I know how factions could be made to work!

I know that all teams will use the same units, but I still have an idea for how there can still be factions: Make it so that each faction gets special discounts on certain units and altered production speeds.

For example, lets say that there is a faction that focuses on air power. In that case, that faction would get a 30% discount on air units and would also be able to produce them 25% faster. But at the same time would also suffer some kind of a penalty for land units, like by having less powerful tanks.

I think that would be a nice way to have factions without each faction having to have its own special units.

Thoughts?

Liked this one. 9/10.

I liked the idea of bending tech level or speeds or cost or something between factions.

Or... even better... they can give you modifiers you can edit. Kind of like SMNC endorsements except more balanced with pros and cons. Things like production prices on units being decreased in some areas at the cost of being increased in others, and you get to choose exactly what you sacrifice for what. They can play with that until the numbers are balanced to where any or no modifier is equal to the others.

Ideas like this were stated several times and the general opinion on them is that they just reduce the possibilities players will have. Limiting possibilities isnt good, this just wont improve gameplay at all.

/thread

This would be one of the ways to define factions. But I don't really like it personally. I personally find it a better idea to give bonuses and penalties based upon the planets you use.

viewtopic.php?f=61&t=37126

This way you would choose your faction by choosing which celestial bodies you conquer. I mean let the players choose their play style after the game has started. By focusing on certain unit types, you automatically create something like a "faction."

In all seriousness, can people please stop suggesting faction divisions as it is already pretty clear a large majority doesn't want them.

Maybe the commanders will have slightly different abilities, there was an amount of people who liked that. I personally could live with that, but everything else will hopefully just remain the same.

also /thread

seriously though...

can you at least post it in one of the already existing faction threads?

it's not that different from everyone else's suggestion.

and personally I still like ubers initial thought better.

I don't think a discount would work, since that'd alter the resource balance.

You have to consider the eventuality that a player will be able to put dozens of construction units on a single project, building it nearly instantly. If you were to discount the cost of building this thing nearly instantly, that would produce a highly unbalanced strategy of just spamming expensive things at a significantly reduced cost.

I much prefer your idea to alter build speed. Multiple sliders could be used to adjust build speed for different units (structure, land, air, naval, orbital, etc). Reducing one would free up points to spend in another.

This way, there is no change to the resource balance (IMO the most important balancing factor).

Eg: I want to build land units at 200% speed. I must sacrifice structure, air, naval, and orbital by 25% to do so (25x4=100% to be added to land units).

This also means that the build rate cost for land units is 100% more (since done in half the time), whereas the things I sacrificed have their build rate cost reduced by 25% (since take 25% longer)

Eg: Factory typically spends 5 metal per second to build a unit in 20 seconds. At 200% speed, the factory spends 10 metal per second to build in 10 seconds.

I think this could be a good idea, though tbh I'm not entirely sure how important build times are to the game balance.

I honestly didn't see any other threads. PA has much more threads than SMNC. I don't look second page.

I still think either choosing modifiers or getting them through conquering planets after game start is awesome. As long as modifiers have negatives with them to balance them.

Op, think about this, if I can build 25% more of Tank A, why would I build anything else? Even if there was a direct, RPS style Counter I'd be fine simply by the virtue I can build more of Tank A then he can build Counter Tank B.

Mike

It doesn't make practical sense. This could work only if all units had the same importance. You don't want certain factions to have weaker units more expensive than better ones and other factions better units cheaper than weaker ones. On the other hand if one faction had navy units cheaper how it would be useful on waterless planets or around gass giants? Or cheaper land units in one faction wouldn't help on water planets. If every one selected water faction for water planet then it would be like 1 faction game, and then your solution is useless.

there is 1 on the first page, and yesterday there where 7

So, right off the bat, I'm not say that the OP's idea is going to work(in fact, I'm not a fan of it), but your logic is flawed. If you choose "cheap tank cmdr" and he chooses "cheap air cmdr" you'll have 25% more tanks but he'll have 25% more aircraft. Assuming air and tanks can stand toe to toe, the game would essentially still be even. Yes, there are a whole lot of other factors that would need to be taken into consideration, but you didn't, so I don't feel the need to either.

I don't like the idea either.

I play a lot of SC2 and in a certain way it uses parts of your idea. For example the UEF can build Airsupfighters fast and very cheap, they are for AA only...

So in multiplayer games people choose their faction and in the lobby you see, oh 3 enemy guys are going UEF, looks like they wanna try and get airsuperiority, so you choose UEF as well... it becomes against good players very predictable...and to be able to win, you have to choose your own faction accordingly.

With PA everyone will have the same possibilities, if someone goes dedicated air thats cool, but everyone else will have the same machines of war, no discounts, nothing.

So there won't be any complaints about certain tanks being overpowered, certain Pointdefenses have a longer range than from other factions and so on.

If someone is going dedicated air, at least you have the opportunity to do so as well and you won't be restricted cause you chose the wrong faction. In the end, skill will decide if you will win and not the faction restrictions...

This would make balancing units a lot more complex.
Instead of working out an X vs. Y you need dX vs. Y, X vs. dY, dX v.s dY too (d = discount).

And that's assuming all these Commander discounts are the same and orthogonal, if they overlap in which units are discounted and/or there's graduations of discount, it'll get that much worse.

It's just not worth the trouble IMO.

Your example is different from mine in that I'm referring to specific units while you are referring to unit TYPES. It is in th realm of possibility that your situation could be balanced, but I think Air and Land would just be too different to say that it would be balanced.

My Example is dealing more with specific units and how they might break balance.

Mike

I didn't like this.. I'm very happy about only the commander having different stats..
There are more topics about factions in this forum than anything else...

Sorry but I think this is a terrible idea.

I'd like the same options to be available to both players at the same costs.

The only differentiation I could accept would be different commander loadouts i.e. either A) different upgrade choices preselected before game, ala Zero-K, or B) a 'skill tree' that allows the same base commander to choose and specialise down a particular upgrade path in game, with no choice preselection.

I'm still not sure what problem is being solved by multiple factions. Diversity of play only needs:

1. Multiple effective play styles.

2. Each style can be countered via transitions in the other style given sufficient (and realistic) scouting.

The only thing you miss from say SC2 is the ease of discussing match ups. You don't get the concrete discussion about "TvP" or whatever.