Idea: Entirely different game progression system

[Whales]

Aaah ok, I didn't catch that. I suppose that could work but it would be tricky to balance. A few days after release there would be build orders and powergaming strategies online that limit the actual choices available to players if they want to succeed. Like in the elder scrolls you would quickly gimp your player if you chose the wrong route. I was thinking along different lines. You have the classes and they can either focus on their primary or seconday ability. Luck determines the individual attributes or hivemind enhancements as you call them.

This is definitely true, it would be hard to balance, but it would leave space for the players to explore and create new strategies for the game. As well, it may be good to keep the stage system in the game so that certain abilities (poison, zap, levels 4/5 of body types, etc.) cannot be unlocked until then.

I don't like luck determining anything in the game, really. It just leaves too much room for stupid things to happen if the other team gets lucky four or five times in a row.

I'm fine with some of these ideas [although they've been talked about in the past several times, whether unvanquished or tremulous] as long as it has a way where the team can't screw up because a noob joins their team and decides to use the credit points on upgrading something not worth it.

These would be individual resources, not team-wide. If that noob came in and used all of his credits upgrading his ammo capacity on his lasgun and stayed completely naked, it would be his problem, not the team's.

[seana11]

How would models work?

I assume you could create various body parts and mesh them together when you needed to, but how would stuff like taunts be implemented? I could see static models be implemented, but how would I tell a mara with +5 zap from a +3 zap?

[KenuR]

Check out the wesnoth traits system

At first I thought it wouldn't fit the game very well but... Unvanquished is a RTS-FPS isn't it? Why not go in that direction then.

[seana11]

At first I thought it wouldn't fit the game very well but... Unvanquished is a RTS-FPS isn't it? Why not go in that direction then.

Ofc, Wesnoth is TBS :P. Much different gameplay there.

[KenuR]

Ofc, Wesnoth is TBS :P. Much different gameplay there.

Still strategy. And the traits system would probably work well for Unvanquished as well.

[Amazonian1515]

What about players on the Human side get promoted to new ranks, such as Private and what-not, and Aliens get proved to things like Minion, Queen etc.

The ranks are like stages, but for individuals.

[Forty-Two]

I like the idea of a different progression system. The stages were purposely asymmetrical, I think, which did make it a bit more interesting (aliens have advantage at s1, but gain little from s2 except base-wise, and humans gain a lot from s2, including the overall advantage, and s3 is balanced - at least on 1.1 lagged, don't know about other settings). However, I've been slightly annoyed by them for a while, and I can't really say why, other than that it allows for some very lame stuff to happen (rants farming s1 humans etc).
I've been too lazy to read all the suggestions here, but I generally support the notion of a different progression system.

[KenuR]

Okay here's a slightly different idea.

There's this Doom mod called All Out War 2, and there're still a bunch of people playing it. Basically there's this system where there's a research center, and every player can spend their own credits on research. So anyone can go and put their own credits in Advanced Mechs, More Turrets etc.

If Humans had 3 tech trees: Weapons, Structures and Advanced Tech (jet pack, batt pack etc), and they also had a structure, a research center of sorts. Any player could access it and put as many credits as he wanted into any particular tech tree. Each tech tree would have individual stages and allow Humans to progress in each area at their own pace. So instead of having 3 stages that unlock a lot of different things at the same time, each tech tree would have their own stages that unlock things in that particular tech tree (Each stage in Weapons would unlock a new weapons, each stage in Structures would unlock a new building etc.). This would result in a greater variety and make things a lot more interesting. There would be games where Humans would put a lot of research into Structures and put up a lot of good defenses and forward bases early on, games where they put more research into Weapons and Advanced Tech, allowing them to be more offensive and games with all sorts of different combinations.

Here's a rough take on how each Tech Tree could look like.

WEAPONS
available from the start - Rifle, Shotgun.
----1--------2--------3------4----------5---------6
Lasgun MassDriver ChainGun PulseRifle Flamethrower Luci

STRUCTURES
available from the start - MG Turret, Armoury (You still have the default nodes and medi, but you can't build more until you unlock them)
----1-----2------3-----4----5
Repeater Medi Telenode DC Tesla

ADVANCED TECH
available from the start - grenade
----1-------2-------3------4--------5
Larmour Battpack Helmet JetPack Battlesuit

What do you think?

[seana11]

Okay here's a slightly different idea.

There's this Doom mod called All Out War 2, and there're still a bunch of people playing it. Basically there's this system where there's a research center, and every player can spend their own credits on research. So anyone can go and put their own credits in Advanced Mechs, More Turrets etc.

If Humans had 3 tech trees: Weapons, Structures and Advanced Tech (jet pack, batt pack etc), and they also had a structure, a research center of sorts. Any player could access it and put as many credits as he wanted into any particular tech tree. Each tech tree would have individual stages and allow Humans to progress in each area at their own pace. So instead of having 3 stages that unlock a lot of different things at the same time, each tech tree would have their own stages that unlock things in that particular tech tree (Each stage in Weapons would unlock a new weapons, each stage in Structures would unlock a new building etc.). This would result in a greater variety and make things a lot more interesting. There would be games where Humans would put a lot of research into Structures and put up a lot of good defenses and forward bases early on, games where they put more research into Weapons and Advanced Tech, allowing them to be more offensive and games with all sorts of different combinations.

Here's a rough take on how each Tech Tree could look like.

WEAPONS
available from the start - Rifle, Shotgun.
----1--------2--------3------4----------5---------6
Lasgun MassDriver ChainGun PulseRifle Flamethrower Luci

STRUCTURES
available from the start - MG Turret, Armoury (You still have the default nodes and medi, but you can't build more until you unlock them)
----1-----2------3-----4----5
Repeater Medi Telenode DC Tesla

ADVANCED TECH
available from the start - grenade
----1-------2-------3------4--------5
Larmour Battpack Helmet JetPack Battlesuit

What do you think?

@Buildings:

The order should be:

telenode, medi, repeater, dcc, tesla.

Nodes need to be first because on maps like pulse where there are no telenodes it is important to build nodes from the start

Also, nade should NOT be available from the start, because the aliens need time to get trappers instead of having to rely on HIGHLY nadable cades. I suggest:

ADVANCED TECH
available from the start - larmour
----1-------2-------3------4--------5
Battpack Helmet Grenade JetPack Battlesuit

Other than that, it seems a good concept.

[KenuR]

Yeah, I didn't give much thought to the order of things, but the general concept seems like a good idea to me.