Introducing a new Dev

I'm very leary of posting specific balance reviews of previous games. Because then the thread turns into name calling, insults, high praise (my preference) adoration, and other things less conducive to designing PA.

Monday I should have a post about some of the more common concerns discussed here on the forums. Sadly Neutrino is pretty busy with coding (yes, he does still code occasionally) so getting an official yes/no/this is how it is will be tough, but I can get a general feel for the various issues.

A few quickies on my design philosophy. The highest level design concept I hope to achieve is provide multiple, equally viable strategies in which to achieve a victorious outcome. I dislike pre-determined "best build orders" and would much prefer seeing different build strategies based on starting position and available resources, size of planets, etc. I like strategies based on reacting to your opponents and forcing reactions from them. Being able to click faster and send more units straight at your opponent should not be a winning strategy. Assessing the strategic points of a map or enemy defenses and then utilizing an appropriate strategy against them is far superior to a rolling death blob of doom.

Our internal build has featured a HUGE decrease of metal spots*** which has greatly increased the need for economic planning and strategic hotspots, which most of us here like. Now there is need for strategic planning in your expansion, rather than just spamming fabbers to all metal spots on the map, hoping you can do this faster than the other guy. Army vs economy is now a meaningful choice.

*** We are implementing a player controlled metal spot density slider for the system creation menu

I like unit diversity and roles for units. A well constructed army with many types of units should be better than a homogeneous death blob.

Well, I don't want to give all my secrets away at once, so that's it for now

Good to hear. Planetary annihilation suffers from all of the 'should be avoided' points you brought up there, so it looks like there's a lot of work for you for the foreseeable future.

I agree. To much of that.

Theres more?

This is more of a fact finding thread than a Q&A. I won't have any good answers for you until I present the concern issues with the rest of the team and we decide which are beta launch critical and which are not.

So what are some of the major issues that you've identified from your month of Lurking SirVlad? What kinds of issues are you looking for, and what's the best way for us to comes to some agreement on the validity and/or severity of these issues?

I have a list of some of the most major issues that I can see and have an opinion on. Is this the place to post them?

How would you like them presented to you?

This worries me a bit, as it sounds like you are going down the route of SupCom2 where any expansion was dangerous as it meant making less units. But fighting over expansions is a pretty important part of the game so there need to be a lot of cheap mex that we can take and raid. To prevent players from going crazy on economy I'd much rather prefer a reduction of mex income and mex cost. But that's just what comes to my mind now, after playing the next build I'll see how it really plays out.

The goal with reducing the density of mex spots was to make economy a meaningful element. Previously there was enough spots that you never felt the need to take hold a specific area. If you meet resistance no big deal, you got 5 other fabbers building 25 more mex. Now those spots have some strategic importance, and you can't just spam vehicle factories. Thinking about what your metal was being used for became an important decision again.

I think we did knock them too low on the smaller worlds, but soon we will have a metal slider during system creation, so the metal density will be up to how the individual player wants to play.

If you want to spark discussion create a thread, if you feel the current round of discussion has played itself out you can message me a link to the thread of the issue at hand, or just a quick reply here. Mainly this thread was to introduce me and get feedback that I can bring to the other team members about critical design/balance issues that should be considered for the beta release.

If you've been lurking for the past month I'm pretty sure you'll be... how to put it... well aware of some of the things I have an opinion on?

Yea, that'll work

sirvladamir,
I am looking forward to see how the reduced mass spots are going to affect gameplay. Some examples of what I consider the largest balance issues are as follows.

1. Advanced technology is so effective versus standard technology that going advanced technology (too) early in the game is pretty much a forced move.
2. What is the actual counter versus standard turrets? There is no standard tech unit except for the commander that can engage turrets without having to sacrifice 10-15 units.
3. Nukes are too effective because anti-nukes are too ineffective. In pretty much every game it pays off to stack nukes in order to just instantly kill the commander. Suggestion is a reduction in cost and/or a larger are of coverage.

That could be because it's still just T2. I know, it was finally renamed to Adv. recently, but it's still just bigger, better, stronger version of the corresponding T1 unit.

Artillery
You know, these costly units which don't stand a chance when left unprotected, but deal heavy damage when firing at scouted targets.

They are kinda OP if you build two layers of walls with artillery and turrents.

Which is exactly the issue I have with it. Mobile artillery is advanced technology, that is one of the reasons that you're forced to go to advanced technology to begin with. I suppose if advanced technology is going to be more of a sidegrade compared to straight upgrade then I'd be fine with it. But currently turrets shut down so much early game pressure that it almost always allows you to safely upgrade to advanced technology without any real penalty.

A personal matter to me, is the lack of meaningful upkeep. Currently you only pay energy for production (except for the lobber), but apart from that energy is nowhere used the way Neutrino probably intended it in the initial vision. I still have a vision, where the effective army size is not limited by hard limits, but rather by the "fuel burning" rate.
Let mobile artillery cost energy just like stationary does, or even extend it to all high DPS weapons like it is apparently planed for ammo refuel on bombers. Increase energy storage sizes (so you don't run out of energy every few seconds! Add energy storage to stationary, energy consuming buildings by default too) and let players attack until their energy depots are sucked dry. Let's see how well steamrolling and overkill goes, when you risk to run "out of fuel" mid assault while half the enemy base is still standing (which isn't a bad thing at all, because it means the the fun will go on!)

Arty in a defensive position would also be heavily punished by this. If someone is foolish enough to go for arty or spaming turrets for turteling purpose, just suck them dry by sending in dancing bots.

Well, and don't forget friendly fire. Take away indirect fire capabilities from meatshields.

To be honest I would prefer a slower start and more of a reliance on defensive play then just who can spam or use the most upgraded units. I'm talking the first like 10 minutes.

Actually i kinda noticed during games that even if your metal income is 0 or negative, any additional engineers you assign to building a structure will take the full 1000 energy to run, even if they are not actually adding any metal. was this truly a design decision or just a mistep? kinda seems silly to make an engineer use energy when its not actually providing additional metal to a structure.

It's a design decision that was mentioned in the original 'document' describing how the economy would be. It's a little late to bring it up now.

I believe they were adding something like this, with bombers (and maybe other units) in the future needing to expend resources to refill their ammo.

I thought the idea of this thread was for high level decisions? why would it be too late? I think its not too bad, but it does force people to build far in excess power for potential builders that dont contribute to building processes.

Atm, tanks and other not AA ground units are way too good at hitting air.