Unit Experience- Why Not??

[Jameswgm]

It would seem that the reason for many of the features not included, but desired have simply been glazed over and ignored. Diplomacy has been done to death, I've accepted it won't be part of EAW but surely something so simple such as unit experience could have been included. How many current RTS's feature some kind of experience monitors? Surely new games are meant to be innovative, this lack of basic features seems to signal a step back to the past.

 

It's not even as if it would be impractical, I believe that due to the timescale of the game, experience seems even more essential than in other games, which are conducted in a scale infinitely smaller than EAW. Why can't my cruisers that have survived many engagements have an advantage over mass produced "green" units? Even for fighter units, experienced pilots would surely boost effectiveness and survivability?

 

Does anyone share my disappointment or is the consensus one of satisfaction?

 

James.

[Necro]

look at a space battle.

 

most of the time ur units die like flies.

[WhiteSkull]

on top of that how do you give unit xp to a squad of 5 tanks when 3 die and 2 are elft? do just the 2 get xp so the enxt battle when the suqads at 5 again you have 2 with xp out of 5? if so that is extra data to track etc..

[Necro]

never understood the point of unit xp..leader/hero xp yea but unit? they die so fast ;p

[kingdark]

I more or les agree that they could have inserted some system. That way you would be forced to protect your more experienced units more. Also, it could be usefull when the mod community insert the retreat options of individual units, to retreat a unit when its too damaged.

Another thing,

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when you play as imperials in the campaign, yo need to use a capital ship to tractor beams leia ship. Now, the first time, i disabled her engines and she was still able to jump to hyperspace

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The point is, that when you disable a ships engines it should NOT be able to jump to hyperspace

[Necro]

afaik someone said if the engines down they cant jump (that ship) and is counted as a loss.

 

the others can though.

[kingdark]

yhea maybe but i'm talking about the campaign dude maybe thats a diffrent rule or so?

[Darthscharnhorst2]

look at a space battle.

 

most of the time ur units die like flies.

 

 

 

Well maybe if you had an experienced unit it would last a bit longer 

[Megajames]

But the unit would rarly get a chance to gain experiance becasue: ur units die like flies.

[kingdark]

we could increase their strengt...

[MastaSpoofa]

in world war 1 i think the kill death ratio was 1:5, thats prolly why your pilots dont get xp... 

 

but seriously, even if pilots had XP, and they were max level, i doubt they could dodge 40 lasers shots from a tartan or blockade runner... 

[zinfab]

My space units do not die very regularly. I've shifted my strategy to the point that I RARELY lose any ships during space combat. I occasionally lose a Tartan or missile cruiser, but almost NEVER a SD.

 

Since they "heal" between fights, I don't see why the "full squad unit" isn't given XP. Nice, but not necessary.

[Wiking_pff]

My space units do not die very regularly. I've shifted my strategy to the point that I RARELY lose any ships during space combat. I occasionally lose a Tartan or missile cruiser, but almost NEVER a SD.

 

Since they "heal" between fights, I don't see why the "full squad unit" isn't given XP. Nice, but not necessary.

 

Ditto. Having an XP system would be cool. And for the units that die like flies; that's exactly the point of an XP system...it may be hard to reach Elite level, but once a ship survived for that long, it would be one of the few elite units, and you would be extremely careful when comitting it to battle, as opposed to now, when sacrificing 5 ISDs per battle is really no big deal, since you will have them rebuilt in 5 minutes after the battle.  :

[Grand Admiral Thrawn 889]

i agree the xp system maybe cool. but it's just wasted code in reality, the units haven't ever lasted long enough to gain the sort of xp that is needed. this has been proven in games like Force Commander your units gain some xp but it doesn't give them an advantage.

[Captain Data]

Please check BfME before do false statements Experience can be a huge impact to gameplay and balance, if you do it the right way. BfME is doing this fine, Units gain experience and the most experienced units are almost invincible against "green" units.

 

That may not be realistic for EaW. You can't just increase shield- and hardpoint-hitpoints for each levelup. But you can increase softskills, for example accuracy. I really hate seeing a SD missing a corvette, just because its so small. It is small, but still big enough for tracking of Turbolasers. Same for Corvettes with their Laserbatteries: They are too inacurate vs other corvettes.

 

Here an example for a GOOD experience-system, fitting to EaW:

 

Rank 1 - Novice

No bonus to any skill.

 

Rank 2 - Normal

No bonus to most skills, accuracy slightly improved.

 

Rank 3 - Veteran

Regeneration of Shields slightly increased, accuracy improved.

 

Rank 4 - Elite

Regeneration of Shields increased, accuracy improved (almost no misses anymore), new Special Ability*

 

Rank 5 - Hero

Same as in Rank 4 + improved regenerationtime for Special Abilities.

 

===================

 

* Maybe something like this for:

 

Rebs

- Mon-Calamari-internal-systems -> Regeneration of Shiphardpoints midbattle.

- Kamikaze -> A-Wing-Squad is able to destroy multiple hardpoints of a special enemy ship by doing kamikaze; at least one fighter is NOT attacking for surviving this special ability.

- Retreat -> Ship can retreat without retreating all forces (only if engines are still present)

 

Imps

- Improve Forward Deflectors -> Reb-ships attacking an imp. ship doing only half damage to shields, missiles are not able to penetrate anymore. Works not against attacks from behind.

- Launch TIE Interceptors -> Really hard-to-kill Fighters for any Reb Fighter, even without shields.

- Retreat -> look @ Rebs

 

 

======

 

There are DOZENS of ideas for adding new special abilities.

[hellangel666]

just think of rome total war. if you've had a unit long enough to become 3 bar gold, then it was WORTH pwning anything the enemy could throw at you.

 

(one legionary could wipe out a green army (sometimes without even being gold bar)) exp is EVERYTHING in rts games. this is no exception. exp would make your ships fight harder and last longer. making elite units hard to get and extreamly devastating in a battle.... and even maybe a mission to "distroy the elite ship" .... (not mission but game nessasity, kill them fast or die yourself)

 

again exp is a must

[Spiralarchitech]

im not really that miffed at having no experience for units in the game.

 

I've started instead to look into the unit upgrades which are available to determine which are worth buying and which are a bit crap.

 

Maybe the developers thought trying to balance the two (experience/upgrades) would have been long and difficult so sacraficed experience.

[hellangel666]

rome total war had the following

 

experience

upgrades

general infulance in a radius around troops

fatuige

moral

weather that effects fatuige, and moral.

 

aka if rtw could do all that. the devs could have done just experiece.

[Davynelord_pff]

Well, I started a post and it got way too long, LOL.  So here's a slightly shorter version...I do get carried away sometimes, LOL.

 

For me, EAW is a very good game.  It however, is not a revolutionary game that I think should win awards although it probably will since there most likely won't be another rts this year for EAW to be compared to. 

 

The thing is though, all or most of the better RTS games of previous years have certain features that fans have come to expect will be in future games.  Unit experience is one of them.  When you leave such features as unit experience out of the newer games, it's kinda like making a basketball game with no free throw feature, a football game with no play clock, a racing game with no hand brake, a FPS game with no jumping ability.    Sure you can have fun playing those games without such features if your the type who enjoy arcade style game play, but you definitely will miss them because they have become features gamers expect to be there and have grown accustom to.  The first thing you'll say if they aren't is that such and such game had that feature and a brand new 2006 game with today's better technology doesn't have it.  Come on, what's up with that, especially with all of todays copy and paste features a lot of other developers seem to use for games. 

 

The debate that units die too fast is clearly a reason why the feature should be in the game.  Units that have survived multiple encounters (like Vader's 501st whom were considered the best troopers in the imperial army, second to only the emperor's hand), should gain an edge over a freshly new produced unit.  Without such a feature it's like saying that (in real life terms), a army platoon fresh out of boot camp with no war experience is just as good as a veteran platoon who fought in 3 wars before them.  we all know that isn't the truth or else there wouldn't be any need to give ranks to different platoons or personnel.

 

Also, I know people love the cinematic feature and the devs are proud of that as well, however, when you look at it, all your simply doing is watching the computer play itself since you can't command your units in that view.  For me, I like to issue a lot of quick commands during combat and I don't have time to sit back and watch the cinematic view if I'm playing a serious game.    So the cinematic feature is a nice bonus, but should never have taken priority over the most basic and expected features for the game.  I can understand diplomacy not being in the game as it's not a staple feature of a RTS, but unit experience has been for many years and I can't recall a RTS game that doesn't have it in some form or another (hey, I haven't played them all).

 

So in my opinion, experience or rankings for units should have been in the game.  For those who's units die really quick, then I would think that an experience feature would help you to spend a little time using more strategy and tactics.  Only reason I say this is because I can play and have quite a few units survive multiple battles without losing a single unit from their squad and all I have to say is that it's because of the strategy and tactics I use.  Should an experience feature be in the game, then those units would probably be elite or highly ranked units in my games and every bit, no matter how little counts in a strategy game.  Sometimes 5 points of health or a .5 second recharge is the difference in winning or losing a battle or war just like 1 second on the game clock in basketball or 1 yard short of the goal line in football (Pittsburgh vs Rams, Superbowl anyone?).

[zinfab]

this folds directly into my "retreat" thread, as well.

 

having a "respect" for each unit you create is an important way to bond the gamer to his/her game.

[plokoon9619]

No unit experience because lec wants 6 year olds to play this game.

[shadowsfm]

gives me an idea, what if stom trooprts become dark troopers after becoming eliet, and tie fighters into intersepters or defenders

[Nevets]

gives me an idea, what if stom trooprts become dark troopers after becoming eliet, and tie fighters into intersepters or defenders

 

I never liked these ideas of upgrading to a new unit.

 

1)unrealistic

 

2) I like my fleets to have varity. Old units, new units, I want them all in my fleet.

[Wiking_pff]

No unit experience because lec wants 6 year olds to play this game.

 

Sad but true.

[Dorkthehunter]

Instead of having unit experience, at least you can have improved armor, weapons, and shields. At least that's something to customize your ships. Also, as PG has said, they die so fast, that it isn't worth it. Heroes are the real "experienced" units in this game. The commanders also add something to your army's ability to fight.