Screamer and Mercury are still shit

[klapmongool]

Yea.. it is pretty clear neither of us said exactly that.


Well, I made clear what I think about the issue.

[Johannes]

But effectively you did remove Screamer and Mercury. The new units have little in common with the old ones, apart from name and model.


And about the targeting, they used to have the "delay" options, introduced by TFC iirc. That you could determine that some of them wait for X seconds when an enemy enters range, before picking a target they'll shoot. When did this disappear, was it bugged somehow?

[Silentwings]

The 'fire delay' was removed over two years ago, I don't know what the reason was. By the looks of things its removal was one of the last things TFC did.

[hoijui]

as silentwings suggest the problem might be that people may just did not adapt to the changed stats yet...
would it be feasible to implement a system that makes changes obvious, in-game?
i am thinking of something like: in the build menu, units that have changed stats since the last release, get a green glowing border, and when hovering over them, the tooltip that pops up gives a description of the changes, and maybe even a tip of how the use-case of the unit may be different now. of course this would surely be a lot of work with such human made descriptions added, but maybe it would also be ok without these. the big positive side-effect though, would be that instead of how BA works now.. basically appearing like the same game every release, at least for non-frequent players, this change could add a lot more sensation for players: ".. ouh wow.. they changed so much.. i had no idea.. lets look.. ouh mi favorite unit got changed! what is it...". plus of course.. it would be much more likely that people would test new units. the system can be refined like... only show these glowy things for the first 3 games with the new mod, and then auto-deactivate the new-changes widget. and maybe keep the change descriptions of the last 3 versions, just without the glowy border.

[Funkencool]

Hmm that's a neat idea. Even just a simple in game changelog would make a big difference. If it doesn't make it in BA it will in BAR.

[Johannes]

Not sure how increasing cost and buildtime, adding constant resource drain, reducing hp and adding the stockpile would make building these more appealing. The cases where one considers making these, it would be shooting near constantly regardless.

[==Troy==]

I always wanted screamer/merc to be an anti-bomber tower, with the ability to "mark" targets and not shoot at one at the same time.

I.e.
1) ignore fighters
2) each tower marks the target, no other tower would engage that target
3) fire.

Still imperfect, but would definitely prove more useful to pick out bombers from the fighterspam they are usually sent with.

===============================

Now to the actual changes, IMO the best way to introduce it into the game is to get a few veterans/regular players to use them in-game while also providing the feedback on the usefulness. Two clear advantages - feedback, and if it works, everyone else will pick up the strategy.

It would be most effective if BA devs would single out a group of people that are considered "skilled" in the game type [BA devs] are interested in, and have them provide regular feedback on particular units, as well as insights on the balancing issues. I am sure it is being done already, but likely no a much smaller scale and with great amount of personal preference in the selection of vets.

[Johannes]

I always wanted screamer/merc to be an anti-bomber tower, with the ability to "mark" targets and not shoot at one at the same time.

I.e.
1) ignore fighters
2) each tower marks the target, no other tower would engage that target
3) fire.

Still imperfect, but would definitely prove more useful to pick out bombers from the fighterspam they are usually sent with.

Why would you want that role for them specifically? During a bomber raid, you'd usually want all your towers to pick targets smartly to not overkill. Why program in complex behavior to use with only 1 tower type, are the longrange towers otherwise too samey to other turrets to need that? Also a long range turret, good for defense, would be boring since positioning would no longer matter much.

Rather than try to repurpose it to be used for something it was never really good for, I'd just keep the base design as is, and possibly buff it in a manner that simply makes it better - cheaper cost, slightly shorter reload, or such, without turning it to serve another purpose entirely than what it's been suited to before - area denial first and foremost.

[==Troy==]

Intended or not, it is one way I consider it would achieve a distinct purpose that is not replicated by other towers with just slightly different stat pool.

And why not others? Well, multiple reasons, a good one of which would be that targeting electronics costs too :) (otherwise why have the radar targetting facility, or why not have a cloak on every unit?)

I do want to emphasise that what I said was not really a direct suggestion/request to implement it as such, but rather my opinion as to how I would go about making merc/screamer more useful, while still keeping its uniqueness.

[Johannes]

Anti-bomber tower is not a distinct purpose. Every aa tower is used for that.

[albator]

Noone will build those think for the some old reason:

That is damn to expensive. And even it is long range, for the cost of 3 of them you make a fusion and start to spam fighter. basic gound t1 AA dealing fighter dmg while fighter wait a bit further so they can be in supperior number or being micro-ed to target bomber only.

I would probably only build them if MM eco was disable anyway.

A work around to make them better would be: they truly only target bomber: i.e. they only fire at other thing if no bomber can reach their range during their reload time. I realize it is heavy implementation cause you need to assess the speed of all the present bomber/gunship in range (and ofc building an air factory would also impact), whatever ,just an idea

[Johannes]

That is damn to expensive. And even it is long range, for the cost of 3 of them you make a fusion and start to spam fighter.

Well. One mercury easily shoots 1 fighter every 18,5 seconds, fighter which costs 11433 E under mm economy. That makes it drain 618 E per second from enemy under these conditions, and building those MMs and nanos that allow the enemy to make that fighter isn't free either.


Against bombers it won't ever be much good. One of these kills 1 bomber per bomber attack which isn't much for the towers cost, compared to other towers or fighters. Ofc if you cannot reach the bombers by other aa (fore example the bombers are attacking your raiders), then it makes sense.

Hmm but I'm talking about the old one here. The new one might do some good against bomber attacks when massed by your nanos and stockpiled, but the missile cost makes it ten times worse at fighter killing. Also that is awful gameplay mechanic, aa that can reach anywhere near your base with no way to harm it with clever play, you can only overpower it by somehow reaching the middle of your base.

[==Troy==]

That is damn to expensive. And even it is long range, for the cost of 3 of them you make a fusion and start to spam fighter.

Well. One mercury easily shoots 1 fighter every 18,5 seconds, fighter which costs 11433 E under mm economy. That makes it drain 618 E per second from enemy under these conditions, and building those MMs and nanos that allow the enemy to make that fighter isn't free either.


Against bombers it won't ever be much good. One of these kills 1 bomber per bomber attack which isn't much for the towers cost, compared to other towers or fighters. Ofc if you cannot reach the bombers by other aa (fore example the bombers are attacking your raiders), then it makes sense.

Hmm but I'm talking about the old one here. The new one might do some good against bomber attacks when massed by your nanos and stockpiled, but the missile cost makes it ten times worse at fighter killing. Also that is awful gameplay mechanic, aa that can reach anywhere near your base with no way to harm it with clever play, you can only overpower it by somehow reaching the middle of your base.

I think the consideration here is that using screamers/mercs against enemy fighter screen is generally useless, as the equivalent investment into exponentially growing economy would pay off faster than the tower would be able to kill the screen.

The purpose of it as anti-bomber that I personally see is in that it could be the added layer of protection for "all in" fighter + bomber attacks, where the fighter screen usually gets tangled in their own fight, and bombers tend to be able to go through. Merc/Screamer would be able to exclusively target bombers in this case, with range which permits it to have a response at a considerable range (unlike flak).

Hence what is likely to happen is that after initial rush for the fighter screen at around 11-12 minutes into the game, the Merc/Screamers would be built at about 20 minute mark to supplement the fighter screen.

Of course in the end everything is decided by a bomber spam, in which case Merc/Screamer is still appealing to the player with its large AOE (bombers must not be clustered - hence cannot penetrate in a single point and have to spread across the whole fighter screen) and still supplement the fighter screen, being able to pick out those few bombers that managed to come through.

Hence they would have a unique and useful role, which is not currently answered by any other tower in the game.

[Johannes]

I think the consideration here is that using screamers/mercs against enemy fighter screen is generally useless, as the equivalent investment into exponentially growing economy would pay off faster than the tower would be able to kill the screen.

Why post such assumptions when I just posted hard numbers that totally contradict that?



As for the anti-bomber role, again, it's poor design. A turret that kills a set amount of bombers no matter what else is going on, regardless of placement, it doesn't get duller than that.

[smoth]

I think the consideration here is that using screamers/mercs against enemy fighter screen is generally useless, as the equivalent investment into exponentially growing economy would pay off faster than the tower would be able to kill the screen.

AOE++?

[albator]

Watch a game with them today, them miss target most of the time, and for 1.7k metal, looks like a noob trap, maybe just remove them for the time being...

[Silentwings]

them miss target most of the time,

Can't reproduce - when I tested they hit their targets 100% of the time. Please make a short replay to demonstrate it.

[albator]

http://replays.springrts.com/replay/8bb ... d1cdf4421/

I had a look at the one on east side

[Silentwings]

I'm not chasing through a whole game after something that wouldn't reproduce. Make a short replay to demonstrate pls.

[albator]

you can change the game speed using alt+"+" key, east side, there is only one, it will take you 2 min...