Rebalance the Thar'Ga in 3 simple steps

Suggestions Balance
1

Here’s the deal.

After a very long study of responses, conversations with players and even deep pondering, I have created the best balance solution that could change the face of the Ellydium ships forever. Hear me out, this is worth it:

 

Alien Intuition and Combat Reboot

It’s well known to everyone that if you own this module, you’re going to have fun ruining an entire enemy team. You have additional damage with a locking system barrier that you can reset with Combat Reboot and regain your locking ability. Now, in my version, using the Combat Reboot would not only do this, but also switch off the additional damage, too - either that, or the Alien Intuition target locking would remain in the ship regardless of combat reboot.

 

Matter Absorber to no longer stack upon ship destruction

Let’s say you have a Survival game, or you are doing a Defence Contract speed run, and 8 ships die. Your ship regenerates the hull a number of times according to how many ships in range have been destroyed - now, instead of fully regenerating your entire 10,000+ points of hull, change the settings to reset the counter every time a ship dies - this way, you still have continuous regeneration and, for ships taking down a Thar’Ga will become an easier task, considering its overpowered arsenal.

 

Isolate module slots from points and raise points costs for all buff nodes

Ships should have no more than 9 slots at rank 11 upwards, and this is a genuine fact. It’s a very disturbing observation to see that you can have 15 module slots on a single ship and even I’m saying this, and I have 13 available to me on my ship. So, instead of having the nodes available for points, let these nodes actively determine by which rank the ship will play. Bonus nodes should only increase points in addition to the rank and be active after the ship’s passive module node has been activated.

Example. You may freely activate the Engine socket node at Rank 13, but it will mean that you must have at least 1,000 collective points to hit the ‘Apply’ button. If the node is not activated, the bonus behind the node (if there is one) cannot be activated until the socket node is used (as the system is right now). Usually, it should mean that using the socket will cost nothing, but using the upgrade behind that socket node should cost between 150-200% of its current points value.

Finally. Special modules for the ship should cost the following:

  • 45 points for “Hive”;
  • 65 points for “Combat Reconstructor”;
  • 95 points for “Condensing Crystals”;
  • 135 points for “Crystal Predator”.

 

There it is fellas. Now give me my Nobel Prize.

2

How about 3 words:

Remove, the, ship.

No but seriously tho, good advices, also consider who is playing it and how they are playing it, some people can get their Thar’Gas buffed to hell and back like 3 times and still do bad if they don’t know how to position themselves and what targets to prioritize, or how to hit them in the first place, most of the “good” Thar’Gas usually come in squads and use the typical Inhibitor Swarm-Thar’Kth build, stripping interceptors by the main characteristic that keeps them alive and bursting them down, now that they increased the spread by a hefty amount, having a pinpoint shotgun will require you to have a build for it, but being able to use Thar’Kth on lower ranks is not very fun to deal with, the weapon can be researched in the R11 node, yet you can use it on a R6 Thar’Ga and above, so limiting the Thar’Kth to its R15 version but extending its use to R11 would make more sense since on that Rank you would face R15 ships, yet you would still have the low-rank buffs to aid you, as much as they can. Yet removing the lower ranks versions everyone “grinded” would stir more complaining, you just cannot make everyone happy, I get the feeling people like to complain.

Also limiting the ship from going fast so it cannot use its adaptive membrane and shield as well as the Predator’s instinct with a tackler can help, making it an easy target it’s also obviously going to help you in killing it, or trying to 1v1 the ship can help, lure it away from your dying allies so it cannot get buffed and you can stand a chance in defeating it, if you know what your’re doing of course.

It could be great if they would remove the 50% healing reduction cap, I mean, even with half the healing that seems like too much, yet being able to also reduce it to very low amounts would make sense, as I said, the Spying Drones and Phase Suppressor will make those heals mean pretty much nothing, you cannot miss with the drones, the Suppressor on the other hand, build firerate and hope, also remember the Armada Plasma web on Peregrine, yet there is a chance that nobody on your team might have any of those, very low but they still are, so the classic teamwork will do.

Uhm, rant?

3

Horre shet thudrflym said something serious, implement this suggestion NAO ![:D](<fileStore.core_Emoticons>/emoticons/006j.png “:D”)

4

I’m OK with the 2 first suggestions (since I suggested them myself on other threads). 

 

But I’m against the last one. Because instead of making it OP, it would make it useless. 

Reasons :

  • You forget that Thar Ga have a permanent malus to heals which makes survival modules and engineers quite useless. And this malus must be compensated by slots (combat/regenerative shield, matter absorber). 

You can consume like 3/4 slots on items that are here ONLY as an alternative shield Booster/repair kit. 

  • it should be more powerful then other ships. Special ships ARE more powerful then standard ships. Not by a lot but they do. 

Ellydium ships should be too. The problem here is that it’s too much. 

  • And I’ll repeat myself, but you must not forget that it has tons of entirely new mechanics. 

Extremely slow acceleration. Permanent heal malus. Self harming.

But to compensate, they have extremely powerful motor slots. And good regeneration by passive slots with their own mechanics too. 

You can’t just give it the same stats as everybody. 

 

 

But let’s be honest, Thar Ga by itself isn’t OP. It is alien items that are. 

  • Combat shield

  • Matter absorber 

  • Thar Kth/Thar Ga tok

  • Inhibitor swarm 

  • Alien intuition 

  • Sphere of swiftness 

  • Teleportation sphere 

 

 

That’s what makes Thar Ga OP.  

These mechanics are still new to the game. Once they’ve balanced it, it’ll be fine. 

Give them some time. ![:)](<fileStore.core_Emoticons>/emoticons/001j.png “:)”)

5

31 minutes ago, Swifter43021 said:

  • it should be more powerful then other ships. Special ships ARE more powerful then standard ships. Not by a lot but they do. 

why? I mean, special ships are powerful because of their speciality and cookie cut opportunities. They aren’t to be more powerful overall in the balance, and the whole balancing of it kinda relies on a choice based optimization. Besides that powerful is a descriptive term anyway, it should not be more powerful, imho.

32 minutes ago, Swifter43021 said:

Extremely slow acceleration. Permanent heal malus. Self harming.

I would not call it extremely slow - maybe for its class. Their Blood magic seems fine tho, and neglectable.

The Permanent heal malus I can’t really read from the stats, however their self healing is not affected by counter-healing-debuffs, and other classes have healing maluses anyway.

None of these downsides are competing with the multiple upsides imho in power.

Of course the ship itself isn’t magicly op, being op is always imbalance on multiple fronts. But in the whole mechanics of the game, it gets max movement, regeneration+tank, damage and additional spellery - something no other ship unifies without sacrificing. So it really needs no “rational defense arguments” imho. In fact, reading your statement kinda reads almost sarcastic: it’s not op. just following list of parts of it make it so strong: …

Not saying your call to patience isn’t right, but I think, the message to the devs should be clear, this still needs finetuning. I would find it strange if we cant agree upon that ![:)](<fileStore.core_Emoticons>/emoticons/001j.png “:)”) So I read it as a calming voice in the discussion, that might be too early as third post ![:p](<fileStore.core_Emoticons>/emoticons/004.png “:p”) 

About the proposed changes I cannot say too much tho, I kinda do not care how it is done, and I lack the experience, and therefore the ideas, what could make the ship better, without destroying its speciality. It does have a lot of abilities that sound cool, and are underused, so I would not fear if some strengths get nerfed, it still has potential for discovering new imbalances we didn’t even see yet - the damage/speed/regen is just the most obviously op fit - and given it’s a gunship, I think it is intentional, to get out the “theoretically strongest” fighting ship of Ellydium first, especially to balance in these spells.

In that regard, reducing the slots in isolation to all other interconnected balancing mechanics is maybe not a good idea, on it’s own, but maybe there should be a good reason, to reduce slots aswell on the ship for the fitting itself, when you make the choices, to balance it out correctly. It might also mean, other ships might get later additional slot choices aswell, so we dont know the long term plan yet. That’s why I would disagree with the third one. But it is yet another upside of the ship, yes.

as I said in another thread, I find it strange it gets also access to crew implants aswell. Instead of nerfing its abilities, it could maybe be adjusted on that level. But yet again, it begs the question, what the big plan is for all the other Ellydium ships.

6

+999999999999999999999 to this suggestion. Especially the 9 slots cap.

7

Don’t misunderstand. 

I’m not saying the ship is balanced and it should stay as it is. 

But IMO giving the same stats as any other ships is going in the wrong direction. 

 

Take a deeper look at what Thar Ga is, and you’ll understand how devs wanted to balance it. 

Extremely slow acceleration (not lying, worse then a frigate). But magically, swiftness increase acceleration (while cruise don’t). Which leave us 3 possibilities :

  • Swiftness (+ rotation usually)

  • Anti-friction build (its much better then you’d expect, it increases strafe acceleration too, with cheetah it’s niiiice).

  • Or no acceleration build. But a single slow or collision, and you take 10 seconds to get your speed back (literally). 

 

Then, we have 50% permanent healing malus. But magically once again we have better healing modules, that comes with specific mechanics. 

Which leave us a few choices here too :

  • Don’t bother about regen, go full tank. And take hours to regen. 

  • Go passive regen, but be less tanky then other ships. 

  • Go active regen, tankier but less effective

  • Use your special for healing purpose but less damage. 

 

Finally we have self harming modules but more powerful then standard modules which give us a final choice :

  • More effectiveness, but more dangerous to use

  • Just plain classic modules

 

Devs clearly made things so that we had to make choices. 

It’s just that these choices aren’t fully balanced yet. 

 

 

IMO what should be done is :

  • all alien active and special should have self harming, that is big enough to have an importance

  • Using regen passive should decrease tank or mobility

So instead of a basic nerf that reduce the “funy” part of ellydium ships we can do an interesting like :

 

Alien intuition :

Reduced to 50% damage buff for 10 seconds

The lock debuff isn’t removed by reboot anymore (you used it, you knew it)

Self harming increased to 1k2 hull points

 

Matter absorber :

Heals still stacks. BUT, matter absorber reduce all hull resistances by 20.

 

Combat shield :

Can’t equip more then one.

Taking damage reduce the ship speed and maneuverability by 10%. 

 

Teleportation sphere :

Works only on double tap

10% of your current hull (min 800) as self damage on activation

 

Combat reconstructor :

Stay as it is. Decrease mobility when active (because self harming on a healing special is stupid). 

 

Inhibitor swarm :

900 self damage on activation

 

Missile reload:

Renamed “Hard reset” 

Fully reload all missiles, cooldown entirely the weapons (without stopping fire), and refresh the cooldown of all alien modules. 

1k self damage. 

 

 

That should already make things more balanced. 

8

Inhibitor swarm should be a tackler module, not gunship. Tackler’s job is to tackle too fast ships. Gunship should be for doing damage.

Thar’kth damage should be nerfed by about 30%. It’s plainly too high, even without alien intuition.

9

I built it, and after 4 days it was boring. No fun in this ship, just boring. My aspiration to reach r15 with this madness, is gone. I do not play to get the key to domination handed beforhand. (exept there is so many thargas that the battle develops into a melee with 2 casts. Mother’thargas & Vigilantes vs Motherthargas & Vigilantes, and the rest must hope that their thargas are better.)

I’d much rather fly a Golden Eagle, but we all know what awaits when choosing that poor xxxx.

10

On 12.2.2017 at 2:41 AM, Shotan said:

…Ships should have no more than 9 slots at rank 11 upwards, and this is a genuine fact. It’s a very disturbing observation to see that you can have 15 module slots on a single ship and even I’m saying this, and I have 13 available to me on my ship. So, instead of having the nodes available for points, let these nodes actively determine by which rank the ship will play. Bonus nodes should only increase points in addition to the rank and be active after the ship’s passive module node has been activated. …

You refer to “passive modules”. And the terminology changed also: I noticed the following terms in the Tharga development roundel:: “socket” & “slot”.

Since my Tharga is only at rank 7, I do not understand the passive module distribution-development over the ranks of the Tharga. If I activate my capacitor slot or not, the passive module slot remains open for putting in a module? Is it a bug?

Would some body please give an outline/list of number of passive module slots per rank of the Tharga?

 

 

11

Now we have a mixture of symbols in the research-roundel which makes it hard to understand what is waht and what influences what, see the added pictures. There seems to be no inherent structure in the symbols.

These classes of symbol types I found not to be coherently linked to specific research/module/activator target classes.

Rather these symbol classes (1.metallic outer circle, 2.solid black background with lighter inner symbol, 3. black symbol w/ lighter background, 4. black symbol with out any frame)  seem thematically mixed over some times. Its confusing.

 

1.metallic outer circle frame

 

2.solid black background with lighter inner symbol and round frame

 

  1. black symbol w/ lighter background and round frame

 

  1. black symbol with out any frame

 

 

P.S. It would cost me Xenocrystalls to understand and make up logic here, but I would like to save up for Ellydium engineer frigate.

 

12

Passive module terminology changed:

We now are faced with two terms in regard with passive modules: “socket” and “slot”. Unfortunately, they are incoherently mixed. Sockets should be left side (roundel) and slot should be right side module grid.

 

 

 

13

55 minutes ago, avarshina said:

You refer to “passive modules”. And the terminology changed also: I noticed the following terms in the Tharga development roundel:: “socket” & “slot”.

Since my Tharga is only at rank 7, I do not understand the passive module distribution-development over the ranks of the Tharga. If I activate my capacitor slot or not, the passive module slot remains open for putting in a module? Is it a bug?

Would some body please give an outline/list of number of passive module slots per rank of the Tharga?

58a08c0a08f8f_cap-socketoff.png.b3694f981a199892f477c6be88c20ee3.png

58a08c0b38d7f_capsocketon.png.08ac02d0c099287c9f3e592e13166f5c.png

You need to validate the change first. Only then the capacitor slot will become active

 

47 minutes ago, avarshina said:

 

1.metallic outer circle frame

58a08d98721aa_roundelsymbol1.png.fc907e2f4d0a552d08cace80146808a6.png

Special module

2.solid black background with lighter inner symbol and round frame

58a08d9913b27_roundelsymbol2.png.482406fe87809a412d558c2546c3e44a.png

Blueprints

  1. black symbol w/ lighter background and round frame

58a08d99ac23e_roundelsymbol3.png.fe89d7914c31fdc2dce7e74d72a86ee9.png

Offensive/Defensive nodes

  1. black symbol with out any frame

58a08d9a474f0_roundelsymbol4.png.4c289478d4fe87efef1c86d6fd85de6b.png

Base stats buff

P.S. It would cost me Xenocrystalls to understand and make up logic here, but I would like to save up for Ellydium engineer frigate.

 

 

14

Blueprints - for all sorts of modules (passive, active, special. weapons?)

Offensive/Defensive nodes - “nodes”, … you mean ranks, sockets, slots, or … what? Or the same as Base stats buff , see below?

Base stats buff - o.k. this would be permanent stats buff as long as activated, like crew implants or like ship bonusses according to synergy-level ranks in old ships?

 

58a08d98721aa_roundelsymbol1.png.fc907e2f4d0a552d08cace80146808a6.png Can one switch between these special modules (see left) in upper ranks? That would be nice!

15

31 minutes ago, Swifter43021 said:

You need to validate the change first. Only then the capacitor slot will become active

Ahhh !! I did this, result is: still 4 passive modules in rank 5 Tharga, because another module slot got de-activated. However, one has 3 passive module slots in rank 5 from beginning (that is without any research done) ?

How many in ranks 6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15? is it fixed per rank or variable?

16

There is absolutely no reason, why ellydium ships should be stronger than standard ships. They should only be allowed to be different. Here is the reason why:

people, who grinded for ellydium ships tend to be more experienced than most beginners in badly equipped ships. And then the experienced players get to fight nabs in way stronger ships.

Ships, that face each other in battle should always be in balance. Ellydium needs to be an other faction, that gets unlocked as a endgame content. Ellydium can not be something, that is plain superior to Jericho, the Empire and the Federation.

Limiting the passive slots to 9 would force people to compromise, like on any other ship. My Saw One for example works really well as a allround fighter. It would be op af, if i had 6 more slots to play with. You can not have a ship, that is fast, tanking, regenerating and damaging at the same time. Pick two or build an allrounder.

17

On 12.2.2017 at 7:26 PM, Scar6 said:

… people, who grinded for ellydium ships tend to be more experienced than most beginners in badly equipped ships. And then the experienced players get to fight nabs in way stronger ships.

A good point! We have that situation. Maybe is intended to get Aces to buy Tharga? Other question is why would pros do that? Partial answer is self-gain (up in player stats, medals) or producing data theat motivates devs to nerf Tharga.

 

On 12.2.2017 at 7:26 PM, Scar6 said:

…Ships, that face each other in battle should always be in balance. Ellydium needs to be an other faction, that gets unlocked as a endgame content. Ellydium can not be something, that is plain superior to Jericho, the Empire and the Federation…

There is the concept of offensiv counter vs offensive counter and offensive counter vs defensive counter (main gun vs main gun; main gun interceptor facing destroyer auto turrets or attack drones). Why the ranks up to 15 where allowed on first release is … something not everyone would subscribe to.

On 12.2.2017 at 7:26 PM, Scar6 said:

…Limiting the passive slots to 9 would force people to compromise, like on any other ship. My Saw One for example works really well as a allround fighter. It would be op af, if i had 6 more slots to play with. You can not have a ship, that is fast, tanking, regenerating and damaging at the same time. Pick two or build an allrounder.

Imho, 15 slots would increase variety of builds, but modules should not be so strong. In the end only the Ellydium ship line will prevail and beginners of this game will start with a Tharga at rank5 or 1 … and old ship tree will be History. That transition needs time and we are now in a phase of heavy -interesting, and promising- evolution (Thats what this version is called : “1.4.0x Evolution”)

 

18

55 minutes ago, Scar6 said:

There is absolutely no reason, why ellydium ships should be stronger than standard ships. They should only be allowed to be different. Here is the reason why:

people, who grinded for ellydium ships tend to be more experienced than most beginners in badly equipped ships. And then the experienced players get to fight nabs in way stronger ships.

Ships, that face each other in battle should always be in balance. Ellydium needs to be an other faction, that gets unlocked as a endgame content. Ellydium can not be something, that is plain superior to Jericho, the Empire and the Federation.

Limiting the passive slots to 9 would force people to compromise, like on any other ship. My Saw One for example works really well as a allround fighter. It would be op af, if i had 6 more slots to play with. You can not have a ship, that is fast, tanking, regenerating and damaging at the same time. Pick two or build an allrounder.

They have malus.

So they need bonus too.

19

Remove all healing from external sources including repair kits on maps.