Pay to Win?

this

If the game just lets us select from the available commanders at the start of the game...

say you have pledged 1000$, so you would be able to either select:
-standard com
-progenitor com
-alpha com
-special custom com

if in a multiplayer game, the host can simply wait to start the game until all players select the standard com. Or the game could have a toggle to allow special commanders or not.

I believe Uber is perfectly able to balance these comms, although I think that Uber will be keeping the "1000$ comms" all the same stat wise, or it would become a bit much to handle, balance wise.

If all comms turn out exactly the same stat wise, that would be fine by me as well. I also don't mind if they are slightly different.

Even if there is perfect balance, people will most likely blame the other player or the game rather than admit that they were bested. :3

Thank you, couldn't have said it any simpler. This becomes especially true in an rts game. No matter if its considered balanced or not, having more choices, ie the ability to choose the commander with a certain ability or not that the other player cant, gives you an advantage. It's not the ability itself, its the greater strategic options because we have something the other players don't. I'd leave this to the free to play model, keep it away from my rts.

I wonder how many strategies there are centered around the commander? And how many more strategies there would be if some minor, yet balanced differences were introduced?

Come on TA vets, bring it on.

All you guys with your Knee-Jerk reactions need to calm those nerd raegs and actually discuss the topic.

Mike

Let's say the standard commander is identical to the UEF in Forged Alliance, and the first bonus commander is identical to the Cybran one.

The UEF commander has greater health, can have the gun and engineering upgrades together and he can even launch a mini-nuke if you put enough resources into him.

Sounds fair to me, says the “UEF” player. Right up until the moment the player who pledged more money teleports into his base and rapes it with a 4000dps laser.

Obviously there are plenty of options to balance and I have chosen a extreme one, but ultimately you are going to get people losing to a strategy that they are incapable through design of carrying out, and that is bad and unfair.

Except it works both ways of course, the "Cybran" can't utilize the "UEF" Mini-Nuke either, which is kinda the point. Not to mention your example is incredibly exaggerated, hyperbole even.

Mike

and as far as I understand the scale of PA is supposed to be far larger than the games that get referenced here.
Therefore, an increase in strength of a single unit (not a class of units) has a far lesser influence on the game balance. (naturally, not if you play with your commander only, then you are doomed anyhow )

Cosmetic only, please.

they still somehow will if there is nothing but visuals. "but I didn't know that he was a commander, I thought it was just a strange unit or something else"

stop your yappering, people will complain whatever happens if someone gets something someone else doesn't, it's not going to be pay to win, but there should be a good reason to select the 1000$.

I'm actually rather surprised how many people think it's unfair that someone who pay more than 10x (or 50x in the case of people who only gave 20$) the price of them gets something more cool I mean "Duuhhh but i want awesome custom made commander for 20$ why can only the 1000$ tier get that buhuuu" ... really?

As a person who payed 100$, I was not purchasing it for the commander, I will certainly use the Alpha commander now, but I would never be able to use it in the game if it is anything but cosmetic. Especially for matchmaking/rankings.

I don't like the idea of giving non-cosmetic bonuses to the special commanders.
If they are well balanced, the term "pay to win" wouldn't apply, but still the idea of "equal chances" for everyone would be affected in a negative way.

Assuming PA will be an extremely complex game (I certainly hope so), regardless of how much effort is put into balancing them, I am sure it would be impossible for them to be perfectly balanced for every situation, because of the sheer number of different scenarios the could happen during a match.
At least in ranked matches this possibility shouldn't exist.

Using the Cybran and UEF examples, which commander wins?

The one that built 5 Strategic Bombers.

I swear guys. There's easy ways to balance it. Let's not all get our knickers in a twist before we see what is actually going on

You haven't seen any large gaming community have you =p Over on the League of Legends forums everyone starts insulting riot, whining and moaning, and generally predicting the end of the (game) world when a new champion's skill mechanics are previewed, and that's before numbers or clarifications come in lol.


And no, I can't think of anything offhand that equates to minor difference which is easily balanceable. Who knows, maybe they plan to have 3 commander choices for everyone and then the limited commanders are more like the default one with less extreme changes.

But one player can choose either commander, and one player cannot choose. In my admittedly-exaggerated example, there might be a map type which is especially suited to the tele-maser strategy for whatever reason.

Whichever differences the commanders have, and however subtle those differences are, one version will always be better in a given situation. Unless all players have the same options available to them then it is inherently unfair, even if by a tiny amount.

In Forged Alliance, Aeon and Seraphim have an advantage on water maps because they have floating T1 land. That's fair though because all players have the option to choose one of those factions if they wish. But if you were repeatedly killed by floating strategies when that isn't even an option for you? Nobody in their right mind wouldn't get seriously annoyed by that.

Why do we even discuss about this for so many pages?
It should be clear that the kickstarter-reward-commanders just have different models and thats it. The point is to show off, not to win for money.

lets quote the reward:

@Uber: Please just stay with what you wrote there.

Pay to win in PA? Blind the opponent with how fabulous your commander looks

There is no pay to win here. Multiple commanders means you can choose a commander. They can still be balanced.

People haven’t demonstrated sh1t. All they’ve done is complain. Balance revolves purely around a units’ stats and nothing else. Just because some players bought only forged alliance and could only use the seraphim commander when playing online, did not make the other 3 commanders suddenly imbalanced.

Who said anything about “special bonuses”? Geez, you people are f'ing clueless. The commanders would be balanced in the same fashion that supcom commanders were balanced, with different abilities. The fact that everyone could use whichever commander they wished did not make supcom’s commanders more or less balanced. It was their stats that made them balanced.