Basic vs Advanced--Make up your mind

I feel like this is an issue that is in a quantum state oscillating between the tiered system and the "well-rounded vs specialized" system.
This thread is meant to get the devs to make a decision and go with one.
Both have their benefits, but the devs have been saying that the latter is the goal.

My complaints include basic vs advanced economics, basic vs advanced factories, and basic vs advanced units (so basically everything).
-The advanced economic structures are better than the basic ones. They shouldn't be under the system that Uber has proclaimed will be used.
-Advanced factories are bigger versions of the basic factories. They shouldn't be. Having advanced be specialized roles doesn't mean that they should be bigger than basic, just different.
-Advanced units are bigger versions of the basic units. Every unit that is added has a small basic version and a big advanced version (gunship and transport are exceptions). This is a severe example of how one thing is being said while another thing is being done.


All I am saying is pick one. Don't tell use that advanced will be specialized while basic will be well-rounded and then give us a tiered system. It is frustrating.


Now, I put this into balance discussions because I would like to give some examples of what I think should happen to advanced units to make them more specialized.

Vehicles.
Leveler vs Ant is still up in the air--it could be good or not.
Vanguard vs Inferno. It is just a bigger version WITH radar. The radar is cool, but it is still a DIRECT upgrade to the inferno. Maybe have it shoot out an arc of flame or 3 plumes at reduced range so that it could potentially damage more units, but in many cases it would not.

Bots.
Dox vs Slammer is a direct upgrade. Perhaps give the slammer short range shotguns or maybe give it an autoheal with weaker guns.
Combat fabber vs Adv. Combat fabber is a direct upgrade. Maybe have the adv. have a longer range but a lower rate or maybe give the basic one a riot gun (yay sparky).

Air
Fighter vs Adv. Fighter is a direct upgrade. One should use missiles, one should use direct fire guns IMO missiles should be advanced, but this really doesn't matter a whole bunch so long as the basic fighter is just as useful as the advanced fighter in lategame
Bomber vs Adv. Bomber is a direct upgrade. The adv. bomber should not be 1shotting units. It carpet bombs, which is totally cool, but the bombs do so much damage. The basic bomber should be high single target damage while the adv bomber should be low AoE damage. (sounds like a good parrallel between basic and advanced AA too)

Naval
Orca vs Leviathan is a direct upgrade, although I have less of a problem with this so long as leviathan is very cumbersome. Perhaps the Orca should have a higher damage/cost ratio?
Narwhal vs Stingray is not bad! Though narwhal should probably be better at direct combat than the stingray IMO.


Fabbers
Make the advanced fabbers special rather than just direct upgrades to their basic counterparts.
Adv bot fabber should ignore terrain (spider bot yayy)
Adv vehicle fabber should have like twice the range of any other fabber
Adv naval fabber should come with sonar or maybe a small AA missile turret (or an anti missile phalanx type defenseive thing)

/rant

They don't have to make up their minds until they ship out the release physical-format copies to the shelves-backers and proclaim the game done.

/rant

Seriously, most of what I feel they are doing is just gauging 2 versions of each unit, and it is possible in the end there will be only one with the values they like best. For instance, they are passing the pelican around between the two, and also there are 3 laser defence towers.

I would not be against have different ways of doing the same job.

Helps mix things up.

This I can agree with you on.

It's to distinguish them from the basic factories. You need to be able to tell, at a glance, what a basic factory is and what an advanced factory is. It's not like their size is a serious negative on anything but the smallest planets.

Only to an extent. Shooters Gil-Es and Shellers don't have a basic equivalent, and slammers were slower than doxes by a fair amount when last I checked. But yes, in terms of economic efficiency advanced is superior to basic generally.

Leveler should be longer range and tankier but only around twice as powerful compared to the pounder (sticking with this name) and six times as expensive.

Increase inferno speed and decrease inferno health. Inferno should be an early-mid game mex killer, vanguard should be a com killer.

Slammer should have around 60 range and have a higher health/metal ratio, but it should mainly be used to combat stuff like infernos and vanguards with little use against other bots or vehicles.

Remove the basic one. Problem solved.

No, the solution is to remove the peregrine. Or the hummingbird and make the peregrine T1 with the hummingbird's stats, seeing as the latter just plain looks better than the former. Having different tiers of fighters just doesn't make sense if we're going for well rounded vs specialized.

Here you're just suggesting how to upgrade them rather than how to nerf them.

I'm absolutely agreeing with this.

My input: Leveller should not have longer range. If it hits harder, it needs to have the same range, otherwise it becomes an ugly mix between the Sheller and the Pounder, and as it is already (With longer range) is a strict upgrade. Because it has the same speed, so long as it has more range, it will always be a strict upgrade, because in tank field battles it always wins.

If the Leveller is 6 times as expensive, but twice is powerful, you're better off building a Sheller with pounder escort, because you get 2.5 times more firepower from the pounders alone, and extra range from Shellers (instead of building 2 Levellers, 1 Sheller and 9 Pounders)

Air units should all have the same amount of health as each other. T2 fighters shouldn't out tank t1 fighters. Anti-air should have limited number of targets. Advanced fighter could have crowd control capability.

There are many interesting potential roles for the leveller that don't have it being a better tank.

I agree, I see no reason why tech 1 air units need to be built after tech 2 has been reached ( except during the time it takes to create a tech 2 factory. ) Tech 2 units should concentrate on weapons that target huge numbers of targets, vs tech 1 that should concentrate on 1v1 battles. By the time huge armies are fielded tech 2 units are needed, but against a small group of units the choice should swing back in favor of tech 1.

Don't presume like this. It is a road that only leads to disappointment.

If an idea is not good, don't say "it will get better". Uber can't do anything with that, and isn't under any obligation to care. If something is not good, say "It is NOT GOOD". Bonus points for having something better.

hmm...i would say we wait till we have all the units in the game. for example for me the 3 laser towers DO actualy make sense. the smallest one is cheap enough for very early game to protect mex from dox raids. and the secound and third one can be used in mid or even late game in combination with walls. if you reduce them to one tower it means it could become kinda useless because too expensive for early game (or too powerful if too cheap) or useless after 10 minutes in game because ridiculus weak.

also the bigger t2 version of a unit that from its role is still a basic unit issn't that bad. you either concentrate your firepower by building x t2 versions or you spread it by building y*x t1 ones. it only increases the options as long as one issnt clearly better in terms of resource costs/firepower.

They don't have to pick anything, they can do both if they want. If both have benefits, why rule other one out?

Or better, they entirely stop thinking about such pointless words.

They are mutually exclusive. Either all units can be useful throughout every stage of the match, or some become obsolete when you tech up to others. There is not both.

I know I backed because it was said many times that it would NOT be a tiered system with direct upgrades. You can imagine my surprise when I joined in and noticed that EVERYTHING was a DIRECT UPGRADE.
I have come to like the current system more than I expected that I would, and basic is not completely useless, but I feel that it does not compare to their original statements.

I would still play the game if they kept the current tiered style as it is inherently a cool game, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't be severely disappointed. It just seems like the devs keep saying that they will do it one way, but keep doing it the other way. All I am really asking for here is that they stop doing that and pick one.

No they aren't. You could have one direct uprade (in some way) unit in advanced, but rest are specialized, different. That's having both.

It always seemed to me that it was more the people from this community who shouted for the specialized. And devs were more like "Mmmm... yeah yeah whatever".

They said all units always viable.

If unit is strictly better version than, it's no longer viable.

Unit is viable as long as it can do damage and is efficient in doing it.

*Eyes thread carefully*

Lots of quibbling over definitions there hearmyvoice. The units are upgrades. Uber said they wouldn't do that. That means we have a problem. Either:

• Uber are singing from a different hymn sheet when it comes to what they consider 'upgrades',
• They're intentionally resisting breaking away from their comfort zone (I remind you that Scathis balanced the original SupCom, and therefore it is not beyond the realms of possibility that he's using that as a basis for balance paradigms),

or finally

• We're in beta and things are subject to change... an old 'standby' response that I'm rapidly getting frustrated by, though it still carries enough weight that it remains relevant.

We must be vigilant. That does not mean that Uber needs to do something today, or tomorrow, but in the end they must recognise that this is an important issue and address it. Should they fail to do so then we kick up a massive fuss. For now we must wait.

Planetary Annihilation is still in beta; things might change.
Should they not change then I sanction you all to pick up your flaming torches and pitchforks.

Like TrophySystem, I've always assumed that the tier system we have in now is for test purposes only - it's certainly easier to implement a rough balance in that fashion to allow us to play while Uber work on the game. However you're right in that there is a difference here between what Uber are saying and what they're currently doing with balance passes - and this is an area where we could do with some clarification.

Assumptions are dangerous things no matter which side of the fence you fall on.

So long as it is never replaced.



See, technically with the old Leveller-Ant dynamic, an Ant did 42 damage per second, and a Leveller did 500. In the amount of time you built 6 Ants, you built 1 Leveller.


1 Leveller and 6 Ants was killed more slowly than 2 Levellers, when facing 2 Levellers.

Provided 2 Levellers didn't focus the Leveller, but instead attacked the chaff.

The chaff is better at fighting multiple weak units. The Leveller is better at hitting singular targets with large amounts of health.

If Levellers and Ants had the same range, there would be value in building both. 6 Ants would focus fire and win against 1 Leveller more quickly than 1 Leveller would win against 6 Ants.

However there was no value in building Ants once Levellers became available. Because Levellers had more range than Ants, every 6 Ants you had *could* have been another Leveller, which are more helpful when you are fighting extra Levellers than the Ants are. You can't chase Levellers down with your superior Ants, and because Levellers have more range, they can snipe Ants all day.


Current Leveller-Titanium Ant Pounder Insect dynamic is actually worse. You can produce more Levellers per TAPI. A TAPI does 42 damage every 2 seconds, a TAPI dies every 2 seconds, a TAPI takes 2.857 seconds to move into range of a Leveller.

It takes 10 seconds to build 3 TAPI and 1 Leveller.

By the time the TAPI are in range of a Leveller, 1 is dead. They do 84 damage to the Leveller.
Leveller: 541 health.
1.2 seconds later, 1 TAPI dies.
0.8 seconds later, Leveller: 499
1.2 seconds later, all TAPI's are dead. Leveller is on 80% health.

Any scenario where Leveller retreats from TAPI's, all TAPI's die, Leveller takes no damage.

Yes the TAPI does damage. No it isn't efficient. IT doesn't have to out-dps the Leveller to be efficient. But the roles intersect a lot. The Leveller is just a better TAPI, that much is undeniable.

I hate to break it to you, but the TAPI is now called the Histericlese.

I know they are upgrades and more efficient. And I don't see anything bad in giving better player better stuff Supcom/FA style, it makes sense. But have it your way.