category Let's Discuss Game Balance

[Abellia 504]

It doesn't look like there's a planned rework for Magnum coming, so I might as well throw out my buff proposal:

Magnum normal damage increased from 750-1500 to 865-1735
Reinforced Gun Carriage average splash damage radius increased from 5m to 10m
Automated Gunpowder Loading Mechanism average splash damage = 25%
Automated Gunpowder Loading Mechanism reload time penalty removed
Mortar lays mines only when a tank is hit rather than only laying them when a tank isn't hit
Harpoon projectile speed increased from 30-130m/s to 60-260m/s
Harpoon impact force +100%
Armor-Piercing Core damage -12%

Now to explain changes:
The first change this allows Magnum to make use of its average splash damage radius, as it will be doing 1561.5 damage within that 5 meters (90% of full damage). It also allows Booster Magnums to oneshot any light hulls that are either undergraded or even the slightest bit injured (1995.25 damage). 

The change to Reinforced Gun Carriage serves to change it from being a direct downgrade of Automated Gunpowder Loading Mechanism with slower reload into a multikilling focused vertical Magnum, with the increased splash damage radius letting it also act as a more beginner-friendly vertical Magnum.

The changes to Automated Gunpowder Loading Mechanism work to boost its current "active artillery" playstyle, by reducing its self damage risk in the same way as Harpoon, while also promoting it for skilled players who can land direct hits, with its direct reload boost over Reinforced Gun Carriage. 

The changes to Mortar turn it into an even more tricky to use vertical Magnum - it must land direct hits to reach its full potential, but when it does, it can place a mine underneath whoever it hits and do a devastating amount of damage - enough to wipe out a light hull instantly and nearly instantly wipe out a medium hull.

The changes to Harpoon work to let it overwhelm people close range more easily with its impact force, with the projectile speed change to facilitate the impact force working more reliably, as slower projectiles are less likely to successfully deliver their impact force.

The change to Armor-Piercing Core prevents it from accessing 1500+ (twoshotting medium hull) damage in its average splash radius, pushes it further back from the 2000 damage barrier with Booster, and prevents it breaking 2000 damage per shot with Crisis/Camper.

In summary:
RGC for splash
AGLM for active vertical magnum gameplay
Mortar for tryhards
Harpoon for point blanking
Armor-Piercing Core stays the same as it is now

Thoughts?

Actually, one last thing - add Harpoon to normal and ultra containers. It's been in the game for a year and a bit, containers have gone through three iterations (old, shard, current) and it still isn't in the rewards pool.

Edited January 23, 2022 by Abellia

[Abellia 504]

On 1/16/2022 at 5:23 PM, artc said:

So they have the probability of getting a crit. shot on rail at 50%, which is the highest of all the turrets. If its just the rail gun itself, thats no big deal. However if they have a special aug. such as stun, or emp, that works on crit. shots, that gives them an unfair advantage because, they have a high probability of that shot using that special effect. I suggest somehow balancing it out, so that they dont deal that effect every other shot. 

That is what I am suggesting then. That if a status aug. is used, the crit.shot would be lowered to 15% (which is around average of the other turrets) . That would balance out the distribution of status effects

To do this, you have to bring their normal damage up, and 15% is far too low for any railgun with how many prots there are now - Railgun balance uses its critical rate to counter protections, and status effects which have much more easy to access protections cannot compensate for more than a tiny change, and if you go down that route at all, you need to extend their status lengths so that they can chain them, etc, etc...

...in other words, you're describing AP Railgun.

Frankly, I don't see a need for any of the status rails to be nerfed right now. They're not particularly overpowered among the wide array of status augments, and that's what you should be comparing them to. Asking for individual rather than net nerfs is asking for trouble, and unfortunately it's pretty impossible at this point to ask for a nerf to every single status augment in the game with how many there are now. I don't think it's worth trying to achieve balance between garage and legendary augments together, achieving balance within each category is a much more feasible goal.

Edited January 24, 2022 by Abellia

[alkyng 3,080]

58 minutes ago, Abellia said:

To do this, you have to bring their normal damage up, and 15% is far too low for any railgun with how many prots there are now

Protection modules are players' act, they shouldn't affect the overall balance of a turret.  I suggest to nerf Railgun criticals to 15% or less, and increase the regular damage, this wouldn't affect protection modules.

[FrozenRailgun 1,771]

5 minutes ago, asem.harbi said:

I suggest to nerf Railgun criticals to 15% or less, and increase the regular damage, this wouldn't affect protection modules.

Are you suggesting something like:

Bump its regular damage to 1.2k (assume Mk8) and nerf its critical rate to 15%?

[alkyng 3,080]

16 minutes ago, FrozenRailgun said:

Are you suggesting something like:

Bump its regular damage to 1.2k (assume Mk8) and nerf its critical rate to 15%?

Railgun now have a constant 50% critical chance. If we shoot two shots, one will be regular one will be critical. (700 + 1310) / 2 = 1005 dmg average. So I mean we will buff the regular damage to compensate the new difference

[NikmanGT 4,362]

Agreed, Magnum is weak now as in comparison to its counterparts.

[wolverine848 13,097]

2 hours ago, Abellia said:

Frankly, I don't see a need for any of the status rails to be nerfed right now.

Having a 50% chance of delivering a status effect IS OP.  I can't believe you honestly think otherwise.

And who uses Rail protection these days?  It's useless when > 66% of the damage it might block is in fact NOT blocked.

And as Asem mentioned above - balancing a turret to account for possible protections is a huge mistake.  What happens to all the players who don't have that module equipped?

[NikmanGT 4,362]

On 1/21/2022 at 6:25 AM, TheCongoSpider said:

As I saw in a thread recently, Spy mentioned that eSports was not taken into account when making balance changes

Esport playerbase accounts very few number of people currently, which can be a reason behind it.

Rest all parameters seems fine but what's the point of increasing the damage range, this augment would be used as a source of camping and dealing shots from behind frequently but in turn contributing nothing overall.

 

[wolverine848 13,097]

5 minutes ago, nikunj04 said:

Rest all parameters seems fine but what's the point of increasing the damage range, this augment would be used as a source of camping and dealing shots from behind frequently but in turn contributing nothing overall.

Well it contributes "nothing at all" right now because it's pretty much useless.  Don't see anyone using it.

Edited January 24, 2022 by wolverine848

[NikmanGT 4,362]

1 minute ago, wolverine848 said:

Well it contributes "nothing at all" right now because it's pretty much useless.  Don't see anyone using it.

The same is majorly with all normal augments of not only smoky, but many turrets. The increased accessibility of UC augments leaves all the normal crystal augments behind.

[Abellia 504]

1 hour ago, wolverine848 said:

Having a 50% chance of delivering a status effect IS OP.  I can't believe you honestly think otherwise.

Compared to garage augments? Sure. Compared to other legendary augments, though? Read the rest of my post.

[Abellia 504]

55 minutes ago, nikunj04 said:

The same is majorly with all normal augments of not only smoky, but many turrets. The increased accessibility of UC augments leaves all the normal crystal augments behind.

Wow it's almost like you shouldn't be comparing augments that can counter overdrives and drones to augments that can't

[BruhBruhThingThing 413]

Speaking of magnum. I think they might overbuff it so that more people can buy it. Making more profits.

[BruhBruhThingThing 413]

I don't think its gonna get a buff unless the devs plan to profit from it. And the only way they'll do that is if they add something super crazy to it like probably 150% increase in damage or something like that. And then increase the price to 245k crystals.

[TheCongoSpider 8,942]

5 hours ago, nikunj04 said:

Rest all parameters seems fine but what's the point of increasing the damage range, this augment would be used as a source of camping and dealing shots from behind frequently but in turn contributing nothing overall.

You can't really camp with Smoky if the weak damage is 25%, and this is assuming they take the time to acknowledge Assault Rounds' existence rather than using EMP or 1 of the other 10 augments that give a critical hit that is strengthened in some way. 

 

5 hours ago, nikunj04 said:

Rest all parameters seems fine but what's the point of increasing the damage range, 

The alternative would be to significantly increase the shot damage, like BruhBruhThingThing mentioned. I think most of the turrets and top augments in the game already deal too much damage and I try not to add too much to that. The changes I'm suggesting to augments ate not to make them meta. It is to give them individual identity rather than the one-size-fits-all approach the Devs are using which benefits some augments (many of which are already at the top) and worsens others. It's to give them a purpose. The same way now that there is a concrete purpose to using High-Precision Aiming System Smoky over Adrenaline at endgame. The same way there is now a concrete purpose to using High-Pressure Pump over the other Firebird and Freeze augments. 

 

 

There are some augments that you just can't help without suggestion something unorthodox, for example, Reinforced Aiming Transmission for Railgun and Sorted Ammunition. Both of them have an identity. Reinforced Aiming Transmission for faster horizontal rotation and Sorted Ammunition to give favourable order to the chaos of Smoky's RNG. Sorted Ammunition is fine but what about RAT? It is a mechanically unneeded augment because Railgun already turns fast enough and in conjunction with the hull. And then you lose some vertical auto-aim on top of that. There's nothing you can add to it to keep to its (unneeded) purpose besides removing the vertical auto-aim penalty.

[wolverine848 13,097]

9 hours ago, Abellia said:

Compared to garage augments? Sure. Compared to other legendary augments, though? Read the rest of my post.

No wonder the game is going in the crapper... 

And you commented on 1 aspect of my post.   How about the rest?

Edited January 24, 2022 by wolverine848

[Abellia 504]

35 minutes ago, wolverine848 said:

No wonder the game is going in the crapper... 

And you commented on 1 aspect of my post.   How about the rest?

 

11 hours ago, wolverine848 said:

Having a 50% chance of delivering a status effect IS OP.  I can't believe you honestly think otherwise.

And who uses Rail protection these days?  It's useless when > 66% of the damage it might block is in fact NOT blocked.

And as Asem mentioned above - balancing a turret to account for possible protections is a huge mistake.  What happens to all the players who don't have that module equipped?

Who uses Rail protection? Plenty of people - people still think it helps, it's actually kind of depressing seeing falcons come out against Crisis AP Rail Paladins.

As for balancing a turret to account for possible protections being a huge mistake - I always have a large comment to make on how idiotic this change was, so I typically try to avoid addressing it - it really seems like common sense.

Before the critical system was implemented, Railgun was statistically overpowered. On the other hand, nowadays Railgun and its crystal augments are actually statistically disadvantaged compared to the crystal augments of other augments - the status ones and booster are meant to supplement it, and do so enough to push it into competing with other status augments rather than garage augments, making it overpowered compared to the average player, although comically now average amongst status augments.

Now, the logic behind the change looked something like "Railgun is broken and we can't fix it because people take too many protections against it, it'll be really weak in practice if we nerf it down to the level of other turrets." The PROBLEM with this logic is that what was "broken" then (Sledgehammer/Scout, Rapid Fire Mode/Duplet, Incendiary Mix) has been completely superseded by "equivalents" - Stun Striker/EMP Smoky, Blunderbuss, AP and EMP Tesla/AP Freeze - that are much more broken compared to what we had back then - and even the crystal augment equivalents are more broken(Missile Launcher Hunter replacing Sledgehammer, Scout, and Duplet, and Adrenaline Freeze replacing Incendiary Mix).

Essentially, yes, the change was stupid - the powercreep of other turrets and augments got up to where Railgun augments were back then. I think realistically? They should have just nerfed Railgun damage down to the level of other turrets and let protections fade over time. Instead, we have a Railgun that's still oppressive in the hands of those with meta drones and/or status augments, so everyone still protects against it, but it ignores protections.

As for what happens to all the players who don't have those modules equipped? You see what current status Railguns are doing to all the players without Armadillo and the right status immunity? That. Exactly that.

I'd rather make immunities and armadillo more available and then work forwards from there.

Edited January 24, 2022 by Abellia

[alkyng 3,080]

11 hours ago, wolverine848 said:

And who uses Rail protection these days?  It's useless when > 66% of the damage it might block is in fact NOT blocked.

 

I think you mean by 66% as the old Railgun which have a consecutive critical rates of 10 50 10 50 ...   . But this have changed now, it have a constant 50% critical which give it higher chance to ignore protection modules.

[alkyng 3,080]

39 minutes ago, Abellia said:

Before the critical system was implemented, Railgun was statistically overpowered. On the other hand, nowadays Railgun and its crystal augments are actually statistically disadvantaged compared to the crystal augments of other augments - the status ones and booster are meant to supplement it, and do so enough to push it into competing with other status augments rather than garage augments, making it overpowered compared to the average player, although comically now average amongst status augments.

Agree with you that Railgun crystal augments are in a disadvantage. Now I never use my Railgun especially LCR, which is very underwhelming compared to Shaft or Magnum or Gauss, especially when they have Adrenaline (the same cost of LCR) which give Gauss and Magnum the chance to one-shot light hulls.   They buffed Railgun critical chance and impact force in expense of the damage, which is really seem nothing to me compared to the actual damage. I hope they reduce the impact force (which is too high) and reduce the critical chance to the same of other turrets. Then buff Railgun & LCR damage to be the same of Gauss/Magnum Adrenaline.

Most of my criticism for Railgun are on status augments only

Edited January 24, 2022 by asem.harbi

[wolverine848 13,097]

2 hours ago, asem.harbi said:

I think you mean by 66% as the old Railgun which have a consecutive critical rates of 10 50 10 50 ...   . But this have changed now, it have a constant 50% critical which give it higher chance to ignore protection modules.

I was being generous.

You just emphasized how useless those expensive protection modules can be.

And balancing a turret against the possibility that players will equip the module is just wrong for 2 reasons...

1) Players that don't equip the module will constantly get wrecked - which basically forces players to use 1 of 3/4 slots on one specific turret

2) the module does almost nothing anyway, since the bulk of Rails damage comes from critical which ... ignores the module.

[wolverine848 13,097]

3 hours ago, Abellia said:

I'd rather make immunities and armadillo more available and then work forwards from there.

We all know this will not be happening.

[Abellia 504]

13 minutes ago, wolverine848 said:

We all know this will not be happening.

Yes, so what makes you people think a net nerf to status augments will happen? 

[wolverine848 13,097]

37 minutes ago, Abellia said:

Yes, so what makes you people think a net nerf to status augments will happen? 

Who knows - probably a short while after there's too few players to run any kind of MM.

[YANUKFIN 493]

6 hours ago, Abellia said:

I'd rather make immunities and armadillo more available and then work forwards from there

WHAT?? And have the hard working developers lose out on money. I will quote on behalf of hazel "not gonna happen in a million, zillion years x infinity +1."

Edited January 24, 2022 by YANUKFIN

[artc 1,119]

Im curious to hear some of the helpers views on this? @Spy @natrolite @SuperNick95 @Marcus