Here's two different ideas that might work: Idea 1 Give each side a natural resist of the other's side dominant weapons, i.e. BE = innate resist against missiles NF = innate resist against cannons Research wise, this means that all NF armor would already come with an anti-cannon resist and vice versa for BE. It could be reasoned that after many years of fighting, each side built up a tolerance to the main weapons of the opponent. Idea 2 Remove each sides preference to a specific type of weapon. The easiest way is to just remove the two weapon slots on both sides heavies and eliminate the MKII's.
I don't like idea 2, you lose the differences and make the factions the same, which they're not meant to be. THe most boring games have been where both sides are fighting with the same weapons. I don't see the problem with BE comm always research anti-missle armor, it's not as if the NF comm HAS to research missles, he can rush to meds and get ranged cannon or something. Then BE will have misjudged. It'll be a flavour of the month kind of thing - much as it is now.
The original idea doesn't have many downsides which is why it doesn't work for me. If enhancing an armour like that increased its weight, I could see it working a little bit better...but really a 20% reduction is a lot for something that takes 90s and considering weapons don't do damage in the 100's. If you had larger increments of damage rather than the sorta 60 averagey stuff we have now, it could work. If you wanted more armour variants, i'd be in line with more like Metal Smiths idea, but I kinda like balance right now...and it sorta feels like doing something just because we can. I wouldn't say no if anyone had any good ideas, but right now nobody does really...heh, mebbe you can open a thread in the suggestions forum asking for armour ideas, might be your best bet.
What about bringing back the 2 armor slot feature and you choose 1 available upgrade to the armor? Would take on extra weight and cost more...
Honestly, there needs to be less hyper specialization and more broad research packets. The problem is that all of these research ideas look great on paper, but games are only supposed to last about 10-20 minutes, and trying to add in hyper specialization that is being introduced in this thread won't be fully realized because this type of system is not meant for a faster paced game.
That's why I like metal smith's idea, it just makes them better a couple of times. So if you want to improve armor a bit, you can research the next tier rather than unlocking a new one.
We were also thinking about that, but the problem with armors (in their current implementation) is that they can be hard countered or act as one, while Drag's weapons attempt to implement soft counters. For example, (just two random trees in the following example btw) you researched mech engineering (which gives you comp armor and ml spam weapons), and the enemy researches electr. eng. (which gives him reactive armor and accurate weaponry). Now, imagine that reactive armor is very, very good against missiles.The reactive armor will be a hard counter against nearly all the missile weapons, knocking out half of the options that your team has and limiting their strategic choice severely. One "solution" is making a set of armors that is distributed across all the trees. The difference between each tree will be a unique ability of that armor that encourages teamwork. Drag and I were brainstorming and came up with stuff like a healing aura for infantry for biology, a small shield for tanks that protected infantry that are near them for physics, etc. Anyway, this creates soft counter armor: if you notice the enemy likes to use ML spam (each tree also has cannons and MGs, btw), you just use the anti-ML armor. The enemy will then have to mix and match his loadouts to be more effective against you. This way, gameplay becomes more dynamic and less of a "LOL I GOT UML UR FUCKED". A very important point is this system is making trees consistent. Trees should contain at least one item of a certain weapon type. This way, you can still differentiate between the trees with the amount of items per type. Selecting a certain tree will then be for its playstyle or its possibility for certain tactics. For example, Drag and I were thinking of making mech. eng. have armor that can cloak when still. It fits their ability to operate for long times without having to reload, making ambushing tactics very interesting when using this tree. A strong point of Empires' research is its variety, but its lack of transparency and consistency makes the learning curve very high and also shuts out a lot of interesting tactics. Sometimes, powerful combos do come up, but this occurs over the course of weeks or even months. And when a good combo has arrived, people keep using it until the next one comes by. These combos should occur far more rapidly, ideally every round. Currently, people just look for the strongest tactic they can find and use that until it is countered by another very strong combo. It's just a straight research line every single game. But imagine how interesting and fun Empires could be if these combos were different every time! Sure, there'd be teams who like to use the same playstyle, but it wouldn't be the best one available. For this to happen, we need to shift the focus of research from "best technology across the game" to "best strategy for that round, depending on what the enemy uses and what our team likes to do".
Currently, I don't think any armor has a hard counter, apart from possibly bio and absorbant. If you really want variety just unlock MORE armors, that will get you mixing and matching, there's no reason why the commander should research small parts of the tree if variety is what you're after. Play vehicletraining and you find that everyone chooses a different loadout, even a different chassis, so research can be made more open, unlock maybe two or three weapons and armor at a time, and make it easier to unlock ALL of them.
Indeed, dizzyone has worked hard on making the current research tree as consistent as possible without removing any weapons or armors. That's just a misinterpretation as Drag and I never discussed if the armors should be available from the start or researched. I do concur that they should be available from the start. We're hoping that through use of the tiered system we could gradually throughout the game give teams more options and tactics with their vehicles as they unlock higher tiers and more chassis.
I mean I don't think any armor has EVER had a hard counter, most of the armors are just general use, absorbant is only hard countered because it's a generally very weak armor, and bio is only hard countered because it has the bio weakness, which I've never really seen the point of. I don't really see the need for any of the gimmicks you suggested, I mean tanks work better when they work together just like infantry. I don't really see what else you need, the fun of teamwork doesn't come from having to depend on each other, that isn't much fun at all to be honest. The fun I always find in teamwork is people succeeding in a task, it's the pleasing efficiency of something which is complex yet highly functional. People can do that best by WANTING to work together, and you can't force that desire. Sometimes you'll have it and sometimes you won't. The game is fun when it's balanced, when the vehicles drive well and look damn good, and when the commander isn't a tard who can't research properly. All I really think is neccesary is ensuring that those conditions are met as often as possible, which means either automating research, or making it unnecceary, or making it very, very simple. It means reducing the number of vital tasks the commander needs to do, it means brushing up the handing of vehicles and weapons to a very high standard, and it means making it easy for people to work together but not forcing them to do it. Trying to force teamwork won't get you anywhere. Making success depend on whether you can work with other people won't make teamwork fun, it just means the game will suck more often because people can't work together, but making teamwork EASIER will make people a little more prone to it and stop the interface getting in the way when it does occur. People who work together will always have the advantage over people who don't, so you'll always have the fun of teamwork, I don't think it's a good idea to remove a lot of the fun of the game if teamwork doesn't occur because most of the fun of the game lies in teamwork. You can concentrate on making the game fun individually and teamwork will still be fun. Basically, you can't force people to work together, because they'll just find something else to do if they don't want to.
Chris, wtf? They're changing the armors, not forcing people to be rambos or forcing people to work together...what are you on about? And as to making research automated, then that kind of ruins the point of commanders surely and stops variety in the game. I don't think beerdude and drag are forcing anything, just adding the option for diversity and more strategy in each game, which is not a bad thing.
Did you bother to read ANY of that before replying? Because I don't think you did. Use your damn brain before you spout crap like 'diversity and strategy' without the faintest idea what you're saying.
Vehicletraining is like the district402 of vehicle combat. Its fun, but not representative of the gameplay of a comm map. Also, I think the fatal flaw of any armor variant change is that there is few ways of determining which research path the enemy is going. If you implemented some sort of research intel system, then I think this would work well.
Only in the sense that it has more resources than you normally get and there isn't a limited amount of research, which is entirely the point...
Yes it was very long and very random for this thread. I don't think you've comm'ed many games to know what you're on about. This game is meant to be complicated on purpose, not as simple as it can be to make it as even as possible.
And in the sense that there is no point in it at all apart from playing around in tanks. So what is the point you're trying to make? That you just want all empires rounds to be tank wars?
Well, currently it's complicated, but we'd like it to be deep. And Chris, tactics and strategy don't force people to work together, they just allow more approaches. The fact that you could have a cloaked vehicle phalanx that destroys everything isn't the same as us forcing you to do it. The armor extras like extra healing aura and such also doesn't try and "force" teamwork, it just offers an interesting incentive for using teamwork. Infantry who stick close to tanks get a minor perk compared to infantry who wouldn't (infantry squads would also be able to dish out these perks, but they wouldn't stack). But this reply is rather a wild guess. Could you explain where you feel I was implying forced teamwork?
I don't buy the 'Forced teamwork is bad' argument. All games force you into some type of gameplay, that's how they find their niche. The successful ones make it fun and rewarding to do that activity, but its still being forced. Why is forced teamwork any worse than forced capture-the-flag or forced deathmatch?
Im a little confused... this doesnt seem to jive with the OP... that was about armors having researchable resists. these examples seem out of place. about the OP - I like it.. but I hesitate to say that, I really like the idea of the resists, and getting them in response to the what the enemy (here's where chris has a valid point about balance) researches. let's say i got the armor, waited until it was obvious what weapon the other team had, then got the resist. that sounds like fun to me, you wait until you know, carry on with other research, then specialize it later. what's also cool is that if I just did that, and the other team knows theyre doing less damage, they change up their weapons. and, the whole time theyre doing that, I'm testing their armor with my weapon choices. I like the ability to react as a comm, but I fear it will take too long. because - if you researched reactive and went for a resist to MG's to counter an apc rush with DU - then that armor is locked in as the anti MG armor. now - you need a new armor when the HE comes out. taking into account the research times and cash flow, Im not sure it would be great if you had to go to the "next best" armor and specialize that one against HE... it just seems like you're playing chase the armor (and trying to get other shit done too) so - I like the idea but unless it was paired with a whole new research tree geared towards faster, cheaper research then I dont think it's feasible. ***************EDIT I am reading the new research tree thread now lulz ***************** **************2nd EDIT - Im leaving my post intact because I think it's relevant about locking armors into a role and im too lazy to change it BUT I just read the new research tree thread and I think this could work very well in that tree
