Naval is... still problematic. We had heard someone say Scathis had naval tweaks, but we haven't seen them. There's been other balance tweaks, but nothing for naval. Nor any Dox balance changes for that matter.
Dox are fine in my opinion. And naval fix? Triage is in effect, and with the current bugs and server issues, I feel like we can leave it for now.
There's a major balance issue with the Dox. It is overpowered in early game and underpowered in late game. It all but forces into a certain play style and build order, and makes the learning curve for new players really steep. That's bad.
When you phrase it like that, a unit like that is fine. But the Dox does so many things. It's extremely fast, has a huge vision radius, shoots down air, and is amphibious. There is little to no build variety in players these days and no one builds air because of the Dox. And because there is little build variety, the learning curve is steep because new players have to somehow learn the certain build order. All of that is bad.
I'm playing some PA tonight with some of the better RLM players, I'll comment more after, but I actually thing that dox are ok, good for close distance fights and raiding, but still killable by tanks. And currently, naval doesn't really affect much, even if it were tweaked; too little water.
UBER going for the PAX and media blitz of releasing the game instead of actually considering the games current state, which will destroy UBER
Dox seem pretty OP considering how fast they build, how cheap they are, how fast they move, and the fact that they can shoot land, air, and sea (plus move through water). Too many games I've had recently have resulted in quick cheese due to mass dox rush. If you go vehicles or air to start your build and you aren't on top of your micro/macro game, it's very easy to get destroyed by the initial swarm. Even T2 non-artillery can get pretty quickly torn apart by them if you don't have them in numbers, and it's very easy to get good splits to avoid AOE damage if you've got good micro to maneuver the Dox. Not to mention the early power they have at harass and denying fabs. And they double as recon in force. Still, I'd take all the OP dox in the world to just get some server stability, performance, and bug crushing. Pathing really needs huge work, performance has steadily decreased for a lot of players, and there are major issues with air and orbital patrols. Not to mention the dire need for offline. I really hope they prioritize performance and stability over all else at this point. No point in arguing balance if you can't actually play, and it's only going to get worse once the new kids come in.
What's your comment on no one using air anymore because of the dox? The reason there is so little water is because everyone hates naval. It's a self fulfilling prophecy. Naval balance shouldn't get the cold shoulder because no one uses it. No one uses it because the naval balance is poor.
Ehh I dunno about the late game, as late game they just can't use used as they were before, but do make good fodder for your better troops. Early game? I can see that, but overall I feel they are good.
They recently made a change to bombers for the better. IF ONLY BOTS DIDN'T SHOOT AIR. Then... someone could actually build air to counter a DOX/bot rush. Wouldn't that be interesting for a game to have some soft counters People would be then forced to build vehicles/AA structures to counter the move to air. Seems more like a RTS to me that way. Edit: TESTED... DOX.. still shoot air...
I think the real problem is, the idea that bots should be harassment units. I have another idea, imo there should be stable harassment units and stable tank units and such for all variations, vehicles, bots, air or naval. Why cant there be bot slow tough bots, and fast vehicles.. Also wasnt there supposed to be 100 or so different units ?.
I am starting to think the only change REALLY necessary for dox is a cost increase to 60. And then it will be perfect....
Don't make assumptions that I haven't. I think that could work, but I really think the Dox should lose it's anti-air capabilities. People just don't use Air anymore and that's a huge bummer.
Bombers bombs near track now and hit dox easy, also dox's anti-air capabilities have been nerfed heavily, they're very inaccurate.
Honestly, I really think that naval would be just perfect as it currently is with a heightened speed. Right now it's simply too slow. If you increased the speed it would just feel better. The power of the naval units I think is just fine (when the Slammer is taken out of the equation) they're great coastal raiders and they're excellent at destroying naval bases. But they're just too goddamn slow. Naval isn't interesting in the slightest because it takes a ******* EON to get anything done with it. @metabolical PLEASE speed up naval units and make naval games interesting.