Risk vs Reward

@StormingKiwi: technically, in a theoretical sense, a way to counter Titans would be to perform enough economic harassment that it makes building one impossible.

However, that would only work if the game design allowed for successful, long-term economic harassment and the economics involved in building one only really made building a Titan possible after a (large) resource barrier had been crossed.

I don't think that was the case.

EDIT@Nullimus: there's also a third reason, tied somewhat to modding.

"listen to us" is misleading. Who is "us"? Which majority faction does Uber listen to? Which voice out of a conglomeration of loudest voices does Uber concede ground to?

Even assuming everyone here is a master-class games designer, every one of those skilled individuals is going to have a differing vision for the game. No-one is ever going to be fully-satisfied. So why does Uber have to pick a specific direction?

To put another spin on your point.

Late game on large planets or multiple planet systems, even with lots of economic harassment, economies are incredibly large.

So it's easy to stop everything and quickly pump out one (or tons) of... whatever. Nukes. Halleys. Gunships. Titan/Experimental/Mega Unit.

(which makes balancing quite the nightmare. er. I mean challenge.)

"listen to us" is misleading. Who is "us"? Which majority faction does Uber listen to? Which voice out of a conglomeration of loudest voices does Uber concede ground to?

Even assuming everyone here is a master-class games designer, every one of those skilled individuals is going to have a differing vision for the game. No-one is ever going to be fully-satisfied. So why does Uber have to pick a specific direction?

The "Us" is all the people who feel that the game is lacking diversity and would like to see a less linear progression. I am not claiming to represent everyone in that group even if it does come off that way. Uber listened to "Us" back in Alpha when the experimental discussion was going on. However. they do not seem to be listening to "Us" at this time.

As for the orginal question, I'd probably stop playing as it sounds annoying. Such risk/reward structure is not interesting for me; I'm not a gambler.

T2 can be more cost-effective than T1, and give more expensive and powerful units, in addition to more specialized units. That's probably necessary, because if everyone used million dox in the endgame, it would likely kill the servers. But the difference in utility per metal should not be more than, say, 10-20%. That means everyone would still convert to T2 as the game goes on, but it would not cause huge jump in power, and there would be a phase where both are viable.

Uber is not listening to us ?

Why does this topic exist then ?

It was made by an Uber employee in response to our concerns and in an attempt to explain the reasoning behind the direction they are experimenting with (we have no real idea what kind of balance we will end up with..these were simply experiments).

So they are DEFINITELY listening to us.

And they are trying to solve the issues we are worried about (else they wouldn't try to explain why those won't be present in what they are trying to do).

This is a complicated matter and there are many different opinions about it. I am not convinced that those experiments lead into the right direction, either.

But starting to act unfairly towards Uber by claiming that they don't listen to us will not help to solve this issue.

If you have valid concerns and solutions you believe to be helpful, then write them in the forums..but don't start hating if Uber does not do exactly what you want.

I think most of the discussion about the direction Uber seems to take should be postponed till after the next balance patch because we will have a more clear picture of what they are trying to do then (and we will be able to test it).

Meanwhile we should only discuss what we ourselves believe to be the best way to balance the game..WITHOUT attacking Uber.

This is not accurate.

It is true that there are many games where the notion of overpower your enemy with sheer brute force is a valid strategy. It is however also true that most of those games, or at least the good ones, don't seek out that possibility as a end-all-be-all in the gameplay, because if they did, then automatically the game is a gg as soon as say someone starts a metal extractor a little faster then the other guy.

What generally happens, at a theoretical level at least, is games try to balance towards a "david and goliath" anology. You can be the goliath and if you're in that position you have less thinking to do, or you can be the david (be it by choice or if say you fell behind) and you have a lot of potential kill off your opponents superior forces with superior strategies (this doesnt even need to imply swapping of roles; though many players prefer to end up in the goliath role). The strategies in this case are not necessarily riskier strategies either, just strategies that require more information gathering, micro, map awareness or some other skills rather then say something as pure macro.

Getting back to your point: the only fail state in a match is usually a player getting killed, it is not the power difference between players, even though in many games like starcraft because a lot of the pro players have essentially trained themselves to a pure "goliath" build, they will quit the game instantly when they end up in the david position.

Yes, "theoretically". However, if you've played Sins, you'll know that the game design makes economic harassment a very slow process, mobility is also a slow process, logistics also.


The problem with the Titan is that it forces the opponent have a greatly superior fleet to your Titan, to the extent that it is more efficient just to build your own Titan. I mean, it could be a mechanic to force your opponent to group together his capital ships into one big fleet (which often means, in singleplayer vs AI battles, group most of the capital ships you own into one supermassive fleet)

At the end of the day, you'll know that the inclusion of Titans breaks the game because they are so powerful, to the extent that it really is Titan duels after a certain point.

That's the problem with megabots that our community is so concerned about.

Also, countering by "preventing the scenario from occurring" is not a counter. It's a strategy game. The purpose of a strategy game is for you to have a way of dealing with the situations when the sticky brown stuff makes physical contact with the rotating air circulatory device. This isn't a Battle Arena. It's strategy.

I have done some thinking about why I do not like tech levels which cause previous levels to become obsolete. It is an interesting piece of reflection because the preference feels too complicated and high level for it to just be a basic opinion that I happen to have. I like to balance risk vs reward so it must be to do with the type of risk or the type of reward.

This is hard to describe but I think I dislike tech obsolescence because it screens off the part of the game which was played with the previous tech level. Once your new tech level is established your old factories and units are significantly reduced in value so the past has less importance. Perhaps in some sense the context set up by the low tech game is lost. Teching may be a complexity bottleneck, your efforts in the early game are in some sense summed up by your ability to reach a higher tech level so a lot of information is lost.

In actual gameplay the transitional period between tech levels may be quite long, in this case the bottleneck is not so bad. Additionally the effect will be related to the difference in power between tech levels. Gaining access to units which are like your old ones but better does not make the battle feel like it is progressing. In some sense the game has gone backwards as you must now build up the infrastructure and units at your new tech level. This effect was quite noticeable in BA as fighting would almost halt for a few minutes while everyone completed their tech (defense prevented taking advantage of this).

Opportunities for risk vs reward and game progression can be provided without obsolescence teching. More advanced technology can support your main army to multiply its effectiveness or let it do specialized things which it could not previously do. The difference here is that your main army does not become obsolete so the game does not pass through a complexity bottleneck. The new technology can slot into your forces without replacing them. The aim here is to keep the past relevant, the arrival of new technology should not screen off the effects of assets gained up until that point.

A good way to implement this advanced technology is to give it glaring weaknesses or pure utility value. I know that PA will not have shields but they are a great example of a way to support an army. We could have a large artillery unit which needs protecting from mobile units. We could have experimentals but they need weaknesses which necessitate including smaller units.

The 'I Win' button in the OP actually sounds reasonable from the point of view of obsolescence. The act of winning always screens off the rest of the game, once you have won it does not matter how you did so. In the context of this post such a unit is fine because it is effectively a victory condition. The low tech units will be used throughout the game to reach this goal.


Now for a short point unrelated to the rest of what I said. Economy efficiency and unit efficiency are both lumped into the same upgrade. This seems wrong to me as they are distinct choices for investment so splitting their technology would at least give people more choice.

I have the feeling that @metabolical perceives our pain and struggles. And this thread had the purpose to collect a more thoughtful feedback from the Community. At Uber they are surely struggling as well for giving an edge to the game, specially considering the very short time frame from now to release.

If so, I believe that this very thread can help the Devs in taking the right decisions. Whatever they will be.

So far, it has been a very interesting reading.

We do have valid concerns. We have been posting solutions for this dynamic in dozens of different threads including this one.

With every patch we get closer to the final version of the game before release. And the momentum against adjustment becomes more entreanched. We cannot continue to simply say, "The game is not finished yet." when discussing changes that we want to see in the game.

Here are some of the solutions that have been suggested:

--Remove direct upgrade units.
--Focus the role of T2 around supporting the core T1 army not obsoleting it. This can be accomplished by adding stealth unit types, radar jamming units, and mobile anti orbital units, to name a few.
--Reduce the scale of the T2 economy.
--Make the transition to T2 less jarring.
--Add utility to the T2 economic structures, IE: built in defensive turrets, instead of gross production multiplication.
--Reduce clutter at the orbital layer.

There are several more. These, in my opinion, would do the most for the game.

I so agree with you! Unfortunately what you're asking requires designers at Uber to realize entirely new units and models to add in game. And I'm afraid that they might be too busy with the Custom Commanders at this time, to do so.

If you take a look at the forums you will find that I am one of the people who have concerns and who have been trying to find solutions.

No one denies that there are problems right now (that includes Uber).

But your post came off as a bit aggressive towards Uber, although Uber has recognized these problems and Meta is directly talking to us about these problems.
And that's what I believe to be unfair. I have no problem with community members posting what they believe to be the best solution.



Here is the essence of what I am currently in favour of:

• Scale down T2 economy to only give a small advantage over T1 economy. T2 metal extractors and power generators should take a long time to pay for themselves and should therefore only be constructed in areas that are defended well and be high value strategic targets.
• T2 units should complement T1 units and give you more options. At least most of them should be ineffective in direct combat against T1 units and therefore need a T1 army to support for them to reach maximum efficiency.
• T2 factories should be expensive but produce T2 units relatively quickly. T2 units themselves are relatively cheap. This allows for a decent amount of T2 production without having to scale up the T2 economy as much as in Uber's experiments. T2 factories are expensive but each one produces quite a lot of units, meaning that you have lots of T2 units and a few strategically placed T2 factories. This makes them high value strategic targets for you to defend and attack.

Because of the high price of each T2 factory, there is a risk to building one (especially the first one) which delays the appearance of T2 on the battlefield and still holds the essence of what Uber wants to do with T2 while removing the huge jump from T1 to T2.
Not only would the T2 units need support from T1 units but the cost of the factories and the scaled down T2 economy would force a more gradual "transition" to a larger T2 production. No large jumps here.

Therefore should be possible for a T1 player to fight against a T2 player a lot more easily with this proposal and the whole game should become more interesting in my opinion.

What you're saying here is that it will be now the player who step up into T2 to be disavantaged for one or two minutes (or even more). But once his T2 eco finally will catch up, again we have a player highly advantaged against one who's not.

It would still be imbalance. The game will still feel like gambling.

On the other hand, if we bring the metaphor proposed by @metabolical at its opposite extreme, we could make the upgrade to T2 effortless, and with little reward, but the extension of the strategies you could adopt on the battlefield. We can obtain that doing what @Nullimus among many proposed: units variety in place of units 'upgrades.

Now, if your opponent starts moving T2 units at your gate and find yourself unprepared, you will have the chance to step up as well in a very short time and doing so countering his new strategies with new strategies of yours.

Of course this will favor players with higher strategical skills and not players with a method for victory though timely upgrades. In short we would have an open game in opposition to a game that has an ideal solution: upgrade at the right moment.

As I have stated in one of my previous posts you do not want T2 to have flat better economy because that automatically makes entire T2 better than T1. Either make it that T2 has no better economy at all or have the better economy function differently and provide drawbacks. Also what you are missing is the fact that there should be not T2 strategies that T1 is powerless against, like the nuke.

In the balance experiments (and to some extent even in the current build) there was an even greater disadvantage to upgrading to T2. And afterwards the T2 player has an even greater advantage than in my proposal.
All my proposal does, is reducing those effects. A LOT.

If T2 is essentially accessible whenever you want (meaning it is accessible nearly from the beginning of the game), why have T2 at all ?
We could just have a single "tier" and have all strategies available from the very beginning.

I am open to playing with some different ideas as to how to differentiate T1 and T2 economy.
I did not want to stray too far from what we currently have, however, since Uber seems to like some kind of upgrades and I think having T2 economy only give some slight boosts in areas which you have fortified is acceptable (because it makes raids in these areas more effective and satisfying...and extractor that was quickly put up in the open is not worth as much as one that is at the heart of the enemy's base).

And I agree that T2 should not give any uncounterable advantage over T1, else you force the tech race again.

Because it's hard to handle, and before you can put it into valid strategies you need to understand what it can actually do for you. Not because everyone can get it if they're lucky enough to rush T2 before their opponents (think about FFA with multiple single players).

This way we reward experience against the blindness execution of what gives you the highest chance of victory. Also we will have multiple strategies and not one single direction to play the game.

T2 should add deepness to the gameplay. Not fix it into one way path.

Here is as possible way to give T1 something to help deal with a nuke. Allow the deep space radar to identify ground zero for a nuke attack starting the moment it is launched. This will give units some time to clear the blast zone and will avoid the nuke being made invalid by a T1 anti nuke launcher.

Other wise a player should be considering nuke vulnerability as they expand and build their base. Avoid creating sweet spots like tightly packed production and economic structures. Keep your commander moving and don't let your units sit idle for too long.

You don't need to tell me that T2 should not be stronger but provide more strategic options because I have been arguing for that myself

The point is that having all strategies available essentially from the beginning can create lots of problems.
Think about vanguard drops at minute 5 and so on. (In a decent balance vanguard drops probably wouldn't be as op but similiar things could still happen).

I see why Meta wants more units to become available only later in the game.

That's why I want a T2 factory to be relatively expensive.
Of course you need to be rewarded for that investment, so the additional roles unlocked by T2 units need to be helpful. This doesn't mean that T2 units are outright stronger than T1 units but an army with T1 AND T2 will obviously be more effective than a simple T1 army.
This would be balanced by the mixed army being smaller than the pure T1 army due to the resource investment.

In the long term the player that advanced T2 will obviously be at a considerable advantage, but it will take some time for him to get there and he might even be weaker at first (because the T2 economy will not give him 12 times as many resources...giving him his investment back in a few seconds..but instead he will profit from his new abilities over the course of a few minutes in which he might lose some territory if he was not careful).

This will lead to some risk->reward gameplay but the risk as well as the reward happen mostly on the battlefield.
It all depends on whether the player that goes T2 can defend with his forces against the T1 player and whether the T2 player can actually use his T2 units effectively because the new unit roles will be his main advantage.
No sudden economy boosts.

If the T1 player does not start going T2 himself or is not able to gain any ground, the T2 player will win..but then he is the better player anyways. The T1 player has every chance to decide the game for himself in this situation.
Even after the T2 player has gone T2.

Every loss the T2 player takes (especially in terms of (T2) metal extractors) will hurt him all the more.

This might not all sound logical because I am too lazy to explain it very well but I feel like this is the best compromise between having 2 Tiers and having essentially only a single Tier (which Uber does not seem to want).

The risk to go T2 should simply be that if you do not know how to use it, you will eventually complicate things for yourself and lose efficiency. In other words, you will spend metal on units that you can't use at their full potential.

While staying in T1 should allow players simpler tools of war, easier to understand and handle, with less strategical options of course, but still able to deliver damage to a disorganized T2.

It's the only way I can think that would avoid a mandatory rush into T2. Because if T2 is more effective no matter what, even slightly, and specially in matter of economy, everyone will just rush T2, or they will lose.

It's really as simple as that.

A prove that T2 is victorious over T1 no matter what strategy you adopt, it's the Nuke. There is no counter to nukes from T1. But it's not the only example.

ps. Vanguards drops are so OP because T2 is expensive and need a proper reward. You make T2 cheaper and the problem disappears.

An example of how it could work.

T1 includes already a simple, multipurpose tank, as well as it's equivalent on legs, the Dox. It could include a mobile artillery as well, with wider range than a tank or a bot, and able to fire in arc to counter Turrets.

Now, turrets have a wider range than tanks and bots, but not mobile artillery. However, none of those units can actually see that far, therefore none of them can fire at the extension of their full range, unless you send other units as cannon fodder in front of the turrets. Or keep building radars close to the enemy lines.

T2 could include a mobile radar, or an AWACS, able to provide radar coverage and/or sight, so that mobile artillery could finally out range turrets.

Really, it's not that complicate.

Now, let's give the mobile radar the cost of few T1 units, and you will see that essentially the two strategies are similar in scope and initial investment, where the one offered by T2 is more elegant (also it will save you some metal in the long run). But players who do not understand how to mix mobile artillery with mobile radar will lose efficiency. Wasting metal on something that will not make his attacks any better. While a less experience players, sending cheaper units to get vision, will still be able to compete.

Also, players who stick on T1 will likely focus on getting rid of the expensive units like the mobile radar, to regain an edge on the battle. Which will allow them a very simple counter to T2. They will have to spend some metal on this, anyway, likely sacrifing units to get to the target.

On the other hand, making a T2 economy so strong, and a T2 production so expensive, creates a mandatory push for all players to rush T2 as ultimate strategy. And that's plain boring because the one who gets there first, ultimately wins.