Romulans at the moment

posted on January 23rd, 2010, 8:13 am

But how many battleships did we see in multiplayer games in 3.0.7.?  Barely any.  You'd maybe see a few V-13s as puretech.  But they have a much easier system for teching up their ships, and you get a cap ship for your troubles.  You'd rarely see any battleships as romulans, because no one played Mijural and everyone did helev and made rhienns refits and generix refits.  It was only when I stumbled on the fact that you can make battleships early that people started using them.  It was shock and awe the first handful of games I played with them, but we adapted by countering with cheap torpedo class ships such as the dominion bomber and susa.  You were all about the susa against norexans, remember?

The feds certainly didn't need battleships, as it was better to spam norways and Excelsior-IIs.  It still is.  Risner was better off with Akiras and Remores.  And we NEVER saw a Negh'var unless it was a FFA game or there were mitigating circumstances.

Battleships in 3.0.7 were not super attractive as bombers/heavy cruisers etc. were cheaper and more efficient, and didn't require the expensive tech to make them buildable.  Now they are even less so.

Some passives have made the clear lines of destroyer, cruiser, battleship is weak/medium/strong vs pulses or torpedoes very blurred.  Now a super fast, super cheap cruiser like the K'vort can nail battleships with it's pulses, because the damage is treated as if it were a cruiser.  But the tech tree costs for battleships is huge and the cost for battleships is higher than before.  But if it's treated like a cruiser against an easily spammed ship, why wouldn't I just build a heavy cruiser instead and save myself the cost?  Ironically, the two most powerful factions right now, Feds and Klingons, are the ones with the Ablative Armor passive, the most useful of the defensive passives.  Other ships received passives that allow them to get steamrolled by a greater assortment of cheap vessels, or received no passives at all, but received the same price increase.

The problem with the idea of only a sprinkling of battleships at the late stage of the game is that it has its problems.  To make 1-4 (a "sprinkling") battleships mean anything after the expensive tech up, they're going to have to be "teh pwnzors".  We're talking D'deridexes that are basically unupgraded tavaras in power.  And then Tavaras have to get stronger.  This makes them stand out way too much, but also makes them vulnerable to a lot of disabling effects like plasma bolt or precise volley.  Since you've put many of your eggs in one basket with these few, super expensive battleships, it's very easy to control you now.  I like how destroyers, cruisers and battleships are basically around +10 offense/defense in difference.  This still makes all of them appealing.  What stock A2 lacked was this kind of closeness, as tons of A2 defiants or sabers would be blown away by a sovereign.  The gap is much closer in FO.  Also, the officer cap ensured that you would only want to make Sovereigns.  Again, the removal of this cap was a great boon for this game.

My view on ship configurations is a bit different.  A good example would be the dominion guide, since it's easy for me to quote it off the top of my head and not have to look it up.  In the latter section, there's a description of a Dominion end game fleet.  One thing I like about the Dominon, and most of the races in general, is that there was always one ship that ended up being the back bone.  It in turn was supported by ships you had fewer of, but were essential.  This occured at the destroyer, cruiser, and battleship levels.

The bug was the early game backbone.  You made a ton (16-18) of these to outproduce your enemy.  When they started to tech up to cruisers, you couldn't just keep building bugs.  You made the S-2 escort cruiser as a support power cruiser.  You'd have about 4.  The lack of heavy cruiser meant the bugs needed to rely on the Alpha Ketrecel white to remain competitive.  Now you went to tech lab while you built bombers and made a large yard.  The bomber now becomes your backbone unit, as it can hit cruisers and battleships.  Note that you still need bugs to handle the remaining destroyers and S-2s for support or you'll get rocked.  The bomber could retreat ok, but could not kite by firing backwards.  Then you built C-17 as support or your final backbone, or the V-13.  All of these ships have interlocking specials that help the others, or hurt the other fleet.

But what happens to the poor bug?  Are destroyers useless now that you are building V-13s?  Not at all!  I'd usually detach them from the main battlegroup and they would go harass mining, or they would scout ahead for any trouble.  Or they could defend.  They could also be in the main battle, but I would specifically control them to be on the edge of the fight, so they didn't take too much damage.  They were not a tank ship like the V-13.  They are agile fighters, and I still had to treat them as such.

So every ship had a use even as the game progressed.  That's why I have no problem with someone producing their endgame unit at the end of the game.  If you went through all that time and money to get it, you may as well get a chance to use it.  The bomber was still useful because it owns battleships and they can't get away from it if you advance.  The S-2 is always useful in small numbers.  The C-11 was your energy battery for quickly recharging your specials in a fight and getting more direct damage.

So every ship was useful without the passives.  And I could come up with scenarios for the other races.  Some of them had useless ships.  The monsoon and the Intrepid were not used too often, although you did use the monsoon quite a lot in 3.0.7.  But that had less to do with the fact that they were useless, and more to do with the fact that other federation ships were just far better.  When teching up to SFC, you could make canaverals/norways which had low dilithium costs, then tech straight to akiras when you needed to upgrade, relying on warp ins in the meantime.  This allowed you to completely skip those level 1 chassis ships, unless you actually did make sovereigns and needed to build monsoons to maintain battleship production.

While I like the passives, right now they completely break what used to be a natural progression.  Now all some factions need to do is spam their cheapest interceptor and they're good to go.  So while I like the overall added features, I am not a fan of the current balancing.  I remember wondering if interceptors would become too strong a part of the game mechanics.  This is not the kind of thing I like to be right about.   Talking to a girl and thinking she's into me and finding out I was spot on, that's the kind of thing I like to be right about.

Uff.  I didn't mean to write another novel.  But this hopefully better explains where I'm coming from.    

posted on January 23rd, 2010, 10:58 am

Hmm .. well I confess I couldn't finish the whole thing , I saw your point about battleships.

I have to say that I saw plenty more of them in 3.0.7 than I do now, but now I find them to be more useful.  I think the Rommies D'Deridex wouldn't need to be a Tavara in order to make it's presence felt on the battlefield, just a passive that did more than give it an arbitrary defense boost that is basically just part of the stats in the first place.  The Defiant has 2, the Sovereign has 1 at normal Rank.  The Big D could use one in my opinion.  As it's weapon systems are just a little more timid than some other battleships I feel it could definitely benefit from the passive that reduces medium range damage.  Let the Norexan's purpose focus on smaller vessels while the Big D is their Capital ship for other Capital ships.

  Anyway ... I see your point, Mal.  I really do, I promise.  You are a smart guy and I totally take your opinions seriously.  In this case I think it might just be a difference of what we like in an RTS.  I like for early game the Destroyers to make up the bulk with a few supports.  Then it's mostly Destroyers with Supports and a few Cruisers.  Then the Cruisers take over with help from Supports and Destroyers become quick-strikers.  Then the Cruisers become the Mainstay while Battleships begin to add the extra firepower or damage absorbtion to create decisive battles and make real forays in enemy structures.  In my opinion games shouldn't reach the point where people just que up 8 battleships and wait for them to all be done.

  But oh well .. maybe I'm a rare breed. 

[Jamess14]

posted on January 23rd, 2010, 12:59 pm

Last edited by Jamess14 on January 23rd, 2010, 1:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Mal I felt your two posts were spot on, and you supported it with the precise mining per minute which was great And I like Dominuses optimism about things to come, but the fact is if we don't start these debates the devs won't know of specifics to improve the game. We need a viable early game and not just 'go to warbirds' which doesn't really work. You can try it only to find your one- two birds trying to cover too much field, spread too thin so to speak, defend your mining or going to harass, but never both. And with the new passives many of the new early game units will just own them now so 'no soup for you'

Rhienn spam is out of the question, we all realized it. It's 400 dil, neither fast nor agile, gets outproduced easily. And you won't be upgrading them any time soon either, since it's at advance research facility and the upgrade is 400 dil more + some trit.

The way things are now, we have clear issues, and the prices should definitely go down a bit but with a more clear cut support of passives that make ship progression a bit more clear and logical.

P.S. This isn't to say the work of the devs isn't appreciated, and the balance issues are always one of the harder to achieve in any game, even with huge teams of people dedicated to it. But the key certainly is a dedicated player base testing things as they go and providing feedback back to the team.   :thumbsup:

posted on January 24th, 2010, 1:19 am

yep, the next patch will introduce some speed changes and the effect of the passives will be reduced a bit to improve the game experience

posted on January 24th, 2010, 1:21 am

Optec, you tricky fellow  

posted on January 24th, 2010, 2:37 am

Thanks for the response! Like I said we have it good, active player base and a dedicated team

posted on January 24th, 2010, 2:49 pm

Good to hear, Optec!

It really doesn't look like our opinions are too different from each other, Boggz.  Your description of progression was very similar to mine.  I like seeing fewer restrictions on battleships because I like battlehips!   And so long as there are early bombers countering them like we have now, and so long as you can continue to produce other things while you make your battleships, I see no reason they can't be produced heavily in the late stages of the game.

Ok, I feel like I'm on a role again, and I have some suggestions and more thoughts about Romulans.  I want to first briefly describe 3.0.7 tactics and some unit descriptions to describe the importance of the current changes.  They've really shown me that Romulans were really hanging on to certain specific units and abilities to stay competitive. 

Helev had a strong early game due to Rhienn refits.  The shrike replaced the rhienn for Mijural.  I remember thinking that it would when I heard about it getting experimental disruptors, and someone saying that it would not replace the rhienn.  But it did, so "HA!" to whoever said that.   Lehavals were somewhat useful for Mijural, and had some nice specials for doing damage quickly to things like turrets that the shrike did not have.  Griffins became incredibly useful for knocking out the weapons of a race.  Generix by itself was useless, but once refitted it molded to what you needed.  The frigate was destroyer mop up and the spectre was a torpedo counter, especially against breen cruisers.  Support was a necessary generix refit as it was what helped the Romulans have survivability through shield recharge. 

Once you had some support refits you could begin to make battleships.  Norexans usually become the backbone, because of their strong weapons and relatively fast speed.  Coupled with shield recharge, you could keep a battleship under fire protected for some time unless your support refits came under fire.  Serkas were turret killers and did decent AoE damage if you could micro them well.
Never liked the Erisis, the Cehlar is good against borg, but too slow against others races I feel.  D’deridex was mainly a support battleship, and could take a lot of punishment.  And of course the Tavara was Icing on the cake. 

As useful as all those ships were, the three most important elements were rhienn refits, generix support, and battleships, or other generix refits if you were Helev.  But with the 3.1.1 cost hikes and tech tree changes, Romulans don’t have enough money to spend on the tech up necessary to produce enough damage with their ships to wage an effective fight.

Phase plates seem to help in the defense department, but Romulans simply don’t have comparable dps compared to other races.  The Leahval is what is keeping them afloat, their one fast short ranged vessel.  The changes to their abilities have helped give them some durability, which has been helpful.  Even so, they are too outnumbered by races that can spam cheap ships, so I'm finding their 14 damage rather lackluster.  By the time I have 3 rhienns, the klingons will have 6 brels and maybe a Kbeajq.  In one game I was aiding an ally against 3 Borg scubes, and I found the damage output to be pathetic against their attacks.  While the Romulan playstyle means they are supposed to be outnumbered, they are too outgunned as well to make an effective stand.  This forces the player to go to cruisers earlier than other races.

The extra tech tree costs did not help, either.  It's cool that the tal'shiar acadamy doesn't need the research institute anymore, but the extra costs for the building reach deeper into already empty Romulan pockets.  I feel that this split was done to give you early access to generix refits to compensate for the reduced power of early game rhienns.  This is ironic, because the rhienn refits were pushed up the tech tree so that we'd use stock rhienns more, only to be encouraged to use generix refits earlier instead.

Late game.  If you produce battleships for Romulans now, you can only produce battleships and have no (or very, very little) room for support ships.  You also needed to make leahvals to compete, which do not give support to your ships, even though they are expensive.  So now your battleships are seeing combat without shield recharge.  This is why they seem weak, as before they were supported by a strong core of support refits.  Now some of us are seeing how much we needed those support refits to make the expensive Romulan battleships work.

Well, enough of that.  It's time for some suggestions!   I liked the D’deridex’s special from 3.0.7.  I can see why it got nerfed, as all AoE effects got changed, but without shield recharge, these expensive ships need a way to cloak and escape against a larger fleet when things get rough.  I feel that 10% damage reduction is too weak for stealth field to be a useful enough ability.  I suggest a change.  One idea is that stealth field should take the place of the old sensor jammer, and disrupt all sensors in a large radius for 3 seconds.  This would give ships just enough time to cloak without getting blown away when they drop their shields to cloak.  That might help their later game, and give the Big D more of a useful role protecting escaping ships from harm. 

With rhienn firepower needing a much needed boost, perhaps phase plates needs to  receive a little less defense, and gain an increase in offense, as well.  This would be the new description-
Phase Plates: Experimental hull armor.  When energized, phase plates improve damage reduction by absorbing a portion of the energy from incoming fire and channeling it back into the weapons systems.  The damage reduction and output is proportional to the attacking range, being most effective against close targets.

Basically, what this would do is increase both the offense and defense of the rhienn, maybe +5 for both offense and defense, except it would receive less damage from short ranged targets, and do more damage to short ranged targets while active.  The current damage reduction would be reduced and the "balancing points" or whatever would be diverted to offense.  And the duration could be decreased, if need be.  This would sort of turn the rhienn into a 3.0.7 version of the rhienn refit for a short duration, without the 360 degree firing arc.  But the extra firepower would really help, I think.  And the rhienns would still get some much needed defense against spammers and short ranged vessels with the tactical systems passive.  I really like this idea, so if you want me to go into more detail, I'd be happy to!   I kind of like the idea of an armor that absorbs energy directed at it and channels it into power it can use.  Sounds like some kind of experimental thing the romulans would try.

Also, I'd like to see some kind of special for the stock generix.  With the devs wanting us to use the stock rhienn more, I'm surprised that they didn't encourage the same for the stock generix.  Perhaps it could get phase plates as well?  Or even better:  Any kind of special that would aid in cloak retreats.

I'll end with some brief thoughts things I'd like to see for each vessel.

Rhienn- The phase plate offensive/defensive change.
Shrikes- They cost as much as an akira for half the stats, and have a build time about as long as a 3.0.7 K'beajq.  Something has got to change for these to even be remotely viable.
Griffin.  It’s too expensive as it is to have a passive, and it’s special is good.  No change.
Leahval-  No change.  Maybe lower the cost.
Generix-  Perhaps this could get phase plates as well?  Since it doesn’t have a special on it’s own?  Or give it a smaller version of stealth field, or some other ability that would aid in a cloak retreat?
Frigate-  No change.  Spectre:  Increase torpedo damage reduction to 50%.  Basically the opposite of the frigate.  Cost would increase to match frigate’s price.  Support refit.  No change.
Serkas- No change.
Cehlar- Costs decreased.
Norexan.  Costs decreased.  Or switch it’s passive with fast tracking weapons, which would fit its role better I think.
D’deridex.  Change stealth field to take out sensors for 3-4 seconds or make the shot delay malus 25% for 5 seconds to 10 vessels.

Oh, and most of this I wrote in the middle of the night on Word because I couldn't get to sleep.  So if you disagree or are confused or have some more ideas, don't hesitate to post.

posted on January 24th, 2010, 3:13 pm

the next patch will introduce some movement speed adjustments, making the Rhienn one of the fastest long-range vessels present. That said, yep its true that the Rhienn deals roughly the same dps as a Brel also is more expensive, but its larger range should always allow it to fire one or two volleys before being engage by them (that situation will be a more pro-romulan, once the movement speeds are adjusted).

We are taking a close look at the Romulan support and dps abilities at the moment, and their larger race redo sceduled for later this year will introduce a lot of changes here. I will see to get some of the new Romulan features ready for release asap

Phase Plates have been designed that way, to give the Romulans more staying power, making their hit-and-run more robust in the early game stages. One of the main downparts of the Romulans is their droping efficency in long-term battles and the weak defense of their vessels. The solution in the past was just to blast away the enemy as fast as possible. We want to shift that a bit to a more strategic gameplay. The core of Romulan gameplay should be to control the opponent, as most Romulan vessels are highly specialized and far more efficent against similar alien opponents, if used in "their strategic spot". Future special ability changes of Romulan vessels will underline that.

And yep, we are planing to add a special ability for the unrefitted Generix, too.

posted on January 24th, 2010, 8:38 pm

I'm excited for what you guys have planned, Optec.  FO has always been tons of fun.  You're always plotting and scheming new plans for the game, just like those pesky Romulans!

posted on January 24th, 2010, 8:47 pm

Thanks for sharing the thought-line behind the ROmulan gameplay style, Optec.  It helps all of us little over-achieving twerps sitting at home trying to help improve FO. 

  *Looks at self, Dom, Mal ... we iz da twerps. 

posted on January 24th, 2010, 8:52 pm

Well, I don't think we're twerps on the subject.   People who have played through multiple patches can see where the mod has been and where it is now.  Only Optec can truly see where it's going; we can only comment on what we see.  I hope that my long posts don't come across as rude or condescending.  I feel I have to write as much as possible to avoid misunderstanding.  It's like painting a picture, it's all about the background and detail!

posted on January 24th, 2010, 8:57 pm

Hahah no don't get me wrong I love your epic novels.  You've always got well-thought-out ideas and it's a pleasure to read them.  Half of your ideas always end up directly influencing ideas I get so keep the ideas rollin.

  And then fine, U iz da onlee twerp. 

posted on January 24th, 2010, 9:07 pm

yep, detialed reports and suggestions are always welcome we try to get Fleet Operations as close to the wishes of the community as possible

posted on January 24th, 2010, 9:19 pm

I guess being a twerp is better than being a tit.

[Jamess14]

posted on January 25th, 2010, 3:48 am

Last edited by Jamess14 on January 25th, 2010, 5:07 am, edited 1 time in total.

Great posts Mal, nice way to hijack the thread and make it better

On other things....Eresis.  You know that song War? 'What is it good for...absolutely nothing' I always hear this song when I mention it

And Radiation Array...if it does anything please someone inform me.

And Leahval...Short range + too slow(for range) + plastic hull + bug...veteran can't use Advanced Energy Reeling...a consistent bug for me. (Yes M. Disruptor is strong...when you get to use it)