Bad Teleport Upgrades

@ftxcommando said in Bad Teleport Upgrades:

Yeah but that also fails in 80% of your games and nearly always fails against decent dudes. If you’re playing mazornoob, make 5 extra spy planes because rather than continue scaling he makes secret tml base attempt once he has t2 eco.

I'd put it at around 60%. And that's really the whole point. I make a single 500 mass initial investment for a fair chance at making a TML base at a good spot. That's less than a single T2 arty transport drop and has potential for more damage. You'd also be surprised how many players still don't send scouts on patrol around their own bases.

@ftxcommando said in Bad Teleport Upgrades:

You need to play way more greedy than missing a simple radar blip for this stuff to do serious damage. And I’m all for making greedy play less optimal.

Obviously it won't work on 1v1 ladder, like many other things. But on teamgames where you don't always keep tabs on what other players are doing, that's an option. I did enough desparate-but-embarrassing mazer drops on higher level players in teamgames to know.

First, it isn't that cheap because you're spending the mass on transport, engies/bricks, t2 air and/or t2 land, and if it is engies then on the tml/pd/facs to make those drops worth anything. Second, this upgrade requires an idle ACU, at least 2 t3 pgens of useless power not making anything, and a T3 ACU still getting upgrades. There is a TON of telegraphing that something is happening so not only do you need to play max greed with no intel protection on your side, but you also need to not respect your opponent at all and think they're too dumb to do anything except sit there and lose.

Beyond that, a handful of spy planes cost essentially nothing and counter exactly what you're saying. The reason nobody does it is because nobody bothers with drop cancer so nobody feels the need to do the counter. You do it a lot, so the counter is made, and it isn't a problem for anybody that knows it is coming. It's no different with a teleport at this pricepoint.

It IS that cheap, assuming you're going T2 land, which you usually already are. 120 mass for a transport, 200 for a deceiver, 120 for a T2 engie. Possibly another 100 for T1 engies. The only risk is in getting to position, once you make a radar and confirm the location is safe all further mass investment is safe. Worst case scenario, you ctrl-k and reclaim everything after being spotted. In all my games I only had one where my opponent was smart enough to scout me, let me land, invest mass, then destroy it before I'm done.

As for max greed being easy to spot, maybe. My experience says it's not always the case and there are ways to mitigate. Upgrading underwater, using air player overflow, spending 5 minutes upgrading on T2 pgens + overflow instead of being greedy and making T3 pgens to get the upgrade 30 seconds faster all can help. Maybe at highest levels scaling is so optimized that one can tell when someone's not scaling as fast as he should, I dunno.

Being underwater requires your ACU not being at front, meaning you're either safe getting RAS for scale or doing cheese upgrades. Or you're just bad. It's a telegraph.

Using air player overflow requires an air player that is not producing air or your air player is just bad. Still a telegraph.

If you made more than 2 t2 pgens in a teamgame, that's a telegraph of cheese of some sort.

I still succeeded pretty often and that's including telegraphing a T2 air fac + stealth T2 transport + the risk of getting the commander to land safely next to another one at the time there are SAMs/ASFs present so I don't know. Maybe it's a top 20 thing. I still get the feeling that having a tele only slightly more expensive than mazer that also sidesteps all the risky aspects of a comdrop is a recipe for cancer.

Also note that 2 T2 pgens and random teammate overflow is perfectly serviceable for a 6 minute mazer.

Is there a way to alter upgrades when mixed with another upgrade?

So, Chrono can work like standard but when paired with Tele, it gets an absurd buff to help in Telesnipes?
Perhaps shutting down bases and units with heavy AoE damage and stun effects?

~ Stryker

having different costs for exactly the same thing between different factions makes no sense imo, if specific faction's teleporter would be cheaper, then it also needs to be proportionally weaker (limited range, longer teleport time, both) to compensate, balance is irrelevant

what is needed is to have something worth getting the teleporter for for uef and aeon, like cybran and sera already have (absurd dps) rather than mess with its costs, if you want these factions to use teleporter in same way as other 2, separating teleporter from billy so you can have both for example sounds fine to me, idk what aeon can get to have a use for it though, but don't forget aeon already have tele-instant-gc from sacu capability for their teleporter gameplay, meme or not, does every faction even need to be equally strong in teleport gameplay in first place?

@comradestryker said in Bad Teleport Upgrades:

Is there a way to alter upgrades when mixed with another upgrade?

So, Chrono can work like standard but when paired with Tele, it gets an absurd buff to help in Telesnipes?
Perhaps shutting down bases and units with heavy AoE damage and stun effects?

---

~ Stryker

teleporter itself could have an "upgrade" that only works if you have it first (like t3 engineering suite needing t2 first to be able to upgrade to, in this case tele leading to chrono v2, call it telechrono upgrade, so you have upgrade paths like (tele) -> (tele+chrono v2), (chrono v1)), the "new" chrono upgrade to tele, because it is technically a new different upgrade in code, could then have different stats compared to alone one (normal chrono you can get without getting tele first) to buff its use only when you have both, of course, nothing is stopping someone from just getting this upgrade and using it without using tele just because it is stronger than "normal" one, but at least they would need to get both, the chrono upgrade could then also have its own teleporter upgrade it leads to of its own, which could also be balanced around it differently and which has different stats compared to chrono itself and teleporter itself when they are alone

“having diff costs for the same thing make no sense”

nano.

If you want to argue it’s diff cuz it gives diff hp and regen, then get rid of the 10k e cost for the new tele and now it’s consistent.

@mach said in Bad Teleport Upgrades:

then it also needs to be proportionally weaker (limited range, longer teleport time, both) to compensate, balance is irrelevant

What? The weakness is that Aeon literally only has t3 ACU as the teleport utility. That is a weakness because, currently, that is all UEF and Aeon teleport ACU can do. And with that current ability, it is used zero times in a serious game.

To make a useless ability useful, you add value to the ability. UEF has the option of a “win game” utility in the form of billy, so that’s an option. Aeon doesn’t. I’m not a fan of adding new upgrades that serve no purpose except to give value to tele, so I’d rather give Aeon a cheaper teleport that gives a window for a T3 ACU teleport to be viable.

same way as other 2,

I don’t. I want all ACU upgrades viable. At the pricepoint of default teleport, that means it must win the game when used. A cheaper teleport can have utility beyond killing air grid/game ender/ACU.

don't forget aeon already have tele-instant-gc from sacu capability for their teleporter gameplay, meme or not, does every faction even need to be equally strong in teleport gameplay in first place?

Sera has teleport SACUs that are almost impossible to kill quickly enough for them to not destroy a game ender. Does that mean Sera should lose double gun teleport capability? No, that’s an SACU question and making an ability useless to justify balance elsewhere is horrible game design. Either remove the ability or make it viable.

And yes, if teleport is at the pricepoint where it needs to win a game to justify the expense, then every faction needs that capability. Otherwise, the ability is a noobtrap and needs to be removed as an option.

FWIW I don’t really care if a max range is attached to a cheaper teleport ability, I just don’t think it’s essential when the only pertinent cancer danger is a stealth tml base which has plenty of counterplay.

@ftxcommando said in Bad Teleport Upgrades:

@mach said in Bad Teleport Upgrades:

then it also needs to be proportionally weaker (limited range, longer teleport time, both) to compensate, balance is irrelevant

What? The weakness is that Aeon literally only has t3 ACU as the teleport utility. That is a weakness because, currently, that is all UEF and Aeon teleport ACU can do. And with that current ability, it is used zero times in a serious game.

To make a useless ability useful, you add value to the ability. UEF has the option of a “win game” utility in the form of billy, so that’s an option. Aeon doesn’t. I’m not a fan of adding new upgrades that serve no purpose except to give value to tele, so I’d rather give Aeon a cheaper teleport that gives a window for a T3 ACU teleport to be viable.

I don't mind adding viability to other faction's acu teleports by making them able to do something <unique per faction> more once teleported in than just stealth tml base, which is why I said I don't mind uef being able to get both teleport and billy, I have problem with making it cheaper for one faction to get the exact same thing another faction has to pay (way) more for, which would be the cheaper teleporter upgrade, for another reason because it is unintuitive, and idk what exactly aeon acu could get that can be used similarly other than buffed up chrono someone else suggested, and even that seems underpowered in comparison, but even that sounds like far better solution to me than making it cheaper for them and only them, we just need to find what exactly aeon should be able to combo the teleport with

another thing is, you are now introducing more teleport stuff into the game that was only really having teleports used by cybran and sera (and aeon teleporting gcs) in late game, without adding appropriate countermeasures to it, I don't like the idea of game turning into blackops mod with anti teleport towers and whatever once it is realized how powerful cheaper teleports can be to warrant balancing the game further around it, which would happen by having teleports become commonplace through price reductions and becoming just another conventional tactic that happens every game rather than something more rare to see unless it is past late game, price reduction would cause this because it would become a viable option earlier than currently is, while letting acus get their unique ways of doing something once teleported in (such as teleport + billy) would not because costs would keep them prohibitive enough that they don't happen earlier while still being viable

the game just doesn't seem designed around teleporting as a common tactic to me in general, there is no built-in teleport intel (other than one added by FAF which isn't even intel, just an effect you can't see unless you zoom in) nor built-in anti-teleport defenses other than pd spam or units waiting for teleport to snipe the teleported unit, which shows to me it was originally supposed to be a game-ender thing (high costs, no obvious counters), and reducing its costs would definitely make it more commonly used and importantly used earlier while maintaining the game ender uncounterability unless even more new stuff is introduced or rebalanced around it

before you accuse me of appeal to authority or whatever, it doesn't matter what the original developers wanted it to be used for, I'm saying you will turn it into something else if you change its costs and will have to deal with the consequences of it and all the rebalancing that will be needed to keep the new costs, some of which goes past just teleports themselves and into its effects on rest of the game that it wasn't originally designed around

like just imagine having an enemy aeon and cybran players in same game and worrying more about the aeon player teleporting rather than cybran, the most feared teleporters to anyone in FAF, because aeon for some reason can get the same thing cheaper now

@ftxcommando said in Bad Teleport Upgrades:

Sera has teleport SACUs that are almost impossible to kill quickly enough for them to not destroy a game ender. Does that mean Sera should lose double gun teleport capability? No, that’s an SACU question and making an ability useless to justify balance elsewhere is horrible game design. Either remove the ability or make it viable.

I'm just saying aeon and sera as you said already have viable teleports in non-acu units, which while it isn't on acu, is still teleport and thus relevant for teleport balance, I'm worried more about the teleports themselves becoming too common like I said, and the ensuing revelation that the game wasn't designed around them being such

@ftxcommando said in Bad Teleport Upgrades:

“having diff costs for the same thing make no sense”

nano.

If you want to argue it’s diff cuz it gives diff hp and regen, then get rid of the 10k e cost for the new tele and now it’s consistent.

it is not only different hp and regen, but also different slots, uef nano uses arm (engineering suite) slot while sera one uses back unit slot (teleport, missile) because of which it is slightly more complicated than outright same slot (back) same upgrade (teleporter) being cheaper because faction is aeon and not sera, it would be like one faction having engineers cost half the other faction ones do, yes exaggeration but you get the point, same thing, different costs, no sense, if it must be cheaper then it must be weaker, but I instead suggest making it possible to pair it up with something unique and worthwhile like other factions have (telemazer, tele double gun, tele billy?) because of other reasons I stated above and because it would have same effect (viable use) without all those potential problems from cheaper costs

@ftxcommando said in Bad Teleport Upgrades:

What? The weakness is that Aeon literally only has t3 ACU as the teleport utility. That is a weakness because, currently, that is all UEF and Aeon teleport ACU can do. And with that current ability, it is used zero times in a serious game.

tldr: hence I suggest add another utility to aeon to combo teleport with rather than reducing its costs, just like tele billy for uef

Moving the upgrade to the right arm + cheaper cost would mean the Aeon can mix it in and obtain it much easier and quicker with ARAS, too.

Granted, not the best combo for offense but a great combo for Teleporting everywhere without an economy to back it up; which could either be:
A - a toxic strategy to prolong a game, or
B - a way for them to set up shop anywhere without the need for much economical foundation.

But, that's not much of a point. A main point I'd like to make is that, if an upgrade -that moves your commander anywhere almost instantly, away from danger, behind enemy lines, setting up a new/proxy base, etc.- becomes cheap enough thus easier to obtain, that's just asking for imbalance.

On top of that, the Aeon ACU is already the strongest ACU early game. Giving it the option to be the one of, if not, the 'strongest' ACU late-game, too, by making such a strong upgrade so easy to obtain...
well, I don't think that is not the way to go.

The Teleport upgrade alone already opens up so many plays on its own. Pairing that with other upgrades means even more plays.
Making it cheaper means you can make those plays much easier and quicker.

I say to just move the upgrade and find another way to balance it. Either by giving Chrono some massive buff when paired with Tele or by adding in some other utility, but reducing the cost without reducing the effectiveness of it... just no.

~ Stryker

How's the viability of a t3 Bubble sheild uef com teleports close to a com with tele defense and builds t1 pd right next to the com to snipe the com?

Being able to teleport any distance from any location is a very powerful ability. It can only be healthy in the far endgame where the enemy can usually squash your commander like a bug, even with upgrades. So making it cheaper seems really risky. But moving the arm could work. You need to teleport back to safety relatively quickly or guarantee you do game ending damage. Therefore you need the ability to do a large amount of damage in a short time window to go along with the teleport. The teleport itself is only useful as a facilitator of this damage dealing ability. It can't really be used for expansion nor commander protection due to the price and teleport animation/ E cost, which is good in both cases for this game. UEF has Billy, which can work, but unless you give Aeon com a big shotgun it's not going to work.

I think that the spirit of teleportation was escape/movement. The fact that it can be used offensively might be unintentional, but possible. Cybran do it the most effectively, Seraphim can too but not as well (Gun splash, that's another story), Aeon and UEF are not even a question. Why spend the resources on a teleport module if you'll be better served putting it into something else (As a UEF/Aeon player)? It costs a ton of power to build and a ton to actually do the teleport. By the time you have the base structure to support Teleport, you could do an Experimental of some kind, or get to work on a T3 art, ot build a teleporter and move to the other side of the map as your base falls apart because you spend viable resources on a teleporter.

Making the teleport cheaper could throw a heavy wrench in game balance and change the way any game goes. Having a Cybran Mazer snipe appear sooner sounds pretty scary, but at the same time if the Cybran commander teleports in and no one's home because they teleported out and 10 T1 PD is waiting, that's comedy. Bases could pop up anyone. I imagine people would start making Teleport traps, consisting of a bunch of T1 PD, trying to catch someone expanding.

If the Teleport modules are moved to different limbs, that's better for the UEF because they could load up a Billy, launch it and then try to disappear immediately after. The Aeon could get a heavy shield and teleport which doesn't sound too appealing, or ARAS and teleport which gives you a mobile economy. Could an Aeon ARAS pay for the cost of a Teleport on its own? I don't know off-hand. Chrono doesn't stun turrets/buildings so it can't be used as some kind of Chrono Bomb, the ACU would not be able to do enough damage to another ACU to make it worth some kind of assault/snipe/raid.

Though it's going in a different direction, what if the Aeon could "store" a teleport. You manually teleport somewhere, raid something, then instantly spend your stored charge to escape. This would be a wild departure, likely too much.

If Chrono allowed Aeon commander to do full OC damage to unshielded buildings, then moving teleport to arm would give it viability, while still making shielded pd a counter.

Sounds pretty good. I like the idea of aeon being more aggressive with shield acu, then tele'ing out if shield gets too low or an exp appears. Maybe aeon could get their 40k hp shield upgrade back as a 3rd shield upgrade.

Tele + oc against fatboy sounds like a great new meme. UEF being so cheap can suicide a disposable player for max gains. Maybe it's not so bad since you get fatboy reclaim. T3 + tele + oc so you can start reclaiming it instantly for max bm. Maybe a reason to not make tele too cheap. Maybe it's fine if you just move fatboy out the way or have parashields around, which you should anyway, but you could easily lose a game if you aren't watching for a bit.

Edit:
Alternatively you could tele onto a fatboy under construction and kill the entire thing in one go.

Just tossing ideas coz I'm bored, but maybe have a com possess a 'flash teleport' instead of the regular? What how why?

The idea is, when you get a teleport upgrade, you can create a teleport charge (sorta like a TML) - and then, once charged, you can use it with very short delay (say 5 seconds or something) to teleport a very short distance away (like T1 PD range), after which a new charge would start charging. This could be used to evade snipes or cross some rough terrain - or blip into the enemy front-line and start wreaking havoc with your OC and whatnot. I'm not getting into the pricing of this right now, but ofc it wouldn't be so cheap and fast to recharge that you could just hop your way across the map while the enemy is still upgrading to T2 - it'd be a tactical positioning tool which while lacking in range, would compensate in speed of activation and being able to prepare it ahead of time (unlike the conventional teleport, which drains resources as you are teleporting).

Another could be AOE teleport - seems it could be fitting for Aeon, but it doesn't really matter. The simple idea is, it teleports some units along with the ACU to the designated location. Maybe have it 3 levels, which limit it to transferring T1/T2/T3 units, and with limited amounts (say 5/10/15 unit cap total). Also maybe have it not transport things that would appear too strong, like sACUs (though maybe why not?) and ofc experimentals (though that should be evident from the 'tech limit' of T3). Maybe the range could also increase with level (from a smaller range of say TML, up to global for last upgrade level).