Insane Idea: Create-A-Faction Tools.

[Mad_Dog_Mitch]

It's coming up on 2 AM where I am, and I'm posting this nutty idea because it popped into my head and I can't get it out. I'm hoping if I post it I can get some sleep.

The idea is that you get the option of creating and customizing your own army. I'm thinking a few different details. You have to fill a few different niches (basic infantry, Anti-Armor infantry, specialists like commandos and hackers, Armor, Anti-Infantry Armor, etc.) with units of your own choice, and you can put an extra emphasis or extra units in a nich or two, but you don't have room to make an Army that completely dominates at everything.

Beyond that, you get to customize the gear that your units use, to different effect. For instance I could choose to equip my basic infantry with (among other choices), an AK (47, 74, whatever suits you), or some variant of the M16 (we'll say the M4 carbine for simplicities sake). If I choose to give my soldiers AKs, they take less time to train (as an AK requires less maintenance than an M16), and their guns have little to no chance of jamming (just a little effect that for a second cancels your unit firing). However, if I go for my M4, while my troops might take a little longer to train and do have a slight chance of having their shooting set back by about a second once in a while, they do have better accuracy (could mean less chance of missing, higher damage, higher critical rate, longer range, or any combination of the above).

You could also opt to give your units a limited selection of special abilities. If you want your guys to throw grenades as a special ability (whether they be lethal or non lethal you can choose what they're equiped with) to help clear out buildings, or perhaps camouflage, or even just training them to have a certain stat higher than others.

Vehicles would probably be handled a bit differently. You can pick what vehicles you get, but beyond that, what you see is what you get as far as their abilities and what they're armed with. I suppose there could be a weapons development mini-game, but that's a whole different issue. Probably more trouble than it's worth.

Finally, of course you have control over your units uniform. Possibly paint jobs for your vehicles as well, not to mention your own symbol/emblem/flag.

Now I'll address what I would guess would be the main obstacle to such an idea: Balance. How can EA, BioWare victory, or any developer hope to balance factions that they don't create. Simple answer: they can't. So scrap the idea, right? Well, there is one way around that. You make one PVP league for the set, developer-made factions, and another for custom factions. The custom league is where people can go against each-other's armies and compare what they have with each-other. However, this runs the risk of, after a certain period of time, seeing a lot of cookie-cutter armies out there when people figure out what the best combination is (and even if there is not such thing, if enough people believe that a combination is best, it will still have the same undesired effect). The answer to this is simple: the devs would have to continually add new weapons, vehicles, and abilities as DLC to keep everything fresh.

The idea is, in a world where Generals are taking over and dividing the world, you'd probably have a few warlords out there who would be making forces that don't always fit the same mold. That and the whole idea just seems like fun to me.

Any thoughts? Remember, I realize the idea is insane, but it's usually that kind of idea I have to get out of my system if I want any sleep.

[Garbarsardar]

Well, it'd be fun but you've already listed the big issue with it in that it's hard to balance for MP and people will simply go for the most efficient combo. It might be a nice idea for the campaign though, kind of like how you can get special SP-only units in your army in StarCraft 2. Maybe have a GLA campaign where you're a warlord establishing control over a bunch of splinter GLA factions (like in Zero Hour) and you can switch up your arsenal as you subjugate different GLA generals and gain access to their stuff.

[Harrrr]

Personally, I'm not a fan of a "miss" percentage at all in RTS when it's just a percentage simply because it's not a "controllable" stat, and that's especially true for units like rifleman/mini-gunners. It's not a good thing to say that X weapon will miss an average of 1/20 shots but with an upgrade with miss 1/35 shots and randomize it based on some seed value. That to me just makes it a ludicrous stat that can only hurt players and it doesn't have anything to do with positioning. Now, it's different with tanks because players can compensate for turret rotation delay and/or no magical homing shells by leading targets with the force fire.

Now, I don't mind indirect buffing units or temporary powers that affect "accuracy", like the ECM. Indirect buffing units should just increase damage or rate of fire to essentially get the same effect. It's always true that you can buff or nerf other tangible stats to give the appearance of accuracy differentiation without actually giving a pointless stat that serves absolutely zero purpose in an RTS.

I would include gun jams along with the accuracy because, again, I think it serves no real purpose in the context of the RTS, as you are incorporating factors that only distract and hurt the player with no benefit. At that point it makes babysitting one's units a requirement, and thus takes away from using micro to gain an advantage, as micro essentially revolves around timing and positioning.

In an RTT or a top-down RPG I could see these being valuable factors, no doubt, but they would be more of a distraction in an RTS.

[UltimateAero123]

Awesome Idea im sure by the release of the game a solution to how to balance stuff will be made, but awesome idea.

-My resolution game types, regular then the custom one to use ur custom army
-chose a type of army, high tech, massive #s, terrorist style, a mix of all three, a mix of certain ones, then go to unit builder where u make ur units, chose colors weapons, armor, speed etc, to make it balanced the ai will adjust strength, cost, armor based on the options u chose.

[Alaskan_Viking]

That sounds awesome! One issue I could see is the cookie cutter issue. You mention choosing between AKM's and AR's (AK-47's and M-16's) does that mean every faction would have access to the same upgrades? That would make every faction be almost the same and would destroy faction uniqueness.

Now, if you just gave the player the option different units to choose from to add to his army, while staying very faction specific, say choosing to have a better tank with anti missile laser technology, or a stealth attack jet, then it would basically boil down to the general power unit unlocks in Generals one. Or the M-14 wolverine-M-18 Hellcat tank destroyer choice in Company of heroes.

Awesome Idea im sure by the release of the game a solution to how to balance stuff will be made, but awesome idea.

-My resolution game types, regular then the custom one to use ur custom army
-chose a type of army, high tech, massive #s, terrorist style, a mix of all three, a mix of certain ones, then go to unit builder where u make ur units, chose colors weapons, armor, speed etc, to make it balanced the ai will adjust strength, cost, armor based on the options u chose.

The Titan Quest of RTS??...?

That would basically make Generals 2 a factionless RTS. It may work ok for some kind of MMORTS, but not so well for "fast passed" (< The developer's own words) 10-20 minute RTS game.

Maybe just have an advanced upgrade tree where you have multiple choices for unit upgrades, but by choosing one you disable the others. So instead of just everyone being able to upgrade their humvees with TOW missiles, there could be 3 upgrades, TOW Missile launcher, (Anti tank) 40mm Auto grenade launcher (anti infantry) or up-armored Humvee (Extra HP).

I'm thinking Like the Israeli mod (Forget its name...Desert strike?) where the Israelis could upgrade their tech into one of three areas Air, Armor, and infantry, giving a choice of one of either better tanks, special forces, or F-15's & Apaches, but locking the other 2 tech upgrades out.


*Whats for ATGM to rage about how it will destroy competitive play for teh proz*

[Commander32]

Personally, I'm not a fan of a "miss" percentage at all in RTS when it's just a percentage simply because it's not a "controllable" stat, and that's especially true for units like rifleman/mini-gunners. It's not a good thing to say that X weapon will miss an average of 1/20 shots but with an upgrade with miss 1/35 shots and randomize it based on some seed value. That to me just makes it a ludicrous stat that can only hurt players and it doesn't have anything to do with positioning. Now, it's different with tanks because players can compensate for turret rotation delay and/or no magical homing shells by leading targets with the force fire.

Now, I don't mind indirect buffing units or temporary powers that affect "accuracy", like the ECM. Indirect buffing units should just increase damage or rate of fire to essentially get the same effect. It's always true that you can buff or nerf other tangible stats to give the appearance of accuracy differentiation without actually giving a pointless stat that serves absolutely zero purpose in an RTS.

I would include gun jams along with the accuracy because, again, I think it serves no real purpose in the context of the RTS, as you are incorporating factors that only distract and hurt the player with no benefit. At that point it makes babysitting one's units a requirement, and thus takes away from using micro to gain an advantage, as micro essentially revolves around timing and positioning.

In an RTT or a top-down RPG I could see these being valuable factors, no doubt, but they would be more of a distraction in an RTS.

A a very good explanation on why this is not a very good idea for Gens2.

[Alaskan_Viking]

If by miss % you mean some kind of static "90% accuracy" rating, then yes, it is kind of lame and static "5% chance to miss" or some kind of unit "dexterity" stat, then yes, it owuld be lame, HOWEVER.

Total Annihilation (and also Supreme commander I think) had real time unit simulation, where the units moved around and tried to hit one another. Now this WAS very interesting because weapons had different levels of velocity, damage, and rate of fire. While units were also different sizes and different speeds. What this did was make rapid fire and light damage guns more effective against lighter, faster moving targets and large, slow firing, low velocity high damage cannons were go against large slow moving targets.

The overall effect was very realistic and exciting, (HOLY ****! My coastal artillery actually managed to clip that aerospace fighter's wing and blow it to smithereens!) while allowing counters to different units without some kind of arbitrary Unit A does X amount of damage to unit B static stat.

[Golan2781]

Technically speaking, C&C had a projectile trajectory simulation since TD. You could avoid some projectiles by properly controlling your units. TS introduced this with proper 3D trajectories and collisions while the SAGE games supported actual independent projectile behavior with every projectile having its own locomotor and targeting AI, for example.
And there's a very good reason why they slaved most standard projectiles to magic-seeking-missile-behaviour: it gets very chaotic otherwise.
Anyone remember the good old times where a lone rifleman could kill the MKII because they were standing at opposite sides of a small hill and the MKII would just hit the ground repeatedly? Even SupCom's advanced unit AI packages weren't capable of properly matching firing positions to obstacles.

Anyways, in regard to the faction creation tool: it just seems like a big waste to me. Especially when vehicles aren't modular (as in EARTH 2150 for example), that means you need about three to five times as many unique vehicles as you normally would in order to allow proper choice. That's a huge amount of work. Yet, it's very likely that players will go for a few perfect matchups and not bother with the other units.

[Mad_Dog_Mitch]

Personally, I'm not a fan of a "miss" percentage at all in RTS when it's just a percentage simply because it's not a "controllable" stat, and that's especially true for units like rifleman/mini-gunners. It's not a good thing to say that X weapon will miss an average of 1/20 shots but with an upgrade with miss 1/35 shots and randomize it based on some seed value. That to me just makes it a ludicrous stat that can only hurt players and it doesn't have anything to do with positioning. Now, it's different with tanks because players can compensate for turret rotation delay and/or no magical homing shells by leading targets with the force fire.

Now, I don't mind indirect buffing units or temporary powers that affect "accuracy", like the ECM. Indirect buffing units should just increase damage or rate of fire to essentially get the same effect. It's always true that you can buff or nerf other tangible stats to give the appearance of accuracy differentiation without actually giving a pointless stat that serves absolutely zero purpose in an RTS.

I would include gun jams along with the accuracy because, again, I think it serves no real purpose in the context of the RTS, as you are incorporating factors that only distract and hurt the player with no benefit. At that point it makes babysitting one's units a requirement, and thus takes away from using micro to gain an advantage, as micro essentially revolves around timing and positioning.

In an RTT or a top-down RPG I could see these being valuable factors, no doubt, but they would be more of a distraction in an RTS.

A a very good explanation on why this is not a very good idea for Gens2.

I can understand where you're coming from with having issues with miss/jam percentages. However, your are missing the point. The point was not that I thought that having those particular features in game is a good idea. They were just examples of how you could customize a unit. It could just as easily be that the improved "Accuracy" of the M-16 simply results in higher chances for critical hits against enemies and/or longer range, whilst soldiers equiped with AK's require less time to train. The point is to be able to make an army that's of your own design.

That sounds awesome! One issue I could see is the cookie cutter issue. You mention choosing between AKM's and AR's (AK-47's and M-16's) does that mean every faction would have access to the same upgrades? That would make every faction be almost the same and would destroy faction uniqueness.

Now, if you just gave the player the option different units to choose from to add to his army, while staying very faction specific, say choosing to have a better tank with anti missile laser technology, or a stealth attack jet, then it would basically boil down to the general power unit unlocks in Generals one. Or the M-14 wolverine-M-18 Hellcat tank destroyer choice in Company of heroes.

The idea is that you build this faction before you play with it. You choose in the beginning what your infantry is equipped with and what their abilities are, (and I think it would be best if that had some bearing on how it could be upgraded), what vehicles your faction will have access to, what your generals abilities are, and the overall look of your army.

Lets say that we both create a faction. I may like the idea of having some infantry out before anyone else, so I'll probably choose for my base infantry to be equiped with AK's. You may like having longer range or a greater critical hit chance, you'll probably for your base infantry to have AKMs. Or you and I both bay like AKMs more. Or maybe you want the more powerful round/higher damage of a full fledged battle Rifle. Or maybe I'm really weird and I want my boys to be running around with Saiga Shotguns (lower range, high damage against infantry). We'll probably never know unless we play against eachother. However, what your faction has access to is chosen before you play with it. If you find that your faction has a weakness that you can't work around, you scrap it and build a new one. There still is an issue with cookie cutter factions, but if they can keep a trickle of weapons and vehicles coming in, it should keep things interresting.

Anyways, in regard to the faction creation tool: it just seems like a big waste to me. Especially when vehicles aren't modular (as in EARTH 2150 for example), that means you need about three to five times as many unique vehicles as you normally would in order to allow proper choice. That's a huge amount of work. Yet, it's very likely that players will go for a few perfect matchups and not bother with the other units.

It is true that a system like this would require more vehicles than anything else, but I think that's an obstacle that can be overcome. It would mean making a lot of models, but there are a lot of vehicles both in reality and in the imagination that can been drawn upon.

[Golan2781]

It is true that a system like this would require more vehicles than anything else, but I think that's an obstacle that can be overcome. It would mean making a lot of models, but there are a lot of vehicles both in reality and in the imagination that can been drawn upon.

That does not circumvent the problem that models of these vehicles actually have to be made. Graphics assets are a major bottleneck of video game development, increasing the workload by factor three to five means a heavy impact on development resources. This is especially an issue when most of these assets might not see use outside of some freak matchups.

A system using unit variants instead of unique units for vehicles seems imperative, similar to your suggestion for infantry. Overall however, focusing on simple stat changes as in your examples would probably be a problem, as it still does carry a high likeliness for a few "perfect" matchups that see only a fraction of the units used.
I'd seriously suggest focusing on hard differences. For example, the EU rifle options could be a high powered assault rifle, a regular one featuring a barrel mounted grenade launcher and a regular one that forgoes direct features in favor for a spy drone the soldier can launch. An EU MBT could have the option of an active defense system (like the PDL), an AA missile launcher or smoke grenade launchers for limited stealth. An EU helicopter could choose between stealth systems, long range radar or missile racks for bombardment.
In general however, I'd suggest using the Generals Point unlock system for such upgrades. The GP system was one of the great strengths of Generals and is perfect for circumventing the problem of picking "perfect" matchups. By staying flexible and making technology decisions when you actually need them, players don't have to "play safe" in their variant selection and can match their technology to the situation.