Balance, 1.04

I'm being nice this time.

from Sins Forums
    So as you all know, the 1.04 patch for sins is out, I'm sure most of you have played it. Please note: I'm not bashing the game, I just see these as important balance concerns.


    First concern: Illuminators, clearly right now they are overpowered. It shouldn't have to be explained, but on the off chance it does. Even at t3 and a higher cost. For the same cost and fleet supply as lrms, if the TEC player has twice as much of these two resources invested, the advent player with Illuminators will win.


    Fix: Either remove the secondary weapon banks, reduce damage all around, reduce survivability, or increase cost/fleet supply. Alternately, look into creating their own damage/armor type to keep them as effective as desired against certain things without dominating what used to counter them (Flak, massively outnumbered by lrms/assailants)


    Second concern: Flaks do not counter illuminators effectively anymore. Nothing to explain at all this time, just not a cost effective counter.


    Fix: See above, custom damage/armor for illums would fix this. That's my prefered solution.


    Third concern: Addressed non-publicly.


    Fourth concern: Brill/malice, I realize they're level 6. I realize it requires two capitals. But please realize this synergy is just too powerful.


    Fix: Make cleansing brilliance not work with malice, problem solved. They're both still incredible abilities, but no longer a two press I win combo.


    Fifth concern: Random number of resource asteroids per planetoid. This isn't really important, but as I stressed last time, I feel some sort of way to edit this without modding the game (Like the speed settings) Should be added. 1-1 or 1-2 per asteroid 1-2 or 2-2 per terran/desert 0-3 or 0-4 for volc opposite for ice would also be fine. Neutral planetoids should contain 1-2 for the ones without pirates, 2-3 for those with, maybe 2-4.


    Fix: Explained in concern.


    Sixth (Edited in): Embargo.


    Fix+Explanation: With the way your starting economy works, 2-3 jumps away from the enemy means his sova will be embargoing long before you have any substantial form of income other than your homeworld. As it is, embargo is a shitty shitty ability - unless it's used early game on a homeworld. Where it ends up taking a large percentage of your entire economy instead of some backwater planet that is generating almost no revenue to begin with.


    I recommend adjusting the value stolen for home planets or changing the ability. Maybe get rid of the stealing, keep "embargoing" the trade ships and forcing them to stay in, but add instead of increased build time. You can't build with embargo active. Make it less of a cooldown, less duration, same AM/minute. Possibly make it half the duration of the cooldown level 1 75% level 2 100% level 3? Beatable by simply building a factory on the asteroid you can get before a sova gets to your base in all cases.


    Embargo becomes a tactical ability rather than an economic ability that in and of itself is a tactic because of how powerful it is. Or just adjust the percentage stolen - whatever floats your boat, but it really should be nerfed. I love using it, it's funny, and amusing to see reactions like "Why is my planet getting 0 taxes". But it's broken, it's not beatable on all but the largest maps where it's simply too many jumps to get there so you can have a fleet before it does arrive.


    Last, and I hope this is addressed with 1.10... True dev tools that allow for scripting in galaxy forge.


    Fix: Self explanatory.


    I really love the game, but I hope 1.1 is soon or this is changed. We all want every race to be viable, not a cycle or "flavor of the month" nerf/buff scenario. I realize you guys are trying, just want to give some viable changes. If it's not possible, whatever, I'll deal with it, I do enjoy the game. I just think these things would make it better.


    If anyone has any questions, or wishes to debate any of these concerns, bring a reasonable argument. And I'll be happy to discuss it. If I see "Well advent sucked before" as justification, for example however. Heads will roll.
106,142 views 84 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
Been pwn'ed by avent much? (I play vasari btw)
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
No actually, I follow the trend of what's most powerful and use it. I just recently got around to trying advent in 1.04, and it was just a little silly how effective illums were.

Also, another thing that should be looked into, and I'm sure it already is.

Embargo, I'm guilty of using it countless times, it's absurdly powerful. 2-3 jumps apart and it's almost unbeatable.

I appreciate the insightful and clearly well thought out bump for my thread though, sarcasm or not. And my favorite race is vasari too. I wish phase stabilzer nodes were more important for something other than doom fleet. Tactical applications of it are really cool, but often overshadowed by aforementioned doom fleet. ++ for chosing coolest race.
Galactic Civilizations III
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
Vasari balance -

Phase stabs should be nerfed to one per system reducing RA. The skirmisher should have its supply reduced as it currently is no where near worth 7! For whatever reason I can not edit avent to Advent in my original post sorry.
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
Fail, and RA only works on massive maps or against players that aren't aggressive enough, it's pretty much fine. Though I wish it didn't exist at all. And the skirmisher is fine, reintegration is incredible.
Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
Illums aren't overpowered. They are only as good as javs on a cost-per-cost and supply-for-supply, if that.. jesus.


as far as embargo.. no for what you suggested, but:
https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/308317/
The only thing I agree on is that skill damage should not propagate with malice(Ie brilliance, gauss rail gun, yada yada), which i also said in my thread.
Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top
So what exactly would Advent's advantages be after these changes? Malice (which already many people want nerfed) and Culture (elaboration not needed)?

Personally, I think Flak should better counter Illuminators, and that Flak should still be a good counter for LRMs in general. The game balance is silly right now where LRMs and Heavy Cruisers do nearly everything. Hurting the Illuminators too much though I think would be a rather large mistake, if you have a TEC two or three jumps away, you get to see how great Javelis and Cobalts can be before you can bring out the Illuminators even. Illumuniators are harder to mass due to their cost, tech level, and later Advent's weaker economy that they aren't balanced 1 to 1 against the Javelis or the Assailant (or really even for their cost) but it can be rough to get enough before you start losing worlds. Illuminators may be too strong a bit into the game when they can be produced en masse, but Javelis and Assailants are also very strong early game (why I think LRMs in general are broken).

Nerfing just the Illuminator's damage/range/hitpoints/cost would be a step closer to putting Advent back in the doghouse, we've seen with this last patch that all it really takes is a tweak to this one unit to change the dynamics of the game.

Malice and Cleansing Brilliance is very powerful but I don't think any changes to them unless Culture gets a very large increase to it's use, or Advent gets some better upgrades for it's trade and such. Against a good TEC or Vasari Advent will always be significantly outnumbered, so the better units and combinations keep them in business. The combination is also reliant of course on high level capitals (Level 6 Radiance, level 5 Progenitor to max out the Malice propagation) either of which can be focus fired on and killed easily by that stage of the game, or disabled, and those ships can't be replaced like the Heavy Cruisers that the other factions rely on. Personally I love the combination, partly because it helps fight the Heavy Cruiser spam that dominates the late game, and things that help deter that I think are good for the game as a whole.

My biggest problem with the balance of the game is how LRMs and Heavy Cruisers are the game, essentially. Sure, there are Capitals with neat abilities but they get focus fired on and destroyed in seconds to these units, there are things like Carriers and Light Frigates, but they're not cost effective. You build these two units to win, basically. Advent can avoid that with some of it's abilities and doesn't need the most Heavy Cruisers to win a given battle, that's kind of neat, I think.

I really hope that Advent doesn't become just TEC with better shields and a worse economy. There have been calls to nerf virtually everything useful in their arsenal. Heavy Cruisers and LRMs shouldn't be the only answer, I think.
Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top
Flak costs half as much as illums.. counters them fine.
Christ. You're totally forgetting that Illums cost 380/60/55. Javs are only 275/45/25.


I'm sorry you lost, but in these cases it's not the games fault.


And like TheRedMaw said, the biggest issues are how LRM and Heavy Cruisers are the only important things(With the exception of overpowered distortion field[needs to effect max of 7 or 8 targets], and repulsion[works improperly with it's am drain and pulsed pushing. Shouldn't work against caps, other stuff i go over in my balance thread.]).

Advent is the exception because malice works better with illums than any other unit, and gaurdians repulsion only works well when coupled with a long range unit(illums) to shoot the things far away. Which is nice, which is why how Gaurdians repulsion is nerfed needs to be done carefully or else that strategy gets nerfed more than it should be.
Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top
Flak cant counter assailants if you are fighting in repair bays Innociv (and I mean the crappy vasari repair bays!). Forget about Illuminators!

Reason Illuminators rule is mostly because you cant micro lrms out of certain death vs them! And It's impossible to go around illuminators cause of side banks. I'm not saying its bad, or too much even. They are the best and they cost like it. I like them, but in a game I still keep option of going for HC open, I dont just blindly spam illuminators.
Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top
I agree with...nothing that you said haeso
Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top
I'm disappointed with these concerns, personally. I see too much Advent getting hammered on when I honestly think they need something. This "something" shouldn't be a single overpowered unit, or a "broken" combo, but they certainly need... something.
Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top
Right.. Illums cost as much as TWO flaks, nearly.

Nearly two flaks counter illums perfectly fine.

But you're right, the nerf to flaks dmg vs. lrms does hurt when those lrms are in repair bays. And it hurts killing them before they kill those mil labs or factories allowing you to make flaks.

The exception is sentinels though.. they cost nearly as much as illums and do so bad early game. :x
But then late game their charged missiles are better than the others.
Reply #12 from Sins Forums Top
I'd say assailants get demolished by illuminators now... Its very tough to win if you have assailants vs illuminators. But then again, assailants have a tough time against LRM too and are only tech 1 :). All on a cost vs cost basis of course. I'd say LRM vs illuminators is much much closer, frankly not sure who would win that cost for cost in equally skilled hands. It *should* be the illuminators on a cost-vs-cost given its higher technology level and the fact that TEC economy *is* better.

Personally I don't think illums are overpowered.
Reply #13 from Sins Forums Top
yeah.. Assailants are really bad early game. All Vasari units are. :/

But they are the best late game, especially for dropping caps, as phase missiles give ~+70% damage increase. Way more when you add in subverter's lowering mitigation and increasing phase missile pass through.
Reply #14 from Sins Forums Top
All true, but the sad fact is that given how assailants have such a tough time against other LRF in the beginning... I'm forced to try and NOT build them if I can. Going HC rush now as vasari is so much better than before, specially given how slow LRF units are... By the time the enemy LRF comes to your HW, your spamming HC :p. And it also gets your alot closer to vasari's strongpoint: the subverter.
Reply #15 from Sins Forums Top
My biggest problem with the balance of the game is how LRMs and Heavy Cruisers are the game, essentially. Sure, there are Capitals with neat abilities but they get focus fired on and destroyed in seconds to these units, there are things like Carriers and Light Frigates, but they're not cost effective. You build these two units to win, basically. Advent can avoid that with some of it's abilities and doesn't need the most Heavy Cruisers to win a given battle, that's kind of neat, I think.

I have to agree with this. I think LRM frigates and hvy cruisers are the only ships you have to build to win.

But I could be wrong, I played a game vs a player last night that used a carrier, multiple carrier cruisers and a fleet of light frigs and illuminators so well that he steam rolled over my fleet of all illum and radiance battlehips.

Of course that was advent vs advent but he then went out and kicked a TEC player in the teeth who had been massing hvy cruisers. I may have not been spending my credits as effecitvley as my opponent but his mixed fleet was very powerful and it made my understanding of the games balance come into doubt. He still used an abundance of Illum's don't get me wrong but opting to make cruiser carriers instead of going for cruisers carriers and his ability to decimate what I thought was a more powerful fleet really shocked me.

For the moment I want them fix the minidump issue so we can play games without the fear of having the whole thing stop working right as things get interesting. And I think the cap ship carriers need to start with 3 strikecraft instead of 2. I think everything else needs to wait until after the minidump issue is fixed.
Reply #16 from Sins Forums Top
All true, but the sad fact is that given how assailants have such a tough time against other LRF in the beginning... I'm forced to try and NOT build them if I can. Going HC rush now as vasari is so much better than before, specially given how slow LRF units are... By the time the enemy LRF comes to your HW, your spamming HC . And it also gets your alot closer to vasari's strongpoint: the subverter.
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I definitely agree here.
Assailants you need 20-30 of them and at least level 4 or 5 phase missiles before they're effective.
Much easier and effective to go straight HC.

My biggest problem with the balance of the game is how LRMs and Heavy Cruisers are the game, essentially. Sure, there are Capitals with neat abilities but they get focus fired on and destroyed in seconds to these units, there are things like Carriers and Light Frigates, but they're not cost effective. You build these two units to win, basically. Advent can avoid that with some of it's abilities and doesn't need the most Heavy Cruisers to win a given battle, that's kind of neat, I think.I have to agree with this. I think LRM frigates and hvy cruisers are the only ships you have to build to win.But I could be wrong,
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Well yeah you're somewhat right. It's more lrms or hc's with support cruisers, but yeah.

Carriers, flaks, light frigs serve no role. And Caps serve little role past the early rushes because of everyone using so much lrm and hc.
It does for the most part come down to who has the most lrm/hc, who has the right number of support and uses them the best, and who micros best.
It's not as bad as simply spamming tons of lrm and hc to win, but there isn't as much variance in strategy as there could be with some simple changes.(IE drastically nerf hc damage vs. light frigs, nerf lrm and hc damage vs. caps.)
Reply #17 from Sins Forums Top
I'd say assailants get demolished by illuminators now... Its very tough to win if you have assailants vs illuminators. But then again, assailants have a tough time against LRM too and are only tech 1 . All on a cost vs cost basis of course. I'd say LRM vs illuminators is much much closer, frankly not sure who would win that cost for cost in equally skilled hands. It *should* be the illuminators on a cost-vs-cost given its higher technology level and the fact that TEC economy *is* better.Personally I don't think illums are overpowered.
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I've done a lot of testing with it, illums win because of the side banks, micro'd well they just demolish LRMs on a cost to cost. The only thing that beats illums is carriers, but as soon as he gets a couple defense vessels your carriers become useless.

Pre patch flaks WERE a cost effective counter to lrms/assailants/illums, now they are not, was the point.

But the point was to build enough to counter them while teching to HC. But now that they're not cost effective - the only counter is getting HCs before he gets to you or outnumbering him with your own illums, or having carriers and hoping he doesn't scout you at all and has no defense vessels.

Tumbler: Fighters are a hard counter to LRMs, but if you had a couple defense vessels all those fighters would do pretty much nothing. You'll counter his fighters faster than his light frigs will counter the durable flak as well.

As it is, I'm fine with HCs being the dominant unit, if it were a little harder to get. As it is, on most maps you can just rush 5 labs and forgo anything else, which just feels a bit off. This game never was, and never will be balanced by the time you get to late game. Trying to keep it balanced for the first 30-60 minutes on most maps should be the goal here. There is too many things like the novalith/RA that just throw the game's balance out the window if you get them. Which is why we have to rush right now, the economic strategy that was effective in 1.02, broken in 1.03, and effective now only works on medium maps, by the time you have a huge income rolling in, someone else could have RA. So it's generally best to get 30/s then start pooling or getting a fleet rather than keeping going in the economic tree.
Reply #18 from Sins Forums Top
Flak costs half as much as illums.. counters them fine.Christ. You're totally forgetting that Illums cost 380/60/55. Javs are only 275/45/25.I'm sorry you lost, but in these cases it's not the games fault.And like TheRedMaw said, the biggest issues are how LRM and Heavy Cruisers are the only important things(With the exception of overpowered distortion field[needs to effect max of 7 or 8 targets], and repulsion[works improperly with it's am drain and pulsed pushing. Shouldn't work against caps, other stuff i go over in my balance thread.]).Advent is the exception because malice works better with illums than any other unit, and gaurdians repulsion only works well when coupled with a long range unit(illums) to shoot the things far away. Which is nice, which is why how Gaurdians repulsion is nerfed needs to be done carefully or else that strategy gets nerfed more than it should be.
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I've actually tested it, the flak do not counter them cost effectively, apparently you haven't. And I've lost one game since 1.04, I'm going by what I've used myself and feel to be too strong. Less assumptions more experience to back it up please. I find what's strong each patch and use it, I'm trying to explain the problems as I see them.

Malice is fine, repulsion doesn't work particularly well with illums either. You're better as TEC standing off at a distance and trading shots with lrms as it is. It's when the Illums get micro'd Through the LRMs that the problems arise. Repulsion/illums only works against HC spam. Repulsion and another race's LRFs can work much better though, to be fair.

Subverters have been brought up before to be broken, the dev's ignored it, not beating a dead horse. They should be nerfed, there's several ways to do it, I'll leave it for them to decide. These are just issues I felt needed to be brought up again.

And yes Pepmus, they do need something. As it was, advent were pretty much useless, malice/brill didn't matter because their ships were too weak to see them get level 6 unless the game was big enough for RA/Novalith to begin with, or you massively outskilled someone. I'm not saying I can balance the game, but as it is, there are a couple things that stand out. I'm just pointing it out for others.

Carriers as well need to be buffed, but that's been brought up countless times as well and they seem to be trying. I'm sure once they realize they didn't buff them nearly enough they'll do it again.

Test it cost for cost, get as close to the same price as possible with the numbers, and have them fight without micro, then fight flying through the lrms. It'll be very close in the former, and devastating in favor of the illums in the latter.

Flak are not a cost effective counter at all, a counter needs to do it at 1-2 kill/cost ratio or it's essentially worthless, and it's nowhere near that right now.





Reply #19 from Sins Forums Top
Redmaw,

I want advent to be unique, but you have to realize especially in a team game you can protect capital ships quite well. Not to mention having one player go radiance one go mothership is also very effective. My problem though is that it forces the entire team to go military and kill those capitals or lose late game regardless of econ/techs. Which -is- a problem. And I say again, Malice is fine. It's brilliance working with it that is the problem right now.

And I do not want advent to become what it was before, they were too weak, everyone knew it, which is why malice/brill never came up in most games. The advent player would be fighting novas/ra by the time he'd get it, or he'd have been stomped on early game. With the changes to illums it's no longer as difficult to get brill/malice, especially with two advent players one going each. Illums are a little too strong right now, I'm not saying a drastic nerf is required. But something needs to be done about flak not countering Illums At ALL anymore. Or they need to buff carriers again or nerf flak against fighters/bombers BUT NOTHING ELSE.

Lets do some math shall we? 375/40/25 380/60/55.
20 metal/30 crystal. We can say this is approx 250 credits. (Usually slightly less, but during booms can be more) but lets take this a step further and make it all credits so it's easier for people to understand. 65 resources = 325 115 resources = 575

700 vs 955. and it's at least 2-1 to kill illums. Assuming no shield restore/repair bays. At which point it becomes obscene, but that's not the issue. Granted the value of these resources is slightly off, but with 3 planetoids including your hw, you should have enough to build illums or flak nonstop with 1 factory regardless. Two is almost enough, can do it for a while trading metal for crystals because of the starting influx of metal.

all in all, "twice as much" is just garbage. It's not true, or even close, 1.5x at best. With the current counter as it is, flak are not justified, at all, to use against illums. Before they were. This is the problem.

Reply #20 from Sins Forums Top
Another thread where we can follow the Haeso/innociv debate concerning the 1.04 Illuminators being OP/not-OP : fascinating for us, non-experts.
Reply #21 from Sins Forums Top
You fail in understanding flaks dps is split to 4 guns.

Yeah they may lose if you only allow the forward gun to fire.

Don't use BS biased "tests" to try and get what you want. Someone like me will just uncover your lies and then make you lose credibility.


And Haeso is no expert.
Reply #22 from Sins Forums Top
Haeso is no expert.
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 :SURPRISED: 


What I called "the Haeso/innociv debate" (post #20) is heating up !


@ innociv :

After reading most of your posts, for the past 1½ month, I would venture that War is more your expertise than Diplomacy.  ;) 

Reply #23 from Sins Forums Top
Rofl, I know exactly how flak work. And I know that they do not counter illums. Care to play a game? When you lose maybe some of your arrogance will disappear? And they're not biased at all. I've played every race 50+ times in mp over my accounts, I know the strengths and weaknesses of each, and I know how to micro them.

Reply #24 from Sins Forums Top
I'll doubt he'll 1v1 you, but if he does, please post the replay of his ass getting "butt stomped". =)

Thanks.
Reply #25 from Sins Forums Top
Why do you doubt I'll 1v1 him?