Best thread I have ever seen on the topic so far. Also,lot of peripheral issues and ideas raised which have degrees of merit. And best, posters have remained calm, civil and reasonable.
My observations on 2v2+ are as follows:
1) Relics design perspective has always been with a focus on 1v1, and the rest extending from that root. 2v2 can carry that design direction, to a large degree, but it starts getting unsupportive therafter with even more players involved. Not because "Relic doesnt care", but because the realities of balance become quadratically more complicated with each player you add to the map.
2) Bigger maps. Yes, I agree that would help assuage many balance complcations, but the prominent side-effect of this indirect solution, is much much longer matches. And the problem with that, is not actually so much the length of the match (which taxes players attention and available free time to play them), but rather the way the 1v1 designed tier and balance structure, invariably, in a longer match, is mostly played and finished in a protracted end-tier format with units that are designed to be rare and expensive facepunchers proliferating, hpwhereas in their native 1v1 environment, they are few.
3)To counteract the above, I still think resource throttling, is the solution. The more players are involved, the less the resouce income of each player, should be. Even if maps where bigger, if resource income is not reduced, you still end up with an end-game heavy format, and subsequently, an extension of how and why the 1v1 centric design does not carry well into a game with more players in it.
4) Other prominent and recent RTS, such as RUSE in particular (which to me personally is an amazing RTS pioneer, for many reasons), and Men of War, which are less 1v1 centric, and which are geared to larger amounts of players in matches, have imo generally solved that with a mixing of the above factors. They have larger maps, they have a reduced resource rate (mostly as a result of it being steadily slow and constant, rather than a result of map control of resources, which sucks a bit for incentivising the field objectives, but contrastingly makes strategic positioning more important for purposes of controlling the battles, rather than a means of insuring income)l as well as a flatter tiering structure meaning you dont so much have to focus on building ypurself up to endgame units, rather than simply surviving and saving on expenditure on that point. CoH2 somewhat answers this with Commander specific callins, but again, due to the constant resource rate in 1v1 and 4v4, the game escalates just as fast, but with the added complication that some Commanders, when supporting conventional (and expensive) building tiering cam hedge their resources against their teammate for their own much cheaper call-in alternatives. That is a functioning meta and system, of sorts, but imo, one of the core reasons why 1vq balance and design scales so poorly to 2v2+.
5) In conclusion, I still advocate a reduced resource income, for each additional player added to the match. Bare with me, for why. Though it might mean a more protracted early game, in terms of teching/tiering, and even though distances are moderately harder to cross in somewhat larger maps of this format, that just means the meta can more actively involve transport units for early game. This, I think, is conducive to belaying the ultimate failure of Coh2 in large multiplay games, which is the preponderance on late game units. The longer that 2v2+ players have to play around with early game, the better the match is. Because map control in Coh2 is so linked to resource income, and because the resource cost of teching and units is so linked to that, by throttling resource income I believe you can proportionately phase 2v2+ games to ultimately have the same kind of meta, in large part, and in terms of lategame unit prepoderance, as you do in 1v1, which is the baseline of balance.
--->Result:
2v2+ games will have a far longer early/mid game, a proportional interest in resource control, but ultimately, a far greater impetus on VP control with what you can indeed field in the same time period, for that reduced resource income, as supported by your teammates, as compared to 1v1 where you have to so that solo. As should be the case in a team-match, coordination and cooperation, is everything.
As long as resource income(and, VERY imoprtantly, CP generation, which I forgot to add, though it is somewhat obvious, to the rest of my post) is still at the same rate in 2v2+ as it is in 1v1, reliance (and abuse) of endgame super units and callins will continue to plague 2v2+., because they where never designed to show up in such numbers as 2v2+ makes possible.
Resource throttling, as a flat rate, per 2v2, 3v3 and 4v4 at an increasing rate, is omo, the solution.
Yes, it will initially annoy players because a) it becomes so important to conserve units and bleed b) I WANT MAH SUPERUNITS while my teammate covers my ass cos my penis is small. But I am sufficiently convinced that resource throttling will instead positively change 2v2+ to a different kind of meta (rather than being fixed to an exaggerated version of 1v1), and its current reliance on super units, that ultimately is better supportive of the key factor of team-matches, which is cooperation and coordination.
TLDR: Resource throttling would result in a more extended "cheap" build meta, with more impetus on teamplay and coordination in early/mid game phases, and a peoportionately higher risk of instead saving for expensive tiering/callin or CP reliance, of u its which are somehat balanced in 1v1, due to their scarcity, but which become ridiculous in 2v2+ due to them being available at the same rate, to ALL players, and ending up in ridiculous blobs of super heavy nonsense.
TLDR TLDR: 2v2+ meta should rely on teamplay and coordination, not on lategame superunits. As long as resource income is fixed to the 1v1 rate, it cannot be proportional or representative of the complications of 2v2+.
Great ideas that i support !!! |
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