Rebalance 2.3.5

[Germanium]

OK,

spoken to Zarel and probably need to clarify my post.

I have nothing against minor tweaks/balancing things, like the HMG/Flamer change, the increase to avenger/vindicator, etc.. Still the difference to what i was talking about is that these are in my opinion minor changes compared to integrating a new AA.

After the discussion with Zarel i think we agree on the point that newbies or non-multi players might need the help of a obvious choice of AA. While i think hurricane -> Whirlwind was obvious enough. - About the game against Wisler: fully upgraded Whirlwinds are fine to beat off any VTOLs in my experience (by a lot of games against Platy and Francesco). Anyways, we also disagree about the invention of a new AA weapon. While i can see the reason for integrating a new AA weapon for T2 i dont see the reason it should be more or less completely costless (research wise). If there is a new AA weapon on that tech level that is getting all its upgrades from technology researched anyways (either cannons or lancers), it makes all other AA completely obsolete. And with RC2 so it were.

Since i was not able to test RC3 so far, it remains to be seen if the damage/price adjustments will help.

Also, the post was not about "Zarel did a bad job". The main message was "Zarel did a good job so far, but i am very concerned about the current new AA techs".

I guess i will do another post after RC3 testing for more feedback.

[Wisler]

well just played a high oil game on it with all pretty expereienced players, they made a few of the sunburst sites and it made early vtol weapons such as phospor and heap almost useless but didnt effect the balance end game.

[Zarel]

High oil is high oil, I'd theoretically like it to be balanced, but it's difficult to balance when one of the intended bottlenecks (namely, price) become not a bottleneck anymore.

[Wisler]

well it hasnt screwed the balance up as much as i thought it would have, but i still think it was better before.

[Zarel]

Just wait for RC3...

[stiv]

It would be nice if rebalancing could be done as a mod so we could easily compare before and after.

[Germanium]

Ok, so far i agree with Wisler about the Sunburst AA. Its is not totally debalancing the game. The Flak AA is a different story - even in RC3 - but i already learned that further adjustments are on its way, viewtopic.php?p=69052#p69052. So it might get the effect of the weapon balanced but i will keep complaining about the research costs (which are nothing compared to Whirlwind and co.).
I mean, the noobs will see this AA and get it and even the upgrades for nothing - they dont have to think about it... they are either doing Cannon line or Lancer line and so they dont have to know anything about research. I mean even if you like to get Hyper Velocity Cannon or Tank killer you need to know the requirements normally (unless you just click on something in the hope to get it somehow). And maybe Whirlwind upgrades were a little too complicated to be remembered by the average wz player but doing no research at all?
I can maybe add the experience of a FFA game on squared with truckspin and wisler and darkside... I was able to do AA (only sunburst unfortunately), but also ground shaker AND Scourge/Archangle without big compromises in _perfect_ research time. (i only skipped the heavy rocket bastion which i normally do). Even for Sat and Striker i was just 5 min late (compared to optimal time). I dont know... maybe it is intended to be that way, but i loved the hard decisions i had to make before that. Because back then i had to have at least one - sometimes two - labs running for AA.
Just my thought

[Project]

Anything been done with the mini rockets and mini rocket artillery? They are both trash even when you first get them. Also flamers suck as well. MGs are much better.