Bikers, part suggestion, part gripe.

[Alcibiades]

The title more or less says it all, but I think bikers are a flawed unit. I wish to establish right now that this has very little to do with me being POM this round. I'm not griping because i'm being biker rushed into the ground, nor because i'm upset that i have a route which beats me/counters me.

As it stands right now, Bikers are one of, if not the only, unit which is allowed to fire on POMs with just about ultimate invincibility. Bikers fire, get distracted and don't die. I know that POMs is a very strong route, but i feel that having one unit specifically which is designed to kill POMs and is just about unstoppable is completely ridiculous. Many people will accuse me of being a whiner but it's bollocks, almost every rushable unit in the game has a counter, but there is no specific counter for Bikers.

PAs don't target Bikers strictly enough if sent properly and can't be beat, 117s are never going to get there in time unless it's an eta 8/7 attack. RPGs have the same problems as PAs etc. There is no effective counter for a biker rush, other than getting the target online and having him/her send out which I frankly think is bollocks. I admit it's not so bad with injuries and such now, but bikers are still hard to stop and because they fire so blastedly early there is no way to stop the little *******s from firing.

I don't want to make the POM route overpowered, but as someone mentioned in IRC the other day, making Bikers target other bikers (similar to jeeps/Humvees targetting/getting bonuses versus Jeeps/Humvees) and allowing them to be used as a counter. For whoever mentioned this suggestion to me i'm very grateful, sorry that my memory is crap and i can't give you the credit you deserve. But it's utterly bollocks that there is a unit which can kill large numbers of NLDs with impunity.

Flame me if you wish, but realize that what i say is true, and that hypnos are not the be all and end all of solutions. Again, the problem is the immunity bikers have when killing NLDs, not the fact that they target NLDs. I expect/desire POMs to have enemies, but they shouldn't be invulnerable.

[Polo]

I agree that Bikers are overpowered but I disagree with your solution. Imo, Poms are an overpowered unit which need their AD reduced. If they have their AD reduced, this would allow Bikers to be altered so they're mainly armour based (although not as strong as Jeeps) and fire after Poms. This means that a relatively small Biker player won't be able to constantly rush a Pom player but a similar sized or bigger Biker player can still easily kill a Pom.

I also think there needs to be one or two more units/routes that have the ability to kill Poms. Changing Rangers to target LET/NLD would be a good solution imo. The Ranger route as a whole is quite underpowered so this change would help significantly.

[Alcibiades]

Rangers and 117 firing on POMs? Not a chance in hell. That would be a devastating mob despite being able to have 8 ticks minimum to stop it i find i dislike that fact highly. Sorry. Not a chance there.

Your suggestion seems reasonable to me upon further reflection, but i have to say, that at the moment, bikers are wildly 'overpowered' to use a cliched phrase because they do damage all out of proportion to their cost/strength/power/eta. I can't speak for the game mechanics, i was merely spouting the best answer i'd seen so far to bikers being invulnerable. If yours works better than by all means go for it. I wish to encourage discussion about bikers and possible solutions rather than saying 'mine is right, go with it or don't bother'. I want bikers fixed, because at the moment, it is total bollocks, and slowly but surely, bikers are ruining my favourite route.

[Souls]

I agree that Bikers are overpowered but I disagree with your solution. Imo, Poms are an overpowered unit which need their AD reduced. If they have their AD reduced, this would allow Bikers to be altered so they're mainly armour based (although not as strong as Jeeps) and fire after Poms. This means that a relatively small Biker player won't be able to constantly rush a Pom player but a similar sized or bigger Biker player can still easily kill a Pom.

I also think there needs to be one or two more units/routes that have the ability to kill Poms. Changing Rangers to target LET/NLD would be a good solution imo. The Ranger route as a whole is quite underpowered so this change would help significantly.

Comment on your ranger suggestion; IMO this would pretty effectively weaken the route. The Rangers themselves are fine, but the problem lies with the other units in the route; as it stands, the ranger is the only real effective killer, with "effective" read as "able to do damage and live".

[Polo]

I agree that Bikers are overpowered but I disagree with your solution. Imo, Poms are an overpowered unit which need their AD reduced. If they have their AD reduced, this would allow Bikers to be altered so they're mainly armour based (although not as strong as Jeeps) and fire after Poms. This means that a relatively small Biker player won't be able to constantly rush a Pom player but a similar sized or bigger Biker player can still easily kill a Pom.

I also think there needs to be one or two more units/routes that have the ability to kill Poms. Changing Rangers to target LET/NLD would be a good solution imo. The Ranger route as a whole is quite underpowered so this change would help significantly.

Comment on your ranger suggestion; IMO this would pretty effectively weaken the route. The Rangers themselves are fine, but the problem lies with the other units in the route; as it stands, the ranger is the only real effective killer, with "effective" read as "able to do damage and live".
Sorry, I forgot to say in my post that I'd buff Rangers damage slightly as well so they were about the same strength as they are now against LET (maybe a little bit less though).

[Alcibiades]

Hey I'll go for any solution which allows even a tiny possibility of beating, properly, a biker rush, without the utter 100% necessity of getting your POM online. The very fact that the only real defence is getting your POM online and to send away is a sad testament of the ultimate power of a biker rush.

[CLem]

If i were to suggest a route to be buff up to be good against POMs, i would suggest the dragon route, at the moment it is a pretty good for nothing route and the bonus on the Dragon against POMS means crap all. Buff up Sorcerers i would say, the eta change has already crippled its advantage with the nerffing a couple rounds back made it a pretty crap route.

[Alcibiades]

If i were to suggest a route to be buff up to be good against POMs, i would suggest the dragon route, at the moment it is a pretty good for nothing route and the bonus on the Dragon against POMS means crap all. Buff up Sorcerers i would say, the eta change has already crippled its advantage with the nerffing a couple rounds back made it a pretty crap route.


Interesting idea, but solving the biker issue.. how?!

[DarkSider]

When you picked prot you knew what you're in for yet you still went the route because it's too damn strong. In normal circumstances poms take the least damage (in a big BR), they can get land cheap from many routes, they can easly dominate effectiveness ranks and they have a decent bribing unit. There are many advantages the route has, maybe TOO MANY. I'm not against making bikers fire after poms, but only if all NLD units get a big bad nerf in health and armour so the regular LET/ALL units hurt them more and decrease injury on NLD.
You said yourself there is one unit out there that has one purpose alone - targeting prots. So every time you buy a biker you invest in a unit targeting guru and poms while there are so many other units on which they'll be useless. If bikers fired LET/NLD and have the same ratio on NLD as now i would understand they deliver too much power on low init, but beeing so specialised makes them in most of the times to be of less help.

[Subdivisions]

Once again, I don't think bikers need to be changed at all. You complain because you aren't there to send away...well you know what, all the other routes are completely wtfpwnd if they get incoming and you don't send away. PoMs don't get even close to zero'd from any normal biker rush, and the losses aren't too bad ESPECIALLY with injuries.

The only argument you have is ally mates can't "defend" you because your PoMs distract the bikers. But, that argument mostly falls apart if you consider the idea that any decent player would recall if people sent rushing defense (ie, apaches, PBs, jeeps, harriers, etc) because if the PoM is online and sends away the bikers get destroyed. Sure there are some people that are just kamikaze, but that doesn't change a lot imo. If you catch them with that trap once, they won't do it again.

Plus, a lot of other routes that get ally defense only get "fakes" because of other incomings, or whatever. So the kamikaze people can still wtfpwn other routes too ;)

In conclusion, bikers don't completely massacre PoMs (especially if they have a decent amount of hippy vans), so they don't really need to be changed. If you buff the PoMs anymore that route will just be ridiculously overpowered.

Just my two cents...

[dafe]

as a pom i dont think bikers are overpowered allthough when your on to send away to last tick...pro leaders never seem to cut into the bikers enough, so it might need a lil tweak between pro leader/bikers as those are the anti unit for them when playing poms, perhaps like a lil hd/ad bonus on pro leader vs bikers

[alwaysnumb]

cant see why they need changing. ppl dont have that many as they useless against everything else except as flak and they dont really hurt much its the pb i dont like.

[Hippie]

make the PoM -50% hd and -50% ad vs unit Biker.

something along those lines could work. I remember posting this on the old forums in like round 19/20/21 and round 22 i think :P

[f0xx]

make the PoM -50% hd and -50% ad vs unit Biker.

something along those lines could work. I remember posting this on the old forums in like round 19/20/21 and round 22 i think :P

PoMs are THE BEST route in the game and you are complaining that there is a unit (note, not a route but a single unit) specially designed to damage (note, not massacre but do damage which is quite low actually) the route? You my friend care only about your own route and ignore the whole balance point of the game.

[Hippie]

but the biker is saved unless the PoM is lucky enough to have enough killed in order for them not to stop all the bikers. it is the safest route to attack and if a unit targets only NLD then something has to happen imo. don't say that the hypnos will bribe them cause the bikers don't stop continuing biker rushes :P

[CFalcon]

Give the biker a big boost to damage, so from **/**/***/** to maybe **/**/****/****, leave their init as it is, but make them eta 5, with maybe a slight price increase.

The problem with PoM is that they're impossible to kill in one hit. Any other route (bunkers aside), with the right set up, can be destroyed in one tick. If you want to kill a PoM player you have no other option than to continually rush a small number of bikers. This annoys the PoM player hugely, but there's no other way to do it (untill F117s come along). Its not the fault of the biker player being a *******, its just he has no other option.

So by making an eta 5 mob which is capable of destroying PoMs, but which can be defended against, I think better balance will be hit. The only complaint people have against bikers is that they are rushed and can't be defended against, and the main complaint about PoMs is that they're impossible to kill without spending days going at it. This would solve both.

Edit: it would also make PoM players seriously have to think about whether to stay at a target getting biker defence. At the moment biker defence, unless its overwhelming, isn't really more than an irritation to a PoM attacker.

[Alcibiades]

I think many people have missed my point utterly.

I am NOT complaining because i went POMs this round.

I am NOT complaining because my ally mates suck, we are ranked 1 for defence and we aren't too bad at what we do.

Once again, I don't think bikers need to be changed at all. You complain because you aren't there to send away...well you know what, all the other routes are completely wtfpwnd if they get incoming and you don't send away.

Erm no i'm complaining because there is no effective counter unit to Bikers, they cannot be stopped in any conventional sense of the word, they always fire, they always hurt if there are 5-10 mill or more. And let's face it, most people who use bikers aren't going to mass you with a tiny bit, you have to go big or go home with bikers. But that doesn't really stop 2-3 players who pool their bikers and just biker rush a player. That's unstoppable.

And of course I understand this is a wargame and deaths happen blah blah blah. (Subdivisions once again i'm not complaining that i'm not there to send out... i understand that that happens ;)) But bikers are one of the only units in the entire game that fires with jut about utter impunity on their target. It is for that reason alone that I feel they need a tweak.

So far we've had a few half decent ideas be bandied about and i'd like to see some more ;P

F0xx: Pre injuries I think I would have agreed with you that most players won't suicide.... but tbh, if i had a bunch of bikers and was rushing/boosting an attack on a Prot with bikers, i wouldn't really care if there was defence because I know many bikers will be saved by the Prots and I will still do lots of damage, and get a percentage of the bikers back. So injuries has in fact encouraged a slightly more suicidal tendency in players. Which isn't to say that it's bad, in fact it's make for more fun BRs nowadays, but I think that it makes your 'get bitten once, they'll be more cautious' theory a little less foolproof ;P And yes it's true, many times fakes will work and you can divert a biker attack. But then again, every time a biker attack gets through, they pound on their Opponent with complete impunity.

yes I went POMs route well aware of it's advantages/disdvantages and I don't want to make POMs more of a Super Route, but I think that there main opponent should be rethought a bit, I don't like it's essential immunity to damage compared to other rushing units.

[roger rabbit]

Then what do you do about POMs owning the SO route without impunity? Send hypnos along with a decent amount of pom's; stay for 2 ticks and just steal away all his traps, stealth harvies, etc. And what does the SO do? Kill flak? Maybe fire at some of the POM if you're lucky?

I say no change to biker unit is necessary. It is fine as it is.

[alwaysnumb]

Go out your way and bribe yourself some bunker,rpg, failling that some werewolves,extremists. That way at least you give em something else to think about.

[Martin]

Now that there are injuries it makes no sodding difference, the Biker would have to hit you sooo many times.

I came on this morning, I'd lost like 300mil Gurus and a nice variety of other units from being hit. 3 hours later, I had 200mil back from Injuries. PoMs are fine!

[f0xx]

Yeah, Martini is right... the biker has injuries but so do you... and your Hypnost give NO INJURY. So PoMs have become even more brutal with the injury system... like they needed the boost...

[kyx]

PoMs are strong enough even with bikers, and bikers are weak against everything else.

However, if something MUST be done, increasing the eta is the best thing to do.

[Alcibiades]

Well when you enjoy being continually biker rushed/biker boosted, you tell me that POMs are strong enough and bikers aren't an issue.

The ONLY ONLY ONLY ONLY ONLY ONLY ONLY ONLY ONLY ONLY problem i have with bikers is their absolute immunity to defence. POMs need to have an enemy of course, of that there is no denial.. but this is absurd.

[Twigley]

Gargs, PB, harrier, apache

[Alcibiades]

Gargs, PB, harrier, apache

... are all not beatable if your POM cannot be online.

The only good defence against bikers is getting your POM online. And having your defence rest on the linchpin of contactibility seems a little shitty. When almost every other rush can be stopped with a counter ;)

[Turnip2k]

Make bikers virtually immune to poms.

They will get hypnoed or die to defending troops on the first tick. The prot will lose a fair bit, but so will the biker.

Will probably result in them needing some sort of bonus though since this makes them slightly crap, maybe a slight damage increace (bearing in mind in any biker rushes, they will pretty much only be firing at you for 1 tick before they all die)? This will mean they are useful in real full blown attacks on prots, but no so much in rushes.

Could also give a player the option to develop the current biker unit OR a higher eta more powerful biker unit per unit cost. This would make legitimate prot hits more viable since they will do decent damage. Think I suggested this one before on old forums.

[DarkSider]

Protestor is not a regular route. In an alliance it is usually the most extreme route, offering some great advantages but on the other side it cannot be played by anybody with success.
Striker, robo, SA can be played by the average player with no problem, all giving about same amount of power. Protestor pom is the smaller brother of prot-extremist. Which other route can send defence against a striker + robo + SO SA + rpg all bigger than you, save the acres without taking huge looses ? It's extreme, it's not ment to be played by the average player online 6 hours a day and probaly uncontactable rest.

[Cyrus]

ive jsut msised half the post but how about this, paratroopers kill NLD? yeah ok flame me but i think it would bring some much needed some to the para's.

then its a choosing scenario, what do i wanna do, pwn PA or deal with Poms HMMMMM!!!

that idea sounds quite good by me ;P

[Melnibone]

i still like my idea of reclassifying bikers as a type of stunning unit similar to sirens targetting NLD only this will still allow the usage of bikers against poms to steal land but will remove the rushing capabilities of them or just make them only available to thug/thief route????

i know just about everyone else will hate the idea but to me it would work wonderfully well :D

[Cyrus]

sounds quite good melni, id have 1 issue, what about bringing down massive poms? i mean not many routes can take them score vs score :-/

[CLem]

exactly, biker is the only real unit that can exploit an inactive POM in an alliance, especially one in a big alliance.

[vlad]

i still like my idea of reclassifying bikers as a type of stunning unit similar to sirens targetting NLD only this will still allow the usage of bikers against poms to steal land but will remove the rushing capabilities of them or just make them only available to thug/thief route????

i know just about everyone else will hate the idea but to me it would work wonderfully well :D

I,m sad .. that works for me.

Units like CWs etc hit PoMs etc hard .. but dont get to fire .. doing this u kill them and get to fire :D

[Ahead]

Units like CWs etc hit PoMs etc hard .. but dont get to fire .. doing this u kill them and get to fire :D

CWs don't hit PoMs hard :? Only 15% of them target PoMs so they hardly put a dent in PoMs. The best way to kill a PoM is to use RPGs and bikers together...

[vlad]

They still hurt PoMs ... trust me :D

[Melnibone]

but the point of my suggestion is the reason poms survive so well is that they block most lethals before they fire if bikers stun them they can still be killed as they wont fire??? hence no scummy tactics of rushing a player 24/7 might be fun for the rushers but by going poms you give up the benefit of killing to provide defense for your ally not so you can have no life

the only balance i care about now is rl/some time for gaming not giving my whole life up to protect my friends hence why i havent played poms since bikers were introduced, try thinking of bikers as stunning poms with mass PBS or sorcerors behind?? the thug will be sending terrors to clear flak it'll still be ridiculously easy to kill poms you will just need to use tactics instead of constantly rushing and attacks will be longer eta

sorry to intermingle thread but one of the problems with allied play dying is units like bikers, why be a pom in a big ally when you just get rushed non stop? do we want the pom route to become so time consuming only a few can play it????

[Alcibiades]

sorry to intermingle thread but one of the problems with allied play dying is units like bikers, why be a pom in a big ally when you just get rushed non stop? do we want the pom route to become so time consuming only a few can play it????

Melni, i agree with your stunning idea, i think it's stellar. Also, in conjunction with that, i twas said earlier that PBs were 'overpowered' which would help immensely if bikers stunned and then PBs got to fire on NLDs. It hurts let me tell you. So thumbs up Melni. :)

And your quote here that i've kept, more or less defines this round for me, i was a huge fairly active POM in Controversy, and getting rushed/biker boosted every time i send defence might be a great 'tactic' for the enemy, and might help them greatly, but it absolutely ruins the fun the POM has in the game. POM route LIVES to defend... and if you remove the fun out of defending, then there's really no reason to play.

[Turnip2k]

So you want to remove the only unit which can kill prots well and turn it into stunning? Sorry, but I can see how this would be a good idea for a unit in addition to the biker - but not as a replacement.

As I understand it, the fact bikers kill prots isnt the problem. Its the fact they kill them, can't be defended against and take no losses in the process of rushing.

Just make bikers nearly immune to prots. Then any hypnos will bribe them all. I can assure you biker rushes will STOP at that point. Bikers will do no where near enough damage to make losing all your bikers with no injuries at all worthwhile. Sure some of the prots will die, but you will get alot of bikers in return and you get injuries, whereas they will get none.

[dafe]

So you want to remove the only unit which can kill prots well and turn it into stunning? Sorry, but I can see how this would be a good idea for a unit in addition to the biker - but not as a replacement.

As I understand it, the fact bikers kill prots isnt the problem. Its the fact they kill them, can't be defended against and take no losses in the process of rushing.

Just make bikers nearly immune to prots. Then any hypnos will bribe them all. I can assure you biker rushes will STOP at that point. Bikers will do no where near enough damage to make losing all your bikers with no injuries at all worthwhile. Sure some of the prots will die, but you will get alot of bikers in return and you get injuries, whereas they will get none.
true bikers are easily bribed (when the pom is active and actually has hypnos) but in combination with pb's/jeeps its impossible to stop the rush without heavy losses on the pom side

[Alcibiades]

Sounds good to me as well :P

[Turnip2k]

true bikers are easily bribed (when the pom is active and actually has hypnos) but in combination with pb's/jeeps its impossible to stop the rush without heavy losses on the pom side

This topic isn't for the active PoM's - the arguement is that PoM should be a route that inactive people could play and not be online 24/7.

If bikers are immune to prots, then the bikers would still die even if they flakked them with other lethals. The other lethals would get killed / distracted by your alliance's lethals before they could fire. The bikers would still be alive even after your PoM's fire, and so will die also. This stops being a problem of biker rushes, and simply becomes a case of standard eta 3 let mob rushes, which every ally should be able to counter.

Make bikers prot immune, and the rush becomes defendable and defeatable.

[Melnibone]

To validate that point Turnip tell me how an alliance defends against a rush at eta2 (sent on the very end of a tick) of 20mil bikers against a pom with 100mil poms and 200mil gurus or scale it up or down as you see fit what units that can be got there first tick to fire i may be rusty (being solo does that to me :lol: ) but i dont see how to avoid losses that cant be returned

The problem does not lie with how many bikers kill or moving them to hypno out its about how do you defend against it as an ally without pranking someone..... for this game to hold the playerbase it NEEDS to be a good game there has to be a way to play without being 24/7 contactable yes the active will still have an advantage but thats all it should be is an advantage not a sure fire way to win skill has to play a part too

Im afraid bikers fall into the undefendable rush category and short of a better change to them than converting to stun its the best option put forward (im biased ofc :shock: )

[Cyrus]

i agree melni, said this many times, bikers are undefendable simple as, i also agree something needs to be done with them. im really thinking hard what? this is what im thinking and afew options that have been put forward:

Polo's idea: make bikers fire after pom but give them more armour? and pom less armour damage

melni's: make them stun to remove any rush capabilities

Cyrus1: raise bikers eta, doesnt remove the rush oin massive players, but maybe its a good incentive to bring down the top i dno.. whatever

Cyrus 2: make bikers fire after poms but lower the routes health and damage they have so other units can take on this route

Cyrus 3: totally remove the biker unit, and lower the routes health and armour (replace it with a more balanced unit obv)

my vote as to go with the raise the biker eta, its the only one that makes sense tbf. i mean bikers can then still be used for attacks and so fourth but cant be used as a pure rushing unit, one thing i must say is probably raise theifs eta to 5 like geo's but make them a more powerful stealing (bigger land grab) and possibly fire before geo's?

afew ideas, lets keep this discussion constructive heh? no flames no trolling. feed your ideas guys, cheers.

[Turnip2k]

To validate that point Turnip tell me how an alliance defends against a rush at eta2 (sent on the very end of a tick) of 20mil bikers against a pom with 100mil poms and 200mil gurus or scale it up or down as you see fit what units that can be got there first tick to fire i may be rusty (being solo does that to me :lol: ) but i dont see how to avoid losses that cant be returned

The problem does not lie with how many bikers kill or moving them to hypno out its about how do you defend against it as an ally without pranking someone..... for this game to hold the playerbase it NEEDS to be a good game there has to be a way to play without being 24/7 contactable yes the active will still have an advantage but thats all it should be is an advantage not a sure fire way to win skill has to play a part too

Im afraid bikers fall into the undefendable rush category and short of a better change to them than converting to stun its the best option put forward (im biased ofc :shock: )

If bikers are not distracted? Easy. Gargs, jeeps, PB's, hummers, shocks, apaches, harriers will all kill them and be there on time for first tick, plus whatever hypnos the guy has. Im not saying stop bikers firing totally - they will still get 1 tick of damage in, but they will lose all their bikers, and with no injuries if hypnos get them. The prot will get injury and take the bikers.

I'm sorry but I don't see a downside to this suggestion - bikers can still be used for legitimate attacks, but will die horrendously on rushes.

[Melnibone]

only by contacting the player there HAS to be a defense against every tactic or its tantamount to abuse imo and in every example you gave there is no first tick defense if the player is offline

[Ahead]

If bikers are immune to prots, then the bikers would still die even if they flakked them with other lethals. The other lethals would get killed / distracted by your alliance's lethals before they could fire. The bikers would still be alive even after your PoM's fire, and so will die also.

Sorry Melni, but I don't see why you have to be online for Turnip's suggestion.. :? You can defend with all thee units he mentioned and get there for first tick and kill the bikers without the PoM having to send away. His suggestions seems like the most reasonable to me out of all of them, as you can still take advantage of POOR defending, but a good alliance can stop the biker rush fairly easily.

[Cyrus]

is turnips suggestion make bikers not distractable? sorry if i missed the point here?

[Turnip2k]

Yes. Prots will not target bikers (weather this be just PoM's or all the units in the route is down to technicalities), and so when bikers attack a prot, there is nothing to stop them being killed/bribed on the first tick if defense arrives.

[Cyrus]

i was actually thinking about that tbh, maybe it could could. but i dont think it should be poms, i think biekrs shouldnt be distracted at all. i mean anything other than the acception or gargs(thats eta 3(2 with defence rush)) (?) fire after every other prot unit so the bikers could still end up being distracted.

[Turnip2k]

Harriers too - but yeah, i think it should apply to all NLD units. They simply ignore bikers.

[Chewie]

ok no thats an aweful idea. So abusable to bribe millions of bikers.

[vlad]

ok no thats an aweful idea. So abusable to bribe millions of bikers.
Aye, i saw it also, attack a Terrorist player, all his mobs get distracted, you then bribe the big jesus out of his bikers .. and if you send the right lot, you wont loose sod all men, then .. do this a few times .. and you can start killing Prots youself.

The only one i can see that works, is Melnis .... they work as sirens .. as intended to disable prots .. making them as useful as if killed .. but you have a chance to kill them with other units. Petrols, Sorcs etc.

[Cyrus]

mm thats a valid point, although surely your gonna have your prots zero'd by the bikers? meaning that the other units will fire on your lets, i woulda thought anyway.

thats like saying lets change poms so they fire on NLT and NLD..really..

[dafe]

making bikers invulnerable vs prot route is just insane, just means they get to kill a whole lotta more nlds when the pomguy has no hypnos, even last ticking the incoming with a bunch of leaders is useless then...but i do think the ´siren´ suggestion makes a bit of sense...they still take out nlds...maybe make them a lil stronger then as they wont kill any...and it still leaves plenty of room to kill a pom

[vlad]

mm thats a valid point, although surely your gonna have your prots zero'd by the bikers? meaning that the other units will fire on your lets, i woulda thought anyway.

thats like saying lets change poms so they fire on NLT and NLD..really..

Not realy, rarely you will find a supper heavy Terrorist player, as they are viable unless circumstances say so in top alliances, or you only have 500k bikers .. 200mill score .. that kinda thing. But, the guy can have 5mill bikers, ***** loads of other units, and the hypno can probaly make a good grab of that. The bikers make even give the PoM player a score boost, if he sends the right units.
Thats how abusable it is, as bikers don't OWN PoMs .. they just hurt them. The issue is, they are undefendable.

But doing as Melni suggested, they continue to perform said role of removing NLDs from the fight, whilst not making it a nessascity to get the said PoM online in a biker rush.

[willymchilybily]

ive given it reasonable deliberation and thought. and i agree most with the first point raised by darksider. the fact bikers target specifically poms and is specialised is penalty enough. they dont seem to get particularly good/damaging ratios against a well put together pom route.

IMO They have fairly weak armour killing ability, and poms and other units in that route like hippy/news vans etc. are very heavy on the armour. the only use i see is bikers kill the gurus. meaning there isnt enough gurus to stop the bulk of the flack. and hence the news vans dont sweep properly. and they facilitate the landing on a pom. i see bikers as a way to facilitate landing on a balanced pom. an imbalanced pom is easy to land on just buy massing geos.

the fact people go biker heavy is making them weak, and an easy target themselves. a simple solution to this problem. if currently people are massing bikers and using them to a greater extent than i imagine them to be intended, then simply increase the price.

if the biker costs more it gives more value as score. no longer allows biker massing without serious implications, and it effectively weakens the unit for its cost and ability to target a certain range.

Though raising the bikers cost will solve all originally mentioned problems. i think it is unecessary. as choosing to be biker heavy limits you to only attacking poms. and makes you a nice target for certain other routes. also i dont think biker rushes are a problem.

maybe an increased injury rate for adrenalin rushed biker mobs. though i still say the game is fine as it is. as to be biker heavy to a degree where you can actually do good damage to a pom means your either bigger than the pom so they get big injuries anyway. or your a weak setup terror route, and are a good target for so many routes.

imo biker has only ever been designed to facilitate killing of weaker units in the pom route like gurus. and facilitate landing. being hippyvan and pom heavy reduces alot of the damage. and injuries solves the problem of bigger people killing smaller. and a pirce hike will decrease the amount of bikers that can be sent to some one 30% of your score relative to the amount of units that player has.

[vlad]

But a guy with 3mill bikers ... can send, go home, send, go home, send, go home, send and go home several times before the targeted PoM is online, removing the need for mass bikers, and dealing the same damage he would with say, 15mill bikers without the score hinderation that he would recieve.

[Turnip2k]

making bikers invulnerable vs prot route is just insane, just means they get to kill a whole lotta more nlds when the pomguy has no hypnos, even last ticking the incoming with a bunch of leaders is useless then...but i do think the ´siren´ suggestion makes a bit of sense...they still take out nlds...maybe make them a lil stronger then as they wont kill any...and it still leaves plenty of room to kill a pom

The only thing that will change if you make them immune is that leaders wont hit them last tick. The rest of the battle will go exactly how it does now. What it will do is allow other units to kill the bikers, as opposed to them keep being distracted and not hurt at all.

I doubt that prots will be able to abuse this on attack since thugs have hooligans which will probably disable all the hypnos quite comfortably as long as the thug keeps the ratios tight.

Turning bikers to stunning would be fine, but if you do that, we need another unit that can kill pom's well because right now no other unit can do the job unless its massed to stupid levels. Making bikers stun would make prots incredibly overpowered unless we introduce another prot killer.

[dafe]

making bikers invulnerable vs prot route is just insane, just means they get to kill a whole lotta more nlds when the pomguy has no hypnos, even last ticking the incoming with a bunch of leaders is useless then...but i do think the ´siren´ suggestion makes a bit of sense...they still take out nlds...maybe make them a lil stronger then as they wont kill any...and it still leaves plenty of room to kill a pom

The only thing that will change if you make them immune is that leaders wont hit them last tick. The rest of the battle will go exactly how it does now. What it will do is allow other units to kill the bikers, as opposed to them keep being distracted and not hurt at all.

I doubt that prots will be able to abuse this on attack since thugs have hooligans which will probably disable all the hypnos quite comfortably as long as the thug keeps the ratios tight.

Turning bikers to stunning would be fine, but if you do that, we need another unit that can kill pom's well because right now no other unit can do the job unless its massed to stupid levels. Making bikers stun would make prots incredibly overpowered unless we introduce another prot killer.
you keep mentioning hypnos and other defences, but not every pom guy can get hypnos, and not to mention its damn hard these days to get into a decent ally that has enough to kill biker rushes in the given eta, which means you will have to count on pnaps but they cant really get there in time as they dont have a defence boost like ally does

[Turnip2k]

Mate if your a solo PoM, then this thread doesnt really apply - you are asking for high activity play if you go down this road because of the fact you dont really kill, your going to get alot of incoming weather it be bikers or other lethals. Biker rushing is a problem for ally people because its totally undefendable - for solos, being undefendable by a PNap is part of the game I'm afraid. If you dont like having to fight stuff on your own, dont go solo.

For ally, there are at least 5 routes I can cound which have units that will kill the biker rush even IF the defending PoM doesnt get hypnos.

Jeeps and PB - Thug
Harriers and Paratroopers - Ranger route
Shocks and hummers - RPG route
Gargoyles - Undead
Apaches - Apache route

You have 5 routes there, and 8 units which can kill a biker rush and match its eta if the bikers aren't distracted. What more do you want?

[dafe]

Mate if your a solo PoM, then this thread doesnt really apply - you are asking for high activity play if you go down this road because of the fact you dont really kill, your going to get alot of incoming weather it be bikers or other lethals. Biker rushing is a problem for ally people because its totally undefendable - for solos, being undefendable by a PNap is part of the game I'm afraid. If you dont like having to fight stuff on your own, dont go solo.

For ally, there are at least 5 routes I can cound which have units that will kill the biker rush even IF the defending PoM doesnt get hypnos.

Jeeps and PB - Thug
Harriers and Paratroopers - Ranger route
Shocks and hummers - RPG route
Gargoyles - Undead
Apaches - Apache route

You have 5 routes there, and 8 units which can kill a biker rush and match its eta if the bikers aren't distracted. What more do you want?
that leaders still can take them out a bit on last tick, the only unit that can fight them when the pom has no hypnos ;)

[pinpower]

why would you need the leaders to be able to take them last tick...the whole idea is that the bikers will be able to be hopefully killed if defence is organised...

if you have no defence by the time it gets to close tick you've already taken some serious damage anyway...meh

[roger rabbit]

why would you need the leaders to be able to take them last tick...the whole idea is that the bikers will be able to be hopefully killed if defence is organised...

if you have no defence by the time it gets to close tick you've already taken some serious damage anyway...meh

the biker is not really the unit a POM has to worry about. most of the damage in done 2 or 3-fold. bikers are lucky to get 1:1 on a pom. the real damage comes with the pb's that they send along with it. those are the real killers that the pom has to worry about. and you can easily defend against that.

and i see this more of a backlash against poms in general anyway from a few rounds ago. 2-3 rounds ago poms owned everything. there were not enough thugs then. now, thugs are back in fashion and people are using them to beat the hell out of poms.

i see this more of a equalizing effect rather than a single unit having free reign. so if there were less thugs around, this thread wouldn't even exist.

[DarkSider]

Almost a top 10 solo protestor that barelly gets inc because ppl know even if they bash him he won't loose that much. And not like you can't send 3 mil bikers 100 times like some post here or other stuff.
I don't know why instead thinking how to nerf poms you'd want to make them even more powerfull ?! The route is too damn strong ! NERF! :D

[Alcibiades]

the biker is not really the unit a POM has to worry about. most of the damage in done 2 or 3-fold. bikers are lucky to get 1:1 on a pom. the real damage comes with the pb's that they send along with it. those are the real killers that the pom has to worry about. and you can easily defend against that.

Once again you have missed the point i think. You can kill/defend against PBs. even if the POM is not online. But if someone sends bikers/only bikers, then they get to fire with massive impunity (usually) and they hurt. Sure they aren't going to zero me in one tick. But if i have even a good ratio, and someone sends 10 mill+ bikers, those are going to hurt a lot, especially over three ticks and i won't have done any damage in return, nor will my allymates have been able to kill more than a handful of bikers.

You get run over by 10 mill+ bikers and tell me you don't have to worry about the unit. If someone sends 10 mill bikers or 10 mill PBs, i know which one i'll fight without being online any day. PBs hurt but at least i and my ally have a chance to fight them. the issue here is biker impunity. Not which units pwn POMs or don't.

[f0xx]

The answer is simple Alci, we have routes for different purposes. If you with your activity cant support a PoM route why go it at all?

The PoM route is already overpowered in the hads of an active player, if bikers get changed so that they can be effectively countered by the PoM himself, then the route will be overpowered in the hands of any average joe, which will lead to imbalance...

[Alcibiades]

The answer is simple Alci, we have routes for different purposes. If you with your activity cant support a PoM route why go it at all?


i understand all that. This thread is verging on 6 pages and i've read every post.

Now let us examine my activity this round. I was actively refreshing about 9-10 hours a day. Which means hitting refresh every tick. I was active at night for about 4-5 hours. So we're up to 13-15 hours of activity here. Now the other 4 hours while i'm sleeping when i can be pranked/HLed means i'm available and active 17-19 hours out of 24. Then the remainder i am at work where i am uncontactable.

First off, i don't see myself as uber active, but i'm defense conscious (as POMs must be) so i make myself available whenever possible for as long as possible. now if i'm active and available for 17-19 hours a day, and still can get thrashed in the tiny sliver of the day when i'm not active... that's heartbreaking. It really is. And it's not even like last round where i'd get gangbeaten by a bunch of strikers while i was robo. because at least i'd get a tick of almost even fighting with the strikers and then be zeroed for next tick. Fantastic. That **** happens. But if i'm not reachable for the last 5 hours of the day i can get biker rushed pretty badly over and over in that time. I think that's ridiculous. And this is exactly why i quit, or at least a good part of it, because for all my activity, and for all the good intentions of my ally, the game isn't fun when i bust my ass and work my heart out for this ally, and then see all my hard work get washed down the tubes because one of the only units in the game that can hit me, hits me hard with impunity.

it's not even a case of being raped in war, because then i expect people to find my offline times and hammer me, that's different.

EDIT: I know i'm not an active skilled player, but neither am i an average joe. And thusly, i think the solutions that allow them to hurt you, but allow your ally to kill them second/first tick after they have fired is perfectly justified. Do some damage, but then have to recall so you don't get 3 ticks of impunity on them. In this case i'd even support a strengthening of bikers so that they are maybe a bit more powerful over the one tick than if they do get wiped out that first tick or later. Either way.... surely you see my point? 19 hours out of 24, i can still get handed a beating without any sort of penalty for the attacker. S

o now the only people who can play a POM route are those who are fully contactable, who live in a computer, near a computer, people who actually ARE a computer like Darryl, have a cellphone with net connection allowing them to log on wherever they are. Is that what we want... a game reduced to an absolutely necessity of 24 hour activity? No, i definitely think not. Or it is, well, i'm glad i've quit ally play ;)

[Cyrus]

The answer is simple Alci, we have routes for different purposes. If you with your activity cant support a PoM route why go it at all?

The PoM route is already overpowered in the hads of an active player, if bikers get changed so that they can be effectively countered by the PoM himself, then the route will be overpowered in the hands of any average joe, which will lead to imbalance...

i think this is the time when i give my raise the eta of bikers speech again, i dont see any valid point other than the theives side of the route being handicapped.
i would say at least make bikers eta 4 this allows you to gain a advantage of eta 1 but that'd be on someone 12 times plus your score, meaning whatever you have will hardly be touched as such. in reality id like to see the eta being 5, the reason for this thread is to remove the rushing capabilities at all from the biker, it amazes me people think this is a unit which has no problem, i mean cmon afterall its the only unit that can rush an offliner route which is solely there to combat and not be touched back

[Subdivisions]

If you raise the eta, then it is absolutely necessary that the bikers firepower is also raised. Because as it stands right now, bikers are more of an annoyance to PoMs then anything. I believe somebody has already pointed out in this thread that PBs are the real damaging unit, but unless the thug is all biker/PB/jeep the PBs shouldn't fire, assuming the PoM isn't a complete moron...

And, if the person is all biker/PB/jeep then really that person is extremely vulnerable in a lot of ways, and have sacrificed quite a bit of safety to be a PoM killing machine.

[DarkSider]

As i posted before, protestor pom is a very extreme route. If you can get online 19 hours/24 you are very active. However i wouldn't advice anybody in a higher ranked alliance who is unreacheble for a full 6 hours a day to go a weak route, especially protestor. The prot route is overpowered atm, in the hands of a contactable person 24/7 and decent active it dominates.
You complain about some looses you could get if you get biker rushed, if you played a lethal route you'd be in danger of getting zeroed daily instead just loosing some units to small rushes. I posted an example of a very high ranked pom who for some reason doesn't get pwned with impunity :P
All the arguments are pretty much like: I want to play extremist but i'm unreacheble 6 hours/day and i don't want to be so vulnerable in that period. So make them fire all 3 ticks so it fits my gaming abilities.
Protestor is the only route that can single handed defeat several attackers bigger then him without high looses. Add injury to that and it's too damn much.
And don't forget all the suggestions to nerf bikers will infuence other aspects of the game. Thug is a weak but very good support route for ally play. It's the only route to offer so many diferent tactics. Bikers can be boosted in attacks and there the eta 3 helps alot, we're talking about ally play here not just the owner's personal use of bikers. And what about bikers use in defence ? Surelly the eta 3 is much better than eta 4/5 ? In the last war Jizz vs Redemption bikers where the only units that where close to hurting the protestor incomings. You don't want to send half of alliance's troops for a single incoming so you hurt a protestor. It's already TOO MUCH that you have to buy a single unit to fight protestors and is completly useless against others. How would you like apache's to kill and be classified as [Evil]. And the only unit that fires directly at [Evil] to be officers.
Change them to stun ? Yeah, i'm going to invest in a few mil of this nld stunner totally useless against other units so when we get protestor inc i get to stun some of them guru's. That should teach him.
If bikers get nerfed poms need nerf. If it's unbalanced, by all means remove bikers. But also remove all protestor branches. Protestor's nld units haven't been changed for .. years. When you pick the route you know it's strenghts and weaknesses. If it doesn't fit your abilities just pick a more suitable route. Highest allied player is a protestor, highest nonbunker solo is a protestor. If the route suffers so many looses how come it's so succesfull ?

Edit: Add another funny thing about protestors and the very low looses they take in the right hands:
Just recently a very high ranked allied protestor had to zero himself 3-4 times (after injuries) so he gets on the same level with other alliance members. It's not enough a protestor blocks so many attacks in the same time, but apparently they don't loose enough in all those defences and need to do extra work to loose score.

[roger rabbit]

the biker is not really the unit a POM has to worry about. most of the damage in done 2 or 3-fold. bikers are lucky to get 1:1 on a pom. the real damage comes with the pb's that they send along with it. those are the real killers that the pom has to worry about. and you can easily defend against that.

Once again you have missed the point i think. You can kill/defend against PBs. even if the POM is not online. But if someone sends bikers/only bikers, then they get to fire with massive impunity (usually) and they hurt. Sure they aren't going to zero me in one tick. But if i have even a good ratio, and someone sends 10 mill+ bikers, those are going to hurt a lot, especially over three ticks and i won't have done any damage in return, nor will my allymates have been able to kill more than a handful of bikers.

You get run over by 10 mill+ bikers and tell me you don't have to worry about the unit. If someone sends 10 mill bikers or 10 mill PBs, i know which one i'll fight without being online any day. PBs hurt but at least i and my ally have a chance to fight them. the issue here is biker impunity. Not which units pwn POMs or don't.

my point is a counter point to yours and that is bikers dont kill as much as you are trying to say they do. the biker on the first tick will fire on your gurus first before your poms. so in that first hit, it's not the pom's that die first. even with 10 mill bikers. it's the pb's that will do in your pom's. bikers dont need nerfing.

and if only allies would send ETA 3 rush defense instead of ETA 4 rush like some do, then the thug would only get 1 tick of trying to kill you.

and most of the time, if they can match the tick, the attacker will recall.

dont nerf bikers.

[vlad]

Said protestors Hack (highest Ranked alliance player, you figure which ID :D )

Gardener [1,200,038,521] Harvester [50,081,747]
Combine Harvester [1,004,594] Tractor [49,096,768]
Hippy [4,000,012] Protestor Guru [302,933,893]
Protestor Leader [15,001,102] Loudspeaker Protestor [10,098,983]
Hippy Van [70,272,585] News Van [6,008,683]
Political Mastermind [75,003,832] Hypnotist [4,014,032]
Yob [7,024,225] Hooligan [204,833]
Heavy Thug [2,779] Petrol Bomber [1,542,107]
Terrorist [4,522] Jeep [867,998]
Biker [6,833,660] Nutter [447,543]
EMP Warrior [2,785] Humvee [194]
Ranger [6,980] Striker [224,768]
RPG Trooper [1,163,822] Apache Longbow [34,650]
Harrier [1,533] Recruitment Officer [1,071]
Wheelbarrower [120,043] Geo-Phys Thief [1,406,014]
Small Droid [746,201] Cyborg Gardener [3,857]
Stunbot [215] Psychopathic Android [227,861]
Shield Android [113,069] Cybernetic Warrior [170,243]
Tyrant Drone [16,231] Crazed Droid [13,905]
Cybernetic T-Rex [21] Steel Wall [179]
Cloner [792] Puppet Master [5,271]
Gargoyle [67] Lesser Vampire [1,649]


Now, that is by far an unfair target to use as an example. I know the experience that follows you, but don't be mistaken, im quite intune with game mechanics myself. This target has a SHED load of NLDs .. alot ... tbh .. a hell of alot ... So we are talking of 483,319,090 NLD units. WoW .. thats alot more staff than several prots have alltogether inc flack ... probaly high end prots. So the damage done with a few million bikers, is next to nothing. THEN ... we add the 1.1mill RPGs. Aye, thats not alot, but that will damage some of the Bikers, and the 200k PAs ... they will damage some. So over 2-3 Ticks, the 3mill Bikers could be quite hurt. Thats probaly the reason this guy gets less Biker rushes, and almost certain he can move out, as take alook at his bribed Biker count. compared to the other terroists units, thats alot .. so that aint just battle bribes, thats rushed bribes.

Now, this isnt a fair example, and this isnt about game mechanics of units vs unit, its about the ONLY unit that has immunity, thats all. Everyone looses little men when attacking a PoM aswell mind, not just the PoM. Attacking a PoM is a SAVE option.Lets take a Nooby " I'm scared to loose units, damn, there is this PoM, and hes got Defence .. i might aswell give it a shot, he will probaly distract me anyway". Thats fine, we can deal with that .. PoMs dont kill, nor do they die easy. But wait, they do. A good number of units can hurt PoMs, more than others, like PBs, flack them nicely, dead PoM. So none of this "Biker is the ONLY unit that kills PoM" crap.

The call from the thread isnt say "nerf the damage" "nerf the route" its a "Please can we look into a way to stop bikers being immune to damage from Biker rushes". Don't forget, the ones that get hurt the most, arent the top elite alliances and players, its the mid rank 80-300 people that suffer, which is more than the 10-15 prots at the top places.

p.s. I typed it late, sorry if it rambled, makes little sense, if unsure, ask and ill clarify :D

[Cyrus]

oh dont get me wrong Darksider, Roger i know exactly how powerful pom is thats why i suggested the increase of ETA i mean from all the angles you look at it, i cant find many faults that couldnt be balanced by slight changes here and there.

my point to all of this is purely removing the rushing capabilities of this unit. not nerf its power or strengthen it, although i could possibly do with a strengthen if the eta is increased as much as to eta 5.

but thats really it. the immune rushing is its problem and has been for ages, hence if you search the suggestions forums many a time this thread has come up lots. this is not just a recent thing.

[vlad]

but thats really it. the immune rushing is its problem and has been for ages, hence if you search the suggestions forums many a time this thread has come up lots. this is not just a recent thing.

Don't mean to spam, but thats what i tried to say "its the immunity, not the power" .. yet for some reason beyond me, a small post was just outa my reach :S less talking crap .. more to the point i say :D

[roger rabbit]

if you change the biker then you must make poms weaker. poms attack SO without impunity for 1st 2 ticks. what do you suggest we do about that?

[vlad]

if you change the biker then you must make poms weaker. poms attack SO without impunity for 1st 2 ticks. what do you suggest we do about that?

Umm, don't mean to be rude, but that makes no sense atall. We are on about bikers are immune basically to PoMs on say, biker rushes. You are just saying PoMs is a good Counter route to SO, no immunity. SAs can still shoot at the PoMs, so whats the Question?

[Melnibone]

As both Vlad and Cyrus have said the pom has no defense against the biker rush in a game of tactics (which bushtarion is) there has to be a tactic for defending against ANY attack and it is finding what works and what doesnt that makes good military officers and leaders in this game

Bikers on the other hand offer no possibilty of formulating a tactic to defend as no-one in any game should have to be available 24/7, its not only realistic to expect this its bloody stupid to think otherwise, now of all the suggestions supplied some have real possibilities and i hope Azzer reads this thread as they do need changed ive been advocating it for several rounds (old posts in old suggestion forums)

Basically for any game to work it has to be fair there is no other unit in game that can strike another allied player with total immunity and freedom from any form of damage, Pom route was played for MANY rounds by many great players before bikers and was never the invincible route its being made out that it would be if they were removed.

Simply put its time the biker unit was changed or removed

[roger rabbit]

if you change the biker then you must make poms weaker. poms attack SO without impunity for 1st 2 ticks. what do you suggest we do about that?

Umm, don't mean to be rude, but that makes no sense atall. We are on about bikers are immune basically to PoMs on say, biker rushes. You are just saying PoMs is a good Counter route to SO, no immunity. SAs can still shoot at the PoMs, so whats the Question?

being an SO from a couple rounds ago, i was hit non stop by poms. i barely made a dent on them. they owned me pretty hard. they would send their hypnos along and would steal all my traps. 2 poms from the same ally would send, each taking their turn. this is akin to the biker rush without impunity argument.

you want to take away the "one" advantage the thug route can do all on its own. how fair is that to the route? it can't kill robo, striker, SO, or vamp. but the pom can attack all those routes and still come out ahead with little losses?

the biker is designed to keep the pom route in check. it's part of the check and balance. bikers dont need to be changed. it's how the game is. can't you just leave the game alone? stop changing it. it wont be perfect. it cant be perfect. once you change the biker, then something else will be complained about to no end and then people will be calling for more changes.

leave the game alone. so what if the pom route cant defend againt the biker for the 1st tick. it's part of the risk of going that route. and that risk is sometimes outweighed by the reward the pom route can bring to a player. and the pom route does have many, many benefits.

and so what if you get hit. azzer put in injuries to answer the problem of getting zeroed.

dont get rid of the balance the biker brings to the pom.

[Alcibiades]

leave the game alone. so what if the pom route cant defend againt the biker for the 1st tick. it's part of the risk of going that route.

As far as i can remember off the top of my head, there is no other unit in game which is similar to the biker unit. So...

I'll be the first to admit bikers are necessary to keep the POMs/NLDs in check, but if you think there is nothing wrong with the biker unit then you are sorely mistaken. I'm active for 19/24 hours a day. the fact that i can get pretty completely trashed in those remaining 6 is insane. I play to have fun, nothing is fun about getting killed with impunity. don't tell me that bikers don't hurt POM route because that's not true. They do hurt, especially if they are massed (which is the only way they are used). And sure, if people mass a **** ton of bikers then they are making themselves vulnerable to other players. but what happens when 5-6 players send 10 mill bikers to a POM player. They aren't necessarily all smaller players and they sure aren't necessarily being 'honourable' in their attacks. That's bollocks, 50-60 mill bikers will wipe most POMs over three ticks and there's absolutely not a goddamn thing that can be done about that. Counter LETs won't fire, even on 50 mill bikers, the biker dead will be minimal compared to the devastating damage they will wreak on NLDs. so... bikers just need to have a counter. that's all i'm asking for.

Everything in this game has a counter. you said it yourself, this game works on checks and balances, where's the check and balance for the biker? how do i stop/mimimize the losses from a biker rush? tell me that. what can i do, as an allied or solo POM to prevent myself getting butchered badly by biker rushes. At the moment, not a thing. I don't mind taking losses, but i do mind not being able to fight back in any way shape or form.

You might casually shake off bikers as a 'risk' of that route, but that's like having RPGs fire on robo and then not being able to be killed. the damage is pretty hurtful over three ticks.

I don't see why a route should require 24 hour activity or contactability. I simply don't see why that is necessary. I like to play for fun, where's the fun in this?

[Alcibiades]

if you change the biker then you must make poms weaker. poms attack SO without impunity for 1st 2 ticks. what do you suggest we do about that?

you take no damage, you only lose land. that's the difference, anyone can steal land, but getting back NLDs which have been killed with impunity is slightly different than losing land you can always gain back i think.

[roger rabbit]

if you change the biker then you must make poms weaker. poms attack SO without impunity for 1st 2 ticks. what do you suggest we do about that?

you take no damage, you only lose land. that's the difference, anyone can steal land, but getting back NLDs which have been killed with impunity is slightly different than losing land you can always gain back i think.

no...you lose more than land if they send hypnos. that's my point.

[Nonny]

Bikers being immune to POM's?

No way.

Do that and you give hypnos the one thing thay are missing, LET flak.

A hypno can attack a thug, distract everything bar the bikers and bribe the LET flak he so badly needs. Sorc's without dragons think they have it hard. P-unit or not the thug's problems would dwarf it.
Given how easy the other thugs are to distract it'll be pretty easy to land too.

Surely this would turn the prot counter route into a troop and land farm?

[vlad]

Bikers being immune to POM's?

No way.

Do that and you give hypnos the one thing thay are missing, LET flak.

A hypno can attack a thug, distract everything bar the bikers and bribe the LET flak he so badly needs. Sorc's without dragons think they have it hard. P-unit or not the thug's problems would dwarf it.
Given how easy the other thugs are to distract it'll be pretty easy to land too.

Surely this would turn the prot counter route into a troop and land farm?


Aye, i saw it also, attack a Terrorist player, all his mobs get distracted, you then bribe the big jesus out of his bikers .. and if you send the right lot, you wont loose sod all men, then .. do this a few times .. and you can start killing Prots youself.

The only one i can see that works, is Melnis .... they work as sirens .. as intended to disable prots .. making them as useful as if killed .. but you have a chance to kill them with other units. Petrols, Sorcs etc.

I've already said about the obviuos abuse from this system.

And Roger Rabbit, whats the deal .. i don't get it. Before injuries you wouldn't even dream of moaning about getting men back. And i'm an SO fan, love SAs myself, even before the nerf like 15 rounds ago i was playing them, i know how they work. An SO can kill anything bar say a PoM, and a good setup Vampire route, everything else they can. They are just ratio based, like other routes (Rangers for example). Don't forget, SOs have assasins too :D
We aren't saying what you think we are. SO units fire After a PoM, so the PoM is doing his job correctly, where as the Biker doesnt need ANY SKILL or ANYTHING to do what he is doing, he can just spy some top PoM, and kill some units, without much risk (unless is online to get bribed) of taking damage. A PoM attacking a SO takes risks, what if all the traps arent bribed, or some SAs/Ninjas fire and kill the flack/Hypnos, they take risks.

Oh, i forget. You are also only talking about 1 branch out of the 3 with SO, the Assasins. The other 2 have good LET flack and Armour (Steel walls for example) so they don't suffer as much. It's a completely different arguement.

[willymchilybily]

the biker is not really the unit a POM has to worry about. most of the damage in done 2 or 3-fold. bikers are lucky to get 1:1 on a pom. the real damage comes with the pb's that they send along with it. those are the real killers that the pom has to worry about. and you can easily defend against that.

Once again you have missed the point i think. You can kill/defend against PBs. even if the POM is not online. But if someone sends bikers/only bikers, then they get to fire with massive impunity (usually) and they hurt. Sure they aren't going to zero me in one tick. But if i have even a good ratio, and someone sends 10 mill+ bikers, those are going to hurt a lot, especially over three ticks and i won't have done any damage in return, nor will my allymates have been able to kill more than a handful of bikers.

You get run over by 10 mill+ bikers and tell me you don't have to worry about the unit. If someone sends 10 mill bikers or 10 mill PBs, i know which one i'll fight without being online any day. PBs hurt but at least i and my ally have a chance to fight them. the issue here is biker impunity. Not which units pwn POMs or don't.


now quite honestly this is getting riddiculous.

im not even joking. firstly bikers staying three ticks???......in my allaince bikers stay one tick
Extremist [60,180,850] because if not good bye bikers.


bikers only really get one tick. that is all. middle tick and close there are things that can kill them b4 the poms distract. hell extremists can kill them b4 the bikers even fire. just not at range. i cba to look for other units. but i imagine rpg as well is eta4 so can make the middle tick with defence boost.

not to mention sending defence. as the person with bikers doesnt know for sure if the pom is online. and if they send again and again and again. eventually one time hopefully your allie isnt so rubbish it cant contact or get the pom on at least once. so pom sends out bikers die. crap injuries. wont be back for a while.

and the fact some one said a biker can send again and again. firstly if he does that to a solo ar. if hes purely allaince bashing the pom should be able to get online at least once. and the whole allie should counter and make an example of the twit. this is not as big a deal as people are making out. if the biker costs more the relative ratios will get even worse. for now they get what 3:2 if that imo. never seen 1:1. maybe against pure gurus/hippy/ the pom and newsvans and hippyvans have so much armour bikers make no mark. if the pom had no gurus and no yobs or hippies, or loudies. Bikers would be the worst unit in the game

and a price hike just amplifies its flaws.

so at the moment you have one unit biker that can just about hurt a pom if it makes himself an easy target and masses bikers instead of being balanced useful allie member. (ofc an anti pom allie member is good, but a few active thugs can have good ratios and achieve this)
and he has 1 tick to inflict the damage. and in this one tick he is hoping and praying that the pom is offline so he doesnt die to defence. This is why i never go over biker heavy. they get rubbish ratios. pom can run and defence can kill you. the people using them in the wrong way are stupid and will ultimately fail. the adrenalin rush adds a new aspect. but ultimately. some one that small wont have many bikers and teh allaince he is hitting will be easily able to get him back as he is small. there is no need imo to nerf bikers. but if you want to a price rise achieves this.

EDIT also buy a reasonable amount of hypnos if possible and send out anything nld when the biker comes. bribes = no injuruy. see how many times he comes back after he looses half his bikers with no injuries and kills nothing. if he sends pb's to he just has more to loose imo when your allie defend

[Melnibone]

EDIT also buy a reasonable amount of hypnos if possible and send out anything nld when the biker comes. bribes = no injuruy. see how many times he comes back after he looses half his bikers with no injuries and kills nothing. if he sends pb's to he just has more to loose imo when your allie defend

No im afraid mate YOUR missing the whole point ive thoroughly read your post, and all others here the point is not that bikers are the greatest unit on earth, the point is not that if you have bikers your unbeatable

The point is and im sure everyone who can think about it logically will agree is that there is only ONE unit in the game that can attack with guaranteed no losses on an allied player if hes offline (invalidates your whole point i quoted) and that is BIKERS against a big pom

Whats the point in any strategy game of having a unit or tactic that can be used to hurt an enemy with absolutely no chance of defending against it first tick?? please someone give me another example of ANY unit ANYWHERE in this game that can do it?? oh thats right they cant after all my pleas here for someone to do it, they cant, why??? because there is no other example, the unit as it stands is UNFAIR

I will happily put my hands up and wander off if anyone can give me another unit ingame that can do the following -

Attack a player for one or more ticks with the ability to do substantial damage while receiving absolutely none back no matter if the allied player has 17 alliance mates bigger than him online who cant send anything in time with the eta required to kill ANYTHING of the attackers??????

Tactics and skill should decide any players fate pom or otherwise not a unit that can inflict pain with no chance of hurting them back its stupid its unfair and its imbalanced

[Cyrus]

see what gets me about a discussion like this is some people fail to see the game for what it is and instead of argue what they would prefer.

willy no disrespect but how many allis have extremists? not many...
same with VD's you wont find many..
lets say you have 1 of those route, you have to rely on ONE person if your alli to stop them staying 3 ticks rather than just the one.. i disagree with your theory on that

roger can you please stop going off on a tagent this is about the Biker immunity, hitting SO is hardly the same, lets be real here.

i have played both PoM and Thug (not this round) and when i was biker i was amazed how much damage i was doing as a biker to poms without any fear of dying, i hate to keep repeating myself but there is no other unit that can do with successfully, obvly you got RPgays and F117's but they can be caught and RPGays hardly destroy much.

whoever was saying a decent amount of biker nerf's your setup, i disagree i mean i would say a decent amount of bikers is part of a good thug setup, if not you get raped by pom(which actually happened one round to me till i realised an half decent thug setup, DOH!)

all in all no-one can sit there and say this Unit is perfect.
increae biker eta and power yeah1!!! <-- that hits the rushing problem and darksiders overpowered pom arguement ;P

*posted this just after melni posted so i hope we arnt repeating ourselves.*

[DarkSider]

Melni you base all your posts on the thing that bikers are the only of it's kind. And for some reason you post that if nobody can find another unit to do same thing means the unit it's unfair.
I think it's not unfair it's just diferent.
Show me 1 route other than protestor (with a balanced setup) that can gamble against heavy defence and not get zeroed if all defence was real.
Show me 1 other combo as good as bunker/sentry in defence. Or 1 other unit that kills only NLD at range ? There are plenty units/routes each with it's particularity.
Yeah a biker rushing a pom will likely suffer low looses even tho i saw last round several poms with tens of milions of bribed lethals. There is something a pom player can do, they're just lazy and want the game to change instead work for it :P
You post there shouldn't be a route that requires to be contactable 24/7. Well you don't have to be contactable 24/7, but as you experienced quite a few times with RPG's last round if you pick a weak route and you're not contactable than it's likely to get hurt. Be it rpg, thug, robot, pom or extremist. Yes i can see your point bikers against the average protestor player might get a 1 tick of free damage but it's just a downside of the route, it's nothing unfair. If the route was so weak and vulnerable it wouldn't be so popular. If it doesn't fit your abilities pick something diferent. And most importantly, if you want to fight back DON'T PICK POMS.

And Cyrus, as i posted thug is a very good support route. The eta 3 is needed so you can for example match the eta of a protestor defence. The eta 3 is good as you can send an eta 2 defence along with petrols. I think i could agree with making bikers eta 5 but only if all NLD units (except hippy) would have a basic eta of 6. This way it keeps some of the balance so a thug boosting your attack can match the eta of a pom defending. So you nerf bikers you nerf prots. I think it wouldn't be fair to send eta 1 defence with guru's when a biker help can arrive only at eta 5 do you ?

[Cyrus]

but if someone is guruing an inc, you wont get bikers there in time anyway.. you send guru's at af2... i think your point is kinda flawed here darksider, because a) your saying it should stay on the basis that 1 MASSIVE pom who does have the time and contactability on his side can dominate instead of on the whole of the game. cmon darksider agree with me here 1 out of how many?
i do agree with you pom is a strong route, but i think that increasing the eta and the damage caused by bikers is sufficient, you cant really use the basis of thug being a support route as your arguement im afraid it just doesnt cut it.

off topic a second artnwe trying to cut the bashing side of this game?

i could see poms and hippy vans having reduced health and armour though, that could beviable, but has it cant kill anything, i need see it neccesary at all.. if you stay against defence you loose tbh a fair amount its hardly LOW troop loss and you deal nothing back..

[CFalcon]

Give the biker a big boost to damage, so from **/**/***/** to maybe **/**/****/****, leave their init as it is, but make them eta 5, with maybe a slight price increase.

The problem with PoM is that they're impossible to kill in one hit. Any other route (bunkers aside), with the right set up, can be destroyed in one tick. If you want to kill a PoM player you have no other option than to continually rush a small number of bikers. This annoys the PoM player hugely, but there's no other way to do it (untill F117s come along). Its not the fault of the biker player being a smeg-head, its just he has no other option.

So by making an eta 5 mob which is capable of destroying PoMs, but which can be defended against, I think better balance will be hit. The only complaint people have against bikers is that they are rushed and can't be defended against, and the main complaint about PoMs is that they're impossible to kill without spending days going at it. This would solve both.

Edit: it would also make PoM players seriously have to think about whether to stay at a target getting biker defence. At the moment biker defence, unless its overwhelming, isn't really more than an irritation to a PoM attacker.

[Cyrus]

nice post Cfalcon, i like.

[DarkSider]

If you don't ask for biker boost against protestor defence it doesn't mean they aren't used great in that tactic. I did it several times before, even asked fellow members to notice me if they ever see protestor defence for their attacks so i can spank them(when i had mass bikers).
So you make protestor even more powerfull on this side as you can't match the eta of a prot defence, you leave even less room for somebody to figure he'll get last ticked by nonlethals and ask for support.
You also remove rushing protestors with bikers.
You also make defending against protestors harder.
Why are this all advantages for protestors when it's clear that route it's already very strong at what it's supposed to do ?

That's why i said if you give so much extra power to protestor it must get a big nerf in return. Just changeing poms to eta 6 won't be enough imo, guru's and newsies would need increase in eta aswell.

[CFalcon]

If you don't ask for biker boost against protestor defence it doesn't mean they aren't used great in that tactic. I did it several times before, even asked fellow members to notice me if they ever see protestor defence for their attacks so i can spank them(when i had mass bikers).
So you make protestor even more powerfull on this side as you can't match the eta of a prot defence, you leave even less room for somebody to figure he'll get last ticked by nonlethals and ask for support.
You also remove rushing protestors with bikers.
You also make defending against protestors harder.
Why are this all advantages for protestors when it's clear that route it's already very strong at what it's supposed to do ?

That's why i said if you give so much extra power to protestor it must get a big nerf in return. Just changeing poms to eta 6 won't be enough imo, guru's and newsies would need increase in eta aswell.

1.I've rarely seen biker rushing against guru defence being more than an irritation/cheap kills tactic. It very rarely results in the prot recalling the defence. Just because you've done it DS, doesn't mean its a common or easy tactic.

2. I think the removal of rushing PoMs is a good idea. I totally agree with you that PoMs are overpowered, but having them rushable like this is not the way to go about weakening them.

3. You make it harder to defend against PoMs? How so? Having bikers with more firepower in every way makes it easier to defend against PoMs.

[Twigley]

Is this still going on?

You get biker inc ->
Defend with harriers, gargs, pb, jeeps, hooligans(remember these?)
PA mdidle tick, rpg middle tick

:roll:

Make bikers eta 5 and it means ill make an alliance with 10 poms, 10 rpgs and lets see you beat us.
:)

[Cyrus]

well if you did want biker help then you'd have a biker send with you and pull if no prots turned up? or alternatively you could still call upon bikers eta 3 to turn up alst tick to spank the prot ofc that means you fighting afew ticks against a biker and your target but that usually doesnt change much.

the whole point is to remove the rushing capabilities of this unit

defending against prots harder how? you send eta 4 defence how is that any different from the current units? because lets be honest who rushes poms to someone? lol.

and its not all advantages, increasing the damage of the bikers will make thugs easily take down poms in an attack for land or has some meaning at least...

darksider poms are soo good atm because of the fact that they cant kill, they do nothing, how can you say that they are SOOOOOOO overpowered just because they can stop land loss or whatever, they cant kill anyone and most people would stay if they just saw pom defence..
yes as a individual unit they are sick as but they are non-lethal which in turn balanced this out somewhat. i hope azzer reads this thread and takes some positives from it and correct the biker unit. its a must.

[Cyrus]

Is this still going on?

You get biker inc ->
Defend with harriers, gargs, pb, jeeps, hooligans(remember these?)
PA mdidle tick, rpg middle tick

:roll:

Make bikers eta 5 and it means ill make an alliance with 10 poms, 10 rpgs and lets see you beat us.
:)

an alli full of 10 SA and 10 Thug, yeah ive just beat you so what? :P

[Melnibone]

Make bikers eta 5 and it means ill make an alliance with 10 poms, 10 rpgs and lets see you beat us.
:)

ok i'll make an alliance of 10 thugs massing bikers and PBS and 10 vamps massing Vamps better hope your 10 poms dont mind losing literally billions of funds every time i attack and as i wont have any armour your 10 rpgs will do very minor damage so minor it would be insignificant compared to the losses youd take

You get biker inc ->
Defend with harriers, gargs, pb, jeeps, hooligans(remember these?)
PA mdidle tick, rpg middle tick


how exactly do hooligans stop bikers rushing poms with no losses do they secretly kill bikers before poms fire and im such a n00b i havent known about this? same with harriers gargs pbs everything else you mentioned, have all the inits been boosted while i was asleep????

everyone agrees bikers are not overpowered in a 'fight'.... but as an unfair unit with no possible real defense when rushed they are as ive already pointed out several times completely unfair

Darksider to your points

If you don't ask for biker boost against protestor defence it doesn't mean they aren't used great in that tactic. I did it several times before, even asked fellow members to notice me if they ever see protestor defence for their attacks so i can spank them(when i had mass bikers).
So you make protestor even more powerfull on this side as you can't match the eta of a prot defence, you leave even less room for somebody to figure he'll get last ticked by nonlethals and ask for support.

if Bikers are eta 4 why cant you send them for someones last tick?? you could launch them at eta 2 yes prots can wait till eta 1 to send but if your boosting an ally mate you could send wait a tick and if no def is launched recall them?????? if its just gurus they're eta 1 you would need to send in advance anyway??? i fail to see your reasoning
You also remove rushing protestors with bikers.
You also make defending against protestors harder.

no poms are eta 4 you make bikers eta 4 then you can defend as well as you always have especially with a -1 boost for allied defense

[Twigley]

Is this still going on?

You get biker inc ->
Defend with harriers, gargs, pb, jeeps, hooligans(remember these?)
PA mdidle tick, rpg middle tick

:roll:

Make bikers eta 5 and it means ill make an alliance with 10 poms, 10 rpgs and lets see you beat us.
:)

an alli full of 10 SA and 10 Thug, yeah ive just beat you so what? :P

Poms rape SA and Thug with no bikers.
Ofc if there is bikers then just throw rpgs on it.
SA? strip it then pom it ... shouldnt fire.


Melni ...

Take DS last round.
Only reason he owned Interlude was because we had inactive harrier, 2 inactive thugs and our vamp was american and at work.

As soon as just 50m jeep was sent in defence or 50m harrier ... RECALLED!!

Genious.

[DarkSider]

if Bikers are eta 4 why cant you send them for someones last tick?? you could launch them at eta 2 yes prots can wait till eta 1 to send but if your boosting an ally mate you could send wait a tick and if no def is launched recall them?????? if its just gurus they're eta 1 you would need to send in advance anyway??? i fail to see your reasoning


You just don't want to see :P There is a big diference between spoting protestor defence and asking for help and anticipating defence plans and asking for the suport you think you'll need. And don't say you can just ask for suport of everything and what you don't need ask them to pull :P Majority of the players act depending what already happened, i don't think it's so usual for an attacker to make plans and have lined up all kind of boosts he might need.


You also remove rushing protestors with bikers.
You also make defending against protestors harder.

no poms are eta 4 you make bikers eta 4 then you can defend as well as you always have especially with a -1 boost for allied defense

If you think increase of eta on bikers won't change anything on the defence part, you wouldn't be against making guru eta 6 would you ? I mean you can "defend as well as you always have". You just have to send defence earlier, when incoming is eta 3.
Since an alliance can't have too many players with high amounts of bikers any extra 1 eta defending and returning is a big deal. That's why guru and sd's are so powerfull, because even if those have an enourmous power they can be sent at eta 1, they do their job quick and arrive home quick ready to be sent for another inc. Increase their eta and they won't be so efficient anymore.

And yeah Cyrus, Azzer read the forums and he thinks "Poms have enough advantages already" :P But nobody answered to "If protestor pom is so weak and vulnerable why is it a popular route" ? There must be a reason why they pick this route when they know they can't kill too well, vulnerable to biker rushes etc. Could it be that even with this vulnerability the route it's still too strong on other areas and you just can't ignore it ?
Extremist, vd's, thief branch of thugs, bunker, sorcs are quite unpopular in alliances because none of them offers enough power. Clearly poms do :)

[Melnibone]

no i see your point clearly lets look at what youve said so far

changing bikers eta will stop them being useful in defense???? no it'll just require them to be sent a tick earlier, making gurus eta 6???? what kind of drugs you taking mate tell me how gurus can strike against a player causing damage that cant be retaliated on the tick they arrive??? i think its more a case of you understanding my very valid point and choosing to make up ludicrous examples so that others dont see it as clearly as you do..............

Also you state that if poms are so imbalanced why do people play them simply put BECAUSE THEY HAVE TO an alliance without protestors will not be in any position to push for the win after flakwars but im fairly certain you will find more protestors quit an alliance due to frustration than any other route this is what needs to be addressed DS i know as an attacking player you want the game to be completely lopsided in favour of offense simply put it cant survive as it is with that philosophy it needs to be somewere in the middle of what youd like and what is feasible sorry

[roger rabbit]

Everything in this game has a counter. you said it yourself, this game works on checks and balances, where's the check and balance for the biker?

then my only question would be, does each route need to have an answer for every possible unit attacking itself? is it the intention of your chosen route to be able to defend against all types of attacks?

[Cyrus]

Everything in this game has a counter. you said it yourself, this game works on checks and balances, where's the check and balance for the biker?

then my only question would be, does each route need to have an answer for every possible unit attacking itself? is it the intention of your chosen route to be able to defend against all types of attacks?

does this whole thread fly over your head? i dno which posts you have or havnt read but how will a pom defend against a biker attack in a given normal case after a ETA increase? it wont, THE POINT IS TO REMOVE THE RUSHING CAPABILITIES jesus!!!!! a pom will never be able to defend against a biker inc.

please please read all posts instead of just what you wanna read so you can argue.

[Twigley]

Everything in this game has a counter. you said it yourself, this game works on checks and balances, where's the check and balance for the biker?

then my only question would be, does each route need to have an answer for every possible unit attacking itself? is it the intention of your chosen route to be able to defend against all types of attacks?
a pom will never be able to defend against a biker inc.


Hypnos.
If too much PB sent and you dont have bribed lets already - Protestor leaders last tick.

If not online, you should have alliance mates like i already said.
If you are solo ... dont go pom.
It's like going bunker in an ally.
Backwards.

[Cyrus]

even if someone had hypno's you could still deal damage to a prot and not be touched, even if your alli mates defend you could still deal damage untouched.
dont matter if your allied at all twigley all in all a biker player can rush you untouched wether you get defence or not.

[roger rabbit]

Everything in this game has a counter. you said it yourself, this game works on checks and balances, where's the check and balance for the biker?

then my only question would be, does each route need to have an answer for every possible unit attacking itself? is it the intention of your chosen route to be able to defend against all types of attacks?

does this whole thread fly over your head? i dno which posts you have or havnt read but how will a pom defend against a biker attack in a given normal case after a ETA increase? it wont, THE POINT IS TO REMOVE THE RUSHING CAPABILITIES jesus!!!!! a pom will never be able to defend against a biker inc.

please please read all posts instead of just what you wanna read so you can argue.

why remove rushing? why? that doesnt make sense.

i'm arguing because the biker does NOT need changing. so you're telling me a pom is utterly defenseless to counter the bikers? so they cant use their hypnos to bribe what is required to stop the biker problem?

you're talking as if the pom has NOTHING it can do to counter it besides being online to run away. look at some of the top poms. do you see anything in their arsenal that can stop rushes?

but the other point, the prot route is a non killing route. if it actually killed something instead of being a pillow fighter, then how would the rushes differ with this element? would they tend to occur more often or less often?

the biker should be there to kill the pom without impunity if he's unwilling to make defensive changes for himself. dont change the game; change your strategy!

and you can ETA 3 rush a pom and still kill him without bikers i might add.

[Cyrus]

you're talking as if the pom has NOTHING it can do to counter it besides being online to run away.
ermm thats exactly the point, this is the only way to stop a biker rush. even if you have hypno's you need to be online to catch the bikers, doy uo really not get this thread? cmon be honest here.


but the other point, the prot route is a non killing route. if it actually killed something instead of being a pillow fighter, then how would the rushes differ with this element? would they tend to occur more often or less often?

OFC its gonna occur often, how many stories do you here or people rushing harriers all the time? if a route can fight back people will think less about attacking that route, its the same with any setups, if a harrier route has spammed harrier and ranger im gonna flak that target instead of a harrier thats spammed harrier and flamers right?


the biker should be there to kill the pom without impunity if he's unwilling to make defensive changes for himself. dont change the game; change your strategy!

your quite confusing in your points, here are you trying to say bikers shouldnt be able to attack without losses or the oposite because unless i read wrong your agreeing with me, melni and co?

your really going off on a tagent with this thread. look at the facts. biker rushes cant be stopped without the guy being online (at at least 1 tick AT LEAST)

[Subdivisions]

Cyrus stop your rambling :P

They CAN BE stopped when the PoM is offline. I save Martin all the time by defending him with jeeps/PBs. The people recall in fear that Martin IS online and sends away. Also, hypnos let PoMs get all kinds of LETs and do really well against any leftover PBs (which are the real threat to PoMs, which most people seem to be missing this point).

Theoretically, you can rush a solo PoM over and over with bikers, but it takes quite a few ticks of battle of just pure biker to actually bring a PoM down; I'm talking like 15 ticks or so of bikers on a PoM that is 40% of your score to zero them. That is FIVE successful attacks where the person wasn't online to run from any. But if you want to continue living in this fantasy world, you will realize you can rush a solo anything else (aside from maybe bunker, but that's enough thread for another time) with the counter route and zero them in 1-3 ticks. Or you can just send a full eta 5 mob and steal land, with minimal losses.

You guys ramble on as if bikers were weapons of mass destruction. I was the serial killer for a large part of the first of this round as a thug, and I mostly killed PoMs. And I'll tell you what, it wasn't the bikers racking up the kills ;)

Honestly, with injuries bikers are almost a joke. If anything, I think bikers need a buff.

PoMs have it easy, 'nuff said.

[CFalcon]

Theoretically, you can rush a solo PoM over and over with bikers, but it takes quite a few ticks of battle of just pure biker to actually bring a PoM down; I'm talking like 15 ticks or so of bikers on a PoM that is 40% of your score to zero them. That is FIVE successful attacks where the person wasn't online to run from any. But if you want to continue living in this fantasy world, you will realize you can rush a solo anything else (aside from maybe bunker, but that's enough thread for another time) with the counter route and zero them in 1-3 ticks. Or you can just send a full eta 5 mob and steal land, with minimal losses.

You guys ramble on as if bikers were weapons of mass destruction. I was the serial killer for a large part of the first of this round as a thug, and I mostly killed PoMs. And I'll tell you what, it wasn't the bikers racking up the kills ;)

Honestly, with injuries bikers are almost a joke. If anything, I think bikers need a buff.

PoMs have it easy, 'nuff said.

EXACTLY

Which is why bikers need a big boost to damage.

However if they got a damage boost and remained eta 3 they would be overpowered.

So take their eta to 4 or 5.

I am completely in support of making bikers more effective against PoMs. However allowing PoMs to be repeatedly rushed is not the answer. These suggestions for countering biker rushes you're all making, are only really done or do-able at the highest skill/activity levels. What about the rest of the game?

[No-Dachi]

Make bikers immune to poms when the pom is defending its own company.


This will enable alliances to defend, without nerfing the biker in anything but pure biker rushes.

[tobapopalos]

I would be the first person to argue that PoMs are overpowered, and also, funnily enough, that bikers are crap. They don't do much damage to PoMs considering their cost, and for them to be able to zero a PoM they have to weaken themselves to all other routes.

Despite this, bikers are still an unbalanced unit. I could happily send all my bikers to a PoM and be pretty safe in the knowledge that they can't get killed unless the PoM gets defence and sends away. As Alci says, it is impossible to defend a biker rush unless the PoM is online. I don't think that's fair. There should ALWAYS be a counter. The only thing I've found to work so far is jeeps or humvees. They aren't massively effective at killing, but they sometimes put the attackers off enough to recall.

To be honest, I don't think Hippie's idea is that bad. Why should PoMs have absolutely zero chance against bikers? There should be SOME way out. Some way of survival without pranking/texting the player. All other routes have one, and this would give them one (even if it is a slim one).

[Augustus]

Leave Bikers alone! They are the only unit that can effectively kill the PoM route. I dont understand why people are complaining more in the last couple of rounds than previously. We now have injuries! Just be grateful that you get some of your units back and its not like the old days.If you change Bikers it will only cause an imbalance in the game, they've been this way for a while now and I doubt Azzer will change them after such a long time.

[Alcibiades]

POMs are a very strong route. But this game is designed around routes and counter-routes. To not have a counter to bikers is insane. As it is equally insane to not have a counterr to POMs. But a counter that is uncounterable is unreasonable.

I'm not sure if anyone followed my logic. But Augustus, i'm not saying that Bikers shouldn't be nerfed against POMs, or that they shouldn't be able to kill POMs effectively. But as someone has suggested, make POMs ignore bikers completely so that LETs firing after POMs can kill the bikers. (i.e. POMs stun bikers). Perhaps you can then give POMs a health/armour boost so they survive better... but either way. Having a unit that kills with impunity is the key. I don't think off the top of my head I can figure out another unit that fires with such impunity. Except maybe 117 but they die easily and are rare enough to use and cost a bundle. Whereas bikers are cheap, massable and devastating in large numbers.

Augustus: Just because something has been a way for a long time does not make it right. Bikers have always killed with impunity. Now that we get injuries it doesn't change the fact they still kill with impunity. It just means i get a percentage back which is still unusable. Sure it's not gone for ever, but when you get repeat biker attacked, losing 15-30% hurts after a while. which granted it is supposed to do, but again, the impunity issue. How precisely do you counter bikers effectively? I've never ever heard of any way to counter them well. Maybe DarkSider, Cheese, f0xx or others could enlighten me, but i highly doubt it. There is, as far as i am aware, no possible counter for a biker rush on a POM other than getting them online. I dare someone to prove me wrong please....? In this case, i would dearly, oh so dearly, love to be proved wrong...?

[dafe]

POMs are a very strong route. But this game is designed around routes and counter-routes. To not have a counter to bikers is insane. As it is equally insane to not have a counterr to POMs. But a counter that is uncounterable is unreasonable.

I'm not sure if anyone followed my logic. But Augustus, i'm not saying that Bikers shouldn't be nerfed against POMs, or that they shouldn't be able to kill POMs effectively. But as someone has suggested, make POMs ignore bikers completely so that LETs firing after POMs can kill the bikers. (i.e. POMs stun bikers). Perhaps you can then give POMs a health/armour boost so they survive better... but either way. Having a unit that kills with impunity is the key. I don't think off the top of my head I can figure out another unit that fires with such impunity. Except maybe 117 but they die easily and are rare enough to use and cost a bundle. Whereas bikers are cheap, massable and devastating in large numbers.

Augustus: Just because something has been a way for a long time does not make it right. Bikers have always killed with impunity. Now that we get injuries it doesn't change the fact they still kill with impunity. It just means i get a percentage back which is still unusable. Sure it's not gone for ever, but when you get repeat biker attacked, losing 15-30% hurts after a while. which granted it is supposed to do, but again, the impunity issue. How precisely do you counter bikers effectively? I've never ever heard of any way to counter them well. Maybe DarkSider, Cheese, f0xx or others could enlighten me, but i highly doubt it. There is, as far as i am aware, no possible counter for a biker rush on a POM other than getting them online. I dare someone to prove me wrong please....? In this case, i would dearly, oh so dearly, love to be proved wrong...?
most units cant get a biker rush in time, and the ones that can are useless as poms would take them all out...and about the f117...rpg are a decent counter to them...with some other stuff...and normally theres plenty of time to get defence there, even with the stealth...still leaves some decent ticks to cover it

[Lupus]

bikers are fine dont need changing as sooooo many ppl have said soo many times before they are specialised and are useless against so many units if ur having biker troubles just get more Hv as bikers have mods against machines and will flak ur poms, if ur pom heavy well thats ur fault and stop whinning. ;)

[Alcibiades]

bikers are fine dont need changing as sooooo many ppl have said soo many times before they are specialised and are useless against so many units if ur having biker troubles just get more Hv as bikers have mods against machines and will flak ur poms, if ur pom heavy well thats ur fault and stop whinning. ;)

I wasn't POM heavy, i'm well aware of how to play the POM route and quite frankly HVs do just about bugger all in protection. They help yes, but really... no one has addressed the key issue.

Make bikers stronger but give them a counter is my simple and easy enough request.

[Fortune]

forgive me if i'm wrong but i believed that the reason the protestor route was so powerful was that because it needed a really active player to play it.......this means you should be able to avoid biker rushes

[Souls]

forgive me if i'm wrong but i believed that the reason the protestor route was so powerful was that because it needed a really active player to play it.......this means you should be able to avoid biker rushes

That still doesn't address the situation of bikers being able to rush without a ghost of a chance of being hurt. ;)

[Fortune]

yes but what i meant was that bikers are specially desined to own prots who are inactive and with more routes then there should be in this game why cant the person simply play another route if they want to be inactive, like bunkers for example.

[DarkSider]

Stop argumenting with the "they don't fight back". We do know that is something unique there, same as it's unique the way poms it's the only route that doesn't get zeroed beeing attacked by an rpg + SA + striker + robot all of same size. No other route can survive this. Each route might have it's very own unique abilities and weakneses.
As plenty said before, protestor pom like a few other routes are not meant for an inactive player, it's a dangerous route to play even for a more active player, gives awsome offensive force against many solo routes, it's the best defensive route, it can gamble in attacks vs possible fake defence without taking large looses which no other route can do. All this for one single weakness: You have to be able to bribe the right units (alliance can help you) or instruct your alliance mates to send eta 2 defence and let the attacker gamble if you get online to send out or not. You don't even need to be online, if there is plenty defence attacker will recall.
The problem appears when some players impressed by the route strenght decide to give it a go and later they realize it's not all sugar and honey. There are plenty routes unpopular in an alliance, if you decide pom is not good enough for you then pick something else. Alliances can survive without a single protestor in it, i think Panoply had none ? And i'm sure there have been plenty others.

[nopjes]

Honestly, with injuries bikers are almost a joke. If anything, I think bikers need a buff.

PoMs have it easy, 'nuff said.

EXACTLY

Which is why bikers need a big boost to damage.

However if they got a damage boost and remained eta 3 they would be overpowered.

So take their eta to 4 or 5.

?

u guys are forgetting the point of this thread.
the point was that there was no antivenom to a biker rush!
and you have to be contactable and active 24-7 to make a good pom

this is what i like to see changed.

even tho rushes could do little damage in your score range
as long as it frequently happens it will destroy both the poms staff and fun!
and ofcourse now ill get 'BUT THAT HAPPENS WITH OTHER ROUTE'S TO'

now the thing is. there are ways to stop other rushes
but there currently is NO WAY to stop a ibiker rush.
this is what needs to change.

to both make the pom route fun to play
and to boost ally play

imo if you could invest 15 hours a day in a GAME. it should be enough
and if its not, then i think it should be made that way.

[Fortune]

surely there is a counter of sending away our prots and then because bikers wont hit your hypnos then you will bribe load s and loads of bikers and then they will think twice about attacking you again!

[Cyrus]

are these points flying fast over your head fortune? :P

the point is why should you need to be contactable to be able to counter something, having 17-19 other friends not enough? oh wait its not enough because the poms distract any bikers therefore any defence is irrelivant

and the point about poms already being imba / look whos rank 2 or whatever, thats because he's active, there is no way of killing an active pom unless you draw them into big battles. so that point is kinda flawed anyway.
but saying that increasing the eta and power of bikers would then make them kill more poms in these big battles

this is about the 5th post ive made thats the same yet people keep replying with the same silly stuff, read the whole thread then post.

[nopjes]

surely there is a counter of sending away our prots and then because bikers wont hit your hypnos then you will bribe load s and loads of bikers and then they will think twice about attacking you again!

thats the solution for a crazyly active pom.
now pls give me one for a pom with about 8 hours per day activity

[willymchilybily]

surely there is a counter of sending away our prots and then because bikers wont hit your hypnos then you will bribe load s and loads of bikers and then they will think twice about attacking you again!

thats the solution for a crazyly active pom.
now pls give me one for a pom with about 8 hours per day activity

Possibility 1
be a pussy and send your gurus to alliance when not on. that way biker rushes kill less and get **** ratios and you can recall your main flack stoppers when the enemy is attacking for 2.
also you hopefully have enough poms hvs to stop people picking on you with flakc and being allied shud get defence

Possibility 2
idle in irc with HL on. and just sit at home all day.

[nopjes]

now what about someone who isnt home all day and is in a lower ranked ally and can't risk to send to hq :P

anyway. thats missing the point again.
even if ur guru's are at hq
there still is no counter to a biker rush

[willymchilybily]

darksider said it best

apart from one little comment i dont entirely agree with

Stop argumenting with the "they don't fight back". ...
The problem appears when some players impressed by the route strength decide to give it a go and later they realize it's not all sugar and honey. There are plenty routes unpopular in an alliance, if you decide pom is not good enough for you then pick something else. Alliances can survive without a single protestor in it, i think Panoply had none ? And i'm sure there have been plenty others.

maybe without a single pom. but i think they do need the gurus. other than gurus they would be relying heavily on yobs hippies and small droids. maybe if your lucky stuns to sweep. would be alot harder.

but i agree entirely with the rest of what was said. Pom is hard to kill. its got good stats anyway. stops stuff well, is heavy armour. But most importantly is nonlethals. straight away you have taken away 70% damage from most routes. That might have hurt a normal lethal armour based route. and those that do hurt will shoot after you. so all there is that you may fear is the bikers. If bikers didnt exist then who would stop poms? it would be impossible. and you couldnt flack a well balanced pom if solo.

I may try pom next round just to show you how its done :P punit asap. quick development, cheap development. easy to grab land. easy to keep land. Its a brilliant route. but you pay for it with a lack of being able to kill.

EDIT: in addition the only route that does kill pom has to mass bikers to do it. and is a weak route anyway if its got mass bikers.

[nopjes]

k then i get thieves and will totally rely on u then:P as long as u can keep my land ;D
willy<3


anyway. its not the point wether theyre strong or not.
i just find it uncool that there is no counter to a biker rush except beeing online.
if someone can rush u over andd over again. then its no difference wether hes got only 500k or 500m bikers
the point is there is just no counter to it

[Bunion]

Example:
I play a PoM in a non top alliance.
I stay up until 3am for my night cover shift.
I sleep for 8 hours, getting up at 11am.
Biker rush is eta 3, sent end-of-tick is eta 2 (assuming no rush)
They stay for 1 tick and recall.
It takes 3 ticks to recall.
This takes an hour before it can be resent.
In 8 hours, while I am asleep, I can be biker rushed, with no possible defense, 8 times.

THIS is the issue people have with bikers, not that they are weak individually, or that I don't have the right ratio, it is that normal human beings have to sleep, and there is no way to counter a biker rush.

Now I don't know about you, but I don't want to be woken once an hour, every hour for the 8 hours that I'm trying to sleep. I don't want to have to send all my troops out to HQ every night, and rely solely on alliance defense, and giving away which alliance I'm in, early in the round. Besides, it's not like they are going for land, what's to stop them rushing my guys who are at HQ? maybe if we had teched a bit, but not early on.

[Souls]

surely there is a counter of sending away our prots and then because bikers wont hit your hypnos then you will bribe load s and loads of bikers and then they will think twice about attacking you again!

thats the solution for a crazyly active pom.
now pls give me one for a pom with about 8 hours per day activity


You spend around 7.39 hour(s) a day playing Bushtarion.
Value: £50,070,050,591 [18]

Same thing. There is no other counter. :P

[Fortune]

ok ok....if this is a "part suggestion ,part gripe" are u saying that prot units should have units only designed to own bikers.....maybe road spikes........now what are u going to gripe about next that are ur bikers have been killed because they are doing what they are only desgined to do....kill prots - the most powerful route

[roger rabbit]

But most importantly is nonlethals. straight away you have taken away 70% damage from most routes. That might have hurt a normal lethal armour based route. and those that do hurt will shoot after you. so all there is that you may fear is the bikers. If bikers didnt exist then who would stop poms? it would be impossible. and you couldnt flack a well balanced pom if solo.

the price you pay to have this benefit. so what if there is no counter. you dont like it, then dont choose it. if you're another route you will still get WTFMCHAMMERED by your anit-route where you deal little to no damage - all this while you sleep.

you can't send away, you can't kill it, oh well...i guess you die. but the biker exists to keep you poms in check. plain and simple.

[CLem]

People need to see both sides of the coin, if bikers get weakened or if we have a new unit that can arrive eta 2 and fires before pom and target LET will make POMs unbelievably powerful in an alliance not to mention the injury that they get already.

[Cyrus]

yes see both sides of the coin and READ THE SUGGESTIONS

increase eta and INCREASE THE POWER OF BIKERS jesus bloody christ its not hard.

[CLem]

Sorry Cyrus, why do you always have to be so aggressive? POM last tick defense is the most annoying thing, with bikers being eta 3, you can at least match the last tick to hurt the POM a bit. Increasing the eta will mean that there is bugger all anyone could do against the POM defender.

Also for any half decent alliance will have PAs and werewolves in their alliance to arrive and defend 2nd tick before the POMs fire, so effectively bikers can max get 1 tick of free hit if your alliance is willing to defend you. At the moment there is one UNIT that is strong against a POM, not even a route!!

[Turnip2k]

Bikers immune to prots on attack? Should solve the problems.

[Cyrus]

sorry i didnt mean to be agressive i just made it in caps so people could read what was actually being said, clem i disagree with your examples, im sorry but if we're working with shoulda coulda woulda's nothing in this game would ever be balanced, you cannot possibly expect no unit change because another route cant call in the biker unit as help... cmon be real man.

i agree pom last tick defence is annoying but how many people call in biker help? i would say less than 5% of the bush community, if your gonna attack with someone 9/10 you both send eta 5

[CLem]

Also less than 5% of the player base are being biker rushed to oblivion, the ones that are likely to be rushed are the ones in the top few alliances right? Now for a route that can beat almost all route 1v1 and lose the least in defense and attack whilst enjoying injury I think the fact that it is totally exposed to one unit is only fair.

I do not expect a unit change not because you can't call for help but simply because nothing else can hurt a POM. Yes making biker eta higher can prevent rushing allowing some feasible defense, but in an active alliance/winning alliance that makes a POM player practically invincible.

This is my last post on this matter.

[Fortune]

Next round, just to prove that there are ways to be a great POM and defeat bikers i've decided to go Prots and as soon as i've got hypnos the first thing i do is find some noobish robo and bribe millions of PA's to obliitrate any bikers and if i feel like it get some RPG's to rub it in that no one would be able to biker rush me........i call for others to prove this too

[Lupus]

therefore i have decided to go thug just so i can hunt you down and throw obscene amounts of bikers at u, <3

[Fortune]

game on

my name will probably be something like: Kicking the Ass of Lupus with bribed PAs

[Souls]

At the moment there is one UNIT that is strong against a POM, not even a route!!

Is that not how most routes are? If you take the RPG out of the route, it gets decimated by robos. If you take the Ranger out of the route, it gets decimated by SO. If you take the SA out of the route, it gets decimated by TLs. What's your point here? :P

[CLem]

Means that the only arch enermy they have is 1 single unit, instead of a setup of a route which are much more effective when killing an opposing route. For example, Rpg rip Armour then snipers rip the health of Robos, SAs slaughter Terrorists then Assassins hit Jeeps. Get my drift?

Bikers do more HD then AD whilst most NLDs have more armour than health (look at gurus, poms, etc) meaning they are not even too much of an effective killer as they already are and if put too much weight on them then it leaves you exposed(not to mention the reduction of damage on vehicles). So if there is a route that is geared just for killing poms, it would be something that strip armour of NLDs first then another unit to hit health of NLD. Of course we will probably never see this as it will be too much of a specialised route, so once again, bikers are fine.