Factions/Unit Set

Well I have never played Zero K and I never knew it existed but I want to thank you because it looks pretty good and if it only has 1 faction I will be interested to see if like all RTS they have a "standard build" once you get good at it I have to say due to my experience I will assume there is a standard build but who knows maybe this will totally prove me wrong

thanks man

How dare you speak ill of WC3, SC2 and the glorious TA a pox on you sir *Glove Slap*
I challenge you to a DUEL except my faction will have access to pistols and your faction will have a tea spoon

See different factions is more fun............ for me

Your enthusiasm of conducting an obviously unfair duel does not lend credence to your argument.

1 - I was talking about negative examples of one faction not working. Positive examples of multiple factions working well don't matter, because they don't contradict possibility of one faction working well.
2 - Easier for developers to make, not for players to operate. Über doesn't have much resources and that alone is already valid argument towards one faction.

I was proving single argument wrong using exaggeration. He basically said "you all disagree with me, therefore you are noobs, therefore you are wrong" (this is also exaggeration).

Here is a simplified example of what would happen if PA had Multiple Factions.

We'd get 3 Factions, with 50 Units/Structures each.

But PA will have only a single Unit Pool, the problem is that you argue that would lead to just having 50 units/structures, but the reality is more like getting 100+ units for that single faction. You'll have not only MORE Options overall compared to three 50 unit/structure factions but have access to ALL of them.

SupCom has actually not only very little Unit variety within each Faction, but also across all factions. There are so many units that are or nearly are Identical that you have the same unit 4 times.

Nobody wants PA to have Just a single SupCom/TA faction, because that is bad and boring due to a lack of Variety, but if you only need to make one Faction you don't have to waste time and money on re-creating units multiple times and can instead divert that to just creating more unique units.

Mike

The pros will still figure out 12 best units out of 120 units/structures assuming we will have only one faction. They will use all other units rarely in unique situations.
That's way it's better to have 2/3 factions and let the pros find 10 best from each then having a single faction and let the pros find out 12 best units.

You tend to forget that since armies are introduced the chances you will not have a single player on your army from every faction are going to be small. Therefore you will probably have acces to all units in the game anyway.

How do you know that Uber has not enough money to make more than one faction?
You have no idea at all how much money has Uber collected since the begining of Alpha.
Maybe they have enough money to make 7 factions. None of you can question that, none of us can prove it. Since we know nothing about Uber's finances. Therefore stating that Uber has not enough resources for a second faction is pointless. How many more times will I have to repeat it?!

If they are able to have 120 units in the game with a single faction.Then they can have 60 units for each of the two factions.

Because that was part of the reasoning presented by Uber about why there is only one unit pool.

That is not a problem with Factions, but a problem with balance if only a fraction of units are useful.

Mike

But once everyone agrees that those units are best you can buff the others so they get used as well. Can't do that with several factions as that will break faction balance.

exactly
it ends in Faction X is useless, don't use them.
or
Faction Y is the strongest, use them.
For example the Seraphim, strong Units, strong Experimentals, strong Shields, the only thing where i found them weak was Anti Air. it had a reason why they were banned by so many players. i don't want to see the endless dev-game of "how to balance them" again

The problem is that once unused units will get buffed up, the pros will find a new set of best units.

Again, this is not a problem with whatever the number of Factions is, it's about balance. This can happen if you have 1 or 50 factions.

Mike

It can happen even with no additional balancing.
Someone will find set of units that is not technically best, but works as counter to "conventional best". Then someone else will try to find combination that counters "the new best", then someone cracks this combination too.
This can happen over the months, or at the course of a single match.

What if, in every iteration of this process, the set of best units increases in size?

Finally someone who has actually played online rts and understands exactly what happens in a mirror match up, TA has 5000 units available but in an online game maybe 10 units are used, where as sc2, ta, wc3 ect when facing each race you are forced to play different units and strats mixing it up a bit and I guarantee only having 1 set of units means arm vs arm or Terran vs Terran, it's known as "standard build" as I assume you would know

You assume that the 10 best from each don't have any overlap - that they're completely unique in design, intent, and execution.

Find me five RTS games where that's true.

Please quote where I stated there is never any overlap what are you talking about???
All I said was that in every RTS game online you end up with a standard build when facing an opponent after a short time but like in nearly all RTS games because you face different factions/unit sets it forces you to change strats and use different units when facing a different faction/unit set, for eg in SC2 when your terran and you face zerg you MUST build and get ready for a possible zerg rush at the start but if your terran vs terran you don't, all that will end up happening like in TA with its 5000 units is a standard build when facing arm v arm or arm v core but at least it doubles the strats like building spiders to counter a krogoth with some mavericks, if it was only arm v arm you don't have this strat along with many others making the game less fun when countering this issue.

Do you think TA would be more fun if you could only play arm v arm or SC2 if you could only play terran or WC1-2-3 if you could only be Humans? Theres a reason 99% of RTS games have different factions/unit sets because it increases different units being used and massively increases strategy which it the reason we play RTS

If the ARM faction subsumed the unique units that CORE had access to, yes.

You'd still be playing the same game, just with a larger unit selection for ALL players.

I'm gonna tell you why can have much more diversity in maps and unit design which ultimately allows there to be many viable strategies both in the context of one game and spanning over several different games with different starting conditions.

Lets start with starting conditions.
Lets say you wanted to create a completely flat map in Starcraft.
Oops... can't do that because faction balance will just break apart.
Zerglings will run amok harassing the enemy mineral line constantly and the other races will be forced to defend whereas the Zerg can just expand freely or tech up.
Protoss and Terran need their choke-point against Zerg.
There is a reason why Starcraft have a very strict map formula.
This means that in PA you can go wild with map design and solar system design because you don't have to worry about faction imbalances.
Even if there comes up a very dominant build and/or strategy in a certain setup you still get variation from playing with different starting conditions.
One game you can be playing on a flat land planet, next game you are playing on a planet covered completely with water and in the third game you are starting on different planets, hoping from asteroid to asteroid and waging interplanetary war.
What is even more interesting is that; if there is a very dominant strategy in a certain setup you can go in and tweak the unit balance to open up the metagame. You can tweak the stats or add a unit just to give the players more viable options.
If battleships mono spam dominates the sea you can add submarines to counter them while not affecting the land-sea interrelationship at all. Care should of course be taken to avoid adding units or tweaking stats that ends up in a new dominant strategy but this is so much easier with 1 faction compared to having several factions.
You can even have different starting conditions for the players. One player could start in the sea while the other starts on land. Although balancing this is akin to faction balance but it is still much easier to do for 1 faction compared to 2 or 3 as the mapmaker only needs to balance it for 1 match-up.

You might think that you can add units how you want as both sides always get them. I would not recommend this.
You are likely to end up like TA that had very many redundant units and a lot of overlap between unit roles.
Add a unit that is too strong and it is likely to dominate its' field of combat. Add a unit that is too weak and it might never be used. That is not too say that niche units cannot be weak but they should in that case excel at their niche role.
As long a unit has a niche role and is used for that every now and then, it can be considered a good addition to the game. It is there to fill a niche and if no other unit fills that niche it can even affect the metagame without actually being used.
The good thing about niche units is that you can tweak them back and forth while the game can remain "perfectly balanced". As long as it is strong enough to excel at its' niche it affects the metagame and as long as it is weak enough to not dominate the battlefield it is an additional tool, tactic or strategy there for the player to take advantage of.