Reclaim and Veterancy Adjustments

[Astrofoo]

I have had this idea for some time and am curious to see the response and other arguments for and against it. My adjustment ideas are two-fold. I will list them and discuss them individually and then discuss the impact I believe they *could* have on gameplay.

1.) Veterancy being adjusted so it no longer auto heals units upon rank up
- We can all agree this is a massive game mechanic. It is very exciting in casts, people even count on it in 1v1 spam games to keep their ACU alive. However, it makes it very hard sometimes to kill XP units with lower tier. Is it intuitive for newer players to ctrl k their t1 and t2 units before a monkeylord rolls through so it doesn't vet up and get even harder to kill? No, it makes sense to throw everything you got at it and hope it dies before it wrecks your base. You also have no idea when the enemy ACU is about to vet. So you could throw every t1/t2 land unit you have at it only for it to vet the 10th unit it kills and completely annihilate your attack and leave you defenseless. All from the timing of your attack that you had no way of predicting. We never know if an acu is 20 kills from a vet, or 1 kill.

- This would also indirectly buff t3 units. The ACU overcharge would be significantly less effective late game vs t3 ground units. This seems like an acceptable change to me. Medium to large numbers of t3 should defeat an unprotected ACU. I'm not talking two loyalists here. I mean groups of 4 or 5 percies/bricks. Currently, you can beat that with an ACU and actually profit from it in health/regen. That is not really a fair trade.
This change would also adjust t3/XP balance considerably. Right now in some situations the t3 wins overwhelmingly, others it loses to a single XP who gets some "lucky" veterancy.

Proposal: No more auto heal. Instead give maybe 20-30% more regen potential and same or higher MAXIMUM health potential than now. This means that your Monkeylord won't auto heal itself upon killing 10 bricks, instead it regens a lot faster. So in the long run, it becomes very powerful. This is a risk/reward situation. Short term, the free insta heal is better. Long term, better regen is better. Think Cybran ACU with 10k hp but 17/s regen everybody....

Effect on gameplay: People get a little more defensive with their acus and their high value XPs. But they also aren't afraid to attack a Monkeylord with their t2 army either. Potentially, this could create a slightly more static late game with large amounts of t3 and XPs posturing. I also think if this change went through XPs may be in more need of an already deserved buff. That would be discussed later.

To counteract the more stagnant late game posturing my next change is proposed to be shipped at the same time...

2.) Reclaim nerf to 51% down from 81%
- Reclaim is important. Reclaim decides games. Reclaim seperates good players from great players. Reclaim makes this game unique over any other RTS.
Reclaim also massively rewards the defender in lots of situations. How many games outcomes have we seen decided from a massive attack stalling in the enemy's base and them getting a huge eco boost from a big reclaim field.
- Is this intuitive for a newer player? We tell them to never turtle, yet when they try to be aggressive they just gift mass to their opponent and get steamrolled by a superior force. High level game mechanic aside, it shouldn't be as strong as it is. However, removing it from the game seems like a very bad idea and one I would forever fight.

Proposal: Nerf it to 51% of original mass cost. This would be even less for naval reclaim of course, which is half of that(??) Not exactly sure on the details for naval reclaim.

Effect on gameplay: Players are more likely to attack, but reclaim is still an excellent tool. Note this doesn't effect tree and rock reclaim so that is untouched. Encourages aggression/map control a little more, but still punishes them for a stupid attack, albeit not as badly.


Overall gameplay changes of these two proposals:

You'll be more careful with your ACU and your XPs, but you'll also be more willing to attack knowing you won't dump a massive gift in your opponents' front yard. Attacking and having prolonged battles is also rewarded by the vet regen advantage just like with current Cybran ACU. And it is possible to muster everything you or your team has to kill that one early XP, and the other team isn't punished as badly by this situation because they dumped less mass than they would in current balance. I think these changes are mutually beneficial to each other.

Thoughts?

[Exotic_Retard]

it looks like you need some natural balance:

veterancy nerf included, nerf to reclaim time included. (nerf to reclaim amount not included)
bringing you features you wanted since 2015

on a slightly more serious note, heres the changelog: http://equilibrium.x10host.com/changelog/
would be happy to talk to you about anything in it, or anything not in it as well.

enjoy.

EDIT: you can play with these changes today. and if you ask for new changes (& they get approved) they will be in the mod in a couple weeks time.

[Zock]

Changes to vet system that go into that direction will definitely happen in the patch after the next one (soon tm).

Changes to reclaim in some way are not decided but also not unlikely in some patch after that one (not so soon tm).

There are also other threads about each topic with more discussions and suggestions about the vet system and reclaim if you want to read up on it.

[Hawkei]

These ideas have already been discussed. The proposal which I made before was for the max health to increase with vet, as per normal, but for the HP% to remain unchanged. This means that a unit closer to full health would get a nearly full and immediate HP boost. A unit which is nearly dead would still be nearly dead. Essentially, the formula for calculating new health is as follows:

AddedNewHP = NewHP * CurrentHP/CurrentMaxHP
AddedMaxHP = NewHP

This has been suggested many times before; and yet not implemented. So the appetite for this is simply not there.

[Ithilis_Quo]

This has been suggested many times before; and yet not implemented. So the appetite for this is simply not there.

wrong. When it was discused so many time of course the appetite is there. But what is not there is balance concilor that is do him job. That one what we have for year do nearly nothing.

Spoiler: show

soon™

[keyser]

Yeah balance team is doing nothing at all.
Better just introduce equilibrium in the game right now, and kill the game.

[Ithilis_Quo]

Yeah balance team is doing nothing at all.

yes. After year that balance concilore was introduce, except some hot fix, nothing happend. Or did i miss something?

[Exotic_Retard]

guys.. guys... lets not be mad at each other now, ok

im sure the balance team is doing lots of work, and im sure that equilibrium wont kill the game, no need for such talk, this isnt saltrock colony

[Ithilis_Quo]

Its not salty, its jast fact.

[keyser]

You are like a Fucking politician, jumping to conclusion without taking everything into consideration.
1st of all it s not because you don t see anything done, that there is no work being done.
2nd, we were kinda block by server change for several month.

Faf community is a bitch, it want change in no time, without any bug in the end.