Paper units

I still don't understand your definition of variety, if unit interaction only involves one and twohitting. That is the opposite of variety, no matter how many different units with different stats you add.

And I have absolutely no problem with stuff being weird in beta. Even an Uber employee chimed in to say that they will probably start playing with these numbers. That's the most important part. But, as the point of beta is to find out what still needs to be improved upon, my reason for making this post was to bring attention to this. So I don't really understand why you keep defending current HP or DPS values, while at the same time saying it will all change.

There's testing to be done during the beta and hopefully Uber will start playing with these numbers around a bit. No matter what somebody's opinion on the viability of current glass units is, I think we can all agree on that these numbers should be played with and tested.

I must apologize, you see, what I meant to say was:
"The low TTK threshold makes battles with huge numbers of units resolve more quickly"
"and (low TTK threshold) magnifies the effect of small advantages".

Sorry for making you write a fairly lengthy post.

I think I may have been using confusing language in some of my previous comments. Not all unit interactions should be cheap and squishy. Just the vast majority of units used in a match should.

There is a big difference between units being "common" as in mass-produced, and unit types being present in the game. Strictly speaking, you don't even need that many types of units of this kind for them to be used in huge quantities. And you can have many, many types of stronger, tougher, more expensive units of all kinds that are less commonly constructed, used in smaller numbers, and so on.

I am in favor of cheap units being common as in produced in large quantity as standard play. I am absolutely not in favor of every single unit type defined in the game being cheap, one-shottable, and easily replaced, only that the vast majority of units constructed in a normal match are.

I would absolutely agree that PA should contain big units with large amounts of HP, with the major caveat that those units need to be considerably less efficient than their smaller counterparts. Expensive specialists and giant beefy death robots are the strawberry on a very large cake, and not the main component of the cake itself. And players should have a lot of choices for what they choose to ornament their large armies of cheap units with, with their choices resulting in a force that plays quite differently from other players.

A thousand Peewees and only a dozen advanced units is a completely different game from an army of mass advanced units, all with tons of HP. Their greater HP and stronger weapons just cancel.

I do think that a variety of different main combat units is a good thing, especially if you can have a mixed regular army in addition to your special sauce of choice. But not all units are evenly produced in a match. Different players may never touch a huge number of different unit types, while massively using only a few types because that's how they like to play.

Having way more types of units with more HP is acceptable. But those units should be comparatively less used than large armies of more interesting and efficient small, basic troops. And besides, it makes those powerful units more interesting when they have a playground of squishy, expendable troops to crush, or when heavy artillery is splashing down in the middle of a giant blob of little units instead of bouncing off a Krogoth's forehead in an otherwise empty battlefield.

The existing units are generally working pretty well as cheap, expendable regular army troops. Adding in support units, bigger units, tougher units, etc. is just adding ornamentation to the currently bland vanilla cake. The general shape and structure of the cake should not be drastically altered by their addition. Except that we're in rough beta and the shape of the cake is totally subject to change in the future.

You've changed an awful lot because at the moment combat damage is dominated by overkill. When you have unit-unit interactions which are characterised by either one-shot or two-shot kills, you can't make a unit 50% tougher. Either that 50% increase in toughness does nothing and the unit still gets one-hit or it pushes it over the threshold and you've doubled its toughness. Double the HP of everything and you at least get four possible combat states: 1-hit, 2-hit, 3-hit and 4-hit, which immediately increases the possible variety.

Unit stats are, of course, relative. If a unit costs 50 metal and has 50 HP versus another unit that costs 100 metal and has 80 HP, then doubling the HP of both does not increase their relative HP efficiency. You haven't changed their relative HP-efficiency. True, you've changed the way overkill works, which is significant and it would be a shame to eliminate. But you've actually changed the game substantially in other ways, too.

Multiplying every unit's HP by two makes a completely different game. A game where combat is resolved more slowly, and with fewer casualties for the more numerous side. A game where static defense is a lot weaker because it deals less damage and still can't move, and so on. But the most HP-efficient unit remains the most HP-efficient unit with direct scaling.

There are two different principles at issue here:

1. Efficiency determines which units players will build. Players will mass-produce whichever unit is most efficient. Scaling up all HP by any constant factor does not change which unit is the most HP efficient, or DPS efficient, although that DPS doesn't go as far as it did, which matters a great deal.

However,

2. Unit fungibility determines how well smaller forces perform against larger forces.

Scaling up all unit HP reduces the fungibility of all units. Players will still make the cheapest and most efficient units (and it will be the same unit), but those units will now behave more like Bulldogs than Peewees in the above example. The unit will perform better in larger groups, and perform worse in smaller groups fighting against larger groups.

My point is to have large armies of cheap, fungible, easily replaced regular units, with the player's choice to include relatively few special/expensive/advanced units, with a wide variety of types to choose from. The existence of unit types with lots of HP adds variety, and does not destroy this dynamic as long as it isn't more efficient than the cheap regulars.

By no means am I positive that PA has got it perfect right now- in my opinion PA is currently more tech demo than game. But cheap units dying quickly is the right idea.

My position is that the cost should be reduced instead of increasing their HP. Such as having a 25 mex tick Mex and Dox. (150 metal in PA), perhaps even less considering the Dox is actually more fragile than the Peewee. Suppose the Dox had 1/5 the HP of the Peewee. Should it have its HP increased to match the Peewee's HP? Or have its cost reduced so that its HP efficiency matches the Peewee? At, say, 5 mex ticks? (30 metal?)

Five Dox's would be 25 mex ticks, pretty analogous to the Peewee. And with five units each with 1/5 the HP, the five Dox's match the Peewee's durability. With overkill possibility, and probably a need for a nerfed gun.

I'm not seriously proposing a 5 mex tick Dox, just making a point and that's the nicest way to run the numbers since the Peewee is 25 mex ticks. But the point is this: You can get the same durability as a Peewee either by going bigger, with more HP, or going smaller, with greater numbers.

You're still missing the point. A unit that costs 50 metal with 50 HP is vastly more HP efficient than one that costs 100 metal and has 80 HP, because common guns which do 100 damage and 40 damage exist. There's no difference between having 50 hp and 80 HP because both die in one shot to a 100 damage gun and both die in 2 shots to a 40 damage gun. They're both as durable, but one's cheaper. All HP values between 41 and 80 are the same. You're removing hitpoints and damage as a tool for fine-tuning balance later in development.

This makes no sense. Putting more high-damage one-shot units onto the field makes the current problem even worse. You don't get the same durability as a Peewee by going smaller with greater numbers since more numbers means more guns on the field, and more guns means everything dies faster. Your 'solution' is just a Red Queen's race.

Everything should be as simple as possible, and no simpler.

In much the same fashion, everything should be as cheap as possible, and no cheaper. The entire purpose of resources in a strategy game is to purchase assets with utility. The more useful the asset, the higher the cost it warrants.

Frequently it is not possible to lower a unit's properties below a certain threshold without compromising its effectiveness at its role. An artillery unit needs range, for example. You have to pay for range. Cost is inevitable. In fact, for some roles, such as giant assault mech, a very high cost is inevitable. Nonetheless, even the giant mech with the massive price tag benefits from being minimalistic, streamlined, and enabling the player to obtain it sooner, and/or in greater quantity, and with more control over quantity and deployment. If it costs half as much, you can get just one and save yourself resources to use elsewhere, or pay for two and use them together or apart.

Conversely, any asset that costs virtually nothing will be almost useless. A 5 mex tick unit would probably be a waste of a unit roster slot because it could not possess a useful weapon or other function. And then there's the practical matter of limited system resources; a thousand units at 5 metal is more system-intensive than five units at 1000 metal each.

The cheapest usable units with practical weapons should be the most efficient units to use precisely because you can get the largest quantity of them. Practicality depends not just on HP and DPS, but a usable range, and a reasonable movement speed. Those things cost. How much each costs determines how the game plays. Doubling everyone's HP effectively halves the cost of HP.

I am by no means saying make everything tiny. But it is very important for the units which players will make hundreds of (if not thousands, or more) in a single game that there be very minimal flab in their profile. If it's a raider, it needs the absolute minimum amount of everything a raider needs to do its job, and maximize the quantity. If it's a heavy raider, it will need quite a bit more armor and some other expensive features, but again, minimal expense, lean unit design with no unnecessary costs in the unit design, maximum quantity.

Throwing on more stuff than a unit needs (including HP) actually makes it weaker because you can't get as many. And paying for a lot of stuff on a single unit is bad because you can put multiple units in different places, or just cut the extra ones and build something else.

This isn't to say that generalist units aren't a good idea. But generalist units must be inherently inefficient. The same goes for expensive units where you're buying a ton of HP, or an incredible amount of range or splash damage or any other extreme feature from a single asset.

Then give every T1 unit one hitpoint. All the other hitpoints are just a waste of money because they can't be expected to take any damage anyway. You say doubling HP halves the cost of HP, but at the moment HP is worthless, and halving zero gives you zero.

Exactly, no reason to have fancy HP numbers in the hundreds with 1-2 hits per kill. Give big units 3 HP, medium units 2 HP and small units 1HP. Damage would also be either 3, 2 or 1. Would give almost the same gameplay as right now, just with more transparency. To avoid nitpicking, this kind of system would be inferior to the current one in a T2 vs T1 battle situation, but in a Tx vs Tx situation it would work the same way.

But this would obviously be extremely lame. The thing is, the current system is almost exactly that lame, it's just not that it is instantly obvious because we have these bigger numbers(although not meaningful due to this 1 and 2 hit problem). I don't think there is any other fix than to increase unit HP(or reduce DPS).

@ledarsi
"Throwing on more stuff than a unit needs (including HP) actually makes it weaker because you can't get as many."

Edit: misunderstood your post at first. This is obviously true in relative terms, but the current problem isn't that some raider units don't have enough HP. It's that ALL units don't have enough HP, especially big units. You see, currently raider units(like T1 assault bots) have much more HP/DPS than big units. This actually contradicts your theory(and honestly any kind of game design logic). Raiders need high DPS, but they can't have much HP, otherwise you get a too generalist unit. Bigger slower assault units need lots of HP, but not that much DPS. Currently, it is the other way around. So again I don't understand why you are defending current HP values when they contradict your own logic.

Minor correction:

Oh hey, I wasn't the only one to notice this! Woo!

I also agree with the point that units feel like their armor is just made out of toilet paper. Things die extremely quickly, too much so to really have any influence on the battle proper.

People might argue against micromanagement, but right now it's simply fire and forget: Send your army against another, do something else, and glance back to see if you beat it or not. This isn't "little" micromanagement, this is practically none at all.

There needs to be a significant increase in HP, so that you feel like you have SOME control in the fight proper - being able to focus fire on a unit to bring it down is rewarding - and it's a small part of micro, not a massive part - no need to go in the range of starcraft 2 micromanagement.

Even the much lauded 40 person fights that are planned for this game won't last a fraction of the predicted time (what was it, 10 hours?) if the units continue to die at this speed. Roll over someone, see how all the units and buildings just fall over after being sneezed on, then move on to the next opponent, rinse and repeat with other planets as necessary.

This makes the pace of the game far, far too fast for one that is purporting of being a spiritual sequel to TA/PA and it's longer fights.

I really don't understand why you think the only influence you could /possibly/ have on a fight is something like focus-firing, or things of that nature.

The influence you have is one of positioning. The influence you have is one of kiting. The influence you have is one of intelligence-gathering. Attacking the right place, making sure to maintain your range advantage, or getting the jump on someone else so they can't use theirs. Flanking around in order to hit the (relatively) fragile T2 with your T1. I should never have to tell my units exactly what unit to attack (unless that one, specific thing has some major strategic importance) because there should be /too many things/. Patton didn't run around telling individual soldiers to shoot at individual soldiers.

Thankfully, someone just came right out and said the thing I have been directly arguing against for the last few pages. That point, right there, is completely wrong.

Small units, regardless of role, should have more HP and/or DPS efficiency (or relative combination) than bigger units.

This may mean, and I am aware many players find this extremely counterintuitive, that units that die in 1 hit are more durable than an expensive unit with a lot of HP. That is because you can get many of them, which means for the same metal cost you actually get more total HP.

This can actually mean, in all seriousness, that a raider unit (which is fast & squishy by design) can actually be more HP efficient than an assault unit, which is larger, more expensive, and has more total HP.

There are more things that define a unit than just HP and DPS and cost. If you want to balance a unit, atleast take other things like shooting range and mobility also into your equation.

But having damage numbers in the thousands gives an excuse for GIGANTIC DAMAGE NUMBERS! THE BIGGER THE BETTER!

I definitely feel the units could stand to be much more tanky. To me TA is basically the golden standard just with some balance fixes like many of the robust mods on SpringTA. It's great when a battle explodes in violence and then as the squishy units start dying it winds down into dwindling pockets of combat between the remaining tough units and dregs of the squishy ones.

I also like that. If everything blows instantly up then it removes any kind of epic feel of a battle, no matter how many units are involved. Right now for example, the battles in Supcom FAF seem immensely more epic and cool than battles in PA, mostly because units in Supcom have to actually fight each other, instead of just instantly blowing up.

I am glad this thread turned in the right direction

As it stands, we can just draw circles around the units. When an opponent enters that circle, explode both units.

The units need more personality, anyways.
Remember THE CAN. Slow. Wobbly. Tough as nails. The combination of slow speed and poor range made it questionable to use in many instances. Any unit that could out range it could potentially kite it to death. But could they be whittled down before they wobbled to your base? Meanwhile, it's hit-scan high damage weapon made it amazing if you can get it up close and personal.
Now compare this to the GOLIATH tank.
A tad faster. Longer range cannon. Similar toughness.
Yet, it's inaccurate and slow pivoting turret meant it was vulnerable in a completely different way. Rushing high speed mobile enemies under it's guns was a valid way to bring them down.
Two units with very similar hitpoints and dps.
Two units that require very different strategy to use and to defend against.

I think this type of "Good in situation X, but terrible in situation Y" (as moderated by the physics engine!) is much more interesting than just looking at pure math of dps vs hp. That said, the units need to survive long enough for their characteristic personality to become evident. Unless their characteristic personality IS "explodes instantly" (peewee/a.k.)

Frankly I get the impression that the current units in PA are still placeholders. They are very generic in comparison to TA/Supcom.

Monkeylord: "Excuse me sir, a giant robotic spider with a laser-beam on it's head is here to see you."
Morty: "I'm a a little bot with so much heart, I think I can fly!!! Screw your terrain mesh! Weee!"
Buzzsaw: "Why yes, my father was a circular saw and my mother was Big Bertha."
vs
Ant: "I'm a Tank"
Leveler: "I'm a Bigger Tank"
Dox: "I'm a Bot"
Slammer: "I'm a Bigger Bot"

I suspect this type of polish comes near the end of the development cycle, though.

The idea behind the current units is that they represent the bare-minimum or the 'core' unit types needed to play A game. I'm still holding out hoping to see Advanced units being more comparable to Basic units but heavily specialized as opposed to the current 5x better in most stats setup.