Options
I think there's a bug with rocket launcher sentry guns
PythonDjango
Registered Users 234 Posts
Although recent updates seemed to significantly increase the overall power of base defenses (at player level 280, level 290 Juggernauts can kill you before you even notice you're in trouble), but rocket launcher sentry guns are totally ineffective. Since you only get one or two sentry guns in your base defense, and upgrading them costs as much as upgrading your guards, which are much more numerous, I'd expect a sentry gun to be at least as powerful as a single corresponding guard.
In the case of rocketeers, that's not the case -- the most annoying thing about the rocket launcher sentry gun is the smoke; you can pretty much stand up and ignore hits from them. Level 290 bot opponent rocket sentry guns appear to hit no harder than the 16x power rockets from my drone. Please look into base defender attack powers; they seem very out of whack.
In the case of rocketeers, that's not the case -- the most annoying thing about the rocket launcher sentry gun is the smoke; you can pretty much stand up and ignore hits from them. Level 290 bot opponent rocket sentry guns appear to hit no harder than the 16x power rockets from my drone. Please look into base defender attack powers; they seem very out of whack.
0
Howdy, Stranger!
Comments
Seriously though, are you more concerned with the JUGGERNAUT being a nasty opponent OR that the SENTRY isn't quite as effective as it should be? Balance would be nice ...
... but a Tier 29 JUGG would be better. :cool: After all the last I checked we were @ Tier 29.
Aside from taking out the SENTRIES/JUGGS first, you only have 2 options ...
... use a 30.5 SR Weapon AND/OR keep your SR Battles @ Tier 28 by equipping a Tier 28 ASSAULT Weapon; the payouts will be less however, obviously. You can always use grenades.
The irony is that periodically this game is reduced to "avoiding" SR battles so balance has never been a cornerstone of CKS anyway; what's irony (squared) is that you're essentially fighting a clone of yourself.
TIP: get that drone upgraded; they're cheap and quite effective in battle.
I've been complaining about this for weeks and I see no indication that GLU will remedy this.
Unfortunately ...
When fighting bots, my Apple group character is level 280, and fights with level 27.5 primary guns. I'd expect that the avatar, which is supposed to be using the same guns I am and have the same level as my character to be quite tough. Those avatars can absorb maybe 6-8 sniper shots (even as few as 3 head shots with a crit or two) or 2 assault rifle clips, but they do almost no damage when shooting me, almost like those rocket sentries -- they're out of balance with the other guards/sentries.
Also, every 10 levels basically doubles a player's toughness (health), and every 1.0 in gun power doubles its effectiveness. That means that at level 280 with a level 29.5 gun, drawing a tier 27 base or less in clan wars is basically like stomping a kitten -- I don't feel that there should be so much difference per level. Upper tier players rampage over players who are fairly close in stats, which may appeal to some players, isn't much fun for me.
While I'm on my soapbox, and recognizing that this is an entirely different (though related) issue, this accelerated release of new base tiers every two weeks simply isn't sustainable. I want GLU to return to the previous release schedule, but they probably won't, and it's likely that I'll eventually quit over it. I play too much to enjoy be pushed into irrelevance against big spenders -- I'll just let them fight among themselves and find another game to play.
While the primary weapon "attracts" the opponent, it's usually the secondary weapon that wins the battle, so if your primary is 27.5, your secondary MUST be 28.5 and fully upgraded to be of any use.
IF you apply that logic to the "present", if you employ a 29.5 Primary, then you'll need a 30.5 Secondary to accomplish the same result and the ONLY way to get that weapon is to spend 7,000 GOLD for a VIP variant, so Global Events are DOA with regards to acquiring Short Range weapons ... period.
Tomorrow will most likely be a Global Event that features a 29.5 Short Range Weapon and with a new TIER expected next week, it's already obsolete and we haven't fired the first shot ... that's the tragic "imbalance" that needs to be corrected, but GLU has been moving in that direction for several months and it should be of no surprise.
It should also be noted that the weapon is ONLY obsolete if you're @ TIER 29 ... stop upgrading the base and everything goes back to normal. :cool:
For months GLU also allowed us to collect, what appeared to be useless equipment, that can now be used to dispatch these tougher foes quite easily; in the very least bring them down to Earth so that conventional tactics can now be used.
GLU has provided a means to get through the SR battles; patience is at a premium in this regard ... either that or skip SR battles altogether.
The Veterans have seen this in SR battles many times before ... first we had the introduction of the "bot" with maxed out defenses and drones (impossible at the time to defeat). Then we had the "sudden death" syndrome when a single shot from a mystery rifleman could kill you.
Now we have a true "JUGGERNAUT" (worthy of the name) to fight against.
I guess the point I'm trying to make is that the SR battle experience issue is nothing new, what IS new is the fact that SR weapons acquired via Global/League Events are practically useless in battle.
If it's any consolation at all, each time GLU has introduced this added level of difficulty, somehow we've adapted and managed to continue. I will acknowledge that this is quite different BUT you do have many options available to help you to succeed.
GLU appears to have moved to a 3-week schedule which is reasonable. I've managed to upgrade the ALPHA-DELTA Base with a minimal effort using mostly free energy, but it does require at least 50 PvP Victories per day; that's only 1,250 AP / day during a Global Event.
You see the irony here is that nobody is competing against anyone anymore. Even in battle, most opponents are "bots" that are essentially clones of ourselves; another tragic turn of events since competition no longer exists in the traditional sense.
So the big spenders aren't even competing amongst themselves ... they are competing WITH themselves to see if they can spend more than they did last month and in that sense we're all "lunatics".
We've always had the option available to us to stop playing the game and move on ... many have.
By keeping my player level higher than my gun levels, my health is high enough and opponent levels are limited enough (sentry and guard levels are 270 for bot opponents) that I win PvPs without much risk. Also, my base is Tier 24, so I'm getting max payouts for that base from those opponents.
That's working out pretty well for me; I win enough milestone gold to replace my primary guns when the max level increases and they go on sale in the store; occasionally, I even build up enough to buy a secondary gun that's on sale, especially when a VIP event will provide one of the primary guns I need as the 750 gold spent award.
I started that character during last year's Christmas break vacation and haven't spent any real world money on it. Its development will continue below the "crest", but it'll never be really competitive against big spenders -- it's still fairly fun to play within those accepted limits. My primary goal was to see if it would be possible to build up a character without spending a cent, and measured by that standard, it's quite successful.
My Amazon character is a year older, and i did spend some money early on (totaling $240) -- mainly wasted on spins that never paid out any of the guns I was hoping for. Up until recently, I kept somewhat competitive with big spenders by winning global event guns and raiding (what some call clan jumping, but I consider that to mean something else) for additional tokens. I was never quite on and even footing, but with equipment from spins, I kept up.
The competition level is not nearly intense in the Amazon group -- I'd guess that Amazon only has about 10% as many players as the Apple group based on event leaderboard scores. However, I'm falling increasingly behind on base development. You're entirely correct about the primary/secondary gun balance for that character, although I typically only upgrade my secondaries about 55%. That character has been "riding the crest" by winning event guns, and it's the one that I'm feeling frustrated by the accelerated base releases about -- it's starting to get left behind due to GLU's recent changes. Just playing on free energy isn't enough to keep up.