Niverio's List to Balance All Specialists (Feedback Please)

Strategy, feedback, or anything SUBTERFUGE-related

  • I didn't really like the thief until this last game i was just in. I hired one. Didn't have better choices. I then captured another one and put them with a helmsman. Those 3 specialist with 180 drills sent drills fleeing. Because the more drills they had. The bigger I got. lol

    I like the smuggler as is. The fact that it only goes fast from your own outpost to your own outpost gives balance. The nav is great. But, only if paired with a smuggler or helmsman.

    I waited and waited for a Nav to pair my smuggler with. Finally, I got someone to gift me a nav. As soon as I got it. I then had the hire options of a smuggler or nav. But, the nav was gifted so far away.

    The differences give balance. The randomness causes you to go mad wondering if you are making the right choice.
    conundrumcypher
     
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  • zyxe wrote:am i the only one who actually hires and likes the thief?

    okay...


    I like the thief.
    Baa.
    bleatingsheep39
     
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    Location: In the pasture.


  • don't change anything in any extravagant & sinister way please.Its all good
    fox-alpha-one
     
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  • fox-alpha-one wrote:don't change anything in any extravagant & sinister way please.Its all good


    But why
    Baa.
    bleatingsheep39
     
    Posts: 809
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  • I like the thief, diplo and elder ideas. I wouldn't want to see the stacking abilities changed. I feel the game will try and give you the hires to balance that out if someone gets too lopsided. I've noticed that when someone has 2 or 3 kings that it offers me a lot more hypnotist then same if someone has multiple tycoons that i'm offered more smugglers to balance out.

    How would the global specialist work then if you had one and then converted an enemies of the same?
    Would it be just an extra specialist that would have just local abilities?
    germanmonkeyboy
     
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  • Hey Germanmonkeyboy, welcome to the forums. Hope you enjoy your time here - check out Tournaments to play games with us and Off Topic And Social to do whatever ;)
    Baa.
    bleatingsheep39
     
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  • bleatingsheep39 wrote:Hey Germanmonkeyboy, welcome to the forums. Hope you enjoy your time here - check out Tournaments to play games with us and Off Topic And Social to do whatever ;)


    Thank's I've been coming on for a while now but haven't posted much. Will do. I'll def. play some more games in the Tournaments.
    germanmonkeyboy
     
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  • niverio wrote:General change: Each global specialist can only be hired once.

    While I understand why this has been said, I don't agree with it. You'd have to mitigate for a whole series of eventualities, like people not getting any choice on hires (as the hire options may all duplicate global effects). What do you do about captured & hypnotised or gifted specialists? I'd prefer the "diminishing returns" approach to dealing with specialist stacking (see my reply to TK's post on specialist fixes).

    niverio wrote:Diplomat: keeps the old effect + Reduces the combat priority of each specialist in his range by 1. (Can’t drop it below 2)
    Engineer: (keeps the old effects) Repairs drills caused by global effect. (for flavor: Can restore the shield at an outpost destroyed by the Infiltrator’s ability) Local: Negates the Saboteur’s ability.
    Infiltrator: old effect + The Infiltrator can choose to damage the shield charge permanently, destroying its ability to regenerate. (This means that if the infiltrator can drain shields by arriving at the enemy outpost first and the player chooses to use the infiltrators ability, the shield of that outpost will remain at 0 for the rest of the game, even when the outpost is controlled by the owner of the infiltrator himself)
    War Hero: Destroys (20 * the speed factor of the sub) when battling. If he is staying at an outpost, War Hero destroys 20 drills + 1 driller for every 3 shield charge the outpost has. Combat Priority 7. (so an attack sub with a Helmsman lets War Hero kill 40 drills, 30 with General / Lt., and 50 with Smuggler (if defending)

    I'm a strong believer in emergent gameplay - that interesting combinations should come as a result of clever / perceptive gameplay, not as a result of designer-prescribed thinking. As such, any specialists that explicitly mentions another should be avoided at all costs, no matter what the reason. If you can't combo anything-with-anything, you're missing something essential in the design process. Specialists that say "X does Y unless specialist Z is present" are ill-formed, and overly narrow in scope. While I like some of the ideas mentioned above, the inclusion of additional specialists weakens all of the abilities, so here's my ideas for tweaking them:
    Diplo : Modifying combat priorities could cause all sorts of headaches - e.g. it actually makes thieves worse (as it guarantees that the enemy thief goes after your thief, stealing more drillers than you stole). Not got any decent suggestions here. Don't think diplo is unbalanced as he's a pain in the ass to attack into (he's a very strong defensive hero).
    Engi : Drop the clauses about Infil and Sab. I think he's an ok specialist at present, but needs a minor boost. Perhaps the double-shield-regen that you've given to the Sec Chief?
    Infil : Drop the "permanent" shield damage and change it to 24 or 48 hours of x0 shield regen. 24hrs sounds fine, 48hrs has the issue of being somewhat double-edged. How would he work with an Inspector at the defending base?
    War Hero : Not keen on linking to speed modifiers, so maybe give him the current +20 on attack, but 25% of attacking force (min 20) on defence? I think he needs a boost that's a multiplicative effect rather than a flat modifier (as many of the other promoted specialists have). Late game he becomes somewhat insignificant.

    niverio wrote:Lieutenant: Moves at 1.5 speed. Converts 5 drillers to your side when battling. Combat Priority 7
    Navigator: old effect + can only reroute once per 8 hours.
    Pirate: old effect + (due to navigator nerf) can target another sub without having to return to home directly, if the pirate carrying sub wins the battle against a targeted sub.

    Two of these three are all stealing other specialists powers (thief, nav). Not keen on this as it diminishes those other specialists. Lieutenant needs something else, maybe increasing the effectiveness of whatever he's attacking with by 10%? As such, on his own he's useless (other than as a taxi for other specialists), but with a large force, he's a decent multiplier (with 200 drillers he's as good as a war hero).
    I think the Pirate needs a nerf, not a boost.
    I like the change to Nav, but 8hrs is too much - perhaps 4hrs?

    niverio wrote:Revered Elder: old effect + negates global effects within her effect radius. Effect radius is fixed and is equal to standard sonar range.
    Saboteur: (You get only one of it) The Saboteur damages the enemy sub. An enemy sub damaged this way must reroute to its own closest outpost. The damaged sub moves at 0.5 speed. If the sub had a speed specialist on it, it moves at normal 1.0 speed instead.
    Security Chief: old effect(Local included) + Local: Security Chief’s outpost’s shield charge regenerates at double rate.(This is to ensure that if you buff your home outpost with queen and security chief, it would stay at top shields, but if you go King, it would still drop to 0 with a tinkerer. Very slight buff)

    Really like all these, assuming Elder is "all enemy global effects" and could be used to counter the likes of diplomat, king and general.
    With Sab, I'd drop the x1.0 for having specs aboard, and just say "sub moves at half normal speed" - x0.75 with naked subs and Admiral, or lieutenant, etc. I'd also keep the double hire as it's still not that powerful.
    With Sec Chief, a double-shield base, queen and king (80 total), double shields recharge would counter the drain from a single tinkerer (I think you need 144+ shields effectively to counter a tinkerer, so 80 and x2 regen would achieve that, even with 70 shields a Tink would take a very long time to fully drain the shields). I think the Engineer could be a similar beneficiary for the x2 shield recharge, but sec chief works too.

    niverio wrote:Tycoon: Factories produce drillers at every 6.0 hours instead of 8. Local stays the same.
    Smuggler: Moves with 2.5 speed instead of 3.
    Thief: old effect + If the Thief attacks a Mine and successfully captures it, you gain the amount of Neptunium lost by the defender. (For example if you capture a mine when your enemy had 100 Np, your Neptunium increases by 20, near the loss of your opponent’s 20.) Combat Priority 4

    Nope to all of these. Change to tycoon is minor, the smuggler ends up being only marginally better than a helmsman, assuming you keep to your own bases (so you'd probably favour helms in all cases where both came up on the same hire), and the switch of Np is nonsensical, especially as it introduces weirdness if you had multiple thieves on the attacking force. It removes some of the predictability of the game, not being able to plan for someone taking out an ally's mine in order to jump forward in the mining race.

    The thief is already a good counter to king, double thief backed by pirate (and king) is frankly obscene. So I don't think it needs this buff.

    ALL IMHO!

    Thanks for the ideas, let's keep talking :)

    -Dinelli.
    dinelli
     
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