Planetary Annihilation: Y U SO UNDERATED

bruh XD you win PA

I think the issue here is not so much "balance" per-se but actual fun. You could have it so all sides had an "I instantly win" button that would be balanced because everyone had it, but not very fun for the "strategy" part of "real time strategy". The issue with the balance between units here is not that the games are inherently unbalanced, but that there is a lack of viable alternative strategies for those who are super competitive. I get around the strategy imbalance by ignoring competitive multiplayer altogether and doing whatever I think is interesting at the time to win whether or not it is "the best".

So really I think when people complain about "balance" they really mean something like "strategic balance" which is certainly distinct but pretty closely related.

I think the unit to unit problems are somewhat over exaggerated though. Also many of the people complaining are referring solely to 1 v 1, which is by no means the only way to play this game even when playing competitively. Some units are intended more for team or larger games like ffa play.

In a 1 v 1 we already see all the top Uber players using bots, tanks and air together. There are a couple of units that don't get used (combat fabbers and grenadiers specifically) and as there aren't any water maps in the ladder rotation currently we don't see naval.

That said we regularly see a good mix of all the other t1 units situation dependent. I've heard arguments about t2 not being useful, however to make it useful for a 1 v 1 would mean it's viable and cost effective within the first 10 minutes of a game, which will make it very op in all other scenarios. I've actually won a few 1 v 1 games by switching up to t2 when my opponent has dug in (happens sometimes). It has it's uses like everything else.

The balance of PA really isn't that bad imo- also the PTE changes are looking to improve allot of the remaining issues.

If it's okay, I'd like to take a stab at the issue.

Edit: everything I post seems to have this sense of finality. Please noone misunderstand me, I really am trying to brainstorm and get people to employ my ideas and dialogue.

Firstly, I think everyone can understand the statement
"Everyone has the same units/buildings therefore game balanced".

What not everyone will consider, and I'll redirect from abaddon1 in stating the following:
Scenario 1: Gunships/grenadiers/astreus transport never get built

Scenario 2: if i do build gunships/grenadiers, all my gunships get wiped out by fighters, and then i get killed by bombers. All my grenadiers get killed by dox, and my base gets killed by dox because dox have a higher dps for the same/cheaper price.

They aren't exact and precise, but I think they show clearly enough why we'd call something un/balanced. If it never gets used because it's like an 'instant lose' button; in contrast with everyone having an instant win button.

As far as plot/story goes. I'd say that it's damn hard to create some kind of story when the galactic war is so non linear, and every system is procedurally generated.

Maybe if we had people posting/ Uber talking about some kind of consistency, maybe saving the planets after they've been generated. This would be helpful when leaving a planet and coming back to it, maybe if we don't keep the whole base we built last time, we keep a few towers, or craters? Something that says we own that planet? This'll be particularly important when Sorian makes ai that'll retake systems off you. But hopefully not skynet level awareness.

Lastly, it'll be really inconvenient to expect uber/staff to go through every post to find the nuggets of gold they want, so everyone posting their thoughts willy nilly about everything everywhere will create a nightmare for them. So organisation is good?

What I mean is, at some point I wanna try and think about, and get people to help/do it first some kind of polls on how we can change roles in order to improve gameplay 'balance' and unit/building diversity. At the very least, if people have a clear idea in what situations to use something, there'll be less confusion over whether or not something's 'balance' needs tweaking. The best way to accomplish that is by consensus.

That's the end of my brainstorming, I have other ideas but I wanna put them somewhere else easier to notice.

These are fair comments. What I would point out is you've identified 3 units that aren't used, which considering the number of units and structures in the game isn't actually that bad.

If you would like to make constructive comments on balance I suggest you try out the latest PTE build (message me if you don't know how to get to it) and then leave feedback in this thread:
https://forums.uberent.com/threads/...ow-live-updated-with-new-build-12-8-14.66332/

Uber are currently testing out balance improvements to a range of units and have requested feedback there. Also a side note, Uber haven't directly changed the units you've listed here, but made changes to other units that effect these (for example fighters have been tweaked, as have dox) so you may find things like grenadiers are more effective now as a result of changes made to other units (it's strange how balance changes work- everything effects everything else).

The overall plot is easy, as it's a war of annihilation.

As for a mission by mission thing, that can be done in a generated way, producing targets and objectives for attack that deviate off the normal find and kill commander objective, such as capturing a abandoned Holkins base, destroying indigenous tribes on the habitable planets, capturing facility's on metal worlds for the construction or reactivation of commanders to your faction, VIP assassination, environmental hazards like volcanoes, sand storms and gamma ray bursts from a near by quasar that would be otherwise obtuse in the multiplayer, Technology acquisition allowing the player to fight for a specific choice of technology, Armageddon battles where the player and enemy forces get reinforced by 10 additional commanders for a 11 on 11 battle, even on smaller systems, prototype destruction of enemy experimental technology, blitzkrieg battle across a worthless moon reinforce by a friendly and enemy gates to give players a constant stream of reinforcements to win a battle, and much much more.

SO many objectives and the like to mix up the normal gameplay, ALONG with normal gameplay missions so that it isn't like starcraft 2 where there are like 2 missions where you actually play a MP like game.

GW is a realm of possibility's for generated objective and opponent based gameplay, much like the nemesis system from Shadow of Mordor.

The sky really is the limit.

I'll go in reverse order,

Igncom. I honestly hadn't thought about it that much, partly because I know almost nothing about game design, and more specifically difficulty in implementing your ideas to a procedurally generated environment. But I agree that some kind of goal mechanic/story would make gameplay more interesting.

Actually, I'll properly explain it below, but what about for example a unit cannon wreckage, or wreckages from an abandoned base/ power generation area. Maybe we could rebuild wreckages into functional buildings, using existing metal to create a discount in cost?

Ah, this idea probably belongs elsewhere, but its not completely irrelevant so I'll put it in here. For a while now I was wondering about why PA you couldn't use existing wreckages to build buildings/units. This was a common thing in Sup Com. Although this might have been abandoned in PA from the start due to fundamental game design differences. I'd really like to know how possible it is for PA? Even if we limit it to things like commander.

Cdrkf. I already play PTE, and the units I mentioned were specifically to address the previous comments about balance. So the unused units are a perfect example of a lack of balance in the game, because people dont' consider those units viable choices in any situation. I do have ideas, and feedback to put in. But I feel like I shouldn't until I go through all the other posts by everyone else first to avoid double posting etc. Which I definitely won't do. Which is why my own post count is so low. But I do have a few things I wanna complain about/suggest as improvements.

I heard the cannibalism is due to an oversight where not only were fabbers filling in potholes but using their nanolathes to fill up fissures for the sewage system, patching it with all the fat that clogs up the pipes.

What they didn't realise is the fat was working as a protective film keeping the cannibalism at bay and that's why you get, ten minutes in, a rush of evil cannabalistic vechiles armed with weapons making an utter mockery of your nice city planning with residential zones in that ideal sweet spot between being close enough to industry for work but not so close as to get polluted.

But, it's early days yet, lots of stuff needs to be done to fix it and hopefully in the next patch there will be some improvements to how fabbers build sewage systems (especially on arid/airless planets, very important) to keep cannibalism at bay.

This should be top priority.

Now I know what's wrong... you need more Police Stations in your build, you've built a nice big city and then let criminals (and psychotic cannibals) roam free... It's no wonder you've been having problems. Hint: The police in this game are called 'dox'. Make lots of them and set them to patrol your fair city and you should have less problems...

The thing is that is actually not a big issue if you balance the economic growth of players more carefully. You basically need to achieve a balance where 1vs1 players can quickly expand and the real limit to growth is the existing mex and free space (or not free space occupied by enemies).

On everything but the smallest planets t2, navy and orbital should play a role in a fully developed version of PA imho.

Cause the game is incredibly boring and not even done.

Well yeah, it's not done, but boring? Depends how you play.

I just did a GW match with only air and advanced air against tanks, air, and orbital.

And I totally forgot (Because I had accidentally moved on the galactic map) that I could have used my full orbital tech too.

Try killing 20 flak cannons covered by 20 anchors with just planes............my god did it feel good to realise the AI didn't build any anti-nukes, because he was firing nukes at my base (And SXX lasers) every 5 mins or less.


Man that was a satisfying kill in the end.

I maintain though that T2 is very much viable on bigger maps as it is. If it needs tweaking it is not by much or we'll end up back at the "rush t2 or die" builds again. Imo the game *should* be t1 focused in a tight 1 v 1, if your economy can just expand despite an opponents best efforts then it's too easy.

TA 1 v 1 was always hard fought for each mex and the economy was always limited in a close 1 v 1. Obviously on bigger maps where expansion is possible it's a very different proposition. I've not had chance to jump on the new PTE but I'll be interested to see how things pan out with much larger maps as that may be all that's required for t2 to come into it's own. Also to all those going "snipers or nothing"... really? Bluehawks are ownage in my experience

if you find the game incredibly boring then chances are you still will even if it is done ... skirmish contentvise pa doest realy lack all that much anymore imho ...
i dont however see why it should be so boring when ta played similar
albite pa having a faster pace which is actualy good ...

Done or complete is subjective, PA now has pretty much all the big features everyone wanted. To me it's pretty much complete.

No speaking about the release, but in it's current state, the game just isn't very appealing for new players and I also assume that the pressure by high level player community here in the forums on 1vs1 and 1vs1 balance isn't that, what the moderate or even casual player is looking for. Now before I earn the aggro, let me explain what I mean by that:


For me the problem why PA is so underrated is a lack in features requested by the big player base of moderate or casual players:

- The boring single player: I know that the games was introduced as multiplayer focused, but many players still prefer to play singleplayer. You can see it comparing the numbers of players in steam and lobbies available. But GW is lacking of interesting story elements, a variety of tasks, cool finds (which is the most important point of playing rogue likes) and maybe a coop mode to play with close friends. The skirmish is more or less fine, but it lacks of different game modes and of lobby settings. In Age of Empires 2 you could go for Deathmatch (start with a huge pile of recousers, King of the Hill (Hold a special area in the center of the map), Relic wars (Get all of the relics on the map to win) etc. They are just simple modes which help to increase the variety of gameplay.

- The lack of tutorial and any introductions whatsoever: (luckily finally addressed) but it is a total no go in my opinion. When I watch new players streams it's just terrible to see how they have no idea what to do.

- The lack of a save option: Casual and moderate players love to play monstrous battles with several planets and players (or better AIs) which could take mostly more then an hour. Not being able to save in those game makes many people angry. Now I know about the plan of the chronocam save and how difficult it is. But imo the save feature is atm one of the most requested feature of the casual player.


No to my second point: I bet most of you (including me) would say: Well these are three points I don't give a sh*t about. I don't need a tutorial to play RTS, I don't save my fast matches and I touched Singleplayer once and then stepped over to 1vs1. But the huge deal is: The playerbase of a game are not the high level players but the moderate or even just the casual players. Just step over to steam and look at the threads about PA or read the negative reviews there. Look at random people's stream on Twitch. Nobody cares if a Dox has 0.001 more dps or not. I think it's a big problem of lobbing and prioritizing needs. Just see how the player base dropped again just a few days after the sale. And please don't come along with StarCraft. This game came out in '98 and since has a huge player base and with the release of version 2 (you can hardly call it a new game) it had so many people playing that even the blind focus on pro gaming left enough players in to keep it the most successful RTS. And there was and is a lot of discussion going on if that was a good choice to do so and how the game is no fun for less experienced players. Even in big clans like TeamLiquid there was a lot of discussing on about the too strong focus on competitive and 1vs1 play. So please don't take me for bad, but leave also space for the interests of moderate players if you want to help improving PA future.

My answer as a "1vs1 only" player to this is:

Well yeah I don't care about GW indeed, though I fully realize it is needed to get more boring single player people to start playing. Some of them will start mp and some of them will start 1vs1. Win for me.

A good tutorial means more people get the hang of the game and start playing at decent levels. Good for me.

I SOOOOOOOOOO DAMN want chronocam save functionality to restart games from any second I want. DAMN I WANT THAT It's nice for casual players? Well that's good, so we all want that.

So what was your point again? All the points you listed are quite important to 1vs1 players as well, at least in indirect ways.

Though 1vs1 balance is the fundament of reasonable gameplay anyway, so that's actually important for me just like it is for casual players. At least if they had a good tutorial that explains them how to play. Cause if you know how to play you will much faster realize if the balance has issues and you won't like those issues.

So it fine that you agree with my three main requests @cola_colin. My post is about the prioritization of them compared to the overall pressure on balance and the 1vs1 scene introduced by the "uber forum lobby" here. Just browse the forum here and hop over to steam, these are two totally different worlds. Also we already had several updates since the release, but none of them addressed single player, tutorials/introductions or save options and probably other points you would only find digging through rage/complaint posts or negative reviews on steam. For me it's the point why many people leave PA behind just after short time of playing. Which is also not good for any kind of player.

Well they are working on a better new player experience for the next patch.

You forgot the UI design that basically shows away every user that is used to standard RTS left side or right side panels that usually hold all the data you need which this game does not have. There are tons of things that might seem unimportant to the development team but are very important for non competitive and casual (the biggest number) users. Basically as long as the games does not provide all the data mainstream users need without them having to think about like: where can I find this thing - that long the game will have problems attracting people. For example in the beginning I had issues to finding the minimap and I even thought that the game didn't have one cause it wasn't maximized or fixed in size on start as its normal in every other RTS - and this is a small issue. Not to forget the countless threads about lobby crashes. And I agree the reviews on steam are realistic for normal users that have other needs then the pros.