two major XTA gripes

krogothe · Post by **krogothe** » 02 Dec 2005, 23:50

I dont really care if this has been posted before... if it has then this is a reminder of what needs to be done.

Firstly, i am sure everyone is aware of how utterly unbalanced the fark/necro kbots are, but Ill stress it:

1-They cost a mere 1000-odd metal and can rez about thrice that every minute
2-they build faster than anything, they are the cheapest workertime for your buck in the game
3-they repair faster than anything, same as above

Sure you can say they are vulnerable, slow, yadda yadda, but the fact is, unless you have a complex island-hopping-mountain-climbing strategy, or noobness in your veins, farks/necros are ALWAYS the way to go, its not an option, if you want to do well youll use necros/farks late game.

secondly, why the hell is an air repair pad better at making power than a solar??? its supposed to repair aircraft, not being an amazingly efficient and cheap power source!

I wont go into further detail, and feel free to flame or disagree, i know Im right and pretty much any long XTA game will prove my case.

Please fix it almighty devs! (how? cut the workertime of necros/farks to 30-50% and make the air repair pad make only say 5-10 E)

Kixxe · Post by **Kixxe** » 02 Dec 2005, 23:56

Puh, long time, no post about this.

http://taspring.clan-sy.com/phpbb/viewt ... ta+balance

I don't blame you, but use it.

krogothe · Post by **krogothe** » 03 Dec 2005, 00:01

actually tbh XTA is a bit screwed for balance...
weasels/jeffys are turdburglars atm...
in small maps if you dont use them youre almost toast, they are too amazingly good at taking out windmills and mexes!

It could be fixed so easily...

SwiftSpear · Post by **SwiftSpear** » 03 Dec 2005, 01:32

I know it's OTA standard, but I frigging hate having to babysit my mexes. I think it's too far that any player can send the weakest unit on his team and rowkill every mex you have 1 after another without having to stop moving. I don't think mexes need to be invincible, they should just acctually stay alive when you put defence up becide them, not get sniped out behind an LLT by one peewee.

Windmills are supposed to be weak. You can build them wherever you want, and that means in the back of the map behind tonnes of defence. Mexes by nature have to be in the field, meaning they should have some ammount of automatic protection, even if it's just a bit of armor to give you time to react when 2-3 peewees start stalking your mexes.

DeathHawk · Post by **DeathHawk** » 03 Dec 2005, 01:32

Why doesnt someone step up and control the updates for XTA like give it some new models and make the belence right?

SwiftSpear · Post by **SwiftSpear** » 03 Dec 2005, 01:38

DeathHawk wrote:Why doesnt someone step up and control the updates for XTA like give it some new models and make the belence right?

Because that's SJ's job... He hasn't disappeared, he still does some work, he just didn't have time for project lead any more.

SJ is one of the best players I've ever seen, there is no one qualified to replace him. XTA is very balanced for good players, what it needs is ideas to lessen the learning curve that don't destroy high level balance at the same time.

SinbadEV · Post by **SinbadEV** » 03 Dec 2005, 02:32

EVERY DECK NEEDS MANA!!!

BadMan · Post by **BadMan** » 03 Dec 2005, 05:05

The thing I hate the most about XTA are the jeffy/weasels and zippers/freakers. For scouts they are WAY overpowered. Couple that with fast self repair, and it sucks even more.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for rushing and all that, but these things can rush the piss out of anything. They seriously need a hp reduction, or weaken their weapon or increase their cost to 2x that of a flash/gator or peewee/ak. Cuz right now they cost same metal wise, but only energy wise do they cost more. In the early game, its energy u have plenty of, so its not much of a burden for what these things can do.

LLT's are nice, but for the cost of one and their inability to shoot over anything, its not really worth building. They can just hide behind a mex, kill it, get hit 1 or 2 times and hid behind something else or behind some wrek and never get hurt. Sams/slashers or jethros/crashers are best def against them, but due to jef/weas zip/freak speed, they can get out of range in no time then self recover.

Anyway, thats my opinion.

SwiftSpear · Post by **SwiftSpear** » 03 Dec 2005, 08:20

BadMan wrote:The thing I hate the most about XTA are the jeffy/weasels and zippers/freakers. For scouts they are WAY overpowered. Couple that with fast self repair, and it sucks even more.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for rushing and all that, but these things can rush the piss out of anything. They seriously need a hp reduction, or weaken their weapon or increase their cost to 2x that of a flash/gator or peewee/ak. Cuz right now they cost same metal wise, but only energy wise do they cost more. In the early game, its energy u have plenty of, so its not much of a burden for what these things can do.

LLT's are nice, but for the cost of one and their inability to shoot over anything, its not really worth building. They can just hide behind a mex, kill it, get hit 1 or 2 times and hid behind something else or behind some wrek and never get hurt. Sams/slashers or jethros/crashers are best def against them, but due to jef/weas zip/freak speed, they can get out of range in no time then self recover.

Anyway, thats my opinion.

They aren't scouts. They are fast attack units, and they cost 4 times as much as peewees, AKS or light tanks.

Kixxe · Post by **Kixxe** » 03 Dec 2005, 11:10

Also, LLT are to slow to take em out, but MT take em out esaly. Srsly, place 5 MT's around your base, and single frekers and wesels won't bother you aging. (unless he builds like 5... witch is when you need more defences. Witch is the only logic thing to do.

About mexxes. 1. On a 1.9 spot, a mex pays for itselt in metal after about 30 seconds. 2. The thing about mexxes is that they should die esaly. So that good commanders will have a huge radar coverage and use mobile troups mixed with MT and LLT and MINES to kill of any raider. Plus, try to DT your mexxes. most of the time units will have trouble firing over the DT, even in the spring eninge. Or you can try to invest in more base defences in PORC. since expanding is a advantge, you need to have risks.

colorblind · Post by **colorblind** » 03 Dec 2005, 11:18

SwiftSpear wrote:
BadMan wrote:The thing I hate the most about XTA are the jeffy/weasels and zippers/freakers. For scouts they are WAY overpowered. Couple that with fast self repair, and it sucks even more. (...)
They aren't scouts. They are fast attack units, and they cost 4 times as much as peewees, AKS or light tanks.

And if you're so frightened of getting a couple of them after you in the early game, build some yourself and put them on patrol. Problem solved.
Back on Krogothe's original post, I have to disagree with him about Farks / Necros. They have a buildtime of decades: you could have had a dozen of lvl2 con-units before you have only one Fark. And about the rezzing, well, you see, the metals already there in the wreckage.

I agree with Swiftspear that XTA is very balanced; you've just got to learn how to play it.

smokingwreckage · Post by **smokingwreckage** » 03 Dec 2005, 11:24

I tend to think the XTA FARK is well toned down from the original, which was pretty quick to build, but so small and fast you could cram far more of them around a building or on patrol. Man could those little buggers build. The rezzing is just a rebalance because ARM had nothing even vaguely on a par with the Necro.

BlackLiger · Post by **BlackLiger** » 03 Dec 2005, 12:14

SinbadEV wrote:EVERY DECK NEEDS MANA!!!

Would you say 22 mana is too much? Even in a T2 deck?

Just wandering off topic for a second.

Yeah, Mex's usually took more in OTA...

SwiftSpear · Post by **SwiftSpear** » 04 Dec 2005, 01:39

smokingwreckage wrote:I tend to think the XTA FARK is well toned down from the original, which was pretty quick to build, but so small and fast you could cram far more of them around a building or on patrol. Man could those little buggers build. The rezzing is just a rebalance because ARM had nothing even vaguely on a par with the Necro.

That's probably because offencive krogoths goli's and sumo's weren't supposed to be ressurectable.

FoeOfTheBee · Post by **FoeOfTheBee** » 07 Dec 2005, 17:04

If you watch an SJ replay, or any skilled player, you will see several early missile towers for freakers/jeffies.

SwiftSpear · Post by **SwiftSpear** » 07 Dec 2005, 22:13

Foe OfTheBee wrote:If you watch an SJ replay, or any skilled player, you will see several early missile towers for freakers/jeffies.

Ya, and I don't know how they do it. My builds pretty much as fast as possible for getting up early units as well as the first misslers. (kbotlab queue 2 builers and a couple rockets and set kbot lab to gaurd, mex 2 energy, 1 mex 1 energy, then comm runs around getting mex until I need to pull him back for defencive reasons) with the guarding cont kbot pushing out units I can just barely keep a nano overflow from bugging me in the beginning of the game, but I almost always have a FA unit on my butt before I get any missle towers or rocketers out, and it's even worse for small maps. I'm starting to think I should be sneaking LLTs in after the second and third mex just to ensure my metal doesn't die before I can get some rockets to defend it.

FoeOfTheBee · Post by **FoeOfTheBee** » 07 Dec 2005, 22:52

Have your first construction unit built 3 or 4 missle towers with commander's help. The towers are cheap. 3 with a clear field of fire will kill a freaker.

AF · Post by AF » 07 Dec 2005, 23:04

Why didnt anybody tell me these things, I could have made a lot of improovements to the NTAI buildtree. Suffice to say the buildtree ahs been edited.

Come on people, an AI that runs off fo hardcoded buildtrees and has to deal with freakers that scout by visiting mex spots?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

Kixxe · Post by **Kixxe** » 08 Dec 2005, 12:38

You did'nt ask. =D

krogothe · Post by **krogothe** » 12 Dec 2005, 02:16

okay lets be serious now
if you build loads of missile towers youll be at an economic disadvantage against the guy who built a weasel early on and sent his comm/cons to build useful stuff.
Setting weasels to patrol defensively doesnt prevent your mexes from getting owned and anyone whos got half a braincell or 2 mins experience with XTA would know that. By the time you kill the weasel with your patrol half of your metal and wind is gone.
The ONLY real choice is sending weasels yourself and hoping your comm will dgun the enemy's quicker than him!
sure, sending other lvl1 units is also effective but nowhere near as good as the super-fast, super-quick-repairing, super-cost-effective,super-powerful-laser-equipped weasels/jeffys.

and necros/farks are ridiculously overpowered, put them to build a vulcan and they will consume 5k (YES FIVE THOUSAND) energy per SECOND. Dont even try to tell me this is not way too high! they are expensive but they are by FAR the cheapest workertime for your buck, and since they can rez ANYTHING very quickly, it just makes them a necessity in any late game. People who rely on millions of con planes clearly havent evolved from OTA. send a con plane and a necro on a transport and voila, you saved yourself 30 planes and you can rez shizzle!

Please dont try to argue against the fact that these units are extremely overpowered beyond reason!

Spring RTS Engine

two major XTA gripes

two major XTA gripes