Mars is Insanely Broken and I Hate it

This is one that has been a while in the making, because I really want to communicate my thoughts clearly on this. I’m sure many people hate Mars right now because it is the OP meta, but I assure you, my hatred for this bot goes much deeper, and “hatred” is not a word I use lightly. There are bots I am annoyed by, like Seraph, Behemoth (more the weapons than the bot, but still), Siren/Harpy, and Skyros, but being annoying or OP does not get a bot onto my hated list. To be hated by me, a bot has to, in my eyes, be a violation of the principles War Robots was built on. Of course this is subjective, but that is what a rant is for!

So, what is the principle that I am referring to? Well, it is the concept of one-sided battles, or “I can shoot you, but you cannot shoot me back”. Now, there is a spectrum to this idea, ranging from simple shields blocking damage to Angler’s Electric Shift ability, hence its subjectivity. But, I think we can all agree there is a difference between physical/energy shields and Electric Shift in terms of fairness. Physical shields have finite durability, energy shields are bypassed by Shieldbreaker or being close to the host bot, and both do not protect against certain damage types. Aegis and Absorber shields are a step up, but those have weaknesses too and are only really bad in certain situations. After this is when lines start to get crossed though. I personally give Phase Shift a pass because you give up a different active module, your beacon, and your ability to shoot while using it, so it is alright. Force fields are pretty bad, but do not quite bother as much as they maybe should, likely because Pixonic is introducing counters like Rust and the old drones have conditioned me to always expect mega resistance on enemy bots. I do not blame anyone for thinking I am too lenient on force fields though. But now we get to the real stinkers, my “unholy trilogy” of unfair mechanics: Scorpion, Angler, and of course, Mars. To me, these three are peak “I can shoot you, but you cannot shoot me back”.

I’ve voiced my distaste for Scorpion and Angler already, but I’ll go over them quickly for newer members and as a primer for my Mars analysis. Angler being unfair is quite easy to explain, as its ability literally is one-sided. The Angler is completely invincible while also damaging other bots and then blinding them, letting Angler score tons of basically or literally free damage. Yeah the ability is close range, but Angler’s speed and shield means it can easily catch most targets. I have talked about Scorpion before, but I express my thoughts more clearly now. Yeah Scorpion is vulnerable to Quantum Sensor/Radar and EMP, and it is kinda squishy, but that in no way justifies its (to me) broken concept. When Scorpion was introduced, the game had seen nothing even close to it. Every bot, even Pursuer and Loki, was easy to spot and track if you had enough awareness, and all had to largely obey map terrain. But Scorpion threw both of those fundamental principles out the window with its Backstab ability. As long as a forgiving 350 meters was maintained, users could instantly and without warning teleport to victims, often out of their field of view. To say Scorpion uses the element of surprise is giving it too much credit, as for the first 6 years of the game, the element of surprise was earned through good tactics, not packaged in with an ability. Again, there is no in-game warning for Scorpion attacks, and lots of bots have the camera positioned such that attacking Scorpions are not even in their field of view. It’s not surprising but simply unfair, and just because players managed to get used to it over time does not excuse it (to me). This is not even taking into consideration how users could abort the ability at any time, making what could be a risk/reward bot very forgiving in practice. Until the proliferation of EMP over the past 8 months, this option was essentially guaranteed. It’s simply laughable, if you ask me.

Scorpion sat as my most hated bot for a long time (Angler is really bad, but not quite as bad), but Mars is really starting to challenge it now. So, let’s finally get into why this stupid bot is so broken! Allow me to start by making a general description of Mars’ Remote Assault ability: Mars deploys a turret in a parabolic arc (allowing it to bypass map features) to attack enemies within roughly 350 meters that are in hard-to-reach positions. This sounds eerily similar to Scorpion’s Backstab, right? Well, I only realized this connection around a week or so ago, and it perfectly explains why Remote Assault always put me off somehow. And well, with this connection of fundamentally broken abilities realized, Mars has become my third officially hated bot! In many ways, Remote Assault is actually worse than Backstab since it presents even less risk to the user than the already relatively safe Backstab. While Scorpion and even Angler need to expose themselves to use their abilities, Mars can remain completely behind cover and thus spam Remote Assault with no consequences. And if users want to be more bold, Mars’ powerful, streamlined shield and increased speed during the ability make farming damage even easier. The speed means Mars is honestly in a stronger state than when the ability is inactive, which means the bot has no obvious weaknesses to exploit like the the others (EMP, certain active modules, or swarming it). The icing on the cupcake is of course the turret’s damage, with a full clip dealing a withering 300k damage with a full clip at mark 3 (it was 500k pre-nerf, so it used to be way worse!). So basically, users can just press a button to either heavily damage opponents (including titans and tanks) or flush them out of cover with no effort on their part. This would be more understandable if Mars was weaker without the turret or the turret itself were vulnerable in some way, but as it stands, the ability is completely unfair for the opponent. When fighting a Mars, one cannot try to squeak in a few thousand damage to a stealthed bot or a bot that blinded them, as the turret is completely invincible. One can either eat the damage or completely abandon their strategic position, with no option to fight back, in a fighting game. It is unfair and honestly stupid, and I hate it.

But it does not stop there! You see, when I called Mars broken, it was a double meaning, as Mars is broken conceptually, as well as broken in practice due to glitches. Mars’ turret is one of the most inconsistent things in this game and it is truly baffling. I say this because both of the two major bugs I have seen both revolve around it and not Mars itself. The first bug is with the turret literally teleporting after deployment. The turret is launched and slides to its final position as expected, but then suddenly teleports as much as 100 meters to it actual final position. To the game, the turret was always at the teleported-to position, which of course is very disorienting to players who think the turret is somewhere else. I have actually lost bots to turrets appearing in the incorrect positions, so this is not just some small visual oddity. The other bug is where when the turret it attached to Mars, it’s bullets do not shoot out of it, but rather materialize from nowhere someplace away from the bot. Like, I have the Mars that still visibly has its turret attached shooting its Fainters on my left, and a stream of turret bullets are inexplicably coming from my right, and it is very disorienting to say the least. Luckily this second bug is rare, with me only getting it once or twice, but the first bug happens literally every battle. Once you notice that first bug, you cannot un-notice it, and it is painful to know this is screwing up everyone.

Even though I hate these bots, they are not irredeemable. In fact, here are how I would nerf each bot to make them be more fair. Mars should be nerfed by making the turret be vulnerable (say, 200,000 hit points at mark 3) and fixing the bugs. Angler should get a speed and shield durability nerf (Pixonic nerfed the ability damage and cooldown adequately). And lastly, Scorpion should not be able to abort its ability (tapping the button during the ability ends it without teleporting back, and Scorpion automatically teleports back when the ability timer expires). With these nerfs, these three bots would need more skill to play, and more importantly, be much more fair to the opponent. I wish these bots were never invented, but I am not just gonna remove them from the game out of spite and leave owners empty-handed.

So there you have it, my case study of Mars and why it is terrible, with a good helping of Scorpion and Angler hate as well. Thanks for attending my Ted Talk, and I’m glad to have gotten this off my chest! To anyone who likes or runs these bots, please consider getting better at the game so you don’t need to run these stupid bots as compensation. That is all.