Light body rebalance proposal

[NoQ]

How about we make bug, leopard and retaliation easier to research? It won't do anything to heavy body domination, but it will make them usable on early game phases, spicing things up.

Here is a specific proposal:

• Bug requires only power module, Leopard requires only research module, Panther requires alloys mk3, Retribution requires exactly as much alloys/engines as necessary to get both Mantis and Tiger (mk4 each). Also make Leopard and Panther cheaper to research.

Playable mod:

• body-rebalance-0-1.wz

  For 3.1_rc2

  (12.14 KiB) Downloaded 387 times

This particular change may open up early research-module first leopard body based strategies, and it may also slightly help countering early flamers with high-thermal-armor bug bodies.

[tmp500]

interesting... ill give it a try this evening and let u know....

[Iluvalar]

The green bodies were sort of balanced in the 2.3.8 balance change by me. The leopard will probably be OP like this.

But I agree with the overall idea to make bodies usable sooner in the game. So start at T1 no base will have more choice of bodies.

[Reg312]

sounds interesting, but i dont like this

1) again balance touch only very early game (why balancers care only about early games stages in low-oil matches)
2) bug will become OP body in high-oil matches
(bug can be built very fast)
3) panther body now is best body for vtol propulsion, and making panthers to appear earlier vtol will be stonger (it is not problem)
4) flamers also will be stronger because they very effective against small bodies
(and flamers too strong already)
5) again balance does not touch many problems
- speed\engine formulas (these formulas work just wrong and too complex)
- accuracy formulas

so i think some things should be changed in complex, balance cannot be better if we just change some bodies
i agreed with overall idea as Iluvalar said

[NoQ]

Iluvalar: Probably ok to decrease leopard stats a little; its stats seem to be more or less proportional to cobra, apart from the size change (which boosts fire density and decreases enemy accuracy) and no need of factory modules, balanced by more dead tanks at the end. I agree that cobras should be still a bit better. Anyway, i have never seen leopards in any mp game so far, so i don't see how exactly they are currently balanced; probably just underused, but it still feels weird to me.

Reg312: Agreed on #3, needinfo on #2 (never found it effective, even though seen it used many times), objection on #1 and #5 (we are adressing a particular issue, the fact that we don't fix other issues is totally unrelated; a "grand fix of everything" is much harder to evaluate and to agree upon), totally disagree on #4 (you are not forced to use light bodies, but an extra choice against flamers before cobras is effective; if you are talking about ffa matches where you can fail to scout certain players' flamers, then it's not a problem either because hardly anybody uses much light bodies in such matches anyway).

[kracker]

If you haven't changed the stats for Leopard, it will be VERY op.

EDIT: Then again, looking at the stats... I don't know. I'll have to try it out

[Iluvalar]

Slightly OP

NoQ : I remember, I made the change evenly to all green bodies. This mean the heavy bodies still dominate the light. That's why you never see leopard, instead if you play against me (tracked AG leopards are just nice enough )

[Reg312]

needinfo on #2 (never found it effective, even though seen it used many times)

you can simply compare build points of bug and viper
bug.BuidPoints - 100
viper.BuildPoints - 150

bug TMG htrack - 14 s
viper TMG htrack - 19 s

bug flamer htrack - 18 s
viper flamer htrack - 23 s

bug HMG htrack - 21 s
viper HMG htrack - 25 s

as we know from Iluvalar lectures: 20% more unit provide % of power much more than 20%
in my experience even with current research paths bug body is quite effective in high-oil matches

totally disagree on #4

logic is simple
1) making light bodies appear earlier => light bodies become stronger (do you agreed?)
2) flamers/inferno much more effective against light bodies (do you agreed?)
3) => flamers become more valuable in game

but an extra choice against flamers before cobras is effective

you have not any choice here!
all light bodies more vulnerable to flamers than cobra (exept retaliation of course)
and that choice you gave to all players, so flamer player also has this choice

flamer player can simply make flamers and cover all situation that was before that patch plus early light bodies

"grand fix of everything" is much harder to evaluate and to agree upon

some issues should be fixed first.. i mean "core" issues like accuracy/speed formulas

[NoQ]

you have not any choice here!

Emm lolwhat?
Changing from "viper only" to "viper or bug" is what you call "not any choice"?
Lets discuss this first.

[Reg312]

Anyway, i have never seen leopards in any mp game so far, so i don't see how exactly they are currently balanced; probably just underused, but it still feels weird to me.

leopard tanks are VERY SLOW

just check speed of leopard designs like
leopard HMG htracks - speed : off-road speed 0.86 even with all engine upgrades researched

as i said earlier, speed formulas need correction
(suspecting) Green bodies do not receive 50% speed bonus with many turrets on them..
So is not neccesary to change anythin with leopard stats

[Reg312]

you have not any choice here!

Emm lolwhat?
Changing from "viper only" to "viper or bug" is what you call "not any choice"?
Lets discuss this first.

size and HP factor of cobra body is better to deal with flamers comparing to bug

if you compare thermal armor of bug and viper you can see bug as thermal-resistant body.. but it is not true
bug body cant be used as anti-flamer tank at all

lets do calculation

flamer have 49 damage (with 3 first damage updagres) and with propulsion modifier you receive 100% from flamer to htracks
so additional 4 thermal armor is equal nothing
bug have additional thermal armor, but also bug have less HP
even in first stage of game when flamers have 28 damage
damage to viper - 24
damage to bug - 20

so bugs 20% more resistant to flamers in first 1-2 minutes (And bug have 10% less HP)
after first flamer damage upgrades bug body become equal to viper (8% more resistant to flamers but has 10% less HP)

in high-oil matches: masses of bug bodies is also best target for area-damage from flamers

(i tried use bugs against flamers in competiteve games)

[NoQ]

size and HP factor of cobra body is better to deal with flamers comparing to bug

Cobra is not before cobra.
Start reading things already.
I specially put the words "before cobra" in italic, and you still compare bugs with cobras that are not even researched yet.

[Reg312]

size and HP factor of cobra body is better to deal with flamers comparing to bug

Cobra is not before cobra.
Start reading things already.
I specially put the words "before cobra" in italic, and you still compare bugs with cobras that are not even researched yet.

if you read below you will see comparing viper vs bug


small addition:
in case with cyborg flamers you can see bug body as good and thermal resistant
22 damage vs 8 armor (flamer without upgrades), viper get 30% more damage
38 damage vs 8 armor (flamer with first 3 upgrades), viper get 13% more damage

--------
viper
- receive more damage (from 30% to ~10% on later stages)
- 10% more HP
viper with mini-rockets have 15% more HP than bug
- more expensive (~7-15%, depending on weapon)

colclusion: bug better than viper to deal with flamers/ game stage: before cobra get researched
flamer upgrades can be researched very fast, so bug cannot be better more than 10%
so my calculation says after fight with flamers amy of bug keep 10% more hp than army of vipers
cannons become a bit better this way (bug with cannon have only 7% less hp than with viper)

so in first game stage you can nerf flamers a bit with bug body.

[NoQ]

1. You are forgetting that cyborg flamers deal less damage.
2. Ever wondered why incendiary damage causes more damage than regular damage total even with 100% weapon modifiers? Do you know how much exactly it is affected by the thermal armor?

Just saw that a repair viper hts dies after two simultaneous flamer (+three upgrades) shots, while repair bug ht survives easily. Which means bugs are 50% more effective in this particular situation.

[Reg312]

1. You are forgetting that cyborg flamers deal less damage.
2. Ever wondered why incendiary damage causes more damage than regular damage total even with 100% weapon modifiers? Do you know how much exactly it is affected by the thermal armor?

Just saw that a repair viper hts dies after two simultaneous flamer (+three upgrades) shots, while repair bug ht survives easily. Which means bugs are 50% more effective in this particular situation.

1) i've added more text above
2) its wrong test, because flamer can burn up unit
there is 2 situations
- flamer attacked tank with damage but did not burned it up
- flamer attacked tank with damage and burned it up
pause between 1st and 2nd shots also have value..

to make clean test you have to set accuracy to 100 and incendiary area to 256 to flamer turret and repeat test