Balance patch 3696 Feedback Thread

[PsychoBoB]

...but I've seen enough situations where a rambo ACU shrugged off exps after other stuff took them down to half health...

With the new OC system this is nearly impossible in the future. So no worries for poor Cybran to not have this option.

[Farmsletje]

Ive seen soviet taking down 3/4 experimentals with a cybran cloak/lazer acu, you have the torp upgrade which no other faction has and you have OP tele/lazer combo. You dont see me complaining about uef not having those things

[IceDreamer]

I've been quietly keeping an eye on this through development. Not going to comment on really specific things, but I'll outline my concerns and things I'm looking out for as potential easy mistakes here:

- Percival needs to still be the strongest per-unit T3 land unit, and probably the strongest per-mass assault T3.
- Titan's role needs to be sufficiently differentiated from that of the Loyalist. Brick and Percival are not the same and shouldn't be, and Titan and Loyalist are not the same and shouldn't be. There are four roles to fill here, not two.
- Tempest changes greatly concern me, though not for the same reasons as some others. My position is that this patch is the perfect opportunity to ensure that each Experimental unit (And some T3s) have a properly defined role at which it excels. Tempest, Czar, Soulripper, Novax, Atlantis, Torrent.
- Ensure that the shield disrupter is sufficiently strong to improve its use
- Ensure that the balance between Harbinger and Obsidian shifts in Obsidian's favour. It's a super-cool unit that has been completely in the shadow for much too long. Some changes to the Obsidian itself may be in order.
- Ensure that the Sniper bots are sufficiently powerful to see real use without overstepping the mark. Differentiate them sufficiently from each other, too, in terms of a different role for each (And each mode for Sera)
- Try to address 'token weapon syndrome'. Either remove such things, or make it so the weapon is properly there and useful, with appropriate power shifts in other areas. (Example: This could be construed as the reason Bricks 'should' lose to Percivals. If the two cost the same and move the same, but Bricks have a usable torpedo system,then the purely land-focus Percival 'should' win minorly.

[Korbah]

Good post icedreamer

Fundamentally your suggestions are aimed at making each unit characterful and effective. We don't want identical units across different races with different models being the only difference.

Units and races should have identifiable themes that help make each unit and race distinct. Making units more distinct also can give you options when considering balance eg in your brick vs percival example the bricks amphibious capability can make them distinct from the percies and open more tactical flexibility to make up for shortfalls 1on1 on land.

Seraphim has long been a target of mine as they're the least distinct race thematically and have the fewest units - they're the most "bland" race overall with fewer individual quirks per unit than the other 3 races. I've made a mod ages ago to try and make seraphim more distinct and some of those ideas have been independently used to varied amounts by the balance team eg. t2.5 gunships. The balance team have yet to go as far as I did with my thematic tweaks and I think this leaves seraphim as still the most vanilla race. I think that seraphim needs specific attention to making them more thematically interesting and have a working example of this in my old mod "seraphim leverage". The t3 balance patch change opens the door to this kind of opportunity.

[Apofenas]

- Titan's role needs to be sufficiently differentiated from that of the Loyalist. Brick and Percival are not the same and shouldn't be, and Titan and Loyalist are not the same and shouldn't be. There are four roles to fill here, not two.

Reminds me about good old titan grenade-like mml.
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=9362

[stormbeforedawn]

I THINK adjusting the diving depth fucks it even harder on the mobility department. I don't think that can happen without a model rescaling, which could help pathing tremendously...

This would leave it as a tremendous t4 sub with bombardment capabilities, but still doesn't change that it has 2.5 ms, so it still cant kite and is beaten by half its mass in BS with no meaningful range advantage except over any but aeon BS, which are already fast AF.

The unit literally cannot kite because it can only reliably be moved with attack move.

Well first of all he balanced it like that only for setons, in his balance mod, so I have no idea how it would work out on other maps regarding the water depth.

The idea behind the elevation change was to give it a better ability to escape, when it is being targeted. With that Tempests were supposed to submerge when enemy bs attack them, retreat out of range, and then emerge in a safe distance to attack again. As far as I understand, his vision of a late game naval fight as aeon would be making some Omen and then start making more and more Tempests, retreating and then attacking with them again, until he has a critical mass of Tempests to win against the opponent. The omen battleships were supposed to be meatshields to gain time.

I am not entirely convinced by this (that's also why I made my thread about why the Omen needs a range buff), but it is worth a try for sure.

Also 22 more range is quite meaningful, imo. And yeah, there should be done something about its movement problems, it's annoying as f*** that it gets stuck in random stuff sometimes.

22 range allows for a single shot before 3/4 BS get into range. If it could actually be controlled the range could be super powerful, although clearly not into summits. 22 range at a .5 MS differential should get you at least a few shots. Assuming a few seconds of human delay, say 3, an 180 degree turn for 5 seconds (both ships must do this in a chase) leaves you 26 seconds which is 2 shots, or 3 before any real damage.

mass for mass you do this into 3 BS and your tempest is dead with 1 kill and some damage into the second BS with ideal micro, and no shots dodged by your deadbeat opponent.

Comes back again to the only time Tempests were good is when you didn't have enough BP to shoot out more effective mass, and just needed to throw SOMETHING at them.

[moonbearonmeth]

they're the most "bland" race overall with fewer individual quirks per unit than the other 3 races.

Ever since I started playing FA it's always been interesting hearing people's opinions on Seraphim. I've heard them be described as fast, slow, aggressive and defensive. I've heard them be described as 'like UEF but...', 'like Aeon but...' and 'like Cybran but...'. I've heard them be described as ridiculously over powered and ridiculously under powered.

But now that I have heard them be called bland I think I have heard everything.

[Morax]

Ive seen soviet taking down 3/4 experimentals with a cybran cloak/lazer acu, you have the torp upgrade which no other faction has and you have OP tele/lazer combo. You dont see me complaining about uef not having those things

That's because it's against players that have no idea you need Omni sensor to see it.... Don't give him so much credit, please haha. He's an amazing player - my favorite actually - but this is not always feasible

[Wesmania]

- Try to address 'token weapon syndrome'. Either remove such things, or make it so the weapon is properly there and useful, with appropriate power shifts in other areas. (Example: This could be construed as the reason Bricks 'should' lose to Percivals. If the two cost the same and move the same, but Bricks have a usable torpedo system,then the purely land-focus Percival 'should' win minorly.

I'd be careful when it comes to "token" weapons, since at least some of them have uses other than raw DPS. For example exps' AA weapons don't deal much damage, but they do pick off any T1 scout streams headed their way which can be useful in some situations. I think the AA gun on the Cybran strat is also just powerful enough to take down single inties that manage to catch up to it, correct me if I'm wrong.

[Korbah]

they're the most "bland" race overall with fewer individual quirks per unit than the other 3 races.

Ever since I started playing FA it's always been interesting hearing people's opinions on Seraphim. I've heard them be described as fast, slow, aggressive and defensive. I've heard them be described as 'like UEF but...', 'like Aeon but...' and 'like Cybran but...'. I've heard them be described as ridiculously over powered and ridiculously under powered.

But now that I have heard them be called bland I think I have heard everything.

My post was attempting to point out that seraphim is the most lacking in individual character compared to other races. To define them most people resort to either comparing how they're similar to one of the other races OR comment on their power level in the current balance eg. OP or UP

What's clear is that seraphim doesn't have a readily identifiable theme in the same way the other 3 races do. There's hints of themes but it's indistinct - you can't clearly say what seraphim stands for (and if you can I'd love to hear it!).

My suggestion is to strengthen the theme of seraphim in such a way that supports the balance and makes them more interesting to play. Moreover, this suggestion is more relevant than ever given the beta patch changes to t3 which smooths t2-3 transitions and makes the less viable t3 options more viable.

I produced a working example of this 2yrs ago similar to how I addressed T3 air issues 2 years ago. The thing about FAF balance discussions is that they're usually pure theorycrafting - and even when theory is put into a mod for testing most people will refuse to try said mod and continue to discuss with pure theory thus rendering any discussion largely pointless.