Spring RTS Engine

i've noticed that hammers and thuds seem to do a lot better than they used to. they were already good in 1v1, the unit of choice for a map with lots of hills, especially a high metal kbot map. they were effective on maps like cooper hill, brazillian battlefield, battle for planet x, etc. I think the new change is unwarranted and now they are seeing play on maps like geyser planes and are even better on the maps they were before good at. post your opinions thanks. im not saying they are OP now, but i think they were fine and the change was unwarranted. besides, imo it is not natural for plasma bots to be machine guns.....

i never really saw them used before the change but i only play team games

Units are MEANT to be effective at things

Change was minor

Micro should be rewarded.

Done, keep as-is.

Change was pretty major imo. I posted the day the changes were made that Hammers and Thuds felt cheaper. I see some players pump out 5-10 Thuds/Hammers at the very game start.

Imo, they are too OP now.

I play mostly team games and I thought previously thud/hammer were only useful defending hills, but are now probably the kbot of choice for the late t1 stage. Early game I currently prefer rocko/storm to thud/hammer, but I wouldn't rule out changing my mind on this over time.

I think we should give it more time to see which unit is more overpowered.
It's not uncommon to see a player pump out 5 to 10 flash at start.

Beherith wrote:I think we should give it more time to see which unit is more overpowered.
It's not uncommon to see a player pump out 5 to 10 flash at start.

I feel that thud is bit too powerful on small maps, but I do agree with this. Give it a bit more time, so there should be more knowledge to what change would be good if any.

thirded, even tho i dont have spring installed, i am for letting things be for a bit and then balance changes will be more apparent. we've had the old thuds for a long long time now. let the new ones make their case.

The problem is that there are two styles of maps - Red Alert/Starcraft style (tiered but with ramps - these can be kbot-only ramps) and the ones that look like Perlin noise (ie. Brazillian). On Perlin noise maps, the plasma heightboost is used all the time. On tiered maps, the heightboost is mainly used for chokepoints - the rest of the battle occurs on flat land. In those cases, Hammers/thuds were useless.

And I can't think of a single large map that follows the Perlin noise model. So all the teamgame and FFA players saw the hammers/thuds as useless.

I dont think you guys understood my arguement. I am saying that hammers and thuds were fine units, not thought of as being underpowered before, and changing thier unit role for no reason was unwaranted and could change the mod for the worse. Balanced annihilation is a very stable mod and a big change like this is bad if it is unwarranted. Hammers and thuds are not OP now, they can just be used in a lot more situations and I think the difference changes the way kbots can be used and could have servere changes on the intricate balance of t1 units in 1v1s on balanced annihilation.

flop wrote:I dont think you guys understood my arguement. I am saying that hammers and thuds were fine units, not thought of as being underpowered before, and changing thier unit role for no reason was unwaranted and could change the mod for the worse.

You apparently didn't read the threads.

Balanced annihilation is a very stable mod and a big change like this is bad if it is unwarranted. Hammers and thuds are not OP now, they can just be used in a lot more situations and I think the difference changes the way kbots can be used and could have servere changes on the intricate balance of t1 units in 1v1s on balanced annihilation.

That was sort of the idea. Hammers, and kbots in general, had too narrow a role.

Thuds now easily beat flashes even on flat ground, i also think this was changed a bit too much.

caldera wrote:Thuds now easily beat flashes even on flat ground, i also think this was changed a bit too much.

I tested this cost for cost and think you're wrong. Even when I wasn't taking advantage of the flash speed (and abillity to encircle the thuds) the flash were winning.

thuds or hammers beat flash in most cases if they are microed properly

flop wrote:thuds or hammers beat flash in most cases if they are microed properly

flash beat hammers if they're microed properly too. It's easier to get the flash to surround the hammers than vice versa since they're faster. On the other hand if you can exploit hills and wreckage that's exactly where the hammers should be winning with good micro

What are these major role-changing mod-breaking changes are you people talking about?

As far as I can tell:

Reload : 1.75 -> 1.25 (-28.6%)
Damage : 104 -> 80 (-23.1%)
=> DPS : 59.4 -> 64 (+7%)

avoidfriendly added
predictboost added

For same cost/buildtime/hp/etc/etc

projectile speed also got increased

Beherith wrote:projectile speed also got increased

Not according to weapons.tdf

Hammers and thuds are not OP now, they can just be used in a lot more situations and I think the difference changes the way kbots can be used and could have servere changes on the intricate balance of t1 units

I dont see how making a redundant unit useful can be viewed as a bad thing. it just means there are now a few more situations where 1 con 5 flash repeat is not the only option. lets not forget that the intracate balance of t1 units largely consists of making a few jeffys, spamming flash for 10 minutes, then spamming stumpy

1v0ry_k1ng wrote:

Hammers and thuds are not OP now, they can just be used in a lot more situations and I think the difference changes the way kbots can be used and could have servere changes on the intricate balance of t1 units

I dont see how making a redundant unit useful can be viewed as a bad thing. it just means there are now a few more situations where 1 con 5 flash repeat is not the only option. lets not forget that the intracate balance of t1 units largely consists of making a few jeffys, spamming flash for 10 minutes, then spamming stumpy

Hammers and thuds were not redundant units. They saw/see play on lots of small maps. Your ideas about 1 flash 5 con then stumpies being the best is far from the truth unless your playing a large open map, and then hammers and thuds arent even useful (and shoudln't be) You basically just layed out a game of comet catcher, try playing some other maps.