Rebalancing / Revamping the Research System

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    • Rebalancing / Revamping the Research System

      Before I start to share my suggestions with you I would like to take a stock of the main problems of the current research system, which have a negative impact on the game all over. Afterwards I will present you a list of – in my opinion – suitable solutions.

      Main problems
      • Too high resource costs, especially rare materials (RM) but supply and money costs should also be considered.
      • Connected to the issue of too high resource costs in general is the problem, that you are less flexible in your decision making; once you have chosen a game strategy you simply can't afford to react to in game changes (military etc.) simply because researching adequate units would take to long and costs too much.
      • Only two given research slots creating a mid to late game lack of research possibilities. This means there are too “many” research slots in the early game and too less in the mid to late game.
      • Specific days of unlocking a certain technology in the doctrine related tech tree slows down the game development and prevents strategic diversity.

      Possible solutions

      a)
      The first approach I can think of is kinda obvious: Reducing the all over research costs but especially RM expenses. There are actually two viable ways to accomplish this goal.

      a1)
      Direct Approach:

      Reducing costs in research by an research update through Dorado Games.

      a2)
      Indirect approach:

      Increasing the resource sources especially RM will effectively reduce research costs compared to resources incomes. Measures to reach this could be: Increasing RM production in cities, starting with a higher stock of RM in all games, introducing double resources cities.

      b)
      The second possible solution could be to entirely remove research costs and increasing the available research slots to 5 or more, thus allowing research to more flexible and strategic. In return research time should be noticeably longer, so your decisions will have a real impact on your strategy and tactic but the additional slots will allow you more flexibility to respond to other player tactics etc.
      Furthermore the remove of all costs (except time) will cause the released resources to be used to produce units or building leading to more PvP action all over, which is crucial because CoN is an pvp-centred game and not a research simulation. An other desirable effect is the reduction in global game length towards a very late game causing not a “wordy” late game.
      I also suggest to unlock every technology for researching at day one. Because of balancing issues it could be possible to restrict the access to research slots for early, mid and late game nations.
      Also balancing could be a lot more easier since the remove of all research costs which would have been otherwise to be considered when balancing a unit. The developers could then simply balance units by their building and upkeep costs as well as their combat strengths.

      c)
      Here is my third suggestion for a possible revamp, but I will keep it short since I just want to show you a brief chance of what I was thinking about. This idea would not only require a revamp of the research system but also a total revamp of the current combat strengths etc. of all units in game. The basic is that you wouldn't have to research a specific unit to unlock it because all units would have been already unlocked. Instead you just research some “qualities” of your units such as movement speed, combat strength etc. to certain levels to give your strategy more depth. You could decide in detail what advantages (and disadvantages) you may take or not to pursue your strategy.

      Graphics / Display suggestions and other things

      • Research queue for security council members.
      • Bigger Icons for research tabs with a brief description of researchable units with a brief description of strengths and weaknesses (when to research and when not).
      • Display of when a research is finished (date, time) and when a research can be started.
      • Displaying a tool tip with the most important unit statistics when moving the mouse cursor over the unit icon in the tech tree.
      • Full screen research menu should be possible; display research costs and time in the tech tree itself – not in the right menu.
      • Implementing a (revamped and better) comparison matrix of the specific doctrines to have the ability to study them on demand in the research menu or in a separate menu with detailed description of strengths and weaknesses of certain doctrines.
      • Summary respectively a list of all nations (in the current game), which doctrine they use and a display of their geographical location.

      Most recently I thank you for reading my post and hope you will engage on a discussion of my ideas or you will at least leave a comment to some of the given content. Please note that all provided numbers are just a personal guess of what would or could be suitable.
    • Kristovi wrote:

      I suggest to use only money and rare materials for research. Actually the main obstacle to research is the lake of supplies.
      Really ? Wow, I must admit i thought it really was Rare materials, in fact (at least in early)
      Running an online alliance is pretty much like running a small company, except you need to find other way than money to keep your employees productive. May they play or work, they are humans.
    • DPRK Gaming wrote:

      Connected to the issue of too high resource costs in general is the problem, that you are less flexible in your decision making; once you have chosen a game strategy you simply can't afford to react to in game changes (military etc.) simply because researching adequate units would take to long and costs too much.
      I think this is a really interesting point, which nobody has brought up before. What if there were multiple paths to certain units/upgrades? Like if you researched airborne infantry, you could research the airborne upgrade on other units immediately (but not any of the other upgrades)? I think it'd be really interesting to make the research tree more flexible in this way, and that it would improve gameplay substantially.
      "The enemy cannot push a button, if you disable his hand."
      Sergeant Zim, Terran Federation
    • You mean a complex tree of requirements, with "IF / ELSE IF / ELSE" ? This would actually rock, indeed.
      Running an online alliance is pretty much like running a small company, except you need to find other way than money to keep your employees productive. May they play or work, they are humans.
    • This may lead to a rebalancing.

      Before the supplies update, there were TOO MUCH supplies.

      Now you say there are not enough :D. Some more tweaks, and it will be perfect, it seems :D
      Running an online alliance is pretty much like running a small company, except you need to find other way than money to keep your employees productive. May they play or work, they are humans.
    • Some little balancing in basic infantry and basic AA prices (1300 supply !) would be a good start.
      And I suggest to slighter the research first level price. Almost free for level 1 would be great. That would open a wide choice of tactic without being OP. In fact that would balance the game overall (and more stimulating for beginner players).
      Frexit