Uber Weekly Update - August 13, 2014

Temples and Valcanos are actually already brushes and everything so such a feature is already complete, therefore they couldn't be working on it.

No need to be such a pessimist, it could be a ladder even.

I see what your trying to say but this is PA and if you want wreckages go play TA. this game is getting basis off TA and sup comm but that doesn't mean it will be sup comm and TA

Thanks for the update Brad, success with moving to a new place!

I honestly didn't make use wreckage either. Well I never have played TA or supcom, so there is no automatic message that says 'hey you should reclaim that!' instead it's more like 'those are the corpses of units, nothing special'.

Removing wreckage completely is a mistake, you should have it even if it was for pure aesthetic reasons. They are corpses of units and they should disappear after a couple minutes. And sinking ships are cool. So are collapsing structures.

Reclaiming is fun, if your making this game you should know that.

Reclaiming was fun in TA, thats why they brought it to SC, it was still fun so they did it again in SC:FA. Still it was proven to be fun so in Zero-K they also went for it and in Evolution RTS they also made it. Then PA alpha was there and it had reclaim ofcourse because it was fun in all games that came before it.

Reclaiming is fun in every other robotbuilding RTS games i played like SC, TA and Zero-K. PA is the only one who couldn't make it fun then and thats a shame. Saying it isn't fun as if its a fact aint solving nothing since we all knew better already before this game even excisted and your only making uber look bad with writing that nonsence. Adding more distance between Uber and the community.

Don't come with these wannabe-facts again pls because twisting truths is wasting everyones time. I feel very insulted aswell when i read stuff like that especially because this problem hasn't been ever discussed before by Uber to the community and the casual way Brad twists the facts around. Do you actually believe people will believe you when they got free games available to them that where able to work it out perfectly. Whatever it is, i don't even want to know. This is why you had vanguard newsletters, those where good and always had much positive feedback. Uber weekly updates aren't quite the succes story. Its basicly a list of good stuff we wont get + some toy rush commercials and are only going to further add to the community corrosion thats been going on for months now. I've been forcing myself to play this for a few weeks in a row now to make sure there are people playing. Even with previous and current awefully boring balance (yes you can easily win with 1 unittype only) just to make sure the community wont bleed out and im still one of the only ones left. I have no idea where all these players are going, but i can definitly confirm that they aren't playing PA anymore.

Would it be toomuch effort to make 1 forumtopic saying how do we make reclaiming more fun, it would be a simple step to get some idea's of how to improve and it would inform us that your struggling and need some help. Stripping the feature first and then claiming that the feature isn't fun afterward without attempting to make it good and then adding no info about re-adding the feature whatsoever and dumping it in the bucket of broken stuff thats not in the game that modders must fix themselves for this game to be finished, i mean come on who are you trying to fool here. Its a feature thats in the game since alpha that never got some real attention from Uber except areacommand wich obviously can't fix the entire ''problem''.

To further make my point of the reason why reclaiming unit wreckages might be considerd ''not fun'' by someone.
No matter howmany times we said the combat fabricator is not affordable, to vulnerable and not wysiwyg, or reclaiming with normal engineers was too energy-intensive there was no action taken by uber to even try to solve the problem except for now when they stripped it entirely. Also, wreckages could explode into rubble like described in this topic. Then there is no problems with pathfinding or bullets at all afaik. To me it feels like Uber didn't make reclaim work to their liking instandly, now they completely abandon it instead of solving the problems, with some last second mentioning of it.

Also, the planet is mostly empty already. Some dead units and some guys reclaiming them will make the entire game look and feel a lot better. If you can't find a way to make it to work, just do the same as Zero-K because there it all works.

Reclaiming is doable in TA, and SupCom and much less doable in PA prior to it being taken out for a very simple reason -- units are much more squishy in PA, and the husks never give enough reward to justify the risk, and frankly even if they did the fab is still better off doing something else. The fact that they made path-finding difficult sort of nailed the lid on the coffin.., yea it sux that its gone, but its good that mods can still have it since a viable mechanic requires units that live longer than a single missile (air-fabs), or a couple of bullets (every other fab) or whats the point really?

Heh, reclaiming was so fun, they even kept it in SupCom 2!

Well, okay i see DalekDan that your seriously responding wich i apreciate. I think any explanation is better then none. I do think you might have some valid points. I also think these problems can be solved. I would indeed be happy to play mods with wreckages and i am interested in how to solve the problems that may appear.

1.0 gets delayed already because of basic ladder...so how many times should we ask uber for delaying 1.0 before we will be happy allowing them to get a bit more cash to spent making the game? shall they delay it for orbital as well, for naval and subs, for airballance and groundballance? when are they allowed to release the damn game? in 6 months? in a year? in 2? part of the community realy seems to have a liking of the taste on dictating uber what to do lately ...

Ah well at least that's still in. Thanks.

They should release the game when all promised features are in place (hint: there is tons of stuff missing). Yes I'd suggest delaying for orbital, navy and submarines aswell, since those are either broken or not in the game, even though they have been promised.
The only reason Uber can possibly have for rushing the release is money, which makes me very worried about the future of PA. I mean, if they have to release now because they are running out of money soon, what will happen to all the promised stuff if PA fails because the promised stuff is not in the game?

Orbital works fine imo, and Navy- well now wreckage isn't an issue should work much better. Only missing feature is Subs and that was a sub point of a stretch goal- Naval has still been implemented.

Things that are actually 'missing'? Well there is gas giants (being worked on) and the metal planet weapon I guess. Other than that everything is in the game, including the stretch goals.

No the game isn't perfect, however I think they need to reach a point of saying "this is it for version 1" and you also have to recognise that they've added in features which weren't mentioned in the Kickstarter campaign.

Like upgrades and unit obsolescence!

you forget that a well ammount of stuff were stretchgoals, naval was a stretchgoal, same with metal and lavaplanets and the opcomming gasgiant content ... so most promised content actualy IS in place ...

I know your a bit down on Uber, still I hardly think it's fair to state these as the main things they've included.

From my perspective the biggest 'surprise' feature was the Chrono Cam. Very nice- I use it often. Also the PIP system is superb (including the full 3D thumbnail on mouse over for notifications) and their very nice area command implementation (which for building even surpasses Spring).

I agree the balance isn't ideal- but then they *are* working hard to support mods so that RCBM and such can do things differently.

By stopping work on wrecks and the pathing issues they create?

Yea. Sure. Whatever you say. Very helpful.

The argument that modders can put it back in is good, but it's far from ideal.

What I am worried about is that now wrecks are not in vanilla PA, they will degrade to the point where there more trouble then there worth. PA is constantly changing, how long do you think it will be until wrecks are incompatible with pathing?

I find the "modders can do it" argument in this case very poor.

I definitly agree that what uber has added so far is very awesome and sometimes goes way over my expectations. I do feel like they are rushingly skipping the community when it comes to massively changing keyparts of this game way too often and i am very suprised to see unitwreckages removed for example. As players we should speak up and tell them that honestly. I also assume that moving office isn't exactly ideal working environment. Im not happy that i feel skipped but still its probably a lot harder to work at uber and do EVERYTHING right instead of sitting here and complaining about another lost feature. We should also show some love for the people making us some gasgiants that they where also not telling us (much) about

Supcom simply ignored wreckage for pathing, most games *have no wreckage at all or wreckage that disappear*... It's obviously a complex problem. If given the choice of *broken game with wrecks* or *working game without wrecks* I know which I'd choose.

I guess I'm just tired of the attitude many have (and this isn't specifically targets at you btw nano), that runs along the lines of "Lets put aside all that good stuff they've already done, the real issue here is that Uber are complete ****** due to missing feature X...".

Surely if you look at the project as a whole, there are *lots* of very good things they've done. I think it's very easy to get narrowly focused on specific things and completely miss the bigger picture.

When in doubt: Option 3. Fix it when its broken.