Guns Of Icarus Online

Main => General Discussion => Topic started by: HamsterIV on January 28, 2014, 02:46:10 pm

Title: Expectations of the Game
Post by: HamsterIV on January 28, 2014, 02:46:10 pm
I want to start a discussion about what we expected this game to be vs what it is. Most of us have been playing for a while and our perception of the game and its mechanics match pretty closely to how the game actually works. What I am interested in are your thoughts about Guns of Icarus based on what you knew before you started playing it and during your first few matches.

Here were my misconceptions:
Every one will want to be captain.
People are going to whine if I take the captain spot as a noob.
There will be boarding.
Most captains will not be forgiving of newbie mistakes so I should master the game mechanics in single player.
There will be a single player for me to hone my skills.
There are so many gun/tool options that I will never be able to find an optimized build without resorting to a wiki on the game.
The Pyramidion is an ugly ship and is vastly outgunned by every other ship (except the squid).
Medium weapons are vastly superior to their light counterparts.
The Galleon is overpowered.
Tar barrel must be useless, the enemy can just aim for the tar.
Every one will be using the buffkit because there will be down time between combat.
The pipe wrench is the best of the three repairing tools.
The harpoon will prevent my opponent from getting away.
Popping my opponent's balloon is the fastest way to victory.

Here are my correct assumptions.
Exploiting an opposing ship's blind spot will be a common tactic.
You would have to be crazy to fly a squid.
You would have to be crazy good to win a match with a squid.
The Devs will release regular updates.
Flame throwers are the best way to mess with the enemy crew.
There will be a small group of people who play this game way too much.
Title: Re: Expectations of the Game
Post by: Oliver Colt on January 28, 2014, 03:29:02 pm
Most captains will not be forgiving of newbie mistakes so I should master the game mechanics in single player.
There will be a single player for me to hone my skills.

This is what scared me the most when I first played xD It's why I had the game just sitting there for so long and never really played until recently. Then I was expecting a bunch of really good guys just wrecking everyone, which happens but not as much as I thought, and sometimes we newbies get to play with them too so yeah that I wasn't expecting at all, it's nice :D

I didn't really know much of the game aside from that because it was a gift from a friend, I had no idea it existed or anything so regarding boarding and all that I didn't imagine much. I thought that there were small clans (the really good guys wrecking everyone) and everyone else, and that everyone was on their own just trying to get as many kills as possible and that you could only play with your friends/clan or AIs, but I soon realized it wasn't like that. And now I love this game even though I still suck at it! 8)
Title: Re: Expectations of the Game
Post by: redria on January 28, 2014, 03:34:27 pm
"I will never want to pilot. Being responsible for my ship and team doing well? No thanks." - I played as a main engineer on pyramidions for a good amount of time before getting a little tired of it and trying to fly. The rest, as they say, is history.

"This game is so chaotic. I don't understand what is going on, we can't find anybody, I'm not sure how to tell if we are dying... what is even going on?" - I first played with a group of 3 other friends about a year ago. We played a couple matches. Only on of us had a computer that could handle the game even at minimum settings, so 3/4 of us were running about 2-3 fps. I think we played canyon ambush. None of us had done prior research into any of the mechanics. We couldn't find anybody. It was... trying.
Title: Re: Expectations of the Game
Post by: James T. Kirk on January 28, 2014, 04:59:24 pm
"this game sounds like a good solid weekend of fun."
Title: Re: Expectations of the Game
Post by: awkm on January 28, 2014, 05:48:51 pm
This thread is potentially very helpful.  Thanks HamsterIV for posing this question.  A lot of new features are going in to facilitate some of the problems that some of you went through at the beginning (newbies and pilots etc...) as we are focusing heavily on player retention as we move into Co-Op Mode Expansion.

We'd love to hear more about your honest initial opinions in order to improve the game for future players and our future games.
Title: Re: Expectations of the Game
Post by: Squidslinger Gilder on January 28, 2014, 06:34:56 pm
Went in with the idea of the captain spot being the most difficult in the game. Afraid to touch it. Think this is pretty common among newbies. It is the only spot that is demanded to make matches happen but the spot most newbies fear.

It is an age old stigma that there really isn't any way around. Probably the only thing that could be done is making it more attractive. Making it an aspect of the game that newbies want to try out.
Title: Re: Expectations of the Game
Post by: HamsterIV on January 28, 2014, 06:56:36 pm
I was happy to stay in the engineer roll until I got too board of waiting for some one else to take the helm. I started GOI after just coming off playing medic in TF2. I liked the idea of being the unsung hero that stands behind the team as it pushes for victory. I initially thought the pilot/captain roll would be the most desirable because it is the one with the most power. However I did not desire it for myself.
Title: Re: Expectations of the Game
Post by: Zander Broda on January 28, 2014, 07:01:31 pm
"me and my group of friends who bought this game will play together all the time!"


i post this because i've heard the same exact story over and over, you or a friend found out about the game, word of it spreads across the social circle, a whole bunch of you buy the game, and then only you log in more than once.
Title: Re: Expectations of the Game
Post by: HamsterIV on January 28, 2014, 07:24:56 pm
I too am the only one of my IRL friends who play this after the initial introduction. Part of it were some false expectations. The friends I tried to rope in all worked at the San Diego Maritime Museum and did historical reenactment. I thought they would enjoy of manning a ship together, but the whole experience did not match their historically accurate notions of what naval combat was about.

That is another thing I wanted to add to the list. I had the expectation that a crew member could be hurt by ship to ship fire. The Gatling gun especially has this connotation since it was an anti personnel weapon in real life.
Title: Re: Expectations of the Game
Post by: Omniraptor on January 28, 2014, 07:29:20 pm
"Misconceptions" that I think are correct-

The Pyramidion is an ugly ship that will get outgunned at range by anything except squid and goldfish.
Every one will be using the buffkit because there will be down time between combat.
Medium weapons are vastly superior to their light counterparts (with the exception of the hwacha)
There are so many gun/tool options that I will never be able to find an optimized build without resorting to a wiki on the game. This is mostly because the wiki sucks, but I've seen people seriously use stuff like flakfish.

And yes, it makes a lot of sense that explosive shells should strip the reactive armor, while chaingun should kill the crew. Muse just has it backwards. Still, if crew damage was a thing nobody would ever use anything except the mercury. :P
Title: Re: Expectations of the Game
Post by: Wundsalz on January 28, 2014, 07:31:48 pm
impressions before picking up the game:
- A generic shooter that involves airships. It'll probably be good to waste an hour or two of my spare time before I forget about it again. Your steam advertisement really did not tease me at all. I've ended up playing this game in the first place because Phelan repetitively pushed me to get involved in a 4pack purchase (good marketing option for this game!).
- I've confused Guns of Icarus with GoIO. I've watched gameplay videos of GoI (that single player game of yours) and frankly I've been less than unimpressed. If I recall it correctly I've found one or two GoI-videos on steam back in the day. If that's right, you seem to have removed those. Good call.

first game impressions:
- What's the purpose of the minigun? It doesn't do anything! those Artemises are cool however - they seem to wreck everything! (I think muse did a pretty good by adding visual effects for breaking hulls as well as the red hit markers.)
- this community is friendly and communicative. (Special thanks to Arnox who elaborated quite some game mechanics to lvl 2-3ish Phelan, Tolarin and me.)
- the game mechanics are rich and seem to require skill in front of the monitor.
- piloting is confusing... way to much stuff to keep track of - enemy movements, my allies movements, these thingies in the 1234 slots that are supposed to help me flying this vessel, guns, mini map, repairs, structure everywhere, why are we sinking? - oh I forgot to deactivate hydro again. How the hell are some pilots able to calmly organize their crew while taking care of all this stuff?
- mouse wheel scroll is an absolutely dumb default setting for steering tool selections. (And I still firmly believe this. So in case muse didn't alter that already - it's way overdue)
- teamplay wins! (after Phelan and I have flown fairly successful against some far more experienced pilots)
- 3v3s are absolutely chaotic! - there's no way to keep track of 6 ships at the same time! (I've needed quite feel comfortable with those, even after I've gotten the hang on 2v2 matches already. Especially as a pilot)
- That Shinkurex guy surely has fucked up quite some stuff.
Title: Re: Expectations of the Game
Post by: redria on January 28, 2014, 09:28:03 pm
"All these piloting tools damage my ship! Who would even use those? What a terrible thing." - Anyone who flies with me knows how much my opinion has changed on that...
Title: Re: Expectations of the Game
Post by: Oliver Colt on January 28, 2014, 09:54:01 pm
"All these piloting tools damage my ship! Who would even use those? What a terrible thing." - Anyone who flies with me knows how much my opinion has changed on that...

I still think that xD My pilot loadout is spyglass, impact bumpers and the most radical: phoenix claw :P
Title: Re: Expectations of the Game
Post by: ramjamslam on January 28, 2014, 09:57:37 pm
To use pilot tools, I originally thought that you had to left click to activate it.  So I did fly around the map with kerosene on and then clicking when I wanted to use it once or twice before I figured it out.
Title: Re: Expectations of the Game
Post by: Kestril on January 29, 2014, 01:09:08 am
Original perceptions:
-Piloting tools damage stuff. Who would use that?
-These ships are all near-invincible. They won't go down!
-The junker is the best ship evar
- Everyone will hate me if I fail as captian
-The lumberjack is useless
-The spire is unique, interesting, and looks fun.
-The squid seems fun.
-Flying high = always advantageous. Always.

Changed Perceptions:
-Pilot tools are so useful. Who wouldn't use them?
-The only ships that can take some punishment are the junker and the galleon.
-The junker is the best ship evar.
-So long as I communicate with my crew, they'll usually stay on board with me captaining.
-The lumberjack is godly with a good gunner.
-The spire is usually a sitting duck
-The squid is an absolute blast.
-Flying high = gives you some big blindspots and allows crafty captains to sneak up from below.
Title: Re: Expectations of the Game
Post by: Mizhir Starsurge on January 29, 2014, 09:48:41 am
"I will start with bad equipment and have spend countless of hours being roflstomped by players who are not only better than me, but got better stuff as well" - Damn I was happy when I first logged in a learned that everyone has the same tools available. Finally a game where it is player skills that matters.
Title: Re: Expectations of the Game
Post by: luchelibre on February 08, 2014, 07:50:00 pm
When I found out about the game and saw that it had a captain/crew setup with cooperation essential to victory, I expected that the playerbase would have headsets, use them, and be active in giving orders, following them, calling targets, etc.

I played for 25 hours, mostly as a gunner, and I've honestly never been so disappointed by a playerbase.

At the beginning of every game, I would tell the captain that I was relatively new and wanted orders and direction. I got them every 10 matches or so, perhaps not even that. The others were silence or 'do whatever'. I did have one afternoon where I was crewed with the same few active guys for several matches and that helped a lot. However, I can't count the number of times I was on completely silent ships or ships with disobedient crew on those rare times I had an active captain.

I honestly can't fathom how so many antisocial people thought it a good idea to install such a completely social game.

And yes, you do have a mic. It's 2014. You have a mic. You're one of the 3 who don't? See that $3.50 in your pocket? Go buy a mic.

After 25 hours, I'd had enough and uninstalled. I know the game is amazing when you can find 3 other guys who know how to vocalcord and order/obey. I know I could make those 3 friends ingame. I also know I don't want that level of sameness hour after hour. I want to play with a lot of different people: Crazy pubbies with nutty builds and geniuses with OP roflstompers. But there were just too darn many in the playerbase that are mute and apathetic.

There was one singular match that epitomized what I'd hoped the game would be. We had a brand new player on the ship and he sounded nervous. His first match, IIRC. I believe he was a gunner. The captain was active and I called target positions, gun status, etc. with gusto, as was my custom. The team worked well together and we got the win. The game did its part too with heavy sounds and visuals, and whiteknuckle action made whiter by intensity of the crew chatter. Before the guy left the match, he said that that was amazing and he had a huge amount of fun. Loved the game. The tone of his voice literally made me smile.

I can only hope his next 10 matches weren't the same as mine.
Title: Re: Expectations of the Game
Post by: Lord Dick Tim on February 09, 2014, 06:14:34 am
Orginal Assumptions
*There is a harpoon gun, and this ship is called a Junker, lookout for skywhales.
*Its team based, god dammit I'm either going to be fixing or leading again, I just want to shoot skywhales!
*Some weapons have multible areas of function that others dont, doesnt seem to be deliberately superior, there has to be a designed counter.
*Captain is proactive, engineering is pro or reactive and gunning is best done by assignment.

What Iearned
*Harpoons are for killing skywhales, they have no other use, keep searching.
*Every strategy has a counter, intentionally designed or not, ship/weapon choice changes with map selection.  Who uses the terrain best wins.
*Gunners are an extension of the Captains will, a strong harmony between a captain and a skilled gunner is more important than a skilled engineer.  Dead ships dont shoot back.
*The combat follows a theme like a story, there is a beginning, middle and end to each conflict.  Each phase uses different tools and weapons, and each ship is more or less proficient at each phase, read the scene correctly and you will win.
Title: Re: Expectations of the Game
Post by: The Sky Wolf on February 10, 2014, 12:57:27 am
I loved the pyramidion at first sight...  I thought I'd have to buy ships but as soon as I found out that they were all free I looked through the ships and was deadset on the pyramidion. This was before I even played the game at all.
Title: Re: Expectations of the Game
Post by: Captain Smollett on February 10, 2014, 01:05:40 am
When I found out about the game and saw that it had a captain/crew setup with cooperation essential to victory, I expected that the playerbase would have headsets, use them, and be active in giving orders, following them, calling targets, etc.

I played for 25 hours, mostly as a gunner, and I've honestly never been so disappointed by a playerbase.

At the beginning of every game, I would tell the captain that I was relatively new and wanted orders and direction. I got them every 10 matches or so, perhaps not even that. The others were silence or 'do whatever'. I did have one afternoon where I was crewed with the same few active guys for several matches and that helped a lot. However, I can't count the number of times I was on completely silent ships or ships with disobedient crew on those rare times I had an active captain.

I honestly can't fathom how so many antisocial people thought it a good idea to install such a completely social game.

And yes, you do have a mic. It's 2014. You have a mic. You're one of the 3 who don't? See that $3.50 in your pocket? Go buy a mic.

After 25 hours, I'd had enough and uninstalled. I know the game is amazing when you can find 3 other guys who know how to vocalcord and order/obey. I know I could make those 3 friends ingame. I also know I don't want that level of sameness hour after hour. I want to play with a lot of different people: Crazy pubbies with nutty builds and geniuses with OP roflstompers. But there were just too darn many in the playerbase that are mute and apathetic.

There was one singular match that epitomized what I'd hoped the game would be. We had a brand new player on the ship and he sounded nervous. His first match, IIRC. I believe he was a gunner. The captain was active and I called target positions, gun status, etc. with gusto, as was my custom. The team worked well together and we got the win. The game did its part too with heavy sounds and visuals, and whiteknuckle action made whiter by intensity of the crew chatter. Before the guy left the match, he said that that was amazing and he had a huge amount of fun. Loved the game. The tone of his voice literally made me smile.

I can only hope his next 10 matches weren't the same as mine.

Wow, this is incredibly insightful and I hope the devs see this.  I'm not sure if the poster is still checking the thread but I'm curious whether this was in beginner lobbies or in regular matches.  When I joined the game a million of years ago beginner matches didn't exist and the vets were chatty as heck due to the small player base.  Most players had mics and that honestly is what made and still makes this game so incredibly fun.

I've always thought Muse should somehow mention that a mic and communication are the keys to both victory and an insanely good game experience.

To the original poster, if you ever want to give the game a second chance, I encourage you to look into some of the larger clans in the game since almost all of them play this game for its social and cooperative value and use mic's extensively and are large enough you wind up meeting tons of cool players.
Title: Re: Expectations of the Game
Post by: Omniraptor on February 10, 2014, 04:10:11 pm
Agreed, a microphone and speakers should be in the game's system requirements next to the other hardware.
Title: Re: Expectations of the Game
Post by: Dutch Vanya on February 10, 2014, 05:09:17 pm
I agree that it should be made more obvious that this game is about teamwork and communication, people aren't used to that. Before guns of icarus, i had never experienced gamers using their mics for anything other than obscenely insulting eachothers mothers and telling eachother to shut up.
Title: Re: Expectations of the Game
Post by: luchelibre on February 10, 2014, 10:36:09 pm
Wow, this is incredibly insightful and I hope the devs see this.  I'm not sure if the poster is still checking the thread but I'm curious whether this was in beginner lobbies or in regular matches.  When I joined the game a million of years ago beginner matches didn't exist and the vets were chatty as heck due to the small player base.  Most players had mics and that honestly is what made and still makes this game so incredibly fun.

I've always thought Muse should somehow mention that a mic and communication are the keys to both victory and an insanely good game experience.

To the original poster, if you ever want to give the game a second chance, I encourage you to look into some of the larger clans in the game since almost all of them play this game for its social and cooperative value and use mic's extensively and are large enough you wind up meeting tons of cool players.

While I appreciate the kind words, I don't believe my post is either insightful or helpful to the devs.

The devs already know the absolute importance of headsets. However, they also know that mics are worthless if the playerbase won't use them or uses them but are disobedient or apathetic , which is more often the case. They have so tightly balanced their game that 3 will almost never beat 4 and the naval pace of the game allows for rich chatter. My post doesn't tell them anything they don't already know.

They will also find out from their logs that I haven't played a match in many, many months and so my experience may, in their more-informed opinion, be obsolete (which is different from 'wrong'). The only reason I'm here is because Muse sent me an email about the latest game update. I love the game itself, and Muse does already have my money, so I checked out the update. I also came to the forums and saw this thread. I checked the other forums and threads to see if silence and apathy were still a major problem and decided that it was. I especially noticed that Muse has been working on 'voice' commands. This would be particularly helpful for people of different languages on the same ship. However, my experience would suggest that it was primarily introduced as a concession to the mute and a recognition of their pervasiveness. I hope I'm wrong.

All that said, to be honest the more time I spend talking about GoI, the more I want to try it some more. The game itself truly was very good.

If I give in and you should see me in-game, then for Muse's sake, give me some freaking orders. ;-)
Title: Re: Expectations of the Game
Post by: awkm on February 11, 2014, 11:23:18 am
The only thing people seem to manage to say into microphones are oftentimes expletives.  OR when someone says something useful or asks a question, they get expletives in response.  It's not a problem that Muse alone can solve, the unruliness of the internet, but we hope that we set good examples by enforcing a strong ethical code of conduct (use that report player feature if you need to!) and creating a game that NEEDS good teamwork.

We've tried to put some additional functions like the Crew Signals (radio-like) command system.  It's a little buried ATM but we intend to do more tutorials on it in the future.  Hopefully that helps.
Title: Re: Expectations of the Game
Post by: snor-laxatives on February 12, 2014, 01:07:01 am
What I thought:
"Yar Har, Lets all act like Pirates"
"Yar Har, Lets all run into each other"
"Yar Har, I bet there be a ton of scalawags to cause mischief with"
"Yar Har, Perhaps I will learn more seaworthy words than 'Yar Har"

What I Found.
"Not as many pirates yet, but lots of different animals"
"Ramming is still my favorite thing to do.... to a fault"
"Good community (not perfect, but good, and hopefully we can keep plugging up the leaks)"
"Nautical terms, yay!"
Bonus:
"Im not as good of a multi-tasker as I thought"
"All though I may be "captain" I'm only as good as my first mate.  When bullets start to fly my mouth starts to shut (something I'm working on)
"Ramming is still my favorite thing to do.............................. to a fault"
Title: Re: Expectations of the Game
Post by: macmacnick on February 12, 2014, 01:10:52 am
What I thought:
"Yar Har, Lets all act like Pirates"
"Yar Har, Lets all run into each other"
"Yar Har, I bet there be a ton of scalawags to cause mischief with"
"Yar Har, Perhaps I will learn more seaworthy words than 'Yar Har"

What I Found.
"Not as many pirates yet, but lots of different animals"
"Ramming is still my favorite thing to do.... to a fault"
"Good community (not perfect, but good, and hopefully we can keep plugging up the leaks)"
"Nautical terms, yay!"
Bonus:
"Im not as good of a multi-tasker as I thought"
"All though I may be "captain" I'm only as good as my first mate.  When bullets start to fly my mouth starts to shut (something I'm working on)
"Ramming is still my favorite thing to do.............................. to a fault"
Did someone Say Animals? Mrau.


 ^—^
(O^O)


I also initially expected the game to also include Ai ships that would be on par with real enemies.



Title: Re: Expectations of the Game
Post by: AlmaShade on February 12, 2014, 03:38:26 pm
My initial assumptions of the game. All of which I now know are wrong.
"I'll mostly be playing gunner."
"People will fight to be the main gunner."
"Occasionally, at least two crew members will be too stubborn to give up being a gunner."
"The other classes aren't very interesting."
"This game will be will be quite complicated."
"The Manticore is overpowered."
"The captain will often behave like dictator."
"The Gattling Gun is useless."
"People will hate me if I suck."
"Everyone but the captain has captain-mind-reading powers, so I don't need to use voice com."  :P
"Port is the right side of the ship, and Starboard is the left side."