Alternatives to FAForever? (Scathis nerfs suck.)

[Azuvector]

First up, Supreme Commander is something that's played casually amongst friends here. We've got zero interest in playing competitively, just in having a nice time. Which happens aplenty with vanilla Forged Alliance.

FAForever seems like a useful lobby and launcher for the game, and there was some appeal to co-op and bug fixes, as well as easy integration of a map downloader. So far so good.

And then we had a game last night and discovered the gameplay of the Scathis is completely changed now. At the moment, it's effectively useless from a casual player's perspective, is also aesthetically displeasing due to firing shells into orbit that only land right next to the unit due to piddly range, and while googling has turned up pages and pages of arguments about the nerfs for it in FAForever, most of the justification given sounds ridiculous from a casual player's perspective, as the supposed imbalances(Rush-building with an UEF teammate providing defense? Complaining about never being built so who cares? Complaints about being useless anyway so who cares?) just don't apply.

So, FAForever has gone from something we're optimistic about ("Hey look, bug fixes and balance tweaks! And some out-of-game useful features!"), to essentially just being some random mod that breaks things or makes changes willy-nilly. We're considering going back to vanilla Forged Alliance and good riddance to FAForever as a result.

Before that, is there any alternative to abandoning the actual useful, nice features, that come with the FAForever lobby/launcher? Can vanilla Forged Alliance be played still with the launcher? Is there another mod that does provide only bug fixes and minor tweaks as needed without drastic gameplay alterations?

[Ze_PilOt]

You can still try Diamond mod. I think it has the old Scathis.

Anyway, a mod to bring it back as you want would be extremely easy to do.

[Gorton]

All I can say is: Use a mod, and also please consider that if the game was not balanced, I think you'd have a lot more complaints. The balance teams haven't set out to ruin your day, they did the best they could to make FA better, and this is a bit insulting.
And this is really such a small thing to get angry over.

[keyser]

Gorton I can understand them, they are friend that try to play together, on a game they used to play.
I don't feel like it's insulting, they aren't saying that balance team did bad work.

[rockoe10]

Just make a mod with the original stats in tact. i did this for patch 3623 ( I liked the changes during that patch and was afraid of the patches to come). Its not that hard to do. Merge the blueprints of the old unit stats, name it like "Mod Patch 3599" and upload to the vault. Then play with your friends and others. Piece of cake

P.S. I don't think any of us in the community would want to see you and your friends leave. And to be honest, something this easy to fix, it would be a real shame for both you and the community to lose you over. I can't say anyone is going to go and make you this mod just to keep you around, but it would be in your interest to put it together yourselves and utilize this amazing Lobby.

[Gorton]

keyser:

to essentially just being some random mod that breaks things or makes changes willy-nilly.

Is there another mod that does provide only bug fixes and minor tweaks as needed without drastic gameplay alterations?

Drastic, random willy nilly changes = one unit changed to it's original idea from supcom vanilla

:While I do understand, I just feel it's condemning a huge amount of work people put it (good work) for free.

[ColonelSheppard]

Oh boy, as i often stated already to most anoying thing for me to face is ignorance. So let's get this started.

First up, Supreme Commander is something that's played casually amongst friends here. We've got zero interest in playing competitively, just in having a nice time. Which happens aplenty with vanilla Forged Alliance.

ok

FAForever seems like a useful lobby and launcher for the game, and there was some appeal to co-op and bug fixes, as well as easy integration of a map downloader. So far so good.

ok.. i still agree

And then we had a game last night and discovered the gameplay of the Scathis is completely changed now. At the moment, it's effectively useless from a casual player's perspective

mööööp, unproven, no replays, general experience says something different, scatis is a mid range gamender

is also aesthetically displeasing due to firing shells into orbit that only land right next to the unit due to piddly range,

ehm no, i have litterally never seen that, happened to be in games with scatis raping basis on mid sized maps like wonder or canis4v4

and while googling has turned up pages and pages of arguments about the nerfs for it in FAForever, most of the justification given sounds ridiculous from a casual player's perspective

From a player of your level which you seem to refer as "casual" which is something everybody defines differently and therefore missleading here, you wont notice most of the changes, you will just jump on some that are obvious to you, like a big rangechange. Infact i think there have been more buffs than nerfs. And yes, there was a long argument but ultimatly everybody was pretty ok with the conclusion. Thats what we do here, make out points, and decide accordingly.

as the supposed imbalances(Rush-building with an UEF teammate providing defense?

If that was written somewhere it was written by an idiot and defenitly never considered for balancing.

Complaining about never being built so who cares? [...]

Me. Why should there be useless units in a game? (No the Scatis is not useless, Mavor is a lot more useless despite not really beeing touched)

[...] So, FAForever has gone from something we're optimistic about ("Hey look, bug fixes and balance tweaks! And some out-of-game useful features!")

Yes.

to essentially just being some random mod that breaks things or makes changes willy-nilly.

And why exactly you think you can judge that despite saying that you have no real idea about balance in this game? This point would most like be nonsens even if you would have state example but so far i see only rant about scatis and you didnt even bother to include a replay, or something that could be counted as making a serious point. If you have one you can come back at the next balancing period. But with this style of argument you will achive nothing, i can tell you that for sure.

We're considering going back to vanilla Forged Alliance and good riddance to FAForever as a result.

Why are you making this post then? Do you really think a few thousand people change their mind because of random rant? Don really get it.

Before that, is there any alternative to abandoning the actual useful, nice features, that come with the FAForever lobby/launcher? Can vanilla Forged Alliance be played still with the launcher? Is there another mod that does provide only bug fixes and minor tweaks as needed without drastic gameplay alterations?

Yes! There is desjokvs lobby!
No seriously, what the hell... why you posting here if you want to play bug-zilla 369X... i dont care.. thats your choice

P.S. I don't think any of us in the community would want to see you and your friends leave. And to be honest, something this easy to fix, it would be a real shame for both you and the community to lose you over. I can't say anyone is going to go and make you this mod just to keep you around, but it would be in your interest to put it together yourselves and utilize this amazing Lobby.

I surely dont want anybody to leave but i question if this kind of attitude is really worth much consideration.

[ZLO_RD]

Before change, scatis used to cost almost like salvation and had 40 km range, and it was not better than salvation, and no one build it, cause you need more than one of them to break anything due to poor accuracy (accuracy gets worse with distance)

after chanfe scatis now cost much less, does not consume so much power when shoot, can defend you from naval atttacks

if you build it in range of enemy base it can do tons of damage for very short time, scatis is big and slow and hard to protect and easy to snipe

and dunno why you talk about being useless, try to build it on isis in front of your base and see how frustrated your opponents will be

also with that low range you have variaty to build regular t3 static arty at the back of your base, and if you have two of them, you may kill scatis and counter enemy tactics, scatis have to move in front of base to be able to shoot at enemy base...

on other maps scatis is usually a game ender, or unit that can help defending from navy...

and yeah about alternatives, you only have balance mods like diamond or steam with epic transports and bombers and bugs

[da_monstr]

I don't get why you are writing this. Scathis, if allowed to live, levels an enemy base within a minute, no matter the shielding. Also, as pointed out by ZLO, it's great for defending against navy. I much prefer the FAF version to the original.
What was the situation that provoked your rant? Were you playing as Cybran vs an enemy that has better long range weapons, like Mavor or Salvation? Because Cybran has so many options for game-changing situations, like stealth drops, stealth field monkeylords, or a full on megalith spam.
Can you please provide a replay that shows your situation?

[Anaryl]

Politely ask someone to build a mod for you - if you cannot do it yourself. There is a blueprint editor on the forums. Or alternatively pull the old 3599 blueprint from your program files fa gamedata directory (I wont explain here how).

I think switching client is kinda throwing the baby out with the bathwater - faf is just a modular client that lets you play supcom pretty uch however you want to play it. Retail FA is buggy and unstable as hell so you shouldn't really be playing it- 3599 was the last gpgnet patch - so at the very least you should be playing that. ALternatively I think 3603 mod as some of the changes made on faf, but before the scathis changes - that can be found at viking.gurut.org

Ultimately this is the best place for casual/pick up games - as well as playing competitively - so give us a chance I'm sure you'll enjoy it here.