Should Build Speed be Reduced?

has nothing particular to do with you ... but some people seem to be hard on raising the minimum playfield or time through some artificial means ...
didnt want to offend you or anything ...

Dude don't just ignore me. That's just rude. From what I can deduce you want to PA to be a game that it is not. Please by all means mod PA into the game that you want it to be in your head and I hope that mod takes off (it probably won't).

You know what would be really great if every genius who thought they knew what was best for PA balance actually made a mod and compared their ideals against ubers. It would be nice if people took a moment to appreciate the balance that uber has spent so much time refining. KUMA SHOCK!! The balance has been very good for a really long time. You can sit there and complain for hours and hours about how you want the game to be changed but it doesn't matter. You have to learn the rules of the game that is already in place if you want to be good. Even if they change it to be what you want it to be like doesn't mean you will be any good.

Someone doesn't know how to micro units very well...

Combat can be very dynamic if you use terrain, rate of exposure, position and unit mechanics to your advantage.

One thing I feel like you don't understand is that positioning can change a game entirely. There is a lot of tactics involved in PA, and it has far more depth than zerg blobs.

That is what separate the lower tier players from the higher tier player.

First of I advocate an avg time of matches of 20 to 30 minutes. That is because that is a nice time frame to play a match in. More and you will make it hard for some people to find time. Less and you get a too short game because... too short imho xD PA currently is a little below that in ranked matches, mostly because how the economy allows 2 factory starts (look at the PTE it will very likely change) and how the maps are small (tvinita experiments with bigger maps as we discuss).

Also there are no blinders. Yes PA is niche. It is however defined by the things you seem to want to change. I don't want PA to change what defines PA just to make it appeal to the big masses. We have enough games of that sort already (some of which sure are fun as well). I also disagree there is no depth in PA. It is there. You just may not be able to see it as easily, because it is not build in with fixed mechanics that are defined by active abilities or hard coded "this unit has magical protection because it is close to a wall" or the like.
PA has all that depth, but it isn't as obvious. You get it only if you look for it. That "looking for it" also makes you a good player, so players will find how to use their units more efficient.

PA isn't as easy to understand as other games, as it doesn't put obvious "this was designed to have artificial depth right there that is used in this obvious way"-things into the game.

This is what defines TA, FA and PA.
Yes PA certainly could use some improvements, like making a few more units useful (the grenadier for example), but it does not need to drastically change in any way.

Btw, I had a mod like this, as did others, before the huge unit addition. I could do it again, add health cost and damage to everything to make 6 units do the work of 18 and disproportionately make the build times even longer, and make the speeds of the units rebalanced to comphensate and junk. It's just a pain to remod honestly lol. I was more interested in making grenadiers amphibious, teleporters and unit cannons build on water, and rebalancing bot and tank and t1 and t2. And the commander resources and celestial radar, but the damn devs sniped that change from me...

let me speak for them :


MUHAHAHAHA ... HAHAHAHAAAA ... ... GIHAHAHAHAAAA ... ...

I appreciate their gusto. Now, just make grenadiers dox-amphibious, and make t1 radar actually cost a significant amount of power drain, and make subs have a much smaller range of detection by much fewer units as an underwater layer advantage.

not sure on making grenadiers amphibius
having dox and combatfabbers be that already is quite a lot for t1 imo ...
i would rather grenadiers get a range and arc buff to effectively counter single and double laser turrets .. single laser the least

I would prefer longer engagements with armies (aKa units have more health) then slower build speed

For my part, no!
I think that the build speed is fine. I do also believe that energy being more crucial than mass is fine. Hell, I do even like Popcorn Tier I. (in my eyes this makes a lot of sense lore-wise!)
What is not so fine in my eyes is "early unit & factory spam". The latest PTE build, as many others already mentioned, did a lot to redefine how the start of the game does happen. The January Update changed a lot of general factory balancing. But in my eyes, that´s not enough yet. You can still set up an impressive army ways too soon. In my eyes factory costs in general should be highered! All Tier I Factories should be round 50% more expensive, Tier II 25% (maybe we should even try out higher values for both) and gain a comparable amount of extra hitpoints. This would lead to more focus on running some factories instead of tons of!

BTW: Of course you could get a lot of that invested metal back via recycling. But as recycling costs Energy...

Well, that one made me laugh a lot! -> Mission accomplished!

BTW: I´m all in for higher Tier II HP, but higher Tier I HP? That´s no good idea! Tier I is supposed to be the like popcorn by in-lore-logic!

think about times when theres lot of units and game is slow as fu*k, this will just make it slower...

Bots and especially t1 becomes useful all game if they are amphibious. It is a small all-game role. Sort of like RA2 basic infantry being the only to occupy and fire from buildings.

Well, I think we should not mix both arguments. The first one is highly subjective, since we lack of any definition on fun. It is a bit like religion, everybody thinks he is right because - yes, you know - "reasons". Then everybody starts to argue and suddenly this all ends in people cutting other throats. Basically this is a mess.

The second one can at least be tested. Do some modding on those parameters, play some games and show us some empirical evidence that there is a benefit. If you are really into this do some serious tests with a friend within an controlled environment. Something like: a) keep a build order, b) agree on sending all units directly to the opponent and test this with different build speeds and HPs to check how many units you reach within those games. So there is a sight change to have a reasonable discussion about it.

Let's not do this for a plethora of reasons. @blightedmythos go play COH2? Sounds more like your style.

No thanks, just because I reference one game with good attributes to draw from doesn't mean I want to play it, or that I even want to convert PA into it.

I would highly recommend making a mod with your ideas in it. If nothing else, you'll get to know the underlying system of PA balance from a different perspective.

People also take modders more seriously. And it's actually fun to do.

Anyone got any tips on modding then; any documentation?
My ideas aren't as radical is blightedmythos, I don't advocate a slow paced game or micro as is assumed incorrectly, but the ability to withdraw from an engagement with your unit group more or less intact instead of obliterated at first contact is appealing to me... And to a number of people I know who haven't got into PA yet having seen me play and been put off by the instant death and overspam. All I suggest is rolling back the game changes made in beta to the cost and build-speed of everything except structures and nukes since the stated reason is a non-factor, and increasing unit health in pace with that. Please note that many people now posting 'don't change the speed' once thought Uber had lost the plot when this change was announced as opposed to commander storage increase opening up new builds and passively speeding up the start. Now we have eco-boost commandr AND uber unit production, and IMO we shouldn't.

Your best bet is to download one of the server mods that just do balance, such as "Anti-Popcorn Unit Re-Balance" or "Up To 11". It will show you the general structure of a server mod aimed at changing the balance. Basically, they takes the json files that contain the unit stats and change them. If anything in there puzzles you, you can simply ask in the Modding subforum.

I don't think I am suggesting anything more radical then you. Basically what I want done coincides with what you want. I agree new players are put off by the instant death mechanics, I've seen many negative reviews from just that.

I have more of a question for you guys, if unit hp was reduced to 1 hp across the board and the first to fire and connect a shot wins, is that interesting gameplay mechanics? Because that is similar to how the game plays out now.

How about when is fast too fast? What if build speeds were doubled from how they are now, is that too fast? Why would you feel that IS too fast? I am honestly curious as to why you guys have come to the conclusion that change = bad without any really justification.

For me, I'd much rather be microing my tanky slow, high damage frontliners in the front, bringing AOE artillery or sniper bots in the rear, or microing fast high damage low hp units into hit and run tactics then the current blobbing we have now. I think that is much more interesting tactics. I don't like the current trading blows with one shot mechanics of who shoots first, or has the bigger zerg. I think the game would greatly benefit from larger hp pools. You could also get damage units out of the fight, and have the reaction time to retreat and repair if it looked like things were going sour. In the current state, it's really hard to have any of this interesting interplay.

Uber's balance is completely crap because (up until tvinitia) they took it under advisement that balance was a dirty animal and should thus be left untouched. Not only did this hurt the game's growth, it drove away many of the KS backers. Many of those I know personally do not play this game at all specifically because the balance is "bad" "un-fun" and "too easy". Do not run around here fan-boying. Please, take the time to look back - I'm sure you have, but please, look again. Uber employees deeply hurt some of their KS backers in a very personal manner. It was a very troubling time, and while it lead to some amazing and revolutionary changes in how Uber deals with the community, it has produced a positive and uplifting outlook to the future.

Every single balance mod that is not a "derp" mod (dox4lyfe, I'm looking at you ) has more thought and effort put into it than the balance we have today in vanilla. This is rapidly changing for the better (thank you so much.....), and I can't stress that enough. But do not presume the balance they created out of a hodge-podge of ideas is in any way functional, nor has it been at any point in it's history. FYI, I did make my own balance mod that had a balance based on Uber's that fixed all the issues the community had with it. I have experience with this - albeit very little.

IMHO, the balance is the thing holding PA back from being in a 'release' state, or at least in a state where those KS backers and alpha players would actually tolerate it.


On topic:

There are alot of changes that could maybe, possibly fix the issues PA is having, but I'm starting to realize that we really do need a fresh start to fix the problems. Many of these changes were originally based on problems from almost a year ago, or changes made to changes because of problems in alpha or beta. It's a cycle I hope the devs can break from, but we have not seen that yet. I'm just waiting to see more of @tvinita 's balance posts. Seeing what he thinks about how balance should work is something I'd love to read about. We don't have all the ideas here in the community (though we do have tons of good ones ), and his take is always a fresh outlook.

Keeping an open mind is a big part of this too. Shooting down the devs really doesn't motivate them to agree with us, no matter how much logical proof we can present. It's why there was previous friction in the game's development, and why we have to be polite about it.