Unit Pricing

[Fluffysox]

Heavys? Weak? On small maps they are pretty good, being able to get to the opponent faster. Also the special unit can be a tide changing unit! Bombers can hold a spot by themselves, mobidick can counter attack very fast and scramblers can immediately take control of ANY unit. If you think about how cost effective some of these units are, they make up for more that 7 wits. Say a scrambler (7wits) controls a heavy. That's 4 wits worth of unit, plus wasted wits on all it's moves getting to there. And that was just 1 unit. Also the mobi can teleport snipers from ur base straight to where it is, so not only is your sniper getting in a better position, it can kill whatever aswell. That mobi had just saved about 5 wits so your sniper doesn't have to take a walk. And the bomber....well...it's a god dang turret. It can destroy things from 4 squares away. It can pretty much destroy anything that tries to kill it aswell, with direct damage as much as a heavy. And talking about heavies, that just brought me an idea. Maybe in the future you could have perks to take into battle? I only thought of this when I tried to think of ideas of buffing the heavy, like having the robo heavy (since it does a spin animation) to damage targets left and right of the target for 1? And seeing the adorables heavy animation, perhaps a penetrating shot through 1 target only? Lastly the scallywag heavy could....could....gain an extremely small amount of health from attacking? I mean, it is a shark that bites....so all of this could be 1 perk: heavy buff or w/e. This would increase the buying of different teams, and also allow battles to go different ways. Come to think of it, I really like the perks idea maybe have a maximum of 2 perks though.

Again these are just IDEAS, no one is forcing anyone to implement these into the game and most of this is just my OPINION.

[Harti]

I don't think that there's a feasible way to change basic attributes such as the moving speed. This would happen through an update, most people don't read the description nor the news, so I think it won't ever happen. I liked the idea of the runner having 4 movement too but I think they are okay.

Tip: Use 2 HP Runners as a rock against those scissors.

[ArtNJ]

Runners are ok as is. People that over use them tend to lose to experienced players. Instead of trading runners, you pop out a soldier and take one, or a two hp runner as Harti mentioned, or move up your sniper and take on. Since you can only spawn 1 or 2 units a turn, losing a unit when you cant counter is the type of event that seems minor at the time, but that, nonetheless, matters.

Or just ingore the runner after gradually moving other units into position, and doing something more significant.

Runners seem OP because the possibility of a runner rush means that certain slow-cook strategies are losers. New players that dont yet realize, die painful deaths to the little guys. While it might be nice to have a mode lending itself to longer games, the fact that you can play and finish a lot of games in one day is a plus in my book.

[stevewastaken]

To the doubters, just look at the match that introduced the very first player into Super-Titan. (this is the best example available to show high level play). The match is posted on the news feed if you haven't seen it.

Runners produced: 33
All other units COMBINED produced: 13
(my girlfriend talked to me during this count, so it may be off by a few)

...sooo I don't think those numbers need any further explanation. The runner is a little too popular.

(07-08-2012 07:22 PM)Harti Wrote:  I don't think that there's a feasible way to change basic attributes such as the moving speed. This would happen through an update, most people don't read the description nor the news, so I think it won't ever happen. I liked the idea of the runner having 4 movement too but I think they are okay.

What do you mean? Hero Academy changes stats on units every major update. It's expected in fact. Balance is trickier there because of multiple teams, but that doesn't make balance in Outwitters any less important.

[Szei]

I was waiting for someone to bring up that Super-titan promotion game. Here is what I have to say about it. It proves exactly what I was trying to say in my earlier post in this thread. That is, the player who spams out runners will eventually lose to the player who holds them off with a combination of runners and OTHER units. Josue's opponent who was the runner aggressor gradually got behind since, as I've explained in my other post, attacking purely with mass runners is very cost ineffective. 2 wits to do 1 damage... The only reason ~75% of the produced units were runners is because Josue also had to make *some* to help counter his opponent's. Ultimately though spamming runners is a losing strategy. In other words, if your opponent spams runners, yes you will need to make a fair number of runners to retaliate but 1. You shouldn't make as many and 2. You will win in the long run if you counter it properly because you will be getting more cost effective use out of your units, bank wits as a result, and ultimately will have a much stronger unit composition which you can then push out with. The super-titan match was a good example of this.

As a result of the other player's runner spam it seems like runners are way more necessary than they actually are in general. I'd imagine Josue wouldn't have built half those runners if not for his opponent spamming out so many.

[CombatEX]

(07-09-2012 11:07 AM)stevewastaken Wrote:  To the doubters, just look at the match that introduced the very first player into Super-Titan. (this is the best example available to show high level play). The match is posted on the news feed if you haven't seen it.

Runners produced: 33
All other units COMBINED produced: 13
(my girlfriend talked to me during this count, so it may be off by a few)

...sooo I don't think those numbers need any further explanation. The runner is a little too popular.

That certainly is interesting, though I think szei also brings up a good point. In that light, to get a better idea of whether this is actually an issue it would be useful if high level players like Josue or Harti (though harti is more likely since josue isn't all that active on the forums) look through some of their recent games and do a count like you did.

You can't tell whether the runner is really overused from a single game and the points szei brings up as well as the games I've watched in replays make me believe otherwise. Still though, thanks for taking the time to tally it up for us, maybe you're on to something. Hopefully we can get some more info from other high level players like Harti or if oml has so stat tracking going on behind the scenes they can deal with it too.

[stevewastaken]

(07-09-2012 11:16 AM)Szei Wrote:  It proves exactly what I was trying to say in my earlier post in this thread. That is, the player who spams out runners will eventually lose to the player who holds them off with a combination of runners and OTHER units.

Except that the numbers don't seem to support your belief.

Jose's production was

Runners: 15
Other: 6

Cani's production was

Runners: 18
Other: 7

(assuming I counted right) That looks like they had almost the same Runner to Other ratio, but Jose had slightly better retention of units. This gave him the wits to push forward and take the win.

[ArtNJ]

I'm 47-1, #1 in Gifted.

Runners are like pawns in chess. They are important, and there are a lot of them, but they only decide the game in conjunction with your heavy pieces.

I dont runner rush unless, very occasionally, my opponent steers me that way, but in my most recent win, I built ALL runners, 7 of 7. It was, however, a 12 turn game, and I used the runners in conjunction with my starting stock of heavy pieces, manuevering very heavily. It wasnt remotely a runner rush, it was a positional crush.

This type of thing is somewhat unusual, but runners definitely make up a consistently high percentage of my buys. They are pawns, its to be expected. Its how you use them in conjunction with your heavy pieces that make for a win or loss.

[stevewastaken]

Calling them "pawns" isn't really an appropriate comparison. There's no fog of war in chess, and pawns in chess can't move half-way across the entire board.

Yes, they do low damage, but very frequently 1 damage is plenty.

I'm not trying to argue that Runners are the only unit you need, and building 100% Runners is the way to win. I'm saying they're overpowered in relation to the other units, and there is no counter (other than more Runners).

[Szei]

Actually I think my point still stands. By the end of turn 14 josue has a massive advantage. They've both had 7 turns but josue's army value is 11 while his opponent's is a mere 5. You'll notice that his opponent's scout to other unit ratio to this point is 9-2 while josue's is 5-2. His opponent went much more scout heavy and it cost him. Not only is he already way down in army supply due to his reliance on cost inefficient scout play but he also isn't able to bank as many wits. Scouts aren't too good! They're extremely expensive to use in terms of damage per wits and over-reliance in the early game will ultimately cost you if you can't seal the deal. When attempting to ascertain if a unit is too good it is most important to consider up until the point when one player amassed a significant advantage. The game drags on and on after that point but what units they make after turn 15 or so isn't so important. The key thing is what unit comp was used to gain that massive game winnig advantage which josue gained relatively early and that wasn't through a huge reliance on scouts.