PA will never be balanced

Discussion in 'Planetary Annihilation General Discussion' started by ikickasss, April 17, 2014.

  1. ikickasss

    ikickasss Active Member

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    I have liked every single stage and builds of the game so far because I just love the game. Some units needed some tweaking but you have to make with what is due. Have I had to adjust my strategies with each patch that has come out . YES. This game will never be balanced because balance is based on opinion. Some people will like the balance changes and some people will think they are OP and unplayable. The guys that say builds are unplayable really don't know how to play the game. I've won games on every build and its all about strategy and tweaking a build order to be good on that particular build. Guys are being too harsh with the comments and It has lead uber to take a step back from the community. Bottom line is I really enjoy playing this game and a RTS is about strategy. Meaning you make a strategy with what the developers give us. I just don't understand how some guys say there's no strategy. You collect money build your base make units and attack. ( there is tons of strategy in that) Sorry for my rant but I think alot of guys are being unfair to uber.
  2. cdrkf

    cdrkf Post Master General

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    I agree I don't think the balance is *that* bad and it's certainly playable. If anything it does promote particular play styles over others and I guess a 'better' balance would be one that opens up a wider variety of approaches to the game with different pros and cons. The tricky part though is how subjective this all is- hopefully Uber will find a compromise that most people are happy with.
    improvised1 and stormingkiwi like this.
  3. soliderfighter

    soliderfighter Member

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    Well I can somehow agree. But still there is still not much strategy in the game, when you play you're pretty much (on this high level or whatever) locked to one or two different strategies. If you do something else you will loose (unless your opponent isn't so good, but I'm talking about people in the top now). The game CAN be balanced (it just needs time and experiments (beter testing too)). Because most people agree on the same thing (Vanguards are op, turrets too cheap etc.). Some are more important than others.
    And right now it's the first person who can reach t2 wins (almost)..... Anyway.

    I can agree that the community is a bit unfair to Uber, BUT almost every single game company with beta games and even released games get "punished" for such things. So it's just as many other communties.

    So I think we should keep posting this stuff (because we all know it helps and if we don't say anything uber won't do anything about it), Maybe we can post less about it and let uber have less to think about, I'm not sure...
    stormingkiwi likes this.
  4. Devak

    Devak Post Master General

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    Less provocatie and more useful (and true) thread title please
    stormingkiwi likes this.
  5. igncom1

    igncom1 Post Master General

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    Can we make navy and land units op by default then?

    That would be cool by me.
  6. thelordofthenoobs

    thelordofthenoobs Well-Known Member

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    I want Unit Cannons to be op, plz.
  7. igncom1

    igncom1 Post Master General

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    .................The tank or the transportation?
  8. superouman

    superouman Post Master General

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    PA was, is and will be perfectly balanced because there is only one race. Every match is a mirror match-up.
    At best, what the OP can say is, at worse, only a small pool of strategies will be viable.

    Look at other RTS with mirror match-ups, they all have very dominant strategies and small amount of used units.

    What PA should do is to give players the largest pool of strategies by giving players units that are not stuck in a unique role.
    Last edited: April 17, 2014
  9. BulletMagnet

    BulletMagnet Post Master General

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    Under PA will always be balanced.

    Oh gosh darn it. My Internet reset while I was typing a nice response out and I lost it all because I had to log back in.

    Anyhow, @superouman has succinctly said what I unsuccessfully wrote. The evidence needed to say the bucket-of-strategies is either full or empty comes from unit usage stats from many many games. Usage stats are important because it will hint at if the developer time and backer money used to create the units was wisely invested.

    Uber should have access to that data. It's a matter of displaying the information in an accurate and useful was so that they can say "Holy ****. All people ever do IS rush Advanced Power and spam Shellers."

    [PS] @ikickasss, is your Enter key broken? Paragraphing is a virtue.
  10. thetrophysystem

    thetrophysystem Post Master General

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    No game is balanced where every player likes it.

    Some games are balanced but some things reliably work and after high advertizement of the strategy it is overused and highly demanded to nerf.

    Some games are obviously unbalanced and when nerfs come they nerf something some people got working but not even broken. Like nerfing model '87 shotgun range but not touching the holy grail of noskill aka the ump45. Well, both were broken, but one was a one hit wonder while the other was a neverending killplow.

    This game could, really could, support viable strategies. Would they all be the exact same strength? Arguably. Would it be fact that when people play one way, they sometimes lose to a different way? Hopefully.

    Like, air is broken in this game. But, if someone stockpiles nothing but air, while someone else went no air at all, and the air guy would spend every last single air unit with few kills and eventually loses, then air would either be balanced or underpowered. If blobs of them against a neglectful player guts a base and wins a game, or if land snipers clear flak or stingers, its definitely balanced.
    stormingkiwi likes this.
  11. nightbasilisk

    nightbasilisk Active Member

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    Well I would think with that kind of attitude it sure as hell won't be.

    You cant evenly piss off everyone on the planet. It's really really hard to do!

    You're either going to piss of the majority or a minority. If the majority is not pissed at the game balance/direction then job well done; don't see where there's any matter of opinion here. And no, just to be clear, the entire forum and Reddit and whatever can be pissed that's not (necessarily) an indication that the majority is unhappy. The only people that matter are the people in the game playing.

    -

    As far as I'm concerned fake positive is worse then negativity. Since you're much more likely to drop the game when the act gets old or there's nobody in the room to be the "positive beacon of hope" to. At least those of us that are "not pleased" with the way of things are going will potentially force our way though mods, gentlemen agreements and other nonsense.
  12. KNight

    KNight Post Master General

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    I do not agree with the line of reasoning here.

    Equal Acess is NOT the same thing as Balanced.

    Mike
  13. thetrophysystem

    thetrophysystem Post Master General

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    I just argue that, after balancing is done, between costs and strengths and uses and all that...

    ...that a player should amass t1 armies and win sometimes, and sometimes lose against artillery players, sometimes lose against t2 heavy players (ofc not solid t2 just t2 use in ecosnipes and such), sometimes lose against early harassment players, sometimes lose against orbital flourish players, sometimes lose to any blend of 2 or more of those in lesser quantities.

    Magic the Gathering is like that. Some deck colors win to some more often, lose to some more often, it is hard to argue you can't ever win against one color using another, and then there are dual-color, multi-color, and "colorless" or "all-color".

    I want this game to be played with powerplays of 1 tech type and terrain type, power plays of a counter-build upon scouting someone, "balanced" build utilizing all techs, strategic attacks using whatever tech at hand to make successful attacks on key targets. I want to see people use t2 heavily utilized in areas of it's strengths, just as much as people amass t1, just as much as people opt for base-related attack weapons, just as much as people utilize combos of ground t1 and t2 and air t1 and t2 all in the same blob as to be competitive against all units equally while having at least 1 type of unit to exploit any weakness.

    Imagine gunships and peregrines over top of gile and stingers right now? That is the current build's depection given un-balance. In more ideal balance, imagine gunships, hummingbirds, and peregrine, over top of ants, vanguards, levelers, shellers, stingers, combat fabbers, and bot fabbers, all moving in as one structured multi-row of attack, smashing all terrains at once as it wipes across an area of enemy territory clearing it thoroughly.
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  14. KNight

    KNight Post Master General

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    Imagine if you didn't read into things I never said. I never said anything that should have triggered that rambling, I only said that we should not consider PA "Balanced" just because both players have equal access to Over and Under powered units.

    Mike
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  15. phantomtom

    phantomtom Active Member

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    What if the game need`s 2 year`s of balanceing to be perfect. Heck, simsalabim... Done!
  16. eroticburrito

    eroticburrito Post Master General

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    First off, balance is not a matter of opinion.
    There are dominant styles and strategies because those strategies are more efficient. If one or two specific strategies are consistently dominant, something is off.

    Whether you notice or dislike those dominant strategies is what is subjective.
    When people say 'unplayable' they usually mean they aren't having fun, and therefore don't see any point in learning the dominant strategy. This is because gameplay is repetitive.
    Having a balanced game means there are multiple paths to victory.

    I enjoy playing Planetary Annihilation for Robots, and the Annihilating of Planets. Missiles and Air/Orbital are only interesting in so far as they influence ground game-play for me. There's my bias.
    That's why I don't play the current builds a lot - I came here to zap robots and smash planets, not only build 200 Fabricators and make Nukes.
  17. tilen

    tilen Member

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    Now that you've mentioned the unit cannon I have to share my opinion with the webz: I hate the idea. I hated how it worked in Supreme Commander 2 (although I hated the whole game for that matter).

    I like having front lines, especially in large scale games like this. I want the enemy to go through my forces, whether it be by crushing or evading them somehow (think sneaky transports), but it has to be something that involves risk and effort.

    I really dislike the idea of someone spewing units behind my line of defense.
  18. KNight

    KNight Post Master General

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    Just to make sure we're all on the same page here, but you are aware that the UnitCannon was initially intended as an InterPlanetary Transport tool right?

    While it might function in a similar manner to the Noah from SupCom2 it's overall usage has very different reasoning behind it.

    Mike
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  19. mered4

    mered4 Post Master General

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    If by *never be balanced,* you mean they'll never will sit back and say, 'yep. That's perfect,' you'd be right.

    But it appears you are addressing those on the forum who call this patch 'broken,' 'unfun,' and 'frustrating.'

    Which it is. Is it unplayable? nah. That was early alpha :D

    Please, if you are going to disagree with someone, please ask them about it. Don't post general threads about groups of people.
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  20. tilen

    tilen Member

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    In both cases it performs the same function. If it were only to be a harmless transport method, then restrictions would need to be applied. Or maybe I'm missing something.

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