Do we need tech levels?

^this.

I am definately in favor of that system. It works very smoothly, with interesting options building up over time as armies get larger.

"Fairly competitive" means "could beat other player using (with skill) both special and basic units with like 50% probability if their overall strategy skill is the same". In other words, you suggest separate people who prefer to play with masses, without going into much micro of controlling special units and people who prefer to play with champions - special units supported by masses making breakdowns.

And you want to balance this two groups without invalidating any of them? I.e. you want to narrow it down to just selection of play style? Well, while I agree that this will create perfect additional opportunities and
much needed diversity without adding much complexity (as basic units would be only few - easy to master), but I really doubt that this is entirely possible. I fear that it would end up with slight imbalance towards correct using of special units.

I mean, if you make special situational unit, like sniper bot, you assume that it will require some advanced control to be competitive. And by "competitive" you mean that it will be more effective than basic unit with good control (while much less effective without one). But than you make a match where one player is using only basic units and other player is using both basic and this special units. With good control and advantage of special unit second player would be able to destroy more enemy units than his opponent, cause basic units do not require much control. To counter that, first player, who use only basic units, would be required to watch for this special unit usage and control his basic forces in such way which will make this special unit ineffective (like splitting forces into two flows, trying to get to sniper bot from different sides).

In other words, micro at one side will automatically require additional micro on other side to counter first micro. And this will make only-basic usage quite ridiculous as you still need to micro-control to counter special units of your opponent, and why then not to use same special units not to just counter enemy, but also gain advantage against enemy's special forces?

And thus, Supreme Commander 2 was born.

Simplify everything to get more casual players to get more money.

Thanks for the formulaic non-answer.

I'm sorry, but finding out the capabilities of a unit can't be hard at all. How much trouble would it be to add descriptions for every unit build icon to let players know? And if I still wasn't sure myself about what something does, all I would have to do is build the thing to find out.

The fact that you think variety can only scare away new players shows you know nothing about new player experience. I distinctly remember my newbie brain being enthralled by the amount of toys to play with in Core Contingency. I remember looking for games that have ambition.

Knowing the exact movement speeds, turret turn speeds, rates of fire and all such finer details isn't going to matter a whole lot to players unless they're playing competitively.

As a player who recently started playing Zero-K I can safely say that overwhelming number of units is easily one on of the biggest turn-offs for the game. It has no tutorial to speak of, and just drops you in a game where you can build about 80 different units.

Even for someone looking for games "with ambition", it requires serious dedication to get into. A tooltip with explanations is cute, but your opponents won't stop to let you read them, meaning your first dozen or so games will be you reading labels while your opponents stomp you down.

But, if you like games with ambition, jump into a game of Space Empires V. Preferably if you haven't played it before. As far as ambition goes, that game has the most I've ever seen. And it's the reason it's so off-putting, because the learning curve is a vertical line. You'll love it.

Yeah. You're definitely overthinking this. EVERY unit is going to benefit from micro, and some units will simply be more generically useful than others. It's inevitable, and it's pointless to pretend otherwise. The only way to FORCE a player to build diverse, or indeed build anything at all, is to FORCE a game over if he doesn't. That's no way to design a unit hierarchy, and it's certainly no way to put strategic options into a game.

The best idea for a tech tree I've seen yet is basic units => advanced units. Why? Because it organically places the complex units out of reach. The first thing a player sees are the simple units, which is an easy learning curve. The advanced units come after learning the basics, and by sheer convenience it keeps advanced cheese tactics out of the early game. It's simple. It's elegant. Nice.

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The point of specialty units is that they have a time and a place. They exist to spice up an otherwise unchanging theme of tanks vs. tanks. Where and when these units will be used is virtually impossible to predict, as it evolves with the metagame. However, the kind of tools they can provide is only limited by one's imagination at this point. If the tools are good and relevant to the player's goal, they will use it. If not, they won't. Let the units be judged on their own merits before discounting everything on an account of being "too hard".

PA grants us a wide selection of map archetypes. Specialty units could very well play into each map's individual style, being inefficient or pointless for other world types. For example a hovercraft might be ideal for crossing lava, or an amphibious tank has no fear of a sinking glacier. Generic units may be drastically changed by the worlds as well. For example boats are useless on a dry world, and tanks have no footing on a gas giant. This creates unique variants of the game between each world, and may be a useful barrier to slow down galactic sweeps.

Sure, they are more complex mechanics, but it's not overwhelming by a long shot. Many subtleties of the game can be easily ignored until the multi-map stage. Given that the goal for a typical PA game involves $100 of junk food and no weekend plans, it's not a bad idea to have such complexity to keep long games interesting, and more importantly to capture that elusive element of being unpredictable.

Besides, if you want simple, just NR20 and go straight to a superweapon slug match.

At this point in development we can't rule anything out, So better we have a selection of cool and quirky ideas to use rather then attempting to generate some kind of consensus here of the forum.

It's not completely true. It's not worthwhile to micro your t1 tanks in SupCom or T2 amphibious tanks - you'll lose more cause you are distracted with this micro and will safe one tank. But it's one huge difference with some kind of T4 like Fatboy. If you won't control it - it would die without making much harm to enemy forces, but if you do it will crush any defence without even being touched.

Everything else you said is pointless cause you haven't defined word "advanced". There is "special units" or "situational" and "advanced" (more powerful). TA style is "basic => special", SupCom style is "basic => advanced => even more advanced" with a little mix of "special". You probably arguing for TA style and you meant "special". Well, yes, this have sense, but what I'm saying that to master the game up to middle level (in ranked ladder) you would be forced to learn how and when you should use your special units. Further pro-leveling would be mostly about this - learning what counters what, when to use which unit and how to control it efficiently, and this is the same thing starcraft is all about.

I'd rather prefer to see dozens of units in mods, not other way around, but I'm sure if there would be like you said - a lot of different units, I would be first one who will make a mod reducing them to some kind of SupCom level. For strategy game diversity should came not from units, but from strategy decisions. Units diversity is good, but from some point it will only hurt strategy diversity as it will track players from making far-planned well-predicted complex maneuvers with dozens of units to fast and quick improvisation on current situation.

1. Please, don't speak for everyone. If you are good at remembering things it doesn't mean that everyone are good in it. And "remembering things" is not a skill I'd rather see as major for strategy game. Something you may remember in few hours for other man will take few days.

2. You know, man could track only 7-10 (at best) things at same time. Will more units diversity he will be forced to track a lot of low-level current situations and positions on map when a particular unit would be good. And he will also be required to keep in minds: economics (on several planets and asteroids), two or three frontlines (on several or same planet and asteroids), construction&unit production, ACU defense, few offensive operations behind enemy lines and helping a few allies. Keeping all this units differences in mind would be just perfect addition, right. And in "minimal system requirements" it should be written "User with sufficient mathematical skill capable on keeping in mind more that 12 things at same time".

I should have max 10 units like: tank, artillery, AA, shield, stealth, rockets, anti-rockets and maybe one-two champions like T4. And advancing tech level just means that some of this types became more powerful (or available), but I still have same 10 units: powerful tank, powerful artillery, same AA, same shield, powerful stealth and soon. So only thing I should keep in mind that I should compound my armies from different units of each type, maybe in different proportions (this is strategic decision - more artillery, more aa and shields, less tanks - I'm going to siege enemy defences (enemy has a good defense, but only a few land units to break my party), or more stealth and more tanks - I'm going to rush it with raw firepower (enemy has a lot of land units but not very good point defenses)). That's what I want to think about, not about "hmmm, that's a good rock, If i'll put here a sniper-bot it will be very efficient against any units passing by".

nightlord, think of it this way, using your Sniper unit as an example, yes, maybe it could kill a basic unit 1 on 1, but what if the Sniper unit costed more? What if it was facing off against 2 basic units?

There is so much context to consider in terms of unit match ups, balance and setting(aka terrain) that just basic statements aren't sufficient.

A broader way to look at it is that the Basic units would be overall more economical in more situations than the Advanced units. So sure, your Sniper might be able to kill my Basic tank at range, but if I drop my basic tank from a transport right next to your Sniper it would die before killing my Tank.

Also consider possible economic constraints, if I can get 2* Basic Tanks for the cost of 1* Sniper it doesn't matter if it can kill a Basic tank 1 on 1 because assuming equal overall skill chances are I'll have built 2* tanks for every 1* Sniper.
*Super arbitrary numbers to prove a point only!

Also just because Basic units won't have a huge Specialization doesn't mean they won't benefit from Micro, maybe they won't benefit as much as Specialized Units, but it can also mean that a player focusing on Basic units can spend more time doing other things that might give him a strategic advantage as opposed to the player using Advanced units having more of a tactical advantage.

Of course, in the end this is all nothing more than guessing until Uber tells/shows us some definitive information.

Mike

The issue with Zero-K, and games on the Spring engine in general is they are severely unpolished and lack skirmish support; the only way to play a game is online against other experienced players. Planetary Annihilation certainly will not have this problem.

Weren't the statistics that most gamers prefer to play offline? What you describe certainly wouldn't be an issue to them.

And nightlord, I have yet to see a major RTS title where being successully competitive was possible without fully understanding the capabilities of every unit, regardless. Or any successful game where newbies automatically gain equal footing with tournament level competitors.

You can actually play Zero-K against bots. It doesn't reduce the problem of the enemy not waiting for you to figure stuff out much.
Hell, even playing in the sandbox is seriously daunting because there's just so much you need to learn.

That is true, but beware redundancy where it is not needed, including units that are upgrades of others.

A basic level tool set of units to fill all the tasks required on the battlefield will be sufficient for newer players to learn while retaining that hard to master edge.

Adv advanced units will maintain specialized roles in the military and will have glaring weaknesses in their design, making then useful at the tasks they were designed at, but otherwise useless.

New players can then use their bases of knowledge on the easy to learn basic level to carry them through the games more complex features.

Id rather have to learn a deep game than get bored of a shallow one within a day. Learning how to play a game is part of the fun. In fact that's what gaming essentially is.

Yes, OrangeKlight

That's an example when you need an additional awareness of enemy using special units to be competitive.

If you can build 2 tanks per 1 sniper and 2 tanks has >80% probability to kill 1 sniper in any fight, with or without positional advantage, than it has little use. But if it can kill 20 tanks before dying if it has positional advantage (which is probably the way how sniper bot should work), than only way to kill him effectively is to transport your units over him.

Right, but this is one thing very hard to balance. Cause "strategic advantage" is quite dependant on many factors. I fear that in the end of the day for most players use of specialized units would be a requirement.

Yes, ayleeem. Really, guys, how you may misread my nick so often? Is "N" so like "L"?.

Understanding capabilities of every unit is always required to master the game, right. Questing is about how much units you need to understand. In starcraft it's like 20 units per race + all possible unit pairings like TvT, TvP, TvZ, PvT, etc, etc... In supcom it's like 10 units per race plus all possible force[/u] pairings like AeonVsCybran on sea, UEFvsAeon on air, etc... And later are just as easy as "aeon navy is powerful, but pointy and with slow rate-of-fire, so you should move your cybran navy all around to have advantage". Not so much to remember, it doesn't affect strategic options.

Unit understanding should be important, but not one-top-priority thing, like it is in starcraft. If you don't know that in SC destroyers are much more effective than subs in most cases, but you are smart in use of your subs (like splitting your force to make a sudden attack on production base), than you still can have advantage over other player.

That never was a point. Point was "it shouldn't be 70 units per race you need to learn everything about before even starting to play". You know, in SupCom many even pro players still don't know that you may kill underwater ACU (staying not too deep) by strategic bombs' or T3 artillery splash. They are always building T2/3 torpedo bombers to get them even if they have couple of T4 bombers flying around. But it doesn't prevent them of being pro players.

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BTW, about reducing strategic options:
With "advanced" tech (more powerful units of same type), you have more strategic options as with "basic=>special" tech. In case of OrangeKnight's dream of perfectly balanced special tech, if you want to play with special units is a choice of play style, nothing more - than if you prefer to play basic units only, you have no need of special factories. Therefore, it's not viable to make special factory much more expensive than basic. In case of SumCom tiers it is always a strategic choice - you may try to spam T1 and crush your enemy early, you may try to rush to T2 and then spam T2 (which has long-ranged T2 artillery capable of safely removing almost any ground defense) or you may rush to T3 and then crush enemy lines with overly outpowered few T3 bots.

In Setons' front position all three strategies are perfectly competitive and I've used all of them successfully.

What would replace than with your "basic => special" tech?

I'm pretty sure all my comments are either completely misinterpreted or deliberateley misrepresented, so I guess I'm out of the discussion.

Neutrino has repeatedly described PA as a 'fan service' game, not a game designed to appeal to the mainstream. The game it is most directly inspired by ended up with 230 distinct units (admittedly split between two factions with a lot of examples of very close analogues on each side - but even if you ignore the unique stuff and just halve the number 115 is still pretty enormous!).

The fans Neutrino intends to serve with PA clearly expect a vast, sprawling array of units to choose from. Any argument for less units is doomed - if you don't want a metric assload of different units this is not the game you are looking for.

Apparently. Lets hope Uber is smarter than to blindly listen to fans. If there's anything I've learned from my years as a game designer it's that fans mostly have no idea how to design a game or what they're looking for, and that what they say and what they will actually enjoy are two wildly different things.

But, they did build the original TA, so I guess they know what they're doing.

I don't care what the actual numbers are on units, I just don't want the t2 units to be better versions of the t1 units. I don't think there's a huge danger of that happening and I trust the devs. I just need it to be said.

Problem is, that there is no common opinion about that topic (there is people who like SupCom style more, and there is people who love TA style more), so Uber would have hard times deciding which way they should go - TA's or SupComs. But neutrino already said though KS campaign that it would be only two Tiers, so it's probably TA style.

Well, it all could be modded, only thing I want to have information early enough so party that want tech opposite to what Uber will choose can start planning and modeling for mod that will fix things.

More time I spend on this forums the more I understand that there will be no one game at the end. Too much expectations, many of them are incompatible with each other. It's obvious that Uber will do whatever they want and think would be better, everything else would be a mod.