An idea for subtle commander differences.

I'm looking at this from a higher level than you two, and you're missing the point I'm making in the context of the discussion.

What's being discussed is whether asymmetrical commanders/unit rosters will give one player inherently more opportunity to win than someone else. Using this as our definition of 'balance' (two players entering a match have equal opportunity to win) then equal access is indeed balanced. Variety, depth, and fun (enabled by units being balanced relative to each other) are not necessary for two players to have an equal chance to win.

My point was that I wanted to see more variety, depth, and fun as long as both players have 90%+ equal chance to win.

With multi-planet starts, only commanders with a buff to eco or building will really make more then your 10% difference.

Could be nice to have a toggle to have commanders be balanced for competitive games, and unique when not.

But that could also come down to have both players using the same com, or having a balanced com for players to use.

Screw the very vocal minority.

Games like CivV prove and Rise of Nations prove that army wide bonuses aren't imbalanced (it just so happens that not all bonuses are created equal - competitive RoN only appeared to have about 3 nations, because those nations were the best. That could have been changed with further refinement. Or not. The balance was fine in other ways)

Using RON as an example - the actual nation of the opponent was totally secret until you scouted them. So you could prepare and deliver an excellent rush. But it completely fails once you realise your opponent is one of the nations more suited for turtling. Likewise, your econ booming needs to be revised once you realise your opponent is a rush nation.

There's nothing wrong with starting abilities per se. I disagree with the idea that they would cause you to win before you had even started playing.

Take rush vs turtle - the rush hasn't lost. The rush can delay their attack until they have more military, or they can use their military to raid economy. The turtle hasn't lost - if the rush was partially delivered turtle is ahead in economy



To be perfectly honest, I would prefer that the commander remained just a skin. That the uber cannon/laser/missile was switchable between commanders as you like though the armoury, and that all "abilities" were switchable from commander to commander.]

I don't really see how any subtle abilities to commanders will result in an imbalance. How much can it really affect? If it's balanced sensibly it won't be a problem.

That'd be a GREAT idea, but then threads would pop up everywhere... again.
I can see it now...

"Commanders are broken"
"Why aren't all the commanders the same anymore? Has Uber gone back on their word?"
"I can't handle small differences, therefor this is unbalanced"
"Uber is releasing an unfinished game"
"MAKE THEM THE SAME AGAIN"

*shudder*

That's basically what I argued for 9 pages over here. Yet here we are. Might still happen at some point but I'm not that hopeful honestly.

Mike

if you want to have a balanced game. you dont start even thinking about commander balance, because there is options.

maps as in planets not being mirrored thats a way way more important, and has a huge impact on balance. More so than any subtle commander differences will ever have.

I do not hope that commanders will just end up as skins. thats a waste of time.

Would like some options, having a faster moving commander, but doesnt have uber cannon.
Have a commander that has a shield but no uber cannon.

Like after what you intend to do. Do you want to use your commander to attack, then you might want uber cannon.

If you want to use him to build in exposed places you might want the shielded version that can take a lot of hits, but not really dish out damage.

Or maybe you just want a fast moving commander that builds slower, but can get around the map faster.

Im sure there would be even more stuff to come up with. Commander that is very fragile but invisible to radar.

Like some games have perks. there could be tiers of perks where you could mix and match say 3 perks. for subtle changes and flavor.

Jump, makes you commander after to leap small distances, its fast and commander can get up and down cliffs.

Sprint, your commander than run "faster than jump" for x amount of time.

Burrow, your commander can move underground for x amount of time.

You could have options that take away uber cannon and make your commander into a mean melee machine. risk / reward situation and giving people choices.

Again maps not being mirrored, before that is solved, nothing else in balance matters much.

In starcraft 2 alone if maps wasnt mirrored, that would forego any balance change in the races.

Did you know that chess isnt balanced btw ?. and thats considered the mostly balanced game in the world.

Because something is mirrored doesnt make it balanced fun fact of the day.

Yeah I read those posts. Neither am I. . .

That's not what I was suggesting though - I think it's really lame that I can't use the Delta (favourite looking commander) with the Uber Missiles (favourite weapon),because it has the Uber laser by default. (Or whatever, you get the idea.)

Suggestion is that the passive abilities and the weapons are fully customisable in the armory. So it's not "one commander is better than another, if you see your opponent going Raptor you should go Alpha". It's "one ability has different applications than another"
e.g.

That's from Star Wars Republic Commando. Stuff like the Arms, Legs, Shoulders, Head were different things that went in different places. There isn't a reason that that uber weapons couldn't be switch-able on the commanders.


It would be cool to have a lore-based default (which is what I imagine the custom commanders to be). So by default, the Invictus Commander uses the laser and in the lore he uses the laser. But in the actual game, there isn't a reason why the IC can't use the missiles.


Essentially, think TESV: Skyrim. You can customise birthsigns etc.

Now imagine TESV: Skyrim with the racial abilities being fully customisable (i.e. there's only one actual race, and they all have different skins, and you can select their "racial abilities" independently of that skin)

I'm talking about that kind of situation.

Oh!
That's actually a really cool idea.

How do you guarantee that one commander doesn't counter another commander? With fully customizable commanders that allows extreme differences in stats and use, commanders will naturally come to counter other commanders.
Like I optimize my commander for building and eco while you optimize your commander for fighting.
Your commander will obviously win in 1 vs 1 against my commander and you will likely be able to use that to your advantage if we start close to eachother while you are likely to not be able to use that to your advantage if we start far away from each other.

I like the idea of the 3 different weapons each being more effective against certain unit types. Air, Bot or Vehicle, for example. It wouldn't unbalance the game too much I don't think.

Never say no to Bacta.