And you know that how? By investigating sample size 1?

when pr0gam0ring type this:
!setoptions unlocks=0

most of the 'experienced BA players' who reject ZK out of hand for unlocks, overdrive etc are those who dislike change of any shape or form anyway (you know, the ones who have played BA, DSD, 8V8 exclusively for the last 3 years). There is no point bending over backwards to reach that audience when there are new players coming into spring all the time.

Idunno, most of the old-guard RTS fans I talk to love the idea of the flat balanced tierless tree, love the idea of the eco system, but are uneasy about the unlocks and absolutely squicked by the idea of the comm upgrades.

except, if you play the game for more than about 3 hours you have unlocked everything important. crying on this account is ignorance.

com upgrades are mostly just for fun (they are not cost effective in a serious game) so crying about this is likewise pretty puzzling..

I suspect the issue is "comm upgrades" imply some people have intrinsically better comms than other people (lol i win because i higher level), when this is not the case - you have to spend ingame resources to get these better comms, just like units.

It sounds bad but I agree with the people Pxtl talked to and I got to 'balance' a lot of it. So if they looked into it they would discover that it is not that bad. Unfortunately this does nothing for the first impression.

The first impression is that unlocks clash with the "every unit is essential."

Whoever said "every unit is essential" got the language slightly wrong.

Every unit is useful, not essential.

You don't need to build everything in the game every game.

yeah, in my first games I was all 'omg he has a level 4 com with 8000HP and I cant even customize my commander yet, this is BS'

..then I learnt about the metal cost of modules and upgrades

would be nice if new players had a way of being kept together so the first games are not against the players who are all geared up and ripped?

you misunderstand me, what I'm saying is that the ability to morph commander is not any kind of advantage. Commander morphs are very overpriced, its the kind of thing you only do when you are already winning, for cheese or when leaking metal. Fighting players with more unlocked than you is no hardship. Fighting players better at the game than you ofc is, but thats hard to prevent because 99% ZK community all piles into the one big 8v8 game

It would still be nice if ZK started you out with a very limited inventory of Comm gear so you could do a *little* fiddling and upgrading instead of starting you out with *zero*.

you get the choice of four bois

Also, that tagline was written before unlocks were a thing.