Patch 3703 Beta

[Morax]

Nerfed nuke and t2 arty is something I have been wanting to see for ages. Finally, we can fight with land units as opposed to stationary systems in team games - hopefully.

Thank you for taking care of this plaguing issue.

[n3roxis]

About Scathis:

The unit has 6 barrels so please make it shoot 18 shots instead of 20. (for my sanity)

Additional suggestion:
Instead of increasing Scathis range, increase movement speed and hp. You could also do fun things like giving it a stealth field.

[Farmsletje]

To answer some questions

Nuke assist was nerfed hard because nukes were (and still are) extremely OP. On most maps rushing just 1 nuke would mean that 3 enemy players have to rush an smd with all their bp just to not get nuked. This means the 1 nuke costs less mass overal than all the enemy smd's + the enemy would need roughly 3 times as much bp to rush their smd's. And even with this you can still use the nuke to hit undefended targets like pushing t4's.

TML was so costeffective that just killing a single t2 mex is already worth the tml. You also only need 1 tml to have the enemy team make 10 tmd's to cover everything (or 500 if you're aeon), which means that a rushed tml (in teamgames) is generally almost always guaranteed to get multiple t2 mex kills. It's so incredibly easy to abuse it in teamgames which results in it being incredibly OP, which is why it was nerfed.

After the latest novax retargetting buff it has become too strong of a unit. It forces enemies to spend tons of mass on spamming shields to defend their eco and can later on be combined with t3 arties to snipe enemy shields. Just having a novax added to your t3 arty warfest would give you a big advantage which is why it has gotten a decent nerf.

About aeon navy: Since it has received buff after buff in the last few patches (and the upcomming one) it is nowhere near close to the bottom of the pit where it used to be. Yes aeon frigs are still the worst, but some faction has to be the worst unless you want to make all factions equal. Their destro's are still epic, their battleships are way better now & the tempest is in line to be the best lategame navy unit in the game.

[Ecthelon]

I disagree with the changes that effectively nerf tactical and nuclear missile rushes. Preparing defences for these reactively was already possible and this change just means that more instances of these tactics will go unrewarded. I worry that the diversity of tactics available is restricted more over time. Rather than making nukes harder to assist, I would prefer just increasing the buildtime on both nukes and antinukes in proportion, so that other play can have time to unfold without making the tactic unviable.


The recharge time changes on all T2 shields just seems unececary. I can't think of any aspect of the game that will be improved by these changes. Even if I could, they are pretty extreme. All I can think is that this is meant to weaken reactive responses against artillery shells, which will only have the effect of more games being ended in just a few volleys after a team loses an important building quickly. Meanwhile, what I consider worse is that firebases are easier to overwhelm and fronting your commanders is made riskier. Again, this will only decrease the variety of play by punishing these tactics. I would love someone to explain why this change was considered important and ended up being so large.

Faction variety is taking a hit again with the Aeons swiftwinds being nerfed and cybran/UEF shields being buffed. It's okay for factions to have strong pros/cons when you pick them. I feel that this is an important part of the game that could be broader than it is, not narrower.

The T1 anti air vetting from one bomber kill doesn't sound like a problem to me. Being rewarded for using the same units and keeping them alive is good and that's quite an achievement for one little anti air unit.

The scathis range change sounds insane. It's good to see it buffed, but having to make it closer to the enemy to be effective was part of the whole point of the unit. 600 would have been good, but 2000 will just mean it never leaves the base.

I have felt for a while that the build time for frontline T4 units is a bit high, restricting reactive play. Too often one T4 will roll in unexpectedly and a team won't be able to respond for what feels like too long. Positioning and manuevering T4s gainst eachother on the map is fun, rather than just right clicking in the enemy base and waiting.

Of all the direct combat T4s to buff, the tempest seems an odd one as they already seem to heavily dominate the naval game against all other factions once they start rolling out. This is as it should be, as they are the only T4 naval unit. However, making them cheaper seems like it could be a step in the wrong direction.

[Puschkin]

I am a bit puzzled about the T4 changes. Am I reading those numbers right? Scathis Maximum Firing Range: 300 → 2000 !? The Disruptor has a range of 850 ... the defining gimmick of the Scathis is that it can move, why would it need to do that now with such a range? It was also labelled as a Rapid Fire Artilillery, which it isn't anymore either.

The Scathis was broken, it has been un-broken. This change has been teased on the forums awhile ago, most people were strongly in favour of this change.

It may have been broken, what I am questioning is the way it was changed!
The Scathis has (or had) two characteristics that made her unique:
1) It is an endagme-scale artillery the size of T3-Arty, but it can move!
2) It is one of only two rapid fire arties in the game (and fires even quicker than the Salvation)

Now it has such a huge range that it never needs to move anywhere. This makes her defining characteristic obsolete. It also makes it boring to use and gives the opponent less chance to kill it. The interesting part of a Scathis was that it needs to be comparetively close to the enemies base. I have seen many interesting multiplayer games where one side tried to get it in range protected while the other was desperate to snipe it, it made the game interesting and gave everybody somethinge else to fight for.

Also, what was once the fastest rapid fire arty in the game has now the SLOWEST firing rate of all! Again, I am not sure if those numbers are correct, but the patch notes say the rate is now 0.05/sec ... that's now the SLOWEST (tied with the Emissary)! Please have a look at the model. It has revolving barrels for Maverick's sake! It is ridiculous to see it firing and revolving with so big delays between shots!

I am no expert, so I leave it up to the pros if the Scathis was broken or not. But it is undisputable that the post-change Scathis is the opposite of what it was designed to do. If it was broken before the job would have been to nerf other parts of it as long as it keeps it's defining characteristics intact.

[____]

Renegade. So you fixed its targetting so it can shoot while moving now. ok. Why does gunship with lowest hp and dps need a cost increase?

Probably because it has an aoe radius of 3 which makes it insanely good against t1 units and capped mexes. The other t2 gunships don't even have aoe damage at all.

fx for regen aura :
i tested yellow, it wasn't as good to spot the unit and felt overall less good than the green colour. Also green is an overall colour linked to health/regen buff (healer spell etc). Also didn't want to have a flashy fx either, so a bit of smog seemed to do well.

Well if the other options were worse, then fair enough. However, as speed2 suggested I would still advice to make the effect less aggressive. In the current state it moves around very quickly which results in to being quite distracting.

Of all the direct combat T4s to buff, the tempest seems an odd one as they already seem to heavily dominate the naval game against all other factions once they start rolling out. This is as it should be, as they are the only T4 naval unit. However, making them cheaper seems like it could be a step in the wrong direction.

Right now, the tempest doesn’t dominate naval combat in any state. Their targeting is bugged which results in them shooting over the unit. You can also get 3 cybran battleships for its price in the current balance, which destroy it. Or 2 summits for less which also win hands down.

[Katharsas]

To answer some questions

Nuke assist was nerfed hard because nukes were (and still are) extremely OP. On most maps rushing just 1 nuke would mean that 3 enemy players have to rush an smd with all their bp just to not get nuked. This means the 1 nuke costs less mass overal than all the enemy smd's + the enemy would need roughly 3 times as much bp to rush their smd's. And even with this you can still use the nuke to hit undefended targets like pushing t4's.

TML was so costeffective that just killing a single t2 mex is already worth the tml. You also only need 1 tml to have the enemy team make 10 tmd's to cover everything (or 500 if you're aeon), which means that a rushed tml (in teamgames) is generally almost always guaranteed to get multiple t2 mex kills. It's so incredibly easy to abuse it in teamgames which results in it being incredibly OP, which is why it was nerfed.

After the latest novax retargetting buff it has become too strong of a unit. It forces enemies to spend tons of mass on spamming shields to defend their eco and can later on be combined with t3 arties to snipe enemy shields. Just having a novax added to your t3 arty warfest would give you a big advantage which is why it has gotten a decent nerf.

About aeon navy: Since it has received buff after buff in the last few patches (and the upcomming one) it is nowhere near close to the bottom of the pit where it used to be. Yes aeon frigs are still the worst, but some faction has to be the worst unless you want to make all factions equal. Their destro's are still epic, their battleships are way better now & the tempest is in line to be the best lategame navy unit in the game.

Thanks these explanations make sense.
But wouldn't it be better to simply make anti-nuke cheaper (either mass or bp or both)? Currently if one team doesn't scout at all you could suprise them with a fast nuke. With a cheaper anti-nuke, fast nuke could still be used to punish a team that doesn't pay attention while cheaper anti-nuke will prevent nuke from being profitable just by existing.
I think that the TML/TMD changes are mucher better to prevent their respective problem than the nuke changes.

Edit: Maube a slightly bigger anti nuke range would also contribute to a more elegant solution.

[AFGHANPSYCHO]

Whats with the people on the balance team? It feels like they are all players that rarely build shields, and it irks them when people do build shields and it thwarts their plans, so they are on a crusade to always make shields crappier and crappier. The over spill changes already made shields very annoying to use, because you have to build them away from eachother, but the overspill nerf to mobile shields just means a few arty shots will take them all out before whatever units they are protecting even reaches the arty. Please, stop ruining shields.

[____]

I did some more testing with the restoration field and it seems like it is bugged for the Sparky. It doesn’t get the bonuses nor the visual effect for both upgrades. The other units seem to be working fine.

[Destructor]

BUFF on UEF and CYBRAN....
Like always!!

Shit aeon shield radius now cant be protected by other shields, cause have soo long time to recharge.

Best NAVAL = CYBRAN now have more anti air defense. GREAT.

Aeon advantage was the air on t2... dont have a single t2 land unit with a good range. Great when put mongoose more fast.

Shitty mod overall

Mongoose now soo OP.