Making the Commander Late Game Viable

Which is funny because most arguments that apply against commander exo suits apply against commanders. Why put your expensive, weak, vital unit on the front line when a gaggle of bots will do the same for much less investment and risk?

As for the rest, please address my second post. PA does not have TA's tone. Don't project it.

rcix you are unable to understand (or at least are doing a very good job of faking) why the King/Commander is an important aspect of the game, both for gameplay and for the sake of the tone of the game. I can not argue with you any more.

You may think Tone is inconsequential, that it is useless "fluff" that gets in the way of gameplay. But without tone, it is just that... gameplay.
There is no point. No investment in the game. You want a game without any emotional or intellectual engagement with the setting?

Without tone a game is a waste of time. With tone, a game is an experience that can make you think about more than just build orders.

Strip away the tone from a game and you render it a shallow, meaningless experience which is swiftly forgotten.

Without the history and lore of the Elder-Scrolls, without the personal investment and emotional connection of Half-Life, Without the story driven narrative of even such a similar, yet tonally different, Supreme Commander...

Planetary Annihilation, more than most games, must infer tone from gameplay, just like TA did. If you take a "Everything and the Kitchen Sink" approach to gameplay, then you are left with an unfocused mess that has no cohesive tone, no theme, no message, no vision.

You are left with a waste of time.

A game about "Rambo" Robots. Is that really the tone you want to set? Schlock? Cheap and Meaningless Action? That's what you want?

Then I Oppose you, sir.

On the basis of tone and lore, the commander has no reason to even be present, given the lore we know about PA. On top of there being very good design justifications to give the commander something to do other than play hide and seek. That is all I have to say. And I don't want to hear you argue from a gameplay perspective. You did everything you could to argue against that when it suited you.


Edit: Alright, I was a bit out of line there. We all want to make this the best game possible. But I'm really not sure what other way I can use to explain to you that there is no ground to stand on with regards to making the commander unviable for use. It does not fit what we know about PA's lore, it is bad from a design perspective, and it leads to stale gameplay. Do you have steam or something I can add you on to talk this over?

16 years of always using the same name is sometimes convenient. Take a wild stab at my SteamName.

Good.

Lore is a second class citizen to good game-play and always should be, because a game with bad game play but a good story is nothing more then a interactive movie.

I might not agree with all of RCIX's ideas but the idea that game-play cannot be complete, and is some how made worse without lore is wrong on so many levels.

Maybe a better word than "tone" would be "identity".

You can still maintain the tone of Total Annihilation whether or not the commander becomes a powerhouse. One side will inevitably lose the battle, but the war goes on forever.

Now if Planetary Annihilation would be a kabuki theater with The Muppets and The Smurfs, then there's a serious case of identity crisis.

Love that when I use the word Tone, you use the word Lore, which are not interchangeable. Identity might be a better word indeed movra

ACU Snipes.
This discussion has happened before.

Hey, don't go hating on good lore. Gameplay is not just about the base set of game rules, but the reasons used to justify it. Remember why people hated this guy? It's not because the technology can't handle organic output. A lathe can do anything. It's not because assault megabots were some kind of black sheep. There was no shortage of megabots in Supcom2. It's because placing dinosaurs on a field of ultimate killing machines wasn't justified. It was a cheap gimmick that broke the tone of the game.

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The Commander is unique because its role is unique. Its role is created by the lore, and the implications of that lore. To understand this, let's go to TA's background:

Code:

- Lathe technology allows an army to be built from a single unit. Growth is basically exponential.
- Space craft FTL travel is not explored or potentially obsolete.
- Instant travel is hideously expensive, and accomplished through use of a galactic gate.

The best method of invasion is to build an army on site. A space armada spending weeks crossing dead space is completely helpless against an army that has already been growing for weeks. First come, first victorious.

Code:

- Due to fundamental universe restrictions, the galactic gate has extremely limited capacity. It can only handle so much tonnage. 

It is impossible to instantly transport whole armies across the galaxy. However, it is very fast to build whole armies after you reach the planet. This gives a solid, predefined role for the Commander. It is THE starting point for planetary development and war. To achieve this role, a Comm must be a lean, mean machine that builds up quickly and can work in relative safety.

This role is shown clearly in the TA commander's armaments. Every device on the Commander is built with two purposes in mind- they're STRONG and they're SMALL. The antimatter power source is the size of a backpack. The ultimate unit killer is no bigger than an arm. Impossible resource compression stores as much starting metal+energy as possible. All these things were done to put as much strength through one galactic transporter as possible.

Do you see it yet? Lore was a HUGE part of TA. Without it, nothing about the Commander's size or scale or equipment makes sense. Done properly, every important thing about the Commander is answered. It makes sense WHY it starts the game, WHY it ends the game, and WHY it is equipped in such a unique way. The brain can go back to sleep.

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Every single ounce of a Commander's arsenal and gameplay should be dedicated towards the reason for its existence. The gameplay elements reinforce the lore, and the lore tells the gameplay what is most important. Both work together to create a tone that is both fun and compelling to play.

What does the lore and gameplay from TA tell us about Commanders?
- It does not matter if the Commander's tools are hideously expensive and difficult to build. Cost is no object.
- It does not matter if their energy requirements are atrocious. Energy can be built anywhere.
- It does not matter if the tools are incomplete. The biggest bits can be built on site.
- It does not matter if the Commander has terrible synergy or efficiency in battle.
- Construction matters.
- Economic growth matters.
- Being small enough to use the galactic gate(or PA rockets) matters.
- Survival matters, probably more than anything else.

Those are all very good guiding principles for PA Commander design. They translate well into game rules, they're flexible enough to try many angles, and they don't break the established tone of a replicating robot war.

Mmmmmm. Well thought out posts backed up by logic, research, sources and good plain English.

Good stuff.

In that case the appearance of the c-rex was it's 'identity' but not it's game-play, a entirely mechanical looking model could replace it and then no one would mind.

And I don't mean to hate on lore, but on people who think that game-play should fit lore in-spite of what would actually be better for game play, for fun, it grinds my gears.

And that's where I disagree with nanolathe over-there, because the argument that if you took the lore, tone or identity out of TA the game play would be different (And therefore bad) is to me a bad argument.

The game would be the same, it would play the same, and people would enjoy it the same, lore is just icing on top, fun to have but not required and on top of all should not be binding.

I must barge in here, we're getting off track. Lore, tone, feel, whatever you call it- all are merely tools to provide a backbone to build the gameplay around. This must never be forgotten, and in my (extensive) experience with games across the ages, I've played many where the backbone is not consistent or lost altogether. Lore and tone are important, but only in such a way to provide a decent and consistent backbone for the gameplay. Obviously, the lore can be altered somewhat to benefit gameplay, but do it too much and the whole thing collapses down due to a lack of said backbone.

Bobucles did a good job at describing the backbone here. In TA's case, the lore might not seem important to some while playing the game, but it provides the reason, the backbone.

To get things back on track, allow me to summarise somewhat.


-The commander is YOU. It is important.
-The commander is the "egg". He gates in on his own for reasons explained by Bobucles, or whatever lore UBER wants to come up with.
-It's small enough to be passed through said "gate", but big enough to survive when being dumped somewhere in a distant galaxy on his own.
-Early game, it is a construction unit, with enough survivability to fend off early opposition when creating a foothold. In other words, he's kickass, but not so much he doesn't need to build the army needed for, again, whatever reasons the lore demands.
-late game: that's the discussion here.

Late game consists of multiple planets, asteroids, and potential doomsday weapons flying about.

Planetary expansion is a critical role. Players need ways to conquer new worlds and increase their resource base. The Commander is ideal for this task. It has everything needed to conquer new worlds in a single package. EZPZ.

On a larger scale, Commanders are the de facto tool for galactic conquest. Whoever can deploy more Commanders to claim the countless billions of worlds in the galaxy will ultimately win the war. This provides a "tech victory" condition.

Following the annihilation angle, Commanders can serve as unique platforms for doomsday weapons. The d-gun was practically an apocalyptic weapon in its own right, and the Ubergun will hopefully fill a similar role here. While standard use might not be that impressive, a supporting facility can provide ammo for the gun to tear scars across worlds.

Commanders make ideal tools to hunt down other commanders. Anything a fleeing Comm can use to survive, an enemy Comm can use to give chase. There will always be an equal on the field, no matter how strong or annoying a Comm is.

Agreed- the commander can once again serve as the "egg" to start off a foothold on the next planet, and the next, and the next... and if the commander is the ONLY unit capable of doing so (or, the best choice, not neccesarily the only) then the commander remains viable throughout the entire course of the game.

Brief note- the D-gun or ubercannon should have enough juice/ammo/bacon to be impressive a couple times without base support, again in regards to establishing a foothold when just gated in.

Not sure about a commander hunting a commander though- quite liked the fact a commander would blow up when destoyed, destroying everything in a wide radius around it. This would mean a commander cannot really take an opposing one out and would require an expendable army for it.

Indeed, this is not really possible if one Commander can not get some sort of tangible advantage over the other.

Comm hunting can be as simple as chasing the enemy commander by rocket, using your superior resources to build faster than him, and killing him with sheer numbers. Special abilities can also play a role, but once again it comes down to who has the most stuff.

This is a good 2v2v2
TLO/TBO vs Mephistophile/Monarch vs Sir_Loui/Mental


By making the Com late-game viable, you can see how the war doesn't just revolve around the Commander building a base then sitting back with a huge target on his back.


It's actually pivotal and yes, still a weakness.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cn8F9-Qc_eo



That and Com abilities via upgrades (which I know we're not getting), keep the game spicy. Introduces more element of in-game choice.
Should I upgrade Com build-tech, shielding? Or more resource output.
It's not just "can he fight" in the late-game.
But as that King/Queen chess piece, what can he still do to help swing the battle?

Commanders as a single unit are always going to be vulnerable, it's their nature.

But ability's to keep them in the game longer would be better, such as scaling constructions ability's with the economy would be amazing.

Scaling construction power might be cool. Starcraft had its own scaling solution, by use of the Probe. A single constructor could spend huge amounts of resources, because it is not directly involved in the construction process.

The Commander can potentially scale his construction power by building extra constructors to assist. Construction beacons may end up another special option. They would be cheap, single use, and allow the Comm superior construction power when resources are abundant.

Things like that are more my thing, then barbarian commanders!

Don't forget, with the way the SupCom Tiers work, ACUs NEEDED upgrades to compare even slightly, when used Stock sure they can deal with early game T1 armies with OC and their ridiculous HP(compared to T1 units, it takes 40 Strikers to match the UEF ACU's HP) but against T3 units the commander is downright useless aside from OC, it only takes 4 Titans, or 2 Percivals to match the ACU HP, and their range, speed and DPS far outdo the ACU, it needed those upgrades to make it take more than 4 T3 units to kill an ACU.

But we shouldn't have that problem in PA, seem the Tiers will not have a Powergap, so Commanders should always be able to deal with small numbers of enemy units at a time, it only gets dice when the number of units increases, not the types of units involved.

Mike

There's still going to be at least 2 major types of units:

Haha. Nope. Not going to kill the Comm. Keep them coming!

If the unit is fast and accurate, the Comm is totally dead. He needs immediate rescue.
If the unit is slow, the Comm might be able to escape or bum rush it.
If the unit has a very slow shot (like artillery or high altitude missile), the Comm might be able to evade its fire.