Zock wrote:
It's not so easy to solve this. FA doesn't reward building special units much, when you can have allround units that do the same job slightly worse, but other jobs on top. LABs have the same problem. Rocketbots also have the problem of needing a lot of micro, so if you make them viable for medium players with okayish micro, they will become much stronger in the hands of very good players, and to avoid them getting OP you can only make them that much viable for the medium players in return.
If you just buff them, they will likely either just get a bit better at being irrelevant, or replace tanks as main army component again.
What would be needed to really solve the issue is to introduce a soft stone-paper-scissor system for t2 direct fire units, I tried to get some changes in this direction through in some older balance patch, but it didn't get too much support, the changes got in, but softened too much to be impactfull. I had some ideas how to solve this, but I was not really sure if they could be implemented successful, even when creating a balance that rewards mixed armies/different units for different situations, the additional organization effort for the player might always lead to one-type armies (unless you create a hard counter system, but FA doesn't really work like that and it would change the "spirit" of the game imo). Still better to have the option for more then one one-type army, but it would've been worth a try to go a bit further.
This would require at least some, maybe a lot, of follow-up changes to all t2 tanks though. I don't think you can get a really good solution without doing that, then better keep it as it is. They are not even that bad in the right hands, there are just not too many of such hands.
It's not so easy to solve this. FA doesn't reward building special units much, when you can have allround units that do the same job slightly worse, but other jobs on top. LABs have the same problem. Rocketbots also have the problem of needing a lot of micro, so if you make them viable for medium players with okayish micro, they will become much stronger in the hands of very good players, and to avoid them getting OP you can only make them that much viable for the medium players in return.
If you just buff them, they will likely either just get a bit better at being irrelevant, or replace tanks as main army component again.
What would be needed to really solve the issue is to introduce a soft stone-paper-scissor system for t2 direct fire units, I tried to get some changes in this direction through in some older balance patch, but it didn't get too much support, the changes got in, but softened too much to be impactfull. I had some ideas how to solve this, but I was not really sure if they could be implemented successful, even when creating a balance that rewards mixed armies/different units for different situations, the additional organization effort for the player might always lead to one-type armies (unless you create a hard counter system, but FA doesn't really work like that and it would change the "spirit" of the game imo). Still better to have the option for more then one one-type army, but it would've been worth a try to go a bit further.
This would require at least some, maybe a lot, of follow-up changes to all t2 tanks though. I don't think you can get a really good solution without doing that, then better keep it as it is. They are not even that bad in the right hands, there are just not too many of such hands.
Appreciate the thoughtful response. I think you hit the nail on the head with
Rocketbots also have the problem of needing a lot of micro, so if you make them viable for medium players with okayish micro, they will become much stronger in the hands of very good players, and to avoid them getting OP you can only make them that much viable for the medium players in return.
I feel like that's often one of the hardest parts of game design in general, and this is a particularly tricky case. One basic way to do so would be make changes that make bad micro less costly. Like zlo said, "hoplites have to low HP, one mistake or t1 arty shot or t1 bomber and bot is already about half health..." If they just had a little more HP, then they wouldn't be as terrible for average players while not receiving as significant a buff for good players, right?
They are not even that bad in the right hands, there are just not too many of such hands.
This is the other thing though. I watch a good amount of sup com casts of ~2000 players and I rarely if ever see rocket bots/mongeese. Even in your games, although some may be out there that I haven't seen of course. It just seems to me like even when perfectly microed they aren't much better than rhinos and whatnots. And if in top players hands they still aren't built ever and they're such a micro intensive unit that they get worse quickly as rating goes down... that's not so good.
This would require at least some, maybe a lot, of follow-up changes to all t2 tanks though. I don't think you can get a really good solution without doing that, then better keep it as it is.
I personally have a vision of what I'd do with t2 units in a perfect world (make a lot more variety across the t2 tanks), and I'm sure a lot of other players, yourself included, have a good vision. Setting that aside though, given how useless rangebots are right now, surely a minor hp buff or the like, would either make the situation slightly better or leave it the exact same, right? It couldn't make it worse, really, could it?
Statistics: Posted by sasin — 18 Sep 2014, 22:12
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