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Changelog 1.132 Feedback

  • Thread starter DeletedUser4770
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Agent327

Well-Known Member
You could, but I'm proposing that Ronins are capable of wholly replacing HTs in just about every situation and getting generally comparable, or at least faster results. Much higher stats, meaning a gap that grows progressively larger the higher your boost level is; not having to worry about terrain, making them safer to auto-battle with; and related to the higher stats, their defense is so stupidly impervious that I don't even feel the loss of stealth by using them while enjoying that vastly increased power that can still two-shot OF artillery and light units despite the type disadvantage. Indeed, I auto-battled my way all the way up to GE4 this week using nothing but Ronins, excluding battles featuring all heavy, light and/or artillery units where I went with Turtles instead. My average units lost per battle was 0.375. So yeah, while HTs may still be usable, given the almost nonexistent losses with Ronins I'd rather use them for the reasons given above (mainly the allowance for auto-battling).

I auto-battled my way up to lvl 4 GE with HT's. While I agree with you on the strength of the Ronin I think their movement makes them vulnarable for artillery. When VF artillery comes you might want to turn back to HT's, unless the artillery will ignore stealth.
 

DeletedUser13838

You are 100% right here. Everybody keeps going on how it took 3 shots to take out a HT, but that was always three and never more. With Force Field and a heavy defense they are sometimes harder to take out.
I suppose you're assuming a use of HTs as city defense where you can get defenses over 1000% - in such a case, HTs with reactive armor take more damage than with forcefield and with forcefield, ronins and HTs essentially would take the same damage. But this is not the case in general if you attack with them as your attacker defense would be much lower.
 

Agent327

Well-Known Member
I suppose you're assuming a use of HTs as city defense where you can get defenses over 1000% - in such a case, HTs with reactive armor take more damage than with forcefield and with forcefield, ronins and HTs essentially would take the same damage. But this is not the case in general if you attack with them as your attacker defense would be much lower.

Assuming as city defense? Did you read anything? Defense in GE?????
 

qaccy

Well-Known Member
@xivarmy Yeah, Ronins do get a nice bump from having no good competition since AF and the other two VF units being much more limited in use. Worth noting though, Samurai aren't quite as awful as they would seem (though still rarely good). Force Field really falls flat against the Orangery, so if you get some critical hits going Samurai can really make short work of Ronins. They just...aren't going to do too much against anything else, although since Ninjas don't retaliate it's pretty safe for Samurai to approach them as well. Ninjas are really the bad unit here as I can't come up with any scenario where I'd want to use them over what I consider to be offensively superior Subs, even with them having nearly double the attack power. Not worth giving up Contact! for.

@Agent327 I can't even think of what the VF artillery would look like, because nothing we've seen so far is capable of bypassing a Ronin's defenses without also utterly destroying any other unit (with the exception going to flyers). It could be as 'simple' as giving them Blast and a monstrous attack value like 350 or higher, which would surely dent Ronins, and obliterate Hovers, but that much power would also destroy pretty much everything else that doesn't fly so it seems unlikely to me and a difficult situation to work around. I guess I'll just have to wait and see if Inno gives them (hopefully) a new ability that somehow sends Ronins running while not breaking balance against other units as well. But in any case, while Ronins are surely vulnerable to artillery on paper, the reality is that Medusas are usually in range to strike on turn one, often without even needing to move, and Turtles just don't really hit hard enough to be very threatening, especially if you're mindful of positioning to avoid Mortar. While I won't argue that they're better at killing Turtles than HTs are (because HTs pretty much 100% take no damage from turtles), they're definitely better at bringing down Medusas in a reliable two hits compared to Hovers usually needing 3-5 to do so, and HTs are definitely going to get hit harder by them as well. Also, Ronins do 'only' have a movement of 15, but like many other heavy units they often get decreased movement costs on terrain so it's a pretty reliable 4-5 spaces per turn that they're able to move. Reflecting this and combined with their range, enemy Ronins are usually only 1-2 spaces away from being able to fire upon my units at the start of battle, so they're certainly not at much more of a disadvantage than other units when it comes to attack range, especially since they get the last turns in battle (along with Octopods) allowing everything else to get into range even before they've moved.

@Konrad the mediocre Myself, I have a modest 125% defense bonus (considering the bonuses present on the GE opponents) for my attacking army. The only things that consistently hit my HTs for more than 4 damage (of course, this being the cap for their Reactive Armor) are Ronins, Samurai, and Medusas. Everything else either hits for 4 damage or less, or never even gets the chance to attack anyway. Subs in particular perhaps end up being the most heavily affected by the change. Before, Contact regularly hit for 3-4 damage against my relatively weak defense. The important thing to note here is that yes, occasionally it was only 3 damage. This means that the increase of defense and shift to Force Field is a decided improvement here, because if it was 3-4 before, it's now easily dropping down to 1-2. This is only one example, and perhaps the most notable one, but it applies to everything else as well. Even Scimitars and Mantas, despite their strength against heavy units, rarely hit my HTs for more than 4 damage. I generally am not using HTs against these units in the first place, but if even these struggle to go above 4 damage per hit, then that should be clear enough that other units will fare worse since they aren't backed by a bonus against heavy units (and a lot of them also have lower attack).

Essentially, lopping 2 damage off of every hit turns out to be much better than having a cap to the amount of damage a unit can take per attack. In any situation where Force Field is actually worse, you're probably better off using some other unit(s), which was also the case before the change even happened.
 

DeletedUser29726

@xivarmy Yeah, Ronins do get a nice bump from having no good competition since AF and the other two VF units being much more limited in use. Worth noting though, Samurai aren't quite as awful as they would seem (though still rarely good). Force Field really falls flat against the Orangery, so if you get some critical hits going Samurai can really make short work of Ronins. They just...aren't going to do too much against anything else, although since Ninjas don't retaliate it's pretty safe for Samurai to approach them as well. Ninjas are really the bad unit here as I can't come up with any scenario where I'd want to use them over what I consider to be offensively superior Subs, even with them having nearly double the attack power. Not worth giving up Contact! for.

Well there is one theoretical setup that if i felt the pressure of needing to find solutions rather than opt back to hovers when the going gets tough that I see ninjas as useful - as a partner to turturrets. In CE one of the setups i use when manual battling and the defense does not include more than 1 flyer and 1 strike team is 2 strike teams + 6 missile artillery. It relies on taking advantage of rapid deployment to retreat if the battlefield is not favorable before the CE artillery can be damaged or have to fire, it only uses 2 strike teams because that gives a realistic chance of there being enough forest in good positions, and it uses strike teams ability to hide in forests to cover some of the glaring weaknesses of missile artillery. The strike teams head for forest out of range of the starting opposition and then the artillery open fire. The strike teams then mop up what's left.

The core differences with ninjas:
- No retaliation while hiding makes stealth a lot weaker - makes them closer to paratroopers than strike teams and paratroopers were a lot harder for me to find good uses other than autoing difficulty 1 where the waves were small and weak - part of this was that ME artillery wasn't as potent of a frontloaded damage partner as CE Missile Artillery are though - and Turturrets are stronger than both
- Samurai are freaking fast adding an additional potential concern unit for ninjas in 2 wave battles - but turturrets move before them and should be able to get them all dead.
- To use them in a wide enough array of setups you might have to be comfortable with 4 ninjas + 4 turturrets and finding 4 forests can be a lot harder than 2.
- In an ideal world you may be looking for an opportunity to land the ninjas and alpha strike enemy fast units - finding enough forests that are close enough to hit them but far enough to not get slaughtered by a ronin bot the next turn is problematic

It could probably work in places. They shouldn't have too much trouble hiding from the ronin til they're dead. And I do prefer stealth to contact when it works because it's better to take no damage than to take big damage but retaliate when dealing with two waves.

Samurai on the other hand I really can't see using - I have a 20% to crit, and yes crits would slaughter ronins. But the samurai just charged into an exposed position to do so and isn't really that durable, dying in pretty much a guaranteed 3 hits against GE4 boost - enough to win one wave sure, but not 2. And while if you still trust inno (ha!), samurai may be great against VF fasts, they're sure not against OF fasts that get to hit from range and then retaliate when the samurai gets its turn.
 

qaccy

Well-Known Member
@xivarmy I'm just not seeing the use for Ninjas even after you laid it out, as it definitely sounds like even you were struggling to put them in the best situation possible and we both know that's rarely if ever going to happen. While enemy fast units are certainly stupid most of the time and are generally safe targets to approach in stealth without risk of being run down, the bonuses stack the deck against Ninjas in that regard and I imagine that while the VF fast unit is surely going to suck in general based on the Samurai's already-limited use, it's still probably going to be good enough to handily wipe out Ninjas especially if it ends up having Rapid Deployment as well and thus less susceptible to the dumb AI of fast units. Hell, if the Ninja's a recycled Paratrooper I could totally see the fast unit being a recycled Drone Swarm. Anyway, if I'm ever pairing anything with Turtles it's pretty much always Ronins. Ninjas don't really kill anything better than they do, and they're a heck of a lot more durable. Anything that gets close enough to attack the turtles is going to enter the range of the Ronins, so even if it's a ranged or fast unit hell-bent on killing your Turtles, they're just two shots away from death, or even one if they've been softened up by Mortar on the way over. Since the enemies are usually in range of a Ronin even after only one turn, there isn't really much more risk in taking damage using them vs using Ninjas. In fact, given that limited attack range Ninjas have, it's probably riskier to use them instead. Seems like the only thing Ninjas are good for is being annoying for us players to deal with, as it's not really possible to brute-force past them with artillery like it was with Subs/Nautilus.

Side note: I didn't know until you mentioned it here that you can actually retreat with CE artillery and still keep them. I could swear at one point I heard retreating counted as a loss and caused you to lose any that you had in your army when you did so. Does that only happen if you attack with them before retreating or was that just never the case?
 

DeletedUser29726

Side note: I didn't know until you mentioned it here that you can actually retreat with CE artillery and still keep them. I could swear at one point I heard retreating counted as a loss and caused you to lose any that you had in your army when you did so. Does that only happen if you attack with them before retreating or was that just never the case?

You're actually the second person in the last couple weeks i talked to who didn't actually know for sure the retreat rule on CE artillery - yes it's only after they've fired and despawned that if you retreat they're dead. It's always been so as far as i know.
 

Agent327

Well-Known Member
@Agent327 I can't even think of what the VF artillery would look like, because nothing we've seen so far is capable of bypassing a Ronin's defenses without also utterly destroying any other unit (with the exception going to flyers). It could be as 'simple' as giving them Blast and a monstrous attack value like 350 or higher, which would surely dent Ronins, and obliterate Hovers, but that much power would also destroy pretty much everything else that doesn't fly so it seems unlikely to me and a difficult situation to work around. I guess I'll just have to wait and see if Inno gives them (hopefully) a new ability that somehow sends Ronins running while not breaking balance against other units as well. But in any case, while Ronins are surely vulnerable to artillery on paper, the reality is that Medusas are usually in range to strike on turn one, often without even needing to move, and Turtles just don't really hit hard enough to be very threatening, especially if you're mindful of positioning to avoid Mortar. While I won't argue that they're better at killing Turtles than HTs are (because HTs pretty much 100% take no damage from turtles), they're definitely better at bringing down Medusas in a reliable two hits compared to Hovers usually needing 3-5 to do so, and HTs are definitely going to get hit harder by them as well. Also, Ronins do 'only' have a movement of 15, but like many other heavy units they often get decreased movement costs on terrain so it's a pretty reliable 4-5 spaces per turn that they're able to move. Reflecting this and combined with their range, enemy Ronins are usually only 1-2 spaces away from being able to fire upon my units at the start of battle, so they're certainly not at much more of a disadvantage than other units when it comes to attack range, especially since they get the last turns in battle (along with Octopods) allowing everything else to get into range even before they've moved.

My Hovers take out a Medusa in 2-3 shots. Last encounters in GE lvl 4 you are facing 4 ronins mixed with 1 or 3 turtles and 1 or 3 medusa's. I can take all out with turtles with ease.
 

DeletedUser25166

@stallion119 @Konrad the mediocre I said exactly what happened with them. Regarding VF, HTs wouldn't stand a chance against them even in their old form so it seems more like a coincidence that the change came now rather than being because of VF matchups. Have you tried fighting VF units with HTs? I'm guessing neither of you have, or at least haven't tried the other units to find out how much better they are, mainly Ronins. HTs can beat Ronins on paper, but in practice it's likely going to take you no fewer than 8 shots to bring one down and odds are you're facing more than just a single Ronin along with other units you have to deal with. Like Samurai, which go down slightly quicker than Ronins do but absolutely cannot be outrun and even if you were surviving two hits thanks to Armor, would not be killing many of them before you were brought down. Ninjas are pretty safe kills, but Ronins do it better.

Regarding everything else, HTs after the change now take less damage from everything thanks to Force Field except for the units mentioned above. I'll go ahead and list everything out for your convenience, feel free to try to claim HTs are worse off now after I do so:

Units that were never effective or are even worse against Force Field and the defense increase:
-Satellite Spotter (useless/weaker)
-Drone Swarm (weaker)
-Surrogate Soldier (useless/weaker)
-Recon Raider (weaker)
-Dragon Drone (weaker)
-Battle Fortress (weaker)
-Behemoth (useless/weaker)
-Sub Cruiser (weaker)
-Nautilus (weaker)
-Hydroelectric Eel (weaker)
-Gliders (weaker)
-Turturret (useless/weaker)
-Octopod (useless/weaker)

Units that come out ahead compared to Reactive Armor:
-Exoskeleton Soldier (doesn't always, but can now kill in two hits)
-Plasma Artillery (can now kill in two hits)
-Medusa (can now kill in two hits, although easy to attack before other units become a threat)

Somewhere in between the two categories above:
-Manta
-Scimitar
-Crab (technically stronger, but they're easy to kill before being attacked in most situations)
-Rail Gun (still favored, but does not bypass Force Field which presents the possibility of needing 3 shots to kill)
-Hover Tank (essentially trading blows here, though dumb AI tends to put them at a disadvantage and you probably aren't using HTs against HTs)

HTs got worse against 3 units out of 21, and effectively unchanged against the other 18, including in their own age. I personally don't consider it a problem if a unit is weak(er) or a bad choice against units it's supposed to be weak against. A novel concept, I know! Besides, if you were using HTs against Plasmas or Medusas in the first place (they can probably still come out on top against Exos in a lot of situations), you'd probably be better off experimenting a bit more with the other units as there are better options, even when it comes to jamming a square peg into a round hole as people often like to do when battling.

I'm looking forward to any more weak arguments in response to this overly long, off-topic post.
I went thru vf continent map with HT
I can now 2 shot HT with HT.
I know you are really working hard on INNO'S behalf, so keep convincing the newbies. You are wrong.
I also take out VF units with no problem
335/116 no tavern boost needed
 

DeletedUser13838

@Konrad the mediocre Myself, I have a modest 125% defense bonus (considering the bonuses present on the GE opponents) for my attacking army. The only things that consistently hit my HTs for more than 4 damage (of course, this being the cap for their Reactive Armor) are Ronins, Samurai, and Medusas. Everything else either hits for 4 damage or less, or never even gets the chance to attack anyway. Subs in particular perhaps end up being the most heavily affected by the change. Before, Contact regularly hit for 3-4 damage against my relatively weak defense. The important thing to note here is that yes, occasionally it was only 3 damage. This means that the increase of defense and shift to Force Field is a decided improvement here, because if it was 3-4 before, it's now easily dropping down to 1-2. This is only one example, and perhaps the most notable one, but it applies to everything else as well. Even Scimitars and Mantas, despite their strength against heavy units, rarely hit my HTs for more than 4 damage. I generally am not using HTs against these units in the first place, but if even these struggle to go above 4 damage per hit, then that should be clear enough that other units will fare worse since they aren't backed by a bonus against heavy units (and a lot of them also have lower attack).

Essentially, lopping 2 damage off of every hit turns out to be much better than having a cap to the amount of damage a unit can take per attack. In any situation where Force Field is actually worse, you're probably better off using some other unit(s), which was also the case before the change even happened.
My current defense boost is 140% and at least in GE level 4, ninjas reliably 2-shot my hovers.
 

DeletedUser26120

I guess having buildings like idol, pillar, or athlete's living quarters show what goods it was going to give on collection was a bug?

Because now it's gone and I miss that. :( It was nice knowing what you'd get on collection so you could plan ahead.
 

DeletedUser29623

I’m not sure where to post feedback about user interface problems with the mobile app, but once more some designer has decide to try to sneak in this terrible font. It was used in a redesign of the inventory windows for a while until someone wised up.

No, no, no. Basic dark-on-light lettering is not only much easier to read, it also looks better. Please permanently retire this outline font! It’s hard to read and looks terrible.
 

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