@maudlin27 said in Deribus' Patent Pending Fatboy Rework:
I'm unsure about the proposed 'cheaper but weaker' changes, especially the planned significant reduction to shield health (but no change to current health). I'd much prefer less of a reduction to shield health but coupled with a health reduction to offset - 12k shield health is barely more than a seraphim mobile shield. I also worry that if these changes (stat changes) were done in isolation it would mean that even 1 well micro'd fatboy would lose vs 1 monkeylord/1 ythotha, meaning you'd need 2 fatboys for an equivalent position to before (which would be even more expensive).
The fatty being way too overpowered now is 100% possible. These stats were basically Jip lowering then with me being like "Nah.. Make them even lower, but keep the same range", they are not balanced and there is not a lot of thought process behind the exact numbers (aka. his stats were honestly prob more logical but I wanted to go to the extreme). It's just a thought experiment I wanna play around with, to explain it a bit further:
The main problem with UEF land is that it's vulnerable to sniperbots just as the Cybran land. UEF basically has the counter for sniperbots (Fatty), but because it's so expensive it doesn't really counter them, because you build fatboys only later on.
So what I want to try is "What happens, if we just make it way cheaper?", which brings follow-up questions with the obvious one being "But with what stats?" and honestly that questions doesn't really bother me for now. I don't care about the exact number, I just want to see what happens if we just do it lol.
Other questions being "Can it still counter stationary arty?", "Is it still viable during lategame (against Megas etc.)?", "Is the airsnipe-problem still the same?", "Can other factions (especially Cybran) defend well against an early fatty?" which I want to test.
Some neat side effects I've noticed:
- The mobile factory-ability is actually useful now. Because currently the fatty costs 28k and by the time you have one, you have 5+ T3 support factories anyway, so it doesn't really matter. But because the fatty is so cheap now, you don't have a lot of support factories.
- If a monkeylord pushes and if you have two fatties, you can split them so the monkeylord can only chase one
- Due to Deribus' changes, you can micro it like a Megalith, with all four cannons shooting at the target while slowly retreating
Bonus effect: It looks cute now.
So yeah, currently it's just to play around a bit cuz in my head it's hard to imagine how the changes shift the T3 UEF gameplay. I can imagine it being enough if the fatty is around 18k mass, which is still a lot for 'countering sniperbots', so I wanna try around with even cheaper costs (+ some decreses of the hp, dps etc.).
I also want to mention that none of this was discussed in the balance-team, nor was it a thought others had. This is 100% just me being like "Damn.. What if.."