Mycen wrote:
It definitely is not. But nothing is, the Paragon is supposed to be the final word in experimentals. That's why it's called the "Paragon." Aeon always have the best units but the most niche, and their strategic T4 is no exception. It's not immediately useful like the other factions' weapons, but it's ultimately far more powerful.
It definitely is not. But nothing is, the Paragon is supposed to be the final word in experimentals. That's why it's called the "Paragon." Aeon always have the best units but the most niche, and their strategic T4 is no exception. It's not immediately useful like the other factions' weapons, but it's ultimately far more powerful.
After seeing it in Vanilla, I'd argue that Mr Mavor envisioned his pet project to be the final word in Experimentals
There are two further reasons though. Firstly, it's so much cooler a concept than a big resource generator. Secondly, unless we lose our heads, I don't think it's possible to buff Mavor so hard it becomes BETTER than the Paragon. Paragon's just too good!Mycen wrote:
I really would like to see this supposed video you brought up a while back - a cast of some game where a person had three Mavors and still could not effectively destroy someone's base? It's just that, I find that impossible to believe, because in every game I've played where these two units have featured, the Mavor is just as useful, often more useful, than the YO.
I believe it was one of the two Phantom games Gyle has casted... Don't quote me on that. In the game I remember, two Mavor were not enough to really damage this guy's base, not because the shells weren't doing enough damage, but because even from one side of a 20K map to the other, the shells weren't even hitting the island every shot. Fairly sure it was on Ranoake's... Anyway, against Seraphim's insane shields, they couldn't break through. It's 650,000 Mass, it should break through ANYTHING.
On the second Phantom he casted, one guy definitely made a Mavor. True, it DID eventually destroy the base it was targeted at, but if you look properly you notice that it was a Mavor AND two T3 Artillery against a moderately shielded base. Even with the shields not operating at full capacity (Thanks to the bug Sheeo has now fixed for next patch) they didn't actually do much to the base itself for a good long time, several minutes. Only when a Scathis got in range and began firing did the base finally, truly, begin to crumble.
Mycen wrote:
It's not too hard to get to the necessary eight SMDs before the YO depletes the missiles you will already have for normal nukes anyway. You basically can't expand at all if there's a YO in play, but you can totally protect a base from one easily. By the time people are throwing strategic T4s around, most of your resources will be coming from SCUs and reclaim anyway, so grabbing mexes isn't as important. And while they could try to snipe your SMDs, if they're doing that, they could just use regular nukes! In contrast, how well you can defend against a Mavor has a lower, and fairly hard, limit based on how many shields you can cram into an area, with a little bit of leeway provided by how many engis you can get repairing your shields.
I'd be happy to see a counterexample, I just haven't seen anything showing a YO being better than a Mavor. I'll see if I can find some of what I'm talking about though. Gotta figure out how to post replays.
Mavor requires considerable shielding to stop, and hence Energy input, but when comparing it to the Yolona Oss the first thing one must remember to take into account is the SMD Missile costs. It is a not-insignificant drain on your economy, defending against a YO, and the YO barely takes any resources at all to run. Further, I'd maintain another factor here: Surprise. The biggest weakness of ALL the strategic T4 is that if they are scouted before completion they are all too easily destroyed or countered. If they are not... Well, the Salvation will kill an entire base in about 30 seconds, the Paragon means that next time you do battle, your army will be far larger than they expected. Scathis, if it gets in range without being noticed, causes instant mayhem. And if you notice a YO Missile coming in while you only have 2 or 3 SMD it's game over, because a few attacks later a missile will hit and you WILL die. Mavor though? Mavor, even vs an unshielded base, gives far too much response time. The only thing it has going for it is the way it somehow seeks out enemy ACUs even if you've not seen them all game, but that's definitely a bug.
And as for the Salvation, I've been saying for a long time that it's not that other T4s aren't powerful enough compared to it, it's that the Salvation is too powerful. It's a T3 unit, but it has the power, cost, and range of a T4? "Hidden T4" my ass, it should be the opposite of the Emissary. Think about it: The Emissary is a long-ranged, slow firing, extremely powerful, accurate Artillery piece. The Salvation is similarly long-ranged, but it's rapid-fire, relatively weak, with widely dispersed damage. The Emissary is supposed to knock down shields and take out hard targets, while the Salvation keeps shields down and wipes out whole swathes of the enemy's light targets, whether bases or armies.
Mycen wrote:
I don't get why no one has any qualms about dramatically altering the balance of units that are overpowered when we use them all the time, like Yathsous or Restorers, strategic bombers, etc., but there's so much disinterest in fixing the 'flair' units that make the occasional appearance. Well, actually that makes a lot of sense. I guess it's just annoying.
Salvation is the right strength for its Mass cost and is a really cool unit to boot, that's why. If we dropped the stats down alongside the cost to match the normal T3, the way that awesome weapon works will make it utterly useless. Also, I think I'd argue there's no limit on T3's cost or power, since T3 and T4 are functionally identical anyway, and only use different UI menus.
Mycen wrote:
First I would ask: "Isn't that why you want to make it more accurate?" I'm not against improving it, you know. It could use more accuracy. It should at least be more accurate than a T3 arty up to the size of a 40x40, although I think it already is. (?) It maybe could use a little more damage, even, although it seems quite powerful enough to me already.
Here we go. I think we're ultimately on the same side here. Nice catch with the unit description not being permanent, but this is one of the few I think captures the design and (Old) balance of the unit perfectly. Note in the new descriptions I already pointed it to the balance path I hope the community one day takes
Some of the stuff I see suggested for Mavor (Some things I have suggested myself come to that) are just too far. An accuracy boost will do a lot, coupled with a Damage boost. That Damage boost is probably unnecessary right now, but what with the incoming changes being made to shielding (Making it work as intended!) I think all the Artillery units are going to need a buff of some kind, else they'll not be able to do much again 
Statistics: Posted by IceDreamer — 04 Jul 2014, 11:33
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You see them even on Seton's, you know. It's not as if the only place for a Mavor's extra range is an 81x81 - even on a 20x20 you can't hit much of the map with a T3 arty that's not in a forward base. And by the time you establish a forward base strong enough to protect an investment like a T3 arty, you oftentimes could have just built a Mavor in your main base from the get-go. When I talk about how the Mavor's range is an advantage, I'm talking about maps people play all the time too. 
Is the unit database off? I better pay attention around here!) But the Ythotha can be attacked long before its in range. In fact, if they try to walk it over land and you intercept it with a Novax, unless they build a trail of shield gens, they can't stop your Novax from damaging it - it's taller than the mobile shields! They might defend against strats with ASFs, but they have to just eat the Novax damage. And if they're, say, three minutes away from your base, the Novax will have put it at 50% HP by the time it hits your Ravagers. Or they hit it, rather.