The torps issue

[ChronicStoned]

only scout and tinker can use them directly and scout only with random picked.
and again, again, again, (....) if an enemy is stupid enough to get hit 2 times in a row, which means he has to keep in the range without cover for atleast 6.66 seconds it does not matter which weapons you're using.
there always will be good player who can use the torps well and players who won't hit the enemy 2 times in 10 minutes.
and if the energy torpedo is so different from the other high dmg/hit weapons like you say, then we should keep it the way it is because its unique

[bobbob247]

you don't see too many players using infernal rocks, partly because a lot of the time, it will hit a creep, and secondly, by the time you can get into range with the rocks, you don't have enough HP to fight.

Indeed, unless you plan on defending or capping cps with them you would upgrade them asap.

Using weapons with a high impact damage happens usually earlygame, as afterwards, players tend to get enough HP to compensate.

Enemies will certainly get enough hp to prevent a one hit kill, but 2-3 hits torp hits would still put a dent in anyone's plans either forcing them either back to fountain or further behind creeps.

Are you suggesting that the player is laning with short range weapons? Or are you suggesting that the player is getting hit alone for 6.66 seconds-10 seconds?

Meanwhile, I think we're getting a bit offtrack here, my main point is still torps do significant damage based on luck. Let me give an example here: Say there are 3 scouts, 1 light force 2 dark force with the light force scout having a laser. According to the way pheonix fire works both scouts should receive roughly similar damage before both are destroyed. Now this makes sense with the way btanks is played as more units in range of the weapon means roughly distributed damage over those creeps. Now replace the laser with a torp and what happens? After the first hit one scout will have significantly less hp that the other while the other is at full hp. Now, the second hit may destroy the scout entirely or level both scouts' hp but the issue here is that 478-650 is far too large an increment to be distributing damage over or in other words it manages to avoid the creep protection mechanic. What torps has done is equivalent to a laser focus firing on a single scout for 478 damage and not in the actual time it would take,mind you, for a laser to actually do that much damage.

Lets also look at the other side. Say there is one scout with an energy torp, and another scout coming in. The first scout is fighting, but due to the long range, he doesn't land a single hit. The next scout comes in and also gets pwned because the first scout wasn't lucky.
Just face it, there is always luck in battletanks, just like the 80% reconstruction exploder I was playing against the other day. I have had times where a player with swarm rockets, with 3 targets, needed only 1 last hit to kill me, and I lasted about 8 rockets before one rocket was aimed at me.

Worst comes to worse, flood creeps and laugh.

Indeed creeps are often the answer however the result will be either torps hitting you or simply just farming creeps safely at 1300 range. This is also why I proposed that torps should be changed into a multiple hit weapon as torp users would have to make a choice of either farming creeps or attempting to harass the enemy.
The other thing you can do is the teleporter.
If someone is using torps earlygame, the only issue I have is when someone gets the 1/100 chance of hitting me twice, before I'm completely out of range. There is a similar chance for a laser to epic miss the hero, or do very little damage. You can also usually safely farm with 900+ range weapons. With shorter range, just pop out of the creeps when the torp is in the air, then run back to your creeps.

[koshen]

Are you suggesting that the player is laning with short range weapons?

Regardless of what weapons an enemy has, torps will out range them.

Or are you suggesting that the player is getting hit alone for 6.66 seconds-10 seconds?

Enemies won't be that silly, however torps users have the benefit of 1300 range. A torp user can sit back all day long putting an enemy tank close to its maximum range. If torps target creeps, that's fine it's likely that it'll get a creep kill out of it. If it hits the enemy tank, that's fine as well as the tank will have lost 650hp, after another hit or 2 the enemy tank will be forced to retreat for healing, if the enemy tank doesn't retreat then it's just asking for an electro shocker and plasma rain combo which will do a further 1400(approx) damage plus eliminate nearby creeps. The combo would also set the enemy tank up to face the full force of the next torp shot. My issue is that a torp user will be able to do all of this with impunity.

Lets also look at the other side. Say there is one scout with an energy torp, and another scout coming in. The first scout is fighting, but due to the long range, he doesn't land a single hit. The next scout comes in and also gets pwned because the first scout wasn't lucky.

Don't quite get what you're trying to say here. The example was hypothetical to show how unbalanced torps distributes damage.

The other thing you can do is the teleporter.

Indeed you can, in the ideal case you'll need a thunder tank, teleporter, upgraded speed and a few poisons to properly hunt a decent torp user. However, this equipment certainly won't come to you early-mid game or even midgame if you haven't been farming properly. You'll also need to keep in mind torp users will use terrain to their advantage, hovering over the left side hills, or the water in the bottom right side. The reason why I say the thunder tank is ideal is also because the stun is instantaneous, while the heavy tank stun can be tped out of and run away from. If you choose to counter with an air ship you lose your stun and a torp user will just tp out of an advantageous situation.

Another way is to use nets which which forces an airship to fly over traversable terrain, however calculating the bounty of an airship with 2 torps to be worth (approx +15 gold for upgraded) 280 gold and the cost of 3 nets to be 600 gold you would actually need to make kills with all 3 nets to earn the money back. Furthermore, flying over traversable ground now a torp user would obviously stay safely (with 1300 range) behind creeps decreasing the chance of a kill even if you do net, stun and chain lightning. This chance is even further decreased if the torp user can tp.

If someone is using torps earlygame, the only issue I have is when someone gets the 1/100 chance of hitting me twice, before I'm completely out of range. There is a similar chance for a laser to epic miss the hero, or do very little damage.

The chance isn't 'similar' at all. Although the laser might not look it, it's actually lots and lots projectiles firing very quickly to make you think it's a constant stream. Torps on the other hand is a single projectile that fires once every 3.33 seconds. The reason why laser and swarms, as given in your example, are fair is because of their fast rate of fire which allows then to distribute damage in a pseudo even manner across targets. For every time a torp fires the laser fires 333 times. Given that the more times a weapon is fired the more distributed the damage is it was obvious that you would die as for every time a missile did not hit you your chances of being hit would've gone up. So in other words luck did not make that much of a difference as the fast rate of fire of swarms ensured that a missile would hit you.

Torps, on the other hand, don't work like that as they are used as a single burst weapon and hence do not have a chance to properly distribute damage. Although given enough shots torps would distribute damage in a pseudo even manner targets would need to be in range for an absurd amount of time for this to happen. Hence rather than suggest that we decrease torp cooldown, I've suggested we simply increase the number of torps fired per shot as this would effectively decrease the cooldown without changing the unique way torps is played.

[Althend]

Really, just buy troop to counter it. 2500 gold and you can easily counter 2/3 torpedo. It is just a matter of probability. Torpedo user are most of the time feeders.
Good players don't care about them. They know, they creep beter and don't have to worry about losing their cp. Just be defensive and then the torpedo user is screwed.

[koshen]

just buy troop to counter i

Troops aren't really a counter so much as they are a defensive measure as buying troops offers you not way of nullifying the aforementioned advantages of having torps; only a temporary measure that decreases the accuracy of torps.

It is just a matter of probability.

Woah mate, you just covered a lot of ground there. Did you read and understand what I've written on phoenix fire probability and why torps does not fit into its design?

They know, they creep beter and don't have to worry about losing their cp. Just be defensive and then the torpedo user is screwed.

Did you also read the part on torp harrass? Furthermore, btanks is a proactive game, being defensive and sitting on your hands is going to see creep waves get stolen from behind your cp.

[Dr.McNinja]

Wow so much text for something that comes down to 'leave it' or 'change it slightly'.

You know there have been games where ive been uber ksed (8+ in a row) by double/triple light fantastics? The again sometimes light fails to get last hits on any tanks.

I see energy torp target selection problem to be a really short term problem. Firing fast or slow, there is not difference in target acquisition for specifically. Thats what you pay for when you buy different weapons. If everything was fair, there wouldnt be a game. Balance and fairness arent exactly the same thing. Torps seems balanced to me. Fair? thats subjective. What about death magic? I would say its 'unfair' but i rarely see people calling it imba.

"torps do significant damage based on luck"
And there you have it, energy torpedoes.

[Althend]

Troops aren't really a counter so much as they are a defensive measure as buying troops offers you not way of nullifying the aforementioned advantages of having torps; only a temporary measure that decreases the accuracy of torps.

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?

Woah mate, you just covered a lot of ground there. Did you read and understand what I've written on phoenix fire probability and why torps does not fit into its design?

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. The weapon is balanced. Looking at probability and return, the return is the same due to the equation, only the variance is different. Design of phoenix fire?

The difference of rate is just balanced by waste of damage.

Did you also read the part on torp harrass? Furthermore, btanks is a proactive game, being defensive and sitting on your hands is going to see creep waves get stolen from behind your cp.

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.

massive damage is dealt based on luck and not skill.

Not at all. If you keep being at exactely 1300 range of your target, you aim it easily. If you are able to stay at 1300 range of your enemies constantly, it is skill. If you are able to dodge pushing players/creep, it is also skill.



Particularities of torp:

1300 range
Does not attack building
High damage/high countdown
High level of waste of damage
Bad ratio damage/money

It is just that many people forget the red part.

[Princess_Bob]

Man I need a better pair of boots for slogging through all this..

Torpedos hit hard and slow. If you take a few hits, then yeah, it hurts. If you get caught by two hits at once early, yeah it might kill you. If you wait for a fresh creep wave, when his wave is almost dead, you can close in. You need a stun, you need some time to deal a little damage. Energy torpedos lose out in the long run. They are buying weapons that work well for the early game, but lose value in the end game. If you don't feed them, they lose out on the excessive amoutns of torpedos they purchased when reselling them. If they are still using them late game, I welcome them to try and stop me.

I am ok with someone sitting back trying to farm creep and take random pot shots at me. They don't make the same amount I do.

[bobbob247]

I was saying in my example, that while you are claiming that a player can get lucky, he can also get JUST AS UNLUCKY.

Regardless of what weapons an enemy has, torps will out range them.

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

Troops provide quite a good amount of DPS, and temporarily make you really hard to hit with weapons.

Let's look at efficiency for farming: For 3800 gold, you get a 600 damage hit every 3.33 seconds.

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

All of these are USELESS if the player just stays with his creeps, and death magic is quite expensive and asking for a teleporter. Against noobs, I agree that energy torpedoes are imba. However, a smart player will realize that staying in a player's range for quite a few seconds is like letting his enemy get attacks off all the while. This is also why massing rocket hails works against a noob, and it farms way better than torps do.

[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.

[Althend]

Mmmhhh how can you use the theorem of central limite but not pay attention to main data of statistics: return and variance.

The variance is about the spread and the return, the total damage.
Admit A weapon and B weapon (torpedo), on same amount of target, the return is the same : (a shot one time each target when b shot shot one time one target)
Dmga= damage of single shot of weapon a
Dmgb= damage of torpedo
sample: 2 units
dmga*1 +dmga*1 = dmgb*1 + nodmg*1
---> return a = return b
The return is suppsoed to be the same but there is a waste if hp of the unit shots by the torpedo is lower than the damage itself. So the return of the torpedo would be lower.
---> return a > return b
Do you understand the waste now?

You suggest that all weapon should have the same variance. then all of them should have same countdown.... But it would not makes the variety of weapon better and decrease fun. High variance mean high risk but high effect.

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.

With one torpedo (2 after 6-8min) you wont get all creeps. It is not hb. Torp is maybe imba in hb but in normal his weakness balance him.

[ChronicStoned]

holy shit Oo....
now i dont understand the waste anymore... befor this i thought i understand what waste is.

[bobbob247]

The waste is:
Suppose a marine has 400 HP. You hit it with a 600 damage energy torpeedo. You wasted 200 damage, because with different weapons, that wouldn't be an issue. With all weapons, you will waste some, but energy torp is pretty bad in terms of waste (think overkill).

[GooglyBoogly]

"torps do significant damage based on luck"
and there is nothing wrong with that. It goes both ways - significantly more and significantly less

[jonjon]

I can see why torps isn't really an issue to the majority here. Most people on the official servers play HB mode where people can get their defenses up so fast without lifting a finger. It's quite pathetic. On normal mode it is an entirely different battle field.

[BENNIE.FM]

the hell this is my new favourite topic LETS BAN (BIG GREEN) i dont know i have heard some weird names for this weapon what the hell man!!!keep it the way it is

[horselance]

We call it ''green shit''