Messages

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Feedback and Suggestions / Re: Defining Roles for Each Ship - A Return to Our Roots

« on: March 15, 2016, 01:37:49 pm »

For Galleon I don't mind giving it fairly high top speed as long as it accelerates poorly.

That would be my goal. Slow to move, slow to stop, but fast once it gets going. Getting rammed by a Galleon moving at full speed should HURT.

Same with turning. Initial speed should be slow, but once it starts turning it should revolve pretty fast. Gets across the idea of a huge, heavy ship with huge, powerful engines.

I understand the importance of defining roles for future balance porpoises but IMO the junker is pretty good right now, at least for pubs.

I'd be inclined to agree. The small changes I suggested would be my ideal in theory, but it's fine as is.

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Feedback and Suggestions / Re: Defining Roles for Each Ship - A Return to Our Roots

« on: March 15, 2016, 11:21:59 am »

I'd definitely agree that we need to further define the roles for ships -- specifically the Junker / Mobula / Spire / Galleon, all of which have some variation of "put multiple guns on a target."

Squid is easy: I don't think anyone argues it should be anything OTHER than a vulnerable but extremely mobile skirmishing ship.

The Pyramidion I'd like to see as a bulldog -- super fast to accelerate forward, slower to accelerate backwards, with low turning speed but a high maximum speed. Give it strong armor and a durable hull, and call it a day.

The Goldfish is probably in a good spot as being solid at all forms of movement but exceptional at none, and it's unique swimming pattern for bringing the side guns to bear is very good.

Here's where it gets tricky.

Personally, I'd like to see the Galleon accelerate slowly, but have a decent maximum speed and a moderately decent turning rate instead of the ponderous turning it has now. Make it into a ship that gets into position and dominates the battlefield, but can't reposition itself quickly if something goes wrong.

Contrast this with the Mobula, which I'd make very responsive to acceleration, but I'd give it a very poor turning rate as a penalty for high vertical movement, decent movement, and heavy forward firepower. Perhaps high turn acceleration paired with a low maximum speed, so you can slightly adjust angles quickly, but can't pivot the entire ship around. Maybe adjust it so the pilot can get to the top gun easier to really help sell the fantasy of a gun platform.

Then we have the Spire, which I'd like to see able to turn on a dime, but it should suffer from slow movement AND slow acceleration in all directions. Even more so than the Galleon I see the Spire as an air turret: a rotating gun emplacement that rises into the air and rains down death in an area around itself. I think this is backed up by the ease with which you can get 4 guns on a target -- if anything, I might pivot the lower engineer gun a bit to make 3+ guns on target easier to achieve, as a balancing point for the low mobility and huge vertical profile. The Spire would probably have high armor, but low hull health: it can tank for a while, but once it's hull is breached I think it's okay if it folds, especially as this makes it vulnerable to close-range ramming (which I think benefits a relatively stationary gun platform).

The Junker I'd not sure what to do with -- probably making it more of a middle ground between everything ala the Goldfish is appropriate, only with a higher armor and lower hull (in contrast with the Goldfish's lower armor and higher hull), and with more emphasis on vertical movement and acceleration than speed and turning.

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Feedback and Suggestions / Re: The Everyone Think Really Hard And Make Rangefinder Useful Thread

« on: March 08, 2016, 03:18:06 pm »

Hm. What about a pilot tool usable whole on a gun (via an extra inventory button) that shows the range to target constantly (whenever on gun) and, when active, allows you to fire shots with whatever the guns current ammo is at 100% - 300% firing rate, but shows hit indicators and projectiles only to you and deals no damage.

Swapping to it wouldn't change the "actual" reload or firing rate of the gun.

So gunners could take it to figure out shot trajectory, firing test shots before switching back to actual ammo.

It's a bit weird, but it might work.

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Feedback and Suggestions / Re: Ally ship name display

« on: March 07, 2016, 08:13:40 pm »

This is how I see this, I mean - first things that comes to my mind from a gameplay design standpoint. ^^

I'd definitely agree on the UI clutter.

I think the simplest solution would be to simply brighten the team colors on ships, or increase the number of places those colors occur. It's subtle, but would increase visibility without invalidating the need for communication.

I disagree with the UI clutter. In fact, I've seen this put into practice in almost every other team game I've played. Warthunder, Depth, or even slightly more relatable, World of Warships. All of these indicate who's a teammate in some way, and that's just the tip of the iceberg. I could make the list waaaay longer. It didn't ruin the experience, it didn't "dumb down" the experience, it didn't fill my screen with "clutter." In practice, this is something you can see at work all over the place, and yet here it's such a threat to our intelligence and gaming experience? Please. It's just a small change that would at worst make the game look slightly more polished, and as far as I see it, goi could use a little polish.

Words in my mouth much? When did I accuse it of anything close to dumbing down the game?

As for UI clutter, I enjoy the relative sparseness of GoI. Purely personal preference. I would rather not have more information on my screen. That's all. I haven't found many situations where my piloting or gunning has been seriously impeded by the lack of this feature (I understand others may disagree), so to me it isn't worth the trade-off of more UI elements that I personally find unappealing in this specific game for personal aesthetic reasons.

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Feedback and Suggestions / Re: The Everyone Think Really Hard And Make Rangefinder Useful Thread

« on: March 07, 2016, 07:02:51 pm »

Maybe I'm weird, but I don't WANT a tool that takes skill out of gunning. Giving the range to a target? Sure. You still have to be skilled. I don't like the aim-assist though: I think it teaches over reliance on the assistant, and will stop gunners from learning the guns as well as they should (and make them less able to aim for specific components).

Hence why I was suggesting a damage boost: it provides the range to target to assist gunners in finding the right trajectory, and the rewards them for being skilled enough to lane their shots with just that information.

Maybe make the bonus fall off the closer the target is to discourage Range finding as a close-range brawling tactic. Something like +15% at 1100m down to +5% at 0m

So essentially you want people to see rangefinder and take it so they can kill quicker? Not shooting down or arguing your idea, just asking for the purpose of my earlier question.

Not necessarily. I want it to assist gunners (and perhaps pilots, for that matter) to do their job better, but not by reducing the skill involved in gunning, which I feel an aim-assist does.

Damage was just the first method of accomplishing this that came to mind. I'd gladly explore other options.

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Feedback and Suggestions / Re: The Everyone Think Really Hard And Make Rangefinder Useful Thread

« on: March 07, 2016, 06:40:27 pm »

Maybe I'm weird, but I don't WANT a tool that takes skill out of gunning. Giving the range to a target? Sure. You still have to be skilled. I don't like the aim-assist though: I think it teaches over reliance on the assistant, and will stop gunners from learning the guns as well as they should (and make them less able to aim for specific components).

Hence why I was suggesting a damage boost: it provides the range to target to assist gunners in finding the right trajectory, and the rewards them for being skilled enough to lane their shots with just that information.

Maybe make the bonus fall off the closer the target is to discourage Range finding as a close-range brawling tactic. Something like +15% at 1100m down to +5% at 0m

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Feedback and Suggestions / Re: I am begging, please add minimum level requirements to pilot...

« on: March 06, 2016, 05:02:08 pm »

I wanted to give an update. On Fireside they said matchmaker will restrict novices from searching as a pilot.

Urgh. That would really upset me if I were a novice pilot.

They're still free to play novice matches

Ah. Good point. Honestly forgot about those. Concern averted.

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Feedback and Suggestions / Re: I am begging, please add minimum level requirements to pilot...

« on: March 06, 2016, 04:47:10 pm »

ANYWAY.

I wanted to give an update. On Fireside they said matchmaker will restrict novices from searching as a pilot.

Urgh. That would really upset me if I were a novice pilot.

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Feedback and Suggestions / Re: Heavy Flak is Dead, Long Live Heavy Flak!; or, the day lochnager died...

« on: March 06, 2016, 03:20:20 pm »

I know many of the gunners I fly/flew with regularly took pride in their ability to hit mid-long range Lochnager Flak shots at the right time, and it felt great for both my crew and myself as a pilot when we got that perfect kill.

I'm fine with the Flak changes but I think they come at the expense of one of the highest-skill gunning moments, and one of the highest "crowning moments of awesome" the game offers, so I'm all in favor of giving us a full howitizer or some other high-skill, high-risk, high-reward weapons.

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Feedback and Suggestions / Re: I am begging, please add minimum level requirements to pilot...

« on: March 06, 2016, 03:16:14 pm »

Mr.Disaster I hope Alliance brings in great things and great players for Skirmish...but as someone who isn't especially interested in Alliance as a game mode, I'm not super convinced it's the solution, as I suspect it may just fragment the playerbase more.

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Feedback and Suggestions / Re: The Everyone Think Really Hard And Make Rangefinder Useful Thread

« on: March 05, 2016, 12:05:56 pm »

Seems like you want a new tool or for the Rangefinder to be renamed.

Rangefinders exist IRL. They do one thing. They tell the range to target. That is it.

I guess that is correct then, yes. Because just finding the range to the target doesn't seem impactful enough for a tool slot in this game.

However, I will also point out that Spyglasses don't allow you to put targeting indicators on things you see, hitting a gun with a hammer doesn't make it shoot harder, and holding the claw of a Phoenix doesn't make your car turn faster, so I think adding extra mechanics isn't outside the realm of plausibility, given that current equipment doesn't follow it that closely either.

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Feedback and Suggestions / Re: The Everyone Think Really Hard And Make Rangefinder Useful Thread

« on: March 05, 2016, 11:09:50 am »

Shouldn't they be repairing engines? if we are not currently taking damage i am always burning kerosene.

On a Pyramidion, perhaps. That's not necessarily true of an idle Sniper Galleon though, or a Spire with only two long-range guns.

Basically, my goal with the +damage solution was to open up alternative playstyles (2 long-range weapons + short range weapons, for example, or sheer aggression) for ships that can't necessarily get 3+ guns on a target, which making the trade-off (inability to maximize damage while simultaneously repairing) meaningful.

I think the best solution for the Rangefinder IS something like that (although maybe not this specific implementation), as everything else is...too simplistic, I think. Simply identifying distance doesn't seem strong enough, and the current implementation is...awkward at best.

13

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: Ally ship name display

« on: March 05, 2016, 10:32:14 am »

This is how I see this, I mean - first things that comes to my mind from a gameplay design standpoint. ^^

I'd definitely agree on the UI clutter.

I think the simplest solution would be to simply brighten the team colors on ships, or increase the number of places those colors occur. It's subtle, but would increase visibility without invalidating the need for communication.

14

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: I am begging, please add minimum level requirements to pilot...

« on: March 05, 2016, 09:18:44 am »

Yes Novices can be frustrating, but equally if we create barriers and restrictions it'll do more damage to player retention than it would help...

Agreed.

On the specific subject of this thread -- I'd have never gotten into this game in the first place if I had been restricted from piloting. Gunning and Engineering are fun and all, but I find piloting is where my interests lie, and the role that brings gameplay I can't get elsewhere. It was the role that cemented GoI as a game I'd like to keep playing.

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Feedback and Suggestions / Re: The Everyone Think Really Hard And Make Rangefinder Useful Thread

« on: March 04, 2016, 05:41:22 pm »

Most likely standing on the spear.

Exactly. Hence my suggestion: make him standing there DO something to help his crew.