Balance musings

[ZnC]

Ever since the nerf of the Pyramidion (kill meta), competitive games have been revolving around the Mobula (control meta) and its counter, the Squid (and its counter, the Hwachafish) for a while.

It's never gonna happen, but here's my wishful idea of what a meta-changing balance patch would be like.

Mobula
-Armor: 600 > 450
-Acceleration: 4.25 > 3.0 m/s²

*Significantly reduced survivability and mobility. This puts the Mobula in a more defensive role, instead of allowing it to be aggressive or defensive whenever it wants.
The Mobula and Spire is similar in that they have a lot of forward firepower. This change defines the ships; Spire as the forward-moving glass cannon, and the Mobula as an evasive, fire support ship - making altitude maneuvers and wearing down the enemy as they approach.

Squid
-Hull: 950 > 800

*Reduced margin of error with 800 hull; with the speed buffs and pilot stamina, 950 gives a bit too much headroom.

Pyramidion
-Acceleration: 2.25 > 2.75 m/s²

*Returns the Pyramidion to its aggressive role while still having a lower headroom of 550 hull.

Galleon
-Max Speed: 30.02 > 28 m/s

*Slightly reduced mobility. The Galleon is very powerful with the best survivability in the game and a huge amount of firepower; only thing even scarier than that is a fast Galleon.

Hwacha
-Jitter: 4 > 6 degrees
-Yaw: 30 > 20
-Pitch: 20 > 15

*Reduced arcs so gunner stamina actually compensates for it; returned jitter to pre-buff value for lesser effective range.

Heavy Carronade
-Jitter: 6 > 4
-Pitch arcs: -30 to 15 (from -20 to 10)
-Reload time: 7.5 > 5.5
-Range: 400m > 350m

*Revert to pre-nerf values; reduced range to make initiating and balloon lock more challenging, also slightly easier to escape from.


Of course these are my opinions only, and being in the forums for a while, I realized opinions vary (A LOT). Just wanted to express my ideas somewhere.

[ZnC]

For reading interest, here's also my own reference for what ships were designed to do - the whole train of thought inspired by my discussion with MightyKeb.

Goldfish - 'First in, last out'
Firepower: 2
Mobility: 3
Survivability: 2

Pyramidion - 'Vanguard'
Firepower: 2
Mobility: 2
Survivability: 3

Squid - 'Evasive Maneuvers'
Firepower: 1
Mobility: 4
Survivability: 2

Galleon - 'Tank'
Firepower: 3 (taking into consideration the difficulty of getting weapons in arc)
Mobility: 1
Survivability: 4

Junker - 'Versatile Brawler'
Firepower: 4
Mobility: 1
Survivability: 3

Spire - 'Glass Cannon'
Firepower: 4
Mobility: 2
Survivability: 1

Mobula - 'Forward Fire Support'
Firepower: 4
Mobility: 1
Survivability: 2

Ratings from 1 to 4.
Firepower: Amount of forward facing weapons, overlapping weapon arcs, turn speed and turn acceleration.
Mobility: Top speed and acceleration.
Survivability: Armor, hull, ship profiles, and evasive ability (i.e. acceleration and vertical acceleration).

[Extirminator]

In my opinion mobula is not op as people make it out to be, it's like the former pre nerf pyramidion wasn't op if you knew how to deal with it. The only problem is novices who are still learning the game don't know how to deal with stuff - which frankly is good, because you want some sort of learning curve.
The change to mobula that you are suggesting, as someone that spent about 2000 matches main engineering on a mobula, I can tell you it's extremely drastic and quite game breaking. The gun used by the hull engineer is pretty far away from the hull. With the current HP of the armor there are times where I react accordingly but the armor still dies too fast or is just on the verge of dying. Nerfing it so much would mean you not only crippled the mobula's survivability, you practically broke it entirely.

As to the galleon change you are proposing I can agree with the fact that it needs a change, but not a nerf, in my opinion it needs a buff. I like the way it handles, it handles the way you'd expect a 320 tons piece of steel to fly. It's very clumsy and takes a while to get going, but it has a sleek design that makes it pretty aerodynamic so it makes sense to have it have high top speed. I rather think that the buff should come from a higher hull stat. Because I think that it doesn't make any sense that a ship classified and meant to be the tankiest in the game, would die for less than one clip of mortar once the armor is down.

[Byron Cavendish]

I would have to agree with you. Just as you have extensive knowledge of engineering a mobula, I have been piloting galleons and junkers most of my three years with GOIO. I pride myself on running a tanky galleon, but it is something you have to work really hard at. I think it needs more HP to compete with the way all ships have evolved and the general direction of HP additions Muse has been going.  If component breaking didn't go to the hull it would be a different story, but the ship is a big target with a lot of vulnerable parts.

But I also think spires need a lot of armour to be able to live up to its turret design. Its low armour completely contradicts its style, which works very well with mobile ships like the squid and goldfish.

Will we ever see these ideas supported by Muse though? Dream on.

[Daft Loon]

A reasonable buff to the galleon and a start to balancing the spire might be to reduce the heavy gun rebuild a little. It would be effectively a buff to the ships durability too with the amount of damage heavy guns absorb when not broken.

[DJ Logicalia]

Even if mobula is OP, which personally I kinda think it is, it will never see a nerf because the game is balanced around pubs and casual play, not competitive. The abysmal pick rate and the high skill cap will keep the mobula unpopular in pub games, and thus really hinder any possibility of changes from muse, unfortunately

[HamsterIV]

 

Junker - 'Versatile Brawler'
Firepower: 4
Mobility: 1
Survivability: 3

Junkers have better mobility than Spires and Mobulas. In my eyes they live in the same space as the Pyramidion with one difference. The Pyramidion is an aggressive brawler, and the Junker is reactive brawler.

[BlackenedPies]

I think mobula is just too fast. It has the armor of pyra but is slower at repairing. Reducing acceleration would make it less fun to fly. I say reduce top speed to 26 or less. It has a wide profile and presumably a lot of drag so it would make sense for it to be as slow if not slower than junker.

But yeah the game isn't balanced around competitive.

[Richard LeMoon]

I have always thought the Spire should be the vertical Galleon. Tough as hell armor and hull wise, armed to the teeth, good turning ability, good vertical, but miserably slow. Typical city defense platform, NOT a glass cannon.

[Daft Loon]

That's probably the way it has to go. The spire is probably the least balanced ship in the game at the moment, if it faces one of its many counters its the weakest ship, if it doesn't its probably the strongest.

[DJ Logicalia]

I'd be OK with some more spire buffs. It's my favorite ship, but I can't bring it in competitive because it's too easy to shut down. Can't bring it long range because hades/art just eviscerates it, and your positioning needs to be perfect to have it as a viable brawl ship in this kill heavy meta

[BlackenedPies]

The spire is second only to squid in terms of acceleration and turning, and third in terms of vertical (close to squid). It has good top speed with easy repairs and heavy firepower. It is not unbalanced, it's easily countered. The excellent maneuverability makes it fun to fly and helps make up for its weaknesses. Buffing its armor would make it overpowered and warrant other changes to make it less fun. I'm not convinced buffing armor would make it better because it's so vulnerable to certain weapons, and it already has 950 hull.

Spire isn't used in competitive because it's easily countered. Flash a spire and they bring anti spire. Spire would often be a great choice if there wasn't the risk.

[Extirminator]

While I read all the posts I wanted to say exactly what blackedpies here said, the spire is as strong a ship as any. If you would remind yourself of the buff patch for the spire a few months ago, people said it was op and everyone took it. According to muse they even said it had one of the higher, if not the highest win rate of all ships and were considering it they might have buffed it too much - nothing had changed since that time.

[Richard LeMoon]

I didn't say it wasn't strong as it is, just that I envisioned it playing the role it was designed for.

[The Djinn]

I didn't say it wasn't strong as it is, just that I envisioned it playing the role it was designed for.

I think part of the issue is that the Mobula, Galleon, and Spire are all "weapon platforms," which means one will always be stuck oddly between the other two.

They are uniquely designed ships, but I think their roles step on each others toes a bit too much.  Maybe the Spire needs more guns situated around it so it has more angles covered and more firepower than the Mobula, but needs to rotate back and forth to bring that power to bear - two heavy guns on 45-60 degree angles from each other, for example.

It's one of the reasons I wish we had ship-specific perks, actually. A world where the Spire deals extra damage when below a certain speed (or after X time with engines idle) would make the ship a premier park-and-destroy ship, while the Mobula has some other ability that helps define the two forward-facing weapons platforms a bit more.