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Cold Take #2 - Quant's Rule

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11 months ago
Read it here: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/334920/view/3875973926280115015

There are going to be a few posts on fundamentals as it is hard to discuss anything else without them. Also, the header image at the top of the post may have fallen off the bottom of the iceberg.
+10 / -0

11 months ago
If nothing else, the existence of Quant's Rule, even just as a short pithy statement to sum up a big balancing tenet, is one of the best things to come out of CA/ZK. IMO it's something that every game should at least keep in mind, regardless of the genre. It's applicate in any game where the player can make choices about what to use, which is most of them.
+1 / -0

11 months ago
Hm this was maybe cut to not get into too much detail and I am not keen to derail this into another lance-thread, but I think the main strength of lance is not just the massive burst-damage but the fact that that damage is virtually undodgeable. Compare emissary and lance. My first intuition would be that the unit that has a dodgeable projectile and needs to stand still to shoot should have the higher damage. Anyway, I am not in that situation and there is no proof that I have any competence in balancing, so don`t take this as any more of a mere thought.
+0 / -0
11 months ago
emissary has better stats per metal spent then lance but i agree that 4+ cloaked lance is devastating
+0 / -0


11 months ago
quote:
Hm this was maybe cut to not get into too much detail and I am not keen to derail this into another lance-thread, but I think the main strength of lance is not just the massive burst-damage but the fact that that damage is virtually undodgeable.

Correct, that is a strength. It was more about being a good example though, than detail. A damage nerf looks a lot more like a balance change than giving Lance a completely different weapon, so stating that Quant's Rule is against a damage nerf is more informative. Weapons are also more complicated than numbers. Eg Lance's direct fire requirement is a similarly large weakness, which is tied to it being a laser.
+1 / -0

11 months ago
I like the principle. With that said: commander buff, when?

Might be as simple as adding back the two missing upgrade slots.

Commander morph is a proven losing strat and yet people derive immense fun from babying their fragile comm into a juggernaut of destruction. Sad that it only succeeds about 1/5 times.

Part of the problem is lack of top-end power. You can spend a paladin's worth of metal on a comma and yet end up with something that's much worse than a paladin. How about throwing us a bone?
+1 / -0

11 months ago
Also, and I wanted to say: kudos on trying to simultaneously rescue blastwing and picket. These two have been garbage-tier units for a long time, and by buffing blastwing, picket has been made useful once again. An elegant solution. I wonder if BW should not get a tiny nudge in power yet again after the last nerf. The chainsplode tendency of BW makes it a pretty big drawback ... imho.
+0 / -0


11 months ago
A general problem with commanders is that a commander with a bit of metal invested is so much better than a Paladin. The relationship swaps at 10k metal, when the Paladin stops being a nanoframe. Another issue is that commanders are not supposed to overshadow all the units in the game, and the high degree of customisation means we have to balance this requirement to the most extreme designs.
+1 / -1
what if, striders are built as a smaller version of themself and require upgrading once or twice? like mini dante

lvl 1: heatray and 50% hp => 1500metal/E (nano/strider hub)
lvl 2: 75% hp and all default weapon => 1000metal/E. 60sec upgrade (unit is stunned/disabled!?)
lvl 3: full hp and dgun => 1000metal/E. 60sec upgrade (unit is stunned/disabled!?)

etc for other striders

would reduce the gamble of long waiting and probably add more strategic depth or even more fun...
+2 / -0

11 months ago
Man I don't want to be "that guy" but I disagree with you GoogleFrog.

While I acknowledge that commanders are useful and flexible and that you can begin using them right away, unlike a Paladin ... the fact remains that you have had to make several changes to the game in order to control Paladin rush. Commanders were ho-hum before the nerf and have become even more so. Basically, they are big walking targets. I've had fully pimped out commanders costing like 15k metal that were still significantly worse than a Paladin.

I do remember the days of PiktsWolas rushing around with his ultra-regenerative strike god-comm wrecking everything in sight and even of Firepluk's invisible dgun comm picking off key targets one after another.

But those days are long gone.

All I'm asking is for a bit of a top end boost so that sinking 15k metal into a comm doesn't result in a damp squib :)
+2 / -0
paladin wrecks most coms true (range advantage).. skuttles decloak and are killed by many trollcoms mid air and sometimes it needs 2

placeholder(risky), widdow, cyclpse(risky), lance, ulti, likho, phantoms (risky)
+0 / -0
ZArankAstran we can disagree on how powerful commanders should be, but setting the bar anywhere close to Paladin is unrealistic. The game just won't work with comms at that power, the pressure to snipe them or counter them will be immense if people can morph up to a Paladin gradually. There is a lot of space between current commanders and that point though. I'm just saying that "comm is nowhere near as good as Paladin" is a bad place to start.

quote:
the fact remains that you have had to make several changes to the game in order to control Paladin rush

Paladin had one direct nerf since 2017, a 6.5% drop in speed and some reduced turn rates. I recall that being more about catching it, not about the early game. The nerf you're probably talking about is the 50 energy requirement for Strider Hub, which was aimed directly at Paladin. But this nerf drives home my point. Having a Paladin very early in the game was, if not broken, then at least a bit game warping and would get old.

Buffing commanders to anywhere near Paladin is a proposal that would see Paladin rush effectively return, but rather than cause half a team to sink all their metal into it for four minutes, progressively stronger versions could be used in the field as it is built up over ten. The commanders we were seeing prior to the nerf/rework were not as powerful as Paladin, but they were big and efficient enough to warp a whole front around them. They would do things that no other unit can do, such as the ranged beam laser commanders that dealt reasonable DPS at 500+ range. Very few units do this, as it tends to end up as a "riot" against a lot of units. Fencer deals constant accurate damage at high range and most of its other stats are terrible to compensate. This sort of thing is just barely ok on a weak glass cannon. That sort of ability on a unique single unit warps the front around it and, here is where we may disagree, the game is about units. Controlling a bunch of individually simple things in complicated ways.

quote:
what if, striders are built as a smaller version of themself and require upgrading once or twice?

It's an interesting idea, but it feels like a solution looking for a problem. Striders seem to work fine, why add complexity?
+0 / -1
come on googlefrog you have to admit a micro dante would be cute =D

i kind of want a dante plushy now
+0 / -0

11 months ago
I'm not asking for a Paladin ... I'm asking for a commander that isn't worthless :D

It seems that I mill have to rein in my commorph tendencies and accept that morph is actually a noobtrap ;)
+1 / -0


11 months ago
Commander morphing doesn't seem to be worthless. It just isn't always good.
+5 / -0

11 months ago
quote:
Part of the problem is lack of top-end power. You can spend a paladin's worth of metal on a comma and yet end up with something that's much worse than a paladin. How about throwing us a bone?


I agree that finally getting rid of the morph-option would be a good idea.
+1 / -2

11 months ago
May as well get rid of it. Then all the noobs would stop morphing comm in base to level 8 and losing us games.
+1 / -2
11 months ago
quote:
May as well get rid of it. Then all the noobs would stop morphing comm in base to level 8 and losing us games.
They will find something else to loose games in no time.

As the topic is quant's rule, comm morph does not seem to fit that idea very well. The comms can end up rather balanced overall (even if not worthy). Would it be interesting to push on that? (ex: each comm morph for support comm => make it slower, larger reclaim build range; each comm morph for recon comm => larger jump radius; lower health).
+2 / -0
11 months ago
Advertiseing/Braging about Quant's Rule while not retaining it themselves, sounds like a bad joke to me.
+0 / -0


11 months ago
The main strength of Lance is that it's a riot in disguise. It's much harder to go murder some lances with a raider ball than any other arti.
+2 / -0
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