Nominations for target of the Nerfbat of Damocles (I)

[keith.lamothe]

So we've done 6 polls for "what most needs a buff?" and that's gone pretty well.  I've mentioned a few times doing similar things for the other side of the coin: what most needs a nerf?

I've hesitated on this one because the psychological impact of "my favorite unit just got worse!" is way different than anything else getting better.  But I think there are some outliers in terms of units being so useful to the player that they actually reduce the effective field of choice ("why use A, B, C, D, or E when X is always better?", etc).  On the other hand, I don't want to just wade in with the nerf bat, so player feedback is really helpful here.

Please note: the poll will have a "None of these need a nerf!" option and if I see a ton of responses there (in terms of votes divided by the number of voters, not by the number of votes due to the 2-3 votes per person) that will make me inclined to not nerf or at least not nerf much.

I'll also probably solicit more direct feedback on precisely how to nerf the "winners" than I normally do with the what-needs-a-buff poll, to make it less likely that it's going to induce excessive rage   Though I imagine if a winner is an AI-only unit folks will be cheering instead


Anyway: what most needs a nerf?  Anything human-usable or AI-usable is fair-game this time around, though the poll will probably only have 2-3 votes per person.

[Wanderer]

(sighs)... I really don't want to say these out loud.

Player (in order of concern and off the top of my head):
- BotNet Golem.  Yes, even for a superweapon this thing is inane.
- Raid Starship.
- Blade Spawners.
- Grav I Turrets.
- Lightning Is (gently, they're just a hair too much).

AI:
- Guardians under glass.  Give them the same penalty as AoE turrets, at least, please.  Without FF ignorers these ships are far too overpowered in the early/mid game when you can't weather the attrition until you can get at them.
- SpireShield Guardposts.  When coupled with an AI Eye planet, these are more annoying than they are difficult, because you have to grind them down with a few starships.  Lower the HP on these please... say half?
- AI Eyes.  Note, I'm not against the Eye itself, I'm against the fact that the marks it produces are not balanced to the AIP incrementals (Homeworld eyes excluded, that's a homeworld).  It's bad enough running into a MK III world with your MK I fleet.  It's horrible when the Eye starts zombie spawning MK IIIs on your head.
- 10/10.     (J/K!  Yeesh, don't hit me with that nerfbat...)
- Planetary Munitions Boosters.

[keith.lamothe]

I may actually do two polls from this: one for human stuff, one for AI stuff.

Anyway, yea, those sound familiar   Assuming you meant "interplanetary munitions booster".

[rabican]

Botnet

Spirecraft attritioners

Core raid engines -well not really nerf, but could spawn lesser amounts of core ships instead of mark IVs, these are just kinda cheese magnets, you usually either get ravaged or cheese your way out somehow. although i admit that 4 botnet golems vs core raid engine was pretty hilarious.

[TechSY730]

- Botnet golems (and zombie guardians): Once again, I suggest bringing down their damage to sane, but still high, levels, but letting them get the Mk. based parasite damage bonus so they can still zombie reclaim, but not have to insta-gib to assure it
- Gravity units in general: the mechanic isn't so bad, but the current values are. Especially Mk. I grav units, which slow things WAY too much considering average speeds in this game and how cheap it is to make them. If the mechanic is to change, some percentage of speed reduction with a floor might be considered (reduce to like 30% of the units speed or 20 speed, which ever is greatest for Mk. I grav turrets or something, leaving speed unchanged if that would increase its speed, of course) However, even though Mk. Is are especially bad, the slowing effect of ALL gravity units of ALL marks could use some nerfing, though some less nerfing than others (like high Mk. stuff can get away with only a slight nerf)
- Zenith Paralyzers (and to a lesser extent, paralysis in general): that fact they can win ANY 1 on 1 matchup if they get they get the first shot out and can survive the first shot is too much, and can easily dominate battles with little risk to their supporting fleet, and there are almost no ways to counter it or mitigate it. In this case, I will complain about the mechanic. Paralysis being a boolean, all or nothing, fully disabled or fully enabled type thing isn't balancible as a mechanic for something to give to fleet ships. Either remove Z Paralyzers (or repurpose them to a different mechanic), or modify the paralysis mechanic such that "partial" paralysis can be supported (sort of like engine damage)
- Spirecraft Martyrs: *Dodges rotten fruit* Please hear me out. Basically, the Mk. II versions are so strong there is basically no reason to get the higher Mk. versions. (IIRC, there is no Mk. I verison of these things) Now, they should remain strong, but not so strong that the other Mks aren't needed, and similarly, Mk. IIs should not be so strong that they are can be a solution to basically every wave/threat ball problem in the game, especially not when waves/threat balls get to high marks.
- Spire MiniRams: Basically, if you have these, the other side can forget about using starships for a considerable portion of the game. Especially bad in AI hands. Reduce their ship cap, maybe?

- AI Eyes: A simple change should help out. Change the mark of the stuff they spit out from Max(AI wave level + 1, planet level) to Min(AI wave level + 1, planet level), or possibly remove the planet level altogether, and leave it AI wave level + 1. There can be special versions of the AI Eye that uses the old computation, and that could be used for core planets and AI homeworlds
- SpireShield Guardposts: What is a good ratio for these? 2x the HP of their same Mk. AI FF? 1.5x? IMO, they should remain tougher than their corresponding AI FF, but maybe not to the degree that they are now
- AI Superfortress: The get the buff in HP, but don't receive the nerf to range to compensate for that like the other AI Fortresses do. http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=5121

[Coppermantis]

As much as I hate to say it, Botnet Golems could use a nerf. As it is they can gobble up entire waves. Either TechSY's suggestion or perhaps reduce the number of shots per salvo so that they can't take out so many ships at once. In one game it got to the point where I stopped caring so much about AIP because it meant more food for my golem. 

[Wingflier]

Botnet.

[chemical_art]

According to the crowd, botnet.

Of course, I've never had a game with a botnet, so they can go to purgatory for all I care!

[unclean]

Botnet
Stick them under a big stack of forcefields on your whipping boy and they effortlessly chew through thousands of ships, it's pretty ridiculous. If their damage was dropped so that they couldn't just one shot everything even when they're under forcefields I think they'd be fine.

Spire Scouts
Best scouts in the game by far, two psyite asteroids worth of these things can easily scout an entire 80 star galaxy. These things need to move slower or attrition way faster. They're also really bad at being the permanent sentries it seems like they were meant to be, which is kind of weird.

Grav turrets

Also seconding the AI Eye + Spire Shield guardpost combo, it's really tedious.

[TechSY730]

Of course, how could I forget spirecraft scouts!? Yea, either make them slower, or increase their attrition time. It might also be worth making them unrepairable at all difficulties, for similar reasons to the spirecraft teleport transporter. And on that note.

Spirecraft teleport transporters: Yea, I know that they have a, like 7 second life time on enemy planets that are too high a mark, but considering that they can teleport with no paralysis delay, even 7 seconds is too long! Also, maybe make them unable to load scouts, or possibly make dedicated scout units be unable to load in transports in general (which would also snuff out the transport + scout thing, which may or may not be a bad thing)


I don't think the AI eye + spire shield post combo should be dissalowed, but as I mentioned earlier, I think the ratio of spire shield post HP to AI forcefield HP should be brought down some.

And for gravity, it might be interesting to discuss whether a mechanics change is needed, or rather just balancing the magnitude of the effect for all units and structure with gravity.

[Martyn van Buren]

Very much agreed about spire scouts.  I've wound up not using spirecraft at all because so many of them feel cheesy to me.

[Minotaar]

Humans:

Blade Spawner
Shield Bearer (the fleetship one)
Zenith Bombard
Spirecraft Jumpship
Spirecraft Martyr

AI:

Interplanetary Munitions Boosters
Zombie Guardian
Gravity Guardian

[Kahuna]

Spire Stealth Battleship (For the love of everything that is holy please nerf these things)
Marauders (I need my whole fleet to destroy 10 of those idiots.. hell.. first I didn't even remember Marauders existed because I never enable them because they're so overpowered)
Botnet Golem (Increase reload time to 3 or 4 seconds? Attack to 20mx~35 or to ~600-~1mx50?)

Deep strikes. Yes deep strikes.. maybe make it so the AI doesn't go crazy IMMEDIATELY when you're 4 or whatever hops away from your closest planet. The player could have a minute or 30 seconds to get back or the AI will go crazy. There would be a counter in the top left corner saying something like........  um... the AI is scanning stuff, has noticed human activity or whatever bla bla bla.  Then if you don't GTFO u're in trouble. Also the threat caused by deep striking would stack up over time. Like Super Terminal. The amount of ships coming from the Super Terminal increases over time. The longer you deep strike the more threat is generated. Not like.. you accidentally deep strike for 1 second and BOOM 8k threat! .. like in my current game. I mantised this too btw.

Spire Blade Spawner
Spire Gravity Drain
AI Zombie Guardian
AI Laser Guardian
AI Gravity Guardian
Dyson Gatling

[Kahuna]

- 10/10.     (J/K!  Yeesh, don't hit me with that nerfbat...)

This should have been in the list of things to buff.  Surprisingly easy even though I've made some mistakes.

[Martyn van Buren]

What's wrong with marauders?  I feel like I treat them like the devourer most of the time; keep out of the way and let them help with the enemy.