What would your special unit be able to do?

[Necrocat219]

Firefly special - Has a higher than usual movement (5?), decent attack capability and decent survivability, but has the ability to 'mark' all units in it's vision range permanently, granting vision of them for as long as they live.

This would be more ideal on a customized runner but that would just over complicate things in this

[Ja Karta]

The only example I've seen in this thread that I think would be *interesting* & *fun* is the "vortex" one. Most of these ideas are either tactically valid, but bland (e.g. boosting, snipers, or super sight) or undermine important bidirectional gameplay concepts (e.g. insta-teleport, burrowing, & also super sight).
[Regarding the second point: a unit has to not only be fun to play, but fun to play against. Units that operate in a way where your opponent is denied information and thus interesting counters make for boring play. And in the case of invisibility or insta-teleport tend to make tactical calculations unreasonable, thus 'randomizing' the game.]

Not putting anyone down, just trying to offer some design-oriented feedback.

---

Actually, the DoT could be interesting if played with.
In another thread someone suggested something about a disease affect.
That could lead to interesting play.

e.g. Any unit damaging or damaged by a diseased unit spreads disease to the other unit. Diseased units lose one health per turn. The disease special unit can also attack friendly units.

Bam. Plenty of balance issues to be worked out, but what happens is predictable (and calculateable; units are as visible as ever). The special can be used multiple ways: attacking enemies directly, or creating diseased friendlies. The tactical considerations become complex, because it's a sword that cuts both ways; though the special containing player can decide when exchanges occur thus gaining advantage. I could riff on the concept (and it's not originally mine I think), but I think that's an example of an interesting special. [And obviously you can play with variants; like all adjacent units are infected at the end of every turn--> that makes disease more dangerous, but drastically affects how the special's units needs to be arranged since they can't be adjacent to the special most turns. It fundamentally affects how combat plays out. Simple rules. Complex effects.]

[Bulby37]

I think the vortex as it was described would be OP and take away the fun. Take off the damage component, or limit the pull to one unit. The tactical advantage of moving your opponent's planned attack or defense line to a position they did not see fit to put them into in the first place should be enough for a skilled player, no need to add a sniper/runner/medic nuke into that equation.
A lot of these ideas remind me of Starcraft. I would have to say that invisibility is not an utterly terrible idea, so long as it was done in the same fashion as an arbiter, with a telltale unit pretty much telegraphing the existence of cloaked units, but not revealing the number of units, what type, etc. could also be used to feint a cloaked attack and draw the enemy to a certain area to discover there are no units actually cloaked within, just in time for all your bases are belong to dust.
Also, a ranged AoE hit point buff machine (a force field or shield generator) might make an interesting counter to bombshells.

[ElPared]

DoT would be pretty powerful. It would kill any runners and medics instantly unless boosted, as well as unshelled Bombshells and Scramblers (again that aren't boosted).

I think maybe a Chain Lightning type attack instead would be cool. Something like the bombshell, but for a set amount of damage (1 or 2) and it hits a unit, then another random unit on a square right next to that unit, then another random unit right next to that one, etc.

basically it would discourage turtling by punishing grouping your units together. It would probably be a 1 or 2 health guy that can move 2 spaces like a heavy and can attack from a distance of 2 spaces. to balance it out, maybe I'd also have it hit friendly units too, so there's a risk to using it, or limit the number of chain hits to 3 or 4

[TheGreatErenan]

What about this:

A unit that cannot attack, but can "root in" or "shell" a la Bramble or Bombshell, and once it has done so, other friendly units can use their action for that turn to touch it and get healed. When I say they use their action what I mean is that units cannot both touch the healing unit and attack in the same turn. I'm thinking this special would have to be unable to unshell and shell on the same turn, or else it would be unable to heal anything until the following turn after it shells itself (like Bombshell being unable to shoot until the following turn).

Thoughts? OP, not very useful, just right, etc.? Thoughts on possible adjustments to this?

I was thinking about either a jungle or desert themed team as my idea for a new one, and I think this might fit with either one. Some kind of golden idol or obelisk on spider's legs or something like that.

[CombatEX]

DISCLAIMER: Though I am about to talk about why I think the Phantom would be an interesting special and isn't blatantly broken in any way I can see, I also do not want a new team/special implemented into Outwitters any time soon. It is already hard enough to balance 4 teams on 8 different maps (just look at Starcraft 2, even 3 races is a nightmare) so a 5th team would just make matters worse. That being said, it's still fun dreaming up new specials =)

CombatEX Wrote:Phantom
HP: 3 (4 boosted)
ATK: 1 to Base, 2 to Units
MOV: Any visible space
VIS: 0

Numbers can be adjusted for balance.

(01-30-2013 03:15 AM)Ja Karta Wrote:  Most of these ideas are either tactically valid, but bland (e.g. boosting, snipers, or super sight) or undermine important bidirectional gameplay concepts (e.g. insta-teleport, burrowing, & also super sight).
[Regarding the second point: a unit has to not only be fun to play, but fun to play against. [...] in the case of invisibility or insta-teleport tend to make tactical calculations unreasonable, thus 'randomizing' the game.]

Actually, contrary to what you might believe, teleport doesn't increase 'randomness' any more than any other special (especially mobi). Perhaps it's useful to think of it more as "predictability and unpredictability" instead of "randomness". Moves in Outwitters are not random! As trivial a statement as that may seem, it actually is a critical distinction. Invisibility does increase unpredictability in a huge way since an invisible unit can occupy ANY hex without you knowing which. Teleporting (as described for the Phantom), however, does not increase unpredictability to an unreasonable level by comparison. For further explanation, see the section at the bottom on "Unpredictability". To put it briefly though, there are only a few hexes at any given time that would be useful for the Phantom to move to. You only need to consider those hexes, a much easier task than dealing with an invisible unit.

Your point about specials having to be fun to play against is interesting. I personally don't find it fun playing against Mobi at all post patch and to a lesser extent, Bombshell pre-patch. It's going to vary on a player by player basis. Different things annoy different people and to different extents. As with anything, it is impossible to please everyone. You just need to strike the right balance.

Phantom Applications
What are the main uses of the Phantom that I could see being annoying (aka effective)?
NOTE: In 'cost to execute' I'm including the cost of the Phantom.

1.
Action: Teleporting onto a spawn space.
Cost to execute: 8 wits (9 to move a unit up for vision).
Usefulness: This is expensive, so it is quite situational. More importantly, it could even be tweaked to be more or less useful by adjusting the HP of the Phantom. This is a key point! If this functionality is deemed overpowered, it can be fixed by modifying stats, the core ability itself is fine.

2.
Action: Finishing off an opponent's base after getting it down to 1 hp.
Cost to execute: 9 wits (10 to move a unit up for vision).
Usefulness: Definitely can be useful. There are a few caveats though. Say your opponent's base only has 1 hp left but your forces have been cleaned up. Now you want to spawn a Phantom and take out the base. How can you do this? You need to get vision of a spot adjacent to the base that is unoccupied and then spawn, move, and attack with the Phantom. This costs 10 wits (if you already have vision of an unoccupied space next to their base you could just attack with that unit instead of making a Phantom for 7 wits =P). Usually after launching the kind of attach that leaves your opponent at 1 hp you don't just have 10 wits sitting around. It will take at least 1 turn of saving which also gives your opponent a chance to block off their base. It's still possible that they cannot, but that's not the important point. There are many times when you can't block your base from taking a mortal blow from a runner. Are runners OP then? And they only cost 1 wit, 3 to execute this maneuver instead of 10! I'm not actually trying to say that a runner is as good as the Phantom, but rather that I don't see anything obviously broken here.

3.
Action: Picking off snipers and medics.
Cost to Execute: 8 wits (9 to move a unit up for vision).
Usefulness: Becomes increasingly cost efficient the further their unit is from their spawn. Most likely this will almost always be used for snipers instead of medics. Since it costs at least 8 wits to pull off this maneuver, the sniper better be quite a ways from the spawn before this is worthwhile (unless the sniper is alone for some reason and you don't have to worry about your Phantom dying after killing it).

4.
Action: Blocking your backdoor (Glitch, Reaper, and Foundry) or a vulnerable unit you have in the center of the field (preventing a sniper from dying by blocking it with a Phantom).
Cost to Execute: 8 wits (9 wits to get vision of your backdoor, but only 8 wits to protect a vulnerable unit since you already have vision there)
Usefulness: Blocking your backdoor can be extremely helpful if the Phantom is balanced to have 3 hp+. With 2 hp, though still useful, it would become a very expensive sacrifice to block a soldier for one turn. However as stated above, this is a numbers issue, not an issue of the core concept. As for protecting a unit, it can be useful, but also quite expensive and not necessarily worthwhile. For example, assume the sniper has 2 hp. Then, speaking on a basic level, protecting your sniper with a sacrificial Phantom is cost efficient if the sniper is at least 6 spaces away from your spawn. That's not something that only comes into play at very specific times (usually with predeployed snipers). Note that this is the Phantom's team, so no mobis.

5.
Action: Blocking your opponent from dealing with a unit you have in their backdoor (Glitch and Foundry, not Reaper though).
Cost to Execute: 8 wits (+ however many wits it cost to move the unit up to the backdoor)
Usefulness: Now this is probably the most annoying thing you can do with a Phantom. It's also the most expensive since you need to get a unit up to the backdoor for this scenario to occur. The important question is, is it broken? Only testing would show for sure, however I don't think it would be necessarily. As I stated in my original post, a good special in my eyes is one that changes both how you play and how your opponent has to react. If you are playing against a Phantom team, this is one of those adjustments you'd have to make, prioritize blocking your backdoor. This is just like how you have to adapt differently to any other special. Threat of a mobi sniper? Block your base, but you wouldn't have to do this against the Feedback's special. In fact, in some situations you may even need to do the exact opposite! (Move away so your unit doesn't get scrambled and attack your base).




Having gone through these potential uses I now really want to try it! I've realized that the Phantom can not only be used offensively, but also quite well defensively.
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Unpredictability
At first it seems overwhelming. A unit that can teleport ANYWHERE? How am I supposed to prepare for that?! However, on closer inspection, one realizes that the Phantom is actually far more predictable than one would originally assume. If you read the section on applications of the Phantom above you'll see what I mean. On a general level though, the point is that there are a limited number of useful hexes on which to move the Phantom. What are these?

1. Next to an enemy unit.
2. Next to the enemy base.
3. Blocking pathing to protect a friendly unit.

The first two are relatively easy to account for. Your opponent has only 1 soldier in range of your soldier and no other units that can threaten it? Against any team except Adorables or the Phantom's team, your soldier would be safe. However, in the case of Adorables or Phantom, you now need to consider the possibility that your soldier could still die. Is this kind of 'randomness' excessive? Doesn't seem like it. It's not any more of a problem than a Mobi when it comes to predictability. All these specials have pros and cons in the way they 'attack' enemy units. The Scrambler can steal a unit, but is the weakest. The Mobi can do the most damage out of nowhere, but it is the most expensive to pull-off and requires an additional unit. The Phantom can aid the fight the turn it is spawned, but has the weakest offensive capabilities (2 damage melee range vs mobi's 3 damage at range vs scrambler's 1HKO and a stolen unit).

Now how about blocking pathing? This, too, is not as hard to analyze as you might think. Simply consider where it would be hardest for you to deal with and that's that. Going for a backdoor maneuver? Okay, just keep in mind that if your opponent sees it coming s/he can try to block it with a Phantom (though it is expensive to do so). My opponent has a sniper in the middle of the field but only 1 soldier to protect it? I can kill that soldier this turn and then be in position to kill the sniper next turn (no other soldiersrunners/heavies in range to protect it). But wait! I have to keep in mind that my opponent plays the Phantom team so if s/he has saved enough that sniper could potentially be protected with a Phantom.

So, you see that while there always will be some uncertainty with the Phantom, it's not much greater (if at all) than what occurs in the game at present.

[myninja527]

I like the idea of a flying unit that can move over holes and barrels. Maybe three health, two attack, two movement/vision/range, maybe three movement/vision, but i think three range is too powerful.

[Phyresis]

@CombatEx your example of starcraft is completely wrong. In SC2, they are needing to balance 3 COMPLETELY different races, not 3 races with nly one difference between them. It would be easy to balance the game if there were only zealots, zerglings, and marines.

[Necrocat219]

The main problem I see with the idea is that you can't just think about what the top 1% players might do with a special but you also have to think about how races balance at lower level metagames; the four main specials are already spawned quite a bit less at the lower end of the spectrum than at higher levels and a lot of the tactics you've suggested would probably rarely happen at lower levels of play. You also have to think of a players first impression of a special; with the Bramble it was 'making barriers, thats pretty cool!' (Lets forget about it's execution for now ^^ but with the Phantom sure it teleports and is quite bulky but for lower level players who wouldn't be able to utilize it as well 1 damage might seem extremely underpowered for an investment of 7 wits.

However I think the following possible changes could make it have more utility and reduce the feeling of it being able to be 'gimmicky'; I know you're insisting that it isn't but I really do feel that only having 1 attack does feel gimmicky, especially with every unit here and there being boosted at high level:

-Buff to have 2-3 attack
-Only allow it to teleport in the vision of any of your units
-(maybe) make it so that the phantom has no vision of it's own

This would firstly give your opponent some counteractive measures they can do - they can prevent you from laying your eyes on important map objectives so you can't teleport to those sectioned off areas. In return you would be able to buff the phantom to 2 or even 3 attack (although HP might need to be reduced. Also a 'fun' element could be added to the mix (albeit a nerf) that the phantom has no vision of it's own: it would not be able to move when concealed in the fog.

[Ryzuma]

Necro it already has those things lol