Introducing a new Dev

I have been forum lurking for a month or so now and thought it was time to reveal my presence. My primary responsibility on the PA project is balance issues. I will be working closely with Neutrino to ensure his design vision survives, and with Scathis and Garet to ensure number balance and unit choices allow interesting and diverse game play options to emerge.

While they each have other duties on PA as well as balance, my only duties are to help create the most balanced and fun to play RTS the galaxy has every experienced. Also, any opinions I express on the forums are just MY opinions and not necessarily the PA team as a whole. There are lots of other minds and opinions here at Uber that ultimately influence final state of the game. In the end Neutrino has final say, so its not my fault

With Beta right around the corner and balance not being a primary focus during Alpha we need to get things into shape. Units won't be balanced for Beta launch, but I do want them a little closer then they are now. Remember all those posts saying "This is alpha, balance will come later" well, later starts now.

Currently I am compiling a list of major balance concerns that I think should be addressed for the release of beta. This will be a high level concern list, not "ants have 125 health, I think it needs to be 135".

So this is your permission to scream about balance, just remember balancing a game is a never ending iterative process where every change affects many systems and all changes take time to see their full effect on the game as a whole.

Increase air hp and AA damage to make them viable against ground too (in a lesser capacity) and buff anti-nukes, nerf the catapult and...

... breaths in deep.

Well... you did gave permission to scream.

To be serious, I bid you welcome and am looking forward to your work. Since you allready lurked in this forum, I guess I don't have to warn you from us unruly lot.

So, good luck.


Curious though, being responsible for balance, does that qualify you for hazard pay?

Welcome! Glad to see someone dedicated to this! I wonder if artillery needs a larger blast radius or better accuracy as I don't see it used extensively for that reason, I think.

I am an avid TA fan and since this game takes after it I think there should be quite a few balance issues.

1. Make defenses easier to build early game like light lasers and walls. Walls need to be spam able early game or the enemy commander can just blitz you and cause a double suicide. Just make it so you can hold shift and everywhere the mouse moves a wall is built. I played a bit of empire earth and the idea makes building a base bearable.

2. Tone down early game spamming for more strategic plays. No one likes the idea in the first five minutes it's easier to make an army of ants then to build a fortified base.

3. Make all the units smaller. A planet is gigantic and it is currently way to easy to get to the enemy base because units are ridiculously enormous.

4. Air is OP and there needs to be a tech 2 anti air that turns it into powder. In TA you had to launch a ground assault and destroy the enemy anti air before you could even think of doing an air raid. In all honestly it doesn't make any sense why air is so OP. Air should be helpless unless you take out the anti air.

5. I'm not sure if a krogoth like unit will be implemented but if you do it would need to be an army killer and take half the game to make otherwise it's not worth it.

6. Naval attack range should be nerfed and more underwater metal veins need to be implemented.

7. There needs to be some counter to artillery like some laser system that shoots the shells down. Game quickly becomes all about artillery spam.

8. Nukes need more power.

9. Commander explosions are under powered and should stack with the other commanders death explosion if used for suicide. In TA they took out the entire enemy base and the commander.

10. Commanders should have a stealth option like in TA and decoy commanders should be implemented.

welcome to thunderdome! er...ahem..i mean the Forums!

nearly all of your suggestions improve turtling strategies, which I dont like, and probably lots of other players It will get very hard to differentiate between real balance issues, and balance preferences for single players^^

What I'm suggesting will fix the balance issues currently present even if it results in more players turtling. Just because someone turtles does not make it a bad thing. A real strategist could find weak points in the enemy base and use specific units to destroy the enemy base.

For example I could lay siege to an enemy turtling and gather resources to launch a large offense and destroy the turtle in one sweep.

Ya got some gusto to reveal yourself and task, especially with a community like this! ;p Here's to Standing strong in times of turmoil!

Mike

This is where I would start too.

Commanders primary weapon is much too strong. If bases are close enough, you need to use your commander or they use theirs and you lose. A stronger com explosion as mentioned above however would fix this.

Veh fabbers are only good for building t2 veh factories. , more expensive and have less hp than bot fabbers.

Tanks sniping air needs to stop.

Best of luck with everything, I'm sure you won't be pleasing everyone.

Off the top of my head,

Ground AA units aren't good enough at stopping air.

Need static T2 AA or some way to counter mid-late game air that isn't mass t1 fighters - maybe t2 fighters:

T2 air fighters are useless compared to t1 fighters.

Commander is very weak to tanks. Imo the commander should have health regen.

Engineers infinite repair range on commander glitch.

Infinite range build/repair on engineers still on the factory ramp.

Bots are very, very weak to tanks now.

Levellers complete outclass ants.

And something needs to be done with walls...maybe, I don't know but building them is still frowned upon.

Dear god please no

I saw a topic somewhere about teir 2 bombers being carpet bombers instead of powerful single hit bombers. I agree, I think that would be a good idea. It would make Air a viable option against large masses of ground units. And it would make players think about using aircraft along side ground units. (and actually build ground AA units)

ALSO, super cereal balance issue. The AA tanks need a new model.... it needs to look...more....menacing or...imposing. Seriously visually under-powered. How can people expect it to deter aircraft when it has no physiological impact.

He has a point. Currently laser defenses are very hard to build in the early game making quick expansion impossible if your enemy is a capable raider. And early game spamming gets up to ridiculous levels. Toning down =/= removal. Walls should be click-draggable but need a lot of nerfing so they become less effective than they are now.

Balancing while not even the individual unit AI is functional

Not even to mention the lack of elementary features like the whole orbital layer and interplanetary interactions. Good luck, thats all I can say. But I doubt that balancing is actually possible right now as the fundamental mechanics are yet incomplete.

I think T1 vs. T2 fighters should probably change. Right now, you can build something like 8 T1 fighters for the cost of 2 T2 fighters, and since both only attack air, there is no purpose to having T2 fighters. But this shouldn't be reversed either.

Instead, make it so T1 fighters OR T2 fighters can also attack ground poorly, so their roles are not exactly the same. For example, have a Fighter-Bomber that can be built which is useful, but not great, at both roles.

Each unit should serve a totally different purpose. Quite frankly, I think the same change should be affected to T1 vs T2 Bombers. Why should we have one simply better than another? Instead, make it so one of them is an area of effect with weak damage, and the other is powerful damage but against only a single unit.

Can we get the ability for tanks to shoot air removed? It doesnt make sense. Bombers should be a good way for countering tanks, but currently tanks have the ability to shoot down air even though we already have a dedicated vehicle aa.

The problem is air have too much health and AA is stupidly underpowered. Now think for a moment. An aircraft is fragile and built for flying. Any anti air should destroy it in less then three seconds. Air should only be used after the ground units have destroyed Anti air allowing for an air raid that can potentially destroy the enemy army.

If the air forces have any health then you throw real strategy out the window. Air is supposed to be glass cannons. All you need to do to fix this is make stealth bombers, reduce health and lower the chances of hitting specific aircraft.

I am not really arguing for more health, I am arguing for different roles. I agree they should be shot down relatively easily, but having different fighter-bomber or area of effect type roles doesn't prevent that, I believe.

I agree. We really need about 4 more units of every type right now with different roles to play for specific strategies. Say specific bombers for different tasks. Carpet bombers for armies and one strike bomber for buildings. Or naval carriers that can act like mobile airbases.

Yeah it needs to be removed or seriously nerfed. AA vehicles are completely unnecessary currently.