Scale Megathread

Re: SCALE MEGATHREAD NEW POLL !!

hmm...
like is said in the planet size contest thread: I still, in FA, take time to admire the scenery as there are moments of reprieve (where you're waiting on eco or an upgrade to finish) but I have to admit PA being as micro as it is so far (so far! I know they'll add a repeat button and other UI helpers such as waypoint and queue editablility) you never have time for a breather while playing...

Re: SCALE MEGATHREAD NEW POLL !!

It's not either the focal trick OR shrinking unit sizes, you can do both.
This way you need less distortion correction, it's a compromise.
Also bigger planets with large continents and better scale between landscape and units would help too.

It won't change the gameplay, but it certainly will change our perception of the game.
Suspension of disbelief, credibility, authenticity will benefit a realistic scale feeling.
Between a superdeformed toy look and feel game and another with exactly the same game mechanics but with a good sense of scale, great proportions and real landscapes that dwarf even the biggest units, i think that PA would be more suited for the second.

Also even if it's only at the very beginning of a game, or very occasionally for watching some battles or do some precision work (i suppose you don't place your buildings using the orbital view!), an inconsistent feeling remains devastating as it destroys all suspension of disbelief.

Re: SCALE MEGATHREAD NEW POLL !!

Yes. It shouldn't be the first concern of Uber, but look&feel is quite important when you are trying to sold a game, and shouldn't be entirely overlooked.

Re: SCALE MEGATHREAD NEW POLL !!

Yes, because after all it's a game, made for fun.
And not some utility tool that only need basic efficiency.
I mean, even "exel" Eve online has nice graphics.

Re: SCALE MEGATHREAD NEW POLL !!

:| bleh! I'd choose PA's graphics over that of EVE's anyday.

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PA just wouldn't look right with a more realistic aesthetic. The planets still need to be unrealistically small for technical reasons.

Re: SCALE MEGATHREAD NEW POLL !!

well we've shown that there are ways of getting around the technicall difficulties that having "big" planets pose.

If you distort your vision the plannet can look bigger

if you make your units smaller the planets can look bigger.

Re: SCALE MEGATHREAD NEW POLL !!

They needs to be smaller than 1:1 scale planets for technical reasons.
But they needs to look like realistically sized for feeling reasons.

Because what's the point of making a game this ambitious if the result look like some casual flash game?
In his actual state PA looks even worse than SupCom2!

Re: SCALE MEGATHREAD NEW POLL !!

Great, now this thread got infected by people that don't know the difference between art direction/style and graphics.

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no, no it isn't smallcpu calm down.

I'm sure this isn't a jab at the art choices but rather one at the scale.

Re: SCALE MEGATHREAD NEW POLL !!

No, you're the one infecting this thread.

Re: SCALE MEGATHREAD NEW POLL !!

The planets will still always be comically small for using realistic gritty dirt textures.

Also, I like goddamn colourful things xD and the art style means there's a lot of clarity, which will be especially important once we get multiple planets and multiple wars going on.

Re: SCALE MEGATHREAD NEW POLL !!

Nah, I'm disagreeing with you with well pointed questions which leave you shattered on the ground as just hit with a KEW. :mrgreen:

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Now, I don't really want to derail this thread even more although it went from a criticism of the scale between units and planet features to an option to hide the shape of the planet to somebody saying that all the gameplay doesn't matter as long as it looks similar to a flash game (they probably ment oversized scale of units to features which is a stylistic choice used in many rts games (WarCraft, Command and Conquer, even Dune) and THEN arguing that it thus looks worse then SupCom2, even though their object of criticism (the scale of units) is/can be a deliberate stylistic choice and is something inherent in playing on small planets in the physical design of the game (playing on spheres), thus comparing graphic fidelity with graphic style!

Also, why having close zoom hide the fact that we're playing on a small sphere makes the game look better isn't obvious to me at all. I'd even argue it makes the game look worse as it hides the real look of the game in a futile effort to make it confirm to preconcieved notions on how it should look.

TL;DR, we're playing on small spheres, deal with it. :mrgreen:

Re: SCALE MEGATHREAD NEW POLL !!

Scale is an important thing.
Good sense of scale is precisely what made TA/SupCom different and more epic than previous RTS like Warcraft/Starcraft/C&C/etc, which didn't care much about scale so giant battlecruisers and one grunt unit were almost the same size.

Scale is important for Uber, they even released pics showing some nice scale renders:




Look, it's even written in the pic: "SCALE"
There is also a meter graduation, and trees. And all in this pic is getting a good sense of scale.

Nothing to do with actual look of PA isn't it?
And yes, even SupCom2 with his tiny maps has a better scale than PA.
But it didn't have the problem of ballon terrain to deal with.

Uber also want to give the units a good weight, as they don't want them to pass through themselves like in SupCom2.

Scale between units/landscape and small sphere feeling is the SAME issue.
It's not about "photorealism", it's only about getting a consistent feeling of credibility.
PA is not LEGO-PA, it's not MARIO GALAXY-PA sandbox, it's a massive RTS that precisely push the scale a lot further than all previous RTS to play at an interplanetary level, the massive and epic scale is in fact precisely the heart of what makes PA.

I can't see any reason to ruin it with a TOY style look as there are technical solutions to make it look a whole lot better.

Theses solutions apprears as tricks for hiding the small spheres, but it's only because realistically sized planets would be too big.

It's like saying brick textures in a FPS are cheat hiding the facts the virtual walls are not real brick wall but instead invisible surface blocking the player.
Video Games are all about "cheating" and "hiding" for the only purpose of making their universe believable.

Re: SCALE MEGATHREAD NEW POLL !!

exactly. (this was already posted in this thread btw...)

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will the scale change be in the next patch? the one after?

Re: SCALE MEGATHREAD NEW POLL !!

I doubt you will get ETAs. I also doubt that the scale change is very high on their priority list.

Re: SCALE MEGATHREAD NEW POLL !!

yeaa.. :cry:

Re: SCALE MEGATHREAD NEW POLL !!

After using the new world generator, and playing on a 65 size planet, (mostly covered by water) I can safely say making the planets bigger didn't change my vote at all.

In fact, playing on larger planets reinforced to me how badly the scale change is needed.

One thing that really gets to me is the scale of the navy compared to its range circle! The ships are huge... yet they can only shoot very short distances. The Leviathan for example.
Very impressive looking ship - big mean looking deck guns - which can only shoot twice its own length!? :S

I can understand why the range on the navy maybe limited (I also understand the navy is WIP, along with everything else) but if the scale of everything was reduced - this would go a very long way to mitigating this problem! The current ranges could be maintained (or at least they wouldn't have to be hugely increased to make the navy feel less stupid) and everything would look a lot more sensible.

Anyway, sorry if this is badly worded - not feeling so good this morning!

Re: SCALE MEGATHREAD NEW POLL !!

They definitely need scaling down a lot tbh.

At the moment, even the largest planet feels small in relation to the unit sizes. There is no epicness as you got in supreme commander, or even TA. It feels zoomed in and jumbo like starcraft. Which is the exact opposite of what they are going for.

Also making the units smaller and slower moving is basically the same as making the planets larger for no extra performance cost, which can only be a good thing. You can always make a smaller planet if you want a faster game