New unit ideas, why shoot them down?

Few speak on behalf of Uber. The ones that do, are usually just parroting what Uber themselves have already said - no bubble shields ala. SupCom being a very common example.

I, myself, like bubble shields. But I've been convinced that they do more harm to a game than they benefit it. I haven't thought of a counter to the great arguments against bubble shields, so I politely don't encourage bubble shields.

I don't think shields necessarily need to be a bubble tho, maybe a layer of particles around a unit or area of effect that makes projectile weapons miss 50% of the time (or something). Theres lots of things that could be done. Either way, a bubble or any type of shield would look pretty good in PA, some added effects that would look pretty bad *** zoomed in or out.

I also like the idea that shields (the bubble type) need to be powered up before using, so power it up to 100% then you can either activate it yourself or have it activate on its own, then last for 30 seconds or however long then you need to power it up again, and you can have units that specialize in taking down shields, if needed.

What were the arguments against bubble shields?

Whilst I can think of some off the top of my head, I do feel that PA is different from its predecessors.
Namely that you can not only be attacked by 360 degrees (as opposed to "they're coming from that way" on a normal map) but from above as well.

Admittedly, the "above" aspect is more to do with my frustration of umbrellas not shooting anything down whilst being shot at in return...

I think have to think of "shooting down units idea" the following way:

There is a maximum number of units that will make it into the final game (on release). Whatever this number is, lets say it is 100 units.
And there a several 100 or 1000 (maybe not that much) ideas for new units.

So you have to choose which would be the best units from all these ideas to put into the final 100.
A reason for beeing against a suggestion is often the balance. But many ideas make an other idea pointless because its better. There are so many reasons for thinking an idea is good or bad.

Everybody has his own thinking about suggestions from other people. But this is not bad. Let everyone shoot everyone ideas down. Thats ok. The ideas, that many people find good, will be heard.
And even thoses that makes others upset (maybe "shields" are a good example of that) are heard, because so many people start discussing about it.

Keep it easy and write any idea you have in the forums, thats better than not doing this - and keep in mind, the final decision will be made by Uber and not by anyone how shoots down anyones idea.

Yeah, this is a pretty good shout! I understand this 100%, I was just a little concerned that many ideas were not getting the respect they deserved or the attention. Plus I for one would love to see a lot of variety in unit design and gameplay. For instance, if you wanted to create mass damage to an area mid game, you would use a nuke, shouldn't there be at least a couple alternatives?

Yes we can hurl moons and small bodies at each other, but this is only one form of end game play, and it wont be accessible for everyone, definitely not for every game anyway.

I dont know it better than you or any others here in the forum, but i think the devs are reeeally often in the forums and i think they read much more stuff than they comment or talk about.
And there is no guarantee for an idea to be read by anyone, but the probability is very high - at least this is what i think

For the endgame that you mentioned: atm there is no balanced endgame at all - so you are right, but thats not final.
There is so much work todo and we will see a lot of changes here in the coming weeks.

I agree.

Just as a general question, how often or how much in the past do you involve yourself in forum hype for unreleased games? Because I've done my fair share enough to know that that's just how it goes with regards to good suggestions, bad suggestions and the shooting down thereof.

When it comes to RTS games in particular, the audience tends to be more educated theoretically as to the nature of the genre and more likely to take suggestions in that light. So there we go.

"forum hype"? I don't know man, I don't tend to get involved with hyping stuff up, I have kids for that. I do get involved in quite a few forum discussions tho and I have to say that in this forum, it tends to get a lot more heated than most by far!

Personally I want lowtech units/factions that I can give to AIs as I invade their worlds and destroy their species.

Bios are so fun to destroy.

Your avatar is a Marauder Mk. II.

Instant friendbro.

To me the problem is that most people don't know how to design a unit in the context of a game. If I wanted I could list off a bunch of random ideas for units/weapons, but without putting them in the context of PA's thematics and mechanics they're worthless.

Here's an example, people can say "Make a Lightning Tank" but functionally, it's the same as Beam weapon with a short pulse and high damage.

Mike

Well of course having counters is a good thing. And there are plenty of counters in the game and plenty of counters to be added to the game. Uber has already stated there will be 100+ units and buildings in the game at launch.

You seem to think we shoot down any new suggestions because we don't want anything else added to the game.

That's not true.

We shoot down new ideas, like ghostflux said, that are impossible to balance or have already been brought up many many times.

A lot of ideas that have been submitted have already been talked about and have already been confirmed as a no.

Shields being one of those. Those are always shot down for two reasons. One, the person who posts that obviously hasn't followed the forum rules and done a search. Two, they're already a confirmed no. They are a definite no, so there's no point in talking about them.

And most of the other ideas that come through have already been discussed.

The first one - black hole. Shot down because it's impossible to balance and is simply a troll bomb. Also has been brought up on at least 4 different threads in the past week.

Second one - force fields. Shot down because it gets brought up very frequently and is already a confirmed no.

Third one - unit ideas. Not sure why you brought up that thread because that's the unofficial unit suggestion thread. Lots of great suggestions are made and discussed.

Fourth one - advanced aa. This has been brought up many times and that op obviously didn't read the forum rules and do a search. Advanced AA will be in the game, just hasn't been added yet.

We have lots of great discussions on these forums. Lots of great ideas are brought up and debated over. Not everyone is going to automatically agree with everything that is posted.

Yes, there will be people who don't post quality replies, but there are plenty of people that offer long winded excellent replies.

What is the point of the thread?

not to mention this whole "we get more different units because of one race" argument is starting to get a little flimsy.
https://forums.uberent.com/threads/factions-unit-set.36332/page-2#post-763942

I agree that a lot of the suggestions aren't very well thought out, but the game is still in the creation phase. The ideas people throw out is just them brainstorming trying to get as many ideas on the table as possible. It isn't our job to fully design the unit. That is Uber's job. We are here to just hurl ideas at their faces and hope something sticks. Well thought out ideas have a better chance, but even the craziest idea could inspire them to create something new and interesting. Some of the ideas can be pretty wack-o and don't fit at all, but I don't think that's necessarily bad thing.

Instead of suggesting particular unit ideas try to find a role or function you think it missing. Explain the role and then you could suggest a unit to fill it. Or at the very least explain what the unit is supposed to do in terms of the rest of the game.

Here is an example of what I am talking about. Adding a shield could mean a few things. Depending on the mechanics you could end up with vastly different interactions between shields and units. Here are two possible roles for a shield.

• A shield with large battery and low recharge rate. This shield is good at absorbing the 'burst' damage of an attack by assault units (burst damage here is damage over several seconds). This shield would be poor against sustained fire from artillery which would just whittle it down.
• A shield with a small battery but high recharge rate. This is good against artillery. When you are being hit by artillery which you don't want to send units to destroy you should make this shield. It would be good against moderate sustained damage but quickly fall to the higher DPS of a shorter ranged army.

People often say "We need shields" without trying to deduce what the shield would add to the game. It would be better if people said something like;

This actually gives us something concrete to discuss in terms of balance and unit roles. Instead people suggest something which could fulfill any number of roles in the game and people start arguing for or against the problems or unneededness of particular implementations of the unit. Don't start with the idea "I want to add something with ability X". Start from "I think X is a hole/imbalance in the current unit lineup" then suggest something to fill it.

After a few years of it, I've come to classify taking part in forums of games that aren't released yet (hanging off new info from the devs, posting suggestions, critiquing suggestions) as basically just hyping yourself up for the game, building anticipation. With singleplayer games it can really spoil things for me so I tend not to do it anymore. With more multiplayer or mechanically interesting games it's more benign.

I dunno, I guess I'd rather just use the time for reading books or playing actually released games, so this is how I justify not reading too many forums.

Heh. I totally understand what you're saying.

In this case, Uber actually reads all of the forum posts and does take our suggestions.

Great example, mini maps. Originally mini maps were not going to be in the game. But thanks to the forums, Uber has stated there will be some form of mini map. How Uber is going to implement it, I have no idea.

There's other examples of Uber making additions or changes based on forum feedback... but they're escaping me at the moment.

Uber is pretty freaking awesome.

Yeah, there are some exceptions where the community contributes to the development of the game, like here. I think the zomboid forums probably contribute to the game too but in order to do that they have to immerse themselves into the pre-release builds which will inevitably sour their experience with 1.0 gold, same with KSP. And there are modders who get into their stride before release too. But I am not one of them (although I do feel like learning 3D modelling at some point).

Very valid points raised, to be honest I didn't know there would always be in excess of 100+ units in the finished game. Thats good to know as we have what, 30 odd at mo? Which leads me to think this game is going to be hard pushed to be finished for December, I'd be happy to wait until the game is finished.