Move over bonefish, the Arashi are upgrading

It's the week before pax and all through Muse.
Not a dev was sleeping, especially not those who schedule press interviews.
Others were working on fitting the alpha into a USB with care
In hopes that everything would work on first try when they got there
With computers tucked in all tight in the back of a van
Devs were on their way, rocking out to Dvořák's 9th symphony in a four door sedan.

To be the first to hear about our plans for PAX and get to ask about the upcoming alpha, join us for our weekly dev fireside chat at http://www.twitch.tv/gunsoficarus. We'll be taking questions and talking about the massive push into alpha coming to a con and computer near you!

This week in Muse:

Howard:
Planning for Pax East!  If you're coming to Pax, come by booth 7212 to visit us and play some Alliance!!!

Jack:
More Arashi Cloud-Breaker work.

Alex:
Implementing the code bits for a new Alliance title scene, and making the "missile circus" guns behave themselves.

Tom:
Tutorials and bug fixes.

Matthew:
Updating the way we produce content from the Muse team, choosing the next batch of CAs, and preparing for PAX!

For our player of the week, big congratulations to:
The Squash
"Lead a crew of AI to victory after our allies dropped from the game"
"For always helping me out when I need it and teaching me so much."

Move over bonefish, the Arashi are upgrading

It's the week before pax and all through Muse.
Not a dev was sleeping, especially not those who schedule press interviews.
Others were working on fitting the alpha into a USB with care
In hopes that everything would work on first try when they got there
With computers tucked in all tight in the back of a van
Devs were on their way, rocking out to Dvořák's 9th symphony in a four door sedan.

To be the first to hear about our plans for PAX and get to ask about the upcoming alpha, join us for our weekly dev fireside chat at http://www.twitch.tv/gunsoficarus. We'll be taking questions and talking about the massive push into alpha coming to a con and computer near you!

This week in Muse:

Howard:
Planning for Pax East!  If you're coming to Pax, come by booth 7212 to visit us and play some Alliance!!!

Jack:
More Arashi Cloud-Breaker work.

Alex:
Implementing the code bits for a new Alliance title scene, and making the "missile circus" guns behave themselves.

Tom:
Tutorials and bug fixes.

Matthew:
Updating the way we produce content from the Muse team, choosing the next batch of CAs, and preparing for PAX!

For our player of the week, big congratulations to:
The Squash
"Lead a crew of AI to victory after our allies dropped from the game"
"For always helping me out when I need it and teaching me so much."

So much violence has happened and will happen for this little square of land.

Hello everyone,

We're excited about a lot of upcoming things. We have PAx East coming up where we'll be showing off a mountain of new content which will make its way into the player prototype shortly after and just as exciting is the revamp of balance testing a procedure.

As always we'll be talking about this and more on https://www.twitch.tv/gunsoficarus at 3 pm eastern as well as taking your questions live!



Balance Procedure Revamp

We're coming to you today with what we hope will be some reassuring and exciting news about how we balance Guns of Icarus Online and our aims for the future of how we play the game together. Let’s talk about it!

After the last balance cycle, we can totally understand why everyone is frustrated - us included. Having reviewed the process, a lot of things were done wrong and communication across the board left a lot to be desired. We want to change that because these changes ought to benefit the players and community instead of causing developers and players unnecessary grief.

In order to help everyone out, we are going to change the way that we handle balance. The hope is that this will make changes less intimidating and keep everyone better informed as to what our goals are. Here’s a brief summary what we’re going to do.

Instead of making many changes at once, we’re going to deal with problems on a more regular basis, but balance changes will be made one or two at a time instead of in lumps of nine changes once a year. This will mean that our balance changes don’t fight each other as hard and will create a more regularly updated game environment.

The changes will be less significant in general so they will be less risky to implement. This will help the ease of adapting to the new balance and will ease the tracking of changes.

We will be tackling a confirmed problem statement during each cycle. This will be determined based on player feedback with corroborating data as we already do. We will be discussing with the community which statements we tackle and do our best to communicate our aims so that everyone is on the same page.

The hope is that the changes we’re making to our method should help everyone out. In order to get the ball rolling, we’re going to have a discussion about the first problem statement that we’re going to tackle for this first cycle. At the moment, we’re looking at the effectiveness of the Meta Mobula. We’ll take some time to gather data and think about it and see what we can do!

In the meantime, please send us your balance feedback. It doesn’t absolutely have to be related to our current problem statement by the way - we want to know all about the things you’re seeing in our balance so that we can generate new problem statements to prioritise and work on for future cycles. Go ahead and tell us what you think!

Team's Weekly Progress

Howard:
Been doing some testing, some outreach for Pax and Alliance previewing!

Michael:
Has been testing and fleshing out new modes.

For skirmish:

• Battle Arena - Each team has a fortress that must be protected. If a fortress is destroyed, the other team wins. (no creeps or anything else)
• Skyball - A soccer / basketball-like mode. Drag the floating ball-barge into the opponent's goal to score.
• VIP - A deathmatch variant, where only killing the enemy team's VIP ship counts towards the score.

For Alliance:

• Protection (working title) - Coop VIP mode. One player ship must be escorted through the map and to the exit without it dying.
• Escape - Players race against the clock to the map exit, destroying numerous obstacles in their path.

Alex:
Testing, finalizing things for PAX, and making slow but steady progress on upgrading GoI to Unity 5.

George:
Working on the ability for Boss guns to charge before they fire.

Tom:
Working on Ambush and tutorials, with some minor bug fixes.

Eric:
Lore, new game modes, old game modes, and planning data collection for next balance cycle.


Player of the Week

Our player of the week is:
SteamBrains

"A-Star Level Leadership"
"Helped us out when our captain left."
"Truly a 100% decent pilot."

So much violence has happened and will happen for this little square of land.

Hello everyone,

We're excited about a lot of upcoming things. We have PAx East coming up where we'll be showing off a mountain of new content which will make its way into the player prototype shortly after and just as exciting is the revamp of balance testing a procedure.

As always we'll be talking about this and more on https://www.twitch.tv/gunsoficarus at 3 pm eastern as well as taking your questions live!



Balance Procedure Revamp

We're coming to you today with what we hope will be some reassuring and exciting news about how we balance Guns of Icarus Online and our aims for the future of how we play the game together. Let’s talk about it!

After the last balance cycle, we can totally understand why everyone is frustrated - us included. Having reviewed the process, a lot of things were done wrong and communication across the board left a lot to be desired. We want to change that because these changes ought to benefit the players and community instead of causing developers and players unnecessary grief.

In order to help everyone out, we are going to change the way that we handle balance. The hope is that this will make changes less intimidating and keep everyone better informed as to what our goals are. Here’s a brief summary what we’re going to do.

Instead of making many changes at once, we’re going to deal with problems on a more regular basis, but balance changes will be made one or two at a time instead of in lumps of nine changes once a year. This will mean that our balance changes don’t fight each other as hard and will create a more regularly updated game environment.

The changes will be less significant in general so they will be less risky to implement. This will help the ease of adapting to the new balance and will ease the tracking of changes.

We will be tackling a confirmed problem statement during each cycle. This will be determined based on player feedback with corroborating data as we already do. We will be discussing with the community which statements we tackle and do our best to communicate our aims so that everyone is on the same page.

The hope is that the changes we’re making to our method should help everyone out. In order to get the ball rolling, we’re going to have a discussion about the first problem statement that we’re going to tackle for this first cycle. At the moment, we’re looking at the effectiveness of the Meta Mobula. We’ll take some time to gather data and think about it and see what we can do!

In the meantime, please send us your balance feedback. It doesn’t absolutely have to be related to our current problem statement by the way - we want to know all about the things you’re seeing in our balance so that we can generate new problem statements to prioritise and work on for future cycles. Go ahead and tell us what you think!

Team's Weekly Progress

Howard:
Been doing some testing, some outreach for Pax and Alliance previewing!

Michael:
Has been testing and fleshing out new modes.

For skirmish:

• Battle Arena - Each team has a fortress that must be protected. If a fortress is destroyed, the other team wins. (no creeps or anything else)
• Skyball - A soccer / basketball-like mode. Drag the floating ball-barge into the opponent's goal to score.
• VIP - A deathmatch variant, where only killing the enemy team's VIP ship counts towards the score.

For Alliance:

• Protection (working title) - Coop VIP mode. One player ship must be escorted through the map and to the exit without it dying.
• Escape - Players race against the clock to the map exit, destroying numerous obstacles in their path.

Alex:
Testing, finalizing things for PAX, and making slow but steady progress on upgrading GoI to Unity 5.

George:
Working on the ability for Boss guns to charge before they fire.

Tom:
Working on Ambush and tutorials, with some minor bug fixes.

Eric:
Lore, new game modes, old game modes, and planning data collection for next balance cycle.


Player of the Week

Our player of the week is:
SteamBrains

"A-Star Level Leadership"
"Helped us out when our captain left."
"Truly a 100% decent pilot."

An amazingly player, Atruejedi, made this for us. I bring it up for no reason.

Hello Everyone

And happy April 1st. As you may know, this is classically a day for pranks and tomfoolery. On that note, the patch that went out today has no gameplay changes.

Beyond that though we'll be talking about Guns of Icarus and Alliance while answering your questions at https://www.twitch.tv/gunsoficarus at 3 pm eastern. Can't wait to see everyone there and get to hang for an hour!

Going to be a short update today, because news on April 1st is always a frustrating prospect. So last and never least, our player of the week!
DiemExDei, who will receive a free muse-made item of their choice!
They have apparently been sharing their musical talent and many players have enjoyed.
"Great at piano!"
"Sweet Toons"
"Playing INSANE LIVE MUSIC!"

An amazingly player, Atruejedi, made this for us. I bring it up for no reason.

Hello Everyone

And happy April 1st. As you may know, this is classically a day for pranks and tomfoolery. On that note, the patch that went out today has no gameplay changes.

Beyond that though we'll be talking about Guns of Icarus and Alliance while answering your questions at https://www.twitch.tv/gunsoficarus at 3 pm eastern. Can't wait to see everyone there and get to hang for an hour!

Going to be a short update today, because news on April 1st is always a frustrating prospect. So last and never least, our player of the week!
DiemExDei, who will receive a free muse-made item of their choice!
They have apparently been sharing their musical talent and many players have enjoyed.
"Great at piano!"
"Sweet Toons"
"Playing INSANE LIVE MUSIC!"

Balance Changes

Mobula
-Outer top guns fanned out 5 degrees
-Inner bottom guns fanned out 10 degrees

Spire
-Reduced turn acceleration to 10d/s2 (from 15)
-Reduced top turn speed to 10d/s from 12

Squid
-Back gun turned inwards (towards right side of ship) 40 degrees (from 0)
-Increased forward/backward acceleration to 8m/s2 (from 6.66)

Heavy Flak
-Damage moved to direct hit for a 70/30% split between direct and AoE (from 45/55%)
-Higher clip capacity to 4 (from 2)
-Damage per shot reduced (115/50 explosive, from 150/180 explosive)
-Increased RoF of 2 shots/s (from 0.8 )
-Reduced reload time of 4.5s (from 5)
-Reduced camera shake

Lochnagar Shot
-Reduced clip size reduction to -50% (from reduction to 1 shot)
-Reduced rotation speed reduction to -80% (from -90%)
-Changed damage-to-gun model so that is deals proportional damage per shot until gun is destroyed (e.g. if gun has 2 shots then each shot deals 50% damage vs a gun that has 4 shots were each shot deals 25% damage)

Hwacha
-Reduced projectile speed to 250m/s from 400m/s
-Decreased camera shake

Harpoon
-Added right click and hold to reel in
-Increased harpoon force to 1,500,000 (from 230,000)

Pyramidon
-Hull health increased to 700 (from 550)
-Ship mass increased to 300000 (from 200000)
-Ship propulsion increased from 283500 to 675100

Balance Changes

Mobula
-Outer top guns fanned out 5 degrees
-Inner bottom guns fanned out 10 degrees

Spire
-Reduced turn acceleration to 10d/s2 (from 15)
-Reduced top turn speed to 10d/s from 12

Squid
-Back gun turned inwards (towards right side of ship) 40 degrees (from 0)
-Increased forward/backward acceleration to 8m/s2 (from 6.66)

Heavy Flak
-Damage moved to direct hit for a 70/30% split between direct and AoE (from 45/55%)
-Higher clip capacity to 4 (from 2)
-Damage per shot reduced (115/50 explosive, from 150/180 explosive)
-Increased RoF of 2 shots/s (from 0.8 )
-Reduced reload time of 4.5s (from 5)
-Reduced camera shake

Lochnagar Shot
-Reduced clip size reduction to -50% (from reduction to 1 shot)
-Reduced rotation speed reduction to -80% (from -90%)
-Changed damage-to-gun model so that is deals proportional damage per shot until gun is destroyed (e.g. if gun has 2 shots then each shot deals 50% damage vs a gun that has 4 shots were each shot deals 25% damage)

Hwacha
-Reduced projectile speed to 250m/s from 400m/s
-Decreased camera shake

Harpoon
-Added right click and hold to reel in
-Increased harpoon force to 1,500,000 (from 230,000)

Pyramidon
-Hull health increased to 700 (from 550)
-Ship mass increased to 300000 (from 200000)
-Ship propulsion increased from 283500 to 675100

Lights... Guns... ACTION!

Hello everyone,

Now that we're past our teenage texting title we can get into the nitty gritty of this weeks update. We'll have some finished balance notes coming out soon and into the game, but for now you can hear it and have all your questions answered first at 3 pm eastern at http://twitch.tv/gunsoficarus.

In massive news though. Guns of Icarus Alliance Pre-order is on Steam! This is a massive step and we're really excited to be moving closer to a full release. As salways if you send in your purchase information to feedback@musegames.com you can get early access to the prototype.

Keep reading for what the team has been working on and our player of the week!

Howard:
At GDC, and with the help of Steam and got Alliance pre-order up on Steam finally!

Eric
Cheating in World Progression, breaking events, ruining balance, and building walls.

Tom:
Working on the new Ambush game mode for Alliance.

Alex:
Wrangling engine versions and fixed a couple of odd networking glitches.

Tim:
Hooking up some lights (see above.)

Michael:
Has been prototyping new modes, including Capture the Flag for skirmish and a couple VIP modes. Also, created a new "Debug" tab in the world map that allows more control over cheats related to world progression and viewing more data about the world.

Matthew:
Buying the worst computer possible to test min spec for alliance mode along with community work and balance testing and feedback.

And our final part of Mayday Friday, our player of the week!
Air Admrial Sean
He will be receiving any muse-made item of his choice for getting the most applauds this week including:
"Great leader, would crew for again 11/10"
"Maintained a fun yet efficient attitude as captain, contributed to the overall humor of the crew, and led the charge with atypical ship types."
"He's nice man"

Lights... Guns... ACTION!

Hello everyone,

Now that we're past our teenage texting title we can get into the nitty gritty of this weeks update. We'll have some finished balance notes coming out soon and into the game, but for now you can hear it and have all your questions answered first at 3 pm eastern at http://twitch.tv/gunsoficarus.

In massive news though. Guns of Icarus Alliance Pre-order is on Steam! This is a massive step and we're really excited to be moving closer to a full release. As salways if you send in your purchase information to feedback@musegames.com you can get early access to the prototype.

Keep reading for what the team has been working on and our player of the week!

Howard:
At GDC, and with the help of Steam and got Alliance pre-order up on Steam finally!

Eric
Cheating in World Progression, breaking events, ruining balance, and building walls.

Tom:
Working on the new Ambush game mode for Alliance.

Alex:
Wrangling engine versions and fixed a couple of odd networking glitches.

Tim:
Hooking up some lights (see above.)

Michael:
Has been prototyping new modes, including Capture the Flag for skirmish and a couple VIP modes. Also, created a new "Debug" tab in the world map that allows more control over cheats related to world progression and viewing more data about the world.

Matthew:
Buying the worst computer possible to test min spec for alliance mode along with community work and balance testing and feedback.

And our final part of Mayday Friday, our player of the week!
Air Admrial Sean
He will be receiving any muse-made item of his choice for getting the most applauds this week including:
"Great leader, would crew for again 11/10"
"Maintained a fun yet efficient attitude as captain, contributed to the overall humor of the crew, and led the charge with atypical ship types."
"He's nice man"