**RELEASED 1/26/17**
Balance
Graphics
Bugs
Missions
The PHC strategic bomber is pretty tough so may still be useful with those AA buffs. But the Harbinger gets fried even with the current AA, at least the Substrate AA anyway. I watched some of the streamed game last night with Creature and rrfarmer. Rrfarmer's aa tore Creature's Harbingers up and talking to Creature about it later he said he had 19 levels into his unit HP upgrade...
Otherwise, very nice to to see bug and crash fixes with some UI improvements. Good to see new languages starting to appear, long may that continue.
you still don´t tackle the imbalance and problems
-map imbalance- still not fixed
-caregiver useless - still not tackled even worse..
-pathfinding
-bad behavoir of substrate units in patricular mauler and savager... - at my frist test seems to be fixed
-athena imbalance- not sure should be more expensive like the mauler
-overmind is useless... not fixed
-harbinger is useless; too less hp (a lot too less) not fixed
-dreadnought armor imbalance not fixed
-dreadnought instant heal have to take out of the game... not fixed
-new dreadnought abillities overdue- still overdue
-replay feature has postponed for months still overdue
- wasd scrolling is just terrible; if you use them, there is no hotkeys anymore.... still not fixed
- eradicator should be a long range anti dreadnought unit, it does almost no damage to dreadnoughts... and to build in the meantime its useless. the player unit you have to raise such a high amount of metal and radioactive to build the techlevel, thus its not worth. -seems to be fixed instead of aoe and radar contact it has armor piercing now
and many more problems and bugs...
instead of fixing anything, the most time you make it even worse
For example:
- to take a away the building attack of the mauler and on the other hand don´t take it the athena. This decision broke the balance for 2 month.
- now again boost the athena, which is less expensive as the mauler. Do nothing with the mauler.
and you need month to fix strange design decisions, thus its just playable for a short time until the next patch breaks the balance again.
Its like dasunding told me on a call. Most of the time, it is more balance before the patch than after.
its always the same...
i gotta agree on this one. we still have the issues that irritated people the most about the cronus and artemis (that they moved away just as fast as advancing units, while firing on them) so the balance was to weaken these two units so that they are almost useless, but they still move away just as quickly, so the actual annoyance still exists..
while we have new issues (that never existed) like the OP athena spam. i still dont get the justification on the mauler not damaging buildings while the OP athena can? SS HAS to build destructors while PHC has a number of anti building options, like the stationary artillery..
i appreciate the improvements to the game, but there are still seemingly simple things that could be fixed. we know its easy to change balance, so why not do it? the patch is tiny, the files are simple number changes, yall could release a patch every day until the balance becomes fair..
pretty please
There was a time, when mauler and athena could attack buildings (october 2016 i think). Their were better in destroieng buildings than destructor or artemis.
If you see my old videos, you will see how useless the destructor was... it was a oneshot by the phc turrets, due to the range was too small and the destructor always moves in melee attack
thus stardocks took the mauler the to attack buildings away without to change destructor or athena
It can't. That was an issue when Maulers and to a slightly lesser extent Athenas, tore through everything, units, T3 and buildings. Now they can only use their secondary fire vs buildings.
(Sorry, I didn't mean to thumb up your comment, was just trying to quote the above line and hit the wrong button, but er, have it on the house I guess . Though I agree balance stuff takes too long to come down the line, and I did like your suggestion about slowing down when firing the big guns on T3, so the like can be for that )
I have been playing some hours during the past 10 days after a 20 day break.
TBH nothing essential has improved. My concerns:
- Taking out resource limit for substrate is awesome... and broken. I don't get penalties for abusing inherent substrate powers with production flexibility...heaven!
- Introducing "tech requirements" in the form of orbital necessary to build a unit is a harmful decision. It is unnecessary constraint to flexibility and further encourage players to spamming mauler/athena armies to punish opponent's decision to "tech-up"
-Dreadnoughts' power is disproportionately low relative to their cost. 4-6 athenas still own a dread lvl 1 while cost far less so why would I build one?
- MAPS - dump small and stupid maps as asked by community members for quite a while now.
- Aviary units are bad...borderline useless.
Having that in mind I shall withhold my opinion on both the significance and impact on the above mentioned changes.
Stay tuned!
Please do not do this is wrong.Let it be the player that decide that.
Imagine that during the destiny there are several attacks on these units, who manages or controls them?
Must be the player ,the player may not want to lose these units if they reach this destination .
Please do not do this is wrong.Let it be the player that decide that.Imagine that during the destiny there are several attacks on these units, who manages or controls them?Must be the player.
No, this is a good thing. It means if your units capture the node, then other units you have sent there but haven't yet arrived will currently just stop in the middle of nowhere. They should complete the original order, which this now addresses.
Ah ok cool ,then thats a really a great way to make the units think ,for some moments i was scary when i read ( Units will longer not stop moving ) they could say if you capture a region the units that have not yet arrived stop...
But i might want that they dont stop unless i give that order !
What seems to be said, is that units will not stop if the region is captured but by who?
I think i wasnt the only that get confused....
RE: If i want that in 5 diferent places units captured a region and keep to a diferent location ,half of them will stop?
yeah i was also wondering on that one due to the typos (double negatives).. so u were certainly not alone
i think there could be a happy middle ground atleast(minor damage to buildings so there is still some effectiveness for raids or vs T1 defenses), and even if the end result is maulers cant damage buildings, then i would think its fair the athenas cant do it either.. but yeah i certainly dont want to go back to the days where both sides just spam either maulers or athenas to kill everything..
(u made me cry, i thought the thumbs up was legit.. but thanks!)
i wouldnt mind if PHC also had limitless storage, as opposed to giving a limit to SS.
i dont think tech requirements are the issue, i think the unit strengths are the issue, the tech locked stuff should be stronger than they currently are. otherwise why not let everyone build everything from the start?(jokes) "strategic bombers are go"
dreads are weak, except the insanely hard to kill hyperion at level 2? or is it 3? (+ nano mesh ARM)
agreed on the rest!
Ah ok cool ,then thats a really a great way to make the units think ,for some moments i was scary when i read ( Units will longer not stop moving ) they could say if you capture a region the units that have not yet arrived stop...But i might want that they dont stop unless i give that order !What seems to be said, is that units will not stop if the region is captured but by who?I think i wasnt the only that get confused.... RE: If i want that in 5 diferent places units captured a region and keep to a diferent location ,half of them will stop?
It is an old issue, since forever really. If you grab a bunch of units (group A)to capture a node and then grab another bunch of units (group B ) and also send them to that node, then at the moment, if group A captures the node before group B gets there then Group B will just stop, where ever they are at that time. So when you go looking for them, expecting them to have joined up with group A they are not there and you have to backtrack to find them sitting around somewhere else and not where they should be. This is also the case that if you have one Army meta unit but it is a bit split up, then if the front runners capture the node the rest of the army will just stop where they are, strung out behind.
No need to worry, it is a welcome fix.
Balance changes should have been fixed a long time ago. As many have stated there's no shortage of people highlighting the issues and it's simple .txt changes and inputting data a process that takes minutes. We should have really got past the balancing by now but they seem to come in drips and drabs which I personally don't understand the reasoning behind.
I'd personally like to see more substantial fixes, suggestions added which I've made and many others have made on the steam forums. It's really starting to feel there's not enough people working on Escalation, I could be wrong but that is definitely the impression I'm getting.
I'll be honest the constant balance changes are quite frustrating and I feel they are being dragged out longer than they have to be. There's been plenty of input by the community, it doesn't take long to input those values in I just think the balancing should be rectified once and for all and put to bed and focusing on other fixes, stability and improvements.
I appreciate the work being put in don't get me wrong. looking forward to a more substantial update whenever that may be.
As I kind of explained on Steam, that is not going to happen. I guess you have not followed other RTS games before but balancing can be a long process. There are a lot of things to consider and not everyone will agree on everything. With all the new content from Escalation balancing coming to the fore again is natural. I certainly agree they can be very slow with changes coming through though, and some explanation behind the changes would be appreciated too.
If you are only playing the AI the balance issues are less impinging as AI plays a certain way each time and won't change strategies to better utilize OP units, or ignore under powered units.
This looks like an interim patch between the current one and 2.1 so I expect you will see a more significant patch with 2.1, which was said to be coming Jan or Feb. I'd guess the latter.
yeah i agree, it is nearly impossible to balance a game to perfection, and that means it is basically an ever on going process that only ever really ends when interest is lost in the game. even starcraft is still being balanced, and that has essentially existed since 1998... every time a new unit is added (like the ones coming "soon") there will have to be even more balancing even if somehow everything is balanced before then (which i highly doubt)
As I kind of explained on Steam, that is not going to happen. I guess you have not followed other RTS games before but balancing can be a long process. There are a lot of things to consider and not everyone will agree on everything. With all the new content from Escalation balancing coming to the fore again is natural. I certainly agree they can be very slow with changes coming through though, and some explanation behind the changes would be appreciated too. If you are only playing the AI the balance issues are less impinging as AI plays a certain way each time and won't change strategies to better utilize OP units, or ignore under powered units.This looks like an interim patch between the current one and 2.1 so I expect you will see a more significant patch with 2.1, which was said to be coming Jan or Feb. I'd guess the latter.
I think we'll disagree on this one. I also play against friends so whether I play mostly against the AI should not really matter, we see players who like the quick game that mainly use T2 units and hardly ever use dreadnaughts but yet offer up suggestions to nerf/buff them. Balance changes I understand, why it's taking so long when the suggestions are in by players and it takes minutes to input those values. Obviously if a unit is bugged that takes longer to fix but from what I understand the constant balance changes are drawn out and tedious when they really don't have to be. It's mainly taking time because each person disagrees with another what those values will be something that they will never agree on which is something I've been saying a couple of times on steam forums.
What's stopping anyone from creating a skype call and bringing all the active players to collaborate together and come to a solution with the devs that makes people satisfied, making everyone 100% happy with balance changes will never make them happy there's just too many differing opinions and getting those values added?
I read member "never" post in the update equivalent topic on steam and apparently there's loads of units out of balance, then the post reply afterwards that it's a response disagreeing with his requested balance changes. Can you see where I'm coming from with this "people will never be 100% happy". the balance changes can only be as good as they'll ever be when they make the majority happy, there will always be some that will never be happy with the changes.
I understand how it works, the way the ashes devs can alter the balance is a quick and easy process (not like in other games) so I'm not understanding why it's taking so long in getting changes that are making the majority satisfied.
Just to clarify, I would have put forth my own balance changes but I would only be adding to this long drawn out process that some would disagree with, infact I disagreed with some of "Never"s balance changes 1 in particular regarding the dreadnaught, but as I mentioned I'd just be adding to the balance requests that are likely to conflict with other peoples requests there needs to be a compromise where people can get together and get the brunt of the changes added.
I can only see getting players together via say skype and collaborating, compromising and then the devs try out the balance changes in one hit and take it from there. Balance change requests are often lost in posts or spred around in other topics making it difficult for the devs to judge whether one balance request would conflict with another request or make a unit or building defense too weak or powerful.
Sorry for the long winded reply @Ticktoc but hopefully I've clarified what i'm trying to convey a little more clearly.
attached link will you show you that was not my idea, however as far as i know stardocks promised to change the instant heal -> take it out or something else...
https://forums.ashesofthesingularity.com/478732/page/1/#3644466
besides new dreadnough abillties are promised and should be released in winter
You will never have agreement on balance. The StarCraft forums are a very hostile place often regarding balance and our own Sins of a Solar Empire fans can get very aggressive about it.
We look at the data at what gets built and look at our own spreadsheets plus just plain experience and combine it together to update the balance.
One of the harder things to take into consideration has to do with competitive play (small maps) versus the longer games. They play very very differently and our balance changes have to take both cases into account.
As others have said, I think the insta-heal on Dreadnoughts is probably going to have to go.
Brad, I don't know if you realized this or not, but some of us purchased the DLC maps once Escalation was announced with no intention of ever playing them in Ashes Vanilla. Personally I just wanted them for Escalation. I'm beginning to wonder if that was a dumb thing to do? I wonder if I miscalculated what this was all about and the goals of the new game. Is there even an ETA on any of the paid maps being available in Escalation? Please don't be afraid of updating the DLC map one at a time instead of all at once if it means we'd get them quicker. Also please consider making them single player only for the time being in beta so we can start having fun and providing feedback.
Thanks.
It's been possible to play the DLC maps the whole time. Go to Steam\steamapps\common\Ashes of the Singularity\Assets\Maps and copy and paste the maps from there to the Escalation maps folder.
they already said like 2 weeks ago (or more) that those DLC's are carrying across... and they are busy working on it.. if u did some research u wouldnt need so much venom
Read the thread ASHES ESC: January 2017 Dev update.
There was no vemon intended in my post, so I apologize if it came across that way. I guess it's easy on the Internet to misinterept posts when the poster himself doesn't use a bunch of emoticons to reinforce no ill will. BTW, I was calling myself dumb as I thought maybe I had misunderstood how Escalation stood in the grand scheme of things. ie. I thought Escalation was supposed to replace Vanilla, not be an optional playstyle until I was in the middle of writing the post and read some more devlogs and saw it is like "advanced" vanilla.
So that made me think there was maybe more I didn't understand about what Escalation was all about.
no worries bro the same happens to me a lot! either way im happy for u that u will be rewarded for buying the vanilla DLC's!
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