Guns Of Icarus Online
Admin => Dev App Testing => Topic started by: Keyvias on November 21, 2014, 12:11:58 pm
-
Our newest project in the dev app is ship balance as there are definitely ships that at all levels of play could use a bit of attention. In this though we don't want to play around the office, ship out the new stats, and call it a day. We want dedicated and skilled players to take the helms of these newly adjusted ships and let us know their thoughts, feelings and experiences with them.
The testing will go between 5-6 pm Eastern, 10-11pm UTC, on Saturday, November 22nd.
The ships being tested at the Pyramidion, Spire, and Squid. This does not mean these are the only ships you can fly, but make sure in each round these ships are present and if you're on one, take a moment to see how the ship feels. We'll release information about what stats were changed later, but for now we want to know the feel and the experience.
A feedback forum will go out after testing though at any time you can send an email to feedback@musegames.com with your thoughts.
Thank you so much for your help!
Important Testing note:
Remeber while you're in the Dev App you should view yourself not as a player, but as a tester. As a tester there are some things you need to keep in mind.
Understand that what you see is not the finished product.
You are some of the first to see these changes. When you log onto dev app you are seeing things as they are being created.
The changes you are feeling are not the final ones. These are simply to get some traction and information on the type of changes we've been thinking about.
Please focus on the tasks we set for you. In the dev app many things are being worked on since this is our personal testing ground, but many of those are not in a state to be tested
-
Well just taking a few minutes in sandbox a few things popped out. Squid is much better. Turn rate is back to feeling more like it should. Accel maybe needs a nudge up. Have to test in combat to be sure along with whatever other changes there are. Overall a good change.
Spire, hmm...feels a little faster and turns better, maybe its my imagination cause I rarely fly the thing. I'll leave the Spire pilots to comment on that.
Pyra, just feels very slow, heavier. Guessing this was a buff to survivability and weight.
-
None of these things i say on this reply were used in a real match
The Spire feels alot better, and from what i noticed, and that is because of increased acceleration. I can actualy and confidently start moving.
Would be nice to know HOW much more acceleration.
I also noticed on the stats that the hull health is increased. I dont know how much, but would be nice to know.
And judging from self destructive mines. The difference looks like 10%. Which is not that different.
But need to actualy try this out on actual testing.
Like i said, would be nice to know what you actually changed.
-
I tested squid, flew around Dunes for a bit. it feels like angular drag was decreased a lot. This will make moonshine more necessary to stabilise yourself. The whole thing feels more slippery, more hippo in ice skates, like it has a lot more momentum, have to plan ahead more than before. Maybe I could get used to it, but initial impression is iffy.
-
Thats how the squid originally was, it was an advanced ship to fly. Noobs couldn't handle it without crashing and dying but vets that took time and mastered it were rewarded with a fantastic ship. Trust me, fly it, learn it, get used to it, you'll wonder why it was ever changed.
-
(http://www.reallyghey.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/adhsfjjsdemotivational-posters-i-have1.jpg)
Squid and Spire...
(https://33.media.tumblr.com/d7a7dfc2e961eecc9eef04433a26efda/tumblr_n7q0js60rX1shmc8zo3_400.gif)
-
Pyramidion verticality felt very sluggish, more so than normal. Turning and lateral movement felt more important to keep my arcs aligned for when I had the right altitude for combat. Not sure if it was a nerf to pyra or the buff to spire, or both, but pyra was slower at top speed than spire. Overall I didn't have much harder of a time keeping a squid in arcs. Keeping a spire in arcs was a bit harder.
Overall it felt like a possible way to nerf the pyra without breaking it, along with a buff to spire that might make it more friendly to all players. The squid just looked like it needed people to practice with it more and get a feel for it. It wasn't bad, but it didn't look like people were used to the movement of it and ended up in bad spots more often than they otherwise would have.
Would be interested in knowing if it was vertical acceleration or vertical top speed in pyra that got nerfed, or if I'm just crazy. I don't think turning was touched and acceleration, if it was touched, could only have been barely changed. Top speed laterally may have been knocked down, but it was hard to judge with other changes. Hard to tell if the mass changed given I was only ramming squids, spires, and other pyras.
Fighting a spire, I still had a pretty easy time sitting just under their main gun, keeping my arcs and ramming open on the massive bottom tip while relatively safe. Similar to fighting a galleon, if I can stay out of gun arcs because of equivalent vertical movement, I am completely safe. Spire may still be lacking in vertical movement. Perhaps trade a smidge of the new speed for vertical acceleration.
/StreamOfConsciousness
-
Pyramidion verticality felt very sluggish, more so than normal. Turning and lateral movement felt more important to keep my arcs aligned for when I had the right altitude for combat. Not sure if it was a nerf to pyra or the buff to spire, or both, but pyra was slower at top speed than spire. Overall I didn't have much harder of a time keeping a squid in arcs. Keeping a spire in arcs was a bit harder.
The squid just looked like it needed people to practice with it more and get a feel for it. It wasn't bad, but it didn't look like people were used to the movement of it and ended up in bad spots more often than they otherwise would have.
That does confirm what I felt with the Pyra. Was really curious if anyone could actually figure out what Muse did to it. It felt nerfed but wasn't sure how much.
Yeah I'm probably the only one left who actually remembers when the squid was like this. I absolutely hated the squid when I first flew it. Then after spending time with it, I'd never trade it for another ship. Granted when it was like this.
My one complaint however comes with gat combo on Squid. Just takes too long and I actually found it more optimal to gat ram to get armor down. Take the risk of losing arcs/etc to get the armor off. Gotta figure out how to resolve this. Feel the squid is a bit too durable as a rammer but at the same time the gat just wasn't cutting it. Think I may need to research more optimal squid ammo builds. With buff and correct ammo, maybe.
-
I think with this new squid, you can combine all 3 weapons. Sping the squid around and etc. It takes 2 something seconds to do a complete 360 with buffed engines and pheonix claw.
So you may want to go full on double gat with a mortar on the back.
Dual carro with flamer on back.
Maybe even use Mercury, then dual artemis.
-
Can you circlestrafe while keeping front gun in arc?
-
Might just be an idea there. At the very least you have dual gats to chop it up. Even with the turn rate increase, to swing it would take time. Unless you went with a claw. Its a tough build because it requires 2 to be on gats and the roamer to be close to the rear mort. That leaves the vessel exposed should the other boat fire back. Might also be very situational and not something that is doable with all ships. For that matter, the mortar takes too long to unload a clip so flak would be better.
This is one reason I was against arming timer and range play with the flak. When you have a vessel like a squid which needed a fast hard hitting weapon, there was no option but flak. Mortar couldn't get the angle or unload fast enough unless you had time to sit there. Muse did mention they could angle the side gun more forward but then you'd lose the option of utilizing the rear and side gun together. Beauty of the vessel is having a over a full 180 attack ability. Its right under the junker, just has less weapons.
Would be nice if we had another weapon to fit the bill between everything. Banshee would work but it doesn't hit fast enough or do enough damage. Also most of the time you use it, you want to use it as a ranged flamethrower so you empty it on armor before it drops. So, just simply, a small clip, quick hitting weapon with maybe a 500m range. Doesn't outclass the mortar completely but is just a solid damage dealer for situations like this. If mortar is pure CQC, then this would be the next level up between mortar and flak.
Can't circle strafe without losing arcs but you can get it back in arc faster.
-
Hey Guys,
Just wanted to thank you for the awesome feedback. I've sent it over to Eric.
Since you've all been so patient and awesome.
Here's the numbers you guys were playing with on 11/22
These aren't the final numbers, but were simply the first test. It's great to hear they went over well!
Spire
Forward Acceleration: 4.5m/s2 from 3
Top Speed: 28m/s from 26
Hull: 950 HP from 750
Pyramidion
Forward Acceleration: 2.15m/s2 from 2.5
Hull: 550 HP from 700
Squid
Forward Acceleration: 6.65m/s2 from 5.5
Hull: 1050 HP from 850
Weight: 95000 tonnes from 115000
-
Wait, does Forward Acceleration have an affect toward turning speed by any chance? If no, how the hell does it feel like squid is flipping around faster.
-
I think thats from the weight.
I didnt think that the squid got a HEALTH buff. Holy shit, that seems insane.
Also, for the spire. I didnt think it actualy got a top speed Buff. Just much higher acceleration should have done the trick.
And for the pyra. Those numbers seem like a huge hit on the pyra. Did anyone notice dying way too fast? Dont know what everyone wrote on the feedbacks but -250 health on pyra, Up to par with junker (whose armor makes up for his health, and hull size) may just be way too diminishing for the pyra on the long run. It just seems like just maybe ide give it back the weight it had to fully ram better again. Because with that health, he may just need it. I dont know.. im quite stunned :o
Did anyone notice health changes to the pyra and squid?
Edit: Extra stuff.
For the spire, you guys decreased the time it takes to accelerate to top speed or accelerate in general by 2.3 or so seconds.
26 top speed and 3 acceleration = 8.666 seconds that it takes to reach 26.
28 top speed and 4.5 acceleration = 6.222 seconds that it takes to reach 28.
Pyra now takes 14.8 seconds to reach top speed, as opposed to 12.8.
Squid takes 7 seconds to reach top speed (of 47) as opposed to 8.5 seconds
All of that not counting buffs
Spire took 8 shots of mortar to be taken down as opposed to 6 in the current.
just some things i saw. also, 4 seconds or so for the squid to spin 360 once with pheonix + buffs
-
Armor break on pyra means death 90% of the time anyways, so I didn't really notice anything there.
I'm kinda of surprised at some of those changes. Maybe I just haven't played in too long. ;)
I really didn't notice a huge change in pyra acceleration while my vertical movement felt particularly bad. But then, I think my main engineer for several matches was, in fact, a buffgineer instead and was keeping engines buffed, so maybe I wouldn't have noticed it as much.
-
If that is how the Pyra will be then why not just give it the classic turning back? Its just very weak. This would completely break the ship and turn it into the worst ship in the game.
Spire, great, keep it. It has needed this buff.
Squid, great, keep it, but...I don't think it needs more hp. You just turned it into probably the best ramming ship in the game. This is too much. Reduce the HP and due to the speed up, reduce it back to classic levels so it can't go around ramming everything in sight.
-
But thats a question.
I accidently exagerated and said "-250" which is actualy "-150"
But this is aproximatley 20% of the pyras full health gone down.
When i think about this again...
This will make sure that pyramideons do fall when they fall. And in another note when i think about it more, it does have an easy management so this does actualy balance it out versus other ships managements. It is still an easy ship, but you need to be more carefull this time around.
Squids health change is still super weird... why would it have that much health?
-
Never did I think the day would come when you ask for less for the squid Gilder. If this means squid is viable again though :D
-
Never did I think the day would come when you ask for less for the squid Gilder. If this means squid is viable again though :D
Oh I've asked for the health reduction for awhile. But along with it I wanted this turn rate buff. I'm reasonable regarding the vessel. If its going to be slow and clunky like it is now, then it needs a lot of HP and different gun mounts. But if its going to be nimble and fun like it used to be, then it needs less hp and the ability to evade quickly.
I liked when the ship literally fell apart when it touched others. It forced you to fly it with more finesse and become a better pilot. During the Saturday test, the others were more afraid of my squid rams than they were the actual boat getting a kill. I bobbed and weaved yet only got advantages when I rammed. So, cut the hp, maybe give it a little nudge on accel...perfect. I only say a slight nudge on accel so the ship can avoid accidental ramming with the reduced hp.
As it was, you needed kero standard to not only run but also stop the ship. Now, kero is acting more like a buff, not a necessity. I'd love it as is but I'd love it more if it had a slight nudge. I'd like to test the squid with a 7.0m/s so give it another half a m/s. Suspect that may be all it would need.
Oh and, is there going to be more testing days soon? Found myself logging in the past few nights just to fly around sandbox for fun, but moving targets would be nice :D
-
dude totally called that the spire got a hull buff. It survived pyra rams it never would have before. I say keep that in there for sure.
-
Why the pyra nerfs?
-
Also, for the spire. I didnt think it actualy got a top speed Buff.
I'm almost certain muse actually doesn't use hard-caps for ship velocities. At least I've never "felt" a sudden acceleration stop and I'm sure one can achieve higher top velocities with kerosene and moonshine. I'd be surprised if the max velocity values posted by muse occasionally are anything else but calculated theoretical maximum values based on an underlying equation of motion which looks similar to this: 0 = M*a + K*v with the acceleration vector a, the velocity vector v, M a matrix containing information about the ships mass and the moment of inertia(the resistance against rotation) and K a matrix filled with drag coefficients. M, a and K are the parameters muse altered in patches in the past. Regarding M I've read somewhere muse calculates the ships moment of inertia by approximating its body with an ellipsoid. Hence I think it to be likely the only parameter muse uses to alter M in patches is the ships mass. This has got an interesting implication: Whenever m is altered the ships moment of inertia is recalculated as well. This is very noticeable for the squid right now. muse reduced the weight and not only did this increase the ships acceleration, but also the ships ability to turn as its moment of inertia has been reduced by the mass change as well. Also the squid top speed should be faster now unless the longitudinal and vertical drag has been increased to counter this effect. Can you share the squids new angular acceleration acceleration and top speeds with us, Keyvias?
My impressions on the ship changes (unfortunately I did miss the event so these are only based on sandbox sessions):
Squid: I really like the ships improved agility and I dislike the increased hull. The squids key to survival should be movement and positioning, not tankieness.
Spire: I'd have to play the spire against actual opponents to see if these changes elevate the spire to be an option for competitive matches (which I'd like to see as a goal for spire changes). Personally I do believe the main problem of the spire is that it sucks at playing peek-a-boo with its enemy. It can't drift foward/backward at corners to open fire at the opponent and retreat when it gets focused due to the forward facing guns. It also can't pop up and hide behind structure on the ground as it exposes its giant balloon+hull way before its guns can shoot at anything. As a glass cannon the spire needs to get into cover somehow before bad stuff happens. I don't see how acceleration addresses these characteristics and think an increased turn acceleration or buff of the spires vertical movement would be better approaches to address these problems.
Pyra: Again I'd have to test this against actual players to get a good impression on its current state. However lower movement speed paired up with less offensive power (weaker rams due to reduced velocity) and defensive power (hull reduction) might be a tad too much. Personally I've seen the pyra at a pretty good place before the patch. It's likely a bit overused (statistically), but I'd mostly attribute that to the pyras easy crew-role-assignments rather than to some sort of superiority. Regarding the hull reduction: Pyras can probably be killed quite reliably with a single flak volley now. I don't think that's a good thing.
-
Pyras have been weak for awhile. Very easy to kill them. Used to be able to shift everyone to hull and tank on a Pyra quite well but then it changed and it just folds up easily. I seem to remember there was a reduction in something, then increase in weight, loss of turning ability, top speed increase to turn it into a lawn dart...we've had players up and retire or teams quit due to the changes.
Chatted with Zuka on many occasions and hes said it before that it was a factor which led to him ending his near nightly antics in GOIO. He then joined the Wolfpack who all up and quit when it was nerfed so, lot of like minded folk. Course real life happened anyways but before the changes he was a late night machine on GOIO like me. Brick, he's been similar. 1.2 was the first big blow, then the troll players tipped it over for him. He shifted to Junkers and found things to keep interest, but then nerfed. Little reason for him to log in for a game that he can't love anymore and put up with terrible people. Tried to get him into Munkers but its not his thing. Shame.
Best revision of the Pyra imo was before a lot of that. Before everyone insisted it had to be a super ramming ship lawn dart because it was pointy. Back then it was a flexible multirole fighter. It wasn't particularly great at ramming but it could do it. Was on par with the Goldfish in that respect. Run the risk of it becoming the go-to vessel by changing it back, but with the other vessels fixed, it wouldn't be without counters. Lot of ships could easily give a buffed Pyra, the run for it's money. 1.1 is a prime example of that. It was popular but had many counters. I tore them up all the time no matter what build it used.
-
Spire: I'd have to play the spire against actual opponents to see if these changes elevate the spire to be an option for competitive matches (which I'd like to see as a goal for spire changes).
I can safely say yes! Yes many times. And some more.
You will still need to learn proper crew managment, build and priority. But thats captain stuff. Just take one build, one way and youl learn more on your own.
If this spire buff will make final, i will tell you that it is major. Option for competetive? It always was, well for me. But now, i can certainly see more people (alot more) flying the spire. It will be able to whip around corners now, whip around back and forth. When i first felt the spire in sandbox i was giddy.
-
I like the Spire changes. I felt that I was able to effectively close-quarters dogfight a Squid and Goldfish on Labyrinth at the same time using moonshine and claw. Starting and stopping seems almost instant.
As for people leaving because their favorite one-trick-pony ship build gets nerfed.... I feel they are missing out on most of the game anyways, and were not very good in the first place. If you play the Hardcounter Lobbies of Icarus game, it shows a lack of adaptability on the fly.
-
Well crap, totally missed this until now. Been awhile since I've wanted to actually test something!
I'll have to give it all a whirl and email yea.
-
As for people leaving because their favorite one-trick-pony ship build gets nerfed.... I feel they are missing out on most of the game anyways, and were not very good in the first place. If you play the Hardcounter Lobbies of Icarus game, it shows a lack of adaptability on the fly.
Go back and check the Wolfpack's matches. Those guys were excellent Pyra pilots at the time. They entered during a time when Mercs/Arts were ruling the sky and were mopping the floor with ranged teams by using CQC. Then Muse killed the Pyra, they left. They're weren't bad players, just very specialized. It hasn't been just them either. I've known many other good pilots who just quit when their boats got broken. I should have been one of them had Muse not added mines and I not gotten involved in the VN project.
You can't label people as bad players when they leave because a ship they love has been broken. No one in this game is flawless with all vessels. Everyone has a favorite or a boat which makes the game "theirs." Heck I can play all the boats but you'll rarely see me flying Spires, Mobulas, or Galleons just because I don't like them as much as the others for various reasons. Doesn't mean that I wouldn't be able to 5-0 some pubbies flying one. But against vet pilots, I wouldn't dare take one without good cause. Some guys in here are very good with those, they love them. So does that mean if they stop playing as much due to a major nerf on their favorite, that they are a bad player? By no means. Take Zill, Skrimskraw, or heck even Sammy. Some old fogie vets like me. Even if they were on a break and came back when their favorite boat was fixed, I'd view them as a greater threat than someone who's been playing consistently. Just because I'd know they're helming something they love and knew how well they handled it in the past.
Its like a bike or roller skating, you never really forget. Get rusty but it doesn't take you long to shake it off.
-
Funny you should bring up the Wolf Pack, Gilder. I actually learned to play flying with those guys, almost such that months after the wolfpack disappeared and then tried to come back, Janeway is sitting there going "wait, you WEREN'T ever in the brotherhood?"
Funny story, but I did get really sick bored of Pyramidions and I do think the thing needs a certain nerf. But I don't think it's quite the nerf that people/the devs think it needs. Problem with it right now is its too well rounded, which is why you can counter anything by changing the front guns of the pyra. Instead, it should actually be the "vanguard to lead you into battle," in other words, fast in a strait line, heavy and burly, but suck at everything else. Big rewards for the perfect approach, big punishment for cocking it up. But not just an outright nerf like what we're looking at now.
-
The thing about wolfpack was that they specilised on what was very strong at the time. Gattlings had enourmus range compared to now. Pyras rams were super hard.
What nerfed the pyra in these patches after was not the rams nerf, but the gattling/weapon nerf (flak got reduced to bad)
This made pyras having to have to get closer.
I dont think they were bad players, but if they left because of these nerfs, thats a sign of players that wouldnt hold up on a very balanced game. But kudos to those that still stick around.
What wolfpack did is show exactly how strong and bad the situation was with the game and pyra. That is why i think they are famous.
Also, another thing.
I looked at Scs videos but focusing on pyra health. I measured aproximatley how long 550 health was to the previous on the health bars.
Pyras will still hold up, they will just not have that many close calls. Light flak will kill the pyra in 5 shots. I actualy think this is deliberate.
Alot of times pyras on competetive fall down to exactly just before my measurement of the health bars.
This health change is on the very edge for pyras.
Just thinking about this change the way i did, makes me think that pyra pilots wont quit flying pyras. But they will sweat more. Like i said, they really do just have to be more carefull.
Feats that pyras do now are gonna be seen as more cool because it may be more risky in the eyes of spectator.
-
I dunno I kinda hate Pyras atm. Ships just have felt weak and the gatling is a strong reason for it. Half the time you have to ram to get armor down or go with disable build to take anything out. Don't even bother taking on Junkers, they'll just sit there laughing at your gatling while their armor never goes down. I wonder if it is time for that gat distance to come back. Then potentially get to the 2nd clip by the time you are close enough for the kill. Could be why it feels so weak on the squid and Pyra, you don't have that extra lead on the clips before you are in kill range.
Curious to see if Muse will touch up the Junkers in another test build. I'd like to see a shift in something there.
-
[...]
Don't even bother taking on Junkers, they'll just sit there laughing at your gatling while their armor never goes down.
[...]
Curious to see if Muse will touch up the Junkers in another test build. I'd like to see a shift in something there.
Solution: Carroflamer Pyra. Not sure about the big leagues, but it works really well even in normal matches!
Junker changes would be nice...
-
[...]
Don't even bother taking on Junkers, they'll just sit there laughing at your gatling while their armor never goes down.
[...]
Curious to see if Muse will touch up the Junkers in another test build. I'd like to see a shift in something there.
Solution: Carroflamer Pyra. Not sure about the big leagues, but it works really well even in normal matches!
Junker changes would be nice...
I think that's one of the issues people have with junkers, though - they're practically unbeatable vs. non-blender builds (if you have good captains and crew), but against blenders they basically don't stand a chance (again, assuming the blender team knows what they're doing). There's not much middle ground. I can tell you from a year of competitive play as a metajunker pilot that I'll win 95% of the time vs. conventional builds, and lose 95% of the time versus blenders. It's just that clear-cut.
That's another reason why the meta "settles" towards the all-pyramidion matchups that are so common as of late. Pyras don't do anything particularly well, but they don't have any glaring weaknesses either. And in the current atmosphere of Hardcounter Lobbies of Icarus, that's what matters most.
-
[...]
Don't even bother taking on Junkers, they'll just sit there laughing at your gatling while their armor never goes down.
[...]
Curious to see if Muse will touch up the Junkers in another test build. I'd like to see a shift in something there.
Solution: Carroflamer Pyra. Not sure about the big leagues, but it works really well even in normal matches!
Junker changes would be nice...
I think that's one of the issues people have with junkers, though - they're practically unbeatable vs. non-blender builds (if you have good captains and crew), but against blenders they basically don't stand a chance (again, assuming the blender team knows what they're doing). There's not much middle ground. I can tell you from a year of competitive play as a metajunker pilot that I'll win 95% of the time vs. conventional builds, and lose 95% of the time versus blenders. It's just that clear-cut.
That's another reason why the meta "settles" towards the all-pyramidion matchups that are so common as of late. Pyras don't do anything particularly well, but they don't have any glaring weaknesses either. And in the current atmosphere of Hardcounter Lobbies of Icarus, that's what matters most.
audible thump as my jaw hits the deck
Wow, OK. Time to nerf Blender builds and Junkers...
-
I wonder if it is time for that gat distance to come back.
If that happens, then were going nowhere with balance. The purpose of balance is to get closer and closer to a balanced game that will stay for a long time.
Currently, the gattlings we have now is very good. It does strip armor faster than before but it requiers one to be closer. Buffed greased gattling should still apply.
Oh and, yeah. I always tought junkers were in a weird place. They can pull of dangerous things but baloon popping does hit it hard.
The pilot will always be able to help on the baloon. Drogue chutting before the baloon goes down does keep it up in the sky for some time.
I think the hard hit here is how flachette and shatter do SO MUCH versus hull when it transfers. Lumberjack can destroy armor and perma like it is a hades and a light flak when it is shooting a downed baloon. The baloon on the junker should be a weakness because the hull is very hard to hit. But guns like lumber do huge numbers versus baloon.
My spire build versus junkers is Lumber+Hades+2light flaks all pointing at the baloon. Each gun helping eachother on destroying the baloon then the armor then the health.
-
My spire build versus junkers is Lumber+Hades+2light flaks all pointing at the baloon. Each gun helping eachother on destroying the baloon then the armor then the health.
I'd probably load one flak with burst and have it snipe components, but that's just me.
-
Yeah that is the problem with Junkers, you need blender builds to kill them or you need to charge ram the balloon. Even then, if you are in kill zone they can just rebuild and tear you up before you have a chance to do anything. All ships in the game are killable with both kill builds and blender but Junkers...unless you run double gat + kill on a junker, you won't cut through them.
-
But you can still counter Junkers with good hwachafish or hwacha-spire with good crew. Or you can kill it's secondary engines. And, of course, good hwacha-blender galleon is a nightmare for Junkers.
-
Thats what we are saying, Junkers only really have one counter, disable builds. Hwacha is disable. Every ship in the game is weak against disable but can also be taken down with kill builds. Junkers vs kill builds take a lot longer than it should. Its not a heavy warship but can survive like one. Due in part to the distribution of components. Shots often hit components rather than hull/armor. The solution to this used to be heavy clip. But then everything was heavy clip and no other clip was used. I wouldn't mind HC seeing a little bump to make it more attractive, maybe shot distance. But , its a delicate area.
-
But you can still counter Junkers with good hwachafish or hwacha-spire with good crew. Or you can kill it's secondary engines. And, of course, good hwacha-blender galleon is a nightmare for Junkers.
Honestly, at the highest levels of play, all other things being equal, hwachas are pretty ineffective against well-crewed focus-firing metajunkers. Particularly once your crew is trained in "peaching" (duckspeak for rebuilding to within one click and waiting), you can easy rebuild a downed gatling immediately after a hwacha barrage and gatsnipe the hwacha right out until the rest of your systems are back online. Blending is the only totally reliable (perhaps excessively so!) counter to a junker
Spires are even worse off - so much as look at a spire with an artemis or a hades and it falls to pieces. Focus fire six of those guns on a spire? Good night, Irene.
The same with close range galleons. With its exposed guns, sluggish movement, and huge hull profile, 6x artemis-hades fire will simultaneously pierce, explode, flame, and shatter everything on the ship reliably at ranges up to 1300m. Is Mr. Galleon getting too close? Put 'er in reverse.
This is my experience, at least.
Of course, positioning miracles will mitigate all these limitations. But why not take the stronger build, create the same positioning magic, and have an even better outcome? I've never been one for handicapping myself intentionally.
As an aside, what I would say generally is that if the junker is to have its primary stats nerfed, then it should somehow be made less vulnerable to blending. The current lack of junkers in competitive is very telling - basically, a team's reliance on junkers frequently leads to the opposing team's switch to a blender-based hard counter in the lobby. It would be much better to find a happier middle ground, I think.
-
Yeah agreed. The one issue with making a junker less blendable is the fact that they can't really change the balloon. Unless they added armor plating to the balloon in spots. Reduce the hit box of it but still, it wouldn't be Pyra level.
The old way things were was, you countered disable with killing power. Disable took too long to be effective half the time and the risk of a disable ship being killed was extremely high as it needed longer time to get it's job done. They could exist in 3v3 but 2v2 it was tougher due to focus fire. You'd have to get disable going while dodging fire and surviving long enough for your ally to get the other boat off your back. With the game being slower and movement poor, pilots just couldn't do this. This only fed more into the kill boat mentality and the departure from blenders/etc. Then Art was super buffed and finally everyone realized it was better to sit back and snipe than it was to rush and take the higher risk. I said it back then...what point was there for teams to close range and risk it? Everyone was screaming to charge and do something exciting, but the game was just too slow. If you aren't confident in your ship movement in cqc then flying turret sniping is all you can do.
So now we're in a place where disable is better than killing and ranged cannot repel anything. The weakness in explosive heavy weapons is painfully clear. Galleon broadsides should be things to be feared, not things to charge into. This is a great time for a new short range explosive weapon to be introduced. The threads in the feedback area have some nice ideas. But a new heavy explosive weapon meant to give high killing power at close to mid range. Would be awesome to strengthen the Galleon right now. Sure it has hwatchas and carronades but neither are that scary if you keep them under control. As Frogger says, gat it out, done. Catch it in reload means even if it comes back up, it has to sit there trying to reload and so you can just gat it out again.
-
There's actually already a working solution to the the junker-blending problem, at least at close range. Ask Richard LeMoon about his Pineapple. At longer ranges, an artemis or two (I like three, actually) will keep lumberjacks at bay.
And since we are still on the subject of Pyramidions and I was previously mentioning the manner in which pyramidions counter everything just by changing the front guns, here's a list of working anti-junker pyras:
double carronade
Hades/carronade
carronade/artemis
mercury/artemis (you think this one wouldn't work because of trying to hit the junker hull with a mercury, but the artemis can keep a junker disabled with relative ease while the mercury trains its shots)
anyone tried dual or triple artemis? I feel like that would work.
And really, I would expect a double artemis pyramidion to be typically more effective against a triple-art junker. Reason is: it just seems so much harder to break the front guns on a pyra. It's got something to do with the point of the ship hanging over the hitboxes of the guns, I think. But you can reliably aim at the rear deck of a junker with burst artemis and break 4 guns and an engine with a couple of shots. Talk about dead in the water.
Now, I do actually expect a pineapple junker to at least be an even match against pure blending builds, but not so much against the Pyramidions listed above simply because placing pressure on both the balloon and some other component, you start to limit the junker's firepower by spreading the engineers to repairs rather than firing weapons. That's how you bring a junker down.
HOWEVER, I do have to add this caveat: I think trying to buff the junker to counter pyras is a mistake, and for that matter trying to nerf carronades to give junkers a fighting chance is also a mistake. Maybe I just say that because of my strange obsession with carronade spires, but I do actually believe that the ships in the game should show some kind of specialization, at least in the way they move and being proficient in mastering a ship's movement is just as key in counter builds as bring a particular ship in and of itself. The junker, for example, has impressive turning and if the pyramidion wasn't such a jack of all-trades as far as mobility goes, skilled junker pilots could take advantage of that to counter pyramidions. It's just the same as how mobulas can dependably do vertical dodges against charging pyramidions. This is why I say that the pyra really just needs a certain nerf to its turning and vertical movement (and I think a buff to its longitudinal speed wouldn't be unreasonable as well) rather than just nerfing everything on it.
-
And a pineapple is what pray tell?
-
triple carronade on one side, all greased rounds. The other side is usually dual hades, but it can be other things. I'll play around with gatling/banshee for the second side so we've got some sort of kill side and I can keep the carronade in the trifecta.
-
Reduce the health of all balloons - Reduce the damage modifiers proportionately - Reduce the damage done by pilot tools proportionately - problem solved. Balloons still pop with 2 shots from the heavy carronade but can be rebuilt and repaired much quicker - Balloon Lock is no longer an issue but carronades are still effective at dropping ships out of arc - TaDa!
mobula op
-
Reduce the health of all balloons - Reduce the damage modifiers proportionately - Reduce the damage done by pilot tools proportionately - problem solved. Balloons still pop with 2 shots from the heavy carronade but can be rebuilt and repaired much quicker - Balloon Lock is no longer an issue but carronades are still effective at dropping ships out of arc - TaDa!
mobula op
It's still an issues, just less of one. I do like the idea though!
-
MMmmmmm... Pineapple.
I like the idea of lowered balloon rebuild times. Always seemed silly that they took the longest of anything to repair. I am also a proponent of each ship having a different balloon health.
-
Well it makes sense. If the armor rebuild times can vary between ships then balloon could too. Although, that might not help the Junker as it already has a huge balloon.
However, reducing the balloon HP...no. Hydro is already sensitive enough and limited to full balloon usage. Reducing the hp could instant kill balloons on some ships. Unless, Hydro is reworked so it is in proportion. If it is % based instead of a hard number, yep lets do it.
-
Well it makes sense. If the armor rebuild times can vary between ships then balloon could too. Although, that might not help the Junker as it already has a huge balloon.
However, reducing the balloon HP...no. Hydro is already sensitive enough and limited to full balloon usage. Reducing the hp could instant kill balloons on some ships. Unless, Hydro is reworked so it is in proportion. If it is % based instead of a hard number, yep lets do it.
I believe he mentioned that. Different Balloon healths sound really good! Galleon would probaly have near highest, Pyra lowest, considering the armor.
-
Yeah he mentioned it. All damage is proportionate as today to make repairing the baloon easier. Thats it.
As much as i like this, i cant help feeling it would brake somethings.
But also introduce new things.
Mobulas will be very strong, and maybe also junkers.
All ships will be available to hydro or chutevent the moment the baloon is repaired.
Drogue chute may be less used.
-
Yeah I skimmed earlier, was on the way out at the time. Glad to see someone else thought of the same thing.
One way to balance it is to make the rebuilds faster based on weight. Therefore the heavier ships would take longer than the lighter ones. The Mobula is almost all balloon so if this was changed, it would mean an already weak ship suddenly becomes even worse with huge rebuild times. But if we take into account weight, could give the mobby a high balloon HP with moderate rebuild. Junker would likely fall into a decent spot too.
So down the list...
Galleon: High HP, Slow Rebuild
Pyra: Mid HP, Slow Rebuild (wouldn't really hurt it much, it has armor around part of it after all)
Junker: High HP, Fast-Mid rebuild
Mobula: High HP, Fast-Mid rebuild
Goldfish: Mid HP, Mid Rebuild
Spire: Low HP, Fast Rebuild
Squid: Low HP, Fast Rebuild
Think that might be how it would work out. Anyone else have an edit?
If Hydro goes % based. Would work. Think in tactics, the tactical balloon blow maneuver would become popular for some lighter builds. Then if HP is high enough on the more exposed Galleons, the blender would have to sit there blending for awhile to chop it. With repairs going on/etc. It could buy a vessel enough time to counter or have allies arrive to assist.