Commanders and what we know so far.

Could be that’s true. Certainly the capacity to save maps as Neutrino has suggested (saving the seed that generated the map or some such?) People will most definitely save particularly enjoyable maps and from this would stem community favourites. I think that would be a good thing for sure.

You summarised very neatly the core concept of my post in these statements and I agree. The priorities of Planetary Annihilation are not the same as games like Starcraft which hinge far more on accounting for and controlling every variable. Games like Starcraft I would say are akin to a board game with fixed rules, where PA is shaping up to be more a dynamically shifting environment with changable variables (by this I am refering to the environment by virtue of the procedural generation).

I noticed much the same, there were a lot of threads talking about how there should be factions, or how Uber could differentiate factions and so on.

I think it is just the nature of a forum environment to have a vocal minority (or any collective for that matter). Not many people are going to bother making a thread just to say how much they like or agree with a given announcement. However a lot of people who dont like said announcement will then make threads on how they think the percieved issue should be addressed.

TBh i dont need the Commander.

Could also play without it just starting with an engi.

I want to fight with armies not with one unit.


Well you could ever do a Arena style or MOBA style CvC mode .

Edit @ post above me:
You could also be competitive in adapting to unknow situations. With thinking about stuff. Not memorizing everything. I like to think IN and not BETWEEN the games.

Just my 2 cents

I think that commander will not be as vulnerable as TA and SupCom since they can escape to other worlds also (according to what I got from Livestream) tech 2 units will be units with special task rather than better units so tech 1 units still can be used as the main force (I do not know what discussions have been made for later game design, so please correct me if I was wrong).

Just a note guys, the commanders in Zero K come in different flavors with different chassis' and abilities. However, in actual gameplay they don't have substantial effect on the battle, but rather an effect on how you play the commander.

For example, take a standard chickens map (fight vs waves of enemies). You can choose from 4 premade commanders that have some differences in abilities. For example, one walks slower but builds faster, one has a weapon that has an AOE blast, one has jumpjets, etc.

In actual multiplayer, you can customize these commanders by mixing and matching any ability, AND many of the abilities are unlocked after ranking up, so low ranked players don't really get to use them much.

All of this is pretty much a textbook situation for imbalanced commanders, and yet in actual multiplayer games, I rarely see it having a major effect on the way battles turn out. I didn't realize I could customize the commanders for quite some time, but I still won against a few people that had decked out commanders.

Now Uber's design for the commanders seems to be a LOT more passive and benign than what Zero K does, so I'm pretty darn sure it won't have any detrimental gameplay imbalances that make it out of the beta. In any case, I'm fine with either decision they make; To have a variety of commander abilities or to have the commander designs be purely cosmetic.

From what I've seen so far, this is the same kind of set up I'm hoping for as well.

Mike

I was kind of expecting something akin to picking summoner spells in League of Legends when I heard there were going to be specialised abilities for Commanders. Picking what you want to use at the start of a match is exactly the model I was expecting.

Still, if Uber wants to go with preset abilities for all commanders, that's their prerogative. I don't get the instantaneous panic reflex upon hearing that there will be mechanical differentiation between commanders.

Hmmm, I just want to say for the record that I never said I didn't want this. In fact the opposite. I pretty much predicted it a week or two before it was announced and I never envisioned anything affecting more than the commander. Honestly, I am excited about the concept of having commanders with different abilities and I am more than sure that Uber will be able to balance the abilities between the commanders.

All I was saying was that if the abilities are available from the start then it seems to me that they will have to be scaled for game start, making them less effective later on. At the core of that I was looking to find out what kind of abilities we were talking about and how powerful they will be. I am sure it is going to tailor certain commanders to certain game types and I am sure that commander choice will be a part of team play.

Essentially these abilities cannot be something that means that on a small map you can just go over to the enemy at the start of the game and cheese them with your commander alone, or build a significantly bigger army much faster than your opponent due to having increased resources from something like a resource allocation unit. All the time I am thinking about a game start situation where the commander has the maximum influence in the game. As someone already stated, as the distance between players becomes larger the impact of these abilities is significantly reduced (apart from resource allocation perhaps).

As stated by Neutrino - "It's probably going to be limited to a few weapon types and a few activatable skills (e.g. cloak)"
To me that basically means that things like resource allocation, nano repair, teleport and tactical missiles are out.
Perhaps things like stealth, cloak, build assist drones, speed of movement (possibly even jetpack), slight HP or damage boosts could be in. All of this is just me speculating now. Perhaps I shouldn't since so far it has upset a few people... However, this is one of the reasons I became a backer -so that I could ask these questions direct to the team.

EDITED: Added link.

For abilities: Commander upgrades in Supcom were good. They gave your ACU an advantage, but at the cost of resources. They are generally well balanced and add a dynamic to the game.
Having ACUs with unique abilities at the start of the game will be a balancing nightmare. In my opinion one that the dev team can do without.

As for supcom:
Cybran is underplayed and this is not least due to the fact that the Cybran ACU has 10000 HP, the lowest in the game. It gets +5HP/sec more regen, but that means pretty much nothing.

With deathnukes reduced to 2500 hitpoints in FAF (redo the math for 4k), here is what's true:
In a 1v1 commander fight against UEF (12000 HP ACU) the Cybran ACU needs > 2500HP when the UEF ACU blows up to survive. This means that Cybran ACU cannot take more than 7500 damage while doing 12000 damage, a difference of 4.5K, basically requiring that you do more than 50% additional damage.

For UEF vs Cybran, you have to take less than 9500 damage while doing 10000 damage, a difference of 500.

Now, if the maps in PA are going to be gargantuan all the time then this is going to be less of a problem (although the game will suffer if you start so far apart), but the point still stands. When you have a set of abilities to choose from, invariably some are better than others. If the better ones are fenced off for bigger backers only, then again the game will suffer.

I agree with you on this point, but I think Neutrino has already stated that upgrades won't be considered. I suppose that generally means that the abilities (passive and player activated) will be less powerful than the upgrades we saw in games like SupCom.

I am 100% sure that maps will not always be this big. Uber have gone to great lengths to talk about how they want the game to be scalable. By this they mean game length and that will be decided by map size. This has been stated in interviews and livestreams. Re: the point you made about better abilities being fenced off for backers - I don't think Uber would ever be so dumb and they have already stated that all the abilities will be available to all the players via the stock set of commanders. I'll try and find the link somewhere and edit it in... (I think this is all giving Neutrino a bit of a headache lol)

EDITED: Added link.

Just to jump in on this comment, Neutrino said in the Delta Commander thread that the custom commanders and the backer commanders will be taking their abilities from the same pool of abilities as any other. So there wont be abilities that are unique to people who paid more.

That may be so, but it sounds like there will be combinations of abilities which will be unique to custom commanders.

If I could get confirmation that this is not the case, I think I would be very happy.

Note: I'm sure the game will be awesome either way, I just don't want to feel like the poor relation to someone who threw $1000 at a game, even though that's exactly what I am due to my not being able to do exactly that. *and breath*

The people who put 1000 dollars into the development of PA will get a unique combination of abilities yes. Is this seriously something that you have an issue with? None of the abilities are unique and the combination is just as unique as any other commander. They should get some recognition. As a backer you get the theta commander, with a unique combination. If you were part of the kickstarter add alpha and progenitor to that. People who don't get in on the preorder don't get them. It is just the way it is. It is more than a bit silly to start talking about poor relations and treat it like some injustice has been visited upon you.

*ALARM* Assumption presented as fact! *ALARM*

They said that custom commanders would get to choose abilites, not that they would be able to choose abilites in a combination not available to normal players.

Judging by:

Its more likely that not only the abilites but also the combinations available for custom commanders will be the same as the combinations for the default commanders.

Greener grass is always an issue. Have you missed the state of the human condition for the last 10000 years? Ever since the end of the ice age, mankind has been in an endless war over his neighbors to have the greenest grass.

The Zero-K modules did not work until you upgrade your Commander. I don't think they had a d-gun either.

Since PA commanders do not have direct upgrades, I think we'll see abilities on the Comm right away. Whether they can be used right away is a different manner.

A Commander doesn't have to scale to have his abilities scale. However, some things scale well and some things don't. Any ability that depends on specific damage or healing values won't work that well. However, a utility power can always find itself useful. Abilities that link to infrastructure can naturally be locked down early game, while becoming more accessible as energy and special structures are built.

There are a number of abilities I consider to be "vital" to nearly any Commander. An ability to deal with early pressure and an ability to stay out of trouble are pretty much essential for everyone. Any Comm that lacks these powers will be hunted down and mercilessly killed. Where abilities might differ, is in providing perks to a Commander's traits. For example:

- jump jets can avoid troublesome terrain, reach more places, stay out of lava, and generally move faster.
- an upgraded lathe might reclaim units faster or capture them more effectively. It may even fight entirely with the lathe, finding the idea of a d-gun barbaric when compared to loyalty nanites. (notice how economic use is deliberately unaffected)
- a transforming gun uses the lathe to reconfigure it into any role. The mass is paid for, but energy is needed to switch between guns.
- a recall beacon only needs to build one teleport structure instead of linking 2.
- an upgraded U-Cannon might fire faster or allow access to a late game super weapon.

Notice how little difference in raw strength these options have. Where they differ is allowing different techniques, and access to certain levels of high tech. Some of them might work well, some may not. But the point of alpha-beta is to break down these issues and make them work.

You guys are pushing this way way way further in your heads than I am planning on taking it. So many people have so many different vision for this and it's simply a DISTRACTION from what the game is about.

- the abilities of a commander are fixed
- no upgrades
- the abilities aren't going to take the form of something that makes a commander radically more powerful than other commanders
- abilities aren't going to have global army effects.

Again, the commander is simply one unit (And a unique one at that) and people I think we putting too much emphasis on that. I'm still seriously considering nuking any gameplay differences because I'm slowly becoming convinced that's the right thing to do.

... Have you looked at aloot of the Supcom replays of frontline commanders Neutrino? The commander alone can easily change the flow of battle completely, even when completely unupgraded.

A commander (if done in a way even remotely simular to supcom, even without upgrades) is a big deal even if its just "one unit".

Considering that there will not be a tech 3 anymore, they will be even more viable since you might be able to use them incombat late game now (without the great risk of using it late game in supcom were they often got insta pwned by some tier 3 bots before you could react).

Me personaly would still prefear differences between commanders, but if they have differences you should take the balance of such a unit seriously into consideration and not just dismiss it as "simply one unit".

In my humble opinion. With love from a devoted fan. Please dont have me killed.

Nah dont do it, i mean throwing that idea away. It sound interesting, just some guys are bringing there thought further then any fact you posted would suggest. Its there way to still have ground to debating until the beta comes out

I spend for a dream that you have and you want to realise it. I did it because it sounded awesome and shared your dream. Bring that dream to a point where everyone sees it, then the real debate can start

We'll probably still do it but I think peoples expectations are pretty far off from what I actually want to do. Anyway I feel like I've had good feedback here, no need to beat a dead horse on this issue at the moment, too many other fish to fry.

You really hate animals.

Neutrino, I think it's just a case of where we don't know all the info, we still have a half finished puzzle, so take anything we say with a few shakers of salt, I really think it can work, and I'm more than confident you guys are fully capable of making it work, just think of this as a growing pain due to Backer Involvement!

I also think that in PA Commanders will be taking on more of a "Builder" role, a saying on the GPG forums when like so(I think) "Your ACU has the build power of 2 engineers, but the combat power of 20 tanks" so it's natural commanders would find themselves at the front lines a lot, particularly in the early game. With the emphasis on the PA Commadner seeming like it will be more so in building, as we'll be using it to do a lot of our interplanetary expansion it seems, it should obviously be able to defend itself from small raids/attacks, but I get the feeling it won't be on the front lines nearly as much as ACUs were.

Maybe a few more bits of into to help fill in the puzzle? Obviously think can change and such but.....

- Will commanders all share the same stats? (If/before abilities might adjust them)

- Any chance of a ball park of the number of abilities you plan to have initially?

- How many Abilities will Commanders have?

- Might some Abilities adjust a Commanders stats(I can see this happening for the different skeleton types you mentioned before, or a passive 'armor' ability that adds more HP, maybe at the cost of speed)

can't think of more off the top of my head, but I'm sure others can too, so I'll leave it at that for now.

Don't give up Neutrino, I know you and the others at Uber can make this work, you guys are the best in the entire industry at this type of game!

Mike