Design Directions & Routes

[f0xx]

Extremists are an absolutely impossible route to play in any non-top alliance. You'd seriously have to be online 20 hours a day to send out and last tick defend yourself. You certainly can not attack anyone by yourself.

I don't agree. You don't need LETs to steal land. Tim played the route quite well some rounds ago. The route needs to be changed to a last tick specialist though.

VDs - Need a buff. Maybe increase their init a few, but also let them fire Mid and Close?

The route is good the way it is.

Robo - All 3 are playable solo/allianced.

Robots suck as solos.

SA - Balanced. Good solo/allianced.

Same as robots. They can do well in the hands of smart players. Nothing more than that. Not only that but they are extremely vulnerable to flakking.

Vamp - Not bad. Can't think of anything to change.

The route needs some major re-work. It is VERY hard to play, slow and overpriced.


That is it basicly, I agree with the rest of your post.

 

[Turnip2k]

Cheers for setting this ball rolling polo...needs a long thinking over. Just a few points:

Routes wise:

Ranger needs stripping down and rethinking - its doesn't really do anything special anymore (apart from EMP's early round). Both vamps and sorcs destroy it, and its other military counterparts are far more effective at killing armour (and the ranger route itself). Vamps are a better choice for killing SO too, rangers have lost that niche.

Sorc doesn't really have a defining feature, it just seems to be an arbitrary assortment of units, whose results can be reproduced by other routes more effectively. Sure you can get good results with it in certain cases, but most allies would rather see another route present in almost every situation.

Nanobot needs a fix to bring that subroute back into focus.

Extremeists / fanatics need to be absoloutely devastating on last tick - a damn sight more powerful than they are now. Don't make extremists fire m/c, just channel all that killing into the close tick!! There is no way that anyone is going to seriously play that route and take on the insane activity it requires unless the benefits are huge for defense.

Nutters don't really add anything to that route in my experience - others may differ in opinion, but I wouldn't mind somthing else brought in (maybe a defense against vamps?).

Arsonists are pretty superfical - they should be replaced with a more powerful version of seed / plant theives in keeping with the thievery nature of the route.

Scrap bots need to do more armour damage, they seem to lack the ability to convert the machines they are meant to!

A few other points on the table system

1) Most of people spend the majority of any round in a fully teched situation. Whilst its very important for top allies to focus on the early / mid round attributes of each route to ensure they can war at any stage and take the top spot, I would most definately argue that its not quite so important for everyone else. The end result (fully teched) aspect of routes should be weighted with far more importance than the early / mid stages for the majority of players.

2) I think people should spend more time teching, to make people think more carefully about routes - the strategies of how routes interact in a non-fully teched environment are gone far far too quickly imo. It would add much more depth to the game if teching wasn't just a mad rush, but a slow, tactical process.

I'll probably have more to say, but tired now. Need sleep.

 

[Polo]

2) I think people should spend more time teching, to make people think more carefully about routes - the strategies of how routes interact in a non-fully teched environment are gone far far too quickly imo. It would add much more depth to the game if teching wasn't just a mad rush, but a slow, tactical process.

Couldn't agree more on this point. I think teching should take a lot longer than it currently does so that early teched units become much more important and there's a much greater decision to be made in whether to buy units or carry on teching. Of course this would require substantial balancing.

Some people may also argue that they wouldn't get enough use of their punit, but this can be fixed by changing which units are punits and where they come in the route. For example, Bikers could be made a punit for the Thug route.

Also, I think there should be a "mini-spy" intelligence which would be the same as a spy but only show what's happened within the last 1-3 ticks. This would, of course, come out much quicker than the normal spy tech allowing wars to be waged and units to be used much earlier on.

 

[LAFiN]

Also, I think there should be a "mini-spy" intelligence which would be the same as a spy but only show what's happened within the last 1-3 ticks. This would, of course, come out much quicker than the normal spy tech allowing wars to be waged and units to be used much earlier on.

Would this come before or after hax, or could you get it at the same time?

I like the idea of making developments slower. Add more mid-unit wars and maybe have the development multiplier be even bigger, but drop faster? Or have a separate modifier for different levels of technology/routes? I don't know.

I had an idea to buff up Rangers a little. Make them fire [LET] / [LET] / [ALL]
It make look crazy having them fire on LET twice, but this would to continue to make them mostly focused on LET, but adding some firepower to all units would allow it to not be so easily flaked? I know that's what the F-117s are for, but honestly, who pays money for an eta 8 unit that is incredibly overpriced and only kills flak? Rangers subbranch definitely needs a little re-tooling as it isn't a useful route anymore.

 

[BlackWolf]

Once again pretty good thread turning in to 1 unit/route debate. Mainly of units and routes that people like.

This game needs whole route table wiped clean and to be started from scratch. So routes and names would stay more or less same, but how units works would not.

I dont see the point of making these kind of "RPG needs a buff" suggstions in thread where idea is to actually make whole game more balanced not just one sucky route.

As such:
Prot:
Remove Extremists completely
VD keep about same but needs at least unit name changes
Pom same

Thug
PB about same
Combine dogs and stealth thieves

Military
RPG same
Striker same
Remove ranger route

Robot
Shields same
PA same
Remove stuns

SO
All stays

Fantasy
If actually can find a job for these then stays if not then not.

That is ONLY of pure routes without any units. Only thinking of their main purpose. Whole games routes needs to be rethought so badly that it is actually sad.

Mainly what needs to be done is to get units and routes back to rock,paper,scissors stage. Currently only handfull of routes are really used and some are more or less supportitive routes. Cool someone can play some route well, doesnt mean it would really have place in this game and that its units really would be that fit.

 

[Azzer]

In response to BW... Simply waving a hand and saying "Restart everything" is meaningless. There are lots of good routes, good units, good balances, and a lot of work has gone in to them. To simply say "Restart it all", you may as well say "Remove all features from Bushtarion and start again" just because you aren't happy with how bounty hunting and land stealing works. Also, without first analysing what the routes currently do, you are not going to give yourself any ability to decide what a totally new set of routes should do. Also you have to remember this: No matter how much thought goes in to a new unit, there will always be initial balance issues and situations you can't think of, because of how many other units & routes there are to balance it with. To reset everything would probably take another 18 months to balance everything with everything else, and this is not an option.

This thread is not for someone to say "Restart everything", or simply to list the broken things.... you need to say what the current routes and sub-routes can do, what they do do, how they can or should be played, their strengths and weaknesses, and to put a bit of effort in to it. Don't just list the broken units or routes you dislike when you post in this thread - post the working things, because they are absolutely vital to get our heads around when trying to do a re-balance/analysis of everything.

Anyway, here was what I originally requested of Polo;



Azzer: Was just thinking about your comment on the routes

Azzer: The first thing to do would be to analyse each of the *CURRENT* routes, and sub-routes, and state what their -current- uses are - the general playstyle, pros & cons (armour killers, balanced, health flakkers etc.), preferred playtype (solo/defensive/alliance/aggressive/land stealers/defenders), and any "unique features" (rushing, killing bunkers, etc.)... and then analysing if there's too many routes trying to do the same thing, or one of the routes not living up to it's purpose, etc.

Azzer: So if you're up to it - and I'd really like you to... then could you come up with a list of each of the routes (broken in to sub-routes), and work with a few other players you know that "know the routes" well, and try and come up with such a list?

Azzer: I think a route/sub-route needs a purpose/goal/aim in mind, for it to be good - otherwise it's just a random collection of units and you can't balance it with other routes. So to think about anywhere that needs fixing/re-balancing/re-designing, we should definitely start at looking at what we already have to work with.

 

[BlackWolf]

I was actually in rush and was about to list things...

What I meant by my post are smply the routes that have no room in this game as it is now... Polo has made good list of it all so I dont really see why to really repeat what his PDF says. What you dont seem to realize Azzer is that there are no offencive/defencive routes. As this game doesnt support such. Theres only routes which people play with best of their skill. If you allow game to be as unbalanced as it is, all we will see in the future too are only these few routes used again and again. Your sub routes and routes ARE but collection of units and they dont have any kind of purposes. Your real purposes were lost long time ago, and you simply cant get those back by making list of what some things are.

Prot:
VD - Unused route. Mainly due its lack of ability to shine on any area. You go PoMs your much more safe, you go thugs and at least you get PBs early and jeeps later on. Still has place in this game, but at least separating it from thug by renaming terrorists and TLs to something different would give it a fresh start. But what is its purpose?

Pom - Very well balanced route, it shines on attacks and on defences but cant kill. It has its enemies and with bikers increased ETA this is now as well balanced as route can be in this game. Still it is only 1 unit route, so other units could use some rethinking. Woo PoMs have purpose... they cant kill...

Extremists - Good on close, next to impossible to play and not even THAT good it would compensate the suckyness of whole route. No one plays them and for reason, those who do have taken it by accident or know what they are doing, very specialized and not even half as good at any point of game that they should exist.

Thug:
PB - Thug at its best. It works on all kind of situations, easy to play can shine on early and late game, but with corrent routes where half are aimed against thugs alone makes you wonder why to play it but for early PB rush. Does bikers really fit to this route? what is thugs purpose? Kill RPGs?

Dogs and thieves - Both routes are made on base of thug but doesnt really give anything in. Yes dogs are nice, but their usage is far from what PBs and jeeps offers. Same goes for thieves. As such combining these routes might not be that bad idea. But what is their purpose? What such they give to this game that isnt already there made better by some other route?

Military
RPG - Awesome on ranged weak on close... What else you need to know? That they have half of the game playing routes that owns them 100-0? Either RPG is weak or some other routes are too strong, yet very well working route for its place. They have purpose armour killing, of which they pay the price of being weak on close.

Striker - Over used, way too good, its units are expencive yes, but nothing can hurt them. Works on all ticks and pain in the ass to every route in game. It takes smeg load of units to kill em and theres only 1 route in game that can harm them. Way overpowered on current game. What is their purpose? They kill everything that moves and doesnt die...

Rangers - Brought in to game to beat SOs. Then got over run by vampires and stuff. Mainly useless as it is for now. Too slow, too late firing and EMPs didnt make it any easier to play. Can be good support route for alliance, but simply cant work on its own. Purpose... tell me too if you find one.

Robot
Shields - Fast CW... Very well thought route, but for some reason it lacks the depths of other "spawn off" routes. Needs much clearer separation from PAs. All around very strong asset for alliances, both in attacks and in defences.

PA - Works on atacks, works on defences. PAs early game overpowered which were countered with EMPs... With cheaper and weaker PAs could easily stay pretty much the same. Pretty well balanced all round route.

Stuns - WTF...

SO

SA - Originally meant to be solo route... Then turned out to be one of major alliance routes of this game. Can beat half of this games routes. Dies to other half.

Puppet - Want to have fun? Go puppets. Thats all there is to say of this route. doesnt work for anyone or anything but is great fun to play.

Bunkers - After SA turned out to be the ultimate all around killing weapon this game needed some real solo route... filling its position fairly well, we could argue of how over powered it is but who cbas anymore.

Fantasy

Vampires - Weak, health, can kills SOs and thugs... Ohh wait we already had SOs killing thugs and ranger to kill SOs... whats the point?

Dragons - Made to be support route without real purpose. Have some very good units but nothing to really fight with those. If idea was to just add route to this game where is no idea... well successed.


So hell yes I wave hand and say it all needs to be restarted. Whole idealism of what route works against what needs to be rethink. Currently there is no working patter for some routes and some are good against well... 90% of the game. So basicly what needs to be done is to start from clear table... Unit names are there so is basic idealism behind of those routes, only what those units do need to be thought a bit.

I was planning to save this for later but I just cant prevent myself from saying this.
For as long as this game has existed Azzer YOU have made routes and their changes! You have not untill very recently listened your players of routes and how to fix those. It has lead to system where we are trying to patch holes of your doings and as such this whole system needs to be rethought from the scratch. Like I have said for years this is like leaking ship of which you have patched with patch over patch, untill point that there is no ship left anymore but patches. Now people are trying their best to fix the damage, but they start from wrong end.

Like it or not but you have only yourself to blame if you think there is something wrong with the routes... and what you do. You come here to ask US of how routes work. If that sounds as hilarious to you as to me then it must be hilarious. If you would know how things work and how they should work, what you need us for?

 

[lavadog]

There aren't any defensive/offensive routes (well cept for bunkers maybe) BW, but there are defensive and offensive SET-UPS, classic example being RPG's. You can higher your Humvee total to make your route more defensive or spend our money on your other lets to go offensive.

Also I wouldn't say strikers are too good, mass rpg can be a pain in the ass of many striker players. And let's face it, if anyone is out to zero you they can do it against everything but the bunker route imo (which isn't impossible but pretty hard). Poms not being able to kill is a good thing, that would overpower the route even more. PoMs can easily do land grabs now, giving them a chance to kill (let's say with an extra unit or killer vans or something ) would make it a too powerful route. That's why I think bikers do have a place in the thug route, they're the only ones who can really hurt a pom (save for the odd Marine player) but they're an insane unit to balance out I think.
While we're on thugs, attack dogs serve a purpose. They're excellent for mass let flakking, which is a valid tactic (cfr round 29 where some exitlude players had mass dogs). So it's basically good that dogs are around, since they offer some tactical diversity.
On to robo's then, don't really have an outspoken opinion on PA's and shields, I think they're fun to play regardless of the long tech time (which is justified cuz they are very powerful routes after all). Stunbots is potentially a good route for the robo tree, but nanobots need further tweaking.

And restarting is a very bad idea. Think about it, do you throw your bike away when it has two flat tires and buy a new one? No you don't, you fix your tires and keep rollin baby

Just my two cents.

 

[Polo]

There aren't any defensive/offensive routes (well cept for bunkers maybe) BW, but there are defensive and offensive SET-UPS, classic example being RPG's. You can higher your Humvee total to make your route more defensive or spend our money on your other lets to go offensive.

Completely agree with this. It's not possible to quantify a route as good offensively or good defensively, really. The only thing that makes a route more "defensive" would be flak blockers such as Gurus or SDs.

Also I wouldn't say strikers are too good

Strikers are the best and most overpowered LET route in the game.

 

[lavadog]

hmm, well I was speaking from own experience on the strikers. I never really played them until this round (mostly played robo's and poms before) and I had a pretty hard time getting used to playing striker and finding a good set-up.

Could be my general noobishness that kicks in tho

 

[f0xx]

Also I wouldn't say strikers are too good

Strikers are the best and most overpowered LET route in the game.

I do not agree with this statement. There is no such thing as "the best route". There are different routes for different purposes. I believe your opinion is highly based on your playstyle though. For me, the best route in the game is PB. For someone else that will be SA and so on.

 

[DarkSider]

Strikers are the best and most overpowered LET route in the game.

Lies Well when it comes to ally play. The only good thing about striker route is that it takes quite a few troops and their mothers to damage them in a big BR. That comes from their enemy #1 who fires before any other unit and most of that damage is wasted on the cheap and health based units which are often in larger number than heavy armored units. After hostile CW's fire you don't get as much damage while the remaining friendly health units get an ass wooping.
Second tick usually one of the sides pulls so the advantage of the route played in alliance is that it gets protected and many times takes the least damage in the ally. However imo it's far from best because of that. It would be same like arguing Robo shields are awesome/best alliance route because you take low damage.
Strikers survability is compensated with not too awesome damage/cost and if you die less it doesn't mean you're helping your alliance win more fights.
I won't deny it's a very powerfull route just like all the brute force routes and in the right hands is scary but i wouldn't call it the best

 

[Ogluk]

thief isnt soloable :S
then how did i manage it... :S
crazy huh?

 

[timtadams]

Robo - All 3 are playable solo/allianced.

Robots suck as solos.

SA - Balanced. Good solo/allianced.

Same as robots. They can do well in the hands of smart players. Nothing more than that. Not only that but they are extremely vulnerable to flakking.

Agree with Lafin on the robo, part. You may be vulnerable to RPGs/Strikers, but then if you are going solo, go shields, maybe. They are awesome for absorbing RPGs/strikers firepower. Ok, so you will still cop it, but when you fire back, so will they

And SA arent that bad for solo, with the right balance of traps and assassins, you can do quite well. Many people will not attack you just because they cant see what youve got. And either way, the SAs will surely burn up a crapload of flak as well as health based units. And so do those spikes

Ofc their main weakness is Robo, which is why they cant forget assassins. I know theyre not great, but they do have the lower init

but apart from that, i agree

Scrap bots need to do more armour damage, they seem to lack the ability to convert the machines they are meant to!

But Gargantua are insane, you dont need many

hing to change.
Bunker - Boring? Definitely a solo route. Still waiting for an alliance of all bunkers

I'll take anyone up on that

 

[Mateeen]

Rangers are an amazing route to be played in an *alliance*.

As a solo.. not so much, since strikers / rpg would constantly rape you, and you have *no way* of stopping strikers.

but as an allied route, it can rape SA, robos, and is amazing for defence with its eta 2 harriers (with boost )

 

[Alcibiades]

Rangers are an amazing route to be played in an *alliance*.

As a solo.. not so much, since strikers / rpg would constantly rape you, and you have *no way* of stopping strikers.

but as an allied route, it can rape SA, robos, and is amazing for defence with its eta 2 harriers (with boost )

Strangely enough I found rangers/harriers to be utterly useless in the alliances i've been in. everything Rangers (as a route) can do, some other route can do better. So i'd much rather have those routes involved in my ally, than rangers which are essentially crap nowadays. harriers hardly do enough damage to justify the ease with which they die; and rangers have been superseded as SO killers by Vamps. F117s really accomplish absolutely dick all, apart from killing flak and putting off the more feeble minded opponents. I can hardly see the benefits to having Ranger as an allied route, let alone Solo.

How exactly are they amazing in an alliance? because of their eta 8 Punit, or their redundant SO killers, or perhaps the redundant Armour killers.

 

[BlackWolf]

What you dont seem to realize Azzer is that there are no offencive/defencive routes. As this game doesnt support such.

quoting myself... rofl.

 

[Mateeen]

Alci, i think in the end it depends on ur play style, but what ive found from 2 rounds of playing ranger is that it can do a little of everything, Let flakkage with rangers, armour killing with harriers, HD killers with rangers. I think its one of those "general" routes that, depending on ur setup, can do many different things. and if your allied, then you dont need to purchase the P-unit since your ally m8s can stop the flak incomings.
A good route for a newby id say (the route i went my first round too ), since it doesnt die easily, and the punit isnt needed if allied

Also, if allied, you can tweak your setup to kill whatever the opposite ally has, if they have more SO, mass rangers, if they have more robos, mass harriers and EMPs , if used correctly it can do great great good :O

 

[Alcibiades]

Well I do see where you're coming from, but if you have a proper route setup for your ally, you don't need the 'general purpose' route like rangers; since you can pick a variety of routes that cover all the necessary issues, and are far more effective at their jobs than rangers. My issue was that anything rangers can do, another route can do better. Also, I don't feel that Harriers have enough survivability, especially considering their main opponents are some of the strongest units in the game; and that going mass EMP/Harriers is an invitation to get wasted by all Health units around without the benefit of being able to really really wipe out a robo of reasonable size. Similar issue with Rangers, the punch they pack isn't worth the cost of massing them imo. By no means am i the gospel of bushtarion; but it just strikes me that they are now a bit obsolete.

The ability to do 'a little bit of everything' which you consider a strength, is what i'd consider a glaring weakness since Rangers are outperformed in their duties by just about all the other routes. Rangers sucks a little bit at everything.... I honestly don't see that many Ranger players around anymore, but in all fairness, i don't hack all the players every round. From my rather cursory examinations tho it just seems that if the route is as useful as people claim it to be, then i should be seeing *a lot* more Rangers.

The only advantage is that you don't need the punit providing of course that you aren't solo; in which case you're going to be flakked to hell and back without them. The route is weak compared to the others, it's lost it's focus, and seems to do everything poorly and nothing really well. They're just a *very* mediocre route in my eyes.

EDIT: *Any* route can be used well by talented players, but this route just seems more mediocre than most; it's not impossible to play well i'd just rather play any other route. With all due respect f0xx, you hardly represent the skill level of the average player

 

[f0xx]

Well I totally agree with you Mateeen.

I played ranger in my second round and still managed to reach top 100 without even buying the p-unit.

The ranger route can do wonders in the hands of a good player, just like most other routes