It's like the fire nerf to me. I didn't really see a need to nerf it, so the fact it had been was kind of confusing to me.
That's actually a very apt analogy, because I feel like they were both changed for the same reason: to add more design space. (This is just my postulation, I obviously can't speak for Awkm here)
The carronade was always balanced on a razor's edge because there are two important factors to consider:
A. It needs to be able to keep a ship's balloon suppressed even against repair efforts, and drive a ship into the ground under its own power. If it doesn't, it's of no use as a weapon.
B. It needs to be able to give the opponent a reasonable chance at counterattacking or otherwise recovering. If it doesn't, it's a game-breaking weapon.
Between them, there isn't a lot of 'wiggle room' to balance the carronade. Previously, one could consider making it weaker, but then you risk botching point A; and every point of damage you add to it complicates issue B exponentially. But, since it presently can't point downward to pop an enemy ship's balloon while remaining out of range of any sort of counterattack,
Issue B is now far less of a factor. And consequentially this opens up a lot more room to work with the carronade as a weapon. Not only does it make it so that its use has higher risk, but it means that it can also be given higher reward. Heck, now that engagement against a carronade-ship is more of a direct option, this means it could actually be made stronger and faster in doing what it does- do you think we, as a playerbase have ever even
considered that as a reasonable possibility before?
Similarly, the changes to the way fire worked did more than just reel back the damage and effectiveness of flamethrowers; they made it so that fire had more factors involved in how it would impact a battle. And with each of those factors comes another way to make it work in a way conducive to good gameplay and good game balance.
And, like I'd said before, I consider both the changes to be
incomplete solutions; but thanks to the fact that they're there, we can now look at fire and say, for example, "hmm, what if the amount of stacks to disabling a gun was raised/lowered/dependent on the weight class of the weapon"- something that would have been impossible if it had the binary effectiveness it had before- or look at a carronade and say "What if it popped balloons faster and forced enemies to disengage quicker/did more shatter damage to help slow down counterattacks/had a wider arc to make flybys more of a possibility and still give the enemy a chance to retaliate"- something that wouldn't have just been ridiculous if you were still able to fire it at a ship from high up and practically out of range.
The important thing about both changes is that they've opened up these possibilities, and brought about new ways to improve the game.
