Shields are (not) fine

what if the felon had a bigger shield radius, but a range slightly inferior to this radius, so for the felon to attack, the target must be already inside the shield

at 3k elo shields stop working as a factory and are simply not used, at the moment this is one of the worst factions on my pick list for 1v1 games

Then we have a simple question, is the experience of the game the main indicators of balance?
The methods used by ATOSTIC were tested by me for 3k and it does not work, does this mean that the shields are not so strong?

quote: Then we have a simple question, is the experience of the game the main indicators of balance? The methods used by ATOSTIC were tested by me for 3k and it does not work, does this mean that the shields are not so strong?

I have zero desire to open the can of worms that is whatever the hell is going on in top MM WHR.

There aren't "the methods used by ATOSTIC", what @ATOSTIC does is get a lobster and gift everyone who watches or plays atm another brain tumor. This isn't confined to one player. I have relayed what I'm playing myself and playing against every day I flush myself into MM. I've heard same shit from Pootis, TheWarning, - you name a player around top 20-50 he's probably thinking the same.

If you do not use shields, you won't start using them after later buff. The stats show that you really should. Idk if this is map ban related, mindset related, no-player-who-loves-shields-present or whatever the hell related when talking higher WHR. Besides, if I'm being forced to collect a garbage can worth of replays from a month worth of games then it only stands to reason you show some too.

I've no idea what the balance should be measured against. If it were up to me, the pot would've long had its separate meta. Or gone, it would probably be just gone tbh. I have no idea whats going on "up there" in high 3k society. What I do know is that in my WHR group, MM vs a similar skilled player is almost always cranked in favor of whomever happened to get shield, especially against one of the better RPS choices.

quote: Bandit does feel weak early game...

I've no idea where this is coming from, Bandit is the map control raider. The only which are close to competing with it are Pyros and Ducks, and the latter is one day away from getting nerfed into the ground. Thing for Bandit is, it currently doesn't have to win the map or efficiently raid. You actually benefit immeasurably from just boxing yourself in, getting mediocre at best economy and then busting out the Felon to open up the map, at which it excels. Then come mid-game, I'd consider Bandit the most reliable out of pretty much all the raiders.

Outlaw is just out of the menu, and shield is only better for it, seemingly. From the moment the Felon exits the factory the game revolves around the whims of Shield.

If what you are complaining about is nerfed, the shields will be complete shit, but I love this faction, sadly

quote: I personally would find an argument based on Shieldfac needing design changes far more compelling than an argument that Shieldfac is overpowered as a starting 1v1 plop, based on the data I have seen.

Yeah, my position on Shield factory is that they could use some design changes. I don't like playing against the factory and I find it kind of boring to play because they're so slow and hard to completely mess up.

"Rover sucks vs shields" seems to pan out with the following parameters:

- Loser WHR > 3000
- Winner WHR > 3000
- Date since July 2020

FWIW this is not super sensitive on date. Moving the date-from slider all the way to 2021 keeps rover stomped in this bracket.

Shieldbot fac design has been broken since the outlaw was changed to have fast moving waves imo. There are almost no good counterplays to a shield ball above a certain size in most facs.

Astran, the problem is pressure. This is likely all obvious stuff that you already know but in teamgames, the variety of units at your team's disposal allows for all of those counters to shields that you describe.

In 1v1, the higher up the ladder you go, the higher the pressure becomes. That pressure could be front line pressure, expansion speed pressure, raiding pressure - it's all there in some form or another. The counters that you describe to shieldballs typically involve temporarily reducing your own counterpressure, very often causing your collapse. Think of it like that episode of DBZ where Gohan and Cell are doing a beam at eachother for 30 minutes. Even the tiniest faulter, and it's "Say goodbye~!~!~!".

Thunderbird is usually the deciding factor in this situation - did you make one before they had 2 felons? Were you economically able to follow up on your first strike successfully after your reduced pressure input and cost of switching? If not, that increased level of effort isn't going to matter much when they begin to spread out a tonne of vandals and bandits and start sending more felons.

quote: For instance I would point out that taking stats only for games which last beyond 10 minutes tells us basically nothing about whether the plop is overpowered.

I took that stat range because this is how long most if not all the games I've played and listed lasted. It does show something, and that's that shield has almost double the score for other facs mid/late-game. It also shows this:[Spoiler]Shields do not discriminate, aside from silly hill-map plops and jumps (which actually have a fighting chance, with Pyro geing able to compete for the map, Skuttle and Jack being more or less reliable in disposing from early shield-balls and later Juggle decimating main line Felon-Thug ideas). You can clean the game-time numbers and still more than clearly see a bright spot. You previously said there weren't enough games with shields, well there we go, I've generated at least 2 dozens more. [Spoiler]
Idk how good that other data is, early game finishing ideas were my usual response (I can easily recall, say, B1052181 2 on DunePatrolRedux v1.0). 1/4 of added pre-10 min games ending with 57% in shields favor with extra salt if you happened to not be jumper or spider.

quote: so I am not sure whether this shift is due to

Outlaw went completely out the window of any 1v1 setups by now, like you just don't build it, it's a non-unit. That helped the Felon-Thug build grow, and amph just doesn't have a way to deal with it.

quote: The great majority of folks play multiplayer games and in big games shields are not overpowered, in fact, they feel weaker than ever right now.

I do think that higher WHR players resources in big team games are better spent elsewhere. But thats just the enviroment there, you're shut inside a short number of factories and if you fail to take the most effective one for the map, which also happens to allow you to respond across as much of the map as possible, you're screwed.

Shield-ball gets an automatically big red cross on their back. Any players worth their shit in lobpot will try and death-kill it. There's a dedicated air player. There might be a dedicated arty player. And even through all that the top-3 of your team is now dealing with some lob in the enemies bunch who simply got a pack of shieldy boys together and racked up a ridiculous looking kill-count already.

quote: This trend of dumbing aspects of the game down is depressing.

I do agree with that.

Sure, I'd take the redesign. It's just nowhere in sight, and it's not as if nobody knew or talked about all that.