A ginger's thoughts on Spam-Building...

Nanolathe, my reason is, as I stated (though maybe not clearly enough) that if the game is merely a spamming competition, then it stops being enjoyable.

I also don't quite understand your sig or this whole thing about quantity/quality -- by nature, a 2nd tier will decrease the quantity of the units and increase their quality? They cost more and take longer to construct, so that would decrease their quantity, and they're more effective units so that increases their quality?

carn1x, I described the lag quite concisely as: "There were too many actors in the game for the server to keep up with what was going on, and that's what I was experiencing."

To which you responded with your comment about lock-stepping, which apparently you realize PA doesn't do, so I don't get why you said it...

You haven't described your observation of your lag, you've only described your theory as to the cause of lag.

Are you experiencing jumping/warping units, dropping of frames? Or are you describing the actual slow movement of units as if game speed was reduced?

Jumping units accompanied by slow movement. Framerate stays good

You decrease the quantity of units, and you increase the quantities associated with their statline/weapon. You trade the number of units from many to fewer, and you increase their power from lesser to greater. You transition from spamming lots of Basic Units into spamming lots (though less than before) of Advanced Units.

You haven't changed the quality of play, or if you like, the way in which you play... merely bumped the numbers around.
That's redundant design in a nutshell; something to be avoided from Uber's point of view for several reasons.

Ah, OK - I get where you're coming from now.

But you don't have a problem with the spamming strategy in general?

Of course I have a problem with it. Just making stronger units that are upgraded versions of basic ones is not the answer however. With the economy model we're dealing with (ever expanding infinite streaming resources) you merely delay the spamfest, rather than eliminate it.

I choose to attack the source of the problem, not the symptoms.

A couple suggestions:
- This entire thread is very subjective. What's fun to one person is not fun to another.
- Using a term like "spam" puts an instantly pejorative slant on the topic. The game is about huge armies and huge battles, spanning multiple planets. That doesn't mean it's not a discussion worth having, but just a suggestion if you don't want to immediately put people who LIKE large scale gameplay on the defensive.
- Since the game isn't done yet, multiple planets are just about to come in, and there are a number of features that make knowing how different types of early games will feel, it's hard for me to comment if there's any real concern here, or if it's just a "not ready yet" type of discussion.

Carry on, just wanted to interject some thoughts into the nature of the discussion.

I think it's mostly an issue with how someone might define 'spam'.

Large scale gameplay is fine. Large scale gameplay comprising of only one unit (usually one that lacks a decent cost effective counter) is not.

There is always 'an overabundance of a single unit-type' issue with every RTS Garat, even TA wasn't immune from it, though it did give more options than most.

How would you tackle the multiplicative effect of several units occupying the same area?
How would you slay the single-unit-type death ball and how can you discourage its use as a First Order Optimal Strategy?
Do you even acknowledge it as an issue?

The simple answer is sustained balance adjust. Buff and nerf. People will use different things every patch. Eventually, everyone will use something they thought fondly of when it was overused prenerf.

The game is fine with scale. As long as the game is won with different units, not the same unit always being the win button.

Double

So instead of solving the problem you obfuscate it and just swap out what's the 'flavour of the month' unit each patch?

Really? That's your solution?

I chuckled a bit at this. I'm sorry.

He's suggesting to balance, not randomly make different units op all the time.

Balance wasn't what was being discussed though; deathball spam was. Deathballs aren't really a problem with individual unit balance, but a larger problem of the multiplication of power by concentration of your forces.

No matter how 'balanced' you make an individual unit, massing a single unit type together into a ball and just rolling forward is a result of a completely different issue.

I can't believe you think this seriously.

Bad balance doesn't get solved by buffing and nerfing things randomly unless one is happy with a crappy game.

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Btw. the current situation is a nice example why often you get a basic rock, paper, scissor system in unit balance in RTS. (Not that I want that necessarly.)

Having explicitely counter units prevents one unit spam easily although its not very imaginitive. I'm curious how it will play when we get more then a single useful combat unit per unit type though. (I mean, what 'ya expect with only ants or drox' being useful? Not really great strategic variety. )

Maybe because we still lack friendly fire / blocked fire?
Seriously, thats just what's wrong with tanks. Their stats say "meatshield" (well, at least in comparison to other units, all units appear to be made of tinfoil), but they don't behave like such. You can just stack them indefinitely and their role never changes. Having superior (both in terms of stats and cost!) units in the front line is perfectly fine, but only as long as those unit are actually limited to the front lines.

And as with buildings, spam is just fine as a strategy.
The only issue is though, that we currently only have 3 reasonable threats:
Bots/Tanks (I will just treat them the same in this case), bombers and nukes. So if you are to build an outpost, you only need to make it proof to these 3 threats (or at least make them cost-inefficient) and you are good to go.
Well, actually screw the first two. You are going to be steamrolled either way unless you abuse wall targeting and wide spread ground control with mobile units is actually a lot cheaper than investing into proper defenses. This only leaves nukes - or not if you consider the price of a nuke and the small economical damage it can cause at an simple outpost.

SupCom did a lot better in these terms, there were more possible attack vectors and establishing a forward base actually took a decent amount of resources. But there is also one far less obvious difference:
The speed of all mobile units. Why is it pointless to go for a reasonable stationary defenses in PA (not talking about pure turtles)? Because you can just as well gather your army from half around the globe for defense. Unit speed is not only about balancing of hit&run maneuvers, it's also about reaction times.

In most SupCom maps, mass spots were placed in distant regions for a good reason, establishing a second base meant that you actually needed additional defenses in that location. Except for ASF/interceptors, you couldn't count on using just one army. With 40x40 maps and bigger, not even ASF would be able to intercept distant assaults.

On the current size 4 planets, everything is quite local, despite the actual size of the planet. This discourages sharp borders ("I have fortified my ground up to this line") and also kind of eliminates the impact of most environmental features.
SupCom wasn't to scale either, but the scale on lager maps actually felt big, since you could easily dispatch multiple waves before the first one hit the target. This isn't true in PA, often enough the creation of the death ball takes longer than the actual march, so why even bother with unit diversity when in field encounters are so unlikely?

Maybe it's a problem with terminology, but IMO, if one unit type can successfully roll over an opponents army, then that unit is not balanced.

I think Nanolathe is saying that, if you want to prevent deathballs, you need to focus on changing core game mechanics, instead of focusing on the specific unit(s) that make up the deathball. I.e. add in more AOE, prevent units from firing thru each other, increase the annoyance of wreckage, increase unit footprint size, etc.

That being said, I think giving bombers/artillery some AOE (which I know is in the works) and reducing tanks effectiveness against air would go a long way towards adding some diversity to the units people spam (as well as adding in more unit types of course!). I'm sure the issue will at least be mitigated as we move into beta.

Yes, they are doing sustained support for it post release, and every game after prolonged play that has private servers has its operators tweak balance so people actually like to play there.

The immediate effect is a flavor of the month, caused by a flock to the initial overpowered followed by flocking away when nerfed to the next op. The long term result is every class getting adjusted until it isn't much farther of in the whole scheme of the game.

The reason isn't my fault, its those lemmings whom flock to what they think is easier, and its humorous honestly watching them keep trying to migrate to the new proclaimed win button.

As long as they don't overnerf or make useless anything. People will complain about every nerf, but there is a difference.

I find that one persons spam is another persons early game army. A common problem with new players is thinking too small and teching up before they have the resources.

There are a small amount of units at the moment. As more become available the "spam" will become more diversified. Tanks will always be the bread and butter though and supporting 40 land factories making them is not spam but is actually playing the game as it was meant to be played. Big armies and Big bases.