I want to start a newthread with my thoughts on balance. As the bonus I will also write of what I think about Aeon in general.
Tech 1:
Navy:
Subs - As I have already mentioned in the balance patch feedback thread, I have a feeling that subs buff was not good. I totally agree that they need a buff, but in HP is not the buff that is needed in my opinion. The fact that the balance was made for torps to unable to one shot subs is making them too strong.Firstly, because torps are more expensive in energy, 2.5 times more than sub, also u have to add the cost of the technology, air factory hq costs 920 mass and 18K extra in order to counter those subs (We do not consider now torpedo launchers, as in the patch notes was clearly said that the buff was aimed to make subs suffer 2 shot from torpedo bomber). So if we just count that I have invested mass in torps and t2 air and have 6 torps against 6 subs, which is 1620 mass and 48K energy against 2160 mass 17K energy. Not fair that u have to invest so much resources in something that can be so easily countered. So, basically, now the game encourages "turtle" gameplay. It is very hard to agress against the guy who has 2-3 t1 subs more, whereas u have 3 frigs more. T2 air rush was an risky agression and an open gameplay.
Hard to scout them:
The other issue in t1 subs is that you never see them with scout before an attack, t3 scout is required, or u scout with a ship, mainly ur own frig, which is very risky and expensive. So given that you want to play agressively you will be risking too much and not always the risk will be paid off.
Sera subs
It is an other topic of how powerful they became because of the anti torpedo buff. If they are stacked with shift g, you will be needing 3 shots of torpedo bomber to kill one subs.
Why is it a turtle gameplay?
Imagine my opponent has not invested resources in t2 air and invested resources in t1 interceptors instead. I invested 920 mass and 18K energy in T2 air HQ and my oppnent spent 900 mass and 40K energy in 18 interceptors, which easily kill all the bombers I have.
So in the end of the day I spent 2540 mass and 56K energy and my opponent invested 3060 mass and 57K energy. I can really deal NO damage to my opponent in that case. Even if I add 2 more torps and spend same amount of mass on that I can deal NO damage to that. And also I have not considered the resource of build power, t2 torps cost more in bp than the subs. So it makes no sense to make them die from 2 shots of torpedo bombers.
If someone wants to doubt it, we can have a discussion in voice channel or test it in sandbox, where my opponent will try to crush me with an agressive gameplay of t2 air rush. But this is a pure mathematics, I can easily spam certain amount of subs, 1 sub more than my opp spams frigs, spam t1 air, and go eco. In the end of the day, my tactic will be hard to crush easily, and this gameplay is quite easy to play.
I heard an argument, that this was made to prevent a big advantage in team games, where one navy player gets 1 torp from air player and second does not. I totally agree on advantage, but I do not think it is unfair. Whenever air helps to teammate, specially in team games, it can be counted as unfair but that is how the teamplay works. We have tons of examples, where player gets a decent advantage when getting a help from air teammate. Janus can kill a big army, t1 bomber can kill engies on expansion which can be also harmful. The gameplay where air player can play more active is what this game needs, cause otherwise air could just play simcity untill t3 stage and there is less ways to punish their team for a passive gameplay.
My suggestion on that:
As t1 subs still get crashed by t1 torpedo launcher (except for sera), I feel that they need to be cheaper OR they need to have more DPS. Both of the options causes an agressive and more open gameplay compared to HP buff.
Land:
The biggest problem in t1 land I have met is aeon land. Yes they do require more skill, I admit it, but generally they are weaker than any other t1 land.
Disadvantages:
- Low HP/mass relation of auroras compared to other factions. You get 5.18 HP for 1 mass in sera's case, 5.35 HP for 1 mass in UEF's case, 4.82 HP for 1 mass in cybran's case and 2.87 HP for 1 mass in aeon's case.
Compensation:
They have a decent range, which allows them to start firing first in case of tanks vs tanks war. - One of the biggest disadvantages of this is being extremely vulnarable to t1 bombers attack, which just one shots them and u lose enormous amount of DPS of your army. No faction is so vulnerable to t1 bombers attack. Why is it so powerful against aeon and weak against other factions? Because t1 bombers attack is often something u can not prevent for 100%, it is hard to make them not to shoot at all, and with a single shot they will be paying off, I just need to make my opp focus on something else.
Compensation:
I do not really see any compensation for this disadvantage, if you know it, tell me please, may be t1 aa could be made more powerful for aeon? - Low speed. What I personally hate in auroras is the fact that they are extremely bad in catching enemy raids. The gameplay of auroras is not just pushing forward, but trying to hold distance. When it comes to playing against cybran, for example, and your opponent makes a raid of 5 mantis, u would need about 7-8 auroras to kill them, since you will not be keeping distance, and the speed here is so painful, as you will never be able to properly catch them, they will be delivering a big damage to the economy, if used smartly.
Compensation:
?Hover ability? - for what I think their speed is compensated by a hover ability of auroras. I personally do not think this is enough, cause it makes aeon so powerful on certain maps(where u have water and get this compensation) and so weak on other maps (where u have no compensation for low speed). So it makes aeon kind of not skill-dependent, but map-dependent faction, but may be that is something what balance team wants, tell me if that is made so on purpose.
My suggestion:
The hover ability of aeon can be removed or not, does not play any role for me, but I think auroras should be buffed in movement speed, in order to allow them to move faster to catch those raids and to dodge against t1 air. Someone can say that in that case they can become too powerful against other tanks. But I can include in my spam some arty with tanks and the range will not play so big role, cause aeon has the worst arty in case of attacking mobile units. It is very good againsts buildings usually, like facs or pgens.
Tech 2:
Navy:
Here is the biggest discussion about t2 navy. Thanks a lot to @SpikeyNoob to test with us in sandbox and at least trying to understand our point of view. Everybody always says to me that "Aeon have best destros". I totally disagree. https://replay.faforever.com/20545183 - this is a replay ID where @SpikeyNoob tested for 1 hour. In most cases, like early t2, aeon had lost most of the battles to cybran with slightly advantage and was completely outplayed by sera. And this has not included cybran having stealth. You do not call such a result "the strongest destros". For me personally sera and cybran destros were very alike, they both had a big range and a very bad accuracy. But it was compensated on the fact that they start hitting earlier. Yes cybran destros were weaker at that point, because they didnt shoot backwards. But nerfing aeon makes them losing to other factions very bad. And please STOP saying anything about Depth Charges. THEY DO NOT WORK AGAINST ON-WATER TARGETS, ONLY AGAINST SUBS, so it is irrelevant to mention them as an advantage of aeon destros. If you need an example from real gameplay look at this replay: https://replay.faforever.com/20353724. Timestamp 17:00 - 20:00. Macro could not have push only cause he had aeon destros. I was delivering way more damage with my destros than him.
My suggestion:
Bring the aeon destro range back or at least to 75, so that it will not lose so much dps, when fighting against sera or UEF.
Aeon cruiser.
Cruiser has the best AA in DPS, which in my opinion the compensation for total absence of AA on frigs and destros, as sharks are mostly useless ships. And unlike sera, cybran and UEF it does not participate in battles at all. No point of using it if not AA. Cybran cruiser has good DPS, Sera cruiser and UEF cruiser can be useful against t3 navy or in siege. Aeon cruiser has literally no usage in battles. It is kind of a sharp but on t2 level. Given that I have hover flaks, I will better make hover flaks.
My suggestion:
To buff an anty navy weapon for aeon, so that it will also impact battles.
UEF navy.
UEF completely sucks against sera as well. If you only go for destros, they will submerge and easily fuck up your fleet having barely suffered any damage. If you go for coopers, it means you will have less destros and I can outnumber u in dps on destros. So given that you spend same amount of resources in navy, sera will win probably in every battle if microed well. Also UEF navy is very weak against t2 subs, cause as I mentioned earlier, subs are not something you can easily scout before an attack, they are not seen by t1 scouts and require either frig or t3 scout, which is almost impossible on t2 stage. (specially cybran). So you barely have knowledge of how powerful your opp's fleet is before the battle.
My suggestion:
Give to UEF destros a strong anti torpedo defense, so that it will not suffer so much from t2 subs.
Air:
I do not consider t2 air is currently balanced well, cause janus and nothas (I also consider are powerful cause on dual gap they are OP) are clearly better than corsairs, and aeon can only defend against them with swift wings. Mercies were burned to the ground right now, I do not think they have usage at all, cause damage is too low on the amount of mass spent.
My suggestion:
Honestly, I have no idea how to balance it, just want to point out the problem.
Tech 3:
Air:
I do not see any compensation for sera not having t3 gunships. Why do not they have?
Navy:
Cybran has the worst Bship. And the argument that it costs 1k mass cheaper is not a proper compensation for that. Cybran has the lower muzzle velocity along with UEF battleship, however UEF battleship has more range and more dps. Compared to Sera and Aeon, it costs only 1K mass cheaper. Given that u have 200-250 mass income, which I consider as minimum when spaming bships, u get cybran bship only 4-5 seconds earlier (no point of comparing to UEF as they have BC for early t3), which does not make any difference at all, in aeon's case specially. I see no usage for t3 cybran bship as other factions do. UEF is just the strongest one, it is bad against t1 t2 spam but UEF has BC for that which is a very good compensation. Aeon has bship which is very jack of all, but master of none. But they do have a Tempest, which is very strong against bships, specially on big maps. Sera has a whole missile launcher in the bship for which u do not pay extra, like in other factions. It is literally given for free lol. So in my opinion, cybran just sucks at t3 stage.
Aircraft carriers:
This is a total useless unit, like literally I do not see any usage of it, it is very bad as an AA ship and very expensive one as a vision unit. They need to be reworked.
My suggestion:
No idea, but the unit is just no present in the game
General thoughts about Aeon:
Aeon in my opinion was buried to the ground. As I have already mentioned, Aeon was not imbalanced faction, it had some imbalanced units, which were not brought to balance but nerfed too much, like in case of aeon destro or ACU gun. I thought the weakness of aeon's t1 spam was compensated by strong ACU but now. The advanced gun range upgrade is a total trash now, cause you pay too much for 5 extra range points. At least you could have given not 5 but 7 range points to make it more efficient.
General thoughts about balance team's opinion about Dual Gap:
You may be angry, you may be mad,you can be whatever you want about the fact that the DualGap is the most played map right now. BUT you can not just exculde it from balance or FAF life just because you do not like it. Whether you like it or not, it is the most played map and most of people play it.
Thanks for the attention.
. I’ll do best of 5 but that’s about it