Patch 3676 Feedback thread

[nine2]

I haven't read all of the justifications for everything because it's too involved - but if you could be bothered dear Balance Councilor ...

I wonder what the long term balance plan anyway? Like what are the "big problems" we are trying to solve. Is appears that Cybran needs to be nerfed somehow, I can see that. Isn't there a huge issue that T3 Air is too good? That the transition between T2 and T3 land is not great enough? That it's just not worth building T2/T3/Experimentals at various parts of the game because T3 Air / ACU's are too powerful?

So question 1 is "what do you see as the big problems to solve in your role as BC?"

And question 2 is "how do ACU hp changes and factory changes further that plan?"

I wonder if that such changes are not really achieving that much in terms of rebalancing big issues, and because of the controversy maybe not worth it. Which isn't to say the changes are right or wrong - just to say that they aren't right enough to be worth the heartache.

At the same time I realise that smarter people than me are talking about all this so I'm just curious - not judging.

Thanks

[Ars Nova]

Sniping isn't really important to this tbh.

If sniping isn't important, then why did you reduce all the HP values? What are you trying to accomplish? The stated goals were:
"allow more options for aggressive play".

• The HP changes only increased the effectiveness of bombing raids and tac missile snipes against unprotected buildings, and otherwise had no impact .
• HP had to be increased for naval factories in the most recent patch, because T2/3 navies fire at very long ranges and can't be stopped without mobilizing, because getting your factories blown out of the water makes it almost impossible to get back in the water, and because naval factories are especially vulnerable due lack of dedicated shielding.

CLEARLY, you're not looking to quickly train-wreck players and cause them to lose faster, or else you'd be happy about factories going down as soon as somebody started focusing on them. Which, again, goes to show why this is contentious. If you really wanted to see factories getting killed without it ending the game, you'd also make factories cheaper so that it's possible to easily rebuild.

So what are you doing? If you don't want factories to die quickly from an normal push, then obviously the only thing you can be predicting from the HP changes is an increased prevalence of sniping. Your emphasis is to make it so the lowest-risk snipe is to against Cybran buildings, because you only need a single SCUD in the chamber to take down an important building and reduce military production back to T1.

The second stated goal was:
"The changes are aimed to increase faction diversity"

• Yet the method to protect buildings from sniping is the same for all factions. You build shields, you keep AA, and you build TMDs.
• Standard armies still can't simply overrun a base without a superior army, so there's limited or zero change to play here.
• So arguably, the diversity you seek is for it to be a lower risk to snipe at Cybran buildings. That's all there is.

Unofficially, the goal is "nerf Cybran". But as the argument goes, the method chosen is mostly obnoxious in nature, doesn't address land armies, doesn't agree well with naval play, and finally, the very worst, doesn't have any specific targeted intents. The idea is "I don't know maybe Cybran will lose more and that'll be balance on paper I think". It's a completely inarticulate way to approach balance.

I'd be more sympathetic if one of the balance moderators were saying, "YES I WANT TO SEE MORE TAC MISSILES GOD THEY MAKE ME WET." But that's not what I'm seeing. I'm seeing a ton of vague excuses for the changes, weird mumbling about how Cybran can't be nerfed any other way, and then a bunch of diversionary arguments or terrible advice like "scout more noob".

[Gorton]

I'll reply properly to this later, but please listen to me:
I do not have anything to do with balance
Please stop saying I'm doing things I did not say or do

[IceDreamer]

I'm not enthralled by having to learn a series of arbitrary values, because some balance team just didn't give a f*** about community opinions while pretending to do so

I feel obliged to point out that this is weak. You can make this kind of statement at any time when someone is of a different opinion to yours. I don't believe anyone is pretending to do anything, they just... Disagree with you. Which is allowed, by the way.

To your point... Yes... The other factions have some crippling weaknesses in places that can be exploited. They really do. That is part of what makes the factions different from one another, and gives rise to a bit of dynamic gameplay. This also highlights the issue at hand: The Cybran faction has no such weakness. It has NO weaknesses.

That's the point here. Yes, the balance team could have chosen to introduce exploitable weaknesses to Cybran by severely nerfing certain units. Or (as they did) they could have chosen to take an existing faction theme (Cybrans are faster so have less HP) and extend it to create a new exploitable weakness. Two options. You'd have picked one. They picked the other. I won't pretend to know which, if any, route was correct here, and I don't think anyone has enough data yet to say, but a difference of opinion doesn't make someone not "give a f***".

[JoonasTo]

They don't have a game-ender.

That's a fair weakness to have on larger maps.

[Gorton]

It has weaknesses, but they're not that exploitable as they're mostly larger-map and lategame issues e.g shields. When that is a problem, tech sharing fixes it instantly.
They don't have great t3 navy either.
The issue is just that their weaknesses aren't seen much in normal games.

[Gorton]

Everything

If sniping isn't important, then why did you reduce all the HP values? What are you trying to accomplish? The stated goals were:
"allow more options for aggressive play".

• The HP changes only increased the effectiveness of bombing raids and tac missile snipes against unprotected buildings, and otherwise had no impact .
• HP had to be increased for naval factories in the most recent patch, because T2/3 navies fire at very long ranges and can't be stopped without mobilizing, because getting your factories blown out of the water makes it almost impossible to get back in the water, and because naval factories are especially vulnerable due lack of dedicated shielding.

So yeah: to clarify once again, I don't have anything to do with balance.
My words about sniping not being important is in response to your problem: viewtopic.php?f=67&t=14146&start=50#p145109

So actually read the post, please )

Sniping isn't really important to this tbh.

If someone is going to "snipe" you (what are they sniping, power or something? hqs?) then they're going to manage it regardless.
If something can be destroyed in 1 tactical missile or 2, it's going to die if the tacts can get through at all, and same if it will die to 5 tacts.

If the damage is getting through, then the hp isn't that important, the problem is you don't have a defence.

The only real argument you can make is that sustained pushes into the base / raids are more effective, which is the entire point - giving a weakness to cybran.

CLEARLY, you're not looking to quickly train-wreck players and cause them to lose faster, or else you'd be happy about factories going down as soon as somebody started focusing on them. Which, again, goes to show why this is contentious. If you really wanted to see factories getting killed without it ending the game, you'd also make factories cheaper so that it's possible to easily rebuild.

So what are you doing? If you don't want factories to die quickly from an normal push, then obviously the only thing you can be predicting from the HP changes is an increased prevalence of sniping. Your emphasis is to make it so the lowest-risk snipe is to against Cybran buildings, because you only need a single SCUD in the chamber to take down an important building and reduce military production back to T1.

?
It's this part I don't get:

If you really wanted to see factories getting killed without it ending the game, you'd also make factories cheaper so that it's possible to easily rebuild.

If someone pushed an expansion and destroyed your factories, then you rebuild them in base somewhere. If they *raided* your main base and killed your factories..
Well tbh if they managed to go into an expansion, destroy all of your factories, that is still thousands of hp worth of damage done. Cybran and non-Cybran are all going to lose buildings...if they managed it in your main base, maybe you already lost?

I think your premise is very shaky here. Sniping is not exactly easier, it is cheaper. Destroying the buildings through focusfire when you get into base is easier.

Unofficially, the goal is "nerf Cybran". But as the argument goes, the method chosen is mostly obnoxious in nature, doesn't address land armies, doesn't agree well with naval play, and finally, the very worst, doesn't have any specific targeted intents. The idea is "I don't know maybe Cybran will lose more and that'll be balance on paper I think". It's a completely inarticulate way to approach balance.

If you made any sort of real argument as to why nerfing the hp is bad (rather than "I don't like cybran getting nerfed" that is) maybe this sentence would make sense.
Like I said, i'm very neutral on the change.

I'd be more sympathetic if one of the balance moderators were saying, "YES I WANT TO SEE MORE TAC MISSILES GOD THEY MAKE ME WET." But that's not what I'm seeing. I'm seeing a ton of vague excuses for the changes, weird mumbling about how Cybran can't be nerfed any other way, and then a bunch of diversionary arguments or terrible advice like "scout more noob".

To be honest I see the reverse : a ton of vague excuses as to why the change is bad and terrible advice on how to nerf cybran in other ways.

[Ars Nova]

To be honest I see the reverse : a ton of vague excuses as to why the change is bad and terrible advice on how to nerf cybran in other ways.

You are wrong. I have given very precise and detailed reasoning for why I think the HP nerf is not achieving its objectives and why this is an inappropriate way to try to balance an entire faction. We're watching now as we see more rollbacks to the HP changes in the beta patch for the obvious reasons. Because quickly losing your key troop production buildings to surprise attacks creates a frustrating situation where investing nothing into sniping is more valuable in the game than having overall strategic competency.

If you honestly think that recommending the balance of units, rather than building HP, is terrible advice, then you are truly hopeless. There's something to be said about the impact of nerfing a unit's range, but it's a very logical and appropriate counterpart to speed. Fast units can afford a smaller range, and unless there's a technical limitation to how tightly range can be adjusted, it's not terrible advice as long as the adjustment is reasonable - as long as you feel the problem lies specifically with the unit in question.

As for complaining the other factions have "glaring weaknesses": that's patently absurd. None of the factions have glaring weaknesses or obvious holes in their capabilities. The UEF TMD is known to under-perform on the margins, but it's not as though the UEF don't have a TMD. Everyone has tanks, everyone has AA, everyone reaches their tech tiers at equal speed. What you're describing as a "glaring weakness" is the cumulative effect of marginal differences between units. Supposing a single unit does one point of extra DPS compared to its counterpart, this is very little on its own, but when they number in the hundred, the damage difference rises to hundreds of points of DPS.

These marginal differences are more significant the larger the battle, and you'll see them manifest differently on different maps. There are some units that function differently. Splitting missiles is a good example. Maybe hoplites. But these special units are not some magical lynchpin that can wrest victory away from a more skilled opponent. I think in many cases a stealth field is more valuable than a mobile shield, which is why you see more skilled players going to Cybran. It's important to be careful with these units, because they can become too strong, but right now those special units don't seem a high priority and the balance team seems focused on unusual, low-hanging fruits while they deal with the myriad of unintended and unexpected changes from lowering building HP.

Point is, asking the balance teams to intentionally make a hole in a faction's army so they can be asymmetrically defeated at an arbitrary tech level is idiotic. All four factions should ideally be tightly functioning at all stages.

I can I say I know exactly what lowering the attack range of the mantis will do. It will weaken the mantis, weaken Cybran's strong T1 early game, and slow their momentum. If you want to nerf the entire Cybran faction from T1 onward, and it's clear the balance team wants to do that, then nerfing the mantis would be a cascading way of doing so. I know Cybran players would strongly object to that because their weaker ACU depends on their strong land army during the tenuous transitioning stages, but this appears to be where the balance team is at with their mindset.

[Cuddles]

TLDR

[PhilipJFry]

Believe it or not but balance can be an incredibly subjective thing and i'm willing to put my trust into whatever sock suggests before even considering the idea of some random guy on the forum who does not even play faf.