MMO Aspects such as levelling commander skills and unlocking

Re: MMO Aspects such as levelling commander skills and unloc

Any good competitive RTS should basically feel good to play for the same reason chess is fun: Perfectly balanced competitive play, only the skill of the player counts.
If you add in weird unit-unlocks you break this.

Re: MMO Aspects such as levelling commander skills and unloc

You could just play a few games and unlock the units to perform Build X. I don't see what the big deal is.

Why would Uber make the first combat unit an unlock? That just sounds dumb.
In Starcraft there is very little redundancy. Meaning that most if not all units are critical. PA looks like it will play with alot of different planets. This is likely to result in redundancy in the unit matchup as many units will be situational depending on the terrain and planet. TA had alot of redundancy where unit roles overlapped.
I don't know if Uber is aiming for a minimalistic unit lineup but I think that there will be redundancy in unit roles where there could be place for unlocked units without crippling a new player more than their lack of knowledge about the game already does.

I think locks should be fast to unlock. Would PA benefit from unlocks? I don't know. Would I like if PA had unlocks? If it added to the experience, raised the players competetive level and benefited the community then yes.

Re: MMO Aspects such as levelling commander skills and unloc

I think I should point out a RTS game that does/tried to use that MMO aspect style... Age of Empires online. The way the game works is you level (grind) up your civ through 40 levels in order to have access to the maximum tech tree amount (40 points). You cannot play games against players with a higher civ level because they have access to more research and therefore better units than you. Spending that many hours grinding away to get to that point is loathsome... and I would have to do that WITH EVERY FACTION I want to play with. Fortunately, PA is only having one faction but still... point stands.

Then there is the gear. You could acquire gear in game (or trade for it with other players) to further customize your units. Want faster infantry? add boots... want infantry to train faster? give'm practice weapons. Was a good idea that fell on its face.

Proof of these ideas failing was that no gear was available and all tech was unlocked for ranked games after several months of rage in beta.

Re: MMO Aspects such as levelling commander skills and unloc

The big deal is that I have to waste my life losing to Build X over and over again in a completely non-fun fashion in order to progress. Am I gonna do that? Or am I gonna go play Starcraft 2 instead, where I'm on a level footing right now and for every game?

I didn't mean first, I meant critical. Non-critical units should not be in the game, because they simply cost too much money and developer time to make and present too many balance problems. A unit must justify the expense in all areas in order to be in the game and non-critical units don't.

Re: MMO Aspects such as levelling commander skills and unloc

You can play zero k fine just using the basic factories which are easy to play however playing the harder factories (heavy veh for instance) ad new tactics/strategies to the game but since you need to know how to use them (else its simply better you do not use them) they are locked for new players.

How would you feel if someone on your team starts by making a krogoth? Nubtraps like that need to be locked until newbies got a better idea of how to play.

Re: MMO Aspects such as levelling commander skills and unloc

I really think this is just a never ending pointless discussion right now, I mean look at C&C4.

Re: MMO Aspects such as levelling commander skills and unloc

How is that different from building a bunch of factories and killing your economy with whatever is currently at your disposal?

Re: MMO Aspects such as levelling commander skills and unloc

Lets not give them even more nubtraps

Re: MMO Aspects such as levelling commander skills and unloc

So you think that after only a few games you would know the metagame enough to deem Build X as uncounterable? You are an experienced RTS player so that could propably be true. It is a risk that an unlock system would scare away experienced RTS players.
Rather than locking units from the start you could add them as you find redundancy or newbtraps in the beta.
If all units are critical then I would agree that there is no room for unitlocks.

We will see about that.

Re: MMO Aspects such as levelling commander skills and unloc

Doesn't matter what I think. People do.

But more importantly, if I can always reproduce Build X, then I can keep playing the game using Build X against my opponents until either I or someone better at the game than me finds a counter. I don't have to do it myself and being able to use Build X keeps me in the game until I can, by whatever means, find a counter.

Re: MMO Aspects such as levelling commander skills and unloc

I'm okay with visual only upgrades, I don't care about them and it gives us something kind of fun to try and get to but it dosn't really mean anything because we got it. As to WOT... don't even go there, I've been there since closed beta and it played relativley well if you ignore the bugs so I was hoping they finnaly got the F2P model right. I didn't play long after it went public, matchmaker is worthless and the only way to win is if you're willing to pour money into it. There is a differance between succesful and popular games..

Re: MMO Aspects such as levelling commander skills and unloc

This thread needs to be put out of its misery.

Re: MMO Aspects such as levelling commander skills and unloc

What if you don't play online? Would you be permanently limited to certain units? If you allow offline leveling, what's stopping people from just grinding to the top with a series of rigged games (same issue with online, though less-so since you'd need another person).

Assuming offline play has everything unlocked: What if I play offline for a year, then decide to try online. I'd have so much experience with all the units, but then be artificially stuck with some ridiculous tech restriction...?

Why enforce some levelling system if everyone is going to try to get around just to enjoy everything the game offers.

In an MMO where you are part of a community, and PvP isn't the sole focus... maybe then it'd have a purpose. For PA though, absolutely not.

I can't convey with words how utterly nonsensical this is, so here's a picture.

Hope it helps.

Re: MMO Aspects such as levelling commander skills and unloc

I don't see why. No matter what is at your disposal, you still have to learn how the game plays in general, i.e. how the economy works and all that.

Re: MMO Aspects such as levelling commander skills and unloc

Damn, I wish I thought of that argument. That's actually really darn good, and would have made my arguments earlier so much easier.

Re: MMO Aspects such as levelling commander skills and unloc

This. I believe everybody have stated their thoughts. And DEVs have surely read it. Now I see to much hatred and flame.