[old] Balanced Annihilation V6.81

[ginekolog]

they shouldnt need a special needs map to be balanced, they should be balanced on all the maps people normally play

Here's a fucking crazy idea. Build con vehs on flat maps and kbots on hilly maps

sounds crazy doesnt it?

BINGO.

About antis, from what i tested, 1 anti can stop 6 or more nukes if they are far away. Try it yourself to be sure.

[Wingflier]

90% of the maps people actually play are more vehicle oriented, and therefore kbots get the shaft more often than not.

An even greater portion of maps are land oriented, but nobody argues that ships should be given legs and the ability to crawl out of the water to better fight their land counterparts. It's not a problem with the mod if kbot maps are simply underplayed.

I disagree. I think you are taking ships out of context. Much of the reason that water maps aren't being played is because a lot of people dislike that aspect of the game.

It is universally agreed (from everybody I've ever met) that kbots are a fun and diversifying factor of the game that are underplayed because of common mod restrictions.

To put them at such a natural disadvantage on the most played maps really takes away from the depth of the game.

The mod should also be balanced on opinions of top players..Do you agree?

Yes. And many of the top players have already agreed that con kbots are pretty slow.

The International Scientific Method suggests that you are simply an arrogant, honorless noob who I could easily destroy in a 1v1.

Since I'm so awesome, I already played out several hundred variations of the 1v1 against you in my mind in a few seconds and the results are conclusive: you lost.

Damn. You are awesome.

Here's a fucking crazy idea. Build con vehs on flat maps and kbots on hilly maps

sounds crazy doesnt it?

Here's an idea. Think before you post.

Or at least read the actual thread.

Wing

[Jazcash]

they shouldnt need a special needs map to be balanced, they should be balanced on all the maps people normally play

About antis, from what i tested, 1 anti can stop 6 or more nukes if they are far away. Try it yourself to be sure.

I've done a few tests and from my knowledge from past games, I can officially say, antinukes stop nukes about 90% of the time. So really, there is no proper way to defend your base from nukes.
It doesn't how many nukes are fired, the time when the antis don't fire to stop them is random.

[ginekolog]

Balance suggestion:

Special mexes(exploiters...) should extract M on same rate as normal mex. They extract allmost 10% less and this is huge. They would still not be op because of cost,BT.

About anits: do they fire if u have big air swarm over them? This might cause them not to fire.

[Llamadeus]

90% of the maps people actually play are more vehicle oriented, and therefore kbots get the shaft more often than not.

An even greater portion of maps are land oriented, but nobody argues that ships should be given legs and the ability to crawl out of the water to better fight their land counterparts. It's not a problem with the mod if kbot maps are simply underplayed.

It is universally agreed (from everybody I've ever met) that kbots are a fun and diversifying factor of the game that are underplayed because of common mod restrictions.

What part of the mod restricts people from playing hilly maps?

[Wingflier]

No part of the mod. People just don't generally do it. Therein lies the problem.

My point being, even if you were to make kbots a tad faster, on (the rarely played) hilly maps, it wouldn't make things imbalanced because nobody is going to build vehicles there anyway.

So let me make this simpler.
-On the maps that everyone plays, kbots become a more viable option.

-On the hilly maps that are rarely played, vehicles can't really be used anyway, and so at worst, speeding con kbots up will only quicken the pace of the game - which isn't a bad thing.

Wing

[Gota]

How about copper hill?

[Wingflier]

90% of the maps people actually play are more vehicle oriented, and therefore kbots get the shaft more often than not.

An even greater portion of maps are land oriented, but nobody argues that ships should be given legs and the ability to crawl out of the water to better fight their land counterparts. It's not a problem with the mod if kbot maps are simply underplayed.

It is universally agreed (from everybody I've ever met) that kbots are a fun and diversifying factor of the game that are underplayed because of common mod restrictions.

What part of the mod restricts people from playing hilly maps?

Also, this is what I just saw you type in #Main.

[10:25:17 AM] <Llamadeus> it's better to go vehicles on any map

And I have a screen shot too if anything thinks I'm making it up.

Clearly, you're trying to play both sides of the argument, or just have no idea what you're talking about. I think you should probably sit this one out.

How about copper hill?

What about Cooper Hill? I already mentioned in a previous post that if the map is super small, con speed doesn't matter as much or at all because expanding quickly isn't as important.

Cooper hill is 8x6. One of the smallest maps in my list of over 600.

Common sense.

Wing

[Llamadeus]

Damn, you got me.

[Gota]

No part of the mod. People just don't generally do it. Therein lies the problem.

My point being, even if you were to make kbots a tad faster, on (the rarely played) hilly maps, it wouldn't make things imbalanced because nobody is going to build vehicles there anyway.

So let me make this simpler.
-On the maps that everyone plays, kbots become a more viable option.

-On the hilly maps that are rarely played, vehicles can't really be used anyway, and so at worst, speeding con kbots up will only quicken the pace of the game - which isn't a bad thing.

Wing

what about archer's valley?

[Jazcash]

What about Speed Metal?

[Pxtl]

Part of the problem is that maps need a certain amount of flat space to build on. If that flat space intersects with other flat spaces, and they all connect together in a way that leads one base to another base, then this map is viable for vehicles. For example, see the upper half of DSD.

[Llamadeus]

This property doesn't automatically translate to vehicle viability though. Almost every metal spot on Battle for Planet XVII is traversable by vehicle, but nobody would argue that it's remotely viable for anything but kbots.

[1v0ry_k1ng]

meh, there are no shortage of ways to point bots out as crap or vehicles superior than them in 95% of situations- player feedback, statistical fail, examples of their use, the immense shortage of kbot maps that play, replays, player oppinions- but if nobody gives a shit then its a waste of time posting it here

any chance of giving thud/hammer etc projectiles some kind of explosion fx?

[Llamadeus]

I think it's telling that most of the players who think that kbot balance needs to be redressed are generally less skilled or less experienced players (especially with regards to 1v1s). A significant fraction of 1v1s are played and won with kbots.

[Pxtl]

I think that has to do with the size and shape of 1v1 maps, more than the merits of the players talking. 1v1 maps tend to be smaller, hillier, and with more metal in close proximity to the start spots than the common team maps. The poor mobility of kbots is less of an issue on those maps.

Anyways, we're obviously never going anywhere on this, so jumping to another subject: could we PLEASE get an arcing projectile for the Leveler? I'm getting really sick of watching that thing die while it pointlessly pounds shells into the corpse of the very first thing it killed because another target is sitting behind the corpse... and it moves too slow to line up the next shot. I mean, it doesn't effect the balance of the unit much, and it would make it so much less frustrating to use. The Janus got arcing missiles, why not the Leveler? The explosion is big enough that it could still mop-up raiders even with a slower, more ballistic projectile.

[MR.D]

Leveler really can't use a ballistic arc very well because of the high speed of its projectile.

What it could use is no more self damage from the splash area that its weapon creates.

If the Leveler didn't take so much damage from its own fire, you wouldn't be able to kill it by ramming Gators or Flash into it, and same can be said about any high impulse weapon. (Goliath, Fatboy, Banisher, Janus)

Leveler only really works good against Kbots, or Flash and anything lighter, also does a decent job at knocking down light airplanes when you have no other AA nearby.

[jellyman]

I've always tended to play many more team games and find kbots quite viable in these games. Their biggest disavantage is their lack of ability to cover large distances quickly. But in team games the front is generally quite narrow, and kbots are plenty fast enough to reach the battle front in enough time.

I find kbots quite easy to swarm, and do damage early. Where kbots seem to be at the worst disavantage in team games i late t1, when stumpy spam, backed by reclaiming con vehicles is a powerful force that is extremely difficult to stop with t1 kbots. In this case con vehicles can reclaim in the dense wreckage fields even in the midst of combat gaining many times their metal cost before destroyed. Stumpies pack a large punch in small area. Rockos as the main kbot can't fire past the wreckage, peewees/aks can't be massed too large due to chain explosion, and hammers/thuds just don't seem to cut it, as they are slower and have less firepower and range than rockos.

I have done ok recently experimenting with a kbot start, then reclaiming lab and going to tanks for the stumpies/raiders, or if the battle isn't too hot going to t2 to get either the zeus or morty/dominator bots which seem to be the main viable kbots at t2 (with zipper and sniper finding a niche as well)

Balance changes for kbot vs vehicle that I would consider are:

*either reducing con vehicle hp, or giving con bots a compensating advantage.
*Eliminating peewee/ak chain explosion to allow these units to be massed effectively. However BA design philosophy seems to be that ak/peewee is an early raiding unit, and they are well balanced for this role.
*Perhaps hammer/thud could fill the stumpy niche as a heavy later t1 kbot. I am think a kbot that has roughly the range and speed (or maybe same speed as now) of rocko, costs maybe 180 metal and has the right hp/dps to be balanced. The idea being a unit that is less cost effective in small numbers, but can effectively pack significant firepower into a smaller area as the stumpy does.

[MR.D]

Alof of the death explosions from light units really don't need to be there, especially the T1 structures smaller than HLT such as LLT, wind, solar, and all the things that raiders would be able to hit, scouts/raiders and light vehicles included.

Maybe a metal limit for structures and units having a reduced or removed death damage could help, such as anything under 350 metal cost should have a tiny death damage explosion, or none.

Those units are light enough and don't really need to be taking or dealing more damage when they die next to something else, with exception to the MM's of course.

an example is how 4 pewees can take down a LLT if they need to in a raid, but usually take so much damage from the explosion that they all die after taking it down if they get too close.

[TradeMark]

Alot of the death explosions from light units really don't need to be there, especially the T1 structures smaller than HLT such as LLT, wind, solar, and all the things that raiders would be able to hit, scouts/raiders and light vehicles included.

Nah, chainexploding windmills is my hobby.

Have you thought about that when something spins very fast it will create much more damage when it breaks, than a unit which is still while breaking up?

Learn to space your windmills...

What it could use is no more self damage from the splash area that its weapon creates.

If the Leveler didn't take so much damage from its own fire, you wouldn't be able to kill it by ramming Gators or Flash into it, and same can be said about any high impulse weapon. (Goliath, Fatboy, Banisher, Janus)

FFS. Now how i can kill a bunch of levelers then? they would kill any unit which range is lower than the leveler.

IMO levelers are used as a defense to prevent flash spam etc. So its already too hard to kill line of levelers with spam, and you want to make it even harder -.-