So, I've had these sat on my head drive for about a month, but now I'm actually about to come into a bit of free time where I can actually start making the changes. I figure that I may as well post them up here first and see if anyone thinks I've missed anything before I go ahead. I started these like 2 months ago so I don't exactly remember what prompted every change I put down, but I know I took them during each of the pugs that we played. If you have thoughts, let me know here. --------------------------------------------------------- RC1 Increase damage of STD CN and ML Buff std MG in some way Buff CG and MCG damage slightly Lower base cost of LT/AFV Physics Fission fixed No other changes due to low usage of tree, impossible to predict current balance Chemistry HEMG - Buff in some way HECN - Lower damage slightly Absorbant - Lower cost UGL - Lower clip size for certain, but more potentially may be required. Consider heat, damage and total ammo. Don't really want to touch radius UML - Speed buff Electrical Reactive - lower cost Rails - Increase clip size 3phase - Lower cooling whilst moving slightly Guided - Damage buff Biological Regen - Lower regen rate slightly, potentially lower HP slightly (care with HP, it was only slightly lower last time and considered useless, lower HP may not be required with small regen nerf) Mechanical Gas Turbine - Buff in some way, but cost/weight seem the most logical way to go. Engine is already a good all-rounder, may as well make it easier to get as a quicker option, though less specialised Composite - Unsure really if it needs touching. Resource rates on so many maps are just either drip-feeding or cluster-fucking. Composite as an armour is good, it just needs to be more viable. Probably consider dropping player refinery multiplier from 20 to 16, and then addressing any maps that have too many resources (SoF). Artillery - Lower base cost, but not by too much. Right now, Arty is just a huge risk due to people wasting the res on them and losing them. Not a great deal can be done about that until we a have a per-vehicle restrict system. As an overall, unless I can get some kind of code support for the rearming time of cannons, I'll have to swap them to some sort of pseudo clip system to make them reload at a speed comparable to missiles, which reload far faster. EDIT: Consider raising weight of HE CN. --------------------------------------------------------- EDIT: After posting this, I just saw what I wrote about Physics. To be honest, I still don't know about the balance of that tree. No bullshit about plasma though, I give absolutely 0 fucks about it. It can stay shit for all I care. If it wouldn't fuck up the indexes on all maps that use vehicle spawners (hence emp_fogtown is broken), I'd just remove it. Also keep in mind that these are just my raw notes, almost me talking to myself. When I say "buff in some way" or whatever, that's just a cue for me to think about it later. I also think that we have support for cannon reload times now, so consider that with regard to any suggestions. I don't really want to edit the above notes because I want it to match up with what I have on my PC in the UK. If I start doing any changes, I'll put revisions up in posts below. ---------------------------------------------------------- RC2 (2013-11-06): Parts of RC1 have been striked out as appropriate. Biological BioML - Keep same Bio amount, but for infantry, have it take effect over a longer period (30s instead of 15s). This gives more time to allow for heals. Can possibly lower the damage vs infantry slightly as well, but it will still remain a guaranteed kill if the infantry has no heal of any kind. Chemistry UGL - Nerf damage vs structures, Increase research time by another 30s UML - An extra clip or something small Salvo - Several extra clips, potentially add 1 more missile per salvo Stock Std MG - Increase total ammo + clip size, possibly lower reload time marginally (should work as a buff to situations where shitty hit reg fucks you) NF Meds/Heavies - +1 maxplates per side, +80 max weight, - 100 chassis cost ------------------------------------------------------
I would like artillery to remain the same. It is seriously OP when in the hands of a master as it is. This is sort of reminiscent of when heavy tanks were expensive as fuck and we didn't want people buying them to only loose them shortly after. People actually thought shit through. Artillery and heavy are not just some throw away tank. They should be expensive because they are WORTH it.
I support any nerfs done to he. Making it weight more seems like na elegant way of not making it shit, but nerfing it nonetheless, because you can't just pair it up with something and also have full armor. I dont really think standard mgs need buffing, as the problem seems to be with lousy lag compensation for them. In truth, if compensation for mgs was good, then even if nerfed, they'd chew through infantry. UGL is a mini nuke. It nearly instagibs people close to it and deals absurd damage to buildings, even without considering its radius vs base layout problem. Either nerf vs infantry or vs buildings. It just cannot stay an apc HE+. One thing which seems to be missing is bioml. I cant really comment on its impact on tank v tank, but it just cannot stay as it is in regard to vs infatry. Two things here: 1) the stamina damage is overdone. I get making it so that it restricts people in their movement, but since it hits every second or so, I'd suggest making it do like 20/10 stamina with each hit. Enough to still have an impact, but enough for other guys to get some cover and not be reduced to a crawl if you get hit whie holding shift. 2) It just really fucking shouldn't be a guaranteed kill. It has respectable radius and clip of not 1. Even if you are at max hp and nothing else hits you, you have like 10 seconds to find an engy. Considering how often one gets healed from bio(as its range is lower than even meele), it just should be an another achievment. It's just a giant "I win" button against any type of infatry response. Tl:dr Reduce overall damage done
Buffing the standard MGs is basically a response to the lack of vehicle prediction (lag comp). If that ever got added, I'd rebalance them for certain. Either way, my intention with this balance to some extent is to make the early game vehicles more powerful. I actually want to see more LT and AFV usage beyond 10 minutes. Depending on how the change goes down, I might increase the chassis research time for Heavies to encourage that more, or get some increased Medium usage. As for BioML, I can't really touch the stamina drain, but I can certainly take a look at decreasing the damage vs infantry. For reference, here are the values of BioML: Code: "Player Bio Damage" "10" //damage inflicted to players every interval "Player Bio Time" "15" //total time to inflict damage to players "Player Bio Interval" "1" //time inbetween each infliction of damage to players "Vehicle Bio Damage" "15" //damage inflicted to vehicles every interval "Vehicle Bio Time" "15" //total time to inflict damage to vehicles "Vehicle Bio Interval" "1" //time inbetween each infliction of damage to vehicles Keep in mind that it also does 50 damage on impact. On the other side, remember that it only has very limited ammunition. Your overall kill potential with BioML is very limited when compared to HE, Nukes, 50cal, UGL, etc.
No its not, you can survive getting nicked by most other weapons, but if you so much as poke the bio cloud, you're deader than disco.
Hec is op because it is really comfortable to use and it has splash damage. At short range it is a shotgun, at longer ranges the arc is perfect for looping over friendly tanks and the splash make it a great standoff or even siege weapon. Its all about that splash because nothing else has it. Either nerf the splash damage, give something else splash damage or give them serious kick back and nerf the accuracy to the point where you cannot hit a lvl3 turret farm from outside lock.
I like most of this. Although I am not sure reactive and absorbant need a change to cost, because most people will get either fairly often because they happen to be in the research trees and still useful. Unless of course you just want to make tanks a bit cheaper overall, I guess. Also I'm not sure rail cannon needs more ammo, it just needs to get ammo from a box a bit faster.(only a bit though.) Currently it takes like 2-3 seconds for just one shell. You mention cannon reloads though so I'll wait and see. EDIT: I am late and dumb. Also, does anybody know if bio damage stacks?
THIS needs to happen. I can imagine it can take a while since it will require UI modifications, but if it is possible to achieve in a reasonable amount of time, I would highly recommend you hold off on the next patch until this is implemented. This would be a much better solutions than playing around with tank costs. Also maybe add ability to restrict certain research? I think an easy way to get this in the game would to add some sort of check-box in the research view when looking at the lowest level items. This would also allow restricting certain chassis (except for jeeps and lt/afv).
Yeah, that change is in there assuming that Rails will still get ammo slow. Now we have a system to allow cannons to restock faster, that change probably isn't required, so good pick up on that, I'll make sure it's removed in the next revision. As for bio damage stacking, it doesn't stack, it just renews. HOWEVER, there is some interaction between hitting multiple sides of plates I think. I'm not exactly sure how it works out if I'm entirely honest though. Dual BioML isn't really that horrendous because it has limited ammo and clip size though. It's not the best combo but you could definitely do worse. As much as I'd love a per-vehicle restrict system, it's not happening until the UI rewrite is done, which is a long way off. Beerdude is making incredible progress but it's still an insane amount of work. We may have multiple patches before it's done and any of it is actually added to the game. Though, if you think I'm ever going to allow restricting of jeeps, you are sadly mistaken. I like them too much. Sorry. But I do support restricting specific researches, or at the very least allowing the commander to "hide" them so the player has to unhide them to fit it on. Keep in mind, that's also with the idea I had that the commander could set up default vehicle builds that the game kind of pushes you towards, so that you can guide your team into a better layout. It's all really about increasing the commander's influence without forcing it.
Give people a reason to go for Physics. Right now it's just late-game nukes & ranged for arty. UGL isn't OP because it can almost murder a rax by itself. It's OP because it can almost murder a rax by itself and keep defenders from leaving said rax. Oh yeah and it's right next to the best weapon in the game. So there's that too. Split it into an HE GL that damages people and a Seismic GL that damages buildings. Leave the HE GL in Improved Dets and plop the Seismic GL into Physics somewhere. Two birds, one stone.
The design doc is 5 years old and was written before empires had a decent player base. Shit changes, it's been 5 years, I think we can alter the original vision for the game little bit.
