Thoughts on veterancy

[SeraphimLeftNut]

I think it is clear to everybody that the current vet system is temporary and experimental and was going
to be changed and improved no matter what. I am pretty sure Ze_Pilot has stated this.

I don't think that aligning the vet system, with enemy health, enemy cost, etc. is a good idea. Since any
balance changes in units will have to be accompanied with balance changes in the vet. This will be a big
pain in the ass to balance out completely and I am not sure if it is worth Ze_Pilot's time. Furthermore,
balance changes in the future will surely lead to even more headaches, why leave mines in the game design
for the future generations. At first view it might look as if it is more fair, since killing a more
expensive unit should presumably lead to more veterancy.

To me the old vet system was great. It was easy to understand and has very clear predictive qualities.
I kill 12 more units, I get this much more health. I only see 10 units, I retreat. I see 15 units I push forward, looking for that boost.I also liked how veternacy gave the instant boost to experimental units as soon as they achieved the veternacy level. This gave rise to what I like to think of as the "hide the women and children effect". When an enemy sees an experimental coming toward their base, they will look at all the units that they can kill without losing the entire base. The engies and t1 pgens are usually the first victims. Think about this, this is an amazing effect, a unit is able to kill enemy units by convincing the enemy player that this is the right thing to do, that is warfare on a high level and is very realistic. What makes this even better is that you can fake toward one enemy base, have them kill all their engies, then turn toward another enemy's base before even reaching the first one. The ahwassa getting a whole bunch on instant vet from bombing a few hundred engineers around a factory is just self evidently epic.

Some people say this takes away from the realism, and in general makes no sense. First off, we shouldn't be asking for realism in a game where we have massive robots shitting bricks. However reality is often stranger than our imagination.

The Cybran Intelligence archives.

Classified.

Limited release allowed for the preservation of the space time continuum.

During the latter stages of the infinite war, when the instantaneous transfer of mass and energy through the 5th and 6th dimensions to the naval factories across the setons ocean no longer bothered the average UEF soldier, Dr. Brackmann got a package in the mail. It was from his younger brother who specialized in hydroponics, this was the new strand. The next morning Dr. Brackmann assembled a team of his best engineers and a cuban, then teleported to Barathurum to once again examine the old galactic gate, the idea of using the 7th dimension to amplify the transfered resources on their way to construction sites had once again captured his imagination.
Armed with the new hydroponic strain Dr. Brackman's team was able to get some promising results in a short time. The amplification effect was observed, but could not be sustained at the same level for prolonged periods of time. At what seemed to be random intervals the effect would disappear. The data collected on Barathurum was disseminated among the best Cybran minds in order to find the key to sustaining this effect, a discovery of this magnitude had the potential to shift the war, all understood this.
As is widely known the Cybran central intelligence is by far the most effective intelligence apparatus ever conceived by either human or machine. We had penetrated deep into the Aeon military industrial complex and had all the up to date knowledge about their experiments with the infinite resource generator, the paragon. Everyone was extremely surprised when our computers matched up the paragon startup logs to the freshly collected data on Barathurum. We discovered that the amplification effect disappeared precisely when a paragon was activated. This was a deep mystery.
After studying the results, Dr. Brackman made the conjecture that shattered the current understanding of thermodynamics in the galaxy. It has been long believed that entropy of the universe is always increasing. while energy is conserved. According to the new theory however, entropy lost in the first 3 dimensions is compensated by a commensurate increase of entropy in the 7th dimension. By creating a structure of zero entropy, the paragon, the illuminate created armageddons in the 7th dimension. Such a large shift in the organization of the universe allowed them to tap its infinite energy.
What happened next is simple. Cybran philosophers had long understood that the proper units of entropy are not disorder, but disorder integrated over the entire time axis. This made an entity capable of free will contain infinitely more entropy than any machine. The paragon was the exception and sadly for the cybran nation we got the answer to the age old question, "Why can't a cybran engie make a paragon?" The zero entropy of the paragon is only possible when the minds of the order are exactly one, without a single free thought, their God allows them to achieve the point of zero entropy and shift the galaxy. Like Jesus said,"If you had any faith in you, you could tell that mountain to move and it would." Little did we know that Jesus was very much a Supcom FA fan.
These discoveries lead to important technological breakthroughs. Dr. Brackman's team quickly realized that by slaughtering kittens at a precise time and place in the first 3 dimensions it was possible to create very ordered structures in the 7th dimension. This was the real technological breakthough, but then the IDEA, that was right there for us to take, crystalized in our minds. We began making bombs in the 7th dimension and detonating them. This allowed us to create

(classfied...........classified)

The biggest losses of entropy were undoubtably on the battlefields where millions of free wills, whether biological or machine based, are illiminated creating massive amounts of order in the 7th dimension. We understood that it was imperative for us to modify our weapons in such a way that the destruction we create here is actually construction in the 7th dimension, each soul we snuff out in our world is a piece of a bomb in the next. Once the bombs are completed they are detonated and return back to our three dimensions as repairs to our units. A big technological challange here was to bring back the constructions to a precise location. This was achieved by making every shot fired by a cybran unit readjusted in such a way that if it was the final shot to kill a unit and the entropy loss caused by the death of that unit was enough to complete the final piece of the bomb in the 7th dimension, the bomb would be detonated in a precisely the right way to regenerate the firing unit. Ultimately the weapon of the unit determines how much and after how many kills the unit gets a veterancy boost.
After an initial Euphorea over such great advances, the Cybran nation suffered a number of tragedies. First, a member of Dr. Brackman's team found Jesus and was abducted by the illuminate, they quickly implemented the veternancy technology. The UEF seeing that they would soon be pushed out of the battle took drastic measures. Hall toook Dostya out to a fancy restaurant, then there were sightings of the virgin marry in the 7th dimension, and soon the UEF also possessed the veterancy system. Some say the seraphim are here only because of these exeriments.

I hope the old vet system stays and you can see that it is as realistic as the rest of the game and is a part that needs no fixing.

[Cerberus]

<3
That was a epic post.
I agree with TA4life 101%
I just want to see the old Vet system back.
It was not broke, why try to fix it?
Now we are in the land of unstoppable t4's and teching to t2 and t3 just puts you at a disadvantage.

[regabond]

<3
That was a epic post.
I agree with TA4life 101%
I just want to see the old Vet system back.
It was not broke, why try to fix it?
Now we are in the land of unstoppable t4's and teching to t2 and t3 just puts you at a disadvantage.

I'd like to disagree. The old system was broken, not by much, but still by enough. Vet by tech levels is not a crazy off the wall system that requires tons of brain power to understand. Small games at T1 still function the exact same. Once the numbers get settled it'll start to feel natural.

[Plasma_Wolf]

Once the numbers get settled it'll start to feel natural

I disagree. At the moment, the numbers are too high (apart from T1 obviously). On the other hand, the 1 kill 1 point system gives numbers that are too low.

Additionally:

That was a epic post

No. Just no. It was ridiculous.

[SeraphimLeftNut]

People keep on throwing out these statements as if they are self evident.

what exactly is broken with the old vet system? There were many of us who really enjoyed it and it wasn't game breaking. It was there enough that we knew about it, but not so much that it took over the game.

Same with why should we nerf the OC? People throw that out there without giving any reason.

I'd like to ask people to at least attempt to defend your statements.

I am writing here instead of the other forum, because I know that Pilot will make his own decision regardless of what we write.

[Ze_PilOt]

The more we fix thing, the more little things pop out, because the big things are not a problem anymore.

On 3599, you had sera regen, restorer, t3 air in general, ... So you didn't focused that much on others little things.

The day we will fight against the scout DPS, the game will be balanced

[FunkOff]

The more we fix thing, the more little things pop out, because the big things are not a problem anymore.

On 3599, you had sera regen, restorer, t3 air in general, ... So you didn't focused that much on others little things.

The day we will fight against the scout DPS, the game will be balanced

Lol, this is true. It's hard to fix all the imbas are once because most imbas are hidden under bigger imbas.

[Plasma_Wolf]

what exactly is broken with the old vet system?

A simple example: Rush a ML against an army of T2 and look what happens. It'll get close to vet3, at which point a firebase can be attacked with little 'net' damage to the ML.
Ythota? It'll be a bit later on the field but if there still is a T2 army available the result will be even worse.

There were many of us who really enjoyed it and it wasn't game breaking. It was there enough that we knew about it, but not so much that it took over the game

Not game breaking is not the same as not broken. As Pilot said, when the big issues are dealt with, you move on to the little ones.

Same with why should we nerf the OC? People throw that out there without giving any reason.

I don't think anyone wants to see OC nerfed. The problem is that people misunderstood the vet changes. They thought the changes were final and the vet changes simply (indirectly) turned OC OP. Since they didn't assume the vet changes were still liable for more change, they turned to the only thing that would make OC more balanced again and that was a direct nerf.

[Ze_PilOt]

They will be tweaked real soon. That's the kind of feature you need data to tweak. That's why it was release as it is : to collect datas.

[SeraphimLeftNut]

A simple example: Rush a ML against an army of T2 and look what happens. It'll get close to vet3, at which point a firebase can be attacked with little 'net' damage to the ML.
Ythota? It'll be a bit later on the field but if there still is a T2 army available the result will be even worse.

This is not broken. This is what separates experimentals from T1 and T2 units. If you want to stop a spider or a chicken you have to be sufficiently advanced in the game. You can't expect to just spam really hard at the t2 stage. Although spiders are easily stopped with some shields t2 pd and an acu with a gun. You can expect the spider to be countered by a bunch of t2 bots in the middle of the field. The 25 kill veterancies for ml and chicken balance them vs the gc. Otherwise the GC is a much better unit. This is an aspect of faction diversity which is brought to us by the old vet system. This as well as the "hide the women and children effect" add depth to the game. I don't understand why you want to label this as broken.