One race = perfect balance!

Well, if you are playing faction with good defense against faction with good defence (UEF vs. UEF, for example), I don't see how exactly this negates your defensive capabilities. Even if you are playing good defense vs. good offense, it still doesn't negate your defensive capabilities.

Example: if you are playing * vs. seraphim, you should expect a lot of t1 artillery going onto you, around you and above you. If you are playing UEF with good defenses, defensive behavior is still viable, so nothing changed. But if you are playing Cybran then suddenly their not-so-good T2 defenses became OP and defensive strategy not considered before suddenly became very interesting, as Cybran's T2 turrets are perfect for shooting down enemy t1 spam.

Of course, you may loose some strategies that was based on not-so-strong points of your faction if you are playing against faction with stronger counter for that points, but that's should be balanced.

1. I'm not actually using that "Perfect Imbalance" thing as argument, I just linked it as reference for "overbalanced SC". What they say is good and actual for constantly changing MMO, not for RTS (imo).
2. The guy you linked actually created "Chess 2" (and trying to sell it, pff...) with 6 different factions, so, well...
3. He also says that "symmetrical games" are less interesting than asymmetrical. And I guess that's the same point as "Perfect imbalance" thing (as he describes it in his block it seems that he didn't quite get a macro-idea of that term, so he is arguing with his own shadow).

I agree that this is silly idea for RTS. But what actually is good idea is to make factions not equal on all sides. So if one faction has good air than another faction has a good ground. When well-balanced it's win-win situation, imo.

I never told that this is easy to develop (actually, to be honest, I dunno if it's even possible, but I believe that it is). It's very hard and very expensive. But it's not a reason to not even trying if you got resources. You know, democracy, communism, capitalism, whatever are also ideal models that has no possible implementation. But that's not the reason to even not trying to keep things ordered in one way or another and stick with chaos.

Dunno much about StarCraft, so I'll stick with SupCom (but I'm not pro player there either, BTW). It doesn't actually matter what did you say - you know that any defense could be overwhelmed with mobile TMLs. Even Aeon's. That's mid level. You may also know that Aeon's defense is great for stopping a rocket bombardment (if properly placed) and Cybran TMLs are great for doing that bombardment (if properly used). That's above-mid level.

Mid level is more like good T2, bad T3, good air, bad land, etc. Like "air is best with Aeon". That's a long list, sure, but it's shorter than "X vs. Anything with micro or without micro" list for every unit.

Probably yes, but it will more depend on player. I.e. pro-player will be much more pro, as he will have less weak points and will give less windows of opportunity for his enemy. That's very dangerous property, IMO, as it could separate the community.

I suppose balance would constitute as the ability to counter an enemy's units with your own when on a relatively equal standing.

Starcraft does this with counters and does most small scale RTS games because of the number of units a player will have deployed.

Supreme commander does this with the collision of entire brigades colliding over a large operational area, but unlike starcraft will offer a greater diversity in both sides and their composition.

Where as one side will have more of unit X, the other side will have more of Unit Y.
While unit X can kill 3 of Unit Y, Unit Y is usually deployed in numbers of 3 unit Y to a unit X over a equal terrain battlefield.


Once race would be able to build both unit X and unit Y, presenting reasons for building one and not the other, where as in games like starcraft the units are more like unit XY (Especially with the upgrades) and so are balanced because of such a difference with upgrades and scale.

So instead of comparing the zerg or terran with zerglings or marines we should be seing how the game would work with zerglings and marines.

It is a mirror matchup. Both players have the same amount of strategic options.

Factions are different yes but the question was if they have the same amount of strategic options?
Cybran T1 arty drops are lousy compared to UEF and Seraphim so they lose 1 option there. What do they have instead?

It should be balanced but you also argue that more factions should increase viable strategies in all matchups.

What do you mean with "macro idea" of "perfect imbalance"?

I don't think 1 faction being superior at 1 type of terrain increases available options. Some planets might favor air play. Some might favor ground forces. Some planets might favor naval fleets. This can make the factional choice cause 1 player to have a disadvantage because his faction doesn't have as strong naval force as the enemy faction.
I think planets and terrain types will have too much diversity for such balance to properly evolve.

So then you should choose Aeon on a map that favors air play.
You seem to agree that if factional diversities that gives a specific faction a superiority in different terrain makes them the optimal choice on such terrain.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. Pros will be pros.
When I mentioned Starcraft local imbalances there are timing attacks in different matchups that is caused by factional diversity. There are also timing attacks in mirror matchups which are against specific buildorders.
In FA there are just a few non-critical time attacks like rushing bombers but thoose might give you an advantage but will most likely not win you the game.

All these threads are about people having a hunch on how 'so cool' it is to limit the amount of paths players can take, or have some ridiculous pregame, which are apparently supposed to allow players to 'define their personalities'. People just can't come to terms with the idea of a factionless game, which is why you see them desperate to salvage the concept with threads like "Age of Empires II style special units!", "Factions as stat/hidden modifiers!", "Let's make players choose a limited slection of units to enable for their game!"; in other words, they want it to be "my deck vs. your deck"; a deck-building game. Even though if you think long and hard enough about it, you realise the only effective difference between a faction and factionless game is players instead devise all their strategies and advantages on the map, only you're also accomplishing it without feature bloat and bloated developer budget spent on duplicate art assets which no one will appreciate.

Also I'm not sure why you think a game's real-time status has any bearing on this. Strategy games are after all (theoretically) about player decisions.

Players are already going to develop their own styles of play as a matter of course. Faction choices are an easy way to ensure that those options remain viable. However, the same results can be achieved(albeit with much more difficulty) by having a proper balance between unit choices and options.

A specialized faction will obviously box the player into that strategy for the whole game. Given the game's scope, forcing one type of gameplay can be pretty limiting for the long term.

It was an example that your faction disadvantages/other faction advantages are not always limiting you.

T2 stealth and sneaky drops behind enemy lines.

If you are playing Seraphim vs Cybran you lost your t1 arty spam option, but got option for t2/t3 mobile arty/cruisers bombardment, as Cybran shields are crap. If Cybran got shields comparable to yours - there is no such option. If cybran got Aeon anti-TML there is no TML bombardment option. So, this is increase of viable options in comparison to "one pool" solution. Weak points of your opponents are that additional options.

Idea behind that "perfect imbalance" thing is "you may create deliberate asymmetry into your game, so every faction is vulnerable versus some other faction and strong against another one". It's more complex than than, as a lot you may actually configure a lot of different sides of every faction (land/air/naval/orbit * basic/advanced/super-advanced/game-enders) in that way.

You got hard times on naval planet, but it's peace of cake to counter metal planet for you, so you may use increase of resources to pump more forces into that naval battle. On other side, your naval-superior opponent should rather rush capturing and securing that naval planet and then trying expanding on other grounds. Ground-superior faction should choose between "rush to metal planet or try to prevent securing naval planet by naval-superior opponent for further expanding".

Yup. That was a problem in FA, probably, especially with maps like Setons, where air position is safe and sound, but it shouldn't be much a problem with PA scale and diversity.

Every faction should try to capture the world of it's perfection as base for further expansion. Of course it shouldn't be like "you cool on naval and bad at everything else, so if you got yourself spawned on non-naval planet you're screwed", it will just a little bit more hard for you.

Well, it just shouldn't be like that. You got your most preferred strategy, yes (that's why it's easier), but if opponent is smart enough he will counter it, so you'll need to seek other strategies.

But there is another problem with multiple pools at long-term - nothing prevents you from taking engi of your ally and making "single pool" after all. I haven't seen a lot of people fighting with all four races units in FA, but probably in long term it could create very good opportunity and therefore became mandatory for end-game, which is actually bad. As controlling multiple different factions is a lot harder than single all-rounder faction.

Saying that both sides in a 1v1 Seraphim vs Cybran has more "strategic options" than "one pool solution" is irrelevant as there are several factions in Forged Alliance. You would have to condense traits and/or units of all factions into 1 unit pool but that would simply create another faction.
Saying that both sides in a 1v1 Seraphim vs Cybran has more strategic options than in a mirror Cybran match might be true but I'm not going to list the amount of "Strategic options" for all factions in each of the 10 possible matchups in Forged Alliance.
You could try to do that if you wish.

What I want to say:
More strategic options in a matchup is good.
Few or just 1 prevalent strategy in a matchup is bad.
When one side only has 1 or a few viable strategies while the other side has plenty of viable strategies it is even worse.
Keeping the game balanced while also keeping a lot of viable strategies for all matchup gets harder and harder as factional diversities increase.

Sirlin said that local imbalances are fine. There is nothing in that article he wrote that suggest that he is against local macro imbalances. I'm going to argue that Starcraft Broodwar has local macro imbalances in the true sense of macro. For example a Terran player can easily be behind 1 or sometimes even 2 expansions against a Zerg player without actually being behind. He still have a big chance to win. The Zerg vs Terran matchup is still balanced.

Having local imbalances between different tiers/tech levels in a matchup is all fine and dandy and probably isn't that hard to balance compared to having 1 faction simply being superior at one type of planets or 1 type of terrain.
Planets in PA will be very diverse and feature different types of terrain and this would make some factions simply better on some planets.
Starcraft have a very strict map formula.

It might be possible to balance factions like this but we don't know how easy it will be to change world and chose where you battle.
If both players start on the same world the faction choice could simply make 1 player be at a disadvantage from the start.

What you are trying to achieve are First Order Optimal Strategy as explained by Extra credits here.
Local faction imbalances can achieve this but having those local imbalances be dependant on terrain type with such diverse planets that PA is going to have is bad design in my opinion. A combination of progression/tiers/tech and terrain causing local faction imbalance could be good design though. Faction A could be stronger on land early game while faction B have stronger air force in early game but in midgame faction A have stronger air and faction B have stronger land and so on.
You don't need several factions in order to have First Order Optimal Strategy. FOOS and its' counters can come from weaknesses in different Build Orders leaving opportunity for timing attacks where the metagame about starting strat and build order have more decisive implications than in TA and SupCom.
We will see if PA unlike TA and SupCom will use utilize timing attacks as decisive strategies rather than just giving small advantages.

Yes, I pretty much agree.

I'm not arguing with that. It's a balancing issue. Yet this is counter-argument for "one race = perfect balance" thing.

Well, yes. I do agree with that too. It's just all about the same - you do not make races mirror each other, but make them weak in something and strong in something else so overall game is balanced.

One-type superiority is just one example of possible diversity. And starcraft doesn't have much "terrain types" (ground and semi-air), so I dunno why you mentioned it.

It was working well in FA if it was limited to one tier (t2 Cybran naval is superior, t3 UEF naval is superior), but it won't work in PA, as it seems that we won't get any efficiency upgrading at all. So, no "tiers" to differentiate.

Well, probably it should be placement, as you may be at a disadvantage from your skill point, not only your faction weak points. If you are good at naval management, but not very good at air, you'll be probably disadvantaged on air-planet by air-pro anyway.

Well, maybe, I dunno actually if it's applicable. But probably yes - you got most obvious and powerful strategy for each faction, but it could be easily countered, so you need to seek for another more tricky strategy.

Exactly. But there is one caveat - at one perfect day your got no more tiers to upgrade for, so who is the winner? If there is no winner, than there is no need for different full factions (different pools) either - you may just implement (you have to, actually) unlocking mechanics that are dependent over your ACU type. But, probably, if there is winner (as for FA) it will only add some depth into game.

You are not serious, aren't you? With that scale, when your units may travel few minutes to your foe - what kind of timing attacks you are talking about? And yes, FA/SupCom got timing attacks as well (if your build-order is very strict on resources you are spending, but let you to skyrocket your eco your opponent may take advantage over that to crush you before you deployed a strong force). But I really-really hope that strict build-orders would not be requirement for PA mid. In FA you may easily make a few mistakes into your early development (unless you are playing on 5x5 1v1 duel) and recover from them without losses and, IMO, it should remain so.

Actually, you just granted me another argument for tech unlocking viability - you may create unambiguous diversity within single unit pool without any additional work. Just by slightly changing order of group unlocks.

I believe the boundaries in the option pool do give the game designer more freedom to design the options, cause they would reduce the need of balancing options against each other. But they also make the options feel less like options too, since they would reduce the freedom of choice.
Races are the hardest boundaries for options you could have in a RTS game, once you choose a race, you would be bound to some options in the whole game and can not switch to something others, you have the freedom about races only before the game starts.

This is asymmetric balance, a cornerstone of Starcraft. It took an expert team over 5 years to get that one released.

While very nice on paper, creating asymmetric balance means understanding perfectly the strategic value of everything in the game. Every mistake creates an overpowered or underpowered faction or strategy, which can rapidly change with new discoveries in the metagame. It's incredibly difficult, and not something one expects to see done seriously given the short timeline.

No doubt. That's why we have theoretical discussion. And in theory asymmetric balance is better than symmetric. So "one race != perfect balance".

BW was partly balanced by some coincidences and great korean mappers, that's why Blizzard never achieve another good asymmetric balance after it.
And it is still not perfect, some units are not very useful in some match-ups, like Defiler and Ultralisk in ZvZ.

As an engineer, i can tell you that it's better practice to throw theory out than practical information.


Theory is a state of optimal conditions. reality is not.

In theory, asymmetric balance is better, as it leaves identity for each race. Symmetric balance is just a case of "we wear a different hat".

However, if it's just one race, there is no identity to uphold. There is no need to preserve some kind of identity or variety. Therefore, one race is perfect balance.


Furthermore: I think that having race causes very deterministic gameplay. Some time ago i played Supcom 2 with friends. We did both factions and locations random but not the teams. I was UEF, rest Cybran and Aeon, I was on a tiny island at spitting distance from my enemy, and my enemy was on solid ground. For some reason everyone chose air. I chose air. UEF air quite sucks compared to other race's air, as they get firepower both on the ground and in the air and i have to chose. I can dent their armies but not their bases. our asses get kicked and i'm pretty much handcuffed (mostly because SupCom 2 more or less forces 1 tactic and you have to stick with it).


Basically, if you saw the terrain, people's focus and their starting base, you can with great accuracy say if someone's gonna win, or not. In a 1 race world, it gets determined by the units you pick, and the strategies you choose, not the race you pick.


Now i've been carefully using the word race. Different factions are pretty much per definition there because it's war.

NOTE: i would like to see a better difference in the various units and types of units, and a better, clearer choice from them.

eg: Tanks vs Bots. Tanks are faster and cheaper, but worse terrain adaption. Bots are slower, more expensive but more all-terrain.

eg: true VTOL versus STOL(sorta) units. So gunship-type ships that more or less stay stationary as they lay more accurate fire on their enemies, or bomber-type ships that strafe and stay on the move.

eg. Ships versus Platforms. Ships being faster, Platforms being more like mobile bases that are slower, but boast greater defences and greater firepower.


I would like to see something like Supcom's navy force. I liked navy a LOT. mostly because it saw many, clearly defined roles. Battleships for sheer devastating direct firepower, or Cruisers to fire missiles from afar. Subs as hunter/killers, destroyers to destroy them, cruisers to fight destroyers, battlecruisers as all-rounders, etc etc.

I think having 1 race with a wider unit palette, would lead to much greater variety than the *superficial* variety of multiple races. I think having a combination of all-round units and special units could lead to very nice, very clever gameplay that really makes the player shine, and not the faction they pick.

The one who made the thread is correct that a game that is symmetric is balanced as both players have the same chance to win. However in RTS we want "balance" to mean that both players have equal chances of winning and that there is several viable strategies and not just 1 dominant strategy.

So you retract your statement about Sirlin and that he

?

One-type terrain superiority is bad design. In Starcraft your starting base typically only have 1 entrance that is a chokepoint. Starcraft have a very strict map formula because otherwise the faction balance breaks down. A map that is open would be dominated by Zerglings as their mobility would force the other factions to just defend allowing the Zerg player to expand and tech much more easily.
Likewise having 1 faction being stronger on such broad terrain type as land would mean that choosing another faction would be inferior if the main battleground are going to be land.

Well that would mean that once you learned the game enough you will know what faction are best on what type of planet and choose that faction. Not a good design.
Different factional strengths at different stages at the game is fine. This doesn't need to be brought by techs like in SupCom. It can be brought by escalation in concentration of forces as heavier units replace lighter units without being generally better than the lighter units. I would could argue that TA had this design and that Core generally had tougher units.
It can come to units with specific abilities and traits.
Arm typically had good kiting units like the Fido. A specialized skirmisher in this case.

You don't necessarily need tier upgrades to have progression that allows different factions to be strong at different stages of the game.
In the game NOTA on the Spring engine once you have built the shipyard you can build all the ships in the game ranging from submarines, destroyers, fast attack boats and battleships where the battleship is about 15 times more expensive than the fast attack boat. Ship combat in NOTA is largely about bringing in the largest gun to the fight to outrange and skirmish the opponent so making a bigger longer ranged ship usually gives you the advantage.
However you cannot just rush to the biggest ship as you it will tie up your shipyard and leave you vulnerable. Unsupported large ships can still fall victim to airattacks, hovercraft swarms, submarines and lesser ships under radar jammers.
The Arm battlecruiser is generally superior to the Core equivalent while the Core have a somewhat better battleship.
However even in a mirror matchup the there is plenty of choices due to different windows of opportunity for counters as players progress to higher and higher ships. Many times you see the largest ships get destroyed by the cheapest submarines because 1 player could not both make a large ship and have enough anti-submarine assets.
Sea combat in NOTA rarely plays out symmetrically but will usually force the players to focus on different goals and thereby induce asymmetry even in a mirror matchup where both players have the same options.
You can argue that such large cost disparities should be separated by tiers and if tiers are just tabs like the difference between t3 and t4 in SupCom then I'm fine with it.

In that case you ecoed too much and suffered from it. In FA scouting is easy and it is easy to avoid providing windows of opportunity for crippling timing attacks.

Err... what?
Like separating units into different factories? Like hovers, bots, vehicles, ships and air?

Only having one race would certainly give mappers a lot more freedom, so I guess PA could have some asymmetric balance with asymmetric maps.
A map is a part of a game's mechanisms. If one player start on a water planet, another player start on a lava planet, it would certainly make their optimal strategies very different.

Yes, that's why it's not "perfect" balance. It's a good one, but it could be better! Theoretically.

No. I just got more idea what he is talking about and now I'm sure that he is talking about same thing as Extra Credits. They just call it differently and use different examples. But more or less it's all about the same - you need to create asymmetry to make game more fun, but without inducing any imbalance.

Ah, you about that one. Well, yes, but Starcraft is full of abstract limitations for sake of balance. That's why it's more like chess =).

But in PA there will be no 100% land maps (unless you are playing on single specific planet).

A lot of people argue against "generally better than the lighter units" thing. And yes, that's "tiers" and efficiency upgrades anyway, just without upgrading process.

Please refer to "do we need tech levels" thread. I tried to convince everyone there, that's a _very_ bad idea. It will skyrocket learning curve and will make PA just another nerd game. You need some unlocking mechanics in one way or another.

Yes, I do. Well, it sounds like great design and it a lot like FA's navy. I like it, but yes - you need to separate tabs and unlock them with some kind of progression. Just tabs won't work, they will just overcomplexate things.

Recon is one top priority in any warfare, yes. And I presume that is should remain the same in PA. Forced uncertainty is very bad thing.

No, just land/ship/air/(orbital?) factories. But each factory have tab with additional units, that are grayed out from start. Some special unlocking technique makes them active. It could be done automatically with eco grow, so no player action needed, but I prefer more explicit variant of upgrading one special building (as I don't like implicit unclear automagic).

If such unlocking mechanic would be a little bit more restrictive, it could unlock units in smaller portions depending on your ACU type. Heavy-offense ACU got damagers first, heavy defense got defenses first. In the end they all got same unit pool, just different progression. I dunno if I like this idea, though =)

all i want out of more than one faction is a different style/look of the units keep the same single unit pool just make a small but noticeable change in the design of how a unit looks, maybe based on what commander you choose

Yeah, because making the same unit 7 different times for each commander sounds like a walk in the park. >.> One of the main reasons for doing 1 unit pool is to reduce teh work required to create art assets.

And before you argue that making small changes isn't the same as making a new unit;

A] It's still more work, plain and simple.

B] because theres so many variations per unit you end up with having a hard time making each Variant unique, especially as new commanders are added(Not to mention what do you do with the almost 100 Custom Commanders?)

C] You end up with a lot of "visual noise" and make it harder to identify units, maybe not so much in a 1v1 setting but when you get into 8 player(or larger!) games it'll get very confusing.

Mike

A "perfect" asymmetric balance could just aswell be one with asymmetric maps/planets/starting positions.

Asymmetry is good but I argue that factional differences is not the only way to have asymmetry.
I don't know where to place multiple factory choices if different factories are balanced to each other but create asymmetry because you have different units in the factories . Arguably the same effect of asymmetric balance occurs. Like vehicles vs bots.

It doesn't matter so much if not every planet is 100% land. If there is a little pond on a planet it doesn't necessarily mean that a faction with good navy can use that to their advantage.

I argue against heavier units being "generally better than the lighter units". Units can be heavier but generally less effecient and still have a role.

I don't agree that it is a "_very_ bad idea". It might be abit of a noobtrab to have very expensive units together with very cheap units but I don't think its' a big factor in determining how steep the learning curve is.
PA is looking to have two tiers/techs. With units separated into different terrain types of factories and basic and advanced factories you have some unlocking mechanics.

There are lots of ways to provide unlocking mechanics. Personally I'm not a fan of tech trees. Typically they take a while to learn and feels unintuitive. I want interesting unit interactions and counter mechanics where the planets dictate the type of combat on the battlefield.
Having a cost and time requirement to unlock units is an interesting balance approach but I'd rather see the game in question before I can really say what unlock mechanics would be appropriate for the game.

It's also a terrible approach. While functional for one game on one map, it does nothing to address how combat can be waged across multiple worlds. Make it too difficult, and pressing enemy territory leaves you with tons of money but no options. That's no fun for an invasion. Leave it too simple, and it doesn't serve any purpose beyond the first 20 minutes of a game. That creates its own issues as only the best min/max units will fight across worlds.

Tech options are best locked down by flat infrastructure cost, which as a flowing resource is a simple matter of time. There are two major types of infrastructure- energy and factories. Each one provides its own resource, energy and build power. Building up these things will necessarily cost mass, which depletes the number of units on the field.

There are multiple ways to lock down "high tech" units- energy build cost, energy upkeep, and slow build rates. All of these things demand extra infrastructure, in the form of generators and factories, which directly takes away from the time and army that an opponent has. With little infrastructure, only the simplest of units can be used to spend metal. As infrastructure increases, it becomes easier to build lots of high tech units and use all their abilities at once.

Keep in mind that a "high tech" unit does not necessarily have to be stronger, faster, or better armed. It only needs to provide a feature that a basic unit doesn't have. This could be stuff like stealth, jump jets, a different chassis, superior sensors, or even the ability to cross worlds. Without energy, some features can be useless. If the features are not used, then the unit was a waste of energy and build time. A basic unit does not need these things, so they can be built more quickly with less hassle, and overrun a player that attempts to play cute.