Factions?

The problem with a single unit list is that there's no catering to individual playstyle. Everything's perfectly symmetrical and if there's a unit that doesn't quite work the way you like, well, tough luck.

Off the cuff, an inexpensive "build your own faction" mod that I would like to make when PA comes out is:
-Before the game starts, each player can select a single mod for up to 3 unit types, with each mod giving a small boost to one attribute and a small penalty to another attribute. For balancing purposes, the set of mods for each unit are pre-defined and are specific to each unit.
-The 3D in-game model does not change but the nature of the modification is reported to your enemy when his units approach within a certain optical distance of a modified unit.
-Modified unit types would not be giftable in multiplayer

This adds three things:
1) A way to cater to your own strengths or your enemy's weaknesses.
2) Adding a bit of mystery to the opponent you're facing, boosting the tension.
3) Introducing a risk taking element. Do you boost a high cost unit type for a late game advatange and risk losing before you can gather enough resources to build them or do you boost cheap units for early power and risk being outclassed later in the game?

Not true at all, at least not with a big number of units available.

No, not "tough luck". You simply use a different one . One that does work the way you like it.

Not true at all, at least not with a big number of units available.

This. You choose what units to build, what strategic decisions to make, etc. That *is* your "playstyle", it's you as a player. Picking "zerg" instead of "protoss" is not a playstyle, though it might cater to some strategies over others. Why limit things that way?

You are the faction. Essentially your play style, your preferences, this is what sets the units "available" to you. One guy might like huge tanks. Another guy might like heavy air. Another guy might like swarms of fast T1.

For this to work Uber doesn't need more than one unit set. They just need to ensure any particular play style has numerous counters.

It's totally a play-style. Zerg and protoss have radically different units which give them unique play-styles. Early Zerg is fast and cheap(lings), Early protoss by comparison is expensive and beefy(zealots, stalkers).

1 unit set is ZvZ, PvP, and TvT.

Unless there are ALOT of units for each and every tier to the point where we aren't all gonna be making the same units during every stage of the game. Let's be honest though, how many variations of earlygame "light" units can there be? It's gonna end up being alot of the same tanks and kbots(yeah I said kbots) mashing into eachother.

You say this as if build orders don't exist... Unless this game has very different core mechanics from almost every RTS(including it's predecessors) you can't just "choose" to field whatever units you want whenever you want. You have to build up to them. Everyone is gonna field swarms of the same fast T1 in the earlygame. That's why it's called "Tier 1" no?

No, 1 unit set is Z+P+T vs Z+P+T. You can choose whether you go... "early Zerg" etc. and your opponent does the same. The only thing different is, that the amount of available units and their strategy and tactics is not artificially limited before the game starts, through some arbitrary selection of a "Faction".

Just imagine having all the units available to you in any RTS you prefer, StarCraft for instance.

No, it simply depends on what greater Strategy you actually employ.

I'm curious spooky, if you were to throw Z+P+T into a single box, wouldn't you have considerable redundancy? Zerglings and Zealots have distinct properties, but don't really compliment one another on the same unit list. At least one of them would become unused either for a given match or even in the entire metagame.

So, in the end with just one faction total, would the number of units significantly exceed that of having several factions with units spread out?

Put Cybran and UEF together in Supcom2, and voila, you have two assault bots which behave very similarly with a few slight tweaks which are only meaningful if you have different armies suited to different playstyles.

Different factions also allow for structural, mechanical differences across sides, although everythign I've heard from the PA team indicates they're not interested in doing anything of the sort.

Alot of your argument is hinging on there being a *REALLY* substantial amount of units available for each tier to give us the necessary variety to individualize our army compositions.

I hope you are right, but I'm not idealistic enough to trust that they can afford to focus that heavily on creating and balancing a ton of different units when there is so many new concepts that need *extensive* amount of work to make their execution even half-decent(planetary war, round maps? multiple "round maps" aka: planets/asteroids seamlessly contained and connected within a larger possibly physics-governed space, GALACTIC War). This is essentially an Indy-project right?

Factions are good because they take the same units that are necessary to fill-out a tier, but then give them each a unique flavor and set of pros/cons based on the faction.

Basic "infantry" in sc2
Ling-Marine-Zealot


1 unit set without alot of variety and the basic infantry ends up: marine-marine-marine for everyone.

So? If you restrict yourself to one faction in StarCraft, you do not use a large portion of all available units in a given match. Furthermore, you definitely do not use every single unit in every StarCraft match, do you? You may go for a Zergling rush, win instantly, and won't have used most units alltogether. You may go for... whatever, Hydralisk, and not have used Zerglings at all, or may be only very little.

As I said in another thread also, I don't think they will go for the same "insane" unit diversity as in Total Annihilation, where it was sometimes meaningless to have. After all, they need to keep the budget low, so they can't just churn out loads of different units (which requires art-style, modelling, texturing, animation, etc.; per unit), regardless of whether there is just one set of units or many sets. But I expect the diversity of units per faction (i.e. one set of units for all factions ) to be greater than in StarCraft for instance.

What purpose would that serve?

Yes, and it's also a reason why there is only one set of units in the first place. Having different sets of units would be more expensive alone through their different looks. And then you would have to invest also far more time into gameplay and balance concepts.

And why do we need that? It is something unnecessarily arbitrary, from my point of view at least.

But isn't deep gameplay and finely-tuned balance what makes good RTS... Good? Or are you okay with having completely unremarkable and shallow core RTS gameplay based around a really cool gimmick? "Hey these planets are cool, and the scale is awesome... too bad the unit variety sucks and everyone is forced to throw clones at each-other because there's barely any options".

Variety. If the devs aren't going to invest in 2-3 types of generic units to fill each role, then having 2-3 factions makes the same unit different enough to create some variety.

As others have suggested it could also be possible to choose a "faction" and have that simply slightly alter base stats, passives and abilities for your units(without needing a background story or new aesthetics) Balancing would still be required.


I'm curious as to how identical units vs identical units would even work. If they have the same stats it simply becomes a numbers game doesn't it? Like a really High-def version of Galcon Fusion or Auralux :?

No need for condescending, arrogant, axiomatic statements like that :roll:

You need to back up the discussion first. Explain, where we settled on or said, that

• deep gameplay and finely-tuned balance is not what makes RTS good
• Planetary Annihilation is not going to have deep gameplay and finely-tuned balance
• Planetary Annihilation will have completely unremarkable and shallow core RTS gameplay

?

A unit is either different enough, so that it's not the same unit. Or it is similar enough, so that it is the same unit but just with slightly different properties. Having only one faction does not influence this at all.

What would be the point of that?

Why not do something like Zero-K? No factions, but a HUGE amount of units. Some could be practically the same with a small flavour, like a lighter, faster tank with a higher RoF, and a heavier, slower tank that deals more damage.

I concede that in the modern metagame, not all units are utilized in each match up. However...

Part of the diversity apparently comes from the ability to have units which would be redundant on the same side (hydralisks and marines for instance) exist across several factions. Is this wrong? Does the game really become more diverse if you have one faction with both hydras and marines? The point is that while you have two additional units, you do not have any additional diversity, whereas if you have two factions, one with hydras and the other with marines, you appear (at least from what I can tell) to haver more diversity, because these apparently similar units, appart from slight tweaks to hp damage etc, also behave very differently by virtue of being at different locations on the tech tree and are defined within a different unit list (e.g. hydra/ling strategy has no analogue for terran).

Why just in the modern metagame? And why just the "metagame?" Spamming just one type of unit was always an available strategy in an RTS, of varying effectiveness.

And where is the difference to having all that just in one faction? It's not any more or less diverse when these units are restricted to specific factions.

Regardless of how similar or not Hydralisks and Marines are, the point was that in case of Planetary Annihilation, you won't just have the diversity of one particular faction in StarCraft, you might have the truly different units of all factions packed together and available to you. Including their strategies. Will you go for Terran Cruisers, or rather overwhelm the enemy lines with Ultralisks? Will you try to aid your lines with High Templars and their Psi-Storms or will you need Anti-Air with Goliaths? Everything is available to you within the game, instead of being restricted by an Arbitrary decision you make before the game.

Well sure, if you try to use the same units/strategies, but that's no different from say a ZvZ where you both 6Pool.

Mike

Is there a real difference between marine/ling or hydra/ling?

The answer to this question is essentially my argument.

If you want to answer that question in Total Annihilation or Supreme Commander terms, with its battle simulation: then yes, there is a difference. (see also the discussion here: viewtopic.php?p=553996#p553996 )

I'm not predicting anything, I just expressed what I thought were good qualities in an RTS and I stand-by them. I'm not condemning(I backed it after all) PA either, merely expressing my fears that, possibly, the core rts gameplay elements might end up bland and backseat to the new concepts it's bringing. I was a somewhat dramatic I admit. At this point it's all speculation anyway.

Basically for the same reasons factions exist in RTS, minus the lore and aesthetic differences.

Factions are highly over-rated. Out of all the RTS games so far only Company of heroes and starcraft 1 has ever gotten them correct without being merely the same units with a different model.

In Supcom/FA the factions were mirrors of one another with only cosmetic changes mostly, that was a tonne of waste. There were lots of neat ideas in supcom/fa that just were not going to be given enough attention because of financial constraints and constraints on developers imagination versus time needed to think them through.

Truth is doing RTS right requires a tonne of resources few developers have. Most likely the greatness of PA will be the modding community - fingers crossed. PA will most likely be a basic fun shell which will become heavily modified with new stuff over time. The developers have limited resources lets not all forget this.

Uh, have you played FA at all? The differences were more than just cosmetic. They weren't as drastic as StarCraft Factions where, but between the 4 FA Factions there was plenty of diversity.

Mike