Posts made by Evan_

I'm always willing to help test new mods/maps, if you see me in FAF you can always reach out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qL-9hulw_Ro by Willow's Duality was just released, a long and surprisingly interesting low level ladder game on Vya-3.

Not knowledgeable on making coop games, but as an easy alternative, the simplest option would probably be to install mods like 'nothing but time' or 'resources x2' which will give you a massive edge over any ai. Then while you're at it you may as well install mods like blackops or total mayhem which give more giant robots and unit types to play with.

I think people will assume that no one is searching anyway if they can't get a game. That is what I used to see in aeolus where people new to ladder would have trouble getting games, they just assumed ladder had 0 people searching. I think it's better overall for the system to let players be informed. If people see 1 or 2 others in queue, they'll know that if they ready up, then there's a good chance of one or two others searching so the queue will jump up to 4.

I think one of the knowledge issues that new players encounter arises with not knowing how to host games. Knowing how to host your own games is incredibly important both for enjoying the game and improving as a player. Without knowledge of how to host, fitting maps, how to balance a game, and what the settings affect, players will either be forced into whatever the regular hosts want, or wade through on their own and hope the settings are alright. As others have mentioned, some of the people who commonly host are unreasonable or instantly kick new players. And often, new players will find that the only maps in custom lobbies are turtle maps, even though there are plenty of lower rated people who want to play better games.

More information on what players should expect would also be nice. I see new players join a half full game and instantly hit the ready button, and it just gives me the impression that they are staring at the screen worrying that if they look away for a minute they will be kicked. Which can be exhausting to do game after game.

Helping people with playing the game is important, but I think helping new players get used to the client and lobby also has a place in any player retention plans.

Signing up
global 1762 ladder 1654

Was fun to play, had a game with beta balance, and then did some testing. I like a lot of the changes such as splitting the shield upgrades on the uef scu and the bp reduction.

will be interesting to see how the sera regen field affects t3 naval combat, the sera BS gets 90 regen per scu, and all the while the scu is knocking a chunk off of it's cost with the +3 mass.

I think that removing sacrifice gets rid of a very interesting feature and that keeping it in would allow for some cool plays in scu combat. More than just a late game cheese option for tele-gc or tele-paragon, sacrifice preset has a ton of versatility and can be used in many situations. For example if opposing scus are winning a fight but they get too close, you can quickly sacrifice into a T3 massfab for an epic kamikaze doing massive aoe damage to groups of units (or a t3 pgen for slightly more damage but less aoe). You can support the rest of the army and squishy units like sniper bots by quickly sacrificing into a T3 shield. Or many other things really, there are tons of possibilities with it. It would probably need to be rebalanced, maybe a cost increase.

Also Chrono doesn't seem too strong, I think it could be useful against shielded rambo coms if you have absolvers, or groups of units, but the stun itself isn't very strong and does not last very long. It'll get focused down pretty quickly, you can upgrade the cheap first shield in 32 seconds if using the chrono support preset at least.

I actually like the 3-minute interval between games, it's a good moment to take a break, fill up my water bottle, watch the replay, or discuss SupCom Lore.

the map 'dualgap fix adaptive' is not rated, it didn't credit cookienoob for the adaptive script, or the original authors (kd7bh, biass, etc), so that might be why. It also may be unbalanced.

Hello there, welcome to FAF!

There was a discussion about cybran hover units a while back (https://forums.faforever.com/viewtopic.php?f=67&t=14773) which may be interesting to read. A few of the arguments against were that it reduces faction diversity and that cybran units have a lot of strengths to make up for this (strong frigate, wagners being really good for raiding from water) as well as unique units elsewhere such as mobile stealth fields.

It's true that usually mobile flak is better than static as it can move around and is much cheaper, but static flak has way more hp, (~2500 vs ~1000, granted it can't dodge), greater range, slightly more dps, and much faster build time. It's something that can go up fast and is relatively effective against BOTH t2 and t3 air. As you said it's a good panic weapon for incoming snipes, it doesn't have to be really good to make up for not being able to move IMO.

Let's not forget TheDuelist https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDDNS1XW0-o1FRPvaR9-pKA who has been putting out tons of good content lately, not just casts but interesting analysis and gameplay videos as well. There's also Whizzey McWhiz https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9cRw1-cPBu2XYQTDvO_HPg who has been streaming FAF recently and consistently.

Also, would it be possible to move this thread to General and pin it? I feel it would make more sense there than in the job openings page, and it may give these people more traffic.

Lol yeah I know, just kidding around.

@archsimkat That, and a small decrease in speed and acceleration.

(For reference: https://github.com/FAForever/fa/pull/2978/commits)

Could additionally consider a small hp increase (along side the other stuff proposed) if not enough, as it makes small mistakes against snipers less punishing without affecting how it performs vs other t3 land much. This would only need to be for the Trebuchet as other factions have mobile shields. An increase to 1200 hp would let it survive 1 aeon shot or 2 sera shots.

Archsimkat's valley is quite a nice map to play on, lots of options and paths to take. Someone even named himself after the map, so I think it's catching on pretty well. The naval maps look fun too!

@moses_the_red said in Points of Imbalance.:

You neglect to mention that it was a 1/19th cost increase that the ML received. It now takes 10 seconds more mass production to build if you're rushing it. Its a completely negligible nerf.

Yeah, T3 mobile arty did get a nerf... not in that patch, the actually buffed mobile arty in that patch... but much later it got a nerf. Doesn't matter though as the issue is that T4 is just better in certain circumstances. So much better that people don't bother to build significant T3 land assault bots.

The point was that you claimed it was a sloppy patch that nerfed T3 land without making any meaningful change to anything else. And 1k mass is not negligible. It's a mass cost increase on top of a build-time increase on top of the fact that equal mass in T3 already stomps it anyways.

Ythotha got a cost increase and had its dps shifted so if can't one shot Percies/Bricks. That's not to say these changes put them back in line with old balance, that wasn't the point. T4 IS stronger now once it gets up, that's intentional. T4s are no longer a cheese strategy but a proper unit. The video explains it better, but to say it was a sloppy patch and that there wasn't any concern or that people didn't notice changes for T3/T4 balance is just wrong.

Looks to me like the Ythota just got nerfed in general, but the nerfs were fairly slight.

Look, here's the issue with your "cheese strategy" claim. Gyle and other casters actually recorded lots of games from pre-2018 and made them publicly available. When I got through those games, I see top tier players spamming lots of T4 units. They weren't a cheese strategy, but they weren't T3 land either.

The reason people built them both before and after the nerf is because they had other advantages that T3 land didn't have, not because they actually won an equal fight vs T3 land. If people built them solely to win an even fight vs t3 bots then we wouldn't see many T4's at all before the nerf, as T3 land was much more powerful then.

Making them a "proper unit" means that they're stepping on the role of T3 land - which I think is a terrible way to deal with them - but if everyone's dead set on making them a normal unit rather than a suckerpunch (which isn't necessarily cheese) then for god's sake, drastically increase their build times. Right now they're no less cheesey when rushed than they ever were, but in addition to being a cheesy rush unit they're also mass competitive with T3 land assault bots which causes them to replace T3 assault bots in some situations.

You still have not shown how T4s are now mass competitive with assault bots. They certainly aren't good enough to rush and are much harder to get in the blink of an eye with the change to reclaim time and build time.

Even with the changes, T3 land still beats T4 mass for mass with a good formation, especially with shields.

If its rushed, you aren't going to have the T3 land to beat it. If its not rushed they'll have T3 land too. Beyond that T4 assault bots don't need to beat T3 land to be relevant. They have other major advantages.

You can't "rush" 26000 mass. If a T4 is rushed, it means giving up much of the map and then having to retake it with one T4 and whatever you can make after. Even then you're still going to lose. Experimental buildtime was massively increased while T3 assault bot buildtime was decreased. It is not hard to build up an equal fighting force of T3, especially when 10k mass in T3 can already start winning map control while 10k mass in an experimental can't do anything.

"If it's not rushed they'll have T3 land too" which means that T3 land is actively fighting on both sides leaving a lot of reclaim, and the person who starts a 26000 mass investment is going to be at a serious disadvantage in trying to get any of that mass until the exp is out. In most cases that means being out-ecoed and put at a severe disadvantage. By the time the T4 shows up most of the reclaim will be gone. Yes, T3 land Synergizes well with a T4, but it has to more than makeup for the ground you lose to push out an experimental in the T3 stage.

EXPs outshine T3 land in the late t3 stage where you can get them up without creating a noticeable enough difference to lose too much ground, and where concentrated dps/hp is more important than efficiency. At some point and in some situations it's just more sensible to use T4 over T3, this was true before the patch and is true after. It doesn't mean stepping on the roles of another unit. There are plenty of times where it is a much better idea to make bricks than a monkey, or to make harbs over a GC.

And yeah you can probably keep a few T3 mobile arty alive in your base, you'll just lose the rest of the map, all the reclaim and mexes, ect. You don't have to actually break into the opponent's base with T3, if you push them back enough they're basically crippled without expansions even if the experimental does get up.

In a lot of cases you can just run a T4 assault bot by a mass of bricks or percies, and if you build enough splash units you'll be just fine when the assault bots eventually make it to your base. Your opponent will have substantially less time to react however.

If the map is really that open that you can circle a T4 around T3 land then it's either a really open expansion map where T3 land/air excels or a 20k turtle map. Besides which you can reposition T3 land fairly quickly and safely with transports. There's no way that a T4 can realistically avoid having to fight T3 land just by trying to go around it.

And that's not considering that while your opponent makes T4 you can win much of the map with T3, if not kill his whole base. Even when the T4 gets out it's an uphill battle to retake the map since you only have one experimental that can only be in one place.

You say this, and this is great in theory, but if you read through more of this thread you'll find that I've linked several replays where pro players are indeed building token amounts of T3 land and then spamming T4 bots.

It isn't theory. It's a basic fact that you can't sink 26000 mass into a unit at the early t3 stage and not be prepared to give up a substantial part of the map. If YOU read through the thread you'll see one of the players in the game himself as well as others directly replying to your point, and explaining why they chose to team-build a megalith rather than making bricks.

Jesus man, nerfing OC means that rushed T4 bots are even more powerful... not less.

If you're trying to get up an exp on minimal t3 land then the main thing you have to fend off T3 land is your com. Outside of ML vs ACU + shields (which ACU still wins), ACU does slightly worse vs T4 now, but using your Com to kill a GC walking in was already a last resort option and there's still a much better choice (making T3 land, which wins mass for mass). What does matter is the increased cost to protect your 20k or 26k investment while it's being built.

And people don't generally talk about post nerf units vs pre-nerf units because the two will never meet.

Yeah, but that's an issue, because its one of the simplest objective ways to determine how extreme a set of proposed changes are. If you test them and find that you've double the effectiveness of a unit with your changes that might be enough to convince you that what your doing might have impacts beyond what you intend.

By your own logic though it's completely pointless. Did you need to actually test new brick vs old brick to form your opinions on T3 balance? Is it not enough to compare old brick vs exp with new brick vs exp? Testing something like this incurs a lot of time and organizational cost for something with arguably little benefit.

If by things that don't damage them you mean other ships, then setting 'priority: units' should do the trick. Although usually, its much more practical to have cruisers target stationary things like mexes and factories because most ships will be moved away long before missiles hit.

edit: assign a hotkey to make this more convenient.

@moses_the_red said in Points of Imbalance.:

What's most hilarious about all this, is I hunted down the discussion thread for that patch, and there was very little relevant discussion about these nerfs. People didn't realize how massive those changes were, and seemed not to consider the impact such changes would have on T3/T4 balance.

I think its clear it was a sloppy patch. They may have "fixed" T2/T3 balance, but they drastically reduced the effectiveness of T3 land versus both T4 and static structures in order to do it.

You can hear Petric talk in the video about the changes in relation to T3. GC lost the ability to trigger its claws as fast. Monkey got a cost increase in addition to bt nerf. Other units like T3 mobile arty and sniper bots were nerfed after they were found to be a bit too strong vs T3 bots. Ythotha got a cost increase and had its dps shifted so if can't one shot Percies/Bricks. That's not to say these changes put them back in line with old balance, that wasn't the point. T4 IS stronger now once it gets up, that's intentional. T4s are no longer a cheese strategy but a proper unit. The video explains it better, but to say it was a sloppy patch and that there wasn't any concern or that people didn't notice changes for T3/T4 balance is just wrong.

Even with the changes, T3 land still beats T4 mass for mass with a good formation, especially with shields. And that's not considering that while your opponent makes T4 you can win much of the map with T3, if not kill his whole base. Even when the T4 gets out it's an uphill battle to retake the map since you only have one experimental that can only be in one place. T3 is also helped by ACU (which is the main thing early T3 has to contend with) being nerfed in some upgrades and having Overcharge made more expensive in power and storage. Also The build time increase is not trivial and has a direct cost in how long it takes to get up an experimental. You can't spread out an exp, you can't drop it (T3 drops have actually been made stronger with the ASF/scout nerf). And so on.

And people don't generally talk about post nerf units vs pre-nerf units because the two will never meet.

Probably best to discuss that in PMs since we don't want people to think profit is being made off of the IP.

That is some absolutely amazing models though. Lots of detail everywhere from the stuts of the legs to the canon of the monkeylord. I'm noticing a lot of cool and interesting things that I didn't notice about the units even though I've played with them a fair bit in game, like the difference in pattern on the top of the ythotha's arms, or the little handle-bar like things on the side of the monkeylord's turret.

Could we get a photo of all of them together?