Patch: February 15th, balance adjustments

[lamster]

================================================== ===============
February 15th, 2013

Miranda (All Forms) - teleport damage reduced by 25% (88 -> 66)
Miranda (Laser) - decreased beam length by 5% (276 -> 262)
Miranda (Laser) - ammo no longer regenerates while beam is active (previously regenerated at 50% normal rate)
Miranda (Time Anchor) - (all modes) - when carrying the bomb or ball the time anchor's maximum length decreases by 35% over 7 seconds (previously 42% in TBD, 0% in BALL)

Loopy (Tracker, Double Fire) - increased EMP cooldown by 40% (1.25 -> 1.75)
Loopy (Acid Bomb) - increased debuff duration by 17% (3.0 -> 3.5, total damage over time unchanged)

Explodet (Remote Mine) - reduced blast damage by 10% (88 -> 80)

Biplane (All Forms) - improved acceleration by 3%

Bomber (All Forms) - increased turning rate by 1.5% (6.8 -> 6.9)
Bomber (All Forms) - increased top speed by 1% (9.0 -> 9.1)

Reverse Thrust - increased acceleration by 10%

Adjusted bomb and ball carry speed multipliers and ball ejection speeds. Heavier planes now suffer smaller speed penalties when carrying the objective and eject the ball faster.

bomb-carry ball-carry ball-eject
new (old) new (old) new (old)
Explodet .99 (.87) .99 (.94) 23.0 (18.5)
Bomber .99 (.87) .99 (.94) 23.0 (18.5)
Biplane .95 (.85) .95 (.86) 19.0 (17.2)
Loopy .91 (.82) .76 (.78) 14.5 (14.5)
Miranda .86 (.86) .80 (.88) 16.8 (16.8)

Fixed a few bugs

As always, feedback is appreciated. This patch contains several major balance changes that may require further adjustments.

[Tekn0]

First!!

Thanks for the update lam!

[mikesol]

As a reminder - we will be tweaking this if they're too bad. Don't all get up in arms with pitchforks over nothing ;P

[ObeighsNo0ne]

Let's see how it works out!! Should be interesting

[A Nipple]

gogogogo



CHrhrhh` CHAR

[zz-]

Wowowowow this looks awesome. Hope it all works out and im excited to see that you're ready to keep tweaking it if something is off.

Stuff like the bomber turning and topspeed we really forgot to mention, though i havent read all threads. Very nice ideas and thanks all around, I agree with basically 100% of the updates

[classicallad]

We? Mike is on the payroll now?

Also, thanks for the update =)

[Hollywood]

Originally Posted by lamster

Bomber (All Forms) - increased turning rate by 1.5% (6.8 -> 6.9)
Bomber (All Forms) - increased top speed by 1% (9.0 -> 9.1)

What bomber might be viable again. <3

[TwistedCookie]

TA netf is too harsh imo.

[CmdrNoval]

Major kudos for bringing back Bomber turning rate!

This may finally bring Bomber back from "too slow to be truly competitive" land...

[Winters Ark]

So Dragon and I did some tests to see how Trick does without Ace and with Ace. I'll only post the without Ace results.

HA Loopy: You need two pews to kill a HA Loopy with 0 bars. It'll take a silvers to kill it with one pew. Golds will one-shot.

Bomber without HA: You need two pews for most bars. You'll always need at least one pew to kill.

Biplane: You will need two pews until you get into high silvers. You'll always need at least one pew to kill.

Whale: You will need three pews until you get into silvers. You'll always need at least two pews to kill.

HA Miranda: You need two pews until you get into silvers. From then on you'll need one pew until you get into golds.

[.:leopluradon.::.GrApe:.]

Thank YOU!

[mikesol]

Originally Posted by classicallad

We? Mike is on the payroll now?

Also, thanks for the update =)

I wish -- just help out with ideas ;P

[blln4lyf]

Looks like good updates to me for the most part, I'll give more thoughts once I play some time. Thanks!

[lxyao]

this is fantastic. i just tested laser out and it is certainly harder to use the laser+warp combo without getting killed.

[Fartface]

Thanks a lot lam!!! These look like great edits, look forward to testing more!
Am sad about remote nerf though =(

[Slender]

I will actually have intercourse with bomber again. Thanks a lot Lam!

[soccernamlak]

My personal thoughts:

Miranda (All Forms) - teleport damage reduced by 25% (88 -> 66)

I can tell that the reduction is there, but it hasn't impacted my playing style with randa that much.

Miranda (Laser) - decreased beam length by 5% (276 -> 262)

Again, playing in ball today, I didn't notice any major issue here. However, where this really needs to be put to the test (along with the teleport reduction and ammo reduction) is in TBD.

Miranda (Laser) - ammo no longer regenerates while beam is active (previously regenerated at 50% normal rate)

This is noticeable; however, I think it's a fair nerf.

Miranda (Time Anchor) - (all modes) - when carrying the bomb or ball the time anchor's maximum length decreases by 35% over 7 seconds (previously 42% in TBD, 0% in BALL)

Eh, I think that in ball a good number of randas are ball running that long anyway. It's too quick of a game for it to be a major impact I think. Add that any release of the ball (even as a self-pass) results in a timer reset means that it helps TBD bomb runners a bit, but isn't a strong impact in ball. Something zz mentioned in game was just get rid of the timer, but just shorten the TA length across the board.

Loopy (Tracker, Double Fire) - increased EMP cooldown by 40% (1.25 -> 1.75)

I think this is too much. I can understand the whole "emp spam" complaint, but a 40% cooldown is a huge impact. Even if you think you've waited long enough to re-emp, you haven't (as I found out many times tonight).

While I can understand the complaints about emp spam, I think it should be closer to 1.50.

Loopy (Acid Bomb) - increased debuff duration by 17% (3.0 -> 3.5, total damage over time unchanged)

I like this. Combined with the fact that you can still spam acid with this duration, it makes it more potent as a loopy.

Explodet (Remote Mine) - reduced blast damage by 10% (88 -> 80)

Trying this out, I didn't see any major impact. DMCM said the same thing earlier tonight. I'm indifferent here.

Biplane (All Forms) - improved acceleration by 3%

I think that this, combined with the increase in ball carry speed multipliers not only makes biplanes powerful, I actually think it's a bit too much. I understand the desire to bring back biplane into the picture in SL team setups. This will do it, but I think at the expense of being too OP.

Bomber (All Forms) - increased turning rate by 1.5% (6.8 -> 6.9)
Bomber (All Forms) - increased top speed by 1% (9.0 -> 9.1)

I think the bomber's issues in this update are more below than here. These two forms are slight, but welcome changes.

Reverse Thrust - increased acceleration by 10%

You have doomed us all in ladder lamster.

Adjusted bomb and ball carry speed multipliers and ball ejection speeds. Heavier planes now suffer smaller speed penalties when carrying the objective and eject the ball faster.

bomb-carry ball-carry ball-eject
new (old) new (old) new (old)
Explodet .99 (.87) .99 (.94) 23.0 (18.5)
Bomber .99 (.87) .99 (.94) 23.0 (18.5)
Biplane .95 (.85) .95 (.86) 19.0 (17.2)
Loopy .91 (.82) .76 (.78) 14.5 (14.5)
Miranda .86 (.86) .80 (.88) 16.8 (16.8)

Ball'n and I had a discussion about this. One thing he mentioned was that for the loopy and miranda the ball is heavier than the bomb. We both feel that it should be opposite. Bomb running is suppose to slow you down. TBD isn't suppose to be a fast paced (or as fast as ball) game. It's suppose to be the combination of agility, speed, and skill. While I think we need a few TBD games to test this out, I do think this will cause a slight if not larger shift in play style in TBD.

Regarding the value changes, I'm not sure why the loopy and miranda both got heavily nerved in the ball carrying department regarding speed multipliers. They, along with the biplane, are the typical ball runners. That's what they are designed to do. To nerf these (especially miranda) makes them less likely to be viable on the offensive line. Which would normally be fine, but biplane got bumped up 9%.

Combine the lesser impact on carrying the ball, the increased ball ejected, the increase speed....you hopefully see why a few of us think that biplane might be a bit too overpowered with this update at the expense of the other lights.

Regarding the ball speed ejecting speeds, good gosh the heavies can fire the ball now. In Asteroids as a bomber I was able to fire essentially rockets past 2-3 defenders because they couldn't move fast enough to block it. This is great for both offense and defense, but I think it makes them a bit over-powered, especially with bomber getting it's other tweaks. I think a reduction to 20.0 or even 21.0 would be better.


In Summary:

• Loopy's emp and ball carrying got nerfed too much, while bomb carrying bot buffed too much.
• Biplane became too OP overnight. Increased speed, decrease impact from ball carrying, and faster shots throw any sort of balance from the other planes out of whack again.
• Whale might have too fast of a ball eject speed, but everything else is fine.
• Bomber became more OP as well. It's top speed increase, turning rate, speed with ball, and ball ejection speed make it as powerful as the biplane
• Miranda got hit bad in all areas, some needed others by too much.

From my first night of playing this in ball mode, I think that while this is a good start, things need to be tweaked, as instead of balancing, this has just shifted the balance in favor of other planes now at the expense of the prior kings of altitude.

ALSO, I'm not a particular fan of doing this in the middle of SL. Yes I understand this needed to be fixed. Yes it's been 10 months since the last update and another month before SL ends. Yes I understand developer's schedules and league schedules don't always align. It's just a bit unfortunate.

Fixed a few bugs

Bugs give a game character. Please revert back. Thank you for your time.

[blln4lyf]

Originally Posted by soccernamlak

In Summary:

• Loopy's emp and ball carrying got nerfed too much, while bomb carrying bot buffed too much.
• Biplane became too OP overnight. Increased speed, decrease impact from ball carrying, and faster shots throw any sort of balance from the other planes out of whack again.
• Whale might have too fast of a ball eject speed, but everything else is fine.
• Bomber became more OP as well. It's top speed increase, turning rate, speed with ball, and ball ejection speed make it as powerful as the biplane
• Miranda got hit bad in all areas, some needed others by too much.

From my first night of playing this in ball mode, I think that while this is a good start, things need to be tweaked, as instead of balancing, this has just shifted the balance in favor of other planes now at the expense of the prior kings of altitude.

My thoughts on your thoughts:

• Loopy is fine. EMP can still hold a constant EMP on a plane and punishes missed EMP's more.
• Biplane is absolutely too fast with the ball & bomb. The increased acceleration is very noticeable and 95% speed with ball/bomb is too high. The plane can simply fly to the goal to quickly in both modes. Combined it is way to much.
• Whale/bomber can throw the ball too hard, it is way to easy to clear/throw it past everyone. I love the increased speed with ball as it makes them more offensive. I'd suggest putting the throw speed back to where they were personally as with the increased speed it is making the game mode too fast and even less about killing(since you need to play the lane even more to have a chance at scooping the faster throw).
• I think bomber is fine. I think if the ball throws are put back to where they were, maybe bomber turn ratio can go to 7.0. 6.9 might be fine though.
• Randa seems ok. Only thing is losing speed with ball while others gained speed seems a bit drastic. I think 0.86 like in TBD would be ideal. I'll also suggest a constant 30% nerf to Ta, not a 7 second timer as it is very easy to reset in ball and limit its effect. I would personally make the lazer length decrease more than 5%.
• I do not like the bomb speeds at all, makes the game much more about exploiting positioning as a runner and less about overall team strategy. Biplane/loopy are especially way to fast with the bomb.
• I would also like to point out that these changes have made both modes have shorter games. With this and faster throws the mouse aiming is even more important than it was. Please implement a balance for the user controls.

[listie]

The only plane that needs a debuff is the bomber, it does WAY too much damage. It's 100% clear that the people making these so called "balance" changes do not actually PLAY the game.

[listie]

Apparently you don't seem to understand that you are screwing over everyone's playing style by making these HUGE adjustments.

Why are you going from 0% in some things to a 35% or 40%?

With miranda, the warp change of 25% hugely changes playing style, as well as the decrease in laser length. Most laser players innately know the length of their laser, now you have broken all their instincts...thanks for that.

Maybe next time you should consider beta testing changes or something of that nature before you just blindly increase things by 40% or vice versa.

[listie]

If you can explain WHY you made each change, I'd be much more inclined to accept these changes.

When you just blindly change things and don't explain why you are doing this, it's really quite aggravating.

So next update perhaps include some Revision notes/etc.. explaining why each "balance" change was made.

[Hollywood]

@The buff to bombers turning, and speed.

The bomber is fine. It deserves what it got, maybe not the high passing values, but everything else was key. The speed got a 0.1 value to balance out its 0.1 less value in turning. Which was genius as giving up 0.1 turning for speed helps it to open more doors for offensive play. Which might I add has been dead in ball as bomber. It is only viable in TBD because the plays don't instantly move from one side of the map to the other.

As it stands 7.0 value the bomber had for its turning rate, was too high. I know no one knows why bombers turning was nerfed in the first place, but I think the devs wanted people to actually want to use flexi? I mean no matter what the devs did, no serious bomber was going to want to use flexi over HA or Repair.

I strongly believe 6.9 is perfect. I can now react as fast as my hands want them too, rather than feeling like a whale with nades. Thanks devs.

Edit: Yes, the passing values that were given to bomber, are too high.

Edit2: Bip is way too strong with the ball now. As it stands, you no longer need Flexi on a bip. HA has crazy turning and I have no idea why. Maybe it is just me.

[zz-]

^ the anger begins

Ball Impressions: (Only played a little TBD, biplane points below apply, didn't play enough to comment about much else)

My first impressions match those above me from soccer and balln. Biplane is just too fast w/ the ball, especially for how small it is and how much armor it has, breakaways all night long, especially with everyone's throw speed increased. Biplane was already the 3rd best baller and in some situations 1st or 2nd best, and it received by far the most enormous overall speed boost with the 3% accel (very noticeable and honestly feels nice, I like it) but maintaining 95% of speed with the ball and bomb is way too fast. Add that to the fact that the previous 2 faster balling planes both received speed nerfs.

I also agree that the bomber and whale throw is too fast. Only a very small increase was needed from their old one.

Increase bomber turning rate a tiny bit more. If some of the speed boosts from this patch are staying, bomber cant stay so slow and keep up, especially if the carrying speed or throw is slowed down.

With the exception of biplane, the planes actually seem more balanced than before -- all planes are viable, and while killing in droves doesnt happen as much anymore, the ball moves so quickly that each kill is more important as it frees up a ton of space.

Basically, a tooon of things got speed boosts that outweigh how much randa got slowed down, and everything added together to be too much speed at once. I honestly do kinda like the faster pace, but I think its just a little too much as literally every game in dojo for hours was like 6 mins or less with pretty decent lineups. EMP being weakened speeds every player on the field up too.

However this is a big step in the right direction imo as every plane is viable and closer to equal now and all have closer possibilities for contributing to the team (with exception of bip.) The above just need to be scaled back a tad so everyone can get to their positions more quickly before ball has crossed the whole field.

[sunshineduck]

dont really play acid but acid burning faster than hp pickups regend was pretty crucial i thought.. is that still a thing with the new timer?

[ryebone]

Not quite sure if the acid change was a buff or a nerf. On one hand, it's DPS is lowered. On the other, it benefits teammates more who now have more time to get easy kills. My guess is that the change was to force a more "team-oriented" for acid loopy. If so, I think it's working.

[Xorg]

Originally Posted by lamster

Bomber (All Forms) - increased turning rate by 1.5% (6.8 -> 6.9)
Bomber (All Forms) - increased top speed by 1% (9.0 -> 9.1)

Thank you, lam

[lamster]

Follow-up patch now live:

Miranda - ball carry speed increased from .80 to .83
Loopy - ball carry speed increased from .76 to .78
Loopy - bomb carry speed decreased from .91 to .86
Biplane - bomb carry speed decreased from .95 to .88
Biplane - ball carry speed decreased from .95 to .88
Biplane - ball ejection speed decreased from 19.0 to 18.0
Bomber - ball carry speed decreased from 0.99 to 0.98
Bomber - ball ejection speed decreased from 23.0 to 20.0
Explodet - ball ejection speed decreased from 23.0 to 21.0

Miranda - Time Anchor length now slowly increases rather than resetting instantly when the objective is dropped

[vintage]

Thanks for the updates, Nimbly!

Still early in play testing, but I personally like most of the changes. The biplane and bomber feel smoother, the emp and laser needed nerfing a bit, and things like reduced warp damage and remote mine are noticeable but not effecting how I play the plane.

As for bomb-carry (I don't really play ball) the biplane seems OP (like woah) and I'm still trying to figure out if I like the fact that my bomber now doesn't loose any speed when picking up the bomb... time will tell, but I think I like it.

Oh, and @listie: Take it easy. The people making the changes do play the game (or at least get tons of feedback from those that play) and they've already stated they are going to keep tweaking in case they messed up. I would agree that explaining why changes were made would make sense, but it seems rather obvious if you've been playing for a while, so I'm guessing that's why lam didn't bother.

EDIT: And _now_ I'm getting the new patch, so pretend this post came like an hour earlier. >_<

[wuwu]

wht do you want from my explodet ..

why u make remote so bad ever since 2009 why why..

[Mr Nice]

Hello!

I would just want to thank you all that has been working on this patch, great work!
But i have one small question, how come the whale has 10 % less remote damage? (I am a remote user)

[Flight 666]

40% cooldown on EMP? It is just too much.

[Slender]

Originally Posted by Flight 666

40% cooldown on EMP? It is just well deserved.

Fixed chars

[JWhatever]

The loopy - biplane match up seems really harsh atm. With the increase in acceleration, bips can stall way more effectively than loopy (and before) because they can recover from it so easily. This combined with the extended cool down of EMP and biplanes resistance to EMP is too much.

If the EMP cd isn't touched, I'd request removal of the EMP resistance.

Also, the higher ball eject speeds will make it even harder to play with a laggy player. Passing in open area isn't much harder but intercepting passes and blocking goals were already hard before the patch.

Can you update the op with the new eject speeds?

-J

[LewisH]

The emp cooldown is too high in my opinion.
It's kind of annoying in ball, but my main concern is in coop maps.
The buff makes it impossible to circle and emp turrets every turn, making some maps near impossible, and everything else much harder. I understand the nerf COMPLETELY in ball, tbd, and even 1dm, it's a little too high for my liking, but i can live with it. it's not ok in coop though.

I know coop's a very minor game mode, but i would appreciate this being fixed, maybe just a cooldown reduction on maps with a _coop tag?

Also, I love the acid and rev buffs *evil grin*
Thanks lam!

[Cracker]

Originally Posted by LewisH

I know coop's a very minor game mode, but i would appreciate this being fixed, maybe just a cooldown reduction on maps with a _coop tag?

+1 to this, some coop maps became unplayable now. Also in general, 40% seems a bit too much, its the biggest nerf yet it wasnt the most op plane. Maybe try the cd in the range of 1.50-1.60?

[lemon]

I like emp nerf. It feels much more fun to play loopy now as you have to be so careful with your emps.

[A Nipple]

all seems good, the EMP nerf seems a little much maybe bring it down to 25% - 30% instead of 40% IMO. seems like a thoroughly considered balance on the whole! ty

nipnip

[banana]

So many people insta-complaining instead of seeing how they and others adapt to these pretty major changes over the next few days and then providing feedback.

[elusive_one]

This emp nerf has me shooting blanks constantly =\ Maybe dial it back to 1.5?