railgen wrote:True:
It will help out players, who don't put that much effort into games and it might be fine for ordinary warzone maps.
That makes it justified somehow as wz does not really support ntw type maps, I think.
I think you are under the impression this change is dumbing down the game and makes the unit handling require less strategy but I don't think that's true. This change is not removing functionality or strategy, it makes it easier to control units. Assigning artillery units to sensor might seem like it requires good unit handling skills but I think it makes unit handling unnecessarily complicated and convoluted for no good reason.
If I want to move my artillery units then they automatically become un-assigned to sensor when moving them and then I need to re-assign. Also I cannot assign to regular sensor and CB sensor at the same time. It's better to just have artillery droids use sensor without needing to be assigned to them.
The new change makes it easier for better players to more easily control their artillery units. It will make game play more enjoyable.
MIH-XTC wrote:I think this is very good as long as it applies only to sensor droids and not other structures such as an oil derrick. Including sensor towers?
No not including sensor towers. If all structures can cause artillery to fire simply because opponent is within visible range, this means the only difference between sensor towers and other structures is that sensor tower has more visible range but implies that all structures essentially act as a sensor tower. I think that's bad.
But mortars were never a problem? This update applies mostly on wide range weapons with wide explosions - Ripple, as example, is very rarely a good choice.
Mortars are hardly ever used on tanks and as a result they cannot be used as alternatives to mg, rocket and cannon but now they can be with auto-assignment to sensors. That's what makes this change good, we just need to recalibrate the build time.
MIH-XTC wrote:I know you are concerned about armies of mortars or artillery becoming too powerful or unstoppable in larger quantities as a result of this change but the solution for that is very easy. We simply increase the build time of artillery turrets.
Under new sensor functionality, I would guess maybe a 25% increase in build times. I don't have time to test now to get exact numbers but it's no problem to rebalance artillery as a result of this improved functionality.
But what makes you think that would solve the problem? What you do is making it worse in low oil game but not that much in flat long high oil.
You can't put low, mid and high all in one balance mod. You will always outbalance yourself when you don't modify the actual game physics and AI.
This is a big misconception. It is very easy to change low oil balance without affecting high oil balance.
For example, if we increase build time for mortar from 500 to 5000 then mortar becomes absolutely worthless regardless of sensor behavior because it will take 2 minutes for each mortar tank. If we change it from 500 - 800 then it will take longer to get 20 - 25 mortar tanks and in that same amount of time opponent could have more rocket/cannon so now it's balanced again but with better unit control behavior.
Hopefully this makes sense.
We just need to calibrate the build timse so that 20 - 25 mortars under new behavior is balance with the amount of rockets/cannons needed to overcome mortar. The same goes for any other artillery unit.
If a unit is overpowered then adjusting build time simply means you reduce their effectiveness by reducing their quantity. Adjusting the build time and build power is the only rebalancing solution without affecting other balance variables.
The 25% won't change much after all, since there is no direct anti indirect weapon what will make it easy to stack up that units.
25% was just an estimate to illustrate the solution of increasing build times.
This is one of the reasons why engine upgrades need to make units progressively faster. The only reason groundshaker tanks win in current high oil balance is because units move too slow to get close enough, not because of splash damage. Rocket or flamer should be counter to mortar droids since they are supposed to move faster than mg and cannon
And don't forget that AI is always improvable. I could give you many ideas how you could ease a lot of things.
feel free to share your ideas. I know what it's like to have many ideas but just need to organize them for communication purposes.
Would be nice if you could show a multiplayer beta game so we can see a bit about the balance.
Currently you won't find regular games opened.
From a stats/balance perspective, not very much has seemingly changed. One change that I think needs to be reverted in 3.2 are the factory upgrade modifiers. Beforehand factory upgrades went 30, 120, 210, 270 but now they go 30, 60, 90, 120 meaning units produce slower in middle - late game. However, I don't think this was intentional. It turned out like this because the factory upgrades only use upgrades 1, 4, 7 and 9 but both 3.1 and 3.2 have the same incremental modifier (30).