Another Novax conversation
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@snoog You hit on something I forgot. With (1) sat, an entire team, needs to shield up their base, near, and far mexs to 'counter'.
A typical t3 shield is around 3000 mass and a typical 8 person map has 4-6 close mexes, 1-2 expos, and then whatever far mexes exist. By the time a Novax shows up, there's also probably a main t3 power grid; so conservatively a player has 3-4 places to shield.
That means the first Sat, can require an investment of 12-15k mass, and power drain of 1200-1600 per second; per player.
By the numbers then, to 'counter':
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a Setons team- if they're each only getting (4) more t3 shields, 48-60k mass.,
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a Dual Gap team - assuming there's some over lap, across 7 players, getting (2) that's 42k mass,
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a Random Map team - assuming 5 players getting (3) each, that's 45k mass
ofc, that's plus power drain, cost of engineers going around, and mass to build power. And, that's with NO DAMAGE DONE, and only assuming 2-3 shields a player. So just by existing, a SAT almost immediately pays for itself.
Artillery is slow firing and inaccurate. Bombers can get shot down. Sats cost nothing once built and scale as a flock better than anything else.
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How about we disable the laser function for a year and see how it plays out. What does it take for the balance team to decide to action something like this?
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@Dorset You can't "just disable it". That would make the sat worthless and dumb to build. There needs to be an adjustment to move it to t3, make it cheaper (maybe e upkeep?) and maybe change vision radius
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@Nuggets I don't see how it would be any less dumb to build than an Eye. Novax without It's attack function is still very op in my opinion. An indestructible scout that can just hang out over a front line with an attacking Army or full Intel on your opponent's base forever. It's an insanely strong asset even without the laser.
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@Dorset You didnt really get my point. Its the current mass cost for "just a scout" is dumb. Eye is way cheaper. It should be priced similar to that
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Eye: 3k mass
Novax: 36k massYou can’t fathom why one might be worth building and one wouldn’t?
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Clearly there would have to be an adjustment to the cost of it because that 36k includes the laser, I try not to state the obvious when I'm speaking.
One thing is for sure. It seems pretty clear that it needs a rework. Been a hot topic for the 6 years I've been playing and nothing's been done about it.
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I truly believe that allowing them to target each other is the best place to start. Why doesn't FAF take a year and make quarterly adjustments to see what the community prefers. 3 months of allowing Novax to target each other then 3 months of novax costing less but no laser and so on? I think the ultimate solution is allowing them to target each other but it can only be known if we try. Same as many suggestions. I also think that perhaps FAF just allow Novax to be unit restricted but still allow for a ranked match would be an interesting idea too. Whats a year of live "beta testing" to see what works. A year is nothing anymore lol
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@Dorset said in Another Novax conversation:
I truly believe that allowing them to target each other is the best place to start. Why doesn't FAF take a year and make quarterly adjustments to see what the community prefers. 3 months of allowing Novax to target each other then 3 months of novax costing less but no laser and so on? I think the ultimate solution is allowing them to target each other but it can only be known if we try. Same as many suggestions. I also think that perhaps FAF just allow Novax to be unit restricted but still allow for a ranked match would be an interesting idea too. Whats a year of live "beta testing" to see what works. A year is nothing anymore lol
So i will try to take your comment seriously and try to explain.
By having Novax being able to fight / shoot each other would make the only counter to Novax, the Novax. Yes you could argue that you can still shield your stuff, but allowing them to shoot each other clearly shows that that is INTENDED to be the counter. I'm sure there are comparisions in different games but i believe that would categorize something as OP, if the only counter is in its own faction.
Its like saying only one faction will have AA and the others can just shield their stuff.The 2nd biggest issue is, as i mentioned before, that by allowing novax to shoot each other, you create a 4th category to fight in, which includes only 1 unit. You have water, air and land, and you are now trying to create a category for a single faction. This is not the case currently. Currently novax is similar to an arty, just stronger (as you can only shield against it).
Dont really know how to explain this properly but i hope you get why creating a 4th category for a single faction is a bad idea? -
@Nuggets I dont disagree. My 1200 brain likes the chaos of the idea more than anything I guess because at least its not what we have now lol. In any case I guess when I started this post it was to try and spurn the conversation for change. I made this post right after a game where the effect of what Snoog mentioned earked me.
Our team was winning on all fronts despite them having arty and us not. We see 1 Novax Sat coming our way and our entire team has to stop and spam sheilds and power meaning the advantage we were actively pressing got put on hold. We could no longer replace units on the front as fast as before because we were spending on novax defense and, I beleive was the clear reason we lost the game...1 single novax that didnt really kill anything important.
Every Novax thread has alot of ideas and heart but they all seem to have one thing in common. Enough people hate it that it should be changed and so I guess I am wondering what it takes to have the actual decision makers work the problem and implement anything.
Easy for me to say because I don't have to worry about it much beyond this thread.
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Double the current damage of Novax against shields and reduce the regular damage to 0 + as long as the beam is active and hits a target without shields stalls the unit (what the chrono bomb from the aeon T1 attack bomber does).
This makes the Novax a support unit (scouting / shield disabling / stall effect).
This means that a Novax only becomes dangerous if you also have a T3 Arty nearby, for example, and the investment costs for effective use of a Novax increase accordingly, as the Novax is not dangerous without regular damage units. -
@Salz Gives the UEF faction auto win late game.
Makes one arty as powerful as 3 or more.
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@Dorset said in Another Novax conversation:
Clearly there would have to be an adjustment to the cost of it because that 36k includes the laser, I try not to state the obvious when I'm speaking.
One thing is for sure. It seems pretty clear that it needs a rework. Been a hot topic for the 6 years I've been playing and nothing's been done about it.
The adjustment would be making it like 30k mass cheaper. It’s not a t4. You made a t4 unit a t3 unit.
It’s a combination of a soothsayer and an eye, nobody would be paying anything higher than 8k mass for this.
And doing this, now you need to explain what UEF compensation is for having no air t4.
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@FtXCommando said in Another Novax conversation:
@Dorset said in Another Novax conversation:
Clearly there would have to be an adjustment to the cost of it because that 36k includes the laser, I try not to state the obvious when I'm speaking.
One thing is for sure. It seems pretty clear that it needs a rework. Been a hot topic for the 6 years I've been playing and nothing's been done about it.
The adjustment would be making it like 30k mass cheaper. It’s not a t4. You made a t4 unit a t3 unit.
It’s a combination of a soothsayer and an eye, nobody would be paying anything higher than 8k mass for this.
And doing this, now you need to explain what UEF compensation is for having no air t4.
Wdym? UEF even now has no air t4. Novax is way more similar to t3 arty than anything else, so why would this change need a compensation in the form of t4 air.
Obviously it would be good to see, but that has nothing to do with this. -
I disagree. I was playing a game yesterday where I had 2 arty but our team did not have eye tech and the sam/asf wall made scouting nearly impossible. My teammate made 1 novax and we went around target for target to end the game. The laser was not what I needed for my arty, it was the unlimited uninterrupted intel that I needed and I would have gladly paid T4 prices at that point in the game to have it so, no I personally do not think that paying 30k+ for unlimited intel is overpriced. An invincible omni scout that can be positioned anywhere and basically never be killed or countered is extremely OP and worth paying a high cost for at certain stages in the game.
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I mean you can personally think that, but that’s like thinking a 2000 mass harb isn’t overpriced. You’re completely inefficient with your resources, this is the cost of like 100 spy planes. Nobody is paying this and getting a good deal out of it, this would immediately
become the least built T4 in the game by a completely ridiculous degree.Novax is the air t4 substitute. I fail to see how that’s confusing. Every faction has a land and air t4. It’s pricepoint has always been closer to air t4s than to t3 arty. You can both see the satellite has the sky background on the unit card same as all other air units and you can clearly see in the unitdb that it’s categorized as an air unit.
Yes it functions differently, but it’s the air t4 substitute for UEF.
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@FtXCommando I can see what you are saying but in the real world most players don't care about cost they care about value and when a team cant see anything to target then paying a premium for t4 intel would be incredibly valuable to them regardless of cost.
If the side affect is that nobody really makes Novax anymore than I think FAF players would be just fine with that but I am certain that players would still build it because they want to see. Yeah its like 100 spy planes but it can never be shot down. There are points in many games where you literally need 100 spy planes in order to get your 5 seconds of intel. Novax basically removes the fog of war which again, in my opinion is extremely OP and should cost a lot and shouldn't be built often.
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“in the real world” mass efficacy matters and paying half a t3 arty for cool moving soothsayer is a game loss unless you had a 20% mass generation advantage and already won the game 5 minutes ago.
Either you want to decrease it to 8k and make it a t3 unit, removing a t4 by function or you want to keep it the same cost and remove it by practicality. They’re both terrible options because it’s removing a problem by removing the unit. UEF losing their air t4 substitute requires compensation elsewhere or it needs to be done in a manner that maintains some sort of tangible t4 purpose.
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Novax Intel capabilities has been massively buffed sirca 2019, it didn’t have them prior to it. If Novax should be nerfed, un-buff is the first thing that comes to mind, not the last one.
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@FtXCommando You are probably right when you consider it from a pro level only perspective but the real world I speak of most players do not care about actual cost and being hyper efficient, they care about value and what they get out of something.
As I have said a forum post (at least not this one) is no place to decide on the actual stats this will have. I'm trying to achieve high level (in business high level means low detail) discussions to try and affect change but since we are talking about it.
Referring to the novax as t4 air is extremely inaccurate IMO and shouldn't be compared to the other t4 air units.
An eye is fairly cheap but requires alot of micro to be effective and has a small intel radius.
Soothsayer is very effective with its large intel radius but is static and easy to kill.
A novax is invincible and can move. If that isnt the t4 version of the previous 2 than I dont know what is.If we are going to compare the novax to the soothsayer and eye lets not try to also call it an air unit.
