From my perspective, as a player who does not habitually com-morph and

(#1) would like com-morphing to be interesting
(#2) would not like com-morphing to be obligatory
(#3) would be ok with com-morphing being kind of weak (especially in 1v1/2v2), but not terrible

I am not entirely satisfied. I think #2 and #3 are more or less satisfied but #1 could be improved on. The question is how to improve #1 without compromising #2 or #3.

Some Issues

Some of the generic 8x modules are pretty lame.
[Spoiler]

The weapon modifiers (Flux Amp, Disruptor Ammo, Napalm Warhead) are wonky.
[Spoiler]

Strike, Guardian and Engineer chassis are fundamentally very similar, unless you are going full com-morph.
[Spoiler]

The Recon chassis is qualitatively different in a way that is very relevant to competitive play.
[Spoiler]

There is very little reason to morph beyond level 2 (the first weapon) unless you intend to morph to level 4.
[Spoiler]

A general lack of interesting decisions.
[Spoiler]

Potential Design

I'm not really trying to nail down specific balance numbers at this stage - my goal is to achieve a reasonable design.

Remove Disruptor Ammo, Flux Amplifier, Napalm Warhead and Lazarus Device.

Recon: Significant increase to Jump cooldown, perhaps decrease jump range; a bit more HP to compensate. You can still expand (on say Quicksilver) but you'll be vulnerable to raids for a while afterwards.

Engineer: Moderate decrease to build range, perhaps buff something to compensate.

Strike: Moderate decrease to autorepair, perhaps buff something to compensate.

These changes might seem to reduce chassis distinctions and some cool modules. Read on.

Commander Subsystems

This is largely a refinement of this idea. If you have played Dota 2 recently this idea probably looks kind of familiar.

The basic idea is:

At level 3 or later you can add a minor subsystem module. Only one minor subsystem can be selected.
At level 5 or later you can add a major subsystem module. Only one major subsystem can be selected.

The goals of this change are:

• Add interesting module choices.
• Make the choice of chassis more interesting.
• Improve the design of weapon modifier modules (their inherent downsides can be removed if they have the downside of not choosing a different subsystem).
• Make level 3 a more appealing thing to morph to.

Some of my design principles for these subsystems are:

• Avoid negative side effects (being unable to select the other subsystem should be a sufficient tradeoff).
• Each pair of subsystems doesn't need to be equally useful in all games, or on average, but there should be some kind of game in which each one is useful.
• Try to avoid just making ordinarymodule++ but one or two (like crazy movespeed) might be ok.
• Subsystems which are dependent on other module/subsystem choices (like weapon mods) make me sad but are probably unavoidable.

The subsystems are different for each chassis. A first draft:

Recon

Minor Subsystem
JUMP BOOSTER: Increase Jump range and decrease cooldown [?]
SENSOR ARRAY: Increase vision radius to something near 800 (i.e. Radar Tower vision range). [?]
Major subsystem
KINETIC DISTRIBUTOR: Jump impacts like a Sumo.
RUN YOUR BOI: Significant movement speed increase. [?]

Strike

Minor Subsystem
FLUX AMPLIFIER: Increase damage of Beam Laser, Particle Beam. Increase EMP damage of Lightning Rifle.
FLEX-ALLOY ARMOR: Significant increase to autorepair, some HP. [?]
Major subsystem
OVERCLOCK: Decrease manual-fire weapon reload time. [?]
SYSTEM REBOOT: Remove all negative status effects, long cooldown. [?]

Engineer

Minor Subsystem
DISRUPTOR AMMO: Add slow damage to standard weapons. [?]
DUAL-PHASE LATHE: Significant increase in build power and range [?]
Major subsystem
RESONANCE COIL: Increase manual-fire weapon range. [?]
LAZARUS DEVICE: Commander can resurrect wrecks. [?]

Guardian

Minor Subsystem
NAPALM WARHEADS: Increase Heat Ray and Flamethrower damage, add fire damage to other weapons. [?]
VANGUARD DEPLOYMENT: Deploy Commander economy pack as a building, get some combat benefit like HP. [?]
Major subsystem
ANCHORING MODULE: 1/2 damage taken while stationary. [?]
CONCUSSION PULSE: Throws nearby enemies away. [?]

What about fixing the 8x modules?

I have some ideas but they are less well baked at this stage. On the other hand they're way easier implementation-side.

• Remove Damage Booster, have interesting subsystems which increase damage of weapons instead.
• Reduce High Density Plating and Advanced Targeting System to max 3x or something, but make them better individually.
• Perhaps do something similar to drones? Drones in general need more thought.

Miscellaneous Ideas

• Have a choice of three minor subsystems; add a second one at level 6/7. [?]
• Limit com morph to level 7 (similar to campaign). The later levels are just "add generically good modules" anyway, and are reached so rarely that it's not really worth trying to make them better.
• Do something drastic to Disintegrator Gun.
• I'm not a big fan of the Area Shield conversion.

Since I'm not a habitual com-morpher and a lot of these choices have more to do with appeal than balance, other perspectives are probably useful in this instance.

I like the alternate paths approach, but i don't think this design changes much about the Level 3 issue because almost every minor subsystem listed is a previous Level 3 module or is similar in magnitude.

There are two important things that L3 allows currently which were not mentioned, this is shield and cloak. Cloak is much more important i guess.

Recon is currently so different from the other chassis because it gets a qualitatively different ability for free, whether you commorph or not. If you want diverse chassis in competitive games, this could work for the others.

E.g. the Guardian egg-laying thing could be a free starting ability, especially as the egg is easier to destroy than the commander, cannot run or be cloaked, etc.

quote: Miscellaneous Ideas Do something drastic to Disintegrator Gun.

Remove as a module. Strikecom level 3 talent: cloak OR dgun.

you want to detract from Dgun? make it faster with higher damage(pass through will be shorter, just to compensate) and give some nasty sound and lenseflare at commander's tip for like 4 seconds when activated. the projectile only launches after 4 seconds, not instantly. com is decloaked for this duration.

The module system was originally designed with a level cap in mind, which meant every module you picked was a tradeoff versus another potential module. Now it feels a little more like you can pick up everything you could potentially want eventually: A d-gun comm can max speed and regen while also picking up cloak and other things, all that matters is the order you get them.

The way Istrolid creates dynamic unit classes is by creating extensive tradeoffs: Extra range is always heavier, which slows you down and means that max range only comes with slower speed, so bombardment always outranges kiters. Cloak also trades off with weight, as does jump, and HP adds weight or hitvolume, meaning the more HP you get the easier you are to hit (and the harder it is to cloak or jump). Istrolid also uses a module system for weapons which caps them at 6 modules each, and most modules come with a reload penalty, meaning the max range weapons have a much lower DPS and the max DPS weapons have only base range.

This is hard to apply to the commander in Zero-K, because it really has to fulfill the Riot role early on, be slow enough that it cannot rush the enemy at the start, yet have enough HP that it cannot be easily picked off. This means it can never be any of the more fragile unit classes unless modules come with harsh tradeoffs which transform the unit more drastically.

It's a question of how much you want the Comm to be limited to it's traditional riot-assault focus though, as the problematic builds have always been things like artillery or anti-heavy, or super fast jumpy-comms that could kite almost everything but had assault-class HP, or doing things that no other unit could. For example, there is no fast unit over 300 metal.

quote: There is very little reason to morph beyond level 2 (the first weapon) unless you intend to morph to level 4.

A fix is moving part of the cost and attribute boosts of the level4 form to the level 3 form.

quote: Limit com morph to level 7 (similar to campaign). The later levels are just "add generically good modules" anyway, and are reached so rarely that it's not really worth trying to make them better.

I agree with limiting the morphs to level 7 or something, that'll force people to make choices instead of converging to the same design at high levels. It'd also allow modules to be relatively more cost-effective for lower levels.

quote: Damage Booster is boring, bad, and could be very annoying if it was good. ... Remove Damage Booster, have interesting subsystems which increase damage of weapons instead.

Bad idea. Why boring? Range is better atm because it boosts the weapon value further as it's stacked, and because commanders can't trade shots with zk's high dps, short ranged raiders and riots and reasonably get out alive. It could easily give 12% per module with no drawback and people would still only get a few, possibly after maxing out range.


High power servos was maybe OK at +10%, 8% is too low, especially at lower levels.

quote: Recon: Significant increase to Jump cooldown, perhaps decrease jump range; a bit more HP to compensate. You can still expand (on say Quicksilver) but you'll be vulnerable to raids for a while afterwards. Engineer: Moderate decrease to build range, perhaps buff something to compensate. Strike: Moderate decrease to autorepair, perhaps buff something to compensate.

I disagree with this. Jump's somewhat overrated, the commander is already only 10% faster than the others, and gets considerably less HP/level. I don't think the blind RPS associated with commanders' innate differences is an issue because they're all slow. Factory choice matters much more.

quote: FLUX AMPLIFIER: Increase damage of Beam Laser, Particle Beam. Increase EMP damage of Lightning Rifle. ... OVERCLOCK: Decrease manual-fire weapon reload time. ... RESONANCE COIL: Increase manual-fire weapon range

Special modules that strictly boost specific weapons are bad. This risks developers making the weapon not worth picking unless in conjunction with said modules.

quote: ANCHORING MODULE: 1/2 damage taken while stationary. [?] CONCUSSION PULSE: Throws nearby enemies away. [?]

These are interesting.

quote: VANGUARD DEPLOYMENT: Deploy Commander economy pack as a building, get some combat benefit like HP. [?]

this ability should be something that all commanders could do since the start, without any module requirement.

quote: Do something drastic to Disintegrator Gun.

Commanders with it break all enemy tanky commander builds that rely on front line exposure, even without getting any damage modules. Bad design. Remove it from the game.

So, have you thought about more concrete values?

quote: KINETIC DISTRIBUTOR: Jump impacts like a Sumo.

this will look cool but has two issues

- doesn't make sense : crushing aoe damage from jump on a commander that's supposed to be lighter but faster than others

- gameplay : recon commander has mobility advantages but relatively bad survivability, how often will you want to jump it into the middle of an enemy group?

commanders commanders commanders!!!1

quote: Not at this stage, I think the design as a whole needs some more time to brew.

are we there yet?

are we there yet?


(why not?)