Ground combat is 1 dimensional. Can we get a megabot already?

I know it's been brought up and discussed before, but every game I play from the ones with my friends to the games with total strangers I hear the same thing over and over. The ground combat is extremely repetitive. Swarm unit x or y better than opponent A and B. While this might be a design choice, I (and everyone I seem to talk to outside this forum) don't like it. There seems to be no benefit to teching for ground combat. Again, I know it's a design choice and a few people here are a vocal minority when people suggest change, but you have to remember that swarming is only 1 possible play style in most RTS games for a reason. PA needs to cater to a few different ones (like teching instead of swarm) or it risks alienating itself to all but that vocal minority. Anything can be balanced, and I firmly believe an alternative to the ground swarm needs to be put in and balanced in order to make ground combat more like "rock, paper, scissors" than "heads or tails" if you know what I mean...

There are other options to "mass unit combat". Like Artillery. Still yet, it isn't always the mass of the army. You can meat-grinder someone's army, turn a large army into wreckage without any losses on your side, if you were to use flanking and pouring out the sides from a turret perimeter.

Basically, it is how you use it, not how big it is. (giggity)

Seriously though, they are thinking of adding unit roles. It is probably not going to be "megabot" if it can be avoided. It will probably be things that actually play a role. Units that act as weaponless armor. Units with longer ranges. Units to "spot" for other units (even basic units range exceed their vision). Repair units. And "formations" to use all these things with. I already try occasionally to set up fabricators as repairmen for incoming attacks and to build a flank from the sides, and while it is possible it is a lot of tedious work without formations. With formations, you could have sponges up front, heavies behind that, kiters behind that, rangers behind that, and healers behind that. Or, any row behind row set-up you have access to. And, any shape, such as umbrella or cone.

That being said, "megabots" can probably be balanced. They could even have a role and actually be considered, if they had a high health but a "damage threshold" where they die instantly when reached but besides that soak a lot of damage. Another role idea is if it's single unit damage was low but it had large AOE with low damage meaning it defeated blobs faster but not individual units, so as to have a purpose and weakness.

Honestly, at this point, we hear this request so much, we should just throw a "megabot" in, with a role and not too terribly mega, and make it seem overwhelming without being overwhelming, just to say there is one to keep this from getting asked so often.

It just never made any sense to me why anything used "so often" would be considered "experimental" or why anything would need to be "mega" if these war machines build these small units in mass anyway.

At this point in time, I don't agree with you that "Mass Unit Combat" has alternatives, but I know that this will change by release because Uber is adding new units before then. What you describe as an alternative is more on the tactics and strategy side, but in the end with both players being of = skill the 1 with the bigger army still wins. Either way, more micro is not the solution for this game...

I think the "megabot" (I agree the the term "experimental" is not fitting) can most certainly fit a role in the form of a support unit and would have the secondary bonus of checking a box very many people want checked. The scale of the game can be realized not only with the # of units, but the scale of those units as well. That and it lends itself better to the macro playstyle than many factories and bots as you can "set and forget" it's construction far better than a multitude of factories and fabbers all working on different projects IMO.

I think this problem has at least 2 facets:

1. Unit Variety
2. Playstyle Variety

#1 is already being addressed to my knowledge. Mavor made a thread asking for ideas about new units and came away with a treasure chest of great ones! Playstyle variety, however, seems to be stagnant with not hope of revision in sight. there is only 1 viable style I know of (swarm) and it certainly doesn't appeal to everyone. Others like territory control with defense creep, teching, turtling, rushing, etc are just not viable. I'm not saying every playstyle needs to be viable, but the more players you cater to the more players can have fun playing the game their way and the less predictable your opponents become.

Of course combat is currently one-dimensional, we have such a limited selection of units available to us.

Adding a megabot would make the current situation worse in my opinion. You would just hit a threshold where the megabots are more effective than whatever unit you were mass previously.

Mike

I think a few extra units (not necessarily a megabot) and better usable orbital/navy with a bit more map variety (more reliable non moon map generation) should fix this all.

That's a truth that holds true for all RTS I would say.

The megabot has a 40 something page discussion on it. The conclusion we last heard from Uber is that it wasn't going to be implamented. I also agree with KNight, a megabot would just make the game worse.

Also, we can't really start complaining about this until we have a full unit roster.

Remember guys, the game isn't yet complete.

Actually last I heard it was planned to be implemented after release... but planned none the less. Of course adding a single unit all by itself won't improve things, but when all the other units are added the megabot still makes sense because it caters to another playstle other than swarm such as teching (and the lack of playstyles is at the heart of my worries for release). I don't feel map generation, naval or orbital are going to help ground combat in particular be more diverse playstyle wise, just as a more diverse ground combat would not make naval more diverse...

Now if your adding hovercraft for example, that's a different story...

Ground combat... oh well
If you only look at ground units you currently have already a bit of diversity in:

should I rush bots? should I rush ants? should I rather defend using turrets and try to quickly tech to t2?

Yes it needs tweeking and a few more unit roles need to be filled, but it has a bit of diversity already.
True diversity however shows more in the interactions between different unit layers imho. Only considering one of them of course removes a lot from the game.

If you have a non-diverse ground layer, adding a non-diverse air/orbital/naval layer doesn't add playstyle diversity, only unit diversity. At the heart of each of those layers is still a lack of playstyle diversity, no matter which combination of them you decide to spam. "should I rush bots? should I rush ants? [should i rush Turrets]" is all still rush something, it's all still spam something.

To clairify I'm not just talking about ground combat, but for simplicity I'm using it as an example. I believe an mega air/naval/orbital unit is also a good idea to make additional playstyles viable for them as well.

Having multiple layers interact with each other should -if done right- increase diversity from what I understand.
Not to mention that having 3 different layers in itself means diversity already.

The turret example was actually meant to stand for fast tech. No matter how fast you tech you always need some sort of defense until that point. So yeah you basically always need to rush your stuff out. You are trying to win the game after all and being quick about building an army is pretty important for that.

Also you can boil down everything to "just spam something". That's what any RTS is about.
So once you add megabots people will just start to spam megabots in the lategame. Have a look at some FA game-setups how it looks when people spam t4.

What is a diverse game? How does it look like? Can you give a more in depth example of such a game?

There will most likely be a hovercraft. It's even in the game files.

Point being, we have a very small unit roster.

Wait until we have more units to pass judgement.

The game is in beta.

To be honest, there is no greater thrill then to kill a larger blob of tanks then with a smaller flanking attack of bots.

And the same can be said of all RTS games, where mashing blobs into one another can only get you so far, you must find ways to literally alter the battlefield into you favour. These include:

Using faster nimble units to kite and avoid the enemy death blob while running through their own base.

Drawing a larger enemy force into a pre planed net of turrets.

Hitting the enemy from two sides to maximise the disadvantage of their turret turn rates (Currently very hard to do in PA, but works for turrets).

Using a suicide squad of units to strategically remove enemy radar or AA to give the advantage with an areal assault, or with a sneak attack!


The battlefield is only as one dimensional as you choose to leave it.

This is just wrong imo. Most people, like you, think that implementing a megabot would destroy the game, becaise they think that a megabot would necessarily have to be like experimentals in supcom. And that can be avoided fairly easily.

One example would be to give them fairly low hp in comparison to their ressource cost, which in return would make them dependant of having small units around acting as a meatshield. Voilà, you have created a unit that complements smaller units instead of replacing them. It can be balanced so that the swarming mentality gets preserved, and i guess that's exactly what is important to you. (And no, the argument that you could protect megabots with megabots doesn't count if they have low hp, because then protecting them with something like ants would be much more cost efficient)

I too like the design choice of having big armies fight each other instead of small amounts of big units, and definitely am in favor of preserving that. But imo a metagame that is about good unit compositions, which include many small swarming units and some big units is much more interesting than just spamming one type of small
Unit.

But I think we had that discussion before. My point is that megabots definitely don't have to be like experimentals in supcom.

And @brianpurkiss
Where did you hear uber say that megabots won't be implemented? Link pls

Edit: I have the feeling that some people here were so disgusted by the experience they had with experimentals in supcom (which I can understand) that they want to prevent anything that even remotely reminds them of that, even if it doesn't have anything to do with it. But that's not reasonable fear, that's just paranoid imo...

Look, didn't Uber already prove that they're listening to the community closely? Don't you think that even if they implemented megabots and made them like experimentals in supcom (which they most certainly wn't because they already said that they wanted to avoid experimental units like in supcom), that there wouldn't be a huge uproar in the community and that Uber would adapt to that immediately? And don't tell me that we can't trust the community on this matter. I didn't meet a single person who wants supcom experimentals back in this game, yet.

I'd say ta spring is about as diverse as you get due to huge range of unit types.

The most typical start to a game is still to rush of course, but there are many other tactics that are risky but potentially devistating depending on what your opponent does...

Examples- against a player who com pushes, you can place mines on a forward expansion point and potentially kill him really early. That requires more energy and will set you back on ground units however so if he doesn't fall for it your in trouble...

Early emp drones can also be devistating if your opponent doesn't send aa units with his forces. An early bomber rush coupled with fast com expansion using a trans works well but it's vulnerable to fighters.

Players who spam large groups of light units can easily be dealt with using a few riot tanks that have shock damage, I could go on...

Still none of the needs mega bots (spring does have them but they are only used very late game and not always even then). All of the above is t1 btw. Point is pa will probably implement most of this once units are fleshed out. Rob

I completely agree with the OP. As a game, the major feature of PA that's missing for me is fun.

The main thing is that so far, every game feels the same and there's simply not the thrill of a strategy. But the problem to that is as easy as the solution: there are too few units to have much variety and at the same time, the solution (more units) is already being worked on.

So it's one of those unsatisfying but true answers: it's known, it's being worked on.

Or from a shore with ships (which outranges ground and shreds a chokepoint). Or with units pouring forth from turrets. Or with units backed with repair fabricators. Or with a commander assisting an assault.

All are hilarious things to do to juke a large assault force against a smaller one.

I can see people not having a "form of attack that resonates with them", a form of "signature playstyle". However, I would like to see anything from "unit suggestions" thread than anything from "megabot" thread. Radar and radar interaction. Transports. Ambush units. AOE units. Kiters>Meaties>Rangers>Kiters...

If people want some unit that is "unique and signature", some form of icon or meme to use as one's signature and avatar on internet forums for others to recognize, then those might be good too, but they don't have to be "mega", just key-role. They can make anything that feels like it turns crap right around on enemies into that. A healer unit. An ambush unit. The "recluse" for instance...

thetrophysystem I feel like you hit the nail on the head with your comment about "a form of attack that resonates with them". For me, I enjoy teching in RTS games instead of rushing and swarming for instance. To me, a large and powerful unit embodies that technical superiority against a mass of swarming little bots. All tatics aside I think both philosophies should be equally viable and the choice of how to win left to the player to decide.

if we think of FA, spawn is the best strat, but you can go to a early T-2, and things like that, but is because there a lot of units there, when the game is released, and there a lot of units here, you will be able to make a Early T-2, or something like that

As someone who routinely made Krogoth blobs in TA, Experimental blobs in SupCom and SupCom 2, massed ComBot forces in Metal Fatigue, and always deliberately aimed for the game-enders in all the other RTSs I've played, I'm fairly confident I know why you're asking for a megabot. I won't lie and say I wouldn't like one myself, however I'm not sure I would benefit from it.

I've been spamming broken units for decades, usually T4 gunships, as air>ground in most cases. With the current unit roster in PA, I'm a little out of my depth, and I'm having to relearn how to play when I don't have something huge and terrifying (or rather, 15+ huge and terrifying somethings) just finishing off in the background ready to pull my backside out of the fire.

It's taught me that I'm nowhere near as good at these things as I thought I was. Megabots are my crutch, and without them I find out I'm struggling to stand... 20 years of playing these games, and apparently I've not progressed much.

I don't think megabots (or any mega-unit on any layer) are going to add a dimension to the game, they just become a bigger unit with bigger guns. Don't make them powerful enough for the cost, and there's little reason to use them, making them useless. Make them too powerful, and they become the de-facto optimal unit to build, invalidating all the previous tiers of unit as purely stepping stones. And here's the kicker; give them the same hp/damage per unit cost as the lower tier units (make one megabot exactly equivalent to X tanks in damage, survivability and cost), and you have the interesting decision of whether one megabot is really going to be more advantageous than actually having X tanks instead.

I'm starting to suspect that X tanks may actually be the better investment, even though my usual playstyle would be to jump right in to the top tier units...