Factions: How to create diversity within one unit list

Sure. The main issue would be readability - the ability to quickly tell what you're looking at.

Why do people absolutely insist on shoehorning in arbitrary limits on what units you can build? Is the idea of one universal faction terrifying to them on some deep level?

It seems that "arbitrary" is fast becoming a synonym for "pertaining to a thing the speaker does not like".

I'll try to respond to everything, but there's quite a lot. Anything I'll miss I'll try to get to later.

I'm putting this up here because I think it highlights my main concern for no diversity:

In a game of perfect balance, it's player mistakes that decide the winner, not player innovation. Basing success on mistakes is stressful, whereas basing success on innovation is engaging. I choose engaging over stressful any day.

If everyone was using the same unit list all the time, there would be no innovation. Eg: Build tank A and they build counter A. You build counter counter A or tank B. They respond, ..., and so on. Since it is not turn based, the amount of time it takes you to respond to an enemy will directly correlate with how successful you are. This means that quick reflexes are needed to win, instead of innovative strategies. Essentially, the faster micro wins. To put it bluntly, this form of gameplay is terrible for an RTS game (would make it an RTT like Starcraft). Games would break down into who can most efficiently follow the pattern of countering.

This assumes two completely alike players (as should be done when discussing any sort of balance). If, instead, these two exactly alike players are able to pick different sets of units (custom factions), it becomes a matter of whose strategy is better, since countering wouldn't be the only way to win. Executing the strategy you pick would return as being a potential means to defeat your opponent.

They gloss over far too much. They state opinions, but only 'prove' some of them. I'm trying to prove everything, so walls of text are unavoidable.

Would bullet points be better?

• -The video is similar in one regard, that the gameplay can and should evolve.
  -I disagree that this should be done through 'designed imbalances'
  -The game balance should be as perfect as possible
  -Player's hone their strategy based on what imbalance cannot be removed (like how Halo has different weapons, but players choose to use only some of those weapons at a time... dynamic imbalance, while the game as a whole is fairly perfectly balanced (ignore that it's a shooter and not RTS, just understand the point)
  -It's impossible to create perfect imbalance through designed imbalances (eg: LoL) without something being statistically more advantageous than something else.
  -An example of perfect balance is chess (which was, for a long time, a fairly perfect game).
  -A lack of diversity encourages repetitive strategies.
  -Like in chess, more effort would be put into learning which counters exist to which strategies, than actually innovating new strategies. For anyone that has played chess, this is exceptionally dull, and has no place within an action RTS.
  
  -What I propose with custom factions is to force the player to rebalance themselves.
  -Do this by choosing certain techs over others.
  -Since all players must do this, the imbalance they themselves create is not a result of poor overall balance, but part of their strategy. A strategy which they've designed to be advantageous in some regards, but disadvantageous in others.
  -This should create a nearly infinite number of perfect imbalances within a (hopefully) perfectly balanced game.
  -The presence of (near-)perfect imbalance has proven to be successful (Starcraft 1 and 2, TA, SupCom and FA, VGA Planets, EVE, nearly all PvP games, etc) They use different units which have unique traits which make the different, but there generally isn't a single best option. This is obvious due to the massive variety of units being used. Since there is forced diversity, there is forced perfect imbalance.
  -Without forcing diversity, there cannot be perfect imbalance.
  -This means stale gameplay (see the point I made at the top of this post)

You're confusing different unit lists with custom factions. For custom factions using the same unit list, everyone uses the same 'toolbox', but choose different 'tools' to accomplish their strategy.

Eg: Tank A and Counter A. If someone doesn't pick Counter A, they compromise they're ability to defend against Tank A, but are able to enhance some other part of their strategy.

That seems much more interesting than always having counter A available in case they decide to attack with tank A. I go into much more detail about this sort of no-diversity/countering system earlier in my post.

Also, you fail to realize that there are always multiple ways to counter anything. There is typically no ONE counter to any ONE unit (besides nuke/anti-nuke in TA, but this changed in SupCom with multiple nuke units and multiple anti-nuke units)

... I'm suggesting a change, so obviously it's going to be a different... Also, you seem to believe custom factions would mean using different units than the no-diversity option. This is not the case.

Perhaps I'm not understanding your point, or vice versa.

Yes. A game requiring complex thought is typically more fulfilling than one requiring none. Eg: Compare CoD6 to Chess. Winning a match in CoD means nothing since it has little basis in strategy, whereas defeating an opponent in chess means you overcame their strategic ability. Personally, I prefer chess in this regard, hence why I made this post to suggest custom factions.

Removing the context of your post isn't helping here. You claim that allowing a player to choose their own faction would lead them to believe they're using their own strategy incorrectly when they lose.

I respond with saying their strategy is what they make of it. It's their own strategic ability which allows them to win. If they lose, it would be a result of either their opponent's strategy simply being better than their own, or because they made a tactical error.

I think I was quite clear with what I wrote. Also, the element of 'chance' exists, but I don't believe this would change the match result. See my advanced air/anti-air example from before.

Compromising your ability to counter some units (eg: air) allows you to enhance your ability to use some other units (eg: ground). If they enemy chooses to enhance their air units, but compromise their naval units, then the balance is as follows:
You win ground battles.
You win naval battles.
They dominate air battles.

If this is actually unbalanced (so no tactical errors), then you would need to alter your strategy.

Expanding this concept, use Starcraft 2 as an example. If you choose to ignore anti-air and focus on ground units, and they come with air units, then you need to use your ground units to destroy their base since they will have a weak ground force.

I'm trying to bring this concept to PA, but where everyone is using very similar units (instead of the obviously diverse Starcraft units).

Really... it's a figure of speech that people will recognize. To clarify, I mean a location which is not easily accessible by the enemy.

You imply that you understood my post to mean commander upgrades that must be built, since you phrased this as something I hadn't already mentioned. I was agreeing with you, and clarified my post to reflect that...

I explain this above. Always having the same units would result in all strategies being based on counters, rather than attacks. This form of gameplay is unappealing to 'me' (but perhaps others enjoy it?)

If "those other games" existed, I would play them. They don't, so I'm suggesting it here. Also, where has Uber said they want to avoid making the game 'too' strategic? I must have missed it.

... Again, removing the context isn't helping. I was responding to a post about games that have imbalances due to level up rewards. I was reiterating that PA doesn't have it. You are agreeing with me? Okay.

Successful: Having achieved popularity, profit, and distinction.

There are strategy games that have made a profit, but only because everyone bought them expecting greater things from it. Spore is one such example of a simple RTS. It was commercially successful (as far as I know), but was definitely not a 'successful RTS' game because people buying it for the RTS component were disappointed.

If I knew you wanted this many definitions, you should have mentioned it before. the "define: [word]" tool in Google is very helpful.

My post already defines it. Complication of thought, not action. Complex action is annoying, whereas complex thought is engaging.

They can both be tasted, yet they taste different. I just compared the two using a similar quality. I made an analogy based on a similar but different quality they both have. There is no problem with this.

Again, you're misunderstanding the custom faction idea, and how balance existed in the games.

I'm assuming a RRRR/PPPP/SSSS balance (like in pretty much all RTSs so far). Multiple units counter multiple other units, though not perfectly.

No unit required a single other unit to counter it. You generally had multiple options to deal with something. I suggest compromising some of those options so you can enhance others. This wouldn't prevent you from countering something, but would limit how you do so. This would be part of your strategy.

Also, what do you mean by "units don't always act in the same way"? There were no unit upgrades which changed how they functioned, besides the commander units.

You choose which pawn you want to remove to reflect your own strategy. You must then use this as well as respond to your opponents strategy. When you provide a weakness in one area, you also create a strength in another. To win, you must take advantage of your strengths, instead of focusing on covering up your weaknesses.

Funnily enough, this applies to all things in life. Perhaps gaming should take notice of how this works....*cough*custom factions*cough*

Aha, a middle ground. I completely agree, though that's not going to stop me trying to convince you my idea is good enough for the game itself.

Uber has mentioned and proved they are open to ideas. This is an idea.

See my point about identical unit lists encouraging countering rather than strategy (somewhere near the top).

Yes, but the only problem with that is like that it encourages countering rather than strategy... again, see my point near the top.

I'm assuming a RRRR/PPPP/SSSS style balance, where multiple units can counter any single other unit... and again, see my point about the problems with always similar units above.

Yeah. I only really agree that chess has gotten stale (as I mention in my points above).

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Whoo, hope I'm within the 60000 character limit .

If you can prove that using the same unit list with no diversity will NOT encourage countering and repetitive strategies as the only options, then I may give up encouraging this idea.

That's really my only concern about factions, and this idea is what I see as a potential solution.

This is where I think your concerns are similar to mine, but that you're looking through the lens of some kind of bizarro world. I too absolutely want success to depend on innovation and skill, and not, as you said, "mistakes". Which is why I find the idea of being forced to eliminate units before I even start playing abhorrent. It eliminates the ability to innovate and use skill to adapt to a changing situation! THAT is the game! A strategy game!

It seems that you want to play a deck-building game. Fine. You can tinker with units and builds all you want, you're free to have all those thoughts and strategies. But it takes a turn for the offensive when you suggest that I be forced to pick a unit list and limit the ability to change what I build during the game. It, as you said, makes a loss largely a matter of a mistake (picking units that weren't the counter to his units), rather than innovation (seeing what he's doing and effectively implementing a strategy that defeats it).

Don't invent a metagame that harms the ACTUAL game.

And in general, sstagg1, I think that if you feel that a game like a same-faction matchup in TA or SupCom:FA lacks strategic depth, it's because you've never tried to be competitive. It's not a boring set of rotely memorized counters that players sleepwalk through. At all. The whole point is to adapt during the game to your opponent's actions. This often requires creative brilliance in the moment, and a keen ability to read the situation, and your opponent's mind.

Thanks for this. I suppose we'll have to see how things play out .

If done well, perfect balance can be the original chess, where new moves kept everyone guessing.

If done poorly, it can be the current chess, where every move has a specific counter strategy easily proven to work.

The latter is my concern, but honestly, the former is what I'm expecting.

Trying to remain objective to my own idea in replies is difficult Providing explanations while avoiding bias is challenging.

Yeah, that's certainly true.

You phrased that wrong. In Planetary Annihilation's case it would be: Imagine a StarCraft where everyone can build everything. All Protoss, Zerg and Terran units.

If this is still boring to you, then it is luckily only (but not exclusively of course) boring to you .

I think you phrased this wrong yourself. In Planetary Annihilation's case it would be: Imagine a StarCraft where everyone can build everything. All Protoss, Zerg, Terran units and multiple other factions. I'm positive PA's one faction will have more units than all of Starcraft's factions combined.

May be, or even probably. I am guessing they are not quite shooting for the same diversity as we have or had in Total Annihilation. They'd need to streamline the concept and think harder about what units actually make sense, rather than just having units for the sake of having many different units, who are not that different in their properties. Otherwise this would cost a lot of money again.

But at the same time we will have more diversity through orbital units and other (inter)planetary things, that were never present before.

Starcraft 2 has a total of 46 different units (including infected terrains, etc) from all factions and 50 different structures (including add-ons). Altogether that's 96 (3 factions).

Total Annihilation: CC with the newest patch? 230 units including structures (2 factions).

Supreme Commander: FA (counted manually, forgive me if I messed up)? 185 different units and 191 buildings for a total of 376 different units (4 factions).

If PA doesn't have at least 150 units/buildings, I'll be fairly disappointed, and 150 is more than "All Protoss, Zerg, Terran units and multiple other factions".

two different assault bots does not count as two different units; there is considerable redundancy on that unit list for supcom/TA. They are the same unit with slightly different stats.

Such cannot be said for most units in SC2, where given any two of them, they are in a completely different class.

lol, why set arbitrary requirements for yourself on a game so early on? Only to create potential for disappointment? That doesn't seem very wise .

I can guarantee to you that no TA player would ever consider 2 assault bots the same. Even if they are fundamentally the same, they are different enough that nobody would consider them interchangeable. On the other hand, I'm not sure about how much of SupCom's units I would accept as being different simply as higher class ones often fulfill everything the lower ones do, and render them obsolete (t1 is useless by the end). A lot of them are more like upgrades then different units.

With there being orbital, naval, land, and air units, along with buildings which also provide multiple different ways of gathering resources, I would be very disappointed if they suddenly had far less units than the other related games (TA/SupCom, which didn't have orbital as well). I would be disappointed at "only" 150 units whether I was or wasn't setting expectations.

Yeah, but at the same time we will not have four different Tech Levels for each type (Structures, Air, Land, Naval). This cuts down the possible, reasonable unit count considerably.

I hope for many units as well, but primarily I am just interested in how fun the game itself will be. Having a **** -load of different units is not necessarily a requirement for it being fun. I just think you are setting your "bar of disappointment" far too early, far too high .

Indeed. I've been playing a lot of TA recently, and they did a very good job of making every unit useful, while giving them each something entirely unique.

Eg: AK: fast, Thud: Climbs cliffs, Storm: damage, Crasher: Anti-air.

There was only really 2 tech levels for mobile units, so unlike SupCom, tech 3 didn't make tech 1 obsolete.

I for one like factions, at least if they are real factions with noticeable difference in game play behaviour and not just minor differences without real effect.

When playing any rts game faction (even if it's the only one) the player needs to adapt his personal preferences/strategies to the given frame of available units and game mechanics. If factions differ enough, you have to adapt your play style to fit the basic rules of that faction. In the end having different factions offers diversity and an additional factor in long term playability, choosing different approaches to reach the same goal is fun. Sure, there are artificial limits involved, but hey, the whole game consist of artificial limits and options.

If you work with just subsets of the same unit list, I doubt you get real different factions that are worth that name. In that case you can leave them out just as well. (a case I wouldn't mind with regard to design/work load constraints, better one well done faction than two half done ) Besides balancing two real factions (including dealing with the to be expected cries from the community) is quite an amount of work.

PS: just as a reminder clear balanced != equal

I think it's worth noting that 63% of the voters do NOT want "No Diversity".

Um, you're overestimating the number of construction workers in TA/SupCom. While there where lots of con. units, it was negligible compared to the number of other units. Plus, PA WILL have different types of construction workers (air ones and ground ones confirmed, naval and ground may be combined, but never been confirmed), and PA WILL have 2 tiers (like TA).

Also, having a lot of units IS a requirement for it being fun if you only have 1 faction. Otherwise it'll turn into a fight with everyone using the same units over an over again. It's the whole thing those Starcraft fans are complaining about. No variety.

Also, we now have several things to worry about that where never in SupCom/TA. That includes orbital units, gas giant resource collection, asteroid propulsion systems, ways to travel between planets, teleportation (which will be in the game), metal planets with their own ancient units, and so on. There are so many new things announced in PA, that I wouldn't be surprised at all if it ends up with more units than TA. I WOULD be surprised if they end up with less then 150 units though.

Exactly