Brainstorm - How to mitigate the effect of cheap scout spam

[Silentwings]

Can they differentiate between scouts and non-scouts just when seeing radar blips?

It's difficult for me to test this, because when they're just radar blips, I can't see them either . This is something the engine controls and I don't know what it actually does, but it seems that yes they can differentiate between radar blips for targeting purposes.

Bluestone silently commited...

Well, we don't usually announce changes until they're finalized on a release. But do please test and make comments.

[dansan]

Bluestone silently commited...

Well, we don't usually announce changes until they're finalized on a release. But do please test and make comments.

That wasn't meant as critique, but as compliment :)

(The intention was: less speculation, more testing.)

[forest_devil]

a widget that pops up on the spammers screen showing how much metal s/he has so far spent on scouts and the current amount of their economy going to the scout spam

[Koo]

Small buff to LLT. Like LLT killing scout unit with one hit, instead of 2-3 hits.

I think in general LLTs and maybe even HLTs are too underpowered.

-Koo

[MrCucumber]

Llt is very cost effective already, buffing it is not needed. Calling llt underpowered when 1 llt can kill 1 flash yet its half the cost, and then saying it should be twice as strong would change the game in a very big way.

As for scout spam, I havent played big team games for a while but i imagine some aks/gator spam or zeus/panther/pw is more then enough to take care of scouts. If someone could explain what scout spam is, that could be useful.

[albator]

a widget that pops up on the spammers screen showing how much metal s/he has so far spent on scouts and the current amount of their economy going to the scout spam

This widget should also:
- show how much damage the scout taken from enemy unit (how much damage they diverted (like vanguard shots etc...)
- show the equivalent metal converted from hp
- show how much friendly fire the enemy took when its unit wanted to shoot at scout)

[locjaw]

I don't agree with changing the targeting priority. I think using spam (not just scouts) to counter high damage, low ROF units is legit. There is nothing stopping you from doing the same. And anything that encourages mixed unit comp in this game should be given a thumbs up.

If your opponent masses a huge army of ANYTHING that is going to counter you hard, and you don't see it coming, you deserve to die. Intelligence is important. But if you see that they are scout spamming, and you still can't defend yourself from it, then you have a real issue. I haven't been the victim of heinous scout spam, but surely gators, flashes, pyros, zippers, razorbacks and karganeth can mutilate them, right?

If it's not just an issue of people not knowing how to deal with it, then perhaps a buff is needed. If I'm not mistaken, the tactic isn't to kill your standing forces, but get to your base. In which case, turrets would be an appropriate counter. SURELY beam turrets and double LLT's are good enough to stop them? If the game is so late that they are massing scouts in these numbers, you should be able to smack down a wall of 10 beamers in no time.

If all that fails, maybe a T2 anti-spam turret would be kinda cool? Cheap, Low dps but fairly high range and extreme ROF or AOE. Something like a long range beam turret or Immolator (if any of you remember that thing ). Even the idea that such a turret exists would deter players from attempting this strategy, if your qualm is with the effect the spam has on fps regardless of effectiveness.

I don't think weird changes to units, MM(?), AA (??) and unit resistances are necessary.