Troop Command is imbalanced = (

[Bishounen]

I don't see too many players going for this strategy, so here it is. Try it out.
I play on Azeroth though, and there's not too many good players on that server, so I don't know if there's enough counters to it.

Troop command costs 2500 gold. It creates 10 units:
4 soldiers
2 airships
2 artillery
2 commandos
I think that's it.

This item is actually significantly more imbalanced than the Factory. Here's why.

1. It costs less than a Factory: 2500 gold. With 3000 starting gold, you can get it right away, use it ONCE, and get a tank within a minute.

2. It creates units directly on the battlefield. This is an incredibly powerful asset, which I will detail further later.

3. The 10 units equate to a lot of tanking HP.

4. Early to mid-game, the 10 units equate to a lot of firepower.

For a 2500 gold item, this is far too versatile. Check out these strats:

1. When playing as Tinker, use Troop Control, then use Hold Position right next to a tower that you're building. Voila, instant protection for the tower.

2. When fighting an enemy, use Troop Control. Unless he's got hero-only weapons, even with no other enemies around, the chances he'll hit you just went from 100% to 9%.

3. When playing as Tinker, you can easily rush solo middle (See the replay I attached). From the start of the game, run straight to get a Troop Control, then teleport to middle. Right after you teleport, use Troop Control and start placing your first tower. Maneuver your troops to kill the first enemy wave, then use Hold Control beside your tower. At this point, you should be LVL2, and the enemy tanks should JUST be teleporting in... after you've already got your first tower at 50% built. Of course, now you can use Troop Control again... GG.

Replay here (Me = Orochi-):
http://www.tdabots.com/file.php?id=39103

[Exodus]

I already played a few times against Troop Command users, I actually never had a problem with it.
When you use a Troop Command, you have two options:
- just let you creeps run
this way they'll farm for you, but wont focus an enemy hero. So your enemy won't have a problem with it

- let them attack a hero
especially at the beginning its critical if a bunch of creeps attack you. But if they do, you just have to go back to your tower or the next creep wave, they wont survive for long. This way the Troop Command user wont farm and will be defenseless for the next 30 seconds. When you have your rocket on level 2 you can kill the tinker with one shot. Also, Light Tank and Helicopter have a skill to attack a group of creeps.

[SirJoghurt]

Well, if you can handle this tactic it is a funny one for Tinkerplayer. But if the enemy Team isn't to stupid you also can go against it easy.

I had a game some days ago..where an enemy choose --> Tinker--Troppcommand --> after he got enough gold for LightTank he choose it-->he came back middle... well they lost ^^

[Game Hunter]

1. It costs less than a Factory: 2500 gold. With 3000 starting gold, you can get it right away, use it ONCE, and get a tank within a minute.

It's true you can start off with it, but the Factory not only doesn't take up a slot but it's automatic, so you'll probably get out more units on average, so it'll probably give out a greater output.

2. It creates units directly on the battlefield. This is an incredibly powerful asset, which I will detail further later.

Yes, this is the big thing that a Factory can't do. This is why I often find myself spending Reinforcements at CPs: to deploy instant units to kill off enemy tanks. Not only does it help secure control points early on ('cause, let's face it, it's easy to kill off creeps with a Heavy Tank or higher) but usually a kill if the enemy doesn't see it coming.

3. The 10 units equate to a lot of tanking HP.

4. Early to mid-game, the 10 units equate to a lot of firepower.

Both of these are taken care of by a factory, and probably better because it supports the big group of neutral creeps. Since it's always coming, it's a nasty thread to take care of.

The big thing is that Troop Command works well early on when securing CPs and, as you say, defending towers efficiently (which is a good idea, I'll have to try it). Later on, when troops can completely be destroyed by a Hail of Mortars or Energy Bomb or Gob Tank ultimtate, it'll be less useful except in the case of split-second differences and tower-shielding (either direction, but best on the attack). Factories will be a constant help, and you can store the units that pop out for some heavy shielding; Troop Command can do that, albeit a little slower.

[Bishounen]

Well, guys, you're mostly considering 1v1 situations. Of course, against coordinated players, no tactic dominates.

@Exodus:
Well, you see, those are only two options. The thing is, Troop Command is so much more versatile than that. With decent micro you can have 16 or 17 units by the time enemy tanks have teleported in. This allows for serious early control and lets you bring up your first tower with 100% certainty. If you're 1v1'ing, it's already over at this point unless the other guy brings in some friends. Mortar teams are easy to counter: just mass three or four airships, hold position and hotkey, then use to kill mortar strikes when they come. There's no early anti-building weapon either, and unless they're coming at you with three tanks and you have no allies in your lane, chances are you'll fend off an attack. Oh, and before you say Light Tank or Copter's LVL2 missile, I can't speak for most Tinker players, but I can Blink evade 90% of incoming missiles if I see them coming. Of course, you can also just spend the paltry 1250 gold for a hull. In typical games, I can amass an additional 7000 gold or so before the guy I lane against buys his second Bombarding Rocket or similarly priced item.

@SirJoghurt
Yes, well, I can't speak for the person you played against, but when I go Troop Command, 90% of the time I stay Tinker. Global XP gain from troops and tower kills, + the fact that I can Blink-evade incoming nukes means I can sit back and relax while holding mid against two or three tanks myself.

@Game Hunter
The problem with Factories is that they're better for pushing. You can amass with them too, but it doesn't work as well. Troop Command costs 800 gold less and gives units on demand. Like I said, you can be attacked, use Troop Command, and suddenly you have what's equivalent to 91% evasion, with the additional firepower from the troops.

Yes, the item does decrease in usefulness later, but a lot less than you'd think. By the time the enemy has enough money to purchase a Heavy Tank with decent weapons, the Troop Command player will likely be a lot more stacked.

[Bob666]

i dont know if it is balanced, but what i know is that the chance for being hit, when troops are nearby is higher than 9%... it depends on how much hp the unit has... units with more hp are targeted earlier, and if the enemy has at least one fast weapon, then all troops are even damaged before the heavy cannons shoot, so they will hit the tank for about 50%
and i personally never played against a good troop-command user... i only used them myself, but later in the game the enemy just calls his ultimate ability and kills all your creeps at once

[Tøken]

i think you should give player troops bounty + exp (factory & troop command item). that way, if the other team just masses troops and upgrade.. stays in there base delaying the game for another hour, you would at least gain money & experience instead of only from the forces factory.

[Game Hunter]

I don't know about gold, but experience is something I believe we could consider. Essentially, if you're going to hide back and send wave after wave to do battle for you, the other enemy should be able to become even stronger should they be able to stand up to it. Think of it as making up for the ability not to kill the vehicle, so that the experience gain balances out. If you want to make it gold, I suggest decreasing the amount to either 1/4th or 1/6th (so it'd be 3/2 for marines and 6/4 for the others), giving the players fighting the creeps a very slight advantage for the fact that it can't kill you personally. This is all assuming that you aren't battling yourself, but since the factory and troops don't count as a bounty, it can be seen a free insurance, something that a standard attacker tank doesn't get to have.

That said, factories should probably get the ability to stop spawning troops if you want them to (and assuming they would eventually get upgrades, it'd work after the upgrade), so that you can choose whether or not you want to gamble the benefits of sending troops over the risk of making your enemy too strong for you later on.

'Course, this is about Troop Command, not just factories. Adding slight gains in XP and gold could offset the usefulness of it, but still make it useful enough as a shield/unit bomber to consider. In the sense that weapons can pay for themselves but may also pay for an enemy's weapon, Troop Command should work the same way, though perhaps moreso in its multiple uses.

[Bob666]

i wont add bounty nor experience to spawned creeps...

[Kenny]

http://www.mediafire.com/upload_complete...lyrtdzsqed

This replay shows everything I perceive as wrong with Battle Tanks.

Including of course, manually controlling specific units of Troop Command, especially early on. And of course early on it means unless you use some direct ability or abilities that can outright kill your target, you simply won't. Compare that to some silly hull. As shown in the replay, for the most part I managed to evade it, but not everyone starts with a Helicopter/Tinker nor should they have to.

Then there's the matter of the forgiving defense. 1.5 second teleport, when the factory is already being attacked? That is simply messed up, and it means people paying attention even halfway can easily defend every last factory unless outclassed/overpowered. Which brings me to another point, late in the game when on occassion the enemy team would be wiped out, guess what? The also-forgiving revival times allowed them all to portal in and defend. If you watch the replay, you would likely notice how often I absolutely DID NOT go for a Factory. Why? Because chances are, one or two people are on standby ready to portal in and do whatever.

Then of course, there's feeders. I might add there's a difference between just not being good at the game, and deliberately giving the enemy team a payoff. I was quite busy at the time so I didn't really notice until the guy piled up 30+ deaths. So suppose even if he is kicked from the game, that doesn't exactly repair the damage he's done. While I know it may be impossible for the map to discern deliberate payoffs and just plain sucking, maybe there's a possible system for that. My suggestion would be something in the way of... If any single person dies within 45 seconds of revival three times in a span of four minutes (outside the base only) that person "mysteriously disappears". As well, if any single person dies within 90 seconds of revival, 10 times in any game, that person "mysteriously disappears". While it obviously isn't foolproof to those who know the system, it would place restrictions on the amount of time it would take and the amount that they could pass over to the enemy team.

Back on the subject of Troop Command even, I don't know if one of your (the mapmaker) priorities is to make the map playable for the minimum computer, but I run a 1.2 GHz, 768MB RAM, 256MB Video Card piece of junk that happens to run just about every other map Warcraft has to offer smoothly, including this one. But in this game, everyone and their mother was spamming Troop Command, and gradually the game became more and more unstable. It was getting to the point where the lagspike that happens from too much usage of Troop Command was far more of a threat than the Troop Command itself.

Then there's the invisible suicide bombers you simply cannot stop, coupled with the concept that if you are handicapped and the enemy team is more than capable of killing you and defending factories, you are simply screwed if your idea of the game is to destroy their base than defend yours for a couple hours before it caves. If you watch the replay, you would see that even if I could leave the base unhindered, by the time I could get to their base they would have already destroyed mine.

General Summary of Post:

Troop Command is not only IMBALANCED, it affects map stability. I would say to remove it entirely or make the summons give full gold upon death. Or perhaps make it only usable on allied factories while giving some other passive bonus, it is just too powerful in combat area of effect or not.

Quick-teleport for factories makes captures nearly impossible. I would suggest not allowing teleportation while a factory is being attacked. If not, give an option to outright destroy the factory. I mean, if your own factory is being used against you and you cannot capture it, wouldn't it make sense to just dispose of it if possible? (At least make it so they can be disposed of past the 30 minute mark or something)

Suicide bombers, while they may be turtle-busters (Forced turtle at that due to circumstances beyond my control, and I am obviously no simpleton if you watch this replay) they cannot be stopped with invisibility or something similiar.

You can kick deliberate feeders, but not before they may have caused considerable damage that can add up late game.

And finally I might add, why does offense get PUNISHED for going on offense, even? They destroy the factories, and suppose the opposition can hold out. Now suddenly they're making gold and the only real source of income for offense is the occassional boost on timed intervals and successfully killing a stacked tank. I would suggest making it so if you kill an opponent's base factory, any gold or experience that would have been obtained from the units of your own respective factory is lost. It would certainly have broken the turtle faster, especially under less cheesy circumstances.

All of this of course, coming from a player that is probably better than 95%-100% of the player base. You might call that arrogant, but if you watch my early game (I think) it would be arrogant to disagree.

[Tøken]

i wont add bounty nor experience to spawned creeps...

yeah of course you won't. cause you don't listen to anyone and just do what you want. well it doesn't matter to me, i just thought it'd give it a shot since a couple of people i play with usually see this, most of the games we play now, the enemy just picks a tinker and upgrades, builds factory's, or gets troop commander and stays in base.. making the game less challenging.

[Tøken]

i wont add bounty nor experience to spawned creeps...

yeah of course you won't. cause you don't listen to anyone and just do what you want. well it doesn't matter to me, i just thought it'd give it a shot since a couple of people i play with usually see this, most of the games we play now, the enemy just picks a tinker and upgrades, builds factory's, or gets troop commander and stays in base because they don't "feel like playing or eating". making the game less challenging.

[Game Hunter]

Troop Command is not only IMBALANCED, it affects map stability. I would say to remove it entirely or make the summons give full gold upon death. Or perhaps make it only usable on allied factories while giving some other passive bonus, it is just too powerful in combat area of effect or not.

I suppose you mean Reinforcements to be included with the removal thing, or at least have those nerfed somehow. Personally I haven't found too much trouble in destroying Troop Commands: the object there is to get a powerful tank as soon as you can (Heavy Tank and up, I like Sky Tank and I see you do too) and lay waste to their groups with a single ability. In Sky Tank's case, you have three that almost completely destroys the units, and their cooldowns are the same as the Troop Command's.

Ironically enough, I have problems when players buy Reinforcements early on and just spam them. Naturally they're exhausting their resources, but when I attempt a Tinker-Builder strategy, I can't build even one tower. Also, the manual usage of troops become limited later on, and are really only meant for low-HP enemies. EX: Spawn the 10 units, have them attack the vehicle specifically and if they spawn their own units, it's likely already too late to be saved. You can do this with towers too, much to my liking.

Is it imbalanced? I think that most people would find that Troop Command loses its flavor when the enemy has the ability to wipe out entire groups in a single blow. Usually the problem that arises is when the enemy upgrades units, too, making those 10 units hurt a lot or take a lot of damage. Either way, you should be upgrading if they are. I've actually beaten teams that use a "unit-based" strategy simply by upgrading when they didn't...of course, their strategy is flawed for that very reason, but it shows the importance of upgrades. I noticed the game you played was a "no-upgrades" game, but I don't see a reason for it (it likely prolonged that game a lot: furthermore, upgrades can help where lesser allies cannot).

Quick-teleport for factories makes captures nearly impossible. I would suggest not allowing teleportation while a factory is being attacked. If not, give an option to outright destroy the factory. I mean, if your own factory is being used against you and you cannot capture it, wouldn't it make sense to just dispose of it if possible? (At least make it so they can be disposed of past the 30 minute mark or something)

I THINK you're referring primarily to the the six Control Point factories. I like to think of those factories as the neutral ones, ie, they can be controlled by either side. In that way someone else is really the one who owns them and it isn't in our abilities to destroy their property.

Quick-teleport is actually 3 seconds, not 1.5 as you say. I believe the cooldown is 2.5 seconds...but that's beside the point. Usually against a team of experienced players, the idea is to mass your vehicles on the place you want to take over: chances are you'll beat them since you have likely destroyed at least one enemy player in your attempt to take the CP. Another thing you can do (something I believe should be removed, though) is place a tower on THEIR control point: this is another thing for their attacks to hit and, if it's laser, can do considerable damage. 1v3 will never work, but 3v3 can, especially when they're not coordinated enough to warp in at the same time (extremely rare in my years of playing).

As for the attackable factories, you can always teleport back to base via the home base anyway, so it's only a couple of seconds. If you mean attacking the CPs, then I suppose you mean when they're being taken, since you can't actually attack the factory itself. Either way, I like the way the system is now, as it still involves a quick enough reaction (given that you aren't in the vicinity to teleport right then) and a some quick planning as to how you plan on keeping the base.

If you watch the replay, you would likely notice how often I absolutely DID NOT go for a Factory. Why? Because chances are, one or two people are on standby ready to portal in and do whatever.

I dunno about you, but I usually don't go after the control points because there's no possible way for me to hold them while I'm defending my base in a situation such as yours. Trust me, I've been there, I know what that's like.

Suicide bombers, while they may be turtle-busters (Forced turtle at that due to circumstances beyond my control, and I am obviously no simpleton if you watch this replay) they cannot be stopped with invisibility or something similiar.

I never got to see the suicide bombers in your game (only watched for an hour and guessed at the outcome), but invisible bombers can be a pain. Since they cannot teleport directly into your base, your best chance is to get a Radar and guard the entry points with your life. They can only be invisible for five seconds (ten if they went Trader) and their HP probably isn't that high...if it is, they probably don't have much in terms of explosive damage anyway.

Another possibility is to equip the radar upgrade on your towers, but you'll have to have a defending Tinker for that. It reaches 1250, more than enough for nearby creeps to shoot them down.

You can kick deliberate feeders, but not before they may have caused considerable damage that can add up late game.

I find this funny, but only because I was in a game where the enemy's rationale for not kicking one of our feeders was "no extra money for you". As if we were going to win because we get about 300 gold when they've already gotten 1k each. Your best bet is to watch players' scores and kick when necessary: the red flag went up for me about 20-25 minutes into the game when he said "I'm not even trying anymore".

And finally I might add, why does offense get PUNISHED for going on offense, even? They destroy the factories, and suppose the opposition can hold out. Now suddenly they're making gold and the only real source of income for offense is the occassional boost on timed intervals and successfully killing a stacked tank. I would suggest making it so if you kill an opponent's base factory, any gold or experience that would have been obtained from the units of your own respective factory is lost.

In a game where upgrades are going to be used, it's really easy to build up enough of them to overpower your enemy with the troops alone. The occasional boost, mind you, is around 2000-3000 once all the enemy factories are destroyed. If you still can't beat them by then, it means you've probably been feeding at least one of the players. Usually I'd build a factory up-close to heal faster, maybe even as close as the enemy's smith. (In their game the unit-spawner was foolish enough to build THREE factories, not only wasting some of his spawn-time but making it impossible to use the aforementioned tactic.) I've managed to break free of a turtle game, albeit not often, so this small benefit for the defenders can be vital.

From what I can tell, your game is much like a game I had a while back: you were the only person who could really beat any of the opponents, and the feeding they gained was too much to stop in the end. Simply, your allies were "third-rate" skill, your opponents were "second-rate" skill, and you were the "first-rate." I had an 81-10 game myself in your position, and I've played as a tinker-defender for over two hours as I watched my allies look like they were acting like your teal (closer to a gung-ho belief than an I-don't-care one). It's a very bad situation to be placed into.

I suggest playing upgrades from now on and, if things get to where they did, begin upgrading. You'll get the extra bonuses (income now, whatever they are later) as well as the powerful troops that can support you and lessen your allies' incompetence. I don't know if you can win a game with that changed (the rest the same, as in this one) but I'd give it a shot. You are certainly good enough to make it work.

[WWW_Shadow]

i didnt read the hole text because it is too much^^

but i think the problem with all this things like troop comand or exploder is that you dont need any skill , you are owning without any real effort. And this is not fair for the others that play with much effort and you cant really do anything against this (from my point of view) lame gaming. (i do this sometimes too for fun but its stil lame :oops: )

[Kenny]

http://img187.imageshack.us/img187/5690/...549qr9.jpg

This was the last screenshot I took. As you can see it's pretty much the end of the game. By the time it was actually "over" I was 155-9 and you can see everyone except two people on the scoreboard had more than 30 deaths. I'd say to implement a time penalty for dying too much, because even if I did take the entire team with me at once and wiped theirs, in all likelyhood they could and would defend a factory properly due to the fast revival time.

But yeah, I typed -noupgrades because all too often you get one or two guys selling everything and upgrading troops rapidly. I might as well be playing ladder, some hero arena or survival maps at that rate. >_<

[Bob666]

well, first...
i dont want to give bounty to the factory-creeps because they then feed the enemy... same with experience..

about other fixes i am open, but i dont know how strong troop command is, and what to change there... i dont play the map often... so discuss that with exodus, he might know what is good to change... and i just played battle tanks on saturday and had no troop commanders...
btw, commanding your troops isnt that easy... well, it may also work good if you play that tactic rarely, but i am 100% sure that you can even get much stronger then, if you use them correctly... if you dont and you are good, too, then its imba... but no reason to say that its a tactic which does not require any skills

[TKF]

Well I begin to wonder if the troop command is really imbalanced. It has no tech restriction, and it is very strong for it's price. Also if you look at all the troops damage, it's devastating, with about 600-800 dmg pr sec potential if all the troops fire on 1 tank player. I still thinks it should be slightly more expensive at least.

Replay - A battle where purple owns grey with ease with troop command Purple gets heli very fast. Stunning rockets in addition is very effective.

[psycho_dmr]

maybe its "imba" because of the double upgrades.... yes, but all creep-bases tacticsare stronger now... and that was the aim of the double upgrades.... so maybe it would be okay if the troop command costs 3000, but not much more..

[TKF]

Also the troop command has 20% dmg aura. Also the troops provide great cover fire, and if the enemy has a skill that kills all the creeps, it would take 1-2 second before he reacts, and during that time, he did have some protection from weapons and may have caused the enemy more damage.

[psycho_dmr]

then the enemy should be faster