While 3.3.3 with the new missions and windows 10 fix has undoubtedly been a big hit, I'm beginning to identify critical problems on how Multiplayer actually plays, as well as having some of my fears that I read on the changelog becoming real. I really want to enjoy playing this game (regardless of how much I rage) but some of the changes between 3.3.2 and 3.3.3 has left gameplay lacking in some parts, mostly referring to the fact that Pacific Front have become literally unbeatable by certain factions, and that some heroes are far too powerful on their own.
I'll cover this is in more detail in a second, but first I just want to comment on each faction in general and how they feel in 3.3.3 before continuing my rants.
The Allies:
USA:
Spoiler
Good old generic USA. You mash that Abrams button 50 times and run around the map doing whatever you please.
Ultimately I wouldn't have such an enormous problem with this if it wasn't so effective against every ground target known to man (Possibly with Exception to PsiCorps?)
If we could make the Lasers a little less powerful we'd at least force them to consider other damage sources, though the walking Demi-Gods that are Riot Troopers won't change a lot, but maybe USA players might need to use their brain a bit more?
A little too easy to play for their potency, but not the problem at hand.
Euro Alliance:
Spoiler
Now. Euro Alliance feels to me like arguably the only faction in the game where their core concepts don't work all too well.
A slower Micro-based faction, where most of their Specialist units do an utterly useless Job at whatever they are supposed to do.
Snipers: They do sod-all damage. Their ROF is trash even when deployed and their Range is nothing too inspiring either. I'd love to see these units occasionally do their jobs rather than be a warning tool to lazy opponent commanders who accidentally wander into their range. I'd rather just make half a Prism tank and put that there.
Charons: A great unit in concept, being able to 1-hit-kill anything except Epics. At least if the unit actually Worked. At this current stage I see more misfires than actual kills with these units,
and often in scenarios where getting the kills is the difference between life and death, I don't want to leave my chances of winning a game up to raw RNG, that's just not cool.
Mirages: Ok, don't get me wrong. Mirages are ok units because their damage is reasonable, but then on the other side their range is meh-tier and their Armour worse. And they can't fire on the move. If the enemy is even remotely speedy then good luck covering everything with (often obvious) trees. You might as well just make Cavaliers and hope for the best at that point.
The few Crutches that keep Euro playable are the fact that hummingbirds are just unstoppable, rendering armies useless for much too long a window (yes, all Allied factions can use these, but only Euro Alliance actually NEED them). And that Siegfried is one of the most stupid-powerful heroes in MO. Mass-damage, Slow effect, extreme AOE and super tanky. We don't call him the "Mobile Army Deleter" for nothing, and at the moment he feels like the only T2 or T3 unit Euro has thats any good against armoured units.
Pacific Front:
I'll be covering them after I covered everyone else.
The Soviets:
Russia:
Spoiler
I'd say Russia are the easiest faction in MO to just pick up and play, and maybe punish you the least for your mistakes. Flexibility, Speed and Potency in one mix, Russia are very powerful. Teslacruisers being the Soviet Abrams, doing everything and anything on the ground effectively.
Mix this in with the general flexibility of the Stalin's Fist (Not even necessary at times, but I do enjoy using it), the Wolfhound - A nice all-round anti-unit chopper, which I have no problem with, desolators - extra efficient anti-infantry crowd control (and not too shabby against vehicles either), mixed with undoubtedly the most overbroken hero in MO, Volkov, and you get an unstoppable force that deals with its enemy by walking into it and not giving a damn.
Yes Volkov is broken, the one-man-army that for no logical reason got BUFFED in 3.3.2, he tanks entire armies by himself, with multiple permastuns, massive damage and even more massive HP. Apart from a couple of select factions being able to isolate and/or kill him is next-to-impossible when he's mixed in with a blob of other units. Playing against Russia, any sort of Early-Mid game pressure just drops the moment Volkov pops out, its just game over then.
Russia's doctrine allows them to be creative, but the power and ease of use of their lategame units means most players don't even need it or know about it. I think they are too strong without requiring any skill to be so.
Latin Confederation:
Spoiler
Latin are in a weird place. While the buffs to vultures was welcome and needed, the Fury Drones change I find slightly bizarre, and most of their weakness came from their awkwardness to use in a generally mobile combat scenario, which Latin are generally good at.
Simply put, I think Catastrophes are far too much of a crutch for Latin players to rely on. No real alternative to armour or siege stands out because said alternatives are not good at that. Sure it has some variation from being able to put an infantry unit inside, but the Catastrophe themselves will still be doing the majority of the damage against armoured or air targets.
Said alternatives:
Mortar Quads: Decent against slower armoured targets (Mostly against China and Last Bastion), but unbearably expensive to use often. Considering they are still fairly fragile and easily exposed to stuns (EMP or Banes) more-often-than-not that $600 spent on each one is not worth it. They are not even remotely viable against any other faction and this is a problem.
Buratinos: Ok these have interesting potential along with vultures to do a number on infantry blobs, and while I like the new Vultures I find more often than not a Confed player's solution to infantry blobs is and always will be Foxtrots and Dustdevils, which just do it better and reliably. Buratinos are also notoriously bad against defense structures, they can barely hit 1-tile defenses at all, and have to wander into range of the T3 defenses, which naturally renders them busted and useless, and so the solution goes back to Catastrophes and Iron Curtain to do a siege job, bit pointless eh? I suppose you could use Morales, but he gets exposed a little too easily with a giant red pointer.
Simply Put, Catastrophes are too good against armoured blobs, and the alternatives are useless. The HP buff they got was unnecessary and pasted over the cracks of Latin's real problem.
China:
Spoiler
I honestly have little problems with China. Nuwas are very strong, Armadillos are hell on earth, Centurion is a terrifying beast (Maybe too terrifying?), and their various EMP weapons are disgusting. But at least they have a very obvious speed and range issue that smart players will generally have chances to exploit. Don't really see much change for them.
Epsilon:
PsiCorps:
Spoiler
I don't really know what to say about PsiCorps. Difficult to control, but if you can master the map control and unit manipulation that PsiCorps offers, you can become a literal god. A faction of few weaknesses, apart from maybe their own dedicated anti-armour that isn't Libra or "borrowed" from their own enemies. A real monster without being brutally unfair (Other than Libra to an extent). Foehn players beware.
Epsilon HQ:
Spoiler
Players are going to accuse me of having bias when I say this (because HQ is my preferred faction) but I don't have any problems with this faction as such. Their weaknesses are clearly visable in their mostly short-range weaponry and a clear struggle against concentrated armour blobs. Irkalla and Rahn are both powerful tools that are your only real way to secure map control in lategame. Shadow Tanks are good at what they are for and anyone who thinks they are broken just needs to take them more into consideration when playing against HQ, though I would agree that Robot Tanks are completely useless in this scenario.
Scorpion Cell:
Spoiler
I see no problems with current Scorpion Cell. They undoubtedly will still struggle with heavier Mobile Factions (so USA, Russia & Confed) but that is mostly down to their design, and players have opportunities to tip the scales in their favour with various tools and micro potential.
Foehn:
Haihead:
Spoiler
This is going to confuse everyone, but Haihead are BALANCED. Their vehicles all share a fragility weakness (except the MADMAN, but thats slow as all hell) and can be easily exposed be mobility, and are generally an even match in Brute Force. With FinAlize no longer being able to tank entire Superweapons and more, players can actually stand a chance of killing Haihead unit blobs. At this point the only problems I have with Haihead are the effectiveness of Irritators and the fact that MADMAN can be shadow ringed (which is frankly insane).
Wings of Coronia:
Spoiler
You may remember I said in the changelog thread that Pteranodons did not need much of a change. They instead got a pretty big nerf and combined with general AA buffs for almost every faction (except Epsilon), now I honestly feel that they are too weak for most players to use outside of harassing morons who don't make AA and Miners. Roadrunners feel like legit threats now and not "oh these two roadrunners just killed everything ever", which is a good thing at least.
Coronia is not a faction I play a lot, but I get the feeling people who did are going to need to relearn them entirely to make them work as well as they did before. They seem much harder to play with a lot less rewards, almost like how Euro Alliance feel to me right now, their man strengths outside of Heroes are things that both Haihead and Last Bastion can also utilise.
Last Bastion:
Spoiler
Previously known as the "most balanced Foehn Subfaction in MO" I think this is no longer the case. Theres little that needs changing about them, but the current scenario of "turtle a bit, then spam a billion Giantsbanes and Godsbanes and roll over stuff" is a bit too powerful, considering that Giantsbanes have literally no weaknesses, except for Iron Curtained Terror drones (which are ultra lame, but whatever). Ultimately their core concept makes them an even slower and tankier version of China, except replace that Centurion with a Giant Plasma Cannon outside the enemy base. And ironically, I think China are probably the best faction to deal with them.
Right, onto the main rant.
The Pacific Front problem.
With the recent buffs to blizzards (and significant ones at that), it has become clear that they form part of a perfect and completely unbreakable synergy between themselves, Zephyrs & Hailstorms.
The perfect mix of reasonable splash, slowing effects, high range and relatively low cost means that the factions that have shorter range (Mostly Epsilon HQ, China & Coronia) have zero chance to score damage.
Infantry blobs are erased at ease, Vehicles cant get close and are shredded, and anything that does get close is immediately marshalled by Suppressors, rendering them useless. It's not much better even for mobile factions, and with the natural easy defense that all Allied factions get access to, denying tech is very difficult to do.
You may be wondering "But what about the Battle Tortoises?"
Exactly. There are No Battle Tortoises whatsoever. PF players no longer need them for close range combat because there is no reason for them to fight at close range.
I played (and streamed) a 3v3 game yesterday, where 2 PF players were on the same team, and I did not see a single BattleTort. I saw thousands of Blizzards and Zephyrs, countless Hailstorms, Suppressors, Hummingbirds and occasionally Barracudas. With a team composition of Epsilon HQ, Haihead & Latin Confederation, who you can argue are all reasonably strong factions, there was no way whatsoever to counter this (except blasticade it turns out, but thats a meme for another time). It was physically impossible to impose any sort of map control on that and when inevitably sieged in our own bases, hailstorms rendered any defenses a waste of money. It just felt like an unwinnable scenario from minute one.
In my opinion, the problem is the risk-free nature of all these engagements. BattleTort rolling stuff was always a powerful tactic, hence why they received a nerf in 3.3.3, and I honestly think that they would be in a good place now if not for this current scenario (considering also that Suppressors now only take up one slot). Problem I think is the easy range from which damage can be scored from, and that Blizzard tanks do too much damage to all targets. I think more risk needs to be introduced into the fray, and by that I mean reducing the range on Blizzards and Hailstorms. This would allow enemy forces to get closer into the fight, give infantry a fighting chance and then it also gives BattleTorts a reason to exist because suddenly blizzards up close and personal doesn't feel like such a free win. It promotes a better variation of late-game unit comps without making them too difficult to control and too hard to fight back against.
For Blizzards in general, I like the added damage to buildings, because they do like nothing and its instead of them just driving up to it like a moron, this I'm fine with.
The Damage buffs and Fire-on-the-move are the biggest culprits, and I think Hailstorms are kinda broken when mixed in with this.
Ok thats my Pacific Front rant over, I don't expect anything to come of this but I wanted to at least speak my word about it.
Just before I leave this I'm going to mention a couple other things:
Black Widow is still too powerful, the "Iron Curtain for Jets" otherwise known as a guaranteed building kill is no fun when spending all that money on AA is completely useless.
Hummingbird slow effect is too long, or the Jets themselves are too cheap. They render an army almost completely useless for too long at a relative cost of diddly squat.
Done.
Phew.
Everyone seems to be arguing over how Yunru came into such a position of power,
yet nobody is willing to explain how Rahn's weapon is able to teleport a pair of shorts.
Now. Euro Alliance feels to me like arguably the only faction in the game where their core concepts don't work all too well.
A slower Micro-based faction, where most of their Specialist units do an utterly useless Job at whatever they are supposed to do.
Snipers: They do sod-all damage. Their ROF is trash even when deployed and their Range is nothing too inspiring either. I'd love to see these units occasionally do their jobs rather than be a warning tool to lazy opponent commanders who accidentally wander into their range. I'd rather just make half a Prism tank and put that there.
Charons: A great unit in concept, being able to 1-hit-kill anything except Epics. At least if the unit actually Worked. At this current stage I see more misfires than actual kills with these units,
and often in scenarios where getting the kills is the difference between life and death, I don't want to leave my chances of winning a game up to raw RNG, that's just not cool.
Mirages: Ok, don't get me wrong. Mirages are ok units because their damage is reasonable, but then on the other side their range is meh-tier and their Armour worse. And they can't fire on the move. If the enemy is even remotely speedy then good luck covering everything with (often obvious) trees. You might as well just make Cavaliers and hope for the best at that point.
The few Crutches that keep Euro playable are the fact that hummingbirds are just unstoppable, rendering armies useless for much too long a window (yes, all Allied factions can use these, but only Euro Alliance actually NEED them). And that Siegfried is one of the most stupid-powerful heroes in MO. Mass-damage, Slow effect, extreme AOE and super tanky. We don't call him the "Mobile Army Deleter" for nothing, and at the moment he feels like the only T2 or T3 unit Euro has thats any good against armoured units.
I wouldn't say Euro's concepts don't work, they just need to put more effort into them unlike the other allies.
Though I agree Charon missing the target is so frustrating and random, and when it backfires via either MindControl or Confusion it does more damage to your own forces than it would've done to enemy forces because your's will generally be closer.
Snipers on the other hand are just so frustrating to watch them not doing diddly squat to infantry, then again Euro barely struggles with infantry anyway because Thors and Prisims already decimate infantry blobs with ease. and that's not even talking about siegfried.
SIEGFRIED, ON THE OTHER HAND : now while I have no problem with his health, damage or range (mostly because he's such a core element in an EA Army) the thing that frustrates me the most is his cost and production speed (which, yes are tied to each other internally) but he can get sooooooooooooo much more value than he costs in 1 single shot. and even if you take care of him a new one will respawn from a barracks in less than half a minute, he really needs a cost increase AND training-time multiplier.
Foehn:
Haihead:
Spoiler
This is going to confuse everyone, but Haihead are BALANCED. Their vehicles all share a fragility weakness (except the MADMAN, but thats slow as all hell) and can be easily exposed be mobility, and are generally an even match in Brute Force. With FinAlize no longer being able to tank entire Superweapons and more, players can actually stand a chance of killing Haihead unit blobs. At this point the only problems I have with Haihead are the effectiveness of Irritators and the fact that MADMAN can be shadow ringed (which is frankly insane).
Wings of Coronia:
Spoiler
You may remember I said in the changelog thread that Pteranodons did not need much of a change. They instead got a pretty big nerf and combined with general AA buffs for almost every faction (except Epsilon), now I honestly feel that they are too weak for most players to use outside of harassing morons who don't make AA and Miners. Roadrunners feel like legit threats now and not "oh these two roadrunners just killed everything ever", which is a good thing at least.
Coronia is not a faction I play a lot, but I get the feeling people who did are going to need to relearn them entirely to make them work as well as they did before. They seem much harder to play with a lot less rewards, almost like how Euro Alliance feel to me right now, their man strengths outside of Heroes are things that both Haihead and Last Bastion can also utilise.
Haihead: I still think megalodons shouldn't be able to decimate buildings like they can now, Haihead already have shadrays which do a decent job on buildings on their own, they also have syncronins AND syncronauts.
the reason I'm stating both is because they have very different uses even if they achieve the same goal. the syncronin can be used in conjunction with shadrays to kill buildings from afar even faster than they already do, they can also be loaded in Jackals as well as loading kingsframes in jackals, pick any building of your choice and level it in seconds.
syncronauts on the other hand are usually used with things like HH's Blackout missile(Can obviously work with another other damaging support power like wallbuster) to destroy a building they can also be used with diverbees but the best usage for them imo is when you use a tempest on a base that is spread out, you can use the syncronauts to debuff the buildings on the edges of the tempest and guarantee a kill on those with at least 3 per building (and they obviously have AoE effect so the benefit can be maximized.
They also have the MADMAN which I don't think I need to explain.
if you ask me Haihead has a serious overkill on building destroyers.
Wings of Coronia: I think people are still getting used to the new Coronia, because they still expect pteranodons to decimate everything for them, which is why they consider them weak.
I beg to differ however, I see Coronia has a potential to be something like Scorpion Cell, not in being fragile mind you, but where you need multiple units in numbers and constant micro to achieve benefits which is a playstyle that's missing from Foehn factions in my opinion.
most of Coronia's units benefit from spinblades which rewards a Coronia player if they keep constantly placing them around the map, I would say this is like Starcraft Zerg spreading creep and turning the map into their own playground, the more effort a player puts into placing and holding spinblades around the map the better they will be later on in the match as they can constantly send units out faster to the front lines or pullback if caught.
Another thing to remember is that Tarchias got some sweet buffs and the most important one is the flat 20% DAMAGE BUFF AGAINST TANKS which means you have a very...very menacing single target damage dealers even if they take time to lock on, this could be used in situations where Road Runners or Pteranodons aren't enough to deal with a large Last Bastion or China army.
Eureka also got a buff and holyshit is it good, just a few pteranodon shots and a Eureka swipe is enough to delete armor battalions which again, isn't a problem, it promotes more usage of different units and tactics, while also rewards spinblade users when they get to transport Eureka around for quick response.
Imo Coronia should be given more time before giving a final judgment on their performance, I used to hate coronia a lot but now... I may actually want to main them.
I don't know what balance looks like in this mod; I just know I want it.
Posted 16 March 2018 - 01:32 PM
You know Jacko, I'm willing to agree with you on coronia a bit... pteranondons do feel sluggish to play with. I dunno... its a really strange faction at this point, but one i consider balanced. Like stolen tech said, its nice to see tarchias, eureka, and other units actually see use.
Latin confed is... yeah you are right. The way I play them at lest relies on Kiting people into fury drones, and i feel buratinos, and vultures are useless against mid-fight armor blobs. Fire just seems so random, and hurts stuff that looks like its not touching the fire, and does not hurt stuff it look like i should, does little to buildings... i dunno. Catas are such a crutch though.
Epsilon does seem very balanced.
Would love to see US have to rely on its support units more. I think they should be Nerfed to where the abrams/riot can only do the DPS they do now with targeting lazer. (does that make sense?). Would bring the warhawk into play, and i think US uses most of its tier 3 fairly frequently. Also nerf abrams vs buildings.
EA: 100% in agreement. Charon is awful to use. I almost wish building a Charon gave you an ability in your armory tab that you can use to click on a unit within the Charon's range to warp it out, make it a SC2-like spell-caster (more Charon, more times you can cast ability. might have to limit the tank. Don't know if such a thing can be implemented, do know it probably wont be) . Mirage is tough to use but the...
SNIPER is competing for the most useless MP unit award right up there with....
THE ROCKETIER which is still useless, even with the cost buff. Like i said it would be.
You may be wondering "But what about the Battle Tortoises?"
Exactly. There are No Battle Tortoises whatsoever. PF players no longer need them for close range combat because there is no reason for them to fight at close range.
I played (and streamed) a 3v3 game yesterday, where 2 PF players were on the same team, and I did not see a single BattleTort. I saw thousands of Blizzards and Zephyrs, countless Hailstorms, Suppressors, Hummingbirds and occasionally Barracudas. With a team composition of Epsilon HQ, Haihead & Latin Confederation, who you can argue are all reasonably strong factions, there was no way whatsoever to counter this (except blasticade it turns out, but thats a meme for another time). It was physically impossible to impose any sort of map control on that and when inevitably sieged in our own bases, hailstorms rendered any defenses a waste of money. It just felt like an unwinnable scenario from minute one.
You may be wondering "But what about the Battle Tortoises?"
Exactly. There are No Battle Tortoises whatsoever. PF players no longer need them for close range combat because there is no reason for them to fight at close range.
I played (and streamed) a 3v3 game yesterday, where 2 PF players were on the same team, and I did not see a single BattleTort. I saw thousands of Blizzards and Zephyrs, countless Hailstorms, Suppressors, Hummingbirds and occasionally Barracudas. With a team composition of Epsilon HQ, Haihead & Latin Confederation, who you can argue are all reasonably strong factions, there was no way whatsoever to counter this (except blasticade it turns out, but thats a meme for another time). It was physically impossible to impose any sort of map control on that and when inevitably sieged in our own bases, hailstorms rendered any defenses a waste of money. It just felt like an unwinnable scenario from minute one.
You may be wondering "But what about the Battle Tortoises?"
Exactly. There are No Battle Tortoises whatsoever. PF players no longer need them for close range combat because there is no reason for them to fight at close range.
I played (and streamed) a 3v3 game yesterday, where 2 PF players were on the same team, and I did not see a single BattleTort. I saw thousands of Blizzards and Zephyrs, countless Hailstorms, Suppressors, Hummingbirds and occasionally Barracudas. With a team composition of Epsilon HQ, Haihead & Latin Confederation, who you can argue are all reasonably strong factions, there was no way whatsoever to counter this (except blasticade it turns out, but thats a meme for another time). It was physically impossible to impose any sort of map control on that and when inevitably sieged in our own bases, hailstorms rendered any defenses a waste of money. It just felt like an unwinnable scenario from minute one.
Skip to 32:50. 4 Battle Tortoises (with Supressors inside) + backwarp wrecked 10 Abramses + Tanya. Actually, making Supressors taking one slot in transports made all recent PF nerfs useless now.
This is kind of my point though.
If Battletorts were still that potent, why are PF still stomping even without them?
Because Zephyrs and Blizzards can accomplish much more than tortoises.
If anything the real issue with both zephyrs and blizzards is their spammability, you can pump out so many of them at a low cost while BTs are much more expensive and considerably riskier to use as of right now.
IMO what should be considered is a significant price increase on both units or a reduction of the slow effect blizzards apply to vehicles as it is the main reason why kiting with zephyrs is so easy to accomplish. Perhaps the fire on the move ability should be looked at as well.
Unfortunately I doubt we'll get anything out of this so you might as well sit tight for another 7 months of pain and suffering.
Russia is my faction to go for Challenges or when i play seriously, yeah, Volkov is quite annoying when he stunlocks your groups but usually i always have more groups or air wing when playing against Russians.
But my favourites are Wolfhounds for their versatility and Scud launcher since its one of few artilleries that can actually outrange T3 defences and actually do its job as artillery piece.
EA feels alright to me though, Siegfriend is very, very slow moving and usually number 1 target together with Charons. I do notice sometimes the stupid AI targetting of Charons, multiple Charons fire at single target and everyone wastes their shot, but i think its a fair trade off for brutal unit that can delete any non epic unit within second. Some micro for such power.
Yanks feels alright, although i do agree that Abrams are maybe too good.
Pacific Front is odd one, while on one hand they have decent long range weapon, i find their anti tank capabilities falling to either Guardian GI's, Kappa tanks or Zephyrs but frankly if they face heavy armour they will struggle. Zephyrs have crap armour so if opponent can launch random support power (Though not everyone has things like Mercury strike) or use their own artillery (Although not all factions have such options) they will fall like flies.
Unless ofc it ended up to giant deth blob that destroys even the heaviest tanks within seconds (To the point they cannot even get to their own range)... then i dont know what should be done.
It feels like few of the posts are acknowledging the main point. If PF is really becoming cancerous, then they probably need a damage nerf on blizzards.
Hailstorms are expensive, take a lot of time to fire and are also slow as fuck, not to mention they also take a lot of time to build. They do not require any nerfs.
Tortoises got nerfed, Black Eagles (and the other jets too) got nerfed, Suppressors also got nerfed. I still don't understand why you want to nerf PF into the ground. The Blizzard tank buff was (I assume) to compensate for all those nerfs they got, and to be honest i'm really fine with the faction atm. For once it's a faction that is interesting to play with more variety of units, rather than just spam tortoises, snipe tech with 8 eagles and win.
What's next, nerf Kappas just for the lols?
Most of those complaints feel biased already, specially after playing myself for many months with players that complain a lot about the Allies being "overpowered" trough Discord and Voice chat.
Honestly what snow said is really true...Before it was all bout "Oh torts are op humming birds are stupid suppressors are to good beagles sniped my tech ahha" Now look...All that stuff was nerfed and Speeder changed one thing ONE MISERLY THING And everyone flipping there friends off to nerf this ONE THING TO COMPENSATE for all the PF nerfs....Its honestly stupid how this is turning out but if you guys really wanna nerf PF into the loveing ground of satans butthole.....Then be my guest Change the whole unit comp or even remake PF units to make it more better....Honestly if everyone hates long range and cryogenics then change the units for new units that do close range combat then instead off changing these units if there so ridiculously OP No matter what like seriously...
The fact Beagles Suppressors and Torts all got Nerf is a godsend to people who got really tried of this PF Camping strat that was there....Now its more aggressive and everyone wants to hog train the new PF style like its the end of the world yet noone else really plays PF Much or even has tried them out for least 3/5 days worth like me and Snow or Sig have...Like honestly if you guys would just play them bit more and actually looked and understood like "This can fight that or this cant fight that" then maybe you would Learn PF'S Downfall and weakness like i know and do...How else do you think i win on the daily as PF? Or beat them easily if im against said PF Player? Like seriously it dosent take a psychological nerd to figure this out
Anyways point is..I prefer this new blizzard tank like snow and prolly few others...And Hailstorms likewise Yes they are slow as fawk and take awhile to build....Plus there is a thing called "Stealth units or Air units" Plus there is a thing also called "Rush the PF Player down or keep him off centered and nailed to a wall" Like its that easy to nail a PF Player tbh..And if any of you say wining or loseing to PF is via "MAPS" Then you already lost the argument right then and there cause thats Lies and BS honestly its bout You and Your faction and Your style to combat your Vs enemy not the Maps blame or Fault
PF seems to be in a good state now. Tech snipe was the main issue and is no more. BT spam is now very costly and an inferior option in most circumstances.
Due to late game power PF will be strong in both big campy maps and team games. These perks are found in its nature as the heavier sf for allies. Just like CN, LB and HQ.
In return, they are slow and have a poor early game.
In short: expect a lot of PF in team games.
Anyways point is..I prefer this new blizzard tank like snow and prolly few others...And Hailstorms likewise Yes they are slow as fawk and take awhile to build....Plus there is a thing called "Stealth units or Air units" Plus there is a thing also called "Rush the PF Player down or keep him off centered and nailed to a wall" Like its that easy to nail a PF Player tbh..And if any of you say wining or loseing to PF is via "MAPS" Then you already lost the argument right then and there cause thats Lies and BS honestly its bout You and Your faction and Your style to combat your Vs enemy not the Maps blame or Fault
They end Goodbye
No one can rush the wild Darky down, that's why the salty tears exist ; ^ )
I'm gonna ignore all the other parts like hailstorms etc and focus on blizzards and comment on stuff that make no sense only.
Tortoises got nerfed, Black Eagles (and the other jets too) got nerfed, Suppressors also got nerfed. I still don't understand why you want to nerf PF into the ground. The Blizzard tank buff was (I assume) to compensate for all those nerfs they got, and to be honest i'm really fine with the faction atm. For once it's a faction that is interesting to play with more variety of units, rather than just spam tortoises, snipe tech with 8 eagles and win.
Honestly what snow said is really true...Before it was all bout "Oh torts are op humming birds are stupid suppressors are to good beagles sniped my tech ahha" Now look...All that stuff was nerfed and Speeder changed one thing ONE MISERLY THING And everyone flipping there friends off to nerf this ONE THING TO COMPENSATE for all the PF nerfs
Great, now you two are using AdmiralPit's point of thinking. "If X is nerfed then it should be recompensated". That's the bullshit which both of you called out on him but are aggresively practising now. Which side are you on finally?
The fact Beagles Suppressors and Torts all got Nerf is a godsend to people who got really tried of this PF Camping strat that was there....Now its more aggressive and everyone wants to hog train the new PF style like its the end of the world yet noone else really plays PF Much or even has tried them out for least 3/5 days worth like me and Snow or Sig have...Like honestly if you guys would just play them bit more and actually looked and understood like "This can fight that or this cant fight that" then maybe you would Learn PF'S Downfall and weakness like i know and do...How else do you think i win on the daily as PF? Or beat them easily if im against said PF Player? Like seriously it dosent take a psychological nerd to figure this out
We had that conversation in Discord already. And allow me to remind you that you haven't provided any examples or mentions how to fight against the new PF. Once again, you repeat only "you should play PF for a while and you will understand that they are fine and have counters" while providing no explainations and repeating yourself like broken clock.
Also, it's funny that it comes from someone who actively said "Speeder made me do this" when doing any of OP bullshit in previous versions.
Anyways point is..I prefer this new blizzard tank like snow and prolly few others...
I am not fine with new Blizzard. I repeated all the time that their AA is mediocre at best and they should be buffed in that direction. Instead of thet they got buffs on every front + fire on the move for a small price increase.
Plus there is a thing also called "Rush the PF Player down or keep him off centered and nailed to a wall" Like its that easy to nail a PF Player tbh..And if any of you say wining or loseing to PF is via "MAPS" Then you already lost the argument right then and there cause thats Lies and BS honestly its bout You and Your faction and Your style to combat your Vs enemy not the Maps blame or Fault
Points
The
Entire
Goddamn
RTS
Universe
Starcraft mostly. Now tell me again, right into my face that map picks do not matter. Do you know why "ban map from your roster" option in starcraft exists? Hopefully yes, so i dont have to explain it for you.
Maps DO matter when it comes to matchups, and they matter heavily. Factions that work better open areas will not work on certain maps where a lot of chokepoints exists, slower factions may have problems depending on map size. Also, if you talk about "rushing the PF player down" hopefully you dont mean team games. It may be easier to do it when hes alone, but not when turrets starts appearing.
TL;DR Blizzard blobs are annoying. Buffed where they shouldnt be. Reduce the vs ground damage to previous state and keep the buffs on AA only.
Great, now you two are using AdmiralPit's point of thinking. "If X is nerfed then it should be recompensated". That's the bullshit which both of you called out on him but are aggresively practising now. Which side are you on finally?
First because Blizzards weren't very good at all (not to mention the friendly fire issues).
Second because the main core of the Pacific Front army during 3.3.0 to 3.3.2 were Eagles to snipe stuff down and Tortoises/Suppressor to crush & destroy everything. Blizzards weren't really worth all (and even worse if you had infantry in your army). The only thing that remains as it is are the Zephyrs and those need range to be good, since as soon as you get close to them they're easy to destroy.
Third because if the main strong points of a faction gets nerfed to the point where isn't worth the money anymore, then means that you need something to make the faction worth playing. And okay Blizzards got nice buffs, but still nobody mentions this:
- nerf: Blizzard Tank price increased from $1200 to $1350
It's a huge price increase, not just a 50$ price tag. Count also that it increases the building time.
TL;DR: Since the main strength of the PF got nerfed, i'm fine with Blizzards having buffs to give PF other alternatives of fighting.
I mentioned the price tag. Still, the benefits it received are too big. Previous version was okay vs ground but overshadowed by Tortoises. Now you dont even need to bother with them at all. I played couple of games as PF post patch and well... destroying China with mass blizzard and 2 Torts? I dont think that should take place. I didnt even need Zephyrs, Hailstorms, Hummindbirds, etc.
And i agree, Friendly fire is what made them hard to use. One of main reasons in my nerf i do not propse removal of that. I dont want Disruptors 2.0. Still, my point stands.
I'd like to throw in some cents aswell from what I've seen.
Keep in mind balancing around teamgames is very hard if not next to impossible considering there are so many factors coming into a 2v2 or a 3v3 compared to one person facing another. Especially with the ammount of stuff in the game aswell.
I will only list the things I see in the changelog about PF in 3.3.3
Black Eagles: nerfed vs structures, so still pretty good against infantry or tanks. Makes pretty much as much sense as possible to me due to Barracudas being the building snipers. The nerf should basically be unnoticeable unless you used them just for building snipes.
Supressor: speed decrease and price increase by 100$. In return they now take up 1 slot and have a IFV combo for it. Basically traded a bit of cost and speed for more utility in Tsurugis and Torts. Fair I'd say.
Battle Tortoise: Price increase and strength decrease. Let's be real no one enjoys 9 torts chronoshifted in your base absolutely tearing everything apart. Now that Suppressor takes up 1 slot they may have more utility, I can't really say, but it is a shame there has been no Torts built in any of the games I played or observed. Imo the price increase seems a bit meh considering the unit itself is just average without any infantry inside, but strength decrease makes sense once again.
And now the evil child bastard:
Blizzard Tank: $150 increase and build time increase as nerfs. Increased damage vs units and infantry, no more friendly fire, can target buildings and fires on the move.
Now this is a bit too much. While a buff to Blizzards certainly is welcome, this is overkill. Targeting buildings I don't really get since its not that great vs buildings and I ususally have them on a different hotkey anyways (plus I get triggered when blizzards auto target defenses only to get shat on by random infantry passing by). Firing on the move while doing more damage... against everything. Why?
Blizzard is not the T3 "supertank" for PF and shouldn't be. It's in a good spot AA wise but its silly to see it do pretty well against tanks when you have Zephyrs and Torts for that same task. Vs Infantry I can understand, from what I'm used to Blizzards are good inf removal units along with the Hailstorm.
I'd say undo the extra damage vs ground units (tanks etc not infantry) and maybe undo fire on the move considering its just a bit too silly, but that could also be a overkill on the nerf aspect on things.
PS: The "Maps have no influence on the balance of a matchup between factions" is false. While yes its not the fault of the map directly that you lose, it DOES contribute in certain cases. Biggest example being StarCraft (altho terrible example to compare with MO due to the games playing completely different) where there have been maps that some races avoid almost 100% of the time due to how shit the map is for them. While this is not fully the case in MO due to many things (base defences, factions being generally the same despite different units and playstyles) some factors do play into this.
Map size for instance can give a faction that specializes in aggression a upper hand or the opposite depending on the size. Map layouts can factor in too. It is not 100% the reason why people lose, that would be an awful excuse to blame the map for your loss, there certainly are maps where a faction is favored over the other.
Let's keep the debate clean, no reason to bring in personal attacks.
There's merit to both sides of the argument but if you look at just the blizzard tank itself, it's kind of an overloaded unit.
For 1350 you get a medium armored tank with the health of 555 that shoots air, ground, and applies a 50% slow. It has a speed of 6 and a range of 9/11 (Bush did it) which outranges every other T3 monster tank with the exception of the Mastodon. It's a souped-up Abrams that can shoot air and doesn't need to be tanky since nothing is going to be close enough to fire at it. It's the epitome of a spam and spam and forget unit.
The only thing keeping the Blizzard from dominating the battlefield, both air and ground, is the price. Which, with a purifier and a dozen miners, isn't really a problem in team games.
Despite all that, I agree with Darkie and snow. I'd suggest playing PF for a couple days in 1v1 against different people to get a feel for their weaknesses. It's not impossible to deal with PF.
As early as 3.3.3 changelog was made public I did a comment about problems coming due to blizzard new powers. And I still think hailstorms are 2 good, at least fire on the move -auto targetting- should be removed to this units considering it does splash damage+good anti-infantry+long range+target pursuit.
That said, 3.3.3 PF is waaaay more balanced than before. A PF late blob still costly AF and in any circumstance you are supposed to avoid frontal combat against those, just like when facing LB late blobs.
Instead, try to bait them and aim for buildings and miners. Probably not in that order.
Also, SW can be very devastating against slow armies, and both Chronosphere and IC can be used to bypass the main army and kill tech.
If all these fail, then ask you this questions:
Am I using a good SF to play against PF in this scenario? For a short comment about the last: all "balanced" Sub-factions can counter PF due to extra mobility and decent armor in most circumstances. -PC, RU, EA, idk who is the "balanced" foehn WoC? + USA and LC are good options in open maps and can break through PF lines using raw power and speed + debuffers
Finally, if it happens to be an extremely shokepointy 3v3... why those maps exist? lel
