Discussion: Early Game Commander Rushes

If it's not the winning strategy, why do you do it? Why is it so successful?

Leave aside overpowered or underpowered for the moment. Is it good gameplay? SHOULD the game revolve around commander rushes in team games, or any game where you start remotely close to the enemy?

Should the game have a strategy that's so overwhelmingly successful if you arn't expert in it's 'counters?

In FA commanders were very important early game, militarily. PA's commanders do not need to be as powerful as they are now in order to get action, especially with the array of Uber Weapons to come. PA commanders also have horrible power drop off and just turn into liabilities pretty much.

More to the point...

Why would their larger army not be having a commander with it as well? This would be the case in a militarily competitive scenario. I mean, assuming we're not the point of armies powerful enough that commanders have been militarily eclipsed.

Except most of the stuff in your post is mid/late game. Completely irrelevant to the issue presented in this thread. What's more, many of your supposed counters are not actually counters. A single Commander can take out some of your counters easily, let alone several commanders, with fabricators repairing them, with units protecting them, while the commanders are building and firing at the same time.

The main issue is, in Army matches, Commander rushes are the most effective, and therefore only valid, strategy. It's an almost guaranteed win. Which means, every Army match will have comm rushes. I don't like the idea of that gameplay, especially with how micro oriented commander combat is and how once one side gains even a slight advantage, the game is now over.

Right now in the Army game type with 3 or more Commanders, there is no reason not to comm rush once 10ish fabricators are out on the field. The Commander's economical benefit is not much. It's much more effective as a combat unit than an economical unit – at least until Advanced gets out.

And even if I lose the Comm rush, the damage created by the Commanders and the resulting Commander explosion is normally enough to set back the defenders enough to lose the entire game.

So even if the defenders successfully repel the Commander rush, they still likely are going to lose due to the crazy amount of destruction unleashed by the Commanders.

I do not like the idea of a game mode that revolves entirely around Commander rushes.

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I like several of the suggested fixes.

Primarily, increase the economical power of the Commander. Make it more of a unit that you don't want to risk in aggressive combat. Make it generate more resources, make it even more efficient of a builder, have more storage, or something. Maybe even make the Commander even slower. I think the Commander economical power should be increased even aside from the Commander rushing issue.

Also, repairing the Commander should be nerfed. Make it so repairing the Commander is slower and requires more resources.

Having the Dgun be an insta-Commander kill and lowering the damage form the Commander explosion so it doesn't kill most buildings also could work.

Having so only one player can control a Commander. This would make for some very interesting strategies

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Point being, I don't like the idea that the Army game mode revolves around Commander rushes. And I really like the Army game type. I think it has the potential to be quite the esport.

Do you have any evidence for this? You make all these ridiculous blanket claims but do you have any games which actually show this is OP?

I disagree, or at least, in the vast array of skills that PA puts to the test, "micromanaging a commander and a few repair bots" is the bottom of the barrel.

Building a good economy takes skill. Evidence of this is in virtually every match I play. Most people are bad at it.
Accounting for all of the strategic possibilities takes skill. Air! Space! Other planets! Nukes! Lots to think about.
Managing a large war takes skill, especially on multiple fronts.

Commander rushing rewards skill? I guess. Nose picking rewards skill too. It's a question of how low you want to set the bar for "skill".

I just go by mere principle ...
in 1v1, ffa and aliance each player controls only his comm
if the comm is destroyed the player of that comm is kicked out of the game .... why is/should be that an exception in teammatches?
i dont even realy mind the abilities and stats of the commander as all players would have access to those though yeah i agree that he shouldnt be too combatefficient but the above mentioned is what i consider an issue in teamgames especialy the later of the 2

The simple reason is that it really takes the fun out of it for noobs, who might lose a base or two at first.

In competitive games, I think it would be an interesting mechanic. For public stuff? No. It needs to remain as-is.

Let's not go here. Skill arguments always degenerate into name calling. (See reference: Planetside 2 Forums).

And I like everyone equally

Yeah, building a good eco takes TONS of practice. I've played a ton in the past few months and I still have so much to learn. But if you spawn NEXT to someone (when I say next to, I mean within a single expansion from you), you often need to put your comm into harms way to defend the base. This requires you to build 4-5 pgens with your comm, an energy storage, a turret or two, and then hike over to the bad guys and start pelter creep+ ant flanks + fab micro. The enemy needs to be removed in order to ensure your base's integrity in the long run. So you send your most powerful asset at that point: your commander.

I'd also like to point out that a blind rush into enemy territory with a couple of fabbers and combat units helping is doomed to fail. You are fighting the enemy at his BASE. He probably saw you coming and threw up a few defenses. Only way to fight that is to pelter creep, and the smart ones will have built a pelter in-base by that point.

Its quite risky. And quite rewarding, if done right. Is it overpowered? Maybe. It is most certainly BINARY, in that you win epically or you lose disastrously. There is no middle ground here.

Where I think the binary situation gone wrong is, is this:
Build defenses to stop a comm rush and you'll lose the game if there is no comm rush. Your eco is going to be behind.

Fail to build defenses to stop a comm rush and you'll probably lose to the comm rush. The very fact that he's going to make you rush build defenses to try and turn him back is going to be an economic victory for him even if he doesn't kill you.

The game isn't even interesting unless you end up in a situation where you didn't build to stop a comm rush and there was no comm rush. NOW you can have a good game.

Comm rushes just lead to shitty, shallow gameplay.

This ^

Also, even if you do destroy a com rush, the resulting explosion takes out part of your base sending you even farther behind.

I've talked about it a lot in this thread.

https://forums.uberent.com/threads/discussion-early-game-commander-rushes.55172/page-10#post-848485
Nice overview ^

Another issue someone mentioned is the word "binary." The gameplay is very static with little to no variety when the gameplay caters so much to the power of Commander rushes.

I also find it interesting that you're asking for evidence of the power of the Commander when it's your go-to strategy in multi player Army matches and refuse to play without that strategy.

I don't think it's a refusal to play without that strategy. I think it's more of him using it very effectively each time he does use it.
Yes, comm rush is a very binary system. But I don't think it is overpowered.

Not thinking its overpowered is a valid way of thinking. I'd disagree though.

However, do you want a game where all Army matches are determined by a successful or failed Commander rush? The entirety of the game is determined by one engagement at the start of the match.

That sounds boring.

Not to mention its basically how Zpahodx Plays most of his games, getting that early edge to lean on for the rest of the game.

Basically why he rarely loses, aggressive strategy is usually superior and he knows it.

Why settle for anything less?

Brian thinks that spamming nonsense often enough will change the facts. Using my techniques will help you in different scenario's and you will always have more up then the attacking commander, so you probably didn't scout, or **** up something else. The conclusion is the same, you havent practised.

The fact is, i have done it multiple times myself, so everyone agreeing with brian is ABSOLUTELY wrong. But your all way to active on this topic to actually play and test things. Also, if you think making a 'good' base is harder then microing a succesfull EARLY commander rush, you forgot to install the game and i suggest you try before you post here.

Btw, im trying to keep up with the spam, but its near-impossible.

Someone needs a cookie.

chocolate chip cookies pls!

The fact is, this is a strategy game, if you find your opponent is very close you have to act like it. Its really not that every game involves a commrush, and they certainly don't all succeed.

Also, if your not in a tournament match and just playing casual, why don't nobody suggest making walls, if there is no gentlemans rules involved that sounds like the cheapest and easiest solution to me. Also because its better for repairs wich you can do because you should have some eco. You should be able to have your defence in place aswell before he is there and i wouldn't waste toomuch on pelters myself. 1 is good, 2 is better but not great, 3 is getting pretty expensive and 4 is almost a no go. Just make a combination of doublebarrel laser and missle turrets.

Why on earth would you build defenses for something that might happen? That is obviously a poor strategic choice. You scout early to find the opponent's bases, then you know who is at risk. You keep scouting to know when attacks are coming e.g. unit raiding or a comm 'rush'.

Just because you show time and time again you have no idea how to deal with this doesn't make it OP, it just shows how closed-minded you are.

This game shows how to deal with it. You scout first, you know who is at risk. Mattrmunson scouts the commanders coming and tells his team to send EVERYTHING. They do and they could have easily dealt with it, they just didn't stop it because they didn't use their commanders well. Even mediocre-level skill could have stopped the comm rush. Even though they weren't successful they made it difficult for a 3v1(!!) comm rush to work. They also setup other proxy bases and put pressure back on us.




You could have your way and get comm rushing nerfed, I would early rush pelter creep you which would be impossible to counter.

Then when that gets nerfed I would just rush you... with units. It's called teamwork and focused fire to overwhelm and take out weak points in your opponent. Seriously if you have a problem with this then stop playing until you get 20 minute no rush options in the lobby. Even then I will out eco you and go for instant snipe rush 20 minutes in. This is aggressive play, if you don't like it then play against the AI, play FFAs, or go play Simcity.

Although I agree with you that com rushing isn't as much of a problem as some people here claim it to be, increasing the commander's building capabilities might not be such a bad idea.

Newbs shouldnt instantly go into competitive or ladder they would lose the same way in alliance .... i would consider that almost inevitable

In that case as i mentionet before there should be used a turn off option for commdeath=game over

I personaly think teamgames with playerkick on commdeath would lead to more intresting and more chalanging matches in general ... considering how alliance worked in supcom (which i do expect would be almost the same in PA) and how team games work here i generaly think team is more unforgiving in making mistakes due to the shared eco and productionnature of it
putting playerkick on commdeath to it would make it THE kingclass of clangaming
it must be put in imho (as well as commcontrol only by dedicated to comm player ... but thats secondary)
and i am certain it will make for more tense public teamgames aswell

I like to ask video streamers to do a series of games including that rule as a gentelmansrule in teamgames

And once you know you're at risk, you rush to build otherwise useless, expensive defenses that the enemy does not have to build.

You lose.

The only winning move is to be the one doing the commander rush. Your counter-video of you winning by doing a commander rush is not helping your case.

Now you're just being silly.

Pelter creeps are risky, expensive and is a much more dynamic event. Without a commander to hide behind, the fabricators are much more at risk. There's a lot of time to see them coming, see them building a pelter and get up your own counter-pelter. If you try building your first pelter out of range, as a basis to creep from, I can stop you pretty easily by building my own pelter at the point where I'd like to make sure you can't get past.

This is vastly different than pushing forward with a construction unit that has 12500 hit points, moves and has 3x the DPS of an Ant with more range.

If you really thought Pelter rushes were "impossible to counter", you'd be doing them. You don't, because they aren't. I think you're just defending the particular gamestyle you happen to like.

It would be like me coming here to say "T2 bombers are not OP" while meanwhile that's how I kill virtually everyone in every game. At least have the grace to admit that the strategy that works in every match is actually in need of some balancing.

Just had to quote that for truth.
No matter if I rush myself or have to counter an enemy rush, its never a good game to me. Just a bland and boring waste of time.

In the 1v1 I usually play that is, cant say anything about bigger games as I dont do them.