Guns Of Icarus Online
Main => Gameplay => Topic started by: GreyTea on February 21, 2014, 06:27:05 am
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Ok ladies and gentlemen,
This is going to be a thread for changes you would like to see for the beloved assassin ship The Squid,
Note: Keep it relevant with why you want the change, positive or negative and keep balance in mind please,
So for me personaly i want a Maneuverability buff, i want the squid to be wild and alive under my control very hard to fly and even harder to master so that people who put the work in have a high risk high reward ship if you can stay in a ships blind spot and are tatical enough and skilled enough you are more competent 1vs1 to pick off enemy ships who split up, and people fear pilots who go squid,
Currently with the squid you can get in the blind spots if you are concealed or unspotted but staying in them is very diffrent story, i would say you have a window of 5-10 seconds max before you make the descion to stay or break off it takes only a slight adjustment to put you in arcs of most ships except the mobula perhaps, but because the speed at the moment is not surrficent it limits your build so much you have to go balloon popper or some sort of disable rather than a hit and run kill ship it is pushed into a disabler support role. with a kill being drawn out hoping to overwhelm the engineers with fire so mainly it is carronade flamer for a hight advantage then rain down the flamer rather than gat mortar and run rings around an enemy ship, against less experinced players it is easy enough achieved but someone on your own skill level at the moment i feel the squid is at a disadvantage against most ships, and its only advantages is countered to easy by claw.
So what if everyones thoughts on the squid atm what needs to be done to make it more deadly or changes you would like to see?
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Make the squid have almost or as good verticality as the mobula. The squid is not dodgy enough. I dodge more with the mobula. So a vertical speed and acceleration buff would be much appriciated (Coming from a captain who loves his baloon buffs). It also helpes the squid in the fact that there is another option when his engines are down.
This would surely make the squid very dodgy. The squid with its fast speed and verticality is then the anti gun arcs ship.
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You know my arguments...they never change and I will never stop making them until my baby is back to way it should be.
Speed, acceleration, mobility, nerf the hull hp. There is no reason the squid should have 850 hp on hull. Its a tissue paper fighter and it should stay that way. Highest risk for reward ratio of all the ships. It should depend completely on the pilot and crew to reach it's full potential, not bound to tools other than vertical, and it should not be able to ram without dying. Seriously...its silly seeing Squids ramming and surviving.
If theres QQ about it then being OP, 1...you don't fly Squid enough and 2 you obviously never played pre 1.2 when the game was fun. It was never OP in 1.1 cause you could kill it so easily. But in the hands of an experienced pilot you could engage any ship and it took equally experienced pilots to be able to counter. If still QQ, then Muse needs to bring the Pyra back to it's old capabilities. I know I'm not alone on this.
Enough with slowing the game down all the time. Been a year of slowing the ships down. Teams then counter by using ranged combat. Which people then call "boring." Give it some speed and fun factor back. When I started I didn't beat sniper boats with sniper builds, I beat them by being faster and out arcing them then ripping their belly up.
Also...Uppercut with Hydro needs to be a thing again.
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I'm actually ok with the large HP. In my opinion, ship HP makes very little difference compared to armor. The squid armor takes about 2 seconds to rebuild, but goes down quite a bit faster, this means that you need some cushion to not die immediately every time something goes wrong.
If the maneuverability of the ship was increased, I wouldn't oppose a reduction in HP. I often find myself shaking the ship apart trying to stay alive, damaging the engines and tearing the balloon to shreds. You need to walk a very fine line between burning up components to stay out of their gun arcs, but stopping short of damaging your components too much. And that's just trying to avoid the enemy. If you try to get two guns in arc for a decent length of time you often end up sacrificing your own ship's safety.
One of the biggest weaknesses of the ship is how spread out the components are. One suggestion to help the squid would be to create some kind of path near the back that allowed an engineer to easily get to the all the engines. That far left engine (behind the pilot) tends to be neglected a lot because there's nothing else around it. And once a squid loses a single engine, or has one damaged greatly, they lose their mobility and shortly become a fine rain of wood chips.
But of course I'm biased on the matter, being a huge lover of squid ships. I will say that in all other ships, it's actually really easy to keep them in your sights with minimal uses of piloting tools.
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improved gun arcs.
nerf phoenix claw.
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Do we need every ship to be effective in competitive play?
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It doesn't need any changes to its stats. Its the best ship at disengaging from a fight, getting back into the advantage and then going back in. I don't want some yellow drone floating around my ship 24/7.
The only reason it has fallen back is from fairly recent changes like the carro nerf. Side gun arc adjustment might help, as the gat/mortar combo just either doesn't overlap at all, or its very slight (I cant remember which). Its pretty limited with guns because of the need for overlap like that, so i'd look there first to help it out and broaden it's options, unless that was put there on purpose.
While many people like to say the goldfish is a support ship, a squid is THE support ship. You get a max of two guns on the same arcs, but the speed and movement to really pester someone if you do it right. You are bait. Be bait. You are not a fighter jet, you're in a blimp.
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They don't overlap, but you can hit the same target with them if you're close enough.
While I do love being bait, that shouldn't be the only role for the squid to fill. While it is still maneuverable, it's extremely easy to keep in the sights of even the slowest of ships. You get disabled by a galleon, and it's over. You try to run from a pyra, and it will wreck your day. This is even with using pilot tools. Against good pilots, the squishy squid just can't slip away.
Personally I alternate between ambushing and baiting as a squid, depending on the situation, and it's usually a mixed bag of results depending on the enemy. Against not as experienced players, it's pretty devastating, but against an experienced enemy you've just saved them the trouble of going to look for you.
I've played as a squid and against squids quite a lot. I even wrote a guide trying to get players to fly squids differently. You just can't use it like all the other ships, you have to try so much harder for it to be effective, and even then it's a gamble.
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While I do love being bait, that shouldn't be the only role for the squid to fill. While it is still maneuverable, it's extremely easy to keep in the sights of even the slowest of ships. You get disabled by a galleon, and it's over. You try to run from a pyra, and it will wreck your day. This is even with using pilot tools. Against good pilots, the squishy squid just can't slip away.
It isn't the only role, but many people I see taking squids just don't even give that a thought. Your assessments vs a galleon and a prya haven't been my experiences. Galleons are pretty hard countered by squids if they get into the blind spots (which they have the speed to do). A pyra is more tricky for sure, and will usually require a few disengagements. You need to get them into a turning fight, and if that's not working, make them turn the opposite way of your escape and zoom off. All that time, they are looking at you, and not your ally. I've won with squids in competition like this.
Personally I alternate between ambushing and baiting as a squid, depending on the situation, and it's usually a mixed bag of results depending on the enemy. Against not as experienced players, it's pretty devastating, but against an experienced enemy you've just saved them the trouble of going to look for you.
That's the essence of a squid really. Either you get in there successfully, or not. If not, you can leave and try again. If so, you cause the havoc while your ally takes advantage of it.
Now if only junkers didn't turn so fast...
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It would be interesting to see the HP nerfed to give it insane balloon buffs. However the light carro balance as Zill pointed out was pretty much a nail in the coffin (its not like the squid was seeing a lot of competitive play before the carronade balance)
Squids though are currently a great hard counter to galleons and pyras, I'm not sure what Thomas is talking about.
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Well the old artemis stopped me from thinking squid most recently. The carro has left me feeling a little unsatisfied too, but it still can work.
Point here being, its not a squid issue, but other factors in play.
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If the carroande is the only option for the squid than I think we have a problem.
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Its not. Gat is also viable, as is flames. Flames also arguably have their shortcomings though.
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I can't imagine a gat flame setup working in competitive play.
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I don't think squid needs better vertical acceleration, since it can allready do unpeakable things to the likes of Mobula, Spire, Galleon, nad if it can sneak into Pyra's blind spot pyra as well (pyra can keep up with squid circling around it, but if squid is out of it's arcs, it dosen't help).
However I agree it's still underpowered in comparison with (most) other ships.
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Well with galleon and pyra (the two slowest turning ships) they both turn faster than the squid can run around them (when using phoenix claw). I often use a little boost of kerosene to keep the chase going, but after a short bit of this they figure out that they can change directions faster than I can (squid has a lot of momentum), and just turn the ship the other way.
The story changes a bit for the galleon if you try to stick to popping his balloon and sitting over them, but if they do manage to get some shots on you before you can start sinking them, it quickly becomes a bad situation for the squid.
Overall the squid is a really risky choice, and the reward for doing well with it isn't all that great.
Personally I go with a murder squid and bring a gat or flamer and a mortar. Trying to squat on a ship by breaking their balloon and such takes waaay too long, and often results in their ally coming to the rescue. The flamer can be a great choice, unless they bring chem spray, at which point you might as well be throwing flowers at them. The gat works better at stripping the hull down, but has smaller turning angles so it's harder to use at the same time with your side gun, and much less versatile than the flamethrower.
In theory you should easily be able to get a double artemis going, or even possibly a hades-artemis combo. But then you're stuck at that range, and the ship's sudden movements make it harder to use with long range weapons. Especially if you go for precision aiming at components.
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In my personal opinion after flying both disable and kill squids, the most frustrating issue is the ability for engineers to effectively keep the engines in good condition. (Especially when you are attempting to use the bifecta) As a result of this the moment one engine becomes significantly damaged or disabled the ability for the squid to continue the engagement in considerably reduced, in addition to this its ability to effectively escape is also hampered...
If the squid was to receive any adjustment I would recommend either making the lower engines in particular more accessible for repairs or increasing the health of the engines as a simple but small alteration. (The later option may have repercussions with rebuild time however... xD) Or in a more extreme adjustment perhaps even a slight increase in acceleration or manoeuvrability...
P.s. Gun arcs shouldn't be tampered with as one of the strengths of the squid is the alternate bifecta.
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I think we need N-Sunderland to teach a parkour class.
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Parkour certainly works, but in the off chance you catch a Hwacha volley or a few burst Artemis to the engines... good luck! Cos you'll certainly need it... Especially when against experienced players!
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...the squid doesn't really need a faster top speed as much as it needs a higher acceleration rate...
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I can't imagine a gat flame setup working in competitive play.
I didn't mean using gat and flamer together. I was talking front gun options.
The ability to hit the top engines from the bottom decks with a jump would be swell. I will say that.
You cant use too many tools involving engines on a squid else you basically kill yourself. Buffing does wonders over tools, and people really need to get off their tar fixation on squids...
A side gun I rarely see used is the banshee, which im not sure why. It brings fire and explosive with great arcs. Sure its slower than a mortar, but much easier to sustain.
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Zill, you can hit the engines from the bottom decks, just jump on the railing and hit them from there (with jumping I believe)
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I meant without all the added acrobatics, lol.
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Actually you can without acrobatics. As you head towards the back engine, look up, jump, and click. You will hit the top engine on the way to the back engine.
It isn't as easy as the pyramidion, and trying to rebuild from that angle isn't worth it, but keeping things repaired is pretty easy.
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but keeping things repaired is pretty easy.
When out of combat sure! But under fire?! That's an entirely different scenario... Considering that the slightest error on the squid pilots behalf and the armor can be stripped in seconds, engines can go down or be crippled in the blink of an eye... not to mention somewhat often fatal lag spikes resulting in nasty crashes... xD
Put simply I believe the squid becomes quite difficult to repair effectively when things don't exactly go to plan...
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Ok so let me totally clear then with what I meant. Making it so all you have to do is either look up and jump or just plain look up to rebuild/repair an engine from any angle below it would be nice.
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improved gun arcs.
nerf phoenix claw.
this.
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You can hit the upper engines from the lower engine area, but the total repair time for all engines isn't all that improved. You have the option to hit:
-Hit a side engine, hit the middle engines, run to the final engine (slowest, safest)
-Hit a side engine, run to the middle engines, jump to the last engine (fast, unsafe)
-HIt a side engine, jump and smack a middle engine, run to the other side engine and hit it, jump and smack the last middle engine (moderate, safe)
Overall this is one of the slowest engineer routes for engines, you can even get the mobula engines faster (the slowest is probably a junker, but you can divide your forces better on a junker). Which is kind of hard on a ship that really relies on it's engines and pilot tools so much. One of the reasons the pyra is so powerful is because it's components are incredibly close together, allowing intense amount of abuse to the components.
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The nerfs of singular close range options over the patches has put squid in a bit of an odd spot. I do believe better vertical acceleration could be an interesting option. As a ship though it can do stupid things no other ship can do. For example I was once flying a squid with mines on the back. One more kill to win. Guy is almost down but no way to finish. I start closing distance and then am hit with a brilliant idea. RAM MY OWN MINE! I hit the kerosene, he's almost out of mine range, I crash into it and KABLOOM! Match is won. I love the squid in the city.
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Why not take the two top deck engines and combine them into one main engine like on the other ships (i know this is special to the squid, so before rage begins let me finish). Putting that engine in place of the back gun may allow us to move the back gun to one of the engine spots, pointed back, but with a slight angle toward the side. This way, obtaining a bifecta is now easier, but only on the back two guns. Just an idea.
I think that would help the squid keep its hit and run, and movement based tactics, without messing with the ship as a whole. Although the more I think about it that may just make repairing all of the engines harder not easier...
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You know, that would just encourage me to fly the squid backwards more than I already do :P
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Skrim has a point, even me coming from the same team.
Think about it, all ships use pheonix claw. It has almost become a default thing, and pheonix claw is the only thing that helps ships combat the squid and many other things because it does not punish the ship for pheonix claw use.
Guys, i dont think its Squid that is underpowered in itself, it is what is outside the box that makes the squid underpowered. :I
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The buff the squid needs is an increased turn arc for the Mortar. My "Kill Configuration" on a squid is gat banshee because they are the only close range pierce/explosive light weapons that I can get decent overlap. The mortar is supposed to be the close range finisher, and the squid is supposed to be the close range ship, yet it is impractical to use the best weapon for the job due to its poor lateral field of fire.
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I prefer to consider a squid as a lightning strike ship that pops a balloon or destroys all the engines. It darts in, does crazy component downage, then goes and hides again. Using squids to kill is certainly very viable but I tend to shy away from it. It means sticking around for longer and that makes you a target for ships with more armour and firepower than you.
I'd probably like to see a little buff to its engines, particularly acceleration. I love going fast! :D
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I prefer to consider a squid as a lightning strike ship that pops a balloon or destroys all the engines. It darts in, does crazy component downage, then goes and hides again. Using squids to kill is certainly very viable but I tend to shy away from it. It means sticking around for longer and that makes you a target for ships with more armour and firepower than you.
I'd probably like to see a little buff to its engines, particularly acceleration. I love going fast! :D
That's why I wish there was a gun that did exactly that really well only at close range. Carronade used to. Flame used to. Squid got a little left by the wayside because other ships were using it's signatures too well.
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I think we all want the gun arcs tweaked a bit so we can use more weapon combos.
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I wouldmt mind seeing an overall increase in engine power. Squid engines get abused so much by the pilot and his opponents that it doesn't take that much time in the engage before the squid loses all of it's mobility advantages due to damaged and destroyed engines.
Making it easier to jump hit engines would help but you're still always left with the problem where the hull engineer can't leave the paper thin hulll mid combat to grab the far engines without risking loss to the entire ship. Having your gungineer make the trek there leaves you without a gun for a long time
Switching the hull and balloon positions would make it easier for the hull engi to maintain engines.
Fire buffs (or fire tool nerfs) carronade buffs and mortar turning arc increases would certainly help, so would phoenix claw nerfs.
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Would it be possible to increase the HP of the engines? It would let pilots use engine tools more than other ships and give engineers time to repair or shoot.
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That would also result in higher rebuild time on those engines. Having better baloon verticality gives a new option for the squid in terms of speed.
"How about we chute vent under this heavy fire?"
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You can increase engine health without messing with rebuild time. I don't see it going up only for squid though.
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You can increase engine health without messing with rebuild time.
Very true. Back when Muse wanted to buff disabling, they increased rebuild time on engines and guns without touching the actual health. There isn't strictly the same connection that we see with armour and hull rebuild time.
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Crazy thought: what if the Squid had a second light gun on the starboard pontoon, but both were rotated with, say, a 45 degree angle towards fore and aft, respectively? This would allow for more weapon combinations, but still never more than 2 guns on a target unless you were brushing up directly next to them and could afford to pull engineers away from repair duty.
It would definitely be a huge (and unusual) change, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to throw some crazy ideas into the mix. The addition of a seperate aft bifecta might also encourage the crazy reverse piloting and crazy positioning that I love about the Squid.
Thoughts? And yes...I am aware this idea might be ridiculous and have no actual merit. I just feel balance discussions can sometimes benefit from highly unusual suggestions and the insights discussions about those suggestions can bring to the table.
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More vertical acceleration is all the Squid needs.
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I don't like the idea of changing gun arcs or changing gun positions on the Squid. It's a fast ship and with the constant damage on armor and engines you can't always use two guns at the same time during combat anyway.
I fear, if this were to happen, people would just sit in front of their target and use the most boring combinations the game has to offer (e.g.: gat/mortar). If you wanna use gat/mortar just turn and have an engi ready, if not, go away and come again another day. The Squid is no brawler, the low hull armor makes sure of that.
However, since it's so low it's armor is that low, I do believe that increasing the maneuverability, may it be verticle or horizontal, is good way to increase the number of squids on the battlefield, especially with all that phoenix clawing...
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More vertical acceleration is all the Squid needs.
What's next? the speed of Light Squid?
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More vertical acceleration is all the Squid needs.
I like this. When I fly the squid I treat Helium like an ejector seat. I get stuck in with the squid, but when things get too hot I punch the helium and give my crew a few seconds to fix everything. Unfortunately sometimes I have a buff engine on my crew who thinks that my balloon needs to be buffed and I end up in the lower stratosphere.
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...I want to see that on a mobula.
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Ballloons do need to be buffed on squids. The Hydro/Chute effect just isn't strong enough and with diminishing returns you only get about 1 solid hydro on full unbuffed balloon. With damage, diminishing returns set in and another hydro puts you so low that it just leaves you too vulnerable. But with buffed you get 2-3 as it counteracts the diminishing returns with weaker balloon.
Course you can solve a lot of the issues by just making it so that Hydro ignores weight and there is no diminishing returns with weakened balloons. Also the dmg Hydro inflicts is amplified with the ship's weight. That is the only hypothesis to explain why balloons die so fast when their HP totals tell a different story.
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Make the squid hull 2 metres shorter so crew can get around on it quicker and is slightly harder to hit
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Do we need every ship to be effective in competitive play?
Um...yes...
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Necromancy yo. Lol.
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Necromancy yo. Lol.
Sure... Watching Fiasco Total and Puppy fur fly a squid makes me think it's in a good place right now. Much like the Goldfish I really think it comes down to how well you can support your ally.
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That's true it does come down how well you can support your ally although who/what you are flying against also has an impact. Especially considering the new changes to tar and the flamer which is something the squid uses to high effect, but also a very good counter due to the high stacks and difficult engineering demands. Bottom line is, I wonder with these new changes how will this effect the squid in future competitive play? :/
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After a few flights yesterday, I'd say squid is in a pretty good place. It can get you pretty disabled with flame, but a brawler build can just wreck a flame squid if you know what you are doing. A mid range and a squid can do a disable and kill combo but that can be shut down by focusing on either the disabler or the kill ship. I saw double squid flame and that could take down individual ships like nobody's business, but they had to get in range and get balloon popping done as well. So yeah, I think it's doing alright.
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Flamer squid is not viable for competitive. Already tested it this week against good crews. Perma Chemming overpowers it. It is also very weak against flames on it's own due to engine placement and speed lost by every tiny tick of dmg. If the ship was faster like it used to be, maybe...
Carronades take too long and require the squid to be exposed. As it is right now it is too easy evade a squid and just blast it. Specially if it takes awhile trying to flame down a perma chemmed ship. The light carronade does not do enough dmg in one pass.
I've evaded flamer/carro squids all week then torched their engines and bombed them with mort. Its just too easy to down them. Ship isn't fast enough and it suffers huge diminishing returns on speed the moment the engines take any hits.
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So yeah this happend and reminded me how much i enjoy the squid.
Ok so there i was, flying along minding my own buisness thinking about coming off the game to watch firefly then BOOM Boogie appears behide And dares to fire at my royal Privateer squid.
I Pop Hydro while changing throttle to full reverse, then kero to give a boost hydro again to clear the impending ram. while scream erratically FRONT GUN SIDE GUN GET READY.. then smile :D,
9/10 The Target will now be under you and ahead, i resisted all urge to go forward instead Turn left* Still reversing so it is like a 3 point turn, Use claw if needed.
Using all 3 guns to continusly fire while postioning myself to use rear arcs, now i was side by side in there blind spot,
Then woosh went forward full throtle,
They were poping kero reversing then claw right to get me in arcs i think :P. i stuck to them like glue matching there turning with opposite and using the speed advatage to stay in the back right quater of the ship,
didn't take to long before they went down, if they did manage to get out of my piranha style attack, rinse and repeat Pop hydro then kero forward or back to keep out of the arcs, dodge and move then get tight and hug while laying in to the mid section like boxing ;).
This tatic might work with pyra also, though tweaking a little might be needed think more shark attack than piranha :).
I felt kind of epic, so i pressed f8 spawned another target and tryed again :P
But seriously have any of you guys got any good Squid stories or tales of battle that made you think YEAH!!!! THAT WAS F&?*ING Epic.
I Would Love to hear them.
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But seriously have any of you guys got any good Squid stories or tales of battle that made you think YEAH!!!! THAT WAS F&?*ING Epic.
I Would Love to hear them.
Sure. Any time I've won with it in competitive play.
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I am a squid with barely to no engines left. I have impact bumpers. Pyra rams me. I win.
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Engine rebuild times are pretty horrific. That was another thing they changed, then sorta fixed. Still feels bad tho.
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I think squid could use a very slight improvement to it's vertical movement. Other then that a version of tar that is much more friendly to engines would be good for the squid even if the tar is weaker. That tar change nerfed squid by a lot for me personally. Is was fine before. Good competitive ship.
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I run full disabel - duoble flammer and a flare at the back, you dont do that must dmg but you can prevent them from using guns and engiens. This makes them an easy target for an ally. I think the problem is that people want to solo other ships as the squid. I think it is in a good place do to how hard it is to pilot, if you buff it it will become to easy and i feel that will remove the only really high skill cap ship in the game. #squidlove
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But seriously have any of you guys got any good Squid stories or tales of battle that made you think YEAH!!!! THAT WAS F&?*ING Epic.
I Would Love to hear them.
My squid story involves Zill and waking up in a cold sweet. I have already posted it once on the forums.
I guess there was that time I brought a mine front, mine side, merc rear squid to a 4v4 crazy king match and ended keeping two enemy ships off the point by my self all the while yelling "Whose house is this?"
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But seriously have any of you guys got any good Squid stories or tales of battle that made you think YEAH!!!! THAT WAS F&?*ING Epic.
I Would Love to hear them.
My squid story involves Zill and waking up in a cold sweet. I have already posted it once on the forums.
I guess there was that time I brought a mine front, mine side, merc rear squid to a 4v4 crazy king match and ended keeping two enemy ships off the point by my self all the while yelling "Whose house is this?"
Mines and squid, so many possibilities. My personal favorite time was ramming my own mine to kill an enemy goldfish and win the match.