Discussion: Early Game Commander Rushes

Funny how i said that i consider it a reasonable strategy before (as when the situation demands it)
no i dont consider it rightout as taboo at all ... when people decide to commrush in order to get a teamadvantage then thats actualy fine but if they do it they have to consider that they would be no longer part of the game once the comm has been destroyed sort of like a last resort move .. depending on systemsetup that may or may not cost precise control of the army as one player can control or focus only so much at a time ..
i do however agree with your restatement ... but i also still stand by what i said before ... if a player wants to stay in game he wont go commrush so easily assuming playerkicking would be in effect

I have been re-reading topic from the start. Except i have replaced the word "commander" with "ant".
This makes the topic an incredible read. For example:

Especially when 3 ANTs gang up on 2 ANTs. Once the attacking ANTs take out an enemy ANT, they then take out an entire base and the defenders have no force that can stop them.

So the ant is too powerfull because 3 ants will beat 2 ants in combat. And the defencer can't do anything against it.

On a slightly (just a little bit) more serious note. All team start with the same number of commanders. Every player has the exact same possible tactics. The commander rush happens to be one of them.
The only problem i see with this tactic is in team armies mode. That problem is that one player can control all the commanders on the team. So one player can borrow other commanders and go kill stuff. A skilled player can easily manage 3+ commanders with the knowledge the other players are busy building the base.
This can make commander rush a bit to easy in team army games.

The solution would be to make the commander only controllable by one player in team armies. Everything else remains the same. But now a 3 commander rush would take 3 people. Taking much of the focus away from base building/economy/defence/ect.

Balancing by player attention --> balancing by requiring more micro --> is nonsense, against game philosophy AND won't work at high levels of skill

Yeah the building placement strategy aspect of starcraft 2 was something that I really liked, but it seems impossible to imlement in this game.

Edit: i somehow lost orientation... sorry guys, I'm drunk

The only thing 'building placement 'strategy' ever did for Starcraft 2 was insure the only maps people ever played had tiny chokepoints in front of bases.... SupCom and TA had a lot more to look for in building placement strategy.

In that case the commander itself does violate the overall philosophy of the game since its especialy a microunit with its cannon

There's a big difference between ants and commanders. Other things can counter Ants while the only thing that can counter a Commander is Commander, or mid/late game armies.

Also, simply replacing the text ignores the issue that right now in large army team games, there's one game winning guarantee strategy – Commander rush.

I do like the idea of Commanders being only controllable by one player. Though it does create issues. I think it solves more issues than it creates.

The commander rush is not overpowered.

There is some economic disadvantage. It's not "huge" though.

Commanders are the most efficient build unit but it's not such a dramatic swing that you cripple yourself by not using him to build. So that's the bottom line problem:
Commander building = slightly better than T1 fabrication bots
Commander fighting = omgwtfbbq better than any T1 combat unit or turret

A solo commander can lazily charge a Pelter and kill it and everything around it with no risk.

The only real risk to a commander is getting caught in the open by T2 items. A catapult or a few Levelers will end your charge.

Maybe the solution is to increase the commander's building capabilities then instead of reducing it's combat prowess?

i like his way of thinking.

Mot has put it beautifully. Now, I will explain.

The Commander Rush is not overpowered in the early game because:

It rewards skill in a positive manner.
It is also the easiest attack to repel, because it is a matter of SURVIVAL. Even in team games, it is rare for the enemy to throw commanders heedlessly at the enemy to defeat or severely hamper them quickly because the commander NEEDS to survive - or, it would be worth more if the commander survived than if he died in larger games. He is not EXPENDABLE.

It also adds a different dynamic to the gameplay - one of TACTICS. It forces very strategically-minded players (like myself) to think more short term and immediate instead of just the big picture. Now, the entire game shouldn't be about tactics. But this one part of it is.

Now, I know ya'll have watched Zaphod's videos - and you know how good he is at comm rushing. In teamgames, it really is not about how many commanders you have; it's about how many engineers you have, and how many units you have flanking the enemy comm(s). It is more complex than just *throw commanders and win*.

If it's not overpowered, why does it dominate the meta-game?

In my mind, such a heavy focus on micromanagement of a handful of units is against the spirit of the game - as well as being poor gameplay amd devaluing all other potential early game tactics.

None of this will change if - say - the commander is significantly nerfed (directly) or meta-nerfed (turret buff?).

None of it requires commander rushing, either; it's just standard TA-type gameplay.

The Commander will always be critical in early fights. Having ten units plus a commander is always better than having ten units.

The Deadly Shoe, that is just bullshit. I see WAAY more people rushing advanced tech and/or orbital. Read my post and finally find out that your wrong.

The problem with your post most of the stuff you stated needs time to make ... the commanders however are already there all it needs for them is to close the distance to where the enemy is 3 of them can almost affortlessly deal with single enemy commanders especialy if the enemy player is less skilled ... wow that is fun to lose one comm early because the player dared to go eco and production first instead of building turrets because you know thats considered turtling and usualy despised by the skilled players ... in alliance that would mean him beeing out already ... in alliance however one person wouldnt be able to control 3 commanders
It would requier all 3 players ...
a skilled player should be able to pull of the same with just one comm
a lesser skilled player would be simply overchalanged with his comm against 3 .... yeah i take the 3 v 1 handycap example when the enemy team may have their comms spread rather then clumped up on one place

tldr ... this kind of commrush is too easy to pull off in teammatches and thus op

unless you fight a skilled player and you end up without commander(s)

Rushing tech or orbital is not incompatible with a teamgame commander rush. Nor with early commander engagements in an FFA or 1v1.

This thread has been posted and gotten comments precisely because it IS a problem. Evidence of played matches has been offered.

Poor players not knowing how to counter isn't proof something is OP. Which games posted have been posted as evidence?

Why not do two things;
1. Require the commander to be equipped with a warhead via nuclear silo for it to detonate quite as gloriously as it did previously (Com Bombs are gone in the early game and useless in the late game)
2. Commanders only do half damage to each other. (Prevents commanders from fighting each other... and also meaning two comms are necessary for the same damage output to take one down)

Ok. So first off, if commander rushes really are a thing, wouldn't making the com-bomb do over 50% damage to another Com pretty much ensure a trade more often? Even if it is 2 explosions, 1 of it's current full range and damage, and one that is half of that range and adds another 20% damage? Then if commanders don't want to trade wouldn't they need to let off the chase to let the enemy commander away?

Also, maybe commander guns should have larger AOE and less damage, as their health is plenty tanky enough to survive early game units without needing to 1 hit kill them individually. As long as it can kill 5 in a group relatively fast.

It is nice that commanders get to see some action compared to them hiding in previous games, how you can make a few risky stabs by keeping your commander in the back pecking at enemy targets. I wouldn't want to do away with that entirely, but if 2 or more can early-win the game then that would be a problem. I think if it is a problem now then there is a balance point to it, where a commander will be a sluggish way to kill another commander but they will generally have effective enough firepower to risk using in the back of a pack to thin out odds against a larger army blob.

Using them as very powerful filler to a small army against a larger one is a pretty fun thing to see right now, and it sometimes gets a commander sniped which is fair enough, but it is nice that it is considered useable.