@Turinturambar said in The SCU Rebalance:

Cybran

The Cybran have 1 rambo preset and 2 support presets. The rambo preset is the same as in current balance (AoE stun). The first support preset provides a large stealthfield (it can easily stealth an entire army). The second support preset provides a speed buff field, which increases the movement speed of its surrounding, non experimental, units. Both support presets also have the aa upgrade. Multiple speed buff fields do not stack.

I imagine no one is ever going to use a stealth SCU.

By the time you start building SCUs, stealth is no longer particularly useful. The enemy is going to have T3 spy planes and omni.

Beyond that, if you want stealth, you have other good options in deceivers and MLs. The Stealth SCU seems like it would only make sense when you're forwarding a unit composition through enough splash damage that deceivers are unlikely to survive, but can't yet afford a ML... in the unlikely case that keeping your reasonably late game army stealth really matters to you.

I get why stealth was a natural choice for a Cybran AoE ability. Its thematic... but I don't think its going to be a particularly useful unit. Good on paper, but I doubt it will be useful in practice. Maybe someone will use one to hide a massive drop from time to time on maps large enough for that to be possible...

If the unit is destined to be largely ineffective, it might be better to narrow your focus and just ensure that the speed field works really well. Much better to have a single SCU type with high utility than to have two where one is essentially useless - even if it is thematic.

Beyond that, if a unit just isn't useful, it shouldn't be in the game. No unit should be a "noob trap", a unit that players don't realize doesn't really serve a purpose that they have to learn isn't worth building. Am I correct in my presumption that a stealth SCU would be so useless as to have no purpose whatsoever? I can't sure of that, but I also believe that there won't be many instances where an expensive single SCU is better at providing stealth than several cheap deceivers or a spider.

If we really want to give Cybran two support SCUs, where both of them have a real purpose, trade the stealth for a shield. I know... Cybran's supposed to have crap for shields, and has never had a mobile shield, but maybe it doesn't need to have crap shields that deep into the tech tree.

If you disagree with this assessment, maybe you're right. I haven't used the SCUs. I could be wrong, but please consider this when evaluating the stealth SCU yourself.

TLDR: Either cut the stealth SCU concept because its not going to be useful in late game engagements and just focus on the speed field support SCU, or change the second support unit's AOE ability to something that would actually be useful for Cybran players - like a shield.

@biass said in Points of Imbalance.:

Straight up, if you think the t3 land nerf was bad for the health of the game you're probably not informed enough to be able to contribute to a reasonable discussion. I cannot reasonably beliieve that anyone would want to go back to pre nerf, that's insane. Wanting to go back to every single game being a t3 rush and watching a single harbinger or two smoke hundreds of t1 and t2 tanks with hardly any effort because of "i like t3 stage" is not a heatlhy state of mind.

@Arran said in Points of Imbalance.:

These changes add a lot of meaningful diversity to how you use LABs.
Now onto my main point --> Aeon tanks are the slowest and now they have the slowest LAB too. Perhaps swap the speeds of UEF and Aeon LABS and adjust their costs accordingly? This proposed change is to prevent Aeon lacking map control in the early game owing to insufficient unit speed across the board.

I don't see how 0.2 speed is going to "cripple" your raid ability outside of the largest of 10km maps. It's a bit of a waste of breath trying to instantly ask for changes on a patch without replays or etc.

Also, as most people have said: You need to come to the reality that factions (especially yours, because I know you main aeon) are not supposed to be good at every aspect of the game. Aeon have a defensive early t1 and then threaten to crush the entire game out unless enemy can make a reasonable counter, why should aeon crush both early AND late?

Don't know why I bother with you, you're happy to make bad faith arguments that misrepresent a position... however...

No one is arguing that we roll back 3696, the argument is whether assault experimentals should be nerfed to "finish the job" that the 3696 patch began.

We nerfed T3 assault bots primarily to fix them in relation to T2 bots - which you can see if you go back and look at discussions of that patch - but we never bothered to apply the correction to the next higher tier.

And that's why it was a sloppy patch. I don't necessarily disagree with the changes, its just that if you're gong to make such changes you have to finish the job. Nerfing T3 bots as hard as that patch did while leaving T4 unchanged aside from build timers and the world's most negligible mass increase just doesn't fix the problem.

Its not like people weren't building T4 assault bots like mad before the 2018 patch, to just nerf to T3 and ignore its relationship to T4 was negligent.

@Evan_ said in Points of Imbalance.:

You can hear Petric talk in the video about the changes in relation to T3. GC lost the ability to trigger its claws as fast. Monkey got a cost increase in addition to bt nerf. Other units like T3 mobile arty and sniper bots were nerfed after they were found to be a bit too strong vs T3 bots.

You neglect to mention that it was a 1/19th cost increase that the ML received. It now takes 10 seconds more mass production to build if you're rushing it. Its a completely negligible nerf.

Yeah, T3 mobile arty did get a nerf... not in that patch, the actually buffed mobile arty in that patch... but much later it got a nerf. Doesn't matter though as the issue is that T4 is just better in certain circumstances. So much better that people don't bother to build significant T3 land assault bots.

Ythotha got a cost increase and had its dps shifted so if can't one shot Percies/Bricks. That's not to say these changes put them back in line with old balance, that wasn't the point. T4 IS stronger now once it gets up, that's intentional. T4s are no longer a cheese strategy but a proper unit. The video explains it better, but to say it was a sloppy patch and that there wasn't any concern or that people didn't notice changes for T3/T4 balance is just wrong.

Looks to me like the Ythota just got nerfed in general, but the nerfs were fairly slight.

Look, here's the issue with your "cheese strategy" claim. Gyle and other casters actually recorded lots of games from pre-2018 and made them publicly available. When I got through those games, I see top tier players spamming lots of T4 units. They weren't a cheese strategy, but they weren't T3 land either.

Making them a "proper unit" means that they're stepping on the role of T3 land - which I think is a terrible way to deal with them - but if everyone's dead set on making them a normal unit rather than a suckerpunch (which isn't necessarily cheese) then for god's sake, drastically increase their build times. Right now they're no less cheesey when rushed than they ever were, but in addition to being a cheesy rush unit they're also mass competitive with T3 land assault bots which causes them to replace T3 assault bots in some situations.

Even with the changes, T3 land still beats T4 mass for mass with a good formation, especially with shields.

If its rushed, you aren't going to have the T3 land to beat it. If its not rushed they'll have T3 land too. Beyond that T4 assault bots don't need to beat T3 land to be relevant. They have other major advantages. In a lot of cases you can just run a T4 assault bot by a mass of bricks or percies, and if you build enough splash units you'll be just fine when the assault bots eventually make it to your base. Your opponent will have substantially less time to react however.

And that's not considering that while your opponent makes T4 you can win much of the map with T3, if not kill his whole base. Even when the T4 gets out it's an uphill battle to retake the map since you only have one experimental that can only be in one place.

You say this, and this is great in theory, but if you read through more of this thread you'll find that I've linked several replays where pro players are indeed building token amounts of T3 land and then spamming T4 bots.

And its happening on maps that aren't popular in team game circles so the absurd idea that we shouldn't balance around maps that people actually play doesn't apply.

T3 is also helped by ACU (which is the main thing early T3 has to contend with) being nerfed in some upgrades and having Overcharge made more expensive in power and storage. Also The build time increase is not trivial and has a direct cost in how long it takes to get up an experimental. You can't spread out an exp, you can't drop it (T3 drops have actually been made stronger with the ASF/scout nerf). And so on.

Jesus man, nerfing OC means that rushed T4 bots are even more powerful... not less.

And people don't generally talk about post nerf units vs pre-nerf units because the two will never meet.

Yeah, but that's an issue, because its one of the simplest objective ways to determine how extreme a set of proposed changes are. If you test them and find that you've double the effectiveness of a unit with your changes that might be enough to convince you that what your doing might have impacts beyond what you intend.

@FtXCommando

Its at least 2, you have factor in the opportunity cost of mass lost from choosing to build a TML rather than upgrading a mex.

Note that I'm not claiming they're not OP, just that its not as simple as you're portraying it.

@FunkOff

For what its worth, I build MMLs so rarely that I sometimes forget they exist.

"OMG, a com is T2 PD pushing me, and my T3 land factory hasn't been started so I can't get T3 mobile arty... I should make gunships!".

I don't think it could hurt to have a stronger T2 siege unit.

I build far, far more firebeetles than I build T2 MML.

@arma473

Petric made a video to make people aware of the changes: "Now let's discuss the biggest focus of this patch: the long-in-the-works T3 rebalance that was started by Zock in 2015 or so."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emz9WwAOoxM&t=6m17s

I admittedly haven't watched the entire thing, but it seems very focused on T2/t3 balance, and seems to ignore T3/T4 balance. I'll watch the rest of it later to ensure that I didn't miss that discussion.

There was a forum thread about the balance changes with 283 posts. The very first response to that thread brought up bricks and percivals. https://forums.faforever.com/viewtopic.php?f=67&t=15809

That's the thread I was referring to. Yeah, they considered the balance between bricks and percies (which I haven't been saying is a problem) but going through that thread I didn't see significant concern for whether it would throw T3/T4 balance off - which is the claim that I'm making.

I also didn't see much discussion about the magnitude of those changes, about how they're multiplicative, about how effective a post nerf unit would be against a pre nerf unit.

@Psions said in Points of Imbalance.:

@Fletching People don't have the forethought to realise that by increasing BP on T4 it also increases the earliest time a T4 might be up, meaning there is a greater window to eco before building relevant defensive structures.

They just think ooh Ras spam hive spam insta monkey.

The reason why T3 is stale, is because T3 mobile arty do not break the main base, they a gimped units and a successful viper spam would simply work better. T2 artillery at t3 stage is just too devestating for t3 maa.

So what you have nwo at t3 is 3 useful units

Long range, Mid range and raid units.

Aeon v Aeon t3 is much more interesting because of shield disruptors.

I have to keep repeating this, because I don't think people have really accepted this yet, but the 3696 nerf was a massive nerf, which reduced the combat effectiveness of T3 units by around 50%.

Have two current bricks fight one pre-3696 brick, and they're going to come out a bit even, with the pre-3696 brick perhaps killing both with a small amount of health left. Assuming you allow the pre-3696 brick to kite until the current brick catches it. I could be slightly off here, but I imagine it would be close.

Certain nerfs are multiplicative meaning that they stack in such a way that they drastically change unit balance.

Seemingly small changes to health and damage, when combined with other changes to say range can together significantly cripple a unit.

So if T3 seems weak, perhaps we should acknowledge that its weak because of patch 3696.

When you nerf a unit at a low tier, you have to then nerf all units at higher tiers, or the unit will be underpowered in comparison to units at higher tiers. The balance team did not do that for one reason or another.

What's most hilarious about all this, is I hunted down the discussion thread for that patch, and there was very little relevant discussion about these nerfs. People didn't realize how massive those changes were, and seemed not to consider the impact such changes would have on T3/T4 balance.

I think its clear it was a sloppy patch. They may have "fixed" T2/T3 balance, but they drastically reduced the effectiveness of T3 land versus both T4 and static structures in order to do it.

@Psions said in Points of Imbalance.:

EDIT: Wrote up a long admittedly accusatory post and realized that I should wait until the next patch launches and give people the benefit of the doubt. In truth I have no idea whether this issue is being seriously considered or not. More communication from the balance team would help.

I'm just going to take a wait and see approach to this. Perhaps they'll address it.

I doubt that they're looking to sabotage SACUs. I imagine the SACU changes will be very positive for the game.

The part I don't know is whether they'll correct the issues people have been pointing out, but I have a hunch the patch is coming along so we'll know one way or the other before too long.

EDIT again: JaggedAppliance was in Aeolus, and he agreed that assault experimentals need a nerf. I don't know the guy and can't be sure he wasn't trolling or something, but I think he was being straightforward and thinks they need a nerf.

@Morax said in Awareness/Perception wishlist for supcom 4:

I agree with everything Moses said as Sup Comm 3 was awful.

I truly hope the 4th installment, shows the genius of Chris Taylor working alongside icedreamer, Moses, rocketrooster, and brs_destructor.

All will be answered and the only map will be gap of rohai.

Yeah yeah yeah, no third installment. Laugh it up.

@biass said in [Very long post about spread attack, UI mods and why improving player's controls and UI is apparently and wrongly considered a bad thing in FAF, also balance]

You were quoted in context, you're claiming that automation reduces depth in your post.

It doesn't, it just changes what the focus is.

In the same way that pathing doesn't reduce depth, being able to better communicate your intention to the UI doesn't reduce it either. It adds it by increasing the options that a player has at any particular point.

This RTS IS the low APM RTS. That hasn't reduced the quality of the game in any way or removed depth.

@biass said in [Very long post about spread attack, UI mods and why improving player's controls and UI is apparently and wrongly considered a bad thing in FAF, also balance]

Dude, you are playing the low APM RTS.

I don't know what the APM is for top players, I'm sure its much higher than mine, but I doubt its half of what the Starcraft guys are doing.

It does work, and it does make for a much improved game.

Pointing to some failed game in an attempt to refute the idea that games should have complex higher level features to replace near inhuman amounts of APM in more primitive games just isn't a good argument.

Given the context - you know - arguing in a forum for perhaps the most successful tactics > APM games ever made - I don't see how you think this line of reasoning is at all persuasive.

@FtXCommando said in Very long post about spread attack, UI mods and why improving player's controls and UI is apparently and wrongly considered a bad thing in FAF, also balance:

These things are binary, either it's integrated into base game as a command or it's kept out of the game.

Yeah, I agree, and I think you should integrate it.

Would be one of the most exciting additions to the game in years.

Holy shit, If that isn't allowed in the game for whatever reason, I really hope its allowed in some mod.

I think you guys are throwing the baby out with the bathwater here. That kind of mechanic is amazing, if they'd had that at launch, it would have sold a lot more games.

This guy has done a tremendous job working on that mod.

Sure, it would affect balance but that's a non trivial and exciting new game feature.

I hope it has a place somewhere.

If it were up to me I'd move to have this integrated into the core game immediately, and would deal with whatever balance issues that causes as they arise.

Ugh...

I notice a lot of changes to T1 units this patch. Labs, Mantis, Bombers, Scouts...

I notice some changes to T2 ranged bots in particular.

But apart from the SACUs which has been planned for years, there doesn't appear to be much on the slate for T3/T4.

Very ladder-centric patch, focused on units that are heavily used in ladder.

I am going to try to take a wait and see approach, and just trust them.

Its not easy, but maybe the SACU changes are intended to solve the problems I'm seeing, or maybe they're not intended to solve those problems but will solve them anyway.

Maybe they don't want to make changes to T3/T4 while introducing a major late game change in the form of the SACU changes.

And that's reasonable.

But it is difficult, because these patches only come once every 6 months, and the attitude of too many posters in here is that there is no issue, or that if the issue occurs on team maps it should be ignored.

And that's just wrong.

If the balance team isn't communicating things to the community, it probably isn't because they don't like using the forums. Its probably because for whatever reason they don't want to communicate things to the community.

@archsimkat Say they nerfed them to where they took 8.5 minutes to pay for themselves instead of 6.5 or whatever it is.

That would mean in real terms it would take something like 14 minutes before you start making money on them, but you did get a bunch of decent combatants with good BP for the time being.

I think there's room to nerf them without making them a unit unfit for any particular purpose.

That said,... I don't build them myself as they are now =\

@Tex said in The Last Thread about RAS SACU Balance:

People sometimes forget to consider in their paper napkin calculations for mass cost/mass generated benefit, that this is a unit that can also build shit, and in a pinch, fight. IMO that's part of the reason it works AND its difficult to punish if implemented well. You are scaling eco and buildpower at the same time, and have a unit that can be upgraded in a pinch to serve as a fairly mass efficient combat unit. So in reality, it pays for itself WAY sooner then you think it does, if you also factor in the ~2k mass of combat unit, 800 mass of build power, just out of the gate.

That and its stupid convenient to spam on repeat.

I think I remember a few years back Icy made a mass fab/gateway template and the mass cost for a RAS SCU can be stupid low if you pack enough mass fab/mex adjacency on it. Problem is spamming multiple gateways and producing unassisted. Takes too long to pay for itself, but was cool in concept.

Can't argue any of that, they're definitely a great value, even if they don't necessarily pay for themselves as quickly as people probably think.