31 replies to this topic

[Walker_officer]

And btw…I don’t know if it’s possible but seeing how some programs are installed I guess it is possible…programming a code that will search automatically for update in petroglyph’s  server so they have to pay only once

[vOdToasT]

JAGX, on 27 April 2010 - 12:40 PM, said:

Really?  That's funny, seeing as how the previous times I spoke with Delphi, he agreed with me as I ran him over using Defiler spam (pre-patch) I told him I did that to show him they were imba, and he said to me that I should enjoy it while it lasts.

Without listening to the players (who basically play-test the game at the highest levels, as devs usually suck at their own games compared to fans), then there's no point in a patch.  And all of the previous patches took input from players and produced this version of the game which you hail as perfectly balanced, so logically the next patch would do exactly the same thing.  The only point of contention I have is that no game is perfectly balanced--least of all UaW.  Patches will only refine the game, if they are made.  And listening to the community got us here, why not listen more?



True, but then again, everything is good on dairy farm maps.  You could get enough $$$ to spam virtually anything, and I would prefer Assembly on cow maps simply because it's units are faster + more flexible.

I never said the previous patches were bad. The game was broken. Defilers were imbalanced. It's good that they got nerfed.

What I said was that the things people whine at NOW should not be "fixed". Masari owning Hierarchy, for example, is complete utter bullshit and would ruin the balance of the game if they tried to " fix " it.

Is it possible to tune the balance even more? (disregarding map imbalances and focusing only on balance - not strategic diversity or gameplay)

Yes, of course it is. No game is ever perfectly balanced as long as it's not symmretical. The closest you can reach balance is when changing something is just going to mess more things up than fix things. StarCraft has reached this levle, which is why it doesn't recieve balance patches anymore.

However, Universe at War is a pretty dead game. The community doesn't have many players who actually understand how to play the game efficiently, and THAT is why listening to the community right now would make the game LESS balanced. It would probably balance it on their level, but for example if they made Hierarchy stronger vs Masari, it would only help the people who can not play Hierarchy properly. Someone who CAN play them properly would steamroll Masari every game.

Edited by vOdToasT, 27 April 2010 - 04:04 PM.

[JAGX]

vOdToasT, on 27 April 2010 - 04:01 PM, said:

However, Universe at War is a pretty dead game. The community doesn't have many players who actually understand how to play the game efficiently, and THAT is why listening to the community right now would make the game LESS balanced. It would probably balance it on their level, but for example if they made Hierarchy stronger vs Masari, it would only help the people who can not play Hierarchy properly. Someone who CAN play them properly would steamroll Masari every game.

I see the point you're making there.

However, while the patch did fix things, many things went un-responded to.  For example, redundancy.  Now that defilers aren't op, they suck (relatively speaking).  Why would I want a defiler instead of a phase tank?  Phase tanks cost less?, move faster, can shoot while moving, can traverse water, do more damage, have more health, can phase, and are simply much much better.  Defilers were meant to fill a support role originally, but they were op and spamable.  Now they are flimsy yet expensive wastes of money, despite what noobs who think massing zombies is a good idea... the same thing happened to saucers, who imo should be better aa considering that lost ones suck vs vertigo rush.  Or maybe re-balance the N economy so it not quite as fast/unstoppable with the eco buff.  M and N eco buffs are universal, whereas H needs specific production walkers, which is annoying considering they arfe so map dependent.  Another reason why H sucks during the early game, even though most people don't know how to kill a walker.

But anyways, I think that while of course they could mess ^@!$ up, they could certainly make things better too.

Edited by JAGX, 27 April 2010 - 04:32 PM.

[vOdToasT]

Some units are only useful on certain maps, vs a certain race, in certain situations. Those are a lot of things that have to fall into place. So while they could make all units more useful and add more viable unit combinations, the balance between the races (as in having equal potential to beat each other) is really quite good.

Personally, though, I'm not unhappy with the units. There are no useless units, just situational units. In fact, there are maps where Hierarchy would have a hard time compared to what they have now vs Novus if it wasn't for the defiler. Defilers and Saucers are both units that have use in serious games. Novus would just dominate Hierarchy on for example Gulf Coast (small maps with little to no instas in general). If it wasn't for the defiler, a small map that lacks instas would just let the Novus player roll over the Hierarchy with Ohm robots and some heroes. But because of the defiler, Novus can't just beat walkers with Ohm robots. Therefor the classic saucer walker defiler combination becomes pretty deadly on small maps vs Novus.

Edited by vOdToasT, 27 April 2010 - 05:17 PM.

[Strategist]

JAGX, on 27 April 2010 - 04:31 PM, said:

However, while the patch did fix things, many things went un-responded to.  For example, redundancy.  Now that defilers aren't op, they suck (relatively speaking).  Why would I want a defiler instead of a phase tank?  Phase tanks cost less?, move faster, can shoot while moving, can traverse water, do more damage, have more health, can phase, and are simply much much better. Defilers were meant to fill a support role originally, but they were op and spamable.  Now they are flimsy yet expensive wastes of money, despite what noobs who think massing zombies is a good idea...

1. Defiler's are better at infantry crowd control compared to the Phase Tank with it's radiation abilities. Project Radiation also increases structure production times by 10% and deals 50 damage per second over 10 seconds versus structures or vehicles (500 damage within 10 seconds, not counting the DoT effect from to the beam itself).

2. Defiler's work better with an infantry army than Phase Tanks (2 Defilers using Project Radiation allows Grunts to beat just about anything short of a Peacebringer or well very well microed anti-infantry units such as Variants/Figments) and are available before Phase Tanks.

The key thing with Defilers is that they can NOT be your main army nor should they be in the thick of combat. Rather you want them to hang around on the edge of a skirmish using Project Radiation and their long ranged beam weapon to attack from afar. If you start with Saucers (say about 6), a pair of Defilers is more than enough to deal with infantry and production structures while the Saucers hunt Flow Generators, Sentries, Figments, Conquerors, Variants, Antimatter Tanks, Corruptors, and even Mirabel.

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the same thing happened to saucers, who imo should be better aa considering that lost ones suck vs vertigo rush.  

Try Arc Turrets with a Monolith or Nufai/Orlok.  I think the Saucer is fine actually, as it is an exceptional tank/turret hunter and no early game vehicle can actually fire on them without infantry support. They lose to certain aircraft (Vertigo, Dervish, and Inquisitors), but they are the only air unit that can self-repair and they are quite agile.  This can be used to your advantage by retreating damaged saucers once they reach around 30% health and have them fix each other up or even conduct repairs in combat if you have enough of them (9+ is a force to be reckoned with). If faced with aircraft, they can be used to lure foes to turret trapps, as Saucers have to be taken down before they can conduct repairs.

[JAGX]

Strategist, on 27 April 2010 - 07:42 PM, said:

1. Defiler's are better at infantry crowd control compared to the Phase Tank with it's radiation abilities. Project Radiation also increases structure production times by 10% and deals 50 damage per second over 10 seconds versus structures or vehicles (500 damage within 10 seconds, not counting the DoT effect from to the beam itself).

You mean buff your own stuff?  I think you mean debuff stuff.  Also, I don't find project radiation to be that damaging, while that stats might be correct (the numbers perspective has left me for this game), I find other units do better damage vs buildings.  And usually infantry are agile enough to run away.

Strategist, on 27 April 2010 - 07:42 PM, said:

2. Defiler's work better with an infantry army than Phase Tanks (2 Defilers using Project Radiation allows Grunts to beat just about anything short of a Peacebringer or well very well microed anti-infantry units such as Variants/Figments) and are available before Phase Tanks.

Well I don't think it takes extraordinary skill to micro figs/variants/ohms.  And why would I opt to spend 2700+ (Assembly + defiler pod) just to mix in two or three units?  I'm usually trying to research further tech or deck out a walker or replace reapers or make heroes.  Especially b/c this combo leaves you wide open to air units, with little retaliation power due to the extreme slowness of both of those units (while tanks have no aa, you can rush the enemy base).  Idk I think your overrating defilers + grunts but it's been a while, I could be wrong I should go testing...

Strategist, on 27 April 2010 - 07:42 PM, said:

The key thing with Defilers is that they can NOT be your main army nor should they be in the thick of combat. Rather you want them to hang around on the edge of a skirmish using Project Radiation and their long ranged beam weapon to attack from afar. If you start with Saucers (say about 6), a pair of Defilers is more than enough to deal with infantry and production structures while the Saucers hunt Flow Generators, Sentries, Figments, Conquerors, Variants, Antimatter Tanks, Corruptors, and even Mirabel.

Yea I know they aren't lone rangers.  I like this combo better as it is a more viable mix due to one walker type and also gives you some aa options.  What tech do you use for this?

Strategist, on 27 April 2010 - 07:42 PM, said:

Try Arc Turrets with a Monolith or Nufai/Orlok.  I think the Saucer is fine actually, as it is an exceptional tank/turret hunter and no early game vehicle can actually fire on them without infantry support. They lose to certain aircraft (Vertigo, Dervish, and Inquisitors), but they are the only air unit that can self-repair and they are quite agile.  This can be used to your advantage by retreating damaged saucers once they reach around 30% health and have them fix each other up or even conduct repairs in combat if you have enough of them (9+ is a force to be reckoned with). If faced with aircraft, they can be used to lure foes to turret trapps, as Saucers have to be taken down before they can conduct repairs.

I like how they are agile, but the only air unit they beat are corrupters, and that's not saying much.  I mean, dervishes and Vertigo are so fast they can hit-and-run hardpoints or kill glyphs before those stupid foo fighters are deployed.  I like mobile aa, as arc turrets are technically mobile, but ultimately don't help with map control because walkers are so slow.  But really monos are overrated 10x, they are expensive and weak, sure they do detection but I'd rather have a phase tank or saucer for that price idk.

Edited by JAGX, 27 April 2010 - 09:22 PM.

[vOdToasT]

JAGX, on 27 April 2010 - 09:20 PM, said:

And usually infantry are agile enough to run away.

Wrong. Five defilers can protect a walker from ohm robots very cost-effectively. Without defilers, any early Hierarchy aggression on a non-instagrab map would be stopped by just Ohm robots.

Edit: Oh, you meant run away as in retreat. Yeah, of course they do that, but on a small map there's nowhere to run to. If you keep running back, the walker will be at your base soon. Running away is what the Hierarchy WANTS you to do, so he can come closer to your base. Walker saucer defiler timing push is a good strategy on Gulf Coast, simply because when the ohms run away, they're doing exactly what you want them to do.

Edited by vOdToasT, 27 April 2010 - 09:41 PM.

[Strategist]

JAGX, on 27 April 2010 - 09:20 PM, said:

You mean buff your own stuff?  I think you mean debuff stuff.  Also, I don't find project radiation to be that damaging, while that stats might be correct (the numbers perspective has left me for this game), I find other units do better damage vs buildings.  And usually infantry are agile enough to run away.

No, it hurts enemy production. When under the effects of Project Radiation's pool, the building has a 10% increase in build times for units (so a unit that takes 50 seconds takes 55 with the effects of PR, or 60 seconds with both the Monolith's beam and Project Radiation). You wouldn't use Project Radiation alone to take down a building naturally, you would want the Defiler to attack as well and since it uses a beam weapon it will deal more damage to the structure than it would to infantry (beam weapons do damage per second on target rather than damage over time or direct damage).

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Well I don't think it takes extraordinary skill to micro figs/variants/ohms.  And why would I opt to spend 2700+ (Assembly + defiler pod) just to mix in two or three units?  I'm usually trying to research further tech or deck out a walker or replace reapers or make heroes. Especially b/c this combo leaves you wide open to air units, with little retaliation power due to the extreme slowness of both of those units (while tanks have no aa, you can rush the enemy base).  Idk I think your overrating defilers + grunts but it's been a while, I could be wrong I should go testing...

Key words were "Very well", just moving them back and forth won't really help as Grunts have such a wide fire arch coupled with the Defiler's sweeping attack. The reason this combo is good against ground forces is that the Grunts will be healing at a rate of 20/35 (gamma) per second in the radiation and the cool down is about 15 seconds for Project radiation. This makes it much harder to kill the Grunts and it negates burning damage to a degree.

It is difficult to active in 1v1 (unless facing Masari, as Grunt-rush is quite viable), but in team games you will have more time to set up and prepare. Alternatively Lost Ones can be used instead of Grunts which will cover aircraft problems, though it won't be as good against vehicles. Another interesting item is that the Defiler is the fastest way to heal up Lost Ones, as other mesures of healing heal by percentage of total health rather than a number over time.  

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Yea I know they aren't lone rangers.  I like this combo better as it is a more viable mix due to one walker type and also gives you some aa options.  What tech do you use for this?

Normally I use Assault 2 for the Saucer/Repair chamber orb upgrade (adds a self-healing effect to them so they last much longer away from the Saucer) and then tech depending on senario. I also tend to do this if I start with a Habitat Walker as well, given that Range Enhancers actually make it viable in combat (can out range any other unit in the game apart from Orlok) and all infantry units get some sort of upgrade from the first two tiers of Assault.  In general, I use a Habitat as ranged support with Assault and the Assembly acts as a close-combat machine of death.

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I like how they are agile, but the only air unit they beat are corrupters, and that's not saying much.  I mean, dervishes and Vertigo are so fast they can hit-and-run hardpoints or kill glyphs before those stupid foo fighters are deployed.  I like mobile aa, as arc turrets are technically mobile, but ultimately don't help with map control because walkers are so slow.

Like I said, their slight vulnerbility to aircraft 1v1 is somewhat made up for with how good they are against all other targets. Saucers are very hard for Novus to counter early game as Ohm robots are the only thing they have to counter and Defilers will deal with them alone fairly easily, so a group can more or less float in, take out the flow generator(s), and float away to repair and leave the base to Defilers and the walker. Also, if Novus starts building en-mass Ohms to deal with my Sacuers taking out his generators, he won't be expanding or teching.

Masari air is harder to counter as the Hierarchy compared to Novus as the Hierarchy has no land-vehicle that performs anti-air (Novus has FIs and Masari have PBs for this), so they are left with Gravitic Turrets and Arc turrets.

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But really monos are overrated 10x, they are expensive and weak, sure they do detection but I'd rather have a phase tank or saucer for that price idk.

They have saved me more than a few times against Masari with their detection. They are rather poor as combat units without Gamma Radiation (brings it's damage up to the same raw damage as the Saucer, but it has better damage modifiers), but they do have some annoying effects that are helpful if you started with a Habitat Walker. First, they have their own +10% production time modifier on their beam as well as a -50% range modifier for turrets. Thus, if a Masari player starts putting guardians in his base to try to save himself from the walker, the Monolith can just shut the turret down and let my Grunts close in to melee distance to finish it off (turrets can't fire on things right next to them). Monoliths can also deal with lone Gravitic Turrets or captured Laser Turrets by teleporting on top of them. I haven't tried it against Masari turrets, so I don't know if they would work there (though I think Masari turrets can shoot straight up).

The key thing to remember with Monoliths is that they are a bit like the Red alert 2 Crono Legionary in that the longer the distance they teleport the longer the "cooldown" is, so when they make one big jump they are disabled for a few seconds but if they make several smaller jumps they will arrive fully operational.

[JAGX]

vOdToasT, on 27 April 2010 - 09:37 PM, said:

Wrong. Five defilers can protect a walker from ohm robots very cost-effectively. Without defilers, any early Hierarchy aggression on a non-instagrab map would be stopped by just Ohm robots.

Edit: Oh, you meant run away as in retreat. Yeah, of course they do that, but on a small map there's nowhere to run to. If you keep running back, the walker will be at your base soon. Running away is what the Hierarchy WANTS you to do, so he can come closer to your base. Walker saucer defiler timing push is a good strategy on Gulf Coast, simply because when the ohms run away, they're doing exactly what you want them to do.

Well, if you can find a N player nice enough to let you stock two production qeues worth of defilers and not kill the first group, let me know.   Besides, if you send your walkers w/ your units, your reapers are harder to defend, unless you spam turrets which is hard $$$.

And for retreat, I meant ohms can micro around defiler beams to get close enoguh to suicide on them.

@ strategist, while saucers do very well inb a supporting role, mixing units in with them is difficult b/c if the enemy spams ari, say inq, then it's pointless to go with habitat early on.  I usually don't lose to mixed units, only when people rush-spam air units do the defilers/grunts/lost ones + saucers fail.  Think out it, if 1v1 saucers lose, what would you do with 1/2 or 1/3 saucers and other non-aa units.

[vOdToasT]

JAGX, on 28 April 2010 - 08:49 AM, said:

And for retreat, I meant ohms can micro around defiler beams to get close enoguh to suicide on them.

That's exactly what they can't do if the Hierarchy has decent micro.

And when you're saying that the Novus is going to come around the back and kill your reapers, you prove that you don't even understand the BASICS of offensive Hierarchy vs Novus. You have to attack the Novus so he has to use his units to defend, or he will harass you all over the place, because he has better mobility early on. When he has to defend against a walker saucer defiler push, he can only spare a few units to harass with at best, and defending vs those doesn't "cost a lot of $$$"

Either that, or you bunker up with lots of spitters so he can't harass you at all... But this doesn't work on maps with spread out resources. It's also very one dimensional and predictable to play against.

Edited by vOdToasT, 28 April 2010 - 09:33 AM.

[Strategist]

JAGX, on 28 April 2010 - 08:49 AM, said:

@ strategist, while saucers do very well in a supporting role, mixing units in with them is difficult b/c if the enemy spams ari, say inq, then it's pointless to go with habitat early on.  I usually don't lose to mixed units, only when people rush-spam air units do the defilers/grunts/lost ones + saucers fail.  Think out it, if 1v1 saucers lose, what would you do with 1/2 or 1/3 saucers and other non-aa units.

In 1v1 Saucers will lose, but they have the advantage of coming out earlier without any teching and they have repair, so it is easier to amass a swarm of Saucers long before the enemy can get enough aircraft out to counter.  As I said before, I am fine with their AA being a bit weaker as they are strong against just about any other target and they are a "tier-1" aircraft versus the tier-2/3 aircraft of the other two races. (granted, the Hierarchy doesn't really have any teching or "tiers" when compared to Novus or Masari as they get most of their units right away)

If the enemy is swarming with aircraft, just drop Gravitic Turret traps (3 Gravitic Turrets with a Spitter Turret and one upgraded Manipulator Turret) in key areas and push the offense. I myself also find the Habitat Walker with Assault (for Arc Turrets and Range Enhancers) or Assault + Quantum 3 (for Molecular Armor) is better at anti-air than the Assembly walker as it's significantly enhanced range + fire rate makes up for its lack of speed. Also if I am not mistaken, Arc Turrets can damage multiple aircraft per strike.

[JAGX]

vOdToasT, on 28 April 2010 - 09:07 AM, said:

And when you're saying that the Novus is going to come around the back and kill your reapers, you prove that you don't even understand the BASICS of offensive Hierarchy vs Novus. You have to attack the Novus so he has to use his units to defend, or he will harass you all over the place, because he has better mobility early on. When he has to defend against a walker saucer defiler push, he can only spare a few units to harass with at best, and defending vs those doesn't "cost a lot of $$$"

Lol you're right, I don;t understand the basics... just enough to beat pretty much every player in the game is all.

Most maps are simple to large for an effective 'push' rush.  It's not like glyph carvers are fast, enemy scout variants/ohms should catch either the carver or glyph if you put them up front.  And if you keep them in back a few suicide variants can kill glyphs or even if they do spawn you'll be too far away make that strategy work.  N players that don't understand the game think they need to defend their base to the death, which is stupid, especially since right after Mirabel, you get a patch that lets you sell your base for 100%.

N arn't meant to sit in one spot, but to branch out all over so that any one base is overrun, the slow walkers can't take em all out.  That's why when you're slowly stomping towards their base, they can circle a few ohms/variants/am tanks outside the radius of your walkers/grunts (which is easy) and around to your now open spots.