"Mercies" are too good!

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Re: "Mercies" are too good!

Postby Jim_Hatama » 01 Jan 2012, 23:38

the point is - com advancing and fighting = most fun of SC, and mercy punish aggresive ppl so usually its always better to stay under shield and build pd like crazy
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Re: "Mercies" are too good!

Postby -_V_- » 02 Jan 2012, 02:48

Last 2 posts said it all. FRUSTRATION, nothing more. Nothing about balance.
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Re: "Mercies" are too good!

Postby Plasma_Wolf » 02 Jan 2012, 11:08

uberge3k wrote:I merely repeated the common sense that Ze_PilOt wrote in the first page.

Funny how no one will disagree with him to his face, but will argue with and flame me to the end of time when I'm only supporting his decision.



Well your quote put it up again, so what I said was somewhat intended as to argue with Pilot.

I'm still undecided as what to do with the mercy but I do feel de need to point out what the flaws are in this argument.
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Re: "Mercies" are too good!

Postby Kryo » 02 Jan 2012, 15:15

Ze Pilot should at least do the range nerf, so that stationary AA has little more time to focus. That step can be taken without changing a lot. The basic idea still works, and the counter will work a little more effective. After that, the discussion can start again from scratch ;)

I understand both sides:

Pro nerf:

Mercies force more or less to turtle. the typical ACU at front isnt as good anymore.
Mercies are cheap in teamgames where you have a low level player in your team, as they will be sniped easily.
in a 4v4 3 players can easily withstand the enemy until the 4th goes fast mercy.
Anti Air not always focuses properly.

Contra nerf:

mercies are quite expensive and have low health. Ints and AA can easily destroy them.
Dont make fo Rambo with your ACU.
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Re: "Mercies" are too good!

Postby uberge3k » 02 Jan 2012, 16:08

Kryo wrote:Mercies force more or less to turtle. the typical ACU at front isnt as good anymore.
Mercies are cheap in teamgames where you have a low level player in your team, as they will be sniped easily.
in a 4v4 3 players can easily withstand the enemy until the 4th goes fast mercy.

All of these points have already been conclusively disproved in the previous pages. It boils down to "the teams weren't balanced, so the stronger team has an advantage" - well, that's exactly how the game should work..?

Kryo wrote:Anti Air not always focuses properly.

Also disproved. AA focuses exactly the same as any other air target.


Applying a range nerf would only do one thing: move the target of the complaints. Right now, people complain that their AA that was in front of their ACU doesn't always hit it (which isn't true, but that will be addressed separately). Post-nerf, people will complain that their AA that was next to their ACU doesn't always hit it. And then that AA that was behind their ACU doesn't hit it. And so on and so forth. How do we determine what an acceptable positioning of AA is "fair"? The proposed range nerfs have been arrived at by a completely arbitrary process that amounts to "well -5 sounds good in my head".

Regarding the "AA doesn't always hit it" arguments - fundamentally, they all involve some reference to the intangible, unquantifiable ideas of "micro" and "attention". We've already established the fact that a mercy snipe can be reliably countered by 1/12th of its mass cost, assuming you manually target them. There is no question that mercy snipes can be cost-effectively countered. The question seems to be that the micro involved is higher on the defending side than the attacking side. While that is quite debatable, let's assume for a moment that this is true - then the question becomes "how do you quantify micro, and once quantified, how do you determine what an acceptable amount of micro the "counter" should be, and how much should the mass-effectiveness be factored into this determination?".

Since "attention" is largely intangible and seems nearly impossible to empirically measure, and getting anyone to agree on any kind of specific mass/micro/attention/apm matrix to facilitate such a determination will be impossible, we are left with little more than the opinions of a vocal minority. Changing the game's balanced based on such is, IMO, quite reckless, and sets a terrible precedent.

Given the above, I believe that Ze_PilOt is 100% correct in his first stated opinion on the subject.

Lastly:

-_V_- wrote:Last 2 posts said it all. FRUSTRATION, nothing more. Nothing about balance.

QFT. V hit the nail precisely on the head.
Ze_PilOt wrote:If you want something to happen, do it yourself.
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Re: "Mercies" are too good!

Postby pip » 02 Jan 2012, 16:34

And frustration doesn't matter at all in a game? Think about that a little.
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Re: "Mercies" are too good!

Postby Karottenrambo » 02 Jan 2012, 18:11

Let me get this straight:

- Mercies are by far the most dangerous unit on that tech-level, since its the only unit that can insta-kill your acu with a low amount of units, while beeing relatively cheap for what they are doing.

- Mobile t1 and t2 aa often miss them.

- Static t1 and t2 aa often miss them.

- ASF can miss them.

- The only 100% reliable counter are ints, which you can't just put on patrol, because they would run out of fuel to fast.

- If they come through, you are dead and the enemy team has a huge advantage, since they invested only few ressources to kill you.

- If the snipe fails, the enemy can easily transition into t2 gunship spam, so its not really a huge risk to rush t2 air.

- 6 Mercies cost just about as much as 9 Pillars.


Looks totally fair and balanced to me.


EDIT: Ah yeah, I forgot. You dont get any reclaimables when you shot them, because their wreckages will always be destroyed. So the "Double-disadvantage" of "enemy lost units" and "enemy just gave you some mass" does not work here.
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Re: "Mercies" are too good!

Postby uberge3k » 02 Jan 2012, 18:48

pip wrote:And frustration doesn't matter at all in a game? Think about that a little.

No, it doesn't.

http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/intermediates-guide.html

Everything in that book is true. Everything on that page is highly relevant to this discussion. This particular passage is perhaps the most important:
Sirlin wrote:A common call of the scrub is to cry that the kind of play in which one tries to win at all costs is “boring” or “not fun.” Who knows what objective the scrub has, but we know his objective is not truly to win. Yours is.


Karottenrambo wrote:- Mercies are by far the most dangerous unit on that tech-level, since its the only unit that can insta-kill your acu with a low amount of units, while beeing cheap.

Firebeetles.
TML.
Gunships.
Bombers.
Drops.

Etc.

All cheaper than a mercy snipe, all likely to cause some damage (as opposed to the all-or-nothing gamble that mercies are). A successful 1800 mass drop of arty in your base will end the game just the same as a successful mercy snipe.

Karottenrambo wrote:- Mobile t1 and t2 aa often miss them.
- Static t1 and t2 aa often miss them.
- ASF can miss them.
- The only 100% reliable counter are ints, which you can't just put on patrol, because they would run out of fuel to fast.

See my above post.
Karottenrambo wrote:- If they come through, you are dead and the enemy team has a huge advantage, since they invested only few ressources to kill you.

We've already covered this. Assuming perfectly equal teams, the team who stops making air to make mercies will be at a disadvantage in air production, one that the other team can exploit. Mercies require complete air control to use.

If you say "1800 is so few resources" then all I can reply with is "the counters required to defend against mercies are, necessarily, worth even less. For just one example, you cannot cost-effectively break shields with mercies.

In other words if 1800 mass is irrelevant, than the < 1800 mass required to counter it is even more irrelevant. And if we're discounting mass entirely, we can simply devolve into "my team pulled an ML out of their pocket" lunacy. :roll:

Karottenrambo wrote:- If the snipe fails, the enemy can easily transition into t2 gunships, so its not really a huge risk to rush t2 air.

Where is the other team's air in this situation?

Karottenrambo wrote:- 6 Mercies cost just about as much as 9 Pillars.

Which is a central point of my argument. The other team could build those 9 pillars and use them to win the land war after deflecting the mercy snipe.

Karottenrambo wrote:EDIT: Ah yeah, I forgot. You dont get any reclaimables when you shot them, because their wreckages will always be destroyed. So the "Double-disadvantage" of "enemy lost units" and "enemy just gave you some mass" does not work here.

I never said that it did. In fact, I used it as evidence of yet another disadvantage for the mercy sniper - if your mercies are scouted in your base, they will be massacred and you cannot reclaim their wreckage to make new ones.


Do you disagree with my analysis of the micro portion of the debate? If so, could you explain your solution to it?
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Re: "Mercies" are too good!

Postby Ze_PilOt » 02 Jan 2012, 19:08

I think this thread is trap in a timeloop.
Locking, you can open a new thread with replays.
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