Balance Update Notes July 19th

by Redwood_MrBlack
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Balance Update Notes July 19th

EA C&C Team

Balance Update Notes July 19th

 

Global Changes

 

Reveal duration for units attack from the fog of war has increased to 5 seconds (was 1 second)

 

GDI Changes

 

M.L.R.S

-Health decreased to 1500 (was 2200)

 

Nod Changes

 

Basilisk

-High damage increased to 175 (was 150)

 

Catalyst Missile

-Impact delay increased to 3.5 seconds (was 3.0)

 

Artillery

-Damage reduced to 1250 (was 1500)

-Damage vs Infantry reduced to 120 (was 200)

-Attack duration increased to 5 seconds (was 4)

-Health reduced to 1500 (was 1800)

-Speed reduced to 3.9 (was 5.5)

 

Banshee

-Attack duration decreased to 1.6 seconds (was 2.0)

-Turn rate increased to 300 (was 150)

 

Venom

-Damage vs Infantry increased to 60 (was 50)

 

Map Changes

We are making some balance changes to maps.  

 

All maps have been tuned for symmetric consistency of unit spawn points and automated harvester tiberium choices.

 

We have made more significant changes to ten maps (listed below).  The feedback and data around these maps revealed some patterns that we wanted to correct.

 

From a game balance perspective we want maps to encourage certain army builds and strategies, but we want those builds and strategies to be different from map-to-map within a group of maps.  No play style should be dominant on all maps to avoid optimal builds.

 

The main issue we were seeing from this perspective was uneven distribution of maps that enabled harvester kill strategies. There was too much aggression in the Badlands map groups and not enough in the Alpine map groups.  We’ve taken steps to correct that imbalance so that each group now has a more even mix of maps in regards to harvester harassment.

 

The other issue we found was battle time, some maps (ahem, Center rally) were taking significantly longer to win or lose then others.  These maps were too defensibly stable in their layouts, allowing players to stake out territory and making it hard for players to attack each other.  We have taken steps to make these maps more volatile which should lead to shorter battles.

 

We are keeping a close eye on how commander powers and long range units (MLRS, Artillery) are being used on each map, but aren’t making any specific changes with this update.

 

These are the changes that were made to individual maps:

 

Fertile Basin

-The 2nd Tiberium field was moved away from the lower capture points to make it easier for players to attack two on one into ‘their’ capture point.

 

Stonewall

-This map had a bug, we’ve temporarily removed it.

 

Center Rally

-This map was taking too long and often getting to a state where all the tiberium was mined out.  To encourage faster battle times we’ve moved the two capture points next to each other to allow for capture point to capture point fights and the ability to attack the harvesters in the top group of tiberium fields.

 

Middle Oasis

-This map put too much focus on the top capture point and caused too many harvester kills.  To encourage more even engagement across the map we’ve removed some of the rocks to open a second path to the bottom capture points and moved tiberium fields to create more balance between the points.  While this map is still dangerous for harvesters they shouldn’t be in as much danger as before.

 

Fighting Pit

-The arrangement of tiberium on this map was causing harvesters to go on long  dangerous journeys across the capture points. The new arrangement reduces that behavior.

 

Broken Mesa

-Tiberium has been rearranged for harvester safety and to make better use of the entire map.  Some movement blockers have been removed from the middle of the map to make it easier to attack when you don’t have control of it.

 

Side by Side

-Tiberium has been rearranged for harvester safety.  Attacking both capture points has been made easier to reduce battle times for the map.

 

Down the Middle

-This map has been redesigned for faster battles with more harvester aggression.

 

Open Water

-Tiberium fields have been moved on this map to make attacking harvesters easier.

 

Frozen Road

-Tiberium fields were moved to improve harvester pathing.

 

Note: Battle minimaps have not yet been updated to reflect these changes.

Message 1 of 4 (1,165 Views)

Re: Balance Update Notes July 19th

★★★ Newbie

Scarabs need balancing on my opinion. Just got completely owned by a player using just those. I understand maybe airunits would have helped, but I feel them being able to take out everything from infantry to tanks in 1-2 shots is extreme.

 

Heres footage from my gameplay https://youtu.be/kNSu3qLkV_M

Message 2 of 4 (1,093 Views)

Re: Balance Update Notes July 19th

★★★ Newbie

balance to the game is still way off to me.

 

Vehicles are useless, rockets kill tanks instantly. I understand rock paper scissors but when they cost more to build them and they get easily killed by their weaknesses.... 

 

usually a C&C game is balanced with later vehicles able to crush mostly everything that's an early build. it's balanced between cost and unit type. so a missile squad should never be able to kill a 150 credit tank. at the same time the tank should tank decent damage still. the point is usually that it takes 2 or 3 missile's squads to kill a vehicle easily, but they're cheap units that die easily to gun fire from any unit. so a jeep should deal heavy damage to them but still die. but a later tank should kill them without dieing. but jeeps just die instantly with little effect on the infantry. 

 

Also nukes need more time being fought over. I lose so many fights from this. either the nuke fired when its yellow... or I do all the work fighting for the nuke to have it be fired on me. that's my biggest issue. I think the nuke should be by default 1 launch and be a king of the hill match where the bar decreases back down to 0 and has to be built back up again. so basically the outcomes are either...

in the example you're blue,

 

you build the bar up blue and the enemy takes a stailmate.

 

your timer is turned yellow, as it does now.

 

you win the fight, the timer keeps growing blue.

 

red comes back and wins.

 

the timer decreases at a faster rate depending on the number of zones owned. but it should decrease faster then it goes up.

 

once it reaches 0, now red timer starts increasing.

 

red manages to pull the win, the nuke launches and the match is over.

 

as your commanders level up you can take on more missile launches to your base.

 

Overall I really like the game. but the bad balance will make or break it.

Message 3 of 4 (1,060 Views)

Re: Balance Update Notes July 19th

★★★★ Novice

The rock worm form nod must be change, as it can destroy a harvester in one attack (include the damage when it shows up), it's just OP too much 

Message 4 of 4 (924 Views)