FAF Beta - Feedback

KonjikiNoYami

My personal feedback & balance ideas on this patch:

Air T4’s
I somewhat agree with the changes but I think there are a few MASSIVE overlying issues.

I feel like all T4 air units are much too glass cannon. They all do extreme damage (alpha or dps or crash) but have extremely low amounts of HP, often dying in a single pass by a few dozen ASF. 15-20 SAMs, flak or MAA also counters the majority of t4 air. I think they should have their damage further reduced but have their health pools massively increased.

The problem with increasing the energy cost is now t4 air competes with producing more ASF’s. Why build more power to build a t4 when they die so fast to ASF anyway? Just use the extra power to build more ASF. The issue is finding a sink for your mass. It's a catch 22.

T4 Air really needs their distinct roles more defined. They should have their strength buffed and everything else reduced to compensate.
The Czar should be primarily used defensively as a long range AA t4. It should be very good at zone denial and bombarding ASF swarms from long range.
The Awassha should be used for base bombardment & killing large groups of t3/t2/t1 land or sea armies with its big AoE & high alpha damage.
The Soul Ripper should be used for stealth snipes & killing off high value targets like game enders or experimentals.

Ideas for changes:

Czar - Increase missiles from 4>8, half the damage of the beam/crash, double its shield & HP, reduce its movespeed by a significant amount, increase the range of AA missiles.
Awassha - Make it stronger for lower rated players who cant micro as much while not buffing it too much for high end players (if that is even possible). Maybe something with speed or turn radius, and increase the HP by 1.5x.
Soul Ripper - Double the HP, reduce the splash of the missiles, slightly reduce the firing randomness, slightly increase the speed, make the model 1.5x smaller so it doesn't get hit by all the flak.

Navy
These changes seem MUCH too oppressive for Aeon.The Aeon frigate needed a buff and it is good to see that, however it seems like it will still have the worst frigate & now the worst destroyer & worst late game navy too. The combination of oppressive jamming/steath fields, more common enemy shields, slow projectile speed, high alpha damage, & a decrease in range means the exodus will be the weakest, easiest destroyer to counter.

Having stealthed Cybran destroyers sit out of the range of the Exodus is going to feel absolutely terrible when you can't fire back. Having a beefed up UEF destroyer sitting under shields, which you will have to get in close & can’t kill them quickly, is also going to feel equally bad. Especially when your destroyer misses shots against UEF jammed frigates.

As for late game Aeon navy, I think the T3 skip into spamming Tempest is more reflective of a problem with the state of t3 rather than the state of t4. The tempest already loses pretty decisively mass-mass against Atlantis, Summits, sera cruiser TML, T3 sub hunters, torp bombers, frigates, harms, and stealthed Cybran Battleships.

Recommended Changes:

Aeon T3 Sonar - Give it an 80 range Omni to counter stealth/jamming spam which hurts Aeon the most.
Aeon t2 destroyer - Give it stronger torpedoes to counter the range nerf & buffing of others HP.
Aeon t2 cruiser - Give the main gun bonus damage against shields like the t3 land unit.
Tempest - revert the changes.
Aeon t3 battleship - increase the rate of fire or movespeed to make it more competitive with the tempest and prevent t3 navy skips.

FtXCommando

increase rate of fire of aeon bs lol

might as well as give it an ml laser at that point

Zeldafanboy

Revert Loyalists being able to deflect Billy missiles

Lowering the Soul Ripper's HP and giving it regen isn't going to help it especially when you almost double the E cost. It also didn't seem like you needed to slightly nerf the DPS either.

maudlin27

While I like the direction of the soulripper changes, Im not sure that the hp regen will be enough to have a noticeable impact - it’d require almost 7m to heal the same amount of damage that the czar shield does in 2m (and 17m to heal its full health). However overall they sound like they’ll make it a more interesting/viable option, and I expect time will tell how useful the hp regen actually is

Glad to hear the GC will be nerfed shorty.

Surprised by the t2 arti nerfs given they seem like a really weak unit already (only times Ive seen them be effective have been fatboy defence and being built in range of an enemy base’s core mexes). Would’ve been nice to see a small damage increase to compensate for being less accurate

MazorNoob

I'd argue that decreasing bug stats and cost across the board is a tiny nerf. T4 gunship is to T3 what T3 gunship is to T2, the thing you build to not get demolished by equivalent tier AA. Less HP per SR means a bit more succeptibility to AA.

TaxesAreTheft

Nice to see these changes and it's good that many things are touched.
Feedback:

Personal I'm unsure if we heard to much to the whining regarding loyas and titans.
I would like more changes in the naval game, especially UEF and T3 Subhunters.
I would like T3 Scouts abilities normalized (see forum, omni).
I like T2 land buff, but would apprechiate a shift from T3 maa to T2, to make T2 stage even more viable (And parashields energy drain is toxic).
And I would like changes to the concept of hives/kennels -> UEF has no clear identity/BP wise it's a noob trap and hives may be too strong.
Another thing I'm unsure is the normalization of PD build time. I like the cultural appropriation of the aliens regarding our craftmanship and that this makes it easier for new players, but it doesn't fit their identity of conquerors.
Overall I like the patch, more changes welcome

T_R_U_putin

well, i don't like adjustments are going to be made cause they are too BIG.

AIR T4 units E cost 2.5 times increase - thats too much - it is not balance adjustment but just simply a prohibition to build.
50% E cost increase would be totally ok since they are really easy to build fast nowadays.

Nukes - same thing - just a prohibition. cost is extremely high, defence vs them is super cheap. another disbalance thing.
you simply throw out things u don't like instead of rebalancing. I offer Energy Cost: 210.000 > 300.000 change only.

If the patch will be released as is. you won't see any nukes. barely see t4 experimentals but you EVERY GAME which is not finished within 20 minutes will be T3 arty gang bang - the silly thing which pursuits supcom recent 6 years.
Changing cost in times totally brakes overall balance.
Real issue is cheap T3 arty which costs only 72k shoots fast and will be even more easier to defend vs air experimentals than before. You won't see any other solutions to end the game except T3 arties every game.

Xayo

@t_r_u_putin said in FAF Beta - Feedback:

well, i don't like adjustments are going to be made cause they are too BIG.

AIR T4 units E cost 2.5 times increase - thats too much - it is not balance adjustment but just simply a prohibition to build.
50% E cost increase would be totally ok since they are really easy to build fast nowadays.

Nukes - same thing - just a prohibition. cost is extremely high, defence vs them is super cheap. another disbalance thing.
you simply throw out things u don't like instead of rebalancing. I offer Energy Cost: 210.000 > 300.000 change only.

If the patch will be released as is. you won't see any nukes. barely see t4 experimentals but you EVERY GAME which is not finished within 20 minutes will be T3 arty gang bang - the silly thing which pursuits supcom recent 6 years.
Changing cost in times totally brakes overall balance.
Real issue is cheap T3 arty which costs only 72k shoots fast and will be even more easier to defend vs air experimentals than before. You won't see any other solutions to end the game except T3 arties every game.

There are more maps than just dual gap. With these cost changes, nukes are still an absolute no-brainer investment on maps where there are more than 3 bases that can't cover each other with SMDs.

The energy cost increase for air experimentals just means that you either build ASF or an Air experimental. It does lock players without an air grid effectively out of building one, which limits excessive snowballing via air.

However, I can see that these changes, together also with the washer crash damage decrease, make the dualgap meta even more stale. Maybe just play a more interesting map?

FtXCommando

Even on dual gap if you were playing correctly you wouldn’t have air players build the washers and 2 are basically impossible to stop once air is won and u micro crashing correctly.

T_R_U_putin

@ftxcommando said in FAF Beta - Feedback:

Even on dual gap if you were playing correctly you wouldn’t have air players build the washers and 2 are basically impossible to stop once air is won and u micro crashing correctly.

Don't agree - too simple look.
well if u lost air. enemy air players unable to build ahwasa and win air again. someone else should do t4 bombers - this is the only case you're right.
adjusting E cost will slow down the proccess of building ahwasa - i support that change, but not by 2.5 times. it will take forever to build - so it will not be built, also because usual bombers have better mass-damage ratio.
If map control totaly lost and air is lost too - it is normal that you cant stop experimental bombers. it is totally logically correct.

NOC-

Playing dual gap is not logically correct

T_R_U_putin

@xayo I play different maps, but yes almost 80% are dual gap. And on DuelGap it is almost impossible to nuke players above 1400 rating no matter how good is your build order cause even with current balance nuke cost is high and build power required to assist is high.
The only guys who easily get nuked are NON-russian players which simply play worse in some terms of dualgap gameplay no matter what their rating is. Cause all the nuances and and guides how to do something the best on dual gap are spreaded from my activity on youtube and all the russians know it.
Still I support changing the cost of nuke from 210k to 300k energy - it will require additional t3 power generators which will slow down the nuke build by extra minute. Changing it by 2.5 times mean the only guy who will be nuked - the guys without smd at all = nobody

TheVVheelboy

Stop playing gap.

Tomma

@t_r_u_putin Why should we balance nukes around dualgap and not map where nuke forces 3+ smds?

Deribus

Dual Gap is a map where a single nuke defense can defend 3 players. It's heavily weighted in the nuke defense direction.

T_R_U_putin

@tomma First nuke costs 27k mass (we count just mass to simplify calc) loads in 5 mins. SMD costs 10.5k mass and loads in 4 mins, also it is easier to speed up loading by asissting - bonus is bigger than assisting the nuke.
Even If 3 players build SMD each - it is barely more than simply 1 nuke.
After patch the guy who build nuke will be a fool.
Patch will make building nukes senseless cause there are things with better mass-effectiveness ratio.
Same effect to experimental air units.

T_R_U_putin

@deribus duel gap is the map where you can do Nuke very fast and where 1 smd almost cover 3 bases. The only thing you need is to scout nuke in time.
After patch nuke on that map won't ever be built because it will be more effecient to do eco-t3 arty or eco-game ender. But there are other maps where 1 SMD is not enough and I support value change - but not that big - just energy. Power generators are not free you spend a lot of mass to build them, skilled player will notice excessive amount of energy generation and will guess about nuke in near future.
But making Nuke too expensive - will simply throw it from gameplay. Same to super expensive t4 air.

T_R_U_putin

After reading patchnotes I imagine guy(s) which are tired of nukes and ahwassas braking their cute bases which decide to make it so expensive that no any player will bother them again.
Rebalancing for few lazy guys right? not funny at all.

Real issues which all the games looks similar are cheap game enders, cheap t3 artilleries building just few of them will totally destroy any players production and economy except guys with ECO position.
We almost never see big land battles - why do I need to think strategically If i simply put big gun and shoot shells at the enemy leaving no wreckage?
+Slow down t3 arties and-or make them 25% more expensive.
+All game enders ~+15% to the cost in average and little slow down firing rate. Paragon outcome reduce to 7000 mass

NOC-

^^^ Wants big land battles -- Plays dual gap

T_R_U_putin

@lord_asmodeus you are trying to joke - where no jokes needed. I will pick any replay of any of you. if games passes 20 mins. everyone tries to bunker and advance map control untill it costs not much res. at some point - everyone starts t3 arty and it become "Groundhog Day". Land units are made after that are for holding the map-defending