Oh, Mercy!
As you’re probably aware, the newest patch has sparked a firestorm of controversy in the Supreme Commander community. This debate rages almost entirely over the new Aeon guided missile, the Mercy (or ‘Mandy’, as some of the forum-goers have nicknamed it). It’s being hailed by many as a great new unit, but a large number of players feel that its power makes it game-breakingly unbalanced.
Most arguments stem from its relatively high cost-to-damage ratio, and the fact that countering it is so draining on your opponent’ s economy that, simply by building a T2 air factory, you can gain a big economic advantage by forcing your opponent to build disproportionate amounts of AA in anticipation of a ‘Mercy killing’. It’s then a simple matter of building up ground forces and rolling on in, or using your economic edge to tech up, or any number of strategic alternatives that are opened up. Once you’ve gained that economic buffer, you’re ahead of him for the rest of the game.
However, we must take into consideration the statement by GPG that recent patches have worked towards bringing Supreme Commander up to speed in preparation for Forged Alliance. As we get closer and closer to the release of the standalone expansion, we can expect the current balance system in vanilla Supcom to be altered to being it more into line with the balance system in Forged Alliance. GPG has no small task in not only balancing FA with the inclusion of 100+ new units and a new faction, but in ensuring that vanilla Supcom remains balanced on its own so that non-owners of FA can still play with those who do own FA.
In the end, I expect that we will see more patches before FA is released, and balance will be a key issue. Many players have been saying that UEF is “gimp”. Can we expect to see a buff to their T1 and T2 tanks in an upcoming patch? Hopefully GPG is working towards a solution that will satisfy the problems at hand, while keeping players of all factions happy.
August 7th, 2007 at 3:48 pm
People who own only SupCom won’t be able to play with people who only own FA. From the official knowledge base thread ( http://forums.gaspowered.com/viewtopic.php?t=16292 ):
• If you have only FA and your opponent has only SupCom, you can not play one another.
That being said, I think GPG will keep on updating the balance of vanilla SupCom, at least until FA arrives. Some other new unit packs would be a nice way to keep the community busy as well.
August 7th, 2007 at 5:06 pm
If one person has FA & Supcom, and the other has Supcom, they will be able to play together.
August 7th, 2007 at 5:14 pm
Am I the only one that thinks they should’ve just released a true expansion, i.e. not standalone? FA being “standalone” is no advantage to anyone: SupCom owners have to pay another 50 bucks instead of just 30, and people who just buy FA will have an incredibly limited online/multiplayer experience. Of course, if they just made FA standalone and 30 bucks, that would be good for everybody.
That knowledge base article touches on them not wanting to split the community, but I think this seems inevitable. I’m a huge fan of SupCom, yet I’ll probably not be rushing to buy FA on release day like I was with SupCom. And, for people who can’t afford FA or just prefer vanilla SupCom, it’s likely that FA development will be prioritized over SupCom.
August 7th, 2007 at 7:33 pm
I think they should give a discount to existing owners of supcom to encourage uptake of the expansion this might help ensure most of the community will transition to the expansion
August 7th, 2007 at 11:05 pm
The reason they made it standalone was not because standalones are so popular or they’re better than normal expansions
In reality, FA is a whole new game. It rolls with a whole new engine. To make it so the engines are compatable would be incredibly hard and time consuming, so hard in fact that they wouldn’t make any money at all.
That being said, a discount would not be a bad idea.
August 8th, 2007 at 3:39 am
bah incompatible engines. bah!
August 8th, 2007 at 4:20 am
dbl post, intys counter mercys quite well for a lil micro and a radar, it can help while you’re getting your t2 defense up. defending against them is fun. argh missiles! :D
August 8th, 2007 at 10:01 am
I think you are seeing a trend of all games not being expansions but stand alone. It started with Guild Wars and i think will continue in the future. The missile is overpowered, but now that it is out how do you correct it. I’m just tired of playing as the UEF and getting plain units. the Aeon already had the level 1 tank that floats across water. Now they have a level 2 missile, Wonder what wonderful level 3 unit they will get next. And if the missile is not so great, why are so many of them built?
August 8th, 2007 at 11:13 am
The missile is great but you have to pick your targets carefully.
August 8th, 2007 at 6:17 pm
I still haven’t messed with the mercy. What happens if you send in mercies, but the enemy never kills them? Won’t they be useless, or will they still kamikaze once they get to their target?
August 8th, 2007 at 6:34 pm
Yes, they are a suicide unit
August 8th, 2007 at 11:08 pm
The Mercy, upon reaching a certain distance from the target, explodes into ribbons of death that cannot be killed, and deal very large damage. Because they “deploy” like this, rather than putting AA around the thing they are trying to target, you must instead ring them with flak to kill the Mercy before it can deploy.
The problem is simply that the mass to ring your base with flak is far greater than the mass that the Aeon need to spend on a T2 Air Factory
August 9th, 2007 at 3:18 am
yeah and as if thats the only way to counter them.
August 9th, 2007 at 11:55 am
true but for the mass of 2 mercies you can build 1 t2 AAA which is uber effective vs even several mercies. Unless you send them from different directions. 2,3 AAA in vicinity will pretty much stop all but most dense Mercy flights. I have used them extensively so far and it is easy to protect yourself against them.
August 9th, 2007 at 11:56 am
Something i wrote last week, CydeWays won’t put it on the main page tho, so i’ll just post here:
What am i going to do with it with Mecry? It’s a question a lot of us are pondering on right about now. I know i am. Being a Cybran fanboy i can’t help but tremble at the power of Mercy, the new cruise missile custom build for Aeon. It is not based on any t1 or t3 design and is unique to Aeon faction.
First Impressions:
Awesome. Simply awesome power and versatility i was hoping to always have from Tactical Missile Launchers. Its fast, has great range and damage output. It took me few minutes to realize the Mercy didn’t actually land at the rally point. I only noticed that after i saw two or three fall to the ground crashing. I wasn’t sure why id did that until i went in for a closer look and noticed they only hovered over the rally point using up the fuel. I did not get them to refuel so i guess the mechanics of Mercy are pretty simple: use it or loose it. I didn’t check exactly but looks like the fuel lasts for about 2 minutes.
Real World Use:
So far i only tested it in few sandbox games against several tech AIs. Normal games don’t last enough to test new units properly. Keep in mind i’m more or (mostly) less an average player with few games a week behind my belt so you hardcore players may have a very different reaction to all new incoming units but especially Mercy because it’s so different from a t2 bomber remaining factions received. My evaluation of Mercy is mixed. I was both surprised by its effectiveness, micromanagement and east to be shot down. It has its plusses and minuses but i’ll start with the latter.
I have read all kinds of posts complaining about a need to build AAA ASAP in game and all over the base. to protect it and i have to say it’s a load of donkey manure. After few games with extensive use of Mercy in variety of situations i have to say that it’s extremely easy to kill, even with t1 AAA. Only t2 mobile AAA was able to hit it thought, t1 mobile was as always ineffective. Posting few t2 AAA simply stopped 90% of all my incoming Mercy wings. Yes i said wings. Single shot from t2 AAA killed 8 Mercies. Reason? T2 AAA has area of effect and Mercy is so weak it only takes one close shot to kill it. The only way i was able to slip by was to spread out few Mercies prior to attack to spread them out a bit. This provided some variety to the angle of attack for each mercy so AAA would only kill one at a time. Still out of 8 only 2 got through. Oddly it was bit easier to use them once everyone upgraded to SAMS. Without area of effect i did not have to worry about spreading out Mercies, only to pump enough of them out. Still with few more SAMS and little shielding they became pretty useless. That’s when i switched my targets and the real power of Mercy shined. Out of base targets of opportunity simply have no chance with only small or few AAA defenses. Killing Mass Extractors, distant engies, unit groupings was pure joy. Single Mercy can destroy few t2 units or any small to medium structure (varies slightly). So use it wisely, use it well and spam, spam, spam. I can finally see a great alternative to firebase buildup.
What? No, i didn’t forget. It’s my favorite unit in game!! Soul Reaper has finally met his match. It’s frightening but it’s a fact. Mercy simply is a very effective way to stop/soften up the Reaper. There is no escaping from it. It does a much better job than SAMS in my opinion and is a much more cost efficient. I didn’t count how many it took to bring Reaper down (yes i can do the math but i’m talking about real battle conditions) but it wasn’t many. On Fields of Isis i was able to shoot down two of three Reapers heading for my measly defended base. I do believe Mercy will receive the heavies use as a defensive tool against experimentals.
Conclusion:
I welcome our new alien overlords… Ehm. (Simpsons movie was awesome) I mean Mercy is a welcome addition to Aeon arsenal. It can be used as purely offensive or purely defensive weapon depending on a stage of the game. It varies wildly from any existing unit and that can never be wrong. Some players have issues with it being overpowered but i believe it’s only a first impression. Once they get to know it as i have they will realize it’s not hard to stop Mercies with little planning. They are not game enders or super units. They are very useful but up to a point. Overall i give Mercy four out of five Mass Fabs and my stamp of approval. I wish i could say the same for donkey shit shooting T2 Cybran bomber…..
August 10th, 2007 at 2:54 am
p.s.
assuming a mass conversion factor of 40 energy.
1 T2 AA = 1.5 Mercy
1 Inty = 0.21 Mercy
1 T1 Radar = 0.21 Mercy
August 10th, 2007 at 9:56 am
I find the Cybran T2 bomber rather interesting - it has a long range version of the gunship’s aoe attack, so if you have enough of them, they can do enough damage to take out the anti-air units, and are then free to level the opponents base at leisure. Still, they’re not as unmerciful as the mercies.
August 20th, 2007 at 11:25 am
I find the Mercy to be a horrible mistake. The fact that a single little T2 unit deals 3000 damage is not right. I can see a T3 unit coming close to that amount of damage but not a T2 unit. Myself and many other of my friends feel that when they were coding the unit added an extra “0″… instead of having only 300 damage they have 3000. Think about it, should 4 T2 units be able to kill your commander….NO! 4 Mercies is all it takes and any commander ( without shields ) is gone.
August 22nd, 2007 at 11:19 am
I propose giving it much shorter range. It’s not much different than t2 TML but range makes a huge difference.