Balance Patch 3750 - Feedback

Nukes in general should only be killing main bases assuming gross misplay from enemy. That’s healthy. It’s like 25k mass for the first sml and nuke. 25k mass is not total base destruction + reclaim removal levels of mass when t3 arty does nothing as immediately painful to bases for triple the mass.

Nukes should be operating as strategic denial of pushes or nuking lower priority 20-40k mass targets. That’s healthy.

Or you hold onto it as a potential win condition, same as holding onto t4 as a push win condition.

Operating as some sort of skillcheck on whether you realize the 3rd t3 structure you’re supposed to build is an smd is only normalized and expected on dual gap and in turn only a healthy interplay on dual gap because there is zero room to nuke anything of value beyond the main bases. In actual games, there are like 8 viable targets to nuke with your first nuke and the biggest skill aspect is deciding which of the 8 is the most ridiculous return on your investment.

Big fan of the engi changes, would honestly like to see the same treatment given to ACUs. It is absolutely infuriating to be fighting with your ACU, telling it to move right and it stubs its toe on a tree and turns left instead. ACUs feel so incredibly unresponsive and like giving them orders is subject to RNG.

@t_r_u_putin i was his mirror in the discussed game. He was front, his whole team could have smds and his smd dying would still result in his base being lost. Honestly just so stupid to act like gap players are good at the game.

@ftxcommando What about making SMDs a bit cheaper to build/load, but remove the "strategic launch detected" sound?

Then nukes would be less effective at killing main bases or sniping ACUs but they'd be better at killing armies.

I don't really like it because the sound makes it possible for you to scout the nuke early and see where it is going to then split an army in that direction. It has risk mitigation and counterplay beyond just creeping smds which is kinda slow and residentsleeper gameplay.

@arma473 said in Balance Patch 3750 - Feedback:

What about making SMDs a bit cheaper to build/load, but remove the "strategic launch detected" sound?

imo it shouldn't play the sound unless you have intel over the nuke when it launched, and only once it reaches "space" layer, instead of as soon as it leaves launcher, unless it is a friendly nuke in which case you get notified on launch immediately of course, because it is a "how are you supposed to know this" scenario equal to the bugged building icons you have no intel over revealing that enemy upgraded/destroyed them because for some reason they change color

Then nukes would be less effective at killing main bases or sniping ACUs but they'd be better at killing armies.

I already suggested elsewhere that nuke submarines should be able to build cheaper short range nukes that do lower but still significant damage, to fill in role of nuking smaller stuff that wouldn't pay for the cost of the launcher nuke, instead of just being a worse but mobile nuke launcher

1)what about Atlantis? The Balance Team really thinking that is cool Experimental unit? Are you sure?
2)And how about T4 shields? It's good mind i think... why you rejecting it?
3)And one else... If you want to do T2-period more usable then you can up the cost to upgrade T3, isn't it? ... you now... T2-generator now is so rarely thing) Like good days in my life) Becouse t3-period are very close... may you may think about cost up for t2-t3 changeperiod?

it's not a critic) just questions) Thanks for your work guys)

In Supreme Commander 2, shields soak up nuke damage so a base with a lot of shielding would take minimal damage from a nuke. I am not saying this would be a good change (it would be a bad change) but it is an option to increase counterplay of nukes while maintaining their pre-patch power level.

why nerf SR? WTF are you doing, hive nerfed, arty nerfed(cybran to much).loyalist cant conter billy nuke OMG!!!!!!!!! the only good nerf is exodus class and bulwark! THIS 2 were so strong , to much strong,

why nerf cybran frigate range, it was good?

Haven't played it yet but after reading the CL it seems like these changes will take a slight adjustment but will favor a more balanced and strategic battle when playing mapgen/openworld maps, tmm and ladder which to me is perfect because I am sick of how quick these games can turn into astro/gap type rounds ruining a beautiful mapgen map in the process. Seems more and more people just turtle hard and its arty/nuke spam in no time which is just boring.

I can see how all the astro-thermo-gappers are going to have to really change their tactics now and will have no idea how to play FAF anymore and that to me is a good thing. Those types will make the adjustment and find a way to play sim city again while the rest of us enjoy a more pure and authentic FAF experience.

Thankyou very much for all the work DEV team and anyone else who helps keep this ship sailing.

@accidental_aeon said in Balance Patch 3750 - Feedback:

In Supreme Commander 2, shields soak up nuke damage so a base with a lot of shielding would take minimal damage from a nuke.

nukes should destroy everything when they land like they do, this is one of only games that properly shows them as they are supposed to be, stop ruining what makes the game good for easy and lazy balancing

@lord_asmodeus said in Balance Patch 3750 - Feedback:

You playing dual gap no longer able to do 1 strat of min 15 nuke is not a reason to revert nerf.

I am playing different maps. dual gap is the most played map only. Talking like you are know something more about the game looks strange. you are deaf to what experienced players say. I could add one more day of playing FAF showed me zero nukes even on dual gap. I didnt have SMD for 25 mins and nobody even tryed to build a nuke lol. Nukes are dropped off the game completely. VERY BALANCED, VERY HEALTHY gameplay now (NOT!)

@t_r_u_putin dude noone cares about dual gap meta, if you do, go create dual gap rebalance mod or smth. Also i dont really understand why do you think nukes should be built with sole purpose of killing base, and if they dont - its unhealthy smh. Like its really stupid if nukes are just instawin if you didnt build smd in time AND they have great utility even when you built them. Not to mention that on many maps you need multiple (3+) smds to cover everything that will lose you game if nuked, which cost more money than building nuke. And then nuke kills like 4-5 t3 mexes/naval bp/land army/naval group. How is it balanced in your eyes?

@noble_ice The Soul Ripper wasn't simply nerfed (except for the E cost). It simply got reworked in a way that should allow players to build them a bit earlier and better emphasize its role as a value over time unit instead of having immediate game ending damage potential like ahwassa.

If you look at the changes you will see it got buffed relative to its mass cost.

@t_r_u_putin said in Balance Patch 3750 - Feedback:

@lord_asmodeus said in Balance Patch 3750 - Feedback:

You playing dual gap no longer able to do 1 strat of min 15 nuke is not a reason to revert nerf.

I am playing different maps. dual gap is the most played map only. Talking like you are know something more about the game looks strange. you are deaf to what experienced players say. I could add one more day of playing FAF showed me zero nukes even on dual gap. I didnt have SMD for 25 mins and nobody even tryed to build a nuke lol. Nukes are dropped off the game completely. VERY BALANCED, VERY HEALTHY gameplay now (NOT!)

So why do you always respond to these posts and not mine talking about different maps? Why are nukes bad on sentons/lena river/metir/skadi/ditch with this change for example?

Half the reason maps with bases so close together are so popular at lower levels is precisely because things (nukes being one example) are insanely efficient at abusing a singular point of failure on the maps I mentioned. You can’t have 3 players fail to make 1 SMD resulting in a nuke killing them, these maps have, at best, 2 players protected by an SMD in a 4v4 or 5v5. And that front SMD would have to be built by a player that has a responsibility of making decent early game spam which is typically infeasible and so often the back player makes their own SMD regardless. Or transports decent engie spam to the front player to build it there.

And again, that’s a game winning nuke. A nuke on sentons island will always be efficient and possible because building an SMD there is silly.

@tagada I think the soul ripper changes are a lot more power-neutral than they initially seem. Once you add in the extra mass cost/build time needed for the additional power infrastructure I would expect the overall mass cost to be about the same. The decrease in build time in combination with the E-cost increase has roughly (I don't have a replay to check the exact math) doubled the power drain from every engineer constructing the unit.

sounds like you can just reduce number of engineers building it then

I think this patch has indirectly buffed every t3 arty and mavor, because hives got nerfed. Don't get me wrong, I am personally totally fine with hives nerf, they were imbalanced. But now it is way harder to defend against mavor and t3 arty, since the most efficient way was with hives. Engies are also solution, but assuming their pathfinding, range and quantity of them it is way more difficult. Because when you have a big base, which you should have on the mavor timings, there are not so much place for shields and engies take so long to get off from a place where you need a shield in 2 seconds. Please, debuff t3 arty and mavor, now they got even more powerful, which is painful:(

@ftxcommando I respond that even old cost of nuke was quite high. if one guy build a nuke - he spend a lot of res and anyone can simply defend his base using 1\3 of nuke cost. even 3 far placed bases will spend same amount of res as 1 player, also evey who build smd will slow down 3 times less than a guy with nuke.
Still Nuke was too profitable thing in hand of skilled players behind the frontline it happened almost every 2nd game that someone rushes nuke and it was quite annoying.
Balance team picked the right way of recalculation nuke cost the only thing i am fighting for that they picked wrong numbers. Nuke cost simply doubled in E + some mass increase - thats too much. High risk investement became senseless because even retard can load smds with new cost.
I support changing nuke cost + 50% in E only to what it was before - just what is enough to let you think twice to build nuke or not, because of high risk that it could not hit anything worthy. now nuke costs like 5 smds lol - nobody will do it except rare cases.
as I told before - looks like this patch is released to make small group of people to enjoy their "healthy" games without anything they don't like.
I also would remind that cost of T4 units increased too much. 3 ahwassas = 100% of mavor E and 75% of mavor cost. I dont see anyone doing ahwassas anymore - only for fun when it is over. Czars being made more often. they are 25% cheaper.
reduce exprimental cost in E by 20% from current numbers, expecially ahwassa

I guess nukes and washers are the new t2 air and I need to get 10 replays of them winning games