Let's make vet give HP based on actual health

[IceDreamer]

Isn't vet intended to (in principle) discourage low tier spam by rewarding high tier units with additional HP for holding the spam off? It already stopped working well when mass-based vet system was introduced, changing health gain to a fraction of current health will nerf it even more since the high-tier units will get heavily damaged while holding off the spam.

Not exactly... It's meant to reward good micro and control, spending a bit more apm on your units, to keep them alive. That's the idea anyway, I'd say the way the reward works doesn't fit well with that. Keyser's comment is telling - We rarely see 5-vet units, and he sees that as a good thing (At least that's how his post reads). Makes the whole mechanic largely pointless then doesn't it. Other games with vet, not only are max vet units seen multiple times per game, but they are taken care of, specifically targeted, and add a dimension of reward to the game as you play. They also tend to be strong enough to turn a game bit by bit if taken care of, or taken out.

[IceDreamer]

Imagine if the vet system instead was much simpler - say, based on kill count. That way you could more easily calculate when it happens, which makes them less surprising and allows both sides to decide if the engagement would be worth it for them. It would also make it less likely to vet mid fight as the high value units you usually throw at experimentals now give less vet; instead it would punish people who bring a knife to a gunfight or fail to evacuate in time. It would even force the experimental to decide whether he wants to stick around and kill high hp infastructure or go out to hunt for vet and maybe do more damage that way.

Then again, that idea might sound a little too crazy. I wonder what chris taylor would think about that system.

You aren't supposed to care about "When" you get each vet because it is meant to be a long-lived reward, not an instant power up. That's the OP's entire point. It's much more important to have a cohesive concept (More damage = more vet) where you don't worry about the numbers, and a reward that makes sense in the context. The holes in the "Per kill" equation were obvious: It wasn't per kill it worked on an arbitrary XP system, the system was utterly hidden, some units were disproportionately valuable or invaluable. Vet was only ever seen on Exps, ACUs, and Percivals, again, not the point of having a vet system in a game.

[Dunstklinge]

It's meant to reward good micro and control, spending a bit more apm on your units, to keep them alive.

You aren't supposed to care about "When" you get each vet because it is meant to be a long-lived reward, not an instant power up. That's the OP's entire point.

Do you have a source on that? The original FA vet system looks a lot more like what wesmania was describing; i dont really see how you came to that conclusion. I havn't been here in GPG days, so i assume theres some older background history im not aware of.

[Plasma_Wolf]

The original FA vet system gave 10%, 20%, 30%, 40%, 50% on each unit and made it impossible to defend against a monkeylord rush. That's why the experimental mass cost has been changed several times. Additionally, you had to put a million engineers on one T3 land factory, so you might be able to build enough Percivals to kill the ML before it arrived at your base, murdered all your engineers and got vet5 in an instant. Before this change, the few Percivals you had allowed you to take down the Monkylord for 50%, and as a result of that vet system, it got a total of 150% of its max HP. So after the Percies and engineers are dead, the ML is at full health.

The engie mod has been made, giving the system of T2/T3 HQs and normal factories, so the million engineers is no longer necessary.

The vet system has been changed repeatedly, from giving different points of veterancy to killing different tier units, to making it based on mass killed. Both of those changes made it harder for a unit to get veterancy because the requirements became higher in the changing process. In addition to that, the increase in vet was 10% with each level, not increasing from 10% to 50%. Since these changes I have very rarely seen experimentals steamrolling a base because they get consecutive vet levels in the battle.

Add to it that the build time of experimentals has been increased in the latest patch, along with the delay of T3 land, and the result is that experimentals are now having trouble getting the vet levels. You now have plenty of time to find experimentals and prepare a defense. I have mixed feelings about this. What's the point of the vet system if vet5 is rarely seen? For example the CZAR less effective: you now have to have air domination and zero enemy SAMs to clear an area. Otherwise it's a mass gift. And using the CZAR as a wrecking ball on SMDs is the use, if it even arrives.

As for the ACU vet still being what it is, I think this is a good thing. The 1v1 games with the ACU being strong on veterancy is what makes those games far more dynamic, and a mistake is not GG immediately (it still is close to GG). If that vet system gets changed people will be far more conservative with the ACU.

[ZLO_RD]

looks like instant HP boosts will always annoy people...

This is not a super rare thing... https://youtu.be/5tuLUyKMWik?t=3m23s

also... i have played a game where enemy ACU was about to get corsair sniped, but he did shoot my ACU, he did shoot some other units, and when my ACU exploded he got vet, while being in different place, so he survived a snipe.

[Turinturambar]

in all of this dont forget:
the uni for which vet matters most atm is the (rambo) acu. basing hp boost on actual health would be a massive nerf for rambo all in pushes (encourage static gameplay/turtle etc).

[ZLO_RD]

Oh... btw talking about rambos... presets vet pretty slow, but if you make a naked sacu and then upgraide it later you can vet it much easyer

[IceDreamer]

It's meant to reward good micro and control, spending a bit more apm on your units, to keep them alive.

You aren't supposed to care about "When" you get each vet because it is meant to be a long-lived reward, not an instant power up. That's the OP's entire point.

Do you have a source on that? The original FA vet system looks a lot more like what wesmania was describing; i dont really see how you came to that conclusion. I havn't been here in GPG days, so i assume theres some older background history im not aware of.

I am speaking of the concept of unit veterancy, in general, across many games in the genre.

[Dunstklinge]

Sorry for the necroing, kinda forgot this discussion was going on

I am speaking of the concept of unit veterancy, in general, across many games in the genre.

Games like CnC have a much smaller army sizes compared to FA that makes it much more viable to pay attention to individual units veterancy status. In FA, just figuring out which of your 100 mantis has veterancy is an impossible task in itself, let alone finding out which of your opponents auroras are vetted so you can focus them. With that in mind, i don't think its fair to compare the veterancy system on FA to other games systems and imply they were supposed to fulfill the same role when the way units are handleded is that different. I think the developers knew what they were doing when they decided to make the vet system less impactfull for your average spam.

I think its more fair to view the veterancy system as something that is mainly focusing on a few strong units, i.e commanders and experimentals; and in such a setting where only few strong units can level up, levels are usually used to prevent your opponent from feeding it (e.g wc3, dota), which seems more like the situation wesmania was describing.