Planetary Annihilation as a competitive game

It was recently mentioned by a dev (Neutrino?) on this forum that Supreme Commander/Forged Alliance was never really a competitive game. The accuracy of this statement hinges upon your definition of "competitive".

I think, however, that some steps should be taken to help ensure Planetary Annihilation is competitive: A competitive game is a successful game.

Here is a list of some things that can make Planetary Annihilation competitive. Note that most are taken from Starcraft 2, due to it being unquestionably the most competitive RTS game ever made. However, much of Starcraft 2 is merely legacy held over from the original, so it's important not to copy SC2 merely to copy it.

Properties to improve competitiveness:
-Quick simulation and UI response times.
-Replays, preferably with recorded meta-data, player inputs/views, and advanced replay viewer functions.
-Direct unit control and predictable unit behavior. (The opposite of this is supreme commander, where units may move away from designated waypoints due to attempting to make formations.)
-Benefits to micro-managing units/bases. Starcraft 2 takes this to an extreme, where micro alone can multiple a force's effective strength by 2 or higher, and even simple processes cannot be automated (like spamming units of a single type). The benefit to micro need not be that large, but some benefit should exist.
-Moddable UI-It's unlikely that a developer will come up with a UI that's more efficient than that made by players. May as well just let them do it.

With these, Planetary Annihilation should form a solid foundation for competition.

Not competitive? While you could not get rich playing it it was definitely fun to compete with others in the ladder or clanwars.

I agree with most of your points, I'd like to add that a working ladder-system (1v1, 2v2, 3v3, ...) is crucial.

I don't see how any of that is specific to the concept of a "competitive" game. The Close Combat series has none of those features, and yet I argue that it's not only a more "competitive" game than Starcraft, but a better strategy game as well.

People also need to deeply rethink their views on what makes a game competitive. One thing that always gets me is how much "competitive" gamers eschew randomness, and yet games like The Battle for Wesnoth and Unity of Command make a lot more sense with their randomness than SC2 does with its lack thereof.

The purpose of a strategy game is allow the player to effectively implement STRATEGY, and yet SC2 is certainly very limited in how much of a strategy game it is, despite how it is accepted in the competitive world. FA, for all its flaws, implements actual strategy much more effectively.

The only thing that can actually make a game "competitive" is the playerbase. You can have a game like Warsow, which was designed from the ground up to be as pure an esports FPS as possible, and yet the lack of players means that there just isn't enough of a playerbase to make it "competitive." Meanwhile, you can take a game like League of Legends, which was designed with a more casual, fun focus, as compared to its Dota roots, and because it easily attracts new players, suddenly it's the biggest competitive esports game in the world. (Meanwhile, Heroes of Newerth, which had a much greater focus on the "competitive" aspects of the game, struggles to maintain its place in the competitive world, despite being a deeper and more varied game.)

In fact, SC2 was designed with the "competitive" focus, whereas the original SC was not. And as is becoming evident, SC2 is finding it challenging to remain as relevant as its predecessor in the competitive world.

So really, the devs should be focusing on making PA a balanced game, with all the depth and strategy required, but while keeping the game fun. It's fun that attracts the players, and as the playerbase gets larger, that's where you'll get more competition. (And if some sweet features that happen to be in other "competitive" games make it in, then we all benefit anyway.)

Side note: Competition also follows where the sponsors go, cause that's where the money is. And sponsors go where the playerbase is, because it's essentially advertising for them.

You are forgetting an important thing for competitve game.

All eSports game need a public, I mean a public that can watch live Matches. Without a public there isn't any eSports, events (sponsors) etc.

An important factor is the possibility to follow a match from the point of view of the casters/observers that are live commenting the match up.

For example it is considered not a good feature the fact that you can rotate your camera. If the casters rotates the camera the public that is watching the match ends up losing the orientation. That's why for example in Stracraft 2 you can't freely rotate the camera (you can do it but only with some degrees of freedom )

This should be taken in account while developing PA if you want to become it an enjoyable games from the point of view of the public

I know it may be a lot to ask but it's worth considering having video recording built into the game to encourage players to capture footage and upload to Youtube without having to buy Fraps. This is a feature in Planetside 2. It's also likely to become standard in all Playstation 4 and Xbox 720 games.

Youtube videos or commentaries have become a really effective way of marketing a game and increasing its shelf life. I'd lost interest in Supreme Commander until I came across commentaries. The online playerbase of SupCom has increased 5 fold since the days of GPGNet and while this can probably be partly attributed to all the changing habits of gamers since 2007 and the quality on the FAF multiplayer client I think the majority of new players have been drawn in from Youtube.

There are already 5 or 6 Forged Alliance Forever casters regularly uploading videos. I'd expect that number to increase 10 fold when Planetary Annihilation comes out.

No, that's just common standard that casters should hold to, not something the game engine needs to be limited to.

Competitive games start as fun games. While it's nearly impossible to figure out what makes a game fun, you can absolutely fix glaring issues that make it bad.

Total Annihilation is credited today for a robust design and physics system that is still daring for the RTS world. But it was plagued with pathing issues, stupid units, gunship spam, and nightmarish naval battles. Expansions helped improve naval play somewhat, and new units did help against gunships, but the slow turning boats were still dumb as rocks. A new pathing engine would have fixed most of the issues it had at the time.

Supcom tried something different, and it did all right. But it suffered from a catastrophically self destructing economy(which no one knew at the time) and cripplingly bad performance. The popular and flashy endgame turned out to be non viable at any serious level, alienating players when their favorite guns couldn't be used. It also managed to make both air AND naval battles even worse, fulfilling a $50 bet made while drunk. The pathing engine was effective with some glaring weaknesses. But the best thing to happen in Supcom by far was the strategic zoom, which will endure long after the game is gone.

Supcom 2 had some great improvements for ground battles, and the most unique additions since TA. The pathing engine was drastically improved, but was a bit silly in action and needed more work. It's biggest flaw was alienating the fan base with a different economy, a nonsense research system, and an inconsistent motif(dinosaurs). It managed to make air spam even WORSE, and I don't even know what happened to naval play. It also had some severe balance issues such as with anti nuke research and mass fab spam.

I don't agree with these analyses of gameplay at all. I've reviewed replays for TADRS for a decade and gunships never get built in competitive matches. Ever. In the 90's when games were a bit laggy you used see Brawlers built quite a bit but as players discovered AA towers and Slashers/Samsons made good land defence they became as rare as hens teeth. Airplay was really powerful for the first 5 minutes (on certain maps). Then mostly redundant (bar the occasional bombing run) till the late game when Hawks became a potential game ender. The path finding used break down when there were a certain amount of units on the field but that was for system performance. Modders have patched the game to not have this arbitrary limit and the pathing is fine. Certainly better than SupCom 1. The boats had somewhat large turning circles because they're boats. On open waters with no wrecks they'd little to get stuck on anyway and seemed to handle very well.

SupCom at launch was pretty much ONLY endgame. It was too easy to porc. The mass fabs were overpowered and expansion wasn't important. People just sat back and waited to throw game enders at each other. Between FA and the community patches this is now fixed and most 1vs1's end at tech 1. If it's a game between evenly matched players then it'll go t2, t3, experimental game enders. That's as it should be. Expert players in ranked games and ladder matches don't like if things drag on for two hours. They prefer half hour matches. If there was anything wrong with TA it was a potential for games to last up to 5 hours on very rare occasions because of the lack of game enders. FA doesn't suffer from this at all. I'll agree with you about the pathfinding and performance however. I'm fairly sure the PA team are on top of those two issues anyway.

SupCom 2 was a lot better than SupCom1 at launch but the lack of budget for post release support really showed and it never got balanced properly. Neither did TA but somehow the balance is fairly spot on with that game by pure luck and it didn't really need fixing.

That has nothing to do with gameplay thought, it's just as you said. "If the casters rotates the camera the public that is watching the match ends up losing the orientation", it doesn't mean the player should have no control over the camera's position, especially if there is either a standard default position or being able to set default position(s) yourself.

To me it feels that SCII's limited camera has way more to do with how Blizzard focused on making the game readable from that one specific viewpoint, likely for the same reason they kept the huge clunky UI.

Mike

Did you read my following sentence, lol? "The accuracy of this statement hinges upon your definition of "competitive"." I do agree that Supcom and FA were fairly competitive. Never to the extent that Starcraft 2 and General were, but nonetheless there was significant competition. I know that not everybody feels like we do, however, and hopefully we can make PA appeal to us and them simultaneously.

Designing a game competitively means being aware of how intermediate to top level players are going to explore and abuse the boundaries of your designed system, and thinking of how to make that level of play as interesting as possible. This does not equate to making a game that can't be played casually.

It has nothing to do how many frivolous buttons the player has to push you can implement.

Online multiplayer, balancing, optimization, replays are all part of competitive game design.

I severely disagree with some of the points brought up here. These elements may be present in SC2, but most of them make the game worse. SC2 only has these elements and is taken seriously competitively because of the legacy of SC1. If they had changed them to reflect 10 years of technological advances since SC1, there would have been a massive outcry from those who played the first game professionally and/or obsessively.

Absolutely not. Formations and intelligent unit control were some of the best things about SupCom1. They let you focus on strategy instead of microing every single unit, which in turn allowed for larger battles with more units. Further intelligent unit behavior should be implemented, reflecting the increases in AI since SupCom1. I should be focusing on fighting the enemy, not my own units.

HELL NO! The less affect micro has, the better. Strategy games should be about who can put together the most effective force and use it and the terrain, the enemies' mistakes, handle resources, adapt to situations, etc. The biggest problem with the RTS genre today is the click-fest nature of most games. This comes from the lack of AI in the "olden days" of computing, where a player HAD to control every unit themselves because there simply wasn't enough power in the computers or knowledge of AI programming to make them act intelligently. The genre DESPERATELY needs to shed this legacy cruft and become truly about strategy, tactics, and resource management, and not about who can click the mouse faster.

Players are going to focus their attention on game aspects that best help them win. Therefore, the most fun should be placed with the important parts of the game!

It is vitally important that players can connect with each other on a personal level, as flesh bag apes seem to thrive on this type of activity. The host-server model is excellent for this, as all the personal connections happen with admins, clans, and friends. Proprietary systems tend to restrict who you can and can't connect with, and connecting with friends can be unusually difficult at times. Official systems also come with third party moderation, which is never as effective nor as desirable as doing it first hand.

O hai FunkOff!

You mean put something in like microing tree harvesting in FA? Maybe we can have nebulae for you and you can micro little shuttles collecting all the H³? That might keep you busy for hours... =3

I have to admit that this is one of the (few) things Planetside 2 did very well. It would certainly help to promote the game if people can easily stream/youtube their stuff without other applications. Question is: How much resources does it take to implement something like this into PA? Uber's budget is a bit tighter than Sony's.

They dont. You simply want to create another genre that never existed. People are used to how RTS always worked and most people like it. In a game that is fought in real time you will always have an edge if you are faster than your opponent. In the case of a computergame this includes clicking faster, but clicking (or rather typing hotkeys) faster is just the symptom of actually thinking about more things.

I think what Funkoff meant with formations is that it needs to be controlable. Units in FA somehow were a bit stupid and walked of on their own to die. That obviously bad and actually increases the need for fine grained micro. So AI-helpers need to be implemented very carefully.

I did read it. I just wrote the first thing that came to mind, mostly as a response not to you but to the dev you were referencing.

The factors I am talking about have nothing to do with improving the game in any way. They were put into the earliest RTS games because of the lack of AI. It should no longer be necessary, and it takes away from the game instead of adding to it.

I am not saying that there is no place for micro. I am saying that micro should be used to enhance the game, and not simply because "that is how RTS games have always worked". SC2 will NEVER change anything from how SC1 did it (because the players have too much invested in the game working EXACTLY the way it did when SC1 was released in 1998). It is time for the RTS genre to get rid of the annoying unnecessary micro that is a legacy of the late 90s. A crowdsourced game like this is the perfect place to move the genre forward, instead of forever running things exactly the same way they have been run for over a decade.

Thank goodness there's somebody else that sees it this way. I've been pushing this point for ages, but nope. RTS gamers want their precious micro.

Starcraft 2 is played BECAUSE OF the micro. People like to replace the unit AI. They practice to build up their base while constantly microing units. To me and many others that is part of the fun, not something that should be cut away.

We had that discussion, we know that some people would like to just build units and give them the command: "Now go and fight" while others would like to say: "Now move 2cm right, left, right, stop, right, shot 3 times, right..."

PA is nothing like Starcraft, that is for sure. FA already did remove lots of micro that is no longer necessary from a technical standpoint and PA will probably follow that path. But even in PA you will need micro here and there to really use your stuff in a perfect way, just because the AI cannot be perfect and it cannot read your mind.

I have no issue with necessary micro. What I am against is needless mouse busywork. I should have control of special abilities, have to direct my forces to priority targets, etc.

I should not have to have 8 groups, one for each type of unit, each of which I have to frantically select, then select each unit in them and give them individual move commands as fast as I can so that I can maintain a cohesive formation (like SC2 or Supcom2). I should be able to select a mixed group of units, set a formation, and have them intelligently follow my commands while maintaining formation to go from place to place (like SupCom1, but with better terrain handling).

I should be able to set a patrol group and have them move in their circuit together in the formation I tell them to, instead of having each move at their own speed irregardless of the other units, resulting in each unit soloing any incoming enemies and making patrols worthless (SupCom1 tried to do this but was not always successful).

I should be able to manage multiple attack and defense groups without pulling my hair out. That doesn't mean that just selecting 3 group and sending them in to attack, then going to do something else should work. But it does mean that each of the 3 groups, once bound together, should arrive as a unit, instead of in order of move speed (like in SC2), and they should arrive in the configuration I asked for, instead of like a layer cake (like in SupCom2).

Micro is not the problem. Stupid micro is. The game should be about STRATEGY, not mouse calisthenics.

Agreed 100% - so much that I had to register an account here to say that!

Part of what I really disliked about SupCom2 was that now factories had this micro aspect ot them where you could build addons to them... I never saw why that was needed? why not just let a player build external air, ground and shield defences?

Part of the challenge IMO of SupCom1 - which I liked, still do - is to balance base design for how you want to defend it. Air defence? Ground Defence? Where do shields go? From what direction will attacks come?

If you can just slap all three on a factory that kind of defeats the purpose - at least for early low-tech gameplay.


I would argue that just like the FPS game genre seems to be splitting into two with the military shooters on one side and the more creative semi-RPG FPS games on the other, then TA and supcom 1 represents a more definitively macro strategic side of RTS games, while the starcraft games and its ilk (and Supcom2 imo) are more micro tactics.

Equally, for the purpose of competitive play, consider: If an observer in a multiplayer match could have free camera controls - perhaps to allow going down to the ground and following along from a first person view as a battle progressed - that'd be awesome.

I recall the RTS Machines which allowed you to take control of units FPS style and then fight in a battle as that unit - a bit like in Dungeon Siege. The thing I liked the most about that feature was that it really gave you the impression of being just one single insignificant unit out of fifty fighting. Made for some memorable moments.

I'm not saying that PA should have a feature like that for first person control of units - that wouldn't make sense for PA - but to allow observers the option to go down and look from positions like that could be fun.

But beyond that, IMO the best competitive feature for Supcom was the size of it and the strategic zoom! An observer could see one player sneaking up units on an enemy base under the cover of a radar jammer - or see how another player's early warning radar would allow for AA-fighters to be scrambled to intercept.

In all other RTS games where fog of war is something that just goes away once you've passed over an area you can't really sneak up on people. Its rush or die, steamroll or die or endgame nuke or die - depending on what game you play.

Sure supcom could be played like that - with the map revealed - but that'd defeat the points of radars and sonars. I can't describe how awesome it feels to surface that experimental sub-carrier behind an enemy base and launch t3 bombers all over him. That's just beautiful.

I can only hope that PA keeps features like that (maybe introduce spaceships as a late-game thing?) to allow for grand strategies that take time to set up and execute, as opposed to pandering to players who just want to zerg rush