Heavy Cannon Discussion

[Esoteric]

Quite frankly I think the heavy cannon could use a small nerf. I say small because I'd hate to see it be nerfed into uselessness as it is my favorite setup but it is far, far better than the other options biplane has and shores up any weaknesses that biplane might have had.

It is especially effective in the constant skirmishing situation of free for alls but I don't think anyone would cry foul against a nerf even among the TBD sect. It is excellent at picking off weaker planes at a distance, even shooting through other planes to do so. Also of note is its effectiveness against demo loopy players, which will likely be a balance concern from now on.

As to how to reduce it's effectiveness...presuming the damage stays the same either a reduction of range or increase in energy cost would work fine, I think. An alternative that comes to mind is just making each bullet do 2/3 the damage and have ~2/3 the cost. Possibly even a slightly faster fire rate. A lot of the power of heavy cannon comes from its bullets doing such large chunks of damage. All the time I am stalled and turning, fire one shot without stopping turning and then boost to get out of stall. Times like these, worthless with most other weapons, are prime killing time with the heavy cannon.

A reduction of it's piercing abilities wouldn't be misplaced either; I'm not sure why miranda laser lost pierce but heavy cannon didn't. Currently heavy cannon does full damage to the first hit, 2/3 to the second and 1/3 to the third.
Possible alternatives: 1,.5,0 or 1,.5,.25,0 or 1,.33,.33,.33,...

Biplane is the only plane where absolutely everyone uses the same red perk -- a waste in my mind. The basic machine gun could use a boost in addition to the heavy cannon getting a nerf. Damage, rate of fire, energy cost...something so it doesn't seem so boring. Not that it's absolutely terrible now, I played with it for a couple hours just to check it out and did fine, but it's nothing like the heavy cannon and lacks oomph. If it got any boost it would preferably not be one that increased its melee effectiveness as a dual-firing biplane is good enough in melee. A reduction in energy cost would probably serve it well, allowing the biplane to have energy up for afterburning and melee.

So what are everyone else's thoughts on the heavy cannon?

[Grif]

Everyone uses the heavy cannon? Hardly.

Have you seen the damage you can do holding down F and D in close quarters?

That said, heavy cannon is beautifully overpowered and should not be touched at all. Ever.

[gameguard]

recoilless is on par with heavy cannon. Dog fighter on the other hand.... is useless.

[Esoteric]

You do know you can F+D with heavy cannon, right?

Let's make this simple: Does ANY level 60 biplane player prefer recoilless or dogfighter? Has ANY biplane in a league game been outfitted with anything but the heavy cannon? I might play less than some here, but the fact that I've never seen a 60 biplane player outfitted without one, excluding myself messing around with them, seems pretty telling.

[nesnl]

Originally Posted by Esoteric

You do know you can F+D with heavy cannon, right?

Let's make this simple: Does ANY level 60 biplane player prefer recoilless or dogfighter? Has ANY biplane in a league game been outfitted with anything but the heavy cannon? I might play less than some here, but the fact that I've never seen a 60 biplane player outfitted without one, excluding myself messing around with them, seems pretty telling.

I play what seems to be an equal amount of heavy cannon and recoilless. I don't play dogfighter mostly because I never got used to playing with the recoil until I started with the heavy cannon and since heavy cannon and dogfighter are pretty similar, there really isn't an appeal for me to play it. I do agree that heavy cannon seems more appealing overall, especially in games where people let you get close. I still think that in order to be consistent with the rest of the game that the heavy cannon should have pierce removed from it.

[Shyney]

Originally Posted by Esoteric

You do know you can F+D with heavy cannon, right?

Let's make this simple: Does ANY level 60 biplane player prefer recoilless or dogfighter? Has ANY biplane in a league game been outfitted with anything but the heavy cannon? I might play less than some here, but the fact that I've never seen a 60 biplane player outfitted without one, excluding myself messing around with them, seems pretty telling.

Ferret does..
Pretty sure i've seen Snow and Blank and at least 1 or 2 others with the same setup.
Its not "just" the heavy canon, its the heavy canon "on" the biplane, you've already got the second fastest/most agile fighter, and with the F+D combo strongest attack. But then on top of that they gave it the ability to RAPE at range as well, so everyone is using it(and why not). And thats why it seems so overpowered. You've got biplanes sniping all over the place. But, its the biplane so.....

[Blank]

yeah, ferret seems to swear by recoiless. I've only recently come around to that side. It's really solid.

Recoiless is more of a scrapper setup. Yeah, you can F/D with heavy cannon, but now you're stalled to **** and probably a "free kill" to whoever happens to fly by. In fact, I'd say a good 90% (hooray for made up statistics) of my biplane deaths is due to my stalling myself killing another player. You become so slow you're just a very easy target.

If anything needs a boost, it would probably be the default set. It really doesn't serve a purpose. Then again, this is a problem for most planes.

RE balancing around loopies: Loopies require a buff, everything else doesn't require a nerf. If we're going to start nerfing the things that destroy loopies, well it's going to be a LOT of changes. Instead, buff loopies.

That said, I don't see why the heavy cannon shot has to travel so far. That's my only issue with it. When I'm getting hit with heavy cannon shots and don't even see the biplane... well, that's ****ed up. But that complaint extends to most projectiles.

[Ferret]

It is magnitudes easier to bomb with recoilless as opposed having 2 weapons that both reduce momentum, and I find myself being able to take ample advantage of people who fire off too many heavy cannon or regular machine gun shots and are dead in the water.

But yea I don't see a problem with reducing the range shorter than the dog fighter primary and/or the pierce to something like 50/25 instead of whatever it is now.

[ryebone]

I for one find recoilless (recoiless?) infinitely better than heavy cannon, but that's probably because I can't aim heavy cannon to save my life.

[protest boy]

recoiless and heavy cannon are very well matched in my opinion. The loss of momentum using the heavy setup is a HUGE deal, and leaves you as a sitting duck a lot of the time.

Dogfigher definitely doesn't serve much of a purpose. I think recoiless and heavy cannon shouldn't be touched (maybe reduce range on cannon i guess) but dogfigher needs to be better somehow.

[DiogenesDog]

agree with the crowd saying that the recoilless/heavy are about equal, but dogfighter is a little weak. although imo it's a very small power difference.

one thing I'm not so sure about is when blank says that loopy should be brought up to the level of the rest of the planes. yeah, it'd be much easier for sure, but I tend to prefer the game pacing of loopy better than something like the bomber. there's a lot of fun back-and-forth I miss from when guys tended to die slower. but uh that's pretty off topic.

[Phill64]

I think your point of stalling being prime killing time with the heavy cannon is exactly the reason I think it should stay. the biplane is a useless machine when it comes to moving around the enemy... but a good player can tactically stall/fall/spin their way into a nice shot, or sniper the bomb carrier from a distance.. both are hard to achieve, making the effectiveness pretty fair.

If loopy's autoaim did more damage however, that would suck, since it requires no skill. Since the cannon requires skill, this big killshot ability is great.

Also as others have said, the no recoil perk is also quite awesome. I use it from time to time, being able to fly through like everyone else (but with the power of the biplanes guns) is quite a nice advantage.

Also agree that dogfighter is a bit of a silly perk, I have never been able to do well with it.

I don't think you should worry too much about the demo loopy players, they can either buy, or hang out in the beginner servers where there aren't many upgraded planes. Besides, even a perked loopy(with heal or double fire) can destroy a demo loopy ridiculously easily.

[Vi*]

I agree with the <3s for heavy cannon. What makes it so wonderful is that you can snipe from a distance and kill that guy who thinks he's safely gotten away, and so a nerf in damage or range would be catastrophic. Longer cooldown and/or rougher recoil I might agree with.

Another idea is to nerf the front end of the range. The shot could "bloom" or somesuch, so that it is still great for sniping but isn't an instant kill at close range. Jamming F and D together would be left for the other biplane perks.

[JamesTechno]

Perhaps it is the dogfighter perk that needs looking into.
Maybe it should use slightly less ammo per shot or something.
We need to find a way to balance all three perks in each plane.

[argonide]

I use dogfighter just because I'm old school like that. Recoil less is probably slightly better though, the difference is not enough to bother me though.

As for heavy cannon being rape, it definitely has the damage to be imba but I think jawa/eso is the only person I've played with that made it feel imba. Kinda like LAZER+ultracap should be a standard rape config, but not many people can pull it off.

[Esoteric]

I find myself surprised but the people have spoken. Perhaps my personal results are coloring my judgment too much as opposed to validity of playstyles? I do see far, far more heavy cannon but I suppose the most important thing is if it feels imbalanced to most players and apparently it doesn't.

That said, VI's idea of having the weapon "bloom" after melee range is an interesting one and would further distinguish the playstyles of recoilless and HC. Perhaps half damage at close melee range? Would make the interplay of the two weapons in heavy cannon much more interesting. Having to use melee, using melee for the recoil so you can get a recoilless shot off...and might even make reverse thrust have a valid spot in league play, which would be quite interesting.

It's piercing could be reduced as well without any cries of foul and would reduce it's "if I want to kill you then I will kill you no matter what you do" feel slightly.

And since people seem to view recoiless as the melee option and heavy cannon as the sniper option dogfighter still needs an identity, a reason to pick it besides old school flavor. I still like low energy machine gun shots. It would be the energy-efficient plane. Able to fire and thrust, pepper enemies from a distance and then finish them off with melee without stalling itself out and completely draining itself like heavy cannon.

Anyone else have ideas to make dogfighter more attractive?

[Ajplagge]

Problem for recoiless with me is you cant hold f,d and turn at the same time.I find it rather frustrating.

[jeppew]

Originally Posted by Ajplagge

Problem for recoiless with me is you cant hold f,d and turn at the same time.I find it rather frustrating.

i can, must be your keyboard.

[yankeeboy]

i go back and forth with recoiless n heavy cannon. they r about equal in my mind. As for dogfighter the best way to make it better is through stronger primary and/or secondary bullets. not so much that it can fire repeated heavy cannon shots, but a little boost to make it more effective.

[Triped]

My favorite is heavy cannon, but I'm probably better with recoilless. It's just amazing with increased energy and swept wings. I'm level 60.

I still think heavy cannon should be charged and be more powerful but deliver more knockback, like the fusion cannon in Descent. Actually mess with the angle of the plane.

[DiogenesDog]

bob - what you're experiencing is called key jamming. try changing up the keys you use for stuff until you find a config that doesn't have this problem. it sucks, but there's nothing you can do about it short of replacing your keyboard.

[Pillars]

one thing I'm not so sure about is when blank says that loopy should be brought up to the level of the rest of the planes. yeah, it'd be much easier for sure, but I tend to prefer the game pacing of loopy better than something like the bomber. there's a lot of fun back-and-forth I miss from when guys tended to die slower. but uh that's pretty off topic.

Very off topic, but I agree about 'drawn out' dog-fighting being more fun... Though I think Loopy could get a buff and still maintain that type of interaction with other planes.

[Blank]

I am pro-drawn out fights. But it just seems the direction of the game is away from that (what with grenades, heavy cannon, laser/warp, bouncy/warp, thermo...). Loopy underperforms in this environment greatly. Don't get me wrong, he's probably still good 1on1 but who gives a ****?

There's some strange madness infecting the other vets into thinking loopy is useful for bombing, but really, he's a very "meh" plane.

[jeppew]

i think it's more of a map issue. bomber, explodets and Heavy canon biplanes are really strong because most maps are choke intensive, especially middleground. Miranda and loopy rely on speed and agility to survive instead of a large health pool, but in corridors, chokes and generally games with lots of players you can't dodge the wall of projectiles. on more open maps loopys rarely do that bad.

i also think that it's pretty easy to say that the loopy is bad because 99% of the rubber loopy players are pretty horrible at the game right now.

[Pillars]

Originally Posted by Blank

I am pro-drawn out fights. But it just seems the direction of the game is away from that (what with grenades, heavy cannon, laser/warp, bouncy/warp, thermo...). Loopy underperforms in this environment greatly. Don't get me wrong, he's probably still good 1on1 but who gives a ****?

There's some strange madness infecting the other vets into thinking loopy is useful for bombing, but really, he's a very "meh" plane.

Yeah, I feel like the environment 5-6 months ago was a lot more conducive to Loopy's overall effectiveness and especially his ability to bomb. He's still decent at bomb carrying, but you need to know how to maximize his speed / turn rate to *really* be effective.

Also agreed that some of the heavy-hitting weapon types have made dog-fighting less interesting overall [since they tend to shorten the duration of plane interactions.] Heavy cannon can probably be tweaked into something a bit more reasonable, but I'm not sure what to do with grenades.

[Shyney]

Originally Posted by Blank

I am pro-drawn out fights. But it just seems the direction of the game is away from that (what with grenades, heavy cannon, laser/warp, bouncy/warp, thermo...). Loopy underperforms in this environment greatly. Don't get me wrong, he's probably still good 1on1 but who gives a ****?

There's some strange madness infecting the other vets into thinking loopy is useful for bombing, but really, he's a very "meh" plane.

Couldnt agree more, and i've been saying this for how long now. The game has been "dumbed down" so to speak, the fighting/flying(skill) isnt what it used to be, Its just so much easier to kill now a days, fights dont last long at all. There are very few "good battles" and fights, planes fly at each other, mash buttons, and see who comes out on top. And loopy is just too weak to stand up to that.. I dont know, but I personally dont see any loopys tearing up servers, and raping ffas, And i dont know anyone that does see, it just dosnt happen. It may not be that loopy is too weak, it may be that "over time" everything else got a bit too strong.

Yeah loopy can be used as a bomb carrier, but it HAS to do it by slipping past the opposing teams defenses, rather then fighting its way through it. You WONT see a loopys killing 2-3 guys on its way through a bomb run, while most other planes can. Loopy just cant keep up.

[ham]

Originally Posted by Esoteric

You do know you can F+D with heavy cannon, right?

Let's make this simple: Does ANY level 60 biplane player prefer recoilless or dogfighter? Has ANY biplane in a league game been outfitted with anything but the heavy cannon? I might play less than some here, but the fact that I've never seen a 60 biplane player outfitted without one, excluding myself messing around with them, seems pretty telling.

i play recoilless exactly as much as i play HC. recoilless is brutal.

[nobodyhome]

Originally Posted by Esoteric

And since people seem to view recoiless as the melee option and heavy cannon as the sniper option dogfighter still needs an identity, a reason to pick it besides old school flavor. I still like low energy machine gun shots. It would be the energy-efficient plane. Able to fire and thrust, pepper enemies from a distance and then finish them off with melee without stalling itself out and completely draining itself like heavy cannon.

Anyone else have ideas to make dogfighter more attractive?

At first I thought that lowering the energy of the dogfighter shots would be a good idea, since it would allow more energy for the dogfighter to afterburner out of a stalling situation. But then I realized that it might make the dogfighter too much like recoilless--a plane that uses speed to swoop in, kill, and get out. I think the best option would simply be to increase the punch of the machine gun shot for the dogfighter.

[Ajplagge]

Originally Posted by DiogenesDog

bob - what you're experiencing is called key jamming. try changing up the keys you use for stuff until you find a config that doesn't have this problem. it sucks, but there's nothing you can do about it short of replacing your keyboard.

Thanks dio, I've been playing for years with this problem!

-bob / corp

[gameguard]

Originally Posted by Shyney

Couldnt agree more, and i've been saying this for how long now. The game has been "dumbed down" so to speak, the fighting/flying(skill) isnt what it used to be, Its just so much easier to kill now a days, fights dont last long at all. There are very few "good battles" and fights, planes fly at each other, mash buttons, and see who comes out on top. And loopy is just too weak to stand up to that.. I dont know, but I personally dont see any loopys tearing up servers, and raping ffas, And i dont know anyone that does see, it just dosnt happen. It may not be that loopy is too weak, it may be that "over time" everything else got a bit too strong.

Yeah loopy can be used as a bomb carrier, but it HAS to do it by slipping past the opposing teams defenses, rather then fighting its way through it. You WONT see a loopys killing 2-3 guys on its way through a bomb run, while most other planes can. Loopy just cant keep up.

I dont really think loopy is underpowered. Many people rape with it. If you emp someone, you basically win that fight. Loopy spam is very effective. You spam as you enter the fighting area, kill someone, and leave. It might be fragile, but its very fast so it can do hit and runs all day and has a pretty high survival rate.

There are some useless perks that really need tweaking. Double fire, dog fighter, and dumb bombs.

[Phill64]

Originally Posted by gameguard

I dont really think loopy is underpowered. Many people rape with it. If you emp someone, you basically win that fight. Loopy spam is very effective. You spam as you enter the fighting area, kill someone, and leave. It might be fragile, but its very fast so it can do hit and runs all day and has a pretty high survival rate.

There are some useless perks that really need tweaking. Double fire, dog fighter, and dumb bombs.

Exactly! I also agree with the point about the map. personally I choose my plane and perk config based upon what map pops up next. surely most of you do? so surely you can find it feasable that there are maps Loopy rocks at.

Also don't let those who poorly run with Loopy in bombing blur your judgement of how effective it is, they usually forget(or don't think of) one awesome factor. more top speed means, further bomb lob. you can get a nice fast flying lob right into the corner of their base on alot of maps with a loopy hurling itself at top speed at the right angle. You'll hit the base from a much further distance than the other planes, and many players won't know how to block it since it hasn't come into their view yet. Who needs armor when you don't come near their defense?

Though, I have seen some badass miranda flying skills pull a similar trick off as well, but not as gleefully easily.

This is getting a little off-topi from biplane perks now though. On that note I bomb run with biplane, the little bit slower it is is made up by its endurance. But again, depends on the map, if the base is close, loopy is superior as the odds of sneaking past r greater.

[Shyney]

Originally Posted by gameguard

I dont really think loopy is underpowered. Many people rape with it. If you emp someone, you basically win that fight. Loopy spam is very effective. You spam as you enter the fighting area, kill someone, and leave. It might be fragile, but its very fast so it can do hit and runs all day and has a pretty high survival rate.

There are some useless perks that really need tweaking. Double fire, dog fighter, and dumb bombs.

"Many people rape with it"? You and I probably have a different definition of what rape in this game means.

"If you emp someone". Yes emp is good, ill give you that.

Loopy spam is very effective?? Loopy spam, is probably the least effective aircraft spam in the game. Owing to its tremendously low damage, Id much rather run into a wall of loopy fire, then just about anything else, because anything else will screw you a whole lot quicker, and a whole lot harder.

"You spam as you enter the fighting area, kill someone, and leave". Everyone does this..

"has a pretty high survival rate". I dont have access to the stats, but i wouldnt be the least bit surprised if loopy has the lowest "survival rate" in the game, again, owing to its very low hp, its more likely to go down then anything else.. And it usually does.

[nesnl]

Just to make a comment on Loopy as the bomb carrier: When the game was changed so that you could use afterburner with the bomb (I think it was about February), the other planes became much more viable bomb carriers. For people who have been around that long, if you remember, a lot of planes couldn't make climbs very well at all and if you were hit with an explodet director missile while trying to travel up it pretty much destroyed all chance at trying to continue to fly up. I think that this change was made (the afterburner with the bomb) and not much thought was put into the fact that Loopy, one of the better bomb carriers at the time, was 'nerfed' in a sense because it no longer had such a large advantage in bomb carrying.

[gameguard]

well other spam doesnt track does it? I see loopy spam as a burst damage. You put out the missles then enter and make it track someone. It wil take them out just as easily as FD with biplane. HP isnt everything to survivability. You can get out of situations where a slower plane just wouldnt be able to.

[Triped]

Originally Posted by gameguard

well other spam doesnt track does it? I see loopy spam as a burst damage. You put out the missles then enter and make it track someone. It wil take them out just as easily as FD with biplane.

I agree it can be effective but loopy does not do burst damage. Burst damage is three grenades in the face, or heavy cannon F+D killing a bomber/loopy/miranda/biplane instantly at close range.

[Vi*]

I had a dream last night that the Loopy was replaced with an actual beaver. I think I've found our fix!

[Triped]

Originally Posted by Vi*

I had a dream last night that the Loopy was replaced with an actual beaver. I think I've found our fix!

F: tail slap
D: build dam

[lamster]

Just popping in to say I agree that dogfighter probably needs a very small buff, loopy feels a little bit weak overall, all the long-range stuff (heavy cannon being a prime example) probably needs a bit less range to reduce offscreen kills/spamming, and that the trend away from drawn-out fights is a bad thing.

We should be ready for a minor balance patch soon, so hopefully that'll help things a bit.

I'm always open to ideas for encouraging better drawn-out dogfights. I'll wait until we've had a chance to try out some game modes that strongly encourage staying alive (e.g. CS-style team deathmatch) before going crazy with feature tests to improve dogfighting, but there are a few ideas floating around (mini-map radar, modify grenades so that the damage isn't quite so burstable) that are already on my test-wish list.

[Beagle]

Originally Posted by lamster

J(mini-map radar, modify grenades so that the damage isn't quite so burstable)

Those both sound awesome.

[Triped]

Originally Posted by lamster

Just popping in to say I agree that dogfighter probably needs a very small buff, loopy feels a little bit weak overall, all the long-range stuff (heavy cannon being a prime example) probably needs a bit less range to reduce offscreen kills/spamming, and that the trend away from drawn-out fights is a bad thing.

That all sounds great, but why is everyone opposed to off-range sniping with heavy cannon/miranda bouncy/explodet missile? Especially in small TBD games, I'll often pan the camera between spawns and use that information to lead a shot into an offscreen plane approaching my base. Isn't that skillful play that should be encouraged?