Yuri Rebalance Patch (Community) Changelog

[Grant]

1 hour ago, RaVaGe said:

Grant was strongly against it, yet MustacheX has been flaunting the fact that Grant basically told him that he can add his MX balance changes to a similar patch in the past.
 

Don't recall saying that... 

[[CC] RaVaGe]

@FlyingMustache ?

[Reano]

Nothing said here has convinced me it’s just not an attempt to try to beat people like Andy, etc it’s so obvious it’s laughable but no worries. Hardly any using it in games.

i do agree however that if people appear to be pushing, this should be looked at more. There should be more policing on pushing, disconnect/bails and similar. I’ve posted loads and only on some occasions get redress.

i could as I have in the past commercially sponsor some of these improvements but there would have to be serious unbiased, yuri crying admins.

Chat to me privately with some serious proposals that I can test and let’s see if my money is where my mouth is for serious improvement. Or continue to run these half baked solutions.

[fir3w0rx]

Although not perfect (nothing is on initial release), I think this is a step in the right direction, and a long time coming. But maybe a little too many changes too quickly though.

[FlyingMustache]

21 hours ago, Grant said:

Don't recall saying that... 

You spoke to Kireeek or Kinky about a year ago. Don't remember which. You said that if a good yuri rebalance was presented you would give it the ok. I never made the mod though. The mod I currently have changes all factions, which isn't what you wanted.

19 hours ago, fir3w0rx said:

Although not perfect (nothing is on initial release), I think this is a step in the right direction, and a long time coming. But maybe a little too many changes too quickly though.

This. This is probably the biggest problem with Martin's mod. Baby steps is the route for a mod. He modded more Yuri units than I did. And my mod was editted 12 times.

20 hours ago, RaVaGe said:

@FlyingMustache ?

Didn't say it was "MX" mod. A different, lesser mod. But as I mentioned to you, I never made such a mod to not impose it on the community. Basically, we both had the capability to add a mod to the client. Except I chose not to, and you did.

Edited November 23, 2018 by Ferret
Double post, merged into a singular post

[[CC] RaVaGe]

1 hour ago, FlyingMustache said:

Baby steps is the route for a mod.

That's how all those changes came to be, just because they are presented to you in a bunch doesn't mean I just pulled them out of my ...

[FlyingMustache]

4 hours ago, RaVaGe said:

That's how all those changes came to be, just because they are presented to you in a bunch doesn't mean I just pulled them out of my ...

Yes, though what I mean is presenting them in pieces. It's up to you either way, but a lot of backlash you're getting is due to so many changes that there's so much adapting to do.

[[CC] RaVaGe]

I didn't bother wasting time easing the ~5 Yuri players into the new changes and its the same Yuri players who are backlashing.

Edited November 23, 2018 by RaVaGe

[XXxPrePxX]

21 minutes ago, RaVaGe said:

I didn't bother wasting time easing the ~5 Yuri players into the new changes and its the same Yuri players who are backlashing.

True. 

 

I see it from both sides -- Mustache is right that a more incremental approach would have been ideal, however with the state of this forum and game, an incremental approach would have likely led to incompleteness (Since admins seem to only care on some days/weeks).

 

Either way -- I'm a fan of this big time. I think it would be logical to add the country specific unit patch to this so that it could be played more in FFAs.

As for the patch, the thing I'm weary about right now is what Leo's pointed out in a few spots:

- Masterminds : It seems odd that their range would increase making them potentially over powering, yet their limit would now be only 2 making them seem kinda useless in some respects. I'd be interested in gameplay involving this. Maybe we need some good YT videos.

And 2: How does Yuri overcome cliffs now without the magnetron there to reach? I think this is a good idea from the patch to limit the mag and cliff as an example would be Dry Heat where Magnetrons basically own the fucking map and can kill a persons entire miner army in a matter of seconds, however this might make yuri extremely vulnerable to cliff based war? Not sure.

 

[LeOwNzAll]

@RaVaGe

Unfortunately as you tell wrong things (rush initiates, 10-12k cash, sending miners everywhere, ...) it's not constructive.

Some points are good to see, as ctrl+shift of mag, maybe the power plant, chaos drone (maybe?), virus (maybe?).  It's better to admit "Ok this it's not useful; ok this i'll check, maybe i'm wrong?"

If you really believe what you wrote i think it means your skill as yuri are low. And not revelant of how yuri has to be played, so impossible to balance it.

Edited November 23, 2018 by Ferret
Removed quote

[FlyingMustache]

I agree with Leo mostly, minus a few points.

[[CC] RaVaGe]

38 minutes ago, LeOwNzAll said:

If you can't stop just a spam disc, it's not a problem of the game, but you are the problem lol.

This makes a lot of sense, because all games were released perfectly balanced and it's not a widely known fact that Westwood didn't have the time to fully refine Yuri's Revenge prior to release, but at this point I'm going to have to stop you and regretfully say...
I appreciate your feedback, however it's very clear that you haven't tried none of these changes out against any competent player and are evidently just describing your assumptions based on some fantasy you've concocted in your head.

When you get the chance to play at least two handfuls of games on a variety of map sizes against some one of reasonable skill, fell free to reply constructively, until that point I can't take your replies seriously.

 

Also please learn to quote properly, it's exhausting to read posts like that.

 

44 minutes ago, LeOwNzAll said:

what about spamming rhino ? Do you tell sov stop spamming rhino and warfac? ...

Yes, I do, I tell them to go learn to play. So that I can watch them struggle as Allied.

[Win4ester]

Still didnt try it, but nerfing Yuri is a great idea! 

[Win4ester]

Thanks for the good job with working on balance, maybe in feauture tournaments I'll allow the nerfed Yuri to be choosen as a fraction to play.

[[CC] RaVaGe]

24 minutes ago, Win4ester said:

maybe in feauture tournaments I'll allow the nerfed Yuri to be choosen as a fraction to play.

You certainly should, I'd be happy to demonstrate to everyone how even after such so called 'MAJOR' nerfs Yuri is still very powerful.

[Reano]

I have been given a warning for "Do not insult or otherwise attempt to incite negative reactions." 

Im very sorry for any incitement I have caused. I dont believe any of my posts were intended to be like that. I was constructive and balanced in my response but no worries.

[a1nthony]

Can’t really comment on specifics since I don’t play too much.. but I think yuri could’ve been patched with the “more is less” approach. Just a few things I took out of this. Yuri seems More prone to lose against high level rushes from sobs now that drones are a bit more effective and miners build slow, however I think yuri can rush allies earlier, but classic wave tactics won’t work now and yuri loses effectiveness towards end of mid/long-game vs allied.  there any change to yuri navy? I don’t want to say scratch these changes and start again.. but there were just a few major problems with the yuri faction imho and I think there was a lot more change than necessary. If u do play around with this I would look at mostly these changes moving forward.

-can’t mutate your own slaves/brutes ungrindable

-change yuri navy, just downgrade boomer and put a moveable tank bunker and now yuri has a navy

I would’ve just took out Ctrl-shift for magnetrons and miners need two magnetrons to pick up.

 

anyways good job on the changes it’s good to see somebody actively trying to work on the game, I’ll try to hop on eventually and play.

good efforts!

[AchromicWhite]

On 11/21/2018 at 9:55 AM, Ferret said:

@AchromicWhite
It'd be interesting if we got Funky on-board with us on TD and RA1 rebalancing.

@RaVaGe
Nice work!

Yeah, I would LOVE to be able to tweak a few things like this.
It'd be good feedback for C&C: remaster, too.

I should finish up that google doc and do that podcast thing. Else, TBH, the remaster will be terrible. I hate saying that, but heck, we have a question of if we should have unit/structure categories on the sidebar.
NO
Stuff like turrets AGTs, even tesla in RA, are balanced by NOT being able to make other structures while they're being made.

Base creep is part of the game, but it can get out of hand. It's probably too powerful as it is. It shouldn't even be a poll.

[reflexion]

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.

[[CC] RaVaGe]

4 hours ago, reflexion said:

This should not be a one-man-show in patching!

That's why I'm reading your posts and basing the changes on UNBIASED FEEDBACK.
Yours is already biased because you think I'm simply changing things on a personal whim.

 

4 hours ago, reflexion said:

@Grant: I hope you have this under investigation. Maybe you can nominate a steering group consisting of 1-2 Top players

Why ask Grant, it's my project.
While I absolutely love the idea of top players helping out, they are simply not interested in doing this, they just want to play.
Also 'top' players like Andy would just troll and change random things to just to joke around.
Other than that I've already included many of the top players in testing, a lot of changes are based on their feedback.

[reflexion]

1 hour ago, RaVaGe said:

That's why I'm reading your posts and basing the changes on UNBIASED FEEDBACK.
Yours is already biased because you think I'm simply changing things on a personal whim.

 

Why ask Grant, it's my project.
While I absolutely love the idea of top players helping out, they are simply not interested in doing this, they just want to play.
Also 'top' players like Andy would just troll and change random things to just to joke around.
Other than that I've already included many of the top players in testing, a lot of changes are based on their feedback.

 

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

Edited November 29, 2018 by reflexion

[[CC] RaVaGe]

2 hours ago, reflexion said:

- 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.

 

This here is a perfect example of framing being part of human nature as you so described.

1. Brutes are not all that effective in the early game nor late game, they are just fodder, very expensive fodder and also a very expensive scouting unit.
2. Bio Reactors give too much power per their cost, Yuri can tech very fast to superweapons on one Bio Reactor.
3. Slave miners have so much health that attacking Yuri's Miners is usually quite pointless, it also lets Yuri send his miners across the map to gem patches and build a super economy quite easily.

Edited November 29, 2018 by RaVaGe

[reflexion]

37 minutes ago, RaVaGe said:

This here is a perfect example of framing being part of human nature as you so described.

1. Brutes are not all that effective in the early game nor late game, they are just fodder, very expensive fodder and also a very expensive scouting unit.
2. Bio Reactors give too much power per their cost, Yuri can tech very fast to superweapons on one Bio Reactor.
3. Slave miners have so much health that attacking Yuri's Miners is usually quite pointless, it also lets Yuri send his miners across the map to gem patches and build a super economy quite easily.

 

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).

 

Edited November 29, 2018 by reflexion

[XXxPrePxX]

Good discussion, some thoughts:

3 hours ago, reflexion said:

- Initiates garrison damage? -> WHY? There was never a problem with it.

Strongly disagree here. Initiates garrison is the ultimate defense against land units. A full garrison wipes out an entire army of tanks and makes any early game rush meaningless on city maps or maps with pinch points + garrisons. It's really insane what WOL did with this when the other two garrisons (conscripts+gis) are perfectly fine. 

The other 3 points you mentioned in that block where more or less debatable. 

 

3 hours ago, reflexion said:

What i want to say is... change slowly - test on a broad sample for a while

As much as I like what Ravage is aiming to do -- I agree with this. From a scientific background it's significantly easier to change one (or very few) variables and see what happens compared to changing a ton of variables at once and seeing what happens. 

As a side effect, I think a patch would have much more support when it's incrementally changed rather than abruptly changed all at once. 

 

My key changes to Yuri would be something like:
- Magnetron changes
- Initiate garrison change, this is a simple one that is obvious IMO, allows yuri to be played against on more city maps.
- Genetic mutator change in some way, can't have it giving infinite money all game
- Naval change, this is necessary and would open up so many more maps for Yuri warfare. 
-Also, would be nice to give some sort of delay for the dominator. Perhaps it shouldn't be as long as the nuke. 

 

All other changes are highly debatable in my eyes and would require serious testing.

For the yuri players that are against any patches and this patch, I would stress for them to realize that they've been ostracized in this community for years... a patch would allow us all equal ground to come together and at the end of the game be happy to say "gg". Let's work together. 

[reflexion]

29 minutes ago, XXxPrePxX said:

Good discussion, some thoughts:

Strongly disagree here. Initiates garrison is the ultimate defense against land units. A full garrison wipes out an entire army of tanks and makes any early game rush meaningless on city maps or maps with pinch points + garrisons. It's really insane what WOL did with this when the other two garrisons (conscripts+gis) are perfectly fine. 

The other 3 points you mentioned in that block where more or less debatable.

 

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.