Messages

1

General Discussion / Re: Ship Power Level Rating

« on: July 11, 2018, 05:04:35 pm »

You're right in trying to avoid the metric "firepower" conversation - there are enough discussions and spreadsheets re: this that you can easily do your own research.

The minimal form of the survey makes this topic intensely subjective. The platform you choose is typically only 25-50% of the actual decision-making going into formulating a viable ship. What is your engineer team maintaining the ship with? What weapons are on board; ammunition? What performance enhancements are the pilots employing? The variety of builds that each ship platform can express overshadows the question of what's more viable in the abstract. What you're left with is a - frankly difficult to answer - mess of personal opinions.

The core strategy of the game has never been to find the "strongest" ship, but to observe the enemy and devise an applicable solution to neutralize them. This is too deeply entwined in a player's developed style to get objective results out of. The two of us have already clearly demonstrated how identical ships do /not/ entail identical results.

I tried to answer your survey but the results manifested more from "what do you enjoy flying and find success with" than "what's 'strongest'" because that's as specific as I can get with the information provided. Hope it still helps.

I want to make a second survey later that works better, but haven't figured out how to work it into something that most people will be willing to fill out.

Some of the information is showing expected trends though, which shows that the data is going the direction I expected at least.

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General Discussion / Re: Ship Power Level Rating

« on: July 11, 2018, 06:35:03 am »

To clarify something, I'm asking you to rate them based on how viable and effective you feel they are, not just how strong their firepower is. Also, this is for PvP only, as PvE doesn't even know what Balance is.

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General Discussion / Re: Ship Power Level Rating

« on: July 11, 2018, 03:32:52 am »

As a reminder, 1st means best, while 13th means worst. Don't forget that! Also, all ships should be rated based on their Live versions, not devapp versions.

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General Discussion / Ship Power Level Rating

« on: July 11, 2018, 12:55:52 am »

This is a list of all the ships. Please rate them from best to worst! https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeLdDfTkxbgD3K8pizvFA5FpC6xdNmeHDW91IngkaSiMG62aA/viewform

I'm mainly making this to try and gather community information to see what needs buffing, what needs nerfing, what is fine, things like that. I'll share the results with the Experimental Crew. Please note that some ships are already being tweaked (Stormbreaker, Galleon, and Junker afaik), but I still want feedback based on current ships.

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Gameplay / Re: PvP 2v2 with Special Abilities

« on: July 07, 2018, 09:43:42 pm »

In the hypothetical strategy I suggested: you would be waiting out the duration of the abilities, not the cooldown. If your opponent uses any abilities, but is unable to follow up and actually kill you, your opponent is then at the disadvantage of having less abilities available to them in subsequent fights.

In that situation, then the team that used their ability timed it poorly and was outplayed. You shouldn't be using the abilities if you aren't confident that you can capitalize on it.

Again, an environment where you gain a large advantage by baiting out abilities with non-committal charges will incentivize endless disengagement. You say "they were outplayed", but if you know that your opponent is playing to bait you, when will you ever be sure that you can get the kill (especially with defensive abilities that will not increase your damage output). A decent pilot in a fast ship can escape from most fights. Are you only going to play Stormbreaker, Shrike, and Goldfish, to improve your ability to chase?

This will create a one-strategy metagame revolving around a specific band of ships effective at executing that strategy (fast ships).

... Isn't that what happens already? Different strategies obviously, but as far as I know, ANY competitive game will have X builds at high competitive. There WILL be builds/ships that are 100% ignored because they're useless in the meta. I don't play the high competitive stuff, but if they really see more than half the ships actively flown in most competitive matches (mind I'm saying most, because there is always the odd-balls that take something not full-meta but are good enough to make it effective), I'd be shocked. That being said, I really don't expect this to be what will happen, since I don't expect the high competitive people to be the ones playing this the most.

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Gameplay / Re: PvP 2v2 with Special Abilities

« on: July 07, 2018, 12:31:42 pm »

Cooldowns don't matter until you die, so running to wait for the cooldown is not a valid tactic.

In the hypothetical strategy I suggested: you would be waiting out the duration of the abilities, not the cooldown. If your opponent uses any abilities, but is unable to follow up and actually kill you, your opponent is then at the disadvantage of having less abilities available to them in subsequent fights.

In that situation, then the team that used their ability timed it poorly and was outplayed. You shouldn't be using the abilities if you aren't confident that you can capitalize on it.

7

Gameplay / Re: PvP 2v2 with Special Abilities

« on: July 07, 2018, 05:46:55 am »

The balance of this game is already tenuous. Full ship disables and low time-to-kill setups are common. Any ability which increases damage output beyond what it currently is will lead to a degenerate game state where either:

A) Offensive abilities are the strongest. Ships run multiple gunners and pop all their damage abilities in the first volley to get the fastest possible kill.
B) Defensive abilities are better than offensive abilities (either because of numbers or duration). Ships utilize engineer abilities to make themselves unable to be killed, creating a boring period at the start of every fight where nobody can do real damage.

Powerful, single-use (or long cooldown) abilities create perverse gameplay incentives in an environment designed to be slow and tactical. Every single fight will revolve around ships poking at each other to try and bait out the opposing "ultimates", only for them to immediately disengage, hiding, as the ability timer fades away.

Bringing Alliance abilities to PvP is not a new or original suggestion (I would go as far as call it "lazy"), but with even a basic understanding of the balance and tempo of a Guns of Icarus match you would realize it's a bad idea.

(Not that I'm opposed to testing bad ideas if it requires minimal development work.)

it requires no dev work, as we can do this now. People who just blow all their ults, or save all their ults overly, will not find this game mode I'm suggesting fun at all. Cooldowns don't matter until you die, so running to wait for the cooldown is not a valid tactic.  I DO have a basic understanding of the balance and tempo of a match, and with that understanding, I disagree with the entirety of your statement.

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Gameplay / Re: PvP 2v2 with Special Abilities

« on: July 03, 2018, 01:47:29 am »

So, per a suggestion, ignore the mention of banned abilities. Everything will be allowed at first. If something truly is proven to be a problem with no way for players to counter-play it, then it will be banned at that point.

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Gameplay / Re: PvP 2v2 with Special Abilities

« on: July 02, 2018, 08:17:49 pm »

Been throwing it around there.

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Gameplay / PvP 2v2 with Special Abilities

« on: July 02, 2018, 07:32:54 pm »

I'm currently designing a theoretical community game mode using PvE Practice 2v2 as the base line.

Here's what I'm thinking for now: ban Component Disruption and Superbuff from Engies, Cataclysm Rounds and Gigaton Blast from Gunner, maybe leave all the pilot options, since none of them SEEM OP from a glance. Only 1 of each Special Ability (no having multiple Choppies!) can be chosen for your ship, though each player can have a different ability. You cannot use the ability more than once per life (and obviously the cooldowns still apply anyway).

Other than the bans and limitations on Special Abilities, it's basically just 2v2 with the Special Abilities, weapons, and ships from Alliance.

To start this game mode, you simply have to get players into a PvE Practice match set for 2v2.

But, because I'd love to see this actually be a real thing, if any of you active community members who know how to organize this stuff wish to help spread this around and work it into the game in a more active manner (scheduling matches/tourneys/streams/what have you), feel free to step up, as I have no idea what I'd need to do to really make this a community event type of thing.

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Feedback and Suggestions / Re: Pilot Tool - Drift Boost

« on: August 04, 2016, 09:33:16 pm »

So, I would be surprised if this is a unique idea that hasn't been mentioned here yet, but I'm gonna post it anyway.

The Drift Boost provides a temporary but massive speed boost that falls off rapidly, with insane acceleration. It also sets your forward speed to max automatically. For the duration of the effect, you CANNOT make the ship change directions or change speed, though you CAN turn the ship to face a new direction. With this, you can go from 0 speed to say 200% of your normal speed in maybe 3 seconds, turn the ship to the left, come out from behind a big obstruction (like say the ship in the Desert map), keep facing that way while moving in the direction you were, open fire with your guns, and over a few seconds, return to normal speed gradually while returning to normal movement so you start going the direction you're facing.

This would be activated same as Tar, and certainly do Engine damage. Opinions?

Since I can't edit....

The reason for this addition is to add another form of mobility control that can change the way some ships enter combat. This is most useful as an initiation tool, good for coming in guns blazing while still being able to avoid exposing yourself to an attack while charging, at least for a brief moment. It is good for hit-and-run tactics as well as quickly speeding up and moving when you were previously waiting for an opportunity. It can also serve a similar role to Moonshine, but Moonshine doesn't have a limited duration, and can maintain it's top speed MUCH longer than this can (as it would only be at top speed for a brief moment). Best used on ships with good turning, or in combination with Phoenix Claw and the Pilot ability, it can allow you to pull off moves that are otherwise impossible. Due to it's limited duration and cooldown, it does not fill the same role as Kerosene for long-distance travel, nor does it necessarily suit the Ram or Turbo Speed tactics that Moonshine is used for. While similar in the loosest sense, in the long run, it is distinct.

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Feedback and Suggestions / Re: Pilot Tool - Gas Cloud

« on: August 04, 2016, 08:49:58 pm »

Yes, but I'm refuting your argument, that if things appear on forum several times it means that playerbase wants it and we should consider it, hence my example.

Explain why this would be a good addition to the game, how it could affect the meta, wouldn't it make tar or some other tool useless or would it be so un-useful itself that it wouldn't be really used by wide public?

Show us not only what but also WHY

Ah. I see what you're trying to say now. Okay then. First off, Tar. How often do you use it to break a lock? Specifically JUST that. Or we'll even expand it to include trying to "stealth" and hide from an enemy.  My answer to that is "never", as the lose lock element is so poor it just never happens.

I'm far more likely to use Tar to deal damage to an enemy ship that got too close behind me, or to discourage an enemy from chasing me. The DAMAGE is what makes Tar useful, not the cloud itself. At least in my experience using it. I don't think I've ever actually broken a lock with Tar, and I have tried.

This cloud does no damage, but is much bigger and lasts longer. It also covers the entire ship, not just leaving a cloud behind the ship. The purpose of this cloud is Stealth. If I know (thanks to seeing the enemy through an ally) that an enemy ship is near, I can pop this at a likely area where clouds might be, and by the time the enemy gets near, they're too close to avoid my attack as I suddenly fly out of my new cloud right into melee range, since they pretty much flew at me thinking they could hide from my ally who was chasing them.

Alternately, i need to escape from an enemy, so I pop the cloud. Since it's so big, they don't know which part of the cloud I'm in, and the lock gets broken since I'm no longer in sight. If planned carefully, I then fly along a path that takes me to safety.

So in summary, what does it add? It adds a tactical tool for ambush and escape tactics that is not currently available in the game. It also does not impact Tar at all.

EDIT: Forgot something. This would probably be useful both in-close and at long range, due to the cloud being useful as cover to hide your exact location during a sniper fight. And as will probably be brought up, "wont that make scopes useless?" And my answer is no. It will have a cooldown, so you can't keep them up forever. The scope will still have a place, and obviously if used poorly it won't help you escape OR ambush anyone. The tool has to be planned carefully or it just makes a pretty cloud. It also makes Flares more useful, as they can counter the cloud (though if you're using Flares, you probably won't use the cloud). Flares don't automatically make the cloud useless either though, as the choice to use a Flare means sacrificing something else. Either way, it can give you an advantage, and if they don't spend all their time shooting Flares in every Cloud (and they cant), you can still catch them off guard occasionally if you're smart.

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Feedback and Suggestions / Re: Pilot Tool - Gas Cloud

« on: August 04, 2016, 07:47:11 pm »

No boarding. Ever. This doesn't necessarily break the game like Boarding would, nor has the team outright said no to it, whereas they have said no to Boarding.

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Feedback and Suggestions / Re: Pilot Tool - Gas Cloud

« on: August 04, 2016, 06:22:32 pm »

Just edited the post above with more research

... Fair enough. Still this brings it up again, which shows the players want it.

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Feedback and Suggestions / Re: Pilot Tool - Gas Cloud

« on: August 04, 2016, 06:18:05 pm »

https://gunsoficarus.com/community/forum/index.php/topic,4983

I just knew it that I've seen it already

I was specifically talking about a TOOL though, not a gun. A gun as another option, but I would prefer a tool.