Ethos
- Aeon. I play them the most, followed by Seraphim. My most played game types are team games (3+ vs 3+) followed by a few 1v1 or 2v2 match maker games every now and then. Over time I have noticed a few things about Aeon. Their units tend to be the best at doing one job, but they are also incapable of performing effectively outside their specific role (mostly).
- I want every unit (of every faction) to be 'useful'. Useful to me doesn't mean usable. Instead useful means that a unit possesses a reason to be built.
E.g. You build a Scout because it is useful for scouting. You however don't build Light Assault Bots to kill Rhinos because it isn't useful (sure it can be done but it's a bad decision, thus making this decision not useful).
Problem (in FAF)
- Some units are sub-par (bad when used for their intended purpose), or lack practical use owing to imbalance. Basically they aren't useful or they don't conform to an obvious balance trend between equivalent units.
- These units include: Swift Winds and Shockers.
- Swift Winds are effective against T2 air, if that was what guides, tooltips, in game text said, that would be fine. However these descriptions make you think the Swift Wind is a better Interceptor. It's not. It actually is worse than the Interceptor in terms of efficiency by about a factor of two.
- Shockers don't follow the same trend between damage radius and bomb damage which applies to all other T3 bombers. Additionally their small damage radius makes them ineffective (not useful) at killing anything except stationary targets or units with very slow (<1.7. I.e. < move speed of ACU since ACU can dodge their bombs all day long) move speeds.
Showcase of the issue
Swift Wind:
- Data:
Anti-air efficiency comparison between T2 air units.
Anti-air efficiency comparison between T1 air units and the Swift Wind.
_Ratio is calculated as (subject_unit_statistic)/(standardised_unit_statistic).
_Best? is calculated as (hp/m_ratio)*(dps/m_ratio).
A simple analysis. The above tables can be easily summarised as follows. Swift Winds will trade effectively with any T2 air unit, while they will trade inefficiently against T1 air units. Therefore Swift Winds are ill-suited to fight T1 Interceptors. Looking more carefully into the calculated data, Swift Winds get ~2 less HP per mass spent and ~0.35 less DPS per mass spent compared to Interceptors.
- Replay: https://replay.faforever.com/13946202 ~First Half (ish).
Shocker:
- Data:
Number of bombs taken by T3 Bombers to kill a T3 Mex.
A simple analysis. Currently for T3 Bombers, the ratio between damage and payload radius is: Damage = 4500-(Radius*250). You can look at the unit database to confirm this. The Shocker has 50 damage less (per bomb) than dictated by this ratio.
I won't go into goodies and how they reflect T3 Bomber balance.
- Replay: https://replay.faforever.com/13946202 ~Second Half (ish).
Solution
- Please change the description of Swift Winds to something along the lines of "Anti-T2 air fighter". This should minimise confusion regarding the unit. As far as I can tell there are no negative implications or repercussions by making this change.
- Change the bomb damage of the Shocker from 3450 to 3500 (an increase of 50). This will pull it inline with the other T3 bombers. Additionally this will make the Shocker unique in regard to it's interaction with T3 Static Anti-Air, and the Seraphim T3 Mexus. Both T3 Static AA (all factions) and Sera T3 Mexus have 7000HP which will be able to be killed in 2 shots, not 3 with the changed Shocker. An alternative solution to increasing the Shocker bomber damage by 50, would be to add a miniscule amount tracking to the bomb. Not so much tracking that the ACU can't dodge the bomb, but enough to make it no longer 'super easy' to dodge.