One race = perfect balance!

It is also the standard in almost every RTS. You wouldn't call Starcraft terrible now, would you?
When I said this I meant it in the wider terms of tech unlocking.
An unlocking mechanic based on cost and time is simply an initial investment before you are able to produce the units you want to produce. If you want to build vehicles you have to build the factory. If you want to build tech 2 ships you have to make a t2 shipyard.
If you want to build Mutalisk you have to make the Spire in Starcraft.
If you want to make catapults you have to enter the Iron age in Age of Empires.

Personally I wouldn't mind a flat tech tree in PA but it doesn't seem that they are going to do it that way.

You are arguing the same point.

The system in PA is going to be that: Having a cost and time requirement to unlock units but not in the way you describe it.

The way you describe that is confusing and leads me to thoughts of having the monekylord at T1, because you would unlock it later via upgrading your economy.

When really what we all mean is building the advanced builders and factory's.

Pure, simple and effective.

And no trying to build a monkeylord at T1 because its tier indicates that you should be able to afford one.

They're different approaches for different games.
Most RTS games use research upgrades and a construction chain. The chain can not be forced, leading to hard limits on when certain options are available. That sort of system might help with early game balance, but not for a late game of PA. It does not make sense why a player has to wait for a certain unlock, or when an upgrade can work across worlds, or if tech has to be built up time and time again.

If we're going for a more TotalA system, then it's easy. Simply bringing a selection of engineers unlocks the whole tech tree, and bringing a Commander makes things fast. It's highly redundant, with every factory providing tech security instead of any singular structure. The only limitation at that point is how quickly money can be thrown into a base.

Quik bases are good for invasion. Even if they are expensive, a player depends on building up quickly so that he can quickly establish a threat and not be cut down. In this respect base building needs to be fast, and the tech tree shouldn't be an obstacle. Tying it to the most basic of infrastructure gets the point across without it being too complex.

Yes. Yes I would.

+1 point for being an underdog and calling the most played and competetive RTS terrible.

Underdog? Starcraft is completely bipolar in it's opinions regarding multiplayer RTS. You either love it or hate it.

I don't like playing Starcraft but I like watching Starcraft commenteries. Where does that put me?

Popular != Good.
I'll explain why many people detest that game.
CPS
That whole concept of maniacal clicking underscores the design methodology of the game, click more damn it!
Blizzard even banned players for GOSH, using a macro to automate some keystroke combinations!
Sorry, not interested in doing exercises to increase my CPS count past 200, just so I can be competitive.

(Popular != Good) != Terrible

I don't like Starcraft too, but calling it "terrible" is just silly. I don't think that it's too much strategic and most of it's concepts are applicable to PA-scale games, but it still has a lot of things to learn from. And yes, this thread not about how bad/good StarCraft is.

You keep repeating this as some kind of holy grail. Ok, no monkeylord on T1. But how far advanced factory should be to contain a monkeylord? Like t2? Like t3? More?

And what if noob will try to build it (advanced factory) on T1?

And it shouldn't. So it should be simple and not hard to implement, so it won't mess any mid/end-game.

By that you mean "not locked at all"? I.e. you may try to build advanced factory as your 5th building, but you'll stale forever. Or you may try to build nuke as soon as you got this advanced engi with same effect.

I'm not a fan of tech trees too, that's why I don't like idea of "simple engi"/"advanced engi". What I suggest is more like AoE approach with ages. Once you entered some age your every builder is capable of producing new buildings and every factory given new units. Only difference that you can't be pushed back to stone age by your foe.

It is, actually. I bet you think "he will try something wrong and very fast will learn that it is wrong, as it's obvious". But reality is that most people will be scared away by a huge amount of units just thrown at their face. They will never try at all. Campaign or good tutorial can fix that, but there will be no campaign or tutorial.

PA is looking to clone TA approach. And TA ended up as nerd game. SC1 is still played while even most aggressive TA-defenders here haven't played for a long time. SupCom also ended up as nerd game, but due to other reasons (due to terrible lobby and community collapse).

Well, with random map generation what else you have? Only players skills?

Total Annihilation is 15 years old, SupCom is only 5 years old. It's unfair to compare them like that, plus there are still a lot of people playing mods like BA and TA:ESC
If TA is a nerd game, GPG/THQ would have not used its name so much for hyping SupCom.

I havent realy read the rest of the discussion, but i feel like i have to comment on this part, even if it is out of content with the rest of the discussion.

TA is clearly a nerd game xD But thats not a bad thing.

TA and Supcom werent mainstream, anything not mainstream is basicly a nerd game (You could say that strategy games in general is a nerd genre, since its not for the majority). Using TA as advertisement wasn't directed at the "mainstream strategy" gamers (The starcraft hordes, im not saying that theres anything wrong in being part of the mainstream btw), it's clearly directed for the nerds/fans of the original games.

I say hurray for nerd games, im so sick and tired of mainstream games (They can be fun from time to time, but for me most of them feel like the same thing in different dresses).

Offcourse they should still adapt the nerd (or outsider) games to be more accessible to a wider audience, but not at the cost of what makes the unique and fun in the first place (many gaming companies today makes the mistake of changing to much towards a "generally accepted gaming model" making aloot of games feel the same).

The RTS genre was a lot more mainstream back in 90s, and TA was the most successful title besides AOEs, Crafts and C&Cs at that time, so I conjecture it is at least a bigger commercial success than SupCom no matter it is a nerd game or not.

Your foremost argument for why this is important is in order to decrease learning curve. I don't think its a big issue. I want something that feels intuitive. A commander upgrade that allows him to make t2 is fine but unlocking a unit on another world because you made an armory on another world would feel contrived unless there is a good ingame explanation for it.

Here you go again. TA and SupCom isn't as popular as Starcraft. There is only a few hundred people playing TA regularly, SupCom only have a few thousand active players and they only sold X amounts of copies when Starcraft sold much more. Personally I think that Starcraft is more popular because it requires much more muscle memory. You play games, do everything as fast as possible. You fail. You start a new game. Your brain is now more used to performing the actions. You perform your build much better and this time you win.

Strategy choices. Now I'm going away from asymmetric start conditions and talking about asymmetric strategic and tactical goals.
You go bots, I go vehicles. You outmaneuver me on the plains. I outmaneuver you in the hills. I try to harass you using the hills as cover. You try to surpass my defenses by out-speeding my units.
We have asymmetric goals and strategies which I think is what you are striving for when you want factional diversities.

StarCraft is also 15 years old and it still has huge player base with hundreds of servers over the world.
SupCom is only 5 years old and it's player base is estimated with one server (FAF) and around 200-400 players constantly online.

There is no harm in using nerd-game title for marketing as soon as it's not your own marketing tool.

And there is nothing bad in making game for small auditory unless that auditory has tendency to shrink over time.

Explanation is simple - you need an advanced computer specifically to construct more advanced tech. If ACUs commands may travel between worlds why construction commands could not?

And you got an ingenious idea I never though of - we don't need a special building to unlocking purposes as we already have special unit. Binding unlocking to ACU will remove strategic possibility of pushing foe back into stone age, but it removes one building.

I don't understand - you are trying to argue this or approve? I'm telling the same - TA and SupCom are almost dead.

Yeah. But it's not the core reason. Core reason is "it is obvious what you should do to play better". Unless you reached the top you always have something to improve - your clicking reaction, ability to control 10 units in different sides of map and so on. In SupCom it was a plenty of such things as direction - fully strategic play was delayed by tiers and resource upgrades. So newcomer got a few directions to master - from initial build order to ecoing - before he will face requirement to think by himself (strategic gameplay). In suggested scheme he will face this requirement at welcoming screen.

That's "player skills" (which means that players with equal skills will have symmetrical play).

Well, that's fair enough. It's more about "play style" than "player skill", I agree. But it's not much easier to balance (bots vs. wheels) than multiple factions, IMO.

This depends on the developers goals. If I just wanted to make money then I would want to sell as many copies of the game as possible and the longevity of the game might not be that important. If I could get franchise going I might justify the next games by improving on the game formula and issues that arose in the past.
I don't know what standards you set for a successful RTS game since you seem to think that TA and SupCom was failures.

Okey, that is one fluff reason to a solution to a problem that I don't think is a big deal in the first place. It seems pretty much the same as SupCom2s tech tree. You die if you lose your ACU in SupCom2 so being computers on the ACU or not doesn't matter.

Well you have only compared it to Starcraft. I don't know how many people play other old RTS like the Command and Conquer series and Total War series. They are also different in that they have had more sequels than TA and focused more on singleplayer.

And all those rely heavily on muscle memory. We are just framing it in different ways.

Ecoing requires alot of practice and muscle memory in Forged Alliance. That is one of the reasons I think that Thermopyle and 20 min No rush games are so popular with noobs. They think they can outeco the opponent just by gradually improving their economy skills when they don't realize that they are fighting against themselves. The economy growth theoretically has a limit and having to practice to get close to that limit is micro is in my opinion boring. The focus should be on player interactions and reacting to the opponent. A regular 1v1 game in SupCom is diverse in that regard because raiding and counterraiding requires both players to interact. Understanding how airplay affects the game, the position of the ACU and not to mention navy on mixed land and sea maps are all very intricate and exhausting to learn and master.
Starcraft usually have very strict strategy or BO counters where you scout the opponent and then fight yourself trying to prepare to counter the enemy strategy or BO all decided by a few minutes or sometimes just mere seconds of fighting.

You don't mean that. 2 players at the same skill level can use different strategies even in a mirror matchup.

So you think it is easier to balance bots vs. wheels than different factions and it also gives players the choice of choosing playstyle. Then obviously we should have diverse factories rather than diverse factions.

"Just make more money" game is obviously "bad" game in may book.

If it's single-player game it's longevity as multiplayer game doesn't matter. Like nobody (relatively) plays HL2 deathmatch, but it is still good game (imo) as single player.

If it's multi-player game by design (like PA, less TA, less SupCom) than it's longevity is the core parameter of success.

You don't need one million koreans playing your game to call it successful. But if it still lives after 10 years - it's great game. Game should be good enough to attract new players after many years to replace those who left. To attract and to motivate them into progress. Starcraft, Counter-Strike, Chess are good games within that scale. SupCom and TA are bad games within that scale. FAF community may attract new players (but probably not enough), but it fails to motivate them.

Discussing criticalness of this issue is an off-topic, probably. I may only say that nevertheless if solution that do not hurt any party is to be found, than it should be used no matter how small issue believed to be by one party.

Well, "dead" is not some kind of relative term. It could be viewed as some threshold of time you need to play the game within most common setting from scratch. I.e. time required to google the server + time required to find a copy + time required to gather a party, etc... If result is greater than some amount of time (dependent on player, of course) then game is "dead". And we are talking about multiplayer aspect only, yes.

Sure. But I talking about psychological aspect. Muscle memory training is just easiest of all. If you have any ideas on how to obtain same psychological effect without enforcing muscle memory training - you are welcome.

Well, turtling in SupCom is so popular mostly due to campaign turtling propaganda. And multiplayer model fails to show players that not turtling gameplay is much more fun. But every RTS have this problem, including StarCraft - singleplayer and multiplayer experiences are so different that actually it's just two different games. I'm yet to see RTS campaign that is really good multiplayer tutorial.

Anyway, as soon as you left this "thermo 20 no rush" camp you still have a LOT to master - eco + t1 spam, eco + t1 spam + t1 spam defense, eco + drops + drop defense and so on. Still, it is all obvious. As soon as you got beaten by t1 spam and watched replay you know that you should do the same. It still require some training to handle all this and don't forget some vital part.

1v1 games in SupCom are very different from 4v4 games. I really believe that SupCom's power is in big-scale team games. That's why Setons is so popular, no matter what some people say - it's greatest teamplay map with clear roles for each player. 1v1 is fun too, but it is very different.

That's why I don't like StarCraft. But still, it's simple and clear. It's always easier to fight with yourself then with someone else. And in any RTS you need to learn fight yourself prior anything. Someone already quoted Sun Tzu already, but it hits here well

Well, no. It's easier, but not much. And we don't need separate factories for each land chassis type. Please, no. One factory per terrain type and land is one type. Your example is good in theory, but is bad for PA scale. We don't actually need to differentiate between hills and roads.

But your solution could be applied to other things as well. We can balance gunships vs. bombers (or even what is called "shturmovik" in Russian - "attack aircraft" - bomber-interceptor hybrid) in such way. Or submarines/destroyers. Or artillery/tanks/anti-tanks.

And that's what was done fairly good in FA for some types, I presume.

For the love of all thats decent. Would people stop feeding the troll?

Every time I come back to this thread, I feel more confused and as though I understand less than I did before.

I understand how you feel, unfortunately the feeling isn't limited to any one thread on these forums.