The problem with champions can really be summed up into a few specific points.
- Nebula are too disconnected from the main game, too random at times, and ultimately way too time consuming.
- Short of a nebula being right at victory or defeat, death is meaningless as a champion.
- Champions have absolutely no character to them.
- Why am I bothering being a pure champion when I don't have the exact same power as a fleet and my allies end up getting more power from the free starships spawned?
- Not enough abilities for the champions
- Not enough uniqueness across different hulls/classes (see point 3)
The solutions for this seem rather simple. The first and foremost is to undock progression from nebula almost exclusively. If you're going to keep nebula in, either keep it as its own separate game or as a rare situation that comes up and which the pass/fail event affects the main game quite substantially, instead of as a method of progress. To this end, the best system I can see to tie champion progression (levelling, strictly) into is the research system itself. Using the research system has many benefits for champions.
- It means that the RTS players and RPG (champion) players always progress with each other, neither can get ahead of behind the other reliably, and more importantly, it can be controlled better in terms of leveling versus the AI being powered up.
- This can be partially accomplished by making the champ a research unit of its own, though this isn't necessary since champs require an RTS player. But, it means the champion is always working with the RTS player and gaining rewards along with their allies and can directly support their allies in this effort. Especially deepstriking colonies to research there where the RTS player likely will never go.
- This would be strictly for leveling and doesn't have to touch on unlocking new ship types, classes, or weapons.
Classes most likely should be directly handled either through champion selection
or through leveling. If you don't want players playing a frigate through the entire game with appropriate power for it, as an example, that's fine. Unlocking new weapons should be a bit different. The best option is likely to slave new weapons to things like advanced research to promote exploration with the ship.
The big problem here now is that champions need to have character. Why am I choosing a Human hull over a Zenith hull, for example? This shouldn't be something I can near-literally freely swap around A player should choose one racial hull at start and stick with it, or changing from hull to hull should be an exceptionally costly endeavor. Furthermore, hulls should be very distinct from each other. Right now, you have some racial uniqueness such as humans being the only ones with heavy beams, but this can go a step further. For instance, humans can be the primary direct combat ship using beams, missiles, and generally having the most hard points for weaponry. Zenith could potentially be a "Carrier" champion. One that stays further at range and just spawns wave after wave of disposable ships to attack the enemy. It would have a completely distinct playstyle from the Human champion instead of being shades different but ultimately the same. This helps enforce champion identity a hell of a lot better than some turrets not working on some hulls.
As a byproduct of the prior, each champion should have a unique selection of weapons only they get with some overlap as the devs feel it fits. Each class of champion should feel unique from the other, and that includes firing unique weapons. The human ship has that in that they are the only ones to use heavy beams. This uniqueness should spread to different chassis as it builds character for the champions.
I would also suggest as a potential option to remove all scaling of power from researching weapons up ranks. All weapons would tier up based off of which chassis you're in. Default would be 2, 3 for destroyer, 4 for cruiser, 5 for battleship. Alternatively, slave slot levels to a unique upgrade path, which leads me to...
Champion abilities (part of character). Champion progression is very...uninteresting presently. You unlock stuff within a nebula, upgrade weapons lockstep up a path slowly, but leveling largely controls your tier of weapon. Instead, leveling should really be refocused around perhaps general upgrades (weapon/defense tiers) or around active abilities, of which a plethora of abilities should be added. For instance, the default ability of spawning a shield is stuck pretty much at the same power always. Why can't this be leveled up? It'd be interesting if I had to make a choice while leveling of either upping my weapons to the next tier, upping my defenses to the next tier, upgrading this shield ability, perhaps as a human ship I also have an offensive option of launching a wide-area torpedo. Having to make choices over what is upgraded, how, is fairly important. Forcing players to choose one of 4 races of champion and then making each race fundamentally unique from each other helps build attachment to the ship and overall increases the enjoyment. Adding options between, oh, 4 active abilities and maybe passive systems upgrades would help in this regard.
These are just the ideas I have for now. But as it stands, champions feel like a half-baked idea that aren't all there, but have the potential for a variety of gameplay-altering options to allow for a player to be as strong as an RTS player without being an RTS player.
So, in summation:
- Slave champion progression in part to research. This is primarily to make sure that champions and the RTS players stay in relative power, and helps aid balancing while promoting players playing together.
- Make champions equivalent to 1 player in power, but have significant cost if you lose them. This is more a matter of just balancing the champions to keep pace with an RTS player at all times.
- Force players to choose one race of champion, perhaps one class of champion, but make each champion fundamentally distinct from each other with a unique playstyle and active abilities
- Make the primary benefit of leveling a champion gaining access to ever more powerful abilities more so than equipment, the equipment should keep pace with the champion's class or level innately
- Unlock new weapons in similar ways to unlocking new units for RTS players. For instance, with adv. research labs. Abilities might also be unlocked this way to offer new options.
This is by no means a list of things that have to be done. Some of these ideas won't be great, won't work for the game, would be too difficult to implement, and so on and so forth. But the important thing is to make people want to play just champions by making them individually interesting while also making them play with everyone else in the game in the same game. Those 2 points are by far the most important.
