Guns Of Icarus Online

Info => Feedback and Suggestions => Topic started by: Eldarion Telcontar on March 19, 2016, 10:37:09 pm

Title: Loch changes and effect on overall gameplay
Post by: Eldarion Telcontar on March 19, 2016, 10:37:09 pm
So, I found out the loch ammo changes finally went live today.  They've had a relatively interesting and overall detrimental effect on the game.

For starters, if you aren't prepared to cycle through several lobbies waiting for experienced crew members and an experienced ally without running you will die.  Repeatedly, quickly, no two ways around it.  This is because the loch buff has left zero margin for error.  Prior to the buff when armor went down you could still generally recover, especially if you were a halfway decent pilot.  Now, If your engineer cannot keep your hull up at all times, you die.  If your gunner doesn't know how to deal maximum DPS with whatever arc you have, you die. This has immediately made the game very unfriendly to new players, and it's made it very unfun for vets as you can either spend 30 minutes lobby stacking (against any new players on your team) or have a 90% probability of a loss.

Secondly, it's placed a heavy emphasis on sniping matches.  I hate sniping matches, always have and always will.  Personal preference, yes, but I suspect locking the game into two basic strategies (snipe and pubstomp) is going to make other people unhappy as well.

Third, the changes seem to amplify any difference in crew member / ally skill level versus the other team into a match deciding factor.  Typically this has come down to pilot decisions such as ship loadout and overall strategy / ally coordination.  Now the matches are decided almost purely by crew member and ally skill level; to paraphrase "the only winning strategy is not to play".

Finally, it's really amplified the discrepency between the time spent playing "Lobbies of Icarus" and actually playing a match (tedious 50 minute sniping sessions where the environment decides the victor excluded).  Something needs to be done to lower the lobby times.  Perhaps a "AI crew" mode where all ships agree to give up two slots to AI in exchange for a balanced, faster start?

P.S.  I'm also seeing a sudden spike in captain and crew ragequits since this change.  Perhaps this indicates even more strongly that something is now way, way out of whack.... :o
Title: Re: Loch changes and effect on overall gameplay
Post by: DJ Logicalia on March 19, 2016, 10:40:20 pm
I disagree on it putting an emphasis in sniping. It changes the brawl meta, but long range is relatively unchanged

That being said, the loch changes are disastrous as a whole
Title: Re: Loch changes and effect on overall gameplay
Post by: DrTentacles on March 19, 2016, 10:42:07 pm
I'm not playing until Loch is fixed.
Title: Re: Loch changes and effect on overall gameplay
Post by: Eldarion Telcontar on March 19, 2016, 10:49:22 pm
I disagree on it putting an emphasis in sniping. It changes the brawl meta, but long range is relatively unchanged

Yeah, and I guess my point was mostly that if you don't like the new brawl meta (who really wants to spend half an hour hunting around for good players per match) your only other option is sniping.  Since sniping also requires good players, all the sudden it's very difficult to just hop on with a couple of friends and have something that isn't going to lead to an instant loss.  That's not even bringing up the fact that as a direct result of these changes no one can tolerate new players on their team unless the other team has basically the same number of new players per ship....

I'm not playing until Loch is fixed.

Yeah, that was my conclusion as well.  If Muse doesn't unwind this soon I guess I'd best start hunting for a new game to play; it's a shame because I always enjoyed the skill based aspect of this game from a pilot perspective. :'(
Title: Re: Loch changes and effect on overall gameplay
Post by: Alette Pegasus on March 20, 2016, 12:54:52 am
I agree. I admit I had a lot of fun with loch gats and mortars as a gunner today, but I was flying all with experienced players on my team. As soon as I tried flying as a captain with a couple novice engineers and a novice teammate, I was dying left, right, and sideways.

And as you said in a separate conversation, it does make it basically pointless to have a gunner in a lot of situations. It's simple to keep the light guns repaired (as long as they aren't destroyed on the first shot, like a Merc) and the range is better, the recoil is better, and the damage is insane compared to other ammo types.

As much fun as it was, I think loch either needs to be removed from light guns, or have the damage dealt to the weapon itself increased.
Title: Re: Loch changes and effect on overall gameplay
Post by: Squidslinger Gilder on March 20, 2016, 02:44:11 am
It's kinda silly to be honest. Really Loch doesn't need to be changed, just change the guns. Take them back to original damage totals and nix arming timers. Then loch comes in as that single shot monstrosity that engineers dread but know that the chances of it hitting are low. Really why was Loch changed to something that is usable at all ranges? Originally it was a CQC only shot and you had to literally shove it up the other ship's butt for it to land where you wanted it. But when it did...holy crap!
Title: Re: Loch changes and effect on overall gameplay
Post by: DJ Logicalia on March 20, 2016, 08:24:29 am
Yeah, my biggest point of confusion is "why"? Loch was fine. It was standard ammo in Lumberjack, H.Flak (well, the old one anyway), H.Carro, and mines. That's a majority of heavy guns. It was a niche, heavy hitting ammo for heavy, hard hitting weapons. It was in a fine place. If any ammo type needed changes, it was Heavy, which is unoptimal in every gun, the exact opposite of Loch which is totally optimal in almost every gun
Title: Re: Loch changes and effect on overall gameplay
Post by: PixelatedVolume on March 20, 2016, 08:41:51 am
It's simple to keep the light guns repaired (as long as they aren't destroyed on the first shot, like a Merc) and the range is better, the recoil is better, and the damage is insane compared to other ammo types. 

What if shooting loch put your gun on a mallet-length repair cooldown?
Title: Re: Loch changes and effect on overall gameplay
Post by: MightyKeb on March 20, 2016, 08:48:26 am
It's simple to keep the light guns repaired (as long as they aren't destroyed on the first shot, like a Merc) and the range is better, the recoil is better, and the damage is insane compared to other ammo types. 

What if shooting loch put your gun on a mallet-length repair cooldown?

Which is why this is somewhat wrong and buffgineers and gunners are superior when maintaining most loch guns except the one shot one slike Merc and H Carro.
Title: Re: Loch changes and effect on overall gameplay
Post by: Richard LeMoon on March 20, 2016, 12:00:44 pm
Everyone in testing pretty much agreed that the 'new loch' was a great ammo when it was set at +60-ish% damage. But no one agreed that it was Lochnagar. Everyone wanted it to be a new ammo to be Loch's high clip partner in crime. This is the effect of trying to ride two horses with one saddle.

Don't worry. It will be changed quite rapidly.
Title: Re: Loch changes and effect on overall gameplay
Post by: Solidusbucket on March 20, 2016, 12:45:16 pm
Everyone in testing pretty much agreed that the 'new loch' was a great ammo when it was set at +60-ish% damage. But no one agreed that it was Lochnagar. Everyone wanted it to be a new ammo to be Loch's high clip partner in crime. This is the effect of trying to ride two horses with one saddle.

Don't worry. It will be changed quite rapidly.

AHA!

I knew there was no way you fine men and women dedicated to testing would have agreed that this new loch was not overpowered.

Here I sat thinking that you are all power hungry monsters.

There should certainly be a new ammo type with the damage set at +60% while maintaining the awesomeness of old lochnager if that was deemed a good idea by testers. Makes sense to me.

Title: Re: Loch changes and effect on overall gameplay
Post by: Daft Loon on March 20, 2016, 01:34:50 pm
Everyone in testing pretty much agreed that the 'new loch' was a great ammo when it was set at +60-ish% damage. But no one agreed that it was Lochnagar. Everyone wanted it to be a new ammo to be Loch's high clip partner in crime. This is the effect of trying to ride two horses with one saddle.

Don't worry. It will be changed quite rapidly.

AHA!

I knew there was no way you fine men and women dedicated to testing would have agreed that this new loch was not overpowered.

Here I sat thinking that you are all power hungry monsters.

It never even got into testing in its current form, the release notes for the last week of testing had the current numbers but they forgot to put it into dev app, and then forgot to show up for testing....
Title: Re: Loch changes and effect on overall gameplay
Post by: Hoja Lateralus on March 20, 2016, 02:56:09 pm
It's placed a heavy emphasis on sniping matches.  I hate sniping matches, always have and always will.  Personal preference, yes, but I suspect locking the game into two basic strategies (snipe and pubstomp) is going to make other people unhappy as well.

I've noticed that this whole patch changes part of the meta towards sniping, especially mobula and spire changes.

P.S.  I'm also seeing a sudden spike in captain and crew ragequits since this change.  Perhaps this indicates even more strongly that something is now way, way out of whack.... :o

It's the biggest controversy since matchmaker. Even stamina wasn't that one-sidedly hated.

That being said, the loch changes are disastrous as a whole

I confirm it
~Disaster 8)

Everyone in testing pretty much agreed that the 'new loch' was a great ammo when it was set at +60-ish% damage. But no one agreed that it was Lochnagar. Everyone wanted it to be a new ammo to be Loch's high clip partner in crime.

This is interesting. So again, we must push devs to answer the question: why they have decided to ignore that part of feedback and enforce their idea. Perhaps we don't know something and we are just assholes, I'm geniually curious. I guess Daft Loon's post gives us some answer.

For me the loch change is a nerf to gunner; you want to have the safety of spanner and mallet when you are shooting lochnagar, which is again the opposite of what devs are trying to achieve.
Title: Re: Loch changes and effect on overall gameplay
Post by: Hilary Briss on March 20, 2016, 03:25:47 pm
What a Loching disaster.

There have been many controversial changes to GoIO. But none thus far had people i know actually delete the game in disgust!

Loch in it's original form was a delight & took some skill to pull off.

Now ships have even less reason to have a gunner on the ship. How about we make the Gunner redundant

When a ship was hit by a Lochnagar shot it HAD the same effect on crews as what the glorious Phobos does.

Shrieks of delight as they explode!

This is not PvE. This is PVP!

Another move in the wrong direction.
Title: Re: Loch changes and effect on overall gameplay
Post by: Letus on March 20, 2016, 03:40:01 pm
If the Dev Ap Loch was its own ammo type, I'd be fine.

But I'm enjoying the nerf on blenderfishes with the 100% damage to gun....(too be honest, if your complaint is "____ is harder to use now" then I say "good riddance" in return...I didn't bitch when the Lumberjack got it's arming time, I mastered it, the easy fix is get your engineers ready and don't fly straight into that hwatcha..

I think Old loch could still be viable if it did, say...80-90% damage to gun per shot with its 1 shot; something enough to make it a more team-based shot like it was after its first fix (remember when we had -90% turning at it came down to communication?)

The Dev-Ap Loch can work still work if it was its own ammo...it was just not the same and punished other guns (I feel like they made it that way for the Heavy Flak, like how they reduced the Hwatcha Jitter when they nerfed Heavy Clip...they look at two components, not the entire game..) but I almost wonder about clip size...-50% clip or -60% clip with its +62.5%?
Title: Re: Loch changes and effect on overall gameplay
Post by: Hoja Lateralus on March 20, 2016, 04:13:36 pm
Old loch encouraged skill and communication between gunner and pilot

New loch encourages taking engineer rather than gunner

Quo vadis, GOIO?
Title: Re: Loch changes and effect on overall gameplay
Post by: boulder- on March 20, 2016, 07:22:44 pm
How about making loch damage increase inversely proportional to clip size, just like the damage to the gun is now?
Title: Re: Loch changes and effect on overall gameplay
Post by: Sprayer on March 21, 2016, 01:48:05 pm
How about making loch damage increase inversely proportional to clip size, just like the damage to the gun is now?

So guns with more ammo benefit more from loch than guns with little ammo?
Title: Re: Loch changes and effect on overall gameplay
Post by: Ightrril on March 21, 2016, 02:49:25 pm
How about making loch damage increase inversely proportional to clip size, just like the damage to the gun is now?

So guns with more ammo benefit more from loch than guns with little ammo?

Currently as clip size increases, damage to gun per shot decreases. Boulder was saying that as clip size increases, damage increase per shot would decrease. So a 1-shot gun would get +125% damage per shot, a 50 shot gun could get +75% damage per shot.
Title: Re: Loch changes and effect on overall gameplay
Post by: FoxyBillClinton on March 21, 2016, 08:02:18 pm
I see some people on here mentioning dropping new loch down to about 60% dmg increase. If they did that, what would then be the point of charged rounds? They would be made completely obsolete because they were already the bridge between normal rounds and lochnagar, right?
Title: Re: Loch changes and effect on overall gameplay
Post by: Richard LeMoon on March 21, 2016, 08:33:05 pm
Only on low clip guns. The +60% damage worked well on high clip guns, where charged is useless.
Title: Re: Loch changes and effect on overall gameplay
Post by: Arturo Sanchez on March 23, 2016, 11:44:04 am
I agree. I admit I had a lot of fun with loch gats and mortars as a gunner today, but I was flying all with experienced players on my team. As soon as I tried flying as a captain with a couple novice engineers and a novice teammate, I was dying left, right, and sideways.

Not exactly a talking point as that happens regardless..


Also this move of adding it to the game without prior testing by dev app slaves, just screams Eric knows best.
Title: Re: Loch changes and effect on overall gameplay
Post by: Jamini on March 23, 2016, 12:25:30 pm
Dying in seconds because you just happened to get hit by a few loch mortars is really, really not fun on the receiving end.

At least the old Hwachafish gave you a chance to escape.

--

I also really miss running Loch on heavy carronades. :( There is almost no point in bringing a carro on a fish anymore.
Title: Re: Loch changes and effect on overall gameplay
Post by: Arturo Sanchez on March 24, 2016, 08:21:21 am
Dying in seconds because you just happened to get hit by a few loch mortars is really, really not fun on the receiving end.

Like I said... that has happened for as long as noobs have existed.

I acknowledge the problems said by your example seeing as that can occur with a vet crew. But blaming noobs specifically for bad things happening is like saying rain is wet.
Title: Re: Loch changes and effect on overall gameplay
Post by: Chmielewski on March 25, 2016, 01:30:06 am
I'm not playing until Loch is fixed.
THIS. So much this.
Title: Re: Loch changes and effect on overall gameplay
Post by: Solidusbucket on March 25, 2016, 04:18:57 am
fixed now IMO. but I still want old loch back. and this loch. i want both. as different ammos. please.