Balancing OTA like mods/games
Posted: 16 May 2009, 18:24
I want to talk about balancing issues in OTA mods that rely on OTA as their basis for balance.
I will refer to OTA in several cases because of the fact that BA and other ota mods are and were influenced greatly by it and are an extension of it.
Missile Towers:
In BA The main defensive turret is the llt as opposed to OTA where it was the missile tower than could shoot land and air targets.
This effects the game in the following manner:
In BA air becomes a win or lose choice meaning,if you go air you either lose badly or win easily.
If the enemy notices you are building air (imagine a 1v1)he will build AA which will totally negate all your air attack plans if he does not notice your going air you will most likely to devastate his base/defenses/units because he will not spend resources on AA if he is not sure you have air to avoid being crushed by land forces if his opponent went land and had more resources cause he did not build AA nor air.
So air/land strategies do not involve any pushing and pulling,where one player can take the lead but than lose it and than regain it etc,like it happens with land battles.
All air requires,is to just choose when to go air at start and hope not to get scouted otherwise your dead.
If missile towers are the main defensive turret and can shoot both land and air it means That going air no longer involves winning cause u made one good choice and were lucky but becomes more like land battles I.E requires skill for a prolonged period of time in the game.
Combombs/comnaps/air drops:
Same here....
If the main defensive structure only shoots at land
Players will tend to not build AA until they see the first air unit at which time it might be too late and they will get combombed/comnapped or get a drop on them...
This is again a luck based strategy.
A player in team 1 (in a team game)cannot guess what his enemy is doing because there are many players(lets not talk about how good players should be able to guess whats happening because frankly that rarely happens especially in team games)so he will not build AA until he sees the first air unit or his allies see one.
This makes combombing comnapping and air dropping a very very lucrative strategy that is far more centralized than it should be because it requires much less skill than trying to outmaneuver your enemy's forces with your own and push him back.
All this is solved if the main turret is a turret that shoots both air and land.
Drops,comnaps and combombs are still possible but much less common and require more skillfull play by the players.
Air
Air in ota based mods,is very simplistic compared to how it was in OTA.
The main air unit is The fighter.why?
Because the fighter is the toughest air to air unit for cost thus he who has more will have bigger chances of assuming control over airspace.
So...
How do fighters in spring ota based mods fair against fighters in OTA?
In OTA fighters were much more microable and required much more skill and unit control than in spring OTA mods.
In OTA fighters were microed(they behaved differently than in spring which allowed them to be more microable) and were played with,almost like land units.
IN spring,fighters are almost impossible to micro,they have huge turning arches which means they are clumsy and get into places you don't want them and its impossible to control a group of fighters because they scatter and get hit by AA and other sources of fire.
The only way to do something with fighters is to set them on patrol to defend a line or set them on patrol towards and enemy line of fighters and hope your fighters will win since you cannot do much to help them.
I will refer to OTA in several cases because of the fact that BA and other ota mods are and were influenced greatly by it and are an extension of it.
Missile Towers:
In BA The main defensive turret is the llt as opposed to OTA where it was the missile tower than could shoot land and air targets.
This effects the game in the following manner:
In BA air becomes a win or lose choice meaning,if you go air you either lose badly or win easily.
If the enemy notices you are building air (imagine a 1v1)he will build AA which will totally negate all your air attack plans if he does not notice your going air you will most likely to devastate his base/defenses/units because he will not spend resources on AA if he is not sure you have air to avoid being crushed by land forces if his opponent went land and had more resources cause he did not build AA nor air.
So air/land strategies do not involve any pushing and pulling,where one player can take the lead but than lose it and than regain it etc,like it happens with land battles.
All air requires,is to just choose when to go air at start and hope not to get scouted otherwise your dead.
If missile towers are the main defensive turret and can shoot both land and air it means That going air no longer involves winning cause u made one good choice and were lucky but becomes more like land battles I.E requires skill for a prolonged period of time in the game.
Combombs/comnaps/air drops:
Same here....
If the main defensive structure only shoots at land
Players will tend to not build AA until they see the first air unit at which time it might be too late and they will get combombed/comnapped or get a drop on them...
This is again a luck based strategy.
A player in team 1 (in a team game)cannot guess what his enemy is doing because there are many players(lets not talk about how good players should be able to guess whats happening because frankly that rarely happens especially in team games)so he will not build AA until he sees the first air unit or his allies see one.
This makes combombing comnapping and air dropping a very very lucrative strategy that is far more centralized than it should be because it requires much less skill than trying to outmaneuver your enemy's forces with your own and push him back.
All this is solved if the main turret is a turret that shoots both air and land.
Drops,comnaps and combombs are still possible but much less common and require more skillfull play by the players.
Air
Air in ota based mods,is very simplistic compared to how it was in OTA.
The main air unit is The fighter.why?
Because the fighter is the toughest air to air unit for cost thus he who has more will have bigger chances of assuming control over airspace.
So...
How do fighters in spring ota based mods fair against fighters in OTA?
In OTA fighters were much more microable and required much more skill and unit control than in spring OTA mods.
In OTA fighters were microed(they behaved differently than in spring which allowed them to be more microable) and were played with,almost like land units.
IN spring,fighters are almost impossible to micro,they have huge turning arches which means they are clumsy and get into places you don't want them and its impossible to control a group of fighters because they scatter and get hit by AA and other sources of fire.
The only way to do something with fighters is to set them on patrol to defend a line or set them on patrol towards and enemy line of fighters and hope your fighters will win since you cannot do much to help them.
