Decoy nerf that isn't just raising their tactic space.

[Seraph]

So, a lot of people say decoy is OP which is kind of is. I was wondering if instead of raising the troop tactic space to 2 per decoy (I think this one and two system is stupid and that betrayal doesn't even really belong there anymore compared to other stuff), how about lowering the health of decoy while at the same time making it so that it doesn't set off traps. There's no reason that decoy should be setting off the traps and that honestly is one of the most OP things about it in my opinion.

Having all of your traps wasted by someone throwing decoys indiscriminately across your base takes a certain amount of skill from attacking. Hell, I even do it and knowing that there's no traps to surprise my troops makes a base takedown much easier. Also, I think barrage and demolition need buffs. Barrage can go for maybe a 100 to 200 increase in damage and for demolition, they should increase its troop space to 2 possibly and make it much stronger. Like 1.5x stronger. So instead of doing like 3k damage it does 7.5k damage. It will be strong enough to take out any building that isn't the missile silo, resource buildings (since they have protection anyway from demo), castle and stronghold.

Let me know what you guys think.

 

[Mcnasty]

Demo is fine the way it is. There’s plenty of research for it to make it stronger and making it cost 2 spaces would be ridiculous cause it not only costs you tactic space but it costs you time as well to use it. Decoy they need to take away the ability to set off traps and be placed on top of buildings. Barrage? I don’t think many people use that anymore

 

[LordAnubis]

betrayal still useful on bunkers that r maxed or u r getting overrun by EAs or tanks

 

[yemen]

Defense is the side that is OP right now, not offense - decoy is just the only tactic that is still reasonably effective at the moment.. I don't think it needs to be changed, certainly not massive nerfs. As far as tripping traps - it does eat up the damage of landmines. But the trap infantry are still present, and the barbed wire still slows you down. And to the extent it takes damage from landmines, that can almost completely destroy it and force you to drop another one in the same spot, or the buildings and troops you are trying to decoy can go right back to shooting your troops. I would prefer my apc dropped footies to take that damage rather than the decoy anyway - lose one or two, vs half the hp or more of the decoy.

The other tactics do need to be rebalanced - they all need to be improved. Betrayal should never have been changed to take two space, it was fine at one. If sabotage is going to take two, it needs to last longer. Protect was destroyed by the missile silo - making it take two space just adds insult to injury. Barrage makes no sense once you have planes at the current damage settings. And demolition takes too much space for its damage, especially after the addition of perks (plus 10% HP to all war base buildings, but no perk level boosts tactics correspondingly).

Remember that any changes have to fit into the whole game context and be balanced. You can look at many specific things and say they are overpowered and overused; but the flip side is to say the others are underpowered, and thus are underused.

I think that all tactics take too long to rebuild. This is probably because a long time ago building many demolition and using them on resource buildings was an effective strategy, or would have been with shorter build times. That was changed along the way, but tactics are still treated like something you use only in important battles, just like generals and mercenaries. Which is fine, except that it makes balancing war defense and MP defense impossible, since they are being balanced against what are effectively completely different offenses.

 

[Bootney Lee Fonsworth]

I think the best option is just to limit the amount of any one tactic that can be carried to 2, maybe 3 at most. Granted that just means everyone will probably just load up 3 decoy, 3 sabos and ???, but whatever.
After all the repeated nerfs to sabotage, to promote tactics ''diversity'' (haha), it's mindboggling to me that the mythical ''data'' that led to the current paradigm hasn't had a thing to say about decoys in nearly a year.

 

[Tsamu]

How about just one of each? Like blessings.

 

[BeerMan]

I think they should take all tactics back to one slot, and just tweak the stats where necessary. That is a much more fine-grained approach to game balance than the heavy-handed approach of doubling tactic space.

 

[JimmyNL]

How about just one of each? Like blessings.

I think this is a good idea. Make all tactics take 1 spot again and don't allow more than 1 of each. You can't spam the same tactic over and over so they won't be overpowered. I do think the training time needs to be halved though if they do this.

 

[cclaerbo]

Decoy is fine as is. Don’t change it one bit. You must not play the game very much if you think decoy is op. Defense is so overwhelming op. Not very much fun if they just make the game build a base and your economy but you can’t beat any bases. That will kill the game quickly. Don’t be an idiot and kill the game by making it impossible to gather resources and win ntgs Nexon

 

[Manifesto]

I'm happy for someone to use 3 or 4 decoys, I say make the decoy cost more to discourage people from using them. Personally I never use them, I usually use a Gladiator boost or a protect if necessary and rarely use more than two protects.
Make the decoy cost more as Seraph said, it takes away some of the skill aspect.

 

[Mcnasty]

I don’t use decoy either. I’m a demo guy but rarely uses any tactics during no battles

 

[_Flash_]

A decoy nerf right after providing a set of researches under the new leader at the university, Haile Selassie, to buff the decoy?
Are we really serious here?

Decoy is fine the way it is. For all of the incessant buffs to defenses in the recent past, the only silver lining for players who enjoy the attack aspect of this game is the decoy. It's hardly anything compared to the buffs that defenses have received, so, let some of us have a little consolation.
Upgraded landmine traps in clusters eat away at the health of the decoys, so, the decoys are balanced for their ability to set off traps. The key is to design layouts such that dropping decoys at such kill zones of traps is problematic for the attacker through clever placement of anti-tank guns. Let's not dumb down the decoy to balance out dumb layout designs which don't design the placement of key defensive buildings and trap zone locations better.

Other tactics could use some buff, but, forcing the use of multiple tactics through any form of restriction about the number of tactics of each type one can carry isn't a great option either. Why not make them competitive enough so that players want to carry them, rather than force them down everyone's throat?

The problem with damage tactics such as barrage and demolition has been the uncertainty aspect - uncertain about whether it's going kill a target, given the hidden researches. It's for this reason one needs to always carry backups for such tactics. This is the reason increasing the tactic slot they take to anything over one to be highly problematic - it'll kill their usage. Unless those tactics are buffed up to the extent that they can take down their intended targets even if the targets have researches added. At that point, they'll become too overpowered. So, keeping them at one tactic slot capacity is the ideal balance for those damage tactics.

The only way I see Protect coming back into use is if the radius of effect of application of the tactic is increased significantly, so that, even when troops are deployed in a spread out manner, Protect can benefit them.

And, yes, Betrayal will be back in use only if it is reversed to take up one tactic slot.

And, as others have already pointed out, we'll see more diverse usage of tactics in multi-player only if the training time for tactics is reduced significantly. And, no, not through a limited time power plant or a lame excuse of a reduction in training time - a real 50% reduction in training time, similar to the Carnaval do Brasil event.

Cheers and happy gaming!

 

[mkm1g15]

Oh please, do Nerf the one good tactic. For those making arguments for demolitions, if you don't use decoys, shouldn't complain either.
they are fine the way they are.

 

[Seraph]

I play the game frequently and have been since release date. Decoy IS the strongest tactic in the game. When I say OP I mean in comparison to other tactics. Being able to get rid of traps by literally using 7 decoys across an entire base can make attacking you easier and before you say but level 250+ bases... those are a minority. like 10% of the population.

Resources aren't hard to get just drop your trophies and fight dead global / atomic age bases. Saying defense is OP doesn't negate Decoy being OP. Defense is a whole other topic that I'm not gonna touch. Where are all these unbeatable bases you speak of? When you have 2600+ medals? Well yes, that's why I dropped down and picking on dead bases I can loot like 7 to 10mil an hr of both resources and get 30 to 50k oil.

 

[Seraph]

During WW I use tactics but not during multiplayer since there I can just skip pas the 10% of bases that are too high level to attack without using war level attacks. And exactly, it's an ease of use thing and comparative thing to other tactics. For taking up one tactic space and then the buff from the new leader... they can change the way an attack goes better than most other tactics. And I guess I have to mention not against level 250+ people since comments seem to bring up that small minority of players in defense of how it's not good against them.

 

[Seraph]

Decoys is fine but everything else is pretty weak making decoy not fine lol. My argument is comparative. I only see 3 tactics ever used. sometimes 4. Protect once in a blue moon... Sabotage, Decoy and the healing thing when ppl use full heavy tank armies that just die against my base lol. The ability to spam decoys is what makes it op compared to other things. It's really not that much "worse" than sabotage yet it cost one less space... Making it unbalanced for the space.

There were forms asking why decoy got buffed because most of the community does see it as the strongest spell for the space. I agree with you though, the rest of the tactics could use buffs to bring them to level. This would be ideal but that's far too much work for lazy Nexon. Also, you admit that its "the only silver lining in the defense buffs that have been added to the game" meaning you agree. It's one of the only ways to fight defenses meaning it's one of the best if not the best tactics.

And it's not about dumbing down decoy to fight lazy base design or whatever, decoy has a massive range. you can literally cover a base with decoys and remove all traps despite how well you put your traps down.That's not skill. That's laziness.

 

[Seraph]

I do use decoy, logically speaking not using at least 1 or 2 decoys in heavy attacks is silly. Even if it's to remove traps in a killzone as someone mentioned earlier, I will always have at least one decoy. Maybe my demolition buff idea wasn't the best one but my general point was that other tactics need buffs. They are too weak for the most part when compared to decoy which is why most of the time you see decoy.

Maybe I went about it the wrong way but like I said in response to someone else, I have little faith that nexon would change all the other tactics to become competitively useful but I understand your hesitance in wanting to nerf the one good tactic.

 

[Seraph]

Well yeah I was just shooting out ideas with demo, I'm not sure that is the way to buff it either but I figured have demo able to one shot any building would be worth 2 space but I guess not and I accept that but I feel like it's almost good but not particularly great. Even after all the buffs, you still cant one shot most AA buildings let alone CWA buildings making you have to use multiple or finish it with airplanes or something.

So you and a few other do agree, they should take away the ability to set off traps on decoy. I think honestly it would balance it out. It takes the skill away from attacking when you don't have to worry about traps at all. I use one barrage usually to kill all the troops coming out of the TH without damaging and potentially sacrificing airplanes. But using more than just 1 isn't worth it in any regard.

 

[Seraph]

That would be interesting and promote diversity in tactics.

 

[Seraph]

That's too much work for Nexon but I agree