Temporary energy shield for commander to counter high-dps snipes

SNIPE: Extremely high DPS attack that lasts a short time

Energy shield for commander would be an automatically activating high-dps-induced defence that is able to expend energy for a short period of time to temporarily block a significant amount of damage to the commander.

Aims:
-Commander should not be vulnerable to snipes, only to extended bombardment

Properties:
-Short duration (In the seconds)
-Activates automatically only when necessary (so you cant send a single unit to 'disable' the shield and THEN snipe), either when the health is very low or when the commander is attacked with high DPS. Snipes are too fast to require manual activation.
-Takes some time to reload
-Counters a very high amount of damage (>95%?) to defend against any but to most extreme snipes.

Changes required:
-Nukes should require only one hit to kill the commander. The first nuke would be countered by the shield. A second one (assuming it doesnt come too late so the shield is still reloading) will kill.

Examples:
-Attacking the commander by air spam will no longer work as effectively if you have proper AA.
-Sending 5 SXX to snipe commander will not kill the commander instantly (although if you dont have any orbital defence this is gg for you)
-The commander can survive being surrounded by infernos or vanguards for some time.


I know snipes are being made not so easy through other changes, but this would still be a nice addition.

EDIT: If 'energy shields' is too mainsteam, im fine with 'protecting nanobot swarm'

Why?

At the moment, there is only one game mode: assassination.

I'd argue that your above suggestion would be made redundant with the introduction of more game modes like supremacy, where the Commander dying wouldn't end the game, thus the snipe becoming less valuable.

Because getting sniped is not fun. Instead of fixing all the multiple possible snipe methods, it would be a lot easier to deal with the problem at the other end and protect the commander against such things.

It would also protect against all future balance issues that allow for snipes, which keeps the game working even under some temporary balance issues.

In terms of gameplay, its merely to give you a few seconds to react. It wont save you if you really are inferior in defences compared to the enemy. Instead of the enemy killing the commander, the enemy now has to bomb your base for 10 seconds and THEN kill your commander, which is a lot more entertaining.

Then don't get caught by enemy forces.

You can't get sniped if the enemy can't find your commander, and if the enemy's troops can't get close, then you don't have to worry.

I do think that the commander should be slightly harder to snipe than it is now. We'll have to see about whether we balance the units or the commander, likely a bit of both will be required. The biggest snipe problems i see at the moment are how strong infernos are this build, and how quickly SSX can snipe if you drop them directly above a commander in even modest numbers.

These sort of situations are easily fixed with cloaking. You'd have to bomb the base and take out power to reveal the commander, or get lucky with nukes.

Yeah, this is another way to do it.

I just would like there to be something which makes the commander not die the second enemy troops get to it, because if this can happen, it also means that any defences are mostly useless since defences dont act instantaneously. The shield would give the defences a little time to weaken the enemy. In some cases the defences are vastly superior to the attacking force, you just need time for the defences to actually do anything.

Having a short duration ability like that greatly increases micro.

I don't think this is needed because we're gonna have a cloaking commander eventually. Which is better than a shielded Commander.

Also, Commanders are supposed to be vulnerable.

While this is true, it can be incredibly fun to successfully pull off a snipe against someone.

Your argument relies too much on the feelings of one side of the relationship. This isn't a fair thing to do when making a multi-player game.

I dont think its that fun for either side unless its late game, and in late game, the shield is not as effective because the damage levels dealt are much greater than in early game.

It would apply more in the early T1 spam where you cannot shoot down a horde of bombers before they fly over your commander. I dont think thats very fun, not even for the attacker. It might be fun for the first time you do it but I doubt anyone finds sniping random commanders while the player is doing something else very fun in the long term.

It would only really cause micro for the attacker if they decide to try and trigger the shield before the real snipe. But I dont find that a problem because youll be microing anyways to do that snipe in the first place (to target the commander). The defender doesnt have to micro because the shield is automatic. I wouldnt mind if it was impossible to activate it manually.

But yeah, if we get something else that prevents all dem snipes this wont be needed.

actually commander needs health regeneration like in TA, since it is the master unit of the game

Please no.

Repairing a commander is a long and tedious task that requires a large fabber force to do, and diverts resources from all other projects.

Adding in health regeneration just encourages you to not bother repairing your commander when you get attacked. With area-repair commands, there's no point.

Plus, it would further separate units that have low/high DPS. If the health regeneration is low, it won't do anything, but if it's high, it'll make units below a certain DPS threshold completely useless.

But Ssx are goood! They are like super weapons, should they not be abel to snipe commanders? they are really good and powerful. Yet so easy to counter. imo u should allways try to keep ur commander safe from cheese and there are cheese in everygame. I do think the commanders are weak tho. but vs Ssx it should die
Like a commander vs like t1 5 infernos and some t1 tanks or t1 somethingelse, very bad day for commander

I'm not saying the SSX is bad, on the contrary, I love the SSX. but there are vids in older threads on the SSX that show that with only a handful of SSX, you can drop them directly on top of a commander, and get the kill, whilst basically ignoring the fact that there are like 6 or 7 umbrellas firing on you.

EDIT: by 'older' threads, i mean this one
https://forums.uberent.com/threads/sxx-sniping.60296/
Which is actually still front page at the time of editing.

Everyone know s the bride and the grom is on the top of the cake, the best part. everyone`s going for it.. Hide it
Cant just be like okay soo they are sending 7 SSX to my planet. hmmm, think think think? im not insulting just point out something.
Anyway, I hope the mega commander exosuite is a go u know!

The problem is that the SSX can currently ignore a lot of the things designed to be their countermeasure. Advanced radar sats are pretty beefy, and have enough vision to fairly easily find a commander on a planet. Once those SSX are en route to your planet, if you don't notice well before they arrive, and move your com, he's dead. In the case of a double nuke snipe, you can invest in antinukes as a countermeasure to protect you, even if you can't stop them from scouting you. with the SSX dropping directly on the comm, your avengers can't save you, your anchors can't save you, your umbrellas can't save you, if they bring in about 4 or 5 SSX, then no matter how concentrated your orbital defenses are, they will get those shots off and snipe you.

I just played my first FFA with a lot of people. I crushed all of them on the main planet. I was about to crush the last one with my vast armies of Bolo tanks, when all of the sudden: "Invictus Commander under attack", it was the last man with a few Gil-E bots.

The yoke of my own fault weighs heavy upon my shoulders, and I blame no other but myself. It was my greed that had the commander building a few more factories while a little away from my legions of tanks. It was MY arrogance that stayed my hand by not responding more graciously to the inspiration to move him earlier.

Sure, it sucked for a moment, I fell into the same gut reaction of "THAT'S BULL", but I sucked it up. The guy even apologized to me. I demanded that he not, as it was all fair and he outplayed me. In the end, I had a very enjoyable time, and I live with my mistake, it's all said and done, and the matter is truly, truly trivial, far enough to make any serious concern about the issue seem ridiculous to me.

'Cheese' as they call it, I despise that term. If it cannot consistently be viable at the highest levels of play it is not worth any serious consideration outside of personal satisfaction in use. None.

Though I may seem haughty as I write this, there are three key virtues that one MUST have to break free from the mentality of 'my opponent's exploits are not worthy of the victory he has gained', or 'some strategies are inherently evil': Humility, humility, and humility. Do not appease envy by allowing its internal victory; swallow pride, learn the lesson, move on.

I say pity the man who cannot endure his loss, pity him, for he is weak of mind. Pity those that bear grudges against a particular opponent or against any who would dare use a strategy or tactic that seems intolerable or otherwise unjust.

While I agree with the sentiment, we do need to be discerning about aspects of the game that do and don't work.

As an extreme example, let's say that we're all playing an FPS, where all the guns act as one would normally expect guns to work, except for that one gun that has infinite range homing bullets that fires full auto. Now, there would theoretically be the same argument of being beaten by the player who went with the superior play/ weapon choice/ strategy, but at some stage it just becomes bad game design, and everyone knows the game is silly.

Now, the problems with some sniping strats that we currently have are nowhere near that level of extreme, but that doesn't mean we don't look for, and point out certain units which are capable of vastly outperforming other units, and ask ourselves whether that is good for the game.

You are, of course, right, but my intention is to extinguish any inclination to react to unfavorable circumstances in an ignoble manner.

As for myself, I am hardened against instant death. In fact, I revel in it. I am the sort of person who looks at the vast majority of the FPS games and ridicules their inconsistency (in the case of cone of fire and recoil), long/high TTKs, and disgustingly unpractical shotguns, unviable LMGs, weak sniper rifles, and lame explosives, all of which I lay blame for on many people's understandable, yet irrational, gut reaction to 'cheese'. It should be no surprise that MW2 was probably my favorite shooter ever, many people who previously played CoD would agree that it is the best designed bar none. The only thing anybody really complained about was DC OMA Propipes, and even then it was only the best choice in domination games. A close second is UT2k4.

I have not experienced any situation so far in PA which, in my personal opinion, has been so starkly at odds with how I would expect a weapon or unit from that setting to work that it causes me to ponder if it is poorly designed. Though, I have heard tell of numerous SXX Space Lasers Of Death coming into orbit directly above the commander, which is the only situation I'm willing to call of dubious design or balance.

Edit: And even then, I would prefer it if the commander himself did not have a safeguard against this, rather, one would think that incoming orbital units would have a more precise indicator as to the place of entry to allow for counter-movement and preparation, or perhaps that Avengers would be able to chase things into and out of orbit and around the system, shooting all the while. A charge time for the SXX upon re-entry would not seem to be justified lore-wise, but gameplay does usurp immersion justification many-a-time. I would find it that much more difficult to immerse myself in such a world unless it is sufficiently justified within the physical model of PA. It already breaks me out somewhat that orbital units come to a dead stop upon entry to the orbital layer.

I think we can agree on the ideal for 'losing well'. Especially when you have access to identical unit rosters, and the game is clearly still in the middle stage of development in terms of balancing. Certain things might be questionable in terms of their balance with the rest of the roster, but in game you just have to roll with what works in the current patch, whilst still making clear what you'd like to see changed.