This raises the following question. Does anyone think they would ever realistically consider attempting to balance the factions differently across different team modes, so for example a differently balanced USF for 1v1, vs 3v3 or 2v2 etc etc... Or would this just be a really, really bad and confusing idea?
Because I've had discussions (arguments) with people about balance where to read it, it looks like one of us or both of us are completely insane... From reading it, you can so tell that one of us only plays 1v1 and the other guy a much larger team mode where you can get away without building x unit, or spamming another one... It's like we're talking about two completely different games sometimes. Does the game just have so many variables that it becomes incredibly difficult to balance it fairly this way?
I'm not going to sit here and pretend like it would be easy. Solving for X when X equals both shocks blob and and at the same time a single shocks squad is not a simple task.
All I can do is put in my own personal ideas, contribute my own personal experience and hope they're worthwhile.
And for the record, if you asked me how to balance 4v4, I would probably just say: "Balance the vanilla units for 1v1, include commanders with supplemental units which are specifically meant to perform better in one gamemode (like how the Elefant is so cost prohibitive it only really makes sense to build in 4v4s, and at the same time it is most useful in 4v4s).
Which, to a degree is what the mod team has already been trying to do. But honestly, it's a job that should be done by people who do it for a living. As much as I respect the mod team for what they *have* done, I don't think it's controversial to say that.
All in all, I have to say that riflemen and USF are stinky.