Mercy Change - Not ready yet

Hello folks!

First of all, everything that is in the game should also be allowed to be used. But it really doesn't feel fair if your ACU gets mercied, especially if you had anti air with you.

So I'm absolutely in favor of changing the Mercy. I just don't like the change to the mercy in the current balance patch for the following reasons.

1. It is not true that the Mercy can only be used for ACU snipes

I mean, of course, that's currently the most prominent use for this unit. But in my eyes there are at least two more good use cases for the Mercy.

1. Catch some lonely T2 Mexes.
   One Mercy is enough to kill a T2 Mex (except UEF). This is something Aeon can't do very well with T1 bombers and gunships, as they aren't mass efficient in one passing a single T2 Mex and it's simply too noticeable when multiple radar blobs appear. It would certainly deprive Aeon of an opportunity since they don't have a T2 Bomber alternative.

2. The desperate attempt to stop an experimental at the last moment.
   Here I can also see a justified use case for the Mercy. The only real alternatives Aeon has in the early T3 phase are again T1 bombers and T2 gunships. Even if the gunship has an alpha strike, it must still shoot for at least 30 seconds to get the value of a mercy. Assuming you don't completely dominate Air to build 25+ Restorer or a CZAR, it could be a particularly awkward situation for Aeon to defend an Experimental just with T1 bombers and T2 gunships, since they are significantly more vulnerable to an even not too high number of Flak with shields compared to Corsair, Notha or Broadsword.

2. The new use case might be not so use full

So lets see what Aeon get's in contrast. The new Mercy will be changed to do AoE and damage over time weapon. This means that t2 Mexes can no longer be sniped by a single Mercy and there's really no reason to snipe an experimental anymore (except the Fatboy maybe) since the single targed damage is to low and run out off the AoE with ease.

So I see the new Mercy as a pure single use weapon for larger groups of T1 to T3 units, a bit like the Janus Bomber. However, the Janus is much better, as it is very good at flying into the opponent's base and taking out pgens, engis and other important things. Something that is unthinkable with Mercys.

And even against units themselves, I would always prefer the Janus, since it can bombard the units again and again and not just once creating one AoE from which the units could simply run out.

Also, it doesn't seem a good idea to me at all to use Mercys against units since they usually have AA with them and the Mercy may not even fire ones.

So right now as it is, the new design of the Mercy seems to me to contradict itself.

3. It's Buggy

When I tested the new Mercy, I noticed that in some cases the damage goes under the shield and can damage units below. I especially noticed that with the Fatboy who gets direct damage despite having shields on and dies with an active shield! in fact, 10 mercys can be enough to kill a Fatboy which is ridiculous.

4. Bad Visual Effect

Since the new Mercy now creates a poisonous fog, the fire animation was replaced as well.

unfortunately, one of the most pleasing visual effects has been replaced by an absolutely unrealistic looking effect. It just looks ugly when the Mercy turns suddenly into a poison ball, just like that.

So you replacing this effekt:

with this one (unfortunately it is not good to show in a picture what it looks like when the mercy suddenly becomes a ball.):

Some could argue that the visual effects are not that important. For me, however, it is and I really prefer to play a also visually nice designed game rather than an unfinished looking one. And I think it would also be good for casters and so getting new players into this game by making the game look as good as possible.

So what would I do differently now?

Basically I see two ways how the mercy cloud be changed.

1. The simple solution.
   Halve or third the damage a ACU gets from the Mercy, so that it's no more difficult to snipe a ACU with Corsairs than with Mercies. Since ASF are now also getting reduced CZAR laser damge, I assume that the change also could done relatively easily with the Mercy and ACU. The Mercy would still have the use cases described above.

2. The more complex solution.
   If you would change the Mercy into an AoE weapon, adjust the visual effect so that the mercy splits up as usual, but then spreads out into an area similar to the salvation. And give the "poisonous fog" also a bluish color and a stun effekt for a short time (fitting the fraction diversity) so that units get at least some damage before they can go out. or just remove the damage over time componenent and make it a single hitting weapon.

I hope this post was helpful and I'm curious what you think about the Mercy change.

@strife Mostly agree with the above. Good point on the visuals, seems like a clear downgrade.

I can offer a third option to your proposed mercy fixes:
Combine option one and two, so that ACU receives reduced damage while maintaining its high burst damage to other structures and units. Allow the mercy to switch 'modes', a bit like the Salem walk-option, that lets it use the carpet-bomb function.

The pre-change mercies also make pretty cheap and based teledef that work on a large area.

@strife said in Mercy Change - Not ready yet:

1. Catch some lonely T2 Mexes.
   One Mercy is enough to kill a T2 Mex (except UEF). This is something Aeon can't do very well with T1 bombers and gunships, as they aren't mass efficient in one passing a single T2 Mex and it's simply too noticeable when multiple radar blobs appear. It would certainly deprive Aeon of an opportunity since they don't have a T2 Bomber alternative.

In the future there might be a change of the mex hp (Only an idea so far, tbd) so it's not that clear yet whether they're worth it. Especially because a t2 mex costs 900 mass and therefore you easily get value out of it. Besides that in teamgames it's highly uncommon that mercies take out mexes because you usually pay attention to your t2 mexes. In 1v1s or small teamgames gunships do the trick as well because the attention is limited there and so are your intis which are flying somewhere around the map.

2. The desperate attempt to stop an experimental at the last moment.
   Here I can also see a justified use case for the Mercy. The only real alternatives Aeon has in the early T3 phase are again T1 bombers and T2 gunships. Even if the gunship has an alpha strike, it must still shoot for at least 30 seconds to get the value of a mercy. Assuming you don't completely dominate Air to build 25+ Restorer or a CZAR, it could be a particularly awkward situation for Aeon to defend an Experimental just with T1 bombers and T2 gunships, since they are significantly more vulnerable to an even not too high number of Flak with shields compared to Corsair, Notha or Broadsword.

T1 bombers are still insanely effective against stuff like that. Ofc you can argue that flak will oneshot them - same for mercies though. Besides that you can produce t1 bombers much faster than mercies.

2. The new use case might be not so use full
So I see the new Mercy as a pure single use weapon for larger groups of T1 to T3 units, a bit like the Janus Bomber. However, the Janus is much better, as it is very good at flying into the opponent's base and taking out pgens, engis and other important things. Something that is unthinkable with Mercys.

Why should it be impossible to fly into your opponent's base? Flying around the map edge with one mercy is way saver than doing it with 5+ Gunships. And since most players build the PGs somewhat close together one mercy is able to kill 15+ PGs in one shot - same with random engies being around while e.g. supporting a navy or air HQ.
Especially in teamgames when rushing t2 air because <1700 ranked games tend to underbuild intis anyway, so there's nothing really to stop 1-2 mercies completely raping your base.

And even against units themselves, I would always prefer the Janus, since it can bombard the units again and again and not just once creating one AoE from which the units could simply run out.

Well yeah, but that's because Janus are simply insanely strong in general. For me there's no point in defending the mercy simply because there's another broken unit ingame.

Also, it doesn't seem a good idea to me at all to use Mercys against units since they usually have AA with them and the Mercy may not even fire ones.

That's why Aeon has e.g. Gunships to simply snipe the AA. Or one swiftie to distract them. Or even a torp bomber due to target priority. Also the mercy does have more hp and iirc it even survives one flak volley. Not to mention Cybran t1 is fucked anyway due to the mobile t1 AA and currently is the faction where you stay on t1 the longers.

3. It's Buggy

When I tested the new Mercy, I noticed that in some cases the damage goes under the shield and can damage units below. I especially noticed that with the Fatboy who gets direct damage despite having shields on and dies with an active shield! in fact, 10 mercys can be enough to kill a Fatboy which is ridiculous.

Those are things which have to be fixed of course, however it's not really a reason against changing the mercies, if that's what you intented. If you simply wanted to mention it, then nvm

So what would I do differently now?

Basically I see two ways how the mercy cloud be changed.

1. The simple solution.
   Halve or third the damage a ACU gets from the Mercy, so that it's no more difficult to snipe a ACU with Corsairs than with Mercies. Since ASF are now also getting reduced CZAR laser damge, I assume that the change also could done relatively easily with the Mercy and ACU. The Mercy would still have the use cases described above.

Nerfing it into oblivion like the Jester is one thing I'd simply approve. Not because it's balanced, but simply cuz I hate the unit enough to remove it from the game. However the question here is why Aeon needs 2 single-target units anyway since the Gunships are the strongest anyway already.

Completely agree with the visual effect though ofc.

@strife I agree about the graphics, it feels like its missing something and i liked the blue. For the implementation that's on beta I was only focused on making a version of the unit that could be used for testing, then once we know we like the stats we can work on making it look better. That could look like improving on the green look or going back to the blue. It is more important now that we get the stats in a spot where it will be useful and not broken.

As far as shield bugs, I will look into it and either fix any issues i can reproduce or ask Jip to help if it goes beyond my knowledge level.

Maybe it would be better to have a visual that is more like a bunch of janus firebombs burning on the ground spread around the area of effect. Also, maybe it would be better to have a bunch of individual projectiles that do damage over time like the janus does instead of having just 1 cloud, so that it would be more effective against large structures/T4's. An alternative idea would be to have it have a longer period of damage with a higher total damage to add a greater element of area denial and structure damage (the damage radius could be reduced to balance this).

@sladow-noob said in Mercy Change - Not ready yet:

Nerfing it into oblivion like the Jester is one thing I'd simply approve. Not because it's balanced, but simply cuz I hate the unit enough to remove it from the game. However the question here is why Aeon needs 2 single-target units anyway since the Gunships are the strongest anyway already.

@SpikeyNoob This is the kind of dread-inducing stuff I referred to when we talked a few days ago.

@spikeynoob If the current effect is just a placeholder and will be tweaked later on, such that the mercy fire spreads across the floor to create a blue cloud, i could imagine that it would look pretty good. Then I wouldn't be against such a change.

To the shield bug. I think this applies to mobile shields when they are moving a bit forword so that the "center of the damage" get's under the shield. So the damage is also applied inside the shield.

I have no real insight into the code, but perhaps the simplest solution for the bug would be to have many small AoE sources clustering around like the Janus fire has, instead of heaving one big source with a large radius.

@indexlibrorum said in Mercy Change - Not ready yet:

@sladow-noob said in Mercy Change - Not ready yet:

Nerfing it into oblivion like the Jester is one thing I'd simply approve. Not because it's balanced, but simply cuz I hate the unit enough to remove it from the game. However the question here is why Aeon needs 2 single-target units anyway since the Gunships are the strongest anyway already.

@SpikeyNoob This is the kind of dread-inducing stuff I referred to when we talked a few days ago.

My man, simply because you hate a unit it won't result in 10 suggestions to nerf it til the point noone uses it anymore. The ability to distinguish between personal preference and a logical change due to balance reasons is smth you have to have.

@sladow-noob said in Mercy Change - Not ready yet:

T1 bombers are still insanely effective against stuff like that. Ofc you can argue that flak will oneshot them - same for mercies though. Besides that you can produce t1 bombers much faster than mercies.

Sure but you need just one hit with a mercy. If you use them all at ones and your opponent don't see them, the flaks might be behind the experimental.

@sladow-noob said in Mercy Change - Not ready yet:

Why should it be impossible to fly into your opponent's base? Flying around the map edge with one mercy is way saver than doing it with 5+ Gunships. And since most players build the PGs somewhat close together one mercy is able to kill 15+ PGs in one shot - same with random engies being around while e.g. supporting a navy or air HQ.
Especially in teamgames when rushing t2 air because <1700 ranked games tend to underbuild intis anyway, so there's nothing really to stop 1-2 mercies completely raping your base.

very limited fuel and far too little life to reliably get a mercy into the enemy base. Don't think you will see it except for some rare cases.

@sladow-noob said in Mercy Change - Not ready yet:

That's why Aeon has e.g. Gunships to simply snipe the AA. Or one swiftie to distract them. Or even a torp bomber due to target priority. Also the mercy does have more hp and iirc it even survives one flak volley. Not to mention Cybran t1 is fucked anyway due to the mobile t1 AA and currently is the faction where you stay on t1 the longers.

Yeah, with a bit more live like now I guess, it would be fine.

@sladow-noob said in Mercy Change - Not ready yet:

Those are things which have to be fixed of course, however it's not really a reason against changing the mercies, if that's what you intented. If you simply wanted to mention it,

It just means that someone has to solve the problem if we want to change the mercy in such a way.

@strife said in Mercy Change - Not ready yet:

Halve or third the damage a ACU gets from the Mercy

Gross

Imagine a new-ish player investing big resources into a mercy snipe, getting the connections, and then the enemy player walks off with less than fatal damage

And he ends up losing the game because he invested in a failed attack

All because the first player didn't know there was a special rule for how mercies damage ACUs

aeon can’t snipe t2 mexes

Make like 4 gunships dude

UEF is the faction that has 0 viable single entity snipe tools.

can’t kill t4 better than a bomber

Why was it necessary to have a tool better than a bomber? Aeon gunship is also extremely strong at sniping aa to then focus t4s.

I’d rather have janus for x purpose

Aeon doesn’t have janus so I don’t get it. Want to trade stinger for specter and then we can compare janus to mercy?

@arma473 said in Mercy Change - Not ready yet:

@strife said in Mercy Change - Not ready yet:

Halve or third the damage a ACU gets from the Mercy

Gross

Imagine a new-ish player investing big resources into a mercy snipe, getting the connections, and then the enemy player walks off with less than fatal damage

And he ends up losing the game because he invested in a failed attack

All because the first player didn't know there was a special rule for how mercies damage ACUs

I mean tbf it's the same with some other mechanics. E.g. the Overcharge dealing less dmg against ACU and buildings, so that would happen one time and never again. Adding a short explanation in description is a possibility as well

@strife said in Mercy Change - Not ready yet:

@sladow-noob said in Mercy Change - Not ready yet:

T1 bombers are still insanely effective against stuff like that. Ofc you can argue that flak will oneshot them - same for mercies though. Besides that you can produce t1 bombers much faster than mercies.

Sure but you need just one hit with a mercy. If you use them all at ones and your opponent don't see them, the flaks might be behind the experimental.

Not at home atm but I'm gonna check the build rate / dmg / mass-costs etc. and edit the message.

@sladow-noob said in Mercy Change - Not ready yet:

Why should it be impossible to fly into your opponent's base? Flying around the map edge with one mercy is way saver than doing it with 5+ Gunships. And since most players build the PGs somewhat close together one mercy is able to kill 15+ PGs in one shot - same with random engies being around while e.g. supporting a navy or air HQ.
Especially in teamgames when rushing t2 air because <1700 ranked games tend to underbuild intis anyway, so there's nothing really to stop 1-2 mercies completely raping your base.

very limited fuel and far too little life to reliably get a mercy into the enemy base. Don't think you will see it except for some rare cases.

The fuel is enough for most maps. I mean ofc you won't be able to fly from one corner of a 20x20 map to the other one, but it's definitely possible on most maps

@sladow-noob said in Mercy Change - Not ready yet:

Those are things which have to be fixed of course, however it's not really a reason against changing the mercies, if that's what you intented. If you simply wanted to mention it,

It just means that someone has to solve the problem if we want to change the mercy in such a way.

Yeah I don't disagree with that take, but the priority is in just checking the stats for now as Spikey mentioned

@sladow-noob said in Mercy Change - Not ready yet:

@arma473 said in Mercy Change - Not ready yet:

@strife said in Mercy Change - Not ready yet:

Halve or third the damage a ACU gets from the Mercy

Gross

Imagine a new-ish player investing big resources into a mercy snipe, getting the connections, and then the enemy player walks off with less than fatal damage

And he ends up losing the game because he invested in a failed attack

All because the first player didn't know there was a special rule for how mercies damage ACUs

I mean tbf it's the same with some other mechanics. E.g. the Overcharge dealing less dmg against ACU and buildings, so that would happen one time and never again. Adding a short explanation in description is a possibility as well

Terrible logic. You minimize exceptions in good game design.

@ftxcommando said in Mercy Change - Not ready yet:

@sladow-noob said in Mercy Change - Not ready yet:

@arma473 said in Mercy Change - Not ready yet:

@strife said in Mercy Change - Not ready yet:

Halve or third the damage a ACU gets from the Mercy

Gross

Imagine a new-ish player investing big resources into a mercy snipe, getting the connections, and then the enemy player walks off with less than fatal damage

And he ends up losing the game because he invested in a failed attack

All because the first player didn't know there was a special rule for how mercies damage ACUs

I mean tbf it's the same with some other mechanics. E.g. the Overcharge dealing less dmg against ACU and buildings, so that would happen one time and never again. Adding a short explanation in description is a possibility as well

Terrible logic. You minimize exceptions in good game design.

It doesn't really matter as long as they're easy to remember. E.g. the opposite of StarCraft where it takes a good amount of time to learn the counterunits to specific stuff.
Assuming the mercies do reduced dmg to the ACU is an exception to the mechanic, but it's not something you only remember after trying that for 10 games in a row. Worst case put it into the loading-screen such as the OC-stuff.

It does matter. Each exception is increasing complexity and onboarding cost for new users. You need to seriously look at whether an exception carries justifiable merits for the game’s health to warrant being included. Such an exception for mercy does not. It’s just there to enable lazy game design/balance.

It’s not “ah ok mercy just randomly does 33% the damage against ACUs” it’s “ah ok, time to check if every other unit in the game lies to me”

Like revert beetle to what it was and make it do 25% damage to ACUs.

Make notha do 40% damage to ACUs and buff the aoe so it’s more intuitive to snipe with it. But those damage differences aren’t how things like notha get balanced because it’s unintuitive to randomly introduce armor like that unless it becomes a core game mechanic. It’s only currently in the game to prevent totally toxic unintended interactions against asf or ACU as you mentioned for example. You don’t intuitively think to groundfire czar against asf but you do intuitively think to use the aeon magic snipe missile against the autowin game target.

The only thing I care about here is the visual effect. Leave it alone if possible.

@melanol There will have to be some change to make it clearly an AOE weapon. But I am leaning in the direction of making it look as close to the original as possible.

@ftxcommando said in Mercy Change - Not ready yet:

It does matter. Each exception is increasing complexity and onboarding cost for new users. You need to seriously look at whether an exception carries justifiable merits for the game’s health to warrant being included. Such an exception for mercy does not. It’s just there to enable lazy game design/balance.

I agree, non-intuitive changes should be made very carefully and only when no other option is available.

@FtXCommando It's not part of the key mechanics of the game though. If it's something you'd see each rounds, then I'd completely argue. Taking StarCraft or AoE as an example where literally every unit you use has special / hidden stats.
However if a game only has like 1-3 of these units which also don't have special stats towards literally every other unit (e.g. let's say a multiplier against any arty or tanks or even faction-specific stuff), then I'd say it's definitely an okay-ish thing to do.
If you're referring to complexity, then why did the loyas get that extra ability in the first place? It also just increased complexity and Loyas get used in way more games than mercies. In addition to that I'm 100% sure there were definitely some noobs selecting multiple loyas and then wondering why they just exploded without shooting/killing anything.