You're right. It definitely is the servers... I really hoped this gets fixed... EDIT: Removed some unnecessary information.
hi. sorry for adventurous english in my following review of the latest patch. it's my first post here but i already played 135h. i usually play to win. > 60 apm as default. at first what's mega-positive: the game now got really good performance and wayfinding seems to be finally fixed, very good job uber! feels final. crashing client or server.. also a thing of the past. had a couple of games with latest pte and checked out if dox finally got nerfed. nerfing dox' range and view definitely was overdue but in my opinion it's still not possible to counter dox raid. last game i tried my very old tank-spam-strat which i used to combine with t1 anti-air and t1 bombers. my opponent raided me easily with a dox-army. i was like omg. i thought dox got nerfed.. maybe at first sight. but if you focus on what is really important ingame..?! -> map control. rape the metal-fields of your enemy, give him no chance to expand and encircle him. that's what you got to do if you want to win. i know game's still not that final and stuff.. another thing: if dox are still that fast and tanks that slow so you can't really counter raids.. what's up with defense? sorry, but defense is still useless if you are trying to defend your metal-field vs dox-raid WITHOUT also performing a dox-raid. @uber devs: i really love your rts-game and latest patches brought awesome changes but it's still not possible to play a multisided mixed-army game still due to dox being op. please, please, please.. it's still really kinda one-sided, finally nerf them or give defense an ultra-buff!
The Dox now is good where it is at! Before they were amphibious and had a slight range and sight increase they where useless. Also the Dox can be easily countered by tanks as they have a longer range than the Dox.
I feel the dox did get a wee bit nerfed since last. In light of this, they don't feel like cruise control for win, they just feel like a pubstomp strategy. Still not sure if even that is good. They could be more honed in to just what they supposed to do.
I think the annihilaser should destroy anything in its path. An enemy had a lot of units hanging above that pole and the laser just went through them. Also some strange walking units which are walking with small steps. They move a bit, stop, move a bit etc. Finally I found this watching my flaws after the game had finished: Underwater orbital launchers!!! Subs! You heard it here first! They sink when they start building and rise again when the rocket launches. Guess this is to keep the platform cooled?
i know that tanks win in 1v1. but that's really not the thing.. after being completely metal-raided and encircled by dox tanks don't matter at all. no offense but we should have a match. tell me again after you got stopmped by dox ten times. this is how my mate and i win. nearly every fu***** time. if we loose (maybe 1 of 20 games).. someone could spam even better dox than we do. and yeah.. still talking about latest pte. edit: and i don't want dox to be useless again. but they are still op. pwnage proves...
I also wasn't keen on the whole spam dox thing but in all honesty I now think they have a place in this game. It forces people to actually fight in the early game and think about their expansion strategy. Before the dox spam, people would just sit in their little hemisphere of safety and mass up a big army. Yes you need dox in order to counter early dox spam and this forces you to go dox as well as vehicles, not just choose one or the other. Also try and stop a mass inferno army (with dox only) from rolling over your base and ripping it apart. Yes Dox are mobile and without your own army of dox it is very hard to stop them and they can seem OP, but thats their role. In one on one confrontations where they are forced into a fight (with inferno) then they are going to lose big time. RTS games are supposed to be hard and it takes time to learn good counter strategies. I am definitely glad that Dox can't fire underwater anymore and the only other change I would like to see is to make the bombers have more splash damage so that they can annihilate large groups of dox. This would mean people need to think about either mixing in some spinners (AA) with their dox, which would make the dox move slower (as a group moves the speed of the slowest unit), or head out without spinners, keeping their agility, but risk being taken out with bombers. For every strategy their should be a good counter, this is the key to balancing an RTS. There's still some more tweaking needed to make Dox balanced. I just thought of something too. If they introduced unit acceleration into the game, then this would nerf the dox a little bit too. This would mean that they are still good at raiding, but if they extend too far into enemy territory then it would make it harder to retreat. Or possibly make them move slower if they are walking backwards while firing. We need to keep them an agile unit, but give some sort of consequence to their actions.
@all: please tell me -> where is your eco to counter a dox-raid (with tanks or whatever) when you actually do not have eco (especially metal) anymore? @Planktum: good point
That's a good photo showing how the rockets aren't lined up with orbital launcher. It's the same problem with both land and sea launchers
Really, they were worse. Right now, no offense, but they just pubstomp. A vehicle scout and some rushed early tanks can push into enemies too, and with dox-only the dox no matter how numerous must IGNORE the tanks, the tanks would just eat them. Then they can raid the eco, if most of it is unturreted. However, the tanks will raid the eco too. Now, when the tanks meet a commander, and the dox meet a commander, which commander dies first? Dox being pubstompers aren't ideal either, they should probably stay as strong as they are and lose more secondary abilities. Make moar bots to fill those roles instead. The things the dox do however, is very welcome, it is a new angle of strategy choice and a simple one in execution, no difficult tricks to use them. I just am glad their stats are down where they are at.
i agree with your proposal to lose more secondary abilities. if you meant dox to be only able to shoot ground units e.g. given the speed of dox an air-buff may be appropriate. or really effective defense. i don't agree with your turret-thing. if you ask me.. atm defense is the epidome of wasting time and eco. you'd better built dox
The Annihilaser need a CD after each shot like 1 or 2 minutes maybe more... I just wiped out a 8 planet system in under 30 seconds by queuing up the Annihilaser shots one after another.
Well dox aren't good at shooting air and it good they lost their ability to shoot underwater. There speed is ok and dmg is good but I argee with @thetrophysystem Leave Dox as for now. Also their maybe another combat balance coming. There a lot more units that need nerfing or buffing other than the Dox. Eg cover a whole Gas Giant with "Jigs" and you resources goes through the roof. It like the old Alpha days where you good plant metal extractor anywhere...
They need to add more variety to the orbital layer units in order to spice up the fights over gas giants. Avengers are pretty boring.
There is another idea. Defences have been bad since before ants got a health buff. So, buffing defense's rate of fire at least, even if dropping their damage per shot slightly, or keeping them the same but cheaper, would be noteworthy. Think of it, turrets are really effective at shutting down any dox in range, the dox no matter how thick simply don't reach the turret. Tanks on the other hand, simply drive up because the turret damage is ineffectual, especially with healers or grenadiers or inferno. I still think currently, that single barrel lasers are cheap enough to put up and spread out, and have enough range versus dox to be powerful despite not being true about ants. Try it one game, put single barrel turrets by each mex with 6 walls all it takes to completely enclose it. Or even a double barrel but more spaced out. I bet you would lose against tanks, but would shut out dox. The only problem, is gaining any extra map control with a swirling pool of dox around the whole map. You would literally have to have combat fabbers and tanks area patrol each metal patch you are expanding to as your fabbers work on it, but even then it may work because 10 tanks shut down many times more the dox.
Starting points never have metal spots anymore. And so on. The lighting is still far too bright without the possibility to adjust it. The gamma of lava on the bright side of the planet is still not fixed (since may or april) The AI comm goes yolo just for a metal spot. There is also a significant performance decrease since 71378 PTE build. I have fps drops since the beginning of the game. It was previously super smooth, not even chronocam x4 had reduced fps rates.
I got a graphical thing with a gas planet. the shadow site of the planet is all blue without textures, also the atmosphere seems solid. The temperature was set to 100. When all Catalysts are completed at a metal planet and an Halley is completed on a different planet, it says that a Catalyst is completed instead of Halley completed. Another thing is that when Catalysts are completed and you go back a forth planets, the Catalysts are extending over and over again. It seems intended but is also a bit weird. Good work on the latest patches! The Catalysts really had a wow effect on me! It had also a TA energy weapon cool effect!
Just had a quick gameplay bug test. Radar bug. FS#3901 The commanders lazer hits the ground in front of him an not the in range unit. When you attack a radar blip with the pelter whilst the blip is in range, the pelter will continue to aim for that unit if the unit then goes out of range and disregards other units that are within it's range. This may happen with other units too.
