Early unit relevance during the later game

Discussion in 'Planetary Annihilation General Discussion' started by captelmo, August 19, 2012.

  1. captelmo

    captelmo New Member

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    I've seen this mentioned a few times with respect to 'how SC2 was good'. I'm really not sure I agree. Imho there wasn't a whole lot which was good about SC2 (with the exception of some of the experimental ideas which worked well e.g. the unit cannon and the cybran navy with legs - devaluing experimentals though...). Unit upgrades was a feature I quite liked but having Rockhead tanks be kinda your only tanks? I hated this.

    I was a fan of the TA and SC tech trees which provided a wide variety of units to play with as it kept things fresh throughout the length of the game. I was also a massive fan of the early game units like Stumpy's in TA and Marines in SC (nothing quite makes me smile like air dropping marines to harass power plants and mines early doors). Even in the later game I find mixing early game units into large forces quite handy. Certainly in TA they provide a brilliant distraction from a main force so the enemy's higher level point defences waste rounds on weak units like K-bots, saving your Sumos or Cans from taking hits and allowing them to close in.

    More than anything though this provides visual variety which means you don't have to stare at the same 5 land units all game, every game. I think that visual progression is important (borderlands would be case in point here; despite the fact that borderlands had 'a Bazillion guns', the reality is what feels like ~50 guns with lots of different stats - hence why GB spent so long creating unique visual styles for weapons in BL2).

    The only thoughts I had on compromise here was that perhaps you could have a 'Recycler' structure which allowed you to pour your little units into and spit out higher level units. Or, perhaps you could simply combine 4 level 1 k-bots to create a level 2 k-bot in-field (ala Fortress Maximus in transformers). This way you could keep the visual progression from low end units to heavier looking war machines but still retain the usefulness of low end units.

    Thoughts?
  2. Regabond

    Regabond Member

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    If they go with tech/tier levels, I hope they follow TA's design more so than SupCom's in this regard. Low tech levels were general purpose and fleshed out most of the basic unit roles. Then the higher techs would be more specialized and expensive, but not necessarily better in all ways. This lead to armies generally being made out of low tech units with a sprinkle of higher tech units or small squads of higher tech units being built with a specific objective in mind.

    I found this (TA's way) to be the most effective in keeping cheaper low tech units active late game when nukes and such started flying.
  3. KNight

    KNight Post Master General

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    I don't think there was anything terribly wrong with the idea behind the SupCom Tier system, but the way it ended up being balanced being the core of it's issues.

    But I'd say, depending on the overall scale and number of units planned I do feel either going the TA style or getting some kind of middleground between Ta and SupCom...........stay away from that SupCom2 Garbage!

    Mike
  4. xedi

    xedi Active Member

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    We can all criticise SupCom2 endlessly for everything it took away from SupCom1, but in the end unit viability was so much better and made that particular aspect much more interesting.
    I was tired of watching SupCom1 games, where as far as land goes it was always "spam T1, then spam T2, then spam T3", and you'd never see any T1 units in the lategame. Lategame T2 viability was helped by FA, but still it was far less than ideal.

    In the end, if early units manage to stay useful later on in interesting ways (and not just because they are cheap and spammable), then I'm happy without a research system.
  5. KNight

    KNight Post Master General

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    Frankly, it's not a fair comparison, Supcom2 used the same units all game, it's not like they have 2 teirs of units or anything.

    EDIT: Think of it this way, imagine Stock Rockheads(NO RESEARCH) vs fully Researched Rockheads, obviously the Researched ones would win, seeing as the cost of the Tanks never goes up(with Factory Vet it actually goes down)

    Remember, it's not the fault of the Tier System that lower tiers become, but how the units within those tiers were balanced.

    Mike
  6. Col_Jessep

    Col_Jessep Moderator Alumni

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    Exactly. I found SupCom2's system horrible and much preferred TA or FA.

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