Novax written out of the will, and banned from Christmas.

[Printer]

TLDR:

As much as I wanted balance to look at this unit, this is like full on excommunication, with a side of vindictive torture, and history scrubbing etc. What did the Novax do to you, and are you actually ok? Sure there's the "STFU, you're never happy w. balance" - but just look at the numbers. This isn't balance. This is an honour killing. UEF -(1) T4 unit.

Take a look ALL the nerfs: (inorder of impact, as I sensed it)

1. -4500% Micro - Aim Speed 360->8 is an INSANE kill of the unit. Super low value to micro because barely responsive. It's an apocalyptic fun deleter. Might as renovate your en-suite bathroom while waiting for it to switch targets.

2. -50% AOE - True can't kill engineers clustered, but that might as well be 1/2 the available dps, and means the t2 transport shield patrol now very viable vs a SAT. Sadly the visual still appears like its doing work. Except its not.

3. -33% uptime of laser - so much dps waste in retargetting since duration is much shorter. You'd think less uptime with slower speed, but I guess not.

4. +Added charge drain of 5k (2 t3 pgens so 2(3.4k mass + 5.800 E = sustained) - Needed? Except most unit like t4's dont rely on E. Now this one does.

5. +Capacity charge of 7k (minor issue during late game so no impact BUT this didn't exist before)

6. +56% E cost to build the unit -just for the lols? Its not nerfed enough?

7. -Omni ability - minor loss. Least impactful change, imo.

The counter balancing buffs:

1. 11% lower mass cost and 2.7% faster build time.

Novax aside, the real victim is the UEF. 32kM + 800kE costs, for an unfun-to-micro, very slow, expensive scouting, dps gimped unit; is just head turning. Doesn't matter if a unit is unkillable- abortion via balance pre-empts that.

Recommendation:
a. Revert laser changes and targeting, but keep drain and other changes, and/or give UEF something, or
b. Make it cost 24kM and 800kE, so UEF won't sink so much mass, or
c. Vastly increase its sight, similar to the Soothsayer much like a real sat, with no omni or sonar., and/or
d. Allow it to suicide more effectively for damage. Aeon & Sera have their ctl+k unit, UEF could have one too.

Look, I acknowledge I don't know all the moving parts that went into this but surely this nerf was super 1-sided.

Ranked Replay:
https://replay.faforever.com/27622412
I made the unit because I needed someway to delay other teams Game Ender/had to do some damage. Slow speed, short duration, wasted dps meant it was effectively a drop in a bucket, and if I saw a weak shield/point- there was no longer a way to take advantage. And I guess I won't build it now. Theres almost no point.

[Nuggets]

Printer written out of the will, and banned from Christmas.

[Exselsior]

Balance team should nerf it even more. Make it a t3 intel only unit, UEF’s version of the eye, and balance it accordingly. Bonus points for giving UEF a proper direct fire t4 to replace it

[Ske]

Lmao how about make some units instead?
U can make like 3.5 battleships for the cost of a novax so maybe try doing that 🥲🧠

Recommendation to balance team: increase novax cost more. Maybe to 100k mass, and then watch people like that one cry

[CumCitron]

If anything the nerf hasn't been strong enough.
Waiting for a drastic increase of buildtime and a serious mass cost increase.

But nice to finally see a step in the right direction regarding this unit, until it has been fully reworked.

[c0rtex]

I like @exselsior's suggestion - make it a recon unit like Aeon eye.

[magge]

The instantaneous 360° aim speed always felt awkward to me. You could vaporize any shield-rebuilding attempt in a wide area while also threatening the engineer cluster trying to hastily rebuild it.

Again, with zero targeting delay for the SAT user and no need for manual targeting - combined with the prioritizing mod (focus shields, then engies), it is/was incredibly powerful to use, IMO.

I am looking forward to reading the feedback. If FAF manages to make the SAT "sit right", perhaps the balance team can take a look at the Fatboy one day. wink

[Caliber]

Only issue is that despite the 72000 E storage needed I have seen replays where it still fires with far less E storage, might be a bug

[DommyMommyDostya]

3. -33% uptime of laser - so much dps waste in retargetting since duration is much shorter. You'd think less uptime with slower speed, but I guess not.

Novax got a buff with the damage window being condensed into a more dense dps profile.

lol at calling this a nerf xd, its a dps increase while the laser is active, ~it can more easily break shields due to this.

[Nomander]

@DommyMommyDostya

You still need a really high number of novaxes to one shot shields through assistance with the increased burst DPS.

Count	avg DPS	Damage vs assist for avg dps after 5.3s	Damage vs assist for avg dps after 8.0s	Shields broken
3	729	10789	8821	No shields break
4	972	14386	11761	ED4 (13k hp) breaks
5	1215	17982	14702	UEF (17k HP) and ED5 (16.5k HP) shields break
6	1458	21578	17642	Aeon (18k HP) and Sera (21k HP) shields break
7	1701	25174	20582
8	1944	28771	23522

A setup of 2 Dukes with adjacency has 1960 DPS and deals 15680 dmg + 6 aoe every 8s, while costing 76k * 2 + 3240 * 6 = 171k mass and producing 2500 * 6 - 1400 * 2 = 15k excess energy.
For just that mass you'd have 5.3 novaxes not counting the 20k/s avg. energy drain.
If you count the energy in terms of pgen-storage infinite grid mass cost (best case scenario) then it's 32k + (3240+200*8)/(2500 * (1 + 0.0625 * 16)) 35630 mass total per novax or 4.8 novaxes.
If you subtract the excess energy from the duke cost (lets say you used it in advance for mass fabs) then the cost goes down to 171k - 15k * 324/250 = 152k, which is equivalent to 4.3 novaxes w/ grid pgen energy.

Also not to mention if you add some engineers the novaxes can't actually break through your shields because they still take time to deal damage. Against 7 novaxes (3 arties equivalent) you'd need 9-22 additional engis to survive the burst damage, on top of the 19-24 engis to survive the avg dps.
Meanwhile 3 dukes one shot all shields and you can't stop it, but the avg dps needs 33-42 engis to out-assist (vs 28-46 to survive the novax volley).
Additionally the engi assist costs are up for a balance pass eventually so that it's more fair across factions, since that mechanic has never been touched.

[Nomander]

@Printer
Reads like AI stylized your post.

1. not an argument
2. Post replay where transports matter. AoE vs units outside engi clumps, like shields or mex storages, is irrelevant because its unrealistically apm heavy.
3. yes that's the point. Second sentence doesn't make sense.
4. Wrong because it's 3750e/s avg
5. Wrong number. Also not an argument.
6. You need to build power anyway to use the unit, this forces you to do it before it is finished instead of after.

E nerf makes arty a more viable counter without affecting total mass cost.
AoE/retargeting nerfs fix the most annoying/toxic things which were killing fab capped mex, stalled shield arrays, and engi clumps.
All of this was explained in the changelog snippet and you should address those ideas instead of just listing the (wrong) numbers then baselessly saying they're wrong.

[Nomander]

Also printer is 1.5k 4.7k games and plays terribly according to his own replay (that he even thinks matters for the nerfs done) so I shouldn't waste more time here and I wouldn't recommend for anyone else to do so either.

[Printer]

Without a true counter, this unit really should be just a T3 unit with vision. It's really that simple. ANY UNIT, which can't be targeted but can target, just sets the stage to be hated in RTS. GPG was wrong. Maybe this unit should have been SP only.

@CumCitron, @Ske - Should UEF really have only (3) T4 units? Fine. But UEF deserves something for the subtraction. You can't even build this out of spite now (or is that the only reason remaining?).

@DommyMommyDostya - Its no DPS increase as much of the wasted damage is in traversing time arising out of the 4500% targeting speed. Thats my take.

@nomander, ty for break out response but your vitriol is surprising! I just wrote a provocative post because it was fun for me to write, and I wanted it to be at least entertaining. I wanted to point out the heavy hand here seen. I meant no personal slight at balance team. I'd support the game if I wasn't poor, and your & others volunteer efforts don't get thanked enough. Yes, I'm a drifter who could disappear into static.

Since you replied, for what its worth:

1. "Not an arguement" - I'll try again, there's an "a" and "b" to the argument I meant to convey:
   a. Slow response units are less fun to use. This was never a Megalith or FB, it was a scalpel. It rewarded micro through timing, punishing that shield breakdown/stray engie. Now it's by comparison, a limp, localized lag laser.
   b. Because it fires while retargetting, that grass cutting DPS is utterly wasted.

So, this appears to me the biggest nerf- its less fun and less effective. Math can't see this. An AI wouldn't either. But only a human is going to be like "WTF, this thing so slow, unresponsive, and wasteful of a preciously short firing time".

2. "Post a replay of transports [shielding]..." - I doubt you've never have seen people do this. Its very ineffective but I didn't make it up, either. Was stupid of me to distract from 1 AoE ->.5 Thats the real nerf here sir.

3. "Yes... second sentence = nonsense" - I meant to sort of restate 1b, the shortened firing time means it fires uselessly as it moves to target. So not only does it not switch between targets quickly (a pivot movement), but it also shoots as it approaches the new target.

This happens if you change targets mid firing cycle. So if perhaps, you've qued some targets and one dies (or you retarget), before the laser is finished, the rest of the charge goes into the dirt while the sat moves to the new target. (See minute 2-3 of this replay https://replay.faforever.com/27635804 )..So after wasting the shot, it arrives over the new target on cool down. Now if the DPS was 'shield poping' (you show that its not), might be good use of hover-bomb-esque hold fire micro.

4 & 5. This is still new behavior and therefore adds weight to the total scale of the nerf. But other than that fact, I'm wrong, fair enough & thank you. I read the Charge Cost & Drain rate incorrectly (I see that's the total duration of the firing cycle).

6. Agreed, its a nerf.

Just replying to the issues you had with my points. I didn't go into GitHub, or Discord and 100% only read the FAF News Change Log page, and then tried the unit.

Again, this balance change was just very significant. Very unlikely to ever use this unit, (164) t3 scouts seem like a better investment.