Planetary Annihilation's Economy System

You underestimate what a sports mentality does for games then. Sports is responsible for concepts like unit balance, online multiplayer, optimization--all of which go towards making a game feel good to play for everyone, even casually. Designing a game that entices the market to come back to it years on end is by definition no easy feat. It's not something you can half *** your way through, it requires serious dedication and smart design principles.

Meanwhile, all cheaply made games today insist they are 'casual games'. They should in fact be called 'lazily designed games'.

You do realise that theres plenty of popular games without any competition or even multiplayer, right?

While i admit that a strong competition can greatly improve a game in a varius of ways (longevity, large interested community, etc etc etc), i still feel like its not as important as you wish it to be.

Besides, "serious dedication and smart design principles" isent enof for a good e-sport game. You also need a aloot of luck. Thats why they shouldent spend to much energy on the e-sport part, even if they give it their all its not even close to a guaranteed success.

Its much easier and more rewarding (for most of the players base) to aim for a "fun" game that you can still compete in, then a game thats designed around competition. (The difference may sound small but its significant).

Just to clarify my feelings on the subject: They shouldent spend to much on the e-sport part, but thats not the same as spending nothing (or "alittle") on the e-sport part.

Yeah, no. Economic growth is limited by land space, access to metal (which so far is FIXED), the need for combat units, and the need to not die.

At no point in the game, EVER, will a player be allowed to reinvest 100% of his money into making more money, especially when it isn't even returning metal. It is not a possibility. Your chart has no connection to reality whatsoever.

Try again, and this time make it believable.

Protip: When energy is wasted, extra metal must be used for generators. Try measuring the energy waste with METAL (5% energy waste < 5% metal loss, FYI).

How about we identify potential issues (ayceem's comment was on target in identifying a potential), and realize that the game will be adjusted as soon as it becomes apparent that the potential issue is, in fact, a real one?

This has nothing to do with 'competitive vs non' or 'esports vs casual' - let those conversations rage elsewhere if you so desire.

It's not going to take major playtesting to iron out things like whether pausing builders during the game gives you an advantage, and whether it's irritating to the player. That's what the alpha/beta testers are here for, and I'm sure Uber will hear about it long and loud if it's a big deal.

Well it is also a design decision.
1. How much clicking should the economy and basebuilding require?
2. How many trivial decisions have to be made manually by the player that could as well be handled by a priority system or a simple script turning metal makers on and off for example?
3. How many passive choices are there for the player to make when building the base?
4. How many active choices are there for the player to utilize with economy and basebuilding during different situations?

1. Clicking in itself if the decisions made are trivial is not a contribution to the strategy of the game, it is increasing the skill ceiling. If you want attention management and APM management to be important, like in Starcraft, then you would want this to be a substantial requirement. Clicking faster and faster can be rewarding because it is something physical you do where the goal is clear: do stuff faster and improve.

2. Uber might not make the priority system or the metal maker widget but might allow players to implement it themselves as a script. Personally I would like to make as few trivial decisions as possible allowing me to easily prioritize important construction with as few clicks as possible.

3. Passive choices are choices that can have an effect on the battle or the overall battle but are made pre-emptively and it is up to the enemy to take advantage of it.
You can use your sturdy structures to shield off weaker ones or you can spread out your base to make bombing less effective or you could place your structures to funnel enemy raiders into your defences.

4. Active choices are decisions that you can do as a response to what the enemy is doing to you. This can include making defences when you are attacked, prioritizing energy for weapon usage or ceiling of the entrance of your base with walls just before the enemy is about to attack.

Personally I'd want that the passive and active choices can be made with as few clicks as possible while trivial choices are automated.
Basebuilding can be very complex and take alot of practice to perfect but you are still mostly fighting against the game itself rather than the opponent. Active and passive choices in basebuilding and economy should be related to what you think the opponent will do or is trying to do. If the decisions are not about what you think the enemy will do or is trying to do then they are trivial decisions of how to min-max your economy and basebuilding.

This was kind of my point.

Bottom line, we do want people to play competitively but it's not the only thing we are optimizing for. My expectation is the community will help to set the standard on the best way to play the game competitively.

As long as I get my '40 player FFA winner' token prize, I'm happy with labeling it as "Competitive"

What kind of games are those? Unlike Minecraft, Kerbal Space Program or OpenTTD, this one pits players directly against each other, whether they are humans or computers. This one also has clearly outlined win conditions. This puts Planetary Annihilation in the field of being a sport.

Also, what is this luck?

This bafflies me becuase this suggests that competition can't be "fun", which is absurd. This also suggests that getting better by tediously checking how many builders I have paused for every metal flux is fun. It's not.

But hey, why bother thinking through consequences to design decisions? Doing that is hard and not fun. We'd much rather just think about blowing stuff up; right?

I find it ironic that bobucles is arguing your point for you in the backer's forum Ayceem. Namely that metal production should always be prioritized, not prorated.

Only I don't agree with him that metal production should always unconditionally be prioritised(assuming extractors require energy to run). I feel players should be able to decide.

My argument is against manual metal maker-esque micro.

Also, purely metal income growth isn't the only factor to exponential power growth from percentages.

(This purely mathematical calculation on an MA12 Striker battle outcome assumes all units have firing range and sequentially downs individual targets.)

Indeed, you have identified two essential RTS concepts: Exponential growth and concentration of force.

What more control do you need over a prioritized economy than the ability to turn parts of it on and off?

Well having manual priority states for units on top of just on/off means you would only need to make the active, meaningful decisions while the game can handle all the passive ones.

Although I have to admit now that neutrino is right to an extent. Not being able to tell what priority a unit is set to from a glance is a source of annoyance.

Then again, you don't know from glance which of your units are set to hold position/maneuver or hold fire/fire at will either.

I want a way to do it quickly: The way I imagine it, you can select a unit and press a button (such as "p") to toggle "Priority resource recipient", essentially ensuring that, as long as you have some resources, this unit gets all it needs. After all, it's easier to turn one on (priority status) than it is to turn all your other units off (such as if you have a hundred builders).

Also, turning units off has the problem of also requiring you to turn them back on... if you turn off half your engineers to get over a resource crisis, if your resource flow returns to normal, you then have to turn all the stuff back on that you turned off originally. With priority differences instead, you don't actually have to re-enable anything because resources beyond what the priority recipient needs will automatically and naturally flow to non-priority units.

Hmm. That's a bit better. Don't forget that energy comes from metal, generators are one expense out of many, and when you build enough power you have enough power. So the type of inefficiency we're talking about is a fraction of a fraction of a flat investment. That kind of thing is not so easy to get on a chart. It should suffice to say that a flat expense becomes increasingly insignificant when compared to the constant income you get as the match goes on.

If you want to min/max that type of investment, go nuts. I won't stop ya. Just don't miss the forest for the trees, okay? It's a metaphor. The forest represents the total metal you have access to, while the money used on generators for wasted energy is more like a handful of trees. So the statement is actually an allegory about the folly of protecting a handful of trees while the rest of the forest burns down, which is a metaphor for being penny wise but pound foolish, making this entire story a parable for why the hell are you still reading this tiny text it's only here to hurt your eyes and make you mad.

It is interesting that you argue a 5% loss of resources would be crippling, when in fact those same concerns apply to prorating extractors as well. A stall costing real resources will be far more damaging than dealing with a handful of extra generators. Generators which, mind you, can power other critical devices, be reclaimed to get your money back, or even solve that energy stall you're so concerned about. But that money doesn't exist if you don't pay the upkeep on the extractor, because streaming income is always a one time offer. Either you take it or it's GONE, missed potential never to be seen again.

So if I agree with you, it's like agreeing with myself twice. I'll take it!

Isn't it the other way around?

If someone could clarify, I'm not entirely sure what is being argued here. Or that graph. I do not understand what "95 Army" is.

Streaming income is just like memory bandwidth. Use it or lose it.

I like this system. I only hope that engineers are less efficient than factories. So that an investment in multiple factories can produce the same number of units per time unit as a single factory with many engineers, with the same metal cost, but with less energy required.

This would solve all the concerns about engi spam that I had.

Theres plenty of games that pits players against each other or computers that clearly arent designed primarily for competition.

For example: Most 4x games also pits players directly against each others with clearly outlined win conditions, but most 4x games also has a high amount of random events and therefore cant be considered to be made for competition (They are made for "fun" but still has the option of competition). Do note that this is a extreme example (PA wont have random stuff happening), there are other type of games i could use as a example, but the differences arent as clear in those.

The definition of luck (the definition most common and the one i hade in mind) is: "The chance happening of fortunate or adverse events".

Then your misunderstanding me greatly. Competive games are often fun if they are successful, but theres a difference between designing a game to be primarily "fun" or "competitive".

First of: I have no idea how you see such a suggestion in my post (i hade no intention on making it).

Second: There are plenty of people that do like to micro the economy part in a game and find that fun, even if you do not (Me personally is also not one of them).

I think your mistaken my opinion for the games direction with a more simple view of the game.

Off course consequences to design decisions should allways be considered, but not allways from the viewpoint of "making a competitive game".

But as i have also said (semi-quote), "not spending to much time on the competive part" is not the same as "not spending any (or alittle) time on the competive part".

Calling the efficiency gain insignificant contradicts your eariest point. You were telling me it's a nice mechanic for good players to optimize their play.

If it allows players to optimise their play, it can't be insignificant.

Please stick to a single narrative if you're trying to make a point. It can't be both at the same time.

It doesn't matter what I want. People will.

Ultimately, if manually shutting builders off and on represents expert play, that gameplay sets the bar that all other players will eventually confront, regardless of if they want to or not.

What makes resource loss from deliberately shutting off your own metal extractors okay compared to resource loss due to having to micro builder energy usage is the former can be part of players' strategy and also has a right context. Turning off metal extractors in an emergency to keep your defences firing if you momentarily don't have enough energy to run both, successfully thwarting an attack isn't too different from building tanks to defend yourself with before a construction unit with which to cap metal spots. This is of course assuming approriate energy running costs for everything.

It's nothing like leaving your builders to waste energy, which involves no strategies, because you always want them to only use energy at the same rate they are using metal, which is nothing but advantageous.

The 4x genre has never garnered more than a cult following outside of the Civilization series, and isn't known for its thriving multiplayer scene, so you're not exactly helping your case here.

While I'm not familiar with Civilization multiplayer, I want to know the ratio of online matches which explicitly turn random events off.

My god...

I meant what luck are you talking about? How does luck become a factor in determining a game's success?

Planetary Annihilation has all the elements going towards putting it on the grounds of being a sport(is an RTS, games can be played in under an hour, skirmish and multiplayer focused, extensive replay support, etc.). Fun and competitive design in this case are one and the same.

I started this agrument by identifying an area in the proposed system open for good players to explore and abuse. If you're not here to discuss that then I don't know what you're here for.