Is It Me, Or Has T3 Artillery Become OP

I guess thats more of a proactive gameplay where you decide how the game will go and force your opponent to react to it vs reactive gameplay where you try to predict what your opponent will do and try to counter it. Not attack vs defence. And i guess neither of those options instawins and both are viable. Like you can still raid if you are playing reactively, launch attacks when its possible but you try to accumulate long term advantages with this gamestyle by investing into long term stuff primarily. Opposed to proactive style of game where you are trying to cancer your opponent as much as possible, to destroy his eco, map control, will to live. And of course you can change styles depending on gamestate, like when you are in advantage there is no reason to push hard, you will just outeco oppo in short order, if you invested into more units than enough to not die, you might throw the game by donating mass. And vice versa, while you are at disadvantage you must do something to win.
Also i think what gamestyle is more beneficial depends on map. Like in 20km 1v1 scenario attack are more likely to be succesful and reacting to them is a lot harder.

Just to reiterate, I dont think arty is as op as i thought, its more that the factions shields i was using were not as good as others

Now, about the M27. Sometimes I feel like its cheating somehow. They seem to somehow build alot more stuff than I can. Probably getting away with lots of reclaim. I played a game earlier(that my team won) but in order to do so, I didnt give the AI any reason to bombard my base. M27 heavily targets any artillery you attempt to build yourself, so Im just not building it. Instead I go with multiple experimentals in force. One thing I found funny, is that when I was marching a trio of megaliths toward their base, they starting lobbing their T3 artillery at my expirimentals instead.

M27 doesn't benefit from any resource cheats (unless playing on AiX where it'll get a boost based on the AiX modifier the same as other AI) so I expect it will have been reclaim (I think the supreme scoreboard mod might show total mass accrued and/or mass from reclaim so you could check a replay with that enabled to see how much of an impact it's happening). Nice to hear about the megalith targeting - I've not actually seen that happen in a game yet (it's only coded as a theoretical but unlikely to apply option).

Yep, they used t3 arty defensively in that match.. Im not accusing M27 of cheating, it just feels like it is since its likely super efficient at building. This AI is really excellent and enjoyable to play with, keep up the amazing work.

i'd suggest to check "total mass collected" for AI that makes arty and for the human player.

or maybe put it this way: would couple of t4 bots supported by antiair and shields be worse than t3 static arty in that game?
or maybe 33 strats going for your ACU?

If mass collected was equal then would be interesting to know what human player was spending mass on

Generally if someone manages to get arty up and running without enemy noticing it is probably game over since it is quite hard to build shields while being under enemy arty fire, but if you have seen it coming you can probably build like 10 sera t3 shields around you base and economy-wise you'd still have some advantage compared to a players that make t3 arty
Other faction shields are cheaper but also weaker so you need more of them, as cybran you should probably just make many ED4 shields, maybe upgraide some of them to ED5 but not sure, but cybran are by far weakest against t3 arty

@maudlin27 said in Is It Me, Or Has T3 Artillery Become OP:

As far as I'm aware T3 arti haven't been changed since I've been playing (coming up to 2 years now I think), but I can't speak to before that.

Shields were changed, especially interactions between them.

@zlo said in Is It Me, Or Has T3 Artillery Become OP:

or maybe put it this way: would couple of t4 bots supported by antiair and shields be worse than t3 static arty in that game?
or maybe 33 strats going for your ACU?

(Cybran) T3 arty works wonders vs massed land army.

@pearl12 said in Is It Me, Or Has T3 Artillery Become OP:

@Nex, yes, the attacker always wins. Otherwise FAF would be a turtlefest—there would be no point in attacking. People would just shield creep. Which would be quite funny, I'd love to see a map covered in shields, but probably only funny watching it when someone else does it, and only the first time.

Shield creep is already done sometimes.

@jcvjcvjcvjcv Speaking of which, it seems that you cant manually target structures with your t3 arty, only units... Is that how it is for everyone, or was I experiencing a bug.

Sounds like a bug on your part. @Teralitha
Never had trouble manually aiming at enemy buildings.

@Teralitha

I'm a turtle player and I also don't like the damage transfer between overlapping shields.
In FAF you can't make a good turtle base.

My solution was a mod that removes the overlap damage from shields (and add some experimental shields)
You can use this mod and disable the experimental shields so you only remove the overlaping shield damage.
https://forum.faforever.com/topic/357

At least that was the solution for me.

Not a solution but i thought about a mod that can switch shields on and off in the right time to avoid overlapping damage.
But then i also could just make a mod where i disable the overlapping shield damage and have the same effect.

@teralitha said in Is It Me, Or Has T3 Artillery Become OP:

@pearl12 interesting theory, but it doesnt work in practice. 5 (seraphim) shields from what I just saw are enough to withstand up to 2 arty barrages plus a novax. So your 70k mass to 2.4k x 5 mass mathematics doesnt work like you think it does. You seem to have forgotten that shields need alot of energy to counter the damage. Syou also need to spend time and mass to build more generators as well.

Yea the whole 'shield overspill' theory sounds like nonsense to me(At least the way you are describing it). I see what Ive seen and I told you what im seeing. I know shields overlap, thats why I build several in close proximity. Its a simple concept really. When one shield fails another one stops the rest of the damage if it can. And it works, for some factions... apparently not cybran.

Overspill was added due to heavily shielded bases being too hard to break. Prior to overspill a well shielded base could withstand fire from multiple Mavors lol.

Also naval shields were way OP. T3 UEF Navy was unkillable due to Bulwark spam.

Now that makes sense.

@nex said in Is It Me, Or Has T3 Artillery Become OP:

@pearl12 said in Is It Me, Or Has T3 Artillery Become OP:

I merely said the attacker always wins.

which is wrong.
If you make a good counter (aa) against your opponents attack (bomber) you win mass wise.

So to say what I said again about your being nitpicky, again:

And just to keep you from nitpicking again: smart attacking always wins.

"Dumb" attacking (flying bombers over AA) does not win. Because it's dumb. Just like me having to clarify this point over... and over... and over again.

And this is true for all options in the game, as otherwise that option would be op.

If you have an option for which the optimal counter only evens out, why should you do anything else since you will be unable to lose using that option.

Because the two implicit resources (the explicit ones being mass and energy) are time and knowledge. Your opponent needs to know what you are doing (ex. building bombers) and then have time to counter it (ex. build AA). Thus it prevents the game from being about cheese (building OP shit) and makes it about skill (how you use the things you build).

@pearl12 said in Is It Me, Or Has T3 Artillery Become OP:

And just to keep you from nitpicking again: smart attacking always wins.

Yeah of course, but that's like saying doing the right thing will win you the game, which is obvious. Doing a smart attack is having a good counter for your opponents defense.
So saying the attacker wins is just wrong, as you want to say the smarter player (the one with the better counter) wins. It all comes down to if the players have the intel required to make the counter or just outwit their opponent. But this could happen on either side. And if you say everyone scouts properly, the attacker might just not take the unfavorable battle. But even then he might still lose, as the defender might need far less mass to create the stalemate, than the opponent used to try to break it up and if the defender does not just sit on this mass, then he wins.
If the defensive option could only ever go equal, there would be no point in doing it.

the smart player wins

the attacker might just not take the unfavorable battle

I have assumed during our entire argument that we are talking about players of equal skill level. Players who will always do the "right" and not the "dumb" thing. If you really want to say "make this change so stupid players can win..." good luck to ya.

The point in doing the defensive option is either (A) to buy time or (B) to deter your opponent from a specific portion of the map (i.e. forcing them to choose where to put their effort).

the defender might need far less mass to create the stalemate

This is exactly what doesn't happen. T1 arty is cheaper than T1 PD, and beats it. AA is cheaper than bombers, and beat them. MML are cheaper than TMD, and beat them (mass for mass). And so on. The only way the defender can win, mass for mass, is if the attacker is "stupid," i.e. runs tanks into pd, or send them in single file instead of in a row, etc. etc. But again, I am assuming the attacking player always does the "right" thing.

If you have the time and eco to well defend the entire map, then you had the time and eco to build an attack that would have won much faster, you just chose the slower route. That does not mean attacker doesn't always win, it means you were winning anyway, and you chose to defend.

Maybe instead of, "smart attacking always wins,"

"the game is designed so mass for mass and all else equal, offensive units eventually win against the units they are designed to counter"

Better?

(incidentally, one conclusion you could draw from that statement is that if you choose to build the offensive unit that counters what your opponent is building, you will always win. So... attacking always wins)

@pearl12 you know you can play defensively without building turrets only. Like you say that arty beats t1 pd. But what if opponent have some tanks around? They will just kill arty before it kills pd, so just sending 1-2 arties will not work. You cant kill tanks first either because they are supported by pd. So in order to break position with like pd and 5 tanks you need just much bigger investment into attack force. Also you have to micro your units carefuly. And also reinforcent time is lower for your opponent, reclaim will be closer to his base etc. Works well with every other situation (mml vs tmd or whatever). Thats defenders advantage and on some maps its really hard to overcome this. Ultimately defender will always win assuming optimal play. But playing optimally is not always possible so on some maps its better to be hyper agressive.

If you gave the defender time to get defense up then you were not attacking. If you had the SAME mass invested in tanks as the opponent invested in the engineers+tanks AT THE SAME TIME, then you would win, because your tanks would kill the engineers before they built the PD. Travel time does not matter because the opponent's engies had to travel to where they were building the PD, just as your additional tanks (mass for mass cost against your opponent's engies) had to travel there, too.

If they build the PD back at their base then you would win map control (because you have more tanks outside their base, so you win that area) and have more mexes, so you'd get more mass, so you'd win (assuming again you aren't "stupid" with that mass, yes I know you're just dying to say "but what if you use that mass to spam AA when they don't have any air"). MAYBE there is an exception if mexes are not distributed around the map like on Astro maps, but even then you wouldn't attack until you knew you could win, so you'd eco, so them building a PD means they weren't putting as much into eco as you, so defending essentially lost them the game.

The same principal applies to T2 ACU vs. gun ACU. T2 ACU is cheaper so it finishes faster, but then you still have to build PD. ALL ELSE EQUAL, not giving your opponent time to build, gun ACU will always win because you will kill the PD before there are so many you become overwhelmed. I've won many games this way, going gun vs. someone going t2. Problem is all else is not always equal—if you are too far away and give them time to get PD up, it doesn't work. Or if they have more eco than you and get upgrade faster. Or... or... all sorts of ways it could not be equal.

I think we all have better stuff to do than indefinitely argue nuance and exception. It's like I'm saying "stoplights work" and you're saying "but this one time this guy turned right on red..." yes, there have been millions of traffic accidents where people didn't drive ideally and stoplights "didn't work." But billions, possibly trillions of times a day, a car goes through an intersection without crashing (think about how many cars go through how many intersections each day). Just because people make wrong decisions doesn't mean stoplights don't work, and I am not going to point out every mistake every driver ever made that wasn't the fault of the system.

I will just wonder aloud though, why if defending wins, you see far fewer firebases etc. in higher-ranked games than in lower-ranked games. Not no defenses whatsoever, because sometimes all else is not equal, but as a general theme in higher-ranked games it seems like they prefer units than can move over static defenses.

See you in-game.

@pearl12 said in Is It Me, Or Has T3 Artillery Become OP:

But again, I am assuming the attacking player always does the "right" thing.

And this makes your whole argument pointless. A game where everyone always makes the right decision will never end and assuming only one side will always do the right thing will of course lead to that side winning.

@pearl12 said in Is It Me, Or Has T3 Artillery Become OP:

the game is designed so mass for mass and all else equal, offensive units eventually win against the units they are designed to counter

This applies in the same way to defensive units or would you say
"the game is designed so mass for mass and all else equal, defensive units eventually win against the units they are designed to counter"
is wrong? why would those units exist if they lose against what they're suppose to counter?

@pearl12 said in Is It Me, Or Has T3 Artillery Become OP:

but even then you wouldn't attack until you knew you could win, so you'd eco

But ecoing is a defensive play. So for it to work you would need to be at a position where you would have already won anyway, by just attacking.
Defending is not about building PDs and firebases. It is about no sending your units into the enemy army, but waiting for them to attack. when you control 75% of the map, playing defensively will win you the game in the long run and smartly playing aggressive might be impossible, because your opponent already has defenses set up. (Of course you had to play aggressive to get that map control, but still at some points in the game defensive options are viable and/or necessary)

@pearl12 said in Is It Me, Or Has T3 Artillery Become OP:

It's like I'm saying "stoplights work" and you're saying "but this one time this guy turned right on red..."

No it's like you're saying "stoplights work for cars" and i'm trying to tell you that it works the same for motorcycles.

Of course if you make structures only, you will eventually lose, but not because they are less efficient, but rather because for every structure, there is a unit to counter it, but not for every unit a structure to counter it. So if a unit making player plays against a structure only player on a map that supports it (as on most maps spamming structures is just a bad play from and we assume both play at a certain smartness) They will eventually lose, as their will be bs/cruisers or T4s which can't be countered by structures alone.

@teralitha said in Is It Me, Or Has T3 Artillery Become OP:

@jcvjcvjcvjcv Speaking of which, it seems that you cant manually target structures with your t3 arty, only units... Is that how it is for everyone, or was I experiencing a bug.

I always use ground attack, that fixes all the sh*t with canceled ordered and attacks canceled when units given etc. I want to kill the reclaim too anyway.