Internal Playtest – Econ Balance Changes and New Teleporter Model - 3/27

Exactly. This logic is deeply flawed. Yes on a 1v1 once someone has that level of dominance, it's GG for a good reason. But this game is built around interplanetary warfare, huge multi-team matches, and massive troop movements and clashes. Multi-planet starts have only further revealed how bad it is - with enough players and planets there is ALWAYS going to be someone entrenched on an entire planet. Where PA excels is the TA-style large scale troop movements and invasions - and right now that just isn't a feasible way to conquer or annihilate planets. People keep parroting 'it's called planetary annihilation not invasion', but lets face it, the armies is where the core gameplay is at. Orbital is not a replacement for that, it's a supplement, and as a main core of gameplay it is simply boring and tedious. If a player controls 2 or 3 planets versus another one entrenched planet, we should be seeing dug in interplanetary invasions establishing enough map control to launch game enders - NOT having orbital game enders being the only solution.

Bad gameplay in a nutshell. "If the turteler turtles he is invincible".
Not every game is about 1v1 - there will be FFA games or bigger team army games where you have zero chance to prevent someone from taking over a planet and fortifying it.[/quote]
I agree that sometime it cannot be helped - someone will get entrenched. And I again note that if you FOCUS your offensive units in a single spot, you will triumph every time (unless your eco is abysmal). I'm not saying it SHOULDN'T be fixed - just saying that for right now, we just need to stop thinking of it as an invasion and more as an Annihilation.

Not deeply flawed - just different. It's a WIP. Orbital is in massive flux. I really suggest that you figure out how to play orbital NOW so you can give feedback on it later. And I mean test the limits, not just figure out the basics.

strange really coz I think I'm probably the only one that actually think the current build is absolutely fine and requires no real change. I've had countless hours and feel all units are good, the time it takes to get to T2 is fine I don't feel it really needs to be messed around with and prefer the teleporter model that was actually have now, that small one looks weird, theres no ramps or anything to walk up into it but there still seems like there is a "step" if you know what i mean. Can understand to make it fit on smaller planets but personally, i never had any issues building a teleport on a 200 sized moon no problem. I really think this will alienate T1 units even greater as well, I hope that the uber team isn't going down a road similarly to other games where they are just listening to feedback based on real pro players only so the game is just simply more catered to a certain part of the community and just keep messing around with stuff every week when there is nothing wrong with units and buildings as they are.

Interesting new model, hope it will be easier to see where the units enter and where they leave

edit: seems like it is, front and back look different

...except that you can easily stop any attack by t1 units by throwing up a x2 laser turret with two fabbers in 7-8 seconds.

Peregrines cost twice as much as a hummingbird, but almost 19 times the DPS (plus AOE), 7 times the health, and greater range than the hummingbird.

You think that is balanced?

For the most part i really do yes not saying its perfect but I am pretty happy with the current state of the game balance wise, and to be honest I haven't noticed that damage difference with the Peregrines cost compared to Hummingbird, perhaps haven't paid that dramatic close attention to every single unit in the entire game to notice, mainly focus on gameplay and having a good time. The proposed changes though are dramatic and could completely eliminate T1 units after awhile, which was absolutely no different to ALLLLLL the complaints everyone fking bitched about with adding experimentals into the game. This will do the same thing, just no one is going to use T1 units cept for the very early game. At the moment T1 and T2 are pretty much used universally evenly. That will change and I feel like its changing all the time because of a certain few who play serious competitive matches which is fine for those guys who do that, but the constant changes, do we really need it? The game feels its in a good place right now, why fk with it?

Perhaps I'm totally out of line and on my own on this one. Yes tweak stuff, but do we need to go down EVE-Onlines development where things get changed and rebalanced every other week because of a few that find some loop holes in a few units? if thats the case, Balancing will never be done! there will always be something that ppl will complain about when things like performance is a much higher priority in my opinion then unnecessary balance changes.

how is that different to how its changing now? with advanced fabs popping up turrets in even less time then that? don't quite get what you were sayin there.

Because you can shut down T1 units with T1 fabbers, which means there's little to no risk to rushing T2. This is why the 1v1 meta is all about booming.

Ok that's a fair point to a degree. but the way the game is, nothing is without risk because the games speed is fast, if you hang about too long you could quite easily get walked over with T2 whether you're playing AI or players so you'll always want T2 as fast as you can to give you that buffer.

Nope. In earlier patches you couldn't rush t2 without getting overrun if you were playing a good player. By the time you got to t2, they'd have the forces to wipe the floor with your corpse.

Not so anymore.

multiunit transports and orbital planecarriers ...
would add a lot flexibility to the game and lessen downtimeperiods imo ... also ferrysystem
yea i know bout the issue of implementing them ...

Yes, before it worked like any other RTS, they could risk teching early and try to deny you scouting. If you saw them doing it you could overrun them with your T1. Rush beats Boom and all that. Right now though a Boomer also has cheap turrets which shut down your T1, so the only counter is to Boom yourself.

Both of your suggestions are down the line implementations, as I know you know.

What do you suggest for in the meantime?

I vote for fighters that can move from planet to planet and/or anti-air satellites.

if planes were to only travel through orbital but not engaging in that layer i think i would be ok with it ... it would´t feel well though ...
as for aa satalites ..... ssssss i don´t realy know could be just work fine but i am just not sure
i don´t have anything else to add realy ...

I'd rather see the econ balance go in the opposite direction of this test; I think T1 eco should be buffed so it matters more, and T2 eco, while still being somewhat better, be brought closer to T1. I like the idea of it also having different risk/rewards, particularly T2 mex providing a decent HP buff but not such a massive output advantage, and T2 power being somewhat more fragile for its cost, or something. Still thinking on that one.

I'm also a huge proponent of the T2 specialization approach (nods at nanolathe), as waaaaay better unit replacement is the main other reason for hard T2 rush. Why bother with T1 when this cost effective T2 unit obliterates its T1 counterpart in every way? It seems the only time people tend to bother with T1 is when there is no time to do anything else, as was witnessed during the BotB tournament the other day on those tiny planets (which I thought was awesome).

Finally, I think T1 will be much better when there is more of a power curve available within the factories. For example, an ant is a good cheap basic tank, but then there is a slightly more expensive but somewhat differentiated better tank also available in T1. This allows you to escalate/mix units of the same type without needing to jump straight to T2.

Yep. Pretty much what I said here.

@Antiglow

droppod and even worse beaming are too exploitable for commsnipes

Sorry if this has been asked before:

Will the new teleporter model resolve the bug (Isuspect it is a pathing issue?) where your units get stuck at the horizon and you have to delete them? I've encountered this with T2 vehicles (Shellers and Pelters). It is very annoying when your invading force doesn't stream through and then your teleporter is shot down because nobody went through to defend it.

I think I can reproduce the bug and provide a screen if needed.

Edit: I just watched enough of the stream to hear Sorian say, that the units won't get stuck on the ramp of the new teleporter like they did on the old teleporter (at 17min).

Great!

then take my word for it, scathis. this new model for the gate makes my heart weep.