Let's take a deep look into weapons variety and balance.

[Blitzwing]

Let's take a deep look into weapons variety and balance.



I did just make a list here of weapons for Heavy vehicles and their difference.
https://imgur.com/a/bYiUN


Almost all weapons have like same range 900.

damage
Cannon 12
Artillery 12 / range 1500
Missile 42
Glue Cannon 0
Laser cannon 14
Fusion beam 6
Plasma cannon 12
Proton Artillery 9 / range 1800
Twin Flame 8 /rage 500
Dragon 10


So considering even x2 bonus damage, Rocket/Missile Tanks are obviously stronger than Normal Tanks, you have by start of the game.


You don't need to be a math genius to see the huge imbalance between the low and high tier players. You don't need to be a math genius to see that certain weapons are completely useless.


With Armour update that are 330 hit points by each tank
You don't need to be a math genius to see that, "Except for the rocket tank"
even if damage is doubled it requires by all weapons more than 10 hits to kill a unit.




I don't think that its possible to fix low tier Tech vs high tier Tech.
And the Entire source for the Blob problem is quite obvious.
And the reason why people don't have the feeling for weapon variety.


Without the unlocking system, you could try out to make weapons more differently.
And give them proper range, cost and firepower.


Another big problem I did see, is that certain tech does give you really huge advance vs low tier players. for example I can add to HQ update that my power generator do give twice as much energy, so you can build faster and cheaper.

I did the entire time vs low level people simply win by faster and cheaper having access to better weapons.

[Blitzwing]

I think the problem is this, you dont have certain tech,

in old C&C games crush troopers was a default ability of Tanks
this mean you can't simply send out a huge group of troopers, fast tier 1 tanks will drive over it.
In this game it need a too high tier Tech and the update makes them slower.

Another Thing, C&C had better anti blob weapons.
like 1996 Demolition truck in Ra1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktAwVmCWcrw

[This PC]

I don't really understand OP's point. You're basically saying that a tech you can buy after one match roflpwns any other weapon in the game. How is that grinding to be op ? Also the fusion power upgrade ? Maybe 5-6 matches ? How is that high tier > low tier ?

The lower tiers give you what you need to be successful, the higher tiers give you customization and specialization options.

Also like, in this post, you're saying missiles are unbalanced, in another post running *right now* someone says lasers are unbalanced. Kinda shows you that both arguments are probably wrong and people just need to adapt to it.

I do agree though that this game lacks blob counters. Superweapons *can work* but don't most of the time. I think bombers would be a great candidate for it as they run greater risks b/c they have to position themselves over the enemies.

[TGHoly]

Even developer manage to design low tier part powerful enough to counter every tier higher but in term of player psychological would still assume th game is unfair anyway by the fact highter tier player can access more option than them even 90% of those options is useless and no one can change such mindset.

[Blitzwing]

Originally posted by jdtuggey:

I don't really understand OP's point. You're basically saying that a tech you can buy after one match roflpwns any other weapon in the game. How is that grinding to be op ? Also the fusion power upgrade ? Maybe 5-6 matches ? How is that high tier > low tier ?

The lower tiers give you what you need to be successful, the higher tiers give you customization and specialization options.

Also like, in this post, you're saying missiles are unbalanced, in another post running *right now* someone says lasers are unbalanced. Kinda shows you that both arguments are probably wrong and people just need to adapt to it.

I do agree though that this game lacks blob counters. Superweapons *can work* but don't most of the time. I think bombers would be a great candidate for it as they run greater risks b/c they have to position themselves over the enemies.

Problem is cannon as first weapon does just do 12 damage,
laser does 14 damage and has better bonuses, same goes for missile with 42.

Originally posted by TGHoly:

Even developer manage to design low tier part powerful enough to counter every tier higher but in term of player psychological would still assume th game is unfair anyway by the fact highter tier player can access more option than them even 90% of those options is useless and no one can change such mindset.

+1

While it takes just 30 hour to full unlock the tech tree and weapons are similar,
we should not forget how people feel about it.

Its like with Thor Mech by Starcraft2, that was designed by C&C developers to appeal wider audience, but Starcraft2 players didn't want to use it.
I still remember how much people did complain about his size, so blizzard did reduce it.

Facts and feelings are not the same, but in the end people do trust their feelings not facts.

[Retard mangudai spammers]

only problem with tech that comm center unlocks almost every weapon variety, thus reducing use of lots of units, in most basic way we will never see mg buggy used in a game while you can easily get laser, plasma, proton etc.

And currently weapons unbalanced, hope it gets fixed soon.

[mars_yu_tw]

all units attack range are 900
that's unreasonable................
and we need more bigger map than 8-bit armies 4v4

[OgGiUs]

Originally posted by ＸＲＰ　ＷＩＬＬ　Ｍ:

only problem with tech that comm center unlocks almost every weapon variety, thus reducing use of lots of units, in most basic way we will never see mg buggy used in a game while you can easily get laser, plasma, proton etc.

And its sad :( Agree with that

[MorganaMaleficaVera]

I feel that heavy armour should also come with downsides; at the moment, the increased cost is so paltry that you'd be silly not to give all your units heavy armour.
It should at least drop movement speed down a tick, even if just by 50 or something.

The ultimate goal should be to make every weapon choice valid, and to not enforce a rigid meta. The basic cannon you get at the start should be something you feel comfortable using in your army even after unlocking plasma, which seems on the surface to be objectively better. Either in cost, or in speed, or both.

[TGHoly]

Its like with Thor Mech by Starcraft2, that was designed by C&C developers to appeal wider audience, but Starcraft2 players didn't want to use it.

I dont think SC player though about visual design of Thor but should be more functional reason compare to it predecessor like Goliath.

at early stage (maybe beta I can't remember) player complain about how clumsy it is also his ability also consider more like gimmick than practical the price and supply it take equal to 2 Goliath dump into one large unit and since they're low in number on the field losing one of it consider to be critical blow to an army (Which more like Protoss style than Terran IMO), Thor AA missile in early version also damage single target make him quite unrelyable vesus mass muta unit that he suppose to counter Blizzard change how he function several time to the point Thor WOL and LOTV would consider different unit....

Before HotS you might heard about Terran about to get "Warhound" to replace him but he end up become Hard counter protoss (entire race) they scrap idea and remove that unit after single test without even try to balance it XD.

but not deny their attemp to put C&c element into starcraft end up ruin starcraft2 it self and we got unit like Thor something worse like Mother ship...

[Charlando[SunsOfStmChrts]]

Originally posted by TGHoly:

Even developer manage to design low tier part powerful enough to counter every tier higher but in term of player psychological would still assume th game is unfair anyway by the fact highter tier player can access more option than them even 90% of those options is useless and no one can change such mindset.

Yeah I think this is just as much of a problem

[jonoliveira12]

Originally posted by TGHoly:

Even developer manage to design low tier part powerful enough to counter every tier higher but in term of player psychological would still assume th game is unfair anyway by the fact highter tier player can access more option than them even 90% of those options is useless and no one can change such mindset.

Higher options are not useless, they allow for specialization (Flamers are better than Machineguns against infantry, for example), or complementary (Proton weapons go very well with Missiles, Cannons, Mortars and Machineguns; same as Glue with Flamers).

[jonoliveira12]

Originally posted by TGHoly:

Its like with Thor Mech by Starcraft2, that was designed by C&C developers to appeal wider audience, but Starcraft2 players didn't want to use it.

I dont think SC player though about visual design of Thor but should be more functional reason compare to it predecessor like Goliath.

at early stage (maybe beta I can't remember) player complain about how clumsy it is also his ability also consider more like gimmick than practical the price and supply it take equal to 2 Goliath dump into one large unit and since they're low in number on the field losing one of it consider to be critical blow to an army (Which more like Protoss style than Terran IMO), Thor AA missile in early version also damage single target make him quite unrelyable vesus mass muta unit that he suppose to counter Blizzard change how he function several time to the point Thor WOL and LOTV would consider different unit....

Before HotS you might heard about Terran about to get "Warhound" to replace him but he end up become Hard counter protoss (entire race) they scrap idea and remove that unit after single test without even try to balance it XD.

but not deny their attemp to put C&c element into starcraft end up ruin starcraft2 it self and we got unit like Thor something worse like Mother ship...

Problem with Thor is twofold:
-Expensive, late tech, and slow building. Starcraft is mostly about eco-booming or rushes, and lategame is mostly just mass air; all of which make Thor undesirable.
-Huge. It is easy to just always hit it with AoE, and because it is a ground unit, it lack the evasion ability of air units.

[Blitzwing]

Sc2 Thor is really good example, Even with combined power of Starcraft, Dawn of War/Company of Heroes and C&C creators. To make that new idea work, it required at least 5 years gameplay development. Even by a several million dollar budged, at least 3 years beta it wasn't properly prepared fo the launch.

A really huge established pro gaming e-sports community to explain, best lead designers money can buy from Westwood And Relic, test runs and manpower.

What other RTS Team has such resources ? Non of them.

[Blitzwing]

I mean just look it through.

Steps
-1- Some people test
-2- than people explain issues
-3- developer interpret the best way he can
-4- developer do it
-5- next test run

And this way we have a loop till dev gives up, except they are blizzard with a million budged and can just say "yeah 2 another years' beta, sure".


Other developers should really think of something,
to achieve similar results, without the resources Blizzard has.

In my opinion the only way would be to make more accessible mod and adjustment tools.
As experienced players, we would simply work out or own meta
and give the game actual depths and variety.


I mean just look at all these suggestions for weapon nerf/buff, economy fix, rush and anti blob measurements. With such tools like by KKnD2 Crossfire we would have had already tested them out, by ourself.

[Jonno]

Thanks all,

Sharing this with the team :)