Still Snoop Dogg and D-R-E

I still remember when the balance topic came up at release of Rebellion and people were strongly arguing against any fleet supply cost added to them because no other starbases do. I'd say once it straps on phase jumping engines and launches to a new grav well, it's no longer a starbase, it's a ship (or Titan wannabe) so it makes no sense that it doesn't cost fleet supply.

Not to mention eradica already best tit was buffed even more

Or perhaps the developers are improving the game, and maybe some unpopular early design decisions are being fixed, and true balance will come later.  I think the eradica lvl 6 ability only allows it to be better at what it already did, its not like it really gave it a new strong ability.  you don't approach the eradica with lots of close combat frigates.

double post

I haven't played an ICO game yet, but yeah, I was expecting them to still be banned. I guess we need to complain louder that this little bandaid of a fix is no where close to solving the situation. Any pros want to challenge Ironclad to a game where the non-devs are all VR and own them without getting any fleet supply upgrades?

That's your opinion. The problem with Wail is that there is no consensus on if its even OP, unlike VR, let alone what to do about it. I don't know if any more discussion would help, but personally I agree with sareth that maybe reducing it to 15 damage per population would be good. Its not anywhere near as OP as jumping starbases right now IMO.

That would just encourage people to jump a starbase in, take the gravity well, then scuttle it and build a new one. Granted that would probably work, but that seems a bit silly of a solution to me.

To me, this is a minimum. I don't know if its sufficient, but until this change is made I think Starbase Mobilization will be OP. After that it might be possible to balance.

Dirty - that argument could be used to justify removing Vasari phase stabilizer jumping - it ignores all the rules of the game in having to jump from 1 well to another in a row and breaks "rules" of mobility the other factions are stuck with. It allows them to ignore any static defenses/front line positions and jump instantly behind the front lines. This affects the gameplay 100X more than Wail and has been in the game for much longer. It just got enhanced in Rebellion with the VL Titan ability to spawn a phase node. So regardless of how strong Wail is or isn't, your argument that it breaks the rules doesn't fly imo.

I've said it before and I'll say it again:

Any changes to wail or the Eradica should be VERY carefully considered.  The Advent Rebels are and always have been in a very odd position balance wise- Wail and the Eradica are a bit OP without a doubt- But here's the thing: they are also the only reason the Advent Rebels are competitive.

When it comes down to it, under the surface the Advent Rebels suffer from pretty much all the same issues that have made the advent loyals underpowered.  The chief differences has really been that the Advent Rebels have two absolute bombs(Wail & the Eradica) that more or less cover up their deficiencies.   Frankly if these two tools were actually perfectly balanced the Advent Rebels would not be competitive.  

All that said as I've said before I'm not principally against nerfing Eradica/Wail- No faction should be left leaning on a crutch forever.  But nerfs to these things should be handled with a light touch and ideally be accompanied by buffs to the less powerful advent rebel techs. 

What it really comes down to is while they possess somewhat OP tools, the faction overall isn't really OP.  Changes should focus on spreading out and redistributing their strength so that they don't need those OP tools to be competitive(of course accompanied by reasonable nerfs to those tools)- they should not be focused only on said nerfs.

That said when the time to nerf Wail does come, I'm not convinced reducing the damage is the way to go.  Reducing the damage y any reasonable cut will likely only really spare carriers from the Wail....and the last thing we need is MORE incentive to just mass carriers- That's just counterproductive tot he goal of having more viable types of late game frigates.  Honestly I'm of the opinion the key to countering Wail should lie in attacking the advent rebels on multiple fronts.

 One way this could be accomplished is by having Wail just affect a single adjacent targeted gravity well(rather then all adjacent).  This means an attack on two fronts will always require 2 wails to knock out.  It also removes potential for collateral damage to adjacent enemy planets when a wail is done chiefly to knock out a fleet in another well.

Goa's idea of having Wail just not hit your own adjacent gravity wells also has potential I think.

But anyway we digress from the main topic of the thread: the VR.  Honestly I'm really surprised that in the big save-breaking 1.04 update they didn't tie jumping starbases to a starbase upgrade.  People have pretty much been asking for that solution non-stop since the vasari were patched into beta.  It would be such a simple and elegant solution to the problem that fixes some of the fundamental issues of jumping starbases(and if need be would open the gate to having jump capable starbases use fleet supply as it would allow Vas rebels the option of creating jumpless no-supply conventional orkies as well).

Well perhaps stardock has a very well defined vision of they ability and are desperately seeking a way to making jumping in a full 8-upgrade starbase balance- Unfortunately I doubt that it's really possible to balance that though with how powerful fully upgraded orkies are.

Ekko, you took the words right out of my mouth.

Wail of the sacrificed is currently the ONLY ability in the entire game that can allow an player to defend against the vasari phase jump nodes, or a kostura cross map jump to a players homeworld.  This counter needs to stay in the game, and it is very hard for an advent player under pressure to get wail.  Wail takes a lot of logistics slots, and advent are the most logistics limited race in the game.  I rarely get the opportunity for a serious game changing wail in most of my multiplayer games.  Personally, with all the other super abilities in the game, just one loss of a fleet doesn't end the game anymore.

Now, you can hold out and be deadly until your last dying breath.  Personally, I find that quite fun indeed.

You have to be on your toes a lot more facing advent rebels, so don't let them reach this point.

Even so, the vasari have the kostura advantage, and can disable all the gravity wells around the target planet with their superweapons (therefore preventing wail from being activated).

There you go, the big bad wail of the sacrifice counter.  It requires more thought and planning to counter a wail.  Its worth it to risk 30 corvettes to kill an enemy constructor to prevent construction of a temple of communion.  Its worth it to send in 50 corvettes (which are really fast) to try to snipe a temple of communion behind enemy lines in preparation for an assault.  If the fool wails to kill those corvettes, you are all good to go to warp in and kill your real target.

Also, you don't always have to build your fleet up next to the enemy gravity well.

In fact, good players try to hide fleet production as much as possible, so that they can gain the element of surprise when their fleet warps in.  Effective hiding means your fleet is in a hard to scout area.  usually this means you aren't going to have your fleet in a risky front lines position where your fleet could be ganked by a wail.

to be fair ekko,

I called how OP the vasari factions were going to be before the beta came out.  It was quite a popular thread.

The devs were informed.  The more information we received just asserted precisely how OP they were actually going to be.

-carpetbombadamus

An advent eco has no problem getting wail quickly...and unlike the the TEC, AL, and VL, the AR eco player can easily defend many of their planets without having to fleet up....LF and/or Corvette rushes can easily be stopped dead in their tracks by wailing even moon/volcanic combos...at that point in the game, having to replace that large of a fleet is a huge setback, and it is an awesome protection that no other faction has while ecoing...

Wail may not be viable for frontliners but it is easily viable for eco players (easier to get than SttC or SB mobilization) and unless they have awful planets, it generally makes them immune to any rush...a determined attack with caps/titans and/or carriers will still be effective to a point, but by then the eco player has already gotten to feed a lot, get their titan, and in general prepare for fleeting up...

FYI, a double tap of wail from two high pop planets can wipe low level caps...

Hardly relevant....on some maps, the only way to get to an AR world is to put your fleet within "wail range"...and in some cases, triads or quads of planets can't be attacked (or even approached) because of overlapping "wail ranges"...at some point, your ships are going to have to actually attack, and right now the only true counter to wail is superweapons...shield bestowal and an SB can make sniping culture centers extremely difficult late game, your "50 corvette rush" strategy really only works if no defending fleet is close by and the other player completely neglected defenses...

I think that's what it comes down to. It's a shame they dropped the idea of doing a beta for 1.04 - we could've at least had a chance at some more changes.