Forged Alliance Forever

Re: Idea: Make no changes to bombers

2011-11-03T15:29:45+02:00

I think Ubergeek's main idea is right : no changes are required to bombers (except to the Corsair because of the possible abuse reported by Lu Xun, and the Seraphim torpedo bomber because its weapon is nullified by anti-torp weapons whereas all other torp bombers have their weapon immune to anti-torp weapons).

Bombers are alright. It's better to slighlty buff t1 mobile AA, which would also help a little against t2 air being a little bit on the too strong side. With 20 DPS instead of 15-16 and 60 muzzle velocity instead of 45 (30 instead of 15 for cybran tracking weapon), less shots will miss, and less t1 mobile AA will be required to counter early bombers and early t2 gunships.

As for carpet bombing, it would be great, but i guess it's difficult to modify.

Statistics: Posted by pip — 03 Nov 2011, 15:29

Re: Idea: Make no changes to bombers

2011-11-03T15:08:54+02:00

Just implement carpet bombing and then make bombers more expensive and everything will be fine.

After all, theres no evidence at all that carpet bombing isnt awesome. In fact, I challenge anyone to submit a replay that demonstrates carpet bombing isnt awesome.

Statistics: Posted by AdmiralZeech — 03 Nov 2011, 15:08

Re: Idea: Make no changes to bombers

2011-10-28T14:21:26+02:00

lebensnebel wrote:
Are all replays still stored on a server? It can't be that hard to find about 10 games, 1v1 and custom, with early bombers. Discussing actual replays will maybe break this vicious circle
So, where are the replays stored?

Also I'm sure you probably have several games of yourself playing with/versus early bomber.

There is 4 go of replays, I'm not so sure that it will be easy to find some interesting replays.

People have to post there : viewtopic.php?f=11&t=231

I've posted a replay where I counter an air rush from Rock and crushed him, on Theta.
Something I wouldn't be able to do without his air rush.

BUT as stated, it was the score and my early lab that give him away. On some other map or with others BO, can be a problem.

Statistics: Posted by Ze_PilOt — 28 Oct 2011, 14:21

Re: Idea: Make no changes to bombers

2011-10-28T14:14:56+02:00

Are all replays still stored on a server? It can't be that hard to find about 10 games, 1v1 and custom, with early bombers. Discussing actual replays will maybe break this vicious circle
So, where are the replays stored?

Also I'm sure you probably have several games of yourself playing with/versus early bomber.

Statistics: Posted by lebensnebel — 28 Oct 2011, 14:14

Re: Idea: Make no changes to bombers

2011-10-28T13:35:16+02:00

Wait, this is your thread with your suggestion/accusation, so go ahead, prove your case.
And you can't prove your case with their being "no evidence to the contrary". If you want to put forward your case here, we'll need your replays, just as Zep asks.

Statistics: Posted by Gowerly — 28 Oct 2011, 13:35

Re: Idea: Make no changes to bombers

2011-10-28T13:27:49+02:00

FunkOff wrote:
uberge3k wrote:I'll also reiterate that the top positions in the Leaderboards are not filled with scrubs who got there by doing nothing but going bomber first and enjoying the massive advantage it supposedly grants.

There were never any scrubs who got to the top of the GPGnet ladder by spamming restorers, either, this arguments doesn't hold any water.

A Restorer is a late game unit. Obviously it would be difficult to abuse in a 1v1 scenario as you would need to survive and stay more or less equal with your opponent long enough for them to come into play.

Even so, I believe that Gowerly would beg to differ on this point. He mentioned that himself and SupComNick endlessly abused Restorers in 2v2 games.

He also mentioned a story of another player who got very, very high in the ladder by doing nothing but abusing Mercies when they were very OP.

Bombers can appear far earlier in game than either of those units. In fact, it can be the very first unit you produce. Surely if it were truly imba there would be at least some shred of evidence?

FunkOff wrote:
uberge3k wrote:The rules of this forum clearly state that providing replays to back up your claims is mandatory. As such, I'm submitting the lack of replays showing bomber first's OPness as my evidence, and I welcome anyone's counter evidence. If no one can come up with such, then, as per the rules of this forum, I believe that bombers should not be modified.

Seems like you're dodging this rule too through your refusal to submit any replays showing that bombers rushes can be effectively countered.

The burden of proof is on the accuser. The alternative would necessitate submitting proof that every other facet of the game need not be changed.

Gowerly wrote:
uberge3k wrote:The other examples make my point even better: you can only protect one side with your ACU. Raiders could be on either side. By the time your raiding party makes it to your enemy's side of the map, you will have shot down his bomber and he won't know where to send his ACU, giving you even odds to hit a juicy, undefended portion of his base and/or expansion.

I've yet to see a bomber successfully hit a raiding party. Even the most micro-allergic players know how to dance their LABs around - due to their quick speed, moving them out of the way of a bomber's bombs is trivial. At the very worst, you've diverted his bomber's attention away from your (allegedly) vulnerable engineers and pgens, letting you continue your BO unhindered and to begin pumping land units in the direction of his undefended expansions.

You think it helps your point?
The ACU can be at one point on the ground, you don't know which it is until you see him (it's difficult to tell the difference between ACU and engineer as they move at similar speeds) and by that point your party is dead. you have about a 50% chance of that, or nearer 100% if you scout with the bomber's radar and react with your ACU accordingly. You have a 0% chance of stopping a bomber push with your ACU.

As I stated, you have even odds of successfully guessing the ACU's location, assuming you send it in blindly. It's fairly easy to tell what is an engineer and what is an ACU purely by examining the movement speed and direction of the radar blip. You can also sacrifice your scout to be certain of it.

You have a 100% chance of stopping a bomber rush in exactly 18 seconds with nothing but your ACU.

Gowerly wrote:
uberge3k wrote:Since we seem to be getting into the "endlessly debate semantics for over 9000 pages while carefully dancing around the cold, hard facts which we can't argue with" phase of a typical balance discussion, I'll reiterate what I believe to be the most important point:

There is currently no evidence whatsoever that bomber-first, or bombers in general, are OP.

Just because nobody has currently found a way to effectively abuse the strategy yet, doesn't mean they wont.
This is especially true for Aeon and Seraphim, as their bombers have the better bombs. Aeon super especially with their EMP. Two of them can indefinitely shut down a land factory.

I also believe that with proper bomber micro, you should be able to attack ground a raiding party out of the game. This remains to be seen, though, as it's hard to test by yourself. I would be up for testing this, though. Yes, attacking the units will not work, but the splash on the Aeon/Sera ones is pretty high.
I will agree that bombers themselves are not OP. I do believe, though, that bomber (or bombers) first has some untapped strength that has not yet been found.

So, you're pro-actively making changes because there might be a possibility of "untapped strength that has not yet been found"?

If so, the argument could be made for nerfing any unit in the entire game. For example, LABs could have some theoretical level of OPness given enough micro as they can indefinitely dodge tank's shots. Should we nerf LABs now? (It actually sounds somewhat more plausible than nerfing bombers as we at least have a few replays of an "epic lab" which racks up several kills early game despite the best efforts of the defending player. I've yet to see any of a bomber rush.)

In fact, this entire argument sounds reminiscent of dstojkov's argument for 3599 restorers, as it too relies on an as-yet-unreached, highly-theoretical level of micro.

Since we seem to be drifting off topic once more, I'll reiterate:

There is no evidence of bomber-first being OP, and thus, no reason to change them until such proof has been submitted.
Reference #1: viewtopic.php?f=11&t=2

Ze_PilOt wrote:
Here is some simple rules to keep sanity on this forum :

- Posting replays proving your claims help a lot. In fact, it is mandatory.

Reference #2: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_burden_of_proof

Burden of proof (snipped for brevity) wrote:
The burden of proof tends to lie with anyone who is arguing against received wisdom

Statistics: Posted by uberge3k — 28 Oct 2011, 13:27

Re: Idea: Make no changes to bombers

2011-10-28T10:30:17+02:00

uberge3k wrote:
The other examples make my point even better: you can only protect one side with your ACU. Raiders could be on either side. By the time your raiding party makes it to your enemy's side of the map, you will have shot down his bomber and he won't know where to send his ACU, giving you even odds to hit a juicy, undefended portion of his base and/or expansion.

I've yet to see a bomber successfully hit a raiding party. Even the most micro-allergic players know how to dance their LABs around - due to their quick speed, moving them out of the way of a bomber's bombs is trivial. At the very worst, you've diverted his bomber's attention away from your (allegedly) vulnerable engineers and pgens, letting you continue your BO unhindered and to begin pumping land units in the direction of his undefended expansions.

You think it helps your point?
The ACU can be at one point on the ground, you don't know which it is until you see him (it's difficult to tell the difference between ACU and engineer as they move at similar speeds) and by that point your party is dead. you have about a 50% chance of that, or nearer 100% if you scout with the bomber's radar and react with your ACU accordingly. You have a 0% chance of stopping a bomber push with your ACU.

uberge3k wrote:
Since we seem to be getting into the "endlessly debate semantics for over 9000 pages while carefully dancing around the cold, hard facts which we can't argue with" phase of a typical balance discussion, I'll reiterate what I believe to be the most important point:

There is currently no evidence whatsoever that bomber-first, or bombers in general, are OP.

Your definition of fact is odd.
There was no evidence of a bug where the seraphim gun could have its splash increased indefinitely by repeatedly adding and removing the upgrade. It was still there, though.
Just because nobody has currently found a way to effectively abuse the strategy yet, doesn't mean they wont.
This is especially true for Aeon and Seraphim, as their bombers have the better bombs. Aeon super especially with their EMP. Two of them can indefinitely shut down a land factory.
I also believe that with proper bomber micro, you should be able to attack ground a raiding party out of the game. This remains to be seen, though, as it's hard to test by yourself. I would be up for testing this, though. Yes, attacking the units will not work, but the splash on the Aeon/Sera ones is pretty high.
I will agree that bombers themselves are not OP. I do believe, though, that bomber (or bombers) first has some untapped strength that has not yet been found.

Statistics: Posted by Gowerly — 28 Oct 2011, 10:30

Re: Idea: Make no changes to bombers

2011-10-28T04:58:43+02:00

uberge3k wrote:
I'll also reiterate that the top positions in the Leaderboards are not filled with scrubs who got there by doing nothing but going bomber first and enjoying the massive advantage it supposedly grants.

There were never any scrubs who got to the top of the GPGnet ladder by spamming restorers, either, this arguments doesn't hold any water.

The rules of this forum clearly state that providing replays to back up your claims is mandatory. As such, I'm submitting the lack of replays showing bomber first's OPness as my evidence, and I welcome anyone's counter evidence. If no one can come up with such, then, as per the rules of this forum, I believe that bombers should not be modified.

Seems like you're dodging this rule too through your refusal to submit any replays showing that bombers rushes can be effectively countered.

Statistics: Posted by FunkOff — 28 Oct 2011, 04:58

Re: Idea: Make no changes to bombers

2011-10-28T00:40:36+02:00

Since we seem to be getting into the "endlessly debate semantics for over 9000 pages while carefully dancing around the cold, hard facts which we can't argue with" phase of a typical balance discussion, I'll reiterate what I believe to be the most important point:

There is currently no evidence whatsoever that bomber-first, or bombers in general, are OP.

I'll reiterate once more that Pilot had "bomber frenzy" week for the specific purpose to see if bomber first was as OP as some claimed. Two (?) replays were submitted.

I'll also reiterate that the top positions in the Leaderboards are not filled with scrubs who got there by doing nothing but going bomber first and enjoying the massive advantage it supposedly grants.

The rules of this forum clearly state that providing replays to back up your claims is mandatory. As such, I'm submitting the lack of replays showing bomber first's OPness as my evidence, and I welcome anyone's counter evidence. If no one can come up with such, then, as per the rules of this forum, I believe that bombers should not be modified.

Statistics: Posted by uberge3k — 28 Oct 2011, 00:40

Re: Idea: Make no changes to bombers

2011-10-28T00:32:39+02:00

FunkOff wrote:
uberge3k wrote:How else can you easily queue attacks for the bombers? If you take away their radar, if I go air first I'll just attack-ground on the first pass where I know your stuff is likely to be - it will make bombers marginally less effective, but add a whole new layer of micro on top of them for no reason other than to discourage bombers being used for their intended purpose: bombing things.

You could say that about any unit.... how can you que its attacks without radar?

Land units will shoot at anything on their way to a waypoint. Bombers, due to the physics of their bombs, need to see in advance what their target is so they can be aligned with a fair degree of accuracy to drop their bombs so they will hit their destination.

FunkOff wrote:
Also, you would not be able to consistently kill engineers or even power generators by blindly attacking ground.

Why not? I know what the typical BO for all the ranked maps is. I can therefore predict with a fair amount of accuracy where your factory will go, and therefore where the likely locations for pgens are. Would it be 100% accurate? No. But it would be enough that if bomber-first really was so incredibly OP it would still be feasible to do.

Frankly, all this would do is add a stochastic quality to bomber-first, which is ludicrous considering that it is already a high-risk proposition to begin with.

FunkOff wrote:
Further, your last point about radar making bombers good for bombing things could also apply to mobile artillery and tactical missile launchers: Do you think these should also have radar so they are more effective at bombing/shooting things without any support units? If you think artillery should require stationary radar or scouts, then so should bombers.

In that case, artillery and MMLs should fly, as that would make about as much sense as your statement. Once again, artillery and MMLs can quickly switch targets during their travels to a waypoint - bombers need a target in advance in order to drop their payload.

FunkOff wrote:
uberge3k wrote:Comparing intel to AA is madness. Radar does not shoot.

Fine, then give tanks stealth.

Because comparing a feature not even seen on normal units until the experimental stage to cheap and highly spammable radar providing units is a totally logical and rational way to debate a topic.

So the next step should be to remove radar from frigates as well? And every other unit which has radar functionality yet doesn't have "scout" in it's name, because that seems to be a new requirement?

uberge3k wrote:

Gowerly wrote:raiding parties die to your ACU going out early to protect your expansion and you have little to no way to discern whether your raiding party will die to it or not. I've yet to see a flying bomber killed by an ACU outside of the opening movie.

Gowerly wrote:
uberge3k wrote:Your ACU can only be one place at a time, and can only protect your very first expansions. Even on the smallest, easiest-to-protect map such as Theta, you're still only protecting your first four mex's and a hydro. All the other expansions are open and ripe for the raiding - you simply cannot send engies out there until your land fac is up and you have units of your own to protect them with. By that time you're assuredly behind.

There are a large number of 1v1 maps that are easier to defend than theta. I wouldn't put it in the top defendable maps.
- Winter Duel
- Finns
- Even Ambush Pass
Easier to control with your ACU than Theta.

Even then, 1 > 0. Your ACU can be at no places at once in the sky. I'm also pretty confident that bombers are faster than land units. if you find yourself raided (and it will be after your bomber is out, which slows raiding down), you can simply bomb the raiders.

WD is a terrible map which many think shouldn't be in the ladder.

The other examples make my point even better: you can only protect one side with your ACU. Raiders could be on either side. By the time your raiding party makes it to your enemy's side of the map, you will have shot down his bomber and he won't know where to send his ACU, giving you even odds to hit a juicy, undefended portion of his base and/or expansion.

I've yet to see a bomber successfully hit a raiding party. Even the most micro-allergic players know how to dance their LABs around - due to their quick speed, moving them out of the way of a bomber's bombs is trivial. At the very worst, you've diverted his bomber's attention away from your (allegedly) vulnerable engineers and pgens, letting you continue your BO unhindered and to begin pumping land units in the direction of his undefended expansions.

Statistics: Posted by uberge3k — 28 Oct 2011, 00:32

Re: Idea: Make no changes to bombers

2011-10-27T22:36:02+02:00

uberge3k wrote:
Gowerly wrote:raiding parties die to your ACU going out early to protect your expansion and you have little to no way to discern whether your raiding party will die to it or not. I've yet to see a flying bomber killed by an ACU outside of the opening movie.

Your ACU can only be one place at a time, and can only protect your very first expansions. Even on the smallest, easiest-to-protect map such as Theta, you're still only protecting your first four mex's and a hydro. All the other expansions are open and ripe for the raiding - you simply cannot send engies out there until your land fac is up and you have units of your own to protect them with. By that time you're assuredly behind.

There are a large number of 1v1 maps that are easier to defend than theta. I wouldn't put it in the top defendable maps.
- Winter Duel
- Finns
- Even Ambush Pass
Easier to control with your ACU than Theta.

Even then, 1 > 0. Your ACU can be at no places at once in the sky. I'm also pretty confident that bombers are faster than land units. if you find yourself raided (and it will be after your bomber is out, which slows raiding down), you can simply bomb the raiders.

Statistics: Posted by Gowerly — 27 Oct 2011, 22:36

Re: Idea: Make no changes to bombers

2011-10-27T22:17:53+02:00

uberge3k wrote:
How else can you easily queue attacks for the bombers? If you take away their radar, if I go air first I'll just attack-ground on the first pass where I know your stuff is likely to be - it will make bombers marginally less effective, but add a whole new layer of micro on top of them for no reason other than to discourage bombers being used for their intended purpose: bombing things.

You could say that about any unit.... how can you que its attacks without radar? Also, you would not be able to consistently kill engineers or even power generators by blindly attacking ground. Further, your last point about radar making bombers good for bombing things could also apply to mobile artillery and tactical missile launchers: Do you think these should also have radar so they are more effective at bombing/shooting things without any support units? If you think artillery should require stationary radar or scouts, then so should bombers.

Comparing intel to AA is madness. Radar does not shoot.

Fine, then give tanks stealth.

Statistics: Posted by FunkOff — 27 Oct 2011, 22:17

Re: Idea: Make no changes to bombers

2011-10-27T20:19:54+02:00

Pavese wrote:
If your bomber did any good, he sucessfully denied my expansion, forced me to cancel any raiding party i had queued to build at least 2 t1aa and by the time i recovered from this you have a landfab as well.

Early Land-raid is not nearly as effective as early bomber.

By the time the bomber gets there, you have at least one raiding party ready. If you don't want to cancel further queue'd units, make stationary T1 aa as I outlined above.

FunkOff wrote:
So why do bombers need radar? Bombers are the only mobile unit in the game that is not a ship and not a scout to have radar. Bomber should not have radar the same way tanks should not have AA.

How else can you easily queue attacks for the bombers? If you take away their radar, if I go air first I'll just attack-ground on the first pass where I know your stuff is likely to be - it will make bombers marginally less effective, but add a whole new layer of micro on top of them for no reason other than to discourage bombers being used for their intended purpose: bombing things.

Comparing intel to AA is madness. Radar does not shoot.

Gowerly wrote:
raiding parties die to your ACU going out early to protect your expansion and you have little to no way to discern whether your raiding party will die to it or not. I've yet to see a flying bomber killed by an ACU outside of the opening movie.

Your ACU can only be one place at a time, and can only protect your very first expansions. Even on the smallest, easiest-to-protect map such as Theta, you're still only protecting your first four mex's and a hydro. All the other expansions are open and ripe for the raiding - you simply cannot send engies out there until your land fac is up and you have units of your own to protect them with. By that time you're assuredly behind.

Statistics: Posted by uberge3k — 27 Oct 2011, 20:19

Re: Idea: Make no changes to bombers

2011-10-27T20:17:35+02:00

It's true that radar is a left-over of a failed attempt to fix bombers during FA-beta.

But that doesn't mean it's a good idea of removing it.

Even I'm more inclined towards the removal of it, this has to be tested extensively

Statistics: Posted by Ze_PilOt — 27 Oct 2011, 20:17

Re: Idea: Make no changes to bombers

2011-10-27T18:54:09+02:00

raiding parties die to your ACU going out early to protect your expansion and you have little to no way to discern whether your raiding party will die to it or not. I've yet to see a flying bomber killed by an ACU outside of the opening movie.

Statistics: Posted by Gowerly — 27 Oct 2011, 18:54