View Issue Details
| ID | Project | Category | Date Submitted | Last Update | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0002214 | AI War 1 / Classic | Balance Issue | Dec 29, 2010 12:14 pm | Dec 31, 2010 8:25 pm | |
| Reporter | Master Cylinder Pants | Assigned To | keith.lamothe | ||
| Status | resolved | Resolution | fixed | ||
| Product Version | 4.057 | ||||
| Summary | 0002214: Neinzul vultures gone wild | ||||
| Description | I seem to be able to neuter mark 1-4 worlds (except for the things under mark 2+ shields) using a few caps of mark 1-3 vultures without too much trouble and in little time (due to their very fast rebuild time and travel speed - that's why "a few caps" doesn't sound ridiculous and could still be a balance issue, in my opinion). My hip shot guess - based on the description of the vultures - could it be the case that damage is never ramping down as it should or not ramping down fast enough? (perhaps against posts if not ships?) Anyhow, I recommend giving them a try - the only counter I've seen apart from the shields are what I call the tractor honey combs from hell. They can't get far when there are a lot of those in system... incidentally, there might be too many honey combs from hell... I'll attach a save from before the honey combs appeared in mass numbers. If it is a balance issue or minor bug don't fix it too quickly!! I need them to win this game! | ||||
| Tags | No tags attached. | ||||
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It's possible they need an overall damage nerf, but in general the youngling dps types can be very potent on the offensive. I like to use the tigers when going guard-post hunting :) Largely it's compensation for their limitations. |
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Uploaded the file but i couldn't find a save from before the honey combs appeared but I doubt you'll need it anyhow, if the vultures are doing too much damage (or too much too quickly) that should be easy enough to test with this one. But, I might be able to dig one up if needed - from the blue player. |
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That makes sense and since that's the major role I've given to them I might not really be getting a sense of their limitations. Just thought I'd mention it though.. They are great post killers! |
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And you guys should be on vacation! I don't want to see any damager nerfs until after the 3rd of 2011 at the earliest - or until I finish my current game.. The later of the two! ;) |
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I don't think any damage nerf is necessary, but they should have a broader damage distribution. Their damage caps out as soon as their target hits 90% health, and their initial damage is too high (comes out to be about 2/3rds of a fighter of the same mark, but with full armor piercing and rapidly increasing damage). Their damage should start at a terrible level, and should cap out much later, but should have a much higher damage cap to compensate for their poor initial damage. I was suggesting, in another report, using exponents to give more of a ramping effect rather than the linear damage increase it has right now. |
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"Their damage caps out as soon as their target hits 90% health" You mean it ramps up from minimum at 100% (say, 50,000 out of 50,000 health) to maximum at 90% (45,000 out of 50,000)? It's meant to be at a minimum from 100-90% and ramp up to a maximum at 10%. And the linear is preferable to the exponential both for cpu reasons and to be able to actually have a balanced unit on both ends. |
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Yeah, I mean that the damage for Vultures is at a max when their target is at 90% health (or 45,000 out of 50,000 hitpoints). Say you have a mk1 neinzul vulture, it has a damage of 154, x2 in normal for 308, and then x10 if target is at max health for 3080 as their minumum damage. Then their maximum damage from what I've seen is 30800 damage if their target has 90% or less health left (or 45,000 out of 50,000 health or less), so they get no damage bonuses for their target having less than 90% health left (or less than 45,000 out of 50,000 hitpoints left). |
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Ah, that's a bug then; for 4.059: * Fixed a bug where Neinzul Youngling Vultures were scaling damage up from a minimum at 100% target health to a maximum at 90% (or lower) target health, they were intended to (and will now) scale from a minimum at 100%-90% target health to a maximum at 10%-0% target health. ** Thanks to Sunshine for reporting. They should still be pretty effective. |
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What is max damage for Vultures now, then? Is it still the same? |
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Should be, yes. Minimum is 10x base, Maximum is 90x base. |
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It's hard to tell the maximum damage of vultures by testing, but minimum damage of vultures is their base damage (308 for mk1 vultures on normal/normal), and it starts increasing before the target loses 10% of its health. In testing it appears that their damage doubles when the target is down to 97% health, and then increases linearly from there up to at least 29,000 (again, it's hard to tell what the actual max is). I'm guessing the damage tooltip should be rewritten for vulture damage - If we're deciding what damage should be based on the formula in-game, then damage is base*(101-%health remaining)*10 (multiplier goes from 10x at target has 100% health left, to 1000x at target has 1% health left), but it should probably be base*(101-%health remaining) if 10x to 90x is the damage multiplier range (with a note added about the mins/maxes so people don't get confused). Edit: That being said, before the fix, Vultures were scaling from x10 multiplier at target health being 100%, to x100 multiplier at target health being 90% remaining. This fix makes Vultures strictly worse against everything, and they were already bad against a decent number of the large targets they were purportedly supposed to be good at finishing off (if anything, before the fix they quite good against smaller ships, and absolutely murdered starships even if the starship were at 100% health to start with, but against things like Forcefields or Fortresses they did abysmally). |
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@Sunshine True, but the bugged behavior and the damage output of vultures are two separate issues. More important than balance is things doing what they say they do. If the current (non-bugged) version of vultures is too weak, then maybe the min damage and/or the base damage needs to be bumped up some. If the weakness is due to the damage calculation itself, then maybe the formula should be changed to something a little less dependent on the target's HP. The point that the issue you mentioned in the edit is a balance issue, not a bug issue. If you think vultures in their non-bugged state need a buff, you should make a separate report for that. |
| Date Modified | Username | Field | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dec 29, 2010 12:14 pm | Master Cylinder Pants | New Issue | |
| Dec 29, 2010 12:17 pm | Master Cylinder Pants | File Added: 12-28-10 1.sav | |
| Dec 29, 2010 12:18 pm | keith.lamothe | Note Added: 0007206 | |
| Dec 29, 2010 12:19 pm | Master Cylinder Pants | Note Added: 0007207 | |
| Dec 29, 2010 12:22 pm | Master Cylinder Pants | Note Added: 0007208 | |
| Dec 29, 2010 12:24 pm | Master Cylinder Pants | Note Added: 0007209 | |
| Dec 29, 2010 1:51 pm | Sunshine | Note Added: 0007210 | |
| Dec 29, 2010 2:20 pm | keith.lamothe | Note Added: 0007211 | |
| Dec 29, 2010 2:34 pm | Sunshine | Note Added: 0007212 | |
| Dec 29, 2010 2:44 pm | keith.lamothe | Note Added: 0007214 | |
| Dec 29, 2010 2:44 pm | keith.lamothe | Status | new => resolved |
| Dec 29, 2010 2:44 pm | keith.lamothe | Resolution | open => fixed |
| Dec 29, 2010 2:44 pm | keith.lamothe | Assigned To | => keith.lamothe |
| Dec 29, 2010 4:31 pm | Sunshine | Note Added: 0007221 | |
| Dec 29, 2010 4:36 pm | keith.lamothe | Note Added: 0007227 | |
| Dec 31, 2010 12:36 am | Sunshine | Note Added: 0007285 | |
| Dec 31, 2010 12:37 am | Sunshine | Note Edited: 0007285 | |
| Dec 31, 2010 12:45 am | Sunshine | Note Edited: 0007285 | |
| Dec 31, 2010 8:25 pm | TechSY730 | Note Added: 0007299 | |
| Apr 14, 2014 9:29 am | Chris_McElligottPark | Category | Gameplay - Balance Issue => Balance Issue |
