Generic or Unique

[Sithmaster_821]

Arthur, there is nothing wrong with the game. But opportunities to improve the way the game plays should be taken, atleast closely examined. Games are a work in progress. Did you find anything blatantly wrong with the game preptch? No. The patch just enhanced gameplay.

[Arthur2]

Originally posted by CorranSec

People should be able to outnumber anything with troopers. That's what it's all about. That's the whole point!

Troopers are the things that are (or should be) used in huge masses, but the point is that they can all be cut down by a couple of Assault Mechs. Now, if the Assault Mechs are equal to the Troopers in pop cost, it's clear to see what has the advantage.

Hordes of smaller units are supposed to overwhelm single big units, but the horde should cost more than the single big unit (duh). Of course, as costs become more and more unsubstantial (relatively), it's clear that the way to achieve balance is by increasing pop costs.

 

Has anybody had the thought that GB 2 might not have Assault Mechs, Mech Destroyers and the like, at least not in that sense?

 

hmmm so yeah

that's why the other guy proposed 4 pop units for each assault mech, 2 pop for each mech destroyers and 1 pop for strike mechs and air fighters....

 

troopers are used in masses

that's why they shouldn't be balanced with mechs by increasing their abilities like in SC u marines can shoot down airplanes, and can almost kill everything with ease if u have them in dozens...

 

anywayz u guys are right..

let's just keep the pop idea, but try to make the pop thing under 4 so ppl don't feel so limited

 

i think in SWGB2 they should just call the troops ATAT, ATST, ATPT....whatever, just call them wut they are called in the movies...not mech destroyer..yada yada

[lukeiamyourdad]

I think almost everybody wants the units to be called by their real names.

[Sithmaster_821]

That was the impression i got when i read responses to this thread.

[Sithmaster_821]

Arthur, heres a quote from Greg Street, head designer of AoK and AoM, conserning the problems of balancing units based on cost alone:

Making powerful units more expensive only works to a point. If you make units too expensive, then they are rare in the game, which isn't a lot of fun. Besides, when someone is rolling over you with a dozen powerful units, it doesn't make you feel much better than he paid through the nose to get them. Consider the Cataphracts from AOK. They were so expensive as to be really rare, but when someone got a large army of them, he cleared the map.

[Arthur2]

hmm

so maybe some compromise will make this work

like the previous posts

4 pop for heavy mechs

2 pop for mech destroyers...

yada yada...

[Admiral Vostok]

Remember Arthur, we're only suggesting the pop costs of StarCraft, not making Troopers as powerful as Terran Marines. Keeping the unit's fighting ability pretty much the same as it is would be good. In StarCraft, a Battlecruiser would have to take a few shots to kill a marine, but we still want an Assault Mech to kill Troopers in one shot.

 

So the problems you're talking about in StarCraft won't apply to SWGB.

 

Expanding on my previous post, I think Heavy weapons should be 2 pop. I've tried to make it 1 pop for things that are used in masses, 4 pop for rare things and 2 pops a nice in the middle one, not for massing but also definitely not rare.

[Arthur2]

great

so..

assault mech, big ships - 4 pop

 

mech destroyer, heavy weapons, regaulr air and sea units - 2

 

troopers, strike mech and small stuff...1 pop

[lukeiamyourdad]

Let's base this on what we know:

 

A fighter has one pilot= 1 pop

An Assault Mech has at least 3 or 4= 3 or 4 pop

Mech Destroyers have two pilots= 2 pop

Hvy weapons, unknown but AA mobile must have 2 pilots= 2pop

 

Fighters should only cost one pop.

Max pop should be raised if these changes are made.

[CorranSec]

Hmm. Has it occured to anybody that there may not be Strike Mechs, Mech Destroyers, etc. in GB 2? And that there might be new units? Hmm....

 

Anyway, here's the way I see it.

Units which are obviously 1-unit (eg. 1 guy with a gun, 1 worker, 1 fighter, small mechs eg. scout) are, uh, 1-unit.

Units which are a bit larger, but wouldn't have more than 2 or 3 people, are 2-pop. For example, larger mechs such as the AT-ST, some medium ships (check my list of aircraft in the Ideas of GB 2 thread, and I was also thinking of the Assault Transport from the Gunship thread), small boats (frigates), etc.

Units which are medium-sized would merit 3 pop. Eg: larger ships such as the current AA frigate, most Millenium Falcon-sized (medium) aircraft, mechs that are better than Mech Destroyer but not as good as Assault Mech.

Large units are 4 pop. Eg: big boats like the current Cruiser (which might be 5 pop, I'm not sure), most cap ships (eg. Armed Transport), etc.

The biggest (top of the tech tree) units are 5. Eg. Assault Mech, Attack Cruiser (bigbig aircraft), etc.

 

The pop cap would of course be increased to somewhere between 3/400, unless of course you wanted small, focussed battles. But I don't, and that's very Blizzard-ish, and I know many people don't like that. So I hope everyone's with me.

[Arthur2]

300-400

that's a lot

 

do u think it's better to have 400 for every player

or like 2000 units for ALL players distribution

like if it's 1v1 then eeach player get 1000

if it's 2v2 then each player get 500

[CorranSec]

Arthur- I like a lot. But nothing as big as Medieval: Total War, or anything.

I don't like that distribution idea. Seeing as this game is coming out in the future, what if servers can handle large numbers of people, and around 20 people play? Also, what if a player joins the game? Fluctuations never help gameplay.

No, I'd rather a fixed number.

[Arthur2]

Originally posted by CorranSec

Arthur- I like a lot. But nothing as big as Medieval: Total War, or anything.

I don't like that distribution idea. Seeing as this game is coming out in the future, what if servers can handle large numbers of people, and around 20 people play? Also, what if a player joins the game? Fluctuations never help gameplay.

No, I'd rather a fixed number.

 

300 sounds good

[lukeiamyourdad]

I'd say like Corran, about 400 seems ok and I think we could go to 500 but that is not likely.

 

500 pop limit is a lot!!!!! I don't our comps will be able to handle that! We must take that into consideration.

[Sithmaster_821]

500 pop limit with 3d is computer suicide.

[lukeiamyourdad]

Well not necessarily. It will depend on how strong the future computers will be. At the speed the industry is going I won't be surprised the comp will have three times the strengh of the actual ones. 500 MIGHT not be suicide. Highly impropable but anyway.

[Admiral Vostok]

I didn't mean fighters to be 2 pop. Check my other post. Fighters are used en masse, like troopers, so they should be one pop. Maybe bombers should maybe be 2 pop, but then again it all depends on how strong they decide to make air in GB2. And I'd prefer bombers to be 1 pop like fighters.

 

I think 250 is probably still reasonably, even with multiple pop costs. Having a limit like this helps keep the ratios of units in check. If we had an unreachable limit, there is really no point to having multiple population costs. In excess of 250, there starts to get more units than you can keep track of.

[lukeiamyourdad]

highering the pop limit would compensate for the new pop cost of some units. And I do agree on using unit strengh to decide of their pop cost.

[CorranSec]

I think 500 is far too much, and 400 is probably pushing it.... but it's possible. Somewhere between 300 and 400 is what I'm looking for.

If we adjust the pop requirements and don't adjust the pop cap, then the game won't work the way we want it to- people just won't be able to get a reasonable number of larger units. Also, if you hit the pop cap quickly in the current GB (and CC), imagine how fast it would approach if units had greater pop costs?

If we're going to have larger pop costs we need a larger pop cap. It's quite simple.

 

Vostok- Too many units to deal with? This is most likely based on your personal experiences. Also, I'm sure that after the learning campaign (or whatever), players will be used to the large pop cap and have adjusted their style to deal with it.

I think you're right about aircraft. I'd like to see all "fighter" classed aircraft as requiring 1 pop. Looking at my list (it's the one I'm basing all my aircraft stuff on as I haven't seen another), all the fighters seem pretty equal in power (not literal damage etc. but actual tactical use) and so they should all only take 1 pop.

[simwiz2]

A hard pop limit is something that new RTS should avoid IMO. In AoM expansionism is rewarded when you can get more pop by capturing more settlements. In RoN, the pop limit will be based on the number of cities you have, and so expansionism and attacking can increase your army's maximum size. Both games will benefit greatly from having a much more flexible pop limit.

[Sithmaster_821]

*Agrees with simwiz*

[simwiz2]

Originally posted by lukeiamyourdad

Well not necessarily. It will depend on how strong the future computers will be. At the speed the industry is going I won't be surprised the comp will have three times the strengh of the actual ones. 500 MIGHT not be suicide. Highly impropable but anyway.

 

What about those people (like me) who just bought a really good computer and won't have a "better" one for at least 4 years?

 

Would we have lower pop than our opponents?

[Admiral Vostok]

That sounds like a good approach, simwiz.

 

As for not being able to field a reasonable number of larger units, I disagree. One of my reasons for wanting a mulitple-population-cost for large units is so there aren't too many of them. With a cost of 4 pop per assault mech and a 250 population cap, you can still buy about 30 AT-ATs, leaving room for workers and support units. This is six times the number of AT-ATs present at Hoth and is also greater than the number of assault mechs at the Battle of Geonosis. That, to me, is reasonable.

 

However, I wouldn't complain about a 300 pop cap, maybe even 350, but 500 is getting up there. The pop cap is in place to limit your units, not to be an unreachable marker.

[CorranSec]

These don't exactly sound to me like a 'flexbile pop cap.' They're just fancier houses, and kinda work the same way (I'm basing this on what simwiz posted). Ie, you get a city/settlement it increases your pop, if someone kills it, you lose pop. If you get more, you get more pop.

Sound familiar?

Uh, yeah, wow, sounds like a fancier way of building/losing houses! Very ingenious.

[Sithmaster_821]

Corran, settlements are much different from houses, and heres why:

1. They benefit expansionism. With houses the only thing limiting how many you could build was space, so someone could easily maintain a high population with houses in a remote corner of the map. Settlements require building outward and get rid of that long time standard in RTS's in which all the fighting took place at peoples bases, and that map space was only there for transporting.

2. The number of settlements is predetermined. If you have built all of your houses (10 in AoM), there is no quick fix for pop. It becomes more like a resource and more important.

3. Population becomes more mercantilistic instead of capatalistic. In other words, every player has to draw from the same pot, and fluctuations in pop (either up or down) effect every player instead of just the one who is fluctuating.