Unit Veternacy: can we skip it?

While I like the idea of veterancy, I don't think its useful at this scale. It favors long range units or units with high HP (experimentals) and detracts from swarming tactics.

This is the issue I have with veterancy in these games. There is no "ideally". That is what would happen, no question. An AI would have to be mind-numbingly stupid to not do that. An AI that doesn't share improved targeting algorithms or heat-dispersal techniques with everything else on its side is a robotic Ralph Wiggum. Spread that out over thousands of years of warfare and it becomes very unlikely that their targeting algorithms are going to be improved by a tank that's killed ten mechs.

There's also that stuff about keeping things from blowing up and how making one unit in a class better than another increases the micromanagement needed to run an ideal game. Those are also bad.

Veterancy adds unnecessary complexity to the game for marginal gain. Currently, without any tools to manage it, there is an advantage rewarded to players who micro-manage their veteran units to make sure they get repaired and survive.

Without any functions such as "repair this group of units, preferring the veteran units first", or "make this group of units attack, telling the veterans to try and survive", the process of preserving your veteran units is tedious. However, the developers should not spend their precious time implementing management features to reap the rewards of veterancy without micromanagement.

When you look at a group of units, it's convenient to be able to identify how strong they are by both visually identifying their unit type, and also by looking at their hitpoints. Having to make an extra mental calculation about their veterancy is extra work that adds little value.

The Planetary Annihilation player will already have plenty of things to think about and calculate when engaging in battle. Stripping veterancy from the game will help make it simpler without making the game less fun.

You have to be ruthless with these sorts of things to make the game easier to understand and ultimately to play. It might be cool to think of units with high kill counts being "smarter", but it really just adds extra complexity and micromanagement, rewarding players for thinking on a small scale. If you think about it, it's probably not something you want for this game.

Personally, I quite like needing to do a small amount of micromanagement as well as macromanagement. I love building up a small, well built group of elite units to form the core of my army.

I really liked veterancy in C&C games, especially RA2 and Generals(ZH)
It just gave more immersion, more connection with the units and especially just the different effect for heroic units was awesome, still if they had just about 1.5 times the damage of a regular unit.

also it heightens the skill cap yes, but the effect is not that devastating to new players

The more extreme examples of veterancy was the Technicals in C&C Generals, whereby certain vehicles would drive over destroyed enemy vehicles and it would be rewarded with a more powerful weapon, with the last upgrade of the jeep being a flak cannon, which was eqaully powerful against enemy vehicles and aircraft.

That was the salvaging mechanic, of generals, that was limited to GLA, not equal to veterancy. Also I don't believe salvage level 3 technicals could hit aircraft, Ive modded that game for 3 years or so

in generals veterancy basically led to red muzzle flashes, missile trails and explosions doing a bit more damage (about 1.5 times the normal damage) nothing really substantial, but it was a cool kind of meta-game to get as much heroic units to me.

it was possible to give entirely different weapons to heroic units via modding though.

This is how I feel about veterancy. In one game, I had 3 elite humvees, containing 10 elite rangers and 5 elite missile troops. They were group 0. Ever since that game, I've reserved group 0 for the best of the best.

Okay, what about a toggle in the game lobby/settings?

"Unit Veterancy: On/Off"

This way, we can all have our cake and eat it too... and this feature can be added in a later stage of the game development (after initial balancing).

But that kind of focus is kinda counter-productive to the huge scale of PA.

Mike

I honestly don't care for unit veterancy. A game like TA/PA/FA is about huge armies fighting it out. Possibly hundreds of units. Veterancy doesn't really fit into that picture imo. With a rate based economy you can generate an endless stream of new units - and you should. Out with the old, in with the new. Doesn't matter if your little T1 tank has 10 kills. Get the frak out there and fight!

Veterancy is kinda fun in single player skirmish/campaign. Then you can build your elite squad of terror gunships or whatever. Can't see any use for it in multiplayer though.

Indeed, to top it off, Veterancy would actually promote gameplay that PA isn't designed for: Microing units on a small scale. I think Uber shoudl leave in Killcounts and the kind of code that might be needed to build a vet system for a mod, but they shouldn't waste time or money on it.

Mike

Some of us... (a lot of us?) play way more skirmish than other game modes

And again:

So... if you don't like it, it can be disabled :/

By the way not even Starcraft 2, where you concentrate way more on single units than TA/supcom/PA, has a veterency system. In Dawn of War 2 you only have max 5 units at all and it has a weaker veterency system than for example supcom. So Im still for the free-repair as reward for "saving units" instead of veterency.

Killcount however is a must have, just for the "LOL! My tank killed 18 units, he is the king!" - effect.

And again:

Mike

That's not true, John Mavor specifically envisions the scalability of Planetary Annihilation in the PC Gamer interview. You'll be able to scale matches from small scale battles, that only last a short while, up to possibly enormous matches, that go on for hours and hours. Such fast and small scale matches will still be all about microing.

And even when looking at huge battles... Micromanagement will still be vital, you'll always perform better if you micro every tiny bit of unit movement and other orders in order to achieve 100% efficiency, rather than rely only on vague waypoints etc. This was true in SupCom as well and I expect it to be true in PA too, unless they somehow force you to not be able to do that...

(Note: I hate StarCrafty Micromanagement )

I always that veterancy was cool just to see how many kills one unit has scored (yeah, look at that badass mech marine!), but you're all pretty much right - it was kind of a broken system, and it doesn't really belong in PA.

Speaking of mech marines, anyone ever try having massive marches of those guys going head first into your opponents' bases? Awesome. Talk about "for the kingdom". Just have 10 factories pumping them out non-stop. Best tactic ever.

Of course! :mrgreen:

One of my favourite troll tactics in Forged Alliance. I think my record was somewhere over 25 factories, flooding the enemy with tons of tons of mechmarines.
However, you could already hear the pathfinding scream "KILL ME!!! KILL MEE!!!!", when you do that tactic. :lol:

I should have been clearer, but it was SCII type Micro I was referring too, basically I see Microing the units and microing your army as different types. I agree with what you said, but the micro you describe lends itself to the success of the ARMY, not individual units.

Mike

You can't have your cake and eat it too. This will essentially create two different games that you have to understand. You'll have to know how veterancy tends to affect gameplay when it's on and when it's off.

It's best to decide on it either being in the game, or not.

You shouldn't be worrying about individual units in this game with such a huge scale. It's simpler if you can look over the field and have What You See Is What You Get rather than some units being stronger than others without looking any different.

You could put stars on units that have higher strength due to veterancy, but we really should question the whole feature before bothering with that.