Posts made by Tex

Vanilla fatty was a monster. It packed those big boy summit cannons. Shell damage and speed was massive. Dps was way higher even with like, 1/4th the ROF. I miss vanilla fatty. It would still suffer from the same problems but it was way cooler.

…also javi calling out blodir for skill issue is peak faf forum entertainment.

Me personally I think bombers are a tad strong, but in a good place overall.

My major grip with them is their inconsistency with dropping and the semi-skill semi-rng ground fire&engi dodge mechanic we currently have. Micro is important, but for the same reason I hate a lab outmicroing a tank to kill an engi afterwards, I hate having an engi perma dodge a bomber for 30 seconds until an inti arrives. Having to guess groundfire locations is stupid and unpredictable. IMO the early game should not be prone to as much randomness as it currently has with unit interactions.

I would love for some consistent interaction with how bombers do damage. Can further balance afterwards.

Thing is IMO, its much less of an issue when 2 factions dont even have engi stations. Falls under faction balance more then ‘faction A’s main tank is weaker’ when everyone has tanks

Written on mobile in a hurry:

My opinion on the matter, in broad strokes, without majorly debating specific units is as follows:

Better to make smaller, but more thought out changes, then just throwing out a bunch of changes to see what sticks. Just because a unit is a little weak or could be improved in a small way doesn’t mean it should. (Also doesn't mean it shouldnt). It just is. And while I hate to use the clichè ‘if it aint broke, dont fix it’ I think it applies here. We want to avoid a bunch of changes without having a solid argument presented as to why it is a problem or why it is needed. Unfortunately due to the vastly differing levels of skill between players, its hard to sift through ideas that are poorly constructed, wishful thinking, unneeded, viable, or somehow blended between all. We can better evaluate game balance when we are tinkering with less variables. That, and there used to be a lot of really really bad balance ideas thrown out there without any due diligence or research conducted by the poster. The specific posting guidelines are meant to have higher quality suggestions shine through. Lets balance team focus its effort better.

80% of balance team focus is on the things that feel oppressive and painful to play against. Usually the best use of our limited time. While we would love to be able to make UEF engi drone a fair and viable upgrade, its so far back on the list that it won’t see the light of day for ages. Kennels are a unit that would be really hard to balance properly as its a niche unit that by design is supposed to be a cost ineffective use of mass, but designed to be made to fix a problem. That problem is a players poor eco scaling. If a player scaled their production properly, the unit is not really needed. Make them too good, and they become a crutch for all players. This IMO takes a backseat to issues like ‘are titans too strong’, or ‘how can we balance snipers so they are not a kiting murderball of death’, or ‘is it balanced that 5 t2 arty under a few sheilds will hard-counter a fatboy?’

Just my two cents on the matter written quickly before leaving from work.

Between the BO1s changed to BO3s, and the delayed start of 1 hour, I am not sure if I can finish tournament anymore. Will see how speedy the tournament progresses but I might need to leave near the end. Hopefully Nexus kills me before then.

Also, Nexus is not 2490 for 1v1 MMR, he is only 2267

Signing up - 2408 as of 22:12:07 EST

Also, tournament rules never had a sigh up closure date.

Love these missions. Only major feedback I have would be to remove the construction of novax. I know its a ‘choose your own way to play’ kind of thing but it would be nice to compete on leaderboards in ways besides novax rushing behind turtled bases.

@noc_n_o_c_noc said in 2022 Summer Invitational Group Stage:

Well my group could definitely be worse

It got worse xD

Soon^tm

I love you Jip. Both for the explanation and the fixing. But mostly for your dashing good looks and charm. Thanks for the writeup.

I'll keep this short (EDIT too late) because I need to go to sleep soon. Most egregious issue near bottom (marked under page break) relating to PD categorically not shooting at targets in range.

Last few weeks I have noticed a few times playing as cybran that the T2PD will have issues tracking, hitting, switching targets, or even not shooting at all at units in range (radar AND visual). This often causes issues, as PD you expect to be performing at 'x' level are sometimes performing far below what you expect and can set you behind/lose you games. Sidenote: I also don't know at this point if cybran PD missing targets is intentional or not design wise, but its annoying since it is supposed to be a laser beam that doesn't miss, and it misses a lot for the worst T2 PD in the game stats wise.

I just played a mapgen game which shows the targeting issue quite clearly. Please do not judge my terrible gameplay as its late, I was tired, and I wanted to do a meme strat since I thought our team would lose if I played standard.

https://replay.faforever.com/17011311

Watch my ACU drop from min 11 onward. You will notice early on the T2PD seemed to be fine. Near 11:40 onwards you notice a few time the PD wiggles between targets (losing firing time) then seems to settle down to normal behavior. Again at 11:58 the PD stops shooting so it can to turn to the left. Then at 12:10 or so you will see PD randomly stop shooting upwards (at fervors, a good target), rotate 150 degrees down and left to shoot at some aurora, then rotate back up to shoot at the fervors that never left range(while getting crushed by the fervor). Is this targeting behavior intended? Perhaps due to fog of war? it seems glitchy and counter productive.

Cybran PD is also prioritizing t2 flak and t2 MML over fervors

I could honestly look past all this if it were not for what came next (clickbait title I know, but this is the main reason for the post)

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The worse offense was at Min 14:30, the T2 PD just... stop shooting. You see this start when an engi enters range and the PD does not fire. It just continues from there. Fervors enter range, no pew pew. Targets are in radar range, power is on, no pew pew. Fervors start to kill my shit... no pew pew.

Min 14:55, A NEW T2 PD I make is freshly built. It kills a fervor, then joins its 5 friends in, you guessed it, NOT SHOOTING. This is now 30 seconds of hold fire. Its looking bad.

Min 15:20, I notice I am getting shot by an enemy PD, and I also notice my dudes are not firing (50 seconds idle). I MANUALLY TARGET THE PD, kill it, and after the PD goes back to not shooting at shit.

I then proceed to lose the firebase, and soon after the game. Total time 5-6 PD were not shooting? Over 60 seconds. That's between 20k and 30k damage not dealt over flat open terrain at targets in range and in radar coverage.

Why my PD not shoot?

Tex takes issue with some of these builds. Tex believes solid fundamentals are more important. Tex treats every map like a mapgen map. But Tex also loses to epic tagada builds. Tex lashes out against people trying to do good with a nice forum post.

Maybe one day if i can find the time I’ll try and link a vod to a replay review of yours if you are fine with it being posted here.

I like this series a lot. The self reflection is key to improvement IMO. You seem to be catching some of your mistakes and are working on fixing them which is awesome. Wishing you luck as you continue.

If I may offer some unsolicited advice:

I am not sure if this is a misinterpretation due to language use, but something I noticed is a few of your writeups you will say something like "I lost 'x' because my opponent did 'y', or 'I sent too many engis to location 'x' instead of doing 'y' with them. Where the implication is that 'x' was really bad and not to do it again. This is not always so black and white. The first 3-5 minutes of the game can be really dicey in terms of opening builds on certain maps, and fog of war is a thing even in the later stages. You can't always act on perfect intel and calculated risks are a thing from your opening build to what you do at min 15.

I really don't think you are doing this because your writeups seem like you are giving your gameplay some good thought, but I just wanted to make sure that you are not jumping to conclusions with cause and effect If you made a decision that is good 80% of the time, I want to make sure you are not discounting it because it failed on that 20%, without trying to understand some more context behind things that go wrong at face value. Remember, a good choice will not always yield a good outcome.

The one main piece of advice I want to give you specific from me is for you to ask yourself when you play the following:

What am I doing?
Why am I doing it?
What is my win condition?

I don't have good APM, I have decent micro, I have passable macro, and my late game is garbage. But I know how to find my win condition and exploit it. I highly recommend you try and remember when you analyze (and play) your games to look at the big picture, and not get lost in the weeds with micro/silly mistakes. Find your win condition and commit to it. But try not to get blinded to what is around you as you do so. Its very general advice, but IMO its the most important thing you can do in this game to win. Don't just play on autopilot. Play for a goal, and make it the right one.

For months I have anguished over the decision on what color I want to paint my living room... But no more. Thanks to this glorious forum post I have now decided that 'positively pewter' is the color for me. If it weren't for this great sharing of ideas I would still be going to my local hardware store to spend $5 on paint samples.

At least organize the old colors. The rainbow scheme for organization is niiiiice

@thewheelie

That 'are you a mod' question feels targeted. #banned

Tentatively sign up, availability TBD.