Increase T3 mex cost & reduce reclaim to reward aggressive gameplay at T2 stage

Imagine upping the cost of units and structures instead of playing around with mexes. Something someting...

Cybran being worse at T2 stage isn't a problem when they have the capacity to address the weakness through a quicker tech transition or through other forms of attack. When you adjust mex values, their range of viable options/margin for error decrease. This means what was once NOT a problem is NOW a problem. It isn't some RANDOM problem that always existed.

It's almost like the game was balanced on the assumption of certain things like mex output staying consistent. Crazy right?

"FTX, you continually engage with an arrogant attitude and consistently refused to actually make an argument, rather offering attacks and unsupported denials of others valid arguments, until I pointed out you weren't actually making any relevant arguments. You can do away with the hyperbole."

Pot meet kettle, shut up dude lmao.

Just utter delusional garbage based on some experience you have in dual gap or whatever? "Illusion of choice" like there is no such thing as a t2 factory in a teamgame. No one does a t2 push in any of your teamgames? Maybe play a decent teamgame some day. We made a matchmaker just so you could experience one. Would you like me to link you some teamgames that ended at t2 stage so you could see that games don't converge to t3 mex just because player count is larger than 2?

@archsimkat its only 6, 9, 27 mass yield if you built that mex from scratch, if you upgrade it it only increases mass yield by 4 for t1 to t2 for example, while costing 900 mass, because t1 mex was already giving 2 mass/s

I am reading through this thread and I see both sides just throwing stones at each other. This discussion will never work if both sides don't agree on some frame of reference. Anyways, here is my take on this:

T3 mex nerf (be it income decrease or price increase) won't have direct effect on early t3 Land because you are supposed to get t3 land BEFORE you get t3 mexes, that's what we are trying to achieve here after all, so there is no need to worry about balance of t1, t2.
What such change WILL impact:
For 1vs1.
Increase the importance and length of early - mid t3 stage (harder to transition towards more eco) which would be problematic if you don't adjust reclaim since it will deepen the issue of importance of reclaim during t3 stage.
Slow the game down after early t3 stage
For team games:
Force people to actually make some units during t2 stage or rush t3 to defend vs t2 armies (Before making t3 mexes)
Make reclaim more important past t3 stage and slow the game down (people will need to make some units leading to a stand offs with slow eco'ing (bcs of bad map design))

It's nearly impossible to change the game so that Team games become dynamic, the map design promotes more passive and turtly gameplay, and people play those games meaning they want such gameplay. I think that making a slight adjustment to slow the t3 eco switch a little bit would be good and healthy if properly implemented but you can't change the fact that still most team games will be passive and turtly.

Some points I would like to add to the post:

1. If we can rebalance the entirety of the T3 land stage, I don't see how it would be a problem to look at t3 mex's cost. Arguing that its too big a change and needs years of testing seems pointless considering the scope of balance changes we have done over the years. IIRC T2 land HQ is like 50% more cost then 2012, T3 land HQ is also significantly more expensive, T3 land units are much weaker (except for the campy sniperbots!), T4's have been changed as well with greater buildtime cost. T3 mex has stayed the same. Perhaps its possible that by systematically nerfing land across the board for years, this is making mex is stronger in relation?? Anyone?? Also, Mex adjacency on factories has been buffed since then as well. Another reason to eco.

2. Level of gameplay has improved significantly. Generally speaking, we can eco smarter and harder, and take advantage of mistakes more. Everyone has dozens of engis roaming the map for reclaim. The most effective use of reclaim after a battle is to dump it right into mex upgrades, then scale production/eco appropriately. Pushing into a base is hard because engis can spam walled PD instantly, then reclaim the carnage for more eco. I had a game the other day where I had to pull back 15 loyalists and 30 medusa from raiding a bunch of t2/t3 mex because there were enough engis there to spam T1 PD forcing away loyalists. That sickens me. 2500 Hp on a t3 unit designed to raid can not raid because of instantly spammed PD.

3. The ratio of cost per benefit of the t2 mex upgrade -> storages -> T3 mex is nearly the same, the only difference is how much you need to invest before payout. On a lot of wide open 1v1/2v2 maps its often a smarter move to force a t3 mex in your base then to keep upgrading t1 mex to t2 if it is outside of your base where it can be raided. I do not think that this should be the case that a wrapped t2 -> t3 mex is nearly as cost efficient as t1 -> t2 or t2 -> storages.

My opinion to the main argument brought up by Bennis is that reclaim values should be scaled down, and t3 mex cost increased. Both by a small margin, say, reclaim down 15-20% and t3 mex up by 10-15%. Start from there. See what happens.

edit - I also like everything tagada said above. Very good points.

second edit - Upon giving this some more thought, since FAF released, we have made significant changes to the following: T3 Land, T3 Air, T4's, RAS, T2 Land, Adjacency, Overcharge, Vet, SCU's, and are trying to make changes to SCU-RAS. There is really nothing else left to change at the T3 stage besides T3 mex. I think this is all the more reason that T3 mex should be reviewed due to how much the game has changed, and what the game might need currently to bring it to a better state.

To add to @archsimcat calculations:

when you take into account what your mex is usually replacing the t3 mex suddenly becomes a lot more efficient. in the best case when you reclaim your t2 mex and have a lot of bp on building the t3 mex it has an even smaller repaytime than upgrading a t1 mex to t3. When upgrading it is still more efficient than ringing mexes.

So when someone properly enters the t3 eco stage it can be considered some kind of eco runaway. I would consider the t3 mex to have a 10% shorter repay time than capping t2 mexes in a realistic szenario where you are reclaiming your t2 mexes.

To put that into perspective: Usually a 1v1 is over when one player has a 10% total mass lead and isn't significantly behind in army size. All because of that exponential groth nature of eco scaling.

When switching to a 10% more efficient eco stage you have the 10% generated mass lead pretty quickly and the 10% total mass lead short after that.

My cunclusion is that the efficiency increase of switching to t3 eco makes the game quite unstable at the transition stage. If you aren't able to mirror your opponent in first t3 mex or deal big damage right after the transition you are screwed. The question now is if it is a bad thing to have this deciding point/phase in a game. On setons navy for instance it is meta to not invest into heavy offense before you have at least some t3 mex. I would consider that a sympton of not falling behind on the t3 eco switch.

I don't feel like I have understood the problem well enough to have an opinion on whether t3 mexes should get changed let alone what change would be good for gameplay. Maybe this theory approach helps to form a better decision.

equations behind the sheet, cause I am too lazy to explain:

Could we please get a statement by the balance concunior on the matter?

I really wouldn't expect Petric to read through this and answer, I suppose that my response will need to suffice.

@Tagada
"there is no need to worry about balance of t1, t2"

Come on Tagada, you know that is "Just utter delusional garbage based on some experience you have in dual gap or whatever?"

Mkay it looks like we've really gone off the rails here. I'm going to lock this topic for 24 hrs, and when it's unlocked again please remember to discuss T3 mex and/or reclaim balance.

Shitposts have no place here, you have #aeolus and Discord for that.

Edit: Upon consultation with other members I will not be reopening this thread due to the lack of evidence in the OP. Please see the updated guidelines for more information