Balancing units

[Cheetah]

So this might actually be more related to PS1, but I'm wondering about the following in relation to PS2, why I post it here...

Can anyone say something about how the differing units from the various factions are being balanced against each other? What I mean is, for example, take the fighter air crafts, TR have the fastest, VS have the nimblest, NC have the toughest - if then it turns out, maybe intentionally, that one air craft will generally dominate the others (air-to-air), would that then be balanced by giving the air inferior factions better land-to-air units?

I guess my wonderment could also be formulated as, would a factions' strong units either end up being nerfed or rather countered by the other factions' different kinds of units??? Or will the same kind of unit across the three factions be balanced more or less evenly against each other?

Generally I ask to know more about how the rock-paper-scissor system will work in PS2. Mind I never played the first game...

Thanks,

-C

[GreatMazinkaise]

Well, on the surface at least the Empire weapons are more homogenous than they were in the first game (barring the movement capabilities of the Magrider and Scythe).

Everyone's got rifles, flak, and lock-on rocket launchers.

[Razicator]

An advantage this time around is that all the vehicles can be customized to resemble one another to a certain extent. This blurs the line between factions, but allows for easier balancing. For example, you heard that NC weapons hit the hardest but are the slowest, but undoubtedly there are weapon customizations to make the weapons fire faster, but at a lower damage, similar to TR weaponry. Same with vehicles; reaver is supreme anti-ground, but the mosquito can also outfit itself with similar anti-ground ordinance, but obviously won't be as good as the reaver (maybe 90% to the reaver). Even MAXes, which had completely different weapons in PS1 (curse you scatmax), now are basically all the same, aside from empire abilities.

So the differences in the first place are minimal, especially compared to PS1. Balancing should be not that big of an issue

Also with 3 faction war, if one team is dominating, that means that it has to defend more land at the same time, so it is usually double teamed by the losing factions. Not all the time obviously, but on average.

In short, don't worry to much about it :)

[bullet]

Theres also the aspect of situation. In PS1 the different Heavy Assault guns all had their certain situations they more or less dominated. TR Heavy Assault (HA from now on) was better at longer ranges, NC HA was better at close quarters combat, and the VS HA was kinda in between? It had range but leading the target was required, but it did excel in tight hallways do to the AOE Lash effect it had.

Same can go for the different tanks/planes/etc. We still don't know how those will benefit from different situations or how they even fair going against eachother.

[Haro]

So this might actually be more related to PS1, but I'm wondering about the following in relation to PS2, why I post it here...

Can anyone say something about how the differing units from the various factions are being balanced against each other? What I mean is, for example, take the fighter air crafts, TR have the fastest, VS have the nimblest, NC have the toughest - if then it turns out, maybe intentionally, that one air craft will generally dominate the others (air-to-air), would that then be balanced by giving the air inferior factions better land-to-air units?

I guess my wonderment could also be formulated as, would a factions' strong units either end up being nerfed or rather countered by the other factions' different kinds of units??? Or will the same kind of unit across the three factions be balanced more or less evenly against each other?

Generally I ask to know more about how the rock-paper-scissor system will work in PS2. Mind I never played the first game...

Thanks,

-C

Generally, empire balance is less like rock-paper-scissor and more like scissor, knife, laser: different methods to achieve the same result. They really don't balance eachother out, though a balance between them is necessary. What I mean is that a TR weapon isn't intended to be a counter to NC, generally, nor is NC supposed to counter VS.

In the first game... it was kind of inconsistent. Some empire specific items were practically interchangeable. Medium assault, mostly assault rifles, were generally pretty balanced: TR had high ammo and rate of fire, a little better for close range, while NC had long range and higher damage. Difference wasn't huge, but enough. Similarly, the prowler would do the same amount of damage with two cannons that Vanguard did with one. VS could be trickier to balance, because they didn't fit so neatly. Rather than have a tradeoff of range or power, they usually had kind of weird special effects: always available AP ammo, strafe tanks, etc. I seem to remember VS weapons always needed a little extra tweaking.

HA and AV could be a little different. HA was weird in that the weapons were kinda specialized, and very different. NC had a huge shotgun, TR had a chaingun, and VS had a laser... thing. AV also had very different methods of firing, TR had fire and forget, NC had missiles you steered yourself, VS had a dumb-fire laser... thing (sense a theme here?)

Balance seems a lot better in some ways in PS2. Most of the empire specific weapons seem to fill very similar roles, and are hard to distinguish all that much but have a distinct empire feel. SMGs, pistols, rifles, and LMGs all have slightly different elements, but they all do the same job fairly well. AV seems to have homogenized as well, which I think is pretty good, and we haven't seen AH yet. Maxes have yet to really go far apart as well.

Vehicles seem to be a bit more decisive. I think the fighter craft seems to really sum it up well: some argue the mosquito has the advantage in dogfights because of high speed, others think the scythe has the advantage because of its agility (and it already has been nerfed.) Personally, I really think the reaver could hold its own with hard-hitting ambushes and hit and run warfare: do damage and high-tail it out of there before they have a chance to react.

If that's the case, it will really reflect the empire's style while still keeping each vehicle mostly relevant and balanced.

Hope this helped.

[Cheetah]

Thanks for some really good replies. I have a better sense of what to expect now and it sounds promising - distinct units, but not too much because of customization options. And I'd kinda like it as well, if units wouldn't have this sort of faction based unit nemesis's.

I'm mainly curious about the air crafts. Speed is indeed appealing to me, but whoever would be best in a dog fight is definitely based on situation. In space combat sims without inertia, I'd say usually agility wins, but that's because you have zero gravity, so being able to stay behind an enemy is the alpha omega tactic, and in space you have a lot of room to freely dodge enemy fire. In PS2 we still don't have inertia, but the terrain hopefully will make for a big factor in flying tactics.

[ringring]

Thanks for some really good replies. I have a better sense of what to expect now and it sounds promising - distinct units, but not too much because of customization options. And I'd kinda like it as well, if units wouldn't have this sort of faction based unit nemesis's.

I'm mainly curious about the air crafts. Speed is indeed appealing to me, but whoever would be best in a dog fight is definitely based on situation. In space combat sims without inertia, I'd say usually agility wins, but that's because you have zero gravity, so being able to stay behind an enemy is the alpha omega tactic, and in space you have a lot of room to freely dodge enemy fire. In PS2 we still don't have inertia, but the terrain hopefully will make for a big factor in flying tactics.
wrt aircraft: I am wondering whether the WW2 fighter tactics would be successful where opposing aircraft would attempt to 'bounce' each other. Namely you and your wingman get an altitude advanage, you identify a target then you zoom down, take your shot and get out of there.

It will be interesting to find out.