Is PA truly a modern improvement to the Annihilation series?

Is PA truly a modern improvement to the Annihilation series such as the forged alliance, the newer mods of total annihilation, and Spring engine? Or is it just another iteration with slightly different graphics and different unit/structure but lacks fundamental and actual improvements? Has PA actualized the popularly-demand features in the previous annihilation games?

What's your opinion?

If you judge the game as TA2.0 then it's a failure.

If you judge the game as Planetary Annihilation then it's pretty ******* golden.



Seriously, it's not a ******* sequel to anything. I don't care about demanded features of other games.

Yep, I love TA, Hate SupCom And all its off-shoots. PA so far is somewhere in the middle. as you would expect from a unique game! just because some of the dev team is shared doesnt make it a sequel!
is Halo a sequel to Marathon?

It certainly has the potential to be. If they keep at it they will have an awesome game on their hands. I'm getting a TA feel already, just a few modifications, and were good to go.

20v20 matches are going to be awesome to watch.

It's not as equal or improvement. It's not the same game.

It has a lot of similarities and draws a lot of inspiration from it.

So.

It's a poor question.

just wondering why do you hate SupCom?

To be honest i hard to quantify just there are sometimes you decide you dont like something but dont say precisely why? Part of it is added complications/features for example adjacentcy. part of it is the forced tech rush and reliance on "experimentals" while there was an experimental unit in TA it was very rare to see it used. another part is the presence and application of the shields. probably the biggest one to me but would be of smallest considration to the majority of readers on here, was how lame the story was/how it was presented.

What I'm wondering is if it will be as epic as sup com and ta was? I still remember when playing those two I just kept thinking how awesome they were. Still waiting to get that from pa

They will, but they're going to be a bugger for casters when they're played on entire solar systems. You'd need two or three to make sure you don't miss any action!

Its gonna need experimentals and shields before I can shelf Sup Com for good unfortunately 2 steps foreword 1 step back

You can't really call it a straight improvement when it's different in many ways but it seems to me that it's doing "TA if it were made today" pretty well.

I'm sure Shields can be added later and I would still be surprised if there is not at least one mega bot like experimental. It's not going to hurt to put one in with orbital in game..if you cant fight the experimental just leave the planet!

No, run you fools! This isn't a safe space to make uninformed comments on experimentals and shields!

...but seriously, this has been discussed like a million times. Shields were the worst thing in supcom (other than tier redundancy and air balance, but it's a different kind of problem) and experimentals... Debatable, but I'm happier without them.

I know it's not popular opinion but I'm a backer too and dammit i'll be heard! Supcom was in every way the successor to TA (sup com 2 doesn't exist.... shhhh!) and while I love TA as well when Supcom FA hit the scene TA got shelved by me cause FA brought everything TA had plus moar! Currently PA doesn't draw upon enough of the strengths FA brought to the table along with it's new features to make FA obsolete the same way FA made TA obsolete. currently TA<PA<FA as far as fun I have in game sadly, but I would LOVE for that to change. I also (along with anyone I talk to in RL) prefer supcom's photo-realistic graphical approach opposed to PA's cartoon-like stylized approach but I understand that's a budget thing and texture packs might help mitigate that unfortunate situation.

I loved Total Annihilation and SUPCOM2, but didn't like SUPCOM. Thus far I think Planetary Annihilation is shaping up to be great.

Iron: there was a desert biome concept released awhile back. I was thinking they were shooting for that look but looking at the beta it doesn't seem so..Unless if the look of the game changes once it hits retail? I also liked the look of supcom over both TA & PA but if the gameplay in PA is better than both of them it wont matter much.

This is a huge yes/no (on a veeery loaded question).
Yes, they are different games.
However, TA, SupCom, Forged Alliance can be grouped into a very distinct lineage of games.
These games all shared similar game concepts and play styles.
Large armies, smart controls, big stompy robots, physics. I think that much should be obvious.

We were pitched the concept of PA, not just on Uber's technical abilities, but that PA would be a spiritual successor to that continue lineage.


But what does that lineage entail to us, the gamer?

1. Scale of battlefield
2. Scale of gameplay unit options
3. Unit Intelligence.
4. UI that doesn't get in the way
5. Kick butt music
6. Gameplay innovation to the genre.
   
7. Engineering innovation to the genre.

These are the criteria in which we I think we (fans, players and backers) will judge PA.



Here is my take on

1. Battlefield Scale.
I've said everything I needed to say about it here.
https://forums.uberent.com/threads/scale-megathread.48650/page-19#post-809774
https://forums.uberent.com/threads/scale-megathread.48650/page-20#post-810334


2. Unit Options
Full roster is not in, but numbers isn't everything.
Innovative units beats sheer numbers.
Wait and see.


3. Unit Smarts
While it won't be Zero-K, maybe the units won't be retarded? (we hope?)
The pathfinding demo looked promising, but we sure aren't there yet.


4. UI.In my sig is the UI you guys want.
We are less than 5% of the way there.


5. Music.
Sounds very promising. (No pun intended )


6. Gameplay Innovation.
Planets. Solar Systems. KEW.
But planetside stuff, is very vanilla, for now. Hoping to see the new units.
And the game isn't even done


7. Engineering Innovation.
ChronoCam, but will the rest of the replay tools integrate with it well?
64-bit native.
Fancy lighting.



So yes, the game is not done, does that mean we can't judge?
I think we can, at least given the pitch, the concept renders, and what Uber has achieved to date.
We all have different reasons we backed this game.
I wanted to see bigger more varied battlefield, bigger armies, and a smarter control system.

I'm not here to hate on PA.
I am here to see that it's so good that I never have to play Forged Alliance again.
Modern? Yes.
Improved? Not given the current trajectory I'm seeing.

I really hope I'm wrong.
Again, if I didn't care, I wouldn't even be here.

I honestly think there's simply not enough time to address these issues before launch, the deadline is coming closer fast, and their priorities must be to get it working as it is with only minimal changes.

If I recall correctly, making units smaller wasn't as easy as just scaling them down. Unlike the engine that Day9 uses in his game called Artillery I doubt the PA engine supports scaling like that.

Maybe after release, if they consider it a big priority, then we'll see scale readjustments.

We have yet to hear anything from the devs themselves that seems to bother me..I'm rooting for pa as well but launch is so close and there is so much more to fix in game...

for some point yes, the Eco, and Radar was improved.