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Here is an update on my thoughts about the update. (No one has taken me up in my offer to play a game. If you disagree with anything I say here, please create a game with me and show me my error... You pick the map and races)
KvS - big problem. Marauder is too strong and swarmer is too weak. (favorite ideas so far, Marauder - 1 air, swarmer +1 G. L., and wyrm +1 air)
KvK- better, but not good enough. Pinzers counter swarmers well, but they are not very mobile. The - 1 defense in swarmer has introduced more garudas. (favorite ideas so far, pinzer +1 air and wyrm +1 air)
KvT- much better. I'm not sure what you guys are talking about here. I think the swarmer and wyrm are still good in this match up. I am still winning all my games as Khral against titans and I still use and love wyrms and swarmers in this match up. I just have to be more careful. I know many of you disagree. Please make a game with me and show me.
SvT- much better, but not good enough (favorite ideas so far, battery +1 G.H.)
SvS- I haven't played much of this.
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.
(I may be missing something. If you strongly disagree, please take this to the battle field. You pick races and the map. This way we will come to an agreement faster than just throwing opinions at each other)
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To Everyone:
I'm hearing a lot of concern from great players about the 3 changes buffing the battery. I would like to know more to fully understand your concerns. I respect your opinions.
First, I will more fully explain why these changes were selected so that you can have a reference to agree, disagree or agree and then introduce a new element.
Problems that relate to the Battery:
1. Currently the battery is only used significantly in one match up, SvT. (everyone agree with this?)
2. Currently the sapiens struggle to win in SvT match ups. (everyone agree with this?)
3. The Sapiens rely heavily on using the marauder to win SvT match ups early because otherwise they will struggle to win.
4. The marauder is getting nerfed because it is overpowered.
5. The walker is used in TvT. The wyrm will probably be used in KvK with the swarmer's nerf. The Battery is almost never used in SvS.
6. The battery was one of the most complained about units (even by 2400+ players) in the survey because it was "too difficult to use". (mobility and range are great ways of increasing ease of use)
From this information, it seems like the battery would be ideal for a giant upgrade to promote balance and diversity of units?
Do you disagree with any of these 6 premises?
Is there an element that is not represented in these 6 premises? If so, explain more fully how this element will affect SvS, SvT, or SvK.
Please respond (nicely) as I want to hear your opinions.
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talone wrote:
Madhouse. Tank with defense like pinzer has. But pinzer costs 450. You guys probably really want to kill this game ....
Do you think 2 air and +2 G.L. is not worth 50 credits?
Sure, the tank will counter the pinzer, but if anyone were to use pinzers to kill tanks even now, I would expect them to be below the 2000s.
As a former student of yours, I realize you are actually smarter than this and you are just arguing to be difficult, but as long as you come with faulty arguments, I will shoot them down.
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WolfCat wrote:
Balance is an art which surves TWO purposes
-matchup fairness
- game diversity
You are absolutely right. You think very well and I loved your input. Sadly, there are a few limiting factors that have not been revealed.
Tank with 9 mobility would be a great solution, but it has been vetoed by the devs because it is not in line with the nature of its class.
A similar situation exists with mecha's mobility since currently infantry class mobility is 7,9,11.
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ChnZero through Unikz wrote:
Sap tank
sap tank defense should +1, price stays, in that case, Plasma or walker can' t take down a tank in 2 shots
I think you are absolutely right. The tank being killed with 2 shots is a big deal and does not match up with with the nature of it's class. We are trying to work on a solution.
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WolfSaint wrote:
Why didn't you use surveys or helping inexperienced amateurs to make program code better? Because you take seriously to work with programming code, but not seriously to work with balance. Surveys and amateurs are not serious if you want to make balance better.
We did not select the changes based on the survey. We merely used the survey to gain information and it served its purpose well.
You are right that we will not attain perfect balance, but Talone is wrong that these changes have no direction. These changes will help the following:
1. Khralean's domination of Titans in most maps
2. Titan's domination of Sapiens in maps where titans can last several rounds
3. Swarmers' domination in KvK match ups
4. Sapien's domination of Titans in maps with close quarters
5. Nerfing highly overpowered units
6. Buffing highly underpowered units
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Kevster wrote:
To be honest I actually agree with most of the changes, except...
As others have pointed out I would also only make 2 of the 3 suggested changes to the Battery. I think implementing all 3 suggested changes will swing it back to being too powerful.
One thing that I am surprised never came up, and I am sorry I missed the first round of feedback, is the power of the Walker. I really think its attack should be nerfed a little. As soon as Walkers arrive in a game they change the overall balance dramatically and if the titans turtle up around one or two walkers then its almost game over.
Great feedback Kevster. We may end up only implementing 2 to start out with. Regarding the walker, the Khraleans have no trouble against the plasma and walker combo so our plan is to increase the efficacy of the tank and battery rather than nerf the walker.
P. S. Go to the forum page on tips and tricks - > gang up bonus to learn why the swarmer is so powerful
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Thanks again for everyone's post. Keep them coming. We will probably make small tweaks based on your comments. This might answer some of your questions:
Marauder: One of the most overpowered units early game. It is the only unit in the game that can singlehandedly stop a capture attempt. This often breaks maps since starting positions can often be 12 mobility apart. Reducing G.L. to 9 will help other races early game. We realize that this will further the problem between SvT, but we have made up for this in our adjustments to the Tank and Battery.
Tank- The tank is a big problem and we do not yet have a solution we all agree on. We have deliberated between 3 repair, +1 defense and 350 cost. I support Xavi in whatever decision he chooses.
Battery - Come on guys! Loosen up a little. Apocalypse.N exaggerates when he says "move after attack from 3 to 6 to 7 or to 999 doesnt make any changes at all", but he is right in some sense. The battery is weak. It is worthless in SvK and it gets destroyed against a walker which cost more. It is the perfect unit to give a giant buff sense it will only help SvT and barely affect SvK (if at all).
Engineer- We know everyone wants it reduced more. It was heavily asked for in the survey, but this is all you get for now. We will probably decrease it more in the future.
Plasma and Mecha- seems like everyone understands these changes.
Eclipse - We are still in debate between 2 repair and 350 cost, but everyone seems to agree that it needs an upgrade.
Swarmer- Extremely overpowered. At high level, they beat speeders hands down and beat marauders on most maps. Reducing its defense is a big change, but keep in mind that it doesn't engage it's defense (most of the time) while attacking. This will help against KvT and is a big part of fixing KvK.
Pinzer - Someone mentioned that it will now be really strong against swarmers. That is the whole point. This is designed to pair with the swarmer nerf to provide a least one decent counter to swarmers in KvK.
Wyrm- Reducing G.H. helps in KvT. Increasing air helps in KvK. Kraleans are getting huge nerfs so a buff here or there is merited.
Garuda- Designed to compensate for wyrm and swarmer losing G.H. Garuda is worthless against Titans so it is the perfect unit to receive the compensation.
Leviathan- Seems like people understand this one.
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Thank you to everyone who has responded so far.
To earth and others: I am surprised to hear your resistance to 7 mobility after attack for the battery. The battery is the most complained about artillery type unit. From my point of view, the battery is only good against Titans and the sapiens could use a lot of help in that department.
To earth: I am very surprised to hear that you use wyrm vs saps. Is that a current meta? If so, this is a meta that I am not aware of and I would like to know more.
To Wolfsaint: thank you for very clearly pointing out the inconsistencies in Talone's critism.
To Xavi: I understand some of the options you chose, but I'm worried about others. I'll send you an email.
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I completely agree with Geoff about Helicopters. Give the tank more mobility and make the battery a super unit by giving it 6 mobility after fire and more damage if you want to help saps against Titans, but don't buff an already over used unit.
@Geoff- To clarify about nerfing marauders, I think the saps are the weakest race held up only by two over powered units. I would only want to see marauders nerfed if given significant buffs elsewhere to make up for it. I would like to see more Sap units used.
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I created a google doc with a proposal of some of the units based on this forum. I would love your feedback.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oGw1yewauWPgQEn2NXgfX-yXVM_2LbjY-5hZ9yApNeE/edit?usp=sharing
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Btw, I like all of your ideas. Sadly so many of their strengths require new abilities which it seems Xavi doesn't have time to program right now. (Looks like the skimmer is likely to happen though).
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Yes. I think you might be on to something. I go back on forth between several of the numbers. Mobility 6 or 9 is one of them. I gave the lower number on some and higher number on others. I figured I would suggest those changes in the beta testing. The most important thing I want to convey about the overseer/behemoth, is that it might be a great solution to K v K battles without adding new balance problems among other races. Ideally, we would tweak it to where it was a viable option in any match up thus adding more diversity to gameplay.
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My thought process:
I have been thinking about ways to try and fix Khral v Khral battles. We could try to make some balance tweeks, but I think a new unit is our best bet. It needs to be strong against air and either have a good defense or two range to make it strong against swarmers, but we don't want this unit to make Khral stronger against the other two races since Khral are already the strongest (as an average based on maps). It would be ideal for the unit to be able to be used against the Saps as an alternate tactic at the same level, but not offer much to any strength against the Titans. So, I realized the unit needs to be strong against air, have a good defense, slow moving and weak against heavy. This made me think of a unit in Starcraft, the Overlord (except weaponized). The idea would be a center piece to the swarm.
"Overseer" or "Behemoth" (I thought of this because it plays off of Leviathan):
Cost: 650
Mobility: 6
Vision: 4
Type: Aerial
Ground Light: 10
Ground Heavy: 2
Aerial: 12
Aquatic: 8 (doesn't mean much since it is too slow to catch boats)
Attack Range: 1
Defense Strength: 12
Capture Bases: No
Attack after move: yes
Repair: 1
Actions/turn: 1
Special Ability: Move after attack (3 mobility instead of the usual 6)
Standard Aerial Terrain modifications (or lack there of)
(we would, of course, have to test and make small adjustments)
What this would do:
Against Titans: the overseer would be almost worthless (i.e. An eclipse tank could easily solo an Overseer/Behemoth). Titans have no aerial units and the the Hydronaut could out range the overseer's movement capabilities.
Against Sapiens: the overseer could be used as an alternate tactic against the Sapiens. It would be very strong against a Helicopter, but would have trouble catching up to it (Helicopters could attack a unit adjacent to an overseer and still bounce out of its movement range). In open terrain, the overseer would be more useful, but a battery or marauders would be a strong counter against it.
Against Khraleans: The overseer would be the ultimate counter against swarmers (the most commonly used unit in K v K); however would be extremely weak to a pinzer and wyrm combo (the least commonly used units in K v K). This solves the current K v K problem by adding a diversity of units and tactics.
Thanks
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200 is too much. 150 would be better. I bet you would have half the games finish in the first two days.
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