Should Build Speed be Reduced?

Obviously this poll will be pretty skewed based on most of the people on these forums are pretty happy with PA in its current state. This would also be a pretty significant change. A lot of people don't like change. still, I figured I'd post it as you never know when you may find surprising results.

I think higher health pools and slower build time will shift the game from actions per minute and bolbing to unit diversity, personality, and strategy. I think it would be a change for the better. It also helps reduce cpu calculations (less units) and improve gpu performance.

Because units will last longer placement, build order, and general strategy will get a larger focus. You can also balance frontliner tanky units more effectively and have more dedicated unit classes that fill better roles instead of just cannon fodder.

If you don't agree, why don't you agree? What is it you like about larger unit counts and how does it add to gameplay? Why can't smaller unit counts do the same thing? Why do you enjoy the faster pace over a slower, more methodical approach? These are all questions I'd like to see answered by those opposed.

Build speeds are totally fine. I'd like bigger maps (maybe by simply reducing unit size and speed. A reduction of units sizes would be nice anyway).
I would not be against a hp increase of units to a certain degree, but not too much.
The current PTE btw experiments with balance changes that do slow down the first few minutes of the game and I like them. No need to reduce the build speeds for that.

No.

Spoiler

to the OP, not cola

As always theseeker2 I can count on your great in depth feedback and reasoning. Your forum posts should be the hallmark of any great discussion. I love the counter arguments you brought up, they really add to the discussion and are quite intriguing.

I am not sure what these forums would do without all your insight and contributions.

I thought increasing fabber build speed was a good idea. Slowing down factory build speeds can help, only if the game needs it after the commander eco reduction. So far we got the commander eco reduction, we should see how that goes.

I made a mod that increases single-fabber build rates. Figured it would promote structure expansion over unit swarms, alongside of the commander eco reduction. So feel free to try it, albeit it tweaks t2 and some t1 and junk too.

Why do you think build speeds are fine? Why do you prefer fast over slow? Why not double or triple the current build speeds now if you enjoy more units so much?

What you described is what we like to call "redenbacher deluxe". And that is too fast. I mean, if I were to like fast, I wouldn't like xhibitz to kick down my door and tell me he knows I like fast so he made my fast faster by adding fast to my fast and then covering it all in fast.

I don't like slow either. Well, I do like slow. In RA1 and TA. In RA2 it got faster. Now Starcraft 2 is rather fast. And PA is fast too, argubly too fast as far as unit combat, which invalidates base construction without making structures rather instant to errect. That is why making sure the commander eco cannot solo run 3-5 factories on it's own is good, and making structure fabricators build a bit faster.

there is one reason i like this game above any other and that IS its fast pace ... i rather not have it slowed down ... thank you very much ...

I definitely think factories produce units too fast and the current small hp pools make engagements boring. There is very little interplay, it's basically whoever has more units win. Part of the problem is the economy. You can build multiple factories right off the bat without even going negative (poor decision IMO). In TA pulling something like that would severely hamper you. Instead, you'd have to manage building factories with your economy as well. This allowed for a more tactical game instead of the zergfest we have now.

I'd also love for hp to increase, this would allow units fill more roles and niches.

But even you would agree, we shouldn't have exactly reddenbacher deluxe either, right?

The game produces so many units because of the macro scale. Same reason single units are popcorn compared to hundred unit armies.

However, a little more health in tanks, and a little more damage per shot and slightly slower shots, coupled with bots getting a bit more damage along with their rapid fire, makes for what I think is more interesting interaction between durable tanks and cheap popcorn bots. 4 tanks with a repairmen stand to survive better, but 20 bots cost the same and tanks fire slowly. Then, have a bot that hits tanks hard (grenadier), and a tank that rapidfires laser while being squishy to tank shells but not small fire from bots (skitter). Again, I have a mod that does all of that. Just made it, don't know how well any of that theory plays, but I felt the same as you about making unit combat more interesting.

dont know what that is

Because I feel I can control the game if I put my mind to it, but it feels challenging to manage over the whole planet. Faster would make it go beyond challenging towards impossible to control.

Also the reality is that it isn't as simple to slow down the game by reducing build speeds. If you reduce the speed of the game like that you wont make fast players slower. They will find something else to spent their attention on. Manage 2 bases instead of 1. Heavy micro units. Etc. A player who is very fast will stay be very fast and still win vs a slower player, even if you "slow down" the game.
As long as the game is real time and complex enough you will see high apm fast players have a significant advantage. The only way to get rid of that is to go turn based (obviously not gonna happen) or remove so many gameplay elements that there is nothing to do once you are beyond 30 apm (obviously not gonna happen, as that would make the game very boring)

Again look at the PTE balance. There you cannot build more than one single initial factory before you need to take a break from them and make pgens and mex. I like that change, because it only slows down the first few minutes.

somebody didn't read the memo that the game IS about large armygames
and realy getting started in TA was a huge pain

Agreed, but wouldn't you also agree that increased health should also get an increase in cost and time, not necessarily to the tune of the hp increase/rof decrease (depending on what sort of increase/decrease).

There is a compromise potentially to be found here if people can stop putting their fingers in their ears and humming real loud. It Saddens me a little to see the poll skewed so far so early, and probably without much thought on the part of the voters, and this is why; There is little game-play disadvantage in slower (even just slightly (like it was before for instance) unit production. In-fact it would benefit the game, soft buffing the currently almost utterly useless turrets among other things. A bigger increase in cost/build-time could even soft-balance the nuke cost effectiveness in terms of metal to damage, a truely dire situation might even be able to warrant a defensive nuke in that scenario, an element eliminated (wrongly IMO) where it should've been made merely undesirable. None of these would result in significantly less units because of increased time of life the numbers would invariably catch up, also if a players eco is strong enough assisting factories can co-exist alongside unit farms (lines of factories) where in the various balance passes it has always been one or the other, its kind of pointless when units are built so quickly anyway IMO.

Increased build speed? no
Increased health, heck ya.

That is the whole point of the Anti-Popcorn mod, to make battles slower (circumstance dependent) but the game itself the same pacing as vanilla.

More specifically, armies only get rapidly devastated when they are "committed" to an attack. A handful of sparring ants will survive much longer, especially with combat fabber support (highly recommended in AP) but when two armies with inferno lines in front collide, they will still die quickly when those line meet, as combat fabs cannot repair even infernos against that kind of damage.

This gives you more time to react to (most) battles without making games longer.

But this just creates more units without the means to get rid of them quickly (current situation) and will lead to appalling lag and worse game-play - literally nothing but spam because people will simply avoid the circumstances where mutual annihilation can still take place until their blob(s) are insurmountably large. You think this will enable you to micro battles a wee bit but in fact it will destroy that ability due to the sheer numbers and it will become like gunships were in supreme commander 2*, only most every unit will be that way.

*They die slower than the get produced leading to game-winning and un-defeatable blobs.

Also, the current build speeds are a fix (as i keep saying) to a problem that no longer exists, feel free to stroll back through some old (seriously old) threads but this is the case. A return to the original build speeds wouldn't be all that bad, as they were rather fast compared to all other games then as well.

Yep, completely agree. No one is saying slow the game down to a crawl, just tweak the values a bit until it feels right.

Look once you get use to the speed you won't want it to be slower. The more you play the less messy it will seem. The pace is fine a.

It keeps it a real challenge and abuses how much you can focus on at one time. I know its a struggle sometimes cause of how fast it can be but that's the fun of it.

It's not that the game is too fast it's that fights and engagements are boring, and lack any kind of interplay. Slowing build speeds and increases hp pools fixes this, but there are other tweaks that could be made as well. I consider myself a pretty fast rts player, it's not that I can't handle it, it's that engagements currently lack tactics.