Messages

1

General Discussion / Re: Ok i think its time for guns of icarus 2

« on: December 23, 2019, 01:49:59 pm »

I am not at the same point in my life that I can play video games with the same intensity that I gave to Guns of Icarus. 7 years is a long time. While I would love to recapture the same experience of riding into battle with a well oiled group of players, I just can't dedicate the time to the experience I once did.

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General Discussion / Re: Boardgame inspired by Guns of Icarus

« on: January 15, 2019, 06:44:04 pm »

Looks interesting. Good luck with the play testing. Muse is a super nice company, but they don't check these forums that often. You may want to email feedback@musegames.com if you want to get their attention quickly.

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The Lounge / HamsterIV's new project

« on: October 25, 2018, 07:03:00 pm »

Hey there Guns of Icarus Community.

Things have not been very lively here in a while. I miss our banter and the troll replant nature Guns of Icarus the game imparted on its regular players. I am not saying I am gone for good, but I have been spending my creative energies elsewhere, specifically reddit. I found a writing related board called /HFY and am trying to entertain people with my words alone. I am posting this partially as a shameless plug for my attempt at a starting a writing carrier.

https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/wiki/authors/hamsteriv

You guys, gals, and gender neutral alternatives have been a positive part of my life for several years now. I hope my interactions here have enriched your lives in some small way too. Maybe we meet again in clear skies.

Once again this is not a good bye, this community deserves better than to be ghosted into non existence.

- HamsterIV

4

World / Re: Faction Words for other Factions: A Cultural Experience

« on: September 12, 2018, 05:56:12 pm »

Anglea: Intelligent/Honorable Adversary/Potential Threat
...
Fjord: Techno Vikings/Zappy Bois/Low Priority

I thought the Angleans were the tech vikings. And the Baronies were the knightly order.

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Feedback and Suggestions / Statistic that predicts success

« on: June 07, 2018, 07:23:00 pm »

So I was watching Extra Credits:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcPCYswIe2M

And thinking about GOI, particularly how Muse could do a better job using player statistics to asses how "skilled" a player is for the purposes of match making, underdog, and crew form. The statistics "games played" and "Win/Loss record" are a good start, but what about utilization of in game communication tools?

If the game logged how often the player used crew or team text chat, the quick vocal tools, andcrew/captain voice chat Muse would have a better idea of which players are pushing the teamwork of their crew/teams. Another useful indicator is how often the player starts the game with a recommended loadout while crewing and how often the player gives recommended loadouts while captaining. Mix this stat with crew and team chat pre game and I am sure it will flag the players that are thinking strategically from the players who ready up with no plan.

Another suggestion is when presenting the player with a list of lobbies Muse should give the player an indicator of the lobby's average player skill relative to the viewing player. Thus newbies are warned away from lobbies filled with mostly vets and vets are warned away from lobbies of mostly newbies. If the population gets small players will join whatever lobbies that are available, but while there is some choice to be had we might as well furnish the information about the general skill level of the lobby to players at the lobby list level.

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Feedback and Suggestions / Re: Making new players stay

« on: May 29, 2018, 03:17:05 pm »

This game does have limited appeal to the general public. Our core mechanic is having 4 stranger share the same health bar. Given the state of trolling in online games, this is a terrible idea. Even Left 4 Dead, IMO the best team based game prior to GOIO didn't have the guts to implement a mechanic like this. How GOIO has managed to keep a viable community for 6 years I attribute to it being able to scratch an itch in some players that no other game can reach.

Main stream gaming has been pushing an empowerment fantasy for some time now. Be the hero, get the highest kill/death ratio on the server, order thousands of soldiers to their doom on a whim. Yet GOIO is essentially a dis-empowerment game. To be a good gunner or engineer you have to stick to a roll assigned to you by another player. Even as the captain you have to accept that winning or loosing will depend as much on your crews ability as it will on your knowledge of the meta and ship handling skill. It is a tough pill for some players to swallow and once the novelty of 3d gas bag pew pew runs out, it is understandable they will leave GOIO for the next novel experience in their steam library.

As for my own rambling post, I wanted to show an alternate lobby/match making system that would benefit my style of play while possibly hindering other people's style of play. I would love if muse implemented it, but I acknowledge I am not the "average player." So catering to my own likes and dislikes will probably not do much to help the game towards universal appeal.

7

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: Making new players stay

« on: May 25, 2018, 02:26:38 pm »

I have always attributed low retention rates to GOI being a niche product. I have inflicted this game on all my IRL friends and none of them caught the GOI bug in the same way I did. If this sort of game had universal appeal, Ubisoft or EA would have made a clone of it by now and probably even a multi sequel franchise.

Some of my IRL friends who don't play the game anymore got to play on very high functioning (multiple 45+ crew) ships in very tight games and probably experienced some of the best GOI has to offer. Yet they didn't stick around. Even if every new player got to play perfectly balanced matches and never met a "stacked crew," most of the influx from the sale would get tired and move on in a few weeks anyway.

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Feedback and Suggestions / Re: New Lobby System Idea

« on: May 21, 2018, 05:54:58 pm »

The thing behind the ranking system is that it would cycle the game lobby population, If we could represent skill level numerically for the purposes of this example and calculating a win. We can sort by rank (computed by past match) then alternate taking the top 4 then the bottom 4 and making teams top+bottom vs middle two.

Starting situation when Vet ship logs in:
A) Skill 21  Rank 1 -
B) Skill 4    Rank 2 -
C) Skill 32  Rank 3 -
D) Skill 18  Rank 4 -

E) Skill 99   Rank 5 (just joined at bottom)

Game 1 AD(39) vs BC(36), AD wins. The new sorted Rank becomes:
A) Skill 21  Rank 1
D) Skill 18  Rank 2 - down pick
B) Skill 4    Rank 3 - down pick
C) Skill 32  Rank 4 - down pick
E) Skill 99  Rank 5 - down pick

Game 2 DE(117) vs BC(36), DE wins
A) Skill 21  Rank 1 - up pick
D) Skill 18  Rank 2 - up pick
E) Skill 99   Rank 3 - up pick
B) Skill 4    Rank 4 - up pick
C) Skill 32  Rank 5

Game 3 AB(25) vs DE(117), DE wins
D) Skill 18  Rank 1
E) Skill 99   Rank 2 -
B) Skill 4    Rank 3 -
A) Skill 21  Rank 4 -
C) Skill 52  Rank 5 -

Game 4 EC(151) vs BA(25), EC wins
D) Skill 18  Rank 1 -
E) Skill 99   Rank 2 -
C) Skill 52  Rank 3 -
B) Skill 4    Rank 4 -
A) Skill 21  Rank 5

Game 5 DB(22) vs EC(151), EC wins
E) Skill 99   Rank 1
C) Skill 52  Rank 2 -
D) Skill 18  Rank 3 -
B) Skill 4    Rank 4 -
A) Skill 21  Rank 5 -

Game 6 CA(73) vs DB(22), CA wins
E) Skill 99   Rank 1
C) Skill 52  Rank 2 -
A) Skill 21  Rank 3 -
D) Skill 18  Rank 4 -
B) Skill 4    Rank 5 -

Game 7 ED(117) vs CA (73) ED wins

After 7 games E has sorted his way to the top and each ship has had the following experience
A) played 5 games won:2 lost:3
B) played 6 games won:0 lost:6
C) played 6 games won:3 lost:3
D) played 6 games won:4 lost:2
E) played 5 games won:5 lost:0

From this point on E has to sit out every other game (if he keeps winning). Allowing ABCD to escape him for half the future games. Also If a new ship joins the server can bump them into a 3v3 or downgrade a 3v3 back to a 2v2 if a ship is disbanded. In the event that there are 3 ships waiting to start a game and a bunch of active games those 3 ships can socialize in a tavern until one game ends and a ship close to their level is ready.

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General Discussion / Re: Players to Avoid

« on: May 18, 2018, 02:45:06 pm »

Muse can't allow us to point out toxic players by name on their forum as it sets a bad precedent. If we were able to setup a conversation on a non muse affiliated site to discuss so and so, Muse wouldn't be able to stop us. I would love to rant about some very unproductive crew members I have had in the past.

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Feedback and Suggestions / New Lobby System Idea

« on: May 16, 2018, 04:46:29 pm »

This talk about stacked lobbies is old, but I am going to play arm chair designer and come up with a completely different lobby/match making system that hopefully reduces game wait times, spreads the pain of fighting stacked ships, rewards high level play, and dynamically resizes to run 3v3 and 4v4 games depending on player population.

The core idea behind this system is there is no rematch option and the performance of a ship as a whole is the determining factor for its placement in match making. Instead of joining a match lobby players will join a 4 person ship lobby. The ship lobby will have a rank assigned to it based on its wins/losses. This rank will determine which ships it is matched against and how much faction prestige and coin the players on that ship will receive per game.

New players can join the ship lobby and old players can leave and the ship will keep its rank, however if all players leave the ship it will be disbanded and all ships below its rank will rise 1 rank value. Players can create a new ship lobby at any time but that lobby will start at the lowest rank until they work their way up.

While in the ship lobby the player in the captain slot will have the ability to change the ship's load out, make equipment load out requests of the crew, set ship lobby settings, and filter for the type of game they want to join. The captain also can hit the Ready button to put the ship into the match making Queue. The Queue will dump 4 to 8 ships into a match lobby with an unstoppable 30 second timer until match start. This will give captains a short window to change ships to counter enemy builds or better conform to the map. However by readying in the ship lobby they have signaled that they and their crew are combat ready.

If all players on a ship leave in the 30 second match lobby or during a game play a new ship waiting in the queue can be pulled in to replace the missing ship. That ship will be given the same 30 second timer to asses the lobby before joining it. Also the players abandoning their ship mid game will loose their ship lobby's rank.

The previously mentioned lobby settings dictate how people can join the ship.  They can set the ship lobby to accept a player any time, only while the ship lobby is not in game, or lock the ship completely. While a ship is locked the only way a new player can join it is through an invite by the some one already on the ship. Players that get DC'ed can still rejoin within a time period (like they do today). The lobby settings also allow the captain to set a short advertising blurb about the ship lobby like: Clan recruiting, Russian speakers only, PvE for the Yeshan Empire, ect.

Players looking to join a game can create their own Ship lobby or see a list of existing ones. Each ship lobby in the list will show its rank, population, friends of the player (if any), Current game state, lock state, and captain's advertisement text. Clicking on a locked non started game will send a private message to the captain requesting to join the ship. Clicking on an unlocked game will put the player in the ship lobby.

At the end of the match each crew will told if their ship's rank went up or down  and how much prestige/gold the player got based on the outcome of the match. Since they won't be returning to the same match lobby players can jump out of the post game screen at any time to return to the ship lobby.

Since people will spend less time in match lobbies there should be a series of "taverns"  for players to socialize while they look for a ship or wait for their ship to deploy. Taverns should be on a separate voice channel from ship lobby so players can organize their crew or recruit from taverns at the same time.

If a troll joins a ship the captain and crew can leave the ship and form a new one to exclude the troll. The troll will inherit the ship's rank while the original crew would start at the bottom, but the troll will be matched against more experienced crews due to their higher rank and probably get crushed until they rage quit.

An option for a custom lobby should still exist separate from the ship lobby for clan matches and tournament play, but most players would find their game through the ship lobby match maker.

TLDR;
Remove the Match Lobby and do match making on a 4 person Ship Lobby. Give captains more control over who is on their ship at the ship lobby level. Move the social aspect of the game to chat rooms called taverns.

11

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: Making new players stay

« on: May 16, 2018, 12:34:01 pm »

I agree Cisco Kid that the player population isn't large enough to split the community on skill level lines.

However the CA's are just normal players that volunteer to answer questions. They can crew with whoever they want. Also long time players attract other long term players. A CA can join a novice ship, but every time a novice leaves one of their vet friends join them. Are you expecting them to say "No my friends whose company I greatly enjoy, I am a CA and must use my gaming time to enrich the experience of these new players"?

Muse has tried several ways of preventing stacked games including removing the match list entirely forcing everyone through a numeric match maker and blocking players from switching sides from their "statistically balanced" teams. Vets hated it and eventually found a way around it thus creating even more stacked ships.

12

Gameplay / Best Ammo for each Gun

« on: May 15, 2018, 12:27:41 pm »

I don't play as much as I would like, and I am sure there are a lot of new players who are looking for answers. So lets compile a list of the best ammo types for each Gun.

Whirlwind Gatling Gun.
Ammo: Charged
Reason: Best all round for increased DPS while still effective at medium range
Ammo: Greased
Reason: Best DPS but only at short range due to increased aim giggle.

Mercury Field Gun.
Ammo: Charged
Reason: Increases Dammage while maintaing 2 shot clip size

Scylla, Double-Barreled Mortar.
Ammo: Lesmok
Reason: Compensates for slow projectile speed and increase odds of hitting fast ships at medium range.
Ammo: Greased
Reason: allows for maximum DPS for the brief window when the armor is down.

Barking Dog, Light Carronade.
Ammo: Heavy
Reason: Removes shotgun scatter and ensures all pellets hit the balloon.
Ammo: Incendiary
Reason: Gives each pellet a % chance of starting a fire, scatter effect causes a lot of fires in different parts of the ship.

Banshee, Light Rocket Carousel.
Ammo: Greased
Reason: This gun is used as much for the ignite chance as the explosive damage. More shots fired means more ignite chances. Range and accuracy is already high on the weapon so Greased Round's negatives do not hinder the weapon performance much.

Dragon Tongue, Flamethrower
Ammo: Lesmok
Reason: Extends range of flame thrower if the captain can't get you close enough
Ammo: Greased
Reason: Sets fires faster but shortens range. Directly targeting weapons with greased flame can induce flame lock in a few seconds.

Please post with the weapons I missed or corrections to the weapons I included. As I said, my knowledge of the meta is a bit out of date. See Echoez's guide, which is a bit out of data for more answers.

https://gunsoficarus.com/community/forum/index.php?topic=1628.0

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General Discussion / Re: How do I unlock the huge white beard?

« on: May 14, 2018, 07:01:16 pm »

Play the game during Christmas. Muse hands out hats and masks for free to anyone who logs in the week of Halloween and Christmas. If you really want them you could try writing a nice email to feedback@musegames.com . I can't guarantee they will give you free stuff, but they are good folk and want to keep their player base happy.

14

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: Remove coin limits.

« on: May 08, 2018, 11:55:25 am »

I don't see much point in getting and spending coins, and I don't think any change to the way we can bank them will cause me to gain interest. The whole "faction warfare" has no meaningful impact on the game play. At the end of the day I am here for sky fight not to redraw the world map.

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Feedback and Suggestions / Re: Change Buff Hammer to Buff Spray

« on: April 18, 2018, 06:16:50 pm »

Simple to understand, unmistakable, and innuendo friendly to boot.

If this becomes a thing I will be yelling for my engineers to "lube me up," and heaven help us if Zuka finds out that there is "Power Lube" in the game.