What do you dislike about FA's balance?

[uberge3k]

Game design is a funny thing.

When something works well, it's usually difficult to properly verbalize precisely why it works well. When the game's UI is clean, responsive, artistically pleasing, and easy to navigate, you don't really notice it. But if the game's UI is laggy and confusingly laid out, people will notice and complain about it. Similarly, if a game's mechanics are well thought out and balanced properly, you often don't realize it. It just plays well.

For the purposes of this thread, I'm primarily interested in balance. What units don't feel useful enough, what situations feel unfair, that sort of thing. What do you find annoying in game?

Discussion about people's posts is not at all discouraged, but I will be aggressively splitting topics into new threads so that this one doesn't get too distracted.

[jmd3au1]

What units don't feel useful enough

UEF Billy. I know it was buffed in the past, but it still doesnt do anything useful for its cost.
Even more so if we consider it as late-game commander upgrade like Cybran laser.

*Edit* Oh, and somebody should speak on Lame's behalf and mention his one-man fight against OPness of Cybran T2 submarine vs. Sera destros .

[ZLO_RD]

Engy mod tech teleporting makes SUPER easy to get t2 t3 and even t4 anywhere on the map, you just need to have 1 engy to make 1 factory and then it may not even matter if engy dies

[Ithilis_Quo]

Aeon chronodumper with comparation with shield -> too risky upgrade, need some bonus on hp

UEF acu nano repair -> too costly in comapre to T2 or too ussles in most of situation this upgrade need some hp as bons

Aeon SACU -> can have only 2 upgrade for fight others have 3. and its most ussles sacu.

aeon sacu - sacri system, probably would be not build more as 5 time from realse .

aeon sacu - nano need something to be comporable with shield.

shield units are not hit be veterancy hp rise. -> let units with shield get same 10%, not only from hp but hp+shield. and increas it to hp

veterancy instant heal is insine. As when megalith with 2000 hp get after geting veterancy instatntly 45 000 hp that its pure insine. Would be much better have only max hp rise, and more regeneration.

toperdo on land units with 2dps -> total ussles, much better when that units would have torp defense. for more surviability instead of kiling T1 subs with 10 bricks after 2hours.

AA on battleship is so low, its like joke when it is only 14,5 on T3 units. at least some low number about 50, 14 is joke and ussles. only slow a game.

t1/2 UEF bombers miss so hard, all time.

Cybran TML is so hard OP, i love it but its much bigger differences, imho this units can cost more as now.

At start this is enought

[Kalvirox]

On some maps Yhenzee spam is preferable to navy (white fire), it needs a speed nerf.

I think that the main thing I want is more variety in options in a 1v1 game. Something to make different strategies more viable to the "meta" that is currently played now.
Just to be clear. I am not suggesting this for more advanced players who use differing strategies currently because they have the skill for it, I am saying offer them to less-skilled players to add some variety to game styles. Especially for lower down the leagues in the ladder.

Nerf Sera Com TML so that it is the same as the UEF one, (Or at least very similar)

[IceDreamer]

I'm going to construct this response in a way where I lay out a general feeling, then give my opinion on the cause of that feeling. I could be woefully wrong about the cause

Time: Too many games end before they really begin. By this, I mean that most games played seem to end in the T1 stage, with a few glancing at early T2. I think this is a shame, because it means most games the players don't get to use even half of the full spectrum of units. Now, some players are going to jump out and say "This is just because 5k and 10k maps are most commonly played, because they don't take forever", but I counter that what is is irrelevant, this is about what I think should be. Yes, that's the reason, but it's not an excuse. I think that even on 5K maps, the game should have a pretty decent chance to hit T2. Obviously if one player vastly outclasses the other, the T1 is going to roll them, but in closer games it still seems to me that T1 is too strong.

Reasons:

T1 can too easily KILL an ACU. Just surround it with 30 tanks and it's game over, and 30 tanks is not a hard number to get. In my head, there's a strong argument for making it very, very difficult to kill and ACU without T2 in the mix.

OC is too strong VS early T2. It takes the decision to be first to break for T2 and turns it from what it should be, a strategic advantage, into a strategic disadvantage for several minutes. It should always be risky to go for T2, but at present I think it's unacceptably high in risk.

T1 spam is easy. Come on, you know it is... You don't need to upgrade Mexes (In fact, it's discouraged!), you just sit your factories on spam and move blobs of units around. Yes, it's possible to be good at it and bad at it, but it's still one of the least taxing strategies in the game. Yet it's the strongest? What...?

Useless Units: Some units are just poor, and this frustrates me. More than that, it's not about a unit being weaker than the same unit of another faction, that is part of faction diversity, it's about units being too situational even at the best of times. Sometimes, it's about otherwise useful units which have a stupidly useless token weapon too. Those frustrate me no end!

Reasons:

Sparky - I bring this up as a success story. It was utterly unused for years. Now it's just right, thanks to numerous small changes over time.

T2 Artillery - Only ever seen as a last-ditch attempt to repel a navy, and even then it just sucks. Some people claim it's too expensive and want to bring the price down, but to me that just makes another T2 PD. No, I'd keep the price high and drive up the power. More accuracy is the biggest thing, more splash too. Damage is fine. I also think that Adjacency from PGens should do more to improve them.

T2 Static Stealth Generators - I think this is mostly because Stealth simply isn't done very well right now. I bet once the discussions have been had and Stealth has been fixed, these will be much better.

Billy - It can be strong. It's normally a waste of resources which loses you the game. I want to see the 30s hard limited rate of fire reduced significantly (The missiles are VERY, no, absurdly expensive. If you have the eco to spam them faster than 30s, you should be allowed to do so). Also, the outer ring damage is stupidly low.

Satellite - Not underpowered as such, but it's in an odd place right now. One or two is worse than useless. Four or five are unstoppable.

Suicide Units - Currently only used for assassinating ACUs really, which is frustrating for the victim when it happens and generally poor gameplay in my opinion. I'd like to see something done to both units which makes it acceptable to use them to take out PGens, Mex, defences or whatever.

Shield Disrupter - Unused. Not sure if it's useless or just overlooked, but something should be done

Aircraft Carriers - Still not used they way they should be IMO. The way they are right now, they should be renamed mobile AA ships, because that's how they are used.

Czar - Subject of some discussion in chat recently. Apparently it's useless but as a big Mercy. I feel that if true, that's a stupid situation.

UEF ACU Nano upgrade - Useless

OP/Annoying units: There are very few of these now, most have been knocked on the head, but a few remain. These are units which are outright too strong, or are not OP but just really annoying to have to stop.

Sera TacPack - OP. If they get close, it's game, it fires too fast at close targets and is nigh-impossible to dodge. Should be made identical to UEF in terms of firing mechanics.

Cybran MML - Annoying. I can settle with Cybran having powerful TMLs that's fine, but the fact that their MML's have the same mechanic, but can be present in far greater numbers, makes them very annoying and very difficult to stop.

RAMBO SCU - OP. No really, these things are beasts.

ASFs - Yeah, I know, we all know... What do do, what to do...

Veterancy The way units instantly get buffed up with veterancy is the biggest problem in the game right now IMO. It's stupid, frustrating to play against, and generally a poor design. There must be a better way.

[Ustin]

I really dislike game ender balance right now.
Cybran have game ender for small maps and others have game ender(or two) for big maps.
I think faction balance should not depend so much from map size.

[Zoram]

Just one thing for now : agreed with players above about the veterancy buff. It makes absolutely no sense. Units suddenly healing is magic, doesn't really fit in the game overall logic.

Was it like that in the official game ?

[-_V_-]

- All game enders should be way more expensive.

- Awhassa should be more expensive

- t3 navy should be more expensive so that t2 navy is not just a transition

- ACU should be more expensive, they're OP as it is

That would be a nice start to fix

[Ceneraii]

Ehh, I only play Cybran so this might be a bit biased

Seraphim hover: yhenzee+t1 arty+hoverflak are incredibly strong on naval maps that are not very open, having a strong floating unitmix is hard to play against effectively. Possible fix could be to make yhenzee slower on water.

Cybran TML is really hard to defend against, esp for uef.

Harms is kinda useless but I suppose megalith is t3~4 navy option for cybran... (I feel this stage is kinda weak gameplaywise to begin with)

These are the obvious things, now for something of a personal gripe that is prolly unfixable?

While t2 armies can usually benefit a lot from having t1 units mixed in (even tanks, but especially arty combines well), when you reach t3 stage the optimal unit mix is "as much t3 shit as possible with some flak", there really isn't any strategy involved in this decision. You cannot optimize your army to fight a different army in a way that will make much of a difference, so the tradeoff between firepower and concentrated mass (dps doesn't whittle down as damage is taken, unlike with lesser tech stage) is nonexistant, except maybe for spamming t1 against percy only armies.

It feels like there is a combination effect of t1+t2 and t3+t4 :/ I think the lack of this effect in t2+t3 makes the transition seem sort of weird.