Don't fall into the pitfalls of SupCom

There is one factor in PA that isn't in SupCom that nobody seems to be considering at the moment:

The planets are round. That means that the visible area when fully zoomed out is much smaller. Most of the time on a high-res monitor, you can still see units relatively clearly when you zoom out. All we need is a slider for the distance at which icons appear and everybody will be happy.

i can play for win without the icons, minimap is what i need
i hope we can block the zoom camera

Yeah sure, I want something like a minimap too, but you're not going to win zoomed in vs someone that isn't.

My personal opinion regarding Icons is that I don't see the point of making a super-duper 3d engine and models if you could run a super fast C-programmed "IconWars"(TM) with gazilions of icons that would practically feel the same.

PA is kind of a compromise between this and the massive "engine complexity overshoot" that is SupCom.
(maybe I'm wrong. PA seems quite complex, too).
I've yet to decide if I like the fact most of the game I see on youtube spend 99% of their time at a zoom where all the (half) planet is seen, and only icons are visible.
I wonder why Uber spends money on designing various commander models nobody will ever see in-game.

But IMHO the main pitfall of TA and SupCom is that games take ages.

While you can find faults to Starcraft (and people in TA/SupCom/PA communities visibly love to criticize starcraft on sometime shaky grounds),
there is one thing that it does "better" than TA: games start fast and can end quickly:
Within the first 1-2 minutes you can lead a successful rush, 3-4 minutes an efficient T1 attack, reach T2 / max tier units within 6 to 8 minutes. BUT *some* games last up to 45-60 minutes when players are evenly matched and defend their bases successfully.
Friends can always agree to play a longer game or play aggressively.

In TA, you cannot play a quick match.
It already takes 10 minutes to build a decent economy.

I think it would be reasonable for PA to have a quicker ramp-up of the economy than in TA.

AFAIK currently PA goes the same as TA and SupCom.
All this is due to the way resources are distributed on the map.

In Starcraft, resources come in patches around which bases grow.

In Starcraft, it takes some time (in the beginning, then less time as production capacity increases) to saturate to maximum production, but quickly yield a neat amount of resources.
The downside is that total army and production are quickly capped, but this is because of artificial limitations: max population cap, limited map size and number of bases, limited amount in each resource patch.

Those limitations need not be present in PA.

In TA/SupComPA, resources come as a stream where excess capacity is wasted and default of capacity is hugely harmful to the player.

It means that resource gathering grows slowly, especially in the beginning. You only come around this when you have sufficient number of fabbers and a large backing resource extraction capacity. Which can take 10 minutes in TA, probably more than the average game length in Starcraft.

This is partially "cured" in TA when a player reaches T2, with Fusion Plants and Moho Metal Makers, which basically unleash an exponential amount of resource, since there is always spare capacity to build more FP+MMM.

To summarize, I'm not saying Starcraft is better, but I would consider resource distribution and storage in PA as a crucial matter of balance of the game flow.

My personal opinion is that kickstarting the game to have early engagement is more fun that the tedious process of building the starting economy.

Even in Starcraft the first minute or so where you build 10 gatherers and 1 farm before you get your first barrack is just ludicrously unfunny.

So SUGGESTION:
1- Group metal in big concentrated patches, make MEX expansive, give one free MEX at start-up.
2- Make energy "swings" less proeminent by having more "baseline" energy needs, e.g. by making all buildings and units continuously drain energy, as well as draining extra energy when doing something special, like building, extracting, firing, moving...
This would cause the "variable" fraction of energy consumption, essentially fabbers, berthas and factories, to represent a lower fraction of total energy consumption, thus giving more opportunity for the player to tune its energy production to the average needs, and less likely to fall in default "by surprise".

N°1 will make the war more focused on strategic points, but I see this as a good point,
N°2 would maybe diminish the skill of balancing the economy, but I think there's plenty of room for strategy in production choices, e.g. between rushing or teching.
The fact that energy default freezes the production actually diminish your options by forcing an immediate focus on "building more energy".
I don't see this as macro strategic skill but as micro-base-pampering based on knowing all the energy costs of all units and all energy output of fabbers and factories...
On the other hand if energy is needed all the time and there are "low" swings, you still have to build more energy but you can cope with some energy loss for some time.

Slow games are kind of the point of TA children. It's like saying counter strike should have respawning; the lack of respawn is a central feature of the design.

"Don't fall into the pitfalls of SupCom" is a hard thing to agree with, people will disagree greatly of what is a pitfall and what is a improvement.

There are some things that can be improved from SupCom (there allways are) however im not sure if strategic zoom is one of them, i cant image a system were minimaps would work on a multi sphere battlefield.

(And you could allredy have a minimap on a second screen in supcom)

Don't use strategic zoom then. Nobody is forcing you to use it.
Use your your 2nd monitor or split your window for the minimap.
I don't mean to fault your playstyle, I think this game should welcome all types of players.

But you're at a serious competitive disadvantage when it comes to not using strategic zoom.

Contradiction. You're being forced to use it if it gives you a competitive advantage.

This is marketspeak that for some reason people repeat because it sounds friendly and nice to say "we welcome all players!" But I think designing a game to "play your way!" is bullshit. The developers are designing a strategy game, not a sandbox.

Just think about how ridiculous it would be to advertise chess as "play your way! Make whatever moves you want!" It's ridiculous. Strategy games, by their very design, create a system that players work within. The devs should make that system as rich and interesting as possible, sure. But ultimately the player must adapt to work within the system, not give the game ten thousand contradictory parts to enable players to do whatever they want.

You don't get to do whatever you want. You must expand, you must raid, you must do all the types of gameplay activities that make the strategy game function in an interesting way. Or you will lose. You cannot just let players do whatever they want- what if they want to turtle on 2 mexes into mass experimental or what have you? They should lose. You cannot do that. Allowing that as an option would make the game less interesting as a system.

I can play with one armed tied behind my back using only my off hand for my mouse.

I can play like this because I want to.

I can do this to **** around in my spare time.

Doesn't mean I am playing to how the game was designed to be played.
And it doesn't mean I am playing to the full toolset I have available.

@ledarsi

You've never heard of Funday Monday?
Where people play handicapped and do dumb things?


Like building no radar.
Or not using strategic zoom.


Sometimes if I play with buddies, we might just do T3 gunship rushes.
Or rush Seraphim Commander tac missiles.


It's not the "smart" thing to do.
Or the way the game was design to be played.
But I can play it how I want.



Have you seen Black Ops, large map no rush timers?
With over 2000 mass income per tick.
And 500 drones.

I should be allowed to goof off too.


But if you don't want to play with a certain tool or certain rule set.
You're not forced to.



But if you want competitive.
You better bring your "A Game".
You better make sure your car is tuned, your tires are warmed up and you're using the optimal mixture of air/gas.
You don't go into a race with half your spark plugs gone.

We're clearly talking about how the base game, that most of the player population play in a way that feels natural without thinking about it, should be designed. The target being that unlike supcom and more like TA, you're not staring at icons, just the 3D animated units themselves.

I haven't played PA yet but I think the size ratio of the planets and the units seems to have improved matters over supcom already. Probably now that strategic zoom is out of the bag we'll never entirely go back to how TA looked while playing, but there we go.

However people want to goof off with the game is irrelevant.

You can goof off with a well-designed system just as easily as you can goof off with a system designed to make non-interesting play viable just because players want to use a particular strategy.

But if the system is designed to make a ridiculous number of silly strategies viable, you don't have an interesting game and can't do anything else but goof off.

PA is designed for scale no?
At least I believe this is the idea we were pitched.

Lots of units.
Big maps.
Interplanetary.
Planet smashing.


If you can come up with how to handle 5000 units over 6 planets.
Manage that many factories.
And still stay competitive without strategic zoom, I would very much like to hear your idea.


In fact, I don't think even Strategic zoom is going to be enough to make this kind of play not feel like a chore.

I have no idea what everyone is doing, but I look at Plannihilator's comments and i'm surprised nobody is calling him out on being plain wrong.


The main problem people have grasping here seems to be the player who wants to play for fun, or shall i say "Casual gamer" vs the more driven "plays to win" gamer. Plannihilator is clearly someone of the former catagory, and as such this is where the problem lies. Those who want a game with high skill cap, and those who want an easy game with pretty graphics.


I'll explain this in an unfortunately long post.


On SC:

.


Let's start with the blatantly obvious. Your link is to a replay. What is the point of a replay? Well, it varies between the types of players I have stated. The former, pretty explosions. The latter, analysis.

On with the problems with your statements:


1) No. You don't have to play with icons - you're welcome to zoom in and watch the bots blow each other to bits, the fancy shells and lasers and explosions and what not. The problem is the "hard core" player will want to win. This simply involves being at a "icon level" as it gives him a better assessment and more control of the situation. You want to look at the pretty generators go pop? Fine. In the mean time, us "icon warriors" will be raiding everywhere else whilst you're mesmerised by the graphics. This is not me stating "I want an icon game", but stating that


2) Many of your comments are frivolous, and this is no exception. If you actually played the game with any degree of skill (i.e, non-retarded) you would know the difference the different tiers have upon gameplay. It is incredibly amusing to me how on the one hand you're saying "oh look, they don't do anything" when you're not playing the game.

Case in point: if your analysis was true, then nobody would ever need to upgrade as the changes are "completely unnoticable". To this end, there would be tier 1 units all the time every time surely? Since this is not the case, we can lay this point to rest as well.

3) So... what? Person A builds a powerful piece of hardware that forces person B to avoid it because person B doesnt want to lose units unneccesarily. What this point has to do with anything is beyond me. That object could be PD, could be artillery. Hell, it could be a heavy tank for all i know.

But the most hilarious part of this is how you utterly nullify your own argument moments later.

On the one hand, you praise TA - defined borders of territory, land control.
On the other, you slam SC for doing exactly the same thing .

.
That's that for the first post.

Onto others:

You make a statement, and give no evidence. This is not an argument. This is a child's rant.

Let's indulge you for a moment.
What can't you distinguish? The difference between a tank and heavy tank perhaps? (Striker vs pillar).
One's bigger, has a dual-barrelled turret... you know. Easy things to notice if you're glued to the screen all the time instead of strategic zoom.
If you're in strategic zoom, you would notice the icon.

Conclusion: You can tell rather easily in strategic zoom, you can tell rather easily without icons too. It's impossible for me to address a point which doesn't deserve to be addressed because you make a statement with no substance.

Substantially different. This is an ambigious term, so i'll attempt to go through them anyway.

Different between factions? Nope. Each had pretty much the same equivalents until T2 in serious play.

There's no variety among units in supcom? Also false. T1 - Scouts for intel. LAB's for early harass. Tanks for initial unit spam and fighting. Artillery for removing PD. AA for... AA.
Every unit has its own role to fill.
As you increase your tech level, then ok, you "might" have a point that units gets outclassed by their higher-tier cousins. You wouldn't exactly be spamming T1 bots if there were T3 bots on the field. Problem with this potential point for you, is that you specifically stated in your first post that

. So no. No points for you.

In addition, yes, factions have units which have the equivalent to each other. This was the same in TA. This is the same in Supcom. Each faction then has specific units which lend it "flavour" - Stealth for cybran, Shields/hover/range for aeon, Durability for UEF. Even in TA, Arm were generally more specialised and faster, CORE were tougher.

As an aside, You wouldn't use peewees for raiding. You would use jeffy's or flashes. Peewees would get murdered by missile trucks so hard it wasnt actually funny.

Let's get one thing clear. In my honest opinion, TA had the perfect balance between land sea and air. Each required considerable resources to develop, each was effective if done correctly.

The problem with your statement is that in TA, you describe a situation in which you're under pressure.
In the latter, you seem to be lazy and do as you want because no one is pressuring you.

You know, if you're going to compare two things, at least control the other variables. It's basic science. Or to the lay man, it allows for fair comparisons .

Because in other games units can just walk anywhere they want to right?

This point doesn't actually have a point beyond saying"This is what it was it was like in TA, and i have yet to find another one like it". Which is fine. It just has no place in a post which aims to state why one game is superior to another.


Your concept of "territory" seems to be awfully skewed. I know what you're talking about with the "borders" aspect - but that was more to do with pulverizers/defenders being cheap yet throwing out as much DPS as a missile truck, allowing you to build behind your engagements and giving you "friendly lines".
You don't find this in other games because static defences aren't that cheap/efficient.

The feeling of "territory" in other games is by movement and map control. Controlling the various important locations around the map, be it resources or just a good avenue to attack.

Uh. Huh.
So, in those TA games, you never found yourself unable to launch an attack because they had succesfully locked down an area with a plasma cannon? Or perhaps being forced into another area because the missile turret forests were too dense?

This "permenant state of engagement" is a bit of an upsell by yourself. In SC 1v1's, this was always the state of affairs. The map was such that you were always probing, always moving.

Where your point has merit, however, is how quickly team games devolve in static affairs. And on this point I will happily concede - TA's team games had a far longer "non-static" portion of the game before substantial investments like plasma cannons showed up, and definitely a very long phase before T2 tech appeared.

[/quote]

Like... what? Your definition of "interesting" is the problem here. What is your interest? Nukes? Ending the game? Fights?
What is "game changing"? Experimentals? Heavy artillery? A t3 push? battle ships? Or something like a T2 PD push? Tactical missiles?

In essence, your argument was quite subjective. But even if we were to look at it objectively:

Sure, you could get an 8 minute Bertha if you wanted, but on the other hand something like a krogoth easily took something in the region of 26 minutes. (Not that they're active anymore, but that was TEA_Woody's record. Any of the TEA clan (Phoenix worx/warzone) will attest to my abilities at TA back then).

The other problem with these comparisons is how the scale of the game has changed. SC maps are larger than TA. PA threatens to be larger than SC. It is inevitable that game changing possibilities will turn up later simply to due to scale.




Blergh. I've probably missed things here and there.
I'll look at this thread later.

The style of game is based on how serious the players are, you are right Culverin, play the game the way you want, you can ask for help to set up a mod that doesn't use zoom, or limit units, or maxout on resources.
One of the main reasons PA fans like TA, SupCom and SupCom2 its because it can be mod, and in some cases the creators of the game help you by giving you hints on how to. I really hate Starcarft and Worldcraft from the beggining, never got around to like that game... units were to useless from one to another, C&C started it all but the franchise went with EA and... well you know what happen.
PA is a good game, but what makes it better are the mods....

False.
You're being forced to do it if you want to play competitively.
If you don't want to play competitively, then don't use it.

If you do, then why complain?

No, it isn't a "This is how it is don't bitch" comment, it's an honest one.

Name a system which would make control of so many planets and fronts useable without strategic zoom.

This isn't even factoring in the problem that the game was probably designed from the base up with strategic zoom, but when you're talking about multiple planets, what do you want, a minimap for each of them? That opens its own can of worms. How large would they have to be to get the whole planet (sphere vs flat rectangle)? Then size of icons? What's important and what isn't?

It depends what we mean by competitive. For FPS games or fighting games, "competitive" matches are a tiny subset of the whole that you have to seek out, usually played with arcane gentlemans rules by an obsessive minority of players.

For RTS games they occupy pretty much the whole gamesphere by my definition, that's just how the genre is, you always play to win since the games are long, personal and failure is ultimate. You join 10 games at random, nobody's using gentlemans rules.

All I'm talking about is how much the base game shows off the graphics (robots walking, shooting and exploding, the environment art etc) in the course of a normal round. TA showed everything, it had a fixed panning camera and a teeny minimap. Supcom showed less due to essentially requiring you to view the battlefield from on high for a large percentage of time to win. I said in my last post that, although I haven't played PA yet, I think it's probably going to be better than supcom in this regard because despite having strategic zoom, the fact of 3D spherical planets and the much smaller ratio of unit size/map size makes the "useful" zoom level you are "forced" to use so much closer that you do generally see more of the 3D units than their icons, unlike supcom.

I'm assuming that the metric in bold is valuable because as someone else said, otherwise we'd just be playing an ultra lo-fi Icon Wars game and save on art costs.

What Amphok is trying to get across is, if the game actually had a "Strategic Zoom" meaning when you zoom out you see the entire map, planet, solar system and galaxy but with out the icon controling. Yes... a lot of games that i know don't like it, because it becomes a icon war. Strategic zoom should have an option of allowing icons to be used or not, also have a minimun and maximum height setting, some hard core playes like that.