Incursion - Balancing the Lane Pushing

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#1

Instead of a comeback mechanic there is a speed the match up mechanic favoring the winning team with the MX-Shepard bots that OS EVERYTHING in their range every X seconds. OP. It appears these spawn for the team that has taken down the opposing teams’ first Sentry bot.

This completely unbalances this game mode. If it’ s a close match all it takes is one team to take down the others first Sentry then they have insane push ability with aforementioned bots that auto-spawn. If anything the MX-Shepard bots should spawn for the losing team as a comeback mechanic. This is akin to a CoD killsteak, so you reward someone already winning. Personally, I would remove them altogether and keep creep waves same as they were when game started, only have Thralls and Elite bot to help push (since these have to be activated by a player)

Please fix this Gearbox. Incursion is a great mode just needs some tweaks (eg - like snipers hitting bot from their side of the map = bs; lightning turret in middle should not be targetable by people on the upper perches on either side)

What does the community think?

Battleborn Suggestion List
#2

Yeah, I love chipping a Montana down til he’s on the verge of death and making a run for it… only to have him get a full overshield as I’m about to put him down. That’s my favourite.

^sarcasm

**** those goddamn ****ing shepherd bots off GBX

1 Like
#3

Bump, this is extremely important. Please post if you think this is a problem, otherwise the devs will not know this is an issue.

#4

I think something needs to be done. I have no answers on what exactly but i have only ever had one comeback game in my 66 levels and that was down to the last 3 minutes of play because the other teams respawns were so long at that point like 45 seconds. It is impossible to really push back when you wipe there team before the last few minutes because you can not clear a lane fast enough before they respawn.

2 Likes
#5

That is the other issue with those MX-Shepards, the waves respawn so fast, like in your example, even if you had killed the entire other team the time it takes to push up against those creeps is nigh impossible to make any sort of headway.

#6

I have to agree completely on this issue. Out of all the pvp matches my team and I did, not once was a comeback made on incursion by us or the other team. once we made the slightest lead way we would just fall back and just gather minions and build up turrets. The minions did all the pushing for us after that.

Meltdown was a different story because there were more than a few comebacks made on that map with my team, our best one was coming back to win 480 to 479 with a last minute push.

#7

True, you have a very small window to make a counter push to destroy the enemy sentry. I have played some game where we were able to come back, but I had a friend to communicate with. Plus Orendi is great for crushing minions quick. Minions are the key to winning, all too often players tend to focus other players rather than push minions.

#8

Had a meltdown win of 500-492. Intense.

#9

well one possible fix would be to not have them spawn every wave but every other wave. a moba I use to play had a similar problem with regular drone pushes so they varied what drones spawned every group. first group was 5 melee bots and 3 gun bots, then the next wave was 4 melee, 2 gun, and one canon. the canon had a bit more damage, had 25% more damage, and a small bit of extra armor. it let the pushes be more even.

#10

i got to command rank 92 in the test, and close to 30 in the beta because i worked a lot, so i have a ton of bb experience. i was REALLY unimpressed by incursion. it brought back all too close memories of destiny and constant camping with snipers and ranged guns. the problem with making ranged characters strong in a game and making a game mode like incursion is that it promotes passive play and camping. the overwhelming majority of damage dealt to the sentry, minions and enemy players was usually done by ranged characters. melee characters were not nearly as essential as ranged characters. really wasnt my kind of game mode. i will exclusively be playing meltdown, and maybe that zone control game

#11

Totally agree that Incursion snowballing has to be addressed. Added this thread to my Popular Suggestions: Battleborn Suggestion List

There’s an existing thread on this subject here: Do the Incursion changes further encourage snowballing?

#12

My biggest problem with Incursion is either you start with a strong offense or you spend most of the match on defence, praying a gap will open up to counter. Sometimes it happens, but not usually. The worst is if the enemy gets the heal station next to the last sentry… if you can’t reclaim it, then it’s over.

#13

Simple fix it to make it so that if the enemy gets your teams accelerator they get the buff.

Or a downed minion makes that accelerator buff whomever team controls it.

#14

I’m not really aboard with this one, please acknowledge that no matter how much you played the general skill level of the players as well as their understanding of the game was simply low…

I think they spawn because your minions have a longer way to travel which makes them so much more vulnerable. On the other hand taking down the shephard bots is relatively easy if you know what you’re doing and have ANY ranged character so you just have to set it in your mind that taking those bots out is IMPORTANT.

I won’t say “plenty” but I had quite a few comeback games on my and the enemy side as well. Because to turn the tide of a game after you lose your first sentry is just a matter of working together for one big clear & push. Let the enemy get thralls, during the time push on their sentry and with a team of 5 you’ll destroy it fast,especially later in the game(and you’re already doing it wrong if you lose your first sentry very early).

So not only the shepard bots are there for a very logical reason- sustaining minions that have a longer way to go but they also are a hint for your team to maybe finally organize and work as a unit, as is expected of a teamplay focused game.

Only thing I’d change is for the bots not be able to give overshields to team(only on incursion) as THIS is a buff that is both unfair and unnecessary.

As to balancing lane pushing overall I have a few ideas:

-increase amount of minions in a wave by 50% so it either takes more than 1 person to take them down or 1 very dedicated to the task

-increase sentry shields by 100% + increase MINION shield damage to the sentry by 200% so that you can’t cheese a push with,say, Miko+ ISIC using ult combo and instead have to actually guide the minions to the sentry so they can take down the shield so you can do health damage. It would also resolve the issue of taking down the second sentry from the small room with the healing pod

-give the sentry an attack that only focuses players when there are no minions around- a continuous “lock on” beam of energy that deals increased damage to the player every second based on their max health %(sort of like the towers in LoL)

I know I’ll get a lot of flame for disagreeing with you guys, but consider my other points at least.

#15

  1. Not true, the account I remember clearly both teams were playing above this “low skill” level you seem to think “most” players had (we had 5 people in party chat communicating the entire time + lost match). Each knew the others heroes abilities and exactly what to do when, this thread is not about ignorance of people leading to losses, it’s about balance

  2. I’m sorry…NO, they have longer to travel is the reasoning? Let me put this in perspective…after the first sentry is destroyed and the MX-Shepard minions start spawning, more than likely the team that took out the sentry is going to destroy then take the accelerator on the enemy teams side. Now 2/3 of the map now has MX-Shepards pushing, if the opposing team is too slow to take down each wave this will eventually create a surplus of these bots on top of each other (this actually happened in the aforementioned game I referenced in #1) constantly popping OS on all the minions now bottlenecked. Regardless of travel distance this mechanic makes zero sense as it just helps the winning team…You must also realize that the pushing team can also sit up top above the 2nd sentry and kill it that way not needing minions at all.

  3. Our team also had games where we came back but it was 2x more difficult with MX-Shepards helping the other team push, and typically we only came back if we almost immediately took out the opposing teams sentry. FYI if done correctly one player can solo the Thrall camps, so good teams will not send an entire team to kill thralls so that example will not work. Low level play that strat might be viable, not the same in high level play (I’m referring to player skill not command level)

  4. There is no hint for the team to come together and get er’ dun’ as you would say lol, the hint was when your first sentry was destroyed, there is no place for a overpowered mechanic like MX-Shepard bots. Look…I get why they put them in, you get bigger minions when you destroy the inner tower in MOBA games, that is the only logic they used to warrant putting these minions in. Elite bots would have been much more manageable than the MX-Shepards. Still unfair, we don’t have 3 lanes to worry about in Incursion, there is only one, so having some mechanic that helps one team that is constantly on just unbalances the gameplay.

  5. Of course, this is more than broken at the moment, not only do the creeps, thralls, and elite bot get the OS if in range but SO DO THE PLAYERS, OP.

  6. I’m okay with this as long as there are not unbalanced mechanics like MX-Shepards

  7. 50/50 on this one, on one hand I like how a few players can flank and start doing damage to the sentry from tunnel (should never be able to snipe from across the map) while the rest of the team keeps them busy in lane, only due to their lack of awareness their bot is being damaged. Now the flipside, in games like LoL if you try to solo or even dive with multiple people someone is going to get jacked up or die, so making creep waves more meaningful is a good thing.

  8. This would be fine, it would need to extend to inside the tunnel as this is where the sentry will be flanked. What this could also do is hurt the players trying to flank and when caught out in the middle of their shenanigans by the opposing team likely pay for it.

Thoughts?

Very hard To make a comeback after a team looses a sentry in Incursion
#16

Well,I’m not adamant with my opinion on Shepards, because they just don’t bother me much, but being command rank 50 and with many new players joining the beta even in the last hour I can’t say I experienced enough matches with competent teams on both sides. 15-20 at most.

I don’t think elite bots would make much of a difference,because they’re relatively easy to take down.

I have a thought on how to replace shepards maybe- how about runner “suicide bomber” bots that would move fast, have low health,get an overshield for THEMSELVES like the shepards do and take a huge portion of the sentries shields down when they got in melee range? This might be a terrible idea as I haven’t thought it through, but hey,I’m brainstorming.

I’ll think on the matter after I had my breakfast :wink:

Thanks for the civil response btw, my cold tone often gets me bashed for posts like this.

#17

How about making Shepherd bots a purchasable minion, like the elite bot. You could have it so you buy the Shepherd after the elite, like it is with turrets. Kinda like an upgrade to a turret. A third purchase could upgrade both robots with a shield.

3 Likes
#18

Anyone thinks that leveling should make your increase damage to minions? (example +2% vs minions so lvl 10 you do 20% more damage) helps you push lanes faster.

1 Like
#19

I actually like that idea, but I would make it like the other bot you could buy.

#20

Until GBX can figure out a way to balance these bots I’d say just remove them altogether for now.

I understand the logic, they look at LoL and when an inner tower gets destroyed beefy minions spawn in that lane. That same concept DOES NOT WORK in Incursion.

1 Like