My suggestion would be, make ONE faction only, but give it different unit models. Like, Hornet for UNSC leader, Banshee for Covie, and they are absolutely the same in functioning. Give us more units - stock up every unit building to having a main, two anti-units, and a support unit.
Done. Balancing achieved. Now the game isn’t any more about who’s overpowered strategy hits first, and with the right people, but about who uses the units the smartest.
> > Only one thing:
> > Balancing!
>
> Probably one of the most important aspects for them to maintain for a possible sequel.
“Maintain”?
(o_ô)
In its current state, the game is so not balanced at all!
Unit-wise, the UNSC has a clear huge advantage. Not only are the units far stronger, they are more versatile and are better divided among the buildings. Vehicle Depot has everything, and Hogs/Spartans make sure you get to the Depot! Covenant only has Banshees and Vampires. With Brutes and Kamikazes and Engineers under limited conditions. This is most apparent in random 3v3. Try to come up with Hunters, you’ll see! In fact, try to come up with anything but Banshees, and you’re about to suffer a bitter defeat! Now, try to keep UNSC from making Wolverines, you won’t succeed. And Wolverines are way to strong, holy! If you play Covie, prepare to lose twenty units in five minutes, whereas UNSC just needs three Spartans sitting in Scorpions to win the game. Even if you force the opponent to resign, UNSC, having lost no units (Spartanks,duh), gets the 8.4x multiplier in the ranking. Ranks don’t mean much to me, but if you want to attain General rank…
MAN, SERIOUSLY! DID THE DEVELOPERS THINK FARTHER THAN LUNCH?
(>_<)
Leaders are a bit more balanced. In 1v1 scenarios. Now, what happens if you are 1Covie/2UNSC vs 3UNSC? Two of them Anders? Three D-Bombs mean your Leader isn’t going to do sh**. Ever. Covenant must go Banshees. Two Cryo Bombs mean no matter what you do, your air gets destroyed. What is left then of you? Defeat.
If you are 2C/1UNSC vs anything, you have a chance of putting serious pressure on the opponent, though. Two Covies can crush an opponent in three minutes, if they go unchecked. However, try that with randoms. On Exile. Where Covie people like to double base (okay) and Scarab rush (not okay). The developers really didn’t have matchmaking in mind when making this game.
In short, the game is not balanced and certainly doesn’t offer a whole lot of strategic options. It’s fun, yes, but you can be more than often on the short side of the stick with Covenant. Hence why I say MAKE. ONE. Fraction only for HW2. Blizzard are the only ones who can properly balance RTSes, so don’t even try something fancy.
Hmm, perhaps making it more strategic. By this I mean adding features to the map for example bushes and other natural obstacles where you could hide units to ambush other ones, or adding valleys where you could place units atop of to fire down on the enemy and to counter these there could be cover added to maps so that you can escape the firing lines. Obstacles could include walls which troops could interact with and show new animations, like them actually putting their backs to the walls and firing, which could then introduce new strategies like having to use grenades in order to destroy cover and be able to fight the enemy.
I just thought of another idea which is random map events, for example get a fairly big income of supplies by arriving to a supply drop first or by defeating AI’s guarding warehouses and other things of the sort. These sort of things could make player conflicts more common as they will fight for resources. From what I have played of the game a lot of the conflict occurs after most upgrades have been made. Encouraging players to attack before they have the time to upgrade and rally their forces would be amazing.
Also, perhaps removing some upgrades as a whole, like the ones that improve your troops could be removed so that conflicts are more fair and balanced, and perhaps introducing them after a certain point in a match. An example of this could be after your marines get 20 kills several options become available for your troop squads, however you can only choose one, this could be increased speed, deal more damage, or add a medic to squads.
