OMG Uber Cannon is so OP. Fix now!

Igncom has a point Scathis.

We are past the *this is broken plz fix* phase and into the *future of balance part*

What do you think about this? Where do you see air in PA? This is ridiculously important and will probably define how the game is played for the length of its lifetime.

Ow crap.....people agree with a comment of mine that isn't just a snarky comment........

I always agree with your snarky comments

Been thinking about this for a few days.

I think advantage in multi unit transports vs single unit transports is the former keeps a focus on combined arms and drop a blob at a time, making 'hotdrops' more feasible.

50 single unit transports take 40% casualties hotdropping. These 40% casualties wipe out the AA corps and half the engineers.

You get torn to shreds by gunships, as your opponent takes advantage of your losses.


10 5 unit transports take 40% casualties. The AA corps take 40% losses. The majority can still defend against gunships.

Also I remember that Rise of Nations did this with embarked units. Each unit was its own transport.

It made amphibious assault very difficult and micro intensive. You could not land your entire army in a coordinated fashion. They would arrive piece meal and get picked off in small groups. You had to destroy the land forces defending the beach with your ships, then land and organise your army, then march in land.

I'm not saying it was aliens....



but it was aliens.

Allegedly.

I still don't think we should worry about final balance until at least everything is in the game, such as unit cannon, multi planet start etc. Ideally it would be before then, but I'm not going to get annoyed unless the game is officially released in such a state.

My next question is are Scathis and friends planning on more units? Aside from the Submarines, and torpedo Bombers, ofc.

Because the Unit Cannon doesnt affect unit play down under. It doesn't affect Air balance - you are just landing units where you want them with it.

I also think it is a good question to be answered right now so we all can get on the same page. More constructive feedback for Scathis' balance and Uber's playtests. It's beta after all - I get that balance isn't final. I's been said so many times....

Wow multi quote thread. Scathis is now aware that there is a problem with the t2 air game. He mentioned at the end of the stream with meta and zaphod the he needs to look into it. Really nice he acknowledged it so now let's see what his next move is.

If t2 air is same price as t2 land and we get t2 flak veh and bots would the current balance work?

I dont know - I'm not completely confident that would fix it anymore. But it's definitely worth a try.

It's never made sense to me why Air is cheaper than the vehicle+bot factories and why naval was DOUBLE that of a t2 air fac. It always has and always will invalidate t2 naval, because for every t2 naval, you can build two t2 air factories that are (arguably) more powerful and more versatile than the one t2 naval.

Maybe their roles should be switched ;P

Yes, aliens. Man.

I also dont like the idea of crazy OP stuff countering other crazy OP stuff. That just invalidates every other unit in the game - and every other strategy too.

I completely agree here. When I brought up my point on air balance, I wasn't insinuating that I thought it was 'final balance', I was just putting in some input on what I thought was an important issue to look at in the near future, based on my own experiences. Is it better not to give input because 'nothing is final', or because someone else might have voiced a similar opinion already? I don't think so, I hope it gives an idea of what the playerbase is thinking.

I just had one peregrine take out eight hummingbirds.

lulz.

EXACTLY.

As in, WTF brah.

Ok, so I think we can all agree that a your metal should yield the same result no matter how it is spent in regards to unit types.

That is, if you spend 5500 metal in t1 bots, and 5500 metal getting t2 bots, either one is about the same effectiveness over time.

For air, its most certainly not like this. Say you are going to spend 6550 metal. Three air factories (1800 metal) + 35 Hummingbirds (135 metal each, total Y metal) is not equal in effectiveness to a t2 air fac (3300) + 10 peregrines and one Hornet (270 metal each fighter/540 per bomber; total 3250 metal) by any means. The peregrines just punch right through the hummingbirds and the one hornet will kill the air factories.

Two patches ago, before the stargates, t1 air had a chance against t2 air if the t1 air was massed.

Now it's not.

I very much hope that was not a revelation for Scathis. I very much hope that he knew about T2 fighter problem already.


Ultimately it comes down to T2 upgrade and t1 invalid? Or not.

I've had a hummingbird take out eight hummingbirds.
...The eight were mine.

-Bad at Air Micro

I just had one peregrine take out 21 peregrines. I really, really, really wish I was joking.

In case you haven't worked it out yet on top of a massive dps buff and less frontloaded damage they also got aoe.

Video is out on Wednesday. Stay tuned at 19 minutes in but you'll know it when you see it anyway.

I dont think it was a revelation

#completelyandutterlybroken
Let's compare:

Conversation at SOE over weapon that is so Overpowered it is even Overpowered against itself:

Dev 1: Dude! look at these stats!
Dev 2: That's ridiculous! The Vanu are flooding the territories with the new ZOE Max! They have twice as many on the battlefield as both enemy factions combined.....and they have FOUR TIMES THE KILLS.
Dev 1: Man. If that isn't OP, I don't know what is. We need to fix that.
Dev 2: Lemme get my checklist. Be right back.

A few minutes later.....

Dev 1: So, what's it say?
Dev 2: uhhh. Well. Seems kinda weird. The video ad said it fixes everything and makes us more money. Never had a checklist with a video ad before....
Dev 1: So.....
Dev 2: Step 1: Put the item on sale for 2 weeks.
Step 2: Nerf the item by 50% so it is completely unusable. If people complain, rework it into a complex system that doesn't make sense so they think we have a secret way to figure out balance.
Step 3: PROFIT!

Dev 1: This might explain what happened to the annihilator. And why Mark spent 3 months "fixing" Lock-ons.
Dev 2: I like it!
------------------------------

Please. Scathis. Mercy.

Yeah, I saw something on a smaller scale on clopse's stream, he wins the Peregrine battle, but the one remaining enemy Peregrine takes out his entire airforce due to rapid fire missiles with AOE.

Expect changes to the balance of air units in the next update.