Messages

16

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: Harpoon damage

« on: March 28, 2016, 03:09:25 pm »

Honestly my main issue with the harpoon is that you lose out on a lot of damage or disable power in the arc it is in, in exchange for... keeping your enemy in that arc. For many ships, that tradeoff isn't very good.

Goldfish: Only one light gun per side. Using a harpoon makes it harder to bring your front gun to bear.
Pyra: 50% loss of damage wherever the harpoon is located., which is huge considering how poorly you turn. It is useful for preventing flanks if you hook someone with the rear port gun.
Junker: Junker turning is already good, and junkers have two decent broadsides and a fairly small blindspot. Munkers might be able to use it better than a standard junker. (throw mines, pull enemies into mines?)
Spire: Spire's have good turn accelleration. There is some argument for it as a fourth (pilot) gun, but overall I'm not sold on how effective it would be. (This might be worth testing. Use a harpoon instead of flying as pilot to keep an enemy in your front arc?)
Mobula: Mobulas have a fairly consistant trifecta, but you lose 33% of your firepower using it. MIght be useful as a top deck gun in a brawling build (pilot gun?)
Galleon: Probably the most popular harpoon ship. The left light gun can be used to keep from being flanked and to pull enemies into the heavy gun arcs. Still questionable when compared to a double hwacha+gat. Might be decent with a Minotaur+Hwacha or Mino+H.Flank combo with really excellent crew. (Hook them, turn them away, then finish with the explosive hits?)
Squid : Not useful on the front or left side guns. Could be useful as a rear gun to disrupt ships as you fly past. Potential use with a flamer - phoboes - harpoon loadout? (flame on driveby, mine on near side of enemy, yank them into the mine?)

Overall, the low damage, difficulty of use, and poor control options still make the Harpoon a tough sell for me.

17

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: Loch changes and effect on overall gameplay

« on: March 23, 2016, 12:25:30 pm »

Dying in seconds because you just happened to get hit by a few loch mortars is really, really not fun on the receiving end.

At least the old Hwachafish gave you a chance to escape.

--

I also really miss running Loch on heavy carronades. There is almost no point in bringing a carro on a fish anymore.

18

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: Level requirement to create clans

« on: March 23, 2016, 11:57:22 am »

A noob will rarely listen to a vet.

That depends on the vet. Not only WHAT they say, but HOW they say it and how WELL they explain it.

People do not react well to negative criticism. People do not react well to insults. From what I have seen of your demeanor on the forums, it does not surprise me at all that some new players do not want to listen to what you have to say. To the other person it doesn't matter what you say. What matters is how you say it.

Will you get people that won't listen no matter what? Of course. Some people are genuinely contrary and will always beat to their own drum, others might genuinely be unable to understand you (language barriers, or voice turned off). However most reasonable people can and will listen if approached in a manner that is professional and respectful, even people that you might not think would do so. (Spammers, meme shouters, voice-box users etc)

It's fine if you are tired of explaining how and why and just want to play with your friends, but saying things like that is outright disingenuous.

19

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: Level requirement to create clans

« on: March 23, 2016, 11:48:46 am »

Should we not do a big cleaning of the clans and remove the records of all the clans (I meant disband the clans sorry too much programming today.) where no one connected in a year.

Clearing the register of really old, inactive, clans wouldn't necessarily be a bad idea if done right.
Prohibiting new players from playing with their friends absolutely is terrible.

I've brought back about a dozen people from my own clan within the last few weeks, a clan which was inactive for a good year and a half. We formed the group when we were novices because our clan exists outside of GoI. None of us would have bothered joining at all if we didn't have a reliable way to play together. Period. The end.

There is no logical reason to prohibit new players from making clans. Even removing inactive clans is sketchy at best, since it may very well kill off the potential for returning players. There are other problems to look at, this is absolutely not one of them.

20

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: Level requirement to create clans

« on: March 22, 2016, 04:49:01 pm »

Doing this will only chase off more new players that want to play with friends.

There are literally thousands of possible tags with only four potential characters (331,776 combinations, not including numbers or special characters, just using four letters alone). Running out of tags is completely a non-issue.

If there is a particular tag you want that is held by a dead clan, perhaps putting in a support ticket is a better option?

21

General Discussion / Re: How would YOU nerf the Mobula?

« on: March 18, 2016, 09:19:06 am »

P.S. Let's define ship roles more clearly. See my subjective number suggestions for the Mobula and other ships here:

Nerfing the signature strength of the mobula (vertical lift) would do the opposite of defining ship roles more clearly.

If we want more defined ship roles, then gaps in other forms of manuverability/mass/armor values would need to be expanded to match the current strength of the mobula.

Think about the following:

Mobula - Kept roughly the same. Reduced hull permahealth (to reward hitting the hull at long range, and punish mobulas that get into brawls/get rammed)
Spire - Boosted armor, dramatic turning acceleration buff. (Turns spires into fantastic close-range turrets)
Squid - Bring squid permahealth down and acceleration/speed up, closer to release squid. (Uncatchable, fragile speedster/flanker)
Pyra - Dramatic forward acceleration, slightly boosted armor, turning and vertical acceleration even worse than current. (The pyra excels at spearing/charging enemies, but needs to plan ahead to get that ram)
Junker - Mostly unchanged. (Junker manuverability is in a good place for their role)
Goldfish - Mostly Unchanged. (Goldfish manuverability is in a good place for their role)
Galleon - Mostly unchanged. Further top speed increase, acceleration remains very poor. (The Galleon would be the fastest, heaviest ship, but the absolute slowest to get there. Anyone unfortunate enough to be rammed by a galleon should be in for a world of hurt.)

This would solidify each ship in a specific role by giving them one or two things they excel at (minus the goldfish and junker... which are both jack of all trades ships by design), and would give most ships maps/areas where they can excel.

22

General Discussion / Re: How would YOU nerf the Mobula?

« on: March 17, 2016, 04:20:17 pm »

@Jamini: The problem with balloon-popping is that the Mobula, unlike a Galleon or Spire, can maneuver its way out of the blend. A well timed hydro will save it from grounding out, even though Balloon might be lost in the process. Whenever it manages to get arcs, it will disable your guns and start gaining the upper hand. This is the experience I've had while developing a blendersquid build with Kamoba for months.

Mobulas also drop like a stone due to their vertical acceleration without drogue chute. This also doesn't take into account that a mobula virtually requires an on-point, buffless, engineering team in order to stay repaired due to its structure. (Or a three-engineer setup to get engine buffs). Let's not mention that Mobula armor is often slow to be repaired due to the layout of the ship (Especially with newer players crewing).

The real issue isn't the Mobula. It's the fact that balloon-popping setups are both nerfed and heavily out of vogue right now. If heavy clip and carronades were stronger, the Mobula would be as it was when I started flying it: A long range, difficult ship to crew that is best used as a sniper platform.

If I were to nerf the mobula, I would keep the hull armor high, but reduce the hull health. Reward crews that can keep the armor up, especially in sniper matches, but punish those that allow an kill-ship to get too close.

23

General Discussion / Re: How would YOU nerf the Mobula?

« on: March 17, 2016, 03:30:22 pm »

The Mobula is strong right now because balloon-popping is weak. A slight carro, heavy clip, fire, or gravity buff would dramatically make the Mobula weaker (as much, if not moreso than the junker).

Mobulas do well because they are good against Hwacha and Artemis spam (due to well-protected components). Give alternatives, and the Mobula will seem more in-line.

24

General Discussion / Re: How would YOU nerf the Mobula?

« on: March 17, 2016, 03:05:58 pm »

Vertical mobility was always a defining characteristic of the mobula.

Source

New ship, the Mobula - an more advanced attack ship with 5 front facing gun and no guns on side or back.  It has good vertical movement, but it is more difficult to repair in the heat of battle.

25

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: Game Desperately Need new Game Variants to Maintain Interest

« on: March 16, 2016, 02:39:30 pm »

Some things FROM alliance would be nice in skirmish.

26

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: Game Desperately Need new Game Variants to Maintain Interest

« on: March 16, 2016, 01:00:35 pm »

More ship variation would be nice as well. Once you learn the existing set, they can get boring quite fast.

27

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: I am begging, please add minimum level requirements to pilot...

« on: March 10, 2016, 04:43:13 pm »

I disagree with the idea of additional explanations in the form of a pop up. I would agree to an easily identifiable and navigable terms section. Or for the word "jitter" to be a clickable or scroll over(able) object that explains what it means.

Pop-ups are aggravating to me. My opinion is biased. I do not like pop ups. It is probably a deep rooted hatred from my early days of internet browsing.

one-time popout tooltip(with an option to disable it)

A simple "Don't show this again" option was included in the suggestion.

28

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: I am begging, please add minimum level requirements to pilot...

« on: March 10, 2016, 01:16:49 pm »

What your suggesting already exists.

Each ammo and tool have a description.

Brief tooltip descriptions and pop-ups that you need to click "okay" on are very different things. Especially as the current tooltips are kind of bare for easily-digestible help, or explanations of where something is normally used.

Explaining that heavy clip reduces jitter by 70% means nothing to a new player. Explaining that it makes Hwacha rockets much more accurate and tightens carronade shots so that they can be used more effectivly at medium range DOES.

29

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: Spire hitbox

« on: March 10, 2016, 12:40:16 pm »

Shaving a bit off the bottom of the spires hull hitbox could also be worthwhile.

Why not remove the hull component on the spike, and have it instead get aesthetically blown off if it takes enough damage? The lower half of the spire spike hardly looks structural.

30

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: I am begging, please add minimum level requirements to pilot...

« on: March 10, 2016, 12:22:45 pm »

I'm starting to think that we might need some actual metrics here, as opposed to assumptions. I've been guilty, as have several other posters here, of making statements of fact without evidence to back it up. Which is problematic, especially when I see comments made like this:

The "PITA. (Pains in the Arse.)" very often these are the people who purchase on a sale, they follow the big YouTuber names and snatch up games from sales often, these "PITA" are often the trouble makers for a variety of reasons and could easily earn sub categories on their own such as Trolls, Swearers and Ignorers and more..  The PITA are typically the bulk of new players, not all are Pains on purpose or with intent, but their lack of communication or team orientation often makes them more a nuisance than they may intend to be...

I've found this to be fairly patently untrue. The bulk of the people I personally end up blocking for obnoxious mic spam are not novices, but rather tend to fall in the level 15-30 range on their main role. (Or are insufferable 45's who assume that anyone who isn't max-level doesn't understand anything about the game at all. Which is frankly, just as bad.)

Do obnoxious spammers exist? Of course. That doesn't make the bulk of novices into them. Not by a long shot.

I'll take some notes tonight on who I fly with and post results. I have a gut feeling that the result will show far fewer issue-players than assumed. Remember: Humans have a perceptive bias towards the negative. We don't remember positive experiences as well as negative ones.

---

That said, having a one-time popout tooltip(with an option to disable it) for each tool that you can select that comes up when a player picks it would be useful. Allow people to opt-out, but provide a way for sincere new players to learn the basics.

For example, when first selecting greased ammo:

"Greased ammo reduces the range and damage of your shot, but dramatically improves the clip and refire rate of your gun. It's best to use on weapons with a large clipsize and low range, like gatlings and morters, but not very good with long-range and low-clip guns. Grease ammo is very popular for engineers to take due to its versatility."

Or on the pipe wrench,

"The pipe wrench is a jack-of-all-trades repair tool. It doesn't excel at rebuilding or repairing, but it is acceptable at both. The pipe wrench is favored by pilots, gunners, and buff-hammer engineers because of this."