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.

 

[Zaskow]

Plasmoids, whispers, trenchers, emergents, and basically Xeno's entire gimmick

Owl summon is the cheapest among those (40 energy + 4 OP). You get flyer with decent attack.
Plasmoid (60 energy + 6 OP) is melee unit, not greatest though.
Whisper (60 energy + 6 OP) is pretty weak unit in combat, okish scout.
Trencher (80 energy + 8 OP) is infantry, normal summon, I'd say.
Emergent (50 energy + 5 OP) is piece of crap.

As you can see own is best (price/ability) unit here.

I, personally, have not seen engulfers or OWLs as an insurmountable problem

You may not know about these tactics, but it's possible and viable, trust me.

 

[orangelex44]

"Possible and viable" is far from being overpowered. I'll agree that OWLs might be the most a cost-effective summon (although I think you're underselling Plasmoids, it's really close); however, that just means that summoning is a Vanguard strength. Emergent are pretty bad for the summon cost. Trenchers are also a bit overcosted, but Dvar economy means that it doesn't matter since they have infinite gold early on. I haven't yet tried it myself, but I suspect there's some aggressive build that uses Whispers to good effect.

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

I think you touched on the problem here at the end; it's not that Engulfers are particularly great or above par, it's that Kir'ko lack other options if they're going to focus on one unit. Frenzied just die in auto, you can't really do a sniper-only build, Transcendents don't quite do enough damage. Unleashed might work, but at that point you might as well go with Engulfers.

 

[Griff_]

Vanguard alrdy has plenty of strengths, they don't need the best summon too.

 

[Zaskow]

Vanguard alrdy has plenty of strengths, they don't need the best summon too.

Enough compensation for the worst T4 in game.

 

[Griff_]

Yeah, seems the carrier needs a buff and the walker too, or else no1 will build them in competitive games.

 

[fall back]

Yeah, seems the carrier needs a buff and the walker too, or else no1 will build them in competitive games.

That might be the vanguards thing early power late weakness

 

[Griff_]

This is getting off-topic, but vanguard isn't exactly weak at late game either. Laser tanks + starlight projector for example is pretty serious late game combo.

 

[MaitreBouh]

About engulfers: kirko having a powerful strategy does not make them OP. Apparently they aren't. Kirko seemingly having one effective strategy is not a problem either because the complaint originate from MP players: you will *always* reduce any combination to one strategy that you deem the most efficient. The question then is whether this race have fallback strategies. They do considering how good transcendants, snipers and regen mods are considered. It's not a one trick strategy though so MP players will mostly disdain it.

Vanguard now. As said there are other sumonable units. Owls are the cheapest, there should be one for a game relying on asymmetric balance. The question is whether they are more powerful than other rush strategies or not. I doubt it. Syndicate has camouflaged and inexpensive scouts, assembly scouts heal themselves, kirko unleashed is the toughest of all with its stats and swarmshield. And yet they are scouts.

So vanguard have a powerful rush strategy? Good. Now, can they be countered? This is the only question that matter for a question of balance.

What bother me the most here are all the people who came to write "this is OP, trust me" without any argument or context. Basically worthless babbling.

 

[Griff_]

So vanguard have a powerful rush strategy? Good. Now, can they be countered?

You cant really counter an enemy who can outproduce you 2:1. So in this sense all early summons are overpowered in early game, compared to factions who don't have summon. Emergency recon is probably the best of these summons (in price/value comparison), but i think early plasmoid spam would also be nearly impossible to counter for most factions. And its not just theorycrafting, I've seen owl rush several times on online games, and its not funny.

 

[MaitreBouh]

You cant really counter an enemy who can outproduce you 2:1.

Except if you can kill 2 for 1 loss. Which is not unlikely against scout units. Especially if you can prepare.

Also, competitive MP is not supposed to be funny.

 

[Zaskow]

i think early plasmoid spam would also be nearly impossible to counter for most factions

Lol, just build stack of flying scouts. And don't mess up with reconnaissance .

 

[Griff_]

Well, theres no reason to rush with only plasmoids, take some ranged units with you, and you got solid army.

 

[Ericridge]

About engulfers: kirko having a powerful strategy does not make them OP. Apparently they aren't. Kirko seemingly having one effective strategy is not a problem either because the complaint originate from MP players: you will *always* reduce any combination to one strategy that you deem the most efficient. The question then is whether this race have fallback strategies. They do considering how good transcendants, snipers and regen mods are considered. It's not a one trick strategy though so MP players will mostly disdain it.

Vanguard now. As said there are other sumonable units. Owls are the cheapest, there should be one for a game relying on asymmetric balance. The question is whether they are more powerful than other rush strategies or not. I doubt it. Syndicate has camouflaged and inexpensive scouts, assembly scouts heal themselves, kirko unleashed is the toughest of all with its stats and swarmshield. And yet they are scouts.

So vanguard have a powerful rush strategy? Good. Now, can they be countered? This is the only question that matter for a question of balance.

What bother me the most here are all the people who came to write "this is OP, trust me" without any argument or context. Basically worthless babbling.

I like you. You think in almost same way as I do. Almost, but enough to make me like you.

 

[Pappus]

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?

In what dimension can you kill the engulfer stack cost efficiently? That stack will have a lvl 12 kir'ko hero that slaps guiding presence on them and vaporize everything, because flying units are positioned equally on any spot while ground units are subject to the map.

You can't stagger them properly with most stuff at the range that matters, they are fighting at sniper range with you with around 100 HP each. To take that stuff down you need %dmg mods on every unit making yours squishy.

 

[Satonir]

Engulfer is:
3 armor, 40 hp
With hero:
3 armor, 4 shields, 40 hp, extra damage + all hero auras + kirko lvl12 skill (bcz heroes on engulfers are 1-2 men armies and do 1-2 lvls per strat tirn).
With hero+with regen+with other good mods:
3 armor, God pls, the list is too huge

 

[Millthunder]

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.

Then you want to play at whole different game than I do. What I consider good strategy game is this: It forces you to balance the unit composition in your army. Not to let you choose a single unit you want to use. To force you to use all/most of them (not because it's mandatory, but because combination of units gives you synergies, each unit have its own purpose) in every match, otherwise you will just loose. End of story. The work of strategist schould be to find out the right percentage of each unit kind for each situation, it might be even sometimes a stack of units of one kind if the purpose of the stack is something special (like scouting, stealing undefended cities etc.). In no way might it be possible for main fighting/creeping force. This is obviously HUGE strategic fail.

About engulfers: kirko having a powerful strategy does not make them OP. Apparently they aren't. Kirko seemingly having one effective strategy is not a problem either because the complaint originate from MP players: you will *always* reduce any combination to one strategy that you deem the most efficient. The question then is whether this race have fallback strategies. They do considering how good transcendants, snipers and regen mods are considered. It's not a one trick strategy though so MP players will mostly disdain it.

Of course if a developer create a game that has this type of Meta, it still might be "balanced" in some way. However, a Meta like this can hardly be fun to play.

 

[MaitreBouh]

It's not what I want to play, it's what will happen when player rationalise the game.

There's what the developers want the players to do, or what the players would want the game to be, and what happens when the game is rationalised for competitive game.

Competition puts a lot of pressure on many game systems, and on players' abilities and skills. Simple army compositions comes from several factors, but the first is to reduce the complexity for players.

The way to reduce this problem is to have a very harsh rock/paper/scissors balance, so that if a player bets too much on one unit type he can easily be punished. But players tend to not like it. AoWPF implement it masterfully well, but it's efficiency is toned down by the power of some units. It's also less visible than in some other game. You won't see a "this unit has +X vs this unit".

Also, a competitive meta is never engaging to play.

 

[Millthunder]

It's not what I want to play, it's what will happen when player rationalise the game.

There's what the developers want the players to do, or what the players would want the game to be, and what happens when the game is rationalised for competitive game.

Competition puts a lot of pressure on many game systems, and on players' abilities and skills. Simple army compositions comes from several factors, but the first is to reduce the complexity for players.

The way to reduce this problem is to have a very harsh rock/paper/scissors balance, so that if a player bets too much on one unit type he can easily be punished. But players tend to not like it. AoWPF implement it masterfully well, but it's efficiency is toned down by the power of some units. It's also less visible than in some other game. You won't see a "this unit has +X vs this unit".

Also, a competitive meta is never engaging to play.

No, this is only the case of bad game designs. The right way is to give each unit its unique important role (like scout, logistics, support, tank, dmg dealer, hit&runner etc.) and/or give them in-fight synergies like original AoW3 Frostlings.