Balance team beta patch changelog

[Zock]

About the shields, I'd suggest to increase UEF shield size to 18-20, but not make aeon shields smaller. The shields are already often annoying to use, they will be behind your units, and not cover them, bump them etc. Smaller shields will increase this problems. Don't touch the aeon shield hp either, or it will be too weak. If the energy cost is 75 or 100 is no big deal, but depends mostly on how strong obsidian/blaze actually are.

However the UEF shield should get a little nerf to even the increased size out. Either 1000 less hp (and 100 energy cost, current is 110), or 125 energy costs, or increased build costs (maybe copy aeon build costs). The aeon shield would be too weak with the values, but the uef one is imho fine when its weaker.

The Obsidian will be still good without the mistake buff. Aeon will still have their shields, to even a little bit weaker (but still very strong) obsidian out. It needs definitly no buff.

[Ithilis_Quo]

The Obsidian will be still good without the mistake buff. Aeon will still have their shields, to even a little bit weaker (but still very strong) obsidian out. It needs definitly no buff.

Zock you forget on price, price, price, price.. 390mass Obsis is still good with owerfiring? sefa 360mass chicken is better! 2 pillars are better. You own try 4obisis + 2 shield (2280mass) vs 5 chicken (1800mass) and 1800 mass win! It need buf, Obsis is wery strong tank but price, price, price, price... 390mass what is wasting 50%+ of shots

You suggest rework Rhinos, now new rhino take striker in 3 sec obsis 4sec (if dont miss and has less range, and is more expensice !!) Better and cheaper + has hopplite alternative, blase isnt alternative - its waste of mass Obsis dont has chance kiling this Rhino when is in move. same speed bigger range less hp but rhino never miss and dont waste any of him 100dps dmg. And its 23% cheaper!! its 90mass thats ridiculous.

Ask yourself why you dont (and all faf elite 1900+) dont play Aeon, i see only one replay of you with Aeon (not on this balance session of course), and whole game you dont build any aeon units, only build eco. They are realy so good, when you own dont build any of they OP units?? This path wanna make aeon better against another fraction, bringe some effective feature. But when i look on this chanelog that i thing All positive thing what was about Aeon is taking back "Becasuse this is mistake buff and styll are so good" and from buff aeon it is like it was before or with another fraction buff (cybran) its like nerf!

[Ionic]

Aeon have great tanks, air, SACU's, CZAR, Rapid fire, double gun, double RAS etc

Not every tech level has to be balanced. Then End.

[Ze_PilOt]

By reverting the muzzle charge delay, you are basically reverting every buff on the obsidian that was made in the patch.

So, was the obsidian any good before?

Sure the shields are cheaper. Does it really compensate for the obsidian not able to hit anything moving ? You will have to test it, but I don't believe so.
The shield change was done so the obsidian can get in range of sera bot without dying horribly without being able to fire a single shot. If not a shot can hit, it doesn't matter anymore that he can get in range more or less safely.

For the sound, sure it's nicer if it works, but if the unit is useless, you won't hear much either

[pip]

Charge delay removal = DPS increase. Of course that makes unit not only able to hit better, but to be just better statwise too. It's the same with aurora. They got a 5 DPS buff, that makes them significantly stronger than before because instead of shooting every 2 seconds like before, they shoot every 1.6 seconds. The difference is very important when you have a small army of them.

The Obsidian muzzle charge delay removal means + 11 DPS to the obsidian. Obsidians without any delay have 120 DPS, they are insanely strong. Maybe you should check all replays from Zock when he plays Aeon. It's total Obsidian supremacy, against t1, t2 and early t3. Only ACU can stop them, and microed Ilshavoh.

Alternatively, the muzzle charge delay can be set to 0.1 and rate of fire slightly decreased so that DPS remain the same as before, or almost. Same for the aurora. We can try that approach instead.

[Ze_PilOt]

Maybe they are too strong with it, but without they are useless.
If 11 more DPS is too much, increase the reload time, do not decrease the charge delay. It's making the aiming buggy.

But I don't think it is.
Maybe Zock wins with them easily, but did you test the other way around (luxun aeon & zock sera) to see if luxun wins easily with obsidians too?
If not, it's probably zock being better than luxun. Of course this has to be tested over the course of at least 10 games (5 games with the same faction each).

In case people are not aware, a turret align to his target when it get in range (that range is usually slightly bigger that the fire radius so it can be anticipated).

Once acquired, the turret rotate to follow the unit. It usually take in consideration the distance & relative speeds to anticipate the position of the target when the projectile land (like a real world tank).

That's why you can't really avoid a shot while going in a straight line, but can avoid them if you change direction during the flight time of the projectile.

By the way, that's what is buggy with all laser weapons (old cerberus, battlecruiser,...) : The laser does compute an anticipation too, with (I've tested empirically) a 0.1 flight time (the lowest simulation interval possible). Problem is that the laser hit at the same simulation tick, not 0.1 tick later, so the laser hit in front of the target.

For charging weapons (aeon ones), the problem is that during the charging time, the engine stop tracking the target.
It means several things :
If the target change direction or stop during the charge, it fire at the previous moving vector.
If the firing unit rotate or change direction, the fire direction will be completely off : easily seen on high load weapon such as the (old) destroyer.

So by having a 0.4 seconds, you introduce a 0.4 second period where you allow the target, with some anticipation, to be able to dodge any shot very easily.
That's for why it's so easy to dodge T2 pd with an ACU for example, you just need to have the right timing.

This is an engine bug, it can't be fixed.
Also, increasing the muzzle velocity DOES NOT fix it at all. You just disallow your enemy to dodge during the flight time, not before firing, these are two separate things. Once is a game mechanic, the other is an engine bug.

So I'm pretty sure the obsidian will behave nicely in any stupid sandbox test. In game, if the enemy has the knowledge of the bug and move his unit correctly, you have a 0 DPS unit on the field.

And for the sound ? Well, yes, it's sad, but I'm building a unit for hitting things, not for producing nice sound FX (and that's all the obsidian was/is good for).

And by the way, I'm not giving you that much choice here, it's a bug fix (unless you have an engine patch), I won't revert that change.

[pip]

In your changelog, you wrote you set Obsidian muzzle charge delay to 0.1, but you didn't, it was 0. So it's hard to tell it's something you forgot or something you want to get rid of completely. Aurora has 0.1. So what do you want exactly? 0 and you don't care about sound, or 0.1 to prevent sound issue?

[Ze_PilOt]

By the way, where did you get the idea that reducing the MuzzleChargeDelay was increasing the DPS ?

I've tested 20 auroras destroying a T3 gateway with 0.5, take 19 seconds.
Then 20 auroras destroying a T3 gateway with 0.1, take 19 seconds.

[Ze_PilOt]

it was 0.

It's 0.1 in the code in the repository, but I made a mistake and commited to GW branch.

0.1 is probably low enough to avoid someone to be able to time dodges.

https://bitbucket.org/thepilot/forged-a ... 3bfd209ca1

[pip]

Ok, that's why then. I will slow down rate of fire according to 0.1 charge delay, it's a better solution indeed.

Also, just to make sure : you meant in the other thread that adjusting veterancy for air units is not the scope of this patch or only what Ithilis Quo suggested?