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Balance Openra

Posted: Sun Oct 01, 2017 12:27 am
by Namless
OpenRa has a problem. Its not balanced any more.
The game used to be quite nicely balanced when it did not try to be a 1=1 of the original Ra.

After the game was made to be like the original Ra it has gone downhill.

And has been down hill since dogs needed to have their own building.
20150424 got lot worse when the working alliance and soviets where split to badly balanced England, France Germany and Russia, Ukraine

Good TEAM GAMES are ruined by lonely rushers that cannot be countered in a balanced way.

Example. APC full of Flamethrowers cannot be countered without it costing more than the attack.

Spies are too powerful. In a fast team game they are almost impossible to be defended.

Deference building are no match to a cheap infantry group.
Specially Tesla Troopers are a way overkill.

Missile subs firing to air is lame.

As a solution I would like to have an option to disable Tesla troopers, flamethrowers or limit their power to very low and have the spies disabled and missile subs firing to air. It could be called something like "good game" option.

Re: Balance Openra

Posted: Sun Oct 01, 2017 6:58 am
by netnazgul
Namless wrote: ...cheap infantry group...
...Specially Tesla Troopers...
:o0:

Posted: Sun Oct 01, 2017 6:29 pm
by Sleipnir
I have deleted several comments for violating the forum rules (specifically the points about flaming and intentionally derailing topics). Please be polite to your fellow forum goers.

Posted: Sun Oct 01, 2017 7:13 pm
by crlf
> Example. APC full of Flamethrowers cannot be countered without it costing more than the attack.

One pillbox is all it takes to dispense with five flamers costing 1500, even if the APC gets out unscathed. A flame tower also usually works before the flamers have done much damage. A tesla can also stop an APC before it unloads. You also get to keep the defences, or sell them to recoup your investment.

> Specially Tesla Troopers are a way overkill.

A shock blob is threatening and usually pushes through static defences quickly, but the blob is also slow, expensive, and fragile, and you need a tech centre te even start building it. If you do not manage to take out the tech centre or eco to slow down production, you can still try to scout them and stay out of range. Artillery/V2s, yaks and hinds can deal with them with no losses. Demo trucks and parabombs also work, as do phase transports. If you can keep the numbers down and win on vision I understand it is even possible to overwhelm them with rifles. Usually, if the opponent has a big shock blob and you do not have anything to deal with it, you have probably made some other mistake.

> Spies are too powerful. In a fast team game they are almost impossible to be defended.

I would agree spies are difficult on team games when the game speed is increased. With a team game you will hopefully have more eyes, but also more uncertainty. Knowing this, consider building more spies/dogs in team games than in 1v1.

Posted: Sun Oct 01, 2017 9:02 pm
by Orb
Actually, it's significantly more difficult in team games because your enemies can disguise as your teammates. You know what your units are doing, but can you say that for your allies?

Posted: Mon Oct 02, 2017 7:33 am
by Printer
Spies are absurdly cheap for the power they wield in game. In original RA they were $1000 each and while that price might be steep- $250 isn't balanced for a unit hard to counter and super easy to spam.

Dogs are an ok counter to them. The thing is, sometimes dogs glitch. It's also hard to post the dogs where spies go and IMHO, dogs could really use a radius.

The other counter to spies is Blob play. If you blob everything up, spies to stand out but it's not a true defense against them.

Posted: Thu Oct 05, 2017 10:33 am
by Hodor
I wonder no one talks about Arty + Hind + AA Gun.

AA and Arty need no micro, only Hind for vision. This defends very well against any composition; and can be used as defense and as offense.

Its not unbreakable, but there is a hidden cost, lts the needed attention. As sovjet attacker you have to be very close with you attention, microing at 200%, and if some bit goes wrong, you lost your whole push in 3 sec.

Meanwhile the allied has much less to do.

In my opinion, this composition is far to cost effective and to "micro effective" too. Its just too easy.

Am i alone with that opinion?

Posted: Thu Oct 05, 2017 10:56 am
by SafwatHalaby
I usually find it easy to destroy art with yaks. Even with AA guns present, you can sometimes kill 2 or more arts while sacrificing the yak, depending on the positioning. This is cost effective.

Also, V2's have speed and pinpoint precision - they can take out AA guns and then fall back easily. Their relatively good armor allows them to survive an art shell or two while falling back. The flak trucks are essentially mobile AA guns, protecting the V2s from hinds.

At late game, allies have the GPS, but you have the curtain, and flak + iron curtain cuts through artillery like butter.

So, I'd argue a composition of V2s, yaks, and flaks, is a fairly balanced counter.

Posted: Thu Oct 05, 2017 11:09 am
by Hodor
it is a counter, but it is by far more expensive in units and especially in attention/micro when it comes from theory to practise.

Think at V2 Aiming fuck up if there is a shadow tower. same goes to stealth bunker. Sure you can solve all this, but in the time you spend your full attention and microon this worse things usually happen on the map.

Again, i say its to easy. But maybe its a thing connected to my skill level. I notice many ppl complain a bit about similar stuff, but the "pro league" consistly is of other opinion. What is needed to be respected, thasts sure.

I have to add something. I want to see how you get 1+ Arty with a yak if they are centered by an AA gun. If you can show me i would be glad.

What would contradict to a reduction of AA guns range?

Posted: Thu Oct 05, 2017 3:48 pm
by SafwatHalaby
Note that I'm definitely not a pro. The Yak can manage to take down artillery before the AA takes it down, (and its crash does extra damage sometimes). I am not sure if it would work if the art is really tightly close to the AA gun. Perhaps we could arrange an experimental exercise match if you feel like it. PM me :)

Posted: Thu Oct 05, 2017 7:57 pm
by AoAGeneral1
Couple of main issues with the AA Gun and the allies faction.

The AA Gun has an armament range of 10c0.

The Yak has a reveal shroud range of 11c0.

-- One range difference.

The AA Gun reveals shroud at 6c0.

This means a hind or longbow is all that is needed to help spot for the AA-Gun to make their kills. With a yak it becomes much harder to try and spot the AA-Gun ahead of time which ultimately in most cases dies. Since the AA turret movement is extremely fast more likely then not if your lucky the yak HP will be brought down to half.

The AA also fires extremely fast and this is primarily where people have issues with. The AA being deadly accurate and firing fast leaving very little reaction time if you have spot the AA with a hind or longbow to pull back.

This of course leaves a slight problem with Allies as their main source of mobile AA comes from E3. Which is why base crawling/pushing tends to happen in RA to help cover that ground. (Exception being some units such as the Chrono Tanks however faction specific and high tech. Longbow also being high tech.)

Posted: Fri Oct 06, 2017 7:39 am
by Hodor
so i ask again, might a reduction of AA range be a step in the right direction?

Posted: Fri Oct 06, 2017 8:47 am
by netnazgul
AA gun turret turn rate could also be played with

Posted: Fri Oct 06, 2017 1:38 pm
by Smitty
Hodor wrote: so i ask again, might a reduction of AA range be a step in the right direction?
I tested reducing AA gun range by two cells. The feedback I got and my own play experience showed that Allies really do need a strong AA defense as they are lacking in mobile AA. (And yes, this is considering the longbow as well)

As far as the power of artillery is concerned, we will be testing increasing the minimum fire range of artillery and V2s by a couple of cells. This is to help units finish the job when they get in close to destroy siege weapons; especially flak trucks and light tanks.

I'll be dropping the next set of playtests after release. I'm looking for feedback from all playstyles and skill levels, so feel free to get a hold of me and give me your take on things.

Posted: Fri Oct 06, 2017 8:47 pm
by SirCake
Also, the AA gun has a minimum APM of 51.515$ (Assets killed Per Minute), while the (debatably OP pillbox) as a maximum APM of 27.272$. Nerf to the ground pls.