Exchange on the value of Hero Units in RTS

Daniel “Kantu” Severino:
The more “power” they have, the least it generally interests me
Bc it takes away from multiprong harassment and splitting armies for the most part
Army + Hero > Army without Hero
So, unless you can balance it out in a harsh manner through things like supply caps (1 hero = 12 supply or something of the sort)
Then I am rather reticent of them
Experience comes from all the problems that SC2 had through its life with Hero units

Flame:
So, I have had a bit of experience with hero units, and there are a couple things I’ve got to say. First, that if done right, they add depth to the game and make more play styles. Secondly, your statement about Army+Hero > Army without Hero only true for poorly implemented hero units. Ideally, the hero will be well balanced with other units. This can happen through it’s price tag and through its stats. Your hero unit should not be an amped up regular unit, but a unique unit with its own strengths and its own weaknesses. If it just got a 30% stat boost compared to a regular tank (or orc or whatever) it would be exceedingly boring and lead to the problem that you mentioned. However, with completely new stat balances you can specialize it. maybe make it a glass cannon, or low damage high health, or fast without armor. Ideally, each hero unit should have a new downfall as well as a new strength.

Daniel “Kantu” Severino:
maybe make it a glass cannon, or low damage high health, or fast without armor. Ideally, each hero unit should have a new downfall as well as a new strength.
I mean, sure @Flame
but even at that point if you assume a nash equilibrium between players optimizing their armies and strategies
Then the outcome would still be Army+Hero> Army without Hero
Unless as mentioned you balance out the “heroes” so that they have such an economic burden where armies composed of non-hero units could fight Army+Hero unit straight ahead

Flame:
Naw. only in a situation with infinite money or where one player has a significant eco disadvantage.
ah, yes

Daniel “Kantu” Severino:
The part of “giving heroes their own weaknesses” is just assumed

Flame:
I assumed that was a given

Daniel “Kantu” Severino:
1.- Naw.
2.- only in a situation with infinite money
3.- or where one player has a significant eco disadvantage.
can you expand on it (edited)

Flame:
For me, the idea of hero units is to not give a blatantly better unit/cost, but to give a unit that can be utilized very cost effectively if the person is skilled
sure…

Daniel “Kantu” Severino:
but to give a unit that can be utilized very cost effectively if the person is skilled
Personally I would say that all units ought to work such way
And I am seeing that thought the skill ceiling lens of BroodWar (Ej: Vulture patrol micro+spidermines vs Dragoon Hold Position Micro)(edited)
Or AoE1 Archer/Ranged units with their missiles

Flame:
So, basically I am saying that if the person doesn’t have a hero unit they should have enough tanks to balance it out or already be lower on money than the other player. In a situation with infinite money the hero unit becomes much more powerful just because it is much easier to maneuver than a huge blob of tanks. I guess a better way of saying that is it is the most efficient use of space if you fill the map with tanks
(by tanks I mean generic unit)

Daniel “Kantu” Severino:
I guess a better way of saying that is it is the most efficient use of space if you fill the map with tanks
Yeah, yeah
In SC2 it is refered as Army DPS Density

Flame:
and yes, all units should work that way, but hero units should have another layer to that
ah, yes, that’s exactly what I am talking about

Daniel “Kantu” Severino:
So, the issue I have with Hero Units is that their DPS Density is out of scale with the rest of the units
Therefore it produces situations where the maximization of Army DPS Density forces you to make Hero units
It removes strategical decision making from the game

Flame:
Yeah, I see what you are talking about.

Daniel “Kantu” Severino:
And on that angle, therefore it pushes you towards focusing your army and avoid splitting it
Because when you split it, by definition one chunk of the army
will have a lesser Army DPS Density
For the fact that the Hero unit can’t be divided in two, or three, or X(edited)

Flame:
So, for a bit of context, the game that I play is a mod of Tiberian Sun, and most games have smaller armies and very high micro of small(ish) groups of units

Daniel “Kantu” Severino:
Hero units are monolithic entities which don’t lend themselves to harassment and therefore strategic diversity [Editorial; Unlike for example a stack of BroodWar Mutalisks, which is modular and therefore can be split.]

Flame:
Well, sometimes I can send my main army down one attack path and while the enemy is distracted bring my hero around back and wreak havoc on their un defended back.

Daniel “Kantu” Severino:
Yeah, I dont disagree that you can have said situations
But these cases don’t arise in a Nash equilibrium
Which is where two players are executing a “good game” on their own

Flame:
like… You are saying that a game between two equally skilled players will not result in an opportunity for flanking?
essentialy?

Daniel “Kantu” Severino:
Nono
I am saying that Hero units do not lend themselves to it
Flanking would happen ofc, but Hero units in a Nash Eq heavily reduce that from happening
Or heavily discourage it
Which is what was seen in SC2
With armies composite such as Late Wings Of Liberty with Motherships/deathballs trying to increase army DPS Density
Or in also WoL Protoss vs Protoss gameplay with the race to whom can make the most colossi
You can actually see it happening in real life
Now with the US navy pivoting away from Super Carriers, towards more decentralized smaller ships navy
The Risk that comes from utilizing “Hero units” produces the heavy discouragement of using them in riskier ways or strategies

Flame:
I see what you are saying.

Daniel “Kantu” Severino:
I personally really liked how Dawn Of War 3 tried to avoid it from happening
through their low Tier hero units like the eldar iirc scorpions
That way players could still enjoy having early game hero unit shenanigan but not need to worry much about the cost of losing them
But yeah, it is jsut “bigger” than “hero unit == bad”

Flame:
In the game I play, on 1v1s the hero units don’t always come into play because it is often a smarter strategy to not tech up with your enemy so close if that is what you are saying

Daniel “Kantu” Severino:
It has got to do with Army DPS Density, and how monolithic units behave as concentration of power
In the game I play, on 1v1s the hero units don’t always come into play because it is often a smarter strategy to not tech up with your enemy so close if that is what you are saying
Yeah,yeah
That’s good
But at the end of the day, you have to get them

As Heart Of The Swarm Protoss, you simply can’t play without the Mothership Core

Flame:
hmmm…
I wonder why that is
I mean I wonder why there is such a difference(edited)

Daniel “Kantu” Severino:
It is because of natural selection of strategies and metagame development, it forces you to do the most optimal move <- that’s what Nash equilibrium is about(edited)
And the most optimal move
Is to increase your Army DPS Density
Therefore, you get heroes which do that
It comes with weaknesses ofc

For protoss having an army with a higher Army DPS Density than Terran or Zerg means that they can’t fight enemy harassment so well, bc they just can’t split their forces
So, therefore their strategies through most of SC2 have relied on doing strong 1 time allins

Flame:
cause in my game the hero units can certainly give an edge to your battle but they aren’t required to win neccesarily. Perhaps it is because the small armies make it so you can get a few more tanks and have them be just as effective as the Hero(edited)

Daniel “Kantu” Severino:
such as the Parting Immortal Sentry Soul Trains
cause in my game the hero units can certainly give an edge to your battle but they aren’t required to win neccesarily.
As I see it
It rlly depends
One can make corner cases where there are strategies which don’t require hero units
and that’s true
even in SC2 Heart Of The Swarm, or even in WC3 there were strats where you didn’t need heroes to win, tower rushes or cannon rushes/2 gate gateway rushes come to mind
but unless these strategies
are standard, and not outliers
Then it is not really bringing “value” to the game insofar as strategic diversity/army composition diversity(edited)
Like, one could say, and srry for bringing so many StarCraft related examples
That, Overlord lift Lurker Rushes in Broodwar
Were an example of a “Hero-unit-like strategy”
Because the Lurkers would behave like “hero units”/”All or nothing units”

Flame:
Right, but if a person is making a new RTS game, it doesn’t have to choose between which flawed system to choose, but it can try to fix the system. so it isn’t a vote of how many games do have this problem, but a search for a just 1 game that doesn’t have this problem. I happen to know just such a game where that problem has been eliminate(edited)

Daniel “Kantu” Severino:
the resource investment that would come from making them, was very large, so they were forced to behave like hero units, on that you really needed to reduce the risk to them, all the while ensuring a strong ROI of the investment

Flame:
good talk. I got to go though.

Daniel “Kantu” Severino:
Yee, take care bud 😊