My Unit is Bigger Than Your Unit!

I have to say as someone who plays a lot of video games I am finding some of the choices game designers are making these days as kind of desperate. Its like, “Well we notice our game is not selling, so let’s re-design everything”. At least this is how it’s starting to feel; I am sure they view it very differently than I do. I only say this because I was recently watching a Battle Report for Dawn of War II’s newest update, “There is Only War” where Game Balancer Stefan Haines faced off against Relic’s Braden Chan and something I noticed about the match or at least the Battle Report was the focus on tier 1 units. Now I do not have an issue with tier 1 units but I do have an issue with tier 1 units being the only unit that the player is using and still winning the game. LET ME EXPLAIN!

Stefan made the choice very early on in the game to not tech up and move to tier 1.5 with little or no upgrade to his units, he also made the choice to not to build huge amount of generators as most DOW players do, while bC took the option of not building a huge army of units and spending the time to build the generators and tech up. Now this game lasted about 30 minutes and during that time it was clear that bC had the upper hand on resources and units, getting to tier 2 about 12 min into the game and soon teching to tier 3 it was clear that this should be a walk in the park. This is where I started going WTF, I was asking myself, “Why even tech at all?!?!” I say this because Stefan made the choice to upgrade tier 1 units that allowed them to pretty much kick the crap out of the tier 2/3 units. Its was like bC had not even upgraded at all and during this time the person casting the event could not shutup about the fact that tier 1 now has the ability to fend off tier2/3 units. I am thinking to myself WTF why even bother, I can understand that being able to swarm a lot of units to fend off that BIG unit or even being able to do a little damage to force the tier 2 player to ask himself if he is willing to commit his BIG unit to this fight, but Stefan did not even tech to tier 2 until about 25 min in the game, he ended the game with ONE tier 2 unit; while bC had not only had several tier 2 units but several tier 3 units it was like they were not even there.

Often times you hear about RTS games and the commitment it takes to tech up and that you really do pay for it in time, if you can hold of the oppressor its well worth the wait, and you play through this meta game of trying to keep the resources moving and fending off the waves of units your opponent is throwing at you and then you go for the big kill. Now more often than not I think many rts games focus on tier 1/1.5 units as being the main stay of most players and they are often the units that get the most balance as they see the most action in the game. But the reason we have this idea of teching up is that you pay to play, you have been able to fend off either a weak or aggressive player, you have been able to take advantage of someone who is choosing to turtle, and as part of this skill you should be rewarded with BIG GUNS and nasty units that can really put a hurting on your opponent.

BUT!!!!!, Relic doesn’t do that, instead they have gone over all the units and said okay if you build a tier 3 unit and your opponent only has tier 1 units we think this will be shitty for the player who is going to get a hurting; We think this is no fun for them, so lets give the tier 1 units some time to shine, lets give them good counters to every BIG/NASTY unit out there and allow them to stick around a little longer. Okay this sound reasonable no noob wants to get killed in 2 sec by big nasty mean units… but as the tier 2 player I have just spend the last 15 min saving my resources, fending off your waves of puny units giving you ample time to tech up if you would like to and in all of that I was able to keep myself alive and harbor enough resources to make this BIG/NASTY unit and what happens 4 marines are able to walk in and counter it and kill it.

WTF!!!!! I walked away pounding and kicking small rabbits going, “now what did I just waste my time getting this BIG unit to have it be rolled over by some puny marine?!?!?!!” Well because we wanted those Tier 1 units to have some face time against BIG units.

FAILZ!!!!! This is a horrible model if you want Tier 1 units to be a staple in your game; make the Tier 2 tech up cost something, make it not worth the players time and yet if you do make the investment, make it worth it, put something out there that’s not going to get its ass handed to it by tier 1 units with no upgrades.

Relics choice to make the tier 1 units more stable against higher tier units was a poor design choice, its like those players who can really push hard in the meta game and want to tech up have no real choices and to be honest walk away feeling screwed out of time and resources. On top of that many of the games designers had really pushed for players to tech up and see all units its game had to offer and stating they would be worth the investment; but if you want your players to see all the glory you have spent in designing these second or third tier units… MAKE THEM WORTH IT!!!!!

A moment of silence!!

Today I got news of the passing of a good friend, known online as MrH20, he passed away last wekeend of heart failure. I will miss you my friend, and I hope your in a better place killing some head-crabs and beating zombies with crowbars.

Doom and Diablo finally meet and have a baby!!!!

So I saw an awesome link on bluesnews lastnight about a new Doom hackin slash RPG that looks very much like diablo 1. I suggest checking it out they even have a beta you can download

Doom AWESOMENESS

Mod Awesomeness

So I am a huge fan of the video gaming modding scene and follow it rather well, and a some folks over at one of my more frequently visited site they are doing a nice series on modding do’s/don’t’s. I recommend checking it out

Link

Hello Again!

I finally think I need a blog again… I miss my old blog and I have so much to say on so many topics So I am going to try and update this more often with whats going on in my world and my views on what’s going on in other people’s worlds.

Mainly I will be talking about the work that I do(HA) and the work other people are failing to do mainly our political friends in Washington, I know your listening big brother, and yes; I am conspiring with the Russians to build a new form of the A-Bomb called… AMERICA WAKE YOUR ASS UP THE WACKO IS IN BACK TOWN.

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