TD balance thread

Discussion about the game and its default mods.
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AoAGeneral1
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Post by AoAGeneral1 »

No sarcasm was used. Points your missing:

If the Obelisk is moved to tier 2 it wont be used because people are saying the turret is a better use. Which means it wont be used still.

Discussions being made here is opted that it dies a bit quickly before its damage can be done. Suggesting that the damage should be increased.

From what I can see is the Obelisk needs a HP increase.

Im not entirely sure why your getting upset from a discussion thread when the points being made are circular reasoning.

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On note of the Humvee there are two mistakes I made with them:

the initial buff of 20 damage was incorrect and the community showed this.

The initial take to nerf its damage by 5 was also an incorrection shown by the community.

I suggest you take a walk around the block before throwing a tantrum about a valid discussion and the reasons behind why they wont work in the discussion above.

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AoAGeneral1
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Post by AoAGeneral1 »

The current is being worked on and being looked at for a fix:

APC weapon doing less damage vs infantry, tanks, and buildings.

Obelisk getting a HP increase.

The hard numbers:

APC vs none decreased from 35 to 30

APC vs wood decreased from 35 to 25

APC vs heavy decreased from 35 to 25

Obelisk HP Increased from 600 (60000) to 750 (75000)

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APCs are doing to much damage vs structures and heavy armor. They are managing to kill Guard Towers, light tanks, and power plants to effectively in numbers between 5 and 10. This will help to prevent this from happening. A small decrease vs infantry allows rocket infantry to last just a little bit longer as well.

Obelisk is getting a HP increase. Going from the old notes and responses happening now leaves me to believe its HP is to small. In one testing example an obelisk getting airstriked leaves it with no HP left. 4 minigunner shots and then it dies. Increasing the HP allows an expensive structure to stand longer.

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ZxGanon
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Post by ZxGanon »

More things have been discovered that also would improve comeback mechanic in TD that does currently not exist (atleast in early game).

This will be more abvious in the later stages of TDGL.

ApornasPlanet
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Post by ApornasPlanet »

The APC shouldn't be useful against heavy vehicles and buildings.

Also, make it considerably slower than the Humvee, it's a threaded vehicle after all, so that the Humvee retains some usefulness.

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ZxGanon
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Post by ZxGanon »

An increase in cost would be enough already. Keeps the GDI spirit while stopping the spamm which is the real issue and not the damage itself (well maybe the damage against heavy).

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AoAGeneral1
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Post by AoAGeneral1 »

Its possible that the damage vs buildings may need another nerf. I am currently doing slow pacings with this.

For vs armor same idea behind this. But I prefer APCs to have some sort of herassment tactic (IE: Harvesters) for their runs.

Slowing the APC down greatly would be a mistake as bikes would be able to land shots more effectively and buggies would catch up to them more quickly. (Specially via drops). Although a slight slow down is a possible look at. Would require some testing.

The price nerf is a bad idea. The price itself is based off maps without oil derricks and the struggle vs Nod and bike/buggy plays. While the APC is strong vs these two units, bikes are capable of doing various snipes before APCs are built en mass. The main problem that APCs are surging is because of maps with oil derricks placed closely to spawn points.

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ZxGanon
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Post by ZxGanon »

What is it always with the oil derricks this is an overall issue?
There is only one map where an Oil derrick is close to the startin position and the old maps in the ladder pool are super bad for TD meta game in terms of MCV allins you have provided with those extreme over buffed MCV stats.

Is it your fear of RA the whole time? Why are you so full of anxiety to embrace other new possible changes?

Nod is not viable anymore in 1v1 and a damage change wont change anything about the APC.

I will just continue spamming more APC if they do less damage.

Their damage against infantry is nonsense since I just crush infantry.

Nerfing damage against normal buildings is also retarded because why do Attackbikes so much more damage against buildings then? Should GDI mirror only be playable with Medium Tank spamm?

Im currently full on work with CD and SP and if I would have the time I would also work on TD now because the longer I look at your approaches the more Im conviced you are going to damage TD beyond repair.

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Sleipnir
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Post by Sleipnir »

ZxGanon wrote: Im currently full on work with CD and SP and if I would have the time I would also work on TD now because the longer I look at your approaches the more Im conviced you are going to damage TD beyond repair.
AoAGeneral has been in charge of integrating TD balance changes for the better part of 3 years now, and presumably got it to the state where you thought TD was good enough to be worthy of your time and interest. The vitriol is unnecessary.

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Clockwork
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Post by Clockwork »

AoA vs zxGanon boxing match?

Winner gets TD

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AoAGeneral1
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Post by AoAGeneral1 »

ZxGanon wrote: What is it always with the oil derricks this is an overall issue?
There is only one map where an Oil derrick is close to the startin position and the old maps in the ladder pool are super bad for TD meta game in terms of MCV allins you have provided with those extreme over buffed MCV stats.

Is it your fear of RA the whole time? Why are you so full of anxiety to embrace other new possible changes?

Nod is not viable anymore in 1v1 and a damage change wont change anything about the APC.

I will just continue spamming more APC if they do less damage.

Their damage against infantry is nonsense since I just crush infantry.

Nerfing damage against normal buildings is also retarded because why do Attackbikes so much more damage against buildings then? Should GDI mirror only be playable with Medium Tank spamm?

Im currently full on work with CD and SP and if I would have the time I would also work on TD now because the longer I look at your approaches the more Im conviced you are going to damage TD beyond repair.

Because people in the community share the same points with oil derrick maps as I do. Its a mixed view. However, maps involving 6 oil derricks turns into a large pool of light tier units and infantry play.

Spam APCs and share the replays with me then.

Nerfing damage against buildings is not retarded because they kill power plants way to fast along with Guard Towers, barracks, airstrips, war factories, and countless other structures. This has been the #1 complaint. This complain also existed in regarding 2v2 and 3v3 team games where mass production of APCs caused havoc about a year ago. (Reported by 010010)

As for GDI mirror, I think you missed the point of faction differences and their play style as a whole if you believe APCs are supposed to be an all time use vs GDI.

Regarding MCVs, share the replays.

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FiveAces
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Post by FiveAces »

AoAGeneral1 wrote:
Nerfing damage against buildings is not retarded because they kill power plants way to fast along with Guard Towers, barracks, airstrips, war factories, and countless other structures. This has been the #1 complaint. This complain also existed in regarding 2v2 and 3v3 team games where mass production of APCs caused havoc about a year ago. (Reported by 010010)

While I don't agree with ZxGanon's tone here, I do share his balance concerns regarding the APC.
I think we can all agree that no single unit should be the jack of all trades.

Now, let's compile a quick list of the APC's strengths and weaknesses:

-It does have great AA capabilities, albeit at a short range.
[tab]That makes sense, seeing as it is GDI's primary anti-air tool.

-It has good damage against light armor.
[tab]Again, this makes sense, because it is supposed to be a zone control unit that can go toe to toe with Nod's light vehicle spam.

-While it has bad damage against infantry, the sheer cheapness of the APC lets players use flocks of them to crush rocket soldiers.
[tab]This is not a problem by itself, but the $550 discount price tag lets players amass way too many APCS to reliably counter them with infantry.

-It has decent damage against wood and concrete armor.
[tab]This is where it starts to get iffy. APCs are supposed to be used for dropping infantry into the enemy base.
[tab]Right now, it is way more efficient to spam empty APCS, since they do pretty much the same damage to buildings as infantry anyway.

-It has decent damage against heavy armor.
[tab]And this is where it starts making zero sense. A decent flock of them can take on even medium tanks, their supposed hard counter.

I'd argue that APCs right now just don't have a defined weakness.
Cheap, spammable and decent trades versus any unit type in the game.

My proposal at a solution would be to give them defined strengths and weaknesses.
Neuter their damage versus Wood/concrete and heavy armor, up the price a bit and call it a day.
They'd still play a vital role in fending off T0 Nod vehicles and as dedicated AA, with the option of going for infantry drops or mass crushes.

ApornasPlanet
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Post by ApornasPlanet »

I understand why they made the APC unarmed in TS

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AoAGeneral1
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Post by AoAGeneral1 »

FiveAces wrote:
AoAGeneral1 wrote:
While I don't agree with ZxGanon's tone here, I do share his balance concerns regarding the APC.
I think we can all agree that no single unit should be the jack of all trades.

Now, let's compile a quick list of the APC's strengths and weaknesses:

-It does have great AA capabilities, albeit at a short range.
[tab]That makes sense, seeing as it is GDI's primary anti-air tool.

-It has good damage against light armor.
[tab]Again, this makes sense, because it is supposed to be a zone control unit that can go toe to toe with Nod's light vehicle spam.

-While it has bad damage against infantry, the sheer cheapness of the APC lets players use flocks of them to crush rocket soldiers.
[tab]This is not a problem by itself, but the $550 discount price tag lets players amass way too many APCS to reliably counter them with infantry.

-It has decent damage against wood and concrete armor.
[tab]This is where it starts to get iffy. APCs are supposed to be used for dropping infantry into the enemy base.
[tab]Right now, it is way more efficient to spam empty APCS, since they do pretty much the same damage to buildings as infantry anyway.

-It has decent damage against heavy armor.
[tab]And this is where it starts making zero sense. A decent flock of them can take on even medium tanks, their supposed hard counter.

I'd argue that APCs right now just don't have a defined weakness.
Cheap, spammable and decent trades versus any unit type in the game.

My proposal at a solution would be to give them defined strengths and weaknesses.
Neuter their damage versus Wood/concrete and heavy armor, up the price a bit and call it a day.
They'd still play a vital role in fending off T0 Nod vehicles and as dedicated AA, with the option of going for infantry drops or mass crushes.
Agreed with point 1 and 2.

Under 3 - they do crush e3. A flock is appearing due to economic issues which is funneling a specific build down. Many games are doing capture oil with 4-6 harvester opener builds which allows a large funnel of light tier units and infantry. The price reduction on the APC was in response to the older 2 harvester opener and getting a few quick bikes out. Since bikes are much cheaper and APCs by themselves tend to be weaker would get overrun by bikes in early pressure much to easily. The price used to be 600 and some struggles happened on the older build so it was reduced to 550.

If the price went to 600-650 this would stream line the current build of harvesters (4-6 opener) much more stronger and that is not what I want. I am currently looking at different ways to make the 2-3 harvester opener builds more viable and stronger.

Point 4 - Thats why their damage was nerfed.

Point 5 - The idea behind this was used to herass harvesters. Since GDI doesn't have the arsenal as Nod does (Bikes) for quick punches and armor destruction GDI has a semi response for some light herassments. All be it seeming to be to strong as in numbers of 5+ do to much damage. This was also nerfed.

APC Mechanic---

The APCs strength is in numbers. By itself it does less damage and will die to many unit types. In numbers is another story and that is partly due to how their attack works. The instant hit mechanics allows them to punch near maximum damage despite what movement the unit is doing which gives a stronger viable tone for the APC.

Some other solutions-

Projectile speed is a possible. (HOWEVER LEAVING ITS AA ALONE) Slowing its projectile speed would allow half or below half damage to be done if a unit is moving. This however, would cause problems in vs bike plays unless the bike is sitting still.

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@Apornasplanet:

The APC in CNC95 actually had a machine gun. The ORA version has a flak due to GDI's lack of mobile AA.

maceman
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Post by maceman »

Following a discussion on the TDGL discord, I done some testing of an APC nerf with ZxGanon and MegaTank, with its cost up to 650 from 550, and hp reduced to 160 from 215 (25% less).

I've attached the replays, but the conclusion that we drew was that it opened up the gameplay a lot - and it wasn't just a case of APC spam anymore.

The replays from before the 9th are without the APC nerf so you can get an idea of what gameplay is like presently. The replays dated the 9th are with.

On the first map (Badland Ridges), I was also testing a change to harvester pickup and drop delay which limits to 2 per field, which didn't really work out. I also buffed the Obelisk, which didn't really make an appearance so didn't really get tested.

On the second map (Aggressive Tendencies), it was only the APC nerf.
Attachments
unano-apcnerf-02-09.zip
(2.46 MiB) Downloaded 173 times

SirCake
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Post by SirCake »

That APC's counter tanks is a misconception by 5A. Tanks do hardcounter APC's, even in the release.
You need about 2 times the value in APCs to kill tanks. I tested it.

In early game it is better to build mass apc because of tank tech cost inverstment, but in the long run it is definitely preferrable to mix more and more tanks in.

Though the APC has too many roles and is too versatile.
Reducing APC movement speed would make it weaker at every role it has, and also makes sense lore-wise since it is a heavily armored vehicle.
Also, changeing the aa weapon to a missile would reinforce the role of the apache as only aa-instanthit-weapon of the game.

Check out Dune2k-Advanced on my moddb page!

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