Vasari are king. there is no disputing this, it didnt always used to be this way, and it didnt take much to reach this point, but here we are, and here is why. 1. scramble bombers. 2. phase missles. everyone knows scramble bombers needs to be nerfed... but phase missles? well, we need to be carefull, but lets do some quick calculations first.
A max upgraded phase missle does 1.74x the damage (on average) than an unupgraded phase missle to a frig at max mitigation. That same phase missle does 2.04x the damage when thrown against a lv 5 cap ship at max mitigation (60%, 70%)... for advent, it gets horrible... a lv 10 advent cap ship with max mitigation research (no pacts), in its own culture gets hammered for 3.24x the damage of an unupgraded phase missle. (throw in the phase 15% extra phase missle bypass from a missle pact, and things get rediculous)
basicly, if something has shields, phase missles do a really really good job at popping them. vasari fighters at max upgrades are better at popping cap ships than enforcers... i kid you not. (enforcers do 1.91666 damage per fleet supply... *.75 for thier modifier vs capital armor, gives 1.4375 dps/supply fighters, do 1.464 per fleet supply... and they get a 50% modifier, but they also get a 204% buff due to phase missle upgrades....(vs a lv 5 cap ship) and so they do 1.492 dps/supply.
basicly, why would you buy enforcers, which might die, when you could use... fighters? (wtf?) (and they respawn for free if your carefull with your carriers)... if fighters are better than enforcers... could you imagine how much more effective bombers are? well, lets do the math, ehh? 2.44 dps/fleetsupply *.75*2.04 = 3.735145 dps/supply. Max upgraded bombers are exactly twice as good at killing that lv 5 cap ship as max upgraded enforcers are, to within the margin of error on the spreadsheet i am getting my numbers from.
lets do lrms for funz? (and maybe flack too if i get bored) Assailant: 13dps/6*.75*2.04 = 3.315dps/supply vs that poor lv 5 cap ship. Flacks... 16.333/5/2(assumping 2 weapon banks are firing at the cap ship)*.5*2.04... bullshit... 1.666dps/supply ... thats higher than the enforcer!!! (not a max upgraded one mind you... but why the hell would anyone want wave cannon upgrades when they could get phase missles?) oh, and these ships get charged missles for extra fun. (and flack got 2 extra banks for firing at other things)
so... what about the lonely skrimisher? .857dps/supply unupgraded, or 1.03dps/supply upgraded. wow, that is so low. you know... i wonder.... 12/7*1.5...=2.5714dps/supply for antiheavy duties... bombers? 17.088/7*.5*1.74 2,124 dps/supply vs all frigs except heavies.
Is it any wonder phase missles are so loved? well, i dont really want to get rid of phase missles, they are what make vasari vasari, but what does need to be changed is so that things like flack and fighters are more effective than killing capitlships than enforcers. dont buff the enforcers, they already were buffed, no, instead, lets decrease the multiplier of phase missles vs capital ships. Let us reduce the modifier for phase missles on fighters/flack against capital ships from .5 to .4, and the modifier from lrm/bombers from .75 to .6 aka, a pathetic 20% nerf on phase missles vs capital ships. (and only capital ships).
please, reduce scramble bombers to 1.8 levels, and decrease phasemissles vs capitalships by 20% this is only phase missles vs capitalships mind you! everything else would be unchanged! its a very small nerf, but one that will help you keep your capital ships alive a little bit longer, and would open up the vasari to the possibility of using its other ship types.
(mind you, after my proposed nerf, phase missles will cream that lv 5 cap ship much faster than the same ship types of the other races upgraded to the same degree,... the modifier now effectively being 1.632 for maxed phase missles vs capships, vs 1.3 for say, tec maxed missle research, but the situation is significantly improved to the point where you should be building enforcers instead of flack and fighters to kill capital ships.)
Nice calculating, but I think the solution should just be to swap the bomber's weapon with plasma waves, thus not applying the phase missile research and shield penetration, and possibly increasing the enforcer's use through a kind of domino effect.
I bought all of this plasma wave research, and only my bombers and caps are using it... let's make good use of it and buy enforcers!
I really dont know, just an idea, it may also balance out with scramble bombers because a lot of vasari players get only phase missile research and maybe some pulse gun research. More late-game usefulness to your bombers.
Please, counter my idea!
Don't forget to add Subverters, Phase Stabilizers and the Kostura to the list of Vasari's excellent strengths. Sure, they're late game and so don't appear very often in a typical 4v4 or 5v5 match, but when they do show up they're nightmares to take care off. Consider that a skilled Vasari with subverters could go toe-to-toe with a battleball back in 1.181, imagine now that the illum bug is fixed and Advent DPS has been dramatically reduced.
That's not to undervalue the problem with phase missiles. They affect all the game's most powerful unit types (LRF, flaks, fighters, bombers. Seriously, these are all you ever need. Light frigates and heavies are nice to have, but not really necessary... and as Vasari why would you even bother with the marvellous phase missile at your disposal?), they are absurdly effective against shielded enemies, and to top it off they turn what are already deadly capital ship killers into ridiculous capital ship assassins.
I personally think LRF and bombers are already too strong against capital ships, but phase missiles just push the Vasari varients off the cliff. This needs to change, and I agree that phase missiles having reduced benefit against capital ships (and starbases, for that matter) is a great place to start. However, I think all bombers, long range frigates, and while we're at it fighters too need to have their damage multiplier against capital ships reduced.
I guess this is why I almost never build Enforcers--because I follow the phase missile track.
The only thing that really needs to be fixed IMHO is to nerf Scramble Bombers. Vasari wasn't as popular before the Scramble Bombers buff which gave them a formidable early-game advantage. Phase missiles have been a part of the game since the game was released as far as I know and I don't think they're a huge problem. Every race has its advantages and disadvantages and phase missiles are a key component of the Vasari's advantages. Vasari also has some significant disadvantages.
I think that Vasari would still reign supreme even without scramble. The only thing holding them back in 1.181 was their poor combat scout and the bugged illuminator that just dominated the field. The scout is now an irrelevant combat unit and the illuminator bug is fixed. As far as I'm concerned, they're still the strongest (though not by any ridiculous margin) faction and scramble is just gravy.
Gravy that everyone likes...
I dont. I want TEC turn to be OP.
ME TOO!!!!!
SIGN ME UP
I say give the TEC a much less antimatter hog of a Kol, and then watch as everyone shifts to TEC.
The TEC faction would need a lot more than souped up Kol to become a favourite faction. In fact, the Kol itself would probably need some crazy buffing just to get it into the top tier capital ships, and just forget about being powerful enough to carry its faction.
But if you really want to see TEC played, the unit to target is the Cielo. Part of TEC's problem is that they have no late-game answer to a repulse-equipped Guardian or a Subverter. The Cielo is good, but it just doesn't match up with what the other factions get at this tech level. I don't know what you'd need to do to bring the Cielo into range, but this is the unit to target to let TEC compete late game. Early-game, TEC doesn't really have a serious problem. Take the Skirantra out of the picture and they're probably the strongest early-game faction once they can get the hoshiko out.
I would just lower build costs and take the stackability of designate target up to like, 5 or something.
40% a pop: 200% for max
what do you say?
Lets not get off topic to much now, my bad for derailing it.
Personaly, I think the only things that should do great damage vs Caps is: Caps,LF,HC,and Structures.
I agree, and would like to see LRF and bombers take a dramatic reduction to their anti-capital ship power. If capital ships are no longer fearing for their life from highly mobile strike craft or ridiculously long-ranged snipers, they can actually enter the fray and have a hope of surviving it.
(you know, when all the other utility cruisers were given a turn rate buff, ceilos, and hoshikos were left out... giving them the same buff would allow designate target and demobots to shine a little brighter)
well, perhaps (and this would be much easier for the coders) all lrms and bombers could be reduced to 60%... but this still leaves flack and fighters more effective at killing capitalships than enforcers. (reduce antiverylight and antilight to 40%?.. at one point it was 25%...) (and its still kinda wierd that lrms with antimedium damage would get a higher modifier than LFs with anti-heavy damage type... huh?)
this would certainly give the heavy cruiser its time in the spot light, and the advent a bit more so than tec or vasari, due to the upgrade chain. (and the advent could kinda use it)
Something i find intresting is that currently the only ship with 100% modifiers vs capital ships are capital ships... aka, the capital ships will go toe to toe with the capital ships, and the fleets toe to toe with the fleets if left on autoattack, or if your watching AI battle it out... just a thought there. it is kinda romantic to think of it that way.
Just make demobots have 360 degree casting arc and keep the hoshiko turn rate. Cielo, though, could indeed use the turn rate buff.
Indeed; capital ship armour is kind of weird, in that its similar to very-heavy in every way except it's conveniently vulnerable to LRF. I think reducing anti-medium's damage to capital to 25% (from current 75%) would be appropriate.
Vasari flaks and fighters kill capital ships strictly because of phase missiles. I think it's important to keep perspective and try to think about the LRF/bomber issue separately from the phse missile issue. They are one and the same for Vasari, but they're completely unrelated as far as TEC and Advent are concerned.
In practice, though, LRF and bombers give you so much higher DPS for your money that their 75% modifier ends up meaning nothing; they chew through caps at a crazy rate.
you know, one thing we are not considering is stationary defence platforms...
now these should be good agaisnt captial ships (and right now they are)... but they are anti-medium damage type currently... and currently, anti-medium is fitting since it gets such good modifiers vs everything... we might want to give stationary defence platforms a slight buff by giving them composite damage type, which will be rather nice vs the pirates in single player, and we might even see a few of em pop up in multiplayer, instead of just repair bay spam.
I predict that whatever changes are made, the balance between the races in this game will never be perfect. When one race gets buffed up another race becomes weaker by comparison. Other than Scramble Bombers, I think the races are pretty well balanced as is. Phase Missiles have been around since the game's release and have not traditionally been regarded as a huge problem. The sad fact of the matter is that nerfing phase missiles in any significant faction will relegate Vasari to the sidelines.
my op suggusted nurfing phase missles towards cap ships by only 20%... if you do the math... if you research both tier one phase missle techs, you have already completly countered my proposed nurf vs that lv 5 capship... and if a vasari (currently!) doesnt have those 2 researchs done by the time the fleets meet for the first time, i have to wonder what that vasari player has been doing. (or why the homeworlds of the players were connected)
Dirty, you must remember that this is only vs capital ships, because of the phase missle's amazing damage percent against capital ships, if your focusing your fire against frigs, you would never notice it.
the point still stands that vasari fighters and flack frigs are doing more damage to capital ships than vasari heavy cruisers. dont tell me that is not a problem.
OK, I can see your point of nerfing the phase missiles against capital ships only.
It's not scramble bombers, it's bombers in general at the moment. Nerf scramble bombers without addressing the power of bomber spam, and you'll simply have everyone shift back to spamming Advent carrier caps. Phase missiles don't need a nerf, but they do need to removed as a weapon type for some of the Visari units in order for others to see some use. IMO switch fighters and flak to pulse weapons (also add a third tier of pulse weapon research) and switch bombers to wave. Phase missiles would still be on enough units and defences to be worth researching upgrades, but they would no longer be the only weapon type you need to research with Visari.
HEY! That was close to my idea.
No stealing allowed.
This was a good thread, started by a strong player. Then it started to go wrong when other players offered their opinions, not that it is much worse than any other thread in that respect. However I will offer one myself, though it isn't based on balance as much as coherence: it seems odd to have fighters and flak use phase missiles, they are just not flak/fighter type weapons, whats the purpose of bypassing shields, why over-engineer? Bombers, LRF, capital ships, starbases, yes. But if scouts were nerfed because they were not intended to fight LRF, then flak and fighters should not use weapons that are effective against shields either- just as Pbhead said. On Scramble Bombers, I would go back to v1.18, possibly with the multiple launch which seems an okay concept at reasonable levels of cooldown and duration- and also nerf the Halcyon slightly by reverting its extra squadrons to extra strikecraft, producing more tolerable squadron numbers for both ships.
The developers were too busy to patch a major bug like the Illuminator bug for months. The next patch will only bring another balance issue, or reveal one that existed previously. We've only just emerged from the age of Tier 0 frigate darkness- and emerged into the dark world of the 3-Skirantra start. Still a long way to go at Ironclad patch pace. Tier 1 balance problems by 2011?
What the game needs is not our opinions but an intensive balance cycle where we test changes ourselves. Another problem with threads like these is that the standard response is that the overall balance is what counts. There is much to fix. Its only those of us who both play and post that can fix it. You up for a community patch Pb?
If you read the accolades for the game in the developer journals, the praise is for the UI and the concepts, rather than the gameplay details. The great UI won't be changed by a few text edits. Ironclad have left us poor balance- but the opportunity to 'Make a game. Make a great game.' Is there another game with the same potential?
I strongly disagree on this one; the old ADA was so back-weighted that it was only useful for level 8+ capital ships anyways... by which point it was the only option available anyways (and yet it still managed to be a weak option). On low-level capital ships, it was completely and utterly useless, to the point at which that it was better having two Halcyons with non-stacking EAA rather than to spec one up with ADA. The new ADA is much more interesting and dynamic, and the Halcyon is arguably the only capital ship in the game where any combination of skill levels is completely viable. While the new ADA is a bit strong, the old ADA was one of the game's most useless skills and desperately needed the retooling it got.
Personally, I think the Halcyon is the paragon of balance against which all other capital ships should be measured. Let's buff the weaker caps up to this level, not nerf the Halcyon down, especially when its different abilities are in perfect balance with each other (nerfing ADA right now would just return all halcyons to the TKP/EAA combo, which would be a major regression in my opinion)
Honestly, it was refreshing to see light frigates actually get used for once. Personally I prefer it to the capital ship death-trap of the LRF/bomber combo that reigns supreme today.
If we're going to make a community patch, I personally would like to wait for 1.20 and see what the developers have in store before we start serious discussion on actually implementing such a mod. However, we can certainly discuss the issues and propose solutions on the matter.
I've only played Advent in this most recent version so I have zero experience with the old version of ADA. However I would question whether there are any AEA Halcyons around in this version- and AEA is a very strong ability. The old ADA may have been backweighted, but it wasn't weak, just not as good at low levels. Even at L1 it was the equivalent of a more than 10% boost- thats more than many abilities, and all % boost abilities with levels are 'backweighted'. The current version is a 50% boost at the second level.... Extra strikecraft seems to me to be far better than having a capital with 2 extra squadrons at level 3, especially the Halcyon with its TKP. AEA does not enhance TKP so much that it becomes overpowered. So I have to say that I strongly disagree also- the overboosted Halcyon is the major reason for the appearance of the dubious substance-improved Skirantra.
The Sova is a well-balanced capital however, as is the Kortul. Players who concentrate on the failure of capitals late-game have to ask themselves whether they are using them correctly in late-game battles.
So at least you would agree that LF are preferred opposition for capital ships? There were aspects of the scout/disciple option that improved the game. This is where Ironclad were at fault, and why I have no confidence that they can come up with a wonder patch out of the blue when they are working on something else- when they couldn't patch the Iluinator bug for months while working on this game? There's been no developer post for what, three months, since the sync bug? Oh, right, they've suddenly changed. Even the beta of the second expansion still had the Illuminator bug! The developers were clearly at fault in this instance, rather than just dumbing down the game by listening to the players.
However it was a pity that the scout/disciple era never got a fair test. It was impossible for Vasari because of the poor LF and scouts, and impossible for TEC with serviceable LF and scouts because of the Illuminator bug, Cobalts would just melt as soon as Illuminators appeared and scouts were very much less effective. The Ironclad response was a surprise, to claim that they never intended to have scouts fight LRF, and the changes they made to scouts might be another consideration for reversion by a community patch. With improved Skirmishers and unbugged Illuminators.. who knows?
But is the concept that scouts should counter LRF not a design element of the game. The Illuminator was originally an anti-capital LRF produced later and not so useful against LF. I would suggest that the Seeker was as strong as it was because it was specifically intended to combat LRF, in order that the Advent LF should be more viable, because they were needed against enemy LF. So that would mean that Ironclad were being somewhat disingenuous when they claimed that scouts were not to fight LRF, as in the original design and before 1.04 they would have been meant to. However they never discuss design elements or changes with us, probably a good idea from their point of view.
I'd like 1.04 Illuminators back, they added variety to the factions and its somewhat quixotic to point out that they increase the danger to capitals with their 100% modifier when the Kanraks have phase missiles that give them an effective anti-capital modifier that vastly exceeds their supposed 75%. Revert most of the scout changes too.
If the developers are pondering a 1.20 version, and there is absolutely no indication that they are, then I would like them to consult their original vision- and their mythical spreadsheet for adjusting the game for the gameplay balance- because it makes sense. Revert! Limited resources!
However they also need to put enough work in on pirates and their complex relations system, both rushed in at the end of the beta and which have had exactly one patch, which is completely inadequate. They never got mines right either. The game has just never been settled enough for a 7-8 patch sequence that could get it close to final, the changes have just been too huge. Look at the patches and testing the Starcraft II beta has required. How complex is Starcraft, in comparison? 1.20? 1.30, maybe.... with a strong and committed play test group, and far more openness.
I did some spreadsheeting for the old ADA about a year ago, similar to what I've done recently. The basic premise of the ability is that each squad gets 1 extra member, so the ability is more useful if you have more squads. This means that higher-level capital ships (the ones that need this ability least) get the most benefit, while lower-level capital ships (the ones that need it most) get the least. As well, Advent squads are pretty large to begin with, so you'd need over 7 squads for the old level 1 ADA to give you the equivalent of one extra strike wing in numbers. For that reason, there was literally no reason for lower-level Halcyons to grab this ability.
I'd say this has more to do with the sheer dominance of bombers right now. Bombers both threaten capital ships and force them to stick to the edge of the gravity well, and your own bombers aren't affected by EAA anyways. I think EAA is perfectly fine, it's the bomber/LRF dominance which is suppressing "front-line" capital ship utility that's the issue.
That's exactly what "backweighted" means, it was incredibly weak at the lower levels, but became decent towards the higher levels when your squads began to max out.
I just punched in the 1.18 values into the same sort of tables I did for the old 1.17 ADA. It seems that the extra squad that 1.18 gave to all carriers did really help the old version of this ability. It's still much worse at level 1/2, however.
If you're maxing out ADA, then old ADA catches up at level 3 and pulls ahead slightly at level 5 (in terms of sheer numbers, new ADA still has the advantage of extra build speed and more finesse in that you can micro each squad individually). If you aren't maxing it out and are leaving ADA at level 1, then new ADA remains superior for longer, not being passed until the Halcyon hits level 6 or 7 (again, that's just numerically, and by that time you're running out of other skills anyways).
The biggest difference between old ADA and new ADA is actually build speed, that the Halcyon can build strike craft more quickly with a higher level of ADA. I think that staying power is a cool ability of the Halcyon, and the problem is more that carriers and their strike craft are so dominant (and, in fact, are only realistically countered by other carriers with their own strike craft). This naturally makes any ability that boosts a carrier's primary role invaluable, and that's the problem, not the strength of the ability.
I strongly believe that ADA is balanced as is, and any changes should be directed at the strike craft or the capital ships themselves, not their abilities (scramble notwithstanding...)
The reason for the Skirantra buff was more to the fact that carriers were and are the dominant fighting force, so even a slight disadvantage in performance of your carrier with respect to the other factions was a huge handicap. This wouldn't be an issue if carriers weren't the end-all, and a slightly tweaked 1.18 scramble bombers would have been nice.
Personally, I'd like to see scramble lose a lot of its maximum duration (so you can't build up huge swarms) and get to keep its multi-launch to compensate. I think quickly being able to get fresh bombers on the scene should be the advantage of this ability. I think reducing its duration to 60 seconds (its cooldown is 35, so this would mean no more than 2 sets of scramble active at a time) would be a great place to start, especially anticipating that there may well be a general bomber nerf.
Yes, I'm with you on this one.
I'm with you here as well, although I do agree with the point that large scout swarms made it very difficult to apply non-illuminator LRF, so some tweaking has to be done, but I think scouts do have a very important role to fill in the early-game.
Personally, I don't think reverting to the more ancient versions of the game is a good idea. I think that 1.181 (with 1.191 bug fixes) is the best place to start balance-wise and there's very little if anything I'd want to revert to earlier versions from that patch.
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