Author Topic: About the Minotaur  (Read 43950 times)

Offline Byron Cavendish

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About the Minotaur
« on: February 24, 2015, 08:58:59 am »
The gun is great in concept, but I have some concerns with it's current design. It's unique ability to push or move ships is interesting, but the harpoon is interesting, the mine launcher is interesting. I'm worried that it doesn't have enough 'bite'.

I've heard it mentioned by the devs on the dev stream that the minotaur has to be a support only weapon. The largest issue with that design philosophy is that it is a heavy weapon. There are only three ships that can use a heavy weapon, and they all put a lot of emphasis on kill power and survivability on that weapon. The goldfish relies almost completely on it's main gun to do anything productive, and the spire is far too squishy to afford a gun that won't kill or disable fast. I don't see any competitive or serious team wasting time by putting the minotaur on a spire or goldfish. I've even heard the minotaur fish used as an example in the dev chat. Sorry Eric, but that isn't ever going to be used. So, the inherent issue is that you're really limiting this gun to the only ship that can afford it, a tanky ship like the galleon that can experiment with four heavy slots to use. That seems really niche for a gun and disappointing.

I foresee the minotaur going the way of the flakfish. Being too situational to be used seriously or competitively, and only taken accidentally by new players (to the groans and dismay of any wiser gunner) or for when competitive players want to play drunk GOIO and have a laugh. Sounds like a waste to me, just to be used on a galleon. Please, think about changing it so that it has more versatility or more 'bite'.

Offline Kamoba

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Re: About the Minotaur
« Reply #1 on: February 24, 2015, 10:11:55 am »
Not every weapon is meant to be standalone, and the arcs on this gun make it very useful!
This weapon will dominate on maps littered with obstacles.


Offline Byron Cavendish

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Re: About the Minotaur
« Reply #2 on: February 24, 2015, 10:16:47 am »
I agree that not every gun has to be 'stand alone'. However, it has to provide enough impact, in fact more so, to justify it being taken over three other strong heavy guns. The issue it has, is that it can't. Sure it'll be niche on Paritan, but that's it.

Offline GeoRmr

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Re: About the Minotaur
« Reply #3 on: February 24, 2015, 10:54:28 am »
Trust me,

It's op as hell and needs a nerf.

Offline Mean Machine

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Re: About the Minotaur
« Reply #4 on: February 24, 2015, 11:12:16 am »
The gun is op and i don't think it needs any explaining, i hope it doesn't.

Offline Duveer

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Re: About the Minotaur
« Reply #5 on: February 24, 2015, 11:31:20 am »
I'm a bit surprised at how long it seems to take to break a target dummy's hull - nine hits with heavy clip, and that's on a target that doesn't repair at all.  Still, I really want to drag one of my usual groupmates on board the galleon and see how it cooperates with a harpoon shot.  That ought to cause some...interesting physics.  And double heavy Minotaur plus top-mounted flak cannon will probably be a pretty brutal kill-side, especially since the Mino negates the arming time problems by simply sending anyone who gets too close spinning off over the horizon.  If anything's overpowered on this gun, it's the physics effects.

Anyway, I can see it working out alright on pretty much any Spire, and it pretty much is built for the Galleon (seriously, it's got side arcs and inclination that can probably hit someone behind you - so much for the classic blind spots!), but the 'fish pretty much needs to combo it with terrain to kill.  For a Goldfish, I pretty much consider it a long-distance ram that you can follow up with the traditional sort when they slam into a mountain, which is useful but maybe not optimal.  Of course, this is all theoretical stuff based on my trial runs in the offline practice mode, so I could be completely wrong about its role against a live and vaguely competent crew.

Offline Kamoba

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Re: About the Minotaur
« Reply #6 on: February 24, 2015, 12:10:37 pm »
In the dev app, spire minotaur was able to keep my.pyra blind sided and hades-terrain killed, easily. This was when stamina was still in the test andno amount of stamina and tools were able to.help.us, hydro'd up, spire went up and pushed us down and side ways, claw and stamina turn followed by kero forwards to avoid being spun again, no arcs on guns for long enough to kill.
Galleon double mino, was just insane, great fun!

The gun is not designed to "kill" nor is it stand-alone, it is a gun intended to disrupt the enemies gun arcs and control engagements.
Not a "Yeah pew pew die motha's!" Gun like the flak of old...

Offline BlackenedPies

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Re: About the Minotaur
« Reply #7 on: February 24, 2015, 12:12:11 pm »
It needs some balancing. I do like that it doesn't benefit much from a buff engi. Like all heavy weapons your best bet is to disable it, but this is damn near impossible when it's shooting you. Using kero or shine will bump you less.

I say limit the vertical arcs and it's balanced enough. Right now it's just silly.

Offline ZnC

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Re: About the Minotaur
« Reply #8 on: February 24, 2015, 12:24:55 pm »
As someone who studies the game a lot, I really like the new gun. It has a very elegant balance of knockback effect, piercing and disable. I want to see how players start using it before making any conclusions.

@BlackenedPies A buff on the gun enables it to 1-hit heavy weapons and gives a good amount of piercing damage.

Offline BlackenedPies

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Re: About the Minotaur
« Reply #9 on: February 24, 2015, 12:44:18 pm »
As someone who studies the game a lot, I really like the new gun. It has a very elegant balance of knockback effect, piercing and disable. I want to see how players start using it before making any conclusions.

@BlackenedPies A buff on the gun enables it to 1-hit heavy weapons and gives a good amount of piercing damage.

Hmm I'll have to try that. I did find greased very useful, partially due to the arming range.

The problem is that I've seen it completely lock down ships on its own. The downward arc is too much because you can keep them mashed into the ground. And once they're locked to a rock/building they're dead.

I need to test it more but from what I've seen it needs some work

Offline Thomas

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Re: About the Minotaur
« Reply #10 on: February 24, 2015, 01:41:47 pm »
Did you just put the mine launcher in the same category as the harpoon? Because I have some gunners that would like to meet you. =P


For the minotaur, it's not all that effective on the goldfish. Sure it's fun, but you're going to have tough time killing anyone (at least right now, someone might come up with something). For galleon and spire, it's pretty impressive. I really want to see how it does over time on the spire (although at the same time I'd love to see the spire crews use other weapons more effectively).

A lot of people are going to be using it non-stop for a while, so give it a week or two before we start to see how it actually effects the game. Players need to learn how to use it, and how to play against it.

Offline Kamoba

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Re: About the Minotaur
« Reply #11 on: February 24, 2015, 01:50:24 pm »
Did you just put the mine launcher in the same category as the harpoon? Because I have some gunners that would like to meet you. =P


For the minotaur, it's not all that effective on the goldfish. Sure it's fun, but you're going to have tough time killing anyone (at least right now, someone might come up with something). For galleon and spire, it's pretty impressive. I really want to see how it does over time on the spire (although at the same time I'd love to see the spire crews use other weapons more effectively).

A lot of people are going to be using it non-stop for a while, so give it a week or two before we start to see how it actually effects the game. Players need to learn how to use it, and how to play against it.

Take my salute sir. You're right, new toy will be used at great length.


Offline PiggyPiggyYaya

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Re: About the Minotaur
« Reply #12 on: February 24, 2015, 04:21:04 pm »
I just played a 4v4 match against 2 galleons with minataurs both on broad side. I can tell you right now it's op. Once the blast hits you, your ship instanly comes in to a crawl while trying to get away and throws you ofcourse at least 45 degrees in either direction. Your enertia is also gone and you would have to build up your speed back up again.  It also does a lot of piercing damage so while they barrage you your armour goes down.

As for range; lets just say it's really far and it is also effective at close range. It's reload time seems fast too because it seems I just getting shot at every 1.5 seconds with no break. Not only that I tried to engage it up high to see if I can get off it's angle. Nope, it has a pretty sharp angle of attacks in every direction.

The whole game I felt like a pinball bouncing from every direction. The score in the end was 12-0.

Offline Squidslinger Gilder

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Re: About the Minotaur
« Reply #13 on: February 24, 2015, 05:01:40 pm »
It wouldn't have been OP or in a silly support role had it been the Sky Torpedo many of us wanted...just saying ;D

The gun doesn't need a nerf, ships need to be able to move faster and pilots need to not be stupid. If you approach the broadside of a Minolleon, what do you think is going to happen? Sheesh, I swear since the game has gotten slower and slower in gameplay, pilots have gotten stupider and stupider. You get used to charging broadsides because HF and LJ can't do squat. Only real worry is Hwacha and carro but usually you shoot out the gun mounts before they can do harm. Now you've got this gun and are all of a sudden crying OP...HA!

Results of 2 yrs of all you people crying to nerf this, nerf that. Now you've got a gun that requires you to be tactical and you can't handle it. Part because your ships are all nerfed to hell. Ha ha ha ha ha!

Offline Mysterious Medic

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Re: About the Minotaur
« Reply #14 on: February 24, 2015, 05:17:39 pm »
Quote
You get used to charging broadsides because HF and LJ can't do squat.
lol. Just because your gunners can't hit doesn't mean two of the most damaging guns in the game are useless. A metagalleon with a hades,lj, and flak with good gunners will mess up just about any ship and I don't think many people would refute that. From what I remember from the dev app (haven't played the recent patch yet) the minotaur was realllly easy to shoot and had a bit of range. Make it a bit harder to shoot with slower projectile speed perhaps (not too much though) and voila people actually have to learn how to shoot another gun for effectiveness.