This is an opinion I have mentioned in passing in a couple threads in general discussion but I figured I would create one in the proper place in a bit more depth. The general problem now, and concern about proposed future changes by Uber, is that the gap between Basic and Advanced is too big. This leads to a rush to Advanced, as these buildings and units practically invalidate their basic counterparts. Some contributing factors: Linear Upgrades: this has been discussed before many times and I'll leave these threads to it, the general idea is that most advanced units are just upgrades of basic counterparts. Strength of Basic turrets: Right now, it is really hard to crack open a base with basic units, making it relatively low risk for people to mostly ignore unit production, just mass econ, turret spam expansion aiming right for Advanced. Recoverability: With the large gap between basic and advanced, both in cost and production capacity (both for econ structures and factories) it makes it hard to recover should some of this get compromised. This creates a positive feedback system (cascading effect) on infrastructure, that is, the larger the gap between you, the faster the gap will grow. In my opinion, gaps in infrastructure (in other words, economic and production capabilities) should be useful for breathing room, not a game ender. Now for my proposal on helping these problems: Decrease cost of Advanced Factories - leave price of units alone, or increase them a bit: The purpose here is to blur the line for when you can/should go for advanced units and econ. I envision this causing much more mixing of basic and advanced, particularly in the early-mid game, where for example, you may decide to bring along a couple shellers with a big ball of scathis-troll-tanks in order to crack a bunch of turrets for cheap. Of course these could be a nice target for a few bombers or a dox flank to hit. Or perhaps a few vanguards along for the little radar boost. The point being is that they will be used sparingly at this point, slowly increasing in viability as the game progresses. And regardless, the dps per cost of basic units should always be better than advanced units. This means, if you can get away with it, a player should always try and use basic units to accomplish the goal. Circumstances when this will change is when dps per unit area is more important than dps per cost. I'm sure we've all seen the wall of turrets than can chew through a tank ball faster than the tanks can even get in range. This is where advanced would come in. Being able to output significant damage from a small area cover of units is needed to crack this. Turret redesign: I think turrets right now are a little too "one-man army-ish). These should be a support role for defending units I think. Not the total worthless levels of starcraft static defenses of course, just so that on their own, they are a nuisance, not a catastrophic encounter for whatever attacker dares enter in range. So to that end I would like to see: turret price increase turret range increase turret dps decrease (by quite a bit) The idea here is that they be used to bolster the damage output of a defending army, so that a smaller army can hold off a somewhat larger army, without making it impossible to crack. In high value areas overlapping arcs of fire (hence range increase) will make this a decent threat, while still allowing them to be used to cover a decent area around low-value expansions. They could be easily overwhelmed by a ball of tanks, but a handful of raiding dox will get torn apart. The high cost should make it slower and somewhat riskier to build these around expansions, as building too many of them will just attract the attention of a bunch of tanks and boom, wasted metal on turret builders part. Highly mobile armies of defensive bots would be very useful for evil surprises on attacking tank balls though. Advanced mex: right now are psycho turbo charged, very little risk Drastically increase cost decrease metal production. These should be built in areas you feel you can defend, as it will take a fair amount of time for them to pay for themselves. This will encourage raiding on outlying areas, if nothing else but to convince an oppenent not to build advanced mex there. If they do build them all over the place, well, juicy, boom. I also think this will encourage decentralized bases, so as not to put all eggs in one basket, so to speak. Planets that you solely control and have been turned into economic centers will turn into real lovely targets for KEW or drive-by nuking. In order to defend against this crippling a player, building on many planets will be wise, which will increase the spread of conflict, ideally with multiple fronts across multiple worlds. Few other tweaks: decrease cost of advanced energy a bit, decrease power generation respectively. I would like to see more of these around, with each one being somewhat less important so as to improve recoverability. Leaving solar array production alone, but making them really flimsy should make them more valuable, and hopefully increasing orbital fights. The idea here is to have a balance between flimsy, hard to defend but not land hungry orbital power vs less effective but easier to defend, land consuming ground based power. A proper balance here would help recovery of either if only one is compromised. Even if the direct linear upgrades for units remains, the large gap between basic and advanced in cost to dps ratio should make them used only in circumstances where the basic version just doesn't cut it. I think that's all for now, discussion: GO
I like the general direction of your suggestions (especially when it comes to the economy side of things). But Meta mentioned an issue with having such a "flat" balance that I agree on: You shouldn't have access to all units straight away. (This works in Zero K because there are so many different factories that you can't build all of them but in PA we have far less factory types and more economy.) I have not yet spent enough time thinking about this to propose a decent solution. Your proposal mitigates the problem a bit by having the advanced units be relatively expensive but I think the matter still needs some thought. What is your take on this ? (If reasons for having access to all units at start of the game being a problem are not clear I can elaborate..or someone else will do that before I am able to respond )
The units won't be available right from the start, just earlier, though in smaller numbers. And the tiers actually are flat now, and the proposed changes make it worse. You in fact have two flat tiers. Once you have advanced, there is no need for basic at all, hence my argument for a blurred transition. I still envision distinct tiers, there will just be more "mixing of the castes" so to speak. This is the problem with linear upgrades that has been bouncing around for awhile. The risk vs reward meta was arguing for (if I remember it right) was based on both infrastructure cost and unit cost. I want it based on unit cost only, with an econ nerf to actually make this relevant. By putting the risk on the units, it encourages the use of tactics early on, even full on micro of advanced units, and using your armies to their fullest extent. Then, as the scale of the game increases, so does the scale of the tactics and strategies so that the micro grows more and more into macro of vast armies. I know micro is a dirty word around here, and in general that is a good thing, however in early game, a little micro I think would liven things up a bit. Right now it is kinda dull. Other than a few raiding dox here and there, it just doesn't really happen. So ya, there's my long winded take on it lol
Given we give a fair shot, a real fair shot, to the plans with economy in the works already, whenever that build comes out... ...I also agree these should help a match play out better.
Hmm...so this increases the risk of using T2 units early in the game and decreases it over time. Which leads to making the risk<->reward gameplay more about your actions on the battlefield than your economic decisions which i am in favour of. But it also means that your army composition will stay the same throughout the whole game (in terms of T1 - T2 ratio) because you would simply scale up your production over the course of a match. It also means that individual T2 units have to be very effective at their task because of their high cost and their small numbers. This can be both good and bad...I need to think about this some more XD But I fully agree that T2 economy needs to be nerfed in a major way....the only benefit I see from the experiments is that it allows for T2 factories to be more expensive, therefore delaying the push to T2. Maybe the problem could be solved by nerfing the T2 economy but still INCREASING the cost for T2 factories. But having T2 units be specialized and relatively cheap (and fast to build). Therefore you would have few T2 factories that produce many T2 units. This delays the appearance of T2 but allows for a lot of T2 production later on. And it creates high value strategic targets that you need to defend and attack. So the gap between T1 and T2 is relatively small in terms of economy and unit power (T2 simply opens up more possibilities). But T2 would only arrive at a later stage of the game, creating some risk<->reward gameplay but avoiding to create a large gap between someone that went full on T2 and someone that is still at T1. And it also makes kind of sense to have T2 factories be more efficient at producing stuff than T1 (look at the size of these things !).
Funnily enough, the exact opposite is what needs to happen. T2 needs to have a high barrier to entry - like the current 5500+metal - but a low barrier to build more factories. This means keeping t2 unit costs DOWN, and also DECREASING their effectiveness. This way, they HAVE TO BE MIXED with t1 to be the most effective. Mind, you can certainly use them by themselves (sniper bots, for example), but most units should be most effective when paired with t1 cannon fodder. The reason for this is so the t1 units can do their job of eating enemy fire and taking down units, while the t2 units take out bigger targets, like other t2 units and buildings. You shouldn't be able to reach across the map and instantly kill your enemies' expansions and bases because you got t2 air. Honestly, I think T2 air needs to be regulated down to just advanced intel at this point.
That's why I think we should have expensive T2 factories but cheaper and more specialized T2 units. This creates a higher barrier of entry but allows for a lot of T2 production. Of course you would only have a few T2 factories produce a lot of units but it would make placing them a strategic position (you would only place them in areas you can defend easily, just like you would only place T2 mexes in areas that you don't expect to be raided). I think that's an elegant solution because else you have to do it like Uber and increase the income through T2 economy A LOT, therefore creating such a large gap between T1 and T2...which i don't like.
Ya, the most important part of my proposal in my opinion is the economic portion. The issue I have with a high barrier for entry is you also have a high barrier for re-entry should something go wrong, causing the cascading effect I spoke of earlier that I don't agree with. Would have to be tried out. Too bad Uber doesn't give us the ability to do "test balances" against the AI or other people running the same set of rules, let the community filter some of the good/bad ideas. Guess we'll have to wait for the server to be released for that.
ya I'm surprised they haven't gotten that out yet. for that matter, I'm surprised how quiet they've been lately.
Yeah, maybe give it one more day to hear something? Besides, they have been quiet lately, but they have had builds on stream, and also there is pax atm, and also there is often a gap between development work and releasing something. It has happened more than enough before for you to understand it by now.
But I want my builds served to me on silver platters when I want them Ya, I know they've done it before, doesn't stop me from getting impatient though lol
