Are the factions still imbalanced?
Back when SupCom was in its early beta stages, the general consensus was that the Cybran were the most powerful faction, but only because the mantis was substantially better than all the other faction’s T1 tanks. After release day, players quickly began to realize that Aeon were the new overpowered faction. When grouped with land scouts, their T1 tanks superior range allowed them to ravage enemy units without taking damage themselves. Their T2 point defense was basically a small artillery piece, especially on Winter Duel, where for essentially this reason alone Aeon were hugely favored. We need not even mention water maps, where Aeon players had vastly more early attack power than other players. The Aeon also had the best navy, the best siege bots (better than the UEF Titan because of their much higher turret turn speed), the best tactical missile defense, and the best artillery.
After GPG removed water maps from the ranked game rotation, many of the top players began to realize that on certain maps, such as Open Palms, Cybran players actually had somewhat of an advantage at T1. Choosing to play Cybran in ranked play was still risky, however, since if you drew Winter Duel, you were still at a huge disadvantage.
This situation has definitely changed somewhat. Siege bots, artillery, and ships have all been rebalanced substantially, and the Aeon are no longer necessarily the strongest in all of these areas. Also, the T2 point defenses have been rebalanced, so that the Aeon PD is no longer hideously overpowered in certain situations, such as on Winter Duel. Furthermore, Cybran players now definitely have an advantage with cheap experimentals, although this is perhaps not relevant to ranked play.
Of course, the Aeon still maintain some strong points, such as possessing the only T3 air superiority fighter that actually works properly. I do think that the situation now is closer to balanced than it was before the patch. The UEF, however, still seems to be underpowered, although the situation between the Cybran and Aeon factions is less clear. What do you think? Are the factions still imbalanced?
May 29th, 2007 at 12:04 pm
I think alot of people are in a phase right now after the patch update where they think Aeon sucks. When in reality they are essentially the same as before(a few economic changes, maybe a top speed lowered here or there) but most of their changes were bringing their units in line with others. I still find Aurora’s to be killer units. I play UEF exclusively and although the Striker has the worst speed and acceleration it is cheap, strong and effective. Newer/mediocre cybran players are still complaining about the TML-4 being balanced with UEF/Aeon. But with the reductions in cost of some of their units and the increased effectiveness of things like T3 bots(especially now that many players use more Mobile Missile launchers now) and their ability to out tech anyone else with low upgrade costs and the mantis Assist ability they are quite deadly.
So yes I think the factions are fairly balanced(UEF and cybran T3 planes do have issues, and a Mavor still = gg[if you ever get one *Cough* custom games]) but it is certainly a good adjustment from what it was
May 29th, 2007 at 1:12 pm
Errr Winter Duel a weak point for Cybran? I think not, I play Cybran and constantly thumbs up WD. And I would not say UEF is underpowered I have actually heard a few people whining that it is overpowered due to good t2 tanks and such(which is stupid).
May 29th, 2007 at 3:44 pm
Just because you don’t like or agree with how something works does not mean it’s imbalanced. The old Oblivion, for example. It sucks in most cases because it couldn’t hit anything that was moving, but because it worked okay on WD it’s suddenly OP? You can’t have it both ways. All this whining is eventually going to turn SupCom into a one-faction game as GPG patches and nerfs everything to the point that every faction is identical.
May 29th, 2007 at 3:53 pm
Forgot to put this in there, but different maps will give different factions an advantage in some manner. This is normal. A one-faction, one-map game is dumb but it seems to be what people want. Open Palms, for example, has all that empty space in two corners accessible by transport only. Cybran is the only faction with mobile stealth so they’re the only ones that can effectively build firebases up there. Should we nerf the Cybran for that? I think not.
May 29th, 2007 at 4:31 pm
T2A:
I would argue that the old Oblivion was the best point defense against large attacks, too. While it would have trouble hitting small numbers of siege bots, the Oblivion was the best PD in the late game, because not only did it do by far the most damage to experimentals, its substantial splash damage allowed it to rape siege bots in large numbers.
I would also argue it worked better than ok on winter duel. Basically, because of its very high DPS, another faction would need to spend several times more than an Aeon faction to put a T2 point defense on the middle hill under fire. If you are Aeon and your opponent is not, getting a single oblivion on that hill basically secures it from enemy T2 PD. If you are Cybran, it is very possible (and not all that difficult) for your Aeon opponent to start a T2 PD after you have already built yours, and still take out your PD with hit points to spare. This made securing the vital middle ground very difficult for non-Aeon players. Couple this with the Aeon’s perfect tactical missile defense, and the Aeon were clearly dominant on that map before the patch.
Finally, I agree that some factions will be better for some maps than others. The point of this post is to ask whether a single faction is substantially better than the others in general (on many different kinds of maps).
May 29th, 2007 at 5:15 pm
Writing the current meta game down is always something really hard. I believe a lot of the unbalance cries come from people who play their factions the wrong way. For example Cybran is a harrasment race designed to strike and run and should never engage equal aoen or UEF force’s head on. But their units do stick together the best making em more effecient. Where aeon and uef trickle in and that leads me to believe people need to learn how to use formation move. A simple way is to simply hold ctrl and rightclick. This issue a formation move in the last formation type used. So a line formation remains a line formation, square remains square etc..
So for short Aeon is the slow advancing front, UEF the powerfull fist, Cybran small stabs all along the line before bundling in to kill the crippled. So their lies the main problem with most aeons and uefs the let them self get crippled on maps like open palms.
BTW on Winters duel UEF with the lobo was always considered the powerhouse.
May 29th, 2007 at 10:23 pm
The T1 tank for UEF is pretty strong relative to its T1 tank opponents and T2 tank seems decent. Maybe they could use a small bump to their anti-air units’ effectiveness but then I wonder what would separate them from Cybran.
Perhaps it’s best to have each race with strengths and weaknesses so that going into a given map you pick one that you feel best suits your playing strengths and preferences while taking into account the terrain on which you’re fighting.
May 30th, 2007 at 5:49 am
Of course, it still is imbalanced. Such things take months, even YEARS to balance…
I agree with Cauldr0n by the way. 80% of the stuff people post about imba, isn’t imba at all, they just don’t know how to counter it or efficiently use it.
May 30th, 2007 at 7:57 am
Someone explain to me this Aeon==OP on WD before the patch? I took a tip from most of the TOP players (of which I am NOT even remotely close, just stating what I’ve seen/read) who, while most play Aeon by default will swear by the UEF Lobos (T1 Mobile Artillery) on WD. (think of Unconq in the early challenge match). The Oblivion (Aeon T2 PD) might rule, but if you can’t get to the hill, or anywhere near it because of all the Lobos, what’s the point? Maybe I got lucky and played newbs every time I played WD as UEF (I always play ‘random’), but I either owned, or it was a good fight, and never do I remember thinking “wow, Aeon are OP on WD”. In fact, if anything but UEF pops up for me when I’m on WD, I normally frown. Again, I’m not a great player, but I do have over 200+ games under my belt (about 56% wins), and while I see the aeon advantage on a lot of maps, WD was not one of them.
I’m not sure if I haven’t played enough since the patch or what, but I do think the Cybran have gotten a boost. I’m sure some of it is ‘luck of the ranked draw’, but lately Cybran have been eating me up. I think I need to go back and play like 20 ranked games as UEF, then Cybran, then Aeon, and then go back to random. It’s tough to learn the nuances when you keep switching every other game.