notDMB

I haven’t played this game at all this year between work and health issues.

I haven't advocated for anything except buffs for Nod for the last year, and the Black Hand Light Tank is one of the foremost on that list. They've been unchanged in three years and they've been terrible since before I started playing. What is this weird paradox where I'm simultaneously Nod biased and anti Nod depending on who you ask? Plus this was the last time I made significant contributions to balance suggestions and most of it was buffs for Nod, and most of it was also not implemented. I haven't been a part of IA balance since 2019, these changes are mostly from other people who privately bug Kaskins in DM's. 2020 is almost exclusively not me, the only thing I can claim any amount of credit for is getting the Chaparral buffed for GDI and that hasn't even been added yet, and plenty of other people were clamoring for it besides me.

Also I want to pint something out, because I think there's some ridiculous idea we'd hire a guy to just start making maps on his own. No this would be to hire a guy to work with Kaskins. The whole problem is Kaskins is basically doing all the mapping solo, an extra hand helping him with the maps seems like a good idea and I think it would work in practice.

There were six other people who were also complaining about Great Wall including Threve and most of the server left because it was next on rotation, you can't just call me out for this when most of the community doesn't seem to like the map. It's being updated because it's the first map Kaskin's made and it's just been outgrown by the game, and he acknowledges that. Also who said anything about amateurs? I'm saying we hire someone good at this. Hence why we'd need a group fund for it. I really don't even see the bad maps get skipped much anymore, even ORCA Heights didn't get skipped yesterday and eight people were in chat asking to skip it. I'm sure we could get some maps made that are at least an improvement over ORCA Heights.

Roz are you just secretly the Grinch?

Personally I think New Vile is still extremely GDI biased because the Nod base is infinitely easier to attack. It works on Old Vile because even though Nod can't flank, they can turtle, and there's enough range GDI isn't in range of the entire base once they cross a corner. GDI has an amphibious route to a cliff with two tiny one tank sized holes that oversee *the entire Nod base* and also get a free repair depo. Three ADATS will kill any building, even the ConYard, if they get all their rockets off. Things not the ConYard need less rockets to kill too, so three ADATS don't even need to get off a full salvo to kill Air, PP, HoN, Refinery, and Coms, all of which they can hit with complete impunity as no Nod defense can hit GDI units up there. Dislodging GDI forces up there requires a 2-1 manpower advantage at best, and a skilled and supported amphibious push could be just outright impossible for Nod to get rid of without just dropping three nukes at the base of the cliff to force them to leave. Furthermore, the Nod base is just much wider than the GDI one, taking nearly twice as long to cross to get to any building. So personally, I find New Vile to be one of the *least* balanced maps, and generally Nod only wins when they bottle GDI at the start and no one on GDI is willing or knowing that they can just get three ADATS to kill the whole base, or that spy beaconing there is the easiest thing in the entire world. The Nod PP especially is easy to beacon because for some reason, in addition to being on the other side of the base, it's also on a cliff, with no defenses covering it. You don't even need a spy, you can just get a Hotwire to kill PP if you really want it. The only real advantage Nod has on New Vile is that their water route gives them access to the Forgotten Warfactory, but that's hardly a game winning feature, or even relevant. Their water units also kinda sucking doesn't help either.

I am suggesting setting up a fund to pay freelancers or really anyone with the skill or time to create new maps for IA, or revamp existing ones to better improve their balance and biases. I don't think anyone would disagree the weakest part of IA is the maps, as they're largely old and repurposed, and the game and units have changed and outgrown what was once a very basic Renegade mod. Increases to the ranges of units alone have greatly altered the flow, and really decide which maps are favored for which team at this point. But creating or changing a map is much harder and more time consuming than changing the stats of a gun or a tank. And it's unfair to expect Kaskins and dblaney to both make and add new units and make balance changes to existing units AND revamp existing maps AND add new maps and do it all for basically free. So I'm suggesting setting up a fund for that reason. To bring an extra mapper or two into IA. Now, this is just to gauge interest in people contributing to the fund, and how much they think they could contribute. I of course, would be more than willing to help fund it, but I'm not looking to blow my life savings on this solo, so this would very much need to be a community driven thing. If there is actual interest in such a thing, then we can discuss specifics such as who would handle the group fund (probably kaskins or dblaney?) and how much we could actually front for it. So just let me know if you'd be interested in such a thing, or if you have a better idea.

I like these ideas. I’d suggest compacting them however, into the tech centers doing one thing not multiple. So what I would do is simply make Tech Centers a Bonus Building. Losing them just causes you to lose the support powers, not technology. I cannot say a good way to balance the support powers, however. I like the flare idea, but rather than the flares themselves being able to be disarmed, I think they should be inert and instead you can shoot down the bomber/chinook itself like in the game. I would also say it may be better to have the support powers be purchasesble, rather than on a strict timer, assuming it’s possible for them to have a build limit. Stacking nukes is already a thing, imagine stacking paradrop call ins and having 20 aimbotting riflemen swarm the enemy base. I guess the issue I have more than anything else is that a map wide wall hack and a slow bomb drop are two very different things, and really cannot be comparable. And would the GPS show off underground Soviets? That would be a little silly. Lastly I think they could also feature as a critical building. Lose it you lose the match. To this end they should be in a very defensible location without any sneak paths and certainly with their own dedicated defense just for it. Rear of the base, walled in, only one way in. That sort of thing. Pillbox and turret to guard it for allies and coil for Soviets. Something that would require a dedicated push to kill rather than one crouchy boy.

You’d respawn as a human when you died. Or just have a timer.

As an attack dog spies should get a sausage link that hovers over your head. The attack dog would also be a good counter to tanya in close quarters. I would argue dogs should be unable to access terminals because they don’t have thumbs but also so you can’t just eat a Tanya then disarm her C4. Terminal usage should at least be on a 30 second timer after purchasing. I would also argue that while spies don’t need a direct counter exactly, they’re uncommon enough to be a major thorn in a soviet team that doesn’t expect it. Forgotten is infamous, just yesterday I killed two technicians a sergeant and one engineer and wasted an ore dump on Volcano. Didn’t actually kill Refinery but I sure got close and suppressed repairs to the point someone panic bought an engineer not realizing dead Techs were why it wasn’t being repaired. Also, I don’t think it would throw off balance. Most maps feel allied biased already, giving them a better counter to saboteurs alone would be a nice nerf to PXD.

I've been ranting about this for months. Stop using them as MBTs and start using them as mobile turrets. They're worthless on the move and amazing deployed.

Thoughts about the repair meta?

ORCA Fighters are anti air, anti tank. You're fast enough to hit and run, and durable enough it's really hard to be shot down while doing so. Stop loitering in attacker craft. You die to rifle bullets, so the best way to not do that is to keep moving because you're three times faster than anything else in the game. Also yes, ORCA Fighters are not supposed to be able to kill buildings. They did that in 2017 and every game with air ended when GDI got bored and decided to buy three Fighters to level the entire Nod base.

Infrareds actually delete anything on GDI, especially if you can aim and hit a weakpoint. Just use the alt fire and terrain. Sometimes Nod has to buy actual visible tanks though, that's the point. Stealth tanks are glass cannons, use Nod heavy armor to go head to head with GDI, you're worse but not by that much. Stealth tanks are support (and currently bugged to be far more effective against buildings than they're supposed to actually).

Okay hear me out. Hotwire buffs. Like full health autoheal and well, burn damage is actually being gutted next patch so that's half the issue done and dusted. Perhaps making her radar immune like the rest of the Dead Six since she's apparently not Kaskins you lied to me.

Edited as of May 8th, 2020 Pillbox Health reduced about 15% They're very annoying to take out, just really far too durable for how often they show up in GDI bases. Laser Turret Health increased by about 25% They're way too fragile. Other than headshotting infantry as soon as they come in range, they have very little impact on a Nod defense due to them simply dying in 3 or 4 shots from most weapons. Especially since a lot of higher tier units or just rockets outrange them Hind Gunship reverted gun and fire rocket profile to pre patch, except give it about 5m less maximum range, and retain its current health and shield values. Brings it back but less bogus since now it won't be able to kill an ORCA Fighter before the Fighter can get in range. Comanche Escort gun replaced with a Laser Cannon for a nose gun that deals 25 laser_nobuilding and 10 fire splash damage in a radius of 1.0. Rate of fire about 75% of what it is currently on the gun so it isn't too good at killing buildings and defenses. Gives it a reason to exist because the current one is complete trash lmao Banshee alternate fire to the primary fire, no alt fire mode, ammo count of 3/6. Increase damage per plasma ball by about 10%. Makes it an attacker craft rather than a gunship, ideal for attacking ships and buildings and slow moving tanks without requiring you to stop due to its godawful acceleration often getting you killed. Melta Infantry cost to 700 (extremely underpriced) GDI Combat Engineers receives health regeneration (2 every 5 seconds) Not cost effective and lacking in a role other than mining before you can afford Hotwire. Sappers/Pioneers receive Repair Gun Mk II Mostly just a quality of life change, but also because paid for engineers should have a better repair gun than the free one. Would assist Sappers greatly in their in theory sapping ability that is never used. Nod Lancer damage increased by 40% The unit was hit pretty hard by the weakpoint damage multiplier reduction and has no real niche to fill compared to the much cheaper Melta now. Reduce repair strength by 20% across the board except for the Mk I Repair Gun Repair trains are too effective, and so is bottling in your base endlessly repairing for over an hour while the team hammers your base. While it is possible to overcome repairs, it's usually the result of catching a building not under repair or an unseen "rush." There's often little incentive to keep an enemy team off your base because yes while they get a lot of money and points, so do the defenders for repairing. In fact repairing a building under fire is one of the best ways to make fast cash reliably in this game. This nerf to repairs would make it far more important to halt the enemy team BEFORE they get to your base, rather than cowering in it, while also nerfing field repair cheesing with Mk IV/V or just Hottyswapping, as well as make Steamrollers less effective at just face tanking all damage. This nerf would make damage dealing significantly more important and lead to faster paced games that reward aggression, without completely neutering repairs or making repair tanks themselves useless. Essentially, it would now take 1/5th less damage to break through repairs, making tanks return to frontline slower after being mauled, make tank assaults on bases much easier, and make repair "duels" not indefinite stalemates. Make AGT gun a timed powerup weapon like the Obelisk Gun Because it's fucking stupid to have an infinite ammo AGT gun like that ree. Ban Guard for Hacking Ban me for Bitching

Dunno what to tell you. The bolt actions do about 100 steel damage while the ramjet is 200 steel with explosive splash damage. Ramjets can body shot low tier infantry if you hit center mass and kill Mobius infantry in two headshots, or one headshot and two body shots.

Their bolt actions do a little less than half the damage of a Ramjet rifle.

There's 15 other units that have headshot ability and aren't bolt action. So nah it's pretty bad at everything. Commisar/Adriana is 300 credits more for a unit that's much better against infantry and has great anti tank supporting ability.

Oh also placing proxy mines in the other team's base should be a bannable offense.

Yeah, I used to think this unit was useless. It still is except for this cheese. Which is pretty gay and unfun with no real counterplay if they get on top of an MCT. One can argue, hey, if you didn't mine your base jokes on you. I would also argue that there's a large variety of reasons someone could have gotten into your base, such as there being 3 people doing it, or 1 Home Guard and 1 Military Police (firesuit armor). Or someone bumrushing your base at the very start before you can effectively mine it because you spawned on the other side of the base that takes 30 seconds to cross and defenses are fucking worthless. It's just not well designed, the unit. It's got a bolt action rifle and sticky bombs, that it will NEVER use against tanks because it has no way to realistically engage a tank that doesn't drive on top of it, and if you want anti tank there's much better units. It exists specifically to kill a building at the start, which I would double argue is a bad thing inherently. Destroying a building within the first 5 minutes of the game, should honestly, just end the game with the team that blew it up getting the victory. Losing a building at the start is garbage, it means the match is inherently less diverse and fun. A worst case scenario, losing HoN/Bar or Air/War Factory means you have no way to win the game except against the most braindead of retards. Losing PP or Refinery means you have no ability to leave your base because your income is crippled, making the game incredibly slow due to one team effectively losing all initiative for anything except sneeki breeki. Either that, or building rebuilding should be tied to game time, not playercount, so that restoring a destroyed building costs 3000-6000 for the first 10 minutes, and scales up to 30,000-75,000 by the hour mark. But realistically, one 100 credit infantry shouldn't be the best anti building unit in the game. Their grenades could just deal steel_nobuilding and fire splash damage and they would be fine. Either that or their timer needs to be longer or they need to have like 1 disarm hp so engineers can in fact disarm them. But then, of course, if you couldn't solo a Con Yard with one, they'd be useless because the unit has garbage weapons for actually playing the game instead of doing PvE.

Another issue with them is they're basically undisarmable.

It does a lot of damage Of course it's not an armor killer

20s as in twenties. Not 20 seconds. As in each shot deals about 20 damage to the target if it has heavy armor.

Yes. I mean the microwave tank. Electricity damage is heavily reduced against heavy armor and it’s still not great against medium or light. It takes about four to five salvos to take a prism tank down to low enough it’ll kick out the driver.