DISCUSS: The Rock/Paper/Scissor Thread

[Daemon]

I don't want anything, personally . The less changes, the better. But if we do make some, they have to be carefully considered all around. The driving motives should be the ones already stated: balancing the game at a team level, and improving the usefulness of underused items, weapons, units and tech lines.

But anyway, i don't get whatever made you think i wanna use the pub settings for cws or a template for the change.

[H3027]

@Daemon:

You said: "And no, we're not doing this for clanwars only." The word "this" was neither specified enough nor refering to a clear definition to let me know what you precisely mean.

[Daemon]

"Re-balancing"

[H3027]

Well, that's not clear enough.

[-Mein-]

We should balance Savage for clanwars only. Keep in mind that public servers use already the clanwar balance, with exception of the xp, gold, respawntime, slots etc server settings which will be changed by server admins anyways, no matter how the balance will be adjusted. Crucial settings which change the gameplay 300%, changed by individual server admins differently on each server. We have no control there. (Isn't it ridiculous to even discuss about details like whether sensors shall be stacked in one slot or not, which changes the gameplay minimally compared to for instance the huge difference between 30 and 15 seconds respawntime changed by server admins, where we don't even have an influence?) Hence, let's focus on what has clear standards: competitive Savage.

So if we are going to balance clanwars, we are done. Clanwars are even already. Just make some offical settings your server need to apply if you want to use that server in the NSL.
Like you said respawntime, starting gold and xp. Rest is pretty even already, you don't have the problem that sac rushes are overpowered, neither is anything else overpowered in a clanwar.

[shuN]

Daemon.. if I appreciated such re-balancing.. I would once again host my own game servers for Savage based on, all votes accounted for, necessary server settings that would be ideal for PUB and competitive Savage gameplay. (multiple servers, mind you)  ---- However, my location is the US, so I doubt that would effect any current European players decisions as such.

Essentially my opinion on re-balancing focus strictly on item/weapon use and the following:

I would aim to make all tech usable, from all tiers. Currently, IMO, there isn't much 'situational' usage:

Beast team would primarily use tempest as their ranged weapon of choice.
Human team would primarily equip a coil rifle as their long ranged weapon.

Human team, as a whole, has much more choices in effective weapon use.

Humans can equip Flux for their medium to short range weapon choice.
Extremely short ranged weapon could be change to a disrupter (primary single shot dmg at extreme close range)
Humans could also use a scattergun for effective "aoe" style short ranged damage.

IMO, The chemical tree yields some un-impressive weapons, thus no one uses it.
But wait.. mortar is a great deterrent and great at inducing confusion in the midst of a large group of Beast units.

IMHO, Mortar should not get any change, except that the shell damage radius should be increased which would not increase it's dmg, only it's effectiveness at targeted/damaging multiple enemies.

Incinerator has already been discussed for obvious reasons.

Launcher should stay the same, EXCEPT incsreadd velocity. Great weapon by any rocket launcher-styled weapon in any game is like 40x faster then this. Effectively at close range due to obvious reasons (well, 5m away it will hit its target) but any medium to long-range distance.. it's like the Matrix.. the enemy can just dodge and watch the shit fly by like slow-mo was only placed on its shell.

For Human electric tree:

This is a great tree already.. The only difference I would make is to allow users to rabidly produce disrupter shots at the click of a mouse button. This would produce a semi-automatic styled weapon with burst damage (ie: holding the button down to gather energy) which would make it usable in multiple target applications but still hold value when 1v1, or as a ranged weapon that does decent burst damage.

EDIT: PLEASE ADD BLEED EFFECT TO XBOW AS A CHANCE TO PROC. IF THIS IS NOT POSSIBLE.. PLEASE ADD A SMALL BLEED EFFECT. (essentially when a bleed effect procs, the enemy unit will bleed out some HP overtime. Though minimal, it helps to get the kill afterwards. Similar to the Beast w/Poison, except not as high of a proc damage)

Human magnetic tree:

Again, great. However.. repeater should be a bit more accurate. Personally, I would take slightly less damage for more accurate shots.

To me, the tiers of weaponry focus on tier 1 being short ranged, tier 2 being medium, and tier 3  being long ranged. If this isn't the case, then the upgraded damage makes up for it (take the Pulse cannon as an example).

The Repeater yields very little accurate shots at a medium range.. thus becoming a short-to-medium ranged weapon. If a Human unit were to equip a Scattergun and just get several meters closer, they would be more effective.

edit: Please allow, as mentioned by Shagroth, MMBOW to be a tier 1 weapon. Also, lower the time at which a player using MMBOW has between shots of accurate proportion. When a player using MMBOW zooms in, there are several seconds (5?) between accurate, pin-pointed shots. The main reason I agree and offer this adjustment is due to MMBOW being used as a counter for TEMPEST rushing. There are no weapons in the Human tech tree at that equivalent tier that can be used to counter a Tempest rush. As Shagroth stated, the MMBOW is only useful against Scavs. Shortly after a Beast team is granted the Tempest weapon, they will have Stalkers. The MMBOW will only be useful as a great deterrent to Stalker rush using the Tempest weapon.

-------------------------------------

Beast tech:

First and foremost, if anyone thinks that Humans are favored.. Server admins have the right to adjust settings and allow for Beast to use MELEE weapons and equip a RANGED weapon. I think this is a fantastic idea and should be implemented all across the board in PUBs. I also think that if a Beast unit were to go this route, the Mana Crystal should not be equipped as the Ranged weapon should only be used as a helpful counter to a human unit at farther range. See: LEGONNAIRE w/ Coil Rifle + Med kits @ LONG RANGE (ESPECIALLY choke points where there is a LONG RANGE between units) Essentially the HUMAN unit is at a complete advantage to a BEAST unit only equipped with a MELEE weapon. Two coil shots and they're at half or lower health. This will End with a LEGONNAIRE unit having FULL health upon confrontation with MED KITS as a savior. PLEASE ADD THIS FEATURE INTO THE GAME / SERVER.

Now..

I do not think the melee ranged tech should be adjust, at all.

I believe that ranged tech is hindering in many areas:

Strata.. Frost bolt range should be slightly increased and the spread should be lowered slightly. If there is arguments about this, then simple, lower the damage slightly as well. This would increase a players accuracy at medium range (as it would not effect the usage vs. towers) but still have the same accuracy long range. If not lowering the spread, lower the length at which the spread takes place.

Tempest.. Pls allow optional zoom. This zoom will not be as lengthy as the coil rifle, but still similar to an ACOG scope in some of the modern FPS games. Remember.. ACOG scope. Not Sniper style. (see lightning) Essentially, Tempest is the ranged weapon of choice.

Lightning.. Never used, except when countering coil nubs camping areas, or MMBOW users camping.. Catch my drift? It's like 2castles gets played on a daily basis? Not. Pls increase the damage by 50-100. Increase the firing rate OR increase the spot at which Lightning hits as an AOE styled effect. This would basically cause Lightning to do spread damage similar to a Mortar effect (see land mind/fire ward/demo, etc) The accuracy of Lightning, also focusing on its damage, and the overall effectiveness is very low. If Lightning were to get a boost as far as spread/dmg, this weapon would be an effective Tier 3 item. As it sits, you should place this within the same Tier  as MMBOW..

Fire .. Ember is a great counter to xbow. That's it. Ember should produce poison style damage similar to a real fire. I don't currently see units performing the "stop, drop, and roll" technique when being lit on fire by an Ember user. Add this effect and Ember will be much better off. Also.. slightly increase the range.. I, and a large amount of players, do not appreciate when an ember blast stops in mid-air just before reaching the target. Really? Because I can just hear the ".....Poof" noise in my had like a weak fart.

Blaze is great. Please add poison effect. This should be same as Ember.. or Incenirator.. Units don't carry a pale of water with them for moments such as being burnt.

Fireball ... Um.. I like N4B in that Fireball should be casted in multiple succession over an extremely short period of time! .. JK JK. More Damage. Now. Ask Cross, I spent a match testing weapons and their effectiveness and this yielded 0 results. Am i supposed to use this weapon as a counter to the Chiprel invasion?

Entropy.. Chaos bolt should only have a piercing effect, possibly a visual disturbance similar to the effect Surge has. Overall this weapon is useless (see wiki). Please allow Chaos bolt to AT LEAST cause a visual disturbance to the landed target (upon hit, the targets sight will smoke out for a second) I love this edit. please incorporate.

Surge .. Great weapon, great range. Lower the Mana consumption please. This would effectively be a great counter to Flux.. if the Flux user didnt have double the amount of ammo/mana the Surge user had.

Rupture.. Slightly increase the damage done by this weapon as it is only useful against Nomads/Chaps. Also, I believe all weapons in the Entropy tree should cause a visual disturbance upon impact. 'Nough said.


... Items will be talked about another time.

[Daemon]

Keep this updated for when we're gonna have a proper place to gather this kind of analysis.

[Cross]

Let me make one thing very clear about people claiming clan war = balanced.

Just because you take a group of VETS, who UNDERSTAND this BROKEN game, and it's BROKEN balance, and exploits and have figured out ways to WORK AROUND all this doesn't = balance, it's call human adaption.

If the game was properly balance you would still see balance within clan wars, why is this so complicated to understand? FIXING the game for pubs would ONLY improve the already (artificial "balance") people see in clan wars, it will still be even, if not more so. Can someone explain to me again how making the game better for everyone and everything, is bad? Unless of course vets are arfaid of learning new strategies and game play styles and not rely on the broken mechanics now to get wins, of course they will oppose this, but anything that truly WANTS both teams to win evenly (which FACTS PROVE, I don't care about your OPINIONS) that one race wins a far greater more games, well to me that is bias and their opinions should be taken very lightly.

I on the other hand wish to see both beast and humans win at a 1:1 ratio, if others don't then that is your choice, you can fight to keep the game broken all you wish but really ask yourself, are you fighting for yourself, or for whats actually better as a whole?


It's kind of funny I went through this same thing on the NS2 boards, people constantly complained about marines being to strong, and I made a statement claiming aliens start game is far to over powering, as well as lerker/fade. Of course this got the forums riled and people flaming me for it, a few weeks later the developers release official server information and it should Marines won 37% of the games and aliens won 63% of the games.

But of course people didn't want to listen because just like this community to many of them care about their stats and kill ratio's/winning and not about creating proper balance in the game, but they are fixing it now, just a shame to many ignorant players keep trying to hold these games down.. and if anyone wants proof here is the statistics from NS2 to show I'm not making it up.

http://www.unknownworlds.com/files/ns2/020411/StatsImage.png

And here is the current server results after some patches where they improved the marines and nerfed the aliens start game to give marines a chance.

http://unknownworldsstats.appspot.com/displayendgamestats

49-51 is a bit better then 37-63 ain't it?

[Shagroth]

cross you sound like a hater, and it sounds like you play only humans. I've never seen you play, but I am 90% sure I am right.
just cause rock doesnt beat paper doesnt mean game is broken.

good example on how balance is done is how blizzard does it, look at starcraft 2.
starcraft 1/2 balances after how pro gamers adapt to the game(same with wow)
starcraft 1/2 does also have maps that favors races.

the main reason savage doesn't have equal win % is the maps, and as mentioned earlier the server settings. not the weapon balance itself(offtopic i know)

I'm fairly sure none in this game is "afraid" of learning new strategies.
I'm not sure why people do not think people with more experience might know the game better than themselves, it scares me really.

should open a new topic, where a serious discussion could be held with NO flaming, only good/constructive arguments/criticism - so the topic could be taken seriously and something could be done.

i do believe we all know the game requires a little bit of polishing here and there.

[shuN]

Refer to my last post for on-topic thread discussion.   

[Rostner]

Reloc fix:

Simple.. just decrease the range at which relocators can communicate with their transcended base.

This will cause human units to have to place a relocator closer to the location at which their path lies. If they want to descend to an enemy base.. they have the place the relocator base at say.. 500m max distance to which they intend to relocate back to it.

Example:



notice the threshold at which a unit can use the reloc.. marked as the red relocator.

If a unit passes this threshold, they will no longer be able to use a reloc and must return back within the set area.

Notice on the OJ relocator, the human unit has intelligently concealed his relocator in a location to which he is within the 500m max and can still use the relocator when attacking his target.

Ultimately, the decision for this relocator program will not nerf, or buff the relocator.. but yet a human unit must be more intelligent at placing his relocator. They will no longer (unless their target is close to a garrison or their stronghold) be able to place all the relocators at the stronghold.. and teleport back whenever they've performed their mission.. or took care of their target.

This fix is A+    

I personally think this idea is awesome. And this is coming from someone who always plays human, keep that in mind.

[Faun]

the main reason savage doesn't have equal win % is the maps, and as mentioned earlier the server settings. not the weapon balance itself(offtopic i know)

I would be very happy if there was a place where players leave constructive feedback about maps, to make good maps out of maps with flaws. The mapping section isn´t really working for this reason, 1. no one hardly ever looks after a map to write something there - 2. and even when someone does, it may take ages until the mapmaker looks into it again, because of point 1. There is not even a "new message" alarm for maps, so they clearly get into the fogs of past when they are on higher page numbers.

I would appreciate balance feedback on my maps from anyone since I´m not that interested in making another big bunch of beast maps, and I´m clear that my experience in savage just can´t cover every aspect of the game after one year of playing it. 

A project where it would be just in time for such steps is xr_open. Main problem is that this map, just like many others is not online yet, so it requires quite a lot of imagination to see how things would happen there I guess. The snake bites it´s tail here: You can only get real feedback when the map is online and played, and if noone knows your map/it has flaws, it´ll hardly ever get played.  well,   

[-Mein-]

cross you sound like a hater, and it sounds like you play only humans. I've never seen you play, but I am 90% sure I am right.
just cause rock doesnt beat paper doesnt mean game is broken.

good example on how balance is done is how blizzard does it, look at starcraft 2.
starcraft 1/2 balances after how pro gamers adapt to the game(same with wow)
starcraft 1/2 does also have maps that favors races.

the main reason savage doesn't have equal win % is the maps, and as mentioned earlier the server settings. not the weapon balance itself(offtopic i know)

I'm fairly sure none in this game is "afraid" of learning new strategies.
I'm not sure why people do not think people with more experience might know the game better than themselves, it scares me really.

should open a new topic, where a serious discussion could be held with NO flaming, only good/constructive arguments/criticism - so the topic could be taken seriously and something could be done.

i do believe we all know the game requires a little bit of polishing here and there.

I love you

Anyways,

1:1 win/lose ratio would end up in haveing alot more draws. You can counter everything, most of the current comms simply just suck and can't adapt their tactics neither are willing to listen to anybody.
As for beasts most comms are sac rush. And in the case the sac rush fails they are loseing 90% of the games cause they don't know what to do. All humans comm just turtle and wait to get a stack endgame so they can push out of their base.

Better work on the players, espcially the commanders to get a "good" game.

[shuN]

mein.. I think 1:1 ratio comes down to player skill, not the balancing issues with weapon/items.

Example: ... You stick EvO in a PUB against primarily nubs.. I'm pretty sure they'll win. It's not because they had the same tech tiers researched.. it's because the clan just pretty much outskilled them.

[Cross]

See what I'm talkin about Mohican?