Yuri's Revenge Rebalanced 2.0

[CCCP84]

On 5/20/2021 at 7:28 AM, Nerto said:

I think this patch is mostly good for allies.

If slow speed and acceleration and build speed are supposed to be apoc weaknesess, I´m ok with that, but it should be actually strong enough in other areas to justify all of them. Right now it´s not, and firing on the move doesn´t look very useful vs mirages, bfs will still beat them, prism maybe didn´t beat them before and now they do. They need a real buff somewhere, I would also prefer to keep them slow and even not give them fire on the move to go with the spirit of what they are meant to be, but maybe give them more  range, better AA, or whatever stat to make it an slow but powerful stuff, right now it´s slow and crappy.

guys, you have to understand that the prism is a special tool against buildings. that is how it was intended. do not try to make it a unit against vehicles. a prism is a narrowly specialized assault weapon. it is perfectly balanced and does not need correction.

[CCCP84]

I also noticed a bug. when you press the guard button on the bottom panel then the prism simply stops to react to enemies and does not shoot at them. it would be nice if you would instead have this function pin the prism to one spot. because often I have a problem Like when I leave the prism to guard the dolphin on the cliff. while the enemy Dolphin swims past, Prism tries to chase it and leaves the position. This is very bad. If you guys could replace this useless non-working function on the bottom panel with a function that would pin the Unit to one place and prevent it from moving anywhere it would just be Five Stars. this is exactly what this game really needs.  @burg93 

Edited May 21, 2021 by CCCP84

[CCCP84]

I am sure that all players will agree with me because many players have encountered this problem. I understand that there may be technical difficulties because here you need to dig into the game files, but maybe someone from the team will be able to do it. In the final alert 2 there is a function when you pin the units that you place to one place. the parameter is called sticky. this may be the key to solving this problem

Edited May 21, 2021 by CCCP84

[cypher]

@burg93

I'm not sure, but the accuracy of patriots might improve their capability of dealing with mass rocketeer enough...I'd guess they are still too slow and focussing on the same target (thats one of the main problems - several patriots seem to fire at one rocketeer)....anyone?

 

I've made pretty good experiences with these changes - they are not IMBA, please try it out think about implementing it:

[RedEye2]
ROF=30
Range=12
Speed=100
Damage=75
Report=PatriotAttack
Warhead=SAMWH
Projectile=MedusaProjectile
TurboBoost=yes

Edited May 21, 2021 by cypher

[throstur]

As much as I thought I liked this patch, after having tried it out a little bit I've decided that this is probably the most "pussy" set of changes I've ever seen added to Red Alert 2 and that it kills the spirit of the game. Nerfing engi rushes nerfs soviets. All of the tank changes nerf soviets, except for the TTNK upgrade which is nice but unnecessary -- TTNK already offers the benefit of the electricity arcing over walls which is why it had such a low range -- it's meant as a strike force to eliminate walled buildings during a base invasion.

Like, sorry, but the plane accuracy, the prism tanks and the measly debuff to BF infantry all stinks like a package to make Allies stronger and Soviets weaker. When I think about it, it makes overpowered by design Yuri less overpowered too, but I don't really care about Yuri, third side was always meant to be a bit OP.

[Ezer_2000]

9 hours ago, CCCP84 said:

guys, you have to understand that the prism is a special tool against buildings. that is how it was intended. do not try to make it a unit against vehicles. a prism is a narrowly specialized assault weapon. it is perfectly balanced and does not need correction.

That's why I told this patch were made by newbie player.

@cypher Mass rocketeers very good thing to counter mass rocketeers. Well balanced and pretty fair.

[Ezer_2000]

9 hours ago, CCCP84 said:

If you guys could replace this useless non-working function on the bottom panel with a function that would pin the Unit to one place and prevent it from moving anywhere it would just be Five Stars. this is exactly what this game really needs.

Well, more personal wishes:

Robot tank and robot control center useless thing for allies. They have mirage and prism tanks, GGI IFV and BF. Everything you need to kill Yuri army. It would be nice if you move it to soviet side. Moreover, that idea initially was created for soviet side IMO. Just look at its SHP image and notice soviet-style textures (light and shade). It looks like it was soviet building before game release but developers decided to move it to allied side and just changed its pallet from brown to bluish (allied). This is useless thing for allied side but it might be userful to make soviets stronger in SvY matches when SW not available.

Edited May 21, 2021 by Ezer_2000

[CCCP84]

Guys, just play RA2 and no problems with useless and disbalanced units. 

[cypher]

@Ezer_2000 I know you can counter mass rockies with mass rockies, but that's no good game design IMHO. If you have anti-air missiles, which cost 1000 credits, is dependant on power and is static, many of them should be a good defense against mass rocketeers....that's the way new players are thinking and veterans should have no problem with that too, it's basic rock-scissor-paper principle.

[Ezer_2000]

You can't expect your RSP principle in mirror matches.

Splash damage already is used by Flak weapons. You can't use it again, it's basic rock-scissor-paper principle.

8 hours ago, cypher said:

TurboBoost=yes

Won't work for weapon on a building.

[Dm1]

Is it possible to make jet not missing when it attacks unit that moving on a straight line, but missing if moving unit changes its direction after jet fired its missiles? So basically jet should prefire the moving target based on it's current moving trajectory, but missiles should not follow the target if its trajectory changes.

This change will make avoiding jet shots harder, but not impossible. Simple order will not help against such jets, but with good times micro a good player can still counter them if needed.

Edited May 22, 2021 by Dm1

[cypher]

Just try my changes, they work and make the game more balanced - everyone felt so I played with (regarding the patriot changes).

It's not about Splash damage btw. I think we all agree, that the patriot missile in the unedited status needs a buff.

[CCCP84]

2 hours ago, cypher said:

Just try my changes, they work and make the game more balanced - everyone felt so I played with (regarding the patriot changes).

It's not about Splash damage btw. I think we all agree, that the patriot missile in the unedited status needs a buff.

I'm not sure if changes are needed. The Alliance has rocketeers as good air defense. In combination with ground systems, the overall air defense of the Alliance looks more than sufficient.

In addition, the IFV is rapidly becoming elite, and is becoming a very formidable weapon. I specifically put Tanya in IFV and kill the troops to make it elite.

Edited May 22, 2021 by CCCP84

[cypher]

In terms of gamedesign base structure defense should always be better in their focus-area than their mobile unit-counterparts. Especially when you have to consider, that they - besides being static - need power. Your argumentation sounds like the patriot missile is useless and basically strengthens the need for a rework/rebalance.

Edited May 22, 2021 by cypher

[ReaperAA]

On 5/21/2021 at 8:39 AM, NizzyStorm said:

I will be honest. with spy's OUT of the equation. I've not seen a single point where auto=shooting prism's are OP.

At non-elite, the auto shooting prisms are not so bad. Problem is when they are elite. Elite Auto shooting prisms..... yeah now that is a problem. If prism "have to be" auto-shooting, then I think elite prisms should also have reduced firepower.

 

Also you killed 7 of Kireeek's prisms with 1 Apoc? Then Kireeek probably did a terrible job by not kiting your Apoc.

[ReaperAA]

Also I agree with @cypher that base defences should be better in their focus area than their mobile counterparts.

However.....

On 5/21/2021 at 12:32 PM, cypher said:

I've made pretty good experiences with these changes - they are not IMBA, please try it out think about implementing it:

[RedEye2]
ROF=30
Range=12
Speed=100
Damage=75
Report=PatriotAttack
Warhead=SAMWH
Projectile=MedusaProjectile
TurboBoost=yes

While I haven't tested it ingame, I do think that the ROT decrease you did would make it too good against slower/larger air units stuff like Kirovs. The vanilla patriot doesn't necessarily need a ROT or damage increase. I would say that just making the projectile faster and slightly increasing splash damage radius would be enough to make them better against rocketeers while not changing their efficiency against heavier units.

 

On 5/21/2021 at 5:44 PM, throstur said:

Like, sorry, but the plane accuracy, the prism tanks and the measly debuff to BF infantry all stinks like a package to make Allies stronger and Soviets weaker. When I think about it, it makes overpowered by design Yuri less overpowered too, but I don't really care about Yuri, third side was always meant to be a bit OP.

Because Allies are underpowered, so of course most of the changes would focus on them (although I do agree that auto shooting prism buff is a bit too much)

And....

Quote

third side was always meant to be a bit OP.

Who said that? And why? I see nothing wrong in Yuri finally becoming somewhat balanced.

Edited May 22, 2021 by ReaperAA

[CCCP84]

3 hours ago, cypher said:

In terms of gamedesign base structure defense should always be better in their focus-area than their mobile unit-counterparts. Especially when you have to consider, that they - besides being static - need power. Your argumentation sounds like the patriot missile is useless and basically strengthens the need for a rework/rebalance.

Each side has its own strengths and weaknesses. The alliance has gap generators, prisms, mirages. And the air defense of the alliance is more effective against the Kirovs. The game was meant to be.

I do not see any problems in the air defense of the alliance. All the players, attacking me only with rocketeers, were defeated. This tactic is bad. Such players lost more resources with this kind of attacks and lost. Because the air defense of the alliance is quite effective.

[Banafrit]

On 5/2/2021 at 11:22 PM, burg93 said:

Awesome, feel free to share your experience with it as well ?

 

Alright, been playing the game on and off for these last few weeks with the patch enabled, and here's what I have to say.

1: Tank destroyers still need more buffs. IMO, they don't need that many, aside from just an increase in range. Despite doing what their name implies, they STILL struggle with tanks (especially rhinos), due to the range and turret not being able to rotate to attack whilst moving. If the range were to be increased, I could see more players actually picking Germany when playing the Allies. They either need an increase in range to compensate for the light armor, or simply heavier armor (or just more HP), with no further increase in the range as is, seeing as how they get melted by what they're supposed to counter. Especially considering the game is all about spamming out your tanks and vehicles, you'd think a tank that is supposedly strong against other tanks, would be a good competitor in this meta.

2: Robot Tanks should have a SMALL increase in HP, and a bit in range. They exist for two reasons: to do surprise attacks across water (in a map where applicable), and for the Allies vs Yuri matchup. Even against Yuri, these tanks die WAY too much, and always feel like a waste of cash, especially with someone who has the quick reflexes to juggle your robo army with the magnetron + gattling combo. Aside from maybe the occasional ambush from the water, I rarely see these being good against Yuri in the games I've played. I can name only one game where they were helpful, and that was back when this patch first came out, due to the Yuri changes. This'll make the Robot Tanks on even ground, and will make people consider using them, especially against Yuri.

3: Make some form of delay with Yuri's Magnetrons. The startup is already too fast, especially given its range as it is an artillery unit. This will give time for players to react to the Magnetron + Gattling combo, and punish those who're too slow or not paying attention. Its VERY easy to juggle an army due to the non-existent delay. With some form of delay, the Yuri player will need to quickly pick and choose which units to lift in each battle, making it more emphasis on high skill, high reward.

4: Grand cannons are already a strong defense IMO the cost in money and power is fine, but the range needs to be nerfed. Without SW, it is next to impossible to destroy the cannons, especially with anti-air and air units on the same team as the cannon. That, and people're constantly leaving or saying to switch off France (as well as Yuri) in a majority of the games I've played. That, and on some maps, it feels almost impossible to destroy. You can build the cannons off a nearby tech building, and bombard other buildings (in some cases even a player's base), and the large damage + splash makes it hard to approach, especially if done early on or too close to a base. Plus, IMO, artillery SHOULD be able to outrange a grand cannon. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm at least 80% sure that the V3 is the only land artillery unit that can outrange these. From experience, almost every other artillery unit just gets destroyed trying to even begin to fire at the turret. Sure, the cannon's fragile, but ALL artillery should be able to outrange it. And if there's a lot of anti-air and a gap generator thrown in there, good luck destroying them without SWs.

5: Slave Miners I feel should have a SLIGHT reduction in HP. This one is arguable, but in a game where money's tight on the map and you're going all in, Slave Miners are VERY tanky for meat shields.

6: The changes to Battle Fortresses is a BIG one, and makes them way more balanced. In past games before the patch, most games against Allied players were basically over once they started getting Battle Fortresses, due to the huge damage and range. However, with the damage nerf to infantry inside, the range is okay, and makes skirmishing other Battle Fortresses more strategic at all skill levels. No longer will I lose batches of tanks to them, unless I chase after them.

7: GI's I feel should be...changed big time. Yes, they have counters. Such as Desolators deploying to kill them from paradropping or to simply outrange them, IFVs, Flaks, Gattling Tanks, there's many ways to counter them. But they're WAY too campy. Especially as America where you get some for free on occasion via their paradrops, not counting the tech airport of course. They shouldn't be able to just destroy a lot of tanks (especially rhinos) just by deploying and camping a bottle neck or path. That job should be for the Guardian GI's, they were implemented long ago when Yuri's Revenge came out to be an anti-air and anti-tank counter. If you nerf the GI's deployment damage in some form, I say they're fine everywhere else, such as garrisons, and against infantry (which was their purpose from the designers POV.) Plus, Guardian GI's are used very rarely outside of a few to guard a base or path, and to be used in battle fortresses. Guardians have their role, and so do GIs. Hell, IMO, I thought the GI's in base Red Alert 2 were pretty well balanced. They should've stayed that way in Yuri's Revenge, now that they have the Guardian.

8: Yuri's Initiates are quite strong due to their short range, which makes them balanced for their cost of $200 a pop. However, them being garrisoned should be nerfed. They absolutely MELT through tanks like a hot knife through butter. They should at most, be on par with GI's in terms of garrison damage, especially seeing as how both cost $200 each when trained, without accounting for paradrops from the tech airport and airforce command (if playing as America.)

9: Prism Tanks I feel should NOT be able to fire on the move. Their artillery. You should be punished for not using them for their intended purposes. Its WAY too easy to bait them into other tanks, and feeling like you got away unpunished. Its an artillery, it should be used for long ranged poking and destruction, but not on the move.

Aside from that, that's all I can say. Everything else is fine.

Edited May 23, 2021 by Banafrit

[CCCP84]

What can I say about GI .. When playing RA2, I quite often noted for myself that the GIs in RA2 are very well balanced. Their damage is exactly what is required. You can fight them with tanks, but at the same time, if the control is unsuccessful, you can lose the tank. You can shoot them by IFV from afar, but if you get closer, they will cause significant damage to this, but at the same time, there is a chance to escape. They do enough damage to buildings. They are just perfectly balanced.
But in YR, for some reason I don't understand, this balance was rudely destroyed. The GIs are absolutely owerpowered here.
I don't play YR, but if you want to make YR more balanced, just make the GIs Identical to the GIs from RA2. They are perfect there.

Edited May 23, 2021 by CCCP84

[ReaperAA]

7 hours ago, Banafrit said:

Alright, been playing the game on and off for these last few weeks with the patch enabled, and here's what I have to say.

Agreed with most of the things you said:

1. Agreed here. I think range of 5.75 is still not enough to make them really good enough at tank vs tank combat. I think increasing their range to something like 6.25 and increasing their ROT (rate of turn) from 5 to 7 would make them less clunky. I also think they should do 100% damage to "medium" armor (to prevent the miners being to good at being meat shields against them) and terror drones (like the elite TDs already do).
2. They already have their HP increased from 180 to 200. This may not seem big, but this means that Grizzly, Lashers and Rhino require 1 more shot to kill them. I agree that their range should also be increased to 5.5 or 5.75. At the same time, I think Grizzlies/Lashers should also have their range increased to 5.5 or 5.75 to give them a better chance against Rhinos. I also agree with @Cicasajt's suggestion about robot tanks not requiring power to work.
3. Either that or slightly reduce the Gattling tanks' 1st and 2nd phase firepower to balance the Gattmag (gattling + magnetron combo).
4. Agreed. Grand cannons should have their range nerfed from 15 to either 12 or 13. While this would still be a higher range than prisms/magnetron/siege choppers, it would atleast give them a better chance to take out the cannons. Optionally, Grand cannons could also use a build limit to prevent abuse in non-SW matches. The build limit would be need experimenting I think.
5. I think slave miners having HP decreased from 2000 to 1500 would be a good starting point. For reference, the chrono and war miners have 1000 HP.
6. Agreed. I think the BFs are in a mostly good shape now that the firepower is reduced by 10%. Maybe it could use a very slight range nerf too (open topped range bonus decreased from 2.0 to 1.5) but that would need testing.
7. I think they are fine in YR for the most part. GIs (in contrast to conscripts and initiates) are meant to be kind of "hold the line" kind of unit. Their only problem is when they are inside a BF (which should hopefully be less of an issue now given that their firepower is slightly reduced). I think that if their firepower is to be nerfed, then their armor should also be upgraded from "none" to "flak" to not make them too weak against conscripts/initiates. The ones in RA2 were a bit too weak as they can't even beat conscripts in equal cost (even when they are deployed).
8. Agreed. Garrisoned Initiates should do same damage as garrisoned GIs as they both are equal valued units.
9. Agreed. An elite auto-firing prism is a nasty unit.

 

3 hours ago, CCCP84 said:

What can I say about GI .. When playing RA2, I quite often noted for myself that the GIs in RA2 are very well balanced. Their damage is exactly what is required. You can fight them with tanks, but at the same time, if the control is unsuccessful, you can lose the tank. You can shoot them by IFV from afar, but if you get closer, they will cause significant damage to this, but at the same time, there is a chance to escape. They do enough damage to buildings. They are just perfectly balanced.
But in YR, for some reason I don't understand, this balance was rudely destroyed. The GIs are absolutely owerpowered here.
I don't play YR, but if you want to make YR more balanced, just make the GIs Identical to the GIs from RA2. They are perfect there.

If you didn't bring some anti-infantry unit with you (like Flak track or IFV), then it is pretty much your fault. IMHO, the GIs are overall better balanced in YR than in RA2. RA2 GIs feel useless to me.

Edited May 23, 2021 by ReaperAA

[CCCP84]

2 hours ago, ReaperAA said:

 IMHO, the GIs are overall better balanced in YR than in RA2. RA2 GIs feel useless to me.

Yes, of course, players who are used to YR will say that GI are weak in RA2. But in fact, the troopers demolish the building in 2 seconds in YR. This is completely illogical and wrong. It is also pointless to fight with tanks against them. I'm talking about the broken balance between units, not the habits of the players.

[ReaperAA]

3 hours ago, CCCP84 said:

Yes, of course, players who are used to YR will say that GI are weak in RA2. But in fact, the troopers demolish the building in 2 seconds in YR. This is completely illogical and wrong. It is also pointless to fight with tanks against them. I'm talking about the broken balance between units, not the habits of the players.

Firstly, the American paradrops are only an issue if you are not paying attention. A couple IFVs/Flaks/Gattlings are enough to deal with them.

Secondly, if the US paradrops HAVE to be nerfed, I would rather prefer to have the number of paradropped GIs reduced from 8 to 6 (same as the regular tech airport paradrop) as opposed to have GIs become weaker.

Thirdly, while GIs have more firepower in YR, lets not forget that they have to remain deployed to deal that high damage to tanks. Unlike conscripts and initiates, GIs are much more vulnerable to getting crushed because of remaining stationary.

Edited May 23, 2021 by ReaperAA

[cypher]

 

21 hours ago, ReaperAA said:

Also I agree with @cypher that base defences should be better in their focus area than their mobile counterparts.

However.....

While I haven't tested it ingame, I do think that the ROT decrease you did would make it too good against slower/larger air units stuff like Kirovs. The vanilla patriot doesn't necessarily need a ROT or damage increase. I would say that just making the projectile faster and slightly increasing splash damage radius would be enough to make them better against rocketeers while not changing their efficiency against heavier units.

 

Because Allies are underpowered, so of course most of the changes would focus on them (although I do agree that auto shooting prism buff is a bit too much)

And....

Who said that? And why? I see nothing wrong in Yuri finally becoming somewhat balanced.

However the buff is made, I think we all agree that it needs a buff (and no the argument is not that you can deal with rocketeers without patriot, the argumentation should be that this building loses it's intention and you rarely see it used in the game..)

[CCCP84]

42 minutes ago, cypher said:

 

However the buff is made, I think we all agree that it needs a buff (and no the argument is not that you can deal with rocketeers without patriot, the argumentation should be that this building loses it's intention and you rarely see it used in the game..)

I rarely use rocketeers. Usually attacking an enemy base with rocketeers is more costly to the attacker than to the one being attacked.
Will increasing the power of the patriots lead to the abandonment of using rocketeers?

[cypher]

Its about gamedesign and balancing. You are free to use rocketeers to defend rocketeers if that's your prefered way @CCCP84 .

And no it's not more costly to teh attacker per se - it depends. And if you have spied barracks it's even more questionable.