In a low pop match, a mobile com will win more often than a sedentary one. If it's 5v5, then you're increasing the team's output my 25% if your com is getting refs. Yeah, it's a gamble, but this entire game is a serious of gambles of varying risk. Some are riskier than others.
Hey I count sometimes. Earlier today I counted. But anyway I completely see where jgf is coming from because ninjaing is pretty much a dick move unless in a competitive scenario (large pub or better) Let's say there's two teams of 4, NF is jgf (a decent, but not mlg pr0 player), two complete noobs (there's been two noobs for months that join the same team and are completely unresponsive to any form of chat or mic) and a new player who is trying to learn and is listening to jgf, but has no real skill. BE in this example has 2 vets and someone like the above noob who is responsive, maybe a complete noob also. 3 rounds later BE has won 3 time in under 10 minutes. And for some reason it always seems like low pop games teams stay on whatever they were over multiple rounds.
I both hate and love ninja. I feel that its only a valid/acceptable tactic if your badly loosing with 90% chance of fail without doing this. Its pretty damn exciting when shits going down and com is screaming and we fucking beat them back. If they do it just because they can... its like, "was that necessary? Do you feel better by depriving everyone else of a possibly good round?"
Well, I reversed several rounds as of late ninjaing with mass rev, but it was pretty much only because the round was stacked and/or team was really on the back foot. Funny thing, I remember one round was on xroads, and I played on be along with jgf, yet i dont remember being called names for pulling it off succesfully with suprising participation from non-vets.
Ninjaing in a low population game which is already a pain in the ass to keep going, is a complete assholish move and therefore exactly what i would expect from the Empires community.
Guys - first understand I can handle and have learned how to deal with the EXPLOIT I am complaining about. My comments are really only to help those developers understand a point of view of a player who mostly plays COM and knows the game but is not an expert. I want this game to improve, and this tactic empties servers and when those that implement it will instantly cause those that know they will relentlessly use this EXPLOIT against them to leave the server. Also - now that you are pissed over my continuous use of the word EXPLOIT - please educate yourself on the meaning of the word. Exploit Defines to take advantage of something (a person, situation, etc.), especially unethically or unjustifly for one's own end. ex·ploit (ksploit, k-sploit) n. An act or deed, especially a brilliant or heroic one. See Synonyms at feat1. tr.v. (k-sploit, ksploit) ex·ploit·ed, ex·ploit·ing, ex·ploits 1. To employ to the greatest possible advantage: exploit one's talents. 2. To make use of selfishly or unethically: a country that exploited peasant labor. See Synonyms at manipulate. 3. To advertise; promote. So you now know why I ignore those guys who keep saying this is not an exploit. I am not complaining about NINJA - I do think that is one of the early things COM's must learn to handle. It is easily combatted, and is not an instantaneous win. My main complaint is that it takes a group of five players such a short time to win the game and a COM caught by this tactic has only pre-emptive defenses that he can implement. Three turrets - are not enough - fact. You may need five with one being an upgraded turret - properly placed, be near a RAX when it occurs and know how to counter it. Not all COM's know how to counter this attack and it is used very frequently, mostly completely screwing up very decent PUB com's. Moving frequently is advised but not always possible. Balance is always important in this game. I am complaining that this imbalance needs to be considered. Originally I proposed various ideas to help ANY level of COM to counter this. I do think the least change that will have the smallest impact and is a direct help without overpowering the COM - as giving him a vehicle weapon might be, is to give him enhanced vision while in the vehicle. Other ideas may be better though. I'm only asking for a game play improvement, not looking to mess up the balance of the game. Reducing Scunt ability to quickly take down a base has improved game play. We have less scouts driving jeeps relentlessly into a base. The COM has time to recognize the buildings are going down and to change to scout, then go around and repair the impacted buildings. The mod to fix this was IMHO perfect. It is still an effective attack, just not a game ending type of attack. I know some guys use this to attack a large group of refineries quickly and that is completely legitimate, IMHO and very effective and changing the balance of the game - but over many minutes, not immediately.
You've activated my trap card. From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploit_%28online_gaming%29 Sorry, but educate yourself on your own "evidence". This is a fucking video game, not a diamond mine in west africa, we aren't doign anything unethical or unjustified. Using that definition, exploiting would be being admin and kicking players on the other team so that you're team has more players on it. That's exploiting using your definition, it is both unethical and unjustified. Ethics have nothing to do with gameplay so it doesn't apply to squad revving and scout hide, and there is nothing unjustified about playing the game with the rules given. Your own argument defeats itself. An APC rush or ninja rax is neither to exploit one's own talents, it's not selfish or unethical, and it isn't promoting. Neither do those terms apply in a video game, the ones from the wikipedia article do. Exploitation as defined in the dictionary refers to real world things like sweatshop labour. Both teams can pull an APC or set up a rax behind base, both teams can counter this. Using the tools known as common sense, you would understand that you can stop a jeep driving past by setting up ML Turrets, and having your Grenadiers fire upon it. If it reaches your main base, you have to fight off 1 or 2 scouts/engineers, or you can recall a player or a squad back to your main base. There is absolutely nothing unfair about it, because it doesn't really put you in a shitty position. Therefore, it doesn't even count as an exploit with your definition. So stop calling them exploits, because they are not exploits. It's a technical term, it isn't up to you to define what the term means. This is coming from one of the worst commanders of this game, I today was able to counter just fine jeeps after jeeps with just a couple of ML turrets and asking for a couple guys to come back to base. My team was even able to stop 20 med tanks using LTs when the main was getting rushed. You have no excuse.
Going by that definition, using almost any sort of tactic could be an exploit. So lets remove all exploits! Redundant raxes, APC rushes, skillful building placement, coordinated base rushes! Proper use of voice chat, planning ahead of time, boomtanking, comm rushing, squad hiding, squad reviving, sticky stuns! They're all using game elements to their best and they're all doing it in the completely selfish name of winning! You know what, I think WINNING is an exploit now! Lets remove winning from the game and all competitive elements! Because to win you have to use your own talents selfishly, and that's an exploit by your definition! Yeah, that's what you're sounding like right about now.
Changelog: The game taxes teams that do well and provides a living wage to teams without refs. If you want a good tank, you have to fill out paperwork to get subsidies. Commanders would spend their time talking to zoning officials to get permission to drop buildings. Squad points would be shared across all squads on both teams.
If there is any action that can cause the commander to NOT MOVE, And die within 30 seconds, losing the game regardless of the state of your teams dominance - I consider that a bad thing (using little words here). That bad thing should be analyzed and debated on how to better balance the bad thing. Being on a team where you hear "YOU LOSE" when you own 90% of the map just because your COM did something stupid is IMHO a bad thing. Anything that does not contribute to a team win - should be analyzed. UGL, ninja and many of the other controversial items all take some time and don't usually end in an almost instantaneous loss, even before your team has time to respawn to help alleviate the issue. Now pick a word - and lets debate over that single word. Grantrithor - thanks for posting another description that only helps my case. I honestly feel my IQ dropping when I read your notes. Are you 13?
Fantastic JGF, you're statement is astounding. You've just realized that a 17 year old of a race you believe to be inferior to yours is less of a retard than you are.
You really went with the effort to photoshop all that shit? Fuck me, I could swear the drama was better back in the day.
Think about it from a risk-reward perspective. A game is a bunch of game mechanics that can be combined & used by teammates to engage in risk-reward scenarios. e.g. A com placing an ML turret in the main base The reward is that the turret may damage an enemy vehicle invading the base. The risk is that it may not be used enough to justify its res & time cost. It requires an engy to spend ~8 seconds buildings, 75 res, a mark against the turret limit and space on the ground. A typical stun - RL CV kill maneuver The reward is that the com is killed and the game is won. The risk is the disadvantaged team position in case the maneuver fails. It requires a scout stunner potentially with a vehicle, a bunch of grens potentially also in vehicles and a lot of communication. This is a lot like finance where you have something called a "Sharpe Ratio." It's basically the amount of reward per amount of risk of an asset. I'd say the two examples have around the same Sharpe Ratio. One has a huge reward, but a huge risk. The other has a very low reward, but a very low risk. Pount for pound, the two are about the same in reward per risk. The next part of this little Finance-fueled model is picking whether you want a bunch of low reward-low risk stuff like the ML and very few high reward-high risk things like a bunch of com kill attempts or vice versa (or any other mixture). This comes down to risk tolerance. Typical teams/coms have low tolerances at the beginning of the round or when they are doing well. But if they aren't doing well and the game may end soon, they often get very risk tolerant. FN is an exception. He will attempt a high risk-high reward attempt much earlier than normal. There's also another potentially frustrating scenario. If one team is dominating, then they begin very risk intolerant. Oddly enough, the losing team becomes very risk tolerant. In the slim chance that the losing team's risky behavior works out for them, then the winning team gets very frustrated because they expected their low reward behavior to result in low risk. There's no way to get around this frustration. Random chance must exist in this game or shit gets boring pretty fast. I'd love to write an essay on why Empires needs even more random chance, but that's for another day. It doesn't get much better than this. Some of this shit is sig-worthy.
