Author Topic: Do you think player specialization works well?  (Read 1609 times)

Offline Aegis

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Do you think player specialization works well?
« on: April 29, 2010, 01:05:00 am »
  When I say specialization, I'm not talking about 1 player unlocks starships over fleet ships or gets level 4 of a certain item. I am referring more to the overarching roles the player assumes. For example, I tend to be the player that makes scouts and sometimes have a slow time of capturing enemy territory. In these slow games I end up sort of cleaning up guard posts, repairing remaining friendlies and on hard to defend planets, add my turrets to the lines. However, this is more circumstance and positioning than intentional. But if it were?

  The idea of a structured force split into specialized forces is very attractive to me, but AI War's gameplay sometimes makes that a challenge. Issues like one player not having the resource flow to maintain a proper force for conquest, the defender running out of Mk 2/3 turrets and response ships for placement in key conflict areas, unexpected attacks, and even having home worlds in distant areas ("Show unexplored worlds off" is genius and TENSE BTW) make such rigid roles difficult to maintain without enough role overlap to erode specialization. What do you, the player-base, think on this matter? Is role specialization a viable strategy, or simply the quickest path to failure against a high level AI? Can you effectively delegate specific roles, follow them, and be successful?

Offline ShadowOTE

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Re: Do you think player specialization works well?
« Reply #1 on: April 29, 2010, 01:32:47 am »
That depends on the team and what duties you're trying to divy up, as well as where you are in the game. For example, in the early stages of a campaign everyone in my group tends to do their own thing after we agree which worlds to initially take. Later we start to assume more specialized roles, generally with one of us handling microing the fleet, another on defense, and the last person handling misc. details such as microing support ships and reinforcements.

As far as structuring your play into more specialized roles, that depends heavily on unlocks. For example, if a player intends to go ship heavy, we give him first pick of metal heavy worlds. Likewise, someone handling defense gets the crystal heavy worlds. If you end up going hybrid, you get the more balanced worlds. We also tend to shift forces between players, so the defense heavy player might give low level turrets or turrets unlocked by everyone to another player and carry on building more where needed. On the whole, delegation works pretty well as long as you have a team willing to work together.

That said, if you aren't willing to co-ordinate with other players and trust them to handle their responsibilities correctly, then you end up in a bit of a pickle. My roommate, for example, doesn't like other players microing his fleet, which makes co-ordinating offensives... interesting (though his computer has problems joining games, so it's pretty rare that he gets to join in).

Offline soMe_RandoM

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Re: Do you think player specialization works well?
« Reply #2 on: July 01, 2010, 04:45:57 am »
ship type should depend on playing style turtles should love electric shuttles :D
rushers maby inflitrators.
also it depends on map type if you got the turtle infront of you where he between you and the ai vai 1 worm hole entrence thus choke point he should be dirrectly deffence and you should finance a black hole geny. then get it to heavy defend it with hlazers so your main goal is to set off the ai when the turtle is ready for the attack so if you ecom on idle might yust build some defences costly while it setting up. also trade ecom harvisters depending on you needs and trust him he give it back. as pure exsample (dn cost) heavy lazer cost 80000 crystal well and u have 9 but no tech send him ur crystal harvisters once it up ask it back. if he doesnt then well it wont work. as you are the Hand of the team but hes the body. the body cant affect the surroundings if it cant grasp anything around it.
AI War - even the smallest units can make all the difference no matter how weak they are still quite capable of taking the hits. if it can Kill and receive damage then it worth its time other wise if it cant kill and cant take the damage for the higher surviving ships then it is worthless.

 

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