If you really paid attention to the numbers I "suggested", you'd notice the modified Disintegration you're speaking of does less than what MB is capable of doing and over a much smaller area, is more easily counterable and for that it heals as much as 25% of the cap's hit points.

What you just did was reading my suggestion, seeing some AOE + healing involved (even though it is nowhere near what MB can do RIGHT NOW) and cried OP!.
Typical Marza lover. Can't see how f**ked up MB is, used to using and abusing it, but won't acknowledge anything even close to it.

My "suggestions" were not, in fact, viable modifications of existing abilities which would heal the game's balance. I would not want them to look like that just as I don't want MB to look like it does.
I wrote what I did to show you how f*ked up these abilities would be if they were brought to the level of MB.
I wrote what I did to show you how utterly imba they look to YOU when in fact they're no more imba than MB which you think is JUST FINE.

Please argue with this:

A SINGLE level6 Marza ALONE is capable of WINNING A GAME for you if only the enemy looks the other way for 10 seconds.

Maybe that guy deserved to lose.
Maybe one should have such ultimate power to one-button WIN against an enemy player who throws a huge fleet on a single lvl6 cap and doesn't keep his eyes glued to it.

Maybe you are right!
But HOW THE BLOODY HELL giving such ULTIMATE POWER to only ONE FACTION can be called BALANCED ?!!!

Sadly no it wont. N3rull complains constantly. As do others, about anything and everything. Im sure he and they will respond with "no we dont. We only want a fair and balance system. To think that MB is balanced is stupid. Nerf it all" or something to that effect.

I still dont understand how anyone can say MB is not over powered. No one has made any arguements. And saying, "well, the other races USED to have there own over powered ability" is not an argument in keeping MB as is.

Okay, this ability has been around for ages.  It is one of the only reasons that the TEC factions get a lot of online play.  The Advent have carrier spam and cheapo ships, the Vassari have high populations and bonuses at everything.

Just about every little thing has to be prefect doesn't it? 

The Marza Barrage is an amazing ability that has the ability to take out a fleet.  We know, that is why its used!  If you don't like it don't play someone who plays TEC.  It's that easy.  STOP COMPLAINING.  Or every thing can be nerfed, buffed, shined, washed, waxed and repainted.  That doesn't make up for crappy stragey. 

Hey, while we're on the subject, the Starbases are to powerful, who wants to complain?

----That's a joke Ironclad you guys are fantastic, keep making amazing games

Thank you

I think it should just spawn a fixed amount of missiles, so it deals the same damage that spreads equally, so larger fleets don't suffer as much.
That, or just halve damage, recharge and cost to remove spike ability.

I know what I am talking about.  Do you?

That wouldn't address the the one thing about MB that makes it "overpowered" compared to other abilities of it's type.  There isn't an effective cap on how much damage it can do even if it only does 1/2 as much damage to a given target.  You might not lose a single ship to the missile barrage (with your proposed changes) but (as an example) your 100 ship fleet still just had to soak up 150,000 damage in 25 seconds.  That's 6,000 dps from one single ability use.  That's the same as having an extra 333 TEC heavy cruisers for 25 seconds.

On small fleets Missile Barrage is dangerous, probably a little overpowered but still retains some sort of sanity.  As the targetted fleet gets bigger though, the problem with missile barrage (and it's unbalance with other abilities) becomes more and more severe.  The only way to correct that is to either give it a hard cap or change the AoE so that it's highly unlikely to hit nearly as many targets as it can in it's current form. 

Your proposition actually leaves MB doing the same amount of damage in the same amount of time if you have the antimatter.  The only thing it really helps is if you miss the "counter" on any given firing, you only pay half as much.  Half of potentially infinite is still a lot though and you'd have to be ready to counter more often.  It would actually increase the extra work for the opposing player and not reduce it.

-dolynick

I think there are a lot of people who want to see capital ship abilities scale better with larger fleets, and to them the problem is that there aren't more abilities like missile barrage.  While I still maintain it's too much to have an "act now or lose" ability on any single capital ship, I do tend to agree that the ability being uncapped is not necessarily a bad thing.  I think it's perfectly acceptable to say that missile barrage should remain uncapped, but to maintain that position you have to also want other abilities to be changed to scale better.

I personally do think that scaling abilities are good for the game, although linear scaling may be too much (I favour diminishing returns as the number of targets grows larger, without an absolute cap).  I also think that missile barrage is out of line because it's an "act now or die" ability, and needs to be softened so that if you do get caught in a situation where your ability to counter it is neutralized it's not a game ender.  I think missile barrage is one of the toughest balance quandries in the game, because it's sitting on a knife's edge.  Depending on the situation it could be brokenly powerful, or absolutely worthless.

Sadly enough I agree this most likely will happen. Will not stop me from using TEC or the Marza.

What if, instead of simply reducing damage/range/what-have-you, the entire application of the ability was changed? Make it sort of like a super-powered Radiation Bomb blast. Choose a ship and the entire area around it gets nailed with saturation fire high explosive missiles for a duration.

This would remove the main problem with MB as it is now (being able to nail anything even remotely close to the Marza during use), but still give it great damage potential (especially against tightly grouped fleets).

I wouldn't even hazard a guess as to what numbers would make this balanced. I think it should be able to outright kill any smaller ships caught in the blast area and severely damage larger ships, but that's my opinion.

Comments?

oh wait, you expected a serious response to a post that consisted primarily of "die complaining vermin. the gamings gods shall smite you complaining demons."

care to say something that the rest of us might actually be able to discuss or would you like to draw your flaming sword again?

Is this not a strategy game?!  If there are no outstanding strategies to uncover, and exploit, why bother playing?  Just go play 'balanced' rock/scissors/paper!  Boring!!! 

How long has MB available?  6 Months?  It takes people 6 months (& 200 games!) to figure it out, and now all of the sudden, its unacceptable.  (And they reads the msg boards, which give explicit instructions how to use it.  What about all the people that don't).  We should be rewarded for good strategy. 

I'll say it again.  TEC needs something like it.  They have no other truly outstanding CapShip abilities.  Advent & Vasari both each have 2 outstanding abilities (IMO), and three of them are are available at level 1!  (Colonize & Sheild Regeneration, Nano-Dissasembler & Drain Planet).  (PS. they are on Colonizer Caps, the easiest/best to start with).

TEC is VERY susecptible to rushing.  It's not easy to use MB (need to adjust autoattacks).  Its difficult to earn.  Usually means you are stuck using sucky colony frigates (rather than a Colony Cap).  TEC's economic advantages don't save them in the early game. 

If the Marza is nerfed substantially, then TEC needs some other substantial buffs to keep the races in balance. 

I agree no other ability compares.  But I challenge you to look at this Cap Ship Abilities roundup, and tell me what else TEC has, that is comparable to what Advent & Vasari has?

[Edit: Added link, & clarification.  Oh BTW, I am primarily a Vasari player.]