Nerf Bios and Rix, perk IC

[Jimen]

QUOTE (HSharp @ Apr 5 2010, 06:06 PM) IC don't need a perk, bios do need a nerf, I don't think nerfing the opening build time would be good because tbh bios need that if they play against IC or Dreg who can rape them quickly

I don't get this, though. Why shouldn't the factions with strong openings absolutely rape the most comebacky of comebacks faction with the slowest midgame tech? Bios' opening is its weak point, which has to be hit for massive damage before they get their tech up and start owning. It's not like its opening D is even THAT bad; its opening tech has been buffed enough that even if it can't stand up to lt ints, it's still above average. Yet when even when Bios is universally acknowledged to need a nerf, we can't dare to nerf its opening because then it might lose to lt int rushes? What is WRONG with you? What about all the other factions that get ass-pounded when a flock of light ints come for them? Why don't THEY get to be buffed to stand up against a $#@!ing IC opening? What is the origin of this ridiculous bull@#(!?

QUOTE (notjarvis)Nope - all Girly is saying is that "The statistics may be skewed as the better comm's may stick to certain factions". This will make those factions look better than they are in reality.[/quote]
And if the better comms stick to certain factions, then odds are those are the better factions. You guys are putting forward some kind of ridiculous hypothetical where a faction isn't ACTUALLY good, it's might just be SUPER POPULAR with the best comms for some mysterious reason that you absolutely refuse to offer up. Even if 90% of all Bios teams were commed by vets, why the $#@! would you think those vets were choosing Bios? As a goddamn handicap?

[Makida]

QUOTE (Jimen @ Apr 5 2010, 06:04 PM) Um, you lost me. Explain why the hell we should be balancing factions for people who don't know how to command, rather than people who do? Next, are you going to suggest beefing up ints because newbies tend to be bad at flying them?

I'm saying the data is skewed. The skill of people comming Bios is not distributed the same way as the skill of people comming other factions -- or at least, it seems entirely plausible that this is the case. I didn't say at any point "balance things for newbies," and even if I'm not explaining my point well I don't understand why for the second time what I said is interpreted as saying that. I'm saying experienced comms prefer bios. If experienced comms preferred IC, and newbies stayed away from IC, then maybe IC would have a 58% win rate. If only new comms played bios maybe bios would have an even lower win rate than IC does now, because it's hard to command well. I'm just saying you should take this into account when discussing whether, and how, to nerf something.

QUOTE (Jimen @ Apr 5 2010, 06:04 PM) And the reason the things that make a faction unique need to be modified to bring them in balance is because by definition, it's the unique aspects that unbalance them in the first place. If a faction is unbalanced, it's not because of the @#(! that it shares with every single other faction, it's because of the buffs that are unique to that faction and that faction alone. Though nerfing the unique stuff is not always the only way to bring a faction into balance (you can attempt to nerf their regular stuff to compensate for the overpoweredness of their special stuff), it's certainly the easiest way.

Yes, but factions having unique things is a good thing. Nerfing factions by removing their unique elements may be the easiest way to nerf, but it's also the worst way to nerf. Having factions with lots of unique abilities that distinguish them from each other is part of the appeal of this game. I personally think it's awesome that the factions are balanced as well as they are (to the point where we're talking about a 58% win rate over a single month as a big huge deal) considering how different they are. I don't think major changes are called for. And frankly, maintaining faction uniqueness is more important than having every faction have a perfect 50% win rate. If you have a faction that wins 58% of the time, and the only way to get that down to below 55% is to take away some of the awesome stuff that makes it unique (whether original or added in more recently)? You know what, let it keep winning 58% of the time. Especially considering that the faction is difficult to command well, so it's not like its higher win rate leads to everyone flying it. It's more fun to play a game that offers lots of unique experiences depending on which faction you play, than a perfectly balanced game where every faction is about the same. But frankly that's just a silly fake dilemma, because you shouldn't need to make huge giant changes like removing unique faction abilities to knock a few percentage points off of their win rate. Bios wins too often by about 3%? Is "make their con build time much longer," or something equally drastic, really the only viable way to fix this?

[Makida]

QUOTE (Jimen @ Apr 5 2010, 06:21 PM) And if the better comms stick to certain factions, then odds are those are the better factions. You guys are putting forward some kind of ridiculous hypothetical where a faction isn't ACTUALLY good, it's might just be SUPER POPULAR with the best comms for some mysterious reason that you absolutely refuse to offer up. Even if 90% of all Bios teams were commed by vets, why the $#@! would you think those vets were choosing Bios? As a goddamn handicap?

I think it's because Bios is very good if played well. If you are a good comm, you can make bios very powerful. But if you are a bad comm (relatively speaking), then bios is an even more difficult faction to play with than the others. In other words, bios are extra-good in the hands of a vet, and extra-bad in the hands of someone less experienced. Nerfing them would make them only pretty good in experienced hands, and even worse in less-experienced hands. And I, for one, can't think of a way to nerf them that makes them less awesome for good commanders without making them even worse than they are now for comms who are more average...

P.S. Thanks, notjarvis.

P.P.S. I'd still like to know why "below 45%" and "above 55%" are the thresholds. They seem a bit arbitrary... Honest question. Why not 40-60? I'm sure someone who loves math could come up with lots of justification for picking particular numbers to act as the boundaries of "balanced".

P.P.P.S. I personally, for what it's worth, don't think nerfing bios is necessarily wrong, or a bad idea. I just don't think anything drastic is needed, or justified. A small, subtle nerf of one sort or another (... I dunno. A couple hit points off here? A percentage point of hit box size increase there? Small stuff...) really seems like it should be enough.

[Jimen]

QUOTE (girlyboy @ Apr 5 2010, 06:28 PM) But frankly that's just a silly fake dilemma, because you shouldn't need to make huge giant changes like removing unique faction abilities to knock a few percentage points off of their win rate.

How about huge giant changes like adding unique faction abilities (something Bios in particular has had a lot of experience with)? Should those then be rendered permanent because to remove them afterward would make the faction "less unique"? As Viru points out, Bios' super-short build times weren't an original quirk of Bios or something - they were added in one of the late DN releases as an attempt to buff up the once-underpowered Bios, and thus there shouldn't be any problem removing it again now that it's clear Bios has been perked too much.

That's not the only "unique" Bios feature that was added only relatively recently to buff the faction up, although I don't have a full DN changelog so I don't have a whole lot of info on that; thanks to the DN 00.04.60 notes, however, I can see that Bios once got enh carriers for free, and that Bios gunships were additionally smallrip-capable and thus could rip to those cruisers. Haha! I bet you would have pissed and moaned about TF small ships losing their lead indicators, too!

QUOTE (girlyboy @ Apr 5 2010, 06:28 PM) Especially considering that the faction is difficult to command well, so it's not like its higher win rate leads to everyone flying it.

This is R5, partialling is not that hard anymore. Slow research times are easy as hell to deal with; TF is, IMO, the easiest faction to comm, and it doesn't $#@!ing compare to the toys Bios has access to.

[Makida]

All I know is I see vets comming bios, and I see less experienced comms staying away from it. Partialling is not difficult these days, true, but a super-long research time is still a unique challenge, and an experienced comm will deal with it better.

As to faction uniqueness, again, two things: Firstly, bios does not have some gigantic advantage. It's not a super-faction that wins every game it plays in. It wins 58% of the time. It's hardly unbeatable. If it was winning 70% of the time or something, of course some huge nerf would be needed. But why is a big nerf needed when it's 3% over the arbitrary threshold that's been set?

Secondly, what does it really matter if a unique faction ability is new or has been there since Microsoft days? Unique faction abilities make the game more fun. Removing them make the game less fun. Just because bios haven't always had a quick build time, doesn't mean it isn't worth keeping, especially when it really doesn't seem necessary to remove it to bring them into balance, considering that they aren't that unbalanced at all.

[spideycw]

Vir any chance you can make your points based off CC alone without bringing up "back in DN". Jesus christ dude DN is dead.

Also pkk makes very good points about the stats. I am very confused why you would only use such a small portion of all the faction stats? Just seems as if you are trying to skew the information

Please note we tried to nerf bios a bit before and the community was not at all interested.

@Girlboy - all I see is voobs comming bios - and vets comming something that takes more than the skill of a 3 year old to command.

[HSharp]

QUOTE (Jimen @ Apr 5 2010, 10:21 PM) I don't get this, though. Why shouldn't the factions with strong openings absolutely rape the most comebacky of comebacks faction with the slowest midgame tech? Bios' opening is its weak point, which has to be hit for massive damage before they get their tech up and start owning. It's not like its opening D is even THAT bad; its opening tech has been buffed enough that even if it can't stand up to lt ints, it's still above average. Yet when even when Bios is universally acknowledged to need a nerf, we can't dare to nerf its opening because then it might lose to lt int rushes? What is WRONG with you? What about all the other factions that get ass-pounded when a flock of light ints come for them? Why don't THEY get to be buffed to stand up against a $#@!ing IC opening? What is the origin of this ridiculous bull@#(!?


And if the better comms stick to certain factions, then odds are those are the better factions. You guys are putting forward some kind of ridiculous hypothetical where a faction isn't ACTUALLY good, it's might just be SUPER POPULAR with the best comms for some mysterious reason that you absolutely refuse to offer up. Even if 90% of all Bios teams were commed by vets, why the $#@! would you think those vets were choosing Bios? As a goddamn handicap?

Giga can afford to spam another op, Belt's can fig-nan, Rix can go toe to toe and kill the IC/Dreg op instead, TF is just cheesy, GT Scouts are opening cheese.

Bios figs are quite fat so baring proxing alephs to @#(! they are quite crap on con D vs ints and although they are quite good at attacking miners by surprise they are useless at anything else except a prox camp. Bios don't really need the perked con/miner times but if they lose the opening then they can just go into turtle mode and that is a boring game for everyone

[NightRychune]

QUOTE (spideycw @ Apr 5 2010, 05:06 PM) Vir any chance you can make your points based off CC alone without bringing up "back in DN". Jesus christ dude DN is dead.

Also pkk makes very good points about the stats. I am very confused why you would only use such a small portion of all the faction stats? Just seems as if you are trying to skew the information

Please note we tried to nerf bios a bit before and the community was not at all interested.

@Girlboy - all I see is voobs comming bios - and vets comming something that takes more than the skill of a 3 year old to command.

I bring up DN because that's the last time some things were changed and to specify what was changed, when it was changed, and how those things are the first things that should be looked at in order to carry out nerfss. I have already made many points based off of CC alone, such as how your changes to fig scale and fuel were stupid, unnecessary, and caused more problems than they solved, like the hvy booster issue: Hvy booster may or may not have been overpowered, but after the fuel and scale increases that buffed every fig in the game, there was no doubt that it was a major problem.

I fail to understand how you keep considering my a DN fanboy, considering some of the things I'm advocating for are removals of some of the things that were added to factions in DN, MANY OF WHICH WERE MY IDEA.

QUOTE (HSharp @ Apr 5 2010, 05:11 PM) Giga can afford to spam another op, Belt's can fig-nan, Rix can go toe to toe and kill the IC/Dreg op instead, TF is just cheesy, GT Scouts are opening cheese.

Bios figs are quite fat so baring proxing alephs to @#(! they are quite crap on con D vs ints and although they are quite good at attacking miners by surprise they are useless at anything else except a prox camp. Bios don't really need the perked con/miner times but if they lose the opening then they can just go into turtle mode and that is a boring game for everyone

Bios figs are not fat. Basic fig scales, by faction, as of cc_08:

GT: 13.5
Bios: 10.3
Belters: 13.32
TF: 19.8
Rix: 18.7

They are the smallest fighters in the game. They also have a fuel stat of 11, which is also superior to every other fighter.

[Psychosis]

vir, you would need to check the scale with the models.

on the general thread, both bios and TF have become too powerful, Rix recently is riding a wave of cheese, and belters and GT have been hurting

[HSharp]

QUOTE (NightRychune @ Apr 5 2010, 11:21 PM) added to factions in DN, MANY OF WHICH WERE MY IDEA.[/b]

I Blame Vir!