Should Build Speed be Reduced?

Though i suppose you could say that gives grenadiers a niche role, wasn't that one of the ideals we all had back on Alpha? (Though i guess that was more so for advanced units)

I don't have a problem with that, if there were more niche choices. But at T1 bots you are mostly stuck with just dox. Doesn't make for very interesting gameplay now does it? Part of the issue is balance and just a numbers game of some tweaking. The other issue is I think there are just too few interesting unit choices. PA has like what, half as many units at T1 as TA (not counting the other faction)? Yes, not all units were viable and there were a few that crossover, but I definitely felt like there were a lot more to choose from form a strategy standpoint.

PA has almost as much t1 units as a TA faction actualy ... and TA was far far worse in ballance

Then you didn't really play TA.

Flash and/or Samson/Slasher spam was basically the go to strat in many circumstances, at least in high level play.

Let's not stir the pot, shall we? Squishy has it right. Research this stuff before saying things offhand.

Not that niche. T1 arty in Supcom, for example, is good example of a unit with limited usefulness. It's strong against stationary defenses because it out ranges them and can hit them directly, unlike every other T1 unit. It's weakness is against t1 blobs of fast moving units that can dodge its projectiles.

The grenadier doesn't have that right now. It's only strong against WALLS, not actual defenses (laser towers). Personally, I wouldn't use it to assault a heavily fortified base - I'd rather use an inferno-ant mix.

The grenadier doesn't out range turrets anynore? I knew that was planned, never knew it was implemented. That should be changed.

You are correct, there is about 1-2 more t1 units in TA, not double. Having just looked, there are definitely significantly more t2 units in TA however, and the amount of naval in PA is down right depressing in comparison (especially at T2). My point being that PA feels half finished because of it. I feel like any spiritual successor should attempt to have more, not less. PA fails miserably at this, and suffers in the strategy and tactics because of it. I feel like you just completely missed the point in an attempt to red herring the issue.

It does, but only the x1 turret, and even then it's only by 5. The last time I tested it, it didn't make a difference. The grenadier drifted into range of the turret anyway.

I don't like the grenadier niche role at all - it almost relegates the unit to com-boxing and nothing else. Niche roles are bad IMO, they don't lead to diversity, quite the opposite they effectively narrow the number of units being used even further except on rare occasions. This isn't to advocate do-it-all units either, although if I had to choose, I would prefer T1 units were weaker specialists and were able to do their job well enough to counter the more rugged generalists of T2 (obviously this would involve a-lot of changes and wont happen) - this solution mitigates the problem inherent with having to build an extra (and expensive building) to get T2 units - ie they remain worthwhile - and simultaneously offers the specialists broader and extended use. Note i said if i had to choose, am not a believer in segregating the tiers in this way.

Completely agree with this. Part of the problem you're going to face though @blightedmythos is that most of us who don't really enjoy the current meta of PA have over the months since launch left these forums (or never joined) and no longer play the game. So all you're left with is the 20 odd same old people patting Uber on the back, meanwhile the rest of the entire gaming community pretty much hates the game and this is reflected in review scores, sales numbers, and player numbers.

I'm convinced now as much as I was when I used to participate in these forums some months ago, that the absolute best thing Uber could do would be to ignore the vocal minority here and actually take in the feedback that came in during professional reviews, steam reviews, etc. and act on that. And I think if you review that feedback, you will find a very large number of people agree with the issue of units being too popcorn like, engagements being too basic (my blob vs your blob), and the gameplay being utterly boring and lacking in strategy and depth.

I don't get you. There are a ton of people on the forums who agree a little extra health would be fine. Also Uber is working on the savegame feature right now... which was one of the big "meh" points of reviews.
Also I really would like to see where you get your data on how "the entire gaming community" does anything.
And stopping to listen to the community of the game would be pretty stupid. They just started to listen a while ago and since then the climate has become a lot more positive, even in the steam forums.

Oh come on. Save games was just one of the many features that were called out during the initial round of reviews. In almost all of them, popcorn units, blob vs blob, and no depth or strategy were also mentioned...and that's exactly what this thread is about.

My point is very clear - stop listening to the vocal minority here on these forums and listen to all the feedback that has been received from the broader community - that means steam forums, steam reviews, and professional reviews in print and online. And again, if you do this, you will find there is a very large disparity between what people here on this forum think and what everyone else thinks. I understand a lot of you on this forum probably don't realize that, with the hands in my ears "I can't hear you lalalalala" approach to discussing all the negative reviews PA has received. And that's why you can count the number of active contributors to this forum on one hand.

Uber is very clearly working with the players to improve gameplay. Yes they are working with the players who actually bother to show. Not with a mysterious cloud of "the broader community".
Uber is working on many of the issues called out by reviews and critics everywhere. Just because you personally or some other people do not agree with every decision they make doesn't mean they ignore the whole world.
I doubt many people exist who agree with every decision of Uber anyway.

I checked out the community hub of PA in steam. Most of the threads there aren't even related to this. Also sample size provided by active steam forum strollers is far from "the broad community"; most players are not interested in ranting or praising around forums, they just want to play the game that they bought.

There was, one thread, with 19 answers to it. The thread was about the phenomena of 5k players shrinking to 500. Surely is relevant with this topic, right?

Out of those 19 replies, one was "They went back to FAF". And another reply sympathized with that. Rest were talking about how they have seen great improvement with every passing patch that has not taken PA towards FAF.

So this great big mysterious cloud of "broader community that is not vocal" sure is elusive with it's opinions on PA. Great rhetoric to use it for backing up your opinions, but how do you exactly know what it thinks when the voices aren't heard by definition?

No he's completely right. The broader community complains about lack of unit depth and strategy a lot. In fact, I think it's one of the most seen complains on metacritic and comes up fairly often in steam reviews. If you don't believe go read all the negative reviews on steam and metacritic and count for yourself how often lack of depth, boring unit roles, ect comes up.

I was aware there is a lot of bias on this forum. I had hoped some of them would see reason or at the very least understand why the community has a whole is not happy with PA'S current combat model. I can only hope going forward Uber doesn't listen to just the vocal minority on these forums or PA is doomed to be unsuccessful.

Honestly, the wider gaming world wants units that stand out, (so does this community but they put too many restrictions on it making it impossible), they [wider world] want pew pew, and epic, not just numbers but big shiny and devastating units that can cut swathes through blobs of units etc, not just a big laser and an asteroid, these are wanted too just more. Even the oft worshiped zero-k has epic units and doesn't fall into the completely and utterly boring (and personality destroying) trap of flat balance and boring 'side-grades' which after adding in cost and time (never even considered by flat balance enthusiasts) are actually downgrades. They [the rest of us] also want their units to live longer but they do not want pointless and ugly blobs of units and nothing but. Don't get me wrong, I like this game, a lot actually, but it doesn't take away from the feeling that it is missing things, things this core community torpedoed to the detriment of the game.

I definitely also agree with this. I miss all the epic expiramentals and T3 units or even just t1 and t2 engages that are fun.

I too like a lot of aspects of the game. I think it has a lot of potential. I am just ready for it to step in the right direct when it comes to improving things.

Hinting at tiers will get you buried alive here... I don't want t3, or factory & mex upgrades; But experimental type units with clear built in weaknesses based around their speed, size and range, rof and a myriad of other ways within the wysiwyg ideology I absolutely advocate. These could be built by advanced fabricators as an alternative to nukes, unit cannons, haleys and catalysts and frankly have been unfairly demonized here by the same people who are still wanting to cherry pick other things from a game that had them in it! Of course these are of no use whatever if you can't live long enough to construct them, or are too bored with the units prior to that tech-level. I like the idea of tanks and bots being diversified by having the vehicle class (with exceptions) buffed health-wise and the bot class left alone (with exceptions).

OT) I am also a little disappointed the commander weapons weren't diversified as planned because - balance. The quest for 'perfect balance' (a thread possibility) for e-sport-iness is IMO sucking the life out of not just this game and leaving the average player with a bad taste in their mouth, games were meant to be fun, and competitive play was meant to be an extension of that, not the only thing.

I thought t3 was a bit silly, I just thought the UNIT DESIGN ONLY ;-) was very interesting in t3. That was the point I was trying to make. You could build t3 like units in t2 factories but with increased energy and metal costs and build times to balance them.

DalekDan, did you ever play Statera when it was on PAMM? I didn't really agree with a lot of the RCBM's T2 unit roles but Statera's T2 units really were side-grades.

The successor Statera mod will probably have megabots.