Proposing Webway Gate Change

[Element]

Now obviously this is nothing new, this has been touched upon in the past but, I know I wasn't posting on the forums as of the time when changes to this were being made. It's always a constant hot topic, and while I'm cool with changing opinions on the webway gate, it's like anything in life, one moment the people feel one way about something, the next they feel the opposite, (new generations and what not) However, I'm here just voicing my opinion on the subject matter because that is what this section of the site is for. I take criticism rather fine and welcome it because I want to build a conversation, however under the guide lines that people aren't outright rude and confrontational (attacking)

So on with the thread here are my thoughts about the Webway Gate
-Cost 50 Red
-takes up 3 pop cap
-is infiltrated
-infiltrates allied units
-can heal units
-can instantly transport units that aren't termi variants/tanks across the field with no drawback to do so

What comes to mind that would be the closest thing to similar
Ravener Alpha Tunnels
-Cost the required energy for the ability
-does not take up any pop cap
-is not infiltratable
-does not heal
-has much less health and can even be walked over

Chaos Sorcerer
Warp/has a cooldown
-cost 100 red
-Can only transport one unit

Warp Rift
-cost energy/has a cooldown
- has a limited range

Now taking a look at these (Yes, I know I'm comparing and contrasting between different armies however, I'm taking into account of relative synergy they provide to the faction>cost/effectiveness

The Ravener Alpha I'd definitely say is the closest thing in comparison, but really at the end of the day, it's not that hard to find those tunnels necessarily, they are easier to kill, they don't heal your units, and they don't infiltrate units. And while relatively speaking; the qualities the tyranid tunnel provides is satisfactory it's not something you can count on. Eldar gates, unless you spot them as they are being made, or gain a general idea as to where they are coming from after teleportation which may sometimes be hard, you may never find them...

The Chaos Sorcerers teleportation techniques usually only help in transporting one unit and that's it.

Eldar are a fragile army I get that, but at the end of the day, no army should have justifiable buffs such as that of all the attributes which the elder webway gate provides... and for only 50 red. They are already the fastest faction in the game. This just outright abuses the feature.

My personal opinion would be to
-Remove some of the attributes from the webway gate, notably the ability that allows you to infiltrate units. This just gives the faction to much opportunity to wipe and moreover, too much ability to get around the field to cap and be unnoticed.
-I'd also have to say there needs to be an increase in the cost as well to 75 red. 50 red for the instant teleportation, plus infiltrated webway + healing ability granted by it, really is just kind of laughable when you think about it.

The goals
-Make webway gates more easily capable of being spotted if not put in well thought and discreet locations
-Limit the spam nature of webways
-Help limit the Wipe potential of infiltrated rushes behind enemy lines by making it so people can at least have a slight means of notification to retreat before there army is being attacked rather than being slaughtered before they can react
-Help limit the capping potential of Eldar by eliminating there acess to easily cover the field and get to resource/victory points because they are infiltrated

Thoughts?

[Arbit]

Just so you know, the unit infiltration and healing abilities are specific to the farseer and warlock gates, respectively. The WSE and warlock can't use gates to infiltrate units, although the gates will infiltrate themselves once built. Likewise, the farseer and WSE can't use gates to heal stuff. (The WSE gates have an energy restoring ability)

I can't quite recall if I'm co-opting someone else's idea or I came up with this on my own, but the idea of a pair of temporary gates, i.e. you place the first gate, then the second, and both are built simultaneously but last only a few minutes, is kind of a cool idea to me.

[Atlas]

What about just not having them infiltrated? Keeping them all the same otherwise.

Personally, I think the Eldar globals are just too cheap considering and I'd rather just see minor red cost increases, but working a bit on webway gates would work too I suppose.

[HandSome SoddiNg]

Shuriken cannon/Rangers still gets stuck while exiting Webway gates though, the Gates gives a fair amount of Exp upon destroying each. You still need detectors every now & then. Farseer can use farsight & place WW gates wherever the player wishes & her infiltration gate is by far one of the best

[Tex]

Ummm?

Play warlock.

Then you will know what gate ability is the best. Your unit's healing time in base becomes largely nullified It even heals wraithlords (definitely not fair).

I only propose to change 4 things about the gates:
-warp gates are no longer cloaked
-due to no more cloaking, farseer cloakfield ability thing lasts 2 seconds longer
-warp gate abilities all cost 5 red to activate
-Warlock warp gate healing aura no longer heals wraithlords

[Element]

Just so you know, the unit infiltration and healing abilities are specific to the farseer and warlock gates, respectively. The WSE and warlock can't use gates to infiltrate units, although the gates will infiltrate themselves once built. Likewise, the farseer and WSE can't use gates to heal stuff. (The WSE gates have an energy restoring ability)

I can't quite recall if I'm co-opting someone else's idea or I came up with this on my own, but the idea of a pair of temporary gates, i.e. you place the first gate, then the second, and both are built simultaneously but last only a few minutes, is kind of a cool idea to me.

Admittedly I didn't know each of them had their own ability, but I did know that the gates gave these abilities. I play against Eldar more than I play them.

Ummm?

Play warlock.

Then you will know what gate ability is the best. Your unit's healing time in base becomes largely nullified It even heals wraithlords (definitely not fair).

I only propose to change 4 things about the gates:
-warp gates are no longer cloaked
-due to no more cloaking, farseer cloakfield ability thing lasts 2 seconds longer
-warp gate abilities all cost 5 red to activate
-Warlock warp gate healing aura no longer heals wraithlords

5 Red to activate seems a little low to activate IMO but I do like the proposals. I think it should cost reasonably about 10- 20 red to go about healing, restoring the energy or infiltrating your entire army .
I definitely agree with the warp gate healing no longer healing wraithlords that's just nuts.

[Nurland]

Well the extra red cost would still chip away at eldar red making gate/global spam harder.

[Element]

Well the extra red cost would still chip away at eldar red making gate/global spam harder.

Ineed, but it would actually have to be an amount where there would actually be a feeling of impact. If they make up that much red over the corse of an engagement or 2 then adding a red cost while making an impact would not necessarily come to limit the spammage, more rather just obtaining higher level globals because of the lack of red. However, the higher level costing Eldar Globals, are not the problem. The lowest costed one is (Though I'd say the Warlock's swift Movement can at times, be utterly crazy.)

[Torpid]

Personally I would rather suggest these changes:

Increase red cost to 75 from 50.
Increase the cooldown on the webway gate global from what seems to be nothing to 2minutes.

Nerf the healing rate on the warlock gates from 10hp/s to 8hp/s.
Increase the energy regen from the WSE gates from 1e/s to 3e/s. (that's only 30 energy if they stand next to the gate for 10seconds).

Remove webway gate's upkeep/pop but keep their experience values at the same rate. Don't remove infiltration.

Why?

Because they're too spammable atm. whic the increased red cost and CD address. The WL's gate ability is too strong, the WSE's is internally UP.

I dislike that they have pop being a global - they don't directly hold influence on the map independently like a turret, although, of course you can move troops to different bits of the map easier with them, but I just dislike the idea of them having upkeep/taking up pop. Would rather remove that downside but make them weaker in other areas, such as being more costly.

[Ace of Swords]

I agree with torpid, but the healing rate for the WL one is fine, it just shouldn't stack with the base healing.

[Element]

Personally I would rather suggest these changes:

Increase red cost to 75 from 50.
Increase the cooldown on the webway gate global from what seems to be nothing to 2minutes.

2mins seems like a good time cooldown to start looking around

Because they're too spammable atm. whic the increased red cost and CD address. The WL's gate ability is too strong, the WSE's is internally UP.

I dislike that they have pop being a global - they don't directly hold influence on the map independently like a turret, although, of course you can move troops to different bits of the map easier with them, but I just dislike the idea of them having upkeep/taking up pop. Would rather remove that downside but make them weaker in other areas, such as being more costly.

I perosnally believe that the pop as it stands now is justified. But if it were to recieve a longer coolodown and increase red cost then I would be all for removing the pop cap

[krimson]

Webway gates are downright broken and gives unfair advantage to one race. Reason being this is a map control game and a game of small armies. Webways act as a force multiplier, negates the retreat effects and eldar can have same map presence with lower army. There is no justification for it. However certain things are really glaring:

1. 50 req (FTE costs 75 for comparison).
2. banshees killing capping squad (impossible to predict and outright unjustified)
3. invisible and requires time to destroy giving eldar more time to lower vp and hold on to req farm
4. easy flanking opportunity and power bash
5. bs vp winning stuff at end when the eldar army is decimated
6. no retreat penalty
7, team game force multiplier and ally help

The following couold be done to tone it down

1. Either keep it as it is but put hard cap of 2 at a time. make them keep pop cap and give good req on destruction. add 200 req cost.That way it cant act as instantaneous transport. this is broken

2. Make them visible. if all other banners and towers are visible why should webway gates for 50 red be invisible. lower health so that they can be destroyed
'
3. make it a one time tranpsort..more like a n ability rather than being used multiple time. for 50 red it is laughable. or make it take away red every time you use it. for every squad it is 25 red. 4 squads...100 red.

[BaptismByLoli]

Those are radical changes ...

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[Lesten]

Here's my suggestion (as a reasonably experienced Eldar player):

1. Limit to maybe 3 gates per player at a time, or increase their pop cost.
2. Increase cooldown significantly (at the very least so much that you can't build another until the last one is completed).
3. Only Eldar units should be able to use the gates and benefit from their ability. A maybe on this one, but it would help to balance them in team games vs 1v1s (I think all racial buffs of all factions should only effect your own units).
4. Warlock gate heal probably shouldn't stack with base heal.

And I think you should keep in mind that Eldar are pretty balanced to how the gates work now, and they're often a vital part of Eldar gameplay, so if they were nerfed other changes might be needed too. That said, I'm all for nerfing the gates as I suggested above.

[krimson]

@Discreet.. I meant one of the three changes not all together

I do not understand how Eldar is balanced wrt the webway gates. they are completely broken because an instant transport for entire army is given ..which is like sm having light speed razorbacks multiple times.

there is no penalty for losing battles and retreating..it acts as a force multiplier as u can be at many places many time with a small army..map control is not lost even if ur army is decimated...

this is a broken feature and you will say that eldar has less health. but for that you have awesome damage (banshees wraithguards warpspiders dark reapers) best walker and best transport, best sniper, very good basic ranged squad....great jumping sub commander and best platform and fire prism..health is balanced by the damage out of this world...there is no need of this broken feature in the game as dow2 is a game of map control..retreat should have a penalty..and no opponent capping squads deserves to be decimated within moments of retreating a team..

[BaptismByLoli]

Call me crazy but I find Webway gates to be okay as is ^^

[Tsototar]

You're basically saying they should be reverted to the way they were back in retail pre-3.19 or so. The reason they were changed is because nobody used them (except FS). They're really not that hard to detect and smash - if you're having a lot of trouble with them, you might need to invest a bit more in detectors. On some maps there are so few places you could reasonably put a gate I've seen people guesstimate where they are and use proximity to find them, without detectors.

Webway gates are downright broken and gives unfair advantage to one race. Reason being this is a map control game and a game of small armies. Webways act as a force multiplier, negates the retreat effects and eldar can have same map presence with lower army. There is no justification for it. However certain things are really glaring:

1. 50 req (FTE costs 75 for comparison).
2. banshees killing capping squad (impossible to predict and outright unjustified)
3. invisible and requires time to destroy giving eldar more time to lower vp and hold on to req farm
4. easy flanking opportunity and power bash
5. bs vp winning stuff at end when the eldar army is decimated
6. no retreat penalty
7, team game force multiplier and ally help

The following couold be done to tone it down

1. Either keep it as it is but put hard cap of 2 at a time. make them keep pop cap and give good req on destruction. add 200 req cost.That way it cant act as instantaneous transport. this is broken

2. Make them visible. if all other banners and towers are visible why should webway gates for 50 red be invisible. lower health so that they can be destroyed
'
3. make it a one time tranpsort..more like a n ability rather than being used multiple time. for 50 red it is laughable. or make it take away red every time you use it. for every squad it is 25 red. 4 squads...100 red.

[Tsototar]

There is one change I feel the webway gates should get - in team games, Eldar allies should have their webway gates interconnect. If I place a gate and my teammate places a gate, they should be part of the same network (even if, with diferent heroes, their individual "powers" are different).

[BaptismByLoli]

Everyone can use Allied Webway gates IIRC

Sent from my GT-S5830i using Tapatalk 2

[Ace of Swords]

He means that player A webway gate should be connected with player B gate, which means if you enter from A's gate you can exit from B's gate.


But no, they really shouldn't be interconnected, it would be a huge buff of gates in team games making them quite unbalanced in 2s and 3s.

[Nurland]

+1 to Ace

[BaptismByLoli]

He means that player A webway gate should be connected with player B gate, which means if you enter from A's gate you can exit from B's gate.

Ah... Ty. And agreed

[Tsototar]

making them quite unbalanced in 2s and 3s.

it would be pretty pointless in 1v1, wouldn't it, since there'd be no other Eldar players to share with

this is a change I propose for "logic" purposes. the way you describe it it's as if the sky would fall if the Eldar could share gates (and that's only if there's more than one Eldar in the team anyway).

in 3v3 with an Eldar team we normally just designate one guy to drop all the gates anyway, usually the WSE or FS because the WLK has better uses for the red (I'm sure the opponents are overjoyed with the WLK having the red to do more global fleets and distort fields), so it's not like you're going to stop us from map domination anyway .

it's just irritating because it's illogical.

[BaptismByLoli]

The problem is, there aren't separate patches for each game mode. Each patch affects the outcome and gameplay of 1v1 all the way to 3v3 hence why we can't disregard the other. And dividing the pop cap for gates among the Eldar player is really quite a big buff when used correctly.

[Torpid]

And "logic" or "lore" are not reasons to change game balance. They're separate things.

[Ace of Swords]

Obviously it would be pointless in 1v1, so why eldars should unbalance team games?

The mod as relic did, wants to balance mainly 1v1s but without throwing out of the window 2s and 3s balance, as of now in maps like argus desert gate you can already throw up a gate that can be used by all 3 players, on maps like judgment of carrion you may not want to throw up 3 gates but surely you can place one in your base and another one in your ally base and do some coordinated attacks, after that you can throw 1 or 2 gates around the map for easy flanks or near your opponent's natural VP, so taking this scenario of 4 gates, that costs you 200 red and 12 pop, both of which are quite low for the effectvness they are gonna have between instantly carrying 2 armies around, flanks with alot of squad wiping potential and map control (esp VPs) harassing.

Like this it's already powerful, could you imagine with 2 eldars, 8 gates or more all around the map that can transport everyone's army instantly anywhere?

it's just irritating because it's illogical.

It's not, simply because the player who is gonna throw more than 4 gates up is gonna have red and will start to have popcap problems, which means he's not gonna spam whatever global he has, he's not reaching for another eldrich, and most importantly he isn't getting that 7th or 8th unit or avatar out.

[Tsototar]

... you guys talk like gates aren't detectable and killable fairly easily (not to mention most other factions have detectors that are relatively cheap, last-to-die upgrades)

And, placing them "all over the map" still requires you to actually have a unit there or more red for farsight.

to the extent that they can be detected and destroyed, cheapness is more "game effective" than infiltration etc., so to that end the rav tunnels are more valuable - sure you can see and kill them, but it's just energy. And you get it from the get-go.

is it certain Eldar are "OP" in team games? They didn't dominate the Indrid Faction Wars for example.

the 8 gate hypothetical... no map is that big, it would be a waste of red. But whatever - like I said, it's irritating and illogical but if Eldar interconnecting gates will make people not be able to sleep at night, oh well

(and yes I know game balance is a different issue e.g. tabletop Avatar is immune to flame and melta weapons yes? ).

[BaptismByLoli]

Indrid has previously stated in the description I believe that Faction Wars were done for the lulz, not for balancing concerns.

Gates give you abilities and you can even use Rangers or any FoF units to find nice quiet spots to place them before quickly re-engaging back into combat. While the ravener's tunnel is limited to his location and range, a webway can also be placed anywhere for an entire t1/t2 army. 1 minute you're at the eastern part of the map, the next, the western part of the map due to the huge range that gates provide as long as you place(hide rather) them correctly.

[Nurland]

Indrid's faction battles and wars are just for luls. Ppl weren't exactly very serious when playing them etc.

[Tsototar]

right... all of which are arguments for "are gates useful? yes they are".

"whole army" - only 4 at a time, it takes significant micro to do this speedily if you've got any real numbers (and we're talking e.g. 2v2/3v3 yes?). I've actually been in games where even though the designated guy put down gates, I added more because the "bandwidth" wasn't good enough.

abilities - yes, they are nice (esp. FS). but, again, you're all talking like how gates are there FOREVER, like if you put them down they'll never be seen or destroyed. any reasonable effort at map control (running around with sergeant scouts capping/decapping nodes around the map for example) is going to show you where the gates are. and, seriously, on many of the maps there are only limited areas where the gates make sense, if you've any experience on the map you should be able to at least guess the region where the gates will be.

this is precisely why nobody except FS used gates in the first place, before the change (was it 3.19.1?), since uninfiltrated gates clearly weren't worth the red.

Every gate I put down I expect a certain "lifespan" for it. and that's fine, I accept that - distort field doesn't last forever after all. but this "OMG there could be gates EVERYWHERE!" fear is ridiculous. If you can't find and destroy gates, in the much more limited field-of-operations in 2v2/3v3 games compared to 1v1 games, then it says to me you would be lacking in other abilities (map control/awareness etc.) that mean you're going to lose even if I don't use the gates anyway.

(Faction wars - yes, but even for lulz, if the Eldar are clearly OP etc. it should be pretty obvious steamrolling right? that's the definition of OP-ness, even weak players can smash better players through, well, being OP!! This is mathematics: OPness would skew the results significantly - if the Eldar team had weaker players than the opponents, their OPness would mean they could match or beat the better players on the other team. And if the Eldar team had better players, then combined with OPness it would've been a massacre. did this happen? No.

In the absence of clearly "joke" builds during the faction wars (one team builds nothing but guardians? ) the faction wars may not have precise diagnostic value, but it doesn't mean it has no meaningful information)