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Oceanic Future- Part 3 Feedback

qaccy

Well-Known Member
The oceanic expansion has so many flaws with advancing, military units and requirements that either players that are in that era are looking to go backwards since it is better or the next era needs to come out quickly to improve the game. At this point, the game has really ended at the Future age. the arctic and oceanic futures are poor at best and not worth the time to play. unfortunately many players have devoted significant amounts of time and resources to get to this point, they hope the next age will be better, only to be disappointed... again.
Items that need to be improved:
Military units: some will argue but I find myself using and beating most AF and OF battles with FA units. Why are units several ages older better than the advanced units? this is a Game Design flaw. The initial response on the latest OF unit Manta is again, poor at best.
Look at the different ages and the percentage of attack / defense increase of a unit from age to age. the last two ages, the units are not gaining a proportionate increase from the previous age making the OF units weak compared to units from 2 ages prior.

Not really true. The only FE unit with any relevance at all anymore is the Hover Tank, and that's only because AF and OF units, paired with the relatively weak AI, have a distinct weakness to units with stealth. This also somewhat applies to Eels, but they lack attack range and armor, and have a comparatively rarer terrain type in which to hide. However, Hover Tanks are not powerhouses by any stretch. They gain no terrain attack/defense bonuses whatsoever, have armor but fairly low base defense, and also a fairly weak attack stat. The only units from either of these two ages that don't beat a Hover Tank in both attack and defense are Dragon Drones, with 10 less attack, and Recon Raiders, with 5 less defense (though they possess Dug in, which adds 60 defense to their base value). All 11 of the other units (including Champions) has more in both stats from the range of 30-90 for attack and 15-65 for defense. With values of 120/105, minimum increases of 30 and 15 are pretty significant, are they not? That's a jump of 25% and nearly 15%, and those are just the minimum increases.

The other FE units by now are irrelevant. There's no reason to use Satellite Spotters, Drone Swarms, Exoskeleton Soldiers or even Rail Guns against AF or OF units as there are other units from these ages that are much better at anything these units can do. Satellites and Drone Swarms can't win a fight against any of these units (except for Drone Swarms against an all-artillery opponent), Exoskeletons could have some use while facing FE units but there's nothing they can do that Hover Tanks or Rail Guns can't do better, and even Rail Guns have been rendered obsolete by Plasma Artillery for all but flying opponents (which you really wouldn't want to use Rail Guns against anyway, if there are more than two present) and Turturrets are even better still, being able to attack a large part of the unit roster before they can even move and hitting multiple targets at once. It's also worth pointing out that all of these units fall victim to the same lower stats that the Hover Tank has, with similar deficiencies compared to the AF and OF units. The Rail Gun is an exception in regards to stats, but it has to contend with Reload and the fact that if you're using Rail Guns, you can't utilize the bonus from an Arctic Orangery which is definitely a boon to have when facing the high boost values in something like the Guild Expeditions.

In short, I have to disagree with your assessment that the AF and OF units are 'weak'. I'm certainly using them extensively in my battles, because FE units would not be up to snuff. The numbers simply aren't there. Again, Hover Tanks are the only exception but that's because there isn't a good counter to stealth and the AI often doesn't utilize the 'Hover Tank killers' properly. As an indication of how weak Hover Tanks actually are, they can barely stand up against Sub Cruisers, a unit they're boosted against, as they can't outrange a Sub's Contact ability, the Sub has Dug in, and the Sub is able to retaliate for the full 4 damage nearly every time which is about the average damage a Hover Tank will do per attack at full health. They often will still win the battle, but the age difference certainly shows as Battle Fortresses are able to handily dispose of Subs in 2 shots while also taking less damage from the retaliation.

Technology advancing: Many of the OF advances require goods from 1 or 2 ages prior. when in the advanced ages, goods are made from goods of 3 ages back. by OF, this is several ages to build up to. Many of the goods are acquired through rewards or the made from unrefined goods that are from great buildings. To get the correct unrefined goods, would require 3 separate goods buildings so to produce one type of good would require 4 goods buildings (assuming you have the boost for each of the 4 building types). To get the previous era goods, you no longer have rewards giving you unrefined goods making the ability to make the goods significantly more difficult.

GBs give the stage of goods needed to produce same-age goods, which in the case of AF is Contemporary goods and in OF is Tomorrow goods. Does it really matter that you aren't getting Progressive goods to make the Contemporary goods (or Modern/Colonial to make the Tomorrow goods) when you're already getting the finished product for free from your GBs? It would only be an issue if you have few and/or low level GBs, but since most active and motivated players strive to obtain GBs, I would think that those lacking in GB production simply wouldn't care very much about their city's efficiency anyway. Even though the collections are random, I've been able to run 3 AF goods buildings for about a year now and I'm living off of nothing but GB collections for my CE goods. And since those goods are freely produced, I have no need to maintain a stock of PE goods for these productions. On paper, sure, it's a long chain, but the reality is that GBs are a core part of the game and I'm almost certain that the developers plan on players having them in some capacity while developing new content.

In short: The developers expect you to get a good portion of your unrefined goods from GBs, rather than producing them all the old-fashioned way.

The other way to get goods is by trading. Up to future age, trading down is relatively easy. the higher age goods are typically worth more so to find trades is easy. With AF and OF, the demand for the goods is not there. Fewer players are in these ages, the great buildings needing the goods to be built are not that good (again, little demand) and the GvG does not need these goods so there is an unbalanced surplus of AF and OF goods. I am finding it hard to get Trades for FE goods when I offer 2 OF to get 1 FE good.
Another draw back in the technology advancing is the rewards are also getting worse. A mandatory quest to keep the tree going and the reward is only an avatar... this is just wasting time and/or lack of creativity.
The last 2 ages are long and drawn out with no good rewards in these ages, so why should a player keep playing when the last 3rd of the game is lame?

Agreed that there is a lot less demand for AF and OF goods, but that's almost entirely because of the lack of a GvG province to spend these goods in - all other uses of goods are still there in these ages, with the addition of the two Harbors (this still pales in comparison to GvG costs, however). The extra lack of demand is mainly because these goods simply aren't old enough yet - it's fairly common knowledge that the easiest goods to get are the ones that match your age, as GBs either give them to you directly or give you the materials to make them, and quests as well give you small bits here and there. Future Era goods were comparitively lower in demand when that was the last age of the game, as they were easy to obtain through (repeatable) quests, produce through GB collections, and enough players were doing the above two that there was simply a huge supply of them. Now, Future is two ages in the past, meaning the majority of active late-game players have already moved on and those two easy sources of goods immediately get shut off once the Town Hall upgrades. The supply has dwindled much more quickly than demand has, as new players are always moving up through the ages but these new players are often not stockpiling and producing FE goods for months like the first people to enter the age were. For what it's worth, Contemporary Era goods were nearly impossible to trade for back in FE because everything I just said applied to them at the time. The somewhat confusing but simple truth is that the most valuable goods are the ones that are the hardest to produce, not the ones with the highest coin/supply requirement.

The GB argument isn't entirely true for AF, either - the Arctic Orangery is a powerful building, and even the Seed Vault can pay dividends in the long run if you own one for long enough. The argument is much more accurate for OF; though the Atlantis Museum certainly appeals to the small part of the population that thrives in plundering, it has little value to anyone else.

Another draw back in the technology advancing is the rewards are also getting worse. A mandatory quest to keep the tree going and the reward is only an avatar... this is just wasting time and/or lack of creativity.

I agree with this one. Looking at the quests that were released with this new tech, they begin by steering you down towards the technologies that most players would not be going after first, rather than the much more 'essential' technologies that upgrade the Harbor, award an expansion and provide access to the new military unit. I'm usually here trying to defend/rationalize Inno's decisions in the face of irrational whiners, but this new trend in the tech tree definitely smacks of them artificially trying to waste player resources. Avatars should be add-ins, not technologies by themselves.

The last 2 ages are long and drawn out with no good rewards in these ages, so why should a player keep playing when the last 3rd of the game is lame?

Your view is obviously subjective, as I disagree. When viewed as complete packages, AF and OF definitely have a lot to offer and are worth advancing to - stronger units, better buildings, more expansions - all hallmarks of a complete tech age. Any reason to avoid advancing is probably when a player is at the end of FE, about to move to AF, and would be almost exactly because of GvG (if they own GBs that produce treasury goods). I see little reason to stay put otherwise.

For my own subjective view, I found Industrial to be much more forgettable and 'lame' than these two ages. I prefer having an entire age available at once rather than chunks at a time, but on the whole I've enjoyed AF and OF as much as or more than all of the other ages in the game.

What needs to be fixed: A new age that has:
1) Better military units than the 3 ages below it. there needs to be a balance between each of the units within the same era, but not a balance for the era's below it (that is why it is a technology advancement).
2) Technology tree that has buildings and rewards that are worth getting (having avatars as a 2nd item or reward is fine). Also have the cost of the tech items within reason with relation goods (previous and current era's, although with the last few era,s there is a surplus so they might be abundant).
3) Goods buildings that help the later age players and have a desirable advancement or advantage.
4) Create a demand for the goods of the new era. The GvG area has created a demand for goods that stops as the Future... a new demand for goods needs to be created (demand for the player or the guild does not matter, but there needs to be the demand).
5) MOST IMPORTANT !!!! A reason or goal for a player in the advance ages to want to keep playing (a new avatar is NOT it).

1) Already done. As I pointed out, there are very few or no situations where an AF or OF unit will not be better than anything below it. Hover Tanks cover those situations, which to me sounds like they're more likely to be reduced in effectiveness at some point as they're an extreme outlier. What's interesting is that they perform worse against FE units than they do against AF and OF units because of the inter-age unit interactions.
2) There's no problem with tech needs continuing to increase as a player advances, as this has been happening since the beginning of the tree, and offerings have remained the same throughout. Required goods for research has always been from the player's current age and going down up to 3 additional ages, and each age has always offered 5 goods buildings, 5 military buildings (6 in AF), 2-4 each of housing, supply, and culture buildings, various decorations and sometimes a new road as well. For I think the third time now, I agree that avatars should decidedly NOT be tech rewards by themselves.
3&4) I already tried to share some insight on how goods actually work in terms of general gameplay usage, but in regards to these point I'll say that nothing's really changed about goods in these ages besides the lack of GvG inclusion. If you exclude the fact that these days there are extremely high level Arc GBs donating hundreds of goods to dozens of guild treasuries each day, the fact that AF and OF goods are needed to unlock levels in the Guild Expedition is a solid use for them. Should the developers design a use for hundreds of thousands of goods that have come solely from one GB? Is the Arc common enough (and at a high enough average level) that a reasonable portion of the population would be able to utilize a feature that can drain a treasury gaining thousands of free goods per day? Certainly, GvG would be able to accomplish this but I'm going to opine that the developers didn't forsee just how much of an impact treasury GBs would ultimately have on the GvG landscape and, rather than do something controversial, merely quietly swept GvG under the rug with the release of the All Ages province. (probably coupled with my suspicion that they aren't able to get GvG working the way they want it to)
5) How are these ages any different, or rather, worse than the previous ones? As I've explained, while the approach has been markedly different, the final product brings the same relative benefits as every other previous age release. Of course, OF still isn't finished but AF in particular is definitely a complete age comparable to any other. I can't see any objective reason to consider it a bad age unless you're really dead set on collecting GvG goods from your treasury GBs.

I wonder how many people this post will put to sleep?
 

ITown

Well-Known Member
I wanted to withhold final judgment on Mantas until I had finally gotten a chance to try fighting with/against them.

Holy crap, they're bad! They die to literally everything. The only unit they're remotely good against is the C.R.A.P. tank, and even there, they fare far worse than do Turturets. (4 turturrets can kill 8 CRAP tanks with no injury received).

This unit is so bad that I am forced to use hover tanks, sub cruisers, and dragon drones to handle situations that mantas are supposed to be good in.

Example (GE #45):
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Mantas *should* be good here since they beat 10/15 units, right?
Wrong.

How about CRAB Tanks? Those guys are good against 9 units and evenly matched vs 3 others?
No, those are terrible too.

What do I actually have to use here? Dragon drones.


From the previous age.

Or, I could use hover tanks. From 2 ages ago.
Those would also fare better than manta rays, which would get massacred here by the turturrets & sub cruisers.

This week I chose to do it with dragon drones.

272WNPNnRRiQy7mImADNfQ.png
 
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qaccy

Well-Known Member
@ITown
The 'problem' with that battle is that it plays heavily to the dragon drone's strengths, more than that mantas are bad. Drones can't be hit by the turrets, ignore the subs' contact, the crabs will run right into them to take retaliation because of Blast, and of course they're going to win handily against eels as well due to the type matchup. They essentially have no weaknesses for the battle, other than being hit extremely hard by and doing relatively little (but safe) damage to the subs. It's worth pointing out that turrets are threatening enough that it's pretty much always a bad idea to try fighting them with a unit they have an advantage against, which rules out pretty much everything except hover tanks and flying units for that battle. Actually, eels might have won the day as well but wave 1 would have probably been a good bit messier.

However, I think you're still on the right track in your assessment. I can't really think of a situation where mantas would shine as they currently are and wouldn't be outperformed by another unit, mainly turrets and hover tanks as you mentioned. Having range to match eels would be a big help, but I suspect they were intentionally limited to 9 so as not to gain firepower against Surrogates from Arctic. It doesn't help that unit matchups kind of break down in GE sometimes because of the incredible bonuses the opponents have and the sheer number of units you need to beat. We also tend to get stuck in this mindset of simply using one type of unit per battle (naturally, to pair with rogues), but that's probably not how Inno designs units to be used either. A great example is artillery. Because they can't hit flying units, in a battle that contains 2-4 flying units and 8-12 non-flying units, would you use mostly artillery with 1 or 2 units to take out the flyers or just skip the artillery completely and 'jam a square peg into a round hole' using a single type of unit? Sometimes the former approach works better, although the latter is more common. I guess it also depends on whether you fight manually or use auto (mixing units is a more manual approach) and/or whether it matters how many units you lose in a battle as long as you still win in the end.
 

Zatrikon

Well-Known Member
I was doubtful about the value of the Turturrets also, but I've used them a lot now, and find them to be quite effective. Hit a unit next to a stealthy unit, and the stealthy unit takes damage, too!

I don't make Mantas yet, but I've used a few unattached ones, and find them to be quite good. They have better numbers than the Sub Cruisers, and the Contact! ability, with only one less range. The Poison ability is kind of cool, but it hasn't made much difference so far.

Techs that give nothing but avatars are monumentally STUPID! Not only are they useless and annoying, they also don't make any sense thematically! "Subaquatic Agriculture" is this awesome-sounding futuristic technology - but all it does is allow me to have a couple of pictures of faces that for some bizarre reason, I was unable to have with all of my previous technology! "After all these centuries, we're finally able to take a picture of Fred!" Inno deserves a big slap in the face for this one. Maybe they should fire a few designers and hire someone with some actual ideas. Or at least someone who understands the difference between technology and art.

And they need to fix the level of coin production of the Floating Houses - the made an OBVIOUS MISTAKE. They produce fewer coins per space than the equivalent building from FOUR AGES PRIOR!

They've corrected mistakes before that were in our favor. But they don't seem to want to fix mistakes that they make against us.

I've been thoroughly UNimpressed by both the AF Battle Fortresses and the Behemoths. But the OF units have been pretty good - except for the CRAB, which would be good if only it wasn't so slow (or maybe if it had better range).

Here's an idea for a new GB: It consumes AF or OF goods from the Guild Treasury, and gives some bonus in exchange - even if it's something simple, like Medals, or a temporary combat boost.
 

DeletedUser26120

where does one play this game?
This is a part of the current game, Forge of Empires.

You can get to Oceanic Future by advancing to the end of the tech tree, throughout all the ages.

If you haven't played Forge of Empires before, you can get started at http://us.forgeofempires.com - register and log in, you'll probably want to pick Xyr as your world, that's the newest.

It is also on the app store for iPhone and Android.

There is a wiki (linked from the page above) and you can ask questions as needed on the forums. Have fun!
 

ITown

Well-Known Member
I've been thoroughly UNimpressed by both the AF Battle Fortresses and the Behemoths.
Really? Those were 2 of my 3 favorite units when I was in AF. The 3rd being plasma artillery.

But the OF units have been pretty good - except for the CRAB, which would be good if only it wasn't so slow (or maybe if it had better range).
I have to disagree. OF units have crippling weaknesses which make it possible for units from 2 ages earlier to easily beat nearly any unit combination, including units that are supposed to be counters.

Imagine trying to beat hover tanks Anti Aircraft Vehicles. No way!
 

Zatrikon

Well-Known Member
Perhaps I exaggerated a bit with the battle Fortresses and Behemoths. I don't think they were nearly as good as they were intended to be, but they weren't completely useless. The Behemoth's stealth on hills (which makes no sense) doesn't mean much when you have Plasma Cannons. But I think the Hover Tanks are better than either the Battle Fortress or the Behemoth.

And yes, fighting Hover Tanks with OF units is a bit tricky. You just have to let your Sub Cruisers take the damage and do the Contact! retaliation damage, Gradually back the HT into the edge to kill it. Yes, you'll likely lose a SC or three in the process.

Also, you can target non-stealth units next to a stealth unit with your Turturrets - the stealthy unit will take some "splash damage", making it easier to eventually kill it. And possibly, the Mantas might help with their Poison, wearing down the stealth unit, even when you can't target it.

Anti-Aircraft Vehicles are easy! They don't have the range of Sub Cruisers, and are far more delicate.

An all-OF army vs. an army with Hover Tanks will likely win, but don't expect that you won't lose a few units.

If you're facing 8 Hover Tanks, yeah, you're kind of screwed. That's when you add in some Rogues, or switch to your old Plasma Cannons.

It seems the problem isn't that OF units are bad, but that Hover Tanks are too good. Maybe.
 

qaccy

Well-Known Member
It seems the problem isn't that OF units are bad, but that Hover Tanks are too good. Maybe.

Pretty much hitting the nail on the head. There aren't enough stealth counters and even those have to deal with the Reactive Armor. Statistically speaking, Hover Tanks are outclassed by nearly everything from both AF and OF but the combination of those two abilities is what makes them so effective in spite of their numerical disadvantage.
 

cbalto1927

Active Member
Pretty much hitting the nail on the head. There aren't enough stealth counters and even those have to deal with the Reactive Armor. Statistically speaking, Hover Tanks are outclassed by nearly everything from both AF and OF but the combination of those two abilities is what makes them so effective in spite of their numerical disadvantage.


I agree. I hope when the next OF part 4 comes up, Inno would release the next military unit that has hover tanks abilities. I have noticed that after AF, there are no flying military unit to counter OF's artillery military unit Turturrets.
 

ITown

Well-Known Member
Perhaps I exaggerated a bit with the battle Fortresses and Behemoths. I don't think they were nearly as good as they were intended to be, but they weren't completely useless. The Behemoth's stealth on hills (which makes no sense) doesn't mean much when you have Plasma Cannons.

Well, yes. That's because plasma artillery is designed to counter behemoths. If they didn't, they'd be terrible.

But I think the Hover Tanks are better than either the Battle Fortress or the Behemoth.

Depends on what you are fighting. I would rather use battle fortresses against dragon drones or drone swarms. I would also rather use them against plasma artillery or rail guns. Plus, battle fortresses can 1-shot Arctic Future units due to the Arctic Orangery, while hover tanks cannot. And in GE, the boosts on the arctic units are high enough that hover tanks are not very useful.

And yes, fighting Hover Tanks with OF units is a bit tricky. You just have to let your Sub Cruisers take the damage and do the Contact! retaliation damage, Gradually back the HT into the edge to kill it. Yes, you'll likely lose a SC or three in the process.

I don't have an issue beating hover tanks; my issue is that I can easily win battles against the AI using them. This shouldn't happen.

Also, you can target non-stealth units next to a stealth unit with your Turturrets - the stealthy unit will take some "splash damage", making it easier to eventually kill it.
Not relevant if you are attacking 8 hover tanks with 8 turturrets.

And possibly, the Mantas might help with their Poison, wearing down the stealth unit, even when you can't target it.
Mantas cannot hit hover tanks with their contact ability due to low range.

Anti-Aircraft Vehicles are easy! They don't have the range of Sub Cruisers, and are far more delicate.
Of course they are. That's exactly my point. If you try to beat a unit that is designed to counter you, and that unit is 2 ages higher, you stand no chance. For example, if you try to defeat 8 hover tanks with 8 anti-aircraft, you will stand no chance.

But if you try to defeat 8 mantas with 8 hover tanks, you'll win easily. That doesn't make sense.

An all-OF army vs. an army with Hover Tanks will likely win, but don't expect that you won't lose a few units.
That depends on who controls the hover tanks. I regularly beat 2-wave GE fights of OF units by using 8 hover tanks.
 

ITown

Well-Known Member
Pretty much hitting the nail on the head. There aren't enough stealth counters and even those have to deal with the Reactive Armor. Statistically speaking, Hover Tanks are outclassed by nearly everything from both AF and OF but the combination of those two abilities is what makes them so effective in spite of their numerical disadvantage.

If hover tanks were actually overpowered, you'd expect them to also easily win against their counters in the earlier ages too.

But they do very poorly against rail guns, and even worse against plasma artillery.

Hover tanks are supposed to do poorly against mantas and turturrets.

But do they? No. That's because the OF units were not designed well.

I could excuse it if just one of the two did badly. But both do.

Turturrets are at least useful against the units from the Oceanic Future, but Mantas are not. So I think they need an ability that is better than poison. Like the ability rail guns have, which lets them ignore reactive armor and stealth.
 

qaccy

Well-Known Member
@ITown
It's not that the units aren't designed well, or at least I don't think so. My belief is that Inno doesn't really consider inter-age unit matchups in the initial design of units, rather only focusing on (more or less) balancing units from the same age. This approach at least makes some degree of sense in terms of workload, because factoring all units into balancing at best makes balancing much harder, and at worst it means every unit type stays essentially the same age after age in order to ensure situations like the current one with Hover Tanks don't happen. Would the game be more interesting if every unit was just a statistical upgrade over the previous age, with the same strengths, weaknesses and abilities? I personally don't think so, but it would certainly simplify combat to an extensive degree.

For example, in order for Turturrets to perform 'well' against Hover Tanks they need either Blast or Power Shot. However, both of these abilities would nullify an Eel's ability to ignore and hide from them and they're supposed to be an anti-artillery unit. This means Eels would have to be designed differently, meaning another unit would have to be designed differently, and it all snowballs from there and likely leads into the 'boring' scenario I outlined above where every unit is essentially a carbon copy of the one from the previous age. However, if you only consider the OF units and how they interact with each other, the balancing circle makes much more sense. Turret > Crab > Sub > Manta > Eel > Turret. There are a few oddities, chief being that Subs can hit their counter with Contact while Eels can avoid it from theirs. However, on the whole it holds up. Hover Tanks end up being fortunate enough to share an ability with OF's main artillery killer, which is why they end up being effective against Turtles. What that indicates to me though is that if anything's going to be changed, it's Hover Tanks and not any of the OF units. Perhaps they'll lose stealth someday? Then they'll be properly irrelevant by now just like Rail Guns ended up being when their stats were no longer enough to stand up against units more advanced than them.
 

ITown

Well-Known Member
Turret > Crab > Sub > Manta > Eel > Turret. There are a few oddities, chief being that Subs can hit their counter with Contact while Eels can avoid it from theirs. However, on the whole it holds up.
That's pretty significant... mantas are very weak against eels.

Mantas are the giant flaw in the combat circle. They're useless against the units they're supposed to beat in earlier ages:
- Hover tanks (outranged and stealthed)
- Behemoths (outranged and countered)
- Battle Fortresses (outranged and countered)

And then on top of that, they're useless against the units they're supposed to beat in their own age:
- CRABS: same range. This means that they're severely outclassed by turturrets. Not only that, but CRABS have blast. This means that CRABS get to take advantage of their bonus (blast), and can actually kill mantas in 2 hits, while mantas take 3 hits to kill CRABS.
- Eels (outranged and stealthed)

And then, there's the fact that they're outranged by every other unit in the game as well, meaning they can't handle their counters well.

And to top it off, their poison ability has absolutely no synergy with their stats (and is probably the worst ability in the game besides recharge).

Hover Tanks end up being fortunate enough to share an ability with OF's main artillery killer, which is why they end up being effective against Turtles. What that indicates to me though is that if anything's going to be changed, it's Hover Tanks and not any of the OF units. Perhaps they'll lose stealth someday? Then they'll be properly irrelevant by now just like Rail Guns ended up being when their stats were no longer enough to stand up against units more advanced than them.
1) Rail guns are not irrelevant. Do you even do GvG?
2) Hover tanks can be handled by their AF and FE counters easily. So clearly they're not the problem.
 
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ITown

Well-Known Member
And just to illustrate how bad they are, here's a live demo:
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This should be an EASY matchup, since they directly counter 15 of the 16 units.

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Nope.

I tried with 2 mantas and 6 rogues, and lost both mantas before I could win, too.
 

Zatrikon

Well-Known Member
@ITown
It's not that the units aren't designed well, or at least I don't think so. My belief is that Inno doesn't really consider inter-age unit matchups in the initial design of units, rather only focusing on (more or less) balancing units from the same age.
This. This right here is the whole problem in a nutshell. And the source of every unit problem in FoE so far. (Not that it's an easy problem to solve without making all units straight numeric upgrades of the previous age.)
 

ITown

Well-Known Member
This. This right here is the whole problem in a nutshell. And the source of every unit problem in FoE so far. (Not that it's an easy problem to solve without making all units straight numeric upgrades of the previous age.)
Mantas don't even beat the units they have bonuses against in OF... At least not without severe losses... Crabs are pretty terrible against one of the units they're supposed to beat too.
 

qaccy

Well-Known Member
@ITown
You're ignoring part of what I said, in that Inno does not balance units around lower-age units, only units from the same age (and in one case with the Rail Gun, against units in higher ages when they're proving too effective). It's already been established that Hover Tanks are a huge anomaly in the combat system right now, due to the combination of abilities they have. Hover Tanks perform worse against units from FE than they do against AF and OF units - again, because Inno only balances same-age units. For better or worse, they don't really care how higher age units perform against lower ones. Should it be pointed out that nearly every unit from AF/OF performs poorly against Hover Tanks for you to realize that they're the problem, and not the AF/OF units themselves? The only battles I don't use Hover Tanks in GE are against all-fast armies, all-heavy armies, and late in level 3 when a lot of Subs start showing up (referring back to the fact that a Hover Tank's stats do not hold up against AF/OF units, and only AI flaws allow them to continue to excel). In regards to Behemoths and Battle Fortresses v Mantas, that's again the same issue to a lesser degree. Behemoths have unreliable stealth and will be hit much harder due to the lack of Reactive Armor, but you notice that AF heavy units have a bonus against light units - another example of strange inter-age unit interactions. To a degree, using Mantas against AF heavy units would be like using Dragon Drones against AF heavy units, although the Manta will take much less damage and hit much harder in return. When it comes to GE you're lucky if a Dragon does the full 3 damage to a Battle Fortress or even does more than 2 to a Behemoth, and it's almost certainly going down in 2 shots as well. The 'almighty' Hover Tank takes anywhere from 3-5 shots to bring down a Manta and that's if it's at full health. Unlike the Fortress and Behemoth though, a Manta is capable of outrunning a Hover Tank so it had better kill that Manta quickly! And if that Manta lands poison, the Hover Tank is dead once it takes its second turn after being hit.

In your following post, you illustrated that your 1 manta, 7 rogue army handily beat the 8 Eels they went up against. You lost the one unattached, a total of one unit. Sure, in practice it means you lost the battle (could not continue on to the second round), but looking at the numbers you dealt a total of 80 damage and only took 20 in return, despite the facts that all of your rogues were transformed in the first round, Eels can outrange Contact and can utilize stealth at the same time to force retaliation when a Manta attacks one in the bushes. Shouldn't the losses have been much higher if Mantas suck so much? This post was definitely incredibly biased. You could have replaced that Manta with essentially any other unit and the outcome would have been the same most of the time due to one simple fact - the unattached unit tends to be targeted first once all the Rogues have been transformed.

In regards to Crabs, Mantas have more range than they do...not sure where you're seeing them having the same range. Of course, a Turturret does much better against nearly all heavy units than a Manta does, but a Turturret can do absolutely nothing against its weaknesses (stealth and flying) which are often included in a GE battle (with a few notable exceptions that are all-heavy) whereas a Manta is only heavily outclassed against exactly Turturrets and can at least reliably do damage to everything else even if it's an unfavorable matchup. Having a short range Contact ability doesn't change the fact that the Manta has significantly high stats for a light unit, and can outmaneuver and catch up to every unit that tries to attack it (even stealthed units). I'm not sure you're being entirely objective in your arguments at this point, to be honest. Especially those screenshots indicate this to me.

In regards to the Rail Gun thing, unless you're in FE/facing FE units there's no reason to use them in the All Ages province. AF/OF units work much better. This doesn't really disprove my statement that RGs are irrelevant in AF/OF battles when your argument is 'but they work well against FE units'.
 
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