Re: What do you think of the balance: MULTIPLAYER?

[Jameswgm]

I played MP for the first time today, and to be honest I was quite impressed. An intelligent human player provides a much greater challenge than the clearly gash AI, which contributes extensively to the the game's flaws. The land battles were actually intense and involved strategy, a complete reversal of the SP land battles.

 

What was clearly evident was the Empire's dominance of heroes. Vader and Palpatine absolutely trounce non-force using rebel heroes, and both can beat Obi-Wan in a duel (V. Cool BTW).

But I felt that units like the MPTL and Plex Soldiers gave the Rebels an advantage over the Imperial basic units that restored the balance, creating a more asymetric balance which was a change from seemingly linear matching of every unit type seen in some RTS's.

 

So far so good, but with a little more work on connectivity and gameplay it could be a great MP experience. I would much like to see a Fleet engagement battle: that does not feature stations, fought with user chosen ships. However this may require development of slightly larger maps so they do not degenerate into mere slugfest.

 

James.

[Delphi-PG]

Thanks!

 

So far so good, but with a little more work on connectivity and gameplay it could be a great MP experience.

 

 

We're working on it. Expect to see more patches soon.  =)

[Sven]

Ok, Delphi, then you should change the behaviour of the AI in terms of producing lots of 'rubbish' units.

What I mean is:

I played GM yesterday and, with a Spacestation Level 4 in planetary orbit, the AI kept producing Tartans en masse and no other type of unit. I allowed the AI to produce 28 Tartans before I went to take over the planet and I was wondering why no Acclamator or any other ship was present...

[Captain Data]

Dito. AI seems to be a little boring sometimes. A suggestion for a good Idea will be posted in another thread, but this one is about MP-Balance.

[Jameswgm]

Agreed Capt. Data, SP gameplay has its own thread. Keep this to MP.

 

Glad to hear it Delphi, I look forward to seeing further developments!

 

James.

[Little.B]

Yeah. I have a nice screenshot with a fleet of round about 100 Gallofree Transports "guarding" a space station. This was hard work tto destroy them because they retreted when I destroyed one or two of them... (screens follow if I find them )

But balance seems about to be fine right now but this needs further testing.

 

Oh, and dont forget the invisible units

 

http://img382.imageshack.us/img382/8638/invis6kk.th.jpg

[jedi mike]

I think balance is well done, in my opinion the rebels have the advantage at the beginning.Meaning they have better starting units. But towards the end the empire gets the big guns IE star destroyers and walkers but, Ive one with both and i like the balance neither is overpowered, whoever is the best player will win regardless.

[Popcorn2008]

Little B. I ran into the same disapearing ship problem lol. I posted about it in the issues section, annoying isnt it?  ;D

 

I think balance is pretty good, though I to would like to see the AI build at-ats or something big.

 

EDIT: Forgot to mention petro you guys should really increase the power of the Hyper Velocity cannon. As of now the Ion Cannon out powers it a ton! I mean the hyper cannon cant even kill an assault frigate in one hit, sure it may damage it, but an ion cannon drops shields and makes it un movable. Also the ion cannon can be deadly when attacking a space station because it can drop the shields just like that, when the hypervelocity cannon doesnt even kill a single hardpoint on a lvl 5!

Edited February 27, 2006 by Popcorn2008

[Spiralarchitech]

Sorry but im a bit confused how do you attack an enemy space station with the ion cannon?

 

To have an ion cannon do you not need control of the planet which means you control the space anyhows!

[MastaSpoofa]

its called multiplayer.... this is a multiplayer Topic, not singleplayer. Think multiplayer....  ion cannon can be built in multiplayer. Either increase hypervelocity cannon damage, or decrease the creation speed.

[Jameswgm]

Yeh I think thats a fair point about the HV gun. The ion cannon is so much more effective. Needs either increased power or decrease in price/ quicker build time?

 

James

[Foshjedi2004]

Playing an MP game with Ghostly we used the HV gun about 5 or 6 times on the enemy station and nothing happened....Is it missing the target or just utterly rubbish compared to the images we saw on Lucas Arts?

[Little.B]

Yeh I think thats a fair point about the HV gun. The ion cannon is so much more effective. Needs either increased power or decrease in price/ quicker build time?

Yeah. The problem here is that, as you said, the ion canon is much more effective then the HV. I do not use the HV in the end it's a waste of money /imho. But the problem is: If you strengthen the HV it would be to easy to destroy the rebel space station. Just take some TIEs or smaller units, fly to the space station and fire the HV. Repeat until the station is done. Perhaps the HV should be stronger but not able to fire on the enemy space station. I could live with this. Or players should be able to repair the hardpoints. Just like you can build mines and satellites you could repait your station but what should cost a lot and should take a long time. Then the HV should be able to take out hard-points. So you can harras but cannot defeat the enemy this way.

 

Mh. Okay, confusing sentences but I hope you get the point

[MastaSpoofa]

Yeah. The problem here is that, as you said, the ion canon is much more effective then the HV. I do not use the HV in the end it's a waste of money /imho. But the problem is: If you strengthen the HV it would be to easy to destroy the rebel space station. Just take some TIEs or smaller units, fly to the space station and fire the HV. Repeat until the station is done. Perhaps the HV should be stronger but not able to fire on the enemy space station. I could live with this. Or players should be able to repair the hardpoints. Just like you can build mines and satellites you could repait your station but what should cost a lot and should take a long time. Then the HV should be able to take out hard-points. So you can harras but cannot defeat the enemy this way.

 

Mh. Okay, confusing sentences but I hope you get the point

 

but if you fire on the space station... you damage the hardpoints... and damaging the hardpoints..... basically "damages" the space station... so......... your saying....... you can fire and damage the space station with the HV? lol?

[Darksythe]

Playing an MP game with Ghostly we used the HV gun about 5 or 6 times on the enemy station and nothing happened....Is it missing the target or just utterly rubbish compared to the images we saw on Lucas Arts?

 

lol Its rubish compared to the ion cannon, imo Imps should also get Ion cannon dont see why not, but Hypervalocity can do good dmg against enemy capitol ship though far to expensive and waistful to use on it as it only dmgs it around 45% hull dmg.

[Jameswgm]

I think the Ion Cannon is very overpowered, I think unmodified it does 45000 damage to the shields, when the basic shields of an SD is around 2000. Shoot an SD and it basically taken out of the game.

Though not destroyed, by the time you get to producing SD's it should be near the climax anyway. The time they are disabled is something an empire player doesn't have: It takes up valuable population points!

 

James.

[Little.B]

but if you fire on the space station... you damage the hardpoints... and damaging the hardpoints..... basically "damages" the space station... so......... your saying....... you can fire and damage the space station with the HV? lol?

 

what?

And I thought my sentences would be confusing  :

 

btw:

 

http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/8172/sweaw20060211235021933of.th.jpg

[hellangel666]

that doesn't beat my 356+ transports and over a cupple thousand ships left the game on auto run over night to see what ai would do. i lagged so bad i had to quit the game cause it froze. and the campain was OVER! (couldn't even get past hypro jump into space battle )

[MistenTH]

Space multiplayer has one problem.  Frigates have horrible accuracy against capital ships.  Meaning that if you have no capital ships of your own, and the enemy capital ships have anti-fighter support to kill bombers, you're screwed even if you have 100 frigates.

[NOT Hadoken13]

what frigate?

cuz i haven't noticed this at all :-\

[Spiralarchitech]

Space multiplayer has one problem.  Frigates have horrible accuracy against capital ships.  Meaning that if you have no capital ships of your own, and the enemy capital ships have anti-fighter support to kill bombers, you're screwed even if you have 100 frigates.

 

At the last dev chat i asked what they based the space combat on, they replyed they based it on naval combat ie. battleships/destroyers so on (i tend to think its a cross between early 20th century naval combat with battleships and so on mixed with modern missle technology)

 

Frigates do not have horrible accuracy their weapons are just weak vs capital ships, its like if the royal navy in ww2 had sent 100 destroyers (instead of the hood/prince of wales) to hunt the bismark with its huge guns it would have hammered every single one before they even got in range and even if they did get in range their guns would have took ages to do any significant damage to it.

[The_talented]

in regards to the HV cannon, i think its a little more useful than you all make it out to be, sure the ion cannon takes out sheilds completely, and but only disables some of this ships systems.  waht you guys want for the HV cannon is for it to COMPLETELY destroy a capital ship... if it did that you would be whining about the HVC being too overpowered and start vouching for the real effects of the ion cannon(enough shots woud play enough haywire with the ship systems that it would trigger self destruct or the ship would just deteriorate) or maybe you want the ion cannon downplayed a bit(first shot takes out sheilds, second shot renders the ship almost useless)?

[Teradyn_pff]

The Imperial accuracy across the board for every unit is way off.  The Rebels have about 80% accuracy to the Imperial's 20-30%.  How exactly would this be the case with a military that has been around and been trained professionally, not to mention having direct access to the most advanced targetting and military hardware in the entire galaxy?  I would love to hear how the Devs explain this one.

 

And the AT-AT is not on par with the T4B tank, as the power of the shields/hull/weapon as well as the maneuverability is sub standard compaired to the T4B tanks versatility, power, shielding, maneuverability and weapons.  Take a force of 3 groups (12) T4B tanks against 3 groups (3) AT-ATs and see who wins, consider the cost of the T4B Tanks and their speed over the battle ground and their ability to take on troops with thier missle option.  As a matter of fact, run your T4B tanks behind the AT-ATs really quick and pummel them while they try to turn around (and sometimes get stuck in a dance move right foot steps in, right foot steps out, right foot steps in, etc).  Given the maneuverability of the AT-AT, it should kill 2 T4B tanks in the time it takes the T4B tanks to get from the AT-ATs max range up to the AT-AT themselves.  This makes sense when you think of the cheap plex soldiers that can destroy an AT-AT 1 group per AT-AT.

 

Hah, balanced?  I don't think so.

[Spiralarchitech]

I agree, okay we can't really improve on the manouverability but i seriously think the damage needs increased.

 

This is the empire's most powerful land vehicle it should decimate opposing units and i mean decimate.

 

As it is the AT-AT is a novelty you would be better to spend your money on 2 squads (4+4= AT-ST's that can destroy 3 T-4B's (a single AT-AT will get owned by 3 T-4B's)

 

So what if it can deploy storm troopers has anyone noticed than other than capturing imperial storm troopers are pretty much useless and are crap compared with the rebellion soldier.

 

Only Veers AT-AT is really worth using and at 4000 its a very expensive toy, okay his special is good it can take out any unit/building in the game, but its a bit expensive i mean 4000 ??? with 4000 i could spend that on any number of units that could do veers job quicker and with less hassle.

[The_talented]

ok ok... the rebels have definite accuracy leverage over the imps... but the imps have a massive power advantage. so when the laser of the unit(any unit) hits, it will deal more damage..... and to the at-at t4b tank thing, i kinda agree there is a bit of a power struggle leaning  towards the t4b..... i do beleive that the rebs have a definite ground superiority problem that needs to be addressed