Scale Megathread

Re: SCALE MEGATHREAD (now with quick poll!)

In that case people are wrong.

The size of the planet is a gameplay decision while the scale of units is an aesthetic decision. And gameplay > aesthetic.

Re: SCALE MEGATHREAD (now with quick poll!)

But who said that gameplay and aesthetics were mutually exclusive?

I think units look too large for planets, especially when on the smaller planets.

Re: SCALE MEGATHREAD (now with quick poll!)

That is an Assumption, as we've only played on planets all of the same size you can't say for certain how they will look on a larger planet.

Trying to set Unit size based on a smaller planet is not the best way to go, you need to figure out what your average is going to be and plan primarily around that size and using smaller/larger planets for those awkward edge cases.

For example yes, Naval seems pretty big on the Currently Small planet we have access to, but Neutrino has mention that they do actually have a couple different planets available to them, one of which me mentioned was a Water planet that was 'larger'(fairly vague thought) which to me says they know Naval takes more space, so when creating an environment where Naval is encouraged/recommended they've compensated for it's size. It comes back to earlier examples of not building fleets in Ponds or Armies on Islands.

Mike

Re: SCALE MEGATHREAD (now with quick poll!)

well how about this: what do you guys think (in a simply aesthetic intrest) about the relation in size between units and their environment? (mountains, canyons, trees..)

Re: SCALE MEGATHREAD (now with quick poll!)

Hmm... I'm pretty sure they modeled the scale of the units and especially ships through the unit whitepage they did early in developement to make sure units and building scale nicely against each other.

The unit to feature relations that some people seem to think is off is imo mostly because the features we have need to work on small planets too. You just can't have huge mountains like in the concept art on small planets. Its curvature alone doesn't allow it.

Bigger mountains etc. would be neat, but one needs to explain to me first how that should be possible, given that a planets radius sets a limit on how big you can make those.

We're after all playing on toy planets (from a few hundred meters to the low thousands) so you just can't make realistic scaled features fit an unrealistic small planet. It works with small maps on a 2d plane, but as soon as you work with spheres you get an upper limit to feature size very fast which still work with it.

If you half the unit and building size compared to the features (as shown in the image on the first page) you in effect say that the minimum size for all planets needs to be doubled (which is the same effect). In other words you force a large change in gameplay to accomodate that new scaling.

Re: SCALE MEGATHREAD (now with quick poll!)

It's not an assumption. It's my opinion.

Re: SCALE MEGATHREAD (now with quick poll!)

I think it's hard to judge given the limited number of terrain features and the lack of "proper" Biome/Planet types.

There is also the fact that we don't have all the units yet, and it was stated that part of the Factory Size was related to Unit size as well, at this early stage it's hard to say that we can reduce factory size, or if we do that it might require a redesign for teh factory itself to be able to still produce existing units.

I still hold to the fact that Alpha(in particular Early Alpha) isn't when you want to be locking in scale, in particular when we're still missing a lot of context. The main issues I've had in the games I've played is that the 'haphazard' placement of terrain features and the still rough pathfinding lead to some awkward situations when building a base at the moment. Making everything smaller doesn't actually solve the issue thought, it's just a work around and I want to see how progress before fully committing one way or the other.

It's an Assumption until you've played on larger planets, which you have not yet. To use a scientific term, it's a hypothesis. It's not proven until you can do the legwork which we can't yet. It's like being asked to test how 2 new chemicals interact but we've only been given one of the chemical so far.

Mike

Re: SCALE MEGATHREAD (now with quick poll!)

I think most people take issue with how units look relative to planetary features rather than relative the actual size of planets. Right now the commander stands as tall as most mountains.

I don't really care either way but I understand where they're coming from. If it was really an issue of planet size they could just play bigger planets. The relative sizes are what's throwing them off.

Re: SCALE MEGATHREAD (now with quick poll!)

Playing on larger planet will not solve this.
It's not a matter of having a larger planet.
Trees won't get higher just because you are going to play on a larger planet.
So T1 tanks will still look like oversized compared to trees and canyon height on larger maps.

Basically, have the concept biomes scale reflected on the smallest planet and that should be ok for other planets.

obviously, the most critical units so far are naval factories and units.

There are 2 options :
- increase height of most environment pieces (trees, canyons) , but on smallest planet this will be even worse.
- Decrease scale of units on smallest maps to make the feeling being ok, and then that should be ok for larger maps.

Second option seems to me to be the best one.

In Supreme commander, playing on the smallest map still gave you a good feeling, and this for 2 main reasons :

1) Scale was ok on the smallest map, which by extention meant that was also ok on larger maps
2) This was about flat maps, and while it's not easy for me to explain this because english os not my native language, i'm pretty sure that because we're on planets, this feeling about unit scale not matching with environment is re-enforced.

There's still a chance to make this change and look more confortable.

By saying this i'm also thinking about people who will join beta and that are supposed to spread the word. I don't want them to spread the word that PA felt into Supcom 2 scale issue.

Re: SCALE MEGATHREAD (now with quick poll!)

Bingo, you hit the nail on the head here sir. The current size of the planets really doesn't make that much of a different (other than highlight how out of whack the scale actually is). Playing on bigger planets wont change the fact the units look too big compared to terrain features such as trees and mountains (the latter of which will have a vertical limit no matter the size of the planet)!

Re: SCALE MEGATHREAD (now with quick poll!)

quite exactly.

Re: SCALE MEGATHREAD (now with quick poll!)

doud, the only issue with the second option is that I know that in previous games, the 'o-grid', or the subdivision of the map down to its smallest footprint size for units was the lowest limit for unit size.. so to scale the units down may pose a similar problem where the pathing & footprint etc only allows you to go down so far.

Either way, the planetary features (cliffs, trees) need to increase in size in comparison to the units, whether that means smaller units or larger cliffs. Overall planet size has absolutely nothing to do with this.

Re: SCALE MEGATHREAD (now with quick poll!)

Doud,
I couldn't have said it any better myself (opinion or assumption nonwithstanding).

Re: SCALE MEGATHREAD (now with quick poll!)

I know they must be really busy, but I'd love for one of the dev team to get in here and give us some kind of indication at to whether changing the scale is even a technical possibility.

Its getting to the point now, talking about, it that I'm really starting to hate the current scale. If there are technical issues which will mean the scale can never be changed, as Pawz suggested, it would be great if we could know so everyone can start trying to get over how gargantuan everything is .

Just a thought.

Re: SCALE MEGATHREAD (now with quick poll!)

The good news is that PA is still in alpha. We have this stage, beta, and retail for Uber to fix the scaling of units if they so choose (which I hope they do).

And if Uber decides not to, I'm sure someone will agree with us and create a balance mod with the proper scaling of units to environment and that'll be the version we end up playing (even if it does ultimately fracture and split the PA gaming community).

Re: SCALE MEGATHREAD (now with quick poll!)

Hey well here's hoping!

Re: SCALE MEGATHREAD (now with quick poll!)

They mentioned it on the livestream, said it's perfectly technically feasible and something they may consider later on.

Re: SCALE MEGATHREAD (now with quick poll!)

As I said on the livestream changing the scale of the game is definitely possible. I kind of do like the idea of shrinking the units down a bit. Steve and I will pow-wow about it soon.

Re: SCALE MEGATHREAD (now with quick poll!)

I think if you scale down the units it might look nice to scale down the trees a bit as well. I think if we as humans estimate size we will fall back on the trees because it is the only reference we have. Smaller trees would make the units appear at the same size while the planets seem larger.

Re: SCALE MEGATHREAD (now with quick poll!)

Dang.

After all that waiting I missed my question being read out.