Why Specialist? Why NOT Direct Upgrades?

So, everyone wants Uber to do a specialist direction and yet they insist on doing direct upgrades. This confuses people. Why do direct upgrades?

Why not do direct upgrades?

Direct upgrades means a game that is more straight forward for new players. Tank, better tank. Fairly easy to understand. While it does mean that timings are more important as going too early or too late means that your enemy has an advantage, it also means that it's easier for new players to understand. At the same time, fewer units means that in competitive play the game becomes more of a macro game to see who can out-macro the other. This means that the game becomes more about pure macro skill while also making these high level matches more easily determined by starting location as a player cannot use tactics with unique specialist units to defeat much larger forces.
Less work needs to be done on balancing the game as T2 and T1 can for the most part exist in a vacuum separate from each other and as long as T2 is better than T1 you're fairly safe. On the other hand, it means that the gameplay is more stale and the units are fairly lacking in character.

A Generalist/Specialist balance means that new players have a much harder time figuring out what does what because there are so many different units with different roles that need to be learned. This tank is slowish and has a decent gun, this one is very slow and has a very powerful gun, this one is fast and has a good gun but has low health and turn speed... new players will take a much longer time to learn the game if a generalist/specialist system is used. However, in competitive play the sheer amount of strategies that can be used is demonstrated to great effect as a massive number of play styles using the different specialist units pop up. Competitive games using this type of balance will be more enjoyable to watch and to play in as a result.
A much greater attention to detail is needed with a generalist/specialist balance as every interaction between every unit must be watched carefully. If any unit is OP then the whole balance falls apart rapidly as specialist units are rendered invalidated by the OP unit.

Overall a generalist/specialist style of balancing means that the balance is harder for the devs to construct and harder for new players to get into. At the same time, once it has been mastered it is far more rewarding for viewers and casters.

tl;dr Uber use a generalist/specialist style of balance so that Matiz is no longer OP.

Im going to say, that T1 T2 balance in the current FAF is the minimum id like to see.

Yeah, T2 tanks are better, but straight up, I can field just more T1 units that the upgrades don't matter, because they upgrade on a 1 to 1 ratio, not via cost (Or as I believe).

If you guys are curious, I suggest you try a no T3 game of FAF as it stands, it's really fun.

In some ways upgrades are easier, in other ways upgrades are harder.

In some ways specialized is easier, in other ways specialized is harder.

With upgrades, it's simple and straightforward. Tank, better tank as you said. However, the meta game of when to go to T2 is so incredibly important that the entire game revolves around it. If you don't know the meta game of when to go to T2, you lose. Understanding the meta game of when to upgrade is difficult unless you're in the community, or watch gameplay.

With upgrades the learning curve starts out easy, but is suddenly extremely steep, and then has a low skill cap. I got to T2 faster than you did, and that's all she wrote.

Remember back during the days of the gunship balance? The entire game revolved around getting to T2 first. Matches could literally be determined by me getting to T2 10 seconds before you did. That means the skill cap is pretty low, and the learning curve is steep.

It also means that people can memorize build orders and don't even need to be overly good at strategy.

But with specialized, it is true that it takes more work to understand the ins and outs of the specialized units, you don't need the specialized units. You can win just fine with basic units since they do all things mostly well. So that means the learning curve is much more gradual than with upgrades.

What's more, it also means that the skill cap is way way higher with specialized units than with upgraded units. I need to know the ins and outs of units and what counters what and how to best use the various units. It means that players can recover (a very important facet of gameplay that I wrote an extremely long forum post on that topic somewhere), and players must adapt rather than memorize build orders.

Specialized means a number of things.

1. More gradual learning curve
2. Higher skill cap
3. No build order memorization, players must adapt, e.g. strategize
4. The ability to recover
5. Lagging behind by a few seconds on upgrading to T2 doesn't matter
6. We don't have micro fests of 1 T2 unit killing an entire army of T1 units

In short, specialized is better.

I would say that one of the main drawbacks of generalist/specialist, the new player learning curve, can be effectively combated with adequate tutorials. Usually a story/ campaign is where you can do this, without a scripted campaign however, maybe just a few scripted maps which slowly show you how to use each unit, and explain some of the more important fundamentals.

Gating T2 behind a separate factory effectively limits the amount a new player has to work with, thus keeping them from being overwhelmed. The learning curve with a generalist/specialist set up is a lot lower than you might think.

I would think the latest builds are going on the specialized side. Not as many upgrades as there was a few builds ago. You can be overwhelmed by spam and be saved by smart defending with shellers and then attacking. You can also be attacked by t2 and overwhelm with bombers and spam. The game is fine and it works. It just needs a lot of tweeking. Stuff like slowing shellers is a simple nerf, great for defending bases but not so good at attacking.

Because direct upgrades are so bland and generic that you might as well replace the T2 models with brown military shooters.

Just because T2 units have different weapons doesn't mean they aren't upgrades.

When a Single Vanguard without combat fabbers can kill an entire army of 100+ Ants and Infernos, that's not balance. That's just steamrolling and rewarding the first person to T2.

When there is no counter to Hornets except for 1 more fighter than your opponent, that's not balance. That's a roving Catapult that is cheaper with slightly less range.

The Sheller is just a cheaper, higher dps, moving pelter.

T2 is upgrades.

They way out class T1 units in their effectiveness and effectiveness based on cost. Once an opponent gets T2, your options are snipe, get T2 very quickly, or lose.

I disagree. Vanguards can be kited with zero loses, hornets are slow and at the back so can be killed by flanking or force attacking like I done the 2nd kotp game v matiz. shellers weak against air and boom bots. First to t2 does not mean win, you can expand and kill his expansions when he is building the factory, put him under enough pressure not to even think about building a fabber and then have the time his first units are built until the reach your base to prepare.

I agree with this, particularly that bit about air, but it's not necessarily an insurmountable problem -- what if Spinners and AA turrets (not flak) were given extra range?

I feel it is possible to make the existing system work, if:

1. Bots are made viable on their own (but in a different way than vehicles -- example, what if Dox had a short-range radar and a powerful anti-air missile that took about 5-10 seconds to recharge?)
   
2. There are counters to air besides more air
3. There are counters to T2 vehicles besides T2 vehicles (or air)
4. We find a niche for every unit

In short, the game can be made to work if the devs resolve these issues and fix them. =)

That is because you, sir, are a badass. Don't try to deny it, I've seen your replays.

I wonder how much of this is you and how much of this is game balance?

By that, I mean: could a mere mortal such as myself pull it off?

I've been begging for missile defense towers to have at least a doubled range.

Or the addition of a new missile defense towers with a lower firing rate and a long range.

I'm probably not the best one to speak to this particular point, given my limited experience, but does kiting vanguards really require skill? I mean, they have one of the slowest movespeeds in the game next to the commander, and jack-all for range.

Similarly, if flanking is a badass maneuver in Planetary Annihilation, micro is more dead and buried than I thought. Is there something about how PA does things that just makes this more difficult than other RTS games?

You can kite guards, but can you kill them before they reach your base?

Plus all they need to do is mix a couple of levelers in and things get really ugly, really fast.

fixed that for ya buddy

Shellers have too little health. Levs have as much splash damage per shot as shellers, although they have 5 less range.

Right. I suspect that's the real power of vanguards. You have to pretend your base doesn't exist and kite them through your base, potentially taking heavy structure losses.

Seriously?

Maybe I should reconsider using Levelers...

Just throwing out a couple thoughts to think about:

1) finding the right timing to upgrade is hard, but finding the right units in a specialized environment is not?

2) having access to the right units in a specialized environment is not hard?

3) if (1) and (2) are not really making a difference, what's the point in having them?

4) if you over power a unit in a specialized environment, is that automatically a proof for a fail of this approach?

5) game design should prioritize single planet 1v1 or multi planet nvn...vn? First certainly allowing for more interesting gameplay by specialization (micro), while the latter more favoring macro games?

6) 3 highly coordinated people beating 6 others who do some random stuff is proof for balance issues? Or more generalized, good players beating bad players means what in terms of balance?



Not saying the current balance is perfect, but in my opinion it is not in a situation that can only be solved by putting more emphasis on specialization.

Also i would see some backup for the statement that "everyone" wants UBER to do specialized units only. Yes there are some very vocal people who do advertise this design philosophy a lot. That doesn't account for everyone, not even close.

I for my part would consider specialization more on the micro side of things, however I prefer the macro approach more.

Also why can't we have both, upgrades and specialized, requires a larger unit roster, sure, but could imagine in large wars that could be really epic in balanced teams.

Im not too stickler on this. Uber built a truely grand game. "unit balance" is so trivial to the grand scheme, that is like saying that Assassin's Creed is entirely about what eras they choose for scenery and not the actual gameplay.

Really, it is a platform, there will be a lot of player conversions and balances and even small tweak games like no nukes. The vanilla balance, who even cares, Uber could spend time and survey players, and in 5 years the "official player recognized balance" will not be what Uber made it nor what players even initially had it as.

Dem competitives, I remember when tournaments banned overpowered units, and when they could make adjust to gameplay they just adjust balance on op units. Meanwhile, the rest of us just played the game and didn't give much a care.

Obviously it's not a perfect or easy approach but if executed properly it does allow for more depth, just some quick comments;

1] The thing about timing is that it's quite arbitrary, it's more so a "set thing" without much wiggle room and often the factors that define something like "Best time to Tech" aren't readily apparent through observation. But finding the right unit for a situation, while still not easy, is much simpler because the factors are something you can be familiar with just by playing with the units, an Amphibious unit is clearly at a potential advantage on a "swamp" planet with lots of rivers and small bodies of water simply because it's amphibious. A high Arc Artillery unit is clearly better on a hilly planet because it's shots go over the hills compared to the low arc Artillery unit.

There is also a lot more wiggle room, for example on that Swamp planet you can use Amphibious units, or you can use air instead, or just use air transports to cover 90% of the distance and suffer through the last 10%. On that hilly planet high arc might be able to shoot over hills, but fast units can close the distance quickly while being protected by the hills from many weapon types.

You still need to design things well but the potential has much more depth. At this stage consistency and clear communication in terms of things like unit design, UI and balance are important.

2] I do feel that if you are going to do specialized units there is the obvious flip side here as you describe and the general answer is that you also need to be aware that you can't make them more efficient than the general purpose units outside of their specialization(s). It's about not taking the basic unit and just adding a bunch of stuff to it to make it specialized and trying to just use cost to balance it, I don't see a massive issue with the idea that a General Purpose Tank and Amphibious Tank costing the same resources so long as the Amphibious Tank lost things as part of the compensation for what it gained, for example yes maybe it can cross water, but it's an "Old Fahsioned Hovercraft" and has poor handling, or it crosses the seafloor but doesn't have a way to defend itself from Naval. There are countless ways to go about these kinds of trade offs and you never need to use the same one twice if your units are diverse enough.

3] Thats the same with anything else, you could make the same argument for the Upgrade method too, if the upgrades aren't good enough to encourage upgrading to get them, why bother having them? ;p As I said before, none of this should be see as "silver bullets" for particular problems, you'd need to work at it to make sure it does what you want and to make sure you KNOW what you need from something otherwise you risk starting a domino effect that makes for changes far beyond what you initially intended, a recent discussion about making the Combat Fabber have a longer repair range to "better support Infernos" is a good example because yeah, in isolation that change does make Infernos better, but it also makes (almost) everything else better too, not just Infernos and if you don't think about that kind of stuff it can quickly escalate and spiral out of control.

4] No, it' just means you haven't found the "sweet" spot yet, as above, specialization isn't a magical silver bullet that will automatically solve problems as soon as it's implemented, it will take lots of testing, changes, revisions and such to make sure it's doing what you want/need for it to do in the grand scheme of things.

Nothing can ever account for everyone of course, but as someone who has been very active on the forums from even before the kickstarter ended, the Idea of General Purpose units for Basic and Specialized Units for Advanced(or where ever a unit best fits) has been one of the longest running themes within the community, to the point that the Devs commented, at the time, that they also had similar thoughts and in general agreed with the idea, especially given how SupCom:FA turned out.

Mike