Radical changes to EMP and slow effects

Meh, that would overly nerf emp units for the simple reason of it would make it much easier to Overwhelm or Outrun them, especially in the case of Venoms.

TL;DR: 'Slow' should only slow movement. EMP probably has to stay as-is.

As we discussed in chat this is something i've though about and proporsed before. I'm rather unhappy with the whole 'EMP is isntant slow is incremental' thing, because it is FAR more interesting to have a weapon debuff (you can still move, position, and retreat the unit- but cannot fight) and a speed debuff (for kiting, chasing, and generally controlling mobility and positioning power- but not effecting DPS at all, if you get in its range you still get hit). They could be different types of lightning- yellow, blue, purple, white, etc. We'd still have two bars: one for weapons and one for speed.

It adds so much more variety to the game and requires much more nuanced responses. Hit a slow unit with a weapon disable/debuff then overrun it? Or hit a faster unit to force it to retreat? Do you retreat your units that have had their weapons knocked out, or keep them in battle to absorb damage/wait out the effect? Do you use slow to kite an enemy? In which case, you'd better stay out of range! Or do you use it to run a ranged unit down? If you do- you still need the firepower to kill him. Maybe you can slow down individual members of an advance, splitting his army up. Does he then stay with the slowed units or keep pushing? Importantly, you can use slow to escape from a high damage enemy: but not to attack him (unless you outrange him), and you can use weapon disable to attack an enemy, but not to run him down (unless you can outrun him).

Both allow you to control the battlefield, but in unique ways. Slow is useless vs turrets, while weapon disable is great. Slow is great vs fast or kiting units, but poor vs artillery or ranged units which dont rely on kiting.

EMP offers little of this. You stun it, when its as good as dead, or you dont, to no effect. You can try protecting stunned units to wait out the effect, or killing the stunner if he is keeping the target stunned, but beyond that, not much. Slow offers much the same, without the penalty of needing 100%.

Okay. So practical, implimentation. Which units get what and in what percentages? It would require a massive rebalance of every EMP unit, and thats the problem. I can imagine a venom with a 100% slow- great vs raiders with their low range, but what about venom assaulting turrets- do we want to keep that? What about a weapon disable? Well, then recluses still cant hit, which is half the point. Racketeer should clearly get weapon disable, because its used against turrets. But what about stunning mobiles (like comms), where if you do manage to hit them, they cant move and thus can be permanently stunned. Is that a part of what makes the racketeer a worthwhile unit? Is the dynamic where you then have to attack or 'scare' the racketeer to get it to stop firing (a kind of short-term objective creation) a good dynamic? Is it a feature we want to preserve?

EMP is a big part of the game so these are no small changes. Its a big part of the anti-com, anti-heavy and anti-raider (venom, gnat) dynamic, which is kind of central to the game. Slow, on the other hand, isnt. It is used on two units, the outlaw and the moderator. The Moderator is, frankly, kinda OP and could do with this kind of nerf. It is incredible at letting the pyro and can catch any kind of enemy unit, and is phenomenal when mixed with another factories skirmishers. This adds, at least, a kind of slow which doesnt effect DPS. It means its useless vs turrets, but while you can use it that way, it rarely is (can and pyro have no serious problems with llt anyway which is the major thing its usable against). As for the outlaw? Well here the DPS reduction is important. Slowing the glaives actually doesnt achieve all that much, other than a very minor kiting ability. But i think it can afford such a change as well.

We have already different stun times which made faraday less effective then venoms ( except of range ).
Faraday got double nerfed - stun time AND costs +15%.

If we want to keep different stun times and so many varity with the stun time, would it hurt the newbe's experiences in a bad way to add different slow factors?
slow-time if it exceeds over 100%?

Shouldn't a slowed unit be unable to use weapon-aiming ? ;)
Maybe we could make a tar ball weapon unit which fires slow instead of fire like the Firewalker.

And add 100%+8seconds slow to venom ( then it would still have the same efficience ).

I think the main problem of venoms is, that they are too fragile against raiders, but too effective against anything else, because of high stun damage, the high damage of recluses, AT and the ability to stun every unit class with 8 seconds - no matter if it would be a Demitrant or a Flea.

Any change to the workings of the EMP system would basically mean throwing out all the current EMP units (and a large part of the game) then starting from scratch with a new design. Of course the old unit models could be used and general role may be maintainable but either way there is a lot of balance work.

I don't think separating movement and reload slowdown is a particularly good idea. I think it would add a lot of complication for little gain. It does not seem to add meaningful choice to the defender.

I challenge how much extra choice weapon disabling would give players. Most units either die or not die depending on the situation, they don't have the health to slowly take damage. If a unit is in a situation where it doesn't die and it's weapon is disabled it may as well hang around, if it does die then it's dead. Assaults have enough HP to take damage but weapon damage is not their selling point so retreating when they cannot fire would not occur unless they have no backup.

If your movement is disabled the defender doesn't have any extra choice than with current EMP. The unit sits there either way.

If they have a heavily mixed force of, for example, riots and skirmishers you could hit the riots with a weapon disable and overrun it with raiders. I do not see how this is significantly different to EMPing the riots and overrunning with raiders.

Anyway I change I would probably support is incremental slowdown to replace EMP. This would not be the normal incremental slowdown that Moderator has, instead it's a melding of current EMP and Slow. Basically when less than 100% EMPed units would be slowed to that percentage.

At 100% and over units become completely disabled, this disables things like buildtime, resourcing, jamming and shields (although buildtime may be possible to incrementally slow instead).

This would still create a complete rebalance of EMP units. As a major change they would have a lot less damage as they are effective as they build up to 100%. In particular units with small reload time (as in Venom and Zeus, not Tick, Missile, Spy) would only 100% slow in prolonged combat.

The EMP timer could remain as well as units that cannot even slow to 100%, for example Moderator could say at 66% and act as normal with the exception that it could be used in conjunction with other EMP units.

"To me the game is primarily about movement and positioning, having units sit still doesn't contribute to me playing a game other then just trying to not get EMP-ed."

Sorry but I don't really see where you're coming from with this. Having units dead also doesn't let you move them around so either units shouldn't be killed or the game is not just about moving them around. You could say that the game is about trying to not get them killed. EMP is less harsh than death and can create dynamic points to defend.


"I have no idea how the slowtime is calculated"

It is calculated in the same way unit damage is. As in not at all, it's a balance attribute.

Rick may be onto something here.

The reason the venom so good good at MORE than just a riot unit is because its base damage is too high. It's a hard counter to many assault and even skirmish units because of its relatively high range and single-shot stunning.

I think the correct way to balance the Venom would be for it to hit less hard, but with the AOE it has now. It will still stun spam (its main role) in a single hit but will be less powerful against assaults, heavies, and coms.

just a other thing with the EMP... the Effect is annyoing. pls stop the blink effect by EMP. just mark EMP units blue, and dont let the effect blinking.

Rick, set this as a tab: http://code.google.com/p/zero-k/source/list?num=500

"Yes, if the unit is dead you cant use it as well, but an emp-ed unit cant run away with half HP

I mean you can do something with your units,even if they die you are using them which is fun. With good tactics with dieing units you can get better results, that is a major part of the game. EMP takes that away."

I still don't see where you're coming from. Equivelent statements can be made by swapping emp and normal damage. For example; Units halfway EMPed can run away in exactly the same way a half damaged one can.

If a unit dies you are still using it? In this case death is strictly worse than EMP. EMP has all the attributes of death with the additional attribute being able to un-die.

I have no idea what you're saying EMP takes away.

The critical point for me is that spiders against spiders are too much about micro...

which unit will get stunned - the venom or the unit right to it?

send a flea to catch the first EMP shot and stun the enemy venoms with yours?

how many venoms get attacked - 5 enemies by 5 of yours or only 1/5 venoms till they stun you?

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In my opinnion venoms need a combo of slow and stun.
If they slow down the enemy ( current slow effects with weapon nerf ), and stun makes less damage, they would be equal effective against raiders - even if they need 2 shots - and less effective against heavy things.
Less effective against heavy things only because slow is a different calculation than stun - that increases effective HP of an enemy if they have much Health to regenerate faster.

Yes yes, we all know venoms problem is its damage, and that it would be just as effective with less. Either awy, this isnt about the venom.

Google, you're thinking of situations where the battle is already joined. Most EMP (missiles, ticks, spies, bomers) happen before the battle, there is ample chance to retreat or manouver. There is also the interaction with kiting, inaccurate or short ranged units (jacks etc) which are helped by EMP but not by weapon disable, retreating behind behind defenses, going up hills, etc.

Yes, technically this reduces the power of EMP, but what it adds is a narrower role to units, so that units can be better at what they do. Given that a lot of EMP units serve as anti-heavy as well as riot (two opposite roles), narrowing their roles is probably called for. Slowdown will be great for inaccurate kiters like recluse, and weapon disable great for fast units like raiders. With either of them, you wouldnt get into those frustrating situations where units cannot be interacted with at all for long durations. A 100% slowed banisher is still capable of creating a strongpoint to defend around (but does stop a push), while a weapon disabled reaper can still outrun enemy recluses and retreat.

Anyway, i'm not saying we need to do this. It isnt a trivial change, almost all units rely on having both these powers to fulfill their roles effectively. One thing i do agree with is either combining EMP and slow together, or removing weapon slowdown.

Again, IMO, EMP is too diverse right now: It is almost always anti-heavy as well as riot. Venom is good vs every unit type and can even run up and stun defenses.

Granted though, we dont have enough anti-heavy, and EMP always requires a back-up unit to do damage. More units that do damage and also have a secondary effect (like zeus, panther, outlaw) could help flesh the unit list out. Though i'm not proposing we do this anyway, too big a change.