Restructure air by delaying tech 3 air
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Changes a lot, stingers and broadswords are now certified insane
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@ftxcommando said in Restructure air by delaying tech 3 air:
How about this as a quick proposal for people that think early strats are a problem:
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Reduce all strat damage to variants of 2600-2800.
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Buff t2 mex hp to 3000 for all factions (I’m fine with going so far as to revert the hp changes in general but whatever)
Now that sounds like a good idea to reduce the devastation of early T3
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It's abundantly clear from the discussion that the problem isn't the ASF itself, but the relationship of the air tiers, not only to each other, but the rest of the game. Stat changes to individual air units will never come close to adequately addressing that - you have to reseat just where air stands in relation to the rest of game, and then quantify the relationship that each air tier has to the next. There has always been a clear disconnect between T2 and T3 in this game, but it's widest in the air units.
The OP was closest to the subject, identifying that the entry floor (construction cost) is simply too low for Air Factories, especially in the energy requirement, and that the ability to mass produce them may also be out of line in relation to not only themselves, but other air tiers.
Also correctly identified is that any such change will directly impact the relationship of surface based AA, to the air game - and that too must be considered in context of the overall relationship of AIR to the rest of the game. Again, individual stat changes are not going to solve that overall issue.
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No, changing those costs does nothing (or makes the game actively worse for lower player game modes). This is strictly the reality that in a teamgame (4v4) you put 4x eco into 1x eco with air and t2 air is the first point any noteworthy air to ground dps comes into play. It used to be possible to do similar things with jesters but they got nerfed for that.
Changing t2 air so 4x eco can’t beat 1x eco in defense destroys the capacity of air in 1v1 or 2v2 where the discrepancy of t2 air is nowhere near as strong because everyone is making their own air defense, there are less independent targets, and dumping disproportionate mass concentration is simply not as possible without misplay from the enemy.
It’s also vastly easier to attack with 4 people than defend with 4 people, especially across a whole map.
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@sprouto said in Restructure air by delaying tech 3 air:
There has always been a clear disconnect between T2 and T3 in this game, but it's widest in the air units.
Air has no terrain or even collision so when a fight begins it's just who has the larger HP/damage pool that can keep firing. There are no air siege units or aoe units. It will always be like this no matter how expensive you make T3 air tech transition.
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@zeldafanboy said in Restructure air by delaying tech 3 air:
Air has no terrain or even collision so when a fight begins it's just who has the larger HP/damage pool that can keep firing. There are no air siege units or aoe units. It will always be like this no matter how expensive you make T3 air tech transition.
You missed the rest of that point, which is that no one adjustment is going to solve this. This is a class issue - and a tier issue. The combat factors are, in part, responsible for that gulf, as is the production cost - both of the factories and the units. You have to address it all, or you'll just continue to have these circular discussions.
If there was an easy fix, the previous 99999 balance debates would have found it by now.
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Exactly, this problem won't be completely "solved" unless you deeply reworked the game by adding multiple new air units and completely changed how T3 air feels and plays which I think is outside the mandate (and frankly current capabilities) of the balance team
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Air doesn’t need a big anything. You can halve torp damage to 400 and introduce a t3 air aoe aa gunship and the issues are resolved.
Making t2 air fundamentally not broken in teamgames will require breaking it in smaller games and so it’s subjective opinion on what you want to prioritize in balance. Since like 80% of this thread seems to prioritize strats as a problem, it looks like most of FAF can’t see how busted t2 air is so there is no real point in changing it. I certainly wouldn’t make t2 air even BETTER because dudes have the idea strats/asfs are somehow too insane, though.
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I don't think it's outside the role of the balance team - they just need a model that allows them to see where those units sit in relation to each other. The data for the units is the easy part, hard simple numbers - it's the performance relationships between those factors that describe the 'curve' of air units in general - and that units sit on or near that curve, is what will bring balance.
The problem is really quite simple, without that kind of relationship model, you just have pure fantasy - so any argument about X does this and Y does that - is completely circular. Adding a bit of E there, or shaving one value a bit, doesn't change that discussion, since any one change may shift the curve of several important metrics.
As the most simplistic basis - I'm sure someone has built a table showing how much firepower (DPS) you get for Resources expended (Mass and Energy). It's an important indicator that you've got a generally smooth cost transition from unit to unit - versus DPS. If every other factor about the unit was equal - that would be relatively balanced - but there's more to it.
You have to somehow quantify those other differences, such as the relationship between mass, HP and speed - an especially important one for air units. Again, the mass/HP/speed relationship is a metric that helps you assess balance - but only between like units.
This is just an example of how complicated balancing can be. In the end, you end up quantifying just how much speed, a bulked up fighter can have, with a given weapons package - and how much additional E you might need to spend on that unit, to bring the combat speed back up to a point where it can tangle with a much lighter air unit.
In the end - it's really the difference between magic and science. A lot of good points are made in these discussions that want to head in that direction - but never quite make it there.
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Nope, mathematically modeling the price to statistic ratios of different units and making sure they follow some trendline is not going to lead to a fun balanced interesting game, the fact that you say "the problem is really quite simple" is totally off the mark. Balance is very complicated. You have to look at all the aspects of the metagame at a high level holistically. Think of how strong torp bomber spam is right now, and how that affects navy. Now think about how the best counter to mass torps (aside from hover flak which half of the factions lack) is ASF. So if you just tuned down T3 air stats to be "in line" with what they should be, you are indirectly making naval even weaker against torp spam.
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Statistically is an increase in the speed of snipers a buff or a nerf
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If a sniper can't move from point A to point B - it's a buff. Point is - is it slow because the weapon is just too large for the frame ? Or is the frame simply underpowered. It's all related.
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@zeldafanboy And again - you can't do one without the other.
You and I seem to be on the same page - and you even use the phrase I coined so many years ago.
'Holistically'. It's completely true. It is complicated - but it's not hard. If the torp bomber is carrying a payload so huge that it dominates - then you have to examine that - and the AA on the naval units, which is, underpowered - almost across the board.As for the 'not going to lead to a fun balanced interesting game' - you seem to imply that all those things are mutually exclusive. And the debate above would infer that you don't have those things now.
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No, snipers being faster makes them way harder to micro shields with which in turn makes them harder to keep safe during pushes. Does that counteract the fact they get to points of conflict faster? Who knows? Definitely not your spreadsheet.
Also it’s harder to stay in range but not so in range that you get shot against percies/bricks.
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That's ok that you seem to content with the status quo.
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No, I just don't think bringing up relationships between damage and mass and so on is some big brain blast to the discussion. Everybody is aware of these things. Saying to look at these things and then proposing nothing isn't even a suggestion, it's just proclaiming common sense. Do you think we're over here just shouting random numbers into the ether because they sound cool? Your method takes you halfway to a decent balancing process, the other half involves actually understanding how things work when they're pushed to the limits and which stats actually impact that.
Like what is the conclusion from the statements you brought into this discussion? Air in general is too strong? How do you change it then? What is the solution that keeps air working in 1v1 and 2v2 as viable punishment/comeback mechanics without being insane in 4v4?
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I think that things like HP or DPS per Mass/E cost are somewhat easier to quantify than the many and varied other statistics that make a unit go-- how do you objectively measure the value of something like speed, range, AOE, alpha strike, even stuff like acceleration, turning radius, "Firing Tolerance" (I'm only vaguely sure what this means), turret angles, salvo size... At that point you might as well observe the unit in the wild as it were and make judgements from there. RTS balance is as much ecology as it is statistics and economics.
The OP is talking about T3 air appearing too quickly. I suppose that is somewhat true on certain maps (teamgame maps with dedicated airslot with decent amount of mexes, a hydro helps too) but it's definitely in a fine place on most other maps. But that's not actually directly talking about what you were talking about, which is that T3 air is too strong relative to T2 and T1. Whether T3 air appears a bit later won't fundamentally change that dynamic-- as I said, the fact that air has no terrain or collision and high move speeds means that there's little opportunity to use lower tech units creatively for a defeat in detail as you can do with land. Therefore the only way to change the peerless dominance of ASF spam is to introduce new air units. And for better or worse FAF is very averse to adding new units (not to mention thats a lot of modeling coding and animation work).
@sprouto said in Restructure air by delaying tech 3 air:
As for the 'not going to lead to a fun balanced interesting game' - you seem to imply that all those things are mutually exclusive. And the debate above would infer that you don't have those things now.
Not mutually exclusive, but definitely independent. A game can be balanced, but not fun or interesting. It can be fun and imbalanced. And nope, I think the game overall is fun, interesting, and mostly balanced. It could improve, but obviously I am happy with how it plays now and I wouldn't be sad if it never changed much from this point, though of course I want development to continue.
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That's an honest sentiment, thanks for putting it that way instead of being dismissive about it.
My goal in saying anything in this thread is that there is a way forward, to making informed decisions about how to make changes to units, and address all perceived issues in a way that doesn't come across as 'shut up noob'.
If you want a certain condition to exist with a certain unit, or set of units, you should at least have a way of telling all those who feel disabused by it - as to why it is. That's the best situation, all around. Not everyone is going to like it - that's a given - but at least when changes are made, there's factual premise to it and not just theories based on anecdotal observation. FAF is littered with many changes that have fallen into that category over the years - many rescinded or revisited due to undesired consequence. Most of that can be avoided.
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A total rework of air would be ideal, I agree with you, but I don't think that's feasible as I said before. So that's why I don't think your approach is good, it's not going to be done justice. It is more likely for a smaller amount of units/structures to be changed than the whole air layer at once.
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I would counter that by saying that these repeated roundabouts would happen far less if someone just did the work instead of openly conjecturing about it. A lot of folks, that might have an interest in the subject, have zero point of reference to the numbers that are often talked about - and even less understanding of how those values might impact the multiple relationships.
It's not something that creates a hard and fast rule about how units are set - but it does provide a stable platform to build changes on, and increases the level of trust that the community has in the work that is done by the those who do it. That's an important aspect to consider.
