I always remember this silly tweet someone made that went something like "the thing I hate about Chess is that the other guy is always doing something" and I think that applies really well when I'm too focused on the wrong thing in Mechabellum. If I spend a whole round trying to counter the thing that angered me, I just spent a round not doing anything to be a problem to my opponent. Which now means the opponent gets ample time to just build a coherent strategy while I'm distracting myself.
Yeah, if you always just play reactively to what your opponent just did, you are lacking a round behind the whole match and will probably lose, assuming your enemy plays smart. Regarding the chess tweet I always have to think of this chess meme and why I think it was really important for Mechabellum to add some random factors to make it less deterministic: "The main thing that puts me off of playing chess is that there is 2000 years of gameplay that hundreds of people with higher IQs than me have spent thousands of hours studying the history of, so much so that when I put a pawn forward they say “ah I see you’re going for the bulgarian somersault” and then i try to take their bishop with my knight and they go “aw, rookie mistake, you’ve played the frenchman’s cumsock, and in approximately 37 moves i’ll have won”. "
Something about the spectator mode having gambling tickets and its own pseudo mmr (insight) somehow makes mechabellum feel next level. For some people the anxiety of actually playing a match could throw someone off and they have crummy mmr, but they can still verify their understanding of the game and have great strategies.
Also that games are just public to watch and theres plenty of really high elo games going on all the time with spectators chatting, betting and having a good time. It's like having a high quality livestreamed tournament going on all the time and there's even different channels. I totally agree, its next level when it comes to esport integration
I love watching a lot of Cobrak's Mechabellum "meme comp" videos and I feel ONE of the reasons they so often pan out is actually what you're talking about here: even if it's (usually) a BAD plan, they actually HAVE a plan, instead of just playing to counter whatever their opponent is building.
Brooo, thank you so much. I was on a massive losing streak (went from 800 to 600) and I realised I was worrying so much about countering that my units had no synergy and no real win condition. After this video I'm on a winning streak and almost at 800 again 100% subbed
i think the reason of sticking to plan works because of the phenomenon that when you amass certain units to a good quantity, the quality of the units may change, and hence you save your resources and get more value out of those upgrades you have on your units as well to achieve economies of scale, just for e.g. two tarantula with spider mines vs 6 tarantula with spider mines can mean quite different things because those spider mines can kill big units. another example would be the onlyfangs battles where one has like 10 -12 four upgraded high level fangs..
and exactly this is why i think the game needs a max recruitment cap on every unit , like 8 max infantry , 6 max tank units etc. imo right now its just spam best allround unit and win . thats bad game design
In like 1000-1300 MMR, probably higher, you will see someone drop a single unit of phoenixes like round 4. The opponent will buy two squads of mustangs with anti air. A huge investment for nothing. I sometimes drop cheesy units just to see if they'll tech against it and waste economy, then never continue that path lol
The top players are NOT just playing their own meta strat and not countering anything. From the perspective of a newbie, it can seem that way. Just doing your own thing and ignoring your opponents moves can only get you so far ( Probably about 1300-1500 MMR), although it is certainly better than purely reacting to your opponents moves, a sub 1.3k strategy Top players are constantly trying to counter the overall strategy of their opponent. Its that simple. However its certainly not easy. Just some tips 1) Hide your strategy first. dont show your hand until maybe turn 4-5. That means not committing to any particular unit type/ buying upgrades for the first few rounds. 2) Build generalist units that are contributing to your overall strategy. That usually entails buying lots and lots of chaff
If there is anything i learnt from Fry em Up and Plants vs zombies heroes. It is to not counter what your opponent played the turn before. It is extremely inefficient and they’ll just develop tempo
I realized this lately, too. I keep buildung all the counters in theory and i still lose. Also recently I keep losing against people who do not build chaff. I was told chaff is most important and i build a lot since. Found no answer to that yet. Anyway, great game. Found it through this channel. Very addictive.
If the enemy has no chaff, you already won the chaff war. You don't win it more by building more chaff. Instead, you should build something that hits hard.
Chaff is so important you sometimes don't want to place much early, else your opponent will just clear it and beat you by developing more principal pieces, pieces that you feed by making too much early chaff. Build just enough chaff to cover your starting units, but you have to be able to do more with less and develop those principal pieces Try to use splits and positioning to do 2 things with one chaff, like pulling one side to the middle while still peoviding cover for your main force, example. Consider that sometimes... crawlers and fangs aren't the right chaff. Sometimes you actually need hammers or typhoons as big-chaff that clears chaff, and if you overinvest in crawlers you can't afford the big half you really need for the lategame. If I see you build too much chaff early I'll just not bother making more chaff of my own than I need to block yours efficiently, I'll just lvl my main pieces and wait for you to get a few rhat I can then counter with my own late chaff. So yes... chaff is the most important... so important you can't afford to build the wrong type too early and letting your enemy counter it at his leisure.
I wonder if closing the future potential synergy options while developing your own synergies isnt a better understanding of this. It becomes a game of posturing, bluffs, and rapidly culminating an endgame composition. I once won every single round with varying damage and lost on last round in the most brutal fashion. It feels like I lost to this same playstyle where my composition had countered his early and mid game but weren't sufficient at carrying late because I had no plan for late game (short sighted, overconfident) and the counters werent as severe as i had hoped. In the end, oppo's board was cohesive and impenetrable while I had patchwork.
I don't know how it would hold up at higher MMR, but I love to get just a few sledgehammers and then do a Wasp switch. Typically, the opponent gets 1-3 units of mustangs which the tanks kill for experience, and eventually without them realizing I've got level 5 sledges with range and mech rage just annihilating them. The Wasps bait out the Mustangs, and the advantage of knowing what the opponent will get is huge. This may be the clearest one, but there are other times when I think "it would be really great if the opponent built X right now...how can I bait them into it?"
its really funny when you start stormcallers and round 2 they bring out missile interceptor mustangs like ok dude i will just sell mine enjoy your mustangs.
Great video and insight into the game @Grubby, I've been playing a while thanks to you and it does feel like when I go against players that are a lot higher in mmr I tend to get too caught up in the counter. Question for you though, how do you figure out or find good comps to play for the late game? Is it just trial and error or are there known comps? I know you've mentioned them a few times in your video like this one, forts+marks+storms, wasps+worms, etc. but not sure how you come up with them. Love the content, been meaning to tune into you live on Twitch!
First off you have to combine one giant unit with a medium unit and chaff. Most of the time it does not matter what type of chaff. Another thing to consider is the speed of the units. Getting units that have similar speed works really well. Also you dont need to decide on the large units until the round 4 pick which usually has some good medium or giant units. Your plan should be to combine one giant unit with one medium unit from the start. You start building the medium units and using temporary tanks until you can get enough money to start going into the giant tanky units. As for meta comps, you can check out some MB tournament videos to see what top players use. Happy meching!
I would have liked if you had at least asked to put my thread in a video I had a lot of answers that were very educational in the thread, and to answer my own question: it seems most of what I was complaining about were actually missplays. Yes, there's no need to get 6 AA units up ASAP when you see a wasp, or whatever I was answered. But in the few games I watched it was indeed people committing to a losing strategy.
Ig it make a lot of sense why they do it like that. You try to invest in counter but it might not worth or even actually pay off. So play it safe and do as plan sound like a better plan.
Well. I was doing different „Counter nothing strat” Do not get any units first 4 rounds to save up for two War Factories. Then drop them. 70% of time GG.
@@Other-AllOfTheAbove your arguement? You arent argueing anything weirdo. Perhaps "your statement still stands"? Yes, it does, but if that statement is your takeaway from the video then you missed the point
Why put on enhancement mod when it cant be used on that unit? save it for when it can be used incase u choose to sell something else that has lvl up ready...
the worm should theoretically be a counterpoint to flamethrowers. It clearly needs to be strengthened against this type of damage. It is possible to give a perk or a passive ability. Something like plasma teeth when attacking units with a flamethrower bites into fuel tanks, imposing some kind of negative effect on the flamethrower. Ignite can reduce attack range due to pressure reduction or something else interesting. The worm is a very specific unit that seems to work well against a very situational hacker unit, otherwise I don’t see its application, although it may be
I don't always like your videos, it's 50-50 or 60-40, mainly because of different playstyle and different preference for starting unit composition. But I really liked this video, because you had plan from the start :)
