3619 focus.

[Myxir]

played some games

[pip]

@ Lu Xun I watched the game you played against Chevalier and indeed, it seems that the third veterancy level was a bit too step to reach. Maybe it's better to keep the first 3 levels at 20/40/60 and then make the 4th and 5th at 90/120 or 130. It seems that t2 fight really begins later than I thought.

@Ghoti, the Soul Ripper should not go back to 40 k mass. But it received two extreme buffs : -12 000 mass (it's really a big difference) and it is also much stronger now due to the new veterancy system. So it needs adjustements.

@Mixir / Brainwashed, thanks for testing a lot! I watched the game where multiple SCU were involved on the twin rivers 5v5 game. According to DilliDalli who tried them extensively, it seems that SCU are still a bit too expensive / long to build, and now that t3 land builds a bit faster, I think their buildtime should be adjusted again.
The other problem is the cost of the Gate. It can be made a bit more affordable.
And the real problem is that they still don't deal enough damage to deal with t3.

So here are the adjustements I propose to remedy these rough edges:
Quantum Gateway = 2500 mass (from 3000)
SCU buildtimes = 14400 (from 21600 = 2 minutes unassited instead of 3 minutes)
Mass cost = -300 mass for each, keeping little differences.

Veterancy back to 30/60/90/120/150

Aeon SCU : base damage = 300 (from 200). With the 3 AOE weapon upgrade, that should make them better against t3. They are the cheaper SCU by the way.
Sera SCU : base damage = 250 (from 200). With Overcharge, they pack some punch already.
Cybran SCU : base damage = 300 (from 100). With their + 250 DPS upgrade (total = 550 DPS) and EMP, they should be strong enough.
UEF SCU : base damage = 250 (from 100). Let's make their increased rate of fire to 2 for 500 DPS and along with their 2.5 AOE secondary upgrade, they should be quite interesting.

What do you guys think?
I can prepare the bp for you Zep if you agree.

[Ze_PilOt]

I agree for the ACU vet, but I'm still not quite sure for the SCU and t3 land.. Need more test I think.

[pip]

You're probably right, I saw or played only 5 games involving SCU. I made new BP though, in case you get the same impression as DilliDalli's.

How about the t3 land buildtime reduction? Does it seem they are built too fast now?

[Lu_Xun_17]

I still don't understand why T3 land should be changed. I think it's currently very well measured, it's in keeping with T2 and T4 land. But well, i'll try to test this -20% buildtime tommorow.


Also i'd love to see the 3.3 sec OC recharge time back in 3619. It was the initial deal of new OC system : get a more expensive one, with an nrj storage needed, but in compensation, the recharge time and splash damage were slightly better.
It was giving a chance to an ACU to OC one more time an XP, or to fight better in lategame with heavy upgrades (which is an epic aspect of the gameplay imo).

[pip]

I still don't understand why T3 land should be changed. I think it's currently very well measured, it's in keeping with T2 and T4 land. But well, i'll try to test this -20% buildtime tommorow.


Also i'd love to see the 3.3 sec OC recharge time back in 3619. It was the initial deal of new OC system : get a more expensive one, with an nrj storage needed, but in compensation, the recharge time and splash damage were slightly better.
It was giving a chance to an ACU to OC one more time an XP, or to fight better in lategame with heavy upgrades (which is an epic aspect of the gameplay imo).

Maybe we can tie the 3.3 seconds OC to the gun upgrade to give it a more offensive feel, and more appeal compared to the engy suit?

The problem of making t2 and early t3 useless to fight ACU will remain though. It's a bigger problem than the "epic" feel of the game. Having your 6 Ilshavoh or 4 Bricks killed in 3 seconds because you were stupid enough to think you could harm an ACU with them is epic for the ACU and pathetic for the guy who tried to build higher tech units to win an edge and instead wasted lots of mass. With 5 seconds OC reload, your units will probably die too, but will be able to at least deal some damage.

[Myxir]

tbh, i also would like to decrease the OC reload time again, maybe to 4 seconds, maybe to 3.5

fact is, in early game it doesn't matter because you don't have the energy to OC every 3 seconds (that would be more than 1.5k energy income each second) but in late game when you probably will need it against t3 or t4


also i got an idea about OC, because alot people complain about storage (maybe i'll post it somewhere else later):
OC could be possible with at least 2k energy but deal less damage, the formula would be like:

realOCdamage = [OC damage] * [energy / 6000]
energy must be minimum 2k to maximum 6k (6k to make storage more effective, you can only store 4k without building one)

or maybe as an exponential function:

realOCdamage = [OC damage] * [energy / 5000]²

considering you will hit a t4 unit with it (12k oc dmg), here some energy / damage data:
2k e -> 1920
3k e -> 4320
4k e -> 7680

[pip]

@Lu Xun: I ran some tests to check if the 20 % buildtime reductions were that big a difference.

A parangon was spawned, so only buildtimes, in ideal conditions, are measured here.

- A t3 land factory assited by 20 t1 engies in 3619 produces in 3 minutes (of game time, not real time):
8 Harbinger or Othuums (7 in 3618) / 12 titans or loyalists (10 in 3618) / 6.3 Bricks, Percivals, artilleries and snipers (5.5 in 3618)

- A t3 land factory assited by 30 t1 engies in 3619 produces in 3 minutes (of game time, not real time):
10.3 harbingers and Othuums (8.8 in 3618) / 15.2 titans or loyalists (13 in 3618) / 8.1 Bricks, Percivals, artilleries and snipers (7 in 3618)

Without Parangons, of course these results will be less, because your income fluctuates during a 3 minutes time span.
You can see that the number of additinal units produced is not extreme. If you compare the 2 scenarii like this : 3619 buildtimes with 20 engies and 3618 buildtimes with 30 engies, you will see that the number or units produced is quite similar : around 8-9 / 12-13 / 6-7 for the different units.

So, in order to really make a real difference, you need to have plenty of mass, 30+ engineers otherwise your production will not be hastened significantly.
What I want to show is that you can roughly build the same number of t3 units with around 8 less t1 engineers than before. You cannot reasonably go beyond 30 engies assisting anyway, because of pathfinding problems making units bumping into one another, and nullifying the buildtime reductions anyway.

In any case, please provide replays where it's obvious t3 land becomes clearly messed up with 20% less buildtime because I fail to see how 1 or 2 more unit every 3 minutes radically screw the gameplay. However, one more Percival, or 2 more Harbingers when a Monkeylord is on is way is still nice to have.

EDIT: this test also confirmed that SCU buildtimes are set too high in 3619 because you can produce a lot of t3 units that don't need to be upgraded during 3 minutes and maybe only 1 SCU + 1 upgrade, so they are probably not worht it currently (see my previous post about them).

[Lu_Xun_17]

About T3 land buildtime :
Your tests in parangon conditions only show that the T3 land buildtime is well decreased by 20% in 3619 ^^

What we need is ingame conditions. Anyway you have your point of view about this change, i have mine and it looks like it won't evolve on any side.
I really think this change is a mistake, a decline for the gameplay. T3 land is very well measured currently.


I think all the last "tries" to balance FA got made with too impulsive and random numbers. (Soul Reaper, Novax and Tempest are absolutly overpowered now. Well too cheap at least.).

There are over things to improve, which are probably more important (for exemple a fatboy still chooses to focus a T1 engi instead of a T4... or often some units are locked when leaving a T3 factory (don't tell me T3 land build time can be a solution to this problem lol)).



Here is the changelog of my dreams for 3619 : (of course everyone will have a different one)

-SACU + graphics+ sera colormod sounds good
-shild 3 sec to wait before recharge
-stealth fixed
- civilian focused bug fixed
- soul reaper 34000 mass
-Novax 28000 mass
-tempest back to 28000 mass
-tempest speed of shoot faster (would make it more precize and buffs dps +30%)
-tempst hp 50000 hp (there we would get a T4)
-OC reload time back to 3.3sec
-T4 get a priority focus fire on other T4
-ACU vet : 20-40-65-90-120
-grace period when losing radar coverage

[Ze_PilOt]

-SACU + graphics+ sera colormod sounds good
-shild 3 sec to wait before recharge
-stealth fixed
- civilian focused bug fixed
- soul reaper 34000 mass
-Novax 28000 mass
-tempest back to 28000 mass
-tempest speed of shoot faster (would make it more precize and buffs dps +30%)
-tempst hp 50000 hp (there we would get a T4)
-OC reload time back to 3.3sec
-T4 get a priority focus fire on other T4
-ACU vet : 20-40-65-90-120

ACU vet will be fixed.

SR will cost more. Probably not as much as before. Need tests.

OC, tempest, novax, SCUs and T3 land need more test.

Problem is, if I don't get more replays during the test phase, when the deadline for 3619, it will be pushed in his current state, for better or worst. So you know what to do...