Roy Awesome
2013-07-11, 03:29 AM
So, I went through a phase where I was dreaming up a good rebalance to combat the issues with Vehicle/Infantry interaction. I strongly feel that Infantry v Infantry combat is incredibly fun and Vehicle v Vehicle gameplay is incredibly fun, but Vehicle vs Infantry combat simply turns into a farm (in both directions, Infantry farm vehicles and sometimes the other way around).
I spent some time thinking about how to rebalance the interactions between Infantry and Vehicles, and this is what I came up with. I wrote this before GU11 when Flak got hellnerfed, so keep that in mind with the Flak changes I mention.
#Roy'sRebalance version 2
Work In Progress
By RoyAwesome
The interaction between Air, Ground, and Infantry is broken
SOE is trying to fix what is fundamentally a Weapons Design issue with Level Design by adding Dome Shields and Walls.
I tried to fix the Weapon Design issue.
Please keep in mind that this entire redesign should be taken in whole, not in pieces. This is very important
Fundamental Idea: Explosions kill tanks, bullets kill infantry. Explosions do not kill infantry, bullets do not kill tanks.
(Say that explosions are EMP that disrupt nanites, bullets kill infantry)
Secondly, Interactions are more streamlined, and clear roles and battle plans are laid out. Significant effort went into creating a system where farming did not happen and every Unit that threatened another Unit could be dealt with.
Infantry:
Theory:
Infantry is a free unit. It costs very little time to spawn a new infantry unit (10s) and costs 0 resources to use.
Infantry are for fighting infantry. They all have bullet guns that do damage to Infantry.
In general, Infantry should have to get close to a tank to do serious damage to it. Infantry at range should pose very little threat to an armored unit).
Specific interactions:
C4: The primary way of killing a tank.
Does significant (almost 1-shot) damage to Tanks
Does not do much damage to Sunderers.
Reasoning: C4 costs resources, requires you to break cover and place the C4 on a target. C4 causes an explosion. Explosion kills the tank.
Most classes have access to C4, which gives most classes actual capabilities of dealing with armor. HAs do still do their job against infantry (Resist shield for that).
Rockets: The last way to kill a tank
Should require around 15-20 rockets to kill a tank.
This damage nerf applies to all rockets, from the default dumb-fires, ESLs, and the Engineer AV turret. All ranged Anti-Tank guns.
Reasoning: Rockets are free, tanks are not. The cost to to kill a tank should be damage priority (focus fire) or time. The real threat to Tanks should come from Infantry breaking cover and planting C4 on the tank.
Striker: Remove Lock-On, add a new mechanic
The Striker should fire a single wire-guided and visually distinctive rocket. If that rocket hits a target, the Striker immediatly fires off a salvo of 6 rockets into the air that arc to hit their target.
These rockets have a minimum arm distance, preventing the Striker from being used at close range.
Damage nerfs as above with rockets
Reasoning: Lock-on rockets are boring. This mechanic adds a very skill based mechanic and nearly gauranteed damage. Due to the extreme ease of hitting a close target with a wire-guided shot, the minimum arming distance is required.
The Striker should be effective at the same ranges the Lancer and Phoenix are effective. Between 100-400 meters.
Tank Mines: These should be about area denial.
Engineers can carry 3x the number of tank mines.
Tank mines do 1/4th the damage they currently do
Tank mines should do increasing damage if multiple mines go of within some time of eachother
Reasoning: Tank Mines should be used as Area Denial and the close range explosive charge mechanic is given firmly to C4.
Burster Max: Flak Mechanic change making the weapon Area Denial
Flak shells travel 250-350 meters until which they explode (if they come near a closer target, they will explode there).
Flak gains a 25-50meter AOE damage and a large black smoke cloud particle effect.
Aircraft speed and Size are modifiers on the amount of damage that the air vehicle takes. Faster flight and smaller size decreases the damage by 50%. Slower speeds or larger craft increase the damage.
Slow moving ESFs should take significant damage from Flak. Fast moving ESFs should be able to shrug it off.
Reasoning: Bursters are capable of fitting places that would otherwise be inaccessable, making a Killing weapon incredibly powerful.
Instead, Bursters are put into an Area Denial role. Area Denial is only good if that weapon can be deadly, so the speed/size mechanic is required. If a slow moving ESF gets caught in a flak field, it will die. A fast moving ESF is ineffective at interacting with the ground, so it will be fine.
Ideally, Liberators should stay out of Burster range, but if they stray into, they should take a very significant amount of damage due to the size multiplier.
Engineer Repair Tool: Rescale the repair rate
Repair tool heals at 20% of the current rate on units that have very recently taken damage within 2 seconds
Repair Tool scales up to 300% of current rate over 2 minutes since last damage, logarithmically.
For Example, after 25 seconds since last damage, the Repair tool repairs at 100%, but scales slower after that until it is repairing very quickly
Armored Units:
Theory:
Tanks should not fear Infantry at range, and Infantry should not fear Tanks at range. Instead, Tanks should be primarly used to fight other tanks.
The goal of a Tank is to establish Armor Superiority. That is: You have more Tanks than the other team, allowing your team to prevent AMSes and other armored units from entering the battle, giving your team momentum to push out.
The Harraser requires teamwork to be effective, allowing it to survive without many changes in this rebalance. It may need some values tweaked to be in line with any changes made below.
MBT Main gun: Little damage to infantry, but roughly the same to tanks.
Default gun should do something like 1/2 damage to Infantry on a direct hit, and 10% damage with minimal splash. These are NOT infantry fighting weapons.
MBT Side-grades should reflect this.
Reasoning: Because Infantry does little range damage to tanks, this lets tanks move around and provide cover for Infantry pushes without making tanks farming machines.
MBT Secondary Gun: Options include bullet based weapons that do damage to Infantry and Explosive based weapons that do damage to tanks.
The Basilisk should do no damage to Armor, and options should be given based on bullet damage, ROF, and bullet travel speed.
Reasoning: The primary job of a MBT is to duel other tanks. When you add the teamwork component of the Secondary gun, you invest more people into a single unit, allowing that unit to break it's role, but only for that secondary spot.
Sunderer: Increase survivalbility 300%-500%
Sunderer should take very little damage from C4 and Tank Mines.
Sunderer should take very little damage from Rockets
Sunderer should take a significant ammount of damage from MBT Primary Cannons.
Sunderer should take a significant ammount of damage from a Dalton or Zephyr Liberator
Sunderer should take about 1/2 damage of a MBT cannon from a salvo of ESF rockets
Reasoning: Sunderers are your forward base. Sunderers are the attacker's spawn point. The death of the final S-AMS is the end of a fight.
They should not be easy to kill for Infantry. The goal of a MBT in a fight should be to kill a S-AMS, and Infantry should support tanks getting into position.
Lighting: Utility Roles
To fight Infantry, Lightings should have bullet based weapons.
To fight Tanks, Lightnings should have cannons that do little damage to Infantry.
Reasoning: Bullets kill Infantry, Explosions kill tanks. See a pattern?
To fight Air, the Skyguard Flak mechanic gets changed similar to the Burster
Skyguard gets explosive shells that explode 750meters out. The size of the explosion is ~50+m wide and creates black smoke particles.
Reasoning: the Skyguard flak turret becomes an area denial gun that is focused primarily on high flying liberators.
Where the burster is for lower flying things like ESFs or low flying Libs, the Skyguard is to kill high flying objects.
Same as bursters, Size and Speed are multipliers for flak damage. smaller, faster craft take less damage; slower, larger craft take more.
New gun: Skyguard Rocket Turret.
Salvo rocket laucher with a guided component. You fire a 'Tag' rocket that is bright and visually distinctive. You wire-guide this rocket into an air vehicle.
Once the tag rocket hits, the turret immediatly fires a salvo of 6 rockets that seek out the tag and deal significant damage.
Reasoning: Flak was relegated to an Area Denial role, leaving the role of Killing Weapon open. This weapon fills that role. It is a skill based shot that once the guided tag rocket hits, damage is nearly garuanteed.
Air Units:
Significant redesign of many roles in the Air. Again, focusing on reducing the farming potential of many weapons and bringing creating a diverse combat situation between Air vehicles.
ESFs: Primary Goal is to fight other ESFs and gain air superiority.
Rocket Pods do very little damage with very little splash to Infantry (Salvo does 1/2 of Infantry's life as damage or so (before Flak reductions))
Rocket Pod Salvos do about 1/3rd of the Tanks Life as damage on top armor.
Should do about 60% of a tank's life as damage from the rear armor.
A2A Rockets: Mechanics changed
Dumb-fire, speedy rockets. Do significant damage to Liberators and Galaxies. ESFs should be able to dodge these.
Nose gun Damage to Liberators and Galaxies significantly reduced.
Reasoning: ESFs should be used to fight other ESFs and shoot down Liberators and sometimes Galaxies.
Liberator: Move the 2nd gun position to the nose of the Liberator. Keep the primary gun for the Liberator, however.
When traveling down and fast, the Liberator should make a loud, distinctive noise to people on the ground.
Dalton: The Anti-Tank gun
Splash does next to no damage to Infantry
Splash does a decent amount of damage to Tanks
Direct Hit does a significant amount of damage to Tanks.
Shell has a strong influence by gravity.
Shell makes a loud, disinctive sound when traveling with a large, distinctive explosion sound.
Reasoning: This should be the High-Altitude Anti-Tank role of the Liberator. It should function as a bomber with this weapon.
The sound for the Dalton is critical for players being hit by the Dalton. They should not have to see the liberator to know they are being fired on by it.
Zephyr: The Dive-Bomb gun
Splash does little damage to Infantry
Shell travel time significantly reduced
Shell speed inheritance significantly increased
Full salvo damage should do siginficant damage to all Armor, including Sunderers.
Reasoning: Fly in high, nose down, unload all rounds into a Sunderer. 1 and 1/2 runs like this should kill a Sunderer.
Shredder: The Gunship Gun
Bullet based weapon that does significant damage to infantry.
Perhaps a small explosion radius (explosive rounds?)
Decent amount of damage to tanks
Slow bullet travel time.
Reasoning: This is the low flying, anti infantry gun. The role of a liberator with a Shredder should be to peak in and around cover and pick off targets with bullets.
The devil is in the details on this one. It could be an infantry farming machine (bad). Slow bullet travel time encourages infantry to keep moving when a shreder lib is attacking them.
Reasoning: The Liberator role is defined by it's Secondary gun. Because it requires teamwork, it should have a high damage potential.
Galaxy: Significantly increased survivability against ground damage
Reduced survivalbility from ESFs.
Bulldogs:
Damage to Infantry significantly reduced
Damage to Tanks significantly increased.
Reasoning: Due to flak changes, High survivable bulldog galaxies would farm Infantry. Instead, it is used to kill tanks where the Skyguard-Rockets could kill Galaxies without much skill.
Reasoning: Galaxies are the transport craft and Air-Battle platforms. They should be difficult to take down, but the coordination of 5 people in a Galaxy should be rewarded with a high damage potential.
Galaxies should be vulnerable to ESFs, however, and should likely have an ESF escort.
So, thoughts?
I know that the liberator stuff gets pretty wild, but I really don't like liberators in their current form. Liberators are this weird hybrid between gunship and bomber, and don't actually fill either of those roles.
I spent some time thinking about how to rebalance the interactions between Infantry and Vehicles, and this is what I came up with. I wrote this before GU11 when Flak got hellnerfed, so keep that in mind with the Flak changes I mention.
#Roy'sRebalance version 2
Work In Progress
By RoyAwesome
The interaction between Air, Ground, and Infantry is broken
SOE is trying to fix what is fundamentally a Weapons Design issue with Level Design by adding Dome Shields and Walls.
I tried to fix the Weapon Design issue.
Please keep in mind that this entire redesign should be taken in whole, not in pieces. This is very important
Fundamental Idea: Explosions kill tanks, bullets kill infantry. Explosions do not kill infantry, bullets do not kill tanks.
(Say that explosions are EMP that disrupt nanites, bullets kill infantry)
Secondly, Interactions are more streamlined, and clear roles and battle plans are laid out. Significant effort went into creating a system where farming did not happen and every Unit that threatened another Unit could be dealt with.
Infantry:
Theory:
Infantry is a free unit. It costs very little time to spawn a new infantry unit (10s) and costs 0 resources to use.
Infantry are for fighting infantry. They all have bullet guns that do damage to Infantry.
In general, Infantry should have to get close to a tank to do serious damage to it. Infantry at range should pose very little threat to an armored unit).
Specific interactions:
C4: The primary way of killing a tank.
Does significant (almost 1-shot) damage to Tanks
Does not do much damage to Sunderers.
Reasoning: C4 costs resources, requires you to break cover and place the C4 on a target. C4 causes an explosion. Explosion kills the tank.
Most classes have access to C4, which gives most classes actual capabilities of dealing with armor. HAs do still do their job against infantry (Resist shield for that).
Rockets: The last way to kill a tank
Should require around 15-20 rockets to kill a tank.
This damage nerf applies to all rockets, from the default dumb-fires, ESLs, and the Engineer AV turret. All ranged Anti-Tank guns.
Reasoning: Rockets are free, tanks are not. The cost to to kill a tank should be damage priority (focus fire) or time. The real threat to Tanks should come from Infantry breaking cover and planting C4 on the tank.
Striker: Remove Lock-On, add a new mechanic
The Striker should fire a single wire-guided and visually distinctive rocket. If that rocket hits a target, the Striker immediatly fires off a salvo of 6 rockets into the air that arc to hit their target.
These rockets have a minimum arm distance, preventing the Striker from being used at close range.
Damage nerfs as above with rockets
Reasoning: Lock-on rockets are boring. This mechanic adds a very skill based mechanic and nearly gauranteed damage. Due to the extreme ease of hitting a close target with a wire-guided shot, the minimum arming distance is required.
The Striker should be effective at the same ranges the Lancer and Phoenix are effective. Between 100-400 meters.
Tank Mines: These should be about area denial.
Engineers can carry 3x the number of tank mines.
Tank mines do 1/4th the damage they currently do
Tank mines should do increasing damage if multiple mines go of within some time of eachother
Reasoning: Tank Mines should be used as Area Denial and the close range explosive charge mechanic is given firmly to C4.
Burster Max: Flak Mechanic change making the weapon Area Denial
Flak shells travel 250-350 meters until which they explode (if they come near a closer target, they will explode there).
Flak gains a 25-50meter AOE damage and a large black smoke cloud particle effect.
Aircraft speed and Size are modifiers on the amount of damage that the air vehicle takes. Faster flight and smaller size decreases the damage by 50%. Slower speeds or larger craft increase the damage.
Slow moving ESFs should take significant damage from Flak. Fast moving ESFs should be able to shrug it off.
Reasoning: Bursters are capable of fitting places that would otherwise be inaccessable, making a Killing weapon incredibly powerful.
Instead, Bursters are put into an Area Denial role. Area Denial is only good if that weapon can be deadly, so the speed/size mechanic is required. If a slow moving ESF gets caught in a flak field, it will die. A fast moving ESF is ineffective at interacting with the ground, so it will be fine.
Ideally, Liberators should stay out of Burster range, but if they stray into, they should take a very significant amount of damage due to the size multiplier.
Engineer Repair Tool: Rescale the repair rate
Repair tool heals at 20% of the current rate on units that have very recently taken damage within 2 seconds
Repair Tool scales up to 300% of current rate over 2 minutes since last damage, logarithmically.
For Example, after 25 seconds since last damage, the Repair tool repairs at 100%, but scales slower after that until it is repairing very quickly
Armored Units:
Theory:
Tanks should not fear Infantry at range, and Infantry should not fear Tanks at range. Instead, Tanks should be primarly used to fight other tanks.
The goal of a Tank is to establish Armor Superiority. That is: You have more Tanks than the other team, allowing your team to prevent AMSes and other armored units from entering the battle, giving your team momentum to push out.
The Harraser requires teamwork to be effective, allowing it to survive without many changes in this rebalance. It may need some values tweaked to be in line with any changes made below.
MBT Main gun: Little damage to infantry, but roughly the same to tanks.
Default gun should do something like 1/2 damage to Infantry on a direct hit, and 10% damage with minimal splash. These are NOT infantry fighting weapons.
MBT Side-grades should reflect this.
Reasoning: Because Infantry does little range damage to tanks, this lets tanks move around and provide cover for Infantry pushes without making tanks farming machines.
MBT Secondary Gun: Options include bullet based weapons that do damage to Infantry and Explosive based weapons that do damage to tanks.
The Basilisk should do no damage to Armor, and options should be given based on bullet damage, ROF, and bullet travel speed.
Reasoning: The primary job of a MBT is to duel other tanks. When you add the teamwork component of the Secondary gun, you invest more people into a single unit, allowing that unit to break it's role, but only for that secondary spot.
Sunderer: Increase survivalbility 300%-500%
Sunderer should take very little damage from C4 and Tank Mines.
Sunderer should take very little damage from Rockets
Sunderer should take a significant ammount of damage from MBT Primary Cannons.
Sunderer should take a significant ammount of damage from a Dalton or Zephyr Liberator
Sunderer should take about 1/2 damage of a MBT cannon from a salvo of ESF rockets
Reasoning: Sunderers are your forward base. Sunderers are the attacker's spawn point. The death of the final S-AMS is the end of a fight.
They should not be easy to kill for Infantry. The goal of a MBT in a fight should be to kill a S-AMS, and Infantry should support tanks getting into position.
Lighting: Utility Roles
To fight Infantry, Lightings should have bullet based weapons.
To fight Tanks, Lightnings should have cannons that do little damage to Infantry.
Reasoning: Bullets kill Infantry, Explosions kill tanks. See a pattern?
To fight Air, the Skyguard Flak mechanic gets changed similar to the Burster
Skyguard gets explosive shells that explode 750meters out. The size of the explosion is ~50+m wide and creates black smoke particles.
Reasoning: the Skyguard flak turret becomes an area denial gun that is focused primarily on high flying liberators.
Where the burster is for lower flying things like ESFs or low flying Libs, the Skyguard is to kill high flying objects.
Same as bursters, Size and Speed are multipliers for flak damage. smaller, faster craft take less damage; slower, larger craft take more.
New gun: Skyguard Rocket Turret.
Salvo rocket laucher with a guided component. You fire a 'Tag' rocket that is bright and visually distinctive. You wire-guide this rocket into an air vehicle.
Once the tag rocket hits, the turret immediatly fires a salvo of 6 rockets that seek out the tag and deal significant damage.
Reasoning: Flak was relegated to an Area Denial role, leaving the role of Killing Weapon open. This weapon fills that role. It is a skill based shot that once the guided tag rocket hits, damage is nearly garuanteed.
Air Units:
Significant redesign of many roles in the Air. Again, focusing on reducing the farming potential of many weapons and bringing creating a diverse combat situation between Air vehicles.
ESFs: Primary Goal is to fight other ESFs and gain air superiority.
Rocket Pods do very little damage with very little splash to Infantry (Salvo does 1/2 of Infantry's life as damage or so (before Flak reductions))
Rocket Pod Salvos do about 1/3rd of the Tanks Life as damage on top armor.
Should do about 60% of a tank's life as damage from the rear armor.
A2A Rockets: Mechanics changed
Dumb-fire, speedy rockets. Do significant damage to Liberators and Galaxies. ESFs should be able to dodge these.
Nose gun Damage to Liberators and Galaxies significantly reduced.
Reasoning: ESFs should be used to fight other ESFs and shoot down Liberators and sometimes Galaxies.
Liberator: Move the 2nd gun position to the nose of the Liberator. Keep the primary gun for the Liberator, however.
When traveling down and fast, the Liberator should make a loud, distinctive noise to people on the ground.
Dalton: The Anti-Tank gun
Splash does next to no damage to Infantry
Splash does a decent amount of damage to Tanks
Direct Hit does a significant amount of damage to Tanks.
Shell has a strong influence by gravity.
Shell makes a loud, disinctive sound when traveling with a large, distinctive explosion sound.
Reasoning: This should be the High-Altitude Anti-Tank role of the Liberator. It should function as a bomber with this weapon.
The sound for the Dalton is critical for players being hit by the Dalton. They should not have to see the liberator to know they are being fired on by it.
Zephyr: The Dive-Bomb gun
Splash does little damage to Infantry
Shell travel time significantly reduced
Shell speed inheritance significantly increased
Full salvo damage should do siginficant damage to all Armor, including Sunderers.
Reasoning: Fly in high, nose down, unload all rounds into a Sunderer. 1 and 1/2 runs like this should kill a Sunderer.
Shredder: The Gunship Gun
Bullet based weapon that does significant damage to infantry.
Perhaps a small explosion radius (explosive rounds?)
Decent amount of damage to tanks
Slow bullet travel time.
Reasoning: This is the low flying, anti infantry gun. The role of a liberator with a Shredder should be to peak in and around cover and pick off targets with bullets.
The devil is in the details on this one. It could be an infantry farming machine (bad). Slow bullet travel time encourages infantry to keep moving when a shreder lib is attacking them.
Reasoning: The Liberator role is defined by it's Secondary gun. Because it requires teamwork, it should have a high damage potential.
Galaxy: Significantly increased survivability against ground damage
Reduced survivalbility from ESFs.
Bulldogs:
Damage to Infantry significantly reduced
Damage to Tanks significantly increased.
Reasoning: Due to flak changes, High survivable bulldog galaxies would farm Infantry. Instead, it is used to kill tanks where the Skyguard-Rockets could kill Galaxies without much skill.
Reasoning: Galaxies are the transport craft and Air-Battle platforms. They should be difficult to take down, but the coordination of 5 people in a Galaxy should be rewarded with a high damage potential.
Galaxies should be vulnerable to ESFs, however, and should likely have an ESF escort.
So, thoughts?
I know that the liberator stuff gets pretty wild, but I really don't like liberators in their current form. Liberators are this weird hybrid between gunship and bomber, and don't actually fill either of those roles.