Our biggest-ever RAD Soldiers Balancing Update is now live - full list of changes inside!

[badman]

We’re getting ready to release another game update for RAD Soldiers, and this one includes a host of balancing changes based on feedback and player activity.

Our overall goal with this update is to speed up gameplay and take away some of the “sponginess” reported by players. In other words, expect battles out in the open to be over faster, making clever use of cover even more vital than it was before.

We’ll be keeping a close eye on your feedback on this update, so do let us know what you think of the changes once the update’s been released and you’ve had some time to play around with it.

Here’s the full list of balancing tweaks:

General

[ul]
[li]Boosted damage of all melee weapons by 10%[/li][li]Boosted damage of all sniper rifles by 20%[/li][li]Boosted damage of all other weapons by 30%[/li][/ul]

Abilities

[ul]
[li]Trunquilizer: Boosted damage by 10%[/li][li]Rocket Launcher: Boosted damage by 20%[/li][li]Orbital Laser: Boosted damage by 10%[/li][li]C4: Boosted damage by 20%[/li][li]Gatling Turret: Boosted damage by 20% and increased health by 50[/li][li]Rocket Turret: Boosted damage by 20% and increased health by 30[/li][li]Explosive Crossbow: Boosted damage by 30%[/li][li]Frag Grenade: Boosted damage by 30%[/li][li]Squhurter: Boosted damage by 30%[/li][li]Landmine: Boosted damage by 10% and health by 30[/li][li]UAV: Boosted explosion damage by 30%[/li][li]Flaming Nora: Boosted impact damage by 30%[/li][li]Gas Grenade: Boosted impact damage by 30%[/li][li]Concussion Grenade: Boosted impact damage by 30%[/li][li]Healing Aura: Boosted effects by 50%[/li][li]Medkit: Boosted effects by 50%[/li][li]Health Crate: Boosted effects by 50%[/li][li]Toolkit: Boosted repair by 30%[/li][li]Shield-o-bot: Increased health by 75[/li][li]Deployo Cover: Increased health by 100[/li][li]Bee Bomb: Boosted impact damage by 30%[/li][li]Artillery: Boosted damage by 30%[/li][/ul]

Weapons

[ul]
[li]Chains-Awesome: Increased Squad Point cost to 7 and Energy Cost to 5[/li][li]Salad Jammer: Increased Squad Point cost of to 7 and Energy Cost to 5[/li][li]Biffo LMG: Increased Energy Cost to 6[/li][li]Hamjak: Increased Energy Cost to 6[/li][li]Minimax: Increased Energy Cost to 7[/li][/ul]

If all goes well, you won’t have to wait a very long to give these a go. In the meantime, feel free to start discussing these changes below.

[Beasttekkers]

Lots of changes might effect game play a bit too much but sounds good about c4

[Sandman77]

Why increase Energy cost on weapons? That basically means a LMG or Hamjak is barely useable with a medium toon…

[Shiek93]

I agree on the extra cost on the Hamjack, it would be way to powerfull, as well as the melee weapons, not to sure about the Minimax, and consider it unesesary for the LMG…

[Beasttekkers]

Little disappointed there’s no new characters .i also think that the tweaks are quite unnecessary .

[EL-CO]

This is a quite big change!
I think that the update would make the game deadly, not speedy. As basically most of the damage are increased 20-30%, the game will become ‘if you make one bad move, you will lose one unit (and the match)’. In such a game, I will play less aggressively, always keep cover, waiting opponent’s mistake, which might not be very speedy. The overall boosting of damage won’t reward aggressive and advancing style and will encourage people to play more protectively with sniping. Boosting healing ability doesn’t help as you can easily lose an unit in a single turn without any chance of healing (this is already true in most of 20 and 26 matches and will be facilitated by the update). I think damage boosting is too much and will make the game less exciting, but that’s just my speculation. We will see what happens.

I appreciate the buff for the turrets and Deployo Cover, though. Increase in both Squad Point cost and Energy Cost for Chains-Awesome and Salad Jammer seems a bit too much for me. Increase in Squad Point or Energy Cost would be fine. No need to debuf Biffo LMG, Hamjak and Minimax but definitely need debuf Electri-Fryer (increase Squad Point to 6) IMO.

Do you have any buff for medium weight units?

[Mitsid]

[QUOTE=EL-CO;460996]This is a quite big change!
I think that the update would make the game deadly, not speedy. As basically most of the damage are increased 20-30%, the game will become ‘if you make one bad move, you will lose one unit (and the match)’. In such a game, I will play less aggressively, always keep cover, waiting opponent’s mistake, which might not be very speedy. The overall boosting of damage won’t reward aggressive and advancing style and will encourage people to play more protectively with sniping. Boosting healing ability doesn’t help as you can easily lose an unit in a single turn without any chance of healing (this is already true in most of 20 and 26 matches and will be facilitated by the update). I think damage boosting is too much and will make the game less exciting, but that’s just my speculation. We will see what happens.

I appreciate the buff for the turrets and Deployo Cover, though. Increase in both Squad Point cost and Energy Cost for Chains-Awesome and Salad Jammer seems a bit too much for me. Increase in Squad Point or Energy Cost would be fine. No need to debuf Biffo LMG, Hamjak and Minimax but definitely need debuf Electri-Fryer (increase Squad Point to 6) IMO.

Do you have any buff for medium weight units?[/QUOTE] Totally agree!

[badman]

Why increase Energy cost on weapons? That basically means a LMG or Hamjak is barely useable with a medium toon…

In short, it’s to balance their overall damage profile. RadSiri or one of the other designers can elaborate.

We know this stuff looks frightening at first glance, but it’s not quite as drastic as it reads on the page. We’ve been playing with these new values internally and there’s also been a select group of players trying these out (stuff like this is why we occasionally ask for beta testers on here), so it’s not a kneejerk / throw-something-at-the-random-balance-dartboard-and-see-what-sticks decision.

[Jerry-Rigs]

My first reaction was that these are huge changes.

Then I thought a little. I understand that devs have a limited tool box in which to make tweaks.
-Damage and healing is a place where small tweaks are possible.
-Weapon range could be a medium to large tweak.
-AOA splash range change is large.
-Energy cost and squad points are large tweaks no matter how small the change.
-Health point and movement point tweaks would be huge!

So, looking at the tweaks again, most everything is affecting damage or health which says small tweaks.

The fact that all squad weapons are tweaked and the way they are tweaked says that devs thing that currently, sniper rifles are overpowered, and melee is way overpowered. That somewhat agrees with the discussion forums. In order to balance small tweaks there, damage had to be adjusted across the abilities as well. The overall effect, however, is a push to higher damage faster. That changes a lot. I’m still thinking about tactics changes.

Specific ability changes are interesting as well.
DOT (flame, toxic, B-Bomb) did not change, just the initial impact. Devs must have considered the DOT way overpowered. Even more than sniper rifles. I’ll miss you Kate.
Medkit is more powerful but can be destroyed in 2 shots or less from any weapon. Killing one now costs a lot less that the damage it heals. Crates ain’t gonna live long on the battlefield.
Turrets got stronger but the rocket turret still ain’t gonna live to be useful given all the damage increases.
Landmines appear to be considered overpowered currently. Sorry Ciakgb.
Concussion grenade does damage? Yes, I know, but +30% of next to nothing is still next to nothing.

The real heavy hitters really got waxed.
Of course since the across the board damage changes are all percentage based, I can see that they could all suddenly become really overpowered. I’m upset that my beloved Biffo will likely no longer fit my need but I am very surprised that my precious E-Fryer is untouched. Maybe because the Fryer isn’t getting tweaked up as much as the LMG in the first place, it didn’t need to get cut back down.

OK, now my thoughtful, considered, non-kneejerk reaction is … wait for it … these are huge changes.

On a separate note. For the upcoming update:
Please fix detection. My captain, UAV, or sweep should not show my mine, c4 or ghost to the enemy.
Please figure out how to bring back a draw when a red mine takes out the last remaining blue toon that killed the last red toon (or vice-versa). I know I requested the changed that caused this condition but I didn’t foresee all of the effects.

[badman]

A new blog post has been added:

Our biggest-ever RAD Soldiers Balancing Update is now live - full list of changes inside!

Commanders, the latest RAD Soldiers update is now available for download in the App Store, and brings with it the latest amount of balance changes we’ve ever made. In a nutshell, we’re boosting weapon and ability damage across the board to increase the general pace of the game; look for a full break-down of all our tweaks later in this post.

Going hand-in-hand with the balance changes, we’ve also tweaked the London and Rio challenge packs, and they’ll now offer a more consistent difficulty curve. Speaking of challenges, we’ve also improved their tally screens to how display your score, so you can immediatey see how well you did compared to previous attempts. Really great for anyone looking to move up the friends leaderboard.

We’ve also fixed a whole bunch of bugs, including Detecto-Sweep inadvertently revealing your own deployables to the enemy and Engineers being unable to disarm enemy mines that have enemy Soldiers standing on them.

Right, on to the bit you’ve all been waiting for - here’s the full list of balance changes:
Balance Changes
General

Boosted damage of all melee weapons by 10%
Boosted damage of all sniper rifles by 20%
Boosted damage of all other weapons by 30%

Abilities

Trunquilizer: Boosted damage by 10%
Rocket Launcher: Boosted damage by 20%
Orbital Laser: Boosted damage by 10%
C4: Boosted damage by 20%
Gatling Turret: Boosted damage by 20% and increased health by 50
Rocket Turret: Boosted damage by 20% and increased health by 30
Explosive Crossbow: Boosted damage by 30%
Frag Grenade: Boosted damage by 30%
Squhurter: Boosted damage by 30%
Landmine: Boosted damage by 10% and health by 30
UAV: Boosted explosion damage by 30%
Flaming Nora: Boosted impact damage by 30%
Gas Grenade: Boosted impact damage by 30%
Concussion Grenade: Boosted impact damage by 30%
Healing Aura: Boosted effects by 50%
Medkit: Boosted effects by 50%
Health Crate: Boosted effects by 50%
Toolkit: Boosted repair by 30%
Shield-o-bot: Increased health by 75
Deployo Cover: Increased health by 100
Bee Bomb: Boosted impact damage by 30%
Artillery: Boosted damage by 30%
Chains-Awesome: Increased Squad Point cost to 7 and Energy Cost to 5
Salad Jammer: Increased Squad Point cost of to 7 and Energy Cost to 5

Weapons

Biffo LMG: Increased Energy Cost to 6
Hamjak: Increased Energy Cost to 6
Minimax: Increased Energy Cost to 7

The update is now available via the App Store - give it a go and let us know what you think!

[Sandman77]

Will play and then pass judgement…

[Ciakgb]

As a beta tester, all I can say is we had a frickin’ blast playing this…give it a try. Almost ANY play style now works, including turrets.

I understand where you’d think one quick kill, game over, I thought the same thing. But in fact we found matches see sawed back and forth, with toons this deadly, if you lose one you can still take two with you next turn.

Hope people like it and give it try. If things are not great, they can do a little fix and increase the value of cover.

[Ciakgb]

Oh too bad, the Tito grenade fix didn’t happen?

[Ciakgb]

No, it works in the “try zone” can I tell people about it?

[Mustang]

Our biggest-ever RAD Soldiers Balancing Update is now live - full list of changes inside!

It was equal biggest, but then someone had the bright idea of a little extra mine damage, and now it’s the biggest.

[tsondaboy]

[QUOTE=badman;460920]
Biffo LMG: Increased Energy Cost to 6
Hamjak: Increased Energy Cost to 6
Minimax: Increased Energy Cost to 7

If all goes well, you won’t have to wait a very long to give these a go. In the meantime, feel free to start discussing these changes below.[/QUOTE]

Most complains in this forum are about playing snipers all the time and hardly ever mechanics and the best you could come up to address the problem was to nerf the only weapon for mecs that made any sense playing them???
Are you also planing to make new energy cost 5 weapons for the soldiers and mecs, or this was a decision made without much thought?
Don’t you think you need to cover the energy cost 5 weapon gap you just created?

[Jerry-Rigs]

[QUOTE=tsondaboy;461269]Most complains in this forum are about playing snipers all the time and hardly ever mechanics and the best you could come up to address the problem was to nerf the only weapon for mecs that made any sense playing them???
Are you also planing to make new energy cost 5 weapons for the soldiers and mecs, or this was a decision made without much thought?
Don’t you think you need to cover the energy cost 5 weapon gap you just created?[/QUOTE]

Have you ever played with a Hamjak? And won? Against anybody who knew what they were doing? Most engineers I run into have stumpies or pumpies. Just saying. And instead of only complaining, how about trying it first? I volunteer to be your target. Hit me up for a match.

[EL-CO]

We know this stuff looks frightening at first glance, but it’s not quite as drastic as it reads on the page. We’ve been playing with these new values internally and there’s also been a select group of players trying these out (stuff like this is why we occasionally ask for beta testers on here), so it’s not a kneejerk / throw-something-at-the-random-balance-dartboard-and-see-what-sticks decision.

I know that you guys work hard to make the game better. The previous comment was just my first impression and I will tell you more after playing some. Currently I’m feeling that the game is getting more and more about the positioning.

[tsondaboy]

Have you ever played with a Hamjak? And won? Against anybody who knew what they were doing? Most engineers I run into have stumpies or pumpies. Just saying. And instead of only complaining, how about trying it first? I volunteer to be your target. Hit me up for a match.

Obviously now that it costs 6 to fire I am not gonna use it any more. Now because you dont use it, it doesn’t mean that everyone doesn’t nor that only “your” play style is the most efficient or best out there. The main problem as I see it is that two whole classes of toons were striped of energy cost 5 weapons.
Snipers can still take 1 step out of cover fire twice and get back in cover, soldiers and mecs not any more. I am not convinced it is a game balancing feature to limit the movement options of 2 classes of toons. If they plan to introduce new energy 5 weapons in the next updates I will be thrilled. For the time being though I only see a gap.

[Jerry-Rigs]

[QUOTE=tsondaboy;461290]Obviously now that it costs 6 to fire I am not gonna use it any more. Now because you dont use it, it doesn’t mean that everyone doesn’t nor that only “your” play style is the most efficient or best out there. The main problem as I see it is that two whole classes of toons were striped of energy cost 5 weapons.
Snipers can still take 1 step out of cover fire twice and get back in cover, soldiers and mecs not any more. I am not convinced it is a game balancing feature to limit the movement options of 2 classes of toons. If they plan to introduce new energy 5 weapons in the next updates I will be thrilled. For the time being though I only see a gap.[/QUOTE]

In your first post, you used language like

the only weapon for mecs that made any sense playing them

I pointed out, in different language, that you seemed to think that

“your” play style is the most efficient or best out there

.
Now that you have been called on it, you soften you tone and call the kettle black. You’re funny.

If you had used the softer tone in the first place, you comments about the lack of a 5pt weapon might have carried more weight instead of just being flame bait.

I tend to play the same handful of people most of the time and I don’t think I’ve played you. I am truly interested in seeing other styles of play. I understand that your weapons & tactics will change because of the update as will mine. If you are interested, feel free to send me a challenge.