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Commander power creep

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http://zero-k.info/Forum/Post/171882#171882
quote:

Base health per level before the change:

Strike: 2500 - 2500 - 3000 - 4000 - 5000 - 6000
Recon: 1650 - 1650 - 2100 - 2600 - 3100 - 3600
Support: 2000 - 2000 - 2500 - 3000 - 3700 - 4500
Guardian: 3000 - 3000 - 3800 - 4900 - 6000 - 7200


Base health per level after the change:

Strike: 3200 - 3200 - 3800 - 4600 - 5500 - 6400
Recon: 2400 - 2400 - 2800 - 3200 - 3600 - 4000
Support: 2800 - 2800 - 3400 - 3800 - 4500 - 5000
Guardian: 3600 - 3600 - 4400 - 5500 - 6600 - 7600

Increased Peashooter DPS by 14%.
Peashooter is now better at hitting raiders.
Starting health increased by ~800. This increase is reduced to ~400 by level 6. Details below.
Speed module (+10% speed) now costs 100 health.

https://zero-k.info/Forum/Post/204300#204300
quote:

Strike 3200/3200/3800/4600/5500/6400 -> 4200/4200/4600/5200/5800/6400
Guardian 3600/3600/4400/5500/6600/7600 -> 4400/4400/5000/5700/6600/7600
Support 2800/2800/3400/3800/4500/5000 -> 3800/3800/4000/4300/4600/5000
Recon 2400/2400/2800/3200/3600/4000 -> 3250/3250/3400/3600/3800/4000

There was an update which made the lvl3 morph much more expensive.
Then there was an update that added the much more powerful beam laser to lvl1 commanders.

As you can see:
Two times in a row, early game coms have been buffed and commorphing has been nerfed.

We are currently dealing with a problem where Recon is really the only viable (non troll) chassis.
In both of these updates, Recon got the biggest HP % increase.

Well... from the format of the post you might get the feeling that it was better before.
And well...
For some reference:
Before the first update the only used non-troll chassis were Recon and Engi.
Engi was suprisigly common, and I had no idea why. (I still don't.) The build range was not worth the low speed imo.
I remember that you could easily kill an lvl1 engi com with 3 bandits. The other coms needed 5 bandits.
Com morphing was widely considered a bad idea. Of course, that didn't stop anyone from making them. Dgun Trollcoms and the old high range high speed morphers were about equally as common.
I used to make lichos to deepstrike into enemy territory to kill their engi coms in 1 hit.

After the update, people used the coms about the same. But there were some gradual changes.
Slowly, Recon com started being more popular and Engi less popular.
Non-Dgun trollcoms stopped being a thing. (Pretty sure the update which made lvl3 morphs more expensive was the nail in the coffin)
In 1v1s, people were more courageous with their coms.

And after the latest update:
Engi com is unused, just like Guardian.
Coms are way too hard to kill. Some light antiheavies (Scalpel, Krow) were hit pretty hard by this.
Morphing is for dgun trollcoms only. You also can rarely see a recon com with disruptor bomb.
In 1v1s, coms are a very hard to kill. A commander death in also much more impactful.

Note: All of these updates made commorphing less effective per metal spent. With the massive early game increases to HP, you see almost no increase in late lvl HP, making morphing even worse.

Now, I have some suggestions, but I first need to know if poeple actually feel the same way.
So I have some questions for the community and AUrankAdminGoogleFrog.
How do you feel about the powerful early game coms? Are they too hard too kill?
What do you think about the multiple nerfs to commorphing?
Is Guardian/Engineer chassis even viable?
Could we compensate for Recon's jump (useful of offense, defense and eco) by making it fragile?
( Something like 2000 - 2000 - 2500 - 3000 - 3700 - 4500)
Should we make non-dgun morphed commanders more viable?



+3 / -0


4 years ago
quote:
Some light antiheavies (Scalpel, Krow)
+5 / -0
I kind of preferred the old easy to kill commanders. I'd like to see the harder to kill properties get pushed onto lv 2 or 3 so investing in the first two levels becomes more viable.
+1 / -0
4 years ago
I think the main problem of stronger early game coms is the need for com at the front line to push/pressure the opponent and control engages, because com acts like a mobile high hp turret (need a lot of stuff to kill one even without protection). Recon supports this play style effectively with high speed and jump.
+0 / -0
4 years ago
Ok, I wrote most of this post before the balance change, but my points still stand.

quote:
Some light antiheavies (Scalpel, Krow)

I meant units which are effective against the heavy ~4000HP units, but are pretty bad against the 12000 HP striders.
+0 / -0
I think one of the reasons to buff the early commander HP was the Scythe. If the Recon commander lost a significant amount of HP like CZrankpsaniac suggested in exchange for regeneration, it would resist being defeated by a few Scythes, but a huge burst of damage would kill it easily. In this scheme, the Strike chassis would confer something else than self-healing.

Thoughts that I added to this post later
I suppose this solution would be poor. The regeneration would need to be really strong, because there isn't a lot of time to gain more HP while being attacked. The DPS of a few scythes is high. What if the low HP was mitigated by a widget that made the commander instantly jump into a safe area? Such a widget shouldn't be too unreliable enough.
+0 / -0
4 years ago
you do realize that by old standards coms are still pretty damn weak

and 2k metal heavy will absolutely wipe the floor with any com morf
+2 / -0
4 years ago
A very expensive commander can kill a 2k unit, but I don't think that's a cost-effective way to play at all. I wish the high levels were more useful.
+0 / -0
4 years ago
it used to be that coms were mostly balanced with units

but then certain players would play only com micro. and it worked...
then the devs "decided" that isn't how you should play game

hence we are here
+1 / -0
I'm very happy that with all those changes the bullshit rush 3 unstoppable by early aa ravens and keep killing all coms on map if you're lucky when enemy air is not there is no more.

Both raven being weaker and coms having more hp stopped that unhealthy rush thing. As a high elo clusterlobster I used to be focused with ravens all the time also because my com was at front usually. Nowdays it's mostly scythes, but that shit at least you can put some counter measures against and they cannot cover whole map distance in 10 seconds.

I have one request if commorphing is to be made more viable - make the changes more apparent at first glance. I know the threat when I'm looking at Dante, I have no idea if I'm looking at lvl 1 com or lvl 3 com most of the time. I think at lvl 4 coms get tiny bit bigger... If commorphing were to be stronger - please make the visuals of the model aiding the estimation of threat apparent.

Also what's wrong with this thread: http://zero-k.info/Forum/Thread/29870?page=3 to post a new one?
+0 / -0
3 years ago
comms should be slightly worse than regular units per cost as there is less stuff to micro, but they shouldn't be this shit. thinking of learning lua so i can fix this cancer
+0 / -0


3 years ago
"Commanders used to be balanced with other units" - no, commanders used to say their last words upon seeing 4 Scorchers jump out of the radar shadow.
+0 / -0
so do minotaurs...

to be fair
early game comms are now boss, late game they are total trash
+0 / -0
USranknop
3 years ago
quote:
early game comms are now boss, late game they are total trash


Maybe this has happened because balancing lategame commanders is a nightmare, due to multitude of possible build combinations. It's relatively easy to tweak the numbers for the chassis with no modules, scarier to make any of the upgrades stronger because it might hard meme if overtuned.
+2 / -0

3 years ago
Seems drone addition is pretty large buff for guardian trollcoms especially in lubster ranks. Morphed guardian now counter ultis, infis, skitles and in some situation cant be stopped and win by attrition. Of corse its on lubster rank.
+0 / -0