Opinions on the season 8 unit/Elite Attack Aircraft

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    • Yak wrote:

      What I will say though, is that (as many of you picked up on), our intention is to encourage players to invest in Air Superiority, and to further make ASF an attractive choice. Did we succeed in this? Yes, and no, depending on who you ask. As I acknowledged, the unit is very strong, and that will be touched on. Nonetheless, these units will have a air-ground dominance unless players invest in air superiority, that is the vision here and I don't see it changing drastically. Heck, maybe buffing other units in tandem is the way to go.

      We'll be discussing in the coming days/weeks, and watching this thread, so by all means feedback is welcome.
      dear @Yak this unit makes SF obsolet. There is no need to build them anymore. Furthermore ASF is active EAA defense. As this is an online game where people cant be online 24/7 you need to provide a valid passive air defense.

      You designed railgun which has low HP to compensate the immense damage...I suggest something similar to EAA.
      @Dorado If you Close the Forum and move everything to Discord you will lose my Feedback for sure.
    • KFGauss wrote:

      This will be a tough one if you're referring to having ordinary players come to the realization that ASF are more useful than many other units that get built by typical players in typical public games.

      The ordinary SF was already often wiping out those typical players quickly and easily, and ASFs were still pretty rare.

      Maybe some sort of education campaign,
      Oh I know, it will be quite an endeavour :D I've released similar information campaigns in the past with our more complex event maps and such, and in this case will do so as well. In general, player education is on the agenda.
      Dorado Games
      Conflict Of Nations

    • I am very glad that player education is on the agenda. Making it so that they can more easily figure out what happened during battles when they were off-line would also be helpful so that they can learn from their own mistakes. If they have no information about what happened - well then it becomes too random for them and they just quit.

      A "Reports" section might be something that could be added. Reports that would be helpful:

      1) Rogue Reports - a list of all your cities that are in the rogue morale range, and the odds that revolts will happen. At the top would be a description as to when cities can go rogue - what times are rogue checks made.

      2) Battle Reports - screen shots of the before and after results of battles (as well as the location and time and the other nation in the attack). This should include coalition battles, with a check box to toggle between self-only and all-coalition.

      3) Dots should have nationality. The "sorry friend, we are at war because I hit a blue dot and destroyed your transport units" narrative is definitely a very not-fun and frustrating part of the game.

      4) When patrolling units uncover a new dot - or unit details in the case of say UAV - a screen shot should be added to a Patrol Report. Radar units - in 30 seconds or so - a lot less? find out all the nearby location of opponent dots. Air units - get report on one province per half an hour, and you only see it if you are on-line.

      Giving people information that they can use to improve their play would help quite a bit in getting more people to play the game well.
    • GraniteDust wrote:

      I am very glad that player education is on the agenda. Making it so that they can more easily figure out what happened during battles when they were off-line would also be helpful so that they can learn from their own mistakes. If they have no information about what happened - well then it becomes too random for them and they just quit.

      A "Reports" section might be something that could be added. Reports that would be helpful:

      1) Rogue Reports - a list of all your cities that are in the rogue morale range, and the odds that revolts will happen. At the top would be a description as to when cities can go rogue - what times are rogue checks made.

      2) Battle Reports - screen shots of the before and after results of battles (as well as the location and time and the other nation in the attack). This should include coalition battles, with a check box to toggle between self-only and all-coalition.

      3) Dots should have nationality. The "sorry friend, we are at war because I hit a blue dot and destroyed your transport units" narrative is definitely a very not-fun and frustrating part of the game.

      4) When patrolling units uncover a new dot - or unit details in the case of say UAV - a screen shot should be added to a Patrol Report. Radar units - in 30 seconds or so - a lot less? find out all the nearby location of opponent dots. Air units - get report on one province per half an hour, and you only see it if you are on-line.

      Giving people information that they can use to improve their play would help quite a bit in getting more people to play the game well.

      This thread was to talk about the EAA and your opinions on it, how did this thread steer off course so much
    • kurtvonstein wrote:

      Yak wrote:

      What I will say though, is that (as many of you picked up on), our intention is to encourage players to invest in Air Superiority, and to further make ASF an attractive choice. Did we succeed in this? Yes, and no, depending on who you ask. As I acknowledged, the unit is very strong, and that will be touched on. Nonetheless, these units will have a air-ground dominance unless players invest in air superiority, that is the vision here and I don't see it changing drastically. Heck, maybe buffing other units in tandem is the way to go.

      We'll be discussing in the coming days/weeks, and watching this thread, so by all means feedback is welcome.
      dear @Yak this unit makes SF obsolet. There is no need to build them anymore. Furthermore ASF is active EAA defense. As this is an online game where people cant be online 24/7 you need to provide a valid passive air defense.
      You designed railgun which has low HP to compensate the immense damage...I suggest something similar to EAA.

      I think we should need the EAA’s damage and health. Like it simply is too op to only have one form be nerfed off it
      How else would we counter it other than ASF or SFs, SAMs are useless against it.
    • Mobile SAMs still work against EAA. You just need more of them than before.

      In a recent game, I fended off a player who was relying on his elite attack aircraft to try to take me out. I had 4 level 4 SAMs vs a stack of tier 2 EAA Hogs. I lost one SAM and knocked out 3 of the hogs with my SAMs. One EAA was killed by the anti-air passive attack, and a couple were killed when they targeted my SAMs directly. That's when I lost one of my SAMs. My ASFs finished off the last of the Hogs. I know.. I know.. in the early game you can have a couple of stacks of EAA that will tear through any of the early anti-air defenses that can be built reasonably quickly. But, you just have to be active and make sure you have ASF early on to protect against the EAA.

      My takeaway from the battles was that you either need to be very active and fully upgrade your air superiority fighters to knock out the elite attack aircraft or if you aren't as active, mobilize a shit ton of Mobile SAMs and make sure they get upgraded fast. The existence of this unit definitely rewards active players though.
    • GraniteDust wrote:



      Rogue Reports - a list of all your cities that are in the rogue morale range, and the odds that revolts will happen. At the top would be a description as to when cities can go rogue - what times are rogue checks made.
      you can just.. click city info and view revoke chance? also the morale range is well know.. it is 0-34 indicated by smoke.
      This post was made by Leader of the Church of ROAD
    • Capnhappy wrote:

      Mobile SAMs still work against EAA. You just need more of them than before.

      In a recent game, I fended off a player who was relying on his elite attack aircraft to try to take me out. I had 4 level 4 SAMs vs a stack of tier 2 EAA Hogs. I lost one SAM and knocked out 3 of the hogs with my SAMs. One EAA was killed by the anti-air passive attack, and a couple were killed when they targeted my SAMs directly. That's when I lost one of my SAMs. My ASFs finished off the last of the Hogs. I know.. I know.. in the early game you can have a couple of stacks of EAA that will tear through any of the early anti-air defenses that can be built reasonably quickly. But, you just have to be active and make sure you have ASF early on to protect against the EAA.

      My takeaway from the battles was that you either need to be very active and fully upgrade your air superiority fighters to knock out the elite attack aircraft or if you aren't as active, mobilize a shit ton of Mobile SAMs and make sure they get upgraded fast. The existence of this unit definitely rewards active players though.
      Thing is it is super risky in my opinion. SAMs don’t carry a lot of HP to begin with and one swipe is enough to severely damage you especially with those EAAs rediculous amount of damage.
      Though it is the only other choice than using Air power
    • japan samurai wrote:

      kurtvonstein wrote:

      I think we should need the EAA’s damage and health. Like it simply is too op to only have one form be nerfed off it
      How else would we counter it other than ASF or SFs, SAMs are useless against it.
      Frigates are actually the perfect counter - they deal lots of damage and take almost none.
      Overkill is an Awesome Map! :D
    • I like the new units as is, and would like the "nerf" to it happen by making patrolling ASFs - and even SFs - more helpful when the player is off-line. If they actually attacked incoming opponent aircraft that entered their patrol area, then thee would be much less need to nerf the new units.

      Without this, though, I can see the benefit of nerfing them, even quite considerably.
    • GraniteDust wrote:

      I like the new units as is, and would like the "nerf" to it happen by making patrolling ASFs - and even SFs - more helpful when the player is off-line. If they actually attacked incoming opponent aircraft that entered their patrol area, then thee would be much less need to nerf the new units.

      Without this, though, I can see the benefit of nerfing them, even quite considerably.
      "Why, you stuck-up, half-witted, scruffy-looking nerf herder!" -L. Organa
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    • GraniteDust wrote:

      I like the new units as is, and would like the "nerf" to it happen by making patrolling ASFs - and even SFs - more helpful when the player is off-line. If they actually attacked incoming opponent aircraft that entered their patrol area, then thee would be much less need to nerf the new units.

      Without this, though, I can see the benefit of nerfing them, even quite considerably.
      No. Hell no. I want the “nerf” to nerf the damage. And possibly health. Like what kind of dude do you have to be to play that aircraft and win. A Noob. Yes
      IT Is a NO SKILL AIRCRAFT GAMEPLAY
      Attacking something via patrol attack in an ASF patrol radius will automatically cause the ASF to defend.
    • japan samurai wrote:

      No. Hell no. I want the “nerf” to nerf the damage. And possibly health. Like what kind of dude do you have to be to play that aircraft and win. A Noob. YesIT Is a NO SKILL AIRCRAFT GAMEPLAY
      Attacking something via patrol attack in an ASF patrol radius will automatically cause the ASF to defend.
      I tend to measure skill by measuring how effectively players choose, produce, deploy and use all of their units in combination, not by whether any specific unit/stack is able to defeat any other one.

      I'm not sure what you're evaluating/measuring when you mention player skill in your post.

      It sounds almost like (in an imperfect analogy) you would suggest removing all the queens from chess games because using the queen to capture the opposing pieces doesn't require any skill.

      The post was edited 1 time, last by KFGauss ().

    • KFGauss wrote:

      japan samurai wrote:

      No. Hell no. I want the “nerf” to nerf the damage. And possibly health. Like what kind of dude do you have to be to play that aircraft and win. A Noob. YesIT Is a NO SKILL AIRCRAFT GAMEPLAY
      Attacking something via patrol attack in an ASF patrol radius will automatically cause the ASF to defend.
      I tend to measure skill by measuring how effectively players choose, produce, deploy and use all of their units in combination, not by whether any specific unit/stack is able to defeat any other one.
      I'm not sure what you're evaluating/measuring when you mention player skill in your post.

      It sounds almost like (in an imperfect analogy) you would suggest removing all the queens from chess games because using the queen to capture the opposing pieces doesn't require any skill.
      Playing the queen and losing one comes at a great price. The difference here is there is only 1 queen in the game. But despite the EAA being As strong as a “queen”, it certainly isn’t as rare as a queen nor does it have the same impact on a player losing a queen piece in chess. (Unless it was a sacrifice to win)

      It’s so cheap that sometimes losing one wouldn’t really matter. Because it has so much health that even 1 SASF can’t even 1 shot a lone EAA
      That means you can make as much mistakes as you want and you can almost get scot free if the enemy player doesn’t have the capabilities to really smack you back hard. Which is why I call it a Low skill play. It does so much damage that HONESTLY, MBTs would probably never be a threat anymore for anyone even in early game. Yes, I know, pros would say defeating an MBt is easy, but most of them just go with the “put NG in front of it and engage in melee” method.
      Not to mention how you can make 20 of those lvl 3 EAA with 35 hp each.
      In other words, if you are a skilled player, you can play with this EAA and you are gonna be pretty hard to kill. Playing with it doesn’t pose any difficulty, it’s just too easy to win with such a loadout.
    • japan samurai wrote:

      HONESTLY, MBTs would probably never be a threat anymore for anyone even in early game. Yes, I know, pros would say defeating an MBt is easy, but most of them just go with the “put NG in front of it and engage in melee” method.
      What “pro” says to fight MBTs with NGs?

      And if he fights MBTs with NGs and is winning, then that shows just how weak a MBT is…
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    • The problem of chess is that it has been balanced, a bit like shogi or the chinese version of chess (with the unit i adore : the cannon that yeets itself throughout the board, amazing), through millenias. Rules have evolved, roles too.

      The Elite Strike Fighter fills a role. If we assume it's the queen role, then it mens that "prior to that", the role was assumed by the Strike Fighter.


      So, let's assume the Queen role is the Strike Fighter.


      Here is the matrix of the Strike Fighter vs the Elite Strike Fighter, at the same tier, :



      Tech Cost
      Cost :

      T1 : Elite Strike Fighter (~17% cheaper)
      T2 : Elite Strike Fighter (~15% cheaper)
      T3 : Strike Fighter (2% cheaper)

      Don't ask me why suddenly, in T3, they decide to make the prices roughly comparable. However, it's the only Elite Unit that is cheaper than its regular counterpart, and i don't understand at all the idea.



      Damage output :

      T1 : Elite Strike Fighter (150% more damage)
      T2 : Elite Strike Fighter (100% more damage)
      T3 : Elite Strike Fighter (67% more damage)

      This is the point that i find the most problematic. As i stated elswhere "the Elite Strike Fighter is better in early game, as a generalist anti-ground, than all the specialist units in their respective area. And he does it for cheaper, with more endurance, more speed, and more range",

      HP (not accounting EU doctrine) :

      T1 : Elite Strike Fighter (25% more HP)
      T2 : Elite Strike Fighter (30% more HP)
      T3 : Elite Strike Fighter (40% more HP)

      Ironically, i don't find it ludicrous. I find very cool to have a plane whose design means "i can take a beating more than the others".

      Range :

      T1 : Strike Fighter (25% more range)
      T2 : Strike Fighter (7% more range)
      T3 : Strike Fighter (12,5% more range)

      I don't have a strong opinion on it. I feel that usually, good players try to avoid using the max range of their air to ground units because it often implies to get toasted by any active opponent. I don't consider it as a "weakness" of the elite strike fighter.


      Indirect Advantages:


      T1 : Elite Strike Fighter ---> the 2% attack buff implies a minor increase to the already superior damage output. For a full stack, that would mean 175% more damage, instead of 150%.

      T2 : Elite Strike Fighter ---> the 4% attack buff implies an increase to the already superior damage output. For a full stack, that would mean 140% more damage, instead of 100%.

      T3 : Elite Strike Fighter ---> The 8% attack buff implies a major minor increase to the already superior damage output. For a full stack, that would mean 133% more damage, instead of 67%.
      Second Advantage : Elite Strike Fighter ---> The Bunker Buster ability implies a comparative disadvantage of the Strike Fighter to effective damage output. For a full stack, depending of the entrenchement, that would mean :

      133% more damage without entrenchment.
      211% more damage with 25% entrenchment
      340% more damage with outpost or bunker lvl 1.
      3230% more damage against fully reinforced citadels.


      Additional Advantages :

      Missiles : Strike Fighter. He has a hardpoint. Some will see it as an advantage, as they transition their airforce to "missile platforms" in mid.
      Carrier-Based : Probably mostly an advantage for gold users, but it can be carrier based



      So, to go back to Chess, i mostly see it as "this season, for the sake of the fun, we made so that the Queen could jump above its own pawn, and move like a knight if it desired so".

      If a player has the choice to, there is no reason to choose the "classical queen" over the "new one", for the simple sake that there isn't inherent weakness.

      Supposedly, for example, the Elite Strike Fighter is supposed to be weaker than the Strike Fighter against Planes, which is represented by its lower anti-plane value, but i'd argue that it's in fact better than the Strike Fighter against planes. Indeed, the important factor here is survivability, not the "damage inflicted".

      Sure, a ASF will have his painting scratched more by a Strike Fighter than a Elite strike Fighter... but the Elite Strike Fighter is assured to come back to home, while the regular Strike Fighter is not.

      ===============

      Units are about synergy, i deeply agree. And i do think that there is a very good sub-role for the elite strike fighter to fill, as a "brute force go through in late" HP air mbt. However, especially in early and to less extent in mid, there is only one relevant choice for this role : the Elite.

      If you do regular strike fighter before your reached the very generous limit of 10 (by which point you probably have farmed all your surrounding with one hand scratching your balls), you are, generally speaking, an idiot.


      Again...

      I propose you a unit that is nearly a fifth cheaper, but a quarter more survivable, and nearly two times as hitting. What is your excuse for not playing it ? :D

      And it narrows down to the following question : Did the Strike Fighter (replaced by the Elite) needed a buff of this scale, in regard to the board ?
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    • I agrre with @'Opulon''s facts and conclusions.

      Those are separate from the @'japan samurai' "no skill" comment(s) I still vehemently disagree with.

      The no skill comments appear to be rooted in assuming that there are some units that you're supposed to use because of ___, and that using different units successfully makes a player a low-skill player.

      The chess analogy's point was that if player A doesn't use their queen and player B does use their queen, and if player A says player B is a no skill player, don't expect me to agree.

      Both players should use their queens *skillfully* if they want to succeed.

      The post was edited 3 times, last by KFGauss ().

    • Only "downside" of EAA is the lull of limited numbers till can research tier 2 and 3 and you have to research asf or SF (which I happen to max out asfs to protect my queen).

      Im cranking 2 EAAs per day as soon as possible and by day 8 have my 10 max. Then I am now waiting till day 15 to go to lvl 2 just so I can build five more. Usually by day 15 I may have 20 SF; so the fire power early on def in side of EAA but days 8 to 15 it evens out and lose flexibility abit with less numbers??

      Next game I may go all out EAA / SF instead of EAA / ASF. Currently my squad of high level ASF usually not doing much till cant launch CMs. Downside would be vulnerable to someone who has ASFs. But I also have been producing Heavy bombers (to get longer targets outside EAA range). So could always do a SF/ EAA vs ASF in air and wait till their ASFs land and bomb them.

      Biggest things wrong with EAA is its not a strike fighter (which CoN made it). Strike Fighters (F-15s) are actually better in air and closer to ASFs than CoN depicts; where as A-10s are closer to Choppers in terms of speed and range than fighter Jets. Even its minimal air stats arent real; In its 45 yr history shot down one chopper. Now the survivability is accurate as its actually fitted with titanium plating to stop armor piercing rounds from ground. It also designed that it can fly without its tail and could even lose half the wing and land. Its a flying cannon not a Strike Fighter.

      But as stands I have retired my old queen for the new bigger/better queen. But in a real war no way I would choose the A-10 over a F-15.
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