Messages

16

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: The Everyone Think Really Hard And Make Rangefinder Useful Thread

« on: March 07, 2016, 06:57:36 pm »

Maybe I'm weird, but I don't WANT a tool that takes skill out of gunning. Giving the range to a target? Sure. You still have to be skilled. I don't like the aim-assist though: I think it teaches over reliance on the assistant, and will stop gunners from learning the guns as well as they should (and make them less able to aim for specific components).

Hence why I was suggesting a damage boost: it provides the range to target to assist gunners in finding the right trajectory, and the rewards them for being skilled enough to lane their shots with just that information.

Maybe make the bonus fall off the closer the target is to discourage Range finding as a close-range brawling tactic. Something like +15% at 1100m down to +5% at 0m

So essentially you want people to see rangefinder and take it so they can kill quicker? Not shooting down or arguing your idea, just asking for the purpose of my earlier question.

17

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: Player-suggested tips

« on: March 07, 2016, 06:21:24 pm »

Pilot + Gunner:
Each grid on the map is 500m by 500m. Press M and plan based on the effective range of your guns.

18

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: Ally ship name display

« on: March 07, 2016, 06:10:54 pm »

This is how I see this, I mean - first things that comes to my mind from a gameplay design standpoint. ^^

I'd definitely agree on the UI clutter.

I think the simplest solution would be to simply brighten the team colors on ships, or increase the number of places those colors occur. It's subtle, but would increase visibility without invalidating the need for communication.

I disagree with the UI clutter. In fact, I've seen this put into practice in almost every other team game I've played. Warthunder, Depth, or even slightly more relatable, World of Warships. All of these indicate who's a teammate in some way, and that's just the tip of the iceberg. I could make the list waaaay longer. It didn't ruin the experience, it didn't "dumb down" the experience, it didn't fill my screen with "clutter." In practice, this is something you can see at work all over the place, and yet here it's such a threat to our intelligence and gaming experience? Please. It's just a small change that would at worst make the game look slightly more polished, and as far as I see it, goi could use a little polish.

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Feedback and Suggestions / Re: The Everyone Think Really Hard And Make Rangefinder Useful Thread

« on: March 07, 2016, 05:59:16 pm »

Telling range is one thing I find useful, the problem is the lack of spot...and as a gunner...I'm not looking through it because I'm using my visual cues of say the drop sight on a lumberjack, of course the problem with some guns and really long distances is you can't see if your shot is over or under very well.

So, personally, I think a range finder would be more usable if you could use it while mounted, but you then lose your gun sights (but your gun's arc doesn't move while you're looking through it.)
That might make it too strong though....

Otherwise, to keep the communication deal
Range and speed of ship.  That way the person range spotting can relay to the gunner, if they are skilled.

The huge downside is each square is 1km, so right now, spotting a ship and finding its range is a matter of pressing "m"

How is that going to work in practice? I find the idea of using rangefinder while mounted intriguing, but as for the rest, you think someone's going to go "oh they're at 768 meters and moving at 22 meters per second so I should move the gun half a centimeter to the left and one centimeter up?"

Telling players the range, maybe even a ship's speed too, is an interesting idea in theory, especially given the name "Rangefinder," but I think people are getting too hung up on that name. Unless a player is either a mathematical genius savant or already so experienced with the guns they wouldn't need to know more than they can learn from looking at the map anyway, if that's all it does it's hardly helping anyone, and in fact, has technically made the rangefinder less useful than it is now, because you've removed one of its current functions.

I should add again, though, that making the range-finder usable while on the gun itself is an interesting thought, that maybe we should apply to some of the other theories here to see how that changes things. Maybe even make it a gunner tool instead of a pilot one?


I still challenge people to try out the question I posed just above and see where that takes us.

20

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: The Everyone Think Really Hard And Make Rangefinder Useful Thread

« on: March 07, 2016, 05:30:38 pm »

Let's try something new. Without giving away the function of the rangefinder itself, what do you want it to actually do? To give you an example, I'll start.

I, and it looks like Crafeksterty too want to make a tool that helps improve gunner accuracy and give pilots and gunners the courage to pull themselves away from their hwacha comfort zones.

If we can come to an understanding of how exactly we want the rangefinder to affect gameplay, perhaps we can get around some of our arguing and come to a function we can all agree on.

21

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: The Everyone Think Really Hard And Make Rangefinder Useful Thread

« on: March 04, 2016, 12:36:32 pm »

Rangefinder is useful for checking whether a ship is outside maximum range. Primarily for guns like artemis.  I really don't want to have optimal gameplay consist of literally staring at someone doing nothing. Spyglass is ok, you click on them and get back to doing fun stuff. Rangefinder you keep staring and doing nothing, how is that engaging at all?

Isn't that what sniping builds at the moment currently are? Staring at someone while your gunners snipe? I mean, sure, there's all sorts of tactical games involved for positioning and whatnot, but it's not like you can't do that with a range-finder. Might even be fun to watch your crew's shots fly in and hit the target from a thousand meters and up. Maybe it would even encourage  some more communication. Like "I'm gonna be zoomed in so let me know if we're being flanked."

I also never intended for this to be used on everything, just as a practice tool for certain guns that typically get no love because most gunners aren't MLG enough for most pilots to consider letting them try.

22

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: Ally ship name display

« on: March 04, 2016, 12:16:16 pm »

I'm sorry to say I disagree with this being a cha ge to encourage team work..
What I see is "Let's encourage team work by adding a feature which removes the need to communicate ship positioning."

The more "quality of life" features which get added to "encourage team work" would simply result in much less communication required.

Correct me if I'm wrong but, when training team work and cooperation, the encouraging of communication, especially essential and potentially essential information is a strong part of that.

So sorry guys, I disagree, I think this "quality of life feature" is just another "let's make this less team play" and I very much doubt any amount of debating, arguing and disagreeing will sell me to like this idea.

"Is that our ally's name on the screen?"

"Oh yeah so it is. This changes my plan completely. Let's go fly away from the battle and never speak again. Clearly teamwork was never intended to be in this game."

I see where you're coming from, but I think you're overreacting a bit with the whole "Oh no if we add this all teamwork will stop" routine. For all we know it could encourage better tactical coordination by polluting the comms with less irrelevant chatter.

23

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: WANTED minigame remake suggestion

« on: March 04, 2016, 12:05:57 pm »

Rather than a flat number of wins system, could maybe make different players worth a different amount of points based on their mmr or their level. That way, a wanted player trying to win by stomping noobs would have to stomp way way more noobs, while someone playing against threatening opponents could catch up and pass them in no time. Basically inspired by chess mmr. You CAN play against people lower rank than you, but even if you win you'll hardly get anything for it. Whereas if you take on someone bigger than you, you get a ton of points.

I like this idea a lot. However, I am completely against having the points gained/lost based on player level. The reason being that this would make 45-45-45 players having to grind away just to go up a rank whereas a 1-1-1 can shoot straight to the top when carried by a good team.

Yeah, I agree, which is why I also suggested possibly using mmr. Or if there's something else that could be used, I'm open to ideas in that regard.

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Feedback and Suggestions / Re: WANTED minigame remake suggestion

« on: March 04, 2016, 12:16:11 am »

...win by stomping noobs would have to stomp way way more noobs...

I agreed until here.

Well alright I could've probably phrased that better. Didn't mean to imply that people go fight noobs a lot. Meant to imply it should discourage it by making it much less worth their time, and encourage people try and take on challenging fights rather than instantly quit by making those victory that much sweeter.

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Feedback and Suggestions / Re: Tip Box

« on: March 03, 2016, 11:42:24 pm »

I'll be emailing Muse about this. I'd advise others to do the same. The thing is, they changed the tip box from sparse but reasonably relevant information to complete hogwash 99% of the time. With that, we know they are capable of altering it. Never stop making noise if something bugs you. Only when you give up do you lose the right to complain about the state of things.

Count me in! Let's curate a list! I will never stop complaining! EVER! I want to make this game BETTER!

Screw it, email sent. May not end in anything, but it's better than doing nothing.

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Feedback and Suggestions / Re: The Everyone Think Really Hard And Make Rangefinder Useful Thread

« on: March 03, 2016, 11:36:19 pm »

no... the whole point of the range finder is to find the range....
Its a tool to give a player extra data to improve their shooting. Not act as a goddamn blatant cheat tool.


Your whole spiel about assuming people should hit every shot is asinine. You don't plan for the ideal situation because the enemy is actively trying to not set up the ideal situation for you.

Hence you have to think about the ease of use of guns. Hence you use a gatling over a hades vs a squid. Its easier to hit with many factors adding to it.

Hades can cause fire, has higher dps per clip (and can break faster if it the hits were greater). But all that is useless if can't hit because its an arcing weapon that needs more than just pointing the reticle at the ship.

You ever wonder why the hades has obviously better hull break ability than a gatling? Because you clearly haven't considered it. And how you're asserting your point when you clearly haven't shown said consideration, makes it galling for me to read your spiel to justify your cheat tool.

I mean yeah you can use a hades to hit a squid but it won't be as reliable to hit than a gatling. But if you could. The hades would indeed break that hull faster than a gat, but thats a big gamble. Its a BIG IF.

And if there's one thing I teach and is definitely demonstrated by the countering picking fights with vets. You don't plan around ifs. Scrubs plan around ifs and they fly dumb crap like double flak.

You say the rangefinder is a tool to find range, but that's pointless. It already does that, and that's clearly not enough. Anyone could open up their map to get a reasonably accurate estimate of distance.

You say it's a tool to give people data to improve their shooting, and that's exactly what I'm suggesting it do.

You call it a "cheat tool" because it helps gunners figure out how to shoot. If we assumed that the circle thing wasn't vague and inaccurate, that's exactly what it already does. Even more because it's supposed to tell people exactly how to lead.

You think it would imbalance the game because people would suddenly start landing their shots, and that's why I suggest it act like it already does and take up a pilot slot while requiring someone to stare at the target.

But clearly I didn't consider any of that. Honestly, I don't understand the aggression. I had an idea, people countered the idea, I defended the idea. So the cycle repeats. That's how intelligent debates work. Perhaps I'm wrong, perhaps I didn't properly word my arguments.  I'm not mad people disagree with me, but it's not like I'm just going to go "oh okay this Jazzhand guy is always right about everything. glad that idea's done for." I'm gonna try and defend my idea. If I'm reading too much into things then you can forget this whole paragraph, but trying to talk down on me saying things like I "clearly haven't considered it." Sounds like I hit a nerve somewhere. Did I offend you? I do sincerely apologize if I did because that was never my intention. That's an honest apology too. I know sarcasm or lack thereof can sometimes get misconstrued over the internet, but if I did actually hit a nerve I really am sorry. Or I'm thinking too much and this paragraph is pointless.

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Feedback and Suggestions / Re: WANTED minigame remake suggestion

« on: March 03, 2016, 09:04:54 pm »

Rather than a flat number of wins system, could maybe make different players worth a different amount of points based on their mmr or their level. That way, a wanted player trying to win by stomping noobs would have to stomp way way more noobs, while someone playing against threatening opponents could catch up and pass them in no time. Basically inspired by chess mmr. You CAN play against people lower rank than you, but even if you win you'll hardly get anything for it. Whereas if you take on someone bigger than you, you get a ton of points.

28

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: Tip Box

« on: March 03, 2016, 08:38:17 pm »

Adding more actual tips into the mix would help the jokes not get old as fast. Something like 1/3 jokes, 1/3 humourously framed tips, 1/3 plain tips would be good.

I like this thought. We could maybe even dedicate a whole thread to player-suggested tips, and maybe if we pray really hard and the planets align, someone from Muse will see it and add it to their list of "things to maybe do."

29

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: Ally ship name display

« on: March 03, 2016, 08:25:48 pm »

It would be an additional change towards what is already looking like a multitude of changes being made to the game for the simple sake of dumbing it down....

Hwacha jitter reduction because people couldn't figure out how to use heavy ammo, hwacha becomes the weapon that dominates the skies because it is idiot proof.

Squid balance changes suggest Muse want to make Squid easier to pilot by turning the side gun forward, because knowing gun arcs is not idiot proof enough.

The more the list gets added to, the less appealing the game becomes to some of us who have been here for a long time.

Now I agree player retention is low but if the game continues to become idiot proof and get dumbed down, then some vets will leave and the core player base will get smaller... There would be no one to welcome the annoying lvl 1 pilots that we play with.

Oh and to reply to your heavy sarcasm, Egg you know me, and you know damn well I play with novices and pub matches a lot more than I play with other higher level pilots, I know how annoying all the situations can be, so you need not treat my point of view as if it is coming from someone who only ever looks at the end game play.

The game has a learning curve, it can seem steep at first and most vets will say it's steep, but too much "quality of life" changes (read dumbing down changes) could do more damage to the game than good.

All those things you listed are very major balance changes though. Not even close to just being "quality of life." Just adding a name to your ally's position hardly affects anything. To be honest, I agree that Muse should and probably does have much higher priorities than this, but for the sake of arguing whether or not it's a good idea to someday implement given they have free time it's hardly fair to put it in the same category as a Hwacha buff and a gun arc change.

What I mean by "quality of life" is something that doesn't affect gameplay balance at all, but makes the game feel more convenient and polished to play. Small examples would be allowing players to enter queue by pressing play just once, instead of twice. Or letting people quit the game from lobby instead of having to press several different "back" and "exit" buttons.

Imagine for a second a world where when engineering there's no indicator of the cooldown of a component. You just have to count to nine seconds to know if you can hit something with the mallet again. Definitely a bad idea to implement a cooldown indicator. People should just communicate that they've hit the engine. Noobs these days should just learn to count to nine. Obviously Muse just wants to "dumb down" the game for noobs, by adding this cooldown indicator and we're going to lose all our vets and core playerbase.

Also, whether or not you agree with the changes they make, saying they're doing it "for the simple sake of dumbing it down" is an insulting exaggeration that is undoubtedly not true. Then again, I don't work there. Maybe they have a monkey sitting at a desk that they use for testing and if the monkey goes "ooo ooo aa aa" in dissatisfaction because it can't figure the game out they decide it's time for a patch. Anyone from Muse wanna chime in on that one?

As far as losing players over this, perhaps if the balance changes previously mentioned ruin the game so badly that the apocalypse comes and guns of icarus is ruined forever I can see why people might leave it. But to leave over a small thing like "ugh I can see where my team is now" is so petty that I'll send them off with a smile and throw a party to celebrate their departure.

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Feedback and Suggestions / Re: The Everyone Think Really Hard And Make Rangefinder Useful Thread

« on: March 03, 2016, 07:12:50 pm »

I could sit here and argue opinions about the lumberjack, but I don't quite think this is the thread for that.