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In PS1, eventually the devs added BFRs and Galaxy Gunships and argued these were fine additions (at the time) amongst other reasons that players liked to play against major challenges.


I've often found that PS1 was eventually ran by people with more experience developing and managing RPGs than multiplayer shooters. Why?


We had two expansion sets and then some updates.

The first one, Core Combat, provided new maps. New maps are always a good thing as it brings really fresh content to a game, especially a shooter where you eventually work out how things "work" on a given map: where to go, where to sit, etc.

However, to play there you had to pay. That reduced the pop in the caves from the start. In a RPG or PvE game that's okay, because you don't need other players as much. In a pure PvP game, that's a huge oversight however.

Secondly, Core Combat brought new units to the game that had superior firepower in certain gameplay situations. So basically, people bought power. That's another no-no in competitive gameplay.

Another competitive no-no was the Flail, because you could not directly engage it and return fire. Making competing with it take a lot of effort and sadly, because they were so easy to defend and obtain again, trying to take them out, though possible, typically a waste of your time. This lesson it seems has been learned: no more long distance indirect fire units in PS2 and (new) content is free and in principle the goal is to keep everything competitive. That's good.


With the second expansion, Aftershock, which brought us BFRs and a few more maps, the first "Endboss"-units were introduced. The problem here is that players controlled the Endboss and were not very restricted in getting them, on top of being unbalanced towards other units, of course.

Again, in a PvE game the AI would have restricted the power of such a unit and in a single player game you'd be limited numerically. In a PvP, sandbox game however, rules are different: they are smarter and fastly more numerous.

This really upset players, because shooter players (both roles in infantry and ground vehicle combat in particular) was completely changed in favour of these new things. Competitive gameplay was upset to the extend that a lot of players left because their prefered units were now rendered non-competitive. Again, power was purchased and this time the argument was that "players love a challenge and endbosses". Sure, in a PvE RPG they do. But in a competitive PvP shooter, power balance and power distance must be far more subtle.

So then the new deployables and Phantasm and Galaxy Gunship were introduced. This time, no expansion was required to be bought. So power was not purchased. One lesson was learned.

Competition however often means a trade-off of advantages and disadvantages. The Galaxy Gunship (especially upon introduction) didn't really have that. Based on initial use, some people wanted more armour without realising the consequences, nor wanting to accept longer repair times. For some reason, downtime was severely reduced, which should have been a lesson learned from the Flail, BFR and even MAX units: downtime is needed if it's a very competitive unit. Vehicle timers in general were short, but even 20 minutes is very low in a continuous game like PS for "endboss"-units, especially if you can have multiple players who each have their own separate timers. Two to three hours would have made the whole "endboss"-units more acceptable, but the problem is that in that case, some people will want high endurance or other extra strengths to "compensate" for restrictions, rather than a strategic, short term impact (like calling in an OS).

Similarly, a lot of players thought that restrictions in getting aircraft simply to reduce the numbers, were actually there to reflect power and thus if they spend more certs on it, they should get "more" power. This is incompatible logic as it argues from two completely different design point of views. If your goal as a designer is to have more units of a certain kind, then you restrict access. This is likely because they're more powerful in some way or provides certain abilities that need to be restricted. It may even be done to make the roles and functions of other "lesser" units more prominent. Speed of relocation for instance: with less aircav, Galaxies and Sunderers would be more interesting for that. If you only focus on firepower and endurance like a lot of shortsighted players focused on direct competition will, then you won't be able to balance niche role issues as well.


However, the Galaxy Gunship again provided an unit that only specific types of gameplay could compete with. The Galaxy Gunship too, was added using the "endboss"-challenge argument, but now in combination with "outfit/group teamwork units".

The problem is that again, the endboss interfered significantly with competitive play on the ground and there wasn't a real counter provided. The already in-game units were not designed around taking these out and the power distance did not really fit with the fast majority of units as it wasn't exactly subtle. The teamwork element was relatively low and under-demanding for the amount of firepower you gained and again, multiple would be brought to the table. The main difference was that it took a little bit more effort to obtain one than BFRs (stricter acquisition rules: DSC + Tech or Sanc), but once obtained it had a lot of different advantages that in combination with things like Capital Base Shields could have an enormous impact on gameplay. Ceryshen for instance became impossible to capture from the north, simply because the developers threw in separate concepts without actually considering ALL the ramifications of the combination of these concepts.

An endboss that is very limited and restricted is relatively acceptable, but in a competitive sandbox game where people can obtain any units they like, simply cannot have a huge power distance. Not even if it costs a lot of resources, while at the same time you give everyone access to it and giving everyone locations where they can obtain them on continent and when there are far more players. This simply means there will be more available. This means they're not endbosses, but regular units.

I'm afraid this lesson might again be forgotten by the devs when units like a Galaxy Gunship are suggested and when there's significant jack-of-all-trades design implemented. You cannot have endbosses in a competitive PvP game and a jack-of-all-trades may be a bit too competitive as well if it has inherent other advantages too (like the capacity of flight, afterburners or for instance simply has a lot of armour).

Every unit should feel they have sufficient power to fulfill their job and their role should be relatively clear (hence why I don't mind infantry classes too much as I try to see them as different suits, I may well mind the ease of accessing each class however). You cannot treat infantry, tanks or aircraft as fodder, but neither can you treat them as pwnage machines. If you make something strong, give it huge exploitable weaknesses and require dependency on other (types of) units.