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A lil somethin somethin: You can find the details for this event on the announcement page here.
All tier-1 to tier-2 upgrade times decreased from 40 seconds to 30 seconds.We’d like to bring tier-2 units and upgrades into the game a bit more quickly to fight tier-1 options. As an extreme example, while Vulcans are theoretically a counter to Vectors, they’re not able to realistically counter Vector rushes due to how far up the tech tree they are. This change should result in players having more early game options.
We’ll be rebalancing Creeps with a special focus on how important it is to Creep early-game and how all-or-nothing they can seem. In the mid-game, while we feel Creeps are not gameplay-warping and fairly balanced, we’d like them to feel more interesting relative to their importance and impact. This set of changes is intended to do the following:
- Creeps generally have between 0% to 40% more health.
- Creeps generally give 16% less bounty at level 1.
- Creeps now scale to give more bounty, Veterancy, and Animus when they level up. This more accurately reflects their additional bonus power.
Build time decreased from 55 seconds to 45 seconds.Sentry Posts initially took longer to build than static defense from other factions due to the fear of multi-building being too powerful in a tower rush situation.
Build time decreased from 20 seconds to 17 seconds.Similarly, we wanted to bring Vanguard worker build times more in line with that of Infernals. Initially, we wanted to give Infernals more of an advantage in this department due to the need to sacrifice workers to build structures. However, we currently feel Vanguard is disadvantaged in this tradeoff due to:
The SCOUT was too dominant in all matchups because it was too cost-effective in a variety of roles: Creeping, harassment against key infrastructure, and direct combat against grounded Light units. While they’re certainly not an all-around unit, this combination of traits made them the clear choice for early-game, especially among high-level players. We felt this the most in VvV where the Lancer was insufficient of a counter and VvI where Gaunts received a damage nerf against light units in the last patch. In addition to the changes listed here, we’re also adjusting the Habitat, Lancer, and Gaunt, which should help with SCOUT dominance.
- Build time increased from 13 seconds to 18 seconds.
- Initial damage decreased from 8 to 5 (+3 vs Light).
- The Vorillium Claws upgrade improves the SCOUT’s damage by +8 vs Light, down from +16 vs Light.
Lancers have been one of the most polarizing units in our game. While they’re incredibly powerful as a tank against Infernal Gaunts, they’re very ineffective against large numbers of Vanguard Exos or Celestial Argents, two core units in their respective factions. We believe this is one of the key reasons matchup winrates have been so historically polarizing. In addition, we’re looking to give Vanguard players stronger tools against SCOUTs and a tier-1 answer to Kri.
- Lancer Health increased from 240 to 260.
- Lancer Armor increased from 5 to 15.
- Lancers damage increased from 10 (+5 vs Structure) to 10 (+5 vs Structure, +5 vs Light).
- Lancers no longer have “On-Damaged: Damage reduced by 2” innately.
- The Mitigative Guard upgrade no longer further reduces damage taken by Lancers from -2 to -4. Instead, it now grants Lancers “On-Damaged: Damage reduced by 2”.
Exo damage decreased from 13 (+7 vs Heavy) to 12 (+6 vs Heavy).We feel like the Exo is still too centralizing as a core mid-game Vanguard unit and would like to redistribute some of its power elsewhere across the faction.
MedTech Master Training, which unlocks System Shock, now requires a Central Command, down from a High Command.We wanted to provide Vanguard a more solid counter to Debilitate and allow for some flashy plays on tier-2.
The Impact Thrusters upgrade has been removed. Its functionality, which increases the range of Jump Jets from X to Y and adds a stun to Jump Jets is now innate on the Vulcan.This was a rarely used upgrade, so we decided to bake in this capability into the Vulcan baseline. This also removes an obstacle to the more powerful tier-3 Vulcan upgrade.
Hornet damage decreased from 13 (+13 vs Light) to 13 (+4 vs Light).The Hornet was too powerful against Prisms in particular. We want to keep the Hornet strong in its role against Light air units, even Prisms, but also temper its power.
Graven cost decreased from 125/125 to 125/75.During internal testing, we tried the Graven at tier-2, and it was incredibly powerful and centralizing due to the necessity of requiring detection and static defense at every base in order to counter it. After we moved it to tier-3 during our Early Access release, it doesn’t see much use. While we still believe it is powerful, it competes heavily with the Helicarrier, which is seen as both more impactful and easier to use.
Bombing Run range decreased from 40 to 25.We wanted Helicarriers to be more in range of the targets they were trying to bomb. If the Helicarrier continues to be too powerful in the future, especially against Infernals, we’ll look to adjusting other values such as the health of the Bombers or granting Infernals more tools to deal with this particular unit.
This makes the ability more impactful while also making it a potential counter against Vanguard Infantry balls, especially as they grow in size. At the same time, there’s still plenty of counterplay in either dodging the ability or dispelling it.
- Nightfall Infestation now slows down enemy units by 50% for 3 seconds.
- Nightfall Infestation cooldown decreased from 90 to 60.
The Brute’s Sundering Soul Frenzy upgrade didn’t feel very useful, so we decided to remove it and instead grant Brutes a more useful upgrade at tier-1, which allows tier-1 Hellforges to be more viable.
- The Brute’s Sundering Soul Frenzy (Movement speed after Sundering Soul) upgrade has been removed. Brutes now gain 15% increased movement speed when they split by default.
- The Soulforged Ascendence (3 Fiend + Armor) upgrade no longer requires the Sundering Soul Frenzy upgrade.
- The Soulforged Ascendence upgrade no longer requires a Greater Shrine. It can be researched immediately upon building a Hellforge.
- Soulforged Ascendence research time increased from 60 seconds to 120 seconds.
- The Sundering Soulcraze upgrade no longer requires the Sundering Soul Frenzy upgrade.
While we’re happy with how Infest is performing in other parts of the game, the ability for Gaunts to constantly Infest enemy units is causing all factions to constantly need a way to fight Fiends at every stage of the game. While most factions are able to reliably do this, Celestials in particular are struggling, and it felt restricting that the game had to be balanced with the idea that all factions needed consistent AoE damage against Fiends. We still think Gaunts Infesting enemy units is cool and adds a lot of identity to the Gaunt, but we want it to happen in more specific ways. At the same time, we’ve been looking for more opportunities to inject interesting interactions with Shroud, so we ended up with a conditional on-Shroud activation requirement for Plague Axes.
- The Gaunt’s Plague Axes upgrade will now only apply Infest if the target is on Shroud.
- Gaunt primary damage changed from 8 (+2 vs Light) to 8 (+4 vs Light).
- Gaunt bounce damage changed from 2 (0.5 vs Light) to 2 (+1 vs Light).
After the Demonhoof Tremors upgrade, Trample stun duration decreased from 0.3 seconds to 0.15 seconds.This change reduces the stun uptime of Magmadons from 75% to 38% while they’re Trampling with Demonhoof Tremors. We felt like this stun was too punishing, especially against Kri, which partially prevented Kri from being a particularly viable front-line unit for Celestials in the IvC matchup.
In this update, we’ll be reinstating the ability for Weavers to walk over other units, which we believe was one of the key reasons they weren’t being used much in the Infernals arsenal. In addition, we received feedback that even after these changes, Weavers would still not be used due to their slow speed and our increasingly larger map sizes, so we’ve decided to raise their base speed slightly.
- Weavers can now walk over other units.
- Weaver movement speed increased from 2 to 2.5.
- The Shroudwalk passive trait now increases movement speed by 60% in Shroud, down from 100%. Resulting movement speed unchanged from 4 to 4.
After the changes from the last patch where Miasma’s radius was reduced, we still feel Miasma is able to be cast too often and we wanted to prevent Hexen from immediately recasting Miasma after it’s initially interrupted.
- Miasma energy cost increased from 40 to 60.
- Miasma cooldown increased from 0 seconds to 15 seconds.
Spriggans have been one of the most underutilized units in our post-EA release, partially because they simply don’t deal enough damage, especially to the Heavy units they’re intended to counter (such as Helicarriers). In addition, we’ve changed their cost to be more Luminite-focused since Infernals are so commonly starved for Therium.
- Spriggan cost changed from 75/75 to 100/50.
- Spriggan damage increased from 2 (+2 vs Heavy) to 3 (+3 vs Heavy).
Supply cost increased from 0 to 4.
Supply cost decreased from 3 to 2.These changes are primarily intended to allow spectators to more easily judge the status of a match by the progression of supply counts. Previously, Celestial supply counts were misleading because a large portion of mining was done via Collection Arrays that didn’t cost supply.
We received feedback that while certain Celestial upgrades were good (specifically the Recall upgrade), they were difficult to research due to how far up the tech tree the Ascension Matrix is. This change allows Recall to be a more viable upgrade and at the same time Sabers to be more easily accessible.
- Now requires Starforge OR Legion Hall instead of an Arcstation.
- Retaliation Matrix, Core Ascendency, Resolute Seal, and Animancer Adept Training upgrades now require an Arcstation.
- Saber now requires Arcstation instead of Ascension Matrix.
Major feedback surrounding the Argent usually involved the following:
- Health decreased from 210 to 180.
- Movement speed increased from 4 to 4.5.
- Base energy regeneration decreased from 0.5 per second to 0 per second.
- Out-of combat energy regeneration increased from 0 to 2 per second.
- The Photo-Restoration upgrade, which increased the movement speed of Argents by 0.5 and increased out-of-combat energy regeneration by 1 has been removed.
- Max energy decreased from 50 to 30.
- New Upgrade: Photo-Capacitors: Increases Argent energy pool from 30 to 50. Researched at the Guardian Nexus.
- The Longshot Module upgrade now increases the Argent’s range by 3, up from 2.
The Kri feels like one of the most polarizing units in the game. Our thoughts are that it is sometimes slightly too powerful as an early-game unit and as a harassment unit throughout the game. At the same time, it is too difficult to tech into in the early-game in CvC and tends to fall hard as a late-game combat unit.
- Health increased from 190 to 230.
- Damage decreased from 16 (+8 vs Light) to 14 (+6 vs Light).
Cabals were a bit too punishing against Vanguard players that often rely on hit-and-run tactics and too greatly discouraged drop play. We wanted to reduce the effectiveness of this ability against general harassment but at the same time wanted to ensure it was still an effective counter against large units such as Vulcans and Magmadons. In addition, we’ll be giving Vanguard the ability to cast System Shock at tier 2, which should be another strong counter to Debilitate.
- Debilitate duration decreased from 40 seconds to 25 seconds.
- Debilitate movement speed debuff decreased from 50% to 25%.
Similar to the Weaver, we received feedback that the Saber was unwieldy to use, so we’re going to give it a higher movement speed baseline.
- Movement speed increased from 2 to 3.
- Movement speed bonus from Mass Accelerator decreased from 200% bonus to 100% bonus. Resulting movement speed unchanged from 6 to 6.
Dark Prophecy cooldown increased from 0 seconds to 15 seconds.This prevents Animancers from immediately recasting Dark Prophecy after it has been interrupted.
These tweaks to Archangels should allow them to be more reliable in combat, especially against late-game Infernal armies.
- Meteor Strike can now kill trees.
- When in an Avatar state, Archangels can no longer be pushed by Magmadons using Trample.
- When in its Avatar state, weapon shockwave speed increased from 7 to 15.
- After the Avatar state ends, the Archangel will now retain its current HP. For example, if the Archangel is at 500/1150 health when Avatar ends, it will be 500/750 afterward. Previously, it would decrease to 100/750.
We received a lot of feedback that Isle of Dread was the most polarizing map due to so many entryways into various locations, so we’ve restricted the attack paths and entryways so players can enter into macro games more safely.
- Added tree lines in multiple locations to limit early attack paths.
- Chokes into early expansions are now more narrow.
- Moved and added various Therium Nodes. There is now a double-Therium spot near the Vision Camp.
Removed from the Map Pool