Loch changes and effect on overall gameplay

[Eldarion Telcontar]

So, I found out the loch ammo changes finally went live today.  They've had a relatively interesting and overall detrimental effect on the game.

For starters, if you aren't prepared to cycle through several lobbies waiting for experienced crew members and an experienced ally without running you will die.  Repeatedly, quickly, no two ways around it.  This is because the loch buff has left zero margin for error.  Prior to the buff when armor went down you could still generally recover, especially if you were a halfway decent pilot.  Now, If your engineer cannot keep your hull up at all times, you die.  If your gunner doesn't know how to deal maximum DPS with whatever arc you have, you die. This has immediately made the game very unfriendly to new players, and it's made it very unfun for vets as you can either spend 30 minutes lobby stacking (against any new players on your team) or have a 90% probability of a loss.

Secondly, it's placed a heavy emphasis on sniping matches.  I hate sniping matches, always have and always will.  Personal preference, yes, but I suspect locking the game into two basic strategies (snipe and pubstomp) is going to make other people unhappy as well.

Third, the changes seem to amplify any difference in crew member / ally skill level versus the other team into a match deciding factor.  Typically this has come down to pilot decisions such as ship loadout and overall strategy / ally coordination.  Now the matches are decided almost purely by crew member and ally skill level; to paraphrase "the only winning strategy is not to play".

Finally, it's really amplified the discrepency between the time spent playing "Lobbies of Icarus" and actually playing a match (tedious 50 minute sniping sessions where the environment decides the victor excluded).  Something needs to be done to lower the lobby times.  Perhaps a "AI crew" mode where all ships agree to give up two slots to AI in exchange for a balanced, faster start?

P.S.  I'm also seeing a sudden spike in captain and crew ragequits since this change.  Perhaps this indicates even more strongly that something is now way, way out of whack....

[DJ Logicalia]

I disagree on it putting an emphasis in sniping. It changes the brawl meta, but long range is relatively unchanged

That being said, the loch changes are disastrous as a whole

[DrTentacles]

I'm not playing until Loch is fixed.

[Eldarion Telcontar]

I disagree on it putting an emphasis in sniping. It changes the brawl meta, but long range is relatively unchanged

Yeah, and I guess my point was mostly that if you don't like the new brawl meta (who really wants to spend half an hour hunting around for good players per match) your only other option is sniping.  Since sniping also requires good players, all the sudden it's very difficult to just hop on with a couple of friends and have something that isn't going to lead to an instant loss.  That's not even bringing up the fact that as a direct result of these changes no one can tolerate new players on their team unless the other team has basically the same number of new players per ship....

I'm not playing until Loch is fixed.

Yeah, that was my conclusion as well.  If Muse doesn't unwind this soon I guess I'd best start hunting for a new game to play; it's a shame because I always enjoyed the skill based aspect of this game from a pilot perspective.

[Alette Pegasus]

I agree. I admit I had a lot of fun with loch gats and mortars as a gunner today, but I was flying all with experienced players on my team. As soon as I tried flying as a captain with a couple novice engineers and a novice teammate, I was dying left, right, and sideways.

And as you said in a separate conversation, it does make it basically pointless to have a gunner in a lot of situations. It's simple to keep the light guns repaired (as long as they aren't destroyed on the first shot, like a Merc) and the range is better, the recoil is better, and the damage is insane compared to other ammo types.

As much fun as it was, I think loch either needs to be removed from light guns, or have the damage dealt to the weapon itself increased.

[Squidslinger Gilder]

It's kinda silly to be honest. Really Loch doesn't need to be changed, just change the guns. Take them back to original damage totals and nix arming timers. Then loch comes in as that single shot monstrosity that engineers dread but know that the chances of it hitting are low. Really why was Loch changed to something that is usable at all ranges? Originally it was a CQC only shot and you had to literally shove it up the other ship's butt for it to land where you wanted it. But when it did...holy crap!

[DJ Logicalia]

Yeah, my biggest point of confusion is "why"? Loch was fine. It was standard ammo in Lumberjack, H.Flak (well, the old one anyway), H.Carro, and mines. That's a majority of heavy guns. It was a niche, heavy hitting ammo for heavy, hard hitting weapons. It was in a fine place. If any ammo type needed changes, it was Heavy, which is unoptimal in every gun, the exact opposite of Loch which is totally optimal in almost every gun

[PixelatedVolume]

It's simple to keep the light guns repaired (as long as they aren't destroyed on the first shot, like a Merc) and the range is better, the recoil is better, and the damage is insane compared to other ammo types. 

What if shooting loch put your gun on a mallet-length repair cooldown?

[MightyKeb]

It's simple to keep the light guns repaired (as long as they aren't destroyed on the first shot, like a Merc) and the range is better, the recoil is better, and the damage is insane compared to other ammo types. 

What if shooting loch put your gun on a mallet-length repair cooldown?

Which is why this is somewhat wrong and buffgineers and gunners are superior when maintaining most loch guns except the one shot one slike Merc and H Carro.

[Richard LeMoon]

Everyone in testing pretty much agreed that the 'new loch' was a great ammo when it was set at +60-ish% damage. But no one agreed that it was Lochnagar. Everyone wanted it to be a new ammo to be Loch's high clip partner in crime. This is the effect of trying to ride two horses with one saddle.

Don't worry. It will be changed quite rapidly.

[Solidusbucket]

Everyone in testing pretty much agreed that the 'new loch' was a great ammo when it was set at +60-ish% damage. But no one agreed that it was Lochnagar. Everyone wanted it to be a new ammo to be Loch's high clip partner in crime. This is the effect of trying to ride two horses with one saddle.

Don't worry. It will be changed quite rapidly.

AHA!

I knew there was no way you fine men and women dedicated to testing would have agreed that this new loch was not overpowered.

Here I sat thinking that you are all power hungry monsters.

There should certainly be a new ammo type with the damage set at +60% while maintaining the awesomeness of old lochnager if that was deemed a good idea by testers. Makes sense to me.

[Daft Loon]

Everyone in testing pretty much agreed that the 'new loch' was a great ammo when it was set at +60-ish% damage. But no one agreed that it was Lochnagar. Everyone wanted it to be a new ammo to be Loch's high clip partner in crime. This is the effect of trying to ride two horses with one saddle.

Don't worry. It will be changed quite rapidly.

AHA!

I knew there was no way you fine men and women dedicated to testing would have agreed that this new loch was not overpowered.

Here I sat thinking that you are all power hungry monsters.

It never even got into testing in its current form, the release notes for the last week of testing had the current numbers but they forgot to put it into dev app, and then forgot to show up for testing....

[Hoja Lateralus]

It's placed a heavy emphasis on sniping matches.  I hate sniping matches, always have and always will.  Personal preference, yes, but I suspect locking the game into two basic strategies (snipe and pubstomp) is going to make other people unhappy as well.

I've noticed that this whole patch changes part of the meta towards sniping, especially mobula and spire changes.

P.S.  I'm also seeing a sudden spike in captain and crew ragequits since this change.  Perhaps this indicates even more strongly that something is now way, way out of whack....

It's the biggest controversy since matchmaker. Even stamina wasn't that one-sidedly hated.

That being said, the loch changes are disastrous as a whole

I confirm it
~Disaster

Everyone in testing pretty much agreed that the 'new loch' was a great ammo when it was set at +60-ish% damage. But no one agreed that it was Lochnagar. Everyone wanted it to be a new ammo to be Loch's high clip partner in crime.

This is interesting. So again, we must push devs to answer the question: why they have decided to ignore that part of feedback and enforce their idea. Perhaps we don't know something and we are just assholes, I'm geniually curious. I guess Daft Loon's post gives us some answer.

For me the loch change is a nerf to gunner; you want to have the safety of spanner and mallet when you are shooting lochnagar, which is again the opposite of what devs are trying to achieve.

[Hilary Briss]

What a Loching disaster.

There have been many controversial changes to GoIO. But none thus far had people i know actually delete the game in disgust!

Loch in it's original form was a delight & took some skill to pull off.

Now ships have even less reason to have a gunner on the ship. How about we make the Gunner redundant

When a ship was hit by a Lochnagar shot it HAD the same effect on crews as what the glorious Phobos does.

Shrieks of delight as they explode!

This is not PvE. This is PVP!

Another move in the wrong direction.

[Letus]

If the Dev Ap Loch was its own ammo type, I'd be fine.

But I'm enjoying the nerf on blenderfishes with the 100% damage to gun....(too be honest, if your complaint is "____ is harder to use now" then I say "good riddance" in return...I didn't bitch when the Lumberjack got it's arming time, I mastered it, the easy fix is get your engineers ready and don't fly straight into that hwatcha..

I think Old loch could still be viable if it did, say...80-90% damage to gun per shot with its 1 shot; something enough to make it a more team-based shot like it was after its first fix (remember when we had -90% turning at it came down to communication?)

The Dev-Ap Loch can work still work if it was its own ammo...it was just not the same and punished other guns (I feel like they made it that way for the Heavy Flak, like how they reduced the Hwatcha Jitter when they nerfed Heavy Clip...they look at two components, not the entire game..) but I almost wonder about clip size...-50% clip or -60% clip with its +62.5%?