Why Specialist? Why NOT Direct Upgrades?

@Mike, thx for the in depth reply. I am too following this game and this discussion in particular from very early on, so I am quite aware of all the stances.

Your example all make sense, however they seem very situational depending on the terrain, not so much on what your opponent is doing. I wouldn't see that as something that must result in a XOR relation between specialization and upgrade design.

To me it seems very difficult the wrap my head around a unit that is specialized enough to warrant its existence but not OP to make other stuff obsolete. Sounds more like a balance thing, that applies to both, the upgrade design as well as the specialized design.

More units with distinct functions is absolutely ok from that point of view, though it's really difficult to come up with something meaningful but not OP. One could argue the current version goes that route, just has some balancing issues though.

Well a specialist could be specialised by being OP at it's job, but balanced by being terrible at others.

For lack of better words (don't take it offensively) it sounds a bit like bullshit bingo, good phrases on paper, but in reality difficult to pin down to something that really shows up in game. Could you give an example?

A sniper tank, better range and damage then a normal tank, but it's lot it's ability to raid and to rapidly respond to targets like a normal tank.

In large numbers the sniper tanks can clean out the battlefield, but have problems when being attacked by fast or airbone units that normal tanks might be able to combat or evade.

Ok, not doing that to argue just for the sake of it, I really want to get to a point to believe in the concept and not see it just as broader unit roster issue.

But isn't your example the sniper bot we had (not sure if it's still in, I play mostly GW and never cared about bots since last patch). But I do remember hordes of sniper boys being game enders and heavily discussed as OP.

Also which tanks or bots currently can evade or combat air units (other than the obvious aa units)?
I am looking more for something that's fitting in the current setup.

The thing is, I probably too can come up with good ideas like that, but the more I keep thinking about it I get doubts that in practical games such a unit wouldn't end up either OP or unused.

A person who dislikes direct upgrades in the forums regurarly tries to make an unbiased argument about the subject. We all know how it ends.

Well there are currently two server mods that I know of which try to do exactly as @igncom1 described above - they say that seeing is believing, I'd highly recommend giving them a go (I have my biases towards RCBM of course, but I understand Stratera has a similar concept with different execution).

The trick is that it all depends on the presented situation, some units like Amphibious Units, are clearly more oriented towards terrain based design but you can just as easily apply the same type of process to designing units. The second trick is to not design things as "direct counters" for other things, lets pull on some of my designs here;


The Hailfire is an Amphibious(Hover) Rocket Artillery unit, it could be a little on the slow and of things but with medium-long range and large salvo size but some inaccuracy, either large AOE with no damage OR no AOE with high damage, probably more suited to softening up bases and large armies, vulnerable to direct combat.


The Rook is a slow, but really tough, equipped with grenade launchers with decent AOE it's great at tanking damage from tanks or putting a serious dent in enemy Bot formations if you can get the engagement going, very much a defensive unit.


The Strider is a fast and fragile Missile AA Platform, it fires a small salvo of missiles that combined to incredible damage, but split into 4 missiles(future proofing for Air units with Missile Defense) at long range but with a long cool down(to allow for them to be overwhelmed) and can also stand in as an expensive scout.


The Longbow is basically a Sniper Gunship, it's slow, sorta robust and gets even slower when it deploys it's weapon but once deployed it can attack ground targets from a very respectable range.


The Thunderbolt is a ground attack plane with high burst damage from it's large salvo of rockets launched from a fair distance away from the target albeit with some scatter, slow and tough for an Air unit.

None of those units are specifically to counter something specific but still have strengths and weaknesses? And it's not even about making Bots or Tanks completely different, it's fine if they both have units that fill the same basic role so long as the way they approach that role(the mechanics of the unit, weapons ect ect) are different and sometimes you can even make them complimentary so that it's not a case of say, the Tank AA is better than the Bot AA, maybe it's simply a case of the Tank AA being good at short ranges and the Bot being better at longer ranges, on their own they both do well enough but when you can mix them together (tweaking the ratios based on what your opponent is using and what not) results in something better than just mindless picking the best unit available like in the Upgrade style.

Mike

I especially love the idea of mixed types of AA, in conjunction with the idea of air units with missile defense. And if they took the current T2 bomber, give it the break off/ fly by attack style proposed in another thread, and gave it the thunderbolt's model, that'd just be the best thing ever.

Current unit designs are dull enough without an air unit that looks almost exactly the same as one we have now.

I have never seen an uberdev respond or comment on any of these posts, and honestly, it's kind of disappointing. It gives me the impression that they are ignoring the community when it comes to balance. (not that we haven't had consistent proof of that happening already)

Pretty much.

Uber is becoming less and less active amongst the community. It's sad.

Sometimes they'll drop in with a few comments and talk about how the live build balance works because of X reason, and people respond with detailed reasoning at why Uber is wrong, and Uber devs don't reply.

Uber seems to be building their game, regardless of anything the community says. Which they can do. It's their game. I also understand that they can't please everyone.

However, this game wouldn't have happened if it weren't for us and I got the impression that the community would help shape the game, and that's not happening.

If you want to talk about the visual design, might I recommend a more fitting place?

Mike