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Re: End of 2018 RA balance changes

Posted: Sun Dec 23, 2018 1:14 am
by Sleipnir
Note that the Artillery, Chronoshift, Mechanic/Medic speed and Camo pillbox price/cloak changes won't be included in the first playtest. Instead, balance test maps will allow these to be tested and rebalanced to account for the other playtest engine changes and potentially be merged into a second or later playtest.

Re: End of 2018 RA balance changes

Posted: Sun Dec 23, 2018 1:37 am
by Materianer
@abcdefg30

Sorry i expressed this a bit mistakable, i meant that husks and restored husks from the enemytanks will chrono back now.
That was often an easy way to get some mammoth in ffa, the counter from a soviet player for this is the iron curtain wich hurts really hard if the enemy reacts fast.
That changed with release Release 20180923 so its not part of the discussion thats why i have set a ( ) for it.
Just wanted to say that mechanics already got a small nerf wich maybe nobody expected.
I said that the solution that they will now restore friendly husks for your mate is a nice thing, but its also another nerf for them. ( Think at the case you restore tanks or a mcv for your mate and he doesnt see it then they just get destroyed again, i need a new button for my car then "I dont restore husks for newbies" :lol: )
These 2 changes are no big thing and i'm fine with them, but the speedreduction would be too much. Its often a really close thing to catch a husk.
If you loose your mcv for example you can stop all infantry production hope that you got a barrack close enough build a mech and save that mcv.
500$ for a unit wich cant attack is much, the healer cost 200$ thats maybe why you see him more often on the battlefield.

Maybe the price would be satisfied if a nerf for damaged units would come one day ( speed, reloaddelay, range whatever maybe fitted for each unit).
That would bring openra a bit closer to the original and could be enlarged, i think in original only tanks had a speednerf or so im not sure about that.

Re: End of 2018 RA balance changes

Posted: Sun Dec 23, 2018 2:17 am
by Sleipnir
Materianer wrote:
Sat Dec 22, 2018 1:16 pm
Btw what happens if a player capture husks from a dead player, are the restored tanks then controllable by the dead player?
This is a very good question that nobody thought to ask during the initial discussion or PR review. The way that the husk logic works means that husks will be restored to the owner of the mechanic, except for one specific edgecase that #15935 fixes. A player losing is a one way transition, so anything that can give controllable units to a dead player is a bug that causes weird behaviour.

Re: End of 2018 RA balance changes

Posted: Sun Dec 23, 2018 10:22 am
by netnazgul
If you loose your mcv for example you can stop all infantry production hope that you got a barrack close enough build a mech and save that mcv.
You don't have to stop production now cause there is a priority queueing implemented.

Re: End of 2018 RA balance changes

Posted: Thu Dec 27, 2018 5:09 pm
by eskimo
At first i wasn't sure on the engineer change as i like the current way, which has many options on how to play the early game. But i think the change could potentially bring better early game. The lightly hood of base captures will lightly be extremely uncommon now due to a lack of spare engineers, so take that how you will. Engineer snipes will possibly be less costly, as you won't invest everything into protecting one engineer and expecting him to cap several oils/FC/CC/etc. Multiple engineer openers may be more prominent as a few rifles being able to buy time for them to cap may be a thing also. I think the early game with 4x or more oils may extend past current times also.
DBL Ref openers on big maps will be better due to not having to guard an engineer across the map more than once.
WF openers on small maps, i forgot what advantage these could have, but i know there is one.

Soviets to see a huge buff with the Thief, and very welcome. Having him be removed wasn't a good move imo. Time will only tell with this one.

The bug and exploit fixes are very welcome, the mcv dance is a bit meh and not rarely useful, but RNG tends to play a part in this.

With artillery not being able to shift queue buildings under fog(?), Orb's changes, and the Thief, i can't help but feel Russia will be dominant in game even more now. Trying to push through a stealth detecting, IC, tesla line with nothing but AA/Arty/MCV crawl will be even more painful for both players. With artillery non stop firing at whatever they once targeted, awaiting the long GPS counter until anything can be achieved with longbow pick offs as the main weapon....

When was the last time we saw phase transport doing some work? Since the stealth detection buff. Or at least it seems like. Arties now not walking off alone, more time to build more and force fire them everywhere. :lol: I joke ofcourse.

Re: End of 2018 RA balance changes

Posted: Thu Dec 27, 2018 10:35 pm
by Smitty
Here's a balance update:

The changes listed as orb's at the start of this thread will not be in the first official playtest. We'll test those in modded maps instead. We're anticipating the need for two playtests here so the idea is if we can get consensus on any change we'll have that in playtest #2.

Also, there's a solid chance dogs may be *gasp* fixed. From what I've seen so far ... get those kennels ready.

Re: End of 2018 RA balance changes

Posted: Sun Jan 06, 2019 12:21 am
by Printer
Is it too late to request some other adjustments to core game elements as well? I've got no expectations but I'd really love to hear if developer's have a take on them.

- Transport Capacity -
It's been done before (Omnom), but never implemented. Might it be possible to increase transport capacity from (5) OR to assign different weights (ie MCV = 4 slots, Harvesters/Mamoths = 3 slots, etc). If not may I ask why not?

- Trees & Cliffs vs LOS & Range -
As has been stated Open RA is foremost an engine, and at it's core provides modern functionality to classic games. Therefore; can the tactical & strategic usefulness of overlooking positions for range and LOS obstructing landscape be implemented?

- Radar Jammers & Torpedos -
I don't know if it's intended but torpedoes are affected by Radar Jammers. More than that, Radar Jammers are extremely practical vs Destroyers, but as Allied only, it's a Soviet handicap. V2s, Teslas, infantry blobs- are a resulting counter but not consistent one. (Assuming IC was already used.)

- Improved Spy Detection -
At present Dogs are Soviet only, but as detectors are highly micro intensive. I've heard that you can detect spies as Allies with other spies BUT that for them to work, you have to attack move your spy and only then will he kill the suspicious spy. Can spies be made more reliably detectable (like the Phase Transport was)?

I have ideas how to accomplish some of these but am wondering if it'd be welcomed.

Re: End of 2018 RA balance changes

Posted: Tue Jan 08, 2019 8:13 pm
by netnazgul
@Smitty hijackers' speed should be reduced now (at the moment they are same speed as Medium Tanks on the road), say to 75-80 at least down from 85, and maybe its cost increased to $600 from $500. One other interesting solution may be to introduce the same cap delay as engineer, for 1 second instead of insta-capture.

At the same time engineers definitely require a counter-buff to their expendability, at least cap time reduced to 5 seconds. Maybe considering reducing their cost too, but that is risky.

Re: End of 2018 RA balance changes

Posted: Tue Jan 08, 2019 9:35 pm
by ZxGanon
Engineer:
He doesnt really needs that many chages to be viable but rather his surroundings.
I would reduce the capture time of engineers to at least 5 seconds.
Increasing the MoneyUponCapture value of oilderricks from 100$ to 250$ (maybe more that might cause highly unstable games).

Thief:
Reducing his movement speed from 85 to 71.
Maybe also increasing the cost from 500$ to 650$ or changing his capturing stun behaviour to take 2 second after freezing a unit to enter it like engineers external capturing.

But I´m pretty sure reducing the movement speed will already do the trick since even if HiJackers get dropped by APC´s Miners will finally be able to run away in time.

Also people have to get start getting used to HiJackers and develop counterplay strategies. Afterall this is an RTS and people gotta figure out how to react to this new style.

Also what FiveAces mentioned was to streamline the stealth mechanic since apparently 5 different traits of stealth exist with different interactions (for instances HiJackers being revealed by infantry while others dont which is very unintuitive for RTS).

Re: End of 2018 RA balance changes

Posted: Tue Jan 08, 2019 11:57 pm
by Smitty
ZxGanon wrote:
Tue Jan 08, 2019 9:35 pm
Also people have to get start getting used to HiJackers and develop counterplay strategies. Afterall this is an RTS and people gotta figure out how to react to this new style.
Yep. I want to see a few weeks of playtesting before we say things have to change. This is the first time hijackers have been viable after all.
Is the engi cap time in SP 5 seconds?

Re: End of 2018 RA balance changes

Posted: Wed Jan 09, 2019 5:45 am
by Orb
Had a discussion on Discord with Barf about what to do with the engineer. You can find it in #play-testing.

We think a good place to start would be reducing the engineer cost to 400. Cap time reduction isn't desirable as it is already feasible to sneak engineers into a Barf base (RAGL Champion). Refunds increase might be needed, but it might be possible to achieve good balance without it. The problem with refunds is they make engineer snipes even more punishing, and the usual snowball problems.

Maps with 6 or more objectives probably won't be viable anymore (and too difficult to balance around), so we kept the discussion to 4 or less. At a 400 cost engineer you can capture 2 oils and produce a modest guard of 4-5 rifles on a wf-1st. Or produce 1 engineer on the safe oil and try to deny cap with 8-9 rifles.

We also agreed other neutral structures will need a buff, and probably something creative. My personal idea is a new buff from owning a hospital, which grants a 10% bounty on your own units killed. You can think of it like the hospital saving lives (value). We could also remove the heal potentially. The heal is a bit wonky since it's much more beneficial for Soviets than Allies (maps with "safe" hospital captures favor Soviets).

As far as the hijacker discussion goes, I think anything that increases the hijacking time would be bad. Why would the hijacker wait a full second before stealing the vehicle? It doesn't make sense to me, and it certainly won't make sense to new players. If it's OP I think a speed reduction would be best (maybe same speed as harvester?)

I agree the Hijacker shouldn't have a special cloak.

Re: End of 2018 RA balance changes

Posted: Wed Jan 09, 2019 6:44 am
by netnazgul
Cap time reduction isn't desirable as it is already feasible to sneak engineers into a Barf base (RAGL Champion).
What if we reduce the cap time [to 5 sec], but also introduce a "building is being captured" sound warning?

Btw, as the discussion goes, I'd suggest slightly increasing dog's health as it's now having drastically reduced DPS due to chewing animation. Allowing it to withstand another rifle shot?

Re: End of 2018 RA balance changes

Posted: Wed Jan 09, 2019 7:20 am
by Orb
I don't think so, as dogs can now run with an attack command. Running dogs dodge rifle shots (no damage).

While testing this I ran into a bug. I was trying to get my dog to do a running attack after eating someone. If you give the attack command while he's eating it's just a walk command (I guess because it's a queue'd command?). Anyway, my dog got stuck, much like the old behavior but permanent until I gave it a new command. I've attached the replay file.

Re: End of 2018 RA balance changes

Posted: Wed Jan 09, 2019 8:29 am
by Sleipnir
Orb wrote:
Wed Jan 09, 2019 5:45 am
We also agreed other neutral structures will need a buff, and probably something creative. My personal idea is a new buff from owning a hospital, which grants a 10% bounty on your own units killed. You can think of it like the hospital saving lives (value). We could also remove the heal potentially. The heal is a bit wonky since it's much more beneficial for Soviets than Allies (maps with "safe" hospital captures favor Soviets).
A more intuitive option could be to make them give a small health buff / damage reduction for infantry.

Re: End of 2018 RA balance changes

Posted: Wed Jan 09, 2019 10:37 pm
by SirCake
Its just slightly more beneficial to the soviet because they don't get the cheap tier zero remote area of effect healing tank nightmare that Allies get.