Research is free now. Will there be a deciding factor if we have a lot of "safe-bets" for research? Will there be a way to gain an advantage over the enemy like that? And aside from that...I think he said gas turbine is your safe bet. It's in the tree you always have to go into too. Maybe there'll be more choice once fission is online...and at least the armours seem viable by and large.
A "safe bet" isn't a research path that always safely destroys everything. Get that shit out of your head immediately. An example would be something like "Sketchy Composite Armor." It could be exactly like compo except it weighs 20/plate and costs 15/plate. Maybe it takes 30s to research and it's right next to Composite Armor. You've opened advanced machining. Now you have to choose whether you want legit compo or shitty compo. The good stuff takes three times as long and is much lighter, but it's a lot pricier. The shitty stuff is fast to research and won't rape your bank account, but won't be great for heavies. Decisions, decisions... Maybe I already have reactive and I need a heavy armor. The choice is easy. I probably made it before opening Advanced Machining. Maybe I don't have an armor and I need to arm some LTs and APCs. I know LTs can elegantly sport a 20 weight armor and APCs can deal with it. How much money do we have? Can we survive the extra minute with plain armor? This situation is a little murkier, but I might consider going for the shitty compo. Those kinds of choices simply don't occur in the current game.
That was never in my head. I was thinking something that works about average in most situations. I don't really get what you're trying to say, tbh. It sounds like you want to narrow the field an armour is effective in, in order to create more diversity? Or rather...more things you need to research..? To be fair there is space for a improved standard armour, but isn't that really filled by a quicker to research armour? I mean...it takes 150s to get most armours, which isn't very long tbh.
The effective "field" of each armor is already narrow. We're just currently almost always misusing armors, that is to say we're using them outside their "field." We have to, because there's only five of them. If by "diversity" you mean different for different's sake, then no. If by "diversity" you mean the right armor for the right job, then yes. Here's a quick test to see if the current research tree is doing its job. When you're comming, do you ever wish that you could customize the armor that you get? I don't mean change cost to 0 and increase HP to 1000. If you can think of a relatively balanced armor that would do a better job than any available armor, then the research tree has failed you. I would like to see less of those failures. Often times, I wish I had a lighter, cheaper armor. If I could cut reactive into half plates, I would love it. Honestly, that isn't a terrible idea for a daughter research off Reactive to get "Reactive Half Plates," but I'm getting off topic. It's not about having more bullshit to research, it's about having the right bullshit so you get exactly what the situation demands.
I know a lot of people are. It might just surprise you that being lead dev, clan leader, server owner and generally very connected means that I tend to be pretty informed of what's going on, even when I'm not playing. Maybe you've had a few bitchy sessions with some other notable spectators who don't play, but that isn't really the consensus. I'm sorry but this just isn't true. By all means, feel free to back up your absurd statements with fact, but don't feel obliged. There's absolutely no link between having a greater quantity of options and a greater quantity of strategy. You're really showing your lack of knowledge and experience here. Adding redundant research simply waters down strategy. It lowers the importance of what you choose as the differences between what you have are less important. By and large, anyone in their right mind is going to choose the most all-round compromise option, as it gives them the most options and the most adaptability. By adding more in-between options, you simply make the decisions less important. I really don't understand how you can't see this. If I added 200 new weapons, all slight variations on the previous one, then do you think that would in some way enhance the game? It's an absurd concept. Except that by adding more research in, you're lowering the differences between them all, and thus lowering the risk. Your argument is that you should have the choice of a non-risky option as commander, as that is a strategical choice. That's not a strategical choice, it's a no-brainer. If there's no risk then there's no reason not to take that path. Do you know what happens when one research is overpowered, as it has been nearly every past version? People take that option. Why? Because the best research option is the most adaptable, and the most overpowered option is always going to be the one that has the least weaknesses, rather than the most strengths. It's very simple. For a decision to be important, it must have an effect on the outcome of the game. By watering down research, that decision becomes less important. The choices don't matter as much. I'm happy to add more research and new vehicle weapons, when there are new functions for them. When I have new ways in which the weapons can act and be used. One thing you seem to keep forgetting is that you're talking about theoretical stuff here, given you've never tested your concepts. I on the other hand can talk fact. I've played with various sets of scripts, from Drag, Robotek, Weedy and numerous others. I've seen them all try different concepts out, including yours. It didn't work. We played over 100 rounds on of those sets, and after that 100 we realised how unimportant our choices were. Strategy is about more than "what is strong against baddies", though I understand this might be a difficult thing for you to grasp. It's about picking the right research for that map, taking the opposing team into account, their commander, and trying to counterpick what they go with. It's about deciding whether to focus on early game, mid game or late game. Whether to go for a slow pushing strategy across territory, or to go for fast attacks with mobility. All of these things are based on research. The moment you start adding things that are too adaptable, it waters that down. It means you don't really need to commit to a decision and can pretty much just go with whatever. This is a perfect example of redundant research. Yeah I can get a shitter version of this armour to tide myself over until the main version is viable, but as a player, I'm still using that armour in the exact same way as the main one, except it has less HP. But on the other hand, as a commander I've just watered down my commitment, left myself the option of going literally anywhere else within the research tree. If that's the case, then what's the point of picking one in the first place? I can just get any shitty tier 1 armour until I can go for a serious tier 2. I've delayed making a decision that I shouldn't be allowed to delay. I've shown my hand against the other team, but I can just change the cards at will. This back-and-forth is starting to get a bit unmanageable given the size. I don't really want to back down out of the argument because someone is so very very wrong on the internet, but I'd rather not write any more walls, given this is the point in which the vast majority of people have already stopped reading. The simplest thing I can say is, if I add more research, it'll be to add content which will have a new, unique role. I will not regurgitate the current content, change the stats a bit and call it new.
You're right about that. I wrote a big ol' post explaining why the thing that you called "risk" wasn't risk and you're a moron (surprising, eh?). Then I reevaluated my definition of "risk". I like to separate risk into two categories. Systemic and idiosyncratic risk, unavoidable and avoidable risk, respectively. I typically ignore the possibility of non-negligible unobvious systemic risk. In a perfect world, there shouldn't be any unintentional systematic risk. So if we take the perfect com and his perfect strategy (with no idiosyncratic risk) and throw him into Empires, he can't always pick the perfect research. He is perfect, but the system doesn't let him be perfect. Because his (perfect) team is using imperfect research, risk is introduced. The team might not win, not because they aren't perfect, but because the system is dragging down their efforts. It's important to be clear that this is a theoretical concept and you can't design a system that lets a perfect com always have his perfect research. But you can reduce the risk caused by this inherent imperfection. Adding more variation to the research tree allows the perfect com to get closer to his perfect research, reducing unnecessary risk. On a fundamental level, I don't like this kind of imperfection so I took serious issue with you not only tolerating it, but championing it as a positive part of the game. I can't tell you to feel a different way than you feel. That's absurd. But I have closure knowing that the system intentionally causes coms to lose when they shouldn't. EDIT And just to be crystal clear, the absence of a research queue is another example of this sort of unnecessary risk introduced by the system. The com's strategy could be perfect and bad shit can still happen to his team because of the system.
I think it's more of a poker kind of risk. You gamble on your hand, and the enemy comm does the same, but you both can't see what each other's cards are, you only know what they've thrown on the table. In contrast, I think what you're leaning towards Sparty, is a more strategic kind of play, similar to more rigid games. Not quite chess, but you feel that if you know the flow of the game, you should be able to pick (or at least see) the best path, always.
Don't get wrapped up the "perfection" thing. I know there's no perfect com. There's no perfect system where the perfect com can always win (or at least tie). The point of the "perfection" thing is to provide a goal, similarly to how people say you can't always win, but you can try. The bottom line is to demonstrate that we've not only abandoned our attempt at perfection, but we've actually moved in the opposite direction intentionally.
I don't think I mentioned perfection at all... :confused: You can always try to win, and actually you won't get penalised very much trying different options since research cost has gone. All that it costs you is time, and since the people actually in the field are the ones who determine whether you win or not, you usually have a chance unless you've lost. Once you get an engine, armour, weapons and chassis, you really should have enough room to breathe to get another type if your choice is faring poorly.
You mentioned a "best path" in a "rigid" game. The point isn't that a com exists that can choose the "best path," only that it should be possible. If that hypothetical com (and his hypothetically perfect team) can lose, then he loses because of random chance and not because his strategy was imperfect.
More rigid, but not rigid like chess where you can see all the paths clearly, if you know it. Is what I meant, anyway. I don't understand what this sentence means. Hmm, on reflection, wouldn't that mean you had something which would counter whatever the enemy had, much of the time? Excuse me, I don't understand where the random chance is exactly. No cards are turned over, ala poker, and no environmental factors happen randomly that I can tell. Players are not random variables either, not really. I don't really understand what you're trying to say, so I can't really talk to you.
I don't think that the current research choices are extreme enough, and I don't think they ever have been. Each research path always has to be viable and balanced. That means no underpowered or overpowered weapons/engines/armor. And no, I don't think that crazy weapons are necessarily good. From what I can tell, the crazy Empries was just mashing everything together for the heck of it, and of course that would make everything feel meaningless. Trickster, what ImSparticus is trying to say is that he wants most choices to be average so that the risky choices have more impact. Yes, if one path is too flexible then all choices are meaningless, but that just means that restricting flexibility is really important to get right. Let me try and sketch a super-simplified alter-Empires here. There's three phases of the game: Early, Mid, and Late. There's three levels of effectiveness: Strong, Average, and Weak. Scenario one: Two choices of research: Average and Weak. Weak leads to Strong, while Average doesn't lead anywhere. Commander A chooses Average, but Commander B is crazy and goes Weak. Team B manages to have equal map control and Commander B gets Strong.Team B wins during Mid phase. Now let's make this more complicated. Scenario Two: Strong-Early leads to either Weak-Mid or Average-Mid, and Average-Early leads to Strong-Mid or Average-Mid. Team A has Strong-Early, and is able to use that advantage to beat Team B's Average-Early. Team B is now defending. Team B can't afford to use Strong-Mid, so they go for Average-Mid. Team A also gets Average-Mid. During Mid phase, Team B is able to balance map control. If Team A had gone for Weak-Mid, they could have gotten Strong-End later, but Team A would be defending during End phase. Now see, what that lacks is that what we actually have is Early-Green-Strong and Early-Average-Yellow. A weak yellow might overpower an average green. What we don't have in the current system is Early-Green-Weak. If you go Biology, it's always going to be strong in early game. (Unless that's been changed?) There's good reason for this: If every color has weak, average, and strong, then it wouldn't matter much what color you chose because you could just counter anything. What I'd like to see is limited flexibility for each color. Late Purple might always beat Late Blue, but my path is going to get me Late faster. I choose Early-Orange-Strong and rush, but fail spectacularly. Do I have enough time to change color and eliminate my weaknesses, or are we going to have to use riskier strategies on the field to counter our opponent's advantages in Mid phase? More choice can be slathered everywhere and make all choices meaningless, but it can be added meaningfully. And more average stuff means that the riskier stuff can be riskier and give higher payoffs.
Yeah I wish there was at least 2 variations on each tree's engine/armor. So like 3phase electric being the lategame winengine/heavyengine and something like hybrid being an earlier game way to get an engine on a budget.
When you research, you need to consider 2 things primarily. 1) What is optimal for my team on this map. 2) What is optimal against the enemy team on this map. You can only really choose one of those. You can counterpick the enemy or pick for the map. Likewise, they have the same choices.
Sure, I get that. You pick out a research path to either do well and/or make sure the enemy doesn't do well. But what if that research doesn't exactly exist? Yes, it is a tough decision to pick which shitty extreme you should saddle your team with. That's one hell of a decision. But you're unhappy either way. That doesn't make a com feel in control. That makes a com feel like an agent of damage control. You're the doctor that has to tell a family that one of their own isn't going to make it. There's no good way to do it. There are just shitty ways and kinda shitty ways.
... What? There is always At least One thing you can Get that meets the presented criterium. Open map? 3 phase Time. Enemy spams nukes? Bio diesel. Two vocal people hate being told what to use? Ignore them. There is always one best combo to use in any given situation and it's up to the commander to get just the thing. And if you really strive for no extremes, the best you can get is absorbant, gas turbine and HE/UML. And it's already rather potent if used correctly.
What about four noobs that are liable to put out paper meds in the late game? What kind of research can guarantee that they can contribute (assuming they even customize properly)? I'm willing to give up a strategic edge in exchange for some insurance that my tanks are idiot-proof. I'll accept mediocrity because that's better than losing all of my tanks because they have reflective-fission.
If they're going to put out paper tanks, it doesn't matter what you research, because they're going to put out paper tanks. I don't structure research for people who can't customise a vehicle. The fact is, 90% of players will pick the armour that is on offer and the engine that is on offer, and if available, the weapon that is on offer. Once you start adding more then it's your job as commander to tell them what the should be getting. Research has nothing to do with the separate problem of them not listening.
Sure, so we should ignore the possibility of a miscustomized tank. That wasn't my point. I'm simply describing the kinds of players that we're dealing with. Those people don't get that they should keep their fission tanks in motion. They don't get that they should keep their coolant tanks mostly still. Both of those engines are almost worthless on pubs because they are too extreme for noobs to use. It doesn't matter if it's a small map. It doesn't matter what the enemy is doing. Coolant simply can't be used on a pub. Even in a situation where it should be very successful, it's possible to fail because of poor driving. Back to biodiesel! It sucks when you're damn sure that you picked the right kind of research, but it turned out to be the wrong research only because your team couldn't execute. There's no strategy that eliminates that risk. Is that kind of risk supposed to be accepted? Lived with? I don't like putting my team out there like that.
Any self respecting person will only fall for this trap once and they will either learn how to do it or ask others what they are doing wrong. They only have to notice that it's not the bad guys that made them stop in place.