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Current Balance Perspective

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3 years ago
Overall I would say the game is in a decent place.

General Overview:
Shields are Strong
Bandit is a generally good early-game raider. Thug-balls are the best assaults in the game for approaching defenses, the factory only needs to worry about being super-skirmed as things scale into the late game. If angles are confined, it can be hard for even those to tear apart the shield ball.

Recommendations: Nerf thug HP somewhat, perhaps by 10%, to help highlight their weakness when shields are down.

Cloaky is Strong
Glaive can do its job early game, although it often loses slightly to most early raiders. The factory is propped up on the strength of slings as the final step in the super-skirm war, Knights with strong generalist capabilities, and good access to cloak that can frankly be almost impossible for some factories to deal with (especially with its units that combo well i.e. Knight).

Recommendations: Knight might deserve a slight nerf, maybe hammer too. With a less strong knight, reaver being useful will be more important, as diversity will be more required. Likely should reduce HP/Damage/Cost of reaver by 10-20% to allow it to be in more places at once, while retaining its approximate strength.

Spider is Strong
Flea forces more defenses, venom is good against them for a raider, and is the 2nd best raider-riot. As game scales, recluse balls become powerful, making the factories concerns mostly about factories that can deal with them, because spider units rarely can engage well on anything long range enough to skirm recluse. Still, with new venom its in a better place there than it used to be.

Recommendations: Recluse is often being bombarded by things at long range, and is most scary at fairly large unit densities. I would increase the model size 10-20%, in order to make it easier to hit and less good at clumping. Maybe increase hermit speed slightly, so they have a different unit better able to pressure those balls a bit better, so they have a wider variety of valid options, and have to rely less on recluse.

Amph is Strong
Archer is the best raider-riot early-game, and grizzly is the most generally useful semi-strider. Lobster enables dynamic plays outside of the box, and the factory can generally deal with anything.

Recommendations: Nerf archer range by 5, making it a bit worse vs venom mostly. Reduce Grizzly health to 7800, enough for a widow to one-shot, reduce its cost to 1900 keeping its rough total power in line, but making it weaker not efficiently attacking (raider attacks, bombers, and widow). Buff duck very slightly, not sure how. Its missile accuracy is so bad at the moment, and archer is strong enough that its place is tenuous.

Hover is Decent
Bolas is a good generalist raider-riot that scales decently into the game. Lance is a powerful artillery anti-heavy combo. Daggers are in a weak spot, I would rate this as the only "problem" with hover.

Recommendations: Dagger +10% speed, putting it above or equal to dart. The unit has the same dps as a dart without a slow, it should be improved to better perform the role of scouting and decloaking.

LV is Decent
Scorcher could be qualified as the worst raider-riot. It has a very delicate balance (always has really), and recently the factory has mostly relied on a good generalist unit that negates light defense (fencer) as its backbone, with on occasional ripper as a powerful proper riot. Matchups where fencer is solidly defeated, especially below 700, are problematic for the factory, doubly if the scorcher loses. I am very interested in what people have to say about its matchups here, because my wisdom would put Spider, Shield, and Hover as all solidly advantageous against it.

Recommendations: None, it is in an odd place. Ravager is potentially fantastic, everything about it screams to me that the factory is problematically powerful, but the numbers just don't seem to work that way in practice. Am quite interested how people feel about it.

HT is decent
I feel it relies on Emissary a lot to deal with skirmishers, but perhaps that is fine. Kodachi is a decent raider with light riot prosperities, and has at least an ok matchup against everything in that tier. Ogre and Minotaur both are solid manifestations of their unit type, with AoE to pierce shields and sufficient health to reliably get back to heal. Much like how jacks are ok vs recluse, the heavy tanks just have enough hp and speed in a small enough area that they are able to deal with the super-skirms, its just normal skirmisher that begin becoming an issue.

Recommendations: None. At most increasing blitz's speed.

JJ is chaotic
JJ units often are extremes, and either win or lose extremely hard. Puppy might lose 10 to 1 on metal spent, then win 1 to 3 with a cloak. Pyros often with on razor margins then need to repair, and are good at getting to critical places but weak unless they do, Jacks try to replace the need for raiders with good dps for an assault, but then are very fragile to their counters, and are such a huge investment that they cannot efficiently deal with light porc. Firewalker is often powerful because of its safety and ability to do something at long range, but that something is often very slow and comes with friendly fire. Moderators shut down some units but are glass to super skirms, the current most late-game meta unit type.

Recommendations: Massive. Placeholder gets super-skirm range, but must be constantly attacking to maintain blackhole (with a target locked burst). Jack becomes faster, with an 800-1000 damage melee attack that freezes walking movement entirely during its 4 second reload (charge in, clear turrets, Jump away to safety, or the reverse - faster and more dangerous). Add a relatively normal raider while slightly nerfing Pyro speed.

In my opinion, 3 facs are a hair too good, deserving of minor nerfs, 3 facs are a hair weak deserving of minor buffs, 1 is about right, and 1 is kinda all over the place.
+2 / -0

3 years ago
Why nerf Thug HP instead of having shield regain cost energy?
+0 / -0

3 years ago
Thug doesn't currently cost energy for its shield at all. I feel constant energy drain would be a massive nerf, and a logistical burden - its annoying to constantly drain stuff for a bulk unit you will want to stock up on. Using it only during regen? That isn't bad exactly, but its unique and isn't so much an improvement that I feel its worth doing.

It would be an interesting change to all shields, perhaps, but then you would want a way to turn shields off and that further muddles the game with compexity.
+0 / -0
if you make regen require e, the you effectively raise the cost of the unit. if regen costs 2e, you raised the cost by 70 metal for a solar. Plus, getting this solar takes time for your builders that they could use to build pork. Energy requirement is the harshest nerf for basic-units.
+5 / -0
DErankkatastrophe and I agree on this. Shields actually cost more than their paper price when it comes to their star piece, the aegis. They need a large E investment whereas something like rover does not. If Thug also costs E to regenerate it would indeed be a large nerf to shields.
+0 / -0
Agree:
1) Thugs seem a bit overtuned

2) Knights seem a bit overtuned

3) Reaver seems less good these days, though not sure how much tuning they can take

4) Sling could stand a small nerf (bizarrely high dps for artillery, almost equivalent to tremor in m/dps)

5) Archer is good and Grizzly is the easiest demi-strider to feel good about using

6) Bolas is a good generalist

7) Jumpjets are in a weird spot because their units are strong but need a lot of attention and thinking to use compared to other factories

8) Hermits could maybe take a small movement speed buff




Disagree:
1) I don't think 10% hp would do much to make thug feel better to play against

2) "Super Skirms" are the greatest threat to shield balls

3) Recluse ball is strong in high level play (I feel that recluse is so expensive that too many things can counter them, and you should only have a few at a time in most games)

4) I don't think Grizzly needs to be one shot by widow, amph isn't the greatest at stopping cloakers and I don't think they need that level of vulnerability

5) I'm pretty sure daggers aren't weak and that no one wants Godde to have stronger daggers

6) Ravager feels a bit underwhelming these days, compare to halberd which is pretty much strictly superior as a unit

7) You didn't mention badger but I think it could use a bit of a nerf, because it has weirdly good dps for its class of unit and a much higher chance of hitting with it than sling does. Not to mention that badger being good in its current form doesn't necessarily lead to fun gameplay

8) Kodachi is a top tier raider, I don't think there's anything that is outright better in a map where it makes sense to play tanks except in later game

9) Ogre is pretty commonly thought to not be very good at being a riot, and tends to be better at other things than rioting.

10) I believe Blitz is worse than Kodachi in every matchup other than tanks vs tanks. It loses in hp/metal to most skirmishers and does dps worse than most skirmishers. I only build a few Blitz in most games I play as tanks, just because they lower dps of other units thus allowing Kodachi to kill them more easily and they can take a bit more of a beating than a kodachi can on an individual basis so sometimes I build them to help survive a bit better vs single target riots. Blitz is a significantly worse version of Venom right now, with its greatest strength being the ability to run away from most things, which kodachi also possesses.

I would really like to see a change to this unit. It could be interesting if the hp regen was swapped over from kodachi to blitz, perhaps even returned to +10/s level. That might be the most fun change blitz could take and would make the balance between kodachi and blitz a lot more metal sensible. Right now blitz really feels like a win more unit where you have to be pretty ahead to use it because it is really hard to do anything with it efficiently.

11) Your proposed change to Jack sounds pretty crazy, and not sure that JJ really needs another raider either. The placeholder change might be interesting but I'm not sure about it. It might well promote healthier gameplay than what the unit does now, or it might make it very, very silly.
+2 / -0
The sheildfac is just overtuned full stop (the units all cover eachothers weaknesses, niche units are needed from specific facs to counter it wtf).

- constable has way too much shield/hp
- thug has too much shield/hp
- rogue is v good
- roach is hugely superior to imp
- outlaw is anti quants law, effectively negating most natural counters to shieldball (over-run and cloaked ambush).
- felon is anti-everything, including anti air. Counters the thunderbird, wtf

Because its a snowball effect, this is much more conspicuous in team games than 1v1.
+1 / -0


3 years ago
Close to the mark USrankRyMarq. There was a lot I agreed with in your post and then it started getting... Scary.

USrankAdminBakuhatsu's perspective is far closer to a truth that doesn't scare the shit out of me balance wise.

I'll re-iterate my balance desires here in this dedicated thread:

Absolute high priority:
  • Knight lower range - Allow it's counters to more comfortably exist within it's quarters
  • Sling cost nerf - Ronin needs to come back into play and sling is just too good pre-firewalker.
  • Thug nerf - We've seen that discussion.
  • Lance nerf - They are peak almost uncounterable meta in 1v1 now
  • Halberd nerf - The defensive state allows it to kill ogres and rippers, and all nearby aoe victims for insane cost. It's too much.
  • Badger is a little too available and causing... Situations.
  • Dante's burn - Should this really be able to surprise kill all of your skirmishers so easily? It's another huge attrition without any risk of punishment mega-moves.

Normal priority:
  • Lesser mentioned slight cost increase to siren.
  • Licho is wrecking face. Apply thought.
  • Slight recluse nerf, RyMarq your idea isn't too bad. The issue I have with recluse is firing with impunity. How to fix?
  • Amph is worth leaving alone until we actually see some degeneracy for now. That's not common in my world.
  • Buff dagger under no circumstances.
  • Maybe even consider nerfing bolas just a tiny bit, as it can create a defensive grill with scalpel/mace that makes lances uncounterable.
  • Scorcher is still shitty when faced with other raiders and especially bad vs the followup raider-riots. It could get another tiny buff to help it in the raider category.
  • From tanks, welder needs a survivability nerf and ogre needs ever such a slight buff.
  • JJ is ok to be left alone until considerable thought is put into how to streamline it. The powerspike cloaked puppy gives is great, but is sometimes absolutely necessary. At least most factories can put up a reasonable counter if they scout for it.
+2 / -0
quote:
Badger is a little too available and causing... Situations.

A while ago SErankGodde suggested that Badger would be more fun if it fired three projectiles in a rapid salvo. It could be a bit higher weight and do something like this, perhaps. Less granular, available a bit later, but also more meaningful individually.
+3 / -0
3 years ago
Oh, yeah I wouldn't mind seeing survivability nerfs to both Welder and Convict. At least the former was tweaked down a bit recently. Convict is a bit more absurd right now IMO, but at least it doesn't have the self defense laser.
+1 / -0
3 years ago
Badger perpetually strikes me as unimpressive. Its dps is meh, its range is meh, it tends to wander into Stinger ranges when auto-fighting. Its only good attribute is being good at running away. Overall its a decent artillery because that last point is a really good strength for artillery to have, but I don't get why some people consider badger problematic. You need a really large ball for badger to have steamroll potential, and even a very large ball remains easily counter-able by artillery that out-ranges it.
+2 / -0

3 years ago
Ah, here is another possibility set for spider.

Nerf venom a hair more, to keep their early-game a bit more on edge.

Halve widow cost and damage, keeping energy cost close. Widow now is more viable to snipe out single important units or lone stingers, allowing fleas to rush in against unguarded skirms, an artillery to be rushed by the recluse it was bombarding or so on.

A screening force ensures there is something to shoot out for the recluse or engage on for venoms, allowing a more stable composition, while being unique.

I really do stand by reducing thug HP though. Even if it has to be a 20%+ nerf, I feel they currently are cheesy in part because there isn't really a good reward for bypassing their defenses, they arent actually that vulnerable if you hit them with an emp or disarm them. Reducing their health means everything that pierces them is a bit better.

I think cloak puppy ball is propping up jumpjet in high-level play, and that once people get a feel for how to counter it, the factory isnt going to be in a great place.
+0 / -0
Thug just regen independently at 0 cost where other units have to get repaired, it is a great advantage.

I don't mean thug to use along, you can pack thugs with outlaw and fencers/bulkhead/recluse early game to beat most combination in a team game, just to install a secondary factory near your allies.
+0 / -0
Spiders don't feel that strong to me, at least not in large team games. They're countered really hard by AoE, and that tends to become more common at higher densities. All spider units are cheap and skew towards fragility. Even Hermit is fragile individually. Crab is the exception but Crab has very limited utility offensively.

Also, Jugglenaut absolutely ruins the day of a spider player, and its a unit encountered somewhat frequently because the kinds of areas that encourage spiders also encourages jumpbots.
+0 / -0
quote:
Even Hermit is fragile individually.

Hermit is the 3rd most efficient unit in terms of pure HP/cost. It's only beaten by Jack and Dirtbag in this regard.

quote:
Jugglenaut absolutely ruins the day of a spider player

Jugglenaut hard counters Crab but Jugglenaut by itself doesn't have much of an answer to Widow and/or masses of Recluses.
+0 / -0
3 years ago
Yes, hermit is a very solid assault, but deals very poorly with AoE, along with the rest of the factory.

Jugglenaut's jump makes it difficult to use recluses against it safely. Widow is made of paper and 2 are required, jump can make it difficult to determine where to position then.
+0 / -0
Hot new insight: Games between me, GBrankPRO_rANDY and especially RUrankizirayd are seeing hover creep back in more and more. I had a long think about this last night and came to a realization about what makes hover so reliable. It's that they are inherently equipped to deal with every other factory.

Here's a list of units that hover can't/shouldn't use in certain matchups (AA removed by default):
  • Cloakbots: None
  • Shieldbots: Claymore, Lance
  • Amphbots: Claymore
  • Rovers: Claymore
  • Tanks: Daggers, Claymore
  • Jumpbots: Daggers (arguable), Claymore
  • Spiders: Claymore, (maybe Halberd)

The only unit that isn't viable or meaningful is Claymore on land.

If I have to produce the same list for each factory (I can upon request, please try to imagine it though), what we will see is that other factories are severely more restricted in what units they can and cannot viably produce under certain matchups. But when you look at how hovers have literally no bad unit-RPS against any other factories, it becomes clearer and clearer why the stats frequently also showing them as having all-positive win rates across every other (ground) factory.

With hover, you get great mobility control of the map through critical mass dagger, you get AoE riot-skirming which doesn't need much babysitting with scalpel. The defensive nature of bolas means that you can kite effectly with them until units are slow and clumped for scalpel to pick off. If the enemy brings strong AoE you just need 1-2 closed halberds to force them to suicide. And then guarded lance is a strategy that works against ALL mid-late outcomes. It's so effective that over the last week, 3/4 of our games have gone in this direction. You get a couple of lances and a halberd to spot, whilst picking off army/commander/stingers, this buys you time until owl, licho for AoE and more lances for single target. GG.

If anything, I just hope this overview of hovers can serve as a basis to tune them down a little so that they're no longer a safer win condition.

A lot of the things I've been calling in for a nerf revolve around "being able to cause attrition without any punishment" / "win condition units". Basically, OP/easy win shit. Examples of that are licho, dante d-gun, lance, thug, recluse around terrain. Even cloaked puppy/snitch do feel too invincible, although they require a great deal more personal investment to achieve. Combat terraform was nerfed on a similar basis.

Knight in particular has really got me going. Yesterday, I was playing a late night, relatively chill game vs ATrankATOSTIC on fallandel where he won by putting cloaked knights into my base. I saw it coming, and knew it was on it's way. I decided to put all of my army back at my base and wait for it. My army wasn't big enough. Not by 3-4x. So tough is knight, that I barely put a dent in them before the battle was decided. It's the same strategy I used to beat GBrankPRO_rANDY with in the tournament, and it's the same strategy USrankKshatriya uses in 90% of his games, propelling him to the top 10 recently. Even if you nerfed the range slightly on knight, it's raw stats/mechanics make it insane. It's a combat assault; high alpha AND stun = combat prowess. You'll be hard pressed with most factories to produce a composition that can do anything about a cloaked knightball / knights in general. Rover almost instant lose on tighter maps.

AUrankAdminGoogleFrog are you in on any of this?

+1 / -0
quote:
...it becomes clearer and clearer why the stats frequently also showing them as having all-positive win rates across every other (ground) factory.

What filters on the 1v1 stats are you using to draw this conclusion? I have toyed around a bit with various filter settings in terms of time and skill windows and tended to see Hover having a subpar matchup against Shield and a not clearly and consistently advantageous matchup against Cloaky or Rover. (Other matchups tended to have too low a number of games to draw firm conclusions.)

I will also point out that Hover has fewer units available than most other land factories; I believe among the other land factories only Tank and Spider have as few. As such it seems like it might be better to consider "how many units in this factory have reasonable usecases in this matchup" rather than "how many units in this factory do not have a reasonable usecase".
+0 / -0

3 years ago
Rolled charges work fine on land. Claymore should be considered viable in more match ups.

I don't recommend tuning anything down. We should tune everything else up to be as synergistic as Hovercraft.
+0 / -0
AUrankAdminAquanim



In this data, it scores 62% winrate vs both cloak and rovers. And yes, you're right it has problems vs shieldbots at 39%.

I gets 50% in mirror, of course, and 50% vs spiders in 2 games as that's no longer common now that adansonia has been replaced. That said, hovers and spiders are definitely "back in" on mechadansonia now. They also appear to roflstomp Tanks - Except for on Cobalt Dream.

Although the sample size is small for these stats at 194 games in the time period shown, that's 194 games between like 11-12 players, the most active of which exist higher up the ladder. Even if the data can be manipulated to show hovers as being balanced, my experience of them over the last few months has me as concerned about their versatility as I am knight/thug.

Dagger alone really started to shine as problematic in top 1v1 around the time that hourglass/br got put into rotation. The fact that they have benefited obscenely from predictive aiming since this time is akin in absurdity as thug receiving a price decrease the last time I called it's balance into question. Then you've got halberd and lance to look at, but that's been covered already.

quote:
As such it seems like it might be better to consider "how many units in this factory have reasonable usecases in this matchup" rather than "how many units in this factory do not have a reasonable usecase".


Invert my list. The implication is that in most matchups, most of hovers units have clear and attractive roles that are easy to attend. They're always equipped, apart from vs Shieldbots.
+0 / -0
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