MRT#8 general discussion

[crazyman64335]

Is random going to be allowed yet?

[Raffa]

1v1 again?

We've only had one 2v2 tournament...

Besides since Toil has his "Wigglytuff" custom rank for being 1v1 champion, I'd like to see 2v2 champions get custom ranks too.

My vote is for 2v2. If for no other reason than some variety.

Also Lictor Alpha should be banned from tourney play. He is the strongest hero in all matchups except possibly IG. Incidentally I remember Noisy not being happy with him at the weekend as he is a hard counter to the squishier support heroes.

I know steps have been taken to balance him and it must be a nightmare job sorting the bullcrap from the genuine concerns on an issue like this, but I'm sorry he is just too strong in the hands of the right player. The solution against him is basically to play a LG really well (like Toil did in the final).

I am pretty damn sure almost everyone will agree with this.

[Torpid]

Nids have always struggled vs IG imo, although that said it's certainly not a very hard MU. Zoanthrope + venom brood is stupidly effective in T2 and a barbed fex is gg if the IG lacks lemans. I actually want to try an alternative build vs the IG double sentinel.

LA's not gonna be banned though because that just defeats the whole point of this mod being balanced in the slightest way. He's still broken of course, but he's very poorly designed, fixing him, although ignominious on Relic's behalf, is going to require some very radical changes I think...

I'm just going to refuse to participate in these tournaments while the balance is so bad that I feel compelled to play certain heroes if I want to have any chance of winning.

[Nurland]

Since people are having some opinions about MRT that apparently need to be voiced, I created this thread in order to keep the registration thread for you know... Registrations.

[Dark Riku]

Is random going to be allowed yet?

I would allow it. Random as your only choice. Waiting on Eerie for confirmation.

Thank you for the split Nurland.

[Raffa]

LA's not gonna be banned though because that just defeats the whole point of this mod being balanced in the slightest way. He's still broken of course, but he's very poorly designed, fixing him, although ignominious on Relic's behalf, is going to require some very radical changes I think...

I'm just going to refuse to participate in these tournaments while the balance is so bad that I feel compelled to play certain heroes if I want to have any chance of winning.

That's putting it a little harshly, as a lot of good work has been done to make this game much more balanced than it was found in.

My gripe with the Lictor Alpha is that the last two tournaments I've participated in, I've found myself against two opponents who I regard as of an equal skill level. Take a group of good players who might end up in a lobby together, let's say Me, Torpid, Ace of Swords and Floid. Now I'd say that whatever 1v1s or 2v2s you form from those 4, each team would fancy their chances at winning.

So in 1v1 against Ace of Swords and Floid (the people I played in the last 2 tournaments), I would have expected even games to a certain point. Well that did not exactly happen, and guess what? Both of them played Lictor Alpha. I'm not saying we're all exactly of an identical skill level, but I don't think those would have been stomp games if they'd played any other hero. I haven't played in these tournaments since, because I am not an IG player and I do not want to learn a race I don't particularly enjoy playing just to have a chance of winning these tournaments. Yes I play Tyranids, but I don't play LA any more because to me it feels unfair when you win with LA as your opponent cannot do anything to react.

Someone outplays me? Good for you, congrats on your win. But beaten because I started at a fundamental disadvantage just because my opponent plays a superpowered hero? Nat cool bro.

So yes, that is why I don't participate in these tournaments. I spent a good deal of time defending Flesh Hook/LA but he just deals so comfortably with SM, Chaos, Eldar and Orks that I think he should not be allowed in tournaments at the very least until some serious re-evaluation has taken place. The fact that he has already been nerfed significantly from retail tells you how bad his design was in the first place.

And I still support a 2v2 tourney this time round

[Torpid]

Well I didn't mean anything different from you. So allow me to reiterate that my intention was that of succinctness, not of harshness

One of the greatest issues I have with the lictor is how well he counters set-up teams when the tyranid t1's biggest - and probably only real - weakness is set-up teams. Not only does the lictor force detection else set-up teams are useless, which instantly puts you at a power disadvantage (on top of a req disadvantage from early model bleed due to FH) and a map control disadvantage (due to nid t1 and it's speed), but in addition to this the LA can very cheaply and very energy efficiently become a jump unit in t2 and he can drop spore mines in t2. That alone would be pretty great but then flesh hook can also be used as a SUPER HARD suppression team counter. I mean it's better than a jump squad in that there's very little you can do without blobbing up your entire army just to fend off a lictor - something that isn't wise vs nids and their eco/map control. Hook the lead suppression team model but don't kill it, just leave it dangling while horms pursue, instantly taking one set-up team out of the equation.
Granted this doesn't occur vs eldar or IG, however the HWT is quite inefficient vs nids and eldar have the greater disadvantage of having such poor detection.

[Dark Riku]

Granted this doesn't occur vs eldar or IG, however the HWT is quite inefficient vs nids and eldar have the greater disadvantage of having such poor detection.

Not defending the LA here but the Eldar detection is far from being bad. It' actually quite the opposite. And as you said you can't flesh hook the shurycan ^^

[Torpid]

I dunno, I can't get rangers to work whatsoever vs nids. At least with SM I can buy a devastator and then by the time it is in position for a fight I've also got detection, since the scout sarge has a separate build time and no huge req cost. I would much rather like to not have to buy rangers vs LA, that said, they do come in handy vs the zoanthropes.

[Dark Riku]

they do come in handy vs the zoanthropes.

And vs the warriors early on making them synapse bombs go off
and that shotgunblast across the map giving you breathing space or combo potential.

[Dark Riku]

Is random going to be allowed yet?

I would allow it. Random as your only choice. Waiting on Eerie for confirmation.

Confirmed. You may sign up with random as your only commander choice.

[crazyman64335]

Is random going to be allowed yet?

I would allow it. Random as your only choice. Waiting on Eerie for confirmation.

Confirmed. You may sign up with random as your only commander choice.

isn't that every commander choice however? since it can be any commander

[Torpid]

It is simultaneously every hero choice and no hero choice. OP...

[Myrdal]

The fact that he has already been nerfed significantly from retail tells you how bad his design was in the first place.

Not so sure about that, fyi here are the changes I could find for LA:

• Sight radius increased from 38 to 45
• Camouflage revert_max decreased from 8 to 6
• "Flesh Hook" busy time increased from 1 to 1.6
• "Flesh Hook" cooldown decreased from 70 to 60
• "Flesh Hook" range decreased from 45 to 36
• "Flesh Hook" knockback flight distance decreased from 20 to 16
• "Corrosive Claws" cost decreased from 120/40 to 120/30
• "Corrosive Claws" damage increase debuff decreased from 1.25 to 1.20
• "Scything Talons" moved from T1 to T2
• "Scything Talons" cost increased from 100/20 to 120/30
• "Scything Talons" damage increased from 51 to 65
• "Scything Talons" now grant the Scythe ability
• "Toxic cysts" health bonus increased from 100 to 125
• "Toxic Miasma" damage over time increased from 5 x 2 to 4.5 x 3
• "Toxic Burst" now increases the LA’s health regen by 1 for the duration
• "Adrenal Glands" energy bonus decreased from 100 to 50
• "Adrenal Glands" energy regeneration increased from 0.1 to 0.2
• "Adrenal Glands" now grants 0.1 health regeneration
• "Menacing Visage" moved from T2 to T3

source: changelog and http://diffchecker.com/hi39hyub

Seems to me he got some significant buffs as well, esp his stalk global. Also, sorry if off topic.

Edit: Well shit, didn't realize we had a full and updated 2.1 changelog on the site. Way to state the obvious there. :/

[Toilailee]

I'm just going to refuse to participate in these tournaments while the balance is so bad that I feel compelled to play certain heroes if I want to have any chance of winning.

That's just silly.

Take it as a challenge instead and put your thinking cap on, skills & strategies > balance.

[Cheekie Monkie]

Well I don't know what people were expecting when they were fighting a commander with the word 'Alpha' in his name :3

I'm just going to refuse to participate in these tournaments while the balance is so bad that I feel compelled to play certain heroes if I want to have any chance of winning.

That's just silly.

Take it as a challenge instead and put your thinking cap on, skills & strategies > balance.

I've always wanted to start a stealth flesh hook war with the brocap+libby shroud...

[Torpid]

Not that straight forward Toil. Different mindsets, I use the game for a different reason than you clearly. I physically can't drag myself into a situation of competitive pvp whereby I'm naturally at a huge disadvantage.

[Ace of Swords]

It's not even a question of mindset, when player A has X op race and Player B hasn't, and they have same skill levels or player B is even better than A but still loses to player A because the race gives him huge economical advantages there is a clear problem, and yes it's not even worth trying.

He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight.
“When strong, avoid them. If of high morale, depress them. Seem humble to fill them with conceit. If at ease, exhaust them. If united, separate them. Attack their weaknesses. Emerge to their surprise.”
― Sun Tzu

Or in other words

No point in pointless defeat -random space marine guy

[crazyman64335]

there is a reason for trying however considering we're all still human and make mistakes (some which can be pretty massive) i've always been one to take on the challenge and bank on them making a mistake in a favored matchup. It does happen. So there is a point for trying in that regard.

[Ace of Swords]

there is a reason for trying however considering we're all still human and make mistakes (some which can be pretty massive) i've always been one to take on the challenge and bank on them making a mistake in a favored matchup. It does happen. So there is a point for trying in that regard.

Going to fight in any game, sport or real war relaying on your opponent mistakes to make you win a surely lost cause is a bad strategy to begin with, i'd rather not even try at all, aside from the fact that nids & orks can make 3xtimes the mistakes of eldar/ig/chaos/sm and still come out like nothing happened.

[Toilailee]

Newsflash, this game will never be fully balanced. Or even close enough that every1 would be happy with it. However this game is now more balanced than it has ever been in the time I've been playing it.

In every form of competition there are always factors that will make one side favored or "front runner", just get over it. Besides isn't it most rewarding to win while being the underdog?

[Atlas]

Starcraft 2 has only 3 factions and yet the balance complaints are never ending. Even if this game had only faction faction and hero in it there's a good chance people will argue that one strategy is too powerful over another.

Equal player skill is also not very concrete because there's no real way to measure it. Players might perfom better on a Tuesday then a Friday, maybe they're tired etc etc.

Point is there's no way to really claim "equal" conditions since there's too much we can't reliably confirm.

Besides, if everything really was equal and quanitifiable then this game would be utterly boring anyways.

[Ace of Swords]

Starcraft 2 has only 3 factions and yet the balance complaints are never ending.

This has to do with 2 things, 1) blizzard beign a money-grabbing company since the merge with activision, 2) the fanbase is much bigger, and like it was for WoW arenas the majority of idiots talking louder than the 2% of the guys who were actually playing at a decent level, this goes for every blizzard game ever, with the only exception beign brood war as far as I remember.

Newsflash, this game will never be fully balanced. Or even close enough that every1 would be happy with it. However this game is now more balanced than it has ever been in the time I've been playing it.

Perfect balance is achievable with time but obviously as every perfect thing it would reach a level of stagnation, and this mod months ago was closer to it than ever, and now much more far.

In every form of competition there are always factors that will make one side favored or "front runner", just get over it. Besides isn't it most rewarding to win while being the underdog?

This hugely depends on situations, but in every serious sports or e-sports favoritism is only given by the player's skill and not any other factor, in a war, that can change and that's why sometimes armies and countries surrender without even killing a single person.
In this case it's again a different story when skill is the same or better you just need to pick up A race and roflstomp B race despite making lots of mistakes or playing incredibly bad, why I suddently perform 100x times better with nids and orks instead of when I play the super OP space marines? Does my micro becomes suddently better because I clicked something else than eldar/chaos/sm/ig on the race-pick screen?

[Caeltos]

I lose with Tyranids almost every single game, but fare better with others.

y do I lose with OP faction

The answer is quite simple infact, some factions are just not maybe your playstyle. Eventho you might like them, won't translate into you being neccasarily better with them then with other factions.

For an example of this, I'll try to explain at least my PoV from my vanilla to Retribution competetive-scene play-history and my picks & why, eventho they were considered sub-par. I'll try to disregard pre TioW since everything pre-that was kinda just all over the place, and after TioW the competetive scene kicked off the most with the EMS and etc;

Vanilla;
I played mostly just Eldar and Space Marines, mostly because they both shared a very similiar playstyle through the tier progressions. Eldar early-agression is similiar to Space Marines, it was more about picking & choosing your fights. Tyranids were genuially concieved as the best competetive-faction, with both RA/HT (Lictor Alpha was actually pretty sub-par this time in the competetive-scene until AlwaysLame and other misc. tyranid players showed up)

Back on track -
Tier progression of Eldar/Space Marines were again, similiar - you would try accumulate as much pressure potential in the early-game and try to avoid your losses, to build up your economical bank in T2 to get crucial fast timings on misc. wargears/units. Mostly for Space Marines, it revolved on Combat Stims/Puri+ Axe(or Bolter preference) then ASMs to beat even T3 nobs and what-have you, ASMs were the bonkers crazy units back then. You'd just fill in with supplimental T3 units like Preds/Terminators with Cyclones back then, or the AC's if you were into that type of thing, but Cyclones back then were really strong, until they got nerfed hard.

Eldar was mostly just Warlock due to leap, the leap was considerably more stronger, and the map picks were usually Ruins of Argus for this, to maintain southern map pressure through leap/knockback on the southern points. Triple Guardians were also a standard, but not a neccassity because they transitioned very well, and presented with strong sustain through their damage mitigation, actually more along the lines of tacticals sustainbility. Falcon useage was fairly common and it wasn't uncommon to see several of them. Fire Prisms were not as strong either in the meta, but they were acceptable units to obtain, but far more niché.

Either way, you get the idea. Preference picks & playstyles are far more important to take into consideration when you try to evaluate the balance as a whole. If you can't play a defensive-game, then you probably shouldn't play a defensive-faction. If you're not one to take risks and want to trade economical blows, then maybe Orks isn't your faction. If you don't want to apply continous pressure and want to be relentless, then nids is not your definitive pick.

It doesn't mean that they only have one-way to approach the factions "definitive" theme, that's why commanders are there to begin with. They both offer a different platsylle within them. But Apothecary/Warlock had more in common with each other in the early days of DoW2 where he functioned alot more as a supportive-melee commander, and he still does to some degree if you build him up like it. And so on forth;

I like applying pressure, but I also want to be able to transition myself into a playstyle where I can try to reassess the game and play it defensively and turtle. In Chaos Rising, Chaos presented this option, and argueably they're the more potent punisher/turtles in the game. One big thing is economical check-up and maintaining good econimical balance tho, which I'm still always trying to work around, but it's difficult to do so in certain matchups, but I'm perfectly fine with that, I still feel there's always a fighting chance.

Map picks are also super important, when you face a typical player that foregoes snipers in 2v2s, in competetive scene, you'd always pick a map that favors something in your favor. Like Ruins of Argus was a pretty big anti-sniper map due to LoS blockers all over the place. That was my home-ground map back then, and I still love the gameplay that map presents. You pick a big map as chaos with no line of sight blockers, well - to bad for you, you're going to have a bad time.

Any other RTS game really had the same iconic issues, Starcraft 1 had that all the way through-out until it's "untimely end", and Starcraft 2 still has it, and that game still has issues. You just can't design a map that will neccasarily benefit all factions/playstyles accordingly. But it's nontheless, a good practice ground to get better at if you're not experienced with it.

I remembered doing an interview with TASK3R a while back, and the most favorite map for the 1v1 "competetive-scene" was actually Outer Reaches. People felt they struggled during the early-game pressure "good" players could do, so it was more or less a very "risk-taking" map or "handshake" to a degree that both players would play it out during mid-game. Sure the map has some pathing issues, but vehicles still saw play very often in the game, you'd just have to accept the game mechanics for what they are, and it's not really going to change.

Perfect balance is achievable with time but obviously as every perfect thing it would reach a level of stagnation, and this mod months ago was closer to it than ever, and now much more far.

I'll have to disagree. There will most likely always be issues abound that will need fixing, and there's some factor that gets overlooked which results in something hamperining the progression of the games balance. It should always be workeable nontheless, and it shouldnt' be an insta-GG no re, and I don't feel this is the case in the game at this state.

Besides that, the gamers/communities are percieving game balance and "competetive" different now from what they were 5-10 years ago. Starcraf 1/WC3 had a fair share of troubles all-through out their history, yet they were played competetively. The big deciding factor is ultimately;

- Who is going to sponsor these events?
- Quantities of players playing - (You'll need to attract an audience to make an e-sport game work)

League of Legends is a game that thrives of quantity based players, and has poor general balance. There's like 20-30 champions in that game that are almost a neccassity for good results, whereas the other misc. 70-80 champions are more of a burden, half-arsed champions that don't fit into the meta, and the game is seeing large gameplay changes regulary. Still, it's the most successful e-sport game in terms of money pool & viewercounts

Let's just spin the ball, and say that Dawn of War 3 comes out, and it sells well. (Eventho the market is niché) and gets great player-counts. There's bound to be someone that is willing to sponsor events, be that either from an outside source that is not related to Relic/SEGA that is fond of the game, and gives the player time to accumulate some potential "competetive-players" then just pick them into a pit so they fight it out, and stream that stuff + marketing it.

Thus, a competetive-scene is born. And from there, anything can happend. But what's more important is also that the game balance should be "accepetable", whereas Dawn of War 2 had an EXTREMELY rough launch, which I believe is what ultimately killed it off. If it had shipped at a better state, I believe it would have fared much better, since there was genuine interest to begin with.

[David-CZ]

I lose with Tyranids almost every single game, but fare better with others.

. . . Dawn of War 2 had an EXTREMELY rough launch . . .

For me nids are basically off limits since they don't fit my playstyle at all.

It wasn't just the balance but the utterly insufficient servers as well. Shame.

[Torpid]

It's called changing your playstyle per race - you know, that thing called macro? I thought every high level player did this...

My point and presumably Ace's point being that the issue with the 'OP' races is that to develop a wonderful understanding of their macro takes a very very short amount of time compared to the other races and on top of that their micro is more forgiving which is just baffling.

[David-CZ]

Of course I change my playstyle with each race, but that doesn't mean I enjoy it.

[Torpid]

Indeed, I was referring to Caeltos' comment.

[Atlas]

Is there any idea what kind of streamers will be up for the tournament? Usually I see only Codex or Uncle Milty but supposedly there's quite a few.

Always nice to see some cool games.

[David-CZ]

Not sure. But most of the games end up here http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGCQHc_eSuW8SO749P5SNwA sooner or later.