Points of Imbalance.
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The problem Blodir mentioned is as old as time in teamgames.
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@FtXCommando said in Points of Imbalance.:
The problem Blodir mentioned is as old as time in teamgames.
From Blodir:
i just wanna say that ever since loya nerf years ago I only think of t3 land as a defensive tool because any attack is super risky
I mean.... it sounds to me like he's also referencing T3 unit nerfs.
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I took it as the loya nerf where they can’t stun air units anymore since otherwise he coulda said t3 nerf but w/e.
The argument is more than loya (and harb) were the few units that could go in solo and crush everything (in old balance) since they countered all earlier tiers, were quick, and had decent kiting ability. They were also comparably cheap to other t3 units. Other than that specific use in early t3 stage, if you made a large t3 force, the game always came down to who will have the force that crushes the other and wins the reclaim field. Therefore, t3 was always defensive due to defender advantage.
The REASON T4 pushes are seen more often is because it’s easier to justify you having a competitive edge to win the game or win a huge reclaim pile if you just dumped 20-30k mass into some t4 that has a specific advantage in certain situations. It’s the support mixture that allows your t3 buildup, even if less numerous due to the t4, to either force enemy to move into you (and possibly donate mass) or retreat and give space.
This was honestly more extreme in the past because if it got to mass t3 buildup stage and you faces UEF, then you were just fucked anyway and had better started to spam out your faction’s assault bot. Nowadays you can actually maintain a t3 force with t4 support with all factions.
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@FtXCommando said in Points of Imbalance.:
I took it as the loya nerf where they can’t stun air units anymore since otherwise he coulda said t3 nerf but w/e.The argument is more than loya (and harb) were the few units that could go in solo and crush everything (in old balance) since they countered all earlier tiers, were quick, and had decent kiting ability. They were also comparably cheap to other t3 units. Other than that specific use in early t3 stage, if you made a large t3 force, the game always came down to who will have the force that crushes the other and wins the reclaim field. Therefore, t3 was always defensive due to defender advantage.
The REASON T4 pushes are seen more often is because it’s easier to justify you having a competitive edge to win the game or win a huge reclaim pile if you just dumped 20-30k mass into some t4 that has a specific advantage in certain situations. It’s the support mixture that allows your t3 buildup, even if less numerous due to the t4, to either force enemy to move into you (and possibly donate mass) or retreat and give space.That seems like a whole lot of shucking and jiving to avoid admitting that people aren't building T3 as much becasue it recieved a massive recent nerf with no corresponding nerf to competing units or defensive structures.
You're making this more complicated than it is. What is the specific advantage? Its the same for pretty much all assault experimentals other than the Fatboy.
Its a fast, mobile force concentration that gives you a defeat in detail advantage over your opponent.
The speed at which you can build them, along with the fact that its faster than T3 and can't be defeated by T3 without massive expenditures in production makes it super effective.
So effective that people wind up building them and only build a token T3 force. They needed T3 as they transitioned out of T2, so why not keep making them now that the factories are paid for?
The T3 assault unit should be the centerpiece unit at the heart of all land battles. In its current state, its not viable in that role, the massive nerf to T3 assault units two years ago is the reason why. It may not be the only factor holding T3 assault units back, but its certainly a major factor.
Being just good enough to tag along behind T4, or worthwhile as a stepping stone tier between T2 and T4 leaves the game in a lesser state.
But none of that really addresses your post.
You seem to be claiming that T4 is built because it is flexible and fast to build, so that you can quickly exploit a battleground weakness. You scout and see not enough land, so you build a Fatboy. You scout and see little air defense, so you build a Soulripper.
That is certainly true, but T3 land is also flexible.
You scout and find a block of Ravagers, you build T3 mobile arty. You scout and find a T4 starting to build, you go snipers.
There is flexibility in increased T3 production.
But we aren't seeing people take advantage of that flexibility through production increases. We're seeing them ignore that and predictably go Megalith + scattered bricks and T1 arty.
We aren't seeing that not because of T4 is more flexible. It isn't. You go Chicken or asswasher. You go Fatboy or tickle gun. You go ML if you're too broke for a Mega, or you go Soulripper. T4 is pretty damn predictable.
Its just too damn good relative to T3. Even if T3 units do kill some T4 mass for mass, T3 units are vulnerable to splash, so it just doesn't matter if 6k in mobile artillery ensures a win for your chicken or GC.
At the end of the day, people aren't building significant T3 because T3 isn't a good investment choice... its bad.
To fix that, you have to make it better relative to other competing options.
You're happy with where it is in relation to T2, fair enough, that means you can't buff it. I understand.
But that leaves another obvious option for fixing it... Nerf the assault experimentals. Doesn't need to be a massive nerf. You don't need to hit them as hard as you hit T3 assault units (probably), but when they crowd out other units its time for a nerf.
Also consider a nerf to defensive structures.
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So this following suggestion is mostly sarcastic:
Make T3 Support HQ Land Factories Cheap. Like Super Cheap and Fast to build. And better BP. So deploying and setting up a T3 Land Proxy can be done quickly, cheaply and efficient. Perhaps increase of T3 HQ's Land. Half the problem as folks said is travel time/deployment of T3 Units in mass. If you make it 'easier' to setup a late stage T3 Land Proxy Base, so you can bump out units and transition to units there faster it might be easier.The topic of defenders advantage is a failed T3 Push, while bad onto itself, is only made worse with reclaim. So having reclaimed values as you tech up get scaled down/I dunno. But words let me rephrase:
One of problems of land is end game, both travel time to deploy land forces (can be scouted and responded too), and ever increasing mass, a failed push gives an opposing player. The deployment is due how for variety of reasons important buildings like T2+ factories tend to be in someone main base. And then despite engi mod, I noticed (once again shitty 1k global) still tend to hyper assist hyper tech factories with engis vs support factories. And to do that you need the BP, which tends to once again be in your main base.
In addition to this piece of trivia. A T3 Engi building a T3 Support Factory takes almost same time to build as T1 Engi building T1 Land factory which then upgrades itself to T2 Support Factory. (Also a T2 Engi Building T2 Support directly is slower than building T1 Factory then upgrading T2 Support. And T1 Engi building a T1 Land which upgrades to T2 Support takes same time as building T2 Support directly as T2 Engi).
Words this shitty 1k global thinks, maybe it worth considering looking at relationship to support factories and HQ's again. If part of the problem is deployment of T3 Units (if current status of T3 mostly as defensive tool is not desired) to battlefield. Is looking at removing the deployment aspect of T3 in some shape or form. Making T3 Support Factories cheaper to build, deploy and utilize in mass. Another aspect of this while raw cost is important too obivously the drain of unassisted support factories. Reducing there raw BP by half. As that make their eco per second comparable (when unassisted) comparable to T2 Land factories.
This would make it easier to deploy T3 Units using support factories and makes going from a T2 Factory to T3 Factory not result in a significant increase of economic drain. A similar type of relationship could be done for T2 Support factories and T2 HQ factories with build power, mass and energy cost reductions. Or atleast make T2 Support build straight from T2 Engies faster than T1 Factories built by T1 engi upgrading to T2 unsupported.
Also if curious its faster to build a T2 Factory with a T3 Engi then support it to a T3 support vs building a straight T3 Support when built by T3 Engi. (Upgrade Commanders building support factories are faster than lower tech + upgrading). Words.
Basically; maybe adjusting cost and build power of support factories?
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I don't completely disagree with what you wrote. I think you're heading in a decent direction.
However you have to be SUPER careful.
Because if you change something like build speeds for T3, its not just going to affect the super late game, where you're facing T4 assault experimentals.
Its going to affect the T2/T3 transition as well.
And that is one of those things that you really don't want to screw with, because a lot of people believe its in a really good place, myself included.
So fixing this by effectively lowering production costs probably doesn't work, because its just a more complicated version of a build time buff, and that WILL affect T2/T3 balance. It will for example encourage T2 skips. Rush T3 and throw down a bunch of cheap T3 factories, then you can throw all your mass into T3 units. Opponents that stay T2 and eco will likely get steamrolled.
I still feel like the simple solution is a moderate across the board nerf to assault experimentals, or SCU buffs that are so significant that they fix the issue even though you're further increasing the production investment required to get a good T3 formation out.
That second solution is a bit worrisome because of the addition of a quantum gateway to an already expensive production chain... however it does have the side effect of making SCUs a little more viable. Rambos aren't bad, but they aren't exactly commonly used either.
At least with those solutions, you really are only screwing with the very late game.
At the end of the day I don't think I'm alone when I say T3 land went from a pretty good place relative to T4 to to a pretty bad place relative to T4 with the 2018 nerfs. I understand why those nerfs were made and don't have a problem with that, but you have to finish the job. If you nerf T3 to bring it in line with T2 then you also have to nerf T4 to bring it back to where it was with T3.
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You realize I am talking support factories right? And actually “nerfing” them in some sense in reduction to talking cost reduction so they are less of an economic drain
And it still takes time to build up these support factorh spam and 40 second build times average combat unit still neans your looking at a minute or two until deployment unassited
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moses, play a reasonable amount of 1v1.
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@HoujouSatoko said in Points of Imbalance.:
moses, play a reasonable amount of 1v1.
Will that make these top level pros build more than 2 T3 land factories on land maps?
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2 t3 landfactourys actually sound very fine
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@herzer99 said in Points of Imbalance.:
2 t3 landfactourys actually sound very fine
Because why should players be expected to put a significant percentage of their mass into the game's late game land attack units?
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t3 spamming is t1 spamming with extra steps and is not cool or interesting gameplay
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2t3 factourys is a fucktom of ressources
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Ugh...
I notice a lot of changes to T1 units this patch. Labs, Mantis, Bombers, Scouts...
I notice some changes to T2 ranged bots in particular.
But apart from the SACUs which has been planned for years, there doesn't appear to be much on the slate for T3/T4.
Very ladder-centric patch, focused on units that are heavily used in ladder.
I am going to try to take a wait and see approach, and just trust them.
Its not easy, but maybe the SACU changes are intended to solve the problems I'm seeing, or maybe they're not intended to solve those problems but will solve them anyway.
Maybe they don't want to make changes to T3/T4 while introducing a major late game change in the form of the SACU changes.
And that's reasonable.
But it is difficult, because these patches only come once every 6 months, and the attitude of too many posters in here is that there is no issue, or that if the issue occurs on team maps it should be ignored.
And that's just wrong.
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Just as some anecdotal evidence on what moses is saying.
In 1600 Dual Gap games i've yet to see T3 ever be spammed in significant proportions. Pushing always occurs with Chicken/GC/Megalit, and you might get 1 or 2 lone monkeys that manage to max their vet and become monsters.
Personally, I think T2 is the only stage in the game that provides varied land unit options. T2 has siege, utility, mid range, close range. As it stands unit diversity most to worst goes something like T2>T1>T4>T3
I would prefer to have a longer T2 phas,e, or for T3 insufficiencies to be fixed. As it stands the most diverse T3 army is Aeon. UEF "diversity" is a bit of a joke in that the MML and T3 arty perform the same essential functions, but the arty is almost always better. I would suggest upping the MML range to that of a fatboy.
@moses_the_red
The sacu changes don't combat any of the games problems. instead it just makes combative sacu less useful and this indirectly buffs using SACU as "income" units.So the changes are fundamentally flawed.
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@Psions said in Points of Imbalance.:
EDIT: Wrote up a long admittedly accusatory post and realized that I should wait until the next patch launches and give people the benefit of the doubt. In truth I have no idea whether this issue is being seriously considered or not. More communication from the balance team would help.
I'm just going to take a wait and see approach to this. Perhaps they'll address it.
I doubt that they're looking to sabotage SACUs. I imagine the SACU changes will be very positive for the game.
The part I don't know is whether they'll correct the issues people have been pointing out, but I have a hunch the patch is coming along so we'll know one way or the other before too long.
EDIT again: JaggedAppliance was in Aeolus, and he agreed that assault experimentals need a nerf. I don't know the guy and can't be sure he wasn't trolling or something, but I think he was being straightforward and thinks they need a nerf.
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Don’t think that’s him saying t4 needs a nerf lol
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About support factories
I was sure that they have better mass/BP ratio than engineers
I was terribly wrongtl;dr
Only T3 factory that better than hives is airName - BP - mass - mass/BP --- Eng and stations Eng T3 - 30 - 312 - 10,4 Hive - 75 - 1050 - 14 Kennel - 50 - 1050 - 21 --- T3 support T3 Land - 90 - 1400 - 16 T3 Air - 120 - 1510 - 12,6 T3 Navy - 150 - 2200 - 14,6 --- T2 support T2 Land - 40 - 580 - 14,5 T2 Air - 40 - 510 - 12,75 T2 Navy - 90 - 1100 - 12,2 --- T1 T1 Land - 20 - 240 - 12 T1 Air - 20 - 210 - 10,5 T1 Navy - 20 - 300 - 15I suggest fixing this by buffing support factories BP or cost to point where mass/BP ratio is around 7-10
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Currently my impression from the community is that T3 land is uninteresting/boring for a plethora of reasons. @advena suggested this is because of support factories but @Azraeel suggested this is because of reclaim being too high for T3. Perhaps support factories could be buffed, but I have no clue. What I am curious about is the Reclaim values.
Why was it decided that Land unit reclaim is about ~81% of the original mass construction cost? Why not be 80% or 50% or 90%, etc... How would the game be impacted if the "percentage of original mass left over as reclaim" was reduced by some arbitrary amount? Would this solve some of the inadequacies of T3 land?
I am very curious to know the reasoning behind setting the wreck mass percentage to ~81%.
