Initial impressions of infamy(ranked) gameplay post 4.0 update

After 7 days of CTF games, I have been back on the bay this morning in ranked battles.

Not sure if anyone else is experiencing the same things post 4.0 update:

Increased Weapon Damages(due primarily to every weapon now being at max strength with no conflicting choices to make)
-Cannon Fire damage is insane now that every cannon has max bonus fire damage from the training
-Games are ending now much quicker than pre-4.0 battles
-Fixer teams are NOW at a disadvantage due to less firepower
-Fixers can no longer keep up with the increased damage
-HP increases to ships and shields were not enough to compensate for the weapon damage increases

The game has changed.

The agility update was the start of reducing strategy out of the game. The 4.0 update has taken another huge chunk of strategy out of the game by making it all about firepower. I'm sure a lot of shooters like this, and this is likely the direction the developers are taking the game to make it more exciting for new players, but the problem is that there are many other mobile games out there that can give you a sense of "blow it all up quickly" mentality. I hope the gameplay settles back down, but I am not a fan of it so far.

 

Did roughly 30 ranked games and mostly won with fixer in my team.

 

Ya I would disagree. All my healing items got a buff, and fixers are hard to out damage since it's much easier to land a bolt than a cannon shot. Fixers are still greatly valuable if played and used right

 

What I have found interesting is after playing CTF for 7 days the game play difference in a regular match. In CTF it is fast paced chaos. Speeders flying with even more reckless abandon, less camping.
Then you go do a regular match and you get a ton of tentative campers. Players playing way more cautiously. Then CTF. Fire power is up but so is health. Smart players will still do well in the bay

 

A new ship is coming that will repair the fixer problem

If the guy on reddit lied send the hit man after them not me

 

I think we are missing a point here. Damage is up for all weapons and Hp of ship is buffed same. But its the Numbers. Every ship have multiple weapon. So if a ship have 3 weapons its 30% buff for firepower while only 10% buff in hp.
Now what we think is that it helped shooters more. Well not really. Since firepower is increased, it takes less shots to kill an enemy. So ships who can deal shots quickly are more effective than ships who can deal more shots.
This make Hit n Run and Hit n Cover more effective.
Also up close Defender should be deadlier.

 

First off -- The agility update was amazing!

You actually had a chance to dodge shots and skilled aiming was more important than item levels ... Then, they messed it all up by nerfing the crap out of it for 80% of the ships. Bigger ships went back to being huge floating turds that take absolutely no skill to hit.

Secondly, my experience is the opposite with fixers. 1 good fixer (with a decent team) should never lose to a no-fixer team (unless it's full of speeders). It's creating an OP strategy of sitting back and spamming until the enemy gets desperate, rushes in and dies ..



But .. I do agree that the weapon power to health is balance is slightly off.

With yellow boat agility, speed, TSs, and weapon damage, you're automatically dead if you get within range of their weapons .. so you're going to see more shooters sitting back and spamming long range weapons - since it's about the only viable strategy at the moment.


They could do a 25% HP increase across the board ... or, better yet, start calculating fire (and frost) perks the same way that every other damage perk in the game is calculated.

 

Since the update, I'm not scared of defenders much anymore when I'm in a shooter. I find they get nailed by 3 firebombs before they get anywhere near me. I roll with two rail guns that hit for 3k each and an ex cannon with burn damage. By the time they realise what's going on, they're either already half HP and charging to doom or stranded against multiple opponents trying to retreat.

With the extra HP, hit and cover works great. The HP buff nowhere near covers the current level of burst damage potential.

 

I don t think it was intentional but enfo and fixers have way too little health. Having less blue slots means that any increase in health was less than for other ships, so that they are getting beaten by high weapon strength. Also, no training conflicts mean that ships have strong Big Shields and Standards giving shooters, defenders much more health than the other ships. They did make the HP of interceptor low, which is good but in my opinion shooter HP is still too high.

 

Yet, your going to see Enforcers and speeders at the top of the leader board.

 

Oh please, shooter and defenders lost all their defence points and are more vulnerable to missile/carronade. Did speeder/enforcers lose their special attributes? Didn't think so.

 

Seriously people here are beyond reason. Still complaining about shooter and defenders when they literally took all DEFENCE away from a ship called DEFENDER.

Let that sink in.

 

Would agree with OP that HP increase feels weak compared to the damage boost.

 

So after another 50 battles played since my original post here are some updated observations.
Anyone agree or disagree?

1. Win streaks. They are much less likely to happen now. It seems that it is easier for luck to be a deciding factor in the outcome of each battle. Prior to 4.0, I would estimate that Skill and Weapon power accounted for 95% of the outcome. Post 4.0, I would say Skill and Weapon power are around 75% of the determining factor. Not a drastic drop, but enough to bring luck back into some battles. And just enough to keep win streaks lower.

2. As much as cannons had previously ruled the bay, I think they will rise to an insane height now post 4.0. With no more choices to make between blast/sniper/explosive, they are all max level with full fire bonus damage. Why would I load out a 2000 Hit BIG BERTA, when I could saddle up a 1700 Hit Explosive Cannon that does 2200 damage to a burning target(with no fire perks)? As players start to realize the increased power of cannons, I expect everyone who doesn't have leveled up cannons will be getting theirs leveled up and we will be seeing even more cannons on the bay.

3. The speed of games has increased. Most maps I have certain routes that I take depending on spawn point and enemy team ship types(fixer or no fixer). This doesn't happen every game now, but in enough games to be noticeable, before I even get finished with my route getting into position, one of my teammates, or enemies players is already dead or close to dying. The amount of battles over in 2 to 3 minutes (win or loss) seems to have increased.

4. Star Reward distribution has seemed to have increased. As a speeder main, Pre-Update I normally only got 1 Star per battle in wins, which is normal for my style of play(low focused damage). POST 4.0, I am getting 2 stars in almost every winning battle(despite being #4 or 5 on the post battle damage list).

5. I still believe FIXER teams are disadvantaged after the update. With only TWO blue slots, their shield HP increases are reduced compared to shooters and defenders(every defender on the bay now seems to rock at least 18K HP). Lets assume all weapons increased 25% in strength and all healing items increased 25% in strength. If you're a fixer who used to have 3000 healing per cooldown cycle, that means you gained 750 per cooldown cycle. An enemy team with 4 shooters and a speeder have 22 weapons who used to average an estimate of 1000 damage per weapon per cooldown cycle had a potential of 22,000 damage dealt and with the damage increase +5,500 damage. Now obviously shooters don't have 100% accuracy on shots, so even at a 30% accuracy, that is 1,650 more damage per cooldown cycle that a fixer cannot keep up with. These numbers can be played with, but the reality is that damage increases have outpaced fixer healing.
Can a good fixer team still win? YES. But previously if both teams are of equal talent, I would always give the edge to the fixer team. Now an equal talent team, I will always give the advantage to the NON-Fixer team.

 

Agreed. This game sucks now pretty much. Join everyone else and don’t spend a dime on this until they fix it. Matches shouldn’t end in one minute. So ridiculous and utterly arrogant of the devs to complete change the game so drastically, basically saying “ we could give two hoots what our customers think”

 

Too Salty...

 

I'm just gonna sit in my corner, playing with my torps, waiting out the storm...

 

I joined because I wanted to have fun, but apparently to everyone, the fun's over...

 

I don’t see any difference in the update, same spamming as before. The interceptor is always surprises me though in combat and zips in unexpectedly, still comes down to their setup though.

 

There is some changes but nothing to cry about.