Messages

1

Feedback and Suggestions / Option to lock out mid-match joining

« on: February 09, 2017, 10:13:08 pm »

It's getting very frustrating. If I'm readying up and taking a loadout to experiment with in a 3 AI ship, I don't want some level 5 engineer joining mid-match who has

• Never seen this ship before
• Doesn't know what a flak is
• Insults me when they don't know what "ladder" and "right side" means

If I get crew before the match starts, I can change my strategy to accommodate what I think they can handle, what I'm willing to risk them being incapable of doing, explain what I'm trying to do and what should be prioritized, etc.

If I don't get any crew and run an AI ship, which is most of the time as I'll bite the bullet and pilot to speed the lobby up, I'll experiment and see what I can get away doing with AI. I'll take strange builds and try out exotic weapon combinations or try to make ships that traditionally work poorly with AI work for fun.

What happens instead is I get 3 people who installed the game earlier this week, who I don't have time to explain my strategy to nor are willing to listen, who often have incompatible loadouts with my ship, and who then blame me for being a terrible pilot when they won't get on guns after me telling them 5 times to get on guns.


I'm out of patience, and I'm getting sick of these new "players" rather quickly. I often don't even want to pilot anymore. It's not fun for anyone involved. If this trend continues for me I'm going to just drop this game. At least in other games with these kind of people I don't have to rely on them to perform well and can just try to carry.


Others probably have their own reasons for wanting to lock their ship from mid-match joins.


Someone will probably bring up SCS and organizing scrims. I don't do either because I shouldn't need to in order to enjoy the game casually. I'd rather just play a different game.

2

General Discussion / Re: What do you name your ships and why?

« on: February 05, 2017, 06:28:13 pm »

Might as well put the ship names I have for now. In inverse order of how unlikely I am to change the name.

Mobula: Roasted Marshmallow
- First ship I named. Was named during a time when flamers were much more common and Mobulas were new.
Pyra: Reverse Overhead
- A callback to Chivalry. Not as overpowered as at first glance. Still overpowered.
Galleon: I'm with you Brother
- "Together! For the light, Brother!"
Junker: Put your grasses on
- "Nothing will be wong."
Spire: Challenging Work.
- "... outta doors. I guarantee you'll not go hungry 'cause at the end of the day, long as there's two people left on the planet, someone is gonna want someone dead."
Goldy: Buff Heavy Clip
Squid: GFA Scuttler
- Mercantile Guild name. Probably changing it to "Newbie Nightmare" next time I fly it.

3

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: Gunner focused ammo types

« on: February 04, 2017, 12:08:52 am »

give gatling heavy carronade arcs, gunner now mandatory on gat


People have been telling me that lochnagar gat does benefit from buff hammer. The more insane the DPS is, the more benefit. It's a percentage buff.

Gunner is a niche class that you can't run more than one of because having a gunner is so detrimental to your survival and potential output. The only time I really want the ammo cart with legs anymore is when I have guns that benefit significantly from increased turning arcs, meaning heavy guns and merc. I'm not even sure if lesmok gat on metamidion is worthwhile over a buff engie if you have a good crew. Good players are already at a point where they can use Hades without lesmok, so the only ammo they need in it is greased. Nothing else compares. Previously I thought gunner was worthwhile in spite of that because of the various different ranged ammos, but now I think of that as a nice bonus when I need to have one for turning arcs.

It's part of why I worry about the philosophy of "make all ammos balanced compared to normal", and wanted buffs to other ammo types that were underperforming rather than nerfs to the top ammo types. The fact there's a close-range pub meta together with greased being above the power curve of the other ammos, basically meaning you only need greased to keep up with other ship loadouts, is why gunner is seen as so pointless to have. None of the other ammos hold a candle to greased within its range, why would you ever sacrifice an extra buff hammer or spanner-mallet for a weak alternative ammo?

With the current trend of making everything comparable to normal, what I fear will happen is that no ammo will be above the power level of normal, so people just use normal. Engineers can already take one niche ammo with them, if normal is the top of the power curve then they'll forgo having more niche ammos in favor of extra repair/buff power. Gunner would then be entirely put in the niche of "only bring for arcs" at the highest level of play, and even in just higher level pub crews.

On the other hand, if the ammos all have powerful niches that put them significantly above normal for their roles, and have uses that don't overlap, you see more reason to take multiple ammo types to capitalize on having more ranges of engagement and more versatile and multipurpose weapons. For example, heatsink and charged in Merc. One is for damage, the other for disable, so even without the benefit of arc manipulation it's worthwhile to take a gunner simply so they can switch from raw damage to having more disabling shots when you or they decide disabling is going to be what they focus on at that moment. And both are above the power level of normal in the Merc, but they're specialized in different directions.

The fact that this is one of the few examples of such an interaction is more interesting when you consider that both get disproportionate, unintended benefits compared to the listed stats on the ammos, which is what puts them both above the power level of normal on that gun.

Ammo type variety encourages use of a gunner when they are more powerful than the default and have specialized uses that make them significantly worthwhile to use over a generalist munition. It's why I wanted other ammos buffed as opposed to current potent ammos nerfed.

...

Also, incendiary has its places. In carronades it's the best ammo for harass and pressuring due to it actually starting lots of fires. In gats, incend gat is usable on goldfish sides due to timing of armor break with hwacha reload making raw DPS not necessary.

4

Dev App Testing / Re: Dev App Testing Change-log: 3 Feb, 2017

« on: February 03, 2017, 07:31:20 pm »

Back from a couple rounds of testing, so here's my thoughts.

Greased is not good on Hades. It makes the shots harder and doesn't reduce the arming time at all to compensate for the close-range use you'd expect greased to be good for.

Gatling range difference is very noticeable since gatlings were often used at the extent of their range before. Will force people to use standard more for the improved range. If that's the goal then I guess it worked.

Banshee it's hard to say. The travel time difference is noticeable, the tempo change is going to take some getting used to, and it doesn't seem like greased as a primary ammo will be good if the banshee is being used as a primary. As a secondary I think it's in a reasonable spot. The RoF increase makes it so you can empty the clip faster to get back to repairs.

The increased drop for mercury is barely noticeable over heatsink. It exists, but it's only going to do much at very long range.

As for changes in power level, I'd have to pilot 5 more matches to really say. It does seem to make mortar stronger though.

Overall, I think if you got rid of the arming time increase I'd be fine with it.  A big part of greased is the's the premier close-range ammo, so I don't think that guns with arming time being more close-ranged should be a huge concern.


Lochnagar is interesting. Didn't get to use it a ton. The increased rotation penalty is very noticeable, guns turn like bricks. Lochnagar gat does not seem super powerful, but that could be just because the RoF feels so different being so low. Makes maintaining the gun's RoF when shooting more manageable.

I tried to pull off loch flak (3 shots) since in theory it could one-clip a pyra. In practice, the user missed a ton. It seems it was very difficult to handle. I'd have to mess with it more to really say more on it.


As a side-note, please allow 1 ship bot deathmatch for practice. Would make it easier to test things.

5

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: Controlling A.I

« on: February 03, 2017, 02:42:04 pm »

AI are skilled, but brainless. New players have brains (in theory), but are unskilled. In theory you can teach them basic skills to put them on par with AI, but that takes time and a ship that's both forgiving of mistakes and one the pilot is willing to fly.

Of the ships that have especially unforgiving roles, 3 of them can have AI fill in the gaps effectively (doesn't take a ton of micromanagement): Pyramidion, Goldfish, Squid.

2 of them, Spire and Mobula, absolutely cannot. Some might argue Galleon should go here as well, though I think otherwise.

Having more ships that people would actually want to fly whose more unforgiving roles can be filled adequately with AI would do a lot to encourage pilots to fly ships that they wouldn't normally take with randoms. Very new, very inexperienced people are not capable of filling the unforgiving roles, so we need the AI to make up for that if you want to see experienced captains taking newbies on ships that aren't Pyramidion.

6

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: Controlling A.I

« on: February 03, 2017, 10:16:04 am »

They're going to say "AI are intentionally bad to encourage playing with real players". But the AI in my experience are better than half the real players in the game. It's to the point where I have to compensate for real players joining and filling out my ship that started the match with 3 AI by engaging way closer than I want to because they can't aim. At least I've been handing out lumberjack experience.


Either way, this would definitely be an improvement on AI, being able to command AI individually. It might make Mobula possible to fly without 4 people on it and coax people out of the double side flare Pyra loadout. This could also be used as a method of directing individual crewmen without using a mic or stopping to type in chat.

7

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: Underdog win counter

« on: February 02, 2017, 02:00:06 pm »

I demand more underdog hats.

8

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: #CommunityPatch – Greased Ammo Balance

« on: February 01, 2017, 07:10:44 pm »

In terms of balance, I'd go with option 3. In terms of testing odd behaviours I'd really like to see what 2 does, but option 3 seems the most reasonable. Increase up-front DPS at the cost of DPC.

Currently the reason greased is so good is because it doesn't give up any DPC for its use, it just flat out improves DPS in nearly all situations.

More jitter sounds nice in theory, but the proposed jitter increase sounds pretty crazy. I would have to see how it works in practice.

9

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: #CommunityPatch – Buff Hammer

« on: February 01, 2017, 05:45:12 pm »

Stamina is a stupid mechanic. I've disliked it since I returned to the game to find it in here. It feels like a mechanic they shoehorned in to make gunner less useless because gunner is such a terrible class.

They had this idea starting out that every class can do everything, but each class can do something a little bit better. Turns out as crew, the best thing to do better is repair and buffs, and having more ammo types to choose from isn't always useful. Honestly, if not for guns like the Hades, which needs multiple ammos to control its range, and heavy guns pretty much requiring a gunner to have arcs, there would be no reason to have a gunner over a normal engineer, let alone a buff engineer. Some pilots decide the arcs aren't worth having a gunner and have a 3rd engineer on heavy guns anyways. Even with guns like the Hades, there's people who learn to hit with normal rounds at long range, meaning they don't need lesmok and can buff the gun instead.

Squid, Pyramidion, Junker, and Mobula arguably should all run a buff engie over a gunner, and nerfing the buff hammer won't change that because all gunner does is bring more ammos that aren't needed.

In fact, if the buff hammer was removed from the game, three engineers would still be more optimal in the vast majority of the time than having a gunner. Gunner is that fundamentally flawed.

If gunner could have more than one repair tool then maybe things would be different, since the tradeoff in ability to repair/buff wouldn't be so severe. As is, gunner is a fundamentally situational class who is only relevant because of nerfed heavy guns arcs and stamina.

Personally, I think crew classes should be overhauled to carry whatever mix of repair and gunnery tools they want with up to 3 of each class's tools, including 2 of each, an engie carrying 3 gunner tools, a gunner carrying 3 engie tools. This would make it so you could have "gunners" that could sprint, "engineers" who could force arcs, and mixed classes for a balance of repair and gunnery and a bit more nuance to being a crew member and assembling a crew.

However I already know that's not going to happen because of how much of their system they'd have to rework to allow for that, from database entries to recommended loadout systems to tool selection menus.


...

But yeah. I'd like to see testing of reducing hits to buff guns and how that affects buff-engie and gunner cooperation. Makes it take less time to prebuff gunner guns, but at the same time might be OP in terms of giving the buff engie much more ability to have permanent buffs on their gun.

If the goal is to make gunners see play more, buff their stamina. That's their one unique "no other class can do this" quirk, so make it so gunners can use it more often.

If the goal is to just nerf the buff hammer for being good, then I don't have anything I want to say.

10

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: Chemical damage; New damage type and mechanic discussion.

« on: January 28, 2017, 05:20:52 pm »

You people need to start making abstracts for these posts. I had to read this 3 times.

It is really hard to follow since "chem" means chemspray here.

So you are basically proposing a temporary, timed debuff that does damage over time and acts as a damage multiplier, correct?


I don't really see what this adds to the game. Sniper support already does damage and disables stuff. A brawler's gonna focus either on anti-balloon or just kill them outright, so debuffs on components won't matter a ton. Plus if you could hit those components with the debuff, you could've hit them with an artemis. Unless of course the damage bonus is extremely reliable and much easier to apply, in which case it would replace the other. See TF2's sniper rifle vs sydney sleeper.

11

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: MK II Guns

« on: January 28, 2017, 04:54:30 pm »

Gatling MK II
...

A return to the oldgat, The MkII gatling wouldn't require heavy clip to be effective at medium range due to the jitter increase, and would be useless at mid-long range even when armed with lesmok ammunition.

what

Anyways.

You already know people's opinions on getting old flak back. I don't have one so I'll leave it out.

Definitely interested in the more accurate, more disable-focused Hwacha. I've been wanting more reliable pure disable weapons for a while.

12

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: vet lobby reduction

« on: January 28, 2017, 10:06:05 am »

You should also be able to invite under-leveled players

Yes. I see no compelling reasons not to do this.

13

General Discussion / Re: My (Long)Open Letter to Muse

« on: January 27, 2017, 04:06:57 pm »

I'm the only one who has addressed the second post's proposals here and that makes me sad.

14

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: #CommunityPatch – Greased Ammo Balance

« on: January 27, 2017, 10:48:16 am »

I really want to see what option 2 would do to a lot of guns. That sounds really interesting.

15

General Discussion / Re: My (Long)Open Letter to Muse

« on: January 27, 2017, 10:45:08 am »

Narayan, If you find 7 experienced players that have free time on the weekends you can play in community events like the SCS. All of the problems you raised in this thread will be solved. Think about it.

But SCS is only once a week, on a specific day of the week. And other players might not necessarily want to play in SCS. Personally, free time on the weekends or not, I don't like spending what feels like 2-3 hours marathoning a game in a high-stress competitive environment when I can only stand the base game for 1.5 hours at a time. I just want to play a few good matches when I feel like playing this game.

This is not a solution for everyone. I'm not even sure if it's a solution for anyone.