Suggesting on upgrading Tatics issue

well anything has got to be better than the current system of the select few with optimised armies and everyone else just hanging around for next patch / reset.

never known a game so determined to stop me playing.

Why clone armies will be an issue, as long as there is more than 1-2 optimal ones?

The only solutions I'm aware of are to have a very diverse strategic landscape (i.e. lots of different missions on lots of different maps with lots of different objectives, perhaps procedurally generated or random) or a rapidly shifting strategic landscape (i.e. constant rule changes/patches, or additional factions with intriguing options).

+1.

Personally I think it's probably inevitable that re-specs will be allowed.

But this is still a beta, which explains only having 3 different types of missions and only 3 races. The best way to stop exact "copy/paste" armies is to have different maps, some which really encourage close-range fighting and others that suit long-range armies. The random map picker is always good for competitive games and if future maps could be a little more tilted to favour ranged or, particularly, melee fights that would go a long way.

Everyone always wants more races, but it's better if they're fed in gradually with time and thought put into abilities, models, etc.. besides again this is a beta - hopefully they're getting about enough players they anticipated and the game has a good future ahead (Usually I find opponents within 2 or so minutes for 400 AP), in which case we've got it all to look forward to

The biggest problem that kills tactical games is when one or two ways of playing/army compositions are clearly the best and everyone uses them. The challenge is to make as many units competitively relevant as possible, and to make as many army variants competitive too.

And if I'm not mistaken that's exactly what the team who've made this are doing now - making everything that's been added so far as useful as possible before even thinking of adding new races. And I'm all for it.

Why clone armies will be an issue, as long as there is more than 1-2 optimal ones?

Totally agree. And different play-styles lend themselves to different armies. There is no cut and paste issue in my opinion.

Why clone armies will be an issue, as long as there is more than 1-2 optimal ones?

Have you studied game theory? Hell, have you studied high-end competitive RTS build orders or MMO arena PVP? There are patterns that always emerge.

If we're being realistic, there are only a few possibilities.

1. Your typical meta. There are 1-2 "good" or "top-tier" lists/comps which are reasonably successful/balanced against one another. Nearly everyone plays those. There are 4-5 more that are semicompetitive, but these mostly stay on the fringe.

2. "Build Wars" meta. There are a handful of "good" or "top-tier" lists, but they trump one another in rock-paper-scissors fashion (e.g. elite heavy > regular swarm > magician nuke > elite heavy). Half the time, or more, you know who will win as soon as you see the armies.

When things are shaken up after a patch, etc, there's a new race to find the best, the new optimum; but the meta always stabilizes around one of these two without some rich diversity.

Back when I played way too much Confrontation each week, we avoided this by making up new scenarios for every game. Sometimes we'd deliberately try to include weaker models or strange combinations, just to see what would happen. It kept things interesting. But this isn't really practicable for a video game (unless it's designed from the ground up to support this kind of play).

normally optimizzation creates a meta:

the best option might have some counters that are not seen in the common lists. but after someone finds this counter out they bring it to the table. then this new top tier will have his own counters and so on. the meta actually come into play as a natural conseguence to perfect imbalane (wich means that things are just a little out of balance wich causes people to try to find a counter or "hate strategy"). In general this is good because developers can actually cut down the power spikes of the top tiers with nerfs and bring back underplayed units with buffs and such creating a dinamic environment.

I cannot really explain this concept very well but for those of you who played magic the gatering at a competitive level or league of legends should be really familiar with the meta and the effects that bans/nerfs/patches have on those. I hope someone could write this down better than me XD

anyway I agree with Almanro:

The interesting points of this game are to try different tactics and armies and to win in different situations with your ability, lvling up your units is a nice addition that allow you to gain experience while playing before having a full lvl up army, but it should not become the "end game" objective.

Nice that someone else is telling me how I ought to enjoy the game.

The journey would be worthwhile if it were subject to external constraints. It's not, so it's just a chore, and feels like I'm playing at a penalty until it's over with.


Anyway, with more time spent playing, more knowledge is gained. With more perfect knowledge, players are able to make better decisions. (Think tic-tac-toe; it was an awesome game when you were 4 years old, but now you'd never seriously play it. The game didn't get worse; you just got smarter.) With perfect or near-perfect knowledge, a stable equilibrium (the so-called "meta") arises.

There are only two ways out of this:

1. Have a very deep game (i.e. chess). This delays the inevitable but is fine for a computer game and the best that most game designers can hope for.
2. Constantly change the rules (via patches, expansions, etc) before or as the stable equilibrium emerges. This is annoying.

(Technically, there's 3. Make a game for which optimization is impossible. But that's Calvinball territory.)

Obviously this may not apply if the goal is not "win as often as possible". But, I mean, it's a game. That's kind of the default goal.

If my goal is to play around and try different things and explore, well, this game is not a good choice. There's too much investment (time- and money-wise) in a given company to flit from one comp to another.