Why is Aeon #1 disliked, #2 inaccessible and #3 most unfun units, but #4 most fun units

I have already been concerned about Aeons accessibility for a while. While to me Aeon looks balanced, they can be very punishing to new players and this concerns me.

Recently I also heard that people dislike playing against Aeon. Someone summarized nobody likes playing against Aeon and nobody likes playing Aeon.

So, just to gather everyones thoughts on the matter.

1. Why is Aeon disliked to play and play against.
2. Why is Aeon unfriendly or inaccessible to new players?
3. Which Aeon units highlight the "unfun" aspects of Aeon?
4. Which Aeon units highlight the "fun" aspects of Aeon?

With no irony, I think 'Aurora' is the answer to all your questions.

Aurora is a big part.

Also their destroyers are OP.

And while mercies are definitely not OP, they can swing games.

The extra gun range on an upgraded ACU is also frustrating to fight against. How many T1 or T2 land units can keep up with that range? It's true if the ACU is isolated you can swarm them to get past the range disadvantage but it's not hard for the aeon player to keep some units with their ACU.

Finally, a chance to use my degree.

Except I pretty much only play Aeon, so I really have no basis for comparison.

Why Aeon? Because this is the way <mandalorian theme plays>

I Like Aeon, but a mis-step with Auroras will lose me the game, especially on some maps.

i end up paying more attention which then means i eco less, its vicious cycle.

There's no way to fix it apart from being a better player in my case. so yeah, its unfixable

I think players with a bunch of games can abuse t1 land and gun com way better than a new player. This means that rating differences are way more important. Some days i think its the best factions but sometimes its the worst.

@kalethequick said in Why is Aeon #1 disliked, #2 inaccessible and #3 most unfun units, but #4 most fun units:

Except I pretty much only play Aeon, so I really have no basis for comparison.

You can at least comment on #4 which units are more fun, and maybe #2 if you remember who you got started with Aeon.

The idea behind Aeon is to have units that excel at their role. Only one task, as opposed to jack of all trades units.

So when it works, it works really well. But when it doesn't, it sucks a lot.

Aurora not only have half the hp of other tanks, but also tends to miss a lot and cant shoot much upwards-downwards. And needs scauting or radar to use its range. And huge amount of micro. Depends of the map, but on big open landmap, I think most players are unable to use Auroras effectively. New players even less.

Aeon also has worst t1 frigat and quite useless aa boat. T1 mobile aa on land has slightly more health and dps than tanks (not to mention t2...), but Shard (t1 aa boat), is so far from the same comparison with frigats.

Not so much of a problem, but Aeon t1 arty is the only one that can shoot only in front side. So you cant run around and shoot as easily as with other nations. Can be a problem for kiteing, to follow Auroras...

So getting over the beginning, t1 stage, of the game when playing with aeon can be quite difficult. I think this is what most people dont like. Aeon has best destroyer, useless t3 gunship, bad t2 fighter, no fighter bomber, etc. Those are factional differencis, you can compensate with other units. But t1 is hard to avoid.

I dont really see why people would not like to play against Aeon. Might be, that if someone actually chooses Aeon, it might mean that he knows what he is doing and has very good micro.?

Aeon Auroras require a bit more thought to use than simply right-clicking, but once you get enough of them they start snowballing quite hard in the early game. There are a lot of counters (gun-com, t2 land, bombers) but these can be tough to get under pressure without losing much of the map. As Arma mentioned, there's also the Aeon double guncom, which has more range for a small cost increase, and you can buy and use it in increments (start with just the range/rof upgrade, use it, then get the other one shortly after).

The downside is that Auroras are slow, which makes attacking/raiding harder early on, and if you get careless with them you can lose them against other tanks. New players also sometimes forego land scouts, which really hinders them until you get radar up. New players sometimes also seem to have an aversion to air units, letting their opponents get control for free and just bombing them.

They can feel unfun because slowly grinding down your opponent with a range advantage (whether its auroras, guncom, or destroyers) can be unfun and feels a little mean. But using 3 Auroras to beat 5 Strikers/Mantis/Thaams is a good feeling.

Aeon quite simply adds more complexity to any ladder match. Both the Aeon player and their opponent have to use more of the systems of the game to stay competitive. The Aeon player has to use radar and intel effectively. The opponent is pressured to participate more in the air game because bombers are one of Aurora's counters. The Aeon player almost always has to use his commander in combat to fill the gaps in Aeon army composition or during tech transition, so they have to multitask more. The opponent has to remember to keep their commander safe from a mercy snipe that could strike at any minute, etc.

More complexity means more opportunity for fun when you succeed, but more salt when you fail.

@valki said in Why is Aeon #1 disliked, #2 inaccessible and #3 most unfun units, but #4 most fun units:

So, just to gather everyones thoughts on the matter.

1. Why is Aeon disliked to play and play against.

It in general requires a lot of micro up front, starting at the t1 stage. If you do not watch your aurora while moving them, they will die quite easily. On the flipside, if kept at range, they pretty much win out against anything other than a zhtuee army.

On a 5x5, if you are playing against them as any other faction, it is VERY difficult to win due to t1 being the dominant stage.

The faction is quite complex and relies on utility (shields, shield disruptors, etc) to win at the later stages.

2. Why is Aeon unfriendly or inaccessible to new players?

It requires a lot more micro, about the same answer as 1.

3. Which Aeon units highlight the "unfun" aspects of Aeon?

Aurora, Obsidians - they both require a lot of micro and are about as slow as you can get... It get tedious waiting for the units to move.

4. Which Aeon units highlight the "fun" aspects of Aeon?

Swiftwind as it is the only tier 2 fighter and can absolutely wreck t1 inties.

Sniper bots don't require switching over to a "don't miss mode" so you can walk them around a bit more with less worry.

T3 mobile arty can fire WHILE moving which is unique to this faction and can help deter the movement of percies and bricks, which will otherwise crush harbingers.

Dropping CZARs on ACUs is a meme that will never stop being funny.

Blazes are basically fast Pillars now so those are a blast to use...

"aeon requires a lot of micro" is generally pretty false id say. Sure you give auroras more attention, but aside from them aeon is equal to any other faction in terms of micro

@thewheelie said in Why is Aeon #1 disliked, #2 inaccessible and #3 most unfun units, but #4 most fun units:

"aeon requires a lot of micro" is generally pretty false id say. Sure you give auroras more attention, but aside from them aeon is equal to any other faction in terms of micro

Fair, I should have said only the t1 stage, but it is still quite important.

Micro is a nonfactor really. I don’t think any of these factors explain it. Aeon and Seraphim have always maintained the exact same ratio of players, even back when aurora was garbage and could barely be micro’d backwards and when Aeon had no early-mid game combat boost upgrade (shield).

People just don’t like alien fundamentalists and were drawn to generic cool cyborgs or generic earth people. I didn’t pick a faction because of their units. I just enjoy playing as a fascist authoritarian (in supcom).

This is broad population though, if you cut it down to 1000+ then things like aurora start impacting your weights, but I feel like it has more to do with every new dude picking Cybran/UEF which are easy to transition between alongside Seraphim while Aeon requires the slightest degree of adjustment to play well and that’s work that turns people off. So instead you get rationalizations about micro or gun acu or blah blah.

The fact the faction is annoying to fight shows the faction is totally fine, the reason it is annoying to play is habit.

i don't play aeon cos i can't attack move harbs

Why is Aeon disliked to play and play against.

People usually whine about

• aurora range being "unbeatable" on 5x5 (obviously false, but i guess they can't process the thought : "i played bad and could have done better)
• gun range being OP (also false)
• chrono (fair point)
• mercies stealing games (fair)
  Idk why people don't play aeon, but i guess that when you lose all your tanks to bombers for the first time, it vaccinate you from playing them ever again

Why is Aeon unfriendly or inaccessible to new players?

I guess people saying over and over in all chats that "aeon t1 needs heavy micro" or "start with uef it's easier" tends to draw new players away from it.
Also most of the time in other factions, the "special units" is rare and can be forgotten about. For example the selen is a special scout/lab, so you don't play lab rush the same way for sera as other faction. But if you forget about it and make a tank instead, it's no big deal. Cybran have a unique stealth field, uef a unique engineer, but not a big deal too. But you can't forget about aurora, it's the main tank. You can't forget scouts, you can't forget to put extra ressources on winning air .. etc. When you're used to "normal" tanks, it's harder to think "Oh yea, i'm playing aeon i need to change the way i play the t1 stage".

Which Aeon units highlight the "unfun" aspects of Aeon?

Aurora. It's truely not a fun unit to use. I'm rarely happy about what that unit does, but very frequently disapointed and frustrated at them.
Note : in my case (1v1 ladder) this also has to do with the 1v1 map pool. I feel there are a lot of maps where aeon are bad (big open land maps like desolation for example, because spamming t1 tanks isn't viable for aeon), but very rarely the map pool contains a map where aeon is good (like gate of anubis, the wilderness, canis river) and when there is one, there's only 1 ... not 2 or 3, while there can be 4-5 maps where aeon sucks. I think aeon suffers from the existance of zthuee basically, because a map good for aeon can be absurdly good for seraphim.

Which Aeon units highlight the "fun" aspects of Aeon?

• Mercies are very fun to use. Very frustrating when killed by inties or AA, but sniping with them is always quite the dopamine spike.
• Obsidians feel so powerfull and impactfull, love watching them kill everything.
• CZAR obviously best EXP ever. Not the most powerfull, but you just can't escape the joy of ctrl-king it over your ennemy just to send a message.

@valki said in Why is Aeon #1 disliked, #2 inaccessible and #3 most unfun units, but #4 most fun units:

@kalethequick said in Why is Aeon #1 disliked, #2 inaccessible and #3 most unfun units, but #4 most fun units:

Except I pretty much only play Aeon, so I really have no basis for comparison.

You can at least comment on #4 which units are more fun, and maybe #2 if you remember who you got started with Aeon.

I got started with Aeon because I'm a monarchist and like monarchy esque stuff, and I like religious zealots and fervor, same reason I go Vanu in PlanetSide 2. And I recently learned they are probably the most morally justified belligerents of the war, sitting idly by until the eldar were exterminated. Sorry I mean the 6 winged angels or whatever.

TBH I played for like 10 years just against AI, and IIRC in vanilla the Galactic Colossus had the most HP or otherwise felt like it had so much HP it was a walking game ender, an unstoppable being come to purge the world with holy atomic fire. But I've learned a lot about the game since then so IDK if that was true. Also their T3 fighter had AOE (or said it was flak) and that was baller.
Other than that I'm not quite sure. I play them now and appreciate their focused and specialized units, high alpha damage (though I also enjoy countering that with t1 scouts, milking overkill). The units fill a requisite micro level that I think is ok, though I am the man who thinks hover bombing is the devil and would automate tactical elements given the opportunity. I think some of the downsides are the more specialized units that are SO specialized they hardly see use, mercies, shards, and to a lesser extent Swifties and restorers. I also think some units are very specialized but should maybe specialize harder and require additional units for different niches. But that's changing the game, which isn't the point here.

I think Aeon fail to be noobie friendly because humans are weak spirited and not ready for the enlightenment of THE WAY.

Or it's because they require the slightest bit of thought to utilize effectively. I don't mean that degradingly. I mean that if you are new to the game, plop into a skirmish with AI and aren't some RTS savant, you get some resources, and start making stuff, then send it to attack. UEF and Cyb you can get pretty far just making their t1 attack unit and going in. Make Aeon tanks and send them in and they get slaughtered. Yeah you need radar, radar? What the fuck is radar? What are these grey blips? Anyway my tanks were shredded asunder so I'm going to make these cheaper and faster Flares now, clearly that's the intended T1 attacking unit, robots are cool. Maybe that tank is meant for a water thing? I see they can go on water, must be some special shit. Whats this, an OBLIVION cannon? Oblivion was trash so shooting it out of a cannon is alright. ooooOooaHHHH PEEEEWWWMMMMM, god DAMN that was awesome, did you see that it all charged up and shot this massive explodey thing, awesome! Oh it was killed by T1 stuff? What's that? Build T1 PD next to it for support and to mitigate it's shortcomings? Nono, 2 is higher than 1 so the T2 one is better, guess this faction just sucks.

Noobies are noobish when they come in, they are gonna look at everything though such a noobie lens. So yeah that's how I played against AI for 10 years and entered FAF ladder spamming LABS. Gee, wonder why I'm still 800 rank.

Personally, it's mainly because I don't like the Aeon unit selection sounds.

@auricocorico said in Why is Aeon #1 disliked, #2 inaccessible and #3 most unfun units, but #4 most fun units:

People usually whine about

• gun range being OP (also false)

Assuming I'm not Aeon myself (where I could get my own double gun ACU), how do I efficiently frustrate an Aeon double gun ACU?

Spamming T2 PD is expensive and they can walk somewhere else.

Using T2 air units requires me to to get air superiority and upgrade to T2 air and make air attack units and if he has flak I have to snipe it. If he sees it coming he can make multiple flak for a lot less price than the cost to set up the air snipe.

T3 land units can be strong against a double gun ACU, but getting T3 land is super expensive at early stages in the game.

Can I beat it with T1 land? Can I beat it with T2 land? How?