Messages

31

Gameplay / Re: Balance musings

« on: November 04, 2015, 12:26:58 am »

Siege mode!

Basically, yes! Probably with something like a 2 second window of leeway: just enough that you could pivot the ship slightly to adjust targets while retaining the benefit, but not enough to, say, track a Squid at mid-to-close range while still retaining the bonus.

32

Gameplay / Re: Balance musings

« on: November 03, 2015, 06:58:28 pm »

I didn't say it wasn't strong as it is, just that I envisioned it playing the role it was designed for.

I think part of the issue is that the Mobula, Galleon, and Spire are all "weapon platforms," which means one will always be stuck oddly between the other two.

They are uniquely designed ships, but I think their roles step on each others toes a bit too much.  Maybe the Spire needs more guns situated around it so it has more angles covered and more firepower than the Mobula, but needs to rotate back and forth to bring that power to bear - two heavy guns on 45-60 degree angles from each other, for example.

It's one of the reasons I wish we had ship-specific perks, actually. A world where the Spire deals extra damage when below a certain speed (or after X time with engines idle) would make the ship a premier park-and-destroy ship, while the Mobula has some other ability that helps define the two forward-facing weapons platforms a bit more.

33

Gameplay / Re: CP/CK and how to fix it

« on: November 02, 2015, 11:38:08 pm »

The major loss for ck was the tactical versatility.

In the old rules where 1 ship could outright block.
You could have a ship rear guard to delay the cap/decap outright while the teammates secured the next point.
Then kill yourself via 3 or 2 v 1 on previous point and come in via spawn teleport.
Or defend the point 2 v 3 and send a scout to next point at end game.

Agreed. I won games through strategic Squid Hydrogen/Chute Vent shenanigans on a captured point, pulling engineers off the guns to tank the hull / balloon as we played merry havoc with the enemy's ability to track us. I miss that terribly -- it was moments like that that really made me LOVE capture point.

The new one is so...stagnant. You have to play a brawling ship, since you have to go for the point -- your team loses if you hang back and snipe or zone instead. I can't find a reason to bring anything else. If it can't kill an enemy at close range while standing on the point, there's no real point to bringing it.

34

The Lounge / Re: Fond Memories:

« on: October 29, 2015, 10:09:02 am »

Favorite memories?

Running the Spider Mob -- a mobula with triple flamethrower, double harpoon -- in a Dev game and trolling Keyvias's Spire (I believe) by sneaking up behind him, grabbing on, and Spire-surfing across the map. Watching in that same game as my gunner scored a kill against a Galleon with an Incendiary Harpoon.

The CA game where almost no one showed up, so we ran 2v2, Squid only, Harpoon only, AIs on guns only, no repairing armor allowed. Took an hour until the first kill, if I recall correctly.

And, just the other day, the feeling of exhilaration when my Chute Vent / Hydrogen Mobula managed to not only lose two trailing Pyramidions with breaking engines but also lose the spot and regain advantageous positioning to successfully 2v1 them through some crazed piloting hijinks through the arc of Northern Fjords. Credit to my amazingly on-point engineering team, and sincere apologies to my balloon-side engineer.

35

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: Ship change indicators

« on: October 27, 2015, 09:02:34 am »

Maybe not a default 60 second addition. If there was a change, the Add Time button could become active with an indication that a ship changed. Then it is your choice on whether you need to add time or not. Otherwise, this could be abused quite a bit.

Why not just add another "Ready" check for pilots?

Something like this -- Ships are visible only to their associated teams / crews. When the timer runs out, the lobby enters the Finalize stage. The Captain of the first ship on each team picks his ship, and clicks Accept (perhaps put an auto-accept on after 30 seconds). Both first ships are revealed to the enemy crew upon acceptance. The process moves on to the second ship on each team and so on down the line, with each "accepted" ship visible to the enemy team.

This means that there isn't any last-minute changing of ships, and that teams might even have a chance to react to the enemy team.

Thoughts? Maybe not appropriate for Novice games, but it might really be good for Veteran games.

36

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: Flying around workaround

« on: October 27, 2015, 08:55:08 am »

Which is why they never used acoustic locators in real life. Way too much noise pollution.

In fact, they were even specifically used to find Zeppelins!

Of course, I'm not sure of the effectiveness one of these would have mounted TO a Zeppelin -- I imagine the vibrations and the constant noise would make incoming similar noises much harder to detect. Images of actual acoustic locators all seem to be ground-based in relatively quiet areas like fields...

37

Gameplay / Re: "What's wrong with the Pyramidion? What's wrong with the Hwacha?" - Awkm

« on: October 16, 2015, 01:22:57 pm »

At this point, if we want to get anything done with pyra, +1 to accel buffs from me

Yep. I'm for trying it.

38

Gameplay / Re: "What's wrong with the Pyramidion? What's wrong with the Hwacha?" - Awkm

« on: October 13, 2015, 08:41:25 pm »

straight upgrade for level 1 pilots

Well, yes. But they'll soon realize the downsides, once they learn to reverse.

39

Gameplay / Re: "What's wrong with the Pyramidion? What's wrong with the Hwacha?" - Awkm

« on: October 13, 2015, 03:31:19 pm »

What if we made it a bit tankier, heavily buffed its acceleration (or gave it rapid acceleration to a certain speed, then had it fall off, so the Pyra would excel at close range repeated rams), and reduced its ability to reverse and accelerate backwards?

The result would be a very bull-headed ship with a much weakened ability to adjust to an attack gone wrong.

40

Gameplay / Re: "What's wrong with the Pyramidion? What's wrong with the Hwacha?" - Awkm

« on: October 13, 2015, 08:24:05 am »

That's my point: I have to memorize loadouts already. Don't give me more stuff to memorize -- especially stuff like gun angles, which is hard to check mid-game. At least I can get visual confirmation of whether that front gun is a Merc or not if I forget....but noticing that an Artemis has a 20% difference to its arc is much harder.

41

Gameplay / Re: "What's wrong with the Pyramidion? What's wrong with the Hwacha?" - Awkm

« on: October 12, 2015, 10:05:24 am »

i have actually been lightly asking about the possibilities of alternate gun placements/angles on all ships. This would create new 'ships' to choose from. Pyramidian, Pyramidian A, Pyramidian B, etc. Or give each a unique name, like 'Sphynx' and 'Phyraoh'.

I'd be strongly opposed to this, as it would really change my ability to instantly recognize my enemies capabilities from across the map. I don't want to have to remember not only the weapon set but ALSO the chosen gun placement on each enemy ship -- especially if the enemy has multiple of the SAME ship wiith differing gun combinations AND gun positions.

42

Gameplay / Re: "What's wrong with the Pyramidion? What's wrong with the Hwacha?" - Awkm

« on: October 06, 2015, 05:32:52 pm »

The pyra should be good at ramming/ charging and nothing else.

I mean, I agree: that's the Pyra I fell in love with. But that's a hard balance to hit for low-level play where that's almost all people do with ANY ship.

43

Gameplay / Re: "What's wrong with the Pyramidion? What's wrong with the Hwacha?" - Awkm

« on: October 06, 2015, 02:09:00 pm »

Out of curiosity (I've been out of the game for over a year, and only very recently back in), what would thoughts be about a Pyra wit better angles on the side guns?

I think raising the ability to land 2-3 weapons on the port side might raise the utility of the ship in skilled hands, while not making it really any more powerful in pub matches where the side guns are more of an afterthought.

44

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: Design Paradigm, Game balance, and Gunner vs Engineer.

« on: May 24, 2014, 02:02:29 am »

Wait. Hold up. (Remove wrenches as a selectable engineering tool, and everyone gets a wrench free, similar to normal ammo in guns)

Yep. And I'd also say give everyone a free slot with either the Rangefinder or the Spyglass in it.

Suddenly there's more options for gunners (Wrench/Buff? Wrench/Extinguisher? Wrench/Chem Spray?), more for Pilots (Wrench/Spanner for emergency repairs? Wrench/Mallet to keep the Junker's Balloon alive? Wrench/Chem or Wrench/Buff for a Pyra's hull?)...and you also open up the ability to have teammates using Rangefinders more often (as you won't lose the Spyglass), pilots able to spot for their team themselves and, perhaps most interestingly, crewmembers able to take less commonly used piloting tools (Tar, Impact Bumpers, Drogue Chute) and running to the helm to use the needed tools.

You could run your Gunner with Moonshine or Kerosene when running a close-range attack ship, have him close the distance, and switch to a Hydrogen/Chute Vent/Phoenix Claw pilot for close-range evasive maneuvering, for example.

I think that would be really damn cool.

45

Gameplay / Re: Concerning Player Retention and Realism

« on: April 07, 2014, 02:22:45 pm »

The stats are there so that people can get a leaderboard. Something they can be proud of, something that shows they need to step it up. Something to make their performance more visible, something to make the game more fun.

Stats are fine. That strange number that judges how fine is a problem though. I've gotten a score of .8 for Piloting during a game where we got only one kill and died about 6 times...but it failed to account for the fact that each and every one of those deaths was a several-minutes long chase that kept the capture point in our hands and/or prevented an enemy capture, allowing my team a 650-0 victory. That's not bad piloting: that was a case of knowing that my ship alone couldn't defeat the enemy team, and thus deciding to focus on surviving and trick piloting to hold the point as long as humanly possible.

The thing that MOBAs do is display a stat screen that shows all the information about total contribution. To use League of Legends as an example, it shows the following:

Kills / Deaths / Assists
Total Creep Kills
Total Tower Kills
Total Damage
Total Damage to Champions
Total Damage Taken
Healing Done
Gold Earned
Longest Killing Spree
Inhibitors Destroyed
Monsters Killed
...
...and so on.

What it doesn't try to do is put a value on this. It doesn't say "Oh...you only got 1 kill and 8 deaths, so you get a 1.2 out of 10." That's because those deaths might have come as a result of single-handedly backdooring the enemy's base while the rest of your team distracted them, resulting in a net gain for your team even though you died every time.

GoI might want to take a leaf out of that book. Don't give use a score: let us figure out the value for ourselves. Instead, simply display numbers:

Engines/Balloons/Armor/Guns destroyed
Engines/Balloons/Armor/Guns rebuilt
Ships destroyed
Total deaths
Fires lit
Fires extinguished
Points contested
Points defended
Ram kills
Crew kills
...and so on.

Even if you merely display a few...say, a players most impressive three at the end of a game. Just don't attempt to make a system that judges the quality of their gameplay by the result.