Why Swifts (rant)

Okay, who thought it was a good idea to:

1.Make Swift the fastest unit in the game
AND
2.Make Swift have a ability to get anywhere even faster
AND
3.Make Swift have a burst anti-air weapon
AND
4.Make Swift have a anti-ground weapon that hits instantly...
AND
5.that has more range then Stinger (!@!@$!@&# why?!...)

These are all extremely advatageous features of a unit. One or two would be fine, but five?
It's like no other unit in the game. It feels like it spits in the face of Zero-K's unit design. I bet somebody in 2008 when designing it thought that the most important thing is to make aerial dogfights look cool.

Swift is literally the second worst unit in the game.
A good unit should have two properities:
1.It should be fun to use
2.It should be fun when it's used on you
Swift fails at both. Let me explain:
Playing as a Swift player in aggravating. If you fail at microing Swifts for 100 miliseconds, or get a 100 milisecond lag spike, they either fail at intercepting or their unit AI tells them all to suicide into enemy AA. Normally you could tell me to "git gud lobster" and with any other unit I'd agree with you. But Swift is unlike any other unit. Normal units fight in a line formation, where you can predict and optimize their micro. Swifts fight in an extremely predictable tornado formation.

And if you play as air, lobsters are going to assume they don't need AA since you will make Swift. I mean, what are you going to make, Raptor?


Now, playing against a Swift player is even more aggravating. Why is there no raider phase in teamgames? Because unless you are playing on a high-density game where raiders are obsolete instantly, Swift kills all the raiders, and there's no skill involved.

And the Swift landing strat. Where you put Swift's ridiculous range on a pedestal and laugh in the other team's face. Using uncounterable strategies is fun. But when uncounterable strategies are used on you, writing an angry forum post is more fun then playing the game.

I said Swift is uncounterable. Swift can be made obsolete by putting AA everywhere, but it can't be countered if the Swift player is competent. It can run even from cloaked AA units.

And there's Lanchester's square law.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanchester%27s_laws
Every other unit has some weakness where you can't just stack 100 units and kill everything. To lower the exponential effect, ZK units have some weakness. There's AoE, units can't shoot over each other, and units have low range. Even arty is somewhat vulnerable to AoE. Swift has stupid range, 100 of them can shoot at a single target, and there's no AoE AA. (Artemis doesn't count, too expensive on low-density maps)

I know somebody will read a part of this, take a single sentence out of context, qoute it, and make an good sounding argument against it. And nothing will change. Oh well.

Okay, small correction: I don't think Swift is objectively unfun to use. It's just the combination of it being quasi-mandatory for an air player to use, it's reliance on a high framerate, it's unpredictability (and the tornado formation) and me personally not liking it.

I think you're exaggerating their impact on a typical game, but its true that swifts aren't a very interesting unit atm, or a unit that helps the game be more interesting. The're just a super-sonic blob you throw at air things to make them go away, or sometimes raiders to make them go away.

The forced landing thing is a exploit and should probably just be removed. Maybe disable swift weapons when landing/taking off.

Raiders being obsoleted by air units isn't an exclusive attribute of swifts, plenty of other planes and gunships can put a hard stop to deep raid shenanigans. One might argue that such fast response is the entire point of air units, specially of planes.

I guess mobile AA being redesigned for stooping power could be interesting. Right now they really don't do much to discourage the enemy from bombing your deep strike forces, or even just your frontline. They work better against gunships though.

quote: Playing as a Swift player in aggravating. If you fail at microing Swifts for 100 miliseconds, or get a 100 milisecond lag spike, they either fail at intercepting or their unit AI tells them all to suicide into enemy AA. Normally you could tell me to "git gud lobster" and with any other unit I'd agree with you. But Swift is unlike any other unit. Normal units fight in a line formation, where you can predict and optimize their micro. Swifts fight in an extremely predictable tornado formation.

I agree this is frustrating when using Swifts (and air in general, esp. Raptors). This means if you fight over contested territory with some ground AA, you're bound to lose some Swifts since you can't micro them away as easily.

quote: And if you play as air, lobsters are going to assume they don't need AA since you will make Swift. I mean, what are you going to make, Raptor?

This is less a problem with Swift as it is with lobsters. If you need AA, build AA... ground AA is pretty darn good and might even give your air player some help in a dogfight. Swifts are just a comfortable way to take a threat away from the team so they can focus on the ground.

If your team builds ground AA, you have room to build more interesting units, e.g. Thunderbird, which can make some big plays.

quote: Now, playing against a Swift player is even more aggravating. Why is there no raider phase in teamgames? Because unless you are playing on a high-density game where raiders are obsolete instantly, Swift kills all the raiders, and there's no skill involved.

Swifts aren't the only thing invalidating raiders. High number of turrets, commanders (with radar, vision, and guns), and the propensity to rush riots make raiding hard in big teamgames.

quote: And the Swift landing strat. Where you put Swift's ridiculous range on a pedestal and laugh in the other team's face.

I agree this is pretty powerful and only limited by micro rather than the game's mechanics. I think it's interesting and fun to use, but it turns Swifts into an extremely fast skirmish-raider.

The cost is that ground AA is very powerful. For example, a Razor (220 metal) will kill a Swift at 1000 range in 2 seconds. Forcing your opponent to invest in ground AA is a win in itself, but eventually it can suffocate your airspace.

quote: Swift can be made obsolete by putting AA everywhere, but it can't be countered if the Swift player is competent. It can run even from cloaked AA units.

Counter does not always mean kill. Yes they can run from anything using afterburner, but now they're away from the front line. If they're not landed somewhere doing DPS, they're just discouraging enemy air play.

quote: To lower the exponential effect, ZK units have some weakness. There's AoE, units can't shoot over each other, and units have low range. Even arty is somewhat vulnerable to AoE. Swift has stupid range, 100 of them can shoot at a single target, and there's no AoE AA

Thresher, Ettin are AoE AA. Swift has to land to shoot like you're saying, leaving it vulnerable, and it's hard to group them up because the landing is unreliable. If you want DPS at "stupid" range, where 100 can shoot at a single target, AND you don't want it to die instantly, see Nimbus.

Tl/dr, Swift landing can be cheesy but it's unreliable. They kill air and move fast which keeps skies clear for your team in pots. Strong because they can reposition.

Possible suggestion: maybe Raptor can be buffed into an AA-riot unit, even slower but dealing more damage? That way air superiority wouldn't necessarily be determined by # of swifts

I find swift annoying too because I like to raid early and punish all the players that dont put lotus in base. On the other hand, a good swift player is a godsend when the other guy is spamming likho and blowing the living daylights out of my shield balls.

I think Swift is overall a cool multipurpose unit that can do some occasional cheese. Countering swift can be as simple as every player in a team making 2 pickets in the field. Suddenly the swift player has a serious problem on his hands because every excursion over enemy territory means a couple of swifts lost.

But I think the real problem is not Swift.

The real problem is Raptor, and its immense suckiness.

Raptor is the unit that should keep Swift under control, yet Swifts will run circles around them and even kill them on occasion with their burst damage. Raptor desperately needs a buff. Either more baseline speed so that its not a flying tortoise, or long range AA missiles that can extend its hitting range vs Swift. Heck, perhaps Raptor could even be MORE Raptor by increasing its cost but doubling its HP so that it has persistence in the air.

If Raptor was better Swift would not be such a problem.

how about d-boost for raptor as well?

Give raptor shield so it can sustain more aa fire. Raptor with anti ground capability sounds strange. Homing air - ground missile? Raptor merge with phoenix and can throw fire bombs? General purpose bomber we already have with ravens. Agg long reloading gauss rifle? Add gravity guns for grabbing enemy units to throw units in air? :D Add emp attack for raptor?
Raptor still is better against units like krow and other gunships when need continuously attack. Swift just boost speed, release missile and need run away because its from paper. And for that it need space.

Okay, time for some responses:

quote: 1) What do you think about carefully microed Scythe raids in your territory? I feel like Swift is about the only thing keeping them under control.

Thunderbird, Likho works. Gunships work too. Raiders, Faraday work too. Scythes are weaker then they seem since you kill them, you can safely reclaim them alongside the things they killed.

quote: 2) This is a broader and more general issue predicated on abysmal efficiency of most mobile AA as point defense against planes, and the speeds of the planes. Just like Swift stops raiders, Thunderbird and Likho will gladly make you think twice about going in with that Ravager push. The only things that can do such dives tend to be ones immune to non-absurd amounts of bombers, e.g. terminal-stage multifelon shieldballs or minotaurs.

That's really good note. I've always felt like that ZK is supposed to not have dedicated AA, and only stuck with dedicated AA because designing air without AA wasn't feasible.

quote: Raiders being obsoleted by air units isn't an exclusive attribute of swifts, plenty of other planes and gunships can put a hard stop to deep raid shenanigans. One might argue that such fast response is the entire point of air units, specially of planes.

Yeah, gunships can put a stop to deep raids too, but al least raiders can fight against Locusts and other gunships aren't super fast. I don't think fast response it the entire point of air units, Likho and Ravens often do deep raids, but fast response is one of the many things Swift is really good at.

There's an assumption that air should be fast. This is why Phoenix sucks: It's a riot faster then raiders. That shouldn't exist. I feel the devs somewhat realize this, so they decided to make it useless instead of making it slower then raiders. (A slow, high HP phoenix unleashing massive fireballs on swarms... but instead we have this)

But Phoenix isn't the only riot that's faster then raiders. Swift is a riot too. To be more exact, 10 Swifts become a riot unit that can be anywhere on the map where AA isn't.

quote: Flak

Just point at your base and press D.

How can I make swifts land on the ground?

quote: Swift is uncounterable

i dislike swifts as an AA option. that is why i mostly go raptor. they DO outperform swifts in air battles if you use them right. the swift player must withdraw into its own AA coverage or dies. note. this is valid, if your raptor count reached a certain level (5 to 8) and you micro the raptors.