1.3.3 GUNS AND GUNNER SKILL BALANCE

[-Mad Maverick-]

I'm also getting kinda tired of people whining how carronades/gat+mort is sooooo super op and then bitching about them getting a nerf.

never in my life have i whined that gat mort was op

[-Mad Maverick-]

o also the vlog was really well done great job squash and team!

[The Djinn]

I'm also getting kinda tired of people whining how carronades/gat+mort is sooooo super op and then bitching about them getting a nerf.

We aren't, really. We're discussing the ramifications of several rather large changes in combination, and whether or not we think the combination of those changes leaves the weapons in a good place.

[Spud Nick]

-We now have a short, medium and long range option for the famous piercing/explosive combo.
-Disable builds can compete with brawlers even better now.
-You can quad gun a spire.
-We have cakes on our ships
 
Looks like a great patch!

[-Mad Maverick-]

-We now have a short, medium and long range option for the famous piercing/explosive combo.
-Disable builds can compete with brawlers even better now.
-You can quad gun a spire.
-We have cakes on our ships
 
Looks like a great patch!

the long range combo had always been fine in no need of buff but got one anyways.

mid range already had gat mortar, gat flak, merc flak, and hades flak.

short range which has plenty of built in drawbacks (like having to get in close in order to even hit, being easily disabled on the way into range) was nerfed for a second time in a row...

in short terrible patch

[dragonmere]

It has always been very hard to get in on a good sniper ship. Good gunners on long range weapons have always been extremely hard to counter. Now we need to get within 450m to do any damage whatsoever without a sniper build? That makes the approach a whole lot more difficult. It could quite literally be impossible against an extremely good enemy team. All sniper weapons now gain hitbox as they get further out? That lowers the threshold of skill on a sniper ship. A mediocre merc gunner now has the potential to be extremely successful. This means there are more 'good' sniper ships. More good sniper ships, which were hard enough to counter before patch, that are even harder to engage than they were before the patch.

I totally understand the desire to balance the game more towards the new players. I get it. There's not that many excellent sniping ships in matches with new or uncoordinated players. This patch doesn't really seem like a big deal for the pub matches. But we now have a trump card. The best counter to a good sniper has always been a better sniper, but now it looks like it's not the best counter - it's the only one.

I understand that the hades is supposed to be the new mid-range brawler setup. It's too awkward to consistently be a viable armor stripper. If you have a gunner good enough to hit more than 80% of your hades shots, you might as well be using that gunner on a lumberjack.

It just looks like with a good enough gunner setup on a sniper ship, you have a true trump card. There is no counter. It's not balanced.

[Letus]

The increasing projectile size seems interesting, and viable actually.  Granted you may consider a sniper ship to counter a sniper ship, but you don't need people who have been playing for a year to hit what you want over and over to keep your enemy sniper ship's main gun down.

Hades is still decent...didn't really see a boost or not, but I'm guess I'm too busy keeping my shots on one spot (the hull) than bothering to see what damage I'm doing.  So far, been realizing that...it does its job.

I have noticed that the Lumberjack's sight has been flipped...again.  Instead of the red line being at top, and with the 1 below it, there is no mark at top, and the 2 is the first number on the drop.  Was that intentional?  (It doesn't change anything to balance or anything else, it was just...a rather confusing thing to see for a moment.)


As for argument on the sake of all these changes with guns that have been buffed and nerfed repeatedly:  We're in a dynamic world were innovation is a necessity and factions are trying to out power each other, let alone pirates flying about.  Things will get buffed, pirates steal the plans, and distribute it across the world, but to keep such guns at such a level takes resources, and once the resources get depleted...well then the gun can't be the same as it was....

[Doc Jones]

I must be missing something.

I haven't played nearly as long as others, but I find myself quite a competent gunner.  My experience boils down to:
First started playing before the 1.3.2 patch and found I could hammer away at very long range, completely concealed targets, and the mortar allowed me to do so with impunity requiring no spotting to keep the target 'marked' with hits.  This felt too easy.
 
Come 1.3.2 long range wasn't as viable but close range became a no brainer against anything other than a Pyra head on, and if it was a Pyra, it was a matter of who saw who first.  I never lost a match on mortar...kinda took any tension away.  I started jumping on in-progress games to help crew-less ships...often the receiving end of a mortar Pyra. 

So I have no real sympathy for mortar nerfs,  I've found the risk/skill -> reward to be very skewed. 

A little bit in 1.3.3. I find I have to think a little more with the mortar.  However, I have been at the receiving end of a sniper team, and can sympathize a bit... but here's my problem.

I feel I have a respectable record, and they have been with pilot ranks all over the map.  And I have to say my record is far better with 1-3 ranked pilots that worked to keep targets in the cone of fire and coordinated with their teammate(s) than with lvl 10+ that have strict loadouts and try to duke it out in a slow furball.

The last straw for me was a pilot who wanted me to bring Inc ammo instead of my loadout and had me keep it loaded...  meanwhile he charged in and with the ramming and over shooting I got maybe 5 or 6 shots before the target was either out of range or out of arc.  When I could have loaded exp and caught them running, or greased to at least get far more shot off and be reloading.  And no more engi only for me, every single one I've been on I've seen opportunities to end the match far sooner if I had the right ammo.

My experience isn't extensive but it has been very consistent.  I liken it to Heavy + Medic in TF2.  It is a core synergy that when used in PUBs tears teams up (and it's supposed to) CG and mortar is very much like this.  Thing is the skill requirement for using CG and mortar together has been way too easy to use.  I'm not convinced that this patch has been 'tested' by the right pilots enough to warrant an up-cry yet.

And if we are concerned about new players...then everything needs to be nerfed.  Nothing puts off new players than quick kills.  And to me I find that a moot concern, I've seen how experienced players treat random pubs.

[Salous]

I I'm not convinced that this patch has been 'tested' by the right pilots enough to warrant an up-cry yet.

And who would these "right pilots" be?

[Doc Jones]

I I'm not convinced that this patch has been 'tested' by the right pilots enough to warrant an up-cry yet.

And who would these "right pilots" be?

Ehh, dangerous and strange question.  What would one hope to do with the answer to it.  This is an opening to asking for people to be put on the spot for no reason. 

The idea was that it is pretty obvious that it is not the ones who say it can't be done, within 6 hours of a patch release, where it's too soon to "call the game." As it were. 

The answer may in fact be, no-one.  I have my own ideas, but don't have the feel (or desire) for it...they will be tried by those who do...and we'll see what happens.

Edit: I don't want to sound like I'm on the side of sniping.  As far I know it's always been there, to me it just seems brawling has been nerfed and it was the more popular tactic since...well it's easier to do.  But now that it's not as easy, maybe people are going to the next easier fast-kill, being sniping.  Which may need to be toned down as well.

Or maybe an unthought of new mechanic to defend against it.

[Sammy B. T.]

Doc Jones, you realize that there was dev app testing and many of these people who are too soon to make calls were part of that process. Also there number crunching is important as well as experiments.

Sniping has always reigned supreme. A few brawly teams could beat the snipe if we really had our stuff together.

Gats were originally brought to a better spot by the heavy clip reduction. More recently they had a fantastic fire rate nerf that really balanced them. Why they needed both a range and damage decrease is mind boggling. I would understand the range decrease if they were at least fearsome at short range. They are not however.

[-Mad Maverick-]

Doc Jones, you realize that there was dev app testing and many of these people who are too soon to make calls were part of that process. Also there number crunching is important as well as experiments.

Sniping has always reigned supreme. A few brawly teams could beat the snipe if we really had our stuff together.

Gats were originally brought to a better spot by the heavy clip reduction. More recently they had a fantastic fire rate nerf that really balanced them. Why they needed both a range and damage decrease is mind boggling. I would understand the range decrease if they were at least fearsome at short range. They are not however.

perfectly said...

[N-Sunderland]

All right, here we go. Impressions from my playing on day one:

Issue #1: Hades vs. Gat

I did feel that the gatling was a little much, in the past, but this nerf went absurdly far. Meanwhile, the Hades, a well-balanced weapon, got a significant buff. The result?

-Hades has more than triple the range of the gat
-Vanilla Hades does almost twice the DPS of vanilla gat
-Hades has a fire ignition chance to add to its armour damage. This also affects components within its AoE.
-Hades can deal solid balloon damage if the enemy ship tries to drop low. Gat is virtually ineffective against balloon.
-Hades has no spread, so assuming that the guy on it is a good shot, it'll have a much higher hit rate than the gat (unless the gat has heavy, in which case it loses 20 shots)

The two first points are the big issues that have come up in this patch, the others are just for emphasis.

So, why would I ever take a gat? As it stands, the gun is pretty much useless. It has a more damaging, more versatile, longer-range alternative.

Issue #2: Mortar

I just don't see the point in it anymore. Like the gat, the nerf was too much. With 3 degrees (3?!?) of spread and 400m range, you need to get up in their face to have a chance to use it. That'd be fine, but there are some glaring issues: with a lot of longer range weapons getting buffed, it's extremely hard to close 400m in without taking significant damage first. Also, because of the clip size being reduced to 12, the mortar's options are a little more restricted. You can't really take lesmok to extend the range, since that's leave you with 8 shots. That barely gives you enough to kill a Pyra plus a couple of extra shots, but with the increased spread you can't expect consistent direct hits. So it loses out to other explosive options (mainly the light flak and banshee) by quite a lot.


I'll have other thoughts ready once I've played around with the guns some more. So far, I think that the Hades should be brought back to 1.3.2 numbers, and the gat and mortar need to have some of their nerfs scaled back.

[-Mad Maverick-]

All right, here we go. Impressions from my playing on day one:

Issue #1: Hades vs. Gat

I did feel that the gatling was a little much, in the past, but this nerf went absurdly far. Meanwhile, the Hades, a well-balanced weapon, got a significant buff. The result?

-Hades has more than triple the range of the gat
-Vanilla Hades does almost twice the DPS of vanilla gat
-Hades has a fire ignition chance to add to its armour damage. This also affects components within its AoE.
-Hades can deal solid balloon damage if the enemy ship tries to drop low. Gat is virtually ineffective against balloon.
-Hades has no spread, so assuming that the guy on it is a good shot, it'll have a much higher hit rate than the gat (unless the gat has heavy, in which case it loses 20 shots)

The two first points are the big issues that have come up in this patch, the others are just for emphasis.

So, why would I ever take a gat? As it stands, the gun is pretty much useless. It has a more damaging, more versatile, longer-range alternative.

Issue #2: Mortar

I just don't see the point in it anymore. Like the gat, the nerf was too much. With 3 degrees (3?!?) of spread and 400m range, you need to get up in their face to have a chance to use it. That'd be fine, but there are some glaring issues: with a lot of longer range weapons getting buffed, it's extremely hard to close 400m in without taking significant damage first. Also, because of the clip size being reduced to 12, the mortar's options are a little more restricted. You can't really take lesmok to extend the range, since that's leave you with 8 shots. That barely gives you enough to kill a Pyra plus a couple of extra shots, but with the increased spread you can't expect consistent direct hits. So it loses out to other explosive options (mainly the light flak and banshee) by quite a lot.


I'll have other thoughts ready once I've played around with the guns some more. So far, I think that the Hades should be brought back to 1.3.2 numbers, and the gat and mortar need to have some of their nerfs scaled back.

i agree completely with all of this.  but as i have already stated; i believe muse does not want dog fights, rather they want nautical battles in the air.  i dont want us to keep arguing for a game that the devs never intended to make.

with that being said if they had simply nerfed the range of the gat and mort i would have been fine with that, but nerfing its damage and clip size respectfully also?! what?! it makes no sense unless as i theorize dog fights are not what the devs intended

[Blaackk]

The gat/mortar distance nerf does seem a big excessive given the added strength of the longer distance weapons. Just like others have said, against those with any amount of skill on long distance weapons can really stop any ship coming in on them before they even arrive unless they are equipped equally. I can see the distance nerf making more sense with the carronades, which are shotgun style weapons, and did happen, but not for guns that seemed to be medium ranged. What is a good counter against ships who can simply move backwards firing long distance just as fast as you and avoid any gun that is not long distance? Sneaking up may work, and some maps help that, but not many.

Do ships move backwards just as fast as they move forward? Maybe this can be changed to help balance? Just a thought if it is logical.

The hwacha has become interesting as well with the ship parts being easier to hit on ships. Any thoughts on that so far? It pounds very hard.