Factions: The Definitive Poll (again)

As requested, I've put together another poll with the three most basic possibilities, and an option for optional.

No Factions
This option is for everyone with the opinion:
- No unit restrictions
- No different commander traits/abilities
- Kickstarter commanders only have unique visuals

Commander Factions
This option is for everyone with the opinion:
- No unit restrictions
- Different commander traits/abilities
- Kickstarter commanders have unique traits/abilities and visuals

Unit Factions
This option is for everyone with the opinion:
- Unit restrictions (like TA and SupCom)
- Different commander traits/abilities
- Kickstarter commanders have unique traits/abilities and visuals

Make Them Optional
- Unit restrictions are chosen by host or player (for player chosen, they can choose a certain number/value of techs, limit set by host)
- Same thing for commander traits/abilities
- Same thing for Kickstarter commanders

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Keep in mind that commander "upgrades" are different than commander "traits/abilities".

Upgrades are like those in SupCom, where players could add things to their commander during a match.

Traits/abilities are like how the ARM/CORE commanders were slightly different.

This poll only considers traits/abilities, since they may potentially alter the initial game balance (think movement speed, health, weapon type, etc). Upgrades only alter the ongoing game balance, and are ignored in this poll.

I don't like any of these options. I like the unit restrictions from TA (everyone is affected by them, not each person chooses the units they want with a restriction on the number of different units), but I don't like unique commander traits (visuals I support).

A lot, if not all, of this can be tried in Alpha/Beta. It's not a problem for now.

I vote give it 3-6 months.

So, the issue is whether or not restrictions are symmetric? Because I agree that there could definitely be a place for things like having an option for a no-nukes game, or similar, where certain things are unavailable to all players.

Yeah, this was brought up recently in the other thread.

Eating ribs right now so difficult to type and use mouse quickly with one hand.

Adding an option for "Make it optional".

The official stance is different commanders with the same units, which IMO is the best choice too.

I say no. I want a quality game first and foremost. From what has been said, multiple factions, with multiple rosters of units are beyond the scope of what they KNOW they can do with what they have in terms of both funding and time.

Enough. Making the Kickstarter commanders have different abilities could potentially cause imbalance (and asspain on a galactic scale), factions with different units are awful to balance and will ultimately detract from the base game by wasting valuable testing time, making all of it optional is great and all, but that would take the most dev time of all. No factions, no more polls about them. It's getting old.

+1

I'm fine with each commander factions, as long as there are glaring weaknesses for every strength, even more so for the kickstarter commanders.

The initial intention with the Kickstarter commanders was to make them unique. As you've noticed, I've left it open to all opinions on this matter...

Personally, I think it's unfair to limit the abilities to just a few people. I also fear that identical factions will prove stale (compare to the already proven model of varied factions of successful RTSs).

Thus, commander abilities for all is the middle ground.

I've made 2 polls for this, the other was intended just for one of my ideas, sorry for spamming you with 2 polls...

Also, with the community so divided on this topic, polls and discussions are really the only way to, well, discuss the topic...

Optional could take little extra time. There is already going to be host set unit restrictions. Allowing players to choose their own restrictions based on a host set tech limit (eg: can only pick 120 or the 130 units), or alternatively setting a tech value limit (so player chosen techs have a value tied to them, preventing you from picking all the advanced techs without sacrificing basic techs) is not much different.

To have a poll for every possibility would compromise the effectiveness of a consensus, so I grouped any similarities.

Treat the optional option as anything regarding tweaking the match rules beyond the global unit restriction feature.

Just looking at the first page of the forums right now I can see 6 different threads about factions that all basically say the same thing in the end.

LET IT GO!