#SPAM is way too OP

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

visual cove
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So I was watching a FFA game which highlighted this, and its time imo it got a handle on it.

Grumpy being attacked by two skilled players (one TS 48 to give an indication), with varyed t2 armyies both coming at Grumpy from two seperate directions

Grumpy, has 3 kbot labs and 34 nanos, spamming them
that was enough to completely stall the attacks for both
and actually cause resteat, while he then moved to unit creation.

He had very little unit army and certainly nothing to match what was coming at hi,

The cost of those 3 labs is 'tiny' in comparison
Thats zero skill in my book

Fleas are a highly skilled unit in early game, and warrent their inclusion, but aimlessly spamming them on mass hurts true gameplay.

Ive also suggested when you hit certain tech levels (e.g. t2) or eco levels (at a level) they start to get restricted to stop this type of play.

Ive just used this game as an example but its so common now.

hasty rivet
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The best counter is to Juno the labs or the area. Or bring jags and micro / sumo / mammoth

ornate prairie
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razorback

visual cove
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Juno is useless, when you spamming at that level on a 'non bottleneck map' you just go around.

hasty rivet
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You can destroy their radar/jamming at the same time ig. Juno is a global ability it's not useless in 8v8.
In a open map mm

ornate prairie
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dragon or stiletto also decent for stopping spam in a pinch

visual cove
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Razorbacks works, but the game was at t2

Jags while effective were losing to that amount of spam. Sam for Sumo - at a eco cost level - its hugely different

The Juno comment was in a FFA context

hasty rivet
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You have to position them so they don't face tank. Repair is also very valuables

visual cove
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The main issue here is lack of skill to execute and the huge disparity on the cost difference. They are so cheap compared to all examples given

hasty rivet
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Yeah spam cripples a fair bit of units

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LLT? pop up turrets

visual cove
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Also, for Junos, even if they are effective, you move to PeeWees or AKs, and again it cripples skilled approaches and either stalls them massively or more commonly overcomes them

This is all on top of it looks bad, lags servers and is warming the planet (via Hot CPUS!)

They very very easily over come LLTs, pop up turrets. 30 fleas easily destorys a t2 pop up

hasty rivet
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Dragon breath. Pawns are pretty expensive to spam and less vision. If they had eco to do that you prolly already behind somewhere

visual cove
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defence always loses in general....
It hurts good attacks

zinc ruin
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t2 porc is bad against spam. t1 porc isn't though.

another anti-spam thing is pounder.

hasty rivet
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Tanky units + jag

visual cove
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Chrono, the last game players on both sides had many many t2 tanks and didnt stand a chance at all. We are talking 15+ for each player

hasty rivet
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I think it's a bit op cause how it fks with unit targeting and most units aren't good against spam. T2 tanks are bad against spam. They are fine but not effective. Tho they can kill pawns fine

visual cove
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you think how many units are completly kills by flea spam, its huge

  • t2 tanks, all
  • t1 tanks, plasma based
  • any plasma unit pretty much
  • lightening units are better, but the spam will pass them

Remember even if you had a wall of razorbacks, the spammer just needs to redirect they spam flow and your chasing the game.

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also consider you dont just kills things, you get radar, line of sight

all of this at extreme low cost.....
Why make a sonar plane, just spam
why make cloaked units, just spam

hasty rivet
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I do think whatever 8v8 side ecos into spam first has a large advantage. Infinite vision

visual cove
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agree - worse in ffa

hasty rivet
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they could increase scout metal cost by 30%. that would put an easy damper to massing

empty needle
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There are a lot of pieces to the puzzle of why spam is strong, and it's very difficult to account for all of them in a way that wouldn't damage the health of the game

hasty rivet
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their 17 metal cost is why they are so cheap

empty needle
hasty rivet
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uh why? if you are just making 5 scouts at start of the game it doesn't matter that much

zinc ruin
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you can fight grunts with ticks. you usually make more than 5 in that case

hasty rivet
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using ticks to mop up grunts?
seems like tick role creep

  1. units can selectively ignore scout / t1
  2. 600 los on a 17 metal unit, wtf man
  3. most units are bad at killing ticks, even friendly fire

eco is already strong play in 8v8 frontline, a bit risky to punish, eco--> spam is even safer and little counterplay, you just instantly lose the vision game

empty needle
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1v1 is a constant game of harass and fights of small unit numbers. Often games don't progress to building units more expensive than pawns because of the necessary mobility.

hasty rivet
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yeah i know
but you should just be killing grunts with pawns instead right?

just ticks. can even buff their hp in return (lol fake buff)

empty needle
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Also, +30% price on rovers would be absurd

hasty rivet
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rover spam is just tick spam but twice as expensive
ticks already are kinda pushed cause their atk dmg is significant for a scout

empty needle
hasty rivet
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isn't the answer the tic is pulling too much weight? making up for a disadvantaged t1 interaction?

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if its so good you are using it to mop up t1 core units
hell I'm down to rework it. I agree spam is having a negative impact on game interactions and the difficultly to execute / deal with is way different
Arm veh at t2 I'm building a tick/laz lab every game

empty needle
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I mean, if you want to rework the entire lab, sure. Ticks are kinda the point of arm t1 bot lab

past sky
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Do you have a replay?

hasty rivet
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maybe its worth going into tester and seeing what it takes to deal with spam. putting aside OP'ness first gotta improve your response

empty needle
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I mean, as t2 cor vehs, you kinda need a t1 botlab every game. Any problems with scouts also apply to grunts

hasty rivet
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grunts are significantly more expensive, are slower and easier to hit with plasma, and have less los

empty needle
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And yet still basically mandatory

hasty rivet
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i mean if you want to feed 70 metal a second sure

empty needle
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Point is, we could completely break the earlygame with a fix that still wouldn't change the necessity of spam at t2+

hasty rivet
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the most important change is making units able to ignore tiers selectively
ambas firing at scout spam lol
you could make core units (esp t2) have built in anti scout, (like small low dps point defense with very low range) or buff the anti spam options so they are more durable or slightly more range so they are easier to keep alive
I think even with targeting change tick is too cheap

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you say llts get overwhelmed, the point it to put your units in front of llt to tank for it
then it's cost effective. of course it's not gonna withstand grossly mass spam that's what dragon breath + units are for

empty needle
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You need a source of vision in t2. Radar vehs are pretty much your only same-lab alternative for veh labs, and those can be...iffy

hasty rivet
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nothing wrong with radar bots besides speed ig. 900 los is nothing to scoff at

visual cove
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ok, so i just trolled basically on a FFA game, throne. The player next to me is a high TS player

All i made was wind, t1 eco and ticks.

I killed his base

He had two spots, ALOT of t2, afus, and i still was holding him and dominating his actions...

If that doesnt say it all, what does?

empty needle
hasty rivet
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keep a second one behind the army. you get juno'd you replace it. ofc tick spam outclasses that for its power but oh well

visual cove
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i did all of that with 5 t1 mexes, wind and t1 converters......

And i wasnt being super awesome with the ticks, just threw them at his base.

He knew what I was doing (I even told him) and still even tho he built units like people have suggested, he still couldnt keep me back for 30 mins, until eventually he overrun me

hasty rivet
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can you share the rep? ticks too damn cheap lol.
and it's very hard to defend a wide open map
speed op stat when 2/3 of the units in the game have dogeable projectile attacks

visual cove
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game is still in play

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The map was throne, so you cant really say thats a open map! I went through the outer bottleneck

Its silly and the main thing is, required zero skills.

If you want to watch now, you can, just join the FFA game (throne)

hasty rivet
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63 ffa os lol wtf. just suprised 60 os existed

visual cove
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what do you mean?

hasty rivet
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is it the game with flash?

visual cove
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yes - it is. Chistano was the player i will playing against, and he is like TS 40 on team games, to put it into perspective. No slouch. He is currently using the same units he was against me and winning vs flash

hasty rivet
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whats your ingame user?

visual cove
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Virtual P.. I was in south east. outer edge

hasty rivet
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  1. unit splash dmg (not sure if cortex is more weak to this). maybe gotta put you banisher on hold fire
  2. he didn't bring rez bot to repair
visual cove
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game time of 41 mins, trilos is spamming rydles base. Vs 7 pop ups, DDMs, and tanks, and just runs right on through......

And thats at the 41 minute time

hasty rivet
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their move speed being able to close the distance is pretty op. once they brought in welders they were okay
I mean we get it they are OP. but you have to look at it analytically.

visual cove
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i was trolling, and i held him for like 25 mins. If i had played properly - then it was over.

Look at the 41st minute.. While he had snipers they were not actually needed the spam was enough. That verss significant defence and units at a late stage of game

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44th min, he spams middle, against a teired position of pop ups, no supporting units, job done.

empty needle
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Also semi-valuable side note which may not be 100% accurate: while cor t1 is extra strong in 1v1 for reasons partially specific to the mode, arm bots seem to be extra strong in ffa for a different set of reasons. It's either because of the number of options they have, the terrain of most ffa maps, or just people copying flash and his beloved sniper/welder

visual cove
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Im only referring to spam of any kinda. Arm ticks, or mass AKs. The effect is too powerful and its bad

hasty rivet
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i mean he was dividing his attention on 2 fronts. he had 2/3 of his army on top side
his base itself was wide open making it difficult to cover
you were putting most of your resource right. it's just ticks travel way faster than a regular army

visual cove
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he had more than enought to defend against mere t1 - but yet i still 'got his base'

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Surely you can see the power of this type of play, and how its incredably hard to defend against - no matter the situation.

Early game and late game. T1 all the way up to T3 - you just increase the numbers but the outcome is similar.

hasty rivet
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should have made welders instead of banisher/tiger
but yeah tick just ran through his army

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what am i looking for at 42 minutes?
welders good only problem they are so damn slow. jags good but made out of paper

visual cove
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net result. I caused massive damage trolling.
he could have done better, but even though he had many good units versus me, i was still cuasing huge damage.

With pretty much no eco
and no tech
and no skill

so, as per title, spam op

empty needle
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nobody will deny that spam is strong. The problem is never being able to get people to agree on what should be done, if anything

hasty rivet
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is there any another tick spam 35min +

visual cove
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something needs to be done, as FFA is broken to a point of unenjoyable play most of the time.

Trilos skills flash with spam up to 44th min

hasty rivet
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i think tick + sharpshooter is absolutely digusting
only way to beat sharpshooter at t2 is to fight the vision game, tic auto wins the vision game

visual cove
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spam kills TS63 player in late game....
do i need to make my point anymore?

Trilos is TS17 - just for perspective

At least when used with sharpshoot, there is skill, however most often, as per this game, the spam actually didnt need the sniper support

They killed easy base all on their own. Snipers just sped it up a little

hasty rivet
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trilos was higher eco then flash
about 20% more
t2 guass sucks against spam, need dragon maw

empty needle
visual cove
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Yes he was, but the way in which he killed flash was not via high units, or expensive play. It was by very very cheap spam - thats the key issue

hasty rivet
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  1. he was higher eco
  2. tick/pawn messed up unit firing ai (like vanguard)
  3. open ground makes it extremely hard to defend against t1
visual cove
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Silver Sol
For me limits on spam - which get more agressive the higher your tech level or eco/

But thats just my suggestion.

empty needle
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would be unintuitive, which game design team (GDT) is basically always opposed to. Often your spam is constantly dying as well, which makes the cap generally irrelevant unless it went down to a cap of like, 5 or 10

visual cove
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like it said, that was just my suggestion - not saying it was good, but would solve that issue.

What i am saying is, as it stands, the playing experience is bad

hasty rivet
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they are like cracklings in broodwar. most broken thing ever on open terrain
more speed / cheaper and less dmg then cracklings
i mean he also didn't scout green and was dealing with 2 other fronts

visual cove
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This FFA im talking about is one example. Litterally the game previous is another - thats 2 for 2. (as per orginaly post example)

Quite clearly this is not isloted to 'in this game it was cuase of....'

empty needle
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The counterarguments are generally that the videos which draw people into the game are often "giant battles with innumerable robots fighting each other", in addition to many players enjoying microing their spam. Clyret loves only-tick gameplay, and Raghna seems to love his only-grunt gameplay, and they're both 60+ players who didn't get there on the backs of those units

hasty rivet
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giant battles with cool units, not drowning in 5 fps gameplay with 1000 ticks on the screen
also ticks make a lot of units feel bad beacuse of targeting
okay just delete t2+ units except for t2 con, then you will have the most units. most epic right?

empty needle
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more expensive units=less units

visual cove
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BAR is good as its well balanced. This - for me - is an area of the game where the balance, as is, doesnt work.

empty needle
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There're also people who pump the spawns and income multipliers in pve up to absurd values, knowing they'll be playing a slideshow just so they can have 50 juggs on screen.

visual cove
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Silver, Sol are you suggesting spam should be left as is?

empty needle
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I'm not one of those people I listed, and personally would very much like scout spam to at the very least be optional rather than mandatory past the beginning of t2. However, there are many, many obstacles in the path to that

visual cove
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ITs more that people recognise there is an issue, the second part is to decide what to do about it.

empty needle
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pretty much everyone recognizes there is an issue. fairly certain there are 3+ threads about nerfing spam in #1047081727291559986 from the last few months each with >1k replies, and one of them was made by me

visual cove
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and what was the conclusion of those threads?

hasty rivet
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imo

  1. make units be able to selectively ignore targets by tier (toggle), and rebalance the starlight/sharpshooter around that
  2. slightly buff the versatility of anti spam units
  3. decrease some attribute of the tick and the strongest spam units

there's no reason why spam is neccesary. it would be very inelegant but you could make scouts unbuildable after 10 minutes into the game, and pawn/grunts after 20. the game would still function. spam has too many advantages:

  1. fucks up unit targeting on missile units
  2. instantly win the vision game)
  3. applies very fast travelling pressure that can raze weak points. often the units that can deal with spam travel much much slower
empty needle
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"this is really hard to figure out a proper solution to which doesn't do more harm than good, and which the majority of players agree on. Spam is necessary for 5+ entirely independent reasons and fixing them would each need to be addressed seperately"

visual cove
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imo, if you dont have a solution, you need to keep brainstorming or look at longer term fixes. Concluding there is an issue and giving up on it, cause a solution is hard - is pretty much like burying your head in the sand.

as more and more players understand its use, it will get worse and worse

empty needle
hasty rivet
empty needle
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so you need to make a more expensive wall of cameras/units or spam juno all over your base to properly reveal cloaked units?

zinc ruin
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i mean there is the ICS, doesnt that work a bit?

empty needle
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"a bit" is they key part of that phrase. spam is an order of magnitude easier to have present and ready to respond to the blips from it. also, doesn't help as much with screening for spybots near the frontline compared to just patrolling spam around

#

this is heavily compounded by spybots in particular being highly valuable partially for los even in the current state of the game, and making it more expensive to counter them will multiply that, as the los they provide will be drastically more valuable without scouts

hasty rivet
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use light mines. probably stealth detection will be meta in that case iuuno

#

it's kinda tangented off

empty needle
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Also a tangent, every time i make mines, i end up with enemy arty targetting my units while they're crossing said mines detonating them with aoe accidentally and making the mines end up killing me instead

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but any discussion of scout spam inherently tangents off because its effects reach far beyond the initial reasons people think of as to why scout spam is OP

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Usually it also starts discussions about ways to get rid of the need for master-band-aid-fix juno

swift willow
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I like soviet spam tactics as a viable strategic option. "Infantry" begs "spam me". Swarm the map. Overwhelm low rate-of-fire units. Etc.

Just need more counterplay options. The units that are supposed to deal with swarms seem to underperform. Infantry are nearly as cost/health efficient as medium tanks, so it's kinda hard to balance with single-target damage without your anti-spam becoming anti-tank. And right now Legion has a monopoly on lingering aoe (napalm).

devout zinc
late abyss
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Pounders, welders, sumos shreds through spam

hasty rivet
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welders and sumos are good but they still get vision (and you get artillered)
and they are very slow so they cannot respond to breaks in the line

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infinite vision. tick+mauser, tick+sharpshooter, so storng

spring_Q07FXwkMow.png
desert remnant
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That just calls for a juno

hasty rivet
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yeah then you redirect the ticks or pull them back

frank edge
hasty rivet
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yeah that interaction is kinda eh. you can keep a 2nd copy behind, or few scouts. juno is unlikely to be everywhere

late abyss
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In that case your problem is a unit combination and not spam

visual cove
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@late abyss @devout zinc

Summary Post:

Jalleo - yes it was that one (the orginal example)
The chat referrs to another: https://bar-rts.com/replays/b82307653fe9db13f34c0d333f8c4029

I want to be clear - about what this is all about.

SPAM For me is problem

While arguments for 'use this/combination of units to combat it hold some weight, they all fail

  • They don't actually stop the spam and/or merely control it at huge cost
  • The spammer can easily redirect the flow and the defender of the spam cant keep up (@perfi the Juno is a classic example of this - the only exception being is the map has a natural bottleneck/funnel or move to AK/PeeWee spam)
  • The spammer can lock up the defender in micro-ing - meaning they will have no capacity to manage other aspects of their game (@sabutai the two games linked are an example of this, Flash couldnt cope and did have good unit combination)

The major part of this issue, is while one player is nicely playing the game with skilled and varied units, exploring the qualities of the game - the spammer is just piling out thousands of the same unit, with great success, no real skill in that, and renders all the wonderful work on units and their balance

And finally, SPAMing is very very cheap - from a eco perspective. Meaning the eco required to build a suitable set of units to combat spam is massively more expensive that the eco required to spam. The spam is also progressive (you can spam quickly) where are building up a suitable army to defend it takes alot longer (as the spammer can redirect away from a army which is too small to cope with it)

I understand that the solution might not be easy to come by, but leaving it is potentially a worse option.

hasty rivet
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even juno on facts can be mitigated by spreading out your facs (tho tedious)

devout zinc
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I have had two ideas which are creating two new resources for specific management of this issue and the exponential growth to decrease the speed that can scape at. I will probably want to hold off on it for a little bit to condense it down from random thoughts. (One of these is taken from stellaris with its softcap of units making all of them more energy intensive upkeep after that. Think of overclocking to keep up with it)

zinc ruin
frank edge
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assuming you have no Con turrets in range that will just eat them before you can rez them

native tapir
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@empty needle "The counterarguments are generally that the videos which draw people into the game are often "giant battles with innumerable robots fighting each other", in addition to many players enjoying microing their spam."
True, this is one of the biggest bullshit arguments and a few people here -who maybe suffer from some form of organizational blindness effect- repeat it in several "suggestions" topics instead of delivering real arguments (you can already have big armies only with mexes -depending on the map- and with 2-3 AFUS you can already pump a lot).

In the end this often leads to a 1) loop of do we have an issue or not, 2) possible solutions get overlooked since the topics are often rotating back to 1) "do we have an issue or not". Thus, not solving some more or less obvious issues at hand (maybe even for years).

I barely know anyone ingame, who does not see spam as an issue (also problematic for cortex, since they cannot spam so cheap). It is just a stupid mechanic barely requiring any micro, except redirecting vs juno. Same goes for exponential scaling.

The few people arguing against it are often high OS (and overrepresented here in Discord) and play nearly exclusively in high OS lobbys with constant pressure from all players - which is a totally different situation than in the average BAR game (and even in high OS lobbys u see MBT sometimes stomping and spamming with 6-9x AFUS).

Imo this game is really great with the big exception of all the spam mechanics later in the game - highly correlated also with the economic scaling.

empty needle
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Honestly, in-game, I can't remember the last time i saw someone comment on spam aside from just informing the team with a ping "spam is coming from here". I genuinely have no idea whether the average player considers it a problem because there seems to be an acceptance of the state of spam, whether or not people like it. Maybe it's just the lobbies I play in? I only see discussion of the effectiveness of it in discord conversations which are largely (but not always) in opposition to spam. Meanwhile Emp bombers get complained about nearly every match in pro lobby if they're not outright banned. I assume the majority of players aren't fans of the necessity of it, but it's only an assumption.

Not to say more steps wouldn't be nice, but we at least got the grunt/pawn/tick nerf in april to raise tick price up from 15->17, and multiple units have gotten their anti-spam abilities buffed since then, so at least the price+efficiency of counters are in a much better state than they were at the beginnning of this year

tight arch
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yeah there have been a whole bunch of very good anti spam general changes, and I think it's fine these days. I have been a huge proponent of nerfing spam basically since I started playing, and I tihnk it has been settled very nicely without a ton of specifically balance changes, but stuff like better target prediction, faster reaiming, removing miss chance, and then there were also the infantry nerfs.

at this point I often like it when my opponents start spamming because it's pretty easy to economically outplay during normal stages of the game, pre multiple afus eco. In other words, I think spam is costed correctly these days, and it's no longer exceptionally cheap for the utility it provides, but it's still strong provided the spammer knows what they're doing

Still sucks late game when it bogs down the simulation, but that's just how it goes

native tapir
# empty needle Honestly, in-game, I can't remember the last time i saw someone comment on spam ...

Yeah, it became more or less accepted. Except if one team does not spam or does not spam enough, ppl first ask nicely and then start raging if the backline or whoever is not spamming at all or not at a similar amount compared to the opponents.
Imo this spam mechanic mostly causes a lot of unnecessary fps drops (personally I also start the spam already on t2 since it is so op) in lategame, but it is also a very good way to counter snipers, ambas etc. (without aimbot widget).

I think in the end tick spam is not a very attractive feature of this game, on the other hand I also do not know what would be the best and easiest solution for that (since besides 8vs8 balance also 1vs1 would be affected).

And yeah emp bombers kinda magnify the turtling and sim city issue.

peak reef
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I'd also say that it isn't cheap either. Once junos hit the field, especially if scouted, your labs are going to be chain junoed, forcing you to drop the extra money on pawns/grunts, which is a lot more metal and hurts scaling.

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With that said, core vehicles do struggle with it more than anything else, imo. Because they don't have a great mobile counter.

late abyss
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Spam is an inherent part of the game due to the exponential economy. It’s good that t1 units are still somewhat useful late game. Also sending air scout is much better for vision than ground scouts

swift willow
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The one-tick-trickle fks with my Banishers so much. T-T

visual cove
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the two examples i gave differ from those opinions
spam WON the game

past sky
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Can you post replay links

visual cove
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@late abyss it would be great that t1 units are used all game. But they are not in most cases, they are just spammed to death as an effective strat - not 'used with skill or for that units ability'

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@peak reef You need to look at some replays provided - spam was used independant of units, or with limited other units.

I also trolled a game to prove that point. See earlier discussions

@native tapir if its accepted - then great - but does that mean its a good thing? You are right if your team has no spam, your at a disadvantage.

Please all, do no confuse SPAM with using T1 units well. Spam is litterally throwing units out and having them 'pound' in - without skill or microing

late abyss
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Any unit can be spammed with sufficient eco. It takes skill to survive as long to get that kind of spam going

visual cove
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@late abyss i agree. The difference is, as ive outlined, t1 spam can be op effective with very little eco - in a dipropionate way.

If you want to win with SPAM thats fine, but it should have a downside. Right now, its SOOOOO cheap compared to othe strats you have to do it. FFA esp , but also in team games.

late abyss
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Spam in itself only plays a significant role on big open maps where you need many units to cover the ground. And that’s alright

visual cove
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@late abyss in the last 6 FFA games I have played, the winner has always spammed hard

big maps, small maps, all maps
vs noobs and pros

Surely you can see how powerful aimless spam is, and hows it virtually impossible to counter

late abyss
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Aimless spam only beats unprepared or new players

visual cove
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@late abyss So your facing spam of 2 labs of ticks, the map is fairly open (e.g. not a huge bottleneck type) - how do you counter it?

late abyss
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Grunts or pawns

visual cove
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no chance, the ticks would go right through it. and if they didnt they outrun it via a different route. PeeWees esp fail against ticks

late abyss
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Pawns are even better against ticks than grunts because of the dps. Metal for metal the pawns do their name honour

visual cove
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2 labs of ticks and im sorry you would not counter with that. Move them around them, they cant get even close to keeping pace - so uncless you have a 'very very large number' your struggling.

You would certainly have to keep you eye on it alot.

The cost of your grunts and pawns would be massive compared to cost of spam

peak reef
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What?

late abyss
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What? Lmao 3 ticks is about one pawn. They certainly kill that many

visual cove
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if they can get to them yes, but the key is you need enough....

Example screen shot of a live game right now.

If blue spams ticks right now, even in a 'closed corner' how many pawns would you need.....

Blue has 4 major routes to spam - over southern hill, teh valley, the flat and the top hill

I think you would need in the region of 30....

image.png
late abyss
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Hey if you’re have 2 labs of ticks you should compare that to 2 labs of pawns by the way. And yes I have played many times vs fonzie who is the player spamming them the most. I know what I am talking about

hasty rivet
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Open base is one of the hard times to defend it, you have to scout + radar know how much is coming

peak reef
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Also if you sit back afk and apply zero pressure, you are easier to attack from a bunch of different angles.

late abyss
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Build walls if you can’t defend several routes. Also you should make the ticks follow you because you should be the one applying pressure

visual cove
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@late abyss your a great player no doubt.
So this live game right now, there has been pretty much zero tick usage, at early stage

want to wager how much spam will be used t2/t3 stage?

So say your right, you can build enough pawns to cope, and walls and etc etc

You - the defender have a lot of work and microing to do, compared to attacker who

  • presses repeat
  • clicks tick
  • sets direction

and alters from time to time.....

hasty rivet
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You can't make ticks follow you unless you already have a more deadly attack then running into your base. Walls are good. Ticks generally can't shoot llt behind wall

red ridge
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t1 spam feels like hot garbage to play with. It's the least attractive part of the game to me, but it's a necessity to use in so many scenarios.
Of everything in the game right now, every single thing, if I could balance it to remove one element or severely tune it down to be a niche tactic, it would be t1 spam. It's uninteresting and dull, not too mention just clogging up maps, clogging up fps, etc. etc.

hasty rivet
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When you are eco ahead you can just spam ticks, brain dead way to play (relatively)

#

The vision if nothing else is op

visual cove
#

Live game, this

is very effectively helps to stall all of that..

image.png image.png
hasty rivet
#

Imo give med tanks a short range light point defense and make anti swarm units even better. Add short light point defense to jag and pounder, and some t2 unit. So core units aren't embarrassing against tick spam

#

A med tank literally cannot touch scout units

red ridge
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I think the ways you see it suggested to be used shows the problem . Opponent using a strong composition, that mixes hard hitters with frontline meat, mixing in jammers and radar units and spy bots? Seems like the ideal expression of unit control. Yeah okay well here's a good counter: spam 1. Yes that's right. Don't think of a multi unit counter composition. Banishers? Spam t1. Starlights? Spam t1. Sharpshooters? Spam t1. Catapults? Spam t1. How can this always be the answer? And I'm not talking unsupported units. You see the wall of units counters all cloaked units and spy bots, since they will get bumped and who cares if they EMP your spam. Commanders? Good luck buddy, you are dgunning trash. Radar and jammer bots? Well who cares, all they can see now is t1 trash, and they are so fragile and slow, your t1 will kill them or your enemies friendly fire will. Sharpshooters and stralights of course get clogged getting nothing done, the tigers can't kill spam fast enough while the banishers kill their friends, but even with hold fire that just means the spam gets past. Welders are great except they are slow, and bulls perform the best, but are damn expensive and sometimes even they don't keep up, still need to micro them.
Armada has the one unit that really gets the job done, which is Razorbacks. Damn Razorbacks are so nice. Of course, if they spam, and you don't, your razorback will die to their hard hitters, but hey, at least they are one of the strongest t3 units in the game in some ways because they can actually infinitely counter spam.
The height of tactics and unit control, just make a unending line of units walking straight to their death. And it's risk free. Why risk t2 units and t3 units that will leave juicy wrecks for the enemy to eat or rez when you can risk free spam?
Usually this is a special trait for a unit (see fiends) but for t1 spam, you now have zero consequences, unlike just about everything else which punishes you for launching poor attacks.

visual cove
#

and there it is summed up nicely

Play the game well, craft your collections of units, micro them and you should be super effective.

SPAM crap, and your just as effective. Often for less Eco.

I would rather watch @late abyss, Flash etc and others nail an enemy through great gameplay by knowing the units and making them sing.

Aimless spam is op, boring and just nasty

hasty rivet
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there's ways to mitigate spam but they require specific units or good wall + llt and they have to be done for each area.
anti spam units have their own issues like jag being fragile and easy to get popped by collateral dmg and welder being very slow
yeah the welder kills the spam but you still get shelled by artillery. the moment the player loses their anti spam unit well just collapse the spam on them, that push is dead

#

best way to reveal commander? spam spam spam. they could make taking 5% or more of unit hp in dmg decloak units for 3 seconds, maybe. so you can blind fire to reveal commander

native tapir
# visual cove <@218021835713937408> You need to look at some replays provided - spam was used ...

Nope, I dont think it is a good thing - imo it should be changed. EMP bombers are ofc more complained about, bc u see the direct impact of them by for instance single-handedly stopping the memerauderpush - while spam is rather slightly pushing the enemy back and giving vision advantage (with supporting units behind). Few players using them ofc also primarily as assault units. Both is kinda too easy.

I usually even start a small spam on t2 after upgrading some mexes. Ticks are so cheap that it s rather easily possible.
It is pretty much the easiest no brain tool against a lot of things. When I see 2 ppl in front falling I start spamming ticks and often u can slow down the push significantly - since a lot of units like snipers, starlights, banishers etc. are not hitting the right targets anymore or artillery even starts to hit the own units.

thick gazelle
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The real issue with spam is that the best way to counter it is to spam yourself, there’s toolittle units that could just trade effectively against it.

hasty rivet
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not many units can kill spam at medium range. (think a light laser with 400 range)
llt is probably the best unit as they are so cheap
notably llt is better than beamer since they both get one shot by many heavy abilities, and tanks maybe over kill llts

zinc ruin
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Twin Guard is probably slightly better than two LLTs right next to each other, since the upper turret has more range. They also are set up specifically to have different target priorities (based on range), so less time wasted targeting the same spam-unit.

tight arch
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dllt and beamer absolutely obliterate spam on defense, just need a little backup from nanos to keep them from being attritioned

on offense tigers actually do rather well into spam until there's like, an afus worth of eco dedicated to spamming. welders, mammoths, and sumos are the best other lab options, but yeah they're slow and have some problems from that

i actually think arm veh is the worse lab into spam

thick gazelle
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I mean i think Juno’s ability to kill ticks was a step in good direction, perhaps it would be enough to just make it damage over time so it would damage other units aswell. The other way is to add something razorbackish to t2 perhaps

hasty rivet
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juno's already quite good, putting the spam kiling ability on a global is kinda eh design

thick gazelle
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It’s balancing between putting a strain on graphics&coders to add new units and impact. I mean ehh spam is just a boring mechanic and anything that makes it go away is nice imo

red ridge
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All actual units leave wrecks now (not buildings), no overkilling 🤔

hasty rivet
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they could give some core t2 units and specialized anti swarm units short range point defense
im not sure if that's the best permannet solution but it does directly solve an feels bad moment, where core units are pretty terrible at killing ticks near them
even the jag doesn't do that well against tick trickle or spread out ones

red ridge
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I bet the heat tiger would be pretty great, especially now that t2 units don't have the inaccuracy on lasers anymore

hasty rivet
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not a fast or strong laser, just so that 10 med tanks don't struggle to kill 10 ticks trying to run by
can make the range like 140, dps low, so it hardly matters for other unit interactions

hushed sapphire
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I've only played against spam on 8v8, and to me it feels like a skill check. Yes, it is quite useful, but if the opponent responds and adjusts to it (like with anything) it isn't that scary. I haven't even tried using Juno yet, Fiends, Pounders and Dragon Maws and even AoE big hitters like the Tzars with careful attack placement have held indefinitely for me.

Dragon Maws just delete any ticks coming their way, if I can't rely on statics, Fiends do the same thing with great speed to match ticks.

Pounders have AoE knockback-stun and they one shot ticks, though as they're very slow and vulnerable to being ran around not ideal for big open areas with many routes.

One time I made a bunch of Tzars and was massing Tigers in the back preparing for a big push, I set the Tzars in a concave formation and ordered them to fire on the tick stream and really nothing except T3 or artillery threat was getting through that area.

Others mentioned Sumo, they are amazing at forming defensive lines as well.

hasty rivet
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it's the vision too you can see exactly how many units they have and where

late abyss
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That’s what scouts are for

indigo vine
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I think the issue is also the units behind the spam. Since so much of the late T2 stage depends on the intel game, with units instantly dying to snipers/starlights/arty as soon as they’re spotted, winning the intel game is very important. You could do that with a careful combination of jammers for defense and radar installations, cameras, and spy bots for scouting, or you could just spam ticks, which not only has all the benefits people have already mentioned like messing with enemy unit targeting, being able to destroy an entire base if a few get through because of how fragile eco is, and being a surprisingly effective combat unit per cost, but also get you vision of the entire map and basically turn off enemy vision unless they tickspam back. Even frontline assault units have vision ranges less than their weapon range for some reason, so having vision or radar is hugely important. The issue is that tickspam covers your entire screen with radar signatures, making radar effectively useless. Even if your units would prioritize higher-value targets in vision range, think about how often you’re firing artillery or even normal units at radar dots, and now you just have to guess which ones are ticks and which ones are Catapults. At a minimum it places a huge micro burden on the player to spot out the slower-moving radar dots and manually target them, while the tickspam player just has to issue a few fight commands and a factory rally point. All of the anti-spam options mentioned except the Juno have less range than the tick has vision, meaning that while the units will stop the river of ticks, the unassailable squad of Mausers, Starlights, Sharpshooters, or Vanguards behind the tickspam will effortlessly dismantle whatever defenses you may have made and then the tickspam can keep running by.

Basically the counters to spam are themselves very easily countered by the spam player

hasty rivet
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forgot who mentioned it but PSA: when you do attack-move units will always fire at the closest target, but if you do idle or move, they will prioritize higher value targets. pulsar also simply won't shoot at ticks

#

mausers seem to target tier 2/3 evenly, starlights will prioritize tier 3. so there is a prioritization

late abyss
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Higher value units are prioritised

tight arch
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It has something to do with metal/hp ratio or something similar, things with higher metal/hp get targeted first (by all units)

btw repair priority works the same I think