Balance More rage thread balance issues, minus the rage!

[Death_Kitty]

Welp. Lets get to work: the maps I want to address here are seamist and river raid.

 

1.) Seamist, the most allied biased map in existence, has the issue of far too many vehicles, so: the reinforcements should be lowered to 1 med tank, 1 APC and 1 light tank, maybe a rangers. And out of the phase, arty and minelayer, one of those has to go.

 

2.) River raid: the main issue with this is that allied arty gathers on their side of the broken bridge, and if you say want to flank them RPG ranger style, that areas covered by the pillbox; Plz move it back or switch base positions. I guessing the former is easier.

 

Those are my problems and suggestions, I'm sure the list will get longer with time.

 

P.S. I get placed on soviets an absurd amount of times; does !defecting to sovs have any influence on this? Also does anyone care to share how to summon the kov/borg on FOI?

[FRAYDO]

I'm not sure if !defecting has any influence on team placement. As far as I am aware of, it only affects your ranking in that you will be titled as either Private or Private, Sergeant or Starshina, and so on.

[delta]

2.) River raid: the main issue with this is that allied arty gathers on their side of the broken bridge, and if you say want to flank them RPG ranger style, that areas covered by the pillbox; please move it back or switch base positions. I guessing the former is easier.

My usual way of dealing with this is to take a Heavy Tank and park on the Soviet side of the broken bridge, and from there I can hit the Artillery. It seems to work, most of the time.

 

Also does anyone care to share how to summon the kov/borg on FOI?

In the forest, run through the campfire to get a fireproof vest. In the cemetery, take a look around and there's a hole in the ground with a ladder...go down, and there's a medic's healing kit next to the Chronosphere. In the garden, go to the northeast corner and there's a way through one of the fences where you'll see four square rock things...approach one of them and it'll open up, go down, and find a heart container. Once all three cursed trinkets have been picked up (doesn't have to be by the same person or the same team) the Cyborg Commando spawns.

[Killing_You]

I've seen more Soviet victories on those maps than Allied. Seamist in particular is very tricky for the Allies, as the Soviets can detonate mines with V2s, and generally blitz one side with Heavies and Mammoths. Occasionally they also throw a demo truck late game to truly annihilate the Allies. River Raid seems fairly well balanced; it all depends on which team is better at pushing the other back, which ultimately depends on the players.

[gammae102]

In the forest, run through the campfire to get a fireproof vest. In the cemetery, take a look around and there's a hole in the ground with a ladder...go down, and there's a medic's healing kit next to the Chronosphere. In the garden, go to the northeast corner and there's a way through one of the fences where you'll see four square rock things...approach one of them and it'll open up, go down, and find a heart container. Once all three cursed trinkets have been picked up (doesn't have to be by the same person or the same team) the Cyborg Commando spawns.

I knew about the Chronosphere, but I actually had no idea about the Zelda-inspired dungeon until right now.

[Raap]

On map balance, if there is any major concerns with Hostile Waters, then let me know about it.

[JigglyJie]

Regarding Hostile Waters... nothing major other than some minor stuff. Like the base defences are a bit all over the place and kinda useless in their current locations, I was thinking would replacing (or adding?) the outer defences on the tiny icebergs with AA guns/SAMs on them? Right now the lone pillbox/flame tower on each side is laughable and can be completely ignored. If this was to happen, it'd mean it'd be worthwhile to bring capital ships/subs to allow helicopters in and thus cannot be ignored.

 

My major greivance with this map, however is that once your Barracks is gone, there is absolutely nothing you can do to re-take the middle, it's optional and probably intended, but it kinda sucks that your enemy is most likely going to have a huge advantage, which you can't do a single thing about it. Perhaps wrenches can be found in the crates or something??

 

Finally, would it be too much to ask for the map just be a tad little lighter? I find myself squinting really hard at times (if only Hinds/Longbows had spotlights!)

 

EDIT: I'm actually thinking that 30 minutes might be too short for this map, you rarely see anyone winning by base destruction... would making it 40 minutes be too much?

Edited May 26, 2016 by JigglyJie

[Raap]

Regarding Hostile Waters... nothing major other than some minor stuff. Like the base defences are a bit all over the place and kinda useless in their current locations, I was thinking would replacing (or adding?) the outer defences on the tiny icebergs with AA guns/SAMs on them? Right now the lone pillbox/flame tower on each side is laughable and can be completely ignored. If this was to happen, it'd mean it'd be worthwhile to bring capital ships/subs to allow helicopters in and thus cannot be ignored.

 

My major greivance with this map, however is that once your Barracks is gone, there is absolutely nothing you can do to re-take the middle, it's optional and probably intended, but it kinda sucks that your enemy is most likely going to have a huge advantage, which you can't do a single thing about it. Perhaps wrenches can be found in the crates or something??

 

Finally, would it be too much to ask for the map just be a tad little lighter? I find myself squinting really hard at times (if only Hinds/Longbows had spotlights!)

 

EDIT: I'm actually thinking that 30 minutes might be too short for this map, you rarely see anyone winning by base destruction... would making it 40 minutes be too much?

 

The base defenses serve their purpose; Slow down game pace. You can't rush the naval buildings without taking them down first. I agree with the rear/side iceberg defenses however, they aren't doing their job very well and are effectively redundant.

 

I share your concerns with the barracks. Unfortunately, the way the capture logic works, it requires a special weapon warhead to change capture progress on terminals, in this case, that is the Engineer golden wrench/spanner/thingy. I actually brought this up to Generalcamo/Pushwall when I was designing the objectives, foreseeing exactly this scenario. Unfortunately, the only solution is to give Technicians a capture tool... But thats game-wide, and therefore something for Pushwall to decide and not me, and from his perspective adding such a tool is hard to justify since only two maps would make use of it (Pipeline, Hostile Waters). It would certainly solve the capturing of objectives issue however, something more maps will see usage of as time goes on (Siege will be another one). (Edit: Actually I might be a bit wrong here, I can't recall the exact limitation.)

 

As for making the map brighter, there are aesthetical concerns with that, since the map is designed with night time in mind (lights, texture effects, etc.).

 

I'm not sure what possibilities exist for map times. Do keep in mind, not everyone likes Hostile Waters (not everyone likes every map), adding 10 more minutes of it means some people got to play 10 more minutes of something they do not enjoy.

Edited May 26, 2016 by Raap

[delta]

Speaking of capturing, I find that sometimes the amount of golden wrench needed to capture oil pumps seems kinda inconsistent. Oftentimes I'll go for the one up on the hill, and use maybe 47 GW to capture it...then I go to the one in middle and that takes up all the rest of my GW and still doesn't get captured. Or vice versa, the one in middle takes 47 and then somehow i don't have enough to take the one on hill.

[Raap]

Speaking of capturing, I find that sometimes the amount of golden wrench needed to capture oil pumps seems kinda inconsistent. Oftentimes I'll go for the one up on the hill, and use maybe 47 GW to capture it...then I go to the one in middle and that takes up all the rest of my GW and still doesn't get captured. Or vice versa, the one in middle takes 47 and then somehow i don't have enough to take the one on hill.

 

NEUTRAL buildings capture faster and cost less "ammunition". Capturing buildings owned by an enemy team costs double.

 

I don't have the exact numbers anymore since a recent patch lowered the strength per ammunition "shot" of Engineer golden wrenches/spanners/thingies, which had the direct effect of making capturing buildings harder.

 

Edit: Anyhow, some good news (I guess?), the Medieval Cannons on Siege can be repaired back up again using ANY repair tool, including the Technician version. You won't be locked out of these weapons if your Barracks decides to prematurely exit this plane of existence via chrono vortex.

Edited May 27, 2016 by Raap

[delta]

What I mean is that it takes something around the neighborhood of 50 to capture one that's owned by the enemy, right? But sometimes it takes a little bit less...so I'm like "cool, I've got enough to get the next one". But then I go to that next one, expend all the rest of my GW and it's still not fully captured.

[SarahNautili]

it's a lag issue, the game thinks you're further away from the terminal than you are for a few ticks, or a few of your ammo ticks just "miss" somehow.

[gammae102]

Two issues I have:

 

1) The way Hostile Waters is set up now, the most effective strategy seems to be LST rush and try and take out the Barracks. I was under the impression when the map was being made that the intent was to have naval combat be the main focus of the gameplay. If that is, in fact, the intent then I think the base defenses from near the Advanced Naval Yard/Subpen need to be relocated towards the back of the base to prevent a few Captains from sneaking in and destroying everything. Naval units are relatively slow moving and need to be coordinated to be effective. I think, on this map at least, more needs to be done to push the player towards choosing this option.

 

2) Along the lines of what delta is saying, with the Golden Wrench, it seem like after you use a certain amount of ammo, the remaining ammo does nothing. For example, you start with 100, if you use 90 of it to capture an oil derrick, the last 10 "shots" you have left over seem to do literally nothing. That's why, like delta said, you might be capturing two neutral oil derricks, have 55/100 ammo left after the first one, but not be able to capture the second one.

Edited May 27, 2016 by gammae102

[delta]

it's a lag issue, the game thinks you're further away from the terminal than you are for a few ticks, or a few of your ammo ticks just "miss" somehow.

I figured it might have to do with lag, but I try to compensate for it by standing perfectly still for a second or two before attempting to capture it, and it still happens. And I'm pretty sure it shouldn't be missing the target, what with it being an AOE effect and all.

[Pushwall]

Speaking of capturing, I find that sometimes the amount of golden wrench needed to capture oil pumps seems kinda inconsistent. Oftentimes I'll go for the one up on the hill, and use maybe 47 GW to capture it...then I go to the one in middle and that takes up all the rest of my GW and still doesn't get captured. Or vice versa, the one in middle takes 47 and then somehow i don't have enough to take the one on hill.

 

For oil derricks it takes 26 to capture a neutral and 52 to capture an owned one. If it appears to be taking less than that, it's just client/server desync (i.e. you've actually used more charges than that, but it doesn't show, and the extra charges you appear to have saved don't work because AOE damage is server-side). So at the very most, you can capture 3 neutral derricks, capture 1 neutral and 1 owned, or capture 1 owned and turn another owned neutral, with the remaining 22 charges being leeway to make it less likely that you'll end up using too many charges to capture those specific amounts of derricks.

[Raptor29aa]

On the topic of Hostile waters, I've always wondered why the middle neutral refill pad had a wall facing the allies, but was totally open to shorting down hinds as they left the sub pen.

Is this because the allied base is closer than the Soviet base?

I am not sure the logic because when allies own both it makes leaving the Soviet base In a hind tricky.

 

I feel Seamist shouldn't have any changes to allied Arsenal. (I've seen experts have the same vehicle the whole time and also newbies go through them like tissue paper. There should be enough reinforcements to go around)

Rather maybe just give the soviets a little more cash. Either a ref, or extra silo. Not sure, I think the fact that as soviets you have a budget of 6,000 (without killing any allies) that match. That means you get 3 mammoths use them wisely.

Maybe enlarge the map by 5% and move the Soviet base back so they can't V2 snipe the allied hill from the edge of their base. Not sure it just seems like a tiny island with too much splash damage and not enough tank action. Soviet armor can get stuck easily.

Edited May 27, 2016 by Raptor29aa

[Pushwall]

For Seamist something I already did a few weeks ago is to whittle down the Allied base a bit; they'll have 1 less refill pad (so Allies will be in slightly more dire straits if they're just down to longbows), 1 less service depot (only the one that the ML sits on is left) and 1 less AA gun (rocket soldiers are plentiful enough anyway). So Soviet frontliners have less stuff to chew through before getting to the radar dome which V2s can already get to. How do you guys feel about that?

 

Maybe enlarge the map by 5%

There's way too much stuff that doesn't get affected by resizing (like buildings, trees, script zones) would have to be realigned after a resizing.

 

I don't have the exact numbers anymore since a recent patch lowered the strength per ammunition "shot" of Engineer golden wrenches/spanners/thingies, which had the direct effect of making capturing buildings harder.

Considering that the building capturing scripts alter the building's "health bar" based on how many times it's been hit and doesn't care about damage at all, I doubt this.

[Death_Kitty]

For Seamist something I already did a few weeks ago is to whittle down the Allied base a bit; they'll have 1 less refill pad (so Allies will be in slightly more dire straits if they're just down to longbows), 1 less service depot (only the one that the ML sits on is left) and 1 less AA gun (rocket soldiers are plentiful enough anyway). So Soviet frontliners have less stuff to chew through before getting to the radar dome which V2s can already get to. How do you guys feel about that?

That's not a solution to the problem though, and will barley change anything, because no one ever goes for the refill pads, and allies can easily make do with just a helipad as is now, the AA gun is irrelevant unless Soviets go for hind push, but rocket soldiers exist so thats null, and thanks to mechs, the service depot removal does nothing but maybe slow down the minelayer a few seconds. The problem is the fact that allies start with so much momentum in the beginning, so they can immediately take control of the field, giving no time for Soviets to put any pressure on- by the time they can allied reinforcements have arrived, an L-bow will be up, mechs will be up, mines will be up, and if arty still is alive, you are really screwed.

 

I see you really dont want to weaken allied reinforcements, but I still think you should; losing a med tanks and an APC and the 2nd light would make those remaining vehicles more relevant, and more valuable, and force the allies to use infantry support.

 

Of course, the flip side of this is to give the soviets vehicle at start allowing them to immediately pressure the allies, which is the point: 1-2 Ht's, and a hind maybe a TT (but no V2. that would be OP) would work wonders.

 

P.S. im all for repair tools capping buildings. Would help HW and Pipeline quite a bit. Heck, why not add more "bonus objectives to existing maps:" as well!

Edited May 27, 2016 by Death_Kitty

[Pushwall]

Maybe 1 less silo would also help, making longbows/mechanics precious commodities instead of something you can spam?

[ChopBam]

Removing one silo might be worth a shot. Do consider it'd cut their funds in half, which wouldn't only affect mech/lb spam. Engineers, snipers, captains, rockets, and even vehicle-stealing spies would all become more scarce. Still, I might try it, as Soviets are very hard-pressed to win any game right now where there are just a few competent Allies, and I think Raptor is right about the sd, aa gun, and rpad not being priority targets. When I'm on Allies I typically find myself in excess anyway, unless the silos are dead. If cutting the silo proves to be too much nerf, however, you might try rebuffing them in other, less drastic ways to reach a happy middle (e.g. bringing second sd back or even adding a reinforcement or two).

[Pushwall]

I think I'd also move the remaining silo back to a safer place like where the removed refill pad was. Right now the silos are pretty vulnerable to v2s if the allies are incompetent, but it's not hard to prevent both silos from being destroyed at once - losing 1 silo when you only have 1 has a much bigger impact than just losing 1 when you have 2.

[ChopBam]

It will make Soviet rushes flanking the Allies around that pile of rock much more intentional by giving them a solid target. Go for it.

[Voe]

Tbh if the entire soviet team on seamist (talking 5 or more people) buys nothing but v2/rpg troop, the allies die within minutes.

 

Same with mammoths. Or TT/Kapitans.

 

This isn't an Allied biased map. The problem lies on the soviet side and their permanent lack of cooperation.

 

Additionally, I remember when Seamist really was allied biased. It was in the old Beta versions, where the allies started with 2 longbows and could literally destroy all soviet base defences and half their base only by using their starting units. TeamNX (where I was the APB leader ) used to pick that map on clanwars as a bait - we trained only the soviet side, as we knew the enemy would always pick allies, often giving up advantageous sides on all other maps. And they did. And they lost. Every time.

[Death_Kitty]

and I think Raptor is right about the sd, aa gun, and rpad not being priority targets.

Hey buddy... You sure that was raptor?

Oh and the ore silo... That is a step in the right direction!

[Killing_You]

Have I just missed everything? I've played Seamist a lot, and it almost always results in a Soviet victory. The one time it didn't was when forg decided to prove how dangerous spies are. No idea how he does it.

[ChopBam]

 

and I think Raptor is right about the sd, aa gun, and rpad not being priority targets.

Hey buddy... You sure that was raptor?

myBad.exe

[Raap]

What I mean is that it takes something around the neighborhood of 50 to capture one that's owned by the enemy, right? But sometimes it takes a little bit less...so I'm like "cool, I've got enough to get the next one". But then I go to that next one, expend all the rest of my GW and it's still not fully captured.

 

I've been unable to reproduce random results in local testing, so this certainly has to be a server issue. Interesting nonetheless, but the only solution I can quickly think of, is changing the way the Engineer golden wrench/spanner/thingy functions, from 100 rapidly fired 'shots', to ~10 slow fired shots with a ~2 second cooldown in between shots, this way miss-fires are impossible, and the server won't have a seizure trying to keep up.

 

Two issues I have:

 

1) The way Hostile Waters is set up now, the most effective strategy seems to be LST rush and try and take out the Barracks. I was under the impression when the map was being made that the intent was to have naval combat be the main focus of the gameplay. If that is, in fact, the intent then I think the base defenses from near the Advanced Naval Yard/Subpen need to be relocated towards the back of the base to prevent a few Captains from sneaking in and destroying everything. Naval units are relatively slow moving and need to be coordinated to be effective. I think, on this map at least, more needs to be done to push the player towards choosing this option.

 

 

 

I added a solid secondary infantry focus as a backup in the event naval balance was unfixable on its own with just naval units, and also to ensure more varied tactics exist. I agree however than infantry are extremely powerful on this map and certainly more so than I hoped for. If it were up to me, then the tech level for infantry gets bumped down to Engineers/rockets/RPG's only. But I can understand why Pushwall might not be looking forward to doing so, as a custom purchase list on a specific map means additional adjustments whenever the purchase roster is updated. A good example was the recent Grenadier changes not affecting Hostile Waters until a follow-up patch addressed it.

 

On the topic of Hostile waters, I've always wondered why the middle neutral refill pad had a wall facing the allies, but was totally open to shorting down hinds as they left the sub pen.

Is this because the allied base is closer than the Soviet base?

I am not sure the logic because when allies own both it makes leaving the Soviet base In a hind tricky.

 

The logic here is that Hinds can approach the refill pad while below the cliff the SAM Site is located on. That same SAM Site had a much wider field of view towards the Allied base due to the downward slope facing them, so I added that wall to even the odds.

 

Frankly however, the capturable buildings are already extremely useful, and I'm thinking right now that the SAM Sites are just making them unnecessarily important, by locking down airspace. @Pushwall: If you were to wish to remove those SAM Sites, don't remove the SAM presets since the capture scripts will go berserk without a preset to flip (Danpaul was made aware of this issue during HW development). Just remove the AI script from them instead so they'll remain dormant.

Edited May 27, 2016 by Raap

[Pushwall]

Frankly however, the capturable buildings are already extremely useful, and I'm thinking right now that the SAM Sites are just making them unnecessarily important, by locking down airspace. @Pushwall: If you were to wish to remove those SAM Sites, don't remove the SAM presets since the capture scripts will go berserk without a preset to flip (Danpaul was made aware of this issue during HW development). Just remove the AI script from them instead so they'll remain dormant.

 

Well I can blank out their model too. No need to get peoples' hopes up with a visible SAM site that doesn't work.

[Raap]

 

Frankly however, the capturable buildings are already extremely useful, and I'm thinking right now that the SAM Sites are just making them unnecessarily important, by locking down airspace. @Pushwall: If you were to wish to remove those SAM Sites, don't remove the SAM presets since the capture scripts will go berserk without a preset to flip (Danpaul was made aware of this issue during HW development). Just remove the AI script from them instead so they'll remain dormant.

 

Well I can blank out their model too. No need to get peoples' hopes up with a visible SAM site that doesn't work.

 

 

That leaves me with aesthetic concerns since the icebergs are already quite barren and the terminal hub would be a concrete block with nothing on it.

 

Their default appearance is already in a "powered down" state, thanks to W3D's urge to force turret rotations to 0,0,0. Removing the AI should take care of the rest.

 

If I had the time, I'd do a revision of the map, especially since I really don't like the iceberg infantry areas. Unfortunately my time is going into Siege since it is a bigger priority.

Edited June 11, 2016 by Raap

[Pushwall]

And people who don't read this thread are just going to complain non-stop that the SAM sites don't work when they should. It just looks like a bug.

 

I can just change their model to the "destroyed SAM site" model instead.