reflexion

Thats not an opinion, thats a mathematical fact. We are not talking vs a stupid AI, we are talking about equal conditions, which means HUMAN Player vs HUMAN Player (skilled). You can also see it in the video above how it ends. You can also win with a GI vs a RHINO Tank if the Player with the Rhino dont know what to do. But to compare such a szenario, equal conditions are necessary and in this setting prism tanks win. I respect your opinion, that brutes can win vs AI oder beginner player, but under equal conditions its not possible.

If you spend the same amount of money in prism as in brutes, you can't win. Sorry, but im talking of a normal skilled game, no noob and AI games. The TOPIC is "Is it worth to spam Yuri Brutes vs Prism tanks?" The Answer is clearly NO! Why? if we have both 50000k and you have a cloning vat. I will produce 28 prism tanks and you 200 brutes. With splash damage and elite prism i will kill your brutes flawless. -> In this case, the rear tanks are not used vs the 500 brutes. The next fact ist, with an increasing mass of prism tanks and the increasing amount of elite prism by killing brutes, your brutes are not able to reach in any situation the prism tanks. You can win with with 10 brutes against 2 prism, if the opponent has not enought skill, but with increasing amount of prism, any number of brutes will die. So if we answer your Question: IS IT WORTH? ANSWER: Absolutely not! Its a technical fact in case of the splash damage, the range ,the slow down effect and the successively elite promotions of the prism tanks.

This is hilarious. Prism always win vs brutes because after a few brutes, prism goes elite and in addition the prism splash slow down the brutes. So after a few brutes you have elite prism with hilarious damage and splash, afterwards brutes will die like flys. So if you use in addition CTRL + SHIFT like @[AuF]Mindwar mentioned, than brutes can't win against any army of prism. Maybe with 100 brutes against 3-4 prism if u split them in a right way.

In a perfect world, where both sides would be play flawless, Allies is theoretical the strongest fraction, even stronger than soviets. The problem with Allies is, that the perfect control (micro) is not reachable consistent in real. On the other hand, soviets are compared to allies easy to play. You have one main tank which is used in offense, defense, to pressure and so on. For the defense part you have also desolators. In the most cases, nothing more is necessary. Allies needs more units, more micro control, more focus on economy, etc. One minor wrong move can cost the whole game for allies in early and also in late games. So the value for allies in terms of risk and profit ist far below of soviets. Players who can play allies consistent on a high level are rarely for 20 years on this game. In my opinion, allies are not weaker than sovs, they are more difficult to play and that is the real "balance problem", even for pros. In a theoretical world with perfect gaming the balance would be Yuri > Allies > Sovs. In terms of the handling the balance shifts to Yuri > Sovs >>>> Allies.

A already proposed a solution for this in a former post. 1) Maybe its possible that you only can use the torpedos of the boomers until you have a tech center. After you build a tech, the missiles are availiable. 2) Maybe we can change something on the camouflage technology of the boomers, but if we can realize point 1 i guess point 2 is more or less obsolet.

I have therefore a different perspective. Because its also highly map dependent. On dune patrol i dont need really SW as Soviet against allied. Further, the two fractions have strenght and a few weaknesses. We compare two equal level players as initial framework. Soviet is in the start in favor against allied. In all cases the soviet can more pressure, has the better price-performance-ratio. The Soviet can control better the map in the beginning as an Allied. This is all seen in the context of two pro players which are on equal level... We all know that the game is based on making mistakes Then we have other factors incoming: - The Allied disadvantage is slightly reducing if the map is bigger (there are some special cases, but in general we can say that) - also the variety on the map is often favorable for allied, in contrast to some standard maps like dune patrol - True, without SW the Allied have definately the late game. But this is the trade-off to the early game disadvantages. But this doesn't mean that an allied can't win in the early game or a Soviet player can win in the late game (mistakes were made). But the general balance doesn't remains the same over the game. Allied get stronger and Soviet weaker (in case of no SW). For competitive games, the SW balance this pretty good, whereby the stats over the last 15 years show a slight advantage for Soviet. But in my opinion is the reason for that the more complex and more difficult gameplay of Allieds and fails are more punished. But the balance is changing between these two fractions over time and depending slightly on maps. Nevertheless is none of the fractions without a chance in certain states. No, because Allieds have a weaker early game than yuri. The Allied Yuri balance is not the problem like the Soviet Yuri balance. Yuri have at least a equal early game as Soviet, but Yuri is unbeatable for Soviet in the late game without SW, thats the huge problem. True and absolute cofirm this staement. But the Problem is, the adventage of Yuri without SW against Soviet is tremendous. The Soviet - Allied balance change over time, but every fraction has the chance to win on every state of the game. Thats much better balanced than Yuri - Soviet overall. Maybe. But the magnetrons are the big problem why Soviet have clearly no chance against Yuri if he is teched. Magnetrons are the heavy counter against the Soviet massive army. Soviet has no unit which has extrem long range like Allied with prisms mirage etc. or units which further shoot in the air on the target. Brains, Discs etc. its no problem for the Soviet to handle it, bute magnetrons are paralyzes everything of the soviet player. With SW this is a reduced scenario, but further on a high advantage from the yuri player against the soviet? I am not for many and hard balance changes, but i guess to find a solution with the magnetron would perfectly balance this game with and without SW. But im open for discussions and tests Finally, im absolut ur opinion. We should not change many things, expept one-two things with the yuri magnetron and the inf money. Maybe we will get a ClanMatch system later on, so we have to balance out also games without SW and with 2 ore more fractions (Yuri+Allied vs. Soviet+Allied for example) for 2v2 or 3v3. maybe also tech-sharing could be considered with a eye in a future (bf+yuri clones). True, we can let the game as it is, because its very good balanced. But i guess, a slight adjusting on these 2 componets of yuri would be give as more perfection. If its not working we can reject it easily, or? Thanks for your good reply!

What are interested players? Do they have enough experience? I see a lot of pro players with huge critics on the major changes. But ok, we are here on a point where you dont want to answer to a specific question, while you refer to some not known player sample and testing area: I want to know why we have to patch so much, which leads to a huge change in the "game-mechanics", instead of patching the few points which are more ore less obvious? I absolutely confirm your intention, except 1-2 things: gen mutator -> We also have to consider some 2v2 and late game situations, where we have to balance this infinite money away. The goal ist, to balance yuri in such a way, that (in case of no-SW) all fractions are close to each other. Without SW Soviet has a major disadvantage. Magnetrons -> maybe change the possibility that a magnetron can't lift up a miner in meanwhile he is unload. Psy dominator -> maybe a little delay like the SW of the other fractions. In general, im with you and the others. We have not more to change than some few points on yuri to bring the general balance closer together, its not expedient to change such a lot things where we also change the standard game mechanics of a fraction which leads to a complete "new fraction".

Same player? This is a weak sample to identify any failures or mis-balances. No, but this is my argument for changes in smaller steps. More control, more details, more realistic. Especially with the circumstance that we have a small sample of players, games and testing environment. Why do you dont give yourself more time and maybe also other players? Do we have a time limit on patching completely through the game until Jan19? You have do underline the term "open-minded", because a lot of people are open-minded for balance changes for years. I already told you several times that i highly support the idea of balance changes, but not in this fast and extensive manner. This is a case of experience that this has a high chance to fail or lead to a complete different game, which should not be the goal. Do we working on balance changes or on a complete different game with different game-mechanics? Thats ok and good effort! Is there some critcs not allowed? Why do you affront me, i want to discuss with you in a positive manner and not insulting each other. Thats not only my recommendation, but rather more user recommended here to work in smaller steps. Yor answer is: No i do in my way, this is my project etc. You have to consider again, that is not a change in your personal client, but rather a official implementation on the cncnet-client. So therefore this is no longer your project alone, but rather a community project in the administration of the cncnet-admins. Therefore, we have also to discuss the procedure how we will change it (in small steps, big steps etc.), but you decide this all alone and reject all kind of (positive and negative) critics by your own. Thats the reason why i recommend a administation by grant, because cncnet also do not grow from one to another day, its a continous and slow development and the reasons for it are repeatetly given. So, can we discuss about the process or it is not allowed in case of your ego? I already testet several games with this patch and my critcs are not made up out of thin air. This is why i criticise thats are no longer balance-changes, but rather major changes in the gameplay of yuri. Some of these changes are miss the goal of "balance changes" and are more "extension" in the game mechanics. Where will we end up? In a Mental Omega scenario? So, this is not a hypothetical feedback from my side, its more a feedback against the patching process. AGAIN, not against the idea of patching, but rather the extend of changes by calling it "Yuri balance changes" If you are not capable for critics on an "official" patch on cncnet, than start a project by your own. This affects all players of cncnet and therefore everyone should be working on it. If you see wasting time, because you are fixed on your own idea than i personally see no sense in giving critics. All players here in this forum who recommended to work in smaller steps you reply in a harsh way and didn't argue. The only things you say to this recommendations: i know what im doing, we testet it and so on. So, is this a personal project, where critics on the process is not allowed? Why is it then official implemented on the client if only you have the sovereignty about this? But ok, if you ignore me and some other players which are criticised in a similar direction, then you are absolutey right and it makes no sense to discuss about this. Therefore, ignore me and only listen to positive critics which are in line with your own opinion.

You didn't understand the point. Let me ask you several things, maybe you will understand what me and ron want to point out: 1) How many games do you have absolved on each setting, on each little different patch, on each little changes? 2) All of your changes give you a shitload of thousand new circumstances in the game, which leads to new situations and maybe some unwanted effects. 3) Do you regognized all effects of your various changes to every possible unit, fraction, situation etc.? You talk about one month of development... Do you test the effects also on 2v2, on all maps, etc? How many different players test these settings? How many hours of testing did you use for this MAJOR CHANGES? In one month it could not be more than 50+ hours i guess. Have you analyzed all potential outcomes and mistakes? Question again, how many players have tested this MAJOR CHANGES? Only you and a friend, or at least 5+ players? I recommend you, in case of the small community, to small steps instead of such MAJOR CHANGES. You can not handle such big changes alone or in a group of 2 by one month testing (a little bit). See it as positive critics, we want to help you. Small steps are better to control than large steps.

I accept this fact, but i was aiming for the situations where it is a game deciding or highly overpowered state. I want to say, its not the most important and overpowered thing on yuri and every fraction has easy abilities to take out garrisons (except these special maps where we have undestroyable bunkers). Nevertheless, i im with you and we can change this based on this fact, but its not the most important thing by balancing yuri vs the other fractions. This side remarks we can change if we have a stable balanced basic framework within all 3 fractions. To your Key changes: - Magnetron changes --> absolutely YES. This is the biggest driver of YURIs OP strength - Initiate garrison change, this is a simple one that is obvious IMO, allows yuri to be played against on more city maps. --> OK, eplaination above - Genetic mutator change in some way, can't have it giving infinite money all game --> absolutely YES - Naval change, this is necessary and would open up so many more maps for Yuri warfare. --> A suggestion from my side: Naval boomers have only torpedos, after tech they can also use the long range weapon or something turning on the camouflage technology -Also, would be nice to give some sort of delay for the dominator. Perhaps it shouldn't be as long as the nuke --> absolutely YES. This balance out all SW. Perhaps we can increase the radius of the SW up to 1 tile for the psycho dominator effect against units if we delay it. Its only a suggestion.

really? 1) Brutes are usefull enough until a certain game state. All fractions have units which are more or less usefull (depends on game state and matchup) And YES, we can try to patch this after we have a good balanced framework. But in the same time? Clearly NO! 2) Every fraction can tech fast. But is fast tech the one and only unbeatable strategy? You lose a lot of control if you do that. All 3 fractions have a balance in their strategy bewtween eco, tech and production. Yuris fast tech is only a problem for soviet, but the problem is not the fast tech, but more ore less the tech state. On the other hand, would we argue that the allied power = slower in build (especially in early game) is a disadvantage? But the most important point is.... Is this a game-decider? Since 17 years, i never heard someone crying about allied and soviet differences in the power supplies. Also not for Yuri. The are different in their usage and handling, but nothing which is unbalanced. 3) Absolutely wrong. Slave miners be part of 2 components: the miner and the slaves. Slaves are very weak and easy to kill individually, so they lose the gems or ore (Its easier to harass them than other miners). So i also could complain the allied miner, because he could teleport and so save 1/2 way and can instant transmit to other ore-patches if there is a ref. If you send the Slave miner through the map, you have to consider that the slaves are in the building or to kill them, because otherwise you lose a lot of money. Also the speed is slower than the allied and soviet miners. You are right that Yuri has the possibility to send out there miners, but a big disadvantage of the Yuri fraction is the mobility and splits. Finally, the next question is... who complains about Yuri miners? Is this really the important thing to patch? Is this the OP thing of Yuri? I guess not... So a questition to you: - In your oppinion, what is the most OP-thing on Yuri (Top 3) Look on mobility-stats: Allied > Soviet > Yuri Yuri is the weakest fraction in mobility. Should we patch this? I guess not, because this is where other components came in which balance this pretty good close to a equal strenght (except yuri). So i stay on the argument that we should first patch the obvious things on the Yuri fraction, which are responsible for the advantages. In my opinion i would start with the magnetron and inf money. If we can balance this out in a good way (Allied = Soviet = Yuri) than we can talk about other patches. You dont patch, you change dramatically the game mechanics. Do you think people like a different game by patching so much stats and characteristics in one time? i guess not. For example: "Bio Reactors give too much power per their cost, Yuri can tech very fast to superweapons on one Bio Reactor." --> Make a skirmish and stop the time between all 3 fractions to building fast to supers. I am happy to see the big difference. Including all costs (also the additional initiates).

Hey ravage, thats not an affront against you and your work. Im happy that someone do this after many years. I never said that you change things on your personal whim. What i mean is that a bias occure relatively easy if you not in a group of several opinions. That also happens to me, to Marko, to Matt, to Ron, to Tej etc. etc. This is not a fault on a person, its more a problem on human differences and framing effects. What i want to say is... change slowly - test on a broad sample for a while (Maybe 1 Month QM) and than go for the next step if its necessary or the old changes are not good enough. You have so far major changes on the yuri fraction which are (in my opinion) not necessary and expedient. Units like floating disc, masterminds are more ore less very stable in their balance. Or some other examples: - Initiates garrison damage? -> WHY? There was never a problem with it. - Brute costs? -> WHY? There was never a problem with it - Bio-Reactor -> WHY? There was never a problem with it - Slave Miner -> WHY? There was never a problem with it. etc. etc. First, patch things good which are necessary to do. After that we can fokus on patches which bring back units like german tank destroyers or other very rarely used units. Never forget, you have to be in line in the general balance setting between Yuri<>Allied<>Soviet and this is a very complex framework. So whats the real trouble with Yuri? ...vs. Soviet: - especially Magnetrons! - Soviet has no instant and fast range unit like Allied (prisms, Mirage). 2 Magnetrons can hold back 15 tanks easily. Only flack trucks are able to come in range in some special cases, but this is more a 1v1 comparison and not useful. Maybe also the Miner->refinery shut-down should be considered. A single magnetron can easy kill a ref with a deploying Miner. Here i should try follwing: - try to reduce the range of magnetrons about 1 tile. - try to reduce the attack speed of magnetrons by 1-2. - try to abolish the ability to lift up miners. Each of these potential patches are a major change in the game mechanic of yuri and the overall balance against Allied and Soviets. Because u also have to consider the effect on allieds, even though you patch against Soviet. This have to be testet for a while in an competitive environment (QM). ... vs. Allied: The major problem for Allied is the early game. Maybe the Magnetron patch which i described above, should help Allied in the early game. I test here the same settings as i described above. ... overall Yuri Settings: - infinite money on genetic mutator. Well this is easy to solve and i im line with your adaption. - Maybe a Delay on Super Weapons. After solving this small questions and testet it over 1-2 months in a competitve environment, we can focus on the next "smaller" problems, which are not so important for the general balance: - yuri on early water - units which are never/rarely used (german tank detroyer, terrorists etc.) - etc. Step by step and sustainable. Maybe we can arrange 1 pro gamer (ladder) and 1 experienced player and test with you together once a day on weekend per week? Im often wathcing your stream, but i rarely played the game for the last year since ZigZag is gone. But hey, i need some games and then i would test with you all sitations which small new changes. But its hard to test a large number of changes where each changes affect all other changes again. Thats a circle which is hard to control and you will end in some major changes which affects the game very hard. Do you think usual players want to play a completely different game (by different settings on each unit)? I guess not and so im fan of small and sustainable changes instead of a large numbers of changes in a short time. I asked grant to manage this, because its a game setting (alternative patch) in cncnet and not a personal setting of your client/map. Thats also not an affront against you

Be careful Ravage, these are too much changes for yuri. If i watch some chinese players, they have a very good winrate against yuri on a very very high level of gaming (with allied and iraq). I would recommend to change at first the major problems of yuri and then test it for a while, and in a next step we can adjust if there are still problems: - gen mutator: well, the infinite money for brutes should be stopped. Maybe brutes are the only unit which gives 1 ressource back (because mutates are cheap to create, haha :P) -> be careful, let the rest as it is, thats part of yuri (including droned units etc.) - magnetrons: well, i guess its one of the strongest units of yuri and hard to patch in a right direction. I would decrease 1 tile of range or a other option is to decrease the firerate for 1-2 and watch what happens in a testphase This would be good starters in a testphase (maybe implement in QM for a month or two) and after that we can summerize the outcome and analyse it. If you change too much, its problematic in case of the dependencies and complexity against allied and soviet. Small steps are the solution because major changes require also major adjustments if they are not running and on some point you get lost and end in a patch-your-patch scenario. I guess here, on XWIS and also our chinese colleagues have experience of 10-15+ years in competitive gaming. So we should use this and focus on small changes step by step. We should also have a good testphase for small changes to gain a good sample of all competitive players. This should not be a one-man-show in patching! @Grant: I hope you have this under investigation. Maybe you can nominate a steering group consisting of 1-2 Top players, 1-2 experienced (long-term experience) players and maybe yourself as a controlling instance to create a good patch-progress. A one-man show in patching is not they key of success, its very biased.

I have a better idea: Insert a qm checkbox where player can turn on "no engi" before they were matched. If both player have checked this box, the game will start with multi-engi, if one players has this box unchecked, the game starts without multi-engi. The best example is the user heldro. This discussion i regonize since the game has releases.... buuh, engi is cheap, engi is weak, no skill... bla bla. The same discussion we have about yuri, spy, sov rush, ivan, miner kill, chrono leg, battle fortress, super weapons... and so on. To be honest, i also complain about engis 15 years ago. But why its the case? Because players has to fokus on it, its called skill. If someone engi, defend it or engi back or whatever. At least, think about it and dont complain, even though a engi hurts in some games. But also strange tanke battles where you lost hurts. Or some lucky movements against supers or whatever. This is called competitive gaming. Its not skilled if you complain about something what is not in your favor. Learn to deal with it. Complainig is about things which are not "overpowered" or a "cheat/bug" is a strong weakness in competitive gaming. Therefore i highly recommend a "management board", where 1-2 top players (frequently changed), experienced gamers and admins decide about frequent patches. Whats the advantage? The advantage is, that the META-GAME is changing continously (not by huge steps, but a little bit). Maybe sometimes we reach a perfect state, but i dont think so. But only because some players dont like the engi mechanics, why we should abolish it? Whats is the next step? Some people dont like rushing so we implement a 10 min attack barrier? Thats something for FFA-games. Competitive means handling all facets of the game (except cheats, bugs or other illegal things). If you want to make some competitive changes (balance changes), create a management board which ist responsible for the balance changes. The community is absolut biased of a 17 year old static META-GAME. This is the way of success and a attractive future. Maybe, if RA2/YR gets remastered, this kind of trial and error patch framework could be a role model funtion for the developers, but this is a other topic.

Everyone can agree to some special rules like "no eat", "no rush", "no spy", "no yuri"... etc. etc. But to limit the competitive gameplay is the most stupid idea for 17 years in this game. If you want to change the gameplay in a certain direction or to balance some things, than create an (in)official patch community which frequently balance the game (like it will done in all common games nowadays). But to set a competitive option which restricts some basic movements like engi eating is just a stuid phenomen, arising with XWIS in former days. In the WOL-Ladder and also in the XWIS ladder until 2007, engi eating was part of the game until two sides agreed to them. But it was never a fix defined rule. In the china community its a standard strategy, so this is the evidence that not the game mechanic is wrong and should be changed, but rather some people of the competitive scene should learn to handle this kind of gameplay. If you don't like it play ffa or play only with people you know and make some agreements. So in my opinion there are only two appropriate solutions: 1) Let the competitive game as it is (the optional game settings for ffa-games can be further used) 2) Create a "Patch-Community", consisting of 2-3 TOP-players (which changing all 2-3 months), 2-3 high-experienced players (like Ron, Chandler etc.), and the admins, coders of cncnet. So you can frequently make some balance changes which bring more variety and fairness into the game. For example: patch yuri in a fair way etc. Its a simple and consecutive trial and error principle, where the game always should improve. If some "bad" patches goes online, well thats happens and could be replaced in the next patch. We dont need one big patch in 15 years, we need more a frequently patching with the trial and error principle. Therefore, the game will get more variety in competitive gameplay, more scope of action and at least more attention.