Give us Shields! Come on!

Discussion in 'Planetary Annihilation General Discussion' started by wbonx, May 27, 2014.

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  1. wbonx

    wbonx Member

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    Ignorance? Where do you see ignorance? I just stated the guy said something stupid, is not about being ignorant.
    The reason I'm here arguing is because I know developers don't want to implement shields, stating the opposit is stupid.

    Devak.... you expressed your opinion, let others talk, you are repeating your self and flooding this thread, all the threads like this... and half of the other threads on this forum.

    I'm really wondering if the reason why we will never get shields is that there is a majority of people no liking shields that tent to flood threads like this. When on the other side people that would like shields have other stuff to do in their life or are just more moderate.
    I'm wondering, I really don't want to insult nobody ;)
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  2. spainardslayer

    spainardslayer Well-Known Member

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    Not sure if trolling or has short term memory loss.

    Edit: quoting on a mobile sucks.
    Last edited: May 28, 2014
  3. AfailingHORSE

    AfailingHORSE Member

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    Sure seems like insult and provocation to me...
  4. shotforce13

    shotforce13 Well-Known Member

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    You assume too much and you sure as hell dont speak for me. Again i have played all supcom games and i dont want noob shields. If your being shelled by artil whats the best thing to do? Build a shield? No, you send your units to destroy the problem, you keep sending your units out so he cant build artil to shell said base.

    This game is not supcom and never will be, the thing that bothers me the most is. If supcom is the most epic rts game made, then why are all you fan boys hoping that this game turns out like supcom, has faf gotten boring? Is it no longer epic? Supcom faf has shields, why arnt you playing it? I backed this game during alpha because of TA not supcom.

    You sir are the troll....
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  5. wbonx

    wbonx Member

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    Ok I will repost my other post to put back on track this discussion, whoever talked a lot we got your opinion please let others express them self.

    RePost:
    I'm also of the opinion that coding shields takes a lot of work and this is the main reason why they don't want to implement them, not because anyone thinks they would kill the game. Come on they could be just disable or not.

    My feeling is that they got stuck making a game that is too large scale, having to deal with the planets. This made impossible to code all that things that made supcom an incredibly solid game. I mean when you play supcom you really get a feeling of the solid physic engine behind it. Being on a hill or behind a mountain totally changes the tactic of the game. Every trajectory of a bullet is calculated real time and can end up against the wrong object, killing something else, or against a shield being absorbed.
    My feeling is that details in this sense are totally missing from PA, this is the reason why we don't see objects colliding with mountains/canions, we can't go over a hill and being behind a building doesn't cover you.
    The whole engine behind movement of troops and trajectory must be incredibly simple, like when an artillery is shooting is already decded where the bullet is gonna end no matter what happens in the midddle, what you see is just a silly animation, also a quite bad animation to be precise. This is part of thereason why you barely see bullets and they are not rapresented when you are zooming out.

    So in my modest opinion the absence of a decent physics engine for bullets is the reason why shield will never be implemented.
    I'm a developer and in terms of coding would be too hard, please stop saying this will be a mod, this is just impossible to mod.

    The reason why I made fun of starcraft is that the rts community has been always divided between starcraft like players and people that instead like a deeper level of strategy (like in supcom, some people not me once said this reflects also a different taste between US and EU people). This reflects also the quality of people writing in forums. I'm old and I have a lot of experience in participating in communities and forums. When I say old I mean.... "Utopia", who has ever played it?
    Based on this feeling, looks to me like PA and PA community choose to stay on the side of people that like less strategy and just bubbling troops around a screen. For me this kind of games (starcraft like) are just a waste of time.

    Anyway, I thought it was interesting to give my opinion, unlucky apparently i was in the wrong place, I really hope someone at a certain point will rise 2Millions on kickstarter to make the real sequel of supremecom and total annihilation.
  6. bradaz85

    bradaz85 Active Member

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    Seeing as this thread is up and running. I like shields in Supcom and FA. I would also like them in PA. I don't need a pile-on of people wrestling me to the ground telling me they hate shields and its never gunna happen, I just wanted to put it out there that I for one, am pro-shields!
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  7. Devak

    Devak Post Master General

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    There is an option for bubbleshields that i'd be okay with from a player POV, but i doubt the Devs will.

    A bubbleshield could be a niche unit. Powerful, but also expensive with a limited range. Only viable to guard the most valuable of units and placing each is a truly strategic decision.

    The dev part i talked about is that quite a bit of time is used to balance a unit you won't really see much, and so cost/effectiveness may not be worth it.

    Obviously this implementation comes with problems as well: it makes hiding your commander under a ton of bubbles a necessary strategy and may ensure nuking it REALLY is your only option.


    SO:

    This is false, it means that you simply NEED units which can break a shield. In the above case of a specialist shield, it means nuking becomes a necessity.
    They'd be pulling their hair out because either they throw armies at the enemy shielded commander and watch it doing absolutely nothing, or they see their economy crash because they built tons of these expensive shields.
    The more niche, the less noobfriendly. The less niche, the more prone to earlier mentioned OP mechanisms.

    You seem to agree with the idea of a niche shield being expensive, meaning #2 can't be true, making #1 unlikely.


    At every turn, shields run into problems that do not have an ideal solution, it's just sacrificing something for shields. Sacrificing strategic depth for necessary shields, or dev time to make underwhelming shields, or simplicity for unintuitive mechanisms.


    the same mechanism is used in PA as in Supcom. The bullet speed in PA is faster, which is why less units miss and less stuff blows up against mountain sides. Also, PA terrain is much cleaner than Supcom terrain, largely because pathfinding on a round planet is a pain in the arse
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  8. AfailingHORSE

    AfailingHORSE Member

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    There is nothing wrong with liking shields or even wanting then, as long as you recognize that they will not be coming in 1.0 (if they come at all) and that you can use shields if you use the shield mod that will more than likely be made.



    Edit:
    made it easier to understand what I was saying
    Last edited: May 28, 2014
  9. Devak

    Devak Post Master General

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    *note to self: why is the five question rule always right?*

    Well, if you think strategic depth is the problem, you're not alone on that. The game is hardly finished on that end. A lot of Uber's time has gotten into getting this to work in the first place, as what Uber has done is truly, mighty impressive and unprecedented. Minecraft levels of unprecedented. PA would technically not have been possible a couple of years ago.

    Fleshing out the true game part of PA is still being done. Orbital has gone through quite the development crisis, which caused quite a time sink.

    So strategic depth is still actively being developed, although the community is still adjusting since it's not quite the strategy we've seen before.
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  10. bradaz85

    bradaz85 Active Member

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    So I have to like them for your reasoning? Haha, no! However, I do accept that they "may" never be in PA, and I would be happy to use a mod anyway, and I just so happen to enjoy shields. It would probably be the only mod I'd use, unless there was a DUNE mod, or graphical mods to make the game look better.
    Last edited: May 28, 2014
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  11. AfailingHORSE

    AfailingHORSE Member

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    That was exactly what I was saying....
  12. bradaz85

    bradaz85 Active Member

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    Was it? Because it sounded like you were trying to tell me what reason I have to have for liking shields... :)
  13. krakanu

    krakanu Well-Known Member

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    Reading this thread is like watching a brick wall argue with a concrete slab. Neither side is going to budge.
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  14. overwatch141

    overwatch141 Active Member

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    To everyone who says that Shields don't work with the PA style of play.... PA is a game and I want to play it the way I want to play it. If I want to turtle behind a shield and spam artillery, why should you stop me from being able to do that?

    I'll survive without shields in vanilla PA. We have mods for that. But the attitude some waaay too many people have is simply awful.
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  15. garat

    garat Cat Herder Uber Alumni

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    Welcome to the internet, you must be new here. :)

    Anyway, other than a few exceptions of people who appear to think they are moderators or above the rules, the tone of this thread is mostly ok. Keep it civil, follow the rules, and please don't think you can tell people who can or can't participate in a conversation. If you want a private discussion, take it to PM.

    Carry on.
  16. vackillers

    vackillers Well-Known Member

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    I just really don't see what all the fuss is about, if its an option that you can simply just turn off, then people who don't like it can just simply do that, disable shields when they setup a game, and people who love shields can still play with them. Its absolutely no different then playing with AA on, or choosing to play in window mode or full screen. There is so much who-har over nothing here. Play testing different shields will go a long way in this discussion to see if its actually viable or worth having shields or not (no idea if uber have ever done this of course). But really I see no problem if its just an option, and if people are worried that too many people would just be playing with shields then that really does justify in having them doesn't it? :D
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  17. Devak

    Devak Post Master General

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    I'll just invoke the "uber has limited time" argument"

    It's utter madness to devote time to a feature that -if we go by some of the shield polls- is only gonna please half (or less) of the community. Especially so since Uber already axed a *major* feature or two for Release to focus on getting the game actually in a shippable condition.


    the "flavor" argument doesn't work because of the nature of a bubbleshield. It's either useful and thus a requirement or a waste of resources. The third route -forced balanced- adds arbitrary limitations and thus makes the game less readable. and Secondary Colors were axed because of that.

    So it's not a matter of flavor or "i want to play it that way". Uber too is committed to making a game that as a whole is a playable package. Adding Bubbleshields kills strategies, it doesn't make them.

    Just as a reminder: personal or directional shields do not suffer this, although only the anti-shield side seems to take them even into account. that may be just my perception. A directional shield is effectively a wall and thus inherits many of it's features. A personal shield is effectively a secondary HP bar and thus inherits its features. A bubbleshield is an unbiased HP barrier that thus by definition wrecks balance.
    Last edited: May 28, 2014
  18. AfailingHORSE

    AfailingHORSE Member

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    It did sound like that, and after your post I noticed that error in my other post and went a fixed for clarity.
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  19. vackillers

    vackillers Well-Known Member

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    Totally agreed... should not deviate until at least after release because there are many other things that are more important to do at this time, my post was really about the general discussion about the whole shield argument in general.
  20. tatsujb

    tatsujb Post Master General

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    Ze pilot doesn't care much about shields, he wants playability, UI, Scale, minimap, resistant units.
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