Internal Playtest – Unit Balance Changes, Econ Changes, Combat vs Turrets, Nav Fixes

http://www.twitch.tv/metabolical/b/516552937

There are quite a few big changes in the works.

• The new Doxes can’t hit moving units hardly at all.
• Anti nukes build slower, but cost a lot less. So you can build them in about half of the time.
• All of the costs of advanced have been increased by about three times for everything. The cost, the production, and generation. Uber says the point is to make Advanced build itself faster late game. They’re trying to postpone Advanced, but make it easy to produce a lot of Advanced when you get there.
• Anchor damage has been nerfed.
• Orbital health has been increased.
• Avengers seem to be a lot more valid. They seem to be faster and their turn speed has been increased.
• They say changing the Doxes to “grenadiers” are to make basic harassment valid.
• Advanced Radar satellites have more health.
• Anchors can still take on a ton of Avengers.
• Advanced Air is slower and has less health.
• Nukes will cost more to compensate for the econ changes.

Edit: I KNOW THESE CHANGES ARE EXPERIMENTAL. I say it over and over and over. I still strongly disagree with these changes. You guys saying what I already know and already convey doesn't invalidate my concerns about these changes.

I'll just redact my entire statement since people aren't understanding my points and wrongly making assumptions about my stances.

I am going to jump on and claim you're wrong, but perhaps not in the way you think.

"Uber is very adamant that they’re right and the entire community is wrong." - I did not say that. I said you should not judge it solely from theory crafting, you have to play it to understand. I want to hear the feedback, but not the judgment. For example, "I am concerned about the gap between t1 and t2" is good feedback. It something we have to reflect on before we pull the trigger on such a change.

As somebody pointed out in another thread, T2 eco being stronger but more expensive actually makes T1 better. It used to be that one T2 metal extractor could support slightly less than 2 T1 vehicle factories. In the experiment, one T2 metal extractor can support about 5.5 T1 vehicle factories. T2 metal extractors have no change in how much T2 units you can produce. This is why I ask you to check your assumptions.

My threat to stop streaming is real but nuanced. I would continue to stream things like the new art, and builds that we think we have polished enough that we can see that they work. But I would not stream an experiment where we knew it might be wrong or broken. Because as far as I can tell the reaction to such an experiment is for you to complain that we're crazy and on the wrong track. Some people in the company told me ahead of time that this would be the reaction and that I shouldn't stream the experimental builds, but I wanted to see if we could learn to accept experiments for what they are. The jury is still out.

I'm sure the community will decide whether you speak for them all.

Brian, no matter what they do to show that they are doing an experiment, you keep insisting on taking these tests seriously. There have been three tests in a row now where they did some fun little experiments with balance to see what would happen. Each time, you came onto the forum and started getting people worried about things that aren't likely to happen anyway. It's not just you that is making this mistake, but you are the only one that has taken it on yourself to make these "official" recaps (to the point where you make a new thread even when someone else beats you to it). I know I'm being blunt here, but my comments when this happened before seem to have gone unnoticed.

There will be a lot of experiments that fail; that's how experiments work. The game will change between now and release. It will change again after release, too. We all get to have fun learning a new game after every update!

posts this, brian, are why many devs don't want to be so transparent in development.

Although making T2 much more expensive like this does make it nearly impossible to recover after having lost a lot of your T2 structures, It does allow T1 to do much better, as it allows you to T1 rush more effectively before the opponent has a chance to get to T2, as opposed to the current build which you tend to rush after or during their advanced factory has completed...

While I don't approve of Brian talking on behalf of the "entire community", his post seemed unnecessarily aggravated, AND he's stating too many of these EXPERIMENTAL changes as if they are 100% coming to a build near you soon(TM), I to am concerned about some of the issues raised.

• T2 eco x3 change. - This is what I'm most concerned about, as I mentioned on the stream. I feel there is too much of a jump right now between T1 and T2 in regards to economy and unit strength. My knee-jerk reaction to the change is that it will make this even worse. Right now when you have a "full set" of T2 eco (T2 mexs on all spots) T1 factories are basically free to make and run. We don't do this now because T1 units aren't as good as T2, and it's SIMPLER to shovel all that eco into a few nukes instead of 1000 units. With 3x T2 eco this'll be even more crazy and T1 factories will feel even more like "I could build loads of these and wouldn't feel a dent in my eco.. so they must be terrible"

• “Grenadiers”. - I like how Doxes and Ants compare right now, with Doxes being more for "harrasing". So.. if grenadiers do become a thing, I'd like it if they were an additional T1 unit that are good at lobbing projectiles over walls (and INTO factories to stop them making units?)

• More on the anti-turret/wall changes. - We don't need all the T1 units to be adapted to make turrets/walls more vulnerable.. I'd like it if turrets were just made more expensive.

• Advanced Air is slower and has less health. - NUUUU MY GUNSHIPS. I freaking LOVE gunship movement right now, and think that air is a good speed. I feel like many of the "T2 AIR OP!" thoughts going around are because T1 bombers aren't great, so people don't build AA and then all of a sudden T2 air kills all their unprotected stuff. T2 fighters and their shotgun missiles are insane, so I would like to see a nerf for those so T1 don't become obsolete.

• Anti-nukes cheaper. - YAY!

• Nukes will cost more to compensate for the econ changes. - To me this means that nuking units will be pointless, because you'll spend 3x as much resources to nuke than the units cost. Nuking units should be a viable tactic, it's fun!

Also don't stop streaming Meta! <3

There are definitely tradeoffs that they are making with changes like that. Brian is probably right in general that most of this experiment isn't quite right, but I'm sure that community feedback and more experimentation will result in a good balance. We just can't expect balance to change and still have the same game we were playing in beta.

I'm with Meta here.

Uber makes and streams a, say it with me now, EXPERIMENTAL build that finally answers concerns of T1 legitimacy, and all of a sudden you're in outrage because it changes the game.
The game has been changed before and will be changed again, so why is it that this particular change is "sooooo horrible"?

If we play it and it ends up being horrible, THEN we launch complain.exe.

EDIT: Also, I really despise the "logic" behind "the devs are bad, ergo they are incapable of balancing the game."

Especially considering the amount of input they've taken from players on designing this game.

While I do have some concern about advanced econ, I'll wait until a build is release before I pick up a fuss.

Oh, and major cheers to see anti-nukes getting cheaper.

Brian,

I thought these playtest recaps would be meant to cover what changed not be a soap box that takes up more then the change. .

Let the Dev's experiment if the build especially is labeled experimental.

Neutrino isn't to pleased with sharing details on game development, lets not have meta and Sorian stop doing the same with streams if we write posts like this on the forums.

Don't stop streaming! I love being able to see some of the experiments you guys try. I'm also pleased that you're playing around with the power balance between T1, T2, and orbital. That seems to be one of the biggest balance issues currently.

The way things move forward is by testing new ideas and it's great to see some of the new ideas that are in testing.

The reason I got so agitated with this post is because of your assumption that our posts were kneejerk reactions. They're far from kneejerk.

Why do you assume I'm "getting people worried?" People have expressed their concern before my posts and without my posts.

"Likely won't happen?" Based on what?

@chronosoul That's why I separated the playtest recap from my personal conjecture.

I know they are experimental. I say that over and over in my posts on the other threads. Looks like I didn't quantify that enough this time 'round.

Even though I did quantify that tons of times in the previous thread.

I am well aware these changes are experimental. That doesn't change the fact that I think these directions are a mistake.

Oh I definitely worry about everything related to balance whenever it changes. I even think it is fine to make speculative threads about hypothetical balance changes in the balance forum. What I really dislike more than anything though is when we get these threads in the general forum with official-looking titles. New players shouldn't be coming in and seeing big complaints about balance changes that will probably never make it into a build.

Honestly, I would agree that it's not a good idea to post videos of highly experimental balance changes.

It makes people freak out.

And you wrongly focus on me. It's not just me. Every time I go on teamspeak, Tons of players express lots of concerns about this direction any time I talk to them.

Official looking? There's nothing official at all about anything I do. What's more, I specifically annotated that section was "personal conjecture."

I don't think highly experimental changes should be broadcasted. It makes people freak out. Wait until the changes are more ironed out.

Anything that comes out through official channels is easily considered to be official.

Heh, I gotta wonder how Scathis reacts when stuff like this pops up.
I imagine it's something like this.

When you include your personal opinion on a Thread that has only displayed facts before, it can confuse the reader into thinking these experimental builds are be all end all of balance.

I know you separated it, but it's not going to stop people from reading what you write.

Brian,

Stop speculating on experimental builds when the dev's want you to stop speculating. And I don't mean, don't have an opinion on the matter, just calm down and let it play out, and then complain when they release it to us. It's to early to make rash decisions on stuff that is. super new

Brian, thank you for your summaries. You posts are thorough, informative and a great service to the community.

I believe it would be better to leave the summaries as statements of fact and create separate posts under balance discussions to speculate on the impact. Also, the community is large and diverse (and much, much larger than the forums for that matter) so I think we'll get more constructive discussions by stating personal opinions and letting those who agree add their support.

Btw, it would be interesting if you devs could explain some methods that you use for balancing. Like how you analyse games played on the server, if you have any mathematical balance metrics that you use, how you define desired roles of units and interactions between units, how you setup empirical tests, guidelines, gut feelings. etc. etc.
Or maybe it's confidential and a trade secret?