"The Tanks felt Slow so we Sped Them Up"

Sorry, by that I meant "one power structure whose sole aim is to provide power". Ruling out any upgrades that provide more power. Because, y'know. Upgrades.

There's more than one way to balance a structure that gives power. Direct "upgrades" in terms of raw power gained per second can be balanced via inefficiencies in other areas; space taken, cost, vulnerability due to health, volatility... the list goes on.

You seem to be coming at this with some rather skewed preconceptions of what "flat-balance" actually means.

I have given up hope. The devs aren't changing their minds! Glad to know that we were lied to during the kickstarter campaign.

Looking forward to mods that have good balance!

That seems a little over the top and more than a little disingenuous. Nowhere in the KS was it explicitly stated that PA would rigidly stick to a certain balance axiom. That it's a spiritual successor to TA may have coloured our expectations some, but we were not lied to.

I would agree with @nanolathe
I wholly expect the game to be balanced pretty much to Uber's satisfaction, it just depends whether the type of balance is one that you want.
The Kickstarter said this would be a spiritual successor to TA and it is.

Lol... I literally don't get these threads. I... don't get it. There is nothing this thread says that hasn't been 2 other threads, there is nothing new I can reply with... I think I will just sit this and newer threads out. If Uber stays their course just to see how things go, I wouldn't blame them. Generally, I hope nobody would, but there will always be that extremist group that tries to recreate the Confederate Balancemods of PA. I am not speculating what direction this is going anymore, I am satisfied just letting work go the way it will on this.

Personally I think that attitude is just arrogant, but hey, it's typical of the egotistical nature of many people around university doing engineering, so I can't say they are surprised. They are "the pros" after all...

The forum (i.e. any means by which feedback can be given to Uber) is the population of the playerbase who are giving feedback to Uber though. So regardless of how much of the playerbase they are, they represent a random sample of the views of the players.

This discussion always comes up on forums. And I don't think it's a good attitude from the industry. Sure, players keep playing games. Because there isn't anything else. There are a bunch of games people who were not in industry created, that have since influenced the industry.

There's a proverb in Maori -
He aha te mea nui o te ao?
He tangata! He tangata! He tangata!
What is the most important thing in the world?
It is people! It is people! It is people!

If the playerbase is giving consistent feedback, maybe that should be listened to? It's not as if this forum is overly negative towards having a discussion. It's telling that I've pretty much disagreed at least once with the point of view of every user, and in the majority of cases people have responded to the discussion, not the person.

I don't know about the ability of the devs to identify the reason a problem is occurring, and implement a solution that addresses that problem.

Let's consider the T2 factory assist problem -

That happened because of this: https://forums.uberent.com/threads/pa-economy-factsheet-for-new-improving-players.52514/page-3

coupled with the fact that metal for metal, the T2 armies are more effective than their t1 counterparts

Gentlemen, some of these comments are starting to sound a little on the nasty side. I have my concerns as much as anyone, but there is no need to be unpleasant. Lets keep things civil.

Personally, I don't think it is arrogant. It is the thinking that comes from having a team of people who have decades of experience in this type of game, between them, several of which are considered excellent examples of the genre. So, yes, they kind of are "PROs", in a sense that they are all professionals who have worked in this industry and genre for many years. Not that I want to fall into the "appeal to authority" logical fallacy, I'm just saying.

And they haven't said "people won't like it so we'll do whatever we want", they have said "you can't please everyone, so we are picking a balance and refining it".
As a normal player, I like where the game is going. Also, don't forget that the vocal minority can skew the supposed consensus. I'm not saying that this is exactly what is happening here, but just suggesting that it's a possibility, and that lots of people will enjoy the style of gameplay that this balance offers - WHEN it is finalised.

As always, I'm waiting and seeing.

That's a definition of arrogance.

Yup I agree, sorry, I'll edit and I'll clarify further.

That post was made back when Slammers took 30 seconds to be built and 3 seconds to roll off.. So assisting a T2 bot factory with 23 fab bots gave you 266 build power on the factory. That meant the Slammer took 4 seconds to build, and 3 seconds to roll off.

Those numbers would be smaller if you were to perform the same analysis on 62165. The T2 Slammer costs 360, so it takes 10 seconds to build to begin with. 266 build power - 1.35 seconds to build, and 3 seconds to roll-off (during which 798 metal fills your storage).

The most efficient economic management in build 62165 is to spend 120 total on Slammers, so during the roll off time, you fill your storage to the same value it was filled to before. (The most efficient economic management is to keep your storage empty)

Technically, the most efficient way to manage your economy at T1 is to assist each t1 factory with 2.4 bot fabbers before building a new factory, after building 4 power gens (energy to run the fabbers) and 0.8571 powergens (the cost of the metal extractors)
But bot factories cost 1.33 power gens for the factory, 1.125pgs for the power, and 0.8571 powergens. So 2 bot factories would cost 4.91 "powergens" to build. 2.4 fabbers assisting 1 factory would cost 5.65 power gens.

You see why everyone builds t1 factories, instead of assisting them? It's cheaper.

The reason why assisting T2 factories is a problem is because if you're spending 120 metal on T2, and 120 metal on T1, T2 always wins.

The economic changes suggested in the PTE just don't need to be made, the economy is not the problem. The problem is that t2 invalidates t1. The solutions in the PTE haven't fixed the problem at all, because game pacing simply wasn't the problem, it was just a symptom of the problem.

I get that game pacing is a way of mitigating the problem. But it is also a way of making the balance completely invalid in a FFA

Really? Well it isn't this definition "an insulting way of thinking or behaving that comes from believing that you are better, smarter, or more important than other people"

When have Uber said "you guys are all idiots, we are obviously right"? Which is what you would expect from an arrogant team. Meta alone is the very antithesis of arrogant.
Meh, semantics, I just think you are being needlessly aggressive in the tone of that message.

Mm... I think you're reading too much into my tone (wrongly, I assure you).

Err... and yes, it is that definition. If the reasoning is "we're more experienced then our players at creating a game players want, so we'll disregard their feedback" (and the feedback is that the players don't want that game)..... how is that not arrogance?

I think that's the wrong reason to accredit to the Uber team.

I was under the impression that said things are still upgrades. You seem to be deliberately misinterpreting what I'm getting at, or maybe I'm not being clear again.

I was illustrating an upgrade in power as supposed to a sidegrade. If something provides 4 times as much power, but takes up 4 times the space taken and costs 4 times as much . . . it is not an upgrade. It is not a sidegrade. It is in fact a downgrade because a single structure lost means you lose 4 times the amount of power at once, instead of losing 1 power multiplier by having four independent Basic power structures.

If something provides 4 times as much power, but only costs 2 times as much, and only takes up 2 times as much space . . . it is an upgrade. Even if it has the same amount of health as a Basic structure (it would need significantly less health to balance out even one aspect of the structure, thus rendering it a completely ineffectual choice).

There are plenty of ways to balance a structure that provides more power. But in order for it to be used, it must be better than the Basic version. In some way. Otherwise no-one would pick it. Which is . . . what I thought you weren't a fan of.

EDIT: whups, this was meant to be an edit to the above post. Damnit.

They don't represent anything. The forum is not a microcosm of the entire playerbase. It is an elite, focused group, most of whom are familiar with how web forums work and have probably been on the Internet for a while.

There will be TA fans who maybe like the look of PA. Going on comments of articles I've seen on PA, there are a lot of SupCom fans (some of which moan about Experimentals, sod 'em). These people don't necessarily use the forums. These people will invariably have different opinions to certain groups on these forums.

And heck, I think I'm demonstrating well that the forums aren't united in their opinions. Why should Uber cater to this large group if it could negatively impact my game? I don't see myself pushing for vast changes that would alienate other players.

It's fantastically easy to skew a forum population in favour of a certain clique. You know how you do it? You get all of your friends, acquaintances and/or like-minded RTS fans and get them to join with you. There are people here who came directly from TA. There are others that haven't. It's pretty obvious to see where the groups are.

And telling them they have to listen to us . . . isn't arrogance?

What makes you, or anyone else on this forum, know more? Why do you assume that Uber have completely ignored all feedback, instead of taking it onboard and deciding it didn't fit with their vision of the game?

Wow. chill pill. Take one. Now.

End of conversation. You've missed my meaning.

I was perfectly calm

What meaning did I miss? Are you going to explain, or just dodge?

For it to be used it needs to be situationally better. That's what would make it a "specialist".

So yes, "in some ways" an advanced power generator, that provides more energy on a unit-to-unit level per area of space that it takes up, is much better than the basic tier... and in others, such as having enough (total) health on a metal-for-metal basis to survive a bombing run, exploding and taking out any nearby units and structures, having decreased cost-to-power efficiency, etc. it is situationally worse. Maybe it's the whole idea of what a specialists is that you're not accounting for? You seem to be under the impression that unless it's something no one would pick, then it's not really a sidegrade.


Sorry, but I'm really confused by your attitude.

I honestly don't get what attitude I'm giving you, but no worries.

I wasn't arguing sidegrades, I was demonstrating upgrades . . . there seems to be a lack of understanding all around here. Ah well, it was good while it lasted.

I'm perfectly aware you can make sidegrades. I was originally, and tried to keep on talking about, upgrades.

Ok. I don't what those. I think that in increased power output can be balanced by significant situational drawbacks to make it not a de facto "upgrade". I'll consider that an end to our conversation, since you don't want to talk about sidegrades.