XTA Balance!

[tanelorn]

for me, flakker power is fine atm.

4 of them can destroy 15-20 brawlers in a normal base. (more targets)

AHAHAHAHA

AHAAHAH

hahah

aha aha

ahem.

You're joking, right?

Maybe if the brawlers were set to hold fire and land next to them. MAYBE.

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By the way, I watched a single freaker fight a single flash tank today, and both ran away from eachother with 10% health left. Why should a fast running scout kbot be an even match for a flash tank, when AKs and Peewees, being combat infantry kbots, get eaten up by them?

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Another big issue: Warriors. These medium infantry kbots run faster than freakers and about as fast as Jeffys. This is a bug I hope.

[Min3mat]

OMFG TRY IT...
i think that ppl are complaining about brawlers because bulldogs can't beat them! if you opponent has invested in 50 brawlers and u invest in 3-4 flak tower DO U REALLY THINK U SHOULD WIN???
Go in singleplayer and test this so i can LMAO @ u

[PauloMorfeo]

... It's very difficult to counter an early weasle rush, or even a freaker rush for that matter. ... You are forced to either severly cripple your build by ... or just rely on dgun to defend your base early on 100 percent. ...

I think the comanders should (not too sure, though) be less powerfull in damage potential but be better anti-rush weapons. They already are anti-rush weapons which no other game i remember has but could be better. And they have the problem of beeing too good as offensive weapons which cause those comm rushes and comm bombings...

...
If the SY's could arrange for 2-3 elite players (damn, I wish I was pro )to make some very small tweaks to XTA, all documented, and then have an ongoing project whereby those players release a new version of XTA every month or so, with very small changes every time where they see neccessary.
...

Well, SJ and Fnordus qualify as elite players, they (or someone else) have been making adjustments to XTA and releases have been coming out every month or so.

[Pxtl]

OMFG TRY IT...
i think that ppl are complaining about brawlers because bulldogs can't beat them! if you opponent has invested in 50 brawlers and u invest in 3-4 flak tower DO U REALLY THINK U SHOULD WIN???
Go in singleplayer and test this so i can LMAO @ u

Well, not 50, but a hell of a lot. I mean, think about it - brawlers can attack almost every kind of unit in the game. Flak cannons are immobile, and pretty much primarily useful for brawlers, since bombers and l1 fighters can be well handled by missile launchers which have longer range. Keep in mind that if the enemy does not make a concerted airstrike then your flakkers are pretty much wasted, while the missile launchers are still useful thanks to their long range.

If the flakker weapons can't take down brawlers with ease, wtf else are they for? Why the hell shouldn't flakkers be able to bring down disproportionate numbers of gunships?

[SwiftSpear]

OMFG TRY IT...
i think that ppl are complaining about brawlers because bulldogs can't beat them! if you opponent has invested in 50 brawlers and u invest in 3-4 flak tower DO U REALLY THINK U SHOULD WIN???
Go in singleplayer and test this so i can LMAO @ u

Well, not 50, but a hell of a lot. I mean, think about it - brawlers can attack almost every kind of unit in the game. Flak cannons are immobile, and pretty much primarily useful for brawlers, since bombers and l1 fighters can be well handled by missile launchers which have longer range. Keep in mind that if the enemy does not make a concerted airstrike then your flakkers are pretty much wasted, while the missile launchers are still useful thanks to their long range.

If the flakker weapons can't take down brawlers with ease, wtf else are they for? Why the hell shouldn't flakkers be able to bring down disproportionate numbers of gunships?

Flakkers are pretty solid against L1's as well... hell, enough of them will stop small goli or bulldog rushes. Granted, you don't really get your money's worth for anti brawlie defence. They take too long to build and don't have enough coverage to really stop a brawlie swarm put up in equivalent time.

[Pxtl]

You can prep for L1's just as well with simple missile launchers for much, much less cost. Pretty much the entire purpose of flakkers is for big, scary L2 aircraft, of which the brawler is the chief concern. And as you said, they don't even do that good a job at that.

[mongus]

you touched a very interesting point swiftspear, the range.
even when flakkers are lvl2 defenses, dont have a big range.

still, the way it is now, a bunch of flakkers( 8 ), can destoy 25-30 brawlers np.

what i mean, is that its not that unbalalnced currently.

edit:

well, already tested and, 4 flakkers alone can defeat 10 brawlers.
sometimes 1 flakker alive, sometimes 2.

now... 4 flakkers = 4276m 69700e
and 10 brawlers = 3930m 78110e

that is, 4 flakkers are 206m more expensive than 10 brawlers. (e->m)

for that price you get 2 flakkers alive, vs 0 brawlers alive.
which is really, unfair, brawlers sould be less expensive.

In a crowded base, 4 flakkers can take 15 fine, but not 20. (still 2-3 alive).

anyhow, 5 flakkers completely erase 20 brawlers.

[tanelorn]

That ratio still isn't nearly good enough.

Why?

Because, flakkers are good against only 1 type of target. Brawlers kill everything even other gunships.

So, while you spend all your resources to quickly defend your base against brawlers, the enemy is spending all his resources making brawlers.

Now, here's the deal. For an equal amount of resources, here's what each guy gets:

Guy 1 makes flakkers:
He gets 5 flakkers. They are crap against a tank rush or kbot rushes, they are short range so can't defend against mobile arty. And they must be positioned to encircle his most critical parts of his base. With all this time and effort he has no offensive force.

Guy 2 makes Brawlers:
He gets 20 Brawlers. They destroy pretty much everything they are send against, even mobile flakkers. The only thing that can defeat them is a bunch of lv2 fighters or if they fly into a bunch of flakkers. This player now has a strike force that can kill advancing armies, kill undefended structures, and destroy or partially destroy defended bases. He has both offense and defense, can attack all ground targets, other gunships, and enemy bases.

So, maybe the amount of resources does add up. But which player has the better force when it's done? Definitely the one who made Brawlers.

I once played a game where one guy only knew how to make brawler swarms. When I disabled that unit without telling him, he did crap the whole game and we beat him easily.

Brawlers are one of the most noobish tactics other than nuking people. They are like the stupid army of death from the Lord of the Rings movie. Just toss them out and nothing survives.

[SwiftSpear]

That ratio still isn't nearly good enough.

Why?

Because, flakkers are good against only 1 type of target. Brawlers kill everything even other gunships.

So, while you spend all your resources to quickly defend your base against brawlers, the enemy is spending all his resources making brawlers.

Now, here's the deal. For an equal amount of resources, here's what each guy gets:

Guy 1 makes flakkers:
He gets 5 flakkers. They are crap against a tank rush or kbot rushes, they are short range so can't defend against mobile arty. And they must be positioned to encircle his most critical parts of his base. With all this time and effort he has no offensive force.

Guy 2 makes Brawlers:
He gets 20 Brawlers. They destroy pretty much everything they are send against, even mobile flakkers. The only thing that can defeat them is a bunch of lv2 fighters or if they fly into a bunch of flakkers. This player now has a strike force that can kill advancing armies, kill undefended structures, and destroy or partially destroy defended bases. He has both offense and defense, can attack all ground targets, other gunships, and enemy bases.

So, maybe the amount of resources does add up. But which player has the better force when it's done? Definitely the one who made Brawlers.

I once played a game where one guy only knew how to make brawler swarms. When I disabled that unit without telling him, he did crap the whole game and we beat him easily.

Brawlers are one of the most noobish tactics other than nuking people. They are like the stupid army of death from the Lord of the Rings movie. Just toss them out and nothing survives.

Um, brawlies require a different build then L2 ground or sea... and L2 air isn't nearly as effective without brawlies. If you disable them without telling someone of course they will get screwed if they go for brawlies.

When I play core I can go without golis or without kroggies no problem if I know they won't be there, but if I devote resoures to their respective structures then I get screwed.

[Pxtl]

while banninating brawlies without mentioning it is mean, his point is still valid - the only decent counter to brawlies is half-assed, and requires a total committment to defend a small portion of your base to brawler defense, while the brawlers can dominate at just about everything else. Basically, the current state of the brawler is like if anti-nukes costed as much as nukes - nukes are useful for blowing up anything, anti-nukes are only useful against nukes. If that was the case, there would be no reason to build an anti-nuke, just build a nuke and blow up his nuke silo first.

[SwiftSpear]

while banninating brawlies without mentioning it is mean, his point is still valid - the only decent counter to brawlies is half-assed, and requires a total committment to defend a small portion of your base to brawler defense, while the brawlers can dominate at just about everything else. Basically, the current state of the brawler is like if anti-nukes costed as much as nukes - nukes are useful for blowing up anything, anti-nukes are only useful against nukes. If that was the case, there would be no reason to build an anti-nuke, just build a nuke and blow up his nuke silo first.

Mean has nothing to do with it. When I rush brawlers I put all my res into an early L2 Air plant. An early L2 airplant is pretty much useless if there is no brawlers to push out of it, because in order to get it you are severly comprimizing your ground defences and res flow in the gambit that you will be albe to defend your base with gunships and push enough damage on the enemy at the same time with them to allow your slowed economy to catch up.

Not telling the brawler player that brawlers were disabled invalidates the experiment, because you basicly intentionally sabatoged his build. You might as well disable the core l1 vehical and kbot labs and then force all your opponents core.

[PauloMorfeo]

... tested and, 4 flakkers alone can defeat 10 brawlers.
...
now... 4 flakkers = 4276m 69700e
and 10 brawlers = 3930m 78110e

that is, 4 flakkers are 206m more expensive than 10 brawlers. (e->m)

for that price you get 2 flakkers alive, vs 0 brawlers alive.
which is really, unfair, brawlers sould be less expensive.
...

It seems the cost should be about the same because they spend more energy and you didn't showed up the Build Time cost which should be greater that the Flakkers's.
Keep in mind that the flakker is exclusive for Air defense (not much good as ground defense). And they are imobile. So, the Brawlers cannot have balanced fights against Flakkers.

[Kixxe]

Not telling the brawler player that brawlers were disabled invalidates the experiment, because you basicly intentionally sabatoged his build. You might as well disable the core l1 vehical and kbot labs and then force all your opponents core.

Even so, most pepole are flexibole enought to do something after noticing he could't use his favorite unit. Maybe reclaim and start on advanced vech plant?

Buf offcourse it was kinda rude not to tell him...



Meh, back ontopic.

Okay, Brawlers are imbalanced becuase of sevral things.

1: In large amount of numbears, you can't really kill them without SERIUS anti air support. Figherts, missiles, flakkers in large amounts to take em down before they kill your fusions. On the other hand, these armys take long time and lotsa rez to make, giving you plenty of time to build the defence or even better, to attack him.

2: Mobile flakkers suck, giving whatever attack you trow at him failure. He will lose units, but so will you. The only thing you can do to BEAT him, is to build an army of 1 gollie and rest antiair.

3: Building a complete brawler-free base when there are more then 30 brawler and to NOT porc is imposibole. Bacicly, the brawler players is forcing you to have small amount of land since you can't expand to much sinceyou need lotsa flakkers at evey point.

4: Brawlers kill everything. Not that they should't but it's to esay!

Solution? Don't change flakkers (maybe a smaller change in price), change the brawlers. The flakkers aren't imbalanced, the Gunships are. Make em slow, exspensive, and with less Damge per second...

Do you think flakkers suck? How esay do they take down fighters and bombers?

[tanelorn]

Brawlers are ok to be armored against ground weapons, but they need to be more sensitive to lv1 and lv2 aa weapons. That's a big issue.

[Min3mat]

no they are vulnerably and flakkers are extremely accurate now making them better against rushes (as someone said 4 can take 10+ brawlers) => they are cheaper

[tanelorn]

For the sake of non-spam: This post transferred from other thread.

K just played a test game of 0.64b1 with a buddy. 1 v 1. Tons of problems still. Let me elaborate:

1- Warriors are still as fast or faster than the high speed scout kbots. WHy should a well armed and high armored infantry kbot have such speed? Warriors are able to bypass assaults, and are able to rush into bases and reach the rear if there is any open route. They have the perfect combination of speed and armor to do this. This is a bad thing.

2- SUMOs are nice and slower, but their walk anim is no synched with their movements.

3- CANs are moving way too fast still. They truck along as fast as lvl1 tanks. This is really against the original CAN balance of OTA. They have a strong weapon and high armor. Speed is not a good idea.

4- Jets have terrible flight programs for attacking targets. I was losing freedom fighters on a 1-on-1 fight with a brawler, because after they attack they circle too close and get shot down while they circle. They circle so close that they are past the target for their second shot and have to circle again. In other words, fighter jets get one good hit in then circle endlessly and never get in another good shot again.

5- I consistenty lost fighter jets by being shot down at long range by ahnilators and sniper kbots. So, almost all my jet losses were due to ahnilators and brawlers. Two units that are not supposed to be AA. Why are ahnilators allowed to traverse so fast? That was supposed to be their natural weakness.

6a- The new arty rocket kbot does not have a minimum attack range, so they are best as close range shotgun kbots.

6b- The new arty rocket kbot attacks aircraft, and the angle allows it to send rockets far across the map into enemy bases, way beyond the maximum range ring.

6c- In general, the new arty rocket kbot has seriously changed the balance of the game. It's rockets are high splash, which kills most lvl1 kbots in one hit. This has several serious repercussions: First it makes lvl1 units even more worthless once lvl2 starts showing up. It basically takes them completely out of the game. Secondly, it ruins the whole 'fodder' aspect of base assaults. Lvl1 units commonly accompany an assault to draw fire from single-shot defenses like ahnilators and HLTs. Well now the splash of the rocket kbot kills lvl1s in high amounts. In a few seconds, your assault force will be completely rid of any level 1 units, and weak lvl2 units. Further encouragining the worst part of the game: krogoth and goliath swarms.

7- Why is the commander able to build one of the longest range and powerful medium plasma turrets in the game? Immolators do not belong in the commanders build menu. In XTA they are immensely different than OTA. So they shouldnt be treated like in OTA where the commander could place them.

8- To end on a positive note, Lvl1 aa rockets are doing better against brawlers, which is very good. A team of 20 aa kbots is able to defend against a team of brawlers. I do believe that lvl1 aa towers are far too low HP. A brawler can kill an aa tower in a few seconds. So whena team of brawlers attacks a group of aa towers, they destroy the towers so quickly that there is no danger, even tho there may have been many towers. I would recommend that lvl1 missile towers cost a bit more and get a good boost of HP. After all they are very specific in what they are good against, and are super weak against tanks. I see nothing wrong with giving them more HP.

[FireCrack]

The thread was already there... that doesnt realy cause spam anymore...

[SwiftSpear]

Not telling the brawler player that brawlers were disabled invalidates the experiment, because you basicly intentionally sabatoged his build. You might as well disable the core l1 vehical and kbot labs and then force all your opponents core.

Even so, most pepole are flexibole enought to do something after noticing he could't use his favorite unit. Maybe reclaim and start on advanced vech plant?

Buf offcourse it was kinda rude not to tell him...

A little bit of flexibilty isn't as good as knowing the build won't work right from the beginning of the game and designing a strategey properly from square 1. When I go brawlies I use a slower econonmy build and less base defences banking on the fact that my 3-4 early brawlies will be able to defend my base from fast units and at the same time take out enough of my opponent's res to knock his income to the same rate as mine (if not less). Building an advanced air, finding it can't build the primary unit you built it for, reclaiming, and THEN trying to change to a different strat all together is a frigging HUGE kick to the nuts in the early game.

Meh, back ontopic.

Okay, Brawlers are imbalanced becuase of sevral things.

1: In large amount of numbears, you can't really kill them without SERIUS anti air support. Figherts, missiles, flakkers in large amounts to take em down before they kill your fusions. On the other hand, these armys take long time and lotsa rez to make, giving you plenty of time to build the defence or even better, to attack him.

a counterforce of fighters that can kill a full line of 30 brawlies takes about 1/5 the time to build as the acctual 30 brawlies do. To build them so they kill the brawlies before they acctually reach the base takes 1/2 the time.

2: Mobile flakkers suck, giving whatever attack you trow at him failure. He will lose units, but so will you. The only thing you can do to BEAT him, is to build an army of 1 gollie and rest antiair.

I like to go several golis and several fighters. The big counter I've seen several time that lames that strategey is lines of dragon teeth infront of a brawlie players's base. I've even seen brawlie dragonteethers take out mass krogoth players. Dragons teeth are just too hard to kill by anthing with enough hitpoints to stick around under fire for more then 1 second.

3: Building a complete brawler-free base when there are more then 30 brawler and to NOT porc is imposibole. Bacicly, the brawler players is forcing you to have small amount of land since you can't expand to much sinceyou need lotsa flakkers at evey point.

Don't counter brawlers with flakkers, counter fighters with flakkers and brawlers with fighters. Flakkers should never have to do anything asside from making fighters' jobs easier. Bunch 4 or so flakkers around your fusions so they really don't go down easy and let your fighters do the rest.

4: Brawlers kill everything. Not that they should't but it's to esay!

Solution? Don't change flakkers (maybe a smaller change in price), change the brawlers. The flakkers aren't imbalanced, the Gunships are. Make em slow, exspensive, and with less Damge per second...

Do you think flakkers suck? How esay do they take down fighters and bombers?

I agree with the point, but I dissagree with the method. As I see it, bombers are supposed to be the anti structure/anti base unit, and gunships are supposed to hassle enemy ground troops. Currently bombers are just boarderline useless and gunships do everything. Now that we have new unit specific damage, why not just make all brawlie damage 1/2 against structures, and all bomber damage double? Make a real working paper rock scissors system.

[Justin Case]

Perhaps there ought to be a superheavy quad flakturret, to counter brawlers.

[Maelstrom]

yea, but make sure its air only, dont want to see it being used as a ground defence. That would definatley help though.