Balance Patch 3674 Feedback Thread

[SpoCk0nd0pe]

Don't get me wrong, I really like the principle of faction diversity through building HP differences. But I still don't get the strange progression of the HP (mostly resource buildings) and I think it is a very good question. To clarify what I mean:

(Mexes and pgens)
At T1 UEF HP is 54% higher then Cybran
At T2 that difference is 39%
At T3 it is 50%

So all in all, the difference scales roughly lineary.

The difference between Aeon/Sera and Cybran however does not.

At T1 Aeon/Sera HP is 20% higher then Cybran (roughly in between)
At T2 that difference is 6% (why?)
At T3 it is just 3% (again why?)

Just to clarify, I would have expected something along the lines of 7500 (t3) and 2160 (t2) for Sera/Aeon to keep it at roughly 20% when going Cabran->Aeon/Sera->UEF at all tech levels.

[angus000]

I dont agree with you, spockond0de.

Every faction has their own weakness at each tier, and are aimed to be vulnerable to different threats. I do agree that having pretty much random values is a no-go, but having them based on mathematic consistency is as good as calling it random.

I'm guessing cybran T1 mexes were rounded around raid-play, whereas t2 and t3 mexes are less vulnerable to this and more so to tactical missiles and air, where a mere 100 hp can make as much of a difference as 30% hp variation in T1.

Of course, this doesn't mean the patch does a perfect job accomplishing what it's made to, I'm just saying that consistency doesn't really matter for balance.

[IceDreamer]

angus makes a very good point. Humans are predisposed to look for and find patterns. We need to be really careful about deciding to base everything on a pretty formula instead of gameplay decisions.

[PhilipJFry]

The damage output of t2 figherbomber/t3 stratbomber had a big influence on how many hp the t2/t3 mex/pgens have.
eg it now takes 2 nothas/corsairs to destroy a t2mex/pgen from cybran/aeon/sera in one pass while it takes 3 against uef.

[SpoCk0nd0pe]

Good points!

I do think that flavor and consistency are important as well though. That has little to do with seeing patterns where there are none but rather wanting a pattern. From that perspective the different HP values of cybran vs UEF make sense. Why Sera and Aeon fail to build their middle ground resilient structures at higher tech values eludes me.

From an air perspective, this also doesn't make too much sense to me. Two Nothas can kill a t2 mex even if you keep the progression. T3 mexes would use one more bomb from Sera/Aeon. That wouldn't really hurt though because that change would be symmetrical.

(I used values from the unit database, hope they are not outdated)

[Iszh]

I cant see problems with the patch itself. But i can see a problem that huge hp changes are mentioned now in a changelog and other changes have been done and the unit database is far from beeing up to date. I cant follow the changes in the unit database linked on the faf page. Thats annoying because i dont want to save the last 10 changelogs to stay up to date and compare it with an outdated unit db to get a picture whats going on.

[PsychoBoB]

...and the unit database is far from beeing up to date...

I think it's still an open job:
viewtopic.php?f=67&t=13048

BTW: Is Raging Squirrel out there?

[Mad`Mozart]

...and the unit database is far from beeing up to date...

I think it's still an open job:
viewtopic.php?f=67&t=13048

BTW: Is Raging Squirrel out there?

Sure, i see him every day

[PsychoBoB]

Sure, i see him every day

Raging Squirrel own the code. (the DB is generated from faforever.nxt file directly).

Could you please ask him for the code of the unit DB?

[Plasma_Wolf]

So, I've taken a look in that [url]viewtopic.php?f=67&t=13048[/url] thread and ZeP mentioned a nxt file but I can't find that. I did find a faforever.faf file. Would that be the thing we'd need now. I opened it with winrar (and now my computer associates every faf file with winrar).

I did see the folder with units, so that would be where we'd have to build a script to read everything we need, right?

I have no coding experience but if it's not too difficult I can have a look at it and see if I can come up with *something*.