I know I'm probably going to regret this...

[Aquohn]

...but:

One of the most annoying things about the old rubberbanding anti-snowball was that you didn't know what was going on. I was considering reporting it as a bug at one point

With Keith's crazy 5x avenger spawn, when you killed a starbase, you knew you were in for it, and everything went to ****. It was fun, but also sort of made many scenarios unplayable.

But now the spawns are barely noticeable. More a speed bump than a "OMFG WHAT HAVE I DONE" thing. So I propose we adopt one of Radiant Phoenix's (I think) ideas: instead of having an avenger wave, have an avenger unit, like the actual Avenger. I sort of like one of the ideas that were floated around at first: let the starbases turn mobile, gain back some health, and make a beeline for your bases.

On a side note, I really think the module and exp rewards from nebulae are up for a balance pass. Even when I won the FFA losing only 1 starbase, I still only got one module!

[Radiant Phoenix]

I'm pretty sure I didn't suggest that.

I favor just letting snowballing happen.

[TechSY730]

I'm pretty sure I didn't suggest that.

I favor just letting snowballing happen.

So, you think that the challenge of getting some sort of "have some way to have the strength of a faction down slower than just loss of spawn points would imply" type mechanic balanced for the early levels, late levels, single champ, and multi champ cases AND make it intuitive and not annoying is not worth the benefit of having such a system?

Or put inversely (and probably less verbosely), is the phenomenon of just letting the side who loses one production center first is at a severe disadvantage with small odds of being able to overcome it acceptable vs. the cost of trying to come up with something balanced, fair, intuitive, and not annoying to counter this phenomenon?

Or put one more way, is "anti-snowballing" in a balanced, fair, intuitive, and not annoying a "fools chore" and we are better off just leaving snowballing in to both avoid the risk of corner cases screwing up balance and so Keith can move on to bigger issues than what is probably a "almost hopeless time sink"?

[Radiant Phoenix]

Or put one more way, is "anti-snowballing" in a balanced, fair, intuitive, and not annoying a "fools chore" and we are better off just leaving snowballing in to both avoid the risk of corner cases screwing up balance and so Keith can move on to bigger issues than what is probably a "almost hopeless time sink"?

No, it's more like, I'm not interested in preventing snowballing in this case at all.

I mean, maybe, if the cost is actually zero, I might say, "sure, whatever," but...

[PokerChen]

Is this the 2nd or 5th mission? Seems to me that every nebulae where you get a hull as a reward, you get one less module than others.

[Aquohn]

1st. Hmm, I did get both a hull and a mod fort. Maybe you're right.

[LordSloth]

So I propose we adopt one of Radiant Phoenix's (I think) ideas: instead of having an avenger wave, have an avenger unit, like the actual Avenger. I sort of like one of the ideas that were floated around at first: let the starbases turn mobile, gain back some health, and make a beeline for your bases.

I'm probably the one to blame for most of this.

[ZaneWolfe]

This might sound stupid, but WHY do we need any kind of anti-snowballing in the nebula? Isn't the point that in those scenarios where it is used that the sides are basically even and its YOU who tips the balance into your allies favor? With miners vs pirates one, it even says that they are evenly matched, with some favor to the pirates, but you showing up changes that entirely. Your presence means that the balance is far into the miners favor. Yes this could theoretically mean you could just take out 2-3 bases in that scenario and the miners will win it for you. BUT its not going to be a quick win, and if you leave the nebula you lose out on all of the XP. So you want to stay and help them finish the job, for both the XP and the fact that the reward does have a time element as part of it.

Just you being their means your allies now have a very, very good chance at victory in those types of nebula. In effect, you ARE the snowball. If you do things right you assure their victory. And even removing the anti-snowballing factors doesn't just favor the player. It also means that if you screw up and die, and your allies start losing, you may very well have cost them their lives. They are gambling, and while they have a strong hand, misused it means they WILL lose.

[TechSY730]

This might sound stupid, but WHY do we need any kind of anti-snowballing in the nebula? Isn't the point that in those scenarios where it is used that the sides are basically even and its YOU who tips the balance into your allies favor? With miners vs pirates one, it even says that they are evenly matched, with some favor to the pirates, but you showing up changes that entirely. Your presence means that the balance is far into the miners favor. Yes this could theoretically mean you could just take out 2-3 bases in that scenario and the miners will win it for you. BUT its not going to be a quick win, and if you leave the nebula you lose out on all of the XP. So you want to stay and help them finish the job, for both the XP and the fact that the reward does have a time element as part of it.

Just you being their means your allies now have a very, very good chance at victory in those types of nebula. In effect, you ARE the snowball. If you do things right you assure their victory. And even removing the anti-snowballing factors doesn't just favor the player. It also means that if you screw up and die, and your allies start losing, you may very well have cost them their lives. They are gambling, and while they have a strong hand, misused it means they WILL lose.

I guess it's to prevent:
1. the fight for the first enemy base destroyed being difficult, and then becoming increasingly, boringly easy after that
2. to keep an early mistake from the player (aka, the allies losing a base first) from quite likely causing a inevitable, but long and drawn out, loss.

Now, whether those really are bad things, or just things that we "impacient, whiney modern gamers" have demanded for and gotten, is up for debate.
It may just be that this sort of snowball effect is a perfectly healthy way for a "game" to play out, it just isn't all that popular among many games these days. Though, PvP RTSs still thrive on this sort of early game snowballing type of thing, which I guess may be a strong argument for there to be no anti-snowballing measures. Maybe it is acceptable to say if you make a mistake early on where the situation is volatile, you deserve to lose unless you are so skilled you can put in the several times over worth of "work" to make up for it. In return, if you manage to make a strong early game progress, you deserve a much easier path to victory for the rest of the fight.

To be honest, I don't know which side I stand on yet. I can sort of see good arguments on both sides. Which is why I was advocating a comprosmise, not enough "anti-snowballing" to counteract losses inflicted (aka, you do still get an advantage), but enough so that a loss isn't going to put you so severely behind it will be extremely hard to recover.

[Faulty Logic]

I think the current numbers are close enough to perfect that we don't need additional changes.

The enemy spawns slow you down enough to keep your attention, and the friendly spawns are big enough to rally behind, but neither is big enough to cause total chaos or a grind.

[Radiant Phoenix]

I know that my expectation when I first saw nebulae (before I read the forums) was that once I pushed things, "over the edge," so to speak, that it would snowball.

I think most players who don't read the forums are going to assume that too.

I'm still not buying any of the arguments presented against snowballing.

EDIT: Except for the, "what if someone screws up?" argument. That might be enough reason to make an effort to ensure that it's not too difficult to recover from losing one unanticipated starbase. After that, I think it should just be a slippery slope.

[TechSY730]

EDIT: Except for the, "what if someone screws up?" argument. That might be enough reason to make an effort to ensure that it's not too difficult to recover from losing one unanticipated starbase. After that, I think it should just be a slippery slope.

Yea, I would be for enough "anti-snowballing" to make the loss of one base recoverable with a sensible amount of effort, but the other side will almost certainly win if you lose any more than that.

Now of course, this should hold for both sides.

[Hearteater]

I haven't messed with the champion at all yet, but it seems like a better solution would be a series of objectives.  You kill the first whatever so snowballing would happen, and you get objective 2: "Thanks, I think we've got it from here, but looks like they've got a super ship coming, can you stop it?"  Then when you kill that ship, you get objective three, "Great work!  But they've got some cloaked ships attacking us from behind, we need you to deal with them!"  Maybe there are five objectives each nebula, and rewards are based on how many you complete.  But the nebula ends when the initial win condition (aka, the snowball fight) decides it.  So you could speed things up by helping at the cost of time to do other objectives.  You could even lose the nebula if you say lure some big bad boss over and he glasses something important.  I realize it isn't a quick fix, but it seems like that would solve at least the snowball problem.

[Radiant Phoenix]

Yea, I would be for enough "anti-snowballing" to make the loss of one base recoverable with a sensible amount of effort, but the other side will almost certainly win if you lose any more than that.

Now of course, this should hold for both sides.

I suppose, more specifically, I would like it to be going down by one net base is salvageable -- i.e., if you lose a base, then they lose a base, then you lose a base, you're still doing badly, but victory is conceivable.

I haven't messed with the champion at all yet, but it seems like a better solution would be a series of objectives.  You kill the first whatever so snowballing would happen, and you get objective 2: "Thanks, I think we've got it from here, but looks like they've got a super ship coming, can you stop it?"  Then when you kill that ship, you get objective three, "Great work!  But they've got some cloaked ships attacking us from behind, we need you to deal with them!"  Maybe there are five objectives each nebula, and rewards are based on how many you complete.  But the nebula ends when the initial win condition (aka, the snowball fight) decides it.  So you could speed things up by helping at the cost of time to do other objectives.  You could even lose the nebula if you say lure some big bad boss over and he glasses something important.  I realize it isn't a quick fix, but it seems like that would solve at least the snowball problem.

This sounds interesting. I'd probably avoid giving the enemies reinforcements, and instead have things like, "cut off the enemy's escape route," or, "the enemy is trying to attack some of our civilians, please stop them!"

[chemical_art]

I haven't messed with the champion at all yet, but it seems like a better solution would be a series of objectives.  You kill the first whatever so snowballing would happen, and you get objective 2: "Thanks, I think we've got it from here, but looks like they've got a super ship coming, can you stop it?"  Then when you kill that ship, you get objective three, "Great work!  But they've got some cloaked ships attacking us from behind, we need you to deal with them!"  Maybe there are five objectives each nebula, and rewards are based on how many you complete.  But the nebula ends when the initial win condition (aka, the snowball fight) decides it.  So you could speed things up by helping at the cost of time to do other objectives.  You could even lose the nebula if you say lure some big bad boss over and he glasses something important.  I realize it isn't a quick fix, but it seems like that would solve at least the snowball problem.

...

Awesome.

In fact, if the objectives were random it would also help the very...repetitive nature of the nebulas. I no longer play with champions because it always plays exactly the same.