Balance patch 3684 Feedback Thread

[Mel_Gibson]

Had a czar fall on my shield com. It destroyed all sams and shields in the area. Queued up some new ones inside reclaim. Still reclaiming by the time the new one arrived. 10/10. Would not reclaim again.

[Farmsletje]

I mean, maybe this sounds weird, but what if you... you know... build next to the wreckage?

[Mel_Gibson]

That would require moving from spawn point.

[JoonasTo]

I finally had time to read through the patchnotes(been busy, I know.) I am disappointed.

First of all, I get that you want differences between units that are easier to see(MMLs were already quite differentiated but hard to see at a glance if you aren't deeply involved with the game) but did you think this is fine without touching the TMDs?
Or did I miss a patch where you already buffed them?

And then you lessened the differentiation between the static flak? Again, I understand your point in buffing them vs fast turning targets but this should have been done more in line with the overall policy. Contradictions don't make for a good showing, this is not magic.
I hope you take another look at them.

Also aurora nerf, BAD. No one (should) ever fights with their tanks standing still so this a straight nerf to the unit. Having Aurora stand still in a firefight is already penalised heavily(they flat out die.) This should be expanded to all tanks and maybe even all direct fire units if you wish to use this. There is no logical reason only Aurora should be punished like this for moving(units moving miss more, great! easy to learn, it's logical. Why does only one unit miss more while moving? Bad, not logical, not intuitive.)
As it is now, it should be reversed and a larger, more comprehensive penalty to firing on the move should be researched, tested and discussed. If done well enough, you might even introduce stutterstep micro into this game.

At a glance I don't like the tree change. Killing treegroups was a fine and valiant endeavour for an early james bond scout and in my mind a worthy mechanic. I haven't tested this regression yet but if it's going to be worth it to trample trees again before reclaiming them...
Also a very unintuitive change and another thing to learn for new players that doesn't make any sense. Simplifying learning the game was a goal before, I don't know about the current balance team's stance on this but this is detrimental to closing in on that goal.

Aeon shield needs a comparative HP or cost buff to work with that longer recharge, it's too hard of a nerf alone. The only reason to get the shield before(for me) was the fast recharge, the few hitpoints are not worth it alone.

Isn't the satellite affected by the bouncing shields? Because this seems an unnecessary change. In general, we should refrain from changing things if we don't need to. The closer we are to the base game/the game from 1/2/3/5/10 years back, the easier it is for people to return/get in to the game from the steam side. It's easy to learn a few major changes that are similar across the board, it's hard to learn a million small ones here and there(not that this particular one has any real impact in this case but small things add up.)

EXPERIMENTAL VET NERF
HIP HIP HOORAY! HIP HIP HOORAY! HIP HIP HOORAY!
I'm a bit scared about some of the regen values but at first glance, they don't look to bad. Without testing can't say more(and I don't have time for that.)

[JaggedAppliance]

I finally had time to read through the patchnotes(been busy, I know.) I am disappointed.

First of all, I get that you want differences between units that are easier to see(MMLs were already quite differentiated but hard to see at a glance if you aren't deeply involved with the game) but did you think this is fine without touching the TMDs?
Or did I miss a patch where you already buffed them?

The main point of the MML changes was not about differentiating the MMLs, but to improve the non-cybran MMLs. I think this is fine without changing TMD.

And then you lessened the differentiation between the static flak? Again, I understand your point in buffing them vs fast turning targets but this should have been done more in line with the overall policy. Contradictions don't make for a good showing, this is not magic.
I hope you take another look at them.

I may take another look at static flak but I think the differentiation between them introduced all the way back in 3629 was largely useless. If they are never built the differences are ofc meaningless. The main focus has to be on giving them a real use within the game and once that's achieved we can look more towards differentiation.

Also aurora nerf, BAD. No one (should) ever fights with their tanks standing still so this a straight nerf to the unit. Having Aurora stand still in a firefight is already penalised heavily(they flat out die.) This should be expanded to all tanks and maybe even all direct fire units if you wish to use this. There is no logical reason only Aurora should be punished like this for moving(units moving miss more, great! easy to learn, it's logical. Why does only one unit miss more while moving? Bad, not logical, not intuitive.)
As it is now, it should be reversed and a larger, more comprehensive penalty to firing on the move should be researched, tested and discussed. If done well enough, you might even introduce stutterstep micro into this game.

There is a thread about the aurora nerf which has been quite helpful. There are some flaws with the implemented change but I also think it basically achieved its goal which was a general and slight nerf to aurora. In the thread I said I would try another approach so we'll see if that can work out better.

At a glance I don't like the tree change. Killing treegroups was a fine and valiant endeavour for an early james bond scout and in my mind a worthy mechanic. I haven't tested this regression yet but if it's going to be worth it to trample trees again before reclaiming them...
Also a very unintuitive change and another thing to learn for new players that doesn't make any sense. Simplifying learning the game was a goal before, I don't know about the current balance team's stance on this but this is detrimental to closing in on that goal.

It's not worth breaking trees before reclaiming them. As for learning the game and new players I think this change has basically zero impact on those things. Scouting trees is still worth it but its effect is more limited.

Aeon shield needs a comparative HP or cost buff to work with that longer recharge, it's too hard of a nerf alone. The only reason to get the shield before(for me) was the fast recharge, the few hitpoints are not worth it alone.

We'll see how it goes but I think it's still a very reasonable upgrade.

Isn't the satellite affected by the bouncing shields? Because this seems an unnecessary change. In general, we should refrain from changing things if we don't need to. The closer we are to the base game/the game from 1/2/3/5/10 years back, the easier it is for people to return/get in to the game from the steam side. It's easy to learn a few major changes that are similar across the board, it's hard to learn a million small ones here and there(not that this particular one has any real impact in this case but small things add up.)

I agree somewhat that changes from the base should be limited and also agree this change has no real impact on that

EXPERIMENTAL VET NERF
HIP HIP HOORAY! HIP HIP HOORAY! HIP HIP HOORAY!
I'm a bit scared about some of the regen values but at first glance, they don't look to bad. Without testing can't say more(and I don't have time for that.)

I'm really looking forward to seeing it in action. Thanks for your comments.

[Lieutenant Lich]

Jagged, what if we roll back the useless flak change and instead give them a toggle fire mode? They'll be able to shoot land or air units, kinda like the real AA cannons can be turned to aim at land armies.

[biass]

Jagged, what if we roll back the useless flak change and instead give them a toggle fire mode? They'll be able to shoot land or air units, kinda like the real AA cannons can be turned to aim at land armies.

please no

first of all, don't equate "real world" cannons to ingame ones, not only is this a game set a number of thousand years into the future but this is a video game, and depictions of weapons and their various abilities may vary, a number of tanks in world war 2 could point their guns high into the air and serve as light artillery pieces, but this is never seen ingame, literally because "video games"

as for the flak, you want t2 to have a direct fire aoe weapon that would take a giant dump on t1 tanks that also toggles to shredding air, for what reason? the balance of t1 tanks vs t2 tanks would be totally disrupted, whereas i think they're in a decent place right now..

[FtXCommando]

useless flak change.

a toggle fire mode?

You make flak to shoot enemy units. You make pd to shoot tanks. Stationary flak isnt made because it's as expensive as 2.5 flak for effectively 1 flak dps. This change addresses no actual balance issue, really, why did this make you think flak would suddenly be built? The only way how is if you make it strong enough to make t2 pd irrelevant. Basically same thing as skysmashers being able to shoot land units. No one cares because it isn't optimal use of mass if you're planning on attacking.

[SpoCk0nd0pe]

At a glance I don't like the tree change.
Also a very unintuitive change and another thing to learn for new players that doesn't make any sense. Simplifying learning the game was a goal before, I don't know about the current balance team's stance on this but this is detrimental to closing in on that goal.

Engies not breaking tree groups would have helped a loooong way in that direction. Tree groups are very unintuitive, you break a tree somewhere and a tree group miles away is broken. If you do not give a move command before the reclaim, the energy you get is pretty much random. Sometimes your engy will break the group and reclaim just one tree before moving on, sometimes it will give you the group. It feels like playing ludo: cast a dice and see if your BO works or you stall so much e you loose.
Yes, I can learn which tree belongs to which group and I can learn to give move commands before the reclaim. When I play a game like SupCom, I like to become good at it so I really have no problem doing things like training micro, sandboxing BOs etc. But it stops with tree groups. That 'feature' of the game has nothing to do with rts skills and is really too boring for me to master. That is part of the reason I'm not playing right now, I really hoped for this change :/

[CrazedChariot]

I would welcome a change to remove tree clumps or make them unbreakable. Its mainly an issue in team games and It takes up way too much time early on. Time that could be spent strategizing with team mates, an early attack, lab play, etc etc. Its pretty boring to try to position engies correctly, and keep dragging attack move. I also think it makes the game more intuitive, which is always good for newer players.

If you dont want to remove it, I would consider increasing the 25% to 50% + . Right now its still so much better to reclaim them in clumps. To give an example from setons, A single scout, which is very difficult to catch, can basically cause a 4k mass differential for air players at minute 9.