How do you feel about recent Navy changes?

In the last patch (forum post, patchnotes) we've introduced an array of changes meant to make navy more fun and balanced during the T1 and T2 stage. What are your experiences so far, are you enjoying these new changes? Do you think they were too much, insufficient, or just right? Please share your experiences below so we can make further tweaks and adjustments.

In your feedback, it's helpful to include what kind of maps did you play as the balance works differently depending on the map. For example on a very open map frigates are a lot stronger than on a closed one with little space.

Not a fan of the normalization of all factions to basically have the same playstyle in navy. I can only hope the recent changes are meant to form a foundation in which a more healthy factional navy dynamic can be built upon.

aeon frigs got normalized by making them viable hate to hear it

I don't think (aeon) ladder players were a fan of getting cybran frigated either. I think t1 navy is more dynamic now if anything now that aeon frigates have more range
aeon destros are still very strong from what i've seen so it's not like their dynamic of wanting t2 navy asap has changed, they now just have somewhat human frigates that actually allow them to get to t2

@thewheelie said in How do you feel about recent Navy changes?:

aeon frigs got normalized by making them viable hate to hear it

Put it this way, there are better ways to make UEF navy viable than just giving them satisfactory destro buffs to make mass frigs into destro transition aka generic gameplay for every other faction now the way to play them.

Part of the reason navy converges to some monotone mean of gameplay is the refusal to play around with costs imo. Like why is everyone so adamant on destros costing identical mass when this doesn’t exist in any other sphere of the game besides ints and asfs? Same with cruisers? Same with t2 subs?

It’s just insanely depressing when the angle for balance goes towards the mean rather than finding a unique equilibrium for everyone by looking at variables beyond hp and dps and range. Ffs like nobody even touches any SPEED of destros they’re all the SAME.

Like if every faction was MANDATED to have 1 t2 tank, 1 amphib tank, and 1 flak and each costs 200 mass, then there isn’t really much variety you can do under these restrictions either. The units must be within some margin of say 5% effectiveness against its similar units.

UEF in particular boils my denim with this shit because gpg devs spoonfed a need to have a unique navy style at t2 stage but instead the meta is to make absolutely minimal quantities of coopers and hope u can just run into a similar mass frig into later destro spam player. It sucks. Cooper is treated as an inconvenience in UEF roster and everything would be made so much easier for the game if it didn’t exist and UEF could just not spend 33% of a destro to get their torps floating around on 50 hp. That’s ruining faction dynamics to make the game balanced, but it just is terrible balancing.

a cheap destro sounds fun

@waffelznoob said in How do you feel about recent Navy changes?:

I don't think (aeon) ladder players were a fan of getting cybran frigated either. I think t1 navy is more dynamic now if anything now that aeon frigates have more range
aeon destros are still very strong from what i've seen so it's not like their dynamic of wanting t2 navy asap has changed, they now just have somewhat human frigates that actually allow them to get to t2

btw don’t get me wrong, you just can’t have much variety in t1 stage and I don’t really mind the normalization of frigs much. T1 is the map control insurance stage, you need similar units because you need similar mass level efficiency to not create a snowball disasterclass situation when both players are playing exactly the same at game start and minimal room for outplaying actually existed. This is how you get navy meta of “I didn’t roll cybran so I will ignore navy fully and just make torps.”

That’s why I think the lab change but more the flare change specifically as one of the objectively best balance decisions done by FAF for the game. It managed to resolve a big issue with Aeon t1 roster without directly normalizing the tank, an incredibly hard task for such a normalized segment of the game.

I’d also say this is why shard is one of the worst things FAF ever inherited from GPG.

Make Wagners somewhat usable to get back in water now that Cybran frig has been toned down

Navy remains my most hated thing to play, thought air isn't far behind. I'll continue hosting mapgens that don't require navy

I'll shove my idea here with zero shame about it, right now there is no solid reason on why navy factories would not be able to build hover units. They can build aeon and Serra engies (that can hover) so there should be a reason for navy be able to build hover type units to add extra variety of units to the mix. As far as navy changes goes it is still very much balanced by the numbers with not that many faction traits being shown, even less now then before. Will note I only ever played 4 navy games with three being on dualgap and one on eye of the storm map so take that input as you see fit.

The cybran frig range is annoying to play with. Mexes other frigates can reach are now out of range.

I'm mostly surprised by how big of a difference the aeon and cybran frig range adjustments have made to the feel of both. Especially aeon v cybran t1 navy is not only playable now, the range difference actually makes the frig encounter much more asymmetrical than I'd have expected. All around good stuff imo.

I weirdly kind of miss being threatened by aeon destros though. The 10 less range makes playing against them quite a bit easier as, even when they are controlled by a good player, they get less shots of "for free". idk, I just kinda miss their oppressiveness??

While I'd phrase it differently, FTX is imo right in that t2 navy feels more samey now. Playing around with the destro costs does seem like a reasonable approach. This is very much a setoner's opinion though, where t2 navy probably matters the least, so idk how to do that in a balanced way.

Rescaling the shield boat seems to be a success so far in that it's a buff to uef t2 navy. Not sure about the t3 lategame navy, but the one time I got to make a couple uef BS it didn't really feel like anything had changed, besides that you want less mass in shield boats now. Making the uef BS slightly faster was almost certainly a good idea though.

Just a quick note that aside from the cybran/aeon frig range changes (which add more diversity) the t1/t2 navy changes were mostly there as a temporary fix to make some units (cybran frig/aeon destro) less oppressive and others slightly less bad (uef destro) that were added right before the patch.

@thewheelie said in How do you feel about recent Navy changes?:

Just a quick note that aside from the cybran/aeon frig range changes (which add more diversity) the t1/t2 navy changes were mostly there as a temporary fix to make some units (cybran frig/aeon destro) less oppressive and others slightly less bad (uef destro) that were added right before the patch.

Yeah on a statline basis they became more diversified, but I mostly refer to the "role" of the unit. The frigs all operate in the same "role" even though the statelines themselves became more diversified. It isn't like obsidian operating in a different role from a pillar but closer to a hoplite having different stats from a mongoose. Which isn't a problem for t1 units btw, that is just how the initial tech level has to work.

The changes to make salem have an easier time shooting backwards, have an easier time getting into range of Aeon destro, etc just work to converge everything to the same role.

@ftxcommando said in How do you feel about recent Navy changes?:

have an easier time getting into range of Aeon destro, etc just work to converge everything to the same role.

Just a quick note that aside from the cybran/aeon frig range changes (which add more diversity) the t1/t2 navy changes were mostly there as a temporary fix to make some units (cybran frig/aeon destro) less oppressive and others slightly less bad (uef destro) that were added right before the patch.

Listen buddy you said the frig change adds diversity, but it doesn't change anything about how frigs play out in their role.

entire t3 rebalance summed up

@thewheelie

So the cybran frig cost increase is temporary? Will it be reverted back to its previous value?