Unit Veternacy: can we skip it?

True, it was just something to think about that's all.

Unit veterancy is supposed to tip the scales. We don't want game mechanics that make the game last forever. If one player is better than the other and it becomes obvious that one will win, you want that win to come quicker, not drag on for another 20-30 minutes.

That said, I do think veterancy rules need to be tweaked. Perhaps something as simple as units get no experience for killing units of a lower tier. So swarms of bots can make valid attacks on higher tier units without handing them the gift of instant veterancy.

A side effect of a big game is that you know the outcome even longer before it occurs.

Look at Sins of a Solar Empire. Choose the biggest map there and it will be neck and neck for ages. Then something will happen and you will realise that you can't lose anymore. From that point you could still be 2 hours from surrender or total victory.

It's possible that with the greatly increased scale of PA that the same thing could happen.

EDIT: Fyi I am against veterancy, and I don't think that veterancy will solve this issue or provide a benefit to PA in general.

What about commander veterancy?

It's a one of a kind unit, and super critical. It's the only thing that could justifiably need to scale with the game.

It's called 'player skill', and it's even persistent.

No, Game Mechanics that purposely lead to slippery slope game play aren't fun unless you're the winner, and then that everything past the winner being determined is pointless.

Balanced Game mechanics still allow better players to win, they are better after all, but allows for more variety among evenly matched players, like in some Ranked FA games where both players are equally skilled you get all kinds of crazy *** **** like Base Trades, Experimentals and Long games.

Sure, making a good or bad strategic or tactical choice should have an effect, but no to the point of needing to play perfect because the first "mistake" will lead you to a loss.

Mike

If you're referring to commander veterancy, then no, that doesn't cut it. RTS games simply have a limited amount of power you can squeeze out of a unit by spending more time commanding it (even if micro is made important). If you don't have a scaling power of some kind on your commander the answer to "what should I do with my commander" quickly collapses into "use as glorified engineer and hide behind ALL the defenses".

Oh my god, can I quote you on this? Not that I'll have much opportunity to use it but the League of Legends community desperately needs to hear stuff like this..

I'd say keep veterency and make it better, but base it off cost like command and conquer, were a unit has to kill 3 times its value but then gets a significant boost. If you get a tech switch and that high tier unit kills an army then it deserves to have a boost, and having really valuable vet units that cant b built is a cool dynamic. So redo it but keep it. and also the commander should be able to go up to a much higher max level then normal units

Ok, this was kind of a cheap sarcastic comment, sorry for that.

You're right that the Commander needs to have some mechanism for staying relevant during the game, and not become little more than a "shoot here to win!" beacon after the first five minutes. But for that, it would be far better done with Commander upgrades or some other way to improve the Commander capabilities than veterancy.
Veterancy forces you to either play the Commander aggressively (so you can kill things) or accept that it will become irrelevant and hide it somewhere. It gives you only one option to improve it, the front-line one (no 'sniper', 'super-engineer' or anything else).
Also, between the two options (sending it to battle or hiding it), the first one is far better, as it gives you free firepower, contrary to an upgrade option for which you have to pay, which means choosing between, say, more units or a better Commander.
And you have to decide right away : either you attack with your Commander from the beginning, or it becomes outclassed as game goes on, and it is too risky to send it gaining veterancy.
Also, it makes absolutely no sense and is horribly jarring to have it gaining veterancy in the beginning of each battle and forget it as soon as it jumps to another system, like it would be to have veterancy for mindless war machines that are the result of millennia of war and improved to perfection, but at this point it's little more than a detail.

Veterancy for all units would also be a profoundly idiotic thing in addition to bring unnecessary micro and bring nothing to the gameplay, but fortunately it was confirmed as ruled out by Uber.
On the other hand, a counter showing how much it has destroyed in resources, instead of/in addition to a simple number would be good, as used in Zero-K, as it is a good way to see if the unit is making cost and better learn how effective your tactics really are.

Read the thread before you post people.

I thought that veterancy idea had been all but rejected already.

I am pretty much with OrangeKnight over the idea that veterancy is a slippery slope mechanic. Leaving veterancy out does not appriecably add to the strategy of engagements and it makes the battlefield that much more readable. Being able to see an enemy force and know intuitively what their capabilities are, without having to factor in how long these units have existed thus far, is a good thing.

This is really all I want in terms of information on units. Neat novelty information and gives you a sense for how good you are at preserving your forces without loss. It also leaves the door open if this mechanic becomes appropriate at a later date (mods etc)

I like veterancy, but I'm not gonna beat a dead horse. This thread should be put to rest.

The problem with veterans is the lack of easy visibility. If a Pee Wee is always a Pee Wee then I know roughly what 10 Pee Wees can and can't do. When you add in veterans I now need to check what each Pee Wee has in terms of experience. This is busy work clicking on units for something which adds very little strategic value.

I don't mind rewards for keeping something alive but they should be in the form of something that doesn't obscure the strength of a force. Maybe a unit can give a sudden boost to production for a few seconds if it hits N kills. It's experience means that the army gets an explicit advantage in training troops for a short time.

This way a Pee Wee is still just a Pee Wee while conveying some sort of strategic advantage to keeping stuff alive. Although the lore justification of this mechanic is stretched.

I like the idea of veteran units, if only because I like the idea of keeping back special units that have pleased me with their performance in battle. Not sure how it could work though. In TA it was mostly useless. Maybe Big Berthas worked with it.

Some problems I see include:

— not working very well story-wise in context of robots!
— being too micro-heavy to bother doing unless the veterancy gain-rates are set quite high, which then introduces potential early-game balance issues.
— unit veteran visibility (there are ways to solve this though, e.g. a unit literally grows bigger and changes colour – but again this conflicts with the idea of robots being inorganic!).
— introducing too much positional randomness, e.g. the ones at the front get the kills but are likely to die quickest anyway because they're on the front line![/list]
— etc.

However, I do enjoy playing with wild crazy ideas like using pre-defined groups that acquire in-formation group veterancy. So they're like a hit squad, an elite team you've sent out for a specific purpose; then the veterancy thing is done automatically somehow, seamlessly and not requiring any micro.

For example, a vet unit gets a small flag icon by it, and the highest-vet unit "leads" the squad and gains an ability, say, auto-repair of its squad members, at a given proportionate rate. Good enemy unit to target if you see one with high veterancy level. When one vet dies the next highest becomes "corporal". All in the background, all seamlessly.

You can obviously play with this idea a lot, like having high-vet units unable to be captured by enemy capture units (because they're "loyal" to you in their evolving AI circuitry ).

I loved veterancy. It rewards attacks that are successful enough that some units survive, and it discourages poorly judged attacks where none of the attackers survive. It has been a part of TA and SC and SC2, and I would miss it if it weren't present in PA. Maybe a visual indicator would be helpful. By all means, include an option to disable it for those who don't like it.

Stuart

I do agree with this partly, I did love the fact that TA had a kill counter, it really was a great edition all be it a simple one.

I don't mind just having a kill counter, but if possible I would prefer it if units did have some sort of upgrading system such as improved accuracy for example.

I know you were arguing against this, but that actually makes sense, plus the fact that people "learn by experience".
(and yes I understand you may say "well they're not people they are robots!" - which I would say ~True, but Robots can Learn too if programmed correctly, also the intro to TA; "What began as conflict over the 'transfer of consciousnesses of flesh to machines' into a war which has decimated a million worlds" shows that they may well be capable of learning)

Not true sir!

I would love to have the Kill counter back and rewarding players for being clever with their army is a good idea I feel, makes things more interesting as well.

First off, you forgot the part where they wipe that "learning experience' after every battle and the part where the greedy little robots keep the better aiming code to themselves instead of sharing it. It's a neat sound bite until you actually start thinking about it then it falls apart.

Second, "What began as conflict over the transfer of consciousnesses of flesh to machines into a war which has decimated a million worlds" has nothing to do with learning AI and all to do with putting people's minds into machines.

Mike

In addition what OrangeKnight pointed out, PA may be described as a spiritual successor to TA, however I dont recall reading that it would be a direct sequel. Using canon from another game series to describe why a veterancy mechanic would work in another game doesn't make sense. Keep it about PA potential lore, or better, about the pros and cons this mechanic has in terms of gameplay.

In any case it doesn't seem as though Uber are particularly keen on veterancy and have stated they would rather just keep statistics on units rather than have it alter any of their attributes.

I didn't forget, it just doesn't matter, every new robot is made with raw materials every game, all they would know is what they're taught. e.g. level 0 vet status.

And the "Greedy" robots as you put it is easily explained, the robots are not linked together in some sort of "hive" mind, they all act individually with orders from the commander (sent orders, not actually a back and forth link) just like in our real wars for example. There's no way the robot can send the information back without trawling back to base & up-linking to something, and whats the point if they even did? a miniature boost that doesn't really help all the units anyway? and keeps the good units off the front lines while in upload?

Also about the quote below this text, that intro shows that the machines have peoples consciousnesses inside them, eg they are capable of anything a human can do really except crying or feeling emotions, basically they can learn as humans do from mistakes and such, and even if that wasn't true, these robots are programmed very well they can learn from their battle experience just as robots today in our modern world are learning how to do things on their own, like learning what a ball is so they can recognize it later and robots like clever-bot for example. (keeping in mind these machines are massively more advanced than any learning computer we can make today)

That is true I admit, & in a way I think that's a shame, I'm a massive fan of TA, gave me my love of robots & Strategy games back when I was a kid.

(I would really love it to be all about TA - even though it won't be lol)
But I do like the planetary aspect of this game, & I am looking forward to playing it when it comes out.

-Hayd

It feels like a stretch to suggest that you have such advanced learning machines as you put it, and yet:

A: The machines don't have two way transfer of information between units and commander. Why? After all the commander needs feedback to know how it's orders are going.

B: Assuming for a moment that they only have unidirectional wireless communications, why don't they do this upload post battle to help with the next battle?

The issue with trying to justify a game mechanic like this through lore is that it has to be simultaneously high tech and arbitrarily limited. Which doesn't make sense.

[Edit] Edited for clarity in my argument