Nerf the damn marza » Forum Post by Agent of Kharma

screw the visuals for now, all your doing is testing the balance right? the visuals wouldn't matter for that. if you want it to be a widespread mod, mess with the visuals after you have the numbers nice and balanced.

Personally, I'd say that the radius should be halved (yes, I know that means that area is quartered), the damage per wave halved, and the AM and cooldown the same. this is a large nerf, I know, but, IMO it could make it a much more manageable strength.

anyone that'd try this in a mod? I don't have the mod tool, nor any real experience in it. but you should be able to look at the ability files and find lines something like "DamageperWave" and "Range" or "Area". that's just guesses on the actual contents, tho

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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.

Well THAT'S sad. And it also explains a lot! Here I've been stupid for like a year, asking people why there is so much TEC out there. You know what people always said? "It's the 'human' element, the 'human struggle' that I like." HA! LMFAO! Boy do I feel stupid now. I mean its like asking a guy why he reads Playboy and he tells you he likes the articles, only I believed it! Boy do I feel dumb! There is so much TEC out there because of OP marza and MB! LOL!

The Advent have carrier spam and cheapo ships

What are you talking about? Advent carriers are damn expensive, and the side with the cheapo ships is TEC.

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.

How is it "that easy?" You get in an online game and half or more of the people are TEC. You can't find a game that doesn't have a TEC player.

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

1) Starbases can be avoided, and you can choose the time and place you wish to face one.

2) All factions get starbases, not just 1.

Hey, here's a better idea for fixing the missle barrage than the one I offered earlier. It's simpler conceptually, but has the exact same effect. Make missle barrage the same as a big radiation bomb. Don't change the animation of the current missle barrage - keep that the same. But make it have to turn and aim and fire at a single ship, then that ship plus all the others around it take damage, just like in radiation bomb except more powerful.

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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.

LOL, I proposed the same thing above before I ever saw your post. Good idea.

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I'll say it again. TEC needs something like it.

Say it all you want, it's still a ridiculous thing to say.

They have no other outstanding CapShip abilities.

Nerfed MB can still be an outstanding ability, just no more outstanding than volatile nanites or similar. Look, it's just ridiculous to maintain that TEC deserves a ridiculously OP ability - something better than a superweapon, something that can (and will) take out an entire enemy fleet by pushing a button. You are basically saying you want to cheat. You are saying you want TEC to be blessed with a ridiculously OP ability. I just don't understand how that's an arguable position.

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Transitive, I pointed out a few ways that you can win and that your mind is your best weapon. And I pointed out also all that the " die complaining vermin. the gameing gods shall smite you complaining demons." As you say was just a joke, a joke. It's something that you can have a good laugh over. And I did not "draw a flaming sword."

I meant that part to be just a joke, and for the serious part about driving a point home was being able to be more cuning then your foe. If you would like to see a flaming sword I will see if I can find a picture.

+1

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Dolynick, is this possible? Pick a target and it saturates everything in radius from that target? It migt be my lack of sleep, but I like this as much as I do the column idea. (and I can't remember if you listed that in your 6.)

It should be. EMP blast basically works in a similar manner. Once again, getting the missiles to fly from the Marza to the targets might be a sticking point but a basic tester mod should be doable. The one possible problem with this method would be that the remote circular area of effect would be mobile. You'd be targetting a specific ship and then taking your area of effect from that ships position. The ability may also end when the original target origin ship is destroyed since it might no longer have a valid target/point of origin.

It could certainly be tried as a tester mod as well though.

-dolynick

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Is there any way to make it so it can have a sort of "attack ground" form? and just lock on (like aim assist type lock-on) to any ships/structures?

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i have 3 points

1) it is not a true statement that the TEC faction is somehow deeply flawed and the only thing keeping it viable is Missile Barrage. the TEC faction has a better economy and a comparable military to the other factions. the only noteworthy point of difference is that the TEC Colony capital ship is not as strong as the Advent or Vasari colony capital ships.

2) any of the changes we are proposing to Missile Barrage are relatively minor. the notion that Missile Barrage will somehow be useless or not worth it after a re-balancing change is a false notion. the intention is that the ability will still be EXTREMELY POWERFUL, just slightly more in line with other capital ship abilities.

3) it is not a convincing argument [to me anyway] to claim that being able to play around an overpowered ability means it is ok for the ability to be overpowered. i believe in objective standards.

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1) it is not a true statement that the TEC faction is somehow deeply flawed and the only thing keeping it viable is Missile Barrage. the TEC faction has a better economy and a comparable military to the other factions. the only noteworthy point of difference is that the TEC Colony capital ship is not as strong as the Advent or Vasari colony capital ships.

While this topic may focus on the Marza, I also believe the mothership and evacuator are generally out of line. There's just nothing out there with comparable abilities. That said, like Marza with missile barrage, they are a crutch to their respective factions. Somehow the race's viability overall is dependant upon these overpowered choices. It's a can of worms, but it really needs to be opened. Strategy requires a multitude of choices, otherwise there is no real choice. Right now, there is an obvious best choice for each faction, and it's a shame.

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Quoting Darvin3,

reply 9

While this topic may focus on the Marza, I also believe the mothership and evacuator are generally out of line. There's just nothing out there with comparable abilities. That said, like Marza with missile barrage, they are a crutch to their respective factions. Somehow the race's viability overall is dependant upon these overpowered choices. It's a can of worms, but it really needs to be opened. Strategy requires a multitude of choices, otherwise there is no real choice. Right now, there is an obvious best choice for each faction, and it's a shame.

While I agree with your statement, it's hard to make every capital ship viable as a first capital. For example, the Marauder, Skirnatra, Dunov, and probably the Halcyon make very poor first capitals, and I don't see how to make them such without completely changing the way they work, unfortunately.

Personally I'm on the side that capital ships should be stronger, but not quite with the capability to wipe out enemy fleets by themselves. This ain't Warcraft 3 :/

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eh, i think i disagree that Advent and Vasari use the colony cap ships as crutches. they're the best choice as first cap most of the time for a very natural reason, which is that at the beginning of the game the thing you are most interested in doing efficiently is colonizing new planets. there's nothing wrong with that.

if the Mothership and Evacuator were ALWAYS the best choice for cap ships it would be an issue. but the fact is its very rare for a player to ever even think about building a 2nd Mothership or Jarrasul. the Marza is different. you'd actually prefer to use an Akkan to speed up your colonizing if you thought it was worth it. You just end up picking the Marza because getting Missile Barrage ASAP is even more strategically compelling than colonizing planets more quickly. t

additionally, while the abilities on those two ships may be generally high quality, i have no objection to merely "high quality". its ok for some things to be better than other things. its just a question of how much better. neither of those ships has an ability that is as powerful as Missile Barrage.

there's nothing that scales to infinity on either of those ships. Shield Restore could in principle, but in practice it doesn't since its defensive in nature and really only scales to your opponent's damage output. if you really want the clearest illustration of just how out of line Missile Barrage is just think of the interaction it has with Shield Restore. The largest amount of shields that ability will ever be able to restore is in the situation where you are using it while being Missile Barraged.

Damage scaling to infinity is the problem I have with Missile Barrage. the only problem. i don't think it does too much DPS. i don't think its unfair for the TEC to have a very high quality siege cap ship. i just have a big issue with scales to infinity. it totally invalidates some of the advantages you would expect to be able to leverage from playing better in other aspects of the game. you can bring a fleet twice as big as your opponent's and his Missile Barrage just got EVEN BETTER because you're outplaying him. that's whats wrong with it.

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I don't think all capital ships can be viable first choices. Without a fundamental rework, the Dunov will never be a serious first pick contendor. Kol, Akkan, and even Sova, on the other hand, all have potential as first picks. I think this can be extended to the other factions; very few ships have abilities that are exclusively useful in a secondary function. I don't think it's wrong that the colony caps are the best choice for booming, but I do think it's wrong that they're the best choice for rushing or weathering a rush.

eh, i think i disagree that Advent and Vasari use the colony cap ships as crutches. they're the best choice as first cap most of the time for a very natural reason, which is that at the beginning of the game the thing you are most interested in doing efficiently is colonizing new planets. there's nothing wrong with that.

They're also the best for rushing and weathering a rush. Kortul and Radiance are arguably better in a pure military analysis, but the colony caps are simply way better overall as first picks. You get something that saves you copious amounts of time and resources in colonization, plus an extraordinarily powerful ship in combat.

I don't think using them as colonization caps is the problem; obviously if that's your priority they should be the best choices. The problem is, people dedicating themselves to a hard rush go with them. This shows that they're clearly overshadowing other caps that should be best in those areas.

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if you're commiting to an Econ rush the colonizers are the best. thats a different style of rush than a pure Military rush. if thats what you're doing you build the Battleship and go hunt down the enemy cap ship right away, just accepting that you're sacrificing your own economic development to go harass the enemy.

again, since Econ rush is generally speaking the most powerful and versatile opening strategy in most games its totally natural to feel a strong draw towards Colony cap ships. i enjoy that the Mothership and Evacuator then grow up to become potent military support ships once the initial colony rush is over. that just means the ships are well designed. it would be nice if the Akkan was as well designed.

i think small buffs for the Akkan would go a long way. small change to its colonizing ability (go to 1/2/3 extractors from 0/1/2 extractors) would put its colony rushing abilities on par. i think changing Targetting uplink to give a modest damage% boost instead of range% boost would be a big help.

but again, we're going off topic. the topic on hand was picking out exactly which characteristic of the Marza is the one that makes it out of line. and the one i have identified is the fact that Missile Barrage scales to infinity with no other restricting factors. its an ability that greatly outstrips the power of any other ability in the game (the nearest comparison is Meteor Control on the Advent starbase, and thats not nearly as good, and its an expensive upgrade on an immobile defensive structure). its an ability that basically punishes the opponent for what would normally be the sort of thing that ought to be rewarded (bringing superior forces).

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Um, has anyone ever noticed that the Marza is a "Dreadnought", which in itself states it is a more powerful ship then a Battlecruiser, Battleship or carrier...maybe I'm just silly that way, but..you think maybe it was called this for a reason?

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You know what people always said? "It's the 'human' element, the 'human struggle' that I like."

hey! back off! you have no idea how hard it is to push the button!

LULZ

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Um, has anyone ever noticed that the Marza is a "Dreadnought", which in itself states it is a more powerful ship then a Battlecruiser, Battleship or carrier...maybe I'm just silly that way, but..you think maybe it was called this for a reason?

a dreadnaught is defined as an all big guns ships...more powerful is a relative term.

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most of the responses given here should plainly be ignored as they resort to flaming (i guess they can't handle someone hating their truly imbalanced combat tactic)

Marza IS unbalanced, no matter how you look at it even if it means all other ships are weak the marza remains the sole ship to stick out and = thus described as imbalanced!!!

without support it can kil any lrf with its ultimate ability that is in range, meaning in huge fight fleets of 50 lrf 25 heavy cruisers 50 flak 15 carrier 30 support, one side suddenly loses all his 50 lrf's due to 1 ability (i dont care that its counterable, no ability of any race does this kind of damage on its maximum capacity)

imho theres but one major factor...

#1: the marza's missle barrage ability has infinite amount of targets (any unit in range)

fix: change the amount of targets to a more favorable number, (maximum of 30 targets)? ~~~ would also need ~~~ missles... the nubmer might seem low, but just compare to other capital ships first (capital ships being to weak NOT being the topic right now!!)

OR

#2: marza's missle barrage does to many damage

fix: lower damage, imho opinion fix #1 is much more effective as missle barrage does only low damage vs heavy cruisers etc. lowering the damage would only minimally affect the lrf problem *leave all lrf's with 50% health = still to powerfull" and do even less vs hardended targets...

change either of these to a more balanced position would fix the problem (my choice definatly falling to the amount of targets being hit.. both with realism and to prevent the ability getting to weak)

so now compare a regular capital ship to the marza, marza lvl 6 on its own can take out ALOT of lrf's i can hardly understand why some still dont see a problem in its damage capability

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Quoting ZKBarbarian,

reply 14

Um, has anyone ever noticed that the Marza is a "Dreadnought", which in itself states it is a more powerful ship then a Battlecruiser, Battleship or carrier...maybe I'm just silly that way, but..you think maybe it was called this for a reason?

(edit wont load .... but perhaps thats cuase of current internet capacity..)

sure, but theres 1 problem in that theory, namely anything wich has increased power should cost more, a marza costs the same as .. lets say.. a kol, increased firepower no doubt... but if they did this on purpose i think they've forgot to double the cost >.>

Quoting transitive,

reply 13

if you're commiting to an Econ rush the colonizers are the best. thats a different style of rush than a pure Military rush. if thats what you're doing you build the Battleship and go hunt down the enemy cap ship right away, just accepting that you're sacrificing your own economic development to go harass the enemy.

again, since Econ rush is generally speaking the most powerful and versatile opening strategy in most games its totally natural to feel a strong draw towards Colony cap ships. i enjoy that the Mothership and Evacuator then grow up to become potent military support ships once the initial colony rush is over. that just means the ships are well designed. it would be nice if the Akkan was as well designed.

i think small buffs for the Akkan would go a long way. small change to its colonizing ability (go to 1/2/3 extractors from 0/1/2 extractors) would put its colony rushing abilities on par. i think changing Targetting uplink to give a modest damage% boost instead of range% boost would be a big help.

but again, we're going off topic. the topic on hand was picking out exactly which characteristic of the Marza is the one that makes it out of line. and the one i have identified is the fact that Missile Barrage scales to infinity with no other restricting factors. its an ability that greatly outstrips the power of any other ability in the game (the nearest comparison is Meteor Control on the Advent starbase, and thats not nearly as good, and its an expensive upgrade on an immobile defensive structure). its an ability that basically punishes the opponent for what would normally be the sort of thing that ought to be rewarded (bringing superior forces).

the akkan has range improvement and chance to hit improvement (= damage)

it's one of the most powerfull support abilities, especially late game, and ESPECIALLY in tandem with lrf's range / ogrovs range (ogrov with +25% range = terrifying for enemy defenses (tough with current squad-problem it isnt used alot)

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Will they could make so that instead of being able to have any cap ship at the start they could just have it so you start out with a random one. Have it so you have to research better weapons and armor so that cap ships are at the end of the research tree. Make it so that you have to research the abilities and have to upgrade it first before you can use it. This would help to make it so that it's a late game ability, but the cap ships do need to be made more like the monsters they are suppose to be and not giant cruisers.

Here are some abilities that could be used by other factions. For the Advent give them a Shield Bubble ability which uses the power from all the ships in the fleet to protect against all attacks for the same amount of time as MB. But have so you can not attack or use any other abilities until it's done. For the Vasari give them Ultimate Point Defense that shoots down all enemy missiles and strike craft. Each faction should also have a super cap ship.

There are many ways besides nerfing it that can work. Just remember to use your head, there are many other ways to get around this stuff. When you come out on top agasint what seems to be impossible odds you feel better than if you just complain.

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buff everything is a much worse solution than nerf one thing.

additionally, the case is that cap ships in this game are like "super cruisers" rather than "giant flying death machines of doom". thats just how it is. that was the vision of the game developers. in the past, when capital ships have accidentally become "giant flying death machines of doom" they have been nerfed. see Cleansing Brilliance and Malice (Malice was completely changed). see Volatile Nanites (explosion radius greatly reduced).

nerfing overpowered abilities is not unprecedented. Embargo on the Sova was nerfed. the stun bubble on Stilakus Subverters was nerfed. Returning Armada was nerfed. LRMs were nerfed (cost increase and speed decrease). Carriers were nerfed (squadron build rate penalty in hostile grav well).

nerfing happens. i don't understand why anyone objects to changes that make a game more balanced. the only thing you ought to be concerned about is what the change will be. a heavy handed nerf is undesirable because it removes strategic depth from the game. a well planned nerf, on the other hand, results in a more interesting and stragically deep game because it opens up more strategies while preserving a reasonable level of effectiveness of what was nerfed.

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transitive the cap ships do need to be buffed up, as they are they are to weak. And the way I would have is so that cap ships and their abilities are mid-game to late-game ships that can be used with less support. It also would allow you to spread your fleets out moreso you do not need as many ships to defend and attack.

Cap ships and their abilities sould have to be researched not given out at the very start of the game. Cap ships at start+researching weaker ships=weak caps when they have no abilities.

transitive, the caps may be just super cruisers, but why should you get them at the start when they have powerful abilities and more weapons when you have to research the far weaker normal cruisers. That is not how it should be. And new abilities that can be used would be nice. The UPD ability for the Vasari I suggested would help against the massive strike craft attacks that the Advent like. The SB ability for the Advent would give them time to bring in more ships or attack with another fleet behind enemy lines to draw them off.

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regardless of what you would like cap ships to be, in a game made to your exact specifications, that is not the situation we have.

the only reason i bothered to participate in this discussion is because i would like it to focus on real practical ideas. things that actually can be done by Ironclad in an upcoming patch.

they are not going to totally overhaul what Capital Ships are. what they can however do is make some incremental adjustments to certain overpowered abilities. this is what has been done in the past. i think its what should be done in the present.

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Hello all,
I just want to bring my two cents (and a new viewpoint into this issue). From all the arguments that I have read I have learned:

1. MB can be incredibly devestating

2. MB is hard to see

3. MB can be countered many ways (but always with much more effort than it takes to MB)

Now, here are my view points (note, I am not trying to push for nerfing or not, simply pointing out what I've noticed)

1. If your fleet is getting hit by MB the entire fleet flares up nice and red. I think this is a quite obvious visual sign that your fleet is about to get annihilated. Granted that it comes a little late.

2. If you know that an opponent has a lvl 6 Marza in the battle, why would you let it get into position to use MB anyway? It seems to me that if a threat of that magnitude was approaching my fleet, I would react in a way to counter that as soon as possible, not wait for it to start blowing stuff up.

3. (A question) This has not been answered in this thread to my knowledge (though it has been mentioned). Would TEC still be a viable opponent with out this ability? A logical argument, if you will:

1. MB is the most powerful offensive ability in the game

2. Balance in SoaSE is not Ability to Ability, or Ship to Ship

Therefore MB is too powerful (i.e. overbalanced) if without MB TEC is not a viable competitive race, and with MB tec is the only viable competive race.

I do not think this is the case, but I am not an expirienced player, so feel free to reply

Cheers

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Well THAT'S sad. And it also explains a lot! Here I've been stupid for like a year, asking people why there is so much TEC out there. You know what people always said? "It's the 'human' element, the 'human struggle' that I like." HA! LMFAO! Boy do I feel stupid now. I mean its like asking a guy why he reads Playboy and he tells you he likes the articles, only I believed it! Boy do I feel dumb! There is so much TEC out there because of OP marza and MB! LOL!

Actually, a lot of people didn't know about it. The TEC is just the easiest and most intuitive race. Now people do and use it. Marzas are quickly becoming a well used Capship.

Look, There should be no reason to nerf the Marza. It is an obsticle that can be overcome.

And if you looked back at what I said, I was making fun of the fact that everytime something becomes a pain, rather than figureing out a counter, everyone always rushes to complain. Guys, the devs created this game the way it is, overhauled it, looked at every little facet and left the marza abilites the way they are. Leave it the way it is.

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Ryat

Join Date 06/2006

+429

HHMMMM i agree with transitive again. I guess I let myself get carried away with the whole rant and rave of "I got hurt by the mean mean MB. I want it nerf NOW!" and got a jerked kneed response of "Oh grow up you big baby and learn to deal with it" out of myself.

Flipside transitive pointed to the flaw of MB.

INFINITE SCALABILITY

Most damage abilities have limits to what they can target. The MB is the only damage ability that does not have a limiit. Therefore there is a minor balance problem. And transitive gave a good solution, cap its target at 30. This allows for the gut punch that some have come to appreciate about the MB but does end the theoretical destroy whole fleets and win games scenario that some complain about. Some of the other nerfs that have been suggested do go over the top though.

PS Using the "it can be nerfed to hell and back and still be useful" arguement is very lame and does not prove your point.

+1

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