I agree with @gabitii that the t1 sub change (along with torp def change) often leads to very turtely navy gameplay. Yes, rushing a frig to kill bp is still good. Yes, having some frigs to go raiding and for radar is still good. But on smaller maps without a lot of frig raidable mexes, spamming subs is now the way to go. In many of my recent games the player that build more subs at the cost of less frigates than their opponent won early navy control.

I also agree that the aeon destroyer is no longer good. People who think its a good unit haven't played in 2 patches. Especially in destro vs destro battles sera and cybran are for sure better.

+1, I am also a big fan of idle engineers and the various variations of that mod, but I notice the same issues. It's not working on inherited bases, and sometimes the UI overlay glitches out, obscuring large parts of the screen.

I was also glad to see that the missile speed increase coming with the next patch only applies to mobile launchers, and not to TML and cruisers.

As Fatboy and Mega's building functionality are so underused, massively increasing the build power is a good idea. It might actually lead to that feature being used. It would be very interesting to see where that leads.

Hard no on any speed changes for the fatty. If you have the longest range of all units, you have to be ok with the slowest speed as well.

I don't think the HP of the fatty is a big issue either. First of all, if something like a monkey or some T3 land units kill your fatty, its not an issue of tank. Its an issue of bad micro. Against air or arty bases you can support your fatty with shields and aa (either mobile or stationary). This requires some set up, but a slow push of a fatty with some engies supporting by spamming T2 shields and sams along the way can be pretty devastating.

Thanks!

Since the last update (2 days ago), My resource bars (Mass/Energy) get stuck sometimes. Then they are just not updating for minutes on end, resulting in me having now clue about mass and energy balance and storage. This has obviously serious gameplay implications, as good ecoing is like half of the game.

More of a map design issue than a balancing issue.

I found the best way of avoiding TML crush games is to not play certain 10x10km team game maps, or at least be very vigilant that a TML is strong on these maps. The kind of maps where one person rushing a TML slightly outside their base can hit the core Mexes of 6 opponents. I still very vividly remember one open wonder game where someone rushed T2 upgrade and build a TML on full t1 eco, and proceeded to kill like 20k mass worth of mexes and HQs.

On larger maps (say 15x15), or even 10x10s with spawns far enough apart that you need to establish at least some mapcontrol before building TML (like plateau of arracis, or adaptive millennium), I find the TML perfectly balanced.

I got nuked just yesterday after a corsair hit-squad suicided on my smd. That nuke killed 56k mass, without leaving any reclaim. The nuke still has great value. Just instead of trying to overwhelm the opponents ability to defend with SMDs by rushing more nukes quicker, you now have to integrate this strategy with other tools.

Aeon frig felt great the first time I used it. But I am afraid with some micro practice this might get very oppressive.

I don't think we have the player base to support more queues (except for dedicated setons/gap queues, but that is a different discussion).

Currently, when the leader of a TMM party has to go, the party has to dissolve and reform with a new leader.

Can we instead have a "Transfer party leader" button to make this process easier?

@t_r_u_putin said in FAF Beta - Feedback:

well, i don't like adjustments are going to be made cause they are too BIG.

AIR T4 units E cost 2.5 times increase - thats too much - it is not balance adjustment but just simply a prohibition to build.
50% E cost increase would be totally ok since they are really easy to build fast nowadays.

Nukes - same thing - just a prohibition. cost is extremely high, defence vs them is super cheap. another disbalance thing.
you simply throw out things u don't like instead of rebalancing. I offer Energy Cost: 210.000 > 300.000 change only.

If the patch will be released as is. you won't see any nukes. barely see t4 experimentals but you EVERY GAME which is not finished within 20 minutes will be T3 arty gang bang - the silly thing which pursuits supcom recent 6 years.
Changing cost in times totally brakes overall balance.
Real issue is cheap T3 arty which costs only 72k shoots fast and will be even more easier to defend vs air experimentals than before. You won't see any other solutions to end the game except T3 arties every game.

There are more maps than just dual gap. With these cost changes, nukes are still an absolute no-brainer investment on maps where there are more than 3 bases that can't cover each other with SMDs.

The energy cost increase for air experimentals just means that you either build ASF or an Air experimental. It does lock players without an air grid effectively out of building one, which limits excessive snowballing via air.

However, I can see that these changes, together also with the washer crash damage decrease, make the dualgap meta even more stale. Maybe just play a more interesting map?

@waffelznoob said in 4v4 TMM January 2023 Map Pool Tier List:

Every 20km water S+ but setons is in "would rather draw" solely because 5% of the TMM players is gonna be better at it?

I rate the maps similar to javi, and for me this comes down to:

If I win navy on those S rated maps, I can destroy all/most enemy bases and win the game. This feels rewarding and I like it.

If I win navy on my half of setons, the game will often drag out for another 30+ min, and my team might lose anyway. It's a real struggle to close out a setons game. Now, some setons experts will probably immediately reply that I'm just bad at setons if I can't snowball a win on my lane into a quick and easy game win. But that doesn't change the fact that I don't like the map and would rather draw than play.

I agree with t3 land being "kinda trash atm" (compared to t4), and think this whole Fatboy discussion is merely a symptom of this.

Things were a little better before the GC buff fix. Back then percies only had to be afraid of Chickens. Now they also need to be afraid of GCs. So against 2/4 factions, t3 land will just brutally lose against t4. Cybran can at least somewhat compete with their monkey/mega, but the fatty just can't.

Changing the T3 vs T4 land dynamic to the point where percies can at least somewhat hold the line might be better than changing the fatty.

Rating 1900

I totally agree with Blodir and the points he made. But I also want to stress, that this is only a problem at the highest levels of play. Somewhere between 1800+ and 2k+ is where the mentioned maps become quite boring by forcing players into a single viable strategy, and most games being decided 6 minutes in.

I think the vast majority of this feedback is completely irrelevant for lobbies at or below 1600 average rating. At that level, the ability of players to see the optimal strategy for a map, and to punish opponents that didn't go with that strategy becomes so bad that a more diverse range of strategies is possible. I think a great example here is the map adaptive millenium. ~1200 avg rating custom lobbies seem to be an absolute blast on that map, but once you move to higher avg ratings the pool of viable strategies shrinks quickly.

Planet Shmal - FAF version

Top left air player has 1300 reclaim, bottom right air player has 2400 reclaim. I thought FaF versions of maps are there to avoid such issues!

See the total reclaim on screen counter in top left of the images:
https://i.imgur.com/6PeiGAK.png
https://i.imgur.com/iEJjLep.jpeg

Adaptive Moon - this map must have been made by someone who hates aeon. On the side lanes, the terrain is about 80% hilly. And the worst kind of hilliness: unpredictable small hills scattered absolutely everywhere. Iirc the height map was made with some real-world data, but it's really not good for gameplay.

Example: park some tanks here and the entire side becomes an absolute no-go zone for aeon. This is an issue on a lane thats all about t1 spam to secure reclaim. From this spot you can then also raid in any direction you want, even straight into the back mexes.

Desperately needs a big buff.

Both the speed at which you can bring sufficient numbers of mml units to the front to make an impact, and their lackluster dps against buildings and shields is a problem. This unit's sole role is to kill stationary buildings. Why is it taking ages to do so?

TMD is also too effective against T2 MMLs. Bringing MML as a counter to a t2 com turret creeping or firebasing is a massive investment in both resources and time. The counter-to-the-counter, building TMD alongside the PDs, comes at a lower cost and requires no additional preparation.

Cybran is the least bad MML, as it doesn't suffer as much from the second problem. But even with cybran, it takes a lot of MMLs (= a lot of time and mass investment) to kill static defences in decent time.

My favorite 4v4 TMM maps:

• Mangrove Delta
• Forgotten Archipelago
• Maridia
• Metir

Basically, I love navy maps with an emphasis on frigate raids, t2 navy, and torps. These maps in particular are very much the sweet spot for me in terms of aggressiveness. Other navy maps like Headland, Lena River, Lost Archipelago or Saskiya are a bit too large/turtely for me. Still ok maps, but not great.

Good 4v4 land maps:

• Monument Valley
• Plateau of arracis (haven't played it much, but I enjoyed the 4v4 on it so far)

Here I like asymmetry, larger than 10x10 so TML and firebases arent too dominant, not some kind of winner-takes-it-all mex or reclaim distribution.

My least favorite 4v4 TMM maps:

• Seraphim Glaziers (usually decided after 2 minutes by bomber vs transport)
• Winding river (so much wrong here. River too long and narrow. Corners 100% contestable winner-takes-it-all. After winning mapcontrol and having 3x the eco the game drags out for another 30 minutes because you cant actually attack bases with land/navy)
• Adaptive Kusoge (bottom 2 slots too open. 20x20 diagonal is just too big for a pure land map)
• Sands of Ablicka (<2km rush distance on top lane and very contestable reclaim)
• Syrtis Major (just awkward middle relcaim and lots of chockes)
• Sirgis (too spread out, fucked side slots)
• any very linear/lane-oriented and symmetric 10x10 land map
• Seraphim outpost (basically 4 1v1s next to each other, with whoever wins his lane first then just dominating all other slots with air)
• Delta river (too turtely)
• Strife of Titan (you spwan like 1km away from an enemy in 4v4)

While compiling this list I came across a couple maps that should be considered for 4v4 tmm:

• Turtle Beach
• Adaptive Ocean Crater
• Skadi
• Krakens Nest
• Madness -8-

I like team games. I like the split of responsibilities, the progress through all the tech stages, and adapting towards what my team needs.

I find teams of 4-5 players ideal for this. With more players than that, my impact on the game becomes so tiny that the game result might as well be random. Any less, and it tends to lead to every player having to do everything (large mental drain -> not something I enjoy as relaxation after work), and games being more prone towards mostly t1 stage.

So it's just a personal preference toward 4-5 player teams. 2v2 is too much like 1v1 for me. And I don't enjoy 1v1.