Scion Rights!

[MowerMan]

Did you hand draw it in Photoshop, or did you "goo" it from a photograph.  It would make a nice painting. (I too have an ancient British heritage, although one of the branches are Huguenots)

[BZ FeebleEffort]

Balance tweaks were made early and often in the 1.3 "closed beta" period...Often without much time spent digesting the last "tweak" before the next testers suggested another tweak..Myself Included.

Before long, there were 50 "balance related" changes made and some of us called for a halt to "Balance" changes and in fact(in mycase) called for a roll-back to essentially 1.2 default as a means to "get a grasp" on the status of things and re-evalauate. Well that idea was shot down and from about that point Forward "Balance" became and obscene word to use and my cries to adress it got no-where.

I guess (in the end) GSH had a plan to address "Balance" in the open beta(again, not exactly as I felt was best) and instead of having 20(testers) ideas to sort through, he may get 500 viewpoints....

as to the specific "imbalances" in Scion vs ISDF...well....as I've said repeatedly...Damned if I know now...Yes..*I* Encouraged moving the Mualer 1 step higher in the buid tree...In direct response to what I've heard by many many online players:

"We don't like to play vs Scions because all scions do is Mauler Rush"..that was very very common complaint.

However, when Scions do not immediatley rush to maulers, I find the Scions with warriors /blink etc are more than adequately able to fend for themselves.  the only (old) remaining scion worry) was "We can't break bases with Scion end game weapons....So we gotta Mauler rush..otherwise we lose"..

well..there were discussions with someone(other than GSH) to work on Scion late game weapons..but in reading the  recent 1.3 change logs none of those suggested improvements never made it into the beta(maybe they are still on someone at Pandemics hard drive(more likely his personal PC)...But in any event..there were "ideas" of helping Scions late game..but for now that remains "up in the air"

In the end, again..the whole ISDF v Scion, Offensive vs Defensive Balance of 1.3 was NOT thoroughly addressed in the closed beta. In fact, many balance resulting changes were made without being fully able to gauge  the impact("better" AI cuts both ways sometimes).

Which is why (prior to the "open beta") I encouraged all players to play this thing and comment on balnce issues...Because I couldn't grasp where it stood from my former time in the closed beta, until now.

I still like to see people play with it, but whether anything comes of requested changes, fixes, balance issues remains a mystery.

[Jwk the Hemp Monkey]

I edited a photograph. Go back ontopic to Scions


So yes....it is a little known fact that the squad that got converted into scions in BZII were infact all SAS guys loaned from Britain to the NSDF war.

yeah, thats right, the scions rock. and their brits

[Jwk the Hemp Monkey]

Well, in the FE rev.c beta we had dark fox, argueably the best scion player out there, not to mention all the ISDF vets on the team, so the knowladge of how scions fought isdf was rather high quality if you ask me.

And the 1.2 scions in comparision to the FE rev.c scions are totally different. We balenced it to the point that just about every combination (sonic / gauss/ blink Deflection....or quilll emp blink stasis.....and of course arc/gauss blink absorb....and thats just the warriors!) was being used on a regular basis


I seriously recomend that cut-pasteing all the tweaks made from FE rev.c be used with 1.3. I feel it would be an excellent starting point, as many of the major issues (e.g. as mentioned before sentries) were fixed.

Oh....and we did stuff to blink that was rather clever i think)

[DarkFox]

I honesty don't think the scion forces need looking at too much at the moment. If maulers were moved up in the build tree it certainly wouldn't bother me, I have a good time fighting with scions without using them at all. Their scouts are *certainly* weaker than a well-used ISDF scout at the start of the game, due mainly to weapon switching with FAF missiles, but this is balanced by their ridiculous power when they get blink.

[MowerMan]

I really like the Scion scout.  In IA games, I'll never get out of my scout all the way to the end of the game.

I think the "radar damped" Sentry would just make it a more usabled alternative to the scout (differentiate a little more too).

[Jwk the Hemp Monkey]

fair enough, but those were not the only things we dealt with in rev.c

[Dirty Rooster]

The initial scion improvements for FEa were too extreme,
but were not sufficiently tested to uncover the real
advantages.
Scions were downgraded a further two times for FEb
and FEc.

Shoehorning FE scions into 1.3 would be very very stupid
and would cause a lots of bad feeling among seasoned
vets.

During my time as a 1.3 Betatester we were NOT allowed to
raise balance issues. Some things mysteriously changed
after they were pointed out (Mauler tech tree psition for example)
but there was no real discussion.
Balance had been broken early in 1.3 development and
nobody in power wanted to unbreak it, probably since
they did not understand human v human vet strategy.

[BZ FeebleEffort]

"after they were pointed out (Mauler tech tree psition for example)"

DR..you must have been one of the later adds to the closed, so Our paths did not cross...I was probably already out by that stage...but

The Mualer move was made well over a  year ago..and at the time, the change appeared fine.

Unlike what some will have you believe, My request to bump the Mauler 1 step higher in the build tree was not "Because of my personal play style, skill or lack there of it"..

the original idea for moving the Mauler up 1 slot was originated LOOOONG ago during FE (A) testing...when I was involved in testing there and Myself, TV, Buzz, Pastell, Capt Majestic and others would play long and hard FE battles then after the game have a post game discussion about gameplay, styles, weaons, balance etc...the talk of moving the Mualer was originated in THOSE discussions based upon a mutual feeling from that group of testers(not exactly a bunch of newbies) that some ISDF players did not want to play against Scions because "all Scions do is Mauler rush" So therefore ideas were swapped to improve lategame scion weaons so they(the Scion teams) did not need to resort to the Mauler rush.

Eventually Pastell felkt it best NOT to Move the Mauler, but that was part of the Balancing and improvements made for Scions in the FE game....thos changes are not present in 1.2, so therefore the Mauler Rush was/is still a concern hence the origination of my request to bump The Mauler 1 step up the tree in 1.3.

Ken/GSH agreed and it was done..only question I don't have a answer for yet, is did they follow that change through with a improvemnt in late game Scion weaps?..again?  I don't know.

[Dirty Rooster]

I could look at the posts and find out conclusively,
but Wardog I believe you were kicked from the
testing group about a week or two after I joined.
I almost left right there and then, seeing how the place was run,
I couldn't believe it!!
I slyly mentioned various intentionally broken areas of 1.3
but the word 'balance' was taboo by then.

Your inputs were valuable by the way.
The stock 1.2 mauler tech tree level I find necessary as a 'threat' to
stop ISDF rushing for tech without defence for their rec. It
works well in that context.
Moving Mauler up 60scrap in tech (antenna) would give
the already boosted (APC, bomber, Walker, Asstank mortars)
ISDF even more advantage.

[BZ FeebleEffort]

Those "improved" ISDF units, APC Walker ASST tank etc were "Not so improved" when the discussions regarding the move of the Mauler was done(as I said...LOOOONG ago) So we obviously had no idea about a "need" to rebalance vs improved ISDF weapons, because at that stage..the only improved weap for ISDF was ASST tank which could by that stage fire its mortars vs "units" in self defense.

The whole changes to the APC were long after I was gone.

[SilverB1rd]

Just to make sure people dont get the wrong idea here.

#1 the beta team did not make massive changes to the isdf weapons.


#2 Ken and Nathan improved/Fixed the AI so it could use what is was given more effectively.


So #2 says that units are now more effective hence the weapons apper to be more powerful. Please avoid the Used more effectively = Directly Made More Powerful fallacy.

[BZ FeebleEffort]

Silver is absolutely correct, one of the "problems" disussed early on was the impact the "better" AI had in changing balance from what was "balanced" in 1.2, now became imbalanced by the better AI.

The difficult was(and still is) how to RE Balance those same units WITH the better AI and Keep them blanced in the Offensive vs Defensive Balance equasion and the ISDF vs Scion equasion as well.

[Scout]

well the game at hand i do believe is one me and acne played.. where i ended with a recycling of the recycler cuase i felt blantly ripped off.

I could have handled it better since there were holes i didnt exploit properly in his 10-30 turret defencive "field" but over all i joined in on the middle of the game where it was "pooh" a vet and acne vs aougli and some element nubcake that didnt know how to morph..

so after that id say i did ok seeing as he almost lost his rec, by 1 more fang hit.. but it was the time between then and the end that were the problems.

I personally saw the fault in not being able to inflict equal damage to the sabres that they were doing to us. Sounds wierd now doesnt it? Well id have to blame the netcode. One of the changes in 1.3 has brought on a different kind of warp that certain weapons benifit from and others dont.

this warp.. is in a nut shell something like blinking in 1.2 where the players model and where they really were didnt align for a few seconds.. i dont know if most of you have seen this.. but if sum1 in 1.2 blinked to you.. youd see that green orb explosion of the ship exiting the blink and the ship wasnt there.. few secodns later it was float in to place from the origonal position the person blinked from.. it looked like a ship coming out of warp in Startrek

either way this blink warp Is what this new 1.3 warp reminds me off..
but its far from as bad as 1.2 blinking..

what ive seen is the hitbox and where the weapons are eminating from in 1.3 doesnt line up with the visual model most people shoot for.

the "visual" lags meters behind depending on the speed of the ship..

So how does this have to do with weapons? well for the most part u can hit a person once abush style as it went most of the time that game.. and after that theyed be moving left right like the usual "vet" way where arc isnt as instant as blast, altho its 1 click to fire it.. its actually a salvo of 5 or so shots one after the other.. where as a blast mdm can be sent off nearly at the same time to a slow target.. eh a warrior..

esp if u where ambushed from above and didnt see em etc..

and in the end assualt the mortar rape ensued.. thanks all of those so called "vets" for wanting the final hand in killing ai spires to be a human job..

no reason i shouldnt have lost if u were just counting there ai army vs my scion base.. 3 spires 1 jammer

not to mention the 10 or so apcs where we scions hand NOTHING to kill them with
i started making hoot loads of pods JUST to blink on them multiple times.. as i can tell the apc "soldier" has had there space suit beefed up prolyl to withstand a few more mortar splash damage hits..

all in all, 1.3.. dont count on using scion.. Ever

ass/rocket tanks configured well are just plain killing machines (which i love) but even the mualer with tis more non-nuasiating  anti head bob(which a few clueless do gooders in the 1.3 team wanted out(the new beta members, they didnt know the real vets from the early days had over seen kens removal of the head bob)) doesnt help the scions case any..

and for the commanders who love to bomb the bugs, well youll be glad to know the archers on many bumpy maps have grossly large leads on the bombers movment and totally miss with popper and such..

[IceWendigo]

IMO, balancing can only be acheived 'After' the fixes  and AIs improvements    are completed (otherwise you'd have to start over each time).

So if a unit or race is not quite balance at this stage (it's a 'beta') it would neither be surprising nor a a tragedy, lets tests it to find out, post observations about test made on 'this' version of the beta so others can confirm or not(sometimes we're wrong, are thinking of other verions, or have just not considered factor x). Once a situation is confirmed we can make constructive comments (some bad  and some good) on potential ways to adress it (theres often more ways then one, the one that makes the least waves is usually closer to the appropriate one)


(this may sound quite obvious , but dont forget that player skill level and experience varies by such an extreme margin   that that it can be easy to misread/overestimate/underestimate a unit's or tech's true potential.)