The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

The Thraddash Torch has recently caused controversy on these forums and within the net melee community. Among the regulars players, most think it should be banned from play without exception. I tend to agree with them. The video I'm about to link you to will be the bulk of my argument. I have taken great pains in putting this together. If you do not feel inclined to watch my documentery in its entirety, your voice will not be taken seriously on this matter.

Thraddash Demo (http://www.zshare.net/video/444828870f2d11/=) (49.7 MB)

Click the "770" button near the bottom as soon as you open the page to get a decent view when it's done loading.

Mission accomplished.



A 10 point ship laying waste to everything in sight is pretty imbalanced. The problem is compounded by how long it takes for Thraddash to actually beat anything. If you don't yet see how bad the ship is for gameplay, I've got that same video without subtitles for you to watch if you want it.



Mycon really is impossible for Thraddash to beat. In a previous attempt I actually tried my damndest to make Koowluh blow himself up, but he always healed himself when he went below 50% crew. Mycon heals itself faster than Thraddash can damage it. Thraddash just isn't going to win unless the Mycon player has no idea what they're doing.

Thanks for the super-awesome strategy for beating the Chmmr!

In all seriousness though, Thraddash vs. Thraddash is one of THE most entertaining matches out there (and certainly the most entertaining mirror match, IMHO). It's like playing out that scene from TRON. Hmm, maybe we should have a 40-point, Thraddash-only tournament....

Perhaps I showed up to the conversation late, but does anyone have any suggestions for properly nerfing the Thraddash if they are, indeed, overpowered?  Or is this one of those "here's a problem, make it go away" types of suggestions?

Because if it's the latter, I'm fairly certain I know where those are filed.  ;)

As for tinkering with ship properties for the sake of game balance, I'd be all for it; the "Starcraft model" can be followed (i.e., in the "normal" game, the busted balance prevails due to the levels being designed with it in mind, but in PvP/net games, everything's retuned for optimum fun)

Actually, I made this topic so that the next time some newbie asks "why is Thraddash 200 points?" or "why is Thraddash barred from this tournament?", I'll have something to point them at.

I don't think anyone should be screwing with vanilla ship values, but I've always loved the idea of modding the ships a bit for a balance mod. The simplest change I can think of would be to cut the Thraddash blaster range down by a third or so, but I'm not really sure how well that would work.

Why not?  Bugs are bugs, and design flaws are just bugs that happen to be backed by correct code.  But your final match would appear to undo your own argument:  the Podship and Cruiser can both make short work of the Torch (the former more reliably than the latter)  So what exactly is the problem?  You guys just hate to use the counter-ships to this ship, so you ban this ship instead?

The Chmmr fight is a damn shame, though.  The relative immunity the Torch has against the Avatar's weapons definitely smells of bugliness.  I'd think the following attribute changes could mitigate that:

• Reduce the range of the Mark VI blaster to medium-short (roughly what the Shofixti has) from medium-long, to make standoff tactics riskier
  
• Reduce the hitpoints of the Mark VI blaster's projectile to 1, so that zapsats can neutralize it.  Why should it fare better than a Cruiser or an Eluder in this regard?
• Reduce the mass of the ship so that the tractor beam is more effective.

...those are all just integer values in src/sc2code/ships/thradd/thradd.c, re-tuning them is a no-brainer, then just check the balance against other ships to make sure it's still worth a damn when it should be.

If you wanted to look beyond simple re-tuning of parameters, you might also want to look into why the Torch is immune to its own afterburner trails, and fix it if it's trivial to do so.  Makes no sense, it should be like the B.U.T.T. missles / Homing plasma in that regard, i.e., a good weapon, but with risks associated.

My $0.02 USD, which ain't worth much these days...  :)

No no no. A real counter situation is when Druuge beats Chmmr. The Chmmr can fight back and actually pull one over on the Druuge if it's cleverly piloted.  Druuge is a 17 point ship, and when you use it to counter Chmmr you're making a risky play. There is no risk in using the much cheaper Thraddash to smash something. It's so cheap and effective it's just absurd.

These ships beat Thraddash easily: Kohr-Ah, Melnorme, Druuge, Mycon, Mmrnmhrm. Unless I'm forgetting something, that's pretty much it. Everything that can counter Thraddash costs more than it. In other words, those ships I mentioned aren't really counters at all. The Earthling Cruiser doesn't work that well against Thraddash. Do I need to do a video of that too?


I would much rather there be a widely used balance mod. The flaws in the game that net melee fanatics like me complain about are not going to become apparent to any casual gamer. How many players have actually experienced a truly awful match that was decided by a Thraddash Torch? Not many. The top players around here all refuse to use Thraddash.

Apology accepted. It was truly a boring and horrible match... 5 times.

Anyone seeing this and wanting to go a round with me, sure is invited to join #uqm-arena and/or send me a PM. I may not be on #uqm-arena much, but don't hesitate to ask if I am.

I want my 25 minutes back. Even the commentary doesn't keep this from being boring. I think it could be a good idea to have an alternate set of ship stats for netplay, with, for example, the Torch's range and mass cut down sharply as 0xDECODE00 suggests. Another suggestion is to gradually start adding random destructive stuff to the environment (black holes or something like planets but worse would be cool).

Now, how about doing the same for Utwig Juggers? ;)

If you’re seriously considering modding the blaster, then I suggest boosting the max crew to 14. Fourteen crew allows you survive two 6-damage or three 4-damage shots (up from one 6-damage and one 4-damage shots, respectively).

I think this change - along with the weakend blaster - would encourage more daring and aggressive afterburner tactics (you’re not constantly worrying about a quick death) and thus, much more entertaining fights. Testing is required, of course.

I've grown weary of attempting to voice a rational argument why the Traddash should not and never be excluded from melee matches. After watching the video; it occurred to me that (if I recall correctly) the original contention was that the Traddash was a worthless ship, which of course it's not. When were the gears switched on that one? o_O As for ruthlessly boring matches... Several ships can do that including: Androsyn, Spathi and Slylandro. Whatever… I find myself not caring so much anymore.

I don't remember you or anyone making a real case in favor of Thraddash. What I do remember is you repeatedly insisting on your God-Given Right to continue to abuse the Torch. That in itself is not going to sway many people towards your point of view.



EP has said that, not me. And he'd be wrong, but I think he meant that Thraddash is useless if both players in a melee are willing to adhere to sportsmanlike conduct.



Androsynth: Yes, there are a few match-ups which can be tedious. The "Bubble Bath" strategy is obnoxious, but IMO it's legitimate against fast skirmishers such as Arilou. Everyone and their brother knows that Androsynth is overpowered at 15 points, but ramping up the price on it fixes that quite easily.

Spathi: Spathi is not a problem, it's the players that use it. The Spathi has short ranged weaponry, so in actuality it has to go on the offensive against most other ships. The problem is that tons of players use it like they use Fwiffo in the campaign and expect their opponent to chase them forever.

Slylandro: Not a serious problem.

I have never seen a Slylandro dragging a match. I can't even think of any situation where it would be possible. Unless someone wants to troll by just fleeing endlessly - but as I said - I have never seen such an act.

The whole argument is totally biased anyway! The video is an admittedly top tier Traddash playing an intermediate player. The Traddash should have NEVER beaten the Chmrr. The Syreen never tried to grav-whip at him. You can create any circumstances to argue any point. I’m not convinced. I hear that the Traddash should have a little more crew. That it’s projectile should be a little less tough -or travel less distance. I really don’t know what tweaks would make it acceptable to the top players. All I know is when a newbie comes to #uqm-arena they are not expecting a bunch of politics and bull crap. And that’s what this is….. CRAP!  ALL THE SHIPS ARE COOL IN SOME WAY! I'm really sorry if your lofty melee skills have dulled your enjoyment of certain ships. YOU ARE THE MINORITY! This "CLICK” IMHO, is making a political mistake.
But I don't count right? I "abuse the torch"... right? My playing style sucks right? A most unfair determination I feel.

This is a clumsy argument, but you're hinting at something that I happen to agree with. Is Thraddash abusive when two casual players go up against each other? No, it's not. When people begin to play melee more competitively, that's where the problem kicks in.



You're not exactly a shit player either. From what I remember, you're good enough at melee that Thraddash can be (and is) game breaking.



Is that what I'm projecting now? Forgive me, It's not what I was going for. I wanted you to post your perspective in here so there'd be a counter-point of some sort.

I wasn't able to view it, but I've seen Thraddash in play, and personally taken it against Chmmr twice, to demonstrate that it could beat Chmmr, with Thraddash player willing to play a borefest: Once against Squisherxxx, once against Shiver. The first time was cut off by me having to take in groceries, and thus disrupted my skill, resulting in a death after fifteen or more wasted minutes; the game against Shiver was disrupted by Shiver realizing the futility of it and quitting.

The Torch's only useful ability is people getting frustrated (because the Torch sits back, flies around, and bravely does nothing) and letting themselves get killed. If both players play to win, Thraddash is nearly useless. If the other player (the one who wants something more interesting) plays for the fun of playing, he'll eventually give up and suicide, either against the Torch's afterburner or the planet.

Thraddash is only overpowered in that it is boring, and there is no reliable way to counter that without using a more costly ship. (Even then, it's often more time-consuming than it should be.)

That said:
The Torch *is* a borefest ship.
The Torch *does* need to be revised.
Whoever disagrees with these statements is a pawn.

However, I do not believe the solution is simply to make it easier for the Avatar to destroy, since the problem isn't in its inherent power (which is actually very limited), as so much its lack of need to close in,  its lack of *ability* to close in (seeing as it is worthless at actually doing damage, unless the other player chooses to let it), and its ability to stay away from everything else (while everything else can evade the Torch almost as well as the Torch can them, resulting in five-hour matches).

The solution is to alter the afterburner into a special that does much less for the Torch's speed (I do like the idea of the flames damaging the Torch), while changing up the main gun so as to make it more interesting. If we lower the Torch's inherent cost to, say, 8, or 7, we can make it a ship that is a counterpart to the ZFP Stinger and Shofixti Scout. It would have a special that does no significant damage, but it would have an excellent gun (for a ship its size), creating an interesting triad -- Shofixti, with a highly-damaging special and weak main gun, Torch, with an ineffectual special damage-wise and a powerful main gun, and ZFP, which is a balance.

As for the other ships:
Androsynth's primary use is in Comet form; while bubbling does work against some ships (Arilou, Pkunk) it's largely useless against most ships, since they can simply choose not to fly into the bubbles, and bide their time until something comes up.

Spathi isn't nearly as boring to fight or fly as Thraddash, since it actually needs to come into a very close range to attack (which exposes it to all kinds of fire) and requires daring and skill to do this, do damage, and avoid taking damage yourself.

Seeing as Slylandro's sole weapon is at close-range, and it is absolute murder at that, I can't see how any problem could be the Slylandro player's fault, unless he's going to have to take on Mmrnmhrm and he doesn't want to walk into the enemy's beam.

As for Amiga_nut...

Have you ever even played Chmmr/Thraddash, as Chmmr? I'm not as good as Shiver, or very likely Squisher, yet in the long run, I did much more damage proportionately (and by "doing damage", I mean, "caused them to take damage by virtue of boring them to death so that they'd make a mistake") than they did to me. Blathering on about how Shiver is so l33t, so the entire video is invalid, will serve you to no end.

Probably because the Torch, a master of borefest combat, would have simply rocketted away, leaving a trail of borefest flames in its wake. There is no point in chasing down Thraddash.

In that case, there's no point in arguing anything about anything, since people can 'create any circumstances to argue any point'.

I wouldn't expect anything else.

Why would a newbie want to play a game that has such a boring ship? Star Control II has flaws: the majority of the galaxy is dedicated to nothing more than featureless mining zones, the plot is rather linear (though still relatively open-ended, you don't have nearly as many options as the game's setup would lead you to suspect), the Quasispace portals are only useful if you have an established guide, and without them you have to trek all over the galaxy, to no apparent end.

However, this flaw affects one of the most relatively good parts of the game, melee, and destroys one-twenty-fifth of potential gameplay. Of twenty-five ships, one of them is completely, deliberately, and maliciously useless, to all those except people who know their opponents will choose to fly into their flames.

What is cool about the Torch? The afterburner? The Umgah Drone does something like that, and it was done better there. The main gun? Sorry, the Torch's gun is one of the most boring ones in the game, and is tempered by the fact that it belongs to the Torch. The flames that spew out the back, serving no purpose save as a suicide mechanism for people tired of dealing with the Torch?

Even if it *was* cool, "cool" does not equal "playability", or even necessarily "fun". UQM is a cool game, but it *is* flawed, and without a guide I would have been hard-pressed to do as well in it as I did. Something being "cool" and something being "fun" are *NOT* the same thing, and the latter is far more important.

I'd dare say that even the newest players of melee would quickly recognize the uselessness of the Torch. And even if not, there *are* no other ships that they have thoughto be this boring.

Some have been thought to not be worth their cost, yes. But they're willing to play all of them to some extent, or allow them to be played.

You've never proved otherwise. The game is about fun, not running around for a hour because you aren't willing to let your Torch die, and the other player isn't willing to suicide.

Shiver knows the Torch is boring.
EP knows the Torch is boring.
Tiberian knows the Torch is boring.
And in fact, everyone that I have seen acknowledges that the Torch is flawed.
Everyone that I have seen acknowledges that, fundamentally, the Torch is a BORING SHIP.
That people chasing after it like headless chickens until they get desperately bored is NOT fun.
That being able to evade nearly everything that can be played against you , yet not being able to do anything significant in return is NOT the mark of a good ship.
That dreading the moment when a Torch is used, not because of its firepower or the player's skill, but because you know in your heart of hearts that, barring a player quitting, bugs in the game or divine intervention, the fight will last as long as the rest of the match, is NOT a sign of good gameplay.
Everyone I know of, in some form or fashion, know this. In many cases, they're willing to overlook it; play a little worse with it, or suicide with it, just to keep the game flowing.
Everyone I know of, except for you.
Tell me, Amiga_Nut: Who's in the minority now?

Download the codecs from this website, it should solve your problem. (http://www.divx.com/divx/windows/)



This is wrong. If both players play at their best and neither one of them stops and says "this is stupid, I'm quitting/conceding/whatever", the Thraddash is ridiculously powerful. The video tries to establish this.

Thanks C-Bob... I don't have the time to disagree with you point by point. So I won’t.

Shiver: "both players playing at their best" doesn't involve the other player walking into Thraddash's attack path. Taking damage from the flames is a matter of choice, and it honestly isn't that hard, at least from my (admittedly dated) recollection to dodge/otherwise avoid/counter its one-shot-at-a-time peashooter, which means that takes forever. Furthermore, the inherent scenario isn't incredibly realistic for standard, non-video ;) games; I've put up with terrible lag, because I wanted to win and it wasn't the guy's fault that he lived in a certain place and/or had such a bad connection, but I wouldn't tolerate long, neverending games with Thraddash. I doubt that the affected player(s) would play so long without quitting that Thraddash would make a huge difference, relative to the cooler ships.

In any case, though, it's ultimately irrelevent, since either way, we can all agree that Thraddash is still a boring ship, and that it should be revised regardless of if it's considered powerful or not in borefest games.

The very first post said I would disregard the opinion of anyone who did not watch the video. I said that as part of the joke, as the first post is a joke post and the video is practically a prank I played on the UQM community. And yet the first person to post in here without viewing it is already wreaking havok.

Let me try to get this across. The Thraddash blaster has insane range. Using the Torch's superior speed and said weapon, it steamrolls almost everything. These fights all take a very, very long time which just adds insult to injury. If you had watched the video, this would be obvious to you. I don't want to clash with you on this. Thraddash is indeed terrible for melee, and Amiga Nut does need a wake-up call. But you're mistaking something which is fundamental to the thread, and I hate that.

Our opinions of 'havoc' would differ, but I don't care that much about the definition of it.

It has been a while since I've played against Thraddash in particular; I remembered it being significantly farther than Shofixti, but not quite *that* high. You've played it more recently, though, so you would know better than me.

It's not that big of a deal to me of the particulars of it; it simply seemed, in theory, that other ships should be able to evade it, and that it'd be hard to aim with. It seemed that way to me, at such long ranges. But you were always more accurate than me.

I actually don't even have the game on my machine any longer, and I was planning on dropping off the face of the Earth, as far as the community knew; however, I just had to drop that last, long post in, when I saw Amiga's stuff. So. ;)

No hard feelings, and safe travels.

- C. Bob

I actually tried a few grav-whips but saw that it was futile to try. The Syreen suiciding was actually miscalculating my last grav-whip to try.

The only time I got close to Shiver with a grav-whip was with the UQ and the Chmmr, and that's (probably) because he let me. One long press on his special key and he was out of my sights again.

I myself am not fond of changing ships, including the Thraddash. I do acknowledge though that if one player actually thinks that he can bore me out with a Thraddash (or a Spathi for that matter), I'd probably quit right away and never play that player again... something that the already not so large netmelee community really can't have.

I'm not the kind of guy either that likes to play 3d shoot em ups and have me snipered to boredom (or sniper to boredom myself). It lacks skill and dedication and basically takes a game down to pressing a button when something comes in view. I had exactly the same feeling playing against Shiver.

So to conclude; I do not think the Thraddash should be changed. I myself am more in favor of an 'attitude'  change, which basically is that if you see someone dragging a match (with any ship, not just the Thraddash)... quit. Never play that player again. That is however one thing that the netmelee community cannot afford. Stuck between the proverbial rock and a hard place so to say.  :-\

Ah, just to say the Thraddash is a really annoying ship which I agree should still be banned, it drags the game on for hours just to annoy people :/

Woo, it has Afterburners, anyone can avoid that..

How about imposing a time-limit?

This isn't a bad idea and has been done before in Cedric's tournaments, but time limits allow for the annoying possibility of stalemates. If I'm losing badly to someone, why not bring in a fast ship and kill a few minutes with it to make sure the game ends in a draw instead of a loss? Or if you put in a time limit for each individual match, that can come out unfair too. A few match-ups tend to play out as long stand-offs without actually being annoying to either player. Mmrnmhrm vs Syreen comes to mind here.

This movie is wrong. I did watch it.
;)

As for the topic of fixing, here are some thoughts:


1) reduce the size of the battery
---- no longer does a fully charged thraddash have a get away free card.

2) blaster changes
2a) make the shot really wide, like the width of the thraddash itself
---- this makes it easier to hit with, and easier to shoot down. About a wash, but I think it'd be interesting.
2b) increase its fire rate
---- easier to hit with when strafing, do more damage if you get a good lineup
2c) increase its cost
---- but you can't keep it up forever; you actually do need to choose between shooting and afterburnering.

3) make the afterburner move backwards, instead of sitting still
---- 'go to them' strategies make more sense in this case.


With this, a recosting to a sane value could be possible.

Time limits are a perfect example of a a problem having a solution that is obvious, straightforward, and wrong.  Shifting the focus from "beating the opponent" to "beating the clock" solves nothing.  And if a draw ends up removing the ships from play, such things could be used strategically, e.g., bring out a low-point ship that dodges well to take out the capital ships.

Although despite the fact that their own argument about the Thraddash is refuted at the end of their own video, the problem of "un-fun melee matches" does, in fact exist, and the Torch is just a symptom of the problem.  Nerfing the ships might cure one of the symptoms, but any reasonably skilled player can cause a match to drag out if the match-up of ships is such to allow for it.  That is the real problem, in my opinion.

But an elegant solution to what I consider "the real problem" might already exist in the full game: the emergency warp escape.  It allows you to switch ships without losing the ship you have in play, but it takes a little bit to spool up, so your opponent gets a free shot or twelve while you duck out of play.  You can then select a decent counter-ship, and it's back to optimum fun.  All the code is there, it's just disabled in the super-melee game.

Not to say that adding it into super-melee wouldn't be problematic.  In the full-game, using the warp escape with an escort ship removes it from play for the rest of the battle, so you effectively "lose" it, but don't lose all the RUs it took to build it.  This is undoubtedly because game states like limpet count, etc. are not properly persistent, so this would need to be fixed in order to keep it from becoming a way to "unfuck" your ship if it gets hobbled.  Or, it could temporarily remove the ship from play (i.e., make it un-selectable for one or two turns) and the "healing" aspect could be considered a side-effect/feature.  Either way, some code would need to be thrown at the problem; but I'd think it a worthy endeavour.

That wouldn't solve the problem at all.

Also, point on how the code currently works:

- if you implement "Flee in Super Melee" in the most naive way, the game will sometimes end before all the ships have been used up, or mess up and give a player a ship selection dialog when that player has no ships left to pick. Not sure how to work around this.

- fleeing in the full game leaves the ship that has escaped with its damage, while extra coding effort would be required to avoid giving a free heal in Super Melee.

I agree wholeheartedly with 0xDEC0DE.

Oh, OK, that settles it then.

No, wait, it doesn't.  Care to explain your position?

Umm, is fixing the code an option?  If it is, it seems like a good one.

You + reading comprehension =
(http://www.submedia.net/~nic/images/fail.jpg)

::)

Never do that again.

I realize EP did actually miss a big chunk of what you were proposing, but that's never a justification for an image macro response.

There, there...  Dry those eyes.  I'm terribly sorry.  Want a hug?  Maybe some ice cream?

If, at any point Elvish Pillager wants to explain where exactly my argument falls apart and/or begin making sense in general, you will have my undivided attention.

I see you've misinterpreted me once again. My most recent post was simply an extremely laconic way of saying the following:

"Now, the fact that I realize my previous post was a bit unhelpful currently doesn't seem like sufficient reason to grace such a sarcastic, obnoxious post with a response. I have no intention of making another post on the actual topic until such time as either you repent, or I decide that it's actually worth it to explain my position, which may or may not be ever, especially considering that this argument has been gone through before. Also, did I mention how incredibly stupid that picture is?"

Also, it's bad style to switch from referring to something in the third person to referring to it in the second person, especially within one sentence. If you're going to be sarcastic and obnoxious, at least use impeccable grammar.

I hope that was understandable; I realize my sentences might be a bit complicated in their construction for the general consumption... ::)

I don't think you understood me, so I will restate myself in your native language.

(http://losser.st-lab.cs.uu.nl/~adam/lexical_macros_are_bad.jpg)

I would definitly agree with reducing the range on the Torch, after watching that video its quite clear that the range is just too much. I couldnt sit through the whole thing, but Im guessing it was the same hit and run tactic against the other ships.  While I do love the Torch, I would agree that using it is definetly very very boring, and frankly the whole point of melee is to have fun.

I agree that fighting with a Torch can be boring. Really boring. But how is that different from other nearly impossible match-ups? Think about putting two Mycon together. Or
what about a Pkunk ship that happens to regenerate a lot against a slow ship? You'd
end up with boring games and, in the case of th Pkunk, an unbeatable ship.
There have been a few times when I've had battles that dragged on and on and (yes) on.

In the end, your options are stick it out or forfeit. I think having a timer on the battles to
force an escape, re-select ships would be a good thing to implement. If both
players are down to one ship each, then call it a stalemate.

I've never seen anyone allow this match-up to occur, even as a joke. That said, I bet it wouldn't really go on forever. If both Mycons do a gravity whip, I can easily see one of them getting knocked off their course by an asteroid and then ending up dead very quickly afterwards.



Uh, no. I've never seen a bad match-up that was caused by Pkunk, even with mega-spawning. In comparison to Arilou, Pkunk is not that bad. If Pkunk is up against Chmmr or something, it just dies almost instantly.



I advocated this before netplay even came out, but now I see that it's not a great idea. Why? Because no good player is going to allow a ship they countered to get away just because it's running around a whole lot. Allowing stalemates to occur would encourage people to fly their fast ship away from anything it can't beat (Arilou vs Chmmr?) and insist that the other player greenlight their absurd idea of gameplay.

I find the Fury more annoying than the Torch, because a game of patience is still better than a game of chance imho.

One fun idea for handling stalemates imho would be to let each player chose a bonus. Extended range, increased damage, increased thrust, increased turning speed, things like that. And the player who dealt the last damage gets to pick last, so there's still an incentive to deal damage, even when the time for chosing bonuses is near. Instead of chosing a bonus for yourself you could also chose to apply a penalty to the opponent.

Depending on what kind of penalties there are and how balanced they are, picking them for another person could be disastrous. I'd rather pick the penalty for myself than leave the choice up to my opponent.

Another way of picking penalties/bonusses then could be a "random" one, much like the battle arena in Final Fantasy 7. After each battle, you have to hit a button to select a penalty from a quasi-random pool. A similar system might work here, perhaps even a combo of both. In the background, a coin is flipped to decide whether someone receives a bonus or a penalty, and with the press of a button, the player stops a "wheel of fortune" (lame comparison I know) which decides which bonus/penalty the ship gets.

Another idea might be to have a sudden death mode where the planet turns into a black hole and starts sucking in the rest of space, decreasing the size of the arena (leaving the gravity for the ships intact for the sake of gameplay). Anyone who hits the black hole first (or has his/her crew reduced to 0) loses.

Oh, before someone drops the "Great, let me know when you have the code for it" on me, I'm just brainstorming here. I have no intention of creating it myself (unless I get struck by lightning and suddenly know how to C). If you need me for something else that someone non-programmy, non-graphical-designy can do, I'm game.

Or, you know, implement running away, like Nic said.

Haven't seen anything substantial against that idea.

I like the running away idea. and i think the ship speed should determine how long it takes.

The inevitability of Arilou, Pkunk and Slylandro fleeing from pretty much anything they don't want to deal with should be enough reason not to allow that feature. Here's another argument against it: Re-usable VUX. Get the drop on something, run to the other side of the map while dumping limpets, retreat from combat and repeat.

The game starts.
Player A gets some ship.
Player B gets a ship that sucks against player A's.
Player B retreats and gets a ship that's awesome against player A's.
Player A retreats and gets a ship that's awesome against player B's.
Player B retreats and gets a ship that's awesome against player A's.
Player A retreats and gets a ship that's awesome against player B's.
Player B retreats and gets a ship that's awesome against player A's.
Player A retreats and gets a ship that's awesome against player B's.
Player B retreats and gets a ship that's awesome against player A's.
Player A retreats and gets a ship that's awesome against player B's.
Player B retreats and gets a ship that's awesome against player A's.
Player A retreats and gets a ship that's awesome against player B's.
Player B retreats and gets a ship that's awesome against player A's.
Player A retreats and gets a ship that's awesome against player B's.
Player B retreats and gets a ship that's awesome against player A's.
Player A retreats and gets a ship that's awesome against player B's.
...

Shiver: What ships would Arilou, Pkunk, Slylandro, or Thraddash not want to deal with?
Which of those threats are both slow and short ranged?

I can see VUX and Chmmr.

As for the VUX threat...
If limpets are removed while warped out, I think this would be reasonably strong, but not broken. Think of what the victim would do -- scare off the VUX far enough that it can't swoop back and fry them, then run away. This removes the limpets. If the VUX is to be effective in the future, it must run as well.
Additionally, if the VUX runs first, then the victim gets to enter combat second, and gets to choose an appropriate ship.


Alephresh:
What you describe is nearly impossible.
There are two cases.

CASE 1: players do not run away until they've seen what ship is coming at them.
Ship 1 loses to ship 2, but ship 1can get away from ship 2 with enough time left over to escape. Okay, that can happen.
Ship 3 beats ship 2, but ship 2 can get away from ship 3 with enough time left over to escape. That will require some serious constraints on the speeds here, but let's call it possible.
But where we really run into trouble is where we need a ship 4 that can beat ship 3, but ship 3 can get away from ship 4 with enough time left over for it to escape.
This isn't going to happen. Sooner or later you're going to hit a wall where the new ship can't be any slower than the previous, and/or some ship that can reach across the map is going to be on the board. Then the cycle ends.

CASE 2: the player that has forced the escape also escapes, shortly after the other.
Ship 1 loses to ship 2, but ship 1 gets away, escapes. Ship 2 also escapes.
Ship 3 shows up.
If ship 3 is a VUX intruder and ship 2 started escaping more than a second after ship 1, it's going to begin ripping into ship 2 like nobody's business.
Otherwise, player 2 gets to pick a counter ship to ship 3.
Player 1 has gained nothing, and given player 2 two things: first, the option to go try case 1 if they want; and second, a decent amount of time to get a grav whip.



To the extent that these objections have merit, which is some, I'd suggest a solution for balance:
A ship which has escaped is marked blue (as usual) and cannot be brought into combat while it is blue (as usual).
If all ships on a side are marked blue, all that side's blue ships are returned to normal.

The warping out ship could also lose a bit of crew. (Call it "damage due to warping out too close to a planet")

The red/blue solution does not work on the last ship.

I'd think the spool-up time of the warp-escape would make its use risky, just on its face.  No need to add artificial penalties to it.

And warping out when you only have one ship left is silly, because you only have one ship in your arsenal to pick.  So all you'd be doing is becoming a sitting duck while your opponent gets free shots on you.  To this, I'd paraphrase Sun Tsu: Never disallow your opponent from making a mistake.  :)

In most cases, a ship couldn't feasibly escape unless it was faster than the enemy ship; if it was slower, the enemy could simply hang around nearby it, threatening to move in and kill it as soon as it made itself vulnerable. Granted, most of the fast ships have low enough damage potential that the escaping ship could probably survive; this still leaves a situation where the player to break a stalemate does so at a disadvantage, which only perpetuates the role of a stalemate as a staring contest. There'd have to be a greater advantage.

Seeing as this thread is about Thraddash, I'll use the example of Thraddash.

An exception to the above rule, while fighting something with Thraddash, the opponent could always escape without much risk, since the best the Thraddash can do is hit a few times with the peashooter. Then the opposing player could bring in Slylandro, destroy the Thraddash, and escape from the next ship the opponent brings. (The Thraddash couldn't flee; even though it's faster than Slylandro at max speed, Slylandro can cross the arena along the diagonal within the time it takes to escape.) If Slylandro can actually kill Thraddash, this makes Thraddash utterly useless except to deal a few points of damage - rather equivalent, I'd say, to the simpler policy of banning Thraddash.

On the other hand, it might be the case that Thraddash can win against Slylandro. The opponent's best possibility for a counter would then be Mycon, from which the Thraddash could easily flee, only to return after the Mycon was eliminated by, let's say, the Thraddash player's own Slylandro. In any circumstance where the opponent doesn't have a counter, and specifically a counter that works despite the opponent's ability to flee, nothing is solved. Thraddash becomes more of a terror.

(The balance would also be shifted hugely towards fast ships. The only way to chase down Slylandro, for instance, would be with other fast ships that can actually beat them - notably Slylandro. Various other ships - Supox, Arilou, Pkunk, ZFP, Spathi - are fast enough, but tend to lose to Slylandro. You'd have to counter it with more than one ship, or, of course, the mirror... and I can't imagine what use Chmmr would be with this rule, since most stuff is faster and Chmmr can't cross the arena in time, unless it finds the planet at the right moment...)

Notably, Thraddash does not actually cause stalemates. It only causes incredibly drawn-out battles that are not stalemates because they eventually end. Let's examine a case that's actually a stalemate: Mycon vs. Mycon. Let's say, for the purpose of argument, that either ship could maneuver itself to the far corner of the screen from the other, and ignore the fact that the planet can be used to hinder this. Then, according to the principle that you flee from a stalemate, one of them flees... the other one immediately also flees. The first player to flee has to pick first, which gives them a disadvantage. We're left with another staring contest over who gets to counterpick.

Allowing flight doesn't even attempt to solve end-of-match stalemates, which are the only ones sportsmanly play can't already solve.

...so, I think I've just refuted every as-yet-suggested potential benefit of warp escape in melee. There's no need to point out the glaring flaws in the system, when there is simply no reason to implement it in the first place.

Except for the fact that banning the Thraddash will never, ever, EVER make it into the mainline tree, whereas adding warp escape to PvP melee might.

Let's try out an idea that wouldn't completely break the game. Imagine that pressing 'ESC' during melee caused a little white flag to appear in the corner of your ship ship screen. Like so:

(http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb278/SunBloom/White_Flag.gif)

If your opponent follows suit and does the same, both ships return to their respective fleets and each player simultaneously selects a new ship to use instead. Conversely, if the other player concludes that they are in an advantageous postion then they can easily ignore your cease fire request and maybe even laugh at you for bringing out the white flag unnecessarily. This is a nice solution for stalemates, but it still doesn't fix Thraddash in the least bit. I still am of the opinion that a balance mod is the only way to get everything just right for veteran net melee players.

I can imagine that if I were flying a peashooter and was hitting my opponent once in a while with hit and run tactics, I would laugh at a raised white flag. I would look to me that the person is actually rolling over and die and I would just continue pestering. Not that it is my playing style though.

If you don't want a game to end in a stalemate, perhaps impose a time limit on the whole match where the one with the most points at the end wins?

EDIT: Scrap the time limit idea. The moment I hit the post button, I realized that some players would just try to get the upperhand in points, then stall until the time runs out.

You really need to read more carefully. Right in the quoted text I said the idea doesn't solve the Thraddash problem in any meaningful way.

Well, I could always shorten my remark to "me too." It was more a confirmation on your remark that the white flag idea wouldn't actually solve borefesting.

A return which is substantially delayed by a blue flag system.

And long-ranged ships, and any ship run by a player that can get a grav-whip in the available time and have at least a medium-ranged weapon, and anyone we want, if we make the charging time longer for melee.

And I would really like to see some real metrics on how many effective shots various ships can get off the escape charging time, starting at max range but with some closing velocity.

[
By invoking a conclusion we don't have firm data on yet, and could trivially change if we want to... Not a solid argument.

If it's trivial to test, make a Net Melee Escape Mod yourself and gather your own statistics. I think it's a bad solution and want nothing to do with it.

We do have firm data, as Shiver says. It's trivial to modify the code to allow warp escape in melee for the purpose of these tests; it's even more trivial to start UQM and count the time it takes to escape. I gathered as much data as I felt necessary to substantiate what I said in my post. If you want to dispute anything in it, collect your own data and do so.

You act as if the fact that the escape time is changeable weakens my argument. On the contrary, proposing a system without giving specifics weakens your argument by making it vacuous. You act as if me being unable to prove categorically that your system doesn't work makes you right. On the contrary, the onus is on you to demonstrate that there is any benefit to the system in the first place. For the moment, I'm asking for a single benefit. If it's a good system, or even a half decent system, it shouldn't be too hard to come up with one.

Even the alternatives you propose don't do much for your cause: If we increase the escape time significantly, it becomes a great liability to flee, since almost any ship could do significant damage in the time. If we decrease it significantly, even Slylandro won't be able to make it across the arena in time, and it will be a simple hierarchy where the faster ship can escape and the slower ship cannot. If the blue flag system is used to delay Thraddash reappearing in the particular sequence you questioned above, one could simply join with each other ship in sequence and flee, since one would expect all your ships to be faster than Mycon, and thus able to flee Mycon. If the Mycon itself flees, battle will continue, but the Mycon and Thraddash will come back into service at the same time - inevitably, barring even more escaping shenanigans, as the final round of the match.

Propose a specific system and defend it, or your posts will be too vague to be worth diddly-squat.

Reading through this post, it appears that three mechanisms for solving this problem have been proposed:

• Nerf the Thraddash in PvP melee.
  
  • Upsides: Corrects the rather obvious balance bugs wrt: Torch vs. Avatar, possibly negates "cheat ship" strategies while playing.
  • Downsides: May unfairly unbalance the Torch against other ships, and only fixes the problem of "non-fun battles" with respect to the Torch.  Coredev also may not allow any such changes into the mainline tree in deference to their "straight port" doctrine.

• Add emergency warp escape to PvP melee.
  
  • Upsides: A more generalized solution to the problem of which the Torch is a symptom, namely that some battles aren't any fun, and you might want to duck out and re-up with a different ship.  Adds a new strategic element to PvP melee.
  • Downsides: Adds a new strategic element to melee, which may not be properly balanced.  Coredev also may not allow any such changes into the mainline tree in deference to their "straight port" doctrine.

• Ban the Thraddash Torch from PvP melee and raise its point value to a ludicrous amount.
  
  • Upsides: Simple and straightforward to implement.
  • Downsides: It's a wrong-headed approach that does nothing to solve the underlying problem.

I'm a little slow.  Can anyone explain to me why "sweeping the problem under the rug" is the most popular choice on these forums?

Because a solution requires the tinker with a 2 decade old treasure. These conversations will often end with a mod, but the original will necessarily remain unaltered.

5 actually, adding bonusses/penalties as the match progresses too long was one of them too. And I came up with the amazing shrinking playfield, although that idea does not seem to have been debated on (it's probably too lame or something).

Bull. The question had not even been seriously addressed, as demonstrated by your plainly inadequate summary of ships that could catch other ships.


You are using two definitions of significantly, so as to unfairly pretend that there is no solution. One is a fractional increase; the other its strategic usefulness. The only relevant metric, however, is its strategic usefulness; and if you allow that there is a continuum in that, then clearly there is a point where it is reasonably strategically useful.



This strategy would fail epically, as you would know if you thought about it for more than a few seconds. Want to talk out this matchup and see why?

A system with one free parameter which is a simple number, coupled with an intuitive criterion for selecting that free parameter, which is what I gave you is very specific. Something might not be worth diddly-squat in this thread, but it isn't my posts.

There's no argument that can be made here if you persist in insisting that my data is invalid (which it isn't.)

I asked you to offer a single benefit of the proposed system. You have not done this; you are arguing because you disagree rather than arguing for your system. I will not engage in such an argument.

Brain fart: Make the afterburner damage the ship / crew occasionally / randomly when used. This would provide a time limit of sorts, and it wouldn't change how the ship handles. The damage could be so rare that it's only noticeable in longer matches... causing the Torch to self destruct eventually.

You never actually presented your data, so how could I attack it? I address your reasoning. You are asking the wrong questions.

You put forth an abusive strategy which would nullify all the benefits of the system, which I said would be bad strategy and offered to go into more detail.

Rather than ask to go into more detail, you made your above post, which is entirely worthless as it is based in two major falsehoods, the first of which I have just addressed - that I have been somehow attacking your data, which I have not... and...


Or you could just read page 3 where Nic laid out the case for running away, OR his refresher on the previous page. It has been addressed. Sheesh.

[quote "guesst"]
Because a solution requires the tinker with a 2 decade old treasure. These conversations will often end with a mod, but the original will necessarily remain unaltered.
[/quote]

Curmudgeon! ;)

Actually, I like the idea of having the Thraddash burn off a crew now and then.  Sure, it might make them depend *more* on the front gun than the afterburner, but at least they couldn't run away as much.
Maybe the Thraddash could regain all of the crew they lost to burns if they win the match (treated with burn cream).  That might make it more fair.

An alternate limitation on retreat:

You can't run away if you've run away more times than your opponent.

Is that better?

It surely reduces the ways retreating could be exploited. It still doesn't fix stalemates.

That still allows for the "Oh, he just started flashing. I'm going to retreat too so he doesn't counter me!" infinite loop.

I didn't take the time to read the whole thread but wasn't there an idea long ago that retreating from battle in melee would mean that the next ship selection would be random?

Could work with certain other limits in place. If not, what's to stop you from retreating each and every time until you get the ship that you want?

This idea has definite potential and may end up in a mod at some point. The ship will still be annoying as sin to play against, but not really overpowered.

What set of ships do you envision this happening with?

That could occur with any ship set if one of the players involved is obnoxious enough. As with the Thraddash ban, I would strongly prefer to not give players the capability to be obnoxious effectively. Even if that extreme activity is minimized, you'd still get exchanges like this:


* Player 1 picks Zoq-Fot-Pik and Player 2 picks Melnorme to start.

* Player 1 starts to withdraw.

* Player 2 begins withdrawing a second later because a Slylandro is probably incoming to counter. Anything that loses to Slylandro will probably have to do this.

* Player 1 brings in Slylandro.

* Player 2 escapes, then brings in Chmmr.

* Player 1 finds a nice edge of the screen and withdraws, then brings in Utwig.

* Player 2 withdraws and starts bringing in VUX.

* Player 1 scoots away from the VUX's laser while shielding, then withdraws as he gets far enough away.



There's probably slight amounts of damage occuring in some of these and the melee will end eventually, but this type of gameplay can only be described as "anti-fun".

Player 2 could alternately have laughed when Player 1 blew their escape on saving a ZFP, and not run away, thus preventing P1 from running away until P2 chose to let them; of course, this would involve letting the Melnorme get into a match with a Slylandro.
But then you've trapped their Slylandro up against your Chmmr. A fair trade on the face of it; and P2 would still have the running-away advantage.
If P2 had led off with a lower-value ship, as is wise, this trade would be very much in their favor, not just slightly.

So, we see that one player being obnoxious enough is not enough; we need two.


If you're still not satisfied:
If one player being in escape mode blocks the other from escaping prevents the other from entering it, would that help?


Incidentally, why the heck would the Utwig withdraw from the VUX? If it's got some motion, the intrusion device won't do much; and then it can rip the intruder to pieces from very moderate range. If the VUX began to run, of course, it would get hammered.

Okay D9, seriously, why are you talking TheoryCraft to me? I'm saying escape in melee leads to bad gameplay. You can argue SC2 game mechanics with me until we're both blue in the face, but that's not the core of the problem.



No. A Zoq-Fot-Pik can destroy a Mycon or Earthling so retreating it isn't pointless. And the Melnorme definitely needs to flee as soon as it sees another ship flash. Destroying a ZFP isn't really worth the trouble if a Slylandro is going to pop out next, which it will.



Slylandro can escape Chmmr. Pass an edge to a spot where the Chmmr has to reverse their direction to get to you and you'll escape before they can fire on you.



Everything is lower value than the Chmmr. Just bring it out to ravage whatever you least feel like dealing with. It can often beat direct counters to it, such as Druuge. You don't want to send Chmmr against Kohr-Ah or Ur-Quan and no I don't feel like explaining why. This whole discussion is a waste of time as it is.



I don't understand the question.



VUX counters Utwig. The Jugger is too tubby to get within firing range of the VUX once the ships have moved away from each other at the very start. Limpet city. The best an Utwig can do is actually chase a VUX right from the start and allow itself to be covered in limpets so that it fire a few more shots. VUX has enough crew to get away from this 90% of the time.

Theorycraft? It's called game design. You need to think about what players are going to do.


Umm, no. You were using that sequence to establish that this rule is inadequate:


If the ZFP ran, then that puts P1 at more runs, so P1's slylandro can't run, even if it is perfectly capable of staying away from the Chmmr.

Given this, does what I said make more sense?


No need to talk down to me. I have in fact played this game. I know why Chmmr is not the best choice for these ships.
Though I will admit that I thought the Utwig shots were better at screening away the limpets when on a swooping trajectory. Largely because I'm not set up well for net play, and the AI doesn't use limpet screens properly.


Adding that as a rule would totally prevent one of the abuses you named. Is the system still broken for some other reason?

Not with D999's proposed running-away rule. He's saying that after ZFP flees, you could sacrifice your Melnorme in order to kill the Slylandro in the next match with a Chmmr (since at that point, the Slylandro wouldn't be _allowed_ to run away.) The Chmmr could then flee and be available again. The downside to this course of action: It doesn't actually gain anything. If the Chmmr itself flees, the Chmmr player is down a point and probably takes enough damage during the escape to offset the opponent's disadvantage due to having a counterable ship on the field. If the Chmmr doesn't flee, the Chmmr player has the liability of a 30-point ship that will get countered.

I'm not sure we should be discussing gameplay with someone who hasn't played enough to know that VUX beats Utwig... :-\

There are several problems with this discussion, yes. The one that distresses me the most is that I generally have either a good net connection or the opportunity to play, not both at the same time, so that yes I don't know certain things about actual person on person play. Against the AI in the Utwig vs VUX match, the winner is me, regardless, and the limpets seemed easy to sweep away, so...  ::)

My point about probably not wanting to lead with a Melnorme stands, though, and improves P2's position just as before. This saves it from the situation where the Chmmr player hasn't gained anything.

As for the situation if the Chmmr flees, don't forget it can use the victory ditty time to start running, which will really cut into the damage it receives from whatever comes in to counter, likely eliminating the damage altogether.

EDITED TO ADD: plus, isn't there some cheaper counter to slylandro than Chmmr? If not, its point value is in serious need of increasing. I'm not going to try to guess how Slylandro does in net-play, since it's so clearly a skill ship.