Gameplaywise, you are totally right. This could be indeed the way, they are designed. I know this not a roleplaying game, but when I want to play as a pure affinity, I have nothing with those special abilities (besides the Rocktopus). That's what is bugging me
I get the impression that hybrids are favored not only in the military part, but also in the domestic part, since they also get more perks from the affinity system, compared to pure ones.
I totally get what you are saying. Yes, you are right that the player who wants to role-play as a pure affinity and not use any of the hybrids, will be at a disadvantage. Although, it is possible that the pure affinity unique units will still be stronger in terms of raw strength since they do come a bit later than the hybrid units. Still, I would like to see the pure affinity units get something cool too. I even commented in another thread that BERT seems to "force" players into at least a little bit of a hybrid affinity strategy both militarily and domestically.
I totally get what you are saying. Yes, you are right that the player who wants to role-play as a pure affinity and not use any of the hybrids, will be at a disadvantage. Although, it is possible that the pure affinity unique units will still be stronger in terms of raw strength since they do come a bit later than the hybrid units. Still, I would like to see the pure affinity units get something cool too. I even commented in another thread that BERT seems to "force" players into at least a little bit of a hybrid affinity strategy both militarily and domestically.
Beyond Earth naturally does it. There's plenty of techs that give good stuff on a basic level that would give me affinity points in things I wouldn't necessairly go for. Including say Harmony for immunity from Miasma or the Miasmic Repulsor.
Hybrid Affinities already exists even in the base game, if you have a say 10-4 ratio of an affinity ou can get a differetn bonus for certain units Affinity oriented units.
Besides, you could see the Hybrid Affinities as a way of evolution of mind, very few nations succeed in one true ideology since there's always people who have a different view. You can still push your affinity to the max and ignore the rest.
As I suspected, the hybrids are designed for early-mid domination rushes. You get level 4 infantry once you get 8 levels in 2 affinities.
As for the unique units for each hybrid, they're brilliant:
- purity-supremacy - counters the ranged spam
- supremacy-harmony - invis plays
- harmony-purity - durability and movement
I'm confused...
I was under the impression that the hybrids were supposed to be like 50% this and 50% that.
When it comes to the Purity hybrids though, it seems that Purity is the prevalent affinity. It completely overshadows the other half.
Looking at the strength numbers, the supremacy ultimate unit, the Angel has a base strength of 88, whereas the ultimate purity-supremacy unit, the Golem has a base strength of 56 from today's livestream. So, in the late game, the pure affinity units seem to be much stronger at least in terms of base strength. You have to wait longer to get them, but if you want to play with only pure affinity units, you will be strong, I think. Dave even made this point in the live stream that if you wait, you will get stronger units, but if you are in a pinch and need to upgrade your military sooner, the hybrid units are good for that.
Looking at the strength numbers, the supremacy ultimate unit, the Angel has a base strength of 88, whereas the ultimate purity-supremacy unit, the Golem has a base strength of 56 from today's livestream. So, in the late game, the pure affinity units seem to be much stronger at least in terms of base strength. You have to wait longer to get them, but if you want to play with only pure affinity units, you will be strong, I think. Dave even made this point in the live stream that if you wait, you will get stronger units, but if you are in a pinch and need to upgrade your military sooner, the hybrid units are good for that.
If they're going out of their way to make hybrids so starkly different from the core affinities, seems to me they should just make them separate affinities entirely.
Their design philosophy is different enough that it warrants them being more than just "hybridizations" of the main affinities.
It may have started as cool reward for people who go hybrid, but if they're going this deep with it then they might as well go all the way.
I think they fit, or at least can fit, as something that would come about from each parent affinity.
Though I'd like it if players had to sort of choose a single hybrid or primary affinity, so players would need to sort of commit to one at a certain point.
I think they fit, or at least can fit, as something that would come about from each parent affinity.
Though I'd like it if players had to sort of choose a single hybrid or primary affinity, so players would need to sort of commit to one at a certain point.
I think "commitment" is the big... issue isn't quite the right word. But when it comes to affinities I feel like its a recurring word.
We players want to commit to affinities we want the devs to fully commit to the ideological prospects of affinity.
Affinity is a core system? Then it needs to be the crux upon which the other systems rotate. The hybrids should have their names the rest of the units of their own style, cities leaders, and quests.
I think that people are finding the Purity affinities to be overly dominated by the Purity half as a result of us not having the clearest picture of what purity means.
I envision Purity as avoiding even the use of vehicles when possible, and trying to make work "more human" whenever they can. For instance, a Purity construction site wouldn't involve any construction vehicles, but rather a bunch of workers in exo-skeletons doing the work "by-hand". The assistance of mechanical suits is necessary to build modern buildings in a reasonable amount of time, but the workers feel like they are building the building like the ancients did. Purity doesn't want workers who sit in a vehicle cab isolated from the work they do, they want citizens who feel a human connection with their work because they feel they have made it with their own muscles. This comes out in the Purity unique unit being Power Armour. They'd rather put a bunch of armour on a solider and still have them feel like a soldier rather than popping them in a tank and letting the vehicle do the work.
Likewise, Purity would discard any sort of "commute" or "car culture" in favour of making walkable cities, citing road rage and long isolating drives as social ills. Purity/Supremacy woud keep a type of car-culture as they favour the additional utility and freedom it provides, while Purity/Harmony would just make it so their citizens can run as fast as a freight train so vehicles becomes unnecessary.
That said, very little of this comes out in the game itself. In the interest of symmetry a normal Purity army involves just as many vehicles as any other Affinity, and workers and improvements don't upgrade so we don't see that side of the Affinity. All of this is to say that I don't think there is any sort of conceptual failure in the Purity hybrids, but rather that it's Purity itself which has not been taken to a sufficient extreme. In the base game it would be easy to believe that Purity already involves the extensive genetic manipulation or mechanical domineering present in its hybrids, but now that the hybrids exist it's clear that it doesn't. It would be wonderful if that was better reflected in the game itself.
I think that people are finding the Purity affinities to be overly dominated by the Purity half as a result of us not having the clearest picture of what purity means.
I envision Purity as avoiding even the use of vehicles when possible, and trying to make work "more human" whenever they can. For instance, a Purity construction site wouldn't involve any construction vehicles, but rather a bunch of workers in exo-skeletons doing the work "by-hand". The assistance of mechanical suits is necessary to build modern buildings in a reasonable amount of time, but the workers feel like they are building the building like the ancients did. Purity doesn't want workers who sit in a vehicle cab isolated from the work they do, they want citizens who feel a human connection with their work because they feel they have made it with their own muscles. This comes out in the Purity unique unit being Power Armour. They'd rather put a bunch of armour on a solider and still have them feel like a soldier rather than popping them in a tank and letting the vehicle do the work.
Likewise, Purity would discard any sort of "commute" or "car culture" in favour of making walkable cities, citing road rage and long isolating drives as social ills. Purity/Supremacy woud keep a type of car-culture as they favour the additional utility and freedom it provides, while Purity/Harmony would just make it so their citizens can run as fast as a freight train so vehicles becomes unnecessary.
That said, very little of this comes out in the game itself. In the interest of symmetry a normal Purity army involves just as many vehicles as any other Affinity, and workers and improvements don't upgrade so we don't see that side of the Affinity. All of this is to say that I don't think there is any sort of conceptual failure in the Purity hybrids, but rather that it's Purity itself which has not been taken to a sufficient extreme. In the base game it would be easy to believe that Purity already involves the extensive genetic manipulation or mechanical domineering present in its hybrids, but now that the hybrids exist it's clear that it doesn't. It would be wonderful if that was better reflected in the game itself.
This is perfectly written in my opinion, it is just that, Purity concept, and even victory, simply means "we're moving" but doesn't really evolve that much. Supermacy for example literally INVADES Earth via the Warp Gate.
In terms of the hybrid affinities it's taking advantage of both the aliens and technology but still remain human.
I think they fit, or at least can fit, as something that would come about from each parent affinity.
Though I'd like it if players had to sort of choose a single hybrid or primary affinity, so players would need to sort of commit to one at a certain point.
This. It really intrigues me how cool the affinities are, but it's lame how you can mix and match the hybrids, and how they don't even have their own victory.
This. It really intrigues me how cool the affinities are, but it's lame how you can mix and match the hybrids, and how they don't even have their own victory.
Given the fact a player can gain the hybrids earlier than the more powerful pure affinity ones, I think they do have their own victory--bumrushing your neighbors for domination victory. It's for factions more concerned with mix-and-match pragmatic speed rather than ideological orthodoxy.
However, if you fail in the early bumrush attempt, and your opponents have focused on pure affinity, you may have a rough late game! In late game, your opponents will have both the pure affinity powerhouse units and probably be closer to the various affinity victories, so you will probably have to revert back to focusing on pure affinity to then flesh out your hybrid army units.
I agree, Affinity doesn't quite feel like the core system it should be at the moment beyond the military.
I also don't like the idea of bleeding between primary affinities and hybrids - and I fear that dipping into hybrids will feel a bit mandatory in optimal play since hybrids currently have access to hybrid and pure bonuses.
I'd like to be able to really commit to an affinity or hybrid and feel that the game really changes based on the choice.
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@Sunergy
Every affinity is a spectrum of sorts in terms of possible views, but I think that is a strange and extreme view of Purity.
Purity has essentially three core themes:
1. Terraform the world to fit humanity's needs.
2. Remember and carry on the cultural heritage of Earth.
3. A fear, justified or not, of potential consequences of extensively changing the human form.
Saying that Purity hates vehicles goes far beyond those themes, and is in my mind comparable with saying that Harmony wants to abandon all mechanical technology at some point or that Supremacy wants to erase all human emotion.
Which is to say that it is a plausible, but extreme interpretation of the affinity.
Not something I would remotely describe the "mainstream" forms of the affinity with.
(It also kind of implies that only Supremacy has any interest what-so-ever in robotics and automation, which is crazy.)
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@kipwheeler
I don't think that is a compelling dichotomy.
I'd prefer them to be treated like their own affinities in terms of scaling and victory conditions.
It would just be weird if all the hybrids were essentially built around a domination rush.
I'm finding myself disappointed by the Purity-Harmony hybrid. While others have noted that it's closer to Purity than Harmony, I think the real issue is that it incorporates Harmony's techniques but not its underlying philosophy. Harmony does use genetic engineering, but it isn't about genetic engineering. It's about adapting humanity to the new planet, and genetic engineering is only a means to that end. Unfortunately I don't see that coming through in the Purity-Harmony hybrid.
It's worth noting that pure Purity is already described as using genetic engineering to remove perceived imperfections from the human genome. Purity-Harmony seems as much like an extreme extension of that as it does a hybrid with Harmony, especially given the focus on human antiquity and mythology in the units' names and aesthetics.
Though I'd like it if players had to sort of choose a single hybrid or primary affinity, so players would need to sort of commit to one at a certain point.
It would be nice if they make a message box appear asking you to choose to lock your path to one affinity, so you couldn't use other affinity units or Buildings making it feel more Unique.
I'm finding myself disappointed by the Purity-Harmony hybrid. While others have noted that it's closer to Purity than Harmony, I think the real issue is that it incorporates Harmony's techniques but not its underlying philosophy. Harmony does use genetic engineering, but it isn't about genetic engineering. It's about adapting humanity to the new planet, and genetic engineering is only a means to that end. Unfortunately I don't see that coming through in the Purity-Harmony hybrid.
It's worth noting that pure Purity is already described as using genetic engineering to remove perceived imperfections from the human genome. Purity-Harmony seems as much like an extreme extension of that as it does a hybrid with Harmony, especially given the focus on human antiquity and mythology in the units' names and aesthetics.
I think the distinction here is what Harmony and Purity use the genetic techniques for. Both of them have a focus on it to some extent, their hybrid even more so, but they used them differently.
Purity used to gene therapy to correct flaws. They would take what would be considered the ideal human and use it as the baseline, eliminating defects in the sequence that took away from that perfection (genetic disorders a la sickle cell anemia, etc...)
Harmony, on the other hand, always looked farther. The human form wasn't the goal - it was the first step. Push it farther, adapt it to make it better, that was a key tenet of Harmony. As a pure affinity, that meant adapt to be in line with planet, further using genetic techniques to work with the native life.
The Hybrid would fall somewhere in between. Why settle for making what was, when you can go farther? They would still idolize human culture and human centricity, but there would be an element of 'let's do better'. Harmony might turn you into something non-human, and Purity would leave you as a boring regular human, but the Hybrid seeks to turn you into a superhuman.
Another point mentioned earlier is that links to this is Purity's disdain for advancement. Their idolization of the past means that a lot of what they do is still centered in the human elements - they don't build robots, they build suits, fortresses. They may be willing to use vehicles to accomplish work, but nothing that advances to far past what we have now - after all, if there was a better way of doing it, wouldn't we have thought of it already, even if it needs perfecting? That's the Purity mindset.
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