A collection of balance changes

You feel like a battlecruiser is too weak or a race too strong? Go ahead and discuss it here :)
posted on June 13th, 2011, 5:29 pm
Fleet Ops' balance is really coming together lately, and I just wanted to throw in a bunch of small ideas for your consideration.  I considered making a lot of smaller posts but I figured it would be simpler to just put them together in one place.

1. Sensor Nebula ping
Borg has set an example of good early, mid, and late game cloak counters.  I believe the next step is to add unique ways of dealing with cloak to the other races.  I suggest making the sensor nebula special send out a small tachyon ping.  I believe all of the current pings are medium or large, and a small one would still give the enemy a good chance to avoid it.  Another possibility would be if the ping goes out when the special ends so the fed player has to plan ahead carefully and the enemy has a chance to kill it before it pings.

2. More centaurs
The centaur is cool, and I like the idea of rare warpins.  However while warpins have gotten more balanced, they've become less interesting with only Excelsiors and sensor nebs showing up on the sides most of the time.  If you added a 15% chance to get a centaur to the other side as well, the chance to get one centaur would be 27.7% and the chance to get two would be 2.2%

3. Dominion Supply
It's a minor issue, but the current Dominion really only have high supply costs to draw attention to their special supply mining setup.  As a result, it is difficult for allies to share supply with the Dominion player and easy for the Dominion player to share supplies with others in the endgame.  If you reduced all Dominion supply costs, their starting supply, and their supply mining rate by the same percentage (say 33%) then they would play exactly the same but it would be easier for their allies to save their stalled economy in the early game and harder for them to support 2-3 allies in the late game.

4. Vorcha Firing Arc
The new restricted firing arc on the Vorcha makes it less of a mindless brawler, but I think it could have the same effect with less annoyance if it was 270 degrees.  The Vorcha is in the unique position of a relatively slow brawler, and while it still won't be able to fire while running away, the ability to shoot to the sides will cause less grief in a firefight.

5. Miner balance
With maps and players getting better, it's becoming more and more clear that expansion raiding is a large part of the game.  The borg are beginning to stand out as being harder to raid than the rest, while the Romulans are too easy.  I suggest that borg miners lose 5 defensive value from 40 to 35 (or 45 to 40 for Optimize)  If you feel bad for them, make them immune to subsystem disabling or something.  For Romulans, whose miners have about 1/2 as many hitpoints as dominion or klingon miners, there are many things you could do.  Before I suggested that they move faster when they aren't carrying ore and slow down as their cargo hold fills up, but it would also work to simply increase their speed by 10.  It's acceptable that Romulan mining gets killed quicker, but I think they should be able to replace it quicker as well.  Also I request that they be able to cloak longer with the cloaking generator.  5 seconds of cloak doesn't really do anything when they're under attack.

6. Arlterium
Going back to #1, the Romulans are also getting early game cloak countering with the Arlterium special's ability to disable weapons.  I can see that the special is balanced with large groups of generix in mind, not wanting to make it overpowered when they all use it on the same target at once.  I want to suggest some tweaks that will make it more effective if used right without making it too spammable.

Current stats for Arlterium:
65% chance to drain 40 energy
35% chance to disable weapons for 6 seconds
~9 damage

I suppose the energy drain could be used on some ships like monsoons to prevent their special, but once again with a chance to fail it's not worth the micro to have 5 ships use it on 5 different targets.  I suggest the ability be focused more: make the weapon disable a 70% chance but have it only last 3-4 seconds, lower the chance of energy drain to 50% but make it 80 energy.  And increase the damage to somewhere around 20.

Arlterium is a once-per-battle ability unless there are singularities around.  When trying to use the weapon disable, it's too difficult to use it with one ship and then check to see if it worked, and while a shorter disable would make it harder to micro and keep an enemy from cloaking away, it would be more dependable and reward good micro better.  Meanwhile the energy drain becomes less useful to scatter around and better when they all use it at once against a sphere or dominion dreadnought for example.  As for the damage, I know it's a concern if the generix fleet gets 1 free kill at the opening of every battle, but right now the ability has very little use vs feds and dominion and I get the impression that the Generix is destined to fill a fleet-backbone, jack-of-all-trades role and should be somewhat effective against every race.

Ideas and opinions are welcome.
posted on June 13th, 2011, 5:52 pm
I'm not Romulan player but I agree that Romulan exp is too easy to harass. I suggest combination - speed up miners and put some new turret in the game. It could be small and cheap turret that don't need extra energy to fire (but will fire faster and stronger if u put that generator close).
posted on June 13th, 2011, 6:06 pm
1. sensor nebula ping

cant see how this would fit, as feds have good cloak detect from early on from ventures. i mean if this was added, feds wouldnt change their behaviour, they would still use ventures.

2. more centaurs

all i can say to this is no. the centaur is a good warpin, it has the same defence as an excel and 7 more offence, and has 130 speed. its like an intrepid, but medium range and free. personally i think its stats are too high, it shoudnt be outclassing an intrepid so badly for such an old ship. i was expecting the centaur to be weaker than an excel. it still has a 15% chance to arrive, which cant get any higher. its so annoying when your enemy's first warpin is a brillaint one, such as nova/centaur. cos they just dont die early game.

5. miner balance

borg arent beginning to stand out as harder to raid, they've been like that for ages. it fits as they dont have repair yards or dirt cheap turrets to rely on. once a borg ship is damaged, it can take ages to repair and return to combat. leaving them with very little ability to protect their moons. other races' damaged fleets can return to main base yards to repair and return out to reclaim map control, and their ships are built quicker, so they have to wait less time for partial recovery. while borg recover in 1 big gulp when the next ship is done.

romulans need to stay easy to raid as they can raid others so effectively. even 3 rhienns, the earliest starting ship for both avatars, can go around the map crushing expansions with impunity. and the rest of their fleet is also great at this. they also have great scouting (green pings needed against talons) so can see the enemy coming, and have the fleet ready. and if the enemy are cloaking, the talon refit can really hurt them, even if u dont stop them killing your miners, you can make them pay with expensive combat ships. i dont think they should have an easier time replacing the miners, as that would also make raiding less effective against them.

6. arlterium

its dangerous to give it more damage, as it already looks like meta D, im not so sure we want it behaving like meta D as well, because direct damage specials (like meta D and proximity torp) are awesome, as they almost guarantee kills with little effort. the leahval is expensive, and the monsoon recharges energy slow, gens are spammable in a similar manner to mons and benefit from romulan system values.
posted on June 13th, 2011, 6:40 pm
sounds a lot like changing balance to unbalance....
posted on June 13th, 2011, 6:49 pm
For starters, I love your balance idea threads, Tryptic.  You always present well thought-out ideas in a clean and efficient manner. :)


Tryptic wrote:1. Sensor Nebula ping


  While I'd like to see more interesting things from the SF Neb, this would be balance shattering to me :(.  Right now the Venture is a very easy thing to use and removing it's need would simply empower the warpins even more.  

  IDEA - I wouldn't mind seeing an ability for the sensor station to "ping" a sensor Nebula like the Dominion ability, but perhaps after a higher level research happens.  OR - maybe the 50 supply / 250 di/tri ability could send out a ping on all SF Nebs!  :D


2. More centaurs


 While I love the Centaur myself, I do feel that it's already a VERY powerful ship.  Against Borg it's ability does it no good, but against ships with shields it's remarkable.  I like it being rare  :blush:, but that's just my opinion.


3. Dominion Supply


 I do agree with you here about the supply being annoying, but unfortunately the Dominion ships cost what they cost for balance reasons.  Screwing with that would be very baaaaad :D.  Just remember that all races get full redoes and some seem to be already on their way like the Rommies!  I'm sure Dominion will not be forgotten ;)


4. Vorcha Firing Arc


 Can't agree with ya here I'm afraid :D.  The Vor'cha was just too damn good before.  This makes the mighty Attack Cruiser an "ATTACK" Cruiser :D.  Not a running away or kiting cruiser :badgrin:

 We've seen some games where literally the choice to turn around has lost people some battles, so this tells me that the Klingons need to be fighting!!! :badgrin:


5. Miner balance


 Yes, Rommie miners are very weak, but they're also the fastest to build ;).  Another reason their miners are indeed so weak is that you will always know when your opponent is coming.

 "The Best Defense is a Good Offense" :D.

 If they didn't have weak miners it would be impossible for races like the Feds, Dominion, or Klingons to actually keep their numbers down.


6. Arlterium


I don't have too much to say about this one, but I feel that the baseline Generix has an ability that is half Qawduj Ion Torpedo and half Oldschool Support Plasma Torpedo.  The fact that they ALL have it means that in groups of 3 they are nearly assured to knock out 80 energy and weapons for 6 seconds :).
posted on June 13th, 2011, 7:28 pm
Yeah, I want to say that I like the fact that you have a well written balancing post that has nothing to do with "I just lost a game and therefore this must be fixed!" >:(  It's nice to have someone take the time to think things through and start considering game dynamics.  My thoughts are pretty similar to Boggz, so I won't say much else.  For some reason I make people angry when I write in the game balancing section. :blush:

Slightly off topic:  It would be really cool if the devs could share some more on the general direction they plan to take things.  I think they would get some better ideas from the community if we knew where they were headed with the redoes.  Then we could be thinking along those lines. ^-^  Optec could be like, "Ok, tentatively, we'd like to ...[insert totally awesome idea that we never saw coming]... and it's your guy's job to give some input and help refine this idea.  Go. :thumbsup:"  I think they'd get more cool ideas and we'd be better at giving suggestions for balancing and for thinking up new features. :D
posted on June 13th, 2011, 8:14 pm
Mal wrote:Slightly off topic:  It would be really cool if the devs could share some more on the general direction they plan to take things.  I think they would get some better ideas from the community if we knew where they were headed with the redoes.  Then we could be thinking along those lines. ^-^  Optec could be like, "Ok, tentatively, we'd like to ...[insert totally awesome idea that we never saw coming]... and it's your guy's job to give some input and help refine this idea.  Go. :thumbsup:"  I think they'd get more cool ideas and we'd be better at giving suggestions for balancing and for thinking up new features. :D
I have already thought of a topic like: "Community can ask some questions to the Devs". Maybe managed and lead by Dominus_Noctis. No need to mention that everyone just can ask one question and there is a deadline to gather questions.
posted on June 14th, 2011, 12:40 am
Those are some good points, let me defend my ideas once and then I'll move on.

1. Okay, so the consensus is that this would be too powerful.  I was mostly thinking of the progression of cloak in Fleet Ops.  In the old days, Romulan ships weren't much more expensive than other races' because starbases could ping anywhere on the map.  Then cloak detect became very weak indeed and Romulan ships got a massive price hike, mostly to warbirds.  Now, as more varied cloak detect comes to different races, in particular the borg, I would like to see at least 2 distinct options for each race.  My hope is that by making cloak detect more accessible the devs will be able to justify lowering the cost of warbirds.  In case some of you were beginning to suspect, yes it is true that ALL balance changes I suggest can be traced somehow back to making Romulans cooler  :D

I really like the idea of pinging sensor nebulas from somewhere else.  What if the canaveral's sensor synergy ability sent out a tachyon ping, and the sensor nebula was added as a valid target for it?  The energy cost of sensor synergy could be increased so the canaveral has to drop EC3M to use it.  You get a nice synergy effect with a chance for the enemy to counter it.

2. Perhaps an offense reduction along with an increased spawn rate then?  I tend to see Fed fleets divided into fast and slow options, and I like how warpins encourage a fed player to have one of both, so he can put any excels and sensor nebs into the slow fleet and any ambassadors/novas/centaurs/rigels into the fast fleet.  However the majority of warpin options cater to the slow fleet right now.  I would also like to see better stats given to the rigel (after all it's still slow to be in the fast fleet, and has no fancy defensive passive).  Also, most of my experience is from watching replays and I always see centaurs die quickly in those.  I've never seen this "unkillable centaur phenomenon" so I may be wrong.

Overall I just love the Centaur and see a lot of potential for it.  I would even go as far as to suggest removing its Remote Shield Control ability (that's a really cool idea though, give it to the Avalon or something) and giving it Hyper impulse drive so it can run with the sabers if you want.  I believe the perfect warpin should be like a pinata, it should burst open and scatter candy that fits into different parts of your fleet and sweetens it up!  The goal is maximum fun.  :thumbsup:

3. Like I said it's tough, but if all the numbers were adjusted together, it would make no difference whatsoever to 1v1 Dominion play.  The only difference would be supply trading in multiplayer, which currently favors expert players and punishes new players.  As it is right now, an experienced Dominion player can support his team, but a new Dominion player can't receive help from his team if he runs out of supply.  This is part of why the Dominion is an "advanced" race to play.

4. I totally agree that the limited firing arc is a good idea.  I like the way Vorcha hard counter my leahvals but my Generix do well against them.  And I agree that if somebody turns his entire fleet away from the battle he should lose a ton of firepower.  The addition of 45 degrees of firing arc on each side would only make a very small difference when fleets are maneuvering into position or right before they turn away, but I think it's important to let the ship fire in those instances.  To be honest, the vorcha is an important ship for new players learning klingons, and it would be less aggravating this way.  They still would be completely unable to kite, I was joking when I said they could swerve back and forth.  That would slow them down too much and they'd be caught and slaughtered.

5. I played a game recently that illustrated this very well.  I was playing against Klingons on a map where my expansion was too far forward to be balanced.  I found he could slaughter my expansion repeatedly any time he came, but he was leaving the mining station alive.  So I built 4 miners in advance and kept a scout near his yard.  Then I raided his main base and the instant his ships headed back, I went and mined.  He later slaughtered those miners but I did manage to turn a profit in good Romulan style.  So I'm not suggesting that Romulan miners be harder to kill, they're fine the way they are.  But in order for maps where the expansions are far away from your base to not be unbalanced for Romulans, I think they need a speed boost so the Romulan player can replace them faster once he has brought his fleet back to defend the area.  Even when my fleet showed up to defend and the miners fled back to my base, the small number of my Romulan ships couldn't deal enough damage and he could just kill the miners while ignoring me.

6. I haven't tried using them in groups of 3, I'll be sure to do that sometime.  Still, the chance of 3 shots disabling weapons is only 72.5%.  The chance of 4 shots is 82.1%.  I was using a leahval heavy fleet and I just had so many abilities to micro that I didn't have time to control a talon refit.  I knew I would lose it if I got one and I had a resource disadvantage already.  I think there should be at least a second cloak counter so that different options are available to go with different fleet compositions and playstyles.  Like I said above with the sensor nebulas.

Wow long post.  You guys game me a lot to think about.
posted on June 14th, 2011, 9:48 am
1. id like to see cloak detect be more varied, and an idea along the lines of yours would be good if ventures got a rework. right now ventures get the job done in most cases. and additional cloak detect is just icing on the cake.

2. i just think it needs a stats nerf full stop. it should have equal or lower stats to an intrep. not better. cos right now a centaur is basically an intrep with better stats and range. its just as fast, has similar weaponry, but is free. and early game that is deadly. i like the centaur too, but it is of the same lineage as the e1 but smaller, yet is better in many ways.
posted on June 14th, 2011, 10:04 am
Tryptic wrote:3. Like I said it's tough, but if all the numbers were adjusted together, it would make no difference whatsoever to 1v1 Dominion play.  The only difference would be supply trading in multiplayer, which currently favors expert players and punishes new players.  As it is right now, an experienced Dominion player can support his team, but a new Dominion player can't receive help from his team if he runs out of supply.  This is part of why the Dominion is an "advanced" race to play.


Really bad idea.
1. If you want to play easy races go play klingons or feds. 
2. It would open the way for some crazy supply dumping rushes. Just imagine dominion with a helev ally... if you reduce the supply cost of the ships, it would be possible to triple yard right from the start... gl hf dealing with that.  :lol:
posted on June 14th, 2011, 5:47 pm
Hey, Klingons aren't easy to play. In fact I think they need more micro than any other race. Romulans or Borg may be easy, but not Klingons :P.

2. I agree with the centaur. If it has such an offense I'd suggest to decrease it, it's smaller than an Excel and made of her parts after all, shouldn't be stronger. But it would be nice to see not only Nebbies out there ;).

4. I think the Vor'cha is fine as it is now. Still a nice tank and when it fires it does large damage. If you want a larger firing arc build Chargh, Sang or Qawduij(not sure about the arc of Vutpa right now).
posted on June 14th, 2011, 5:53 pm
The lineage of the Centaur or its componants is irrelevent, the refits it has gone through are what count. The ship is classed as a military-specific chassis and is equipt accordingly, the Excelsior is not.
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