Ok, so after some higher level play, my suspicions are kinda confirmed that bots are still really bad, if not worse than before (if that was even possible lol). It all comes down to metal for power. Ofcourse in any one given game extreme things can still happen, especially with the situationally volatile bomb bots. So i am only looking at a more stable meta game that accounts for risk. I also have some other concerns such as the relative power of air and how the game is very much a game of poker. That is, you are forced to make important game changing decisions with a lack of information as there is no ability to get that information in a timely manner. This is problematic both because it stifles build order variety, and causes potential for you to win/lose due to blind counter builds out of sheer luck. Let's start with openers (or lack thereof) Bot first is now hard countered both by vehicle first and air first - there is no justification for bot first. Sure you have options such as dox and boombot map presence, but you'll get decisively spawn camped from bombers if air first, and unable to do anything against 1 defensive tank and skitter/s from vehicle first. You can't even scout because the vision is just so ridiculously low both for dox and boombot. Bot first is too risky, without any associated payoff that you would expect. This isn't to say that you can't win if you go bot first, only that given the fog of war, it is a dumb choice to make. I highly disagree with the move to remove the stinger. So that leaves vehicle and air, which seem evenly matched right? Well no, the problem comes back to lack of information. If i go air first and my opponent goes spinner first/second, then i am royally screwed because i can't make the bomber pay off, and my macro timings are now severely behind. Is this risk acceptable, and is it still a smart decision to consistently open like this? I don't think so. Voila, we are left with only vehicle first into the same old mindless tank spam for anyone who plays to win. Unit composition Without a doubt, tanks are still by far the most metal efficient for power. Grenadiers at 120 is frankly insane, and so are dox at 90. The only reason boombots are halfway 'viable' (they atleast give you a coin toss chance) are because they are priced decently for their power relative to vehicles (45). You might want to get a bot factory as your 4th in order to stockpile boombots for some cheesy moves later, but overwhelmingly throughout the game bots are essentially dead weight that would have been better spent on more tanks. Bots used to atleast be semi-useful because you'd mix stingers in with your vehicles, but now not so much. I doubt you'll see anyone succesfully use dox based armies to consistently win games. They'll always need to rely on tanks to do anything because of the glaring cost and timing imbalances. It's beyond me why this is still present even after a supposed combat balance overhaul. Oh but dox are fast right? Well let's see why that speed is being overrated 1. Because it relies more on your opponent making mistakes, than you initiating plays. If your opponent doesn't make easy defensive mistakes, then the tactic is pretty dumb because the opportunity cost is so much more in favour of the defensive tanks and turrets. Basically, the higher level play you go, the less valuable fast/weak bots become. And i would say that relationship starts happening pretty early on because low level players don't have much expansion to defend in the first place. 2. Vision. Dox vision has been randomly nerfed to 50 (half the range of tanks), which means you need either an air factory or skitters. Which means your timings for harass are always either too late or cost too much to execute relative to just building more vehicle factories and tanks. The Boombot problem So, boombots have been balanced the wrong way i'm almost certain. What do i mean by this? They've been balanced via high building hp, instead of lower actual damage. What this means is they either absolutely wreck armies and cause a snowball or they don't do anything at all. Really bad volatile gameplay. If even a few boombots get through, you're in alot of pain, but they are on the other hand stupidly easy to defend against with just one inferno. The Air problem Basically, air has too much relative power right now. They don't augment and complement land armies as much as they act as a way to simply force your opponent to match their air spending with your air spending. With the only land aa option costing 150 metal (seriously?), we're pretty much back to the peregrine/kestrel problem of old. Where air is no longer a choice or option you can make, but a bare minimum necessity for staying in a game. Many build orders will come down to who manages to be most land greedy and builds air just late enough to defend all their opponents air play. The T2 problem persists T2 is still prohibitively priced and the only reason you would ever get it is still for the t2 economy. None of the t2 unit costs make any sense whatsoever given their opportunity costs. All the rest of the t2 'balance' mean nothing because of the costs. It's not worth wasting time talking more about this when the simple act of just building t2 combat units at all is the same as giving yourself a handicap. As for "oh you just need the right time to transition to t2", lets be honest. When you have two players going at each other with t1, and actively harassing like any decent player does, you never reach the supposed surplus metal timing for t2. Metal for metal, t1 is still overwhelmingly better. Combat fabbers and pacing The game pace is now too slow imho. Your average game will last about 20-30 minutes with knowledgeable/fast players, with neither player really being able to do anything decisive for quite a while. It's all jab jab jab jab jab jab for eternity, and commander is never really free to do anything else but build energy and stuff. I'd expect this to be even longer in an average skilled PA game. TL;DR Uber, please do something about the tank spam and variety of play between air, bot, and vehicle. So very sick of this tank spam. I probably wouldn't mind the longer game lengths if it wasn't just all tank tank tank tank bomber tank tank tank tank bomber.
I would think air first is the only option. Although i have tought that for every patch to date. Won't 2 bombers 1 pass a veh and survive? Then free to pick off the other units until they build more aa. By then you should be ahead and most likely safe enough from harass because they are in catch up mode, have no idea where you are and need fighter to kill your bombers. Gg. I don't understand the bot situation. What removing aa adds or the reasoning. I could possibly understand it a bit more if it was explained. The realm mod had a great first pass on ground combat that was far better than anything uber has given us as of yet.(IMO)
I agree about t1 bots being weak. It would have made much more sense if the spinner was removed and the stinger remained. That and combat fabs (if and when they become viable) might be enough to make t1 bots useful. Maybe do something with dox, like double the DPS and/or frontload the damage to make them do something before getting chewed up like the popcorn they are. T2 factories are expensive, I'd make at least the land factories 3600. I don't know if metal for metal t1 is better now, certainly not overwhelmingly so. T2 seems interesting in a number of ways, largely against other T2 but I'll analyse them all anyway (ranked in order of how important I think they are right now): Slammers have high, evenly distributed damage output (100 damage every 0.25 seconds), and more range (110) than an ant (100). I think in large enough quantities they would be roughly even smashed against an equal cost ant army, with micro they would win out Pelicans are cheap and useful as transports. In fact they are so cheap (45) and have enough health (90) to require two shots from a hummingbird to kill. They should probably be spammed out and mixed in with hummingbirds Vanguards are better than inferno imo. Not quite as good cost per hitpoint, but radar, splash damage and more range (30 vs 20) make up for it. Frontloaded damage is also an advantage for a close-quarters unit Bluehawks are the new snipers (180 range), outranged only by the shellers (but I'd build these because they can move well). They are prohibitively expensive. But in small numbers, if defended well, you can force your opponent into action If you have air dominance, hornets are a good choice. Bluehawks of the sky, fast by land standards slow by air standards. Painful to counter without air presence --- Levelers have insane but frontloaded DPS (300 damage per second x2), and turn like treacle. Good against structures and other T2, horrible against T1. Against the current meta I'd go for slammers over these Shellers have the best range but turn slowly, cost a lot and are made of paper You'd only build Gil-E to counter tactical missiles, so T2 or catapults Advanced combat fabs have a good range, but cost way too much to be used. They're just so risky for little gain Given the largely T1 nature of things right now, slammers seem good in most situations, and anything above levelers may be useful in more limited situations. It may be naive (correct me where I'm wrong), but T2 units seem to be worth getting at some point, but not rushing.
Well surely the point of speed was for raiding, but with buildings getting treble health that would appear to nullify any speed advantage for raiders since they have to hang about anyway. It also means a factory pumping out defensive tanks is probably going to be just fine.
I feel that bots would be useful if Dox were given a more front line infantry role rather than a raiding role. Currently using a single bomber to take out a few fabbers is much easier than waiting for some Dox to go half across the map to maybe kill a few outlying metal extractors. So... Dox= Light infantry, good for small raids (Some new medium sized T1 bot)= Medium infantry slower, good for large assaults, has the role of the current T1 tank T2 Slammer=Heavy infantry, damage soaking dpgs dealing slow poaks, maybe have small range T1 Tank= cavalry and damage soaker, Main use is to outflank and deal damage to heavy targets T2 Tank=Heavier cavalry, keep it as it is in game, works fine Also if anyone says tanks should be slower than bots I challenge you to go outside and outrun a tank going full speed.....you can't, I mean if you manage to do it I'd be very impressed. Anyways bots should fulfill an infantry role while tanks fulfill a cavalry role.
I really like the new variety of units we have all across the board now. It seems like not much is a direct upgrade anymore, and is quite interesting. The only problem is the balance is off for a lot of things, so you never actually really use the new stuff. It looks nice and fancy, and like it might be a good/really cool idea, but you currently never use it.
You're not wrong about average skilled games being longer. I did a game with friends, all 4 start on a small moon to encourage fighting. One died on the moon, one bailed to the other planet and quit (had to do other stuff or something) and it was just 2 of us, seperate planets and an effective stalemate. by about the 110 minute mark we just called a draw and played LoL. We just couldn't beat the other. Too many Umbrellas, Avengers and anti nukes. The attacker would ALWAYS lose and no beachhead could be made.
I had some suggestions to make this more interesting: https://forums.uberent.com/threads/remodeling-orbital.58992/
