Ashes - Balance Pass 09-22-15
AshesoftheSingularity ForumsWe haven't released this to the public yet but I wanted to give you an idea of some of the pretty significant balance passes we're doing that should show up in the next build.
Communicating Differences
We are very much interested in making sure that units communicate what they're good at visually. The UI will continue to be refined to show more information but below are our core variables we're working with:
•How much damage the weapon does
•The rate of fire the weapon does
•The range of the weapon
•Is it armor piercing?
•How much damage the weapon does
•The rate of fire the weapon does
•The range of the weapon
•Is it armor piercing?
You can get a lot of visual mileage out of simple rate of fire and damage in this game. A weapon that does a lot of damager but only fires once every 10 seconds is probably not very good a choice when going up against a swarm of cheap units. Similarly, a weapon that does a lot of AOE damage but that damage is relatively modest isn't very good against individual powerful units.
Unit Purposes:
1.Brute. This is your primary meat shield for your armies. They're tough and do pretty decent short range damage. They're your flash/zealot/marine.
2.Archer. The Archer has been tweaked such that it fires a lot less often but does a lot more damage. It targets T2s first before T1s.
3.Hermes. It's fast, lightly armed. Good for harassment, punishing greedy expansion and good for quickly taking regions. More expensive than the 1 or 2.
4.Artemis. Artillery unit. Does long range, AOE damage. Fires infrequently. Good against T1s and T2s but not great against T3s.
5.Zeus. Very short range unit that does reasonable damage to nearby units.
6.Nemesis. The sniper unit. Fires very infrequently but has armor piercing round. Very good against T3s but not so great against T2s and T1s because it fires so infrequently.
7.Apollo. Anti-Air unit. We are looking at having an upgrade where it can also do point defense against incoming rockets provided that it has energy.
8.Hyperion (renamed Hercules). This is an anti-T3 assault unit. It does massive damage per hit but only fires infrequently. If the enemy doesn't have T3s out, this is NOT a unit you want.
9.Cronus (formerly the Centaur). Massive long-range artillery. Good AOE effect but doesn't pierce armor. Good against buildings, T1s and T2.
10.Prometheus. This is your go-to "I am keeping this region" unit. It is very effective against anything that comes up against it other than the Hyperion which will wreck it. However, a Prometheus backed up by a Cronus will kill the Hyperion before it can get into range.
11.Hades. This air unit is being changed so that it's best against buildings. It's not good against moving units anymore (it can't even target T1s anymore). Strategic strikes against hardeneded defenses is its role mainly.
12.Fury. The Fury has been upgraded to attack ground targets. It's not great at it but is very punishing against the player who chooses not to provide anti air support. It is also very good against the Hades.
