Zenith Viral Shredder Balance Feedback

[keith.lamothe]

So, the replication mechanic of these was pretty thoroughly redone in 5.015 (5.016 is current version atm), how are they feeling now?  What I've heard thus far is positive.

Basically we want you to be able to grow 2 or 3 caps worth of these with smart play, and that's their advantage over other melee ships (to which they are fairly comparable stats-wise on a cap vs cap basis, already), but growing much more than that is going to take a significant length of time and be pretty precarious if your swarm ever gets caught in a bad situation.

[TechSY730]

As I mentioned before, I miss the continuous increase in BP necessary to get a new one. But I understand the current situation is easier to balance.

However, I do think that 4x cost needed every ship cap is a bit much. With this, its tricky to get even the 2x ship cap. Maybe 3x per ship cap? (Or maybe I'm just totally wrong about that)

[keith.lamothe]

However, I do think that 4x cost needed every ship cap is a bit much. With this, its tricky to get even the 2x ship cap. Maybe 3x per ship cap? (Or maybe I'm just totally wrong about that)

I initially had it at 2x but it was still happening way too quickly.  I'll consider 3x if this is more of a widespread sentiment but even getting 2x ship cap should be moderately tricky: if you pull that off you're getting twice the dps "at cap", right?  That's pretty tricky to balance against cutlasses, vampires, etc already.

[Coppermantis]

It makes it more difficult, but overall more interesting. Before, my tactic for defense was "Move shredders to system, win, repeat." Now, Instead of thousands, I only get a few hundred, which makes it more fun. Nerfing them was, in my opinion, a good call.

[mindloss]

Nerf is good. Likewise for martyr.

I still think the shredder is OP by its very nature, and even moreso for the martyr. That being said, however, I think that's GOOD. Humans need a couple of tools that are especially powerful given the nature of the game... so long as they're not game-breaking (and they seem pretty fixed now), it creates User Fun.

My $0.02 anyway.

[keith.lamothe]

I think I'm going to call these done for now but I'll keep listening if others are still not happy with them.

Humans need a couple of tools that are especially powerful given the nature of the game... so long as they're not game-breaking (and they seem pretty fixed now)

Yea, we do want the players to have powerful stuff.  As long as it doesn't artificially just short-circuit a lot of the challenge of the game, it's basically fair play (which is one reason we're bringing the blocking forcefields back in 5.017: sure, you can exploit the blocking, but it doesn't really let you handle some asymptotically large threat like the infinite-durability ff-engie piles did).  The other side of it is that we don't want any one unit/strategy to be the _obvious_ choice.  Ideally, all of the unit choices (for example) available should be something you know you can use to really put the hurt on the AI in some way or another.

[TechSY730]

which is one reason we're bringing the blocking forcefields back in 5.017

So you've given up trying to re-balance certain ship types and defensive strategies based on that change?

[keith.lamothe]

which is one reason we're bringing the blocking forcefields back in 5.017

So you've given up trying to re-balance certain ship types and defensive strategies based on that change?

If you wanted to put it that way, I suppose you could

[TechSY730]

which is one reason we're bringing the blocking forcefields back in 5.017

So you've given up trying to re-balance certain ship types and defensive strategies based on that change?

If you wanted to put it that way, I suppose you could

I guess a better way to say it would be you decided that the silly things you could do with blocking forcefields is the "lesser of two evils." Basically that same thing as I said before, but with a less negative connotation about you guys.

[keith.lamothe]

I guess a better way to say it would be you decided that the silly things you could do with blocking forcefields is the "lesser of two evils." Basically that same thing as I said before, but with a less negative connotation about you guys.

I don't mind the connotation much; I did in fact consider "you know, it'd be nice if we didn't _have_ to fiddle with all this immunity-to-ff-damage-reduction stuff" in deciding to ask Chris if I could just revert out the blocking-removal.  A bigger consideration, though, was "this was actually a really fun thing to do, and there are actually more efficient ways to do it anyway so it's not breaking the challenge".  Basically: upon reflection (and running into some unexpected problems) we didn't see a compelling reason to take away that strategy, so we're giving it back.

[Cyborg]

we didn't see a compelling reason to take away that strategy, so we're giving it back.

Rejoice.

[Huaojozu]

I would much rather see a decrese in damage or increase in Energy Cost as a balancing method. There's just something awfully reassuring about having a thousand Shredders defending your frontline even if they would become much less powerful/much more expensive to maintain.

It would also let them keep their unique feel, which they somewhat lost with their replication mechanic being scaled back.

[Entrenched Homperson]

Yay! I come back to the forums and we are talking schredders! My first thought is that Zenith Reserves are now useless.

My second thought was that schredders werent as overpowered as we thought. 1400 schredders is a powerful force, but it didn't win the game. Now, from my perspective, I just lost a useful tool to nerfing. Schredders didn't win games. They helped....

Ah, what am I saying. YAY, shredders where finally nerfed. Lol. Next, Autobombs... muahahhaha!

[keith.lamothe]

Ah, what am I saying. YAY, shredders where finally nerfed. Lol. Next, Autobombs... muahahhaha!

Autobombs were already nerfed pretty massively a while ago, from having infinite-aoe to having finite-target-aoe, among some other changes.  They're still pretty powerful but I don't think overly so.  If anything they and nanoswarms are somewhat OP vs the AI because the AI doesn't do a very good job of handling them; i.e. often it should probably just ignore them rather than keep trying to chase and shoot them.  Just go shoot important things instead   But I like the level of "disorganization" I can inflict on the AI forces by just sending a never-ending stream of nanoswarms (and autobombs, if I have those too) through a wormhole at one of their planets

[Entrenched Homperson]

Really? In the games I've played Nanoswarms have been really underwhelming. From what I've seen, Autobombs are pound for pound the most powerful bonus ship type in the game. Without a doubt. They can stop Neinzul in their tracks and with proper engie/dock support double the staying power of triangle ships. But this might come from the fact I haven't played a game with less then 3 players for quite some time, and mostly with 4 or 5.  Balance is HUGELY wonky past three players. The comp has maybe a 30% chance of getting an uncounterable ship type at the wave sizes they send first wave. Like 900 triangle ships first wave around 5 minutes, plus bonus ship types. We try and stack at least 7-10 shields on the targeted CCs but if they have bombers or something which ignores shields there is very little chance of survival. This is at 7 difficulty. We really need best case scenarios to advance to midgame, where we generaly procede to conquer the universe till 4 in the morning.

That's probably. Why I see things overpowered in SP as fair. At higher dificulties game breaking becomes barely surviving, you know?