Uncontroversial changes

[Lu_Xun_17]

Hi, I'd like to give my opinion about the current balance patch.

First i think the balance team is too small, especially since Crazed and gala have not enough time to get involved in the project. You guys should hire Blackheart and some of his teams if they agree to help on your initial balance goals.
This will also permit you to get more balance test games.

So i give you my point of view about the changes of the current patchnotes. Before reading, don't forget it's never critics, only some opinions, and always thanks for the energy you guys (well the 3 guys team^^) involve to balance the game.



Bugfixes:

Spoiler: show

- DifferentialUpgradeCostCalculation = true, in units/ZAB9602/ZAB9602_unit.bp
- Cybran t2 and t3 engineers hp fixed
- improved drop chances for UEF and Sera Fighter / bombers : Max Radius = 55 (from 45)
- fireball explosion is now red instead of green
- fixed Cybran SMD buildtime
- Czar central target bone removed to prevent the killing of ASF to be too easy with the laser ground firing.
- Fixed UEF TMD projectiles dieing too soon to kill Tac missiles launched from ACU; weapon unpacks = false (from true)
- Several Beam weapons improvements from Shadowknight mod (not all). They buff all beam units because they switch to a new target as soon as the first one is dead. Testing is necessary to see if adjustments are required for balance.

Those bug fixes looks good. Is there's a link for the beam weapons improvements to have more infos about it ?
Also would it be possible to work about transports « landed on water » : sometimes they are not targetable by air units anymore, and are targetabe by subs.

-Seraphim t3 sub: size y = 0.9 (from 0.8) = slightly higher hitbox to ensure riptides and surface weapons can hit them normally while they are surfaced ; other changes will be made later

Yes it's an important bug fix, but reptides can't shoot to any sub surfaced, including T1 and T2 subs. (T2 sub is not a problem as they're never on surface.



Balance changes:

Structures and weapons:
- Cybran splitted missiles speed reduced to 15 (from 25), acceleration reduced to 6 (from 25)

cool !

t1 land:
- aurora:

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firingrandomnesswhilemoving = 0.6 (from 0). It's a very small randomness and only when the auroras move, they will still hit most of the time but this gives a chance to tanks to survive longer. This value can be adjusted to make auroras not as efficient when retreating, and same when they are still.
- aurora : speed = 2.9 (from 3.1)

The aurora speed nerf is maybe innacurate : it will nerf aurora when kitting, sure, but it will also nerf T1 aeon land where it's already weak : for exemple when you expand on loki, and have your 2 or 3 early tanks crossing the map as fast as possible, and if speed nerf looks small when you watch the unit movings, the global time requiered to cross the map is changed a lot.
However i don't see easy better solution. Maybe try to adjust again the acceleration speed (it been very buffed then very nerfed in previous patch. Maybe a middle value can be found.
Also in general i don't like the gameplay becoming slower.

t2 land : 
mongoose : grenade weapon adjusted : 50 damage (from 65), rate of fire = 0.15 (from 0.1) = 30 DPS (from 26).
why not

t3 land:
Snipers

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- Aeon sniper : damage = 900 (from 1350), reload = 6.7 seconds (from 10)
- Seraphim sniper : damage = 575 (from 775), reload = 5 seconds (from 6.7), special mode = 2000 damages (from 2800), reload = 14.5 seconds (from 20), firing randomness while moving in this mode = 0.6 (from 0.8) because speed is reduced greatly

Tell me if i'm wrong, but i see here an other sniper buff. I think they are already very strong (against the units they're supposed to counter ofc, and has never been designed to stop a percy spam), gala which sadly doesn't post here share this), i really don't like this new sniper buff, making any late game offensive acu upgrade way more risky than it already is.

T3 bots (overall = -20% DPS, - 20% HP; Loyalist and Titan = -25 % DPS only)

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- Harbingers : rate of fire = 1 (from 1.25) = 300 DPS (from 375) ; health = 3700 (from 4900), shield = 1000 (from 1300)
- Othuum : fast weapon damage = 60 (from 75), slow weapon rate of fire = 0.2 (from 0.25) = 320 DPs (from 400); health = 5400 (from 6700)
- Brick : rate of fire = 2 (from 2.5) = 300 DPS (from 375) ; health = 7200 (from 9000)
- Percival : rate of fire = 0.2 (from 0.25) = 320 DPS (from 400) ; health = 7500 (from 9300)
- Loyalist : main weapon damage = 150 (from 175), overall DPS = 142.5 DPS (from 187.5) = -25% DPS ; veterancy adjusted to 10/20/30/40/50 (from 9/18/27/36/45)
- Titan : rate of fire = 2.5 (from 3) : 125 DPS (from 166) = -25% DPS

So here is the point that makes me the most affraid in this patch. I know the global project, that starting from engymod and then adjusting the different tech levels. Also this topic got voted with a majority of yes.
However the way to deal with this problem could be wrong.
Why not focusing on only few units instead of making a global change, which ends in some following global changes (changing all T3 land, then changing all T4 land. If you want to continue this way, i can help you you will also have to change all T2 and T3 pds, and probably also any unit able to attack land units...)

This is a very dangerous point imo : nerfing global T3 and T4 this way will make the game way more turtle. If T3 is now making an end to T2 stage quite fast, it's also that T2 counter to T2 pds is not strong enough. Massing some MML against an opponent who will mass even more tmd under shild ? It's not something you want to watch in such a smart RTS.

So if the initial goal is to get T2 spam able to put up a fight against T3 (mass for mass i don't know if it's a good idea, i would keep a mass advantage for T3 land imo) then you'll realise othums, titans, loyalists are already in difficulties against a strong number of T2s.
So the problem is again and only percy and brick (harbringer is quite difficult too balance, it's now very vaiable against bricks, still killed by percy and still nearly useless against T4. But one more time it's a global balance. Aeon have some other weapons to deal with percies.

=> What i would do, instead of all this mess moving half of the values of the game, would be a percy and brick and maybe also harbi range slight nerf.
What i would suggest you to test :
Percy nerf range from 35 to 33
Brick nerf range from 35 to 34
titan range from 20 to 23
Harbringer range from 28 to 27
And this instead of all T3 and T4 and SCU massive changes.

SCU: 

Spoiler: show

veterancy adjusted to 25/50/75/100/125 (from 20/50/90/140/200)
SCU engineering upgrade cost adjusted to 800 mass from 1000 (also fixes wrong Aeon SCU cost) and buildtime = 4200 (from 5040)
UEF SCU drone : mass cost changed to 380 (from 480), buildrate = 35 (from 20)
SCU : -50 DPS to default weapon.

Ok for vet and upgrade adjustments.
-50 dps is a Colateral damage of T3 land global change


T4 land

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T4: -20 % DPS on meaningful weapons, -20% Health
Monkeylord : laser = 3200 DPS (from 4000 but behaviour is improved) ; Health = 36000 (from 45000) , veterancy threshold adjusted to 40 (from 45)
Fatboy : main weapons damage = 200 (from 250) = 2400 DPS (from 3000) ; Shield = 16 000 (from 20 000) 
Galactic Colossus: beam = 2000 DPS (from 2500, but better behaviour), Claws rate of fire = 0.5 (from 1) ; health = 80 000 (from 99999)
Ythotha: fast firing gun rate of fire = 2.5 (from 3) = 1375 DPS (from 1650), slow firing gun rate of fire = 0.25 (from 0.3) = 300 DPS (from 360) ; health = 54000 (from 67000); veterancy threshold = 60 (from 70)
Megalith : main weapon rate of fire = 0.64 (from 0.8) = 960 DPS from 1200 ; Health = 88 000 (from 110 000)

I'm not sure you realise the quantum number of indirect consequences this changement makes...
So now everything but land counter more effectivly Xps.
Probably 10 oblivions will be enough to stop a monkey
T3 and T2 navy will be an easy counter to XPs
Cybran just lost their only lategame navy unit (megalith)
T3 pd ravager will become unbreakable by a direct front attack, so more static situations.
Have fun with a cool test : calculate the time a GC now needs to put down 2 T3seraphim shilds !
…

I know it's first try values added to this current patch, but even with way lower values i still think balance team is going in the wrong direction. Focusing the work on only percy brick titan and maybe harby would be my choice, nothing more.

t1 air:
- uef bomber:

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tweaked to be a better carpet bomber : damage = 7 (from 4), dotpulses = 10 (from 15), dottime = 2.5 (from 1.5), AOE = 3 (from 2.5), muzzlesalvodelay = 0.3 (from 0.2) = makes bombs more spread out. These changes will make it better overall, especially against auroras.

I can't really say anything about uef bomber, i didn't see it working with his new domages. If it can kill now oneshot a moving engy, then it's good !

Jester : rate of fire = 2.5 (from 3) = 40 DPS (from 53) ; Health = 450 (from 525) ; mass cost = 160 (from 200), energy = 4250 (from 5000), veterancy = 5/10/15/20/25 (from 3/6/9/12/15)

I think i've understood, but i'm still not sure : We wanted in the previous patch to nerf the jester vet (nothing else), finally now you want to buff the jester however while trying to buff it, the unit is actually nerfed lol.
I would only keep your vet nerf, and cancel the rest.

T3 Air : 
Heavy Gunships :

Spoiler: show

speed + 2, cost and DPS roughly cut by around 25% 
-> Wailer : maxairspeed = 10 (from 8), 1260 mass cost, 6300 buildtime, 42000 energy (from 52500) ; weapon damage = 140 (from 150), rate of fire = 1.6 (from 2) = 224 DPS (from 300)
->Broadsword : maxairspeed = 10 (from 8), 1260 mass cost, 6300 buildtime, 42000 energy (from 52500) ; anti ground weapon damage = 90 (from 100), rate of fire = 2.5 (from 3) = 225 DPS (from 300), anti air weapon damage = 8 (from 2) = 12 DPS (from 3).
- Restorer : buildtime = 6000 (from 4800) ; Health = 6000 (from 6500). Maybe other changes later to underline its AA role.

The speed buff is very good, the restorer buildtime increase is quite big, but probably good.

However this again ! We can feel here the consequences of T3 land nerf in this 25% dps nerf of gunships (the prize discount dorsn't balance this dps nerf). But gunships now also takes more time to break shilds, snipe an acu, or of course kill some static defenses.
As a result, the unchanged T2 gunships will be used at T2 and T3 stage.



- ASF :

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speed + fuel nerf = 22 (from 25) ; fuel duration = 4 minutes (from 16 minutes) = first attempt at changing ASF a bit. Adjustments and / or other solutions may be tried later. 

If you don't forget to adjust restorer, and then other gunships to it, it could actually work. Well 4 minuts, it looks very short tho !
I guess it's only a first step of the rework of the T3 air. Well i don't know, i'm not bothered by the current T3 air, even if i think T3 stratbombers a little too strong in very lategame.

T4 Air:
Soul Ripper : Veterancy adjusted to 80/160/240/320/400 (from 60/120/180/240/300)
Definitly yes !

T2 navy
-Sera Destroyer :

Spoiler: show

more DPS for the front gun (125 from 105) and less for the rear one (75 from 95); turret yaw range = 120 (from 140), turret yaw speed = 60 (from 90), attack angle = 70 (from 60). It will be slightly less efficient when microed.

no. I agree sera destroyer is good, especially when microed, but i don't think it has to be changed. All factions T2 navies can quite easly have fair fights against it, and other faction will earn more advantage when attacking a base (while sera destro will shot some cliffs). I think T3 sera sub nerf is enough
Maybe we could give a UEF destro range or torp dps slight buff. It suffers quite a lot at

t3 Navy:
- t3 strategic subs :

Spoiler: show

range of tac missiles = 256 (from 175) = same as a land tactical missile. This will expand the sniping potential of these units. Other changes may be tested later (like a slight tracking instead of very long range)
Yes a tracking missile can give them an interesting rôle to play in T3 navy stage.

Sera t3 subs : torpedo range = 65 (from 70), AA DPS = 180 (from 240)

During the last month, we were lucky, we had a very dynamic top20, with a lot of replays with macrogames. Some of them were some really epic navy battles following the equal eco growing of the 2 players, ending in some cool battleship fights. … the often one of the players was seraphim and made a switch to T3 sera sub. In very few minuts, the epicness of the game was broken, and the other faction was harmless.
Well i don't know why i just wrote this, actually everyone (except vortex maybe lol) agrees about a nerf on this unit.
I'd rather a hp & vet nerf instead of a range &AA nerf because :
- T3 aeon torpbomber could 1shot an unvet sub
- hoover tanks or any shots attacking on surface would kill them faster when they attack planes.
- they would still hurt as much, but would be counterable. Also T2 subhunters could kill few of them even if kitting would still be strong.

On this point, if the tests shows that the current tested nerf works, then i have no problem with it.

- Strat subs mass cost :

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-1000 (same cost as a Sera battleship), nuke inner ring damage = 22 000 (from 25 000); nuke outter ring damage = 3000 (from 500). This allows their nuke to damage units that escaped the inner ring to be at least damaged for real (500 is nothing for naval units).

T4 naval:
- Tempest :

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Torpedo damage = 250 (from 235), rate of fire = 0.33 (from 0.25), DPS = 495 (from 352)
Anti torpedo rate of fire = 2 (from 1)
2 Atlantis and equivalent masscost in t3 sera sub still win convincingly, but the Tempest can now put up a fight even when submerged.

This is good, but the main problem of submerged T4 is the ground fire from battleships.

Structures:

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- SAM nerf: AOE = 1 (from 1.5), HP = 6000 (from 7000)
- Static flaks buffs with faction diversity:
2 types : 
- one projectile at a time = more range, precise and more frontloaded, less AOE:
UEF: slightly more damage : 125 (from 102), slightly less AOE : 3.5 (from 4), faster muzzle velocity : 25 (from 20) ; slower rate of fire = 1.25 (from 1.5), slightly longer range : 50 (from 44), better accuracy : firing randomness = 2 (from 2.5) 
Aeon : less aoe (3), much faster projectile (muzzle velocity = 30), better accuracy : firing randomness = 1.5 (from 2.5), longer range : 50 (from 44)

- Several projectiles at once, less frontloaded, cover more aerial space:
Cybran: still slow projectile (20), bigger AOE : 5 (from 4) and very inaccurate (sweeps the sky) firing randomness : 4 (from 2.5)
Seraphim : 2 projectiles at once, less AOE : 3 (from 4), slightly faster projectile (25 from 20), less damage (35 from 53) but fast rate of fire : 2 (from 1.25), inaccuracy remains the same (2.5)

ok let's see the tests !

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Sorry for answering in only 1 topic, but as every change is linked to an other, i didn't want to cut this post and split it in the different balance topics.
I sadly can't help you to spam balance test games for this patch, but wish you good luck to do the best you can !

[pip]

Thanks for the feedback, it's better to post in one topic, easier to discuss.

Everything you said makes sense, and we are aware. I agree with many things you posted, but I'm not the team leader so other approaches are tried first.

I asked Blackheart to play games on balance test mod, but since he lost the vote, he doesn't care. Zlo played some games, and he found that jesters are fine. I think he knows what he is talking about. I hope he will play many more games, because he plays a lot of 1v1 and his input is extremely valuable.

As for t2 / t3 land, these very small ranges nerf won't change anything. If we want to adress the problem, it's impossible to make minimal changes. I initially thought so too, but testing proved me wrong. Shadowknight calculated very precisely the superiority of t2 tanks to be 28% better than t1. For t3 units, it's 68% better than t2. So - 1 range = doing nothing. Range adjustments would need to be much bigger, for instance - 5 range, but then, we lose specificity of higher tier units having more range, it messes up balance with SCU, t4 units and t2 pd, etc.

We still want t3 to be superior to t2, but by 30%, not 68%. The current solution is a first step, to measure things, it will probably not stay like this, unless it appears that it works well on the first attempt. It's been tested and it doesn't look bad, but many 1v1 and multiplayer games are required to adjust where needed.

As for snipers, I have yet to see one kill an ACU in real battle against someone else than Chosen and his ACU kamikaze (and even this I never witnessed). Maybe that's a new trick popular in China ? At t3, if you go offensive ACU, you buy a shield, you don't go naked in the field, and snipers can just barely scratch you.

[pip]

I take the opportunity of Lu Xun's post to say something very important:

Every FAF player that will play the Balance Test Mod will de facto participate in the Balance Team. He will not make decisions of course, this is a prerogative of the initially elected balance team, but he will affect decisisons, and shape up the changes because his replays will be looked at, and his first hand feedback will be considered very carefully (and with more impact than pure theorycrafting).

[Mycen]

I remember some time ago there was discussion about making Cybran T3 air default to having the stealth field on when constructed. Is that something we could implement?

GPG tired that way back, but it was found to be too impacting on the energy consumption.

Really? I am skeptical of that, considering that the energy drain is small, and other units (Titan, Obsidian, etc.) have their energy draining abilities defaulted to on. A handful of T3 pgens could support an entire airforce.

[FunkOff]

Just to throw in my two cents, I basically agree with pip and zock on about 90 percent of their balance discussion... their opinions seem mostly well reasoned

[Gerfand]

Sniperbots- Teach then how to use it to Snipe an ACU.

[Golol]

i like this way of changing the sniperbots:
before the last patch, they did excactly what they should be doing: they were snipers. all, they needed was some dps imo.
then i got changed in a weird way that made them a little bit like rangebots.
you might consider removing the shooting-while-moving ability to balance out the damage buffs (or increase the damage buffs).
the same goes for the aurora: i think the best way to change them is to just take away some more health or dps.
by changing the speed a lot gets affected, just like luxun said.
the precision nerf looks cool though.
about the t3 changes: My opinion isnt very information based about this but it seems to me that mainly t2 gets obsolete because of the range advantage if t3.
i think obsidians and ilshavos have quite a chance in close combat vs t3 (gonna test that now).
that the ranges increase that much could also be a reason why t3 spam isnt like t1 spam.
you cant use t3 like t1 if the ranges are that different, but the map size is the same i guess.
just my 2 cents

[errorblankfield]

Can we seriously buff the sniper bots?

Just look at some numbers...

T1 PD = 166 DPS w/26 Range
T2 PD = 125 - 100 DPS w/50 Range & racial bonus

So basically, double the range (+24) cost 41-66 DPS but you also get some things like splash depending on the race.

Now sniper bots (aeon) are

135 DPS w/70 range & movement

So a whole 10 DPS over UEF T2 or 41 LESS DPS than a T1.
But if you look at cybran you have a 35 dps advantage -which hardly matters at this tech level.
(Or if you want to keep it aeon, 15 less than their T2)

+20 range is nice and all, but the DPS is terrible at those ranges. They are comparable to a PD at a point where ~15 extra DPS ain't doing anything.

I think they should be comparable to T3 PD, which for the record does 328 DPS (accounting for it's firing interval as well). And it has 70 range and 7500 hp!

Now a ravager on wheels isn't my goal, but surely a ravager with half the dps and 6% of the health (yea...) that moves isn't that appealing either. I think their DPS should be brought up to the 200 range (2150 dmg/shot or fire faster w/e) and their health at least in the 'tank one shot from a percy' range. Not, oh no! A LAB! Have to run away! (For comparison sake, 200 range is about half a precyies damage. Wouldn't mind seeing mass cost go up. We don't need a 'cheap' unit that sucks at the T3 level. We have labs at T1 and older teirs after that when that's needed.

Final note, snipers front load damage meaning overkill is high and if they miss once, their DPS drops to nothing useful. Keep that in mind when deciding if it's OP to give'm some love.

Thanks for reading ^_^.

[Gorton]

If there is talk of buffing the UEF tmd, I would suggest not doing so but giving the sparky combat engineer an inefficient TMD system.

[RedYak]

the nerfing of t3 land and xps sounds really bad.

Late game turtles (esp. UEF) will be unbreakable by direct assault, air will dominate even more and they (t3 land and xps) will not justify their price in the first place, let alone the fact that you have to spend resources and time (a lot) to get them is ultimately rendered unnecessary.

I can see people spamming more arty, tml, even nukes instead of going for tactical assaults. There was a term called "arty noob" when I was playing company of heroes back in the day (i was fairly good at it reaching L16 on all factions) and i can see this term coming to life here if these hp&damage nerfs get implemented.