...if this exists already. I am sorry, I didn't know despite imperfect looking.

Suggestion 1: Enable the same Foe Mute to all chat windows - including lobby, and in game.(assuming its possible, having to re-mute them in game is a pain, and there's no lobby mute ATM)

Suggestion 2: Instead of (or as an alternative to) banning players for saying things- provide the moderation tool to global mute them.(Punishment fits the crime, player base disappears less)

#----Suggestion 1 - Rationale - Extend the Foe mute to games & lobbies----#

Lately FAF faces dwindling population- which makes game wait time longer, and personal vendettas all the more stinging. For example:

.... you waited hours in lobby and then stupid Printer did-that-thing/made-that-mistake/let-you-down- and now the game quality isn't fun. However, the worst thing is- getting insults on top of that pain Printer caused! ...and guess what he feels the same! So words fly and ..and then there's less players and a loop forms- but with different people.

Now you could just play GAP, and well that's a perfect community of course- way chiller- but what if you NEVER had to see that Printer guy's chats?

He could let you down, he could screw up etc etc, but you'd never have to see his dumb comments ever again. No, I don't mean ban that guy- but what about a permanent mute tied to the Foe system? Just foe & forget!

#---Suggestion 2 Rationale: Globally Mute instead of Ban for Verbal Abuse---#

Because of diminishing player numbers and a steep learning curve- loosing players and experienced ones, is against the intent of FAF. It will not be "Forged Alliance FOREVER" if people keep getting voted off the island.

This actually hurts people who have nothing to do with the flame-out; -> because less players; -> less lobbies launching; -> less Forged Alliance. Less 'Forever'.

Secondly, mute them, instead of ban them. This fits a bit with the appropriateness of the ancient idea of 'an eye for an eye', system. Someone who's verbally abusive may still be a decent competitor- but no need for their comments. Let them play- muted- and the community doesn't loose the invested time and benefit of that player's participation.

Lastly, bad words are not the same as bad behavior. I've been banned for reclaiming allied units, bombing allied units, and I've seen people banned for exploits. That happened 'on the map', and should be punished 'on the map'. But words happen in the chat box, and maybe that suggests they should be dealt with in the chat box too. Mute, dont ban.

---ty for reading
Just my opinion. Again if these are not feasible or have been discussed and declined- never mind. Also I think many people who may say 'hateful' words and things don't actually hate what they reference- but might just be having a bad day.

TLDR:

As much as I wanted balance to look at this unit, this is like full on excommunication, with a side of vindictive torture, and history scrubbing etc. What did the Novax do to you, and are you actually ok? Sure there's the "STFU, you're never happy w. balance" - but just look at the numbers. This isn't balance. This is an honour killing. UEF -(1) T4 unit.

Take a look ALL the nerfs: (inorder of impact, as I sensed it)

1. -4500% Micro - Aim Speed 360->8 is an INSANE kill of the unit. Super low value to micro because barely responsive. It's an apocalyptic fun deleter. Might as renovate your en-suite bathroom while waiting for it to switch targets.

2. -50% AOE - True can't kill engineers clustered, but that might as well be 1/2 the available dps, and means the t2 transport shield patrol now very viable vs a SAT. Sadly the visual still appears like its doing work. Except its not.

3. -33% uptime of laser - so much dps waste in retargetting since duration is much shorter. You'd think less uptime with slower speed, but I guess not.

4. +Added charge drain of 5k (2 t3 pgens so 2(3.4k mass + 5.800 E = sustained) - Needed? Except most unit like t4's dont rely on E. Now this one does.

5. +Capacity charge of 7k (minor issue during late game so no impact BUT this didn't exist before)

6. +56% E cost to build the unit -just for the lols? Its not nerfed enough?

7. -Omni ability - minor loss. Least impactful change, imo.

The counter balancing buffs:

1. 11% lower mass cost and 2.7% faster build time.

Novax aside, the real victim is the UEF. 32kM + 800kE costs, for an unfun-to-micro, very slow, expensive scouting, dps gimped unit; is just head turning. Doesn't matter if a unit is unkillable- abortion via balance pre-empts that.

Recommendation:
a. Revert laser changes and targeting, but keep drain and other changes, and/or give UEF something, or
b. Make it cost 24kM and 800kE, so UEF won't sink so much mass, or
c. Vastly increase its sight, similar to the Soothsayer much like a real sat, with no omni or sonar., and/or
d. Allow it to suicide more effectively for damage. Aeon & Sera have their ctl+k unit, UEF could have one too.

Look, I acknowledge I don't know all the moving parts that went into this but surely this nerf was super 1-sided.

Ranked Replay:
https://replay.faforever.com/27622412
I made the unit because I needed someway to delay other teams Game Ender/had to do some damage. Slow speed, short duration, wasted dps meant it was effectively a drop in a bucket, and if I saw a weak shield/point- there was no longer a way to take advantage. And I guess I won't build it now. Theres almost no point.

Having spent years on some other old games, I think the best feature faf has implemented is the rating and group game % quality system. Its not perfect, but OpenRA (where I spent alot of time) didn't have it and what brutal, high-school clicky, and pointless experience that made it. Teams would only be balanced if everyone knew everyone, the host was kind, and people weren't smurfing. So for for that reason maybe 1/20 group games were quality... Personally that's the #1 appreciated feature for me.

@Brutus5000 Just realized what you probably meant was to go to download the latest release .zip file from Git-hub, and extract to a local directory. 100% working thanks.

Thanks Sheikah!

@Nomander said in Another Novax conversation:

Satellite isn't unbalanced, it's just annoying to play against.

This.

But serious question- how much do I need to donate to patron to get something done about this fun killing unit?

Just leaving it as it is, means there's more than a 25% chance, every game of an unblock-able, perfectly accurate, no power costing, invincible*, fast moving, weak-but scalable 'artillery' unit.

Top 3 that would be surprising:
#1 Subterranean theater of war
#2 Weather & environmental effects
#3 5 minute setons lobbies

@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':

• a Setons team- if they're each only getting (4) more t3 shields, 48-60k mass.,

• a Dual Gap team - assuming there's some over lap, across 7 players, getting (2) that's 42k mass,

• 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.

@TwitchyMofo said in Another Novax conversation:

@Printer this is why reducing damage to shields would be an effective balance.

btw, I think I was maybe wrong. I was talking about the shield structure- not the shield bubble. And I think its just shield structures are so weak- is why it appears the sats kill them so fast. So I might have been wrong about the 'bonus' damage.

@YraCore said in Another Novax conversation:

@Printer bro 4 stats and you are dead? are you sure?...

4 Sats is close to 1000 dps, it takes a bunch of engineers to overcome that. So you can maybe stop a huge flock of Sats in one place (plot twist, 22 is unstoppable), but they can just move to another spot.

Sats don't have that opportunity cost unlike every other unit. This why I think they're not polished. The devs in vanilla used SMDs to shoot them down (I vaguely still remember being a kid, and having a Novax center and no Novax satellite- and building a few more before I saw what was happening...)-

Anyway, IMO maybe microing around SDM's wouldn't hurt. Hoping there's something cooking on this issue.

Edited after finishing replay

Perfect balance is checkers. Maybe the fact the pros don't use Novax much maybe means; its not majorly out of balance.

But for the sake of fun and the type of gameplay- I think it needs some upcoming adjustment. Remember:

• Old RAS SCUs?
• Vanilla Telemaeser?
• Vanilla, HARMS with destroyer range, better survivability and dps HARMs?

Those were all "balanced' by the numbers & opportunity cost originally- but because of the type of game-play they generated; they were changed.

Or how about some of the rules we have in the community; like "no building a factory under a dropping transport" - this works amazingly well against drops - but its bannable.

I'm just trying to highlight; from what's been done; its not only about balance & opportunity cost.

Simply put, and to quote another player @Cascade "Sats are Anti-Fun".

And that's why I really think they need a counter. Best of which, in my opinion is a:

• normally "disabled" player toggle
• on the smd to target the sats.

Without a true counter, this unit really should be just a T3 unit with vision. It's really that simple. ANY UNIT, which can't be targeted but can target, just sets the stage to be hated in RTS. GPG was wrong. Maybe this unit should have been SP only.

@CumCitron, @Ske - Should UEF really have only (3) T4 units? Fine. But UEF deserves something for the subtraction. You can't even build this out of spite now (or is that the only reason remaining?).

@DommyMommyDostya - Its no DPS increase as much of the wasted damage is in traversing time arising out of the 4500% targeting speed. Thats my take.

@nomander, ty for break out response but your vitriol is surprising! I just wrote a provocative post because it was fun for me to write, and I wanted it to be at least entertaining. I wanted to point out the heavy hand here seen. I meant no personal slight at balance team. I'd support the game if I wasn't poor, and your & others volunteer efforts don't get thanked enough. Yes, I'm a drifter who could disappear into static.

Since you replied, for what its worth:

1. "Not an arguement" - I'll try again, there's an "a" and "b" to the argument I meant to convey:
   a. Slow response units are less fun to use. This was never a Megalith or FB, it was a scalpel. It rewarded micro through timing, punishing that shield breakdown/stray engie. Now it's by comparison, a limp, localized lag laser.
   b. Because it fires while retargetting, that grass cutting DPS is utterly wasted.

So, this appears to me the biggest nerf- its less fun and less effective. Math can't see this. An AI wouldn't either. But only a human is going to be like "WTF, this thing so slow, unresponsive, and wasteful of a preciously short firing time".

2. "Post a replay of transports [shielding]..." - I doubt you've never have seen people do this. Its very ineffective but I didn't make it up, either. Was stupid of me to distract from 1 AoE ->.5 Thats the real nerf here sir.

3. "Yes... second sentence = nonsense" - I meant to sort of restate 1b, the shortened firing time means it fires uselessly as it moves to target. So not only does it not switch between targets quickly (a pivot movement), but it also shoots as it approaches the new target.

This happens if you change targets mid firing cycle. So if perhaps, you've qued some targets and one dies (or you retarget), before the laser is finished, the rest of the charge goes into the dirt while the sat moves to the new target. (See minute 2-3 of this replay https://replay.faforever.com/27635804 )..So after wasting the shot, it arrives over the new target on cool down. Now if the DPS was 'shield poping' (you show that its not), might be good use of hover-bomb-esque hold fire micro.

4 & 5. This is still new behavior and therefore adds weight to the total scale of the nerf. But other than that fact, I'm wrong, fair enough & thank you. I read the Charge Cost & Drain rate incorrectly (I see that's the total duration of the firing cycle).

6. Agreed, its a nerf.

Just replying to the issues you had with my points. I didn't go into GitHub, or Discord and 100% only read the FAF News Change Log page, and then tried the unit.

Again, this balance change was just very significant. Very unlikely to ever use this unit, (164) t3 scouts seem like a better investment.

TLDR:

As much as I wanted balance to look at this unit, this is like full on excommunication, with a side of vindictive torture, and history scrubbing etc. What did the Novax do to you, and are you actually ok? Sure there's the "STFU, you're never happy w. balance" - but just look at the numbers. This isn't balance. This is an honour killing. UEF -(1) T4 unit.

Take a look ALL the nerfs: (inorder of impact, as I sensed it)

1. -4500% Micro - Aim Speed 360->8 is an INSANE kill of the unit. Super low value to micro because barely responsive. It's an apocalyptic fun deleter. Might as renovate your en-suite bathroom while waiting for it to switch targets.

2. -50% AOE - True can't kill engineers clustered, but that might as well be 1/2 the available dps, and means the t2 transport shield patrol now very viable vs a SAT. Sadly the visual still appears like its doing work. Except its not.

3. -33% uptime of laser - so much dps waste in retargetting since duration is much shorter. You'd think less uptime with slower speed, but I guess not.

4. +Added charge drain of 5k (2 t3 pgens so 2(3.4k mass + 5.800 E = sustained) - Needed? Except most unit like t4's dont rely on E. Now this one does.

5. +Capacity charge of 7k (minor issue during late game so no impact BUT this didn't exist before)

6. +56% E cost to build the unit -just for the lols? Its not nerfed enough?

7. -Omni ability - minor loss. Least impactful change, imo.

The counter balancing buffs:

1. 11% lower mass cost and 2.7% faster build time.

Novax aside, the real victim is the UEF. 32kM + 800kE costs, for an unfun-to-micro, very slow, expensive scouting, dps gimped unit; is just head turning. Doesn't matter if a unit is unkillable- abortion via balance pre-empts that.

Recommendation:
a. Revert laser changes and targeting, but keep drain and other changes, and/or give UEF something, or
b. Make it cost 24kM and 800kE, so UEF won't sink so much mass, or
c. Vastly increase its sight, similar to the Soothsayer much like a real sat, with no omni or sonar., and/or
d. Allow it to suicide more effectively for damage. Aeon & Sera have their ctl+k unit, UEF could have one too.

Look, I acknowledge I don't know all the moving parts that went into this but surely this nerf was super 1-sided.

Ranked Replay:
https://replay.faforever.com/27622412
I made the unit because I needed someway to delay other teams Game Ender/had to do some damage. Slow speed, short duration, wasted dps meant it was effectively a drop in a bucket, and if I saw a weak shield/point- there was no longer a way to take advantage. And I guess I won't build it now. Theres almost no point.

I didnt know that. Thanks!

@Nuggets said:

Yeah that i agree with. Its kinda stupid it doesnt show because you can just open your log and see who voted what

I should know this but, which log? You're talking about the non-ingame file in replay folder right?

Fair enough. What about suggestion [B]- letting the team know who's voting yes/no ? I've made the mistake a few times, agreeing with the vote, thinking key players wanted to recall- and later finding out they didn't. I can think of (1) 2k rated Russian player didn't want to recall but didn't answer chat queries, and atleast (2) other instances similar.

...I suppose pausing the game to poll the team in chat is simple enough to. Yes, its not a critical feature- just nice to have.

Recall is a kinda immersive way to end the game, and great way for teammates to vote instead of just quit. However, what does the community/admin team think about:

A. Recall only affecting ACUs who vote "Yes" when the majority vote "Yes".
At first, recall is a survey of how viable the game looks to the team. Great way of saying "things are bad, do you agree"? After that, it becomes a forced quit, and when votes are not unanimous it means some players loose their choice. Could it be adjusted so, when a majority vote "Yes", only those player's ACU Recall?

In a fullshared game: this means the person(s) who chose to stay now have the quitter's units and bases.

B. Recall voting corresponds to the voter; ie It shows who voted Yes or No
When judging if recall is a good idea or not, its good to know who's voted/how they voted. If a skilled player thinks its over, vs a non-skilled player; it would be useful to know.

Some might say, people should just discuss. Anon voting prompts discussion- but the fact is until recall is confirmed or the game is paused, there's no time to discuss. Besides, writing a novel as to why the game should continue/should not isn't feasible (would anyone care to read it anyway?)

Is the intention of the seraphim t4 bomber to be Kamikaze as soon as bomb is dropped?

IF it is not, consider what Open Red Alert(another run community RTS) devs did with the YAK attack plane. When ever it was "suicide-d" in mid air, there would be a random 'jerk' introduced into the flight path of the plane. This meant it was no longer following a straight trajectory, but in about a 45 degree spread, would go anywhere but exactly straight.

2 games recently:

1. Player made (2) donuts, and by sheer patience, audacity & skill managed to get them to enemy game ender(s) but, because the shield absorbed the damage that incredible accomplishment was ineffective.

2. Player made (2) Awassas' and by sheer 2-clicks got them to sail through and kill game ender with bomb they dropped in their death throes.

I can confirm it 'sucks to suck' but just seems tragic 2-clicks is rewarded, patience & audacity are not so much.

Replays below:
G1 - https://replay.faforever.com/27083227
G2 - https://replay.faforever.com/27084307

So just to be clear- that just means I can't see pings outside of that limit?

We've all had that teammate who uses pings, and pings, and pings, and pings.

Would it be possible to make a menu option for ping limit? Options could be: "unlimited", 5 , 15, 30, 60 seconds or so, per ping or note type. So you could ping all 4 but then stfu.

I know there's a limit of 1-2 seconds at the moment but, is this possible?

...if this exists already. I am sorry, I didn't know despite imperfect looking.

Suggestion 1: Enable the same Foe Mute to all chat windows - including lobby, and in game.(assuming its possible, having to re-mute them in game is a pain, and there's no lobby mute ATM)

Suggestion 2: Instead of (or as an alternative to) banning players for saying things- provide the moderation tool to global mute them.(Punishment fits the crime, player base disappears less)

#----Suggestion 1 - Rationale - Extend the Foe mute to games & lobbies----#

Lately FAF faces dwindling population- which makes game wait time longer, and personal vendettas all the more stinging. For example:

.... you waited hours in lobby and then stupid Printer did-that-thing/made-that-mistake/let-you-down- and now the game quality isn't fun. However, the worst thing is- getting insults on top of that pain Printer caused! ...and guess what he feels the same! So words fly and ..and then there's less players and a loop forms- but with different people.

Now you could just play GAP, and well that's a perfect community of course- way chiller- but what if you NEVER had to see that Printer guy's chats?

He could let you down, he could screw up etc etc, but you'd never have to see his dumb comments ever again. No, I don't mean ban that guy- but what about a permanent mute tied to the Foe system? Just foe & forget!

#---Suggestion 2 Rationale: Globally Mute instead of Ban for Verbal Abuse---#

Because of diminishing player numbers and a steep learning curve- loosing players and experienced ones, is against the intent of FAF. It will not be "Forged Alliance FOREVER" if people keep getting voted off the island.

This actually hurts people who have nothing to do with the flame-out; -> because less players; -> less lobbies launching; -> less Forged Alliance. Less 'Forever'.

Secondly, mute them, instead of ban them. This fits a bit with the appropriateness of the ancient idea of 'an eye for an eye', system. Someone who's verbally abusive may still be a decent competitor- but no need for their comments. Let them play- muted- and the community doesn't loose the invested time and benefit of that player's participation.

Lastly, bad words are not the same as bad behavior. I've been banned for reclaiming allied units, bombing allied units, and I've seen people banned for exploits. That happened 'on the map', and should be punished 'on the map'. But words happen in the chat box, and maybe that suggests they should be dealt with in the chat box too. Mute, dont ban.

---ty for reading
Just my opinion. Again if these are not feasible or have been discussed and declined- never mind. Also I think many people who may say 'hateful' words and things don't actually hate what they reference- but might just be having a bad day.