Messages

31

Gameplay / Re: Is the Squid Underpowered?

« on: May 18, 2013, 10:11:10 pm »

Fire was hugely nerfed, so fire isn't good to rely on.

Explosive damage was nerfed, so you can't rely exclusively on it without sustained piercing damage; gatling needs to be on target which isn't possible, and Mercury isn't good for close range.

The Carronade... well, why not just fly a Goldfish?

The Squid's been through a lot of rough nerfs, especially the one back in beta/release that buffed all ship speeds, meaning the disparity between the Squid and other ships was reduced.

Its speed just isn't powerful enough to justify its horrible setup, firepower, and poor armor.  So, yes, I believe the Squid is underpowered.

It needs more armor than hull, so it can do hit and run.  It needs something done with its weapons; two front guns, maybe one of the guns set on the front diagonal position (the Spire treatment), or, as my friend suggested, the addition of a side Heavy weapon (though I personally don't like that suggestion too much).

It needs something.  I'm not sure what, though.

32

Gameplay / Re: pyramidions, pyramidions everywhere

« on: May 18, 2013, 09:04:19 pm »

The Pyramidion used to be an excellent, all-rounder fighter type ship.  Since its turn rate was made horrible, it's become much more balanced.  But yes, it's still an all-rounder.  It has drawbacks now.

I'd personally like to see a hull nerf; it definitely needs its current armor.  But otherwise, as others have explained, it's not overpowered.  It's just common.

Nerfing the turn speed a little and buffing its engine power would further specialize it as a ramming ship, but beyond that, any adjustments seem unnecessary.  Just let it sit, there are better ways to change the metagame than nerfs and buffs, in this case.

33

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

« on: May 14, 2013, 03:53:17 pm »

I get where you are trying to go with this, but I can't wrap my head around them patching it half way to see what happens. It comes off as a nerf.

I never said it wasn't a nerf. Really, it's a nerf by any other name; just one that- I think- opens the floor for future improvements in the process.

It's a nerf that makes way for future buffs.  How it should be buffed, exactly, must still be determined.

I like the change to carronades.  It's definitely a step in the right direction.  I'm not sure how else it can be buffed, though, other than possibly tightening the spread or something.

34

Gameplay / Re: Suicide - risk/reward option or cheap tactic?

« on: May 14, 2013, 03:51:39 pm »

And it take away the whole poin of PERMAhull.

This is pretty much the most relevant and compelling argument against this tactic.  This completely bypasses a mechanic (permahull) in a way that confers an advantage (gives no kill points to the enemy).  Just because this exploit has a potential risk to it, doesn't change the fact it's an exploit; an unintentional use of the system that results in an undesireable gameplay mechanic (suiciding).

This is easy to fix.  Suicides reward the enemy a kill point.  That's all.  Really, this should be the case already.

35

Gameplay / Re: I want the facts! everything stats

« on: May 14, 2013, 03:46:22 pm »

Gotta say, this is something I've been meaning to post about for a while.

However, tragically, awkm's philosophy towards balance seems to oppose the divulging of hard numbers, as he believes doing so would shape the meta and thus "ruin the experience."  But given data miners like ourselves are a rare kind (even compared to the forum population) I just don't see much credence in that.  I know I have never seen a game's metagame be ruined by knowledge being spread.

Hopefully he'll reconsider that stance, and offer us a more comprehensive, complete spreadsheet of data that tells us all the relevant values, including rate of fire (which is one of the values we don't have at all).

36

Gameplay / Re: Banshee

« on: May 13, 2013, 07:55:35 pm »

It's got a good range, good accuracy, great turning arc, good turn speed, a chance to start fires (making it a hybrid utility/lethal weapon) and a good synergy with ammo types.  However, it deals pitiful DPS.

I feel if its DPS was bumped up, and given a ballistic arc so it's harder to use, it'd be a much more competent weapon.  Right now, I enjoy putting it on the front of my Junker to be used at any range in a trifecta.

37

Gameplay / Re: Heavy piercing weapon

« on: May 13, 2013, 07:43:01 pm »

Actually, I'd like to see a Heavy Autocannon that deals Direct Piercing and AoE Explosive.

What would make it balanced?  Well, mid-range, hard to use, and it'd deal Light Weapon-levels of DPS.  But it'd essentially be an all-in-one weapon.

It'd be kinda useful with other explosive weapons, and kinda useful with other piercing weapons.  The trick would be making it fun to play with; it could be balanced number wise (just a matter of tweaking) but it'd need to be made interesting somehow.

38

Gameplay / Re: Artemis Rocket Launcher

« on: May 10, 2013, 03:06:52 pm »

While I agree with you Hamster that the squid really benefits from a wide turning arc gun, I personally believe it really aught to be a close range weapon; that and the old arc of the Artemis is still quite large and more than capable of making the squid bifecta.

If it's going to be a close range weapon, then it needs its maximum range to be reduced, possibly with the addition of a heavy arc.  It's inherently problematic to allow a disabling weapon to be good at extreme range and close range simultaneously, because there's no counterplay against the weapon.  It's why Heavy Flaks were a problem, and why they're not anymore.

I don't want them to necessarily receive an Arming Time, but they just don't need a wide arc to do what they do, so that needs to be nerfed.

It doesn't help that the AoE is so large.  It doesn't take a lot of skill to make use of, this is another good avenue of approach when dealing with the weapon.

I think that the main reason that many people consider the Artemis OP now is how it's relatively easy to cripple all of a ship's components and KEEP them crippled. I don't see anything wrong with it being useful for precisely disabling components, but it's not much fun when you can keep everything disabled indefinitely. Basically, it should keep its ability to snipe components in the hands of a skilled gunner, but it shouldn't be able to permanently cripple them.

I think the best way to balance Artemis is to drastically increase its reload time. I'd also like to see its damage lowered a bit and its magazine increased by 1 - 3 shots. Basically let it do the same damage per magazine (or perhaps a little less), but over a longer period of time. It would give the enemy crew a little bit of time to react to the incoming damage. It would still be useful for sniping components, but not be overwhelming. It would also make it harder to kill a target with pure artemis launchers.

I think I'd rather see a slight damage decrease instead of a reload increase.  The latter would push it more towards the Field Gun and that's something we ought to avoid.  We could nerf its DPS by reducing its damage (this would also have the effect of requiring multiple hits on a component, thus further increasing the skill requirement).

Disabling weapons should have burst disable potential, or good sustained disabling.  Not both.

39

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

« on: May 10, 2013, 02:59:31 pm »

I can confirm that the Lumberjack's configured muzzle speed has not changed.  It's possible you've found a bug, though I'm at a loss as to how it would affect only that gun.

http://gunsoficarus.com/community/blog/1-1-4-balance-hot-fix/

This was the last change to the Lumberjack.

Due to my laziness I did not read the rest of this thread, but I wanted to put my thoughts on the Artemis on here. I was just looking at the gun chart on the website and was surprised to see that the Explosive damage had been bumped up to 60 (from 20) and that the AOE had been bumped up to 5 (from 3 I believe). The Artemis before this patch was a very good gun, it just didn't have something special that made it amazing. You guys added it this patch, but went overboard with the stats. The new turn radius is amazing, I love it! But honestly, the extra explosive damage and AOE is kinda over doing it. Perhaps giving an extra second to the reload will help as well. I am sure this has been discussed thoroughly but I wanted to add my voice in to make sure the turn radius isn't changed.

I'm almost certain the Artemis' Explosive damage was always 60, and never as low as 20.  The AoE has also always been that good; the only recent changes were small, mostly meaningless buffs to its turn speed and arc, as well as a buff to its projectile speed making it easier to land.  Buffs, no matter how slight, will always get people experimenting, and making it easier to use will make more people use it.  Hence, we get the Artemis to be a common weapon.

The biggest thing I want to re-iterate is that the Artemis is a long range disabling weapon.  In order to fill that role, it does not need a good turning arc or speed.  That's why those should be nerfed, because it gives usefulness it doesn't deserve.  This is why the Field Gun's damage output was never nerfed much, and instead got its turning arc nerfed heavily; to push it into the role it should've been in, and to make sure it could still fill that role.  The Artemis does need an AoE reduction, I feel, but other than that its utility should be nerfed before its primary role is.

40

Gameplay / Concept: Linear AoE Damage falloff

« on: May 09, 2013, 01:13:12 am »

As I understand it, AoE damage is a very binary affair.  You make an impact, a radius is formed around that impact, anything within that radius gets the AoE damage.  I feel this is problematic for a few reasons; weapons are either too powerful because of their AoE, or too weak because their huge AoE demands a weaker weapon.  While balance can ultimately be achieved even with this behavior, I feel we can do better.

Instead of this, damage could taper off depending on how distant the point is from the impact.  So if you have 100 AoE damage, and an AoE of 10, something that's hit at 9 units from the AoE would take, say, 10 damage (10% at 10%, a completely linear formula).

This would also have the effect of indirectly nerfing ships that have close weapons (see: the Junker) as their components are now easier to disable with AoE compared to other ships.

AoEs could be made bigger to compensate for this, but the biggest thing this does is makes AoE weapons harder to use.  It is now demanded that you make an optimal shot if you want to damage multiple components.  If you want to disable one component, you're going to lose out on damage to other things.  This adds choice, which in turn adds depth.

And I think adding choices is always healthy for a game.  What do you think?

41

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

« on: May 09, 2013, 01:02:39 am »

Anyway, the people mentioning how the Heavy Flak is useless at close range are tragically incorrect.  Is it essentially a 50% decrease in DPS?  Yes.  It's only 50%.  It's still huge, and you have a much better hit rate.  Even with a Field Gun, you'll be able to do competent damage unless your piloting is off.

Phoenix Claw is vital here to keep your turn speed up.  If they try to circle, you can reverse rotation and bring your right side to bear, which should usually consist of close range weaponry; a carronade and a hwacha is an excellent combination, and makes you no slouch in close range scraps.

Let's not forget the Galleon is ridiculously hard to kill.  Provided sufficient engineering, you will stay in the air for a long time unless you're getting hit by three or more ships, or one of the two ships is a dual flak Galleon at range.  When you're being piled on by enemies, your teammate has a great opportunity to get in and fight for free.  One ship is seldom enough to kill a Galleon unless it's another Galleon with superior gunnery.

I feel heavy weapon balance (and thus, Galleon balance) is decent, because you have tradeoffs to make.  Dual heavy flak gives you the best explosive DPS in the game, but makes you sub-optimal close.  Putting a hwacha or carronade makes you sub-optimal at long range, but gives you versatility.  Doing all close range (carronades and hwachas) is difficult to pull off given your poor maneuverability.  And Lumberjacks... are just too weak to use on anything.   

42

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

« on: May 08, 2013, 08:09:57 pm »

Heck I had a Hwachafish park on our left, and we had double Hwachas but it turned out to be a ridiculously drawn out, disable-counter disable trade for 10 min straight until his ally showed up and killed us.

Hey. What did I just say? I've been playing since beta and 90% of the time I fly a Galleon. I put my long range on the left side, and usually I'm hardly moving at all. I KNOW HOW TO FLY.

 

43

Gameplay / Re: Artemis Rocket Launcher

« on: May 08, 2013, 07:58:46 pm »

Let's hang on here Nikolailev, doing all of those nerfs at the same time is a bad idea. I don't know if you've had the "Pleasure" of playing EA or SOE games but one of their biggest issues is TERRIBLE balance, because the buff underpowered things by a ridiculous amount then nerf overpowered things by a ridiculous amount. Basically what was OP last week becomes a completely useless and pointless build. (examples available upon request) Now reducing the arc OR slowing down it's rotation OR reducing its AOE are all good idea's but implement them one at a time and give it a week to see if it is a good balance. I mean all they did to make it suddenly viable was boost it's projectile speed, add some zoom, and make it have a slightly bigger arc.

I guess my point is this, they made 3 changes to make the artemis viable lets not do 3 changes and send it back into obscurity. Honestly as it is now it's still a debate for me to take the Artemis to keep myself safe or a flak cannon to get kills. It really depends on the reliability of my other captains and my current crew.

Your principle is completely sound.  However, it's just a matter of tweaking the nerfs so that it isn't too drastic.  Reducing the firing arc by 20 degrees (major) and reducing the AoE by 1 (to 4, minor) wouldn't throw it off by much.  And remember, it still retains its huge damage output, range, and accuracy.  It wouldn't be a huge nerf.

It's also not a nerf to the weapon's primary role.  It should be a good disabling weapon at range.  These nerfs are geared at nerfing the secondary role it shouldn't have; close-in disabling.  The awesome firing arc, turn speed and AoE make it good at that, and that's why it's overpowered.  The Artemis should be weak at close range, but excellent afar.

I'm really not sure why it was an obscure weapon a few patches ago, because it was still awesome.  I suspect it was a case of the metagame, because no one knew how good it was.  I know I made use of it to good effect back then (even before the buffs it likely didn't need).  Now that people are beginning to realize how great shatter is (again) it's becoming more and more common.

44

Gameplay / Re: Echidna vs. Scylla

« on: May 06, 2013, 03:12:40 pm »

And Queso, the carousel is definitely useless now. The Artemis is just so, so much better at disabling.

The Carousel was never meant to disable via traditional means.  It has no Shatter.  Although it does cause fires.

The Carousel is a hybrid weapon in all respects.  It's got a long range yet a wide firing arc, so it's good at all ranges.  It deals Explosive DPS with an inherent Incendiary chance, so it's a hybrid lethal+utility weapon.  The problem being, it's not good enough at either role to be worth choosing, you might as well specialize or just throw on an Artemis which deals healthy explosive DPS anyways.

Also, the website claims the Rocket Carousel has an AoE Radius of 14.  Yet recent patch notes claim the AoE was reduced "to 3 from 8."  What's the actual AoE?

And a general question: do Incendiary rounds apply a chance to start a fire on direct damage only, or both AoE and direct?  The latter would imply the possibility of a maximum of two charges per shot if both damage types procced the 10%.

45

Gameplay / Re: Artemis Rocket Launcher

« on: May 06, 2013, 03:09:16 pm »

I must insist that the best way to nerf the Artemis is first to reduce its firing arc.  It's a long range disabling weapon; everyone agrees on that, so that's what it should be good at.  It doesn't need to have a good firing arc to be good at long range, but it has it anyway, which makes it too useful at close range.  Give it the Field Gun treatment and nerf down its arc and rotation speed.

Reducing AoE would mandate the use of burst rounds to get the most out of its large shatter DPS, and increase the skill required to make the best use of it.

Making these changes should put the Artemis in line with other weapons.