Evil_mind wrote:Everyone says 1) make aa 2) make interceptors 3) radar 4) profit. Thats not how I see it, since I see people getting mercied in games all the time with or without all those things.
More clarification is needed here. I can have AA, interceptors and radar.... in my base... and my ACU can be still be mercied if it's out in the middle of nowhere without any support.
Evil_mind wrote:Another point "But mercy snipe is 1800+ mass and thats alot omfg noob"... ehm really? When the game is at the stage of t3 tank spam, 1800 is nothing, even at t2 tank spam its not that much to really hurt your eco.
1800 mass is a huge amount at any stage of the game. At the T3 stage, that's 1.5 T3 bots. That's enough to tip the scale in an engagement. Not to mention the fact that your air factory cannot be producing air units while it's making mercies, putting you further and further behind.
If "1800+ mass is nothing", then you clearly already had the advantage, and could have parlayed it in another way (more land, more air, etc). Mercies just happen to be a convenient way to end a game should your enemy not be careful with his ACU.
Basically in this replay Maverick gets sniped by me on 16:00, while having radar, many t1 and t2 flaks and interceptors right around his ACU. Notice how mercies fly right in front and through interceptors, hilarious
interceptor hard counter mercy? Sure they do.... Next, slow down the game, zoom in and notice how t2 flaks are shooting but right before they get a hit, mercies explode (like literally 0.001 sec, but mercies go poof. If they had a small range nerf, they'd die).
He had T1 mobile aa (which is useless vs mercies) and T2 flak (which is next to useless vs mercies). More importantly, they were bunched up behind his ACU. There was no way that should have killed the mercies.
The simple fact is, he pushed too hard with his ACU, and you properly exploited that. This is the game mechanic working as intended, especially considering the fact that you were slightly ahead of him, due to being able to hold his army off while still making two sets of mercies.
Unfortunately after that kill, the game gets desync =( But I'm sure Deathly will gladly share with us how he also gets sniped while having shields and flaks literally coming out of his a**
. Or i'm sure Uber will tell us about the one game on twin rivers, where he got enemy ACU that had t1 flak pd's around his base, everyone in that game agreed how ridiculous that was, mercies practically flying over flaks, exploding before they hit them.
I've attached the replay spoken of. It actually makes a great case study:
The snipe happens at about 24:30. As you can see, it did appear "lucky" as the mercies detonated at their extreme range. However, several factors contributed to this, if you'll watch the replay:
1) He had no air of his own whatsoever, even though he certainly had the eco for it. If 1800+ mass is nothing (much more in this case as ~15 mercies were used), then certainly 52 mass for a single T1 int is reasonable to have on hand?
2) He did not micro his AA in the slightest. The AAs locked onto my fighters, and did not change targets. If he had selected his AA (double click on any of them) and selected even one of my mercies (one right click), he would have survived.
3) It was quite obvious from the radar image that there were mercies aimed at him. Gritch had a fair amount of T1 air that might've been able to kill them, and yet they were idle in his base during the snipe.
4) He walked right next to his T3 pgen, which has a death blast damage of 5k. This is what killed him.
But I'm predicting he'll say again "That was just this one game". Well, if that happened once, whats stopping it from happening in any other game? Same thing with mercies flying through interceptors and over t1 t2 flaks like in the replay. This is not about quantity of replays I can give, but if it happened in one game, it can happen in any, this is not a glitch or anything like that man.
It is just one game. As for "flying through interceptors and over flak", I did not see this happen in the replay, and I have seen it happen at an extremely low frequency - about as often as, say, a nuke hitting planes, or a T1 arty hitting a transport in mid flight. These are quirks of the game's realistically modeled physics engine. As in real life, sometimes projectiles miss.
Too bad I didn't start storing replays earlier, where people get mercied while having everything to counter them. So lets just work with what we have, your reaction to what happened in that game?
My reaction is as above. He should have died. You had more mass than him and he was not properly defending his ACU.
PS If you're thinking I'm just "another noob" complaining about a unit because he got mercied too many times, I assure you thats not it, I've won alot of my games using mercies. I dont like getting sniped, but I hate even more winning games with mercies, it just feels wrong, that I won a game I didn't deserve and that I was about to lose. Ofcourse someone can get lucky and win a game against stronger players, but it supposed to be mostly skill vs skill. And mercy snipes are not just about luck, you can easily evade enemy interceptors, deny scouting and get your easy kill.
Your entire argument is flawed. If you were "about to lose" how did you come up with the mass for those mercies? And if you were about to lose, why was the other player taking risks with their ACU by leaving it unprotected? And why did they not have adequate air cover?
Show me a replay where someone "unfairly" won, and 9 times out of 10, it's because that player makes a mistake. And yes, even the "top players" do make mistakes on occasion.
I think at this point everyone in faf is more than aware of mercy snipes when they're against eon, the problem is, that things that are supposed to counter them often don't. Mercies explode before it gets hit by aa, even if enemy has 2x times more air than I do, you can send your air to distract enemy interceptors around enemy ACU and then send mercies. Just like on the replay.
They do counter them. The only way that you can get a mercy snipe through "when your enemy has 2x more air" is if that player is literally asleep. I welcome you to sandbox it with me to attempt to disprove this, as it is an indisputable fact that it is impossible to do so. (the evidence of this is in a moment)
You're much more experienced than I am and I'd agree with what you say, but in 80% of the games don't see mercies being countered not by radars, scouts, interceptors and flaks.
Because radars, scouts, interceptors and flaks are typically absent, as in the replay you posted.
Also t2 flaks murder gunships
As T1 AA murders mercies. You simply must use the proper counter for the unit in question. Would you try to use T3 PD to counter T1 tanks?
Even though the burden of proof is on the accuser, I will provide two replays as counter evidence, where mercies are extensively tested in sandbox:
Now, given the above, I will reiterate the stance that I have always taken on the subject: a nerf to mercies wouldn't be a problem. 95% of mercy snipes would remain literally unchanged, as in the vast majority of cases, the target ACU has insufficient backup to counter a mercy snipe even if their range were reduced to 1. I would be against it simply because I believe it to be unneeded, and will not fix the underlying problem, which is the players. More on that:
No one could argue that mercies are unbalanced in 1v1s. Why is that? Because they are a massive, massive risk. 1800 mass is enough to win or lose most any 1v1. So, why do people constantly complain about them in teamgames?
SImply put, teamgames are far more difficult to balance. It's nearly impossible to have a truly balanced game due to the lack of high level players and, more specifically, high level teams. As such, micro-optimizing every scrap of mass, as you are forced to in 1v1s, isn't as necessary. In other words, teamgames have more margin for error, which leads to, for lack of a better term, lazier players.
Coupled with this is the tendency that most players have to designate one person as "the air guy" who makes nothing but air, while the others make land and push with their ACUs. In doing so, they typically neglect making air on their own, even when it would have a negligible impact on their economy, as they rely on that one person to do so for them. As such, those front players are not worried about scouting or keeping their ACUs protected. Because of this, mercy snipes are easier, as it is much more difficult for that single person to watch every ACU all the time and ensure they are protected. The result? A veritable perfect storm for mercies.
Now, realistically speaking, how would a mercy nerf change the game? For 90% of mercy snipes, it wouldn't. For the 10% "gray area" snipes, it would make them less likely to be pulled off. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? I would say it is a bad thing, as it discourages learning how to counter the unit. Remember that a single T1 AA can counter mercies. 150 mass can counter 1800 mass. Why should we tip the scale even further, and actively encourage laziness when it comes to paying attention to your ACU and scouting?
Lastly, I will attempt to respond to the most common arguments against mercies that I hear:
Teamgames are different. 1800 mass is nothing in the end game.
Wrong. It only seems like "nothing" because, quite frankly, it's easy to become lazy in teamgames instead of being forced to optimize your mass usage as much as possible. If you let your enemy get 1800 mass ahead of you, that's a problem. If your enemy is smart, he should be able to parlay that into a win.
But you can't use your ACU offensively because of the mercy!
Also incorrect. You most certainly can and should use it offensively. The earliest one could realistically build mercies is ~8 minutes in game. By that time, the early scrambling for terrain is usually over. At the very least, there is no reason not to have even a handful of ints near your ACU to protect it.
But we've lost air! Now I'm forced to retreat!
Well, I'm sorry to hear that. You probably shouldn't have lost air. Now you're kind of screwed until you get it back, and, yes, that means you may need to retreat. Why is that a problem?
You lost air. That means that their team played better than your team, and gained air superiority. You now need to work to get it back and protect yourself in the interim, or you very well may get sniped.
If there was no advantage to be head by winning air, why would anyone make air units in the first place?
Well, that's no fun! I want to play Rambo on the front lines, even after all my useless teammates have lost air and I haven't made any!
An RTT might be a better choice of game then...
But what about the edge cases? I had ints/flak/aa somewhere in the general vicinity of my ACU, why do they not act like a magical mercy shield?
Probably because of one or two reasons:
1) Your ACU was in front of the flak/aa/ints. They can't do anything to save you from behind there.
2) Your enemy distracted your ints/flak/aa with ints of his own. In other words, he out-micro'd you. It takes two clicks to move ints. It takes two clicks to select your ints and move them to intercept the mercies. It also takes two clicks to select your AA and manually target the mercies.
WTF? I have to micro?! I'm not a Korean Starcraft player, not fair!
That amount of "micro" is basically unmentionable. If you have radar, you can quite clearly see the mercies coming several seconds ahead of time. Even moreso if you are scouting and have a general idea of when your enemy is going to make his move. If you make the descision to risk your ACU by putting it out on the front lines, you must also be prepared to protect that investment by keeping an eye on it.
Another interesting fact: it takes exactly the same amount of micro as OCing a T3 unit. If you ignore your ACU for 10 seconds, you could be sniped by two percies that otherwise could've been OC'd. Are percy snipes OP? No.
Yet another interesting fact: Two TMLs for a snipe costs 1700 mass. They can only be countered by TMD, which is a T2 unit and costs 2x as much as a T1 aa. You also need to micro to avoid it (by moving your ACU). Are TML snipes OP? No.
Why are mercies special? While a rhetorical question, if I had to guess I would wager it's due to the psychological difference of being done by another player, instead of the player you were directly fighting.
Again, this stems from the inherent unbalance-ability of teamgames and the laziness they can inspire.
Mercies are broken and OP.
Then why don't you abuse them? It should be no trouble at all to rocket to #1 on the leaderboards, doing nothing but playing sniper in large teamgames.
It's against my Code Of Honor to mercy snipe. I wouldn't feel good about it. So I'm just going to complain about them instead!
http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/how-far- ... o-win.html"So what lengths should a player go to in order to win? A player should use any tournament legal move available to him that maximizes his chances of winning the game."
Yeah, yeah, whatever, uber just doesn't want to see this because he's a hardcore mercy sniper who is also evil and probably eats babies. He just wants to abuse the broken game and inhibit progress!
Then why am I not #1 on the leaderboards? I really, really like to win...
As an anecdote, only maybe 30% of the time I can mercy someone when I play an air position. In the overwhelming majority of those cases, it's because someone left their ACU out in the open without any support. I'm merely exploiting their weakness, as any player should do. So, why can't I snipe n00bs 100% of the time? Because I'm usually too busy winning air to invest that much mass in a snipe!
Lastly, why am I and other top players so rarely mercy sniped? Out of nearly 600 games on FAF, I've been mercy sniped... twice. The first time, the game was over - my team was dead, theirs was alive, and they could have killed me any way they felt like. The second time, I screwed up (what's this? uber admitting he made a mistake? error, error, does not compute). I left my ACU out in the open, and pulled my air away to do something else for a moment. I saw the mercies coming and couldn't get the air back fast enough to kill them. That was my mistake, and I was upset at myself for making it - not upset at the game because "omg, mercies are evil!".
If you would like to dispute any of these claims, I will be more than happy to do discuss them with you in detail, and/or sandbox various tests with mercies.
Until then, as Ze_PilOt wisely said: "if something is good, use it. If something is OP, use it more!". Right now there is simply no proof that mercies are OP/imba/bad and wrong/causing cancer/etc. Ideally, barring some reliable way to sandbox it (since apparently sandboxes "don't count"), the only fair way I can think of would be to take a random sampling of 100 replays which contained Aeon players playing air positions, and of those, analyze any mercy snipes to determine whether they could have been stopped or not.
But please, bear with me, the reward for finishing this is a cookie!
