Save The Caths...

[Rinoa]

I would like to formally request if possible a mid round change to cath stats for reasons outlined below :
1) Dominance of zik has resulted in huge amounts of anti cr defence making caths stongest weapon ( cr fleet) totally ineffective. Speaking from my own experience i have watched silly planets with 3 waves of 2k cr plus get covered easily from a) mass corsairs available to all alliances now b) multitude of coirsairs available easily to everyone in gal. How are caths supposed to grow if they cant land attacks with their cr fleets?
2) Co ineffectivenss late round- Fine at start but really late on people are saying just use co instead? umm hello all medium + xans have lancesrs, terrans have pheonix and ziks lol thats worst choice to co attack as next to no chance. So that leaves only caths as viable targets and as we dont have many roids caths as a whole race will start decreasing in score rise exponentially as round progresses.
3) All i keep hearing is "its your own fault for choosing cath after you seen what happened in the beta". Excuse me but does the average pa player have access to the beta? No. and should All the peeps who dont read AD/ irc before round start be punished because they chose a race at tickstart having put their faith in PA team that the races would all be equal.
I for one had no access to beta and didnt have time to listen to reports etc and signed up near tickstart with one thought in my mind ( I like a big Cr fleet ) So i for one along with id say all of the 23% caths in pa universe are feeling a little conned out of £5 and really demoralised at the though of 5 more weeks with these stats.
Do we just keep going on late round then hitting other caths? that will be fun. And however much frustration i am feeling as one of the few surviving big caths can only be multiplied X 10 for all the small/medium caths. Have any of the Pa team been payiong attention to the number of threads posted regarding caths? and we only represent the caths that read AD.
This reminds me of most recent speedgames i think it was 1 or 2, remember when terrans stats were changed and they were so wtfpwen it was so unfunny that the pa team changed the stats immediatly for next speedround. Also im not too familiar with them changing stats midround in the past but i would like an anser if it can infact be done. So please can people alse reply here if they are in favour of a change and what if any it should be.
I for one think incresing kill power or tarantula would go a long way in helping give caths a chance but ill let all u stategy guys discuss that. Also for those of you that arent cath do u think we are just moaning gits or do u think a change is needed to make the universe fairer....
Just ask yourself would you like to play next five weeks of round as a cath yourself?

So all Caths please sign here if u want a change and let PA team know our feelings!

[Judge]

well said.

I agree

[Alessio]

Originally Posted by Judge

well said.

I agree

Well said.

I agree

[Gio2k]

Signed

[Remy]

They wont change stats im afraid. They did so in the past in midround (round 4 or 5 i think it was), but those were slight changes and still, it brought so much flaming that, if i remember correctly, pa crew said back then they would never do that again.

Not saying you are wrong btw, stats this round are weird........to say the least

[Doorsdown]

Originally Posted by Judge

well said.

I agree

[Creature]

I agree
would be very good if they change stats.
i played caths many rnds but after this one i'll never play them again.

[General Martok]

Totally agree.

Not gonna happen I'm afraid, but I still agree.

[max_vix]

Yep I agree also. I have given up with my CR fleet now, and concentrate on CO. CAT's seem to be weak. Only 5 CAT's in top 100 says it all... and no we're not all shit

[KarnivOre]

i love caths, but what is PAteam doing to them? caths have sucked for several rounds now, SORT IT OUT

[Chaotic Mind]

agreed, and signed.
i do not play as cath myself, but i did realise that cat are quite underpowered and would like to see some sort of change applied to them...
ty

[E-Choke]

Hmmm, although I'm Xan, I agree, Caths need a change in the stats as do Ziks, just look at sandmans ffs

[cypher]

cath should be upgraded... but they won't 99% sure

[Felagund]

dont upgrade them is nice get free roids

[Intruder]

Im Cath, i think he expressed what most Cath player noticed, tho i dont think it should be done midround. I knew about the pwnage of Ziks ( and opted goin with CO fleet ) and still picked cath, and i believe some here did the same. Unfortunatly i am aware that that was my doom, tho i didnt expected such Zik overpower on Top 100 ( and anyway i think that Zik stealing is the biggest problem, nor Cath stats).
The problem with this measure is that will make ppl go to forums wanting changes everytime some race wont be winning, os some reca have a clear advantage, even not so massive as the Zik's.
I think things should be kept this way until the and and we cry upon another race's might until they correct this next round.

[Felagund]

well cat this round are the sux0r , but well stats were know , if u choose cathar u should stick with them till end of round ,, imho

[Cervantes]

well there is always gonna be one stronger race always has been, no need to change the tradition now. just read more into the stats before u chose im happy with things the way they are

[E-Choke]

@Cervantes you're not cath and you roid them he ?

[[Unknown]]

I agree that they should be changed but they also shouldnt because it could bring another unbalanced issue to the game imo.

But would be nice is Taran could kill more cors. Lets say 1 Taran kills 1k cors then i will sleep happily at nights

[electron]

Yeah, I agree. Going cath this round was indeed a mistake. It's just impossible to grow, impossible to keep up, impossible to stand up for yourself. You always need help from galm8s and alliance, and you always have to think 3 or 4 times (not to mention zillions of calcs) before attacking.

It's really unfair to be cath this round :/

[Deceiver]

Signed. Just make Tarants EMP effective or more effective at killing.

[The Real Arfy]

Signed by myself as well. Unfortunately this (probably) won't happen, and personally I think thats the right thing. Changing stats now is unfair since everyone has had a plan for the whole round and upgrading us would simply be unfair.

Signed though, screw the 'rules'

[MotoX]

Signed !!!!!!!!

[carniv]

Agree totally

[Benneh]

*signs*

Ticks Roiding: 30
Ticks Roided: 32


:|

[_Kila_]

Originally Posted by Rinoa

3) All i keep hearing is "its your own fault for choosing cath after you seen what happened in the beta"!

Umm iirc top cat was #5 which isnt a bad position. Beta was pretty balanced as I remember hitting top terr near end of round when he was #2.

[Pinkerton]

I'm Terr and I agree. Caths are easy targets and the first target everyone looks for. They should have one less EMP and another Kill ship. It is way off balance and i think a mid round adjustment just in the defensive ships is in order. like a slow initiative aanti de like last rounds DEFENDERS. Won't change the game too much and would give the remaining caths you have not quit a fighting chance.

Also I would like to add that stealing was the STUPIDEST idea!...There is no strategy involved like subverting ships.

[ComradeRob]

I think it's because most Caths aren't willing to lose any of their precious cruisers to gain some roids

Seriously, most Caths have followed the "build big-ass CR fleet, send entire big-ass CR fleet at single target" strategy, exposing probably half of their value to combat on every attack. No wonder they have to keep recalling; overkill attack fleets can only be met by overkill defence.

The single-minded and inflexible tactics employed by most Caths have been their downfall every bit as much as the stats. Yes, the stats don't help (the beetle probably needs an upgrade), but some of you people really need to learn to adapt.

[-=Zyth=-]

Always there is a patsy race, but making it cath is double trouble. I would check on wether it is false adverstising that you can win with any race.

[_Kila_]

Originally Posted by -=Zyth=-

I would check on wether it is false adverstising that you can win with any race.

Yeah atm Im finding it very easy to hit cats.
Whenever I pick targs I go straight for the cats

[Cannon_Fodder]

Originally Posted by MotoX

Signed !!!!!!!!

Originally Posted by ComradeRob

No wonder they have to keep recalling; overkill attack fleets can only be met by overkill defence.

And sending a weaker fleet will help it get through?

Idiot.

[jerome]

No, you idiot, he didn't say, mean nor imply that. He means, you must be able to take some damn losses for your roids rather than the characteristic of most Cathaars, who seem to want perfectly free rocks using the simplistic cr-rush strategy.

[Cannon_Fodder]

I calc my losses and go for it if it is worth it. That was his first point, his second was that sending a big cr fleet attracts alot of def for possible stealing, but he implied you shouldnt send a big fleet. If the defence is available to cover the overkill fleet, what chance will the middlekill fleet stand?

[ComradeRob]

It's perfectly simple - most Xans have pretty crap Bomber fleets. Send enough roaches to freeze the bombers and don't give a shit if some Zik steals half the fairly small fleet you sent, it'll probably still be worth it.

[MotoX]

Stop the jibberish and read Sandmans Race stats, there you have it all in blue, simple and clear!

– The Cathaar race are so over the head unbalanced that my mom just went out the door…!?

[NitinA]

I disagree. Sandmans's race stats will tell you what you want (even if you cant analize for yourself before a round). I, personally, always take a few hours before a round and just try and come up with stuff. Find out stregnths, weaknesses, ect. I even stated that Cath were weakest to those who asked me.

1) Should have reviewed the stats before round.
2) Should have reviewed the stats before round.
3) The average PA player is invited to play the open (public) beta, as that beta is open to everyone. The private beta is just testing features anyway, not even the stats. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to take some time and look at the stats to find out what works and what doesnt before you pick what you're devoting yourself to playing for a few weeks. Common sense, to me, says it's not too hard to take a moment and look at strategy forum, join #strategy on IRC, look at tickplans/raceguides people spread, look at sandmans race stats, or dicuss with the many people willing to help throughout PA. You're lack of access to the beta was your own fault, as during the public beta everyone is invited to help test.

-NitinA

[furball]

I'm a Cath, and suffering (as you probably have noticed )

Nevertheless, I refuse to sign this. It's unfair on the other 3 races' players, who all chose the 'right' race for this round.

Changes just don't work. And I don't want to see any.

[bwtmc]

Signed, not only signed but any talk about the pre-round stats is ridiculous:

I got to, stayed around and finished 4th in the public preview with no alliance backing me up when 7/top10 were Pack and i was the only Cath most of them could hit.
As expected i had to attack like crazy to achieve that, and it was totally doable because you weren't getting heavy eta 7-9 defence, and that's affected Cath more than any other race.
(Left Of the Middle if you were wondering Kila)



The ships you actually buy HEAVILY and have to buy heavily to roid are too slow to help alliance members.
Pod armour is too high to render EMP ships effective defensively, so you are required to depend on your galaxy mates a lot.

And best of all, because none of that stops you from getting top 50, Caths are beyond useless in attack. There's more anti CO than anything else in the game leaving you to depend on Cruisers for your standard main attack fleet.

Two weeks ago i had 2300 Cath CR and couldn't land proper attacks without going with a large Zik FR fleet, which meant, by nature as i was attacking with Zik's they gained ships as well as roids, and so over time, on my terrible income because i was being roided heavily, my fleet capped less and less roids with the Zik and time went on.
--- Caths were never about attacking people 2.5x smaller than you, yet many have been forced to this round, furthering the *getting themselves roided* problem.

I know of a guy who recently endured over 15,000 CR Cath/Zik incoming over six ticks despite only having 3000 Bombers himself and a not so big galaxy. Not a single wave landed (fair play to that guy). That says it all.

Two options:
Accept there's been a pretty huge misjudgment (as has been done) and show that PAteam doesn't feel it has to do anything about it mid-round, and that's how things will be ran here.

Or spend a couple days considering some kind of change, just to make the caths competitive enough that there's actually a point in them logging in, and what i love about PA, maybe discuss it with the players.


I don't in all honesty expect a change, but like the Covert Ops error (which was resolved), there should be one.
bw.

[jerome]

Originally Posted by KarnivOre

i love caths, but what is PAteam doing to them? caths have sucked for several rounds now, SORT IT OUT

No they haven't. r11 -very capable cath, overshadowed, like the ziks, by the xands who were boosted by the number of terrans. r12 - cath were the best race there. r13 - one example does not scream 'several rounds'

100% agree

[Neferti]

Not arguing either way here, but to those saying that we should have checked the stats - well, we shouldnt need to. The stats should be balanced enough that the thought of playing another 5 weeks as a cat doesnt make me want to quit the round. I've played cat and done very badly before, but this is something else entirely....

[bwtmc]

And the fact that there hasn't been such a lack of balance is exactly the problem. The whole point of the race system is to establish four different classes of player each of which can exploit each other and work on its advantages and disadvantages, gifted by the stats. That's supposed to spice things up a bit, not completely penalise one quarter of the players any reasonable chance of finishing high.

Fact is, Cath doesn't have any advantages this round, it only has disadvantages at least for the top 200 or so players. And if you can't please your top players what has any smaller player got to aspire to. At the heart of everything, that's another issue.

[TinyTom]

I think the main problem is there’s 3 hours where your attack can be reported maybe if u made Corsair FR to make them eta 8. Cath already have a lot of roaches for attacking xan..

But I agree that something has to be done

Tiny

[JonnyBGood]

Changing stats mid-round always ends up punishing some people for the benefit of others. The stats were there for everyone to see at the start of the round and it's not exactly amazingly difficult to find out how the betas are going. I remember feeling rather appalled when the phoenix was downgraded in the middle of round 4, and I certainly wouldn't want to be in the situation this round where I've put a lot of time and effort in only to have pateam decide to change something which I thought was set in stone. However there is precedent, and I doubt that there will be (m)any problems arising from a slight upgrade in cathaar effectiveness. Maybe someone from pateam would like to give us all an official reply on the subject at hand :)

[mng]

I'm a cath, but I won't sign it

I know you big ones are frustrated as hell, so am I, just on a smaller scale.
But midround changes to stats, without proper testing, is a bad bad idea IMO.

I don't know who's been attacking you ComradeRob, but accusing every cath in the game of playing no loss tactics is a joke. When you do look at universe positions, and where many very good players, good players who've chosen cath are - that's what this really is. Taking the higher value Caths, i myself threw away 700 CR over my last two attacks simply because over a weak of waved attacks with others, that's as cheap as it gets on circa 1.5-2mil Value players.

You'd think that'd reap rewards, but it doesn't. Taking heavy losses for XP should be a valid tactic but unless you go extremely small and attack what are relatively inactive players, it hasn't worked, it won't work and it can't work.

[Neferti]

Not doing so badly as a Cat myself, considering til a few days ago I was in a terrible galaxy. But I can only see things getting worse - already it is ten times harder to find good targets than it was a week ago... and I went (almost) pure Co from the start, as I did realise pretty fast that Cr wouldnt be very effective. I did well in the early round by getting fast Co as soon as possible (left cr research til pretty late) but the early advantage has all-but worn off now.

[Forest]

two rounds ago, zik was the weak race. There was only 2 zik in end of round ranks in top 100. Did the best players moan? No, they got on iwth it.

You chose your race, you stick with it. If you arent good enough to do well with a particular race, then tbh you arent gonna of done much better if you had chose another race.

Just becuase you arent good enough to play your race, doesnt mean it should be changed to suit you.

[bwtmc]

You're right mng, that's why there should be small adjustments not large changes. You can't upset the balance of the game any further by changing Cat ship stats without doing something absolutely drastic.

No one on here wants Cath to be fully fixed, just adjusted enough to warrant peoples time and effort.

[jerome]

Forest, ziks were nowhere close to being a 'weak' race in r11. You and I both full well know, they were excellent with their co-fleets then and had mucho possibilities to use subversion well to roid heavily. Their only draw-back, like Caths of r11, were that they couldn't kill De attackers therefore the huge amount of terrans in that round were able to pick on the lesser amounts of caths and ziks with ease. Don't you even try to use that as an example to show yourself off as a good player;) Though ofcourse the main characteristic required in rounds like that and this with an easily roidable race is will power, aka not giving up and attacking regularly etc.