Season 11 Balance Recommendations
-Composed by: THEWALL766
-With Input from: MikeBeaston, Flame Pieman, Metaloidmonkey, CarsandCameras, Sadder Joker, Scootman2, Darkest Inferno, Unknown Phoenix, Hann1ble Lector, XTheManateeX, DC Longshot, BreezyStarfish1, Admiration, L1am Wh1te.
The purpose of this collection of recommendation is to establish a theme for the next balance patch. In the past, balance recommendations have been proposed but often included over 100 different proposed changes. While most of these recommendations were justified, its easy for people to get confused on what changes really matter and which ones were “nice to have”. This post will be broken up into two sections, one will focus on the aspects of the game that the competitive community has more or less come to a consensus on, and the other will be a line item walkthrough of ways each leader either over performs or under performs with a severity ranking for how urgent people believe that the imbalance is.
This document is fluid and a lot of the numbers provided are estimates of what we think would work. It will change as testing occurs and better ideas are presented. Please keep in mind that the focus point of the document is the make changes to T3, if there is something that you don’t like in section 2, please voice your concerns, but also comment on what you feel about section 1. If you would like to contribute more directly to the conversation, please join us on the “Balance Discussion” section of “The Banished” discord.
Season 11 Balance Theme – “Make T3 Units Great For the First Time”
Simply put, T3 vehicles have negligible impact on the meta right now. This can be explained primarily because T3 vehicles are expensive, slow, weak to leader power and siege, and are not strong (especially when compared with their T2 counter parts). Some time back I created a spreadsheet that organized each unit bases on how well they could kill buildings normalized to their population. In short, the results are:
Of course, the argument can be made that because Hellbringers and Brutes are “Building Killers” they should be stronger, but I’m going to make the counter point that T3 units are supposed to be the “game enders”. Their building damage alone is not what is keeping them from fulfilling this role, howver, the issue is primarily in their survivability. T3 heavy vehicles crumble to Siege and Leader powers just the same as every other unit in the game. A large mass of slow moving tanks will get cut to shreds before it even reaches a base. What’s worse is that the speed of these units prevents any meaningful micro, and the mediocre damage that they posses means that they always have to stay together to exert any sort of force. Marauders and Hogs also attack in mass, but their speed allows them to split away from powers and disengage if there is an unfavorable engagement. Tanks cannot do this. If you show up to an engagement, you either win (which you probably won’t) or you lose everything.
What Needs to Be Done
Currently, T3 units are non-factors in late game turtles and base breaking. The only way this is going to change is if there is a significant change to the armor of T3 vehicles with regards to Leader Powers, Kodiaks, and Siege Turrets, as well as an increase in building damage. However, a flat buff to heavy vehicles will not be ideal because it will too heavily favor Leaders with heavy vehicles in their unit drops. Instead, it would be more ideal if the unit had more DPS added to the main guns after the T3 upgrade was given. To clarify, this is not a buff to the cannister shot, this is a buff to the scorpion main guns and health after the cannister shot upgrade is purchased. With these changes, T3 vehicles should see significantly more attention in the game and hopefully, the ability to turtle on maps like Sentry, Badlands, and Bedrock, will be significantly reduced.
TLDR
T3 Air
Like T3 vehicles, T3 air units also suffer from low usage. This time, however, it is from not having a well-defined role that they can excel in in the late game. This is largely due to the same issues (i.e they are far to easy to kill for how much they cost and don’t bring enough power to a fight).
Because we don’t want to make it so that every game only ends in Tanks, it would make sense for the health of the game that there be viable army comps involving Vultures and Blisterbacks. The buffs for these units, however, are less straightforward since the two units serve very different roles. This section will first define what the community largely believes the role of each unit should be, and then what needs to change so that the unit better fills that role.
Vulture
Role: Flying tank
Vultures are very slow-moving units that right now serve the singular purpose of flying phoenix missiles into bases. They are usually sent on suicide missions to break turtles because they have almost no combat prowess for anything else. The AA guns that they have aren’t bad against other air, but they are currently miserable against all units on the ground.
Suggestions: The AA guns should receive at least a 10% buff to damage and to splash to help them compete more against Air units. The logic is that I shouldn’t make my air army significantly weaker by trying to build T3 air. The main cannons on the Vulture should also do much more damage to vehicles on the ground. I’m not saying that Vulture main cannons should be enough to beat tanks, but they should at least beat warthogs. As it stands right now, mixing Vultures into my air army makes my air army SIGNIFICANTLY weaker and that is something that needs to change. I know there is resistance to large changes but right now the vulture main cannons are the per pop worst building killer in the game.
In additions, vultures should also receive a 30% armor buff to Leader Powers and possibly even a 5-10% health buff overall to keep them alive longer to actually use their weapons.
-Composed by: THEWALL766
-With Input from: MikeBeaston, Flame Pieman, Metaloidmonkey, CarsandCameras, Sadder Joker, Scootman2, Darkest Inferno, Unknown Phoenix, Hann1ble Lector, XTheManateeX, DC Longshot, BreezyStarfish1, Admiration, L1am Wh1te.
The purpose of this collection of recommendation is to establish a theme for the next balance patch. In the past, balance recommendations have been proposed but often included over 100 different proposed changes. While most of these recommendations were justified, its easy for people to get confused on what changes really matter and which ones were “nice to have”. This post will be broken up into two sections, one will focus on the aspects of the game that the competitive community has more or less come to a consensus on, and the other will be a line item walkthrough of ways each leader either over performs or under performs with a severity ranking for how urgent people believe that the imbalance is.
This document is fluid and a lot of the numbers provided are estimates of what we think would work. It will change as testing occurs and better ideas are presented. Please keep in mind that the focus point of the document is the make changes to T3, if there is something that you don’t like in section 2, please voice your concerns, but also comment on what you feel about section 1. If you would like to contribute more directly to the conversation, please join us on the “Balance Discussion” section of “The Banished” discord.
Season 11 Balance Theme – “Make T3 Units Great For the First Time”
Simply put, T3 vehicles have negligible impact on the meta right now. This can be explained primarily because T3 vehicles are expensive, slow, weak to leader power and siege, and are not strong (especially when compared with their T2 counter parts). Some time back I created a spreadsheet that organized each unit bases on how well they could kill buildings normalized to their population. In short, the results are:
- #13 Elite Enforcers – 2.45
- #15 Dispersion Nozzle Hellbringers – 2.25
- #16 Grizzlies with mega barrage – 2.12
- #18 Wraiths with scorch mortar – 2.03
- #19 Grizzlies – 1.96
- #24 Scorpions with Cannister – 1.74
- #25 Flame Hogs with Flame Mortar – 1.7
- #28 Wraiths – 1.63
- #29 Marauders – 1.60
- #31 Scorpions – 1.58
- #35 Warthogs – 1.49
- #39 Flame Hogs – 1.34
Of course, the argument can be made that because Hellbringers and Brutes are “Building Killers” they should be stronger, but I’m going to make the counter point that T3 units are supposed to be the “game enders”. Their building damage alone is not what is keeping them from fulfilling this role, howver, the issue is primarily in their survivability. T3 heavy vehicles crumble to Siege and Leader powers just the same as every other unit in the game. A large mass of slow moving tanks will get cut to shreds before it even reaches a base. What’s worse is that the speed of these units prevents any meaningful micro, and the mediocre damage that they posses means that they always have to stay together to exert any sort of force. Marauders and Hogs also attack in mass, but their speed allows them to split away from powers and disengage if there is an unfavorable engagement. Tanks cannot do this. If you show up to an engagement, you either win (which you probably won’t) or you lose everything.
What Needs to Be Done
Currently, T3 units are non-factors in late game turtles and base breaking. The only way this is going to change is if there is a significant change to the armor of T3 vehicles with regards to Leader Powers, Kodiaks, and Siege Turrets, as well as an increase in building damage. However, a flat buff to heavy vehicles will not be ideal because it will too heavily favor Leaders with heavy vehicles in their unit drops. Instead, it would be more ideal if the unit had more DPS added to the main guns after the T3 upgrade was given. To clarify, this is not a buff to the cannister shot, this is a buff to the scorpion main guns and health after the cannister shot upgrade is purchased. With these changes, T3 vehicles should see significantly more attention in the game and hopefully, the ability to turtle on maps like Sentry, Badlands, and Bedrock, will be significantly reduced.
TLDR
- 15% armor buff on All T3 vehicles against leader Powers
- 10% Building damage and health buff on Scorpion, Grizzly, and Wraith main guns hidden behind T3 upgrade
- 30% armor buff on all T3 vehicles against siege
- Helpful – 5% damage buff against T2 vehicles and 5% health buff for Scorpion, Grizzly, and Wraith
T3 Air
Like T3 vehicles, T3 air units also suffer from low usage. This time, however, it is from not having a well-defined role that they can excel in in the late game. This is largely due to the same issues (i.e they are far to easy to kill for how much they cost and don’t bring enough power to a fight).
Because we don’t want to make it so that every game only ends in Tanks, it would make sense for the health of the game that there be viable army comps involving Vultures and Blisterbacks. The buffs for these units, however, are less straightforward since the two units serve very different roles. This section will first define what the community largely believes the role of each unit should be, and then what needs to change so that the unit better fills that role.
Vulture
Role: Flying tank
Vultures are very slow-moving units that right now serve the singular purpose of flying phoenix missiles into bases. They are usually sent on suicide missions to break turtles because they have almost no combat prowess for anything else. The AA guns that they have aren’t bad against other air, but they are currently miserable against all units on the ground.
Suggestions: The AA guns should receive at least a 10% buff to damage and to splash to help them compete more against Air units. The logic is that I shouldn’t make my air army significantly weaker by trying to build T3 air. The main cannons on the Vulture should also do much more damage to vehicles on the ground. I’m not saying that Vulture main cannons should be enough to beat tanks, but they should at least beat warthogs. As it stands right now, mixing Vultures into my air army makes my air army SIGNIFICANTLY weaker and that is something that needs to change. I know there is resistance to large changes but right now the vulture main cannons are the per pop worst building killer in the game.
In additions, vultures should also receive a 30% armor buff to Leader Powers and possibly even a 5-10% health buff overall to keep them alive longer to actually use their weapons.
