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WotS - Wail of the Sacrificed - General Balancing discussion

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WotS - Wail of the Sacrificed - General Balancing discussion

from Sins Forums

There has been a lot of discussion about WotS in several threads lately. For a good balancing discussion that can be easy followed by the Developers I think it would be a good idea to have it together in one place.

So what do we know about Wail of the Sacrificed?

- It requires 7 temples of harmony to get access to its research.

- It requires an owned planet with a temple of communion on it.

- When activated it kills your planet but it does instantly deal 20 damage per killed population point to all adjacent gravity wells, be it planets, phenomena or stars.

- Currently there is a possible bug with it, that makes the Enduring devotion upgrade ineffective, so you loose the planet, no matter what.

- It deals reasonable amounts of damage on dwarf, vulcanic and ice planets and tremendous damage on desert or terran worlds, it is  however entirely useless on asteroids.

- It does not harm own or allied ships or structures.

It has the following advantages:

- No warning, no escape... you hit the button and the enemy ships in adjacent gravity wells either survive the amount of damage or they all die.

- Its "one devastating hit" damage type will usually get hostiles with their shield mitigation at minimum, drastically improving the actual damage received.

- A terran or or desert planet at a good spot can threaten several gravity wells

- Damage of dwarf planets is enough to kill most early game fleets, keep that in mind when attacking an AR in the eco spot.

- Population research or planet bonuses can increase the damage potential, so can TEC envoys.

- Can buy you some time even against capital only fleets, as they are considerable damaged with the effect. They probably wont be so eager to attack because of that.

- If you own several high population worlds around a star you can make the star itself a zone of total death. Multiple wails will wipe out about anything, especially if you wait a few seconds between them until shield mitigation is low again.

- Can be used to support your fleet by decimating the enemy before entering firing range or as a last resort to turn the tide of the battle. Although effectivity depends on overall enemy shield mitigation once the battle is joined.

- Can be a last resort defense. When you are nearly defeat in a team game and the enemy would normally wipe you out with brute force in no time leaving your allies alone, they are going to be a lot more hesitant in steamrolling you when your capital is wail capable. They will either ignore you, allowing you to support your allies longer with money or send fewer ships to you. Those fewer ships will take longer to kill you, meaning that those fewer ships are not something your allies have to worry about for some time. Or they underestimate you and "forget" about it because they are certain of victory... well there is nothing like wailing their main fleet with your homeworld as a "passing gift"...

- Can be used to level up your titan quickly. Depending on the circumstances a few more levels on your Titan may easily be worth a terran/dessert planet and you can use it on fleets where it normally would stand no chance alone, so no lost experience to some capital ships.

 

- Is often basically free as you would have built a ToC anyway.

 

Of course there a some disadvantages too:

 

- Without a high population world in the right spot, it is totally useless.

 

- Is is costly, not only you loose the entire planet with all upgrades (possible bug with enduring devotion) but you are also loosing considerable amounts of tax income. While trade is the main income in later stages of the game, unless you are already winning money is often going to be still an issue.

 

- It can only be used in long intervalls. Not only that you have to recolonize and reupgrade the planet, but population grows quite slowly. So it takes a very long time until wail is on a damage dealing level again... time in which your foes probably will try to take the planet from you, denying any future use. And so it wont work well on highly contested planets that change owner every 5 minutes...

 

- Capital ships will usually survive it and there is nothing that stops the surviving capital ships from destroying your temple of communion or bombing your planet back into the stone age. .

 

- A hostile Titan can and will destroy your temple before the main fleet jumps into range, unless the gravity well is heavily fortified, but that is money that you wont have in your fleet.


- Enemies will simple move their fleet in groups... making the use far less interesting.

 

- TEC Novalith will kill keep your population level too low for wail to be effective

 

- Kostura Cannons and phase stabilizers technology make it so that Vasari are never in the need to enter any dangerous gravity wells Not to mention they can easily kill the planet and the temple.

 

- Even the UP Advent Loyalists have a last resort... with their Titans Repossesion the threat is immediatly gone.

 

- You have to see the enemy fleet either with scouting or Eyes of the converted and even more important, you have to see them in time... You wont get any attack messages like TEC with a Red Button Starbase would... you have to see the enemy forming up, something that depending on map and current game pace can be easy to overlook.

 

- Wail does not do any damage to its own gravity well (It would be insanely op otherwise) so once the enemy is there you have lost.

 

- It needs an expensive level 7 research in the harmony tree, something that you dont usually get to quickly.

 

 

 

My balancing suggestions:

 

First off a warning: It is not going to be easy. Make it to powerful and it is op, but make it to weak only by a slight margin and it is totally useless

Second, the effect could use a bit tuning. Instead of instantly working, there should be a VISIBLE shockwave travelling at the phase lanes. That would END all screams of cheating from newer players. Depending on the speed of the shockwaves, an enemy would have at least a bit of time to rescue his fleet, making the use of wail more risky. Right now you can use it the moment the enemy tries to jump out, doing maximum damage and maximum weakening of his fleet should he invade you.

 

Perhaps the damage on large population planets could be lowered but in turn the damage from low population objects increased. Or what about giving it a secondary ability... like disabling enemy ships or what about a modified version of repulsion? All surviving ships of the (weakened wail) are moved closer to the planet.... ruining fleet cohesion and increasing the time for an attack again.

 

 

 

That are my thoughts, what are your? :maybe:

40,149 views 32 replies
Reply #26 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting bilun, reply 23
Honestly I don't think a single superweapon should negate wail. It should be able to reduce the AR player's options as it does now, but not easily neuter Wail as your proposition would allow.
End of bilun's quote

Requiring a superweapon to counter wail is still a very high price to pay...things should have counters, and right now the only counter to overlapping wails is multiple superweapons...no other counter is this game (other than maybe dealing with a lvl 6+ VL titan) has that high of a cost....

Quoting bilun, reply 23
The removal of the option to sacrifice a smaller planet to weaken a medium threat fleet would be gone.
End of bilun's quote

I don't see how, since I've done nothing to change the damage done (still 20 per population)....attacking a planet overlapped by a volcanic in the current system is going to get you the same wail damage as attacking a volcanic planet in my system....

Quoting bilun, reply 23
Here's the difference: a red button doesn't take 30-40 minute of uninterrupted population growth to be primed to blow. A starbase with red button isn't even partially countered by superweapons, much less hard-countered as your proposition would leave wail. They can't really use the same balancing model when one takes longer to set up and has harder counters.
End of bilun's quote

On the contrary, I believe this is exactly the balancing model needed to put wail into perspective...RB can be set up faster, but it also can be completly avoided (since RB doesn't affect the entire gravity well) and countered by trickling/kiting carriers with bombers...it only makes sense that the more powerful of the two should also be more situational and harder to counter....

Quoting GoaFan77, reply 24
Well, not exactly. You're not going to be able to do all three wails at once, so shield mitigation will actually be a factor for wailing several small planets, and further reduces the chance of getting a map setup capable of getting that sort of setup going.
End of GoaFan77's quote

Shield mitigation does play a role, but you can still wipe frigates with volcanic/moon/asteroid combos...that isn't just theory, I've done it multiple times as AR eco....

Quoting GoaFan77, reply 24
So what if it only affected enemy planets? That way it could be used strictly as an "Island hopping" strategy. Get a high pop planet next to an enemy world, let population build up, and ensure that they'll lose their fleet if they try to stop you from taking the next planet. If you take the planet to set up wail for the next one, the previous one no longer can use wail, even if you scuttle it. All it will do is make your opponent reluctant to colonize planets next to wail worlds.
End of GoaFan77's quote

Then there's not much left for us to discuss....you want it to be an offensive ability, I want it to be a defensive ability...it's no longer a balance discussion anymore, its a philosophy discussion....as far as I'm concerned, I think it is ridiculously stupid that enemy "wail ranges" can prevent you from defending your own damn planets, and I just cannot support any changes to wail that maintain such an effect...

@Aresiv

You claim wail is easy to counter now as TEC and Vasari, but your "counter strategy" involves superweapons, the exact same thing needed to counter my proposed implementation of wail....if you think wail is easy to counter now, then how can you argue my implementation is harder to counter?  They both require at least one superweapon...

I also don't think my implementation of wail puts TL defenses to shame...in both cases, a titan/cap only fleet can be used to do something since neither wail nor RB will likely kill caps or a titan...however, in the case of dealing with wail, it is a lot easier for some caps and a titan to wipe a culture center than it is for them to wipe 2 SBs (even if they are low level)...additionally, the SBs (though harder to kill) can be dealt with via carriers, so that makes dealing with wail and 2 SBs with RB comparable when no defending fleet is present....

If a defending fleet is present, then both the AR and TL planet are essentially unapproachable...except that wail could be dealt with via superweapons while the double RB + fleet cannot...

 

 

 

 

Reply #27 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Seleuceia, reply 26

Quoting bilun, reply 23Honestly I don't think a single superweapon should negate wail. It should be able to reduce the AR player's options as it does now, but not easily neuter Wail as your proposition would allow.

Requiring a superweapon to counter wail is still a very high price to pay...things should have counters, and right now the only counter to overlapping wails is multiple superweapons...no other counter is this game (other than maybe dealing with a lvl 6+ VL titan) has that high of a cost....
End of Seleuceia's quote

There's a difference between countering and hard countering.  No faction should have their premeir unique tool utterly negated by any single thing...even a superweapon.  There's no counterplay is the problem.  Nothing the AR player can do to keep the superweapon from neutering Wail.


Quoting bilun, reply 23The removal of the option to sacrifice a smaller planet to weaken a medium threat fleet would be gone.

I don't see how, since I've done nothing to change the damage done (still 20 per population)....attacking a planet overlapped by a volcanic in the current system is going to get you the same wail damage as attacking a volcanic planet in my system....
End of quote

Because if they attack say a terran planet, that is the only planet  you can sacrifice- you lose the option to sacrifice a smaller nearby planet to weaken a medium strength fleet that frankly you don't need to blow a full terran planet to deal with.  As I said, for any larger planet you change becomes a weapon of last resort.

 

For any smaller planet it becomes only useful against a small attack.

 

No matter how you spin it, being useful in less situations WILL make the ability more niche.



Quoting bilun, reply 23Here's the difference: a red button doesn't take 30-40 minute of uninterrupted population growth to be primed to blow. A starbase with red button isn't even partially countered by superweapons, much less hard-countered as your proposition would leave wail. They can't really use the same balancing model when one takes longer to set up and has harder counters.

On the contrary, I believe this is exactly the balancing model needed to put wail into perspective...RB can be set up faster, but it also can be completly avoided (since RB doesn't affect the entire gravity well) and countered by trickling/kiting carriers with bombers...it only makes sense that the more powerful of the two should also be more situational and harder to counter....
End of quote

As long as a single superweapon hard-counters it it's not harder to counter.  Again that is one of the largest flaws in your model.  Honestly while I'm not sold on any proposition yet, frankly I think Goa's idea is better then yours.  You're trying to force Wail into an existing balance paradigm that while it draws a parallel to it simply doesn't fit.

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Reply #28 from Sins Forums Top

Goa's idea certainly has its merits, but I do agree with Seleuceia about Wail being a mostly defensive tech.

 

Imho, it should remain that way. No doubt there might be situations where you can use it offensivly... but those are pretty rare.

Reply #29 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting ARESIV, reply 28
Imho, it should remain that way. No doubt there might be situations where you can use it offensivly... but those are pretty rare.
End of ARESIV's quote

I used to think it was primarily a defensive ability too. Then I saw it used on ICO a couple of times, where it was used to destroy a fleet around a heavily fortified planet of a losing player who was just trying to stall the game for his team. Since then I think the devs really did intend for it to be offensive. After all, they intentionally didn't go with Seleuceia's method in the first place, which would seem the easier way to set up a defensive ability.

Not that what the devs intended is necessarily what's best for the game, but it might be easier to convince them to change things that are refinements of it, not total replacements.

Reply #30 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting ZombiesRus5, reply 26
Is it fair Wail can destroy un-upgraded fleets of frigates? Well Missile Barrage, Meteor Storm and Red Button have been doing that, well, since the beginning of Sins.
End of ZombiesRus5's quote

You can avoid a Marza while still being able to defend/attack territory and Marzas can have their abilities interrupted/disabled.

If your fleet goes down to a Red Button, it's your own damned fault.  A red button won't prevent you from defending your own planet or even attacking.

Meteor storms can also be avoided.

In contrast, the threat of Wail can completely inhibit the defense of a planet or a well-earned offense.

Reply #31 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting DirtySanchezz, reply 31

Quoting ZombiesRus5, reply 26Is it fair Wail can destroy un-upgraded fleets of frigates? Well Missile Barrage, Meteor Storm and Red Button have been doing that, well, since the beginning of Sins.

You can avoid a Marza while still being able to defend/attack territory and Marzas can have their abilities interrupted/disabled.

If your fleet goes down to a Red Button, it's your own damned fault.  A red button won't prevent you from defending your own planet or even attacking.

Meteor storms can also be avoided.

In contrast, the threat of Wail can completely inhibit the defense of a planet or a well-earned offense.
End of DirtySanchezz's quote

You can avoid getting your fleet wailed too. It just limits your tactical approach. And ya, you can't turtle up next to a high pop planet with an AR player in it.

My main point though was there are several situational grossly OP abilities in Sins.

I don't like any of these abilities personally in terms of balance for multi-player games. Some people love the OP stuff though, which is probably why PJ star bases still exist.

What these things do add though is a different kind of strategy for better or worse.

Reply #32 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting bilun, reply 27
Nothing the AR player can do to keep the superweapon from neutering Wail.
End of bilun's quote

I wouldn't say nothing...domina can keep a culture center from being disabled, and novas only kill 150 population...on a terran, you could still have ~170 population after one hit, which is still about 3400 damage...

So, defending against a kostura would require some preparation, and only terrans would have the population to effectively wail after a nova hit...but wail still can be viable even after a superweapon hit...and quite frankly, superweapons are supposed to be game enders, I hardly see how this is a problem that superweapons can disrupt an ability that prolongs stalemates...

Quoting bilun, reply 27
Because if they attack say a terran planet, that is the only planet you can sacrifice- you lose the option to sacrifice a smaller nearby planet to weaken a medium strength fleet that frankly you don't need to blow a full terran planet to deal with. As I said, for any larger planet you change becomes a weapon of last resort.
End of bilun's quote

And what if they attack that nearby smaller planet instead?  Then what do you do?  Good chance your only option is to blow the terran...anyway you aren't even arguing against a point I made...

YOU want wail to be "flexible" ie it can be used in many situations...unfortunately the more situations an ability becauses usable, the more difficult it is to balance...if you can only damage the home planet, then the only variable that affects balance is the particular planet (since each planet has different populations)...but if wail affects nearby gravity wells, now you must consider all possibilities of summed planet populations...

Knowing that moons have 50 population and terrans have up to 322, you can find a damage-per-pop value that makes wailing moons (~1000 damage) at least decent without making a terran (~6440 damage) too powerful and capable of wiping high level caps....but if wail can affect nearby wells then you now have to balance the single moon/volcanic (~1000-1400 damage) with multiple high pop planets (easily can exceed 10,000 damage)...that is significantly more difficult to balance...if the damage-per-pop is low, then multiple high pop worlds is not too powerful but the ability is worthless for low pop worlds or isolated planets...if the damage-per-pop is too high, well then isolated and/or low pop planets are useful for wailing, but overlapped high population planets are just way too powerful....

I want wail to be consistent...by affecting only the home planet, the possible effects of wail fall within a much narrower range and thus are much easier to balance...this opens the doors for making wail more complex such as through DoT or secondary buffs (which may or may not stack)...

I shall now defer to my original statement:

Quoting Seleuceia, reply 20
Furthermore, isolating the ability to the planet with the culture center offers much more flexibility with tweaking the numbers, implementing things like DoT or secondary buffs
End of Seleuceia's quote

I never once said I wanted wail to be more flexible in general or that my proposition makes wail more flexible...what would be more flexible is our ability to change the very nature of wail (DoT instead of straight damage, etc)...

Quoting bilun, reply 27
As long as a single superweapon hard-counters it it's not harder to counter. Again that is one of the largest flaws in your model.
End of bilun's quote

I shall defer to my previous statements in regards to potential counters and/or viability of wail after a superweapon hit...however, I'd like to add an additional point....let's compare wail to the other super powerful abilities that other factions have, such as dual SBs or SttC...by the time you get to the late game, fleet maintenace has made the VL "super ability" SttC significantly weaker....high level titans and outrageous bomber spams have made twin fortresses into nothing...why should wail be any different than any other "super ability"?  It is rare that more than 1 player in a team game is able to spam multiple superweapons, and that was before SttC got nerfed...I think it is silly that you would demand multiple superweapons be necessary to "defeat" a single culture center...

Quoting bilun, reply 27
frankly I think Goa's idea is better then yours.
End of bilun's quote

I already explained the massive flaw with Goa's idea...seeing as all a player has to do is scuttle a planet (which only takes 60s and can be cancelled at any time with zero penalty), his implemenation is hardly any different from the current system, it simply requires a bit more micro management and paying attention...