Balancing is just Broken

Rovert10

Join Date 06/2011

+19

Balancing is just Broken

The balancing in its current state to be frank is crap and everything is broke.

I personally have no clue as how to fix any of this. IDK if any of the other guys on ICO have a clue.

Let's go through the number of problems.

1. Corvettes

Beta 1 (beginning) - Okay they were a bit useless but at least they didn't go screwing up balancing everywhere for everything
Beta 2 and 3 - These are blantantly screwing up with any early game.

2. Vasari Rebels - Starbase Jumping

Okay it's a great idea but why the hell is it just a 1 time cheap research? Make it a very expensive module.
This thing now just dominates the rush with the exception of maybe the TEC in the mid to late game if TEC brings their specific counters.
You just rush the SB and start jumping in wells to massacre everything. I doubt you can mass enough bombers or orgovs to stop it before it's too late especially since Vasari neut grab like crazy
And why can we jump multiple SBs in a well? So I have placeholders case one dies. No worries here if I lose one I have another on standby. Really? And it's actually bugged so you can have all of them operate.

3. Corsev

Ties in with the corvette problem
Has AOE AND a tanking ability to make it a overpowered first capital ship

4. Rebels vs Loyalists

There really isn't any point to playing a loyalists faction atm.
Their rebel counterparts are superior in pretty much everyway.

Those are some of the bigger problems in my book. But theres a hell of a ton more. Anyone willing to state a problem please feel free to post it here. I'll probably merge them into this posts through edits or just have it as an info dump.

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GoldenLegion

Maybe just allowing to build corvettes later in game (tier 3-4 research?) would fix the early game problems, without sacrificing their usability in late game?

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Quoting JuleTron,

reply 78

If light frigates hard countered corvettes than I think that early game balance would be fine.

As for rebels vs loyalists, only Advent and Vasari loyalists need buffs. For the TEC, the 2 seem equal.

Since the Orkulus was never originally designed to phase jump, it should take far longer to execute a jump than actual ships. Maybe 10x longer to jump into phase space? The upgrade should also probably be higher in the tech tree.

Corsev's damage tanking capacity needs a nerf and the Kol needs adaptive force field to be passive. If the Revelation's guidance ability increased weapon range and RoF and decreased ability cool downs for friendly cap ships, titans and SBs then it could be much more valuable. The Marauder's subversion ability should more effectively cripple production at the targeted enemy planet.

The Vorastra needs to have more survivability and its pulse wave cannons replaced with plasma wave cannons so that they can actually be upgraded. Spawning phase stabilisation nodes should take less time.

The Coronata needs more survivability. Also it's Unity Mass needs double the range (to match the Ragnorev's Snipe) and no cap as to how many friendly ships contribute to the damage output. AM cost and cool down would be changed accordingly. Subjugating Assault should only deplete AM when it converts an enemy ship.

You are on the money sir. +1

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Quoting JuleTron,

reply 78

If light frigates hard countered corvettes than I think that early game balance would be fine.

Sounds great when you first read it, but this idea is plagued with complications.

How do you accomplish this goal? well, you could make corvettes have heavy armor (LF's target of choice). However, now flak do not counter corvettes and they don't counter themselves. This might not seem too big of a deal, but corvettes move all over the place, and you're going to have real trouble shooting them down with just LFs, so you'll have to do a slew of rebalancing involving hp, sp, and speed... assuming you dont touch the LF's stats at all.

Ok, maybe instead of changing the armor of the corvette, you want to adjust the anti-heavy damage to do well against corvettes? Corvettes have 'VeryLight' armor. Besides being idiotic for anti-heavy to do good damage vs VeryLight, you would then be making anything with anti-heavy good vs corvettes and fighters. This problem may be limited by the number of ships who can actually shoot at strikecraft, I'm not sure.

The real issue with trying to balance corettes in practice is that they need to have a proper armor type so that you can just say 'make LF hard counter them'. without it, you end up with numerous complications.

Quoting JuleTron,

reply 78

If the Revelation's guidance ability increased weapon range and RoF and decreased ability cool downs for friendly cap ships, titans and SBs then it could be much more valuable.

Sounds like a lot rolled into one ability. I do like your idea of doing one thing for capital ships and something else for frigates.

I would also look at the 'scout' tech. Is there really any reason to take a second level of this? how about a reason to use it in combat? How about making it cloak some of your ships or maybe that grants the range increase instead of guidance? That fits with the intelligence aspect of this power.

Quoting JuleTron,

reply 78

The Coronata needs more survivability. Also it's Unity Mass needs double the range (to match the Ragnorev's Snipe) and no cap as to how many friendly ships contribute to the damage output. AM cost and cool down would be changed accordingly. Subjugating Assault should only deplete AM when it converts an enemy ship.

I agree with your thoughts on SA. I'm not sure about Unity Mass only because I don't feel I can accurately compare it to the Ragnorev. I would also make structures work with SA, just to add to the fun of it. It's hard to get it to convert something, but it's fun when it does.

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