Balance Issues Still Needing to Be Addressed Before Rebellion

Try playing the game on fast instead of Fastest and normal start instead of quick start. Helps a lot with the early game imbalances.

Capital Ships:

• Kol
• GRG needs a debuff other than just a speed penalty...I'd personally like to see a shield mitigation penalty, though I'm not sure on the number...for reference, the subverter's defeat shields ability gives a -8% shield mitigation debuff that lasts for 60s...another possible reference is Nano Disassemblers, which does 625/875/1125 hull damage over 25/35/45 seconds vs. GRG's 400/725/1050 done every 6 seconds...Nano Disassemblers also reduces armor by 1.5/3/4.5...if each armor point represents a 5% reduction in damage, that is comparable to a shield mitigation penalty of 3%/6%/9% (assuming 60% shield mitigation)...so, maybe a shield mitigation penalty of 3%/6%/9% would be appropriate?
• Flak burst I think is fine at level 3, but a little weak at lower levels...perhaps changing the damage done from 30/45/60 to 40/50/60 would make this 100 AM ability more useful at lower levels...or, an AM cost change from 100 to 80/90/100 might be appropriate...
• Adaptive Forcefield is fine at level 3 though not very useful at lower levels...I think changes (if any) to this ability will be heavily dependent on how GRG and flak burst are changed...
• Marza
• Incendiary shells still just doesn't seem to have any use beyond very early game...I'd advocate a debuff, such as a small armor penalty (on the order of .5/1/1.5), though any debuff probably would need to be dependent on not allowing the same ship to stack with itself (current stacking limit is 3, and a single marza can stack with itself)
• Radiance
• Animosity desperately needs a secondary debuff...I personally would be okay with 5/10/15 DPS but there are a lot of possibilities out there...nevertheless, something needs to be added to this ability...a range increase also would probably be helpful
• Revelation
• Guidance I still think is a little on the weak side...before suggesting changes though, I'd like other's opinions on this...does it seem even useful in MP?  I haven't really heard much about it since the v1.21 update, so I don't know where people stand on this ability...I have toyed around with also giving this AoE ability a bombing weapon cooldown (25% cooldown bonus) to make this a better siege cap...
• Clairvoyance needs some help...personally I'd advocate making the targeted planet more susceptible to bombing damage (10%/20%/30%)...this change is possible and has been successfully implemented before though it does not show up on any infocards (so fair warning to modders)...
• Marauder
• Subversion needs serious work...for one, I think it should be a fire and forget ability like embargo instead of needing to target the planet...also, I think the stats should be more penalizing (but then have a stacking limit of one)...another possible change is to have this do a very small DPS to the planet to prevent planets from regaining health between assaults (note that alone it would do hardly any damage itself)...all in all this ability may need some very creative inspiration
• I don't really know how people feel about the other two abilities...phase out hull seems a little weak (maybe the damage/heal should be hull only) and the speed ability probably could use a better range (like 8000 instead of 5000)

Frigates

• Domina Subjugator
• Both of its abilities would be a lot better if they didn't require the ship to face its target...that alone would make things better...if that change were implemented, still not sure if keeping them as channeling would be good or bad...
• Cielo
• Embolden needs a slight buff...either double the stats, or make it an AoE with a small range (like 3500 or 4000)...
• Guardian
• I really would like to see shield projection offer some PM blocking...nothing major, maybe just a 10% modifier, but I really think Advent need PM blocking somewhere, even if the guardian is not the place to implement this...
• Solanus Adjudicator
• Probably the simplest improvement would be to reduce number of targets from 5 to 3, and then increase the damage, but that may not be the way to go...a cost reduction and/or reduction in fleet supply may also be in order...
• Seeker Vessel
• Especially with the illuminator buff, there is no reason for this ship to continue having far more HP than its counterparts...a 100 HP reduction for both shields and hull would put this ship comparable to the arcova...also, the stacking limit for martyrdom needs to be removed so the ability works properly...furthermore, the AI use time condition that requires 50% damage also needs to be removed and set at 0% damage...
• Jikarta
• The phase cloak ability on this is pointless due to the AI use time...for one, it should be set to "OnlyWithNoOrder" instead of "OnlyInCombat"...otherwise, it will only stay active for about 5 seconds at a time...also, the use condition requiring 80% damage should probably be changed to 0%...
• Advent Homing Mines
• The range for the ability "AbilityPsiSpaceMineDetonate" needs to be increased from 100 to like 200 or 300...the super short range causes the mines to frequently overshoot their targets and therefore not detonate....

There are certainly other areas needing change (tech trees, SB abilities, etc.) but I think I'll leave it at this for now and see where the discussion goes...

I actually play on normal speed most of the time and many of these things are still an issue...however, I agree that the game becomes more imbalanced when you start playing on faster...

I'd prefer an armor penalty, I don't really see how getting hit with a railgun is any more damaging to shields, but its quite easy to see how it could knock off armor.

Phase out hull is probably the most versatile ability in the game. It heals, damages, interrupts, disables, you name it. Maybe the damage could be increased, but that's about it.

Agreed but technically there is the shield pact now. Not sure how big of an impact it will have.

 

From a pure "realistic" standpoint, I feel a shield mitigation penalty makes more sense than an armor penalty for GRG...a very large (relatively) projectile could have lasting consequences of the effectiveness of a shield...while it might be capable of piercing through armor, I don't think a giant slug is going to ruin the armor of a ship in a manner that would help other shots bypass the armor...

To be honest though, at this point I could live with either so long as the gameplay of it is balanced...I'm partial to shield mitigation because I'd like incendiary shells to give an armor penalty, but that's just a personal preference...

Phase out hull is a fantastic ability interrupt, but the heal/damage component is rather small and it only affects shields...I'd like to see the damage/heal component a bit more powerful...however, that would have to be contingent on an AM cost increase, because right now the cost are 60/50/40 IIRC and at level 3 that could get ridiculously OP if the damage/heal was a lot...AM cost of like 60/70/80 with a hull-only damage/heal of 200/300/400 might be more in line...

The shield pact PM block is really nice...however, I don't think its fair for a faction to depend on its pacts -- they should be bonuses, not essentials...

If I understand this correctly, we now have the ability to make techs grant PM blocking, yes?  So, I'm seeing three options...PM blocking goes on shield projection (1st choice), PM blocking goes on Advent shield techs (2nd choice), or PM blocking goes on domina's perseverance (3rd choice)....

I'm for keeping Phase Out Hull with shield effects. Vas doesn't really have a way to restore their allies' shields otherwise.

Yep. My mod just has all the standard shield techs giving 2% block. Shores up that absurd hole in Advent's defenses and makes Vas and TEC shield techs more useful.

There's also plenty of researches and abilities that are bad. Ruthlessness, Mobile Jump Detection, Resource Focus, etc.

 

 

Maybe this sounds too picky...but should TEC and Vasari techs be getting the PM block?  I mean, they have more hull and more armor than advent...don't know if that would be too detrimental to PMs if all 3 factions were getting PM blocking...

It would certainly make sense if the Vasari had some resistance to PM's, but as for advent, I would be okay with the Guardian having the ability to resist phase missiles.

As for the rest of the stuff by Seluceia, I agree almost entirely.

GRG logically should do more than just damage.  I really have never understood why on earth this ability kills movement.  This seems more like a slug that might punch straight through your ship and keep going than something that would hurt your engines.  That said, either mitigation or armor should get debuffed if hit by GRG.  Ideally IMO, you would have it deal minimal damage to shields, but most of its damage to the hull.  That's probably too much of a change, so I'd settle for a 3/6/9% mitigation drop from a hit of this.

Animosity...  Makes sense for it to deal damage as it logically is the super-sized version of Ruthlessness.  I'd also be fine if it upped the power of the weapons on the Radiance or something.  Animosity needs something else.

I'd never thought of that for Clairivoyance...  Great idea though to have it increase bombing damage as it does make sense.  If you can see a planet and those on it, you'll know what and where to bomb to maximize damage to infrastructure and loss of life.

Phase out Hull is an interesting ability.  Back when I first started suggesting that it heal/damage based on who it was aimed at, but have it instead scale with something like 100/200/300.  Surprisingly, the idea caught on, but now it just does a flat 200.  Regardless, it makes sense that shields are going to be affected if you yank out the ship that was generating them but not the shields.  Alternatively, if you let the ship know ahead of time that you are going to phase it, it would probably be able to deactivate its shields and charge them during the interim so that its ready for combat when it returns.  POH is one of the most versatile abilities in the game.  It interrupts, pauses, damages, and heals.

Dominas have always bugged me that they need to face their target.  Get rid of this, and they suddenly become far more powerful.  Channeling should be fine, but the turning is a annoying.

Ruthlessness as has been discussed elsewhere has always struck me as weak...  If it stacked 2-4 times it might be better.  Sure, it would only be 3-6 DPS, but that is across your whole fleet.  Alternatively, increase its range perhaps?

Inertial Field (the enforcer ability, I can't remember the name) just needs more range IMO.  I've never really used it that much, but it just seems to small for my taste.  Someone who's used it more is welcome to correct me.

Wave Cannons.  These weapons...  I don't really know how to fix them...  In the mod I'm working on, I'm making them act as armor breakers, but that is probably overdone.  Just something to make them worth while...  Pulse Guns at least get the Orky, but wave cannons get capitals (which aren't there for their DPS) and Enforcers.  Perhaps some buff to the research?  Lower its tier?  I don't know...  Something...

Some great points coming up in this thread.

Gauss Railgun, Incendiary Shells, Shield Regeneration (Dunov), Clairvoyance and Animosity all need a look at a secondary effect.  These abilities simply aren't useful enough as capital ship abilities, and spending valuable skill points on them makes no sense in their current form.  I don't think tweaking their raw numbers will bring them into line.  Clairvoyance and Animosity have already hit the upper end at which there isn't really any room to buff it anymore without removing limitations altogether.  GRG, SR, and Incendiary Shells are all abilities that shine in the very-early game and quickly drop off in utility; if these were powerful opener capital ships, that would be another matter, but they aren't.  I highly suspect that tweaking these abilities will never get them into a respectable form without creating early-game cheese.

As for Guidance, the core issue is that there are almost no Advent abilities that benefit from a cooldown reduction.  Most Advent abilities are already channeling abilities with high antimatter costs, cooldown similar to duration, and no capacity for stacking.  Improving cooldown really has no utility to begin with for these abilities.  The only ability that benefits significantly is the Disciple's steal anti-matter ability... and the kicker is that the Revelation is too slow to escourt light frigates!  Guidance is a good ability, but it is contingent on good synergies to apply with it.  There are no such synergies in the Advent faction.  If you want to fix guidance, look at changing the Subjugator and other capital ship abilities so that they actually benefit from guidance.  The Domina needs redesign anyways, so it's the best choice to set up such a synergy.

As for the seeker: lower hull and shields by 100 points, reduce armor by 1 point, increase damage to match the Arcova.  Personally I'd like to reverse the 1.19 damage nerf to scouts, and I feel the only problem in 1.18 was the seeker's durability.

Totally in favour of this!  Instantly solves Advent's ludicrous phase missile vulnerability and brings some utility to the TEC/Vasari shield upgrades.

Perhaps wave cannon upgrades could get a range boost as well as a damage boost.  This would create a very unique heavy cruisers and a damage upgrade that would actually be competitive with phase missiles.  Because the upgrade is at a higher tier, that should make it hard to reach and limit it to mature fleets (somewhat similar to Advent's current ability to make plasma attacks ridiculously powerful).  Given that TEC now has a great way to knock out heavy cruisers with its new and improved hoshiko, and going non-phase missile against Advent is crazy talk, I'm not too worried about overbuffing late-game enforcers.

Totally in favor of anything from your post.

Also, Pinpoint bombardment just seems like its somewhat broken in its current functionality.  I don't want to get into balancing researchables and making them all useful (that could be many threads in and of itself), but PB really just increases range.  The only way I see this as helping is if it also made it so that the Vulkoras's siege platforms deploy further out.  Unfortunately, this isn't possible.  If it was, it would definitely be useful for a Vulk to deploy a platform not so close to the planet so it wouldn't have to leave the battle as directly.  After all, after winning the battle, who cares about the distance you are from bombing a planet, and I know that during a battle, I don't bother bombing typically.  PB probably should increase damage/population loss.  If you can aim at cities more precisely, your damage and kills should go up.  Not only that, but it's got the prerequisite of Pulse Beams which are themselves more or less worthless unless you are spamming Kortuls for reasons unknown.  If pulse beams upgrades increased bombing damage as well (which kinda makes sense given that the Vasari do bomb via beam) and had PB increase the population killed by bombardment, then I think that branch of the tree would be a lot more useful.

Increasing the range of Wave cannons...  Interesting thought...  It would give them the first strike against other HC since they'd be 4095 whereas others are still at 3150.  LRF would still outrange them of course, but that should remain the same obviously.  I don't play MP, so all the nuances (such as the range boost on HC) aren't quite as important to me (however range on Illuminator sidebeams obviously are).  Would this increase in range do that much?  Also, do you mean that instead of raising the damage by 5/10/15/20/25/30% it raises it by say, 7.5/15/22.5/30/37.5/45% or something?  Or did you just mean have the damage research also increase range?

I agree that work is still needed, and support looking into all of the proposed changes.

One would think that the Advent's Battle Psintegrae could do something about phase missiles, more so than any other faction, besides the masters of phase space themselves, the Vasari?

TEC are the ones to come up with the Kol's Adaptive shield that blocks phase missiles.

 

Well, there is that.

This always baffled my mind...I'm sorry, but you'd think Advent would have thought of that and put it on the Radiance...

And energy absorption....something that adds armor, sounds more like a TEC approach than Advent...I'm this close to switching those abilities for my own personal use...sure would make the Kol a hell of a lot more useful since it wouldn't be an AM hog....

I personally am not a fan of buffing the wave cannon technologies...I'd rather see them knocked down two tiers, played with it before and was happy with the results...tried the range increase and while it may appear to be a buff, I don't think range increases mean much of anything unless it's LRFs or point defenses...and even then, not real sure if small percentages make any difference...I'm not aware of any special thresholds that would allow a 5-10% increase in any ships range suddenly to allow it to penetrate SBs or point defenses...range increase may help kanraks against TEC point defenses (with range upgrade) but other than that only targetting uplink is enough of a boost I think...but, I'm not sure on this point...

Darvin, I remember back in PE you contemplated giving guidance an AoE AM regeneration...how do you still feel about that?  I agree ability cooldowns are not useful at all, particularly for Advent abilities...AM cost decrease is sort of nice though it's not linear so 25% is more like a 20% reduction...faster AM regen could make it a truly worthwhile ability...

I forgot about the Dunov's shield restore...I did for a while make that a 20s channeling ability that granted a bonus to shield mitigation...got it to work fine but I didn't play with it very much...

Definitely agree inertial field and ruthlessness could use range increases...I'd start with that before working on buffing them further...

As for the Overseer...did mess around with those 2 researchable abilities quite a bit....the set up I was most pleased with was as follows...mobile phase detection not only detected incoming ships, but slowed them down by 100% (essentially, half speed)....jump degradation was an AoE (range of like 6000 IIRC) that increased phase jump charge up time by 100% (note that I did not let this ability affect capital ships)...both abilities were made passive, and both did not stack...

Not sure if that sounds reasonable or is the way to go, but I did play a lot of games with them and was moderately pleased...

Still torn between giving advent PM block through their techs or via the guardian...

It seems like phase out hull is pretty popular as is...so, I'm thinking it should be left alone, at least until any buff to subversion is evaluated...

Lots of good ideas people...I like it...

 

Advent Death by PM's: Perhaps have both...  1% reduction in phase likelihood per upgrade level (so, 6% from normal ones) and then the mitigation researchable ups it by 2% per level, resulting in a 10% reduction.  Then have Guardians knock it down by 5%.  That should be sufficient, if not too much so.

Wave Cannons: If they got dropped down, there wouldn't be too much use for them as they'd only be useful once you got the higher level Enforcer.

Guidance: I'm good with a AM regen boost.

Adaptive Forcefield/EAA Switch: that would be awesome but I would never want it to happen.  It would make the Kol even more unkillable by making Flak Burst and GRG almost spammable given the ridiculous amount of AM that could be gained given the Kol's massive hull.

Overseer: sounds interesting to do that to them...

 

 

I agree.  Those two abilities should be switched.  Excellent observation!  The Kol could become useful for once.

If you're up against subverters or guardians, this would be invaluable.  The range upgrade may not seem like much, but it actually improves target acquisition and focus fire.

To be honest, I'd like wave cannons to do something unique.  Phase missiles don't increase damage directly (until that nasty 4th upgrade level) and I'd like to see the same flavour approach to other Vasari weapon classes if that's at all possible.



I think it could work, but the AoE would probably need to be tightened a little.  Remember this would synergize with disciples which could transfer the AM they regenerated.

Personally, I'd prefer to rebalance the Subjugator (it needs it anyways) with the emphasis on making it synergize with this ability.  With a little tweaking to vengeance to make it more compatible with guidance, that would leave Advent with a respectable roster of abilities that benefit from guidance.



Make it self-target and give it a secondary-effective.  It really needs to be a capital-class version of the Overseer's reactive nanite armor, which means it needs to offer a duration buff to go with the heal.



I say techs; the TEC and Vasari shield upgrades need a buff anyways, so phase missile block chance would work nicely if it just applied to every shield upgrade.



The only problem with POH currently is that if you target your own units defensively, their shield mitigation falls.  This means when the duration ends their mitigation is probably minimized again which means they take a full round of heavy damage.



It's a very interesting idea, I agree, but it does raise some very dangerous balance issues for the Kol, which would just go nuts late-game with that kind of antimatter at its disposal.

I think I'm convinced that giving all shield techs PM blocking is a way to go...however, giving smaller bonuses as you suggest with the guardian giving a small bonus as well is very appealing...I think I will have to try this, a lot of people seem to like the idea...

They would still be cheaper though and would take less time...so even though you wouldn't research them till you got the enforcer, once you did have the enforcer at least you wouldn't have to invest as much to improve its weapons...

That's exactly why I'm thinking it would be really useful, because of those disciples...clearly though great care would be needed to make sure its not OP...I'm still unsure about the domina's...are you saying that they should no longer have channeling abilities?  Obviously that would help guidance to be useful late game but it still wouldn't be of any use early or mid game...

Yep, I agree with that, self-targeting is going to be a must...

Did not know this...is this just the natural fall of shield mitigation because you aren't taking damage, or does it instantly put it back to 15%?  Could probably be easily fixed I'd think...

Never would advocate such a change for mere balance purposes (that would, say, be seen in an update)...but I think for my personal use I'm doing this...though, I may still change adaptive forcefield, probably increase the duration for the lower levels...

 

Mitigation automatically falls back down over time.  Just figure out how much it does during that time and make it so that upon being unphased, friendly ships get a buff of x mitigation which would fix that problem.

 

I'll respond to everything else in the morning.

Problem is, simply adding mitigation via the ability would allow for mitigation values exceeding the ship's normal max (at least for a short while)...so, I guess you could just have the mitigation only last a few seconds but that's going to get rather clumsy...

Honestly I'd rather see more HP damage/heal, and the mitigation is just a downside (unless its an enemy ship, guess it'd be nice then)....

If that's the case though, question is should it be hull or shield....still thinking AM cost should be changed to 60/70/80 (instead of the 60/50/40 IIRC) if the ability is buffed though....

That's true...  Probably a little more heal would be helpful then...  Or is it possible to leave passive regeneration on during POH?  Deactivate it when used offensively, but leave it on when helping another ship.

If I ever change adaptive forcefield, I'm reducing its power and making it passive.  Don't want that for balance, but for my own personal use...

And I hadn't thought of the use of disciples for guidance AM regeneration.  That would be awesome and would certainly do well to keep the abilities coming.  Sure, the Halcyon and Radiance don't have too much trouble with AM, but I've always found the Progenitor to be low given its use of Malice and Shield Regen.

There's another ability I'd like to know about...  Is Vertigo good?  Looking at its infocard, it doesn't look that good.  Is it actually useful in battle?

Vertigo has no target cap, iirc. It's win and awesome against big fleets.

 

I've played with adaptive forcefield as passive and liked it...remember that the ability offers no fleet support, which is a huge opportunity cost, so even with it passive I'd be wary about reducing its benefits too much...

Vertigo is pretty good, it is a targeted ability with a moderate range...once you target a ship, all ships within a certain range of the target become affected...great for dealing with clusters of HCs or LRFs....

It's Advents best answer (well, that and vengeance) to Vasari PMs (unless its SC, then you want TK push)...

I don't know if POH would really last long enough for any passive regen to be of significance (well, maybe AM regen would be)...I suppose if you kept using it on the same ship it would make a difference...and I'm pretty sure you can make such a buff affect only friendly ships....

I think so.

The perseverence ability is basically a T6 version of the hoshiko's T3 heal, and it's simply not powerful enough to merit requiring both target facing, a long cooldown, and channeling.  Its suppression ability is basically a single-target version of the subverter's area of effect ability.  Again, channeling isn't justified here.

I think a better approach would be to give these abilities an activation time of about 5 seconds, after which they require no channeling.  The cooldowns should be dropped significantly so one subjugator can work on multiple targets, and limited by antimatter and cooldown.



Just the natural fall.  For capital ships, this can double the damage you receive from the first volley after the phase out expires, which is downright nasty if it's a concentrated attack.

Perhaps the best way to deal with POH is to freeze the target's mitigation while the ability is active.  Although technically this would weaken the offensive application of the ability, Vasari has powerful shield bypass options and the stun on its own is well worthwhile.



Vertigo is a decent ability at level 1, a strong ability at level 2, and fricken awesome at level 3.  When maxed out, it halfs the damage of affected units, and its AoE is pretty big and its target count uncapped.  Put that on top of your battleball and get ready to rock out

Vertigo is one of the few ways Advent has to reduce damage output from phase-missile laden units... presuming you can keep the Rapture alive.  Personally, I like running vertigo/vengeance on my raptures in the vs Vasari matchup.  Very sub-optimal, but anything to help punish his phase missile focus fire helps.