Risk vs Reward

I still feel like we can have both, units that don't replace earlier ones and a time/resource risk teching mechanic that risks a players economy for the reward of more or possibly massive tactical flexibility.

Teching can be fun when done right!

The interesting thing is, I do not protest the risk reward thing. The problem is, the current game has a risk of, what, 20 seconds worth of building a t2 factory, and maybe 20 more seconds building the first t2 structures? After that, that small window for an enemy to react to with their 40 seconds of additional built units, the t2 mexes and pgens have already paid for themselves in more than doubled production from that point on out.

In order to consider it risk reward, there need be risk that is risky. You can't react to the narrow window of risk as early in the game as we see it. The window needs to be later, and needs to be wider. If you are going to make it risk reward, make that risk 2 minutes worth of build time using the resources from 12 t1 mexes, and the reward not pay for it for another 2 minutes of boosted economy. That is, what, a t2 mex costing almost twice as much, and producing only 60% times more metal?

That might favor playing without taking the risk, over taking the risk, but we have had the balance favor the exact opposite for so long, I would be willing to intentionally try it heavily balanced the other way, before bringing it closer to the middle.

Also, Uber's balancing in a vacuum it seems. Yes, that T2 eco and new T2 unit costs will make it so that you need a good T2 eco to pump out T2 units, but a single T2 mex will now power 10 T1 factories. T2 will now be useless except for eco because T1 is so much more cost effective.

It will be the same as the current meta except with more units and less variation in army makeup. Not sure if that's a good thing or not. Obviously the best thing will be Zero-K style tiers (or a lack thereof), but the PA devs consider that route doomed without trying it.

They certainly are not testing in a vacuum dude, they just seem to be focusing more on a type of gameplay that we haven't really expected.

They do have experience making RTS games, but it's possible that they are tiring to replicate the classics of RTS gameplay, either just first or as to make PA have the same foundations as other games that have stood the test of time.

Either way, we will get a good game out of it, even if it doesn't exactly play to all of it's strengths as a new title, it will be good.

Yes, all these threads are depressing and moreso that a mod doesn't merge them just to show gusto, but this game has engine and features to make it good, if it were to fail in general gameplay at time of release. I consider they are balancing this like TA which it is trying to more closely resemble and tier it like itself which it is a unique title in it's own right, but I am not sure if they are balancing in a vacuum or just testing extremes like they are with naval and air.

Either way, the platform being established is entirely worthwhile, and this stage of it should be taken as lightheartedly as possible. Make your suggestions, public, countrymen, fellow forumites, but let's reasonably await to play the next patch. There are only so many ways they can balance this, such as economy, there is either more metal or less metal, and if they test one, they can keep or change it, and if changing it is better, then at least we all learned a lesson. No harm in using the scientific method to intentionally test with, which is by definition testing in a vacuum.

I really hope we are wrong. But sadly, it does look like T2 will just be an upgrade to T1.

Mods are a double edged sword, Brian. Mods will always divide the community and most of the time they will be played by a minority. I'd much rather have the game be done correctly than having to build a mod that not everyone will play with.

I think if you decided you're not going to play the game- based on a philosophy / theoretical discussion and don't actually try it after the balance changes, well its a self forfilling prophecy.

The main crux of this argument is that people want unit diversity, and I think people are confusing no unit obsolescence with diversity. One doesn't determine the other. TA had unit obsolescence, however I'd argue that didn't matter as all units were useful at *some point* in the game, and we had ALLOT of different units to play with.

I'm hoping PA can reach the same point- some units will only be useful at certain stages in certain scenarios and I'm fine with that. If a t2 tank replaces the t1 tank in late game- that's fine, so long as the t1 tank has it's place (and that place is more than a 15s window before T2 spam starts). At the moment the balance is too out of whack though as the T1 tank isn't really useful at all.

When it comes to diversity- Uber have implemented a very minimalistic unit set compared to other games in this genre, so there isn't much diversity. We only really have the essential roles filled- with all the niche but interesting stuff left out. I'm hoping a few more unusual advanced units will get added in soon that might mix things up a bit.

The key to all of this is that the game needs to be fun- and that everything has a use. I think the 'all units useful at all times' philosophy is a red herring and is throwing people of the real issue, which is we wan't more valid ways to play the game, rather than a '1 strategy to rule them all' approach which is kinda what it feels like now with T2 air rushing (admittedly you might T2 air rush then drop vanguards, or T2 air rush and go gunships, or T2 air rush and snipe their T2 factory with fighters- but all those options depend on you rushing T2 air).

If you were to localise metal, energy, or both, then you would add a mountain more risk to the current balance. It'd be impossible to spam T2 in 15s.

I think the step up in strength of T2 would be justified then.

I agree with everything in your post except this part. Your accusation of him not trying it is unfounded; its not out, you haven't exactly tried it yet either.

That aside, the game can be perfectly balanced but if its only appealing to a small part of the community or easily misunderstood then nobody will play it. If say only one in one hundred actually like it then that means the community is one hundred times smaller, eg. 800 instead of 80,000. He's also not wrong in that the method is very single-strategy focused. I think we all agree that we want a lot of wiggle room and the ability to play how we want not in some template strategy. At least for me that just isn't fun, don't care how perfectly balanced it is if its all more or less just a binary option: go t1, go t2

Has that ever been questioned? I think the thing that was at discussion and that was planned to come into being is that t2 is not just replacing t1. However I'd argue that t2 still will be more expensive and outright better in many scenarios, even if you specialize it not to be made up by just better tanks.

No.

Yes T2 will still be more expensive. But no, it shouldn't be better. If it is better, it's making units obsolete.

It should be increasing the strategies available to the player, it should be increasing the variability of the unit roster.

If the Leveller and the Alleged Tank have the same role, why wouldn't you just upgrade the basic factory to become an advanced factory?

I think it really boils down to how the defenses are balanced. Early to mid game t1 swarms being pushed along by t2 turret killing units and late game t2 units being pushed along by t1 support units.

Both support but at different times of the game. I think this could play well if all is well balanced. We just need to get this game away from snipe mode and back to fun huge battle mode. So many op and easy ways to kill commanders these days you are more worried about keeping one eye on him that actually fighting on several fronts.

Hi, I wasn't meaning it to be too accusatory, and perhaps it wasn't an appropriate response Broadsideet's post. I do think its a valid position though that we need to try these changes before reaching a conclusion.

I agree none of us have tried the changes yet- the issue I have is that at least to me it looks like quite a few people have considered the changes and concluded the game is now not for them based on really very little actual information.

I'm not saying the proposed balance changes are going to necessarily be good- however I can see that there is potential there for it to improve the current balance and it *might* turn out a lot better than many here are expecting.

Though I can tell you EXACTLY how the changes made in the experimental build would work if they were implemented live, I still think we need to try them out if the devs start thinking seriously about adding it into the game.

If memory serves weren't you a TA fan Kiwi?

In which case surely you can acknowledge that TA did have upgrades (e.g. Raider -> Reaper, Stumpy -> Bulldog, Avenger -> Hawk)- the difference wasn't no upgrades it was more units in total. Some minor changes between the T1 and T2 tank did give them a slightly different 'feel' (mainly things like turret turn speed and rate of fire) however these are only minor edits to text values, functionally a Reaper is a bigger twin cannon version of the Raider.

The reason Raiders weren't totally invalidated by reapers was also an issue of cost- you could outnumber reapers with raiders for the same metal- so often getting t2 eco and pouring out T1 units was more effective than getting a handful of heavier units. All of the above can be achieved with a little bit of balance tweaking and as far as I can tell what Uber are proposing does go at least some way to achieving this.

The thing I think we need now is a few additional unit roles (e.g. all terrain units that can cross mountains, hover tanks that can go over water and so on). These sort of units allow you to make use of the terrain and make the maps more interesting.

The Reaper and Bulldog weren't really an upgrade. Mostly they were just "bigger", not better.

I'll give you the Hawk and the Vamp though. However, who here actually thought those units were ever balanced... even a little bit? Calling the sky blue isn't wrong... but it's a pretty redundant comment to make.

TA didn't really have "upgrade units" in the same sense that SupCom had upgrade units. Except for a few notable exceptions (Vamp and Hawk), the units all had a place and performed differently depending on the situation at hand.

You can't ignore the size difference between the Reaper and the Raider for instance. The reaper's fat arse was far more easily held up by terrain and wrecks that the Raider could swiftly navigate. It was 25% slower at top speed, had worse acceleration and deceleration, almost HALF the turn rate... Honestly anyone calling it an "upgrade" really doesn't know what they're talking about; It had more health... and that's about it. Comparing it Metal for Metal, it was worse in every single way to the Raider.

Why build it? Because in absolute terms it concentrated health and damage output into a single unit, making it able to tank more damage on a per-unit basis than many other units, remaining functional longer as an entity than smaller, more fragile units. For an example of what I mean, it lasted exactly twice as long against a Sentinel, allowing it to advance further and potentially do damage, where a Raider would up and die before it even got a shot off.

You are completely wrong on this one. Take the Stumpy -> Bulldog example.
That was not an upgrade, not even close. Stumpies were more agile, their turrets swiveled faster, and their shots reached their destination quicker (if I remember correctly.)
The Bulldog was not designed for mobile targets, it had trouble hitting fast units where the Stumpy had much more accuracy here. The Bulldog also shot slower and hit much harder. It was designed for tanking damage and razing bases and the heavy buildings within them. A horde of Stumpies would outdamage an army of Bulldogs when equal amounts of resources were put into both.

Bulldogs could pile more damage because they had alpha strike. Groups of them demolished some of the heavier structure in one volley alone, while the Stumpies had to whittle it down, and their ranks were much more easily dispatched.

That was just one example. It seems you are not quite as well-versed in TA as you think you are.

Edit : Fixed quote size

Speed of the projectile is different yes, but actually the opposite of what you're saying. Stumpy's shot is 170 p/s (pixels per second) while the Bulldog was 210 p/s. Also the pitch of it was different. Bulldogs fired "flat" at a ~25° angle, while Stumpies fired "high" at a ~45° angle.

The BIG difference though, you did identify; the turret turn speed. The Stumpy was almost twice as fast as the Bulldog at acquiring new targets; a speed of 90° per second, while the Bulldog only turned 50° per second.

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For reference, the Raider and the Reaper copied those numbers exactly for their weapons.

I think PA really needs to move away from the giant 'I win' buttons.

Oh really? I thought the opposite. Pff, well at least I know if anyone knows exact specifics about TA, it'd likely be you. Didn't know about the height angle of fire.. I can't know everything though.