Vanguard Testing from Meta

Oh, guys, I think I thought of something of a 'silver bullet' (as they're often called) for the Vanguard problem.

Reduce their Rate of Fire to about two or three times slower than that of the Uber cannon.

This would keep their role as a scary bulldozer unit with high HP to soak damage and a dangerous weapon to make them relevant threats to bases in particular, but would drastically reduce the punishment they could dish out when they get in on their opponents.
This would make T1 valid against Vanguards, except when they are massed to the point where their numbers make up for their RoF, for the T1 units would then keep a higher DPS on the thing for longer, potentially killing it, and would further enhance the role of micro in potentially combating them (via wasting their shots before getting in on them with, say Infernos or boom bots, or just not worrying about them) and for them (via attempting to not waste your vanguard shots through hold fire fire at will etc.).
It's both the perfect counter for early Vanguard aggression, and the perfect complement to keep BOTH T1 and Vanguards viable at later stages of the game!

You're right that this was a demonstration of the power of aggression over map control. Now we're back to the question of which is more fun; quickly starting up bases all over the planet and having a giant war raging across the globe or a game where both sides just need to send everything they have straight in? Yes I could have played differently and amassed more units to fight his army, but then we're just sending units at each other in a mostly one-dimensional game until eventually something breaks and one army moves in. It just feels like there's no real point to having a whole planet out there if the balance doesn't encourage us to use it.

First of all, you were playing on a pretty small planet. Rush strategies are far more effective when the distance between your bases are that short. If you had this 1v1 on a larger planet, it would have encouraged a longer game since you could afford to grab more eco and still have some more time to prepare a defense.

Second, nerfing vanguards wouldn't really change this situation. This sort of rush happened during the patch when T2 really sucked; some people just spammed dolos and infernos and went straight for the throat.

Finally, this is a real time strategy. There's always going to be people in these games that decide they don't want to play the long-term eco game and instead go for a quick and risky all-in attack, and their strategy is indeed risky because someone that spends just a little more time on eco and harassment before building a defense will end up repelling the rush and then winning through far superior economy.

The point is that a unit of that caliber EXISTS. No single unit should EVER be able to rip through bases like that. I could make the same argument about infernos, too, but then games would take too long.

Like you said, equiv metal is a hundred or so units. So why did he go for the Vanguards?? Why not map control?

The thing is, CC went for an ECO build. He didn't build a lot of units. Had he clumped his units together at the weakest point, he would have done a little damage. There is little one can do against Shellers in a small area like that. This is what used to be rather standard, because you NEEDED the eco to start pumping out huge armies to kill the commander. Now, you don't need much to kill the comm. 50 bomb bots, one vanguard behind the base, 40 ants kiting, 10 infernos that get in close, 40 bombers without enemy air, one or two T2 Bombers, five or six BlueHawks, etc. etc.

You mentioned all-in attacks and the risk involved. While this holds true right now for the ZERG RUSH of tanks, it does NOT hold true for ANY OTHER RUSH STRAT, especially T2. Orbital, less so. You can do a successful orbital rush and expand too.

"Second, nerfing vanguards wouldn't really change this situation. This sort of rush happened during the patch when T2 really sucked; some people just spammed dolos and infernos and went straight for the throat."

Actually, myself and the people I train, as well as many folks in the Realm, are the ONLY PLAYERS I see do this. Lots of players with better track records than myself do not go for the kill - they go for the safer bet of eco or factory destruction. It's less risky, and more rewarding metal for metal.

If we changed Vanguards by nerfing their DPS to, say 1000, I bet the problem would be fixed

Probably because he felt like doing a vanguard rush, similar to people that sometimes do void ray rushes in Starcraft. Yeah, vanguards are a bit strong and should be nerfed...

... sort of like this, although they would still cream any units in their path. Even if CC and woobie had played their game with this nerf in effect, the outcome would have been exactly the same. That's what we should be aiming for! This game serves as a useful metric that we can refer back to and think "how much can we nerf the vanguard and still have woobie win this game?" We should NOT look at this and think "how useless should vanguards be so that 9000 metal worth of them can be easily repelled?"

Bomb bots and hornet snipes are stupid gimmicks, I agree. Bomb bots have way too much single target burst damage and we need faster AA to deal with hornets. Bring back stingers pleeeease.

Another thing that might help is a change to the commander's uber cannon. Right now it's a purely aoe attack, which doesn't work that well against a small number of highly armored units like vanguards. I'd prefer if the uber cannon could directly target an enemy unit, and that unit would take 2000 damage in addition to the normal splash damage that the uber cannon does. That would prevent single vanguards from winning a duel with a commander.

I really don't see any sort of follow up strategy for woobie. If CC had managed to kite those vanguards to death, woobie wouldn't have had time to get T2 fabbers, advanced mex, or more energy. All he could do is try to make more T2 vehicles before eventually getting crushed by CC's superior economy.

I didn't mean "going for the kill" literally. Taking out 2/3 of someone's eco or production is just as much killing them as destroying their commander.

That's what i meant. But a lot of people I know will veer away from attacking such juicy targets because they think they are well defended or some other reason.

That's mostly the point of posting the replay link. I'm not saying I should have won that game; The way I played was just totally wrong for this balance because I wanted to see how well the eco build works. It turns out it fails so badly that you really can't be bothering with eco all that much.

Where the issue of balance comes in is very much related to this. How much should eco matter vs. raiding, spamming t1, or teching up? A heavy focus on raiding would not have helped too much because that leaves me without much defense against the big push. Full eco is clearly wrong here. I think my options really were spamming t1 to try to get an army that could kill the vanguards or tech up myself.

Both of those strategies have a lot more focus on throwing armies directly into the middle without worrying so much about the rest of the map. My personal preference is for a balance that favors a war covering more land area instead of one with very concentrated armies.

I definitely agree with you, but this isn't an easy problem to solve; even if we removed all T2 units from the game, there will still be people getting 5 vehicle factories on 100 metal and assisting with the commander to pump out a large T1 rush. That will win if the opponent is doing the "intended" strategy of taking all the metal on the planet.

A few things can help. Playing on larger planets gives more time for the defender to build a defense, as would playing on planets with natural choke points; it's possible to beat a larger army if it's trying to squeeze through a choke point while every defending unit is picking off each one that comes through. Perhaps walls should be made less expensive (5 metal? Maybe too crazy?) so you can build your own choke points if there are none. If the attacker sees this and tries to find a better angle to attack, that just gives the defender even more time to prepare.

Of course, none of that would matter if the defender doesn't make any preparations. Playing big eco should be given the chance to win, but they shouldn't be guaranteed to win.

That's the root cause for the balancing problems with the Vanguard.

Individual units being ridiculously stupid. Yes, most units would be capable of kiting a Vanguard or Inferno. And most units are also capable of taking out defenses / hard counters / threats when played smart.

But the units aren't smart. They won't kite. They won't prioritize targets in any smart order. They won't even switch targets on their own.

So every unit which needs to be microed, becomes an inferior choice unless it's a certain game ender which justifies the attention requirements.

No matter what Ubers "balancing tests" show when putting them up against each other on a 1-by-1 metal base. Because Uber employees mostly only test in isolated environments with full attention dedicated to micromanaging a SINGLE, SMALL group of units only.

Sure, there is still the problem of the cost efficiency between T1 and T2, but the main problem is the retarded unit AI human players are punished with.

I think that's less a symptom of the Vanguard and more of the massive income the Commander has. It used be to four(ish) factories by the fourth minute, but now three factories are close to your first three buildings. It reduces the time to T2, and in turn makes expansion less important, which in turn makes harass less an issue because so much eco exists in your easily defensible space.

I suspect we'll see a change to the commander as part of the next balance. I like factory first, but three factories is just overkill.

And as I said to CC when he showed me the video, it struck me as an example of him playing his game without reacting to what his opponent was doing.

Very very well put.

Sure, you could micro a group of Ants/Slammers/whatever to kill my Vanguards. However, with my Vanguards, all I have to do is issue a move command or an area attack command and then forget about them. I can then work on expanding and sending in Vanguards around to another side of your base. You on the other hand, have to take every spec of your attention to keep your units alive to take down my Vanguards. And that's assuming I don't have Levelers and Shellers mixed in with my Vanguards. Or even other units mixed in, like Ants or Genadiers. If I do have a mixed army, it doesn't even matter if you micro your army, my army will still pick apart your army and I'll come out on top. But like I said, even if you manage to destroy my army with minimal losses, it doesn't matter. I've been expanding and now have more factories and a larger economy and am sending in another army, probably larger than the previous.

as far as what to do about the Vanguard, i wouldn't go with outright removal - we NEED to have a bullet sponge of some form. I would:

1 - remove the AoE - this beast is meant to be a bulldozer, not a mob cruncher - that is (supposed to be) the T1 Bomber's job, possible the sheller. this would also give an attacking mob a far better chance of killing it.

2 - double the cost - much like the Gil-E, a unit of that great power should be EXPENSIVE to build. and, being a bullet sponge, having too many of these would be a tad bit unfair.

3 - reduce the weapon rotation/turn rate - again having to do with its strength, it should have to take extra time to get itself in the right direction.

Don't want to over nerf something, that's something Uber has a bit of a problem with... either over buffing something, or over nerfing it!

I think of the vanguard as the equivalent of a battering ram, it should wreck buildings when it gets close, it should be able to take the punishment. IMO all u have to do to fix it is remove or greatly reduce the AoE, maybe a bit on rate of fire and, or turnrate. No need to change on the damage or cost. It would immediately become ineffective as a crowd stomper, but if you let it get to your base you are fu*** as u should be.

Watching this video I couldn't help thinking "Isn't it nice that rapid expansion is not the only strategy".

"Wouldn't it be nice if rushing for T2 was not the only strategy"

We're trading one strategy being the only strategy for another strategy being the only strategy. I don't consider this a plus.

With Vanguards, rapid expansion isn't a valid strategy at all.

There is only one strategy – go to Vanguards as fast as you can since you can get to T2 within 2:55.

Besides, the entire game is built around the concept of massive scale. Large armies. Large bases. Large everything.

At least, that's what it was supposed to be. But with how powerful T2 is, large T1 armies mean jack squat.

It's completely and totally redesigning the core fundamentals of the game.

Sure, I'm not saying that it is actually balanced at the moment or that there are other viable strategies. I don't actually know although the problem does sound a bit more complex than you make it out to be. It is just that land grab strategies tend to be the OP ones and it is somewhat nice to see a balance which can take it the other way.