Yeah I don't really see why Vets need limited spawns in an escalation setting. They're definitely worth looking at giving unlimited lives so long as they arent considerably better than their nonvet versions. Which is why coming into a game late should be ensured to not be a problem. Vets are just more experienced versions of the basic units. This might be a sergeant level unit with marginally better gear in some respects, but it's not quite the level of experience an Elite may bring, which is much much different and I agree, in either case, whether by xp escalation or stored xp reserves, if you don't have it and you get put into a game late, it'll be an uphill battle.

So back to revisions.

Elites spawning should be tied to the Warlor durring the pregame. Maybe he has to choose what strategy would work best for that particular game. Want to try a blitz? Elites can be spawned immediately via paying for them. In for the long haul? Escalation. Half your force has yet to arrive? Maybe a 3rd mode where you can "bank up" a relief fund in game collective reserve where new players can opt into upon their arrival and spawn immediately as whatever the fund allows.

And that's how wraithguard basically function using high toughness as a shield apposed to Terminators which rely on their armour primarily as a shield apposed to their toughness, this would give Terminators the sustain and flexibility while Wraiths focuses on shear durability while limited in other ways such as speed, range and melee.

This is perfectly shown on TT as Termies rely on their 2+ save to survive a wound while Wraiths rely on that T6 to negate a wound, the beauty here is weapons designed to wreck their shit are normally ap2 anyway meaning they are more fragile to anti heavy weapons without that 5++ invun that Terminators get and that their 3+ save is more of a backup to the odd small arm that does wound them.

All we have to do is give Termies a very large armour pool and poison reduction and we have two very different Heavies that basically do the same thing which is pretty cool.

The problem with this is that it only makes the games more lopsided, as in if your good you get to become even more powerful allowing you to dominate even more, giving the other side a worse experience and humiliating loss altogether.

So the really good players are "always" more powerful because they are good players. The puggernauts are even more screwed because they will rarely kill you if ever. In a clan vs pug, this exasperates things even farther because the clan will all be vets/heros/termies allowing them to dominate even more so.

This sounds like a great system but with one exception, is that the stone cold killers like you mentioned become even stronger with those classes, making it that much more unlikely that the losing side will be able to kill at all in order to catch up. If the dominant side was still limited to reg classes then that would work great, but now they are going up against players that are more skilled and with superior units making it to hard for the otherside to even get kills against them.

I am thinking a better system overall would be like the vehicle system, your allowed x number of termies/elites/hero spawns per time frame, but the losing side would get a boost to shorter spawn times to allow them to compensate. This adjusts depending on win/lose sides, become stronger the greater the gap between them is. So if they are losing hardcore, it would be like the Deathwing has responded to assist their failing brothers.

I could see this having a min spawn time though regardless of the state of the game, but could be affected by uneven numbers as well to help compensate for those lopsided starts where one side has way more players, as well as what a cap point returns in reward based on how good/bad the fight is going. This all would help in keeping the fight interesting and closer I would think.

I haven't thought too much about it, but I dislike the method of earning xp to play something. It should be open to everyone, for the "fun" factor if nothing else.

I wonder if they couldn't do two restrictions for elites; 1.) One Elite spawn per game for each person. & 2.) Only X amount active for a team at a time.

This cycles in every member of a team by default to be someone important for a certain period during the match. Once a few elites die, other members of the team have to pick up the role until the role is spent. It should foster teamwork a bit, since you want the elite to lead the charge and the rest gather up around the elite(s). Elites should probably be 3-4 times as difficult to kill as a normal character.

So Vets were talked about today.

They'll be getting a "significant survivability boost in the form of a flat armor buff".... "They will also have - be getting more LP [than they currently are allotted]."

I'm not sure how many people have witnessed being a xenos against the SMs who've already recieved armor, but they're generally much more difficult to kill than they were. Now everyone's vets are getting more armor for free + almost assuridly being able to fully equip both advanced armor plus the +40 wargear. That is a metric FUCKTON of survival gear and the new point cap has yet to be revealed (and they said it will ve reworked entirely at some point as well). I can easily see a MoT getting 200 armor + 120-130 T with this for example, or an Ork with nearly 400 hp and 130-150 T - with heals he'll be almost unstoppable. So it seems most characters will be able equip fully offensive options in addition to get full survivability. Basically do whatever you want lol.

I think this experience is definitely going to solidify the communities views on how we spawn vets. I now think that this will almost certainly shift power in a game pretty considerably and I think I now need more info before advocating for any replenishment system as I'm just not sure untik I see what the new versions of vets do.

I see the need for a better spawn system, but I also don't want to take the call of duty route and make it a high kill streak. I also don't want to go to making people "pay" for the right to be elite by req or something outside the current match.

These ways can really kill the fun out of the game and put a cap on the enjoyment. PS2 did it best with thier Max suites.
Have a score that people can reach that is low, like 500 points in the match earns them a token used that match only, at 1 token they get an elite spawn, at 4 they get termi.

Making it low makes it possible for everyone to be able to achieve this in game, and it creates "second wind" for teams who are losing or who want to press the advantage. ALSO makes a death weigh less.

Mostly there is essentially a list of "DO NOT DO" in the creation of this new system that can get in the way of fun for the general audience.

-Do not make players have to spend a currency that is earned outside the match.

-Do not make it a score so high that few will ever get it and the few who do will be at the end of a match and can't enjoy it.

-Do not make players agonize over choosing to deploy their elite now, instead make it so that they want to play it and if they lose it, it is just a set back.

Just focus on fun first, now if creating the opportunities for a second wind in the game can be useful for players. Also I'm not worried about one player being given to much power since you can die very fast if you are stupid in this game. And you will be countered by enemies with their terminator equivalents.

Also take away the elites and termies ability to redeploy will also be a good balance against them.

Simply make a new resource, you get 1 every second from the start of the match. You have all your elite/hero classes available. Vets cost 300 points, elites cost 420 points, heroes cost 600 points. For every nonstandard class on your side cost goes up 10%. IE pulling a vet when there are 3 vets out already then it costs you 390 points.

That makes it so everything is timed and a choice of when you want to spawn, also penalizes people who mass pull advanced classes.

true but doing that in a small scale pvp like moba (5v5 usually) is much easier than in a chaotic big scale pvp. honestly that idea of yours seems like a massive snowballing system.

Also funny you bring up mobas. I used to play a lot of Dota 2 (have like 3300 hours in it) one thing that you see in dota pugs a lot is that a) you get stomped or b) you stomp. rarely you get a match that is very even. That is because these kind of games are already really snowbally. You start ramping up an advantage and it is getting harder and harder for the other team to come back.

I really dont want EC to have more snowballing mechanics. For me the most fun games are when any side can win even when one side seems to dominate for the moment.

The extend match-time by capping points for the attackers is already a very good mechanic to even out matches that seem almost unwinnable. I´ve experienced a lot matches where we (LSM) were defenders and completely outnumbered the attackers (not really rare thing due to our high player numbers). But one thing I always try to tell my teammates is to stay alert because if the attackers suddenly get a big influx of players they can absolutely turn the match around by just capping a point that is currently unguarded. I honestly lost matches because of that.

Now that is not really a good example of fun gameplay as normally matches should start out with even player numbers but stuff like that where one side is likely to just lose but suddenly they come back big is what I really hope to see.

I just dont think that tying elites to kills/points is the right way to go. Or at least not only. Your idea for at least one free vet spawn is already a start I guess.

One thing or two I literally just came up with is, tying elite spawns with secondary map objectives (which we´ve been asking for like forever).
Or maybe have different kind of triggers to allow spawing of veterans. Like if a team is getting seriously pushed back they can spawn some kinds of veteran or elite classes. That could be faction specific. For example if LSM is getting smashed they could spawn a limited amount of legion of the damed. To not make that to strong maybe there should be some kind of risk/cost to spawn these classes.

Sorry but if you have an average team comebacks are very possible and common, the amount of times I punished fed players as Dragon Knight or Jug and using that gold to buy BKB and pushed mid melee racks, I find the mechanic works very well in dota just it functions better in league as you give gold while losing gold in dota which can ramp it up for either side, but that tension makes it better and death that much more punishing making a comeback a possibility.

Although I agree I want no snowball mechanics in this game, no need to reward better players more than being statically more likely to win fights and having better coordination.

So my previous post recognizes this as vets are going to become considerably more powerful than they are now. Markosian is now very right that new players entering into the battle are going to really be at a big disadvantage to a game that escalates without them able to "buy in" so to speak.

On top of it, is the MOBA snowball effect - which at least is theoretically offset by the points rewards for killing valuable units. Killing a terminator will pretty much push you right to their level so yes, the game size is much bigger, however, there's definited linear growth, not big gaps of farming and then a game changing item. Not to defend my own point, as I really am usure of it now.

Lastly, this really does make me want to bring up the question of basic loadouts and the promise of horizontal progression over vertical and favorable customization. For example, apart from being able to redeploy, why would anyone choose to play a basic class over a terminator or veteran? What advantages do they have over the Terminators or are we allowing powercreep into thr game where the only goal is to race to whatever method allows you to play the most powerful character possible? Also, the visual customization options for vets may actually make me almost refuse to play anything else. I want a tabbard! I want the shoulders! I'd love to look like this, and I'm sure MYST would too: