3D Terrain a gimmick?

But you HAVE SupCom's Strategic zoom. Why is everyone so dead-set on having limitless information without any effort involved to gain it?

Are you all really that spoilt?

No.

Very amusing thepilot, let me know when you're ready to have a real discussion instead of just demanding what you want like a petulant child.

You never look at things from other people's POV. It's your way or it's wrong.

We don't have supcom's strategic zoom, because supcom gave a 100% view of the entire battlefield and PA gives a fisheye lens of perhaps 40% of the battlefield.

I fail to see your point. I also fail to see any argument that holds water that indicates we MUST have 100% of the battlefield in view in a single window other than some misplaced sense of entitlement.

Your fundamental argument is that you want every scrap of information presented to you without any effort put in by you, the player. You base this on the trend that has given players this "easy-way-out" in the form of a minimap or similar over the past decade and a half.

You're blinkered to anything or any word to the contrary.

I ask you again: Why do you feel like you deserve to have omniscient knowledge over your battlefield?

Because it's a RTS.

Because constantly spinning planets around just to get intel on what is happening is annoying, time consuming and isn't conducive to gameplay. The problem will be further exacerbated with multiple planets. Several people have mentioned this several times already. Perhaps you should explain why intel should be restricted by the UI and why that improves gameplay?

thepilot, That's your argument? In it's entirety?

Nothing in the Genre, rather broadly defined as "RTS" necessitates perfect, instantaneous knowledge of the battlefield, especially without any effort on the part of the player.

You're basing your argument (and I use that term very loosely) on convention. Nothing more.

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zaphodx, I am in no way saying that the UI is perfect as is. However the restriction of information is already present in the Genre, known as the "Fog Of War". Why are you ok with one type of restriction and not the other?

I think the FoW improves gameplay; it introduces a certain ... uncertainty about exactly where your enemy is, and what he has. I believe it's a shame that the FoW is rendered little more than a formality when you have access to a minimap.

This is the first RTS I've played in decades which has had me actively paranoid about not only my enemies movement... but also my own. It's like fighting an actual War of Information where I have to devote time, not only to sending out scouts... but actually WATCHING what they learn, rather than just glancing at a minimap and the "ghost" units left behind a sweep.

I think that the time and effort on the part of the player, especially when it comes to information gathering shouldn't be as blasé as more modern RTS's have made it.

Well, it's not an obligation to use any overview.

Exactly.

Well, it is if the "see everything" overview is superior in every way, otherwise you're just gimping yourself.

Adversity not something you like triumphing over?

We agree that a game of the kind of PA without that kind of view is gimped. Case closed (for us )

all this discussing wont make it better, lets wait, what Uber comes up with. If they come up with no solution, then you have to decide if you want to buy a game, that has no super 100% strategic zoom on multiple battles.

If you already bought the game via kickstarter or preorder its your fault you took that risk^^

i for myself am fine with the options so far for battle control, though I would appreciate some more effort to show the not visible areas somehow. But i think it was bgolus who wrote, that he tried some things, and none of it worked out so far... so lets wait, maybe something will come.

If not, we will have to play shared army games only, where everyone will control one part of the battlefield only ^^

Well basically it seems to me all the efforts should be put in controlling the battlefield, deploying structures in order to gather intelligence and of course defending these structures. Any missing intelligence should result of not having deployed the required structure, not the result of the interface failing to display the information just because we're playing on spheres.

In real life, thankfully, the entire intelligence is displayed on a world map. I've never seen any military people having to run around a giant sphere to get the intelligence which is displayed on the other side of the sphere ... This would just be ridiculous.

Same must apply here as far as i am concerned.

Hah. You mean the player not putting in any effort to search for it?

Failure to build a structure at the right time in the right place... Smacks of Starcraft 2 to me. Build orders and timings...

blergh...

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Your "in real life" comment made me chuckle though. Very amusing.

The effort is scouting and placing radar correctly. Not fighting against the UI. (that's actually what you do in starcraft 2 -fighting against the UI-, if you want a reference point).

Never touched Starcraft beyond being aware that, after doing so, TA felt a million times better.

The Starcraft UI always looks rather intuitive to me?

:?

Better everyone uses the same "gimped" view, though. Just deal with the sphere. It's the nature of the game.