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Maf
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So, EMP Smoky needs a nerf. I'm pretty sure most of us can agree to that, so here's my proposal to bring it down to the same level as the weaker status augments (AP Rico, AP Magnum, Cryo Rail, etc) and equalize it with AP Smoky:

For both EMP Smoky and AP Smoky:
Normal damage -30% = 406 damage at mk8
Critical damage reduction increased from -15% to -30% = 595 damage at mk8
Status duration = 5 seconds

This doesn't even kill the augment - this puts it on roughly the same level as EMP Rail. EMP Rail, following a crit, has a guaranteed kill on a light hull, a 50% chance to kill a medium hull, and a 25% chance to kill a heavy hull, as far as raw power in a 1v1 scenario goes. The new EMP Smoky, following a crit (595), can land 3 shots. It can always kill a light hull (595 + 812 + 812 = 2219), can always kill a medium hull (595 + 812 + 812 + 812 = 3031) and has a 30% chance to kill a heavy hull (needs to crit on the third shot after crit, so 30% chance). 

This template puts both AP and EMP Smoky much closer to AP and EMP Freeze in that they will become heavily reliant on its status to deal damage. Thoughts?

Note that this post was written prior to the announcement of the "EMP no longer resets repairs and mines" update, patch #677.

In correction to these changes, I would like EMP Smoky to have an additional nerf:

Step chance -37.5% (-37% if not feasible, assuming numbers round down. Otherwise, -38%, whatever necessary to facilitate a 25% or as close to 25% as possible chance step at mk8, to reduce its chances to chain EMPs.)

EMP Railgun is no longer a relevant comparison point as a result of the buff and I have changed my stance on status Rails. Neither augments have any "risk factor" of reset in case they fail to chain their status, thus, they should have additional harsher penalties than their Armor-Piercing counterparts.

Edited by Abellia
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Smoky EMP is indeed overpowered, but again, 5 seconds stun would be annoying as the Previous stun rail.

Also, you listed a great reduction with respect to stock damage in general. I wonder how will this effect the augment. Stock damage does require a nerf, because that's what's making the augment having a greater advantage in 1v1s and MM in general. The final parameters listed makes the mechanism of the augment similar to previous stunning missile and stun rail. 

14 minutes ago, Abellia said:

they will become heavily reliant on its status to deal damage

That is 1 thing I don't want to promote, but I want to have other's opinions if they feel this is fine.

Lastly, I saw your another Idea regarding EMP Gauss, under the rule of I&S section, only 1 topic per day  ^^ You can post that Idea tomorrow again.

 

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2 minutes ago, nikunj04 said:

Smoky EMP is indeed overpowered, but again, 5 seconds stun would be annoying as the Previous stun rail.

Also, you listed a great reduction with respect to stock damage in general. I wonder how will this effect the augment. Stock damage does require a nerf, because that's what's making the augment having a greater advantage in 1v1s and MM in general. The final parameters listed makes the mechanism of the augment similar to previous stunning missile and stun rail. 

That is 1 thing I don't want to promote, but I want to have other's opinions if they feel this is fine.

Lastly, I saw your another Idea regarding EMP Gauss, under the rule of I&S section, only 1 topic per day  ^^ You can post that Idea tomorrow again.

 

Ah, alright. I have quite a few posts lined up regarding nerfing all the outlier augments.

With regards to promoting dependency on status: If a status augment is not dependent on status and functions just the same as one of the crystal augments without it, closing the gap between legendary augments and garage augments will never be feasible. This goes especially for augments with a second mechanic to grant them advantages, such as status Freezes and Railguns.

Edited by Abellia
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Also on the list of Smoky augments to be buffed is Supercumulative Rounds. A Smoky augment whose paramaters would have made sense before the Smoky conversion in January 2021.

The main problem with this augment is how impractical this template is with Smoky's revised critical hit paramaters. It not only has at most a coinflip to lad a critical hit now, building very slowly to that points makes it worse overall. Being unlucky leaves you baren against protection modules and many times, your critical hit comes at a time when the enemy is already at a low enough HP that the critical hit is very overkill. 

 

My suggestion would be to decrease the critical chance step penalty from -60% to -25%. 

 

This will allow it to better mesh its critical hits and normal hits to achieve a more consistent shots-to-kill buff against medium hulls like Stock Smoky received last year for all hulls. 

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I'm hesitant to post this, since Freeze is still in the process of "content generationᵀᴹ", but I'll give it a shot.

So, AP Freeze, Jamming Freeze, and now EMP Freeze are three of the four most busted augments in the game with the change to cooling disabling damage enhancers, giving them two strong statuses.

So, I have a simple solution - AP and EMP Freeze prevent you from doing damage to enemy tanks as well as preventing your protections from stopping incoming damage, so why not prevent them from doing the same amount of damage as stock and turn them into pure support augments?

AP and EMP Freeze:
Normal damage reduction increased from -45% and -50% to -60%
Critical damage reduction increased from -45% to -60% for AP Freeze and introduced at -60% for EMP Freeze
Status time = 1 second
Freezing rate -50% for EMP Freeze

Essentially - they'll still be crippling to whoever they're fighting, but they will not be able to finish them off themselves, and their statuses will only apply when they are still attacking the enemy tank. (Whoever thought that EMP needed a longer duration than AP because it has a penalty if you let it wear off... it's a melee turret. You should get punished if you waste ammo, and other EMP augments get punished harder for doing so compared to their AP counterparts... What kind of logic was that?)

Now, Jamming Freeze is a different story. The problem is that it trades away being able to disable drones for… nothing. I think it should have a trade-off – the best case scenario is that it disables a Defender player, shutting off both their boosted damage and taking away their extra armour from their drone, and the worst case scenario is that it does almost nothing, against a Brutus or droneless player. To balance this:

Normal damage reduction added, -20%
Critical damage reduction added, -20%

At -20% normal and critical damage, it will remain advantaged versus opponents with a supply boosting drone, but will be generally slightly weakened in comparison to stock freeze when fighting all the other types of drones in exchange for the utility of blocking overdrives.

Thoughts?

Note that this post was written prior to the announcement of the "EMP no longer resets repairs and mines" update, patch #677.

Following that patch, the reasoning for EMP Freeze having a 3 second duration has become even more unjustified - the point about melee turrets being capable of stopping the over time healing is no longer relevant because the enemy no longer even gets their repair kit.


In addition to the EMP Freeze changes above, I would like to append the following:

Freezing removed for EMP Freeze

Come on. AP and Freezing in conjunction are equal to EMP in power now, at least in this case. The AP+Freezing combo gets to disable protection modules, the EMP Freeze gets to prevent repair kits happening at all. There's no justifiable reason for EMP Freeze to still have the slowdown benefits from from cooling ON TOP OF THE EMP. There is no more risk of the enemy getting away and using a repair kit - not that there ever was, with the nonsensical three second duration.

Edited by Abellia
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I agree EMP Smoky needs a nerf, but I have to say I don't think AP Smoky does - in fact I think AP could even do with a slight buff. To be honest, this nerf proposal here for EMP Smoky is like something the developers would do - I would say it would make EMP Smoky pretty much useless. I would not use EMP or AP Smoky after these changes.

Just think about how inferior EMP Smoky would be to Cryo smoky with these changes:

EMP Smoky would have -30% normal damage, and -30% critical damage, and the same status effect duration as now. I don't think that the EMP effect would be enough would be enough to compensate for that penalty - it is not sufficiently stronger than the 10 second freeze effect is.

Incendiary and Cryo smoky (and possibly Adrenaline too), would be significantly better than AP and EMP Smoky.

Now as for comparisons to Rail augments - Rail augments don't have a damage penalty on either the non-crit or critical shot, all they have is a slight penalty to the "shot warm-up time" of 20%, so this damage nerf would be very heavy by comparison (whether that is right or wrong for the Rail augments to be like that of course, is up for debate).

As for Freeze AP and EMP - let's not forget that Freeze AP and EMP apply their status effects constantly and instantly. Now of course, given Smoky's current rate of fire - EMP Smoky does apply the EMP effect almost constantly, once it gets that first critical. But it does take several shots to get there (apart from during supercharge). And AP Smoky generally does not apply the effect constantly, with the short duration. So I think Freeze augments need a heavier damage penalty therefore, to be balanced - but I don't think a similar penalty would work well for EMP or AP smoky, given the nature of how they apply their effects. The comparison to Railgun augments is more useful, but again I think this would be a much heavier penalty than what the Railgun augments have.

Personally, I think nerfing EMP Smoky's crit rate down to that of what Stun Smoky has now would be enough of a nerf. AP Smoky I would like to see a slight buff from 75 to 85% damage on the critical - and Stun smoky I would like to see having the same crit rate as stock smoky, and 85% damage on crit. Then I think the augments would be roughly equal, and in a good place with comparison to the garage augments.
 

Also let's not forget that Smoky has only recently become good - and it is a pretty fun turret that takes some skill to use. I would be sad to see it nerfed to the ground just so fast - nor do I think it needs it. I do agree EMP Smoky needs changes, but this would be very extreme IMO.

EDIT: Also btw, loved the topic Title lol ?

Edited by DestrotankAI9

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For the title, I though you will talk about EMP Gauss with the 10m radius or Magnetic Pellets (EMP Hammer).  But Smoky ?  Yes its augments are OP, but nowhere close to EMP Gauss/Hammer.

I haven't seen 9999GS buyer use Smoky, they use Tesla - Gauss - Railgun - Hammer.  (for status effects)

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38 minutes ago, asem.harbi said:

For the title, I though you will talk about EMP Gauss with the 10m radius or Magnetic Pellets (EMP Hammer).  But Smoky ?  Yes its augments are OP, but nowhere close to EMP Gauss/Hammer.

I haven't seen 9999GS buyer use Smoky, they use Tesla - Gauss - Railgun - Hammer.  (for status effects)

Was in an Assault battle the other day.  Almost 50% of enemy team was equipped with Status Rails - was just ridiculous.

The Crit Rate needs to drop for Status Rails.  Not happy with 50% Crit rate on stock (makes module useless) but it's not as bad as the status ones. 

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5 hours ago, DestrotankAI9 said:

To be honest, this nerf proposal here for EMP Smoky is like something the developers would do - I would say it would make EMP Smoky pretty much useless.

Not really, I presented the numbers and chances for its kill times compared to EMP Railgun, and it comes out pretty similarly but as a result of Smoky's nature as a medium range turret it has generally higher dps and pressure to stop repair kits.

5 hours ago, DestrotankAI9 said:

in fact I think AP could even do with a slight buff.

This is a slight buff, it won't have any less kill power than it does now thanks to the increased duration, and it'll also have more teamplay capability.

5 hours ago, DestrotankAI9 said:

Now as for comparisons to Rail augments - Rail augments don't have a damage penalty on either the non-crit or critical shot, all they have is a slight penalty to the "shot warm-up time" of 20%, so this damage nerf would be very heavy by comparison (whether that is right or wrong for the Rail augments to be like that of course, is up for debate).

Kill time and chance says otherwise, according to the numbers and chances that I provided.

5 hours ago, DestrotankAI9 said:

Also let's not forget that Smoky has only recently become good

EMP Smoky is not the only good augment. EMP Smoky is the only top tier status augment, though, and that is the purpose of this series of posts - to bring the top tiers down to the level of mid tier status augments, so as to close the power gaps in the game.

5 hours ago, DestrotankAI9 said:

As for Freeze AP and EMP - let's not forget that Freeze AP and EMP apply their status effects constantly and instantly.

Similar

On 1/25/2022 at 10:02 AM, Abellia said:

in that they will become heavily reliant on its status to deal damage.

I didn't say anything about balancing them next to current AP and EMP Freeze, just that they'd be mechanically similar in their penalties. I actually have a different topic on status freezes, if you want to talk about those.

edit: nvm topic not approved yet

Edited by Abellia
came across a little more rude than intended

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3 hours ago, asem.harbi said:

For the title, I though you will talk about EMP Gauss with the 10m radius or Magnetic Pellets (EMP Hammer).  But Smoky ?  Yes its augments are OP, but nowhere close to EMP Gauss/Hammer.

I haven't seen 9999GS buyer use Smoky, they use Tesla - Gauss - Railgun - Hammer.  (for status effects)

Status Gausses are one of the topics I have written up, but I would disagree with them being any more broken than EMP Smoky - they allow group status application and group killing, but their line of sight time requirement makes them less reliable in most modes outside siege, and thus less potent. A similar argument can be made with status Hammers, which are limited by range - don't worry, there's still a topic for them coming.

 

Hard disagree on the point about no buyers using Smoky - there are lots of them roaming around with all five EMP augs, more with EMP Smoky as a result of the recent battle pass. That also made its impact on the game (note, its impact on the game, NOT its balance within the game) much more pronounced than the other EMP augs. 

 

3 hours ago, wolverine848 said:

Was in an Assault battle the other day.  Almost 50% of enemy team was equipped with Status Rails - was just ridiculous.

The Crit Rate needs to drop for Status Rails.  Not happy with 50% Crit rate on stock (makes module useless) but it's not as bad as the status ones. 

The problem is that they're just hard to touch. I considered a topic suggesting they become variants of Round Stabilization (trading crits away entirely for status), but I couldn't find a way to keep their place within Railgun's current balance without risking the creation of the exact same issues that LCR, RDS, and Scout faced prior to the critical update.

If you have ideas along those lines, I'd like to hear them.

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42 minutes ago, Abellia said:

Status Gausses are one of the topics I have written up, but I would disagree with them being any more broken than EMP Smoky - they allow group status application and group killing, but their line of sight time requirement makes them less reliable in most modes outside siege, and thus less potent. A similar argument can be made with status Hammers, which are limited by range - don't worry, there's still a topic for them coming.

 

Hard disagree on the point about no buyers using Smoky - there are lots of them roaming around with all five EMP augs, more with EMP Smoky as a result of the recent battle pass. That also made its impact on the game (note, its impact on the game, NOT its balance within the game) much more pronounced than the other EMP augs. 

I agree with you that Smoky EMP is OP, it annoy me alot in battles.  But what I was trying to say that there are augments I see may be stronger.  BTW, the nerf is deserved, and it's a good start.  But I think players are exaggerating about Smoky augments, and maybe some of who criticize are using one of other stronger ones.

And it seems you don't play the game alot, Paladin & one of the turret I mentioned are the new meta for buyers, look at remastered sandbox event, there are alot of Tesla, zero Smoky.

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52 minutes ago, asem.harbi said:

And it seems you don't play the game alot, Paladin & one of the turret I mentioned are the new meta for buyers, look at remastered sandbox event, there are alot of Tesla, zero Smoky.

Are you aware that between the last time a Sandbox Remaster weekend event came and now, Tesla had been nerfed in 2 patches? 

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1 hour ago, asem.harbi said:

I agree with you that Smoky EMP is OP, it annoy me alot in battles.  But what I was trying to say that there are augments I see may be stronger.  BTW, the nerf is deserved, and it's a good start.  But I think players are exaggerating about Smoky augments, and maybe some of who criticize are using one of other stronger ones.

And it seems you don't play the game alot, Paladin & one of the turret I mentioned are the new meta for buyers, look at remastered sandbox event, there are alot of Tesla, zero Smoky.

You play too much siege if you think EMP Hammer, Rail, EMP Gauss are better than EMP Smoky because the main advantages they have are group application of status.

Also, you don't play the game enough if you don't see tons of EMP Smoky after battle pass ?

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43 minutes ago, Abellia said:

You play too much siege if you think EMP Hammer, Rail, EMP Gauss are better than EMP Smoky because the main advantages they have are group application of status.

Also, you don't play the game enough if you don't see tons of EMP Smoky after battle pass ?

You said it yourself, EMP Smoky have popularized after the battle pass  (F2P players).  But 9999GS buyers don't wait for battle pass, they have everything from ultra containers. And they don't use EMP Smoky ever.

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2 minutes ago, asem.harbi said:

But 9999GS buyers don't wait for battle pass, they have everything from ultra containers. And they don't use EMP Smoky ever.

Nah, see they didn't wait for the BP - they only realized it was strong because lots of people had it, and they now use because it's strong and it was accessible. Basically this:

2 hours ago, Abellia said:

That also made its impact on the game (note, its impact on the game, NOT its balance within the game) much more pronounced than the other EMP augs. 

 

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4 minutes ago, Abellia said:

Nah, see they didn't wait for the BP - they only realized it was strong because lots of people had it, and they now use because it's strong and it was accessible. Basically this:

Smoky EMP is here for year or more and they now have noticed it?  Your logic is very wrong, old Shaft RFM once it get buffed many people exploited it with old Hornet OD. Also why did they just have not realized EMP Hammer or any other OP augment, why they only forgot Smoky?

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8 minutes ago, asem.harbi said:

Smoky EMP is here for year or more and they now have noticed it?  Your logic is very wrong, old Shaft RFM once it get buffed many people exploited it with old Hornet OD. Also why did they just have not realized EMP Hammer or any other OP augment, why they only forgot Smoky?

Because Smoky EMP was not overpowered until recently. It was just "strong" all the way up until the 580/850 damage buff and the 1.2 second reload buffs happened and then it got to becoming a top tier status augment, but by then the first EMP Smoky battle pass was nearly a year ago. However, they reran it to get more Smoky players.

Edited by Abellia
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Recently, Smoky EMP has been very famous or sort of coming in the lime-light. Since it's introduction in the BP, the users of smoky EMP has been drastically increased. I find difficulty facing an EMP user if  I equip a Light hull or even a Medium hull or sometimes a heavy hull too if I am EMPed right from the start. The problem arises because of 2 facts, firstly its critical chance is a problem, it can EMP the enemy too quickly and gain advantage and 2nd is the base damage, which allows the user to quickly finish off the enemies after being EMPed or in general as well. Reducing critical as well as base damage as Abellia suggested might help, but if the EMP duration is increased simultaneously, it won't matter much because your time of vulnerability will increase, which will let you be destroyed no matter what unless you can hide somewhere and gain back supplies.

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Ah yes, EMP Gauss, the oldest status augment in the game, and its little brother, AP Gauss – the most effective multi-status appliers and the most effective status augments for group kills. In addition to that, it’s still as efficient as most status augments if not more, at fighting a single target. So, to fix these problems for the pair of them:

Electromagnetic Salvo and Armor-Piercing Salvo:
Average and weak splash damage in salvo mode = 10%
Critical hit removed

I think it can keep its status application since that’s kind of what it was known for on release, a ridiculous reach of EMP, but it shouldn’t be allowed to group kill, and to discourage Gauss players from picking one target and bursting them down, it should lose its crits.

Thoughts?

Note that this post was written prior to the announcement of the "EMP no longer resets repairs and mines" update, patch #677.

In addition to the changes I already proposed, I would like to add, for Electromagnetic Salvo:
Sniping reload reduction removed

This stops Electromagnetic Salvo from doing salvo, arcade, salvo on people within its EMP duration, and stops it from outputting strong damage if it wants to constantly deal EMP shots.

Frankly, there is no justifiable reason for any EMP augment to be statistically superior to any AP augments with the recent change.

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On 12/30/2021 at 8:10 AM, XD_PRO said:

vulcan with any medium or heavy hull having heat immunity is alot OP.. the protection 50  is not much effective so the damage of vulcan should decrease by 20% when it starts to overheat

For a vulcan to actually kill another tank you have to be exposed to all enemy fire for much longer than you imagine. If you really think it is OP, please gear up your heavy hull and HI and go hunting. You will discover in the open you can't one shot any thing. Nor two shot. And your lack of speed will get you exposed. 

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On 1/20/2022 at 5:29 AM, cool12345 said:

If the "Flying Monkeys" are in the game the rest of us non-flying tanks are simply bystanders.

In CTF and Rugby you are absolutely right. I take the role of being sure my flying monkey is protected so they can get all the points:) 

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On 1/12/2022 at 8:15 AM, Abellia said:

Currently, Shaft's Rapid Fire Mode augment (RFM) takes a full 10 seconds to reload, just like all the other shafts, except there's one key difference - RFM is meant to be reloading three arcade shots, not a 3300 scoped shot, and so all it can reasonably kill with its arcades is a light hull - for everything else, stock, adrenaline, and short-band emitters will kill the target faster, which is the exact opposite of what Rapid Fire Mode is meant to do. 

To fix this, I suggest to start by nerfing the full charge time and adding the penalty of -66% charge rate in aiming mode, so at mk7+ it takes a massive 9 seconds to charge to full, as well as nerfing its max sniping shot damage by 15%, preventing it from oneshotting medium hulls. In exchange, it would receive a massive +150% increase to energy recharge rate, resulting in a 4 second charge time from empty to full. This would completely cripple Rapid Fire Mode's ability to reasonably use sniping shots, also providing it with the kill power it desperately needs for its arcades by having them come up more often even on an empty tank, allowing it to deal increased damage with arcades compared to stock shaft even when it has run out of energy.

This template is an extreme version of how RFM was before the shaft rework, to match the extreme version of Shaft we have now.

Tldr; RFM sniping mode gets deleted, 1.33 second reload per arcade for RFM, thoughts?

I noticed how the RFM was not effective any more. Your post explains why. I think the overall idea makes good sense. I don't know enough of the mechanics to know if the percentages are optimal or not, but those could be tweaked based on data and refined over time. But your approach sounds correct to me.

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