with the current balance, it has been noted as a simple race for T2. with the recent internal playtests, it has been hinted at that T2 will be pushed back by heavily increasing build and operating costs by a 4x margin, last i knew, and T2 eco by a 3.5x margin. this would mean that T2 expenses would outpace income, in factories and production alone. however, that still does not address WHY people go to T2. the main reason is the units. they are, in general, better than their T1 counterparts in almost every way. and while there's nothing wrong with the occasional direct upgrade, there is a limit. this post will focus on the T2 tanks, and ways that i beleive will diversify their effectiveness, thus giving T1 armies a way to stand a chance, while maintaining the need for T2 armies to exist. for short, to eliminate unit obsolecence to the best of my thinking power. this is what will be the first of several "diversificaton" posts, as i think of more ways to enrich the roster. so, here is the culprit we have right now: LEVELLER the T2 mainstay tank, more punch, more meat, and more moxy. as it stands, it completely eclipses the T1 tank. SOLUTION - SPLIT THE LEVELLER INTO TWO UNIQUE T2 TANKS. Tank A - "The Lancer" ++ a large, single barrel battle tank. excellent range and damage potential, and good health. -- dreadful firing rate, can't turn to save its life. could effectively be a Tank Destroyer This tank would be a (hypothetical) 1-shotting beast, suitable against heavy targets - Vanguards, Buildings, turrets, & Commanders. no literal 1-shot kills though, because that would be downright scary. However, its lackluster firing rate and slower turret rotation would mean that it could be swarmed easily. Tank B - "The Boxer" ++ Double-Barreled Tank(alternating fire on the cannons). higher speed and double the firing rate of a T1; designed to clobber T1 swarms with projectiles, and the added ability of switching targets quickly. -- Mediocre health, lower range than its Lancer counterpart (but just enough range for a first strike against T1's). The Lancer could effectively 1-shot it. Its damage/shot ain't that great either. **ADENDUMS** 1 - increase the HP of the inferno - (credit - lordofthenoobs) With the Boxer able to shred T1 hords, a healthy buff to the HP of the Inferno would help re-tip the scale in T1's favor, and encourage T1 army diversity. 2 - Speed adjustment on both the T2 Tanks - To address potential kiting (credit - StormingKiwi) To prevent the over-exploitation of both tank's range advantage against T1 Tanks, The Lancer & Boxer would have their speed dialed down in comparison with T1's. The Boxer would remain the faster of the two, however. this splitting of the roles would (hopefully) result in something many of us know that i personally refer to as a Death Triangle. Long Story Short: T1 Tank Horde > Lancer Lancer > Boxer Boxer > T1 Tank horde as with any suggestion i post, feel free to address your rebuttals and/or concerns
Pfft...you must not draw such quick conclusions before you have conducted a study with a large enough sample size (lets say....OVER NINE THOUSAND players). Surely there are those who are in favour of direct upgrades but the majority of these does not dare to raise their concerns because the ones who oppose them have upgraded their spamming skillz already and therefore cannot be defeated. Secretly they are turtling, trying not to draw too much attention before they will strike at us with [insert op T2 unit swarm here]. @dawg Generally this is an interesting proposal but I see an issue: T1 units are completely obliterated by the Boxer and the Boxer can only be countered by another T2 unit, meaning that you will still have to race to T2 to be able to compete.
that very thought occured to me a short while after this post was done. perhaps these changes could be coupled with an HP increase to the Inferno (which has insultingly low HP for what it is meant to do). i will make an adendum to the post to adress this.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with the Leveller from the angle of attack you are making. What is wrong with the Leveller is the fact that the ratio of Ants to Levellers is 3:1. If you were to change that ratio to say, 12:1, Levellers are now underpowered.. Ants win against a Leveller when the ratio is 5:1. The Leveller has 20 more range, so a stationary Leveller can potentially win against 7 Ants. Because the Leveller has more range, units are so fragile, and movement speeds are equal, it can kite and win against an infinite amount of Ants. The Leveller, in patch 58772, did give more dps per metal, but less health per metal, than the T1 tank. Plus it can only engage one target at a time. It already fulfilled a role. It is terrible at engaging multiple weak targets (place a Leveller at less than 100 range against 5 Ants in the current patch, if it wins, it wins barely, if it loses it loses barely) What makes it "OP" is the fact that it can provide its large amount of dps per metal at a range that the t1 units cannot compete with.
You should expect kiting from anything that has longer range than something else (yes, including the Sheller) because the kiting gives a speed penalty to stuff pursuing. It's not much (compared to Bots) but it gives the Sheller an extra 10 seconds of shooting time - i.e 2 extra shots.
In your OP you mentioned that T1 would be faster than T2... does that extend to the Inferno as well? I don't have the numbers with me, but as I recall the inferno is slower than the Ant. would the T2 be slow enough that it could still catch them?
While I really like the proposed changes, it occurs to me that we don't necessarily need a new tank to implement this. Instead of splitting the Leveler to the lancer and the boxer, turn the Leveler into the proposed Lancer and turn the Slammer into the proposed boxer.
yes, though barely. the Boxer would be outrun by an even slimmer margin, if not be the exact same speed.
Don't get me wrong there are other ways to kill them effectively but not many that don't involve T2 vehicles. I believe the vanguard needs a serious damage nerf if its health is to stay the same.
