range to shoot. And that's shocking to say that it wasn't actually fun or interesting to shoot them down because they did hardly anything. I'll try to keep playing though and form a more informed opinion on the changes though. I've been having lag issues so I haven't been jumping in as many games.
The for now, angle I really want to get at is that the guns have no bite from what I saw. They don't bring the same sense of danger they did before (and that was only because I understood how effective the combination was) and it's really making them fall flat. I actually want the Gatling and the Mortar to be dangerous. I don't want them close to me. I actually want the tingly sensation in my fingers that I get trying to play keep-away with the high-explosives.
The guns have to both be fun to play against and fun to use. Right now they definitely are very lackluster to play against.
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(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v101/newport12343/facepalm.jpg)
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I think awkm stated it amazingly, although I do miss his meat-based analogies.
( http://gunsoficarus.com/community/blog/balance-mode-how-we-i-respond/ )
We all know the gat/mortar was overused, especially on the pyra. Both of these guns have gone up and down over the course of GoIO, and this latest patch feels really good for me. It might just be because it's still fresh and people are experimenting, but I've been seeing a lot of underused ships and weapons being utilized more. Going into a match is a little more exciting.
If you're entire gameplay experience was ruined by changing how two guns in particular function... well, I'm not sure what to say. Although I would have to advise players against getting married to a particular set of game mechanics. Things will change. Sometimes you'll like it, sometimes you won't; usually it's a bit of both. We just have to put on our big kid pants and roll with it.
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We all know the gat/mortar was overused, especially on the pyra. Both of these guns have gone up and down over the course of GoIO, and this latest patch feels really good for me. It might just be because it's still fresh and people are experimenting, but I've been seeing a lot of underused ships and weapons being utilized more. Going into a match is a little more exciting.
If you're entire gameplay experience was ruined by changing how two guns in particular function... well, I'm not sure what to say. Although I would have to advise players against getting married to a particular set of game mechanics. Things will change. Sometimes you'll like it, sometimes you won't; usually it's a bit of both. We just have to put on our big kid pants and roll with it.
dude i dont think you quite get where where the wolves(and others!) are coming from and you may have forgotten the history of "balance" that this game has gone through since beta. i am tempted to pull up quotes from the old forums of me voicing my frustration(as cpt janeway) that close combat killing did not seem to be intended by the devs evidenced by their nerfs. now awkm has come out and said as much which i appreciate.
you see thomas it isnt the nerfing of two guns and a ship that bothers us. it's the long standing pattern of nerfing MULTIPLE guns and MULTIPLE ships that proves to us that our style of play is not appreciated. now that awkm confirmed that we are all able to peaceably depart the game knowing that the type of game we wanted to play is not wanted here
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I don't believe he mentioned anywhere that close combat was never intended. In fact by reducing the effective range on the guns, you have to be closer, encouraging close combat, instead of the mid to short range it was before.
From my understanding, Muse wants lots of viable options for players, not having them just resort to a single playstyle and loadout choice. Then you have to remember that just about all guns have been buffed and nerfed over time. Back in beta the sniping weapons were far too powerful (a good example is that link in my previous post) and underwent a lot of changes, mortars used to be butt awful to aim, the missile launcher even used to heat seek to the engines. Things change all around, they don't want one style of gameplay emphasized over another. Do they want to kill close range combat? Definitely not. But they don't want it being the 'absolute dominant' style of gameplay.
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Back in beta the sniping weapons were far too powerful (a good example is that link in my previous post)
the clear truth is this: if you started playing this game as a long range player this game has always been kind to you. new guns have been added to your arsenal (see LJ) and you have seen your ships buffed like crazy (see junker). you have been given new boats (see spire and mob).
as a close combat player we have seen our boats nerfed (see goldie squid and pyra) our guns over hauled (see heavy flak, light flak, flamer), our guns nerfed (see gat, caro, even from beta!) and have not been given any new toys since what? month 3 of beta?
the only new thing the close combat players get to do is find the next set up that works (be called a noob meta exploiter),have it get nerfed into oblivion(see heavy flak, gat/flak, flamer) and then try again.
it honestly isnt fun for us thomas. the reality is, running up that close, taking all that damage on the way in, and some how surviving, doesnt seem like to be "rewarded" to trying to tank for 2 entire clips is fair. it seems clear to me from awkm's response that he wants me to get close and disable, which makes sense because if i have to get that close and have half hull by the time i get there, if my choices are to wait for two clips of gat to strip the hull, or caronade him and hopefully get him out of arc, i dont actually have a choice. THAT is why im saying this patch worked exactly how it was intended and i cant be mad about it but lets be ok as a community to call it what it is; a long running and consistent nerfing of short range strategies.
nerfing range was cool i actually liked that idea, but nerfing dmg out put makes no sense unless you dont want close combat kills...
which sucks because i think we can ALL agree what we really want to get out of the game is "cold cloudy combat climbs"
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I can see gunners being more useful on gatling guns now. Because of the damage nerf and how important it is to strip armor, having two other ammo types could give you the advantage.
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Except a gunner is now functionally mandatory for the Mortar
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the clear truth is this: if you started playing this game as a long range player this game has always been kind to you. new guns have been added to your arsenal (see LJ) and you have seen your ships buffed like crazy (see junker). you have been given new boats (see spire and mob).
as a close combat player we have seen our boats nerfed (see goldie squid and pyra) our guns over hauled (see heavy flak, light flak, flamer), our guns nerfed (see gat, caro, even from beta!) and have not been given any new toys since what? month 3 of beta?
the only new thing the close combat players get to do is find the next set up that works (be called a noob meta exploiter),have it get nerfed into oblivion(see heavy flak, gat/flak, flamer) and then try again.
Pfft man please, get out of my head! This is so true I almost shed a manly tear. (agreed with everything bar the Mercury, which was hit hard, but rightfully so)
Okay, overdramatization is off now, but still, pretty much what he said. It's why I've also been complaining there aren't many new guns, because quite honestly I much preferred the close range scenarios and only used guns that amplified that strategy, all I've seen is nerfs to everything I love because someone else felt like they couldn't handle it, some call it Gat/Flak, I call it Blenderfish, someone else prolly has something else in mind? I don't know. Some people might even think it's still fine to use them, I simply disagree.
Okay so, after having played more matches in this patch I think I pretty much have a general grasp of how things are going on. Pretty much I personally feel like this patch forces me to be prepared for AT LEAST 2 different ranges. (long-mid, short-mid, short-long) or I will be at a severe disadvantage. The damage nerf of the Gatling was increasingly evident as I played with my Junker (gave up on the Goldfish completely, may you rest in peace my dear Riven, I will forever remember you.), the enemy had a Gat/Mortar Pyramidion, so at first I was wary of my armor.. the outcome was hilarious, my engineers didn't even have to leave their posts to go repair the hull because the Gatling is so low damage and inaccurate (still!) from point blank. The Junker is fairly impervious to Gatling fire now unless you have 2 of them hitting you accurately.
One good thing about this though, I have to admit, is that I finally felt comfortable of bringing a gunner on a Junker, his ammo diversity allowed both my close and mid-long sides to work at max efficiency (aka Lesmok-Greased for the Hades and Heavy-Greased for the Light Carronade). Though I wouldn't realy call it my short range side, mostly my 'let's finish them now' side after the hell of my 2Arty/Hades has inflicted upon them while approaching (oh yes you can get a long range trifecta with these guns, it's beautiful)
Some final thoughs on the subject.. the nerfs on this patch pretty much feel like a "Please use something else" plee from Muse to us rather than actuall balancing, that's the vibe I get from it and which is why as I said, I don't like the feel of it. (That was not meant as a personal thing against you Zill even in my previous posts, just to clear that up, I meant no ill will)
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Just reporting in from my play over the last two days. Gat seems incredibly underwhelming now. My difecta carronade junker is in range by the time they are starting to make a dent in my armor. And I typically win the armor stripping race after that point.
My 2 cents would be this. Gat vs disables. Can it do significant damage before it will be disabled by disablers (Most of which work equally well if not better at close range)? My answer would be no. An Artemis will disabled it before it can get armor down, as will hwatcha's or even well aimed carronades.
Can you disable their disabling guns first so your gat can take down the armor? Perhaps, but I wouldn't bet on the gat to take well attended armor down before the disable weapon is back online and disabling you again.
Can you position yourself so that their disables can't get arc? Yes. But this is true of any close range weapon combo, what makes gat special in taking advantage of this?
What I am trying to point out is the same as many others, the damage needs to be there at those close ranges. Especially for a weapon whose primary purpose is to strip armor. I approve of the range nerf, but the damage needs to be put closer to the 1.3.2 number (But perhaps a tiny bit lower, like 9.)
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I don't believe he mentioned anywhere that close combat was never intended. In fact by reducing the effective range on the guns, you have to be closer, encouraging close combat, instead of the mid to short range it was before.
From my understanding, Muse wants lots of viable options for players, not having them just resort to a single playstyle and loadout choice. Then you have to remember that just about all guns have been buffed and nerfed over time...
No one is really arguing with the range reduction on the gat/mortar anymore really. The range reduction was ok, specialize it to a short range only weapon to give way for the Hades to be viable at mid-long range. Now true, it basically throws away the skill of some of the better gat gunners like Salous or Garou, some of the only gunners I've seen who could actually hit gat shots consistently at 700 m, but I'm not going to really complain about that too much because hey that's part of the game. What we're all calling fowl on is the dps reduction. It's crippled the close range kill combo, to the point where as many experienced pilots have already said, it's nothing to be feared anymore. Not feared = not viable, if you know you can easily counter it. The whole "buffed and nerfed over time deal that you speak of doesn't really apply to brawlers, especially not in the past few months. It's been a consistent nerf of all of the strengths of the punch-in-the-jaw builds. B'Elana's "Not this again!" sums up exactly how I feel about the pattern of bralwer-nerfing that's been happening time and time again.
I am willing to believe Muse isn't deliberately trying to take away the close range brawlers. However, in this last patch they've negated them to the point where no one will be using it. There is no considering the options in terms of bringing a gat/mortar combo, it's an instant "NO" from any pilot worth their salt. There are far better options now, and the gat/mortar pyra is so easily countered it's a joke. I'm really hoping the hotfix will dial back some of the nerf-attack that befell the gat and mortar, because right now they're pathetic and underpowered.
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This right here is why I dislike strong based online games. the moment that something goes awry, the way the devs never wanted it to go... they change it on a whim. it isn't just this game. Games like Natural Selection 2, Hawken(granted it was just fully released, but will see this 'balance' bs happen still), Mechwarrior online, or ANY OTHER game where the dev's change things as they see fit. whats the point of releasing a game that isn't "balanced" to begin with? it's a joke. see, if you had released the game that WAS balanced, and completed you wouldn't have players complain each time you did this. on top of that it would also limit your player base to that of which you want.
No competitive games released are ever going to be perfectly balanced from release or even afterwards. In fact, many good competitive games receive extensive balancing tweaks over time. That's how hard balancing is. There will always going to be complaints about it because you can't make everyone happy.
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What we're all calling fowl on is the...
Hey now!
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I think after a few minor tweaks this patch will be a good thing. I'm not sure what others have been seeing, but in most of the competitive matches I've played in the last patch or two it's been mainly close range ships. MM has recently been rolling with a gat/mortar pyra or junker and whatever Zill feels like taking. I think the stratification of weapon ranges might lead us back to some asymmetrical loadouts, which can be pretty fun.
That said, the gat and mortar nerfs does feel a tad bit excessive. Not end of the world excessive, mind you. In the games I played brawling was still viable and prevalent. The kill power of the mortar is acceptable, though I do miss having enough shots to help with armor breaking and being able to lob long range shots for fun and profit. I'll need to stop relying on lesmok so much, but I should have weaned myself off that a while back anyways. I wouldn't mind seeing a few more shots or a bit more range.
I've always thought the range on the gat was surprisingly long. It was nice since a knowledgeable gunner could start firing before the enemy (usually also a gat mortar of some kind) realized they were in range. It feels a bit too short to me now, but that's possibly just a case of needing time to adjust. The more ammo/less damage change was... interesting? I'll need to play a bit more to really tell, but it just felt a tad underwhelming. Maybe I need to adjust to and account for the slower stripping, but I'm worried that even at shorter ranges gat might be outclassed by hades.
These were just initial impressions. I may return once I've had more than two days to play around with the patch.
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Recovering from disables aside (something monitoring very closely, rebuild modifiers will probably get revisited), there are a few things people are getting wrong here.
Every range is a valid one, that's the goal. As others have mentioned, each have their own risk reward to them. For example, long range weapons have fewer shots to compensate for the fact I am hitting you from across the map. This coupled with the enemy engineer's ability to rebuild/repair during your reloads makes it hard for snipers to get the actual kill. This is where teamwork can really help.
Another example is a brawler. You have a lot of ammo but closing in should be difficult. The enemy engineer's won't be able to repair/rebuild your DPS but it's an issue for you to get in range to be effective. This is where teamwork can really help. Not to sound like a broken record but brawling was previously extremely effective and therefore range skewed to close quarters—not ideal, a bell curve would be nicer.
Some changes, admittedly, are heavy-handed. However, it's much easier to over shoot the line and inch back up to it rather than forever trying to find the line in the first place. By hearing the voice of the community, I can find that line much more easily. Except that this time around, a lot of people are taking it very personally. Please remain calm, courteous, back up your findings with methodical examinations of the problem at hand. Only then can I reproduce those cases and test them to find alternative solutions.
I don't believe any one strategy has been negated at this point. There are more now. Is gat/mortar too difficult to pull off now? Maybe. Will other weapons shine? Yeah, I hope so. Will other weapons become OP? I hope not, and I hope these changes collapse the decision space in another way. Please have a conversation with me and work together. Muse has our own design goals and what we know to be a good game. You have your own ideas of what fun is. They can work together. We're willing to work with you but are you willing to work with us?
Finally, after all the drudgery, there have been a few suggestions here and there that I will consider and test. Here are a list of things that I am testing. There is no guarantee which ones will make it in.
- Increased piercing dmg on gatling (and therefore lower clip size to maintain dmg/clip ratio)
- Increased shatter dmg on gatling and perhaps carronade (giving close range weaponry some disabling on the distance close)
- Reduced chance of fire on Hades
- Increased arming time on Hades
- Faster rebuilds on guns and engines
and further in the future:
- New gunner skills that will further augment gun usage cases (think of it this way: each vanilla gun has its own particular area where it's most effective in. Some ammo already push it outside of it's effective area. New ammo will expand on this idea, perhaps push guns even further outside their intended use case)
And seriously, we don't have a QA team. AAA QA teams are huge. To be perfectly clear, you are our QA team. This is why poop hits the fan so much because we don't have adequate testing.
So... go apply for Dev App!
I DON'T LIKE POOP HITTING THE FAN IN PRODUCTION.
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I just read over this thread and holy hell, how are so many committed people getting so butthurt over a five point damage nerf. They're not discriminating against CQB. They're not discriminting againt the Wolfpack
god....
and AWKM I love you.
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Except a gunner is now functionally mandatory for the Mortar
And the problem with this is....
Also, to everyone who is like WELL I'M OUT a day after a new patch...
really? I mean.... really?
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The gunner is only mandatory for switch between close and longer ranges because he has more than 1 ammo skill to equip.
The community complained about gunners being useless... well, there you have it. We listened to the community :)
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[...]
- Increased shatter dmg on gatling and perhaps carronade (giving close range weaponry some disabling on the distance close)
[...]
- Faster rebuilds on guns and engines
Hmm... Interesting choices. If the Gat and Carronade did have more disabling ability it would help reward those who did get in up close with the ability to disarm the enemy ship so it would stop firing at them in close range and reward the brawler team with time to actually use up the large ammo clips they have. It'd also give a reason for Long-range teams to play keep-away with a team that has a Gatling or Carronade (Carronade is already my worst nightmare since it glues me to a balloon... ;A;). Sounds fair on paper. Needs to be tested!
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Except a gunner is now functionally mandatory for the Mortar
And the problem with this is....
Thank you Imagine, I'm glad somebody pulled this up.
Also, to everyone who is like WELL I'M OUT a day after a new patch...
really? I mean.... really?
I just read over this thread and holy hell, how are so many committed people getting so butthurt [...]
I know right? Anybody would think this was Muse's Final Patch before calling it a day.
Thanks for weighing in awkm and it's so good to hear you're trying to keep the 'decision space' as open as possible because, quite frankly, I get so tired of seeing the same safe builds over and over again. I'll always be glad to see more diversity and creativity, and viable diversity at that.
As I said in the pilot thread: while there are no direct pilot changes, pilots are going to have to dramatically alter the way they fly because of the range cuts. Gat/mortar pyra and blenderfish/pyra captains are going to have to think twice before simply charging an enemy down; brawlers are going to have to be a lot more creative and work even closer with their teammate(s) to approach enemy ships, and that can only be a good thing as far as I'm concerned.
I don't want to comment on the changes themselves just yet but I'm fully behind the reasons for them, even if the line is overshot now and then and some changes have to be dialled back -- you gotta break some eggs to make an omelette right? -- so keep up the good work awkm and co.
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Also, to everyone who is like WELL I'M OUT a day after a new patch...
really? I mean.... really?
So much this Lol.
And I actually relish the fact that it actually takes skill to mortar now.
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Ach. Ninjad but yep.
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Let's not try to pick fights here.
If Wolf decides to leave, that's their decision. Although I recommend waiting for another week. Same goes to everyone who decided to leave in the last three days. Patch JUST got pushed. There's always a hotfix based on initial reactions.
And again, you can get your voices heard earlier in Dev App.
DEV APP DEV APP!!! DOOO EEETTT.
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awkm,
I might not always agree with your decisions, but I greatly appreciate the direct response to my rather long-winded questions.
Thank you.
To anyone who doesn't understand why COx/WOLF/Duck is so extremely upset; basically every patch that has come out (i've only been here since 1.1) has nerfed our prefered and practiced playstyle. It gets to the point where it's just incredibly frustrating having to tweak and relearn the same tactics over and over because they weren't 'balanced'. I'd much rather have to learn to counter NEW guns/ships/ways to play, still using my brawling setups.
If you're just picking guns and ships to 'have fun', or intentionally picking setups outside the 'meta', you're not going to mind any of the changes. Hell, they're great for you. But if you're legitimately trying to destroy the competition EVERY MATCH, and your preferred play-style has ALWAYS been close-range brawler, its hard not to take it personally, even if it isn't meant that way.
And, to echo awkm;
SIGN UP FOR DEVAPP (http://steamcommunity.com/groups/GoIEC). Lets have our heated discussions in the DEVAPP forums, where people who aren't as invested in this game won't be there to shoot non-contributing reaction memes at us, or take jabs at our overly passionate perspective. ;)
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Skipping all the noise to give my initial feedback.
Carronades feel like they should. I didn't mess with the light one much but it seemed to do as it should be, so i'll revisit if it's underwhelming.
Mortar feels fine. I didn't bother with lesmok and was able to kill with it (shooting it is harder but that's the point).
Gat. With the current changes in place, I think the best way to give it a touch more bite is a RoF buff. Gives more dps, lets you empty that clip, and doesn't involve messing with damage so then maybe someone would consider charged ammo vs just buffing it's damage. Other then that, I like it. Feels good.
Hades. Didn't mess with it much. Got shot with it though, and it surely like to let you know it's there. Didn't think it needed any buffs before, besides maybe the easier shooting.
To go on to Awkm's post:
- Increased piercing dmg on gatling (and therefore lower clip size to maintain dmg/clip ratio)
- Increased shatter dmg on gatling and perhaps carronade (giving close range weaponry some disabling on the distance close)
- Reduced chance of fire on Hades
- Increased arming time on Hades
- Faster rebuilds on guns and engines
-Try RoF before damage changes. Gat screams dps gun so give it the RoF to do it well.
-Maybe. I hope you only mean the light carro as the heavy already does enough.
-Sounds ok given its current state.
-Eh id rather see less fire chance vs more arming.
-An aspect of a disable fight is once you do get hit, you have to pick what to rebuild. I hope you mean a very slim cut in rebuild times else you will stamp out any indirect disable buffs that were added.
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Wait, are there actually teams that are leaving because they don't like a particular patch, like, one day after it was released? Oh, that's priceless.
Also, I'm really happy that a gunner is functionally required for a mortar. Don't see any negatives here.
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Just to clarify and defend Sammy's comment here real quick, since everyone now seems quick to jump down his throat about his comment:
Except a gunner is now functionally mandatory for the Mortar
This was a follow up to the preceding comment by Spud Nick, talking about the possibility of having a gunner on a gat:
I can see gunners being more useful on gatling guns now. Because of the damage nerf and how important it is to strip armor, having two other ammo types could give you the advantage.
Sammy was trying to say it'd be difficult to see a gunner on a gat when you essentially need a gunner on the mortar instead. The point was it would imply having two gunners, and I don't care how many nerfs or buffs happen, I doubt we'll ever see a day where one engi is sufficient on a ship, especially a brawler pyra! No one's saying a gunner on a mortar is a bad thing, it's exactly what awkm was striving for to make gunners have their place on even a brawler ship. We all accept this and appreciate this, if you read the comment in context you'd see he was saying you can't afford a gunner on a gat when there's already a gunner on a mortar.
C'mon, guys. Lets not be so quick to jump down each other's throats. Stop getting personal. Don't berate another squad for deciding to leave, it's their choice, Dragonmere pretty much summed up their whole reasoning. No need to mock them because of it, that's just low class.
And yes Sammy. Fowl! Glad someone caught it :P
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Except a gunner is now functionally mandatory for the Mortar
And the problem with this is....
Because in the context of what I was replying to they were saying a gunner is now mandatory for the gatling as well. As the game stands, two gunner necessary combos will not work. I would elaborate but you can read the post above mine.
To Awkm, IMO I would say buff the DPS of the Gatling for the best fix so either that ROF or damage. I would encourage though to keep it piercing. Specializing the gun as a hull destroyer as opposed to a partial hull destroyer and disabler weapon, helps keep the gun viable but also niche as not all would want that. Leave heavy clip carronades as the close range disable.
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from dragonmere:
To anyone who doesn't understand why COx/WOLF/Duck is so extremely upset; basically every patch that has come out (i've only been here since 1.1) has nerfed our prefered and practiced playstyle. It gets to the point where it's just incredibly frustrating having to tweak and relearn the same tactics over and over because they weren't 'balanced'. I'd much rather have to learn to counter NEW guns/ships/ways to play, still using my brawling setups.
If you're just picking guns and ships to 'have fun', or intentionally picking setups outside the 'meta', you're not going to mind any of the changes. Hell, they're great for you. But if you're legitimately trying to destroy the competition EVERY MATCH, and your preferred play-style has ALWAYS been close-range brawler, its hard not to take it personally, even if it isn't meant that way.
that was really nice to read! thank you :3
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awkm could you please make the usage and win % stats of all ships and load outs available to us please? I'm very interested in some actual numbers on this thanks.
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My general impression of the patch is that kills are occurring much slower either because we haven't figured out the new meta or there has been an overall drop in weapon lethality. Because of this it seems to be harder for one very well run ship to carry a team. Now in a 1v1 the ships could trade blows for much longer without either side scoring a kill. Back when gat morter in the hands of skilled operators could bring down a ship in 2 clips (1 clip if they were lucky) a single ship could dominate a server so long as their ally could distract the enemy enough to prevent 2v1's for an extended period of time. The game seems more reliant on two ships focusing the same target than before since the damage output of one ship is no longer sufficient to score a kill against good engineers.
I admit to being a little butt hurt over this. It was a terrific feeling joining a lobby and taking over a ship whose captain rage quit because the other side was stacked. Then training a low level crew up to the point we could beat the stacked team. However without the cooperation of the other captain a well trained crew does not seem sufficient to bring victory any more.
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I would just hate for all of these decisions to be based off of conjecture and anecdotal evidence
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However without the cooperation of the other captain a well trained crew does not seem sufficient to bring victory any more.
I actually really like this. I feel that teams should have to play together to achieve victory. Yes, it leads to some annoying games with captains who won't cooperate or even communicate, but I wholeheartedly support a decrease in one ship's ability to single-handedly earn a victory.
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I'm taking a break, for sure. And for the record, while the constant brawler-nerfing (and how unhappy it makes our captains) is a factor, just as big a factor is the tone of this thread. For the millionth time, when the Wolves were winning, it was actually because of how much we played together (hours a day), how well we understood each other, and how much fun we were having as people who enjoyed one another's company. Implying otherwise (or stating it directly, if you're a real charmer) is really a pretty nasty conversational gambit and demeans the effort we put into the game for the joy of it.
I've loved this game since beta. I am not a "hardcore" gamer by any stretch of the imagination. I usually favor MMOs, big sprawly things like Civilization, or odd little puzzle/strategy games. I like to tinker and explore.
What kept me coming back here was the people. And many of you are obviously as funny/laid-back/witty/cool as you ever were. I wish you joy. But my clan and I have been called cheaters, exploiters, uncreative meta-build "run straight at 'em" types and other thinly-veiled euphemisms for meatheads about as much as I can stomach for right now. I'm a real person and these are my real friends. This is becoming a really unpleasant way to spend my leisure time. The tone is headed downwards, and not just in the forums. At the very least I need a break from it.
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Mod side again.
This thread is for guns and gunner skill balance. Please keep things on topic. Thanks.
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back on topic, can we get those usage statistics that I know we are working off of?
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Talking about the tone of the topic is on-topic, thanks. That's how conversation works. If conversation becomes impossible because the community has become vicious, then I get to point that out.
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Talking about the tone of the topic is on-topic, thanks. That's how conversation works. If conversation becomes impossible because the community has become vicious, then I get to point that out.
That's probably a better conversation to have in another thread.
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Guys. Let's talk about guns OK?
I like how the tracers for the gat aren't completely misleading anymore. Props to Muse for that.
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Looking at the gat, I'd say a RoF increase along with a bit of a damage buff would do the trick. I'm thinking old gat fire rate (6.25/s) and 8 piercing per shot. If that's a little too much, the clip size could be scaled down slightly.
As for the Hades, I'd like to see it go back to 40 piercing and have maybe 200m arming distance.
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Talking about the tone of the topic is on-topic, thanks. That's how conversation works. If conversation becomes impossible because the community has become vicious, then I get to point that out.
This thread is specifically for guns and gunner skill balance, not the tone of anything. If you have an issue with that, feel free to PM the appropriate parties or send an email to abuse@musegames.com.
Thanks.
Looking at the gat, I'd say a RoF increase along with a bit of a damage buff would do the trick. I'm thinking old gat fire rate (6.25/s) and 8 piercing per shot. If that's a little too much, the clip size could be scaled down slightly.
As for the Hades, I'd like to see it go back to 40 piercing and have maybe 200m arming distance.
Id rather try RoF without touching the damage. I like the larger clip since it open up a lot of ammo potential.
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Yeah, RoF should definitely be the focus. Now that I think of it, it already gets a pretty good edge over the Hades in terms of damage per clip, so getting it to unload quicker is more important.
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Yup. For the Hades, the fire stacks was the only thing that bugged me since now one can hit with it rather consistently. Taking away some of that fire % will lower the dps on its own. As for the arming, Im still on the fence.
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@Churrosaur
That's only because I increased the muzzle speed on the gat by a crap ton.
If your post does not have any suggestion on how the game can be tweaked for the better given its current changes, then I have to ask you to please redirect your messages to the appropriate board or thread.
Here are things that I find helpful:
- You have read and understand the aims of this round of changes
- You have played several matches with a particular aim in mind
- You come back and describe your aim, what you experienced, and how that what you would have preferred given the aims of this round's changes. Exact changes aren't necessary, even a feeling or a type of strategy is fine. In fact, descriptions of the perfect scenario are better than exact changes.
- You keep an open mind and understand that I am listening to you
- You keep an open mind to your fellow players and are courteous and professional
Keep in mind that your thoughts are valid and I do take everything under consideration. This is a give and take. I can't get everything I want because I listen. You can't get everything you want because well... it's my game :) But seriously, I do take this very seriously so help me out. Please.
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@Zill: The issue I see with the current arming distance is that it allows the gun to be used up close anyways. 150 is really small, and if you load greased it's only 120, allowing it to be brawly. That makes the gun a bit too versatile, seeing as it can also hit from 1000+m out.
Fire stacks on the other hand I'm unsure about. I've always felt that chem spray was a great counter to the Hades, so if chem gets "fixed" (I still prefer it over the extinguisher on my hull, but that's not a discussion for this thread) we could see the fire stacks issue being handled.
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The fact that disable builds are more useful now after this patch is a big step in the right direction. In higher lvl play disabling was not as important because you could just simply kill your target.
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I'm probably gonna have to stick this in here again, but seriously, for those of you who do not like the changes in this patch, then you should seriously get on board with the Dev App, seriously it's much easier to catch, discuss, and/or change these things while still in development. I also haven't had a chance to play around since the patch came out, I've been rather busy but I'll take a look at it this weekend if I can.
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@Sunder: Yea I can see the merit in the arming time increase. I usually have an engie on a hades and just use vanilla for the "short" engage. Id still want to keep it under that of light flak. And as we saw with the carronade range changes that 50m really does make an impact.
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I'm probably gonna have to stick this in here again, but seriously, for those of you who do not like the changes in this patch, then you should seriously get on board with the Dev App, seriously it's much easier to catch, discuss, and/or change these things while still in development.
I'm finding myself quite satisfied with much of this patch and I still got on board with the Dev App, as this eruption of opinion made me want to get a bit more involved. :)
Anyway...
Opinions from today's gameplay
Mortar still feels fine, even with the severe reductions to clip and range. The new hitboxes are SO much more reliable: it's amazing.
Two major concerns. The first is the Gatling: I like the new shorter range, but I didn't actually feel threatened by the gun. There were a few times today that I feel we really should have had our armor torn to pieces, and ended up just fine. I do think it needs a RoF increase or a damage increase, but I do, after today's experimenting, like the fact that it's strictly a close-range weapon currently.
I'm very concerned, however, by one side effect of the hitbox change. It seems that gun hitboxes are blocking line of sight for marking enemy ships. I found it almost impossible to mark enemy ships from the front gun of the junker, as the larger gun hitbox appeared to be interfering with what appeared to be a clean line of sight. Is this just some glitch on my end, or have others discovered this issue as well? It's really inconvenient, and severely messes up the flow of the game, as I can no longer easily mark a ship between reloads: I actually have to move a decent distance to avoid having the gun hitbox "block" my line of sight even though the target ship is completely visible to me.
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So I flew a Pyramidion today using double Artemis front and Gat-Mortar side. On approach, I was able to successfully disable a traditional Gat-Mortar Pyramidion and close into range rather easily. From there, setting up a trifecta with the gat-mortar-artemis was difficult, but not impossible, and I had a lot of fun with the challenge. The Artemis was able to keep the enemy ship partially disabled which allowed for my main engineer to quickly take a short break and unleash the mortar as the hull armor went down. Timing and coordination was critical, as well as positioning. It was hard to take down the other Pyramidion, but it was FUN. I felt like this was an actual brawl and not just stomping out a lesser experienced pilot in a matter of seconds. The other Pyra learned to combat this style after a couple rounds, and started using different strategies to which I also had to adapt to, neither of which were cut-and-dry winning strategies, so many possibilities and options were put on the table for the other team. This I feel is an awesome outcome of the new patch.
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I found it almost impossible to mark enemy ships from the front gun of the junker, as the larger gun hitbox appeared to be interfering with what appeared to be a clean line of sight.[/color] Is this just some glitch on my end, or have others discovered this issue as well?
It does seem to be worse. I've always had an issue marking ships, even ones that were out of the clouds and in the clear. However, if the hitboxes for weapons and especially the balloon can block LOS for marking then it would probably explain what I've seen. Now that gat tracers are fixed (woot! Go Muse!) I think this is going to be my new pet peeve that drives me crazy.
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hey can someone please post the usage and win % of each ship please? i would love to see the stats on this
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hey can someone please post the usage and win % of each ship please? i would love to see the stats on this
I don't know anything, but is this an actual stat we can look at?
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hey can someone please post the usage and win % of each ship please? i would love to see the stats on this
I don't know anything, but is this an actual stat we can look at?
I hope so otherwise what are we basing our decisions of what is "over used" off of?
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I'm very concerned, however, by one side effect of the hitbox change. It seems that gun hitboxes are blocking line of sight for marking enemy ships. I found it almost impossible to mark enemy ships from the front gun of the junker, as the larger gun hitbox appeared to be interfering with what appeared to be a clean line of sight. Is this just some glitch on my end, or have others discovered this issue as well?
Nope, you're not the only one, I've had major troubles spotting as well due to gun hitboxes being too big, like, Galleon with no cloud cover out in the open and couldn't spot it bad. Isn't there a way to just make your own ship's hitboxes not block your line of sight, or to be blunt your spyglass's "shots" :P
As for the Galting, what I suspected in my first few games was actually correct and I got a feel for it first hand after playing Hull engi on a Junker as well, I could EASILY keep the armor up with a Spanner, no need to even use the Mallet against the current Gatling, it's seriously THAT bad.
I suggest, like the others, that its RoF be increased soon as well as a slight boost to damage, like 0.5 more damage or something.
The Light Carronade felt okay on my Junker for the fights I played, but mind you that 'okay' for me means meh for most, it's not that good and I feel the need to nerf it further than the range it had in 1.2 severely hampers its ability to be used offensively, on a Junker it's fine cause if they are close, they are probably the ones that came to you so range isn't as much of a factor there, but for its offensive use, every single meter counts, same goes for the Heavy Carronade, I'd like to see both of these weapons' ranges be adjusted back to their original values in 1.2, 350 and 450 respectively.
Also, since its been brought up, reduced rebuild times for anything but light guns is something I'd prefer jumping into a bottomless pit to avoid seeing. Disabling a Galleon's guns is a primary way of brawly teams to close distance a bit more safely, every second counts and the Galleon seriously DOESN'T need more help than it already got, please reconsider of even thinking about doing that, the weakness of any heavy gun bearing ship has always been disabling its easy target of a gun, anything that substracts from that weakness is a no-no in my book.
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The gat works fine, although it could use a better rate of fire (RoF). It really comes down how fast Muse wants the armor to be shredded by the gun.
For disabling weapons, the time it takes to rebuild components could be cut down a little. A good shot can keep the ship more or less disabled completely. Waiting for them to rebuild it, then slapping it down again. A good pilot can avoid a lot of disables of course, flying low to let the balloon soak up shots, using items to create sudden movements forward, backwards, up/down to dodge them, flying high above to stay out of the artemis arc, etc.
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I thought rebuild times were increased awhile back because it was to easy to rebuild them after a disable.
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I managed to jump on the gatling last night for the first time since the patch and I've got to say, it feels a lot better with the new muzzle flash and tighter firing cone (presumably that's to do with the way raycast weapons are handled now?). It just seems tighter and punchier. As for whether it is or not, I'm not sure because I didn't get to test many ammo types with it. The bigger clip definitely opens up a bunch of possibilities with regards to ammo. Of all the changes suggested for this gun I'd be happy with increased RoF because knowing how it feels now that would make it even more satisfying, especially with the bigger clip. And besides, that's kind of what gatlings should be all about.
As for the engagement distances/range cuts I'm really liking the paradigm shift. (I'm not sure whether this belongs in this thread or the pilot thread to be honest.) I've been playing with/against a very well crewed Valiant sniper Spire the last couple of nights. I was part of their crew, I played against them as crew on other ships with different builds, captains and approaches, and as a captain on my own Mobula with randoms and with friends. What I've quickly realised (and I suspected as much when I read the changes) is that you really have to be inventive and use everything at your disposal to close the distance between you and the sniper. I'm sure this has always been the case against good snipers anyway but the closer brawling changes coupled with the Spire buffs really highlights how (much more) important your approach is now. It was pretty much a case of 'stay out of the sight of the Spire' because they were that good at popping ships out the sky. (Now to face a well crewed Galleon...)
On Paritan Rumble it reminded me of good ol' The Sentinel on the Spectrum, avoiding the deadly gaze of the sentinel (the Spire) watching over the map by keeping low but working your way slowly towards it to deal the killer blow. That's Paritan Rumble. On Battle of the Dunes however, there isn't so much obvious cover so we had to start moving along the dunes, amidst the wreckages and through the moving clouds, and risking the cover of sandstorms. We had to be opportunistic but careful and sly. Telling our teammate to 'avoid the Spire: you'll die if it sees you' and them learning the hard way meant that they started trying the same tactics. There was something incredibly satisfying about traversing the map out of sight only to park ourselves inside a sandstorm directly behind both enemy ships to lay waste to them. They didn't see us coming. One of the best moments I've had with GoIO so far without a doubt.
The thing is, while this quality may not be a direct result of the patch (the Spire was still a pretty solid sniper before) -- and I'm sure many here already do stuff like this for higher level play -- the range cuts are going to seriously highlight it for pub games and compel more players to utilise more of what's on offer -- different ships, gun loadouts, ranges, arcs, ammo types, the environment, altitude, teammates, communication, timing.
I can also vouch for the sighting difficulties.
While I do love the Hades cannon, in the hands of my gunner before the patch it was pretty devastating so now coupled with its increased piercing damage and projectile speed, and its range flexibility (greased or indendiary for short, lesmok for long) it might very well become the go-to gun for a lot of different builds. Having said this, my gunner's very good with it so I've no idea how effective it is in the hands of others on different ships.
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Meant to add that the reduced jitter on the gat seems to make lesmok viable now as you close in, without putting heavy out of a job. I'm betting heavy would be great for surgically shattering certain components, what with its increased clip size, before focusing the hull. Charged, greased, heat-sink, incendiary -- I think they might all have a place now with the gat.
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I just got my first win as a pilot in the Pyramidion with Hades and Light Flak. The Hades having a faster projectile speed really helped make it more reliable to score a hit. If the enemy just rushes you, or if your partner is wont to abandon you like a Squid then light flak just doesn't have the damage output, Hades + Gat worked fairly well (banshee side and shotgun rear). We played with incendiary on the Gat and it seemed to work really well. Maybe not against experienced crews but at the lower levels Hades is really good. People have trouble prioritizing repairs and fire fighting.
Not sure what to do as a Goldfish now though, I am really messed up by the time I shoot down their balloon and the other guns don't seem to have killing power.
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good feedback guys! hey I was wondering awkm, can you please post the usage and win % stats for each ship please? I would really like to see the hard numbers on this.
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good feedback guys! hey I was wondering awkm, can you please post the usage and win % stats for each ship please? I would really like to see the hard numbers on this.
I'm not sure how much these numbers will actually help. We'll be looking at the entire spread of skilled and unskilled players (with a skewed number of Goldfish and Pyras due to beginner games), ship popularity varies by ship based on ease of use, necessity of a skilled crew, and so forth, and even then we'd still have to account for gun choice, gun placement...and that's still not very accurate, as it's all crew dependent in the end.
It'd be interesting, certainly, but I don't think those numbers are particularly good to work with unless we see some really skewed win rates for certain ships or guns.
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good feedback guys! hey I was wondering awkm, can you please post the usage and win % stats for each ship please? I would really like to see the hard numbers on this.
I'm not sure how much these numbers will actually help. We'll be looking at the entire spread of skilled and unskilled players (with a skewed number of Goldfish and Pyras due to beginner games), ship popularity varies by ship based on ease of use, necessity of a skilled crew, and so forth, and even then we'd still have to account for gun choice, gun placement...and that's still not very accurate, as it's all crew dependent in the end.
It'd be interesting, certainly, but I don't think those numbers are particularly good to work with unless we see some really skewed win rates for certain ships or guns.
from what I understood the use of pyras were so skewed and dominant something "had" to be done. I just wanted to see the numbers to prove that, and hopefully to keep us informed on decision making moving forward. I would hate to think that these stats are not recorded and we have been making choices based on our anecdotal experiences.
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They're recorded, but afaik, never released because that sort of stuff really doesn't have anything to do with us.
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I feel obliged to give my pov of the hades as it's my favourite gun since it was released.
So i've played some matches with it and this is what i think of it atm tbh:
It shoots with very little drop now and the ammo feels faster. With greased and lesmok it's a close/medium to medium/long like range weapon. You can hit very far with it if you get the drop right. I would like if the following changes to make it feel right for me (in general something in between before and after patch) :
- slightly slower ammoflight time. The fireballs feel just slightly too fast.
- the arc on burst and heavy is so similar to lesmok i can't see the different. i don't have to adapt to a dropchange with heavy or burst. Like before the patch and that filled in the gap between close and medium.
- greased is fine as is but the incendiary i haven't tried yet but in range i'd like it to be (from short range to long range) greased, charged, lochnagar, heatsink, incendiary, burst, heavy, lesmok. All with a slightly different yet noticable drop and arc.
With this it would be a compromise in between and feel better as hades. i like how the ironsight blocks the view a bit so the gunner has to become a bit creative when he fires on a ship flying to the left. :D
It may sound crazy to like the hades and want it nerfed back a little but i wouldn't want it to be a sniping weapon either.
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Played as a Junker last night. Artemis Front, and both right side slots. Gat mortar left side.
Problem is, there was absolutely 0 reason for me to go in and use my close range side. Every time I tried it, I found it too 'sloppy'. There is no good way to hold yourselves within ~450m of an enemy for the ~20-30sec it takes to strip armor now. So any time an enemy would engage, I would simply back out and snipe. Played the entire match in reverse. Actually found the Artemis to be a better weapon as we escaped from the closer encounters.
To me that's a problem. If my ship has a mid/long range side, and a close range side, the benefit of getting in close to use the close range side should be a quicker kill, correct? It's not there. No reason whatsoever to try and use actual piloting skill to 'get in there' and get a kill. Just sit back and snipe snipe snipe.
The way the expanding hit boxes on shots appear to work, combined with new gun hit boxes, the amount of disabling was too damn high. 2-4 components per clip of greased artemis. It was nearly as effective as the time Artemis got 'buffed' for 5 days.
Finally CA THomas jumped in on the other side and gave us a good run for our money on a gat/mortar/flame (?) pyramidion. Problem is, I seriously don't think his WEAPONS took down our armor. There was not a single time where our armor dropped and I felt like it was due exclusively to his shooting. Not once.
What did? Ramming. Constant ramming. Ramming from the pyramidion, and ramming from his junker ally. The match before that, I witnessed a goldfish ramming, excessively. I've seen galleon rams being used extensively too. Without a clear way to take down the hull armor at a close range, it appears ramming randomly is now the best option. I thought constant ramming was a bad thing, bad enough to take down a huge chunk of Pyra health and mass last patch?
And as far as making engagements last longer, and giving the defeated a sense of 'deserving' to have died; nope. First few matches last night I took Sniper Spire. 1 clip of merc, 2 clips of artemis, 1 clip of heavy flak, all at the same time, the enemy is down. They don't know what happened, and they never had a chance to react. This is of course, assuming the same level of competition where players used to be able to strip armor and health with 1 pass of gat/mortar. Same problem, different range.
These are all problems with what awkm said the aim of balance is, in my opinion. There was no requirement of ship positioning, no teamwork, no defined roles of long/medium/short. Just snipe sniper snipe, get engaged close quarters-nothing happens, snipe snipe snipe, get rammed.
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They're recorded, but afaik, never released because that sort of stuff really doesn't have anything to do with us.
We're the QA team. It does have to do with us. We need all the information possible to help make informed decisions.
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They're recorded, but afaik, never released because that sort of stuff really doesn't have anything to do with us.
so they are "relying on us" for feedback but our feedback shouldn't be informed? I don't know about you guys but if I am going to be lobbying for the changing of the mechanics of a game i would want all the info. especially if the basis of the change is something being over used. I would def want the numbers that proves that it is before I made any decisions.
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They're recorded, but afaik, never released because that sort of stuff really doesn't have anything to do with us.
We're the QA team. It does have to do with us. We need all the information possible to help make informed decisions.
Current stats really has no bearing on finding out potential bugs/problems with new changes. All it would accomplish is more complaining and/or arguing about what to change.
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Current stats really has no bearing on finding out potential bugs/problems with new changes. All it would accomplish is more complaining and/or arguing about what to change.
This is a balance thread, not a bug thread.
If the goal is to balance the distribution of weapon and ship usage, I really can't see any way this information wouldn't help us. awkm himself said we ARE the QA team. If we're talking a huge AAA budget studio, if the professional QA team went to the project head and asked for usage stats do you think they would be told 'Nah, you don't need those, get back to work'.
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Current stats really has no bearing on finding out potential bugs/problems with new changes. All it would accomplish is more complaining and/or arguing about what to change.
This is a balance thread, not a bug thread.
If the goal is to balance the distribution of weapon and ship usage, I really can't see any way this information wouldn't help us. awkm himself said we ARE the QA team. If we're talking a huge AAA budget studio, if the professional QA team went to the project head and asked for usage stats do you think they would be told 'Nah, you don't need those, get back to work'.
Uhhhh yeah. They would.
QA teams don't make balance changes. They're just there to make sure the current ones work as they should.
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when I was in beta with HoN (there was actually a time when that community was nice) I thought I was always fighting against a certain character in every match. I was ready to say that this chard needed to be nerfed but then I went to the stats and was surprised by how wrong I was. when I saw how average this specific character'a usage was and how mightily low his win % was I realized I and my team were doing something wrong because our loss % to that char was was abnormally hight to the rest of the community. so we asked around for tips and got better.
anyway for a multitude of reasons, for giving accurate feedback to the devs, for learning how to play the game better. these stats should be made available. I shudder to think though that they have possibly not been recorded.
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good feedback guys! hey I was wondering awkm, can you please post the usage and win % stats for each ship please? I would really like to see the hard numbers on this.
I'm not sure how much these numbers will actually help. We'll be looking at the entire spread of skilled and unskilled players (with a skewed number of Goldfish and Pyras due to beginner games), ship popularity varies by ship based on ease of use, necessity of a skilled crew, and so forth, and even then we'd still have to account for gun choice, gun placement...and that's still not very accurate, as it's all crew dependent in the end.
It'd be interesting, certainly, but I don't think those numbers are particularly good to work with unless we see some really skewed win rates for certain ships or guns.
from what I understood the use of pyras were so skewed and dominant something "had" to be done. I just wanted to see the numbers to prove that, and hopefully to keep us informed on decision making moving forward. I would hate to think that these stats are not recorded and we have been making choices based on our anecdotal experiences.
I trust that Muse as professionals would know enough not to make decisions based solely on anecdotal experiences. Also, I rarely see the developers release such stats to the public.
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good feedback guys! hey I was wondering awkm, can you please post the usage and win % stats for each ship please? I would really like to see the hard numbers on this.
I'm not sure how much these numbers will actually help. We'll be looking at the entire spread of skilled and unskilled players (with a skewed number of Goldfish and Pyras due to beginner games), ship popularity varies by ship based on ease of use, necessity of a skilled crew, and so forth, and even then we'd still have to account for gun choice, gun placement...and that's still not very accurate, as it's all crew dependent in the end.
It'd be interesting, certainly, but I don't think those numbers are particularly good to work with unless we see some really skewed win rates for certain ships or guns.
from what I understood the use of pyras were so skewed and dominant something "had" to be done. I just wanted to see the numbers to prove that, and hopefully to keep us informed on decision making moving forward. I would hate to think that these stats are not recorded and we have been making choices based on our anecdotal experiences.
I trust that Muse as professionals would know enough not to make decisions based solely on anecdotal experiences. Also, I rarely see the developers release such stats to the public.
most devs don't rely on its public for feedback as much as muse does
literally every single Moba does
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good feedback guys! hey I was wondering awkm, can you please post the usage and win % stats for each ship please? I would really like to see the hard numbers on this.
I'm not sure how much these numbers will actually help. We'll be looking at the entire spread of skilled and unskilled players (with a skewed number of Goldfish and Pyras due to beginner games), ship popularity varies by ship based on ease of use, necessity of a skilled crew, and so forth, and even then we'd still have to account for gun choice, gun placement...and that's still not very accurate, as it's all crew dependent in the end.
It'd be interesting, certainly, but I don't think those numbers are particularly good to work with unless we see some really skewed win rates for certain ships or guns.
from what I understood the use of pyras were so skewed and dominant something "had" to be done. I just wanted to see the numbers to prove that, and hopefully to keep us informed on decision making moving forward. I would hate to think that these stats are not recorded and we have been making choices based on our anecdotal experiences.
I trust that Muse as professionals would know enough not to make decisions based solely on anecdotal experiences. Also, I rarely see the developers release such stats to the public.
literally every single Moba does
They may release certain stats, but not all the ones you may be looking for. In any case, I really don't think Muse would make the decision to nerf Gat/Mortar Pyramidion because a few people on the forum said it was everywhere.
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For what u need stats or when percentages when the pyra with a gat mortar was one of the goto builds since beta? There had to be a debuff of this weapons. If it had to be this hard is arguable but a nerf was needed for a long time.
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I didn't see your edit in time. Even though Muse may listen to us more, but decisions still won;t be based off of anecdotal experiences. All those do is point them towards a particular problem where they'll invest time into investigating it and decide from there.
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I'm sorry for contributing to this problem with a single line at the bottom of a 7 paragraph post directly about gun/ship experience/balance but... what I believe to be a reasonable request for available information has been made. MUSE can respond to it or ignore it. This is not the place to argue about QA teams.
This is a gun/ship balance thread. Lets make a new thread if we really need to continue this discussion.
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I'm sorry for contributing to this problem with a single line at the bottom of a 7 paragraph post directly about gun/ship experience/balance but...
This is a gun/ship balance thread. Lets make a new thread if we really need to continue this discussion.
hey guys good feedback! can i see the usage and win % of boats and gat/mort and other set ups please I need it to be able to give balance suggestions intelegently*
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I'm sorry for contributing to this problem with a single line at the bottom of a 7 paragraph post directly about gun/ship experience/balance but...
This is a gun/ship balance thread. Lets make a new thread if we really need to continue this discussion.
hey guys good feedback! can i see the usage and win % of boats and gat/mort and other set ups please I need it to be able to give balance suggestions intelegently*
They're recorded, but afaik, never released because that sort of stuff really doesn't have anything to do with us.
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PM Awkm if you want those stats Maverick. We need to quit derailing this thread else it's just not going to give the proper feedback.
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We don't give out anything to % usage or wins. Yes, we rely on our player base to give us feedback but at the same time you guys are players so its Muse's responsibility to keep your experience intact. Numbers will ruin it. This is why games aren't as fun as they used to be for me. It's because I know the trade secrets. We don't want you to play the numbers game because that's not the game we're trying to design here. I'd like to keep that line there as much as possible.
I will tell you, however, that based on our information the usage of gat/mortar was discouragingly high. However, this was not the only number we looked at. It was actually one of the last. A lot of things we needed to look at aren't easily recorded by numbers, in fact. Because the changes to gat/mortar was a multi-pronged attack on several kinds of problems, the numbers only nailed the coffin shut in what we knew had to be changed already. The strategy is still viable but as many have noted already it is a little more challenging to pull off.
Basically what I'm saying here is, please trust me in this effort to make the game better. I'm honestly not trying to eff any of you over and that there was good reason for this change as many have already started to discover on their own.
Great feedback coming in.
This leads into needed revisions to Gatling, which are up on stage. RoF has been increased for testing. Also some reduced fire on Hades. More details in Dev App forum board.
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thanks again eric for your constant interaction and relationship you have clearly worked hard to build with us the players.
its just hard for me to participate in conversations with everyone who is giving experiential data and basing their feedback off of said data when i dont share the same data with them. i think if you were to share the hard numbers on simply usage % and win % of ships it would ease the frustration of players who feel like they arent being heard.
currently i feel like i am not being listened to because i am saying, "i dont feel like i face pyra's SO often that it is worth changing." and in response all i get is basically, "yes you are, trust me." what is happening is through under-sharing data you are accidentally making it hard for some of us to feel valued/heard and therefore harder for us to just "trust you".
think of the alternative: "i dont understand why you keep nerfing the pyra! it is ALREADY underused and never wins!" with hard numbers that person could see that in general this isnt true they would then be able to join in the solution of a problem they are now convinced DOES exist as opposed to continuing to argue a point because they are not feeling heard.
but again this is YOUR game i just am feeling bummed because the game i helped kick-start (twice now! yay for adventure mode!) seems to becoming a game that i feel like i have no say in. if the reason i havent been listened to is because im wrong id like KNOW that i am, not just reassured that i am, that's all.
thanks again man i fully realize you dont HAVE to respond to anything any of us say so the fact that you do is awesome!
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It's not just the Praymidion though. I was entertaining the idea of bringing back some rotation speed to the Pyramidion, but those changes take a little bit longer to calculate. Don't worry, I am trying to listen to everyone here. I've been trying to reassure everyone that feedback is being heard and is being taken into account.
We know what's causing the spotting difficulties. For now, if you stand well away from a gun or engine (their interaction region) you should be able to spot. We're working on that right now.
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making the pyra more nimble would help a LOT... or bringing it's ram back...(but let's be honest you don't like ramming as a weapon very much)
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I'm perfectly fine with ramming... now that approaches are trickier.
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I'm perfectly fine with ramming... now that approaches are trickier.
o dude quit playing games with my heart!
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Well I do remember them collecting and revealing some of that information during the beta period. I'm certain they still collect it, but asking for it repeatedly won't help. For the most part, it's completely unnecessary in this discussion.
As for the match Dragonmere mentioned, it was a gat/mortar front combo with a lovely little flamer/carronade on the left side. A pretty standard old school brawler. And the gatling may not have singlehandedly stripped the armor, but I believe that was part of the intention of the patch. The gat was just ridiculously powerful at stripping armor and keeping it down. Now it still does a great deal of damage, but has a harder time setting up those near instant kills. You have to get a little creative and use some other damage types to help get the armor down. Explosive weapons cause ships to go down alarmingly fast, so making it a little trickier to take out the armor leads to more interesting matches, relying to better teamwork on your ship and with your allies.
(I can see about uploading the video of that match if anyone is interested)
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ug88HO2mg44
ramming was always cool... so long as it doesn't take just a single ram as it did 2 months ago. Pyramidion was a fatty and had the mass to take most ships armor and good chunk of hull out without firing a single round.
This would have made this patch a disaster but I was also planning to nerf piercing vs. armor to make armor killing a little longer to create those more interesting approaches. Thank goodness Dev App users strongly suggested otherwise.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ug88HO2mg44
ramming was always cool... so long as it doesn't take just a single ram as it did 2 months ago. Pyramidion was a fatty and had the mass to take most ships armor and good chunk of hull out without firing a single round.
This would have made this patch a disaster but I was also planning to nerf piercing vs. armor to make armor killing a little longer to create those more interesting approaches. Thank goodness Dev App users strongly suggested otherwise.
glad you picked up on my reference! nah I think the damage ramming does could see a SMALL buff maybe but mainly what I want to see is ramming do more as far as knocking ships off their spot and arcs... so not a much about damage as about transferring of inertia
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ramming was always cool... so long as it doesn't take just a single ram as it did 2 months ago. Pyramidion was a fatty and had the mass to take most ships armor and good chunk of hull out without firing a single round.
Random thought: what if ramming didn't threaten the hull and the armor in the same strike (which I believe it does now)? You could have high damage rams, but you'd ether need to have armor stripping and make sure you hit when the armor is down, or have hull-killing and hit them early. If having ANY armor at all absorbed the full ram with the armor (with any excess damage being lost), damage ramming would require a lot more coordination and finesse.
Unless I'm forgetting things and it already works this way.
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ramming was always cool... so long as it doesn't take just a single ram as it did 2 months ago. Pyramidion was a fatty and had the mass to take most ships armor and good chunk of hull out without firing a single round.
Random thought: what if ramming didn't threaten the hull and the armor in the same strike (which I believe it does now)? You could have high damage rams, but you'd ether need to have armor stripping and make sure you hit when the armor is down, or have hull-killing and hit them early. If having ANY armor at all absorbed the full ram with the armor (with any excess damage being lost), damage ramming would require a lot more coordination and finesse.
Unless I'm forgetting things and it already works this way.
it kinda works that way already...
but I heartily disagree that a pyra could do that to "most ships" pre nerf. it could do it to a spire a mobula and sometimes if the angle was right a squid. but ALL of those ships are glass ships and are intentionally designed to be squishy... galleons Junkers Goldies and other pyras were just fine after a ram.
but I digress, I like my inertia idea I hope you do too!
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Yes, inertia is transferred correctly. However, since ships have such large masses it doesn't seem like that much from the point of reference of when you're on a ship.
Impact damage modifiers can be tweaked so that less damage can be done to armor... but not sure if I want to play around with that since Mine Launcher uses impact and is also a unique armor killer.
Try rams with long runs with moonshine. Holy crap.
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Ramming doesn't need to be touched. Want to ram gun arcs off? Hit them at an angle. Plowing square into the side of a ship bigger than you (including mass) nets the proper result, which is not much unless hull armor is down.
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On the topic of the pyra's turning speed, I would appreciate an increse there. The pyra used to be my goto ship because its layout was better IMO than the Junker. It is important to me that every one on my crew gets to shoot and the Pyramidion Trifecta was my favorite way of accomplishing this. After the turn rate was reduced maintaining the gat/gat/flack trifecta became too difficult and I swapped to the junker. The turn rate/momenutm was main reason for this swap. I still prefer the pyramididon on the because it gives me more options on the tactical level, but at the execution level it is a bit of a let down.
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Yeah not going to touch ramming or impact dmg.
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May not fit in here, but the sights on the LJ were screwed. The 2 is above the 1 now, which is just wrong. The numbers on sights of arcing weapons represent the distance a target should have when you put it on that row. (Even small firearms with scopes have those). The smaller number represents a smaller distance, so you dont have to point the gun as high as if the target was further away.
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I'll double check with the artists if the LJ was changed.
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Regarding LJ sights:
https://scontent-b-iad.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/67382_350753875025148_1316376340_n.jpg
This was actually a sight sent to us from a player who is part of the US military. He was kind enough to give us a sight from one of his weapons.
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Range finder for a 203, ahh, the memories of how terrible a shot I was with it.
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I don't think anyone was a good shot with that.
That's the rear half of a sight system for the m203; the front half is the fixed post sight on the rifle. This is relevant because, unlike in a game, the shooters POV doesn't change, they put the front element on the target, and adjust the angle of the weapon so that the rear element matches the (horribly) guessed range.
In game, adjusting the angle of the weapon adjusts the shooters POV, meaning that to line up the shot to the appropriate range the numbers need to be inverted.
I hope that makes sense.
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Not quite sure if its been stated or not, but why not put in the disable changes/ hitbox changes in before the major changes to the gat/mort? The disable changes alone could have solved some of the "issues" that some people had with those weapons.
As others have stated, disable weapons are now over the top. Try greased rounds or burst out with artemis, it will wreak someone's day. No point even trying to go for a kill right now, just disable and fire away, sooner or later the artemis will finish it off.
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Yeah not going to touch ramming or impact dmg.
aw you DID play games with my heart
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Imho disable>kill being the easiest thing to accomplish is overall better for gameplay. A disabled ship has a chance to recover, a dead one that was gat/mort+rammed=explode does not. I've had plenty of situations where I was unable to keep someone pinned or likewise was able to escape and came around for revenge.
It can be frustrating, but ultimately it makes for a better competition. A 1hit KO in a boxing match is amusing to watch every now and then, but I doubt you would have satisfied spectators if that was what EVERY match came down to.
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I agree on the sight. As that is at back of the weapon it has the fixed sight up front so the more you lower the rear the higher range which is why compared to the LJ that number should be the other way around since no fixed front point but you need to lead on the height not the weapon itself.
If there were a fixed reticule up front on the LJ and the sight could be moved up and down (front and back keys) it would work like the sight on pic. Would be an ironsight weapon with adjustable range sight.
Gunner would still have to estimate the sideways movement lead.
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Awkm, you need to use a sight that is moved entirely and kept in line with the gunner for reference, not one where the relative position of eye to sight changes. Each scope of rifles would be suitable. If I remember correct, my G36 had a few orientation crosses, one for ~200m (the middle one), for ~400m, for ~600m and one for ~800m (which was the lowest). Other than that, sights on tank or ship cannons would be a better reference, since most of those move in line with the gunner too.
Other than that, do the bigger gun hitboxes make it harder to spot enemy ships? I know they make it harder to use certain shortcuts around the own ship, but I always assumed it was possible to spot through every part of the own ship.
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There has always been a bug with component hit boxes that deny you spotting. Now that they're bigger, it's just more obvious. This is being worked on.
Okay, sights are beyond my knowledge. I'll let the art director know what's going on. Seems like a few of you have expertise in using these actual weapons so we may ask for your input later.
Otherwise, I can't promise any fixes since these are purely aesthetic and are controlled by the artists who are currently very very busy doing the new Adventure mode teaser.
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:)
Here's a more detailed description. Note firing positions and firing at lower half of the page. http://www.inetres.com/gp/military/infantry/grenade/M203.html
This sight, the G3/Hk33 40mm Grenade sight, might be a more practical reference. http://www.dandbmilitaria.com/images/D/DSC00556.jpg
There you see the higher up on the sight the further it flies and drops so it can be aimed so get the ammodrop work hand in hand with the numbers.
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Hey guys,
Lets keep this thread about Gun balance, and discuss the sights here:
https://gunsoficarus.com/community/forum/index.php/topic,2796.msg47733.html#msg47733
Much appreciated
Shink
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Probably already poked at a bit, but the changes to the hades make it a far easier weapon to use. Even novice gunners should be able to plink away with it, and while it really shines at distance it still seems pretty effective in a brawl due to the RoF. I wonder if we'll be seeing devious things like burst or fire hades...
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I saw quite a lot "novice gunners" still fail as hard as only hitting one shot of their entire clip at ~500m... repeatedly and with different gunners.
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I'm horrendous with it but outside of a few weapons I am bad with most.
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Well, it does have a projectile speed compareable to that of a heavy flak, so I guess most people will have trouble shooting it well.
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In all honesty, though I was pretty catastrophic with the Hades in 1.3.2, I'm hitting reliably with it at mid to mid-long with greased now. It's gotten waaay easier to shoot.
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Personal honest thoughts on some of the guns atm.
Mercury field gun: Pretty boring feel to it. Way too easy to hit with. Suggest increase zoom for very long range, make it harder to hit midrange and give it a small recoil if possible. Then it would feel more interesting. Used it a full match and had no misses any range. Otherwise ok angle. Loading sound like sniper would be nice.
Echidna flak : might need just a little slight buff. feels a bit light for medium range.
Heavy flak : Feels powerful once you get hang of lead and ammotype drops. Takes some time to get used to.
Hades : still feel same way as earlier post.
Lumberjack : sight is fine. numbers correct way. O.o definately a experienced gunners gun.
Charged is ok on the other weapons, i think, but the hwatcha.
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I want to fill in my 2 cents as i see that im late for the discussion and a hefty debate.
The Hades is a bit too strong. It was allready good in terms of damage, it just needed to be easier to use. Now it is very strong and sorta negates the gattling.
But this is also where the gattling shines.
Alot of people seem to skip over usage over stats. For example: The mercury change when it was changed made it so that 2 ships with a mercury are sort of even. When the other ship is lower than its opponent it has an advantage because the Mercury Can aim up and not down. So by the time the other ship is even with the opponent, they have allready disabled their merc.
The opposite goes for the artemis as it cannot aim up. Now take the knowledge of how the gattling is seppoused to be used versus the hades.
The hades is easily dodged with the intention of dodging it. Specialy if you have a Mobula, Spire, Goldfish, Squid.
With this in mind, you now have a small idea on how to avoid it but still not combat it.
With gattling equipped and its changes, try and pry out the best of it with ammo changes. The best i found was actually a buffed greased gattling. Or just greased. Ok you have the DPS of the gattling down. Lets put it to use on a match versus longer range guns.
What ship do you have? What map is it? Choose the best tools and fight the weapons your fighting against with the weapons you have.
Close range with a Gattling up against a Hades renders the hades Obsolete! Because of its arming time ofc.
(btw my post is starting to sound more like a pilot thing)
But you are not alone. You have a teamate, how can you use your teamate to close in? Is there a way of grabbing attention?
Etc etc, it gets very indepth and all it needs is execution and no bad luck (Most executions of our get boched because one of us hit a terrain a bit too hard and lost a few nice seconds)
Being a very Anti-Pyra sense a very long time, i am now interrested on trying the pyra as it actually kills quicker. I mean, the gat nerf definetly nerfed the Pyra, but when the pyra gets close with a gat, it kills quicker than it did before, and most importantly much more fairly.
A pyra with gat and mort with an added ram just Slam Jams. Especially behind ships.
I have to honestly say that an ambushing pyra looks like the intended pyra.
Gattling on ships like the junker or the squid is actually alot better too. Think of the gattling as a hull flamethrower now.
And before, the gattling was almost mandatory if your doing hull fighting on any ship.
For the most part, greased is actually used now guys! And it is devestating. You shouldnt be using the mortar on hull armor anymore, that has to be timed now. The gattling will open the door for health. Just get in close.
TL;DR
Im just saying that the gat nerf that hit people hard is not hard, but please try and work a way around it. All ive seen almos is stat comparrisons. But the hades doing that damage is a bit excessive. 2 hadez shots is greater than 1 merc shot. A lesmok hadez has 6 shots leading to greater than 3 Mercury shots. And used on the baloon makes it too good.
There definetly has to be a tweak between the armor piercer weapons, but for now. Know that the gattling still is rocking hard if used correctly. It is different now.
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https://gunsoficarus.com/community/forum/index.php/topic,2763.msg48154.html#msg48154
- Gatling Gun: Decreased jitter to 2.25 degrees (from 3), increased rate of fire to 8.3 bullets/s (from 5b/s), increased clip size to 82 (from 80)
- Hades: Decreased direct hit chance of causing 1 fire charge to 25% (from 45%), Increased AoE hit chance of causing 1 fire charge to 40% (from 35%)
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I am replying to this before I've tested the hotfix and it is possible that the hot fix fixed this problem. also I'm not sure if you are writing this before or after the hot fix, if you are writing this BEFORE read on, if after ignore my statements because they are made out of ignorance. to say the the Gatling strips armor fastER now than previously is wrong. the stats prove you wrong and everyone's testing through experience says you're wrong. now again if you are referring to the new hot fix changes then to that I have no response yet.
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Well, post hot fix I'm a little concerned. The dps is certainly higher than post patch, but also higher than pre-patch as well.
Against armor:
pre-patch: 85 dmg/s (against armor, while firing) (60 dmg/s including reload)
post-patch: 66.25 dmg/s (while firing) (50.47 dmg/s including reload)
post-hotfix: 108.65 dmg/s (while firing) (72.43 dmg/s including reload) (Also appears to be 8.2 bullets a second and not 8.3, but my timing could be off)
It used to take 12 seconds to empty the clip, then after the damage drop and clip size increased it took 16; now it only takes 10.
I'm not entirely sure what happened there. The gun is now more accurate and strips armor faster than before; although the range is still less than pre-patch.
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Well, post hot fix I'm a little concerned. The dps is certainly higher than post patch, but also higher than pre-patch as well.
Against armor:
pre-patch: 85 dmg/s (against armor, while firing) (60 dmg/s including reload)
post-patch: 66.25 dmg/s (while firing) (50.47 dmg/s including reload)
post-hotfix: 108.65 dmg/s (while firing) (72.43 dmg/s including reload) (Also appears to be 8.2 bullets a second and not 8.3, but my timing could be off)
It used to take 12 seconds to empty the clip, then after the damage drop and clip size increased it took 16; now it only takes 10.
I'm not entirely sure what happened there. The gun is now more accurate and strips armor faster than before; although the range is still less than pre-patch.
EXACTLY!!! you MUST be MUCH closer but you actually get rewarded now! it is perfect!! i am sooo happy about this patch it is giving me tingles!
the best part? you have to WORK to keep that DPS up! without buff and the right ammo you will be severely underwhelming with your DPS.
this patch is doing what i have been hoping for since beta! specializing load-outs and making you work for the benefits! now close range is OP but only at close range and when you have spec'ed for it! for instance greased seems to be the best option at the moment which cuts your range even more! but it makes it far more devastating, but you have terrible turn arc and awful range! im so freaking pumped!
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[2 cents]I don't like 1.3.3. You've ruined brawling. Whatever your intentions have been when changing the balance, I think you've overshot quite a bit.
Frankly I'd like to see you guys stepping back to 1.3.2, which has been provided the best GoI experience by far for me, and evolve from there[/2cents]
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Do these sentiments include the recent hotfix?
I haven't really had a chance to check it out yet and curious if this is a reaction to that as well.
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No, I wasn't able to play today. I wonder how The gat change feels now - the numbers suggest it might be useful again when facehugging your opponent. Judging based on the changelog I do not see my major concern with the 1.3.3 sufficiently addressed though - the severe meddling with those weapons which have been efficient on mid-close range prior to the patch. With the significant nerf of both dps and range of gat, carro and mortar I really can't think of a build I feel comfortable with anymore when I'm in the mood for mid-close range brawls, which was the most joyful way to play GoI prior to the patch, imo.
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I really can't think of a build I feel comfortable with anymore when I'm in the mood for mid-close range brawls, which was the most joyful way to play GoI prior to the patch, imo.
Well isn't that a good reason to try new builds? That seems to be the whole point of these balancing chages, and i can tell you that without knowing the numbers, the gat seemed pretty useful again today.
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Do these sentiments include the recent hotfix?
The recent hotfix really helped cement the Gatling as a close-range armor shredder. It's brutally efficient at it: it actually gained DPS over it's old form, I believe, and heavy is no longer a requirement for maximum range shots.
As a result, it really does feel like a brawling gun: close range, devastating firepower against armor, but pretty ineffective at longer ranges.
I'm fully on board with the changes now.
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Brawlers have there dps back. Try a buffed greased gatling gun and watch the fireworks.
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I feel the gat correction was way overdone. It's essentially a laser now, melting armor insanely fast.
Pre-patch was 10 piercing/10 shatter, 5 bullets/s, 60 rounds (85 dmg/s against armor)
Post hotfix is 7.5 piercing/10 shatter, 8.2 bullets/s, 82 rounds (108.65 dmg/s against armor)
It would take just about the whole clip on a vanilla gat to destroy the pyra armor, even with someone fixing the ship. The same holds true now, but takes a few seconds less.
Then if you use greased rounds, you could take that time down to about 9 seconds. Now if you used greased with the post hot fix gat, you can bring the time down to just under 7 seconds.
Here's a short video of it in action:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnOV3THPSac
You can see them nuke down a pyra (with the help of their ally) then a galleon (a lot less help from their ally) and finally another pyra (all by themselves) in less than 2 minutes. Be aware that this is a highly skilled team, using greased rounds on the gat and buffing their guns (bringing the dps up to 166.88 dmg/s; and the time to kill the hull while someone is repairing it to just around 5 seconds.)
The old dps felt too high, and the last patch felt a little low, but these new numbers feel a little too intense. If you start getting hit first, you have almost no chance to maneuver away or recover.
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I feel the gat correction was way overdone. It's essentially a laser now, melting armor insanely fast.
Pre-patch was 10 piercing/10 shatter, 5 bullets/s, 60 rounds (85 dmg/s against armor)
Post hotfix is 7.5 piercing/10 shatter, 8.2 bullets/s, 82 rounds (108.65 dmg/s against armor)
It would take just about the whole clip on a vanilla gat to destroy the pyra armor, even with someone fixing the ship. The same holds true now, but takes a few seconds less.
Then if you use greased rounds, you could take that time down to about 9 seconds. Now if you used greased with the post hot fix gat, you can bring the time down to just under 7 seconds.
Here's a short video of it in action:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnOV3THPSac
You can see them nuke down a pyra (with the help of their ally) then a galleon (a lot less help from their ally) and finally another pyra (all by themselves) in less than 2 minutes. Be aware that this is a highly skilled team, using greased rounds on the gat and buffing their guns (bringing the dps up to 166.88 dmg/s; and the time to kill the hull while someone is repairing it to just around 5 seconds.)
The old dps felt too high, and the last patch felt a little low, but these new numbers feel a little too intense. If you start getting hit first, you have almost no chance to maneuver away or recover.
yes it is true a shotgun to the chest at point blank will kill you faster than a hand gun will! isn't that great!?!
it seems like you are upset that a close range weapon is good at close range, I am confuse by this complaint. show me a vid of a spire with dub howitzer and a heavy flak. are you gonna complain that it seems to be very powerful when it hits at range?
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yes it is true a shotgun to the chest at point blank will kill you faster than a hand gun will! isn't that great!?!
...this seems neither here nor there. Ships are not people, nor is Guns of Icarus balance a real-life firefight, so the metaphor rather falls apart. :P
Thomas has a good point when he mentions that the damage jump is pretty absurd. Going from 85dps down to about 63dps and up to 109dps is a pretty huge shift.
It seemed okay during the few games I've played today (hence my earlier post), but I'll have to keep an eye on it. The buff does seem a bit on the high side, at least on paper, but I haven't had enough experience with it to determine if I think it actually seems that high in-game. I wasn't specifically looking for it today, so that's something I'll have to keep an eye out for.
it seems like you are upset that a close range weapon is good at close range, I am confuse by this complaint.
There's a difference between saying "it's powerful at close range" and "it's TOO powerful at close range." Thomas is very clearly saying that he's afraid the latter situation may have occurred.
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the analogy is simply trying to point out that a point blank weapon should feel powerful, it should feel like putting a hole in somebody (like a shotgun).
you worked hard to close the distance, now that you have finally arrived you should be rewarded with DEVASTATING DPS.
to argue against this concept feels weird. It has been pointed out already how much more effective a LJ is than a caro and it can do it at triple the range. see a caro should be close to as many times effective as the other has range. because if i am sacrificing range i should receive DPS it only make sense! (or gain HP but cmon we are making things too complicated now!)
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to argue against this concept feels weird....because if i am sacrificing range i should receive DPS it only make sense!
The argument is that the reward might be too great.
Exaggerated example: take a close-range gun. Make it deal 0 damage per shot. It's underpowered. Not make it deal 10,000 damage per shot. It's overpowered. Somewhere in the middle is a sweet spot where that gun's damage is roughly balanced. The trick is finding that spot, and it's possible that they've overshot it on the side of too much damage.
Arguing against the concept of something being overtuned to be too strong isn't weird: it's what balancing mechanics REQUIRES.
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to argue against this concept feels weird....because if i am sacrificing range i should receive DPS it only make sense!
The argument is that the reward might be too great.
Exaggerated example: take a close-range gun. Make it deal 0 damage per shot. It's underpowered. Not make it deal 10,000 damage per shot. It's overpowered. Somewhere in the middle is a sweet spot where that gun's damage is roughly balanced. The trick is finding that spot, and it's possible that they've overshot it on the side of too much damage.
Arguing against the concept of something being overtuned to be too strong isn't weird: it's what balancing mechanics REQUIRES.
ok fair enough. i thought it was obvious i was not arguing FOR "OP unbalance" but rather contradicting the idea. since i see that i may not have communicated that very clearly allow me to restate things:
what im arguing is that; what he is complaining about is not "OP" but in fact simply balance, a kill taking a shorter period of time to accomplish at short range than long is exactly what "balance" should call for. if short range felt like it had EQUAL dps output as its ranged counter parts it would be unbalanced. close combat weapons should have ALMOST the same ratio of DPS to RANGE that Long Range weapons have. the more range that is given the less the DPS and vice a versa. (either that or ships that are designed to be close range should be given a lot more HP but this approach would be more convoluted and confusing.) so if the argument is that "a close range can kill in 10 seconds where it would take a long range 20" than it seems to me that the mechanic my actually be in the right place.
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Have yet to try the gat but from the sounds of it with range still limited it is now a powerful brawling gun with accuracy.
What the damage feels like will have to be tested properly in many matches.
I'm glad if the wolves are happy about this. The gat and pyra seem to be their "thing". Maybe now they have a chance to lick their wounds and enjoy their gamestyle again. I wouldn't make changes right a way. it needs more time and more feedback. :)
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Well the gat was too powerful and easy to use, hence the 'nerf' in the patch, reducing the range and damage, but increasing accuracy. This hot-fix basically countered that by making it hit even harder (more total damage per clip and higher dps), and made it even more accurate. If we're honest, range was never really an issue for the gat, ships would just charge in and start firing, continuing to close the distance until you could almost board the other ship. The range reduction just makes you wait a little longer before you start hitting them hard. But once you do get in that range, it's just shy of an insta-kill, especially in a high skill team.
In short; it feels too fast of a kill and made the patch more of a gatling buff than a nerf.
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Well the gat was too powerful and easy to use, hence the 'nerf' in the patch, reducing the range and damage, but increasing accuracy. This hot-fix basically countered that by making it hit even harder (more total damage per clip and higher dps), and made it even more accurate. If we're honest, range was never really an issue for the gat, ships would just charge in and start firing, continuing to close the distance until you could almost board the other ship. The range reduction just makes you wait a little longer before you start hitting them hard. But once you do get in that range, it's just shy of an insta-kill, especially in a high skill team.
In short; it feels too fast of a kill and made the patch more of a gatling buff than a nerf.
not true, the range on the gat is a HUGE deal. and it isnt a "little longer" it is TWICE as long! Now, (because of how BA my gat gunners are) i have not stripped your hull at 700m i have to wait till 350M to even start firing! (because im using greased which only makes sense now) if you havent disabled me or killed me by the time i have arrived that is my piloting being rewarded vs your shooting/piloting which is how it should be.
(and it goes without mentioning just because i am now within range does not stop your hwachas, arts, mercs, etc, from disabling me, or you from turning your brawler side on me)
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Have yet to try the gat but from the sounds of it with range still limited it is now a powerful brawling gun with accuracy.
What the damage feels like will have to be tested properly in many matches.
I'm glad if the wolves are happy about this. The gat and pyra seem to be their "thing". Maybe now they have a chance to lick their wounds and enjoy their gamestyle again. I wouldn't make changes right a way. it needs more time and more feedback. :)
thanks man i hope i can rally the troops and convince them that we arent going to get back into the game only to see them nerf "us" again...
extremely close range killing "is our thing", and since at the moment the only viable method to do this is gat/mort that is what we use. I would love if close range was given a new weapon, since we havent received anything new since month 3 of beta.
I used to fly a goldfish with heavy flak and flamers before they were both overhauled and the goldie was nerfed. then i used dub caro pyra until they changed the turning arc on it, then it was gat flak, and so on. in short, it isnt gat/mort that we love it is the play style those guns are used for.
give me new guns to play that way with and i will use them.
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Well, this patch does feel better. I'm not going to lie, The Cohort did not play last week because of the patch. It was bad, and 2-3 hour long sniper matches are no fun for us.
This patch makes brawling fun again, the key word here is fun. Is it balanced? I don't know. I still don't think a good brawling team would be able to beat a good sniper team on most maps. Personally, I would like to see the old gat back, but I will take what I can get right now. This game is still not balanced, but if this is the way forward, lets keep on going and make sure that brawling can be a counter to sniping. Both should be viable, both should have their pros and cons.
P.S. While we're on the topic of "OP" weapons, lets start taking a look at the Lumberjack and Artemis. Lumberjack makes the carronades worthless, and Artemis...well, its makes just about every other gun worthless, at-least in the pug matches.
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Lumberjack is pretty wicked, but it takes practice and skill to aim it properly. It does take out the balloon incredibly easy, especially after it's popped at least once. On the other hand, it's absolutely useless up close. The artemis is a great gun as well, super easy to use and has a good disable and fair amount of explosive damage. But like the lumberjack, it also has a fatal weakness, in that it can't look up well. I've played some matches where it absolutely dominated, and other matches where it got shut down hard. It really depends on the enemy pilots skill at evading, avoiding, and ultimately closing distance/getting out of the arc.
All that being said, the most 'OP' ship I've come across (on certain maps) is the spire with a lumberjack and the rest artemis. It can sink a ship and keep it pinned down and disabled until it explodes. However, if they do engage at a close range the ship will go down pretty fast. So I'm not entirely sure if it really is OP or unbalanced. Depends on the opponents I guess, as well as the ability of the gunners.
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Well, this patch does feel better. I'm not going to lie, The Cohort did not play last week because of the patch. It was bad, and 2-3 hour long sniper matches are no fun for us.
This patch makes brawling fun again, the key word here is fun. Is it balanced? I don't know. I still don't think a good brawling team would be able to beat a good sniper team on most maps. Personally, I would like to see the old gat back, but I will take what I can get right now. This game is still not balanced, but if this is the way forward, lets keep on going and make sure that brawling can be a counter to sniping. Both should be viable, both should have their pros and cons.
P.S. While we're on the topic of "OP" weapons, lets start taking a look at the Lumberjack and Artemis. Lumberjack makes the carronades worthless, and Artemis...well, its makes just about every other gun worthless, at-least in the pug matches.
i havent had enough highlevel matches yet to comment on long vs short range but if the snipers are still super devastating i wouldnt mind seeing a slight buff to either the inertia of the ram or the maneuverability of the pyra
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one thing that i feel like hasnt been talked about yet... is it possible that the reason the usage stats are so skewed to brawlers (so im told since ive never seen the numbers) is simply because people like it better? i mean that IS possible right? and then it wouldnt be about OP it would simply be because people like fighting close and dirty...
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I really can't think of a build I feel comfortable with anymore when I'm in the mood for mid-close range brawls, which was the most joyful way to play GoI prior to the patch, imo.
Well isn't that a good reason to try new builds? That seems to be the whole point of these balancing chages, and i can tell you that without knowing the numbers, the gat seemed pretty useful again today.
The problem is that 1.3.3 basicly cut an entire type of play style rather than shifting balance between weapons. Those 200-300m which have been cut off from the gat/mortar combo have left a huge gap between the < 400m face hugging range and 600m+ mid-long range setups. That gap wasn't filled by any other weapon setup and hence outright muse limits my play style choices here.
Prior to the patch gat/mortar have been weapons which could be used to force ships with very close range weapons (<400m) to engage you if played defensively - very useful if you wanted to counter flamer/mine/carro intensive builds without going for a sniper build. Ultra aggressive ram tactics which the pyra has been used for are way less viable now as it's barely possible to strip the hull in time for a full-speed ram now. The patch has reduced the diversity of brawl builds.
Regarind the hotfix: It seems to have reintroduced gat/mortar as an efficient combo, but I can't help the feeling that it's now kind of dull to play compared to 1.3.2:
- >400m mortar shots with other ammo than lesmok required some skill - now aiming into the general direction of the target does the trick in most situations.
- the same goes for the gat. It was rare to see gats hitting reliably at distances >500m prior to 1.3.3 - but when they did you could really feel the difference.
- the gat/mortar combo required quite some communication between the two gunner (and the captain if you're on a ram eager pyra) in 1.3.2. the mortar needed precise timing to be utilized most efficiently - helping out with getting rid of the hull while ensuring that there are still enough rounds left to finish off the enemy once they're stripped. Cogs, Avalan and rumbles have provided a lot of video material showing that the combo actually has be quite hard to master. Now with the hot fix I think we weapons can be shot more independently - the mortar can't really help out with stripping anymore due to the reduced range and clip size and the gat does the stripping job more efficiently on its own now once you face hug your opponent. Overall I think the gat mortar combo has been dumped down quite a bit which makes in less fun to play, imo.
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I really can't think of a build I feel comfortable with anymore when I'm in the mood for mid-close range brawls, which was the most joyful way to play GoI prior to the patch, imo.
Well isn't that a good reason to try new builds? That seems to be the whole point of these balancing chages, and i can tell you that without knowing the numbers, the gat seemed pretty useful again today.
The problem is that 1.3.3 basicly cut an entire type of play style rather than shifting balance between weapons. Those 200-300m which have been cut off from the gat/mortar combo have left a huge gap between the < 400m face hugging range and 600m+ mid-long range setups. That gap wasn't filled by any other weapon setup and hence outright muse limits my play style choices here.
Prior to the patch gat/mortar have been weapons which could be used to force ships with very close range weapons (<400m) to engage you if played defensively - very useful if you wanted to counter flamer/mine/carro intensive builds without going for a sniper build. Ultra aggressive ram tactics which the pyra has been used for are way less viable now as it's barely possible to strip the hull in time for a full-speed ram now. The patch has reduced the diversity of brawl builds.
Regarind the hotfix: It seems to have reintroduced gat/mortar as an efficient combo, but I can't help the feeling that it's now kind of dull to play compared to 1.3.2:
- >400m mortar shots with other ammo than lesmok required some skill - now aiming into the general direction of the target does the trick in most situations.
- the same goes for the gat. It was rare to see gats hitting reliably at distances >500m prior to 1.3.3 - but when they did you could really feel the difference.
- the gat/mortar combo required quite some communication between the two gunner (and the captain if you're on a ram eager pyra) in 1.3.2. the mortar needed precise timing to be utilized most efficiently - helping out with getting rid of the hull while ensuring that there are still enough rounds left to finish off the enemy once they're stripped. Cogs, Avalan and rumbles have provided a lot of video material showing that the combo actually has be quite hard to master. Now with the hot fix I think we weapons can be shot more independently - the mortar can't really help out with stripping anymore due to the reduced range and clip size and the gat does the stripping job more efficiently on its own now. Overall I think the gat mortar combo has been dumped down quite a bit which makes in less fun to play, imo.
i dont completely disagree with the "dumbed" down sentiment as now i can have anyone jump on the gat and as long as they listen to me to tell them when they are in range they are as good as anyone, where prior to the range nerf i felt a huge diff between my skilled wolf crew who could hit at max range and others.
with that being said i think the nerf on range does actually make a more varied game. with flak/art hades/merc doing midrange brawling and the same things still good at long range the gat/mort now has a very specific and non-catchall role in the game.
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because im using greased which only makes sense now
This is my only concern with current gatling. If at any point, one ammo becomes a requirement or using any other ammo is simply not good enough to warrant its use on a gun, something needs to change.
Those 200-300m which have been cut off from the gat/mortar combo have left a huge gap between the < 400m face hugging range and 600m+ mid-long range setups.
Hades/light flak.
Seriously, brawling is fine.
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because im using greased which only makes sense now
This is my only concern with current gatling. If at any point, one ammo becomes a requirement or using any other ammo is simply not good enough to warrant its use on a gun, something needs to change.
Those 200-300m which have been cut off from the gat/mortar combo have left a huge gap between the < 400m face hugging range and 600m+ mid-long range setups.
Hades/light flak.
Seriously, brawling is fine.
first off I agree brawling is fine ATM.
but to your point that there shouldn't be a single ammo that a weapon should use; for the most part I agree but when it comes to a weapon as one dimensional as the gat is right now I think it makes sense that there would be one maybe two ammo types. it's super short range and it is very weak per shot with a huge clips it NEEDS to unload quickly. there really isn't wiggle room on that. now if you think we should give it more range like 700 and increase the jitter to say 3.5 hey I'd be down! we could even decrease it's RoF man. then we would have to choose between heavy clip and greased
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Well if all he changed was the RoF and the jitter, then this is where the answer lies. That or greased ammo needs a look but that's a more drastic thought.
increased rate of fire to 8.3 bullets/s (from 5b/s),
Given that he went from a flat number to a decimal makes me think he's got math going on here. It's a fairly large jump and may prove to be too much. That said, 400m is short, and when fighting a boat with gats, using that to your advantage is a given.
I'm sure many people will cringe when I say, but I've always been surprised that greased ammo didn't increase jitter by a small margin. Shoot faster typically means more recoil, in our case jitter. This effects many guns though so it's again rather drastic to ponder.
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Well if all he changed was the RoF and the jitter, then this is where the answer lies. That or greased ammo needs a look but that's a more drastic thought.
increased rate of fire to 8.3 bullets/s (from 5b/s),
Given that he went from a flat number to a decimal makes me think he's got math going on here. It's a fairly large jump and may prove to be too much. That said, 400m is short, and when fighting a boat with gats, using that to your advantage is a given.
I'm sure many people will cringe when I say, but I've always been surprised that greased ammo didn't increase jitter by a small margin. Shoot faster typically means more recoil, in our case jitter. This effects many guns though so it's again rather drastic to ponder.
I think the rotation nerf you take does a decent job of forcing you to be more accurate. think about it this way, because if you were missing more shots dude to increased jitter what would be the advantage after taking a damage penalty AND a rotation penalty?
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I mean as you said "brawling is fine right now". let's agree and not mess anymore
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increased rate of fire to 8.3 bullets/s (from 5b/s),
Given that he went from a flat number to a decimal makes me think he's got math going on here. It's a fairly large jump and may prove to be too much.
The math is simple. 8.3 shots per second means 83 shots in 10 seconds which precludes perfect engineering, even on a Galleon from getting in a second mallet hit and saving the hull from an armor break.
Also just to add my 2 cents, 400 M is hardly face hugging range. To place it in perspective it's double the range of the flamethrower (which at 200M is just over face hugging range).
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increased rate of fire to 8.3 bullets/s (from 5b/s),
Given that he went from a flat number to a decimal makes me think he's got math going on here. It's a fairly large jump and may prove to be too much.
The math is simple. 8.3 shots per second means 83 shots in 10 seconds which precludes perfect engineering, even on a Galleon from getting in a second mallet hit and saving the hull from an armor break.
Also just to add my 2 cents, 400 M is hardly face hugging range. To place it in perspective it's double the range of the flamethrower (which at 200M is just over face hugging range).
yeah but with greased and the rate of speed at which you'll be approaching I'm sure face hugging is where you'll end up
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NERF TEH GREASED!!!!
Yeah, that is a problem. God damn it and you asked for lower spread, now look what happens! No one loves Heavy no more!
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Hey, it's hard to tell before it hits real games, lol. Has anyone tried charged/incend for the gat yet? I haven't had the chance to see it vs greased.
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charged not as good IMO because of the smaller clip you have less shots to miss with where the greased is more forgiving and still dps fine. no need to nerf don't listen to zill
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B.. bu.. but... nerfing is what I do!
And audaciously amazing, and aggrandized, alliteration.
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I like incendiary on the gat just because it forces another decision on the enemy engineer. He has to either put it out or hit it. Either way he has to watch the hull or come back to it.
I haven't tested for actual numbers though, so i don't know if it's better than greased.
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B.. bu.. but... nerfing is what I do!
And audaciously amazing, and aggrandized, alliteration.
hahha put down the nerf hammer and slowly step away...
also message me back!! :)
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Well yea I like it too for that reason. My reasoning was we know that not all ammo works on all guns, but as long as gat has alternatives over greased (be it heavy, or incend), we're not in bad shape ammo wise.
If it was go greased or go home, then yeaaaaaa.
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Well yea I like it too for that reason. My reasoning was we know that not all ammo works on all guns, but as long as gat has alternatives over greased (be it heavy, or incend), we're not in bad shape ammo wise.
If it was go greased or go home, then yeaaaaaa.
I mean I have a specific play style so perhaps my goals are not the best to draw conclusions about variety from. if you want to know if it can kill I'm your man but disable or something else not me...
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And that's a choice you make and completely up to you to do so. Not knocking that. The other side of the coin has to be there though, even if you choose to not use it.
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The less absolute (singleshot) damage a gun does the better greased becomes on it in comparison to charged. (Keeping all other values the same of course)
Incendiary firs reduces the dps and dpc of a gun, then only add a 20% chance to set 1 fire. An entire gatling clip as it is now would set an average of a little less than 13 fires (12,86) assuming all shots hit and the component hit is not immune to fire during the entire time (very unlikely since extinguishers now give immunity for 3 seconds and chemspray got buffed). The little benefit is really not worth the enormous disadvantage.
BUFF TEH INCENDIARY!!!!
Oh, and while you're going away from your nerf trip and are on the buff lane again awkm,
BUFF TEH CARRONADES!!!!
(5 replies were posted while I wrote this one, seriously guys, too many posts is a thing)
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BUFF TEH CARRONADES!!!!
I do hope you're joking. Carronades are in a very nice spot balance wise currently.
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Light carronades don't even oneclip bloons on closest distance with charged anymore.
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Light carronades don't even oneclip bloons on closest distance with charged anymore.
Good.
Light Carronades were out of hand.
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You used charged in a light carronade? The damage bonus doesn't account enough for the missed "projectiles" that hit something else due to spread. At least not in my experiences.
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I wasn't, I just stated a fact. Charged is the ammo that deals most damage per clip if you didn't know.
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Yeah, that is a problem. God damn it and you asked for lower spread, now look what happens! No one loves Heavy no more!
Hey I said it needed a small buff in spread, not simultaneous overboard buff to it along with a further increase in fire rate. Your problem here lies in the fact that now that it has too short of a range, you will hardly be able to make 2 ammo types effective on it, in earlier updates the advantages of Heavy vs Greased very too obvious (due to 700 meter range), now.. not so much, not much you can do about it, you either make it innaccurate enough so Greased can be used only at face hugging range, making everyone choose Heavy over it, or you make it accurate enough so Greased is the only option.
Aka, Raycast weapons are annoying to balance.
Light carronades don't even oneclip bloons on closest distance with charged anymore.
I can imagine that the Heavy Carronade is even worse then, since a Light Carronade does more damage than a full clip of the Heavy Carronade in one go. Wait, how is this possible? You sure you can't one-clip it if all projectiles land?
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Well, I was including a mallet hit somewhere in between the shots.
The Heavy carronade deals more damage per clip than the light carronade (now), two charged shots of which all projectils hit oneclip bloons always, two heavy clip shots only if there is no repair on the bloon in between (which is less likely since emptying the Heavy Carro doesn't take as long as the Light one.)
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Well, I was including a mallet hit somewhere in between the shots.
If there was no damage nerf then I see no problem, people hardly react fast enough for a mallet hit before the balloon gets wrecked by a buffed/Heavy light Carronade, so if they did I think it's fine for their balloon to live an other 6 seconds.
Sorry if I'm off on some things, I've been busy last week and couldn't get on the game.
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I wasn't, I just stated a fact. Charged is the ammo that deals most damage per clip if you didn't know.
This simply is not true.
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I wasn't, I just stated a fact. Charged is the ammo that deals most damage per clip if you didn't know.
Possibly (I cant be bothered with math), but not where you want it to.
Regardless of that though, every gun doesn't have to do their "job" in one clip else they are broken/underpowered. They feel just fine on my squid.
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Smollet: Which Ammo deals more damage per clip then? (And don't tell me Lochnager, since that would only be true on guns with less than 2 shots; only the minelauncher and harpoon)
Echoez: Light Carro primary damage was nerfed from 160 -> 128
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And that's a choice you make and completely up to you to do so. Not knocking that. The other side of the coin has to be there though, even if you choose to not use it.
it is, it's called using another gun. not all guns need to be good at all things or even multiple things. some guns can be good at one thing and suck really bad at all other things. the shorter range you make something the less variety you will see since you can no long trade dps for longer range or choose not to. short range weapons only give you one choice, how to do the thing it was designed to do best.
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and caro should be using either heavy clip incind or greased never charged
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Smollet: Which Ammo deals more damage per clip then? (And don't tell me Lochnager, since that would only be true on guns with less than 2 shots; only the minelauncher and harpoon)
Echoez: Light Carro primary damage was nerfed from 160 -> 128
Burst
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and caro should be using either heavy clip incind or greased never charged
You used charged in a light carronade? The damage bonus doesn't account enough for the missed "projectiles" that hit something else due to spread. At least not in my experiences.
I wasn't, I just stated a fact. Charged is the ammo that deals most damage per clip if you didn't know.
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Echoez: Light Carro primary damage was nerfed from 160 -> 128
Well with Heavy Clip and a Buff, it deals 1244.16 damage to the balloon, still takes it down in one go if they don't get a mallet hit in.
From point blank, a Charged clip will deal slightly more overall damage than a Buff/Heavy loaded one, but does so slower due to fire rate reduction, I think that's why your enemy had more than enough time to get in a mallet stroke.
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Damn you smollet ;_:
Yeah, I'm gonna use burst on light carros from now on just to oneclip bloons.
And again, I never actually used Charged on Light Carros. Damn you people, don't you read posts that contain only one line?
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Damn you smollet ;_:
Yeah, I'm gonna use burst on light carros from now on just to oneclip bloons.
And again, I never actually used Charged on Light Carros. Damn you people, don't you read posts that contain only one line?
you're the one who included a mallet hit, with a dif clip chosen no mallet hit would have happened
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Damn you smollet ;_:
Yeah, I'm gonna use burst on light carros from now on just to oneclip bloons.
And again, I never actually used Charged on Light Carros. Damn you people, don't you read posts that contain only one line?
you're the one who included a mallet hit, with a dif clip chosen no mallet hit would have happened
Seriously, do you try to troll me or is it just that hard for you to grasp what is being posted?
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Burst
is this real?
I'm not saying burst is the best ammunition for carronade. Just that it has more damage per clip than charged rounds do on account of the extra ammunition.
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And that's a choice you make and completely up to you to do so. Not knocking that. The other side of the coin has to be there though, even if you choose to not use it.
it is, it's called using another gun. not all guns need to be good at all things or even multiple things. some guns can be good at one thing and suck really bad at all other things. the shorter range you make something the less variety you will see since you can no long trade dps for longer range or choose not to. short range weapons only give you one choice, how to do the thing it was designed to do best.
What?
We're talking strictly ammo for the gat here. If there is only one viable ammo type for a gun, then something is wrong with the gun (or ammo, but usually it's the gun). There are different methods of achieving the same result of a gun. For gat, it was either heavy for precise aim at the cost of dps, or greased for added dps at the cost of aim and less range. Trade offs. Both get the result, but in a different manner based on what the captain wants.
@Sprayer, you need to give us a reason as to buff carronades other then because someone can get a mallet hit in and save themselves for a few seconds. That just makes good sense over a sure balloon pop in one clip regardless.
every gun doesn't have to do their "job" in one clip else they are broken/underpowered.
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right dude, I agree but the issue here is with such a short range there is no option of a trade off. I am all for for giving it a longer range again to give options back but as it is the gat had been put in a corner.
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Well we don't agree there because I feel the range change is perfectly fine, and range doesn't back a gun into a corner in terms of what it can do. You can use a gat to disable heavy guns with heavy. You can use incend to spread a few fires. While not it's intended job, it can still do it.
We're also doing loops on this argument though so we think the point got across at least. I hope.
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Well we don't agree there because I feel the range change is perfectly fine, and range doesn't back a gun into a corner in terms of what it can do. You can use a gat to disable heavy guns with heavy. You can use incend to spread a few fires. While not it's intended job, it can still do it.
We're also doing loops on this argument though so we think the point got across at least. I hope.
yeah what we may or may not be disagreeing on is how a gun and ammo pairing's "effectiveness" should be gauged. if what your asking is "does incindiary start fires?" well yes it sure does. but if what you're saying is that "if it doesn't set fires very well then we need to rethink things" (this is a for instance) that doesn't make sense to me.
all I was pointing out is that greased is the most effective ammo for doing the thing that gat was designed to do. it sounded like to me your response was "if a statement like that can be made about one single ammunition type than something is broken.". if that is indeed what you are saying I am simply stating that I disagree, that for some guns whose roles are so limited and range so short there may be a clear optimal ammo type and that is fine.
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...but if what you're saying is that "if it doesn't set fires very well then we need to rethink things" (this is a for instance) that doesn't make sense to me.
Wait...WHAT? If Incendiary is supposed to set fires, and it doesn't set fires very well, why wouldn't we need to rethink things? It would mean the ammo type isn't actually doing what it is designed to do.
...that for some guns whose roles are so limited and range so short there may be a clear optimal ammo type and that is fine.
I strongly disagree, as the role of the gunner is predicated upon multiple ammo types being useful. I feel that any time a single ammo type is always the best choice on a gun the role of gunner suffers, and things should at least be looked at. Change isn't required, but it must be a conscious decision to allow that sort of ammo dominance.
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Hello everyone! I have not read ANY of the previous posts.
I used to be very serious about this game and collected stats and made charts on every gun. then I stopped playing for I don't even know how many patches.
I think this gives me a very good point of view on the current balance of the game.
Yesterday I did a lot of testing on the light killing guns (piercing/explosive). Here are my notes:
Before (when gat/mortar was king)
PIERCING:
GATLING: The best at armor stripping. If you were not sniping you NEED one to be anything but a disabler.
MERCURY: great for disabling ships and the only option for piercing damage at long range. Not a close range option.
HADES: N/A
EXPLOSIVE:
MORTAR: THE choice for close range hull breaking with the ability to hit at mid range. NEEDED if you were a killing brawler in competitive play.
L FLAK: no longer the killing king and sometimes used with mid ranged killing builds with minor competitive play success.
ARTIMUS: (post buff then nerf) disabler with neglectable explosive damage.
BANSHEE: easiest gun to shoot. THE WORST GUN IN THE GAME I very often said.
Now
PIERCING:
GATLING: still performs the same job it used to but now the HADES fills in the gap between where the GATLING cant hit and where the MERCURY can only hit.
MERCURY: great for disabling ships and the only option for piercing damage at long range. Not a close range option.
HADES: The arming time means that the GATLING will still rule the close range kill WHICH IT SHOULD but HADES is now your expert gunner gun of the light guns like the LUMBERJACK is for the medium guns.
Piercing options are balanced.
EXPLOSIVE:
MORTAR: Best damage. Close range
L FLAK: viable hull killer. has arming time. mid range
ARTIMUS: Dissabler. great long range, possible short range. Can get the kill with one clip
BANSHEE: CAN ACTUALLY GET A KILL IN ONE CLIP NOW!!!! :O.
Explosive options are now balanced.
For a pyramidion before my build options for front guns I would consider were these:
Short range brawl: GETLING/MORTAR (hands down)
Min range: GATLING/MORTAR, GATLING/LFLAK
Long range: MERC/ARTIMUS, MERC/MERC, ARTIMUS/ARTIMUS (none of these are optimal, but the long range kill shoulb be harder than the short one)
NOW:
Short range brawl: GETLING/MORTAR, GATLING/BANSHEE,
Min range: GATLING/MORTAR, GATLING/LFLAK, GATLING/BANSHEE, GATLING/ARTIMUS HADES/MORTAR, HADES/LFLAK, HADES/BANSHEE, HADES/ARTIMUS (all pretty even)
Long range: MERC/ARTIMUS, MERC/MERC, ARTIMUS/ARTIMUS (all those combinations xHADES)
SO MANY MORE OPTIONS NOW!
Is the sniping vs brawl balance bad now? I don't know. But now its sniping vs mid range vs brawl like never before.
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...but if what you're saying is that "if it doesn't set fires very well then we need to rethink things" (this is a for instance) that doesn't make sense to me.
Wait...WHAT? If Incendiary is supposed to set fires, and it doesn't set fires very well, why wouldn't we need to rethink things? It would mean the ammo type isn't actually doing what it is designed to do.
...that for some guns whose roles are so limited and range so short there may be a clear optimal ammo type and that is fine.
I strongly disagree, as the role of the gunner is predicated upon multiple ammo types being useful. I feel that any time a single ammo type is always the best choice on a gun the role of gunner suffers, and things should at least be looked at. Change isn't required, but it must be a conscious decision to allow that sort of ammo dominance.
djinn what I was saying was that the incindiary may not be the best option on the Gatling and that is fine, in fact there may be several if not most Amos that are not optimal for the gat and that is fine. for some weapons that have very short range and a VERY specific job to do it makes sense that there may be a clear cut ammo type to go with it.
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well said jace
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I'm loving the new gatling however it may need a few minor tweaks in either a slight jitter increase or another slight range decrease. As Smollet pointed out, 450 aint exactly face hugging. It obviously doesn't need to be a flamer, but it is currently a little to ridiculously good at component destruction with greased at this state. With buffed and greased combined with the steady flying of Mad Maverick, last night I was destroying the Hwacha on a Hwacha fish and then eating through straight to the armor. Second clip then could take out all engines. I've never been a good gatling gun user either.
The damage output seems right to me, I love the idea of high reward risk for being forced to get too close. However, if it was slightly less accurate, that would do great for decreasing greased being the only viable ammo. Awkm, if you decrease the range and/or increase jitter, I think that would be the best balance imaginable for this. The damage though is potentially balanced but most importantly it is a lot of fun!
BTW someone was asking if incendiary is viable? I believe so though generally my thought has always been it would need to be a secondary gat using it instead of the main armor shredder. The incendiary gives you 62 shots so with a ignition chance of 20% you are putting 12 stacks of fire somewhere on the enemy boat. While a dummy isn't the best thing for testing this as they have no repairs, Incendiary can one clip their armor. I can easily see two gatlings from two ships, one using greased and one using incendiary being a fantastic way to overwhelm an enemy.
Now someone was claiming the light carros aren't viable and then someone posted some nonsense about using burst to one clip. Uh, the balloon can be one clipped unbuffed with the
Greased
Incendiary
Heavy
Heatsink
Lesmok
Burst
Charged (yup)
This list could also be described as every ammo other than Lochnagar.
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i say we get a few competitions in on this hot fix first before we mess with anything and see what happens
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[...]
Now someone was claiming the light carros aren't viable and then someone posted some nonsense about using burst to one clip. Uh, the balloon can be one clipped unbuffed with the
Greased
Incendiary
Heavy
Heatsink
Lesmok
Burst
Charged (yup)
This list could also be described as every ammo other than Lochnagar.
Let me do the math then.
128 flechette + 144 shatter => 128*1,8+144*0,2 = 259,2 dmg/per shot on bloons.
Now the common ammo types for light carronades are heavy, greased, incendiary. Some people even use lesmok. Of those ammo types greased modifies damage, so I'll start with heavy and lesmok which only modify the clip when it comes to damage per clip. Heavy gives you 4 shots. 4*259,2=1036,8<1200; no oneclip. Lesmok gives you 4 shots too (or 3? never actually use it, don't know wether to round up or down) and deals the same maximum amount of damage, so no oneclip either.
Same goes for incendiary which has a chance to set fires additionally. Now, besides bloons being the prefered component for chemspray, that would give you in average 3 firestacks if all pellets hit the bloon. That's 12 base damage to the bloon per second and 9 damage per second for each shot, this over 1,14 seconds (time between shots) means 24 damage for the first shot which applies its damage over time three times; and 10,3 for the second which applies twice and the third which applies once before the clip is empty. That's an additional 102,9 damage. 1139,7<1200; no oneclip. Well, afterwards it'll take 1,1 seconds until the bloon burns down, so yeah, ok you get a oneclip if everything runs optimal.
Greased reduces damage by 20% and increases clipsize by 20%. Damage to bloons if all pellets hit: 207,36 per shot, 1244,16 per clip. Also it takes only 2,5 seconds to empty the clip, so yes, it's probable to oneclip an enemy bloon if all pellets hit, so hug your enemy tight.
Now burst: No damage modifier, RoF mod makes the gun empty in 4,71 seconds; damage per clip is 1555,2 as Smollet stated, this is the maximum damage per clip and this is the only ammo type where a single mallet hit during the carronade volley can not save the bloon. You'd even have 105,2 hp margin of error, which allows 6 pellets to miss.
By the way, I believe the 3,2 seconds it takes to empty either vanilla or charged clip is enough reaction time for a crewmember who knows about a carronade on the enemy ship and who is close to the bloon anyways - Junker, Pyramidion, Galleon, Squid. (I'd even say Spire and Mobula - Goldfish only if it has a captain dedicated to not loosing the bloon or an engie who cares mainly about that and the main engine)
Same goes for extinguishing once during the 3,4 seconds of emptying incendiary - except the pilot does not so often have an extinguisher with him/her.
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All I did was shoot target balloons in practice with each ammo type. All balloons in this game are equal I believe.
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Bloons in practice have less hp. Tried shooting them with gatling, it should take 343 shots (4,18 clips) to take them down, it actually takes 286. So they only have 1000hp.
Or there was another ninja balance change to bloons or damage modifiers.
Edit: Give gat clips an additional bullet. I want to shoot a three digits clip without loading heatsink into it.
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Lets comment a bit on previouse good balances.
Lesmok is a good contender for this.
Lesmok got nerfed to better fit a saturated ammo type. You can now use lesmok on gattling to fit the range of 600 instead of 300 like it is now (I think). You sacrifice accuracy and shots but your getting hits in before the 300 mark, and as you get closer the more shots you will start to hit.
Greased like today is actually just fine. but thats the problem. It is just normal ammo type choice. There is no big sacrafice and the quicker shots is not exactly as good because of the ammount you are given does not make it quick.
If greased gets 50% ammo, -40% projectiles speed, 70% quicker shots, -30% rotation speed, 40% less damage. Then it would be an ammo type used for playstyle rather than use of effeciency.
Something same should be implemented for the incediary rounds and charged.
If you really want to shoot quick then get greased, if you really want to set fires but not so much dmg, use incidiary. If you really want to hurt in a few shots then get charged. Etc etc. Lochnagar is a heavily saturated ammo type also.
When im on mines, i sometimes think "Man, lochnagar would be perfect about now instead of Lesmok".
If ammot types are more saturated, we would see guns have a specific ammo use as well as experimented use. On the gattling, you can use lesmok. It will just hit less from maximum range but will hit more as you get closer. With incediary gattling, you have like a secondary flamer (Or thats how people should think).
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I'm glad if different ammotypes are needed as that makes gunners more useful and needed. Since before it was common to see all eng ships.
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I'm glad if different ammotypes are needed as that makes gunners more useful and needed. Since before it was common to see all eng ships.
And it still is. The patch actually didn't make too huge a difference in that respect (I really don't see any reason to take anything other than greased on the gat now).
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Sorry.. I meant before patch and hotfix. So now the gat is more of a gungineer weapon for some instead of the mortar? One weakness i see in that is they have less time to fix balloon on a pyra if using gat instead of mortar in between reloads.
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Just because one doesn't see a reason to use other ammo doesn't mean you can't. It's a choice.
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Just because one doesn't see a reason to use other ammo doesn't mean you can't. It's a choice.
It's a choice, but not necessarily a good one. The gatling isn't going to get any significant benefit from being loaded with lesmok, heavy, incendiary...
I do think that the spread should be upped a bit to make heavy more useful, and to make greased less monstrous.
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As someone who hasn't played in about a year, there is one, huge, glaring issue that I can't believe hasn't been fixed/was unnecessarily changed. That is Lesmok ammo only giving one ammo cap to the Heavy Flak.
*Jackie Chan wtf face*
I see there has been some discussion on it, but I can't fathom how it's not in a dedicated thread on the number 1 thread on the front page. So I'm posting it here. Fix it. Two shots are required. This is seriously hotfix worthy.
Atleast two shots are required for accurate fire at range. I imagine that's why the field gun has 2 shots to begin with if not the heavy flak as well, so I'm wondering how this was forgotten. If the pilot does ANYTHING then your first shot is thrown off. If you only have one shot...you get to try again in five seconds when the situation has changed yet again. A second shot atleast gives you partial effectiveness. If we wanted all or nothing we'd use Lochnager.
This isn't even so much about damage. I'd rather have -50% damage dealt (because that's about what it equates to which is obscene) than only one shot.
I hear this is about nerfing the field gun; don't care. There are other ways to do it. Calling it a nerf, and it being so severe, also gives away the argument about "Lesmok being a no-brainer for a gun being a design flaw" because now it's a no-brainer NOT to use Lesmok on a heavy flak. I thought you wanted to increase options? You've only limited them more.
Get it done.
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If you're sniping at a range where lesmok is required, your pilot should be holding the ship steady, 2 shots would make rage-quit worthy 2000m kills too easy as shot timing would also be less of a concern. Most of your flak sniping should be done with charged rounds. Don't forget the projectile expansion buff where at 1000m the shell increases in size.
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The lesmok nerf did indeed severely impact the heavy flak, which is one of the reasons the devs later gave the gun a large buff. They increased the general shot speed slightly, increased the damage and dramatically increased the range of a normal round.
That's why most people have switched to charged rounds for the gun.
A buffed charged shot can travel 1440 meters and will one hit kill 3 out of 7 ships in the game and nearly kill a Spire (only 29 permahull left), and a squid (129 left). It kills everything in 2 shots.
Granted this makes the gun more difficult to use, but 1400 meter kills are well within the ability of good gunners and the changes in cloud cover to the maps means that engagements rarely take place much farther than 1400 meters.
I recommend you try using it with charged rounds, and a buff hammer if you're an engineer; it's more difficult to hit with than it previously was with lesmok, but the kills are far more rewarding than they ever were once you get it down.
Hands down the most fun gun to use in goi right now.
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"You should be sniping with charged rounds." No, you should be sniping with the ammo that was made for sniping, Lesmok. Charged replaces your normal ammo for normal range as a perk for being a gunner.
"Holding the ship steady" involves the pilot doing nothing. You get 1 shot every 5 seconds that you have to guess the range to hold on an obscure place above the enemy, and figure out the lateral speed of your ship if you're on a Galleon, in what amounts to trial and error. Just how long is your pilot supposed to be doing nothing while the entire crew waits and hopes on you to dial-in and make difficult shots? Are we just not supposed to use the range increasing ammo to make shooting at range easier? That what you're actually saying and it makes no sense.
You also ignored where I said it wasn't about damage. I'm not looking for "rage-quit worthy 2000m kills." Find a better way to prevent that. 2 shots are required. I'm flabbergasted as to how anyone could argue this.
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They nerfed lesmok, so they increased the projectile speed of the gun to make up for it? That makes no sense, just un-nerf lesmok. Who "switched" to charged rounds? We were all already using that before. If clouds have solved the problem of long-sight lines, then why not un-nerf lesmok? It'll be there for those who need it and "good gunners" can have all the glory they want with sniping with charged instead.
In what world does a buff engineer man a heavy flak? It's a gunner's gun, through and through. I thought we were trying to fix the gunner/engineer balance. If it's so fun, why is no one using it? All I see are very confused Galleons with hwachas everywhere, and Goldfishes being ineffective with hwachas and having no faith in the carronade.
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I actually see a lot of Heavy Flaks especially in the higher competitive tiers of Guns. As Smollet pointed out no gun in the game can achieve the quick kill that a flak can at range. Now people are throwing the word nerf around pretty liberally but they are forgetting that in addition to the clip size reduction lesmok also gained a massive speed buff. If Lesmok didn't reduce guns like the heavy flak and the merc to one shot then we would see a ridiculous imbalance towards sniping as Lesmok almost guarantees 100% accuracy with those two guns.
The lesmok ammo and the heavy flak are truly in a good place right now. Flak spires scare me, and that is so weird as a flak spire used to be my example of a worthless ship.
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Do you recommend using Lesmok in the heavy flak? No one has yet and I doubt many will. I know I don't. Then it's a nerf. 1 shot out of 2 with the same damage is ridiculous. Talking about the superior ballistics of the one shot you get is almost worthless. "...Lesmok almost guarantees 100% accuracy..." No, it doesn't, for the reasons I mentioned. Also, that's with the current ballistics buffs it provides. I'm perfectly fine with those being changed. I'm fine with anything being changed, it just needs 2 shots. 30% less damage with the direct hit damage. There, lesmok is for sniping components with mercury, and it punishes the added arm time even more on heavy flak.
Flak spires were always deadly.
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I quite like the current state of lesmok.
It sacrifises alot of dmg for a better hitrate.
Thats sth that makes the difference between an average and a good gunner/gungineer.
2 shots with lesmok would be op. You could probably kill an enemy quite easy on longer ranges with 2-3 hits.
Without lesmok thats quite hard. With it its rather easy.
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I'll keep restating this as many times as I have to. You can reduce the damage if that's your concern. Reducing clip size and reducing damage are not the same. Specifically in the area you just mentioned, hitrate. 1 cold shot every 5 seconds is not as accurate as 1 cold shot and 1 adjusted shot every 5 seconds.
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Depends on the situation and range. If I was a gunner on the h. flak, it would probably be one of my ammos used at long ranges. A buffginner, probably not.
Question, why does a gun need to balanced around needing a cold shot. One of the signs that you are a good shot is your not shooting relative to previous shots fired but instead firing based off of your aim and range.
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Because not all gunners are good gunners. Being able to calculate range from experience and checking ship movement before firing is what makes you a good gunner. The advantage of being a good gunner is that you're a good gunner. You shouldn't be forced to become a good gunner just to be effective. Raising the minimum skill bar isn't beneficial in a game like this where new people are confused enough as is and many who have played for a while still have much to learn. There is plenty of room for mastery to be worried about raising the skill minimum.
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Because not all gunners are good gunners. Being able to calculate range from experience and checking ship movement before firing is what makes you a good gunner. The advantage of being a good gunner is that you're a good gunner. You shouldn't be forced to become a good gunner just to be effective. Raising the minimum skill bar isn't beneficial in a game like this where new people are confused enough as is and many who have played for a while still have much to learn. There is plenty of room for mastery to be worried about raising the skill minimum.
If being a good gunner shouldn't be necessary to make you effective, then we should probably just remove the high skilled long range weapons like the Hades, Lumberjack, and H. Flak.
I'd also suggest that if you're using a shot as a range-finder at 1200+ ranges with the H. Flak you're not using it correctly. At those range you can actually get off most of a reload before the first shot hits, meaning that you should have already fired both before you know whether or not a shot landed.
Additionally, I think more skill is added to the sniping game if gunners only have a single powerful shot that will nearly kill a ship (enabling skilled pilots to dodge incoming shots if they're on the ball) rather than two potential kill shots at 1200m+.
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No, I'm fine with leaving the high-skill options there. The problem is the heavy flak doesn't really belong on that list. It's only recently that's it's been seen as an extreme range only weapon. Even more puzzling is that people are calling it a niche weapon. What? It's singular purpose is to destroy the enemy ship and it's the sole best gun at doing that. How is that niche? But that's beside the point.
Of course the first shot isn't intended as a rangefinder, but if you miss, that's what it is. Firing both shots before the first hits is a good way to miss both shots and my gunning improved when I stopped doing it, since as has been said, even one shot can be lethal. That was a long time ago though, and the projectile seems slower than ever. Its ballistics are worse than the light flak, wtf?
Lesmok isn't a single powerful shot, that's Lochnager. Lesmok makes the shell even faster so no, less dodging. You're confused. And it seems I have to state yet again, that both shots don't need to be able nearly kill a ship.
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I rather like HF being a high skilled weapon,
If using a gunner on a HF, I feel most good gunners can hit a high % with charged at around 1100 M and below. Beyond that Lesmok begins to make a lot of sense and is still a good ammunition for the gun. Requiring 2 clips to make a 1500 Meter + kill is reasonable in my opinion.
Lesmok used to be a crutch before the change. Everyone used it as the sole ammunition for the gun because it made it so easy to shoot. Admittedly the HF is more difficult to use now because of the change, but it also has more damage per shot than it's ever had. It's now a high skill high reward gun and I find it more fun than ever to use. It just takes some experience to figure out now.
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A powerful long range gun should have a high skill level required.
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As you mentioned, using Lesmok as sole type isn't so great any more with the arming time change. People still used charged and heat sink when they got closer anyways, now we're just being forced to do it.
If you want high skill, high reward, you can use Lochnager. Lesmok's purpose is to make long range shooting easier and it doesn't necessarily any more. Part of being a good gunner in a game like this is loading appropriate ammo in appropriate situations. It's not like a statless twitch shooter.
I haven't argued that HF shouldn't be a high skill weapon. I've argued that it should be lower. Compared to shooting in other games it's already more difficult.
I also resent that we've moved to discussing in such vague terms. I'm very specifically arguing that I want two shots with Lesmok, and this is just obfuscating.
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But do make those two shots with lesmok possible you would need a dmg debuff which in reverse would make other guns using lesmok to weak.
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There are plenty of things that could change where that's not the case, as I've already stated. The small details are up to the developers to worry about. A gun having 1 shot instead of 2 is a huge issue.
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Remember, balance shouldn't be done to make every option viable at all times. If an ammo type doesn't work on the gun, then it doesn't work. Changing the ammo type or gun stats to make a single combination work throws so many other variables into whack that the whole game could become unbalanced from a single change. No ammo HAS TO work with any particular gun. The flak has been in such a precarious balance situation for so long that changing it when it finally feels right doesn't seem like a good idea in my opinion. However it is just an opinion. That's all we can do in the forums, is state our opinions, and support them with facts and evidence. Making demands about the game gets us no closer to a balanced game.
Regarding balance and skill: The game is designed to be balanced so that it works at a high skill level, and is fun at a low skill level. Surely some strategies and weapon loadouts do not work in both, but that's any game.
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Lesmok did work with the gun, it was changed so it didn't. Telling me that changing stuff could be bad as an argument would only by hypocritical.
It doesn't feel right at all to me. It's long range ammo that doesn't work in a long range gun. In contrast, it's loved that it works in a flamethrower which always seemed like a glitch to me.
I haven't been convinced to the contrary in the least and I'll forever be bothered by it until it's changed, but I'll shut up about it until somone else who agrees with me chimes in. I can't imagine how I'm the minority in this opinion.
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I believe the choice to make the clip size reduction that large was in fact to prevent the flak form having two shots with it. If you reduced the flak's damage as a result of increasing the clip size with lesmok, the gun would become more dependant on having the ammo type, which is against the ammo and gun design philosophy of the game. Some things that seem like they should combo together well simply can't, because they would become too powerful, or too dependant. In balancing a game with this many complex variables at play, sometimes you have to remove something that feels cool and right, because it just doesn't work. To force lesmok and flak to work together, would require a hugely inordinate amount of work, for what payoff?
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I'm "flabbergasted" how you misquoted me.
I said >Most of your flak sniping should be done with charged rounds.
Notice the big >MOST
The ideal ammo to be shooting from the flak is charged - it has the highest sustainable dps. (I hope I don't need to further explain this point to you.)
If you can't hit a ship with charged rounds (the same bullet speed and arc as neutral rounds) because it's too far/moving too quickly etc. YOU USE LESMOK ~ that's what it's there for.
I hope the following will help clear the air:
1. The reason I feel lesmok should not give you two shots is because it will be too easy to kill things quickly at any range above the arming distance. (the reason it was nerfed in the first place)
2. Sire, Indeed I would advise you bring lesmok. As a gunner I take, lesmok, lochnagar, and charged rounds for the heavy flak. If I were flying a galleon build where an engineer shoots the heavy flak I'd advise them to take charged rounds or lesmok depending on how confident their aim is.
3. lochnagar heavyflak takes off 60% arming time allowing for unexpectedly close range insta-kills.
4. Yes, if you're sniping the general idea is that you sit still. (I don't know what kind of sniping you do, OMG 360` NOSCOPE HAX isn't really a valid tactic in GoI.) If the pilot wants to get his nice shiny 1300m+ kill achievement in a reasonable amount of time, they're gonna have to deal with it, twiddle their thumbs and play with their tamogotchi. (maybe even perhaps possibly get on the other gun or even fix things so your engineers can keep shooting too.)
5. lesmok is "long range" ammo that works with a long range gun, but at mid range, don't use the long range ammo (it's long range enough already), learn to aim the thing and kill with it brutally quickly. It's hard, because it's op when you can do it. ~ simple.
6. Flak spires are still deadly.
I'm very specifically arguing that I want two shots with Lesmok, and this is just obfuscating.
I feel that if you have 2 shots with lesmok it would be too easy to use for the amount of reward.
In best anticipation of your response,
GeoRmr
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Only because you anticipate my response.
1. I'll keep repeating my self. All those variables can be changed. There are other ways of making Lesmok less potent besides taking 1 shot off of the heavy flak.
4. You use lesmok in situations that aren't pure sniping. As a the main gun on the goldfish, it needs to be effective at all times otherwise the ship is as useless as the gun on it. On a Galleon, they can't control the range well so you need lesmok when the enemy is approaching from a distance, running away, or is hard to hit.
"too easy to use for the amount of reward" Right now your reward is half the damage of a normal volley for what is practically more difficult than it needs to be.
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I remember when lesmok had two shots in it. While I would be alright with the HF having two shots with lesmok (though I could hardly care atm), there are a few other guns I would not want to see with two lesmok shots, like the mercury field gun. Lesmok was hit with the ammo reduction not because of one gun, but because multiple guns where getting an unfair advantage from it. As for heavy flak with lesmok, the key is to timing your shots so they hit when hull is down and try to keep the gun buffed for more damage with the one shot. While is does feel like you are getting cheated for only having one shot for any two shot weapons; Hellhound, H-Flak, and Mercury, it is still very potent in allowing these guns to make that disable at a very long range, get that last shot to take a balloon out on a retreating ship, and kill an enemy ship in two flak volleys before they even get close to you. Sniping builds are already strong if used correctly, and having more shots with lesmok would only increase the potency of that strategy. Then we get people complaining about snipers being meta, again.
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Only because you anticipate my response.
1. I'll keep repeating my self. All those variables can be changed. There are other ways of making Lesmok less potent besides taking 1 shot off of the heavy flak.
4. You use lesmok in situations that aren't pure sniping. As a the main gun on the goldfish, it needs to be effective at all times otherwise the ship is as useless as the gun on it. On a Galleon, they can't control the range well so you need lesmok when the enemy is approaching from a distance, running away, or is hard to hit.
"too easy to use for the amount of reward" Right now your reward is half the damage of a normal volley for what is practically more difficult than it needs to be.
Wait wait wait ~ are you seriously suggesting using a flak on the front of a goldfish?
Also I don't really understand what you're arguing; you're saying lesmok makes the flak harder to shoot?
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I remember when lesmok had two shots in it. While I would be alright with the HF having two shots with lesmok (though I could hardly care atm), there are a few other guns I would not want to see with two lesmok shots, like the mercury field gun. Lesmok was hit with the ammo reduction not because of one gun, but because multiple guns where getting an unfair advantage from it. As for heavy flak with lesmok, the key is to timing your shots so they hit when hull is down and try to keep the gun buffed for more damage with the one shot. While is does feel like you are getting cheated for only having one shot for any two shot weapons; Hellhound, H-Flak, and Mercury, it is still very potent in allowing these guns to make that disable at a very long range, get that last shot to take a balloon out on a retreating ship, and kill an enemy ship in two flak volleys before they even get close to you. Sniping builds are already strong if used correctly, and having more shots with lesmok would only increase the potency of that strategy. Then we get people complaining about snipers being meta, again.
IMHO sniping builds are meta currently.
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Lesmok on the mercury is actualy very viable.
It disable ANYTHING in one hit, and if aimed or lucky, you can disable 2 or 3 components or weapons in 1 shot with lesmok. Because lets not forget, the mercury actualy as PIERCING. It pierces thru the ship. If you shoot a mercury at a goldfishs heavy gun that is aiming directly at you, chances are, that back engine will also die.
On a galleon, you can disable the visible heavy gun, and the heavy gun behind it. I dont think you need lesmok for that.
A pyramidion gets its back engine disabled even when pointed torwards the ship that shot that mercury.
Some other guns get benefitt from lesmok too. Like Mortar, Lumberjack, hades etc.
It is an ammo type that very much was everywhere.
Now that HEAVY FLAK is not a prefered weapon to be using lesmok at, all of a sudden you see a different opportunity.
Charged if it hits, does more damage then when we used Lesmok with it.
Heatsink, if combined with buff gives you 3 shots with the same dmg as default. Giving in for a second chance if you miss one.
But does same ammount of dmg as charged if all 3 hit.
Lochnagar... Srsly, its so beutiful when it happens.
A galleon with 2 heavy flaks alone does pretty decent armor damage. So really, you dont have to worry about only shooting when their hull is down.
If you constantly shoot the heavy flak, the more you get used to it. Naturaly. So dont wait for the shot to hit or miss until you take your second shot. It has a quick enough reload time to give a good chance for another 2 shots to land. Every time i see pub gunners shooting an LJ and wait for it to hit or miss. I can expect it if they are inexperienced to the game, but the gun is forgiving enough to be fired a bit maniacly.
The heavy flak, in high skill level is used sparingly because the players then have built a build around that fact. Armor down, heavy flak.
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Wait wait wait ~ are you seriously suggesting using a flak on the front of a goldfish?
Also I don't really understand what you're arguing; you're saying lesmok makes the flak harder to shoot?
The heavy flak was stock and atleast once effective on the Goldfish. I am discussing changes to lesmok/flak so guffawing at what you deem effective currently doesn't make sense.
Yes, I've already explained this. You aren't sure where your first shot will go, but having a second shot lets you adjust your aim. The reload is too long to maintain a bead in all but the ideal situation.
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Gunners should strive to know where the shot is going.
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Yes, I've already explained this. You aren't sure where your first shot will go, but having a second shot lets you adjust your aim. The reload is too long to maintain a bead in all but the ideal situation.
It's harder to shoot with lesmok, which is why you have two shots. If you want the ease of firing with lesmok (and thus have less of a need to adjust your shot), you get one shot. Makes perfect sense to me. If you're truly completely unaware of where your first shot will go, you should practice more.
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It's harder to shoot with lesmok, which is why you have two shots. If you want the ease of firing with lesmok (and thus have less of a need to adjust your shot), you get one shot. Makes perfect sense to me. If you're truly completely unaware of where your first shot will go, you should practice more.
Agreed.
Additionally, if this was something that really needed a fix...would you rather increase the H. Flak's ammo to 3 shots (which would be very strong), or decrease the Mercury Field Gun to 1 shot? We shouldn't be able to have a 2-shot Lesmok Merc, in my opinion.
In short, Kain, the general consensus of this thread (which has a lot of skilled captains and gunners in it) seems to be that the Lesmok H. Flak works just fine as-is. If you disagree, I'm interested in hearing your suggestion to fix the problem with some actual in-game ideas for balancing it with the existing guns. All we can really do without those is show why we think you're incorrect in your assumption, which doesn't seem to have much effect: it's just causing us to argue at each other unproductively.
So what would you do to fix this issue? What do you think is wrong with either Lesmok or the H. Flak, and how would you resolve the difference without making a ammo-specific exception for one gun in particular?
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I'd already said I'd stop arguing because of the general consensus. I don't think the consensus of a bunch of veterans who clearly want to brag about their skills is as powerful as you do though.
I already gave an example. Lesmok reduces the the direct damage done. RoF or clip size could be adjusted to compensate for some guns, though I don't think many would need it. There are plenty of options and I don't see why it should be up to me to fix it. This strange mindset that acts like I'm the one changing things is weirding me out. Are you trying to rewrite history and ignore the obvious? The flak gun has two barrels and each one fired one shot by design from the beginning aside from the quirky lochnager and heatsink for some reason. Lesmok isn't quirky, it just increases range. Muse is the one who changed things.
I understand and agree that balance is usually more important than realism/game feel, but this is taking a butcher knife to a scalpel problem.
Less damage for more accuracy makes more sense than less damage with the added problem of less accuracy in practical use for more accuracy. Now that I think about it, Heavy Clip used to be that way, but the speed reduction was removed. What's going on there if we're just trying to add more skill requirement instead of having ammo types actually help you?
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The heavy flak was stock and atleast once effective on the Goldfish.
Before, the heavy flak went thru armor. Every ship with no heavy gun was innefective
Less damage for more accuracy makes more sense than less damage with the added problem of less accuracy in practical use for more accuracy.
I, dont understand? Lesmok was designed to increase maximum range, and easier to lead with because of bullet speed.
The draw back for armed time weapons is that the arming time will arm from further away.
So if you shoot lesmok at short range with guns such as hades, or heavy flak. It will hit the ship before the projectile is armed. Which results in only the primary damage to inflict. which is less damage. Like i said before, Lesmok is practicaly used on Mortars, mercuries, hades, flamethrower, Lumberjack.
With the heavy flak, if your target is way far from you, lesmok takes the cake. Or else it is very difficult.
The primary thing coming from the heavy flak is its devestating damage. I mean lochnagar one hits every ship just not goldfish and Galleon.
If there is any complaint coming from me regarding the heavy flak, it is that it needs an informative ironsight much like the lumberjack.
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I'd already said I'd stop arguing because of the general consensus. I don't think the consensus of a bunch of veterans who clearly want to brag about their skills is as powerful as you do though.
What? I'm terrible on a heavy flak; I just think it makes logical sense to practice gunning to more accurately predict where your shots will go, as that's kind of what gunning is about. How about instead of dismissing opposing viewpoints as "veterans clearly wanting to brag," you take them for what they are: opposing viewpoints.
I understand and agree that balance is usually more important than realism/game feel, but this is taking a butcher knife to a scalpel problem.
Yes, balance is always more important than realism, which is why more or less everything in the game doesn't make any sense realistically speaking. Sorry, but "it has two barrels" isn't an argument for changing game balance. How much of a chance have you given this change? Most of the people who have been playing consistently in the past year seem to agree that the heavy flak and lesmok ammo are (finally) in a good place. And that's not me saying your ideas aren't worth as much because you've been away from the game—because that's certainly not true—I'm simply saying Muse didn't make these changes lightly. The flak and lesmok ammo have been the center of numerous debates, and I think you're discrediting Muse for updates that they have been extremely careful with simply because it's different from how it used to be, and it's not in line with the fact that the gun has two barrels.
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"Practice gunning." I could, but I can't make other people practice gunning. Neither can I kick bad gunners off of ships, not that I want to. I can be a baby and not fly with low levels like many are doing because the minimum skill bar keeps getting raised. I'm sure that's great for the game and community. All I'm asking is for partial effectiveness at range for everyone instead of all-or-nothing hits for only the skilled.
"Balance is always more important than realism." No, not always. If an fps game rebalanced an underpowered bolt action sniper rifle to fire semi-automatically without changing the model it would reek of incompetence and players would not take the game seriously. This still applies with suspension of disbelief in a fantasy setting. Firing your massive double-barreled cannon twice battleship style is fun. Using a fluff explained experimental ammo like lochnager that limits you to one shot for those crazy enough to want to is great, I'm on board. Lesmok just increases range and accuracy, and it should do so in an intuitive and fun way. Notice I said realism/game feel, because they go hand in hand, and game feel and fun are closely connected. It's also important.
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Im flying alot of sniper Galleons and mostly pack in some lumberjacks and heavy flaks and i keep getting hits. Sure i would get much more when i use a highlvl crew but if noone uses harder to hit guns most people cant get practise with.
Its just not real that only the highlvl can hit with heavy flak or lumberjack. I keep seeing it different. Yeah the highlvl may have a much higher hitrate but its still pub games.
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The thing is Khain, that there are many other options. And as soon as you get an orginized crew, you will quickly see more options.
I usualy fly the spire, like alot. But it is not always i bring my most effective loadout because my most effective loadout requiers teamwork from the rest of the crew that are specific to their roles on my ship.
I also consider my ship and loadout acording to my teamates ship and loadout.
This is some very high skill level thinking that changes loadouts based on yourself, your crew and your team. With extensive knowledge and skill, we can make effective builds everytime differently. Heavy Flak or not.
Once you get to meet people, and does not have to be high level, you can still orginize and try out builds that work out with Heavy flak. And you will quickly notice how it yields a completely different play style than if you had some other heavy gun. I assume that you use a heavy gun on either a spire or Galleon as on a Goldfish is dooable, one goldfish with heavy flak ALONE almost cannot make it effecient. A goldfish with a heavy flak should team up with a ship that plans to open up an opportunity for a goldfish with heavy flak to land those hits.
Because the heavy flak is that important. As soon as you have a heavy flak on your team, you want those shots to hit, mostly and MOSTLY when their armor is down. And when they do hit, youve just taken 50%-100% of hull health.
I understand your concern. That it is not a friendly weapon. How the weapon works is a very different gun to bare from the others, as much as the others are from the rest. Like my comment was before, i only wish that it had an ironsight for easier shots. And ofcourse encouraging then the use of Range finder with the heavy flak.
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I've often found shooting the heavy flak has little to do with level and a lot to do with the player. Some people are just naturals with it.
I had a level 1 1 1 player on my ship in his tenth game last week hitting 80% accuracy with heavy flak off my galleon broadside with impeccable timing while enemy armor was down. I wish I remembered his name since he communicated and happened to be quite good but suffice to say it's not out of the ordinary to find a player like that (one of our ducks was found way back when after we saw him shoot the flak as a brand new player).
If you run one enough on your ship your bound to find someone who can handle that gun, whether vet or new player; once you find them, friend them and destroy enemies happily ever after.
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80% is crazy, especially after the lesmok nerf.
I mean these days long range shots are kinda a cooperative exercise, where the gunner engineer guesses where the enemy ship will be in or about 8 seconds and the enemy ship does its best to catch the round with its hull.
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I generally like the current weapon balance. It allows a lot of viable builds. After having played the game with this patch for quite a while here's a rating of the current weapons ranging from 0 (absolutely useless) to 10 (absolutely overpowered) based on my guts. I won'm mention nor discuss weapons I think to be in the well balanced 4-6 area and elaborate the issues I've got with the other ones.
Harpoon ( 1 ):
broken mechanics - a pretty much useless weapon as it has always been since I've picked up the game. I can see some utility usage for it on a support Galleon but that's about it. Fix the physics for it already to unfold the potential this gun concept has got!
Flamethrower( 2-3 ):
Currently flames provide decent balloon damage, okayish hull damage (with max stacks), almost neglectable damage to engines and weapons and they can kick people off their guns, which can be useful. Flame intensive builds can be rendered useless with organized chemspray usage - that's a big and unique disadvantage. In general I consider the damage output of the flamer too low to compete with gatlings, mines or even carronades.
I think it might be a good idea to shift the role of the flamer a bit towards the disabling. Smollets idea (https://gunsoficarus.com/community/forum/index.php/topic,3271.0.html) might be a good approach to step into this direction. Also it might be worth to consider increasing the flamers damage to engines and weapons while reducing the damage inflicted to the hull armor.
Light Carronade ( 3 ):
They are decent balloon poppers, okaish disablers (with heavy) and okaish hull strippers. I personally like carronades - they can do a lot of jobs, but unfortunatly barely any proper. When I think about which close range light weapon to use I'll much rather end up with the hull ripping gat or the mine-launcher as a serious disable weapon. I'd like to see this weapon outright buffed. A bit more flanchette damage to make it more useful for balloon popping ( as well as disabling and hull stripping to a lesser degree) should do the trick.
Light Flak( 3 ):
Arming time and a rather limited max. range significantly constrain the usefulness of this weapon significantly and in my opinion the damage output of this weapon rarely justifies these limitations. A spread reduction and increase of the max range (by 25-50%) would probably make this one more attractive in comparison to mortar, artemis and banshee.
Heavy Flak ( 3-4 ): I just consider it a bit underpowered since the lesmok nerf. It's a highly specialized weapon which requires a relatively high amount of teamwork to be useful in the first place. Imo It should be better at the job it's supposed to do.
Banshee ( 3-4 ):
Another one of these 'stuck in the middle' weapons. decent explosive damage + some fires for mid-close range. I use banshees occasionally but think artemises or mortars to be better replacements for it in most builds.
Artemis ( 8 ): powerful, pin point accurate disable power combined with okayish hull damage with an insanely wide field of operation and long range while not even having an arming time. We see them way to often these days. There are probably many approaches for a fix elaborated in one of the threads dedicated to this weapon already. Here are three ideas anyway: reduce the hull damage inflicted by this weapon or cut it entirely. This would force players to bring a true longrange explosive weapon (which should be the flak, imo). Also consider an arming time for it (600m-ish). This would make close range disablers (like carronades) more attractive. Last but not least drastically reducing the projectiles speed could make aiming with the artemis significantly harder - justifying the devastating effect their impact have.
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I pretty much agree with all the number rankings here other than the heavy flak. Heavy flak gets a solid 5 for me. When it works, it's amazing, though generally not suited for low level or even mid level play since it requires a good bit of coordination and a gunner that almost never misses.
As for the light Carronade you totally beat me to the punch. Artemis is currently being looked at by awkm and then I think he's going to take a look at the light flak and fire weapons. After those, the light Carronade definitely needs a bit of loving, probably just a 20-25% dps boost either with an additional shot, more flechette or higher rate of fire to make it a great weapon again. Once that happens squids should become much more competitive.
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I vote for making the carronade histscan again or adding tracers. Right now it is extremely difficult to use the shatter damage on the light carronade, less so for heavy.
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I'm starting to think that the "sweet spot" for the flak is too narrow. It detonates shortly after it's arming time. It doesn't have too much of a window to be effective, even when paired with the Hadies or mercury cannon. Either shorten the arming time or lengthen the range to make this window a little bigger. Either that, or increase the ammo mag to where you can lay down flak like it's the battlestar galactica (a bit of a hyperbole there), but I think that would make things a little too similar to the mortar.
It's currently out-shined by the Artemis missile, which will not only kill stuff, but also strip components, and do it with more accuracy and rounds in the clip!
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I'm starting to think that the "sweet spot" for the flak is too narrow. It detonates shortly after it's arming time. It doesn't have too much of a window to be effective, even when paired with the Hadies or mercury cannon. Either shorten the arming time or lengthen the range to make this window a little bigger. Either that, or increase the ammo mag to where you can lay down flak like it's the battlestar galactica (a bit of a hyperbole there), but I think that would make things a little too similar to the mortar.
It's currently out-shined by the Artemis missile, which will not only kill stuff, but also strip components, and do it with more accuracy and rounds in the clip!
This pretty much sums up all of the shortcomings of the light flak in a nutshell. awkm stated he'll be taking a look at this gun and I'm sure will take these forum posts into consideration.
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I'm starting to think that the "sweet spot" for the flak is too narrow. It detonates shortly after it's arming time. It doesn't have too much of a window to be effective, even when paired with the Hadies or mercury cannon. Either shorten the arming time or lengthen the range to make this window a little bigger. Either that, or increase the ammo mag to where you can lay down flak like it's the battlestar galactica (a bit of a hyperbole there), but I think that would make things a little too similar to the mortar.
It's currently out-shined by the Artemis missile, which will not only kill stuff, but also strip components, and do it with more accuracy and rounds in the clip!
This pretty much sums up all of the shortcomings of the light flak in a nutshell. awkm stated he'll be taking a look at this gun and I'm sure will take these forum posts into consideration.
Awesome. I'm sure giving it the same, or similar, arming time as the hades will allow for some great synergy at that medium skirmish-range.
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Light flak has far supperior killing power to artemis tbh. If you want to kill stuff at medium-lond range only weapon more eficcient is heavy flak. They don't do anything else exceptionaly well but they are at least good at killing. Artemis is far supperior at dissabling and hades might be better at armor and baloon killing, but lack the burst damage of flak. You need 2 ships worth of artemis to match pure hull killing power of a single light flak - even if 2 shis wort of artemis focus fire will dissable entire ship in no more than 5 seconds.
As for arming range in comparison to max range is: 225M to 1000M I think the "sweet spot" is large enough, altho inclusion of arming time on light flak doesen't make any sense.
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Basically, most people seem to think it's more profitable to have someone disabled and slowly dying than to have someone dodging your hades shots with full engine health.