How many factions are there?

Wow, it's almost like every game ever. Or TA.

Game plots/lore are generally crap, serving only to justify the action. Very rarely, and only in specific genres, can you have a good story that supports the gameplay and is not betrayed by it.

And that's how it should be. The game should be fun to play. Attempts to mimic hollywood, books or TV are dire.

To chime in on the one faction thing. Most non-computer games and sports are fairly symmetrical. Chess, soccer, hockey even football and baseball to a degree. Everyone has the same positions or pieces, though it may change depending on your posture as defence or offence. And they're popular as all hell. This is because it makes it easy for the viewer or player to quickly understand what's going on.

Considering that everyone and their dog wants to be a part of e-sports this might be interesting as it could lower the early learning curve from the brick wall that is many other RTSs like starcraft. In the end it might be more like a sport, less of a oh they picked a poor matchup, against X faction you should really use Z faction instead of Y. Hopefully it will be more like, player A used their units better and just outplayed their opponent. Well hopefully anyway.

I don't think that's why they are popular.

u wot m8?
Out of all genres of video games, I'd say, RTS has and always will have a high learning curve. There is no getting away from that. You really can't have a game with a small learning curve and call it an RTS. Look at chess, it's not even the RT part of RTS and I wouldn't call the curve small.

I suppose the expression I'm looking for is easy to learn hard to master. Chess is easy to learn, in about 5 minutes you explain the rules and what each piece does. Yes RTSs by their nature of simulating war, are going to be more complicated. However there are differences between shallow, moderate, steep, and brick wall learning curves. Many RTSs fall into brick wall category, partly because of the asymmetrical or multiple factions. How many hours does one need to play against a CPU opponent before going online? Having a single faction will lesson that time (though not eliminate it), so you can spend less time learning the game and more time mastering/playing it.

I feel like total war has the best asymmetrical faction, because the ability to learn another faction is much easier when they are so similar while remaining so distinct and unique.

Don't underestimate fundamentals vs meta game.
While chess fundamentals could be learned in some hours/minutes to master the metagame it will take you the rest of your life.
Starcraft fundamentals on the other hand are hard to master. But the metagame..... ...i think in 2/3 years we will have like what? 4 to 5 common builds per race some (5 to 10) special things (timing pushes, nukes, nydus) and some rush builds. Thats all, the rest is execution of fundamentals.

Good, one faction is enough. Having been playing a lot of planetside 2 recently, and the constant whinging about balance is depressing. There was similar whinging about the balance in OTA (the whole doomsday machine vs annihlator comes to mind.) as well.

As for story: Once upon a time, a robot builder thought it'd be cool to have his robots fight one another. The rest is history.

To be honest, when I first heard this I was almost immediately dissuaded from buying the game, let alone preordering it.

But then I realized how small of a budget Uber is really working with in attempt to make such a huge game. By having one faction they are saving an IMMENSE amount of time and money, and the game will always be inherently balanced.

they haven't ruled out future factions, its just an economic thing

but yes for a simRTS the cons really outweigh the pros

Just wondering, when they first showed the untextured models of the units in the game such as buildings, battleships, tanks and turrets etc, were those all the units in the game? Because if so, i feel that this game will get stale fast, i can imagine that it would become very boring expanding to a new planet just to end up building the exact same tanks as you used to take over the last planet..

I hope if that was all the units in the game that htey add more units in the game at a later date, because if not it worries me..

(this is all of-course if those units shown wern't actually all the units in the game.)

What this guy learned about asymmetry is that a little effort with bits and pieces does not work. You gotta go all the way.

They said that the units shown were about 75% of all units.
I hope for more units and T3 stuff - and an epic expansion pack like the core contigency was

The Units seen in the Whitebox pics were only what the bguys are Uber thought were the BARE MINIMMUM in order to start nailing down the core combat gameplay, they will add more as they discover what else is needed via testing and they have stated they plan to create post release content updates, that could include new units as well.

Mike

No, they never said that.


As Mike has said, they said its the bare minimum to have a functional game. So please, don't speculate from the minimum to how much the finished game will have.

It's PA :shock: not Starcraft I or II, Dawn of War 40K or any other such fare that bases GP on factions. And yes happy with it.

Yeah, actually, having a single unit pool enhances the strategic aspect of the game.

I don't really know how to explain, but, while I at first mildly disliked the idea, I'm now 100% in favour and would actually prefer it over multiple armies, for a multitude of reasons.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRYC9GbQ ... Pg&index=5

56:20. So please, check your facts before telling people they shouldn't speculate.

But even then, that still allows for approximately 25 more units, and on top of that, they aren't going to stop if halfway through the Beta they hit the 100% units mark and find they need more units.

Mike

If buildings are considered units, then yes there is probably quite some more

I personally found the relentless struggle between the opposing ideals of the Arm and the Core to be my primary motivation for continuing to play Total Annihilation to this day. Factions are important for emotional engagement, a factor essential for prolonged playability. SupCom overextended with three (and four) factions, two is sufficient.

HOWEVER; I support the fact this game has a single faction to keep costs and development time low, and I will withhold any and all judgement until they reveal the storyling that supports a single faction.

I also look forward to the possibility of a second faction in an expansion, presumably dependent on sales of the initial game. Or perhaps we will find that a second faction is neither necessary nor desired once we actually get to play the game. Time will tell.