We just came back from the Game Developer's Conference. It was a great week for the Nitrous engine (the underlying engine used in Ashes of the Singularity).
Big News: AMD is bundling Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation with more and more CPUs The hardware bundling keeps a steady stream of new players coming into our community.
Moreover, the AMD Ryzen chips, which are 8-cores, really show off the power of the game. As more people get 4 core machines and more powerful video cards (like the AMD Radon VEGA) the more people that can play the game which in turn allows us to increase the rate of development even further.
As you know, the up-front hardware wall on Ashes of the Singularity is fairly high. If you don't have an SSD, loading the game is slow. If you have low resolution, the fonts are blurry. If you don't have at least a 2GB video card, the graphics are slow. What players get in return, however, is that the game doesn't slow down, even late game.
Thus, the faster AMD, Intel and NVIDIA can get mainstream high-end, DirectX 12 and Vulkan hardware out there, the quicker the adoption of Ashes of the Singularity.
Now, let's talk about what's coming in Version 2.2 this month...
We've been talking about Replays forever. Well this week, you'll be able to try them out in the Opt-In.
If you run the game with -modding you will get a different menu.
We still require the -modding command line parameter in order to discourage casual players from using the Map Editor until it is more consumer friendly. However, new in 2.2 is the Modding button. Pressing that will display a list of mods. We'll be posting some sample ones in the coming days so you can see how to make them and use them. Once we nail down the robustness of it, this will become generally visible and connected via Steam Workshop or GOG Galaxy.
Read here for the Modding Guide: http://wiki.ashesofthesingularity.com/index.php/Modders_Guide
Yes, the AI got an update to deal with the balance changes.
Some months ago we began teaming up with the General's Gentlemen. Since then, we've brought him on board to take over the day-to-day design of Ashes of the Singularity from me. I'm not going anywhere but with Escalation now available, it's time to bring on a dedicated designer for the game.
Version 2.1 was released with his map balance pass. Version 2.2 comes with his first overall game pass. Below are his changes and the rationale behind them.
Aside from obviously making the game more balanced and fair, these pillars served as the goal for this patch.
One of the most significant changes is to Prevent double capping before creeps spawn. In high level games, players are able to capture two points at the start of the game before the creeps spawn by boosting the Nexus with the first Engineer or by calling down an Emergency/Serpentine Turret. This was not intentional, and we find double capping a frustrating dynamic and we want to remove it for the following reasons:
Engineers will be receiving a cost reduction to allow for a much faster Factory to get into the action.
PHC
Substrate is a much easier faction to play at a low skill level due to no storage limitations and all of the units being trained from the Assembly. Even at a high level, it is difficult to constantly keep resources below 500. Increasing the starting resources of PHC gives new them a more breathing room where resources are not wasted.
Units
Engineers & Constructors
The Engineer and Constructor are extremely fragile for their cost of 400. Losing an Engineer in the early game can be disastrous and it often happens instantly before the player has a chance to respond. This is frustrating in general, especially for new players, but it also makes Dominator and Furies far too potent at harassment, overshadowing the Punisher and Hades.
Engineer
Constructor
Frigates
Hermes
The Hermes does not perform enough recon for its cost and fragility, resulting in it being rarely built
Archer
The Archer costs the same logistics as the Brute, (1) despite costing more than twice the Metal, and two thirds of a Martyr. Its Logistics cost should reflect its performance and metal cost
Medic
The Medic’s heal rate is too high, large numbers of Medics give Cruisers and structures too much durability. It is also getting its movement speed reduced to prevent it from automatically running forward in front of other units.
Martyr
The Martyr is too weak compared to other Frigates, especially compared to the Reaper. As well as needing a buff, it also needs to get some kind of purpose and role compared to Reaper. Given that it’s fast compared to other Frigates, it is also getting an Increase its shield regeneration rate to make it suitable as a harassment unit. A further buff to movement speed is being considered for next patch, depending on how the Martyr performs.
Capacitor
The Capacitor has a large energy storage, but once it depletes it takes too long to regenerate. It also has far too much health which can make it exploited as a cheap damage soak. Increasing its energy regeneration in exchange for lowering health will make it perform its intended role as a support unit more reliably. It is also getting its movement speed reduced to prevent it from automatically running forward in front of other units.
Cruisers
Masochist
The Masochist is too strong for its cost at and needs to have its cost raised. It also only costs 2 logistics, half that of the Avenger. This must be an oversight
Avenger
The Avenger had a serious underlying problem where it was very powerful against other Cruisers and even Dreadnaughts, instead of just the Frigates like it is supposed to. Most players under estimated how potent the Avenger is because of how quickly they die, but they are so cheap and with so much damage that armies of Avengers would take out anything (apart from buildings.) One of the reasons causing them to over perform vs Cruisers and Dreads was its high damage but low projectile speed, resulting in it overshooting and wasting shells on Frigates, which wouldn’t happen vs Cruisers due to the higher health pool.
In order to make the Avenger perform the role of anti-frigate more consistently, it needed more movement speed, less damage in exchange for less health, but it also needed to get less damage in exchange for faster projectile speed. The 60% damage reduction may seem extreme, but the projectile speed buff increases DPS. It should also be priced more appropriately for a Cruiser.
Athena:
Despite the nerfs to the Athena in 2.03, it is still much stronger than the Mauler despite being cheaper. The following changes will equalise the performance of these two units for their cost. Lowering the damage of the secondary weapons prevents the Athena from being so potent against Frigates, ruining the counter system and overshadowing the Zeus.
· Main gun damage reduced by 10%
· Radioactives cost increased from 30 to 60
· Secondary weapons damage halved
Mauler:
The Mauler has full armour Penetration which allows it to vaporise Dreadnaughts and the Hera far too quickly. (Athena has no armour or armour penetration) This can not be intentional as it makes Eradicators obsolete.
· Logistics cost increased from 4 to 7
· Radioactives cost lowered from 80 to 60
· Metal cost reduced from 380 to 350
· Armour Penetration removed
Hera
The Hera has little health but high armour, which leaves it far too vulnerable to armour piercing attacks. To buff it as well as giving it more consist survivability it’s losing some health in exchange for armour. It also costs the same logistics as the Athena, despite costing twice as much resources.
Eradicator
The role of the Eradicator is incredibly unintuitive; it is a big slow heavy Cruiser yet it fills the role of a glass cannon, with insanely high damage but low survivability. To make the Eradicator more visually intuitive and fill a role unique to Substrate, it should get armour in exchange for losing some of its damage. The Eradicator also takes too long to build and costs too little Logistics.
Destructor
The Destructor is weaker than the Artemis due to a few reasons:
The only real advantage is 1400 range instead of 1250, but this is not enough to compensate. In order to help equalise their performance, the Destructor should get a slight damage boost, especially with the buffs to many of the PHC defenses.
Caregiver
The Caregiver is currently pathetic, it currently heals pitiful amounts compared to even the Medic. It needs a huge buff to its heal rate for it to be viable, even despite the AOE heal as well as costing 30 logistics is also far too much. The Caregiver will now help sustain Substrate against the AOE damage of the artillery post.
Apollo
Apollo was underperforming a little bit, but now with Punisher getting its shield increased, the Apollo especially needs its damage vs air buffed to match the buffs in AA defenses.
Mobile Nullifier (Substrate and PHC)
The Mobile Nullifiers cost far too much resources, about 5 times the cost of the Orbital Nullifier structure. As a result, the Mobile Nullifiers are never used as there is far too much opportunity cost such as investing in Quantum Relays to use the Orbital Jam ability or leap frogging the Nullifier structures forward.
Charon
The Charon is extremely over priced and as a result is never used. It also suffers from inconsistent survivability due to low health and high armour.
Dreadnaughts
Dreadnaughts are rarely seen as amassing cruisers is far more cost efficient, as well as the huge investment of a dreadnaught results in too much lost momentum. Globally lowering the cost of Dreadnaughts will make them more viable and increase strategic diversity. The proposed 20% cost reduction is being conservative, I expect an even higher cost reduction will be necessary to make Dreadnaughts desirable and perform for their cost given the massive lost in momentum their heavy investment involves and with how strong the c
The Substrate Dreadnaughts, Overmind and Retributor especially, are underperforming due to having pitiful damage no armour when the PHC Dreadnaughts have 90% damage reduction! The Overmind and Retributor are receiving some hefty buffs, but these are necessary to put their performance in line with PHC Dreadnaughts and to make them perform for cost compared to mass cruisers.
The additional shields of Substrate Dreadnaughts have still does not equate in the durability of PHC Dreadnaughts due to their additional armour.
Overmind
The Overmind is not only the weakest Dreadnaught, it also costs an insane amount of Radioactives. The opportunity cost of 5000 radioactives is far too valuable, such as 16 Quantum relays. The Overmind now has incredibly high damage output, but it is still countered by mixing in anti-drone units.
Retributor
These changes see the Retributor still lose a direct fight vs the Hyperion, which seems fair because of the shields. The Secondary damage increase gives it much stronger damage versus groups of Cruisers and Frigates. The minimum range was giving the Retributor inconsistent performance vs Cruisers.
Prometheus
With the addition of armour to Substrate Dreadnaughts, the Prometheus needed to get armour Penetration to compensate. (This will affect buildings)
Dreadnaught Level up Heal [not implemented]
When dreadnaughts level up, they can get the ability to fully repair themselves instantly. This is overpowered very frustrating for the opponent, this ability should be replaced with something else or nerfed in some way such as only healing 5000 health.
Air Units
Delaying the Dominator and Punisher Air Rush
Substrate being able to produce Dominators and Punishers from the Assembly so early on in the game creates immense balance problems in a frustrating and unfair dynamic of air rushing. It is completely impossible to see a Dominator or a Punisher rush coming, and yet it is incredibly lethal due to:
In order to deflect an Air rush without losing too much, generally 2 Constables and 2 Apollos will be required, about 1000 Metal worth of investment. This necessary investment then puts the player so far behind, on top of what raw damage is actually dealt, it allows the air rusher to follow up with a large ground army and overwhelm their opponent. Alternatively, if the victim of the air rush decides to try and skimp out with anti-air to avoid getting overwhelmed by a land army, then there could instead be an air army follow up to close the game. Or the player could pre-emptively build air defense but then not encounter an air rush at all, getting too far behind because of the wasted early investment.
The underlying problem with Substrate air rushing is the impossibility to know if it is coming or not, what kind of follow up there will be, and being left unable to make a calculated strategic decision in response. The dynamic of air rushing is a “Build order Poker” where it’s luck of hoping to do the right response but if you make the wrong move you get severely punished or can lose the game outright. Substrate being able to produce Air Units from the Assembly so early adds nothing to the game except for frustration and unfair punishment to players who have not made any mistakes.
Fury rushes are also quite problematic, but with the health increase to Extractors and builder units, it will no longer be effective compared to rushing a Hades.
Solution: The least drastic solution to fix this problematic dynamic is as follows:
The Punisher is far more potent than the Hades, so it’s okay if Punisher is arriving later than Hades due to Gateway requirement.
Punisher
The lethality of the Punisher is too high; it has insane damage but is very fragile. This means it over performs when rushed early on but once the opponent has anti-air it gets shot down immediately. In order for it to be more balanced and have its perform more consistently, it needs to lose a lot of its damage in exchange for some survivability.
Hades
The Hades is too expensive for what it offers, especially compared to Punisher.
Furies and Dominator
Furies and Dominators do not scale against heavy air units in the way that base defenses do, despite their heavy radioactives cost. Giving them a small amount of armour penetration will add more strategic diversity in countering heavy air units, where players will now have alternatives to only static defense. This also equalises their performance against both the Strategic Bomber and Air Harbinger.
Dominator
The Dominator underperforms for its cost compared to the Fury.
Strategic bomber
The Strategic Bomber is too durable against non-heavy anti air. It will still remain incredibly durable vs low tier anti-air, but not practically unkillable. There is also an issue where sometimes the Strategic Bomber will not be able to drop its bombs in time due to its small sight range. Increasing its sight range will allow it to acquire targets easier and perform more consistently.
Harbinger
With the buffs to air defense, the Harbinger needs its health increased to match the Strategic Bomber and better perform for its huge cost.
Pan, Searcher & Instigator
The air scouts are far too weak, they get shot down before they can get any proper scouting done and they don’t have enough of a sight range advantage over Air Interceptors for them to be viable compared to the much more durable Furies and Dominator. Their weapons are also completely unnecessary as they are almost no damage. Air Scouts should have their weaponry removed to not mislead new players who might mistake them for gunships or try to use them to harass the enemy. (This has happened to me before) This change is about visual clarity and making the game more intuitive.
Pan
Instigator
Searcher
Air Marauder
The Air Marauder and Air Rampager suffer from incredibly low damage. Especially with the damage buffs to anti air, these Gunships need some love.
Air Rampager
Buildings:
Nexus
Moving the scout planes to the nexus will allow for more scouting early on, players can see their opponents strategies and react instead of the “Build order Poker” where players blindly counter each other without knowing. It is incredibly frustrating losing to something you couldn’t counter because you couldn’t see it coming in time.
PHC Nexus
The PHC Nexus is too durable with 10,000 health and 95% damage reduction
Advanced Assembly & Dread Launch
Dreadnaughts are already so expensive and take a long time to build that they are not viable most games, the Dreadnaught production structures don’t need to have a whopping build time on top of that.
Metal & Radioactives Extractors
The fragility of extractors makes them destroyed in the blink of an eye. This can be frustrating in general, but it’s especially problematic because it makes makes Furies and Dominators too potent at harassment, when they are supposed to be interceptors. For harassing extractors, players should be investing in Hades and Punishers.
Aviary & Advanced Air Factory
It’s strange how structures are locked behind the Dreadnaught launch bay and Advanced Assembly despite the units being much weaker than Dreadnaughts. Having to invest in the Dreadnaught Launch bay is too costly and makes going for heavy air units too risky. Removing the build restrictions will open up these structures and create more strategic diversity and with the nerfs to Strategic Bomber and buffs to AA, this will be necessary to make these structures viable. The build time is also too long.
Advanced Sky Factory
Aviary
Sensor Array and Listening Post [Experimental, not so important]
The radar towers are often neglected due to only providing minimal detection range, yet their negligible cost never makes them a strategic decision. Increasing the performance of radar range makes them desirable; revealing enemy movements will create a fun dynamic of outmaneuvering your opponent and attacking and defending becomes more reactive. The range increase also makes investing in radar range upgrades worthwhile, where currently the opportunity cost of Quanta is too valuable.
Increasing their cost and lowering health will make Radar Towers a strategic investment which form as a contention for the players and incentivise bombing runs.
Sensor Array
· Health reduced from 600 to 300
Listening Post
· Shields reduced from 500 to 200
· Health reduced from 200 to 100
· Metal cost increased from 80 to 120 (To match Sensor Tower)
Orbital Buildings:
The prices for Orbital structures is extremely inconsistent and does not reflect their value. This results in little player decision making, lack of strategic diversity and the late game tech tree being too inaccessible. Some buildings have negligible costs and are built with no consideration, while the higher tier Orbital Structures cost an insane amount and are mostly neglected as a result. While it makes sense for more potent structures to cost more, in practise these structures cost too much when combined with how expensive the units they unlock are. For example, an Air Eliminator costs 450/600 on top of the 640/360 cost of the weapons Lab. Likewise the requirement for Orbital Bombardment and Detonate doesn’t need to be so costly given that they cost a whopping 400 Quanta.
There is also a discrepancy between the costs for PHC and Substrate, where Substrate suffer due to a far higher Radioactives cost but less Metal. Substrate are more Radioactives intensive for PHC for a few other reasons, so this can be quite crippling.
Orbital Fabricator
Power Regulator
Energy Projector
Weapons Lab
Orbital Command
Energy Modulator
Gateway
Orbital Drone Relay
Subspace Streamer
Base Defenses
Base Defenses dictate far too much of Ashes; their potency stagnates the game by easily locking down sectors of the map early on for cheap and create a long, tedious and ineffective dynamic of trying to clear them out. There is also a huge discrepancy between the potency of base defenses, mainly favouring Substrate. The following changes close the gap in performance, but also distinguish the different types of anti-air defense.
Most of the base defenses suffer from a minimum range which prevents them from firing at enemy units which are too close. At first glance, players would assume this is a bug (I did) because the animations and models of the defenses don’t display any reason why these defenses would be unable to attack things up close. Instead the turrets just sit there, with the weapon pointed at the enemy but not firing for a seemingly arbitrary reason. The minimum range which many defenses suffer from don’t add anything to the game other than frustration and confusion when a player's defenses stop firing and they have no idea why.
Smarty System
The Smarty System is very weak and has pitiful damage, it pales in comparison to the Annihilator.
Barrager
The Barrager is in a weird spot where it has so much durability with 95% damage reduction, yet its damage is lacklustre. To give it more consistent performance I am exchanging some of its armour for damage
PHC Artillery Post
While the nerfs in 2.03 help the Artillery Post more balanced, it is still quite overpowered. From a design perspective, it feels less like an Artillery, and more like a ultra long range base defense. In order to make it feel more like a proper artillery unit, it should have its projectile speed lowered and be less accurate to make it weaker vs mobile armies but still as powerful vs buildings and static armies. The range is also just too high, when Substrate has no equivalent and there is no shield structures like in Supreme Commander to absorb the shells
Drone Bay
The Drone Bay and Repair are both far too cheap for the impact they have. They overshadow all other PHC base defense once they are unlocked.
Repair Bay
Annihilator
The Annihilator and Heavy Annihilator are so cheap yet dish out insane amounts of damage, stopping armies many times over their cost.
Heavy Annihilator
Disruptor Cannon
The Disruptor Cannon was too durable for its damage output. It would take almost a minute and a half for an Artemis to destroy it.
Drone MRV
The Drone MRV costs very low metal but high Radioactives, making is rather inaccessible. It could also do with a bit more health so it’s not destroyed by Artillery units so easily.
Shredder Turret
Blossom Launcher
There is no reason why the Blossom Launcher costs Radioactives when the Constable doesn’t. This is another example of why Substrate is unnecessarily more radioactives intensive than PHC, and makes balance inconsistent on map types.
Skyender
Skyender is incredibly underwhelming with only 100DPS, it doesn’t compare at all to Starburst or Air Eliminator despite costing so much radioactives. The armour piercing makes it anti-heavy air while the Starburst is suited for anti-light air due to its splash damage and cheaper cost.
Starburst
The changes in 2.03 have overbuffed the Starburst which now insanely overperforms compared to the far more expensive Starburst and Air Eliminator.
Constable
The Constable is too fragile compared to the Blossom Launcher and with little damage, it is easily taken out by Bombers.
Falcon Anti-Air
The Falcon Anti-Air is so weak that there is no reason for players to go for it compared to the Air Eliminator or just spamming Constables. It will still remain unique to the Air Eliminator because of its Splash damage compared to the single target damage of the more powerful Air Eliminator
Air Eliminator
The Air Eliminator suffers from inconsistent durability due to low health, but high armour. This leaves it unkillable with standard damage but too vulnerable against Armour Piercing attacks such as Artemis or Destructor.
Sentinel
The Sentinel was too durable compared to other base defenses, especially given its high damage.
Oblivion
The Oblivion was suffering from inconsistent survivability; less health but more armour actually makes it weaker than the Sentinel against armour piercing attacks such as Artemis and Disruptor, the units which are normally killing them.
Pulverizer
Given that traditional counters to base defenses such as Artemis and Destructor are ineffective against the Pulverizer and Exterminator due to being out ranged, the they need their durability lower to make countering it more balanced and fair as well as putting it in-line with the Sentinel and Oblivion.
Exterminator Turret
Regenerator
The Regenerator seems like a potent choice, but being locked behind the most expensive tech building, the Subspace Streamer, makes this building rarely used. Moving the tech requirements to the Energy Modular will make the Regenerator arrive at a more suitable time, but it also more intuitive and thematic to the role of the structure.
Emergency & Serpentine Turrets
Deploying Emergency and Serpentine Turrets as soon as the game started allowed players to double cap territory.
Orbitals
Drone Swarm
Drone Swarm is not just overpowered, it’s an inconsistent and frustrating ability. The drones die very fast to anti-air, but if an army has no anti-air the drones will completely murder them since they have high damage, can chase units down and last a long time.
________________________________________________
(Not Implemented)
Nano-Mesh Armour [not implemented]
Nano-Mesh Armour is a very cheesy ability. It is a no-brainer for Dreadnaughts which drastically increases their survivability, while it can be incredibly abusive on the Zeus combined with Medics and the inability to manually target units. If a Zeus has the Nano-Mesh armour and it has Medics healing it, it is practically unkillable from all attacks other than
Full armour Piercing like a Nemesis. When armies are formed, players are not able to target fire specific units which prevents them from focusing the medics or the supporting frigates, which effectively can make an army with a Nano-Mesh Armour Zeus unkillable due to the limitations imposed on by the player. Nano-Mesh Armour should be reworked to make it a more consistent and a less frustrating ability. The two possible solutions I have in mind which would fix this are:
Call Engineer
Call Engineer is too cheap for how much value it can provide.
EMP Pulse
The EMP Pulse is too powerful for only 100 Quanta, especially as many core Substrate units such as Mauler have only a fraction of their health as they do Shields. The damage should also be reduced so it’s not so potent versus Dreadnaughts and Heavy Air Units.
Nano-Transport
Just like the Charon, Nano-Transport is an overpriced ability which is completely neglected.
Plasma Storm
Plasma storm is able to decimate entire armies on its own. With the cost reductions to Weapons Lab and Drone Swarm cost increase, Plasma Storm needs its cost increased.
Kill
Kill is far too powerful. It can takes a very long time and amount of resources produce a Dreadnaught, they shouldn’t be countered instantly by an ability. Kill will still remain powerful vs Dreadnaughts, but now there is opportunity to pull back a wounded Dreadnaught.
Nano Mesh Armour
Nano Mesh armour can be very exploitative in certain scenarios, especially combined with Medics and how Substrate don’t have anti armour units until Eradicator or Punisher. It is also a no brainer ability when applied to Dreadnaughts. We are working on a way to make it perform more consistently and less exploitative such as giving it health instead of armour or making it a small armour buff in an area. Either of these approaches will take time to develop unlike most changes which are as easy to implement as tweaking numbers in a line. In the meantime, we are increasing the cost of Nano Mesh Armour to mitigate abuse.
We are play-testing the Juggernauts, or I should say, the first two (one PHC, one Substrate). They will be released for free but we will be releasing Episode 3 at the same time which will be DLC. The Juggernauts/Episode 3 are currently on track for May. Why not April? April is pretty booked right now for us. Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion anniversary edition is nearly done and we will be getting close to the release of Galactic Civilizations III: Crusade. But there might be a version 2.3 in-between with additional balance, modding, performance and bug fixes that come in.
So that's all for now! Let us know what you think.
Some really great additions there, nice work.
Well finally is the ballance decent... A lot of tweeking when it's live....
First you will probly make an opt in... They never work.... I have seen many myself and non of them work... In smaller games it's nightmare when player base is splitted. Look at OW ptr, not a place to get good data....and that's a big game compeared to ashes....
Just push it to live as fast as you can, if sertain functions is buggy leave them in an opt in... Also the replays was good enough before, should be fine now... Yes I have tried... Community ballance group... map editor is still more buggy and that has been out for a long time, why hide it? Make official maps and a ll that in a diffrent folder so noobs don't destroy it....
Don't split the player base no opt in, right to live with it.
Outright broken and I strongly advise to reconsider. Bombers already allow mediocre players to get wins by rushing them, but with the changes proposed it means chaos to a level only broken by the dominator/punisher all out air before the proposed patch.
Keep the dread requirement for heavy air units.
The cost for the t1 and t2 substrate turrets is still too low for what they can do!
Also substrate cruisers should still drain slightly more rads than phc because the lack of rad cost on assembly. macro of the substrate is too good and top substrate players dominated in macro easily without the proposed rad reduction. The complaints which made you take the decision to reduce rad are probably taken mainly from team games.
Bad decision IMO, it's better to babysit than to reduce capping to a crawl
EMP nerf was not called for, both plasma storm and emp have very little impact compared to the droneswarm. I cannot count the games I lost in ladder just because of a droneswarm and I always carry an apollo with me. From my experience droneswarm is I win button in 1 vs 1, because it can handle an apollo just fine if it's dropped close to AA.
Emp was insanly good... If you used it you had won the game... Took all the shields away... Dou you even know how broken that is... Guess a PHC FANBOY will never get it.... It's still realy good. Droneswarm is not that good... Just either realy good if not aa or realy bad dou to enough aa... The cost got up to ballance it up... One apollo to counter an enthier 200 quanta abillity, how can you expect that?, also the apollo gets a buff so stop crying, get good (doubt it)
In a best caes senario a plazma strom could wipe out an eitire tier 2 army, that has no impact ofc just an entire army....
Complaining about loosing dou to a non broken ballance seems farly fair... I'm just gald you don't have any impact on the ballance.... Also I have lost plenty games to emp in rush games... I don't cry in the forums like you....
You don't like sub, Idc but all in the forums you allways cry like the little kid you are...
It's not necessary to speak to another community member like that. Let's refrain from that here.
Huzzah for balance improvements!
These changes looks quite good and long needed. I would just like to thank you for adressing two of the major balance problems: early air rush and double capping (although i got used to it, it still made new players loose a lot of games).
And i also am glad to see a dedicated balance specialist, because escalation really needed one.
Stardocks keep up the good work and thank you.
AWESOME!!! so cool that these changes are coming soon!
1. i was really happy to finally see a buff to the gunships! but im wondering if it will be enough DPS? also im wondering if somehow u are trying to make the punisher take on the roll of the gunship? a bomber (punisher) is supposed to be high DPS low durability, while a gunship has better durability but lower DPS..
2. some typos scattered throughout this post like "In order to make the Avenger perform the role of anti-frigate more consistently, it needed more movement speed, less damage in exchange for less health, " i really hope these are typos.. but theres a number of cases where u mention some nerf in exchange for ANOTHER NERF.. like less dmg for less hp..
3. i really like the reasoning behind a lot of these ideas, some at first i didnt agree on but with the reasoning it made more sense, especially when u factor in the other changes in the game and how the mechanics will work together
4. air eliminator needs AP since it is meant to counter top tier units. instead of very high DPS (meaning it will slaughter mass light units as well) maybe give it normal DPS with good AP so it really is for bombers (and later air dreads)
5. im really happy with the changes to the dreads making them more usable, and im interested to see how the new martyrs will work.
6. although the army AI needs some work to make them viable, i understand that until that happens the speed nerf on the medics and capacitors are needed. but once the army AI is updated, i think it will be better to give the speed back to the medic and caps so they can service an army better.
Im happy with the changes so far but im worried about the future of air combat... i still feel theres a constant escalation of the AA vs air arms race.. u increase air hp, so u need to increase AA damage so u need to increase air hp.. and so on and so forth.. and while this is happening ur leaving drones (deployed from units/buildings) further and further behind and making air units invulnerable to orbital abilities relative to their land brethren.. i cant imagine how weak drones will be to the power of AA in the next patch if this carries on..how is it logical that i can use a nuke, detonate, plasma storm, even drone swarm to kill ground units and air units, but apparently now i must only use AA to kill air? why cant i use abilities to kill air? so someone can spam air and actually be stronger than if they spammed land units due to the durability vs orbital abilities... i would have rather balanced air units against AA weapons while still factoring in orbitals. imagine how immortal a strat bomber will be with 50% hp upgrades? it will just laugh at the nuke... compared to an eradicator (the HEAVY cruiser). how bad are air dreads going to be? 40k hp on build? so they will even laugh at kill.
Hm. Most people seem to like this update. Overall I do too, but I don't think I like the defense nerf.
Individually the changes to each defensive structure do make sense (at least while reading it) but the overall goal of
seems to me a step in the wrong direction. Don't make the defenses too easy to defeat or this game will become a generic army rush thing. There are very vew RTSes with viable defenses, and I always thought this to be one of Ashes strong points.
Granted, I only play vs. the AI, so I can't speak for competitive play, but doesn't the long range of PHC artillery balance out the overall stronger SUB defences? Why does everything have to be perfectly equal on both sides? Why not give the PHC a long range defensive weapon? So what? This just generates pressure for their enemy to do something about it. If you feel the need to balance, why not buff the regenerator buildings to compensate for the artillery? They already work pretty much like a shield generator from SupCom. Make the artillery a PHC feature instead of a "bug".
About the changes to air combat... I'm not sure. There are so many buffs and debuffs in this document, that I can't really tell how it affects gameplay until I've played it. But the overall goal of
"Open up the late game tech: [...] making use of late game tech such as heavy air units [...]"
seems to make a strong tactic even stronger. Again, this is just from my experience against the AI, but often times during the late game I find it much easier to spam a blob of a dozen strategic bombers and rush for the enemy Nexus instead of commiting to ground combat. Your changes to air defenses and units seems to encourage this even more. Again, I don't claim to fully comprehend the changes; I am just judging by the decreased build times, costs and requirements of production facilities and bombers and the (subjectively) small boost to air defenses.
updated after playing opt-in
OK, tell us more about Sins Anniversary Edition... what is new and why should i want to buy it.
even with those nerfs to defenses i think the turrets and drone bays will still be strong enough to hold invaders at bay, u will just need to build more/put more effort into defending an area, currently its quite easy as SS to put down a couple annihilators which will defend against a large number of raiders, and just keep upgrading the annihilator which can eventually stop armies.. which 1 turret shouldnt do.
artillery (as stated by OP) is being cheesed a lot. as it is i can lay down about 6 arty and i can stop big armies from ever comign close, and those 6 guns wwill cover multiple entrances to my base, now all i need to do is keep laying more arty and i can eventually creep into the enemy base, while holding off anything they have. thus the changes.. to stop mass arty from killling everything on land.. (granted u need a decent economy before this works, but u can still do it)
the issue with air that u have isnt the actual unit and/or counter its the AI. the AI is stupid, so i dont think the units/counters should be factored around how stupid the AI is. as humans we are having problems using those very bombers consistently mid game, that u like to use at the end of the game. imagine how nice it would be if u could use bombers as part of ur attacks on the AI defenses earlier in the game? instead of cheesing them up with a decent economy while u hold the AI back, only to send in an unstobbale wave. if the patch is implemented and the AI is improved to catter for mass air attacks, then u wont be able to do ur bomber cheese, yet u will have greater usage of the bombers throughout the game..
currently i dont think the AI uprgades their defenses often enough.. or builds many of them. they just drop the same small combo at each node and maybe a couple in their base... wait until the AI actually builds decent amounts of air elimanators which will tear up ur cheese horde..
Yes the line about Avenger getting less health is a typo. All of the changes are there, so you can see it's getting its shield increased.I don't think Air Eliminator necessarily needs armour penetration, it has insanely high single target damage but it has a long reload time and no splash damage so it's not too good versus light air units, unlike the Falcon. Starburst and Sky Ender are similar. But reworking Sky Ender and Air Eliminator around armour piercing isn't a bad idea. Like few other things, Substrate and PHC can have inconsistent kill times due to PHC having armour and Substrate having more health/Shields. For example, the Eradicator and Nemesis have 100% armour piercing so they are stronger versus PHC Dreads compared to Substrate. But then the Substrate Dreads are weaker dueling the PHC Dreads because of the armour. I'll be working on it after this patch is out.Regarding the PHC Nexus, artillery units such as Artemis and Destructor have 100% armour piercing so it's debatable that the Substrate Nexus is more durable with the extra health. These survivability inconsistencies are difficult, but also hardly urgent. This patch I wanted to fix all the obnoxious balance problems and get them out of the way rather than focusing on all the minor less important things. Though, there is plenty of minor less important things such as logistics changes, but those are things I didn't have to think about or reflect on, they were no-brainer changes. Also, the lack of scaling for the nuke powers is a good point. It might be possible to give them scaling too, I'll look into it. But then it's a question of should it scale based off the weapons upgrade, should they have their own own upgrade or should it increase in strength automatically each time they are used and the price goes up?
yeah that makes sense wrt air eliminator, so i think the AP is more for the air dreads we mightl eventually get, either way i think there will be a bit of juggling to get the right armour/hp/damage ratio on AA and air dreads..
i do realise it will be quite hard balancing one race with armour and another race without. the same applying to air units, and the nexus's. i see what u meant about the PHC nexus being more vulnerable to anti building units specifically.. in a way the one is stronger vs earlier units(PHC vs any non AP units), while the other is stronger vs later units.
either way i really am looking forward to this patch. i think it will enhance the gameplay a lot. and the issues i mentioned are minor things.
with the magnitude of the changes, i would think SD could advertise the game as having a overhaul...
1. PHC Resource pool buff (more manageable gameplay for most skill levels)
2. No double capping (less of a gap between skilled/non skilled players in the early game)
3. Durability of engineers and extractors makes for much more time to respond to raiding
4. High tier units are much more accessible(Dreads, gunships, strat bombers)
5. Evening out of the defenses and units makes for a more level playing field
6. Scouting!
I think all in all the game after this patch will have a lot more choice and open up a lot more strategies to be played! Just think we can now tech rush for dreads! Dreads will be worth their cost!
Sounds like an interesting balance pass
Several things to point out here, the medic speed is a nerf. It's a nerf to any PHC player actually using army formations. I've said this plenty of times and still no address to it. You are rewarding players who don't use army formation instead of addressing the ai issues with armies.
Drone swarm, this is the one orbital in the game that can be countered by have AA in your army, and you're nerfing this ability? What is the logic? It can be really powerful if the enemy has no AA, but a bomber can equally be powerful against a player with no AA. But you've taken it a step further, you've increased AA damage and increased DroneSwarm cost. A double nerf.
The EMP ability is a little op, and it's hard to counter with regen, since regen requires a subspace stream which is our top end orbital ability. Maybe consider leaving emp where it is and move regen to the energy modulator like you did regenarator and caregiver? I think that makes more sense
I'm also not a fan of the cost increase on plasma ground as it's easy to counter by just moving off of it, which is hard to do when engaged with the enemy army, but it's equally hard to move away from a drone swarm. And while it may look like a drone swarm follows your army, they only go as far as about the plasma ground, but while the drone swarm can be negated with 3-4 apollos or 6 sky cleansers, the plasma ground has no counter besides moving away.
You still haven't addressed a PHC player going early air vs SS. The only deterrent is risk. Lots of players don't mind risk, which means you've effectively handicapped one side and not the other.
Also you've increased engi and extractor health to keep the SS Punisher from one shotting them, combined with cutting Punisher damage in half, but Hades were capable of one shotting as well, and I see no dmg nerfs there. But I do love the radio cost cut to hades, it was far too expensive. But this is effectively a triple nerf to punishers. You've increased AA dmg and health, increased all soft target hp and nerfed punisher dmg and tech walled it, then increased time on tech wall. Why don't you just remove the unit from the game at this point? I mean if this unit is so toxic to game play, maybe it could use a rework instead of such a brutal nerf.
The radio cost on dominator still feels too high. You've reduced it some from 4.7 per second to 4.3. Yet most maps you only have one radio region which pumps out 4 per second, which puts us in a bit of a defecit, especially if we're trying to build cruisers at the same time. I like the overall goal to reduce SS radio dependency considering some maps have very little of it, giving SS players a huge handicap.
Also you've got a few typos in this doc that may be misleading to newer players, for instance you mention the Orbital fabricator got a build time increase from 20 to 30 seconds. It's at 40 now... So I'm not sure what you mean by 20 to 30, i think maybe you gt nanobots set to high which cuts build times in half and you meant 40 to 60, but thats not the only one. Gateway is similar, from 20 to 30, they are already at 40...
Also Arty post, I like the effort to keep players from building lots of them, but you may run the risk of making them too useless. I've mentioned multiple times, the damage on the arty post wasn't op, it's the range combined with the spamability, and you've done nothing to range,3500 to 3000 is still double the range of a destructor compared to artemis vs drone mrv which is 1250 to 1440. Adjust to that range and reconsider RoF nerf. Also reduce cost if you reduce the range that much but keep 3 minute build time. It still give PHC the unique tactic of being able to creep push defenses, but makes it more manageable. Especially since you're making Harbinger semi more available.
On that note you're making t3 air more available tech wise, but have done little to address the prohibitive radio costs at that point in the game. 10 radio per second could be a double quantum archive/relay going down or more cruisers. Maybe reduce it to about 7 per second either a flat cost decrease or longer build time.
And again I feel the need to caution about double dipping on nerfs. You've made multiple to changes to multiple units and facets of the game, instead there should be smaller tweaks, in stead of cutting annihilator damage and increasing cost, you should cut dmg one patch then see where it is before also increasing cost or vice versa. Same with the arty post and emp, make one change then see where that leaves the community.
Also why such drastic nerfs to annihilator? It's easily countered by artemis, artemis only takes three shots to kill it, vs how long does it take a destructor to kill a drone bay? not to mention artemis is more useful in the PHC army with dealing indirect dmg to units? Not to mention artemis can fire on units and buildings simultaneously which seems broken.
Athena nerfs, will this keep Athena from one shotting all t2 cruisers except maulers, athena and zeus? It's kind of ridiculous i can put nano armor on a drone hive and an athena can still one shot it. It at least feels like a one shot, not sure if it's a channeled attack or what, but ridiculous either way.
Hermes, I'm ok with the radar increase but does it really need a sight increase? Sight is super valuable when you have two armies mixing it up because if your maulers/athenas don't see the other maulers/athena they'll unload on the first unit they see which is often a brute/reaper leaving your t2 open to counter attack. The scouts should really serve this purpose, but with AA being in every army practically, it's not uncommon for aerial scouts to be killed instantly. The new health might help this, but again you've buffed AA dmg, so maybe not. But giving the hermes a sight advantage gives vision advantage to PHC players.
I am excited for the changes, but you are changing a lot and in one patch. You should have been patching more frequently with smaller changes to go to this point. And it's worrisome that you mention you may not be able to patch again until May, what if this breaks more than it fixes?
Also don't do an opt in, just release the damn thing and stop fracturing the community with opt ins. it's already a small community with many new players complaining about facing legendary players in their first gaming session.
Scout units have received a massive buff and are now available from the Nexus. Players now have the tools to properly scout their opponents and adapt. If you lose to a Heavy Bomber Rush with how potent anti-air defenses and interceptors are, it's your own fault for not scouting.
I have seen T3 bomber rush under the current patch and it does help you with anything. AA defenses are inadequate for PHC regarding t3 bombers
Ex: scout dread launch, proceed to make 8 air eliminators close to my nexus. Got killed anyway by 5 bombers. Go figure!
BTW you can still hide the tech buildings behind AA so the scouts would do nothing. Following your reasoning I should scout advanced aviary in the first 8 minutes of the game but this is not how it happens because you also need resources to back them up so the advanced aviary would be up in early mid game.
i think the army formation AI is going to be quite a bit to "fix" so i think the medic nerf is needed in the interim, as opposed to waiting for the AI fix which may take months..
otherwise i think u had some really good points here. i agree the patches should have been released smaller and more often. Also agree on not having opt-ins. Both of these are quite important issues that have the biggest effect.
dude seriously... the patch hasnt even been released yet.. i dont understand how u can be so narrowminded.. the buffs to the AA and scouts are still coming..
I insist now because I am as you say "narrowminded" but because there are units that cannot be handled in the current patch, that will be easier to produce in the next patch and the problem still remains. As far as I am concerned AIR ELIMINATORS need some armor penetration or a reduction in cost, to be able to mass enough of them to make a difference.
Not gonna be as big an issue as you think, star bursts/falcons do ok vs one or two t3 bombers. However it took 8 strategic bombers to kill one air eliminator, and 2 died and the rest were all super low on health. And again that was one air eliminator.
Bombers will be more accessible tech wise, but still plenty hard to reach radio costs.
actually, sorry bro. u were more correct than i thought.
looking at it (due to the 10% armour nerf on strat bombers):
1. fighters will effectively do 25% more damage to strat bombers. (i think u forget these)
2. air eliminators will do 10% more damage to them
3. falcons will do >180% more damage to them
BUT strat bombers have 45% more hp. meaning that even with all those buffs to AA, the strat bomber still comes out on top.
i just assumed the air eliminator was getting some form of DPS buff, but i see it isnt. i assumed it was since the starburst was so strong (and could thus counter strat bombers). but with these changes, as u said, a player could still spam bombers and ur AA would still struggle to take them out.
the new scouting mechanic would help though. but lets see how it plays out. the strat bomber will still be easier to kill in 2.4 than it is in 2.3, if u add up all the variables (including scouting).
on a side note i think we will also see a lot more instigators catpuring enemy nodes... something to think about there as well
Somethings are certainly easier to play test than others. The effectiveness of heavy anti-air versus heavy air units is something that rarely comes up so it's certainly likely it may need tweaking after some play testing. I will be rolling out the full balance preview mod shortly and we have two weeks of play testing where we can make changes before the final 2.2 patch is released.Regarding Strat Bomber and Harbinger, they are in a weird spot because they can't target ground units. I would like to change that because it gives them far too limited usability, but that's not urgent.
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