One trick wonders
I just finished playing a very exciting 1v1 ranked game of SupCom. It was on Winter’s Duel, which, if you have read some of my other posts, you will know is a map I have played quite often. While the game was very fun and challenging on my end, I am left with a rather negative impression of my opponent.
Basically, my opponent opened with a very well managed bomber rush. It was the kind of heavily practiced, thoroughly micromanaged attack that is commonplace in smaller scale strategy games, like WarCraft or StarCraft. While I certainly would not hold the ability to effectively attack very early against him, it is what my opponent did afterwards that left me disappointed. By churning out as much tech 1 AA as I possibly could as fast as I could, I was able to narrowly beat back his bomber attack. However, he had crippled me quite badly, and I was certain that I would quickly lose. Nonetheless, not wanting to give up too easily, I began moving to build tech 2 point defense towers as quickly as I could.
My opponent (a top 100 ranked player, by the way) seemed completely unprepared for any sort of comeback on my part. He built some tech 2 mobile artillery, and when I countered that with tactical missile defense, he basically stopped even trying to attack my base. I was rapidly able to re-overtake him in resourcing, and eventually got a tech 3 factory pumping out siege bots to seal my victory.
Granted, I have played only one game against this particular player, and shouldn’t judge him harshly based on that. But this match has got me wondering how many highly ranked players there are on the ladder who have gotten there simply by application of the same, mindless trick over and over. Even on the tiny Winter’s Duel, there should be more to SupCom than using the same, finely tuned and practiced tactic every game. Perhaps with further balancing, the effectiveness of these sorts of play styles can be minimized.
March 13th, 2007 at 8:40 pm
How is that a game balance problem?
March 13th, 2007 at 8:55 pm
Its not really a balance problem, per se, but it does seriously alter the game at early stages. With a normal build order, it would be essentially impossible to defend properly against an attack like that. Of course, doing that sort of attack can certainly set back the attacker as well, since the attackers first factory wouldn’t be a land factory, but that might not matter on larger maps.
March 13th, 2007 at 9:03 pm
Actually, if you watch the replay, his first factory was a land factory. It was his second factory that was the air factory.
March 13th, 2007 at 9:05 pm
Although there are known balance issues in the game, I agree with Will and don’t think this is supporting evidence for such problems. In fact, it could and should be a viable tactic, and the opponent demonstrated that by nearly wiping Grokmoo out. It would be a balance issue if no effective couter strategy is available, which doesn’t appear to be the case. This may be a case of the game only being out for a short time, and of too few players or games played that results in a lack of quality play. Hopefully play will increase, and games will become a contest of gaining initiative and of adaptation. That being said, I haven’t actually played the game yet, so I can’t comment on balance issues such as the Aeon hover tank.
March 15th, 2007 at 3:53 pm
The Germans perfected one tactic of blitzkrieg and used it over and over because it kept working and working.
The fact that this bomber rusher was able to be beaten at his practiced and polished tactic, proves that there’s balance in the game, as also does the fact that he’s not in the top 5 and that none of the top 5 are one trick wonders.