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SUGGESTIONS: Gunship Balance

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22 days ago
HARPY seems like it is in an acceptable place. It fills the role of an early-game "bully" that picks on stragglers and assists allies in scuffles. It's not sturdy enough to survive midgame AA but it can be reused as a a defensive support unit. It has some strange relationships with other units, like being effective in A2A dogfights against Swifts and even occasionally Raptors. It is on a tighter clock to get value than most air units generally are, as VERY modest AA is quite threatening to it.

LOCUST is somewhat weak/situational, and it should remain that way so that Gunship plops do not become overly oppressive on certain maps. That said, I think players who can devote attention to it while raiding and scouting with it should be better rewarded for doing so than they are now. In team games, the biggest risk with making a Locust as a Scout/Raider as early as possible is its vulnerability to Swifts, especially deep in enemy territory. Its ideal targets seem to be Wind Generators and Mexes.

NIMBUS is also somewhat weak/situational, especially in the sense that it compares poorly to Revenant. Revenant is also an inaccurate high damage unit that prefers a lot of the same targets, but in exchange for lower range, Revenant has much better speed, health, burst damage, and AoE potential that make it more reliable at pushing through AA and finding value than Nimbus. Like Locust, it's probably for the best that Nimbus, in its current role, remains situational and easily countered for the health of the game. It struggles against mobile AA more than Revenant because it's unlikely to ever hit mobile units, but just like Revenant, "Mass Nimbus" can punish some poorly-supported static AA configurations.


---Suggestions ---

Harpy: 1200 Health -> 1250 Health
Harpy: Adjust its Attack-Move behavior, such that it "follows" units more effectively, and turns from its targets less.

Harpy is a very juicy target for the recently-buffed Tarantula, as it's now killed in 4 shots instead of 5. Several Harpies can spend limited time inside of AA if it helps to accomplish a task, but that risk isn't worth taking against Tarantula. A small health buff may help it in this regard without breaking Quant's Rule, as it's not particularly defined by "fragility." It's worth noting this is also a large buff vs Angler.

Harpy ALSO has an issue with following its targets, where it turns away before getting into firing range, repeatedly. Even when Harpy (on A-Move) is retreating from ITS targets, it has a strange propensity to turn away and then back toward the target, moving inefficiently. According to CharmedMage, it may have something to do with its "SkirmLeeway" value or some similar value, but I'm not sure.


Locust: Firing Arc 150 -> 180
Locust: Vision 500 -> 560

These are suggestions to slightly improve Locust's tactical autonomy as a scout and a raider. A greater firing arc would allow it to deal slightly more damage when repeatedly engaging and disengaging vulnerable targets like Wind Generators and Mexes. More vision range would allow it to less often "run face-first" into unexpected threats.


Nimbus: Vision 660 -> 760 (or even 800?)

This is a significant buff... Many potential adjustments to Nimbus threaten to bend Quant's Rule, as many of its flaws seem to be necessary forms of awkwardness expected in "Artillery" units, which Nimbus essentially functions as. A vision buff, however, may mesh well with the unit's identity and give it a rare form of supportive value. This is a relatively large buff to creating 1 or 2 Nimbuses, without giving much extra value to "Mass Nimbus." This buff would allow a Nimbus to fire at great ranges via its own vision, especially when it's on a high elevation; of course, the greater the range, the greater Nimbus's inaccuracy and the worse the impact of its slow projectile speed.
+3 / -0


21 days ago
I was agreeing with the post until the part where it said things need changing. But then the suggestions were so safe that I agreed with them as well upon reading them.

Harpy attack move behaviour isn't a balance thing, it should just be as good as it can be. Do you have the time to fiddle around with the settings? My idea with this behaviour is to make hard tasks possible, not to make easy tasks easier. Ie if Attack Move fails when you would get by with a simple Move command, that is no so bad as Attack Move failing when the alternative is a lot of frantic clicking. So its settings should be weighted towards doing the hard cases well.
+3 / -0

21 days ago
Harpy can be extremely oppressive early on because of the slow damage. Eating 4 tarantula shots is actually quite a lot when you factor in that (talking about team-games) you rarely have the ressources to build that much aa in the first few minutes of the game.
I am not going to argue about the attack-move behaviour. The thing is that I expect harpy to be very strong even without more hp, so I am not that sure about raising it's health.

quote:
In team games, the biggest risk with making a Locust as a Scout/Raider as early as possible is its vulnerability to Swifts, especially deep in enemy territory. Its ideal targets seem to be Wind Generators and Mexes.


And that one is just raider in general, although I agree that locust is underwhelming.


Overall, Gunships atthis point are an absolute staple in teams, mainly because of revenant and krow. Even tho I rarely get to play it,
I think GS is one of the coolest facs in this game. I think harpy, nimbus and locust are not so popular mainly because they are just overshadowed by rev and krow.
So, I am not arguing about the proposed changes, what I say is that the factory demands some attention beyond what is layed down here.
Mainly because too powerful units/factories can make the game a frustrating experience.
+1 / -0
20 days ago
I don't want to put videos on imgur or whatever to use here but I did post a couple relevant videos of Harpy in the Discord server, in #balance

quote:
GoogleFrog: Do you have the time to fiddle around with the settings?


I actually have no idea how to fiddle with variables like SkirmLeeway, I've just heard other people talk about them in the Discord server. All I know is that in testing and in real gameplay, Harpy's Attack-Move behavior/Unit AI feels "wrong" in a fairly unique way, to the point I've heard other people cite it as a reason they avoid using the unit.

quote:
katastrophe: Eating 4 tarantula shots is actually quite a lot when you factor in that (talking about team-games) you rarely have the ressources to build that much aa in the first few minutes of the game.


I mean, I do agree Harpy is already a solid unit and buffing it must be done carefully, but because of the current breakpoints, even like 4 or 5 Harpies are easily driven off by 1 Tarantula (in a secure position); it effectively kills a Harpy within ~6 seconds of seeing it, so being able to survive another shot from it would be "nice" for the Harpy player.

The big thing is, Gunship plops are good on a lot of the same maps AS Spider plops, since they also navigate hills and mountains to find their targets. So if Spider's AA obliterates Gunship's best early-game unit, Harpy, it can be a very common problem.

Harpy is pretty scared of ALL G2A Mobile AA units, but Tarantula is its nemesis right now (and Angler probably but nobody builds those lmao)... and Spider players CAN afford a Tarantula unless they're outnumbered by ground opponents in their lane. 1 Tarantula is a bit insufficient against Bombers, but very good against GS. I've abused this against enemy GS players a couple times now; the moment I see a Harpy and my lane is stable enough to make a Tarantula I just do it.
+1 / -0

20 days ago
As said, I am not opposed to the changes. Just worried that they will push the factory a bit too far overall.
+0 / -0
USrankIxzine you can get the sources of the game and fiddle around with tactical_ai_defs in LuaRules/Configs. Ask around in #zkdev.

https://zero-k.info/mediawiki/Zero-K:Developing#Modifying_the_game
+0 / -0

12 days ago
I like these Ideas, well reasoned and could add a lot to the factories game feel. Might be interesting to look into some other minor buffs for other gs that don't overwhelm breakpoints while improving feel and utility.
I have been considering very minor tweaks for gnat and locust primarily relating to breaking and acceleration speeds, for reasons of balance im primarily looking at increases in breaking power.
Additionally, thoughts on maybe something like a 30 hp increase on Gnat HP, mainly to keep its break point for ogre being able to maintain its one burst capability while helping make up for chip damage.
+0 / -0


9 days ago
Here are the balance changes https://github.com/ZeroK-RTS/Zero-K/commit/22ebd9e838c4787e57cf2e3fa88b

If you want Harpy to jink around better then you'll probably have to fiddle with it yourself.
+0 / -0