Scale Megathread

it is really a point that a lot of players, that I know from my clan, and who also backed the game, e.g. like Zock, some of you might know from earlier comparable games, criticise. They dont like the scale. I dont know, its true the units are HUGE compared to the planets, but of course the planets are small and if it were different, planets were too big for a unit to go around in a short enough time
Its a thing that has always a downside. Either units are looking too big, or units need years around a planet or units look incredibly fast, because their small but move fast as they were big

At some point Neutrino can't repeat in interviews that the community is helping to make the game and in the end ignore what's obviously considered as a major issue from a design perspective by a majority of people (because to me, this can't be an option when this issue is a major concern). So back to the thread "backers, what can we do for you", the answer is simple : Do not pretend to listen to community, listen or do not listen, and listen means you can at least provide some kind of true commitment regarding the few major concerns which have been expressed : Scale and minimap stuff concerns (not the minimap itself but the solution you're offering). After all, as Neutrino likes to repeat it, this game would not have been possible without backers. Like Steam new trailer states it, this game was made with the help of 50.000 "friends".

I have personaly no problem with decisions which will be taken in the end, but at some point it can't just be about pretending to listen to the community when actually you might not care at all. And frankly, not having the slightest feedback regarding the 2 major concerns which have been expressed and discussed since a long time makes me believe Uber does not care about it or prove me wrong.

This is hardly the way to get a response, by the way.

However, if this was a simple issue, we'd do it, but it's not like we can just say "batch rescale 50% across the board!". It means, at minimum:
- Redoing every single unit, their associated textures, skeletons and animation suites
- Redoing most terrain features and all their associated relationships with the game

And those are the two things that pop into my head in two seconds. Could we change scale? Yes. Is the feedback consistent across the board that the scale is the biggest problem that needs to be dealt with? No. Can we make this kind of change arbitrarily? No. This is MONTHS of work.

I didn't mean to come across as short, but we've been reading the threads, and watching the feedback. My comment was simply "Don't assume something is on a time frame or a certainty until we talk about it in more detail". We talk about scale regularly, and if it was as easy as flipping a switch, we would have already tested out a couple different iterations of it.

Really ? Months? That guys who did that in a client-side mod spend months on it? Congrats to him


I never seen someone redoing an animation -or an cycle animation- in 10 years in professional VFX post production works.

I can understand that the models and textures *may* be tweak for readability, but the animation ? And what can of texture works !? Stripes and decals ? You don't works with layers !?

Maybe your engine can't handle it, but I highly doubt it (hell, it's even supported by the FBX format you are using). Or it really can't and you probably want to rethink that part of the engine as it could seriously jeopardize (even rendering it useless) the modding capabilities.

Just say directly that you don't want to rescale the game, but don't make fallacious excuses. We can understand that, but I personally can't stand the ... well, b******* you've just said.

Because in your last livestream, you just showed us that you spend days (weeks?) tweaking a lava planet that was working already quite nicely in his first iteration.

Can I ask why it's such a manual process? I'm entirely indifferent about the scale myself, I'm just curious as to what's involved. I would have guessed that scaling is the kind of thing that is pretty automatable, and I thought that 3dsmax, photoshop and the various other tools in usage tend to have batch job support, and scripting environments.

I'm not doubting the issues, and obviously you've given this some thought. I'm just curious as to what those issues are.

...Didn't SupCom have a variable explicitly for this? UniformScale?

To do it right? Yes. Keep in mind, we're still developing other units, and no change happens in a vacuum. If I had to guess, for one person to deal with all the knock on effects of a change like this, at minimum it would be a month (singular), and maybe not months, but I rarely have seen major changes happen that smoothly. Ever. I could be wrong and maybe they'd be done in a week, but it's still not a change we'll make lightly, but we understand that there are a good number of people with concerns about the scale.

Polls are not reliable; not everyone votes on them, and they naturally attract people at the extremes of an issue.
Also, peoples' design skills, as a group, are not reliable. Uber should not simply do what the community asks, only take it under advisement, along with their plan for what PA will be.

If you are referring to the images on the front page, those are mock-ups, not a mod.

That's almost six years back since I spent much time thinking about UniformScale, but if memory serves, it was a lever that could still break things pretty readily. And I do recall we made some sacrifices to utilize uniform scale. But for a quality experience, scale in general needs to be hand tweaked. Relying on simple levers typically results in sub par quality.

See this is why I love PA. Because you guys read what we put on here, and actually take note of our concerns. I think most people understand a scale alteration is a major undertaking, and wont be implemented lightly. The fact you are watching, and discussing what we think though is amazing.

I must admit, that I am one of those people who think the scale is a little out of whack, but I am not desperate to see it changed RIGHT NOW. I'd rather you take longer, and get it exactly right (if it is performed at all), because PA is shaping up to be the best RTS game in years. I don't want anything to detract from that.

At least we got something quite clear : If this is about months of work and everything has to be re-done, and no decision has made so far, and there are tons of more important things to do then this is unlikely to occure.

And this is why people have reacted quite soon because it's obvious that from a design perspective this is something which is to be considered from the very beginning. No one has assumed this was easy. And this is the thing which pop into my head : Why this has not been even considered from the very beginning ? Why original scale which can be seen in biome concepts has not been kept ? All people who watched biome concepts from the very beginning could not figure out the scale would have changed. Otherwise they would have immediately reacted.

Again if this is Months of work, then simply states it will not happen, end of story. Is it just so difficult to say : sorry we may have messed up with scale, it might no be what you would have liked, but it's the best we can do according to the time and resources we have.
Anyone can understand this.

Well said.

I can vouch for this, in a way it's a lot like balance, even if you only adjust a single unit's stats it can affect things far beyond itself.

Mike

Most of the people having concerns with scale don't post here, because they didn't backed in the first place.
The others don't want to bother. Go around forums, you will see..

I guess we can expect the same thing for anything related to minimap alternatives .... "Not a big deal, not a priority, this can be done later ....".Starting to wonder if there has been some kind of PA game design ...

If your goal is to not be responded to at all any more, you're doing a bang up job.

You'll have to explain what you mean, it's very vague.

Mike

Garat, the primary reason everyone is being so hostile is because there has been a lack of communication. Personally I couldn't really give a **** about something aesthetic at this point in the game. I'd *prefer* units to be smaller, but I really don't care. So long as the game is fun. And even if it isn't fun on release, I will just mod it so it is fun for myself.

And I understand you're working on a game and all, but there has been a LOT of off-hand butthurt about the lack of communication.

@knight, he means that any issues that Uber doesn't like, but considers, aren't IMMEDIATELY AT THAT VERY MOMENT worked on. Doud is one of those people that doesn't understand the way the game is being developed.

God you are annoying.

Ok, that's what really gets me. A lack of communication? Seriously? I just hope you guys realize how annoying it gets to have something like that thrown at us, simply because we're not responding to your personal sacred cow. I have never in my life worked with a group of people who does more to communicate about issues and topics.

And I understand feeling like your own biggest frustrations aren't getting addressed, but that's one of the reasons I tried to address it, especially after my rather short initial response.

And mushroom, good post. You seem to understand both sides relatively well. Not dropping everything and working on a problem doesn't mean it's not important. Making games is hard work. Otherwise, I suspect everyone would make them.

Well, having a topic with 15 pages (was more on the old forum), probably the biggest one on a change, always in the first page of the thread list, with many others smaller threads talking of the same issue, with a 75% positive opinion about that change, that many people think should be an alpha concern because of the implications (seems we were right), and so be addressed as soon as possible, but without a single comment from the team, not even on Q&A livestream (don't tell me it wasn't asked) ....

Well, yes, it kind of lack some communication.

Then hearing basically "too late guys".. You can understand some epidermic reactions.