A plan - Symmetrical vehicle combat -> Bringing back counters

Well sarcasm is hard to discern on the internet. Also, this is a common excuse to feign like you were kidding to have people side with you in an argument on par with "ITS JUST A PRANK BRO!"

 

K so this thread got way too text wall for me to be bothered reading through. Anyway, a couple of other ideas:

Firstly, if the huge balance issue that people perceive from Heavies is the fact that BE have 2 cannons, NF have 2 missiles, then why not consider giving missiles the ability to have a gravity effect within the scripts. Put simply, it would give missiles an arc so that they eventually hit the ground, rather than going in a perfect straight line. Not every ML should act like this, but perhaps if you added it to Salvo ML and maybe Bio ML to spread the feature out a bit, you'll be in a position where NF tanks can fight with BE tanks much easier.

Secondly as I said in another thread a few weeks ago, I'm still very much for commander-based vehicle restrictions, in which the commander can set a limit on the amount of each chassis he wants his team comprised of. This would allow Heavies to become much more expensive, but much stronger. They would in essence function like super vehicles and become objectives to destroy all on their own. I can't say I fully understand how this would play out, but I always felt it was worth a try, as it would also allow us to set up the Medium as a more primary battle tank all the way through the late game.

 

Theres no quote fucking button in this text editor so Ill use indents

Empires used to be about somewhat harder counters than these days, and I want to balance back towards that, keeping in mind that the player must always have options to choose as well as the commander, and that we must ensure there are counters to every strategy. I have ideas about how to do that, but they need to wait for balanced vehicle combat.
I have a clear direction I want to take Empiresmod in, and I feel certain that this will make the game much better than it currently is. Please have a read, have a think, and let me know what you think.
​

I like the idea of hard counters, and Ive always been a fan of being able to proactively counter research or build your tank with the idea of countering. Right now thats not the case.

I think it is impossible with the assymetrical nature of heavy tanks, to make any significant changes without running great risk of making the game unfair to NF or BE in the process. In fact, I would argue that is already the case, but it depends on the situation - I feel that at least when you get to heavies, some maps favour BE while others favour NF. That's why I want to move toward symmetrical tank combat as soon as possible. This opens up a lot more possibilities for strategy, because commanders will no longer be "locked in" to research paths by their faction.
​

I dont think theres a problem with assymetrie causing heavy imbalance between factions, theres always a small imbalance but that imbalance gets put off by stacking and different skill levels between teams. And in the otherthread me and Trickster tried to bring forth the point of imbalance doesnt matter as much as people think. Maps favoring one team or another is just how it is, no need to change it. Lets say you play chain a 100 times, 20 times be wins 80 times nf wins. Who cares? Its not like there are going to be people that will purposely join NF cause they win more on that map, and if they do they are cunts that you dont have to account for when balancing.

What needs to be done:
-both NF and BE heavy tanks get 2 ML and 2 CN slots.

Could also fix some of these imbalances, not essential:
-NF CV rescaled to the size of BE, with the handling and physical aspect (physics wheels, scripts) copied from BE
-NF light tank reskinned to replace BE AFV, exact same handling and hitbox.
-BE medium and heavy reskinned to replace the NF ones, exact same handling and hitbox
-NF and BE jeeps should be the same - ideally you start with a 2 seater but have a quick research that buffs the HP and expands it to a 4 seater, with still the same handling and hitbox.
-NF's APC needs a seat at the top hatch, just like BE
​

I agree on NF and BE needing the same ammount of ML and CN slots. This enables commanders to research what they want instead of being limited by the slots of the vehicle. Also as the game is right now some trees arent viable for BE to go into like bio cause theres only an ml in them, or physics for NF. With this solution teams can not be restricted by vehicle blablabla to research what ever they want.
CV's really dont need to be rescaled this assymetrie barely effects the game at all on a pub level. You might say on a scrim level it might matter a little bit, NF cv being bigger and easyer to target, but in pubs it doesnt matter at all. Leave the NF lt as it is and the BE afv as it it. BE has gunner seat 2 on apc nf dont, but nf has better lights, its fair play even in scrims. Although in scrims less cause LTs are really strong but what ever. Its fine. the MED vs MED fight is completely balanced imho, dont touch that at all. I like the nf and be jeep symmetrie, you can do that. Adding research for jeeps would be nice aswell. MG turret on a jeep? AFter upgrading blablabla. NF apc dont need top hatch.

symmetrical vehicle combat should be fixed by fixing the weapons and slots and not models. Models are fine and add depth to the game, please dont touch that.

DO WE HAVE STATISTICS ON WHAT SIDES WIN MOST IN GENERAL AND PER MAP? LOOKING AT SERVER OWNERS

I like your entire armor idea but I've been thinking. Why dont we copy the pokemon system. No joke.
We take the entire pokemon counter system and apply it to us changing names and what not.

 

I recall back when research cost money that mediums were more powerful than they currently are. Idealy, weapons should be balanced around the medium (Where they are kind of the same), allowing for heavies to be OP and end the game. With counters in place, lowered res, cost to research, commanders will be forced to get alternate armors/weapons rather than the standard meta there currently is.

REINSTATE COST TO RESEARCH! DO IT NOW!

 

I removed cost to research because I felt it was the primary cause of the "slippery slope" effect. That is, once a team started losing and found themselves in a position where they could no longer afford to research, they had lost the game as there was little to no way to catch up. I changed this with the idea that no matter how far behind a team is, as long as they can sustain a radar, they can continue to research and have some chance of coming back. Cost to research also had a habit of benefiting the team ahead more as well, as they could absorb the cost better. It's easy to look back and think "HEY THINGS WERE BETTERER BACK THEN" but I think your recollection is fogged. There have been times when Mediums have been strong enough that Heavies often weren't researched, but I don't think that's a good thing. Likewise, there was the period when I had Medium's research time at 30 seconds. This ensured Mediums every round, but made it to assured that Mediums would appear. I think I settled on 90 seconds so you had to make a choice.

That's not to say I don't support an experiment in compromise. I've no issue with seeing how it plays out if Heavies research costs, or a few other very lategame research items. But the idea of just totally reinstating cost to research would be short sighted in my opinion.

 

make heavies only researchable after X amount of minutes? that X factoring amount of players in teams? ( fuck spec count )

 

I honestly dont think adding random stuff to the equation is bad, like the equation is just a guestimate which is fiiineee, the more things get added the more spicy the game gets. I m pretty much over balancing games by tweaking small stuff, lets add tons of stuff and see where it goes, it can only lead to good times.

 

because empires is a car?
Thats a really bad like really bad comparison. Its more like, its a head to head car race and one car is winning on dirt roads more and the other on highways and we wanna try to even it out and we put in some nitrogen and change the rules a bit. Maybe force them to stop at red lights or remove having breaks all together

 

My point is fuck trying to overbalance stuff and make the game stale and boring. I rather have a ( slightly) unbalanced game thats fucking amazingly fun than a balanced boring as shit game.

 

Cost to research did cause a slight slippery slope, I agree. However, counters along with Cost allows a team at disadvantage to come back if they can counter the enemy. They can then recycle tanks and also have another source of income while slowly pushing out. I think this would provide a slightly better balance overall as it would promote the use of mediums and severely punish the teams that go for heavy rush.

 

Well, back when this was a thing before there was no recycling carcasses. If you can counter the enemy, you will have lots of carcasses to harvest from to make money.

That or have a free research to upgrade Infantry weapons. Infantry weapons Mk II which just buffs their values a bit, or just make Grenadier more deadly to tanks.

 

I don't understand how Cost to research helps a losing team? It was removed exactly because it hindered the losing team. Probably less so now - but then all it is going to do is slow down research, which I guess is OK if you want a longer mid game whcih seems to be the case. I'd prefer that heavies were a side-grade rather than an upgrade to encourage more chassis diversity.

Things really were not that much better back "in the good old days", people just hadn't got bored.

And fair enough, if people like the asymmetrical element of heavy tanks so much that they would rather forgo having a self-balancing late game, sure.
As has been said - balance isn't horrible or unplayable.

Honestly I think all we have found is that there is no concensus on anything amongst us.

 

it is only a problem because MLs and cannons are not equally strong. Instead of removing the asymmetry you could also fix this and redo the research tree to add in hard counters. There's more ways to a self-balancing game than making things exactly the same across teams.

 

it wouldn't be any more whining than everyone has done in the past 12 years or so