T2 used for sniping just makes for a sad game

I have seen many games in which a player will just choose to sit there abuse T2 air spam, click commander = win.

Here is an example one full health com at 11 mins 11,500 hp with gun upgrade first pass hp down to 5900hp second pass + dead, even with adept dodging, 13 corsair.

Players choosing to abuse a machanic that is clearly op just flat out ruines the game for all, and I am shure thats why the balance team chose to nerf the Mercy as that was the most obvious version of the T2 snipe machanic shurely the other T2 air units fall under the same catagory.

this continued and sniped at least one more player, in this game and many other games.

another game 3 people were sniped to corsair spam.

this player even had flak and shields nearby

Can you link to the replay?

#21703955
#21601481

and the latest one i decided to abuse this myself to kill my opponent because its a stupid easy win mechanic
he even had flak and shields and wasnt even close

#21704528

Ngl, all this screenshots just scream skill issue.

Gonna take a look at replays later. But it seems to be nothing burger lobby where people don't even dodge nor make t1 air.

Putting ACU on the front line can be valuable to add extra firepower and soak some HP for your defenses, but it puts you at risk of air snipe

Putting ACU on the front line where there is already 10 T2 PDs seems thoughtless, it's a simple mistake, you can't blame the balance for player error. Should have been under a shield, should have scouted the corsairs, etc.

@arma473 In this test I had a t2 shield and 2 flak.

15 cosair less than some of the game examples, the t2 shield whent down and then came back on but it still wasnt enough to protect com.

@arma473

In this test the com had 4 mobile shield and 4 mobile flak agaisnt 15 corsair, can you guess who wins?

In this test i used a T2 Shield and 4 flak against 15 corsair, com still died.

@caliber said in T2 used for sniping just makes for a sad game:

In this test the com had 4 mobile shield and 4 mobile flak agaisnt 15 corsair, can you guess who wins?

1520 mass vs 6300 mass

Yes, I think I can guess who wins.

@Deribus @Endranii @arma473 @BalanceSlave The examples shown are what normal defenses a typical player would have less they just sit in the base all day and make flak and shields.

A player spamming t2 air commits all they have to air production yes its a lot of mass, however if you play as most people do, you lose to this tactic every time as you wont have equal mass invested into AA defenses, rather into factories, tanks, t2 land, mexes ect.

So I ask you this, when you play, do you play just to snipe other players and end the game as quickly as possible or do you play to actualy enjoy the game?

Becouse this tactic kinda ruins how most poeple enjoy the game.

imagine you spend quite a lot of time queing, finaly get a game that is'nt broken only to end like that. Poeple ask, was it worth playing.

I dont ask that T2 Bombers are removed from the game completely, just turned down a little so people stand a chance.

You can just make half the mass in inties which is something like 4 per corsair, keep them near you and demolish the corsairs after the first pass. The moment you scout a couple enemy corsairs, spamming T1 air should be the reaction. T2 flak is not great against T2 figher bombers and it's okay, it's there to stop gunships and murder T1 air. This also means flak keeps your clump of T1 inties safe from enemy air and free to kill the corsairs.

GG, local man got surprised his opponent who made 1 striker and 5 engies on frontline was actually cooking something up in his base...

Ngl t2 air is pretty op, and it is retardedly easy to abuse it in shitty lobbies, but thats not problem of t2 air, its problem of teamgames. If you make t2 air worse it ruins it in 1v1/2v2 too much

I agree there is a large difference in which the balance affects a 1v1 game compared to a team game, so the question is do you try and balance for both in which it will not work well for either, or do you balance for the more popular game, I dont have the numbers but I would put a large bet on team games being the game of choice for most players, therein it would be sensable to balance more towards teamgames as the more polular choice.

Take your logic and balance for dual gap, or even better, pve games with an average rating of 400 where people don’t even get to minute 3 without ruining their economy.

If we wanted to prioritize those elements, the game wouldn’t even be an RTS anymore. There’s a reason the genre evolved into half a dozen other variants, it’s because those are the attempts to balance around the majority. You can’t even have FAF’s economy exist if your concern is the majority.

@caliber I'm failing to see how this is an issue in teamgames, even at lower ranks.

Let's suppose you're in a 3v3 or 4v4 team game (TMM), and one of the enemy players focuses on doing a T2 air snipe.
Let's also suppose the players are weak enough that they don't scout, and are oblivious to the threat until the t2 bombers show up and kill one of their players.

Firstly, it's full share, and the player doing the t2 air snipe has likely lost the majority of the bombers they sent (due to the ACU explosion and whatever AA was around). In exchange, their opponent has lost a combat unit that is worse far less in mass, so ignoring the apm damage inflicted, the team doing the air snipe ought to be behind.

Also, even a weak player should be able to recognise that if one of their team died to a T2 air snipe, there's a good chance the enemy team will try another T2 air snipe. So, they can retreat their ACU to base, get some flak and/or inties, and be far harder to kill via a snipe attempt.

So what you end up is likely a scenario where one team has an advantage ignoring apm, but is down a player so will play a bit worse (one of their team has to manage 2 bases). Unless the player who was sniped was the highest rated on the team by some way, it's not clear to me that the sniped team will be at a significant disadvantage.

@maudlin27

I would say the T2 air snipe abuse has a similar effect to a nuke or tml, if one exists all players need to invest in defenses, setting the whole team back.

secondly retreating the com helps protect from a snipe, but you will lose map control instantly to enemy com pushes.

Third, In tmm yes its fullshare however no share is still played regulary so, snipes are a problem.

Fourth, everyone keeps saying the default response I expect to see on the forums these days, "skill issue" yet I have seen many 2k players sniped easily this way and I know players gain significant points up to 1700 1800 who abuse this method consistantly.

Fith, within tmm games if there is a relatively high rated player they are heavily targeted, and with them out the game its a lose from there, even in none pro games if there are 3, 1000s and a 1500 losing the 1500 to a snipe is game.

Sixth, I understand they should lose map control having fewer units given a large amount of engys in base can easily defend rushing pd or becouse the T2 air is a cheap way of killing a com it does'nt even mean they lose any map contol,

Seventh, If you know there is a potential air problem you are forced to make more shields and flak compared to your opponent who has mostly fighting units so you lose there too.

Eighth, then we look at actual game quality or fun or why people play these games, personaly I like a game that goes between 30 mins to an hour, so these people just going around tryna end a game as fast as possible its just not why most of use play, it sucks, even more when you take into account of the time it takes in lobby or mutiple tries in que after failed connects spending sometimes hours just waiting for a game hoping its a good one, then well its over in 15 mins.

Nineth, even if not used for sniping these things are so op I have seen them go straight over flak through shields and kill HQs, mexes power exc so basic defenses realy arnt that effective unless you dump some serious mass into them.

#21709345

Also here is another game i played today with many kills by corsair, I killed 2 people with cosair and deleted this players base and my teammate was also killed by cosair.

@caliber said in T2 used for sniping just makes for a sad game:

@maudlin27

I would say the T2 air snipe abuse has a similar effect to a nuke or tml, if one exists all players need to invest in defenses, setting the whole team back.

It's different. With a Nuke or TML you have to get SMD / TMD in every base. With an enemy T2 air snipe inties built by one team member can help protect other team members

secondly retreating the com helps protect from a snipe, but you will lose map control instantly to enemy com pushes.

If the game is at the stage where the enemy is able to get not one but 2+ T2 air snipes, then it's also at the stage in the game where coms are more vulnerable on the frontline, and you can punish the enemy pushing with their com with air (bombers/gunships)

Third, In tmm yes its fullshare however no share is still played regulary so, snipes are a problem.

Yes, but that's likely a reason why it's rare to see share until death outside of maps where the teammate base is close by (dual gap or astro). I'd bet the number of games on share until death outside of those maps is so small as a % that it completely goes against your previous argument that balance should be done for the "more popular game".

Fourth, everyone keeps saying the default response I expect to see on the forums these days, "skill issue" yet I have seen many 2k players sniped easily this way and I know players gain significant points up to 1700 1800 who abuse this method consistantly.

Where did I say skill issue? My response assumed the players were playing relatively poorly.

Fith, within tmm games if there is a relatively high rated player they are heavily targeted, and with them out the game its a lose from there, even in none pro games if there are 3, 1000s and a 1500 losing the 1500 to a snipe is game.

The higher their rating, the more likely they should be to both scout/anticipate a snipe, and be better able to defend against it.

As a simple example, I'm c.1300 and one of the last games I played, where I was the highest rating on my team, an enemy tried killing me with a t2 bomber snipe (I hadnt scouted in part as I was managing 2 bases so was neglecting various parts of the game). However I'm good enough to both have preemptively built some AA and knew to dodge when I saw the bombers, meaning the snipe attempt failed and gave my team a comfortable win. Had the enemy focused on land units and pushing instead of the T2 snipe attempt I'm doubtful my team wouldve won.

Sixth, I understand they should lose map control having fewer units given a large amount of engys in base can easily defend rushing pd or becouse the T2 air is a cheap way of killing a com it does'nt even mean they lose any map contol,

If they're using T2 PD in base to defend a land push then they should've lost a map control.

Seventh, If you know there is a potential air problem you are forced to make more shields and flak compared to your opponent who has mostly fighting units so you lose there too.

1 T2 shield and a bunch of mobile flak should be enough to make snipe attempts far more expensive and difficult, by which stage you should be at T3 with sams and/or asfs

Eighth, then we look at actual game quality or fun or why people play these games, personaly I like a game that goes between 30 mins to an hour, so these people just going around tryna end a game as fast as possible its just not why most of use play, it sucks, even more when you take into account of the time it takes in lobby or mutiple tries in que after failed connects spending sometimes hours just waiting for a game hoping its a good one, then well its over in 15 mins.

Personal preference; games often end earlier than that because someone overextended with their ACU and died to t1 land spam. Doesn't mean we should nerf T1 land spam

Nineth, even if not used for sniping these things are so op I have seen them go straight over flak through shields and kill HQs, mexes power exc so basic defenses realy arnt that effective unless you dump some serious mass into them.

And I've seen a bunch of them all die without breaking a shield, giving a mass donation to the enemy. Notha's are decent since 2 of them can 1-shot a mex, but it's very rare that I've seen t2 bombers be that impactful at the ratings I play (higher rated players have noted they can be very powerful, but then you're not talking about higher rated games either). Killing HQs is often a suboptimal use of them anyway so if HQs are dying it suggests much bigger issues.

I got sniped a bunch of times a long time ago..........I don't anymore and I'm not a good player.