FAF Beta - Feedback

Hello,

this is possibly only a purely subjective opinion. However, I noticed that the new snipe icon for the Sera Sniper bots doesn't quite match the other icons.

The others tend to appear grayed out when the ability is disabled and the icon itself glows green when enabled. The background remains grey. With the new snip icon, the background itself begins to glow green. Wouldn't it make more sense to just let the crosshair light up green to bring it more in line with the other icons?

The icons for sniper mode are just confusing in general IMHO - Back in my days when I started playing FAF I never knew if the unit was in sniper mode or not, especially when you have disabled the mouse-over text via options (which I would highly not suggest, it disables too much information, because it is related to lobby like Ping/CPU, etc. as well)

Best case scenario, if you hit the sniper button, it should print out some text on the screen like "Sniper mode on" or "Sniper mode off". Easy to understand, and you do not have to relate to some confusing icon which any beginner will be confused by that toggle, but maybe I was just a slow learner and people figured it out sooner. Have not played Seraphim or Aeon in the last time, maybe the icon/text stuff was changed recently to make it more clear, dunno.

My goal with changing the icon was to make the difference from sniper mode to normal a bit more obvious, im all for making it more consistent with the other icons. Ill try to update the PR this week.

@magge said in FAF Beta - Feedback:

Best case scenario, if you hit the sniper button, it should print out some text on the screen like "Sniper mode on" or "Sniper mode off".

This should be a given for all units and structures that have a togglable ability, honestly.
And let the player decide if they want the text on or off via an option in settings.

But that might be too much for something that can be conveyed with the icon color.

~ Stryker

Either way, this is an improvement over the icons before and definitely makes it clearer. Happy to see that in the upcoming patch.

tbh I'm a bit surprised there's no minor nerf to cybran frigs. Like a 2.5-5% increase in cost so you don't have to really revolutionise anything before taking a deeper look at navy, but at least not making them dominate so brutally in small ponds. They're currently 7% cheaper than the next cheapest frig (sera) while having 17% more surface dps, a minor cost increase won't change it being the best but would somewhat mitigate its lead.

Idk about the [UEF T2 Destroyer] Valiant change - it definitely needs a buff, but I'm not sure HP is the way to go. It's biggest drawback is the poor range of its main gun IMHO. Yes, it has bad torpedoes, but you can easily mend that slightly by say increasing the range by 5 and maybe making it's sonar as large as it's torpedo range (so if you are roaming with them, they actually start firing on subs as soon as they are in range, rather than half-way in, effectively making their superior torp range meaningless).

As it currently is, torpedo-wise, 1 Valiant dies to 5 T1 subs with 1 sub almost full HP left alive. A Salem kills all of them with over 25% HP left (and it already starts off with 1k less HP). It has 40% DPS with torpedoes of the 2nd worst Destroyer, and Salem has over 3x the DPS. I think there's space to make it's torps the same-ish strength as other destroyers have (say 50-60 DPS). Or maybe bolster it's torp defense (indirect HP increase).

But yeah, back to it's main problem. It's the range on those main guns. Yes, it has highest DPS, but only by a little (274 compared to Uashavoh's 250 - 2nd highest). The difference in DPS gun+torpedo is still on the negative for Valiant. So Salems can outrange it, and you can effectively kite with them, and on a say 5v5 matchup (no. of destroyers, not players), you can whittle down at least 1 or 2 Valiants before actual engagement, and as soon as Valiants get into range, Salems can move in and use their total higher DPS (330 vs 304) to end the fight. Exodus can employ similar strategy, theirs being weaker if you micro, but stronger if you don't/the enemy does (since high alpha really rewards shoot-and-scoot tactics, even with minimal micro by the enemy makes it even stronger). Uashavoh's have the advantage of not missing their shots like the rest of the 3, and it has marginally less HP than the Valiant (<5%), which is countered by evading 1 salvo (not to mention going underwater and just torpedo-duking it out).

So if you look at every Destroyer's main weapon:
Valiant:
+bit higher DPS
-range
-somewhat easy to dodge
Salem:
+range
+no overkill
-less HP
Exodus:
+range
+high alpha + AOE
-somewhat easy to dodge
Uashavoh:
+can't dodge his cannons
+can dive
+no overkill
-range

All of the destroyers except the Valiant have 2 '+' and 1 '-'. And on top of that Valiant has piss-poor torpedoes.

Some argue "Well, that's why the Battlecruiser exists". But that's a no-argument for me. Battlecruisers are indeed amazing. But they are only slightly less expensive than Battleships. And while they do have very nice damage and you can't dodge it, they are still out-performed by Battleships IMO. And after a fight, you can actually use a Battleship to threaten coastal bombardment, while the Battlecruiser has the same reach as Salem or Exodus, assuming no one built a sandcastle on the beach that day to block the laser - so in the end, it's only effective in water, vs naval units. But even then. If you have time to build a cruiser, the enemy will soon have a battleship of their own - they are only slightly cheaper (1 destroyer difference in mass, even less compared to cybran). And while a battlecruiser might be much better at clearing out the real fodder, the frigates - don't make the destroyers take the role of cannon-fodder, when there's much more efficient solution already. Battlecruisers won't save you if you are losing (slow to build and expensive vs a destroyer spam), and they are kinda sitting pretty doing nothing if you are ahead. But if you are even, you could've just built a battleship - they do lose out in skirmishes with other units mixed in, but battleships actually do something both before battle (long-range bombardment of enemy navy, which battlecruiser can't do efficiently vs equally-ranged destroyers) and after (killing in-land operations).

So what's my final take? Instead of increasing it's HP (that's what frigates and shields are for), I'd either increase it's range so the gun actually fills its role (note that the only '+' Valiant has is quite not that big of a plus, the DPS advantage is 10% over the 2nd best, which is not a lot) and makes use of it weapon (you maybe don't have to match the 80 range Salem and Exodus, but give it middle ground of 70, between them and Uashavoh). Another solution would be to make it more self-reliant, and have it's sonar, radar and vision ranges increased. Maybe in addition to that, make it's torpedoes slightly have larger range (but keep the poor dmg).

Another solution that's more on the silly side is, give it air-staging capability. Not that it's gonna increase it's solo potential, but it increases it's value and it'll actually give UEF a non-experimental naval-based air-staging facility. Cybran has both the cruiser and the carrier, while Sera and Aeon have the carriers. UEF has Atlantis (which is 3x more expensive than the T3 carriers).

A range increase of 5 has zero real game impact. You also can't kite with salems.

@ftxcommando said in FAF Beta - Feedback:

A range increase of 5 has zero real game impact. You also can't kite with salems.

I was thinking give it 10 extra range (hence the total 70), which is not little, especially given that in realistic situations, you won't be fighting pure destroyers vs destroyers, but there'll be plenty of frigates as well.

If you are referencing the torpedo range upgrade, sure, 5 is negligible, but if paired with higher sonar and radar ranges, it could help in early situations where you might want to go rogue with a single destroyer (which is not a total suicide given it has somewhat solid torp defense and some AA capability).

You can not do a braindead 'run away in a straight line' kite since the guns won't be firing, yes, but if you micro even a bit and other units are included, then yes, you can get good amount of damage on those Valiants before they get into range, you can put in some good shots. And ofc I was just giving a bare example, but if some frigates are included, you'll benefit even more (since they are more dmg/mass dense).

I mean honestly, I personally think Valiants are somewhat the best T2 destroyer if you get to like 10+ numbers, and an actual battle takes place, not just glancing blows in a stalemate - but in those situations, it suffers quite a bit from it's lack of range. And while not as effective as with an Exodus (because of the alpha damaga), you can also do a shoot-and-scoot with a Salem.

There are zero realms on this planet where 10 valiants beat either 10 sera or 10 aeon destros. They beat 10 salems because you aren't supposed to have 10 salems but 4 salems and 80 cyb frigs.

@ftxcommando said in FAF Beta - Feedback:

There are zero realms on this planet where 10 valiants beat either 10 sera or 10 aeon destros. They beat 10 salems because you aren't supposed to have 10 salems but 4 salems and 80 cyb frigs.

Again, yes, I'm talking about a fully developed naval regiment, not 10 salems and 10 valiants vs the world.

But then you need to account for the fact 2 coopers or a cooper and a bulwark is a destroyer down, which UEF needs to not lose against any of the other factions in navy. So it never really is 10 v 10 it's more like 10 v 8 with cooper/shield support because a t2 sub switch could come and obliterate your destroyers or sera destros could submerge.

If you want to talk about frigs, all the frigs aside from Aeon, who wants to just spam destros anyway, are better than UEF frigs so that's even more mass UEF needs to spend to maintain parity.

Not a fan of the billy loya interaction change.
It's too entertaining when it happens. Do you really want to remove all these small amusing things?

A suggestion I would make for the Soul Ripper is to change its interaction with gunships. It is targetable by them but cannot target them.

@Chenbro101 If the soul ripper can target gunships and sprays the air with its anti-ground weapon (which does AOE damage), would the AOE damage interceptors?

Would it damage enemy interceptors/asf?

Would it damage friendly interceptors/asf?

Yes, yes and no. Looking at the code - it appears the Soul Ripper does not damage friendly units.

@tagada said in FAF Beta - Feedback:

There will also likely be a frigate rebalance alongside so that while cybran will still have the best frigate it will be much less oppressive.
I can't guarantee it will make it into this patch (January) but we will do our best.

Even if you don't have the time for a full frig rebalance in this patch, I'd love it if you simply towned down cybran frig anti-navy dps by like 5-10% for now.

With a more sensible, but still strong, cybran frig you'd also get a lot more feedback for any further navy changes in future patches.

Due to lack of time, I won't be able to push out a full navy rebalance, but some small tweaks will be included to make the navy, especially on smaller maps that are limited to mostly T1 navy, more enjoyable. The changes will probably be something alongside what you suggested. I've also toyed with the idea of making the Cybran frigate have a bit less range but I am unsure about it for now.

@tagada said in FAF Beta - Feedback:

Due to lack of time, I won't be able to push out a full navy rebalance, but some small tweaks will be included to make the navy, especially on smaller maps that are limited to mostly T1 navy, more enjoyable. The changes will probably be something alongside what you suggested. I've also toyed with the idea of making the Cybran frigate have a bit less range but I am unsure about it for now.

just up the cost a little, same as was done for mantis, to avoid changing the 'feel' of the unit

I've updated the changelog with a lot of changes. Read more here.

Things that will come really soon:

Chrono nerf
Nuke adjustments
GC claw nerf
T3 arty adjustments

As a reminder the balance patch is set to release on the 28th of January, make sure to host games using FAF - beta to get a feel for the changes.

As always all feedback is welcome.