Factory Complex

Read again.
It's about letting them make more decisions, not less.

More isn't always better, what you suggest only creates more complexity, not depth.

Mike

You're just playing around with words. There's a reason why it's a successful feature in Starcraft 2, and you'd have to disprove that first. Imagine Starcraft 2 without these and you'd see that it's better with them. But you probably can't because you never played that game.

No, by locking away options behind auxiliary structures(and even going so far as to make it such that you must choose a single option) you are adding more choices, but those choices are meaningless as they are only byproducts of the great choice of what your unit composition will be.

If I want to Build a force around Amphibious tanks, locking them away behind doesn't auxiliary structures create more meaningful choices. I already made the choice that matters, your system just gets in the way of me doing what I want.

Your system adds Complexity, not depth.

Removing them from Starcraft doesn't make starcraft into PA, PA is still a completely different game and can't use Starcraft as a basis for anything really.

Mike

You could make it so that in PA all upgrades are available, not only one. Like I said, this isn't Starcraft 2.
It's a general idea. I'm not a dev so I usually don't bother with details like this. And imo nothing speaks against that general idea but your posts based on lack of imagination or lack of experience.

Complexity is always good in a RTS game. Especially in one that is of a scale this massive. Complexity creates long-term motivation, where as tactics and what you call "depth" in decisionmaking only motivate in the short term.

Taking successful features from other games is always something that every game designer should at least consider doing. Hell, it's how videogames evolved since the age of time. Sure there were massive amounts of new ideas in between, but they all got copied sooner or later. Most of them into a game of the same genre, some into a completely different genre.

I thought you'd know that.

I'm not sure you understand the difference between complexity and depth in regards to Game Design. Here, this might help you;

No, you got it wrong, Bad game designer copy, good game designers learn from and adapt.

Mike

Again, you're drawing semantics into this thread to downplay my argument.
Also copying can include adapting.
Do you know Star Made? It basically uses the voxel system from minecraft but in space.
That's what I call copying successful features.

In no way did you argue against the general idea, but you rather tried to derail this thread.
Maybe be a bit more constructive from now on without denying everything I say without giving it a thought and I'll talk to you again. And maybe let some other people post in here too, so that we can have more input from different sources and a much richer discussion.

So then you didn't watch the video then.

Well, I guess I've done all I could then, you may complain about me, but if you can't be bothered to understand my position and terms despite providing you with the definitions then you're not exactly any better than you feel I am.

Mike

I agree that there should be the most depth generated out of the ruleset given.
But I disagree that complexity is bad. There's no reason to think that it is. Saying that complexity is bad in a RTS is just pure bu******.

And again you didn't argue against the general idea. That video proves nothing because it would have to disprove that the complexity in Starcraft 2 given by those upgrades or in any other RTS is bad, which it can't because it's not bad.
You just make it more and more improbable that people will take their time to read through here. Well done, maybe I'll create another thread just for you.

Well I never said that, I said that your system adds complexity that doesn't compliment the existing depth.

Mike

Also if you want to talk about depth, I already mentioned that it created variation in gameplay, and that with just 2 upgrades, you had a pletora of different gamestyles that weren't there before. So it very well creates depth.

No. The Units already existed, you haven't created any new gamestyles, all you've done is impose limits and extra actions required before you can access the "Full" or Maximum potential of factories.

PA already has complexity and Depth, the Complexity comes of the form of a large unit roster that is split into groups(Bot/Vehicle/Air/Naval/Orbital/Structure) and further split along Basic and Advance.

The Depth comes from but the number of unit compositions available due to how units aren't overly 'locked away' behind upgrades and add-ons.

Starcraft to me is a game heavy on Complexity and light on Depth.

But in the end, it doesn't matter what I say, but you should serious consider the Dev's position, which is generally against upgrades or unlocks as you describe.

Mike

And that's not nearly enough. I think we will see the unit roster getting far more complex than it is now and adapt to the bigger and bigger games we're able to play.

You said that you don't like them being "locked" away. But what is the T2 factory then in your opinion? Aren't units like Levelers just "locked" away behind a T2 vehicle factory? Aren't bluebottles just "locked" away behind a naval factory? I don't get your point at all. You don't want to see them "locked" away behind upgrades, but behind buildings is ok? What if the upgrade is part of the building? What if the upgrade actually is a building?

Man you like to play around with words, don't you?

I said;

Also consider that assuming the basic setup of Basic VS Advanced Units as we've already discussed that while it is true there are some options labeled as advanced that require an advanced factory they aren't strictly required and that compared to what you propose it has less complexity because once you build that advanced factory you have full access to it's Full Potential without any addition actions or requirements.

Mike

Everyone who played it extensively knows that it's the other way around.
Starcraft 2 creates as much depth as possible with as few units and upgrades as necessary.
It's one of the best RTS games in our time.

You will see progamers come along with a couple of new builds every few days. Nothing is ever settled. Nothing is used too heavily and the diversity of different buildorders is endless. The metagame is changing constantly.
It's the highest achievement a RTS game can have.

Sadly it's more fun to watch than to play, because it's so darn difficult.
But that also is quite a good thing when you're in the E-Sports scene.

Casters like Day 9 have like 600 episodes only about Starcraft 2. Around half of them are purely ment to teach you the game mechanics and the deep strategical thinking behind them.
Don't tell me that it's a bad game.

By constantly patching the game that is.

Well, because the balance-team can't seem to keep up with the progamers. And they just don't seem to find the perfect balance. But that's ok.

Also it's not only because of patching. Progamers come up with new builds independant of whether or not there was a new patch, because other progamers do the same.

The game is just too complex to be able to settle down with the same builds you used last week.
You can come back month after month and you'll see a completely new metagame every time.
And it doesn't matter why that is, all that matters is that it creates long term motivation.

Well coming up with new builds would eventually slow down if the game ever fully settled on a single balance.

Eventually, the games meta would stagnate.

Although being in patching purgatory, where you cant seem to stop does seem a little bad, but it does keep the e-sport alive.

You have a point there. But you also have to consider that it's pretty hard creating efficient buildorders and executing them correctly. It's actually very, very hard. You can use the one that you saw your favorite progamer do, but soon you'll have to adapt. And just playing the copycat won't help you in the long-term.

I really had much fun experimenting with different buildorders all the time, and I never seemed to have found the perfect one.

I think this should have been said several posts ago by KNight:

The addons in SCII reinforce very discrete build order gameplay. A very important part of SCII is building your base in the first 5 or so minutes such that you are spending, expanding your economy and have enough unit production to not die. This is a difficult task because the components of a base are quite 'large' and 'irregular'. They are large in that you will only build a few of them, each has relatively high importance. They are irregular because they have varied build times and resource costs. So early game SCII is like finding an optimal packing in time for the irregular pieces that you want to make up your 'final' (midgame) base.

The addons are another piece of the puzzle, they have costs in factory time and resources. They have payoffs. This type of complexity seems to be required otherwise the build orders would be trivial and then unit compositions would vary a lot less (as in SCII your base heavily determines your unit compositions).

I think most people here want a fairly intuitive base building system. So while build orders would technically exist they would mostly be obvious. The parts of a base would be 'smaller' and have more uniform shape. PA would then be made strategically interesting through other means. With this design in mind, any sort of complicated structure which does the same thing but with different cost/payoff is bad for the game.