Pay to Win?

I am concerned that these "special" commanders are going to have a unfair advantage. I strongly discourage you from making these deals such as the alpha commander that will give you only a short term kick start gain, but ultimately destroy the online experience which is the whole game. Perhaps it could be clarified what exactly the difference will be. I wouldn't be concerned but you didn't give a update on navel units as instead showcased some commanders for purchase.

Visual only for commanders.

/thread

This kinda suggests that may not be the case:

http://forums.uberent.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=522878#p522878

It is true that there may in fact be some differentiation in commander abilities.

These won't be anything that breaks balance though or gives someone an unfair advantage.

special/unique doesn't mean imbalanced.

Pff. We SHOULD be able to pay to win. Suck it up or up your pledge


Wang-Bot will be mighty!

You can always pay to win, just bribe your opponent to take a dive.

I'll lose any game for 100bucks.

Be careful, I want this game to succeed as much as you do. Numerically your normal citizens are far greater, Dont tread on us

As one of the $100 pledgers, I'd like to say the special commanders should be visual only, unless some miracle occurs in which something limited to a certain group of players will not imbalance the game.

Even the smallest variation can be blamed for a win/loss. Something like giving these special commanders unique abilities, regardless of how ineffective they are, seems like a punching bag for imbalance. They will be used to 'prove' any imbalances in the game however irrelevant they are.

If you are planning on giving the special commanders something other than different visuals, I suggest running it by the community first.

But my commander will win against all opponents anyways, so my defeated opponents need SOME excuse for losing, don't they?

As a $100 pledger, for the love of all that is holy and scientific DO NOT have commander specific abilities. No matter how small it may be, if an a certain commander has 1 more hp or builds something .0001 seconds faster or anything like that people will complain. No matter what. I really hope that the looks are just looks and any commander abilities are available to every commander. Every good rts gives every player the chance to have the same ability to win as another. Seeing as though the Alpha and Progenitor commanders will only be for a select amount of people, making them any different in ability makes no sense.

Even in TA the Core and Arm commanders were slightly different. Different movement speeds, different turn rates, different firing rates, and one even had an ability the other didn't.

Yes but in TA there weren't people that payed more to get Core over Arm commanders or vice versa. That's all I really meant to say. If its going to be differences with commanders, everyone should have the option to play as all of them.

I seriously doubt ANY of the people who have pledged 1000 OR MORE did it in the interest of winning a slightly higher percentage of games, they did it because having a custom commander is badass, especially in such a badass game.

To those of you foaming at the mouth already, Remember it's not pay 2 win if it's balanced.

Mike

as far as my experiences with gaming communities go, I haven't seen one who needed a reason to complain about balance. Most of the time when people loose a game they just assume it HAS to be the balance.
Besides they all like to complain about stuff - any stuff-, so why not give them a reason....

Since the force distribution is still in planning, it's probably too early to tell how any commander ability affects balance, independent from special commanders.

There should be customized commanders with different stats and abilities but these should be available to all players.

I think even visual stuff should be available to all players just with money you can unlock it faster. But you should be able to get it by just playing normally.

I think they have in mind in the sense of how different the commanders were between cybran, Aeon, and UEF. Were any of those op? Well, okay, cloaked monkeylord laser Cybran commander was pretty op. But we loved it

Benefit of the doubt. I think ^^ is what they possibly have in mind (different commanders, not the laser), in which case it would be fine.

I am confident that uber will make proper special commanders that are unable to provide a significant advantage. That's in the end not what the pledgers paid for.

The problem isn't different commanders.

The problem is different commanders not accessible to most people.

If someone has paid 100, and got a commander with a larger radar, which discovered my forces earlier than he'd normally would, and therefore just managed to flee behind his defences while his health would only be in the double digits, that's unbalanced.

Because without the extra few seconds of warning that hs better radar gave him, he wouldn't have managed to retreat and survive.

A rare case? Sure. But such things will happen - there will be a tiny bit of imbalance, no matter what you change, so long as it has an impact on the game. It doesn't matter how significant it is, the fact that it is there at all makes the game inherently unbalanced.

Which, obviously (?), is a wrong thing.

So why do this at all? I don't think people are waiting for an unfair advantage, however small it is, so...?

If you don't pay you can't win. Also you can't lose .

Anyway I don't think anyone wants permanent paid imbalance.