I've seen a noob yesterday ask himself: "Why are rovers so shit?" after realizing every unit he could produce was inferior to other factory units. I asked myself how can this man be so new yet so wise. It was self evident to me that he was correct. Ever since superfluid update (or whichever was the "stress" reduction update), I found no reason to build a rover factory. I don't remember the last time I've seen a ravager being used, or a comm dying to scorchers. Dominatrix balls are still a thing I guess, being useful once the game is already won anyway. There's still the occasional noob spamming massive amounts of impalers, watching them helplessly fire at moving units for most of the match. Badgers are great at shooting ground, not so much at dealing damage. Darts are just puppies, only with slow damage and no special ability and with worse hill tolerance. Rovers weren't great before these changes, but they at least were maneuverable and dealt decent damage with scorchers. Now everything is maneuverable and other raiders outclass rovers. I just don't see the point in the factory anymore.
+5 / -0
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Rovers were historically my favourite fac even in big games, since 2012. Scorcher and ravager spam was the way, you could achieve some epic busts with the raw power of scorcher. I think they have steadily eclipsed by balance and meta changes since then. - terraform makes ravager bad vs porc (can't hit it) - buffed faraday wrecks scorcher/ravager dives (mass aoe stun) - popups nullify impaler (does no meaningful damage) - superfluid has reduced scorcher (less of a glass cannon + enemies can turn around to escape better) - changes to other raiders have largely made them stronger. - fencer is much weaker now that all raiders are more tanky I can't speak for high level 1v1 balance, but outside of that realm I don't think they are an especially good or interesting fac either. There are still some OK units. Crasher is great AA. Impaler is strong with AI control (eg perfect micro targeting of statics). Wolverine is a good utility. Domi is currently strong vs short range heavies. But these don't make for a coherent doctrine that is useful in high density games.
+0 / -0
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Ripper was a great unit early 2020, I saw a group of rippers rush into a crab and kill it almost instantly by knocking it down a new spike. Even a pure ripper force is very powerful if managed well.
+0 / -0
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Rover was dominant not too long ago so it is good to now have an opportunity to buff their strengths.
+3 / -0
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My contribution to this discussion would be to suggest that rover as a factory doesn't scale into the lategame whereas (most) other factories do. If you can find truth in that statement and make effort towards better unit synergy or lategame scaling, I believe they'll be much more whole again. This could in part be due to impaler being the only "Big Boi" unit they have, and it's role is much more niche than say... a Lance, a Grizzly, Cyclops, Juggle, Phantom, even Felon/Aspis. Another part of the issue with impaler is that it's strength is shared by two other rover units: Fencer and Badger. Extreme, porc-outreaching range. You start with Fencers to invalidate LLTS and stardusts. You might consider badgers for Stingers. And you get to babysit an impaler when you're absolutely sure you need to bust that porc. That's 3 unit slots taken up doing relatively similar tasks. I think Rovers may be better suited without either badger or impaler and having a new fast, strong expensive unit adding, particularly something that works well with it's other units.
+5 / -0
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Sorcher,Slasher and Ravanger was too many nerved the last times ( 1 Year ago to present). I Remember, the Slasher Turrent Rotate Rate was sank down. Then the Ravanger Projectile Speed was slowed down. (Gun Turn rate too? - i think,Yes but not 100% sure) And the Sorcher was nerfed many times too. Its all not the Old units, that i know and remember. [edit] I remember too: You, the Devs have made the Dominitrax nerfed, while people whine, its too strong, a Domi-Ball. And past, you have nerfed the Wolferine. Iam liked the Rover-Fac in the past, but the Rover-Fac in the Past is not the present Rover Fac. Its for me not many fun to play the fac now. You, the Devs, habe in my Opinion too many nerfed the Rover fac too many times. Now you have a other Fac...
+0 / -0
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Ravager could have faster projectile so it can generalist again (wooo) Impaler could have some impulse so it can knock Crabbe off spire. Wolverine could be slanted away from reg damage mines into EMP damage mines so it becomes more of a utility and an answer to shields (the bane of rovers). Scorcher just needs its raw mad cray DPS back none of this will make the factory scale well into 20v20 ofc. That'd need some kind of utility unit that protects low range low weight units from attrition.
+1 / -0
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quote:
Impaler could have some impulse so it can knock Crabbe off spire. |
this very good idea i have post years ago.. nothing is changed. quote:
none of this will make the factory scale well into 20v20 ofc. That'd need some kind of utility unit that protects low range low weight units from attrition. |
do not forget the synergie-Effekt's. 1+1= is no 2 by Synergie its 1+1=100 In late Games, i played a shilded and Cloaked Dominitrax Ball or a shilded and cloaked Wolverines Ball. Or Ravanger Spamm...
+0 / -0
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Just so we can be clear, you're not going to find many issues if you focus purely on how the units themselves have changed (with the exception of Scorcher damage). Ravager:
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(03/03/2020) Projectile velocity 215 -> 225
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(01/08/2014) Speed 2.9 -> 2.95
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(16/12/2013) Speed 2.95 -> 2.9, Projectile velocity 230 -> 215
Fencer:
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(17/03/2020) Reload time 0.733s -> 0.766s
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(31/10/2017) Fixed aiming issue
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(01/08/2014) Cost 150 -> 140
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(16/12/2013) Cost 140 -> 150, Damage 45 -> 40
Scorcher:
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(19/03/2020) Aim speed buffed by 32%
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(17/03/2020) DPS increased by 5% (84% of pre-fluid, up from 80%)
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(06/02/2020) LoS 400 -> 560
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(05/02/2020) Health 420 -> 480, DPS reduced by 20%
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(21/01/2014) Range 310 -> 270
I don't want to list all the changes to Ripper. Lets just say that there were a lot and it used to be terrible.
+3 / -0
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What a banner dumpster fire example of a balance discussion. All units op/underp (pick one according to your taste) when they are not; flood of suggestions of sort lets make scorcher dig a tunnels and make badgers shoo off bandits, fleas and other rodents; wrong unit naming (implying they were named so does not mean they are now present and recognisable as such), at least i came after 'superflud update' and those only serve to confuse. I fail to see how fencer, minelayer and impaler are in the same utility category. Yes i too have some ideas about some units, i still think scorcher is mediocre vs other raiders, i too noticed rovers in general have large casualties in late game, but that due to relative low unit cost - they are numerous and can be everywhere (which is null and void as a strength in large teamgames), there are other things i might post about later, but overall i pretty much content about current rover state and i think they are even great choice as a 'default' factory (well, except there are no defaults).
+1 / -2
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Tank fac is just too dominant. Anything rover can do, tank can do better, rovers aren't even any faster
+1 / -0
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  Scolopaendra I honestly have no idea what you're trying to say, aside from mocking what everyone else said.
+2 / -0
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A cursory examination of 1v1 stats indicates that Rover is getting bodied in the matchup against Tank, does well against Hover and mediocre-to-poor against bot factories.
+3 / -0
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As far as I can tell fencer is the unit the rest of the factory revolves around, and I think fencer is still doing its job. It hits its peak fairly early though because it doesn't scale very well. Almost every other unit feels mediocre, dominatrix aside. I feel like scorcher's problems would be easiest to solve with a higher minimum damage at max range. Because the current design makes fight move a huge trap and means anything that can kite a scorcher reasonably effectively (kodachi) gets a huge bonus against it. The only way scorchers can kill such units is by forcing them to get in close to kill fencers. I think scorchers are fine against assaults for the most part, but the way that fight move nerfs them means you have to do a lot of micro in every engagement to get a reasonable amount of damage out of them. Rippers are probably as strong as they can be without being too good, the high alpha is pretty good vs heavy raiders like bolas. Ravagers have to be a little mediocre because they're so much faster than most assaults, but maybe the change to mex hp has made it harder for them to cost efficiently raid now. Perhaps if ravager was a bit more alpha strikey so it could 3 shot a mex it would feel a bit better? That would help it take advantage of its speed more in fighting other heavy units as well. Badgers see plenty of use in team games and would be really cancerous to play against if much better, so they probably are about as good as their design can be. Impalers also seem just fine, if a bit of a trap for low apm players.
+1 / -0
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Ok, let me be more verbose. By all means go and change everything. It is just for observer like me it looks like ZK is drowning in all sorts of cringeworthy suggestions, just monitor chat for month and there eventually pop up ideas like 'lets mount skuttles on units!'. Same here. I figured forum is a place where everyone peddling their ideas, but that pretty much making suggestions for the sake of making suggestions, while on serious note there is already a fairly good concept behind units, why would impaler need narrow crabspire removal utility then? And i don't get some points like why exactly quote:
it's strength is shared by two other rover units: Fencer and Badger |
is necessarily something bad or even an 'issue'. It is pretty common to see half of ppl see one one unit op, while others of exact opposite opinion. There are opinions that badgers op and also that they don't do anything useful. Just tweak some numbers, lets see then what would be considered op by loud *majority*.
+1 / -2
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Scolopaendra are you ok?
+0 / -1
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TinySpider said: quote:
Rovers weren't great before these changes, but they at least were maneuverable and dealt decent damage with scorchers. Now everything is maneuverable and other raiders outclass rovers. |
TheVisitor said: quote:
Anything rover can do, tank can do better, rovers aren't even any faster |
Why not make some rover units faster? They could become more defined as the fast land fac. That's what I think of when I think of wheels. More interesting than just increasing speeds all around would be to give Scorcher, Dart, Fencer, Ripper, Ravager, and Crasher a "turbo" D ability that increases their speed by 50% for five seconds, with 20 second cooldown. I'm leaving out Badger and Impaler because they're artillery, and domi which needs to stay vulnerable to raiders.
+2 / -0
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I haven't played ZK in ages, but sometimes read the forums and find the balance discussions interesting. looking at the unit attributes, it seems a set of a dozen ravagers can still commit to a sweep across a side of the map and wreck the enemy economy even if they're not strong enough to face the main enemy army. They're as fast as raiders! Other than that, the units are not meant to be used alone. Dominatrix and rippers could be used against tanks. Half a dozen fencers can be used to help ravager+ripper or ripper+dominatrix beat mixes which include skirmishers. Against enemies without AOE, ravager+dart+scorcher is probably very strong if the ravagers engage slightly ahead of the rest. Masons also have good HP/cost and speed so they can be mixed in with armies to give them more bulk and regeneration. A pair of impalers set to hold fire can snipe extractors behind the enemy front line, stingers or distracted commanders. I think part of the problems in these discussions is people focusing too much on raider vs raider interactions. Even if early pressure is mandatory to be competitive, several factories have relatively fast riots (60+ speed) which can be rushed and sent out early.
+1 / -0
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quote:
My contribution to this discussion would be to suggest that rover as a factory doesn't scale into the lategame whereas (most) other factories do. If you can find truth in that statement and make effort towards better unit synergy or lategame scaling, I believe they'll be much more whole again. |
Amen. In the past, Rover had something of an endgame in the shape of endless Ravager mono lava. Much as it scratches my (and    [GBC]1v0ry_k1ng 's) nostalgia, i find this to have been, well, boringly monospammy. But some form of this did work, and so perhaps the approach to make Rover scary again is to make Ravager less of a pushover. (What situations would you currently want to use Ravager in? These feel more niche than ever.) IMO, these things conspire to make it an underwhelming assault: 1) Bad effective dps when chasing riots and assaults of other factories, due to slow projectile, poor aiming, short range, and being subject to viscosity. This makes Ravager really bad vs Ogre, Knight, Reaver, and even Ripper. 2) Nonstellar hp/cost, combined with low weight. Ravager has about 50% more health than an unarmored Halberd (which trades to having 3x less health than an armored Halberd) while being slower and actually easier to kill with raiders due to worse aiming speed and a projectile that moves in 3d. Another unit that had some of these issues is the Rogue. Turned out a 25% buff do damage was sufficient to turn it into a nightmare again. My radical suggestion is therefore to significantly increase Ravager DPS or health, something on the margin of +25% fire rate, but maybe leaving its physics alone to allow for physics-based counters. quote:
You, the Devs have made the Dominitrax nerfed, while people whine, its too strong, a Domi-Ball.
And past, you have nerfed the Wolferine. |
I actually find both Dominatrix and Badger reasonably good in my recent experience. However, they are not late game options. They don't work with Apis, they don't work with Funnelweb, and they are too clumsy and fragile to work on their own in late-game scenarios.
+3 / -0
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Rover fac is fast and swarmy, I feel like it needs scorcher and ravager to be oppressive, and perhaps a little mono-spammy, to work. It could maybe be less mono-spammy if it had more direct combat units, but most rover units are support, which means their frontline will always consist of a heavy dose of scorchers and ravagers. Rippers in theory are also frontline but the way they move and fire makes it hard to employ the kind of mobile warfare the factory is supposed to be great at.
+0 / -0
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