Messages

16

General Discussion / Re: Ship Scrambling and Other Upcoming Features

« on: November 17, 2013, 02:20:28 pm »

we hear complaints day in and day out about stacked lobbies … nine times out of ten they don't log back into guns. (something we can and do look at)

I've purchased GoIO for about 10-15 people. Real friends and old Cohort members. Good people, all. The VAST majority (honestly, every person, now that I think about it),  joined up with us, played for an evening or two, then never logged back in. They simply didn't like the game. At all. Slow, boring, shallow. I don't agree, but I can see where they're coming from. This just isn't a game that everyone is going to love.  It’s just the subset “Wow this game sucks it isnt fair its stacked and sucks im quitting forever and theres no boarding” is more vocal than the “eh, cool game, but not for me. Peace out.”  set. Correlation does not imply causation.

Perhaps your game isn't the wide-spread attention grabber you seem to think it is. It's a niche game. Bringing  friends, Cohort members, and people from other games into GoIO is damn near impossible for a reason. The overwhelming majority of people who try this game are not willing to stick with it under any circumstances. I've only had luck recruiting for GoIO from GoIO; new players who have already played and enjoy the game, and have already decided to stick with it for whatever reason before I came in contact with them. Everyone else quits. Stacked matches have nothing to do with it.

That's the reason we want to make this a high priority because keeping organized groups happy is a prime goal,

How? If you are actually trying, you’re failing with me, ~90% of my group, and some other groups I've talked to. I can think of nothing that was added with the primary effect of benefiting established teams.
The proposed clan system was something I was happy about. When it came out, it was simply 4 bracketed characters. I was not happy. The proposed 'competitive scene' was something I was happy about. But, seriously, it's just a non-integrated non-interactive webpage. Almost all competition is still restricted to weekends between 1-5PM. There is still NO competitive scene at 10:00PM weekdays. This is why I play pub games. You give me no option. Finding other clans to fly against is, quite honestly, a major pain. See above about useless clan 'system'.
If organized teams are a priority, the issue shouldn't be "What can we do to force organized teams to not be organized?" but "What can we do to make sure organized teams will be able to find a good opponent?" Finding an answer to either would solve your pub stomping problem, but only the second is going to make me happy. You've chosen to focus on the first. This makes me very, very unhappy.

I've been waiting with baited breath for months for something to help organized groups, and I've seen nothing usable.

making sure newbies have a chance to taste that victory or play with the great players is also important to us so they'll stick around, join and create clans, and allow more to happen.

I'm all for helping new players learn, get better, and win. But if the newbies get to 'taste victory' exclusively because you're gimping organization and competition, how does that victory taste? If this game isn’t supposed to be team-oriented and competitive, I’ve made a huge mistake, and should probably just shut up now, and move on to something else.

You can post "But it is team oriented!" all day, but with each update I'm starting to think this is geared to be a casual pick-up game only. Recent ship and weapon balance, and now scramble, strongly support my hypothesis. I'm not interested in this being a casual noncompetitive game.

Let's test organized teams being scrambled over and tell us how it feels playing with a new ship on your side ... having the option turn into a requirement or vice versa will cause more issues and uproar in game than in the dev app.

This requirement/option mentality is the main problem I have with your method of "balancing". You always seem to lean towards required. Guns balance, for example. You decided one setup is being used too often or efficiently, so rather than tweak things so there are more viable options, you gimp the setup into the ground so people are required to use a new setup. As it’s suggested, rather than give options to find suitable competition, you’re requiring us to play non-organized teams. This sucks.

Why do you even bother posting on the forums if the stance is "I can see the majority want it to be an option, but still lets try it our way! I got a really good feeling about our way!" I see the same call-for-response then dismissal in the gun balance threads. "Just try it our way! We got a good feeling about this!" I'm all for you developing the game the way you see fit, but please don't ask for our opinions if you don't actually want them. It just makes people upset. Obviously, myself included.


In short... I am capable of putting together an awesome team. The mechanics of the game and makeup of the playerbase do not allow me to find suitable competition 99% of the time. Where does the problem lie; In the awesome team, or the incapable game? Why are you just trying to break up the team rather than do anything to actually fix the game?
Supporting the idea that organized play is the same as poor sportsmanship and somehow ruining the game is a terrible idea in my opinion. I’m incredibly surprised that this is now MUSE’s official stance. It will most likely end up being the death of this game for me. Organization and tough competition absolutely must be the ultimate goal, not prevented at all costs through game mechanics.

Tl;dr Not happy.

What's in a name? ...changing the name might at least foster a more neutral debate.

I'm entirely done being neutral. Breaking up teams is breaking up teams. It goes against everything that I have ever defended about the 'true nature' of this game. How does the saying go? If it walks like a duck...

17

General Discussion / Re: Ship Scrambling and Other Upcoming Features

« on: November 16, 2013, 04:52:23 pm »

You are introducing systems to deter organized teams, rather than to promote them. This is against what I believed was the nature of the game. Organized teams, not just individual ships, should be the goal. Rather, it appears to me that MUSE is treating it as a situation that needs to be resolved. I do not agree with this at all.

I want the challenge of this game to come from the enemy team's skill, not any imposed limitations. It seems like most of the changes I have witnessed are geared more towards making it difficult for higher level more organized players. A better response, in my opinion, would be to make it easier for new players to reach a higher organizational level. It seemed like you were working towards that with the clan system, crew formation, and party system. However, in their current state, most of those features are nearly useless or totally ignoreable. I wish those systems could be further developed and integrated, rather than this new trend of catering the game to less organized play.

18

General Discussion / Re: Ship Scrambling and Other Upcoming Features

« on: November 16, 2013, 12:17:53 pm »

Has censorship seriously reached the level where I can't say that I disagree with MUSE without getting a 'be civil' warning from a mod? There was no profanity, 'trolling' or harassment in my post. It was not ranting, out of line, or off topic. Nothing to warrant even a casual warning.

This "moderate/lock/delete if you disagree" mentality is very bad for the community in my opinion.  Censorship is always bad.

19

General Discussion / Re: Ship Scrambling and Other Upcoming Features

« on: November 16, 2013, 11:38:48 am »

Hi everyone, thanks for the feedback! 
Ok, here are some questions for you guys: 
1.  If a well organized, or "stacked," team moves and create another lobby, would you consider that to be a form of match balance itself?  Why or why not?  And what do you guys think would be the result of a stacked team leaving a match to create or join another? 
2.  If we do create another type of match called "Competitive" in addition to Novice and regular, how should we definite the level criteria for entry or qualification into that match? 
3.  If we make Scramble an option for match creator, what type(s) of players do you think would create scrambled matches?

1. If an actual team (read: organized) is forced to leave their lobby every 5 games due to a game 'mechanic' it's not balanced. Its punishing the team that wants to play together. I don't see how this could be beneficial at all. New lobby, same team. How is this better than when an unorganized team filters out of a 'stacked' lobby now? Just more waiting for the actual team.
2. No level restriction on "competitive" lobbies. "Competitive" lobbies should have Scramble disabled. And make it PAINFULLY OBVIOUS that it' a competitive game. And non-default. That's all. The 'stacking' teams will handle the rest.
3. Casual players who are still learning the game, or don't just give half a crap about teamwork or actually learning will create scrambled matches. Let them play together.


Now, I'm going break the usual brown-nosing streak that goes along with every time a dev posts. If you're easily flustered, I recommend you stop reading now.

I am really starting to question the direction MUSE is taking the development of this game. Not content with constantly and drastically changing the weapons and tools in the name of 'balance', they have now decided to attempt 'balancing' the actual composure of teams. MUSE needs to decide what type of product they intend to produce, and then make THAT game.

Trying to please every single user who makes a post was probably awesome a year ago, when the community was only 100s of players, and all on the same basic level of experience. If this game is going to continue to grow, this practice will go from being exceedingly difficult to actually detrimental to the development of the game.  Stop worrying about CONSTANT balance fixes. If their game is good, we'll play it. If it isn't, MUSE/GoIO doesn't deserve our time.

'Balancing' every single aspect the game for the sake of saying "Look its ALL balanced!" and catering to people who refuse to tolerate a learning curve makes no sense to me. If someone wants this game to absolutely hold their hand, and make every single match a 100% statistically 'balanced' and 'even', what is the point? Why are we playing? Why not create a virtual 16 player coin-flip simulator with steampunk hats?

Learning curves come with a benefit and pay off. This games learning curve isn't tough, but rather just unconventional. It requires you to form teams/clans. How many pub groups are there in tournament play? None. Hell, its usually directly stated in the rules. Establish a team, enter the team into the tournament. This is because in order to reach the potential of any ship, you NEED an organized team.

I am bewildered as to why consensus has seemingly been reached that organized teams need to be 'dealt with'. To me, this is saying 'Play this game, and get good - but not too good - or else!' or is evidence that the clan aspect of game play is being completely overlooked by MUSE as an actual asset of game play. It is an asset. It's the only reason I play this game anymore.

Don't get me wrong; Helping new players is wonderful! Give them tutorials, give them novice matches, give them CAs, mentors, training days, user-guides, youtube video tips, etc. Hell yes. Once an individual has utilized all these things, the only thing that stands between them and victory is their team mates and opponents.

But why don't we give them an easy and intuitive way to JOIN a group? Instead, it seems everyone (apparently MUSE very much included) are rallying against people who have taken the time and effort (and it takes LOTS) to form very effective groups in the absence of such a system. If EVERYONE had a group/team/clan, wouldn't the issue of 'stacked' go out the window? Wouldn't that make the people who are on these 'stacked' teams happy as well, as they get to face better competition? Why is this not an option? Help new players, help established teams, help the community, no one gets 'punished'. Well, except the people who flat refuse to play as a team rather than an individual, but I don't think we should encourage that mind-frame of play anyway.

If I'm completely in the wrong about balance-obsession and it truly is the only way for this game to progress, I've noticed something that should take 100% of our attention. Through extensive data analysis and spectating, I've found irrefutable empirical evidence that crew load outs aren't even remotely balanced. 99% of ships have at least one engineer with a Mallet/Spanner combo. It's clearly OP. A ship with a Mallet/Spanner engineer is able to repair their parts much too quickly. It's not fun for new players. This lack of balance is clearly breaking the game.

20

Gameplay / Re: 1.3.3 GUNS AND GUNNER SKILL BALANCE

« on: October 31, 2013, 11:51:20 am »

I'm sorry for contributing to this problem with a single line at the bottom of a 7 paragraph post directly about gun/ship experience/balance but... what I believe to be a reasonable request for available information has been made. MUSE can respond to it or ignore it. This is not the place to argue about QA teams.


This is a gun/ship balance thread. Lets make a new thread if we really need to continue this discussion.

21

Gameplay / Re: 1.3.3 GUNS AND GUNNER SKILL BALANCE

« on: October 31, 2013, 11:36:25 am »

Current stats really has no bearing on finding out potential bugs/problems with new changes. All it would accomplish is more complaining and/or arguing about what to change.

This is a balance thread, not a bug thread.

If the goal is to balance the distribution of weapon and ship usage, I really can't see any way this information wouldn't help us. awkm himself said we ARE the QA team. If we're talking a huge AAA budget studio, if the professional QA team went to the project head and asked for usage stats do you think they would be told 'Nah, you don't need those, get back to work'.

22

Gameplay / Re: 1.3.3 GUNS AND GUNNER SKILL BALANCE

« on: October 31, 2013, 11:26:45 am »

Played as a Junker last night. Artemis Front, and both right side slots. Gat mortar left side.

Problem is, there was absolutely 0 reason for me to go in and use my close range side. Every time I tried it, I found it too 'sloppy'. There is no good way to hold yourselves within ~450m of an enemy for the  ~20-30sec it takes to strip armor now. So any time an enemy would engage, I would simply back out and snipe. Played the entire match in reverse. Actually found the Artemis to be a better weapon as we escaped from  the closer encounters.

To me that's a problem. If my ship has a mid/long range side, and a close range side, the benefit of getting in close to use the close range side should be a quicker kill, correct? It's not there. No reason whatsoever to try and use actual piloting skill to 'get in there' and get a kill. Just sit back and snipe snipe snipe.

The way the expanding hit boxes on shots appear to work, combined with new gun hit boxes, the amount of disabling was too damn high. 2-4 components per clip of greased artemis. It was nearly as effective as the time Artemis got 'buffed' for 5 days.

Finally CA THomas jumped in on the other side and gave us a good run for our money on a gat/mortar/flame (?) pyramidion. Problem is, I seriously don't think his WEAPONS took down our armor. There was not a single time where our armor dropped and I felt like it was due exclusively to his shooting. Not once.

What did? Ramming. Constant ramming. Ramming from the pyramidion, and ramming from his junker ally. The match before that, I witnessed a goldfish ramming, excessively. I've seen galleon rams being used extensively too. Without a clear way to take down the hull armor at a close range, it appears ramming randomly is now the best option. I thought constant ramming was a bad thing, bad enough to take down a huge chunk of Pyra health and mass last patch?

And as far as making engagements last longer, and giving the defeated a sense of 'deserving' to have died; nope. First few matches last night I took Sniper Spire. 1 clip of merc, 2 clips of artemis, 1 clip of heavy flak, all at the same time, the enemy is down. They don't know what happened, and they never had a chance to react. This is of course, assuming the same level of competition where players used to be able to strip armor and health with 1 pass of gat/mortar. Same problem, different range.

These are all problems with what awkm said the aim of balance is, in my opinion. There was no requirement of ship positioning, no teamwork, no defined roles of long/medium/short. Just snipe sniper snipe, get engaged close quarters-nothing happens, snipe snipe snipe, get rammed.
========

They're recorded, but afaik, never released because that sort of stuff really doesn't have anything to do with us.

We're the QA team. It does have to do with us. We need all the information possible to help make informed decisions.

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Gameplay / Re: 1.3.3 GUNS AND GUNNER SKILL BALANCE

« on: October 30, 2013, 12:24:59 pm »

awkm,

I might not always agree with your decisions, but I greatly appreciate the direct response to my rather long-winded questions.

Thank you.


To anyone who doesn't understand why COx/WOLF/Duck is so extremely upset; basically every patch that has come out (i've only been here since 1.1) has nerfed our prefered and practiced playstyle. It gets to the point where it's just incredibly frustrating having to tweak and relearn the same tactics over and over because they weren't 'balanced'. I'd much rather have to learn to counter NEW guns/ships/ways to play, still using my brawling setups.
If you're just picking guns and ships to 'have fun', or intentionally picking setups outside the 'meta', you're not going to mind any of the changes. Hell, they're great for you. But if you're legitimately trying to destroy the competition EVERY MATCH, and your preferred play-style has ALWAYS been close-range brawler, its hard not to take it personally, even if it isn't meant that way.

And, to echo awkm;

SIGN UP FOR DEVAPP. Lets have our heated discussions in the DEVAPP forums, where people who aren't as invested in this game won't be there to shoot non-contributing reaction memes at us, or take jabs at our overly passionate perspective.

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General Discussion / Re: A question about adventure mode

« on: October 30, 2013, 12:05:24 pm »

This is just speculation BTW.

As far as I'm aware, your speculation is dead on.

No matter how many DLCs stand between us and 'full' Adventure Mode, you'll get them all if you KickStartered AM (at the proper tiers) or buy the "season pass". So far we're getting at least 2 DLCs, with the PvE mode that's coming out next year as the first, and then "Adventure Mode".

There are no plans for a subscription model and the game will never be pay-to-win.

25

The Lounge / Re: Good Beers

« on: October 30, 2013, 11:41:41 am »

I was actually talkin' 'bout this:



I've never heard of putting a chunk of pumpkin in beer...

I like to have a few pumpkin beers during the season. My main problem is the fact that they release them so damn early. I want one NOW, but I can only find Christmas Ales...

Surette's pumpkin beer choices are good. Southern Tier's Pumking is excellent bottled, and amazing on tap. I had come across an "old batch" of Chatoe Rogue's First Growth Pumpkin Patch. It was supposedly a year old, so it only cost ~$4 for a 750ml bottle, instead of like $10. It was far better than the "fresh" batch. I really regret not picking up an entire case, cause I could be enjoying one now

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Gameplay / Re: 1.3.3 GUNS AND GUNNER SKILL BALANCE

« on: October 29, 2013, 08:15:36 pm »

I have some questions, and I'm really curious for serious answers. I can't give input on weapon balance if I don't understand what balanced means. I'd really like to clear up any misunderstandings so I can take a fresh look at this patch.

How are we supposed to be playing the game?
The argument is that gat/mortar was too powerful, and too quick. Exactly how long is a kill supposed to take? How long is an engagement supposed to last? How long is a match supposed to last?

The argument is that the gat/mortar was over used. What is the desired distribution of weapon usage? What about ship usage? How often am I supposed to switch my weapon loadouts?

Have I been playing the game the wrong way for the last six months?
I've been attempting to find the best, most efficient weapon combinations for each ship to get the quickest and most reliable kill. I look at what the most accurate weapons are at reasonable ranges, and what setups maximize the damage.

I've then been practicing those loadouts to make them as efficient as possible. Timing the gat fire so that exactly as the final bullet takes down the hull, the clip is getting reloaded. When that gat bullet connects with the armor, the majority of the mortar clip is already in the air.

Am I playing this game wrong? What am I supposed to be getting better at, if not quick, reliable kills?

What is the perfect balance we're aiming for?
Matches where no matter what combination of ships, weapons, and crew load outs, the matches always last 40 minutes, and always end 4-5?

We're supposedly balancing for new players to feel comfortable, and this is possibly at the expense of the highly competitive scene. What are new players supposed to aspire towards? What do they do when they are no longer new? Competitive matches that are admittedly not the focus of balance?

Where do I go from here?
Am I just supposed to shut up, learn and practice a 'new meta', which will then be labeled unbalanced, and subsequently nerfed? Thats how it's been the entire time I've been playing.

Or am I supposed to start picking guns and ships completely at random and having a silly, 'balanced' time? That's not what I had in mind.

It's hard for me to be objective about weapon balance if the game I'm attempting to play is vastly different from what developers intended.

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The Lounge / Re: Good Beers

« on: October 29, 2013, 12:38:52 pm »

If you are encouraged to add any kind of fruit to a beer, it's not a good beer.

28

Gameplay / Re: 1.3.3 ENGINEER AND REPAIR TOOL BALANCE

« on: October 29, 2013, 12:26:45 pm »

The main problem I have with the chem spray is the fact that it gets 0 cooldown if the part is fully repaired and not on fire, but the full cooldown if the part has even slight damage but still isn't on fire yet. Same with the extinguisher, but it's not supposed to be used BEFORE getting set on fire, so it's not a big deal.

You can't be coming close to an enemy ship that has a flamethrower, and suddenly decide you're gonna spray the entire ship real quick. If there's any sort of damage on and being done to the hull, that cooldown can be deadly. Same if the captain is using an engine damaging tool to get close to the flame ship. Spraying the engines means you've got that cooldown before they can get repaired again, and with moonshine on, thats a big deal.

Is it at all possible to make chem spray only initiate a cooldown if it's actively putting out fire? That would simplify the use of the tool down from "Pre-spray a part if you think you're going to be engaging an enemy that has fire weapons within the next 20 seconds and the part in question is  not going to be taking damage over the next 6 seconds or is currently entirely repaired" to "pre-spray a part if you think it's gonna get set on fire soon". I might like it then.

29

The Lounge / Re: Good Beers

« on: October 29, 2013, 12:13:52 pm »

Yup Blue Moon's Harvest Pumpkin isn't bad. It's actually owned by MillerCoors.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Moon_(beer)

This is why I hate Blue Moon. It would be a very good alternative to entirely-crap-beers if it didn't cost about as much for a 6-pack as a real craft brew. The fact is, it's just more Coor's swill, and not worth the price.

30

Gameplay / Re: 1.3.3 GUNS AND GUNNER SKILL BALANCE

« on: October 29, 2013, 10:43:34 am »

This is a question for people in the competitive scene.

How do you propose to balance it so that brawling with gat/mort becomes viable once again among the upper tier teams, but not have it dominate the pub scene for the lower to mid tier teams?

20 bucks says the response could be condensed into "Doesn't matter because they don't know how to play."

How about neither the competitive nor the new/casual players attack the other side?

This thread should be used for discussion on balance and the changes to the guns. Thats it. Not for a debate of "New players are terrible"/"Experienced players are mean". Please don't troll, or try to 'start something'. Tensions are high enough already.

Thanks buddy!