Forged Alliance Forever

Re: T3 Land fix?

2012-08-06T23:55:20+02:00

Often times you already have a number of engies left over from the t2 phase as well, so a build time redution like this won't specifically alter balance greatly, but will make it less necessary to assign several t1 facs to building engies to support.

One can only wonder at the implications for pathfinding and lag.

Statistics: Posted by Softly — 06 Aug 2012, 23:55

Re: T3 Land fix?

2012-08-06T23:21:38+02:00

25% cost reduction for t3 land units mean that an unassisted t3 fac will produce a mobile artillery or a Brick in 1 minute instead of 1min 20 seconds, a Harbinger in 45 seconds instead of 1 minute.
Players already want to build them faster than that, using shitloads of engies. If the buildtimes are reduced, you would need less engineers to invest your eco in t3 units, that's all. Mass cost is unchanged, so if your eco doesn't support it, it's easy : don't use as many engineers. But a regular t3 eco can handle it just fine, with 10 engies assisting instead of 20. That's one of the purpose of all this thread, beside making the gap between crazy short experimentals buildtimes and t3 land a bit softer.

Statistics: Posted by pip — 06 Aug 2012, 23:21

Re: T3 Land fix?

2012-08-06T23:08:37+02:00

FunkOff wrote:
Plasma_Wolf wrote:it would also make it not worthwhile to build them in the first place, because it takes so much time to build them.
That would make XPs balanced with T3.

it will just result in a bigger engineer spam. reduce build time on t3 units (only). the balance relies on mass and energy cost anyway.

Statistics: Posted by rootbeer23 — 06 Aug 2012, 23:08

Re: T3 Land fix?

2012-08-06T21:53:39+02:00

Plasma_Wolf wrote:
it would also make it not worthwhile to build them in the first place, because it takes so much time to build them.

That would make XPs balanced with T3.

Statistics: Posted by FunkOff — 06 Aug 2012, 21:53

Re: T3 Land fix?

2012-08-06T20:41:21+02:00

And the commander would take 9 minutes and 15 seconds to build it, with its 90 BP. So simply increasing the build cost of an experimental would not only make them less spammable, it would also make it not worthwhile to build them in the first place, because it takes so much time to build them.

Statistics: Posted by Plasma_Wolf — 06 Aug 2012, 20:41

Re: T3 Land fix?

2012-08-06T19:39:05+02:00

Plasma_Wolf wrote:
A gigantic reduction in build power would have to be enforced on the assisting units when assisting the build of a T4. It can be possible but it is impossible to do it the way it's done with nukes.

Don't be ridiculous: Of course the same thing done with nukes can be done with experimentals: Just greatly increase build time of XPs. They should have 5 build time per build cost mass. This way, a 10,000 mass experimental would take 100 seconds to build with 100 engineers, instead of the 10 seconds or so it does now.

Statistics: Posted by FunkOff — 06 Aug 2012, 19:39

Re: T3 Land fix?

2012-08-06T17:20:55+02:00

Making T4 unassistable is probably possible by game mechanics, but I don't think that'd be a good idea. In SupCom everything can be assisted, I'd not like to see a part of SupCom2 entering FAF like that.

A gigantic reduction in build power would have to be enforced on the assisting units when assisting the build of a T4. It can be possible but it is impossible to do it the way it's done with nukes. The SMLs and SMDs are in fact building units themselves, with a huge amount of BP (1080 and 2160 for the Sera T4), such that the relative addition of 10 T1 engineers (5 BP each) is virtually useless.

That can't be done here because the units building the T4 are the engineers and command units that can also assist the T4.

Statistics: Posted by Plasma_Wolf — 06 Aug 2012, 17:20

Re: T3 Land fix?

2012-08-06T16:58:50+02:00

Just spitballing ideas, but most of the issue is linked to the fact that its easy to spam t4, not that t3 is useless.

What about looking into making t4 unassistable, or a gigantic reduction in assist power (Similar to how nukes work).

Not sure if game mechanics would allow this, but it would keep them as powerful units, but very vulnerable when being built.

This would also solve issues where all team players pump 3 or 4 ecos into one t4 unit. t3 would be heavily used to support t4 due to build power restrictions.

Statistics: Posted by CrazedChariot — 06 Aug 2012, 16:58

Re: T3 Land fix?

2012-08-06T15:12:08+02:00

I go along the lines of say a 10% build time reduction myself.

Statistics: Posted by Softly — 06 Aug 2012, 15:12

Re: T3 Land fix?

2012-08-06T14:14:17+02:00

I have the feeling that people wants to have the 1v1 experience but in team games.
That's sadly not possible.

But if we can make it closer while not upsetting the 1v1 one, we can try.

Statistics: Posted by Ze_PilOt — 06 Aug 2012, 14:14

Re: T3 Land fix?

2012-08-06T14:10:11+02:00

I have to ask one question: how is it that something can be "balanced well", but concurrently "also be improved by making a whopping 25% change in build time"? A change of that magnitude would necessarily change the balance to some degree, and if the balance is already fine, why risk it?

Sorry, I'm a software developer and heavily subscribe to the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" doctrine.

"let's improve the file IO library" they said... "it already does its job fine at the moment, but we can rewrite its API to be clearer" they said...

Statistics: Posted by uberge3k — 06 Aug 2012, 14:10

Re: T3 Land fix?

2012-08-05T12:04:08+02:00

This replay is an amazing game, thanks for posting it!

I have the impression that t4 land is good now, it's slightly less powerful due to nerfed veterancy. But t3 buildtimes can definitely still be shortened a bit (25% for instance) to reduce the need for loads of assisting engies. It wouldn't hurt the balance of this kind of games much but would definitely improve the t3 / t4 transition in team games.

Statistics: Posted by pip — 05 Aug 2012, 12:04

Re: T3 Land fix?

2012-08-05T01:58:24+02:00

DilliDalli wrote:
http://www.faforever.com/forums/download/file.php?id=712

Now this is good use of t3 land. Yes maybe we want it slightly easier to build for team games, but lets not let go of this balance.

Would this game have been much different if lu_xun would have had 2 bricks more? because that is what he invested into the engis assisting his t3 factory (40).
But i can show you games where half buildtime would make a difference of 300 units, i.e. 50% of those t1 thingies converting mana into ASF.

Statistics: Posted by rootbeer23 — 05 Aug 2012, 01:58

Re: T3 Land fix?

2012-08-05T00:34:16+02:00

download/file.php?id=712

Now this is good use of t3 land. Yes maybe we want it slightly easier to build for team games, but lets not let go of this balance.

Statistics: Posted by Softly — 05 Aug 2012, 00:34

Re: T3 Land fix?

2012-08-02T14:08:43+02:00

^^^ This. Every effort should be made to avoid changing how T1 works, as it's the one area everyone thinks works perfectly. In fact I think that when people say that something “should” work this way or that, they're using the way T1 land works as a template.

Statistics: Posted by Eukanuba — 02 Aug 2012, 14:08