I think that you need to be extremely careful when comparing SC2 and FAF (in context I am right now Number. 3 on FAF ladder and in Platinum league in SC2 after couple weeks of playing), while it's true that if an UI mod for SC2 exist that does what an UI mod for FAF does then it would absolutely busted and banned for sure (eg. a Disperse move for marines to avoid Banelings to kill them with their AOE) because it removes a vital part of SC2 which is unit micro. The same can be said for an UI mod that would control economy in FAF where it would automatically add pgens, pauses everything that uses power (E-please or whatever it was called mod). That's because a lot of FAF depth lies in economy and macro, much more then in SC2 (in SC2 unless you are Zerg (Queen injects) the economy is basically Select all Nexus/CC/Hatchery make drones while having the hatchery's waypoint on mineral line/Gas).
The point:
Now back to the topic, I believe that UI mods like ATP (Advanced Target Priority), UI party, Spread move, Disperse move actually increase the micro potential because of the importance and trade of's of Micro vs Micro.

Note: While in theory assuming perfect gameplay and APM of >300 on normal and probably >500 on big maps this wouldn't be true but we are mere mortals and taking into account that I am top 5 player It's safe to assume that If I can't do this and it's not optimal for me to invest my APM into it then it's not gonna be possible nor actually beneficial for other players.

Reasoning:
I will try to now explain why I think that is and give a couple of examples. First of all we need to consider what these mods actually do, most of them allow us, the player, to better tell the units what we want them to do via orders or improve the way we give/queue the orders. ATP allows us to specify what we want the unit to target, Disperse move allows us to split the units more efficiently, same for UI party. As Archsimcat already stated you still do the same amount of work in game by giving orders, the part that is improved/simplified is the UI. Instead of needing to somehow (different methods for that as stated by Arch) select 5 groups i can select one, give the orders and tell them via a UI mod to just split. You may say that this is bad and takeaways the micro aspect of the game, but my point is that it doesn't, it allows you to better "translate" your actions to units and because of that micro more.
Why is that you may ask? Because if I am not allow to use that option then I won't do it at all, I just won't micro it (Excluding some edge cases like splitting very important units that you give a lot of APM attention like engies early game when there is nothing going on, your first 3 t3 units, your T4's etc.) and neither should you because it's just not worth it. Why would I spend 3 seconds on splitting my t1 tanks so that your bomber has 100 less mass killed value if this would mean that I am inefficient with my Mass/E/BP balance causing me to make 5 tanks less? Because of the importance and focus on economy most of the time it's just not worth it to invest a lot of attention nor APM into extensive unit micro in this game, It's just how it is.
Let's go over a few examples:
Example N.1 Mod in question - Disperse Move
As stated above a situation is as follows, a t1 bomber attacking my t1 tanks. If I would have disperse move option there is a chance I might quickly select my 4 tanks, give them 3-4 move orders around them and use my keybind for Disperse move. Take probably around 1-1.5 seconds. If I wouldn't have Disperse move I wouldn't bother to move my tanks at all, if I would have tried I could probably manage to move 1 away but realistically speaking, ask yourself, do you really see it out side of edge cases like first 2-3 minutes and special units? No you don't, I don't do it, I don't see it because it's too much hassle for little gain and it's more important to queue 1 more pgen so I don't power stall in 2 minutes.
Example N.2 Mod in question - ATP (Advanced Target Priority)
I have a few units doing a run by and I want to kill enemy mexes. I select my units and using ATP I use my keybind to tell them to focus mexes and move them in between mexes. I then have to options depending on the game state, I can either micro the units by giving move orders to avoid enemy units, dodge shots etc. to get maximum value out of them or leave them be if that's not really important. Now the same situation without ATP, I select my units and either just move them in and pray, move in and then queue Attack orders on mexes or just queue attack orders on mexes from the start. It takes a little bit more (given low amount of targets, don't kid yourself you don't need to queue more then 2-4 usually) time and "micro" to do so then using ATP BUT it doesn't at all allow for any future micro, I won't move micro my units cause they will move but stop shooting the mexes so I just queue and forget.
Another thing is a more strategic aspect like deciding that I want to prioritize targeting of t1 arties given the game state and both mine and enemy unit composition. Without ATP it wouldn't be possible and this takes a potential strategic and micro aspect of the game.

Over all the argument is that these mods don't take away micro from the game because Yes, they simplify some part of micro but if it's not simplified it's not used (except some edge cases where the mod isn't actually taking away the skill needed cause given low amount of orders value gained from the mod is so small it can be ignored) so nothing is lost, we actually gain the possibilities for micro and increase the potential of it. I would hate to see banning or blocking via changes such UI mods since it would make the game dumber, more boring and actually decrease both the focus on micro and it's potential.
Another thing I would like the bring up is balance, if the mod follows the basic rules (as stated by Mach) and it's not a cheat mod then it really doesn't make units OP (Few exceptions like Shift G + ATP on ACU priority). Did t2 arty/unit drops became OP after ATP? Yes they can be stronger bcs of ATP but it requires extra attention and micro (in order to get more value you need to set targeting to eg. power and then MICRO your arties so that they don't die to defences and stay at the edge of their range). T1 bombers doing Spread attack? Yes they will utilize their AOE more efficiently but it takes more clicks then just move + A-move or just A-Move.
All these mods do is take an aspect of micro that is in theory possible but not worth it because of the time required to achieve it being long due to UI being bad or UI limitations and making such move a viable one.

Back to Keyser.
"the pr you are showing is here to preventing cheating : UI mods abusing the feature to give order to units (ie auto dodging, auto hover bombing etc etc)" Agree with that, these are and should be considered cheat mods and therefore be banned."
"It is also here to remove the split move to trap ACU with T1 units (balance decision in accordance with the balance councillor)." I think this is a very weak argument for removing such an excellent feature like split move, I also don't see why unit blocking of ACU is so bad while for example while blocking an ACU with spamming of t1 aa is not (absolutely busted since it fucks with pathfinding insanely). I really fail to see how units getting on top of the ACU and blocking it is such a bad thing, yes it may be frustrating but I think it's healthy. ACU's are absolutely busted compared to units and you want to keep your ACU in range of enemy units while keeping your units outside of enemy's ACU range. If you move in your units on top of enemy ACU you should be able to block him at the cost of clumping up your units and making them more prone to OC. After all it's only effective if you have a lot more of units bcs of how attacking vs defending unit formation works. If blocking wouldn't be possible it would make ACU even stronger (bad idea in my opinion) and even if you have 50% more t1 tanks you still wouldn't be able to kill enemy with an all in because of defenders advantage in engagements and Vet on ACU etc.
" Spread move / disperse move not working after that, would be an unfortunate side effect." I think that there should be a focus on finding alternative solution if that's the case, it would be a huge loss for micro and gameplay to lose those mods.

Please make sure that your posts contains some actual information, don't make ridiculous claims like "oh this will make bombers OP" without giving it a second thought nor actually argumenting your position. You can have your own opinion but sharing it as facts is just foolish. This thread as all others derail and become a spam fiesta of people arguing and quoting each other back and forward for no real result. This stubborn guy won't change his mind about XYZ so just don't bother. This is not the place for that. Without deeper game knowledge or game balance you shouldn't really claim anything, you can hint that you think or in your opinion something is ... but it's really not that useful for the discussion. It may seem "elitist" but in 99% of the cases it's just the truth, if you don't understand the game well enough you can't say what's OP or UP cause most of the time you can't properly use it or counter it.

Footnote: I've spent a lot of time on this post and thought it through so I won't respond to some low effort quotation and BS claim by some random guy, so just don't bother. I am looking forward to get some answers from other top rated players, but mostly Balance and Game Dev Team as well as to use it in the near future in any related discussions so I won't need to spend 1h again explaining and argumenting my points.

After playing quite a few games over the last days and participating in the rush for the highest rating I must say that this is truly amazing, never before was I able to just come online and play games during non prime times without the need to wait in a lobby sim for 30+ minutes. After the ratings are settled I believe that sadly TMM will die out in the 2k+ bracket (although I really hope it won't be the case) but for the rest of the players it's a huge game changer. I believe that TMM will help a lot of players get better at the game and allow them to experience the huge variety of maps and strategies FA has to offer. There are few bugs but they are minor and everything is working really really well especially considering this is just a beta. It's already awesome and it's gonna be even better when there will be full release as well as the addition of leagues/divisions.
Overall huge thanks and hats off to everyone involve with the project.

Can any member of the balance explain why these changes are being made?
Bomber and Scout balance changes
While I like the bomber changes to enable more 1st air openings and buff the air aggression I really really disagree with the scout changes which makes them more expensive and increases the BT massively.
In my opinion people don't scout enough in this game anyways and don't respond to what their enemy is doing so I see no reason why the primary way of getting intel should be nerfed, I don't think that we need to buff cheese like surprise t2 bomber all in snipes or anything like that.
I believe that another side effect of this change will be that first of all 1st air openings with a fast scout on transport rush maps will no longer be viable (which in my opinion is the healthiest meta for transport rush maps since if both players do it they can see if enemy is going for transport or inti rush and adapt their BO and respond accordingly (takes some skill) and avoid the Rock/Paper/Scissors of Transport Rush vs Inti Rush vs 1/2 Inti into Transport).
Another side effect will be the randomness on big air maps (mostly trans rush maps) where you will no longer be able to cover all possible routes of enemy transport (usually 2 or 3 scouts needed) and thus making catching enemy transport even more random as well as decreasing the chances of players actively thinking about where to drop their engies and how many based on the intel of enemy transport position and it's cargo.

While I understand that you want to make the scout more expensive and harder to get in order to force 1st air openings to only build bomber instead of bomber + scout I don't think it's the correct approach since it has massive negative effects on other areas of gameplay.
If you wanted to just nerf scout then I think what should be changed instead is nerfing it's Speed, Turn Rate, and Acceleration to a point where an inti can catch and kill the scout.

Note: Please do not post in this thread unless you are a member of the balance team or a well respected and high ranked player. I don't want this thread to become a shit posting cancer.

I can offer 1vs1 lessons as part of the prize for the winners of both brackets (1 for each winner, they usually last between 45 mins - 2 hours)

I am reading through this thread and I see both sides just throwing stones at each other. This discussion will never work if both sides don't agree on some frame of reference. Anyways, here is my take on this:

T3 mex nerf (be it income decrease or price increase) won't have direct effect on early t3 Land because you are supposed to get t3 land BEFORE you get t3 mexes, that's what we are trying to achieve here after all, so there is no need to worry about balance of t1, t2.
What such change WILL impact:
For 1vs1.
Increase the importance and length of early - mid t3 stage (harder to transition towards more eco) which would be problematic if you don't adjust reclaim since it will deepen the issue of importance of reclaim during t3 stage.
Slow the game down after early t3 stage
For team games:
Force people to actually make some units during t2 stage or rush t3 to defend vs t2 armies (Before making t3 mexes)
Make reclaim more important past t3 stage and slow the game down (people will need to make some units leading to a stand offs with slow eco'ing (bcs of bad map design))

It's nearly impossible to change the game so that Team games become dynamic, the map design promotes more passive and turtly gameplay, and people play those games meaning they want such gameplay. I think that making a slight adjustment to slow the t3 eco switch a little bit would be good and healthy if properly implemented but you can't change the fact that still most team games will be passive and turtly.

Pd's are not the issue at hand here. The problem is that you can spam RAS bois that give you economy but if your enemy decides to push you already have BP in place (Ras coms) that are hard to kill and can easily build tons of PD's.
The problem with the later stages of the game is that the amount of mass you have in units compared to your income is growing. Basically usually the longer the game goes on the longer it would take for your economy to re built the army you have. This indirectly makes reclaim insanely important and thus promotes very static gameplay.
I think that in order to achieve healthier gameplay in later stages of the game we would need to encourage players to trade more during the game. The easiest way to do that would be to reduce the amount of reclaim you get from higher tech units.
We should look over some games and see how the value of Total mass in units/mass income changes through the game when we reach different stages and then adjust the reclaim in order to bring values of different stages closer together.
I would need to go and see some replays but from the top of my head the difference rn is huge. (This is for 10x10 land maps, different maps have different values and it also depends if you make land, air, navy).Early t1 stage is ~2k/~25, Late t1 stage ~4k/~35, t2 stage ~8k/45, late t2/t3 rush ~14k/~60 , t3 stage ~20k/80, late t3 stage ~30k/100. As you can see from this very inaccurate approximation from the top of my head the value of the units on the field grows much quicker.
To address one of the arguments against changing our beloved 81% reclaim value. I really disagree that changing that number for different tiers will confuse ppl so that they won't know how much reclaim they will leave. First of all most people have no idea how much units cost so they don't know how much reclaim a Rhino will leave anyways. Changing the % of reclaim left by t2, t3 units won't really confuse ppl since it's quite intuitable, higher tech units leave more mass, it doesn't matter (in sense of understanding) if a brick leaves 800 or 1k mass, it leaves more then your t2 tank, that's all you really need to know. If we are talking about judging how much mass will a failed attack donate you do it with experience and on the fly judging so people will just adapt with time to those changes.
Another counterargument is that with such changes all the wreck props (reclaimable units) on the maps will be changed with such balance change. I am really not to sure what's the best way to address this issue but I don't think it should stop us from balancing the game. Possible solutions are: Just let it happen, most maps will be absolutely fine with slight reclaim decrease. If author wants to adjust his maps, he will do it, as for GPG maps and Classic ones whose authors are inactive we could look over them and see if any would require changes and adjust the wrecks there as needed.
The other idea is to separate the values for civilian owned units or w/e but I am not sure if this is even possible and it's extremely hacky and then unintuitional for future mappers, so I don't think this is the way to go.
Over all I think there is a need for some changes to the values of reclaim in order to make the gameplay especially during later stages of the game healthier, more action packed and rewarding. If we look at other RTS games, especially SC2 we can see similar pattern. Pro matches there used to be either cheeses or games where something happens in the early game, then both players macro'ed, maxed out and clashed once. Right now games can be a 30 minutes of nearly constant fighting, often in different parts of the map at once.
As for the exact number I don't have a proposition yet, I am not even sure if we should balance it for t1, t2, t3 ,t4 or for each tech stage for Land, Air, Navy separately. It needs to follow a logical progression -> higher tech units yield more reclaim (in total since they cost more) but they yield lower % of their cost. With such changes I really hope that we could also buff micro compared to macro since players would be more rewarded for constantly trying to use their units and to find weakness in opponents defense (as it is currently during t1 stage on most 5x5 and 10x10 maps).

Hmmm Yes, Gun soo bad, mmm, Yes, sooo thrash. Next time I play I will remember that.
If you honestly think that gun or rambo acu is weak then you really have no clue what's strong and what's weak. A gun acu with some support units is easily worth around 3k mass in t3 units (given you have few E storages and some overflow). And that's just an ACU with a gun and a t2 or w/e. If you add Shield(UEF, Aeon)/Nano (sera) then the ACU becomes a No-Go zone for any units, especially t3. Like just any 2k+ ladder game and see how strong ACU's are.
A note here: I actually think that ACU is pretty OP and it's power isn't too healthy for the gameplay but if you would nerf it then the game would become more stale since other aspects of the game are not promoting aggressive gameplay. I think that with tweaks to Reclaim % values and some nerfing to Rambo ACU's you would get a much better gameplay that focuses more on trying to attack around the map instead of doing 1 big push through the middle.

Hello, I've been recently playing some SC2 and I've noticed a lot of things that are done better in SC2 then SCFA and vice versa. So here is one my suggestions on how to improve the FAF gameplay, specifically micro aspect of the game.
I think that everyone that tried to play FAF competitively is aware of the hotkeys, they play a vital part in controlling your units efficiently and predictably. Here is a list of hotkeys that I think would be a really good addition to the existing ones.
Edit: As it turns out most of these were already a part of some UI mod;t hey are marked by being in Italic

Note: Please do not spam this thread, I would like to keep it clean and have only people interested in the idea of making such hotkeys, devs and other players with a lot of moding knowledge raise their points about what is feasible.
If you want to suggest other hotkeys please do so in this separate thread , if you won't comply I will ask a moderator to delete your post.
Here is a link to wiki page on SC2 hotkeys

Control Groups
There are a lot of features missing in terms of control groups and these are the most important hotkeys for micro'ing and controlling your armies.

Hotkey: Add selected units to existing control group
Default: Shift + # (corresponding key of the control group)
If no control group exists under the # then it creates a new control group just like you would use ctr + #

Hotkey: Take away selected units from a control group and create a new control group for those selected units
Default: Alt + # (corresponding key of the control group)

Both of these are a part of Washy's mod and they work nicely.

Ability to add factories to control groups (You can do it but it doesn't work like it should eg. it adds units that the factory produces to # control group instead of just having the factory in the # control group which currently makes this feature basically useless)

Selection

While this feature exists in a form of double clicking with mouse on a unit it lacks a hotkey counterpart (and I don't think I need to say why hotkeys are 100 times better)

Hotkey: Select similar units on screen to the ones selected

Part of a mod called UI Party by nine2

Camera

Enable players to save camera positions to a # and jump to a specific position by pressing #.
While this feature partially exists it's very limited and thus not very useful since you can only cycle through camera positions instead of being able to go to specific saved one.

Hotkey: Save current camera position to a # (eg. ctr + F5)

Hotkey: Jump to a saved camera position (eg. F5)

Both of these are part of a mod called Additional Camera Stuff

This list is WIP and I will add other suggestions in the future as well as after reading propositions from other players.

How to win as Seraphim vs UEF considering the positions are equal and both of you switch to t2 land:
you get T2 + Gun while UEF ACU gets Nano + Gun.
You send your army NOT to your acu but to other frontline where enemy doesn't have ACU either and you abuse the fact that your army is very strong on t2. If enemy acu wants to push you build 1 t2 pd and stand in front of it so that enemy ACU can't kill it. After a while you get 3rd t3 pgen and you can go nano yourself, switch to t3 (UEF switches to t3 as well) and then your ACU + t3 unit composition (Siege tanks, Shield + Snipers) are much better if micro'ed correctly so you can push and win the game by slowly killing his expansions and taking good trades.

Now unless you can provide some specific questions, or situations please stop posting so much cause I feel like you ignore other posts and just try to convince everyone of your truth (spoiler alert it's not like that and TOP 10 players are telling you that) and If that's the case just go somewhere else because then this discussion is pointless.

The current problem is that the only response you can get from balance team is if you go and ask them directly and then if you are lucky (I am not) you may get a response. The patchnotes are great but they are released AFTER the changes are made. The only way to track upcoming balance changes is to look at Github (which I recommend) or when the changes are already merged to faf beta you can see them and test them there. There is a lack of possibilities to discuss and influence or shape some of the changes that are happening. You may say that if I wanna do that I should just join the balance team (which I am considering) but I still feel like there is a lack of medium for high rated players to voice their opinions on the topic of balance where balance team will actually READ them and respond and explain why some changes were made.
I understand why the current balance section is not used - everyone just keeps spamming it, many of those people having no clue about gameplay and balance so I think that there is really a need for such medium to exist. Not sure what format it should have exactly, should it be on discord with Slow mode enabled? A forum thread like suggested where you can only post if given permission or if you are part of the balance team ofc.
Nonetheless I expressed my concerns about some of the changes, a few more made it in in the meanwhile on Git and there is another big question hanging around, Is this balance patch gonna hit before the LOTS (Terrible idea in my opinion) or after?
So many question yet there is no way to get a response unless I go and bother Petric (already did, no response) and Jagged with PM's.

if it's a SIM mod then it usually makes the game unranked (there are some exceptions I am pretty sure)

I am reading through this thread and I see both sides just throwing stones at each other. This discussion will never work if both sides don't agree on some frame of reference. Anyways, here is my take on this:

T3 mex nerf (be it income decrease or price increase) won't have direct effect on early t3 Land because you are supposed to get t3 land BEFORE you get t3 mexes, that's what we are trying to achieve here after all, so there is no need to worry about balance of t1, t2.
What such change WILL impact:
For 1vs1.
Increase the importance and length of early - mid t3 stage (harder to transition towards more eco) which would be problematic if you don't adjust reclaim since it will deepen the issue of importance of reclaim during t3 stage.
Slow the game down after early t3 stage
For team games:
Force people to actually make some units during t2 stage or rush t3 to defend vs t2 armies (Before making t3 mexes)
Make reclaim more important past t3 stage and slow the game down (people will need to make some units leading to a stand offs with slow eco'ing (bcs of bad map design))

It's nearly impossible to change the game so that Team games become dynamic, the map design promotes more passive and turtly gameplay, and people play those games meaning they want such gameplay. I think that making a slight adjustment to slow the t3 eco switch a little bit would be good and healthy if properly implemented but you can't change the fact that still most team games will be passive and turtly.

A lot of the games are singleplayer so if we would delete all replays that have 1 player and are older then 1 year we would hopefully reduce the memory usage enough while not removing the abillity to watch older multiplayer games. I do sometimes watch older games, even from 2015-17 because that's what you need to do to actually watch some really high rated 1vs1 games that were not part of some tourney.

I agree with Ftx, an upgrade that would touch on ACU's speed/acceleration/turn rate would be very hard to balance, mostly because it's effectiveness would be hard to gauge and essentially you would need to test every possible interaction of t1, t2, t3 units from every faction with such upgraded ACU. Also I think it would promote bad gameplay since given the latency of the game (0.5 sec natural delay) you don't want units to be too fast, it's already annoying that when micro'ing certain units enemy can turn around and before your units react enemy gets into the range, now imagine that the one unit you can't loose in the game is dependent on this interaction even more then now. Over all, too much effort for little gain.

As I have already stated, currently we are unsure if the SCU rebalance will include the rebalance of RAS SCU's, changes to them may be released later as this rebalance aims to promote the use for SCU with armies to increase the diversity and possible strategies at t3 and t4 stage.
The BP of the gateway was already increased (although obviously not as much as you suggested) to bring the SCU production time in line with that of t3 units. The BP of the Gateway is 180 compared to that of t3 land HQ which is 90. The BT of Basic SCU (except Sera) is 8 280 compared to that of Percival and Brick (4800) which means that the Gateway produces a raw SCU in a similar time ( 46s, 57s for sera) to that of a T3 HQ producing a t3 Heavy Combat land units (40 for harb/Othuum, 53 for Percival/Brick) but it's much harder to assist the Gateways compared to factories.
Regarding the suggestion of removing the upgrades altogether and having only presets, I think it's an interesting idea however I am not sure if it's even possible, I will add it as an experimental idea to the doc.

After a lot of recent testing with Turin we came to a conclusion that a lot of values need adjusting (mainly reducing the cost of Raw SCUs slightly, decreasing the cost of basic gun upgrades, rebalance of the Engineering upgrade for UEF, reducing the HP of cybran SCU (from highest to lowest and instead giving HP buff to the Nano upgrade) as well as few other minor tweaks, we are currently waiting for some more input from the community and then we will implement those changes into the beta and continue our tests.
Please note that all the changes I am, and will be speaking here about are not final and upon revision we may choose a different path for certain upgrades.
I will try to keep you informed with all the changes and perhaps write a short summary after we implement the changes into the beta so that it's easier for you to give constructive feed back.

Okay, thanks, much appreciated since I am going skiing tomorrow and I just wouldn't be able to actively participate in the picking process.

I am confused now tbh, are the official picks tomorrow (Sunday) or in 1 week (then I have no issues what so ever)?

It's basically impossible to take part in the picking process if you are not home during these times because when you have such late picks you would need to put everyone in a list in order when I do not even know most of them nor did I have time to actually get to know them since new people sign up every day and picking process starts tomorrow, why not move it over a week or at least by a couple days AFTER sign up close so that captains can do some research and ask people around to see who would fit in their team ...
Right now I would need to quickly do a list of those players that I don't know where the ratings are pretty skewed anyways and don't accurately represent their skill level ...

The SCU Rebalance focuses on Rambo and Support SCU's, RAS SCU is it's own thing that will be discussed and rebalanced separately.

that is the case I think