Balanced Annihilation V6.31

[Hoi]

ooh

[ginekolog]

gator and flash are balanced ingame, proof is that competitive games can we won my either side.

And ingame realbattle balance is what matters.

Speaking of balance, core has weaker T2 ships beacuse of stupid lazer canons instead of plasma.

lazers:
- cant fire over arc
- do 50% dmg in distance

I have to switch to ARM now DANG I will miss my favourite pet, krow. Lovely krow

[KDR_11k]

Yes, Sleksa is speakibng the truth. Forb, numbers don't lie but they don't talk either, it's highly likely that your interpretation of the whole thing fails to take some factor or another into account (doesn't the gator outrange the flash anyway?).

Also things like the Anni already have compensation for the minintensity, an anni shot does 5000dmg max in BA but only 2500 in OTA.

Always keep in mind that BA was not balanced according to math but according to play experience, minintensity was taken into account even if it wasn't known because the effect on the actual gameplay is always there. The gator does the damage it should and it's the damage it does in actual pla y, not the damage it does in your math.

[det]

Decades/Corvettes are a good counter-example for "balance by play". If you don't know about minintensity, and you fight hovers naively, ships generally only make cost vs anaconda. Once you know about minintensity, you know that you just have to get your ships close to the hovers are they are beaten easily. A lot of competent players didn't know this trick.

[[Krogoth86]]

Also things like the Anni already have compensation for the minintensity, an anni shot does 5000dmg max in BA but only 2500 in OTA.

Well this is not correct in many ways...

First things first: The damage level may have been doubled in comparison to OTA but the reload time was too so the theoretical dps stays the very same. Apart from that you can't compare the damage levels with that from OTA because with AA there were huge changes especially on the units' health. A Krog for example had around 30.000 HP afaik while in BA it has around 135.000 HP so there is no plain formula how to adapt an OTA weapon to get a balanced value for BA as health and damage levels have been changed by quite a lot not speaking of the several special damage groups...

My complaints about the Annihilator aren't based around all this anyway but just a comparison to what the Doomsday machine offers. They don't have the very same role but they imo should be at least quite similar in terms of their gain per costs and there currently is a ridiculous difference between the two. Doomsday offers over 3 times the health for like 30% less costs and even the Doomsday's blue laser deals - well over 150% of what the Annihilator beam deals and that's just one of its 3 weapons...

The only advantage the Annihilator has is the range but with less than 200 more than a Vlaunch tank that's nothing of real importance. You'd better build Snipers or well pretty much whatever you want because you'll get way "more bang for the bugs" with pretty much anything...

So what do we have? A long range laser with way inferior stats when compared to a Doomsday (which should be of quite a similar efficency role wise) which will always waste 50% of its damage potential with the first shot with each also costing you 25metal and being totally weak to any type of spammed attack. Another nice fact would be that the Anni's explosion on death does even more damage than a self-ded Dommsday and so together with the very low health it's all about 3 Vlaunch rockets or some bombers to not just erase the Anni but also damage anything next to it...

A bit too much suckiness for just +200 range in comparison to an artillery...

[Evil4Zerggin]

I like Anni more because it has a better contrast to Pitbull, compared to Doomsday and Viper. Which isn't to say I don't like the Doomsday, but I think the Anni is better than the Pitbull in more situations than the Doomsday is better than the Viper.

When I build Anni, I use it mostly as an offensive weapon. I build it near the front of my line where it can snipe some of the enemy's defenses (e.g., MRPC) before they can react.

[Sleksa]

Yes, Sleksa is speakibng the truth. Forb, numbers don't lie but they don't talk either, it's highly likely that your interpretation of the whole thing fails to take some factor or another into account (doesn't the gator outrange the flash anyway?).

Also things like the Anni already have compensation for the minintensity, an anni shot does 5000dmg max in BA but only 2500 in OTA.

Always keep in mind that BA was not balanced according to math but according to play experience, minintensity was taken into account even if it wasn't known because the effect on the actual gameplay is always there. The gator does the damage it should and it's the damage it does in actual pla y, not the damage it does in your math.

how can you write what i think t.t

[LordMatt]

Speaking of balance, core has weaker T2 ships beacuse of stupid lazer canons instead of plasma.

They should be put back to what they had in OTA, changing the core ship's weapons was a stupid change for the sake of change IMO.

Always keep in mind that BA was not balanced according to math but according to play experience

And it's not surprising that "math" mods have not really caught on.

[Forboding Angel]

Always keep in mind that BA was not balanced according to math but according to play experience

And it's not surprising that "math" mods have not really caught on.

KDR, you know as well as I do that experience can in many ways distort reality, and Lordmatt, it has nothing to do with being a math mod. Evo isn't anywhere close to a math mod, however, if you aren't doing at least some basic math when balancing, ur doin it rong.

It's not hard to understand what the big deal is. The gator has too many negative things to it for it to be really viable as a 1:1 tool vs flash. Flash cost less, have all of what 85 less armor iirc, build faster, move faster, turn much more quickly and aim quicker.

In small numbers the gator should theoretically be able to overpower the flash, but once you get above 5 or so, the flash starts to dominate. Tbh it doesn't make the game dynamic interesting, it just makes it annoying. At lvl 1 you have very few good choices for the extreme early game, and even the raider has a good bit of crappyness to it (turns like a slug, accelerates slowly, aims slowly). The Gator makes for a damn poor defender (of course in capable hands it does a fair job), at max range it's damage is laughable, in close range it can't aim very well.

Essentially you have this scale on the gator

Max range............................med range.......................close range
35 dmg(aim is good).........About 55 dmg(aim is fair).....Full dmg(aim is very bad)

compared to the flash
Max range............................med range.......................close range
106 dmg(aim excellent).......106 dmg(aim excellent).......106dmg(aim is good)

Do you see why this makes the gator gimped in many ways?

Actually, tbh I would be perfectly happy if the gator's barrel turnrate were simply put to like 250 or 300 (300 would be doubling the rate)

I decided to open up the flash, here is it's rate:

Code: Select all

AimPrimary(heading, pitch)
{
	signal SIG_AIM;
	set-signal-mask SIG_AIM;
	turn turret to y-axis heading speed <200.000000>;
	turn sleeves to x-axis <0.000000> - pitch speed <200.000000>;
	wait-for-turn turret around y-axis;
	wait-for-turn sleeves around x-axis;
	start-script RestoreAfterDelay();
	return (1);
}

If the gator was about to be a good close range fighter then it would all start to make sense. Minintensity could be left the way it is, and everyone (including me) could be happy about it.

Once again... I dunno why everyone here thinks I hate TA. On the contrary I love TA. Yes, for me it is an eyesore, but I can get past that with pretty pretty widgets, and CA is a complete bastardization of the game. BA isn't true to the original game, but as a spring adaptation, it's not bad but there are some serious issues with it at current. Namely, the fact that historically *A mods are balanced by ARM players, and things get skewed because those players rarely play the side they don't like. As a result, large inconsistencies get missed and TBH it's a damn shame.

***OffTopic***
I also must admit that being referred to as a math balancer is annoying... Maybe you should play evolution sometime as terra vs an RAI explorer. Anyone care to explain to me why the explorer heavytank annihilates light and medium terra tanks en mass (and can pretty easily stand up to a terra heavytank toe to toe). That is not math based balancing. If you played the game and understood it, you would also understand why it is set up this way.

***OnTopic***
Noize, could the gheytor get a barrel turnrate increase? Hell lower the max damage of the gaytor if it makes you uncomfortable. At least at that point close range micro would be much much better.

[Day]

***OnTopic***

Could you grow a brain?

[Forboding Angel]

***OnTopic***

Hao does I grow brain?

Fixed.

[DemO]

Lol at this gator chat tbh.

[Forboding Angel]

Just rename the unit to "gheytor" == /thread



Edit: Look ever since uberhack the gaytor flash debate/debacle has been fought tooth and nail. It happened 10 years ago, it happens now.

[LordMatt]

KDR, you know as well as I do that experience can in many ways distort reality, and Lordmatt, it has nothing to do with being a math mod. Evo isn't anywhere close to a math mod, however, if you aren't doing at least some basic math when balancing, ur doin it rong.

wtf did I mention evo or you at all in my post and why are you posting about evo in the BA thread?

Just think of the number of variables one would have to accurately model to truely account for what happens in a single flash vs gator 1v1, and yet the mind of the experienced player does this automatically and can identify the factor that needs changing if there is an imbalance.

[Forboding Angel]

You made the suggestion that I was a math balancer, and I was correcting you on it. A modmaker calles upon examples that are close to home. In my case, that would be evolution.

Just think of the number of variables one would have to accurately model to truely account for what happens in a single flash vs gator 1v1, and yet the mind of the experienced player does this automatically and can identify the factor that needs changing if there is an imbalance.

Now this is just a load of bullwinkle.

The number of variables from a modmaker perspective is not that large really. The most pertinent are:

Speed that the units are traveling
barrel turnrate (Speaking of... Can someone give me an honest to god, good reason that the gator barrel turns slower than the flash?)
is the target unit turning? Does the barrel have to swing 45 degrees to bear on the target)
ranges involved
damage involved (affected in this case by minintensity)
reloadtime
areaofeffect (if applicable)

There are more factors, but above are the most important, and in most cases, several of them can be safely lumped together.

Experienced players take into account on average 3 of the above.


Edit: Regardless, this is on the verge of becoming a pissing match, and that wasn't the original goal, so to that end, Consider this closed on my end.

[LordMatt]

You made the suggestion that I was a math balancer, and I was correcting you on it.

Like I said before, I wasn't referring to you or your mod in the slightest.

[Forboding Angel]

fair nuff. Intertubes failtexttone and all that

[Lolsquad_Steven]

Why don't you learn how to use gator?

[Sleksa]

Why don't you learn how to use gator?

This would mean he'd have to stop playing ai's

[ginekolog]

Why don't you learn how to use gator?

This would mean he'd have to stop playing ai's

ouch , brutal one :)

forb, i rly appreciate all the work and maps u made for spring, but honestly, flash/gator seems fine. Check how some pros play CC, which is perfect t1 spam map. And either side can win, right? Just abuse longer range of gator, which means:

gator dps at 230 range: ~47
flash dps at 229 range: ~0

OMG , haxx?