MMO Aspects such as levelling commander skills and unlocking

Re: MMO Aspects such as levelling commander skills and unloc

In defence of the Zero-K unlocks:
-You start with everything that you need to win a normal 1v1.
-Unlocking all factories will only take a few games.
-Most units that are locked are niche units(tank stunner raider), heavy units(goliath, Detriment=krogoth, nuke) and special units(capture car, gravity turret). Since there isn't any techprogression where units get better and better for cost, missing theese units isn't really a problem in most games. When you have enough knowledge about the game to know when to use the niche units or heavier units you will propably already have played enough to unlock them.
-When you look at units and ask why I should unlock this first you think about why and when you should use thoose units. Atleast I did.
-Commander upgrades are fairly expensive. For the same cost as that you pay to get additional buildpower on your commander you could get a builder with the same buildpower. Most of the time it is more advantageous to get more builders.
-It is possible to turn off unit unlocks but you need to create an own server for that or you need pass a vote in an autohost(official server host).
-You get Experience to unlock stuff even if you lose and you get more in some gamemodes, against higher skilled players and if you win.

The problems that unlocks solved in Zero-K.
1. Smurfing. Since Zero-K is free, people could create how account many accounts as they wished although they will not have unlocked units and their custom commanders with the new account. Smurfing will propably not be a problem in PA if people pay for the game.
2. Avoiding newbtraps. Starting to build heavy units right of the bat can be pretty bad and some factories are much harder to play or specialized in use compared to other.
3. Giving people additional incentive to play. Most people like to get rewarded for playing a game. Unlocks is one way of getting rewarded as players come back to grind for more.

New players are a little gimped in FFA as they might miss the gameenders that can be really good there. However unit unlock can be turned off, but by the time people have to knowledge and courage to turn unlocks off, they will propably already have unlocked most stuff.
All in all I think the Zero-K unlock system could work in PA aswell. If PA is free to play I think it would increase the playerbase. Unlocks could be a good way to engage people at first while dedicated players will play PA and unlock most if not all units quickly.
By the way I hate minitransactions and grinding.

Re: MMO Aspects such as levelling commander skills and unloc

No.

Great, I'm going to be fucked for the first few games. During that critical time when I really need to be learning from other players, they're building units I don't have access to. Lovely new player experience you've got going there.

All you need to know about the game to try to use those units is "I thought they looked cool", "I saw a video/replay/played in a game where someone used them", "I lost to a build which involved them". Really not a knowledge barrier here. Also, thanks for your "probably". I guess that it's impossible that I, I dunno, watched a friend play often so I know exactly how to use them.

Because I lost to some guy who had unlocked it and used it, and I think there's a good chance that I could win more games by imitating his build, like a smart RTS player. You only need to lose one game for that.

So the people who already win get more units to play with? That doesn't sound at all like a completely unfair advantage that would utterly piss off every single player who tried to play the game, ever.

So most of the time, they're utterly worthless, and the rest of the time, you gain an unfair advantage. I'm not really sure what you're trying to argue here. Most of the time, they can't possibly justify the developer expenditure because you're not using them, and the rest of the time, they still can't justify it because they're making the game worse, not better. Nice. Making my own points for me.

This is an RTS, not a F2P grindfest. It's critical that every player, at every time, can imitate the strategies and tactics of every other player. Unlocks break this fundamental principle and break the purpose of RTS. And they are extremely, unnecessarily, frustrating to new players. They're a suicidal failure for an RTS game.

Re: MMO Aspects such as levelling commander skills and unloc

Quoted for truth:

That's about the worst way to start a game.

Like starting GunGame with a knife instead of the machine-gun.

Re: MMO Aspects such as levelling commander skills and unloc

Well, I think enough was said, to be honest I changed my mind about it being cosmetic, even if it was like that we have mods (hopefully) so..

Re: MMO Aspects such as levelling commander skills and unloc

I'd try playing ZK before you make those judgements on its unlock system. However, the reasons the unlock system works well in ZK are fairly specific to that game. Mostly that in a ZK team game most players will build only one factory and while some factories have quite intuitive play styles, the unlockable ones are very specialised and confusing to new players.

It's frustrating in a team game if a newbie joins and wastes team resources on building units they have no idea how to use.

However, I don't think the unlock system is essential even in ZK and I don't think it will be important for PA multiplayer. Maybe in campaign if there is one.

Re: MMO Aspects such as levelling commander skills and unloc

Yeah, I think there's a potential for some interesting modding to be done from a persistent POV.. but that should be handled by servers or "Sector servers" rather than globally across all games (because cheating).

Re: MMO Aspects such as levelling commander skills and unloc

Yes for a SP upgrades might work, as you'd have a sense of progress, such as some RTS games do, you don't start with every building/unit avaiable to slowly learn how to use them. But in a multiplayer game advantages like this are just not correct, for a RTS too.

Re: MMO Aspects such as levelling commander skills and unloc

Voted no, but the ACU upgrades in Forged Alliance are good and useful so potentially something similar could be in PA. But it would depend very much on the overall feel and balance of the rest of the game as to whether this would be a good idea.

And any sort of persistent upgrades may take a flying **** at a rolling doughnut. Just no, for any reason you care to pick.

Re: MMO Aspects such as levelling commander skills and unloc

I would like to see some clear tradeoff commander versions to choose, in order to supplement your strategy, but I am definately against some sort of progression system.

With the exception of an Online-Leaderboard. That's how you actually do progression right.

Re: MMO Aspects such as levelling commander skills and unloc

I agree with thefirstfish. The unlocks is propably engaging more players than it piss off in Zero-K.

Why is it critical that you should be able to imitate the strategy and tactics that other players are deploying? It doesn't work like that in Starcraft if you are playing against another race. By the time you are on the recieving end of the said strategy or tactic you propably need to find a counter since if you use the same strategy, of your opponent, he is already ahead and he might even know a counter.
In Zero-K basically every factory have a lineup of units that can counter any unit in another factory so it works there. If you lost to a unit or tactic you propably got enough EXP to unlock them yourself.
Will unlocks be good in general for PA? I don't know. I think it depends on how it is done.
Some people hate it. Some people love it.

Re: MMO Aspects such as levelling commander skills and unloc

In Zero-K it's more like a sniper-rifle vs a machine-gun. A machine gun is good at gunning down and suppressing people but it's heavy and innaccurate if you are alone in the woods while someone is watching you through the lense of a sniper rifle.

Check this episode about incomparables from http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/perfect-imbalance from Extra Credits.

If unlocks are incomparables you can get quite an interesting metagame from using customizable commanders.

Re: MMO Aspects such as levelling commander skills and unloc

The metagame still exists when everything is available from the start.

Re: MMO Aspects such as levelling commander skills and unloc

This is quite possibly the worst idea I've seen on here yet.

NO, BAD, DONOTWANT

*edit* re: extra credits perfect imbalance http://www.sirlin.net/blog/2012/7/18/a-discussion-of-balance.html

If people are going to keep posting that i'm gonna keep posting sirlins response.

Re: MMO Aspects such as levelling commander skills and unloc

Well there's your problem: you think PA has multiple factions. I've seen one so far, unless the second faction is a race entire of invisible ninjas, I don't think it exists.

If every factory type can counter every other factory type, then you have superfluous factories. That's just wasteful.

Re: MMO Aspects such as levelling commander skills and unloc

At least this explains any games i lose to glitches.

Re: MMO Aspects such as levelling commander skills and unloc

Well I wouldn't support unlocks and I don't see why some people like them.

Would you say Starcraft has superfluous races?

Re: MMO Aspects such as levelling commander skills and unloc

Also a potential counter doesn't mean the best counter, just that you're not screwed if they chose rock and you chose scissors.

Re: MMO Aspects such as levelling commander skills and unloc

that concept of ZK sounds really familiar to my Atlantis faction of my C&C Generals ZH mod Forgotten Fury. Basically you can change your playstyle (think faction) when the game is already started. If I understand it well?

I did it in the form of a 3 way tech tree, which you could choose twice, doubling 1(for high-tier units) or combining 2(with cross-tech bonuses) Still gotta release that thing XD /Shameless Plug.

I don't know if this will work for PA though. If you prevent new players from building orbital bases for example, other players can easily dominate the orbital areas without being contested.

Also Commander modifications can change the focus of the entire game to say early-game. If one player goes damage and the other builder, then the first player just destroys the other com easily with his com, skipping the entire large-scale battles PA wants to focus on.

Re: MMO Aspects such as levelling commander skills and unloc

Race =/= Factory.

Re: MMO Aspects such as levelling commander skills and unloc

Say that you can choose between starting vehicles and bots. On some maps vehicles are favoured. On others bots are favoured and then there are some maps where it isn't clear if any of them have the advantage over the other.
Would you say that either factory is superflous when they infact are diverse and use different tactics and strategies?

If you look at Starcraft they have a very specific map formula because they need to balance 3 different races. If they have an open map without chokes it would be imbalanced because Zerglings would just be able to sourround and attack from everywhere for example.

In Zero-K some factories are more viable than other on some maps. You start with enough diversity that you can play any map. The locked ones are more situational and harder to use.

PA is propably going to have alot of different maps, ehem... planets and maybe there will even be enough diversity that some units will be superflous on some planets while they work well at other planets.