3.1 Balance Requests, Pt. Deux

posted on January 17th, 2010, 6:17 pm

B’rel Class  - passive: Tactical Weapon Arrays – strong versus long range, weak versus short range
K’vort - passive: Single Stage Energy Conduits – strong versus medium range

K'vort looses shields -> looses system almost instantly  (actually you loose 2-3 systems at once)-> you loose a ship
B’rel looses shields -> you take hull damage, may or may not loose a system -> thank you OPTEC and DOCA for the speed 160 as i now have at least a chance to save it, most of the time

I put it as simple as i can .. sorry if it seems rude, etc.. but frankly i don't give a damn annymore.
If i win with klingons i get that i won because it's OP. Solution for me currently is not to play at all.
Againe sorry if this offends annyone, but i'm offended enough. Last post for today.

Edit: Optec posted before me.

  Haha you got Ninja'ed by Optec

  I'm not offended, Dex, but I think that you are misunderstanding what I'm saying here.  Klingons are my favorite race and I think they are perfectly in balance now.  Ships have excellent abilities to move around the map (due to high speed) and control where their opponents have to show up to fight them.

  But the K'vort is rendering the B'rel obsolete as Mal said.  Yes their passives are different, but to be honest the B'rel has vulnerability to short range while the K'vort has no added vulnerability at all.  The weak subsystems are tough, yes, but it's so fast and sturdy now that it can turn and be out of there FAR before the shields drop.  I've played tons of Klingon lately and I assure you that I rarely lose a Kvort until my opponent starts to field enough firepower to kill them quickly.


  Obviously this post had a lot more than just the K'vort...    But since it seems to be a big issue for you, please understand that I'm not suggesting a butcher be taken to the K'vort.  Just a miner tweak to ensure that it can just blast away everything in the early game like it does now.  A minor shield OR speed decrease would ensure this .

posted on January 17th, 2010, 10:46 pm

Great posting Boggz. I hope your and Mal's remarks flow into a balancing patch soon.

posted on January 19th, 2010, 4:40 am

• Turrets

The turret damages I think are relatively alright.  Multiple turrets in one place tend not to fire on the same target now (cool) and so they aren't the biggest threat anymore.  More of a deterrence as they should be.  HOWEVER, the pulse turret has taken the place of the phaser turret without having it's requirements adjusted.  The phaser turret is more powerful and built earlier... a mistake I think. 
- Also, I feel that the "refitting" of a platform into a turret should have a build time of it's own.  In this manner, leaving a turret blank is a fine option as the platform is cheap and fast to build, but upgrading to a torpedo or phaser turret will put the Fed turrets on par with how long it takes to put out a Klingon Turret by comparison.
Numbers time!   :pinch:

-Klingon Turret = 142 seconds
-Fed Platform (Risner) = 70 seconds
-Fed Phaser / Pulse Turret (Risner) = 70 seconds
This allows them to fortify an area cheaply and quickly.

Oh... and Mayson Platform build time?
Fed Platform / Torpedo / Phaser / Pulse Turret (Mayson) = 53 seconds ....  ..... .....  .....!!!!!!!..... ... !! ......

If this is not acceptable to Optec, then I continue to suggest that Turrets themselves (the actual refit) be given an ENORMOUS supply cost to outfit.  This way, if you chose to ignore ships and spend your money porcing yourself up with Torpedo turrets, you will still run out of supply like a normal human being.

• Mayson

Mayson needs a subset of bullets JUST for him: 

• Remove Structure Buildspeed Increase

The only reason I could see this being acceptable is if the NEED to tech up the Chassis tree was more prevalent and the costs were much higher.  That way he has faster access to the early support vessels and Warp-in while he slowly climbs the Chassis tech ladder.  But to be honest, it would require the Chassis upgrades to be MUCH more expensive for him and take MUCH longer to research as right now they are pretty darn affordable given how cheap Fed vessels are.  I think that is actually a quite viable option if Optec doesn't want to remove the buildspeed advantage.  Mayson is supposed to be the early-game avatar, so focus him around the first shipyard and it's supports gained from the research facility.  Make rushing to the Eraudi with Mayson a HUGE liability and that will also cut down on early torpedo turret spamming to hell (which we ALL love to run into ...  >:(

• Adding Excel II to Chassis Upgrade #2 (Mayson Only)

Put the Excelsior II into the Chassis 2/3 upgrade and put maybe the Defiant in it's place as an automatic build with the Eraudi yard.  With the added bonus to the Excel II that he gets (especially the ACS Torpedo), the Excel becomes a light battleship.  Putting it in one of the Chassis Upgrades ensures that Mayson HAS to do some teching in order to reach his pride and joy.  Not all the teching ... but some.  I suggest the 2nd Chassis upgrade.  Put the Defiant in place of the Excel II as the automatic-ship for Mayson's Eraudi.

I play mostly against AIs (unstable Internet connection and a very busy schedule), and so I am surprised at seeing this. Am I missing a tactic with Mayson??

On open maps (no choke points), I usually get blown away against Hard/Merciless AIs using the turret approach.

I can agree with most of the other comments playing Federation (Excel II spam and Norway's AoE against destroyers), but walls of torp turrets?? I can see your main base being defended this way, but the AI players (especially if you play against more than one) crush your expansions and just bum rush you if you try to do this at all your sites.

posted on January 19th, 2010, 4:56 am

Hmm ...

  Well I said at the beginning of this post that this was mainly about Online play.  The AI cheats and so very often the things that make the game out of balance against the AI are different things that may be out of balance online against Humans.  This is just a fact and it's really hard to make the two meet in the middle.


  Turret "walling" is not quite so effective anymore as it was in the 3.0.7 patch as Optec has changed turrets so often times they target different ships and now can't be directed by the player.  This is good because it spreads the turret's fire out more often than not and doesn't directly start destroying ships one after the other.

  Mayson, however, has the ability to build turrets SUPER fast (53 seconds) compared to the Klingon turret at 142 seconds and we've already learned through a large amount of testing that the Feds ALWAYS end up having more resources than the other factions due to cheap and / or free ships.


  So maybe turret spamming doesn't work against the AI quite as well anymore but against human players the Fed turrets are so easy to put up quickly and cover a base that unless you have excellent cloaking you're going to have to go through a wall of firepower before running into the enemy fleet (which they CAN have along with turrets) just to get to the miners.

posted on January 19th, 2010, 1:48 pm

One thing I've noticed in the Klingon revamp is this...

In early to mid-game, the Klingons are very potent with their 'gain supplies by fighting' ability.

If the game turns long, the Klingons begin to suffer badly, as it gets harder and harder to win supplies, and the costs for buying new ones rapidly becomes crippling unless they have a massive economic advantage.

posted on January 19th, 2010, 2:13 pm

One thing I'd like to see for the saber is a simple change.  Make the Hyper-Impulse very fast, but lower the offensive value even more, maybe to "2", just like the nebula's sensor scan does.  A good role for the saber is to get to places fast, to add support.  So instead of sort of having some fighting power, make it a "Get from A to B" ability, and then once you've arrived, you can shut it off and get weapons again.  And keep the cool down it has now, so you it can't zip out once it's there.

posted on January 19th, 2010, 8:22 pm

One thing I'd like to see for the saber is a simple change.  Make the Hyper-Impulse very fast, but lower the offensive value even more, maybe to "2", just like the nebula's sensor scan does.  A good role for the saber is to get to places fast, to add support.  So instead of sort of having some fighting power, make it a "Get from A to B" ability, and then once you've arrived, you can shut it off and get weapons again.  And keep the cool down it has now, so you it can't zip out once it's there.

  Actually I like that idea.  Getting rid of it's weapons completely in hyper-impulse would almost grant it a warp-like ability.  But a cooldown would definitely be necessary.

  I really like the idea of simply making the Saber a bit more powerful all together.  I think it could honestly be as strong as the Monsoon stat-wise because it's slow and long range.  Thus it's still gonna get eaten by most other faction's early game units and will FORCE a fed player to support it with Monsoons and Intrepids.

posted on January 20th, 2010, 4:05 am

That or maybe you could reduce its range to short.

posted on January 20th, 2010, 4:16 am

That or maybe you could reduce its range to short.

But why have another short range vessel when they already have the Ambassador, the Intrepid, and the Monsoon all available early game?

posted on January 20th, 2010, 4:18 am

Indeed. Right now I think the change that was given the Saber will be more or less adequate. It should still actually make the Saber useful against Rhienns, and even perhaps B'rels - but only when the Hyper Impulse is engaged it seems .