Barring some mod I'm not aware of, I'm done with Sins online

I do sympathize with the Vasari vs Advent matchup currently.  You basically have to lean on capital ships to survive.  Even TEC is in a tough spot against Advent.  That said, the Advent mirror match isn't actually so bad.  Seeker spammers will get hammered by someone who mixes in disciples, and a fighter-equipped Halcyon is always a great asset.

I agree a patch should come out and provide a nerf to seekers, a buff to skirmishers and navigators, a fix to illum "mystery damage", and perhaps even some tweaks to subverters and repulse to bring them into line.

I do sympathize.  I hate scout rushing crap.  We shall see how things turn out.  Best of luck.

[_]-Greyfox

if you wish for scout spam to go away you should vote for fighter buff.

After 2 years almost of the Advent being OP. You would think after all the bitching, all the legitamate bitching. That some balance changes would have been made. That actually nerfed the advent. lol Now diplomacy is coming and game is still kinda broken.

Its not quite as broken as it was....

The mod you want is 'normal start'.  It 'adds to the length' of games.  Ignore Advent smurfs who whine about it, if they were new they wouldn't appreciate the difference.  Have them thrown out of your games.  Play appropriate maps for Vasari, not one of the dismal stream of 5v5 single maps- why always single?  The PUGs are terrible, and no place to begin to learn to play online.

However, I wonder whether the developers have any concern remaining for the game.  We've waited for two expansion betas- and one hotfix- for a simple hotfix that would rid us of the Illuminator bug.  There has been no communication about the bug from them in that time.  The v1.18 'balance' patch was supposed to stop Illuminator spamming, though without nerfing Illuminators themselves, worrying enough.  To have Illuminator spam heavily enhanced, plus the appearance of Disciple spam as as soon as LF had any value at all, because Disciples were also too strong, isn't balance at all.

The current online game is extremely poor and making it faster won't get us to the 'dire' numbers of 'only' 1000 players that usually 'announces the death' of any other RTS.  I loathe the concepts of more AI cheating and fastest speeds that the expansion is including- and I'm among those wishing for a new combat ship, especially as it seems that the fourth race won't emerge.  However, what makes a good RTS is balance, and the last patch attempt just made the balance much worse.  And I sympathise with the mood to quit, because I'm not getting the impression that anyone is listening.

Please hotfix the Illuminators, it's been two months. 

spam doesn't work with the distant stars mod that well. You could also try the mad-scientist mod (although spam is still an issue w/ that one.) You could also try my Battle Royal mod, no way can you spam in that mod.

two or three DS caps would smash most spams into the ground and come out looking good

they'd come out looking better what with all the new levels and all.

The spam alone is bad enough to deal with.  But have you been hit with the spam backed by 2 halcyons loaded with bombers, in a rush?  Because then the only "counters" you are left with don't work!  Starbase?  It goes down in seconds to the bombers.  Capships?  They die in seconds to the bombers.  Get out a few carriers with fighters to deal with the bombers?  Bitchslap.

Anyway, I agree that 5v5 pugs, quickstart, and fast speed settings are a lot of the problem.  And I don't think the entire game should cater to and be balanced around 50 people who play 5v5 pugs on crowded rush maps.  People who care about balance should play the game on normal speed settings and normal start.  If the Advent dominance is still there, THEN we can ask for balance changes, and THEN the ritalin junkies who like maxed out speeds, quickstart, etc. can go back to their favorite settings.

I'm going to have to disagree with those who mentioned turning off quick start as an option to dealing with this.  No, that simply will not work.  In the few online games I've been in with it turned off, and when I go against a couple of unfairs in single player with it turned off and I play as advent, I can still spam seekers...and remember I'm not as good as others.  The only difference is it takes me about another 10 minutes to get the spam going; that will make absolutely no difference whatsoever.  If you used that in an ICO match, then everyone else is about 10 minutes behind also - that's the only change that setting will give you.

You've missed a VERY key point about no quick start. The vasari get a big advantage if you turn quick start off. That advantage is that they can find neutrals WAAAAY before the other races can, meaning they get economic stimulus very early. This is how Vasari USED to be successful. They would find about 3-4 neutrals in the first 10 minutes and lean on having a better resource eco than everyone else to be successful. Sure, the units were a little bit weaker, but this was ok considering you could make up for it with a good early game eco from neutrals and by having MORE than your opponent QUICKER.

Quickstart completely negates that, and shows that Vasari light frigs are pathetic, their scouts are weak, and that their flak are horrible compared to TEC and Advent. I hope some fixing is coming for Vasari in the next patch.

Yeah, but you can spam anything in SP and win.

its funny when i read this it feel like reading an actual battle report:

New Advent Strategy: they are rushing us with scouts and both the Valiant TEC and Mighty Vasari are havign a hard time beating back this new Advent assault =P

Next, they'll buff TEC or Vasari way too much and then the other two races will be hard pressed to survive... funny how it ebbs and flows..

Okay, just got out of a 1v1 as vasari vs... of course advent (you didn't guess that correctly, did you?).  He used the...  of course seeker/disciple spam strat (you didn't guess that correctly, did you?).  At any rate, what I'm here to say is, I've stumbled upon the perfect counter as vasari!  I'm serious!  Read on....

So the game starts.  Of course, not only am I 'roid fucked, but I have only 1 phase lane out of my homeworld as well, so I was instantly behind economically, and even though I eventually had trade ports and he didn't, I stayed behind.  So anyway I start scouting, and I see he isn't dropping any mil labs, just civ labs.  First signal that he's going seeker/disciple.  Continue scouting, and see a mothership and about 8 disciples taking out a terran near his hw, but I see no seekers.  So I drop a mil, tech assailants, but only pump about 4 and keep them in reserve.  I don't want to overcommit, and have him hammer me with seekers after.  Meanwhile I have my egg and about 7 or 8 skirmishers taking a few planets.

How it ended was, I was taking a terran, and in rolls his mothership, about 20 disciples, and about 20 seekers, just as I had colonized.  So I sent him a friendly message and said "I'm sorry, I don't want to fight against seeker/disciple spam.  We are wasting our time playing.  Have a nice day." And I pushed the quit button.

That's the counter.  You think I'm joking, but I'm serious.  Unless you are in a team game, just tell him you aren't playing against seeker/disciple spam, and quit before your first battle commences.  Why not?  And if you are in a team game (unless its one of those 5v5 pugs), see if you can get your teammates to agree on that course of action before the game commences.

No I didn't.  You're assuming every game will yield neutrals somewhere near your vasari starting position which is not always the case.  Some games, heck, by the time you locate any neutrals your seeker spam opponent may already be sitting on it.

In addition, why is regular start somehow a counter to seeker spam?  It isn't.  In fact, playing as advent the first 10-15 minutes on normal start I have no problem building a frigate factory and cranking out the seekers.  This is NOT a solution to the spam problem.

I like this, but it would involve me quitting every single time I see it coming.  My online record (it isn't impressive by any means I admit) would get even worse and I further suspect word would start getting around about me that I'll quit after 30 minutes.  You'd have to have the entire Sins community buy into this which I don't think is going to happen.

IMO that would just encourage things.  They would be getting a win from it after all.  Plus if it was a team game you would be screwing your team and no one would want to play with you anymore.

[_]-Greyfox

Nah, if you hit quit instead of surrender, it doesn't count as a loss. The only stat that really counts is number of games played.

One thing you can do is have 5 different accounts to play on, and alternate between them.  If "word starts getting around" you could just delete one of the accounts and make a new one.

But the main thing is, who cares if word gets around?  Word would only be getting around from seeker/discple spammers to other seeker/discple spammers.  Do you care what they think?  What would they say about you, anyway?  That they don't have fun playing with you because you refuse to let them pummel you with an OP strat?  That you're no fun because you're not a masochist and don't enjoy pain?

The title of your thread is that you are quitting Sins online anyway.  So if you stay and try my counter, the absolute worst that happens is you get no games, that word gets out, blah blah, which makes you absolutely no worse off than if you quit Sins like you plan to do.  Of course, it's your game, I really don't care what you do.  But this is my official counter from now on.

Another thing I've thought of doing is hosting games that say "no advent" or something like that.  Of course, as you point out, you are eliminating 90% of potential players, but again I say, do you really want to play with advent disciple/seeker spammers?

Anyway, good luck with whatever you figure out.

I don't see anything wrong with hosting games titled "No Advent" or "TEC only" or "Vasari only" or even "Advent only".  Just do that.

Creating multiple accounts makes me no better than a smurf and I won't stoop that low.  And besides I don't know about anyone else but I look at win/loss ratio compared to total games played to get an idea of the player's skill, not just total games played.  I realize some have quit because of minidumps or disconnects and I take that into account also.

That's actually not a bad idea...I'd be willing to give it a try.

you either weren't around for the no-quickstart days or have forgotten them. With Vasari, these advantages become clear with no quick start:

Much quicker and easier access to neutrals (jump on econ), but you're right, neutrals aren't always there, but it's rare for a map to not yield at least 1 within 3jumps of the homeworld, and that's all it takes.

1 Lab for Long Range Frigates<--big advantage for getting numbers early. Nanite bomb + assialants means dead enemy cap.

I'm not saying no quick start fixes all of the woes, but it definitely gives Vasari a better shot. They get access to lrf's with ease and get a jump on neutrals that the other races don't. The seeker spam is no longer a huge pain in the neck, because skirmishers....while pathetic, will beat pure seekers. I'm sorry, but I've never had trouble with fighting seekers. Just don't build a target with light armor, and you'll pwn.

You say the Advent player can spam seekers from the beginning. Believe it or not, navigators DO win in seekers vs. navigator.

Absolutely true.  Thing is though, if he's any kind of quality opponent, he'll let you spam out enough skirmishers to screw yourself, then come back with either more powerful, cost effective disciples to clean your clock, or illums.

If he's just gonna spam seekers and nothing else, it's an easy win, just as you say.  Thing is, he has disciples too.  You can't go assailants to take them out because the seekers will rape them (like you said, light armor).  You can't go sentinals because the disciples will rape them.  What it really means is, you are forced to go pure skirmishers, but then he's forced you to build the crappiest unit in the game.  The skirmishers can be owned by disciples (or, God forbid, illums).

One navigator vs. one seeker?  Yes.  But not a fair comparison based on supply and resource cost.  When adjusted for that, who wins?

Aaaaaah, TYPO, navigators blow

Personally, when I play as Vasari, my answer lately has been get the Egg early. If you see the opponent bringing seekers/disciples, get a devastator if he has a mothership, a carrier cap IF you see a halcyon ( you need something for the bombers/fighter).

That works, but it lends itself to heavily defensive play. The hits your eco takes by getting caps when you really can't afford them is too much, and you will probably be pushed back a bit before you can hope to make your own push.

hey mish, try entanglement for tat sometimes it have tons of neutrals and sometimes  no neutrals at all.