Direct Upgrades are AWESOME

Provocative Title: Check !

Ohh...someone is here already

Hello there !

Take a seat please.

Ahh...more people are coming. Hellooooooo !

No.
No no ! NONONONONONO !
Please put down the pitchforks for a second !

Ok...for a minute actually. Or two...

Now that you all have arrived, a grim look on your face, having a firm grip on your pitchfork, ready to put down the heretic and burn him at the stake, I can begin to enlighten you and tell you a tale of the eternal struggle between T1 and T2 !

A Game Of With Direct Upgrades

The topic of direct upgrades is firmly related to actual combat units, of course, but before we turn our loving gazes on those, lets take a look at the economy side of things.

In the land of metal extractors and energy generators, direct upgrades already exist.
And at least when it comes to metal extractors, we are currently experimenting with a solution that pleases me and seemingly many others:
While T2 extractors are a direct upgrade over T1 extractors (they are better in every single way), I like them (in the PTE).
This is strange, as I have been amongst those that oppose the idea of having said upgrades.

But let's take a closer look at the situation in the PTE build:
T2 extractors are better than T1 extractors in all but one aspects (I lied !).
Their cost.
They cost more and since their sole purpose is to produce metal, they are utterly useless till they have paid for their own cost. And since they take so much longer to pay for themselves than T1 extractors, we cannot build them everywhere if we don't want to lose.
We only build them if we expect to live long enough to reap the profits of the considerable investment they are and if we can defend the extractors themselves until we reach that point.
Therefore, we only build them on well defended metal spots if we are in relatively good shape and if we are under pressure, we might choose not to build them at all, because instead of building a metal extractor, we might build an army that can defend us, allowing us to survive for those 2 minutes it would take the metal extractor to pay off.

Therefore, although the extractors are a direct upgrade, it is a strategic decision if, when and where we build them (I too, like to waste my time on the balance forums).

Reference to Meta: Check !

But since metal extractors are not combat units and combat units generally don't produce metal in any direct way, you might raise your pitchfork ask how this would work for such units.

Let me tell you:

T2 units can be better in every single way than T1 units just like the metal extractors are.
But they can still be specialized.
Let me put the following bold statement in bold letters:

A Direct Upgrade can be a Specialization in itself.

Because the only disadvantage of T2 units would be their cost, just like it was for the metal extractors.
And just like you wouldn't build T2 extractors everywhere because they are not cost effective for every situation (therefore making even those kind of specialized) you wouldn't build only T2 units all the time if they were not cost effective in every situation.

If T2 units are direct upgrades but less cost effective in terms of HP / Damage per metal, they are inferior to T1 units in many situations but still highly useful if used properly.

Because when choosing which units to build (=which tools to choose for a certain task), all that actually matters, is how effective those units can accomplish this task.
And efficiency is determined by how much damage you do vs how much it will cost you.

So, if T1 units are generally more cost effective but inferior to T2 units, it won't make sense to send out pure T2 armies in most cases, because they will be shreddered by any T1 army that costs the same.

Just like T2 extractors, T2 units will have to live longer than T1 units to make up for their higher cost.

E.g. a Leveller that has high range and does a lot of damage will be killed by a number of Ants Alleged Tanks UTC-8s Unit Cannons SCREW IT .... that cost the same as the Leveller.
But in a larger army T2 units might be useful if there are enough "cannon fodder" T1 units that allow them to live long enough to do a decent amount of damage because they can kill enemy units and structures more quickly, therefore reducing the amount of damage per second that you receive faster.

In situations where you need a lot of damage concentrated on a small area and units that can sustain a decent amount of damage (so they can shoot back before being killed) such as when you assault heavily defended fortifications or attack a commander, armies that consist purely of T2 units might make sense (but they are still vulnerable to the occasional T1 army that might be in the neighbourhood).

When you have 40 Air/Orbital transports, you might choose to drop 40 T2 units instead of T1 units behind enemy lines because they will do more damage than T1 units.
But this is a case of risk vs reward.
If you send T2 units, it will hurt you all the more if they get shot down on the way there or if they encounter any kind of strong resistance (especially if there is a large T1 army there ).


As you can see, T2 units can be specialized, even if they are a direct upgrade when you look at the numbers.
As long as they are less cost effective than T1 units (again when looking at the numbers) and as long as metal actually matters (which should be all the time).

Therefore you would still keep up a large T1 production even if you can produce T2 units because those can only be used to support T1 armies and conduct special operations effectively, which is what most of us that call for specialization want, I guess.

Because the last thing I would want (and many others will probably agree) is that we "transition" from T1 to T2 in a way that means that we stop producing a certain kind of T1 unit in favour of producing a T2 unit instead (which is what most people probably fear when it comes to "direct upgrades").

One thing I feel that lots of people are unclear on. A direct upgrade is something that if given an option between a unit and it's upgrade, you would get the upgrade 100% of the time. A sidegrade is a unit that wont be taken 100% of the time.

This is wrong. A direct upgrade is just a better choice every single time.

People need to stop being binary when talking about upgrades and sidegrades. Things can be somewhere in the middle.

When people talk about "Direct Upgrades" they usually mean that a T2 unit works in the same way as a T1 unit but is better when you look at the stats.
People often don't take into account the effects of the cost of T2 units and how that affects their role.

To push the discussion a bit more in that direction, I made this thread.

So yes, the vocabulary might be wrong but everyone should be able to understand what I mean.

Yeah, and they too often misuse the term "direct upgrade".

I think what the vocal majority (including me) want to say is something along the lines of "the current balance is too swayed towards upgrades over sidegrades. Even though t1 units can still be used later in the game, they take too much effort and there are too few situations when you can efficiently use them."

As I've said before, Cost is not a mitigating factor when considering if a unit is a side-grade or not. Cost (both in time taken to produce and metal invested) merely defines the amount of "work" the unit must perform to pay for itself.

Invasion of the Vanguards ! Vanguards OP ! NERF VANGUARDS !!
Someone get me some T3 turrets !

I am not talking about how those units would be sidegrades.
They are not.

I am simply stating that T1 units can be more effective in most situations (due to their metal efficiency) than T2 units without making T2 units useless.

Therefore they will have slightly different roles than T1 units which is probably the best we can get because:

As we all know, we won't get a game where there are only sidegrades so we need to talk about how we can turn upgrades into something acceptable.

Simply saying that we don't want upgrades won't be productive as we can see from Meta's thread.
It simply annoys the developers but doesn't change their mind (they have stated so many times that they know we want sidegrades...why do we state it over and over again ?).
They seem to believe that we are only a minority and out there there are many times as many people that want upgrades instead of sidegrades.

Maybe they are right..I don't know.
But the devs act like it and therefore we need to try to make the best of this situation.

We need to find a compromise with which most people can live, therefore we need to think outside of our box.

And if most people like upgrades, we need to talk about how we can mitigate their negative effects.

And yes...I would prefer sidegrades, too....

Suppose you've got a T1 unit which has 40 dps, and cost 100 metal. The T2 has the same characteristics, but better dps (say 80 dps), double health, but costs 250 metal. Which one is the better choice?

You can make 2 T1 units, getting the same dps, for the cost of 200 metal. However, depending on the situation, the T1 will perform better (read: when both units are still alive, they're more cost effective), or the T2 will perform better (being one unit, it's dps will not be halved when reaching 50% of health).

That math isn't really fair. You're not comparing them on equal terms. Think of it this way, what would be better 2 of your T2 tanks(500 metal) or 5 of the T1 Tanks(500 metal)?

Mike

Then this isn't a "direct upgrade"
There isn't a problem with differences in cost efficiency with a change in health density. That is by definition a sidegrade.
What we are arguing against is more like this:
Suppose you've got a T1 unit which has 20 dps, and cost 100 metal. The T2 has the same characteristics, but better dps (say 80 dps), double health, but costs 250 metal. Which one is the better choice?

^ that represents current basic vs advanced balance. The one that you initially described sounds darn close to PERFECT. I would LOVE IT if advanced tanks were like that; they are not.

Note that this thread refers mostly to the PTE build.

There, T2 units cost 4 times as much as they do in the stable build and are therefore less cost efficient than T1 units.

Since we will probably get that soon in the stable build, we might want to argue more about how that works.

Ha yes, you're right, I've missed one variable, which is the construction time, and that is currently bound to the metal cost. (see https://forums.uberent.com/threads/why-can-turrets-be-built-so-fast.59295/#post-923939).

If units had more ways to interact, you wouldn't have to worry about creating an entire game from pure stat lines.

A point of cost to consider...

If I am at 100% efficiency, then it doesn't matter if that T2 cost are large compared to T1s. If I have the Eco to build it I will build it. This is what happened with Experimental s. It didn't matter that they cost more, the point was if I spammed them everything died.

This game only real limiting factor is Metal. Energy is easy to come by because you can build it where ever when ever, but Metal is only found some places some times.

Especially in later games when your running +500 metal who cares that the T2 tank cost 450 vs 2 T1 tanks at 400. I'll spam the T2 tank thank you.



Side grades are the only way to deal with this in a good balanced way, otherwise your always going to obsolete the base line units. ( unless you start putting in other limiting factors... Unit cap, Faber cap, control cap etc )

That's the point. There should NEVER EVER be the point where you have more metal than you can spend.

Because as you said, then it simply is about producing the "strongest" units as fast as possible and all strategy is essentially gone.

You've never actually said why though. You just say it like it's a proven fact.

I have asked at least twice, I think, on the why. Maybe it's really obvious and I'm missing something :/

You have learned to title your threads well from Metabolical, huh? They don't call him that for nothing...

That being said, I don't think there is a problem with direct upgrades, but this game was beloved for t1 units so, direct upgrades or not, the game should balance around mass production of t1 units. Direct upgrades can still exist as long as they are used with t1 or in density specific attacks.

But it is a shade of grey. What he is saying, is that the leveler is a better ant, but the ant is more cost effective.

So the leveler is an ant with multiplied stats, and the price of the ant compels you to build it 80% of the time.

People already build dox with gil-e army, I hear it is so there is a bulk of waste units, so when shooting happens the dox popcorn and not the gil-e. Even against other gil-e, if their gil-e pop 20 waste dox of yours and your gil-e pop their gil-e, then 14 of your gil-e can beat 20 of their gil-e, and the difference of 6 gil-e is the value of what, 50 dox, given PTE costs?

A VANGUARD THAT AGREES WITH MEEEEEEE <3

*Celebration*

I am just both quoting other players I discuss with, and am stating that it would be a SHORT TERM VICTORY if we just used the balance levers we have to make the levelers/peregrine/hornet/slammer as well as literally every t2 unit "correctly balanced" and make them inferior to t1 by their cost.

The sad thing is, think about this for a moment, what are the most messed up balanced units in the game right now? T2 ones yes, but which ones? The peregrine was for the longest time before nerf, and the vanguard is noticably different than the inferno and both are VERY decent tanks but very hit-or-miss. The MOST messed up ones ARE specialized, they are just not very specialized and just wipe the map clean across.

There are no t1 variants of the kestrel, the gil-e, and the sheller. And arguably the vanguard.

We can at least agree that Metal is out of wack in the game and needs to be dealt with.

I........... AGREE!!!!!!! this post makes very good point and gave me a new perspective on the t1/t2 balance. bravo bravo. my pitchfork is down.