New Testing, Balance! (Saturday 22nd)

[Keyvias]

Our newest project in the dev app is ship balance as there are definitely ships that at all levels of play could use a bit of attention.  In this though we don't want to play around the office, ship out the new stats, and call it a day.  We want dedicated and skilled players to take the helms of these newly adjusted ships and let us know their thoughts, feelings and experiences with them.

The testing will go between 5-6 pm Eastern, 10-11pm UTC, on Saturday, November 22nd.

The ships being tested at the Pyramidion, Spire, and Squid.  This does not mean these are the only ships you can fly, but make sure in each round these ships are present and if you're on one, take a moment to see how the ship feels. We'll release information about what stats were changed later, but for now we want to know the feel and the experience.
A feedback forum will go out after testing though at any time you can send an email to feedback@musegames.com with your thoughts.


Thank you so much for your help!


Important Testing note:

Remeber while you're in the Dev App you should view yourself not as a player, but as a tester. As a tester there are some things you need to keep in mind.
Understand that what you see is not the finished product.
You are some of the first to see these changes. When you log onto dev app you are seeing things as they are being created.
The changes you are feeling are not the final ones. These are simply to get some traction and information on the type of changes we've been thinking about.
Please focus on the tasks we set for you.  In the dev app many things are being worked on since this is our personal testing ground, but many of those are not in a state to be tested

[Squidslinger Gilder]

Well just taking a few minutes in sandbox a few things popped out. Squid is much better. Turn rate is back to feeling more like it should. Accel maybe needs a nudge up. Have to test in combat to be sure along with whatever other changes there are. Overall a good change.

Spire, hmm...feels a little faster and turns better, maybe its my imagination cause I rarely fly the thing. I'll leave the Spire pilots to comment on that.

Pyra, just feels very slow, heavier. Guessing this was a buff to survivability and weight.

[Crafeksterty]

None of these things i say on this reply were used in a real match

The Spire feels alot better, and from what i noticed, and that is because of increased acceleration. I can actualy and confidently start moving.
Would be nice to know HOW much more acceleration.

I also noticed on the stats that the hull health is increased. I dont know how much, but would be nice to know.
And judging from self destructive mines. The difference looks like 10%.  Which is not that different.
But need to actualy try this out on actual testing.

Like i said, would be nice to know what you actually changed.

[Omniraptor]

I tested squid, flew around Dunes for a bit. it feels like angular drag was decreased a lot. This will make moonshine more necessary to stabilise yourself. The whole thing feels more slippery, more hippo in ice skates, like it has a lot more momentum, have to plan ahead more than before.  Maybe I could get used to it, but initial impression is iffy.

[Squidslinger Gilder]

Thats how the squid originally was, it was an advanced ship to fly. Noobs couldn't handle it without crashing and dying but vets that took time and mastered it were rewarded with a fantastic ship. Trust me, fly it, learn it, get used to it, you'll wonder why it was ever changed.

[Squidslinger Gilder]

Squid and Spire...

[redria]

Pyramidion verticality felt very sluggish, more so than normal. Turning and lateral movement felt more important to keep my arcs aligned for when I had the right altitude for combat. Not sure if it was a nerf to pyra or the buff to spire, or both, but pyra was slower at top speed than spire. Overall I didn't have much harder of a time keeping a squid in arcs. Keeping a spire in arcs was a bit harder.

Overall it felt like a possible way to nerf the pyra without breaking it, along with a buff to spire that might make it more friendly to all players. The squid just looked like it needed people to practice with it more and get a feel for it. It wasn't bad, but it didn't look like people were used to the movement of it and ended up in bad spots more often than they otherwise would have.

Would be interested in knowing if it was vertical acceleration or vertical top speed in pyra that got nerfed, or if I'm just crazy. I don't think turning was touched and acceleration, if it was touched, could only have been barely changed. Top speed laterally may have been knocked down, but it was hard to judge with other changes. Hard to tell if the mass changed given I was only ramming squids, spires, and other pyras.

Fighting a spire, I still had a pretty easy time sitting just under their main gun, keeping my arcs and ramming open on the massive bottom tip while relatively safe. Similar to fighting a galleon, if I can stay out of gun arcs because of equivalent vertical movement, I am completely safe. Spire may still be lacking in vertical movement. Perhaps trade a smidge of the new speed for vertical acceleration.

/StreamOfConsciousness

[Squidslinger Gilder]

Pyramidion verticality felt very sluggish, more so than normal. Turning and lateral movement felt more important to keep my arcs aligned for when I had the right altitude for combat. Not sure if it was a nerf to pyra or the buff to spire, or both, but pyra was slower at top speed than spire. Overall I didn't have much harder of a time keeping a squid in arcs. Keeping a spire in arcs was a bit harder.

 The squid just looked like it needed people to practice with it more and get a feel for it. It wasn't bad, but it didn't look like people were used to the movement of it and ended up in bad spots more often than they otherwise would have.

That does confirm what I felt with the Pyra. Was really curious if anyone could actually figure out what Muse did to it. It felt nerfed but wasn't sure how much.

Yeah I'm probably the only one left who actually remembers when the squid was like this. I absolutely hated the squid when I first flew it. Then after spending time with it, I'd never trade it for another ship. Granted when it was like this.

My one complaint however comes with gat combo on Squid. Just takes too long and I actually found it more optimal to gat ram to get armor down. Take the risk of losing arcs/etc to get the armor off. Gotta figure out how to resolve this. Feel the squid is a bit too durable as a rammer but at the same time the gat just wasn't cutting it. Think I may need to research more optimal squid ammo builds. With buff and correct ammo, maybe.

[Crafeksterty]

I think with this new squid, you can combine all 3 weapons. Sping the squid around and etc. It takes 2 something seconds to do a complete 360 with buffed engines and pheonix claw.

So you may want to go full on double gat with a mortar on the back.
Dual carro with flamer on back.

Maybe even use Mercury, then dual artemis.

[Omniraptor]

Can you circlestrafe while keeping front gun in arc?

[Squidslinger Gilder]

Might just be an idea there. At the very least you have dual gats to chop it up. Even with the turn rate increase, to swing it would take time. Unless you went with a claw. Its a tough build because it requires 2 to be on gats and the roamer to be close to the rear mort. That leaves the vessel exposed should the other boat fire back. Might also be very situational and not something that is doable with all ships. For that matter, the mortar takes too long to unload a clip so flak would be better.

This is one reason I was against arming timer and range play with the flak. When you have a vessel like a squid which needed a fast hard hitting weapon, there was no option but flak. Mortar couldn't get the angle or unload fast enough unless you had time to sit there. Muse did mention they could angle the side gun more forward but then you'd lose the option of utilizing the rear and side gun together. Beauty of the vessel is having a over a full 180 attack ability. Its right under the junker, just has less weapons.

Would be nice if we had another weapon to fit the bill between everything. Banshee would work but it doesn't hit fast enough or do enough damage. Also most of the time you use it, you want to use it as a ranged flamethrower so you empty it on armor before it drops. So, just simply, a small clip, quick hitting weapon with maybe a 500m range. Doesn't outclass the mortar completely but is just a solid damage dealer for situations like this. If mortar is pure CQC, then this would be the next level up between mortar and flak.

Can't circle strafe without losing arcs but you can get it back in arc faster.

[Keyvias]

Hey Guys,

Just wanted to thank you for the awesome feedback. I've sent it over to Eric.
Since you've all been so patient and awesome.
Here's the numbers you guys were playing with on 11/22
These aren't the final numbers, but were simply the first test. It's great to hear they went over well!

Spire

Forward Acceleration: 4.5m/s2 from 3
Top Speed: 28m/s from 26
Hull: 950 HP from 750

Pyramidion

Forward Acceleration: 2.15m/s2 from 2.5
Hull: 550 HP from 700


Squid

Forward Acceleration: 6.65m/s2 from 5.5
Hull: 1050 HP from 850
Weight: 95000 tonnes from 115000

[AbbyTheRat]

Wait, does Forward Acceleration have an affect toward turning speed by any chance? If no, how the hell does it feel like squid is flipping around faster.

[Crafeksterty]

I think thats from the weight.

I didnt think that the squid got a HEALTH buff. Holy shit, that seems insane.

Also, for the spire. I didnt think it actualy got a top speed Buff. Just much higher acceleration should have done the trick.

And for the pyra. Those numbers seem like a huge hit on the pyra. Did anyone notice dying way too fast? Dont know what everyone wrote on the feedbacks but -250 health on pyra, Up to par with junker (whose armor makes up for his health, and hull size) may just be way too diminishing for the pyra on the long run. It just seems like just maybe ide give it back the weight it had to fully ram better again. Because with that health, he may just need it. I dont know.. im quite stunned

Did anyone notice health changes to the pyra and squid?

Edit: Extra stuff.

For the spire, you guys decreased the time it takes to accelerate to top speed or accelerate in general by 2.3 or so seconds.
26 top speed and 3 acceleration = 8.666 seconds that it takes to reach 26.
28 top speed and 4.5 acceleration = 6.222 seconds that it takes to reach 28.

Pyra now takes 14.8 seconds to reach top speed, as opposed to 12.8.

Squid takes 7 seconds to reach top speed (of 47) as opposed to 8.5 seconds

All of that not counting buffs


Spire took 8 shots of mortar to be taken down as opposed to 6 in the current.


just some things i saw. also, 4 seconds or so for the squid to spin 360 once with pheonix +  buffs

[redria]

Armor break on pyra means death 90% of the time anyways, so I didn't really notice anything there.

I'm kinda of surprised at some of those changes. Maybe I just haven't played in too long.

I really didn't notice a huge change in pyra acceleration while my vertical movement felt particularly bad. But then, I think my main engineer for several matches was, in fact, a buffgineer instead and was keeping engines buffed, so maybe I wouldn't have noticed it as much.