Poll: Do you feel that the commander we have seen since TA improves the game?

The question then Kaiso is that if you were better in than your opponent in every way, then how did you get sniped?

Comm blast is fine. If a Comm rushes you, run away.

The smallest possible tweak is to add a form of death delay. When the Comm goes critical, he stops moving and has a few seconds (or a few kiloHP, whatever happens first) before going nuclear. That's more than enough time to turn a near miss into a complete miss.

this is exactly the teachings of strategy : you can never get comfortable and snuggle in with a strategy, the moment you do is the moment it's counter comes into being.

long live the snipes and their lulz!

I agree with tatsujb - I admit I'm not the best RTS player, not by a long shot, but one thing I'm learning is that with this style of game, you can't be a turtler--unless you have an absolutely Herculean defense, and in which case your opponent would just shell you with arty or nukes. You have to be mobile, and by that same token, keep your Commander mobile and protected to prevent snipes. My thinking is this: If someone attempts a snipe, at least in the casts I've watched from someone like Gyle in SupCom, it's either one of two things: They're either desperate and trying a last-minute reversal which sometimes works and sometimes doesn't, or, they've scouted that a commander is poorly defended and they're going to try their luck. Either way I don't think the move is really "cheap", per se. Just another tactic.

No point running if you lose your early game economy. He can just chase you while his untouched base builds up.

But that's not broken in a 1v1. You can easily support your Commander with a few fabbers, kill his, and probably survive his Com-bomb. What is broken is what this does to your progress in a FFA....

Why degrade a conversation with comments like this? Do you think I overlooked this as an aspect of the game? Obviously it is. Obviously I fucked up and didn't play perfectly if I died this way. Obviously this has nothing to do with the points I've tried to make.

well the enemy have a Giant army heading for your base, in a TeamGame, then they kill your Com:
Explode-kill all stuff around(enemy army) and yours stuff
Don't Explode-Kill your stuff, but the enemy have a GIANT ARMY!

No RTS mechanic in the world is going to save you from a random vendetta in a Free For All. You are talking about a diplomacy issue, not a balance issue.

Surprisingly enough, the reclaim mechanic probably comes the closest to compensating for a suicide comm bomb. The Comm dies, it leaves delicious resources behind, and all is forgiven in time. This mechanic can not function with the current Commander's pathetic lathe, though.

How much metal does a Commander corpse leave behind, anyway?

I wish the comm explosions were more like TA, mutually assured destruction should you be too close. Cant stand the wimpy route taken in supcom and furthered in PA. when a com goes boom, it should go boom in a way that represents the explosion graphic. Right now its more like a confetti firework of whispers. It is your fault if you didnt notice the enemy commander moving on yours for a suicide attempt.

No commander is a game mode. its just that Assassination is the default mode because in game lore the commander is the only smart bot its your brain everything else is a mindless drone.

We just need interesting ways to make commander sniping harder that you have to dedicate resources to protect yourself like backup computer cores or extra command unit.

bunkers or commander armors.

I would like to see the commander as a more essential synergised component of your army so that if you had the option to start with a commander or a fabber & factory's instead the side with a commander should win because the commander is the most defective combat unit ever made in the lore.

I think the commander just needs to be made more bad *** taking away the anti-matter reactor explosion doesn't make commanders better it makes them more expendable.

The commander was also nerfed in the latest build...I was having fun using him for early raids to stop my enemy from expanding or to punish people using pelters. Now it seems he loses energy a lot faster

If it was up to me, I would remove having multiple commanders in a team game. The whole concept of using your one of a kind unique special commander as a walking nuke is just... wrong.

I personally love how in ffa killing a commander can be a great equalizer. You will have to think twice before sacrificing your mega army of doom for the sake of killing one commander out of the 3 remaining. Gives the underdogs a fighting chance.

on that note, it shouldn't.
just from a no random rules perspective.

the com blows up with such a massive blow that it seems random that the com leave anything behind (let alone standing upright!), makes the explosion feel a bit like smoke and stardust.

I know getting the mass to compensate makes strategical sense. but from an impression standpoint it makes none.

Unfortunately, there seem to be far too many people invested in the 'feel' of the commander for there to be a significant redesign. It is even hard to have a discussion because of all the people chipping in with their lore/legacy/epicness based arguments that don't have much bearing on gameplay.

I've always had a bit of an issue with the Dgun. It is a weapon which is very powerful in an aggressive commpush because it can quickly kill defenses or other base structures.

Most of the TA commander's armaments were made to address all the issues centered around being a Commander. It worked out pretty damn well for the time, giving a proper list of strengths and weaknesses that invented the genre we're using in PA. Since killing Commanders is such an important (I.E. the entire) point of PA, it's worth spending a few extra hours to get it done right.

Good gameplay makes a better impression than using a kindergarten cootie mentality. Commander wreckage can be explained in any number of ways, and there is a reason to include it that makes sense. That will always be a better reason than not allowing something "because it's icky", even if one of the major devs thinks things through in a similar way.

But we already have what is arguably the best option, just send the commander away from the units trying to kill it. The best use of the commander is building, so sending it to new planets/moons/asteroids is not only allowing it to continue to be useful it but it isl also protecting it.

Mike

I really liked the scaling commander that SupCom had.
It was nice, tanky, powerful and unique.

I'm willing to accept the TA style and see where Uber will take us.
But what I'm excited about most, is to see what happens when Uber tells the modders to start going nuts.
That is going to be cray cray!

When I first learned there would be a Commander unit that you have to protect or lose I was really skeptical about whether this would be good, but I've gotta say, the way Uber designed the Commander is genius. They are an immersive anti-rush tool, are the most powerful units (but in a game where units are so powerful, this doesn't mean he's OP), and the dynamics of using it especially for ballsy raiding and planet hopping are really fun. There's really not enough praise to be given to the idea.

If you can keep it hidden yes if not it lands then interplanetary nukes take it out.

I don't like the idea of the commanders best option being to run to a place it cant be killed, because then its better not to have a commander.

one of the questions in design is the army there for the commander or is the commander there for the army?

From what I understood the commander was the only unit you were supposed to micro and the other units you macro. but if the commander cant be central after you get an army up then he is not rally that special what I don't want to see is were you get tech two up and your commander becomes expendable making commander bombing your best option. (I am assuming that like in the kickstarter you will be able to send fabbers to other planets without a commander. And that a lot of players don't like assassination games)