Season 2 balance feedback

[placid eagle]

That wasnt the reaspn given for it though neither do I think "Itd be too hard to learn" is a good logic because units should just look like they do what they do and be effective at it. If a unit looks cool as hell it should be intuitively also really strong

Right now thats not the case and this causes more confusion for the new player. "Why does this cool unit suck?" Is a common question

None of these proposed changes overcomplicate the game whatsoever, and wanting to keep units vanilla and basic just to be "easy to understand" would not be good design

[woeful fiber]

wait so we can request balance changes based on a units looks now?

[civic lynx]

I agree the hound is not good in its current state. It makes no sense that even on the flat you would rather want a all terrain unit (recluse) than a hound. You hardly ever see experienced players using it.

Hound has one thing going for it and that is that it is very mobile and easy to micro. Bringing gauss back would go along way but imo it is not enough. It still is too expensive to be a unit I would want to build over recluse or gunslinger

[visual wolf]

compared to Sheldon it sucks so bad

[woeful fiber]

but does it look cooler than the sheldon?

Sorry but that's just fing wild to me, the idea of basing balance of units on someone's visual taste

[civic lynx]

Im fine with that compared to Sheldon.

[barren prawn]

id say hound is actually horrible to micro due to turn speed, not to mention it basically cant hit anything

[chilly heath]

Banisher sound effect too OP, pls nerf.

[woeful fiber]

360 noob tube confiremd but sound is cool so must make OP?

I don't understadn the banisher change at all tbh... making an arty unit that shoot directly behind itsself?

That right there breaks all the norms and "clarity" in the game dont see how it got through

bro if we balancing things based off "how it looks" we are cooked.... Starlight "looks" like it should shoot 360 too....

[civic lynx]

To me as well visuals and balance doesn’t need to match. It is completely fine if the coolest looking units are not the best. But I agree with nebs point that a unit should do what it look like it would do. I fail to think of examples of the opposite, but maybe he can elaborate.

Regarding hound I think arm bot lab right now would be better if you remove hound altogether and force beginners to make something else. Which is a shame since the hound is an interesting unit that should be at least decent at some aspects of the game.

[placid eagle]

Well yeah, because all units should be cool 🙂

To be clear I dont mean if it looks cool it should be good in all situations, nor looks cool = is good, my point more is on the player experience side of things, they need to feel like theyre able to use interesting cool units which means that they need interesting and cool units which are also strong in their desired purpose

[chilly heath]

Season 3 balance notes: Added cowboy hat to gunslinger. Reduced all other units' damage 50 % to keep the lab in balance.

Really though, cowboy hat would be a huge buff to morale 😄

[mortal summit]

What does BLT stand for and who is in this mystical “GDT”? They seem to reject some cool ideas and I do not see good enough reason for it.

Maybe GDT should be voted in? Or at least we should know what they do or how these ideas from threads actually make it in game.

[woeful fiber]

Juggs look cool, and noobs like them. buff needed.... to be real, I think I understand the intention of the point being made here but this is really scuffed logic all around. Especially when it is so easy to highlight incongruencies currently existing in game. That being said I don't think its really justified to go marching on GDT with torches or anything, internal disagreements aside the team has remained largely intact as far as I am aware and the game has done very well over the last few years and while I am privy to some issues I am by no means trying to genuinely imply they are a detriment to the game.

[chilly heath]

Just to be clear, we don't actually balance the game by visuals. Though I still want cowboy hat for my gunslingers.

[grizzled atlas]

yeah it's a glorified static clearer

the main thing it reliably does

[placid eagle]

BLT = Balance Team, GDT = Game Design Team

The game design team instructs us on what game elements are part of BAR, and how they are intended to work. For example, they would define the flanking mechanic and how it works, but then its up to the balance team to actually implement it. So GDT does more overall direction, while BLT does the balance numbers

[lunar hollow]

wrong it stands for bacon letuce tomato

[placid eagle]

Balance of bacon Lettuce tomato Team ?

[flint ginkgo]

+1 to making Hounds loved again, right now they're almost useless, very few situations where you'd want them as #1 option

[woeful fiber]

I've actually found them to be pretty solid mixed in with tic + pawn spam in mid tier rotation maps. They add quite a bit of pressure if you are microing pawn/tic spam

cheap and some HP and the range lets them remove alot of the things stopping the tics/pawns with just a fight command

that's no meta application though....

[visual wolf]

sheldons do that job quite a bit better imo, because they don't need t2 energy infrastructure, and can hit fast moving targets

and I'd still rather have recluse than a hound to remove porc etc.

[grizzled atlas]

recluse not so versatile anymore, lower range

still a reasonable unit but less good vs units now

[harsh egret]

omg couldn't have said it diff anyways uhh so when balance change :C

[grizzled atlas]

sheldon hitting fast moving targets 🤔

na sheldon just has big boi range and easy to spam them

[plucky vessel]

It's funny, because the reason they're not used anymore is if someone goes Core Vehicles and makes one Tzar or any amount of Banishers, the whole ball of Hounds you made is useless. They're great against tech 1, but so is a Tzar. And for pure skirmishing, the Recluse is better and nothing will change that except making the Recluse a Termite-tier pile of garbage.

But then they're still useless because you're better off making snipers to kill the Tzar and Banishers anyway, which are just better units and need to be that way.

There's not really a way to make Hounds relevant again without making the units that counter them worse, when their counters are fair units that can't afford to get nerfed. You can buff the hound but it'll either still die to Tzars, Sheldons, and Banishers, or become overpowered. Let's not forget how much they terrorized the game for a long period of time before people discovered Tzar rushing was op.

A lot of that had to do with the Consul meta, but that was nowhere near all of it. Hounds were like the only unit people made for a long time because they were so versatile and their only real counters were units nobody used because all lobbies were 99% Arm.

But Hounds died out before Core got buffed because people discovered how much better Arm Vehicles was thanks to the Consul and Mauser, and we entered the Consul/Mauser meta. Hounds were part of that too until everyone got sick of building OnlyHounds and demanded a hotfix to take Hounds off the Consul. Then everyone discovered the Recluse, which was still on the Consul.

Everyone would play bots more if spy bots were still as good as they once were. That was a way for Hounds to fight back against Banishers. Not Recluses, because they resist EMP, but definitely Tzars and Banishers.

We might need to admit that maybe spy bots should be almost as OP as they were against tech 2 and nerfed specifically against tech 3. Spy bots carried both bot labs. Without them, a lot of cool units that depended on them to survive the vehicle matchups can't exist in the meta.

[grizzled atlas]

something doesn't have to beat it's counter if it can a) come out earlier b) out maneveur c) collapse on the counter when it is overextended

for example mauser/quaker is totally viable and arguably stronger open than banisher

if you transport them you can just constantly avoid the banisher and out trade them killing t1

since banisher is giga expensive and slow

spybot stil 10 sec stuns banisher

just 10 seconds is a bit tight to kill targets

[fading lagoon]

Can someone Ping me when Balance is finally fixed and the Game/FFA is playable again?
Seems to me rarely anyone in Balance Team Cares to fix or Play the Game. Maybe some are to busy spreading Fake News about immigrants eating cats and antisemitism

[fast obsidian]

Never good to have noobs balancing the game, higher ups may think it's better for the new players joining and having bigger numbers but it will just remove what made BA special and such a success

[honest nimbus]

dudes trolling us, only max 25 os lobbies alive lmao

I tryed to talk in spec chat with rebel he just making fun of ruining the game

[crude delta]

Where tf are those channels from

[fading lagoon]

#politics in BAR lounge

[crude delta]

sent you a dm 😄

[west birch]

Have you considered coming up with coherent suggestions for balance, instead of directionless whining and trying to cancel me

[fast obsidian]

Since when are you interested in that, you must be kidding

literally weeks of people writing feedbacks, even polls ect, huge majority people saying to revert or say changes made went too far and you dare say you want more feedbacks

maybe you haven't noticed yet since you never play the video game but everyone think you guys are a joke and are quitting or just playing glitters, coz you have literally killed what was left of high quality gameplay, so the community is gone, sure you still gonna have more players join so you can always say the numbers goes up nothing is wrong

[harsh egret]

we've given so much feedvback but yet nothing is being done I don't understand the balancing team

I've also asked for this thread to be summerized but no one did

[crude delta]

Thread is way too long to summarize in it's current state

[honest nimbus]

i can summorize but i didnt read whole thread)

game is broken rn, balance team had no game knowledge and made a lot mistakes

but looks like ptaq building rattle instead of spybot on 3 1.8 mexes in canyon helped rebel to understand that untis have buildtime stat, but not only metal cost

[west birch]

broken because of spybot? game relying on 1 unit that is usually a coinflip whether it works or not, hardly makes sense

issues w coop etc were there even with spybot

[honest nimbus]

y monospam enjoyers are happy now

[tropic aurora]

Spy bot and sneaky pete remember? The two methods to fight up tier

[fast obsidian]

they already forgot

[honest nimbus]

i doubt balance team used those btw

[fast obsidian]

even hornet had more game knowledge, that's insane to realise

[honest nimbus]

its hard to balance things right when u never tryed to use those things

people enjoyed that mindgames with jammers spybots in toe 2 toe fights, when rushed tzar couldnt push and needed setup to not get dguned

but with t2 radar u get such a los that any jammers are cleaned very easily

u dont even need juno anymore

[fast obsidian]

spybots and jammers were the only reasons for people to micro units correctly, without it you get what we have now and people grouping units in balls not carring about anything

basically making it a fair playing field for all those noobs that like to mono spam and had no micro ability, sadly the gameplay is trash now rip

[honest nimbus]

well, I can smell the influence of some dudes playstyle here;D

from unique gameplay with multiple counterplays, we are moving towards 50 iq spam, actualy we are already there

[west birch]

theres a bit more to the game than just monospam, and the spybot

not really useful convo if you got this attitude, gg

[fast obsidian]

it's never meaningful to convo with someone that has no understanding of what he talking about anyways on top of being super stubborn but it's fine we are used to it, keep on working hard on roleplaying

[honest nimbus]

i duno i tryed to knock very polite and all i head that i dont understand how good changes are

so last hope is to change polite convo into this

at least now u answered something, on normal feedback i seen 0 reaction

srsly u guys cant take any feedback u just defending your changes when obviously game is losing more and more effective mechanics and high os creative players that was intresting to spec or play with

[harsh egret]

There's really a point when to use spy bot but in tbis balance I haven't used it a single time.

Same with hounds

[west birch]

the spybot and jammer were also the most common complaints ppl had before (like the mines were before), obv its divisive, but acting like there was no logic behind the change is silly.

Expensive units you can't see (or know whether it's there at all) until they've either failed or succeeded, is just too much mindgame and not enough game. (it kinda still is an issue since the mechanic for the spybot is still about the same)

If removal of spybot makes the game pacing worse, then ideas how to make game more interesting and varied that doesnt rely on this mechanic is welcome.
Or interesting ideas for what to do with spybot instead of either current version or old version

But when you make it just into a question of "new balance sucks", then there's not muhc productive there to address, so no wonder ppl get defensive

[honest nimbus]

but u are not balancing things u changine units into unusable state

they were too strong but balance team made them usless, they are not used in gameplay now

revert old spy bot and try change few stats in small numbers for example, so peopel cant abuse them too much

u cant change stats in 100%-200% and expect unit to be still effective

[west birch]

percent change isnt that meaningful always

but yes its a kinda new unit altogether, its still useful but not in all same scenarios as before

[fast obsidian]

How about you get the idea and work around before killing the game for however long...
you guys managed in a single patch something that was never done before
Aka killed 1v1, 8v8 and FFA in a single patch, amazing job

[west birch]

yeah i cba talk to someone with a stick up their ass, im out

[honest nimbus]

there is difference between "in different scenarios" and losing important counter mechanic completly

[honest nimbus]

op feedback from balance team:D

[desert rampart]

Waiting for balance team to realise that we need slight changes not huge ones

[grizzled atlas]

sneaky pete + hlt was dumb

you can still do a lot of stalling with a mobile jammer + mind games

sneaky pete can have cost reduced, it still has great range

for example a tzar can't actually touch the sneaky pete + porc without entering dgun range, and if you stall until the banisher arrives the jammer's done it's job buying time

[fast obsidian]

tzar never been an issue on glitters, im not sure why people complaining lol

[empty yew]

We commied a couple weeks ago

[grizzled atlas]

Commie t2 lab should always be front lab which removes the huge walk time

I would do quaker honestly unless there is a lot of t1 units to kill

[exotic sigil]

posting bait is all it takes for a green name to show up

[plucky vessel]

Okay. Here's my few cents about the spy bot nerf. I have felt, since seeing Spy Bots in action after each change, that the changes were entirely too much. As much as Spy Bots were dumb before, this definitely feels wrong, and now that we've had time to watch Spy Bots with EMP immunity in action, we can articulate why. The problem is that we're just supposed to use more Spy Bots than before to get the same results, but EMP is too janky and unreliable at a base level to make using multiple spy bots a realistic and sustainable solution. It isn't worth the APM and opportunity costs whatsoever.

EMP is not a static bar like HP, it is rapidly and constantly draining at invisible set intervals that have nothing to do with how long it's been since the EMP was applied. It is affected by flanking damage, so where you put the Spy Bots and when they pop is a big deal and wildly changes how many you need to use from moment to moment, even against the same units. It's impossible to know how many you're going to need or if what you have is even going to work vs the units we're targeting with them, even in tech 2.

They do not feel worth it 90% of the time because there are normal t2 units they don't even work against, and it's not even because they have any special EMP resistance, they just don't work. They don't do enough damage. Forget about using them against t3 even against noobs, you need so many it's going to be impossible to get enough in range against even the most basic t3 units, and whenever this is pointed out, the response is always, "they're a tech 2 unit! Of course they shouldn't work and Tech 3 should own you!"

... looks at the Sharpshooter. Looks at the Starlight. Looks at the Medusa.

I'm sorry, but that feels like a cop-out answer. If anything has people mad, it's that right there. It feels as though you're blatantly lying to us because you just don't want Spy Bots to be relevant.

Here are my qualifications: I suck! I'm a 20 OS at best. My APM is terrible and I never used Spy Bots even before the nerf, even though they were clearly good, because the APM cost was too high for me and I wouldn't be able to get anything done if I tried. Whenever I tried to use them, I often embarrassed myself, but whenever they did work, it was so spectacular it felt like this was a unit it was worth eventually getting good with.

Now it just feels like ... why bother? You don't even need to use them to see that they're not good enough, even watching the game and seeing other people use them is more than enough to see that the way we're expected to use them is not working, so when we keep talking past each other and one side keeps going, "just do it this way, just do it this way!" -- we keep trying to do it that way and it isn't working! If it was working, someone would do it! We have some really good players who have been trying to do that, and every time they try, it elicits the same reaction:

" ... oh my God, this is terrible."

Maybe a nerf was needed, but as it has been said, maybe the nerf we needed wasn't to make sure Spy Bots would never be a problem again, it was to make their max stun time from one Spy Bot less insane. Maybe 20 seconds was too long. Maybe one Spy Bot should apply a 5-10 second stun, and if you wanted a 20 second stun, you need to get a second one in there. That would have made sense. That's probably what people wanted. Instead, the Spy Bot doesn't work at all until enough of them detonate in one area, and when they do ... they also stun for way less time than before!

I'm sorry. I just can't fathom how anyone is defending that with a straight face. It makes no sense to me. Spy Bots were always a fun and interesting part of the game, it was just kinda silly that they were a little too good. Sometimes. But at other times, they were very much the appropriate power level and an important check on several things in the game after tech 2. We liked that. We wanted to play that game. The idea that we should fix all this other crap to make it so they aren't needed anymore is not the game we want. Spy Bots were just about the only unit that created asymmetrical gameplay that isn't all about economy and numbers. They were not free, and they were not easy to use. I've tried building them in early t2 before and crashed my economy so bad I got run over before the first one even finished because that's how much energy they cost.

I play Cortex exclusively. I'm pretty miffed that the one thing that lets the Cortex t2 bot lab use its Brute Force Doctrine was effectively erased. We didn't have the changes lined up to make Spy Bots not a necessary unit, and we can either spend the next six months figuring out what broke and trying to slap duct tape on all the problems, or we can at least partially revert some of the changes so we can have a little bit of what the Spy Bot used to be until we debate what should be done.

I'm not good at this game! I suck! I'm a noob! I'm 20 OS on a good day.

But I have played with some of these guys a lot in the past. since I reinstalled, I've been kind of avoiding their lobbies because I'm a little intimidated by them and their toxicity scares me to death because I'm a fragile little baby, but as much as they're being jerks about everything like always, they've still got a point, I do see where they're coming from, and I agree with them completely. We needed a change to Spy Bots but the one we got is not it.

And no, we don't need to nerf Razorbacks. Their whole thing is that they're a reliable unit, and I don't think that should be changed. They're cool! I've never even built one and probably never will because I don't play Arm.

But I disagree with the idea that they're a mid-level tech 3. A single Shiva costs 1500 metal. That's early tech 3. ~3000 metal makes Razors, too, an early tech 3, well worth building as the first unit out of your lab. I would consider the Demon or the Thor to be a mid-level tech 3. Razorbacks do annihilate pretty much anything below them and are well worth building over Marauders, but that's fine! The Marauder has its use case and not every game needs to follow the same unit progression.

More than balance, the game needs cool units, it's pretty much what BAR is all about, and sometimes to be cool, those units need to be A Little Bit Strong. If something isn't bordering on too strong at least some of the time, it's not a good unit.

But the Spy Bot was one of the things keeping a single rushed-out Razorback from killing everyone, and it was probably the only solution Core had because we don't have good units that outrange them. Should additional ways of dealing with Razorbacks be added to the game? Oh, absolutely. But Spy Bots were one of the solutions the game had, and it was a good one for more reasons than just "Razorbacks OP," it was good for the game for them to exist, and we should keep at least some of that on the table.

[grizzled atlas]

1 razorback doesn't magically kill everything

If a razor shows up and kills you you probably would have died to 8k +4k in medium tanks

[plucky vessel]

Listen. Don't do this. Don't do this whole, "arguing the semantics of what words are there like that's exactly what I meant," thing that you're doing again. I'm not saying that. You don't have to pretend I did.

[grizzled atlas]

That's 53 medium tanks

[plucky vessel]

Cool! I love Medium Tanks. Favorite T1 unit.

[grizzled atlas]

It was over nerf they could increase the stun dmg to 7k, increase max stun time to 12 sec and reduce aoe so that 2 can barely stun a razor or something (3 if it's leveled)

[blazing onyx]

You have a very pleasant writing style @plucky vessel that makes your post enjoyable to read - thank you for sharing your perspective

I completely agree with you too

[plucky vessel]

Yes.

I'm saying,

The Razorback problem in FFA right now is a symptom. Clearly, among other things, that problem was introduced by making the Spy Bot what it is today. The easiest, simplest solution to all these problems, even just as a stopgap solution while we think of something else to do, is just to tweak the numbers back in the other direction just a bit. If we end up liking that stopgap solution, then we can keep it! We should probably try it. We can't know how much we like it until we do.

Let's not let Perfect be the enemy of Good here. We don't need any solution we come up with to be perfect. It never is anyway.

[grizzled atlas]

Spybot is not supposed to be perfect oh shit reaction answer to t3 nor should they be so versatile that you can have 3 lying around all the time from the midgame. If you failed to scout and prep in the right time you should die

[fast obsidian]

If you failed to counter spybot coz you have no micro or army composition you also should die but no you don't anymore coz dumbed down game

[grizzled atlas]

Fighting full invisible units that have more stopping power than a pulsar is stupid

[exotic sigil]

Good wall of text, perhaps its clear enough now for Balance Team to realize what the problem is.
As an aside, what happened to testing changes with tweak defs?

[grizzled atlas]

I didn't play bar to play spam screen simulator

[grizzled atlas]

If no one wants to early t3 push they just eco and greed

Or do some other play that doesn't run into spybot/reclaim. Like air

[fast obsidian]

unBalance team don't mind breaking the game knowingly coz they don't like how the game plays even tho they don't play it
then don't propose or have any alternative to fix what they have broken, then get mad when players have had enough of playing a shit game
the unprofessionalism is astonishing, especially right after having Zecrus doing such a great job when he was active

[plucky vessel]

Stop pretending that's what we're saying they should be.

[fast obsidian]

You clearly don't play op lobby, t3 rush was common, spybots never been an huge issue but surely any good playeur could abuse it against people that don't know how to counter it, just like sneaky pete.
Those patchs just done to delete skill ceiling and have everyone plays the same, auto battle game

same people that keep on saying spam too op we need anti spam ect, no idea what they are doing but want balance team to change the game so they don't have to improve

[plucky vessel]

It feels like whenever we say something, you guys just ignore all the nuance of everything that's been said and beat us over our heads with a straw man. I kind of get why people might be over the whole "trying to have an actual discussion" thing and are just trolling, because it feels like... any attempt to have a meaningful discussion is met with a defense of the status quo at all costs.

It does not feel like the goal for you guys is to create a balanced game. It feels like you're here to argue.

[grizzled atlas]

Could be. I think people don't abuse spybot enough. The thing is dirt cheap late game and you have to be like 50os to keep your razors 100% protected the whole time. Not to mention you can setup anti spam units and porc to clear spam, if the razor steps up you stun the razor and spam together. If we assume very competent spam wall we should also assume spam clearing and stalling tactics

[plucky vessel]

Cheap in terms of metal.

Not cheap in terms of how much you have to babysit them.

[grizzled atlas]

Just make 5 sumos beamer and porc

If you watch rotato t3 control there will he dozens of moment where you could old spybot gg

[plucky vessel]

Not cheap in how much it's possible to hard counter Spy Bots before they even become an option. Those counters exist because they had to exist. Now it feels like, why do all of these counters to spy bots exist when we need to basically spam them to have any impact with them? Once you use Spy Bots even a single time, those counters are getting built. People will be on guard for them. They need to be good even despite that.

[grizzled atlas]

If you kill their 1st razor there's no way your team should lose if you were on equal footing

It's the cost of going t3 lab + travel distance

[plucky vessel]

Enough about Razors. I'm not even talking about Razorbacks. That was footnote to what I said. I don't even care about the damn things, nerf them into the ground for all I care. I lose the game well before the first one arrives anyway. I know that. I'm talking about Spy Bots.

We're telling you guys what gameplay we enjoyed about the old Spy Bot and that we would like to see that come back a little bit. The answer we keep getting is, "nope! We're not giving you guys any of that! Not even a tiny bit! We are gonna make sure you know how much we are not doing that."

Okay!

Then why. even ask. for feedback.

[subtle jasper]

I mean, if one has been paying attention, it is slight hyperbole, because they did give back 2-4 seconds of stun time iirc

Oh and gave them back their emp immunity so you can chain them iirc

That aside, I appreciate the principle that one spybot should definitely not be able to stun T3. Sometimes perceived comeback mechanics are too stronk

I've seen a bunch of people suggest further reduced cost, that could be cool

[plucky vessel]

Yeah, and it's a start, but... maybe a little bit more, please.

The thing about that 2-4 seconds of stun time is, that's only if you actually have enough Spy Bots already to create that stun time. They have to pass the damage threshold. Their damage has not changed.

Single, individual spy bots should be better than they are. Please.

[grizzled atlas]

If you have anything that can clear spam, even another razorback then your best weapon is to shove emp bots because the stuns will decide the fight

[plucky vessel]

Good!

[grizzled atlas]

There was this 1v1 blodir vs randy and it was just shiva grunt spybot on repeat. Stuns going off every second

Was pretty dumb

[plucky vessel]

Can I see the replay? That sounds like fun. It should be easier to do that. More of that, please.

[grizzled atlas]

It was in game sorry don't have the rep. Many months ago

[plucky vessel]

Stuns are a part of the game. Spy Bots are a significant APM investment and it stands to reason they should be good at what they do when they arrive. Individual spy bots should probably hit Max Stun Time for t2 units every single time. There, I said it! One spy bot should hit the max stun time for everything up to Tzars, and I say that as a Tzar enjoyer, because the stun time is still only 12 seconds now even if we did that. I remember how 20 seconds felt. 20 seconds felt like an eternity and I hated it. When I used it, it felt dirty and that was kinda fun but it was not fun to be on the receiving end of it.

12 seconds feels like barely enough time to do something. 10 was too short. I remember 10 from back when we had EMP rework.

[tropic aurora]

If you're rich enough to spam spybots, you can spam snipers. And they just kill the T3.

Except both armada and cortex got spybots. No more.

Reguardless, on balancing, why not just adjust spybots so they could stun a bunch of medium tanks for a while, a few bulls for a little bit, and one T3 for a short time?

Why go all out in making them do absolutely nothing.

[plucky vessel]

Thank you! Yes! Exactly!

[tropic aurora]

I had such a change proposed. Just change the amount of emp damage to stun something from... 1.2x Max HP to something like 10x Max HP.

Would have made all stuns a lot more Gradual and really smoothed over the T1, T2, T3 emp issues.

Much more simple than the now forgotten emprework too

[plucky vessel]

and I've already discussed why making people need multiple Spy Bots to do that is not working and has not been a good solution. >> #1353364944350871632 message

We need individual spy bots to be better. It's fine if one of them does something and then more of them does more of that, but needing to detonate multiple spy bots to do anything at all, no matter the tech level, is not working.

[tropic aurora]

Also, is that bad for the game? If optimal play was requiring 3 different labs and strong micro... Right now 1v1s is just pawns into more pawns into even more pawns isn't it?

Spybots beat Shiva, Shiva beat grunts, grunts beat spybots. Nice little triangle they had going on

Now pawns beat spybots, pawns beat razors, and pawns beat pawns. 😅

(because razors are still bugged and no fix in sight)

[plucky vessel]

Oh, right! I did actually use spy bots since the nerf. I forgot about that. I think I was trying to use them against Bulls or something so I could charge my Fiends at them all and kill them. My reaction to what happened afterwards was like

... ... "I'm never using this unit again."

It shouldn't feel that way. If a noob like me decides to try using the spy bot's suicide feature, it should be spectacular. For each spy bot, you have to stop making units for long enough to build an entire Banisher because they cost 22k buildtime. If you have to make two of them, that's like needing to make two Banishers that you don't even get to keep.

So about the cost of the Spy Bot. They cost 165 metal, but that's not the whole story. Spy Bots are a great example of a unit that doesn't cost a ton of metal but still costs you a lot of other units because it costs a lot of time where your lab can't be used to build things. They might be cheap in metal, but metal cost only matters when it costs you time. Time is the ultimate resource in this game. Metal is a function of that in most cases because you need Metal to be able to afford to make units in time. That's why Stalling is devastating.

Making a Spy Bot is like choosing to hard stall for the length of an entire Banisher's build time. If you're doing it, it has to get value or you're putting yourself behind.

So I just go Core Vehicles and make Banishers instead! I love Banishers! Why even go bots? I won't go bots most of the time even if you made the spy bot good again! I'm a simple lady, I like Tzars and Tanks Balls and Banishers! But when I do end up going bots, I kinda wish the Spy Bot was good at stunning things. I loved that.

[grizzled atlas]

1 spybot stuns banishers for 10 sec right now

It's 5k stun dmg and you need 1.2x for full duration

[plucky vessel]

I'm not talking about Banishers. I'm talking about Tigers and Tzars. They don't have EMP resistance, why should they not be stunned too?

[grizzled atlas]

If you plan to make spybots you redirect your e and m into additional con turrets

The bp cost is stifling early midgame but after it's easy

[plucky vessel]

Oh, I know how to use them, I just think it sucks and isn't worth doing. That's what I'm saying.

[west birch]

Why don't you report that then #1370827674121011291 message

[tropic aurora]

Well I'd probably report it in the appropriate section. #1370582823697907882 message

[west birch]

Just make sure beherith sees it. He asked the question that is it better or not, and got no response

[placid eagle]

Lol the spybot rework is such a cool idea, its not the fault of spybots that they were one of the only effective counters for a lot of unit compositions - thats the fault of the way the tech tree is balanced over all right now

[crude delta]

Cortex was overnerfed. That's my s2 feedback

[placid eagle]

BAR isnt supposed to have hard counters but t2 is basically a hard counter for T1 and then theres all sort of hard counters within t2/t3 as well

But making spybots into more of a useful tool than a crazy OP instastun mechanic was a very based change indeed

[tardy basin]

The overnerf of spybots was a disaster, some refinement a little improve the state, but still spybots is in a bad state, increase EMP damage or lower BP/E cost (& keep them in "hold fire" by default), people leave the game because of bad game state still, stop argue that spybots is well balance rn, it is false

[silver gulch]

As a fervent razor rusher I fully agree, but as a T2 bots enjoyer I wish that it wouldn't just be os donations to build T2 bot labs in equal matchups nowadays.

[placid eagle]

In an ideal world T2 bots would be buffed already or we'd already have @west birch factory cost adjustments

[silver gulch]

Maybe bot and vehicle labs should be merged into 1 land lab so that land units can be balanced and diversified without having to take into account missing tools from the tech split.

[placid eagle]

I dont think so, I think instead factory cost reductions acheives the same thing while also allowing more individual teching

Cut lab costs in half imo imo

And also buff every single unit which is never being used

So that you can actually make more than like 3 units in your composition per lab

For example, gunslinger and commando are some of the only truly unique units that the factions get to themselves, yet they are made to suck in most situations. Why? Why would you want to make it hard to use these fun and interesting units?

BAR locks all of the coolest units behind arbitrary walls like that

And its the same reason that most of our promo material isnt even from common games XD

[silver gulch]

because if you make them 'easy' to use they will be the one unit. There's always going to be a one unit. The commando breaks one very specific game rule and that alone makes it extremely hard to balance because the moment it's easy to use it will be horrible to play against

[placid eagle]

Imo the balance team is too afraid to change the meta, so we get stuck with stale metas

So what if they get a buff and become meta for a week or so?

Buff another useless unit then

[silver gulch]

I wouldnt want to say anything about balance team themselves. I dont personally like the changes and direction things seem to be heading but in general the game just needs A direction. Both for the factions, units and their balance and also for the player interactions. Coop is a bad experience for pubs because it isnt clear if you should be thinking resources are 'mine and theirs' or 'ours'. My opinion is a team is 1 unit and the more they think and act like that the cooler the experience and stronger the strats but the game starts and is setup to still reinforce individual thinking.

Balancing/design should first solve/identify the expected levels of teamwork, then move to faction design philosophy, then move to individual unit mechanics then move to balance.

But that's just my opinion ofc.

Also, emp on ticks when? 🙂

[silver gulch]

this creates a terrible experience though... the current playerbase in the game (for as far as I know it myself of course) reached a decent level of maturity/understanding at s1, s2 did not improve the meta but created more mono spam opportunities, more snowball and less counterplay options. Some counterplay options were way too strong for sure but the fixes were also not well implemented. Just throwing hard buffs around to make a new unit of the week for the regular joe os farmer would not make a good impact on the game quality as a whole.

[civic lynx]

Nobody is working full time on BAR. Once you commit to weekly changes, seasons, or whichever regular thing that require workload it also require contributors to regularly contribute.

You probably know better than everyone how much fixed events take. Most of us has a fraction of your free time and some of us want to use it to game too.

I really hope they continue to carefully make changes, because there isn’t routines or manpower in place to change often. Honestly, to me, massive changes like the one you are proposing is extremely scary.

[placid eagle]

@civic lynx @silver gulch Ahh I didnt mean to sound like Im accusing the balance team of being bad at their job or anything, I just mean that seems to literally be the state of things. Which makes sense, because we have a large playerbase to worry about making happy. I was just expressing that I wish that fear wasnt there. But again, I understand why they want to be very careful and thats ultimately probably the best approach for the vanilla game

But as for your point about how busy people are, I think holding a position like balance team should still carry the expectation of being one of the more active community members

[civic lynx]

I can’t argue with that final point. Balance team should have one active foot in most game modes amongst themselves.

[placid eagle]

Yeah, so when Im critical about what I perceive as a lack of action, Im not trying to tear the BLT down or anything, I just am analyzing the situation

[lunar hollow]

230 range grunt was actually able to kill welders if you pincered them from the side now they're too expensive and low range

[shadow fractal]

they also used to be able to kite fiends (back when then had 240 range)

[placid eagle]

Crazy stuff

Funnily enough if you buff the rest of t1 you can buff the cost of grunts and pawns by a lot

[subtle jasper]

I'd bet that le appeal to silent majority who agree with the intention of the Spybot nerf just don't comment in this thread. I mean, we've already 'won' in a sense.

Feedback and game experience or not, it's just straight up better game design in the context of BAR to not to have that cloaked jammed micromachine hypertactics outsized-impact (relatively-)low-investment unreliable-to-counter-counterplay 6.5/10 comeback mechanic. Killing it and rebalancing the unfun stuff it was holding back is the way to go. See the forest for the trees: you're allowed to not like the forest, but stop complaining that the tree is the issue at that point.

Overnerf? Many agreed, balance team agreed. They buffed it in response, and being immune to EMP itself now means you can do exactly what you did before, but needing a more FAIR macro investment compared to the unit it's countering. A singular spybot hard stunning T3 for any appreciable length of time is straight bs unfun game design tho with a hyperfocus on micro primacy, and I pray it never returns.

[subtle jasper]

op take

[empty yew]

Spybot in current state needs bp requirement lowered. For that much bp, you rather make other units that hurt you

[grizzled atlas]

yeah if spybot is weaker it's bp cost can be reduced. also cor e cost can be reduced, it's too high

honestly the reason to make it require multiple vs t3 (besides that t3 should be harder to stun than t2/t1) is that it's harder to sneak multiple spybots through spam
making the counterplay easier

[subtle jasper]

Yeeees increase the counterplay, yeeees

[empty yew]

With current bp your counterplay is simply to play, since its not worth the time / infrastructore to make. U rather have a useful t2 unit for this bp cost

[placid eagle]

YES!

This is the spybot buff we need

[tropic aurora]

I thought requium's latest 1v1 cast was a good showing of how weak spybots emp explosion is.

Sashkorin counters them by: building no spam, no counter intrusion, just tanking the pitiful stuns if they ever even make it into position.

Bonus points for hound+Spybot not beating thug+hill...

[exotic sigil]

Can you link that

[tropic aurora]

https://youtu.be/M0f--K3YJcU

It's a real game with lots of factors obviously. But the first time I've seen someone try spybots in a while.

[plucky vessel]

Yeah that's the thing. Their whole thing is that if used, they help you win one fight. To use them now, you need like five of them. That costs more BP than a fusion. If you do that three times, you spent more BP than an afus.

This is what I mean when I say they're not fucking free. If they want us to spam them, make them spammable.

[placid eagle]

Yeah I think it was just an oversight

Their BP was insane to begin with, but before it at least sorta made sense cuz they were so OP

[subtle jasper]

Man Ubivator is so cool, always trying to make the not meta things work.

[plucky vessel]

This is exactly what I mean. Exactly. Spot on. Everyone defending the state of things, to me, looks like they just don't want their stun function to exist except to stun an anti nuke, and I thought that was a really cool thing they could do. As they are now, they're effectively unusable for anything else.

Please just make them better individually. They don't have to be the literal same unit as before, just make them Not This. They're embarrassingly bad now.

[grizzled atlas]

ubivator super op

when you mantain similiar os but try out everything wacky. that means your fundamentals are even stronger than that

[cosmic garden]

if psybot stay that weak in emp power they need to be cheaper faster to build and slightly better as a scout unit through a bit bigger sight and/or faster movespeed. or maybe can bulk camera and stay invisible

[plucky vessel]

Before, you could literally just go Spybot Fiend Fiend Repeat and it would beat just about anything. I think I even did that once and I crashed my economy because I play Core and have them all on auto-cloak.

[tropic aurora]

If spybots uncloaked as soon as they started a 1-2 second self-d timer, would that remove the 'invisible threats' aspect?

[grizzled atlas]

i had that idea. or they lose stealthy for 1-2 sec
so they can be truly invisible only with a jammer

[exotic sigil]

#1353364944350871632 message
Solution's been there for about a month now

Testing something like this is leagues better than the current decision paralysis and endless back and forth that suggestions threads are famous for

[blazing onyx]

You may suspect that it’s a “silent majority” who want the spybot in its current form

But you’d be completely wrong based on polling

The 86% majority is for a stronger spybot - where opinions differ is around whether they should 1 shot tzars, tigers, bulls, or whether they should 1 shot t3

[exotic sigil]

I know the sample size is already small but this is just sad

[blazing onyx]

It’s probably even more impactful to understand who participated - only one or two were below 40 OS and it includes game devs, multiple tournament winners, and a lot of the top 10 players on leaderboard for duel, small team, large team and ffa

And funnily enough, 2 of the 3 who voted to keep spybot as is no longer play the game

[exotic sigil]

balance team's strongest soldiers don't play game or are 20 os, really op

[grizzled atlas]

would you put edge effectiveness on the spybot?

right now it's 100% = full aoe on the whole radius

small aoe + 100% edge effectiveness
vs
medium aoe + fall off

i think the latter might be better as it lets you stun a group of t2 while making it impractical to stun multiple t3 at the same time unless they are really balled up

also incentivizes you to detonate as close as possible vs high hp units

[exotic sigil]

the former, imo would feel better to play with.

[grizzled atlas]

fair

the line between 100% emp and full duration stun is tiny (only 20% max hp)

so you would get very confusing results from just a small difference in detonation distance

holy crap I can't words

[exotic sigil]

yeah im personally not against raising skill ceiling but consistency is needed for units like this imo

[tropic aurora]

Yeah, my tweak had it with negative edge, but that fine line massively broadened

Was still a little weird on working out when you were 'close enough' to T3 units.

[fast obsidian]

Yea, obviously Mitvit not interested in feedback and data

having a spy stun a bull for 0.1 sec is the new quality gameplay players are expected to deal with
destroying a game for the lols is fine

[fading lagoon]

Hey dont be mean. There is still people enjoying it like it is right now.
It used to be like Rock Paper Scissors on steroids.
Now its Rock, Rock or Rock.
Some may like that

[stray oasis]

I thought they were gonna revert the spy stuff?

[tropic aurora]

Well they added a bunch of custom params so it can have a set time for buildings.

[cosmic garden]

Do thé spy bot left a wreck when it detonate?

[plucky vessel]

No, because nothing leaves a wreck when you selfD.

[tropic aurora]

(commander exception)

[fast obsidian]

Dgun and fog of war probably on the removal list lol

"If you can't stop behemoth and need to dgun it in order to not die maybe you should have made units to be kill it before it's too late"
that's the quality of game balancing we have now

[subtle jasper]

That's not what I suspected, for the record. 🙇

[flint ginkgo]

Green replies make for some depressing read tbh

[subtle jasper]

Nevermind, I realized I was making 2 slightly different arguments and you read the first one appropriately, my b

[agile topaz]

which units are currently the worst in the game?

Termite,sprinter and commando?

[empty yew]

Sprinter is good for its role and costs

Spybot pretty hot garbage

[grizzled atlas]

lmao 1v1 2v2 is just spam pawns
even 8v8 is spam pawns if you need dps

pretty shitty balance when the most fundamental infantry unit is so much better than counter parts

only the incisor can keep up

blitz/grunt (with no scout) suck

[agile topaz]

what about spam grunt?

[grizzled atlas]

grunt it micro'd well can trade with pawn

but the pawn is just faster and better at everything else. And you have ticks so you have much better map vision

pawns way better at killing llt and economy than grunt

[lunar hollow]

Turtle garpike hound sumo

and hovertanks take the crown

[agile topaz]

How is sumo bad?

[lunar hollow]

it's slow and not as good as welder, you can use it but often better to just ho fiend

[agile topaz]

Hound?What?I remember them being used extensively

[grizzled atlas]

hound projectile just too dodgeable

[agile topaz]

What about armada stealth tanks?

In all of my time playing bar i have never seen them being fielded,only in one brightworks video

[visual wolf]

they're useful for scouting and sometimes can wipe eco but it's hard to pull off

[grizzled atlas]

very very good scouting tools

having persistent vision that enemy is not aware of is huge

such as seeing the player throwing down a fusion (you know they can't react to your play)

or seeing fighters bunch up and get ready for a bombing

gremlin are very good units
when you play cor veh you cry cause no scouting

basically advance warning to tell if they are a) land all in b) bombing c) greeding

[chilly heath]

Sumo is very underrated. A ton of health and solid dps. People don't like slow units but that's their mistake. With 15 sumos just right-click enemy base and they are very difficult to stop.

[grizzled atlas]

it also spends like 90 seconds walking to the front

it's better against worse players. against an optimal player they should NEVER let the sumo fire

just kite it with medium tanks and w/e you have

if you have 15 sumos and 20 sheldons

and i have i dunno that equivalent in tigers and banishers

[chilly heath]

Yeah they are much better in situations where you don't have space to kite. Like it doesn't matter getting kited if you reach enemy base and turn it into wrecks.

[grizzled atlas]

all of my army is firing, bur only your 20 sheldons are firing

sumo is tanky but it's not going to face tank their entire army hitting it, if they have real units (not poke skirmishers)

you can do similiar thing with phalanx
they are much upgraded version of sumo

[chilly heath]

Is phalanx that legion unit with more impulse than real damage?

[grizzled atlas]

yes

[chilly heath]

I'm not super familiar with legion yet.

[grizzled atlas]

but it has big splash. and even tho it's dps / cost is not that much it's overall stats are very good

basically, significantly faster, significantly better range abusing ground fire, has sustain, doesn't require a buttload of E to fire

has a lot of impulse

sumo niche, phalanx gigachad

[agile topaz]

"People don't like slow units"

Rip Cortex

Yeah i always wondered how will core be balanced.I wouldn't want it changed to something else other than "Big bulky expensive units with great firepower"

[harsh egret]

Yup

[random portal]

It would be dodgeable if u had to actually dodge it

Im pretty sure hounds would miss even when firing at a behemoth

[plucky vessel]

I personally think Sumo's better in more situations than the Mammoth cuz it's actually capable of getting to the enemy base. Sumos are escort units, though. They're intentionally designed to be paired up with Sheldons so they cover each other's weaknesses.

Remember that one time we tested putting the Sumo on the Twitcher and Zow built 30 Twitchers and built a dozen Sumos in the enemy backline to prove how broken it was? I remember. I think you were there for that. We immediately turned that off.

[plucky vessel]

I love how the thing about Core units is it's often a bell curve that goes

🤓 Sumos are good units
v
😭 NOOOOOO SUMOS ARE TOO SLOW AND KITEABLE
v
🧙‍♂️ Sumos are good units

It was like that with Banishers, wasn't it?

[plucky vessel]

It may be that a person using Sumos well may also never see them fire a shot, but it's not always about what they do, it's what they prevent and what they threaten.

Sometimes, people also make the mistake of forgetting how powerful Sumos are when they do get to fire their weapons because it's been such a long time they forgot. They charge their bulls right through them trying to get to the Sheldons, and then they realize too late how much damage they're taking and they're like

Too late to run away, you lose your bulls. Don't do that again.

If they're doing their job against good players, they'll never fire a shot because good players know you have to respect them.

[grizzled atlas]

lolol
bell curve meme

[plucky vessel]

Termites are really bad. Even on a map like Ascendancy, building them is a last resort. I never build them unless some Recluses are bothering me and I can't possibly kill them with what I already have. They are incapable of taking the initiative, because that's got the same problems as Sumo monospam except it's beatable with medium tanks.

[agile topaz]

I think that sumos are good units,but in a game where lomg range is more prefered they don't get used

Welders and pyros bypass this by being faster

[crisp bison]

Termite - nuff said. Pretty expensive and doesn't have a single notorious stat to exploit. No speed, no durability, no damage, no range. Everything is mediocre, so it is countered by almost anything. Should get a buff in something that would make it a threat.
Bedbug - seems useless. Costs about 6000 Energy for the effect of a single Banisher missile, that almost never reaches its target. Should be rebalanced and put into T1 botlab as counter to plasmabot and med-tank balls.
Gunslinger - one of the worst ROI in T2. It used to be marginally good due to its heightened EXP gain, which is no longer the case. Probably the only T2 unit that is so bad it strictly can only work against T1. It costs slightly more than Termite, while being half as durable. Ten times greater HP regen and range increased with XP means absolutely nothing, because they're slapped dead by almost any T2 counter half their cost, or can just be stopped with T1 statics and buffed plasmabots.

[grizzled atlas]

gunslinger uber situational

for bullying mace / rockobot

[lunar hollow]

gunslingers are very good at killing coms and t1 that alone makes them good in my opinion

many games are being won just with the effect a gunslinger had

its a bit of a gamble tho, if you meet a commander rapairing thugs its like a free win and if you meet a whistler ball you wasted your ressources on it

[silver gulch]

Bedbugs are great and totally invalidate T1 thug or rocket mono pushes, usually just takes 1 to scare the living shit out of any player with thugball ambitions, make it the first unit out of your rushed T2 front lab and enjoy a clean good dopamine hit as the unsuspecting 20 thugs or rocket bots pushing you without any pawns or grunts to shield them evaporate without even leaving any wrecks.

[split hull]

Uhm, I do not have much of a feedback to the patch itself, but more like to the game. It feels like there are not as many units available (to be played)

Air units feel bad to play (AA is too strong) - "you are currently - most of the times - building aa (reactively) only when you see the actual bombers -- and still manage to build enough aa to stop most runs."

The play I miss the most is for an example abductors old EMP (and even load size)

[empty yew]

And spybot, right?

[split hull]

uhm I find spybot more healthy now

and I like the change;

[empty yew]

It's not a bad design idea by itself, but BP cost is crazy

[split hull]

I wish centurions were more noob friendly

I like the adv. solar changes + wind turbines changes though

hounds feel garbo to play; sniper is meh; tumbleweed is like impossible to pull off; sprinter could get some love; arm spiders feel eww; turtle could get some "buff"; not sure if it is even played in water; arm emp bombers imo too expensive; Air repair lab idk;

Flak/ Fury (any aa, but bot aa) is absolutely overpowered;

I like the current pawn; grunt state (not sure how it looks in 1v1s)

--> ticks feel too expensive - but understandable (they have been dominating the game for too long, I guess)

[subtle jasper]

snipers are meh
Woahhh there, staaand down Laudy, staaand downnn
I see them every match 8v8 they are the backbone of ARM bot

[empty yew]

Not anymore. If you open arm bots as tech on new glitters, you already lost the game for the team

[grizzled atlas]

why's that

match too fast units to good?

[empty yew]

Well, it evolved into teching in forward position and opening with quakers, funded by laundered money intended for t2 cons. It proved that no arm botlab unit can deal with quaker rushing

[grizzled atlas]

lmao

[empty yew]

Last 2 days, quaker rushing wins basically every game and no other unit deals with it

[grizzled atlas]

yeah i used to always make quakers/mauser first
cons are a bait

and yeah this is the problem with "prepaying t2" for anti-coop systems

plp didn't think it was a big deal

if you can pay for t2 before it's made then it's the same thing you can boost out real combat units

[empty yew]

There's been games that went into lategame too out of this opening, but almost exclusively when both teams rushed quakers. Games werent bad honestly, since from quakers forward, there was a lot of variety in strategy. One unit will always dominate, thats how it is. It might be slightly too dominant though. Not a reason for mechanic rework IMO. But these quakers can come out even faster and more numerous when hard commied, but we just dont do that

And this base giving IS a reason for rework IMO. We dont play it just for the sake of lobby sanity

[lunar hollow]

quakers really arent that good compared to a lot of other t2 units, it just sits at the perfect sweet spot for pummeling t1 quickly being cheap and having very little risk while doing so

[grizzled atlas]

quakers are good, one of the best t2 for killing coms

walk fast, don't take much e, build fast

[lunar hollow]

yes but compared to other t2 units as in t2 vs t2

[grizzled atlas]

have high throughput on non moving targets

you'd be surprised quakers can charge snipers and banishers depending on the situation

5 quakers anniliate a rattlesnake if the other units are dealt with

[lunar hollow]

yes but you will loose them, they are suicide units vs other t2

at least when the other team knows what they are doing

[minor moat]

this is probably the worst meta that I've whitnessed

[grizzled atlas]

but you got a t1 advantage because your quakers arrived like 50 seconds before

forward tech is always been strongest on glitters

[lunar hollow]

yes exactly, its just t2 beating t1

[grizzled atlas]

commie forward tech t2

[lunar hollow]

im just saying dont nerf quakers, you will get an even worse unit then the hound

[grizzled atlas]

i mean quaker mauser could be tuned down slightly
for example increasing their e cost and bp slightly

but the problem is coop obviously

there's a million other units you can coop
like t1 bomb

[minor moat]

yes, before it was sniper buying

[crisp bison]

Coop can make anything broken really

[minor moat]

in my opinion all kinds of sharing etc. should be disabled, it's just being abused far too much. Not an ideal solution but it would imo at least make it playable again until a better solution can be found.

[crisp bison]

Well it should be capped by some principle, because the most broken coop as I can see it is one that happens early

[lunar hollow]

i mean honestly what could work is, you make a pylon with a fixed transfer rate per pylon, the more pylons you build the more you can share

[grizzled atlas]

quaker/mauser work by getting a t1 advantage by killing all the llts and some of the t1

and maybe a com. then when their t2 shows up you just run them down

[lunar hollow]

and then its just a matter of maing it pricy enough

[minor moat]

yes, in my opinion at a timer would be ok for a first shot. Coop at 20 mins is far less probelmatic than at 5

[crisp bison]

That was my original proposal in the relevant thread, but people don't want to deal with another "resource"

[lunar hollow]

well the issue is how to handle building and unit sharing

[minor moat]

imo disable until some time.

[crisp bison]

I proposed a building that would grow a charge that can be usd to share metal or units equivalent in metal cost over time

[minor moat]

Currently the games meta at high os lobbies is so bad that I just don't wanna play it much, a suboptimal solution now is better than a perfect one in 3 years.

[crisp bison]

Also proposed that you can only share the metal you have actually mined, and not a unit of the initial 1000

One way or the other, unlimited sharing is very broken especially when people play in a group with VO

[lunar hollow]

yes thats very reasonable, problem is its very hard to do something like that without changing the spring engine

the sharing feature itself is easy to modify but your ressource storage bars arent

[split hull]

Guys stop overcomplicating such an easy thing

add new option: Tax resource transfers based on how much more metal the receiver has than the donor. Big gap = big tax. Stops rich players from hogging resources in team games. Lobby hosts can adjust it.

[lunar hollow]

no id rather remove sharing at that point, or use 99% tax to laugh when someone actually uses it

[split hull]

./take is good feature and perhaps one of the best one in BAR; it just goes wrong when poop is taken by red/ blue

remove ./take when the gap is too big (above certain treshold)

removing sharing/ gifting is not ideal

[grizzled atlas]

it's still can be op even when taking mid os
or sometimes high os. since it's just commie with extra steps

[lunar hollow]

usually you can just go straight t3 after take

[minor moat]

in Counter Strike they removed a similar mechanic from competetive play so if u lost a player u are simply down by 1.

[split hull]

Highly depends

[grizzled atlas]

it depends on the positions, etc.

[split hull]

but blue/ red (top 3) players tend to use it the best

[grizzled atlas]

you still have the ecoer in the back who just sends resources instead of making units

[lunar hollow]

yeah but even if a low OS player leaves and second lowest takes, thats still a low OS player with a more exponentially growing economy that can propably instantly jump to t2 or t3 while you still have 2 low OS players stuck on t1 or t2

[grizzled atlas]

what do you have when you /take at minute 1?
minus the half built t1 lab

afk battery

[crisp bison]

and 300 BP to spam eco

[grizzled atlas]

afk battery gives com too
it's same thing

[minor moat]

imo take should be disabled for high os lobbies, in noob lobbies it doesnt matter much anyway

I'd just disable it in general, again potential for abuse is too high

[split hull]

Well, I have not yet heard any single solution to coop that made sense in my head; balancing around metal density of players is the way to go while keeping /give /take functions

[minor moat]

disable all kinds of unit/res sharing, works in other rts games too

[lunar hollow]

yeah rezzing a unit while someon else eats it cant be overlooked

[crisp bison]

Well the buildings that generate share cap over time makes perfect sense in my head; its just marginally complicated, but I don't believe it would be too difficult to make, nor unworthy of the effort.

[lunar hollow]

now the question is what to do with overflow? personally i think simply removing the red slider that allows you to overflow before your storage is full could work

just imagine someone purposefully holding 1000 metal AFK just to overflow that cant be viable

not to mention that its equally shared across the team

[crisp bison]

With sharing cap building solution, it would fall under the share cap and be wasted when your capacity has been exhausted 🤷‍♂️

It's a reasonably balanced solution, that I stand behind unhindered with the perfect knowledge it will likely never be implemented.

[grizzled atlas]

yeah just forbid player from intentionally overflow large amount of resource

1000m is too much to bank effeciently but 1000 e is not

[lunar hollow]

just imagine your average 3 mex start with like 7m/s, if you share that to the entire team thats 1m/s everybody gets, and in order to do so, 1 player needs to be AFK and not use his starting 1000 metal so his storage is full

i think thats not something you have to worry about really as long as the red bar slider is removed

with E, well, i guess you could just have somebody building AFK windmills to boost everyone else, wich is bad

i dont really like the idea of overflow being gone but i guess for the sake of energy it might need to have limmitations

[grizzled atlas]

i just have lobby rule that you can't lower red slider and can't intentionally overflow a lot of E

if you want a codified rule you'll have to find a way to disable overflow before it can be taxed in engine

honestly i have zero problem with no overflow. it makes people care more about their resources and storage mangement, and makes storages more relevant

[split hull]

what is your lobby though?

ur Strait player or?

never seen that setting/ rule (have not played for last 6 months though)

[grizzled atlas]

sorry i mean you can't enforce it in the game

so you have to have a rule/agreement outside the game

that's how the tax modoption or sharing disabled is meant to be played

[smoky gust]

How can i test the latest changes, with the t1.5 thug with double plasma or the gauss Mace and the T1 bedbug ?

I notice 0 changes in my games today and saw nothing about that in the website's balance change

[subtle jasper]

Pretty sure that's just from the unofficial balance rework

[crisp bison]

And returning to the original discussion line - No, I do not think that being good at killing T1 makes a T2 unit good. Centurions can also kill coms. Hell, most T1 units can kill coms no problem if microed normally. Gunslinger is just a brittle Termite with no all-terrain capability. It was originally priced for its unique XP gain, HP regen and range growth. XP gain bonus is no longer there, and since they do not gain levels any better than other T2 units, you will never get enough HP for regen to matter.

Commando are situational. Decoy Commanders are situational. Hovers are situational. Gunslingers are just crappy units, and even crappier units than they used to be when I realized they're crap.

[tardy basin]

What do you mean "XP gain bonus is no longer there" ?

[crisp bison]

Gunslingers do not get increases XP gain from doing damage. You're free to test it.

[tardy basin]

They still gain range & hp with xp

[crisp bison]

Yes, but they dont get them as easily as they used to when dealing with T1 forces and quickly becoming a menace.

So they cost the same as before, but they don't spiral out of control with gained range as before, which was their sole selling point.

[tardy basin]

It is just their range attack rendering that is bugged

Just one of all regression bugs with lightbringer update

#1374375890460475463 message

On low resource map gunslinger have still a good use imo

[crisp bison]

You can get other specizalized bots for the same cost and get better returns, because those units will be priced by their natural stats.

I'm not saying that their range doesn't grow - I'm saying that they do not exploit the kills to T1 units as they used to do to grow it as fast, which made them as strong as they used to be. But the price is the same as it was.

They're not entirely useless, as none of the units really are, but they're one of the worst units currently in the game, which was the original question I replied to.

If they had more speed, or more base range, or more HP, or more accuracy, they'd be awesome support for the Welders, but right now they're overpriced and unworkable. Similar to Termites, but Termites can at least be used to ward off the cliffs against Recluses/Webbers and perform flank attacks.

[lunar hollow]

ah see i didnt even notice that, still feels the same when youre killing a com tho

[crisp bison]

Yeah, but you probably would be able to do the same with Centurions much earlier.

Being able to do this with a GS isn't really a testament to its unique quality.

[tardy basin]

Something is planned by "balance team" for spybots ? They are still in bad state, if you want keep them useless for EMP at 5K EMP damage, i suggest lower their E cost & BP cost, like, maybe 5K E and 6K BP, need some refinement i guess, but currently their cost is way too high for their utility, like take gremlin, it is just 230M/3700E/6700BP, it have same utility for LOS but it can deal damage, spybots are overpriced as they can't stun anything now

[empty yew]

Either keep them like they are but lower BP cost extremely (and E cost), or buff thrm

[tardy basin]

Twilight have almost same EMP damage (4450) and cost 200M/1500E/1800BP, but they can't move. Let's say the move make things cost x3 for E & BP => spybots would cost 135M/4500E/5400BP

[fast obsidian]

We still seeing veh lab every games on tourney and lobby games
You guys might want to remove units for botlab again to have a better balance
Worked so well last time, keep it up, hyped for next season

[empty yew]

This guy used up even all my sarcasm, i feel so empty now

[silver gulch]

T2 armada vehicle too weak, buff jag bull and esp starlight, should be able to fire backwards, its cannon looks like it could turn 360 so it should!

[grizzled atlas]

arm and cor t1 sea pretty decently balanced

[tropic aurora]

Wish granted: to align with 'no invisible threats' the gremlin has been removed, it's clearly an issue. Also ambassador and negotiatiors have stealth removed, clearly the units are too strong.

However to align with legion units, the tremor has had its impulse increased 300%. Enjoy the new meta 😁

[lunar hollow]

do we really want to see spybots being used against sheldons welders hounds and the likes regulary?

i feel like this is something people will realise is complete cancer in the future and complain about

spybot should be balanced as anti heavy t2 and early t3

[verbal yacht]

Yes

[grizzled atlas]

@placid eagle it's beause all the maps are either rivers or otherwise chokey

arm has giga op skater, relies on mobility open seas

[stray oasis]

god made the heavns and the earth

[grizzled atlas]

even the two tourney maps for nation wars are chokey

[stray oasis]

then he made skaters

[placid eagle]

makes sense

2 things I've heard sea maps are missing is open layouts and interesting underwater terrain

[placid eagle]

It would be less cancerous if countermeasure was better

[grizzled atlas]

a lot of balance changes are fine but they really should put more work into equalizing the lab strengths at least somewhat
lack of lab diversity really kills the number of possible matchups
and the difference in gameplay between games

people are going to quietly quit if their favourite lab sucks forever
or if it's always one matchup

more effort should be put on that

I'm tired of it being just plain worse to go t2 bot lab on many maps

arm t2 bot lab:
-Sniper is very balanced unit but starlight has way more tankiness more range, better spam killing, much better speed. The only real issue with sniper is that it can be hard countered with t1 walls, making it's competitive viableness questionable at the highest levels. sniper trans is something that gives the unit more potential.

-hound:
a) not being able to kill spam close to it limits it's effectiveness as a roaming ball. although recluse hound is possible
b) #1 problem is as a mid-range skirmisher it's projectile is too slow. If even slow t1 can just dodge most of the dmg, then the unit just lacks any impact.

-platypus
why is the armada t2 veh lab BETTER at making platypus than the t2 arm bot lab (they can make consul + reclaim lab for 3k metal, and the consul can multi-blueprint, avoiding walk off time)

Seriously, remove the platypus from the consul

-gunslinger: too niche. 1 in 50 games it can be op, whereas really it should be OP in 1 in 5 or 1 in 10 games. give it some usability, like more starting hp

-spybot: has been discussed to death. currently it's not a unit, keep finding the sweet spot.

-fatboy: probably could use a small buff to make it more viable on maps that aren't heavily suited towards it

-welder: good vs spam head on, but do nothing to control the map (compare to jags which can cover wide swaths of the map, raid, provide aa, kite coms)

bot lab, besides it's tool kit units, has only a few main general purpose units: the hound, sniper, welder, platypus, and gunslinger

those units should all feel pretty decent to use relative to the rest of the game's power level

-t2 aa bot. It is impossible to push with bots on large maps, as air is too strong. t2 aa is just too slow, expensive, and low hp, dying to simple focus fire or stun

the air player if they are smart they can actually scout your push and if they they see the required 8 t2 aa bots (like 5.5k metal?) they should just switch to land units, break your push and gain the reclaim

[placid eagle]

Yeah most of your points are good and point to a wider issue of many units being nerfed until they are so niche that you almost never can use them

Many changes are straightforward too so Im not sure why they haven't been tried yet. For example, fix the spybot's insane buildcost

Its 180 buildpower per 1 M

[empty yew]

Welder is strong in what it does IMO. So is fatboy. Hound needs to be more swift, faster turning, faster projectiles, recluse could get range back, AA bot needs to be mucj much better

[grizzled atlas]

welder is strong in exactly 1.5 situation
tanking some dmg and killing spam that runs into it. lightning don't overkill

[silver gulch]

@grizzled atlas i totally agree with what you're saying here about bot balance but the problem isnt the armada bot units' stats, it's the armada vehicle units all just overperforming by a large margin, if you buff the armada bot lab, core will fall even further behind and it already almost doesn't exist in tourney games

[grizzled atlas]

cor veh is useable but they have clear weakness, they nerfed the tzar so it's very balanced, it used to be fairly strong in exchange for low mobility

well very balanced means that the lab that has other clear weaknesses is shit compared to arm veh with basically multiple BiS units and no downsides

[silver gulch]

cor vehicle is usable to a point but also falls off in the end and it's just mediocre at best, playing core feels like playing with 1 hand disabled while arm gets all the options, bot and veh

[grizzled atlas]

for t2 i think it would be good to both buff the niche options and nerf some arm t2 veh stuff

also maybe make veh movedef worse on hills. even maps that look like they have terrain doesn't slow down veh enough (pools of illys is a fine vehicle map)

the only stuff which slow down veh enough is veh impassable terrain

which is all-or-nothing

[grizzled atlas]

t1 heavy trans com: the high hp is obnoxious, it probably is defendable if you have sufficient bp, not if your are busy with other responsibilities tho. Hard to tell if it's game warping or not.
t2 trans com: probably busted. same effect as a nuke bomber but better in a way, for 1/8th the cost. can use anyone's com and yeet them.

[placid eagle]

In general Im of the opinion that right now buffs should be explored and nerfs used as a last option. But units like jaguars seem to just be too good no matter how you cut it

[grizzled atlas]

i mean you have to understand the full potential of the unit

the strong units in BAR are absurdly strong (shuriken, liche when you have air control, skater wtf, t2 com drop)

but yes, there's no reason to nerf a unit to the point where it feels bad to use

maybe it feels bad if you are used to using it without thought for time and place and skill-testing micro

[placid eagle]

https://tenor.com/view/byuntear-incrives-meme-meme-react-gif-25029710

NW liche trauma

[placid eagle]

Well a lot of units feel bad because they're made to be inaccurate, slow, or otherwise ineffective.

But there are units which do indeed feel bad only if you don't know how to micro them correctly, like incisors

[grizzled atlas]

remember people thought t1 transport sucked because it could only hold 1 grunt?

while true, the t1 trans is actually giga op

some units just feel bad cause they are that sluggish for little reward

[grizzled atlas]

yeah so people who don't know how to micro it properly will cry and say the unit will be useless if you nerf it

when sometimes in fact the unit is so strong that it can take the hit and still be decent

[tulip laurel]

I feel like whistlers are going to get another nerf after yestardays glitter games with ptaQ

[grizzled atlas]

is ptaq the poor pinata that you have to hit to get the candy? Do i have to ruin every game with coop that a dev ever shows up in, in order to get them to understand the player base's experience?

lol what happened?

also it's funny how the player opinion keeps switching between

"janus are OP" --> "skill" issue" --> "no janus are actually really insanely strong"

i'd say their only weakness is lack of mobility. at their best, supported by the commander they are insane.

rocket vs janus is a challenging matchup and the janus can try to rotate to gang other players if they can't directly make progress into whistlers

[grizzled atlas]

1v1 --> only arm bot or cor veh (pawn or incisor) are viable. Blitz are terrible and grunts are for machocists
4v4 tournament --> 90% t2 arm veh lab at 3:00 with minimal t1 phase
8v8 --> vehicle dominated, few cases where t2 bot lab is competitive

have the balance team heard of other games where playerbase quit because of low archtype diversity?

current balance is a big problem, no matter who's camp you are in.

[grizzled atlas]

in 1v1 why play vehicles which are immobile, mixed comp more challenging to control, leave fat reclaim that gets wrecked, worse at killing coms

when you can just 2 lab spam pawns

yeah there's some countermeasures a very good player can take, but like janus on laning maps, it's so easy to get results there's no reason not to

i'll say it again, right now playing grunts is for machocists

[crude delta]

Which sucks for cortex fans

[grizzled atlas]

The banisher nerf and tzar nerf make sense.... In a world where arm veh lab doesn't exist

Also niche units need buffs like neb said. There are very many units that are too niche they are 1 in 200 games

Pawn, Rez bot and shuirken making hover lab and commandos unbuildable

[harsh egret]

I am waiting for the day the balancing team will actually summerize this thread we've given so much feedback for weeks now straight yet no changes.

@chilly heath can you please man just give us what the community is asking of you

A couple months ago you told me this balance was mainly for 1v1 even those mains are complaining about the balance

[chilly heath]

"The community" is always asking for balance changes. By the nature of it 99 % of balance change requests must be rejected or else we will have too many (and conflicting) changes too often.

We will have another patch at some point again. I'm kinda hoping we could fix/rework some units to bring them in and help also with balance. Like T2 AA bots or Printer.

[grizzled atlas]

right it's not your job to listen to the balance change requests but use the feedback and deduction / replays to look for what are the problematic things in teh game's balance

which I and some other players feel like is not happening

balance requests can be noise but some are smoke to the fire that is balance issues
also the reasoning behind them can be looked at or engaged with (ask people why they think X is overpowered, how powerful should X be, what is counterplay exist and what is the relative cost? Does only one side have counterplay? What is the relative timing of these units? How versatile is this unit, can the enemy manipulate the game state so that this unit loses value?)

some kind of high os player feedback panel would be good to just draw on ideas.

A question would be what type of feedback are you even looking for?

In an ideal world you would be able to justify most balance changes with a note (like in starcraft and other games) saying what is the reasoning and perception (for example: we think the liche is not a problem because the total E requirment slows it down on most maps, or: we are testing a buff to gunslinger to make it more reliable)

People will nitpick that, but at least it gives a point for players to understand where the balance team is at, and engage in the balance's team's conclusion

[chilly heath]

I think we have done the "little note" thing on most changes this year, no? At least for season 2 balance patch there was explanations for every change.

[grizzled atlas]

i might have missed it, i mostly look at the ingame notes
where are the season 2 balance patches written again?

[chilly heath]

Ah. PtaQ even drew fancy graphics to explain changes.

In #announcements

This thing

[grizzled atlas]

ah, that one was very good

pure text is fine too

[chilly heath]

Yea I gave him the text but he wanted to be artist

Looks cool though.

[grizzled atlas]

most of the patches afaik don't have a text explanation

correct me if i'm wrong

[chilly heath]

I think this year we've done explanations. But maybe not for every patch.

[grizzled atlas]

it sounds like extra work, but if you can't explain what you believe what the goal of your tweak is what you think is the current problem then maybe that person shouldn't be tweaking that. This extra communication means a lot to players that you are looking at the game critically and on the same page as them.

explaining the logic in 1-2 sentences is 100x easier then finding problems and figuirng out what is a good nerf

it's like saying "I'm a good player, but I can't tell you 2 effective strats, just trust me"

[chilly heath]

Yeah the ingame changelog doesn't have room for long essays but we try to do them for every patch in #announcements .

[grizzled atlas]

yes that would be great
someone also said it might be nice to have a discord channel equivalent for changelog
right now someone has to start up a game instance to see the latest changes

[chilly heath]

Also randy has been pinging us every time we forget to update ingame changelog so we're getting better at that too 😄

Anyway, I hope to get a new patch sometime. It's mostly nice summer weather and holiday season delaying work tbh. Though current balance isn't that broken so also not like we need a patch absolutely right now.

[blazing onyx]

Surely that statement doesn’t apply to spybots

They’re so underwhelming

Without getting into the second order consequences that weak spybots have on bot lab viability esp. cortex

[grizzled atlas]

yeah t2 bots are suffering
t1 meta dominated by arm bots and to a lesser degree cor veh

nothing is broken broken but spybots really weak and lab balance health is not good

one positive is the tick change
ticks still very iconic and good but they actually cost something now

[chilly heath]

Here's some data we gathered 2-3 weeks ago from recent 8v8 matches with all player in match having OS > 20:

• All That Glitters 1538 T2 botlabs, 1790 T2 vehlabs
• Rosetta 53 bot, 31 veh
• Supreme 551 bot, 297 veh
• Tartar 22 bot, 32 veh
• Koom 19 bot, 12 veh
• Bismuth 35 bot, 33 veh

It doesn't seem like T2 bots are really that unpopular. If good players thought they suck surely they would build them less.

[grizzled atlas]

eco position is using t2 bot lab for the cheaper t2 con

not really for the units. except sniper trans ig

[grizzled atlas]

suprising

[chilly heath]

Yea eco using bot skews the data on some maps like supreme for sure.

[grizzled atlas]

koom has bot terrain, rosetta also doesn't have E and historically cor solar/asolar/fusion was better so sheldons are preferable

i am surprised on tartar and some other maps

[chilly heath]

Yea even completely flat lane map has decent amount of botlab.

[grizzled atlas]

the tourney has very t2 few bots tho.

only t2 bot lab i saw was blxssom's team using trans sniper cleverly to counter bulls

but i dunno what other units they made. oh, butlers

#1353364944350871632 message

i still think these are flaws in the t2 bot lab, they suck at fighting and suffer from their mobile skirmisher being bit too unreliable dmg (hound)

welder/sniper push is okay, but expensive, dies to air, is slow to push, slow to clear spam, and can only be in one place at once time (jags can pivot, starlights push faster than snipers)

[grizzled atlas]

Well, thanks for the conversation.

[worn yoke]

https://tenor.com/view/lurk-peek-sneak-george-clooney-gif-17585314

[harsh egret]

Honestly here's what I've observed in my games

• Hovers: It's kinda clear that these units should be buffed or removed from game put them in navy lab or smth idk
• grunts Has to be buffed back they're just weak now
• Hounds to slow of a fire rate or the way their projectile takes ages to reach a target
• termites/recluse: idk just doesn't feel good anymore imo
• spyboy big issue in bar rn it has to be buffed back
• anti air bots Iv'e seen a thread where they just miss alot.
• sneaky pete? unsure about this one but its been mentioned in this thread

Someone can correct me if they want

[chilly heath]

Yeah I agree with some of this. Hovers just need some work that nobody's too interested in since hovers are not as exciting as other units to work on. AA bots need fixes and are hopefully getting them soon.

[harsh egret]

Yeah i recently just now actually watched a 1v1 between autopilot and sash I mean going hovers is just pure loss if you think about it

aa bot fix is recuired idk if this is something on your end but yeah

[silver gulch]

I almost always play core bots exclusively not because they're the best (I really miss having aa or an answer to bulls or starlights etc) but because I just like bots and bedbugs and don't mind losing as much usually. My go to for winning is rushing t3 because bots generally won't do it.

I think there's plenty of people like me that just like bots because they're snappier and fun to play with skewing the statistics.

[harsh egret]

@grizzled atlas did I miss anything

[silver gulch]

Not even mentioning the existence of core bots anymore, rip :p

[silver gulch]

Always opening bots on flats, again, because I just have more fun with bots, not good for my winrate though.

[lunar hollow]

I think it's very strange how grunts got super nerfed while incisors basicly stayed the same even tho incisors where even more busted

[harsh egret]

Sniper is fine where it is I like the way they can just cloak however the welder issue should be addressed. I mean it's a good unit but not entirely and idk if it's fair to compare it to vehicles (jaguar) I'd like to see a form of buff for it maybe its range idk

[grizzled atlas]

i'd be interested to see the 1v1 lab usage rate per map and wr

[grizzled atlas]

sniper is pretty balanced yeh

it's saved by the ability to trans it, which is one of the best things the arm lab has

platypus is good unit but it's not a main fighting unit

[hollow dawn]

can you really draw conclusions like that by lookikng at a dataset with players as low as 20 os? 🤔

[blazing onyx]

I would think that tournament games would be the right sample to draw those sorts of conclusions from

At least then you’re largely dealing with the issue of whether or not you’re observing people that are either out of touch with the meta, or trying out new fun strats

[hollow dawn]

yeah, and we also have the ability to ask the highest os players directly what they think is strong or weak

[blazing onyx]

Well what do u think?

[hollow dawn]

dont ask me, ask the top players

[verbal yacht]

I think t2 bot lab unit power levels are accurately tuned. Vehicle probably needs many significant nerfs if spybot isn't coming back

[grizzled atlas]

I think between 20 and 40os people just open whatever t2 lab they want

but i dunno if you are sweating to get every advantage and carry veh lab is just better to my best knowledge. t1 bomber counters sniper

maybe look at the sample of 40os+ players and see what they make

those players are more likely to be preferentially picking what they think it's better

honestly, usage rate can be flawed the other way too. for example people spamming banisher when it wasn't op (at least on chokier maps)

Jag does same role as welder except it can't tank or frontline (has to kite), but it can impact your 4 neighbouring lanes, it can intercept leaks whereas welder does none of that. it can kite enemy coms whereas welder/sumo can't. it has some aa too, enough to 1 shot shuriken or 2 shot fighters

arm vehicle lab has
-best aa in the game
-jag: best mobile anti spam, with some micro. Can fight plasma t1 or catch enemy fragile t2, can be combined with pawns to make sure your pawns always beat their pawns
-starlight: best high commitment long range dps. It generally beats sniper head on, all you do is priority target down the snipers with your superior range (950 vs 900) . sniper can technically jammer + cloak at enormous e cost, but you could defeat that with juno and pinpointer. Fast for it's role, decently tanky, fire rate lets it kill spam faster than any unit of it's class, doesn't overkill like banisher/medusa. With proper position it levels up pretty fast, getting more hp. Does even more insane damage to t2 units that get close to it.
-- there's a few possible viable soft counter comps but it's just so good overall. Weaknesses are being flanked, but you can deal with it with pawns
--OP combo with pawns, as the starlight kills anything that would antispam the pawns, and the pawns burn down anything that tries to charge the starlights

-consul: pretty op build list. platypus, webber, mines, vehicle con, why the f is gunslinger here too? Gunslinger is supposed to be an iconic t2 arm bot unit

-gremlin: very affordable cloakable scout.. Cloaked vision is so insane in higher level play, lower bp and cloak cost compared to spybot is nice. Cor veh lacking one makes it a headache to play reactively. Alas the plan with cor veh is usually "go kill them"
-bull: very good t1 and com bully, and mobile bulk firepower. It has counters. compared to the tiger, it trades hp for range aoe and dps (throughput). Just great impact with enough mobilty to keep it alive with it's hp pool.

[hollow dawn]

imo the t2 engineers should just go, they only confuse the identities of each factory

[verbal yacht]

the entire identity of the t2 cortex bot lab is twitcher, removing that is removing like the only good unit in that lab

I think the lab is fine though, it's a unique playstyle that the other labs don't show off as well

You can't use consuls the same way you use twitchers, and you get a much more macro focused lab from t2 bot

[grizzled atlas]

yeah i know twitcher is very good stuff, there's nothing super problematic with it imo

[verbal yacht]

not everything should just be about mashing units at each other, because that's how you end up with current situation where vehicle mash units against bots but is just better

I think a callout here is that consul gives access to strategies that aren't otherwise in the lab (it only builds bots), but twitcher doesn't build any vehicles

[grizzled atlas]

yeah exactly. twitcher is fine

[placid eagle]

The problem is you've created an echo chamber where it's easy to believe that the changes you want are wanted by most of the community, when its just a small pocket of your friend 🙂

Might be true, might not be, but you don't have enough data to claim that your desired changes are wanted.

[random portal]

I dont know that guy but think his comments are pretty accurate

T2 Veh lab is vastly superior and i only go for bots when soft griefing

[placid eagle]

I'm not saying people don't agree with him, they clearly do, but you can't claim that the majority of players do

Hence why, even if you may think your changes are righteous, implementing them will always be slow

[random portal]

Majority of players dont agree with him for sure

But also majority of players didnt use spybots when it was super busted

[harsh egret]

t2 vehicles are far superior and I think they should be actually and more tanky @placid eagle this is not anything new everyone knows veh are just better

you literally always see bots --> vehicles on tournies

[stray oasis]

in the context of a few maps and in the context of 8v8 yeah, but there are lots of maps where having a t2 bot option is very op. on theta crystals you can hold hill way easier with bots

on cold place 2v2 having botlab means u can skuttle enemy base easily

spybot nerf has made botlab a little less appealing though, spybot needs buff again

veh is also troll on maps like boulder beach

[verbal yacht]

Usually the highest level of play will discover things sooner than lower level play, same thing happens in other games too. I often see people contextualizing things in terms of "high skill problems" and "low skill problems" and then saying that the high skill problems don't affect 99% of the playerbase. But they do, and the problems are still the same, it just takes longer before gameplay issues reach to the lower skill games. So it's very important to take feedback from the highest level of gameplay seriously as gameplay issues discovered there will inevitably show up in lower level games that impact more of the playerbase, it just takes time.

[blazing onyx]

That’s sure is a nice way of saying that low os have no idea what they’re taking about

[verbal yacht]

People at a roughly GM tier of gameplay in other games will find and exploit gaps in the balance sooner than Masters or below, but that does not mean that those gameplay issues don't exist, it just means that it will take a few months before Masters level players have improved and learned the meta enough to abuse the same issues.

[stray oasis]

in 8v8 u are only worrying about a single lane and the only units you are really making is seige units and skirmishing units, you arent really raiding or expanding in the same way you would in 2v2 or 1v1 so lots of units are just used less

[verbal yacht]

Indeed, bots are supposed to perform better on terrain and most of the maps are pretty much only flat. But a lot of maps that aren't flat/have terrain still have vehicle as the main pick anyway, so that balance might not be completely sound if vehicles are a better choice even on some maps that look bot focused

[stray oasis]

have u ever tried to use vehicle into bots who control the hill on The Rock? gg

[verbal yacht]

I'm thinking maps like carrot mountains which are definitely hilly, have sloped terrain across most of the map, but are still heavily vehicle favored

obviously The Rock or Rock Jungle with extreme sheer cliffs will prefer bots on those areas

[grizzled atlas]

i mean I'm the what in the top 5 geo players on supreme straight?

auzre went to 60 os on old geo with a bit of boost
he only played arm veh or t2 arm air

[placid eagle]

So your view and opinion is all through that lense

[grizzled atlas]

na i also played glitters at 40os and then small teams, and now the tourney
we advanced btw

oh and also 1v1

[placid eagle]

Okay? That still doesn't mean you can decide what the majority of players want

While impressive (congratulations) that's really not data

[random portal]

Can we all agree at least that hound is dead

[stray oasis]

whistler janus is pretty strong in the lense of maps where all ur doing is walking toward your opponent in lane but on maps where u need to expand and take territory like CCR, if ur making whistler janus from the get go u will get out-expanded and raided so hard

[grizzled atlas]

i listed a bunch of reason why i think arm t2 veh is strong quite a lot of high os players agree with me. the tournament seems to agree with that

[random portal]

Killed for no reason at all

[grizzled atlas]

i win with what i believe is strong. not like i'm just arm chairing it

I've also played with all 4 t2 labs a lot

probably cor t2 bots the least, but i've played with every unit in the arm t2 lab

[placid eagle]

Yeah this would be safe to say is likely a lot of people's shared feeling

[grizzled atlas]

like arguing over how many people agree is less fruitful

[placid eagle]

And I actually do have data to support this. You'll never guess why I had to collect that :p

But arm t2 veh is dominant in the data

[grizzled atlas]

faction war data?

[placid eagle]

No lmao

[grizzled atlas]

yeah anyone could see that by watching the tournament. the map pool certainly didn't help

[placid eagle]

To convince someone on the BLT...

[grizzled atlas]

why

[placid eagle]

See above

[grizzled atlas]

to look at arm veh?

[stray oasis]

you could replay parse and see what labs are made by the winning team per map but idk if anyone is actauly doing that

[placid eagle]

More like to look at t2 bots

[grizzled atlas]

i mean you could construct a theoritical situation

[placid eagle]

T2 bots are clearly weak right now

[grizzled atlas]

and have people play from it and see "could arm veh t2 save this situation" "could any \t2 lab save it"

[verbal yacht]

Anything, since @chilly heath posted some stats above about bot lab and seems confident that bot lab isn't as bad as people think, I have an interesting challenge for him: I see he's on team Finland for the Nation Wars tournament, with some of the best players in the game. Maybe they can demonstrate t2 bot lab for us next weekend during the round of 8? 🙂

[placid eagle]

Not having good AA hurts especially bad but just in general they aren't great

[verbal yacht]

I see in the group stage their team only went t2 arm vehicle

[grizzled atlas]

usage rate in public game doesn't mean power level that's for sure

[empty yew]

Rename hound to dog, make it t1 unit

[placid eagle]

That's funny because the data I gathered says the opposite

[stray oasis]

spybot did a lot of carrying for botlab and the nerf kinda fucked it a bit

[grizzled atlas]

the higest os geo player on straits all use arm veh

[random portal]

Arm t2 bot lab cant even push a rattle

[placid eagle]

That too. Spybots need their wacky costs fixed

[grizzled atlas]

t1 wall too strong

me, azure, fruit, always arm t2 veh or armt2 air

[placid eagle]

It's weird they didn't have full initial cost changes with S2 nerf, like changing BP cost

Right now spybots are 180:1 BP:M

[grizzled atlas]

you can say straight is just one passage, but lets dig a little deeper

[stray oasis]

skuttle is second most op unit in game idk what to tell u if u think botlab is bad ur just bad imo

[placid eagle]

Arm t2 veh get especially strong on a choke

[blazing onyx]

Instead of using it to discredit other people’s opinions based on your secret data @placid eagle, can you please share it for us

[grizzled atlas]

what do you need as a straight player on geo?
-intel (gremlin)
-aa vs bombers (flak truck)
-leak catching when front is dying (jag)
-win the game push power (starlight)

[placid eagle]

But even do they are still just strong in general

[blazing onyx]

(If ur allowed to)

[verbal yacht]

Hound was balanced to be on consul, it's kind of a sidegrade from stout--neither are objectively better than the other. Hound becomes clearly better in the niche of skirmishing some t1 threats, but stout poses more of a head-on threat.

[placid eagle]

Anyone can ask @mild zephyr to pull it from Gex, I dont have it easily accessible at the moment

But also just watch any recent team tournament lol

[blazing onyx]

Can u pull it from Gex please @mild zephyr

[mild zephyr]

what is it

[placid eagle]

There was only one dominant lab and it wasn't no t2 bots nor cor t2 veh

[grizzled atlas]

hound is similiar power level to a stout, what?

[blazing onyx]

well I believe it’s t2 lab useage stats that you put together for neb but he may able to clarify that

[grizzled atlas]

hound needs a bit of support but it should be decently better, stout still has amazing raw stats

[stray oasis]

the support hound used to have is called spybot rip

[blazing onyx]

Popularity of the various t2 labs, etc.

[grizzled atlas]

i really prefered spider spybot, spiders have way more burst dmg to kill a stunned target
but they (reasonably) nerfed spiders

[random portal]

Do both labs have scuttle and can it get consistent value in over 20% of maps

[stray oasis]

on some maps spiders are troll because too slow

[verbal yacht]

Hound has less dps for a lot more cost (over 3x energy), and much less hp too

[grizzled atlas]

yeah

[mild zephyr]

https://gex.honu.pw/gex_t2_lab_stats.csv

[verbal yacht]

stouts are putting many more stats on the field, equal cost stouts can push hounds off the map while getting reclaim

[grizzled atlas]

hound is for kiling llts effeciently and kiting armies

[blazing onyx]

Op, thank you

[mild zephyr]

is this what you wanted? that is from a bit ago

i can remake the data if wanted

[grizzled atlas]

i mean skirmish units and units in general very much depend on their throughput (practical dps/cost)

[placid eagle]

Yes too OP thank you

[grizzled atlas]

neb bragging about having stats that someone else made
op

[mild zephyr]

literally anyone can ask me

[grizzled atlas]

appreciated

[blazing onyx]

Well to be fair, he DID have the stats

[placid eagle]

Neb telling people how to get help pulling stats OP?

[mild zephyr]

is an updated output of the data I provided wanted? or is what I provide fine as is

[grizzled atlas]

is this based on tournament or public games?

[mild zephyr]

the file I linked was made on may 28th

[placid eagle]

Pubs

Tournament games don't get uploaded anywhere public

[grizzled atlas]

pub usage rate on reflection aren't the best

[blazing onyx]

What you provided is fine I think just some context about what data it represents might be helpful (ie any OS limiters, what timeframe, etc.)

[grizzled atlas]

because only with sweaty players to people consistently choose what wins the most over what they like to play
same with tournaments

[placid eagle]

Indeed but win rate of labs is still useful, you might just have to adjust the inquiry to get the specific data you want

[blazing onyx]

Very useful, agree 100%

[mild zephyr]

here is the exact query used. ignore the first 2 lines, that is from data someone else wanted

[stray oasis]

most people will build arm veh t2 because all they do is spam whistlers since they are favored on majority of maps that are popular

[grizzled atlas]

is whistler op or just too ez to play

you can dodge a lot of shots with repeat move command rocket bot

and whistler is a dead unit in commie meta
cause t1 phase doesn't exist

[grizzled atlas]

is gex an official bar api or some interface someone made?

[mild zephyr]

gex is not official, it is my tool https://gex.honu.pw/

fuck slowmode tbh

[grizzled atlas]

op

[stray oasis]

on maps where u are only playing the skirish and seige part of the game all u will be building is whistler/rocketbot/janus/artillery and veh lab has 3 of those units so idk its just easy on current popular map pool.

if u were playing a map that required raiding like, say, comet catcher, I bet whistlers are way less useful

[grizzled atlas]

how does it detect the lab type, is it the first lab?

[mild zephyr]

it detects the lab type by defname

[grizzled atlas]

yeh but of all games played on a map

what is the condition for including it in the sample size. That t2 lab built at any time during the game?

[mild zephyr]

it is any t2 lab built during a match

[grizzled atlas]

for example if the game goes long, it's likely that multiple t2 labs will be built

[mild zephyr]

yep

[grizzled atlas]

and on straits in nearly all games arm t2 bot lab will be built on eco

making that win rate kinda unuseable

still a good starting point

[mild zephyr]

i will be leaving this thread, ping me or DM me if more data is needed

[placid eagle]

Yeah its complicated to get clear data so that's why you need to set parameters right or also look at 1v1 data

[grizzled atlas]

xD wow it's so balanced cause everyone built a t2 bot lab every game

[grizzled atlas]

thx, cya!

op site

when the hound sucks (vs people who don't just afk their units) and the gunslinger is super duper niche bot lab is forced into sniper which has it's own weaknesses and isn't what you always want to use

[random portal]

Arm t2 bot lab doesnt even have a raider

[spark locust]

can u type fewer, but longer messages? its unreadable n bloated to hell

[grizzled atlas]

platypus is decent actaully

[grizzled atlas]

good point, will do

[random portal]

On like 3 maps yeah

[grizzled atlas]

Cor bots kind of has this issue, in that the fiend gets slightly outclassed, the sumo is niche/expensive. The only versatile unit it has is the Sheldon, used with Grunt/Fiend. Sheldon is actually good, unlike the hound.

Arm/cor bots don't beat starlight in a head up fight. That by itself is find. But hound still needs to be able to function decently in it's role, and labs should avoid be stuck with only 1 flexible unit.

[stray oasis]

in my mind the only reason i would make hound is I just made t2 lab and I want to dislodge a position but I dont have the time to walk a sniper up there and I want the ability to retreat if the enemy ball comes so i dont want spiders

[grizzled atlas]

hounds are fine if the opponent doesn't dodge much. since they are same as before but 5% cheaper metal

they run fast so except against pawns most things shouldn't catch them
just stay within 1 screen of friendly llts

[grizzled atlas]

tourney, if you discount the full commie meta skewing things, is not a bad place to sus out unit interactions

because people will usually play what they think is the strongest, and if their assumption is wrong, there is a good chance the enemy players will be skilled enough to put that assumption to the test.

tourney players still misplay all the time but odds are some 50os gamer will be reliable enough to demonstrate how A beats B

[placid eagle]

Yep, tourneys are good testing grounds

Even with co-op since players just co-op the OP stuff

[grizzled atlas]

to be completely skeptical, there might be sleeper strats, but it shows you the players collective opinion, or at least what they feel comfortable using for the best shot of winning

arm sea is reasonable on those maps but is kinda harder to play unless you can go straight to mass destroyer

[placid eagle]

There's definitely sleeper strats

But the point is to encourage people to find them

[grizzled atlas]

yeah that's the fun part of tourney strategy

[placid eagle]

Balance is kinda whack a mole

I wish the BLT was more open to experimenting with it tbh

[grizzled atlas]

i don't think it's like whack a mole, the first mole has barely been whacked

it's more like making sure that this really is in fact a mole

[placid eagle]

That true 🤣

[blazing onyx]

Debate-a-mole 😂

where you spot a mole and the spend the next 6 months deciding whether it is, infact, a mole

[placid eagle]

It certainly could be expedited

I'd like to see a season every 3 months with big changes and then weekly adjustments

[blazing onyx]

That would b so nice

[grizzled atlas]

once a month the current pace is fine, realistically speaking

[plucky vessel]

There is exactly one map where going hovers in one position makes sense some of the time, and that map is hellas basin. But not for any reason like raiding the eco, just because there's deep island mexes and an island geo, and hover cons let you get from land in the North sea position and then straight to the water and to the islands. But I would also immediately transition out of the lab when possible because hovers are bad units. Worse and more expensive than their land/amphibious counterparts. Rather make seaplanes after going sea.

[grizzled atlas]

i used to do bot opening + 1 aa bot, take geo then go sea. +trans a rez to the island

[plucky vessel]

So I'm getting my printers back, you say. Please give me my printers back, I miss them.

[agile topaz]

I dont think hovers should be removed from the game

Surely there is a good way to make them viable

[harsh egret]

They're just not a good option to use

[agile topaz]

i was refering to buffs

[harsh egret]

You can buff them and they should receive one but its like the guy mentioned no one likes to balance those

Honestly 3 options

Move them to another lab
Buff them
Remove them from game.

[agile topaz]

i see no point in removing them from the game

They could serve as a niche option

Moving them to another lab could be considered though

[harsh egret]

I just want stats of how many people use them to be honest

But there's literally no niche thing about them?

[agile topaz]

None currently

A buff would make them niche

[grizzled atlas]

hovers are fucking interesting

a natural way to use the terrain types water and land

they just are underpowered compared to bot labs and t1 ships are too strong

[west birch]

They're mostly fine vs t1 land, but t1 ships too strong

T1 ships dominate t1 land units around shallows just as well

[grizzled atlas]

it's mainly the lab cost is steep and the medium hovers which suck

Yep I totally agree with you about ships. I think it is important for map diversity/tactics for shallows to not be 100% dominated by ships
Maybe that includes reducing the speed penalty of units crossing water.

[tulip laurel]

Since ptaq showed up alot of other new People joined in aswell. And since most of them are not used to my playstyle. It ended with me having more or less free reign across the games we played.

In short, whislters are very dominant with rmy build but easily countered. But thats the thing, if you are not used to how i play, you and everyone els are going to have a Hard time.

[tulip laurel]

I agree with @toxic island

I mean Ill still play. Its just the balance needs abit more work.

[grizzled atlas]

The pawn and t2 arm veh are the worst 2 offenders agreed 💯

For some reason the playrate in (all players 20+) pub games don't reflect this but most 40+ os player or any tournament would say the same thing.

[ancient lance]

Tiger op
Vedor says

[grizzled atlas]

Medium tanks good if used properly, and tiger is expensive t2 medium tank

[crude delta]

You, should join bac

[ancient lance]

Already in the pro sorry

[crude delta]

Aw rip

[ancient lance]

Im gonna be honest armada and i think legion will be meta in teamgame

Cortex are just better in 1vs1 rich map so about 90% of the map pool

[ancient lance]

It doesn't man cortex is bad no just you have to play with the fact that most of your option is limited

[ancient lance]

🤣

i lost my mind long ago

[grizzled atlas]

I'd like to run some tiger + pawn test vs various comp

Like starlight pawn

And stout + pawn too

[ancient lance]

tiger + tick is cheaper

[grizzled atlas]

There is still lots of disconnect, devs don't see the opinions of high os sea gamer, only judge destroyers stronk on the chokey maps and rivers we have.

[ancient lance]

it's hard to filter real opinions to bad opinions and it's not like they can analyse tons of replay

[grizzled atlas]

Devs (and many players) think there is no air micro but sweaty air players have figure out there is actually fig micro and angle of engagements. Ofc air still has issues but calling it no micro is outdated.

Same for the common misconception of sea is just spam destroyer. Well it is if you play on fucking 2 inch wide river all the time. Frigate micro to dodge shot is not much different then using incisor to dodge stout shot

[grizzled atlas]

Maybe someone could collect opinions from those players and summarize it

[subtle jasper]

I always thought it might be good to have a few select fighters more ahead when you're approaching an enemy fighter wave, to lure a massive overkill volley so you get a first volley advantage.

I don't have the motor control for that tho 😂

Seeing people turn their fighters around in replays does hurt because if you know it's a losing engagement it's probably better to just keep engaging, you can get some damage done that way. Retreating too late spells instant no loss win for enemy fighters, total loss for you.

[west birch]

Scout planes can be used to soak up shots too

They're lower target priority but if there's nothing else to shoot at yet, they'll be targeted

[subtle jasper]

I do miss OTA wiggle fighter micro though. Le sigh

[agile topaz]

I didnt know that the bedbug and tumbleweed were moved to t1

That is a good change tbh

Early game option against blobs

[west birch]

Lmao me neither

[plucky vessel]

New sea players always seem to spam destroyers and get blown out of the water by my Riptides because Riptides are op against destroyers.

Frigates aren't much worse than Destroyers against land, though. Less range but more DPS, and certainly enough range to kite land units.

[plucky vessel]

They were not. That's in the Season 1 rebalance attempt TweakDefs.

[grizzled atlas]

If it's in range they are better, surely

[barren prawn]

Wat

[crude delta]

In a tweak or base game lol?

[agile topaz]

nvm tweak

[hexed anchor]

please move flag to gantry already, it deserves to be there.

[barren prawn]

kind of a weird way to say just remove flag from the base game but that's better than nothing

[dapper cape]

Someone should make a thread for that.

[hexed anchor]

ikr

[distant citrus]

I don't think flagships were changed for season 2?

[dapper cape]

The latest Flagship thread has been closed due to reason C.
(Changes have been decided on/implemented)

Nothing has been mentioned since the closing, so we have zero idea what will be changed, or when.

-# iirc

[exotic sigil]

Changes being decided on could also mean they're not changing anything

[dapper cape]

If that's the case Reason C needs to be reworded.

[lunar hollow]

the devs seem allergic to adding it to gantry so i guess theres a combination of smaller changes that could work to fix the issues with flagship:

-increase buildpower cost
-add Energy cost to the main cannons equivalent to LRPCs (1250 E per shot = 5000 E per burst)
-Add big explosion on death killing surrounding ressurection subs and buildtuirrets preventing seaplayer from getting easy reclaim or rez
-reduce radar range significantly or remove entirely
-reduce speed from 54 to 46 (1 more speed then titan)

allso i guess we could consider reducing shield metal price and bp cost

[grizzled atlas]

you wouldn't put an 11k metal vanguard in the t2 lab so why put the flag

the t3 UW gantry needs some incentive to make, otherwise its often worse version because it is harder to support land and has no catapult/thor/razor

[crisp bison]

That's the funny thing, that there is already UW building ot make T3, it just makes no sense than the Flagship is made in T2 shipyard no matter how you look at it.

[grizzled atlas]

shield prolly should be made cheaper vs the flag

a shield is not a full counter to a flagship, because shields are expensive targets that can be lost to air, missileship, ground push, or a surprise 2nd flag

then it can be
UW gantry uniquely makes flag
land gantry uniquely makes catapult/behemoth/thor/razor

that's more like a real decision right?

[crisp bison]

Indeed, and its not like you're building the UW Gantry just for the Flagship. The only problem left is to redesign the model to allow for the building of the flagship if its even a problem. They're already the same size as T2 shipyard IIRC

[grizzled atlas]

if you are only building it for the flag that means the other option need retweaking., so they are worth considering to build even from UW lab

[crisp bison]

Juggernauts aren't UW units, so its not like UW Gantry have issue building something over the water surface

[grizzled atlas]

maybe slightly buff to t3 hovers

[crisp bison]

Oh yeah, those are unjustifiably slow for both factions.

Be they a bit faster, they could be a reasonable competition for the sea, but right now they just eat plasma from any ships because of their speed, and can't chase the subs. Cataphracts at least have range, but it doesn't help much beyond the initial contact.

Maybe even could be used as fire-support for other early T3s on the ground.

They're not even T3 technically... could do wonders as T2.

[hexed anchor]

all those are cool suggestions, but again - the simplest thing to do to balance the game is to move flag to t3. it's simple, it has been proved to be a better balance in multiple lobbies that use t3 tweak. It just needs to become a standard. It makes no sense to have insane t3 unit built in t2 shipyard because of legacy TA balance that was skewed...

[grizzled atlas]

completely gutting the flagship to balance it in t2 also feels bad

unless we getting some experimental t3 ship ; )

[lunar hollow]

i wouldnt consider this gutting at all, giving it e requirements for its cannon seems like a bug fix to me

the radar is allso weirdly out of place because its unkillable by juno

you could say nerfing its speed is gutting it but i think a unit with this amount of range needs to be pretty slow

the flagship is kinda inconsistant with the games design choices in some aspects

[crisp bison]

Simply put, its just have too much for what its worth. Simple as that. As a unit, you can nerf it any way you want as long as it is not a floating demigod suppressed only by its inability to walk on ground.

[plucky vessel]

What's crazy is there was no flagship in TA, it ended at battleships. There's not even an "it was like that in TA" excuse this time.

[grizzled atlas]

NW was t1 arm + t2 arm veh + triton spam xD

only map where grunt was good was on downs where the water blocks ticks

[stray oasis]

I think what's crazy is people who have less than 10 games swimming contribute to threads or even make their whole fucken threads on navy balance lmao

[grizzled atlas]

also when you run over t1 walls with t2 units they no longer take damage. This is a fine change but it should be documented

I'm pretty sure it was changed because the death dmg was killing friendly geos

[hollow dawn]

it should hurt as much as stepping on a lego brick

[grizzled atlas]

well, walls are bat shit op, so until they get nerfed I think it's fine

[grizzled atlas]

On the DSDR game Canada vs EEC, the matchup was double arm veh vs cor bots + arm veh

because of the open map the superior rover numbers we were able to control win vision, threaten everywhere, while the grunts were slow to impact map

kind of interesting because rover used to be thought of as an expensive tick w/ a bad turret, now people are warming up to it i guess

[toxic island]

Rover was always scout war terminator

[hollow dawn]

rover got buffed and tick nerfed also

[grizzled atlas]

how did rover got buffed?

[hollow dawn]

hp

[grizzled atlas]

xD

bar devs keep buffing the fastest units in the game
like they need to carry the game any harder

[toxic island]

When Triton buff?

[grizzled atlas]

[toxic island]

It needs depth charges I think

[grizzled atlas]

I didn't realize until i looked at the metal cost. lol i thought it was like 850
My mistake was only testing triton vs riptides

[hollow dawn]

well rover is 31m, feels like you get what you pay for now

[toxic island]

It's winner per metal vs bull, it wins vs starlight. U can t1 light trans it on land and water and build with bot lab engineer. Then it has 600 range main gun for kiting too. And anti air fire too.

[hollow dawn]

but scout prio goes to vehicles more now

[grizzled atlas]

in 1v1 it's maybe different but in team game it's very good for finding weak gap and wrecking the techer's apm cause you can't catch it without rover

[grizzled atlas]

yeh the metal cost is ridiculous. I think starlight can win with the right comp and front to back, but with a flank gl
you will need like t1 walls or mines on the flank, and they have 600 range so much

[toxic island]

Also they have gauss cannon so it doesn't miss

[grizzled atlas]

the one downside they have very small splash
so starlight pawn alright vs them

[toxic island]

Ye

[grizzled atlas]

some skirmshers alright. maybe if you play thanathos + arcquebus and wait 1000 years

thanathos is giga op but the only thing you scared of is heavy rocket truck 1 shotting you

[toxic island]

We tested extensively. Starlight sucks VS them because they are 50% more tank than bull VS starlight (shots to kill 3 instead 2)

[grizzled atlas]

ahh, just a ball of fucking stats

bull has more emphasis on mobility, splash, and supposedly range than raw dueling stats
until triton lmao 600 range

[toxic island]

Until triton more range, almost same speed and go over water and transportable by light trans

[grizzled atlas]

damn i don't know whether devs were more high for letting this one slip or we were more high for not noticing until final day

[toxic island]

It got mega buffed before tourney

[grizzled atlas]

recorded in patch notes?

[toxic island]

Yes

[eternal osprey]

I mean there's also the t2 legion trans which has absolutely insane dps for how tanky it is.

Every time I've built those they felt like a cheat. I'm surprised they didn't see even more use in NW.

[grizzled atlas]

we saw your games from yesterday thought we could beat it but the cost/power is too good. spamming it never puts you at disadavntage

technically in a flat plane maybe stout pawn starlight beats it

stout tanks, they lack anti spam, and the combined dps can win

[toxic island]

Actually they op anti spam

Because why not

[grizzled atlas]

yeah i heard, do they auto switch targets?

[toxic island]

Idk the details. MG turrets might or might not aim independently

[grizzled atlas]

wpwp though, you gamed us with the lab position. gg on paradise lost

[toxic island]

We wanted to t2 double trans u and then engineer triton spam

Ggs wp tho

[grizzled atlas]

does the engineer make tritons?

damn they finally made something to rival platy spam on consul

was getting too easy to upgrade t2 mexes, make consul, eat lab then make 30 plats (2v1 navy strat)

[grizzled atlas]

"we can't make gunships op but if what if we hide the functionality under a trans designation 🤔 "

abductor could have zero weapon and it'd still be decent for it's purpose as as a stealthy trans (trans starlight/mammoth/incenerator anyone?)

(I'm not sure whether stronghold are OP purely as a gunship but definitely when you combine them with their transport ability)

also being a tanky gunship that's fast don't they sort of powercreep the dragon?

[toxic island]

they are better than wasp in hp and damage stats check, faster than wasp, transport up to 3 mammoth like units or commanders or beamer etc.

and for some reason win vs flak trucks

[grizzled atlas]

someone should make a dot plot of unit power level vs it's speed
must be like 80% of the best units in the game are pretty fast.

[toxic island]

(low to mid numbers)

while legion has like 2-3 very op units, unfortunately everything else kinda bad. would be a shame if they get nerfed and there is nothing good to play. need to actually buff some stuff too

[grizzled atlas]

what if you deleted arm vehicle from the game temporarily
would legion still be good w/o their op units?

[toxic island]

stuff like sniper weldor, or banisher tzar still way too good compared to legion stuff

[grizzled atlas]

sniper hard dies to thanathos tho

[toxic island]

whats that

[grizzled atlas]

phalanx is basically a significantly better sumo (in most cases)

[toxic island]

ye but sniper legion sux

[grizzled atlas]

very lite 1200 range catapult at t2

[toxic island]

ah that

[grizzled atlas]

good vs sheldon sniper. bad vs bull

[toxic island]

i used it and for 7k metal didnt kill 1 rattlesnake kekl

[grizzled atlas]

kill the nanos ig

[toxic island]

rocket aoe is so low it actually does no damage

[grizzled atlas]

single target dmg is it's weakness

[toxic island]

well aoe also not really its strength

[grizzled atlas]

but at 1200 range you can always be firing. it depends how open the map it is

[toxic island]

ye ye range is nice

very easy for it to be op by accident

[grizzled atlas]

even a shitty unit is good if enemy can't hit you --the whistler

[toxic island]

well in t1 sure

in t2 afus counters thanatos

[grizzled atlas]

i think a strat I did was just 3-6 thanathos + pure phalanx hopelite

[toxic island]

aka just ignore its existance

[grizzled atlas]

phalanx is cracked

[toxic island]

imo its just worse ambassador

[grizzled atlas]

it's like if the sumo got enough buffs that it's actually a general purpose unit and not a niche unit

[grizzled atlas]

it has 50 speed it's more like an arbiter cousin

[toxic island]

well u maybe get 10 sec faster to front but u need 100 sec longer to kill

[grizzled atlas]

yeh but ambassador can have a bit of trouble surviving a medium tank or starlight charge
thanathos will always be able to kite

for killing single porc thanathos is garbo yeah

it's good on straights, need a closed map with high value stuff in one area

[scarlet mirage]

dammit the names are so marvel I cant remember any of them

[grizzled atlas]

if they rattle vs your thanathos maybe you can try bust them with surprise phalanx
rattle does win but if you bust the rattle gg

[toxic island]

well after all i dont test it too much, just from games i had and some sandbox it was unable to do anything at all. maybe can be good one day..