[Poll] Do you enjoy these “Rock-Paper-Scissors" match-ups?

[Krystof]

Hello

Personally, I don’t. But I am really wondering if the players’ base does like it.
I would like to say that, overall, I really LOVE Ancestors Legacy… but that this particular game design choice is somehow spoiling the game.

I am aware that “Rock-Paper-Scissors” mechanic for units is the core gameplay of any RTS game since ever, and if I do really like asymmetric factions’ gameplay. Nevertheless, I have the feeling that Ancestors Legacy brings the concept way too far and that it is one of its main flaws, in terms of game design.

Currently:
Anglo-Saxons >> Vikings; Vikings >> Germans; Germans >> Slavs; Slavs >> Anglo-Saxons

This heavy imbalance comes from:

1) Your starting unit will hard-counter the starting unit of another faction and be hard-countered by the starting unit of a third one.

2) You don’t have any real options to play defensively in the early game if you are hard-countered. Whatever you do, you will fall behind in the early game (no village… no resources! and heavy units loss… means you will spend your too few resources in replenishing).

3) Your technological evolution is very slow, as you will have to pass to next tiers, unlock buildings and so on to get the units that counter your opponent early game units (or at least can take a fair fight against them). Your adaptation will be even slowed by the fact that you will fall behind in the early game (see above). At the end, you can’t adapt quickly and efficiently to your opponent and will just have a hard time until you resign to concede.

4) There is no come back mechanism in the game, and your opponent will just snowball his early-game advantage and win the match without challenge.

Overall, especially in 1v1 matches, you don’t have the feeling to play a strategy game, but just a game of chance where your victory will be mainly decided by the match-up rather than your skill… I don’t know how the balance at high level is (as I am not a high-level player), but – at my casual level of play – it seems that one needs to be much better than his opponent to be able to win a disfavored match-up… And that is not fair.

This unfun mechanic could be the main reason why the players don’t stick to the game. I am aware that it won’t be easy to solve, as it seems to be in the core design of the game, but I would like to get your opinion about it.

Please, tell if you like this mechanic or not.
If you like it, could you explain why? If you don’t, do you have any ideas to fix or tone down it?

[Gui-Geek]

As long as all factions cannot be countered by all others, it s going to be unbalanced in " unpair " match mods unless everyone plays with the same faction. I mean if you play 2 vs 2 you can counter one faction of the opponent and let him counter you with the second faction. In 3 vs 3 or 1 vs 1 one team will automaticly be disadvantaged because without a 4th or a 2nd player you cannot put a counterweight in the balance to make it fair. So i guess the best answer is; devs please bring us the 4 vs 4 mod quick !

[Aelin I-Hin-Ithil]

4 vs 4 would be really nice. But in current state 1 vs 1 is almost unplayable when you play against your natural counter,

[PeteSkTemplar]

As I said already on another thread I would cut down a bit that scissor-paper mechanics at least through armor efficiency and bonuses for example if your shields with double armor meet unarmored counter - cleavers they should win because of those costly armors. Right now there is no way.

Also bonuses def, speed, off - right now it seems to me that there is only good option for melee - offensive and only goood for archers - accuracy even after the last patches. There could be done some changes through those bonuses via levels too plus armor to overcome basic scissor-paper mechanics. If opponent counter has also armor and good bonuses through levels then ofc that scissor-paper still works the same.

I could though imagine some exemptions - cavalry charge, xrossbowman and twohanders rendering armor bonuses or def bonuses less efficient. Also that armor could really make bigger difference vs arrows finally as it was in RL only gunpowder made armor obsolete, thouch crossbows were dangers too but not bows even bodkin arrows are kind of mythically overprised if you look at real history a riveted chainmail (also heavy lammelar too) was considered really good armor for some real reasons.

[VEF215]

I'm with you 100% op. I love Ancestors Legacy, but this early game aspect of different factions hard countering each other with starting units is a big blemish on this game. It makes pre game lobbies really awkward too when players are choosing factions, competitive games where people play to win are usually just mirror matches. Some people even get butthurt about it, I wanted to play Germans one day, so I join a 1v1 server. Host is Slavs, I join in, say hi, pick Germans.

"really dude?" he types

You have been kicked from the match.

Lmao. There's a problem here. I play Anglo Saxons they are my favorite, despite their late game power, ironically they are the weakest faction in the game because you lose map control and get snowballed to defeat in pretty much every 1v1 game when the opponent knows how to play, but hosts won't kick you for picking Anglo Sax when they are Slavs, they start the game immediately, they're happy to play with a huge advantage, that also tells you something

A lot of units would have to be rebalanced to make the starts fair. If you started everyone out with a Spearmen squad, it still wouldn't be fair. German and Anglo Sax spears would kick the ♥♥♥♥ out of Viking Spear Raiders and Slav spearmen.

Unless they got rid of the tier requirements for infantry, and let you build them all tier 1, then you would have some flexibility. But it would still be random without scouting units because if you pumped out 2 units of shieldmen, and your opponent just happened to get 2 axe squads, you'll still lose. And still unbalanced to boot, Anglo Saxon infantry would demolish the other factions infantry.

That's what makes Starcraft work, you scout the enemy bases, and you can tell what they are building, so you know how to counter it, you gather intel, then act accordingly. Here you already have all the intel beforehand because you know how each faction works in a linear fashion, so it's just stacking the cards in your favor beforehand (or playing a mirror match.)

For example if I'm Anglo Saxon facing Vikings, I know to get Spearmen first. Spearmen will beat his Spear Raiders and counter his Beserkers, no need to get Shields since his archers are pretty bad anyways and so are his cav. I can get Axemen a little later to counter his Shieldbearers. You already know his tech and unit composition without needing to scout.

Everything is so interconnected, if you move around pieces, remove restrictions, the whole thing will probably break. Only a huge balancing overhaul would fix it. I would like some veteran Starcraft players to come in and test this game and give their thoughts (not saying this game should play like that game, but there's a reason why it's so popular, it's balanced and fair.) I would bet $100 their first observation/complaint would be, why does his starting unit hard counter mine? Even people who aren't hardcore RTS players, notice this as well. I had a friend playing this, we were doing a 2v2. His Slav shields got tore up by Cleavers, he was like why did I lose? I said axes counter shields. His response "they start with better units than mine? That's ****ing lame." Lol.

Big balance overhaul, restructure the tier unlocks, add scouting units, maybe that would fix it. But I think the devs attention is too elsewhere to focus on this issue.

[Krystof]

Hello !

The developpers have announced today the arrival of heroes in MP. I hope that they will use this opportunity for a big balance overhaul… giving tools to each nation to defend against their « hard counters » factions. It should be the main aim of these heroes in term of balance : tone down this « rock-paper-scissors » mechanic between factions that no one seems to enjoy.

[Xajmai]

Do not use heroes to balance mp, we need another solution to balance the earlygame, the peasant squads are already in the game, why not make the peasants everyones starting units, once you tech up to t2 the peasants become the standard t1 units or smth.

[PeteSkTemplar]

Or if peasants get level they can be upgraded to regular infantry up to player choice.

[Xajmai]

thats also an idea, the problem being we might make some units (SLINGERS) completly obsolete by doing this :)

[PeteSkTemplar]

Well they would be earliest archery support what is not bad in comparison just to another peasant squad I guess.

[Vergil]

As much as I enjoy the game, what OP said is true.

To top it off, there is no way to play defensively in this game to compensate such crippling situation since turtling in the base and not playing the game is pretty much the same thing.

I'm pretty sure that part of the cause for the constant archer and slinger spams is this very early-game issue where you can't rely on your soldiers (cowardice plays a role here too, but...), people know that they can't really count on their earlier infantry and don't even try the other infantry units because they believe that they are as weak, so they just spam what quickly kills enemy squads by easily getting over the flanking, rear-attacking and friendly fire mechanics to control a blobbed army while overcoming the rock-paper-scissors system. TBH this is a very lame way to play the game because if I was all about spamming ranged units, I'd play command&conquer instead and I have no shame on quitting a match if I see someone else playing low... Ancestors Legacy is heavily focused on melee combat and it's meant to be played like that.

Hero units might make things even worse, they'll pretty much negate every sort of flanking and rear attacking mechanic for surrounding units during early game as they'll often be close to their hero, which will further encourage archer blobbing as there will be no chance for 2 scissors cut a rock in half by flanking and rear-attacking.

IMO the rock-paper-scissors shouldn't affect starting units, so melee fights would be pretty much fair as their raw status and skills would be what would decide the early game rather than an unfair advantage. It's totally unfair to play a rock-paper-scissor match when your only choice to cut a rock is a rusty and bent scissor.

[Krystof]

Автор сообщения: Xajmai

Do not use heroes to balance mp

I don't think that developpers are going to balance 2 games (one with heroes, and one without them)…
So, as they will introduce heroes, seems to me that they have to balance MP around them.

[BRICKEDUP420]

While some balancing does need to be worked out, there's ways around what you said. You just have to be smart in how you use your units. A lot of people fail to make use of traps or fail to mix ranged and melee units. Archer and cleaver combo is the only way to stop the vikings in the early game as Germans.

[Xajmai]

Автор сообщения: DaTingGoSKKKKD'RAAAA

While some balancing does need to be worked out, there's ways around what you said. You just have to be smart in how you use your units. A lot of people fail to make use of traps or fail to mix ranged and melee units. Archer and cleaver combo is the only way to stop the vikings in the early game as Germans.

Naturally what you say is true, but wait until you play anglo and you have a slav rushing you. Defensive formation and Clears your trap, by the time you have a Shield he has 4-5

[BRICKEDUP420]

Автор сообщения: Xajmai

Автор сообщения: DaTingGoSKKKKD'RAAAA

While some balancing does need to be worked out, there's ways around what you said. You just have to be smart in how you use your units. A lot of people fail to make use of traps or fail to mix ranged and melee units. Archer and cleaver combo is the only way to stop the vikings in the early game as Germans.

Naturally what you say is true, but wait until you play anglo and you have a slav rushing you. Defensive formation and Clears your trap, by the time you have a Shield he has 4-5

The Devs need to work out the tech trees or how you upgrade them, that's a big issue. Starting out with slingers wouldn't be such an issue if there were an easy way to get to tier 2 or a tier 1 melee unit for anglos. Same issue with the germans, they need to make either armor or spearmen tier 1 to give them a better hand. It just always feels like you're never fully equipped to deal with most factions until the late-game.

[Teutonic Knight]

agree wholeheartedly. i bought this game hoping for a new go-to 1v1 game, but i havent played in almost 2 weeks now because the MP really only works in teamgames and even there it can go downhill when counters sit in front of each other.

this game has great potential; it shines through when both players have access to their rosters. im confident it can be fixed.

maybe making celtic traditions baseline could help the saxons. and the germans...just move spears to t1 maybe?