Balancing the characters

(tinker) #1

Hey guys - hey devs

I don’t know if your somehow having a view into the tourney - If not I would like to tell you what I thought of for a long time and what is now an important topic - the balancing of the “weaker” characters.

what I experienced. There are some characters that nearly everyone uses, some character that only newer player use (mainly because they only have these)[I won’t talk about these often] and some that are nearly never used or lead to a victory of the other player when in use

In the following I name the characters in the category and name what should be changed in order to balance them . these are small things, I wouldn’t cross out a spell or cut the damage hard but a little change will be there.

This is my opinion, if you have another opinion, please post it below.

The Metagame (which has developed now)

consists of :

Textbook Kate her dot is in my opinion a little too powerfull. increase energy cost slighty (4 or 5 energy) or decrease dmg slightly ( 25 + 20x3 instead of 25+25x3)

Mme. LaHacque she is here because she fits well to many characters, she is quite balanced in my opinion. the only thing I would MAYBE change is the hp of her UAV - from 150 to 125.

Juan DaCova she is here because he does more dmg than Pete when standing still, even if Pete has precasted 1 Headshot + 1headshot in that turn, juan does only 10 dmg less[both Otto Semi-Auto]. I think Juan is also balanced but has the 2nd dot. in my opinion his dot could even be raised for 3points per turn (30-45 [high rnd value] +3x15 instead of 30-45 +3x12)

Sneaky Pete he is mainly here because newer players have no Juan. He is good, but even on full energy use and 2x headshot he only does 10 dmg more [65+65+40 pete // 40+40+40+40 dacova] (otto semi-auto)
maybe the headshot should do 5 dmg more on use, or even 10. this would make it nearly even to the dmg of daves grenade. 50dmg for 4 energy is not the best … -.-"

Hipster Dave he is also here because everyone has him from the very beginning. the thing is, nearly nobody uses him in the tourney because everyone fears dots.(mainly kate) and needs to counterheal.
his grenade + movability is awesome, the dmg is also good, just not the best choice in the tourney.

that is it at the moment. you rarely see one of the other characters and if you see them in the opposing team, it is most of the time a win. Some characters are not in use because nobody knows how to use them / new characters / or because you lack healing power of you want the good strategy (e.g. 2x Dee Hatlacker)

how to change that … my suggestions:

Specialist Suds overwork the range and damage of the c4. AND THE LINE OF SIGHT (in park, in the center field, you can throw it past the big trees but NOT past the fences --> wtf?
range + at least 2 cells (throwing range) damage is not as good as Daves - --> +25 AT LEAST. especially in the aoe. how often will the enemy walk EXACTLY where you threw it?

Archie Fletcher the only time when you should use him, 20+26 point matches with a pistol.
If you give him a Hoo-Hah AR, the explosive arrows do the same dmg/energy as the weapon (60/6 – 40/4)
to balance this, either increase the dmg or lessen the energy cost.

Angela Merci she might be of great use, but she lacks very much damage output. either make a new weapon that deals a little more dmg( not as much as the hoo-hah AR , she is a medic no dmg dealer) or increase her healing power. the aura should do 25 or even 30 per round . or in a bigger aoe range.

Tim Taschman his turret doesnt do much damage, can’t move and has not very much hp.
I’d recommand either a movability of 1 or 2 cells per turn, or better is: range +1, dmg + 10, may attack TWICE in your turn, +25 hp ( it should get 3 of these 4 things) ( the enemy should regret not destroying it and staying in range of it.)

Carlito Grosso the rocket turret is a joke in my opinion :frowning: 100hp, about 40dmg on a rather low range)
hp of the turret +25 or even 50, dmg +10 or 20 and range +2 or 3)

Spud Grunt His Rocket launcher is huge, it does dmg, but not so much dmg/energy. reduce energy cost by 2 or increase dmg by 40.

Megan McNick with the new shotgun she can be quite powerfull. The mines are easier to use than the c4 of Suds,but I think you should decrease the energy cost of the mines to 1 . I know, they are quite cheap then, but she only has 12 energy and you nearly always see when the enemy plants one and guess where it is, walk around it …

Ivan Tkilya The bear is awesome, I just think his grenade should be a LITTLE more powerfull. e.g. throwrange +1 and range of the explosion +1. it costs 6 energy, that’s a lot. When I used him in battle, I rarely came to use it because the enemy was out of range all the time. the effect “only” lasts for 2 rounds, it should at least have a good range.

that’s my opinion, as I said.
If you have something to add, correct, mention – please do it now :slight_smile:

this may also sound rough… in fact: the game is awesome, I just wanna say my opinion to help you make the teams more balanced.

with friendly regards
tinker :slight_smile:

(Crozzton) #2

Agree with most of it. However that is when I see it through the eyes of 14 pts. Some of these may be to awesome in 26 pts if fixed too much.

(tinker) #3

true.
many players invite me to 26 and 20 pt. games, I don’t like them very much but ironically I often win those -.-
but I rarely think about those game types when writing my posts . maybe players that play those can write what not to change / in what way something should change … to make it even in those types balanced.

(Sandman77) #4

I prefer 20/26 matches as well due to having to fave two Texting Kate/Juans… I dont own a Texting Kate yet, is on my to do list…

I think the game gets inbalanced quickly due to the fact one is allowed to have more then one of the same unit in his squad. Id really appriciate a custom setting for this. Not removing it but setting it to yes/no while doing this consider making a custom option to reduce or increase the squadpoints to 26-30 or from 14 - 10 to have that would help real quick…

(Crozzton) #5

Could be a restriction to tournaments with max 1 of a toon
Not sure it is imbalanced just for having more than one of a toon. Doubt 5 Kate’s with cockler is imbalanced in 26 pts. Haven’t got 5… Yet :slight_smile:

(Bwade) #6

Crozzton completly annihilates with two kates on embactment lol the map is so small he’s gonna hit u with the poison grenade one way or the other. Its INEVATABLE!

(Crozzton) #7

Nah. If I start I move All forward. Most of the times so does my opponent. ( not sure why) they get a shot or two. I answer with grenade Molotov arty. 1 Juan shot and a commander shot. All my toons go to cover. And kate will heal. Done
Doing @ 90 fire damage @75 toxic damage 50 arty damage. 40 from ottogun and 36 from commander
Plus 75 toxic dot and 36 fire dot in his turn. That’s more than 400 damage 1 1/2 toon HP in one round.
I ofc punish my opponent if so openly runs toward my bigguns :slight_smile:

(Desparado) #8

Great post, tink. Very enlightening for those of us that didn’t have it all down (me). :smiley:

(EL-CO) #9

Why there is no Gus here? I found him several times in the tournament. I think his water cannon should be restricted once per turn. If you use it to push your unit, it boost the movement 6 sqs at most which is just too much. He is quite powerful unit with lots of health although a difficult character to use.

I would say Juan’s DoT should be weakened not strengthened. He is already the most powerful unit in the game and his DoT is unstoppable unlike Kate’s Gas bomb. Both DoT should be somewhat weakened.
I agree with that Pete is now a bit behind from Juan. Make his Headshot more powerful, and increase its cost (maybe). And fix the SMG headshot issue.
I’m satisfied with Angela and Megan. They are already quite powerful. Angela might be not quite useful in 14 pts squads, but very important unit in 20/26 match. Increasing her healing aura would be too much. Also, I would point out that giving her a better weapon means giving Kate a better weapon.
For Archie, his arrow ignores partial cover which is very useful. Although I agree to decrease the cost (5 maybe).
For Suds, Tim, Carlito and Spuds, they need something.

(Profit) #10

imo Suds could use a slight buff or maybe just a rework to the c4

(ChaosPinhead) #11

Tim, Archie, Carlitto, and Suds are the least used units in my experience in any matches. They all need some sort of buff to make them more useful

C4 is terrible, 1 toss and low damage. Need more C4 and lower cost to deploy it. Megan can drop 3-85 damage mines, Suds get’s 1-75 damage C4 at the same cost as 250 damage in mines :frowning:

Rocket turret is awful. It usually dies the same turn you drop it. You have to drop it close because range is bad, but that means it gets shot to pieces in one round by one character usually. It needs at least +50 hp or more damage or both.

Not sure what you can do with Tim. Giving the gun turret a second shot (on your turn) would be ideal I think.

Archie I’m not sure why people don’t use him as much. Those arrows are great I think and they ignore cover totally. I use him and don’t think much if any modification is needed. Possibly just because there is only so many slots and several other units are considered Staples. Last picked for kickball so he has to sit out :slight_smile:

(Sandman77) #12

Archie was the 2nd unit I got after Merci, I like him alot, to bad he aint light! Would fit him better… Id gladly accept 200 hp instead of 250hp to that…

(Profit) #13

Agreed a light Archie would be better, but he’s not bad, just underused. He certainly got me through most of the challenges :wink:

(tinker) #14

Still focusing on 14pt games, I can say the most about these — SRY :confused:

I already commented about him in another thread. maybe I’m to close to him but I think it is the same problem YOU( not only you, EL-CO , but many of you) with the melee weapons.
he may push 6 cells for 1 turn(or 8 if you push 2 characters with your 1. shot), and 2 more on the other. but that means he has to come AFTER you chars. - hes like a snail. SLOW.
the dmg of these things is not too high, but for pushing 6 cells you made about 50-75dmg to your chars. this only works good with slow chars, everything else is DEAD soon. and only works once.
the watercannon is still some buggy though, sometimes it does 10dmg aoe, sometimes 17, often 0 (1 cell besides the victim in + (-direction) )
he is difficult - that’s it. juan and kate are also difficult. the thing is --> kate or juan with “bad” players still leads to 80 - 300 dmg ( single target molotov --> kates grenade on 3 units )
and a Marx needs to be played with all of your character in order to do massive dmg - or dmg at all.

sry to comment here, but Juan is not the most powerful unit in the game - at least not in my interpretation.
on maximum dmg he does 3x40 + 1x38 +12(first dot, 2x12 in the following 2 rounds.) within one turn. --> 170… or 180-210 with botherer.
carlito with the new shotgun does 6x55~60 dmg --> 330~360.
true, on close range… but well, we also calculate with juan on max range.
even megan does 4x55~60 --> 220 ~ 240
same goes for tim taschman --> this is the “balance” I think the devs wanted, but the shotguns are close to be melee weapons … that’s the problem. And I think Megan is quite tough to be used in close range ( same goes to all melee weapons.)

[QUOTE=EL-CO;420653]
I’m satisfied with Angela and Megan. They are already quite powerful. Angela might be not quite useful in 14 pts squads, but very important unit in 20/26 match. Increasing her healing aura would be too much. Also, I would point out that giving her a better weapon means giving Kate a better weapon.
For Archie, his arrow ignores partial cover which is very useful. Although I agree to decrease the cost (5 maybe).
For Suds, Tim, Carlito and Spuds, they need something.[/QUOTE]

MAYBE it should somehow be done like that:(please comment below to that)
megan / angela and others that are weak in 14pt matches but stronqq in 20 and 26 should get a slightly different effect / increased or decreased/ in the different game types. e.g. leave the angela on 20heal for aura in 20 and 26 pt games but increase to 25/30 in 14 pt matches … something like that.

I also think it should somehow be made a certain amount of number for each char in each game type.

imagine 4 juans in 24pt or 5 megans — anything like that.

I think in 14 pt matches it is ok - but correct me if I’m wrong. SOME STRATEGIES nearly only work when 2x the same (dee hatlacker ONCE is not as good as he is twice – same goes to suds.)

again - my opinion.

(PERRIX) #15

thumb down !!! I like it the way it is !!! I really like to test all the characters and combinations as possible even though i still dont have all the toons.!!!
getting 2 of the the same character!! in my opinion it shouldnt be allow!!! i know many of u will disagree !!!(of course)

(EL-CO) #16

For Gus, his water cannon is more powerful in middle of the game, not in the early game. Once he gets to the battlefield, his low mobility doesn’t matter and you can push your main damage dealer quite far, even to the back of the opponent behind the wall. Once in a turn is already powerful enough, I think.

For Juan, I said that he is the most powerful unit in more practical sense, not thinking about maximum damage per turn in theory which is useless. You never have an opportunity to fire 6 times with shotgun by Carlito, but you can often fire 3 times with SR by Juan. I see Juan most often in the tournament which means that most people think that Juan is the best attacker. I would say his DoT damage should be 10/turn, but OK with 12/turn as it is, but cannot see any reason to buff him as he is one of the best unit already.

My last thought is that heavy units are not slow as a snail. They can move 6 sqs in a turn while med weight units can move only 7 sqs. There are very fast moving light units and rather slow med weight / heavy units. Most of the med weight units are not very appealing as they have less health. less energy but only + 1 sq movement range compare to heavy units.

(Catnadian) #17

I think some good ideas for the balancing of the newer units would be to make it so Heavy units can only be pushed one square by anything, make Fire dots medkit-healable, and restrict Water Cannon usage to once a turn. I didn’t even know that was a thing and it’s bloody ridiculous mobility to begin with.

(Sandman77) #18

Defintly need a custom setting to dissallow double usage of a unit…

(Crozzton) #19

A custom setting could bean option ye. Or just fit it into tournament rules. At least if a built in tournament becomes a reality. I don’t mind dual chars as long as everyone can do it.

(Tarq) #20

[QUOTE=EL-CO;420835]
My last thought is that heavy units are not slow as a snail. They can move 6 sqs in a turn while med weight units can move only 7 sqs. There are very fast moving light units and rather slow med weight / heavy units. Most of the med weight units are not very appealing as they have less health. less energy but only + 1 sq movement range compare to heavy units.[/QUOTE]

I strongly agree with that. To me the Mediums feel like they combine the main disadvantage of the Heavies - slow - but lack the Heavy’s compensating high action point allowance.

I’ve wondered if giving Med. units an extra 2 energy would make them appealing enough.
But I suspect the best method is individually balancing the Med units via their special abilities.