Version 1.4.8 Release Notes

[Daft Loon]

This only affects H.Carro. Loch H.Carro is back.

And incredibly overpowered. A huge mistake. Never tested and just jammed into the game. Come on, Muse... Carrofish is strong enough. This is absurd.

Never tested? It was in the game for many months in-between the Carronade/Heavy clip changes and the Lochnagar changes and was never a problem. The only difference now is that it gained a little bit from increased turning speed and lost quite a lot with the change to only -60% scatter.

[Atruejedi]

This only affects H.Carro. Loch H.Carro is back.

And incredibly overpowered. A huge mistake. Never tested and just jammed into the game. Come on, Muse... Carrofish is strong enough. This is absurd.

Never tested? It was in the game for many months in-between the Carronade/Heavy clip changes and the Lochnagar changes and was never a problem. The only difference now is that it gained a little bit from increased turning speed and lost quite a lot with the change to only -60% scatter.

I am very against the hard-counter "meta," but that's what this is going to become... I flew a Galleon yesterday and my balloon was popped for a solid 3 minutes. Luckily, I had Drogue Chute (always!) and a Spanner and a triple engineer crew so I was able to survive for a good while, but I could never, ever get a shot off until my allies came to help. How is that fun? Do not respond by telling me to fly another ship, etc. Don't tell me I should have shot him before he shot me, etc. Being pinned to the ground for a significant amount of time simply isn't fun. The Heavy Carronade was perfectly powerful without Loch. Now it's absurd.

If I want to be a dick, I'll fly a Loch Carrofish and I'll guarantee wreck my enemies. It isn't hard to fly a Carrofish WITHOUT Loch... now it's easy mode. Please don't mention competitive either, because I don't care about competitive.

I guess my point is: One ammunition should not completely overpower a gun. There's essentially no reason to NOT use Loch on the Carro. That's bad design.

[Daft Loon]

There is a solution to the Carrofish - Galleon matchup problem, Restore the 45 degree upward arc to the Minotaur so there is no longer a 100% safe spot for the Fish.

Also possible now that it only affects the Heavy Carronade is tweaking the fixed damage value to something like 85% of the gun to limit it a little more, I'm not sure that's really needed though, I never myself use loch two shots in a row because the self damage adds up too fast and charged dishes out more damage anyway.

[Inkjet]

The wording was just odd, what should have been said is "old mechanics" rather than "more familiar mechanics". That is, they take 250 damage when firing.

[Dementio]

I flew a Galleon yesterday and my balloon was popped for a solid 3 minutes. Luckily, I had Drogue Chute (always!) and a Spanner and a triple engineer crew so I was able to survive for a good while, but I could never, ever get a shot off until my allies came to help. How is that fun?

Have you ever flown a Galleon against a Hwachafish? Where you lose your guns and engines from much farther away? Oh and what happens when it gets close to your Galleon, it uses its side Carronade to kill your balloon anyway and then proceeds to destroy every newly rebuild part with a reloaded Hwacha? A Blenderfish can only destroy the balloon, or the front gun of another Goldfish, which means if you have a Lumberjack and a Hades you can keep shooting the Blenderfish' ally, helping your ally win his battle so he can come help you. Also, a Blenderfish doesn't destroy engines like the Hwachafish, so you can still reposition your Galleon and drop in a location that is either safer for you ship, gives you better shots on the enemy Fish' ally or which gives you the longest survival time.

Essentially, if you talk about how the Blenderfish doesn't allow for fighting back at all, I will tell you how the Hwachafish doesn't allow fighting back at all. And we are not nerfing the Hwacha, so there you go.

I guess my point is: One ammunition should not completely overpower a gun. There's essentially no reason to NOT use Loch on the Carro. That's bad design.

You are thinking wrong, Lochnagar doesn't make the Carronade overpowered at all, it adds more diversity to it than most other guns have. #BurstHwacha, #BurstArtemis, #GreasedGatling and #Lesmok on any other gun. If your enemy uses a Heavy Carronade with Lochnagar, just tell your Gatling/Artemis/Hwacha/Carronade or even Lumberjack to damage it a little bit, then the gun gets destroyed after a single shot.

Also, it is more useful as an engagement opener than a consistent ammo. If you complain about getting grinded into the ground by the Carronade, than it is not because your enemy used Lochnagar 24/7, it means he destroyed your balloon once and that's it. Especially against a Galleon, a Blenderfish even with heavy clip could easily bring it down before it can react, but that only really goes against a Galleon, in many other scenarios, Lochnagar is the key to allow the Blenderfish to get even one good balloon destruction going.

If Lochnagar on the Heavy Carronade gets nerfed again, then buff the damn gun at least. It's reload time is dangerously close that of the Hwacha, it has even less arcs than the Hwacha in all directions and also got a random range nerf the last time it was nerfed. The heavy clip nerf hit it hard and the Lochnagar nerf on top of that just ruined all possibilities for the Blenderfish, now it can finally be used again and compete with the "must bring" Hwachafish.

[Atruejedi]

Have you ever flown a Galleon against a Hwachafish? Where you lose your guns and engines from much farther away? Oh and what happens when it gets close to your Galleon, it uses its side Carronade to kill your balloon anyway and then proceeds to destroy every newly rebuild part with a reloaded Hwacha? A Blenderfish can only destroy the balloon, or the front gun of another Goldfish, which means if you have a Lumberjack and a Hades you can keep shooting the Blenderfish' ally, helping your ally win his battle so he can come help you. Also, a Blenderfish doesn't destroy engines like the Hwachafish, so you can still reposition your Galleon and drop in a location that is either safer for you ship, gives you better shots on the enemy Fish' ally or which gives you the longest survival time.

Essentially, if you talk about how the Blenderfish doesn't allow for fighting back at all, I will tell you how the Hwachafish doesn't allow fighting back at all. And we are not nerfing the Hwacha, so there you go.

I actually don't mind fighting Hwachafish. It feels fair. No complaints from me!

You are thinking wrong, Lochnagar doesn't make the Carronade overpowered at all, it adds more diversity to it than most other guns have. #BurstHwacha, #BurstArtemis, #GreasedGatling and #Lesmok on any other gun.

I agree this is a huge design problem and needs addressed! Burst and Greased BOTH need a slight nerf. For Greased, the most popular ammo in the game, I say reduce its range another 10% to be on par with Incendiary... but for Burst, I'm unsure. Nerf the larger clip size? Either way, the players are gonna shit their pants at these changes, but they need to happen.

If your enemy uses a Heavy Carronade with Lochnagar, just tell your Gatling/Artemis/Hwacha/Carronade or even Lumberjack to damage it a little bit, then the gun gets destroyed after a single shot.

Also, it is more useful as an engagement opener than a consistent ammo. If you complain about getting grinded into the ground by the Carronade, than it is not because your enemy used Lochnagar 24/7, it means he destroyed your balloon once and that's it. Especially against a Galleon, a Blenderfish even with heavy clip could easily bring it down before it can react, but that only really goes against a Galleon, in many other scenarios, Lochnagar is the key to allow the Blenderfish to get even one good balloon destruction going.

What I'm hearing is you saying the Carrofish is very powerful against the Galleon naturally and you don't think that's a problem... I don't either, honestly. But you're neglecting to mention it's also very powerful against Junkers, Spires, Mobulas... I'm fine with the Carrofish being powerful because if you let it get close, you deserve to take a beating. However, the inability to fight back is extremely frustrating.

If Lochnagar on the Heavy Carronade gets nerfed again, then buff the damn gun at least. It's reload time is dangerously close that of the Hwacha, it has even less arcs than the Hwacha in all directions and also got a random range nerf the last time it was nerfed. The heavy clip nerf hit it hard and the Lochnagar nerf on top of that just ruined all possibilities for the Blenderfish, now it can finally be used again and compete with the "must bring" Hwachafish.

I agree the Heavy Carro needs changed in some way. I'd advocate less damage overall, but larger arcs. Not sure how that would go. HOWEVER...

Long ago I advocated for balloons on the whole to have much more health so a ship would have time to REACT when they begin to take damage. I thought this was a great idea. I should dig it up again. [pause for searching] Ah, here it is. Emailed to Muse on May 20th.

Sorry, I forgot one final thought!

When the gravity patch first dropped (hurhurhur) a few months back, lots of people hated it. I liked it. It wasn't perfect, but I really appreciated the idea of giving gravity, well... more gravity (hurhurhur).

But the increased force was much too severe, as the community pointed out. I just got done with VIP in the dev app, where gravity is still a bit strong, but I'm glad it's stronger than it is in normal Skirmish mode. I don't know what the sweet spot should be, but gravity should indeed be a threat to a ship. As it is right now, it's typically only a nuisance which puts guns out of position for a while but doesn't guarantee death. And maybe it shouldn't guarantee destruction, but it should definitely threaten destruction. To balance that, however, perhaps the efficiency of carronades needs to be lowered. Carronades, heavy or light, typical pop a balloon in a single clip or, at most, two. That's too fast with the increased force. So...

I envision the dynamic like this: popping an enemy's balloon should take more time so the crew of the targeted ship has time to react and repair it, but once it DOES go down, it's a serious problem for the pilot and the ship. Make it so the targeted ship KNOWS the enemy is targeting the balloon and make those gunners WORK a bit to pop it. Make taking a balloon-popping ship a strategic choice: "My goal is to pop enemy balloons to help my team, not to simply grind an enemy into the ground with my own ship and hump them to death," which is currently how it works... Make popping the balloon a power maneuver to control the battle's positioning and sequence instead of just letting Carrofish rack up hump-kills.

TLDR;
1. Make gravity stronger (but not too strong...)
2a. Make balloons stronger and carronades stronger OR
2b. Make balloons weaker and carronades weaker.
3. Allow balloons more time to be repaired.
4. Letting the balloon die likely makes you die.
5. Profit.

Just my two cents,

Atruejedi

I think that would REALLY solve the issue. Howard's response?

Hi Jamison,
Gravity in dev app should not be in the production build. 
Some of what we experiment in dev app are really just experiments. 
We're still trying to be more consistent about dev app release notes so that you can see what will and won't be in production. 
Sorry about this! 
Howard

So, a great idea ignored...

[Dementio]

Gravity was removed, because otherwise the Galleon was removed. The Galleon can't fight back against any ship when engaged in close range, such is the curse of the slowest accelerating ship in the game.

If you want to fight back against a Blenderfish then just bring a Mine Launcher or even buff the upward arcs of the Gatling 5 degree or so, so they can hit without Gunner stamina. What I fear would happen with more Gatling arcs though is that Gatling/Banshee would wreck the Blenderfish pretty much always and so the Fish would always have to go back up, reload Lochnagar and come back down with an instant balloon destruction just to go back up again. This would draw out fights massively and arguably make that ship entirely useless since it can never actually stay in the engagement, while its target happily continues fighting in it, kind of doing to the Blenderfish what it is supposed to do against other ships.
Also, Pyramidions are strong against Blenderfish. I once played against a Loch Gat and Banshee Pyramidion as a Blenderfish and I just couldn't do anything. That ship saw me, destroyed my armor instantly and then unleashed a full Banshee clip into it. In the meantime, my Carronade shot once with heavy clip.

Everybody wanted ships to have balloon health representing the actual size of their balloon, so some ships could stay in the air longer and it would make sense. But if every ship can stay up after that Lochnagar Carronade shot, well, why bring the Heavy Carronade and not just the Hwacha on the Goldfish again?

Hwachafish is also strong against a lot of ships, it is actually even stronger than the Blenderfish against every ship that isn't actually a Blenderfish. Heck it is so strong it even destroys most of the armor of 3 out of 7 ships with one clip. Blenderfish has problems against Pyramidions, which Hwachafish can handle rather easily one engine destruction and it is game over for it. Also regarding Mobula, my opinion is that Blenderfish doesn't actually work against it while Hwachafish is a counter to it. I will let you figure out why I think so.

To you fighting a Hwachafish might feel fair, but not to me. If my Fish' front and side guns get destroyed with my engines left heavily damaged while I am sitting at 400m away from the thing that is supposed to miss in long range because of its spread, then what do I do. What can I do? Run away, only for it to happen again? Or take Lochnagar Carronade and at least destroy the enemy's balloon  so while I am disabled I at least have a fighting chance?



How about this balance suggestion for a change then: Remove the -100% spread from Lochnagar and put it back on Heavy Clip, then increase the time between shots while decreasing reload time to keep the dps the same. This would allow exactly what Atruejedi wants on the gun: A time window that allows for fighting back and Lochnagar doesn't one shot a balloon from maximum range again. This would also mean that the Hwacha's pre-buff values can be used again, since it was only buffed to allow for some long range viability after the Heavy Clip nerf. Everybody gets to be happy.
Also, it wouldn't make the Light Carronade too strong either, because with its current stats, it can't one-clip a balloon even with greased.

[Richard LeMoon]

My suggestion for nerfing balloon poppers in general is to remove grinding damage. If your ship is sitting on the ground, not moving, it takes no damage. All damage at that point comes from weapon and ramming.

[GurasOguras]

My suggestion for nerfing balloon poppers...

Could you actually explain why we want to nerf such inferior and niche thing as baloon poppers? Hwacha is the only choice for competitive as for now. We need to buff carronades, and make them as good choice as hwacha, not nerf them.

[Daft Loon]

We need to buff carronades without bringing back the worst aspects of the old carrofish meta which was awful. Richard's suggestion combined with maybe increased side arcs on the H.Carro to allow a bifecta on goldfish like the hwacha has (and increased up arc because there was never a good reason to nerf that) could do that. For the L.Carro all it needs is reduced scatter so it can use Loch/heavy to invalidate the hwacha again (it was perfect for just a day or two during the loch changes 'testing' but that got lost to other concerns/stupidity)

[Dementio]

Actually, disregard everything I said with the exception of giving heavy clip -100% spread. The Lochnagar doesn't have a -100%, as I completely forgot, so it is still entirely useless, gg.

[Richard LeMoon]

Richard's suggestion combined with maybe increased side arcs on the H.Carro to allow a bifecta on goldfish like the hwacha has (and increased up arc because there was never a good reason to nerf that) could do that.

Could also put an actual useful primary damage on the Lumberjack instead of the minuscule, useless shatter silliness.

[Atruejedi]

Richard's suggestion combined with maybe increased side arcs on the H.Carro to allow a bifecta on goldfish like the hwacha has (and increased up arc because there was never a good reason to nerf that) could do that.

Could also put an actual useful primary damage on the Lumberjack instead of the minuscule, useless shatter silliness.

God, no. The Lumber is already disgustingly powerful in the right hands (HADUSH I AM LOOKING AT YOU )