Parasite rebalance discussion.

[x4000]

For parasites, I feel like it makes sense to have the last shot be the conversion -- that's how it once was, incidentally (this may have been beta, I can't recall), but then the parasites changed a lot.  I agree they have turned into something less useful now, and that should be resolved.  However, I'm pretty happy with the change to having the last shot having to be a parasite shot, since that then makes parasites more useful in homogenous groups, which has always been a goal with them.

Some brainstorming thoughts I have had about ways to rebalance parasites (feel free to add your own, everyone -- I'd like to evolve these in a sensible way to something well balanced and useful, not just try to go back to what sort of worked in the past):

Pretty much definitely needed:
-----------------------------
- Parasites in particular probably need more health, since right now they crumple too easily.

- Parasites probably need more firepower and/or, a faster rate of fire would help them to be the last shot hitting that which is being converted.

Wild ideas:
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- Off and on, I have recently been considering giving the Raid Starship reclamation in order to make that more consistent with its line.  Then, perhaps improving the stats of leech and stealth leech above that.  Some renaming of that line would probably be needed if this was done.

- One idea I had was potentially to have parasites insta-kill ships that they are able to attack, but then that health also comes out of the parasite's health.  But, then reclaimed ships would come back at 100% health.  This could be hard to balance, though, and I have not fully fleshed out the idea yet.  I'm not super in love with it, but it's sort of interesting to think about.

- Alternatively, possibly all reclaimed ships could be zombified (which makes them not count against ship cap, but also makes them not controllable and just acting as FRD until there are no mobile enemy ships left, in which case they then move on).  This would make the botnet golem a lot less unique, of course.

- Alternatively, have some sort of "reclaimed mode" for ships, which is both different from normal mode and from parasited mode.  The key features of this mode would be that the ships would be normally controllable, but would not count against ship cap and would not cost energy... but what else beyond that?  Possibly they start out at full health if the parasite was the one who dealt the killing blow (then the amount of damage dealt to each ship by reclaimers could be discarded), and they gradually drain in health over something like a 10 minute period or something unless they are repaired.  That would prevent players from amassing huge standing fleets of reclaimed ships, but would still be able to amass large quick strike groups to do so (or, at cost of resources, could amass and maintain a large fleet of reclaimed ships if it is paired with engineers and mrs stations).  This is perhaps the idea I like the best.

I am sure there are other ideas people have, too.  Thoughts?

[Spikey00]

I don't know--since having parasites work in homogeneous groups mean overall danger to the entire group, as it may mean more macro to avoid units that deal bonus damage to them; having the Raid Starship reclaim is a decent idea, but I also feel that it would perhaps be less unique in a way--even though I suggested for it to offer reclamation to nearby units instead of an attack bonus.  For those who hate macro, this will become problematic as then players would have to macro a second group of units to deal with these units, in sacrifice for the reclamation.

Another problem is that as they reclaim, those units can commit to the 'last shot' needed for a kill, effectively stealing the kill.  This issue doesn't occur when they used to be able to reclaim regardless.  

In overall, I agree that the parasite specialized ships themselves (not starships) should receive a boost with regards to various aspects, and perhaps a revision of their costs.  Some say they simply take too much power, I say they are too weak, too costly, and consume too much power.  It's not a bad ability to reclaim, but I often find that other ships outshine the parasites combat-wise.

EDIT:  Actually, maybe have the last shot convert the unit to player control, and if not, have them be turned into zombies?
EDIT:  Or, have % resources reclaimed...

[I-KP]

Yeah, they are pretty weak these days so it's good that they're going to see a bit of lovin'.

Parasites:-

The 'reclaim on killing shot only' thing is a tricky one because they're hardly ever going to deliver any kills considering their generally rather weak attack (and it would be nice to try to avoid simply making all ships harder to get over their apparent weaknesses).  I prefer to imagine that any successful attack by a Parasite is enough to deliver its 'dangerous cargo' but the chances of that cargo being effective should be the factor, not the damage that the Parasite does per se.  

How about making Parasites fire much less frequently but any damaging hit at all on a target is enough to stand a chance of relcaiming it when it dies (regardless of whatever delivers the killing strike).  The percentage could be tweaked accordingly by those more familiar with the game mechanics than I but something like a flat 10% chance of Reclamation if it has been Tagged by a Parasite (+0.1% per Parasite shot received - this gives swarms an advantage which should remain a Parasite characteristic).  This 'Parasite Tag' should only last for about 60 seconds, or anything value that prevents that unit being forever vulnerable to reclamation at a much later point if it manages to get away.  As for the amount of health that the reclaimed target has, starting on full health makes little sense as it probably had the bejesus blown out of it for a while before it was reclaimed so a base 25% of health might be the easy resolve; enough to be useful but not exactly a giant, mysteriously auto-repaired free gift.

This would mean that the Parasites would still be relatively weak on their own but when paired with other faster-moving Fleet ships the combined arms advantage becomes obvious and desireable.  (Parasites should still be Strong vs one or two very specific things so that they can reach out on their own and be successful - if they're careful.  Perhaps Strong vs only the tiny ships for example: Microfighters, Minipods, Eye-bots &c.)

The Raid Line:-

I'd like it if the Raid startships operated on the above 'Parasite tagging' mechanic (at the same 10%+0.1%/hit chance - the higher damage, high rate of fire, multi-shot capacity of this starship equating to a small squadron of regular Parasites w/ their attendant Fleet ship fire support in and of itself) because they'd then be useful to have hanging around regular Fleet ships as well as still being rather handy for solo deep strike raiding missions.  

The Leech ships should still be the primary relcamation force IMO, with a base Parasite Tag reclamation chance of 25%+1%/hit maybe.  Oh, and reintroduce Turret reclamation (at perhaps a reduced Reclamation rate of 10%+0.1%/hit); however, only the Leech ships can reclaim Turrets (not the Parasites, Raids nor any other kind of reclamation tech).  


The %ages should be tweaked but the above is illustrative enough.

[Spikey00]

Would it be CPU-friendly if percentages were involved?  Though, I have to say +0.1% per extra shot is fairly low--perhaps raise it 10x and say 1% per shot?  I don't know overall.

[I-KP]

Could do I suppose.  Numbers could be massaged to give the most satisfactory rate of reclamation.  The point of the +0.1% gain was so that mobs don't run out of reclamation potential against any one target in a single volly.  At +1% the chance of reclamation climbs really quickly; maybe that is desireable (for the higher Mark Parasites).  It would need to be tested to find the sweet spot.  Might even be worth capping the maximum reclamation chance to something like 75% as well (no such thing as a sure thing).

As for processing overheads for such a thing, I dunno.  Sounds like a second Health stat that's only used for reclamation purposes.

[Fiskbit]

I still don't like the last-hit reclamation method that they just recently got, much because of the luck and frustration regarding who gets that last hit and the micromanagement that it introduces for players who are wanting to maximize the usefulness of this reclamation ability.

I-KP's solution of chance and higher chance per hit seems decent. I generally shy away from luck and randomness in players' actions because when I do something, I want it to have a concrete result (whereas if the game throws something at me, I'm much more okay with that being randomized). Luck means that that result can be particularly good or particularly bad without my action having been any better or worse. However, I think it's a better solution than the other, as it deemphasizes micromanagement in parasite battles. The emphasis it provides on swarm tactics is also kind of cool.

Edit: One problematic thing with these sorts of last-hit or chance ideas is that it makes parasites a lot less effective as non-parasites are added to the group, which means that reclaiming ships that parasites are weak against is a lot harder. I think it's fine that it's harder to get these ships because they're strong against parasites, so you'll get more losses and all that, but it used to be that you could have a mixed fleet so your parasites could capture these ships without being too badly destroyed and it'd still be pretty effective, but now they'll be doing more damage to parasites while also having a lower chance of being captured because it takes more than any one parasite shot to do the job.

Regarding the Raid line, I think that effort to make raid starships and leech starships fit together is counterproductive. Sending starships in to raid a particular target and then leave doesn't coexist well with those starships having reclamation. The reclamation aspect of leech starships used to be great because you could send one or two to a cluster of ships and turrets and they'd eventually turn that into your cluster of ships and turrets. It made beachheads easy. Furthermore, this ability used to be about turning enemies into supporting ships when attacking a group so that their firepower helped you take out that whole group, which doesn't fit with raiding, which is getting in, taking out a specific target, and getting out. Those ship weapons aren't so much for taking out mobile military but rather for taking out particularly strong defenses or interesting targets. When their intended targets are non-reclaimable ships, I think that putting reclamation in there is not very helpful for anyone, and making that ability useful for them destroys their identity as raiding ships.

So, I really think that the Raid line should be split; without the ability to reclaim turrets, I think that leech starships should definitely be accompanying fleets or defending planets, with strengths against mobile military ships, while raid starships should continue to be for raiding, with the current deemphasis on mobile military. I don't see how reclamation and raiding interesting targets go together, even with the old insta-beachhead style of play for leech starships, which was about making a pocket of safety for your forces rather than softening up a target or destroying something important. I think both the raid starships and leech starships have strong potential uses, and splitting them up into a Raid line and Leech line will really help capitalize on that with how the game has been changing over the last few months.

[Pandemic]

I hate MMORPGs that have last-hit-gets-experience, and this is basically what this nerf does to the parasites. I'd like it if the parasites reclaimed a unit if they dealt a certain amount of damage, maybe 25% of the total damage dealt? There has to be a magik number somewhere...


-Pandemic

[Lancefighter]

I agree. Last hits should mean nothing - Its like me cutting off your arms and legs, but then some lame archer in the back shoots an arrow through your eye, killing you (and no, its not just a flesh wound..)

Did the fact that he shot the arrow through the eye really matter, when you consider his arms and legs gone? No, not really.

Perhaps ...
reclaimators have a 1 second or so timer on their shots - if they were hit within the last second (or perhaps more or less) by a reclaimator, then if they die they are recliamed
Reclaimed units sit at 50% health, and /building/, similar to how rebuilding turrets works. This means that reclaiming is both resource and energy dependent, but no longer a guaranteed way of free reclaimed units. Using engineers to instantly build the unit certainly wont be hard, but it makes them less powerful out on their own. They still require support..

Also, I am of the opinion that the raid line needs to be become split. Give us a mk3 raid starship with more health/attack or whatnot (perhaps just the old stats?), and cost that of a reclaimator starship. Then make the reclaimator starship require the raid starship to be researched, but not the mk3 version.

Or at least, thats my idea.

[Fiskbit]

Well, if the lines were split, then leech starships would probably (ideally, in my opinion) no longer be dependent on raid starships; you'd be able to research leech before raid, if you wanted to. The ships really have different ideas and uses, in my opinion, so one depending on the other seems odd to me. Down the road, it might be a good idea to then introduce a cloaked raid starship to follow the cloaked leech starship, or simply replace the cloaked leech starship with a cloaked raid one right off the bat, split the leech starship off to its own line, and add some more powerful variations of the leech starship to research later on.

[RCIX]

Well, if the lines were split, then leech starships would probably (ideally, in my opinion) no longer be dependent on raid starships; you'd be able to research leech before raid, if you wanted to. The ships really have different ideas and uses, in my opinion, so one depending on the other seems odd to me. Down the road, it might be a good idea to then introduce a cloaked raid starship to follow the cloaked leech starship, or simply replace the cloaked leech starship with a cloaked raid one right off the bat, split the leech starship off to its own line, and add some more powerful variations of the leech starship to research later on.

I agree. Another thing that could be introduced (aside from special starships to go along with special ships) is a "Hunter" starship (abilities unknown).

[Pandemic]

Pretty much definitely needed:
-----------------------------
- Parasites in particular probably need more health, since right now they crumple too easily.

Agreed. I can just fly my 200+ fighters over a bunch of Parasites, and all that remains would be, well, their remains .

- Parasites probably need more firepower and/or, a faster rate of fire would help them to be the last shot hitting that which is being converted.

I'm definitely for the idea of them having higher rate of fire, or higher firepower. Probably (definitely) higher rate of fire, if you're going for the last-hit-wins deal. However, I'd like to point out that I am very, very against the last-hit-wins idea. Too much luck involved.

However, if you're set on going this path, I'd make the rate of fire epic fast (2 seconds? 1.5 seconds?) and perhaps lower their attack by a little, or leave it the same. I'd also give them slightly more HP, and possibly shields, so they'd be able to solo.

Wild ideas:
----------
- Off and on, I have recently been considering giving the Raid Starship reclamation in order to make that more consistent with its line.  Then, perhaps improving the stats of leech and stealth leech above that.  Some renaming of that line would probably be needed if this was done.

I'm not for this. I agree with what Fiskbit said, about how Raid and Leech should be entirely different lines. Just split them off entirely, and have a line of Raids, and a line of Leeches.

- One idea I had was potentially to have parasites insta-kill ships that they are able to attack, but then that health also comes out of the parasite's health.  But, then reclaimed ships would come back at 100% health.  This could be hard to balance, though, and I have not fully fleshed out the idea yet.  I'm not super in love with it, but it's sort of interesting to think about.

As is, that is definitely not the best choice. But if I may take some liberties...

• Lower the ship cap of Parasites (this prevents spamming, obviously)
• Lower the rate of fire of Parasites (to nerf their reclaiming ability)
• Cause Parasite health to be halved (quartered? Thirded?) every time they reclaim a ship (discourages hordes of Parasites, and promotes mixing of units)
• Have the reclaimed ship come back at the HP of the Parasite ship (discourages hordes of Parasites, makes it virtually impossible for Parasites to reclaim an entire system)
• Give Parasites a repair ability; perhaps they auto-repair if they haven't reclaimed a unit in (rate_of_fire * 3), or something to that effect (encourages Parasites to stick with group, encourages tactical retreats, allows Parasites to survive on a planet that has no supply, causes Parasites to not be so heavily reliant on Engineer and MR Stations)

This would actually help Parasites, imo, because it would cause them to be more of a group-oriented ship. Heavily group-oriented. The patch causes them to be a solo type ship, which they are obviously not built for. This encourages, if not forces, them to be reliant on other ship types, causing them to be more of a support role (which is what they were always meant to be, in my eyes at least )

- Alternatively, possibly all reclaimed ships could be zombified (which makes them not count against ship cap, but also makes them not controllable and just acting as FRD until there are no mobile enemy ships left, in which case they then move on).  This would make the botnet golem a lot less unique, of course.

Nah... I like the idea of zombies, but that's for the Botnet golem .

- Alternatively, have some sort of "reclaimed mode" for ships, which is both different from normal mode and from parasited mode.  The key features of this mode would be that the ships would be normally controllable, but would not count against ship cap and would not cost energy... but what else beyond that?  Possibly they start out at full health if the parasite was the one who dealt the killing blow (then the amount of damage dealt to each ship by reclaimers could be discarded), and they gradually drain in health over something like a 10 minute period or something unless they are repaired.  That would prevent players from amassing huge standing fleets of reclaimed ships, but would still be able to amass large quick strike groups to do so (or, at cost of resources, could amass and maintain a large fleet of reclaimed ships if it is paired with engineers and mrs stations).  This is perhaps the idea I like the best.

Interesting. I'd definitely either go with this idea, or your modified idea (see above). Although, this still kinda encroaches on the territory of the Botnet golem, as this is still a "zombie army", just human controlled, not computer controlled.


-Pandemic[/list]

[Echo35]

Personally, I think they either need to be like they were before (If they damaged, the ship would be converted) or they need their health and firepower greatly ramped up. Perhaps you could make them like the Zenith Bombers, so that the lower health the enemy is, the greater damage the Parasite does? This way, they would be more likely to get the finishing blow, thus making them actually effective.

[bongotron2000]

Here's a few ideas, based on some of the preceding ideas in this thread:

1. Parasites do zero damage (or very close to zero) but will tag ships that they attack for 100% chance of reclamation.

2. Parasites tag ships for reclamation with 100% effectiveness, but instead of those ships being reclaimed when their health reaches 0, they are destroyed leaving remains that have to be recovered by a RR before being usable.

3. Parasites reclaim only when they deal the killing blow, but to reduce micro there is a special 'don't completely kill' attack mode for the other ships that inhibits them from completely destroying enemies, just leaving enough health left for parasites to finish them off and reclaim them. Ships that are immune to reclamation or the ammo-type of the parasite would just be killed regardless. Maybe this would be an attack modifier button, a separate mode (like group/lone moving) or automatically selected if parasites are in the attacking group.

#1 would make parasites useless by themselves, but effective with the rest of the fleet.

#2 might fit in best with modifying the Raid line of starships, since these still need to have some effective firepower. It would very much change the pacing of using parasites as the reclaimed ships are no longer immediately available for battle. On the plus side though, they would stand less change of being destroyed quickly as they would have full health.

#3 is really just a control change, not sure how easy this would be to implement.

[I-KP]

Splitting the Raid and Leech lines could work.  The Leech line remains the reclamation tour de force (with a generous version of whatever reclamation mechanic is decided upon) and the Raid line remains the fastest surgical strike starship in the west.  The Leech line already has a decent upgrade (to Stealth variant) and the Raid line could have a similar option (that is perhaps still weak vs Fleet ships, slightly weaker vs Structures but stronger vs Turret defenses so that it doesn't completely replace the MkI Raid).

Personally, I'm generally against making Parasites harder (as in tougher to kill or deal more damage).  Harder != More effective.  They are an unusual enough archetype to benefit from a more elegant solution to their effectiveness than simply bolting on more armour and a bigger gun.  Making something tougher shouldn't always be the solution.  Generally, I'd prefer to keep them very weak in a brawl and in need of support to be effective in most situations.  Perhaps they could be made to 'feel' tougher by making them less weak to other ships, i.e., slightly further down the priority list than the core triangle (Fighter, Bomber, Frigate), so that they're not always the very first to get zapped in a furball.

[RCIX]

2. Parasites tag ships for reclamation with 100% effectiveness, but instead of those ships being reclaimed when their health reaches 0, they are destroyed leaving remains that have to be recovered by a RR before being usable.
[/quote

I vote for this idea!