As a longtime sins player (since vanilla came out), I was concerned at the pricepoint and features of Rebellion. $40 seemed crazy for a mini expansion, which is really all this version is. So, I waited it out for a sale to get the game at what I thought was a more fair price. I'm glad I did as I feel a little ripped off at $13.59.
It seems my fears were well founded.
Any shred of game balance that existed in previous iterations of the game was completely shattered. I play this sort of game not to comp stomp but to have matches versus other real players as I have with many other RTS games (i.e. Starcraft 2) over the years. Sins vanilla was very well balanced at least relative the new versions in this respect. Each unit and ability typically had at least 1 hard counter to it.
I disagree. There was enough balance for the game to be very deep and enjoyable. but there are a number of strategies that in pretty much every iteration of sins to present have never really been counterable.
In most versions of sins one of the prime examples was late game LRF and bomber spam. In general the only counters to compositions like this was to do the same yourself. And yes I am aware that in theory fighters counter LRF & bombers, but realistically speaking a contingent of flak and the sheer magnitude of a late game fleet meant fighters just didn't late enough to really be able to reliably counter such fleet.
Likewise early game carrier-cap rushes tended to be uncounterable with anything besides a well placed starbase(requiring long anticipation of the rush) or a counteroffensive of the same unit(early game carrier capitalships).
Early game LRF spam didn't really have a counter as carriers are too expensive to spam at that stage of the game.
And frankly the Advent-Vasari matchup has never been properly balanced. Before the illuminator bugfixe/Malice nerfs Advent had an overwhelming advantage and once their OP toys were taken away advent suddenly found themselves ata n overwhelming disadvantage against the vasari for pretty much the entirety of sins history up to rebellion(due to phase missiles and advent's squishy shield reliant capitalships).
So no, vanilla sins was not the balanced perfection you imply- and I start by saying this because a number of these imbalances were actually addressed in Rebellion.
Balance was more or less preserved with entrenchment although vasari mobile starbases with fast deployment were somewhat borderline in that respect. Diplomacy was a flop for multiplayer online play as it essentially added nothing, and actually proved detrimental for feed options on a teammate in a tight spot.
Now flash forward to Rebellion. The delicate balance of frigates and cruisers with weapons and armor types that served to counter each other was more or less completely shattered by one unit, corvettes. First they sit at the bottom of the tech tree and are dirt cheap and easy to mass produce.
They are only a bit cheaper then light frigates, have a much worse armor type against pretty much everything besides capitalships/titans, and less hull/shields.
Yes their DPS/supply is a bit higher, but that is only really due to their inability to bring all their weapons to bear on a single target(side weapons are strikecraft only, and divided between 2 sides)- much like illuminators & flak frigates get high DPS/supply.
Second they have a jaw dropping 3 weapons
And their total DPS is pretty in line with their cost. Having multiple weapon systems is nto inherently an advantage- in fact it is arguably worse as:
a). full corvette DPS can't be upgraded with a single weapon research type
b ) multple lower damage weapons are more heavily affected by the growth of shield mitigation then single high damage weapons.
, thus three damage types to counter multiple frigate and cruiser options.
They have 2 damage types, the two of which are practically identical The main difference between the damage types in the front/back guns do more damage to capitalships & titans then the light damage type the side guns use would.
Corvettes basically counter 3 thing: Long range Missile frigates, and titans. As for capitalships they are particularly good at killing carriers since they can't be kited and have sidemount anti-SC weapons.
Notice some parallel there? they are pretty much designed to counter all the things we lacked adequate counters against in vanilla
Third, they are ridiculously fast and maneuverable, similar to fighters and they constantly fly about doing high speed attack runs spoiling the shots of any slow moving or slow turning ships that have to point their weapons to fire them.
And did that every make fighters unbalanced? Corvettes are actually very similar to fighters when it comes down to it, just with a slightly modified role. As compared to fighters corvettes are worse at killing bombers, better at killing capships/titans, and are more vulnerable to AoE damage and frigate weapons(no 25% miss chance against them for flak & all frigates can attack them) then their fighter counterparts.
Like fighters, you place flak where they need to go(near whatever the corvettes want to attack) rather then try to chase them down.
Fourth they are immune to practically all of the AoE abilities in the game. So essentially they counter a lot of things and pretty much nothing counters them.
Incorrect. They are only immune to titan-AoE as they are specifically supposed to counter titans. All the old AoE abilities hitt hem just fine. in fact they get hit with both antiscrikecraft AoEs like TK push and antifrigate AoEs like Missile Barrage or meteoroid control.
Rebellion even added a few new AoE tools that can be used to kill them such as the discord's Psionic Scream or the Corsev's Demo team.
Any one of these AoEs can wipe out whole fleets of corvettes almost instantly.
Supposedly flak can be used to counter them, however this seems like a lost cause since flaks are very slow moving, have ridiculously short range, and are not good for much else other than swatting down fighter swarms. Meanwhile, they can be easily avoided with a little micro by the corvette user.
Again, like with fighters, using flak as a counter is a reactive counter. you place the flak near whatever the corvettes want to attack. They either come and into firing range or give up and leave.
Admittedly in small battles individual corvettes may be microed to runa way when wounded, but i nlarger battles where the requisite flak to counter effectively can easily be 25-40 flak or more, theres so much damage flying every which way this can quickly become impractical.
And then the icing on this cake is the addition of titans. Practically all of these will completely annihilate frigates and cruiser with their numerous weapons and powerful AoE abilities, and yet, corvettes serve as the counter unit too with immunity to most of the AoE???
Yes, countering titans is one of their primary functions. I think youa re vastly overestimating the number of ships corvettes are strong against. They only really have an advantage against 3 things: LRF, caps, & titans.
Flak decimate them, they do shit damage to anything with heavy armor(carriers & support frigates), and even LF & fighters have an edge on them in terms of firepower/survivability after armor & damage types are taken into consideration.
Corvettes were utterly broken when they did composite damage, but are perfectly fine now.
Online play appears to have devolved into who can mass more corvettes to win the early fights until titans take the field and gobble up any other ships that might be around.
More often you see an even mix of LF & corvettes. These 2 units are a natural combo as each counters the other unit's weakness(corvettes counter LRF & LF counter flak). This is true in much the same way LRF+Flak are a natural combo- albiest one which is a bit less common for anyone besides the vasari.
Then various ridiculously overpowered late game abilities come into play so whoever get an economic lead and is first to these typically wins outright. For example wail of the sacrificed, phase jumping starbases, deregulated novalith spamming, etc.
Here I may agree a bit- Starbase mobilization is indeed utterly broken. Wail still may need some tweaking, but is certainly moving in the right direction. Novalith Deregulation is perfectly fine though- TEC loyals are considered the second weakest faction in the game at present.
So is there any hope that these balance issue will ever be addressed in a future patch or was this version just released to give a few new toys for compstompers to play with versus a mindless AI?
All that said balance is certainly not perfect- but each patch has made good strides. Honestly though the main problems are not corvettes by any means. The vasari Rebels still need to be tuned down, and frankly titans still are a bit too central to the game IMO. Also Tec loyals & Advent loyals continue to need some serious love to really be on the level witht he more competitive picks.
