Stream in about 1 hour: Balance games w/ Community

My fix to the experimental balance is the same as most others, reduce t2 mex output so going tier 2 doesn't mean very quick eco dominance (my vague impression would be that t2 mex outputting 21-28 metal per second with a cost of 3000 metal would be ok). Assuming that gets fixed, the experimental build has some interesting characteristics:

• Focusing fully on tier 1 will likely energy stall
• Focusing fully on tier 2 will likely metal stall
• Until you enter late-game (where you should have economy up the wazoo, and have been able to specialise the economy to suit your playstyle), this encourages a balanced build involving tier 1 and tier 2
• Tier 1 starts off more important (as it's all you have), and ends more important (as mex points are limited, eventually limiting tier 2 expansion). Tier 1 expansion can continue much longer because it's more limited by energy, which you can spam out until the end of time
• If you know that the strategy of your opponent involves more use of one tier than the other, you can target the specific economy they are more in need of

I can't emphasise enough how interesting this approach is from a gameplay perspective. Think about it.

Lets compare infernos vs vanguards in their current experimental form. I'll list advantages each has over the other.

Inferno advantages

• You can build 12 infernos for the metal cost of one vanguard
• 12 infernos can be split into multiple groups at once
• The combined health of 12 infernos is 9000, one vanguard only has 5000
• As infernos have 9/5 the health to metal ratio of vanguards, combat fabbers heal more health per second for the same cost
• Can be built in tier 1
• More spread out DPS, perhaps better at general base assaults

Vanguard advantages

• You can only build 3 infernos for the energy cost of one vanguard
• The uber canon is not a one-shot-kill
• The vanguard has radar
• The vanguard has some splash damage
• Concentrated DPS, perhaps better at taking out high-value targets
• Easier to micro as there's less units to micro
• Transport drops are cheaper, as you need less transports

So which is better?

Add to Vanguards advantages : they don't get one shotted by an uber cannon.

It's already in baby, already in

Oh right. I exactly missed that line.

Yes, but the stats of a unit do not say it all. How it performs on the battlefield has the last word.

About Infernos and Vanguards, infernos do not deal as much damage as vanguards. We've seen it on the latest LiveStream, Turrets were able to shot down Infernos before they could get in range (even with combat fabbers to back up). But one single Vanguards vaporized the Commander. And that's a huge practical difference. You add also some special capabilities like a modest radar coverage. And Vanguards totally invalidates Infernos.

The same applies for other direct upgraded units. Actually it's almost unavoidable that one invalidates the other, since they're so similar in role and scope.

I would be happier to see more differentiations among units so that invalidation does need to happen.

ps. About Combat fabbers, once they're shot down, Infernos have really not a chance against Turrets.

The metal avalanche is one of my concerns, I don't voice that enough because everyone else is voicing that and I am trying to keep the mental fabrics of the community from causing a mass cluster of grown men curled up upon the ground crying and sobbing.

Because of that, I also voice more often that at least t2 got a relative nerf, higher costs for not-as-higher ecoboost, and t1 got a huge relative cost buff (cheap as crud off a t2 eco).

The fact is, I too think this build is actually great, but I list my suggestions to perfect it in my opinion:

-Dox and grenadier seperate
-Peregrine given a new role, plenty available to choose one
-t2 mex either doesn't stack and replaces instead and grants 2x t1 eco or less, t1 eco boosted slightly, t2 cost boosted slightly more than even the test build (for a t2 fact and nuke at least, sxx can go down a wee bit), OR
-t2 mex is more visible that it overlaps t1 where you can see both or the absense of 1 very clearly, and then t2 mex gives same metal as t1 mex, with same costs described above
-combat fabbers are made slightly more efficient than structural fabbers, so players use them in assistance, but not so unbelievably efficient that they break factories, meaning factories get an efficiency boost, then combat fabbers and regular fabbers get a build cost increase, then add 2 sec to factory rolloff time, then add nuke start-build time, with the nuke cost increase also increase launcher efficiency and let that make fabbers seem to assist half their former speed and be capped by limited economy.
-develop more orbital
-make unit cannon into some sort of artillery that fires units or something if at all possible, rename t1 tank to ant.
-speed up or make some faster naval (ammendum)
-other unit roles developed

A large group of infernos has different things it is good at compared to a small group of vanguards. Different advantages leads to different conclusions, depending on the situation and the criteria you wish to use for comparison. As I've already said. Vanguards do not invalidate infernos in all use-cases, things are not as black and white as you argue.

If you want to construct a theoretically optimal 'assaulting a turret' scenario using infernos and/or vanguards, maybe you'd pick using both at once. Infernos with combat fabbers to tank the damage better (better than vanguard + combat fabbers), with vanguards behind to deal the concentrated DPS to take the turret down quickly once the units get there.

The stats don't say it all, did I say that? I used statistics and thought about the implications, based on experience with the patches we have access to, and the evidence displayed to us in the stream.

I thought about it.

I've just been railroaded me into having to play the game a particular way. In this case, balancing a build involving tier 1 and tier 2.

There is absolutely no difference between that and what we have now, except I've shifted which track I'm shunted onto.

Stop comparing it unit to unit, start comparing it metal to metal.

Turrets will NOT shoot down 9000 hp worth of infernos faster than 5000 hp worth of vanguards. Learn to maths.

Hmm... I wonder if he has me on his ignore list. ..

No, I do not ignore you

But for me all the numbers are dry, I'm more interested to see what we can actually do on the field, 'cos there is where things happen.

In fact, things on the battlefield could go quite differently from what we could expect just evaluating stats. There are too many factors in play, and they all play synergistically (does this word exist?). Of course we use numbers to make a first evaluation, and to balance things, but the last word is told in game.

Have you read Blink? That book can really help in understanding why stats often do not give us the whole picture. It is a marvelous reading.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blink:_The_Power_of_Thinking_Without_Thinking

The very link you posted has criticisms of that book, which suggest that subconscious assessments as proposed by Gladwell should be combined with rational and evidence based critical analysis.
I would agree with this sentiment. Fine, use an "instinct" to initially assess something, but follow that up with thorough research and thought to confirm this.

For example: "Gladwell often speaks of the importance of holism to unconscious intelligence, meaning that it considers the situation as a whole. At the same time, he stresses that unconscious intelligence relies on finding simple underlying patterns. However, only when a situation is overwhelmingly determined by one or a few interacting factors is holism consistent with simple underlying signatures. In many situations, holism and simple underlying signatures pull in different directions."

I think I'm going to pick it up, sounds like what I've been missing this whole time, thanks !

That's true, but in most cases a "mathematical model" of the game situation is pretty much the same as you experience in game, because stuff like friction doesn't exist.

I do get where you're coming from. But the system isn't so complicated that you can't look at 2700hp worth of Infernos, and then look at 2700hp worth of Vanguard, and see which performs better against a single laser turret from that comparison.

The last word is told in game. But I'm still to reject a hypothesis because the game situation does not match my prediction.