The state of bombers and dox.

The amount of sufficient AA has been decreased because you need multiple bombers to kill each spinners leaving them over the aa for longer periods of time. That point has been shifted when spinners were already very effective.

True, but I feel even before it was unreasonable to attack an aa protected army with t1 bombers and I feel that is how it should be. I admit I am influenced by SupCom on this. In SupCom the t1 bomber was used to snipe fabbers and maybe sometimes attack t1 units that happened to be without aa. Sniping commander are doing real fights vs armies was completely out of the question.
Well actually I remember a commander kill with t1 bombers, but that wasn't a very typical scenario xD
To use air for direct fights you would usually tech to t2 and use gunships or more advanced bombers. They packed a punch and had better hp.

It only took around 10 spinners before it became extremely difficult to attack an advancing tank army, but you now need a lot more bombers or a lot more micro to be as effective. In supcom the t2 transition was necessary meaning you would have access to these units and travel times were long enough that you could afford the wait.

If an army is heading towards you can't get up t2.

Exactly and that is why I demand larger maps
In SupCom on smaller maps nobody would do t2 or go mass air as well. PA is actually kinda like SupCom already, just most ladder maps are smaller than a 10x10 map in SupCom. Teching started on 10x10 maps, on 5x5 it was rare.

Fast playstyle still more fun.

PA is fast. Increasing the map size doesn't change anything about that.

Regarding dox and bomber
Actually, dox is still good if not even more viable than previously.

The speed nerf was necessary to even out the shift in power that was going to happen due to slowing down the economy and changing the timing between mex expansion and number of units available. Tanks was a viable opening previously only becuase you could get enough tanks up to defend comfortably enough in most situations.

Bomber power vs dox is overstated. It's actually nerfed because you can micro dox around just as always so the bomber does even less damage than before.

Regarding economy and pacing
This is probably the biggest letdown I had. It seemed like a good change in the pte, but in practice you quickly come to realise that what it does is force players to play exactly the same way for the first 5 minutes. PA is anything but fast right now. There really isn't much variation in openers nor factory choice. You'll always get 2 factories, 2 pgens, with air 2nd.

Because of the slowness of the pacing, 'expansion' in this meta basically comes down to who can be the most greedy and take the most risks without getting caught, because the adjusted risks are so low and the benefit to cost is so high. This isn't truly expansion because it's just willy nilly expand everywhere that you can't defend with units and build random turrets and walls. Which imo isn't all too skillbased and more like a casino.

There are many times you will know your opponent is expanding very rapidly somewhere but there is nothing you can do about it simply because of the timing of units, or because you ran out of luck and snowballed to a loss in an even number fighter vs fighter battle where you lose everything and they only lose 50%.

Can't follow most of that.
Yes you now open with something like factory mex pgen pgen mex factory, but what factories you do depends on the map and what you want to achive. I don't really see how that is bad. Before you always did 2 factories before everything else basically. What does it matter, apart from reducing silly "rushiness" of the game?

How does a slow pacing lead to those consequences for expansion play? Using scouting you can definitely know that your opponent is doing some expansion. Using the pretty high speed of dox or air in many cases you can stop greedy expansions. In some cases it may not be feasible, but the whole point is that it should be possible to expand savly in some locations at least. Take your own expansions to compensate. Just make sure you don't lose expansions yourself that should be "save" and don't let your opponent take expansions that they should not have without a serious fight.

Could you elaborate how you feel like dox are more viable? I'll admit raiding is more important because of the over emphasis on expanding in the early game, but with the trades bombers and dox are making their usefulness here are being diminished. I would use bombers with no defenses and tanks if they have defenses.

Also I don't feel a change in travel time for dox. I know it is there but it isn't immediately apparent. I doubt a speed of 20 would disallow expansion from the timing.

They certainly aren't the combat unit they once were.

You can micro bots around bombers, but if you don't micro that perfectly you are punished harshly for it. Meaning that perfect micro can give you a huge advantage quite a bit more than before and much more than I'd like.

The spread increase certainly hasn't debuffed bombers against dox. The difficulty of the micro is the same and when executed poorly more dox are killed.

I'm going to agree wholeheartedly with your point on expansion and openings. I'd like to see the 30 metal and 3000 energy come back but keep the commander efficiency where it is. The commander is currently slightly more efficient than fabbers but no so much you could easily pump out 3 fabbers in a well defended base to replace him. Meaning you could use the commander more aggressively, opening up the possible opening moves.

Right now it's air second or you might as well just say gg. Most if not all builds are now bot and air. There is no tank openings nor bot rushes as we might see before. Third factory follows from second too late, and there is no way for you to context air fabber metal if you do not get air 2nd. Therefore you only have one factory choice to play with.

The strength of tank was always reliant on having to get lots early on to defend against dox harass and cover all points, and 1 vehicle factory only just doesn't cut it. Doesn't matter what map. I'm just calling where i think the stable metagame will evolve to.

Yes, previously most common people did 2 factories. Which is exactly the same as what we do now, only without the 5 pgens you need to build. Tere were many other different types of builds back then as well, all based on 1 fabber through to 3. Compared to now where it is all basically 2 fabber, into late third fabber, and then spam fabbers as necessary.

Maybe previously it was too rushy, i dont know. All i am saying is right now it feels like too much of the opposite. For example if two rational players play on meso, and i go 2 land factories, and my opponent goes naval factories. It is going to be something like a full 8+ minutes before we ever fight or truly interact with one another. It's not very engaging.

It comes down to a very fundamental relationship.

Speed at which you can expand metal vs speed at which units can be put onto the field to defend said metal. This has decreased dramatically since previously. If i have two fabbers getting metal constantly, they will have expanded further out of my base than i can ever hope to defend all points with the current unit timings, which was not the case in previous builds.

What this means is people are expanding further than they can ever defend. And those that disregard risk the most end up on top. Remember, people who attack also have limited units to stop possible expansions. I may know you sent a fabber to put up a proxy base at some location, but i may not have the resources at the beginning to ever try to contest or stop it before a turret and walls is put up. Scouting has nothing to do with it.

@julien119
This is why dox is viable. Because the new economy does not allow tank air, or tank openings of any kind to expand in a sustainable and competitive way.

Think about it like this. Your opponent could pick any build, and you will not be able to know what his two factories are going to be without having built your first two. Therefore, you must pick a build that is safe to all possible variations before the earliest time at which you are able to scout.

If you go tank air, you won't have enough tanks to contest bot air dox/fighter build from zoning you out of the map. And if you go tank tank, you'll die to air.

I don't feel these things are as absolute as you say :s
For example if you overexpand than that means there is like one lone fabber trying to make stuff. One lone dox can kill that.
Anything balance is hard to take as an absolute when there are no top players playing it out on a daily basis. And I don't see that happening.

Its definitly looking like it Colin, please just listen more to other players instead of constandly shutting down their ideas like they don't even excist. I know latest patches are specifically designed to fit your playstyle, but the playerbase didn't stop shrinking and the gamepace is slow as hell compared to releasebalance (the balance we played with for months, without significant changes). Also, rushes are what keeps the game exciting and unpredictable, don't call it silly if you like rts.

I am not gonna react to things that border on personal attacks.

You're right, i do make generalisations, and maybe present them as more absolute than they are. There will always be specific cases that run counter to what i say for sure.

What i'm trying to get at though is basically that in the long run, since generally you cannot defend all the metal you need to expand, i feel it's mostly about getting lucky.

A mex which you cannot defend should not be yours if your opponent scouts and attacks in the right place. It takes only a dox or two or a bomber to take down a fabber. I don't see why it should be impossible to use them like that.

Hey its not a personal attack. Just a heads up that your giving me the idea that you are in some sort of ultra macro tunnel vision, try to see the downsides of all these changes too instead of acting like its all flawless. If you wont even acknowledge the gamepacing slowed down there is no problem with me telling you that you should listen more to others.

Mot, I've seen you do this many times in the past few months, and you need to stop and think or something. I appreciate your skill and expertise as much as Elodea's or Colin's, but forcing your opinion onto folks just isn't a good way to go about it.

On Topic:

Let's return to the main problem:

Before, Dox were too fast and could be produced too fast. They could get to the enemy's expansions before his engineers could build a defensive tower, and they would keep coming because you always started out running instead of establishing an economy first. Bombers did overkill on all ground units, and were really effective against structures. T1 AA did a great job of DYING to three bombers. Now, you'd be lucky if 6-7 killed that tower (unless you micro).

Now, Dox are still kinda fast, but they fit their role as a light assault bot. Except it has AA and is amphibious and has way more utility than necessary. Regardless, they fit the role given to them by Uber. They can't be utilized all game (this isn't Dox4Lyfe or LABWars) - tanks just shred them in large numbers, as they should. Bombers are also very good at killing large quantities of dox, but small clumps are more effective. Additionally, bombers can't snipe commanders as easily (I'm ignoring the PBAOE change, for plenty of reasons that we all understand), nor can they kill large HP pool targets like Vanguards or infernos. If anything, it gives one a good reason to use T2 air - for the ground attack. That said, Levellers, Shellers, and Sniper bots still trump everything.

Personally, I want the old dox back - the ones that were faster than tanks, took 2 tank shots to kill, and had slightly higher effective DPS - which made them unique.

you describe the dox only all day balance? the current dox still is considerably faster than the tank.

There is not "macro tunnel vision" here. I am saying you I disagree on "the downsides of all these changes".

Right, but the catch is this. one dox cannot shut down all expansions fast enough. Nor can just 2 bombers kill mex quick enough to avoid getting killed by enemy fighters before they can finish killing the mex.

I had this one guy constantly spamming air fabs on amplus. He would have multiple groups of like 10 air fabbers always area mex building and placing random turrets everywhere.

Even though i was constantly taking them out with fighters, you just can't be everywhere at once with your fighters, expect to maintain air control to keep taking them out, while also having the resources to get enough land units to overcome random turrets and walls everywhere. I eventually won, but it's pretty crazy how much benefit you get from doing this.

Another example is when you have deadzones of metal between your front line and their front line. Obviously it is high risk to expand metal here. But in the current build you should not ever consider this risk and just constantly keep sending fabbers to build it up and get away with as much sneaky metal as you can wherever you can. Doesn't matter if it gets taken down, partly because there are so little units on the field that you really cannot shut down all possible sneaky things in time before they pay off.

I don't see a problem with constantly sending out fabbers to claim stuff.
Cheap fabbers take cheap mex. No big deal. Much more interesting then no fabbers take no mex to me. Part of the game is who does this better to get extra metal.