#T1 Reworks to Improve the 1v1 and Small Teams Experience

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broken hamlet
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But its still slightly different...

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I really dislike the minute differences approach to balance, a lot

cerulean charm
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Bigger things haven't happened because the factions haven't been remodeled. The core team can't make units that do things they don't look like they should be able to do.

broken hamlet
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Well, I think you can still start with weapon reworks like we've done and have those guide models

cerulean charm
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But Legion was used to silo a lot of experimental ideas, and got made first. And now there's another, new, big open field to test in, imo.

broken hamlet
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I cant believe I started playing BAR when pawns and grunts had the same speed

broken hamlet
cerulean charm
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That's... true and sad to think back on

broken hamlet
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I was just informed that brightworks did his entire stream today with small teams and our patch 😮

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Gonna watch the VOD

calm marten
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@pseudo star I think you should try these. Maybe It'll address the issues you have with current game balance

broken hamlet
cerulean charm
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v0.7.0 changes

  • Bedbug. Speed 35 -> 100, radar 1000 -> 800, explosion damage 2000 -> 440 and area 400 -> 200. It has a much weaker explosion when killed.

  • Centurion. Impulse set to match Gauss weapons.

  • Twilight. Death explosion is a normal explosion. The self-destruct is still an EMP weapon.

  • Lasher. Rockets are faster and no longer overshoot. Damage was previously decreased by a large amount; some of that decrease is reversed.

  • Pounder. Range 252 -> 300 (base is 315).

Some other changes were considered but this is all that was needed to reach the next patch version.

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Should probably add a small radaremitheight to bedbug. It will get blocked on terrain pretty often.

broken hamlet
summer ether
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dont reinvent the wheel, the game is good just learn to play better

hardy fog
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personally i think there should be some changes to t1 but yeah a lot of units like thugs for example are good as is in vanilla

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the way i would have imagined the bedbug, would have been that it costs something like 45 metal and kills a mex instantly, and isnt really good for much else

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kind of like a more expensive tick, relatively fast, doesnt trade well with most units but has to be dealt with if it goes past your army

cerulean charm
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play good

cerulean charm
hardy fog
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but it costs 90 metal

cerulean charm
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That's the main issue?

hardy fog
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and its as lsow as a jugg

cerulean charm
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Nah 100 speed

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I think Tick is 130

hardy fog
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ok 2 days ago it was 33 speed

cerulean charm
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Yeah it was

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It was just kind of hard to use (and obv leaving in the 2k damage was an error)

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The main question I had with it, since I've been using basically the current version of it the whole time, is whether it needs a countdown on its selfd to balance it out

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But instant self-d is pretty important on the crawling bombs

broken hamlet
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Especially at 90 speed, timing skill shots would be fun

broken hamlet
hidden mirage
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for me is a bit too good rn and didnt retain the weaknesses of vanilla pawns

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If the goal was to diversify comps the thug changes didn't do that.

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and I speak from the angle of a mono thug spammer.

broken hamlet
hidden mirage
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I just think removing a large chunk main counterplay to thugs (smaller fast units)doesn't help balance cor t1 bots. I should be punished harder by pawns and grunts for making mono thugs than I currently am.

broken hamlet
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Agreed

hidden mirage
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the bedbug changes are interesting and I will probably try them but not entirely sure they really fit the cortex mo.

broken hamlet
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What would you say is it's MO?

hidden mirage
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Beefy frontline units with strong traditional archetypes that are unparalleled in a straight brawl.

hardy fog
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it's the unit we have, and Bedbug is the most fitting tick counterpart you could come up with for cortex

broken hamlet
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The radar is bug flavored

gilded compass
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Hey... you guys probably have your reasons.. but why don't you just nerf Pawn, Blitz, and Incisor HP by 15-20%, and leave everything else mostly as-is? Wouldn't that more or less accomplish what we're going for?

restive lark
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An indirect way of nerfing fast raider units would be to make LLT cheaper in meetal, e and BP so that spamming them would no longer cripple an earlygame economy as much while keeping them as weak as they still are against everything else. I like the fact that fast raider units can overrun (mono-) thugs, maces and rockos, because that creates a rock-paper-scissors with the t1 porc. Another one would be to add a laser weapon to all labs so that at least the core of your base could be (lightly) protected against weaker raids even if you comwalk.

gilded compass
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But like... why indirect? Why not just directly nerf the raider units? lol

restive lark
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Because their relationship to units is perfect imo and only in t1 their role is so valuable that they oppress. It is the openness of maps and thus the difficulty of porcing down in 1v1 - that is, the difficulty of bringing out their counter.

I do like the centurion idea, that unit can use any change there is and it's not a bad idea to add a unit-counter but thugs and rockos already have a role and need not become even stronger as raider-killers

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LLTs meanwhile are the least likely thing to become oppressive because the only thing they do well is to counter raiders.

hardy fog
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yeah agree

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I would change t1 around a bit too to make it more different between arm/core but I would stay with t1 units not t1.5

gilded compass
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If they're good at outmaneuvering and taking out resources, they shouldn't also be good at fighting directly... I watched a game between two 34ish OS players, and it was a 20-minute blitz/pawn fest until one player tried to build thugs, at which point the game ended as the pawn/blitz player just kicked down the front door and overwhelmed the thug player. Granted, the thug player was losing already .. but still..
Thugs vs pawns is thug-favored, but not by enough.. and thugs vs blitzes... it's like... not even really a counter

Right now I'm having the most fun playing 3v3 and 4v4 because having a bunch of commanders everywhere makes it possible to evolve out of the pawn blitz phase pretty quickly

I'm also not that great, so take my input with a grain of salt... but all this might be kind of unnecessary if a simple HP nerf to blitzes, pawns, and incisors would do the trick

hardy fog
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if even pawns trade relatively well with llts then what is their role

restive lark
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If the raiders stop countering thugs, thugs stop having a counter in t1. I would suggest halving the metal, BP and energy cost of LLT and if that's not enough, go lower. They are currently prohibitively costly to set up in enough spots for 1v1, they are in a decent spot for smallteams and they are a brief interim element in smallfront 8v8. In quite some aspects LLTs are a noobtrap even.

hardy fog
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honestly all centurion really needs is more movement speed to outmove plasma bots

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and it would be great with everything else vanilla

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it's allready really good at being repaired and it deals guaranteed damage

cerulean charm
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Nerfs to Pawn/Blitz HP are likely. This just isn't a straight-up balance patch, it's trying to change the landscape a bit more and then start with competitive balance some time around its v1.0

gilded compass
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Cool, yeah I'm looking at the balance patch notes in depth now and I'm seeing that actually pawn and blitz HP are being nerfed after all emohearthug
Not seeing any incisor nerf, but maybe with all the other changes it won't be a big deal

broken hamlet
broken hamlet
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Ironically though when you buff the other stuff to be better vs pawn/blitz/grunt/incisor, then you can even buff these units and still the game feels better!

broken hamlet
# hardy fog and it would be great with everything else vanilla

Well the problem with only buffing speed, and the reason why it seems like there are so many changes (btw, while there are many, I dont think it really feels that much different), is because a lot of the units are designed to be slow and have high range

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So you make them fast and now the high range is an issue

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A lot of that comes down to these units being too strong at hunting commanders down if theyre too fast thanks to their range and DPS

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But we get around that by pairing speed buffs with range debuffs.

restive lark
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Oh it's just pawns and blitzes specifically rather than incisors and grunts, too?

broken hamlet
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Grunts got a health nerf but also a significant cost decrease so it isnt as straightforward

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But blitz and pawns have no cost adjustments, just speed and health. They give up some health for more speed, basically. Thats what armada is about to me

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So anyways, one thing that Ive noticed is a lot of folks assume the new thugs and centurions are OP against commanders, but then they try it and realize that you need to get into dgun range to be a threat, and its not so easy to kill coms with them. Getting 2k in metal dgunned feels bad

languid comet
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Thug is what range now?

broken hamlet
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330

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#1376965918659182764 message

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this is UTD 6/11/2025

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@languid comet

languid comet
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Thx

hidden mirage
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If I am honest I don't think I like the range nerf. I did think the thug was over performing. But that's more it covering weaknesses it had in the vanilla game. I don't really think range was the best way to nerf them

cerulean charm
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It was a specific matchup nerf, so it got some more hp to adjust all its other matchups, but the exact amounts of each might not be quite right

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Is there a short-ish range Thug that works, do you think, or no

hidden mirage
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As a mono thug spammer. it feels like the tweak is trying to change the thug away from a main infantry unit that can easily kill commanders and tank damage to a 1 unit fighting machine that doesn't kill commanders.

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Now I understand this tweak is trying to be different. But the tweak isn't adding new units.

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There is no other unit that fills the void of function that the vanilla thug had.

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if I want to build something beefy and easy to kill commanders now, the cortex bot lab no longer has any options for that.

cerulean charm
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Yeah you're kind of stuck with rockos atm

hidden mirage
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and cortex is supposed to be the range area control faction. atm the cor bot lab has no range and no area control

cerulean charm
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And grunt overwhelm

hidden mirage
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Because the current stat line of thugs currently leans itself to comparing functionality to almost a janus or a vanilla med tank

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Except without the speed of the tank and without the burst of a janus

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feels like the identity of the thug you are trying to create is a bit murky. And the nerfs to range is more a bandaid fix for it to not be just absolutely overpowering.

cerulean charm
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Agreed

broken hamlet
hidden mirage
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Unironically the thug being faster makes it harder to micro vs comm lol

broken hamlet
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But they hit commanders like a truck, and when I play usually I'm getting down to like 10% HP trying to dgun groups of them, and if the player knew to follow up with grunts it would be my demise

hidden mirage
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Thug vs comm micro used to be just "barely get in range then walk back"

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Because vanilla thugs are just barely faster than comm

broken hamlet
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Yeah, it is a lot riskier, but ultimately you just spread them and go for a surround

broken hamlet
wary obsidian
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I recommend you find out why the things in hornet's balance patch were not implemented, before trying to make even more modifications to your already massive proposal/fork.

broken hamlet
west forge
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Adding legion already enormous balance undertaking and neb u changing too much at an odd time

broken hamlet
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I'm not changing anything. This is an optional mod

wary obsidian
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Which posted message has the current unit values so we can give proper feedback?

Is the pinned message still accurate?

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Are you stating that this is no longer a balance change thread, and this should be moved to #1129127537763692654 ?

broken hamlet
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This thread is inactive anyways, it can be closed until we have our official proposal ready

west forge
broken hamlet
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What random lobbies are you joining with the tweaks on?

wary obsidian
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Thread OP requested to close the thread, reach out if you want it opened again!

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Err I'll hold off

broken hamlet
wary obsidian
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This rework is why I haven't participated in fight night recently

broken hamlet
broken hamlet
wary obsidian
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-# suffering from too high OS, and work/timezone.

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west forge
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I just think if u gonna do a whole rework u should wait until other balance stuff is solidified so as a player I'm not overwhelmed playing 5 different ways rip

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Imo wait for the coop patch next week

broken hamlet
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It's a valid concern. The coop patch is also just a proposal though

west forge
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And when legion is in base game

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And when flagship t3 is merged

broken hamlet
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However, it will actually synergize really well with our proposal (unintentionally)

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But if this ever gets an official implementation, it would indeed be stepwise

west forge
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Yeah I mean eventually the community needs to pick a chair and sit down instead of walking through ikea for 5 months

broken hamlet
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Yeah thats why my philosophy is make one or two batches of big changes now instead of making big changes every time the players learn the last one

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The seasonal approach is nice

west forge
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I'm glad u working on the game and want to improve it I'm just exhausted as a player tbh

broken hamlet
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Kick off a season with big changes, make small adjustments till the next season

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It's a valid concern, I hear you. I did not anticipate there to be any real traction with our proposal though, since its unofficial (I assumed most players weren't even aware of its existence)

west forge
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Ur 1v1 tourneys have spread ur discord is popular so lots of people copy paste it into lobbies

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Anyways good luck homie

broken hamlet