Do we need tech levels?

Erastos you are more then likely the kind of player that calls others noobs. Cause they don't wait for you to tech up

Sorry, you've got the wrong end of the stick there. In that scenario I'm the guy they call a noob. Aggressive, fast paced tactics between well matched players make for the best games. Protecting noobs from learning how to actually play well by introducing a clumsy and arbitrary tech tree to protect their bad strategy would ruin much of what was so good about TA and Supcom.

What exactly is the difference between not knowing how the tech levels work and not knowing what to research?

An example: What if someone goes nuclear? In supcom1 all you need is any Tech3 capability and you can build a defence instantly. In supcom 2 its possible you have been researching down a completely different line and will be ages before you even have the ability to build a nuke defence.

This.

The research mechanic used in Sup2 meant you had to do one of two things; 1) play the pre-computed safe path up the tree, or 2) gamble like all hell because you wouldn't be able to recover.

People call the later cheesing (or cheese tactics), and was frowned upon by a lot of scrubs in the Sup2 community.

There goes 50% of the options...

Elexisis if you let someone just sit back and tech to nukes. Then you have little understanding of how to play rts games

He isn't talking about a problem teching to nukes, that was his argument for tech levels. He's talking about nukes and the inherent issues with the research paths.

I think BulletMagnet describes accurately what the dangers involved are. I'm going to elaborate and add my own penny's worth so if you're interested, read on.

It is entirely possible that a player could effectively disguise what they were researching, simply by not building items from that specific research path, or by hoarding their research points (maybe not the best tactic, but it is possible). Regardless, with enough points saved, they could instantly research all the way up the structure tech tree right to strat missile in a few clicks of a mouse button. You have no way of knowing that this is what they are doing. And assuming you haven't already beaten them, you have no way of responding if you have already spent all your research points in another part of the research tree.

Compare this to SC:FA and you can see that a player is building T3 simply by scouting. You are a fool if you do not scout and with this information you can determine that they have the potential to build a nuke once they are at T3 and respond as you see fit. Furthermore, with the inherent mechanisms of the two games being very different, the build times are dramatically different. It is feasible that in SC2 once the research is complete that a nuclear silo could be up and running in a minute or so and building nukes. You could easily miss this with scouts. In SC:FA the difference is that the building can take much longer because of the resources and build power required to build it. See here. I recognise that it does state that you can build it in 2:30, however it would take over your economy to do so. Either way, you have much more chance to scout the building before it is completed and when compared to the cost of the strat missile defence building, it is clear to see that with the same resources available and build power defence can be built in roughly half the time. This is just better and it's that simple.

The point is that there is no way to see what the enemy player has researched as most of the bonuses and such like unlocked in the research tree have absolutely no visual cue what so ever. I admit this was a terrible implementation of the idea on behalf of SC2, but the whole research system is just nowhere near as good as the tech level system.

Referencing something I said in another topic that I think is relevant:

For this setting of game I would agree, and overall the teching system in SC2 needed more visual ques, but I will still uphold that the overall idea is good for an RTS game.

If someone is clever enough to hide a nuke good for them. But 2 reasons why shame on you. 1st it takes alot of resources to make a nuke. If u can't beat down his defenses with him dedicating so many resources to the nuke you need to rethink your attack strategy. Also although a nuke is very powerful it still only destroys a small area of structures. So build spread out. Reason 2 why shame on you. You need to be scouting to see what problems you may encounter.

Nukes generally only come into play in team based matches where one team member is weak and doesn't understand his role on the map. Or in matches where 2 very strong players stalemate each other so long that there is enough tech time or research to have every aspect of the game come into play.

I still disagree. I think 3 tech levels are needed and only using 2 is a step backwards.

A big bad step backwards.

I don't think the step up from 2 tiers in TA and 3 tiers in SupCom was a big step forwards. In SupCom T1 became useless in long enough games, in TA this simply did not happen. I believe it's better if all units retain usability throughout the game, no matter the way the game is played.

Don't think of it as two tech levels, then.
You ever play EVE?
Think of the tech system as Combat and EWAR specialties.
EWAR pilots take longer to master but greatly improves the effectiveness of the Combat specialized pilots.

As an eve player, I can say that Eve is a perfect argument for no tech levels at all.


And as for PA, I am not really fussed if they go with 2 or 3 or more tiers, as long as it is overall balanced. That said, I am erring on the side of more than 2 tiers - on the one hand this will make it more difficult for new players to join mid game (I think that was confirmed) but on the other hand if the average length of a game is expected to be longer than a standard Supcom/TA game then it might be justified to keep the fight evolving.

I'm going to make a corp. in Eve, just for PA peeps to derp about and roam.

Anyone want in?


On Eve's skill tree, it branches out much faster than it grows deeply. Depth is there to slow you down, but most importantly it doesn't exponentially grow.

Most Weapon Specialisation skills give +2% to base-damage per level. Which means going from level four to level five (protip: for those who don't play Eve, every level caps out at five) actually gives you a 1.85% increase in damage.

You spend a pile of time (a full month) learning that final skill level, and you only get that much in return.

People log in to eve?

Eve corp = method of obtaining Teamspeak/Mumble/Vent and Jabber credentials, nothing else.

Sometimes there's a forum too.

It's inevitably terrible.

Except for the random/off topic thread, which is usually awesome.

Uber, surprise me. I love aoe 3, starcraft, fa, they are all legitimate games. I trust in your awesomeness

If PA is another AoE, StarCraft, SupCom2, CnC4, or really anything other than a TA on steroids I am not going to be a happy camper.

I think 2 is the perfect amount of tiers, mainly because people used to just jump straight from Tech 1 to Tech 3. If you want to keep the game evolving over time then you need the big building projects like rigging up an asteroid with rockets. Granted some of the philosophy behind experimental units got annoying once you realized they could replace having to build an army. But I think the experimental building idea had some potential. And I do respect SupCom 2 for trying out some goofy buildings.

Between AFK cloaking, tech moons, and super caps I ended up bittervetting right out of that game. Also every small corp or alliance dies the very instant someone logs on when nobody else is on and realizes the pve isn't very fun.

If they really impress me with fixing a lot of core elements in an expansion I'll come back, but looking at Retribution that doesn't look very likely.