Monkey Lord - roleless T4 that needs a Buff

At certain ratings Monkeylord are far from bad, might it also be the most-built experimental all games combined?

FAF has a wide dispersion of usefulness in units, is the Monkeylord really an outlier in terms of usefulness?
In casts I seem to see it more often than Novax for example.

@Valki said in Monkey Lord - roleless T4 that needs a Buff:

At certain ratings Monkeylord are far from bad, might it also be the most-built experimental all games combined?

FAF has a wide dispersion of usefulness in units, is the Monkeylord really an outlier in terms of usefulness?
In casts I seem to see it more often than Novax for example.

It is horrible to argue balance is flawed because "at certain ratings" players are too ignorant to know the best strategies. Obviously low rating players are doing things wrong, hence, their rating. e.g. "Yeah, 'at certain ratings' mass storages around t3 mexes are rare, so their adjacency bonus needs to be buffed." The problem has nothing to do with game balance, it is ignorance.

yeah,i do agree that even in mid game it's so bad due to op corsairs and several OC's,even on medium-sized maps(10x10),you can get a bunch of percies under a shield and a com and easily kill it,making it almost a 100% non-usuable in mid-tier->high ranked games,the very least usages it probably has is roaming,tho it's speed is not something that makes it incredible powerful,neither does stealth,with the recent t3 harb upgrades,the only fraction that would be bad against it is sera,howerver your opponent is gonna build a ythotha just in time considering the mass cost is just 6.500 higher than ML one and has twice effectiveness(20k/26.5k)

queuing with a newbie to show him the beauty of tmm and meeting tagada be like:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLcRpdZ0Xb0&ab_channel=Tomoko

Small speed buff would be quite interesting. Faster rushes across map, easier to close distance with percies/OC, and you could use it a bit more sneaky with the stealth by mixing up its positioning. Have it be something that lurks on the map like a shark, make it scared for you to move out.

Just dreaming up ideas, don't mind me.

Make it a jumping spider with a leap ability

(Obviously I'm memeing)

If you didn't like my speed buff idea you could just say so 😞

Cloaking ability that requires 10k energy (requires 12k mass in power plants)?

Maybe throw in 1 minute charge up to prevent abusive cloak blinking micro.

@Tex said in Monkey Lord - roleless T4 that needs a Buff:

If you didn't like my speed buff idea you could just say so 😞

Oh no I didn't mean it like that. A speed buff was also one of the first things that popped to mind upon reading the OP

I like the idea of a movement speed buff, and while we are at it could we consider increasing it's turret turn speed? The monkey is especially frustrating when it is attacking different useless targets on opposite sides of it, which require a very long time for the turret to turn. This is especially critical when you are just getting in range of what you really want to attack (e.g. acu) with a move command but it takes an extra 5 seconds to actually start attacking because it was focusing on some t1 tanks behind it.

https://replay.faforever.com/14222198
https://replay.faforever.com/14222278
Replays for anyone who would like to see just how incredibly easy it is to [edit: receive a Monkeylord mass donation] with an equivalent amount of mass invested into a few bricks and shields, with and without any acu overcharge.

If, and I stress IF, the Monkeylord is underpowered, perhaps a solution would be allowing it to climb steeper terrain (like a spider can) to allow for more tactical deployment?

@Arran sounds like a nightmare...

“Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected.”
— Steve Jobs.
My UI Mods

I am 99% sure that something like this is not supported by the engine.

It is supported 🙂 , but it would break on all of my maps where I use the 'unpathable' terrain type to cover some holes in the mountains that allow units to get on top 🙂
edit: I believe Madmax even made a unit as part of a tournament for that. Its in the vault

A work of art is never finished, merely abandoned

Why would a 10k energy cloak toggle not work?

It prevents the Monkeylord from being discovered randomly by ASF, bombers, and raiders. Now it remains invisible until it approaches your omni radar, unless the opponent has set up a good T3 air scout patrol.

@Tagada said in Monkey Lord - roleless T4 that needs a Buff:

I am 99% sure that something like this is not supported by the engine.

It is and is not. But it can be done. I do it in SCTA even

I’m a shitty 1k Global. Any balance or gameplay suggestions should be understood or taken as such.

Project Head and current Owner/Manager of SCTA Project

Good to hear, the problem is that maps are not designed around this feature so it's not really a feasible solution anyways.

@Jip can confirm this is the case, it works right up until unpathable terrain type is used then its broken, admittedly the majority of maps don't use terrain types, until you start getting to the top 10% of maps it's certainly a case of the edge cases defining the rule tho. Edit I am thinking of adding that ability to all "spider tanks" in my mod at some point........ soon tm lol

Vault Admin / Creative Team / Map Guru

I like a speed buff of ~ 8% and a bt reduction of 20%.

That would significantly increase its value as a surprise weapon without increasing its combat effectiveness a lot so it doesn’t gain mass efficiency vs other units but gets stronger at its actual role.

I wouldn’t change turret turn speed because it’s got a big ‘ol laser on its back and lore wise I think it makes sense this thing turns slowly.

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