BORG Balance?

[Dragi]

posted on June 8th, 2010, 11:14 am

Last edited by Dragi on June 8th, 2010, 11:16 am, edited 1 time in total.

Hi,

we play Fleetops for a long time and we are playing versus the AI for the most of this time. In this case a take the defense (Federation, Defense-Avatar) and my mate takes the agressor (Borg). In this team play it's ok and you don't have to watch every step of your federate, but it's really impressive how fast he get a very powerfull BORG armada. (normal and tactical Cubes with excellent values)

But now we have played several rounds as opponents with up to six AIs at hard / merciless. Normally I have everything to do to keep myself alive, because the AIs are very pushing and a game takes often 2-3 hours. But in every case I'm happy to live and in the late game the AIs die in short time by my mate with his Cubes. In fact, we've played at sunday the last time and he has killed within 2 hours ALL AIs (3x hard, 3x merciless, Borg, Dominion, Romies and Klingons) and kept me in my damaged (thanks for the aggressiv AI) base with FOUR tactical cubes in this time. In this case you can feel your self like an prisoner.

Of course I've tried to do the best of the situation and build four base stations in a row with full shields and weapons, added my two Descents and some smaller ships behind the stations. As soon as just one AI was left (he had left just a station without ships of him ), he send three tactical cubes down to my stations and killed them (and all ships) within seconds. They had no chance to stand and after a few shots all units (the stations and all ships within a radius of 20-30 centimeter) was useless because he kept all down with his nanites.

As soon as I was dead, it was impressive to his his "green" at the map. One scout ship from we was able to get through it's wall of cubes and believe me, he had a lot of this in space...

I don't think that the BORG are balanced in late game, because they can grow like pest plant and there's no way to stop a Borg if he get a certain size. Of course, you can attack a Borg at a small map to hold him at a small level, but at big maps you have no chance to stop him. Of course the great values of his ships (also the small ships) helps him.

I think there should be some changes for future patches for this. Of course a Borg can't be too fragile, but there has to be a limit. And be honestly, but it's impossible to fight against 10, 20 oder more tactical cubes (with or without the nanites, this doesn't matter with this size of fleet)

One note: I can watch him in our team games often, when his digging ships are flying through the map. He doesn't care about enemy, because their ships are oftentimes not powerfull enough to produce real damage to the digging ships.

So here are my first suggestions:

- slow down the movement of the BORG (hey, they are flying like a rabbit throught the map)
- limit the availability of making Cube armadas (that's stupid, a Borg is a Borg and not a discounter*)
- lower the health from the digging ships
- check the nanites, that's very tough if all your stations and ships go down within seconds in a relative big radius

* perhaps a bigger Cube is a solution in late games to replace "smaller" cubes

posted on June 8th, 2010, 11:27 am

a command cube is on the way. but it wont replace normal cube, just be better and more expensive presumably.

also borg are very strong on small maps, they can have a strong fleet out very quick, and get it to the enemy mining and flatten them.

posted on June 8th, 2010, 12:55 pm

yep there will be some changes on the nanites, to make them a situatioal special ability, rather than a standard area damage screen

posted on June 8th, 2010, 1:12 pm

But the nanites are not the only problem Optec

posted on June 8th, 2010, 1:33 pm

The borg are a very expensive race. The big weakness is the cost. Their ships nom nom on Dilithium. If you want to be able to stop a borg player, kill their miners and they will then simply be unable to produce. Borg AI however cheat because the AI don't really mine, it is to look normal. and if you haven't noticed, they pump out ships even though they only mine tritanium.

posted on June 8th, 2010, 1:58 pm

Please read an posting carefully. I don't speak about the Borg AI, i mean an real human player. Of course the Borg are expensive, but it's possible to create an awesome tactical cube armada (20-30 cubes) within an 2-3 hour game and AIs which are attacking you - and that's a real problem. And like I've written before, at a small map you can attack the Borg in the beginning, but thats not possible in a big map.

posted on June 8th, 2010, 2:11 pm

in a small map the borg can make a fleet quickly that will be better than yours.

posted on June 8th, 2010, 2:35 pm

in a small map the borg can make a fleet quickly that will be better than yours.

If the Borg player knows what he's doing: YES! I've done this experience once before (if you play Fed)

posted on June 8th, 2010, 2:43 pm

just to clarify: by quickly i mean within minutes, not hours, so scubes and probes and dodecs nothing bigger. i actually think borg are fine in 3.1.2

posted on June 8th, 2010, 3:18 pm

With the exception of the Dodecahedron, Borg are very nicely balanced.

Please read an posting carefully. I don't speak about the Borg AI, i mean an real human player. Of course the Borg are expensive, but it's possible to create an awesome tactical cube armada (20-30 cubes) within an 2-3 hour game and AIs which are attacking you - and that's a real problem. And like I've written before, at a small map you can attack the Borg in the beginning, but thats not possible in a big map.

20-30 of the strongest Cubes equals about 220-330 Excelsior II in terms of cost - go have at 'em! Hell, sub out a generous handful of Excelsior II for some Defiants and neuter the Cubes. Plus, Cubes are only medium range and can't clump. You'll be lucky to even lose a few ships with that sort of build up .

posted on June 8th, 2010, 7:33 pm

it's possible to create an awesome tactical cube armada (20-30 cubes) within an 2-3 hour game

and now for something completely different: speaking about balance...

posted on June 8th, 2010, 9:45 pm

Borg are fine, except the 2x intercept dode. If a player manages to build a cube armada then you didnt attack his mining.

posted on June 28th, 2010, 11:54 pm

Before complaining about the Borgs late game strenght you should play against a similar skilled Dominion opponent. That will give the term "OP" a completly new meaning. Truth is... the Borg are very powerful in late game especially in long games. Still Dominion is even worse in such a scenario.

- slow down the movement of the BORG (hey, they are flying like a rabbit throught the map)
- limit the availability of making Cube armadas (that's stupid, a Borg is a Borg and not a discounter*)
- lower the health from the digging ships
- check the nanites, that's very tough if all your stations and ships go down within seconds in a relative big radius

1. No. They are rather slow already. It is fine the way it is.
2. If you allow your foe to build anything more than 4 cubes, you are making some big error, unless you are Puretech Dominion with V13 Spam to counter even more cubes.
3. The miners need to be very durable since Borg have trouble in the early games to protect their mining as they have very few ships. Not to mention that a ship of this size naturally can take a lot of punishment.
4. Yes, the Nanites are powerfull. But then please consider that you are terrible outnumbered as Borg and that you need something to get rid of all those pesky little ships in a short ammount of time if you want to stand a a chance in larger battles.

posted on June 29th, 2010, 12:00 am

If the Borg get any slower they'll be immobile.

posted on June 29th, 2010, 2:32 am

The Borg WANT you to let them build for 2-3 hours.  It means they win.  Just like the Klingons would love it if you let them build a fleet of 24 K'vort unmolested so they can sweep straight through your base.  (Tested that on the AI to see if it was possible still.  Yes, yes it is.  The K'vort is not the be-all, end-all, but it's still a DAMNED good ship.)

The Feds would love it if you let them establish heavy static defenses.

The Romulans want you to not bother with cloak detection.

The Dominion want you to leave their supply mining alone.

Never give the enemy what they want if you want to have a prayer of winning.  Especially not letting the Borg amass a heavy fleet.

You didn't hit a failure in balance, you hit a failure in strategy.  It's like letting the Protoss build a Arbiter/Carrier armada with an Archon Recall ready in starcraft, and then complaining that your base exploded when it flew in.