Balance patch 3688 Feedback Thread

[Franck83]

Question, do Com upgrades effect the "mass" / "Vet" value of a commander?

it seems to be subtracted at veterancy calc for presets : https://github.com/FAForever/fa/blob/de ... 1318-L1324


Edit : sorry, i was wrong. It's included for base mass -> https://github.com/FAForever/fa/blob/de ... 1309-L1316

[Ithilis_Quo]

lol excuse me? I got like 1200 "mass vet" from that acu explosion which roughly translates to 24 t1 units. How does that ever happen in the previous system. In my past 1800+ games of the previous system i've never seen anything like this happen before.

of course that it happend, when you kill acu you got 6 point, so when you have 15,16,17,18,19 points you will get vet after kill acu and survive even when you have less as 2501hp. same and more dramatic its on second veterancy, while you get even more insta HP. Its not very common, what is rera is when it make diferences betwen survive and death, and when was acu that one that finish enemy acu.

when you get like 1200 mass vet that can mean that your acu do 60% of dmg that enemy acu recieve before die. So with insta heal it promote more agresive use of acu that is less likely to draw after enemy acu make a big blowb in countryside. What yes is some gameplay movement but imho on good side while agresive acu gameplay and taking risk should be revarded.

The main differences there is that units share experience and dont need finish target, that cause this issue that move from rare to noncommon. But at all it make game more predictable = more skill based = less depend on luck factor.

[JoonasTo]

You call it something to babysit, others call it micro and a good game feature.

You can still do this. The mental shift is from "Need to get this unit then this one to level up" to "Must keep this unit alive for a few more kills" which IMO is a step forwards. No micro has been lost. If you choose to micro, you can both micro, and you can get benefit from it. Personally I think the XP rate is too low right now.

Except predictability has been lost because before it was rather easy to know what units counted for so it was easy to plan(for both your units and the enemy.) Now you get a random number from things so you need to know what mass they give and how much mass you need to next level. Then you need to make sure nothing else shoots at the damn thing you need for the vet. Because of how units work in this game, microing that is basically impossible(unless you create individual target painters.)

Vanilla 1 for 1 you just checked kills to see next vet. Then FAF iteration you checked for points needed to level up but that was all simple by tech level. Now you changed vet values to random(who knows what units cost anyway?) AND you changed the way the system works. So people don't know how much they need, they don't know what they are going to get, they don't know what the enemy is going to get and they might not even know when they are going to get it because some random stuff might die somewhere else that gives vet. You've managed to make it unnecessarily complicated and obfuscated.

Which is fine, if making veterancy not part of the gameplay is your goal.
Now the problem is that the veterancy bonuses are still the same. They're game making for some units. Sure, experimental vet bonus has been lowered a bit but T3 bonus and Lab bonus are still the same and most importantly, ACU bonus hasn't been touched. This is a problem. If your system is predictable, having strong rewards like this is okay. People know that it's there, they know hot to get it, they know how to plan for it. If your system is not predictable, having game defining rewards like this is not cool. People know it's there but they don't know how to get it, they have to plan around it.


PS. Two full hp commanders fighting before was almost always a draw before(you could gain vet from the kill but that required you were at the treshold of one kill in vanilla or a few points in faf and you were UEF facing cybran/ or Seraphim facing cybran.) Now EVERY SINGLE COMMANDER DUEL IS A WIN FOR THE SIDE THAT LANDS THE KILLING BLOW. #6839590 Commanders should not gain TWO ranks of veterancy from killing the enemy commander(they shouldn't even get one because if they do UEF wins vs Aeon/Cybran and Seraphim vs Cybran.) This calls for a hotfix right now, not tomorrow.

[speed2]

This calls for a hotfix right now, not tomorrow.

Alright boss, I've called the game dev team, we're skipping work today to release a fix right now!

[biass]

You can still do this. The mental shift is from "Need to get this unit then this one to level up" to "Must keep this unit alive for a few more kills" which IMO is a step forwards. No micro has been lost. If you choose to micro, you can both micro, and you can get benefit from it. Personally I think the XP rate is too low right now.

Sorry, i don't see this as a step forwards, but more of a step backwards, players should be able to easily see the exact ways to survive a bad situation instead of hoping for the best, it's detracting from the depth of the game that SupCom is generally and appreciated for.

Alright boss, I've called the game dev team, we're skipping work today to release a fix right now!

Disgusted but not suprised, take your garbage elsewhere.

[NapSpan]

You can still do this. The mental shift is from "Need to get this unit then this one to level up" to "Must keep this unit alive for a few more kills" which IMO is a step forwards. No micro has been lost. If you choose to micro, you can both micro, and you can get benefit from it. Personally I think the XP rate is too low right now.

Sorry, i don't see this as a step forwards, but more of a step backwards, players should be able to easily see the exact ways to survive a bad situation instead of hoping for the best, it's detracting from the depth of the game that SupCom is generally and appreciated for.

Alright boss, I've called the game dev team, we're skipping work today to release a fix right now!

Disgusted but not suprised, take your garbage elsewhere.

Just think in groups of units, vet behavior with groups makes more sense now and after all, this game is about armies. With ACU you just have to keep it alive doing damage like always.

[biass]

Just think in groups of units, vet behavior with groups makes more sense now and after all, this game is about armies. With ACU you just have to keep it alive doing damage like always.

Feel free to explain your arguments instead of hoping we just agree.
Just like we have provided for you.

[PhilipJFry]

we'll try to solve the ACU vet from killing other ACUs and shield regen bug with a hotfix
probably not today but hopefully tomorrow (depends on the exact values we want and devs available to make the PRs, then merge and push them and hopefully someone testing even)

[Franck83]

players should be able to easily see the exact ways to survive a bad situation instead of hoping for the best, it's detracting from the depth of the game that SupCom is generally and appreciated for.

Totally true.

I'm just trying to think in solution : the predictability issue comes from that XP reward is postponed after units death. It may be more predictable and more realistic to reward XP at making damage not at unit's death. Why worrying about keeping all values until unit's death ?

At the same time, it will be less CPU consuming (no condition test, no instigator table to keep...). The simple way is often the best.

[biass]

players should be able to easily see the exact ways to survive a bad situation instead of hoping for the best, it's detracting from the depth of the game that SupCom is generally and appreciated for.

I'm just trying to think in solution : the predictability issue comes from that XP reward is postponed after units death. It may be more predictable and more realistic to reward XP at making damage not at unit's death. Why worrying about keeping all values until unit's death ?

While i do like the idea of that (company of heroes!), its not really the reason
It's more about being able to easily see and calculate how far away you are from a vet level on the fly, even in intense moments aka your acu is at like 500hp and etc,
Consider this scenario, you're two points away from a vet level, with the old system, that's two kills on t1 units. You see that and turn back into the fight to vet up and continue your push/defense etc.
With the new system, that "two kills" is now split up into any unknown combinations of t1 units, of which a player will most likely not know the stat costs of. It adds a major amount of uncertainty that can lead to frustration.

It's why i suggested a minor change to the older vet system, with similar objectives to the new system with the same easy to calculate and easy to "game" method of the old one.