Well...I guess this will be called a rant and flamed for it, but I'm willing to take that: Here's my take on the game after playing for a few weeks... For one, I'm sick of these maps that are friggen land grabs, and if your team is stupid (how is it, that all the people who don't know how to play the game ALWAYS go on the same team?) you loose... If you get a comm who feels like making you loose, or plain doesn't know the map, again, you loose. I mean...that's enough to make me dislike it to some extent. Over a month or so, I've been in what....5 games where the teams were balanced and the round lasted a good while? Worse yet - everyone gets soooo annoyed at people whinning about arty being too powerful. Well, it IS too powerful. Seriously, an indirect hit kills a tank. Wanna try that in real life? Unless you've got 105 MM howitzers or better, you won't take out a tank...hell, you wouldn't be able to take out an ancient Panzer II or Jagdpanzer...let alone anything like an M1 Abrams or a Challenger II. But really, can you move artillery around very fast? Combining the arty powers alone with scouts and grenadiers with feedback, and you might as well have a wall hack. Regardless of whether blimbs will kill arty well, they are still overpowered... Well...there. You've got my rant.
As everyone says, this mod isn't set on earth at anypiont in it's timeline, so no comparisons, but you're right, it is too powerfull. Sounds like you love WW2 as much as I do.
i do have similar complatins about how map skill is more important that general game skill, but that is, unfortunatly, it all RTSs so i cant bitch that much. and as for arty, it seems that in next update they will be the most expensive tank so that may help some.
altho i could say how I disagree with you guys on how overpowered the arty is, I think reducing the splash damage radius would probly be a good idea
The point is, artillery (in reality, ANY reality!) only does splash damage to what? Infantry. You can't splash damage a tank with anything short of really big bombs. And while Empires may not be set on Earth, as far as I can see it the laws of physics seem relatively the same, except how artillery splash damage can rape armored targets...
If you want to make games last forever then nerf arty until is some kind of expensive moving mortar. Well, I wouldn't nerf its destruction power, but I think every weapon should have weaknesses. Arty should be slower at firing and moving probably. That would let infantry and tanks more chances against them. I agree completely about how uneven are teams usually. Most unexperienced players choose BE, or experienced players like to play as NF, I'm not sure at all.
I'd agree with that 100%. I also think their movement speed and armor should be much lower than regular tanks, but that's just me trying to nerf them because I hate them What you were saying about the maps, do you think that's a problem with the maps themselves, or just the general play style? How do you think this might be solved?
Ouch... :D Arty should be slower and weaker. They should be so weak that a single grenadier could take them down with little effort. This would enforce teamplay and make people protect arties better. I think it would also eliminate these games where you have 8+ arties on the field and no tanks. :D
OK, I'll put some more info in here: NF - well....LTs are a bit too easy to get, LT rushes are a little too common I think. I'm not sure if you're TRYING to make it so the NF is better early game, and BE is better later (like Zerg vs Protoss) or if they're supposed to be balanced. If the former, well, some balancing needs to be done for the later game stuff. Maybe that will happen when split research trees are implemented. For map issues: Part of it is the games fault, part of it is the fault of the maps...for example - crossroads is WAY to rush dependant. If your team is slower to load into the map in the first few seconds, you're screwed. Other maps are a little less rush dependant and make for more prolonged games, and thus in many cases, better games. For arty - I'd say make it more vulnerable to attack, slower moving, slower firing. Why? Because even if you just plainly up the cost of arty, it will still be come an arty fest later in the game, and tanks will still find it hard to fight. One thing Niar suggested at one point was making the arty much like the human tanks in starcraft - it has to set up before firing, and if it tries to fire without being set up - it either can't fire while not set up, or its really inaccurate. And remove splash damage to tanks - its absurd that a normal shell landing 10 ft from my tank makes my tank loose half its armor, if not all of it...I mean, really....until you hit HE shells, its just a SHELL. It hits the ground, and throws stuff everywhere...which armor (in real life) handles well. As far as other issues I've had with the game...some of them are more server based issues, nothing to be with hte game itself per se, such as dimwits getting in the comm vehicle and going "mommy, I got a tank!" and then driving off somewhere....or the comm saying "lets race" or the comm driving the CV into the water in Isle. Other issues...team stacking....maybe add something that looks at the score compared to how long people played in the previous map, and then FORCE teams to be balanced. I'm just sick of being on a team, having 3 new guys join BE, and being totally screwed because they can't figure out what they're doing (today...oh my god...I found someone who read the manual BEFORE playing! Congrats moonlight! You make me happy!)... And lastly - the only two servers I've seen populated....Stormed, which is incredibly laggy for me...as in a 2-3 second delay for when I type a message, and when it shows up...and the ONE server, which I've seen a decent amount issues (all the ONE guys joining one team, trying to force me to join the other..because I'm "stacking" when its 6v6...) Its when stuff like that happens where one team loses every round...and I somehow am always on the loosing team. It gets tiring. At least in games like BF2, even when you KNOW you've lost, you can still get some fun out of it...in Empires, when your comm messes up, or your team is a bunch of guys who don't know what to do....you can't get very far.... EDIT: I wholly agree - as it would mean that if your whole team went and got arties, paper thin or not, a medium/heavy tank could wreak a decent amount of havok.
Sounds like my expeariences, but I solbier on:D I read the manual defore playing, but I'ts rare. As for Arty, make thin a sticky. Nomething must be done.
Games without Arty are the best, i once played on offical a few versions back with L3TUC3, we fought brave, but lost, even though we had no tickets for some time. Arty wasn't in it and it rocked doing guerilla attacks on BE base with light tanks.
My personal theory is that once 1.07 came turret farming strategy got seriously damaged in early game, so NF light tank superiority has an edge. Maybe there are other factors, and I also don't know if it is statistically correct that most experienced players like to play as NF. Problem in most RTS with "booming" civs (I played AOE mostly) is that its end game advantages rarely are used because they are dead at that time. Anyway, I don't know what BE late game advantages are exactly. I agree, however most map issues are caused by player's lack of experience. Most maps require you rush some choke point where are refs, in that case an APC is required to keep pushing if first wave wasn't succesful. A good commander should enforce players to play like that, or make barracks if possible. From my perspective, novice players get distracted easily by combat, they don't care about taking more refs or defending actual ones. They also don't obey orders, so playing as commander is quite frustrating because you have a pancho's villa army, untrained, unexperienced, and focused on killing people or stealing your CV at first opportunity.
One of the major reasons for that is that the tanks are so expensive that it's only rarely feasable to use them once you get arty. I think the new tank costs will work to discourage this. Otherwise I can start messing more significantly with artillery.
The BE are quite weak until they get medium tanks... the AVF just doesn't stand up well against a light tank... Once Be gets medium tanks it is slightly tipped in their favor, but it is still very skill dependant Then after that usualy some engine upgrades here or there and then arty, the bringer of doom along with the NF heavy tanks (The BE Heavy's are just not worth the extra res, unless you have skilled players who will actualy guard a heavy, which is more of a firing platform now instead of a tank)
Yeah, the AVF is just too crappy... And I've been killed many a times by guys in LTs when I'm in a BE med tank. Why? Because the NF only has to research engines and armor first - so what's that - chemistry - coolant liquids - coolant engine, then comp armor or something. What does BE have to do? Get the darn res to get the tank...at which point the LTs they're against are better anyway. I think a good solution would be to make the AVFs and LTs be able to only have 1 armor slot, and handle a small engine only. LTs shouldn't be able to rape a BE medium tank... As far as heavy tanks - yes, the BE heavies are more firing platforms...but seriously, having 2 rail guns is hard to beat when you've got good armor, coolant engine and an engee with the coolant skill (and add other engees repairing the tank)
I think this adds nice balance to the game... a sort of asimetrical balance between the factions... But the problem starts when a NF light rapes a BE heavy... (I have don it so many times I made the other guy cry)
Wow. Artillery doesn't do splash damage to vehicles? How wrong you are. You do not even need to be hit by the shrapnel to die from artillery. The force of the explosion, force of pressure rips flesh off the bones, bends armor, and can rip a hole in a tank. Artillery should ALWAYS do splash damage to ALL vehicles, buildings, and infantry.
HE (high explosive) shells yes, normal shells no. they are just giant bullets, the splash dmg done to infantry is caused by flying rocks and dirt that would only scratch the paint of a tank.
