How could YOU make this game any worse!

[DS_Vespidbat]

With balance im fed up. It doesnt take 5 patches to get balance right. With the fun element im disappointed. Corvs and tarts were fun in tier 1 . only having them at tier 2 is no fun since tarts become useless.

 

And why are people saying "new strategies" with 1.05. . The Tier 2 in EaW is exactly the same as tier 2 in 1.03 and 1.04. Only difference now is that Tier 1 is so ridiculously boring to play out, that people move up a tier.

 

ya, for me there is no "new" strategies. You really cant do anything with fighters, u cant control what they do in dogfights. Only strat that i know for tier 1 is bombing rush, yay a nice slow death for ur SS >_<.

[Rust_Lord]

And why are people saying "new strategies" with 1.05 .

 

Who in their right mind is saying this? I would like to know so I can slap some sense into them. There is actually now less strategy since at tech 1 your options are more limited. I guess this is not the same as having "new strategies" but if they think spawning the most number of fighters or rushing to the turrets are strategies then you know exactly the type of person your dealing with. And so much for gameplay at tech 1 anyway; pretty much every half decent player I know, and AI at medium or hard, will start researching tech 2 as their first action.

[Executor1608]

Who in their right mind is saying this? I would like to know so I can slap some sense into them. There is actually now less strategy since at tech 1 your options are more limited. I guess this is not the same as having "new strategies" but if they think spawning the most number of fighters or rushing to the turrets are strategies then you know exactly the type of person your dealing with. And so much for gameplay at tech 1 anyway; pretty much every half decent player I know, and AI at medium or hard, will start researching tech 2 as their first action.

 

 

Lol yea the only "new strategy" I can do is... *pauses*... mass fighter army swarm

 

/sarcasm off

 

Anyways yea I had more strategy with my Tartans kicking the stuff out of X-wings hehe

 

If tie fighters actually had strategic movements while dogfighting or something like that, then just maybe there would be new strategy.

[Delphi-PG]

It’s easy to see how the new patch would throw the Vette rushers strategy off. I see those guys floundering in 1vs1 quick match like a fish out of water now. It was a fundamental flaw in the design for the game to be shut down at tech level 1, and we apologize for that.

 

With patch 1.05, we’ve given players a chance to stay in the game longer. Heck for the first time in a 1vs1 I had at least 50% of my games this weekend (40) go beyond tech 3. That’s a huge improvement in my opinion.

 

Keep in mind these changes came from our hands on observations playing the game online 1vs1 and team (mostly 1vs1). You could say 1.05 balance research easily equated to over 700 games played by the Petro team. These changes weren’t made lightly, but were necessary.

 

The new updates will take time to get used, especially for those used to “only” the vette rush strategy. These changes have also been made to the expansion, but in Forces of Corruption we are looking at beefing up fighters, moving Victories and MK II’s too tech 3 as well as adding in some more interesting battlefield items that can be captured and controlled.

 

Thanks for the feedback I do greatly enjoy playing online with you all.

[gswift]

These changes have also been made to the expansion, but in Forces of Corruption we are looking at beefing up fighters, moving Victories and MK II’s too tech 3 as well as adding in some more interesting battlefield items that can be captured and controlled.

 

Awesome. That's what this game needs. It's good now, but if it's going to get better, that's the way. More choices mean more strategy, and that's a good thing. When the corvettes were moved to the next tech, I knew it was because of the new fighters that are coming. The only complaint i have is that the release date isn't sooner.

[P5yNerGy|TFL]

Ok , take Red Alert..something PG knows alot about

 

.Ok now use your imagination... Red Alert Heavy Tanks which people loved to use. Grab a War Factory , spam some tanks and have some really fun micro with them. Now imagine Noobs complained that they could not tech up to the Tanya and Mammoth Tank because expert players would use Heavy Tanks with skilled micro to kill their refineries and stuff whilst the noob spends all his money on the tech center and power stations. They complain to PG that 1v1 is flawed because they cant get their high tech stuff vs expert players.

 

PG responds by making the Warfactory only available after you get the tech centre. No more early heavy tank spams that were fun. Only thing you can do now is tech up with the tech centre and once that happens you dont build heavy tanks anyway since you already have mamoth tanks.Those noobs are happy now , because the expert can no longer use the "skillful" units to beat him before he gets his beloved mamoth and tanya. Infantry spams cant really do much in the early game and are pretty boring, so both parties have to make tech centers. Because its a mammoth fest, there isnt really much skill. Those tanks move too slow to be considered "microable" ,and it just a case of bash the armies together.

 

PG happy that the expert community is apparently "floundering" in the water because every skillful thing they learnt in redalert is out of the window.

 

This is exactly whats happened to EaW.

[Apocalypse|TFL]

This is nothing to do with players 'floundering', Delphi. This is down to the sheer fact that space skirmish is ridiculously imbalanced. The way you replied is like you have read what we said about the game then said 'well it works for me so tough' I'm glad your happy with it but does it not occur to you that so many people are unhappy with it? After all, You haven't had to buy this game.

 

The way you got your information to make changes is heavily flawed. For a start you say observations influenced you and your team, if this was the case then surely you must have known the imbalances you were putting into the game? Expert vs Expert = Rebellion win EVERYTIME.

 

I showed you myself how the vette owned the acc and you actually agreed it needed changing but there has been no change, so again I ask you, who have you listened to? Cos in my opinion it wasnt someone who knew what they were talking about.

[Delphi-PG]

 

I showed you myself how the vette owned the acc and you actually agreed it needed changing but there has been no change, so again I ask you, who have you listened to? Cos in my opinion it wasnt someone who knew what they were talking about.

 

Balance changes will come in increments. Are we done? No. There were other issues that needed addressing first. We expected some negativity, there always is with any patch that changes tactics. But we'll keep tweaking.

[Delphi-PG]

Red Alert Heavy Tanks which people loved to use. Grab a War Factory , spam some tanks and have some really fun micro with them. Now imagine Noobs complained that they could not tech up to the Tanya and Mammoth Tank because expert players would use Heavy Tanks with skilled micro to kill their refineries and stuff whilst the noob spends all his money on the tech center and power stations. They complain to PG that 1v1 is flawed because they cant get their high tech stuff vs expert players.

 

 

But you still had to build your warfactory, essentially making it a rush to the tech. There was more involved than just click and build tanks when the game started.

 

If EAW was built to be more like RA, some things would change. But it is not, so we have to improve the system we have designed over time.

 

Balance will come, from all the positive feedback we have received 1.05 was a step in the right direction.

[Apocalypse|TFL]

Balance changes will come in increments. Are we done? No. There were other issues that needed addressing first. We expected some negativity, there always is with any patch that changes tactics. But we'll keep tweaking.

 

 

I don't understand the logic behind this?

 

Balance changes will come in increments? - Why release a patch that heavily favours just 1 side, or even why release a patch that isn't finished? (I assume thats what you mean by this)

 

Delphi, please understand this, I'm not attacking the patch just because it has changed tactics - it has nothing to do with changing tactics. If the game was altered so the vette rush wasn't the best tactic BUT the game was still balanced then I would have welcomed it with open arms, as I expect others would. Even before the patch was released, it was so obvious what was going to happen.

 

I have already apologised to Sageking over the harshness of this thread (although i'm not sure he got the message) and asked him to forward my apologies but my points still stand.

 

So again, you MUST have known the patch was heavily imbalanced so why release it if you have plans to make more tweaks?

[Delphi-PG]

I don't understand the logic behind this?

 

Balance changes will come in increments? - Why release a patch that heavily favours just 1 side, or even why release a patch that isn't finished? (I assume thats what you mean by this)

 

Delphi, please understand this, I'm not attacking the patch just because it has changed tactics - it has nothing to do with changing tactics. If the game was altered so the vette rush wasn't the best tactic BUT the game was still balanced then I would have welcomed it with open arms, as I expect others would. Even before the patch was released, it was so obvious what was going to happen.

 

I have already apologised to Sageking over the harshness of this thread (although i'm not sure he got the message) and asked him to forward my apologies but my points still stand.

 

So again, you MUST have known the patch was heavily imbalanced so why release it if you have plans to make more tweaks?

 

 

Feel free to throw out some balance examples. Minus the issue noted above. Also, please factor in costs, fighters spawned, etc. Keep in mind the game won't be balanced to be vanilla (X-wings and Ties do the exact same thing and cost the same).

 

Thanks!

[ImpElite]

Feel free to throw out some balance examples. Minus the issue noted above. Also, please factor in costs, fighters spawned, etc. Keep in mind the game won't be balanced to be vanilla (X-wings and Ties do the exact same thing and cost the same).

 

Thanks!

 

Remove the X-wing "lock S-foils" ability and boom you have a mostly balanced space skirmish.

[Apocalypse|TFL]

X-Wings and Tie fighters do NOT do the exact same thing, your forgetting the speed difference which is quite an advantage

 

Tech 1.

 

X-Wing owns a Tie-Fighter in a straight fight, never seen otherwise. X-Wing with lock S-Foils will get to mines and Turrets long before a Tie-Fighter will get there meaning that by the time a Tie-Fighter does get there it will have to face a turret that will rip it to shreds. Sure you say Tie's build faster but the speed boost for the X-Wing getting to the Turret nullifies this giving the Reb's a huge advantage in this tech.

 

Tech 2.

 

Rebs own outright in this tech. Vettes can handle Acclamators nicely (I have shown you this personally) while Neb B's will decimate Tartans. The only Advantage Empire wopuld have had here would have been the 2 bomber squads it holds, now it has just 1 and the vettes will wipe them out before they get chance to do any harm. In a Team game tech 1 will only last 60 seconds anyway as everyone will upgrade as soon as the game starts, especially Empire as the Tie-Fighters are worthless compared to the Rebellion counterpart. Once Tartans have been decimated the Neb B's will turn their attention towards the remaining Acc's and rip them apart bomber free.

 

Tech 3.

 

Pretty much a worthless Tech for Empire giving them an Interdictor which is pretty useless (It's missile jamming ability still doesn't work and it's gravwells area of effect too small to be of use). Then you have Darth Vader who is too slow to be of much use unless you have to take care of Solo, which coupled with Fett can be a help admittedly. Rebellion get the Gunship which is devastating in numbers but thankfully not used by the community much plus Antilles, a generally useful ship due to it's speed (Never found out if it's weapon power reducing ability worked though) Also, if I remember correctly the Rebellion also get the lovely Ion Cannon (quote me on that cos I'm not actually sure just thinking about it).

 

So a quick summary of Tech 3 units - Gunboats in numbers do huge damage cos they bypass shields and are also useful against fighters but not as good as the vettes, they also take a beating too from all ships including the Isd. Antilles is just right to be honest nothing wrong with this unit, fulfills his role perfectly as a hit and run unit. The Interdictor has to be the weakest ship in the game and the most useless and can't hold it's own to anything. Vader has his uses but is too slow for a tech 3 hero flying in a protype ship (just me nit picking there - Vader is fine if you know how to use him) The special weapons (again not sure if they are tech 3 or 4 ) are obviously different but the Ion Cannon is way more damaging than the Seige Cannon (is it the seige?) and unlike the Seige Cannon the Ion Cannon NEVER misses.

 

Tech 4.

 

In my opinion Rebs just push the Advantage here, I explain why in a moment but on with the ships. Rebs get the Assault frigate which will lose to a Vic 1v1 cos of the bomber squad but coupled with a vette will own a Vic everytime. This might just be me but the Vic seems to have less of a chance in surviving a fight than the Acc does. The Empire's ONLY advantage here is the Broadside cruiser which totally and without hesitation rips through Space Stations without effort and in only a matter of seconds but as I said before the Chances of you getting to tech 4 and getting enough Broadsides are slim if your in an Expert v Expert game. The Reb's Marauder's are the same but take longer to take down an SS due to the different shape of the Station.

 

So, Reb's just edge this cos by now they will certainly have the advantage and the better portion of Map control (If the game gets this far, again in an Expert v Expert situation)

 

Tech 5.

 

Rebs again dominate this tech. The Rebs get Home One and the Mon Cal cruisers, Home One itself isn't that big a problem to Empire as it's shields can be taken down permanently and it's concentrate abilty is only useful if you have enough ships on your side and near the target. The Mon Cals coupled with a vette or two will wipe out Isd's Everytime and anything else lower than an Isd hasn't much of a chance against this. The Isd is quite weak considering what it is and it's only real saving grace is the tractor beam which is only really usefull against vettes and solo. Piett is a good hero but Ultimately finds himself the target of an Ion cannon rendering him utterly useless. If Piett is around and you haven't got the means to stop him then he can be very dangerous so Empire gets a point here but in the End Rebs still have the advantage.

 

Then you have the pop cap which is 50/50 .. I can't make my mind up with it. On one hand you could say it's balanced cos Rebs have to buy their fighters while Empire get most for free, but on the other hand, after Tech 2 fighters become obsolete and Rebs get a huge advantage in pop cap when buying vettes/frigs/Mon Cals. Which is the lesser of the two evils, I wonder?

 

You still didn't answer my question 'Whats the point in releasing a patch if you haven't finished tweaking or like you kinda said, the patch is incomplete'

[ImpElite]

(Mostly agrees with Apocalypse)

[P5yNerGy|TFL]

Woah woah apoc....

 

Ok firstly Delphi , addressing the issue of Balancing. I have every faith that you guys will fail to balance the game , until you understand what I have to say.

 

Balancing MUST take into consideration , even totally base itself upon UNIT FUNCTION.

this is important and something ill take into heavy consideration when I beta-test two upcoming games.

 

Now lets take the imfamous 1.04 . The patch that wiped 80% of the top100 in the space ladder who now play other games.

 

Corvettes and Tartans. - Now someone who doesnt take into account unit function , one would see balance by clashing the two units together. No doubt 1v1 they are balanced in 1.04. You even told the RsH that, when they complained. However now lets take into account function. Corvs and tarts ARENT meant to fire on each other. THats a secondary function. Their function is to raid mines. they are RAIDERs . A corvs ability to raid a mine , is imbalanced vs a Tartans ability to raid a mine. The result is that the empire player Always eventually ends up with extra tartans because corvs are just too slow stopping the empires economy, or tartans kill the corv before the mine blows.

 

2 Xwings and 3 Ties - Now someone who doesnt take into account unit function , onw would see by clashing 3 ties and 2 xwings together..no doubt you will find that its balanced. However take unit function into account , and you find that Xwings and Ties dont fight each other..they are actually SEEKERS. They seek mines so that corvs can be dropped to raid them. 2 Seekers with locked coils seeking mines, is imbalanced vs 3 Seekers seeking mines. the 3 seekers can cover more mines.

 

A sad mistake i did once, was showing you delphi how 3 corvs can kill an acclam. The thing is..If I tried to take on an acclam with 3 corvs , I would have already consdiered myself lost. 3 corvs can be Raiding 3 mines. Whats the point of killing one acclam with 3 corvs if it means the enemy can otherwise rack up 5 credits worth of acclams. And another thing, is when we were arguing over the Unit function of acclams and nebs.and THAT you cannoth balance them By how they just "clash". I think this has made acclams have only one bomber..which is sad , since I considered an acclams primary function as a bomber carrier , rather then a battle frigate. Their secondary fucntion is to repel but not neccesrily be able to kill corvs.

 

So to summarise..if you guys have anychance of balancing the game ,bar making units totally identicle then you must take into account the unit function and balance that! Not balance just the unit firepower.

 

Balance the Tartan vs mine with Corv vs mine , The Coverage of a Tie with the coverage of Xwings. Tho this was all 1.03.

 

Now the fighters function is something abominable i cant even categorise. maybe a build, drag and drop spam function . Its function is spam...sigh.

 

Anyway..as for the whole issue of 1.03 , if I was a developer id make a setting that allowed for a 1.03 setting. Otherwise Id make fighters worth controlling. just a note for fighters..since everyone says they are crap ..the wrong thing to do is to overpower them , the correct thing to do is make them more controllable so players can make them better themselves. I know you guys were planning to "beef" fighters up in FoC..sigh .just think about it..

[SAGEKING-PG]

please format your recommendations here:

http://www.lucasforums.com/showthread.php?t=168137

[Rust_Lord]

This message is more to Delphi than everyone, but I think others would agree that while gamers appreciate PG trying to balance the game, gamers are frustrated at the number of patches it takes to get the game into balance. Should it really take this long? I mean we are not far off an expansion adn the game is still not balanced?

 

Alot of valid assessments have been made here, and yet again Apoc is on the money, though I must say Apoc when Delphi said the balance wont get to a point to be like vanilla he meant that Xwing and TiEs will never be completely equal or balanced, not that are balanced at present...and nor should they be.

 

Its obvious PG wanted to get rid of the vette rush but your going to get people looking for some kind of rush or quick and lethal tactic whatever changes are made. Vettes are suppossed to be anti-starfighter and i have always thought they are way too powerful for what they are and represent. Starfighters have no hope. Personally I despise the corvette rush. It is so unimaginative. A good game will depend on the willingness of the players to allow the game to grow rather than look for the quick victory. Bringing VSD and AF to tech 3 is a great idea.

 

***What I would really like to know from PG is how they assign ships and squadrons the value they are given? Is this just an arbitrary figure given in comparison to other ships? To try and balance the game by making Rebel and Empire ships at each tech as close to one another as possible will kill the game. From what Delphi has said this is not going to happen anyway. Therefore the only two ways to balance the game is to fiddle with ships stats or by assigning the correct value to each ship or squadron. Fiddling with ships stats will require changing the value of the ships anyway. Not to crap on too much about a mod I made but I used the stats from the Xwing flight sim series and used a formula to determine the values of ships. Obviously the more hit points and more weapons a ship has the more it costs. The hardest thign was assigning a value for special abilities, but with a little bit of play testing you can arive at a value fairly easily. It can't be any fairer than that. What players spend their income on is up to them; if both sides have a force worth 10,000 then its going to be pretty balanced. I will send the forumlas I used to the thread below just for info. I wouldnt recommend it if I didnt think it could fix the issue because I dont want to be downloading patch 1.99 for a tweak here and a there with the game still imbalanced. I think to base modifications of the game based on the word of the people that you currently have been is wrong and has to stop. Who knows who those people are; they may be crap at the game whatever mods are made. One of my friends play tested for a major games company and if it was done right the first time and they knew it was balanced, it was up to players to learn how to play not be spoon fed.

 

I must also say that accuracies of ships should be standardised. They vary wildly and are not very realistic. I assigned accuracies based on the weapon type and target not on race or ship type. It made accuracy balanced since both sides weapons were as equally effective.