Hey all,
I wanted to get feedback from you guys on what kind of things you feel are unbalanced in blitz that could be addressed in future balance updates? Especially around the 2v2 Blitz Open playlist as that puts all players on the same level.
Thanks.
Well some people think it’s pay to win, maybe you could look into that
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> Well some people think it’s pay to win, maybe you could look into that
While you are partly correct there is a mode that negates that by putting everyone’s card level at the same level, however for the other modes yes it is PTW to a degree.
Asides from that I think they need to make it so you earn more energy per second or more drop pods spawn in the match. Like instead of every minute every 30 seconds a drop pod spawns. In the early game it takes forever to get an army going. I get it, this makes getting energy a #1 priority. As a person who mains shippy in blitz I get this as my deck is orientated to this style with the ghost and chopper. But I think this makes the game a lot less hectic. The winner is decided in the first few minutes so after that you know that as long as you have half a brain you basically have won the game with the energy advantage. And knowing you’re going to lose is the worst feeling out there. I’d also like them to take 10 energy off every blast unit. So many opportunities have been missed because I spent energy as soon as the chance to blast their army to hell came up. But that’s just my opinion.
I would caution changes to how energy works (doubling energy drops for instance would change the balance of the game immensely) though it’s true the first 3 drops usually shape the outcome of the game.
The previous blitz changes have made a lot more leaders playable which was definitely great. Though it would be nice to have rated 1v1. In terms of other issues I think bunkers are still too strong (outside of very concentrated armies and spamming blast units they are nigh unkillable) but they are the only thing making Johnson viable. So perhaps nerfing bunkers but buffing his other cards. Higher level gameplay this is less of an issue but for newer players there’s almost nothing they can do.
Facing Teleport in 3s against a team with any semblance of coordination is like a death sentence to your army with no effective counter. (They teleport your army into two other armies and for a mere 100 energy you lose all your units) especially later in the game. It’s a hard card to balance because it’s a much more reasonable card in 1 v 1 and 2 v 2s.
Most hero units especially melee ones are pretty bad right now with the Y nerf for example 240 energy for a rush arbiter melee card with no Y ability and low health relative is a rip off (if you try using him as a rush unit you will notice he gets focused fired with no ability to run away and does little damage for his cost since most of it comes from his Y) the starting army arbiter is alright but the card is unusable. Honor guard is a bit better because of his speed and cloak but still way too expensive for what he does especially since hero melee units require a lot of micro otherwise their pathfinding will get them killed.
Similar conversation happening in another thread pasted the rest of my comments about heroes here.
I noticed most of the cheaper units have Y abilities right away but the high end ones (like heroes and vultures) do not. It’s a shame because most high end cards like heroes are not worth playing anymore. Even with their Y abilities at the start heroes were questionably effective at best give their cost and far from op since it was easy to play around them, Now if you play them with what is essentially a large nerf you are punished for dumping so much energy into a single card that takes a long time in such a short game to have any significant positive impact.
Given the huge energy investment these cards require and their ineffectiveness the hero cards should be cheaper energy wise, their Y abilities should be available at the start, or their stats should be improved.
Heroes should be a fun option / investment that makes each leader a bit unique not a liability that drags you down to defeat…
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> I would caution changes to how energy works (doubling energy drops for instance would change the balance of the game immensely) though it’s true the first 3 drops usually shape the outcome of the game.
Have heard from several places that the first few drops determines the winner of the game most of the time, so hoping to look into that. As for the Heroes and Y abilities, we are looking into the cooldowns on those currently and seeing if we can find a good fix for it.
For the other stuff, a lot of good suggestions already. If you guys have more suggestions, by all means keep em’ coming. I’ll be checking back frequently.
Up the cost of Ultra mines and Johnson’s bunker.
Add 1v1 blitz ranked open and spectator mode for some possible tournaments please, Blitz needs more attention to bring in more players. As for balances go, Aosh pretty much covered it all nicely. other than that i’d say that blitz is in a pretty balanced state right now. However Banished leaders do still hold an edge over most UNSC leaders. Jerome, Kisano, and Johnson are very viable leaders but the others don’t have much to offer in high level gameplay.
Oh and in 1s you can’t see where the energy drops
I feel Johnson Bunker is too strong.
Can we get 1v1 ranked, I mean, why not ranked? I feel it is a total option, it is true that you get unbalanced games because of the card level, but let’s be real here, who really cares? I mean, you play more, you get better level, end of the story, plus after level 6 the increase of level is minimum. Dunno, it is just an opinion.
I didn’t realize the potential gravity that this thread had, so I’m going to flesh out as many thoughts as I can about balancing and general blitz mechanics.
Mechanics:
Energy (Acquisition,Contesting,Timing)
Most, if not all blitz champions will indeed agree that starting energy has way too much weight in regards to having an advantage on your opponent. I have a few proposals that could effectively spread energy more evenly and give more depth to combat locations.
-Acquisition and Contesting: Currently the way one acquires a boost in their energy multiplier is moving a ground/nonfatigued unit to an energy core, destroying the core, and instantly collecting the three energy bits that individually add .1(.08 for 3v3) to your energy multiplier by being near the pile. Contesting your opponents effectively in their energy acquisition is best done by fast scout units with the addition of having a rush keyword card in your hand with the proper energy to play that card directly on the energy core thus stealing as much energy as you can.
With the given information you can then understand that since not all starting armies are created equal, not all leaders have the same innate chance at collecting energy to other leaders. This statement almost defines the tiers of blitz leaders in the query of who is best at collecting starting energy. If Kinsano had Serina’s starting army selection, she would be drastically less effective at stealing compared to her current stature.
Strategy for getting more energy as the game progresses involves leaving cheap units in known energy drop zones and effectively “camping” as many energy zones as possible while your main force focuses on controlling zones.
Here are a couple of options that can mitigate most of what has been stated so far.
—Timed Minizones—
Taking a note from king of the hill, I propose that after destroying an energy core a little ring about the diameter of a tank comes out of the core into play for let’s say a 10 second lifespan timer with the timer counting down only while units are inside of it. The longer you stay in the ring the higher percentage you receive of the original max potential energy multiplier of .3 being added to your own multiplier. This practice of energy acquisition can be effectively and fairly contested with even distribution for amount of time the minizone is contested with proper programming. It can even take on a few cutthroat properties to make energy collection even more interesting. A few examples should clear up how strange this sounds.
Balance:
I have played a lot of blitz this season and done very well. I am a huge fan of how things are balanced in regards to team play. I can’t really speak to 1v1 though, but I’m certain leaders will still simply outclass others with the given starting armies rush units and current method of energy acquisition. Everything I’m going to cover is really just an opinion, so if you have a contradictory opinion feel free to call me out on it.
Guard Bunkers: Johnson’s bunkers may be losing love in death match, but they are more prevalent than ever in blitz. Truth be told, they aren’t much of a problem at all alone. Bunkers add for a fine addition in the mix of gameplay. It’s when special blitz units enter the picture we start seeing strategies that I don’t think were intended to be as powerful as they have proven to be. The main example of course is adding a guard infantry unit to a bunker. Doing so allows the bunker to inherit the property of guard. I am pretty certain that bunkers were intended to fully protect 4 infantry units in the endeavor of contesting a zone , and not being able to fully protect a radius of amount of units in addition to protecting most importantly, support units. Bottom line, I believe unit specials should not be an inheritable to bunkers phantoms mastodons or invaders.
Teleport (Displacement): I imagine some of my friends are sick to death of me bringing this up yet again but I feel it’s flawed and needs to be addressed. I agree with Aosh and want to throw my proposal for balancing once again. Teleport in my opinion should only affect friendly units. This would still be a very powerful ability being able to force pinches or getting to where you need to have your army in an instant. I would be even a little ok with the displacement portion of the card if it was much more strict. For example, you have to maintain line of sight on the area of enemy units you want to move, in addition units selected can move out of the selected circle and no longer be displaced (to clarify clicking A once will create a permanent list of units to be moved currently and I am proposing that the list is dynamic given units that are in the first circle when the card use is completed) and finally displacement distance should be substantially shorter than teleport distance. But truth be told, displacement is just so screwed up to me when the location of your units matter as much as they do in blitz. When one moment you are hanging out controlling B and the next moment you are being ganged trained in the perpetually healing enemy base, what is the point of higher costing cards like eradication? Finally if there is a new energy acquisition system like mine, displacement will further magnify its potency in utility. The only one who can control your units location should be you. I give vortex and the updated shockwave a pass because they cost enough and aren’t as flexible in application, else-wise it would have the same level of scrutiny.
Starting Armies: I refer back to my previous example of Kinsano vs Serina. Kinsano has 3 fantastic rush units to play starting potentially in her hand in addition to a starting army that includes an ultra fast jack rabbit, and two warthogs. Serina has only one rush unit available to her with a starting army that has at best two wolverines that have the pace to be just shy of being able to gain line of sight for a potential steal, in addition to slow moving icebringers and a kodiak. The point being, if you were to run a series of skilled players using these leaders against each other with the current energy format, Kinsano is going to have a massively higher rating against Serina. To mitigate this, perhaps all leaders should have at least one starting army with a scout like unit and/or UNSC needs one of its lower cards upgraded with the keyword rush. Team play mitigates this whole topic a lot, but 1v1, some leaders just cannot stand up to those with better starting armies and more accessible rush units with the given energy structure.
Mass Cloak: For reasons a little hard to describe, mass cloak works a bit better than I think was originally intended. There are times when detect units don’t quite reveal units that are invisible under the effects of mass cloak. They are detectable for split instance sometimes before once again becoming cloaked, even though you have multiple detect units.
Major Unit Y Abilities (Arbiter thoughts): This is a topic indeed, but I have no real input about it because some units really need the preuse timer like Omega Team or Jerome-092, and others really don’t like the Arbiter, Vulture, and Goblins. I can say this much, the Arbiter really should activate conduit of rage with his y ability in addition into going into rage. I can guarantee you we would be seeing a lot more ground game coming from his deck style if that was an addition. If he doesn’t get that, I think he deserves a rage damage buff or massive damage reduction while in rage.
UNSC vs Banished Closing Thoughts: With the given energy system it shouldn’t be such a surprise that banished have always been a higher level choice compared to their UNSC counterpart. It’s somewhat difficult to place specific blame to one thing entirely, but I think if the energy contesting template isn’t remodeled in some fashion or just scrapped altogether, UNSC will still be relatively on the butt end of most 1v1 situations. It’s important to understand a few things about the banished that UNSC don’t have in common.
Banished{
Universal Blast unit
Universal Guard unit
TWO universal and useful rush units
Opponent movement controlling/restricting leader powers (not universal, but true for the main 3)
Ramming scouts (great for stealing energy)
}
UNSC{
One Universal Rush unit
Three Universal AntiVehicle
Superior Support unit (in numbers)
Longer Range Artillery
}
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> **Balance:**I have played a lot of blitz this season and done very well. I am a huge fan of how things are balanced in regards to team play. I can’t really speak to 1v1 though, but I’m certain leaders will still simply outclass others with the given starting armies rush units and current method of energy acquisition. Everything I’m going to cover is really just an opinion, so if you have a contradictory opinion feel free to call me out on it.
> Guard Bunkers: Johnson’s bunkers may be losing love in death match, but they are more prevalent than ever in blitz. Truth be told, they aren’t much of a problem at all alone. Bunkers add for a fine addition in the mix of gameplay. It’s when special blitz units enter the picture we start seeing strategies that I don’t think were intended to be as powerful as they have proven to be. The main example of course is adding a guard infantry unit to a bunker. Doing so allows the bunker to inherit the property of guard. I am pretty certain that bunkers were intended to fully protect 4 infantry units in the endeavor of contesting a zone , and not being able to fully protect a radius of amount of units in addition to protecting most importantly, support units. Bottom line, I believe unit specials should not be an inheritable to bunkers phantoms mastodons or invaders.
> Teleport (Displacement): I imagine some of my friends are sick to death of me bringing this up yet again but I feel it’s flawed and needs to be addressed. I agree with Aosh and want to throw my proposal for balancing once again. Teleport in my opinion should only affect friendly units. This would still be a very powerful ability being able to force pinches or getting to where you need to have your army in an instant. I would be even a little ok with the displacement portion of the card if it was much more strict. For example, you have to maintain line of sight on the area of enemy units you want to move, in addition units selected can move out of the selected circle and no longer be displaced (to clarify clicking A once will create a permanent list of units to be moved currently and I am proposing that the list is dynamic given units that are in the first circle when the card use is completed) and finally displacement distance should be substantially shorter than teleport distance. But truth be told, displacement is just so screwed up to me when the location of your units matter as much as they do in blitz. When one moment you are hanging out controlling B and the next moment you are being ganged trained in the perpetually healing enemy base, what is the point of higher costing cards like eradication? Finally if there is a new energy acquisition system like mine, displacement will further magnify its potency in utility. The only one who can control your units location should be you. I give vortex and the updated shockwave a pass because they cost enough and aren’t as flexible in application, else-wise it would have the same level of scrutiny.
> Starting Armies: I refer back to my previous example of Kinsano vs Serina. Kinsano has 3 fantastic rush units to play starting potentially in her hand in addition to a starting army that includes an ultra fast jack rabbit, and two warthogs. Serina has only one rush unit available to her with a starting army that has at best two wolverines that have the pace to be just shy of being able to gain line of sight for a potential steal, in addition to slow moving icebringers and a kodiak. The point being, if you were to run a series of skilled players using these leaders against each other with the current energy format, Kinsano is going to have a massively higher rating against Serina. To mitigate this, perhaps all leaders should have at least one starting army with a scout like unit and/or UNSC needs one of its lower cards upgraded with the keyword rush. Team play mitigates this whole topic a lot, but 1v1, some leaders just cannot stand up to those with better starting armies and more accessible rush units with the given energy structure.
> Mass Cloak: For reasons a little hard to describe, mass cloak works a bit better than I think was originally intended. There are times when detect units don’t quite reveal units that are invisible under the effects of mass cloak. They are detectable for split instance sometimes before once again becoming cloaked, even though you have multiple detect units.
> Major Unit Y Abilities (Arbiter thoughts): This is a topic indeed, but I have no real input about it because some units really need the preuse timer like Omega Team or Jerome-092, and others really don’t like the Arbiter, Vulture, and Goblins. I can say this much, the Arbiter really should activate conduit of rage with his y ability in addition into going into rage. I can guarantee you we would be seeing a lot more ground game coming from his deck style if that was an addition. If he doesn’t get that, I think he deserves a rage damage buff or massive damage reduction while in rage.
> UNSC vs Banished Closing Thoughts: With the given energy system it shouldn’t be such a surprise that banished have always been a higher level choice compared to their UNSC counterpart. It’s somewhat difficult to place specific blame to one thing entirely, but I think if the energy contesting template isn’t remodeled in some fashion or just scrapped altogether, UNSC will still be relatively on the butt end of most 1v1 situations. It’s important to understand a few things about the banished that UNSC don’t have in common.
> Banished{
> Universal Blast unit
> Universal Guard unit
> TWO universal and useful rush units
> Opponent movement controlling/restricting leader powers (not universal, but true for the main 3)
> Ramming scouts (great for stealing energy)
> }
> UNSC{
> One Universal Rush unit
> Three Universal AntiVehicle
> Superior Support unit (in numbers)
> Longer Range Artillery
> }
I definitely agree that Unsc need at least another universal rush card and maybe a universal gaurd and blast, I also agree that a more equal starting army speed is necessary.