PATCH 3696 RELEASE THREAD

[moonbearonmeth]

I have no strong feelings either way but I think this could be worth looking into.

@Balanceteam & Pros: Please give me good reasons not to test it or what the resulting problems are.

You don't need the blessing of the balance team to go test these things yourself.
Also I like how you want input from pros but apparently FtX doesn't come into this.

[biass]

Did you not have buildpower lying around before you started T4? This whole thread is ludicrous but I don't have the time to pick it to pieces right now.
Also
Was engy speed even looked at in the patch? Why are people arguing about it here?

[PsychoBoB]

You don't need the blessing of the balance team to go test these things yourself.

As i am not a native speaker i may have chosen the wrong words. I meant the balanceteam or some Pros should test it.
I tested it already and i think it's worth to implement it.

[PsychoBoB]

Was engy speed even looked at in the patch? Why are people arguing about it here?

Engi speed wasn't a thing in the patch but T4 buildtime.

As i understand this, some people now have the problem to get enough buildpower to a specific spot to build a T4 in a reasonable time.
In a Pros perspective that problem doesn't exist because of enough vision.

An example: As a Joe i can't estimate exactly enough when can i stop building ASFs and start a CZAR. But the switch between it takes significantly more time now and this can cost me the game.

[Apofenas]

I wonder what the Equilibrium values for t3 engineers are (move speed), prolly even slower.

EQ doesn't change move speed of engineers. EQ engineers and engineer stations all have 1 bp for 10 mass cost regardless of tech level.

As for SCU. According to Philip It is more complicated issue which should be solved in next FAF patch. With t3/t4 nerf SCUs got unchanged and that makes them very powerfull. One of the issues about them that is fixed in EQ is their build power. Natural build power of these units is too high. For example 4 rambos have 224 bp and can throw SAM in 5 sec or reclaim dead experimental very fast. RAS SCUs that provide 56 bp for free is too much too. However you only see engineer upgrade in some retarded nano+engy HARMS creep or tml+engy for sera. Because 800m for 42bp is not very efficient and usefull investment. EQ nerfs SCU bp to 25 and buffs engy upgrade to 100bp for 600m.

Although i believe balance team will get things done with SCU standard upgrades(or at least copy EQ stuff) i got to throw shit into useless upgrades and current problems:

Veterancy and unit cost. Currently if you upgrade SCU from scratch it uses 2k cost for vet; if you build preset it uses preset cost. Same cost problem applies to aeon sacrificial system.

Aeon
2d shield. Funniest thing about aeon Rambos is that they lose to shield combatant preset. 2 Rambos pack 110k hp and 600 DPS for 12.4km and 480ke; 3 shield combatants pack 105k HP and 900 DPS for 13.2km and 420ke. For similiar price they get 4.5% less hp and 50% more DPS. Ithilis gone straight forward solution with this. He made 1st shield inefficient (and basicly obsolite) and 2d shield super efficient. I suggest to either give these upgrades different purposes(like UEF bubble) or remove one of them.

Sacrificial system & Nano.In EQ this upgrade was made more efficient and built into SCU and nano was moved on its place so Aeon rambo became much harder to kill.

Additional upgrades? May be togglable chrono that works like OC or additional gun upgrade that adds damage or damage to shields would be nice.

UEF
Jamming upgrade and mechanicI suggest to make it built in like Sacrificial system. Many UEF units got this ability and it isn't very usefull to go for instead of shield or drone.
In other hand i suggest to make units with jammer disappear from radars among fake icons. More like stealth exept enemy knows there is something in the area but can't tell where exactly and how many.

Omni.in EQ this upgrade was made cheaper. I suggest to add a radar/sonar to it and use SCU as t3.5 mobile scout.

Cybran
EMP. Currently is very bugged in FAF. It can't stun units with shield even if shield is depleated, but it can stun other units under mobile shield. Hmmm? Fix needed.

Stealth.Yet again. Build in personal stealth and change stealth upgrade to area stealth to improve SCU utility as supporting unit.

Cloak.Anyone seen cloaked SCU? Probably it is invisible so nobody seen them, or it is too expensive and obsolite by nano. It could be interesting to see some area cloaking or much cheaper upgrade with no hp boost.

AA.Although the upgrade is very usefull and has efficient stats, i suggest to make it comply with other SCU upgrades - get more damage, range and AOE via getting gun upgrades.

Sera
Gun(Enchanted sencor system). Did anybody use this upgrade for increaced omni? Obviously this is a weird gun upgrade that lets you get 35 range for OC. I suggest to remove this "omni disguise" and rename it to gun upgrade; nerf standard 400 DPS to 300 and make gun upgrade add 100-200 DPS.

RAS. Even though it is inefficient eco, if you take into account build power, safety and unit cap this is still a good late game option that Sera doesn't have. Instead they get some weird +2/+200 built in SCU. Cur that to standard +1/+20 and give sera proper RAS.

[Blodir]

Higher tech engi movespeed buff sounds interesting. It would make them a bit nicer to use without affecting balance (since they arent used for reclime anyway). I can't reqlly think of any downsides to some small movespeed buff

[Farmsletje]

With t3/t4 nerf SCUs got unchanged and that makes them very powerfull.

no

[Dunstklinge]

With t3/t4 nerf SCUs got unchanged and that makes them very powerfull.

I have not observed that at all. SCUs continue to be barely used, if at all, especially rambo SCUs. Would be very much interested in a replay where combat SCUs proved to be too powerful for the now weaker t3 units.

Natural build power of these units is too high. For example 4 rambos have 224 bp and can throw SAM in 5 sec or reclaim dead experimental very fast.

That is the only thing they really have going for them. If you ever see combat SCUs over t4s at all, its because of these qualities. And that allready happens extremely rarely.

However you only see engineer upgrade in some retarded nano+engy HARMS creep or tml+engy for sera. Because 800m for 42bp is not very efficient and usefull investment. EQ nerfs SCU bp to 25 and buffs engy upgrade to 100bp for 600m.

I can see how the build power upgrade is kind of useless, but gutting an allready incredibly niche unit is not a good way to make an upgrade more viable.

Even though it is inefficient eco, if you take into account build power, safety and unit cap this is still a good late game option that Sera doesn't have. Instead they get some weird +2/+200 built in SCU. Cur that to standard +1/+20 and give sera proper RAS.

Ecoing with RAS SCUs isn't an unbeatable strong tactic anywhere outside of maybe phantom games, and if we look at these for balance we might as well give cybran proper shields and aeon and seraphim their own hives. In regular games, this is just faction diversity, which is something FAF always tried to keep.

[Steel_Panther]

Higher tech engi movespeed buff sounds interesting. It would make them a bit nicer to use without affecting balance (since they arent used for reclime anyway). I can't reqlly think of any downsides to some small movespeed buff

Besides lag in large maps, the absolute worst part of this game is horrible pathfinding. At least for t3 engies it should be fine to increase their speed to help make up for that. Also according to petric's video on the new patch, he said the acceleration of some units was increased to help with pathfinding. Since the worst pathfinding issues of all are with engineers, maybe all tiers, or at least tier 2 and 3 could get that increased a massive amount to help too.

[Platinumizer]

Issues with pathfinding are the same for you and your opponent, i don't see how that affects balance?!