declined Mechanical Changes to Drones

[Abellia 504]

As was announced in the v-log from two weeks ago, Camper will be changing to have stronger supplies similar to Booster or Defender when it is on full health.

I propose that rather than leaving the majority of the drones in the game underpowered and underutilized, they receive changes in the spirit of this new camper, where upon fulfilling their activation requirements, they get stronger supplies.

Assault could get 3 to 5 seconds of a power-up to Boosted Damage, Boosted Armour, and Speed Boost upon getting a kill, instead of refreshing supply cooldown.

Trooper could get these powered up supplies for the first 5 seconds of spawn in addition to 20 seconds of regular supplies, making it a drone properly equal (or above) to Booster and Defender in terms of fighting off enemy teams who are camping your base.

Engineer could get these power-ups for 10 seconds upon picking up supply boxes, rather than sharing the supply with the team.

Supplier could get these power-ups for 5 seconds upon sharing supplies with teammates.

Sprinter could get these power-ups for 3 seconds upon fulfilling its current requirements - capping/delivering flags, scoring goals, capturing points, etc.

Driver could get these power-ups for 10 seconds whenever it activates its overdrive.

Miner could power up its mines (increase damage by 300 per supply activated before putting your mine down, so activating boosted armour > speed boost > boosted damage > repair kit > mine would produce a mine dealing 3000 damage, with the mine counting because booster and defender reduce their own supplies' cooldown for activating them) when activating supplies, rather than directly buffing supplies.

Thoughts on changes in this fashion to bring drones all in line with one another?

[Spy 14,899]

Under review

Declined

[Maf 32,326]

Unfortunately it's nearly impossible to predict drone balance (or any game balance) by shuffling some numbers on paper. People will find combos that work amazingly well, and tactics that get the best efficiency out of drones. So in the end there will be a new meta and some drones will inevitably end up stronger than others, so best to leave the exact numbers up to the expects.

The big question is — should developers try to make all drones equal, or should they intentionally be separated into "starter drones" and "endgame drones"?

[Abellia 504]

1 hour ago, Maf said:

Unfortunately it's nearly impossible to predict drone balance (or any game balance) by shuffling some numbers on paper. People will find combos that work amazingly well, and tactics that get the best efficiency out of drones. So in the end there will be a new meta and some drones will inevitably end up stronger than others, so best to leave the exact numbers up to the expects.

The big question is — should developers try to make all drones equal, or should they intentionally be separated into "starter drones" and "endgame drones"?

The latter is how things are, and it has resulted in the utter destruction of several of the "beginner drones" because they were "too strong" (barely functional). The question I have is, if that's how tanki is meant to be - how come all the drones have the same upgrade prices? Why are you spending the same amount of crystals to upgrade Booster, Defender, and Trooper, but getting infinitely more value out of Booster, or Defender which can activate both the combat supplies on spawn anyways(the important ones) and get steroids added to one of them? Booster and Defender also aren't limited by cooldown on respawns like trooper is, and can push out their two supplies each time (and speed boost 5 seconds later) for 30 seconds rather than the 20 Trooper gets. The maintenance cost isn't an issue, either, as to bring in a quote from Opex - "Earning crystals is not that hard nowadays. So by ranking up and earning more crystals, you can unlock and buy these drones when you have enough skill to use them" (no comment on the other bit of "you need skill to use defender and booster" section from that vlog).

 

This can't be fixed without seriously messing up drones - if you make lower ranked drones cheaper to upgrade as well as maintain, what happens to Brutus, and everyone who has it upgraded? Or people who are already devoted to the lower ranked drones, like @TheCongoSpiderwith Driver (prior to it getting nerfed into the ground.) 

 

They've shown that they're willing to change drones to be in line with Booster/Defender with the new Camper, so why not? They're throwing balance out the window regarding the new camper, why not do the same with the other drones?

 

I've written comments on other posts regarding why "ladder drones" are a terrible system, and why it isn't even kept properly (look at Hyperion, why is it worse than booster and defender?), if you want to read those for more of an explanation of "why not just give all drones steroids."

[mjmj5558 2,346]

On 9/4/2021 at 10:36 PM, Abellia said:

Assault could get 3 to 5 seconds of a power-up to Boosted Damage, Boosted Armour, and Speed Boost upon getting a kill, instead of refreshing supply cooldown.

No thanks, i'd rather have something that reduces cooldown. There will be a plenty of drones for that.

[Iron_Man 2,376]

Status changed to "Declined"

The drone rebalance has positively increased the strength of previously underpowered drones. What you suggest makes all the drones very similar to one another, with no unique benefits.