2012-12-31, 00:20:08
So recently I've noticed bombarding rockets has become a lot more common in lane play than it used to be. In fact many players (Stolch, Verteidiger, saugeiIl to name a few, but there are many more) have started playing early game lanes with exclusively bombarding rockets. The general idea is players use long range to get ahead of there opponent in the early game and then take a tank (usually heavy or airship) before their opponents can giving them an even greater advantage.
Now I'm not entirely against long range on lane, previously on lane there was a mid-range mono-pool resulting in domination by basic magics and a select few extremely skilled players (Wupti and Lioooooil to name a few), but I feel long range on lane has come to the point at which many people are taking long range simply because there isn't any other reliable way of fighting it, while others take it simply because they know they will have an easy advantage over their opponent. Items like maintenance and troops while designed to counter long range have actually become very useful items for the long rangers themselves (maintenance being the most obvious example of this, I see many start off by buying it right away).
The early game short range weapons, glaive thrower and bonfire, have for awhile been basically unusable. The Range Gap on lane meant that anyone who used these weapons against mid rangers had a very hard time, and even more so against long range. With the exceptions of shredder and antigrav these weapons hardly see any use, even then antigrav has such a slow start sometimes taking these weapons is sometimes a bad idea anyway, and shredder is so pressed for inventory space (needs hulls speed etc.) filling 3-4 slots with bonfires would often backfire.
I feel as though we should implement something that will create a kind of "weapon triangle" in 1v1 situations, where Long Range > Mid Range > Short Range > Long Range (">" meaning beats or greater than). Of course this isn't a "be-all-end-all" kind of thing. Naturally if the skill gap is great enough a Long Ranger could still beat a Short Ranger. Teleporter served this purpose, but it also meant that short range could beat mid range as well, and we have to consider breakers too.
So I don't actually have a literal suggestion, I just wanted to share what I think about the lanes right now. My idea is to somehow make the early game short range weapons a viable counter against early game long range, without being overpowered against mid range., and I was wondering if anyone has any creative way of doing this, or if it's even a good idea in the first place, this is free for debate.
Now I'm not entirely against long range on lane, previously on lane there was a mid-range mono-pool resulting in domination by basic magics and a select few extremely skilled players (Wupti and Lioooooil to name a few), but I feel long range on lane has come to the point at which many people are taking long range simply because there isn't any other reliable way of fighting it, while others take it simply because they know they will have an easy advantage over their opponent. Items like maintenance and troops while designed to counter long range have actually become very useful items for the long rangers themselves (maintenance being the most obvious example of this, I see many start off by buying it right away).
The early game short range weapons, glaive thrower and bonfire, have for awhile been basically unusable. The Range Gap on lane meant that anyone who used these weapons against mid rangers had a very hard time, and even more so against long range. With the exceptions of shredder and antigrav these weapons hardly see any use, even then antigrav has such a slow start sometimes taking these weapons is sometimes a bad idea anyway, and shredder is so pressed for inventory space (needs hulls speed etc.) filling 3-4 slots with bonfires would often backfire.
I feel as though we should implement something that will create a kind of "weapon triangle" in 1v1 situations, where Long Range > Mid Range > Short Range > Long Range (">" meaning beats or greater than). Of course this isn't a "be-all-end-all" kind of thing. Naturally if the skill gap is great enough a Long Ranger could still beat a Short Ranger. Teleporter served this purpose, but it also meant that short range could beat mid range as well, and we have to consider breakers too.
So I don't actually have a literal suggestion, I just wanted to share what I think about the lanes right now. My idea is to somehow make the early game short range weapons a viable counter against early game long range, without being overpowered against mid range., and I was wondering if anyone has any creative way of doing this, or if it's even a good idea in the first place, this is free for debate.