Some thoughts on balance

Ive played over 400 hours of supcom 2, I KNOW the pain.

Even with said 400 hours, predicting enemy strength is very difficult, not impossible, but difficult.

What???

Ok, so i have multiple things to say here.

Nobody, and i mean nobody, who plays this game competetively would EVER turn off the unit icons to differetiate units. The whole idea is ridiculous to remove an idea for a game mechanic merely because it might cause some confusion aesthetic wise.

Next, HOW is the current system ANY different to supcoms tiered structures? ALL tier 2, or advanced as Uber calls them, units REQUIRE an advanced factory to be built. This limitation is STILL here. They have done nothing to change it. All they have done is make it more of a pain in the *** because instead of a single button press in supcom, we have to actually find an area to build it on top of additional clicks.

Uber should not be against upgrades in one way, and not the other. They have decided (from what i remember) against the idea of experimentals because they are just upgraded versions of normal land units. The whole situation reaks of hypocrisy. Choose one side of it, and stick to it.

I have absolutely nothing against, either style of doing a game, and i think both styles can produce just as excellent RTS games, however, what i hate is the fact that they write of certain features merely because of an idea that they themselves do not take seriously.

@shotforce13, I'm saying that I value feedback more than I worry about the aggressiveness. I care about the substance of what people say, not the emotion behind it.

not intrested in your hairy butt ... neither in your breast or belly ... keep that to yourself pls

The point of the upgrade of mex in supcom was a poor example. I don't really get what unit icons have to do with it though. My point is simple- when you see a particular unit in PA it is a known quantity. It has a fixed set of values attributed to it. This is what Uber are going for.

What they are *against* is the whole 'armoury' type deal in the 'craft' games. I mean in SupCom a tank is still a tank. A t2 tanks is a t2 tank. What you don't have are multiple variants of the same unit in combat with different stats which is what a traditional 'upgrade' system provides.

I think this approach is good- I mean if I have 10 t1 tanks and you have 20 t1 tanks, well I can easily decide that attacking that group of 20 t1 tanks is probably a bad idea. With an 'upgrade' system in place, my 10 t1 tanks could potentially demolish your 20 with no visual indication that this is the case- which is bad imo. Having a t2 version of a tank doesn't change this as they *are different units*. You can see they're different....

Edit: I think the key to the 'no upgrades' concept is one of being able to make tactical decisions as a player rather than anything else. I agree that in the case of SupCom FA, the way the upgrades were dealt with was such that it didn't really cause this issue. I can't think of a situation in SupCom where I could be going up against something I couldn't recognise. Having direct 'successors' in particular roles isn't an issue provided the units are clearly distinguishable, and that should extent to icons too.

I wasnt trying to convay it that way, my assumption about the balance of PA is going to be a tough road to hoe due to the fact that theres too much going on in the game or lack of varity in the unit roster.

I just dont see a way to balance this game to some what please everyone, without breaking the rules that are in place, (direct upgrades, static roles, prominate roled units etc). I do feel that uber should take a step back and throw somethings out in favor of an updated unit mechanic.

And for the record, ive kept quiet about my thoughts on balance, cause i havent been able to figured out a solution fix idea for it, cause to be honest its hard to see whats broken when there are so many problems i have with it.

*shrug* I dunno, I think that there are multiple modding attempts that succeed at sticking to those "rules" and still present a more balanced and diverse experience than vanilla.. They're all different and it would be great to take the best from each of them. However, as modders, we don't have anywhere near the level of feedback that Uber has access to. I'd love to get my hands on that many players' thoughts... I really, really would.

fmpov
2 things are clear and i think most if not all of us agree on that
orbital is lacking much needed units
and naval needs general tweeking

personaly regarding bots tanks and air
i only have a bit of a problem with grenadiers and levelers ... the have yet to realy fit ... to me the leveler is the most obvious case of being a direct upgrade to a existing unit and the grenadier feels wierd for an artilery unit it rather feels like a slower version of the dox in some way ...
and then there is the combatfabricator ... i dont understand why there are 2
other than that the roster for bots tanks and air feels solid to the point that there arent realy that more units needed imo

The salt and just passive aggressive negativity here in this thread gets a 10/10. While things I found constructive would be 3/10. Awesome. This community loves it's semantics

One of my biggest complants is the fact that PA has a huge array of intelligence gathering units and structures, but no counter-intelligence units or structures.

To me it would be amazing to have a radar jamming unit to hide your death ball to make surprise attacks a thing.

Im honestly trying to stay neutral in this thread, which is not an easy feat.

while scouting obviously should be done as much as needed i am afraid stealth and radarjamming would proof to be too powerfull
especialy in a multiplanetmatch

Ive always said, u never know until u try.

Wow!
Have read the last couple of pages of this thread, it seems we can't even agree on what is balance. Let alone have any sensible input.
Personally, as someone who enjoys watching casts, the current situation is far from perfect. I feel sorry for Zaphod and co. I started thinking about how to nerf the dox, which I think we all can agree on, range nerf or something; when I got to thinking is PA really a 1v1 game?
Now I know this is a bit out of the box, but having played pretty much every RTS worth mentioning (and sucking at them all) PA is completely different from the rest. And it's down to the scale. It's not just Planetary, the battles are fought over solar systems. And that is where, I believe, the true gameplay lies.
Large FFAs are the most fun to watch, and for me the most fun to play. Yes there are issues around the orbital gameplay, and the breaking of proper turtled planets is at best inelegant. Still, as some of the wiser heads around here already said, well designed systems can over come that. And I agree with Brian that the introduction of asteroids would probably solve the stalemate issue.
Most of the debate here is focused on 1v1, there's a whole world more to this game than that, as a viewer I'd like to see that.

That won't make this discussion easier^^

Agreed on that Colin, I just wish there was a bit of discussion.
Everyone agrees that the dox need a nerf, but remember combat jabbers, or infernos for that matter. When's the last time anyone saw those units in a high level game? What happened to proxy bases?
The question remains, who are we balancing this game for? If 1v1 then could proper players please give some feedback.

count me out on agreeing with doxnerf ... the only thing they could nerf is in taking its amphibius capabilities ... but other than that i like the dox as it is

Things we can all agree on:

The Dox is OP
Naval is beyond worthless
Orbital is a rather boring layer
The Grenadier is next to useless
Radar is OP
Energy is kinda expensive at T1, slowing expansion.
ADDITION: Commander Regen is Too High.

Things we (probably) can't all agree on:

T2 should be less of an upgrade and more of an expensive sidegrade.
Stalemates are too common in larger games.

Things we will fight over:

How to nerf the Dox
How to fix Naval
What's Orbital?
How to make the Grenadier useful without making it completely OP.
Radar being OP
Energy.

Don't think radar is op, just proportionally strong to the size of the map. Don't think energy is a problem. Expanding is easy and if it's not energy that is the problem, it will be metal, or time or something else that slows down expanding. Dox are strong not op.