The problem with this game, from the day it was released, is that while the devs (arguably, heh) made an attempt to balance units somewhat, they never balanced strategies. Now, it would be virtually impossible to foresee every exotic strat someone might come up with, and balance for it - that's what patches are for. But no brainers? Come on! I mean, their own AI was spamming uber-siege frigs of doom when the game was released, so you mean to tell me they didn't know about that strat?
What I mean by "balancing strategies" is, a simple obvious mindless strategy should not be any harder to counter than the strategy itself. But here's the kicker - it should be DIFFERENT than the strategy itself. Countering uber-siege frigs of doom was more difficult, unless you just spammed siege frigs back at your opponent. Countering lrm spam was more difficult, unless you just spammed lrm back at your opponent. Countering carrier spam was more difficult, unless you just spammed carriers back at your opponent. Countering illums STILL IS more difficult (certainly for vasari, anyway) unless you just spam illums back at your opponent, which is in fact what illum spammers do to each other. In all of these cases, the counter strategy is more difficult (meaning more expensive, more risky, more micro-intensive, whatever) to pull off than the strategy itself, which means the only way to "even the score" and counter him in a way that is just as easy, mindless, etc. is to do the same thing back at him. In other words, rock vs. rock, scissors vs. scissors, paper vs. paper. That has always sucked, and continues to suck.
Which brings us to the latest, most fashionable hated spam. Advent illum spam used to win my 3 awards for "most hated spam," "most mindless spam," and "most difficult to counter spam," but Advent seeker/disciple spam is now taking over all 3 number 1 spots. It really is getting ridiculous. And vasari really are hosed on this one, because the brainless counter spam would mean you have to build skirmishers and navigators - the worst units in the game for combat in their respective classes.
Devs, I don't expect you to be uber-geniuses. I don't expect you to be able to foresee every exotic strat out there and build a good counter strat for it in the game. But you should be able to see OBVIOUS NO-BRAINER strats, and provide acceptable counters ("acceptable counter" meaning "doing something different than your opponent is doing to you"). If there is a unit in the game, it is a no-brainer to understand that it can and will be spammed - this is not something exotic or hard to foresee. It is (or was) your job to balance for that.
So what to do about seeker/disciple spam? RagingAmish will correctly say "just counter with all LF, you dummy" (which will work for everyone except the red-headed stepchild of the game - the vasari). But again, I DON'T WANT TO COUNTER A ROCK WITH A ROCK, and while I agree that "all lf" is slightly different than "lf + scouts" it is close enough to "rock vs. rock" in my book that it offends me.
"Counter with HC" is what one enterprising young seeker/disciple spammer told me in game a while back. I had to thank him for that laugh, because it really was the funniest thing I had heard in a long time. I mean, you can't counter tier 1 with tier 5. By the time you roll your first HC out, you are already dead.
Some people will say SB, but it isn't a real solution, it is just a delaying tactic. You can only SB so many worlds, while his fleet of scouts/LF continues to grow and he continues to take over the rest of the map. At some point his scout/LF fleet will actually be able to kill your SBs, or, if you've sank all your money into one or two heavily-fortified ones, he'll just come back late game with bombers.
The correct solution, devs, is TO PROVIDE A PAPER TO KILL THE ROCK, not leave my only viable alternative as a rock to smash his rock, and here's the kicker - THE PAPER MUST BE JUST AS EASY TO PULL OFF AS THE ROCK. And with this, I solicit you, the community, on ideas as to what this paper might be.
ONE IDEA: Capital ships.
Capital ships already have many counters in lrm, bombers, and HC. They don't need another one in seeker/disciple spam. I say nerf the damage that scout/lf can do to capships to almost nothing, and possibly either buff the damage that capships can do to them in return, or provide some "area of affect" or splash damage for the capship which is deadly to scout/lf. Marza already has radiation bomb, but really it is useless in its current form against scout/lf spam. MB would be great against it, but you have to wait until level 6 right now, which means you are already dead. At any rate, I think that capital ships could be made to be just as mindless and easy of a strat to pull off as spamming scout/lf. All you do is bring out 2nd, 3rd capship (and more if the idiot keeps on spamming scout/LF).
Scout/LF damage against structures may also have to be nerfed in this scenario, so that the scout/LF spammer doesn't just ignore your capships and kill all your structures on all your worlds.
ALTERNATE (BAD) IDEA: The "charged missle" type upgrades for vasari and TEC LRF.
It already provides area of affect. Make it provide more of an area of affect, and make it even more deadly to LF/scout. Thing is, I'm actually very leery about this idea, because scouts are actually needed to counter LRF, so we don't need LRF countering scouts in return, and furthermore we don't need to be buffing LFR at all!
Anybody else agree with the overall gist of this post? Anybody have any better ideas than these? Someone will probably say "just nerf scouts" but I don't like that because it will just mean the return of rank lrm/illum spam - we need something to counter lrm/illum.
