Make Gunners A Relevant Choice

[nhbearit]

I think you're misunderstanding me.. Ammos would take up tool slots. So if you wanted 2 ammos, and to be able to buff your gun you would bring: Wrench, Buff, Ammo, Ammo. This way if you need someone to have alot of repair-power, they would have to sacrifice firepower. or vice-versa. Sidenote: "Crew" stamina would be the current Engi stamina. If we decided we needed those extra arcs on guns, we could add a tool (similar to the buff hammer) or an ammo, that increased the angles guns could face. (which would also take up 1 of those 4 tool slots)

[The Djinn]

I think you're misunderstanding me.. Ammos would take up tool slots. So if you wanted 2 ammos, and to be able to buff your gun you would bring: Wrench, Buff, Ammo, Ammo. This way if you need someone to have alot of repair-power, they would have to sacrifice firepower. or vice-versa. Sidenote: "Crew" stamina would be the current Engi stamina. If we decided we needed those extra arcs on guns, we could add a tool (similar to the buff hammer) or an ammo, that increased the angles guns could face. (which would also take up 1 of those 4 tool slots)

No, I got that. I just misread it as 5 slots. My bad.

Still, I'm not sure that's a good solution to the problem.

[nhbearit]

Still, I'm not sure that's a good solution to the problem.

Why not?

[Richard LeMoon]

My suggestion to Muse was swapping Buff hammer and Gunner Stamina. After reading a lot of the ideas here, my thought is this (copied from the email I sent them):

"OK, so, you know I am not a big fan of 'stamina', especially on the gunner (pilot is a close second). As you may know, there is one thing I dislike even more than gunner stamina, that being the effect of the buff hammer on guns. We all know this breaks the balance between gunners and engineer with a buff. There are very few cases where a really good gunner is more valuable than a really good buffgineer. In addition, you have to practice quite a big to be an efficient buffgineer. This makes it inherently unfriendly to newer players.

Then we have stamina, which is trying to bring gunners back to a valid choice, mostly because of the buff hammer.

I feel this solution is ignoring the original problem, and would like to make a suggestion to overhaul both buff and gunner stamina. while making both more fun and relevant.
The suggestion is basically this: Switch the effect of the buff hammer and gunner stamina completely. Rename 'Stamina' to 'Focus'. The new effects would be as follows.

Buffed guns would:

1. Have improved arcs.

2, Reload faster.

3. Move faster.

4. Perhaps have more health.

These make sense from a mechanical point of view. Unless you are taking individual bullets apart, no mechanical change should increase the damage of the ammo. However, adjusting stops can increase arcs. Tuning mechanics can make things turn and load faster. Tightening loose bolts can make it hold together longer under stress.

Gunner Focus would:

1. Increase damage.

2. Reduce recoil.

3. Give the gunner a 'tunnel vision' visual effect, slightly zoomed in with a dark haze around the edges

4. Possibly muffle all other game sounds.

[[To add to that email, and taking from this thread, I would increase the repair power gunners have on guns with all tools.]]

These are very common aspects of most shooters. 'Holding breath' is a common way to reduce recoil and gain focus on a target. Gaining focus generally comes with some sort of zoom and tunnel vision, along with bonus damage due to the extra concentration put into hitting the target just right (supposedly). All these effects would make a great deal of sense to new (and old) players. There is an instant "Oh, I get what this does." familiar feel to the 'holding breath to focus' mechanic. Stamina is for running. Focus is for shooting. It is not intuitive for your guns to be briefly moved out of arc or load faster just because you push a button.

These changes would shift classes back where they belong, with gunners ruling the guns, and engineers making everything work better while running around like insane people."

Finally, to top off the "Gunner OP" shift, add in four new ammos:

1. Gibble mount - Shifts gun arcs to the left. Could be several ammos that shift 5-10-15 degrees left at the cost of 5-10-15% ammo.

2. Hook mount - Shifts gun arcs to the right. Could be several ammos that shift 5-10-15 degrees right at the cost of 5-10-15% ammo.

3. Airburst - Shift gun arcs up substantially, removes most arming time, cuts clip size, increases burst radius.

4. Depth charge - Shift gun arcs down substantially. Have not done the math on this to figure out balance, but it would need a substantial debuff.

[The Djinn]

Still, I'm not sure that's a good solution to the problem.

Why not?

Mainly because I'm opposed to design that lets players trap themselves. I don't like the option to take no repair tools, either in current GoI or in this proposal, because a ship needs them to function.

[The Djinn]

My suggestion to Muse was swapping Buff hammer and Gunner Stamina. After reading a lot of the ideas here, my thought is this (copied from the email I sent them):

"OK, so, you know I am not a big fan of 'stamina', especially on the gunner (pilot is a close second). As you may know, there is one thing I dislike even more than gunner stamina, that being the effect of the buff hammer on guns. We all know this breaks the balance between gunners and engineer with a buff. There are very few cases where a really good gunner is more valuable than a really good buffgineer. In addition, you have to practice quite a big to be an efficient buffgineer. This makes it inherently unfriendly to newer players.

Then we have stamina, which is trying to bring gunners back to a valid choice, mostly because of the buff hammer.

I feel this solution is ignoring the original problem, and would like to make a suggestion to overhaul both buff and gunner stamina. while making both more fun and relevant.
The suggestion is basically this: Switch the effect of the buff hammer and gunner stamina completely. Rename 'Stamina' to 'Focus'. The new effects would be as follows.

Buffed guns would:

1. Have improved arcs.

2, Reload faster.

3. Move faster.

4. Perhaps have more health.

These make sense from a mechanical point of view. Unless you are taking individual bullets apart, no mechanical change should increase the damage of the ammo. However, adjusting stops can increase arcs. Tuning mechanics can make things turn and load faster. Tightening loose bolts can make it hold together longer under stress.

Gunner Focus would:

1. Increase damage.

2. Reduce recoil.

3. Give the gunner a 'tunnel vision' visual effect, slightly zoomed in with a dark haze around the edges

4. Possibly muffle all other game sounds.

[[To add to that email, and taking from this thread, I would increase the repair power gunners have on guns with all tools.]]

These are very common aspects of most shooters. 'Holding breath' is a common way to reduce recoil and gain focus on a target. Gaining focus generally comes with some sort of zoom and tunnel vision, along with bonus damage due to the extra concentration put into hitting the target just right (supposedly). All these effects would make a great deal of sense to new (and old) players. There is an instant "Oh, I get what this does." familiar feel to the 'holding breath to focus' mechanic. Stamina is for running. Focus is for shooting. It is not intuitive for your guns to be briefly moved out of arc or load faster just because you push a button.

These changes would shift classes back where they belong, with gunners ruling the guns, and engineers making everything work better while running around like insane people."

Finally, to top off the "Gunner OP" shift, add in four new ammos:

1. Gibble mount - Shifts gun arcs to the left. Could be several ammos that shift 5-10-15 degrees left at the cost of 5-10-15% ammo.

2. Hook mount - Shifts gun arcs to the right. Could be several ammos that shift 5-10-15 degrees right at the cost of 5-10-15% ammo.

3. Airburst - Shift gun arcs up substantially, removes most arming time, cuts clip size, increases burst radius.

4. Depth charge - Shift gun arcs down substantially. Have not done the math on this to figure out balance, but it would need a substantial debuff.

...this is fantastic.

[Daft Loon]

note - written before the previous 3 comments

I'm starting to like the idea of a single crew class if its structured that way, I can't off the top of my head think of any one 'superior' setup that would kill the variety it would open up. I would even be tempted to bring Spanner-Mallet-Chem-Extinguisher sometimes. I would want to see having a spanner or wrench be a mandatory minimum for crew, a loch-incendiary-burst-charged 'crew member' would be infuriating to say the least.

Either way IMO the current gunners state is mostly tied into the underlying structure of how ammunition works, with each ammo type having the same numerical effects on all guns (rounding aside) leading to changes in effectiveness that are all over the place and only a few guns that benefit from 3 or more ammo types. I would rather see each ammo have a theme - long run dps, increased effective range, bonus fire stacks etc - and unique effects for each gun that fit the theme and are balanced for that gun. It could be cut back to just 5 ammo types even and offer more choices than the current 8.

[Kingsania]

Buffed guns would:

1. Have improved arcs.

2, Reload faster.

3. Move faster.

4. Perhaps have more health.

I just looked up the buff hammer and found that with the exception of the balloon it buffs exactly one attribute from each part (engines +25% thrust, hull 30% hp, balloon -25% vertical drag +100% lift) And you want to change at least THREE attributes because you don't like guns get damage increase since the bullets themselves aren't affected? I feel as this would make buff hammer a must have on all ships as it'd make gunning so much better. I would strongly suggest just sticking with the improved arcs for guns if you really must get rid of damage increase.

Gunner Focus would:

1. Increase damage.

2. Reduce recoil.

3. Give the gunner a 'tunnel vision' visual effect, slightly zoomed in with a dark haze around the edges

4. Possibly muffle all other game sounds.

1. Increase damage.

You are unhappy that a hammer improves each bullet's damage output and instead would be happier if it was from a gunner squinting? This is just wrong. I can see how most of the points in your post would be viable, except for this. Now I did read your justification for it and can understand why you'd say because it's in other shooter games, it'd be nice to have here. The issue is that those other games you're referencing probably don't crew operated mechanical warmachines, just organic warmachines. Rewarding extra damage for accurate hits is not a valid reason, mainly because we already reward players for accurate hits. You get that reward when you use a mercury, artemis, even a flare gun, you get to greatly damage maybe even break the part that you directly hit.

For focus, I would be behind point 3 and 4 being included but reducing recoil would effectively negate heavy clip. Maybe it would, maybe it wouldn't, you didn't suggest how much recoil reduction so I don't know. What would be a viable replacement is the 'Move Faster' from the buff section. This is easily justified as the gunner simply throwing his/her body weight around to move the gun, obviously you can't do that all the time. Reload speed could be justified this way too, having the gunner shove the automatic parts along to go faster.

With those changes I'd see the buff and focus being more viable.

[BlackenedPies]

Reduced gun recoil cannot be an attribute of anything except ammo. Doing so would break balance. If gunner stamina reduced recoil it would make burst hwatcha broken while having no effect on the lumberjack. It would make little or no difference on most guns but have a powerful effect on others. Like I point out every time it's brought up Richard, this isn't an option

[Richard LeMoon]

And every time, you have been wrong.

The recoil nerf on heavy clip was one-half of the suggestion I made right before they started testing it at my strong suggestion. The other half was adding a stamina recoil reduction of an amount that would put Heavy clip plus Gunner stamina at close to 100% recoil reduction. It would have been a partial nerf that could be temporarily compensated for by a gunner. Someone decided to reduce the spread on hwacha all the time instead, and broke it.

So what if the recoil reduction is useless on some guns? Breaking arc is useless on most builds and completely useless on some guns. Reloading faster is completely useless on most guns. Both of those are powerful on other guns. Your point is null.

Kingsania... where to start, besides pointing out that you are wrong about everything.

I just looked up the buff hammer and found that with the exception of the balloon it buffs exactly one attribute from each part (engines +25% thrust, hull 30% hp, balloon -25% vertical drag +100% lift) And you want to change at least THREE attributes because you don't like guns get damage increase since the bullets themselves aren't affected?

Let me explain something about the components you just described. Engines only do one mechanical thing, thus can only have one attribute buffed. Balloon does two distinct forms of movement, so can only have two attributes effected. Armor only does one thing, again, only one attribute can be changed. Guns, on the other hand, have many mechanical attributes. Almost all of which are effected by a magical stamina.

I feel as this would make buff hammer a must have on all ships as it'd make gunning so much better.

I feel you have not played the game much. If you did, you would know that the best crews always take a buff kit, and sometimes two, forgoing fire tools. They are already required for the damage because the ALREADY make gunning so much better. For an ENGINEER. This change would make buffing better for the gunner, as it should be.

I would strongly suggest just sticking with the improved arcs for guns if you really must get rid of damage increase.

Why? Your reasoning is wrong.

You are unhappy that a hammer improves each bullet's damage output and instead would be happier if it was from a gunner squinting? This is just wrong.

You obviously know nothing about shooting guns or any task that requires extreme focus. 'Squinting'? Honestly, do some research. Tunnel vision does not come from squinting. It comes from having your eyes wide open while focusing intensely on a single task. Your brain literally blocks everything else out. All information deemed unneeded for the task is discarded. Time can even seem to slow down due to the reduced processing load.

The issue is that those other games you're referencing probably don't crew operated mechanical warmachines, just organic warmachines

.

Aside from having no idea what you are referencing, there is no difference. Racing a motorcycle and racing a horse take the same kinds of extra focus.

Rewarding extra damage for accurate hits is not a valid reason, mainly because we already reward players for accurate hits.

Reward? This is a mechanic that would replace the random weird effect of current stamina with things that actually make sense to a career gunner. It is not a reward. You could just as well make the same silly argument with why reward Engineers with the ability to run fast when all players can run fast? A person more familiar with guns is simply going to be able to inflict more damage with them. That is NOT THE CASE NOW. An engineer with a buff hammer can deal far more damage, despite being the class that is supposedly a career mechanic. Put an engineer and a gunner on a gun, and there is no difference in damage output. That is what is wrong. That is what this fixes.

For focus, I would be behind point 3 and 4 being included but reducing recoil would effectively negate heavy clip. Maybe it would, maybe it wouldn't,

It would't. See first paragraph.

What would be a viable replacement is the 'Move Faster' from the buff section. This is easily justified as the gunner simply throwing his/her body weight around to move the gun, obviously you can't do that all the time.

Trying hard to stay nice... but you do realize this is already part of gunner stamina, and really stupid? The light guns, maybe. The heavy guns are mechanically driven machines that your character SITS on. Let that sink in.

Reload speed could be justified this way too, having the gunner shove the automatic parts along to go faster.

Yup. He can shove his fingers into the mechanical gears WHILE throwing his weight around on Buick-sized mounted guns.

[BlackenedPies]

And every time, you have been wrong.

The recoil nerf on heavy clip was one-half of the suggestion I made right before they started testing it at my strong suggestion. The other half was adding a stamina recoil reduction of an amount that would put Heavy clip plus Gunner stamina at close to 100% recoil reduction. It would have been a partial nerf that could be temporarily compensated for by a gunner. Someone decided to reduce the spread on hwacha all the time instead, and broke it.

So what if the recoil reduction is useless on some guns? Breaking arc is useless on most builds and completely useless on some guns. Reloading faster is completely useless on most guns. Both of those are powerful on other guns. Your point is null.

HOLD ON

Faster reload and better arcs benefit EVERY gun. Some guns benefit MORE from a faster reload and one gun benefits a TON (mine launcher) but no gun doesn't benefit from a faster reload

Same with arcs. All guns benefit from better arcs. Some guns benefit less (merc) but there's been plenty of times where I was out of merc arcs just to get hit by a merc! There's no gun that doesn't benefit from better arcs

Most guns don't benefit from reduced recoil. There's a few that it would have a minor effect on (gat, carro, taur), but only one where it would have a major effect on...
Say it gave -30% jitter to compensate with heavy clip. Congrats the hwatcha is broken

[MightyKeb]

And every time, you have been wrong.

The recoil nerf on heavy clip was one-half of the suggestion I made right before they started testing it at my strong suggestion. The other half was adding a stamina recoil reduction of an amount that would put Heavy clip plus Gunner stamina at close to 100% recoil reduction. It would have been a partial nerf that could be temporarily compensated for by a gunner. Someone decided to reduce the spread on hwacha all the time instead, and broke it.

So what if the recoil reduction is useless on some guns? Breaking arc is useless on most builds and completely useless on some guns. Reloading faster is completely useless on most guns. Both of those are powerful on other guns. Your point is null.

HOLD ON

Faster reload and better arcs benefit EVERY gun. Some guns benefit MORE from a faster reload and one gun benefits a TON (mine launcher) but no gun doesn't benefit from a faster reload

Same with arcs. All guns benefit from better arcs. Some guns benefit less (merc) but there's been plenty of times where I was out of merc arcs just to get hit by a merc! There's no gun that doesn't benefit from better arcs

Most guns don't benefit from reduced recoil. There's a few that it would have a minor effect on (gat, carro, taur), but only one where it would have a major effect on...
Say it gave -30% jitter to compensate with heavy clip. Congrats the hwatcha is broken again

If gunner stamina's effects benefit every gun, then that is an even better reason to swap them around. The reason devs haven't touched the gun buffs' damage boost yet is because almost any other mechanic would benefit some guns more than others, whilst 20% damage increase across the board is fairly universal. So if we have 2 universal features, and one is catered more towards dealing damage and benefitting from shooting a gun more than the other person rather than benefitting more from recovering when things go wrong in specific situations (gunner stamina atm) then I would say the former fits the gunner more, especially considering pretty much everything an engineer does on a ship involves making it recover from a non ideal situation.

How would hwacha be broken, if it was returned from it's pre buff state and this mechanic was applied in combination with Heavy Clip? Unless you're implying current hwacha jitter + -100% jitter, in which case yes, that is broken, but that's not what Richard wants to imply, unless you think that the old Hwacha was broken aswell, which is an interesting if not a debatable opinion.

[BlackenedPies]

If hwatcha was reverted then this -30% jitter reduction would turn it back into the current hwatcha. It wouldn't be used with heavy clip and instead would mostly be used in conjunction with dps ammos like greased and charged (and burst). Reducing gat or carro jitter by 30% isn't a big change but it's a powerful buff to hwatcha and only hwatcha

[Mean Machine]

These make sense from a mechanical point of view. Unless you are taking individual bullets apart, no mechanical change should increase the damage of the ammo. However, adjusting stops can increase arcs. Tuning mechanics can make things turn and load faster. Tightening loose bolts can make it hold together longer under stress.

Gunner Focus would:

1. Increase damage.

I'm a bit confused here. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you say it doesn't make sense that buff would increase weapon (ammo) damage, but on the other hand it makes sense that "gunner focus" would increase damage? Why? How would someone who is mentally focused on shooting a gun able to inflict more damage? Gun does or should do same damage no matter if guy shooting is fully concentrated or drunk. As long as he hits the target it should do the same damage.

Some of your suggestions are not bad, but I'm not sure the changes are really needed. This whole idea that gunner is underpowered seems it's just matter of opinion and some say it is underpowered and others it's not. I personally think gunners are fine. They are relevant and good enough to have one on almost every ship, which seems perfectly fine for me. Unless you're wishing for 2x gunner + 1x engineer combo to be ideal.

It's really just a matter of preferences, each class has it's own strengths. Engineers won't be able to reload faster and get extra arcs and ammo types, while gunners won't carry buff kits or whatever seems to be a problem for people here. So it's matter of preference like I said, you decide what "bonuses" you would like for each ship or match. Some people will prefer buffed guns, while other will prefer benefits of gunner over buffer. Which makes sense to me. But maybe It's just that I'm not concerned about things making sense on a realistic level, like for example why can gunners turn guns out of arcs or why can pilots turn ship faster using their muscles. As long as gameplay is fun and balanced (which I think it is if we're talking about gunners) it's good for me. I can see why some people would be bothered by such things, but certainly not in this game. It's a pvp game about shooting airships for flaks sake.

[BlackenedPies]

Buffed guns would:
1. Have improved arcs.
2, Reload faster.
3. Move faster.
4. Perhaps have more health.

Gunner Focus would:
1. Increase damage.
2. Reduce recoil.
3. Give the gunner a 'tunnel vision' visual effect, slightly zoomed in with a dark haze around the edges
4. Possibly muffle all other game sounds.

Here's the issue: buffs are permanent while stamina is temporary. This would benefit buff engi much more than gunner. Their guns would turn faster, have better arcs, and higher dps from the reload bonus. In order for gunner to compete they'd need a sizable damage boost, but this isn't balanced because gunner stamina is temporary

Take the gat for example. It has a long empty clip time so you'd need to use a lot of stamina. The hwatcha however has a short empty time which means you'd only use it for a few seconds. Or the mine launcher where you'd use stamina for just a single instant

The current system works because turn speed, arcs, and reload are good temporary utility bonuses while damage is a simple permanent bonus. The gunner is for utility and gunner stamina reflects that. If +20% dmg is too much then the answer is to adjust it - not change everything else