hey APC, I cant send PMs and I already went over your list, and I dont think theres anything there that needs to be private so I'm just posting the list here
Pummel - damn hard to balance - problem is pummel rushs, 4 scouts / tank with pummel kill rec wayyyy too fast, while you can barly finish 1 pool... as far as I know pools and buildings have same armor, no? if so I think dmg to buildings needs to be reduced, more ammo though and slight more dmg (need to be played with abit to get a good setting) for none & light armor
Pulse Stab - fine as is, I like PL stab much more than SP stab in early games due to it being a much better scout killer - problem it lacks the dmg for buildings - which balance it with SP stab so its fine as is (+ you can get PL without armory)
Plasma - as you said
TAG - too weak and too slow! even if you do hit the chances of the msls hitting is about 5%
assult laser - very problemtic - its strong and damn deadly to scouts but its weakness is its range
which makes it almost useless but only cause of range - thing is - if you increase range without reducing damage to non-armor (scouts) it would be overpowerd
Splinter - as you said - but it'll need alot of testing, its way too strong in FE
Hornet - fine as is, its hard to sneak a rocket tanks , maybe abit slower lock on a recycler
Comet - as you said
MDM - fine as is, need skills to use it in a dogfight and its only good for taking base defenses down - and if you set base defense right it wouldnt be a problem - can also be countered with m-curtians
prox - maybe add just abit more to the lasting time - but not much more, it does more damage than a laser to scout - 2 proxes make a scion scout red and isdf scout about 40 I think
pilot weapons - sniper can be overpowered when a pilot is on bay if it doesnt cost enough but rocket will *always* be useless compared to sniper... if you make rocket cost 5 and sniper 30 rocket might get used - but still very very rarly making grandes cost 5 might be better too - some ppl dont like booster anyways but its the stock thing and grandes just cost 2 much
Gauss - fine as is, one awesome weapon
Blast & scion sniper are also fine
stinger - hmm maybe abit more dmg to light and buildings (buildings only in assult mode)
Multilock - as you said and it might be too weak as well
wasp - as you said, but the big might be ok - need to be tested with a stronger wasp first
blink, aha blink, very prolemtic - this goes to more than just weapon balancing, its a race balance issue
static charge - slower ammo drain will be fine
seeker - IMO abit too small, if it was abit bigger it would actualy get in crossfire making it some kind of a shield (taking a hit instead of you) - but thats just a silly idea of mine, it can probably be balanced in other ways too
Acid - needs alot of testing, its kinda hard getting acid cloud to hit + an archer can only shoot one or two no? and in 1.2 you couldnt drive archers so if ppl would drive archers it can be more of a problem so I'm not sure about that in 1.3
Howitzer - fine as is IMO
Resin - just delete it, I dont think theres any way you could make it useful, unless you give it ridicoules dmg - and then put it behind hills as some sort of a "flame turret"
anyways, thats just weapons, some units needs tweaking as well, FE came close but still not perfact, also - scion vs isdf balance is still a problem, espicely in early games
isdf scout just DOMINATE scion scouts - problem is, you cant make scion scouts any better because it will make them overpowered for the long run when they get arc and shields
I was thinking of making plasma cannon stronger vs non armor - but that also need some testing
In fe splinter is a counter to atlas and archer attack-turret, not easy to aim spot on unless leaving you vulnerable
and heavy on ammo, I never found it overpowered.
Main problem in FE is was blink warrior and perhaps 140 range to laser instead of 150, still were not on that subject are we.
PF thats a lot of changes in one go a bigger discussion should be made on these subjects, a small change in one place can affect
many other areas as im sure you know.
Actually Fried that was a list of things I PM'd him that I thought might be too weak or powerful. As to why I PM'd it, it was just a list of my opinions. Since the nature of those particular opinions is a touchy one; I decided it would be a safer idea to PM it untill I got some more input.
splinter in fe was fun, but only really good vs hads, range was 200m and you got 4 shots, but tahts enough to kill a spike or atlas before anythign can be done
acid archers only get 2 shots, this makes it more of a defensive weapon, you need a lot of trucks to use it offensively, and the first shot is always wasted (fires too soon). it is quite good against a mass of bikes or tanks, and can be a huge pain when it comes to pilots and spawn killing
easiest thing to do with pummel is increase rec health, but reducing damage to recyclers reduces damage to all heavy ships, all treaded units (minus service truck) and all buildings, you currently have barely enough ammo to kill a pool and thats including scout ammo regen
horent lock time could be increased on recycler easy, but the lock time is already much less than the firerate, so you lock then wait a bit to fire, but with 2 trucks i have snuck around to the back of a base and killed rec+gt behind it vs good bac team
mdm had ammo usage increased in 1.3, so you mean 1.2 or 1.3 mdm?
laser and ass laser does more damage to light in 1.3, so which do you mean?
pilot weapons are generally useless, much more useful to be in a ship, but after a rec rush maybe
static is currently very good against apcs (totally nullify the pilots) and a close group of bikes, but not much besides that
4 resin archers can kill rec quite fast, but ai is way too stupid to use it right, maybe completely change design of weapon?
and blink is way too powerful in stock 1.3, you become immortal
Just remembered I should post the list..
[THIS IS THE ORIGINAL LIST, THE ONE PF WAS TALKING ABOUT AT THE START OF THIS THREAD]
Pummel - Too weak for the ammo cost
Pulse Stab - Too weak?
Plasma - Too weak, not enough ammo
TAG Cannon - Too weak?
Assault Laser - Too weak and not enough range
Splinter - Not enough damage at even 15m away from the mortar
Hornet - Too much damage per second for something with that range
Comet - Too slow and weak for the ammo cost
MDM - Too strong?
Prox Mine - Does it last long enough? Does it do enough damage?
Pilot weapons - Too expensive?
Gauss Gun - Too weak for the ammo cost? Velocity too low? (1000mps)
Blast - Velocity too low? (1000mps)
Scion Sniper - Velocity too low? (1000mps)
Arc, Laser and the ISDF Sniper have a velocity of 1000000mps
Stinger C/A - Too weak for the Lancer
Multilock - Fires the missiles too slowly
WASP - Too slow, not enough damage, too big
Blink - Too much ammo
Static Charge - Not enough damage for the ammo cost
Seeker - Too slow?
Acid Cloud - Damages too fast
Howitzer - AI Range too short? (350m)
Popper - Rocket is too slow
Resin - Really need some input here, not much can be done to it to balance it with the other mortars without changing it's "Stream of toxic goo" properties without making it take a massive toll on the FPS
i have an idea for resin, ill tell ya if your ever on msn
These are the tweaks I have come up with after reading PF's and Spawn's posts. (At this point I will probably be the one incorporating the tweaks into the ODF's.)
Pummel - Decrease ammo cost and move it up in the tech tree? (My suggested requirement, Training Fac.)
TAG Cannon (I was talking about the 1.3 version in the original list) - Increase the TAG speed from 100 to 120. (100 is Plasma speed) Slightly increase missile accuracy and damage, increase the missile's tracking time.(This also increases the shot delay between TAGs.)
Plasma(I'm talking ISDF vehicle Plasma, the Tower and ships use different versions) - Decrease ammo cost to FE levels. Increase None and Light armor damage slightly.
Assault Laser - Just checked, it does 700 damage per second to scouts, and 400 to Tanks at 100m range. Ion Gun II does 500 damage to None armor and 300 damage to Light armor at 150m range. (These are double hardpoint values)
ISDF Scouts have 1800 hit points, and Scion scouts have 1200 in Combat mode and 900 in Assault mode.
Splinter - Slower turn rate, bullets are more accurate.
Comet - Increase speed from 15 to.. what? Increase damage from,
damageRadius = 50.0
damageValue(N) = 2000 // none
damageValue(L) = 1500 // light
damageValue(H) = 1500 // heavy
damageValue(S) = 1700 // standard
damageValue(D) = 2000 // deflection
damageValue(A) = 1300 // absorbion
to what?
Prox Mine - Increase lifespan from 30 seconds to; 50?
Decrease cost of pilot Rocket from 30 to 10.(The are both SOMEWHAT powerful.) Decrease cost of Booster to, 5 or even 1. And grenades to 5. The rifles will remain unchanged. (At least untill someone can prove that they are not too powerful to cost 10 or so scrap.)
Stinger Msl - Light armor damage increase.
Stinger Swarm(I'm talking the 1.3 version again, there is no charge up time, they all fire in a salvo) - Slight heavy armor damage increase.
Multilock(It locks on properly in the private beta) - Decrease the shot delay between missiles from 1 second to .2 seconds. Add a slight wiggle for effects purposes(Unless someone comes up with a reason not to.) It does pretty good damage as-is. It also tracks as long and effectively as Shadower missiles. Increase lock range? (175m)
Wasp - How about half the size and 20% more damage? (It uses the Prox Mine explosion now)
Static Charge - These are per-second values,
ammoCost = 200.0 (Blast also costs 200)
damageRadius = 20.0
damageValue(N) = 400.0 // none
damageValue(L) = 300.0 // light
damageValue(H) = 100.0 // heavy
damageValue(S) = 300.0 // standard
damageValue(D) = 400.0 // deflection
damageValue(A) = 100.0 // absorbtion
How about reduce the ammo cost to 150?
Seeker- Idea A: Double the size and increase the speed.(Only 10 meters per second currently, and a seek range[Chase range] of 50m.
Idea B: Increase speed to, say, 30. Increase seek range to 125, and slightly increase the damage.
Resin - I'm looking into possible ways to avoid the massive FPS loss at any considerable range. But it's use is still in question.
I don't think the initial ISDF vs Scion fight should be changed at all, the only thing that gives ISDF the advantage is the FAF missile - a good scion pilot will often put up a good fight, or even kill an ISDF if he knows how to use the craft. I disagree with increasing the damage to h.armor, as it means they don't need to morph to kill scavs, etc - somewhat making it obselete as it's rarely used for anything else bar fang/blink suicide runs.
Scion get a bad start, yes - but are way better lategame. That's balance right there.
Pummel seems fine to me as it is. Yes it can be powerful, but only for a small number of things (ie: base rushing) - if you make it better at other things then it decreases the usage of other weapons (and currently I think the Chaingun, Laser and Pummel are all pretty equal and balanced with each other)
I would however either reduce the damage to Heavy Armor from the chaingun by roughly 10% and/or increase the armor of the Factory by 10-20%. The Rec health is fine, but IMO the factory is far too weak a structure and can be rushed and killed extremely quickly even from chainscout runs - not really giving you much of a chance at all if you Recy has been lost.
Splinter needs to be made more useful. No doubt about that. In FE it was extremely good at killing groups of service trucks (as was acid cloud, to a lesser extent) - i'd like to see similar here.
TAG Cannon and Multi-lock - use FE's variants, they used completely revamped systems which both didnt cause them to suck and made them look nice at the same time.
Seekers and especially Prox mines need to be far more useful:
- Double Pmine damage (radical?, perhaps - probably needs much testing)
- Double Pmine lifetime
- Increase damage to heavy armor (the idea being to significantly damage or slow down asstanks/walkers the like, need to make sure it cant be placed on buildings though)
- Double ammo usage to compensate (somewhat)
Stinger swarm does incredible damage to heavy armor anyway, you sure you need to increase it?... the combat version isn't too bad either, personally i'd rather see the Lancer handling improved rather than the weapons it has.
Everything else mentioned seems fine to me, though. Most things here are following that basic rule that if it isn't used much (or even at all), then it's not powerful enough (or something else is dwarfing it) - i'm sure people could come up with other things.
i dont think pummel should be moved up, but decreasing damage/sec to heavy and upping ammo is good, or jsut rec health uppage
also increase splash, and probablly a good idea to make it a bit faster
i think an fe like splinter would be better, but thats jsut me
double speed and make the explosion when you kill it something like 40%, damage to none and light up 500?
also make the pilot weapons build/fall faster
stings track a bit better?
swarm vary slightly less, i find a lot of the shots hit the ground unless your at point blank
for multi make lock or the give after getting a lock a bit less, but this could just be me sucking with it
maybe give wasps a bit more health/seppd instead of size?
resin could be a useful kill buildings from a cliff weapon if range was a bit more
Quote from: Angelwing on November 09, 2005, 07:38:16 PM
I disagree with increasing the damage to h.armor, as it means they don't need to morph to kill scavs, etc - somewhat making it obselete as it's rarely used for anything else bar fang/blink suicide runs.
Uhhh, what?
AW
isdf > scions late games
isdf OWN scions early game
how is that balanced?
if the isdf wishs scions wont even get on their feet to get a 2nd building up (after kiln) while the isdf can have SP / PL tanks
and even if they do, just get a PL assult tank with laser / pl-las tanks covering it, even if the sicons get quill they'll be dead....
Quotei dont think pummel should be moved up, but decreasing damage/sec to heavy and upping ammo is good, or jsut rec health uppage
thing is, rec health upgrade will also drag game more for example, 4 blast laser tanks just killed all the defense, the other team has no pools (or maybe 1) and no ships, 4 blast laser in tanks and tech / fac already went down, now to kill rec it'll take longer than stock 1.2...
the advantges of more rec health will be vs hornet, beacuse I think it takes a rec too quickly... but I havnt realy thought of how to 'fix' that (if it needs fixing at all)
more ammo for pummel and less dmg to heavy buildings is an idea I had for few years ever since pummel rushs went in fashion
FE splinter is outrageous, 4 splinter tanks, and make it even worse - 1 assult tank go vs a big big serviced assult (for example) vs walker 6 trucks and some turrets
all the 4 from the defending team shoots the splinters togather - and poof, there goes 30 mins of work of building service trucks?
anyways, on to the list
QuoteThese are the tweaks I have come up with after reading PF's and Spawn's posts. (At this point I will probably be the one incorporating the tweaks into the ODF's.)
Pummel - Decrease ammo cost and move it up in the tech tree? (My suggested requirement, Training Fac.)
TAG Cannon (I was talking about the 1.3 version in the original list) - Increase the TAG speed from 100 to 120. (100 is Plasma speed) Slightly increase missile accuracy and damage, increase the missile's tracking time.(This also increases the shot delay between TAGs.)
Plasma(I'm talking ISDF vehicle Plasma, the Tower and ships use different versions) - Decrease ammo cost to FE levels. Increase None and Light armor damage slightly.
Assault Laser - Just checked, it does 700 damage per second to scouts, and 400 to Tanks at 100m range. Ion Gun II does 500 damage to None armor and 300 damage to Light armor at 150m range. (These are double hardpoint values)
ISDF Scouts have 1800 hit points, and Scion scouts have 1200 in Combat mode and 900 in Assault mode.
Splinter - Slower turn rate, bullets are more accurate.
Comet - Increase speed from 15 to.. what? Increase damage from,
damageRadius = 50.0
damageValue(N) = 2000 // none
damageValue(L) = 1500 // light
damageValue(H) = 1500 // heavy
damageValue(S) = 1700 // standard
damageValue(D) = 2000 // deflection
damageValue(A) = 1300 // absorbion
to what?
Prox Mine - Increase lifespan from 30 seconds to; 50?
Decrease cost of pilot Rocket from 30 to 10.(The are both SOMEWHAT powerful.) Decrease cost of Booster to, 5 or even 1. And grenades to 5. The rifles will remain unchanged. (At least untill someone can prove that they are not too powerful to cost 10 or so scrap.)
Stinger Msl - Light armor damage increase.
Stinger Swarm(I'm talking the 1.3 version again, there is no charge up time, they all fire in a salvo) - Slight heavy armor damage increase.
Multilock(It locks on properly in the private beta) - Decrease the shot delay between missiles from 1 second to .2 seconds. Add a slight wiggle for effects purposes(Unless someone comes up with a reason not to.) It does pretty good damage as-is. It also tracks as long and effectively as Shadower missiles. Increase lock range? (175m)
Wasp - How about half the size and 20% more damage? (It uses the Prox Mine explosion now)
Static Charge - These are per-second values,
ammoCost = 200.0 (Blast also costs 200)
damageRadius = 20.0
damageValue(N) = 400.0 // none
damageValue(L) = 300.0 // light
damageValue(H) = 100.0 // heavy
damageValue(S) = 300.0 // standard
damageValue(D) = 400.0 // deflection
damageValue(A) = 100.0 // absorbtion
How about reduce the ammo cost to 150?
Seeker- Idea A: Double the size and increase the speed.(Only 10 meters per second currently, and a seek range[Chase range] of 50m.
Idea B: Increase speed to, say, 30. Increase seek range to 125, and slightly increase the damage.
Resin - I'm looking into possible ways to avoid the massive FPS loss at any considerable range. But it's use is still in question.
Pummel - if its tech-uped it'll be even more useless :-P you should try less dmg to heavy and more ammo
TAG - wel, TBH, I'd try to give the tagging shot alot more speed and then increase the msls speed abit too. gotta keep in mind that right now the only msl being used is shadowers (other than stock faf). TAG needs to be useful alongside shadowers, otherwise it wont be used
Plasma - more dmg to non armor? it does a preaty nice dmg vs isdf scouts already, espicely if you get to hit alot as it fires preaty quickly, more dmg to light could be fine, but I dont think that more dmg to non is needed
Splinter - how about trying longer life-span and same dmg? that way it could be useful but could also be killable more easily
Comet - try 75 speed radious damage 40 or even 35 and IMO reduce dmg to 1500 none armor
1400 light or even 1300 and leave the 1500 heavy?
Prox - try 40, maybe 45 and if thats not enough then maybe 60 (a min)
Pilot weps - sounds good
Stinger - sounds good, but not too much because its much easier to hit targets that have light armor with stingers than none armored ships
Stinger swarm - sounds good
Wasp - sounds good but as spawn said "maybe give wasps a bit more health/seppd instead of size?
"
Static - I think reducing it to 100 will also make it effective in dogfights --> a reason to take it over blink / prox / seeker
Seeker - both your ideas are good, right now I see the seeker as some sort of a shield, so either make it a true seeker (idea B) or make it like idea A but with less seek range to leave it as some kind of a shield. oh and whats seeker lifespan btw?
Comet - FE had a comet in it that travelled at 80 meters per second. It wasn't in the main game, but it was there. I played around with it and found that comets travelling that fast would actually go through their target, not explode on contact. And you do know that scouts only move at 40 meters per second(W only) right?
Seeker - 20 seconds.
I'll most likely be able to toss together a zip with the soon-to-be-updated weapons in it for testing sometime tomorrow.
Scions only get owned at the start if they're deprived of pools and going against a good techher (as we all know how badly they lose once ISDF has laser) - but the advantage the stock ISDF scout has over the scion drone scout is NOTHING compared to the advantage scion get in a Full-tech Warrior vs Sabre. Blink away....
BLINK!
How could any of you not mention that?
wayyyy overpowered. I rekon it needs either more ammo consumption (for distance), or have a localammo value (might not be possible blink) so you're limited to a small number of hops no matter what ship you're in (could be replenished by service pods/bay)
Weaken the scion blink, give them a better start - personally the only thing I find wrong with them at current is how they require 2 runs to kill a pool, whereas the ISDF only need one. In dogfighting it's fine IMO, if they know how to avoid the FAFs then it's just not easy at all to kill them with mini or even chain.
So, decrease plasma stream ammo usage/increase drone ammo by whatever it takes to get them to kill a pool in one go (but only BARELY) and decrease the Rate of Fire by about.. 20-25%?... to stop it from being too uber (that'd also help reduce the lag)
Balance is a Beautiful thing, but shouldn't it be done w/ a large group of experienced strat players?
I completely agree w/ Phoneix as a "example" of that, but I'd suggest any wholesale "balance revisions" be done after a next beta comes out so a good group of players could have input.
I think you are onto something good here!
Once you get closer to what you think is right, it's time to increase the group. Don't start out with a big group since everybody will want to give input and will be annoyed when you don't listen.
your forgetting that ISDF scouts are faster, more easily controlled and hover better AW, which are 3 BIG factors, scion scouts can *barly* run from isdf scout wheres isdf scout EASILY out-run scion scout
and lets not forget that mini & faf travels faster than plasma --> you need to be VERY close to hit with plasma when running after someone while you can be preaty far from someone to hit him with chains & mini
the reason right now in 1.2 games that good players in scion scouts dont die more to chain than mini is because they just keep jumping around instead of running --> if you run you die, if you stay and fight you warp = you have a small chance of scaring him away from dmg or make him run out of ammo or relize its a waste of time because you warp too much
+ in isdf scout vs isdf scout you can dodge fafs in air, scion scouts cant because of their sluggish manuver
which isnt balanced *at all*
have you seen 4 scion scouts beat 4 isdf scouts? happends about once out of 20 games - seriously... is that balance? dont think so
usualy it ends up 4:1 or 4:0 - VERY rarly 4:2
if the scions got 1 great thug then he might survive - but thats kinda rare too
another factor is scion scouts warp more, thats why its harder for isdf to hit them, but if 1.3 is supposed to fix warp then scions lose their warp advantge too
blink - right now its kind of a game waster
and btw, isdf > scions late game
if scions get blink *all* you need to do is drag the game - which is quite easy for isdf as scions realy have to work hard to pentrate a base (all the isdf has to do is build alot of gts, trucks) and then start building rocket tanks, with an army of rocket tanks you just go forward making blinking warriors useless as they just die so easily and with only 3-4 trucks you heal more dmg than they do with arc, and if they blink in they usualy die - need great teamwork to counter that and by that time the ISDF takes full control of the map --> by the time you kill 1 rocket tank they build two
blink defentaly needs alot of work but so does scions late games
comet - my bad, I'm not that good with speedsÃ, :-P try 30 or 25 then
seeker - change to 30 secs maybe? or maybe even more? what you guys think?
oh and dont forget to change scion morph time back to 1.2 settings
I'm still going to disagree with you re the splinter PF, it sucks in dogfights, all being even if you had 3-4 guys with splinter in sabres
they would get slaughtered in the dogfights, 3 guys could cover ur assualt group ,
Splinter has to hit a turret or atlas dead on to kill
it in 1 shot, sure it would damage other units but it wouldnt knock them out completely, and you know better than to group units close
together, Even aÃ, practiced pilot takes time to aim splinter, a good wing should pick him up on radar with ease.
Seen it done many times and indeed done it, countered it and ended up with a massive omega fireball up my ass ;)
OH btw 1.3 scion scouts warp side to side, once i lost my faf i couldnt beat spawn in a dogfight , Take into account i would normally
beat spawn in a dogfight in 1.2 first scout scrap isdf v scion at the time, duno bout now though, kinda got rusty and he's got better eh bud ;)
Also what youve got to take into account is practice time in ships, Most people play isdf more than scion, hence theyre better at flying in them
player skill can affect balance very seriously indeed.
by the time an assult is arranged you should have two upgrades, and if you are any good spare tanks too, just have them take splinter and change it to mdm after you kill all their ships, you dont even have to fight, drop 1 or 2 splinters along with 3 other thugs go back to base and take mdm, its realy not a big deal
and if you had time you just make extras with splinter for each thug
or just build a couple of splinter mtr bikes
QuoteOH btw 1.3 scion scouts warp side to side, once i lost my faf i couldnt beat spawn in a dogfight , Take into account i would normally
beat spawn in a dogfight in 1.2 first scout scrap isdf v scion at the time, duno bout now though, kinda got rusty and he's got better eh bud
true, but if warp is going to be reduced then you would be able to kill him
and even if you cant kill it you can go hit a pool and he cant kill you as easily as you would've killed him if he would've killed a pool
if you catch him hitting a pool he's dead
if he catchs you your probably gonne be alive and might even kill him or get him to run without haul, not vice versa
but once i got an arc warrior i couldnt kill your empties :P
what about how arc's firerate is higher in 1.3, (the time the salvo fires isnt counted on the shotdelay anymore) will that matter?
the splinter thing could work with one or two splinter tanks, if the assualt is on base then you can easily run back or use redfield now that it works correctly
scion scouts need something better, a bit more health, ammo and/or a better starting weapon
seeker as a sheild isnt too good, it'll hit your ship if you drive backwards over it while fighting, but if your running it can be annoying
make it shake up a chasing craft?
i've seen isdf vs scion games where the scions go 1:4 or 2:4, but tahts generlly due to teamwork and luring, based on isdf being overconfident
blink needs more ammo usage, its currently way too powerful even if rocket tanks can counter it, and if the scion pilot is good enough then the rocket tanks could easily be stopped with creative blinking/running measures, especially with how ai fires shads
Splinter bikes suck in 1.2 (Never tried them in 1.3 though i imagine ammo would be a problem) dropping crates
takes time and some co'ordination giving the enemy a equal chance, but we are still talking fe here, were as
1.2-1.3 doesnt have hadeans to deal with, hence that splinter isnt needed so much, Splinter was balanced to
deal with FE units and heavy assault units in fe.
If ur fighting isdf v isdf then both teams can use the same tactics, scion v isdf is another matter and im not really sure
how a strong splinter would indeed affect scion , heavy assaults normally involve maulers, archers can attack from high angles.
Ur correct about the warrior- scout fight spawn, however i couldnt kill that warrior of ur's either, due to blink
even when i backed my own sabre or scout up with 5 missile scouts loaded with shads (taking into account
the better ai of 1.3 they still didnt work "Though did stall you some " )
That was why i asked you to play as scion anyhow, knowing full well you are a strong player with scion i wanted
to try counters v scion as i did "we should do that some more"
The only true way to test is to try small alterations and see where we end up after several balanced games.
Actually Spawn that shotDelay being separated from the salvoDelay was changed back later in the Changelog.
think you're exagurating there PF, ive played with a scion team vs ISDF many times and whilst ISDF win MORE of the time than scion, it's really not by much most of the time. Yeah plasma travels slower, but does WAY more damage and the way most people dogfight it dosent matter as you just fire in the middle of them and the damage is usually enough to make it even.
As fried said, most people don't play scion - so don't know how to use them properly. If you make them more powerful based on that factor then the experienced scion players could come in and flatten everyone.
Yeah they move slightly slower, but their hitbox is WAY smaller, so it really isnt much of an issue - and they can avoid FAFs simply by moving forward/around them whilst strafing, similar to how you'd avoid stingers or shads, but slightly harder.
Main thing about Scion scouts is they do FAR more damage per hit than ISDF. If you allow them to get a few good shots in, you're as good as dead. Try to run and you're travelling in a perfectly straight line, and I don't know about you but I can EASILY get a few good shots in on an ISDF scout, taking up to 50% their health off in some cases (often killing them)
Scion can OWN isdf if they play right, you've probably just never seen a good Scion commander and set of thugs. heck, get Darkfox commanding and everyone dies.
Also take into account the map changes the balance a lot also. Scions get a far bigger advantage on a map like Haven due to the masses of scrap there, allowing them to quickly get spires up to secure their base and work on teching, whereas they're seriously disadvantaged on a map like Hilo.
Speaking of DF, someone should probably go fetch him.. Anyone know where he is these days?
Alright here's what I've done so far,
(C) Pummel ammo cost reduced to 2 from 3.
(C) Pummel heavy armor damage reduced from 10 to 8.
(C) ISDF Plasma ammo cost reduced from 30 to 22 to match the cost of FE's Plasma.
(C) ISDF Plasma Light armor damage increased from 120 to 150.
Pilot Rocket scrap cost reduced from 30 to 10.
Pilot Grenade scrap cost reduced from 30 to 5.
Booster pack scrap cost reduced from 30 to 1.
TAG Cannon replaced by FE's TAG Cannon.
Comet speed increased from 15 to 30 and turning ability increased.
Added a Comet death explosion with half the damage and blast radius of the impact blast.
(A) Laser range increased from 100 to 120. N armor damage reduced from 35 to 30.
Prox Mine lifespan increased to 45 from 30.
Multi Lock switched with FE's version. I increased the range of the FE version to 180 from 170. I figured it wouldn't be much of a pursuit missile if Arc Cannon outranged it.
Wasp size halved, created a new explosion file, it was using the Prox Mine explosion before. Shot delay reduced so it fires faster but not fast enough to let the Wasps blow each other up.
Blink ammo usage increased, in 1.2 it allowed the user to blink 100m for just 200 ammo, now it needs 400 ammo for a 100m blink.
Static Charge ammo cost reduced to 140 from 200.
Seeker XSI fixed, missiles will now actually hit them. Life span increased to 30 from 15. Now seeks targets within a 75m radius, speed increased to 25 from 10. Damage increased to,
damageRadius = 50.0
damageValue(N) = 400 // none
damageValue(L) = 300 // light
damageValue(H) = 200 // heavy
damageValue(S) = 300 // standard
damageValue(D) = 400 // deflection
damageValue(A) = 200 // absorbtion
from,
damageRadius = 50.0
damageValue(N) = 250 // none
damageValue(L) = 150 // light
damageValue(H) = 50 // heavy
damageValue(S) = 150 // standard
damageValue(D) = 250 // deflection
damageValue(A) = 50 // absorbtion
The big problem with trying to balance a game like BZ2 is something that you are seeing in this thread , that being the fact that everyone here has a different idea of what constitutes a balanced game . Eventually you may be able to come up with something that everyone agrees on but it will take a long time, a lot of hardwork and many hours of testing to get it right , the testing being probably the most important thing and paradoxically the thing that few people seem to want to help with. Even when you do get a few people working on balance they invariably end up arguing about how things should be balanced, it's a very difficult process and you need to be willing to make compromises in some areas to accomodate the tastes and opinions of others if you are going to have any chance of success, balance is far from easy to achieve you've gotta keep playing and testing and you need a good amount of players or you may aswell give up .
any arguments on the plasma stream changes I mentioned? seems good to me to make the scion scout able to kill a pool in one go (barely), and it was in FE I believe
FE did that by adding ammo to the Drone and Warrior, but I could get it to do that with damage quite quickly. I could also reduce the FPS hit when streaming something up close rather easily..
Quoteit's really not by much most of the time
only because very few ppl actualy KNOW (not how to do, but *what* to do) how to counter a full teched scions
QuoteYeah plasma travels slower, but does WAY more damage and the way most people dogfight it dosent matter as you just fire in the middle of them and the damage is usually enough to make it even.
if plasma travels slower it even has less range, because a smart ISDF dogfighter will back down, not rush the scion scout, all you need is to keep 100 range and go backwards --> isdf hit scions dont
and plasma does same dmg as mini+faf cycles
so you got same dmg, less health to scions, chances of hitting lower for scions - espicely in first dogfight where their fulls dont warp as much as their empties, slower, abit smaller (which doesnt effect anything) and sluggish
QuoteYeah they move slightly slower, but their hitbox is WAY smaller, so it really isnt much of an issue - and they can avoid FAFs simply by moving forward/around them whilst strafing, similar to how you'd avoid stingers or shads, but slightly harder.
Main thing about Scion scouts is they do FAR more damage per hit than ISDF. If you allow them to get a few good shots in, you're as good as dead. Try to run and you're travelling in a perfectly straight line, and I don't know about you but I can EASILY get a few good shots in on an ISDF scout, taking up to 50% their health off in some cases (often killing them)
slightly slower? the fastest way to move in bz2 1.2 is hover sideways - scions cant do that that slightly slower makes a big difrence, espicely on hilly maps, the hitbox is not that much smaller, and faf hit anyways, to dodge fafs you mostly count on your strafe with isdf whereas scions needs forward as well, giving the isdf the advantge of being able to go backwards --> they hit and scions dont... or scions hit barly
ok went over the dmg per sec, its same with cycles + isdf has bigger range for fafs
the few good shots are exaclty 2 shots, in a good case 3 shots, which is exactly 18 health to an ISDF scout
now when an isdf scout chase a scion scout in a straight line the isdf scout do about 40? maybe even 50? and more if its on hilly long terrain?
18 vs 40-50
anyways, I gotta go take a math test - be back in an hour or so to continue :-P
i've beaten darkfox when he commanded scion, i was edf :-P
i doubt that darkfox can beat gal(PF)
nobody can stop a walker in ten minutes :wink:
k, back :P
Quoteheck, get Darkfox commanding and everyone dies.
Also take into account the map changes the balance a lot also. Scions get a far bigger advantage on a map like Haven due to the masses of scrap there, allowing them to quickly get spires up to secure their base and work on teching, whereas they're seriously disadvantaged on a map like Hilo.
me and DF used to play vs eachother, not that much but we did get some games in
I dont want to put words in his mouth so this is from what I remember - it may be wrong, if anyone could get him to post that would be great!!
anyways, me df and hemp talked about FE starting dogfights, hads were balanced with both while isdf > scions, all 3 of us agreed on that...
we tried thinking of a way to make it so scions and isdf are balanced without effecting the balance hadeans already have with the both of them
it was also agreed that ISDF are the superior race, in the short run & the long run, espicely in FE due to laser
ISDF and hads were some kind of balanced, but blast-chain-mdm tank is an overall unit, better at dogfights, and base assults than an FB xares, its also alot easier to get a blast-chain-mdm tank
hads needed multitasking everything to difrent units in order to be effective, which was what made hads weaker than ISDF
hadean thugs needs to do difrent tasks - for e.g, 1 in zeus, 1 in locust 1 in fb xares and 1 in something that kill pools quickly - so if you got 1 weak link the chain is broken, wheres ISDF has 'all-in-one' unit that even if 1 thug is kinda useless at it it doesnt metter much
scions dont get advantges, they only get disadvntges on maps short of loose and small
ISDF get the same 'advantges' scions get with the loose if on hilo you get a spire while I get arm
on maps like haven you will still get spire when I get arm - only much earlier in game
say 10 mins for the loose-less map
and 5 mins for the loose-filled map
@ apcs
looks good, but why increase seeker damage to heavy units? I mean, something like an assult tank shouldnt be effected by a simple small seeker mineÃ, :-P
oh and I agree with the plasma stream ammo drain change
I loved the FE balance, just yes the EDF laser is ridiculous - An empty Slicer xypos didnt stand a chance vs a Laserscout (unless the scout was running, inexperienced or jumped on)
Yes hadeans were weaker if they didnt work as a team but together they'd be able to outfight EDF.
Besides, this isn't FE (as much as i'd like us to start from there)
Scions have their advantages. You can't say that their late-game shields (esp absorbtion, which reduce Blast damage by 50% for L armor and even more for N with 1.2 balance) arn't an advantage, nor of course the Blink. (which as has been discussed needs to be reduced)
And who could forget early maulers? Sure they can be a lot harder than a hover unit to get in a base, but if they do and the enemy isn't prepared for it - PWN!Ã, Ã, (the only real thing that gives ISDF such an advantage at baserushing is the way they circle and warp round all the structures, back of the rec, inbetween the fac, etc - making it hard to hit them without damaging your own stuff too)
Whilst I do agree that Scion need to be improved somewhat in some areas, i'm a little worried you'll take it too far - i'd hate to see the reverse of current, where Scion would absolutely squish ISDF. It only takes a handful of small changes to do that.
IMO, Scion SHOULD be weaker than ISDF early on, and SHOULD be stronger later on - I can't even begin to express how boring it'd be to have 2 races that are just as good as each other in all areas all the way through the game. ISDF vs ISDF games got old enough already.
right now the game is like this
start: isdf dominate
mid game: scion slowly take control and then dominate
ending: isdf slowly take back and dominate
problem is at start ISDF dominate too much so about 70-80% of scion games dont even get to mid games, then becase nobody knows how to deal with tech-ed scions isdf dont get to ending game 70-80% of the time - which is only a metter of simple learning few tactics
as much as FE balance might've been slightly better for other weapons and units that werent used the balance for races wasnt as good, it look'd good because there werent many great players playing daily on FE, sure you got fried, and domakus, and spawn and others, but its totaly difrent when you see all those 3 on the same team with someone like DF cmding them vs another team of players like that, these type of players take the game to new levels
the between races lack-of-balance wasnt that noticed because of that, scions and hads were preaty balanced as far as I know - though I never studied hads that deeply[ on the FE games I played I usualy got a weaker team meaning I cant go hads because of the thugs-dependtion (is that a word? --> being dependant on thugs)], EDF-hads was hmmm not that balanced IMO - but as I said, I didnt study hads that much - laser > slicer and blast-chain-mdm-curtain > FB-slicer in *every* area exept maybe pool hitting, but then you just send a turret to kill the pool for you and even worse - get laser and get turrets to kill pools and base buildings for you
heck, laser scout > xares in dogfights, maybe not in head to head if it has slicer
but scout can run from xares, xares cant run from scout
scout can hover and be above xares - xares cant be above scout (well, technicaly it can but its alot easier for the scout to run from that situation)
so in dogfights empty laser scout > xares?
so yes, I know you agreed that laser was over powered, but thats just another thing that race-balance was lacking at some areas
and also, the only way hads could kill an ISDF base was DB hedoux, FB was useless cause of m-curtains, same goes for locusts and zeuses and atlases were easiy killed by a group of blast-mdm tanks
and even in late games - its much easier for the ISDF to assult hads base then hads to assult ISDF base
and ofc, ISDF tech up faster
ehmm what was my point?
oh ya, FE was lacking racial balance besides the laser :-P
As everyone has mentioned at least 1x, little changes can make very large differences in Balancing BZ 2.
Changes made to impliment ISDF Vs Scion games, create trouble for the (majority) of games that are played ISDF v ISDF.
Ofensuive vs Defensive changes made to "defang" a over powered weapon may result in a late game stalemate.
lthough i wholeheartedly agree that 1.3 will require a rebalance, I'm just hoping that all these "proposal/ideas" take place once a more final version of 1.3 is out there.
I played Hadean a good number of times and don't remember any scout being able to singlehandedly kill me (or even be a challenge) whilst in a Xares, even with Shellgun - Laser just dosent do enough damage to Light armor (and barely any to heavy) to be useful vs them, and only does minimal damage to heavy. Slicer is a lot better vs light and heavy armor, but it's a constant beam so you just can't get as much damage in as you'd be able to with a las...
Hadeans may have weaker equivilants to Sabres but they get wayyyy better asstanks and other units, and can generally build them quicker. Heck the Heudox LS is only 60 and can be aquired before EDF even have an armory up sometimes - you can do some serious damage to their base like that, and the DB one simply OWNS, more so than the FB/Slicer one but then that's hardly bad (do remember that the Fireball has a massive splash though, so firing at the ground infront of the mcurtains tends to work quite well)
Also remember that to get GTs the ISDF need power and bunker. Scion don't need anything but 75 scrap, and in FE hadean dont even need a battery tray. Scion also have that massive advantage in that they can place buildings ANYWHERE, and can do some insanely crazy things - Ever see a Jammer inside a Spire with a popper Archer on top? - Amazing combination. Jammer stops enemies from targeting properly (works great for killing the MDMers) and screws any pools in the area (which in Haven is half the maps pools if placed in the middle), Spire does what spires do and kill things and the Archer (occasionally) fires at bombers trying to kill it. ISDF have NOTHING with those kind of capabilities.
unless you get a player that really sucks, mdming a spire is cake, and if your outside of jammer range it has no effect
that and the jammer spire doesn't work in 1.3, poper sucks ass, too slow and stupid
laser scout doesn't die vs xares, thats the advantage, you can make him run, even though he costs more, and you wont be killed
hedux ls is rarely used, though it is quite fun. very fast quite good vs scions, but too low hp and armor once isdf get chain, but before that it can be quite good coupled with an early xares
a hedux's biggest weakness is comet, it can really doom a serviced assault, but a nice way to stop that is a dual headux attack, one with fb omega and the other with dragon, but I've only seen that done right once, not to mention it only leaves 2 thugs to do pools and defend against hovering or splinters or mdm
and a walker>hedux head on, and dual mdm is just amazing at a number of things
but a dragon blast hedux with a pilot that doesn't miss is godly regardless, especially if early
the spike isn't that good, 180m range and can be killed with one splinter if a perfect hit, two half perfect hits. biggest edge is that you can make a field of them to stop scions, who don't have many good counters to them.
isdf getting a gt is quite easy considering how they win the first doggy and should get the loose, you can always get a few gts up before anything goes terribly wrong, and feed off the loose if it does go wrong :-P
to counter the archer/jammer spire there is always the 2 hornet and a few stock rocket tanks, which will destroy anything the scions do, even at highest tech if used right
Sounds to me like there is a weakness in the Archers. An Archer with Howitzer can match the range of any other weapon, but in 1.2 it didn't do much damage because of the slow fire rate. (Five second delay.) 1.3 doubled the fire rate, highly increasing the strength of the Archer. We should do a test game with the 1.3 Archers soon to see if they are strong enough to reduce the frequency with which a late game stalemate occurs..
Just my two cents, but shouldn't we wait till the Public Beta 2 is released to the public before we start discussing on changing things? I don't like this whole moving towards FE balance, sorta makes the patch more of a mod. We should wait till we played 1.3 Public Beta a bit and see if anything actually needs a balance tweek.
1.2 needed balance tweake, 1.3 needs more...
not much balance has been changed from 1.3 public, with the exception of red devil's mistakes...
Quote from: Spawn on November 11, 2005, 09:09:11 PM
with the exception of red devil's mistakes...
OUCH! ..and he thought I was rough on him. :lol:
QuoteI played Hadean a good number of times and don't remember any scout being able to singlehandedly kill me (or even be a challenge) whilst in a Xares
have you ever played vs a good laserer from ZST? me? grass? baked? exe? claw? bb?
I realy dont think so...
and I'm not talking about FB xares here, stock xares / xares with basic arsenal upgrades (which includes slicer)
and spawn hit it right on
exept
Quotethe spike isn't that good, 180m range and can be killed with one splinter if a perfect hit, two half perfect hits.Ã, biggest edge is that you can make a field of them to stop scions, who don't have many good counters to them.
the spike is fine, but two ISDF turretrs do the same job, so yes, it cost more for the ISDF but it does the same job
Quotebut they get wayyyy better asstanks and other units, and can generally build them quicker.
huh? better asstanks? how come? FB? or DB? DB is like blast and EDF assult tank has dual mdm
FB can be countered with curtain like the dual mdm which leaves it at blast vs DB
EDF *in addition* can have an AI rocket tank to do a preaty good job, hads cant have an AI hedoux doing a good job - maybe now in 1.3 but not in FE
and if thats not enough, isdf get a dual blast walker, and if it can get 150m with mag you only need 1 shot to kill the hedoux
1 shot with mag, and hads unlike ISDF dont have anything to deflect the mag shot
and as for the building them quicker
I can get a walker in 8:40 mins
although I didnt play much with hads but it took me at least 15 mins to get a DB hedoux out
and then the ISDF easily keep you busy with chain scouts till they build a comet rocket tank and then ur preaty much stuck because 1 DB hedoux cant keep up with a comet rocket tank
anyways, we're drifting completely off topic
I do like talking about balance issues but FE balance has nothing to do with 1.2 or 1.3 balance
this whole thing was brought up to show that ISDF > scions - espicely in 1st dogfight
so, is it agreed that ISDF > scions in starting dogfights and then simply owns the field?
if scion plasma cannon damage to light increased it should be fine, and plasma stream ammo lowered a bit it should work out
maybe correct the morphtime, not to 1.2 but so it matches the animations
Omega Fireball goes through mcurtain, dragon blast out ranges blast in ass tanks + walkers, i used to counter omega fireball heds that are backed up by
turrets trucks and humans in xares with a wall of scavs, using ai bikes firing over the wall and have plasma (monster range and some push only good on semi static units though) in my walker with my guys in sabres,Ã, You really had to know that lot was coming though, i tended to sneak some units to the rear of my base
in reserve.
I went on to win with that tactic 3-4 times (Take into account it's rare i commanded)
v hads after i had mopped up their assault group, sure was fun.
However we really are not about to balance FE are we, Fe balance does not apply to 1.3 as we have less species currently
and FE balance had 3 attemps and lots of alterations due to extra units.
Atlas v rckt tanks, turret v the comet, lots of things happen in strat, burst eats bases-turrets, enough already ;)
Re early xares v laser scout, it's the hover scout thats a real pig for the xares to kill.
It's the sharper ai thats got to be allowed for.
Rocketmanx always whooped me when he was in scion v isdf dogfights, I imagine it's a tricky thing
with scion, to most theyre not their most played ship=not enough practice hence they should die more in them
any tweak should be small i imagine.
Quote from: Fried on November 12, 2005, 08:56:15 AM
Rocketmanx always whooped me when he was in scion v isdf dogfights, I imagine it's a tricky thing
with scion, to most theyre not their most played ship=not enough practice hence they should die more in them
any tweak should be small i imagine.
Exactly...
Also, try to take into account the changes made going to 1.2...Ã, Ã, I specifically remember both ISDF ship Plasma and the Pummel being weakened because of complaints about "Plasma Sabre Cowboys" and "Pummel rushing".Ã, Maybe 1.2 went too far...maybe not, just keep it in mind when tweaking them.
I do like to see discussions about Scion vs ISDF but I think the most common comment when this was discussed before was "How many mixed games do you actually see? Most players prefer an even field, so it's ISDF/ISDF and Scion/Scion.". Then again, that was pre-FE, meaning there are now many more choices in the mix...
-Av-
scion vs scion is rarest, mostly for a joke
scions vs scions is unplayable... both blink and both dont have a way to counter blink
I have a couple of ideas in mind though
I found scion v scion to be a race for
maulers.
Scion defences (Spire and guardian) are
much weakers v maulers than ISDF defences,
making maulers even more effective here.
I cannot understand a scion v scion game
going for any other strategy unless one side
is dominant and wants to mess about.
I think the starting scion scout v ISDF scout
thing is not a big issue. Some years ago scions
'seemed' to have an advantage, now ISDF
are 'known' to have the advantage.
Balance issues can ONLY be implemented
after the next 1.3 is released. Even discussing
tweaks while using the current public beta will
lead to misunderstandings and could slow down
the real balancing later.
Also I suggest keeping Red Devil out of the
balancing team for a few technical reasons.
Guys learn from history here a bit. Look over the old archived forum stuff if you can.
Balance is a matter of personal opinion.
Finding something which pleases everyone is impossible.
The only thing you can do with balance is decide on basic levels of fire power for both races and leave it for the user to create their own mod/preferences.
This balance pursuit is useless and never ending, impossible to finish. Somebody is always gonna open his mouth and say ---WAIT we need to fix one more thing!!!!----
Meanwhile folks are waiting for this release while you guys are spinning your wheels on stuff, which in the long run, will not make enough difference to be worthwhile.
Get on with it,,,,,sheesh!!!
Quote from: Dirty Rooster on November 13, 2005, 06:48:42 AM
Also I suggest keeping Red Devil out of the
balancing team for a few technical reasons.
lmao...
Rred Devil has been working hard on some tweaks for 1.3 for a long time, I doubt he'll like reading that.
Balancing is very hard to get right, and it does very from person to person, but if most people agree that something is too powerful, it should be toned down. Its a simple majority vote thing. No, not everyone's little suggestions here and there, on this or that, are going to be done. Balance testing is also the longest and hardest testing, things take time.
Sure, scions are weak against THEMSELVES, because they arnt ment to fight eachother par say, they are ment to fight isdf, thats the balance, between Scion and ISDF. They are both ment to have weaknesses and strengths against eachother, not themselves. To make it the other way around would destroy the other balance. Its like ying and yang, you cant really make the scion's defences against maulers good without making them too strong against isdf. Then you would have to make the isdf's weapons stronger or something, and then the isdf would be weak against itself.
Balance cant be done right and perfect, everything has to have a weakness and a strength, it cant all be equal.
Quote from: General BlackDragon on November 13, 2005, 08:20:48 AM
Quote from: Dirty Rooster on November 13, 2005, 06:48:42 AM
Also I suggest keeping Red Devil out of the
balancing team for a few technical reasons.
lmao...
Rred Devil has been working hard on some tweaks for 1.3 for a long time, I doubt he'll like reading that.
Balancing is very hard to get right, and it does very from person to person, but if most people agree that something is too powerful, it should be toned down. Its a simple majority vote thing. No, not everyone's little suggestions here and there, on this or that, are going to be done. Balance testing is also the longest and hardest testing, things take time.
Sure, scions are weak against THEMSELVES, because they arnt ment to fight eachother par say, they are ment to fight isdf, thats the balance, between Scion and ISDF. They are both ment to have weaknesses and strengths against eachother, not themselves. To make it the other way around would destroy the other balance. Its like ying and yang, you cant really make the scion's defences against maulers good without making them too strong against isdf. Then you would have to make the isdf's weapons stronger or something, and then the isdf would be weak against itself.
Balance cant be done right and perfect, everything has to have a weakness and a strength, it cant all be equal.
Getting it right is a matter of personal opinion this mod has enough built it flexibility for the users to make their own adjustments for balance.
The results of attempting balance only results in a few imposing their personal opinion on others.
The only thing you are going to do with balance is ruin it for somebody else.
So the best thing anyone can do is decide on some basic levels of adjustment and leave well enough alone.
As for GBD he doesn't know squat about this game by comparison to those who really know.
Leave the balance alone guys before you ruin it.
sorry deadscion but I'm not too sure you know what your talking about
I know you dont play much but even when you did play did you ever see plasma getting used in 1.2? or a msl scout? what about splinter? walker?
that would be
no, no, no and hmm no again?
balance is not PERSONAL
ppl might like something difrent but balance is not personal, either there is balance or there isnt - as for everyone seeing balance difrently - as was mentioned, there are people who know what they are talking about + (usualy they go togather) majority vs ppl who have no clue what they are talking about
when the player skills advance you can see the real balance, because they use the weapons & ships to their maximum... for example - as you said it "seemed" scions had advantge few years back
but now - almost everyone know how to cycle weapons efficently unlike back then
and lets not forget that many played with auto-level on (myself included) making it much easier for scions to hit
so as I said, when player advance you can see if theres balance or not
oh and FYI guys
gauss gudiens kill scion maulers so easily, each shot does damn nice damage and gauss range on a gurdien is 180
scions are not weak against themselves, they just dont have any ending methods or ways of dealing with blink
shadowers can chase a blinker even if he blinked back to base, the shads will follow him all the way to base --> in a big enough group you can shoot enough shads to make the ship explode in its base after blinking - and thats how ISDF defeat full-teched scions
if we improve scions multilock to be as effective vs blink like shads there might be ending methods for scion vs scion games
balance is a personal opinion which can never be satisfied.
Guess what is going to happen to all of your time wasting work?
After the release of the 1.3 patch( which by the looks of things will never happen because the ignorant are messing with it), folks are going to take your precious balance adjustments and go straight to the recycler variant process and make their own adjustments anyway.
So foolish ones, it does not matter what your experience is, or what any of you think is right, because the next person to get their hands on it will do what they think is right any way.
You are literally wasting your time on a lot of--- know it all better than everyone else--- bullcrap.
Leave the balance alone fools.
Scion are still pretty equal in the starting dogfight (and throughout a lot of the game), it's all down to the fact less people actually PLAY scion and hence have no idea how to effectively control the craft or use the weapon(s). Most try and treat it as if it were an ISDF scout, which 90% of the time will get them killed. fast.
The fact that so few people actually PLAY scion is probably the main reason people think they're so weak now, cause hardly anyone has managed to get good with them (I bet most the 'newer' vets don't even know the scion tech tree, just learnt how to aim and thug as isdf and were therefore considered good)
I'm also betting people used to play Scion a LOT more than they do nowadays.
Almost every time i've seen Scion lose it's because they wern't working effectively as a team, or were going against people much better than them. ISDF scout may be able to avoid most the shots of 1 scout drone, but if he's got another one attacking from the side - countering his strafe - he's toast. ISDF can do that too,yes, but not quite as effectively. (scion scouts are smaller and tend to strafe more irratically, so arn't so weak from the side) - and that's just one example.
As for shads vs blink, all you need to do is hide behind a hill or quickly strafe (which you'd probably think to do being that you just saw 3 or more rocket tanks pointing directly at you and they're gone (assuming they didn't hit the ground at some other point, which is highly likely in most cases)
I've been owned by Scion with vets, and i've owned as scion vs vets (obviously not by myself) - I don't see them as a weak race, or in need of major improvement.
IMO, the main factor that makes ISDF better is their MDMs, able to tear apart base defences extremely quickly with hardly any risk or effort at all (unlike Scions who have to build, place and defend archers whilst they slowly and painfully do their job). I'd either increase the effectiveness of the Archer, or weaken the MDM.
scions dont need archers, a few arc warriors coupled with blink and maulers take down a base quite well :P
scion can win with teamwork, but unless isdf has a clue he's doomed
and ds, if you just want to bitch about hoot then go away, if you want to say that we should just leave balance as is, then say it without being an insulting hoot
Quote from: Spawn on November 13, 2005, 11:32:44 AM
scions dont need archers, a few arc warriors coupled with blink and maulers take down a base quite well :P
scion can win with teamwork, but unless isdf has a clue he's doomed
and ds, if you just want to bitch about hoot then go away, if you want to say that we should just leave balance as is, then say it without being an insulting hoot
No do not leave it as is if it needs work. Decide some basic adjustments and leave it at that.
I am saying fine adjustment of balance is a waste of time since the user will ignore such things in favor of their own preferences in the recycler variant files.
The balancing attempt of FE was a near disaster since the same objects were used by the AIP files in MPI maps.
The result was a balance good for some(but not all) in TeamStrat and bad for most playing MPI.
You folks are about ot make a similar mistake and I fail to see why you don't understand that.
Couple things,
(1) Different weapons can't be used in recycler variants because of the weapon list in the factories. They would have to turn them into a different race to get different weapons in the list without altering the stock races.
(2) I think we are only trying to make certain things work up to par with most other things here, not "fine" balance adjustments.
So,,,, some adjustments are not avalable in the recycler variants. Most everything is still adjustable by the user/usergroup.
The point still stands and if you are not trying to make fine adjustments( which amounts to nothing more than somebody's personal opinion) then I will quietly shut my big mouth and say Have At It.
Truly i played a lot of MPI and balance wasnt something that ever concerned me in that area.
Gdammit ur fighting ai units FFS, Like theyre gona lose in the end nomater what.
PF people could cycle weps 5 years ago fine, skills truly havnt increased that much at all
and if anything there are a lot fewer highly skilled players now than there was back then.
Perhaps we should lock this topic until the final is released, then we can really bitch at each other
and get nothing done ;)
Or indeed perhaps i should just play Battlefield 2 more ;) and chill out n have fun.
Now that sounds rational to me.
Good to c that u have talked about blink in good resolution. I agree with you; make it spend more ammo.
Another thing that i didnt encounter in this discussion is mauler loose, whitch is only 25.
Quote from: deadscion on November 13, 2005, 10:42:00 AM
balance is a personal opinion which can never be satisfied.
Guess what is going to happen to all of your time wasting work?
After the release of the 1.3 patch( which by the looks of things will never happen because the ignorant are messing with it), folks are going to take your precious balance adjustments and go straight to the recycler variant process and make their own adjustments anyway.
So foolish ones, it does not matter what your experience is, or what any of you think is right, because the next person to get their hands on it will do what they think is right any way.
You are literally wasting your time on a lot of--- know it all better than everyone else--- bullcrap.
Leave the balance alone fools.
hmm, im starting to think lizard was right about you,...
Quote from: deadscion on November 13, 2005, 07:22:46 AM
This balance pursuit is useless and never ending, impossible to finish. Somebody is always gonna open his mouth and say ---WAIT we need to fix one more thing!!!!----
AHA !
I would like to see scion used more in strats. The reason why scions are sort of "dropped out" is a balance issue !
You can learn how to spire walk in few days, but it takes couple years to learn how to setup good "working" def against scions. Usually only way to beat scions as isdf is to go for an very agressive and early base hitting or direct rec rush. isdf team often loses motivation to play against blinked warriors, yes, it is boring to fight against targets that u can only harm to near death state or against targets that u cannot escape from.
Isdf and scion might seem to be very well balanced if u set ai against ai (no blink and no working rec rush), but when it comes to human's ability to use (cycle) multiple weapons, scions leave isdf behind.
I consider scion overpower to be a bug cause scions are used in strats only after agreeding that spire walk
is not allowed. Think about the noobie strats and new players that come to play their first bz2 games, how do they live along with the spire walking ?
I cant belive what I'm reading here guys...
Quotee used in strats only after agreeding that spire walk is not allowed.
????
scions get 1 / 2 spires by the time ISDF get a tank out
you guys are making scions gods which makes me think you've *never* seen a full-teched scions loose (exept vs a rush)
I used to be like that too - "when scions gets blink they win"
but I found a way to kill them, and its so easy for me now too
Me and aoug actually had a couple of guys spire walk against us on Mars, damn fools didnt
bother to put any defence in their base though, as u can imagine i went totally agresive on
their base-game over.
That was about the lamest rush i ever did, however i considered the spire walk to be totally lame
also, so i balanced it up ;)
Quote from: PhoeniX-FlamE on November 14, 2005, 11:19:53 AM
you guys are making scions gods which makes me think you've *never* seen a full-teched scions loose (exept vs a rush)
I used to be like that too - "when scions gets blink they win"
but I found a way to kill them, and its so easy for me now too
Remember that you are perhaps the best commander that there is Booby and things might look different from your perspective. I know that it is possible to stop full teched scions, but i think that there isnt so many guys around that can do it so easily. And i have never suggested to touch spire balance; if i think about the odf contents, there is no way to setup decent tweaking.
ZST brought scions closer to isdf, but 1.3 has greater problems with general race balance.
We should really get a test game going guys. (It would probably be best to do it in 1.3 though, since that is where any changes made here are designed to work in.)
And I can say with quite a bit of certainty that with the new and improved Jammers, PF's load of Rocket Tanks technique would get worn down to scrap over a fairly short period of time. Especially so if the Scion thugs know how to handle Rocket Tanks, and if the Scion commander has an Archer or two sitting pretty on the Dower. I also like to keep a spare Mauler around, just in case some heavy units make it through the Jammers, Archers, Spires and any Guardians laying about. Even though Jammers can be countered with an AI Scout, you can still only order AI attack one or two things. Then of course there is the option of a Warrior with Quill EMP and Blink, morphing into assault mode, Blinking in front of a Rocket Tank, EMP Streaming it so it can't fire, and switching weapons with Fang, then Blinking out before the other Rocket Tanks can fire.
Quote from: PhoeniX-FlamE on November 13, 2005, 09:40:02 AM
..shadowers can chase a blinker even if he blinked back to base, the shads will follow him all the way to base --> in a big enough group you can shoot enough shads to make the ship explode in its base after blinking - and thats how ISDF defeat full-teched scions
Shadowers only travel 800 meters so that might happen only on small maps. It's quite easy to pick blinking route that has blocking obstacles that ruin shadowers path.
Quote from: APCs r evil
We should really get a test game going guys.
Yes !
800m is often long enough, and if its an experienced blinker he wont die ever :P
I've played lots of games as Scion and i've never died from shads that way. Ever. You have to be playing a really flat map for that to be effective
Although yeah in 1.3 scions are a little improved somewhat automatically, both in that Jammers are much more useful (although so is the RED field) and that you obviously arn't able to hover (which affected ISDF a lot more as their ships were far more agile), so yeah we'd need a couple games to test these things.
I'd like to bring up one of the biggest balance changes that 1.3 introduced, that of the ISDF GT Plasma, as an example of how difficult 1.3 balancing can be.
In response to 'GT wobble killing' complaints Ken introduced a major 'push' to the GT Plasma in an early 1.3 build. This ground damage effect has the side effect of keeping most Scion weapons far enough from the GT to render them useless, as most effective Scion 'building killers' are close range weapons. This greatly reduced the effectiveness of a single Mauler, or a squad of Warriors, as they were thrown around and pushed back before they could reach the GT.
Now, on the plus side, later 1.3 builds made it so those same Warriors could be made to morph BEFORE engaging the GT's, greatly increasing their chances of doing damage. Things like RD's tweaks help space the AI apart a bit more, overcoming some of the problems these units experience having to path using BZ2's "form a line!!" pathing. Finally, the Titan now engages from range, which also helps them against GT's. Throw in Acid Cloud in Archers and those poor widdle Scions now have some serious threats to GT's. One lousy Archer on a hill can really drive you nuts... and sitting behind some GS's with a Service Truck or two makes them really annoying.
1.3 is now a whole different game. Totally rebalancing would require a lot of players and a final authority for reviewing changes, and I don't see that happening. It IS possible to try to balance back to 1.2's performance, so I'd definately urge using it as the guide for changes...
-Av-
its kinda suprising how easily i can wobble kill a guntower compared then...
Gun Towers are little more than slow hoot repellant. That's about it. And the GS can't throw out nearly as much damage as a GT, so the two embody the question, "Quantity or quality?"
Now for the weaknesses, the Gun Tower is easy to dodge, but very powerful. This gives them a weakness against smaller and faster units. This is easily countered by either Human intervention or a Rocket Tank with Shadower sitting pretty right next to it. But since Shadowers don't work against VIR, Human intervention is the only option, should the enemy have VIR.
The Gun Spire on the other hand is very accurate, good against fast units, but quite weak against even Light armored units. This is counterable via Human intervention, a Gauss Guardian sitting pretty right next to it, or an Archer hammering the Heavy armored units from far behind the Spire.
Now, based on that, it seems like the Gun Tower is weaker, but keep in mind that each Tower only costs 50 scrap, meaning you can build them with only one pool.
The Gun Spire may seem more powerful, but don't forget each one costs 75 scrap, meaning you need at least two pools to make one. Three pools to make them at a decent rate. AND the Gun Spire has a built-in weakness, the Lung. Which makes each Spire nearly useless unless there is something or someone watching over that little blindspot. This is the part where rotating the buildings comes in handy, so each Spire's Lung is facing another Spire. Thus allowing the Spires to cover each other.
Both GT's and GS's have their strengths and weaknesses. I think it's a nice balance between them, but I would like to see a cheaper variant for scions so with 1 pool they aren't totally defensless. Maybe a sonic spire that costs 50-60 scrap. obviously with a range of only 150m. And a more expensive guntower for ISDF with combat blaster. That way ISDF wouldn't be easily defeated by a human in a morphed sonic warrior just blowing all it's shots away while a scion scout comes in and burns it to the ground. I think that would keep the balance between the two and make it more challenging when it comes time for the base assaults. Of course I like games that take several hours :-D
Quote from: APCs r evil on November 16, 2005, 06:17:32 PM
Now for the weaknesses, the Gun Tower is easy to dodge, but very powerful. This gives them a weakness against smaller and faster units. This is easily countered by either Human intervention or a Rocket Tank with Shadower sitting pretty right next to it. But since Shadowers don't work against VIR, Human intervention is the only option, should the enemy have VIR.
I dunno, I think the suprise of having your Rocket Tank only have Hornets could be funny. Especially if they weren't expecting it. :p
Yes that is a nasty surpirse. Almost guarantees a dead enemy. :evil:
But thermal missiles don't work against VIR either. :cry:
apc has dont that to me a number of times...
I've tried assault-only rocket tanks a number of times but in the end it usually just sits there spazzing out of control and not doing anything. a Hornet-only rkt tank would be so useful sitting on the bay :(
I don't get why it dosent lock units with VIR on though (or more importantly why VIR seems to hide the heat signature AND image signature of a craft)
@ED, I don't think throwing MORE units into the fray is a great idea for balance. Just build turrets for that :P
I know this sounds assinine...but can we get a answer?..doesn't it seem logical to start and rebalancing fixes ONCE you have the NEXT PB?
Otherwise you're just aiming at a moving target.
It's not that hard to aim at a moving target if there are at least three people riding on the target and guiding the shots. Besides, GSH has said many times that he wants to get done soon, so we may as well get started on it now.
Enough has changed from the first PB to the upcoming PB to make any dicussion of balance worthless.
I am locking this thread. Feel free to re-start talking about balance when the next PB is released.