Chrono Dampener Rework

@arma473 said in Chrono Dampener Rework:

@Deribus Is there a way to also stop the units from reloading while they are stunned? That would make the percival more vulnerable to chrono.

Can't y charge reload time of the weapon 'on the fly' ? I think auto-overcharge works like this:
normal over-charge - 3sec cooldown, auto - 6 seconds.
It's 2 different weapons in blueprints though(

Just disable old weapon and add new one with 'remaining cooldown + stun time' recharge time, which gets switched to old weapon once it fires at least once or fully recharged.

Also chrono from COM (maybe not new sacus) should work on experimentals, cybran's laser works, overcharge from rambo sera sacu - works. Billy from uef - works, only aoen's 'super weapon' is castrated vs experimentals.

@Arran said in Chrono Dampener Rework:

• The visual aspects make the ability more intuitive. The aspect where the stun times are shorter at the edge will mean higher tech units (with have longer range on average) become more effective against chrono, while low tech units will be completely shut down. Chrono mostly (in my experience) isn't gotten at T1, or T3 so I suspect this change will weaken chrono.
• Perhaps have stun time remain 2.5 seconds but only get's triggered "on contact" with the "chrono wave"?

Half the reason he made it was to nerf chrono, he literally called it oppressive in the OP.

My impression as Aeon 1v1 ladder player. I cannot speak for lower ratings and for TMM.

The situation it fixes :
If the duration of the stun is tuned appropriatly, it would end two frustrating situations :

• Your units just can't chase a retreating chrono ACU, cause they get stunned out of their gun range, and can't progress past chrono range (i think percy is the only non sniper unit which can chase and shoot at a chrono acu ?)
• Once caught in the chrono field and if the ACU marches forward, your units have very little room to escape, if none, which often leads to the death of all units caught.
  I'm fine with those situations being less oppressive : the DPS and movements of units should be impaired, but not cancelled completly.

But :
If you nerf the range / duration too much, you might end up with some t2 units being barely affected (think of the hoplite or the mangoose for example). I think chrono should give you a decent edge against those units and not only vs low range tank (pillars/ obsidians / rhino / t1 tanks ...), because it's an upgrade that comes late due to its price (usually you need 2 t2 pgen to afford it with decent assistance).

Last observation about the relevancy of chrono:
The fact that chrono has a low window of opportunity already prevents it to be seen and abused in 95% of the games. Think of it, chrono ACU becomes obsolete once one of those unit comes into play : snipers, percies, few t2 pd, and of course the threat of t2/t3 air snipe. Only cybran have limited options to counter it.

I play 100% aeon, and I can barely find you replays of me winning just because of chrono, because
1°) it's hard to find the right opportunity to use it, and it's often very dangerous
2°) once the opponent knows you have it, he can retreat, make pds, avoid your acu, or make t3 counters ... Basically it only kinda works when rushed on maps like twin rivers, open palms, badlands ... and if the opponent is surprised by it.

So please don't make it completly useless

Oh i forgot : the visual aspect of your mod is top tier, it should have always been like that. It also makes sense that the wave stuns as it progresses. That should be implemented regardless of balance issues.

A chrono ACU at current balance is able to defend against a t2 army of any size, if you have some room to retreat. I usually do it when I go max greed on a map where it is easy to defend. I don't know why it is still underused.

@Auricocorico Hoplites and Mogooses are already hardcountered by the aeon double gun, so they won't be efficient to fight a chrono com with.

Looks very solid, I will forward it to the balance team.

The reason chrono was reduced to only a 2.5s stun was to prevent units from losing orders when they are stunned for a longer duration. Durations longer than that should probably still be avoided for this reason.

@Sinforosa yeah, that is one of the issues. The others I'm aware of are that I can't make a stun less than a second and that the visual effect will get hidden by elevated terrain.

Chrono is half the e cost of UEF personal shield and 550 mass cheaper yet it hard counters pretty much all land units barring 1k mass t3 direct fire units like siege bots and snipers.

Even percivals aren’t really immune to it, it has a 1 range advantage against Aeon gun. Percy v Chrono mostly comes down to who is carrying around more mobile shields.

Don’t see why you would need to wait until almost-t3 stage for chrono when you can get it on like 1 or 2 less t2 pgens than something like uef shield which is a late t2/early t3 upgrade.

@FtXCommando said in Chrono Dampener Rework:

Don’t see why you would need to wait until almost-t3 stage for chrono when you can get it on like 1 or 2 less t2 pgens than something like uef shield which is a late t2/early t3 upgrade.

Well maybe you need to try it out in the context of the game and send us a replay
I'm just stating my experience : you have factories to feed in your game and not only your ACU, unless you play wonder 8v8 .. So you can't just rush 2 t2 pgens straight when you get t2 , you need mexes, support factories .. etc. If you gamble that your chrono will be enough to control the entire ennemy army, you can pause your production and your eco scaling to get it quicker, but it's such a danger.

If the opponent has a mirror eco (2 t2 pgens and some t2 mexes), well he's theorically in good shape to click the t3 upgrade while you're busy upgrading chrono. I would agree that the meta is to add more t2 support factories and not rush t3, so in a sense chrono counters the meta, but it's up to the players to changes their playstyle if it's hard countered every game (which doesn't happen, cause aoen is so rare ...).

gorgeous work,it looks decent and logical.

@Auricocorico said in Chrono Dampener Rework:

@FtXCommando said in Chrono Dampener Rework:

Don’t see why you would need to wait until almost-t3 stage for chrono when you can get it on like 1 or 2 less t2 pgens than something like uef shield which is a late t2/early t3 upgrade.

Well maybe you need to try it out in the context of the game and send us a replay
I'm just stating my experience : you have factories to feed in your game and not only your ACU, unless you play wonder 8v8 .. So you can't just rush 2 t2 pgens straight when you get t2 , you need mexes, support factories .. etc. If you gamble that your chrono will be enough to control the entire ennemy army, you can pause your production and your eco scaling to get it quicker, but it's such a danger.

If the opponent has a mirror eco (2 t2 pgens and some t2 mexes), well he's theorically in good shape to click the t3 upgrade while you're busy upgrading chrono. I would agree that the meta is to add more t2 support factories and not rush t3, so in a sense chrono counters the meta, but it's up to the players to changes their playstyle if it's hard countered every game (which doesn't happen, cause aoen is so rare ...).

Yeah no. You need 1 t2 pgen to make chrono at a decent timing.

Do you consider sera nano + gun some late game ACU? No, it’s a pretty typical early-mid t2 stage setup for a frontline sera ACU.

And funny enough, Aeon chrono + range is cheaper than that setup.

Chrono competes with upgrades 2-3x as expensive as it and is indisputably a tier above comparable upgrades.

Aeon’s version of late t2/early t3 upgrade is their double shield which DOES compare to UEF personal shield, not chrono. And that heavy shield upgrade competes with chrono for an upgrade slot, yet I see chrono way more often than that “superior upgrade” gee I wonder why.

Eeeepppiccc

@biass said in Chrono Dampener Rework:

As an additional suggestion, I would experiment with adding a small wave effect to each unit as they get stunned, no bigger than the length of the personal shield range ring.

I've been experimenting with this a little. The issue is finding an effect that is noticeable yet not too busy that it's overwhelming when an entire army is stunned. I also need to either find a happy medium for effect size where it's not so small that large T3 units completely overshadow it but not too big that many closely packed T1 units turns into an effect soup.

It may be possible to dynamically change the effect size based on the unit hitbox size, but I haven't gotten that far into my experimentation yet.

I think chrono should just be able to prevent your acu from getting surrounded by units. Basicly a proection against a shift-g from like 30-40 t1 tanks which would kill a normal gun com. Also removing /reducing the hp buff of chrono might be an option.

Baseline it.

@Deribus You still have the files for this change?

It was uploaded to the vault under the name Chrono Expand

I've thought about the rework a bit, and I tend to like harzer's idea : just make it into an early game upgrade that prevents from dying too hard from shift g.

Reasoning :

• As i've stated before, the upgrade is in a strange spot atm since it''s quite expansive, and comes up at a time (late T2 / early T3) where you really want your ACU to be safe and not on the frontline.
• So now that it's going to be weaker, i think it should also be less expansive, otherwise it will never be played : it will be too weak to handle t3 units, and barely strong enough to juggle a big t2 army, and it doesn't protect you from air snipes, why pick it over shield then ?

Solution : maybe this upgrade should be used as UEF nano : a secondary upgrade for t1 and early t2 stage, that doesn't require a t2 pgen.
Another idea : maybe the shield could be a direct upgrade of chrono, so it would remove the awkward choice we have to make right now. Again, if shield is just a better upgrade than chrono (cause it protects you against air as well as land units ...), you will never seen chrono chosen over it.

@auriko said in Chrono Dampener Rework:

As i've stated before, the upgrade is in a strange spot atm since it''s quite expansive, and comes up at a time (late T2 / early T3) where you really want your ACU to be safe and not on the frontline.

can't be more wrong honestly

So now that it's going to be weaker, i think it should also be less expansive, otherwise it will never be played : it will be too weak to handle t3 units, and barely strong enough to juggle a big t2 army, and it doesn't protect you from air snipes, why pick it over shield then ?

Right now chrone is ultra dominant and super OP. Why do you think that the upcoming nerf will instantly make it worthless. If anything i'd say it might need another nerf because it will still be too strong, but that's up for later debate after we see the effects of the first one