Restructure air by delaying tech 3 air
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I agree that there are better solutions. But I think the changes I propose take us one step in the right direction. I also do not have the statistics or time to delve into the matter deeper, as I suspect once you start changing one aspect of air then you end up having to change other aspects too.
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This is not the solution I'd go for. I'd rather reduce the powerspike at the beginning of t3 air.
- ground to air before sams/t3maa doesnt damage strats if microed properly
- all air units get slaughtered by asf extremely cost efficiently (mass wise, even if you consider the mass cost of t3 pgen requirement)
- mobile flak is too weak against t2 air so any nerf to t3 air makes t2 air even more dominant (unless it's shielded at least)
- acus in general are pretty easy to snipe which makes t2 air potentially really toxic. Partially this is a consequence of: mobile flak being weak, acu being extremely high dps and relatively low hp (counting gun and overcharge. If you count oc with t2 pgen this is probably the highest dps/hp unit in the game besides mercy), lack of incremental defensive acu upgrades (especially since u have to commit to wasting time afking acu to even get one)
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Anything that delays Strat bomber rush is good in my book. Maps with dedicated air slot too often result in games where the team with the first Strat bomber out (and wrecks eco of opposing air player) gains (in all likelihood) permanent air superiority, resulting in a win 10 or 15 mnutes later. For all other players in the losing team, those 10/15 minutes feel utterly futile. Build AA? Lose your lane. Win your lane? Get eco/power sniped from air etc etc
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This is not the solution I'd go for.
This isn't intended as the only solution - just a step in the right direction.
ground to air before sams/t3maa doesnt damage strats if microed properly
Strats fly at a height of 20, which is quite high. Tech 1 and 2 (M)AA would be a lot more effective if the average elevation of an air unit was a few units lower. I'd also argue that strats should not move faster than a tech 1 interceptor
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I don't think this is something that can really be fixed simply by adjusting costs, build times, etc.
Personally I think air needs to be rebalanced as a whole. T3 is always going to be rushed to simply because the first team with it has such a massive advantage. T2 air snipes will always be an efficiency goldmine because the cost to stop one is way more than the cost to execute one.
The first problem being that you will always need to invest more in static and mobile AA to deter t2/t3 air snipes than the player investing in the snipe will, not including what you'll lose due to said snipes or bombing runs. Whether this is actually a problem or just a fact of life, is up to the balance team. Either static AA needs to be cheaper, or mobile AA needs to be stronger.
Next, not having T2 fighters for all factions is what leads to ASF being to OP in the first place. Inties will simply never stand up to ASF. If players had better options for T2 air-to-air, I don't think we'd see the rush to T3 be so mandatory.
Obviously this isn't a total solution, but I think these two things would go further than adjusting build times and such.
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Giving the inti sufficient hit points so that it doesn't get one shot would help a long way to stand up against ASFs
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@jip said in Restructure air by delaying tech 3 air:
Giving the inti sufficient hit points so that it doesn't get one shot would help a long way to stand up against ASFs
Yeah but then you’re making it so inties intercepting a transport or bomber need less worry about avoiding defending inties.
This would lead to the same issue I have with the 135 hp flare which will go after expanding engineers and not give a damn about guarding tanks as it has plenty hp to survive….
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Or you reduce the damage of an ASF - whatever direction works.
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I agree with Jip here
In my humble opinion delaying T3 air at least for a few more minutes will give other land based players a better opportunity to defend themselves from that early T3 air aggression, and allowing for more dynamic air play at the T1/T2 phase.
So if there is no dedicated air slot it will make it a lot harder for a player to rush T3 air and make them more vulnerable to ground attack before they can make an overwhelming air force and dominate the game.
I cant count the number of games ive played where myself and others have said oh Sh*****t they have T3 air and we dont GG
and as Jip said its not a complete fix of all issues raised, merely a step in the right direction.
Also as Blodir and Snagglefox said T2 flak is quite week and T2 bombers are strong so maybe theres room for adjustments there too. Personaly i would half the damage of T2 bombers so they are less effective at sniping and more of a supporting unit while improving air - air capabilities.
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Half the damage of t2 bombers and you just immediately dumpstered a full half of the comeback mechanics in the game.
How about you halve ACU dps so you don’t need to send it out at min 2 in teamgames 4head
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@snagglefox said in Restructure air by delaying tech 3 air:
Next, not having T2 fighters for all factions is what leads to ASF being to OP in the first place. Inties will simply never stand up to ASF. If players had better options for T2 air-to-air, I don't think we'd see the rush to T3 be so mandatory.
This is so ridiculously overstated. Has anybody here tried to beat titans with strikers? Titans with ilshies? The former you automatically lose harder than ints lose against asf. The latter is quite similar to janus/notha/swifty/int blob situation. If dude with ASF sends in 10 or less, they die and you snowball an air lead. If he builds up his blob and keeps it safe, he wins and you lose the game if you failed to do the correct level of damage for your team to compensate your delayed air. I’ve managed to maintain air control with janus against ASF to min 30 in a game btw.
“oh but air is so different from land because it can get anywhere.” You can t1 transport percies in front of ACUs minute 9 on any generic teamgame map and instantly kill the ACU if it doesnt have either a lot of t2 support, t3 units within 30 seconds, or is Aeon.
The concept of “delayed air” being “air that isn’t an immediate t3 rush” is no different than every land slot in a teamgame being “delayed” because they are always gauged with the benchmark of a player rushing t3 land since somebody, somewhere on the map is doing it. If your long stay on t1 or t2 doesn’t compensate in value compared to that player, you will lose just the same.
I very rarely get t3 land 2 minutes later than t3 air is out, at best 1 strat will go around and kill 5-6 mexes spread across 4 players. That should not destroy your game unless it’s a map those 5-6 strat bombs can hit 10-12 mexes. The exception here is when I intentionally play to extend t2 land stage, just as I night extend t2 air stage. However, it’s basically impossible to NOT get good value for t2 air while it’s super easy to fail to get value for your t2 land since the former has a whole map to find weakpoints and the latter requires specific conditions at a specific point on the map.
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@ftxcommando said in Restructure air by delaying tech 3 air:
How about you halve ACU dps so you don’t need to send it out at min 2 in teamgames 4head
Funnily enough this is a direction I'm interested in investigating x)
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@blodir said in Restructure air by delaying tech 3 air:
@ftxcommando said in Restructure air by delaying tech 3 air:
How about you halve ACU dps so you don’t need to send it out at min 2 in teamgames 4head
Funnily enough this is a direction I'm interested in investigating x)
What? Why?
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I’d like to see AoE added to other Air Units AA. Restorers for example. Or see Czar and Ripper be remade more dedicated AA units. Also insert moaning about ATP.
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There are a few problems regarding T3 air:
- ASF are OP.
- ASF blobs can wreck mildly smaller ASF blobs.
- Strats are too hard to counter without ASF on maps with a large spread of mexes.
Here are some respective solutions:
- Nerf ASF dps.
- Make each faction have a t2 or t3 air unit with decent aa aoe.
- Make strats slower with higher health.
An alternative or additional idea would be to provide each faction with a t2 missile aa unit with a very low rof, very large range, and high damage.
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@blodir said in Restructure air by delaying tech 3 air:
@ftxcommando said in Restructure air by delaying tech 3 air:
How about you halve ACU dps so you don’t need to send it out at min 2 in teamgames 4head
Funnily enough this is a direction I'm interested in investigating x)
I only said it as a half joke, it’s an idea Blackheart would always tell me as a solution to this stuff.
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I do agree T3 air is an issue and it needs to be delayed. Compare it to T3 Land, getting T3 land doesn't produce results as quickly as T3 air.
T2 land can still beat T3 land or stop it and ACU with OC just cancels out early T3 land most of the time. Plus it takes a looooong time for your T3 land to become useful.
T3 air can go from 0 to 100 grossly quick. 1 Strat bomber can wreck everything if opponent doesn't match with T3 air immediately. Literally the current teamgame meta is someone has to go T3 air or most of the time the game is lost due to 1 strat killing all T2 mexes it can find. This makes the game very stale.
Idk about the 20 guys that are +2k and have perfect games where T2 air is busted or something but anything below that rating (or at least in my 1.5k experience), T3 air is king. T3 navy and T3 land take normal progression to become relevant while T3 air pays off almost instantly and cancels out T2 and T1 air.
Even if nerfing T3 air makes T2 air more relevant, thats perfectly fine with me. I want to see more of t1-t2 air stage on teamgames than the classic just rush t3 air because making t2 air = lose
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ur nuts if u think t2 air = lose, one of the ultimate pathways of overratedness since 2014 FAF has been the perfidious teamgame corsair sniper
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MML's are currently underutilized - let their missiles track and hit air targets
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Sadly I don't think there is an easy way to make T3 air more engaging/less oppressive.
Slightly delaying T3 air (by like a minute) and/or increasing its cost wont change the meta really, it will just delay ASFs a bit and make both side's ASF clouds a bit smaller, but you are still heavily incentivized to rush them as the only counter to your opponents ASF are your own.
Heavily delaying air (by more than like a minute) and/or increasing its cost will change the meta, but only to the much more toxic T2 bomber all-in strategy described by FTX, now being forced in every game.
(Honestly, my gut instinct is that if you had two decently competent, coordinating, try harding teams on both sides of every match with the current balance, T2 bomber strategies already should be pretty oppressive on many if not most maps. Imo the only reason that they aren't is due to the missing coordination/try-harding.)
