[aetherspawn]

My OS floated around 10-15 and I virtually always ended up having to go front in every lobby, which is the position I hate the most because I don’t like playing my strategy game like an RPG - that is, micro-ing just a dozen of units and optimising every rocket or bullet hit or whatever, which is kind of what front is like.

Front has zero opportunity or resources available to build any kind of economy, and once the T2 units start coming through from the other side they feel very expendable. As the front player you build the same 1 or 2 units every single game and never really get to strategise.

What also enraged me is that the back players would have the nerve to make the front player “pay” for their T2 constructor units after working so hard to keep everyone alive, despite everyone knowing the front player has zero resources at any given time because it’s all going into units that are being meat grinded.

[s1artibartfast]

Mechanics of course depend on the map and meta. However, you cant really go into a 16 player game and expect to get the spot you want. Both backline and front line should be working non-stop and both have a lot to do. It is a sweaty game.

Paying for t2 that is usally a noob mistake. High OS play rarely asks, or has a meta for who pay to run specific plays.

One of My favorite 40 OS streamers leaves every losing game asking what they could have done better, which I think is a good mentality.

[MasterBel2]

I’ve spent a lot of time coaching players at your level and there’s a lot of misunderstanding about what’s going on here.

Front line players absolutely have the economy to go t2 on their own, and I like to prove this regularly. Paying tech is simply to speed up your t2 con (and everyone else’s) by ~30 seconds.

If you’re too busy to pay for a t2 con you’re even more too busy to build t2 mexes, so you don’t need one in the first place. (I usually overpay for my t2 con to speed it up even more)

Your units should not be meat grinding. Take battles you can win or back off to safety.

Static defences are more cost effective than mobile units - that gives you the freedom to invest in your t2 transition.

Finally, there’s lots of viable diversity even in the first few minutes of the game (even up to 50os). If it doesn’t seem that way, there’s an opportunity to try new things and figure them out.

[Panzer04]

Paying for T2 means the whole team gets faster T2s. Giving them resources lets them build them faster because their own resource generation is less than that of the team.

T2s are so good this is an objectively good tradeoff. It's not about compensating the eco player (though that does happen by extension) its about getting your whole team faster T2 mexes.

[ghosty141]

> My OS floated around 10-15 and I virtually always ended up having to go front in every lobby, which is the position I hate the most because I don’t like playing my strategy game like an RPG

So the truth is, "Front" is the absolute standard. There are only two other "types" of positions which are tech and air. And a good tech player usually also plays that role more like a front player just with more time in the early game to scale his economy. (with the exception of a few maps like supreme and glitters)

What I'm saying, if you don't like playing front then you should not play the regular 8v8 PvP lobbies on most maps since playing front is the optimal play.

> What also enraged me is that the back players would have the nerve to make the front player “pay” for their T2 constructor units after working so hard to keep everyone alive

Again this is the somewhat optimal play. It is much more efficient to only pay for 1 T2 lab instead of 8. This being said, if you don't "pay" the player giving out t2 you MASSIVELY slow down the production of T2 constructors since the player can't get the economy to comfortably produce 8 of them by 6-7 minutes. Thus not paying leads to the whole team massively losing tempo and upgrading their mexes etc. more slowly which will lose you the game.

> the front player has zero resources at any given time because it’s all going into units that are being meat grinded.

You should be able to save up 400 metal during the 5-6 minutes of early game by building some defenses and playing more passively around that time. You will notice your opponent will too. All-In'ing in T1 is a very risky strategy and 400 metal are usually not the deciding factor if it succeeds or fails. Ofc there are cases were you ARE poor, in those the tech player should understand it and not require payment, but this is usually only the case if you got raided early on for example.

On last thing:

> and never really get to strategise.

Soooo there is a lot of strategy but it's essentially locked behind very high skilllevels. As a 10-15 OS player keeping your units alive and managing your eco is hard enough and what you should be focusing on. Only once that becomes second nature you will notice the more strategic part of BAR.

Source: 37 os with 58% wr playing only in the highest OS rotato lobby.

[aetherspawn]

I just want to say that I have a friend that floats around OS 25-30 and he tells me exactly what’s required to reach that level.

I’m 100% aware that most high OS players on Front are using interface mods to manage their units and send back hurt units automatically to get healed.

In fact, he’s not even that much better than me. We still do 2v2 lobbies together, and we have good and bad games and carry each other.

I know what other people are doing. I’ve been playing for over a year (200 games?), and BA on Spring for years before that (500 games, I think). I’m not naive or particularly bad at the game. It’s just not how I want to play, and when I play those positions I’m at a disadvantage because I know other players are “legal cheating”.

And don’t gaslight me lol, every single game I could see the other players falling back their individual units in big crowds 1 hit before death, and I’m telling my friend about it and he’s like “oh yeah everyone above OS 20 uses this mod, which is basically a cheat”. That’s kind of when I decided to stop playing.

Also, the community wasn’t like this in Spring BA! That community was the nicest ever despite the game being basically identical, engine and all. This is a BAR issue.

[ghosty141]

> I’m 100% aware that most high OS players on Front are using interface mods to manage their units and send back hurt units automatically to get healed.

Uhhhh no? This is just micro and people do that manually. No mods are used. In tournaments etc. the widget that disallows such mods is always active. Also this widget is commonly active in the high OS lobbies so that's not possible either.

AND high OS streamers like HellsHound do this where you can clearly see them clicking the units. I'd be curious who exactly you think is doing this. I've never seen this widget used in high os play.

[izacus]

I'm not sure what are you trying to prove and refute in your post really.

The OP - which you're replying to - is saying that they're not having fun playing RTSes like that (which I understand - sounds awfully limited). You're just trying to prove them they're wrong for not having fun or something.

What was your goal with this post, really?

[adammarples]

Understanding a bit about BAR but not really understanding those multilayer games, I found it a helpful counterpoint to the assertion that front is basically t1 spam then die. The idea that you should budget and save for your t2 con because your opponent also has to is useful, and the idea that greater strategies also open up after micro becomes second nature actually makes me want to play these multilayer lobbies more, whereas the initial post seemed quite negative and just intending to moan.

[Sabinus]

aetherspawn is playing in a complex 8v8 team game. They don't want to play and don't enjoy 6 out of the 8 roles/positions on each team.

Unless you're the highest score player in the lobby you don't get to reserve a role. And the back line roles are pretty crucial and can lose the game for the team. They're not going to have a good time in anything that isn't a very noob or a vs AI lobby with the way they currently understand and approach the game. Salty veterans and meta players notwithstanding.

[izacus]

You are wonderfully demonstrating the toxicity and shittiness of the community it seems, especially by being obtuse about what they wrote.

[Sabinus]

I don't appreciate this characterisation.

A lot of the conflict in BAR comes from people having different expectations about the multiplayer game experience.

I'm not going to deny BAR has salty veterans and a meta. It's a high complexity 16 player game that can go for over an hour. It doesn't really have a ranked autoqueue and there's going to be different expectations about gameplay in different lobbies. While the community and the devs can help with this, new users should be proactive in finding the right lobby or finding a way to play that's fun for the rest of the people in the lobby.

Arguing with an established lobby over role picks or meta isn't worthwhile. aetherspawn can make our find a lobby with random role pick setting, named 'friendly learning noob lobby' and they're set. I see these reasonably often. Complaining about the competative meta players in the their lobbies isn't really productive.

[aetherspawn]

I don’t mind playing 2nd from front. On a lot of maps this leaves 6/8 roles that I like. On others, it leaves 4/8 roles.

If people really liked playing those roles, why am I always forced to play them? Shouldn’t everyone else be jumping to grab them? Lol

[Sabinus]

I had a look at the map stats. Of the 64 current maps for 8v8, 72% of the 1024 labelled roles/positions are pure front. 2nd from front isn't really a role and mainly just has timing differences, unless it's a front/tech role.

Front is the majority of the gameplay in BAR. Playing tech and getting to scale with no sweaty micro is nice, and a reasonably skilled and essential role, so it usually gets picked up by one of the top 4 on your team if doing the traditional lobby settings. Sea and air are the same popularity as front, perhaps less IMO.

Can I ask if you watched any tutorial videos or spectated many higher OS lobbies? The spectate function is excellent, and the two high OS lobbies will have spectators willing to answer questions about gameplay that made front micro against sweaties a lot less frustrating. It helped me a lot.

[bar2]

I was top 30 in 8v8 a few years ago. The recipe was pretty simple.

Step 1 - Raid and harass nonstop in the early game, never fight fair engagements, abuse range, tax your opponent's attention. Ideally harass multiple players to mess up all of them. Greed behind this, it's not expensive to raid.

Step 2 - spam pulsars (Clyret's meta)

[MasterBel2]

This is pretty good advice

[bar2]

The blitz micro king himself! I did learn from your content originally. Shame you weren't that active when I was playing.