Messages

1

Gameplay / Re: Rapid Fire - Left Click

« on: September 11, 2013, 01:22:27 pm »

I really wish all weapons fired "full-auto" when you hold down the button, much as how tools were changed to work.

That said, there really should be no difference between holding down the button and rapidly clicking, when it comes to tools.  And when I rapidly click with a weapon, occasionally I will get a "ghost fire" where it doesn't fire, but causes the weapon cooldown.

If there is a difference, it needs to be fixed in the game.

2

Gameplay / Re: The Mobula

« on: July 09, 2013, 09:23:06 pm »

This is a pretty trash ship, going by first impressions.  Someone will have to pull out some miraculous emergent gameplay to make it decent.  It's essentially a Spire 2.0 that's even harder to repair.  It has horrible survivability, seems to have bad speed, and has no heavy mounts.

It's good cannon fodder, though.

3

Gameplay / Re: Lumberjack Discussion

« on: June 30, 2013, 03:31:53 pm »

My concern right now is that sniping seems to be a bit too rewarding. The LJ by itself is not realy all-powerful, it's the fact that you can have one of these on a Galleon along with either a Manticore or a Typhon facing on the same ship along with a Mercury gun.

It slows down the game to depressing levels.

This has been the case for a long time.  The metagame has always favored long range weaponry.  Maps tend to do the same, especially Battle on the Dunes.  I haven't really noticed it myself lately, but I wouldn't be surprised if others encountered it.

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Gameplay / Re: Spire Discussion.

« on: June 23, 2013, 07:23:36 pm »

A spire, currently, is best properly played as a long-range sniper ship that relies on kiting.  Buff its speed and you make it too good at that (though there is usually counterplay to sniping as almost every map has cover, but this leads to uninteresting interactions, especially on more open maps).

Buffing its firepower is hard to do, and doing so is a risky proposition as, again, you make it better at what it already does well.

Buffing its survivability across the board seems to be the most reasonable option.  The problem with this being, the Spire is basically a competitor with the Galleon in terms of a niche, and the Galleon will almost always outshoot the Spire thanks to its dual heavy weapons, not to mention it's far tankier.

By the way, unless the ship rebalance touched more than I remember, the Galleon is in fact faster than the Spire, at least in terms of top speed.  It's obviously got horrible turn speed, but that's arguably not horribly important.

A slight but all-around buff could be wise; it could use a little more speed, a little more armor, and a lot more hull.  Not much can be done with the guns, though making the top right weapon face forward could help it in terms of versatility.

Another idea I had was instead of modifying its stats, it could be given a top right forward facing light weapon, and a right facing gun next to it.  This essentially "splits" the current top right weapon, and gives it a guaranteed two forward facing weapons, as well as side protection.  I like this adjustment the best, because the Spire is supposed to be a glass cannon, and thus should offer the best firepower.  It should rival the Galleon.  Unfortunately, this is difficult to do without giving it a second heavy weapon, but, it's also possible to give it a second bottom light weapon to enable a potential, blistering four weapons on target assuming the pilot is unneeded (which is seldom the case, which would give this adjustment counterplay in the form of keeping the pilot busy).

Giving the Spire a couple more guns would not only reinforce its role as a glass cannon, it also affords it excellent versatility by sheer volume of weaponry.  That'd do well to boost it up into competitive territory, don't you agree?

5

Gameplay / Re: orignal flamethrower

« on: June 23, 2013, 07:11:21 pm »

The sad part about the flamethrower adjustment was that it was balanced before.  There were counters, and fire was an important consideration.  After the nerf, flamethrowers were rendered utterly useless.  The reason it was done was because fire was just too hot to handle for new players, and Muse actually cares about their entry level players.

The adjustment they made was a babystep in the right direction.  They increased the damage fire deals from 3 to 4.  But that's not enough.  If fire can't kick gunners off guns that well, it needs to deal a lot more damage.

I think the first thing that should be done is giving it back some of its disabling capability.  Bring the kick-off count to 6 or 5, from 8.  Then, increase the damage fire does across the board.  Though it's worth mentioning that fire already does a great job at destroying balloons, so it may be prudent to nerf its damage against balloons.

I like that with the flamethrower, you actually need to aim to kick someone off a gun with fire.  That's cool.  But it's just not effective enough.  All it needs are number buffs.

6

Gameplay / Re: GUNS Balance Questions and Concerns v1.2

« on: June 23, 2013, 07:03:25 pm »

In the past I have likened a good Blenderfish vs Galleon fight to bull riding, where the Blenderfish is the cowboy and the Galleon is the bull. The galleon is slow but just needs to a few seconds of inattention to gore the other guy. The blender fish has to be constantly adjusting and repositioning to stay in the safe area where his guns can hit but the Galleons guns can not. The patch just made that safe area smaller. To torture the metaphor, the bull can still be ridden but it is much harder since Awkm put grease on the reigns.

I'm shocked that no one's figured out what Chute Vent is for.

Seriously.  Not only does it completely eliminate the problems caused by the nerf, it gives the added benefit of allowing the maneuver I've affectionately dubbed the "Chaos Dunk," in which you pop a balloon, position yourself above the enemy ship, and smash him into the ground repeatedly using Impact Bumpers and Chute Vent.

The Carronade might be dependent on a pilot tool, but I think the nerf was warranted.  Could carronades use buffs elsewhere to compensate for the nerf?  Perhaps.  But I really like that adjustment, as it allows a lot of counterplay.  I'd be loathe to see that nerf reverted, instead of trying another way to buff the carronade.

7

Gameplay / Re: Achievement system flaw

« on: June 08, 2013, 08:04:37 am »

I'd like to chime in to say that I loathe GoIO's achievement system.  It's actually worse than most achievement systems, which already occasionally cause sub-optimal playing.  However, it's generally a rare thing to see in other games.  But here, it seems to be every fourth random crew member I get is on what I've affectionately dubbed a "wrench quest."

An engineer with a mallet and pipe wrench.  A gunner with an extinguisher.  A crew member joining as a Pilot to get multi-classing achievements.  These are not only sub-optimal, they cost games.  It's got to be one of the most destructive achievement systems I've ever seen and I truly wish it never saw the light of day.

I'm a strong opponent of any achievement system because the above is almost inevitable.  However, a lot of people like the grind and sense of progress.  So at the end of the day, it depends on whether or not you want a larger playerbase or more solid gameplay.  It's definitely more profitable not to care about the grognardy types such as myself, after all.   

I know Muse wants to see its playerbase experiment and have fun with their game, but honestly the lengths to which this is taken are unsettling, and always have been.  From the way they withhold balance-relevant data to the achievement system, I think there are things that could be done a lot better.

8

Gameplay / Re: GUNS Balance Questions and Concerns v1.2

« on: June 01, 2013, 11:16:38 pm »

Yah, one thing I keep seeing over and over again that is becoming a problem are goldfish with hwachas on the front. So many matches I play, goldfish just charge straight at you, hit with hwachas to cripple you and then ram for hull damage. If they are using any kind of teamwork, the other teammate just hits you with some kind of hull damage/armor penetrating combo. This hwacha/ramming combo to completely disable a ship is just getting old, i could possibly see it as a last ditch effort, but no, it's become a main strategy. Especially paired with the goldfish, because it is kind of the medium ship, it can out speed most ships so avoiding it is nigh impossible. And even if you were to try and maneuver, if they get any where near you, your finished because hwacha disables everything in one shot. All of your engines or an entire side of you ships guns.

Enough ranting.

Hwacha needs to be balanced, there is a reason just about every ship that has heavy weapons is laden with them.
Perhaps less splash damage, could help, so that the entire side of your ship or all of your engines don't get knocked out immediately unless the rockets actually hit these things.

The Hwacha is balanced.  It's hilariously ineffective as a lone weapon, because it deals pathetic damage to armor.  A Hwacha + Ram combo will not be getting through any armor unless it's a Squid, maybe a Goldfish.

It has horrible sustained presence.  Its disabling capability is countered by having competent engineers with Spanners.

Any ship with a Hwacha will lack that much lethality.  And Hwachas are just as vulnerable to being disabled; Artemises and Mercuries can do this at a greater range.

It has drawbacks, it has counters; it's balanced.  The only reason it's common is because it's easy to use.

9

Gameplay / Re: Echidna vs. Scylla

« on: May 30, 2013, 05:46:23 pm »

It is worth noting that the Scylla has a smaller lateral field of fire then the Echidna. So while it is possible to get a Gat/Flack/Gat trifecta on a pyramidion, it is impossible to do the same with a mortar. It is mostly for this reason I don't change out my flack to a mortar.

Actually, I'm fairly certain this is false.  I'll have to confirm this, but I'm pretty sure the Mortar has a superior turning arc than the Flak, while it has an inferior turning rate.

This is somewhat offset by the Mortar's inferior projectile speed, which means you need to lead a target more to hit it, so it needs the extra turning arc.

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Feedback and Suggestions / Re: Weapon Pre-turning

« on: May 26, 2013, 05:42:55 pm »

Maybe the reasoning behind them going to neutral is something as simple as the gun naturally locks there so when you leave it you have to put it to neutral or else it flops around.

Reasoning isn't really important when it comes to a game that doesn't focus on realism.  Balance issues are the primary concern.  That said, you're right when you say it'd be a buff to other ships (though not to the Pyramidion, as it relies on front facing guns).

I think it's worth trying out.

11

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: Making ammo type determine damage type

« on: May 26, 2013, 05:39:16 pm »

This was an idea I had long ago, but deemed it too radical to bother suggesting.  I'm pleased someone else has considered it though.

An ammo type could change direct, AoE or both to a certain type.  It could also just turn a certain % of total damage into a given ammo type.

Any way you slice it, this would make gunners very interesting, and would help bring more weapons into the spotlight.

It'd take some careful tweaking so that, say, dual light flak with one/both using piercing ammo isn't as good as a dedicating piercing weapon + a dedicated explosive weapon.  But still.

12

Gameplay / Re: Buying Time: Using a spanner for repairs

« on: May 26, 2013, 02:22:15 pm »

I know you've been on my ship and one of my engineers may have given you a bit of flak. The one thing Is like to say is that sometimes it's better to do a bit of overheal and get the rest of the ship fixed up rather than baby sitting the hull out of combat. Otherwise it's a good tactic to use if your going to be baby sitting either way.

Doing this is only acceptable if nothing else needs attention.  Otherwise you're wasting a lot of time.  And keep in mind that the Spanner is just plain inefficient for repairs; it repairs 20 HP per second, where the other tools are 24 and 28.  Sometimes you're better off just letting the armor take 200 damage and then repairing with your mallet.

13

Gameplay / Re: Lumberjack Discussion

« on: May 26, 2013, 02:15:37 pm »

I'd like to take a moment to remind everyone that simply because something isn't prevalent in the meta doesn't mean it isn't overpowered.  While difficulty of use is a factor in balance, it is only to a point, and thus even if something is extremely difficult to use it shouldn't be excessively more powerful than other choices.

And frankly, from my experience, the Lumberjack is far easier to hit with than the Heavy Flak, especially at range (where they see the most use).  The projectile travels quickly enough, and you have enough rounds, not to mention the fact your target is the balloon; this makes it actually an easy weapon to hit with.  Easier than the Typhon, and far easier than the Light Mortar.

I really don't like the Lumberjack as it stands, because it's such a binary weapon.  The Heavy Flak's damage output is reduced by half in close range; the Lumberjack's damage output has the majority of its purpose removed just because you're firing at a certain range.  However, this is important to introduce counterplay.  This weapon does have a huge weakness.  There is counterplay.  And that's why I feel the LJ isn't particularly problematic right now.

Could it do with some slight adjustments?  Sure, I wouldn't mind.  But care has to be taken; I feel it needs to be able to deal damage to at least armor to be of any use.  Otherwise, a Flak is simply superior.

14

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: Weapon Pre-turning

« on: May 25, 2013, 04:08:01 pm »

I would definitely like to see weapon ammos be more persistent, as they currently seem to reset after time, or when another person repairs the weapon.

However, letting a weapon stay in a certain position would likely introduce balance problems.  This is to be done very carefully; it'd likely be an unnecessary buff to some ships and guns.  The Junker is an example of a ship that would get unnecessarily buffed as a result of this.

15

Gameplay / Re: pyramidions, pyramidions everywhere

« on: May 25, 2013, 01:19:07 am »

Roll the game back to 1.1 and we'll see other combinations again. Specially a return to the old flamer ability and chem spray. But to be honest, even then Pyra was king. But before the 1.2 mess it was more about pilot skill, not ram fests like it is now.

Um, ramming is harder to do now in the pyramid. So, it requires more skill to ram now than it did back in 1.1

Yeah, I'm... baffled by the supposition that piloting skill was more prevalent in 1.1.  I suspect it's innate resistance to change, but the ship speed rework was pretty much entirely beneficial.  The Pyramidion lost maneuverability it simply didn't deserve and turned into one of the worst turners in the game (which is good considering its excellent survivability, speed, and firepower, as well as its ramming capability), while other ships got adjustments they sorely needed (the Junker comes to mind).

The new speeds may have been harmful to the Squid, in that they could have shortened the disparity between it and other ships, thus devaluing its niche.  But I can't be sure of that.

I think once we start seeing the implementation of more piercing and more disabling weapons that surpass the Gatling Gun and Mercury in certain fields (whether they be disabling, armor peeling, raw damage output, or what have you) the meta will take on a new shape.

For instance, the Gatling Gun could remain an intermediate, medium-range hybrid weapon capable of disabling and defeating armor, while a new piercing weapon could be solely dedicated to destroying armor.  There could be one for close and long range.  There could be another medium range disabling weapon, while the Flamethrower could receive a buff to place it back in the "close-range disabler" niche (instead of the "joke weapon" niche it occupies presently).

The addition of these weapons would allow the Gatling Gun to be modified for a specific purpose.  It's currently the only close range armor piercing option, and it also deals shatter damage.  A weapon that dealt a lot more piercing damage without the shatter damage would be good for pure killing setups, but you'd lose out on disabling potential.  So there'd be choice.

Meanwhile, buffing the Carousel (and perhaps even the Mortar, slightly) should present more options instead of the Light Flak.  I mention the Mortar because, as it does deal slightly more DPS, it's far less reliable and has a poorer effective range, not to mention an inferior rotation speed.  I don't think its slight DPS advantage is quite worth it; a little more, probably just 10 damage a shot would be enough to nudge it into competitiveness.  The Carousel could use a damage buff as well; however, buffing fire first would be advisable.  It stands to reason that the Carousel is similar to the Gatling, in that it has kill potential (explosive damage) and disable potential (incendiary change).  Unfortunately, there isn't a Mortar or Light Flak for Piercing damage yet.  But, this may change in the near future.

Finally, the fact Gat/flak is so popular is a possible indication that disabling in general is not effective enough.  While this is a dangerous pitfall, as disabling is not only loathed by developers and casual players alike for its anti-fun nature, it's also easy to become an optimal solution.  An enemy that cannot fight back is far easier to kill, even when lacking raw damage output.  As I recall, repair and rebuild times were rebalanced recently; this might be worth looking at.