Scale Megathread

Re: SCALE MEGATHREAD NEW POLL !!

Yes, once you go strat icons you can't go back... it's just too good.

nothing keeps you from zoomng in to admire the landscape but having the tanks constantly visible in TA was due to it's small scale.

since then RTS has taken two paths, the continued kinda "fake" feel from C&C where you don't feel like you are a comander at all or using any startegy or in control of any significant army.

And the true-to-life napoleonic feel of true simulated projectile RTSes with massive scale. you gotta make some compromises somewhere. at one point you gotta decide if you want to be on the battlefield or sit in the commander in chief's chair. the best part is strat zoom lets you do both!

Re: SCALE MEGATHREAD NEW POLL !!

Your argument fails at one critical level though... currently at the state PA is its possible to play at a level where you don't only see icons which wasn't possible in SupCom.

Yes, I zoom out to get an overview, to make large scale troop movement or orders over longer distances.

Handling individual tasks though is easily possible on a zoom level where you see the units itself and not the icons yet thanks to the current scale and range the units have. Especially on smaller planets you can play on a zoom level where you see most of the stuff without having to resort to icons (also larger planets are currently broken in gameplay anyway and lead to boring gameplay).

And I like it this way. I can use strategic zoom when necessary but the average zoom level I use is close enough that I can see stuff happening.

Re: SCALE MEGATHREAD NEW POLL !!

Because PA is about little skirmishes right now, this will hopefully change.

Re: SCALE MEGATHREAD NEW POLL !!

I wouldn't call using a few dozen to a hundred units in an attack a little skirmish but to each their own I guess.

I'd actually speculate that when multiple planets are in we will even more have to play on small planets to retain good gameplay as the more planets and other bodies bring so much more playarea with them that having larger stuff won't end up in anything good (besides eco spam).

Re: SCALE MEGATHREAD NEW POLL !!

It seems that the community is divided in 2 groups:
- TA fan
- SupCom fan

The second one find that the scale of PA is wrong, and when you play SupCom you understand why But for the first one, PA is quiet close to the original TA.

Re: SCALE MEGATHREAD NEW POLL !!

:lol:

When the original CNC came out it was one of the closest experiences to being a real world command you could find, it even had Abrams tanks.

There were no unit caps and only against the AI is when you didn't need strategy, and is one of the major creators of the entire RTS genre.

If 'you' felt fake them its really just you who did.

Re: SCALE MEGATHREAD NEW POLL !!

since then C&C has taken a different path, you probably see what I reffer to. Starcraft II pretty much sums up my idea and is a prime example of what I speak, this is why I included it in this 'family'.

Re: SCALE MEGATHREAD NEW POLL !!

More fast paced and more about not getting your guys killed.

Not that that isn't fun, but to be fair its where that kind of RTS was heading as it did become more popular.

I still have reasons to like all of the CNC games, CNC 4 was the only one I didn't get however as both the story and the gameplay deviated too much from what I personally like.


RA1 however when played right is similar to a game of sup com when 2 Russian teams fight it out.

Re: SCALE MEGATHREAD NEW POLL !!

>Implying PA is not all about getting your guys killed

Re: SCALE MEGATHREAD NEW POLL !!

TA has a minimap.
TA was in 640*480 in 1997, we can play it today at 2560*1600 and more, and the units are tiny. (Yes, we were also able to play it at very high resolution on the good old CRT, but the units were even more tiny, and there was no icons to help)

And you can't see the whole range of TA's long distance artillery units in only one screen without having to scroll. Even with high definition.

Because that's it, either you'll need to scrool using a minimap, either you'll need to unzoom using the strategic view.
If you don't want any of them, your game will be absolutely minuscule.
Absurdely illogical given that the epic scale is pretty much the very heart of PA, even more than it was for TA/SupCom.

If you really want to play a real strategic scaled game like PA (where the battlefields take place on entire PLANETS and even SYSTEMS) while keeping units big enough to be recognizables and play without icons, indeed you'll need GIANTS units, even far bigger than today.
Because you'll need to be able to see them from ORBIT!
Even Godzilla can't be seen from space.

Because yes, till now PA can't depict any really epic scaled battles with hundreds of units (with a projected total unitcap of one MILLION), we only have small skirmishes of a few units firing on each others at close range.
But PA is certainly not a Real Time Tactic game like CoH. It's quite the opposite infact.

Seriously, that's the kind of visual you think when hearing PA, successor of TA & SupCom?

tiny battlecruisers shooting at point blank on buildings roughly the same size of peons?

Re: SCALE MEGATHREAD NEW POLL !!

I feel like I am one of the few on these forums who likes starcraft......Then again I also consider SupCom 2 to be one of my favourite games....even over the original...

I suppose I kinda have a kink for illogical games.

Re: SCALE MEGATHREAD NEW POLL !!

It's perfectly logical for Starcraft to be like it is; with a very close view and big units, because Starcraft focus on very small tactical micro management with a small unitcap and small maps.

TA/SupCom/PA focus on giant epic scaled battles on a macro strategic level with lots (and even flows) of units fighting over giants maps and even entire planets; it need to be optimized by automation and strategic oriented UI (=shift order chaining, assist, patrols, cargos, strategic zoom...), so it's illogical to keep a forced close view. That's a step backward from the strategic zoom of SupCom.

If you want to have both; macro strategic game AND close view/big enough units; you'll end with scale problems.

And that's completely useless and easily avoidable because it's absolutely possible to watch the small battles at high zoom level thanks to the strategic zoom.

I can watch SupCom's individual fights at ground level from orbital strategic/icon view in only a few mousewheel moves, that's only moving my finger a few cm, time consumed is a blink of an eye and i can't see the point of messing the whole scale feeling of the game in order to spare such a small "effort".

TA in 2560*1600:

Re: SCALE MEGATHREAD NEW POLL !!

+1


these were the jumbled words in my head I couldn't assemble right.

Re: SCALE MEGATHREAD NEW POLL !!

TA-scale unit sizes and engagement ranges, please.

Re: SCALE MEGATHREAD NEW POLL !!

Nobody claims to keep a forced close view.

Smallcpu said that he use the strategic zoom in some situations, but he enjoys to see the real unit during battles instead of a dot war, like in supcom.

As a fan of TA, i find this point of view justifiable. In TA you are always able to see the units fighting. You can enjoy their design, their animation etc... to finally like the unit. One of the reason i don't get interested by SupCom is that the unit were too small for being seen, the units were just a crowd of unknown for me. I missed my old peewee, bulldog, reapers etc... so i played Spring TA.

But as i said in a previous post, this story of scale seems to be related to your game experience. Supcom players would like to play on a realistic sized planet with plenty of icons, not the other players.

At the moment i find that PA is much more close to TA than SupCom never was.

"les gouts et les couleurs..." as we say in french

Re: SCALE MEGATHREAD NEW POLL !!

Newsflash, PA will have something similar. You may yell now. :mrgreen:

I always played TA at 1024x786. The units were a pretty comfortable size to look at. So your argument is?...

Not true. As I've mentioned several times, with the current scale of the game its allready possible to play at a good zoom level that gives you both oversight without playing on icon only mode.

Ah the million number... thats a target for the game engine. Its not something realistic to be expected during even the largest 40FFA. The game engine is exptected to be scalable, but that doesn't mean that the far end of its scalability will be something we can play with in the near future.

Also I don't really get the argument about the current battle being only skirmishes... I easily get attacking forces in the 50-100 tank numbers (hard to tell as they blob a bit too much to count) even in mid game. And many more when 10-20 factories churn them out continuesly. Feels pretty epic enough to me. I mean in TA the numbers were way lower even with the higher unit limit patch.

Yes, I know that people have an irrational hatred of Starcraft... that's not something that anybody has argued in this thread though. I come from playing TA, not Starcraft.

-------------------------

satanpetitcul spelled it out (quite) a bit better then I did I think. I come from TA and while I played and liked SupCom, I still played TA until now and stopped with Supcom eventually. My view comes from the fact that PA is supposed to be a spiritual successor to TA (as was SupCom) and not a direct successor to SupCom itself.

Re: SCALE MEGATHREAD NEW POLL !!

Yes but what kmastaba was explaining (diplomatically) was that it loses all justification when you increase size.

TA's and Pa's scale are not comparable.

Re: SCALE MEGATHREAD NEW POLL !!

Nobody claims to keep a forced view, but what's the point of keeping an useless strategic zoom when all the work can be done from a low altitude?
The opposite is also true: why not using the existing strategic zoom tool for choosing either close view and strategic view when needed as it's so simple and intuitive to use?

I personally watch the small skirmishs and individual animations of units in SupCom ALL THE TIME, because it's SO easy to zoom in to whatever low altitude, and then zoom out to an orbital view for setting orders and checking radar before going back in the battlefield in just one split second, to move through the whole map in only one "jump" without even clicking once.
Obviously i don't watch each and every unit fighting in the battlefield 100% of the time, but i really never felt like i played only with icons in SupCom.
And i don't even play with multiple monitors setup that permit keeping a permanent and interactive "minimap".

Zooming with the strategic view is exactly like scrolling with a minimap, because it's obviously impossible to have a complete TA map in one screen.

I can't understand why we would need to have both strategic view AND close view at the same time as they are completely contradictory in a RTS, and especially on a RTS this ambitious about scale. (Starcraft made big compromises in term of scale and size of battles)
Notably when it's so easy to have the best of both worlds without compromise.

It would be like wanting to fit a complete TA map in one screen, while keeping units big enough to remain identifiable without icons, can you imagine how such a game would look, scale wise?

-A minimap in PA will only help because of the nature of planets: spheres.
-I only said TA has a minimap in response to your previous post.
-Infact having a minimap in PA imply lesser need of using the strategic zoom, and no need to keep fitting a strategic view in barely one screen anymore, and finally no need to keep unnecessarily big units as there is a strategic view available on the minimap.

Same here, that was an answer to your earlier reply saying TA had no icons.
Yes off course TA had no icons, because TA relied on a fixed view+minimap like all the others RTS in this era.
At high resolution TA's units are tiny yet still identifiables. Why would it be impossible in PA?

Playing TA at 1024*768 would show only a small portion of the battlefield and need more scrolling movements, way more moves way less precises than what a strategic zoom can achieve.
Comparison, here's what TA looks like in 1024*768 (same map):

And that's because the maps are tiny, because the scale of the game is completely off, and because PA don't show yet really massive battles.
That would be good for any random RTS like Starcraft, C&C or whatever of the stardard RTS which relies on small skirmish and micro-management tactics, and never cared too much about having realistic scales.

But that's not the goal of TA, SupCom, and PA which focus more on massive scale battles with fewer micro-management and more macro strategy, while depicting a way better sense of scale.
SupCom2 is the perfect example of what's going on when you forget this.

The million number is not to take literally, but it's a good indicator of the orientation of the game, and this orientation don't sounds "starcraft-like micro-management of small skirmish of big units fighting on small maps" to me when i hear one million unit goal, whatever this goal be eventually reach or not.
Lots of units + bigs units + tiny maps = you'll end up with lots of problems.
first example that comes to me: pathfinding (Mavor don't want the units to overlap like in SupCom2 to keep a good sense of weight, and he's perfectly right)

Yet Starcraft is exactly the game you would get; with big units, small ranges and close view built for permanent close watch of unit's animation and graphics.

---
Ultimately i don't think it's worth wasting the scale feeling of the game for something we already have without real counterpart.

Re: SCALE MEGATHREAD NEW POLL !!

I m not sure we understand well each other, barrier of language ?

I agree with you about the strategic zoom feature, of course i like to switch from the whole planet to the units fights.

I m not sure to know where we disagree actually :lol:

Re: SCALE MEGATHREAD NEW POLL !!

First point, it's obvious for everyone that no RTS (even starcraft) map will fit in only one screen, even the last 4K displays, while showing readable graphics without needing icons.

Second point, you'll need either to scroll using x/y axis like TA and pretty much every RTS, either zoom in/out using the z axis like SupCom's strategic zoom. (you can off course always scroll to make slight view adjustments)
Remark: using the z axis is way faster and more precise as you can correct and refine the trajectory while zooming.

So yes, i don't know what's the problem as the strategic zoom already allow all levels of zooming one can wish, from orbit (and icons) view to grass level (with tanks's tracks and bots's footsteps).
It's already possible to watch fights of any size, from the small encounter to the largest battles thanks to the flexibility and speed of the strategic zoom.

Making the game to be readable without icons at an arbitrary medium altitude view would only make this view the most convenient to use, thus making the strategic zoom useless, even if the view is not forced...
If the whole game is subjet to this restraint, it will end like a starcraft clone as massive battles won't be very convenient to watch from a medium altitude.
The opposite is also true, what would be the point of having a tool like the strategic zoom in starcraft if all the game is micromanaged close combat at ground level?