Commando buff

[wild pond]

Since the heavy transport can no longer carry 4 of them the commando has started to feel completely worthless. It's too expensive to put it in danger and it's too weak to attack most valuable targets. Can't the heavy transport get it's ability back to carry 4 of them? It at least allowed for a lot of mobility other advanced bots didn't have.

[thorn pulsar]

i don't think 4 commandos will do much more than 1

the real way to use commandos is offensive mine laying in the enemy base to blow up buildings

and 1 can do that just fine, and that's always been the way commandos were used

[wise otter]

do u rly want to put commandos in heavy transports to begin with?

[amber crown]

One can't build a mine faster than a con turret can reclaim it.

[thorn pulsar]

except the con turret is probably busy trying to reclaim the commando, and this is where the commando's gun comes in

[glossy imp]

commando needs at least 80% emp resist

enemy builds a commando, you just build an air lab IN RESPONSE
and make the shruiken, and you're fine

[silk wing]

Commando needs integrated AA

[wise otter]

commando doesn't need inregrated AA imo

kinda like tremor (but not nearly as bad) having a 'good' commando is bad gameplay

cuz of how much value they can get in base laying mines by eco, if they had even a little AA

[verbal yoke]

Remove the mines yes pls also emp resist and AA yes

[wild pond]

How?

[wild pond]

I usually find a shruiken not needed. Just a few T1 units can take it out with ease.
BTW: I still do struggle getting use out of shruiken. It's just so hard to use in the chaos of battle since you need them and also a unit that can do damage. But I do think EMP resistence could be a good thing though I do feel a commando unit should have some ability to interfere with the base though I can't find mines in their build. But it's something they should have, they are for commando raids, not for front line battle.

[wild pond]

I don't know what does and doesn't count as "good".

[wise otter]

its mostly vibes based on whether it would be fun to play against or not

tremor very unfun to play against, and commando running around ur base shooting down shuriken and laying mines by ur bp and eco is also similarly unfun

at present its rare that a commando gets value and when it happens you are mostly just left impressed because of the skill generally required

but if it becomes a 1-person anti-backline unit with AA that doesn't die when it's transport is shot down, has built in radar jammer, and can 2-shot a fusion with mines thats not rly fun

particularly because there is no Arm equivalent and the Cor botlab is presently very very good

[astral hawk]

Emp resist when

[wise otter]

there used to be some dude called Juzer that would make tweakdefs in his high skilled Supreme Strait lobby to buff commando with things like emp resist, or add the ability to make nettles

nobody really liked it other than him and it never caught on

[astral hawk]

It's completely fair that gunships gank the commando, but a half dozen shuri can shut down a commando

[wise otter]

u only need 2 shuirken to stun a commando instantly

[astral hawk]

I think it can make thistles atm

[astral hawk]

Oh rip

[wise otter]

i didn't think adding nettles passed the Juzer tweak and made it into the game maybe that tweak is still going around?

[astral hawk]

Now I am genuinely unsure

[wise otter]

twitcher can make aa maybe thats wat ur thinking of?

the main reason I'm personally against commando having any sort of AA is I think units should have clear counters to them and adding the ability to hard-counter your own counter with AA or nettle makes them somewhat un-counterable
none of that is meant in absolute terms, LLTs will still kill commandos for example, although commandos are very fast and can just run to where LLTs are not but in loose terms counter just means u can stop a unit with less resource investment than the unit itsself costs

[thorn pulsar]

the hard counter to commando is forward AA

if it needs to walk it's dead

[austere seal]

But, but . . . "Commando" implies badass implies can take any threat and chew bubblegum

[silk wing]

shuriken is too op a counter, too fast

rushing t1 units is an accpetable counter

[wise otter]

its completely acceptable because flying commandos don't die to figs

[wild pond]

I think increasing their price and giving them very weak AA and high resistence to EMP can be worth trying. That they can serve as a way to punish players who rely too heavily on Shurikens alone and doesn't invest enough in forward AA.
That being said I can also see how it would be very stressful since that means you have to have defenses everywhere and nowhere is safe.

[silk wing]

imo commando is a way to punish sim city people who don't have a factory

[thorn pulsar]

you don't need defenses everywhere, even a light fighter wall is enough

my issue is that it punishes the same thing that bombers punish but worse

[wild pond]

True and maybe commando's don't fit BAR all that well. It stands out because it has relatively little micromanagement involved

[wise otter]

bad commando = good gameplay

they basically have to be ultra niche because there is no Arm counterpart

[austere seal]

If the unit is objectively bad regardless of how much apm you have, there's no reason to have it in the game.

I much prefer the logic of,
"It's not op if everything is op."
than,
"It's balanced if everything is mediocre."

[wise otter]

i basically mean ultra niche by bad

[vapid jay]

I've get the best idea. I think you will all agree. Let commandos capture like a commander.

[astral hawk]

Honestly I think that would be fine

[silk wing]

That would be hilarious and either a marginal buff or a useful ability

[glossy imp]

ahem the shruiken
don't see that being ultra niche

what about the tick? ultra niche?

When the unit that instantly shuts down a commando is:
-cheaper than the commando, so much so it's still cheaper if you include the cost of the entire t1 air lab
-can fly anywhere on your side of the map, far faster than a commando
-can be built fast enough on response (no scouting) that you don't take significant damage

commando is not niche, it's useless

and if you say, just get air control. If you have aircontrol over their base, why don't you just make 3 gunships

[silk wing]

• only 1 APM fight command needed

[glossy imp]

replace "commando" with any other existing unit (bombers, raiders, nukes, gremlin, gunship) and compare

[silk wing]

Platy

Platy does similar stuff and is much better

*did I play too much isthmus

[glossy imp]

if only geo sea/pond had an extra path to the sea

plats are suuuuper good on failed negotiations

[silk wing]

Gremlins also need 30 APM, have little dps, but have one fifth cost and actually work

[glossy imp]

gremlins extremely good

[silk wing]

Extremely dumb idea

Commandoes cloak when stationary

[glossy imp]

-not that expensive
-can do a lot of dmg, or at least disrupt bp
-at higher os, perma scout alone is insane. it is so much better than a scout every 3-4 minutes

[silk wing]

Honestly

With such an expensive unit

The commando deserves 1 more OP feature

[glossy imp]

expensive single units are hard to balance in BAR, they have a tendency to get countered by emp/abductor or spam

commando is meant to be a micro heavy unit, not purely reliant on the surprise factor (like X bombers)

what if commando takes reduced dmg from it's mines, and recieves much more impulse from it

so you can send your commando flying 1/4 screen with your mine

giving it an escape vs spam

basically reaper mine for the commando

you can catapult your comando part way up a cliff to save it from spam

then build a transport to get out mb xD

reaper+mine is a proven high-skill cieling design from sc2

[wise otter]

Well Cortex has their rover but I agree shuriken is busted

That’s more of a shuriken issue than a commando issue imo

[cursive halo]

no because the concept is cancer

its good that its "off meta"

just like skuttles, theyre worth when youre really good and investing lots of micro and thats enough for that kind of unit

either you balance it by the highest skilled players or you balance it for average players in wich case it becomes Op at the highest skill

[wild pond]

Maybe just cut them cause they do kinda conflict with the game design which focuses more on efficiency and land control than micromanagement.

[glossy imp]

It is sort of a shruiken thing, ez fix just give commando emp immunity

[wise otter]

actually why not just make commando a bit cheaper?

and keep it very mid

it's not like more commandos would suddenly be game breaking

[cursive halo]

quicker commando could be gamebreaking tho

as in appears earlier

kind of like a rushed gunslinger

[glossy imp]

i prefer quality unit that actually does its role
garbage low commitment unit is how you get spam

[astral hawk]

Commandos have one health but are as cheap as pawns

[thorn pulsar]

commandos have the health of a behemoth and act like a mecha tengu from red alert 3 but you need a dedicated tier 4 lab for them

[ancient zephyr]

I tried to do a sneaky play last night with a few commandos going through the water and found out the jammer doesn't even work underwater as they saw me coming and killed me. I was very disappointed. Why does the jammer not work underwater?

[verbal yoke]

Sonar maybe?

[ancient zephyr]

yeah, I think so, it jams radar but not sonar

which means the jammer is useless when they're in the water

[grand ibex]

The ideal way is to airdrop them, preferably thru an area with no enemy vision. If i recall correctly, I think u can airlift a jammer in another transport, with yr commando to keep the transports stealthed. I might be wrong on this. See if it works.

[ancient zephyr]

I think the commando jams the trans itself, but I don't think any other units do that, not sure though

still have to avoid air vision that way though

and most aa units have good air vision

[wild pond]

I am convinced it's best to just cut the commando entirely. It just clashes with the game design and is impossible to balance in a fun way

[glossy imp]

what's the game design you're thinking of and how does commando clash?

[verbal yoke]

I think u just need take a look at what commanders can do for the game. Currently its a minelayer/Paratrooper

[wild pond]

BAR is about cost efficiency and large scale formations and movement. Not about micromanagement of a few elite units.

[verbal yoke]

I think I get your point. My proposal is to make it a unit that can assist skurmishes- Have radar, jammer, AA and BP. Current problem is that it tries to be too many things at once

[cursive halo]

the game allso has the design philosophy that every defense should have a weakness, and comandos are a weakness in anti air because they just drop to the floor when their transport dies

so if someone only relies on anti air in a spot wich realisticly can only be attacked by air this creates a new attack vector and punishes having no units or static defense

[glossy imp]

ehh, rattlesnake with nanos behind it are pretty damn hard to break

overwhelmingly it's more profitable to greed vs their porc first

[spiral copper]

ambassador is pretty good at killing those

[silk wing]

Ambassador hold fire

[regal tendon]

I remember someone labbing skipping the commando off of buildings a really long way

You fly the transport over the building and then when the commando would land if it lands on top of a building and not land it will bounce and if you do it just right it just flies across the map

[astral hawk]

Radar jammer, not sonar jammer, I assume

[amber crown]

Does mean it jams the above surface ships from underneath which is pretty useful. Can't get sniped as easily.

[ancient zephyr]

One minor thing I'd like for Commando is the grid build menu to be improved, it has buttons for two empty menus and the default set of buildings has excess empty spaces, so takes extra work to find the stuff it can build

Just verified it was the sonar that initially revealed my Commandos, not radar while in water, and then they happened to be seen by a floating radar tower's sight as well (I didn't know I'd been visually spotted as I couldn't see them).

[amber crown]

Didn't it used to have medium mines on a single click, and they made it harder to find on purpose?

[ancient zephyr]

No idea, I didn't switch to Grid until after they made it default, and it was already the way it is now by then. Making something harder to find on purpose seems like an ugly way to try to balance it, especially considering how little use it generally is already.

[wild pond]

I don't see that as a problem. BAR should not be exclusively for the pro's.

[glossy imp]

i just find greed boring. putting incentive on attacking leads to more interaction

greed vs greed + porc --> no direct interaction
aggression vs some greed + some porc --> units are fighting

actually pros still do lots of attacking but they often use the cheapest units that don't leave wrecks

committed pushes are very high risk in bar, and also difficult to execute

so players are not incentivized to do them.

[wild pond]

The problem there is that anyone who's not able to be fast enough will just get obliterated. Making online BAR pretty exclusive

[glossy imp]

eh, BAR has a lot of UI aid

one can get 50os with shockingly low apm
just by mastering other things

[wild pond]

That is only aid if you can keep up. I still find it hard to make use of and not forget more important things.

[glossy imp]

i mean controlling an army you can line drag formation

if you are not fast, you can still do one effective command (with practice) instead of spamming 5 clicks

[wild pond]

But you still have to constantly maintain formation and order reinforcements.

[glossy imp]

not saying it's easy to learn, but being fast is not neccesary, esp like the level of execution below 50os is not insane compared to more competitive games

[glossy imp]

you can use autogroups

[wild pond]

I do. But you still have to give the commands

[wild pond]

I just find it stressful and also monotonous if rushing is objectively superior. Cause it often leads to games coming down to just who can get the first unit to the enemy and everything else becomes irrelevant.

[glossy imp]

well yeah there is a balance. many plp find 1v1 too aggressive

[wild pond]

Yeah because it often feels like there is only 1 variable that matters and that's speed. Any other concern is irrelevant

[glossy imp]

btw rushing can generally be defended with defender's advantage

[wild pond]

If you have no troops then you can't defend. That means getting troops out first is all that matters.

[glossy imp]

lets move to #⭐｜main

[wild pond]

No, I think we've both made our points

[austere seal]

Would be cool if D on commando just selected med mine. xD

[amber crown]

I think the idea was that it should be in the same place between constructors. But yes I might add a keybind to do something like that.

[austere seal]

We talk about balancing at the highest skill level, but are high skill players actually making plays with commandos on any kind of regular basis?

I literally can't remember the last time I've seen any notable play by commandos. I think only once in past year, and not necessarily against high level players. The last commando attempt I've seen, the transport got over the enemy afus stack before getting shot down, then the commando just bounced off the afuses for like 5-10 seconds before being promptly killed.

It's not really a unit that can be rushed, since its expensive in t2 and can't really fight much. In any kind of 1v1 situation, all else being even, by the time a commando can come out, the other person should already have plenty of vision, be able to get air support, and able to tick/grunt spam to promptly shut down commando sneaks.

In "highest level of skill" discussions, we also have to consider the counterplay at the "highest level".

Meh, the whole paratrooper thing is a cool concept, but right now it just seems jank and annoying af to balance around.

[wet tendon]

Make it self D like a skuttle

[wise otter]

It should be able to transform into a Garpike like megatron

[gleaming bluff]

It should be able to build AA

Or increase its cost but allow it to build cons

Then it will be an ultimate cheese unit

[tranquil smelt]

Fun Zoo advocates OP premise is faulty because multiple commandos aren't much more useful than one.
#1301449685520875521 message

Commandos should be able to capture? Belongs in a separate thread, "should any vanilla units besides commander get capture?" #1301449685520875521 message

"Commandos should cloak when stationary" neat idea. I can make this happen easily if desired by BLT
#1301449685520875521 message

Lol no flying commandos. Against game design document. #1301449685520875521 message

I don't think any of the team wants to cut the commando out.
#1301449685520875521 message

Overall impression I get: no consensus as to what or if anything should be done.

Of course, as always I read carefully what has reactions, so make sure to react to things in the future. 🙂

[glossy imp]

Commando definitely useless because you can build shruiken in response, the commando costs more than the entire t1 airlab + 1-2 shruiken

I've seen juzza use them decently. The main answers to commando are spam and later on, gunships.

No, bringing fighters/aa with your commandos is not a valid answer, if you can gain air superiority over the ENEMY PLAYER'S BASE, why don't you just kill them with bombers or gunships?

[fresh scroll]

would giving it more emp immunity help?

[glossy imp]

i don't have an opinion about the various jank solutions I think people are getting lost in the sauce

emp heath is based on unit hp, the commando has extremely low hp per cost, so it would need like 90% emp resist at least I imagine

Also worth noting commando strength differs a lot based on amount of map dead space around the edge, cliffs, and how greedy players are

[fresh scroll]

it can be kinnda good to keep it underwater

[twin gust]

The problem is that commandos, as an expensive t2 unit, come out far too late to deal impactful damage, at least in 8v8s.

By the time commandos can be built, players are already streaming units across the map and have a full AA screen, which means that any commando likely won't get far in, and even if they do, will get cleaned up quickly.

[tepid comet]

maybe just lowering the price would make sense

[silk wing]

Lots of stuff would be fixed if commando has Jaguar aa

And can build nettle

[austere seal]

My biggest issue with Commando is I want to use him like a cool frontline combat commander prime to give my units unjunoable stealth and do repair/reclaim and kick around grunts, but it has the HP of like a t1 veh con and just dies anticlimactically to whatever crap is coming out late t2. :I

[glossy imp]

the identity is a harrasser / high micro unit that is weak in head on fight

[austere seal]

Even if you doubled it's health it would still prolly die to anything else for cost, lol

[glossy imp]

which is fine. unit is slippery and got a lot of micro potential

[austere seal]

Commando to auto-reclaim enemy units in range while its repair beam isn't busy (in addition to shooting), for increased dps, and eating tickspam

if there isn't already a sanctioned auto-eat widget

too silly? xD

[amber crown]

We here talking about buffs and they nerf commando's strongest tool 😭