I feel that any unit should remain viable throughout the game, situation-permitting. In SupCom, Tier 3 units were so much stronger than Tier 1 units that Tier 1 became all but obsolete. The most fun part of the game to me was always the Tier 1-2 transition, where pretty much anything goes. Once the mass of Tier 3 comes out, the game is just bashing giant armies together and may the best macroer win.
I also don't think that experimental/legendary units add strategic value to the game. They add flavor certainly, but it seems more of a marketing ploy to me. In SupCom 1, they catered more to the players who just wanted to sit back and play no rush 30. This was (partially) fixed in FA, but strategy-wise, I don't think they added anything more than just having another unit type. Gunning for an experimental isn't really a strategy, and games never usually reached the point where you had many of them in play.
I sincerely hope KnC takes a different approach to unit tiers. New units shouldn't just be flat out stronger than their predecessors. They should open new choices and change the combat dynamics, but they shouldn't simply replace other units. Games should not be decided by whoever builds a legendary unit first. More units does not automatically mean more strategy (and often times, it leads to less by restricting movement on the map).
I suspect I'll be flamed for this post.|||I somewhat agree; tiers should add more options to the player, not just bigger tanks.
But you are most certainly right by saying that T3 units just outclassed all their previous tiers.
Personally, I think most units should be at T1, the larger and more niche units at T2 (who should be less numerous than T1), and T3 being equivalent to experimental units.|||I think T2 is a bit underused in FA. Not that they didn't appear but that too few of the units were used widely. Sparkies aren't used every game, or even in 10% of games. MMLs before 3603 were relatively niche and rarely used. UEF and Cybran T2 tanks were less mass-efficient and were range-deficient compared to the skirmisher bots. Were T2 fighter-bombers used that much? I remember hearing that they were less mass-efficient than ints and their versatility was not enough of an offset to that. With the long fuel times of FA, refueling pads have been depreciated.
I just feel that FA was mostly T1 spam or T3 spam. T2 wasn't used as widely as T1 or 3. In most ranked games, T1 spam is most of the game with T2 often playing a support role. In longer, larger games, T3 (often air) is dominant as well as a few T4s to complement them. T2 seems to not get used much even though the units in the tier add some variety to the factions.
I think tiers can be implemented while keeping every unit useful. Tiers should not be just bigger and better versions of the previous tiers. T1 could be fast, high-damage, low hitpoints, so they would be good as raiders and a counter to T3 (more on that later). This also makes small games with only T1 (like an average ranked situation) faster, as now units are built and destroyed very fast. T2 could have more support-based units with more splash damage, longer sight ranges, and a bit more health but lower damage output overall. They would be good for supporting T1 and T3 armies by mopping up the T1 raiders. T3 units would have large amounts of hitpoints to break into heavily-defended bases, high-damage weapons with low RoF (like Percivals), and lower sight ranges and speed. That way they are good as base-busters, but are weak against raiders due to overkill and the slower response capabilities. They need T2s to give them longer sight ranges to fully use their weapons' ranges and kill the T1s. T4 if it's included will be more generalized, with multiple weapons, but far more expensive, require support from normal units (like in FA) and less mass-efficient than a mixed T1,2, and 3 army. These will be a combination of status symbols and game-ending weapons; they display the power of a faction and allow a game to end when normal armies cannot do it.|||BulletMagnet|||PS:
AngryZealot|||AngryZealot|||*points to supcom2*
Cause spamming rockheads all game long was so much more strategically sound than the mix of tiers in FA.
Uh huh.|||IMO, a Tier system should work like this:
T1: Specialized Standard Units (Soldier, Archer)
T2: Specialized Niche Units (Medic-Like Priest, Flying Unit)
Legendary: Overall Powerful Units (Dragon that can attack land, sea, and air units)|||sanman|||Upgrades in Sup2 made the same (if not very similar) mistake that FA made - completely outclassing earlier units in every way.
There's upgrades for damage, range, health, speed, cost. I'm pretty sure that every basic unit in Sup2 gets at least fours of those five upgrades. Someone should make a mod that removes most of those, and creates specific weaknesses for units.
Since KNC will have upgrades, I have to put my hope in GPG not making upgrades too encompassing.|||AngryZealot|||The only tier in FA I found useless and not cost efficient was T2..
If you aren't putting tier 1 cannon fodder in your tier 3 armies, then you're doing it wrong..
But yeah, there's gotta be something else than just tank, bigger tank, massive tank..
T1 should provide the basic units and from there on out they should specialize through-out the tiers.. There's shouldn't be a knight with better armour and more damage output in tier 2..
That's why I kinda like the idea of the shop(if added), because then you could BUY better armor for your knights and better swords, thus eliminating the fact that you get better by upgrading to the next tech..
All this might've been said before, but I'm pretty sick atm, so it was tl;dr, but I shall do so, when my brain starts working properly..
I really hope GPG nails it this time and reads this thread, because it's something that needs to be addressed so that t1 units doesn't just become cannon fodder again..|||Seems like we all have our own spin on this, but here's mine.
T1 units should be fast and weak, for early raiding. Their defining feature is that they are too weak to practically kill the ACU/King unit. This is an anti-rush mechanism to prevent games from finishing in the opening minutes, which allows slower strategies to get a foothold etc. LABs and scouts from FA fit this.
These units become niche later in the game, for when you need a raiding force that can outrun normal units. Or perhaps they can be upgraded with improved scouting/vision abilities, cloak/stealth etc.
T2 units should cover all the basic roles in the game. In FA, I'd say the main T1 units together with T2 units, fit this.
I think the next tier should be unlocked individually via research rather than as a tier.
These "experimental" units cover both giant expensive death machines, and smaller weird units, like stealth units, amphibious stuff, jump jetting land units, sniper units etc.
I think a page should be taken from Starcraft, and give groups of these units a different kind of gantry/factory. So if you see a "Spy Academy" being built, you'll know that the enemy will soon have Ninja Assassins or Stealth Cavalry, or both, etc.
So this final tier is for tricky sneaky stuff or huge deadly stuff that can break a stalemate in the normal land battle, or turn the tide if you are losing etc.|||i posted a similar thread in the suggestion subforum quite a while ago outlining something similar. T1 should be your basic units that are always useful: archer, footsoldier, pikeman/halbardier, etc. t2, or advanced units could be: knight, horse archer, skirmisher, etc. However i don't think that this is entirely applicable to the tech/research tree ct is aiming for.
Considering that CT is going for an AOE2 mechanic, i'm very certain that the tiers are like the various stages in aoe2, each tier unlocking more advanced units and research, so your t1 footsoldier would end up as a t3 longsword soldier. dito for archers & co.
Basic siege units (catapult & balista) are upgraded as you progress through the tiers eventually becoming heavy catapulsts and arcbalista, and unlocking gunpowder/magic siege weapons and trebuchets.|||I disagree with you AZ, i feel SC1/FA was a lot more tactically sound because of the variety and number of units you could have, and also because you had to balance between number of units built, and progressing to the next tier where you would need less units.
In SC2 i feel that they ruined the strategy of the game, you had only a handful of units per faction (excluding exps) and you just spammed these and upgraded them, never really unlocking a new better unit.|||Hazza616|||Get rid of tiers.|||AngryZealot|||scotchtape622|||chosan|||Ryuken|||Ryuken|||Here's my view, which I think differs from the three common opinions (No tiers, tiers of increasing power, tiers of increasing specialisation)
I think that as tiers increase, so should the unit's power. but so should their cost. To make this work, there would have to be none to minimal resource gathering increase through the tiers. All tiers would have a mix of jack-of-all-trades units and more specialised niche units.
I would balance it thus:
One T2 unit could cost the same as 10 t1 units. It should be able to kill 12 t1 units. However, the 10 t1 units have the obvious example of being able to split apart to flank an enemy, delay an advance, or distract an enemy so the other can move past and attack the vulnerable archers/houses/whatever in the back.|||@Mr Pinguin:
I find no flaw in your ideas (at least in your first post) and find them extremely brilliant. I am speechless beyond these words.|||As for tiers, the problem where higher tier units displace lower tier units can be solved by reducing unit redundancy. For example, rather than having a "basic footman" and an "elite footman", just have a basic footman, and maybe include some upgrades if the unit doesn't scale well.
As for legendary units, producing them needs to be independent from normal unit production. If their requirements are similar to those of normal units, they will compete with normal production, and you run into the problem where the player has to decide between reinforcing and upgrading his conventional army, or producing a super unit instead. Players should be able to do both at once. You could argue that the only possible way to balance that would be to make the super units generally weaker. I would say that you could just have some mid-tier hard counters* for all super units, instead of making them all generalists. Not that a single unit of pikemen will destroy your War Boar, but that the War Boar needs to either retreat or be supported if it's going to attack pikemen, for instance.
*EDIT: When I say "weaker" I mean "less health, less damage etc" not "less effective in general." So, what I mean is that the War Boar will be very powerful against anything that doesn't hard counter it.
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