Pay to Win.... Do we support this?

Thorneel, things like that DO still have to be represented visually or where right back to SupCom2 ACU issues all over again.

Mike

do you need "kickstarter" explained to you?

I never said we shouldn't be able to pick the set of abilities; I'd be fine with commanders, normal or otherwise, being able to choose any set. I am against being able to choose singular abilities and mix them, though (since it's really quite hard to balance).

Really, I could actually prefer being able to pick whatever abilities regardless of commander type, since then I could choose to show off my alpha commander despite what playstyle I'd prefer.

However, it's completely up to Uber. I'm confident that despite all this pretty much pointless arguing, they'll be able to get it right.

EDIT:

I mean, in a way I hope that they do choose to give separate abilities, because firstly it's gonna be a lot more work to create visual variants on commander models, but also I'd want my commander that showed my early support for the game to be more than a skin, but in another way it'd be hard to balance (though I do have full faith in Uber), and I might not like the abilities they have.

It's really a case of getting the abilities just right so that they differ enough to actually add variety to games, but also they mustn't be too different as to ostracize certain playstyles to one type of commander.

I agree that for the most part, non-standard commanders should be primarily cosmetic, and that the abilities available should be available to all players, one way or another. But if, for some reason, commanders do end up with unique abilities, I don't think they'll end up causing an imbalance, as stated before.

That's a good point, and I see a few ways to deal with it.

First, said differences could probably be visible on the Commander's model, for example the weapon aspect changes depending on if it's a lazor, a missile launcher, a torpedo tube...
The problem is then that for each special Commander, you would have to create all the variations. One way to reduce the work charge is to have each special Commander being only one of the variations of the Standard.
For example, the Progenitor could be an engineering-oriented Commander. Or the Alpha could be a sturdy, slow battle Commander.
A problem that is still there regardless of what is decided there, though, is that if there are in-game modules or such, they will also need this. And aesthetic-only variations or not, custom Commanders will need those module models as well.

But anyway, zooming on the enemy Commander (that you may scout for half a second) to try and recognize what module it has is not a good gameplay IMHO.
So the real visualisation tools should be in the UI.
The simplest is to select the Commander and read what it has. But I hope there will be some UI tools to see previously collected intel, for those cases where a scout saw something for half a second and you were looking at a battle on another planet. Things like fading ghosts of units with a 'last seen 31s ago', or a 'not detected/last detected 11s ago', particularly useful for, say, hidden missile launchers. Similarly, there should be some way to see what had the enemy Commander last time you saw it.

But it's even easier just having all commanders represent a specific set of attributes.

Don't forget that we have no idea how many "stock" commanders there will be, we've only seen the one from the trailer, and concept art for what might be a handful more, this is not counting Alpha, Progenitor and Customs. Having lots of different Comms to me is better than doing lots of variations on a small number of Comms, it's a lot less confusing and more clear at a glance.

Mike

I'm gonna stick with my original gut reaction and say that every commander should be unique, and this means all commanders (alpha/progenitor included) should be different. I have full faith that Uber can manage it, and anyone who thinks otherwise hasn't even tried the game and thus cannot know the true consequences. Uber should really go with their gut reaction, too; listening to the community can be a good thing, but the community in this case doesn't really know about the true gameplay consequences but also listening to the community can sometimes damage a game (imagine if every suggestion on these forums were implemented!).

You are no longer allowed to have an opinion.

agreed :lol:

That would be in keeping with Ubers goal of making the game as easily readable as possible.

Also that is an interesting thought, I hadn't thought about the possibility of having more than one stock commander. I mean it could be that the artwork in the trailer was just concepting for the one commander, or having a bunch of templates to work through with people making custom commanders, but it would change the debate somewhat if there was more than one option available to people who arent getting a custom commander or arent getting an alpha/progenitor commander.

for my part consistency is more important than to heap options/choices on the players.
for model variations of an unit X the following should hold:
1) a model A can only behave like any other model A
2) model A and model B can behave the same if consistently (e.g. just cosmetic changes)
3) model A and model B can have different behaviors (e.g. ability changes)

Choosing ability (sets) for any unit is a bad idea and removes predictability and consistency in behavior. in particular in a setting with machines. How they mix 2) and 3) is in the end Ubers decision , but I sure hope they keep 1).

I feel that it's fine having a "unique" alpha/whatever commander, so long as a commander with identical statistics (if not an identical skin) is available for others equally. I hate DLC with a passion (though I must admit, I buy it on occasion).

DLC(and the dumb assumptions/biases that a lot of people arbitrarily attach to them) have nothing to do with this and we don't want to get all that **** involved and drag this thing off topic.

Mike

I didn't intend to start with that, and didn't have time to read through the previous pages of discussion. I'm simply of the opinion that all content that affects gameplay should be available to everyone who pays for the game, regardless of when they got it, without paying extra.

Pre-release bonuses that affect gameplay beyond a cosmetic change, but don't become equivalently available later, are basically paid DLC in my opinion. Thus, I don't feel it fair for those to provide an advantage or abilities in general that other players don't have access to.

since in game terms equivalent would mean well balanced ....
don't panic.

I know. I'm not concerned about it. My words just seemed to be misinterpreted, so I was trying to clarify.

Whether the commanders are balanced or just reskins, either is fine so long as it doesn't give alpha players an advantage not related to playing longer.

I'm sure this has already been mentioned, but the topic and the poll bear no relation to each other. Paying for content for a game you already have would include buying Core Contingency for Total Annihilation, or buying Forged Alliance for Supreme Commander.

Nobody in their right mind would object to that as both expansions are universally agreed to be a massive improvement to the vanilla games.

poll is kinda misleading, lol

of course i would pay for content for a game i already bought, its called expansions

Of course it is, it's a poll.

I just glanced and misread this as "Poll: Gangnam Style".



For a second I thought that somebody had made simultaneously the best poll and the worst poll ever.