Lets talk about the Inferno

Again, I restate, I haven't really started on the combat balance yet. Numbers will change.

That's what I'm afraid of. Not the "Who Stole My Cheese" approach to change. But the changes in this patch feel like shots in the dark.

I assume "missile using units" would include artillery and bombs (as opposed to laser using units).

Giving it decreased speed is silly.

Either it is supporting artillery (in which case it is forced to travel low speed anyway) or it is supporting tanks.

If it's supporting tanks, you want it to travel at a higher speed (the same speed as the tanks),because otherwise you slow down your tanks, and if you're slowing down your tanks for benefit of higher health in your army, you're going to lose more tanks. You're defensive tank isn't actually defending your offensive units, because they are taking more losses than they would if it wasn't there.

You should expect it.
No one is an 'expert' in this field, if by 'expert' you mean someone with an intuitive sense of what values are best.

Sure, if you like micro. I tried mixing tanks and combat fabbers. They didn't stick together like I planned, and it really wasn't worth the effort.
Then again, I never tried an area assist command...

Balancing ain't easy, but I think Scathis is doing his best with a evolving unit roster/ with more units coming through the pipeline.

Lets give a couple more weeks shall we before we arrange digital pitchforks, and sharpen our... keyboards.

I would hope not honestly.

Or maybe we wait and see what's in the books for formations? I know that if we assume there isn't any "pathfinding assistance" that trying to use units with different speeds will be an exercise in frustration, but if that's obvious to us we can only assume Uber is on top of the situation.

Frankly I don't like the idea of limiting unit design based on whether or not units will be able to maintain formation with other units(without Nav Assist) as it can really bread down some of the depth.

I'd go as far to say that taking the Vanguard name and making into a new "escort" type role, with some of the previously mentioned missile defense and maybe a short ranged weaponed, but only having average HP and below average range, it's primary role is not to fight, but to defend.

But as I said before, Missile Defense as a unit attribute would require more missiles be used, not unlike say my designs for the Hailfire and Thunderbolt.

Mike

I'm pretty sure everyone knows balance isn't in yet. However, everyone knows their an expert at balance, and that is wrong. Everyone can contribute, sure.

a part missile defence isn't a bad idea, if its unit based then it prob should require quite a few to catch every single missile.

There seem to be two subtly different issues here. The first is a general one of balance. I cannot really comment on that, as every time I have tried to use the inferno, it hasn't done any damage. Regardless of this bug, complaining about the state of the balance now is a little silly, as the balance changes are ongoing. However, discussing how how the balance should be in the future is a different story. I think that there is a bit of a disconnect here, as some people may be taking balance state now as being indicative of the direction of balance for the future. They see a unit with a lot of hit-points now, and assume that this is going to be a very tanky unit, when if it is a first pass, I don't even know if we can think anything of the sort.

The second point is more of a thematic consideration. RTS games (like any other genre) have their own language of conventions and tropes that help players get to grips with the mechanics. For example, if a unit is very fast, we instinctively expect it to be weakly armoured. This isn't necessarily drawn from reality, as modern tanks are both fast and well armoured. I'm not pointing this out to say that tanks have to be more like real-life tanks, only to show that RTS "rules" do not necessarily follow real-life "rules". There is a whole range of these tropes that we have grown familiar with. Artillery is always fragile. Intel gatherers are fast. Late-game units are probably more durable than early game units. One of these tropes is that flame-throwers are fragile, and prone to exploding. I'm trying very hard, and I can only think of one flame-thrower unit from every single RTS I have played which is relatively durable. All the other ones have the durability of damp toilet paper, and explode spectacularly when destroyed.

Tropes are useful as an accelerated learning mechanic. If I see a unit which looks big and heavy, I'm first going to try and use it as a meat-shield, as my experience from other RTS games tell me that this is a good use for it. However, if it then turns out to be fast and flimsy, I will be a little irritated when I end up misusing it. It means I have to re-learn how this trope works in this game, instead of relying on past experiences. This in turn places a greater barrier to entry for good play. However, tropes can (and should) be discarded on occasion, as it allows the game to differentiate itself from other games, and creates a sense of novelty. It's just something that shouldn't be taken too far.

All this means is that if the inferno is regarded as a slightly quirky unit, rather than a meat-and-potatoes unit, it means there should be less quirky units in other places, in order not to lose the player. This is perfectly achievable, and I don't see a problem with it at this time. Overall, this comes back to the number one mantra repeated on these forums.

It's still under development. Wait and see.

No, I really shouldn't.
The values are completely rudimentary. Unit role is more important than hard numbers. The issue more than anything else is that from a gameplay perspective, some unit roles aren't actually clear while some are missing

Look up 58772 - Look at the pelter - it isn't actually designed to destroy ships from the shore. Look at the anti-ship lasers - they aren't designed to engage ships either. There isn't actually anything which is designed to push ships away from the harbour where you can build a factory, until you get to the catapult. It's the numbers that make it really obvious that nothing is designed to fulfill a certain role. Navies are strong because defending a base against naval without naval is really difficult. I would argue that the navy doesn't need a speed nerf to make it move into range of pelters more slowly, it needs a range nerf. Not speed because you need naval fabbers to move quickly (i.e. at a similar speed to land fabbers) for expansion purposes, but you also need naval ships to be able to chase them down. Range because it makes fleets more mobile, but it gives the defending player more time to defend against the attack. Now we've changed the engagement range of the naval ships, probably the engagement range of the naval turrets should be adjusted as well.

Now look at the Leveller. The patch changes have made it very ambiguous what role the Leveller and the Peregrine are supposed to have. Is it supposed to be "Player X has advanced to the Advanced Age"? Or are they supposed to be specialised units complementary to the t1 units? Because the numbers don't make that clear at all. Before the Leveller's values suggested it was better at attacking single targets with high health than the equivalent cost in Ants, while the same cost in Ants were better at attacking multiple low health units. The Ants were worse at coming under turret fire, the Leveller was better at that.

I.e. the Leveller was better against buildings and t2 units, the Ants were better against bots.

Now you build 3.3 Levellers, instead of building 3 Ants, 2 Infernos and a Sheller.

The number change to ships in current build have absolutely nerfed naval based economy, you're MUCH better going with air. Which doesn't make sense, because naval based economy was too slow compared to bot based economy, and both economies are too slow compared to bot based economy (considering vehicle based economy is too slow compared to bot based economy, and that has only 3 more metal cost per tick and the same energy cost)

The design of units is important. The role is important. The pure values only suggest what those roles are and how good at the roles units are.

I assume "missile using units" would include artillery and bombs (as opposed to laser using units).

Giving it decreased speed is silly.

Either it is supporting artillery (in which case it is forced to travel low speed anyway) or it is supporting tanks.

If it's supporting tanks, you want it to travel at a higher speed (the same speed as the tanks),because otherwise you slow down your tanks, and if you're slowing down your tanks for benefit of higher health in your army, you're going to lose more tanks. You're defensive tank isn't actually defending your offensive units, because they are taking more losses than they would if it wasn't there.[/quote]

You don't need formations.

If the Vanguard "leads the way" with Shellers, and travels at 7, it will leave the shellers too far behind over a long period of time and be ineffective. So no formations, you need to micro the units to stay in formation.

I didn't mean it that way. You have to take a holistic approach to balance, and consider every interaction that the unit has. If you don't, that's how you end up with units that are OP, UP or just not worth building at all. The inferno unit appears to have high health for low cost. If it has low speed as well, it can only be used defensively or to deal with fortifications (i.e. it's not as useful vs armies), whereas if it has average speed it can be used with both aggressive tanks and the more defensive shellers fairly well.

Hey hey hey hey - No pitchforks are being arranged, and I lost my sharpener last week. All I'm saying is that recent """""""""balance""""""""" changes (i.e. the change to the Leveller, the Peregrine and Naval) made progress in the following goals:

1. Make Naval a non-factor in the game, so that the interactions between land, orbital and air can be isolated and examined - Achieved.
2. Make it increasingly unclear whether T2 is specialised or just superior - Achieved.
3. Make people stop spamming one highly effective unit and build mixes of other units instead - Achieved?.
4. Inflame the forums into creating various hate topics on the different changes - Achieved?
5. Achieve a state where none of the systems that make up PA are ineffective or undesirable - Not achieved.

I.e. it looks like there wasn't any real intention behind the changes other than to make people look at the game in a brand new way without prejudice, so that they'll learn to adapt to future balance changes

I think it's okay to point out things about balance and discuss, but all of us forum experts should remain patient and levelheaded. Give a chance to the people with actual experience of developing several RTSes here. It is easy to rant in the forums when you don't have to make the actual decisions. In the livestream they even said scathis was a bit surprised when they decided to put the patch out as it is. It is obvious this patch was about getting the new units into the game. I totally understand trying out different extremities of balance, and overall the patch is the most fun version of the game so far, so we are going in the right direction.

Well this is beta. There's never gonna be a better chance at changing the numbers and looking how it goes rather than having theoretical discussions.

I've read through this thread and I think people are being very over critical.

We should all bare in mind that TA, TA-Spring and Sup Com (in it's various forms, FA in particular) have been balanced literally over YEARS.

I think the t1 game in TA-Spring is particularly finely tuned but this didn't happen over night. It started out with TA as a template, then went through literally hundreds of iterations to reach it's current form.

I think the other thing to point out here is what do we define as 'balanced' anyway? As all players have the same units every game is balanced from that perspective. I think what we're really discussing though is usefulness of units. To my mind a properly balanced game will have all units being useful (although not necessarily all the time). I actually think from that perspective we're doing pretty well on PA. The new flame tank isn't finished and doesn't fire so It's probably not worth getting too hung up over until its fully implemented. Nevertheless I can't think of any unit in the game that I never use so I'd say its surprisingly well balanced given it's early stage of development compared to it's predecessors.

ah my aussie brother you neglect the teleporter tanks don't need to have speed anymore.

Teleporter is possibly my most favorite new tool, it creates all my proxy bases which conveniently allows me to keep most of my army at home incase I'm attacked. I LOVE IT!!!!!!!

wait?? These tanks are working for you?? They do nothing but roll for me

Cell phone

exactly this whole thread seems a bit silly IMO. The two units obviously aren't finished so no one knows how they will play. There is just a lot of extreme speculation here EXTREME!!!! One thing I've learned being here is that you guys at uber have yet to fail me, except the navy right now XD. so everyone could have a little patience instead of judging this rolling wall.

Sorry for multi posts, cell phone

Again I ask how would it use its assets with no range and little armor trying to escort units?? Pounders simply out range it and it would die.....

If people keep complaining after every patch, they will just stop releasing patches so often.. something to keep in mind.

You won't know adjust unless you shoot and miss the first time.

In my proposal the Vanguard would be present mostly for it's missile defense, any other weaponry would be a secondary feature to that. In that case it doesn't need heavy armor, as against missile heavy forces the defense system would boost the defensive qualities of the Vanguard, but if you're trying to use a missile defense unit against forces with little to no missiles that's just a mistake on your part.

Mike

Right, the vanguard would only be missile defence, and it's secondary weapons are "why not give it to them because the friggin firefly even has one (shouldn't have one though)".

Idk, the inferno is technically a "melee" unit idea though that doesn't require heavy animation work. Good job on that, Uber

Make a bot inferno.

Instead of a flamethrower tank, how about a tank that can absorb the nanolathe out of opponents? It would have the same cone-shaped AOE that a flamethrower would have, and it would also do damage over time, but it could use the collected nanolathe to build/repair other units. The effect would be pretty easy to do, just have the tank be able to do an AOE reclaim with decent range, and that way it can't build while attacking as well.