@ftxcommando said in Factional Flavor- Art or Science?:
The player that wins the game had the more solid/efficient/utilitarian faction (read: gameplay).
I don't understand, why would I read "faction" as "gameplay"? The statistical efficiency of a unit, each exclusive to a single faction only (even when they are a uniform price class like inties, the slight hp variance creates a slight efficiency variance) is completely set in stone. Only a balance patch from on high can change that. The efficiency of someone's gameplay is constantly fluid, even within a single match. And only the first kind of efficiency can be objectively measured.
I think I understand what you're trying to say, that the most optimized, efficient use of APM and reclaim and build power and overcharge respective to the opponent's wins you the game, but I don't even think that is always true, due to the presence of fog of war. Since there is always a comeback mechanic in the form of a commander snipe, a player who inefficiently plays 80% of a match in pursuit of a losing strategy, but then realizes it's not working and flexibly switches into a T2 air snipe to clinch a kill, wins the game despite having played overall less efficiently than his opponent.
Now, you might say that he actually was being efficient by bypassing the superior forces of his opponent to kill the commander via the path of least resistance, but that begs the question of why he didn't pursue that snipe strategy from the get-go instead of wasting mass on something else first. The answer is the fact that there is a psychological component to the game provided by fog of war, and technically inefficient investments of mass and energy can still provide net positive utility by forcing out the wrong responses from your opponent. I don't think you can say the most efficient player always wins for this reason, nor do I think that a good conception of "efficiency" can only find out what was most "efficient" retroactively. An all-in rush towards some form of devastating tech is always the most efficient... unless it fails to end the game, then you are behind. Technically, it would be optimal to start reclaiming your base to rush out an ML x:xx sooner if you're already depending on it to end the game, but you don't see even pros doing that often. How do you measure risk in terms of efficiency? I guess this goes into a bunch of game theory.
@ftxcommando said in Factional Flavor- Art or Science?:
T1 land has near zero influence in big teamgames, the influence in 2v2 is about what I mark as healthy, it's only 1v1 where I think it's outsized.
I addressed this in the disclaimer above, the chart took conventional land-based ladder maps more into account than other types of maps.
@ftxcommando said in Factional Flavor- Art or Science?:
If you look at t1 phase there is near zero variance at all, all the fun parts of factions come in the later tech levels. Like what? Mantis is 4 mass less and .1 speed faster so that's a faction identity? lol. If you're 1900 in ladder that'll matter.
I disagree that all the fun parts of the factions come at later tech, I think the expansionary heavy raiding flow of T1 is really fun in its purity and ironically one of the biggest unit variances in the whole game is at T1: Aurora are very different from the other 3 main battle tanks. And actually, Mantis is the most expensive T1 tank, tied at highest mass cost (56) with Striker while also costing slightly the most E (3 more than Aurora and Thaam) Since they also have the 2nd lowest HP they are the least efficient T1 Tank on paper. Mantis also have the lowest buildtime which means they drain these higher amounts of resources faster.
Yet Mantis are clearly a great unit-- why? Because they are flexible. They are economically flexible: they have buildpower for upgrades in the field. They are flexible in combat: high ROF means a lack of wasted DPS, even though high alpha strike is more useful in certain situations, a high ROF will never be the worst option. And they are flexible in location; they can reposition the farthest on the shortest notice because they have the fastest speed. And not by .1-- they are 0.2 faster than Thaam, 0.3 faster than Striker, and a whopping 0.7 faster than Aurora (123% faster). On top of that, every commander is slow as fuck at 1.7 speed, which means body blocking with Mantis is actually pretty strong. And even a 0.1 speed difference would mean that nothing could catch retreating Mantis. So when you have an Aeon vs. Cybran match, the huge disparities in speed on one side and range on the other lead to a different metagame that sees more T1 bombers from Cybran to take out big clumps of Aurora, and consequently the Aeon player makes more inties, which uses E and slows down eco scaling.
And again, this chart was made with new players in mind, not 1900 level ladder players.
@ftxcommando said in Factional Flavor- Art or Science?:
Yeah you do that by not making navy unless you can rush a neptune.
Depending on the map, whether it's a teamgame or ladder match, you may not have the privilege. And I would argue that the preparations one needs to make to successfully tech skip from T1-->T3 add a great deal of complexity to manage regardless.