ASF Balance

[theeggroll]

Lol this thread.

To me, all of this is built around the idea that asf are imba. Asf have one purpose, win air. There's really nothing wrong with how good they are at it, since that doesn't directly (<- key word right there) impact anything regarding bases and ACU and stuff. The reason they are so good at air to air is because air to group is extremely powerful, especially with strats who provide enough damage with just one pass to break sheilds and snipe targets (in great numbers of course). You can still kill things like strats without air control, but that causes you to lose air even harder, so the fact that you want to make transports this powerful is ridiculous. Why shouldn't a swarm of asf be able to kill air units? KD, I've played gap games with you before, strategically, you have no clue how to use air properly or how to use transports effectively. You know how to Eco well on one specific map and how to rush t3 well on it as well, but outside of that I have absolutely no clue if you know anything, Cuz I've never seen you do anything else.

Tl;Dr asfs are the way they are because air is extremely powerful given it can suicide and do a shit ton of damage and move very quickly. Asfs don't need changing

[yeager]

Well the whole transport thing depends, a good player should be able to pull off drops no matter how late in the game as long as he has reasonable air and some creativity, it's not really so right now, I wouldn't like unstopable transports, but it should still be considered, the issue right now is even f you have 50 more asf and the enemy has no aa it is still nearly impossible to pull of drops. Sure when he attacks your trans you come out with even more asf, but what does that matter? Your just gonna have to build arty or a shiz load of t3 bombers or something. What I am trying to say here is trans are viable even now without air sup, . T3 will just make them a more realistic option, also uef already has t3 trans, and is it gamebreaking? Hardly. Also this will be great for gameplay, harder on the air players sure but it will keep people from super turtleing, and make arty ad exp rushes harder, incouraging the good juicy gameplay we all love. This shouldn't just be thrown to the side :p

[KD7BCH]

...so the fact that you want to make transports this powerful is ridiculous.

I don't.

[Eoinbastian]

. I can make it my personal mission to see that balance forums get a rating minimum...

This would be amazing.

[Korbah]

Can we please not balance around gap of rohan? Thanks

Transports should be shot down hands down if they have been sighted. If you don't have air control, can't stealth them, or try to fly in over SAMs, then you shouldn't be using transports. Period. Making it so that drops can get through even when you have 100 more ASF than your opponent does is seriously one of the most misguided, disastrous things I have ever heard discussed.

See I'm not discussing anything of the sort. My transport changes are readily available to peruse and test. In fact if people bothered to try them instead of indignantly ranting they'd see that a few asf rape them as hard as ever. Interceptors are also very effective

[The Mak]

In talking with Korbah everything but the Seraphim part can be done via mods, he doesn't think they transports can crash with the units surviving.

Take a look at the mod 'Paratroopers WIP07', it does the drop even if the transport is destroyed. You can also do an emergency bail out of the units. In both instances, the transported (now falling) units suffer some damage when they hit the ground.

[KD7BCH]

In talking with Korbah everything but the Seraphim part can be done via mods, he doesn't think they transports can crash with the units surviving.

Take a look at the mod 'Paratroopers WIP07', it does the drop even if the transport is destroyed. You can also do an emergency bail out of the units. In both instances, the transported (now falling) units suffer some damage when they hit the ground.

Wow ok great! We could maybe make that happen.

[BRNKoINSANITY]

Korbah, you are doing great work on the mod and I am not directing this at you. The remark is towards KD7BCH, who almost exclusively, if not exclusively (I have never seen him on another map) plays gap of rohan. Therefore, we have someone who only plays a small, deadlocked map trying to argue about the balance of ALL maps. Gap of Rohan is only representative of maybe 1-2% of the maps on SupCom, and has such a distilled playstyle that it is completely and utterly ridiculous to try and balance anything using it as an example. This is not a personal jab, this is not a rage comment, this is not anything that should be taken as provacative. This statement stands -

Someone who only plays one map and does not have any idea about the mechanics of the average game of SupCom should NOT be leading a discussion on something that will completely change how the game plays as a whole.

As to the transports, dropping is very viable if you either have your own air, have a good air player, or you get creative with your stealth and available resources (sniping radar etc). This is how it should be. Transports have always been and should always be paper in the face of ASF.

To directly address the overall ASF balance issue, in trying to remove the swarms...... that has been tried a hundred different ways and has failed every single time. Over the course of FAF history the ASF have been ---

Made more/less costly in mass.
Made more costly in energy.
Tweaked to be more valuable for the same stat comparisons.
Adjusted for build time.

And the list goes on. Some of it was tried in balance patches that were tested a couple years back, and some of it actually made it into official patches (go back and read the old change logs). Making ASF more costly actually INCREASED hoarding because people were afraid to lose them and therefore took even less risks.

There needs to either be a complete reworking of all tiers of air on a fundimental level, or we need to leave it like it is.

[Korbah]

Made more/less costly in mass.
Made more costly in energy.
Tweaked to be more valuable for the same stat comparisons.
Adjusted for build time.

And the list goes on. Some of it was tried in balance patches that were tested a couple years back, and some of it actually made it into official patches (go back and read the old change logs). Making ASF more costly actually INCREASED hoarding because people were afraid to lose them and therefore took even less risks.

I don't pretend the problem isn't complex or that the solution isn't going to be tricky. I accept that all those things have been trialled in the past - what I don't accept is that:

1. The implementation of those ideas was perfect
2. The environment in which ASF exist was adapted sufficiently to prevent hoarding and complement those changes

Part of my modest transport changes and T2FB changes is to try and increase the number of threats that ASF have to deal with. If there's multiple incoming threats then ASF will have to react - currently those T2 threats have limited use in T3 and thus you're able to blob hoard. I'm not suggesting we make things like T2FB's/Transports deadly threats - and there's other units we can also potentially look at - but I think we need to give ASF more work to do in T3 whilst keeping their overall numbers down with pricing.

It's going to need a nuanced, progressive approach to lever those units to have a bit more utility later in the game to raise the overall threat level in T3. I'm not talking huge overhauls, just small modest tweaks that collectively add to T3 ASF workload. If people get behind what I'm trying to achieve (a more interesting mid/late air game that still feels like FAF and not a complete rework) then we'll definitely have to trial a whole range of changes but with structure and persistence we'll find a solution that the community can accept - I won't be producing some wild rework with crazy ideas.

[BRNKoINSANITY]

Now that kind of mentality I can get behind I am interested to see what you come up with in the coming days.