14 replies to this topic

[Markoso]

Well, did an eldar mirror since I ended up not attending work today, and here are some problems that continue to persist with the Eldar AI, that've been there for a while:

-It builds Webway gates far too soon (well, that's sorta subjective I suppose, since it does a good job of massing plats).

-Bad use of the hard counters vs. Eldar opponents (Will check the rest in a bit). It built banshees against me in an eldar mirror...nuff said (it's a bad idea all in all, CC is already a bit lacking, but to build banshees vs. Spiders...ugly. Eldar mirrors are "who can micro their spiders bestest" matches for a good reason).

-Rangers...they're totally useless, nix them from the build list.

I'll note some other stuff with time.

[thudo]

Duplicate Post deleted - love having mod privileges!

Keep the opinions coming - I just tried the Eldar with more Guardians and no Rangers at start.. seem a little bit better.

Edited by thudo, 27 July 2005 - 03:40 AM.

[Flenser]

Got to say, I am not a fan of Rangers at all (being a Celtic man, myself - err never mind - Scottish joke) and would be happy to see them gone from Eldar armies. I cannot think of a situation where I would rather have Rangers than Guardians in the early game.

Flenser

[thudo]

Rangers are out - sad they aren't as powerful as Eldar Rangers have a reputation TT-wise to be SPECIALLY since they have to reload their weapons for each shot. Ah well.. balance matters. If Rangers aren't great, then they're out. Sad as I like em..

[LarkinVB]

I'm currently trying to streamline elda BO. Nothing to do at work so I could code 8 hours a day for DoW ;-)

Lot's of fixes/balances/improvments made. It's from dying FS doing mindwar on enemy squad if no enemy commander is nearby to fixing the dance routine.

Will test tonight.

[thudo]

Brilliant as always! Eldar do need a little helping hand unless the expansion enhances them other than just FireDragons... T-minus almost 1.5 months and counting.

[oozish]

I know we keep working on Eldar because I've heard ya'll say they need the most help, but actually I find them one of the toughest races already. I guess that's why I'd like to see more attention on orks or SM.

Eldar ranged units are devastating early game, especially when they trounce nearly all (early game) cc/ranged units with their numbers and ranged attacks...not in cc but from afar; they just start whittling the beginning units of the other races down....frankly their sorta scary.

I've always considered Eldar (already) the Skirmish AI crown jewel....like the best your AI has to offer. That's why I don't see why continued work on them is a priority. I guess I'd say that only if the other races AREN'T getting AS MUCH attention.

Anyhow, this is one of several times I've said this and with this I'll shut up! My point is surely made by now.

Edited by oozish, 28 July 2005 - 03:37 AM.

[Markoso]

Eldar units are indeed good at a range, but not for their cost, nor the ease with which they are disrupted. To reliably break squads, you need a fully reinforced ranger squad (rangers suck at damage, they only do morale damage) and one of those is a huge...HUGE resource sink, thrown in with the fact that a player can jump in some assault troops and disrupt the hell out of them, they're usefulness dies down fast (compared to SM snipers, where you can get 2-3 squads of em breaking stuff reliably for a far lower price, AND have them spread out so they can't all be disrupted by a single Assault squad).

The other units are basically staples of the eldar army, so I need not speak of them.

[thudo]

In other words, Eldar Rangers should do a little more damage and be respected compared to their reputation in TT (which DoW makes a mockery of). I mean, Rangers could be useful mid-game as the Eldar AI would at least have coin coming in and reinforce them as a squad to be a major morale breaker.

Hate RTSes that make some of its units redundant/useless although Rangers aren't all that bad but they still need a buff to be respected other than the battlefield joke they are. <you can tell there is some serious Ranger-Lov'n going on here!>

Anyway, they're removed from both the initial static buildorder and dynamic one.. Guardians are in their place. When the first v1.3b1 is put on the site, you can give them Eldar folk a try. Should be a different startup.

Edited by thudo, 28 July 2005 - 04:07 AM.

[LarkinVB]

Anyway, they're removed from both the initial static buildorder and dynamic one.. Guardians are in their place. When the first v1.3b1 is put on the site, you can give them Eldar folk a try. Should be a different startup.

With my new eldar BO there are no guardians beyond the three capping ones. I try to build aspect warriors ASAP. Sad enough I have a persistant crash bug with my new dancing code which does delay delivery of my changes.

I optimized like this :

No rangers, not substituted by guardians. Ignore support cap limit at gamestart so webway will not be force build. Disallow shrine as long as no aspect warrior is on the field. Added aspect stone + three squads (either WS against ork/eldar or DR against marines) to build order. LP addons are only build if max squad cap is > 14.
Thinking about pushing back second generator a bit.

Still struggeling with the problem that Relics #$%&*^$ demand system is favoring banshees if orks get their nob leaders. I'm thinking about reducing the effectivness from unitstats.ai by 33% for CC squads.

Edited by LarkinVB, 28 July 2005 - 09:18 AM.

[thudo]

If you can push either DR and WS out quicker than WoW! That would be a nasty anti-rush protection force. Costly, as the aspect stone + unit creation is one of the most expensive startup costs for any of the factions. That would be a challenge to break Eldar lines that early.

[Quitch]

IIRC the Guardian Rush stratergy, one of the most popular around, uses four squads of Guardians.

[Markoso]

Yeh..Guardians are really good, and while they shouldn't per-se replace rangers, they still need to be in there as sorta the first line (plasma nades are a must for them usually, as is a warlock for them to continue to be useful).

Dark reapers need a meatshield, guardians fit the bill, warpspiders need some cheap support in the form of infantry, guardians fit the bill, and so on...

Edited by Markoso, 28 July 2005 - 11:05 PM.

[Quitch]

Replace rangers? Someone would have to build rangers first for that to happen, and no one does (and for good reason).

[thudo]

In a strange peculiar way I'm starting to like Quitch as a beta tester. As I told Oozish I'd hate to have ya as an enemy in the game but as an ally...

A beta tester needs to be firm, but fair. Understands we can't work miracles but we can provide half the fun! We're trying are absolute best to deliever "da goods". We do look for honesty and value your experience.