Risk vs Reward

Ahh, a similar philosophy.

my point 1 would be worded as:

1. T2 units are better at specific jobs then T1, but are not as good overall as T1.

I think I agree with that. As long as a leveller can still take on a few ants on its own, but ends up being beaten by a cost-equivalent force of ants, or some other unit.

Essentially this:

(Awesomness of T1 / Metal cost of T1) = (Awesomeness of T2 / Metal cost of T2)

Indeed, a leveller that is specialised to kill enemy tanks would be a beast, but might suffer rather horrendously against little dox when compared to it's T1 little ant brother who can spam shells all day long.

Emradis, igncom, I'm with everyone that ties have gone the way of the dodo. I question why you even need to use tiers so frequently as if their some mandatory part of any argument regarding making the game more fun.

This is what tiers are,
T1: play PA with defense spam
T2: play PA nuke minigame with more interesting units

If you eliminate the concept of tiers a lot of staple T1 units just loose any meaning.

This. Very very very much so this.

I want my risks to be in how I use my units, not in whether I rush to higher tech or not at what time.

I want PA to be unit focused not tech focused. After all, y'all sold us the idea of mass units back during the Kickstarter – not a game focused around a tech race, which is what I disliked about SupCom.

Risk and reward should be in how I attack and defend. Do I be daring and send all of my units straight into their defensive line? Or do I take my time and pick off outlying metal extractors? Do I put all of my focus into this one planet, or do I head out into space and find safety on another planet?

Well the point of the thread, as I gather it is to reproduce the common RTS gameplay mechanic of risk reward teching.

While I believe most of not all of the community agrees that teching shouldn't be handing you better units and economy overall, teching is still a cornerstone of RTS gameplay when compared to booming or steamrolling.

The idea is that you risk your production and economy to unlock anothger set of units that will give you and advantage of veriaty and unit types on the battlefield, while in games like age of empires it's easy to see the point of teching is to unlock bette rveriations of units, you also forget that teching, say, from the furdral age to the castle age unlocks units like the camel and the knight.

While the knight is superior to the scout cavelry, and even to the light cavalry it doesn't replace them, it fulfils a similar role to the light Calvary as a artillery/archer/monk killer, as well as being a overall good raider.

So how doesw it not replace the light cav? Well first things first the knight is more expensive, not that really means much later on, but the knight has more hp, is slower but also does more damage.

So overall, you might want to use the newer knight right?

Well you now face the problem that things lk

My internet cut out and deleted like another 4 paragraphs, so tldr:

Uber wants the risk reward of teching, granting the player new stuff as a reward for taking the risk of losing eco time and production meanwhile against a non teching player.

This is age old rts mechanic, but needs to be done right.

Teching needs to take time, and provide variant units and buildings as a result, variants needs to have plusses as well as faults, all new variants need to have existing counters, even if counters aren't all that great.

I made comparison to AOE fuderal age-castle age gameplay with cavalry and anti-cavalry.

Non teching player has base cavalry, archers and anti-cavalry, player that techs gains heavy cavalry variant that has more hp and damage, but is slower and costs more and also gains anti-cavalry camels that are weaker basic cavalry that do more damage vs cavalry.

Both players have cavalry that counters archers, both players have anti-cavalry, teching player now has 2 cav types instead one one, and 2 anti-cavalry types instead of one.

Giving tech player more versatility, without giving them better choices or choices that cannot be countered.

PA should follow suit.

There is no such mechanic. Risk reward is a purely player concept it doesn't exist like that at the design level; and when its forced in by the design its what we call a "progression system".

The correct design paradigm if you want to get players to build risk reward is "choice"

Well I will have to disagree with you on that one on a strategic basis.

I frequently in games have to mane manoeuvres or attacks that could risk me the game, but could also reward me with a swift or possibly only chance a victory.

And it looks like that is what they are trying here, a system of unlocking units in order to give the player units and tools to give them a upper hand on a opponent who has a better economy, map-control or is simply commanding their forces better then you.

You risk your current position by gambling what allows you to hold it in order to gain a reward for doing so, should you succeed.

However currently, it's a safe bet that the other player can't capitalise on, and is utter hopeless play against should the other player succeed.


For a teching based system were you unlock more unit types, variations, and ways of playing the game.

Im all for it, sign me up!

But please keep the benefits for the player to use to their best ability rather then a implicate "once you are there, you gain a better everything, along with stuff they can't counter without matching your bet".

What exactly do you mean no risk and no reward? I want to know what risk is getting mitigated and what reward is also being mitigated by lowering the cost of this advanced tier.

I'll shoot over to C&C red alert 2 and look at two tanks.

Grizzly tank (fast/okay firepower/ basic) Very basic tank that has no specialties other then destroying tanks. It can storm bases but it will get destroyed or damaged by strong defenses.

$700 dollars

Prism tank(medium speed/long range anti defense-building fire power/advanced) Advanced tank that provided a unique ability to attack base defenses without getting damaged. making base assaults easier.

$1100 dollars

Both tanks provide choices in base assault where its still possible to attack a base, its just more effective with the advanced units in the mix. However, the Prism tank wasn't outright better then the grizzly, the grizzly could still destroy a prism tank unguarded. Its just the option of having that advanced unit to destroy bases that helps in the assault, not completely invalidate using a grizzly tank.

The point of not providing the prism tank at the basic level is that its a specialist and meant to help in key situations. In the beginning of games, no base is heavily defended, the map is still young and has no trenches set in place. when it becomes later in the game and Bases are super defended, and basic units get annihilated before they can do damage, bring in the specialists to break those trenches and super defended bases.

I guess with the whole risk and reward setup, the risk of building advanced units early is that they are weak to basic units. Sadly this isn't true due to the power level of advanced units. There is no risk to building advanced, no matter the cost. If something is out right better, then its a calculated decision instead of a choice.

You have no Idea how much I want to have a lengthy convo with you about balance over Teamspeak.

It would be really nice. We could resolve the misunderstandings so much quicker, and without the rants.

plz?

A lengthy convo where neither party wants to listen to the other is everyone's definition of a fun time!

Ummm.....I've been reading every opinion here, so I don't know what you mean.

If you had, you'd know it was a response to mered4's post about having a "lengthy convo" with Metabolical, so they could "resolve the misunderstandings".

Spend less time reading and more time letting it sink in. A.k.a. listening.

Unlike many of you wonderful human beings, I appreciate other folks' perspectives.

It's like a sea of opinions. Sometimes it is filled with honey, other times, cranberry juice. Both are pretty good....

No need to be so sarcastic there buddy.

Otherwise people might start purposely ignoring your posts before they can even have a chance to "settle in".

That kind of attitude won't win you any favours.

Everything that @Dementiurge posts should be considered in light of this-

https://forums.uberent.com/threads/rel-ko-deferred-or-lightspeed-ui-ahead.58294/

Carlorizzante is right, it's a metaphor for the experiment, taken to the extreme. Because at the extreme, as you guys already identified, is just silliness because every game would be resolved with basic units long before you even built the factory - it would be a waste of time.

So at the ridiculous extreme, even though the reward is an instant win (if you can call it that after the time it took you to get it) with a risk that was to assume your opponent would be passive long enough for you to get away with it. Not really that interesting.

The other extreme is in my opinion also not interesting. You have access to all units at the start of the game. I think we saw that Pelicans in the basic tier provided too much mobility in general, both for the commanders and for your ability to expand.

What we're hoping to find, and not actually claiming we've already found, is a rewarding advanced tier that opens up options for you without it being both so good and so easy that you automatically rush it, nor so useless and so expensive that nobody bothers. In other words, we're searching for balance.

Doing that offers choice, and the need for strategic decision making in our real time strategy game. Big map? Advanced tech is more of an option because you have more time. Small map? I guess you better think more about how you're going to deal with that early conflict.

Flatten out the advanced and basic units and you risk having an optimal build regardless of map. Pelicans and vanguards all at the start of the game? You now have massive early game mobility making the size of the planet much less relevant and you can just do your favorite thing.

Maybe you don't agree with these principles, but at least you can understand this line of thinking. And we know that the law of unintended consequences applies here too. Raising the economy of the advanced tier has a bunch of side effects like making it so you can build more basic units for the same cost that raises their relative power to advanced, making it more viable at advanced to repair your commander, and forcing you to fight more over territory with basic units so you can control enough metal extractors to plausibly run an advanced factory or an advanced fabricator.

So yes, I read your posts and I reflect on them to decide whether I agree. Or sometimes I test the theory in the sandbox or in a playtest. And eventually we find a balance we think feels right, and we give it to you guys, and sometimes you innovate and break it and we have to fix it. And that's ok. But I don't always agree with those posts. Does making advanced cost / produce even more force you to rush it even more? Some say yes, but I say not at all. It makes it a bigger risk (as the extreme thought experiment demonstrates). And since we didn't raise the power of advanced units, it is a bigger risk with the same reward. In other words, it closes the gap between basic and advanced.

And we tested that theory in our balance playtest. Rushing advanced was more dangerous, and we ended up building more basic units and fighting with them. And when we got to advanced, it took a long time and a lot of economy to get it going. And then there was a payoff. But I took my advanced army in to fight Scathis, and he had this huge basic army that creamed my tiny advanced army. The sample size is small, and we need more adjustments and tweaks to get it right.

So if you're going to watch, it's a bumpy ride and we hope you enjoy it. Keep the concerns, theory crafting, and ideas flowing. I personally like them more when they are posed as concerns and questions rather than as absolute or definitive conclusions, and those are the ones I'm more interested in responding to.

Ok, tomorrow morning I'm off to PAX, and I hope to see some of you there. I will probably continue to compulsively check email and the forums as I do basically every day, though I may have fewer opportunities to do so.

Good night!

Hell yeah, your experiments with the very core of how RTS games have me more excited for PA since the kick starter!

Keep going, and we might all be surprised with the end result!

I want to play both games; one with your balance for advanced and the other one, which I will call Nanolathe Annihilation.

Good thing we can do balance mods after release!

I get a sour spot in my stomach at the thought of Tier 2 becoming a "win" condition.

I would be much happier if the Tier 2 factories were cheaper and more accessible, but the units they produced offered only specialist solutions instead of linear upgrades. This isn't just about units... Tier 2 economy should offer specialist economy options rather than linear upgrades. T2 metal could produce 50% more metal, but require energy to work, or it could produce the same metal, but offer some other advantage, such as a weapon and heavy armor. T2 economy should not invalidate map expansion by offering massive rates beyond T1. My favorite option is making T1 Mex a stand alone defensive structure with high armor and a multi-role weapon. The T2 Mex would replace it completely and have a higher income rate, but would loose the armor and weapon. There are many ways to make T2 economy more interesting than simply being 7 times better in every possible way. I would rather see them removed than be a replacement for T1 economy.

Some examples for T2 units would be long range artillery, anti-swarm (low damage, high AoE) units, stealth units, mobile radar units, sniper units, mobile anti-nuke, etc. Ideally these units should be very specializezd units excelling in a single job but very weak in other areas. Valuable assets to an existing army, but they should be piss-poor performers as stand alone units.

A "better" tank, a "better" bot, a "better" bomber has no place in T2 because it takes away from the value of having T1. If the game is a race to "better" we can skip all of the intermediate content completely.

That's my opinion at least.