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just on the subject, happened to be musing on eclipse vs. swarmer recently
Eclipse Swarmer
mobility 10 ground 9 aerial
vs g. light 10 7
vs g. heavy 4 5
vs aerial 12 3
defense 9 5
cost 400 250
So what do you get for your +150 expensive eclipse? It's tougher, but the swarmer is incredibly more mobile. I claim that these factors mostly even out. The eclipse has to take less advantageous positions (on swamp/forest, next to mountain) in order to fire at something and the added defense just compensates some for this. So it still compares poorly on the basics because it has a harder time getting to targets than the swarmer.
For 150 then you're getting a huge ability to damage aerial (though those units are some of the most mobile and hence hardest to catch), a slight improvement in damage to g. light (helps sweep mountains and forest, i.e. 2 shots to clear vs. 3), and *less* ability to hit g. heavy. The swarmer skill against ground heavy is exaggerated by the fact that as an aerial unit it can more easily grab +3 ranged gangup and do even more damage. The swarmer is flat out *good* against g. heavy.
I would say the eclipse compares *poorly* to the swarmer head to head in a bunch of ways, with the killer anti-air power maybe pushing it up to being more valuable than the swarmer, but really hard to see it being +150 in cost. Hence the discussion of eclipse improvements. Heal +2 is a popular option that would further help it compensate for the bad positions it has to take. It just seems painful not to have it be mobility 11, in many real situations it only moves 2 spaces like a tank, yet it is often Titan's critical hope in tighter terrain to reach enemy targets. I would throw increasing g. light damage to 12 into the mix so the ant sweeping gets nastier too [edit: forgot that 12 would kill engineers on base which is no fun, so probably only 11 there]. Reducing the cost (e.g. to 350) also an option but I think it's fine to keep with the spirit of Titans having more advanced but expensive units.
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Thinking about increasing variety in sap vs. sap, I think from the suggestions above tank mobility 9 would make them useful in more situations than currently. Besides being beaten by heli they are just too easy to starve in sap vs. sap even though you would think they should be the answer to the plague of jeeps. Increased battery mobility (both without firing and after firing) might help those find more niche uses as well but also not a big opportunity there. Soli said he had thoughts on adjustments that might help this one.
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I offered some thoughts on this here, inspired by previous group discussions:
http://forum.uniwar.com/posts/list/2061.page
summary here... roughly listed in order of apparent popularity among the top players discussing at that time.
SvT
Battery move after to 6
Battery +1 vs. ground heavy (to 11)
Sap units (or all sap units but marine/engineer) immune to UV
Battery normal mobility to 7
Reduce EMP recharge from 15 to 8 (or even lower?)
Tank mobility +1 (to 9)
TvK
Eclipse mobility +1 (to 11)
Underling resurface bonus -1 (to +3)
Eclipse repair rate to 2
Assimilator mobility +1 to 7
Wyrm g. heavy to 9
Reduce UV recharge from 11 to 7 (only with sap immunity)
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When we changed battery cost to 650 to add the move after, I think we all pretty quickly agreed it wasn't enough improvement for the cost boost (and the intent was to improve the thing against Titans in the first place.) I continue to love the move after, it's a great tactical option that fits with sapiens, *definitely* not useless – e.g. it allows it to fire more frequently than it did before which alone is significant (firing just two extra times even just against mechas pays for the +100 cost). However it is certainly not a strong ability and did not change the match in any fundamental way. Per the balance thread I would like to see the battery boosted in some way (e.g. g. heavy 11, move after to 6, primary move to 7...) if it is to remain at 650 cost.
Allowing battery to move even one step forward and fire after would be a pretty huge change to SvT (and also require coding, which may or may not be on the table.) Not crazy but a big change.
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(cont'd)
Naval:
Sapiens: Submarine ( ). It'll surface and fire cruise missiles vs. torpedoes so that it can harass a bit from the coast as well. Cost 350, mobility 9/6, attack range 1-2, GL 7, GH 8, AER 0, AQU 12, Def 7, Vis 4/2, heal 1. Submerge/Resurface and detection rules same as underlings, +4 resurface attack bonus. Good for hunting hydronauts in particular, to which they can deliver 8 damage on resurface from range 1, also reasonable for hunting skimmers and kraken or finishing other heavy naval.
Titans: Skimmer. Cost 300, mobility 12, range 1, GL 10, GH 5, AER 10, AQU 10, Def 9, Vis 6, heal 2. Move after attack (6). A water speeder with good anti-air, useful in particular for harrying Garuda and Helis on the water. Can gang up on heavy naval as well but is outranged by them and takes significant damage – more of a finisher. Could give it a special ability 'depth charge', in which it is able to make an attack against a submarine directly beneath it (but will only know if it hit anything if the 'units killed' count increases), recharge 5 rounds.
Khraleans: Kraken. Cost 400, mobility 9, range 1, GL 12, GH 10, AER 5, AQU 13, Def 15, Vis 4, heal 3. Special ability: Rage, simultaneously attacks all neighboring hexes with +2 attack (but takes damage from all of them), recharge 4 rounds and can trigger after move; it's tentacles flail out to do this, think watcher in the water (make marines cautious near the lake.) Generally a tough water tank against other naval (though badly outranged by the heavy naval).
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Hey Kyle. Maybe such a thing would need to be mobility 9 to better chase swarmers back?
Reminded me of an ancient post in which I was suggesting a unit called a "hiver". It was intended to be a rock that could sweep through marines and swarmers better, but I see I only listed it as aerial 6. From this thread:
http://forum.uniwar.com/posts/list/1331.page
Would have to think about if I think these are good ideas but food for thought
Aerial:
Sapiens: Bomber. Cost 550, mobility 15, range 1-2, GL 6, GH 12, AER 5, AQU 12, Def 7, Vis 6, heal 1. A high-speed bunker/plasma/walker busting unit, just what Central Command called for in the toaster wars.
Titans: Drone. Cost 300, mobility 9, range 1, GL 10, GH 3, AER 6, AQU 6, Def 8, Vis 6, heal 2. Good for hunting underlings and swarmers, which alone should have a significant impact on khral-titan. Generally useful but not imbalancing otherwise, hopefully helps mitigate Titan pain on maps with significant terrain constraints but not in a dramatic way (e.g. not great against massed marines on mountain/forest, but more usable there than a speeder or plasma).
Khraleans: Hiver. Sort of a mass of small three-eyed heads and wings (haunts the nightmares of men). Cost 450, mobility 9, range 1, GL 13, GH 6, AER 6, AQU 7, Def 11, Vis 5, heal 2. Special ability: Fume, does 4 damage to all marines within a 2 hex radius, recharge 10 rounds and can trigger after move.
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What is or isn't a balance problem at lower levels of play is not necessarily the same thing as what is a problem at the highest levels of play.
I assure you in competitive play khral is seen to beat up on titan and buried ants are a key part of this for mid to large maps where titans can fort up. Being able to lay enemies completely under your opponent where they are immune to attack is a pretty good ability on its own (great options to utilize additional bonus via gang-up etc.); the +4 resurface bonus makes it more crushing in a large surge where dozens of ants pop.
Also I assure you in competitive play where artillery is involved saps have a bit of a problem with titans.
(I don't claim I play at the highest level - many can attest to that - so it is good to get input from many top players and I'd be interested what talone and the runiwar community currently think about these areas.)
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I thought maybe this was by design, but now I see it changing so maybe just a bug. The ladder was having some issue with linked accounts – it was not listing 'waxoid' and only listing my linked account, maybe because that one is currently higher in rank. But now shows correctly. Odd.
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Once again, thanks and it's super exciting to see the game getting many active improvements and community boosting efforts like the tournament system. Everybody should be evangelizing to the gamers they know. Thanks to xavi and everyone involved.
Thought I'd bring this discussion back to the top of forum – are further balance changes currently on the bucket list for improvements? I continue to think that past balance improvements (heli healing to +1, ant resurface from +6 to +4 etc. etc.) generally all served to improve race balance and game playability. We know pure balance is impossible, and we are adjusting to this with mirrored tournament formats etc., but it also seems clear that more incremental balance improvements are possible and that they would continue to improve game enjoyment. Hopefully this is being considered along with the new unit discussions, and maybe that is the primary vehicle for the next round of improvements.
Uniwar is of course pure brilliant game design, with amazing replayability, but I would say race imbalance remains the main thing that drags on my enthusiasm to play more competitive games. It's just a bit of a turn-the-crank thing with another sap-titan game where there is literally no counterplay to plasma-walker strategy, hard to want to slog through it just to see if you can shave a round or two off the time it takes to inevitable defeat.
There were some older topics where we were discussing changes (in the wake of the last adjustment to give infector range 2 on plague to help KvS. It turns out that helped K mostly on bigger build-up/stand-off setups, where it is a very significant tactic.) Here are the lists we had compiled as possible changes for SvT and TvK, sort of loosely ranked by level of support I think top players were expressing:
SvT
Battery move after to 6
Battery +1 vs. ground heavy (to 11)
Sap units (or all sap units but marine/engineer) immune to UV
Battery normal mobility to 7
Reduce EMP recharge from 15 to 8 (or even lower?)
Tank mobility +1 (to 9)
TvK
Eclipse mobility +1 (to 11)
Underling resurface bonus -1 (to +3)
Eclipse repair rate to 2
Assimilator mobility +1 to 7
Wyrm g. heavy to 9
Reduce UV recharge from 11 to 7 (only with sap immunity)
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Btw, THANK YOU SO MUCH.
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thx. Btw, now that the round robin tournament has all matches as mirrored the distinction with championship tournaments doesn't seem clear? Why not just count the round robin games in championship? Given championship is somewhat participation based, I get that round robin would be a faster way to log games so would weigh heavily in that sense.
It's all fun to watch, anyway. Just think when we get game playback feature and can all watch the finals for each tournament.
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OK - so "ranked team" sounds like random ladder not tournaments (like championship)...
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Thanks guys. How will the team leaderboards work, will there also be separate pro and championship?
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Trying to keep up here...
- Are we still waiting for another leaderboard, the Pro leaderboard? And with that, random ranked will create mirror matches?
- For non-championship tournaments like Quicksand, is it correct that the results have no bearing on any ladder currently?
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Oh and maybe obvious, but one advantage you have in standoff of course is that your jeeps can "maraud" across the lines to try to pick off mechas or speeders (takes 3 jeeps for that) and steal back to their side. So positioning jeeps for these threats and picking off any/all material you can to incrementally weaken Titans is part of such matchups as well.
You of course may know all of this, in which case the short answer is "yes, this is a very, very difficult matchup."
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