Author Topic: 1.4.5 New Balance Changes "When Ambush Comes To Shove"  (Read 117273 times)

Offline Kamoba

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Re: 1.4.5 New Balance Changes "When Ambush Comes To Shove"
« Reply #75 on: March 19, 2016, 06:49:01 pm »
LIGHTNING DAKKADAKKA

"LIGHTNING DAKKADAKKA" Being the words I was screaming while shooting the gatling on Zanc's Junker.

"ELECTRIC CHARGED FIREBALLS MOTHER F***ER!" Came to mind while stripping spire armour with Hades, within 1 clip...


Offline Omniraptor

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Re: 1.4.5 New Balance Changes "When Ambush Comes To Shove"
« Reply #76 on: March 19, 2016, 06:49:13 pm »
Ok understood.  In summary, the areas that we need to pay close attention to are:  spire, squid, and loch. 

Please also consider changing the sniper mobula. I can tell you guys want to change the mobula (because you sort of did), but this last gun arc change only locked it further into the one true build of merc/double art.

@Byron while I do agree with wonky test timing- changing just 1 variable not always the best way to solve a problem.
« Last Edit: March 19, 2016, 06:51:10 pm by Omniraptor »

Offline Red-Xiii

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Re: 1.4.5 New Balance Changes "When Ambush Comes To Shove"
« Reply #77 on: March 19, 2016, 07:50:55 pm »
Ok understood.  In summary, the areas that we need to pay close attention to are:  spire, squid, and loch. 

Please also consider changing the sniper mobula. I can tell you guys want to change the mobula (because you sort of did), but this last gun arc change only locked it further into the one true build of merc/double art.


This so much.  I realized today my merc/hades build was taken from me.   It locked me into top art and brawl.  Very few different builds are now even viable for competetive for the mob.  There werent many to begin with but at least I felt like I had a choice. 

Skbo showed how much today the loch is buffed beyond comprehension.   Galleons going down in one clip of mortar or less on a gat/mortar pyra.  Thats just..... :-\

Offline Solidusbucket

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Re: 1.4.5 New Balance Changes "When Ambush Comes To Shove"
« Reply #78 on: March 19, 2016, 08:20:17 pm »
Ok understood.  In summary, the areas that we need to pay close attention to are:  spire, squid, and loch. 

Please also consider changing the sniper mobula. I can tell you guys want to change the mobula (because you sort of did), but this last gun arc change only locked it further into the one true build of merc/double art.




This so much.  I realized today my merc/hades build was taken from me.   It locked me into top art and brawl.  Very few different builds are now even viable for competetive for the mob.  There werent many to begin with but at least I felt like I had a choice. 

Skbo showed how much today the loch is buffed beyond comprehension.   Galleons going down in one clip of mortar or less on a gat/mortar pyra.  Thats just..... :-\

Yea, that was me on that mortar. Get wrecked.

Offline Kendra Finegrinder

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Re: 1.4.5 New Balance Changes "When Ambush Comes To Shove"
« Reply #79 on: March 20, 2016, 01:46:18 am »
but we feel a certain KIND of pilot could in theory find a way to use this well enough to make people stop insisting, for a while, that squid is the worst ship of all time in all situations forever."

This is false. The addition of pilot stamina has benefitted squid the most along with 950 hull and 6.66 acceleration a year ago. There has been evidence of successful squid usage in competitive games as of late and at one point the current competitive meta was widely considered to be a circle between Mobula > Fish > Squid > Mobula.

For the actual evidence of squid being used well competitively and squid being used in general, refer to Blood and Brass tournament VODs on Muse Games' channel, as well as Cronus Leauge clips. (Prime examples from both: Team Predators in BB and Team Bumble in CL.)

The fact is, squid's effectiveness is tied to the pilot itself making minimum amount of mistakes. Those who can are feared, those who can't are shown as "proof" that squid's a bad ship. Simply pay no attention to the naysayers and realize they're stuck in a baser mode of thought.

In my opinion, flying backwards 24/7 is still as ridicilous as it was before, but it's very much possible to have an easy back-side bifecta whilst being able to rotate to the front more quickly now because you can slide by them with your side.

HOWEVER. I doubt that the average squid pilot (the one who consistently proves it's "weaknesses") will be able to abuse that as much as the vet squid pilot does. So this change didn't actually lower squid's skill floor as far as back gun usage goes.

The fact that that statement is false was basically the point. I agree with you. I was saying that was what the idea of the change seems to be, and the dream is that people will come to fear the spire, but that won't happen due to it being so ultimately pilot dependent. Hence the weird combination of masochism / determination / denial / optimism its most frequent pilots seem to have. =P

Offline Atruejedi

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Re: 1.4.5 New Balance Changes "When Ambush Comes To Shove"
« Reply #80 on: March 20, 2016, 03:28:57 am »
@Untested changes
Definitely want to know which ones we missed. I'm pretty sure they were all caught and tested.

Lochnager.

You can't say you tested it when these lochnager changes have gone into the game and the game is now completely destroyed because of it. I was at a testing session every week. We played. Muse didn't ask us to do much beyond Mikko asking us to "please shoot your balloons so we can test gravity" on Paritan... and that's when representatives from Muse actually showed up to the sessions. They showed up late and not at all at times. Yes, I'm sorry, I'm bitter. I gave Muse my time (I even set my alarm on a WEEKEND!), but, goodness, please use it intelligently. We just got into matches and played as we normally would... blindly, because we weren't told what had actually been changed in half of the testing sessions.

Lochnager was not tested. And if it was... whoever decided to put it into the game has never actually played the game.

Offline Dementio

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Re: 1.4.5 New Balance Changes "When Ambush Comes To Shove"
« Reply #81 on: March 20, 2016, 06:18:04 am »
I told them loch light carro will get nerfed the moment they put it out. If loch light carro can destroy heavy guns, fine, but if it becomes better than its heavy counterpart..

Offline Isla

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Re: 1.4.5 New Balance Changes "When Ambush Comes To Shove"
« Reply #82 on: March 20, 2016, 09:25:26 am »
Just wanted to make a quick point about testing.  We have been testing the balance changes for 4 weeks now, each time with a team review of ALL the feedback that was submitted to us post each round of testing.  And the pyra changes have been in dev app before release.  We'll of course try to do better with outreach, but we have limited means of reaching everyone during testing, so we are limited in that sense.  Thanks, Howard

You have our emails, there is no excuse!

Here is a simple process to observe:
Why are we making this change? Does it work with our exisiting players and backers, and our future players and backers? What are the long-term effects on the evolution of the game due to this change; the player-base; economics -- most specifically can we sustain it; where can we go next and what if it fails miserably?

Because you left us guessing on motivations for the changes in the first place, and for sneaking most of that through with no information even to those of us on the dev app, this:

What you should realise is from the player perspective it looks like you are trying to appease new players who complain at you that they can't win, and therefore won't stay -- but you need them to stay so they buy things in the shop, right?  You could, of course, do obvious things to help them stay while maintaining good relations with your existing community. The first obvious thing is to let them play their own levels before throwing them at the rest of the community -- no point me taking on that subject though.

And this:

You could absolutely monetise better than you do.

Personally, I like having to evolve with updates, but that's because, for the most part, you make good decisions, I am just failing to see it in this case.

Isla, a logical-thinker.





« Last Edit: March 20, 2016, 09:55:33 am by Isla »

Offline Solidusbucket

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Re: 1.4.5 New Balance Changes "When Ambush Comes To Shove"
« Reply #83 on: March 20, 2016, 12:50:54 pm »
My turn:

New lochnager is overpowered
Old lochnager was balanced

New lochnager needs damage decreased while maintaining every other stat.
New lochnager needs a new name (Supercharged, heavier clip or one of the countless other names your players submitted) and a new icon
Old lochnager needs to be reinstated

Problem solved.

Do this please.

« Last Edit: March 20, 2016, 12:56:54 pm by Solidusbucket »

Offline Richard LeMoon

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Re: 1.4.5 New Balance Changes "When Ambush Comes To Shove"
« Reply #84 on: March 20, 2016, 01:36:48 pm »
There was a thread in devapp forum dedicated to naming this new ammo before it went to release, and leaving Loch alone.

Overbore was popular, followed by Langrage. One uses too much powder and damages the barrel. The other uses odd shaped projectiles to do more widespread damage, which also damage the barrel. I guess it could be considered the hollow-point ammunition for cannons. The only issue is that both tend to cause a gun to be more inaccurate instead of less, but whatever. Fun sounding names for new ammo!

I would personally go for Langrage because all the other ammo names are boring.
Example of Langrage.

Offline KeijoPertti

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Re: 1.4.5 New Balance Changes "When Ambush Comes To Shove"
« Reply #85 on: March 20, 2016, 02:34:16 pm »
New loch needs to be buried under million tons of earth and never brought back. Old loch needs to make a comeback.

Offline SiepeAssassina

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Re: 1.4.5 New Balance Changes "When Ambush Comes To Shove"
« Reply #86 on: March 20, 2016, 02:51:55 pm »
New loch needs to be buried under million tons of earth and never brought back. Old loch needs to make a comeback.
We all agree on that but what was the purpose of the Loch "rebalance"?
Making it a more used ammo because you can't stand the fact that NOT all the things in a game are going to be equally used?
Loch was a niche, hard to use, insanely situational ammo still not worse than any other. Just different. And useful.

Offline MightyKeb

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Re: 1.4.5 New Balance Changes "When Ambush Comes To Shove"
« Reply #87 on: March 20, 2016, 02:55:07 pm »
New loch needs to be buried under million tons of earth and never brought back. Old loch needs to make a comeback.
We all agree on that but what was the purpose of the Loch "rebalance"?
Making it a more used ammo because you can't stand the fact that NOT all the things in a game are going to be equally used?
Loch was a niche, hard to use, insanely situational ammo still not worse than any other. Just different. And useful.

Even then, as niche as the old loch seemed, it actually worked on more guns than Charged ever did. And now it works on even more guns.

Offline Synthovine

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Re: 1.4.5 New Balance Changes "When Ambush Comes To Shove"
« Reply #88 on: March 20, 2016, 05:19:39 pm »
Hey, first post to toss in my two cents on the balance patch. As a disclaimer, I've only been playing at length since January, so I'm commenting purely based on the changes made in this patch, having not been around for previous ones and did not participate in any testing sessions.

In general, to me, it felt like changes were implemented around an idea had in mind about which ships should excel in which situations and how particular ship vs. ship matchups should play out. That's the base for most of my arguments for an against certain changes implemented, or how they were implemented.


Squid rear gun move/acceleration increase
I have no issues with the gun movement and it will probably encourage me to use the Squid a bit more often. I've seen very solid Squid play prior to this change, so I understand why comp/tourney players see it as unnecessary, but at my level I see no issue with it. However, with the speed change, you sort of double downed on not wanting to pick a Mob or Spire vs. a Squid in any situation at all. The Squid was already the fastest ship in the game, and with the Mob's huge blind spot and the Spire turning slower, a well-piloted Squid is just way too effective to even consider picking those ships.


Mobula gun movements
I don't mind the top deck movements, but the bottom ones seem wholly unnecessary, or should be scaled back even more. Like others have stated, you've sequestered the Mobula to very specific loadouts in order to use it to the best of it's ability. Guns with 50 degree arcs should overlap to some extent on the bottom deck slots, but you then run into the issue of Artemis overlapping "too much", making positioning much more forgiving. I'll echo sentiments I've seen kicking around that the problem w/ the Mobula wasn't necessarily the guns all being able to hit at the same time, but that it can escape danger and dodge shots too easily because of its vertical movement capabilities. One of the larger threats to Mobulas at range was Hwachas disabiling guns, but with that change stacked on top of the Mob's vertical mobility, you've compounded its ability to navigate one of its threats outside close range.

The Mobula was put into a corner and told, "You're only meant to win these battles, all of these other ones you are supposed to lose. "


Spire turning speed decrease
It feels entirely unnecessary. Again, the change is compounded by other changes made. Being so weak it was already high risk, high reward, but it has now been put into a corner like the Mobula and told that it's only allowed to play on maps which have open space, and that it is not allowed to bring close range loadouts vs. enemy pilots of any competence. It was bad enough getting flanked in a Spire previously, now you have zero chance at all.

Again, with the componding idea, the decreased speed of Hwacha rounds means Spire has an even more difficult time of preventing such a situation by damaging enemy engines or guns.


Pyra health and mass increases
I don't really have too much of an opinion, but added with the Lochnagar shot buff it's too tanky. I've survived a few times where I would've otherwised died with the additional health. Any sort of rushing/close range Pyra build was again a high risk/reward situation similar to the Spire, but the reward seems much greater than the risk now. The increased mass makes it feel sluggish or floaty when trying to slow down/change directions, but it might just be my imagination. The changes don't feel unreasonable here, but even as someone who piloted Pyras a fair amount before the patch, they feel too tanky.


Hwacha projectile speed decrease
It feels unnecessary. They were considered by many to be too dominant at mid-ranges, but I personally only feared them at close ranges and this doesn't change their efficiency there. To me it felt like a gunner vs. gunner fight when going up against a Hwacha. Can you disable their Hwacha before they can disable you? Outside of perhaps a Galleon, that fight is taken care of by any pilot tool to move the ship. It just doesn't feel like this is the right way to try and mitigate that mid-range dominance.


Harpoon
Awesome


Heavy Flak
Haven't played with it enough to really comment, but I don't understand the switch in damage application. What I've been seeing though is consensus that light flak with lochnagar is more effective than the big flak, which is sort of weird.


Lochnagar Rounds
The downsides to its inclusion are not enough to not load it into just about any light gun you have on your ship. A solid pilot can easily compensate for the turning speed decrease, and any engineer can hop off the gun before it breaks and smack it quickly, then resume firing. You can of course try to counter by using pilot tools or having a mobile ship to take advantage of the slow turning speed, but it doesn't feel like that's enough to negate any advantages laid on by loading it. I've yet to use loch in a situation and thought, "Ah, maybe I shouldn't have used this right now, and instead used X."

As others have said, I think bringing back the pre-patch Lochnagar would be nice, and nerfing this new ammo type by having it do more damage to the gun or another compensation.

So yeah, that's sort of how I feel about the changes. In general I'm not a huge fan of them. I'm a pretty mid-level player, so many of my assessments may be off when weighed against the competitive scene. I used to be pretty heavily involved in the competitive fighting game scene, and had to deal with my fair share of balance patches prior to this game, but the community response to nerfs there seem to mirror what I'm seeing as responses to these: if something is considered over-powered or difficult to deal with, completely taking it away isn't necessarily a good idea, but to just tone it down a tad.

It easier to make things that are weak a little bit stronger rather than take things that are too strong and try to make them more reasonable. The latter ends up taking things that are on one end of the scale and shifting them completely to the other, which is never fun if it was at least manageable.

I can't shake the feeling that the changes were chosen to shove ships into very particular boxes and discouraging creativity to reel them away from them. The compounding effect of some of the changes just exacerbates this. I dunno.

Peace

Offline nanoduckling

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Re: 1.4.5 New Balance Changes "When Ambush Comes To Shove"
« Reply #89 on: March 20, 2016, 06:27:19 pm »
I've asked this previously, but it was a small part of a longer discussion. I really feel like folks would benefit from an answer to it as it underlies a lot of the issues I see here.

Why are small, frequent incremental balance changes seen as less desirable than big occasional ones?