Empires 2.52.7 Released

Discussion in 'News' started by ImSpartacus, Dec 13, 2014.

  1. JustGoFly

    JustGoFly Member

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    The balance has now switched from BE Heavies to NF heavies. Since BE heavies need compo or absorbant to run dual plasma or rails, which is the only weapon BE has to compete, and NF has dual- triple missiles and missiles rape compo. BE is surely screwed. If NF stays far enough away they can rape a base, and only chance BE has is to get close with Plasma or more distance with Rails. NF having one additional layer of armor is now quite ridiculous. Also Absorbant sucks now.

    Engineers are now uber players, and not a support unit at all. They can wall themselves in at a base, and quickly dispatch any approaching units while throwing grenades. Bases now go down quickly via ONE PLAYER.

    Mediums are now worthless, since one gren (not two) can easily destroy them.

    Originally Riflemen were the uber person to person attack unit, but couldn't take out buildings and were limited to killing one tank before reloading. Hell remove Riflemen and give Engies stickies. Why not give them a side gren launcher, ability to disappear and sabotage ability? Wait this is Spartapires. He only buffs things that enhance his ability to command. So turrets and engies are buffed. He likes NF - so buff them too.

    Where is the logic in dual three slot NF heavies, regen that is super fast to regen, and additional armor to NF?

    I might be wrong on this but I think one gren shot removes four sheets of regen armor - BE gets four sheets, NF gets five on medium, so NF just turns and heals, BE is quickly dead. So Regen fast recharge is good for NF meds and heavies and only somewhat to BE heavies. Compo is what everyone has been trained to use, but now is just expensive. BE's only choice for meds is reactive - and prays that they have some good engineers that are willing to heal mid battle or frequent returns to base for a heal. That alone loses battles.

    There is no real attempt at balance, it's random changes. You guys like new weapons and changes so Spartacus thinks he's doing good. I do think he's trying to improve the game, but not capable of analyzing what the impact one item has on others.
     
    Last edited: Dec 16, 2014
  2. Lazybum

    Lazybum :D Staff Member Moderator

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    All right, this is the wrong thread for that jgf, this is for empty's new set of infantry scripts.

    Anyways I can't even tell what patch you are talking about, half that information is just wrong. Nf heavy only have 6 plates now. Why would you need abs or compo to run rails or plasma, they are more of a counter. If you mean so you can shoot more, yeah that's called trade offs. Rpg's should take off 3 plates of new regen, so yes it isn't a good option for be, though I really feel like it isn't any good for anything really.
    It's always been like that, where have you been?
     
  3. JustGoFly

    JustGoFly Member

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    LB - Engineers could always wall themselves in, but were easy to kill. A rifleman always had the ability to dispatch them at a distance or up close and mid range when behind walls with a grenade. Now you rush and the shotgun clears two people at a time and I've blown five away in a row while taking down a base.

    I'll check NF vs BE plates, but I'm pretty sure NF has one more than BE.

    Regarding using compo or absorbant on BE heavies - it's all about enough weight to carry dual plasma. Using Reactive would reduce the BE heavy to one plasma and be only slightly better than a medium tank since armor would be dropped to what mediums could push, but also would be a lot slower.

    We should decide on an equal setup for both NF and BE that head to head - shot for shot - does the same damage or is considered in the attempt to balance. There will be differences like NF rockets vs BE HE cannons or plasma. Rockets shoot longer distance but used to be slower. HE requires head space to arc but could shoot over walls and were good vs ground troops. There should be some analysis on a variety of setups to compare equal setups with slight differences. I have no problem if balance is layers deep - meaning one tank being weaker - but maybe it's faster. But the choices being made are now based on what people like - and not on game playability. Of course people are going to want what makes them stronger. I heard Spartacus entertaining a new tank weapon because "My NF Medium can kill two BE heavies and survive with that rocket , bring it back", and the answer was "OK - I can do that". Jesus!
     
  4. JustGoFly

    JustGoFly Member

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    Guys - Spartacus does not understand sarcasm. He thinks grens=heavy is a good thing. If we keep on this route the strongest player in the game will be com turrets and only vehicle worth pushing will be the jeep.
     
  5. Freaknovich

    Freaknovich Member

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    This is a good update. I like the merging of the RPG and Mortar ammo. Also the return of the sniper rifle is great. I approve of this update. Great job boys. Also JGF, your signature is just amazing, keep it up.
     
  6. Lazybum

    Lazybum :D Staff Member Moderator

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    The following values are what you currently get of hp per weight for the armors.

    Plain= 2hp
    Compo= 3.3hp
    Reactive= 5hp
    Reflective= 4.4hp
    Regen= 2.6hp
    Absorbant= 3.3hp

    To look at a simple plate amounts, here is what a heavy running dual plasma/rails can get. Engine is bio cause it's light, but you can go to any 30 weight engine with this.

    Reactive gets 3 plates a side, so 300 hp a side.

    Reflective gets the same 3 plates a side, but it gets 240 hp a side

    Budget can get 6 a side, so 240 hp a side.

    Abs and compo get 5 a side, so 200 hp a side.

    Wow, amazing how 3 plates is a lot of health. Now, what you can do to get more mileage out of regen and reflective is use ranged cannon or he cannon instead. You can get 5 plates of regen and 4 of reflective. Ranged actually does more damage then plasma and with less heat too, so you can fire longer. Rails is still better, but this is the point with weapons. You are trading defensive power for more offensive power.

    Actually looking at the scripts, Spartacus what the hell. In what world is having a weapon with more damage then rails a good idea? I thought the reload time on that shit was like 3 seconds or something, so it would be a straight shooting version of plasma. I didn't realize it was 1.2, that's crazy. You didn't even give it reasonable ammo. I can see why jgf is pissed off.

    Still, if the missile launcher wasn't there, or at least more reasonable, I don't think it would be so bad.
     
  7. ImSpartacus

    ImSpartacus nerf spec plz

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    It's in line with all other cannon/missile relationships. Missiles have more dps because they are a pain in the ass to aim.

    StdML does about 33 short term dps. Std Cannon does about 35. If you do a straight line adjustment for their weight difference, Std MLs would do about "55" short term dps if they weighed about the same as std cannon. So Std ML has about 50% more dps than the equivalent cannon.

    In the two slot world, ranged does about 40 dps while uml does about 60 short term dps. Same weight, no adjustment necessary. Again, it's about 50% more for the missile.

    Rails do about 60 dps and Triple ML does about 80 dps. That's only around 30% more for the missile, which is proportionally less than what it "should" be based on the other weapons.

    Of course, this is just a metric for performance. Triple ML works in salvos, so it's bound to get slightly shittier dps on target at range.

    So in general, I think it's reasonable, although it admittedly seems odd since we've never had a legitimate "all-purpose" 3 slot ml before.
     
  8. complete_

    complete_ lamer

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    what bad about these updates is that im able to see obvious imbalance without even having to do basic calculations. if people that played the game read the patch notes they'd know how bad it is too. i had to yell about how triple ml is op. next up: budget armor
     
  9. JustGoFly

    JustGoFly Member

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    Not sure if it's known ML does 50% more damage than comparable HE that NF needs dual three slot ML's. Dual BIO accompanied with someone else shooting dual 2 slot ML's is deadly from NF side. I assign bio to 1 & 2 and since it's now two shots per slot, I spam four BIO missiles down a slot and hit everything there is. Ten seconds later four tanks are withdrawing to heal, and NF pushes through the slot. The extra armor, more powerful missiles, make them OP. On open maps like Desert Storm, dual three shot homing is seriously OP, especially since most com's still research compo - which is now crappy. We were trained to think Absorbant was a better choice if Bio was not being shot from enemy, but the musical chairs pulled that away. So not we have to add weight with much less armor. Also leads nubs into the common mistake of putting too many weapons on a tank and too little armor, losing the game due to fewer resources.

    It'd be nice to keep a spread sheet of the settings from version to version so we can learn what is good at the time it is released. I have to lose a handful of games before I find out what is buffed and nerfed.

    Absorbant should have more strength than Compo, or lighter weight. It is designed to ABSORB shock, but no longer works that way. It used to be good until the enemy used Bio ML - but now is worthless.

    Budget is a joke that lul's coms into thinking they are helping their team with more vehicles. If you have this when you read mediums it will cost you the game. So why bother even spending the time on it?

    Regen armor might be right for what it is designed to do as long as one salvo does not remove all plates. Leaving both sides with at least one plate on a heavy salvo into a heavy regen tank should not remove all plates. Even if NF is shooting six ML's. You must know to spin your tank to survive the next shot or the enemy must be working with another player to quickly kill you. The faster regen may be a good thing given the amount of damage it is unable to resist.

    Two BIO ML's is fine as long as you increase reload time. This benefits NF more so than BE, but only if they know how to use dual bio ml's.

    Everyone likes speed and a fast tank that is harder to drive is always welcome. I ignore the complaining of tanks that feel like they drive on ice, but that should only be 3 Phase. Now every tank is hard to drive, BIO spins out easily and it used to be good. Very nub hostile feature.

    Mostly I think some of the issues can be solved by reducing the weight of some armors and weapons. You should decide what is equal on a comparble setup for BE heavies vs NF heavies. A decent game has a setup that can be counted in a specific way, driving you to a different setup which can also be countered. Every counter has a defensive benefit and offensive negative. For example Compo is expensive, but good vs BIO, and light. Reactive is strong but heavy. Absorbant no longer follows any valid rules of use and Budget is only worthwhile on disposable vehicles like APC or Jeep. Regen could drop armor quickly but has quick healing - so the vet gren in a tank will choose this armor.
     
  10. Lazybum

    Lazybum :D Staff Member Moderator

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    Spartacus, there's a couple of things still wrong with it. Most mls have a sizable reload time on top of the cycle time. So you can't fire constantly. And heat. Those new mls have 3 heat a pop, no other ml has it that low. Even std ml has a heat of 6. Rails has a heat of 6 too, but it only does 50 damage. It's a weapon that simply isn't balanced.

    JGF, Abs is still nice, it cools you when you get hit so you can fire more. It also reduces the damage from everything by a sizable amount, it has the speed to damage reduction going for it. Rails really have trouble getting through it.

    Dual bio is still a silly idea to me.
     
  11. Beerdude26

    Beerdude26 OnThink(){ IsDownYet(); }

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    I have no clue what this refers to
     
  12. D.D.D. Destroyer

    D.D.D. Destroyer Member Staff Member Moderator

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    Still no news update on Steam.
     
  13. complete_

    complete_ lamer

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    gotta shake up that gameplay to keep empires fresh
     
  14. Neoony

    Neoony Member

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    I would still volunteer to keep it updated.
     
  15. BigTeef

    BigTeef Bootleg Headshot master

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    Its pure salt.
     
  16. CRITAWAKETS

    CRITAWAKETS Member

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    WHY THE FUCK DID YOU BUFF REGEN ARMOR S'REGEN SPEED????

    Unless you nerfed it then reverted it,regen speed was goddamn FAST now its just OP and counters regen s'shit factor:bio vulnerability.
     
  17. D.D.D. Destroyer

    D.D.D. Destroyer Member Staff Member Moderator

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    Regen was always pretty good against bio....

    And now all armours are weaker, so the faster regeneration makes it kind of a must...
     
  18. MomoZMonster

    MomoZMonster Member

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    wait a minute so be has a machine pistol and nf does not?


    Is this a joke? or just testing machine pistols?
     
  19. Lazybum

    Lazybum :D Staff Member Moderator

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    Be pistol 2 used to be the machine pistol at some point.
     
  20. ImSpartacus

    ImSpartacus nerf spec plz

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    Whew, I've been wanting to respond to some good feedback on this thread.

    I'd rather not share this, but I do keep a spreadsheet of my own personal notes. I would never count on it being accurate. It's just a quick calculator more than anything else.

    If you want accuracy, check the SVN logs. That's a complete record of every file change in the last few years of this game's existence. It's been public for a few years now.

    Absorbant's "shock absorbing" abilities have been buffed tremendously in the past few months, roughly a doubling. Its heat absorption abilities have been tripled. So it's hard for me to relate to where you're coming from.

    Budget is almost identical to the old 10-weight absorbant armor minus its pitiful "shock absorbing" and cooling abilities. People thought that armor was OP, but it's considered useless when you remove some minor features and rename it "Budget". It puzzles me quite a bit.

    That's a great point. If you look at "long term" dps counting reloads, then missiles are only slightly stronger than equivalent cannons. It really comes down to how well you can "manage" your reload needs. If you do it well, your effective dps at target might be closer to the short term dps. If not, then it'll be closer to the worst case long term dps. I can only tell you that if we had a 3-slot ML with a "traditional" reload time, then its short term dps would be even higher than that of TML and its long term dps would be slightly lower.

    And I completely agree that TML/DML are really cool. Rails are 25% warmer/s and that needs to change. I've been wanting to make them cooler for some time now. Fundamentally, I don't really like the idea of balancing a weapon by making it annoyingly hot.
    Regen armor regenerates the most HP that it's ever regenerated. It no longer have any bio vulnerability or resistance (because who the fuck thought it was a good idea to waffle back & forth on that? Consistency much?).

    Also, I'd love to hear you mention that DML/TML are underpowered. You've mentioned it multiple times in game and I just want it here for the record.

    It's an old BE weapon. We have the art. We have the sound. We have a script that seems to work. So it's in the game.

    Likewise, NF SMG3 is also an old weapon, but the texture is missing, so we're not implementing that (yet).
     

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