1 faction discussion thread

[HeavyLancer]

Continuing on from this thread: http://springrts.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=20304

1 faction page on CA trac

So, the 1 faction idea has been thrown around by a few people. I'll put down my opinion here to start the thread.

I think that having only one faction is totally feasible. It introduces many new features and solves a few old problems. It has the potential to solve balance problems, it could lower the learning curve for new players, and could even be perfectly compatible in terms of storyline.

As others have outlined, it solves balance problems. It is, in many ways, the ultimate expression of flat balance. There are no game-breaking choices to make before the start of the game, and there is as much variety as you want available to you. Also, instead of having to balance intra-faction combos against another and even nastier cross-faction combos in team games, it can condense them to make them easier to solve. Note that there are still problems present, but from a play-testing perspective it should be easier.

Now, think back to when you first played an RTS. Often you had to play the tutorial as one particular faction, only to go and play as the opposite side in an actual game. Did it get confusing to re-learn all of those units and their functions, even when they sometimes had the almost the same role/function as a unit on the other faction? Without unnecessary duplication of units, it makes it easier to learn how to play an RTS.

Finally, it could even make sense story-wise, especially given the science fiction background of CA. If you have two intelligent, adaptable robot factions, wouldn't they take the best designs and concepts from each other to use? It's convergent evolution in action. Wouldn't it be the ultimate irony to have two ideologically opposed robot factions steadily becoming like another as they fight? I'm no fluff writer, but I'm sure it has potential.

That's about it for the moment, feel free to discuss/debate/deconstruct these ideas.

[bobthedinosaur]

I don't play CA, but something you could do is have it multiples factions that are almost 1 faction. such as each faction 90% of the units are the same but 10% are special or super weapons for the faction alone (such as dune 2 did it)

[Argh]

I vote yes, because it means that CA is IP-free that much sooner.

Moreover, it fits the "backstory". These are former military AIs commanding armies of killer robots, or whatever. They're probably not going to have two distinct "sides", but are rather going to represent the centuries of competitive weeding-out... so each unit is the evolutionary result of centuries of combat (which has a cool ring to it).

I think this solves a lot of problems for CA as a project, myself:

1. Reach the IP-free goal sooner.
2. Can quit worrying so much about artistic styles to differentiate the two sides (and artists can feel free to do more individual designs, meaning less hassle with art direction in general- big plus).
3. Less complaints about "two sides that are practically the same thing".
4. More opportunities to experiment and come up with new and unique unit concepts, without worrying about destroying per-side balance. Adding a new unit with a really cool power won't destroy the gameplay- at worst, it'll make something else obsolete.
5. Easier maintenance of the project as a whole.


And, best yet... if you guys ever decide to put in a new faction, like the GPL-friendly reworks of the Chickens and the Wolfen that I'm working on for P.U.R.E.'s next release... if CA's down to one really polished side, then balancing vs. a side with a small unit count should be fairly easy, in terms of nerf/buff, instead of the gigantic pain in the arse balancing huge sides vs. each other is. Lord knows, I know what that's like- I have four sides, each with completely different economies, and it's driving me nuts

[Otherside]

I voted no, one of the main reasons i like CA is because each factions feels and plays differently. And it would involve culling many units and basically dumbing down CA aswell as having a total mismatch of style of units with core and arm units looking totally different.

Ive already voiced my concerns for IP free rush before so i wont bother explaining it.

[Karotte]

Ive voting for NO! i want to have 3 Fraction. because the Fractions give the game a "story", a reason why do you have to play this, a war between good and bad, black and withe, and so on.

With one fraction do you lose this

[Gota]

Ive already voiced my concerns for IP free rush before so i wont bother explaining it.

Where you subsequently muted?
LOL

[Licho]

I agree with pretty much every arrgh point except for 3 - we dont have much of this..

And i actually think we could make 2 factions that are identical except for some high end units or perhaps different commanders (and their upgrades).

Chickens are planned to be a full faction too , but thats very long term goal.

[Pxtl]

I vote yes, on the condition that the "1 faction" thing is used to more factories to the build list. Thus, there is a bit of "factionism" in the first moments of the game when you choose your starting fac, but as more factories make a showing everybody's got access to the same units.

I want a second naval lab (put shallow-hull boats like skimmers and destroyers in a "river boat" lab, and deep-hull boats and subs in the "ship" lab, give the "ship" lab the corvette so it can have a raider, and bring back Caydr's old floating-Tremor and bertha-boat for the "boat" lab). I want separate spider and jumper labs. I want standard k-bots to all have radar-stealth, so then you have 4 different bot labs to choose from each with a lab-wide special power (amphibs/stealth/spider/jumper).

But that's just me.

[Karotte]

Chickens are planned to be a full faction too , but thats very long term goal.

If this would be true you have filled my suggestion of 3 Fractions

[HeavyLancer]

Pxtl:
I totally agree with you there on the "brown-water" (river) and "blue-water" (sea) fac ideas for ships. Perhaps we could put subs in blue-water, and hovers in brown-water?
However, I think that for bot labs, there should really be a spherebot lab (basic kbots), amphib (using some of maackey's core bots) and all-terrain. Stealth makes sense in spherebot and all-terrain labs, amphib could get jumpers maybe?
I envision an amphibious bot lab being more centred around land assault and riot units with some sea combat based skirmishers to back them up.

Licho:
What's the point of having the high end stuff for commanders in seperate factions? If it's morph based, then it could still be implemented within 1 faction (CoH command trees anyone?)

Karotte: If you want to have 3 factions with unique storylines and unique combat units and abilities for each one, then more power to you. If the CA devs already have trouble balancing 2 and keeping them unique, then there are some pretty daunting obstacles out there for 3. The only good 3 faction RTS I can think of atm is StarCraft, and it's unit count was tiny compared to TA. It's the opposite of what we are trying to discuss here.

Good stuff guys, keep it coming.
[Mao]Let a hundred flowers bloom, and a hundred schools of thought contend.[/Mao]

[Karotte]

Karotte: If you want to have 3 factions with unique storylines and unique combat units and abilities for each one, then more power to you. If the CA devs already have trouble balancing 2 and keeping them unique, then there are some pretty daunting obstacles out there for 3. The only good 3 faction RTS I can think of atm is StarCraft, and it's unit count was tiny compared to TA. It's the opposite of what we are trying to discuss here.

Fuck, ok then let it be by 2 Fraction, or made a new mod

PS: isnt Surpreme Commander balanced?

[Pxtl]

Chickens are planned to be a full faction too , but thats very long term goal.

If this would be true you have filled my suggestion of 3 Fractions

I don't think Chickens can ever be a "full" faction. It falls down for 2 reasons:
1) The sheer number of units
2) Differentiation. Logos and Nova are coke/pepsi - similar, but with a a slightly different flavour. Chickens are Orange Crush.

Either you make Logos or Nova into Root Beer or Cream Soda (that is, completely rework their entire economic model and build tree to be as weird as the chickens) or alternately you have 2 "real" factions and 1 "weird" faction.

Also, 3-4 factions is the hardest number of factions to do.

If you have 1 faction, it's easy. No differentiation.
If you have 2 factions, it's easy. If there are 2 balanced ways to do something, then you can assign A to faction 1, B to faction 2.
If you have many factions (5+), it's easy - you can randomly assign traits around. If 2+ factions have a matching trait, it's no big deal.

If you have exactly 3 or 4 factions, it's hard. That's because there are very few gameplay concepts where there are exactly 3 or 4 different practical ways to do something, and it's kind of expected that you're going to heavily differentiate them. It's always a bit of a stumbling block when you have common-common-weird for a gameplay feature - look at Starcraft with the Zerg's larva-morphing vs conventional building with the Terran and Protoss. If the Terrans had conventional building, teh Zerg had morphing, and the Protoss had Something Else, then the larva-morphing wouldn't look so weird.

So yeah, keep the chickens as a set of units you can use for missions, special scenarios, creeps, etc. Make special missions that involve the players using them as a faction. But trying to flesh them out as a full player-race for a standard multiplayer game seems futile and wasteful.

[lurker]

We already have a lot of complaining when a unit performs differently against the two factions. If we get a proper third going, and make it standard to have different effects for different factions, it might help that a lot. Or it might be better to condense to 1 and get rid of the issue.

And I don't think two factions sharing something and one being different is at all unwieldy, as long as they don't share all the time, as it currently is vs. chickens.

[Google_Frog]

I vote yes, on the condition that the "1 faction" thing is used to more factories to the build list. Thus, there is a bit of "factionism" in the first moments of the game when you choose your starting fac, but as more factories make a showing everybody's got access to the same units.

I want a second naval lab (put shallow-hull boats like skimmers and destroyers in a "river boat" lab, and deep-hull boats and subs in the "ship" lab, give the "ship" lab the corvette so it can have a raider, and bring back Caydr's old floating-Tremor and bertha-boat for the "boat" lab). I want separate spider and jumper labs. I want standard k-bots to all have radar-stealth, so then you have 4 different bot labs to choose from each with a lab-wide special power (amphibs/stealth/spider/jumper).

But that's just me.

Well we will be able to add a propper Amphib lab and a proper hovercraft lab. That's sort of like 2 exta factories. Spider and Jump is basically different implementations of the same ability. Also I doubt there are enough spiders or jumpers for a full factory of either. A Spider + Jump factory would defiantly give the factory an All Terrain role and would give a wide selection of units. The stealth factory idea is interesting.

With the naval balance are you suggesting returning to BA's light ship yard for batteling in the sea and heavy ship yard which was basically for the 6 shore bombardment units? I'm not really sure how sea goes, Saktoth is the one to ask for that.

PS: isnt Surpreme Commander balanced?

Aren't the 3 sides in Surpreme Commander very much alike?

[Karotte]

PS: isnt Surpreme Commander balanced?

Aren't the 3 sides in Surpreme Commander very much alike?

I dont know

[Licho]

I dont think its worth to add extra hovers and amphibs
Its waste of time and balancing to maintain 12 extra units used in 0.2% of games..

I would rather make existing units more varied/add more.

[Karotte]

think so to, maby you could remake all units with ba style

[Pxtl]

@Frog

No, quite the opposite - more like the distinction between the Tank lab and the Vehicle lab.

The boat dock gets the surfboard, both scout-boats (the anti-sub scout-boat as more of a skirm role) an anti-swarm destroyer/skirm, a con-boat, one of the anti-air frigates, and a high-trajectory artillery unit for shoreline bombardment. All boats get high manoeverability and can travel in the shallowest waters. The idea is that the boat-dock is mean for attacking shallows, for navigating mazes of rivers, etc. Because of the smaller size, they're also useful (but not necessary) for early-game in deep water.

The shipyard is for heavy bombardment and for large-scale ship-to-ship combat, like the Tank lab. They get the corvette, all the subs, and the heavy ships. The problem is that they can't enter the shallows, and most lack the maneuverability to navigate such things anyways.

In short, cramped rivers and gulfs = boat dock. Open water = shipyard, but the boat dock is still useful for scouts and anti-swarm skirmishers.

@Licho

You have to understand, that's why I suggested you make _all_ the bots in the regular Bot lab "radar-stealthy". By giving each of the 4 "bot" labs a special power, you can balance them for strength. You don't have the one "vanilla" bot lab and 3 inferior "special" bot labs. You just have 4 bot labs, each with a lab-wide power - underwater-combat amphibs, all-terrain climbers, jumpers, and stealth. For open land, you're going to use tanks anyways... but for varied terrain, you have 4 options. 4 ways to get the drop on the opponent - the jumpers that can punch through _any_ *small* barrier, be it water or defenses or a cliff. The climbers that can take any vertical barrier, the swimmers that can take any naval barrier, and the radar-stealthy bots that you can't see coming until they're in sight-range. In most bot-maps, you'll have at least 2 viable options. For example, on DeltaSiege Wet Upper, you could find use for all 4.

And buff the sight-range on the light-radar-tower into a "watch tower".

Really, I shouldn't even be explaining this stuff, I should just get off my ass and make a mutator to try it out and see how it plays.

*also, give the Tank Lab amphibiousness, but no underwater powers like the Marine bots have. That way you can use the Marine bots to pave the way for Tanks.

Damn, I'm getting carried away. Been doing too much daydreaming lately.

[luckywaldo7]

Pxtl, current wip on the 1faction mutator can be found at svn://svn.caspring.org/trunk/mods/1faction. Not much has been done yet, but if you wanted a base to start on there ya go.

The idea of a two shipyard system is kind of growing on me. We could use some current models for the shallows one and steal, er, *cough* "borrow" some of the excellent stuff from NOTA sea for the deep water one. It could make for really excellent sea gameplay but would probably require some sea maps designed particularly for that balance in mind.

[Neddie]

I'm open to the idea, but I do not believe it is a particularly worthwhile pursuit as explained earlier. It may not reduce the workload significantly or have an appreciable positive effect. On the other hand, it could have been viable, maybe fourteen months ago, to drop one side and focus until the first was fully constructed.