Forged Alliance Forever

Re: Ythotha "Balance" Proposition

2016-10-30T15:26:16+02:00

Exotic_Retard wrote:
i guess its time for the balance terrorists to hop in:

http://equilibrium.x10host.com/changelog/#t4land

ours is much better simply by disabling friendly fire on the storm. now you can have 2 together and they dont get ruined when one dies, and you can have if with t3 army as well.
extremely simple and effective solution, now the ion storm is a real seraphim advantage not just a strange shit that shows up whenever

wonder why this is not in game long time ago, ah yea building HP balance more important

Statistics: Posted by ZeRen — 30 Oct 2016, 15:26

Re: Ythotha "Balance" Proposition

2016-10-29T21:26:46+02:00

i guess its time for the balance terrorists to hop in:

http://equilibrium.x10host.com/changelog/#t4land

ours is much better simply by disabling friendly fire on the storm. now you can have 2 together and they dont get ruined when one dies, and you can have if with t3 army as well.
extremely simple and effective solution, now the ion storm is a real seraphim advantage not just a strange shit that shows up whenever

Statistics: Posted by Exotic_Retard — 29 Oct 2016, 21:26

Re: Ythotha "Balance" Proposition

2016-10-29T21:18:38+02:00

I agree, the ythotha really sucks and needs something to aid it.

Statistics: Posted by FunkOff — 29 Oct 2016, 21:18

Re: Ythotha "Balance" Proposition

2016-10-29T20:24:03+02:00

Doggie wrote:
Yet the point of this post is not to directly tackle that aspect of the chicken, but offering what Zock had been asking out of people, and it is to give the chicken something of a unique use or utility, instead of leaving it as a simple replica to what is already the GC.

biass wrote:
Sonic emitters soon?

I don't really understand the sonic emitters reference (they're turrets?), but since you're comparing it to a base defense unit, and to follow up on Doggie's quoted point above:

I think it would be valuable to look at approaching the Ythotha as a primarily defensive weapon in the Seraphim arsenal, with supplemental roles as a supporting offensive unit.

This about it this way: Cybran and Aeon land forces typically will consist of a swarm of mostly a single unit type supporting a direct fire T4 that deals a lot of very focused damage and tanks a lot of damage. In contrast, Seraphim land forces are rather similar to UEF in terms of tactics and unit composition - they rely heavily on a combined arms force of large numbers of T3 land units, with a T4 that, while it has comparable DPS to other land T4s, spreads its damage out over a relatively large area and does not operate directly with the other land units.

Now obviously the Ythotha does not have the range of the Fatboy, but with it's death ball weapon and three different weapon types, its ability to damage large formations of enemy units is more in line with a fatty than a Monkeylord, GC, or Megalith, and obviously the lightning storm allows it to damage many units over a wide area, albeit only after death. Also, while they both do it in different ways and for different reasons, neither the Fatty nor the Ythotha operate directly with the T3 land force - they play a supporting role.

If giving the Ythotha a unique role that would fit with the Seraphim army is the goal, rather than being a large powerful unit that tanks damage as the spearhead of an assault force (which has obviously never worked properly), or a unit that can go toe-to-toe with other large T4s (which Seraphim do not need thanks to sniper bots and OC SCUs), I would propose that we think of it as more of an anti-army firebeetle than a regular assault bot. After all, the Ythotha is essentially a big ball of energy shoehorned into a physical container, which then sprays this energy out until the container is destroyed, releasing all that remains at once.

Changes that I see fitting this concept?
Lower build time
Lower mass cost
Lower damage on weapons
Lower HP
Lower veterancy bonuses
Raise energy cost
Raise damage radius on weapons
Change height/hitboxes so that T3 mobile shields provide little/no protection
Improve its ability to target multiple units with weapons
Reduce Lightning Storm's ability to deal large amounts of damage to single targets
Implement Lightning Storm continuing along Ythotha's trajectory

Now obviously I don't think it should be dramatically reworked (I don't favor any changes that are not incremental) but as a design philosophy when working out how to balance this unit and what to do with it I think the above would be a good approach. Thoughts?

Statistics: Posted by Mycen — 29 Oct 2016, 20:24

Re: Ythotha "Balance" Proposition

2016-10-29T07:50:51+02:00

biass wrote:
IceDreamer wrote:
Mycen wrote:Make the lightning storm move in the same speed and direction as the Ythotha that spawned it. This alone would be a great change, because you could actually use the Seraphim T4 to storm enemy lines and then follow on with your attacking force.

More people suggest this please! I have code which does this, just need to persuade Zock to use it

Sonic emitters soon?

Yes, please.

Also,

IceDreamer wrote:
Mycen wrote:Make the lightning storm move in the same speed and direction as the Ythotha that spawned it. This alone would be a great change, because you could actually use the Seraphim T4 to storm enemy lines and then follow on with your attacking force.

More people suggest this please! I have code which does this, just need to persuade Zock to use it

Statistics: Posted by angus000 — 29 Oct 2016, 07:50

Re: Ythotha "Balance" Proposition

2016-10-29T06:20:22+02:00

IceDreamer wrote:
Mycen wrote:Make the lightning storm move in the same speed and direction as the Ythotha that spawned it. This alone would be a great change, because you could actually use the Seraphim T4 to storm enemy lines and then follow on with your attacking force.

More people suggest this please! I have code which does this, just need to persuade Zock to use it

Sonic emitters soon?

Statistics: Posted by biass — 29 Oct 2016, 06:20

Re: Ythotha "Balance" Proposition

2016-10-28T19:15:29+02:00

I'll just leave this here.
object

Statistics: Posted by PhilipJFry — 28 Oct 2016, 19:15

Re: Ythotha "Balance" Proposition

2016-10-24T23:01:56+02:00

Mycen wrote:
Make the lightning storm move in the same speed and direction as the Ythotha that spawned it. This alone would be a great change, because you could actually use the Seraphim T4 to storm enemy lines and then follow on with your attacking force.

More people suggest this please! I have code which does this, just need to persuade Zock to use it

Statistics: Posted by IceDreamer — 24 Oct 2016, 23:01

Re: Ythotha "Balance" Proposition

2016-10-24T22:46:30+02:00

Make the lightning storm move in the same speed and direction as the Ythotha that spawned it. This alone would be a great change, because you could actually use the Seraphim T4 to storm enemy lines and then follow on with your attacking force.

Statistics: Posted by Mycen — 24 Oct 2016, 22:46

Re: Ythotha "Balance" Proposition

2016-10-23T04:00:31+02:00

PhilipJFry wrote:
Doggie wrote:
PhilipJFry wrote:I fail to see how this would solve any of the issues that makes the chicken inferior to similar units of other factions.
In fact i'd even argue that this change would make the chicken more micro intensive and thus worse overall.

I cannot see on the case of the how harder it would be to micro, if it isn't already hard for the chicken to micro and be effective overall; you would even argue what, that you can say you can? Please be specific. I already addressed that those issues, such as its poor targeting, are things that are a separate matters to deal with, since I believe anyone who has messed with the chicken long enough knows we need to do something about it. I highly doubt, since this is a unit that tends to overkill unless it is a high tier unit, we will be able to do much about that problem.

The biggest issue that the chicken has imho is the fact that it is outmicroed easily compared to other units.
Changes to the ion storm, walking speed or pure dmg output do not adress those.
Having to use some overdrive ability or whatever you wanna call it just means more attention required.

I would argue that the attention required for the chicken is far less vital than you're making it, considering most people that have an experimental pay just enough attention to make sure it does its job well, since it is a valuable unit in your army at that point. Toggling does little more than just change some stats and give it a boost, and probably even perform better if faced with a certain threat. It's no different than if you toggled the stealth on a cybran t3 air unit, and is entirely situational.

I think what you miss from this as well is that improving the ythotha can simply take "buffing health and damage" or actually finding a way to fix the targeting issue, and it is a straightforward thing. Yet the point of this post is not to directly tackle that aspect of the chicken, but offering what Zock had been asking out of people, and it is to give the chicken something of a unique use or utility, instead of leaving it as a simple replica to what is already the GC. This post, as I have said before, is meant to give a new take or approach to the seraphim t4 experimental, and to add a dynamic that feels needed, or at least, requested out of this. This is quite an ambitious idea, but it is something I find relevant to how the chicken is designed regardless.

Statistics: Posted by Ze Dogfather — 23 Oct 2016, 04:00

Re: Ythotha "Balance" Proposition

2016-10-23T03:48:57+02:00

Tony_Abbot wrote:
Give the cannon ball tracking, to a degree, and make the deathball toggleable for no cost, with a 45 sec cooldown.

Fixes the micro issue, and fixes the base defense issue.

What's the problem again?

Heh, the problem is that nobody would ever vouch to put tracking on a weapon like that. TMLs used to do that in the vanilla Supreme Commander (not FA), and, well... we know why we don't have that anymore lol.

Statistics: Posted by Ze Dogfather — 23 Oct 2016, 03:48

Re: Ythotha "Balance" Proposition

2016-10-22T12:44:18+02:00

I feel like tracking versus Land and Sea units is usually quite frustrating for the opposing player. It's a worse way to make micro more difficult.
I think that slightly increasing projectile speed of the Ythotas head weapon should make it a bit more difficult to dodge, but still possible, and it should be easy to adjust to find the sweet spot between usability of the chicken and rewarding enemy micro.
And "fix" the chicken's AA, so it actually hits stuff.

Statistics: Posted by Yakmann — 22 Oct 2016, 12:44

Re: Ythotha "Balance" Proposition

2016-10-22T07:00:23+02:00

Give the cannon ball tracking, to a degree, and make the deathball toggleable for no cost, with a 45 sec cooldown.

Fixes the micro issue, and fixes the base defense issue.

What's the problem again?

Statistics: Posted by Tony_Abbot — 22 Oct 2016, 07:00

Re: Ythotha "Balance" Proposition

2016-10-22T04:03:08+02:00

PhilipJFry wrote:
Doggie wrote:
PhilipJFry wrote:I fail to see how this would solve any of the issues that makes the chicken inferior to similar units of other factions.
In fact i'd even argue that this change would make the chicken more micro intensive and thus worse overall.

I cannot see on the case of the how harder it would be to micro, if it isn't already hard for the chicken to micro and be effective overall; you would even argue what, that you can say you can? Please be specific. I already addressed that those issues, such as its poor targeting, are things that are a separate matters to deal with, since I believe anyone who has messed with the chicken long enough knows we need to do something about it. I highly doubt, since this is a unit that tends to overkill unless it is a high tier unit, we will be able to do much about that problem.

The biggest issue that the chicken has imho is the fact that it is outmicroed easily compared to other units.
Changes to the ion storm, walking speed or pure dmg output do not adress those.
Having to use some overdrive ability or whatever you wanna call it just means more attention required.

What if its 8k weapon had great AOE?

Statistics: Posted by angus000 — 22 Oct 2016, 04:03

Re: Ythotha "Balance" Proposition

2016-10-22T00:07:28+02:00

Doggie wrote:
PhilipJFry wrote:I fail to see how this would solve any of the issues that makes the chicken inferior to similar units of other factions.
In fact i'd even argue that this change would make the chicken more micro intensive and thus worse overall.

I cannot see on the case of the how harder it would be to micro, if it isn't already hard for the chicken to micro and be effective overall; you would even argue what, that you can say you can? Please be specific. I already addressed that those issues, such as its poor targeting, are things that are a separate matters to deal with, since I believe anyone who has messed with the chicken long enough knows we need to do something about it. I highly doubt, since this is a unit that tends to overkill unless it is a high tier unit, we will be able to do much about that problem.

The biggest issue that the chicken has imho is the fact that it is outmicroed easily compared to other units.
Changes to the ion storm, walking speed or pure dmg output do not adress those.
Having to use some overdrive ability or whatever you wanna call it just means more attention required.

Statistics: Posted by PhilipJFry — 22 Oct 2016, 00:07