Risk vs Reward

@Meta

Not sure if this is meant to be a literal idea, but it sounds fantastic. I think you could balance this in such a way that it would work very well. I like that it takes a ridiculous amount of metal and energy meaning that you would have to greatly expand your base to hold that amount of metal spots. The other team could slow your process down by simply taking out metal extractors.

Would be cool if the 'I Win' unit was an actual controllable unit, instead of just an auto I-Win. Something like the Krogoth, but far superior.

You are describing current game play. Just fudging the numbers.

A good risk reward mechanic is the current vanguard/inferno drop. If it succeeds it is a huge win if it fails you have spent a lot of metal for nothing. This is also a prime example of the kind of play that can be derived from a T2 unit system that augments an army instead of replacing it.

Now for arguments sake let's consider the radar jammer or stealth(not cloaked) units. The jammer makes it possible to counter radar targeting of long range artillery, and to sneak up on a defensive emplacement and be in vision range before the artillery can start firing on your force. Stealth units would provide the same sneak attack option from the air or ground. We suddenly have diversified armies with several different mechanics to take advantage of and a branching path to victory.

Since the expense of support T2 units does not have to be so much greater than T1 the economy can be scaled back and T2 economy will not have to produce 2x, 4x, 8x times T1 to try and delay the T2 overrun. It becomes possible to break turtled bases by way of unit diversity instead of having to rely on nukes. It makes it possible to create more value for territorial control because Mexes don't have to produce insane amounts of economy in an effort to delay the T2 win button.

I think Meta is engaging in some classic reductio ad absurdum here to emphasise a point. Interesting discussions so far.

All very interesting comments.

I can see how a flat tech system would work but I prefer the actual T1, T2 tech levels. I did not at first but this thread gave me some different perspectives.

In the total war series it is also possible to get units with better stats when it has more experience. This is not more different than a straight upgrade from T1 to T2. It shoots and fights better but also costs more. But when bullets start flying the experienced and expensive troops will die as quickly to a cannonball as an ordinary trooper. You need the masses to fire and absorb many bullets. Experienced troops are there for specific tasks.

T2 units don't have to invalidate T1.

The real pickle i'm still in is what to think of T2 economy. At this moment I think the T2 metal extractor should be removed but maybe I need to play some games with this new balance first.

(And I agree that moving anti-nuke to T1 may not be a bad idea. i'm all for trying it)

YES! This would be a great change if it is T3, so T3 would be meta stage. The fabricators are limited to a few buildings like you mentioned and are extremely powerful but take a lot as you said. I think its pretty fair

Well this thread certainly made me more exited for the next patch!

A vanguard drop costs 665 metal per Vanguard. You typically need less than ten, if some of the latter beast tournaments were any indication. A 6600 metal drop costs you barely more than a single T2 factory or two T2 power gens.

That's not a lot of metal. You spend four times that on a single nuke. Three times as much on an anti-nuke. An army of 100 dox, which could easily melt into a row of laser towers, is half again more expensive.

Yeah people that think this is high risk haven't a clue what they talking about. Matiz should know better.

Vanguards sure are waay overpowered for drop scenarios, even at 50% their current stats drops with them would still be vicious and could easily end a game. However the general machanic of drops is pretty fun and should not be removed, it should just not be possible to instant drop anymore + vanguards probably can be nerfed
Then again if you balance vanguards to be dropped all the time they will completely suck as a direct combat unit, even more than they do now.

EDIT:
Additionally while a vanguard drop is rather cheap in metal it does cost quite a lot of player focus to execute it correctly. So doing a drop takes away a lot of time that you could have used to expand. That's a considerable part of the risk imho. If it ends bad you spent quite some time trying to make sure the drop succeeds while your opponent defends it via automatically patrolling fighters.

Oh I thought Uber had been given moneys.

Yeah true but that's a bad drop. Radar fighters and scouts make the drop successful each time. Level of opponents awareness and ability to defend a drop means the worst that should happen is that the vanguards are further outside the intended target. Then the opponent needs to deal with then. Cause 10 Vgs anywhere need attention. This takes a lot longer than the time to cross the map. Unless you flying over water or lava drops should be successful each time. I love the insta drop and pickup but think the units should be balanced with this in mind if it were to remain.

No matter how much scouting, if your opponent has fighters and aa, you cant successfully drop in any meaningful area. Also you say drops should be successful each time because of the speedy unload but to do that you basically need to watch your transports all the time, so it costs you 100% attention. That's a HUGE cost in player focus/time.

I think the best way to balance drops is to reduce drop speed. It should not be possible to instant drop half a second before enemy fighters shoot down your transports.
If you balance the units in the transport and not the transport itself it just has too many other consequence, basically it would make the payload units completely depending on transports and completely useless without them.

This is very obviously feature incomplete. ?

It has a great effect on balance so it needs to be said.

Think that's more of a play style choice then. I have no problem spending a little extra time microing my stuff. Better results IMO that way.

Welp the outcome of this balance will literally define whether or not I end up playing PA. I supported it purely because it was said that all units would always be viable; nothing would become obsolete. It seems to me that they are taking that back and many people are OK with, or support, it.

You devs should listen to @YourLocalMadSci as he very obviously understands good unit balance. Judging by the developer's responses to these questions, though, I don't have much faith in this issue being rectified.

It's not an issue, it's a topic for debate.

If I feel, with a misleading title.

It IS an issue. These are 2 massively different game design paradigms. The devs said one thing while collecting funds and are doing another thing. Quite frankly, that pisses me off. Didn't you see how metabolical phrased the question? He made it clear that he doesn't think that advanced should be specialized. Any time a developer has commented on this issue, they say that I was reading too much into what they had said before.

If this was up for debate, I think that the developers would be more open to the other paradigm. Their minds are made, and that makes me sad.

Did they however?

I mean, the community wants the specialisation thing, but the dev's haven't made any promises.

There is nothing to say that they have to do what we want in any case, we may of kick started it but we aren't exactly entitled to anything, no matter how the members of this community feel.


We felt like helping them develop their game, we didn't pay them to make ours.

As much as I hate to say stuff like this, but we can always mod the game and balance it how we like.

The most telling this is gonna be to see what happens when the top players get ahold of this patch. Will it indeed be a boring tech rush? Or will it be a Basic Battle over map control, and then step up to advanced? I dunno. We'll see.

I have my concerns, and have voiced them.

Uber seems to be pushing the game into a different direction where not all units are valid at all stages of the game. We'll see how it goes.