My balance concerns - Not really about balance but how it's done.

But does one need to be a Pro to call out such things? Can not similar conclusions be reached by studying the numbers? I'm no pro, but its obvious that Ghost are more more useful against more Protoss compositions compared to the more limited use against Zerg and other Terrans.

Obviously neither the Pro Players nor the Studiers are better than the other but to focus on only one is kinda shortsighted wouldn't you agree?

Mike

PA has only like half it's units in a useable state right. Useable as in "buildable", not "balanced". I don't think much community involved balancing work can be done at this state. The guys at Uber are not bad at determining the numbers itself so far. Uber needs to do a basic balancing and a basic -complete- unitset before any player really can barge in a lot. Also PA has one really big advantage: Only one faction! You just don't get endless dispute about differences of the factions and how to balance them. The worst that can happen balance-wise is that only Unit x is most of the time used because it is imba. That's rather easy to detect and fix.

I understand your over all point, thepilot. I think that the competitive players can and should be testing the balancing. But I disagree with that a game that is well balanced for competitive gameplay automatically is good for casual games.
After I had watched some competetive SC or FA matches on Youtube I just thought: Wow, thats not how I want to play this game. For me it felt just like spamming out factories and units and rushing your enemy with your first bomber.
There was no fancy base with cool like ahead positioned fireing bases with tons of artillery and poit defences. But that was what TA and SC + FA always had in advantage to more tactical games like Starcraft with a 200 unitlimit.
Of course this is just my point of view. But the game has to be cool and fun for the big bunch of people. And that are not the competitive players.

That's what is great about it. You can actually play it like you that if you want.

SO....FAF feeling a bit threatened. Inevitable, I suppose. It's a great thing you've created pilot, but the sun sets on everything in the end.

As for the meat of the argument, isn't this all a bit silly? Half the unit roster isn't done, half the late game mechanics haven't even had first pass, the UI is (i think) only second pass, the economy...just forget it for now.

PA went Beta a LOT earlier than most games do, even games in closed Beta. They went beta as soon as they had something even remotely playable. And don't forget that the timescale for PA's creation has been INSANE. Two months to go before their aim for release and there is a LOT to do. That's fine. Even if they're late, that's STILL fine.

As for top players...too early to say. I'm very encouraged by some of the streams I've seen that some people really know what they're doing already, and are vocal about it. Also, small point, "Top players" are NOT a set group of people who rove from game to game as fashion takes them...they're not a travelling troupe of medieval minstrels, they appear and disappear like other players.

Of course PA doesn't have many "top players" yet, there's been no time. There will be.

As the song goes "You gotta have faith..."

Well i did say arguably ^_^ But if your going to duke it out, make it a best of 25 in PA to determine the best in supcom! =O

Nah, he is my trainings partner

we're training partners and still didn't manage to play a single pa game together

Well i more or less agree with Zep concerns. We all know and understand it's an early beta state, but the road to a very good RTS is still long concerning PA. We often saw some premature releases.

However i want to give a real try to PA. The community in itself looks cool.

A lot of the players with potential to be at the top are waiting for a stable balance release. Until then it's just Ants: The Game

I agree with pretty much all of Zep's points, and I'm glad me made this thread because I've been thinking similar stuff over the past several months.

First, we all know that there have to be and will be lots of balance changes. We don't need to discuss THAT.

I don't like your way of saying that you are "the right guy to listen to". Everyone thinks they are the right.

You probably didn't read my post, because I'm clearly not talk about me being the right person in it.

fixed that for you
but yeah, you're right about the rest

I didn't plan to post here, but since the question why FA(F) top players are not really liking PA is open, i'll try to give you my opinion about it.Even when it's somewhat offtopic

Opposing to the statement that we just don't like PA because we are good at FA, and are so comfortable with this that we oppose any new game, most of us, propably myself most of all, were very excited about PA. There hasen't been a RTS for our liking since many years, and we grind for one. I almost backed a very huge amount of money, instead went just with a normal huge one. I'm glad about this now, because so far, PA only managed to disappoint me. This has a lot to do with the very high expectations, and doesn't mean the game is bad though. It's just not what i wished it to be. So to the reasons:


It's just that pretty much the only thing that is really good at the moment is that you have actually different planets, which is awesome, but can't compensate all the flaws.

You don't only have a lack of a UI, you actually have the lack of a concept to create orientation and overview. The game is fast paced, but there are no tools to see what's going on everywhere. If the game were slow paced or even turn based, this wouldn't be a problem, you could take some minutes to spin the planet 10 times and check everything, but in a fast paced RTS, this is a huge problem, and while i thought at start uber will put some magic and solve it, i don't belive that they will anymore. Might be thats only me, because i actually haven't played PA that much, and i am baised of playing traditional 2D games, but i heared this complain quite often, so i suppose its valid.

Huge disappointment for me was the scale. I'm not too fond of the graphic style, and the kinda cheap looking units, but i don't really mind either. I've played much uglier games in the past But where you have the chance to create the feeling of epic battles on big planets, the feeling of pure, massive scale, like in some "epic film", i instead get the feeling of playing with big toys, that are almost as huge as the mountains on the planet. The example might be a bit extreme, but you get where i'm coming from. The graphic is not really important to me, but the "feeling" and athmosphere of the game is.

Next problem, missing features i wished. Like real 3D terrain for example. I'm not sure if this was promised, but it was definitly in talk, and without things like this, the game might get actually too simple. More planets alone are no grant for more strategy, and while it's definitly too early to talk about the gameplay itself, because balance didn't start at all, my hopes (3D terrain etc) are already down, and my expectations besides that towards actual gameplay are also a lot lowered. Thats propably the biggest issue for me, there are many bad things, but most are solveable or acceptable, if there would be enough things that are better then in other games. But planets smashing into each other aside, there isn't really much.

Aside that, there are just tons of budged-time problems, you can say it is only a beta, but i don't belive theese will actually be solved at the end of the beta, unless it is stretched 3 more month. Problems contain performance, pathfinding, stability, not completed features and much more, you know them. Oh, and balancing..i'm not going to talk about balancing, it didn't really start yet, i just wonder when it will start, if not in the beta.

The combination of all theese make the game not nesseccary bad, but to me, just not fun at all. For a game that i hoped to be exceptional awesome, this is a huge disappointment.

The game still has some time, and i won't make my final opinion before release, but if this weren't PA and uber (and i didn't put more money in it then any other game) but some other beta, i'd have propably given the game up already. Many games only get good after the first Add-On, maybe PA will share this. (If they plan to do an Add-on, but call me naive, i'd think they are actually required to put the profit of the game back into it since we funded it).

On a side note, i also planed and was excited about taking part in the development process from alpha, and help with my input to create this most awesome game ever, but there are only two kinds of input; new ideas and criticism of existing concepts. Giving ideas to a team with a low budged and even lower time budged, that already have more ideas then they can possible implement was not really a needed thing, so whats left is shaping and improving of the existing concepts. Unfortunatly any critique would get shut down with "its only alpha", now "its only beta", not by the developers, but the fans. Seeing the **** people got for criticize uber with valid points eliminated my wish to be part of the "developing-community" pretty much.

So long,
charliefoxtrot (in FAF i'm better known as Zock)

Not many people are going to like this but... IMO having a fun playble game >>>>> balance. For example ARAM in LoL there is zero balance but it might be played more than SR now.. I know I play it more than SR. Now obviously balance is important as if rushing ANTS is op that's all people will start to do.


Basically what I am getting at is I think the galatic war is going to be what draws a lot of players. If you never get the player base balance is irrelevent.

Just a random note, I love the feeling of being the first one to go orbital.

I'm not one to say anything on the negative side against the devs but to say that they are not bad at the numbers got me. Bare in mind as has been mentioned there are only a handful of units and they still havnt gotten it right. It's like they sort some balance issue like ants not shooting air, and then nerf the air and the aa units in the same build. Some of the more recent changes to units have been strange.

Radars only work when you are at 90% or above efficiency? Why? I understand that they need energy to function but Isnt there going to be a conserve energy function for this? I know there's the build more energy or use energy better and it won't happen, but the massive fluctuations in resources makes it impossible to build efficiently without stalling at some point. At least radars shouldnt cost the 300 energy/sec while there are not functioning.

Standard bombers are now pointless, on the occasions when their bombs drop they miss 50% of the time. Also needing to recharge their weapons with energy when no other standard units does doesn't make sense.

I actually think dox versus ant is balanced quite good now. Each have their own fuctions like they should. Dox versus dox needs some work. Is there a way of making their accuracy better when moving and as now when idle. This will stop the 1v1 battle that could actually go on forever if they had a clear circle around the map and still punish you for having them idle when enemy units near.

Ants and Dox are balanced? In what situation do you use Ants?

I've been not that unhappy how bombers killed your bots in the games we played yesterday. So I can't understand that point. Yeah they don't hit always. have they ever hit always? xD
I think the 90% thing sounds like a good idea tbh so you are not punished for minor power stalls.
So yeah I simply disagree and say: they are not bad at the numbers in general. Unfinished, yes. Experimenting, yes. But not bad in general. It's Beta they _have_ to try different ideas and I don't see why they should not.

You can't just say: "oh currently it's bad, so they are doing it wrong" It's called beta and you know that

Generally I think the situation with PA we have is pretty different from the situation pilot has with FAF and thus I think most of his concerns are without basis.

They are horrible at hitting moving units. My doxes wernt moving. I know its called beta but it's hard to balance properly when they are doing it the way they are. (ie. As i mentioned in the above post, making multiple changes to unitsin the same build).

As you have stated before you havn't played so much since beta. Ants are still used a lot mid game, Still destroy doxes when in similar size groups etc. Therefore doxes are better for rushing and harassing and ants for normal attacking. Reason why they arn't built as much is something I forgot in my first message is pds are now way too overpowered. And this looks like it will stay as neutrino said in one of the latest streams he wants people to be afraid of them. Thats cool but there should be a valid t1 counter to the turrets that t1 fabbers can build.

btw a question that comes to I mind when i read the last posts about ants and Dox: Will projectiles ever get leading their targets? Or is the "fire at current position of target" a design decision by Uber and will not change?

I think there was a discussion somewhere where garat said something that leads me to believe that better targetting is on the to-do list of one of their developers.