Game Balance and Matchmaking - We want your feedback!

you don't attack them at that early stage, you just hold back and defend the places that are important since scarabs don't win when they have to do the attacking, at the very least it stops them from taking out harvesters, holding down a bunch of platforms, and the like.

EDIT: Oh, and strongarm turrets are a pretty decent way to get rid of them too, not quite as efficient as riflemen but if you catch them by surprise while they're moving its no contest and if they trade with the turret its a relatively (but not quite) even trade

Despite the tiberium lead, I would rather be the player with the additional unit on the field.

Scarab users tend to be a bit greedy and double up on harvesters so the minor tiberium lead you seize is very short lived. 

Also just a heads up everyone, please take what I say with a grain of salt. I am still learning this game.

If someone's deck has cards that are two levels higher than yours, you should not get matched with them under any circumstance. It is an unsurmountable advantage.

I have lost 100% of the matches where this was the case.

It is impossible to contend with an opponent like that because it quite literally takes you 2 riflemen infantry to take out 1 of theirs. (Your 2nd riflemen infantry squad will be considerably damaged after)

Can a dev reply here? I have yet to see a dev's reply and I am starting to think this forum is just here for show.

If you have either cheap air unit - Talon for GDI or Viper for Nod - you can trade against scarabs by simply doing a flyover. The scarab will set its own hex on fire, killing the other one as well.

You can actually make the scarab player kill their own units this way - if they ever have a scarab next to another ground unit, if you fly over the adjacent ground unit the scarab will blow them up as well.

Since scarabs are 30 and the cheap copters are 30, this is an even trade, but made better for you since scarabs are very slow to get into position while copters are fast. If you take the spot they were guarding with the scarabs you should be able to keep them from ever setting up there again.

Even at high rank play the level differences are frustrating, because a lot of strategy and tactics assumes some basic ability to predict how units will interact - what trades with what, what counters what, etc.

A huge impact for example was that at level 7 Nod Bikes can kill an Orca in a single volley. Prior to that level that and the 3 bike missiles leave the Orca slightly alive (which leaves the Orca still a threat given how it works). If a Nod player is running a deck and relying solely on Bikes as their AA, I should be able to punish that with clever Orca usage. However, if they have higher level bikes then it basically becomes a hard counter.

Given the way the game works, when a level difference changes the balance between how units counter each other to this degree it's just frustrating. This is also very noticeable with how Bikes work against harvestors - the levels dictate whether it takes 3 or 4 volleys to kill a harvestor. This can decide games given how strong harvestor harassment is and how much getting an early 100 tiberium can snowball games.

In the latest patch most everybody is running very similar decks because Rhino and Buggy got overtuned along with Jackson/Oxanna. This results in a lot of mirror matches where players are countering each other with basically the same units - Bikes and Tanks vs. Bikes and Tanks - and it becomes noticeable how level differences affect the outcome.