Escalation 2.75 update
New Scenario - King of the Hill (Substrate)
The King of the Hill scenario which is receiving some further tweaks this update, is now available to be played as Substrate.
Audio
The game found notification for automatch was not as obvious as it needed to be, as some players were missing it while doing other activities waiting for a game. To make it easier to notice, we are increasing the notification to a longer sound that includes a voice line "Consciousness Expanded." (Their expanded consciousness allows them to connect to the distant world where the battle is taking place. We're also updating the Retributor weapon sound effect as it was quite lacklustre.
New Maps
We have taken some of our best team game maps and converted them to be suitable for 1v1 play.
Ladder Season Reset
Alongside the release of 2.75 is the launch of the season 3 ladder season, the leaderboards have been reset giving everyone a fresh chance and getting to the top. Congrats to Amelie for winning the season 2 ladder!
New Automatch Map Pool
To complement the season 3 ladder reset, we are updating the map pool for automatch. Most significantly, we're removing most of the tiny and small maps and replacing them with larger ones. The game has evolved a lot over the past year, and now with Juggernauts, the late game is a lot more fun which bigger maps help field. Below is the list of new automatch map pool:• Seginus• Mirach 2p• Merga 2p• Europa• Delta Serpentis 2p • Ross 128 2p• Atwater• Italia• Espana• Ulrich
Economy Changes
We are making some changes to the economy in order to make defensive play styles more viable and encourage some strategic diversity. Contesting resources out on the map should be crucial for success in order to create proper game flow and player interaction, but currently defensive strategies were too weak and aggression overly important. Turinium Generators were providing too much of a resource bonus, despite also accruing victory points, so the player who controlled the Turinium could generally just overpower their opponents with superior economy. Resource Deposits also granted too much base income which meant mass early capturing was crucial even if regions didn't gain Extractors.
Map Changes
Seginus
The bottom spawn had a small advantage due to the direction of of the starting Metal Deposits in relations to the Engineers spawns.
Italia
We are incentivizing more control of the sides by moving out one of the base deposits.
Merga
Mirach
The Southeastern battlegroups had multiple regions that acted as single region cutoffs, which meant players had to prevent Orbital spawns on multiple regions from having a devastating effect. The bottom left was also so far away from the main battle in the centre, that it was often neglected. We are adding an additional lane from to connect to the bottom left to player's bases to alleviate the severity of the multiple cutoffs and to make the bottom left more active.
Regulus
The strategic diversity of the top left spawn is lowered because there was no metal deposits close enough to the Power Generator to capture while building an Extractor
Gamma Draconis
The cutoffs were too brutal in Gamma Draconis given the map size and how a single region could cutoff so much. Cutting off the base resources will be more difficult.
Safiere
AI
The Insane AI is supposed to ridiculously overpowered, but it took it a bit too far. Many players are incapable of taking it out even along side 5+ other team mates. It doesn't need to be THIS hard, and it just means players are using other means to make the AI easier, like giving themselves bonus resources or disabling air units. We are lowering the resource bonus of the AI so it is now only insane and not turbo insane.
Balance
Brute
The Brute is getting a buff so it has more of a role to fill in the late game as a counter to mass and Archers.
Archer
The Archer was still underperforming
Medic
Atlas
Removing the armor-piercing on the Atlas makes it less powerful against Strat Bombers and Harbingers, while the aoe nerf will make it slightly weaker against drones.
Tormentor
The Tormentor was overperforming, in particular against enemy frigates.
Reaper
The Reaper was slightly over performing.
Sky Cleanser
Capacitor
The Capacitor was far too tough.
Zeus
The Zeus was overperforming against other Cruisers in large battles due to its heavy splash damage. It’s main gun weapon is getting a huge damage reduction to make it weaker against other Cruisers, but without affecting its performance against most frigates as it still one-shots them. Zeus is also losing health in exchange for a better rate of fire on its main weapon and a damage increase on its secondary to give the Zeus more consistent performance, there was too much variance on how the Zeus performed depending on if it would live long enough to fire an additional volley off. The Secondary weapon buff also will grant better damage against structures.
Avenger
The Avenger is getting a small buff to its secondary weapon which will give it a large increase against buildings but little bonus against frigates.
Caregiver
The Caregiver had too much health.
Apollo
The Apollo and the Artemis are too weak for big PHC cruisers. Increasing their health will see them survive a shot from a Nemesis, on top of receiving a buff to its single target damage output.
Artemis
Hera
The Hera and Eradicator were too versatile as they had excellent range, could target buildings and were strong against other cruisers and dreadnoughts. We are lowering the range to weaken its performance and prevent it from making the Artemis and Destructor obsolete.
Mobile Nullifiers
Mobile Nullifiers lacked the range to comfortably cover an entire army. We are increasing their range to prevent players from needing to manually position their Nullifiers, but increasing their cost to compensate.
Eradicator
We’re increasing the projectile speed of the Eradicator to match the power of its weapon and to lower the amount of overkill for multiple shots firing at the same target. We are also lowering the damage of its secondary weapons to ensure countering it with frigates is more viable.
Experience requirements
Dreadnoughts were leveling up too quickly, which could be frustrating when unlocking multiple instant heal upgrades during a single engagement
Hyperion
The Hyperion’s self healing hull regenerated health far too quickly.
Prometheus
We are giving additional health to the dreadnought destroyers to compensate for their higher costs compared to other classes of dreadnoughts.
Substrate Dreadnoughts
Substrate Dreadnoughts were still to vulnerable to mass Athena or Mauler. We want to encourage people to rely on Nemesis and Eradiactors for countering Dreadnoughts.
Retributor
Since the Overmind and Cronos are getting more dedicated anti-air attacks, the anti-air capabilities of other dreadnoughts is being removed. It's also losing some of its cooldown on the main weapon so it's better and rapidly switching fire between low tier units.
Savager
The Executor upgrade was not strong enough given it's the Savager's only primary weapon upgrade and it comes at lvl 4. For comparison, the default weapon does 60 damage.
Overmind
The Overmind and Nest of the Queen had potent anti-air damage, but were easily shut down by Strategic Bombers due to the splash damage knocking out all of the drones. To give more consistent anti-air and to further refine the role of these units, the Overmind and Queen are losing one of their Drone Swarms in exchange for a set of invulnerable Anti-air drones, whiletThe Overmind is also being made more vulnerable to anti-drone units and losing some secondary damage. The movement speed increase of many cruisers such as the Nemesis will also be an indirect nerf to the Overmind's anti-ground performance as it will have more difficulty evading backwards out of range.
Cronus
The Cronos is underused compared to the other PHC Dreadnoughts and as a result is getting a bigger role to fill. It’s receiving a large buff to its secondary weapons, which are rail guns rather than autocannons, and they’re being able to target air. The Cronos will now also provide a soft anti-air role, albeit not as strong as the Overmind as it the railguns have a limited firing arc. The large increase to the railgun damage also buffs its anti-ground damage, so to compensate the primary missile attack is losing its armor-piercing to lower the performance against dreadnoughts but while still retaining the same power against buildings.
Agamemnon
The Agamemnon was being neglected in the late game over the Leonidas, so it’s receiving a health buff to match the Leonidas.
Nest of the Queen
Leonidas
As difficult as it is to test late game balance, it become clear the Leonidas was over performing and which gave PHC an edge in the very late game situations. The Leonidas is intended to dual any other Juggernaut, but it wasn’t weak enough against the unit types designed to counter it. We are removing its anti-air capabilities and weakening its secondary weapons to make overwhelming it with air or low tier ground units is more viable, which also makes the Agamemnon more desirable to complement it.
The Leonidas is also receiving a cost increase to match the Eye of Darkness, but retains the devastating range and damage advantage since the Eyel area of effect damage. There’s also a number of other changes which indirectly will make countering the Leonidas easier, such as the Fury nerf, changes to Nukes and the cruiser speed adjustment which makes the anti-Leonidas unit mixes more effective.
Searcher
There’s no gameplay reason for this change, it just was weird having a unit with only a single health point. This makes it more consistent with other Substrate units.
Fury
The Fury was overperforming a bit compared to the Dominator since its missile attack allowed it to fire even when it wasn’t facing the enemy target.
Hades
Due to the movement speed bonuses of Frigates and many cruisers, the Hades is getting a projectile speed buff so it isn’t made relatively weaker.
Air Marauder
The Air Marauder was a good unit for harassment of extractors and buildings, but lacked the punch against units. We’re giving it a small amount of armor piercing to grant better performance against units but without making it too good for harassment.
Air Rampager
The Air Rampager was far too powerful, and was dominating the battlefield. It is receiving some heavy nerfs to put its performance in line with other aircraft and make countering it easier.
Air Harbinger
Strategic Bomber
Nexus
It as possible to cheese your opponents on some maps by spawning in an Engineer/Avatar next to their nexus and build a hidden armory. The sight range increase on the Nexus will make it more difficult to this on certain maps.
Dreadlaunch & Advanced Assembly
The dreadnought production structures had a negligible cost but were vulnerable to being sniped with only 10,000 health which could be frustrating due to the cost of juggernauts.. We are increasing their health and cost to make it more difficult to snipe a Dreadlaunch part way through building a juggernaut.
Smarty
Basic defenses were too cheap and quick to build for how much value they provided. Rushing these defenses on key choke points could lock down the map. Increasing their cost will make early frigate aggression more viable, while the Smarty is receiving a damage buff to be stronger against cruisers but not stronger vs frigates due to overkilling.
Annihilator
Artillery Post
The performance of the Artillery post varies depending on the map, but in some situations massing them was too effective and frustrating to play against.
Barrager
Sentinel
The Sentinel and Pulverizer were overperforming against Dreadnoughts due to their high armor-piercing which discouraged people from upgrading to the Oblivion and Exterminator turrets, resulting in them being neglected.
Drone MRV
The range and AOE on the Drone MRV made it far too effectively against frigates.
Pulverizer
The Pulverizer and Exterminator had too much rangem making countering them with artillery difficult. The Pulverizer range was noted to be reduced in 2.71 but was unintentionally left out. It was also over performing against Frigates due to its continuous beam, so it’s getting a cooldown in between shots to make it weaker against frigates.
Exterminator
Constable
The Constable and Blossom launcher were documented in the 2.71 update as receiving an increase to their damage, but these changes were unintentionally left out. The basic anti-air defenses will now perform better for their cost.
Blossom Launcher
Falcon
The Falcon was underperforming
Air Eliminator
The Air Eliminator is receiving a reduction in its cooldown to give it better performance, in particular against light aircraft.
StarBurst
Sky Ender
Emergency & Serpentine Turret
These Orbital turrets scale poorly into the late game as army sizes become large, so they are receiving a reduction in their Quanta ramp up so they have more of a role to fill outside of just the early game.
Nano-Mesh Barrier
Nano-Mesh Barrier also didn't scale well into the late game because the +2000 health is fixed and not a percentage that increases with Quantum Upgrades. It's ramp up is being lowered to give it more usability as the game progresses.
Intensive Care
Intensive Care (PHC) heals 2400 health over 30 seconds, compared to Regenerate (Substrate) which restores 2000 shields over 10 seconds. In almost all cases, the quicker heal per second of Regenerate is beneficial, so we are increasing the amount provided in Intensive Care but increasing their Quanta cost given the amount of value they can provide.
Regenerate
Carving Turret
Incursion
Plasma Storm
Nanite Assasination
Orbital Strike & Antimatter Detonation
The “Nuke” abilities were far too powerful, and would often determine how games are decided. They are getting a cost increase to justify their ability to decimate entire cruiser armies or lines of structures. Orbital Strike costs more since it has a large radius, despite having slightly less damage.
Movement Speed Changes
We are increasing the movement speed of many units to make it more consistent among unit tiers and for the game flow better. Increasing the movement speed will also make it easier to evacuate Orbital Abilities such as Plasma Storm, "nukes" and to evade Strategic Bombers. Frigates, in particular, are getting a large speed boost to allow them to better out maneuver tougher cruisers and be more viable for harassment.
Campaign
Yorkshire
Yorkshire was introducing too many things at once to new players. It will be less overwhelming without the Sky Factory. Mac was also too powerful in this mission and would carry the player too much.
Calethaon
Due to the move speed changes, the waves of enemy units will arrive faster. We are delaying the first wave in order to prevent this mission from becoming more difficult
Decanus
To compensate for Incursion cost increased
Silgul (Legacy Change)
Silgul received some changes in the 2.71 update aimed at making it more difficulty, but was not documented in the change log.
Auctor (Genesis mission 6)
Some of the mountains were causing pathing issues
ScenariosOblivion
Implosion
Mountaintop
King of the Hill
One of our top players was able to “beat” this mission by holding out for long enough that the mission stops becoming more difficult. We are adding additional challenges for players who manage to last over an hour, and removing one of the huge early difficulty spikes.
Bug fixes
I can't say tat I'm a fan of the zeus changes. I use zeus to clear the swarms. They are already only marginally useful, living only long enough to pop a couple of shots. They tend to clear most, but not all of the swarm. I think of the zeus kind of like the tank in starcraft II. They are the hard counter to swarming, forcing opponent to use different strategy. The are already relatively useless against other units, taking 3-4 shots against them, and killing one or two. Pretty sure this is how they were intended. Don't quite understand reason for quasi-nerf.
I'll take your word for it, and I guess will see.
The numbers are a bit meaningless to me, since I'm not a modder and I'm not running sims and analytics -- but obviously I get the essential drift.
I do recall that not so long ago, zeus was getting a big buff in terms of its survivability, and that was a necessary change IMHO, because I had watched many a zeus advance on a swarm, only to die before doing much damage at all.
And this seems like a reversal.
Granted, there is a DPS buff involved here, but it needs to live that long.
Just thoughts. Not really intended as a hard critique by any stretch.
Again, I don't have my nose in the numbers.
Not seeing this in steam yet. Tried rebooting steam. No change.
Yup, can't see it either.
It's a passworded opt-in. Instructions on how to opt-in are at the top.Next version of this won't be passworded.Edit - It is no longer passworded.
I can see the good reasoning behind the open-ended patch test time. There are lots of subtle changes there that can have the potential to upset balance.
My last ranked game would be a great test scenario for this proposed patch. My opponent was one of the cheesiest players I have played against to date. His first main tactic was a massed Reaper spam (3-4 constructors assisting first Assembly). The resultant death ball seemed very cost effective. I could not produce enough Zeuses to coupe even though I had greater map control and economy as my army was initially more balanced. Switching to build a Weapons Lab and get access to the Plasma Storm was the only thing that saved me. Although it was very satisfying to see the whole army wiped out, my opponent continued with the amassed Reaper spam tactic. I was able to use the Plasma Storm again whilst adapting my composition to win territory as relying on the orbital would start to become too expensive. Once I was back in control my opponent switched to just producing Punishers only. By the time the notification of Nexus was under attack it was too late, I did have air defense and enough Furries to handle the situation but they were slightly out of position and my attention was elsewhere as I had ¾ of the map to control.
Now, don’t get me wrong I am not complaining that I lost, he beat me fair and square, it was my fault I hadn’t scouted him and stationed my Furries in front of my Nexus. What I am concerned about is changes that could promote less dynamic play as cheese tactics could prove more powerful. The multiple Plasma Storm nerf (increased cost, increased cost step and indirectly increased frigate movement) could promote such strategies.
Some good proposed changes and some I will be interested to see what testing reveals (e.g. Zeus and Plasma Storm).
Ohh you're right. Thank you! I wrongly assumed that the bullets points were the usual generic instructions. Didn't read them.
2.75 is now available as a non passworded opt-in.
@X-Peri-MENTAL I've played against the same strat and struggled a bit with it too.
Hades are really good but he will be making dominators. Maybe it's possible to out-air him since hades really tank in an air fight. Or just falcon aa + hades.
The zeus change should be a buff, especially for mixed armies where the other units can share tanking the damage. Heavy zeus adding some artemis seems good. Important not to push forward over-eagerly... they will come to you.
I agree with the nerf to plasma storm and emp, as I think it's better to encourage players to deal with enemy compositions with their units, rather than orbitals being the sole countermeasure.
Oh, I nerfed the Reaper damage slightly. Forgot to put that in the notes!
Are the weapon tool tips dynamically generated from the actual weapon XML file data, or description files which need to be updated separately?Example from 2.75 preview build March 20th: Blossom Pod (weapon from the Blossom Launcher) says 1160 dps per unit. In contrast, the Icarus Cannon (weapon from the upgraded Starburst Launcher) says 483 dps per unit. BOTH weapons say "Area Effect Weapon". Evaluating these weapons from the tool tips alone, the Starburst launcher gains 100 range (1200 vs 1100) and loses almost 2/3 damage. If there are multiple Icarus Cannons on a Starburst Launcher... it is not apparent from the tool tip. So if I am to believe the tool tips, the Starburst Launcher is almost a straight downgrade? It makes no sense.
Clearly presenting WHY each unit fills its role is a central concept to clean game design, and I feel like the armor / armor piercing mechanic generally does a good job of slotting units into their respective roles. However, the air defense tool tips feel like they have always been hazy. An example which was addressed in this patch is the Sky Ender, which has great dps, but had a very long cool down, making it vulnerable to several low level bombers. Perhaps the cool down times should be included in the weapon tool tips? Or a checkbox enabling a tutorial-esque "flavor" blurb?
Yeah there's a bug with the DPS tooltip algorithm. Until it's fixed, I wouldn't pay much attention to them.
Thanks for the confirmation, GeneralsGentlemen. Looking forward to that getting ironed out. Great work on balancing and generating new ideas and interest in the game by the way!
TLDR: 2.75 Substrate air is strong. Nerfing furies makes it worse. After analysis, its predominantly the marauder that has the issue.
Mauraders and air
Static def is next to useless, even with the recent buff, when you have 3+ air, they do nothing. So 3+ air can just take them out one at a time with no problem. Only level 2 is worthwhile, and that is a huge investment, which they will just ignore, and fly elsewhere.
Land units aren't great particularly on large maps. They are simply too slow, and turn up too late, and by the time you do catch them they've taken out your entire econ.
Substrate Air is great for attacking ground units and buildings. Hades aren't. So they can do extreme econ damage quickly and just keep hitting different targets, which you can't defend with static anti air ground, or slow moving ground units. So you have to go air.
And because their air is better vs ground you have to have your air perfectly positioned to stop them, while they will just keep hitting different spots - meaning you are never perfectly positioned. Its okay to keep losing their air, as their econ will be superior due to the damage they are dealing.
PHC can't do the same, as hades are nothing compared to rampager and punisher. Their only ground attack is the marauder. Which is strangely inferior (slower moving? fails in attacking like the punisher?) in damage dealing compared to the ravanger. They just can't clear areas out anywhere near as fast.
I did some play through analysis on italia. Marauder vs Rampager. Attacking from the middle bottom gas, to the corner of the map. Hence building kills are: 6 upgraded gas vents and 1 annihilator canon. Clock starts on first attack on gas vent. Clock stops when i reach the corner.
- Rampager does it in 1min 3 seconds.
- Marauder does it in 1min 33 seconds. Thats almost 50% slower.
- Punisher i gave up after the first gas attack, as they fail to shoot far too much. Not really a hit and run harassing air unit.
Now i'm sure you will say that marauder role is more anti large unit, as it has armour piercing. But then what is the air harass unit comparison of the marauder? What is the counter for them other than fury? (which have to be placed correctly to intercept). And if they have anti air as part of their attacking marauder fleet?
Ravengers dont appear to suffer anywhere near as badly as the 'fail to shoot / attack overrun' that the marauder and punisher seem to. Perhaps that is a large part of it.
Either way the Fury was the only unit useful for AA and to stop the maurader attacks, the nerf hurts hard.
Other thoughts on 2.75
Quanta: Personally i dislike the magic nerfs. I'd rather if substrate had stronger magic - particularly attack wise. I enjoy econ macro'ing and saving my smaller armies with magic. Removing that, makes me rush a lot more which isn't as fun.
Other: Please add a random option.
Yeah, every time shimba uses punishers it seems clearly sub-par to air ramapgers. I like the hades though, it's a unit which requires micro and finesse.
What sets the air rampagers apart from other air units is it's incredible dps (~143 theoretical dps). Air rampagers do enough damage such even 1-2 of them can kill units effectively even when a few medics are present. The second issue is that their dps is so high that no army can "shrug off" the damage, in they way that you with air marauders or punishers.
I tested in the editor:
11 brutes, 5 archers, 2, medics, 1 athena, and 8 atlases.Total cost: 2176 metal, 198 rads
The second compounding issue is their fast healing, meaning they can jump in, take out lone aa, extractors, or engineers, and then eventually heal back up to ~1200 health again. 1k+ health is a very good number because it means you don't lose units if you fly by some atlases/apollos.
Honestly on large maps 2.7.5 is significantly better for PHC vs substrate air. 5k hp and dps buff makes falcon AA's do their job vs rampagers, and you are less likely to get BS'd as 4 air ramapgers walk over your falcon AA. The movement speed makes ground units relevant vs air units: pushes are also faster. I haven't played much with the nerfed fury but I get the feeling the old one was too strong. Better to nerf the air rampager then say buff the fury.
Reccomend:Reduce air rampager DPS by like 20%.Reduce the shield regen on the air ramapger.
Increase Apollo's single target weapon damage (vs air ramapgers and strat bombers). It's splash weapon, which is most of it's dps, only has a range of 800 vs 1100 of the atlas. The apollo has bigger splash but it's sort of poor dps against a single target. Another comment is from my limited experience the Atlas is ridiculously good against drone hive. Just one atlas is fantastic against any low number of drone hives. To the point that I would never build multiple apollos vs drone hive.
2.75 is currently in QA testing and will be out soon. The main hold up was our QA team was busy on Galactic Civilizations Intrigue and later Star Control.
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