comblocking debate on FAF

Discussion in 'Unrelated Discussion' started by tatsujb, December 15, 2015.

  1. tatsujb

    tatsujb Post Master General

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    was wondering what you guys think about this.

    there's a debate going on at the FAF forum right now (initiated, or rather revived by me) about whether or not the ability to impede a commander's movements through FA's terrible path-finding (which all computers in the game have to agree on) by placing any odd unit on it's path should be removed.

    the smallest unit can be used for this the only real condition is that you have something like a dozen so that you can prolong the effect for the desired length of time as the commander kills them. units don't clump up as much as they do in FA and FA doesn't have the same AOE on uber cannon so that's why a dozen can be more than ample.

    and people are very fond of this breakage in the game they call a "feature" because they use it alot and you feel very powerful when you know your adversary is very very powerless.

    I guess you could compare it to PA's current problem with commander pushing.

    http://strawpoll.me/6273225/r
  2. mwreynolds

    mwreynolds Well-Known Member

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    Doesn't sound like bug to me. In the real world obstacles will delay you running away.
    In sports you may impede the opposition progress in various ways depending on the sport.

    Game play wise, it seem like a factor that adds to risk of pushing too hard with your com.

    And it not like in PA where you can actually push the other teams com away from there base.
    Last edited: December 16, 2015
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  3. cola_colin

    cola_colin Moderator Alumni

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    Part of the game since 2006
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  4. tatsujb

    tatsujb Post Master General

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    no I think you guys don't get it.

    its absolutely nothing like what you'd expect and when you actually witness it the realism argument starts working against it because it's one lumbering legend that's being bullied by insects it could step over or on or even kick into the air.

    also @cola_colin the game pretty much got left WIP as THQ and GPG crumbled patch 3600 was finished by the FAF community. who knows what further patches GPG would have had in stock.

    I remain convinced the terrible pathfinding and netcode and the gameplay problems they were creating (especially the noticeable ones like comblocking) were on the agenda.
    Last edited: December 15, 2015
  5. cola_colin

    cola_colin Moderator Alumni

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    With that argument you could introduce flying unicorns as well. Maybe they were planned after all.
    No amount of "I am sure that wasn't intended" changes that people are closing in on playing with it for 10 years and have grown attached to it. I sure consider it to be a part of the game. Why remove a part of the game?

    I remember practicing killing a commander on finns revenge using exactly 20 mantis, blocking it as much as possible to prevent it from going into water. Why would I want that feature to be removed?!
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  6. tatsujb

    tatsujb Post Master General

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    it's not "blocking" as in "barring the path" it's "blocking" as in finding the places where the game's pathfinding freaks out the most"

    it has nothing to do with "blocking" when the commander is not standing still not by a long stretch; but just ignoring your move commands and going in random directions.
  7. Devak

    Devak Post Master General

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    What exactly is the proposed solution? Because if it's a feature that arises from crappy code, isn't that a very low-level emergent feature, and isn't the gain in gameplay from better general pathfinding far outweighing any emergent (positive/negative) gameplay?
  8. tatsujb

    tatsujb Post Master General

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    it is. apparently the only thing we could mod in is allowing passthrough.
  9. squishypon3

    squishypon3 Post Master General

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    Which would suck. =/
  10. stuart98

    stuart98 Post Master General

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    Only commander passthrough to fix this problem. Most units would not pass through each other.
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  11. Devak

    Devak Post Master General

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    Why?
    When Starcraft was made, the pathfinding sucked for the workers. Unable to get a satisfying fix and unable to make it work with the system, they set the workers to ignore unit collision. Starcraft without this hack is pretty much unthinkable, and it created new strategies around it. So much that, despite a fix being available, Starcraft II used the same hack.

    Emergent gameplay has come from hacks and bugs before, and it doesn't have to be bad. If the commander ignoring unit collision kills cheese tactics then this may be worth it.
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  12. BulletMagnet

    BulletMagnet Post Master General

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    Can't you add damage footfall to the ACU?

    I planned on doing that in an FA mod years and years ago. It looks like all you needed to do was increase the size of the foot box a touch so it could kick things as the collision box was pretty large.
  13. tatsujb

    tatsujb Post Master General

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    if you have information about this this would be most useful to the FAF community because right now the only coder that stepped up basically said the only possible thing is to allow passthrough for only the commander wheras things like commander being prioritary in push strength to units smaller than it is not possible. but your saying that you could even deal damage and push out of the way ?
  14. BulletMagnet

    BulletMagnet Post Master General

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    Look at the GC's blueprint. It's not in the weapon section, it's in something weird at the start of the file.

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