Role of the Commander

I just said what will happen. I don't need a better example, i wrote what happend to me in a lot of games. You can't scout all the time or your opponent don't let you scout or he has more air then you.

If your opponent is successfully stopping you from scouting, then they're a better player than you and hence deserve to kill your commander.

In addition to that, you've lost air superiority and you didn't prepare for a Commander snipe from bombers? Why are you 'looking' at planet two? Why isn't your Commander already on the first ride off planet one?

You are not making a good case for yourself or your ideas voodoomaster.

No one is perfect

Then the person who is more 'perfect' than their opponent deserves to win. Your Commander having 'too few' HP isn't the problem.

That may be the scenario in certain battle situations, but I don't think generalizes to all. Having upgrade options doesn't force you to take them. I think the trick is to find upgrades that enable the commander to be viable through out the game.

Thus, defeating the purpose of the Commander in the first place.
You have no idea what you're doing.

That's right! And I think that brings up another good point not yet mentioned... comebacks.

If the other army is winning or turning the tide on you, the commander keeps you playing and engaged instead of throwing in the towel. In starcraft, once you see your losing, just 'gg', there's no hope. The Beta commander offers the same play style.

However, with an agile commander, there's still a reason to play and enjoy the game since the commander is a comeback hope. People have won with the commander, not always such that its over powered, but sometimes... And sometimes, is the perfect amount.

Just in general, comebacks are awesome to watch and play, in sports, games, business, whatever.... Even better are underdog comebacks.

That's fun, and I love mechanics that keep you in the game and enable comebacks. I'm glad your brought that up.

Follow up, thinking about this a little more....

A machine or program never ever 'gg's. It'll just keep executing its instructions forever,m trying and trying. Think Terminator.

The comeback mechanic enables this in spirit. The player is incentive to keep trying and playing (and its fun) because as long as you have a dynamic commander, you have even a small hope of a comeback.

This mechanic is mimicking the way a machine may act, very in tune with the lore.

Hmmmm... I need to keep thinking about this. Very cool mechanic, idea, commander role...

I'm gonna agree with Nanolathe here. I respect voodoo and know how good of a player he is, but it sounds like he is trying to conform this game to a play style that he developed or used to be good at a previous game.(read:FA)

As Nanolathe said, the commander was designed to be a weak point. I you want I can expound on this later.

Just because the balance or gameplay design team of SC:FA decided they wanted to take their game in that direction, doesn't mean we have to too. TA was not like it in that regard, and was equally as fun if not more.

I've been taking the point that a strong com is needed for 2 reasons.
- Commander fun and shenanigans
- Ease of a snipe.

Wasn't TA very turret focused game?
With some turrets (not the artillery) having very long range?

I'm rather hazy with my TA now, haven't played in a while, but wasn't it quite difficult to make it to the commander with a fleet of bombers or bots?

You are very hazy on your memory of TA. Turrets, though powerful were easily dealt with. They were a supplementary defence... and one that could always be cracked with clever positioning and some specialised units like the Morty, the Diplomat, the Penetrator, the Fido, the Luger and of course, the Shooter! But that's just the 'Outrange them' option; you had the 'Brute Force' option too by mixing in Cans, Sumos, Bulldogs, Goliaths and half-a-dozen other units in with some cheap cannon fodder... With forces like that you could pick apart a defensive line a piece at a time... or just roll over it with more armour than the defenses could possibly hold back.

Mobile ground armies were where it was at!

There were a great variety of 'counters' to entrenched positions and many of them were (relatively) cheap mobile units with a speciality of breaking the defensive line. And that's just ground units... we're not even talking about Air solutions, Nukes and super-long-range, Base-Breaking Big Berthas and their ilk.

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By-the-by, A strong Com does not need to be a durable Commander. There are other ways to make a Commander strong while still keeping the core premise of it being the single string upon which everything else hangs.

The D-Gun was a prime example of how to make the Commander strong, without necessitating excessive durability.

Yes, maybe i played FA too long. I will just go under water with my commander then

Or pick the Commander with the 'Stealth' ability.
People forget that about TA's Commanders. It was a very potent way to keep your Commander in the mix, near a front line and ready to expand, while staying very safe. You could melt away into the shadows at a moments notice...

... after throwing out a few D-Gun shots to stop any would-be pursuers of course.

Who dictated the commander must be a weak point? These sound like absolutes; it's just the Beta right now. Other roles are possible. Lets talk it out with open minds and not entrenched opinions.

I've presented a few reasons why I think the commander with multi-faceted and dynamic roles would be fun:

• enable the commander to be viable in different roles (glass cannon, caster, tank, etc...) for increase variety of play
• A variety of commander roles would allow players of different play styles to have the commander reflect their style (or "programming")
  
• keep the commander from being forced into the same routine every game, an improvement in replayability
  
• it would enable a comeback mechanic, which is fun and keeps players engaged. Less early 'gg's
• Comeback and continuous trying to win regardless of odds fits with lore, think Terminator.
  
• A dynamic commander does not preclude the ability to have "builder" commander than can quickly expand on other planets as suggested. However, a commander that fits that one role precludes all other play styles.
• A weak commander incentivizes turtling, clearly not in line with the spirit of the game (mass capture points for example)
  
• Seems to fit Uber's lore adjectives including "supremely capable"
• Dynamic commander just seems like more fun and engaging game to me

Why do you think the commander role that is a "weak point" or "holds you back" is good? I'm willing to be "converted" with good explanations, if you are willing to accept my points-of-view as valid and if you are also willing to be "converted" by other people's good explanations. My guess, is there's a happy middle ground. Lets find that.

The reason is fundamental Game Design theory; games must reach a conclusion.

There must be a way to end the game and the fewer ways there are to achieve that, which an overpowered Monster-Commander that can do anything tends towards removing, the longer a game is forced to run and the less strategic options for reaching a satisfactory conclusion there are.

The stronger and/or tougher you make the Commander, the less strategic options are available for you and an opponent to fight with and conclude the game with a winner and a loser.

The Goal of the game is Strategy, not Mecha power fantasies.

Come-Back mechanics? No problem. Different roles? Sounds good. Fun and engaging? Something we should defintely strive for...

But these holes need to be filled by other units, not by changing the Commander into a monster.

The Commander should be an asset for the duration of the game. Do that by making him the best at what he does; building a base that grows an army. Now that we have new planets to conquer within the same solar-system, that role is something that should be pushed for.

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Incidentally that is the reason that Ubers current implementation of the Orbital Transport is flawed. It's working completely counter to the design flow of the rest of the game and is one of the major reasons many of the people here feel that the Commander is 'useless' after the 15minute mark.

If the Orbital Facility and Orbital Transport were made cheap and readily available I give you my guarantee that you would have more fun with the Commander... and he would certainly stop feeling useless.

As a sith lord I ABSOLUTELY agree with nano.

Okay, I guess, but I'm more concerned with the competitive aspect of this game.

What exactly do you mean by this?
Commanders should be stronger so that they are on the front lines more so it becomes easier to snipe them?
Or you think the commander should be on the front lines by default, so he needs to be stronger so it isn't as easy to snipe him?

Don't get me wrong, I played ranked 1v1 FA too, and I enjoyed having a sturdy commander on the front lines. I actually think that it was pretty cool how balanced that game is, because in the early game it's pretty much mandatory that your commander is at the front and then comes a point in the game that you have to retreat to your base because of the volatility of the field. I think coming up with such a balance that gives a clear timeframe in which your commander is viable in the field is impressive.
I would be okay if such a situation existed in PA.
What I'm not okay with is giving the commander enough weapons/armor to make him front line viable through the end game.

The mandatory assassination game mode in all ranked ladders.

By weak point, I don't mean a sub-par gun, health pool or armor. What I meant was that he is always going to be a point of failure.
Regardless of how big and strong your army is, if the commander dies then the game is over, your army is irrelevant. This has been a central part of every TA type game.

Doesn't this take the game in a MOBA direction? I don't think you should be focused very much on what you're doing with your commander, but more on what you're doing with your armies and bases.
Go ahead and argue that you are the commander and it fits the lore... This isn't an RPG.

The commander has only one role. To build an army that will kill the other commander.
How you go about that is your style.

Replayability is important in games like RPGs with one ending. All the quests are the same, the ending is the same, so to change something about the game, you get to change your character.
While replayability is important, it is achieved as a side effect of the type of game this is.
Chess is a really good analog. You don't increase Chess replayability by changing the way the king is allowed to move, or any of the other pieces for that matter. You change how you go about winning and who you play against. The outcome is binary but the quests are always different, if you will.

Commander doesn't need to be in the front to be able to come back. Case in point, SC:FA, you could easily snipe somebody if they don't scout the snipe, regardless of where they are on the map. Because by the time you see the snipe coming it's too late.
To that extent I agree with you, TML sniping someone on ladder when they clearly own 3/4 of the map and I can't win was one of the best feelings ever.

This is a pretty valid point.

Not really. This statement is only valid under the condition that you can only expand with your commander. A condition that clearly does not hold.

Sure it may be more fun, I certainly had fun with it while playing 1v1 FA, but Uber clearly said we aren't going to have upgrades. This is a really clear indicator of where we are going.

Good and valid points being made here. Let me digest and think about it.