Champions Remade

[Captain Jack]

Modules might be going away but I think I'll miss having Champions; a ship that gets stronger as you do is a cool idea, and they're useful. Here's a thought that could keep the progression and the customization: Heroes of Might and Magic style level ups. When you leveled up a character in HoMM you got some version of this screen.



Every level presents you with two random passive skills. These improve ranged attacks and defense, there are skills for magic power and melee attacks as well as skills for your hero's field abilities. Each skill has multiple tiers that improve the effect. Options you do not choose can be offered again later on.

So for AI War 2, when you level up you get your two options. Let's say... Tractor Beams Mk I and Advanced Armor. You take Tractor Beams and a bunch of them get added to your ship automatically, while Advanced Armor goes back into the ether. There's no module involved, it simply becomes a ship with tractor beams. Later you get the option to upgrade your tractor beams, which increases the mark of the systems that are already on the ship and maybe adds more.

In some ways this is a more restrictive system than the modules. Upgrades cannot be swapped out, and you can't choose the composition of your weapon systems. The upgrades are a mix of class specific and generic--Only Neinzul Champions can get Carrier capacity, for example, while only humans can get lightning turrets. Champions in this system would still come in race-specific flavors, but this time you can't switch at will.

Any questions, comments or hate mail?

[Tridus]

I don't see how things levelling up at all fits into the rest of the game. Why can this one unit level up, while everything else has to improve via unlocking higher tiers using knowledge?

Fundamentally, it's another genre jammed into the middle of AI War.

[kasnavada]

I don't see how things levelling up at all fits into the rest of the game. Why can this one unit level up, while everything else has to improve via unlocking higher tiers using knowledge?

Fundamentally, it's another genre jammed into the middle of AI War.

That's basically what was said of heroes in warcraft 3 at the start.
I think I don't need to argument further than that.

[Pumpkin]

I personally dislike champions: they are the introduction of a totally different gameplay that doesn't really blend with the rest, and the Alt.Champ.Progress didn't really addressed that, IMO.

Also, it clashes with a design philosophy: no invisible upgrade.

[Cinth]

I personally dislike champions: they are the introduction of a totally different gameplay that doesn't really blend with the rest, and the Alt.Champ.Progress didn't really addressed that, IMO.

Also, it clashes with a design philosophy: no invisible upgrade.

I might would agree with you but the Champs stuff is player only.  The AI versions are always frigates with mk 1 modules.

[Misery]

I dunno, I personally like that these things are so different from the rest of the game.  They add even more variety, and have tons of utility of their own when used right, able to fulfill many different roles if set up right.  It ends up almost feeling like a whole separate entity from the rest of the empire, powerful in it's own right... but you only get one.  It's not something that you can just chop in half and send to more than one place at a time.  I have to be careful about where I send it, when, and why, if I want to get the most out of it.  That's my experience with it, anyway.   I get a ton of use out of these things.

Feh, this seems like another of those things where I like it a lot, but everyone else seems not to.  Like those Astro Trains, everyone seems to hate those things, I think they're entertaining and interesting.   Except the gravity trains, those just make me impatient.  Gravity effects always do.  Bloody Gravitic Command Stations. 

[Tridus]

I don't see how things levelling up at all fits into the rest of the game. Why can this one unit level up, while everything else has to improve via unlocking higher tiers using knowledge?

Fundamentally, it's another genre jammed into the middle of AI War.

That's basically what was said of heroes in warcraft 3 at the start.
I think I don't need to argument further than that.

I don't see how a small scale game where you're intended to micro individual units is comparable to AI War., which bills itself as grand strategy.

Probably also worth noting that Blizzard didn't bring it back in Starcraft 2.

[Tridus]

I dunno, I personally like that these things are so different from the rest of the game.  They add even more variety, and have tons of utility of their own when used right, able to fulfill many different roles if set up right.  It ends up almost feeling like a whole separate entity from the rest of the empire, powerful in it's own right... but you only get one.  It's not something that you can just chop in half and send to more than one place at a time.  I have to be careful about where I send it, when, and why, if I want to get the most out of it.  That's my experience with it, anyway.   I get a ton of use out of these things.

Feh, this seems like another of those things where I like it a lot, but everyone else seems not to.  Like those Astro Trains, everyone seems to hate those things, I think they're entertaining and interesting.   Except the gravity trains, those just make me impatient.  Gravity effects always do.  Bloody Gravitic Command Stations.

It's funny, because that it feels entirely seperate from the rest of the game is why I don't like it. Everything in the game the player has follows one progression system if it can progress, except for this, which has a totally different one.

I also find it incredibly disposable because there is no consequence to it dying. It's the cheapest and fastest large scale thing to replace, by far. If it dies? Who cares? It's also too easy to change forms to adapt with it, so choices have little consequence outside of a nebula (where you kinds guess what to bring because it starts when you enter and if it's far away there isn't time to swap firms and come back).

If we're comparing to Warcraft 3, losing a high level hero thetr left you vulnerable for several minutes while it healed, and if you wanted a different ability set, you couldn't just trade for another hero. You had to level that one too.

If you like it, more power to you. But to me, it's one of the easiest things to cut to save time on AIW2, because it doesn't fit with the core game play at all.

[Cyborg]

I don't see how things levelling up at all fits into the rest of the game. Why can this one unit level up, while everything else has to improve via unlocking higher tiers using knowledge?

Fundamentally, it's another genre jammed into the middle of AI War.

Even worse, once you have a champion, you are literally compelled to level it because anything else is suboptimal. I don't mind if champions don't come back.

[kasnavada]

I don't see how things levelling up at all fits into the rest of the game. Why can this one unit level up, while everything else has to improve via unlocking higher tiers using knowledge?

Fundamentally, it's another genre jammed into the middle of AI War.

That's basically what was said of heroes in warcraft 3 at the start.
I think I don't need to argument further than that.

I don't see how a small scale game where you're intended to micro individual units is comparable to AI War., which bills itself as grand strategy.

Probably also worth noting that Blizzard didn't bring it back in Starcraft 2.

That does not contradict my argument. Which was that the concept of evolving heroes in a context where unit stats are mostly fixed was deemed rather stupid at the time, and the game was a tremendously gameplay success. And, other games with "larger" scale include that concept as well.


That said, I don't really see how the "current" champion implementation fit in AI war, and never relaly liked the nebulas. But the concept itself, improved, could be a good thing in AI war too.

[PokerChen]

Probably also worth noting that Blizzard didn't bring it back in Starcraft 2.

They did, for the single player (Kerrigan and Nova) and co-op players ( Two Zerg commanders, and Alarak) - which is the same genre as AIWar.
I'm in full support that it's okay to mask the two genres. Not all players like it, but it works quite well for some. This makes the game more like Heroes of Might and Magic or Sins of a Solar Empire, other successful series.

[tadrinth]

I tend to use champions due to their very-early-game power. If you started with all the default starships pre-built, I would feel less pressure to use them.

I do like having a nice lynchpin ship for my fleet. 

Champions probably do need to feel a bit less disposable; that always was kinda weird. 

If human faction leaders are a thing that give you a bonus depending on which one you pick, then various different champion hulls could be associated with some of those leaders.  They could still get bigger over the course of the game, not so much because that makes sense but so that they don't get outclassed by the rest of your fleet. 

I think champions might be a good place to put certain really crazy powerful ships that have proven difficult to balance when the AI gets them. IE, you turn a protector starship into a champion.