Norway Plasma and Rhienn Rush Overpowered?

posted on April 30th, 2009, 1:48 pm

No matter if some avatars don't pack the big guns
It's often quite satisfying to play the "underdog" avatar, to think other strategies, not just select the favorite and do your stuff...
Easier is not always better, certainly it's not as fun.

posted on April 30th, 2009, 1:56 pm

No matter if some avatars don't pack the big guns
It's often quite satisfying to play the "underdog" avatar, to think other strategies, not just select the favorite and do your stuff...
Easier is not always better, certainly it's not as fun.

Part of the problem is that she is suppost to be the big guns. :2guns:
While ill agree to that as long as you are only playing the AI but when you have someone rushing you and destroying your mining after the first few mins of the game, being the underdog loses most its fun factor. I dont know about the rest of you but when i lose it makes me kinda frusterated and if i lose enough ill put down the game and go play something i know ill win. Anyone up for a little AoE 2

[Anonymous]

posted on April 30th, 2009, 4:17 pm

Last edited by Anonymous on April 30th, 2009, 9:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.

After playing rommies against the AI for a few days, it is clear that the Rommie Rhienn on its own is not overpowered, rather over-enduring.
The primary reason why we see them holding their own against the other ships seems to be manifold:

1. the increased system ability seems to be bolstering repair and regen a bit more than the other ships with lower system abilities. Rommie rhienn shields are also stronger tahn the others in its class making it able to take more hits and keep at the attack than the other ships like the BOP.

2. Range. With the increased endurance it is also ranged, thereby allowing it to get off more shots from afar, by the time the ships like the Bop or sabre can hit back - Sabres with 11 and 13 offense are pretty useless against rhienns. Bops can stand their ground with proper tactics.

3. Defense on the rhienn is higher than the other ships of the same class. Coupled with the benefits that go towards repair from improved systems, it appears that this provides a doubled effect in improving rhienn endurance.

4. Resource management. From playing romulans it seems that the romulan resource requirements are very well balanced inter se. That means that the requirements of resources for romulan ships allow the rommies to build up a pretty stable fleet with a few moons.
As compared to this the klings need to overstretch to get a sizable fleet that would tackle the smaller rommie refitted fleets. This management ease for the rommies alleviates the problems that the others like the klings or feds face early in game.
Fed station build rates are pretty decent and the resource requiremetns are pretty stable. With warp in the feds can hold their own.. without warping in excelsiors and nebs and galsxies, the feds would fold in front of a well geared rhienn rush.
The klings have a strength of ship building. although their ships are built quickly, the resources required by the klings are a bit extensive to get those numbers....the cost paid is a diversion from station building to get those numbers by diverting resources, and this is what adds to the romulan advantage - the inherent stability in the resource allocation for an easy rise and forward push. Whereas the klingons require the most control with losses of a few ships being very costly.

5. Extra abilities on refit. The rhienn are not just getting an increased offense or defense on refit, they are alos getting special passive abilities. These abilities added to the system/defense cumulative effect, as well as the extended range tend to increase the disparity between the rhienn and the others of its class.

this cumulative effect, cannot be gauged by mere stat comparisons as passive abilities do not go into stats, and defense/system cumulative effects do not augment defense stats.
From this we do see the slight advantage in the rhienn more from a cumulative gameplay perspective and not just on analyzing stats.

It is here that I feel the mods may want to review the overall abiltities of the rhienn in regards to cost and rates of mining and teching up.

IMO - each race has a unique playing style in FO. Each perfectly suited to the canon persona of that race.

We may however want to take into account resource balancing more than stat and ship balancing when considering the intended unique playing style for those particular races - borg, klingon, romulan, and feds, so that no one race finds itself better able to manage its resources than the others by mere virtue of its tech tree and resource requirements.


As regards the plasma coil - the mentioned solution of having it broken up by ship affected vs total impact on all ships as proposed by Optec should help resolve the issue.

However, when including FOf and nanites in that equation, we may wnt to reconsider the class of ship inflicting the damage and the cost entailed in research before simply nerfing all the abilities equally.

posted on April 30th, 2009, 5:09 pm

A well laid out post and it does highlight that a ship may appear overpowered despite reasonable stats because of its ease of construction or other "non-statted" factors.

I'm glad you agree on the suggestion made to nerf the plasma coil via AOE damage being divided amoungst all targets as opposed to doing equal damage to all. I feel that it is a simple and effective solution as it increases the effective durability of high Shield and HP ships like cruisers and battleships, but Destroyers that rely on speed are still hit reasonably effectively... even if it is not the bitch slap it is at the moment.

I do disagree that if this happens to the Plasma coil it should not happen to Nanites and FOF however. Although my experience is limited because the computer uses simple abilities and simple tactics i do have to say that you can't nerf one AOE to such a high extent and not do the same to others.

While they are not in the same leaque as the Norway, if you change a game mechanic you must do it across the board to ensure balance and the others now not bitch slapping the federations Norway around and also to ensure a more uniform program structure and thus a less buggy one.


Having said that if you take Torpedoes as Area of Effect blatently they are going to do more damage to destroyers than battleships, as with Plasma coil and all else... Perhaps this could be worked in as well as the AOE allowing different AOE weapons to retain individuality?

posted on April 30th, 2009, 6:19 pm

the general effect will take all AE weapons into account, be we will look at their techtree costs and the lineup of the specific vessels, on how the division will be factored in.

[Anonymous]

posted on April 30th, 2009, 6:56 pm

Last edited by Anonymous on April 30th, 2009, 9:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.

great thanks.

posted on April 30th, 2009, 9:46 pm

I don't tend to use Norways, but I have a couple reasons for that.  They aren't reasons people are likely to agree with, however.

#1 - They make me feel dirty.  That's right, as they stand right now, I feel bad if I build more than a couple of them.

#2 - I have a bad habit of playing a 'crawling poison' style of game, rather than the high-speed early assault so favored in the RTS world.  It's part of why I love playing Borg, Klingon, and Romulan more than the others.  The Norway isn't a very good ship for that style of advance (in fact, the feds have few ships that are good for that.  Mayson's Torpedo turrets are better for it than any ship they have barring the Decent and the Steamrunner.)

#3 - They make me feel REALLY dirty.

posted on April 30th, 2009, 9:58 pm

the dirty feeling should be gone with the next patch, as their damage-scaling will be adjusted

posted on April 30th, 2009, 10:06 pm

silent, optec is giving you a shower as part of the next patch

[RCIX]

posted on May 1st, 2009, 6:29 am

Last edited by RCIX on May 1st, 2009, 7:12 am, edited 1 time in total.

Please debate that in my Official phalanx thread (in retrospect, i should have named it the Official Risner Thread) edit: oooooops didnt notice that extra page... i meant debate whether risner stinks.....

posted on May 1st, 2009, 6:41 am

Khmmm, if all AE weapons will be effected, does that mean that Bortas' ion storm and Dominion arty strike will also get nerfed?
Id seriously be against that.

posted on May 1st, 2009, 6:56 am

Optec said somewhere (maybe in this thread, I don't know) that the Bortas and Hyp Art will remain unaffected, since they're already balanced with a cap.

posted on May 1st, 2009, 7:43 am

Thanx for sparing me reading the whole thing

And thats great news