1. Want to get our most recent announcements - and XP codes - in your email?

    Sign up for our mailing list!

No Prefix Balance Annihilation Classes...

Discussion in 'Annihilation' started by OrdinaryCoffee, Feb 17, 2018.

No Prefix - Balance Annihilation Classes...
  1. AlienLabs Regular Member

    XP:
    12,958xp
    I just want to say that I really like annihilation but my gosh the classes are unbalanced beyond belief. Just last night, for example, my friend and I did some diamond grinding at center and after almost an hour, we come back to our base and I'm swapped into the void all of a sudden. I was nowhere near the edge; definitely a good 20+ blocks from it. I was killed by some stupid leather guy. In what world is that a balanced class? I do an hour of work getting good gear and some little ding dong comes along and swaps me into the void and I didn't have a chance to react.

    Another example of a totally screwed up class is immobilizer. It zooms you in so far you can barely see a thing and on top of that you've got such a high level of slowness you have no chance of getting away. I see a lot of people moving in teams with one of them as immobilizer and they can kill you easily without you having a chance to fight back. This needs to be nerfed so that you do have some chance to get away. Maybe drastically reduce the level of slowness so it's possible to fight back and increase the duration from two seconds to three.

    Handyman is another flat out ridiculous class. I'm beginning to wonder if Shotbow even does quality control on their classes before they throw them in. Lower the percentage chance you have to gain health on your nexus when damaging an opponent's. You end up with one team having a ludicrous amount of health while the other teams are all fairly low.

    Those are a few broken classes off the top of my head. So please, Shotbow, reevaluate the annihilation classes and balance the crazy OP ones. Anni should be fighting-oriented for the most part, not kit-oriented like it is now. The classes are too unbalanced and people who have the OP ones have a huge advantage. Again, love the game concept but the classes are screwed up :stuck_out_tongue:

  2. GuigaWei Platinum

    XP:
    578,041xp
    Many of the classes you mention are not in fact unbalanced. Handyman forces players to sacrifice having an ability when rushing in order to attempt healing your own nexus. The chances are in a better spot than they have been ever, the only situation where the class is very powerful is in clan rushes. The problem with nerfing it by that logic is that clans tend to win anyway with or without Handyman. Replace Handyman with a damage class, and suddenly the rush is even harder to stop.

    Swapper cannot bring you into the void without careful planning. Resources and time need to be spent to create a trap capable of bringing players into the void with good positioning. If you happened to get voided and there wasn't any trap, then all I can tell you is to watch your positioning. Scorpios actually have to suicide in order to bring someone into the void, and Swappers need to set up a sophisticated trap.

    I'll agree with Immobilizer, but not for the reason you stated. 4 seconds is a long time to be frozen, but 10 seconds of mining fatigue is way too much when defending a rush. It outright stops people from being able to mine a nexus and forces them to survive with slower attacks for 10 seconds. Immobilizer does deserve a nerf, but rather to the duration of the ability, not to the content of the ability. It is supposed to work like a stun, not a slow. And the class is single-target and leaves the Immobilizer vulnerable.

    Class balance so far in early 2018 has come down to ranged damage at mid, mining fatigue defense, and controlling resources with zoning tactics. Two of the classes you stated aren't unbalanced because the things you described them doing forces the player to play inefficiently. It isn't about what you can do with a kit, but how you can apply them to the objective and win with them. This is why mobility classes are busted, because you can live for an immeasurable amount of time, keeping your gear and staying relevant. Ranged classes have been the best DPS-wise and are most useful for securing diamonds. These classes are considered powerful. The game should be balanced around managing the powerful classes.

    This is where the flaw in logic comes in. You want the game to be balanced around countering unfairness. The classes you described can be thought of in a way unfair. And these need to be fixed too, but not as urgently as powerful classes. Scout is both unfair and powerful, so where is Scout on this thread? Immobilizer is unfair and powerful. However, Scorpio and Swapper aren't powerful, but can be considered unfair. To make sure the game stays as balanced as possible, the powerful classes need urgent changes first, before unfair aspects are eliminated from the game in order to ensure that strategies and game-planning remains open. Classes like Scout, Enchanter, Acrobat, Pyro, Archer, Dasher, and Immobilizer are powerful and deserve changes that bring them more in line with other options. Then we can focus on changing unfair classes without ruining the concept of their kits.
  3. AlienLabs Regular Member

    XP:
    12,958xp

    There was no careful planning and positioning when I was swapped into the void. Some leather dude walked in, stood on the edge and swapped me into the void. Period. There was nothing I could've done. I was standing nowhere near the edge. Maybe I should just tunnel around to avoid getting swapped into the void because Shotbow can't make balanced classes. It's not the only time I've been instantly killed by a swapper either. This is the problem with Annihilation. It's so heavily based on kits, not combat. If it's going to be kit based fights at least give me some reasonably good pvp kits to counter the other OP ones.

    Your last paragraph has me confused. What's the difference between powerful and unfair? If one kit is more powerful than another, that would be considered unfair, don't you think?
  4. pokeminer9999 Platinum

    XP:
    203,980xp
    Handyman is a fun class. Immobilizer is not fun, but I think it is balanced. Swapper and scorpio need a massive change to stop voiding, even though it may stop rushers, it is incredibly unfair to work hours for good gear and have it all voided. This can suck all the interest in annihilation right out of me, and I am certain it does the same for many other players.
  5. AlienLabs Regular Member

    XP:
    12,958xp
    It looks fun but I still think handyman is too OP. It seems like every game it's always one specific team that's at like 90 health while everyone else is almost dead. There's no question immobilizer is unbalanced. In the context of a 1v1 not so much but when you're getting hounded by two or more people it's game over. Balanced classes should mean you can counter them. So in the case of immobilizer the slowness really needs to be reduced so you can still move albeit slowly. It would give the perfect balance. The player with the kit can still use it to slow people down a lot but without it being an instant game-over for the victim. We're obviously both on the same page with the voiding. What if the maps had walls/invisible borders so people can pull that bs?
    pokeminer9999 likes this.
  6. GuigaWei Platinum

    XP:
    578,041xp
    We had invisible borders before. The problem with adding them now is that it hinders playstyles. Getting around walls are an example of this by using Acrobat, Assassin, or Spider. Why would we want to make invisible walls on the edge of the map when defending is already at such a great advantage and games often last 2 hours?

    Unfair classes are simply put unfair. They have little counter, but they aren't the most efficient classes to use. Why stand at the void and scorpio someone in, wasting your time and resources, when you can play the objective and try to win the game at mid. There is absolutely no reason to use the outside of the map unless you are rushing. In the case of rushing, you need a better plan than running solo in full diamond towards the enemy base. You said it yourself, you didn't watch your positioning so you died. I honestly question the details because swapper can't swap you directly into the void because it has to be used on solid ground. Either a second person pushed you, or you just walked off despite being given slowness from Swapper. Heck, when you get swapped, it faces you the same direction the swapper faces you, so to die you had to have walked backward.

    For clarification, powerful classes are the ones that give a massive advantage to playing the objective and winning. Unfair classes can be any class that is hard to counter and easy to play. Scout is both because it gives the greatest advantage to objective play AND it is easy to play and requires changing your playstyle to counter it. Pyro is a powerful class because of its versatility and damage output, but it isn't unfair because you can counter it with other forms of damage or a fire resistance effect or fire protection enchantment. It also has little range so you can use a Punch bow to knock him away. Swapper is unfair but not powerful. It has no obsidian blocks to supplement the kit anymore, and its single target play style doesn't translate to being a powerful enough class. You can't 1v1 with swapper because it gives the enemy absorption as well, and defending with it isn't efficient given mining fatigue is strong, and Defender gives you more sustain.

    If it was based on combat and not kits, it would end up as a mindless generic game where ping and fast-clicking gives you a free win. Basically, it would turn into the black hole that is GG. Having a balance of both is what the game has always been about. We don't need the game to become more PvP focused rather than objective focused. We also don't need the game to have every class as powerful as Scout because this would defeat the purpose of having a balance of both aspects. Being combat focused makes it one dimensional and boring, being fully kit focused makes the game unbalanced and more difficult for new players to learn.

    I urge you to try out all the classes or read the wiki and learn more about the game. Obviously you have started the game recently and haven't learned much objective play. Annihilation isn't a game about swinging your sword and stacking a bunch of pointless kills. It is about working as a team to attack and defend as well as controlling the tempo of the game through resource gathering and middle control. Many of the classes you listed are not powerful right now, and you left off a lot of classes that ARE powerful right now. Try out all of them and see what I mean when I highlight play-style and efficiency in my two posts here. You might find that you have a hard time swapping people into the void without preparation. You'll also find that it is harder to rush with Handyman and have it be as effective as you described.
  7. JonnyDvE Jr. Developer

    XP:
    2,426,906xp
    Succubus is not that op but you can survive till your armour breaks (if it does at all)
  8. AlienLabs Regular Member

    XP:
    12,958xp

    Ah that makes sense. The swapper incident was entirely true though and wasn't exaggerated at all. I was in the middle of our base and then a second later all I see is the edge of the map and I fell to my death. My friend was there and saw it and he was equally shocked that they can do that. I didn't get slowness so maybe I'm wrong about it being swapper? Maybe it was scorpio? Because it happened in an instant it was hard to register what was going on.

    I totally agree with you on the combat topic of it. That's what I dread about the 1.8 combat system. Winning fights boils down to lowest ping and fast cps. I don't see 1.9 combat being added because it's too controversial. All the people who hate it are the ones benefiting from the old dumb combat system.

    Me and a few friends have been playing this game for a few years actually. Not on a consistent daily basis or anything but still often enough to not necessarily be considered huge noobs. I understand the objective but the other problem I have is with my team being uncoordinated most of the time which costs us the game. You seem like an Annihilation grandmaster who plays on some sort of competitive team or something so your experience is probably a lot different from mine. Overall, as much as I love the game, I've had a bad experience with having a bad team and getting killed by ridiculous classes that I can't counter. Maybe I just have really bad luck. :stuck_out_tongue:
  9. Diamond_Hunter49 Gold

    XP:
    75,047xp
    I don't really know you, but I commend you on responding with respect and not being salty. :)

    Champion_Guiga is a veteran player and has thought about the state of Annihilation a LOT (obviously); he is very knowledgeable on this topic. I suggest you check out his Annihilation Class Update Tierlist thread if you haven't already. :wink:
    Champion_Guiga likes this.
  10. JonnyDvE Jr. Developer

    XP:
    2,426,906xp
    I also think that he invested alot of time in it, but still that thread is highly based on his personal opinions
  11. LegendaryAlex Platinum

    XP:
    449,178xp
    Actually, no we were looking at what the classes can do, no personal feelings like when you get voidscorped were involved while creating that tierlist.
    Diamond_Hunter49 likes this.
  12. JonnyDvE Jr. Developer

    XP:
    2,426,906xp
    Not feelings but opinions, might also be a matter of lacking strategy knowledge regarding some classes.

Share This Page