Arm has more utility in team games more or less across the board.

[quick lynx]

if they dont thats fucked 😄

[jolly oyster]

mammoths are unbelievably slow/unweildy, if you can't figure out a way to kill it before it reaches your eco you deserve to die honestly

unless there's some popular hedge maze map I'm not aware of I can't ever see it becoming meta defining

[vale solar]

Not to mention abductors dunk on mammoth and give you free 2k metal if you steal them lol

[jolly oyster]

yeah :/

Arm have an answer to everything

multiple answers usually

[vale solar]

But mammoth is a good unit I don't think it needs any buffs it's just it doesn't work that great until you have something behind it to zone out sniper/starlight or spam in front of it which means buying arm con for ticks or going catapault.

Banisher is alright and might be good in this role post buff but then you need both core t2 labs, one for slow mammoth for antispam and one for banisher which just isn't realistic in an 8v8.

[quick lynx]

Definitely wont be I'm just saying they are a t3 answer in certain areas.
Also I feel like abductors are cherry picking. not only can u make AA to kill the abductors but also they counter basically everything that is meant to kill t3 and doesnt have aa on their own. The counter to the abductor is a fighter and cor has the best one.

[jolly oyster]

it's reactive though, fighters are reactive

abductors make plays

they are there stunning your shit before air player can possibly respond

if they respond

[quick lynx]

I dont agree with you here and again, you can make AA with your army

maybe if your mammoths charge into the enemy but I dotn think they are good at that anyway since they need terrain to block snipers or starlights anyway

[long aurora]

Cor cant even have the t2 shuri

[jolly oyster]

well kuchy said abductor is one of the units he can't do without, I'm inclined to believe his assessment

[quick lynx]

I do think reworking the skuttle to kill t3 effectively would be the option that feels the most in-line with current cor design

just because its a good unit if played by a good player doesnt negate the fact that aa still counters it 😄

[long aurora]

it should be stealthy when not moving

[quick lynx]

the scuttle?

[vale solar]

Due to speed core bots is kinda stuck playing more defensive once you're past the fiend phase as sumo/mammoth both slow af and Sheldon's dps is super low/arbiter not good at fighting against units that are actually controlled.

The veh lab is a bit better with tzar/banisher pushes but it suffers heavily from lack of antispam especially since Sala nerfs and Sala gets blocked by every damn wreck so their anti spam value goes way down in big fights.

Skuttle does kill t3 pretty well for cost it just needs to reach them which is tough against good opponents who unlocked pinpointers.

[wise swan]

for core sniper counterpart i wanna see something with a big but long ranged cannon

[vale solar]

Like a plasma cannon? I feel it would need to be the fastest plasma in the game to fit the role well enough and then it also runs into the issue later game that shields would actually work against it.

I do think it'd be pretty fun if we could get arbiters direct fire mode back but I don't see that ever happening with the war on toggles.

[bold valley]

Sala is a good anti-spam unit, some guy tested out current sala vs jag (or was it welder?) vs tick spam, and they performed evenly. There's something holding them back. If they can be buffed in the right way, that's the answer for CORE T2 VEH anti spam utility. That way you can also take the Banisher out of the semi-anti-spam role by removing its AoE and making it a cool, slightly different rocket version of the Starlight.

[bold valley]

Yeah that is a trouble. Personally, even as an OTA player who knows why the Arbiter is the way it is, I'd like to just make it a direct fire, lightly guided missile (or with a slight arc). Basically the same concept as Banisher rework, but for sharpshooter equivalency. Specifically anti-static-d role is kinda bad imo.

Personally I'm ok with factions being somewhat mirrors. I think it should be the case they have units more alike than not when coming to critical roles like Light Unit Phase Skirmisher, or the aforementioned "T2 that punches up."

[jolly oyster]

some roles are just too vital to only exist on one faction I think, like antispam t2 veh, some anti T3 units at t2, etc

sure it can have core pixels, heatrays or whatever

[vale solar]

Im a vacuum sure, as soon as wrecks are on the field Sala has big issues actually connecting with them. Their fire rate also isn't the best but imo less of a problem then letting spam through because all shots are blocked by wrecks.

Jags lightning can bounce around wrecks so they're not nearly as impacted.

[wise swan]

yeah I think it would be interesting for differentiation to have this fast, long ranged, high impact plasma weapon... shields working isn't a strict downside imo

[bold valley]

Can any of the current units be worked into that weapon?

[wise swan]

you could say the overall usefulness of jag is higher because of greater speed and organic aa

[vale solar]

Yeah that would be cool to see, I think more faster plasma in general would be good. And the shield countering would allow the unit to be tuned pretty strong without being overly op late game ig.

[wise swan]

remember jaguar is ~90 but salamander is ~70

[bold valley]

Arbiter with elongated tubes direct firing a gauss cannon (it's just fast plasma) instead of a rocket

[delicate lark]

Arbiters can shoot over terrain tho

[bold valley]

Yea which is why you make it direct fire instead

[delicate lark]

What about range?

[bold valley]

equal-ish to sharpshooter. The idea is bouncing off of Modulo's idea for a CORE counterpart to Sharpshooter.

[delicate lark]

I like the arbiter utility, feel it might turn out similar to sheldon with those changes

[jolly oyster]

core sharpshooter counterpart would be an idea I could totally get behind but hornet already made siegebreaker for core veh which does something similar, maybe more realistic to get that into the game

[bold valley]

Well part of my point to you earlier is that the GDT reaaaaaally doesn't wanna add units, especially units that are copies of others. So rework current guys seems way more realistic.

[vale solar]

I agree that I don't think arbiter should be changed to direct fire only for sure. I just enjoyed the various dual fire mode arbiters across the various TA eras as it filled a similar role.

But it's tough because fire modes are just as nono as new units atm.

[jolly oyster]

no new units feels dumb when Arm already has 2 more

[vale solar]

There's also the deadeye core bot sniper that was developed but never fully balanced and afaik is like siegebreaker in that it likely won't ever be main game.

[bold valley]

imo Arbiter Negotiator etc, from OTA to present, have always just been bad, from their inherent design. Anti-static-d works in very limited situations. It's time to sacrifice the nostalgia for a better design in a role that is far more important to the meta.

[jolly oyster]

even if we give core a way to kill t3 it's still gonna be giga unviable in tournaments purely because you /need/ ticks for every player

[vale solar]

Core bots does have alot of units already with commando/skuttle/mammoth all things that arm doesn't have.

[jolly oyster]

yeah sadly they are just really useless 😦

you have to work so hard to get value from these units compared to something like sharpshooter

[bold valley]

See: #1341467286858498149 message
imo it's a little disingenuous to point out the 2 unit diff when we're talking about units in the roles for the factories that CORE has more units

[vale solar]

Yeah, they do add alot of flavor which I love but they're so niche that they practically don't exist most games.

[wise swan]

people don't even use the cloak on sharpshooter... cloak op right?

[vale solar]

Yeah like 1/10 game I'll see a sharpshooter cloak and 1/100 I'll see a rattle or Pitbull actually use it's cloaking lol.

[quick lynx]

I think I barely ever see uncloaked sharpshooters from players above 18 OS 😄

[vale solar]

Idk I feel like most ppl leave it off to save the e since its really the radar signature you're most often worried about. Snipers usually like to stay far enough back that Los is difficult to get cloak or no.

[quick lynx]

So for the bot part, what about this: Change the arbiter missile so it deals no AOE but tracks a unit that can be seen in radar or los and has the same cooldown and dmg as a sniper.
That way the arbiter dmg is backloaded instead of frontloaded, but can work without direct LOS, for example behind terrain or walls.
You could even play around with the arbiter giving a visual indication of the tracked unit and having to maintain LOS for the tracking to work. That way it would still be able to clear static behind terrain or walls but units would be relatively safe provided they move.

[void cove]

It would be cool if someone had an idea for how to have a cortex anti t3 unit without just copying one from armada. Like Mammoth is kind of an anti t3 unit in that 3 mammoths cost effectively win against 2 razorbacks. But it's not really satisfying because it's so slow.

Dunno about this arbiter idea^. Maybe something like that could be tried. Maybe sacrifice some even more useless unit like negotiator to rework into something like that.

[bold valley]

I'd be down for doing Negotiator instead. Kill it's AOE and up the single target DMG. Add aggressive tracking.

[jolly oyster]

mammoth is just deleted from the game by Arm units like sharpshooter and starlight sadly

[bold valley]

If lower firing angle, still couldn't fire directly considering how it's model is iirc. Would have to have a pretty narrow firing arc thenp

[jolly oyster]

there is no way really other than giving core a way to do damage at range, that is the meta

[delicate lark]

I still think Banisher could work

[jolly oyster]

you could give mammoth a buff even (I don't think it needs one) and you'd still have the same problem, the only way to fix core is to give it units that fit into the way the game is played, or buff its units so much that the game is played differently

you can't just keep giving it units that do not actually compliment the way the game is played and then be surprised that it hasn't really fixed anything

it's meta to 1 shot things from beyond visual range, as long as starlights and sharpshooters do that and core has no real counter to it, this won't be fixed

@void cove idk if that makes sense or not

[void cove]

It makes sense yeah.

[jolly oyster]

it's sorta like in real life, in modern combat with modern armies, bigger stronger tanks seem cool but in practice they will just get massacred from a missile 20 miles away, it doesn't matter if your tank is 10% better than other countries tank etc cos that's not how wars are fought in practice

(I know tanks have been good in ukraine but it's an analogy)

[void cove]

Banisher is quite cool unit on its own, ideally I wouldn't want it to be reworked into copy of starlight. With the new buff it can also maneuver pretty nicely so on maps that have space to kite they can be somewhat good against T3.

[bold valley]

I do look forward to how buffed Banisher works out. Maybe on the 20th? 🥹

[jolly oyster]

I think with rework banisher could be a cool unit and you'd imagine it will see more play, but I do not think it will address the utility mismatch as it's just another unit that's sort of just barely adding utility to core, you will get value from it probably only if people are clumping together groups of tanks or whatever, but by the time banishers are on the field you instead have a different foe (large hp t3 units)

I'd imagine it will be really good im small team games on comet catcher or something like that where games stick around at t2 tank balls for a long time

I can envision it feeling pretty satisfying to yeet giant rockets at shivas or razorbacks or whatever but ultimately you'd be doing a shit ton more dmg to them with sharpshooters still, and for cheaper

[bold valley]

Oh for clarity in case anyone misunderstood, RebelNode is talking about the pending Banisher buffs which are unrelated to the herein proposed Banisher rework.

In lieu of advocating Banisher rework imma switch to Negotiator. It's a good candidate to fill the Starlight role for CORE.

[jolly oyster]

Could turn it into like a 'Javelin' style anti armour warhead for the t3 counter fantasy, or have it shoot super fast APFDS rounds

[quick lynx]

Problem with the negotiator is that it leaves the ambassador as the same unit but worse. Dont know if thats desireable

[hushed mason]

I play Cortex exclusively and also actively avoid most Arm units (don't build Arm labs unless I'm completely out of Cortex cons for example and don't ask for an Arm con specifically to do anything), I'm guessing not many people play this way intentionally handicapping themselves. My OS previously peaked around 31, dropped all the way back down to 17OS at one point and then shot back up and am currently around 29 OS playing in the rotato lobbies mostly. I tend to feel the lacking/deficiencies in ways others don't because I don't just start Cortex, but don't ever switch to Arm after start either. It is tougher to win playing this way. There are some games where it doesn't matter too much when you can win on T1 bots, but once t2 and Tick spam comes into play and opportunities open up for other plays that only Armada can do (like Liche bombing an entire navy on Isthmus with one drop or using an Abductor to stun and steal a Tzar, which is preventable, but requires extra skill and cost to stop this Armada exclusive play), you feel the difference in utility more.

[quick lynx]

Im not quite sure what ure getting at with this? Is your point that cor only can go beyond 10 OS? Or is it that cortex lacks tools? (Which, btw in theory u're not showing since you only compare playing both factions. Technically u'd have to compare it to playing arm only, but whatever)? Or is it something else?

Pls stay in this thread btw u clearly have valuable experience in this department, I just dont get what exactly u wanna say with the above text 😄

[bold valley]

Ambassador being teh sux shouldn't hold this wonderful idea back~

[hushed mason]

I was saying I agree with the opinion that if you only limit yourself to one faction it's more of a handicap when you pick Cortex versus Armada and thus that such people will tend to be lower OS as Cortex mains versus Armada mains. But I was also saying how even some 'mains' use both factions still and you don't really feel the full difference if you con-swap. I think it's pretty clear Cortex lacks functions Armada has and I'd put Armada's strength difference mostly in its ability to quickly project power. Cortex's strength of being tanky is often negated by their lack of speed and Armada's high alpha damage units with high range and also Cortex's lack of EMP resistance/aa in many cases (Mammoth should not be countered by emp bots so easily). Mammoth can get murdered by snipers before it ever sees them. Armada units dual-purpose much better. Razor is anti-spam, but it also murders Shurikens with ease, similar to Jaguar in function, unlike the Demon, which can get stopped by a small number of Shurikens despite being more expensive and has to worry about friendly fire a bit more.

The Behemoth is a good example of how ridiculously tanky you need to make a unit to counter the high damage of Armada units when you're slow. And one of the ways to kill it is with lots of bombers (Dragon is actually bad at countering Behemoths as the Behemoth can actually shoot them out of the sky before they provide value).

Dragon rush can be pretty strong, but before you can get a Dragon out you can get a Liche out with some T2 fighters as support and one-tap huge chunks of units and then hit their labs/eco too with a single pass, even if you get murdered after that you got good value. Dragon has lower DPS for cost and has to survive for much longer to provide value and comes out a little later and due to being slower than Liche, gives the enemy a bit more time to respond and make AA. Liche has much less HP, but tends to need less as it can hit and run much better and Dragons even with their HP advantage still die pretty fast to t2 fighters, it's against land aa they hold up notably better.

[bold valley]

@void cove So what I'm thinking is that it could lose the vertical rocket aspect and lock the weapon to fire at like this elevation. This would help with 1. time to target 2. differentiate it from Arbiter/Ambassador in its new role and nerf its anti-static-d nature. 3. it'd be pretty unique.

Implementing a sort of IRL Javelin "missile pops out and then zooms at target with adjusted angle" would be sick as f, but if not possible the 'firing arc' would be dependent on how hard the missile can steer (and might create a deadzone directly in front of it where it can't hit?). I imagine it might be weird to implement.

[jolly oyster]

It has to be guaranteed hit or thereabouts like starlight or sharpshooter

I still think we could just add siegebreaker btw it already exists and it's pretty cool

[bold valley]

The missile should get to and always hit (speed and guidance) a T3 target at max range, to fill the role properly. It should definitely have the speed to hit before firing another rocket, to avoid overkill issues. It could have roughly the same DPS as Sharpshooter. Since the (alpha) damage is 'backloaded,' which is by design worse than being frontloaded, it should have some other benefit to compensate, like maybe keeping a tiny bit of AoE or having 100 elmos longer range. It can't micro back, and would probably have a worse firing arc, so the range diff wouldn't make it op vs Starlight etc

[jolly oyster]

@wise swan where did you learn to do tweakdefs?

[wise swan]

i only do tweakunits

but i looked at the unit files over and over again and decuded what each thing was

did u know that higher accuracy = less accuracy 😆

[bold valley]

trying to implement it ourselves to proof of concept is an OP idea

[wise swan]

put any existing tweak into base64 decode and it will show you the syntax

[jolly oyster]

um.. where can I find an existing tweak?

[wise swan]

https://discord.com/channels/1317055035708018708/1343989094945919047

[jolly oyster]

can you add/include experimental units with tweakdefs do you know?

[wise swan]

the name kinda suggests it's tweaks only... 🤔

might have to implement it as a proper mod in github and stuff for new units

[jolly oyster]

ah damn

was hoping to try make a 'core balance patch' and just include tick in core lab also, add siegebreaker and printer, buff sala and termite, rebalance jugg, etc

[wise swan]

i think you can add units to build list if it's in the game already

[jolly oyster]

difficult cos I'm not sure how to see the base values for some of these or how to do things like enable units extra etc I can't see schema for those anywhere

[wise swan]

what you do is add the id to the build list of the factory/con i think?

[jolly oyster]

I like your funny words magic man

[vale solar]

While this sounds quite cool with the javelin style launch I fear it would be too close to what banisher already is just with a slight angle to the shot?

Idk if two near horizontal launch rocket veh would get accepted to coexist in the same lab?

[bold valley]

I did not consider this.

[lusty raven]

@quick lynx
@jolly oyster
@ripe flame

Ive read everything you guys have said, and Honestly

I think that the way we are balancing things is all wrong, and is leading to you guys fighting needlessly

Armada doesnt need nerfs for what its doing well to make cortex better
We dont need to nerf sneaky pete or emp bots
Cortex just needs utility seperate from this. We're never going to get anywhere if its cortex vs armada

Its gonna take someone whos not shifting the goalposts to fix these issues.
The focus of this conversation is overhauling cortex utility.
We have to come up with ideas on this.
Im still of the opinon that stealth is the answer

Every emp unit has a high alpha stealth counterpart

EX
Armada spybot has no stealth, but emps
Cortex spybot has stealth but no emp

Shuriken Emps and slows
Banshee stealths and has high burst

Let each faction do something well, when we nerf factions like this we lose the identity of the faction. I dont care if armada is strong, i care if the game is fun, and having alot of useless units making the meta pool smaller isnt fun.

Recluse CAN be strong, idc if it is, its a fun unit to use en mass, just make the termite fun to use as well.

It doesnt have to always be 1-1 for the role

We take more steps to differeniate the factions and buff the units around the optimal roles of each
Stop with this symmetry fighting when theres clearly always going to be a bias

Lets focus on actual concrete ways we can improve things. Frankly theres aton of changes that are 100% logical to make but are just being prevented out of fear of being too different

Like the commando is literally THE unit id think of that should have cloak considering its niche role, yet it doesnt, and is still one of the most useless and underutilized units in the game

[ripe flame]

good balance should be : enjoyable and fair
you are correct in saying that cortex and armada units shouldnt be 1-1.

but many of those units are not enjoyable or fair or both, especially the sneaky pete

[ripe flame]

its not good balance that armada labs are individually able to efficiently and reactively address higher level threats, whereas the cortex faction needs multiple labs and more overall investment to reach the same ability.

Imagine a push of razorbacks + pawns or shyvas + grunts. Armada can efficiently address the threat with:

1. starlight jaguars from the veh lab,
2. sniper welder spybot from the botlab,
3. abductor gunships liche emp bombers from the air lab.

meanwhile cortex can only match the threat with more of their own shyvas + grunts.

Id be happy if both factions felt more unique but not at the detriment of unit balance.

sneaky pete is the biggest outlier, if you decide to push without juno, you just leave it to rng gods whether theres a cloaked commander waiting to dgun / self d all your army. if you can find a way to keep the armada jammer unique without having this obnoxious ability, youre welcome to share it. for now the simple answer is just remove the toxic unique cloaking ability it has.

[delicate lark]

A T3 counter would want to kite aswell, like Sniper does. Banisher doesn't rly do much better than Tzar. It wants to deal with heavier units ex. Bulls, so why not fit into T3 counter? U said it is somewhat good vs T3, so what really would change if u made it a T3 counter?

Banisher would have differences that seperates it from the Sniper

[long aurora]

to counter t3 properly I think banisher should lose most of its splash and do alot of dmg

[ripe flame]

im definitely not against this but how about leaning into the cortex unique aspect and instead increase the banisher inpulse a shit ton

enough so that it basically stuns the t3, kinda like how pounders do vs other tanks

[bold valley]

More I think about it, that's ok. We have Pounder Brute, Tzar Tiger, Sumo Mammoth already. The function and feel and look of it is diff enough. Maybe look can be worked on if too similar.

[bold valley]

I am glad he is being killed.

[quick lynx]

I think we're talking mostly just graphics here. The way I currently envision it would be for the rocket to launch like on the current negotiator.
Once it has reached it's peak it displays a red line to its target similar to the sniper and starts homing in on it. That way we have a distinct difference from the old missile and you get a way of moving your unit behind a mountain. I think it would be ok to allow the missile to be blocked by some terrain (basically it can hit more targets than a sniper in the same position can but it doesn't completely ignore every obstruction) and it would be rather frustrating if that was implemented without giving the attacked player an indication of which unit is targeted.

At least that's my idea

[arctic cape]

Sharpshooter is good at role but not op (slow, super fragile esp vs air, low fire rate)

Starlight as an all in pushing unit is ideal

And it's good against both t2 and t3

[jolly oyster]

I still think a simple fix is just to give core siegebreaker and a tick variant

[arctic cape]

I would nerf shit first before giving both sides op shit

Having a unit that is good vs t3 is not cloning a unit

[jolly oyster]

that makes no sense unless you nerf starlight/sharpshooter/abductor etc to not be those units anymore

whilst core has no way to deal with t3 beyond visual range it's gonna suck

[arctic cape]

Well I mean I'm happy to have siege breaker just I don't want another starlight power level unit

Siegebreaker is worse than starlight generally

[jolly oyster]

it already is in game, there's no reason not to give core similar ability

[arctic cape]

Faction should have anti t3 unless it's a deliberate weakness to not have anti t3

[jolly oyster]

I could buy that if core just had way better t3

but Arm t3 is also better

so is every single land lab in laning situation

[arctic cape]

I mean it doesn't have to be 100% specialized anti t3 just something that's good enough

Banisherd could fill the role vs early t3 if given enough space

[jolly oyster]

I think it does need to be 100% specialised deleter type unit in that it should be able to kill things from as far away and with as high alpha damage as starlight/sharpshooter

cos unless some big tough fast units are added that can ignore all that damage, close the gap and fuck them up, those type of units are gonna be meta forever

[vale solar]

this would be super interesting as long as it doesn't lose it's unique capability as a mobile unit with decent burst that can hit air. But a crapton of impulse coupled with the current proposed balance change for 360 deg firing might easily be way too busted during the early t2 phase while still not necessarily getting the burst to fill the role as a high alpha unit. Also didn't we try this at one point long long ago around the time custom balance tweak proposals were more common in the op lobby and it ended up being totally busted even without 360 deg? (around consul era/razor fix/buff era)

[long aurora]

starlights are also fantastic at sitting behind defenses and acting like a pulsar

nothing cor t2 can come close to that

as in literally, it will die if it comes close xD

[quick lynx]

If they're just sitting negotiators seem to work quite well I think.

[long aurora]

that is true t2 rocket veh are a soft counter to all slow units

[quick lynx]

In general if you have only starlight & static negotiators can just take out the static, it's when there is a moving starlight / Jag front that things get hairy

[long aurora]

but its apm taxing

and often more expensive to make in number than whatever they are killing

they cost big metal

and you need like 5 for a proper aoe volley

it just means enemy has time to probably go for a vanguard

[quick lynx]

Yeah it's not a perfect solution but I believe it does counter the specific static + Starlights interaction.

[long aurora]

I mostly pointed that usecase out to say you dont really have to allin with starlights and they can do other stuff well too

say ur push didnt work out and some survived you can now park them on the lane of your teammate that is weak

[jolly oyster]

Yeah this is #balance

[lusty raven]

Once again, Changing a unit to be more like armada doesnt really give cortex more utility XD
Kinda need something for the faction as a whole
The issue remains. Its a start though, and id rather that than nothing

[jolly oyster]

Ofc it gives cortex more utility if it lets it do something it can't do currently

[lusty raven]

It doesnt adress the actual issue in your post though, if the issue is that simple then give more emp to cortex like the shuriken
The issue isnt just not having less utility than armada, cortex has nothing to specialize in , so no matter what buffs you give to units like this they will always be secondrate to armada

And once again, the goal is to get away from people who will argue to the death to prevent changes due to them having a prefered faction

Just look at how fast this post devolved into cortex vs armada for reference.
@jolly oyster
At a certain level it stops becoming about balance or utility or uniqueness, its more about what faction is better

I honestly think you could double the damage of cortex , and armada might still come out ontop in alot of scenarios XD

[lusty raven]

overhaul how stealth works in general.
The only revealing stealth mechanic we have is the intrusion detector
Considering we're losing the juno, something has to be done overall

For example, let t2 vehicle jammers reveal cloaked units in a small radius

And let t2 bot jammers destroy static jammers in a small radius

There, or something like this it doesnt have to be this

[jolly oyster]

Luna they are not gonna redo the entire faction concept

Focus on what's possible

You know how hard it is to get even small changes through?

I appreciate that you have ideas and I'm sure people will be interested to discuss them but that should probably he a different thread

[lusty raven]

i mean look, hate to say it but they dont even have a concept. Hell Armada doesnt even have a atlas atm

this is the best time to have these discussions before the game is on steam tbh
Im saying that if the focus of your thread is getting utility for cortex, none of these small changes are going to do what you want

but if this whole thread by you is solved by just adding the deadeye, and siegebreaker, then do so

But im almost certain thats not what you want is it

[jolly oyster]

For now pretty much yes, I think what you are proposing is definitely in need of its own thread

I'm not throwing shade I just think if you actually want your ideas discussed instead of people skim reading til someone is back on topic a new thread makes sense, you are proposing a major overhaul and it's just not in the scope of the original post or much of the subsequent discussiom

[quick lynx]

I made a unit tweak to experiment with the arbiter missile as t3 killer. Right now if 2 razors charge 5 arbiters everyone dies. If the arbiters kite you don't even loose hp on the arbiters. I have done absolutely no balancing, it's just to get a feel for the Idea. I'm unsure about its viability but if anyone wants to experiment with it the tweak is
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

[void cove]

The alpha-seekingmissile-arbiter-diplomat sounded a bit too familiar and I realized legion t2 vehicles already has it.

So instead of copying armada you would then be copying legion

[quick lynx]

Shit. Accidental plagiarism 😄
Well from a faction balance perspective I think legion would need them less since they already have a viable anti t3 option with the incinerator right?

[jolly oyster]

I think we are too worried about if something copies something or not in this specific case, in the same way we don't worry that core and arm tanks both shoot out a plasma shot I think a T2 T3 killer needs to be imagined as just fundamental

In the same way it doesn't matter if both fighter shoot a missile, I don't think it matters if siegebreaker shoots a laser, it could really easily be changed to a heatray even, that's fully core themed

I think it's just so fundamental to a faction's utility

To be considered a complete faction

[wise swan]

actually sumo and mammoth both having green laser bugs me

they're both slow bots with green lasers!

[jolly oyster]

quote from mightysheep today: "every time i play core im get to a point where its like I NEED arm con" <--- v good 50+ os playeur

[tired marsh]

tl:dr; arm have all the good tools, basically

The core T3 killer is the siegebreaker, which works very hard not to be a starlight/sniper clone, and unfortunately suffers a lot for it. partly the issue is that snipers and starlights are just too good, coupled with arms better vision options

[tired marsh]

balance pack does something similar with banisher, but it's a weird unit to balance. can be OP if rushed, shuts down both mobs of T1 and early heavier T2, although you do pay heavily for that. needed more games with rushes to tell, but it looked like a good alternative to 'tzar rush or gtfo', was also very good against houndballs

[tired marsh]

laser colour is linked to shot damage now, that's something I did months back

[wise swan]

the fabled laser colour coding

[tired marsh]

there's actually a few options here. one is switching the T1 and T2 jammers, another is making the power cost for cloaking the pete itself impossible until later game

[tired marsh]

as with most things it was just chaotic before, now it should give players an intuitive rough sense of how much damage a given shot does

[wise swan]

does this mean scouts have red lasers now?

[tired marsh]

heatrays bend the rules there, which might be something for later revisiting

the tickle beams are straw coloured

colour also relates to E cost per shot to fire

iirc there were a couple of exceptions that were made for 'because it's always been like that' reasons though, but 95% of lasers now conform

IMO there should be no exceptions, many old reasons are just oversights, typos, mispastes, etc

and people are just used to that

[arctic cape]

when you have a long range weapon basically what differentiates them is, throughput, unit hp, drawbacks

[jolly oyster]

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

I made a tweakdef

What it does:

Adds Siegebreaker
Adds Printer

Buffs Termite in general
Buffs Sala speed (70 > 78) and increases its ROF by about 15% to make it a viable veh antispam for core (Jag is speed 90 so still a lot faster)
Slightly buffs sumo to make it more in line with welder, it's still slower
Buffs jugg (slight speed increase and decent hp increase)
Buffs core t1 jammer to be equal to sneaky pete in range
Moves abductor from Arm to core (I don't see why Arm should get t2 shuri really if it already gets liche and emp bomber)
Nerfs emp launcher range (now somewhere between tacnuke range and old emp launcher range)
and finally increases speed of the core T2 aa bot

• Thanks to Hornet for helping me get started with writing it

@ripe flame have any feedback?

I also think we can just remove commando to help with unit proliferation issues

but I can't figure out how to remove a unit in LUA, lol

[ripe flame]

looks good, I Havent played with printer and siegebreaker so i cant speak about these. Did you swap t2 transport faction or just move abductor to core? either way it looks like its all going in the right direction

[jolly oyster]

Just abductor

[delicate lark]

Should Abductor be moved to cor?

[jolly oyster]

Well thematically it makes sense to me since its a t2 shuri

Furthermore Arm has 5 units to stall/kill T3 from T2

By moving abductor and adding siegebreaker, Arm still has 4 whilst core now has 2 (up from 0)

[delicate lark]

I dont think Abductor should be good at stunning

[jolly oyster]

I guess I should move core one to arm in retrospect?

[long aurora]

yeah t2 airlab still needs to have a trans for both factions imo

[jolly oyster]

Kk I'll do that too

[jolly oyster]

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

updated tweak

[void cove]

If we moved abductors to cortex would anyone even use them? 5 shuriken cost less than 1 abductor and deal twice as much damage. And because of overkill on shuris they probably even tank more shots from T2 fighters as well.

I think you are vastly underestimating just how overpowered shuriken are.

[ripe flame]

the shuriken can barely overwhelm a razorback and they cant load expensive t2 units for reclaim capture or just keeping them locked down from safety

[jolly oyster]

shuris really struggle with stunning razorbacks for example, a RB will shred 20 shuris in like 1 second, personally I'd rather have moved the liche as thematically it also feels like Core should have the nuke bomber and Arm the emp bomber but I was worried people would riot 😂

do you have any thoughts on that @void cove ?

[void cove]

Ehh if you want to move units from faction to another probably make a new thread for that. Those suggestions are usually very unpopular.

[jolly oyster]

@ripe flame what do you reckon? ^

[quick lynx]

I do think aoe with high-dmg to primary target is problematic because that means the unit counters unit compositions with high and low unit counts. I removed the AOE from the arbiter to solve that. I think I just named it an armor-piercing missile

[quick lynx]

With the upcoming balance patch trying to fix the banisher to be able to kill t3 units while kiting backwards I think if you were gonna add siegebreaker / Deadeye u should go for the bot version

[jolly oyster]

not a bad shout, I'll test it out

depends on how banisher is after change, I went with siegebreaker cos the core bot lab feels better than veh lab for me currently, fiends and sheldons are actually p good

[quick lynx]

I would agree with that, however I just wouldnt add the siegebreaker or deadeye at all 😄

atleast not until we see how the change works out

[jolly oyster]

I'm just sick of bootlicking Arm atm, they get everything

the utility imbal is so vast that any sort of reasonable fixes sound overboard at first glance I think

[long aurora]

it takes 1 banisher 100 seconds to kill a razorback vs 53 sec for a sniper to do the same

its not gonna suddenly become a t3 counter

[ripe flame]

at my level I really care more about the fairness than the unit visual identity. I understand that it can't just officially be a 1 for 1 trade and just call it a day but also if half the player base starts using a homebrewed tweak, I think the balance team will realize something needs to be addressed lul

[quick lynx]

I have thought about that a bit and I think cor is stronger in places with smaller direct LOS and where the focus is on defending.
Lets take Glitters canyon, I think termites beat recluses in close combat so cor controls the hills. just put termites on the hills and mammoth behind the rocks and you got a pretty solid defense because the main weapons for arm (starlight and snipers) don't work here.

I'm not saying this makes things balanced but I do believe cor is stronger in scenarios that are defensive (aka a hold is a win) and don't have direct LOS.
So if we add stuff to cor we should keep this in mind as to not have the other situation 3 months later, where cor is now in posession of Snipers / Starlights but still has its close quarter units that arm now lacks.

[jolly oyster]

Termite is such a niche use is my issue with it, the recluse can actually win games

Termite at best can stop recluse from winning games, for a higher cost

[ripe flame]

I don't disagree but if I make a termite, the arm player doesn't have to answer by making a recluse
but if the arm player make a recluse, the core player has to make a termite

[jolly oyster]

and by that time the recluse already got some value at least

recluse is also just incredibly strong even on flat lane

it's rocket bot on crack

[quick lynx]

Yeah thats what I am saying. In scenarios where the focus is on being defensive.

[long aurora]

in a prolonged recluse termite skirmish arm should get the edge eventually because they can acsess all the hill wrecks with webbers, something cor cannot

[jolly oyster]

you're always at a disadvantage in those scenarios because later on thegame is balanced towards T3 that can brute force vs porc

[long aurora]

also termites completely lose to a single pitbull on the hill

[ripe flame]

just fly con turret

[jolly oyster]

you can't defend the other team to death

[quick lynx]

Guys. You're bringing up a bunch of scenarios that aren't really what I talked about. I'm talking specifically about holding, not winning and low LOS.
So theres no "flat terrain", If you let ur opponent get a pitbull on a hill while u have termites available, he just beat u, u shouldnt be able to take that hill. And you dont win with recluses vs termites if both are in range of each other.

[jolly oyster]

this thread is about utility at its heart though

that's the issue, recluse has so much utility

[quick lynx]

but my comment wasnt it was about a specific area...

[jolly oyster]

it can win flat lane, it can harrass over hills, it can raid over hills, with webber support it can be a whole supported reclaim push over hills

all termite can do is defend hills situationally

[ripe flame]

and honestly in many case you'd rather just give up the hill and make a pitbull below it

[jolly oyster]

^ that's what I'd do

just stick a mammoth behind it or w/e

the odds of you having termites pre emptively are low

once the hill is taken termites also can't take it anyways probably cos it's porced to fuck

[quick lynx]

To say it again. My comment has no bearing on the overall balance of the unit. I'm saying there is a specific scenario (scenario A) where cor stuff shines. If you give cor all the tools to beat arm in the other scenarios you end up with cor still shining in scenario A and being tied in all others. When making balance suggestions you should therefore watch out as not to create a proposal that would make us have the same discussion about arm in 3 months.

[jolly oyster]

I don't think core's ability to potentially defeat arm on a hillside is really an important part of its toolkit compared to fundamental stuff like the faction having a way to handle a t3 push

Arm still has lots core doesn't have with this tweak

Liche, sharpshooter, janus, razorbacks, recluse, tick!, Arm is fine and then some

when was the last time you actually made a termite? I don't think I have done once this year, it's such a niche case you can effectively ignore it, I build starlights like every single game

This is what I mean, core has such a downtrodden mentality that people start to worry when they get something remotely useful, just think about all the insane shit Arm gets lol

[delicate lark]

U need to evaluate the full picture of the balance

[quick lynx]

I am not speaking to the merit of your proposal. I am saying be weary of this happening due to you making good faith attempts at fixing the problem. Don't overcorrect, rather propose small steps.
Please stop treating me like I am attacking your proposals every time I urge u to consider something that could possibly endanger it. I get that u think your proposal is good, but give others time to verify

[quick lynx]

Honestly this thread is no better. Every time I ask you to consider a possible side effect in a specific scenario i get whataboutismd with scenarios that weren't in my original scope.
Like... either say "that is a niche scenario its still fine overall" or say "i dont agree in that scenario because of a b and c" dont just start telling me random stuff about other scenarios

[jolly oyster]

I think I am keeping a holistic view of the whole game in mind

Kuchy Also does that p well I feel

[delicate lark]

Nowadays I think more in terms of what a unit should be able to do. Not strict balance per say

[jolly oyster]

after adding a counter t3-t2 unit to core I still think Arm has way more benefits over core in general interactions, that's why I don't think termites ability to defeat recluse if they fight on a hill is important

[delicate lark]

Termites dont do it reliably enough

[quick lynx]

Thanks 😉 Just give us the benefit of the doubt man. I get you feel like the general discussion is biased towards arm favortism but don't project that onto anyone that doesnt agree with the full range of buffs u wanna give. Many of us have tried to adress specific issues you have brought up, I personally made a tweakdef to try one of the fixes, we are trying even if we sometimes dont agree with u 😄

I think right now we should wait for the recluse change to take effect before we talk about it. That being said I think one of the core problems is the banishers splash damage. You cant really buff it to be a t3 killer because that would mean you have a unit that is great vs both centralized and distributed unit compositions. So in my mind you either change the banisher to loose its AOE or add another unit to fill that gap (maybe I do like ur siegebreaker after all :D)

Also printer being added should be a no brainer. Don't know why that hasnt been done a long time ago

[jolly oyster]

depending on how good the Banisher feels after patch I might switch my tweakdef to use the deadeye

[jolly oyster]

it's a mystery to everyone I think

[quick lynx]

As for your tweakdef, I think if you really want to give this a shot you need players to experiment with it. I think right now you are doing too many things in there for players to consider it. Maybe start small. Minimal example would be a tweak to add the printer, if u want a bit more do printer and maybe either sala or sumo buff.
Problem is few players will want to play with ur tweakdefs if they ask u "what is this" and u answer with a wall of text. "Adds cortex consul" is much cleaner and less people will have a problem -> more people try it and see its good

[jolly oyster]

that may be true, I think between me and kuchy we could maybe hijack a lobby or two and just enable it though 😂

[quick lynx]

It does more than this though right? Apart from other things it defines:

areaoffefect and range for sala,
cost, buildtime and upkeep for sneaky pete,

Maybe u kept them to original values but if not u should prob disclose that 😄

[jolly oyster]

changed a couple of things since making the notes

[arctic cape]

you know sala is buildable from t1.5 lab

you can't give it 8 more speed and 15% more dps

[jolly oyster]

yeah I was thinking of nerfing the lab cost

[arctic cape]

should just make a dedicated t1.5 amphib like bringing back the alligator

[jolly oyster]

agree

that would be ideal

[arctic cape]

smh making a t2 core combat unit buildable at t1.5 or combat engineer is stupid

recluse, hound, salamander, when will plp ever learn

[jolly oyster]

yeah I agree it puts it in a dumb place

for now I just wanted to try gather data from dry land and I figure I can worry about strait later, it's not like this will actually be directly added to the game ever anyhows

if i can make it a popular tweak in op rotato lobby though I figure it may at least send a message that something needs changing with base game

[wise swan]

u right
people get attached to these things as a cool play you can do but it's bad for the design

[jolly oyster]

maybe in the tweak I can just disable from amphib lab and move to advanced amphib complex or smth

what did you make of tweakdef modulo did you decode it to have a looksee?

[long aurora]

while this is true it would still remove more utility from cor than arm, due to viability of twitcher fiends and amphib complex salas/new parrows

[arctic cape]

im sure you can buff the cor t2 bot lab

in compensation

also the fiend/platypus are allowed for now because t1 can deal with them

consul sharing on amphib maps is crazy tho

not common but crazy potential

[wise swan]

yeah but like it's the amphib complex holding salas at the same time, when you compare how strong jaguar is allowed to be

[vale solar]

Salas felt soooo good in their initial iterations before they got nerfed due to amphib complex.

[delicate lark]

I feel like Twitcher and Consul has too many buildoptions

[long aurora]

rattlesnake feels excessive to me

[jolly oyster]

Have the tweak active in a glitters lobby right now if anyone wants to come try

currently game is ongoing

[royal rover]

@jolly oyster maybe consider adding the legion astreus to core t3 to round it out and try giving core an actual range advantaged unit

[jolly oyster]

What's the astreus?

[royal rover]

11k t3 walking lrpc with 3k range, it's honestly a very cool well made unit, I just think it fits core better than legion and really would round out the t3 lineup very well both in cost and capabilities

I probably misspelled the name though 😅

[lusty raven]

nah man, catapults already there bad take

its the only range unit that goes through shields

just buff the catapult if you have a issue

legions t3 is fine where it is

[fervent valve]

pawns feel better than grunts. mak grunts feel good too.

[jolly oyster]

@azure oxide didn't realise you were another player with open eyes

pls feel free to contribute a comment or two to this thread

[azure oxide]

i agree with most of you points. only things that make cortex (made last season) a viable alternative is shurikens and lategame T3

[storm crest]

bit of input i haven't played since around 1 year ago (t2 pork tweak) and already back then you could feel the difference between Arm and Cor comp.
I feel like Cor is missing a raider in the veh t2 lab why? salamender could fill that role as talked above and Jaguar is probably overtuned seing the discussion above
I don't feel confident talking about other T2 veh since i played so long ago Cor pulsar equivalent seems good
Janus>Pounder i think it is mostly a janus balance issue here
T2 cor bots has only 2 unit faster than most T2 arm bots while having nearly zero synergy, arbiter rework as anti high HP unit seem like a good idea give missile tracking against T3
Cor T3 was somewhat balanced early back then (prenerf demon) and shiva grunt push worked well (prenerf grunt) balance Jugg VS Titan seem needed as said above
Arm T3 thor doesn't need EMP missile remove it, razorback seem to still be too multipurpose like a year ago, fast long range anti everything high damage self scout bot

It still seem the bigger issues are still the same :
-Arm spam > cor spam
-Arm always has more speed and range than cor (even grunt finally got there) T2 arm problem is simply grunt balance issue in reverse T2 arm composition beat T2 Cor comp in both so they can get infinite value
-Cor unit cost more because they have more hp (still get me every time lol). Where is range and speed taken into account for cost?
-T3 Arm gantry still better than T3 Cor gantry

I left air and sea out of the convo since it seems it is not the main point of this thread.

[lusty raven]

Air and sea both need utility as well, so it would still apply

Someone stated having the abductor and shuriken split seems weird since its essentially a t2 shuriken

[bold valley]

On that thought, CORE should get a T1 nuke bomber. 😃

[lusty raven]

gl with that lol

[naive sonnet]

A neat way to give Cortex a little more utility while strengthening the core identity/playstyles of each faction is to change the Cortex shield to block lasers and Armada LRPC/Ragnorok to be a giant laser death ray (or simply remove the LRPC as an option since they already have Pulsars).

This would encourage team games to have both factions to have access to each other's respective shields while emphasizing that these factions are mutually at war with the other.

[versed garnet]

Oooh make the arm lol cannon a super long range tachyon

[austere mica]

i actually dont understand why ticks are spammed when t2 comes out, can you inform me about this? they seem to just die to almost any t2 unit because of their low hp

[bold valley]

A couple things. It guarantees 1. some amount of constant vision on the enemy (you can think of it like trickle spending metal to scout the frontline constantly) 2. some amount of shots will be wasted on the ticks instead of on your good units when you do advance. 3. Keeps the pressure up, even if very light. COR's best approximation is Rascal? What matters the most is how much you have to spend to get the same effect tbh

btw, any changes on the op's points now that we've gotten a chance to settle into the new balance meta? How's 8v8 faction balance?

[uncut kayak]

cortex has always been realy bad compare to armada in team game
the reason is quite simple
armada get more unite variety while also having a good scaling on low eco

while cortex strive on HIGH metal map type so 1vs1 are their best spot

so efficiency is much higher for armada than cortex

for cost

their most strong option atm is either spam brute / spam tiger / spam shiva

[high spade]

Meanwhile due to cortex not having rezzers in vehicle lab, arm pawn being way better then the thug, and cortex bot lab sucking you mostly still in 1v1’s see arm being picked over cor. Cor atm just sucks in comparison, less utitlity and not being compensated well enough for it

Quite weird for being the so called brute force faction really

[uncut kayak]

i still win game by pure spamming tiger and leaking

i got quite good at sniping commander

the brute force come from just monospaming the same unit untill you get such a number it's imposible to stop

or at least not before doing the damage you want

[high spade]

Ofcourse, and that’s really nice to hear your getting some amazing games in! I am not talking about that though, I have been really into watching 1v1 tournaments both pro and ‘’noob’’ 30-50 os 1v1’s

And the majority of 1v1’s tend to be arm vs arm

Which does get kinda stale at times

[uncut kayak]

yeah the cor vs arm matchup is hard af

too much utility on armada

but if equalize you end up winning as cortex

[high spade]

Do the devs ever adress this issue btw?

Have seen a billion thread already with 10+ upvotes

Which does say it gets taken into consideration

[uncut kayak]

there is tournament

so after tournament might be a patch

[high spade]

But looking at it this thread is kinda old already and the issues still linger

[uncut kayak]

hopefully

there is not much dev on the cortex/ armada balance and there is also the coop problem

etc etc

they do what they can

you have to play around it

even if it's frustating at the time

[high spade]

Uhhh idk a sharpshooter being severely stronger in late t2 then most if any of cors t2 for its price doesnt have much to do with coop I think, and I thought they were tackling coop in a different manner with build cost increases

Not unit balance

[uncut kayak]

the lack of "cheap spam" is also a problem for cortex

you have to go veh for rascal
then if juno you have to go bot

while arm got both in t1 lab

tick and pawn

[uncut kayak]

lucky i am one of the few top 50 os playing only cortex

[high spade]

I was alr thinking vedor seems like a common name xD

I have probably watched you play tens of times already then! Fun to see you here :D

[timid halo]

A little necro-y sorry. What ever happened to the Siegebreaker?

[brave tree]

Development for it to be a base game unit might have been scrapped and they want to leave the roles of core and armada vehicles to be a bit more asymmetric. Ultimately I do not know why the unit was not added or why it was cut from testing, the GDT members might and other contributers might, but I think they decided core's seige abilities should lie in other units or other labs.

[tired marsh]

It is in the PVP units pack. People other than me decided it was not needed in base game, same with the vision stealth tank. I strongly disagree on both counts, the core toolkit is profoundly lacking and those units help make the game a bit less "arm and worse arm"

[tired marsh]

It's one of my main areas of interest actually

If people could make a concise list of their particular gripes, it'll be of help and interest. I have a list as long as my arm already, everything from turret speeds to lab animations, but vox populi always highly relevant.

I also want to hear about units that "feel bad" to use.

[paper charm]

Core's lack of a unit roster is really aparent these days as legion becomes more and more common imo. They need another T2 air unit, don't even have a T2 veh engineer, and just generally. I understand wanting to really keep unit bloat minimal but its honestly becoming a balance issue just in the fact there are so many fewer knobs to potentialy turn for core.

[tired marsh]

One of the reasons behind my bootstrapping legion was actually to hold a mirror to the balance issues, and try to remove the tug of war mindset

[uncut kayak]

For me there is a problem with the air viability between the 2 faction.
Going armada T1 in teamgame is straight up trolling because of the lack of the shuriken utility.
While the t2 of both are more viable due to cortex having wasp and armada having liche even if armada got more option aka 2 gunship type and emp bomber.
Liche being the counter part to dragon imo.

As for other issue we have Fatboy being a big problem in 8v8 same as tzar because it straight up destroy porc and T1 and is kinda hard to counter .

What else i think also for the 1vs1 especialy the rover aggro méta is quite annoying due to the fact that these scout unit can kill most T1 eco building the early game i can understand its a problem due to the fact that 1 people play big macro map and second that is allow to counter greedy build.
However having it spam or having to chase around multiple of them is quite annoying especialy if one get through which can kill a mex in 5 second flat.

Pounder also being a major problem in choke or as a oh no im getting push dangerously time to spam them and defend my base for free.

[uneven sleet]

Funnily enough there's a whole other thread that's discussing the Banshee (and to a lesser extent Mosquito) Vs. Shuriken point.

Some pretty interesting ideas were put forward, such as giving the Banshee a slower-firing (but same DPS) weapon that deals a tidge of knockback to help stop mobile targets.

[uncut kayak]

The major problem is how emp give massive value

It would be way better if the emp had diminishing return

Like you can full EMP rapidly but it fall off and the unit get immunity for x second

So that you cant perma emp a unit

[uneven sleet]

I mean it already has the disadvantage of being unable to deal damage, meaning that whilst great for stopping units, it can't actually kill them alone.

Banshees and Mosquitoes can try to snipe enemy commanders and other high priority targets, Shurikens can't

[uncut kayak]

You dont think big enough.
Emp is literaly giving the player a on i emp this and kill with 1 2 unit a whole army

[uneven sleet]

Very true

[uncut kayak]

Banshee dps are made for raiding mex cons

And if you can a commander

That's all

Shuriken is more versatile

[uneven sleet]

Well that's where discussion gets a bit difficult

We need to make the Banshee (and also perhaps the Mosquito) more appealing without making the Shuriken worse

Or if we do have to nerf the Shuriken to bring it in line, make it a fair tradeoff

[uncut kayak]

For me banshee are already good

The outlier is shuriken

Mosquito is already stupid op i dont know what people are thinking

[uneven sleet]

Seems I've seen two sides of the same coin

Because some of the other folk seem to think the Banshee is unviable as Hell

Not saying that's neccesarily what I think, but still

[uncut kayak]

Because if you compare them to shuriken yeah

I mean if you buff the gunship too much we will have another problem

And gunship are crazy oppressive i 1vs1 right now

[uneven sleet]

I think that's another part of the equation, different gamemodes and maps

Like take the anti-spam ships for example, not overwhelmingly useful on maps with linear naval lanes, but brutal on big, open-sea maps

[uncut kayak]

Yes

[uneven sleet]

So it's sort of, is it that a unit is bad, or is it just bad in the current situation you find yourself in?

But that all having been said, don't want you to think I'm trying to shoot down your points

[uncut kayak]

Shuriken is overtuned in all game mode.
1vs1 as a get out jail card
Small help counter a push .
Large team your want to push or leak nope

But your right

The best case scénario is a unit is viable/good in all game mode
Worst case situational

[uneven sleet]

mind you a guy in the other thread was more-so complaining about air gameplay in general, something about how do you allow a higher-skill air player to win against a lower-skill air player before their ground forces lose or summat like that

which wasn't the sole point of the thread to be fair

[uncut kayak]

Yeah air gameplay in team revolve around either timing eco into mass air.
Or all in shuriken bomber and hope your ground follow

Mind you in rotato game you sometimes dont have a air spot and it s whoever lane has a stalemate go air

[uneven sleet]

aye

[uncut kayak]

So that problem is less severe

[uneven sleet]

it's games like this where even fairly small balance adjustments can sometimes ripple into bigger changes in people's playstyles

..which having said that is the proposed point of this discussion, so i feel a bit stupid saying that

you are all entitled to one (1) 'what is bro yapping about' token

spend it wisely

[uncut kayak]

Also map dépendant balance are kinda annoying because most people are playing glitter and istmus so they dont know what and how other map are play

They just have the same bo over and over again and the n complain

[uneven sleet]

aye, that's (yet) another point to consider, what sort of playstyle do people have when they ask for change?

[jolly oyster]

This thread is a tad outdated with regards to some of its specific gripes/issues however I think the core problem hasn't changed, Arm is still picked at nearly 2:1 ratio for land based roles in 8v8 and it is super dominant in Sigma series, it also has a 5:1 win ratio in FFA for example.

It's yet another large teams tourney where ARM defines the meta

Here is a more updated thread for today's specific issues:

https://discord.com/channels/549281623154229250/1463599179900256359

[tired marsh]

I did that in balance pack year ago, the banshee had a shotgun with impulse, it worked really well

[tired marsh]

Try emp rework

[arctic cape]

Skuttle is unique defensive utility, shiva on smaller maps through raw stats is as influential as marauder.

T1 cor bot lab is kind of worse overall than arm t1 bot lab unless you can get some serious grunt or thug value

T2 cor bot honestly has a different playstyle than sniper starlight. It has real advantages like being very hard to kill with twitcher t2 wall twin guard, defensive shuttleß

Duck is worse than plat in most cases, twitcher has insane utility for setting up remote bases and defenses

Surviving early t3 comes down to can you get mammoth / skuttle/ reactionary porc in time

T2 cor veh cor actually owns hard due to tiger insane all rounder and to a lesser degree banisher being an actual skirmisher.

It lacks gremlin or combat engineer tho. So it's a tiger banisher quaker one trick

Tremor has some use cases against mass sniper or sheldon

T2 arm air lab is better No question. Liche and stilleto. Cor bomber is better but you aren't always bombing afusing when you can more reliably stilleto or liche army

So I would boil it down to

T1 cor bot lack utility to match tick/cent, they also suffer in 8v8 because grunt is worse than pawn for raiding, llts, spam wars, and killing coms

T2 cor air lacks utility -- dragon could be something but they need 1 more thing

T2 cor bots and T2 cor veh are fine imo. Maybe sumo/mamy need small buff but it's okay

Different game mode but in 1v1 shuriken pounder exploiter is dominating

[uneven sleet]

I mean depending on how you look at it, Cortex not having a counterpart to the Centurion (and to a lesser extent the Karkinos) could be seen as either a gap in the roster, or a deliberate choice

You can kinda intersperse a few Grunts amidst a bunch of Thugs to achieve the same effect as a Centurion - Thugs sponging up damage and Grunts killing fodder units and skirmishers

Not a true counterpart, but it kinda works

[hushed mason]

Not having Centurion doesn't feel like that much of a gap, since you at least have Grunts and Thugs for pushing into stuff, including commanders. The lack of a Tick equivalent is a notable difference. On the T1 vehicle side there's a notable advantage/disdvantage with the Pounder/Janus differences. Pounder is great against cheap spam and T1 clumps that aren't supported by a commander, but weak against commanders. Janus is great against commanders and sniping some t1 defenses, but not as good against spam.

Dragon can be great in some situations, but if you don't have air superiority it will just get shredded by fighters, so it's usually not worth it. It's good against some T2/T3 ground stuff if you use it defensively and can guard it from fighters, as it's tanky versus ground stuff.
Sumo has some limited situations where it's a good choice, but it's short range and fire rate generally makes a smaller number of Mammoth preferred.

[copper swallow]

The only weakness of cortex is the inability to fight t3 units with t2. Armada can still defend against anything except cata and vanguars using snipers and starlights. Yes mammoth can beat most t3 but any good player will just walk around. Scuttles can kill razors but feels very desperate. I just feel like u have to go t3 first as cor and abuse karg+kata or gg

[tired marsh]

Labs shouldn't be balanced around one or two hero units. The overall T2 veh lab balance and utility is very poorly matched, which is a problem in both gameplay and GDD. I've tried to fix it in the past but was stalled out by GDT.

Core lack of anti T3, especially when arm have good early t3, is a major design fault. One way to fix two issues at one could be move Stilleto to core t2 air lab, adds utility option and an early t3 tarpit tool, however reliance on emp is another crutch and design problem itself. Lack of sniper/pulsar/starlight also manifests with problems defending vs early coastline loss, although hitscan vs boats is OP currently, nothing at all is also a problem...

I would be curious to hear of thoughts from people who tried phantom and siegebreaker? They had a very short test run in RC units a while back, but were poorly understood and not left in long enough to become meta options. As part of HBP they had great uptake.

[arctic cape]

Yes that is true but I don't think you give full credit for strenghts of core limitations of arm. Hills, cliffs that give ambush spot, too long travel distance and simple lack of coordination with team make starlight exploitable, whereas on strait there is not much except wall abuse

The big arm veh nerf was the tipping point

[tired marsh]

I play more than just straits, and all team sizes, straits is just fastest way to get a lobby with water.

I'm very aware of starlight/LoS limitations and exploits, but the base mechanic is still extant and inherently faction wonky. I'm not saying there aren't counterplay options, of varying effectiveness , map dependant. I hold that the mechanics of long range hitscan to one faction only is a massive problem, especially so in non-top level lobbies. It's just vastly easier than counterplays, and has nothing comparable.

I'm also not saying arm veh > core veh, you can indeed do everything with tigers and banisher, but my point is those shouldn't be standing in for a full toolkit. No hitscan range, no vision, all turrets glacial, will usually obliterate your own units at the scent of a tick, no engie, no anti early t3, and just generally "feels bad" to play. Turtle is also a unit in need of attention, don't get me wrong, but the rest are excellent tools for their jobs. S to B teir at least. Core veh you're mostly lucky if you get Cs aside from "well rush it and micro it" plays (which are also weighted to effectiveness at top of bell curve, and poor lower)

[hidden blade]

Sala is also a dookie anti spam

[arctic cape]

Yes I think there is an ease of use differential. Few cor units have glacial turret unnecessarily.

Anyways this is something that would require buff and nerf at same time

If you buff cor long range you need to nerf tiger roaming, rn cor antispam is expensive in the salamander but it's fine. The pounder is the op anti spam if speed is not an issue

[arctic cape]

Tiger is so good at roaming that you can just run everywhere their starlight ball isn't. Literally nothing except starlight ball can deal with tiger banisher, bull gets clapped

The thing that could be fixed is auto target filtering. Spam is extremely annoying apm tax forcing you to hold fire even if you have anti spam units

[arctic cape]

Starlight B-A+ tier depending on map
Bull is B-
Jag is B-A depending on map. Complete package fast raider but has atrocious stats against porc. So typical mine + beamer usage skill check. Fragile so have to be careful not to throw away

I don't think cor needs hitscan what it needs is better targeting so playing vs tick spam isn't miserable apm tax

Tiger out does bull in raiding and versatility in most cases with current balance

The engi and stealth scout I totally agree with you

Not having those is not an interesting asymmetry

You deal with early t3 with tempo I think. Just run tiger everywhere or the banisher ball still beats t3. Heck you don't really want to rush mara/razor vs tiger banisher

[tired marsh]

That is a whole other discussion, spam in the game is its own problem, but the way to solve it is a holistic change (which is usually seen as too scary to be done)

In the meantime though, core turrets need fixing, they are not only painfully incompetent but over reward micro like preaiming and turning the unit, which is not skill expression if it's essential for the unit to even be useful. It just widens the differential balance issue even more, and makes for "rush it and micro it or don't bother" units.

Hitscan however is the current way to handle one target one shot one game frame one kill. Contrast even starlight vs ticks, compared to say banishers. Kcorp and I did some testing a while back, it's depressing

[tired marsh]

Usually that's a manifestation of more T2>early t3, but it is also only true if you don't just bypass that lane entirely with the mobile T3. I agree tigerban is a good combination, the issue is it's pretty much the only competent combination. Your comp doesnt change by game state or evolve much, there's no tactical options, it's just a the same ball growing until you can go T3 with gusto. The rest of the veh toolkit are just different sizes of rusty sledgehammer. The arm lab has tools for all occasions, even if the turtle is a bit of a drunk one.

And yes I would absolutely be in favour of nerf to tiger, if the other units became baseline competent. Banisher probably has to wear too many hats for a nerf currently, but with hitscan in the lab it could absolutely be nudged into a more complementary place

Even the missing spy tank being added might allow a slight banisher nerf, as it'd indirectly allow better utility and efficiency

[clear dock]

My friends and I usually play with extra units enabled, 1v1 or small teams. I'm a Cortex main, the friend I'm most often playing against is a Legion main.

And man, I like the phantom. Invisible stealth scouting, with radar and the ability to sneak in from the water, is great. They are trickier to use than spectres due to their turn radius and being slower uphill, and can't EMP, so they feel balanced to me. In most games that go to T2 vehicles, I build a phantom, and I miss it when playing without extra units. I'd even suggest to add it to the T3 underwater gantry, so you can scout the land you want to assault.

Siegebreakers were used only once by me. Usually they seem too cumbersome. But in that one case, they allowed me to effectively destroy T3 units and even push against them while I was stuck on T2. On a mostly open map, no less.

[tired marsh]

Glad you found them useful, they're the missing links tbh. Along with the engineer. I was debating adding phantoms to the amphib lab for assault scouting. Ducks should be there too really but that's a bigger issue with land/naval balance mismatches for now.

[clear dock]

Phantoms from T1.5 amphib factory would allow a spy unit to be built before the T2 era, when no counter-intrusion systems are available. I'm not sure the balance team would agree with that. Phantom from T3 amphib gantry should be uncontroversial. Their stealth doesn't even work against sonar, so phantoms shouldn't upset the naval balance. I believe that was the reason given for ducks and mobile bombs not being in either T1.5 amphib factory or T3 gantry.

[clear dock]

I'm not sold on the siegebreaker as much. The tech split modoption gave the tzar higher alpha damage, and it could hurt big and slow higher-tier units good. The splash damage and impulse could be lowered to compensate. Then tzar could be the T3 killer by slugging it out, like mammoth already is. Tastes like Cortex.

As for combat engineers, printer and forge are both... better than nothing. Printer, I feel, suffers from short range when embedded in an army, and when used just for construction it's slow and its gimmick and health aren't useful. I'd be willing to pay more for them if they had actual construction turret range. Forge has immense knockback on its flamethrower, to the point where it pushes pawns to the edge of its range and then takes 10 seconds to kill a pawn. A bug? It's not the self-defending engineer I wish it was.

Hats off to the creators of all these units.

[tired marsh]

That's why I didn't put it there. As a non combat unit it's in an odd place, I aim to minimise exceptions though. It's non combat and doesn't have anti sonar, a gremlin at 1.5 would be a serious issue, a phantom not so much. Testing would tell for sure.

[tired marsh]

I made phantom and siegebreaker , a stealth tank model is actually weirdly hard to design, fun fact! Siegebreaker is also intentionally clunky, it'd be too good if it were competent rover like a tiger say. I was very deliberately not making it a starlight, and it has more downsides eg can't shoot over your units heads.

Engineer... I think I will have a stab at this again. The game needs something solid here. Printer is a very nice idea but probably flawed, the grafting causes problems. I'm tempted to roll again from scratch; unarmed Engineer, sturdy and speedy with good build range, needs it to not spend half the game parking.

Reclaim is the weapon, will be more thematic than anything else and frankly better performing. Buildlist is key, it needs to be halfway between butler and twitcher. Probably only making buildings, and the T1 veh con. It explicitly cannot fabricate offensive units, in exchange for being a solid builder.

[clear dock]

Cortex is known for super heavy units. I can imagine a monster of an engineer. BP surpassing a com, high range, high health, and of course a huge price compared to other engineers. Something that can reliably build near the front while tanking stray shots. Or be parked there as repair BP that's not flimsy. Kinda like printer, without the gimmick and with its other traits exaggerated.

[tired marsh]

The Monolith pattern is also the reason core is fundamentally impossible to balance. More power in fewer and slower units is a serious issue, I'm not repeating that pattern here. This will be effectively a "weird consul" more than "mammoth with a nano"

[clear dock]

True. I just thought it'd also be a goal to have factions differentiated more strongly. All other combat engineers already have rather high speed. Higher than regular constructors, at least.

Maybe leaning into sheer BP per cost is the way to go, as you suggested. No other combat engineer does that yet.

[noble delta]

a reworked version of the commando might be more interesting at t1

[clear dock]

I'm just a casual player. You're the dev, and you got this.

[tired marsh]

If it doesn't have comparable speed it loses reclaim, can't porc or replace radar etc, can't put out mexes as fast, and is surrounded more easily. A few more seconds survivability against pawns etc doesn't remotely trade off against that and it's a huge game mistake to assume it ever could