Unit diversity in PA

Oh that pretty much goes without saying. The most effective way to assert that a unit is "advanced" is to make it superior in every way.

I skimmed over your post and basically agree with most everything. Other than the obligatory 'game isn't even close to being done yet' comment, I wanted to address one particular thing I found strange.

Planet smashing, orbital play, and commanders are not offsets to different races. Both Total Annihilation and Supreme Commander had races with commanders. SupCom had an space ship mod, so pseudo-orbital existed there too. I don't know if you meant to write it like that, but yeah none of those are offsets.

Having a lot of unit types is going to be the offset here, but I don't think the realization of how many has set in. there's going to be several factions worth of unit types in the one 'faction' we have. Different factions in other games are simply units that take similar roles but do somewhat different things in battle. As far as I know, PA will have several units that take similar roles, so just because we don't have a race option before the match starts doesn't mean we won't have the unit diversity that comes with it. We'll even have multiple types of commanders with different abilities. If all of that isn't worthy of being equal to factions, I don't know what is.

The rumors around the water cooler say this game will have 100 units. Not much more is needed for that.

I think there are currently about 100 units in the game, if you count the buildings too.

I really don't get it when people say "game isn't finished yet" so what? Isn't that the point? Doesn't that make discussion about this asap even more critical? Just because the game isn't finished yet doesn't mean we can't talk about what we are aiming for. If you have no goal to aim for you are just wandering blind and who knows where you will end up.

I really don't like how Uber keeps their new units so close to the chest until they show up in a build. If they have nothing to be ashamed of with their design then why the secrets? If they do, best to fess up sooner rather than later so the community can help before it's too late. I think Uber should share, at least with backers, what their vision of the final unit roster is even if some of the units haven't left concept stage. The alternative leaves us where we are today. Beta testing with less than half of the alpha design finished. How ***-backwards is that!

TLDR: enough secrets Uber. This is a kickstarter game, start involving us more than superficially!

That count doesn't include buildings if I recall correctly. Just mobile units. I could be wrong, but if we already have about that many units in the game, then it can't include stationary.

I believe 100 units will go quite a long way by themselves, and I'm betting that number of units will continue to increase as well, official and fanmade alike.

Edit :

I completely understand where you're coming from. While I do agree that right now might be a bit late to think about complete unit composition, I don't even think they've gotten to the point of large unit implementation quite yet. Yes, there's been a lot of quiet, and I'm curious as to the current going-ons as well. They've also said they're working on the coding of a lot of background stuff, creating it then making it function. There's probably going to be a lot more time spent coding mechanics than units themselves. I'm hoping to see more information soon.

- Edit'd for clarity.

Of course Uber has a goal, don't be silly. The thing is that we don't know much about it, and until Uber can finish the Unit Roster and gets balance to a point where they feel it's ready/"complete" it's not really fair that we judge them seriously and make assumptions until that point is reached.

Mike

It's possible (and in fact probable) that their goal is not to make the best RTS of all time here, but to make a platform that is stable and modular enough that great games are made with it. Unit diversity is not something I see this game lacking beyond a week after release. I mean... TA has literally hundreds of thousands of units available for you to use within minutes of installing the packs that contain them.

I mean no disrespect when I say this, but Uber are not the ones who will make the best units, nor the most varied units. The unit variety will come from the Modders, plain and simple.

That is true, however, if they are expanding the unit roster and doing balance changes, we might as well let them know what we are looking for.

Perhaps, though design by committee is generally a bad idea.

I guess technically it wouldn't be so much design by committee as much as many different designs by as many different people but yeah, still not that great, Also it's really hard to design a unit for integration until you have a better idea of how the pre-existing stuff actually works out.

Mike

No matter who designs the units it will ultimately be the players that decide which units they want to install. This is where i think the big problem will be. So many sides going different paths. Uber one way, modder another and players another. There is going to need to be a group to brainstorm over what (if any) units are missing from the final product.

Hm I think we need some kind of standarized vanilla ladder. If ladder is custom, then most of people won't even know about its existence. We need also some standarized way to play tourneys, I'm afraid it will be hard to do it only by ourselves. There could be few tournaments that each of them decides to set their own set of units and balance, this could really get out of hand quickly. I think game developer should be someone who is forcing such standarization, otherwise it will either be complete chaos with hundreds of versions or if we finally get to some standard way, it won't reach many people

That will be true if Uber do not attempt to incorporate Community balance patches into the main game; something they've already said they're willing to do.

Any widely adopted Community standard will more than likely be primed for inclusion into the base game.

I think that a standardized ladder and balance is a good idea, I just think that the community should have some say in it (not saying that's not what's happening right now).

If they have a roster why is it a secret? At this stage in the game are backers not entitled to be privy to the final vision for the game? Thats how they sold us in the beginning, on their concept. Now they have us, so we get no current concept info... I guess there is no motivator like money. Is it gonna take some extra money from us to coax them to keep us in the loop? Welcome to Uber Arts Entertainment!

I whole-heartedly disagree. Balance is an almost useless exercise until you have the whole roster pretty much. Introducing units after you've already balanced throws all your balance work out the window because in the context of these new units suddenly everything changes. It wastes time to have to go back and balance again after every addition.

Noble goal, but we all bought a game not an engine. Great that Uber has these long term business goals but they still have obligations to us in the mean time and even if they won't be the authors of the best units they do owe it to us to explain what units they will be the authors of...

A committee will never have an integrated vision or goals. They can come up with a bunch of separate ideas, but unifying them in a great way is beyond their ability.

I don't think uber owe us anything, well me anyhows. I paid for a game, I got it, I may not be 100% happy with where the game is now but have had so much fun during the whole process I have bought the game several times to show it. These forums alone are worth their weight in gold sometimes.

Sometimes in spite of Uber itself. Uber is lucky to have such a devoted community. Sometimes they shut down even valid criticism out of pure zealous love for Uber I find lol.