Nerf multiplayer T2 air spam, please. And improve world consistency.

[Millthunder]

Most multiplayer games I have seen lately are hugely abused by T2 air, particularly by Engulfers (Phase manipulators might be even better but they are not that much known yet + IA plays them stupidly). With regeneration mods, mobility, range and area denial they are nearly unbeatable and creep ridiculously quickly without need for wait for repairs.

My suggestions:

1.) Reduce range of main attack abilities of T1 fliers by 1 and T2 flyers by 2. In cases of weaker units improve their support abilities or/and add some flanking behaviour so they might be used more the way flyers should be used.

2.) Slightly nerf passive/free healing mods/abilities in general, especially their strategic map healing.

3.) Remake faction usage to be more economic/efficiency oriented and contain less "must-have" items like Autonom Self-Repair Systems which changes whole world of strong but nearly unrepairable mechanical units vs. fragile regenerative bio. (add guarancies of percentage of unit types on map as I mentioned in another thread)

4.) Add repair mechanical abilities to some heroes or units of all races with mechanical units at least on strategic map.

 

[fall back]

A true aa unit is what we need with some sort of flak cloud effect that 1/2 accuracy and movement for flyers

 

[Ericridge]

There's already a small way to combat this although only Marauder Rogues get access to that imperial placement the antiair piece that shows up in gold/silver landmarks. It needs to be buildable for players too.

 

[BloodyBattleBrain]

Slightly nerf passive/free healing mods/abilities in general, especially their strategic map healing.

This, and only this, imho is the issue.


No one complains about massed Mirages.

But massed Engulfers are fairly durable, fairly fast, do good damage, and you can get them healing quite quickly.


IMho, double or triple the cost of the Kirko regen mod. That should sort it.

 

[Zaskow]

Just make t2 flyers have 1-2 cosmite to maintenance price?

 

[Elgareth]

This, and only this, imho is the issue.


No one complains about massed Mirages.

But massed Engulfers are fairly durable, fairly fast, do good damage, and you can get them healing quite quickly.


IMho, double or triple the cost of the Kirko regen mod*. That should sort it.

*on Flyers. Maybe increasing the mod costs on Flyers as such would do the trick? I feel that the early regen mod is necessary for frenzied, hidden and heroes, and wouldn't want a General cost increase in SP because of MP abuse of some sort.

 

[Millthunder]

This, and only this, imho is the issue.


No one complains about massed Mirages.

Gunships are very powerful as well. So are Manipulators and if you get heal mod for them then they are extremely powerful. When T2 will get nerfed then T1 air scouts will be used instead of them ...
Mods have fixed cost based on their tiers.

A true aa unit is what we need with some sort of flak cloud effect that 1/2 accuracy and movement for flyers

I agree to this, there is a need to counter mass air, so mass AA weapon for each race might be good solution as well ... still not solving the fast creeping problem though.

 

[Ericridge]

If Antiair weapons is the answer then the Antiair weapons would need to become available at same time as T2 flyers.

 

[MaitreBouh]

It would be a mistake to consider all air unit the same IMO. First because there are the flying scouts and the T2 air units. Second because even for T2 air units there's a world of difference between them. Dvar get it at T2 research, amazons get it at t4 research, others at T3. Dvar is melee with medium range aoe. Syndicate is mostly support. And what about the odd secret tech/race combo like the amazon light bringer?

As far as I understand it, only the kirko engulfer is frustrating, and that's half because of it's regeneration mod.

They have a definite advantage for clearing sites in the beginning obviously, but is better than dvar prospecting? I doubt it. It's still a T3 research, it still need the production of a whole T2 army that cost cosmite, and it requires a mod on top. That's almost 100 cosmite, at least 12 turns of production (more probably 15), and 48 energy upkeep.

Tactically most armies can fight them cost efficiently. Indentured and troopers will erase them. Snipers and flying scouts also.

And finally, and most importantly : why would this be a problem if flying units are a good strategy? What strategy would deserve to replace this one?

"competitive" MP will always revolve around a handful of strategies anyway, so why not this one? What does this strategy prevent that would be better for the game?

 

[Millthunder]

And finally, and most importantly : why would this be a problem if flying units are a good strategy? What strategy would deserve to replace this one?

"competitive" MP will always revolve around a handful of strategies anyway, so why not this one? What does this strategy prevent that would be better for the game?

T2 Flyers should be either supports or abusing groups that can take poorly defended cities, to scout, kill scouts, etc.. However, now they are able to creep much faster than anything else and are able to withstang direct confrontation of other player's main army atop of theit other abilities. This is totally non-sense for any strategic planning. Well balanced game must be based on well composed armies to prosper with good enough counter units. Simply if a game allows strategy of single type unit win, it's extremely poor strategy game. And now engulfers with mods are just enough to win good percentage of matches even if their enemies know what you are playing.

 

[MaitreBouh]

T2 Flyers should be either supports or abusing groups that can take poorly defended cities, to scout, kill scouts, etc.. However, now they are able to creep much faster than anything else and are able to withstang direct confrontation of other player's main army atop of theit other abilities. This is totally non-sense for any strategic planning. Well balanced game must be based on well composed armies to prosper with good enough counter units. Simply if a game allows strategy of single type unit win, it's extremely poor strategy game. And now engulfers with mods are just enough to win good percentage of matches even if their enemies know what you are playing.

One unit comp armies will always be a thing in strategy games. It's a strategy that capitalize on a few strengths of a unit in the hope the enemy will not have enough to counter you. If you have any ambition of "competitive" play, there shall be one unit comp armies. Simply because it's an efficient strategy in itself, whatever the unit.

Here you rely on mobility and speed, and the kirko regen mod. Engulfers are rather good all around units, but nothing special. Air units already are as frail as T1 units for twice the cost, and cosmite on top. 2 armies ranged units will definitely exterminate an air army. Only the engulfer has anything more than the others: the regen mod, and the swarm shield. But then it must be analyzed as a kirko strategy.

Syndicate has inexpensive indentured spam. Dvar has the prospector. Assembly has the fast tech and reverse engineer. Vanguard has the nanite injectors. And amazons will have something too.

Why would they be so hard to counter? What were you doing while he through all this time and cosmite in this army of Engulfers?

 

[Zaskow]

Only abusive flyer spam I can think is mass production/summon owls with combat sensors + guardian daemon shell mods. Yes, this is really cancerous. Any other combo is expensive, too long to produce. Engulfer spam is problem, yes, but somebody already mentioned that regeneration mod is main cause of this issue.

 

[Ericridge]

T2 Flyers will always be able to creep fast, its simply the nature of the flying units. They fly. Make them too weak then they aren't worth the time building. And besides, they only have advantage against specific type of nodes that's weak enough to fall to t2 fliers. But its basically it, their early advantage evens out late game and they take up supporting role until the main defense of the AI falls apart and then they will become strong again in hunting down the fleeing units. Its nothing to lose sleep over.

edit: besides dont' underestimate the 10 cosmite tag on the fliers. Its really the only thing that prevents them from being super spammable. If it wasn't there, it would be so very easy for me to spam the vanguard gunship.

 

[AbedNego]

You guys are missing one part. Its not regeneration mod itself, but the fact, that it also gives hp (as well as many kirko mods). And if you get like +15hp on 40hp unit, its massive (with regeneration on top of it). Vanguard gunships are not so impressive even with autonom regen mod (which gives them +20% not just +15% like kirko). They still die in auto, but you can literally kill gold landmark with stacks of unskilled engulfers without lose any.

Mods providing pure hp instead of armor, regen or evasion are just overpowered at the moment and we need general change for that.

For now, its: pure hp >>> evasion >>>>>>>>>>> shield >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> armor

Engulfers got pure hp and also swarm shield which cant be pernamently destroyed by shield-destroying abilities (like from laser mod).

 

[MaitreBouh]

Why would armor be so bad compared to shield? And why would 5hp be so good?

Math says you're wrong actually.

Take a unit with base 45hp and 2 armor.

With a mod that add 5hp, it has 61ehp.
With a mod that add 1 armor, it has 62ehp.

Now regen works on hp, so more hp means more regen. This unit will regen 8hp/turn which is 10ehp. But regular healing profit more from armor, and a 15hp heal will be 21ehp.

Your regen mod needs to work 2 turns to beat the nanite injectors. Nanite injectors benefits more from other sources of heal. Transcendants are better with units that have armor rather than hp.

Evasion is debatable at least, as a damage you don't take is the most easily recovered from. I still fail to understand why shield would be better than armor.

And again, engulfers being good or able to clear landmarks doesn't mean they are OP. The question is, do they make kirko that better than the others?

 

[Uto_piec]

Also regen mod is the only way frenzied can try to be of any thread to other armies. Nerf it and You kill Kirko as a PvP race... Maybe regeneration could work different on malee and shooting units, but its probably too complicated.

 

[MaitreBouh]

As far as people are saying, only the engulfer and owl are of any problem. For engulfer I doubt it's a strategic problem. MP players tend to freak out when they see something unusual.

For owls I'm not sure. It's a combination of cheap flying scouts with good defensive mods. I don't think it's better than any other rush strategy.

Anyway these two things are more related to a unit than mods or anything. That's definitely something MP players should mod if they don't want to adapt to it.

 

[Griff_]

For owls I'm not sure. It's a combination of cheap flying scouts with good defensive mods. I don't think it's better than any other rush strategy.

You forget that you can summon an army of those owls almost for free with the emergency recon operation. I think that operation gives unfair advantage in early game, where production is on low supply.

 

[orangelex44]

There are a bunch of those cheap summon ops though. Plasmoids, whispers, trenchers, emergents, and basically Xeno's entire gimmick. There isn't much that makes OWLs particularly noteworthy compared to any of these IMO.

What types of multiplayer games are we talking about? The format matters a lot. Are these 1v1? 8 player FFA? Simultaneous turns or classical? I, personally, have not seen engulfers or OWLs as an insurmountable problem but I only play one main format (1v1 simul) with a relatively small group. In general, our group sees flyers are slightly underpowered because of the cosmite cost and strategic flexibility not really making up for not being able to take cover in tactical.

 

[Griff_]

Dunno if format matters that much, as long as the players start relatively close to each other. I've been playing live MP ffa or team games with 4-6 players usually (simultaneous).

Of those units you mentioned, i've not seen whispers and emergents used much, maybe they're ok. Trenchers are barely worth summoning with 8 operation points. Plasmoids are fine for their price i think, although they still seem to die easier on autocombat than owls. (and fights against ai are autocombat in live MP of course)

Engulfers are overpowered to the point that most decent kirko players rarely use any other units (other than transcendents for the heals and absorb pain). Is kinda boring, although i suppose it might also mean that other kirko units arent that great. Dunno, I dont play kirko myself