The torps issue

[koshen]

Stun, push, creep at same time. Troop are not as hull, they are offensive and defensive item. Decreasing the accuracy of 90% +doing damage is nothing?

I called it a defensive measure against torps and not a counter because it does not provide you with a method to strike back rather just decrease the accuracy for as long as they are around.

Do you understand that there is also waste of damage by using torpedo? 600 damage on a target that has 10 hp is a waste.

I don't quite understand the implications here. If I get a creep kill that's a boon. If it hit's an enemy tank that's a boon as well. If I kill an enemy tank with 10hp left with a torp I certainly wouldn't consider that waste. If you're suggesting that this hurts the way a torp user farms then in a strict sense, yes. Compare a continual feed of creep to a tank with torps and one with multibow then of course the multibow would win out. However laning conditions are never this perfect and torps would win out in a real laning situation because of the harass a torp user would be able to perform forcing the enemy tank back for hp. And I'll stress again, perform with impunity.

Looking at probability and return, the return is the same due to the equation, only the variance is different.

Ok you completely lost me on that one. Can you elaborate?

Defensive doesn't mean stay behind cp. It just mean being defensive, stay inf front of tower to kill creeps but not push too much forward.

I certainly haven't excluded those definitions from my use for the term. While providing a little bit of extra protection, staying in front of a tower will see you lose exp and gold as the tower kses your creeps. Meanwhile as you will kill opposing creeps faster, smart torp users will go behind the cp and steal entire creep waves.

Against noobs, I agree that energy torpedoes are imba.

Despite being one of my major reasons in OP I haven't gone into this much. They're attractive to noobs who don't think because of their high damage and range, and, for the same reason are also effective against noobs. Implementing the change I suggested would increase the initial learning curve while maintaining the way torps are played.

As well, what items will you get after you have bought those 'imbalanced' torpedoes? Infernal rocks? Burning projectiles? Death Magic?

I've always gone under the assumption that everyone knew an effective torp player would always mass torps while choosing an air tank. After a strong enough lead has been established torp user can go to any long range build, although acid is usually next the next logical progression.

Looking at probability and return, the return is the same due to the equation, only the variance is different.

You've completely lost me there, can you elaborate?

I believe that 1300 is the range of the creep sniper, bombarding rockets, rocket hail, death magic, and acid cannon.

If you look at the context of the text you were replying to I was referring to an early mid game situation laning against a torp opponent. Death magic and acid and hails are at least mid game and a torp user will have amassed quite a few torps by then. Bombarding on the other hand is a viable alternative however you certainly won't be able to farm as well as early torps (assuming that both players are competent at farming).

Design of phoenix fire?

Without going into some good'ol Mathcraft the phoenix fire ability is designed such that it damage is distributed in a pseudo even manner across targets. Battletanks lives and breathes on this rule. It's how we plan our cp caps, tank killing strats, successfully farm, why we build bunkers etc etc. And it's also the reason we say to our noobs to always stay behind the creepline. For this golden rule to work weapons must roughly do damage according to this rule, that is, to roughly do even damage across a group of units. Now at this point, if you want the non-mathcraft explanation read my example with the light tanks and notice how uneven torps distributes damage. However, for those mathcraft inclined I'll show you why torps don't follow this rule like the other weapons.

Say we have 2 targets A and B and a unit with the phoenix fire ability. The phoenix fire ability uses pseudo random targeting ability that gives an equal chance of both units being hit. Let's call the target of the phoenix fire ability an "independent random variable", the firing of the phoenix fire ability an "occurance" and a group of occurances a "sample". Recall that in highschool we learned about the central limit theorem (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_limit_theorem) and applying this, we realise that as the sample size increases, the calculated probability of hitting any target approaches 50/50 (or in other words a perfectly even distribution of damage). So what does this have to do with weapons in btanks? Obviously no weapon will ever fire infinitely at a set of targets in btanks, however as we have learned, by increasing the sample size we approach the even distribution of damage across a set of targets. Therefore weapons that fire rapidly will distribute damage more evenly than weapon that do not and hence there this is the element of chance in phoenix fire. Every weapon will generally fire enough times to do justice to the central limit theorem rule however, there is once glaring exception: torps. Torps have the longest cooldown of any weapon in btanks and the greatest damage per hit amongst the starting weapons (and even the mid range weapons). One might say that tornadoes have a similar effect but there is one key difference between torps and tornado: Range .... which allows torps to attack with impunity. Now, I'm certainly not arguing we should decrease the cd of every weapon so that it damages enemies evenly. Torp play is unique and should be kept the way it is but it simply defies fundamental gameplay mechanics. So the solution? If we increase the number of projectiles torps fire, we effectively decrease the cooldown which will give torp damage a far more even distribution.



lol ... guys this thread has gone for quite awhile seeing as my suggestion being implemented is not very likely, this is probably the last post I'll be making in it. I'm not a pedantic person be nature however the reason I continue to argue this is because the logic, reasoning and my own experiences are so sound that I'm surprised most people don't see it. But then again, I don't play on bnet and I don't the skill level of torp players on your server. However on the server I do play on with roughly 12,000 players torp play once got to the extent that the only way to counter torps was to buy your own, and then games devolved into torp vs torp matches. Since then we've learned, and none of the experienced players buy torps anymore. In any case, regardless of the seemingly hypothetical advantages of torps I've put forth, torps are only as effective, in your eyes, as the people you see use them. Anyway when the day comes that people on bnet do start using them with impunity you'll all know how to nerf them.