Beta 3678 feedback thread

[JaggedAppliance]

Beta patch 3678 is released, click on FAF Beta in the play tab to play it. Patchnotes can be found here: http://content.faforever.com/patchnotes/3678.html

Please note that this is a beta, all changes are subject to possible removal or alteration.

[Morax]

I really cannot wait to see how the reclaim change affects the game.

This is a very-welcome and interesting dynamic.

[Gorton]

Secret sparky buff ftw

[Mel_Gibson]

Disclaimer: Perspective from Setons whore

Everything about the tree groups not breaking is really nice. But I don’t like it at all. For 1, why do engies not break trees but everything else does? It just seems a bit arbitrary and nonsensical.

From a game play perspective i, personally, like that there is a trade off between getting an engie somewhere quicker and disrupting your shorter term reclaim potential in that area. Things seem a little dumbed down with this change, but then, perhaps that is what is preferred.

If one of the objectives is to reduce spamming of manual reclaim commands then i’m not sure it will have the desired effect. Right now using manual reclaim commands on tree groups you run the risk of wasting your apm by breaking the tree groups anyway, again a trade off. With this change, from what I can see, there would be no downside to spamming even more manual reclaim commands on tree groups because you aren’t punished by pathfinding breaking trees but you get the upside of quicker reclaim. Indeed, the only limit would be your apm.

I would be interested to hear the thoughts of the ladder contingent on how/if this will affect their build orders/gameplay. Does first scout to break trees become meta?

[IceDreamer]

Everything about the tree groups not breaking is really nice. But I don’t like it at all. For 1, why do engies not break trees but everything else does? It just seems a bit arbitrary and nonsensical.

Agree. I'd love to think of this as a trial run...

[galacticfear]

I appreciate the additional HP change reversals, and the sera gun could be interesting, but I cannot stress how strongly I oppose that T4 Vet/tree reclaim/reclaim change.

[IceDreamer]

Please explain your objections.

Preventing Engineers breaking trees is, I think, more of an anti-frustrating-gameplay change. I doubt it will have a massive effect on actual game balance, just player stress levels.

The tree split calculation thing has been poorly explained, it's actually a bugfix, or fix of a much earlier oversight. When the tree clumping/splitting costs were reworked several years ago, an error of calculation was made that saw the numbers out by 5% from what they should have been. This finally fixes that.

Insta-heal has always been one of the least enjoyable, most-complained-about, aspects of the game. Anywhere but on ACUs it simply adds frustration and cries of BS. Personally I hope this is step one on the road to removing insta-heal vet mechanics completely from non-ACU units.

EDIT: galacticfear you can read about the splitting change here: https://github.com/FAForever/fa/pull/964

[galacticfear]

Changing reclaim rate will impact all build orders on any map that involves tree reclaim, since you must also be halving reclaim speed of trees. And purely from a setons perspective it will ruin the initial mass grab dynamic. Removal of tree breaking lowers skill cap. T3 land was always better than T4, but now even more so with that nerf, why even build them other than for the initial kills/snipe? The number of games that would have different outcomes over the past 10 years if T4 gained 50% less health per rank would be extremely high to say the least. T4 rush now has greater chance to be a mass donation. I saw the HP gains as a reward for careful micro and poor counter micro of the enemy, whenever I use a T4 I am always trying to rank it up. Likewise the enemy should only engage if they believe they can do a sure kill.

I don't mind broken trees yielding slightly more reclaim though. But that has to be done carefully.

I don't think T4 need to be nerfed at all, but if it is so desired, it should be done by increasing kills to vet. Think that units such as awhwassa had that drastically increased, now in combination with less HP that is a seriously big nerf.

[KeyBlue]

I think you misread the changelog, since it says only wrecks will be influenced and not trees or rocks or other props.

Reclaim time of unit wrecks has been doubled. Props and live units are unaffected.

Otherwise Galacticfear points out some interesting things, which would be nice to see countered by the balance team.

[Farmsletje]

I saw the HP gains as a reward for careful micro and poor counter micro of the enemy, whenever I use a T4 I am always trying to rank it up.

Maybe this doesn't happen a lot on setons, but on a lot of 10x10 teamgame maps it generally goes like this:
- attack move almost dead t4 in the general direction of your opponents base
- get some beer
- get back and it has 60k hp

More than often it's impossible to stop t4 vets, especially ML/czar vets. And then i'm talking about unmicroed t4's.