The Curse Of Unit Factories

[GhettoJesus]

Unit factories were never too bad before 8.2x. They greatly increased your healing if you placed it down by an existing factory. They helped finish games by placing into enemy base once 1/3 of it was destroyed. But they always had low hp so most mid-late game tanks could easily wipe one out if it was poorly guarded. Using them early game wasn't really beneficial as it took your money and probably wouldn't help you earn it back.

However 8.2x changed the factory alot. Currantly its the best farming weapon for its price, one of the stronger pushing weapons if you do some unit upgrades. And best of all you can place it somewhere where it isnt exposed ( e.g your base) and still get large benefits.

Overall there are too many lame + slighty overpowered things about it.

You can save up 20+ of the blimp creep unit. These have a fairly long range atk that cant miss. If you micro these you have the ability to gib most tanks under 3k hp and to seriously harass anything bellow heavy tank.

They dont give any gold or exp at all, if your enemy floods the game with as many factories as possible from the start it's going to be very difficult to farm/lvl as only a small portion of the units you kill with give you anything. I know it doesn't subtract any of the gold giving units but because the spammed lane is probably going to be supported by heros its hard to not need the towers assistance in taking things down. They also protect the hero tanks from fire. Effectively reducing the gold gained by the other team.

etc etc. If you keep playing 8.21 im sure you'll notice that factories are a really really effective item nowadays.

Here's my suggestions for balancing it out a lil without taking away their charm. Don't take it as i want all my suggestions to be put in use, that wouldn't make them fair. But please do take any of my suggestions to thought.

- 5 or 10 min period before you buy a factory
- 1/2/3 gold for killing the basic/blimp & artillery/flamethrower guy. Alongside some very very low exp.
- A tank / Weapon / Item to help counter massed units. Whether its a stun ward that hits normal units only, to a tank that has a -dmg aura to creeps. Or a weapon with a bouncing or splash attack that doesnt hit hero tank or is fairly weak but decent enough to kill / weaken multiple units.
- Increase the factory hps and make them cost 5k or 6k, maybe even give the factory a cannon tower-ish missile attack. Making it more pricey but harder to destroy.

Anyways i hope you like my suggestions, please people add any thoughts to this topic.

And please vote in the poll so the mappers get an understanding on how the players think.

[Bob666]

i thought about increasing the price to 3000, but that isnt a big change^^ perhaps 3300 is a good price, as you cannot buy it at the beginning then... well, but i dont know if they are really that imba

[Exodus]

The reason the factory was changed, was to make it more valuable in early game and seems like it worked. Nearly every tank has abilities to handle a group of creeps, so I dont think there's a need to change something. I'm also not a fan of a buying restriction in the beginning either.

From my point of view, adding XP to own creeps and/or increasing the price of the factory may be the best way to deal with it.

btw, well written feedback!

[SirJoghurt]

perhaps 3300 is a good price, as you cannot buy it at the beginning then... well, but i dont know if they are really that imba

good idea with a price over 3000 Gold...and yes they are " a bit imba" now...

but it's still a new good feature..especally for Tinker gAmer

p.s. sorry for my bad english

[DOGG1]

I suggested they add the factories stuff:
http://btanks.de/board/viewtopic.php?t=197

However i haven't really had a good chance to test it as people usually disconnect and the game becomes unplayable in the last 2 versions. But i did use them once and they did appear to overwhelm the enemy. Basically what happened is i bought a factory and a friend had troop command. The enemy was overwhelmed when a tank supported us.

I have a few concerns (as i said i haven't really tested them)

#1 The Troop Command item appears to have a longer cooldown than the factory in it's unit spawning? If this is the case, it means that an extra $250 (on top of troop command) will give you healing, faster spawning, and the ability to teleport there. Very cheap advantage for only $250 extra. Troop command will become not-so-good-value. Perhaps only goblin tanks with teleport will use it or people with teleport packs who want to take quick advantage of a player.

#2 Also perhaps the factories need the ability to have their unit spawning switched on or off... sometimes you might want more creeps spawned in a certain place, and your food limit doesn't allow it.

Well that's all i can really think of for now, just woke up.

I think GhettoJesus' best balancing suggestion is a monetary reward for kills. But i'm concerned that this might make the factory a long-term disadvantage. Like it will have pushing powers early but if your team don't utilise the opportunity, it will just become a feeder item in the end. Then again.... you start getting more team cash as time goes by. So perhaps giving $2/kill is OK. Also the option to disable spawn can help here.

Another balancing idea is to give the spawned units 75% regular unit HP and this should be clearly apparent in the tooltips. (i know i reported the HP bug.... but maybe its better with it :lol:)

I think.... that the ghost tank's overpower will become apparent as these factories become utilised more and more. That thing becomes practically invincible if used in the right manner.

Just random thoughts...

[TKF]

Set the price to 3000, will still let the factory be purchaseable at start

Set the price to 3300, will force them to save at start. It takes about 3-4 minutes to get 300 extra gold.


BUT
Troop Command cannot be destroyed

Factories can BE DESTROYED and the cash invested in those is gone when that happen. Just like when you buy a laser tower and it get destroyed quickly, it's wasted money.


Keep the balance!

[GhettoJesus]

Thx for all the excellent responses guys.

I've been thinking a bit more on the factories and its hard to figure out what would be best for the gameplay. I was able to have to have a few more 8.21 games last night, it still remained glaringly obvious that factories are an incredible investment cashwise. The units being spawned are lovely meatshields that farm amazingly and have no real drawbacks.

Taking everything into consideration a small hp nerf ( maybe 80 or 85% of the normal units) and a very small exp+gold bonus for killing them sounds the best to me. The only problem with that is what dogg said. Eventually the opposite team could be getting a gold advantage and the person who built the factories would just be a feeder(like most ppl that go exploder early game). However if the gold is limitted to really small ammounts e.g 1/2/3 depending on which unit it's hard to say that the gold earned would really benefit the other team unless it's 1 guy murdering all the extra units. Even then he wont be gaining much more then anyone else a wave but after 20 or so mins he'll have a few k more then normal. But that'll probably be offsetted by the extra tower/hero kills the team with the factories earns through good use of the units.

Anyways guys i hope you come up with the best decision.

[DerSatan]

my suggestion for the imba factory problem:

dont change its price. just dont let the factory's creeps spawn together with each force's wave. instead of this, let the first creeps spawn immediatley after the factory is built, then in intervals which are as long as the cooldown of the purchasable troop command is.


the creeps wouldnt be part of the force's wave everytime, so the pushing effect would be weakened. also, less creeps would spawn over time, so the factories would be less effective.


the obvious advantages of a factory: mass creeps, it provides healing and you can teleport to it.

the "disadvantages" are:

-it is destroyable, but if you place it in your base, it is not until you lose in most of the games.
-you cannot chose when to release the creeps of your factory as you could do with a troop command, but since you have full controll over your creeps which have no timed life, you can hold them back until you need them.

so both disadvantages can easily be dodged.


to keep the factory valuable with that solution, you could increase the creeps spawned by 3 (+3 machine gunner or +2 machine gunner and an artillery etc)

this would result in 8 food used per factory spawn. also, 5 factories allowed * 8 creeps = 40 (foodlimit). this would fit perfectly, and was quite easy as its basically the same concept as how the tinker-towers work.

and: its only fair for getting the troop commander award to do it like this, elseway a player who spawned troops using the troop command and simple troops had no chance against a player using factories


conclusion: (for you who are too lazy to read all this) :roll:

-add 3 creeps to the factory's spawn to a total of 8

-let the creeps of the factory spawn in the same intervals as the creeps of the purchasable troop command, the first 8 creeps are spawned immediately.

-general effect: better relation factory <--> troop command

-the price of 2750 is perfect for this solution i think

[TKF]

Recently lost a game! Factory Pushers vs tanks Force. They won in no time.

[Game Hunter]

Recently I've tinkered around with using factories (in Rush; can never find enough players for Normal...) and I find that they're certainly a useful tactic in that mode. Heck, we managed to fend off a 3v5 game because of it and and upgrader. The 3300 cost is probably going to solve some of the problem, but people COULD wait until they get enough gold and then buy one. (No idea if it would work well, but people will do that.)

In any case, I'm not sure if making the interval exactly the same as Troop Command is a good idea: I'd prefer the group to stay with neutral creeps. Perhaps if we just halved the time (probably close to a Troop Command) and increased the unit count to the eight or whatever, it'd make everyone happy.

Now for GhettoJesus's initial suggestions:

1. 5 or 10 min period before you buy a factory
2. 1/2/3 gold for killing the basic/blimp & artillery/flamethrower guy. Alongside some very very low exp.
3. A tank / Weapon / Item to help counter massed units. Whether its a stun ward that hits normal units only, to a tank that has a -dmg aura to creeps. Or a weapon with a bouncing or splash attack that doesnt hit hero tank or is fairly weak but decent enough to kill / weaken multiple units.
4. Increase the factory hps and make them cost 5k or 6k, maybe even give the factory a cannon tower-ish missile attack. Making it more pricey but harder to destroy.

1. A waiting period would be perfect for Normal games: 5 to 10 minutes into it is still part of early-game, and it gives all players a way to build up before the factories pour in.
2. Existent but lesser rewards are a fine option, but it might make players feel that factories should be destroyable if need be. Eventually they'd just be feeding the enemy tanks.
3. Electro-Aura on the Thunder Tank deals plenty of damage to the enemy; however, I think Frost Magic would benefit from having a splash against creeps (to be honest, I never considered buying it since it became "creeps only") and possibly add a less expensive choice.
4. I wouldn't do this if it means getting rid of the initial Factory option. If we could somehow have a "base" Factory that only heals, then allow it to be upgraded to pump out units and eventually its own attack, we could do that.

[Bob666]

If we could somehow have a "base" Factory that only heals, then allow it to be upgraded to pump out units and eventually its own attack, we could do that.

that seems to be a good idea for it... as i was thinking about increasing the costs to about 5k, but i did not want to make it so expensive for the end-game, where you use them for entering the enemy base....
any other opinions to it? otherwise i let it cost 2500 or 3000 gold and make it upgradable for 1500 or 2000 gold

[TKF]

I did find the fab cost at 3300 quite fit. But if you gonna make fab upgradeable as Game Hunter Suggest...

Ordinary fab at 2300 -> spawns only 2 marines and heals. Upgrade for 1000 gold let it produce additionally 1 commander, artillery and zeppelin. Or different balancing...

Upgradeable this way?

[Bob666]

no.. as i heard the factory for 3300 gold is still too strong

[TKF]

Then You haven't seen the evil trader with siege pack which attack vulnerable factories, nor the evil air tank that flys around and attack field factories in attempt to destroy them. Only factories inside bases is quite protected until the end of game, which also increases the difficulty of finishing the enemy quicker. I can't yet imagine factory is to expensive for 3300 :?. I find troops command (2500) inside a barricade (850) as a manual stronger factory^^. That is my old troop spammer tactic in 8.15 and older versions. If the factory becomes more expensive (higher than 3500), I might again return back to this old tactic.

[TKF]

Do you get xp from killing spawned troops owned by players?

[Exodus]

No, you won't.

[TKF]

øhm... Why? Is that to keep xp gain balance for both sides?

[Game Hunter]

Some guy noted in a recent game that factories were a "game-breaking combo" and, while I don't believe this to be true, they are a rather significant advantage. I think the best shot we have for balancing them is to have them reduced to their original cost (2200? or close to that) and original use (2 marines), then have it upgradeable for another factory's worth (if it's 2200 to buy, then a 2200 upgrade) for what we have now. Makes it so that factories can be used as healing bases or unit spawners, but the cost is more balanced this way.

Also, I suggest being able to self-destruct them, especially because of the 3-factory limit. Since some players might want them only as a temporary base, it would be great if they could get rid of the old one (if they're at the max) and place a new one farther up, even if it costs them.

[TKF]

Add a sell button

[Bishounen]

Nothing is imba when there is a counter.
Of course, the counter would be the enemy buying factories.
One thing to remember when building a competitive map: build for clan wars, competitive play, and experienced teams. Don't build for noobs.
When both teams build factories and upgrade, there is no imba. There are other problems though.

Now, being an experienced DotA player (Orochi- @ Azeroth, Clan TDA Ban Appeals Moderator), I have a good deal of insights into the meta-game.

Problem: Factories are a do-all. They farm for you. They push for the team. They gain you XP when you sit on your ass in the base.
Solution: When you buy a factory, it belongs to the team, not you.

Problem: Factories are super-deadly when combined with upgrades. Let's be honest here: if you've got three factories out with no upgrades, it's gonna suck.
Solution: When you upgrade, the ENEMY team also gets a notification that their enemies are upgrading. This can let cue them in on upgrading themselves.

Problem: Factories are too easy to obtain and too hard to destroy.
Solution: Make them cost more (BOO), or make them have a long cooldown in the shop.