I understand it's a personal moral, but, for the sake of the game, WYSIWYG seems to do more harm than it does good. More than half of the ideas I see on the forums get pushed away because "they don't follow WYSIWYG." Following, they get shoved aside as mod possibilities, and then forgotten. For some things, WYSIWYG can be helpful for balance and keeping the game consistent. For other things, though, it just shields the game from potentially awesome ideas; ideas are evaluated to see if they fit the principle of WYSIWYG before we see if they're imbalanced or not. Some things could work, but are kept out not because of their imbalance but because they don't fit the boolean of WYSIWYG. It's completely subjective as to which things fit WYSIWYG and which things don't. Technically, an upgrade system, for example, doesn't fit WYSIWYG because a dox could deal more damage than yours. However, if the upgrades are visible, then it does fit WYSIWYG. Both ways, it's the exact same idea, executed only slightly differently, and yet only one version could be implemented. I don't want to challenge Uber's morals, but I'd like to see some more reasoning behind them.
Any method for making a unit look like it has an upgrade is ineffective as you never really look at the models while playing. The main features that are prohibited by WYSIWYG is upgrades, and honestly, you don't need upgrades to make the game better. More units does that in a more interesting, and more balanced fashion.
Frankly, most of the suggested ideas are denied (By the community) because they are so vague, and open to interpretation. Shouting "Add mega bots!" and then getting sad when people actually say no is something that you get used to.
WYSIWYG is flexible, but upgrades are a difficult MOBA form of breaking it. However, the idea isn't "pushed aside for mods". Mods are in a language close to English, mods are anything but difficult.
Being able to understand things is very important and WYSIWYG is a very important part of that. It generally has the goal of making things simple to understand by reducing the number of variables a player has to consider. SupCom2 is a huge example of what a lack of WYSIWYG can do to a game. Going to attack his ACU? Better hope he doesn't have Overcharge researched because it would mean you're just throwing away all of you units and until he uses it you have NO way of knowing if he has it or not. It gets even more complex when you consider the Veterancy upgrades because they have 5 different levels and each one can have a pretty big effect on the outcome of a battle but it is very difficult to gage without already being very good and knowledgeable at the game. It's also worth remembering that WYSIWYG is about more than just visuals, it's also about the idea that you have to treat each "variant" of a particular unit or what ever separately. If Levelers had 3 upgrades you have to consider it as 4 different things(Non-Upgraded + 3 Upgrades) and that can get very hard to follow across an entire unit roster. It applies to other things too, it's easily seen in the balance as well. Think of it along the lines of unit X should do the same damage to all units and we shouldn't have to remember that against specific units that it only does half for example. WYSIWYG says that a unit's attributes should be consistent so if you want to have unit Y be twice as tough as unit X you give it double the HP, not the same HP with an armor type that halves damage. In the interest of transparency it is to be noted that like SupCom:FA, PA does that an armor system but it is used VERY sparingly on only the extreme edges cases where normal measures aren't enough. Now not all games do this obviously, but there is a catch and it simply boils down to the idea of how much the player is expected to handle. Due to the "RT" in RTS these games have to be careful about how much they ask the players to deal with and even Starcraft does a few things to make it easier on players, mostly in that things like armor type are broad groups and not different from unit to unit aside from specific units like the Immortal's Shield and even each races upgrades apply broadly on the different categories of units(Air upgrades apply to ALL air units ect ect) but by far he most important thing games like Starcraft do to help with "player load" is reduced scale and specifically setting a side a rather large area to UI that displays all this extra information. PA on the other hand is just too big to burden the player with all those small details and variations, especially in real time across multiple planets. Personally I think it's much better to clearly define a unit's role and let that teach the player how to use it instead of just shoving lots of numbers at the player and expecting them to sort it out for themselves. Mike
I agree with the armor system not breaking WYSIWYG as well. This game is directed torwards health and damages and rates and weapon types deciding what is best against what, but everything does the damage which it does outside of that. In RTS like C&C series, armor applied where bullet weapons did more damage against infantry and less to tanks, and shells did more to tanks and less to infantry, and rockets did some to both. However, the weapons kept WYSIWYG because it isn't hard to conceptualize that bullets do less damage to tank armor or that infantry can evade damage from slow firing shells and only receive shellshock. However, if that is in a game in a very visual and easy to remember way, it doesn't run the risk of "tricking" anyone. "I didn't know riflemen couldn't damage tank armor well" said nobody ever. Upgrades are great for mods. However, even that assumes the units have a visual distinction, most RTS use icons lingering to the side of the unit? In this one, it could do the same, and especially should show up over strat icons in that case (i'd rather know something is veteran than know anything else about it)
When someone proposes an idea that sounds cool, but doesn't fit the WYSIWYG principle or may be a bit complicated for newer players. What is your first response? Most people tend to break the idea apart with proper reasoning and arguments, which isn't the worst thing there is, but better still would be to help conceptualize the idea further and find a way to implement it somehow. Shields (the idea of pure energy defence systems) does not equal base covering bubbles per se, but can still be implemented as a form of cheap wall or defence system. Unit veterancy and upgrades, are not always 'Hidden stat buffs', different colour lasers/trusters, and a simple strat icon variation solve the problem. By the way, it's not that they are asking for damage x2 buffs. It would just be nice to have tech and give your units that extra 10-20% extra cost efficiency. Rock, Paper and Scissors. The 3 most feared words in RTS it seems. In my opinion some sort of RPS makes sence. Like mentionned above, you'll have a bad time killing tanks with a machine gun. And except for this sentence, I'm not even gonne mention the perfect balance of the Vanguard, the best armoured, highest dps unit in the game... That being said, Uber is making the game, not us. They have a list of confirmed/'confirmed no' features I am aware of that, but I'm also aware of Uber reading these forums and if they see a really cool well thought out feature that everyone agrees upon, they might, maybe just might implement that in a patch afther release. (Or at least a modder might pick it up.)
