GK Plasma Cannon Dreadnought

Issues dealing with gameplay balance.
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Adeptus Noobus
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GK Plasma Cannon Dreadnought

Postby Adeptus Noobus » Sun 17 Nov, 2019 2:22 pm

Since I am lazy, I will just copy+pasta the Discord discussion here:

Code: Select all

02:34] Adeptus Noobus: how do you guys feel about the p-dev dreadnought?ß
[08:39] combustible orange: It is probably the best range upgrade you can get out of all the range options for dreadnoughts.
[09:02] Shroom: its pretty much team game only
[09:03] Shroom: its 100% useless in melee, as compared to 50% useless in melee for normal ranged dreads
[09:03] Shroom: for a 150 power unit thats really bad
[09:36] combustible orange: Yeah, in team games, it has the best scaling range upgrade
[09:37] combustible orange: I wish ven. dreadnought has options for range
[12:11] Boss: pdevs dread are dumb
[12:11] Boss: should never became a thing into this mod
[12:27] Boss: its like a t2 fire prism/assault cannon dread with 1300 hp
[12:27] Boss: balanced
[13:32] Adeptus Noobus: I share your opinion, Boss and Shroom: It is useless in a competitive context but (imho) blatantly OP in teamgames.

- (almost) Assault Cannon level damage from the heavy bolter
- Plasma Cannon (range 44) on a walker (ability KB incl. on each shot)
- 1300hp (100hp more than SM Dread)
- has access to Maelstrom (in case it ever got caught in melee)
- 550/150
- anti-all, never seizing to scale

You also can't counter it like a P-Dev because the windup is much shorter (0.6s vs 2s).

All in all, this variant either needs re-balancing or just needs to be dropped.
[13:34] Shroom: with maelstrom its 650/180
[13:34] Shroom: or 650/170? idr
[13:34] Shroom: thats pretty much super unit cost right there
[13:34] Shroom: and it falls off pretty hard in tier 3
[14:11] Adeptus Noobus: how does it fall-off?
[14:11] Adeptus Noobus: it is a p-dev dreadnought
[14:11] Adeptus Noobus: plasma dmg
[14:11] Adeptus Noobus: ability kb
[14:11] Adeptus Noobus: on a walker
[14:12] Shroom: because tanks exist
[14:12] Adeptus Noobus: it removes the only threat for GK T3
[14:12] Adeptus Noobus: well not the only
[14:12] Boss: Tanks lose to it
[14:12] Boss: 1300 heath
[14:12] Adeptus Noobus: but pretty much removes ranged infantry from the board
[14:12] Shroom: uh
[14:12] Shroom: lol
[14:12] Shroom: if you want to tell me that a laspred or a vanquisher leman loses to pdread
[14:13] Shroom: then youre delusional
[14:13] Adeptus Noobus: and GK have av setups now
[14:13] Adeptus Noobus: and its T2
[14:18] Adeptus Noobus: Conversion Beamer >> Chaos Havocs >> SM Lascannon
[14:19] Adeptus Noobus: 220 dph from max range - 165 dph from minimum range - which would be SM Lascannon level


I would really like some input on this unit. I think it fulfills too many roles/closes too many gaps in the GK roster. It basically removes 99% of ranged infantry from the field (i.e. much needed Plasma Weaponry against GK infantry).
Since the introduction of the Conversion Beamer, GK should not really fear Tanks in T3 too, closing that avenue as well, making the P-Dev Dread safe against vehicles too.
So they have strong AV options now (can even buff their dmg substantially), have good anti-infantry too, range superiority as well.
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Re: GK Plasma Cannon Dreadnought

Postby PianoMan » Sun 17 Nov, 2019 2:42 pm

GK plasma dread doesn't fit how you want to play the race, it is absolutely useless in 1v1s and the only reason it's somewhat useful in 3s is because every 3v3 player is mostly clueless and they have zero coordination, I would never dare buy a PDread against a high level team but these don't exist
worthless unit choice that only works against incompetent players
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Adeptus Noobus
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Re: GK Plasma Cannon Dreadnought

Postby Adeptus Noobus » Sun 17 Nov, 2019 2:56 pm

PianoMan wrote:GK plasma dread doesn't fit how you want to play the race, it is absolutely useless in 1v1s and the only reason it's somewhat useful in 3s is because every 3v3 player is mostly clueless and they have zero coordination, I would never dare buy a PDread against a high level team but these don't exist
worthless unit choice that only works against incompetent players

Anything in particular you could provide as foundation for your opinion?
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Re: GK Plasma Cannon Dreadnought

Postby PianoMan » Sun 17 Nov, 2019 3:02 pm

Adeptus Noobus wrote:
PianoMan wrote:GK plasma dread doesn't fit how you want to play the race, it is absolutely useless in 1v1s and the only reason it's somewhat useful in 3s is because every 3v3 player is mostly clueless and they have zero coordination, I would never dare buy a PDread against a high level team but these don't exist
worthless unit choice that only works against incompetent players

Anything in particular you could provide as foundation for your opinion?

Investing so much into a unit that's incredibly slow and requires you to babysit it can never work, especially on a race that requires so much power-investment as GK do
I'm not sure where your problem is coming from, the unit is straight up useless, I played a lot of GK last patch and never even thought about buying a dread for them and I'm pretty sure that now that their ranged in t2 is even more useless (unless vs SM/WSE) it's not any better
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Shroom
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Re: GK Plasma Cannon Dreadnought

Postby Shroom » Mon 18 Nov, 2019 4:02 am

Honestly, after playing the test build i can safely say that gk is the last race that needs nerfs in this mod. After playing Eversor on the beta build I came to realize that GK actually have the worst roster in the game.
In 2.9.2 they get carried by BC (WatH, mind blades, ward, paladins(BC exclusive)). This may not be true in 2.9.3, considering the upcoming BC rework.
We should wait to see how the upcoming builds of the beta go before nerfing a unit that costs 550/150, is only good in team games, doesnt scale well in tier 3, and can be tied up by artillery spotters.
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Re: GK Plasma Cannon Dreadnought

Postby Torpid » Mon 18 Nov, 2019 7:05 pm

I think walkers are pretty unviable in team games anyway due to how slow they are yet how expensive making them easy to take out in doubles and making the team that went them take a major step backwards in tech making them lose vs enemy tanks/elite t3 troops.

The GK plasma dread is i guess the best dread in teams because you use the flamer version to get off a bash then make it plasma and keep it defensively camping a vp... but it has poor synergy with the rest of the GK race that are mostly melee so it can't set up a great firing line and enemy AV teams will screen it well. Meanwhile it costs more than any other dreadnought (even more yet with maelstrom, literaly reaching super unit levels of cost)... I really don't think it is OP at all. I think it is quite well balanced.

In 1v1 of course it is even worse since the fact it can't shoot or even retaliate when it is being melee'd just means it gets isolated and made irrelevant by all the melee that exists in 1v1 (since melee is way better there).
Lets make Ordo Malleus great again!
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boss
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Re: GK Plasma Cannon Dreadnought

Postby boss » Tue 19 Nov, 2019 12:06 am

For a mostly melee race there seem to me mostly range only purifiers and grey knight terminators are melee and there good in range as well, strike squad can also become range . Maybe that why gk are always having problems guys can't even see what unit roles are.

Anyways for the dread plasma cannon not only is this something new but poorly thought out you got a dread with 1300 hp with a plasma cannon on it with a almost assault canon dps weapon as well and it only weakness is to melee it on a race called gk with already good control on a lot of units as well as this thing getting control as well. I think only reason why people not complained about it before cos well there other broken things about gk and this is just a hidden one waiting to be shown.
Forums great more stuff to talk about.
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Telos
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Re: GK Plasma Cannon Dreadnought

Postby Telos » Tue 19 Nov, 2019 6:35 am

Torpid wrote:it has poor synergy with the rest of the GK race that are mostly melee so it can't set up a great firing line and enemy AV teams will screen it well. Meanwhile it costs more than any other dreadnought (even more yet with maelstrom, literaly reaching super unit levels of cost)... I really don't think it is OP at all. I think it is quite well balanced.

In 1v1 of course it is even worse since the fact it can't shoot or even retaliate when it is being melee'd just means it gets isolated and made irrelevant by all the melee that exists in 1v1 (since melee is way better there).


This may not suggest a balance problem but it seems like a design problem no? If the unit is too expensive/impractical to warrant making in a game, but too OP to make cheaper/more useful than it already is, why not offload some of its utility or strength (perhaps to another upgrade) to make it cheaper and fill some niche where the race is lacking?

For example, the plasma knockback could be removed so it's less disruptive to GK melee blobs (the tradeoff being the friendly fire but presumably the damage would be bigger problem for the enemy units).

The default balancing for this mod seems to be around unit price/damage/hp, but many complaints around what makes something OP/UP seem to revolve around what that unit provides and its relative value. Since GK are a completely unique race created by the devs, what's stopping them from considering what role a unit like the dred is supposed to fill in the GK T2 in relation to what gaps they need filled in T2 and balancing it that way?
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Torpid
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Re: GK Plasma Cannon Dreadnought

Postby Torpid » Tue 19 Nov, 2019 11:26 am

Telos wrote:This may not suggest a balance problem but it seems like a design problem no? If the unit is too expensive/impractical to warrant making in a game, but too OP to make cheaper/more useful than it already is, why not offload some of its utility or strength (perhaps to another upgrade) to make it cheaper and fill some niche where the race is lacking?

For example, the plasma knockback could be removed so it's less disruptive to GK melee blobs (the tradeoff being the friendly fire but presumably the damage would be bigger problem for the enemy units).

The default balancing for this mod seems to be around unit price/damage/hp, but many complaints around what makes something OP/UP seem to revolve around what that unit provides and its relative value. Since GK are a completely unique race created by the devs, what's stopping them from considering what role a unit like the dred is supposed to fill in the GK T2 in relation to what gaps they need filled in T2 and balancing it that way?


I think it is doing that already - its role is filling the niche of no artillery support for OM, and solidifying their ranged firing lines letting them compete with races like orks w/ weirdboy or IG in a way they can't otherwise, but, it leaves them vulnerable to melee and T3 units because, well, OM are not meant to be good at stuff. Hence why it ends up being a niche unit, but clearly it can't be -that- niche if some people think it is OP.

Tbh I think this is like Pdevs and pretty much all other artillery though - about 5x stronger in 3v3 than 1v1 due to the map layout, how melee is less effective and how VP stand-offs are more common.

Still, as I said above don't think it is OP in 3v3.
Lets make Ordo Malleus great again!

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