AchromicWhite

Well this is why I've been pushing to simply have another mode, where that sort of stuff is kept in check... while leaving the current mode just how it is (so that people who are happy with the current set up can just continue).

I'd argue that at the time where Nod has SSM, infantry are not almost useless, and the MLRS is needed, especially in places where there are turrets. The issue with the Nod turret is that the key units for taking it out (in the meta) is the medium tank, yet the med tank is also the exact thing the turret is designed to counter. If bikes are nearby, you need to push with infantry to snipe the bikes and soak damage. it becomes an impossible territory is there are also SSM. With MLRS you can then push the bikes out of the way so that you can actually siege the area. That's very late game, though, as the bikes are build at, I think (would have to check) faster than 2/3 the speed of med tanks/MLRS. Yeah, it's certainly one more thread in a long line. And you're right, it is indeed just people giving their ideas with no testing.

See... I thought that too. AGT creep, on maps with a short rush distance, is actually pretty damn good in GDI v GDI. It allows you to produce for more rocket troops, because you don't need the grens to protect them. With so much anti armour, the tanks become more and more useless. So it could change the meta... at least beyond comm tech. Against Nod... It'd be very map dependant, as always. On a map like Quarry, yeah, it'd be awesome. Sounds crazy, but I think that Apaches would be the answer. Interesting that you consider the idea that a fully mechanised composition is a lot better... it certainly takes a lot longer to produce the units. I think one of the big advantages to infantry is how they're produced. The fact that you can bring in a lot of money and then use cheap $300 production structures to spend it all whenever you want to push. For that reason, I see MLRS being used more defensively (as you're choosing tech over factory production... less vehicles over all AND obviously unlocking AGT). If you want to be offensive, I think the better option would still be grens. So my guess would be that the MLRS would be only used offensively in the later parts of a match anyway. Personally, I don't see a need for APC to be comm level. The early engineer is more of the issue.

Yeah, If we use that idea.

Yeah, I more just see these posts as fun. Even if I had the option to patch the game, I don't think I'd be that keen to do so. (Sorry to bring up SC again)... With BW, there was a % imbalance between Zerg and Protoss with only a 45% win rate from protoss in PvZ... One of the best players in the world (and probably the very best protoss player) invented a new strategy using 2 units that were considered "bad" units. That strategy changed that match up to be 55% in protoss favour after he showcased the tactic in tournament play. Before then, people could have argued that either P needed a buff or Zerg needed a nerf, yet the answer was IN the game the whole time. The only unit in C&C that makes me sad is the MLRS... because the unit seems fine, but needing to put down 2700 PLUS the (1000 to get the first comm) just to unlock it makes it near impossible to get in any game other than a mass tib map (and even then you're usually better to just make more factories and some AGT for defence). I don't even know how strong the unit is. I have no idea how it'd play out if you could access it. Honestly, despite what cn2mc says on that front, I don't think anyone knows how strong it is. Last time someone made it vs me, it was LoveHandles and I shot them with orca.

I don't see the chem warrior changing anything, given that a unit of it's function is already readily available. If you add 2 check boxes, you'd need 3 extra exe files. -Just MLRS -Just Chem -MLRS and Chem

Actually, the M16 has better RoF. Rifle RoF = 20 Machine gun RoF= 30 Yeah, I think the better way to play vs a buggy rush is to NOT have the same amount of refineries. You should have 1-2 more during your opener, and then use extra barracks to produce quickly (spend the money that you saved). So long as you hold, you're then basically ahead. Well, that's how I play it, anyway.

I wish I had ANY idea how to make that happen... But yeah, I suspect that as we move forward, it'll become harder and harder to keep this game running.

I think Turret maybe the best defence in the game. You can use them offensively, though. If you're good.

Is this assuming that the L.Tank should be as good as the medium tank, price for price? We're aware that the humvee is certainly not the right value, price for price with the buggy, right? I'd suggest that the L.tank is meant to be worse, it's just... it's TOO bad. Good post, though.

Yeah... buggies are insane, lol. They can often beat their counters.

Yeah, as I was saying, certainly not for balance reasons. But I just want to play with the pieces. Would be nice to see some different compositions... I think the MLRS would be much better vs bike/buggy than vs apaches. I don't think they're very good AA at all, but would need testing to see. Question is, do we want a mode like that in the game... or do we fear that it'd just always be used and potentially wreck the game?

APC: GDI only, OR make it so it can't crush. Apache: Less ammo. 6-7 (Orca has 6. Half of what it currently has would be 7). Chem Warrior: Comm tech, 80 HP (is 70, make it 80, maybe 100... commando is 80) Flamer troop: nerf flamer HP from 70 to 50. 50hp=gren (This should give the chem warrior a real role in the Nod army) MLRS: Comm tech Engineer: Comm tech Flame tank: Honestly, maybe a speed increase. It just needs to be able to DO the job a bit better. Current speed is just as fast as grens. So if it's chasing them, it'll pretty much never catch them. Stealth tank: More HP and/or make it NOT smoke at half health (like dino/viceroid). Weapons Factory: I actually like the idea that it's weak, but I think that it should have a BIT more HP. 4 Orca should still kill it (as it is now, 3 can do it with no repair on the factory when the attack happens, so 4 well over kills it). So more, but not heaps. Air Strip: Nerf HP. It's boring that the airstrip is not vulnerable to many weapons/units. Keep the heavy armour so that it has a sense of immunity vs some weapons, but lower the basic HP so that 4 orca can also kill it (currently needs 6). I think that'd give orca more of a role in GDI v Nod and make scouting more important. Basically, better meta game. (Note that it'd still have more HP than the factory AND a better armour type, as AP weapons, like the orca rockets, do more damage against heavy than against light armour). Light Tank: Needs increased range. It currently has less range than a med, less base damage than a med AND less rate of fire than a med. Probably also raise the RoF, but the range is the most obvious issue. Currently the range is the same as a recon bike/rocket trooper. What this means is that in the case of tanks vs tanks, in larger battles: Imagine you have a 2 cell deep line of tanks on both sides. As they engage, medium tanks can fire before the light tanks can even do anything... then, once the first row of light tanks is in range, BOTH lines of medium tanks can fire, while only one line of light tanks can fire. It's a BIG deal. It also means they cannot stand behind light vehicles and fire, as they're on par with the recon bikes. Artillery: Better turn rate. That's all I can be bothered with for now. Feel free to rip into it, lol.

This is unrelated to the other stuff that I've been posting up about tournament game standards... Funny, I didn't even read Chem's post on balance before making this... anyway. I've spoken to a couple of people about this. Basically, how would people feel about having a check box that would make both the MRLS and the Chem Warrior into comm centre tech, rather than Adv. Comm and Temple respectively? Obviously, it'd be more of a buff to GDI (I see little use for a Chem troop over just a regular Flame troop). But it would at least make the units properly accessible in games where people wanted to play with them. I want to be clear that I'm not asking about this in order to balance the game, (I think the game may very well have a whole host of balance issues that are hard to deal with) but this would at least let us have them in matches. I think having more stuff is fun, basically. I think, in order to do it, there'd have to be another exe in the folder for the client to launch, as in order for units to be changed, you have to edit the exe (correct me if I'm wrong). Having it as a check box means that people could just switch it off. So if people just want to play the classic game, or they don't like any meta that comes out of having these units more available, for the most part, they can just say "no".

Basically, the guard tower has the apache gun (or 1/2 apache gun, as the apache fires twice), which is pretty strong. It only has 200 HP (400 actual, as building HP is doubled). Same as power plants, weapons factories etc... Interestingly so do BOTH of the Nod defences (turret/Obs) but of course, the turret has heavy armour, so you really need AP to take it out. Thing is, the GT easily has the shortest range of all of them, while rockets (from bikes/bazooka) and the light tank cannon all have the same range, if positioned correctly, they can out range the tower. (My point is that the range is short), compare that to the Nod Turret which has a longer range than ever the Med tank cannon... and of course the adv tower ranges are more like artillery. That range counts for a LOT. Range is totally underestimated for it's use in RTS, and it'll play a lot into it given that it's static.

Yes, I talked about other settings being a thing... this post was for maps in particular.

Well, if you read the post that I linked. It shows what this is about. Making a place for new people to come and learn and then start playing competitively. No one new can do that if they're just going into random games. IF there's a clear competitive game mode, that has certain standards, then we might actually get more players. Like seriously, if you're new, how long would it take for you to find out which maps are good for competition and what settings should be on/off? And if you're wanting to dive in, you might just get bored and leave; figuring that this game is just people playing silly rules and that there is no true competitive play. Yeah, and we could do this. Like, we could either say "maps have to have these standards" and enter them that way... or have standards for other maps, and pick a list of originals to accompany.

IDK what the heck people are doing here... Sorry about all of this. There surely is a modern RA2 editor. My own skills are more around C&C95 and RA1, though. Wish I could be of more help to you.

Basically all of the defences are weak if it's JUST the towers... but 5 does seem like a lot, I guess. I usually place 1-2 in a key location during a rush, but I'm making units, too.

Yeah, well we talked about including some of those. Which is what this thread is about. The thing with including too many maps that are asymmetric, OR simply lack a standard but are being used IN a competitive setting is that the outcome is often geared on where you start... similarly to viceroids/crates etc. It's not that the game WILL come down to it, it's that it plays such a big factor in the game. If you did want to play a match with such features, you could just play a non-tournament setting, as you can now. This thread is about deciding what we want to have, collectively, as a standard to competitive play.

I don't think you understand the purpose behind all this. https://forums.cncnet.org/topic/7930-spirit-of-design-funkyfresh/?do=findComment&comment=66046

If we could get some more people to reply to this so that we have a list of data from a good group of people, that'd be great. The idea is to collect it here, move forward into what we actually WILL and WONT use. Put it along side what we want to have for game settings and then pass on the final ideas to Funky. That way we have all the information clear for the CnCNet team to see and we also have a good amount of people that show interesting in tournament/ladder play styles. If we don't, then I don't see much of a reason for the CnCNet team to really program in anything. (Who wants to make content that wont be used). And if I just try to push it myself, it just looks like I'm speaking for the whole community, which I don't want to do.

This is actually such an important bit of information... which ignoring has costed me many games.

Not many people play that many... but if they're good enough to hold rushes of different sorts, you might want to look to play an econ game yourself. I feel like if you played aggressive vs that, you could kill the con, but maybe I'm wrong.

I find that the troops are just bad vs APC. I've started relying more on a well placed guard tower. It hits instantly if you click the engi, and it can't be run over. Regarding the refinery numbers (1 vs 3), I actually held both an APC and a 2 strip all in vs you on Iron. So, it can be done, but it might be map dependant (rush distance and terrain advantages).