Internal Playtest – Balance Build, Social Features Reveal, and More! – 4/4

http://www.twitch.tv/metabolical/b/517092644

• First preview of the upcoming Planetary Annihilation social features! Originally when I heard about Uber adding a bunch of social features, I confess was a little… underwhelmed. However, after seeing them in action, they look pretty stinkin awesome! They’re definitely first pass, but I’m really excited.
  
  
  • In game chat with your friends
  • Friends lists
  • Inviting friends to games
  • Blocking capabilities
  • Status
  • Notifications
  • and more!
• The Uber Cannon now has a cooldown. About 5 seconds if memory serves me correctly. That’s a really big nerf and means basic units will be able to actually attack the Commander now.
• The in game Twitch streaming controls have been added to this build. We’ve seen them before, but they’ve disappeared before.
• Looks like formations are properly ordering based on unit type, so that’s really good.
• Doxes still have a hard time hitting moving units, but that’s an unavoidable byproduct of their new high arc.
• I don’t know if it’s just me, but the lighting seems to look better.
• Gunships are having a difficult time hitting moving tanks. Not sure if that’s a bug or a feature. Meta said it was “interesting.”
• The advanced economy changes are now quadrupled instead of tripled. All advanced costs, consumption, generation, and the like now are much greater.
• Anchors are now stationary and built only by orbital fabrication bots. They can still shoot at the ground. I really like those changes. Think of them as the laser defense towers of space.
• Slammers have a hard time hitting mines.
• Meta said they’re looking for ways to make players playtest. That’s pretty cool!
• Line build works for orbital factories.

I wonder if the increased cost of T2 now means that T1 units will now be the best cost per DPS, cost per HP, by a wide margin.

Tbh, I like those changes.

Tanks have been increased in speed and also in turning.

I believe all bots were increased in speed too. If I had a guess, I'd say they were all increased by 2.

Anchors looked so cool when they passed over a base with lasers firing, I'm going to miss that.

Yeah... but this sounds like a better balance. Oh well.

looking interesting. I like the non-eco based changes, still undecided about the T2 eco changes though

Yay!! I love seeing them test things. It gives a level of insight into the development process that otherwise I would have never seen.

It also makes me want to be able to test different balance related things myself SO BAD.

EDIT: As in, define my own unit stats and run local games. I know that is a long way off, though.

The dox was fine. LLTs and Pounders both worked as counters to it. If you're going to add a grenadier, add it as a new unit using that unused model that you have lying around. Don't reduce the number of roles, increase them.

The econ changes only serve as to increase the snowballing that already happens when you hit T2. Nerf T2, make it easier to get but less effective. T1 and T2 don't exist in vacumes, Scathis, and if you continue to treat them like they do then I will lose any faith I have in you.


Once again, just comment on my profile if you are interested in balancing the game post release to something playable.

I really don't like the new snowball effect.

Once Meta got out an advanced bot factory, he got out that advanced air factory extremely quickly.

That snowball effect is so dangerous. It makes the game focus even more than it already does about when to step up to advanced.

I think we should test it before drawing too many conclusions. Give Matiz or Colin or Godde or Clopse a week to play with it and we'll see where we stand.

So now T2 costs 4x as much as it used to... why would anyone build T2 units when they could use the OP T2 economy to mass produce T1 units? With a 4x multiplier, you can produce 12 T1 tanks for the price of a leveler and you can make 18 bumblebees for the price of a T2 bomber. I know T2 is strong, but its not THAT much stronger... not to mention that 12 tanks can be in 12 different places.

I know it's just an experiment, so don't go freaking out on me or anything. I'm just pointing out potential problems that I see.

It makes you go later, and if cost and generation are both changed equal relatively, then the economy curve won't change, there are just less steps in between and each building becomes more important.

It will also make players build more T1 units in the early game.
Also I doubt that the strenght of T2 units is getting multiplied, too.
And when you consider that everyone goes T2 as fast as possible atm, doesn't that make postponing it a good idea?

Not if as soon as you get it you get to spam more of it than you can now. We need less of it overall, but we also want it earlier. It should be a supplementary force, never something that can be successful on its own.

No it isn't. It just means timing is more important. Currently the AI's commander will use the uber cannon with a long timing, approximately 5 seconds, and it's an exercise in futility to attack it with basic units.

And that's a pretty sub-par way to balance gunships. Seems to nerf them in their prime role.

What krakanu said is right. What prevents you from just mass producing T1 units when you get to T2 economy?

That's still snowballing though. You'd see a massive exponential curve as soon as you got T2 eco up in your number of T1 units. At the same time, you'd be able to support more T2 fabbers, allowing you to get up T2 eco faster, ...

Snowballing is bad. These balance changes make snowballing the thing. This simply isn't acceptable.

@stuart98 I agree with where you are coming from. Maybe t1 factories should be cheaper?

Then you'll just be able to spam out even more factories once you hit T2. No, T2 itself needs to change to be in line with T1. The problem is not T1.

I see where you're coming from. But with a proposed increase to t2 unit costs, well, the ratios will do that.

I can't find the information directly. But the adv. vehicle factory costs 45 to run, that has been increased to 180. Presumably t2 vehicles will still take (10 seconds) to build. So Levellers now cost 1800 metal.
The ratio of t1 tanks to Levellers, for example, will shift from 3:1 to 12:1

I refer you to this thread:

https://forums.uberent.com/threads/pounders-levellers-and-vehicles-in-general.55705/

We now have the additional caveat that Levellers will cost 12 times as much, for 3 times the damage, 5 times the health, and 20% more range.

I believe that that is more balanced than it was the last time we found ourselves in this position.

Actually, I believe that is balanced too strongly in favour of T1. But the Levellers still have the range advantage, so its only in close quarters that it should lose.


I do wonder why the devs are balancing us to one extreme, then the other, then returning to the first extreme. . .

I'm still very much in favour of Adv. tanks and regular tanks having the same range, of shellers giving more range at expense of health, having vanguards have less range for more health.