Guns Of Icarus Online

Info => News and Announcements => Release Notes => Topic started by: Keyvias on March 21, 2016, 01:01:39 pm

Title: 1.4.5 New Balance Changes "When Ambush Comes To Shove" V2
Post by: Keyvias on March 21, 2016, 01:01:39 pm
-----------------------------------
Lochnagar
-Increased clip size reduction to 60% (from 50%)

Spire
-Reverted turn acceleration to 15d/s2 (from 10d/s2)
-Reverted top turn speed to 12d/s (from 10)
------------------------------

3 days and a bunch of feedback later we have a couple changes to make on the fly to this patch. The biggest problem was lochnagar which we were observing being used to MASSIVE effect and players reported the same thing especially on Gatling and Light Carronade.

With this change, on 2- and 4-shot guns (the heavy flak and heavy carronade), there should be no change; they'll still go to clip sizes of 1 and 2.  1-shot guns (the mine laucher) also won't change.

The two raised problem cases are the light carronade (clip size 5) and the gatling gun (clip size 82)

Light carronade:
-50% clip size takes it to 3 shots (2.5 rounds up), for 135% base damage per clip
-60% clip size will take it to 2 shots, for 90% base damage per clip

Gatling gun:
-50% clip size takes it to 110% base damage per clip, with 41 shots
-60% clip size would take it to about 90% base damage per clip, with 33 shots

These are changes we feel were critical for the enjoyment of the game and important for further data and feelings of the patch.

This is not to say that balance is done or we're going to leave it alone for any large amount of time. This patch was simply to make sure things that were broken do not remain that way. For ships that are underperforming and overperforming in their roles, specifically the spire and the mobula. We have some ideas we want to tackle, but we want to test them with you guys first. The Lochnagar change especially we felt was too important to delay for even a day more. We will be checking on this ammo as time goes on to make sure it is getting use and performing as well as we hope.

As always, your critical eye on these changes and everything in the game provide us amazing feedback to tweak and improve the game.
Thank you everyone!
Title: Re: 1.4.5 New Balance Changes "When Ambush Comes To Shove" V2
Post by: HelFyre on March 21, 2016, 01:10:09 pm
It was over performing because people weren't used to playing against it, and understanding the relevant weakness. Though I understand the reasons, it's quite sad that after making a change which was about to lead to an increase of complexity, we revert due to temporary effects.
It's now useless in the light carronade amongst other guns, and it was only definitely useful in the light carronade in all situations- in the gatling and mortar it had niche uses.

There's also the carronade fish which still has been left as a weak ship due to this change.

On another note, the mobula change is silly. Gat carro mortar for example doesn't work, amongst many other builds that don't involve artemis. I will say no more here for now.


Title: Re: 1.4.5 New Balance Changes "When Ambush Comes To Shove" V2
Post by: Fynx on March 21, 2016, 01:14:37 pm
So heavy carronade is not fixed, light carro doesn't pop balloons once again and mobulas other than meta are still not recommended.

But I'm relieved that there's no crazy gatling anymore and that the spire is back to previous state too.
Title: Re: 1.4.5 New Balance Changes "When Ambush Comes To Shove" V2
Post by: Byron Cavendish on March 21, 2016, 01:16:12 pm
A good step in the right direction.
Title: Re: 1.4.5 New Balance Changes "When Ambush Comes To Shove" V2
Post by: HelFyre on March 21, 2016, 01:22:12 pm
How long have you spent playing a week before the patch and then how much time after it's release? No offence meant, but testing the changes are important, as well as what you think of might work theoretically. Even when playing, it's hard to truly understand.
Title: Re: 1.4.5 New Balance Changes "When Ambush Comes To Shove" V2
Post by: Insio on March 21, 2016, 01:26:12 pm
I still think gatling DPS is way too high, light carro seems ok in my opinion though.
Title: Re: 1.4.5 New Balance Changes "When Ambush Comes To Shove" V2
Post by: Keyvias on March 21, 2016, 01:40:13 pm
The carro definitely needs to be looked at and we got a great email from MightyKeb that once we nerfed the loch (because it needed it due to gatling) the light carronade and heavy carronade would go back to being much less effective. We are temporarily sacrificing the light carronade with this hotfix to stop the monster that was gatling.

We definitely want to test changes for it and basically keep a better ongoing conversation about balance (no 6 months lulls then sudden massive changes to try and catch back up.) The only reason these changes were made without testing is the effect from them was crazy too large and hurting people's enjoyment of the game.

Title: Re: 1.4.5 New Balance Changes "When Ambush Comes To Shove" V2
Post by: Rareform K. Rozhkov on March 21, 2016, 01:57:31 pm
Mobula
Title: Re: 1.4.5 New Balance Changes "When Ambush Comes To Shove" V2
Post by: HelFyre on March 21, 2016, 01:58:02 pm
That makes sense, and I see that it is definitely the right course of action to take. Thanks for the reassurance on all of those points Keyvias.
Title: Re: 1.4.5 New Balance Changes "When Ambush Comes To Shove" V2
Post by: ZnC on March 21, 2016, 02:45:53 pm
I don't really like this change because it will no longer be viable on the Light Flak and Hades. The primary role of Loch was to reduce arming time, which the Light Flak and Hades has. I hope the intention isn't to turn Loch into a mainstream, "high risk" high return super-ammo which doubles DPS.

Good
Lumberjack: 1 out of 2 hits instead of 1 out of 3.

Neutral
L.Carronade: 3 > 2 clip size.
Gat: DPS unchanged, 1220 > 980 armor damage in a clip.

Bad
Mortar: DPS unchanged, 1700 > 1415 hull damage in a clip.
Light Flak: 3 > 2 clip size.
Hades: 4 > 3 clip size.

What's wrong with Loch reducing rate of fire? I suggested that to balance the insane DPS of the Gat and Mortar. Been saying that for a while now....
Title: Re: 1.4.5 New Balance Changes "When Ambush Comes To Shove" V2
Post by: Dementio on March 21, 2016, 02:56:36 pm
The primary of Lochnagar was a lot of damage per shot while doing a lot of damage to your own gun. Now it is just a better Charged Rounds that happens to damage your gun a little bit.
Title: Re: 1.4.5 New Balance Changes "When Ambush Comes To Shove" V2
Post by: HelFyre on March 21, 2016, 03:07:54 pm
And reduces the turning speed Dementio.
Loch flak and mortar weren't favoured when tested, for example loch mortar only seems sensible against a galleon on a metamidion, assuming the target was somewhat aware of the reduced turning speed of the mortar, and difficult to employ even when they weren't.
Title: Re: 1.4.5 New Balance Changes "When Ambush Comes To Shove" V2
Post by: DJ Logicalia on March 21, 2016, 05:44:54 pm
Hooray for admitting mistakes \o/

I saw the loch changes coming, as they were needed, but I was pretty sure Spire wouldn't be fixed. Thank you for not hurting my favorite ship any more
Title: Re: 1.4.5 New Balance Changes "When Ambush Comes To Shove" V2
Post by: KeijoPertti on March 21, 2016, 05:53:13 pm
I'd like to hear what was so wrong with the old loch? And why wasn't the loch returned to that state now?
Title: Re: 1.4.5 New Balance Changes "When Ambush Comes To Shove" V2
Post by: Dementio on March 21, 2016, 06:21:07 pm
Because creating a seperate ammo type that was more effective on light guns is apparantly harder than changing the ammo type in so many different ways that it creates multitude of angry voices complaining that the old Lochnagar was essential here and there, while making light guns too good.
Title: Re: 1.4.5 New Balance Changes "When Ambush Comes To Shove" V2
Post by: Richard LeMoon on March 21, 2016, 08:30:28 pm
Trying to balance 'NewLoch'.

(http://cdn.stkr.us/stickers/d63e9e08366fdc/512.gif)