#Gunner missile queue length (incoming changes) feedback

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

chilly tartan
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Hey there. A bit of feedback on the reduction of all missile launcher queue lengths to 1 in the upcoming patch. This feels like a really unpleasant loss of QoL for the class. It's essentially "press this button every 10 seconds like clockwork or lose damage".

Also worth mentioning that middle-duration cooldowns like this can be harmful for people with repetitive strain type injuries.

Is the intent of the change to further disincentivize MCing? If so, I would say that benefit is strongly outweighed the detriment of reduced playability for the class as a whole.

quaint pollen
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i dont like it either

hollow saddle
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Destruction effect now lasts 20 seconds instead of 10 seconds and it was reduced destruction effect percent so you're not losing as much damage. So ultimately it's less key presses vs live.

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We wanted the choice to use a missile to be more impactful and that's why a lot of missiles got stronger effects or added effects but we wanted it more of a tactical choice in the moment.

chilly tartan
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I see what you are trying to go for. 20 seconds is better than I assumed. But I do feel the current implementation is less than ideal

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for one thing there is no real way to tell when your destruction debuff wears off so realistically you would fall back to firing as fast as you can

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secondly you lose the UI element on the missile launcher that tells you the queue length/time

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it's a bit niche but I did also find the old queue system enhanced tactical play in some cases. Because if you fill it up with the wrong missile or targeting the wrong target you will suffer for that. This mattered to me on e.g. BK where you want to be able to splash ebuff the add wave as soon as it shows up

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just some thoughts there

hollow saddle
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Yeah I agree this is worth reviewing. We have started up an internal conversation around this to double check this is meeting our goals.

Like a lot of debuffs - the UI is the true enemy/problem I feel.

chilly tartan
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thanks!

trim void
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@chilly tartan Is your concern the missile damage, the Destruction skill effect, or the debuff effect from the missile?

chilly tartan
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None of those - my concern here is having to press a pretty short cooldown button repeatedly like clockwork

chilly tartan
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(after discussing a bit with Roh) I do think a queue size of 2 across the board would make the new missiles fairly pleasant to use

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3 would be perfect but I could live with 2

trim void
chilly tartan
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To not lose out on the destruction debuff, of course. What I'm saying is this - the launchers with a queue length of 1 feel bad to use during normal gameplay. A queue length of 2 or 3 would resolve that. As it stands, Gunner has taken a significant hit to the QoL of playing the class with this change because you must now monotonously press the launch button every X seconds rather than queue some missiles and allow the queue to drain before attending to it again (with visual indication that it is doing so).

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X can be 20, but unless people are going to start counting to 20 in their heads every time they fire a missile (haha), realistically it's going to mean pressing at a rate somewhere around the launcher cooldown which is 10s

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significantly shorter than any other regularly cycled class ability and with no decent UI indicator to boot

hollow saddle
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They don't need to count to 20 tho. They just can queue up a missile right after

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The only thing is there's no UI for one in queue while it's charging

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Definitely going to look into that

quaint pollen
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its also odd, the queue size is one but you can launch a missile and queue another while the cooldown is recharing

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so you have a missile with 20sec debuff en route, and in 10 seconds have another one launched

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assuming it doesn't die on the way, thats 30 seconds before you have to reapply debuff

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but its still a weird system, i liked the old queue xd

devout copper
quaint pollen
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yea i know, but the ui doesn't show that

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it shows a 10 second recharge as asoon as your missile launches

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and you can add one back into that queue at any point

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the ui doesn't update the charge bar

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itll just launch a missile when its full

hollow saddle
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Yeah we've noted the UI lackingnrss for better improvement

quaint pollen
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kk

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overall i like the direction

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trying ot make missiles impactful cooldowns

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but i would consider making them stronger and having like a 30 second cooldown

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30 second debuff

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make them NUKES

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not small slaps

atomic gust
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Make the sources of damage not just debuffs?

chilly tartan
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Yeah as Lemon said. Making missiles an impactful choice is a great idea, this change just misses the mark because it makes the class feel worse to actually play.

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If you made missiles a big badaboom explosion with a minute long CD for example, I would say "hell yeah!"

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right now they are kinda dweeby little things that make a debuff you can't really see or track and need to be reapplied annoyingly frequently... kind of a not so great middle ground area

hollow saddle
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The class isn't meant to have burst damage though. Which that would be.

chilly tartan
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It doesn't have to be damage

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like what about a huge AoE slow

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crowd control, debuffs of all sorts I guess

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(worth saying I have not tested all missiles in the new system cause I can't seem to open any crates on livetest... maybe a bug)

hollow saddle
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Yeah the crate thing was something simple. should be fixed later.

chilly tartan
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what abotu missiles that make hazard zones

hollow saddle
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At this point, the patch is coming tonight or tommorow.

chilly tartan
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For sure 😄

hollow saddle
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We may need to see how it goes longform.

chilly tartan
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No worries, things aren't usually perfect first time

hollow saddle
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I love your energy and you're free to come up with stuff but I just don't want you to drain yourself 🙂

chilly tartan
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Thanks. This is my first time using this feedback system and I am impressed how actively you all are responding

hollow saddle
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We love the game. Sometimes we probably respond too much but we need y'all to make it better.

devout copper
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the splash range of the warheads are pretty big now, I think you'll find that its more focused on being pretty powerful.

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If they're not powerful enough we can revisit them, I was very conservative in this first iteration.

dapper bobcat
quaint pollen
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the ones that try to give you RSI, yes

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xd

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the goal is to produce cooldowns that are impactful and fun to use, not something that you just spam to have up all the time

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like imagine if FC auras had a 1 second duration/cooldown and you had to mash the button to keep the buff up

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not fun gameplay, not interesting, but feels required

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and produces RSI 😄

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the old missile system with insane debuffs was basically that, but we had downtime. you could queue up a bunch and ignore it for a while

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new system, missiles should be slightly more impactful but as hober said, conservative for the first iteration

chilly tartan
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Yep. Flashbacks to the PoE flasks system haha. @dapper bobcat you're not wrong that a lot of MMOs do this, but that isn't a strong argument in favour of SS doing it too. Fair to say SS has a bit of a more mature playerbase with gamer hands that aren't what they used to be? XD

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this gunner missile system is not so egregious really, but I was a bit worried when it seemed things were headed that way, especially when I thought it was necessary to keep up with the 10s launcher cooldown on the dot

dapper bobcat
hollow saddle
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@chilly tartan done any runs as gunner over weekend?

chilly tartan
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Yep

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DB felt really fun, nice work on that one

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The missiles as predicted seemed clunky to me with the small queue size

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they aren't far off being in a decent place

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question - did you consider increasing launcher cooldown to 20s to match the debuff duration? (with missile stats doubled to compensate)

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not suggesting that's the right solution but wondering if it was discussed

hollow saddle
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Missiles get too bursty as the damage scales up.

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Too much dph

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And the loss of not hitting so much greater

chilly tartan
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I guess. With a gunner+bots that's getting close to a million dps I can't say I would notice the missile dmg

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😆

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By the way I used a few missiles on my ShM too and they felt pretty similar to before damage wise, queue length was again a bit annoying

hollow saddle
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I'm personally pretty happy where it's currently on playthroughs. It really drives the need to stay on gunner client and rewards active control. Both with how db requires targeting an alive enemy and how missiles work.

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I'd love to hear any other gunners' opinions of how it's impacting their gameplay.

devout copper
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There's some adjustments to missiles coming in an upcoming patch

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Basically buffs

empty peak
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My only gripe is similar to the tweak charge/timer discussion we have had previously.

Its annoying to know that I am inefficiently using my missiles due to the Missile Que time. In combat, I have know way of knowing when 20 seconds has passed in order for me to launch a missile again for the best use of the gunner debuff. So either I am a) guesstimating 20 seconds and possibly going over which leads to lower dps. Or b) I simply spam the missile on CD, which causes me to use more missiles than needed, and basically forces me to be inefficient with my materials.

I shouldn't have to "guess" in order to optimally run my gear.

hollow saddle
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Yeah charger not showing the queue is in the backlog to seperate.

empty peak
hollow saddle
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Oh that's a headline not a seperate topic

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It's funny tho

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If we made the destruction cooldown 10 seconds. There's always a chance of you missing it due to flight time. And if we have you missile queue you'd waste missiles anyways

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Yeah a tweak timer on enemy would be amazing but stupidly complicated sadly.