One race = perfect balance!

What a splendid way to get over the whole "oh noes, XXX race is UBER" aspects of RTS games, I'm not sure why it hasn't been used (at all?) before!
That leaves balancing to tier vs tier, and Air vs land vs sea, which means we might get where going for example, air first is a valid tactic, and not either 1. Suicide, or 2. Insta win.

Has anyone noticed that when there is a new thread another thread appears to contradict it? :lol: Anyways... I totally agree with there being one race and one race only... This one of the few Rts games that only have one race. I am looking forward to it...

Sounds boring.

Just saying sounds boring without giving any evidence to why is not really... Supportive.
Besides... Negativity will not help the forum.

Maybe they want the game to be a bit more competitive. Hell, it might be 100x less frustrating this way. It's fine, although looking to games like Wargame:EE and CoH make me sort of wish they took a "Unbalanced Balance" sort of approach.

Starcraft has been unbalanced in favour of one race or another since forever.

Arguably the same was true in SupCom, but don't ask me WHICH race was OP for each patch!
Aeon was while the Mercy reigned supreme!
[ducks for cover]

Do I really need to explain why 1 set of ubiquitous units is boring heh?

What about subsets of units?

Age of Empires/Rise of Nations were great games.

Pff... The Cybrans were so much better.... Anyways... Thats not the point... There is good imbalanced and then there is bad imbalanced... Like mbbird stated. You know, like Sins of a Solar Empire. If you were playing against one faction another would be good. Like the Advent and the Vasari. The point is, the games that could actually get the balance, or the imbalance in this game right, turned out pretty good...

Actually, yes.

So what if everyone is running around with the same units? The fun isn't about matching his widgets with my gadgets, it's about the fact that I snuck around his flank with my skirmish/scouts and am now ravaging his resource production; it's about the fact that I held him so tied up on his offensive operations, he didn't notice me building a superweapon, and now I'm cleaning up; it's about him not knowing I have a nuke, and dropping it on his army as they press in through my collapsing defensive lines (oh was that last one fun when I pulled it off!)

Different doesn't mean imbalanced. Imbalanced means one side is better than another.

I would really rather have one side with a large number of very variable units than three sides each with a moderate number of modestly variable units.

I can accept the reasons given by the devs for one unit set, so I won't argue here on the plan for PA.

But your argument "one race = perfect balance" is a bit thin. Just avoiding a game element because it causes efforts for balancing isn't really a good reason to dismiss it. There are enough discussions here which listed a few pros and cons.
If one would follow your argument, one could also say:
- why multiple tiers, one tier = perfect balance
- why multiple unit types, one unit (e.g.) your commander = perfect balance
(I won't revive the discussion on custom commanders )
- why different planets/types, one predetermined world = perfect balance
....

aside from that:

luckily, at least some understand that balanced != equal

I agree. And they had only one faction, sort of. Civilization 5 aswell.

It all depends on how many units and different strategies/tactics there are. If PA follows the path of TA and SupCom i think this one faction will be awesome.

I think everyone understands that. That's not the point.

The point is that balancing factions that are different seems to be very hard. Just look at SupCom, the three/four factions were pretty similar and still there were many almost gamebreaking imbalances. It's easily the hardest thing to get right.

Just look at T1 tanks in SupCom. Before FA and some patch, the UEF T1 tank was almost useless because it fired its shot in an arch that was easy to dodge, causing UEF to lose almost every T1 battle on small maps which were critical in the ladder. Such a small difference made such a big outcome. A few of these imbalances (the Aeon T2 mercy) and the ladder is dead for most people. It also limits the number of viable factions to one anyway.

Instead, we could have more viable units and more great features.

If they get the different number of strategies right, having one side won't be a problem.

The reason many games have different factions, is because each favors a certain kind of strategy, and each also prefers a certain kind of strategy against any other race. Having 3 races effectively means you enforce at least 9 different kinds of games (for each possibility) which is an easy way to ensure that games don't all run the same.

Having only one race means that, at its core, there's only one type of game. This makes it harder to keep the game interesting, because it means you must have different kinds of games and strategies arise from only 1 set of units.

If anything; getting the balance right with 1 faction is fairly easy. But keeping the game interesting for a long time? That's something completely different. There's no best answer. Each comes with its own drawbacks.

I can totally understand PA going for 1 faction, and I think considering the circumstances it is the best choice here, but that doesn't mean it won't come with its own challenges or should be the preferred path for all games. Games like Starcraft or Warcraft wouldn't work at all with just 1 faction.

one race != perfect balance.

When one unit of a race has mostly the best power/pay property then the most player will build many of them.. so just one race doesnt mean its a perfect balancing.
examples: weewar.com (cruiser too strong)

I like many factions of original and interesting units, like in hero academy. there are small teams of different features and skills, which gives the game much more depth than you would asume in the beginning. Of course the balancing is always a little problem, but uber doesnt stop for sure to support the game after it game out

PS: I know we only get one and I dont complain it. I just meant that one race doesnt mean perfect balacing.

It is a misconception that one race means balanced. A one race game is balanced if and only if every strategy A has a counter that isn't do A better than the other guy. For instance if a particular unit is so good that there is literally no reason you'd ever build another unit then the game is imbalanced.

With a game that'll have as many units as PA it is probably unrealistic to state that every unit should see usage in competitive play. However we'll know the game is balanced when we see a multitude of styles evolving which are all workable. Or more correctly we'll know the game is unbalanced if everyone just masses Pee Wees all the time and nobody can do anything about it.

There are other facets of balance that need to be covered as well. For instance if one particular strategy has only 1 counter but other strategies can be countered down several paths then that one strategy has a clear cut advantage over the others. Even if it isn't OP against the strategies that counter it the fact that you have fewer things to worry about gives you a metagame advantage. This encourages everyone to go down that route even if it isn't in a raw sense stronger than any other. However this is a second order imbalance and not even Blizzard have gotten this right. Precisely this problem exists in TvP.

balance is most easily understood when expressed as a term between two objects, but what what supcom and previous titles had was a balanced equilibrium between the equivalent factions units, PA having only 1 faction will be naturally balanced in a Unit A vs unit A respect, but it still has to be balanced, Unit A vs Unit B, even if that equilibrium ratio is meant to be unbalanced.

i'm sorry for this poorly expressed idea, but i hope at least some people understand it