bomber first replay

[uberge3k]

"bomber first is imbalanced" is nonsensical, because everyone can go bomber first. This isn't Starcraft - the factions are extremely similar.

All you're saying is that you think bomber first is the optimum opening. I have no clue if it is, but it doesn't matter. There's always an optimum opening - no reason it should be land over air.

If there are issues with some faction's bombers being so weak that this cripples them, then their bombers should be buffed.

Yaotzin makes an excellent point. I agree.

Cybran is perhaps the weakest faction for bomber first as well, due to their air factory engineer build speed and difficult to control bomber.

[Jace]

"bomber first is imbalanced" is nonsensical, because everyone can go bomber first. This isn't Starcraft - the factions are extremely similar.

All you're saying is that you think bomber first is the optimum opening. I have no clue if it is, but it doesn't matter. There's always an optimum opening - no reason it should be land over air.

If there are issues with some faction's bombers being so weak that this cripples them, then their bombers should be buffed.

-its imbalanced because AirFactorys have a great difference in "drive out"-time for workers. it was already statet, that its not possible to correct that in an easy way.
-its imbalanced because like statet, even if everyone would go bomber first, the counter(Interceptors) costs more than the bomber.
-its imbalanced because before the change first air and second ground was possible, the same like first ground and second air was possible too. and except what some people might say, you saw both types openings and they were quite equal because the bomber, gunship, could do the same but didnt come so fast. because people had to care for more energy.
-its imbalanced because like statet, it puts the defender under quite a big pressure in microing, while the attacker can be relaxed

[uberge3k]

I havent seen any FAChart analysis - you locked the thread re: out test games. You're hardly innocent when it comes to not answering - I mean how many bomber threads have you locked now?

There was one bomber thread which was locked due to your behavior. The FAChart analysis was posted early on in it; you ignored it in favor of arguing.

That's exactly what you argued against in the last thread regarding our test game. You can't have it both ways; therefore, the rest of your argument can be applied to yourself as well.

I'm not sure what you mean - Elaborate.

You argued that the game I played vs you, that I won, regardless of your attempt at bomber first, should not count because "you weren't used to the faction", "I'm rated higher than you", etc. In short, arguing that "a game where someone went bomber first and lost the game" should not count due to factors not related to bombers. You then argued the inverse of this a moment ago. As I said, you cannot have it both ways.

Ok retracted, I'll amend it to out of the ken of 95% of players.

What do you mean by this? Isen is one of the strongest micro players currently playing, yet his games should not count because... why?

Two, even three AA can't kill a bomber in one pass

I never said that they could. I said that they could kill it on the bomber's second pass.

which means you lose an engy

If the person controlling the bomber micros it, and you do not move your engy out of the way, then yes, you can lose an engineer.

and as a value add, you get intel (so lets add on the mass cost of a T1 air scout)

What about the intel you get from a LAB's vision radius? Or any other unit's? It's disingenuous to randomly add the costs of other units onto other units in an attempt to make your argument look better, and the fact that you're having to stoop to such measures indicates that you realize how shaky your argument is.

and you've disrupted your opponents strategy meaning he has to focus on his macro, in addition micro'ing any raiders, or expanding engys.

Just as you would with LABs. No difference here.

You've never definitively demonstrated that mobile AA is cost effective.

Two AAs + scout = 60 mass (26 + 26 + 8).
T1 bomber = 80 mass.
Cost of going air first compared to going land first: 300 mass (air fac + bomber).

Therefore, the bomber would need to kill > 240 mass worth of units in order to be cost effective, including the defense cost of two T1 AAs and the scout. That's 5 engineers. Very few bombers kill that much, and thus, are not cost effective.

You don't watch very many replays then. The loss of multiple pgens in the first couple of minutes is most definitely game ending.

Early on in the bomber thread, someone posts a replay of their pgens dying within the first few minutes. They proceed to come back from this minor setback and outright murder the poor guy who went bomber first. I highly recommend looking it up.

<snip> Bombers are superior to LABs in every way shape and form.

As they should be, seeing as bombers cost far more than LABs and require the investment of an air factory. That is not the point I was making. Vs a player who knows how to counter bomber first, equal mass invented in LABs is almost assuredly a better investment.

Plenty of games are won with bomber first.

Blanket statements and "weasel words" such as this underline the lack of evidence to support your case. "plenty of games are won" with virtually every tactic, including, say, Paragon Rush.

The profligacy of the tactic in the IMBA Cup further serves to underline the current state of play. I'm willing to bet again that it will be very prevalent in the upcoming selectionals/IMBA Cup II.

In my own experience, whomever went bomber first in the Imba Cup, on most maps, was at a disadvantage. Take my first round vs Deathly. He went bomber first, I defended against it, I won. I can't speak to the exact circumstances of every other game (nor can you).

On this topic, you seem to keep flip-flopping between "anyone who uses bomber first and wins proves that bomber first is imbaaaa" and "well if you didn't win with bomber first it's because <insert excuse>".

Two, maybe, but that's not equal to the mass cost of a bomber, 3 is, and 4 is what's required to put one to bed on a land map. On a map like Open waters/Red Rocks, you'll need even more.

I just explained that this is not the case.

1. I've already stated, all you need is one engy to get your value from your bomber. That takes only one pass. In the presence of AA, an experienced player won't give you the second pass, thus denying you the opportunity to counter the threat.

3. Far more than one pass? No it only needs two engys to make up it's mass cost (technically around 1.5 engineers)

Which is it?

Permit me to disagree. The only person who agrees with you entirely thinks that bombers should be buffed & has 4 games on FAF.

I speak for a large number of people, people who have simply given up posting in the forums due to the lack of productivity in discussions such as this.

You also seem to be quite quick to dismiss another player's opinion based on their experience, when previously you have argued that neither experience nor rating should matter in balance debates (I believe this is when you were rather low rated and had few games. Now that this is not the case, you seem to have changed your mind?)

[muzzl]

FWIW, I was a fan of Red Alert 3 for a while, but after grinding out some of the learning curve and learning about what bombers could really do at the beginning of that game I decided to stop playing it. As far as I can tell it isn't as bad in this game (in RA3 it's an all or nothing strategy that pretty much guaranteed the game would be decided one way or another in the first few minutes and would be played nothing at all like a "normal" RA3 game), but I don't see why bombers can't be a good unit without having glitches that make them drop more bombs than intended (both games) and being able to one shot your first economic units (conditional in RA3). Can't they be effective without creating all kinds of edge cases that turn a perfectly good fun game into something that's not very interesting, derailed from the start, and only going to be fun for one side? They have an intended use and I'm pretty sure "Killing your enemy's economy before they are physically able to scout you" isn't one of them.

I haven't played this game enough to have an opinion about whether or not bomber first is 'balanced' compared to other openings, but I can say that having it done to me is one of the situations where the fun is just sucked right out of the game to me, and the fact that my first engineer can be one hit before it's done building the hydrocarb it started straight out of base sure -feels- like bullshit.

If you want more people to start playing Supreme Commander you should look at scenarios that change the nature of the game at the start from more than just a balance perspective. Otherwise, you'll have a lot of people who will play some skirmishes, think... "Hey maybe this game is pretty good..." Download some replays, and then think... "Oh, well if this is how the game is actually played at the top level then there isn't that much to it afterall."

I can guarantee you a game that's decided by how you can build an army and control a map is better and more interesting than a game that's about whether or not you're able to deal with the one unit that showed up at your base at minute 2, and even if it's "balanced" in the sense that a top player can beat that strategy 50% of the time it still definitely takes away from the game rather than adds to it.

[Yaotzin]

-its imbalanced because AirFactorys have a great difference in "drive out"-time for workers. it was already statet, that its not possible to correct that in an easy way.

This is then a case of air factories being imbalanced between factions - nothing to do with bomber first per se. If the difference is big enough then it should be looked at - perhaps decrease the build time of the 'slower' faction's engineers, just enough to compensate for the slow loadoff?

-its imbalanced because like statet, even if everyone would go bomber first, the counter(Interceptors) costs more than the bomber.

Irrelevant. Interceptors are a hard counter - they kill bombers at an infinitely effective ratio - so it's no problem. And again, same for everyone.

-its imbalanced because before the change first air and second ground was possible, the same like first ground and second air was possible too. and except what some people might say, you saw both types openings and they were quite equal because the bomber, gunship, could do the same but didnt come so fast. because people had to care for more energy.

It's impossible to make them identically balanced, ergo if people were using both it is only because they weren't sure which was better. One was, objectively.

-its imbalanced because like statet, it puts the defender under quite a big pressure in microing, while the attacker can be relaxed

If bomber first is the optimum opening, then you both have bombers in the other dude's base and you're in an equal situation, regardless of how the micro works.

Maybe it's due to my Starcraft background, but I find the amount of micro involved in a little bomber war at the start to be utterly trivial. Not like you have anything better to do at that point anyway.

[Yaotzin]

Bomber first should not be the optimum opening because it would trump any other opening, removing diversity from the game. In 3599, you could go full engy, fast labs + eng, eng + slow labs (i.e LAB Scout Eng, or Eng Eng Lab scout) eng + tank etc. There was opening diversity within the land factory opening.

Diversity only due to ignorance. With enough metagame development the optimum land opening would be determined - like fac-pgen-pgen-mex has been - and diversity would reduce to one build.

There is always an optimum opener, dependent on map. If people are using different ones, it's because they don't know the best one, nothing more.

Also the game coming down to one unit in the other guys main? That's not what FA is about. You will find that nobody here wants bomber first to be the only opening. Well maybe Uber, but if he did, he wouldn't say it aloud.

Well that's a completely different matter; nothing to do with balance. An argument that goes "bomber first being effective makes for boring games, let's nerf it" is fine, saying it's *imbalanced* makes as much sense as saying that tanks are imbalanced in TvT Starcraft.

[Jace]

Diversity only due to ignorance. With enough metagame development the optimum land opening would be determined - like fac-pgen-pgen-mex has been - and diversity would reduce to one build.

There is always an optimum opener, dependent on map. If people are using different ones, it's because they don't know the best one, nothing more.

How many years does this game exist? And community still hasn't established your so called "optimum opener". Isn't that the best proof that the different openings were so close together that the ideal one can't be found? Well you could wait for another 4 years maybe then your ideal land opening will be established.
Even pro gamers had very different openings. If even they are not able to bring it down to one buildorder in that much time it will never be found if there are no groundshaking changes through a patch.
The bomberfirst destroys gameplay for people who don't want heavy micro. If you want to play the game while microing every unit on its own you should really change to Starcraft. There you get what you want.

[uberge3k]

How many years does this game exist? And community still hasn't established your so called "optimum opener". Isn't that the best proof that the different openings were so close together that the ideal one can't be found? Well you could wait for another 4 years maybe then your ideal land opening will be established.
Even pro gamers had very different openings. If even they are not able to bring it down to one buildorder in that much time it will never be found if there are no groundshaking changes through a patch.

FA hasn't been played at a pro level for many years. Those who are left are not what I would consider "pro" in the traditional sense of the word when applied to gaming circles. "Dedicated Amateur" perhaps.

The bomberfirst destroys gameplay for people who don't want heavy micro. If you want to play the game while microing every unit on its own you should really change to Starcraft. There you get what you want.

But you already do this!

Or I guess your ACU dies to T1 arty all the time?

[Jace]

Having to micro one or two Units later in the game isn't a problem.

Having the game decided by micro in the first two minutes IS a problem.

[Yaotzin]

Wrong. I understand if you're new here and want to voice your opinion but I'm going to take the gloves off soon. I find it a bit rich that you're telling players with thousands of games that they didn't know the premium opening.

Quite a few pro SC2 players - actual pros, they play the game for a living - still use proven inferior openings.

Differences in openings (on the same map) are caused by ignorance, nothing more. That is not an insult to the players, it is simply pointing out that as the game is not solved, they do not know the optimum opening. That they don't know it doesn't mean there is no optimum opening - there is, as in all games.

The same applies to chess - there are many openings, because the game is unsolved. If it was solved, there would be only one opening for each color (and white would always win).

So in your mind, is the an optimum opening for Scissors, paper, rock, or Chess? or Go. The mark of a good strategy game is it can have many different openings.

There is no optimum opening for rock-paper-scissors, all options are identical. There is an optimum opening for chess, but no one knows it, as chess is not a solved game.

You can't apply your experience in Starcraft to FA.

I've only ever talked about general RTS theory in this thread. I would never claim to have any level of knowledge on details of supcom.