Pay to Win?

Well, the 'balanced' I am using is, well, literally balanced I suppose... As in, two players can do the exact same thing. Of course, that really isn't possible; maps aren't exactly symmetrical, and even if they are, buildings don't mirror it, if you get what I mean (say, a 3x2 building doesn't automatically rotate when it's being placed on the other side of the map).

Still, that all doesn't matter to me. I suppose it could be reasoned that these differences (I wouldn't call it unbalanced) are because a player chose a particular starting location, or just got (un)lucky with random start locations. Doesn't matter to me. Actually, just ignore what I said above because it's probably to confusing and serves no real point anyway.

Actual in game options should be balanced though, as in, the same. And yes, Cybrans and Aeon weren't the same, but you could choose before the game started which faction you'd play, so that'd be balanced in its own way.

....

so what do you think balance is? How do you define balance?

Good balance is when different things do have advantages over each other, but there's always a way to counter that power. Either by developing a new tactic with existing mechanics, other aspects of the feature counterbalancing it or applying an existing tactic. In a nutshell, slight imbalances that are balanced other imbalances that counter them.

Like a Rocket Launcher that kills in one shot with notable blast radius. It would be counter balanced by low ammo, low RoF, etc. But you can also use, say, a Shotgun which is good at close range to counter the RL. The Shotgun being used at close range would mean the RL player has to kill themselves to kill you. So they either switch to a different weapon or commit murder-suicide. The Shotgun would be balanced by weapons more useful at a range. So on and so forth.

A fun game makes things imbalanced, but gives the ability to counter imbalances with other imbalances. A game of power and counters, hard and soft.

Or at least that's how I see things.

Yes so I'm leaving the thread now, you can't adress my arguments and your countering your own arguments you're saying that you're making balance in imbalance, yes we agree, so that means people wont have a disadvantage, and that it will be ballanced.

BYE.

I'd say this happened because we don't know what you mean. To find out I tried to define balanced. How about we stop saying balance without specifying exactly what it is that is being balanced?

If "it" is the entire game then I disagree because in a balanced game units can locally be better or worse against each other. So imposing the restriction of balance on the game does not mean commanders do not have advantages over other commanders.

Not liking this at all, hopefully you guys changed your minds because I haven't read all 23 pages

:/

.............Read them, uninformed opinions are more harmful than helpful. They're essentially on the same level as Knee-jerk assumptions, or as Neutrino Puts it;

You'll also want to Search the Backer's Lounge for a thread regarding Commanders that I started.

Mike

Eh, I'm also firmly of the opinion that differing commanders can not, ever, be balanced.

Someone, somehow, has something that the other one will never be able to do. That is unbalanced. Will it matter? Hopefully not. I'd bet that it'll almost never matter. But it will influence the game, and in some very rare games, it will be the difference between winning and losing.

In my opinion, that is terrible. I recognise why Uber is doing this though. I hope that the custom commanders will be rare enough to simply avoid playing with - but then, I also hope that the people with custom commanders can switch to a normal commander, otherwise it'd be unfair for them.

correction, what you are describing is "not equal".

that's actually the definition of balanced.

Semantics aside - I disagree, but I'm not a native English speaker, so perhaps you're right - in that case, I'm against unequality.

And no, it isn't balanced - fair, equal, whatever word you want to use - if there's a feature unavailable to some people, that causes said people to lose. At least, not in my opinion.

So you are also against unsymmetrical maps?
And you are also against the faction differences like in TA, SupCom and Starcraft?

Edit:Eh... You've already discussed this. Mm... Do we really need to rezz this thread again?

Nah, I'm very much in favour of assymetrical maps. I don't think you can compare maps with the tools you have at your disposal (units and all). And no, I'm also not against those, as I can choose my own faction.

Nah, we don't.

You can also choose your own commander.

I'm not a backer (sadly enough... This game deserves it) - the vast majority of all players won't be - and they can't select all commanders. Right?

At this point we don't know, it could be entirely possible that the Alpha, Progenitor, Theta and Delta could have Functional Equivalents available to everyone.

Also the idea that a single unit could be so handeld in such a was as to be massively game breaking(especially after an extensive player driven Beta) is pretty much the same as saying the Devs are incompetent and wouldn't notice or would purposely leave such an issue unresolved.

As Said before, Supcom's Commanders were actually fairly unique in terms of stats and upgrades, compared to ACUs PA's Commanders will likely not be as different from what has been said so far.

Mike

Not massively gamebreaking. But again:

So, a planned, and well thought out asymmetry in Commanders is bad, but you're still okay with a Procedurally Generated Asymmetrical Maps are fine?

Explain the reasoning to me please.

Mike

All commander abilities available to custom commanders will be available to commanders available to everyone. The only differentiation that is unique is the visual.

The game is not pay to win, end of story.

hopefully that's the end of this discussion

Really? Really? Huh... I could swear multiple people told me this wasn't the case - including either knight or nanolathe...

But hey, awesome! End of the story, then, indeed,.