There are too many guys taking advantage of this weakness in the game. You can argue that this is not a weakness - but I believe otherwise. Someone on the opposing team will sneak into the opponents base and revive the team next to the COM vehicle. Or rush the main base at start of the game. I've seen APC's drop an engie in the water on that S Bend map, only for him to sit there undetected the whole game and revive his squad to kill the com after my whole team was in their base - after a long fought battle. It didn't matter how many turrets I had built. The revive tactic works more often than not, and turns an undeserving losing team into a win - all due to what I consider a flaw in the game. I believe once this happened ONCE on a force - they would put close range radar on the COM vehicle to detect and warn the COM of close units. The early push of a APC also works. Since it's very similar, and most teams push as Engie early on so they can't stop the rush - game over, and no one feels satisfied. Later push of 3 APC's with UGL into a base and there is no stopping them. They will take down at least one if not the whole base. A good APC driving can just circle while firing and easily take out a barracks. 3 APC's take only four shots each to take out a rax. If that rax is next to the VF then they are both history. I think this is OK - but still shows APC's with UGL can be stronger than a Medium tank. I warned a COM ten minutes ago to expect the revive tactic, but it didn't matter - he was still killed by it. And the losing team win's again - and that sucks! You work for an hour and overtake the other team - bam - you're dead, game over. COM is an asshole. I watched from spec as a scout camped the whole game right in the opposing teams base, then E build an armory, and revive his team near the COM - they win. COM should be able to immediately drop an upgrade turret and warned when it's scunted. COM should have close range radar that warns of hidden or any other opponent - even when in F2 view. I believe any army in their right mind would give better defenses to a COM vehicle. Total Annihilation got it right when they gave the D gun to the COM - friggin blast in a line that kills any vehicle or person standing in that line. No invisible units. They competed against Command and Conquer for years and were a better game. Empires is based off of C&C. You can say a COM should build turret defenses - but you know that would set his funds back from dropping barracks, or refs and is not a viable option. Even if he did, it's too easy for a gren to take them out and too slow for them to take out an APC. The one measly turret he drops would take him 5 minutes to build himself, if he chose not to use repair upgrade - which would be silly. That turret would hardly kill one person let alone five. I want to know - WHAT ARMY WOULD EVER MAKE THEIR MOST VALUABLE TEAM MEMBER SO BLIND, AND VULNERABLE ? I have watched scouts sit in opponents base the whole game. Weaken their team such that they start losing, then crawl to build an armory, switch to engie and revive a squad to take out the COM. And that fucker is now a HERO ? That is bullshit !
TL;DR: :cry: Honestly, I have a thing for UGL APCs. It's kind of weird, I just want to look at them, and touch them. I just wanna be with them, you know? Sometimes I stay up at night thinking about them.
All of what you're saying is a combination of either having a team that's too shit to bother defending or a comm that's too shit to tell the team that there's an armory/barracks near the main. If you're on the winning team by such a large margin, then you should have enough resources to drop a few MG turrets. Hell, drop your own turret. If it's really that late in the game, the comm should easily have the ten points it takes to have both turret upgrade and repair upgrade. If a turret gets attacked and the comm is too blind to notice the flashing white icon on the minimap, then that comm is a dumbass. If the comm drops a bunch of turrets and they don't kill ninja's then either again, the comm is too blind to notice the mass of sabotaged turrets, or he needs to learn how to place turrets better. It doesn't matter what any real army would do, this isn't a real army, it's a fictional army. Give the comm a weapon and you're going to encourage Hobbes level boomtanking even more. I'd bet that comms would die even more because of how aggressive they'd become knowing they have a weapon. I've seen my fair share of ninja's that succeed and fail. All of the ones that succeed have the common trait that either the comm was stupid and didn't listen when someone said that a squad revive happened, didn't notice himself that a squad revive happened, didn't listen to a player when the player says he's going to get ninja'd, didn't place any turrets, or was all of the above to being a cock.
I too love UGL APC's because they are stronger than a Medium and you shit people while fighting. But at least they have weak armor and two grens can take them out pretty quickly. So I don't really have an issue with UGL APC's. Candles - you're talking about the normal Ninja - which I do agree is part of the game. I'm talking about the three guys in this game that know all they have to do is sacrifice an APC or jeep and then revive his team. Engies are easy to spot and a COM who doesn't spot them is shit. But a com can't spot a hiding scout - even if he's sitting on top of him - which is bullshit. No self respecting COM would also be a Scunt with enhanced vision. Hobbes at least does his attacks honorably and you can't take away from his aggressive in your face attacks. But those guys who crawl around bases to find the right spot out of view of the com to build a armory, are shit. Scouts were designed to sneak in - sab, and shoot from a distance. This tactic is ruining the game. Don't fight the whole game - sit without sabbing or killing anyone. If you don't move you could be looking right at him and can't see him - WHICH IS BULLSHIT. I was standing on top of a scunt once and couldn't see him. When this happens to me - it doesn't matter how loudly I scream, only the two or three vets will respawn and by then my rear armor is gone. The fact that NF is easier to turret is also bullshit.
I disagree with some of these tactics in pub empires when it is low population and often stacked. There is nothing cool about an APC rush in a 5v5. However they are legit tactics and there are counters to all of them. If you can get behind lines undetected I think it is fair enough. You can easily protect against this by dropping unbuilt armories in the usual spots. The problem is the frustration when the same 3 or 4 vets pull the same shit for an hour, knowing they don't have competent opposition. Ending every round in <10 minutes. To them it is teamwork, to everyone else it is just cheap and depressing. These tactics are all well and good in my book most of the time, but it would be good if certain people would sometimes play more sporting sometimes. I would say that on the whole just need to make it easier to counter all these things and have a better way for the comm to make a distress call to the team, maybe even something as harsh as ns2 where yiou can warp the team there. It is very satisfying to melee the scout who just spent 15 minutes belly crawling across the map, or sticking a couple of rpgs in the back of an apc with a whole squad in it. But most of all, a team that looks out for the commander and provides clear useful feedback will prevent most of this stuff. regards to UGL - I think it needs a shorter range. You shouldn't be able to hit ML turrets outside of their range with it as easily as you can do. It does make destroying a base too easy, that or half the clip size, they shouldn't have more dps than a coolant light tank - not with such a big aoe. @Candles: Do not agree about the minimap though, it flashes all the fucking time. I need either a cleaner looking minimap with less false positives or a better alert mechanism. I hate that damn minimap, I wish I could have it full screen on a second monitor!
If we're talking about vets stacking a team and rushing round after round, I entirely agree that it's bullshit. Rushes that end maps within the first five to ten minutes and ninja's that win games several rounds in a row are the fastest way to kill a server. But I find situations like that to be a problem with individual players and as a subpoint of the issue of stacking as a whole.
You played a few games against a stacked team and they punished you with teamwork. It does suck, but it's nothing to do with the game. If you want to counter a ninja-kill on the CV, drop cameras and get your team to as well. It's really quite simple. Put the cameras in positions where they can't be taken out from range. Then put turrets around you. You should also be moving the CV every 30 seconds or so anyway, even if it's only a metre or so. It gives you a quick chance to see if anything is amiss in your area. As for APC rushing, it's very easily counterable. Early game APC rushes are hard-countered by a couple of Grens so easily it's not even funny. Lategame APC rushes can be taken out by a turret farm. UGL needs a bit of work, but probably only to increase the heat output to make it less spammable.
As has been mentioned before, if people are dropping armories behind your lines "out of sight", there's really no excuse for that. Learn to build raxes in the most obvious "ninja rax" spots to block enemy rax/armory placements--for instance, on the hill above the BE main on Cyclopean. Also, moving the CV every 30 seconds or so, as Trickster said, is a must. You should be checking to see whether your base is sapped almost all the time as well. Finally, place a camera or two in your main, if you indeed are commanding as an engineer (which you obviously should be). Letting yourself get ninjaed is more often than not just poor play on your part, more than it is decent play on the other team's part.
I believe JustGoFly's point is more about how the "overuse" of "specific tactics" are fucking with pubber games. For instance, an early APC rush in pubber games. Either you win, hurray you end this round in 5 minutes...now here's the problem. What's the point of trying to end every pubber round in 5 minutes? Only the one who pulled off this rush feels a sense of joy and satisfaction, but does other players feel the same? OR...you lose horribly because you most likely threw everything in that rush. Either way, there's really no point. As for ninjaing. In pubber games, a newbie comm finally is about to lay his hands on perhaps his first victory. But no, a bunch of vets decided to deprive this from him. Hurray, you succeed with your ninja, you won this round for your team. Now, what do you actually achieve through leading a bunch of skilled players, and fuck up the newbie comm on the other team? If you think you are good for doing this then you are really pathetic. Specific tactics aren't bad, if you successfully turn a round around in PUG/Scrim, you receive unlimited praise. But they honestly shouldn't be overused in pubber games. It's only turning Empires gameplay into a MORE "newbie-unfriendly" environment, and tbh, it's really boring. Me and YouzY and other cake squad members can pull off the same ninjaing/rushing...other specific tactics and rape 5000 rounds. But we don't do that shit because it's really fucking up pubber games. And tbh, you gain NOTHING except for victory.
As much as I agree with you that these are boring and rather underhanded tactics to use, there's a reason why only experienced players should command; constantly being alert for ninjas is a large part of that. Granted, considering the current population of Empires is so low, it's difficult to actually find a competent commander. The greater issue, therefore, is the fact that the teams simply become stacked; it takes several vets to pull of an APC rush, and anywhere from 2-5 to pull off a successful ninja. Considering that a lot of games go anywhere from 5v5s to 9v9s, if you get about three vets on one team, the game's generally pretty stacked anyways. In this case, the issue isn't so much with countering these tactics so much as it is countering the people using these tactics. Giving the CV weapons, or giving the commander a free upgrade turret to place won't rectify these issues. As Candles said earlier, doing so would only encourage aggressive play from aggressive and experienced commanders who would be able to use the CV's newfound abilities to great effect.
I will say that when I'm trying to populate EPIC server, I'll make a point of not winning the round for as long as I can.
I disagree with jgf's points about it being shit to the game ,agreeing with some of the points already brought up. What I do genuinely hate are the UGL apcs though. For me, when people started basically abusing them, it wrecked the favourite part of any game- one where inf is still king, but vehicles are starting to get numerous and getting their first upgrades. Now, instead of inf backed by some metal, you'll get some faggot that parks behind a wall and farms tens of points on choke maps.
its funny how this turned a problem so recently. i remember doing the same using tripple-gl apcs in 2.0 this isnt meant to say its ok, i agree with those disagreeing with the state of apcs. they are meant as mobile barracks with limited self defense capabilities not as main battle tanks. if such things happen they should get a nerf, simple as that. but well its empires, i wouldnt wonder if they get buffed
UGL APCs honestly aren't a problem as long as you have two to three good grenadiers on your team. Yes, they kill stationary infantry and buildings, but against someone who actually moves around, or against afvs, they fall apart far too easily.
the thing is the multiplying factor of vehicles. a single or two of any are no issue. but when there are 6 apcs with the sole intention to take out a base they will do it - even faster if there are people spawning inside them. also i wouldnt say that equally skilled drivers are in a severe disadvantage against grens, thatd be exaggerated even if its map dependend - especially with upgraded armor and engine.
TBH if a bunch of People spawn up in such a Power push they WILL leave the remaining frontlines severely undermanned and allow the other team to counterpush even of It Has to divert a couple of grenadiers and tanks to halt the Attack. Sure, you may have a crippled base as a result, but all the vehicles they invest will be dead and some even recycled by the defenders, not to mention the ticket drain. You should also remember about turrets set up to dfend the location which would hamper the progress of the attack as well as rack in a few assists at the very least. Or your team refuses to pull back and all your infrastructure is gone. I consider it a learning experience for the newbies, albeit a pain for the commander. Also, how do you switch off text autocorrection in WP8?
if only it would be as easy to coordinate the counter as it is to coordinate the attack - im not saying its impossible. also the fuller the server the less successful is such approach since there are more people to divert from the frontlines and you can actually have multiplay frontlines. its so damn hard to talk about gameplay stuff when the game performs so differently depending on player counts - when you say "its like x" then someone comes and says "but its like y" and both are equally right, one for low pop one for high pop games - and then, if that wouldnt be enough of a split already, its highly organized vs the average chaos in pubs too so we have pub low pop-, pub high pop-, scrim low pop-, pug high pop-empires. and neither of those applies to any of the others, what works in one is useless in the other and vice versa (i consider it to be working if its balanced, not if its a win button).
+1 dev You learn from your mistakes, next time squad revs happen u know you have to divert some forces, stop whining on the forums about shit that have hard counters. Rev= teamkillspawn Apc= turrets other vehiles killspawns People who get behind enemy lines to revive= comm shouldve seen it and said so. They shouldnt get behond your lines
placing an unbuilt armory is the best counter to scunts. they cannot then sab it and place their own in the area. any other class will need to destroy it to build in the area thus alerting you to their presence. It also is cheap and if that area becomes hot someone on your team can build it and use it to defend the area.
