Is it perhaps possible, since the costing/duration while being in the blueprint is not static in the teleportation logic to adjust the cost and time based on the distance that wants to be traveled?
This would allow teleportation to scale in cost and charge duration with the more distance desired. If someone wants to teleport across a 20km map they can but its going to cost alot more and have a longer delay than a shorter distance.
@ftxcommando said in Pending Balance Changes Feedback Thread:
You don't send random gunships out and about like that except in 1v1 or MAYBE some really big 2v2. You just risk dumping mass, especially since you can't cover multiple gunships around the map at once with your ints that you need to keep concentrated in any teamgame. Likewise, the speed isn't really comparable to mantis because t2 air in teamgames comes at the point of map control being closed. For you to send your gunships around to waste the time of enemy, you would need to have total air dominance in the game where you are fine with intercepting on his map half.
Maybe it's a slight buff for 1v1? It's really bad for nearly all utility cases in teamgames.
@zeldafanboy said in Pending Balance Changes Feedback Thread:
Well, there is no anti ground weapon that Mantis are fighting with comparable AOE, and you can micro Mantis to dodge with their high speed while still firing. Gunships have to hang above a target to shoot it, and they have no collision so they stack and take lots of AOE damage from the high AOE flak... the move speed just means they can run away from bad fights easier, but that doesn't matter when they suck at fighting in the first place.
For those who are curious: https://discord.com/channels/197033481883222026/476200727912644618/1154553519966265475
(discussion about Janus/Stingers/Asf lasts for a little over an hour)
@eminence said in Pending Balance Changes Feedback Thread:
It could be done by increasing laser upgrade build time or cost, although you already nerfed damage by 25%. But personally i don't see any problem with telemaser now, i'd say it will become problem when there is no counter play. It is not like faf played only fullshare, it is actually big risk to use telemazer in late game when fullshare is off. If you can rush telemaser early for cheesing your opponent- then it is your skill and opponent's mistake for not scouting or making counter to that, same as nuke rush, strat rush, notha/corsair rush, t3 arty rush.
Must i say that even with laser, teleport and t3 upgrades cybran acu very vulnerable to teledef. Unlike certain telesacu with more than 50k hp and 250 regen.
You are right that telemazer is not too strong in non full share games, but it's impossible to balance a strategy game around all different map sizes, different maps and different gameplay settings. Some sacrifices have to be made in some way or another. Labs are useless on big maps/chokepoint maps. Game enders are useless on small maps. Telemazer is maybe risky on assasination but is OP on full share.
You have to keep in mind though that one of the reasons why you think telemazer is hard to use is because it's so strong that almost everyone auto builds shields and pd as tele defense. As lategame telemazer is around 20k mass (the power you get as overflow from the air player) it isn't uncommon to see 50k mass worth of teledef around the map even if there is no tele scouted. The fact that it's hard to pull of a telesnipe with that doesn't necessarily mean it's weak in that case.
Sera tele sacu might be addressed in the sacu rework.
@thewheelie said in Pending Balance Changes Feedback Thread:
For those who are curious: https://discord.com/channels/197033481883222026/476200727912644618/1154553519966265475
(discussion about Janus/Stingers/Asf lasts for a little over an hour)
For some reason I cant access the FAF Discord, invites dont work. Was I banned or something
put the xbox units in the game pls u_u
If you wanted to hinder telemazer a bit don't extend the range of the mazer with gun upgrade or have the gun upgrade on the same slot as tele
Stingers should carry flak and if they run into inties or asf drop the flak and watch them get good kills.
@thewheelie said in Pending Balance Changes Feedback Thread:
You are right that telemazer is not too strong in non full share games, but it's impossible to balance a strategy game around all different map sizes, different maps and different gameplay settings. Some sacrifices have to be made in some way or another. Labs are useless on big maps/chokepoint maps. Game enders are useless on small maps. Telemazer is maybe risky on assasination but is OP on full share.
You have to keep in mind though that one of the reasons why you think telemazer is hard to use is because it's so strong that almost everyone auto builds shields and pd as tele defense. As lategame telemazer is around 20k mass (the power you get as overflow from the air player) it isn't uncommon to see 50k mass worth of teledef around the map even if there is no tele scouted. The fact that it's hard to pull of a telesnipe with that doesn't necessarily mean it's weak in that case.
Sera tele sacu might be addressed in the sacu rework.
You should play checkers with such logic.
You said it yourself that telemazer only becomes problem on specific maps with specific settings, but instead of directly balancing laser upgrade, you decide to nerf all teleports in game. You make other teleport strategies useless and create yourself more work to balance other teleport units instead.
If you want to make some sacrifice then to sacrifice less would be more logical. Just increase mass cost of laser upgrade and thats it.
Personally i think combination laser + teleport should become more costly, but cost of laser + cloack should stay the same. So while laser upgrade would become expensive, cloack upgrade should become cheaper, comparable to t2 shield upgrade of aeon com, and cheaper than sera advanced nano. Because it is defensive upgrade but it countered easier than another factions defensive upgrades.
Or you could simply introduce in faf antiteleport structures from some mods out there and be done with telemazer once and for all. And you would need only balance teleport denial range, building cost and maintenance energy cost of those structures
For example make it increase teleportation cost and time inside of area protected by such structure, instead of complete denial. I think that would solve cheap and low risk telesnipes in fullshare games, while teleport would remain viable option in all kinds of maps and game modes.
@eminence said in Pending Balance Changes Feedback Thread:
You said it yourself that telemazer only becomes problem on specific maps with specific settings
The "specific" maps and settings are sadly all maps that get to the t3/4 stage of the game and use the matchmaker settings and the balance is made around matchmaker games, since all custom games can use mods if they want to have a different balance.
So Full Share isn't an option when considering balance changes, it's set in stone.
@eminence said in Pending Balance Changes Feedback Thread:
Just increase mass cost of laser upgrade and thats it.
Personally i think combination laser + teleport should become more costly, but cost of laser + cloack should stay the same. So while laser upgrade would become expensive, cloack upgrade should become cheaper
But cloak is also already pretty good with the last HP buff it got. why would you buff cloak instead of nerfing teleport in this scenario?
Also simple stat nerfs makes it weirdly balanced, since there just isn't really any calculated counterplay to telemazer. You just build random pd everywhere where it's important and you have to do that before someone even attempts to teleport or even before someone even has the upgrade or you wouldn't get up enough defences in time.
So it costs you opponent mass just by you playing cybran, but with a range nerf (personally I'd feel like ~3-4 teles from one setons air base to the next or something would be fine) it allows you better predict where someone could teleport and gives you more time to prepare for it. It also gives you a chance at spotting the tele upgrade earlier, by scouting the ACU in unusually dangerous positions.
@relentless said in Pending Balance Changes Feedback Thread:
adjust the cost and time based on the distance that wants to be traveled?
I think that is also an interesting idea, since it basically soft caps tele distance if it becomes increasingly more expensive and more obvious the further you teleport.
@ftxcommando said in Pending Balance Changes Feedback Thread:
Hard to make that clear to a player.
I think you can show the e cost and eta next to the cursor when selecting your tele location?
@eminence
farms: "Making tele upgrades different per faction is something i want to work to yes. [...] but for now i didn't have the time yet to think about the exact details so [...]"
u: "You make other teleport strategies useless and create yourself more work to balance other teleport units instead."
Required rating for participation in balance talks when?
Also adding a completely new unit / building such as an anti-tele-tower is the very last option you ever want to do. So if there's another way to balance things (which there is for the tele), there won't be a new building/units most likely.
Required rating for participation in balance talks when?
@eminence said in Pending Balance Changes Feedback Thread:
You should play checkers with such logic.
You said it yourself that telemazer only becomes problem on specific maps with specific settings, but instead of directly balancing laser upgrade, you decide to nerf all teleports in game. You make other teleport strategies useless and create yourself more work to balance other teleport units instead.
If you want to make some sacrifice then to sacrifice less would be more logical. Just increase mass cost of laser upgrade and thats it.
Personally i think combination laser + teleport should become more costly, but cost of laser + cloack should stay the same. So while laser upgrade would become expensive, cloack upgrade should become cheaper, comparable to t2 shield upgrade of aeon com, and cheaper than sera advanced nano. Because it is defensive upgrade but it countered easier than another factions defensive upgrades.
Telemazer doesn't 'only become a problem on specific maps with specific settings'. It only doesn't become a problem on specific maps with specific settings. On the vast majority of gamemodes and maps (again, including all matchmaker modes) telemazer is an issue.
Also see what sladow said
Didn't we just recreate the old Scathis problem in a softer version? Tele is kind-of sort-of powerful on smaller maps and useless on larger ones?
@mazornoob said in Pending Balance Changes Feedback Thread:
Didn't we just recreate the old Scathis problem in a softer version? Tele is kind-of sort-of powerful on smaller maps and useless on larger ones?
Probably. Not sure exactly what the 350 range is in practice and will need to test that but I think it’s going to make it virtually useless on most common 20x20 maps. Funnily enough UEF might now have the strongest tele since the Billy doesn’t need to be as close.
Edit: 350 is less than half of the Aeon t3 arty range, so on setons for example you’d have to be starting a land invasion for tele to have any chance at all to work unless the enemy team has really bad intel. On Gap you’d have to own the entire middle section. Basically you’d have to be in scenarios were it’s unlikely you’d want to tele anyway. For how expensive tele is I don’t see tele ever really happening anymore.
TML is 256 range, t3 arties are 825. Easier to think of it as 1.5x a TML. Just grab ACU TML and pretend that’s basically the tele range.
The first range comparison that came to mind was arty is 800ish but the tml comparison is better, didn’t remember the range on that.
Anyway, I don’t feel strongly about the tele changes I just think it’s kind of weird how dramatic it is, as it is I feel like I haven’t seen a game ended by tele recently where the team of the person teleporting wins because of it. Feels a bit like taking away something just because.
@mazornoob said in Pending Balance Changes Feedback Thread:
Didn't we just recreate the old Scathis problem in a softer version? Tele is kind-of sort-of powerful on smaller maps and useless on larger ones?
Not really since tele atm is way stronger on 20km maps than 10km maps. Also the fx change should disproportionally affect 10km maps over 20 km maps
Happy with the changes to the Janus. Not so much with the ASF changes.
Very not happy with the tele changes. Agreed that tele at the moment is strong, but max range seems to be too short now.
"Design is an iterative process. The required number of iterations is one more than the number you have currently done. This is true at any point in time."
I'm just gonna throw out some knobs for teleport changes that don't involve reducing the range/can be applied on a per faction basis:
*You have the flexibility here to increase the time required for gate teleports, widening the window for scouting while allowing the return time to be balanced independently.
What percentage of games are fullshare, and what's the priority in balancing this particular mechanic around them? Squaring that circle is going to be tough, akin to adding or removing a unit from Cybran based on victory condition.
@slicknixon said in Pending Balance Changes Feedback Thread:
What percentage of games are fullshare, and what's the priority in balancing this particular mechanic around them? Squaring that circle is going to be tough, akin to adding or removing a unit from Cybran based on victory condition.
Both AstroCrater and DualGap are played NoShare which obvsly are a majority of FAF. However balance doesn't refer to those maps aka isn't directed to it (due to obvious reasons) so I'll leave them out. Seton's is fullshare, but again, balance isn't targeted to that.
TMM is completely played fullshare, so if you check the active TMM-games you can alrdy see how many fullshare games are running. For my personal experience I would say that like 90% of the ""normal"" (aka non-astro|gap|seton's) maps are being played with fullshare now. You can check the "statistics megathread" since there might be a number there, however I couldn't find one by skipping through it.
Also keep in mind that balance is around 1v1-3v3 TMM which are fullshare.
Required rating for participation in balance talks when?
Sounds like fullshare is the priority then, in which case survivability is secondary.
Primary telemazor balance knobs are therefore:
Secondary knobs:
Was there much exploration of changing teleporter balance on a per faction basis (cost, range, etc.), not just in regard to synergistic upgrades?
@relentless, @FtXCommando
For a variable cost, you could have the number popup next to the cursor. Looks cool, very intuitive, technically easy.