Smitty's Spring 2018 Playtest
Posted: Sun Apr 01, 2018 4:10 am
Time for another round of playtesting. There's a couple of big issues we're looking to address this time around:
Issue #1) Shockies.
Shock Troopers are overperforming, and in the Russia vs Ukraine matchup they're straight up broken. There's a handful of ways to approach this, so I'll go over them to explain why I'm going the direction I'm going.
A) Buff Ukraine! - Ukraine struggles the most against shocktroopers, and by struggle I mean they get obliterated. This is a very unbalanced matchup. Allies struggle too, but with some good arty shots and pillbox micro, they can whittle down an opponent that uses shockies poorly. There's just no answer to a shock centered army in the base soviet arsenal. Flaks and Rocket Soldiers easily defend against yaks, and any attempt at taking a fight will end with a big disparity in losses.
There's been a common belief that Ukraine's parabombs are garbage. We've all seen parabombs take hilariously bad angles, flying over their opponent’s base long before they reach their target. My issue with this is; we've also seen parabombs take hilariously good angles, wiping out entire armies. It's a free power that can win games, and to me free is the real kicker against buffing them.
Even if we decided to buff Ukraine, there's a big problem in how. The most requested way, allowing the player to decide the angle of the parabombs, isn't possible at the moment. More free bombs doesn’t sound appealing to me either. Of course there’s the nuke truck, but making that more accessible and asking a player to win games vs Russia on the power of nukes doesn’t seem too sporting either.
B) Revert the price change to Shockies – The shock trooper received a huge buff last year in a $100 price drop. This allows players to build more shockies more quickly for cheaper, but the savvier ones will build a complement of rockets for air defense with this extra build time. (The faster build time is more impactful than the lower cost btw) Saying hinds and yaks are a good counter to shockies doesn’t really account for the rockets and flak trucks that will certainly be with them.
Before the price change, I saw several players lose games because they over invested in shock troopers without the proper supporting units. We could simply revert the price change, but I’m not sure I want to be the guy who reverted a change of my predecessor. This brings us to:
C) Follow the path SoScared took and reduce damage vs Armor further – Shock trooper damage vs armor has been reduced to 60%, which allows them to steadily melt armor instead of completely evaporate it. An additional lowering of this value should allow armor to be a viable counter to shock troopers as I assume was the original intention of this change.
There’s also the prospect of combining options B and C if necessary; say a $350 price tag and 50% damage vs heavy. We’ll see how testing goes and make that decision if needed.
Issue #2) - Allies, Arty, and AA guns.
Allies are in an odd spot as they tend to frustrate players with how Arty, AA guns and pillboxes work; but at the same time, they are pretty well balanced against Soviets. I’d say Soviets have the slight edge on most maps, but player skill will still decide the bulk of matchups.
This state of balance naturally means any large nerfs to the pillbox, arty, AA core of the allied arsenal are going to set them way behind their Soviet counterparts. Because of this the changes in this test will be smaller than some of the grand overhaul suggestions I’ve heard. I certainly don’t mind seeing those big suggestions tested, and if a good solution is found my mind can be changed.
I'm also looking at buffing Phase Tanks and Chrono Tanks in hopes of seeing more use from them. I've wanted to see how these units would look with anti-air capabilities. Both of them will have the ability to spring an ambush on an idle air unit in this test.
Changes: (Updated for Playtest B)
Walls require base provider
- Continuing testing of walls and base provider to see if there’s a reason to not require it.
Fake structures can build off of other fake structures
Removed Kill Bounties
AA Gun delay increased from 5 to 6
- Every test of nerfing AA damage so far has made Allies way too vulnerable vs air. So far we've tested reducing the range by two cells, and reducing the fire rate to 7. At this point, we're testing a small change to see if the AA gun can take a nerf at all.
Added 2nd seat to Ranger
- Continuing testing. If the usefulness value is clearly better than ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I'll probably go ahead with this. We learned from Sir Cake's mod that this would be overpowered as heck if rangers functioned like the RA2 IFV.
Subpens and Naval Yards have 10c0 detection range of Submarines
- This has been widely requested, and while I agree with Sir Cake that it won’t solve subs camping spawn areas, I like the idea of giving players more information. (For a player wondering if it’s safe to sink money into ships it is as important to know that your naval yard isn’t being camped as if it is.) And if you have the information, you can move air units or long range ground units into position to deal with emerging subs.
Shock Trooper price increased from 300 to 350
* Testing a price change in Playtest B
Tesla Tank speed lowered from 113 to 99. (Same speed as MGG and MRJ)
Missile Sub vision increased from 6c0 to 8c0, damage vs wood increased from 40% to 80%. Reload delay decreased to 250 from 300.
- The extra vision will be even with subs now, and should provide more ambush opportunities of idling aircraft. Missile Sub damage is pretty bad so we’re looking to boost its worth as a siege weapon.
Lower selection priorities of Hijackers and Minelayers
- Requested by Frenzy on github. I think changing the Minelayers won’t be a problem but I do wonder about doing this with Hijackers since they are often paired with APCs.
Sam Vision increased from 6c0 to 8c0
- Suggested by Orb. Since the SAM range is short compared to the AA gun it should always get to use the full range. Also extra vision is a buff for anything regardless of purpose.
Artillery cost increased to 850 from 800
- Dialing back the spamability a smidge.
Phase Transport and Mobile Gap Generator swapped between England and France.
- Addressing the power disparity between England and France
*Phase Transport Cloaking speed reduced from 9 seconds to 6.
* Chrono Tank PortableChrono time reduced to ~9 seconds (250 ticks).
Extra construction yards no longer provide bonus production speed for defence structures.
- Another step in reducing the amount of defense spam. Took out the change to regular building speed.
Biolab vision increased from 3c0 to 4c0; Vision of Airfield (7c0), Allied Tech Center (10c0), and Advanced Power Plant (4c0) changed to 5c0.
- Changes requested by Arular for consistency.
Mechanic repair increased by 5 HP; Vehicle HP on restore 40%, up from 25%
Longbow turn speed increased from 4 to 5
Sub torpedo speed increased from 85 to 100
- Not much to say about these last three changes. Just a bit more oomph to mechanics, longbows, and subs.
___
Final Thoughts:
- I saw another request for a Soviet Chinook. I don't intend to go that direction. I wrote my thoughts on that here.
- There are some projects I have in mind that I left out of this test. (MAD tanks, Soviet Hinds, Engi husk salvage to name a few) I still want to tackle these somewhat esoteric issues but time is a barrier. As always, if there's an issue out there you want to tackle feel free to compare notes with me.
Issue #1) Shockies.
Shock Troopers are overperforming, and in the Russia vs Ukraine matchup they're straight up broken. There's a handful of ways to approach this, so I'll go over them to explain why I'm going the direction I'm going.
A) Buff Ukraine! - Ukraine struggles the most against shocktroopers, and by struggle I mean they get obliterated. This is a very unbalanced matchup. Allies struggle too, but with some good arty shots and pillbox micro, they can whittle down an opponent that uses shockies poorly. There's just no answer to a shock centered army in the base soviet arsenal. Flaks and Rocket Soldiers easily defend against yaks, and any attempt at taking a fight will end with a big disparity in losses.
There's been a common belief that Ukraine's parabombs are garbage. We've all seen parabombs take hilariously bad angles, flying over their opponent’s base long before they reach their target. My issue with this is; we've also seen parabombs take hilariously good angles, wiping out entire armies. It's a free power that can win games, and to me free is the real kicker against buffing them.
Even if we decided to buff Ukraine, there's a big problem in how. The most requested way, allowing the player to decide the angle of the parabombs, isn't possible at the moment. More free bombs doesn’t sound appealing to me either. Of course there’s the nuke truck, but making that more accessible and asking a player to win games vs Russia on the power of nukes doesn’t seem too sporting either.
B) Revert the price change to Shockies – The shock trooper received a huge buff last year in a $100 price drop. This allows players to build more shockies more quickly for cheaper, but the savvier ones will build a complement of rockets for air defense with this extra build time. (The faster build time is more impactful than the lower cost btw) Saying hinds and yaks are a good counter to shockies doesn’t really account for the rockets and flak trucks that will certainly be with them.
Before the price change, I saw several players lose games because they over invested in shock troopers without the proper supporting units. We could simply revert the price change, but I’m not sure I want to be the guy who reverted a change of my predecessor. This brings us to:
C) Follow the path SoScared took and reduce damage vs Armor further – Shock trooper damage vs armor has been reduced to 60%, which allows them to steadily melt armor instead of completely evaporate it. An additional lowering of this value should allow armor to be a viable counter to shock troopers as I assume was the original intention of this change.
There’s also the prospect of combining options B and C if necessary; say a $350 price tag and 50% damage vs heavy. We’ll see how testing goes and make that decision if needed.
Issue #2) - Allies, Arty, and AA guns.
Allies are in an odd spot as they tend to frustrate players with how Arty, AA guns and pillboxes work; but at the same time, they are pretty well balanced against Soviets. I’d say Soviets have the slight edge on most maps, but player skill will still decide the bulk of matchups.
This state of balance naturally means any large nerfs to the pillbox, arty, AA core of the allied arsenal are going to set them way behind their Soviet counterparts. Because of this the changes in this test will be smaller than some of the grand overhaul suggestions I’ve heard. I certainly don’t mind seeing those big suggestions tested, and if a good solution is found my mind can be changed.
I'm also looking at buffing Phase Tanks and Chrono Tanks in hopes of seeing more use from them. I've wanted to see how these units would look with anti-air capabilities. Both of them will have the ability to spring an ambush on an idle air unit in this test.
Changes: (Updated for Playtest B)
Walls require base provider
- Continuing testing of walls and base provider to see if there’s a reason to not require it.
Fake structures can build off of other fake structures
Removed Kill Bounties
AA Gun delay increased from 5 to 6
- Every test of nerfing AA damage so far has made Allies way too vulnerable vs air. So far we've tested reducing the range by two cells, and reducing the fire rate to 7. At this point, we're testing a small change to see if the AA gun can take a nerf at all.
Added 2nd seat to Ranger
- Continuing testing. If the usefulness value is clearly better than ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I'll probably go ahead with this. We learned from Sir Cake's mod that this would be overpowered as heck if rangers functioned like the RA2 IFV.
Subpens and Naval Yards have 10c0 detection range of Submarines
- This has been widely requested, and while I agree with Sir Cake that it won’t solve subs camping spawn areas, I like the idea of giving players more information. (For a player wondering if it’s safe to sink money into ships it is as important to know that your naval yard isn’t being camped as if it is.) And if you have the information, you can move air units or long range ground units into position to deal with emerging subs.
Shock Trooper price increased from 300 to 350
* Testing a price change in Playtest B
Tesla Tank speed lowered from 113 to 99. (Same speed as MGG and MRJ)
Missile Sub vision increased from 6c0 to 8c0, damage vs wood increased from 40% to 80%. Reload delay decreased to 250 from 300.
- The extra vision will be even with subs now, and should provide more ambush opportunities of idling aircraft. Missile Sub damage is pretty bad so we’re looking to boost its worth as a siege weapon.
Lower selection priorities of Hijackers and Minelayers
- Requested by Frenzy on github. I think changing the Minelayers won’t be a problem but I do wonder about doing this with Hijackers since they are often paired with APCs.
Sam Vision increased from 6c0 to 8c0
- Suggested by Orb. Since the SAM range is short compared to the AA gun it should always get to use the full range. Also extra vision is a buff for anything regardless of purpose.
Artillery cost increased to 850 from 800
- Dialing back the spamability a smidge.
Phase Transport and Mobile Gap Generator swapped between England and France.
- Addressing the power disparity between England and France
*Phase Transport Cloaking speed reduced from 9 seconds to 6.
* Chrono Tank PortableChrono time reduced to ~9 seconds (250 ticks).
Extra construction yards no longer provide bonus production speed for defence structures.
- Another step in reducing the amount of defense spam. Took out the change to regular building speed.
Biolab vision increased from 3c0 to 4c0; Vision of Airfield (7c0), Allied Tech Center (10c0), and Advanced Power Plant (4c0) changed to 5c0.
- Changes requested by Arular for consistency.
Mechanic repair increased by 5 HP; Vehicle HP on restore 40%, up from 25%
Longbow turn speed increased from 4 to 5
Sub torpedo speed increased from 85 to 100
- Not much to say about these last three changes. Just a bit more oomph to mechanics, longbows, and subs.
___
Final Thoughts:
- I saw another request for a Soviet Chinook. I don't intend to go that direction. I wrote my thoughts on that here.
- There are some projects I have in mind that I left out of this test. (MAD tanks, Soviet Hinds, Engi husk salvage to name a few) I still want to tackle these somewhat esoteric issues but time is a barrier. As always, if there's an issue out there you want to tackle feel free to compare notes with me.