Atlas Howitzer: Heavy gun

[Naoura]

I can agree with progression in allowing more weapons for them to use, but with more power or different mechanics, but how will that work for the gunner himself? The captain is the one bringing along the weapons. The gunner on board the ship would have to deal with a captain's lower-level gunnery, meaning that his skill is now a moot point. I can agree with having variety in the "trees", but I don't know how you'd implement the weapons for different gunners in match.

And yeah, I thought it would make sense lore and mechanic wise, as well as physics and gameplay wise. Easier than trying to implement anything else, at least.

And apologies on that. I don't captain much, so rookie mistake.

[Richard LeMoon]

You wouldn't. Guns would be pilot's choice. Any gunner could use them. The higher tiered guns would simply be harder to pilot for, so would need a more skilled pilot. Firing them would also be harder, but not terribly so. A skilled pilot would most likely not take an Atlas for the same reason they would not take a Flak over a Hwacha for newer players. An unskilled (untested, anyways) pilot could not take an Atlas or Duel Flak at all. A high skilled gunner would not want a low skilled pilot to take more advanced guns. Seriously, when I gun, I don't want a nub to bring a flak at all. So, it would self balance.

Earning new guns (and perhaps ship mods someday) could require special challenges built off the tutorial mechanics (which are built on Alliance mechanics). You would have to fly a ship with the gun successfully, then man the gun successfully to be able to use it. I am not sure on single or multi-player.


The challenges would be hard (unlike leveling up), and guns would be a status symbol as well as a new way to play. Or it could lever the achievements in the Flak tree. Or it could do both, and unlock the Flak tree challenges after certain achievements have been met. There are a lot of options.

A good game to look at as an example of how this works is TF2. You earn new guns and items all the time, but they are generally well balanced with the rest of the existing guns. So, you can play against the newer things with just stock gear until you earn more.


This is a good way to ease people into the game, rather than just throwing 50 different guns at them and saying "Pick one."

[Naoura]

Hmmm.... not exactly sure on having it self balance. You can have someone who is a high-level gunner start piloting, and not really know how to pilot very well, despite being a higher level gunner. Despite being good at gunning, they still need experience piloting, meaning that it's going to be a relatively frustrating change from their usual tasks.

On top of that, joining players. A low level player joins mid-match and has no idea on how to make the weapon work, throwing off the good synergy the pilot and the gunner that either disconnected or left.

On top of on top of that, it would be simpler to just increase the type of ammunition types in terms of unlocks, rather than weapons. It's much simpler to lock away higher tier ammunition from lower tier players. It would make it simpler for lower levels to understand how ammunition affects different guns. Weapons would fill niche roles, while weapons add very specific buffs that they need to learn over time.

That means it would be better to add more ammo types, rather than weapon types.

I can understand weapons as a status symbol, but that starts digging into gameplay, where high-level pilots who are going into public matchs would only bring along low-level weaponry, because he isn't sure who is going to be on his ship next, while a stacked ship would usually bring along the high-skill weapons, which would be extremely powerful against low-level players, who wouldn't be able to compete as effectively.

I can kind of see how you're going for a very MMO-style leveling system, but I don't think it works well with guns. There... really isn't anything LIKE guns out there, where you are extremely dependant on your teammates, and can't really do much on your own.