Guns Of Icarus Online
Admin => Dev App Testing => Topic started by: Keyvias on February 07, 2015, 02:44:06 pm
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A lot of things to be tested Saturday at 3 pm eastern. The things you should focus on are Minotaur Heavy Cannon and the new Stamina system. These two will definitely go through additional visual/effects polish so don’t worry about it too much for now.
Main thing we want to know about these changes is “do they increase the fun?” These will definitely change the way you play, that’s the main idea but do they change them in a way that makes the game more enjoyable? Do they give you more options? Does it feel more rewarding from second to second?
Spire
- Increased longitudinal acceleration
- Increased top speed
- Increased hull health
Pyramidion
- Reduced longitudinal acceleration
- Reduced hull health
Squid
- Increased longitudinal acceleration
- Increased hull health
- Reduced mass (mainly to affect longitudinal acceleration)
Minotaur Heavy Cannon
- Pushes enemy ships. Force is applied in relation to the target ship's center of mass and also takes into account the direction of the shot. For example, a shot to a Pyramidion's nose from the side (perpendicular) will cause the Pyramidion to spin. A shot to the Pyramidion's center from the side will cause the Pyramidion to simply get pushed in the direction of shot. Therefore, if a Pyramidion is charging your Goldfish head to head, shooting the Pyramidion in the face will not cause it to spin but instead only cause it to get pushed back.
- Not meant as a killing weapon but as an assist weapon
- Shoots like a Carronade
- Can be used at long range
- Visual and sound effects are a work in progress, but if something seems obviously broken please let us know
Stamina
- Each class has access to Stamina, currently bound to Shift. Hold down shift to use it.
- Visual and sound effects are a work in progress, but if something seems obviously broken please let us know
- Bonus Stamina recharge for ship kills
- Pilot
-- Used while on the helm
-- Increased ship thrust
-- Increased lift power (both up and down directions)
-- Decreased longitudinal drag
-- Decreased vertical drag
-- Increased angular drag (to compensate for increase ship thrust, which also improves turn)
- Engineer
-- Used while running around
-- Increased run speed
-- Increased jump height
-- Bonus Stamina recharge for rebuilds
- Gunner
-- Used while on gun, either when extending gun's arc or while gun is reloading
-- Increased gun arc
-- Increased reload speed
-- Increased rotation speed
-- Bonus Stamina recharge for component destructions
Capture Point Logic
- Rate of capture or de-capture is based on the difference of team ships at the point. E.g. 3 Red and 2 Blue means there is (3R - 2B = 1R) 1 Red ship at the point. Therefore, the goal is to outnumber the enemy at capture points.
- 20 points to your team for ship kills (now you can't thoughtlessly rush into combat)
- Reduced point goals for all capture maps
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Pyramidion
- Reduced hull health
Squid
- Increased hull health
Still disagree about this, but if you, Muse, decide that this is the best idea...
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- Rate of capture or de-capture is based on the difference of team ships at the point. E.g. 3 Red and 2 Blue means there is (3R - 2B = 1R) 1 Red ship at the point. Therefore, the goal is to outnumber the enemy at capture points.
This should have been the case a long time ago
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- Rate of capture or de-capture is based on the difference of team ships at the point. E.g. 3 Red and 2 Blue means there is (3R - 2B = 1R) 1 Red ship at the point. Therefore, the goal is to outnumber the enemy at capture points.
This should have been the case a long time ago
No it really shouldn't
squid zerg rush much
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Pyramidion
- Reduced hull health
Squid
- Increased hull health
Still disagree about this, but if you, Muse, decide that this is the best idea...
While I was hoping for a buff to the Squid overall, I definitely didn't expect a buff to the already high hull. Squid is surprizingly tanky with the 4-hit spanner rebuild on armor.
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Even when that Squid armor is down, it can ram kill a bunch of other ships that also have lost their armor. When a Mobula and a Squid both lose armor, the Squid wins...
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I've been saying for awhile now...tissue paper fighter with the squid. It should never be able to ram. Also Stamina is now a must have tool for the squid. It can't fly without it. I dunno what was touched but please turn it back. Before stamina the squid was finally feeling good again. Now...I spend most of the time waiting for stamina to reload to do anything.
Also, bug reports:
Chat box bug
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=388777518
Labyrinth...holy hell bug
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=388777610
Literally couldn't mount the wheel until Andros got on it. It kept wanting me to run up the black wall.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=388777646
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- Rate of capture or de-capture is based on the difference of team ships at the point. E.g. 3 Red and 2 Blue means there is (3R - 2B = 1R) 1 Red ship at the point. Therefore, the goal is to outnumber the enemy at capture points.
This should have been the case a long time ago
No it really shouldn't
squid zerg rush much
But... squid rushes are worse now because 1 squid can stop the power of 2 ships capturing.
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Hmm... do they increase fun? Zipping around the ship is a bit fun, but being shot from nearly directly above with a carronade isn't fun at all.
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I liked the occasional 1v3 with top engineers and gunnery, would never die fast enough, which does kinda decrease fun for the enemy.
What has to compensate though is that points might need to be active for longer. Often enough, if you can't capture the point on the first try, the second try will be too late and with a lowered capture point goal as well... At least disable will be more useful now and not disable the ship on the point so it can just block.
About those 20 points per kill, I do remember some times where the game would drag on a little bit when one team was missing less than 50 points to win, but then the other team started their come back. Points for kills could deny such comebacks. In fact in the worst case scenario, it could set the deathmatch skill above the strategic skill of capture point.
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Spire is more fun. I like the changes. Feels better off in a fight, but still an easy ship to kill.
Minotaur... Well, everyone I was in matches with agreed that it only started feeling a little effective once we had two on a Galleon. Even then, it's utility and damage were mostly underwhelming. It had very little effect on most ships. The only ship that was really effected was the Goldfish, which also could not use the gun very well. It was mostly described as "Somewhat of a nuisance, but not threatening." Gunners felt like they were not really doing anything for the most part. Pilots said it was easy to compensate for. Galleon pilots asked if it was being used yet. It only started to show a little promise when used with Greased rounds close range against a Goldfish.
My thoughts are to double the clip size and make it shoot faster. Change one of the damage types to Impact.
Stamina is.... unnecessary complexity. This game is already quite complex to learn. Adding another level of skill to master is only going to hurt gameplay. It is really just another push button tool that is activated by pushing a completely different button than the rest of the tools. We are getting into feature bloat territory. All of these effects could easily be achieved with tools, with the exception of engineer stamina making you run faster... which we will get to.
First off, the stamina bar is massive and annoying. I was just told a few months ago that you did not want to add any more UI elements because it was already too cluttered. Then the hull was added... then this thing.
Pilot stamina.... silly in the extreme. It makes no sense at all as it is. You want a supercharged effect? Make a helm tool for it. Put all the bonus stuff on that tool, and make it last a few seconds after release. Most new pilots would use it a 'easy mode'. More advanced pilots would use it to boost ship performance. Other would not use it at all and stick to other tactics.
Engineer stamina... unanimously described as mostly useless. Movement is so buggy that you just get stuck in new and interesting places. What is desired is faster hits for rebuilding and somehow improving repair. But really, not needed at all. The engineer game is already pretty balanced.
Gunner stamina... where to start? Actually, just no. Out of all of the class buffs, I dislike this one the most. Moving fast is one thing, but ripping the guns off the mounts because your character yells "Yahooooooo!"? What? I don't even know what to say. I mean, I though you were working on ammo types to do that type of thing. Binding it to a moment of passion that ONLY gunners have makes no sense. You want gunners to be more useful, then make the ammos that do these things. Make arc shifting ammo. Standard ammo that allows you to shift the gun right, left, down, or up at the expense of the other directions. Make sitting in the seat reload the gun faster by default, or other bonuses for not getting out of the gunner seat. Progressively more steady shots, faster gun movement, whatever. Just reward the person staying on the gun for being on the gun. And for the love of Odin's right nipple, don't make the buff hammer increase DPS in any way. That alone would get rid if half the gungineers.
Finally, don't make anything class specific. This is really... jarring to a game that always prided itself on the equality of the characters. Especially in the 'magicy spell' feeling way this is.
Capture points... The changes seemed to make little difference in the two KotH maps. They were a little (sometimes a lot) confusing on the CK maps. Half the time we could not tell if someone was blocking, or we were just not on the point. A Squid hid under a point at one time, and I spent about a minute trying to 'find' where the new capture zone was. A visual indication of whether your ship is on the point or not would be greatly helpful. A small icon next to the score or something similar.
In conclusion, I like the ship changes, but really think everything could be sped up some, including gun speeds. No stamina needed. Just make it faster. Don't implement stamina in any way, and go back to the ammos we were helping develop. I saw a lot of promise there. And make the capture points more clear as to what is actually happening.
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I only really played engineer in actual games but from the few matches I had time to play + general messing around in the dev app pre-testing... Also I am not entirely against stamina (but I'm not against it being scraped exactly either).. I am against it .. in its current form..
I feel the value of engineers stamina is.. about as expected (not super useful) but it is also the only one done well (ie feels kinda balanced)..
It runs out now pretty fast.. So its only really useable/useful during times you need to rebuild more stuff.. assuming those parts are far apart.. Ie.. mostly the goldfish and galleon.. not so much other ships.. maybe spire.
Here is my suggestion for changing stamina..
For gunner tie gun ark changes to the guns.. If a gun cannot aim down normally - it can't aim down with staminia..
All arks are % increased based off the normal arks of a gun - this way the gunner isn't making the gun turn in extremely unnatural ways (and extremely unbalanced ways).. I do not think this change needs to be so drastic as it is now.. (Someone suggested elsewhere it could deal dmg to the gun while out of ark, I like that addition).
For pilot tie it to pilot tools... So rather then just getting blanket increases all around it buffs the tool use.. so If you use stamina when your using claw, the claw turns you faster.. or if you use it during moonshine - moonshine is faster...
This way pilot tools still are just as important as now.. and stamina is just an additional buff to those.. and it should be more situational not all the time like it felt now (I didn't pilot though so idk how fast its actually running out but I've seen the effects a lot during the matches so it seemed like it can be used a lot)..
In general I think if its tied in to the current game mechanics more like this.. rather then just being thrown over top it - it would fit better over all..
Engineer stamina maybe fine as is with no additions.. but that's hard to say till we see what the final gunner and pilot boosts are and do. If gunner and pilot enables ships to die much faster then normal via reload, then engineers would need a counter to make it feel balanced.. I don't think I like having to use stamina at the right times to counter someone else using it.. That doesn't sound very fun to me.
I do worry stamina is going to drive a larger wedge between "new player" and "old player".. just because it gives older players that much more edge over new ones (when already have a bit to much..).. and that edge use to stomp them makes them not enjoy the game.. and if they aren't having fun then .. they won't stay around..
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Although I've noticed the new stamina has been nerfed, it is still too much.
The UI is huge and I prefered the tiny box.
The engine particles from pilot stamina is...... ****ing horrible. There is no reason beyond time travellers replacing the engines with plasma launchers! Those particles have to go.. The engineer jumping further than a kangaroo on steroids and speed is bad enough but those.engine particles are awful and you may as well turn guns into a space based Sci-Fi if you're going to ruin the current look.of the game in such a way.
I can not stress enough this point: The majority of your dedicated players who have been here a long time and want to stay here a long time, are a niche market which you have supplied to very well with only a few hiccups....
Once you start destroying that with sci-fi looks over the top physic breaking mechanics and super powers that only appeal to the player base which logs in once, and rage quits after loosing once, you will loose your existing player base, and loose the dedicated players which keep this game alive.
Stamina needs nerfing still on every point, it should be a small boost and not an immersion breaking balance breaking feature which will only add extra search tags for the wrong target audience.
The stamina made one baby step forward and sooo many backwards.
Honestly i say scrap it or make it a hundredth of what it is now.
Otherwise the game becomes Tabula Rasa... (one final jump of patches before a sudden unwelcome disappearance.)
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Ships
I'm okay with the ship adjustments to this point. For the most part the changes were rather minor and I didn't feel they broke the game or its systems. I didn't notice a sizeable difference in the Spire and Pyramidion, and I take that as a good thing.
However, as a full time Squid/Goldfish pilot I am against the health increase in the Squid. I firmly believe that for the squid to be a viable choice and balanced, it needs to be able to outmanoeuvre every other ship but the consequences of any mistake must be severe and immediate. I've always seen the Squid as the Golden Gun; a terrifying weapon in the right hands but as deadly to its user as much as it is to its enemy. Newer players should be afraid of flying the Squid and experienced players should be flawless in their execution.
But if you're determined to add some health to the Squid I would prefer it if you added it to the armour instead of the hull. This way at least the Squid will still go down quickly unless the pilot and main engineer are conscious of this weakness.
With the incoming Squid mobility buffs I feel we're finally starting to get to a point of tactical balance for each role. As i've understood the roles, the Goldfish is the jack-of-all-trades but a master of none, the Junker is a light Galleon but lacking the Galleon's stoping power and endurance, the Squid is a knife in the dark but useless in an open brawl, the Galleon is the king of control but slow to a fault, the Pyramidion is a drag racer but in every sense of the word, and the Spire and Mobula are cannons but made of glass and vapour.
The Squid needs to be difficult to fly for the sake of the game's tactical balance. Otherwise with a more forgiving health increase player's will start complaining about the Squid being too OP. Then to not appear as reversing your stance, you'll inevitably increase each ship's turning speed to compensate for this. And then we'll end up exactly where we are at this point, with a Squid that is easily countered by Pyramidions that are able to turn on a dime and Goldfish that are fill the role of the Squid better than the Squid itself.
Minotaur
The potential in this new weapon is incredibly exciting. Flying the Goldfish I purposely got pinned down by two Minotaurs on a Galleon and while it was difficult to control, I wasn't in any major threat due to the low damage of the cannons. However, the gun's utility by itself is underpowered and also with a limited effectiveness on the Goldfish only. At this stage the gun has no utility on a Spire or Goldfish. I feel that an individual cannon should be able to pin down/reposition any ship (with the exception of the Galleon) with an experienced gunner but that ship should have the opportunity to escape so there is no frustration. I would suggest that the gun is buffed but handicapped with a long reload time (the Hwacha timing is a good starting point) so that a ship can escape from the Minotaur's arcs.
The question is what happens when a Galleon is equipped with two Minotaurs? I feel that to mitigate any potential problems you need to keep the Minotaur ineffective at dealing out damage. With this you can, in theory, keep a single ship locked down with one gunner alternating between both cannons during the reload cycle but you'd be unable to kill said ship. This scenario is no different from the current double Hwacha load-out that some crews use to disable a single ship and hold them in place while their team fights elsewhere.
Capture the Point Logic
Interesting ideas, didn't get to test them out completely but I think there is potential. But I do stress that there does need to be a clear indication that you know that it is your ship that is on the point and not just your allies. Plenty of games have been confusing due to a new pilot that doesn't know if they're on the point or not or even where the point is.
Stamina
I'm going to be brutally honest here: SCRAP IT
This is a terrible solution especially when simple fixes exist. This is a solution that will break the game and ruin all the game's current philosophies of class balance, ship roles, and strategic engagements.
This is an unwanted layer of gameplay complexity, it's thematically out of place, and in the end it won't solve any of the issues that it sets out to do but instead it will create a plethora of new problems. For example, already we've found that if you have stamina and apply it as you're being rammed you don't get any damage from the ram until the stamina wears off. This is ridiculous when I can play chicken with my Mobula, full speed and with kerosine, against a moonshining Galleon and suffered no hull or amour damage.
A pilot already has tools that they can utilise but if you want them to be faster then lower the penalties or increase the effects. An engineer already spends most of their time stuck in the balloon or hull so they don't need to spend time flying off the ship too. And to make the gunner viable all you need to do is add an ammo that fires normal ammo but allows the gunner to go beyond a gun's standard axis of fire or you could add a engineer tool that would have the same arc increasing effect but since the engineers already have their core load-outs it would make sense for a gunner to specialise and bring the tool instead. All of these are immediate solutions that don't take long to balance and would add to the game in a more meaningful way than this broken concept.
I don't mean to insult who ever came up with this idea but the stamina system is a bad idea and for the sake of the game, the players, and the dev team: SCRAP IT
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Ships
I'm okay with the ship adjustments to this point. For the most part the changes were rather minor and I didn't feel they broke the game or its systems. I didn't notice a sizeable difference in the Spire and Pyramidion, and I take that as a good thing.
However, as a full time Squid/Goldfish pilot I am against the health increase in the Squid. I firmly believe that for the squid to be a viable choice and balanced, it needs to be able to outmanoeuvre every other ship but the consequences of any mistake must be severe and immediate. I've always seen the Squid as the Golden Gun; a terrifying weapon in the right hands but as deadly to its user as much as it is to its enemy. Newer players should be afraid of flying the Squid and experienced players should be flawless in their execution.
But if you're determined to add some health to the Squid I would prefer it if you added it to the armour instead of the hull. This way at least the Squid will still go down quickly unless the pilot and main engineer are conscious of this weakness.
With the incoming Squid mobility buffs I feel we're finally starting to get to a point of tactical balance for each role. As i've understood the roles, the Goldfish is the jack-of-all-trades but a master of none, the Junker is a light Galleon but lacking the Galleon's stoping power and endurance, the Squid is a knife in the dark but useless in an open brawl, the Galleon is the king of control but slow to a fault, the Pyramidion is a drag racer but in every sense of the word, and the Spire and Mobula are cannons but made of glass and vapour.
The Squid needs to be difficult to fly for the sake of the game's tactical balance. Otherwise with a more forgiving health increase player's will start complaining about the Squid being too OP. Then to not appear as reversing your stance, you'll inevitably increase each ship's turning speed to compensate for this. And then we'll end up exactly where we are at this point, with a Squid that is easily countered by Pyramidions that are able to turn on a dime and Goldfish that are fill the role of the Squid better than the Squid itself.
Minotaur
The potential in this new weapon is incredibly exciting. Flying the Goldfish I purposely got pinned down by two Minotaurs on a Galleon and while it was difficult to control, I wasn't in any major threat due to the low damage of the cannons. However, the gun's utility by itself is underpowered and also with a limited effectiveness on the Goldfish only. At this stage the gun has no utility on a Spire or Goldfish. I feel that an individual cannon should be able to pin down/reposition any ship (with the exception of the Galleon) with an experienced gunner but that ship should have the opportunity to escape so there is no frustration. I would suggest that the gun is buffed but handicapped with a long reload time (the Hwacha timing is a good starting point) so that a ship can escape from the Minotaur's arcs.
The question is what happens when a Galleon is equipped with two Minotaurs? I feel that to mitigate any potential problems you need to keep the Minotaur ineffective at dealing out damage. With this you can, in theory, keep a single ship locked down with one gunner alternating between both cannons during the reload cycle but you'd be unable to kill said ship. This scenario is no different from the current double Hwacha load-out that some crews use to disable a single ship and hold them in place while their team fights elsewhere.
Capture the Point Logic
Interesting ideas, didn't get to test them out completely but I think there is potential. But I do stress that there does need to be a clear indication that you know that it is your ship that is on the point and not just your allies. Plenty of games have been confusing due to a new pilot that doesn't know if they're on the point or not or even where the point is.
Stamina
I'm going to be brutally honest here: SCRAP IT
This is a terrible solution especially when simple fixes exist. This is a solution that will break the game and ruin all the game's current philosophies of class balance, ship roles, and strategic engagements.
This is an unwanted layer of gameplay complexity, it's thematically out of place, and in the end it won't solve any of the issues that it sets out to do but instead it will create a plethora of new problems. For example, already we've found that if you have stamina and apply it as you're being rammed you don't get any damage from the ram until the stamina wears off. This is ridiculous when I can play chicken with my Mobula, full speed and with kerosine, against a moonshining Galleon and suffered no hull or amour damage.
A pilot already has tools that they can utilise but if you want them to be faster then lower the penalties or increase the effects. An engineer already spends most of their time stuck in the balloon or hull so they don't need to spend time flying off the ship too. And to make the gunner viable all you need to do is add an ammo that fires normal ammo but allows the gunner to go beyond a gun's standard axis of fire or you could add a engineer tool that would have the same arc increasing effect but since the engineers already have their core load-outs it would make sense for a gunner to specialise and bring the tool instead. All of these are immediate solutions that don't take long to balance and would add to the game in a more meaningful way than this broken concept.
I don't mean to insult who ever came up with this idea but the stamina system is a bad idea and for the sake of the game, the players, and the dev team: SCRAP IT
#SaynotoStaminaofIcarus
And
#Squidsoficarusincoming!
I agree on all the above points, the squid does not need more perma hull, it either needs more armour (which is a balance in itself due to rebuild time) or just the mobility boost.
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Just to illustrate the ram issue, those were not just moonshine Galleon rams. Those were full engine buff, full stamina, full moonshine, full speed Galleon rams. No effect or damage to either ship.
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Just to illustrate the ram issue, those were not just moonshine Galleon rams. Those were full engine buff, full stamina, full moonshine, full speed Galleon rams. No effect or damage to either ship.
Which means one of the most popular tactics in the game, ramming is a risky tactic, but when done right, rewarding...
It should not be taken away..
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I really can't see much use in the sprint that the engineers get. It's really easy to get stuck now, imagine what will happen when you're sprinting across the ship...
About the stamina for gunner though, it seems pretty op - the extended arcs are crazy, sometimes you can even clip through your own ship. And the stamina UI sucks ^^
Couldn't really test the minotaur in a fight, it seems like a fun idea though!
I am also worried about the capture point changes. A lot of pilots don't realise it's a capture point map or don't know about it or just ignore the points completely. You can still win now blocking enemies 1v2...
Btw I kinda like how the squid can be really strong in hands of an experienced pilot and practically a flying coffin otherwise :D
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Reading through this thread I think a large majority all have similar thoughts over all with different ways to a more desired end result. Stamina needs much more work/ minotaur underwhelming but with potential .
**I'm not going to talk about the ship changes or piloting stamina because I do not pilot, EVER**
Minotaur:
I was really excited when I heard another gun was being worked on!!! Woot, new content!
Round 1: Loaded lesmok and was at long range. SURPRISE!: it had little to no effect at long range and that it was really easy to shoot. (with the exception that i had no noise or ammo trails when shooting this gun so I wasn't able to judge it's arc until it actually hit the ship and I saw a marker). Ok, mid range with burst and charge are about the same. Slightly more satisfying but still little effect to what I thought would happen. Match ended, back in lobby everyone seemed to have the same thing to say. Very underwhelming and no effect at long distance.
Round 2: Greased, Incendiary and Heavy. (greased and heavy both brought beccause of the basis that is shoots like a Carronade.) Incendiary because Richard suggested it, we were both hoping it would make the gun more like his Flame Vortex Cannon idea (https://gunsoficarus.com/community/forum/index.php/topic,4709.0.html).
Heavy: Still un underwhelming effect.
GREASED!!! Finally!!!! mid to close range finally gave me some effect that I was looking for. I could flip a goldfish/mobula in circles or at least off their mark. BUT good pilots were easily able to counter it's effects, especially with stamina. On a pyra, galleon, spire it had little effect.
Incendiary: :( Did not make it like the Flame Vortex I was so hoping for.
Round 3: Heat sink, Locknagar, standard ammo: No added benefit with the first two and not even close to the effect greased gave it.
OVERALL for the Minotaur: UNDER WHELMING! I like the idea of a gun that is used for tactics more than damage. I think that could add interesting game play, however, this gun needs to have "more" in order for me to see anyone really taking this gun for tactics apposed to just sticking to the guns we have now. I really like this idea for the gun:
My thoughts are to double the clip size and make it shoot faster. Change one of the damage types to Impact.
It reminded me of the movement effects mines have but without the damage. In a 2v2 your other ship has to be something like a Meta Pyra in order to have enough killing power to actually win a match, frankly. But even that would be easy to counter.
Added enjoyment to the game: A new gun: YES. This gun: maybe. This gun at it's current condition: NO.
Stamina:
Oh Stamina, you disappoint me in so many ways.
First: It's UI is BIG and in your face and distracting and crowds out the more important ones like parts that are damaged.
Second: This is not at all like the new content players have asked for.
Third: I find stamina in it's current form GAME BREAKING!
Don't get me wrong I like the effort that you put out to try to make something new and to make something that would make each class more of it's own. With people complaining that gunners aren't useful, this seemed like a probable answer. However, AS IT IS, IT IS GAME BREAKING.
Engi Stamina: Welp. Like most other things when it comes to engineers. It's the most balances but also the least exciting. Is it fun to run super fast: YES! But it is only most useful for main engi on a goldfish running from back engines to hull or for main engi on a galleon running from main deck up the stairs to balloon. For most gungi positions it seemed useless. On a pyra I found that running from hull to the engines back to hull it was too fast. The game couldn't keep up with how fast I ran and how slow I hit. Trying to hit engines while using stamina just made me have to stop hit, stop hit or go back and re-hit. Also, whatever changed with the last update (in the real game too) has made railings grab you like a sticky octopus. The railings leave you flailing around, jumping and squirming in utter desperation to get free while you watch the hull decrease in health and turn red. SO the stamina ONLY MAKES THIS WORSE. (this goes for pretty much any of the ships with railings close to components.) The cool down cycle of a mallet makes it pointless to run faster because you are going to have to wait anyways.
Jumping: Useless at best. The jumping pretty much just let me get stuck in new places I never knew the sticky octopus lived, like literally on top of the Hull on a Galleon. Jumped from the top deck to the hull to repair it, thought it'd be fun to use stamina to make the jump. INSTEAD: I jumped right from the top deck to some invisible box above the hull. Leaving me jumping and flailing to get off of it but not actually able to hit the hull. SO CLOSE BUT SO FAR. The balloon/railing of the pyra. I've been stuck in this area before but yep you really get stuck if you jump using stamina. Quick frankly there were no place the jump really helped me out. I could hit squid engines and the main engine of the galleon from below easier but nothing that i couldn't do with some trained parkour moves before, which I think is one of the things that makes the difference between a ok engi and a great engi.
OVERALL ENGINEER STAMINA: Eh. Did it make the game more fun: Only when fooling around. When it came down to actual serious game play it was slightly useful with a LARGE serving of frustration with the hitting being too slow and the railings too sticky. I'd only slightly use it and ONLY to run faster in "Oh, Shit" moments to catch a hull before breaking.
Gunner Stamina:
NO! In no way at it's current form should this be implemented! And this is where it becomes game breaking. WHY does stamina allow a gunner to push a gun so far out of it's normal arc that I could shoot so far up THROUGH MY OWN SHIPS BALLOON, so far down THERE COULD NOT POSSIBLY BE A DECK under neither my gun and so far to either side THAT THE RAILINGS WOULD HAVE BEEN BLOWN TO PIECES.
The gunner stamina literally breaks the game. It makes every gun OP. This gun has crappy arc, no problem just stamina this and break a part on the enemy ship to re-gen faster. My pilot sucks at getting me into arc, no problem, I got stamina for that. That enemy just pushed me out of arc as a tactical move, no problem, I have stamina for that. (Which the gunner stamina makes the Minotaur pretty useless)
If they want to use it to increase the gun arcs or movement speed then it should be based on a percentage so that each gun still could only go so far or move so quick and maybe even do small damage to the gun, like lochnagar.
Overall Gunner Stamina: NO! JUST NO! At it's current state it does not make the game more fun. It breaks the game.
I like a game that makes me become a better player to win more. Guns of Icarus does that. This is why Vetrans do so well because they have put the time and effort into learning the game, learning the guns, learning the ammos, learning tools and learning gun arcs. With this new stamina you ruin that. A pilot wouldn't have to be good anymore for a gunner to hit their target. A gunner doesn't have to be good at timing their shots. You take a game that actually requires work and instead dumb it down. This will kill the community if you implement something that renders all the hard work of your players useless. Why should veterans even try to teach new players the "tricks" of the game if they can just use stamina instead. Veteran players will either leave the game or just use the system to make an even larger gap in game play. The newer players will either not learn or learn the tricks of the game slower because they'll use stamina instead. Things like gun arcs, toggling moonshine for "x" seconds then waiting "x" seconds and repeat in order to get your effect but not break your engines, and other captain tools just seem less important now when they can just stamina it all. A few of the players on this forum have some interesting ideas for the stamina like keeping the gunner in their seat or not using stamina at all and using the previously worked upon ammos and slightly increasing the speed of everything would make the game faster. Stamina in this form is just not it.
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Idea for minotaur: give it shatter damage, because a ship without engines is easier to push around.
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And little tar clouds because... well, it has to do something, right?
In all seriousness, the big guns are there to mess you up.
Get hit by hwacha... messed up big time. No guns, no engines. Completely screwed in one clip.
Get hit by Carro... no balloon. Completely screwed in one clip.
Get hit by Lumberjack... no balloon. Completely screwed in one clip.
Get hit by Flak with armor down... completely screwed in one clip.
Get hit by Minotaur... that was a bit annoying. Carry on, chaps.
Since this gun is designed to force ships to move, perhaps the tar, or better yet, caustic (piercing damage cloud) is not a bad idea after all. If they don't move, all shots land in the same spot, making a personal caustic cloud, dissolving armor... completely screwed in one clip.
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Confirmed it after I double checked. There is no squid buff in dev app. Those patch notes are false. Turn rate and accel is the same as in regular game. Only stamina buff puts the squid back to where Muse fixed it before stamina.
Officially POed once more. I will no test again till I see the squid put back. I thought it was strange I was constantly having to fly with stamina on to do anything.
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Pyramidion
- Reduced hull health
Squid
- Increased hull health
Still disagree about this, but if you, Muse, decide that this is the best idea...
While I was hoping for a buff to the Squid overall, I definitely didn't expect a buff to the already high hull. Squid is surprizingly tanky with the 4-hit spanner rebuild on armor.
but if they increase the hull they have to increase the repair times remember? and i reckon that if you have increased hull health you can't just top it up to full hp with a wrench, meaning you may need someone with a rubber mallet and spanner ;) 5 hits to repair would be a good ofset for it :)
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but if they increase the hull they have to increase the repair times remember?
Health of component increases rebuild value, yes, but I am sure it is value of armor that increases the amount of hits to rebuild and not the hull health value. According to this:
HitsToRebuild = ( RebuildBaseHits + (MaxHealth * RebuildHealthMultiplier) ) * PartTypeMultiplier
It wouldn't make much sense to me otherwise, at least. Especially when you consider the Pyramidion having less hull than a Squid, which already sounds ridiculous, and a Galleon having more hull value than the Squid and both taking longer to rebuild the armor. They probably take longer to rebuild, because they have more armor value.
and i reckon that if you have increased hull health you can't just top it up to full hp with a wrench
So you are used to using a pipe wrench on the Squid armor? I use Mallet and Spanner, because of my engineer routines, because I can't see any advantage of having a pipe wrench on the armor.
you may need someone with a rubber mallet and spanner ;) 5 hits to repair would be a good ofset for it :)
With the low armor value of the Squid, taking one more hit to rebuild might just be the end of its already end-ish end, but if it gets a speed buff, it may be good?
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A pipe wrench is indeed more efficient than a spanner for repairing the squid armor, but IMO it's still not worth taking because it's less useful than mallet on balloon.
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Not with triple enginee and one being dedicated hull enginee. Wrench, spanner, buff/extinguish. Then the other 2 run standard with extinguish. I don't like chem on squids. If you need chem on a squid, you aren't flying it right. Ideally you should be evading flames before they can high stack. But fires with more than 3 are common because one flame pass can get some stacks easily up past 5.
Problem with the squid is, you can't let the engines go down. So using chem you sit there waiting for cooldowns to put it out before repairing. But with the squid, you lose about 50% of the speed on the ship with just minor engine damage. Heck with 1 engine down the vessel is practically immobile. It is better to be able to extinguish and repair quick so the pilot can evade. The old squid wasn't this way. You could lose either the upper or the turning engines and the vessel could still somewhat move. It was a big perk with the vessel. Being able to actually escape with engines down.
If the performance hit to engines and the overall uselessness of the engines was resolved, then you'd be looking at working some chem in. Cause now you have time. A little flame is not going to cause utter chaos and cripple a squid.
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Ignoring the derailing of the thread by arguing what the best way of crewing a Squid is, I would like the devs to know that the titel of the thread is actually lacking information as it also hold information of ship balance that barely anybody is talking about, which one could only guess when not viewing the threads content.
Main thing we want to know about these changes is “do they increase the fun?” These will definitely change the way you play, that’s the main idea but do they change them in a way that makes the game more enjoyable? Do they give you more options? Does it feel more rewarding from second to second?
Fighting as a Pyramidion is less fun, because it dies even quicker.
Fighting against a Squid is less fun, because it takes more damage than necessary. (Why making the one ship that was supposed to tank with speed the one ship that is the most tankiest regarding armor/hull value is a good idea is beyond me)
Fighting as a Spire is more fun, at least.
Minotaur's assistance is questionably non-existent. It has to have some damage output, nothing major but something that can also assist some other guns. Because, only three ships currently can hage heavy guns with one having only the front gun shooting at the same time, another having only a light gun and one more heavy gun that can easily be disabled or be better to have on the third ship, which has three light guns kinda aiming at the same direction as its heavy gun. This basically means that having a Minotaur Goldfish is a waste of time, the Galleon might be better of with other heavy guns and only the Spire can really make use of it by making itself less "glass" if the enemy can't shoot at it.
Stamina makes only fun for pilots, because they don't need to use pilot tools as often, which could possibly make playing engineers more boring since there is less to repair but I dunno, and also because if pilots actually do use their tools it will create lots of giggles. Not much gameplay improvement though, especially because of more buttons needing to be pushed or pushed at the same time.
Stamina for gunners makes no sense, doesn't increase or decrease fun factor and possibly questions balance. What it will succeed in, and that I guarantee, is making it less frustrated for people when pilots don't know their gun arcs.
Stamina for engineers was not needed, but seems logical with the excepetion of the jumps. That is actually the only fun part of that as far as I can subjectively tell as you can jump off the ship, above the mountains, accross the map, into the enemy spawn and show them your super duper cool costume.
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I don't get it. Why not just make the squid low on armor and health, and just ramp the speed and vertical acceleration until the thing is a Bugatti veyron? Why not give the pyra more armor, more acceleration, but just less turning like back in the day? When it was a charging a bull that once it had it's horns down, could hardly turn side to side, but hit like a train.
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Fighting against a Squid is less fun, because it takes more damage than necessary. (Why making the one ship that was supposed to tank with speed the one ship that is the most tankiest regarding armor/hull value is a good idea is beyond me)
YES!!! And why did that happen? Because 1.2 happened, they slowed the squid down till it was a flying snail and then when it was clearly getting torn up by everything, their solution was dumping on hull.
So the weight patch goes in which fixes a problem with the game (it was necessary), but they didn't stop and tune the game back. Overnight we went from fun to crap. Then we got excuses that this was the way the game actually should have been and that the old game was just horrifically broken. Pyramidions and merc battles suddenly became the Meta. So instead of fixing the core problem, Muse has been fixing and breaking everything else for over a year now trying to make it work.
What would have happened had 1.2 hit and Muse decided, lets not turn the game on it's head but lets take some time and try to keep it in line so we don't spend a year having to micro manage the meta play? Its pretty obvious they could have done it if the squid recently was patched back to within 90% of it's former self. Answer is, someone there didn't want to. Someone wanted it this way. Which is not bad in itself, it is Muse's creation.
However, this drastic move forever split the community. Now we have 2 different GOIO experiences and two factions in the community who will never see eye to eye. Every Muse change is increasingly scrutinized by either side. Only solution is if one side goes away (Not happening) or if Muse supplies two modes of play. Now that in itself has issues because it will be a waste of resources and time to implement a 2 mode system when that system reveals the majority of people like it one way over the other. One mode would forever be only played by a few people who then would complain they are forced to play the other because no one plays one. We all know which one it would be too. Which brings us full circle back to the core problem...1.2.