WYSIWYG- Harmful, or Helpful?

True. And personally, I'm undecided on this one ... if pressed, I would lean toward throttling energy consumption, too.

But I can imagine that Uber preferred the "more stable" approach and accepted the unintuitive situation where adding more fabbers on a power stalled economy is more harmful than you might expect.

criz.

WYSIWYG - Helpful

I wish for eco in PA to be rethought from the fundamentals.

as you pointed out stalling is too punishing and is made far too easy to happen.


on another side you have nothing to handle eco-wise. no levers no buttons no basebuilding. Which is probably part of the broken state of PA's eco : you can't interact with it, you can't pour your skill into it to turn it heads up.

and it's no fun. yeah i'll say it. PA's eco just isn't any fun.

so I think it's base concepts should be called into question. Right from the base rules uber (I think it was garat personally) stated with their eco policy. (couldn't find the thread to link, help?)

The 'WYSIWYG' idea is somewhat confusing in how it relates to PA and earlier titles. Many assume it means *no depth* yet TA followed it in a similar fashion to how PA does, whilst having a great deal of depth through the subtle interactions of the simulated projectiles and terrain.

The idea of WYSIWYG in terms of these games relates purely to the fact that the function of something is obvious and consistent. A light tank is a light tank- no hidden "but this tank has a +25% armour bonus from the upgrade factory" type thing. That *doesn't* mean it has to perform the same in all situations though. In TA, you put a tank at the top of a hill, and have the same unit at the bottom and set them to fight.... the unit at the top of the hill has a range advantage and will win (as the unit at the bottom has to climb the hill, which slows it, to get into range to fire back). The thing is these differences *don't* break the WYSIWYG principal, as you can clearly see the height difference- and the interaction is based (loosely) on physics. It's an intuitive interaction that so many RTS games completely miss.

Now we don't see *much* of this in PA, however that isn't because the engine doesn't support it as far as I can tell. PA uses simulated projectiles just the same as TA did, and we have seen how severe curvature can prevent units with direct fire weapons hit other units (as annoying as this is, actually a very good thing IMO).

I personally would *love* to see more of this in PA as these are the details that separated TA as a the game from so many others.

very well put.

people don't seem to realize PA isn't pure WYSIWYG, nor is it it's torch carrier.

also while we pummel veterancy into a bloody mess in the name of WYSIWYG we forget WYSIWYG exists at all when brought face to face with the lack of simulated projectiles in PA. (i assimilate lack of simulated projectiles period with lack of use of simulated projectiles since it bears the same result)

I'm gonna go ahead and call this cherry picking out, yeah.

Well I'd say simulated projectiles have more impact than we give them credit... you can for example *dodge AA missiles with fighters* due to their turn rate and speed. Dox can dodge shots with micro thanks to this. If the projectiles *weren't simulated* these things wouldn't be possible.

What does sadden me a bit is that players see these interactions and then complain about them as *bugs*.... the whole purpose of a projectile simulation is that they *aren't guaranteed*, they *aren't perfect*. There is quite a bit of skill and learning available in how to best micro units in tight situations to get the better result. I know the focus of PA *isn't* on these things, and that 99% of the time having a better macro game is key. Still it's also true that with 2 very good players, being able to win an engagement with equal (or possible a slightly weaker) force to your opponent with some clever in depth knowledge is important. The real skill is to recognise *when and where* to use it. Spending the entire game fiddling about with a couple of dox and some fighters isn't going to let you win.

Gonna call "Nope" on this one. You aren't going to be able to successfully argue that the simulated nature of the projectiles in PA have no impact.

Edit: Ninja'd

But sidestepping dox show very well that sim projectiles do have an effect in PA. Though I REALLY wish units were more inaccurate. The game ranges from SUPER inaccurate to SUPER accurate. :<

I never said I would.

I will however argue that they don't happen enough.