Author Topic: Build Pros and Cons List  (Read 9412 times)

Offline Newbluud

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Build Pros and Cons List
« on: February 20, 2016, 12:22:05 pm »
I'm sure you've all seen it, someone who sees any tutorial text and switches to TL;DR mode on it, who picks the guns that sound or look the coolest, who brings ships to the game that can barely do anything, or have a build that can but fly it in such a way that it won't work, simply because they don't know what it is supposed to do.

I have a simple suggestion that might help. When someone selects their loadout, the game should read which guns they have and what damage multipliers they have, then feedback into a pros and cons list. A simple, clear, concise way of telling someone what their ship does. This text could be coloured red and green to ensure it stands out.

An example.

All flak spire.

Pros:
- Extreme killing power once the armour is stripped.

Cons:
- Extremely weak at stripping armour.
- Extremely weak at disabling engines and weapons.
- Extremely weak at disabling balloon.
- Extremely weak at enemy crew disruption.

This would give a very clear readout to the would-be captain that his love for the echidna and typhon come at a very heavy price. Naturally, this kind of system would not be 100% accurate, as people can fly and target things in particular ways to make a singular role ship quite versatile.

Another example:

Goldish: 1. Carronade 2. Banshee 3. Gatling

Pros:
- Extremely strong at disabling balloon.
- Strong at enemy crew disruption.

- Moderate at stripping armour.
- Moderate killing power once armour is stripped.
- Moderate at disabling engines and weapons.

If moderate is listed as yellow, then suddenly you have a better looking mix of yellow and green instead of one green amongst a scary amount of red. All in all, a more effective ship in the eyes of someone programmed to look for simple solutions in what is, at first glance, quite a complicated meta-game.

It may also be possible, with a bit of fine tuning, to calculate potential bi/trifectas and add some kind of multiplier to determine the potential the ship has for different stats. So two gats on either side of a fish would contribute less to the armour stripping score than two gats in slots one and two on a mobula.

Different guns would add to values depending on their dps potential. For example, one banshee might move you up to "relatively weak balloon disable" but three might move you up to "strong balloon disable". Obviously guns don't stack infinitely, as putting three carros on a blenderfish is not really the optimal solution to all your balloon killing needs, but it would provide a nice, simplistic view of what a pilot is making their ship good for and might, if we're lucky, lessen the amount of virtually unusable builds taken by first-timers or I-play-my-way types.

Obviously, this is quite throwaway for more experienced players, but I feel this would still give newer players the feeling of freedom they get from designing their own ship, whilst giving a very basic evaluation of what they have come up with, without the frustration of not understanding why their ship isn't contributing.

Thoughts? Feel free to critique, defecate on or expand on this idea.
« Last Edit: February 20, 2016, 12:25:10 pm by Newbluud »

Offline Newbluud

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Re: Build Pros and Cons List
« Reply #1 on: February 20, 2016, 01:38:35 pm »
EDIT: A friend told me this is extremely difficult to implement from a programming perspective. A bit of a shot to the knee of the whole thing, but I still like the idea. I don't know much about these things myself, but I heard difficult, not impossible.

Anywho, discuss if it pleases you.

Offline BlackenedPies

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Re: Build Pros and Cons List
« Reply #2 on: February 20, 2016, 01:40:06 pm »
Muse experimented with something like this a year ago. It was dropped probably because it's too complicated to make it reliable

Offline Solidusbucket

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Re: Build Pros and Cons List
« Reply #3 on: February 20, 2016, 01:56:37 pm »
I like the idea. Awell.

Offline Dementio

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Re: Build Pros and Cons List
« Reply #4 on: February 20, 2016, 03:47:29 pm »
I like it.

The basic isn't too complicated to implement from a programming perspective. You have a light carronade? Moderate at disabling balloon. Heavy Carronade? Strong at disabling balloon.
Gatling, good armor destruction, Mortar, good at killing once armor down, Gatling and Mortar on the same ship and both of messages will complement each other.
Hades, Moderate range armor destruction.
No piercing gun at all? Con: No armor destruction.

Certain guns could add enough damage outside their spectrum to reflect further possibilities, if this system is actually calculating any damage. For example triple Light Carronade could lead to weak armo destruction.

It would become harder to progam when considering arcs and bifectas. Although telling a program that if a gun is looking to the left it has no way of working in synergy with a gun looking to the right shouldn't be too hard either.

Offline Hoja Lateralus

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Re: Build Pros and Cons List
« Reply #5 on: February 21, 2016, 07:30:16 am »
Remember that every 3-4 updates something gets buffed/nerfed and meta changes a bit, and every loadout description would perhaps had to be changed.
If you want - do it as a fan-community thing, I think Muse doesn't have resources and patience to deal with such thing. Perhaps some day in far future this could work somehow as a mod, but for now, nah.

Offline Kamoba

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Re: Build Pros and Cons List
« Reply #6 on: February 21, 2016, 09:24:37 am »
I agree with disaster...

Also let's face it... Even if one of the players who uses double flak double flare pyramidion because Flaks be cool to, gets given a giant red text saying "Crap dude you're going to struggle in that!" They will do what they do to the multiple vets who warn them... "Whateva bruh I'm-a gunna wreck ya butt!"

Offline Newbluud

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Re: Build Pros and Cons List
« Reply #7 on: February 21, 2016, 09:51:32 am »
I agree with disaster...

Also let's face it... Even if one of the players who uses double flak double flare pyramidion because Flaks be cool to, gets given a giant red text saying "Crap dude you're going to struggle in that!" They will do what they do to the multiple vets who warn them... "Whateva bruh I'm-a gunna wreck ya butt!"

In reference to what disaster said, yep, it's not an easy ask, but one I think would do a world of good for frustrated good Samaritans trying to balance lobbies and for frustrated new players who simply don't understand why their awesome ship isn't working.

And to you, Kamoba, it's not going to be a catch-all. There will still be players determined to make things work. I just feel if there is a very clear, simple, objective statement from the game, instead of another player, the newbie is far less likely to feel personally offended. Most of the time I read new players rejecting any advice I might have as feeling as if I'm telling them that they suck. They can be defiant towards me as an individual, proving their "amazing" build and getting to gloat in my face (in their heads) but you cannot gloat to text. I'm basically going a roundabout way of saying if they game tells you a build sucks, it seems more legitimate in the mind of a new player than some salty vet, who they have probably already dismissed as an elitist turd.
« Last Edit: February 21, 2016, 09:54:29 am by Newbluud »

Offline Kamoba

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Re: Build Pros and Cons List
« Reply #8 on: February 21, 2016, 10:33:13 am »
I know what you mean, the sentence "If you replace that artemis with a Gatling gun you'll find yourself getting more kills." Has had me called an "elitist try hard [female genitalia C word] by one novice enemy before... Needless to say.. He didn't last long :-/

Offline GeoRmr

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Re: Build Pros and Cons List
« Reply #9 on: February 21, 2016, 10:52:10 am »
I know what you mean, the sentence "If you replace that artemis with a Gatling gun you'll find yourself getting more kills." Has had me called an "elitist try hard [female genitalia C word] by one novice enemy before... Needless to say.. He didn't last long :-/