-Nukes OP -Too little emphasis on actual troop fights but too much emphasis on nukes -Interplanetary fights nicely done but poorly animated -However, needs a way of transporting troops. Might want to add a troop carrier ship or something (can't carry fabbers though, or it would be too easy to expand). -Map can be disorienting. -In general, they might want to speed up the building times a little; most buildings build very slowly and I think that is part of the reason why nukes are so popular and overpowered, because 1 nuke can destroy so many buildings that took so long to build, and also because people's bases are relatively small so 1 or 2 nukes can destroy your entire base. -A little unfriendly to newcomers, I was pretty confused for some time, especially about the controls. For example, the first time I accidentally pressed space and control, I thought the game had glitched out because I couldn't move my camera properly. Also, when I sent my commander to another planet I didn't understand how to select him from the atmosphere. -Commander selection is confusing because the pictures are so small. -At least for me, the shadows seem very ugly (they are pixellated and they block vision of my units). Could be poor optimization. -Game in general is very good looking, has a distinct art style. -Might get flamed for this but I think this game needs large unit pictures like is StarCraft II so you can actually quickly see which unit you have selected and get used to it. Also, it can make your commander more interesting. -Naval units not really used. -Don't know if this is feasible but I think it would be nice if they added an actual landscape editor where you can paint oceans and land onto a planet instead of just setting the values for the biomes and sea levels. -I still don't get how to choose between factions, might want to rework the factions system (as well as the commander choice system aforementioned).
eeeeeeehhh ooooooohhh hmmmmm Beta ALLOT of things are not in the game Allot of Grapihcal stuff effects animations are only Placeholders Controls and camera handling getting changed constantly right now its changed again with this build even the Planets aren't finished yet. UI is not finished either the game is going through huge changes but THX for the feedback ( that's why we are here and playing the beta after all ) check around the forums allot of things you mention are being discussed.
A lot of it just comes down to the fact that the game is in Beta, for example there is pretty much no balancing done at all yet, so that accounts for a goodly portion of your points right there. We are also missing quite a bit fro the unit roster, Uber has said they are trying to get 5-6 units per factory for release, so we have quite a ways to go in that regard still as well. In terms of a planet editor this thread can get you up to date. Well there aren't factions really, there are the different commanders, to switch between them what you have to do at the moment is click on the little commander icon in the lobby, I do forget whether it's left or right click thought, I haven't bothered doing it in awhile as we only have 4 commanders so far! xD Mike
Keep in mind the game is in beta. Nukes aren't overpowered. They're powerful, but dealt with and mitigateable if you play correctly. Spread out your base so you won't lose all of your base if you get nuked once. I've won matches after getting nuked 3 and 4 times. Anti nukes received a buff, so that helps. Use them. Interplanetary is WAY under developed. There's no emphasis on anything. Any emphasis on a certain strategy is because an individual uses a strategy. Like I said, interplanetary is under developed. Ways to transport troops on the same planet and across multiple planets are being added. Tap "n" to orient north. Or try using pole lock. Either way, it's something you'll need to get used to. Nothing can be done about it since we're playing on a sphere, not a flat squre. Have multiple fabricators build a single building and they can be built very quickly. Again, nukes aren't very OP. You just have to play against them correctly. Right now Uber is working on game functionality, not making it friendly to newcomers. The game isn't fully developed. Uber is also working on completely redoing the UI. It'd be pointless for Uber to spend a lot of time making the game user friendly when the game isn't even complete and the game will change completely many times over before the game is finished. The graphics have lots of work to be done both in quality and optimization. StarCraft II is all about micro and small scale warfare. PA is all about macro and large scale warfare. Most conventions from Starcraft wont' work in PA. Landscape editor has been talked about. Won't be added at release, but will be added later through mods or official release. There are no traditional faction. If you want to change your Commander, click on the commander icon in the lobby and you'll change your commander. There's only one unit set though. You should do a search before posting in accordance with forum rules. Several of the things you brought up have been asked and answered many times over. Thanks for the brain dump though! It's nice to see what new players think of the game.
OK, seriously, we need to stop playing the hand-waving beta card because then you stop paying attention to the post and writing nonsense like His point on Starcraft II had nothing to do with the scale of the game and everything to do with the ease with which you could identify something from its UI picture. That there's not easy differentiation of units is something Uber have admitted to in the live streams. In response to the OP on this point: Uber are planning an overhaul of the UI, and visual distinctiveness of units is on their list so hopefully we should see improvement in this area. Personally, I'd recommend ensuring strategic icons are set to ON regardless of zoom level, then also set focus select/highlight/whatever to ON as well so you can easily see what you have selected and identify from the icons what they are. You'll rarely be working with more than one unit type at a time when giving orders due to the limited unit pool at this time.
Except my point still stands true. Starcraft and PA are very different. And my comment had nothing to do with beta. Starcraft has smaller armies, so larger icons are viable. With PA, armies are a lot larger. So larger icons are not necessarily viable. Also, I did mention that the UI is getting overhauled. And finally, I have only played Starcraft... twice. A long time ago. So my knowledge of Starcraft is very limited and mostly secondhand. At any rate. My point was, I don't think increasing the icon size is a viable response to this known problem. Increasing the icon size when way zoomed out with a large army will result in too much overlap with the strategic icons and then gauging the army size is impossible.
You kicked off with how this game was in beta. So you're saying you kicked off with an irrelevant point? And no, your point was irrelevant as it had nothing to do with what they said. It'd be like talking about how the two games had a different colour pallette and then wondering why people looked at you oddly.
Irrelevant in reference to this one counter point. But relevant to many of his other points. And it is perfectly relevant, as my previous post explained. Maps are smaller and there are less units in Starcraft. Therefore, larger icons are valid. In PA, maps are much much larger and armies are much much larger. If the icon size is increased, they'll overlap way too much when zoomed way out and I'll have no clue how big the attacking army is. Overlapping icons is very different than a color palette.
What icons are you talking about. The last time I played SC2, and I played a lot, it had no icons. At all.
I can tell he is a new player and didn't research, but I liked his observant chewing it over as well. You can't complain that someone gave it a straightforward approach. -Nukes OP They are considered so because of several reasons. Unreliable working anti-nuke. Expensive anti-nuke. Devastating impact. Other things can make it worse, like not actively preventing an enemy from farming resources (turtling and not raiding enemy metal points), and by building a ton of things really close together (nothing should be very close together, rallying armies away from stuff also a plus). Just suggestions. -Too little emphasis on actual troop fights but too much emphasis on nukes Good players and also the AI will build too many units for even a nuke to kill all of. The AI might let you rush your nuke first, but a player will attack your metal while building their own nuke unless you attack theirs too. Really, nukes are overpowered for a single hit, but armies cutting base structure is one of 4 ways a game usually ends, the other ones being artillery suffocation, t2 bomber raids and snipes, and orbital being the rarest but most sure-when-reached way. -Interplanetary fights nicely done but poorly animated They are fairly neato for now, too slow and too limited, but the pathing is neat compared to what it started as. -However, needs a way of transporting troops. Might want to add a troop carrier ship or something (can't carry fabbers though, or it would be too easy to expand). I LOVE the unconventional ways being discussed to transport troops. What is more expected, is unit cannons firing units onto neighboring orbiting bodies, and numerous one way launchers, and also a teleporter. -Map can be disorienting. It too has gotten better. Last update added celestial camera as fluid transition and a friction rate for camera dragging. Still can use menu>polelocking, or realign pole command with button "n". Polelocking is like constant "n" button. -In general, they might want to speed up the building times a little; most buildings build very slowly and I think that is part of the reason why nukes are so popular and overpowered, because 1 nuke can destroy so many buildings that took so long to build, and also because people's bases are relatively small so 1 or 2 nukes can destroy your entire base. Orbital travel time is somewhat troublesome. It is like if the size of planet distance is twice as long then it is five times slower to travel. Build speed is "assistable" as in 5 builders can spew green liquid metal onto the same thing to all build at it at once, and there is plenty of ways to get power and metal for 3 engineers to walk around building things together and 1 engineer to assist every factory and 3 factories per type of unit (because 3 factories building ants with 1 engineer a piece is much faster/efficient than 1 factory building ants with 5 engineers on it -A little unfriendly to newcomers, I was pretty confused for some time, especially about the controls. For example, the first time I accidentally pressed space and control, I thought the game had glitched out because I couldn't move my camera properly. Also, when I sent my commander to another planet I didn't understand how to select him from the atmosphere. TA is not the most well known example of RTS Economy, and the controls are lacking "built-in-ness", while at least build queues exist though so you can lay out an order of structures in a few seconds and go somewhere else while those builders take the next couple minutes actually constructing them without your hand-holding. At least "area commands" are coming in, such as making multiple units select across multiple enemies to attack one a piece, building a bunch of power plants across a square of area or a line of turrets or theoretically highlight a part of the map with metal points and they will seek mex construction on what exists there. -Commander selection is confusing because the pictures are so small. Atm they are conceptual. Commanders are actually mostly done, but they could have more textures added for detailed components painted onto the unit, and maybe they will consider rendering a sharpened portrait style image of the commander for selection -At least for me, the shadows seem very ugly (they are pixellated and they block vision of my units). Could be poor optimization. Optimization indeed, though there are mods and settings one could mess with, its not intentional to make shadows sharp yet while it will be intentional later. Speaking of, this isn't optimized yet, such as the game doesn't "reference" multiple instances of the same unit to save resource rendering them, and instead renders each individually which will weigh the server down more. Those kind of optimizations are expected to come. -Game in general is very good looking, has a distinct art style. Some like it and some don't. Some don't like scale, some don't like level of detail in models or realism in visuals. I actually personally agree with you, Minecraft didn't get awards for most state of the art graphics, it got it for distinct and functional visuals. This game has distinct and functional visuals in it, something of it's own unique blend of simple model and solid color cartoon-style graphics, mixed with tale-tale signatures making units and structures obvious of purpose from it's looks. -Might get flamed for this but I think this game needs large unit pictures like is StarCraft II so you can actually quickly see which unit you have selected and get used to it. Also, it can make your commander more interesting. The community UI Suggestions holds by that suggestion themselves. It makes sense. I wouldn't do it because StarCraft does it, I would do it because it does something to improve the game. -Naval units not really used. All naval units are mobile artillery, some of it is rather powerful for leveling. Ideal for parking up on a shore as you build most your stuff along shoreline, you can use it to meatgrind enemy land army moving onto your base. Or meatgrind chokepoints where land army must pass through tightly beside shoreline. A handful of t1 ships makes it look like mopping up against 100s of ants and levelers. -Don't know if this is feasible but I think it would be nice if they added an actual landscape editor where you can paint oceans and land onto a planet instead of just setting the values for the biomes and sea levels. Players and modders speculate that with some custom configging, one could use "brush add/subtract" to do it. When landscape is made in the game, the game takes a blob of planet, paints it, takes shapes and adds (plateaus) or subtracts (craters and crevices) them, and paints it some more. Theoretically, one could make a config file to record one's custom modifications to a blank planet or normally-generated-by-seed planet via brush addition and brush subtraction. -I still don't get how to choose between factions, might want to rework the factions system (as well as the commander choice system aforementioned). The factions in this game are lore wise. Meaning they have a storyline relating to their "faction" being different from anothers. Their build style and unit roster are identical. The factions all build the same and the same units, nothing built or done is different amongst them. They all do the same thing because the premise is that they are robots, they don't learn and are already programmed with the ideal unit use efficiency and design. There is no such thing as research or special technology, the technology is mundane to them because it is all they have ever known. Also colin, do you mean Supreme Commander 2, StarCraft 2, Star Control 2, or Super Contra 2?
You're right, my bad. I somehow correlated that particular point of his with your response, but looking back I see nothing suggesting that point from you is in response to the point I flagged from him. So I'm going to shut up now.
