Ideas for community balance patch/mod

posted on July 4th, 2012, 6:50 am

The problem with you is that you argue with generalization, exaggregations and asumptions. Now you come with word pickings or be more precise by cutting sentences or parts to build a story or text out of it. As I said, the intention of this thread was to start something for balancing...and my initial argument (repeated several times) was to not do it cause of time investment and time left till the official patch...now you are surprised that I'm not investing large amounts of time...

The point with the power strats is that if two more or less equal players compete and one goes with a power strat, the other typically has to go for one as well to be able to beat it. That ends up in people playing certain strats almost always as we could see in the last tournaments. They don't even consider to go something else.
Of course a power strat does not mean that a significantly weaker player can beat an experienced one too easily. The counter to many of the power strats is btw. to take out ships that are on retreat...if, for any reason, you cannot do that, you are probably lost cause the related ships stack over time.

Btw. how do you know WHO discovered which power strat? Are you observing all games and we don't know or are you asuming again?

posted on July 4th, 2012, 2:40 pm

...

Not going to reply to your usual discrediting anymore.

...power strats...

Solid build ups? As i mentioned before, those are standard BTOs you have to do - "do or die".
It's the same in other RTS, even in the mentioned and highly competitive StarCraft (1&2!) - and even there you see people pulling off very weird strats and winning with it due a completely confused enemy (i'm talking about pro matches of course).
You're saying that you hate the behavior of vessel x vs y in such a "must do" situation, which leads to a player losing long term if he sacrifices vessels on his side too early - but this counts for both sides, doesn't it?
Where is the "overpowered" part in this?
it's boring though... i already agreed on that part.



Anyways:
A (comfortable) solid build up (or your so called power strat) has nothing to do with vessel x being op.
We currently can see, a lot of people successfully try out new races, strategies and plays, once they got comfortable with their old ones.
And of course again: new strategies will force you to put some effort into the game, to be less comfortable and even lose a couple of games till you know how to do it.
Especially in team games you can get away with more strategies, and instead of basic duel builds, those will work way better if you interact well with your team mates and their strategy - and the opposite, your standard build will fail way more often.
Still, without effort you will lose your status quo against other people who constantly improve their gameplay, no matter how they do it. (macro, micro, perfecting a single solid build up, being unpredictable, learning all races, etc...)



So what are you actually complaining about?
Overpowered units, build ups, boring line ups, lazy people who stick to one "power strategy" they're comfortable with, do or die situations including coinflip fleet battles, that you can't get away with the same build up every time - which contradicts the power strategy part, why the community isn't more eager to help you testing your own modifications, Dominus, the developer, me, your own status quo maybe?



Just out of personal curiosity: is there anything you do like about this game or the community?
Your rants seem pretty much against everything to me, and / or anyone who tries to prove you wrong or help you out with some advice to improve the situation.



All you have to do is to keep your mind open, and you will see that a lot of stuff you mention is not as it looks like.
Of course you can keep complaining about whatever you please, that won't help your own situation, neither this game or anyone else. It seems to me like you don't even consider the opinion from anyone else, more like just standing your ground no matter what.

So far, live long and propser, good luck.

posted on December 1st, 2012, 9:22 am

WARNING THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA TEXT INBOUND!!!!

---

OK after reading this topic (the first 2 pages at lease ) I think this is a great paceholder Idea. I'm really looking forward to the new patch, but creating a 3.30 unofficial rebalance patch is good. I'm thinking of picking this up myself seeing that Drrrr lost interest.

Here are the list of changes I would do:

Romulans:
In addition to speed boost I would also make their collectors cheaper and easier to replace or I would give them low energy mode (inspired by ST:O) - they can turn this on to be invisible outside dogfight range (useful when trying to hide them, make your enemy guess which way they have retreated).

Leavhal: That would still make Leahvals a to-go ship for Romulnas, and wouldn't do much in the way of diversifying their fleet. I would rather make auto-repair usable under cloak, but not usable in combat (after being fired upon or firing a leavahl must wait 5-15 secs before using it) I would also disable weapons and engines when it's in use (but not cloak).

Warbirds in general: While I like small Romulan vessels to have lots of debuffing attacks, but weak (they are usually used by Tal'Shiar) I think all warbirds need to be a bit more durable and a bit faster to build as they are the main part of the navy and when going to war, you never want to bring your spacial agents and operatives in stead of tanks. This pretty much happens with romulans, where it's easier and safer to fight with all those spacial task force ships (AKA Tal'Shiar) than with warbirds (the navy), who were exclusively build for war. Come to think of it maybe this is what we should do with the romulans in the new patch: Make the small ships more suited for raiding and causing mayhem in small number, but more risky (make them act more like saboteurs and spies), while making warbirds the safer, but more traditional "brunt force" approach (like sending in the SAS vs. sending in the military).

Federation:

Sabers: Why nerf them, when they are totally useless (I have very rarely seen sabers work at all). I would rather make them more useful by making them hit freighters and small ships harder (they were designed as escorts) and a bit more durable.

Intrepid: I would keep then where they are, if you increase the tech required, you get monsoon spa, because there are on alternatives to making them. Cost increase is fine, cause (we) feds have been known to triple-yard on 1 expansion+main with free warpins , but I would rather remake warpins.

E2: I think E2 are underutilized, but otherwise cool. I would make their ability (Guided Quantum torpedoes) not lose engines but maybe sensor range and/or phasers and/or weapon evasion.

SFC: Here lies the main problem with Feds: Free ships to anywhere in the map, regardless the fact that you have just lost 10 of those ships and haven't played starfleet back for them. I would rework that: A warp in should cost you supplies initially and I think the enemies should get a warning that you are warpin in like a ping sayin enemy distress call detected. I would say everywhere between 20-30 supplies is ok. After a ship reaches officer rank you get the supplies back (much like klingons). The descent needs to be buffed (more damage and better speed).It should then cost 40 supplies to warp in. I'm still not sure about the long range vulcan ship. I would rather have Streamrunner wit exact same effects and make it a bit less risky at 25-35 supplies and shorther cooldown. Also I would put the descent and the Vulcan ship on a seperate slot limit (maybe name them MACO slots).
Also Rigel Nebula shoud instantly deploy a basic unupgraded platform for 50 dilitium, 50 deuterium and 50 suppplies.

Turrets: I like the Rework changes: cheaper, but less powerful. Would like to see then movalbe by tractor beam.

Dominon

BUG: I must say I like the bug changes. Imo bugs should be what you build when you are changing tech (and building new prototypes).

Prototypes: They need to build a bit faster.

Builders: I wouldn't take their earlier supply economy as their streangth. They have no discounts when it comes to supply and they need bigger fleets to counter their enemies smaller ones, Specially if the are being countered and are investing time and enegy into tech switch.

All other dominion Ship changes: Apart from battleship change, I think all other changes are not necessary, becasue the ships seemt to be well balanced to me.


KLINGONS:

We need to make K'T'Inga spam less attractive. I suggest we do this by increasing the build time on the freighters and increasing the starbase build time. A ktinga rush really only needs a mina and 1 expansion, which is easily securble, because the second starbase is built there. Another alternative would be that the whole metamorphosis requires a research at field research station for a very cheap fee (like 25 dil 15 deuterium 5 supplies and 5 second research time).

Borg:

We need to make assims less viable against federation. Going Opti-Assimilators is a near 100% win guaratee. I would suggest an overall cost increase for them .


My questions to the rest of community are :
Would you be willing to test or help with this?
Do the devs mind is we do this?
What do you think should be changed?
Can the devs tell us how they massively change this (I doubt they open the notepad and fiddle with every of the 3000 ODFs separately)?
What's a long shot ETA on the new patch (Don't want to start this, invest 2 months into it, then BAM - the new patch is out)?

posted on February 7th, 2014, 3:27 am

Almost two years later, I'm working on a similar idea to this one. I don't know if any of you guys are still around, but in the hope that you have this topic flagged to send you an email when somebody replies, I invite you to come back and work with me on it. I have already completed my first pass of the Romulan and Borg factions, and will be releasing them for testing tomorrow followed by the rest of the factions over the next few weeks. But if you do come, be civil about it: That means you, kamk.

posted on February 7th, 2014, 8:49 am

Surprise.. Actually I am subscribed to this thread still! The question is how are you editing the .odfs? When I tried to edit them I found the work to be very tedious without the editor and the community created editor is filled with bugs that sometimes corrupt the .odf files .

posted on February 7th, 2014, 1:03 pm

I left a short note in the thread for my mod, but I'm only modifying easy things. So for example, if I want to modify the offense value of a ship I literally plug it into an excel formula that takes the weapon's old damage/ROF, divides it by the old offense value, multiplies it by the new one, and returns a new ROF which I plug into the ODF. In this way I can change the firepower without ever touching the ordinance odf. Or if I do need to change something's damage, I copy the ordinance from the most similar ship I can find.

So basically I'm editing them by hand, but once I get the spreadsheet set up for each change it's only about 30-50 copy/pastes for each ship

posted on February 18th, 2014, 2:40 am

Sorry to necro, but here are my thoughts, esp. on romulan design:

I like the balance between feds, klingons and romulan small ships. While the romulan smaller ships may be overall a little bit weaker than federation and klingon designs, they have special abilities that - if used in a good synergy - might get them on the same eyelevel like other species. Early game, the Romulans should try to tank. I personally think, that the romulans should be weaker early game and get more powerful in late game. They have an artificial quantum singularity as power source and the game should reflect that.

We also know, that the romulans like warbirds, so here is the deal:

Similar to the dominion, the romulans will have a rather struggling early game start. Their early designs should be able to defend their first outposts and mining stations, but the romulans expand slowly, but consistently. Stealth and tactics are a major point, thus romulans should be harder to play - but at the same time give more benefits, if successful. Romulans only build few ships and concentrate on surviving and refits.

Thus, here my suggestion:
Having an initial fleet of small ships to defend, romulan player will focus on building warbirds - their specs should be good to begin with and raise even further with refits and gaining ranks. The central core of romulan playstyle should be to survive and gain experience. The more ships a romulan vessels destroys, the more it will gain via ranks - more than other species. Refits also boost that doctrine (!!!) - concentrating resources on fewer, but more powerful ships.

Klingons spam, federation too - but more concentrated on defense.

So - how do we balance everyting, esp. the short cloaking time? In general, when the critical mass arises, short cloaking time becomes pretty much irrelevant. One may agrue: Don'T let it come to this - but this is a moot point, as there are races, that specialize on generating critical mass, like the dominion and the klingons, later even the federtion and the borg, leaving the romulans as only race left having NOT a critical mass to speak of.

Stealth tactics also only work on specialized environment and ask for the skill of the player. While being valid, its also map dependent and requires most of the time a single stage setup to call for a decision - which might never occur. So stealth tactics might not always work - but are something romulans MUST rely on to even equalize the strength difference (numbers and values)

Warbirds:
- General enhancements of values, esp. with refits and over-proportional gains on specs when gaining rankups
- Stealth-tactics: Make them more usable, if the romulan gameplay relies on them - a 1 second cloak/uncloak is a nice-to-have thing, but is not a game changer, as it only saves single ships, but does not help a whole fleet to take on another (superior) one

Carry on,
Sheva