Game Enders - What do we want?

[AdmiralZeech]

Since ShadowKnight's topic is intended purely for voting, I thought I'd raise this thought.

What is our DESIRED role of a "Game Ender" in FA?

Is it a unit that will grant you an almost guaranteed win, if you complete it? (Kind of like a Wonder in Age of Empires.)
--> This is the only option that fits the term "Game Ender". But do we even want "Game Enders" in the game?

Is it a "for fun" unit, that you can build when you have already utterly dominated an opponent?

Is it a long range strategic weapon, to break stalemates?

Is it just another unit, with a similar cost/reward to any other, but really expensive?

[Pavese]

Game-Enders are for maps like Thermo, Shards or anything like that to brake the Stalemate that is forced by Map design, scale and silly rules.

They cant be fixed imo. (How do you Fix a Paragon without making T3 Eco useless, how do you Fix T4 Arty without making it imba or T3 arty more useless, how do you fix a T4 Nuke without making a T3 Nuke useless?)

Theres no need to cancel them since they are so rarely build and building one is like the biggest investment you can possibly make, takes a shitton of time to build and can be taken out with ease and verry cost efficent.

[Kryo]

T4 nuke is quite good with its fast rof and 2 antinukes per nuke... The others could use a buff.

[thygrrr]

T4 nuke is quite good with its fast rof and 2 antinukes per nuke... The others could use a buff.

Totally agree. But i think T3 arty needs a buff, too. (way too fragile and limited for its price)

Example: A cybran disruptor costs a bit more than 4 Monkeylords. That pack of 4 Mls will, at the earliest stage you can have them, rape any shielded base that's realistic to have at that time in the game.

The disruptor couldn't even dent those shields in a meaningful way.

This is worse for T4 arty, if you count Salvation as that. In my humble opinion, a Salvation or Mavor should cost about what a Disruptor costs now.

I know my views are extreme about this, but really, you will rarely ever see Game Ender or even T3 artillery meaningfully used if they are so horrendously overpriced. For cybran (because they are our example here), players will always build MLs over Disruptors or Scathis except in extremely stalemated passive turtlefests or Phantom games.

By meaningful I mean not used in a wasteful way when something cheaper could have done the job much more efficiently.

[IceDreamer]

They cant be fixed imo. (How do you Fix a Paragon without making T3 Eco useless, how do you Fix T4 Arty without making it imba or T3 arty more useless, how do you fix a T4 Nuke without making a T3 Nuke useless?)

They can most certainly be fixed. Contrary to what a person looking at the games played might think, there are maps in this game FAR bigger than those usually used. The 81K maps are absolutely flipping humongous. You compare them to T3? Well, the fact is that T3 is ALREADY useless on these maps, as it can't reach the enemy, and by the time it does that enemy is capable of having built a base which is impregnable to ANY T3 force. Even base-breakers like the GC and Spiderbot cannot do anything at this stage; they take too long to get there, and are not strong enough for when they do. This is where the higher end weapons like T3 Artillery come in. Useless in a usual game, yes, but building 2 dozen of them in stealthed locations in range of the enemy CAN and DOES break the base, unless the enemy wises up and finds them out. This is where the Game-Ender becomes necessary. It is not a case of buffing T4 makes T3 useless, but a case of T4 gives possibilities for when T3 simply is not viable.

In response to the OP, definitely the Game-Enders should be a Strategic option to be used where all else has failed. They can be stopped by smart play, so they are not Wonder-Like, but they will, in my mod, be INCREDIBLY strong. If you build one, and it is not dealt with, you WILL win the game. I do not intend for them to ever be an efficient, or even viable, option in maps smaller than 40K, except for the very worst of stalemates.

Just to lay it out, my intentions for the modification are:

Salvation - Undecided. See my poll to decide for me

Mavor - The ultimate in Assassination weaponry, and the longest range, most strategic weapon in the game. Build this, and if you can keep your target visible, that target WILL die. NO amount of dodging or protection can hold off Mavor forever.

Scathis - The ultimate in Base-Breaking weaponry. A mobile artillery platform with significant defences of its own, once a Scathis is in range of your base, that base WILL be wiped off the map. NO amount of shielding can defend against this threat for any significant amount of time.

Paragon - Not a weapon on its own, as such, Aeon engineers decided that the current weaponry available was enough if only you hit the enemy with MORE of it. The Paragon generates infinite resources for as long as you have the build power to use them. A Paragon will ensure that you can hit the enemy with so much fire-power NO defences can hold before you, and NO assault can overwhelm you.

Yolona Oss - The ultimate in wiping out any unprotected target you damn well please. If it does not have SMD cover, it WILL die. To achieve Game-Ender status, Seraphim engineers introduced a way to make it practically impossible to defend a base against a Yolona Oss for a long period of time. Eventually this WILL break through ANY SMD system, and everything below it WILL die.

[uberge3k]

Using 81km (80km?) maps as an example is unrealistic IMO. They will never be seriously played as they are simply too buggy - there is an engine bug which causes units to eventually cease responding to orders for random intervals, making any kind of competitive game impossible. Not to mention the inevitable lag with that many units over that long of a game.

I believe the current T4 game enders already more or less fit their intended purposes. Some slight buffing of the Mavor and Scathis might be in order, but the rest already fulfill their purpose.

T3 stationary arty is of the most import at the moment. Suggestions of that could be:

- EMP everything it hits, regardless of whether or not it's shielded
- Do massive shield-breaking damage, but less "real" damage to compensate - just enough to break through 2 or 3 overlapped shields after some time, forcing your enemy to overspam shields to counter it.
- Massively cut it's cost (less than a nuke?!) and it's output to match. It would be a dedicated expansion harassment unit - enough to take out an undefended T2 mex after a short while, but helpless against a single shield.

[IceDreamer]

Did I say competitive game would be played on 81K maps? No. But casual games are occasionally played, and the ones I have played end when a player quits to go an have dinner, not when a player wins, for the simple fact that on such maps the current Game-Enders are not strong enough, with the exception of Yolona Oss and the Paragon, and neither are masses of smaller units. I was in fact not planning on changing those two much, Uberge3k, so pretty much what you say: Buff Mavor and Scathis to actually... Work?

I agree with the T3 Artillery suggestions, though before we touch those, I think it might be worth looking at the Shields first. FunkOff's shield-stacking recharge penalty looks very promising.

As far as I am aware, and I think I would be, there is no such bug as makes units stop responding, and I have certainly never encountered such a thing. I have had people crash because their CPU or Graphics card cannot take the strain, I have had the game slow down due to some idiot using a P4 CPU, but I have never had that. The only real bug I know of is the memory leak associated with AIs and certain game-commands, but I believe FAForever has managed to fix, or at least, reduce, that problem.

Computers there days are so much more powerful than they used to be that 81K maps ARE now within reach. A group of 8 players on good connections with powerful rigs should be able to play a smooth game on such a map. The problem now is that the unit power levels do not scale to be able to end such a game, and each player sending around 800+ units will still slow down today's CPUs, hence my Mod in the works.

[MonkeyFun]

I like the direction ShadowKnight is taking these units.

However, I believe an Oss can be held off indefinitely with 7-8 SMDs - therefore it's still not quite in line with the paragon, which, imo, is the only true game ender.

As for the others:
A Mavor can be stopped with shield layering, usually Mavor + Dukes is needed to break shields.

It takes at least 3 t3 arty (not salvation) to break shields, more if well layered/assisted and/or seraphim shields - this is also providing you synchronize the arty. 3 t3 arty is roughly the cost of a game ender.

Scathis is too inaccurate to do any meaningful damage to a shielded base. It's just really annoying having your screen shake around every time it hits :l Cybran t3 arty is generally bad.

Salvation is very good, especially with the t1 power surrounding it (has that been changed btw? I haven't seen a salvation with power since gpgnet :l ) As a side note, with power surrounding, I think it was tested back on gpgnet to break 10+ sera t3 shields.

And of course, the paragon is only stopped by another paragon, and with mixed units (aka kennels or hives for actual build power) it will crush anyone without their own paragon. Also its important to note that a single paragon on a team can lead to the entire team having their own paragons quickly, as well as doubles, meaning it is hard to snipe them all and halt resource production (unless there is limited teammates and/or map space; for example a ffa on roanoke).

So yea, game ender buff up to powered salvation (for arty) levels would be nice, and the paragon will always be the best due to the nature of it. The oss is not bad as-is, but it is the only game ender with a hard counter, but then again easily does the most damage if not countered.

Also keep in mind a shield stacking nerf would just make the paragon even stronger, since its infinite resources would allow the few shields you can have up to be heavily assisted while no other faction could reasonably compare.

Oh and to answer the OP: Game enders should definitely be powerful long range weapons designed to break stalemates. What else could justify their incredible build time and vulnerability?

[IceDreamer]

@Monkeyfun - Thanks for the comments there. Your results seem to tally with mine in that the Paragon is the only true Game-Ender. For my mod, I have now decided that Mavor will be the most expensive, with the Paragon slightly less, Yolona Oss less still, and Scathis being the cheapest and *weakest* though still nothing to sniff at.

They will be balanced relative to my version of the Paragon. In short, changes I will be making to it are:

- Infinite resources: Quite literally NO limit on how much it can produce.
- Even bigger death explosion than a Yolona Oss detonation. It will not go boom, it will go BOOM.
- *Possibly* a slight armour value to protect it from teleporting SCU suicide attacks.

[monty]

@Monkeyfun - Thanks for the comments there. Your results seem to tally with mine in that the Paragon is the only true Game-Ender. For my mod, I have now decided that Mavor will be the most expensive, with the Paragon slightly less, Yolona Oss less still, and Scathis being the cheapest and *weakest* though still nothing to sniff at.

They will be balanced relative to my version of the Paragon. In short, changes I will be making to it are:

- Infinite resources: Quite literally NO limit on how much it can produce.
- Even bigger death explosion than a Yolona Oss detonation. It will not go boom, it will go BOOM.
- *Possibly* a slight armour value to protect it from teleporting SCU suicide attacks.

let's be realistic. aeon dont even have enough build power to outpace ten thousand mass. so what's the use of changing the paragon to infinite money maker?

all game enders except paragon can give you an instant win. to end game with paragon, you need time and build power. it takes time to build SCUs and engineers. it takes time to build vast amount of units. its unfair for paragon to be on the same level of pricing to other game enders. it needs to be cheaper and built much earlier before other game enders can be completed