Absolute Annihilation 2.11

LordMatt · Post by **LordMatt** » 03 Sep 2006, 19:39

Pxtl wrote: Corvettes and subs do quite fine against Destroyers. They don't kill the destroyer perfectly - you'll take some losses, but it'll be worthwhile. Not to mention aqua-HLTs.

I'd have to see it done, in game with good players to agree with you. In my experience they don't do well enough, hence the rush to destroyers in competative games.

Neddie · Post by **Neddie** » 03 Sep 2006, 21:01

I like Seaplanes as they are, an upper tier air alternative for bloody water! That said, I'm not overly fond of the Sea -> Land balance, and I find I haven't scrutinized the effects of Seaplanes + Sea -> Land nearly enough.

Pxtl · Post by **Pxtl** » 03 Sep 2006, 21:28

Machiosabre wrote:
Pxtl wrote: This, I agree with. Seaplanes should be reformatted into L1.5 units - balanced against L2 units, but with less variety and no L2 con.
wouldn't it be easier to just keep them the way they are and just let lvl1ships and planes build them?, I don't think theres a need for lvl1.5 air, and you wouldn't be able to get good air at sea anymore

The problem is twofold:
1) They're currently powered as L3 units. That is, seaplanes are better, dollar for damage, than L2 planes. That's bad. Seaplanes need to be nerfed into L2 units.
2) They're not really available until rather late in the game - your suggestion of making them L2 units would help... but the factory is priced as an L1.5 factory. Allowing seaplanes at L1 would mean the same problems as the amphilab - a way to "skip ahead" to L2 naval units without paying the full 4000-metal price of an L2 lab.

I suppose the best option, in reviewing the seaplane stats/loadout, is to make them into standard L2 units: that is, price the seaplane lab as a standard L2 lab (4000ish metal) and slightly raise the price on the seaplanes to balance with their L2 plane counterparts. That sounds sane, doesn't it?

Of course, here's where I get controversial: How about the seaplane lab become "L2 Hover"? That is, where you need L1 kbots to build L2 kbot lab, L1 tanks to get L2 tank lab, l1 boats to get L2 boat lab, how about L1 hover to get L2 seaplane lab? To make this circumventable, add the L1 hovercon to the L2 naval-engineers build list. This is just thinking out loud here, that's not a totally serious suggestion.

Oh, and Caydr: having experimented with the L1.5 AA2.11 hovercraft recently: please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please keep the "support hover" concept. I fscking love them. Nerf their depthcharge to crap so it takes 10 of them to kill a single sub in 10 seconds, I don't care - it's just so wonderful to have that option. Although there is a bug with them in AA2.11 - they don't seem to attack underwater buildings like underwater fusions and makers.

LordMatt wrote:
Pxtl wrote: Corvettes and subs do quite fine against Destroyers. They don't kill the destroyer perfectly - you'll take some losses, but it'll be worthwhile. Not to mention aqua-HLTs.
I'd have to see it done, in game with good players to agree with you. In my experience they don't do well enough, hence the rush to destroyers in competative games.

Remember that 'vettes cost less than half what cruisers do, so they need to be massed. People rush to destroyers because they're easier to manage than a mixed force - a force of destroyers with skimmers for spotting can handle light air, pound enemy units, destroy defenses, and fight off a light submarine attack. A concerted response of any one unit class to attack will destroy it's corresponding destroyer + skimmer force, but a mixed force of counters will find them being simultaneously pantsed by each of the different weapons involved.

Neddie · Post by **Neddie** » 03 Sep 2006, 21:31

Just a side note, they aren't technically powered as L3 units because L3 units are traditionally less efficent for cost. They are unbalanced L2 or L2.5, if you look at the logical situation.

That said, I agree with Pxtl for most of his statement.

Caydr · Post by **Caydr** » 03 Sep 2006, 21:31

Nothing relating to current hover/water/seaplane/amphibious balance has any relevance anymore. I've got a plan in place to put things right.

Neddie · Post by **Neddie** » 03 Sep 2006, 21:41

Well, thank you for pointing that out to us, Caydr. I assume it involves Hovers, Sea units that turn the water into wine, and poor players that whine about the wine.

Egarwaen · Post by **Egarwaen** » 03 Sep 2006, 22:59

Do AKs really need the DPS increase? They still outrange Peewees and are faster, aren't they?

Pxtl · Post by **Pxtl** » 03 Sep 2006, 23:53

Egarwaen wrote:Do AKs really need the DPS increase? They still outrange Peewees and are faster, aren't they?

Yes, but unlike peewees they're useless for just about everything but scouting and (when micro'd) killing peewees. Peewees are still useful for backing up an assault later on in the L1 game, but AKs are left aside... the problem is balancing that against the initial "first minute" gameplay.

Egarwaen · Post by **Egarwaen** » 04 Sep 2006, 00:17

Pxtl wrote:[Peewees are still useful for backing up an assault later on in the L1 game,

I'd say they're both a waste after you start seeing heavy LLT concentrations. Neither is going to survive to get off a shot.

Pxtl · Post by **Pxtl** » 04 Sep 2006, 00:21

Egarwaen wrote:
Pxtl wrote:[Peewees are still useful for backing up an assault later on in the L1 game,
I'd say they're both a waste after you start seeing heavy LLT concentrations. Neither is going to survive to get off a shot.

I play Core primarily, so I'm not an expert, but I sometimes seem them used to good effect as "the battle has started, now rush in the peewees while everybody's locked onto the more armoured targets" since peewees (a) are fast enough to join a battle late, and (b) can deal out a lot of damage if they get into firing range.

LordMatt · Post by **LordMatt** » 04 Sep 2006, 01:39

Caydr wrote:I've got a plan in place to put things right.

What's that?

Ishach · Post by **Ishach** » 04 Sep 2006, 02:47

Machiosabre wrote:While we're un the subject of air, fighters need to be butchered in their strength vs ground, and dont gimme that fighters die so easy stuff.

I'm not talking about fighters attacking bases, just defening them, like everytime you break through fighterswarms kill your attack, of course jethros etc are good against fighters but they don't get more than a few shots of if they're targeted, so they only help for about 5 seconds unless you have a ton of them.

This has been mentioned a bunch of times before and fighters are already getting more expensive next version, but I still think they have no business killing ground units.

As much as I love using fighters for ground defence on comet, I also think this is a really big balance problem and probably should be nerfed. They are also ridiculous against commanders who dont have anti air around them, when you have 10-20 of them they create an area of bombardment around the target which means it cant build anything because its getting iht by a missle before the nanolathe gets to it.

EXit_W0und · Post by **EXit_W0und** » 04 Sep 2006, 03:52

Freedom fighters are fine, if you send 10-20 of any aircraft with ground attacking ability at all on a target that has no aa near it the target hasn't a chance in hell. About 5-6 defenders will decimate 10 freedom fighters nae bother
Build aa you fool.

Neddie · Post by **Neddie** » 04 Sep 2006, 03:58

My sentiments precisely.

EXit_W0und · Post by **EXit_W0und** » 04 Sep 2006, 04:16

Back to talking about ships:

I agree with some of what Lord matt said - destroyers do need a nerf but i'm not sure they need a cost reduction with it. Would it be an idea to give corvettes the destroyer deck laser instead? So they better fufill the role of close range combat/ swarm killers.

Subs should definitely have a faster torpedo, the number of times they miss even slow moving construction boats is irritating. Though destroyers should still be able to take them out without too much bother since that is their purpose.
For torp launcher sub balance:
Maybe make the torp launchers a bit more expensive and the torps have slightly less damage against subs? The balance its quite significant right now so its hard to say how much change is needed or too much here.

Ishach · Post by **Ishach** » 04 Sep 2006, 08:43

Whats silly is freedom fighters are more effective if you want to attack a ground target than bombers are.

And if you read Machio's post he also talked about using them for ground defence, which they are ridiculously good at (On comet catcher)

jellyman · Post by **jellyman** » 04 Sep 2006, 09:36

To recap my argument about level 1 air:

I claim that if we buff bombers/banshees that this would encourage more building of anti air. This would reduce the frequency of players being pwned horribly by level 2 air because of not having built AA.

I am then told that I am crazy, no way, and that bombers/banshees are usefull as they are. Oh and that if I perceive that a unit is imbalanced that I should exploit it in the tournament (how do you exploit a unit I think should be buffed and that no one builds???)

None of this has any relevance that I can figure out to my original argument. So maybe I didn't state it clearly enough. So maybe I should drive everyone else crazy by stating it yet again.

Maybe I've failed to address an assumption that if unit X is reasonably balanced now that buffing it will automatically cause an imbalance? An accurate assumption for ground units, but I don't think it holds for air units becasue of the rock paper scissors effect.

If you buff a ground unit by 10%, it could easily change from a unit that is roughly equal against other ground units, to a unit that is obviously better than all other ground units. Its obvious that you should build only the buffed unit, and other ground units never get built. So the game is imbalanced.

But if you buff air generally, it will beat ground easier than it does now. But because anti air beats air by such a long way (the rocks paper scissors effect) the buffed air would only be unbalanced until people learn that they need to build more anti air then they currently do now to hold it out. The effect of buffing air would be to encourage more building of air, and then by necessity more building of anti air. It will not prevent people from building ground units. The game would still be balanced. Its just a different balance with more air, and less ground. And hopefully more anti air, and less nasty surprise level 2 rush air pwning.

So to help those of you looking for a counter argument which actually makes sense and shows an understanding of my arguments try:
- no actually most players build enough anti air to effectively hold off a level 2 air rush
- no its good for the game that even our best players are occasionally beat by someone else going for a level 2 air rush.
- buffing level 1 air won't encourage more people to build more anti air, it will just cause more people to whine that level 1 air is overpowered.
- buffing level 1 air will make it too easy to pop a commander early game.

or something other than level 1 air is fine the way it is.

Because the argument has nothing to do with whether level 1 air is useful or not. Nothing at all. Its about the level 2 air. Brawlers. And that core missile shooting thing gunship. The raipier. And the current lack of incentive to build anti air earlier. errrr...... (yeah ok you can call me crazy now - because I definitely am)

Padded cell here I come

KDR_11k · Post by **KDR_11k** » 04 Sep 2006, 11:07

I don't know about others but I'm always paranoid about anti-air defense and build a defender before I even bother with an LLT.

Ishach · Post by **Ishach** » 04 Sep 2006, 11:24

jellyman wrote:To recap my argument about level 1 air:

I claim that if we buff bombers/banshees that this would encourage more building of anti air. This would reduce the frequency of players being pwned horribly by level 2 air because of not having built AA.

I am then told that I am crazy, no way, and that bombers/banshees are usefull as they are. Oh and that if I perceive that a unit is imbalanced that I should exploit it in the tournament (how do you exploit a unit I think should be buffed and that no one builds???)

None of this has any relevance that I can figure out to my original argument. So maybe I didn't state it clearly enough. So maybe I should drive everyone else crazy by stating it yet again.

Maybe I've failed to address an assumption that if unit X is reasonably balanced now that buffing it will automatically cause an imbalance? An accurate assumption for ground units, but I don't think it holds for air units becasue of the rock paper scissors effect.

If you buff a ground unit by 10%, it could easily change from a unit that is roughly equal against other ground units, to a unit that is obviously better than all other ground units. Its obvious that you should build only the buffed unit, and other ground units never get built. So the game is imbalanced.

But if you buff air generally, it will beat ground easier than it does now. But because anti air beats air by such a long way (the rocks paper scissors effect) the buffed air would only be unbalanced until people learn that they need to build more anti air then they currently do now to hold it out. The effect of buffing air would be to encourage more building of air, and then by necessity more building of anti air. It will not prevent people from building ground units. The game would still be balanced. Its just a different balance with more air, and less ground. And hopefully more anti air, and less nasty surprise level 2 rush air pwning.

So to help those of you looking for a counter argument which actually makes sense and shows an understanding of my arguments try:
- no actually most players build enough anti air to effectively hold off a level 2 air rush
- no its good for the game that even our best players are occasionally beat by someone else going for a level 2 air rush.
- buffing level 1 air won't encourage more people to build more anti air, it will just cause more people to whine that level 1 air is overpowered.
- buffing level 1 air will make it too easy to pop a commander early game.

or something other than level 1 air is fine the way it is.

Because the argument has nothing to do with whether level 1 air is useful or not. Nothing at all. Its about the level 2 air. Brawlers. And that core missile shooting thing gunship. The raipier. And the current lack of incentive to build anti air earlier. errrr...... (yeah ok you can call me crazy now - because I definitely am)

Padded cell here I come

agreein'

Min3mat · Post by **Min3mat** » 04 Sep 2006, 12:08

just cos dragon is leaving i'll agree with him for once :)

also DO NOT nerf AKs
they are balanced simply because they make CORE such a different playstyle, they are just plain awesome. Since a recent nerf microing them against PW has been impossible and simply not worth the absurd micro time as well as the fact PWs will just plain OWN them. But i love them to bits because they are STILL useful and useable <3 <3 <3
please don't nerf them >.> in fact i think that a 20-30 range buff is in order...

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Absolute Annihilation 2.11