Feedback [Feedback] Oceanic Future Part 3

[qaccy]

Behemoths outrange mantas. When a unit has contact, it is only good against other units with equal or less range. This is one reason why the TE light unit is so weak. It's also why anti aircraft does poorly vs combat drones, despite being boosted against them.

Anyway, I don't really see how unit abilities are themed. For example, what do turtles have to do with area of effect damage?

Setting that aside, giving power shot to a unit with 5 range isn't the same as giving it to a unit with 30 range. Rail guns were only powerful because they could kill everything in 2 hits without taking much damage.

APs were unfortunately inferior to Strike Teams in just about every way. Lower movement and range, and trading stealth for Contact is a bad move for a Rapid Deployment unit. These units almost fundamentally pair badly with rogues, which is the main reason that led to them not being used. A single Strike Team could at least pretty reliably find a forest to hide in to allow time for rogues to transform...or since many people had tons of them due to mass-building the barracks for an attack bonus and thus receiving hundreds from Alcatraz, simply use 8 of them as cannon fodder to muscle their way through just about every encounter they could manage with them. But Rapid Deployment units in general have always been rather unpopular choices for battle.

The Mortar ability fits Turturrets if you simply look at their appearance. Again, they're large, and feature large cannons as their 'heads'. Other examples of themed unit abilities are Microwave Blasters with Heat, Dragon Drones with their 'breath', and any unit with Rapit Deployment has an animation custom made for it using the ability - excluding APs, which actually look rather odd simply levitating down towards the ground. This is obviously all somewhat subjective though, and not every unit ability is handled this way (as I mentioned, some of them seem to be simply for balancing purposes, as there's no real rhyme or reason to which units get Contact simply based on appearances, although Reactive Armor is as of yet limited only to heavy units). I'm just of the opinion that in terms of appearances, Power Shot does not make sense to me on anything that's not a 'large' unit. This means that, if we're talking about giving this ability to a unit, I think it'd make more sense for C.R.A.B.s or Turturrets than anything else.

Power shot does make sense to me because mantas seem to have little chance against eels despite their boost. In that case the poison skill is useless though as enemy troops will be always 2 hit killed.

@qaccy : by kiting i meant the following. Eels have a movement of 35, mantas - 24 (which is 12 squares best case - if only moving in straight line on plains). Eels have a range of 10, so it's quite likely that they can move out of manta's movement range and shoot from distance without getting retaliation damage and without being reached. Especially if battle is played manually, and considering there are usually plenty of bushes on the battlefield, this can be used to eels' favor even if it means skipping a turn.

Similarly to how movement ranges are reduced on the battlefield for ages PE and up, so too are attack ranges...I'm surprised you haven't noticed this, actually. Eels only have 7 range in battle, not 10. Even Battle Fortresses can cover that distance in most cases and their movement stat is only 20. So an Eel definitely cannot kite a Manta, as I originally said. Also as I originally said, it remains to be seen if the substantial defense increases (including against fast units) are enough to circumvent the fact that Mantas won't be able to retaliate against a max-range Eel, but it can't be denied that they're certainly an improvement. Also, this is rather late but I want to call this up as well:

Not to mention that subs are pretty good for GvG so if contact skill is removed, that will piss off lots of players, trust me! Especially the champ farmers in AA lol....(1 sub 7 rogues wipes out 8 champs with no damage).

You can use Turturrets in this situation to easily handle 8 of any heavy unit that isn't a Hover Tank without taking damage. Removing Contact from subs will not hurt the 'farmers' in any way, if they're farming Champions. In fact, Turturrets will work better than Subs against any unit that's likely to be farmed in AA - which is any unit that can easily be killed without taking damage (or as little as possible). In AF and OF, turrets move before Fortresses, Behemoths, Champions, Crabs, and Plasmas. Pick your target and go to town with the farming. Subs don't really work better against any of those than Turrets do. But giving them Flying will allow them to actually ignore artillery until the end in battles where they're used alone, and focus on the other units instead. As it stands currently, artillery actually has something of an advantage against them because the terrain often doesn't allow a Sub to strike them in the first turn, so they get fired on first. With flying, they'd no longer be restricted by terrain and would be able to attack artillery in the first turn every single time, as well as being immune to them if the artillery survives until later in the battle (which is likely, since I usually kill artillery units last when I'm using flyers).

 

[DeletedUser7779]

After testing the mantas on live server (finished lvl 3 GE), i still stick to my opinion that they are weak. My turtles easily kill them in 2 hits.
In the rare cases when i didn't target mantas on first move, i got poisoned a few times but this made absolutely no difference. Most of the battles are finished in 2 or 3 turns so that 1 or 2 hit point damage doesn't matter at all.
And qaccy despite all your trolling, i was successfully able to kite mantas with eels. I took no damage at all because like i said mantas couldn't reach me.

 

[DeletedUser8150]

mantas make it marginally harder to use Stealth tanks (up to 4 hits) but it really doesn't make much difference otherwise. The manta poison seemed to take effect after the unit had its turn which made even leave a unit with 1 point left worthless.

 

[qaccy]

After testing the mantas on live server (finished lvl 3 GE), i still stick to my opinion that they are weak. My turtles easily kill them in 2 hits.
In the rare cases when i didn't target mantas on first move, i got poisoned a few times but this made absolutely no difference. Most of the battles are finished in 2 or 3 turns so that 1 or 2 hit point damage doesn't matter at all.
And qaccy despite all your trolling, i was successfully able to kite mantas with eels. I took no damage at all because like i said mantas couldn't reach me.

Still trying to jam a square peg into a round hole with the Turtle vs Manta argument, eh? Being able to 'easily kill them in 2 hits' is the idea. It's not really a unit advantage otherwise, is it? I mean, if that's going to be your argument I'll counter that Turtles are weak because Eels can easily kill them in 2 hits. Heck, I'll go a step further and say Turtles are actually worse off than Mantas are because Eels move before Turtles, but Mantas also move before Turtles and in some cases can still attack before they get hit. So now, how is Eel > Turtle any different from your issue with Turtle > Manta?

I'd also like to see evidence of your 'kiting'. Eels have an attack range of only 7 spaces, which some units are already capable of outranging or closing the gap on. The thing about attack ranges though, is that a unit only needs to be able to move attack range-1 in order to strike back in the case of a stealthed unit. What this means is that any unit capable of moving 6 spaces on its turn can make its way adjacent to an eel hiding in bushes. This means eels are not guaranteed to hide from any unit with a movement stat of at least 18 (the lowest movement cost in battle is 3, 18/3 = 6). Looking at all of the AF and OF units, the only ones with movement below 18 are Behemoths, Plasmas and Turtles. Now, of course terrain can play a part in actual outcomes but a Manta has 24 movement which means it can move up to 8 spaces per turn, with only 6 needed to reach one. Plains, bushes and forests are the most common types of terrain and a Manta requires 3, 3, and 4.5 movement to move through each. Even if a Manta moved through nothing but forests, it can still move 5 spaces on its turn and it becomes 6 if it can move through two plains or bush spaces. Hills and rocks can slow a Manta down at 6 movement apiece, as can houses, rubble and swamps at 7.5, 9, and 9 movement apiece. However, those latter three never appear in a configuration where it's required to move through them, and are always surrounded by other terrain types that are much easier to move across. The fact is, you're not going to be able to consistently run from anything but artillery with an Eel, much less a Manta which is actually one of the more mobile units from the Future ages. It's certainly possible, but with terrain being randomly generated from dozens (?) of possible layouts, it's not something you're going to be able to do on a regular basis, especially when you consider the following:
1) You have to end each turn in a bush that's exactly 7 spaces away so you can attack without retaliation,
2) this bush also has to be in a position that's surrounded by hills, rocks, rubble, and/or swamps to make the Manta unable to reach it,
3) and now apply this to each of your Eels that you happen to be using in the battle. See why I'm doubting what you're saying?

This post ended up being a lot longer than it probably should've been, but you seem to have this impression that I'm talking out of my butt here even though I'm presenting actual numbers from the game to show your claims don't add up. Not in a way that's as reliable, safe, and/or easy as you say it is, anyway.

 

[DeletedUser7779]

This means eels are not guaranteed to hide from any unit with a movement stat of at least 18 (the lowest movement cost in battle is 3, 18/3 = 6)

Exactly. I never said it's guaranteed, I said it's possible if terrain is favorable to the eels which was my case.

1) You have to end each turn in a bush that's exactly 7 spaces away so you can attack without retaliation,
2) this bush also has to be in a position that's surrounded by hills, rocks, rubble, and/or swamps to make the Manta unable to reach it,
3) and now apply this to each of your Eels that you happen to be using in the battle. See why I'm doubting what you're saying?

Yep, that's exactly what I did. And I agree with your math, just note I'm not talking about 8 eels vs 8 mantas (who would attack 8 mantas with eels?) - I'm talking about the case of 2 or 3 mantas - forgot which encounter it was but i went in with 8 eels and took no damage from mantas. I will record it for you next week.
If terrain is not favorable (i.e. cant move eel to a bush 7 squares away), i just move it more than 7, hide it in any bush and hit the other units. Worst case I'll be left with 8 eels vs 3 mantas in the end - then i don't even need to hide as can I kill them all in one turn.

 

[qaccy]

Yep, that's exactly what I did. And I agree with your math, just note I'm not talking about 8 eels vs 8 mantas (who would attack 8 mantas with eels?) - I'm talking about the case of 2 or 3 mantas - forgot which encounter it was but i went in with 8 eels and took no damage from mantas. I will record it for you next week.
If terrain is not favorable (i.e. cant move eel to a bush 7 squares away), i just move it more than 7, hide it in any bush and hit the other units. Worst case I'll be left with 8 eels vs 3 mantas in the end - then i don't even need to hide as can I kill them all in one turn.

Fair enough, though that's not really kiting in that case as much as it is just avoiding them until the end of the battle. I was under the impression that you were also attacking them, all the while managing to avoid being attacked in return.

All that being said, Mantas are actually rather a pain to deal with. I had originally thought that the replacement of Dragon Drones would have made GE much easier, but after having to deal with them I think it was actually easier before. Mantas actually have huge stats and bonuses (statistically, they're actually tied for 3rd strongest unit (with AF/OF Champions) in terms of attack (beaten by Crabs and Behemoths) and #1 in defense, while Dragons are comparatively weak, especially in attack, in exchange for their unique abilities to avoid all retaliation and hit up to 3 units with one attack (which can be easily avoided with manual combat). Trading the artillery bonus for a heavy one and being OF also means you'll never be able to destroy one in a single shot with a Battle Fortress like can be done against Dragons (and even easier with Behemoths), and Hover Tanks will take an average of 4 shots to bring one down as well. They can be hit by artillery unlike Dragons, but I'd actually rather face a combination of Subs, Eels and Dragons with either Hover Tanks or Battle Fortresses than a combination of Subs, Eels and Mantas. Perhaps I merely need more time with them to figure out what strategies work against them, and more experimentation with combinations of units to paint a better picture of where Mantas are good and bad.

 

[DeletedUser7378]

LMA Mandrubar's Recurring quest: R'lyeh "Your Highness! I... I had a very disturbing dream. About a horrible city sunken in the sea, crafted out of green stone, where a godlike monster sleeps until eternity. But in my dream it was about to wake up... I have to distract myself somehow."

 

[planetofthehumans2]

After two weeks on live I can officially say that manta's are garbage units that dont have enough range to attack any unit on the first turn and then get killed off in one or two hits. Might as well just use turtles or cruisers.

 

[qaccy]

After two weeks on live I can officially say that manta's are garbage units that dont have enough range to attack any unit on the first turn and then get killed off in one or two hits. Might as well just use turtles or cruisers.

I've had much better results with mine. Keep them away from turtles and subs/surrogates (y'know, the units they're weak against), but they work great against pretty much everything else in GE. In a pinch they can still hit the latter two units pretty hard as well, but it's not recommended.

My experience has shown me that Subs don't work very well in GE because the armies seem to favor using Eels in nearly every battle, and Subs definitely do not like trying to chase down an Eel in the bushes only to get hit back for more damage than they dealt. That and the fact that artillery is usually able to fire on them before they can get into Contact range, means their uses have been very limited for me.

It boils down to this in terms of weaknesses:
Subs - Really weak against Eels and will probably lose against Battle Fortresses, takes more damage than they should against Plasmas and Turturrets as well (can this unit get flying yet?)
Eels - Really weak against Mantas, despite being able to avoid Contact, and not recommended to auto against Dragon Drones or Surrogates either. Also about 50/50 against Battle Fortresses
Crabs - Hopeless against Turturrets, bad against Mantas but can still get off at least one good shot due to high attack and Blast. Also takes more damage than they should against Subs but they're the only unit besides Eels that can reliably two-hit them (or one-hit with Orangery)
Mantas - Really weak against Subs, Surrogates and Turturrets. Still has a base 190 attack though, so similar to Crabs can still do good damage to just about everything even if they die in the process against a Sub or Surrogate.
Turturrets - Hopeless against anything with reliable stealth or flying. Behemoths don't really count as a stealth unit, but if you see one in a lineup and you're nervous about it making its way on top of a hill, throw in a Plasma Artillery.

If I went into any more detail it'd start turning into some sort of guidebook. Suffice to say every unit has its weaknesses, and OF is the first age where I've really started moving away from using rogues in my battles in favor of using more than one type of unit per battle. There are simply too many unit interactions at this point to expect to be able to Swiss army knife your way through with just one unit.

 

[DeletedUser8150]

Can someone clarify how the the manta is supposed to respond to attacks -v- drones. Is it supposed to not retaliate but still be able to poison as I'm sure thats happened to me.

 

[thephantom]

Can someone clarify how the the manta is supposed to respond to attacks -v- drones. Is it supposed to not retaliate but still be able to poison as I'm sure thats happened to me.

An ability cannot be activated without an action. Poison cannot be "applied" to a unit unless it's hit by a unit with that ability. Mantas will not retaliate to Dragon Drone attacks though, because of the Dragon Breath ability.

 

[DeletedUser5097]

I've had much better results with mine. Keep them away from turtles and subs/surrogates (y'know, the units they're weak against), but they work great against pretty much everything else in GE. In a pinch they can still hit the latter two units pretty hard as well, but it's not recommended.

My experience has shown me that Subs don't work very well in GE because the armies seem to favor using Eels in nearly every battle, and Subs definitely do not like trying to chase down an Eel in the bushes only to get hit back for more damage than they dealt. That and the fact that artillery is usually able to fire on them before they can get into Contact range, means their uses have been very limited for me.

It boils down to this in terms of weaknesses:
Subs - Really weak against Eels and will probably lose against Battle Fortresses, takes more damage than they should against Plasmas and Turturrets as well (can this unit get flying yet?)
Eels - Really weak against Mantas, despite being able to avoid Contact, and not recommended to auto against Dragon Drones or Surrogates either. Also about 50/50 against Battle Fortresses
Crabs - Hopeless against Turturrets, bad against Mantas but can still get off at least one good shot due to high attack and Blast. Also takes more damage than they should against Subs but they're the only unit besides Eels that can reliably two-hit them (or one-hit with Orangery)
Mantas - Really weak against Subs, Surrogates and Turturrets. Still has a base 190 attack though, so similar to Crabs can still do good damage to just about everything even if they die in the process against a Sub or Surrogate.
Turturrets - Hopeless against anything with reliable stealth or flying. Behemoths don't really count as a stealth unit, but if you see one in a lineup and you're nervous about it making its way on top of a hill, throw in a Plasma Artillery.

If I went into any more detail it'd start turning into some sort of guidebook. Suffice to say every unit has its weaknesses, and OF is the first age where I've really started moving away from using rogues in my battles in favor of using more than one type of unit per battle. There are simply too many unit interactions at this point to expect to be able to Swiss army knife your way through with just one unit.

1.) Sure, they clearly fly, but I try to explain it for months to Inno, but they won't give it for some reason. They didn't even swap the skill fly
and dug in with the Manta and sub. Even while it would make more sense then having 2 achresive units that takes always revenge. A manta
will more likely dug in than strike back and the subs fly more then dugging.-_- I don't understand the team at this point of game designe...
2.) Agreed, but if you know how to use there speed to out speed any unit they should be able to take the job.
3.) well, at first I find them also hopeless, but after a few attacks in rare battles they can do a good job. Especialy against fully stealth units.
4.) Manta's are supposed to be weak against turturret, but there poisen can be helpfull against reactive armor and units in general, indeed.
5.) Yeah, just take down behmoth first, never use them against realy stealth units nor fly units or support them with units
that can deal with stealh/fly units.

 

[DeletedUser8150]

An ability cannot be activated without an action. Poison cannot be "applied" to a unit unless it's hit by a unit with that ability. Mantas will not retaliate to Dragon Drone attacks though, because of the Dragon Breath ability.

I will try to get a screen shot. I'm fairly sure I have at least one instance of mantas -v- drones fight with 1 point of damage on a poisoned drone.

 

[qaccy]

I will try to get a screen shot. I'm fairly sure I have at least one instance of mantas -v- drones fight with 1 point of damage on a poisoned drone.

If that actually happened, that's a bug. Nothing can retaliate against a Dragon Drone, as its ability states, and Mantas have to attack directly in order to poison something (I believe Contact cannot apply poison, but I'm not 100% on this).

 

[Praeceptor]

Well, after using Mantas for the past 10 days, I still say they're not worth bothering with. Even the weak AI in auto battles keeps other units out of the way of the contact skill. It's especially ridiculous that they can't use contact against eels when fast units are supposed to be one of their targets. They either need to have their range extended by 1 or remove some of the bushes to give them a fighting chance.

Has anyone seen a single case where the poison skill made any difference? Not once in hundreds of fights has poison been used successfully in either attack or defense. Once a unit has been hit once it is irrelevant whether it's been poisoned because it becomes the prime target for other units - it doesn't live long enough for the poison to take hold.

I have just been putting the odd one in my army to draw the fire away from my useful units, and I don't care if they die. Cannon fodder!

 

[qaccy]

Well, after using Mantas for the past 10 days, I still say they're not worth bothering with. Even the weak AI in auto battles keeps other units out of the way of the contact skill. It's especially ridiculous that they can't use contact against eels when fast units are supposed to be one of their targets. They either need to have their range extended by 1 or remove some of the bushes to give them a fighting chance.

Has anyone seen a single case where the poison skill made any difference? Not once in hundreds of fights has poison been used successfully in either attack or defense. Once a unit has been hit once it is irrelevant whether it's been poisoned because it becomes the prime target for other units - it doesn't live long enough for the poison to take hold.

I have just been putting the odd one in my army to draw the fire away from my useful units, and I don't care if they die. Cannon fodder!

Agreed that poison doesn't seem to be very useful. Maybe in some off chance where you leave a target with 1 HP after attacking it, but that's pretty rare (especially in GE) and even then, it's a coin flip whether the unit will actually be poisoned. It seems like it was intended as some sort of 'bypass' for Reactive Armor and Force Field, but it's too slow-acting to really be effective. However, that doesn't stop Mantas from hitting very hard and also having pretty high defense, while being a fairly mobile unit as well. Their niche is narrowed rather heavily due to Turturrets being a no-brainer against heavy units, but I think that can be said for most units at this point. Turturrets are almost definitely the strongest unit in OF, but they have weaknesses that they cannot negotiate. Mantas work great for taking out Eels and Dragon Drones, for example, while the Turturrets can take out just about everything else (even Subs, provided they do so before entering Contact range). I believe the time has come for us to start moving past the time-tested 'strategy' of '7 rogues plus 1 other unit' and start pairing two or more units together in a battle. You start to get a better feel of how each unit is intended to be used when you aren't trying to brute force your way through each battle using just one type of unit.

 

[DeletedUser8150]

Turturrets are almost definitely the strongest unit in OF, but they have weaknesses that they cannot negotiate. Mantas work great for taking out Eels and Dragon Drones, for example, while the Turturrets can take out just about everything else (even Subs, provided they do so before entering Contact range). I believe the time has come for us to start moving past the time-tested 'strategy' of '7 rogues plus 1 other unit' and start pairing two or more units together in a battle. You start to get a better feel of how each unit is intended to be used when you aren't trying to brute force your way through each battle using just one type of unit.

Certainly TTs seem better now - i've actually used them in GE but only due to Mantas being so easy to kill with them. Not sure otherwise - you need a v high att to make them work on subs unless they clump hugely. Eels still seem the main unit for pvp as they hide easily and outrange mantas on manual so no contact.

 

[DeletedUser7779]

I surely find GE easier now after drones were replaced my mantas on lvl 3 and 4. Noticing same tendency in guild also - GE battle scores seem to be lower now - meaning less battles lost/retreated.
Haven't tried them in attack yet but honestly don't plan to.
Subs and turtles work great against mantas so they can be countered pretty much always before they even get a chance to hit.

 

[DeletedUser8200]

To say, simply a shame of the programmers of the game, sad and without words, I just made GVG in my main world, using 1 tank of stealth tomorrow and 7 spies and defeat without problems 4 blankets, 2 turrets and 2 eels, It just does not make sense to go up in age if the units of 2 upper ages are pure garbage

 

[DeletedUser8071]

Any word on a GB coming out during OF?