Author
|
Topic: Concerning Thraddash and net melee (Read 21402 times)
|
Death 999
Global Moderator
Enlightened
 Offline
Gender: 
Posts: 3874
We did. You did. Yes we can. No.
|
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.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Elvish Pillager
Enlightened
Offline
Posts: 625
|
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.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
My team of four Androsynth and three Chmmr is the most unfair team ever! My mod |
|
|
|
|
Shiver
Guest
|
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:
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.
|
|
|
|
« Last Edit: November 08, 2007, 10:22:36 am by Shiver »
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
Shiver
Guest
|
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.
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.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
Death 999
Global Moderator
Enlightened
Offline
Gender:
Posts: 3874
We did. You did. Yes we can. No.
|
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.
A return which is substantially delayed by a blue flag system.
(The balance would also be shifted hugely towards fast ships. 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.
[b]...so, I think I've just refuted every as-yet-suggested potential benefit of warp escape in melee.[/b]
By invoking a conclusion we don't have firm data on yet, and could trivially change if we want to... Not a solid argument.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
Shiver
Guest
|
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.
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.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
Elvish Pillager
Enlightened
Offline
Posts: 625
|
...so, I think I've just refuted every as-yet-suggested potential benefit of warp escape in melee. By invoking a conclusion we don't have firm data on yet, and could trivially change if we want to... Not a solid argument.
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.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
My team of four Androsynth and three Chmmr is the most unfair team ever! My mod |
|
|
|
|
guesst
Enlightened
Offline
Gender:
Posts: 692
Ancient Shofixti Warrior
|
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.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
