In 2.6.2, BE keeps rushing rail heavies

Just make sure you actually get something tangible out of your 'test releases' like We changed X and that lead to players doing Y, and not we changed A, B, C, D and one of those or a maybe a combination of those lead to Y.

 

That's definitely the goal. If you look at pretty much all changelog threads, I try to write up a few hundred words both to be transparent, but also to remind myself what my expectations were when I look back a month later. It's proven pretty handy.

But it feels like the moral of the story is that release time frames oughta expand or else you do have these situations where you go, "oh fuck, was x caused by y or z?" because you kept changing stuff in future releases when it wasn't properly tested in the first place.

 

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Think about it..

 

Over the last few weeks I focused most of my joins on NF and have tried many counters to the BE Rail/Bio/Nuke OP attack. We get a random win due to a crappy BE com. With a competent BE COM I zero wins once they get to rail heavies. My previous win ratio on either team used to be more like 75+%.

Rails will push NF back but can be countered with Plasma and Bio ML. Absorbant is needed to counter BE rails, but absorbant is really shitty armor. It's armor is completely removed with one Bio ML, and quickly removed with a little focus from rails.

Plain, Compo and Absorbant all have a health of 60.
Bio has 80,
Reflective 100,
Reactive 120,
Brittle 160
Capacitive - was best but was completely nerfed - research this just if you want to enrage your team

Brittle may be better with it's 160 health vs the 60 health of Absorbant/compo. But Brittle is easily defeated with nukes - I THINK. Funny how a glass type armor is defeated by heat - what?

So the only counter NF has is 1) have a better team 2) win before BE gets rail heavies. Rail heavies are reached within two research paths - so that is very fast.

I have played with superior teams that don't use rush tactics on NF and they lose. You can see the initial push is successful, we get into their base, start taking down buildings, and then heavies start rolling out of the back VF and we get steam rolled. Two NF heavies on one BE can kill it, but that is assuming they focus on the same tank. What normally happens is BE pushes right up into our faces, we dance back and forth dodging the faster Rails while laying down ML's at the stationary heavies. They sit still, turn, and slowly kill one tank, then return for a heal and come back and kill more. My NF heavy returns for heals three times before they have to leave the battle for a heal. Bio and Plasma will get BE to return more frequently assuming they miss me on over 70% of their shots.

Time to randomize the scripts again Spartacus. Maybe the dice will stop coming up crap(s). Instead of the legacy +5, -5% changes, time for your more radical +25% continuous randomization of features.

I'm pretty sure Viper is done with you though.

 

I'm a bit torn. On one side, we have folks (rightfully) suggesting that we oughta do releases less frequently to let the community explore a bit more.

And it seems to work. I've seen underused stuff get used in weirdly successful ways. Last night, I played for Scrat's BE on bootybay and they were using Plasma Absorbant coolant heavies. It was definitely weird, but it was working! I mean, I sorta went apeshit on poor Scrat (sorry! ) when I saw BE using absorbant (which is weak to NF's missiles), but I sorta get it now. Coolant & Absorbant keep the plasma chilly. That's neat.

But on the other side of the coin, there are a few things that certainly need some TLC. So it's an interesting decision to say the least.

 

Too many armours = can't be balanced. We had 6 armours for ages and even then it took 5 years for a decent balance.

You might say eight armours isn't much but the problem is, unless you're playing a role play game, or a complicated moba, it's pretty hard to be useful. Even if you have a team of people behind the scripts to balance it, the problem is in game you only need a few options to cater for players:

default - junked immediately
fast & cheap
fast & moderately strong but expensive
moderate all round
slow and strong
relatively slow, strong but expensive

These things actually require cost in them to balance well, and yet we've sidelined performance related cost to an amazing degree. Added to that we have a couple of new armours that no one knows anything about and that invalidate the entire scheme of armours so no one can get to grips with it properly without extensive research.

For all the work that's been done removing cost from research and making it easier to command, we've basically gone 10 steps back with regards to research, the most crucial thing to actually WIN. So now NO ONE knows what they're doing, except the most regularly playing people - who study the scripts or test out.

Well done. There's talk about vets, but in reality there's a new class of people who are the only ones that can cope with commanding now - scripters.

I'm getting tired of saying this now. More things is not better for people to play the game. You guys have done good work shaking things up, but I won't touch a vehicle or the CV when I play anymore...which is nuts tbh.

 

We have never had armor balance. It's always been "Get expensive composite, don't lose vehicles." Almost every game ends in expensive composite because it's the best. It's not "balance" if every single match ends in the exact same armor.

Cost cannot be used to balance stuff because there's no upkeep cost for vehicles. You spent a ton on a vehicle and then you can keep that superior vehicle for the entire match. It's not even hard to do. Look at JGF - he's the biggest com to do this. He's a repair pad nazi. They are always everywhere and he's constantly reminding you to use them. He knows that he can get a tremendous advantage if he can get everyone in a vehicle at once. And because there are no upkeep costs, he can actually do that!

 

Nigga' can I get what you're smoking? Unless all you played was Streets, Slaughtered and Money, people would rarely get expensive composite exactly because it was expensive and it'd oftentimes cause them to lose due to lack of funds. Abs, Reactive and Regen were fair game for what people would get, and they'd make up the bulk of the options for a round.

 

Sure, you get something else to start with just because you need something and you're not going to open Mechanical at start. But once you get any meaningfully powerful vehicles in Mechanical, expensive compo will follow. And it happens every time. Every single time.

 

I disagree. The most balanced this game has ever been armor/engine-wise was the time period in which it was never played (coincidentally, one of the versions in which I was one of the most frequent commanders), in the version directly before fission broke and ruined everything.

During that version, every single research path was viable. Any armor and combination pair was a conceivable path to victory. I won with Reflective Fission ER and Bio ML a few times, even - a research path which I have never seen again. Plasma was still shit though.

If anybody can figure out when that was, maybe that could give some insight. I genuinely felt I could take any research path and (despite my team's complaints lasting from previous versions) still win. Now... I get in the command vehicle and I have absolutely no idea where half the research is or what is 'good' this version.

BTW spartacus, don't forget to add to the research menu all the items in each subtree for the description.

 

I still don't know what you're smoking. Are we both talking about when compo cost 25 a plate and getting it was sometimes as bad as getting arty due to the cost?

 

I guess a better way to phrase it was that the decision wasn't, "Do I get expensive comp?" It was "When do I get expensive compo?"

 

And oftentimes, that "when" would be "never" because a map couldn't afford it.

 

I meant a moderate balance. Not that things were perfectly balanced but where there was a point where almost everything was viable in some regard. Where you could choose a tree on its overall benefits.

Coincidentally though, about the same time absorbant got a nice buff to finally be an interesting and nice cheap option, fission balsed up and reflective became sub-standard.

Huh...I wonder if that's why research cost money to begin with? Not your fault, that's Trickster's burden and had a lot of unforeseen consequences that I think no one could really predict. Still, removing costs from research and piling them all on the creation end means you get those problems. You have good focus but it's blinding you. Upkeep? You have to see the overall picture instead.

Also, regarding composite...well I used to get it around 20% of the time. Physics was always my favourite tree, biology was good at one time and could be used as a fast comeback, reactive I never liked but for rails it was a good second choice. I loved the absorbant buff, even though chemistry was overpowered for most of Empires.

Composite was something people wanted. But about 75% of my comm'd games were on the underdog team, and what really saved us a lot of the time is we pulled together, worked together, and weren't fooked over by a crippling lack of res like comp tanks cause.

It's totally different now, I know, but the game hasn't been changed that much. People still want a fast tree. People still want a cheap but decent armour. People still want a heavy and tough outer shell armour. And people still want a catch all, win all armour.

Well, composite was always shite because it is in mechanics. A tree you have to go into anyway! And Gas Turbine is always mediocre because that's the goddamn way it should be in that tree. But we have composite for feck knows why, the holy grail of all armours in the most easy to reach position of all, and no one, no one changed that simple thing.

That's why people got composite. It is godlike and easy to get.

Simple.

 

When to get Compo? When there's a pro driver on your team.
Sacrifice resources, don't give fucks to other newb on your team, just give the pro driver a compo heavy. It's basically an unstoppable killing machine.

Or......when you want to have dual rails without making your tank retardedly crispy.