The Superior FAF Experience Mod

@ftxcommando said in The Superior FAF Experience Mod:

"Hoverbombing? if any other unit had that sort of OP, it would've been immediately fixed"

• Groundfiring Subs
• Groundfiring PD to abuse AoE
• Halting fire on gunships to lower below shield and kill the shield structure
• Manually dispersing gunships to avoid flak
• Manually dispersing janus to avoid flak
• Dodge micro via BS to cause enemy BS to overshoot
• Microing Aeon lab to kill a tank

Glad you found one thing you could actually give reasons for, but it's wild how everything you listed isn't near as effective, or would take place much later in the game when it would be your fault for not reacting, vs. hoverbombing 1:30 in.

Don't let Drews or your own standoffish nature distract from the good.

There is bad, and there is ugly. This mod is his vision and his preference.

But... The crab has a sick animation for shidding out eggs now. Like, thats epic.
The fatboy too.

I suggest taking a look at it.

@crotchcritter said in The Superior FAF Experience Mod:

it's wild how everything you listed isn't near as effective, or would take place much later in the game when it would be your fault for not reacting, vs. hoverbombing 1:30 in.

I’ve ended games or had my games ended by all of these.

Hoverbombing doesn’t end games at min 1:30, the only thing you’re getting hoverbombed is pgens, which:

1. is right in your base where your land fac would be for aa
2. your fault for being greedy and not spacing out pgens
3. Most likely isn’t even the best target for a early bomber

Hoverbombing engies has countermicro of getting the engie behind the bomber so you fuck up the hover micro and it’s less efficient since there is less guessing about which engie is being attacked. That’s bad when half the damage of first bomber is stopping expansions and queued up orders.

How are you supposed to react to me dispersing my 15 janus so your flak can only hit 1 at a time btw?

How are you supposed to react to me dispersing my 15 janus so your flak can only hit 1 at a time btw?

I build more than one

I see we're back to "elitist balance team just make changes to make up for their lack of skill". 4head

@crotchcritter said in The Superior FAF Experience Mod:

How are you supposed to react to me dispersing my 15 janus so your flak can only hit 1 at a time btw?

I build more than one

You can kill up to 4 with this, and I can’t remember the last time I saw more than 4 stationary flak built anywhere.

I will get interested when veterancy is removed.

It is great to see so much effort being put into the game, whether that is through a mod or otherwise

But I wish you followed the best practices with regards to hooking existing Lua code. At the moment instead of hooking the mod overrides several critical files / classes, such as:

• /lua/sim/unit.lua and /lua/defaultunits.lua, overwriting the code basis that all units rely on
• /lua/sim/defaultprojectiles.lua and /lua/defaultantiprojectiles.lua, overwriting the code basis that a lot of projectiles rely on
• /lua/ui/game/unitview.lua, overwriting the code of the unit info as you hover over a unit and all interactions with it
• /lua/ui/game/construction.lua, overwriting the code of the construction menu and all interactions with it

As a consequence, if we'd make any change to any of these files / classes then your mod will simply overwrite them. Other files / classes may rely on those changes, and error out accordingly.

One such example is the spread attack alternative, which adds one function to the unit class. That function would not exist in your mod. And therefore the code would error out. That change will be released on the 24th, removing the old spread attack implementation. And the alternative won't work in your mod the way it is setup now.

As an example, take the second item of the modification-resources channel on Discord:

• https://github.com/The-Balthazar/SupCom-Mod-Tutorials/wiki

And specifically:

• https://github.com/The-Balthazar/SupCom-Mod-Tutorials/wiki/103-—-Blueprints.lua-hook

Which explains you exactly how to do it, along with some good fashioned humor of Balthazar. It is a good read, even for those that are not into making mods

As you mention copyrights at the end of your post - the repository has no license. Some files have a specific header indicating a license, such as with the navigational mesh. When no such license exists the default copyright laws apply, which you can read about here:

• https://docs.github.com/en/repositories/managing-your-repositorys-settings-and-features/customizing-your-repository/licensing-a-repository

Some of the files that you copied from top to bottom are taken from the repository. You technically don't have the rights to distribute those through the vault. To quote the license you agree on when uploading content to the vault:

In particular, you represent and warrant that the User Generated Content was originally created by you (or, with respect to a User Generated Content to which others contributed besides you, by you and the other contributors, and in such case that you have the right to submit such content on behalf of those other contributors).

You can read the vault rules / license here:

• https://wiki.faforever.com/en/Development/Vault/Rules
• https://content.faforever.com/tos/vault-license.html

I don't mind that you're taking files that I worked on. The moral of my response however is to encourage you to properly hook the files you're working with. That way your mod will not break the game starting on the 24th of August. And your mod will only contain the code that it needs to function, reducing the copyright issues mentioned above to a minimum.

And with all of that said - I'd love to know how you fixed beam weapons occasionally missing a target. A lot of attempts have been made in the past and none of them really fixed the problem

I see Fixed in Equilibrium, I like.

Shame for the attitude.

Could you eventually consider making eq-like changelogs?

I appreciate all of the work that has gone into the mod and I hope some of the bug fixes (like the beam weapons missing targets) and perhaps some features can be implemented into the base game version. However, I'm sad to see so much slander directed at the Balance team even if you disagree with the changes we've made over the past years. I can only hope you will be open to working in a civilized manner with the existing developers on improving the base game as well. A lot of the bug fixes and some features could have been easily implemented into the base game if you had engaged in a productive discussion or simply made contributions on GitHub.

@tagada said in The Superior FAF Experience Mod:

I appreciate all of the work that has gone into the mod and I hope some of the bug fixes (like the beam weapons missing targets) and perhaps some features can be implemented into the base game version. However, I'm sad to see so much slander directed at the Balance team even if you disagree with the changes we've made over the past years. I can only hope you will be open to working in a civilized manner with the existing developers on improving the base game as well. A lot of the bug fixes and some features could have been easily implemented into the base game if you had engaged in a productive discussion or simply made contributions on GitHub.

I would argue there are better ways to go about it, but Drews attitude is a direct reflection of the crap that gets slung at him anytime he posts. Drew pokes the bear with 14 paragraphs, everyone else mocks your requests due to a lack of "skill expression". It's one and the same.

With that being said, I think you'd find Drew & Drunken indispensable if you worked together. I've seen first hand how incredibly boring, mind numbing, and thankless the job of coding and balancing can be.

Any individual who spends dozens of hours of their personal time on things like this obviously care about the game and the future of it.

His "poking the bear" is either insulting everybody for making changes for their friends (unlike him), ignoring the people (unlike him), being unprofessional (unlike him), or some other "we're literally like the elves in lotr and they're the orcs" variation.

The last time drew got told he has a skill issue is when he said first bomber isn't a problem because you can simply look at the score to see someone opened with an air factory several years ago.

I would just like to say nuke is worthless now and the balance team does a really bad job!

I don't feel that "originalist" approach when looking at the balance changes, at all.
Beetles are pushed even further to a gimmick role. Naval missiles are made homing for some insane reason, there's a reason T2 MML missiles are no longer homing in vanilla FA. GC is made way harder to kill with T3 if you don't have it in one big clump. Inexplicable random UEF navy buffs. Stuff like "nerf arty", "buff strats vs shields", "eco nerf", "T2 shield nerf" ringing of dualgap syndrome. Glossing over T2 and T3 land "rebalance". Proposed counterintuitive "damage splitting" mechanic for TMLs. Walled PD being considered an issue. None of this sounds good to me.

*The Fatboy is bigger, stronger, more expensive, can build units on the go, with a minimum range on its main guns to give it a new weak point.

@ComradeStryker I feel like some of the UEF fixes you want are live here

It makes a lot of sense that the guy who has an issue with the balance team and feels the need to make his own balance mod is also the guy who has an issue with the English language and feels the need to invent his own English word.

@archsimkat said in The Superior FAF Experience Mod:

It makes a lot of sense that the guy who has an issue with the balance team and feels the need to make his own balance mod is also the guy who has an issue with the English language and feels the need to invent his own English word.

You here to throw offenses?

I'm here to watch things fall.

I'm a fan of a lot of the changes you've mentioned and where you're aiming them to go.
I also like some cool features and QoL changes you've made.

Beetle 'rework', navy and anti-navy changes, GC HP drain - all that sounds cool.
Transport speed based on unit numbers - that is interesting and something I look forward to.

Hoverbombing?
T2/T3 mex advantages?
Bigger Fatboy?!
Frigates and Battleships with anti-sub weaponry?!

So much! Where do I start?!

Though, before I get ahead of myself, I'll have to take a deep look at the mod.
That all being said:

I am saddened by the Flak you are throwing at the Balance team, though.
They rework units and structures to better fit the overall sense of the game.

For some, changes are -at first- questionable, but given time,
we can start to understand why those changes were made.
All changes are made for the betterment of the 'health' of the game.

If I may also say, the Balance team has been quite transparent with all the changes they've made lately.
What they're aiming to change, how they're changing it, and most importantly - Why they're aiming to change what they're changing.

The other day, @TheWheelie took 2 or 3 hours out of his time to walk us through the Balance Changes and each individual reason for them.
@SpikeyNoob has been very informative about the changes, too.
And the work that @Jip has made. Oh my - where can one start?!

And the entire FAF community is basically run by volunteers. We'd be wise to keep that in mind.
I mean, can we imagine if the devs walked out? The Balance Team? The Promotional Team? etc.

FAF would die out in a week, tops.
There would be no one to maintain the servers; firstly.
No one to update the client, no one to fix bugs, no one to adjust overpowered or underused units and structures, and no one to promote the game.

We only have one FAF... we should take care of it, no?

~ Stryker