Finally had a marza missle barrage me. Strangely enough, in a couple hundred games played (online), I've never had it happen. And since I don't play TEC, I've never used it before.
I was advent, playing against a TEC. He attacked me at one of my planets (all lrm, basically). I had a larger number of illums than he had lrm, and pushed him back - he took pretty big losses from my recollection. I then pressed ahead and attacked him. In waltzes his marza with some lrm. I still outnumbered him (with superior ships, no less) but all of a sudden my entire fleet went "poof" (30-something ships, from recollection).
Yeah, I'm pretty sure that the ability to press a single button on a capship with one finger, while picking your nose with the other, and be able to evaporate a superior fleet... should be considered just a *LITTLE* bit OP. Just a little. Someone will say "but you can disable it or avoid it!" Boy, what a false choice! So all he has to do is pick his nose while pressing a button, and all the burden to either "disable" or "avoid" is on me? Now how is that anything close to "balanced?"
Boy, is that shit ever broken. They ought to nerf the hell out of that crap, and nerf it good. In fact it should have been nerfed ages ago. A superweapon, which takes a ridiculous amount of credits to build, all said and done, won't even do that to a fleet.
Falsely accusing someone of cropping selected words into a block is even more childish.
Don't take my post personally, I was simply saying that those that claim that MB is balanced are deluding themselves.
You hit the nail on the head.
over playing hours and testing misslebarrage i change my mind about it a litte. Against KI its just not fun at all, because if jo only build marzas u can kill every fleet. Up du 4 KIs testet. Most time the KI dont stops it
So its overpowered because KI dont stop it. On Multiplayer Vasari has a huge problem with misslebarage because the only have one cap ship that can stop this ability as far as i know. And this ship is one of the weakest Caps in the game if you need DPS.
I like to play with friend against gangedup KIs, but if he gets barrage on the first marza the game is near to a win for us, because the next 3 marzas get such a fast level up that afer 15 mins the next 3 marzas has lvl6.
just show me another capship that has such a high damageoutput.
I mostly dont like nerfing ships, But we need much more balance here.
We have 2 options: nerf the missle barrage or get more power to the other caps.
I like option #2
I produced a nice rundown on how some of the existing abilities should look to be compared to MB.Take a glance here if you didn't yet ;].
I actually don't like option 2, because if everyone has outrageous fleet killing superspells on their caps, what do you even need fleets for?
I think it IS a DECENT idea of how to solve the issue.
Maybe MB is not overpowered, but it SEVERELY stands out of the line of ALL other abilities.It is the ONLY ability that ALONE, with NO SUPPORT, puts ALL the pressure on the ENEMY. If he doesn't act fast, he lost.
The damage it deals is practically irrelevant. What is important is the underlined part. It is severely imbalanced in how little you have to do and how much effort your enemy has to put in.
Either all factions should have some sort of "Show your reflexes NOW or DIE" ability (which they DON'T, Missile Barrage and Override protocol are the two only such abilities) or neither should have it.
Missile Barrage is not on the same level with other level 6 abilities. It is much more powerful.
The point about MB being counterable is hardly valid either. I will just build a Dunov with EMP and Magnetize to counter your counter ship, if I even need one. It's not that difficult to be smart about using MB so that it doesn't get countered. MB only has to fire a few volleys anyway to completely tip the scale of a battle. I can also capitalize on the fact that you have to go to extreme measures just to make sure I don't get my MB off.
No need to nerf anything, just play smarter
I only play SP, roughly 50%/25%/25% Advent/TEC/Vas. When I play TEC I don't build any Marza's because once it/they hit level 6 the game becomes a joke difficulty wise - and I always set all AIs to unfair.
That's nowhere near the case for any other cap ship of any race, or even combinations thereof. That's overpowered. Even at half the current damage it would be a close call with being OP. While I really don't like nerfs in general, MB is so out of whack with the other lvl 6 abilities some kind of adjustment just makes sense IMO.
Maybe this'll be clearer, "You can't target cap it. They'll just throw ships at it that are useless otherwise and they'll throw enough to completely negate MB."
This is equivalent to changing the Marza's lvl 6 to "Reduces opponent fleet supply by mB_targetcap*chaffshipsupply*avgMB_uses_perbattle."
I play Vasari, 7 is a likely supply number, 24 target cap is a popular number, let's say you have 50/50 on fire MB a second time before you're focus fired killed.
So every time someone lvl 6s a marza you take a 24 x 7 x 1.5 = 252 fleet supply hit.
1. So don't build chaff. Instead of 252 in waste ships, you lose that or more in highly valuable ships. Not a win.
2. Make the targeting random. Even worse, it over nerfs and over costs to counter. With 100 ships in range, and 20 of them are the ships you need to hit to damage the fleet (caps, support cruisers), you now have a 5% chance of hitting them. 95% of your missiles do collateral damage.
3. As TEC, only build marzas. A 4 player FFA means every time you lvl 6 one you wasted 750 of fleet supply across your enemies. Big win!
4. As TEC, never separate your marzas. Your opponent needs to bring 144 chaff to keep from losing his support cruisers when you get your third MB off. Weee!
5. As nonTEC, just spam your chaff. Build some colonizers as needed. 144 weak chaff will still get a couple shots off.
I cannot imagine a thought out scenario when using a target cap is a win in terms of improving balance and not neutering MB. I would love to be enlightened on this. But if you continue think beyond that first battle where you use the rebalanced MB, target cap goes to poop.
Hey, dolynick, was it you that had mentioned putting MB into a column in a mod to test it?
I would love to try that out if I can find someone to make an advent battleball to fire it into. I think the replay could be a motivational youtube hit.
I'd like to inject my own healing liquid potion thing into this heated poisonous discusion:
(try modding the game and , if you get the mod right, you can make it public, become famous with all of the ppl who think the marza is OP'd, and have a great life!)
Its apperent some people have not read much of the thread.
There has been good suggestions by dolynick on how to balance the ability page 3 i beleive.
Also, yes there are ways to counter MB when you have other cap ships and support cruisers at your disposal. But if you had been paying attention to the OP you would have seen this happened early game before more caps and support cruisers came online. Even if you flee the grav well the mazra might catch up to you and destroy a good number of ships before you jump.
If you had read my post (again page 3) I pointed out even if your fleet survives its taken massive damage and the enemy fleet will have gained the upper hand in an engagement. See when you add MB ability with a halfway decent fleet your fleet if can destroy the enemy if the MB didnt do it out right.
I would also contend in late game with huge battles its still hard to stop a mazra from sneaking and dealing a death blow even if you have a counter at the ready.
While I didn't necessarily agree with making other abilities "imba," there are a couple of ideas I have to "balance" the Marza:
1.) like people say, make the ability more noticeable
2.) keep the total damage the same, but lengthen the time taken to reach said dmg to 30-35 seconds. MB should take the Marza out of the battle for a while, but it would make sense that it would deal considerable more dmg. By increasing the channeling time, you now have more time to react to your fleet being ripped to shreds.
Anyway, the proposes on the other page were not necesarily in line with MB being "imba." If one were to compare the abilities to make them in line w/ MB, then thay would not both deal dmg and heal the casting target. I thought the idea here was to propose MB balances, possibly in the realm of "fixing" other caps' abilities, not to create another "imba" abilitiy. So if y'all want more imba abilities to counter or mimic MB, then at least keep it in line with MB's dmg potoential. Anything more is just childish.
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I mean, what the hell? LEVEL ONE revelation battleship can stop this attack with detonate antimatter. Detonate antimatter can A: remove some antimatter, B: causes damage, And C: STOPS Abilities that relay on it. LIKLE MISSILE BARRAGE!
Once again not reading the REPLIES
yes you CAN caounter it . That doesnt mean you will HAVE the counter in your fleet especially early game.
Please, please read the thread before commenting. people keep repeating the same things instead of countering previous statements. And this will turn the tread into 10 pages with the same things said over and over again.
your argument doesn't make any sense Vespucci.
you've just restated the issue using synonymous language. "losing 250 fleet supply from building chaff/filler to eat MB" is the exact same thing as "MB is brutal and kills a huge fleet of frigates every time its activated."
i mean, if a target capped MB still deals brutal damage and destroys a huge fleet, how can you even say that thats too severe of a nerf?
to be honest i have no idea what you're even thinking of when you refer to "chaff" ships. a ship is a ship. if you had to pay resources and fleet supply to get ships, for any purpose, you're still paying for those ships. if your opponents MB made you pay for those ships but he himself didn't have to pay for "chaff" because his opponent doesn't have a MB then the imbalance still remains.
the objective my target cap proposal is to remove the scales to infinity element of Missile Barrage while keeping its ability to destroy a large number of frigates in a short period of time. if, according to you, those frigates are merely "chaff" then so be it.
i mean, when i read your criticism the message is totally incoherent. you say "don't nerf MB because the nerf won't be good enough." you've negated your own stance! so if a target cap nerf is too lenient and leaves MB with too much power still (forcing the "chaff" building behavior, according to you) then what kind of change to MB would actually balance it?
Does any1 besides me feel like agent of karma is like a 10-yr-old brat?!?!?!
Agent, STOP USING ALL CAPS LIKE THIS IT'S REALLY ANNOYING AND ONLY SERVES TO MAKE YOU LOOK LIKE AN IDIOT!
I actually agree with everyone!
A nerf isnt called for (in the sense that nerf means: to make harmless)
But it is a bit to powerful, someone who is (for an example) trying to control two battles at once, each equally important, and doesnt notice a lvl 6+ marza in one battle feild, switches to the other battle for a minute, and comes back to a gravity well full of debris...
In this case its not a problem of someone being careless or stupid, it's that its just a little bit to much power a little to fast...
When I finaly download Forge Tools i'm going to experiment with mods on this... try to make it slightly less powerful, slightly reduce cooldown time, etc, etc...whatever it takes to make it "balanced" not "symmetrical"
Typically a "nerf" means to make weaker, not harmless. I don't think anyone here wants that of missile barrage, or any unit or ability.
I think the best way to deal with missile barrage is to lower its cooldown and number of salvos. This has two effects. First, it lowers the penalty if you don't/can't counter it, because it's going to end sooner. You're still going to take a lot of damage, but it won't singlehandedly sink your fleet. Secondly, if it does get countered, the penalty to the Marza owner is lessened because it will recharge sooner. This "evens it out", making it stronger if the counters are fielded, weaker if they aren't.
I tell you what. I will build and post a tiny mod that changes the MB to work in that manner. I will also build and post other change versions that people would like to see tried as well. I can't do this right at the moment but possibly later tonight I can have something ready and posted.
So let's be clear here. Mods to be tried currently are:
1) Reduce MB circular range to 6000m radius? (from 10,000m)
2) Leave circular radius at 10,000m but cap targets at 24?
3) A completely uncapped target column with a 1000m radius exactly like Cleansing Brilliance.
4) A target capped (32? or 48? or even 64?) column area with a 3000m? or 4000m? radius.
5) Cut the number of salvos (total damage) by 50%? and decrease cooldown by 25%?
6) Cut the damage of each salvo by 50% and increase the number of salvos by 100% (effectively double the duration)?
The question marked statements mean that I'm open to suggestions for the values. They are just the values that I figured would be logical starting points.
Once again, if there are other suggestions for ways to try as "fixes", please put them out there and if it's possible then I can try to get a tiny tester mod out that implements it. I doubt we'll get a concensus on which is the best fix but who knows. At the very least it may put an end to the argument that MB cannot be "nerfed" and still be an effective and highly desireable ability.
The catch is that they have to be for Entrenchment. These types of mods are trivial for Entrenchment but have to be much larger for vanilla due to not having Manifest. I have no problem with doing this as not a single one of those mods will take more than a minute or two to implement.
-dolynick
Granted, I don't have any suggestions of my own at this point on what should be done to missle barrage, but I think that most suggested nerfs here are actually too little. It's like bobucles said - you could nerf the everloving bejesus out of MB and it would STILL be a good ability.
Has anyone come up with harder nerfs that would put MB on par with a cleansing brilliance or a volatile nanites or something? Isn't that what needs to happen? Why should a nerfed MB still be hands down way better than any other caphip ability out there?
Having said that, I truly appreciate those who have put thought into the matter, and those willing to go through the trouble of making mods to test ideas out. It's more than I've done at this juncture.
Okay, what about this? MB is a like a super "charged missles" effect. There is an upgrade to the vasari and tec lrm which gives the missles splash damage and "area of effect." For the vasari, this is called "charged missles." Well, make missle barrage do that, only up the splash damage and area of affect. All targets surrounding a targeted ship (the marza would have to turn and aim at the ship being targeted) would take the same damage as the targeted ship (this would be the "splash"). The splash should be bigger than standard "charged missles" but shouldn't be huge. The damage dealt should be bigger than a regular missle from an lrm but also shouldn't be ridiculous. Basically, look at the damage numbers for abilities like volatile nanites, and use those.
That would put MB on par with other destructive capship spells.
* Target limit 24this is the most important thing, the limiter that prevents MB from going over the top against huge fleets.
* Salvos slightly slower, every 2 seconds, for 30 seconds.This would create 15 salvos at max, 2250 x 24 optimum damage = 54.000 damage under ideal circumstances
* Reduce MB circular range to 6000 or 8000, needs to be testedTo allow ships to retreat out of range, the range needs to be decreased.
* More visible effect of MBPeople mentioned mods that make MB much more visible, which is definitely an advantage when you want to interrupt it or have to react to retreat out of range of the barrage.
Missile Barrage would still be very powerful and feared, but it could no longer butcher AI fleets all alone, regardless of their size, and would allow people to react better in multiplayer to an incoming barrage, which would still be powerful. People would still have to move their ships or suffer the dire consequences.
Edit: Actually... I think it needs to be nerfed even more. Oh well.
You rock.
I say go for 4km. That's an area of 40km^2, which seems big, but is 12% of the original area. do you know if it will target ships which wander in the area during the MB? If so, say 48, if not say more.
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