Discussion of Bios changes

[spideycw]

QUOTE (Jimen @ Jun 22 2010, 05:42 PM) I think Crono's words in that thread are more appropriate for CC than Bacon's idiocy will ever be. Just take one look at old-timey TF, Dreg, and Nix, and then ask yourselves again if "different" is always "good". If someone makes a good and well-reasoned argument for removing something, you don't just get to wave that off with "but it's DIFFERENT". Why not actually try and JUSTIFY retaining this stuff, instead of whining that we should keep stuff no matter what and complaining that "if it's unbalanced then the CC team just isn't trying hard enough".

SO SHUT UP AND RETURN TO THE WORLD OF $#@!ING BALANCING BIOS LIKE THIS THREAD IS ABOUT INSTEAD OF GOING ON CONSTANT DERAILS ABOUT THE SAME WHINY @#(! YOU GUYS BRING UP IN EVERY $#@!ING THREAD ABOUT EVERY $#@!ING SHIP OR FACTION. Seriously, focus and think before posting in the $#@!ing CC forum.

Honestly I came here to post this exact thing almost word for word.

First and foremost I am concerned with anyone he gives credence to Bacon's post in the context of this discussion.

Second I don't give a $#@! about rix heavy scouts or any other concerns in the bios thread.

I'm not quite sure how this is overly complicated to some of you but I find it quite vexing

[Makida]

If we're listing all Bios nerfs, don't forget they are the only faction with 90% base hull and shield. Comparatively, it may not be a huge deal, but it's there.

QUOTE (Jimen @ Jun 22 2010, 03:58 PM) Ah, yes, so ripping pods are easy to deal with, because all you have to do is trap them in their home and then execute the "bomb the home-rip of a sup team that has proxing figs and is turtling in one sector" plan. Are you insane?

I had assumed the "trap them in their home" is a given, since the context of the ripping pods discussion was "they make it easy to turtle." So we assume they are down to one sector already, and are using the rippy pods to attack your miners or what-have-you and then get back to defend their one sector quickly. To kill a TP you have to get in AB range and shoot 2 ABs. Your bomber only has to live long enough to do that. If you're galving, your team will also have an easier time than with another faction because Bios base shield and hull is nerfed. It doesn't seem impossible to me. Difficult? Sure. Why should it be easy, exactly? But it's hardly impossible, especially if you out-tech them.

I think if someone suggests a huge change like cutting away a faction's unique attribute -- even if it has many others left -- then the burden of proof is on them that it's necessary. Suppose we are comparing nerfing Bios paydays (which seems to be the other popular option) to taking away their ripping pods. The former doesn't remove anything unique from the faction, the latter does. The former seems to me like a less fundamental change than the latter. If you want the more extreme change to be made, isn't the burden of proof on you to show that it's necessary? I say, start with a smaller change, and if it's enough, then great -- if not, then you can say "see, we need to take more extreme steps."

If you must nerf the pods, then increasing their rip time or making them slower seem like fair measures. I don't see why it's necessary to cut off their ability to teleport altogether. Yes, they make it easy to get home and defend for a PUG team, while a different faction would need someone to remember to drop an RP, or to hang around and not die and pick up pods, or its pilots would need to be able to quickly pod-kill themselves. Yes, it makes things that much easier for Bios. But it's not like it's impossible for other factions to get back quickly from an attack where much of their team is podded -- it's just more challenging. Does that really add up to an advantage so overpowering for Bios that it has to be totally removed before the faction is balanced? I just don't see it.

[Koln]

QUOTE (Icky @ Jun 22 2010, 09:54 PM) they don't need to worry about a 4.5 minute pod ride home.

I'd rather turn it into a 2.5 minute pod ride to the sector boundary.

[NightRychune]

You do understand that, regardless of Bios base durability, that it's difficult to bomb against them because their adv scouts have very low sig to begin with and can cloak, making it very, very easy to probe or even just sit 7k out in the middle of any sector - at 43 sig - and eye any bomber that launches. Chances are, you will never find that scout, and because of how easy it is for Bios to get back home and get in base, they can have an aleph camped long before a bomber gets anywhere near it, and the same goes for defending against galvs. You can have a scout on an aleph proxing it with a few figs/ints/whatever camping it as backup often before the other team can come anywhere near the aleph.

You can offer "oh just bomb them early" or "oh just trap them in their home early" as soundbite solutions as to how to deal with Bios, but it will almost never be that simple or that easy. It's a compound problem that will take an interesting solution to solve, especially when you consider the fact that everybody loves to fly as Bios with their super-sneaky, high scan range, agile ships and their low liability gameplay. They're even very easy to command. Right click on some tech every couple of minutes, don't really need to watch your miners or worry about expanding, and then tell your team to go try and win when you have third tier tech available. Most proposed nerfs can, will be, and have been shot down because people vehemently oppose "killing the fun" of playing as Bios.

[Jimen]

QUOTE (girlyboy @ Jun 22 2010, 07:21 PM) To kill a TP you have to get in AB range and shoot 2 ABs. Your bomber only has to live long enough to do that.

Do you just not play or something? To bomb anything in a turtle team's last remaining sector, you have to get through the aleph camp. Which takes a lot of time and money, and often leads to a stalemate lasting 30+ minutes with rock-solid camps on both sides of every aleph. Don't even talk about "all you have to do is put 2 ABs into their tele", because the only way you're doing that is over the bones of THEIR ENTIRE TEAM - and while you spend time sending bomber after bomber into the aleph grinder, they're catching up to you in tech (despite the fact that you own the map and they have zero He3). That's why turtling's so tough to crack: it's easy to defend when EVERYTHING has to come in through one of only two alephs, and in my experience, even endgame tech won't crack their nuts without some seriously well-organized runs.

I also think the "ripping pods" thing is going off on the wrong tack - while I don't think it's something that needs to be removed, I think people are getting lost in pointless tangents that completely miss the point. It's an assurance that as long as the team has ONE safe sector, NOBODY spends more than thirty seconds in a pod...no matter where they were or how they got podded or if there's anything nearby to suicide on. For example, I'm often cruising around alone in a scout in the ass-end of nowhere and end up coming through an aleph only to run into a scout and a couple of ints on the other side; usually that stroke of bad luck means I get to bitch on team chat about our nonexistent miner d during the three-minute pod ride, but with Bios I'll just rip my pod back so fast that I'll reach the miner with a fresh scout before they even get into the right sector. Three ints running around looking for a con that went to a different sector? Suicide and rip, back to base in thirty seconds. It's not really about the organized rushes, it's the guarantee that NOBODY (even the dumbasses who were dicking around across the map from enemy miners) is EVER sitting around being useless in a pod, no matter what, as long as you've got a decent homerip. Of course, that just means that instead they're sitting around in base being useless, which is why I'm not considering this a major concern.

[Xeretov]

QUOTE (NightRychune @ Jun 22 2010, 07:33 PM) You do understand that, regardless of Bios base durability, that it's difficult to bomb against them because their adv scouts have very low sig

This is one of the reasons I like Jimen's idea of removing Bios' starting Starbase. Adv. scouts will be delayed by at least another 10 mins while they research the upgrade, which will help soften up their early-mid game a bit. It'd also be another chunk of cash they have to consider spending. As it is right now (and from my experience) most if not all Bios teams have adv. scouts up by the 10-15 minute mark which is about when the other team tries to bomb them. Note that adv. scouts also have a bit more hull and energy than reg scouts, which makes it easier for them to nan stuff.

It also gives the other team an extra 10mins to try and bomb the garr to stop adv scouts/tp1 which would put a real damper on any sup turtle strategy.

[NightRychune]

It's a good idea imo, not opposed to it at all, and also of worthy sidenote while bombing is under discussion is the fact that starbases are more durable than garrisons, so yeah, it'll help in that regard. I still don't like the idea of prox on figs though, but letting them keep 2x minepacks per rack is fine and should even enable minepacks for Bios even without them having a sup to make up for it.

Their tech costs across the board could also be increased enough that paydaying tech isn't a good option and miners would still be relevant. I think just straight up reducing their payday is too harsh, as if they are made to rely on miners that way, it would be very, very difficult for them to recover from a zero miner situation without farming cashboxes. Even alternatively to that, perk their research time to 7-8 minutes and force them to upgrade all of their tech bases after buying them at 10k like every other faction. A 12.5k upgrade tag is still cheaper than every other faction, and at the mid stage of the game simultaneously upgrading your tech base and buying necessary ships/tech would require you to get miner loads in.

[zombywoof]

QUOTE (spideycw @ Jun 22 2010, 12:27 PM) So yesterday there was a bios vs tf game (exp vs exp). About 15 minutes in bios had killed all of TF's miners and TF had killed all of Bios' miners. If paydays are halved would this have prevented TF from resigning 15 minutes in? If not then perhaps we have not hit upon the root of the problem yet.

The real problem was that TF was down 4 players and as it was against you there was almost no way people were going to join back up, assuming that our team was being beaten horribly.

Yes, that resign was based on the metagame and not the actual game. But I would have been significantly much less inclined to post it had it not been the case that by the time we paydayed a miner and mined to adv tech, you'd have paydayed adv tech a long time ago.

[LANS]

QUOTE (NightRychune @ Jun 22 2010, 08:53 PM) I think just straight up reducing their payday is too harsh, as if they are made to rely on miners that way, it would be very, very difficult for them to recover from a zero miner situation without farming cashboxes.

What about reducing the cost of buying a new miner? That way they could still get a miner out by paydaying in reasonable time. If miners need to have lowered capacity or yield, or longer build time to balance the cheaper cost, so be it. The payday nerf will still put bios economy on similar footing to the other factions with the necessity of mining.

However, I fail to see how requiring bios to mine will make them weaker. If they run effective miner D (like other factions must do in order to win), they'll not only have enough money for their uber-endgame-tech, but at the already low tech costs will probably have the cash to go double-tech in the same time. And if you reduce miner yield so that it take Bios the same number of rocks to reach adv. tech as, say, IC for example, you just removed the perk which was designed to offset the 10-minute research time.

I don't have the answers to any of this stuff, but I haven't seen this question brought up yet.

[Icky]

QUOTE (LANS @ Jun 23 2010, 01:26 PM) However, I fail to see how requiring bios to mine will make them weaker. If they run effective miner D (like other factions must do in order to win), they'll not only have enough money for their uber-endgame-tech, but at the already low tech costs will probably have the cash to go double-tech in the same time. And if you reduce miner yield so that it take Bios the same number of rocks to reach adv. tech as, say, IC for example, you just removed the perk which was designed to offset the 10-minute research time.

I don't have the answers to any of this stuff, but I haven't seen this question brought up yet.

Requiring them to mine means they need an econ and can't just hometech and turtle. If they don't need miners, they don't need to d them, and their whole team can be doing other stuff like $#@!ing up YOUR econ.