Game Balance

[nesnl]

So here is a list of what my 1.5 million xp and my 80,000 kills think should be changed:

* Bomber's fire rate should be increased. If the old fire rate seems too fast (although I thought it was fine), then at least something greater than what it is now. I know it was reduced by 40%, maybe bring it back up so it's only 20% reduced from before and see how it plays.

* The bombs are still pretty much useless. I would support a return of Smart Bombs as long as it was different than it was before. Maybe if the bombs were fired and dropped like normal (with no lock) then they retained their current fire rate, but if the bomb acquired a lock, then make it so there is a larger cooldown to fire the next bomb. Maybe the cooldown could be similar to the current fire rate of grenades. Also, maybe make it so that the bombs have a very large turning radius so planes have more of a chance to fly perpendicular to the bomb's flight to not get hit.

* Laser length needs to be increased. Anyone who plays in a game with competent people knows that the current Miranda is very difficult to get kills with unless you are picking off the stragglers. In games where you can prey on the lack of knowledge of newer players can make the plane look easy. But try killing any good player with the laser in its current form. Even gameguard (king of laser) knows that in a game with good people, that the laser pretty much sucks. I also want it to regain pierce. Maybe do the same thing as the heavy cannon so that it can only pierce through one target and the second takes 50% damage?

* The current 30% damage reduction to the heavy cannon machine gun is too much. If you are intent on nerfing its damage then that is way too much. Maybe trying only reducing it by 15% and see how that works.

* Loopy missiles need to be addressed. There is no reason they should track a plane if they were shot with no target in a lock in the first place. There are way too many people just spamming missiles or flopping around just holding F and if you happen to fly by the missile just changes direction and hits you. If a missile is fired straight without a lock it should just continue straight. I realize that people already consider loopy weak so maybe increase tracking ability if and only if a lock is acquired.

* I know that explodet missiles have always affected the shooter since the beginning (always was the case with director). But I just don't see this as beneficial to good gameplay. I think the self affect should be removed from all modes. Some people play it as a long range fighter but some like to play it as a short range fighter. It just gives it the feeling of when a plane gets on top of you that you aren't left with any option but to take a beating. I personally like to play it as a short range plane and it's almost impossible to do that in it's current form. Maybe it might be worth trying the other thermobaric for a while. The one where it stalled planes for a second. I feel like once people got the hang of that it felt less random.

* Time Anchor should be changed so that the line doesn't have to reach max length in order to use it. If the cooldown is up then it should work even if the line is only a fraction of the max length.

That's all for now. Feel free to comment. Dio feel free to post that you absolutely disagree with everything I said.

-Maimer

[Rechtschaffen]

Bombs do seem a bit useless, but when you use them by staying near the top of the map they become rather powerful. They are simply a very different way of playing, right?

Smart bombs seem stupid to me - bombs are not rockets.

[Luke]

Originally Posted by nesnl

* Loopy missiles need to be addressed. There is no reason they should track a plane if they were shot with no target in a lock in the first place. There are way too many people just spamming missiles or flopping around just holding F and if you happen to fly by the missile just changes direction and hits you. If a missile is fired straight without a lock it should just continue straight. I realize that people already consider loopy weak so maybe increase tracking ability if and only if a lock is acquired.

I disagree. Bomber, trickster mirandas and sometimes even biplanes spam shots hoping to hit something far away.
Loopy is different, obviously many time you shoot before having a lock on the target.
Example 1: I see a planes but I don't have a direct line of fire because we are separated by an obstacle. Then I just shoot in the right direction without having a lock, so that when it come clear of the obstacle missiles lock on and hit him.
Example 2: I see that the bomb is coming. Even if I do not see the plane, by the size of the off-screen indicator I can guess the right time to fire.

[DiogenesDog]

yeesh, someone's a bit sensitive.

agree that bombs suck and it's BS that time anchor can't be used until it's reach max length.

laser I dunno. I've always been better with trickster, but I still see players that are good with it doing well. it does feel a little underpowered to me, but I'm not sure if it actually is. I'd be really curious to see what the k:d stats on it are compared to the other miranda loadouts (not that that tells the whole story, but still).

agree that the heavy cannon mgun nerf feels really harsh, but it's only been a couple days and I think we really should give it a chance. it makes the mgun suck, but that's kind of the point. and I was still able to do quite well with the plane when I tried it, I just had to play differently, which is a good thing!

for the rest of the stuff: I... uh, absolutely disagree with everything you said?

[gameguard]

bombs should be looked at for sure. Its about the most useless weapon in the game thats only used for fooling around. I wouldnt know how smart bombs would affect gameplay at this stage in developement so i wont comment on that. If they track, it should be easily avoidable with evasive maneuvers. I think bomber is pretty playable right now. You just cant spam kill someone as much as you use to. Personally, I loved the strong acceleration from flak cannon. That was one of the unique things about bomber.

Im by no means a laser king (plenty of people better than me with it) but i did use it for a bit. Miranda is really not overpowered in an even game. Bad players just sit there and get hit by the laser but its a different story against experienced players. The constant nerf on miranda is a bit much imo.

In my opinion loopy doesnt need a nerf. Changes you mention would really affect the way loopy plays and i think overall it would make it weaker. It would be put in much more danger because it needs to see the enemy before doing anyhting. The problem with loopy right now is that all the demo players went from spamming bomber to spamming loopy which is about equally annoying.

I feel like explodet is still strong. Point blank thermo usually happens in a small alley and it would just be instakill. Explodet has so many thigns going for it that adding incredible close range ability would make it overpowered.

I agree with time anchor.

The machine gun on Heavy cannon seems a bit weak at 30%. But I agree that it shouln't be such a powerhouse up close AND from far. What I thought was maybe the secondary could be turned into dogfighter's primary with full range. I dont know if that would work out right though. Many people got attached to the way the plane works and that would be changing it to a whole new play style. The recoil from the machine gun is really useful for people who utilize it.

I would like to add that dogfighter is still pretty much a worse version of recoilless. What if the primary weapon became a mid range weapon that does a bit more damage?

[ham]

i'm moxie and i approve these suggestions [thumbs up]. i think if randa's laser is going to stay this short it needs full pierce, because it's too ****ing short.

i think everyone has pretty much heard my piece on heavy cannon, so i'll just say i'm with maimer on this one.

[DiogenesDog]

oh, and flak is a little overpowered imo. also kind of silly because it's pretty much identical role-wise to the standard tailgun.

[gameguard]

flak is not really overpowerd, you have to be more precise with it than the suppressor. Also, it doesnt travel very far. I would say its better than the suppressor, but not by much. Its just plays slightly different.

I tried to get use to double fire on loopy, but it just doesnt match up to the single fire options. In theory, its a harder to connect but rewarding weapon when u aim it correctly. In practice, its horrible tracking outweighs the added damage.

[Vania]

I agree on everything except the explodet part.

Explodets should continue to be affected by their own missiles.

Also, why cant I shoot the mines? Allow us to destroy mines by shooting at them.

[Rechtschaffen]

Originally Posted by Vania

I agree on everything except the explodet part.

Explodets should continue to be affected by their own missiles.

Also, why cant I shoot the mines? Allow us to destroy mines by shooting at them.

Allow me to destroy your shots by mining them to establish equality, then.

[jf2l]

What if Loopy's Doublefire had knock-back? The top missile could knock the planes down and vice versa. That way if you get hit by both you take more damage but if you get hit by one you get damage and bumped. (The bump should be much less than Explo Director)

I think this would give Doublefire more oomph while hopefully not making it too powerful.

[Rechtschaffen]

Originally Posted by jf2l

I think this would give Doublefire more oomph while hopefully not making it too powerful.

I don't get how it's underpowered. Surely two missiles = more quickly convert energy into damage. As long as you aim more (as they track less) surely it's a good trade off?

[DiogenesDog]

The missiles don't do full damage. I think they do about 2/3 of normal damage each. So still more than normal total damage, but nowhere near double.

[armed_]

I will never understand why the time anchor nerf was done, barely anyone even used the plane in the first place. :/

[nesnl]

Originally Posted by Luke

I disagree. Bomber, trickster mirandas and sometimes even biplanes spam shots hoping to hit something far away.
Loopy is different, obviously many time you shoot before having a lock on the target.
Example 1: I see a planes but I don't have a direct line of fire because we are separated by an obstacle. Then I just shoot in the right direction without having a lock, so that when it come clear of the obstacle missiles lock on and hit him.
Example 2: I see that the bomb is coming. Even if I do not see the plane, by the size of the off-screen indicator I can guess the right time to fire.

I think you either misunderstood what I was saying, Luke, or don't have a clear idea of how this mechanic works in game.

You are right that all the other planes shoot "spam" at things that are far away, the best situation is an incoming bomb carrier. However, the difference between all the other plane's spam and the loopy spam is that with the Loopy you only have to be moderately accurate because even if the plane is off screen, the game corrects the missiles for you and tracks to the enemy. And this is all done without a lock.

All I am asking is that he Loopy be more like the rest of the planes in that if it shoots spam or any non-lock missiles that those missiles continue straight on a path and do not track. They are still welcome to run into planes that get in their way, they just shouldn't move from their straight path. Why should a Loopy have the advantage that it doesn't even have to be accurate in its spam, it can just be shot "in the direction" and the missiles will adjust accordingly. That's like spamming biplane long range gun and having the bullets curve towards enemy planes.

----

I want to also address the comments about the laser. I think there needs to be a distinction made about playing the laser versus new (read: bad) players and good players. The current laser still does fairly well against new players, and that will always be the case.

The problem with its length now is that it's too easy dealt with when a player can easily gauge what a miranda is capable of. The Miranda is slow compared to most planes and with its short length laser it has now you have to be considerably within distance of an enemy plane in order to shoot it. When a player has played enough that it can accurately adjust to a Miranda, there just isn't enough element of surprise or the ability of the Miranda to take an initiative to attack. By the time it is within striking distance another good player has already seen the Miranda on the screen for a sufficient amount of time and has most likely taken steps to counter act the attack. This often relegates a Miranda player to using tactics of picking off stragglers or waiting for another fight to develop in order to successfully kill people.

[tyr]

I totally agree with the range of the laser miranda.
Ever wondered why its stronger on cave ?
Because when fighting in the rocks in the bottom of the map, you're almost always immediatly at range of the ennemy once you have a line of fire on him.
It will certainly be much weaker on open space maps like lostcity or hills.
Since it's power is caped on cave, increasing range will only increase a bit miranda's usefulness on open space maps, which is a good thing i think.

[Blank]

Originally Posted by nesnl

However, the difference between all the other plane's spam and the loopy spam is that with the Loopy you only have to be moderately accurate because even if the plane is off screen, the game corrects the missiles for you and tracks to the enemy. And this is all done without a lock.

I loaded up a training game against bots and tried it out, firing in the vague direction of the bots (enough to "miss" so it would have to auto correct). If I flew within screen range fast enough, the missile would home but not if I wasn't pointed at them (IE, if I turned back).

Just played a game to make sure and again, all loopy fire I saw heading my way didn't turn toward me unless the loopy actually came on screen. I did notice all shots would turn in a given direction should the loopy get lock on someone on THERE screen, but they weren't homing at me.



Laser is still fine and incredibly powerful. Good players kill other good players with it all the time, and sometimes, they don't. All is well in the world.

[Blank]

Originally Posted by tyr

I totally agree with the range of the laser miranda.
Ever wondered why its stronger on cave ?
Because when fighting in the rocks in the bottom of the map, you're almost always immediatly at range of the ennemy once you have a line of fire on him.
It will certainly be much weaker on open space maps like lostcity or hills.
Since it's power is caped on cave, increasing range will only increase a bit miranda's usefulness on open space maps, which is a good thing i think.

This is stupid logic. Let's buff Explodet cause it sucks in open terrain too. Choose your battle zones more carefully. And if the map is almost 99% open space (ala Hills), don't pick laser miranda (not like longer range would make Miranda any better on that map... well, unless it was godly long :|).

[hurripilot]

Can we please give Heavy Cannon with nerfed dogfighter primary as secondary (aka sniper/pistol) another chance?

A couple of things I would change on it would be to give the secondary a little more range (i.e. 5-6 bullet lengths instead of the 3 it had before) and allow it to fire at the same time as the HC, not alternating shots like it did before.

Hear me out. Dogfighter and recoiless are basically close range weapons. Occasionally you can get a sniper kill with them, but they work their best up close. Heavy cannon is a sniper's tool, it's whole thing is accuracy, and even with the nerfs, sniping is a viable way to get kills with it. Doesn't it make sense for a plane that you have to be accurate with to have an accurate secondary, instead of a spray and pray weapon?

[Vania]

Can we have a button to release the bomb so that a teammate can pick it up?

Please, I'm tired of being forced to crash whenever I want to "pass" the bomb to someone else.

Please? At least give it a try, test it for a couple of days...

[Luke]

Originally Posted by Vania

Can we have a button to release the bomb so that a teammate can pick it up?

That would be great and would encourage team play. I definitely agree.

[eth]

Originally Posted by Luke

That would be great and would encourage team play. I definitely agree.

3rded.. Usually I don't even bother picking up the bomb if Im playing explo/bomber, since I'll never get even remotely close to the base, but if I could pass it off to someone else it'd be another story :]

[Carbon]

Originally Posted by nesnl

* Loopy missiles need to be addressed. There is no reason they should track a plane if they were shot with no target in a lock in the first place. There are way too many people just spamming missiles or flopping around just holding F and if you happen to fly by the missile just changes direction and hits you. If a missile is fired straight without a lock it should just continue straight. I realize that people already consider loopy weak so maybe increase tracking ability if and only if a lock is acquired.

I don't quite understand why you want loopy missles to be less spammable, but you want the rate of fire increased on bombers primary which is, in my opinion, the primary source of spam in the game.

I do agree with nerfing/changing loopy tracking though, because I've been flying straight, several plane lengths below a stream of loopy missles when all of a sudden the loopy comes on screen and they all b-line straight into my face when I was obviously out of harms way. I think that the homing should degrade over time, so when they first come out they home extremely well then their homing efficiency drops over the time it isn't homing a target, this way you can still shoot off screen to get a bomb carrier, but you need to be rather accurate anyway. I think this will decrease the effectiveness of loopy spam. Loopy should be given a slight increase in HP though, something along the lines of +10%


On the topic of bombers, I don't understand why you want the fire rate increased as it only encourages low-skill behaviour such as chokepoint spam. bomber is strong enough as is, because they got an HP buff when their fire rate was decreased. Bomber is already very good at taking down nearly any plane in 2-3 shots if the pilot can aim, so I think if anything there should be changes that encourage players to learn to aim. If bomber primary is given a faster refire rate I think the damage should be decreased along with it, or it will become OP.

Smart bombs do need a change though, as the only real reason to pick them over flak tailgun is to spam vertically from the top of a map.

[Smushface]

I'm going to have to agree with a lot of Carbon says. I say this as a player who believes that Loopy is my strongest plane (relatively speaking) but I'm constantly switching over to biplane or explodet out of frustration. Loopy is becoming an almost unplayable plane with the amount of projectiles in the air.
Loopy will die in:
-2 Heavy Cannon direct hits
-An Explodet missile / mine combo
-2 Bomber grenades will get Loopy down to a sliver of HP
-Whatever combo a miranda can put out.

On top of this, a double rocket loopy pretty much needs a full energy bar to take out the heavier planes. Which is fairly hard to do in TBD with the amount of spam coming through choke points. Where loopy excelled was weaving in and out of obstacles, picking off weak planes, getting a better position, and in general harassing enemies as much as possible. This strategy is becoming harder and harder as players get better and every single plane has the chance to kill a Loopy in 2 or 3 shots.

So I'm all for a significant reduction in Loopy's tracking ability in return for buffs in other areas, namely survivability. Maybe even a mobility buff.

And please don't buff bomber. Its a really good plane in the hands of a good player, but I would say 95% of bomber players are terrible. The game needs less spam, not more.

[gameguard]

i disagree. Loosing the tracking for more hp takes away the whole point of the loopy. Just like with any plane, you need to pick your battles and your survivability will go up. The tracking enables the loopy to hit the target without constantly pointing straight at the plane. This makes the loopy much more maneuverable as they can zoom in and out of battlefields or dodge flak/mines while attacking.

On this note, I still feel the double fire is gimped. You kind of have to play it like a biplane. Maybe the double fire could get a slight boost in hp .. i duno

[hurripilot]

I think maimer and Ballin' want the missiles to lose their ability to track over time, so a bunch of missiles spammed from nowhere with no aiming whatsoever don't suddenly jump up and kill someone who's out of their path, which I also agree with

Sniper/pistol Heavy Cannon? Please?

[protest boy]

Here are my thoughts. Note, I will only mention things which I feel really impact the game's fun level. Player skill makes a bigger difference than tiny imbalances in most situations.

- Please please release HP/damage info for all the planes so we don't have to make educated guesses on these things

Bomber :

- Flak cannon is too strong in its current form. As I've said before, the fact that it only has a mid-range shot is actually an advantage because you can miss, and still have the explosion damage your target. If your target is closer, you can make a direct hit. The only plane that avoids getting hit is the one that is beyond its range.

The dumb bombs are somewhat (but not totally) useless. I really hated smart bombs because they were too much like missiles. I wouldn't mind them coming back with greatly reduced speed/tracking ability than what they had before. i.e. they should not be capable of horizontal or upwards flight, and should not be able to turn sharp corners.

Everything else on bomber is great where it's at.

Miranda:

- The damage from warp should be considered for a reduction, but again it's hard to say without knowing how much damage it actually does compared to other weapons. I just know that trickster Miranda kills loopy in the blink of an eye with a shot-warp combo which is extremely unfun. Other than that, I don't think there are any major issues.

Biplane:

- Restore the short range gun to it's previous level. Dogfighter is really the only thing that needs some adjusting to be distinct. I recommend increasing the short range gun to 1.5x-1.75x what it's at. That would get my interest and I think others as well.

Explodet:

- I'm also in favor of eliminating self-thermo and destructor effects. Close shots already deal damage to yourself. Making yourself also stall and slam into walls is just too much.

- I would like to see a return of shrapnel missiles. Then the player has a choice between affecting plane's flight (director) and dealing damage. Thermo and director are redundant as it is now, except thermo is clearly better. Also, the damage on director needs to be increased. It's very unfun to shoot someone 3 or 4 times and have them continue to fly away, barely smoking.

- Whatever is done, I like the graphics for thermo and those should be incorporated into director if shrapnel comes back.

Loopy:

- Loopy is by no means weak as some people like to claim, but it's best role is a support fighter / support bomber. Getting the proper positioning on someone before you attack is paramount. I can still rack up the most kills and the most base damage in the same game using loopy but it's from playing an extremely cautious / support role. Dashing into the middle of anything is a good way to die.

If you want loopy to be able to engage more directly, it's biggest limitation is that it is so slow to kill things. Rate of fire / energy use / damage per missile needs to be adjusted.

- I can't comment on dual-fire vs single fire. I determined a long time ago that single fire is superior and I haven't used dual since.

[Ferret]

Originally Posted by protest boy

- I'm also in favor of eliminating self-thermo and destructor effects. Close shots already deal damage to yourself. Making yourself also stall and slam into walls is just too much.

The problem with this is that explodet is by far the dominate long range plane. It's already got mines to fend off close attackers, yes you have to anticipate and turn and time them, but shouldn't you? If director and thermo don't effect the explodet, then it would theoretically be able to after burn in front of a bomb carrier, fire and detonate a missile instantly, stall the other plane but not itself, continue flying at full speed and then drop a mine. And what's the counter to this, slow down so the explodet gets clearly in front of you and starts dropping mines or else try to kill the healthiest plane in the game before you start exploding? It leads to situations for which there is no real counter and player skill would have nothing to do with the creation of these.

There's so many times where I fire a director right in front of myself because I know I'm going to die and figure I might as well blow my attack and I both into the nearest wall/floor/ceiling. If I could knock my enemy completely away from the front of me in exchange for a little bit of damage I doubt I'd hesitate.

tl;dr, best long range plane should have some obvious close range penalty and mines are already good.

and yea no one really used shrapnel but it was a smaller player base so shrug.

[tyr]

Originally Posted by protest boy

- Flak cannon is too strong in its current form. As I've said before, the fact that it only has a mid-range shot is actually an advantage because you can miss, and still have the explosion damage your target. If your target is closer, you can make a direct hit. The only plane that avoids getting hit is the one that is beyond its range.

As someone playing flak bomber quite a lot, I don't think it should be nerfed (again).
Getting hits on stuff is actually not that easy. How many times have I missed a smoking loopy just behind me because I turned just a little bit too much in a direction or another. You can say that i'm bad but I personally don't find it that easy (and I have almost 11k kills with flak bomber).
I think it's perfect as it is (and there are not thaaaaaaat many flak bomber players, by the way ...).

[nesnl]

Originally Posted by Ferret

then it would theoretically be able to after burn in front of a bomb carrier.

I would be interested to see the top speed of an explodet using afterburner (with no bomb) and the top speeds of the other planes carrying a bomb. However, even if the explodet has a slight edge, by no means is it "catching" someone in the sense that other planes can. however, I see your point that it could be abused in the right situations. Why not experiment with reducing the effects of knockback / thermo and increasing the self damaging part?

[protest boy]

Originally Posted by nesnl

Why not experiment with reducing the effects of knockback / thermo and increasing the self damaging part?

I would be OK with that. I'd rather take extra damage. Really, it's only self-thermo that has me annoyed. Stalling can be managed, turning on a dime right into a wall can't be. I've never been a fan of the angular-momentum thermo