Author Topic: 1.4.5 New Balance Changes "When Ambush Comes To Shove"  (Read 117222 times)

Offline PixelatedVolume

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Re: 1.4.5 New Balance Changes "When Ambush Comes To Shove"
« Reply #90 on: March 20, 2016, 08:24:38 pm »
any engineer can hop off the gun before it breaks and smack it quickly, then resume firing.

If shooting loch put the gun on mallet-length (or longer) repair cooldown, would it be decent?  TBH I'm a little surprised this problem wasn't forseen by our mighty Hand of Balance, but whatever.  Roll with the punches.

Offline Daft Loon

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Re: 1.4.5 New Balance Changes "When Ambush Comes To Shove"
« Reply #91 on: March 20, 2016, 08:30:45 pm »
Another option would be to take the autofire after 1 click mechanic that was tried for the hwacha and apply it to loch along with maybe a 1 second repair cooldown. That way you have to chose between aiming and self repair.

Offline Eldarion Telcontar

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Re: 1.4.5 New Balance Changes "When Ambush Comes To Shove"
« Reply #92 on: March 20, 2016, 08:35:33 pm »
any engineer can hop off the gun before it breaks and smack it quickly, then resume firing.

If shooting loch put the gun on mallet-length (or longer) repair cooldown, would it be decent?  TBH I'm a little surprised this problem wasn't forseen by our mighty Hand of Balance, but whatever.  Roll with the punches.

How exactly would this work?  Would this cooldown keep ticking (blocking any repair / rebuild) even if the gun is destroyed?  If not, gunner class will remain completely unneccessary on any ship -- the engineers will just fire loch ammo until the gun breaks, then rebuild with spanner / mallet.

Given that loch gat can destroy enemy armor in half a clip I'd say double the mallet repair cooldown, minimum.  Personally I'd rather see loch ammo completely deleted from the game at this point; Lobbies of Icarus and sniping matches aren't really my play style.

Offline Eldarion Telcontar

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Re: 1.4.5 New Balance Changes "When Ambush Comes To Shove"
« Reply #93 on: March 20, 2016, 08:38:20 pm »
Another option would be to take the autofire after 1 click mechanic that was tried for the hwacha and apply it to loch along with maybe a 1 second repair cooldown. That way you have to chose between aiming and self repair.

One way to fix this would be to radically increase loch jitter.  Experimental ammo, right?  Not much time in the barrel to properly engage rifling, etc. therefore accuracy decreases.  The loch gat then only becomes insanely lethal at very close range, which minimises overall impact on the brawling meta.

Actually, the more I think about it the more I like the jitter increase combined with DPS increase per hit.  It always seemed odd to have an enemy ship 3 meters from you that you couldn't take out; this change would simply make it so that you don't ever let the enemy get that close.

Offline Synthovine

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Re: 1.4.5 New Balance Changes "When Ambush Comes To Shove"
« Reply #94 on: March 20, 2016, 08:53:59 pm »

If shooting loch put the gun on mallet-length (or longer) repair cooldown, would it be decent?  TBH I'm a little surprised this problem wasn't forseen by our mighty Hand of Balance, but whatever.  Roll with the punches.

This isn't the first time I've seen that suggestion, so it's something I've considered. Dunno if they saw it here and mentioned it in a random lobby, but I've definitely seen it discussed before. However, my response to it is two-fold and I'll explain each aspect a bit.

Firstly, if it were implemented I believe that the cooldown timer would be contingent on factors like clip size, rate of fire, reload time, etc. A straight timer would be more beneficial to guns that could sustain fire for a longer period of time without worrying about the timer at all (gats fit here pretty well), and get their job done before the gun breaks. It leaves them more vulnerable to breaking with incoming fire, but the same applies to guns the way they operate with loch now.

Secondly, it feels entirely arbitrary. It's the introduction of a new mechanic or rule that effects only one ammunition type and thusly becomes difficult to gauge in terms of balance. The same could be said to old lochnagar and the damage dealt to the gun (breaking lights entirely, but it was only really used on a Phobos in the light gun category), but even that paired with gun reload speeds, the repair ability of the pipe wrench, and common engineer positioning meant that it was almost irrelevant as a reason to not use lochnagar.

I don't know the game prior to lochnagar's introdcution (or if there even was a time before lochnagar's introduction; I'm ignorant here), so I'm looking at it purely from the perspective of mechanics that already existed when I began playing. I think when you start bringing in special rules that revolve around one particular thing you're having difficulty balancing, it means that it doesn't fit with the rest of the game and might as well be removed.

Offline Richard LeMoon

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Re: 1.4.5 New Balance Changes "When Ambush Comes To Shove"
« Reply #95 on: March 20, 2016, 09:15:14 pm »
Another option would be to take the autofire after 1 click mechanic that was tried for the hwacha and apply it to loch along with maybe a 1 second repair cooldown. That way you have to chose between aiming and self repair.

That was called 'Injection Clip' back when we were testing ammos, and it was awful. No thank you.

Offline Ightrril

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Re: 1.4.5 New Balance Changes "When Ambush Comes To Shove"
« Reply #96 on: March 20, 2016, 10:19:07 pm »
One way to fix this would be to radically increase loch jitter.

Might work for the Gat, not for Mortar or Hades. Also affects l.carro very negatively with loch.

I think the best changes would be to

  • Reduce clip size further (to 30% of normal or below)
or
  • Reduce R.O.F. to 70% (or below)
or
  • Make damage inversely proportional to clip size

First option makes a single loch gun of whatever gun choice that bit less frightening over the course of 1 clip.
Second option makes loch more in-line for Gatling and gives more time for the enemy for all other guns also. I like this option as the dmg/sec stays high (typically higher than greased) initially but after a few shots will drop. I really like loch as an 'ambushing' ammo type, make the first hits matter more.
Third option should balance between all guns better.

Of course an alternative is to just put loch back to what it used to be, but to be honest I like it being useful on other guns. Having an alternative to Greased is nice. As I said before, initial DPS being higher in a fight can make for some interesting engagements.

There's also the issue that Hwacha is still just as stupid as ever, velocity reduction doesn't solve anything when close.
« Last Edit: March 20, 2016, 10:43:45 pm by Ightrril »

Offline Daft Loon

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Re: 1.4.5 New Balance Changes "When Ambush Comes To Shove"
« Reply #97 on: March 20, 2016, 10:32:14 pm »
There's also the issue that Hwacha is still just as stupid as ever, velocity reduction doesn't solve anything when close.

I tried playing buff-engineer hwacha the other day and got balloon-blocked rather heavily, knocking 5-10 degrees off the down arcs might have a worthwhile effect without ruining anything else.

Offline Ightrril

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Re: 1.4.5 New Balance Changes "When Ambush Comes To Shove"
« Reply #98 on: March 20, 2016, 10:41:59 pm »
I tried playing buff-engineer hwacha the other day and got balloon-blocked rather heavily, knocking 5-10 degrees off the down arcs might have a worthwhile effect without ruining anything else.

That'd work pretty well for making dodging down work a little better certainly. I quite like the idea of adding a delay between the gunner activating the gun and the rockets firing (could be seen as lighting a "fuse", 1-2s long or so). That way pilots have a chance to dodge but also crews (for larger ships) have a small window to be able to disable the gun.
« Last Edit: March 20, 2016, 10:45:20 pm by Ightrril »

Offline Eldarion Telcontar

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Re: 1.4.5 New Balance Changes "When Ambush Comes To Shove"
« Reply #99 on: March 20, 2016, 10:44:48 pm »
    One way to fix this would be to radically increase loch jitter.

    Might work for the Gat, not for Mortar or Hades. Also affects l.carro very negatively with loch.


    Fair enough.  Was just thinking out loud mainly regarding the way overpowered loch gatmortar.

    First option makes a single loch gun of whatever gun choice that bit less frightening over the course of 1 clip.
    Second option makes loch more in-line for Gatling and gives more time for the enemy for all other guns also. I like this option as the dmg/sec stays high (typically higher than greased) initially but after a few shots will drop. I really like loch as an 'ambushing' ammo type, make the first hits matter more.
    Third option should balance between all guns better.

    Of course an alternative is to just put loch back to what it used to be, but to be honest I like it being useful on other guns. Having an alternative to Greased is nice. As I said before, initial DPS being higher in a fight can make for some interesting engagements.
    [/list]

    I like the idea of an ambush ammo type.  My concern with option 2 is that I think the gunner class remains worse than worthless.  A good engineer with mallet can counter the DPS decrease from gun damage in the middle of a clip in well under a second.

    Fundamentally, an ambush type with high DPS should come with a fairly hefty price.  If your ambush doesn't come off, you should end up with the light guns used for the ambush disabled until at least the enemy has a chance to bring his guns to bear.  If the loch gatling can continually strip armor at anywhere near the current rate then the game has devolved into lobby stacking.

    I'd say one loch ammo clip should strip a buffed armor, if every shot hits, and only if the gun is broken afterward.  There are many methods to do this. :)

    Oh, and Muse, I miss GoIO.  Can we get this fixed so I can actually play again? :'(

    Offline Ightrril

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    Re: 1.4.5 New Balance Changes "When Ambush Comes To Shove"
    « Reply #100 on: March 20, 2016, 10:59:51 pm »
    Fair enough.  Was just thinking out loud mainly regarding the way overpowered loch gatmortar.
    Yeah, definitely the most OP guns with it at the moment. Hades is still very, very scary though, 4 shots of >205 armour damage (Galleon has 800 armour unbuffed).
    Quote
    I like the idea of an ambush ammo type.  My concern with option 2 is that I think the gunner class remains worse than worthless.  A good engineer with mallet can counter the DPS decrease from gun damage in the middle of a clip in well under a second.
    For light guns the pipe wrench repairs 60% of its health in a single hit with a much shorter repair cooldown. Pipe wrench is probably the best option if the gun isn't taking any other damage.
    Quote
    Fundamentally, an ambush type with high DPS should come with a fairly hefty price.  If your ambush doesn't come off, you should end up with the light guns used for the ambush disabled until at least the enemy has a chance to bring his guns to bear.  If the loch gatling can continually strip armor at anywhere near the current rate then the game has devolved into lobby stacking.
    Absolutely agreed, it should be a huge risk but with high reward payoff. Also having another ammo type rather than greased to use in guns gives Gunner more uses too, especially with stamina assisting with the reduced gun turning speed.

    Offline Atruejedi

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    Re: 1.4.5 New Balance Changes "When Ambush Comes To Shove"
    « Reply #101 on: March 20, 2016, 11:24:10 pm »
    There's also the issue that Hwacha is still just as stupid as ever, velocity reduction doesn't solve anything when close.

    It's a bit better, but it could stand for a slight jitter increase. If a hwacha gets that close to you, you should be screwed... but it sucks if the hwacha was allowed to get close to you because that same hwacha disabled you from an extreme distance.

    Offline Ightrril

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    Re: 1.4.5 New Balance Changes "When Ambush Comes To Shove"
    « Reply #102 on: March 20, 2016, 11:51:40 pm »
    If a hwacha gets that close to you, you should be screwed...

    With every other gun there's always a decent opportunity to escape or recover. Hwacha doesn't give that chance. The only way to get out after it hits is to move vertically, but that requires (usually) a full health buffed balloon, often also a helm tool. If the enemy ship with Hwacha still has the ability to move vertically you just can't get away. It's the worst case of "spam more of this gun onto the loadouts, that works" that I've ever seen. The range half to full disable was annoying, but close is where it's really overpowered.

    Offline Keyvias

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    Re: 1.4.5 New Balance Changes "When Ambush Comes To Shove"
    « Reply #103 on: March 21, 2016, 04:02:56 am »
    Hey Guys,

    Just wanted to say we're having a meeting the second after the morning scrum ends and we're going to look at serious problems to get them fixed asap (LOCH)
    We're also going to look at what we want to test next and slower. As people said it definitely felt like we, at Muse, were all quiet on balance and then suddenly large changes. Thank you to everyone who tried out the patch in production.

    Second shout out to Atruejedi for the dissertation filled with great information, evidence, and his own experiences. That document is going to play a heavy part into tomorrows discussion.
    I highly recommend you put that on an open google doc and show off your work with everyone.

    Offline Omniraptor

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    Re: 1.4.5 New Balance Changes "When Ambush Comes To Shove"
    « Reply #104 on: March 21, 2016, 04:31:26 am »
    What did you tell them, jedi? I'm intrigued and kind of scared