Requirements for Thunder Tank and above - Standard?

[horselance]

I probably sait it before. Demon stun must be lowered to 2 sec. (but it was reduced to 2.5 sec).
Demon cost must be 11k and infernal hp to 15k.

[TKF]

If demon tank is going to cost 11k, it will then be tech restricted.

Why reduced Internals hp to 15k? I don't find it so imba. But it's much better against air tanks than the titan which has only 1 skill against air.

[k-bones]

Yes, if not make extended reqs default, include demon to req-tanks. That will make all middle tanks really useful, not just "creep-up tools" for the stronger ones like 1st tanks.

[DerSatan]

yeah, try that and you will see the sky tank dominating the battlefield.

[TKF]

yeah, try that and you will see the sky tank dominating the battlefield.

Indeed!

[k-bones]

Sky tank has much less hp and doesn't suit short-range tactics. I'd rather think we'll see Gobos dominating the map:P
However, as changing the requirement-tanks list won't do any good in the long run, the best option again is setting ext-reqs as default.

[Prog]

Creating more requirements might result automatically in requirements for thunder+, which I (and the majority of the poll) dislike. I think it is a false way to change the situation (which is actually not like everyone getting demon tank, there are sky tanks as well and there might be some heavy strats as well [I'm testing right now playing scout-heavy-inf, which seems to work out quite well as you lose ~2k gold less than the scout-demon-inf player overall and even more in comparison to scout/lt-thunder/air ship-inf strats, but get the inf nearly in the same time]). The better way would be to make more late game tanks without requirements in closer cost range. For example removing the frost requirements (as I said) or creating another tank in the 8k-11k region (maybe one which is better against ground than air, so we have some kind of rock-paper-scissor system).

[horselance]

Of course sky will dominate. Because there is no anti-air tank except Demon that can handle Sky tank. Demon was the best option to handle any tank after infernal. So it got popularity. If you take off demon, Sky will be popular. And if you take off Sky, Zeppelin will be popular (HT maybe but less prior)

What you do is the easy way to balance the game but not solving any problems. And limiting gameplay.

You want solution? Here:

Balance the tanks a way, so no tank will be a goal to reach. Balance the Air-Ground abilities a way, so some tanks must not be vs overall better than others. (overall= air+ground)
Tanks "abilty damage and effects + HP" must not exceed their cost.
Remove all tank requirements but Titan. And make titan a little more efficient.

My solution is not so easy, but your offer is not a solution. Most ppl say there is no need to break such a balance in game now. But I dont see a balance in game. If there was balance, we would see more tanks in game arent we?

[horselance]

And limiting tanks will create a chaotic situation.

In older games, good player with good stats would dominate the game and enemy would usually would lose if there was no team play. But if all team used to play good, that team with better stats would win surely.
Now everything is per chance. You can play worse but you can win, you can play good and you can win. Winning is not at playing good.

Just an example: (Plyvak will remember that game in PvPGN that wizard_ro complained a lot) Our team stats: ~110-210 and we won. If you think that we were defending and got advantage of defending good, NO! They never passed midfield and killed us permanently at defend. But that did not matter because we had same tanks and they got same tanks and they didnt/coudnt buy better tanks to push us. And Plyvak made upg and I buy infernal then we won.

Some different situation is also, defend at all cost, sum up your gold and buy tank, push enemy, kill enemy, win game. (Italy football)

But keyword is: "buy tank - win game"

Because Tanks above Demon is winner tanks. If enemy cant balance it.

It is up to : who will break balance. If you ask me, it is up to chance.

If you limit tanks, game will be more balanced and end of game will be more chance. Good play and bad play will be much much less important.

[DerSatan]

chance?? so your enemies just had bad luck not to do upgrades? they were totally unlucky because you had an infernal and they didnt?

:lol: :lol:

[Prog]

In older games, good player with good stats would dominate the game and enemy would usually would lose if there was no team play. But if all team used to play good, that team with better stats would win surely.
Now everything is per chance. You can play worse but you can win, you can play good and you can win. Winning is not at playing good.

Stopped reading here, never heard something which is more false than this statement.

1. The better team allways wins in the current version and won in every version up to now.
2. The better team is not the team with better stats.
3. Only if both teams play exactly the same strategies/builds and they play exactly on the same teamplay level the better stats win the game necesserily.
4. There are no two teams with equal teamplay or equal skill in any way.
5. Good players with good stats don't win games and never did, good teams do.

[horselance]

Yes thats the problem. They got 2x more kills and got the money right? But we won... Because they couldnt win with their money until we make upgrades. Isnt this strange?
And we overwhelmed them with our much cheaper tanks. Isnt this strange? Just sum up: 100 kill difference make 40k with average 400 bounty. They got 40k difference but we won. I dont feel this is a balanced game.....
You limited infernal and look at nowadays games. Who buys an infernal makes a huge difference. Just balancing the infernal would have solved it. But you limited gameplay. And after Frost Robot and Sky Fortress is limited too. Now all tanks...
All ppl are forced to play just with same concept of AI now.

2. The better team is not the team with better stats.

So what is a good play or good team?
Using the imbaness of game is good play?
Using every imba condition is teamplay?

Going directly from a helli+hull>infernal was so imba tactic, thats why infernal was limited right? (no because infernal was so imba!)
Now what you call a teamplay is just a team version of imba tactic of helli+hull>infernal.
One upgrades and others buy infernal, or all upg and all buy.
That limitations dont make infernal less imba.

So what is a good play or teamplay? Buying an infernal ASAP is a goodplay. Killing ppl is not a good play.
All using 3 sec stuns on 1 player is good play. And fighting 1v1 is bad play.
Having 110-210 team stats is a good play. And losing game with better stats is bad play.

Is that true?

[Prog]

So what is a good play or good team?

A quite difficult question (which rather deserves a separate topic). I'd split it (playing good) up into some aspects, which are strategy(build), strategy(movement), (map) overview, micro, game theory, analyzing the opponents and team play (some might be missing, as this is just a short (and by far not enough reviewed) statement on my view on "playing good").

*Strategy (build): This means of course the basic strategy one is going to play. For example if someone plays scout+bombarding in mid, or light+basics on the side lanes at start and which way someone plans to go in future. This basic build is quite easy to learn, but it's hard to master, as it's definitely not something static (which it might seem to be). It's all about adjusting to the opponents. It's not only important to know all possible builds, but as well to know against which builds and play style from the opponents every strategy is good. For example: You know your opponent to play demolisher on lane (if from playing with him, or you waited in start some seconds to see the strats doesn't matter for the example) and you know that he'll probably stay near his own cp. As you know that you have to judge which build is good against this sort of strat. It might be some sort of creeping build, like scout+bow/hull or scout+bombarding or heli+bow or lt+bow/basic. Now you have to predict how the opponent is going to play in the future of the game most likely (you see, some points I mentioned separately come in here as well, that's all connected) to pick out which of those builds you should start with and how you'll should be changing tanks/getting weapons in the long run to counter his strat most effectively. Against this demolisher, you probably know him to play a kind of old fashioned style like demolisher->demon, so you can either try to push him with an early 2nd tank like thunder/air ship/heavy, or go for a creeping strat to get demon even before your opponent, or you try something in between by saving for sky tank and pushing then (you may as well try some risky tech straight to inf). Now you have to think about all this possibilities with their pros and cons (like getting an early 2nd tank will probably result in a switch from the opponents [or a change of tactic from the opponent] and you will have an additional gold spending in comparison to the demo->demon player, which you have to compensate) to pick the perfect build. Especially the compensation of the (at least 2k) gold is something which shouldn't be underestimated. You have to kill a demolisher with bow ~6 times (just with the kills it would be more than 6 times, but you creep better than him as well) before he can get the demon tank without getting deaths yourself to be break-even if you changed to a thunder tank!
Playing the right build against something doesn't mean playing something imba, as there is nothing imba.

*Strategy (movement): The thing most people consider to be connected with the skill most closely. The correct movement implies knowledge of ranges and the chance of being hit by weapons if x creeps are close to yourself, as well as knowledge of opponent abilities with their ranges. Players with the better movement will most likely win 1v1 fights with similar equipment (for example the lt+2basics against lt+2basics on the side lanes). Just “most likely” and not “for sure”, because of the random aim from the weapons if there are creeps nearly. But with a good movement and overview you should be the favorite to win the fight, even if it's just a 55-45 situation in your favor it's a good play (If you're bounty is equal, you mustn't forget about bounty differences if you're judging about good attacks on tanks. If your bounty is 550 and your opponents is 450 with 55-45 chances then it's a breakeven play). As this has quite a lot of variance someone can easily loose 3-4 such situations and get 0-4 stats in the beginning even if he played better than the opponent (might happen if the skill difference of 2 players is quite low).

*(Map) Overview: One thing I would consider as really important. You have to analyze situations in a short time, to judge how you should move/act. This involves the overview on the minimap and get's more important when players get teleporter.

*Micro: Micro is some sort of term for the control of the tank and units, which is especially important if you have some sort of summons. For example split summons close to opponent towers to minimize aoe dmg. Micro is closely related to the movement point and most people know the term micro, so I don't go into detail here.

*Game theory: Game theory is a key to improve everyone's game in general, as with analyses of situation you can find out which way of playing would have been the best and can act in a similar situation next time properly. As the success depends on the play of others it is important to know how your opponents play and will play and to give them false, or no information (as little as possible) on how you are going to play, to let them make mistakes in their builds and movement. A classic example is the armor upgrade one. If a team is going to get an infernal they should make the upgrades just when they got enough gold to buy an infernal, so that the opponents can't see earlier that you would be teching for it, not 10 minutes before. If you play with infernal you can fake chaos teleport or you can fake control point teleport to force your opponents to make mistakes they would probably don't make if they would know you're not teleporting (or sometimes they do think you're faking, but you're not). As both teams will try to hide their strats, guessing becomes an important factor, which brings us to another aspect:

*Analyzing the opponents: I probably don't need to say a lot here, as the information is kind of in the other texts implemented. You need to find out which start builds or which time someone buys item X implies strategy X. You need to know what the opponent is going to do if he starts flying from mid to a side, to give your mate a signal to retreat, or about opponent heli's movement patterns to plant mines correctly, etc.

*Team play: That's a difficult one to describe. Mostly it's about knowing your mates, know what they do in certain situations and play as synergetic as possible. It's about stunning when you're mates stun, staying close to each other, but not to close to be hit by aoe too hard, helping with a good timing (timing might be another aspect of skill/good play) as well as it is to play builds which fit to each others. If you go for an aoe strat it's good to have a player with a quite long stun playing with you, for example. Blinking for other players if you have the better map overview is another part of team play, or informing the other players about what you think an opponent is going to do (build wise, movement wise). As a team you can judge more accurately about analyzing opponents or which build anyone of your team should go for.
[btw: I don't understand what you're trying to point out with "using every imba condition", so please make another attempt to explain that more precisely.]

All those points are closely connected to each other and (without the movement) all are influenced by the team play quite strongly. Stats, especially in the early game, are mostly influenced by the movement and overview. To counter in the long run with good analyzing and game theoretical approaches often doesn't result instantly in better stats (but it mostly does in the long run), but rather in capturing cps, get more creeps or saving gold by changing tank less often and without a certain amount of micro any advantage in those aspects are not enough to win a game.
As you mentioned a game with 40k gold difference, I don't think that the effective gold difference was that much (taking tank changes, creeps and force gold into consideration as well and there was probably a lower average bounty. You have to keep in mind that late game bounty>>>>early game bounty as well, so better stats don't imply more gold from tank kills.) and even if it was, the team might lacked of good builds, or other decision-making. Maybe they should have invested this advantage into getting infernals earlier or capturing all cps to stop you from getting one more efficiently. I can't judge without any replay of that game.

Regarding the infernal: There had been other changes on infernal which made him balanced, especially the stop of his ulti by stun nerfed him a lot. He is still stronger than demon (as he should be), but I wouldn't call him imba. And taking my view on "good play" as a measure: Buying an infernal asap might be a good play, if it's a good strat against your opponents build. Killing people is a good play, if you're the favorite to kill the opponent in comparison to him killing you, with regard to the bounty. All using 3 sec stuns on 1 player is a good play, tho if you're playing 3v3 it's important to know which tank you should stun. Having 110-210 team stats is no play at all, it shows just that the other team probably plays better in some parts of the game, winning with 110-210 team shows that they lack of skills in some other parts of the game. Loosing game is allways a result of bad play.

[Exodus]

Wow.
Ok, I feel its now the time to step in. Its great that you are discussing this much, but you are drifting more and more away from the actual topic. Since there is no real point where I could split the thread I'll leave it as it is right now. But please stick to the topic, as this is the point were people stop reading whats been written already, because there is so much stuff whats not directly related to the topic.

In case you want to discuss further on what a good team is, or on specific imbalances of specific tanks, please open seperate thread for this topics.

[k-bones]

I think everything in the topic has been already said, now it's up to you. (I have to say that imho the only argument against was "it's ok now, don't change anything")

[horselance]

I just try tell that; making requirements similarize good and bad plays at all.

Against all, we cant know what will happen if you enable it. So just try it next version and better than we discuss after.

(My last words about this till next version.)

[DerSatan]

could it be that you havent played any "more tanks with requirements" games yet..?

i saw you downloading the 8.53b today, and now you saw that we cant tell what will happen...

[horselance]

More requirements added in 8.49 i think. Not new...
And a meteor crashed into my pc and i gotta reload WC3. Now you are happy?

[ChronicStoned]

I think it should be standard, it would concentrate the game more on the weapons, hulls/packs and upgrading would become more interesting.
But then the requirements for packs[blueprints] should be decreased:
Speedpack-blueprint requieres lvl 6[i think so. nor really sure] attack upgrade and if noone upgrades it would take 30minutes untill you can buy it.

[TKF]

But then the requirements for packs[blueprints] should be decreased:
Speedpack-blueprint requieres lvl 6[i think so. nor really sure] attack upgrade and if noone upgrades it would take 30minutes untill you can buy it.

Well I can tell you that the requirements will in fact be reduced in near future, perhaps in next version.

Exodus have mentioned that he would reduce requirements for item combination.