is trader still over powered?

[qweqqweq]

i just played a 5k hb game where i was doing best of everyone in the game but enemy trader was still level 25 when i was still between level 10 to 13. i tried to kill him 4 times and he got away. later i killed him 3 times but then i died for more gold than him to his teamates each time. I'd say that trader is leveling up waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too fast and is not worth nearly enough gold when you kill him. how about if his bounty is cumulative? so everytime he does a trade his bounty goes up? it's so hard to catch him and good traders don't die when they have a lot of items but very rarely if ever anyways. I dont' know. please test it some one and let us know what you think.

[benben10]

i dont know about in normal but in 5k hb, trader lvls fast i made it to lvl 25 in under 23 mins and that was with a half broken mouse. i also ended the game collecting about 90% as much gold as the number one guy after screwing around trying to trade for bombs for the last 5-10 mins. most times when i turned in trade goods, i would gain two levels. im pretty sure i could hit level 25 in 20 mins if i tried harder. then again this is in 5k hb. on the other hand if you are goblin tank with a tp doing a 1, 2 with hammer and ulti can be pretty ez. but i do agree that bounty is very uneven. then again you can get me started on a whole other argument about bounty.

ill try a few games in normal mode trading and tell you how it is. at first i though trading on the ground would be impossible and trader would be underpowered. man was i ever wrong lol.

[Exodus]

Well, thats because the Trader gets as much XP as he gets gold and in HB he gets twice the gold for trading. So again, HB is not the mode to judge the balance of certain tanks.

[ChronicStoned]

Well, thats because the Trader gets as much XP as he gets gold and in HB he gets twice the gold for trading. So again, HB is not the mode to judge the balance of certain tanks.

did not know that before =)

[SCorpA1]

Well, thats because the Trader gets as much XP as he gets gold and in HB he gets twice the gold for trading. So again, HB is not the mode to judge the balance of certain tanks.

thats right

i think the problem in this case is not that TRADER is overpowerd, but rather that HB is unbalanced! realize that!!!

[qweqqweq]

i don't really know what to say to that except that 5k hb is really fun and has way more variety from the start and i would like it if it was balanced. most nothrend players still prefer 3k no hb but who gives a shit?

even without the extra experience the trader was still almost completely impossible to kill. i still suggest that it's an over powered tank requiring not much skill to win vs a team without a trader. i think the balance is still off. a cumulative bounty addition for every trade he makes is what i'd really like to siee. catching a skilled trader when his inventory is full of goods is just completly fucking hopeless despite mines, radar, and teleporting.

[koshen]

I have to agree with qweq. Teams with traders just aren't making a risky enough investment and end up getting massive returns. The issue with the trader is that the investment put into hunting it just isn't worth the return unless you're very very successful. Things I'd like to see with the trader are:

A trader that's worth hunting
Teams being more disadvantaged when a trader is picked on their team
Traders at the beginning of the game not being impervious to weapons fire
Trader skills that involve teamwork (such as a tp that tps it to the closest ally control point or tank)

[Dr.McNinja]

I have started trading and absolutely love it. In the 6 or so games ive traded, no one has successfully hunted and killed me (died to random reasons & my own bad). Trader is so leet. I think trader could be made a lot more fun to play.

@Imbatrader
Fact is, trader gets a lot more xp whether in HB or normal mode. I think i was fairly pro at trading on my very first go ever today and by my third go i was quite 1337. None of my friends or best players on either side could come close to my level. Ok so, what effect does having a leet level mean in the game? It means all skills are higher and since that reduces the cd of blink and ww, it makes trader more leet. Its hard to tell if that is game breaking because i havent been truly hunted as i would in a more organised game.

One particular game i lost where we had 2 traders and 2/3 noob teammates who lost all cps, i managed to repeatedly get fossil, get chased by at least 2 tanks and make the trade and get home without dying. We lost, but my level was MUCH higher but ultimately i was useless.

Case in point: maybe people havent hunted the trader enough? Or a skilled trader just pwns. And with pwnning they get higher levels? More battlefield testing needed... (get 2 clan teams, one side with a skilled trader, test 5 times)

Idea: Some kind of 'trader hunting' system? Could be somewhat complex/unique if the problem is big or something small like extra bounty for each additional trader kill. Kill trader 3 times + 100g, 5 times +200g. This could make hunting traders more inportant, AND giving some kind of reward for effort.

PostScript: I LOVE TRADER. Im going to make a topic about trader..
Trader Strategies - http://forum.btanks.net/viewtopic.php?f=48&t=2062
Suggestions - http://forum.btanks.net/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=2063

[Vomitus]

Traders at the beginning of the game not being impervious to weapons fire

suggestion: make trader base hp = 500 and 20% increment per level. So it would get 100hp per lvl and at lvl25 it would have 3000hp.
Also decreasing xp that trader gets will make very meaningful buying updates for trader.

[GooglyBoogly]

. So again, HB is not the mode to judge the balance of certain tanks.

what should really be said is:
HB is not the Mode to judge the balance of ANYTHING

I cannot emphasise this enough, HB is not meant to be a balanced mode, and has never been a balanced mode. Until the day the devs want to support this as a balanced mode, then by all means startup your own bug reports. But it really, REALLY annoys me when I hear people use HB mode to prove/disprove their arguments.

Especially those who who should know better.


EDIT:

Back to the topic, I agree that the trader is a bit overpowered, it wouldn't hurt to remove it's armour so that it takes full damage from creeps and tower (so, armour =0 , a -3 penalty). The XP gains even in a normal game seem to be a bit high, a 15-25% reduction in xp gain - so 1gold :.85- .75 xp would be a reasonable place to start.

[qweqqweq]

i think that bastard (copernicus) actually got a mine difuser, so that's why his hit points were over 4k!!! i'd forgotten that there's an extra iron hull upgraded worth of hitpoints for that item now. i was pretty sad when i lava shotted him and he was still half health. the bastard was trading right around me to taunt me once he had that and was level 25. he was running accross my lane like i wasn't even there! lol! i had a demon tank with ult pack, and some poisons. but his teamates from top lane and mid were in tp range at all times so that if i tried to tp kill him i would just die too.

[Exodus]

Traders at the beginning of the game not being impervious to weapons fire

suggestion: make trader base hp = 500 and 20% increment per level. So it would get 100hp per lvl and at lvl25 it would have 3000hp.
Also decreasing xp that trader gets will make very meaningful buying updates for trader.

This seems like a good suggestion. Maybe not that extreme, but it's worth trying.

[ChronicStoned]

in earlier versions the trader had a really slow exp gain.
i did not played the trader in a normal mode game yet, but i think the exp gain would be ok

[Althend]

A good team with a trader always win. When you know you have a trader in your team. Just play ultra defensive. If you don't lose cp, at the end trader income will change all the balance. The fact is that the trader removes the incentives to be aggressive. Defending at 4 vs 5 is not a big problem and provide better income.
An answer to that problematic would be to reduce the income shared to teamate or make it happens only for good that are in opponent territory.

[Dr.McNinja]

Decreasing income to allies will give trader more gold to keep (very bad). Reducing the amount of gold trader gets will be better, but that can make starts even slower especially in normal.

"A good team with a trader always win."
Pretty much true. Also need at least one good player or your team will waste gold and be noobs in general. Ive had a game where noob allies lost the game despite my uber trading. Uber trading while they had all cps.

Today (or was it yesterday?) i played a game with 3 members of clan bt, grunts i think. 2 went down to light force. A few mins in, one of the guys started -giveup and did several times later. I was trader and he couldnt kill me. Ahahha has anyone had an equal trader vs trader game? To be fair in that game, protomanx got owned by the bt memeber on my side but still, lol. I said "better use trader as much as you can before he gets nerfed".

No exo, dont nerf! i love trader. I dont want it to be harder overall as trader, only make it easier for enemies to exploit trader when he is not 100% focussed. Like when i know enemy has tp, i dont prepare and they tp > 1 hit me. Thats MY fault, not because they hunted me well. Which is technically impossible.

[cooi]

yea it levels up 2-3 times faster than normal tanks. usualy i get lvl23 when everyone is lvl 7-10 and i buy some tank with imba armor (like earth tank + power pack) and provide greath pushing machine for my team early game. and thats just one imba tactic with him.
so yea trader is still imbalanced a lot.
specialy in pub games.

[ChronicStoned]

yea it levels up 2-3 times faster than normal tanks. usualy i get lvl23 when everyone is lvl 7-10 and i buy some tank with imba armor (like earth tank + power pack) and provide greath pushing machine for my team early game. and thats just one imba tactic with him.
so yea trader is still imbalanced a lot.
specialy in pub games.

i bet you played in hb mode

[jonjon]

This new implementation of trader was a stupid idea.
Before I never did, but now I have banned it in my games.

[Gammagulp]

I revoted "yes", because i tested the trader in normal mode. I played with good guys, but i got:
lvl4 - while others lvl2
lvl 14 while others lvl7
lvl23 while others lvl13

And that guys know good enough how to creep - even with more creeps because I am trading. So the main problem is, that the huge XP increase the speed abilities "blink" and "smoke/temporal speed increase" so fast, that the enemies cannot kill a 2100HP trader and the trader can get faster and faster his money. Because that money earning is exponentially at start. That means low money XP start, but more and more money/XP till about lvl 17 - then linear money increase.
When that XP gain is reduced and the trader maybe loose 200-400 Maximum HP it should be balanced. Or Exo try the little start HP, but big increase/Lvl method :mrgreen:

Edit: I forgot to say that I even played a game with 2 guys hunting me even with air and from to sides, but smokespeed and blink on high level means you cannot be catched and a radar costs to much at start)

[qweqqweq]

3k normal at the start he just needs to trade enough to get a lazer tower middle then by the time you can kill that tower he's so fucking high level and his teamates are so fucking fed from his trades that you're already fucked! even when i have heli and i am middle lane at the start i can only slow him down at the start but as soon as he gets that lazer tower it's game over.

5k hb? forget it. no point in even discussing the imbaness there. he gets trader and lazer tower from the start and it's like a sick joke. you're just like, "wtf?"

i suppose if u had 3 long-range hellis middle for a 3k start and you all stayed on the side of the middle lane that his trademaster is on then you could maybe delay the enemy trader pretty good at the start but even with that tactic he can probably still get his trades without dying if he's using his teleport skill and then his invisibility once he hits level 2.

when me and copper trade, i don't know about the rest of you guys, but we don't hardly ever die! even if we do die it's not like we ever have a bunch of goods in our inventory. usually we just get 2 to 3 goods at a time anyways since you gotta wait for the trade spots cds it's really no problem to make short trips. and that's even if we are having to difuse mines and we're down on cps. i never even got mine difuse last game i traded even though they were mining my trademaster and trade spots and i still didn't die. i just went invulnerable and ran over the mines on purpose.

the trader was imba before and now he's been buffed. he lost his flying ability which just means u can't net him. not flying is no problem with that extra teleport which he's got now that's way better than his old spell shield. it seems like he's fast as fuck now! it seems like he's faster the old trader.

trader gets too much gold. too much experience. his abilities are too strong. that's just my opinion.

i say make the trader get cumulative bounty from each trade along with some other nerfs to his abilites, gold, and xp gain.