Small imbalances

Balance discussions for The Nomads.

Moderators: Softly, pip, Brute51, CookieNoob, JJ173, Moritz

Small imbalances

Postby D4E_Omit » 15 Feb 2014, 14:12

-T3 Mass extractor costs 4000 mass instead of 4600

-T3 Mass fabricator requires -3000 power instead of -3500

-(My opinion) Desolator, the t3 arty should be moved to EXP and cost ~20k mass more.

-Small typo : Cruiser says : deals alot of damageS to shields. Delete the S in damages so it's Deals alot of damage to shields. :)

-BIG! Dont forget to lower ASF fire rate for unbalance against lower tier units, everybody will play nomads air otherwise!

Otherwise great work on the mod! The SCUs without arms look derpy! Would make base cost 1600 mass or give it a small gun, same fire rate as ACU and 250 dmg or something along the lines of that.

Good luck!

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Re: Small imbalances

Postby Brute51 » 15 Feb 2014, 23:37

Thanks a lot for your feedback! We'll check out the issues that you mentioned. As for the SCUs, the barebone SCU intentionally doesn't have a gun and it will most likely stay like that. There are two reasons for this (gameplay wise and code wise, I won't go into detail). If you want a SCU with a gun then enhance a barebone SCU, or build one right from the factory!
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Re: Small imbalances

Postby Apofenas » 16 Feb 2014, 08:11

I found some imbalances as well.

T1: The nomads don't have T1 arty; instead they have mobile aa, wiht really inefficient arty and a tank destroyer, which misses some shots and hits terrain/walls. That means that nomads have a big disadvantage with killing PDs and doing damadge to bases.
The T1 bomber is a real beast: it shots missles(like corsair), so it doesn't need to turn completle to target, and bomber shots missles long before passing target, so it takes less damadge when kills mobile aa.
The t1 gunship is cheaper than jester and the air fac doesn't seem to have same problems with engineers as the cybran one, so going first air strategy seems to be extremely efficient.

T2: The nomads don't have a counter to long range units(playing versus pip, i was annoyed even by ilshavohs), ACU doen't have a range upgrade like aeon does and there is no shields or stealth to get in close to such units. Though, i don't know how their T2 land does against pillars, rhinos and especially obsidians, but i don't think nomads have advantage.
T2 field engineer has a bug: when you wan't to select battle units, it selects as well, which is annoying.
The T2 fighter/bombers have missles as well. They have a special micro ability to just turn back, so you can kill a T2 flak and escape without taking damadge(like corsairs did, but with a good aa). It's fair to say that this unit took all pluses from janus, nosfer and corsair without minuses.
The T2 torpedo gunship seems to be more efficient if it used for both weapons(against navy), and less efficient if it used for one weapon(subs/land units).
Basicly, if a faction has long range destroyers, it doesn't have cruisers with tmls; Nomads have. The destroyer has 2 long range cannons with enought AOE to ground fire subs(but no tropedo abilities at all); Cruiser one cannon(same as destroyer's ones), tml and aa (not that good one, but nomads have floating flak)

T3: T3 hover tank has problems with hitting units, especially on uneven terrain. It's like a t3 aurora, which loses in close fight to othums/harbs; though on T3, there are such units as sniper bots, bricks or persivals.
T3 mobile aa is an unfair thing since they already have hover t2 flak(which can kill t3 air since last patch). Though it may be an attempt to balance asf, if nomad's one is worse, but i don't have a data base to check.
The Carpet bomber may have less damadge per mass, than strat bombers; but it has huge AOE, so it's impossible to dodge by ACU.
The tactical submarine seems to be an OP thing: it can even beat seraphim subhunter if it's microed, it can groundfire harms, atlantis, tempest, bulwarks. It can't be easily countered by air since it can be covered by t2 hover flak.
T3 arty is like long range scathis: its extremely strong. It should cost more or be less efficient.

Experimentals: The beamer is usefull thing only in early t3 stage, even in that time gunned acu with a couple shields can beat it.There is a bug: cybran t3 sub auto ground fired it when it was under water, though it didn't do damadge.
Bullfrog is pretty well balanced on land. But i don't like an idea of hover long range GC. This may be uncounterable.
Crawler seems to be less efficient than tactical submarines, but may be it's made for situation when you go hover land spam vs navy(nomads have a lot of hover land units, so they need to be balanced with other faction's navy as well).

SCUs: It's weird that SCUs with no upgrades can't build on their own, but hey still have engineering abilities. They are OP under water if they have a torpedo upgrade: beats seraphim subhunter and loses only ~30% HP. 3 Rambo SCU can kill a spider bot, losing 1 and almost losing second SCU. Their RAS is very inefficient: easier to build more unupgraded SCUs(+1 mass) and t3 pgens. Bug: all presets show 14k HP on SCUs, it different in real.

ACU: I think ACU bombardment upgrade needs to be reworked to TML to be countered by at least 2 tmds.

Off-game things: I'd like to have Nomad icon of same size, as others in lobby; Loading screen; Unit data base( or at least cheating window with nomad units, because i f**ked myself building all this stuff); Removing a sound bug, which terrorizes my ears all the time i play nomads.

And sorry for tonns of text.
BalanceVictim wrote:I tried it out, and yes, the anti-torpedo is a useful tool now. Sadly, the rest of the unit is still extremely weak compared to any other frig
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Re: Small imbalances

Postby pip » 16 Feb 2014, 11:04

I don't want to be rude, it's good that you played a bit with them, but you are reporting things that are OP, and things that are UP. It's because the faction has strong points and weak points. It has strong t1 air, but weaker t1 land for instance. Or you didn't see that Nomads Destroyers have no torpedo weapons, which means any subs or Sera destro underwater, can kill them without getting even damaged.

Maybe you should check what other SCU can do. You will find out that Sera SCU with overcharge or fully upgraded UEF SCU can kill Monkeylords much more easily than Nomads SCU. Take Cybran SCU underwater doing t3 torpedo launchers and try to do anything agains them. Sera sub hunters are much faster and have longer range than the Nomads SCU with underwater weapon, if you micro, you win the naval fights, if you don't, you lose.

Cheats work to build all nomads units. You need to use code names : INA for air units, INU for land units, INS for sea units, INB for buildings (or the name of the type of units : light gunship, medium tank, etc).

You are right on something though : the t2 fighter / bomber has too long range with its rockets. I changed the rocket range for corsairs in 3629 precisely for the reason you mentioned and I will naturally changed the range for Nomads F/B too in the next version.
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Re: Small imbalances

Postby Brute51 » 16 Feb 2014, 11:07

Thanks again for the feedback! I'll look at the problems you mentioned but i'll leave the balance discussion up to Pip.
The unit spawn cheat menu (ALT+F2) seems to be generated from within the engine. I can't add Nomads units to it (really, I searched for the lua code). What you can do is write "in" in the text field near "Search"; that will show all Nomads units. I'll see if I can create a complete list of unit codes somewhere.
Two small remarks though; the Cruiser has an EMP cannon that doesn't do any real damage but freeze units, and the mobile T2 AA unit doesn't hover.
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Re: Small imbalances

Postby pip » 16 Feb 2014, 11:20

I will add a more general comment : you can't fully understand Nomads balance in just a couple of games. You would need much more games to check how each unit that has a special ability works, etc. The first time you will discover a new ability, or a new specific unit, you will think it's OP because it's different from the other factions, so it needs a specific counter. However, once you are familiar with the faction and know the weaknesses / strong points, so that you know how to counter them (or to counter other factions strenght with Nomads units, for instance how to counter Ilshavoh with Nomads EMP tank + mixed army), then you will be able to really check if the faction is balanced or not. It requires time, and competitive games, on many different maps.
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Re: Small imbalances

Postby Apofenas » 16 Feb 2014, 12:44

Yeah, my fault with t2 flak. Though, it's weird when faction has t1-t3 hover land units and doesn't have hover flak. But whatever. That doesn't change the fact, that t3 mobile aa become an unfair unit in game since last patches when t3 air was nerfed to be countered by t2 flak.

And i discovered that ACU bombardment upgrade is countered by tmd(was lazy to check that)

SCUs: Nomad rambo costs 6300 m and 224k e; UEF - 9400 m and 594k e; Seraphim - 10550 m and 476k e. Sure they are better, but their price is bigger as well.

T2 land: Sure, emp tanks counter ilshavohs, but what about mongoose and hoplites?

T2 navy: Nothing new here. The Nomad destroyer wins UEF one even in close fight. The railgun ships win coopers mass by mass. I guess this may be balanced by bulwarks. But in general Nomads use more or less same unit management as UEF. The differense is that destroyers can win salems or exoduses because they has same range but better DPS(though it needs to be microed to shot with both cannons) and ground fire subs.

T3 navy: Seraphim subhunters can outrange Nomad SCUs. But at the same time they are outranged by tactical subs. That means if you get SCU+Tactical subs mix, seraphim subhunters lose: if you don't get close to tactical subs - you lose to them; if you get in close - you lose to SCUs.
BalanceVictim wrote:I tried it out, and yes, the anti-torpedo is a useful tool now. Sadly, the rest of the unit is still extremely weak compared to any other frig
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Re: Small imbalances

Postby Dragonfire » 16 Feb 2014, 13:12

@T3 mobile aa:
if the maps has hills ... the aa can not shoot over it ...
maybe a good way to avoid damage ..

@T3 Stationary Arty:
I also thing it is a little bit op ...
Like a Aeon Rapid Fire Arty, but cheaper/faster..
Also you can build it everywhere...
e.g. near hills, because the orbit things is firing ...

Can you bring the Unit Database online again?
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Re: Small imbalances

Postby Apofenas » 16 Feb 2014, 13:21

Dragonfire wrote:@T3 Stationary Arty:
I also thing it is a little bit op ...
Like a Aeon Rapid Fire Arty, but cheaper/faster..
Also you can build it everywhere...
e.g. near hills, because the orbit things is firing ...


I would call it a stationary scathis with range of aeon t3 arty. It's like 5 T3 arty with cost of 1,5. Though i don't know about DPS of each shell, but it breaks through shields like crazy. It could be a game ender for nomads, but it needs to get a higher price for that.
BalanceVictim wrote:I tried it out, and yes, the anti-torpedo is a useful tool now. Sadly, the rest of the unit is still extremely weak compared to any other frig
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Re: Small imbalances

Postby pip » 16 Feb 2014, 14:04

There is a problem with the t3 static artillery.

You can see the intended stats here, at the bottom of the post (build 40):
viewtopic.php?f=15&t=3620

Each shot is supposed to deal 1500 damages. For some reason, this change is gone, and each shot deals 5000 damages. So it's clearly OP and not intended to be so strong.
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