I think we'll disagree on this one. I also play against friends so whether I play mostly against the AI should not really matter, we see players who like the quick game that mainly use T2 units and hardly ever use dreadnaughts but yet offer up suggestions to nerf/buff them. Balance changes I understand, why it's taking so long when the suggestions are in by players and it takes minutes to input those values. Obviously if a unit is bugged that takes longer to fix but from what I understand the constant balance changes are drawn out and tedious when they really don't have to be. It's mainly taking time because each person disagrees with another what those values will be something that they will never agree on which is something I've been saying a couple of times on steam forums. 

What's stopping anyone from creating a skype call and bringing all the active players to collaborate together and come to a solution with the devs that makes people satisfied, making everyone 100% happy with balance changes will never make them happy there's just too many differing opinions and getting those values added? 

I read member "never" post in the update equivalent topic on steam and apparently there's loads of units out of balance, then the post reply afterwards that it's a response disagreeing with his requested balance changes. Can you see where I'm coming from with this "people will never be 100% happy". the balance changes can only be as good as they'll ever be when they make the majority happy, there will always be some that will never be happy with the changes. 

I understand how it works, the way the ashes devs can alter the balance is a quick and easy process (not like in other games) so I'm not understanding why it's taking so long in getting changes that are making the majority satisfied. 

Just to clarify, I would have put forth my own balance changes but I would only be adding to this long drawn out process that some would disagree with, infact I disagreed with some of "Never"s balance changes 1 in particular regarding the dreadnaught, but as I mentioned I'd just be adding to the balance requests that are likely to conflict with other peoples requests there needs to be a compromise where people can get together and get the brunt of the changes added. 

I can only see getting players together via say skype and collaborating, compromising and then the devs try out the balance changes in one hit and take it from there. Balance change requests  are often lost in posts or spred around in other topics making it difficult for the devs to judge whether one balance request would conflict with another request or make a unit or building defense too weak or powerful. 

Sorry for the long winded reply @Ticktoc but hopefully I've clarified what i'm trying to convey a little more clearly. 

attached link will you show you that was not my idea, however as far as i know stardocks promised to change the instant heal -> take it out or something else...

https://forums.ashesofthesingularity.com/478732/page/1/#3644466

besides new dreadnough abillties are promised and should be released in winter

You will never have agreement on balance.  The StarCraft forums are a very hostile place often regarding balance and our own Sins of a Solar Empire fans can get very aggressive about it.

We look at the data at what gets built and look at our own spreadsheets plus just plain experience and combine it together to update the balance.

One of the harder things to take into consideration has to do with competitive play (small maps) versus the longer games.  They play very very differently and our balance changes have to take both cases into account.

As others have said, I think the insta-heal on Dreadnoughts is probably going to have to go.

Brad, I don't know if you realized this or not, but some of us purchased the DLC maps once Escalation was announced with no intention of ever playing them in Ashes Vanilla.  Personally I just wanted them for Escalation.  I'm beginning to wonder if that was a dumb thing to do?  I wonder if I miscalculated what this was all about and the goals of the new game.  Is there even an ETA on any of the paid maps being available in Escalation?  Please don't be afraid of updating the DLC map one at a time instead of all at once if it means we'd get them quicker.  Also please consider making them single player only for the time being in beta so we can start having fun and providing feedback.

Thanks.

It's been possible to play the DLC maps the whole time. Go to Steam\steamapps\common\Ashes of the Singularity\Assets\Maps and copy and paste the maps from there to the Escalation maps folder.

they already said like 2 weeks ago (or more) that those DLC's are carrying across... and they are busy working on it.. if u did some research u wouldnt need so much venom

Read the thread ASHES ESC: January 2017 Dev update.

There was no vemon intended in my post, so I apologize if it came across that way.  I guess it's easy on the Internet to misinterept posts when the poster himself doesn't use a bunch of emoticons to reinforce no ill will.  BTW, I was calling myself dumb as I thought maybe I had misunderstood how Escalation stood in the grand scheme of things.  ie.  I thought Escalation was supposed to replace Vanilla, not be an optional playstyle until I was in the middle of writing the post and read some more devlogs  and saw it is like "advanced" vanilla.

So that made me think there was maybe more I didn't understand about what Escalation was all about.

no worries bro the same happens to me a lot! either way im happy for u that u will be rewarded for buying the vanilla DLC's!

I'm in the same boat as those who posted above. I basically have lost all interest in this game due to unit control issues, and substrate economy hack.

economy management is what makes this game interesting.. taking it away from substrate(an already streamlined race for no micro or thought) makes the game boring. substrate should get a discount on storage upgrade, or have a higher starting storage. not unlimited.

this also ties in with building strategy. before substrate existed, phc had a similar building/unit layout. I.e, one factory for basically everything. Now they divided up the phc units between more buildings, making building micro a thing. When substrate came around, they had the same simplistic "beta phc" building arrangement. again streamlined for no micro..

So, it's not the game for me, in this state. The philosophy that you can balance micro and non-micro is silly imo, change the way they operate for sure but to me the game is going nowhere with this weird ideal they're going for.

UNIT CONTROL... really bad, and why cant i target the ground with my siege unit? So hard to destroy enemy defense when every 0.5 seconds you are trying to re issue commands to your units. Either unit moves forward when you try attack, or wont attack, all so very frustrating.

Lots of potential in this game, however I wont be playing it until these things are changed. Which is no problem its their game and they can do what they wish, there will most likely be lots of people who will like the game.. For sure.

hi brad,

I am still conviced that build time nerf and price increase is not enough for the Artillery.

• The problem is that the turret has this high range and does a lot of damage with aoe. Thus it kills almost all t2  units before they arrive at the base of the opponent.... it outranged everything
• In my opinion you have not tackled the problem up to now; maybe because you like Artilleries. nevertheless please solve this problem
• I don´t want to wait for a balance until you have released your anti radar contact unit... if you introduce a building or a uniit you should consider the balance... 
• cargeiver vs medic -> too expensive, too much logistic, too less healing
• price is four times as high as the medic
• caregiver can heal each unit by 2 hp but can heal several unit
• medic can heal one unit by about 36 hp.
• medic 1 logistic; caregiver 30 logistic
• sky ender too weak; too less damage
• mauler resource nerf??? it has been more expensive than the athena before...
• drone swam is too epsive please set it back to 125 quanta..
• the tech wall for the eridicator is strage and bad decison, however for the recharger its even worse....
• The recharger was in ashes not as good as repair bay, but now behind this expensive build really bad decision.
• the mauler still dosen´t attack the chronos  dreadnought with his primary weapon https://youtu.be/NoNYNCTOt3Y
• get rid of the group formation as long, they fight in group worse than without
• overmind ridiculous bad unit... maybe invulnerable drones could improve it...

I agree the arty needs some nerfs, either range, AOE damage, accuracy, rate of fire, etc. even if it was only more expensive it would still be so effective, u don't need many to destroy an attacking army before they can get in range.. so if it kept its strength than it should become A LOT more expensive, like 5-6 times more..

I agree the caregiver needs a buff, units die so quickly, that the medic is actually A LOT more effective, it doesn't help if u are repairing the entire army for so little damage that they are dying anyway, compared to the medic that can keep all the essential units alive. and for considerably lower cost/log

I like that the sky ender can attack radar contacts and has greater range, but also agree it needs more damage

The drone swarm too expensive? Sorry this is where I disagree, for one u need to consider the majority of players (who are not the top ranked) when I first started playing the drone swarm killed me almost every time. if u don't have AA as PHC u are dead. which means an Apollo. an Apollo is overly expensive just to counter a POSSIBLE drone swarm, and then where will the drone swarm lay? also the drone swarm lasts for >1 min, so If u DO NOT kill it with AA, it can easily destroy a lot of ur base. so no AA, and the enemy uses drone swarm = crippled. compared to the plasma storm? that lasts 15 sec, is dodgeable (with good micro that I could even do when I started playing) if anything I think the drone swarm should become a more consistent power, currently it dies too easily to AA, and does too much damage if u don't have AA.

I like the tech wall on the recharger, but then I think the recharger needs a buff (the tech wall is to prevent early turtling being too strong) whereas the tech wall + buff means the recharger has a use in later games as well..

I only use groups now when I want bonuses from the dread, or to stop people from sniping HVTs in my army.. like Apollos.. or my cruisers amongst my SS spam mongol horde.. otherwise units operate more effectively outside of any army..

I find the retributor less effective than the overmind, since atleast the overmind has that shield buff thing, even if it doesn't do damage...

and maybe it works vs you this good, in fact your are new in this game; thus you have to practice more.... 

have you ever played vs a phc, which used emp against you? 50 quanta and your whole army is nearly dead... 

and yes you are right, substrate has only one usable dreadnought the savager... the others are just bad...

and now we are back to the fundamental problem... stardocks dont tackle the real problems... instead of making the current units usable, they working on new units... 

the same problem I worte a post some month ago, " why does stardocks work at a add on (escalation), if they are not able to fix bugs and balance of the base game..."

most companies do what stardock is doing, the real money comes from the MAJORITY OF PLAYERS, who are the SP players (remember >95%), so balance doesn't mean as much to them. new content means more and thus "why does stardocks work at a add on" because it makes sense my young Padawan.. even if u don't like it...

hahahahaha ok so ur definition of balance is git gud? hahaha

the problem then isn't with the drone swarm being too expensive for u, its with the EMP being too cheap..

later in the game the drone swarm becomes next to useless (since we now all have AA) so imagine u complain about the drone swarm being too weak, I can say git gud as well? u want the swarm cheaper? ah man git gud and build more quantra... such a lazy response saying "thus you have to practice more" u and ekko chat a lot?

u cant counter arty? git gud...