How many factions are there?

I just read a post in a thread from August where it says one of the ways of keeping the games cost down is to have "only one set of units"

That doesn't mean all the factions have exactly the same units right? and while we're on the subject has it been announced how many factions there will be yet?

Wrong.

And no, we don't know how many Commanders will be in the shared pool yet. And we probably won't know until sometime into the Beta. I'm guessing they'll keep adding Commanders as needed until they've run out of paired abilities.

Yes that is what it means. th only differentiating factor will be Commanders based on what we know so far.

Mike

So all the factions have exactly the same units? that doesn't sound very exciting, is everyone happy with that?

Seeing as how there will be alot of units and modding will be extremely prevalent it's an acceptable compromise to keep balance good and get the game out sooner.

Yup

You're saying that the idea that you always have all the strategic options available to you boring?

What about the idea that the stats you know about your units, you also know about your opponents?

What about the singular faction having twice the number of units as 2 factions? Is more Variety Boring?

It sounds boring, but from a gameplay aspect there aren't any huge downsides.

Mike

Hmm this sounds very strange to me as I can't think of a single RTS game where the game only has one faction but then it may be my perspective is a bit different from other peoples here as I am purely an SP player and never play MP -is this normal to you guys, do you always set the MP battles up so you fight against players who are controlling a different caste of the same faction as you are?

I was already aware that there wasn't going to be an SP campaign but the Galactic conquest mode where I'm fighting against.................me that doesn't sound so much fun anymore oh dear

Uber can we not have just one other faction pleeeeeease?

I get the feeling you don't fully understand exactly what you're asking for here.

EDIT: Okay thta might have been a bit too sharp, might be better to say that there are a lot of factors that go into making Factions.

Mike

I would have thought that it's the games mechanics that are the hard part (environment, movement, animations etc), a different faction just involves a bunch of new skins over the existing models and a tweak of the units stats so the second factions units do and take different amounts of damage.

That kind of faction creation only leads to bad factions.

Things to consider;

Units cost money to create art assets for, and the factions need to be visually distinct, usually to the point that assets are each created from scratch. Uber is working on a very tight budget due to self funding/Kickstarter, so to make more than one faction would result in roughly half the number of units compared to a single faction.

Also regardless of the exactly style of faction creation, as long as the units are different in any respect, you exponentially increase the amount of work required to balance everything out. Balance is a very complex system, and even more so in a Simulated environment like seen in TA, SupCom and Soon PA.

Last major consideration component is the style of Faction, Starcraft Features completely unique(even the things they share, like harvesters, feature unique aspects) units and play styles, these tend to be the most expensive to create because they are the most involved from a design aspect. the next option is factions as seen in SupCom, they feature units that fill similar roles, but often many of the details differ to the point of creating different gameplay experiences(compare the Mantis, Striker and Aurora and note all the differences), these are still fairly involved thought, each unit type has to be crafted specifically to be unique from it's counterparts in the other factions.

Another possible Faction type is just doing a visual difference, this still costs a lot from an art asset perspective, especially considering they then need to make sure the factional aesthetics are unique enough to ensure that players can reliably identify all units at a glance.

One faction looks boring, but imagine it like playing Starcraft 2 with one mega faction, you open with a 6pool, then 4 gate, and finished off with a Terran mech play, it leads itself to allowing the player to play in thier unique way by using s selection of a large number of options. The Ultimate End Goal in my eyes is providing enough units that 2 players each using different strategies, won't even need to build any of his opponent's units and vice versa.

Mike

Empire earth, rise of nations, age of empires, age of mythology, black and white, and populous. Some of these contain factions with one or two units that are different and maybe some stat adjustments. It sounds like those sorts of things will be affected in PA by which commander you choose, so this is not a new idea and a lot of these games are very well known, very well liked games.

TA itself had very little factional differences, especially in OTA.

Neutrino has commented in the Backer's Lounge that Commanders will NOT affect your units, either in unit selection or stats in any way.

That is still subject to change of course, but so far it isn't looking likely.

Mike

knight brings up a lot of good points

i'd rather see them add new units to the existing game before an additional supcom style faction.

there are however low-cost alternatives to additional factions that would add factional diversity e.g. a perk system. i'm more concerned with the basic gameplay and alpha testing though.

The problem is that those 'low cost' systems end up more so as gimmicks and lack any depth.

I just feel that trying to apply 'perks' doesn't work so well when dealing with something as broad as an RTS army and works much better when applied on a smaller scale as seen in something like Fallout 3.

I think people are underestimating how much of an impact unit variety can have, which is prolly SupCom/FA's fault due to how it's Tier were structured. Look at Starcraft2, even with it's pitiful unit selection you rarely, if ever, see every unit a race has in a single game, and with PA we're looking at a setup that will have much, much more Variety in part due to having a single Unit Pool.

Add in the different planet Biomes and such, and it really adds up.

Mike

Hmm, kinda shocked that there will only be a single faction. But i guess its a good thing in a way. I will probably get used to it.

The last thing i want is Uber introducing a 2nd faction that is basically a re-skin of all the units and buildings, i.e. same functionality, stats etc etc. They better not do that...

I highly doubt they would do that, since it would defeat half the point of having a single faction, ie. less work required to make it.

In this topic seems like everyone is just talking about gameplay drawbacks in the game of having a unique faction. I am sincerly mostly concerned about lore. For what I've seen in the video there is no backstory, or anyway it's very lame. Why are these machines fighting if they are the same? Because the original creator said so? Dunno.. 2 factions could better explain why there is war. IMHO or you make a good story with war between commanders that use same technology. Or you state precisely "THERE IS NO DAMN STORY" this is an Arnold Schwarzenegger game. Commando style. We kidnap you're daughter you kill everyone becomes we detonated you planet you will detonate every other planet from here to eternity and wins who detonates them all first.

There are lots of factions ftloser, They just use the same units because they are already the best units there are for the job.

"Technology has been captured, assimilated, refined and transformed into brutally efficient self-replicating mechanisms of war..."

Everything uses the same tech, because it's the best tech... why would a robot use a different piece of tech if there is already one that is considered the best?