The RG is kind of one, though with a lot of bad terrain. Also you would need to be able to build at least 15 to compete with Elite Attack Chopper.
Helicopters need nerf more than MRL
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I'm interested in what you mean by "can't protect their own stack efficiently". What does that mean? Do they win in the end, or do they lose? Who dies first, the attack helis or the MAAs?
Kalrakh wrote:
That is the core issue: MAAV can't protect other stacks, they can't even protect their own stack efficiently. All they have is point-defense to defend themselves, because their attack is useless with a range of 50, same goes for cruiser.
If they entrench themselves, it is also pretty useless, because Elite Attack Choppers ignore entrenchment anyway. Not to mention that they huge outdamage MAAV.
It is quite a balancing issue, if one combat strat makes the counter unit (MAAV) useless in its job: countering choppers.
Aircrafts already have the advantage of healing much faster anyway.
It's worth remembering that an attack heli's main job is to kill hard ground targets, of which MAA is one. If your ground stack is composed entirely of hard targets (eg. MAA+MRL/MA), then the AH is being used exactly for its intended purpose, and it's doing its maximum damage potential. Even if the MAA+MRL stack wins out in the end because it's got more HP and can survive longer than the AH stack, it's got to be very heavily damaged in the process, or else the AH isn't working efficiently for its own role. -
For MAAV to win, you would need a 10 stack of purely MAAVs I would guess, though such a stack is unlikely to be ever used.
If you use choppers smart, they will always win. Even more because you can easily let 3 stacks of choppers attack one stack with MAAV, so they over power the MAAVs by default.
SAMs can protect other stacks against strikers, but MAAV can't, which makes them so weak. The reason why they can only use 50% of their combat power, their defense stat.
Removing the double dib feature from MAAV was a deadly nerf to them. -
Sorry, didn't read. Just wanted to point that if i wanted to nerf something about the helicopters, i would probably nerf how they don't appear on radar except for Awacs T2+
For me, this is the real thing that makes me fearful of them even when i have all the counters (in challenges, at least)Running an online alliance is pretty much like running a small company, except you need to find other way than money to keep your employees productive. May they play or work, they are humans. -
Where would you say is a good place for the balance to be, then? As a general rule of thumb, how many MAAVs would you expect a stack to need in order to be protected against Helicopters? (Ie. for the MAAV stack to survive longer than the Heli stack if the encounter is allowed to play out to the end.)
Kalrakh wrote:
For MAAV to win, you would need a 10 stack of purely MAAVs I would guess, though such a stack is unlikely to be ever used.
If you use choppers smart, they will always win. Even more because you can easily let 3 stacks of choppers attack one stack with MAAV, so they over power the MAAVs by default.
SAMs can protect other stacks against strikers, but MAAV can't, which makes them so weak. The reason why they can only use 50% of their combat power, their defense stat.
Removing the double dib feature from MAAV was a deadly nerf to them.
For me, I'd say probably about the same number of MAAVs as helicopters, assuming there are no added bonuses or healing for either side during the encounter, and assuming they are both the same level as each other. -
Opulon wrote:
Sorry, didn't read. Just wanted to point that if i wanted to nerf something about the helicopters, i would probably nerf how they don't appear on radar except for Awacs T2+
For me, this is the real thing that makes me fearful of them even when i have all the counters (in challenges, at least)
Are you still haunted?
Stealth units are much worse now though, they will never appear on radar, except for Specs somehow.
WalterChang wrote:
Where would you say is a good place for the balance to be, then? As a general rule of thumb, how many MAAVs would you expect a stack to need in order to be protected against Helicopters? (Ie. for the MAAV stack to survive longer than the Heli stack if the encounter is allowed to play out to the end.)Kalrakh wrote:
For MAAV to win, you would need a 10 stack of purely MAAVs I would guess, though such a stack is unlikely to be ever used.
If you use choppers smart, they will always win. Even more because you can easily let 3 stacks of choppers attack one stack with MAAV, so they over power the MAAVs by default.
SAMs can protect other stacks against strikers, but MAAV can't, which makes them so weak. The reason why they can only use 50% of their combat power, their defense stat.
Removing the double dib feature from MAAV was a deadly nerf to them.
For me, I'd say probably about the same number of MAAVs as helicopters, assuming there are no added bonuses or healing for either side during the encounter, and assuming they are both the same level as each other.
Max level MAAV has 11 Offensive & Defensive Attack vs choppers and 31 HP
Max level European Attack Chopper 13 Attack vs Armor and 30 HP
Elite Attack Chopper 19 Attack vs Armor and 35 HP
If you mix 2 Attacks with 3 Elites, you get 165 HP and 83 Attack vs Armor
On the other side 8 MAAV will have 248 HP and 88 Defensive Attack
This fight the MAAV might win, though if you mix in the Ace instead of a third Elite, you might even need 10 MAAV to win
Though this all does not even consider, that get unlikely attack by only one stack of choppers
I believe they need to regain the ability, to fire their offensive attack at attacker, because currently they lose 50% of their damage, because they will hardly ever get to use their offensive attack against a good player. -
I would leave Elites out of it, because they are special units that are meant to be extra powerful. Comparing them with 'ordinary' units like MAAVs isn't very fair in my book.
Kalrakh wrote:
Max level MAAV has 11 Offensive & Defensive Attack vs choppers and 31 HP
Max level European Attack Chopper 13 Attack vs Armor and 30 HP
Elite Attack Chopper 19 Attack vs Armor and 35 HP
If you mix 2 Attacks with 3 Elites, you get 165 HP and 83 Attack vs Armor
On the other side 8 MAAV will have 248 HP and 88 Defensive Attack
This fight the MAAV might win, though if you mix in the Ace instead of a third Elite, you might even need 10 MAAV to win
Though this all does not even consider, that get unlikely attack by only one stack of choppers
I believe they need to regain the ability, to fire their offensive attack at attacker, because currently they lose 50% of their damage, because they will hardly ever get to use their offensive attack against a good player.
If you've got 5 max level Attack Helis, then they have 150 HP and 65 attack damage Vs Armor.
5 max level MAAVs (to match the Helis) would have 155 HP and 55 Point Defence damage Vs the heli. But they'd also be grouped with other units (say MRLs at max level, for the sake of argument), so you can call it 255 HP. (There's no point in the Heli player attacking a stack of pure MAAVs with helicopters! He wants to kill the artillery.)
ewac123 said that the MAAVs don't apply their point defence damage until after they've been hit and reduced in strength by the Helis, so based on the stats and on my understanding of how the combat mechanics work, on paper it should go something like:
Rnd 1
Helis attack with 65 damage: Ground stack reduced to 190 HP (4 MAAV @ 122.5HP (99% strength); 4 MRLs @ 67.5HP)
Ground stack defends with 43 damage: Helis reduced to 107HP (4 AH @ 76% strength)
Rnd 2
Helis attack with about 40 damage: Ground stack reduced to 150HP (4 MAAVs @ 102HP (82%); 3 MRLs @ 47HP)
Ground Stack defends with about 36 damage: Helis reduced to 71 HP (3 AHs @ 79%)
Rnd 3
Helis attack with about 30 damage: Ground stack reduced to 120 HP (3 MAAVs @ 85HP (94%); 2 MRLs @ 35HP)
Ground stack defends with about 31 damage: Helis reduced to 40 HP (2 AH @ 66%)
Rnd 3
Helis attack with about 15 damage: Ground stack reduced to 105 HP (3 MAAVs @ 76HP (83%); 2 MRLs @ 29HP)
Ground stack defends with about 27 damage: Helis reduced to 13 HP (1 AH @ 43%)
Rnd 4
Helis attack with about 6 damage: Ground Stack reduced to 99 HP (3 MAAVs @ 71HP (80%); 2 MRL @ 27HP)
Ground Stack defends with about 26 damage: Helis eliminated.
If that's how it plays out, then the helicopters have been defeated, but they've taken 3 of the MRLs and 2 of the MAAVs with them. Call it a Pyrrhic victory for the ground stack. I'd say that's about what I'd expect to be the result if I were going into that fight, probably.
Are you saying that this is NOT how it plays out in reality? Did I make a mistake, or miss out some factor? I'm not entirely confident I've got the damage distribution right on the ground stack when there are 3 MAAVs and 2 MRLs remaining - do they get 50% each because they are different units, or do they get a 60-40 distribution due to the relative numbers? The former might mean that only 1 of the MRLs survive instead of 2?
If this is completely wrong, what actually does happen in reality, in your experience? -
If I were the attacker, I would attack the stack with 3 stacks of 2 Gunships and 3 Attack Choppers, less damage per attack, but also decreases likelynes of losing any Attack Helicopter
The goal of playing choppers is, to never lose a unit, so you let them merge with other units to share the HP pool or replace damaged ones with fresh ones, and if the they got damaged to much you send them home to heal and continue attacking next day.
That is the difference between a theoretical combat and a practical.
However Point-defense should apply immediately, otherwise point defense of TDS against missiles would be pointless. -
I agree that point defence should apply at the same time as the attack damage of the helicopters. But I actually did the calculations for that as well, and it didn't make a big difference to the outcome. You still had the Helis killed after destroying 3 MRLs and 2 MAAVs - it was just that the units in the ground stack had a few more HP at the end.
Kalrakh wrote:
If I were the attacker, I would attack the stack with 3 stacks of 2 Gunships and 3 Attack Choppers, less damage per attack, but also decreases likelynes of losing any Attack Helicopter
The goal of playing choppers is, to never lose a unit, so you let them merge with other units to share the HP pool or replace damaged ones with fresh ones, and if the they got damaged to much you send them home to heal and continue attacking next day.
That is the difference between a theoretical combat and a practical.
However Point-defense should apply immediately, otherwise point defense of TDS against missiles would be pointless.
As for theoretical combat vs practical combat, I also agree. It's probably not going to play out like that in a real game, because the Heli player would realise he's going to lose after 2 or 3 strikes, and he'd stop the attacks until he could bring more units in. But I don't think you can complain that MAAVs need a buff or that Helicopters need a nerf on the basis that 3 stacks of helicopters (15 helicopters!) would kill 1 stack containing 5 MAAVs. Of course they would - they outnumber them 3 to 1. There's not something wrong with the balance there, that's just one player having more units, more firepower, than the other.
If the ground stack player wants to win in that situation (being attacked by 3 stacks of helicopters), he has to entrench his stack, preferably with a combat outpost, get his MRLs out of the way as fast as he can, and add more MAAVs to the defending stack. He can also heal his units between attacks if he's got a field hospital. Then the Heli player is probably going to stop the attack, because he doesn't want to waste his choppers on a load of entrenched MAAVs.
Again, I don't see anything wrong with the unit balance the way it is now. I don't see why it should be expected that MAAVs be able to protect other stacks that they're not part of, just because SAMs can. SAMs are a ranged unit, while MAAVs are a point defence unit - they're different, and it says so in the unit description in-game. If you want to kill Helis with MAAVs, you can - but you need to match the number of helicopters with the number of your MAAVs. To me, that would suggest that the game is balanced just fine. -
I see, a unit that is supposed to have a range of 50 is not a ranged unit, but point defense only?
If MAAV were only Point-Defense units, why do they have attack against air units? Did you really think your arguement through? -
Probably to fight the players that blindly patrol and go afk for 5 days
Kalrakh wrote:
I see, a unit that is supposed to have a range of 50 is not a ranged unit, but point defense only?
If MAAV were only Point-Defense units, why do they have attack against air units? Did you really think your arguement through?
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English: "Patriotism is to love your country. Nationalism is hating that of others." -
An additional thought:
If you put 10 MAAV in combat outpost 3, do you know what the chopper player will do?
He will simply ignore them, because they can do shit against him. They can't prevent him of flying past them, because their range sucks.
They will be likely your only forces left alive after he pillaged your core cities. -
Ok, I should have phrased it differently: SAMs provide an anti-air envelope; MAAVs don't. By design.
MAAVs can use their attack range if the are targeted by a direct attack from an aerial unit, or if an aerial unit flies over them to hit a stack beyond. That's what the range attack is for, not for giving a constant wide envelope of protection over multiple stacks at the same time. If you want that kind of protection against helis, you have to use ASFs.
Again, where is the balance problem? -
That their current design sucks and makes them nearly useless to do the job of being a serious thread to a chopper player.
No good player flies over MAAV to hit a target behind the MAAV, he flies pass them and hit the target behind the MAAV with patrol attack without ever being in danger of getting hit by MAAV. -
Yes. But that doesn't mean the balance is bad.
Kalrakh wrote:
That their current design sucks and makes them nearly useless to do the job of being a serious thread to a chopper player.
No good player flies over MAAV to hit a target behind the MAAV, he flies pass them and hit the target behind the MAAV with patrol attack without ever being in danger of getting hit by MAAV.
Judging by the unit description, "Motorized point defense anti-aircraft system, protecting advancing forces from immediate air threats", and judging by the way they work in practice, MAAVs are only really supposed to protect the stack that they are a part of themselves. And I reckon they do that fine. If you want to protect multiple stacks, you have to include MAAVs in each stack.
I think that's fine, from a balance point of view. -
Because you only have experience from public map as it seems.
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Yeah, I completely accept that. My participation in this thread has been entirely motivated by wanting to understand the situation better.
Kalrakh wrote:
Because you only have experience from public map as it seems.
I agree that MAAVs should be able to defend a stack against Helicopter attacks - that's what they're for. But from what I can tell, they do that already with the game balance as it is. I'm struggling to understand where your grounds for complaint is coming from.
I don't agree that a handful of MAAVs in one stack should be able to defend multiple other ground stacks against multiple helicopter stacks at the same time. -
Tellarites do not argue for reasons. They simply argue.
WalterChang wrote:
Yeah, I completely accept that. My participation in this thread has been entirely motivated by wanting to understand the situation better.Kalrakh wrote:
Because you only have experience from public map as it seems.
I agree that MAAVs should be able to defend a stack against Helicopter attacks - that's what they're for. But from what I can tell, they do that already with the game balance as it is. I'm struggling to understand where your grounds for complaint is coming from.
I don't agree that a handful of MAAVs in one stack should be able to defend multiple other ground stacks against multiple helicopter stacks at the same time.
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Experiences from both sides, those of the attacker and those of the defender.
WalterChang wrote:
Yeah, I completely accept that. My participation in this thread has been entirely motivated by wanting to understand the situation better.Kalrakh wrote:
Because you only have experience from public map as it seems.
I agree that MAAVs should be able to defend a stack against Helicopter attacks - that's what they're for. But from what I can tell, they do that already with the game balance as it is. I'm struggling to understand where your grounds for complaint is coming from.
I don't agree that a handful of MAAVs in one stack should be able to defend multiple other ground stacks against multiple helicopter stacks at the same time.
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Look. I'm not trying to be annoying, I'm just trying to get a straightforward answer.
Kalrakh wrote:
Experiences from both sides, those of the attacker and those of the defender.
As I see it, based on the stats and on my experience in public games, MAAVs will defeat non-elite helicopters in equal numbers and at equal levels to themselves, even if the MAAV only uses its point defence damage because the helis are on patrol. I tried to demonstrate this with an example. To me, this suggests that MAAVs are currently working fine as anti-heli units. They do their intended job, so I don't see a reason to buff them.
If you're asking for MAAVs to be able to defeat helicopters when the helis have greater numbers or are higher level than the MAAVs, then I disagree. If you're suggesting that MAAVs should be able to provide large anti-air envelopes around several ground stacks at once, then I disagree. I believe that would make them overpowered and make helicopters fairly worthless.
I quite willing to concede that playing Elite Challenge matches probably gives you a deeper insight into the combat mechanics and the balance. So, it'd be nice if you could share some of that insight. Balance changes will affect public games as well as alliance games, so I think everyone's opinion is just as valid.
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