Fed Borg and current balance in 3.2.5

posted on August 9th, 2011, 11:06 pm

As it stands the game is more a won or loss at avatar choice than anything else.

Keep in mind that for testing purposes Old_time_pro played the borg side and Acheron143 played feds.

Assimilate > Feds > Optimize.

A good fed player can run down the scubes and probes or anything an optimize player brings. However assimilators will tear apart most fed ships given any space or time due to being able to strip crew off too fast for the fed player to ever expand. By the time your second warp in is ready you'll face 3ish assimilators.

To me both situations are unbalanced. Hopefully 3.2.6 brings more skill into fed versus borg combat.

posted on August 9th, 2011, 11:49 pm

Try not using Early Warp In 

posted on August 9th, 2011, 11:59 pm

My weakness against assimilator is that they qucikly strip the crew off of my ships to the point of making them unusable. The few ships that have a useful crew count ARE the warp ins.

posted on August 10th, 2011, 12:09 am

Not using Warpins means you can double yard intrepids.  Double yard Intrepids means that the first Assimilator will not be able to strip the crew off a ship before it can run away and safely repair.


  I do agree though that, in almost all circumstances, Opti will lose to Early Warpin and Assim will beat Early Warpin.  Player mistakes and such can swing that, but as long as both players are competent it isn't much in doubt.

  A shame, for sure...

posted on August 10th, 2011, 12:16 am

Mmm, vs assimilators, instead of double intrepid i would reccomend double akira.  Especially if your doing risner so youll get that offensive bonus, and it will be easier to get chassis two.  Plus you have 40 more crew then the intrepid.

posted on August 10th, 2011, 1:36 am

To me the fact that double yarding intrepids beats assimilate borg is more repulsive than what I had miss interpreted as the initial situation. Any faction that with a competant player has an answer for everything the opposing faction can do is not worth the time to play. *shrugs*

posted on August 10th, 2011, 4:35 am

Well Ray I'm affriad that Akiras just get shredded by assims. Torpedo assims will also shred intrepid spam as the torpedoes have a good hit chance. In my opinion, the best way to go is to have 1 monsoon for every 3 intrepids in order for auto target lock onto the monsoons.

posted on August 10th, 2011, 6:05 am

Imo it is good to start with double yards and do Intrepids plus a few Monsoons. Then you try to jump into Akiras.
The key is to stay near your yards and recycle early. This however is mainly good vs Auto Assims. Against Torps or a mixed fleet I am not entirely sure but I would increase the number of Monsoons ofer Intrepids then.

posted on August 10th, 2011, 6:33 am

The Avatars, as they are implemented now, do indeed define a lot of gameplay in the first seconds of a game. We are working on some new ideas to solve this issue. At the moment I'm doing a lot of background refactoring for this - and similar - features

posted on August 11th, 2011, 4:51 am

To me the fact that double yarding intrepids beats assimilate borg is more repulsive than what I had miss interpreted as the initial situation. Any faction that with a competant player has an answer for everything the opposing faction can do is not worth the time to play. *shrugs*

Then don't. *shrugs*

posted on August 11th, 2011, 8:28 am

it would be nice if you could select a ship (if you are paying attention) that is being attacked via tractor beam or assim beam, and could counter it or cut it off.  maybe like the shield, engine, weapon, life support upgrade system as fleet-wide passives, this would add a fleet-wide active set that could defend against direct contact effects/attacks (such as tractor and etc. beams and transport attacks)
1. feedback pulse:  sends a feedback through the attackers beam, disabling systems of the attacking vessel, including the attack beam.  possibly doing dmg
2. rotate shield frequency:  resets shields, thus temporarily cutting off the attacking beam lock
3. warp field inversion:  repels attacking vessel AND defending vessel in opposite directions of one another.  this could be tricky.  the vessel that repels further should be based on size vs size.  equal size vessels repel equal distances.  blah blah blah.

i wanted a fourth idea (giving one based on systems, one based on shield, one based on engine, and one based on crew/transport/life support)  any ideas would be welcome lol

hopefully i inspire someone

posted on August 12th, 2011, 12:05 am

Maybe that could be a good passive for the Monsoons. I really like that! Perhaps adaptors could then adapt to shield rotation. We could have experience improve the shield rotation. Hmmmm... Very cool

posted on August 12th, 2011, 12:50 am

Hm, wondering why noone brought up the two words with a simple solution:
map pool
Different maps benefit different races, avatars and gamestyles. OTP obv. found one of the best for this lineup and map. Really wondering why the whole tourney is getting played on the same map.

Overall i just agree with Acheron here, if he can't even counter it, who basically can (with same lineups on Duel II). Not sure though if we need more counter here and there, which makes the overall balancing harder and harder, maybe just go for a simple solution.

Last but not least: even if you buff, counter wise, one of the fed avatars against the assim avatar, it should only benefit your gamestyle, and definitely not become some kind of coinflip for the outcome of the match, which is currently more or less the case.


just my 2 cents.

[Tryptic]

posted on August 12th, 2011, 4:58 am

Last edited by Tryptic on August 12th, 2011, 3:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Beserene just hit the nail on the head.  The assim rush strategy is so dependent on the first battle, its balance depends a TON on the map itself.

I think the blue beam strategy needs an overhaul, some sort of tech requirement to separate it into early and late game balance strata.  Maybe an "advanced blue beam" could be researched at the transmission matrix along with boarding and the original blue beam could be even weaker than it is now.  Maybe a crew drain could be added to the assim's regular attack or something.  I like the idea of using dodes to soften the enemy up...

Here's an idea.  What if the Adapted Photon torp ability was split between the races?  For the Optimize avatar, it gets the current damage bonus against small ships.  For the Assimilate avatar, it causes some crew casualties instead.  The casualties are a set number per shot so it's still more effective against smaller ships than larger ships, but for a different reason.  The intercept dode would need to lower its life support disable to the same level as the others to keep it from being awesomely overpowered.

Now, remove the CC cost reduction for assims and turn it into a cost reduction for Resistance is Futile.  Since the Assim avatar has higher costs for diamonds and cubes, you don't need to worry about them rushing as much, and this will allow them to still get 1 assim quickly while the second and third assims are much harder.  The goal is to encourage a standard build of 1 assim 2 dodes, or 1 assim 3 scubes, etc. instead of 1 assim 2 probes followed by assims the rest of the game.

posted on August 12th, 2011, 6:00 am

Overall i just agree with Acheron here, if he can't even counter it, who basically can

I thought there are no inbalanced or OP strategies in FO?