Guns Of Icarus Online
Info => Feedback and Suggestions => Topic started by: Van-Tuz on September 22, 2014, 02:54:51 am
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Greetings. The situation that i'm about to describe has bugged me since the first time i saw the damage multiplier table. But i thought i would understand it better when i get more experience. It didn't happened.
Before i begin, let me explain 2 things:
1) TTK - i.e. "time to kill" is the average lifetime under constant fire. In most FPS TTK is less than a few seconds. But in an airship game longer and more intense battles are more enjoyable.
2) The official damage multiplier table mentioned above. (http://"http://gunsoficarus.com/gameplay/weapons/")
Is something bothers you when you look at it? Hint: explosive type deals 7 times more damage to the hull than piercing. Granted, all guns were designed with a specialisation. But when heavy flak could pound squid's armor all day without dealing any real damage it's not "specialisation" it's "Pigeonholing" The guns are so specialised that they're completely useless outside of their area of expertise.
Why it it bad for the game:
1) Inconsistent TTK. I could have a very long and enjoyable fight against a goldfish but a sniper spire could kill me in a matter of 10 seconds giving no fun.
2) Limiting loadouts. Some weapons are completely unusable and therefore nowhere to be seen.
3) Turning away many new captains. Some people (like me) come into this game to be a pilot. But a newcomer may (and most likely will) try an imbalanced loadouts. Like all rocket carousels for example. Then they play a few matches without any chance to kill someone and quit. They aren't getting their portion of fun not because they're bad pilots but because the system works against them.
Therefore guns should be specialised but not pigeonholed.
To fix this:
1) Even out all guns' DPS.
2) Even out all damage types' multipliers. They should be 1.5-2.5 in their speciaisation and 1 everywhere else.
That way TTK would be stabilised around one point that gives the most fun for both teams.
The second thing that bothers me is the carronade. No need to sigh and close the page, i won't suggest to nerf it to the ground.
If you ever got pinned by a carronade you know how bad it could be.
when you lose your guns you can't shoot but you still can run. Or use other guns because they rarely can be taked out in the same time.
When you lose your engines you still can move (vertically) and shoot. And engines are quite easy to rebuild.
But if you lost your balloon...
- You can't shoot because all of your guns quickly lose the target.
- You can't move in ANY direction.
- You take serious damage from the fall.
- You can't recover. The balloon have a very long rebuild time and the moment it comes back up it comes back down because the enemy's carronade is reloaded.
Basically, one gun makes your ship completely helpless. Being pinned by a carronade is a very long and a very, very frustrating death. On top of that it doesn't require any "skill" from the enemy. Just bring a carronade.
No, "asking for your teammate to help" and "bring a drogue chute" aren't the solutions.
1) If you need 2 ships to deal with one then it's overpowered. (same true for sniper spire) Moreover, your teammate may be busy with other ship. Or worse - be pinned by a carronade himself. Then it turns into a GoIO-style teabagging.
2) Enemy shouldn't choose what tools i should bring. Forcing the whole team to select one specific item (and never use it afterwards) because enemy have one light carronade in a 4th pyramidion's slot is a bad thing. Also, drogue chute doesn't counter carronade. It just eases the pain a bit.
The solution is simple and IMO elegant:
Make a ship with destroyed balloon be unable to control its altitude but do not fall.
With such tweak we would have a larger time window to shoot back before enemy can get out of our firing arcs, we won't take fall damage and we still would be able to move horizontally and escape.
That's it. 3 squids in a single shot.
I really hope these changes would be implemented as they can fix a lot of game's flaws.
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The link to damage multiplayer table doesn't work.
I pretty much agree with all you wrote, someone have already made a thread criticising current meta (gat-mortar) and it's efficiency to kill (which is basically the only goal of most competetive games) - https://gunsoficarus.com/community/forum/index.php/topic,4733.0.html
Some people (like me) come into this game to be a pilot. But a newcomer may (and most likely will) try an imbalanced loadouts. Like all rocket carousels for example. Then they play a few matches without any chance to kill someone and quit. They aren't getting their portion of fun not because they're bad pilots but because the system works against them.
Therefore guns should be specialised but not pigeonholed.
So much this. I'll add that people also don't know ammo because of bad tutorials. And imagine you're a novice fighting against anything with flamer. Flamer is anti-noob gun, because the unexperienced engineers use extinguishers and they are simply not capable of dealing with flamers.
About carronade - I also think it's kind of overpowered. It's quite easy to aim (no weird recoils or bullet trajectory), aims at easy to aim objects (freaking BALOONS) and makes ship basically defenceless. Also after baloon is down the damage is moved to hull and then to permahull so basically you can disable pretty quickly and just bluntly shoot enemies to death with one gun. Add gatling or flamer to it and you have a close-combat killing machine. Oh and it one-shots weapons and engines.
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The link to damage multiplayer table doesn't work.
Even if the link worked, that "official" damage table is not accurate.
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The working link. (http://gunsoficarus.com/gameplay/weapons/) (i cannot edit my first post apparently.)
If it's not accurate then please point me to the on that is.
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Carronades are only effective if they can shoot. Seeing as it is one of the lowest range weapons, why not bring a counter build? A single artemis can make a carrot or a blenderfish useless. Or you go Pyramidion and just make sure you never let them get in your back. How about packing drogue chute? Or bring a double LJ galleon and camp some wide, open space.
Only taking away an enemies ability to maneuver vertically instead of what destroying balloons does now would nerf the carronade to the ground, as oppose to what you said. But it would also make the LJ completely useless.
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If it's not accurate then please point me to the on that is.
I don't believe there even is an accurate table...
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How about packing drogue chute? Or bring a double LJ galleon and camp some wide, open space.
Like I said before, if some item on the enemy's ship/crew says: "you must bring these items or to be subjected to a slow, painful and humiliating death" then said item is horribly designed.
Don't pretend that "they're okay" because you can counter them by triple-jumping trough fire.
Carronades were discussed a thousand times and i'm just suggesting another way to fix them. I'm more interested in your opinion about damage overhaul.
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I tend to avoid writing "meh no likez" so I intentionally left my opinion about the damage overhaul out of my post.
But if you insist, I like how the damage system currently works and if I had to change it, all I would do would be to add a tertiary damage type to all guns.
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I pretty much agree with all you wrote, someone have already made a thread criticising current meta (gat-mortar) and it's efficiency to kill (which is basically the only goal of most competetive games)
I'd rather we forget about that whiny-ass thread xD
About carronade - I also think it's kind of overpowered. It's quite easy to aim (no weird recoils or bullet trajectory), aims at easy to aim objects (freaking BALOONS) and makes ship basically defenceless. Also after balloon is down the damage is moved to hull and then to permahull so basically you can disable pretty quickly and just bluntly shoot enemies to death with one gun. Add gatling or flamer to it and you have a close-combat killing machine. Oh and it one-shots weapons and engines.
Yeah agree, hit the dangerous gun (i.e. Gatling gun) on enemy team, Start pounding balloon, reload, They're gun goes back up, They will be popped and sinking before that dangerous gun can do anything. Carronade is fairly decent vs. hull armour too, so after some time you have nothing. Which sucks. I do however appreciate the skill needed for 'carronade sniping' i.e. getting a disable first hit with heavy clipped carronade. And also once the balloon is rebuilt it's lack of full health and slow rebuild means getting re-popped is almost certain. Paired with fire from a banshee or a flamer (both of which i run.) They're gonna have a bad time.
1) Even out all guns' DPS.
2) Even out all damage types' multipliers. They should be 1.5-2.5 in their speciaisation and 1 everywhere else.
That way TTK would be stabilised around one point that gives the most fun for both teams.
Yeah i had this thought a while back too- i totally agree with you, I would like to see some variation in builds. This would do exactly that.
Make a ship with destroyed balloon be unable to control its altitude but do not fall.
I like this idea. They could make the component be called altitude control to fit in with the lore. Hell even have it similar to hull armour and perma hull. Altitude control is destroyed first, and then what's keeping you afloat- the balloon. Make both repairable. Have the controls a relatively quick rebuild and the balloon the same rebuild time as normal.
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The guns should not be balanced on time to kill because some guns primary roll is to control a fight rather than win it as fast as possible. Your example of the carronade proves the point.
It is possible to fight your way out of a balloon lock with just a gat/morter. I have killed many blender fish by sitting on the floor and out DPS'ing him. Alternately you can fly away and tar them. Blender fish have to be close to take advantage of the gun blind spots and often don't have time to evade a surprise tarring.
The best strategy is to stick close to your team mate. A well coordinated team is the bane of blenderfish. Even if both enemy ships are balloon locked it is impossible to stay out of two ships firing arcs. If this game allowed for 1v1 ship battles the carronade would be incredibly overpowered.
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This game has always (well, in theory always) been about combinations of weapons and allies, never about boiling down to 1v1 I shoot you, you shoot me, let's see who dies first. Normalizing damage would do nothing but strip away the feel that weapons currently have.
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I actually ran some tests with normalized damage types on the Dev App with a bunch of players. At that point it starts to just boil down to range and DPS, and you lose a lot of the depth of the game.
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I actually ran some tests with normalized damage types on the Dev App with a bunch of players. At that point it starts to just boil down to range and DPS, and you lose a lot of the depth of the game.
Then I need to ask a few questions:
1) Was guns' DPS was evened out? (depending on range, arc etc)
2) How high was the specialised damage type multiplier set?
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What is the point of even having different guns if they don't do different things?
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What is the point of even having different guns if they don't do different things?
because it's much easier to just gatling down someone's hull (and therefore win) than it is to bungee-tow an enemy into a wall with a harpoon Junker. If other guns are made invalid by others accessibility then there's a problem.
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Heh, I like my mines 'Horrendously OP', along with the 'Horrendously OP 'Lumberjack. In terms of raw, theoretical damage, they are both OP. The thing is, they require actual practice to shoot at a high accuracy rate, therefore they are technically balanced, due to the learning curve. That and the fact that they are SO DAMN SATISFYING TO HIT SHIPS WITH.
I <3 Mines forever.
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What is the point of even having different guns if they don't do different things?
What's a point of guns that are completely useless (Rocket carousel), or absurdly powerful in one thing but useless in everything else (Heavy flak)?
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What is the point of even having different guns if they don't do different things?
What's a point of guns that are completely useless (Rocket carousel), or absurdly powerful in one thing but useless in everything else (Heavy flak)?
"I want a really powerful finishing gun on a heavy weapons slot"
"I want a light harassing gun/ surprisingly decent finisher that goes pew pew pew"
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"I want a light harassing gun/ surprisingly decent finisher that goes pew pew pew"
Banshee or Artemis? I think we both know what gun would you prefer.
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Looks like i've misunderstood the problem slightly.
1) Targets vulnerable to all damage types except explosive are always vulnerable (or destroyed) The hull is vulnerable for only a couple of seconds. Because of that "finisher" guns are supposed to have a high burst (Hflak) or very high DPS (mortar) to be effective.
2) Most guns have secondary damage type. That way even with pigeonholed damage types most guns are effective at more than one role.
That makes finisher guns valuable only a few seconds in the whole battle. And both banshee and light flak are failing in comparison to Hflak and mortar.
Looks like the whole problem not so much in the damage types but in the hull/armor system.
Hey, devs, (if you're still reading it and didn't considered me a moron yet) here's a suggestion for a test run:
- Hull: 1 HP
- Armor 3-4-5x of current stats.
- Explosive have 1x mod against armor
What i'm expecting to happen:
- Armor won't be as easy repairable. Not like current 1-hit fix 3 hit full rebuild squid.
- There would be some more space between "we're fine" and "o'shi..."
Before someone again says that i'm "just want to gatling down someone": this is just what can be easily tested without changing mechanics. I have something else in mind but i'll save it for later.
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You know, screw "later".
The idea is to separate "hull" form "armor"
According to this idea the hull should have a large health pool and be repairable. Slowly but repairable. Hull should be vulnerable all the time (not only when armor is broken)
Armor in this case is supposed to be a damage reducer with its own health bar. When armor is not broken it takes away a part of incoming hull damage on itself. When armor is broken the hull takes 100% of incoming damage. The exact percentage is defined by ship class. Paper armor of a Squid could take away 20-25% of damage so it could be a valid choice to just ignore armor stripping and go straight for the hull. On the other hand heavy armor of a Galleon could take 70-80% of incoming damage so just bruteforcing won't work.
Example: armor DR is 50%. The ship takes 120 explosive damage. Armor absorbs 60 explosive damage and scales it by 0.3. Armor takes 30 hp damage. The remaining 60 explosive damage is going to the hull. After scaling hull takes 84 damage.
Pros of this system:
- Explosive weapons would be always valuable.
- Different armor thickness would require different approach to every ship.
- Double mortar configs would be reasonable.
- Squids won't be invulnerable just by rebuilding armor between shots.
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I do like the system as it is, because it works so well.
- Double mortar configs would be reasonable.
- Squids won't be invulnerable just by rebuilding armor between shots.
I don't think Muse wanted any double mortar config to be a viable choice.
Squids were never invulnerable just by rebuilding armor between shots. The armor rebuilds fast, but 1 engineer spamming a spanner at it won't make the squid invincible, especially not when you have to repair 4 engines, balloons and need to shoot the back gun. If you get 4 people with spanners on it then all your enemy has to do is ram the squid around a bit until it hits a wall and explodes. A squid needs to move, tanking won't save it.
"I want a light harassing gun/ surprisingly decent finisher that goes pew pew pew"
Banshee or Artemis? I think we both know what gun would you prefer.
On the side of a Squid or a Goldfish I would rather have a banshee, because artemis has slow turning arcs and no upper arc, mortar has little horizontal arcs slow projectile speed and is only close range, light flak has some arcs but arming time (even though it is a surprising amount of damage inside arming time) and the banshee trumps all, with only a little less damage. I wouldn't expect to kill a ship with one clip only with a side gun of a Goldfish or Squid. A Pyramidions side gun would follow a similar philosophy if no other damage type is desired. Also, a banshee has more hull dps than artemis, which means the banshee is a better finisher.
Some guns work better and sometimes they don't, but others might.
The idea is to separate "hull" form "armor"
But why, why would there be armor that is not protecting the hull? I can understand why one would have very little damage go through the armor and hit the hull directly, but not such a huge amount. The icon for the armor is a shield, so I understand that it protects the armor and not be a seperate individual component that slightly changes damage multipliers.
Example: armor DR is 50%. The ship takes 120 explosive damage. Armor absorbs 60 explosive damage and scales it by 0.3. Armor takes 30 hp damage. The remaining 60 explosive damage is going to the hull. After scaling hull takes 84 damage.
A heavy flak does 330 damage if it's direct hit and outside arming time. 150 direct damage when inside arming time. According to your system I can go all flak Spire and literally be killing everything left and right, because I will do a total damage of 2100 explosive damage (= 80 (L. Flak) * 3 *6 (L. Flak clip size) + 330 * 2) and according to your system with DR 50% it would result in 1470 damage to the hull, which should be enough to kill a Galleon without reloading any gun.
I suppose the armor works as it does to prevent such a thing to work, because all you would need for this Spire to work is to simply just shoot and ignore repairing and you win. Do you think that's balanced?
It was a nice idea, but I honestly don't think it is going to work too well.
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And both banshee and light flak are failing in comparison to Hflak and mortar.
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Banshee is soon to become more flexible by having one of its' damage types switched to Fire (effective vs balloon, hull)
Light Flak is an exceptionally good gun for mid-range setups. It deals damage per clip comparable to the Heavy Flak, while being easier to aim, with an extremely fast reload and a very decent projectile speed/arc. All the while not taking a heavy gun slot.
The current system is pretty legit. It makes you choose to either go for a disable approach, slowly denying the enemy ship of movement and retaliation options and eventually destroying it or for a direct dps approach, ripping the armor as fast as possible and then killing the enemy within a limited time window.
I'll agree that the extremely specialized ammo types rule out many gun combinations and can make the game harder to get into. I don't think normalizing all damage types would be a solution, however- the game would then be turned into an endless dogfighting grindfest with a much lower depth and skill requirement. What I think could help, though, is the implementation of more 'flexible' guns such as the new Banshee who do not excel at anything specific but can be effectively combined with more than just a couple of guns.
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I don't think Muse wanted any double mortar config to be a viable choice.
Squids were never invulnerable just by rebuilding armor between shots. The armor rebuilds fast, but 1 engineer spamming a spanner at it won't make the squid invincible, especially not when you have to repair 4 engines, balloons and need to shoot the back gun. If you get 4 people with spanners on it then all your enemy has to do is ram the squid around a bit until it hits a wall and explodes. A squid needs to move, tanking won't save it.
2 people spamming hull, 1 repairing central engines. Even captain can repair/shoot just by leaving throttle on. Saved me a dozen times.
Banshee or Artemis? I think we both know what gun would you prefer.
On the side of a Squid or a Goldfish I would rather have a banshee, because artemis has slow turning arcs and no upper arc,
So are you saying that you'll trade disabling ability for a slightly better turn speed and slight up arc? News to me.
But why, why would there be armor that is not protecting the hull?
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The icon for the armor is a shield, so I understand that it protects the armor and not be a seperate individual component that slightly changes damage multipliers.
The icon of a gun is a... gun. Guns shoot bullets and shields are useless against bullets.
The purpose of the splitting hull and armor is to eliminate the "time window" when you can damage the hull. Would you like, for example, Artemis that can't damage a gun 80% of the time? I won't.
Besides that i don't like that Hflak can oneclip any exposed hull.
Example: armor DR is 50%. The ship takes 120 explosive damage. Armor absorbs 60 explosive damage and scales it by 0.3. Armor takes 30 hp damage. The remaining 60 explosive damage is going to the hull. After scaling hull takes 84 damage.
A heavy flak does 330 damage if it's direct hit and outside arming time. 150 direct damage when inside arming time. According to your system I can go all flak Spire and literally be killing everything left and right, because I will do a total damage of 2100 explosive damage (= 80 (L. Flak) * 3 *6 (L. Flak clip size) + 330 * 2) and according to your system with DR 50% it would result in 1470 damage to the hull, which should be enough to kill a Galleon without reloading any gun.
I suppose the armor works as it does to prevent such a thing to work, because all you would need for this Spire to work is to simply just shoot and ignore repairing and you win. Do you think that's balanced?
I could say the same about current 2 gat+mortar combo.
Also, in case of Galleon with 80% DR on armor brute forcing won't work. In case of smaller, more manoeuvrable ships you'd have to land all the shots and not get your guns disabled by enemy fire.
In case of my suggestion i expect anti-hull guns damage toned down a little and hulls to receive a large health pool increase. Like a 2-3 times. To get some space between "we're fine" and "o'shi..."
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What is the point of even having different guns if they don't do different things?
because it's much easier to just gatling down someone's hull (and therefore win) than it is to bungee-tow an enemy into a wall with a harpoon Junker. If other guns are made invalid by others accessibility then there's a problem.
Harpoon is a pretty bad example. Everyone, including devs, is aware that it's a broken gun and needs some sort of fix.
Light flak is paired with hades quite consistently since the rework of it, and banshees, while fairly underutilized, certainly have their place in builds as well.
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While I disagree with a lot of the points made by Van-Tuz, I think he came up with some interesting ideas. I'd like to poke a couple of them for science.
Armor vs Hull -> Let armor be give a damage reduction modifier on hull, and let hull regenerate/be repairable.
My take on this would be to make the health of the armor affect how much damage transfers to the hull. For example, at 100% armor, 100% of damage goes into the armor. At 50% armor, 75% of damage goes into the armor. At 0.1% armor, 50% of damage goes into the armor. When the armor breaks, all damage goes into the hull.
This could even be scaled further to make it so armor protects you even better while still up, but it starts to give you decision spaces where switching to explosive sooner is a more viable tactic.
On top of this having slowly regenerating hull while out of combat, or possibly just *repair armor while armor is full repairs 2 points of permahull*. If you can't protect your hull by having armor, being able to regenerate from survived engagements would help significantly. It also helps remove situations where your ship is almost destroyed getting a kill, which almost guarantees you to die in the next engagement leaving your ally alone.
Would those break the game? I don't know. :) It just seems interesting as a point of conversation.
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Bungee towing an enemy into a wall is meant to be difficult. If it were as easy as a gat morter build there would be no point in doing it.
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2 people spamming hull, 1 repairing central engines. Even captain can repair/shoot just by leaving throttle on. Saved me a dozen times.
These 2 engines are not enough to escape most of the ships as there is far too much damage reduction.
So are you saying that you'll trade disabling ability for a slightly better turn speed and slight up arc? News to me.
I will, because on the Goldfish heavy carronade, lumberjack and hwacha are usually all better at disabling a ship than 1 side artemis. Especially since the Goldfish is supposed to be used in a "sneaky" manner because it usually loses every long range engagement and with only 1 artemis you will probably lose in long range. Similar on Squids, although I do a hades front squid and could get a bifecta for the artemis, the artemis just lacks that upwards arc while the banshee can at least deal some perma hull damage...
Would you like, for example, Artemis that can't damage a gun 80% of the time? I won't.
The difference between guns and hull/armor is that guns shoot you while armor protects the enemy hull, which protects them from dying. Also, guns don't take permanent damage.
I could say the same about current 2 gat+mortar combo.
Also, in case of Galleon with 80% DR on armor brute forcing won't work. In case of smaller, more manoeuvrable ships you'd have to land all the shots and not get your guns disabled by enemy fire.
In case of my suggestion i expect anti-hull guns damage toned down a little and hulls to receive a large health pool increase. Like a 2-3 times. To get some space between "we're fine" and "o'shi..."
I get that idea, but what I don't get why you want this damage system to change this way. What is wrong with the current one? That explosive guns are less effective when they are supposed to be less effective?
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Banshee or Artemis? I think we both know what gun would you prefer.
On the side of a Squid or a Goldfish I would rather have a banshee, because artemis has slow turning arcs and no upper arc,
So are you saying that you'll trade disabling ability for a slightly better turn speed and slight up arc? News to me.
As you've asked for a comparison between artemis and banshee here, let me elaborate the advantages of a banshee in comparison to an artemis:
- a "slightly" better upwards gun-arc. 350% better to be more specific, that's the difference between the worst upward arc compared to the best upward arc for explosive weapons. Using Artemises implies severe positioning limitations for pilots. Relying on Artemises also makes a ship more vulnerable against balloon-poppers. Banshees provide more positioning options for pilots here.
- more hull dps and damage per clip. This is interesting if you prefer killing power over disables. Its worth to be noted though that flaks and mortars are better at this particular task and usually the better pick if raw explosive damage is needed.
- the banshees rotation speed is very fast and it requires little time to empty a clip. This is a nice feature for secondary weapons. It allows players who usually focus on other stuff than shooting (pilots, main engineers) to hop into the weapon, quickly empty the clip and focus on other stuff again.
- banshees have got a 35% chance per shot to set a fire stack on impact and a 26% chance to set 2 fire stacks on AoE damage. This is a nice feature to make engineers literally sweat.
Here are two more practical examples where banshees can be very useful:
gat carro Pyra with a banshee side. this is a ship that's flown extremely aggressively. Usually you want to make your kills with rams and as you fly brawly you'll likely take hits yourself. Hence your main engineer will be busy. The banshee shines here due to its wide arcs and quick turn speeds. If your target flies away from you and you can't make a ram kill, you can turn ever so slightly to grant the banshee an arc to at least inflict some permanent damage on the enemies hull. Its also great for main engineers to quickly hop in whenever they've got some time to breathe and an enemy happens to be in arc.
Hwacha-hades-spire with banshee sides. This build is capable of killing any ship on its own in a matter of seconds. The Hwacha hades combo provides an extremely high burst damage which yields quick hull strips. Also the Hwacha is a great explosive damage source and the hades isn't a neglectable perma-damage source either. The banshees blend in fine here. the fire chances added by banshees help to build up additional pressure to the raw stripping power the hwacha and hades already provide and once the hull is down all your weapons are capable of inflicting severe permanent damage. As a bonus the banshee fire-time fits the hwachas reload time very well which allows the gunner to operate both guns on the lower deck. Hence you one engineer can be dedicated exclusively to repairs.
All Guns in GoIO are viable in certain setups - some weapons like the gatling or mortar are very straight forward and excel at certain roles. Other guns like the banshee have got a less specialized purpose and might look a bit under-powered at the first glance, but like every other gun it has got its place in this game. For anyone who wonders what a certain gun is good for or is interested in getting into the finer details of GoIOs Arsenal in general, I recommend this guide (http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=257009903).
Personally I do prefer the diverse and yet balanced arsenal GoIO has currently got to offer over a normalized system that's suggested here.
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Wundsalz, this thread is actually NOT about banshee vs artemis. No more please.
Also, 2 systems has been suggested here.
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Of course it is. In the op you state reasons why the current system was flawed. One of those statements is "Some weapons are completely unusable and therefore nowhere to be seen." and you've fielded the banshee as an example for a useless gun yourself. Hence I've picked it up and elaborated how the banshee blends in well into the current system.
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My "DPS squid" setup uses gat front banshee side. I can't use the morter because the arc is not wide enough to overlap the gat. I can't use the artemis because is turn rate is too slow. I can't use the light flack or Hades due to arming time. No other weapon does enough consistent explosive dammage to work as a side mounted finisher on a squid. The current balance allows for a lot of niche rolls. I like it that way.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EitZRLt2G3w
I feel like this is a very relevant contribution with all the talk of gun balancing that's sprung up in this conversation.
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If damage types are evened out, it really takes a large element of the skill of gunning out. Just shoot at the ship; doesn't matter what you hit, you'll still do significant damage. Yawn, boring.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EitZRLt2G3w
I feel like this is a very relevant contribution with all the talk of gun balancing that's sprung up in this conversation.
With regard to the Extra Credits video, the Hwachafish and Metamiddion are the FOO (First Order Optimal) Strategies of the game. It is a low skill in to high damage out strategy. The manticore doesn't take that much skill to operate and can earn you kills against inexperienced crews. Once the player gets into games with experienced engineers and captains they graduate to the Metamidion because most people at that level know how to counter manticore. The Metamidion however is not the pinnacle a player can reach in the game, but rather the highest you can get with simple close range point and click game play. The Lumberjack, hadies, field gun, flack, artemis and mines all provide better damage output but at a greatly elevated skill requirement.
We still see a lot of Metamidions in high level play because they are reliable damage dealers, but they often escort/tank for more specialized ships.
Ultimately Guns of Icarus adheres pretty strongly to the principles in the Extra Credits video. The Gat/Morter Meta and Lion Gun OP exist to give the new players a chance to hit pretty hard without having to learn the intricacies of the game. Yet there is still room for all the other guns and ships in more specialized strategies.
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If an all carousel Junker is ever a viable ship then the game has been too dumbed down. Some weapon combos just shouldn't work.
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My "DPS squid" setup uses gat front banshee side. I can't use the morter because the arc is not wide enough to overlap the gat. I can't use the artemis because is turn rate is too slow. I can't use the light flack or Hades due to arming time. No other weapon does enough consistent explosive dammage to work as a side mounted finisher on a squid. The current balance allows for a lot of niche rolls. I like it that way.
Use kerosene to get mort in range. Its still problematic but the only solution. Bout the only thing it can do to put the mort in play. I shoulda taken Muse up on that "turn the side mount more forward," idea. Muse has been so arming timer crazy that I just hoped they'd see more light with the LF. Oh well. If it eventually leads to them finally overhauling a few ships that have been broken for a long time, I'm suddenly all for arming timers.
Ultimately this thread comes down to one simple aspect...noobs not reading tooltips. The game does not need to be changed or turned on it's head just because some people don't want to take the time to click a single button and see...oh this gun does piercing or this does explosive. If you can't be bothered to click a button, then why should Muse be forced to spend hours tweaking and tuning the game?
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It appears to me that people are capable of reading only first and last posts in the thread.
Here's a recap for your small cache size:
1) I've misunderstood the problem initially.
2) After some more analysis i've dropped my "damage normalising" idea.
3) I've proposed another system that is supposed to make explosive weapons more valuable, add more depth by requiring different approach for different ships and prevent instant Hflak deaths (which are not as fun for both sides as prolonged fight)
Refer to this (https://gunsoficarus.com/community/forum/index.php/topic,4851.msg80719.html#msg80719) and this (https://gunsoficarus.com/community/forum/index.php/topic,4851.msg80720.html#msg80720) posts please.
And for brass' and steam's sake: do not post anything else about how valuable Banshee is.
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Ultimately this thread comes down to one simple aspect...noobs not reading tooltips.
Show me the screenshot with a tooltip that says "you would do more damage to armor by sneezing on it than with this gun" or "we have designed our guns in this way that if you equip 2 of these your ship will be useless piece of flying junk. Ha-ha"
The real point is: to find out that explosive guns are completely useless against armor you're supposed to dig out additional manuals. All weapon tooltips are just saying that "these guns deal explosive damage". Not a word that heavy flak shells will bounce off the armor like a pea off the wall. If newcomers are misinformed then it's the designers' problem not newcomers'.
And just changing tooltips won't fix other system's flaws.
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Your ideas are not going to happen because the goals of the system change you suggest contradict the design goals of GoIOs gameplay. Several posters have pointed out some KO-criteria in this thread already.
Let me re-elaborate them to take some heat off your small processing unit:
1.Explosive weapons would be always valuable.
That's not desirable. All guns are designed in a way that they are more or less specialized at certain tasks. This ensures that the rich gun-diversity GoIO has got to offer is used. Having the influence of damage types leveled so all guns can execute every task would make the gameplay rather dull.
2.Different armor thickness would require different approach to every ship.
With the current system a ships armor already influences how you want to approach it. E.g. in case you face a spire and a junker and you can pick your target, you'll probably want to focus down the spire first as it has got a rather flimsy armor compared to the junker. Armor also influences the players behavior on a more tactical level. If you face a pyramidion with a greased gat-mortar setup, it's usually most efficient to hold the mortar fire until your opponents armor is about to break. Once the gatling gun striped the hull it can usually be reloaded right away to be ready again once the hull is up. However if you face a squid another shooting behavior is more efficient due to the quick hull repairs. The Mortar can start shooting about 2-seconds after the gatling starts firing. On hull breaks the gatling can stop shooting for 1-2 seconds without a reloading to maximize the number of hull strips with a single clip while the mortar can shoot continuously to ensure shots hit while the armor is down. I hope these examples illustrate how significant the influence of the (ship specific) armor already is. The entire gameplay revolves around getting rid of the enemies armor and capitalizing on the strips when they happen.
Regarding the statement itself: I do not see how your suggestion could help to diversify gameplay based on the ships armor value.
3.Double mortar configs would be reasonable."
This is one of the setups I don't want to be viable due to the reasons stated in point 1.
4.Squids won't be invulnerable just by rebuilding armor between shots.
Squids are anything but invulnerable with the current system. Regarding your elaboration how focused repairs saved you several times: I could share a few stories where I've single handedly sunk entire fleets flying in a bath tub. However I'd have to admit that my opposition was barely worth its name in those matches. Any half-decent ship can kill a squid - especially if the captain leaves the steering wheel, as movement is the only thing that keeps a squid alive.
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My "processing unit" really starts to overheat.
Right after the post where i clearly said that
2) After some more analysis i've dropped my "damage normalising" idea.
yet another person brings it up 1.Explosive weapons would be always valuable.
That's not desirable. All guns are designed in a way that they are more or less specialized at certain tasks. This ensures that the rich gun-diversity GoIO has got to offer is used. Having the influence of damage types leveled so all guns can execute every task would make the gameplay rather dull.
You're not the one to judge my "processing unit" size. Take care of yours first.
I repeat again: FORGET ABOUT MY EARLY SUGGESTION ABOUT LEVELLING OUT DAMAGE MULTIPLIERS.
Refer to this post (https://gunsoficarus.com/community/forum/index.php/topic,4851.msg80720.html#msg80720) to read about the second one.
That makes Wundsalz' argument #3 invalid too because it references the invalid argument #1
2.Different armor thickness would require different approach to every ship.
With the current system a ships armor already influences how you want to approach it. E.g. in case you face a spire and a junker and you can pick your target, you'll probably want to focus down the spire first as it has got a rather flimsy armor compared to the junker.
...
Regarding the statement itself: I do not see how your suggestion could help to diversify gameplay based on the ships armor value.
It's the same. First you strip its armor with armor stripper and then you finish it with the finisher. The only difference is how much gatling rounds you're spending. Gatling mortar setup is effective no matter the target. Universal loadouts are deadly boring for me.
With my SECOND suggestion fights against Junker and Squid would require different approach and different loadouts would be effective against them.
Small DR on Sqid's armor but durable hull would make loadouts with more killing power (double mortar) valuable while Junker's more fragile hull would be more resistant to that approach due to high DR on the armor that would make it withstand much more total damage. Unless you have an armor stripper.
Do you have anything else against double mortars except that it breaks your "pattern" and you just don't want it to happen?
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If you want people to not keep responding to the first post (the only post 90% of the forum goers will ever read btw), ask a mod to edit it to show the changes going on with the discussion. Otherwise, accept people are going to be stupid or ask for the thread to be locked and restart the discussion with a fresh slate in a new topic.
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You're not the one to judge my "processing unit" size. Take care of yours first.
I'm not sure if my cache size can handle this.
Do you have anything else against double mortars except that it breaks your "pattern" and you just don't want it to happen?
Yes there are a lot of arguments why double mortars shouldn't be made a viable option in GoIO. Especially the way you suggest here. I can't help the feeling doing so here for you would be a waste of my time though.
I'll leave you with this:
- the existing armor/permahull-system and the implied "invulnerability" as long as the armor is up is one of the most fundamental elements of GoIOs game mechanics. Many other game-mechanics as well as the entire balance we've currently got revolve around it.
- Allowing the user to select from a diverse variety of viable loadouts is one of GoIOs design goals. The current system is quite good at this.
- You've demonstrated a lack of understanding for quite some game elements in the posts you've made here. Hence I'd like you to point you to some sources which can help you to get a better concept of the existing game mechanics (and hence a better foundation to make elaborate suggestions how to alter it): An elaboration of GoIOs weapon system (http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=257009903); A discussion on which play styles GoIO has got to offer (https://gunsoficarus.com/community/forum/index.php/topic,3853.0.html); Play the game!
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I still don't see any arguments why current system is better than the one suggested by me.
All i hear is: "it always was here so it doesn't need to change" and "i don't like it"
Also, it's easy to accuse the opponent in being a n00b and send him to RTFM.
For your information: I have all (or at least most of it) the knowledge that a manual under the first link contains.
I also read the thread under the second link before. I think the categories there are heavily bent under the system. It does not take into equation a lot of factors. For example in an open space a sniper Spire in most cases would easily outgun a "reactive" Junker. But the same Junker in the tight map would obliterate the same Spire which just won't have space to work.
It's like this article was written by the way ofwishful thinking (http://www.conservapedia.com/Wishful_thinking).
I shall indeed restart this thread.
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I still don't see any arguments why current system is better than the one suggested by me.
All i hear is: "it always was here so it doesn't need to change" and "i don't like it"
The game is based on teamwork and communication, this involves lots of patience that pays off. Shoot the gatling, wait for armor break, kill with mortar. Your suggestion changes rather little in this regard. The main difference between the current one and your suggestion is that your system is more noob friendly, since the pro teams might actually die, just because they get shot so much, while in the current system the pro teams take little to no damage.
The biggest problem I can see here is when we go long range. Atm you can take some damage in long range and then go back to cover, while with your suggestion most would probably be rather scared to move out of cover, because they will get instant perma hull damage. This could be bad since teams would just take forever to kill each other, because they are all hiding or be good since it forces teams to sneak up on one another to not get damage.
Question is: Is it worth changing the system to this? I say not, as well because the current one works so well.
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Basically it sounds like you are saying "it's too hard to learn what 'explosive damage' means, so you should make it also do piercing damage so that new players don't have to learn what it is or what weapon types complement each other".
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Basically it sounds like you are saying "it's too hard to learn what 'explosive damage' means, so you should make it also do piercing damage so that new players don't have to learn what it is or what weapon types complement each other".
You have a point, although we have no tutorials for ammo and damage types. I suggest better tutorials instead of changing current system.
What caught my attention in this 'reform' is that ships are going to die waaaay faster which I think isn't the good direction
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Better tutorials would be fantastic, although to be fair, the gunner tutorial DOES cover that gatling strips armor and mortar takes down permahull... so in order to not even be able to grasp that, a player would need to have not completed the tutorials at ALL.
Steam and these forums have some excellent guides, but I'd guess a lot of new players don't seek them out. I'd like it if they were highlighted more or linked to from the game to encourage players to learn about these things.
Maybe the tutorials should be required. Many, many, many games start with a tutorial section that you can't skip, and that would definitely help mitigate some of my frustrations in matches when I have someone on my ship who has literally never played at all and I have to waste a portion of the match training them on how extremely basic game mechanics work when we could actually be playing.
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The biggest problem I can see here is when we go long range. Atm you can take some damage in long range and then go back to cover, while with your suggestion most would probably be rather scared to move out of cover, because they will get instant perma hull damage.
Question is: Is it worth changing the system to this? I say not, as well because the current one works so well.
The hull is supposed to be repairable in my system. If it would have a very large health pool then it can't be repaired quickly enough to affect the result of a battle much but you would be able to fix it if you have a minute between engagements.
Answer is: It is worth discussing it seriously at least. What caught my attention in this 'reform' is that ships are going to die waaaay faster which I think isn't the good direction
Actually no. I expect ships to die slower.
Currently explosive weapons have so absurdly high damage in proportion to hull HP because they need to operate in a very little time window when the hull is exposed. This window can range from 15 seconds (roaming engineer and Galleon's armor) to as little as 2 seconds (2 engineers camping squid's armor) That's why we have little to no time between "we're fine" and "o'shi..."
The system can fail in another way too. If you ease the pressure for a few seconds (for example your gatling was disabled) then enemy armor would be completely repaired and you'd have to start over.
These 2 factors are making TTK very inconsistent. When explosive weapons won't need to operate in a tight schedule and disabled gun won't give a chance to completely negate all your efforts then the Time To Kill may be stabilised and balanced as needed.
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...Time to kill is not everything. Fun is a higher priority. For example, if mines had the same tim to kill as a gat-mortar pyra, I would not be able to have my fun as much, or make nearly enough mine puns as I currently can.