Points of Imbalance.

[Arran]

A small incomplete list of normalised units that follow a specific pattern with differences between units of same categories that/or are governed by a discernible pattern:

• T2 Mobile Missile Launchers
• T1 Interceptors
• T1 Point Defences
• T3 Mobile Heavy Artilleries

While your post @HoujouSatoko is essentially correct, it can also be summarised as follows: "Balance is difficult and must be viewed holistically."
I look forward to your counter argument defending:

" However, for every advantage there must be a disadvantage to restore balance. Additionally some unit have been normalised or follow a specific pattern."

No.

[biass]

We should probably make a role for it, but old mate @HoujouSatoko is a balance team member.
The purpose of this thread is to propose stuff to them, not to argue with them and say out whatever logical fallcy comes to mind because they're straight up not relevant in a conversation between two adults.

If you want things changed promptly, I suggest you just state what and why in a concise manner.

I second the notion that things need not be balanced to be equal. Factions are supposed to be stronger and weaker in certain stages. Making them the same will ruin the depth of the game.

[Turinturambar]

what is your point even? T1 pds and inties are pretty much the same unit (also listing T1 pds itself is a massive mistake since t1 pds strenght significantly depends on T1 walls and the power of units to shoot above them).
comparing T3 arty stats is pointless without comparing factions shielding abilities aswell (for practical purposes though the decidng factor is just teamgame meta in generic 4v4+ 10x10 maps)
furthermore its pretty much pointless to compare mmls on their own (without even factoring in the direct counter the tmd, which shows just how pointless this is) since their are part of how a faction is adresses to play pd wars, so things to factor in aswell are pd+shield strenght, T1 arty push and rambo com attacks raiding abilities...

I dont even see how you put T1 pds, which have no relevant differences on one level with mmls

[Arran]

Ok. Let me flip this around. @HoujouSatoko, as a supposed member of the balance team, can you explain to me, why the damage of the Shocker: T3 Strategic Bomber is 3450 not 3500? I'm honestly curious to know the answer as this question was what instigated my investigation into this unit.

[Tagada]

Wym supposed member of the balance team? Biass told you he IS a member of the balance team.
In my personal opinion the Shocker's dmg could be increased by 50 but it's really not a big deal.

[Turinturambar]

exactly what tagada said. the point in balance is rather to remove imbalances or meta issues, not "fix" things where no real issues exist to beginn with. especially since the amount the balanceteam can realistically do is pretty limited (just look at the rate of balancepatches) so ppl rather use their time to focus in real issues.
the goal is to optimise the current state of balance. there is no point to fix things when there are no actual problems in real game situations

[moses_the_red]

@biass said in Points of Imbalance.:

@moses_the_red said in Points of Imbalance.:

Talk is cheap.

In that case, feel free to post the link to your testing at any time.

What I'll do instead is issue a standing offer to anyone here. Come show me how well 15 bricks do against a ML.

If I were to post a replay, you'd all disregard it anyway. The only way for me to really make my point is for one or more of you to actually bother testing this.

If you see me online, and feel that 15 bricks kills a ML in real game conditions, message me and I'll set up a test. You can show me what a noob I am.

I imagine none of you will... because you all know that what I'm saying is correct. General consensus used to be 10-12 bricks to kill a ML. Nowadays its significantly more - more than 15.

[moses_the_red]

Got a replay. I'm microing the Monkeylords, Tagada is microing bricks.

Might look confusing because Tagada asked that I micro his units and he micro mine. Check the discussion in the replay for details.

4 decent tests.

15 bricks versus Monkeylord -> Monkeylord wins.
20 bricks versus Monkeylord -> Bricks win with significant brick numbers left over.
16 bricks versus Monkeylord -> Monkeylord wins
On a narrow passage with little range of motion for the monkeylord vs 15 bricks -> Bricks win with something like 10 bricks remaining (check replay to be sure)

Replay ID: #13085973

I feel the test supports my position, as I'm a crap player and Tagada is... well Tagada.

Thank you Tagada for agreeing to help me test.

[TheVVheelboy]

So all in all the units and balance is fine. And victory comes to the person who have chosen the better place and time to fight?
Seems about right lol.

[moses_the_red]

@Khada_Jhin said in Points of Imbalance.:

So all in all the units and balance is fine. And victory comes to the person who have chosen the better place and time to fight?
Seems about right lol.

Originally, it was 10-12 bricks to kill a Monkeylord.

By making the Monkeylord mass efficient versus bricks, the balance team has severely degraded the usefulness of large T3 land formations. I posted about this in this thread, which does a decent job of explaining the argument.

https://forum.faforever.com/topic/171/i-think-the-relationship-between-t3-land-and-experimentals-should-be-re-examined/5

For assault experimentals to not step on the role of T3 land, they have to be something other than "powerful mass efficient land unit". Originally they were sucker punch units, and T3 land always had a role because it was able to reliably kill assault experimentals in a mass efficient way.

When you look at the disadvantages of amassing significant bricks, it becomes clear that they should be more mass efficient than assault experimentals. Assault experimentals require next to no infrastructure. No extra factories, They're easy to produce.

Pushing out bricks requires a significant investment in factories. The HQ system has mitigated this to a large extent, but it still requires a ton of infrastructure to pump mass into T3 units at the same rate that you can dump mass into an assault experimental.

And I don't want to even change that, I want T3 land to have its own advantage, in mass efficiency.

In terms of mass efficiency, bricks should kill T4 with a significant bonus. That makes up for the production investment in Bricks.

I feel like this system was more or less working well at launch, and it was changed via the T3 nerf (which I think made sense as T2 was pretty damn irrelevant).

There are a couple of ways to fix this as I see it:

• SACUs enhancing the functionality of T3 formations sounds great provided that the buffs are large enough to actually give T3 formations decent mass efficiency versus assault experimentals. Keep in mind that in addition to T3 production, you have to invest in SACU production... it will have to be a significant buff to T3.

• Moderate nerfs to assault experimentals across the board, perhaps with corresponding build time buffs.

I don't really care how this is handled, and I trust the balance team to figure out the details. I just think it should be addressed.

If people remember one thing about anything I'm saying in all these posts on this topic, I hope its this: Assault Experimentals must serve a role that is distinct from the role of T3 land formations. Originally they were sucker punch units, I think that's a good tried and true role for them, but try not to be myopic about it. Whatever they are in the future, I think they need to be further distinguished from T3 units because its hurting unit diversity in some situations.

[FtXCommando]

Your tests are the same shit I said.

If you micro like an idiot and pull your bricks back (meaning the entire backrow or some X quantity of bricks are no longer shooting as out of range) then the ML barely wins. Great.

BP on t4 should never be touched. An extremely slight stat nerf is the only thing that should even remotely be on the cards.

Tagada even told you this in the replay while you were ranting about the objective proof you just found lol.

[moses_the_red]

@FtXCommando said in Points of Imbalance.:

Your tests are the same shit I said.

Heh, you're right. For some reason I read you as refuting the notion that the ML kills its mass in bricks.

BP on t4 should never be touched. An extremely slight stat nerf is the only thing that should even remotely be on the cards.

That sounds reasonable. I'd shoot for 13-14 bricks to kill a ML when micro'd well, and a similar 80-85% mass efficiency for bricks versus all assault experimentals.

There should be an advantage for investing in all that production.

[JazzFunkNoob]

There should be an advantage to not store up 20000 mass until you have your unit.

[moses_the_red]

@harzer99 said in Points of Imbalance.:

There should be an advantage to not store up 20000 mass until you have your unit.

Its about a minute and 16 seconds worth of mass income for a single player if you have a mass income of 260.

[TheWeakie]

Usually i make my first t3 unit when i have a mass income of 260

[advena]

All units start out off range
All units get into range ASAP
Using move order (No attack move)
No units leave firing range
No vet at start of fight
No unit try to retreat
No stealth or other dirty cybran tricks

ML: 20000 mass, 27500 BT
10 bricks: 12800 mass, 48000 BT
15 bricks: 19200 mass, 72000 BT

ML kills 10 bricks. 12000 hp remains
15 bricks kill ML. 8 bricks remains

30 bricks kill 2 ML. 17 remain
2ML kill 20 bricks. 15000+ hp remain

Just for lulz:
100 medusas (3600 mass) kill ML. 36 remain (5 killed by on death explosion)
Yet microed ML can avoid almost all damage

https://replay.faforever.com/13090487

Did some testing with different number of bricks
@moses_the_red said in Points of Imbalance.:

That sounds reasonable. I'd shoot for 13-14 bricks to kill a ML when micro'd well, and a similar 80-85% mass efficiency for bricks versus all assault experimentals.

Very close to current situation in direct fight
12 bricks die to ML
14 bricks kill ML

PS Attack move ML can die even to 10 bricks cos of attack order sorting and slow turret

edit: added build time to mass comparison
edit2: did some testing with different number of bricks
edit2: mentioned attack move

[Dragun101]

I miss days of 6-10 Percies killing DirectFire Experimental (NB this wasn’t good balance). But to build on Harzer:

First, I am shitty garbage noob player whose trying to balance with playtest help from far surperior players than I for SCTA(Balance). And in that process I do four things:

1. I use my vague gut looking at Unit DB assigning Stats and relative value. I do sandbox simulations then adjust
2. I use formula Harzer descrihed above to adjust again then do some adjustments. Based on Sandboxing and a couple test games
3. I get folks who aren’t shitty 1k globals to play games and watch both how they play and how the armies fight. Then adjust again.
4. I compare tje formula from 2 to determine relationships again see if anything in raw dps/mass ratio borked things after adjustments. Then I generally don’t do adjustments but keep these in mind as I watch games or sometimes pm folks I know better than me, thoughts or why certain FAF related balance changes were done so I can understand.
5. Well playtest.

As I can vouch for raw bp comparison for balance is actually terrible and results in very strange relationships not accounted for gameplay. One of the issues I ran into using Harzer’s formula’s at end not middle of the process as a fine tuning measure. It either result in units being notably weaker than they should had been. Or vastly stronger. Due to BuildPower relationships in addition to how game naturally flows.

A formula establishes a baseline it does not establish a balance

[moses_the_red]

@advena said in Points of Imbalance.:

All units start out off range
All units get into range ASAP
Using move order (No attack move)
No units leave firing range
No vet at start of fight
No unit try to retreat
No stealth or other dirty cybran tricks

ML: 20000 mass, 27500 BT
10 bricks: 12800 mass, 48000 BT
15 bricks: 19200 mass, 72000 BT

ML kills 10 bricks. 12000 hp remains
15 bricks kill ML. 8 bricks remains

30 bricks kill 2 ML. 17 remain
2ML kill 20 bricks. 15000+ hp remain

Just for lulz:
100 medusas (3600 mass) kill ML. 36 remain (5 killed by on death explosion)
Yet microed ML can avoid almost all damage

https://replay.faforever.com/13090487

Did some testing with different number of bricks
@moses_the_red said in Points of Imbalance.:

That sounds reasonable. I'd shoot for 13-14 bricks to kill a ML when micro'd well, and a similar 80-85% mass efficiency for bricks versus all assault experimentals.

Very close to current situation in direct fight
12 bricks die to ML
14 bricks kill ML

PS Attack move ML can die even to 10 bricks cos of attack order sorting and slow turret

edit: added build time to mass comparison
edit2: did some testing with different number of bricks
edit2: mentioned attack move

I think you missed the replay where I went up against Tagada (currently #3 in the world) and was able to consistently kill 15 or so bricks in an open area with a Monkeylord.

My 1v1 rating is about 700... If a 700 can kill 15-16 bricks consistently against the #3 player in the world... well... its not 13-14.

Its somewhere between 16 and 20. I was unable to kill 20, and was consistently able to kill 15-16. It was admittedly pretty close, so perhaps 16 is the limit, perhaps 17 is the limit. Perhaps with practice I could pull off 18, idk. The point is its too high.

For reference, at launch, it was general knowledge that 10-12 bricks would kill a Monkeylord, so you can see just how significant the T3 balance patch was for assault experimentals. We're not talking about a small change.

Here's the patch itself:

https://content.faforever.com/patchnotes/3696.html

How hard was the Brick hit with the nerfhammer? Pretty damn hard.

Health 9000->7500 ~ 17% decrease
Damage -> 17% decrase
Range -> 8.5% decrease
DPS -> 17% decrease

Its worth mentioning that changes like this are multiplicative. The brick isn't 17% less effective than it was. Its 1.17 * 1.17 * 1.085 times less effective. In real terms this is somewhere around a one third drop in unit effectiveness. You probably need 3 new bricks to be as effective as 2 of the old bricks. Interestingly this seems to mesh with notion that it takes 15-17 bricks to kill a ML where before it took 10-12.

That is a massive nerf to the brick.

And I'm not saying it wasn't justified. I like T2/T3 balance as it is more or less. There's more to that change set than just the balance dynamic between T3 land and assault experimentals.

But that kind of nerf with no corresponding nerf to assault experimentals has left T3 units in a terrible state relative to T4.

And its not just the brick (although perhaps the brick got it the worst) the entire slate of T3 units was hit in that patch.

Given that level of capability decrease of course T4 assault experimentals were going to wind up OP.

[advena]

@moses_the_red
I've seen your replay. You'll newer be able to micro ML like this outside of vacuum.
Even in your replay you loose if ML start retreating from not ideal vector

But there is simple solution I like (but can't estimate full effect it will have on balance):
Buff brick speed by 0.2

[moses_the_red]

@advena said in Points of Imbalance.:

@moses_the_red
I've seen your replay. You'll newer be able to micro ML like this outside of vacuum.
Even in your replay you loose if ML start retreating from not ideal vector

But there is simple solution I like (but can't estimate full effect it will have on balance):
Buff brick speed by 0.2

Its not just the brick, its all T3 units, check the patch notes for that patch.

Everything was hit.

Percival, Otthum, Loyalist, Harbinger and Titan.

The problem isn't that the Brick is underpowered. All T3 land is underpowered relative to T4 assault experimentals.

We nerfed all these T3 units without bothering to hit assault experimentals with corresponding combat effectiveness nerfs.

I've been talking bout Bricks and Monkeylords, because those are the units I'm most familiar with. I can make a case with those specific units rather clearly... but the problem isn't with just those units.

Also, speed is probably not the stat you want to buff or nerf, because whether it actually matters or not is hard to quantify.

If you buff the speed of a unit, but its still slower than a kiting unit, you really haven't changed the balance between the two.

Speed changes mostly matter at inflection points, points where you have enough speed to do something you couldn't do previously. They do strange non-linear things to balance. Range changes have the same issue.

I'd stick to just health and damage changes if I were the balance team. Those are easy to quantify.