#62

This isn’t really true. Unit stats are drastically different from their classic numbers, on top of the changes you describe.

2 Likes
#63

The most obvious example is the velocity of assault frigates, ion frigates and destroyer.

in remastered assault frigates and ion frigates have the same speed and destroyers are slow.
In the original Destroyers were faster than ion frigates and only a little slower than assault frigates.

#64

That’ll teach me to make statements without fact-checking first!

Correction accepted. =)

1 Like
#65

So…

It’s next week! Was this balance mod suppose to drop this week? Any new information on how this will work as far as details about what is changed in the mod, what we should be testing, how long the particular mod will run, how we should submit feedback?

#66

It is underway and there are a few ways this can go.

Some things I am looking at:

Lengthening engagements so that players have time to react.
Adjusting the length of time it takes a HW1 player to get carriers downwards. Races with innate hyperspacing seem like they should feel more agile than what they currently are, especially with parallel construction capabilities.
I’m a dirty Vaygr sympathizer so I know a little something about researching but having to research both drives and chassis to get to a ship feel unrewarding to me. I’d like to combine them into one.
Make frigates more of the backbone of HW1’s fleets and less of HW2’s “ablative armor for your super-capitals”.

8 Likes
Let's talk about support frigate balance
#67

Seems like you guys have a decent handle on what the community wants though I’m assuming you’re going to see what effect these changes have before tackling Super caps?

#68

Combining both drives into one is not a bad idea, it would certainly help us, however, honestly, I think we are getting to destroyers too fast in the tech tree. It seems to balance out due to how fast the HW2 races can reach their destroyers, but doesn’t make since from a lore perspective (how can we build destroyers without first researching Ion tech?).

If we are going to get to carriers faster AND we are going to get our spine back with frigates, I would think that pushing our destroyers back in the tech tree after ion tech would be acceptable for balance, and shouldn’t upset us HW1 guys given we had to research Ion first in the original game.

I would like to see our destroyers a little faster, at least able to keep pace with kiteing HW2 destroyers. Kind of frustrating seeing a HW2 destroyer move ‘sideways’ faster than a HW1 destroyer burning full engines forward.

5 Likes
#69

As a start, I would strongly recommend reevaluating the DPS and health stats leaps from destroyer to cruiser.
Compare HW1’s capital ship battles with HW2’s: a frigate can be destroyed from one shot from the Vaygr BC’s trinity cannon or a second of sustained Ion rake from a Hiigaran BC - how was this ever supposed to be good gameplay?

That would be great. Usually, the HW1 mothership build queues in late-game are best reserved for churning out destroyers and heavy cruisers as fast as possible. The only time a player might be inclined to build a carrier is during the delay waiting for Heavy Guns (HCs) tech to finish.

I’m really excited to see what you will do with this.

HW2 Races can produce their first destroyer just before the 5:30 mark on a 3k RU start.
HW1 Races can produce their first destroyer around 8:18 regardless of 3k or 10k RU start.

Relative to the HW2 races, Kushan/Taiidan under-perform in rushing capital ship tech due to the nature of the HW1 progressive research tree. This is more of an issue in team games where BC rushes dominate the metagame because of how powerful cruisers are.

It honestly should not matter for MP. Realism and lore continuity take a huge backseat to gameplay and balance.
Players would not want HW1 purity applied here if it meant making it even more difficult to churn out destroyers.

I would also suggest looking at Kushan and Taiidan destroyer imbalance - at the very least, if one race is going to receive asymmetric buffs that weren’t present in HW1 classic (Kushan Destroyer Ion turrets never turned 90 degrees), then the other should receive something too.

Increase the Taiidan destroyer’s turn rate so it can compensate for its transversal velocity when doing combat maneuvers around a target at close/medium range - the hull mounted ion cannons often end up out of the necessary firing arc.

1 Like
#70

Yes the 8 min vs 6 min destroyer and the 15 min vs the 10 min HC/BC does sound like issue and should certainly be discussed at length, but you should not count out that given proper buffs that would return HW1 style game play to the HW1 races (much better frigs and fighters) the HW2 destroyers NEED to be a hard counter to HW1 frig fleet and BCs a hard counter to HW1 destroyers. The bigger problem is that HW2 frigs counter HW1 frigs too well and HW1 destroyers are barly a match.

The areguement to make HW1 ships and tech progression more like HW2 (so that say a destroyer rush is a viable tactic) should be had, but I would argue against it. I think the differences should be defined in style preference not ship textures.

1 Like
#71

I would love to see carriers come up earlier in the tech tree and be a viable late game alternative to super capitals. Would it be unreasonable to suggest that you could research them at the point where you would research destroyers now, i.e. jump straight from capital ship chassis to carrier.

#72

A second reply to keep the points separate. I would really prefer to stay as pure as possible and only change when no other tweek will solve the issue.

For instance:

The more I think about @scole 's idea to combine super cap drive and chassis, the more I don’t like it. The problem to solve is making carriers more viable by getting them on the field faster and cheaper. This could be accomplished without veering to far from what we had before.

I would suggest making the following changes.

-Reduce the time for both super cap drive and chassis as much As the current Ion research for the drive and negotiate what makes since for both chassis and carrier build time.
-Add ion as s requirement for destroyers and HC.

This allows for teching straight to carriers faster for frig, vette, or fighter oriented styles to get extra production, OR going to destroyer then HC adding no extra time. We can debate the time requirements if needed to get the HC out faster. The choice on which direction to branch can be made before or after cap drive research instead of locking into the destroyer path we are currently on.

This accomplishes the goal, stays ‘pure’ thus should get the least amount of pushback. And may even be easier to implement considering that it is only adding a research requirement to 2 ships and doent remove an entire research from the tree.

IIRC, in HW1 you could research straight to MDs without Ion also, I’d have to check. But I would be for a tree that went Super Cap > guided missiles bypassing Ion and regular destroyer as another strat option.

1 Like
#73

I’ll state again since this reply came before my last reply, I would much prefer to stay as close to pure as possible and accomplish the same end by tweaking research and build times. Researching chassis over or instead of drive may be a quick fix to MP balance, but at the cost of the quality of what makes logical since in the HW1 tech tree. The perpolition system is researched first which allows for a larger frigate called a destroyer, the larger chassis opens the way for a larger class of ships called carriers and cruisers. This realism = quality, and veering from it to make balancing easier, especially if their is a way to retain the quality, accomplish the intent, and add little to no extra effort on the developers is s win win for everyone.

1 Like
#74

The problem with “keeping things pure” is you’re either going to have HW1 still remain weaker ship for ship if you’re going to have this BS where you can stop HW2 race from getting out caps by destroying their production module, or stop BCs from killing the Shipyard, yet the only way to stop them from coming out for a HW1 race is to kill the mothership.

That’s an insanely difficult thing to balance around while “keeping things pure”.

HW1 races, at least in HWRM, need some sort of counter to stopping production of Destroyers and HCs.
Either production modules, or they need some sort of slow warp in/construction animation where you can attack the unfinished ship to pause construction, and so on.

And something should really be done with the research UI because it doesn’t make sense when it comes to requiring ions for destroyers and such, since it puts ions in a frigate tab. :confused:

Further, I don’t really get why research isn’t an actual tree of buttons on one page like many other games.

Right well, Vaygr are slightly worse than Hiigaran themselves, except for the laser/missile vette double damage bug helping them out.
When that’s fixed, they’re going to be even worse, and largely while their worse is their research tree.

It’s plain to see comparing the two how Vaygr is always going to spend more for less result on research, with far far later timings, and Hiigaran can exploit those earlier timings for a big advantage purely due to the tech tree.

That really needs to be resolved. A lot of people have a misunderstanding that Vaygr is actually getting the better end of the stick with this because they “get a lot at once”. But even when you discount how they’re often buffing something they don’t want, they’re often still paying more and it’s taking longer. The only one that isn’t too bad is the frigate one, and even then mostly just because it buffs infiltrators while marines don’t get buffed.

Hiigaran research is generally too cheap/fast and ontop of that the level 2 upgrades are mostly detrimental to gameplay. Hiigaran can get lvl 2 upgrades really fast for a certain ship to make that ship just OP against anything Vaygr can throw at it. Vaygr Level 2 take forever and cost so much that you just don’t get them before you’re dead in a 1v1. If they just didn’t exist, it evens things up A LOT.

1 Like
#75

I’m not sure I could disagree more with this statement. The fact that the HW1 races can see HW2 cards while keeping their own close to their chest is the advantage that stops me from complaining about the 6 vs 8 minute destroyer, or the 10 vs 15 minute cruiser. I as a HW1 player better know what you’re doing, but the amount of point defense options you have to prevent me from stopping your BC (hyper space inhibitors, platforms, etc.) make up for it. As you pointed out, you can slow HW1 production by targeting a single, unarmed, slow moving, non hyperspace capable unit. As a HW2 player you need only know my best time to finish HC research and destroy that ship before then. And that will set me back way further than sniping a cap ship facility on a SY.

If I manage to win the race to cruisers then I deserve it given you had a 5 minute head start. If we are both building cruisers, I’m not sure how having my MS as the primary target is an advantage? If you lose your cruiser producing unit, build another. If I lose mine, I’m building frigs.

3 Likes
#76

You are my new hero!

#77

I disagree, sure HW2 fleets have plenty of ways to prevent HW1 from doing an early strike but again the lack of visibility on HW1 cards forces the HW2 player to try to be ready for anything which cost resources and time, hence denying the build time and cost advantage of their BC/DD

#78

That is our hope, and we’ll play your lack of intell to our advantage as best we can. But the reality is there are plenty of ways to force our hand or call our bluff.

Things to look for:
What have I built? I can’t keep everything docked. If you see a resource controller, you know frigs and gravwells are a tech away. Come harassis me with an inti or 5 and force me to undock whatever I’m hiding, but do it before my best possible Gravwell time. If you see a single corvette, you know I can build salvagers, if defenders, I probably teched to it and moved on to another chassis. If I undock nothing and just turtle, maybe I’m stockpiling salvagers or trying to rush out destroyers (so you need inhibitors up ASAP), or hoping to trap your fighters in a well, don’t get greedy if I’m turtling. Your mission was to force my hand, not wipe out all my collectors. You know more now, fall back and Think about what to do next.

2 Likes
#79

This is exactly why I’m saying it’s too strong, and you’re just bias there.

If you DID have destroyer in 6 minutes, and HC in 10.5. If your vettes were good. If assault frigs and ions were good. Then what? It’s completely broken.

Right now holding your cards like that and having no counter isn’t a big deal because someone that knows as much about timings as me can exploit HW1 to autowin. But if they’re buffed with better ships and faster research, then they’ll be the OP ones when they have all that going for them while not being an autoloss race.

“Pure” HW1 gameplay just won’t work with HW2 unless you’re going to keep HW2 tech being faster and ships being stronger. In which case HW2 races will remain having timings where they can exploit HW1 races and autowin.

I still think with having subsystems, HW1 would still hold a lot of cards. You still don’t know if they’re going salvage corvs. Don’t know if they’re going grav wells or other support things.
“holding cards” is what docking is for, and HW1 races can dock twice the units that HW2 ones can.

At the very least, there needs to be a way to counter the construction of dessies and HCs, unless you just want to have them be much weaker, which I guess is okay too.
Personally, I’d prefer HW1 units be on par with HW1. Actually think vettes should be stronger since the lack of reinforce. And well, those things mean HW1 can’t have such an insane advantage with their double production, getting ships from a single research cost instead of needing multiple production facilities, etc.

I guess it’s certainly possible to balance things out that way. Just like it’s possible to fall through a solid wall via things aligning perfectly to quantum tunnel. Though the odds are so low that it it probably has never happened, and probably won’t ever happen in for many more billion years, let alone happen to a human.
I’d not like to think too hard on how to make it balanced, because it’ll be a more difficult task than I think anyone imagines. This is far, far, far more asymmetry than SC or any other RTS I can think of has. It’s such a massive game mechanical difference.
I think you’ll just wind up with HW1 being competitively really OP since all they have to do is bomb production facilities while their own production can’t be stop. What stops them from doing that now is their tech is so slow, and production isn’t that fast considering getting the units you really want is slower even when you have double queues, that they can never fight a HW2 army 1:1 to do such things. And they’re so much less efficient RU:RU from units:units that HW2 units can lose some production facilities and rebuild them np and still be ahead of RU efficiency.
At the very least you should get get a lot of complaints like “Oh I just lost because you could kill the cap production on my shipyard when it was 99% done while I couldn’t stop your HC from coming out”. Even if you achieve a 50-50 winrate from better players than are currently playing the game, that would still feel totally imbalanced.

And I’ve been really good at foreseeing what changes effects have on things, or what is possible that people don’t know of just from looking at the numbers rather than experience…

And again, it doesn’t necessarily have to be production facilities, but SOMETHING has to change. You can’t get your pure HW1 experience in HWRM, no way.
Maybe it could be having the second production queue being a research for both MS and Cap ship separate. (HW1 really need an improve production speed upgrade as well…)
Maybe like I said, the destroyers and HCs building externally. Maybe someone has a better idea than that.
But it certainly can’t be the plain old HW1 tech tree with times change and costs added. It’s not balanced in HWRM and probably never will be.

#80

We will just have to agree to disagree.

I never implied it would be easy, but I am 100% against adding modules to HW1 races. Doing that isn’t a balance tweek, it is a complete, top to bottom rethinking of the entire way HW1 races are played. Save that for HW3, or a custom mod people can play around with.

If I wanted to play HW2 races I would play HW2 races, if I wanted to play HW2 races with HW1 skins, I would play a mod. I want to play HW1 races as HW1 races or as close to how HW1 races originally played in Homeworld (!=2, !=2.5) Remastered. Nothing will convince me to drop this principle.

4 Likes
#81

This is what annoys me. Why can I not get a pure HW1 experience in the HWR multiplayer? Is not HOMEWORLD Remastered? Why do the HW2 players enjoy the wonderful liberty of playing their factions in the new HD Homeworld game?, yet HW1 players are given the boot?

This is not ment as a personal attack but more of a plea. HW1 players want to play their game too. At the moment HW1 singleplayer is affected by the multiplayer changes. You (the HW2 community) got your game almost 100% as it was when it was made. HW1 did not. You cannot expect for the HW1 community to want and accept their factions’ core mechanics to be changed. Especially since it appears that the majority of HW2 people on the forums do not want such a change to their factions.

The HW1 ships and AI need fixing. They do not act as they should, regardless of the stats. I find it very close minded when talks about balanced always revolve around the “How do we make HW1 fit with HW2”. We are in this together guys.

As a clarification of what I mean:

First of all, the current way the tech tree works for HW1 is far from the “plain old one”.
And two, what if, the reason why the HW1 tech tree does not work is because the HW2 tech tree. Why change one without changing the other? “Oh the HW2 tree is balanced form HW2!” Well guess what, the HW1 tech tree was also balanced in HW1 and as I noticed many people say to HW1 “purists” (way to label/antagonize other people), this is HW REMASTERED, not HW2. HW2 has to be updated to the times.

Sometimes I wish they would just split multiplayer and leave it at that.

IMPORTANT NOTE: I am not trying to attack the HW2 community. I am trying to point that the interactions between the two games’ fans contain traces of toxicity and I do not want that. As I said we are in this together. We need to make both games work together, not gutting one so it fits with the other. We all want to play the games from the past. It does not matter that HW1 is old. Again. This is HOMEWORLD: REMASTERED, both HW1 and HW2 deserve to maintain their gameplay. Please don’t ignore HW1’s core just because “It’s old and messy”. That core is the classic, not HW2.

Thank you.

5 Likes