The idea of counters and how they work (now about armor)

Re: The idea of counters and how they work

x armor + y hp would only make sense if it would behave differently from (x+y) hp.
Since the commanders currently are the only ones which will have unspecified special abilities, which may or may not influence this discussion, the normal situation would be:
you get hit you get damage.

if you go for a battletech mode, the armor would actually protect the inner structure from nasty side effects, but that something more suitable for squad level games.

Otherwise, beyond HP most things in a unit vs. unit relation can be modified on the attacking side (e.g. can you hit it and for how much in what time)

Re: The idea of counters and how they work

You should play Total Annihilation. The ballistic engine is something that needs to be seen to be believed. The whole point of damage modifiers in other games is to simulate what TA does naturally!

Re: The idea of counters and how they work

You wont have much luck with introducing a heavy light and more damage vs x armor type to PAs fan community i think. Well i could be wrong, but i dont think so.
One of the core features of these games is that the ingame physics dictate most of the games mechanics itself.

Re: The idea of counters and how they work

We represent opposition to it because it is essentially an unnecessary, invisible layer of mechanics that modify how the game plays. Instead of improving the game it increases the amount of micromanagement during battles and makes the game harder to learn and play.

Just because it is realistic doesn't mean its inclusion will improve the game.

Re: The idea of counters and how they work

Is this now for or against amor and damage type stuff?

Re: The idea of counters and how they work

In short against.

Armour means that fast firing weapons are worse against high armour units, so you need to watch over every battle to make sure your pee wees aren't shooting at super heavy tanks and those super heavy tanks aren't shooting back at the pee wees cos inefficient damage. Then you actually have to change who they are shooting at which is a challenge in itself because the battlefield has 200 units in it and focus fire is only effective in groups of the same unit about 20 large (more would have to walk in from outside heir weapon range). Not doing this causes you to lose to someone who does, with reference towards sup com 2's artillery dodging.

And how are people necessarily supposed to just know how much armour something has? Sure you can plaster it all over the place but it will always just tend to correlate with high health, ie super heavy tank. Good players will tend to memorise it but is that really what you want to have to do to become a good player? memorise armour values?

Re: The idea of counters and how they work

Lol i am not arguing for something like armor types btw.
Also nevertheless there will be smart firing as sorian wants to achieve that with area attacks.

Re: The idea of counters and how they work

I know i just misread your post and wrote all that but didn't want to delete it on the edit...

Re: The idea of counters and how they work

np

Re: The idea of counters and how they work

There will be an good unit AI(at least i hope); even if not scripts make it possible that you dont any micromanagement. Units will target whatever is the most effecient.

Re: The idea of counters and how they work

Not that I am for armor types, but the reason they are typically implemented is to simplify balance and make complex calculations easier. Someone brought up the effect that having differing groups has on armor types, but I didn't see anyone mention why they were originally brought about.

EVE Online has damage types, but they are more akin to resistances (they aren't designed for use against a class) however they have a similar concept to what you are talking about here, using complex calculations to allow big weapons to hit small targets for less. Unfortunately understanding the math and how to take advantage of it is quite complex. Also for the system to work your fast units need to always be moving.

Keeping your units moving in Starcraft 2 would be difficult and would increase the amount of micromanagement required. Using armor types allows a similar result without as much work from the player.

Another important bit is that by having these armor types balancing becomes much easier. EVE Online does this by using a hidden value called signature radius, which again is very hard to understand. By just providing final values you again simplify the work your users are required to do to fully understand your system.

PA isn't a good fit because it isn't looking to create the same multi-race tightly balanced across all strategies and all skill levels balance. As long as you are trying to make a game that is fun as your primary goal and elimination of degenerate strategies in the short term being your only necessary balance point, you don't need these tight tools to play with.

Put another way, PA shouldn't need to balance a 5% damage boost to heavy vs a 2.5% damage boost vs all.

Re: The idea of counters and how they work

So what your saying is that you are adding a feature that makes the game more complex and then adding in automation to essentialy remove that complexity from micromanagement. the only thing that changes is that the game becomes more like rock paper scissors because you need the right units to fight the right guys?

There's kind of two trains of thought going on here.

First of all, as yogurt312 above me said, if you add the complexity of armor types, and then make the AI target the most efficient way, then you're basically adding rock/paper/scissors and nothing else.

If you add the complexity of armor types (even if it's simply flat damage reduction which basically makes high dmg good vs. high armor, and low dmg good vs. low armor) but DON'T have units auto attack efficiently, you add micro.

I don't really want RPS or intensive micro in PA. Units can fire when moving, which is great. I should just be able to select whole armies and move them around other armies and assume things will get blown up.

As I said in my main post, it should be the ballistics, physics, and speeds of projectiles, the terrain, and angles of weapons/height of weapons. Those are the things which create counters. Not counters because of damage or damage types, but counters because it simply is smart. Simple example: Large artillery battery. Fires 1 shot per 5 secs in a high arc, bullet takes roughly 2-3 seconds to land. Small, fast tanks would be a counter for this building because they would be too fast for the turret to hit. As the artillery isn't smart enough to lead them, and the artillery is already fairly innacurate as it is.

There we see that certain units are good against certain other units, but not required. Anything could do the damage to kill said artillery battery. Certain units will just be more cost efficient in that task.

This can definitely be enough to create hard RPS between units. Well okey Zero-K also use HP, AOE, DPS, alpha damage(damage per shot) and mobility to create RPSes between units.

Personally I think artillery should lead their targets. Otherwise you just add a micro element of manually aiming with the artillery infront of the target.
Inaccuracy is a common element on artillery in TA and SupCom. This is something that can't really be microed.
Of course if the target is large enough or there are enough enemies near the target location something will always be hit.
Are the enemy units clumped up or spread out?
Are you trying to defend a chokepoint?
Do you need to pick off the enemy in standoff?
These are all questions about how effective your artillery will be. Artillery might not counter unit X 1 vs 1 but it might counter unit X in larger numbers.

This can be true with or without armor bonuses.

This can happen with or without armor bonuses. In Zero-K targeting priorities is very important. Personally I want complex unit combat interactions that I can play out against my opponent.

Well it all really comes down to this.
How important should micro in combat be?
The game can be designed with more or less incentive on combat micro independently of armor bonuses.
Personally I think armor bonuses are an arbitrary and boring way to increase complexity in combat.
Physics such as projectile speed, AoE, impulse, lasers, rockets, missiles and asteroids is a more fun way of increasing combat complexity and depth which is something I also find much more intuitive.

Re: The idea of counters and how they work

I think you didn't understand what kinda of game PA will be... if you would have red more topics you would know, there will be NO micromanagement(search for it). There are many threads about unit AI. Furtheremore scripts ARE ALLOWED, wich means, even if there is no good AI you can make your own.

EDIT: @godde: I agree with your view about artillery. I think Artillery should use rockets wich tracks the targed, but the unit AI will automaticly try to dodge, the damage will be reduced by % depending on the unit speed and distance.

Umm. If the artillery leads their target, then it creates micro for the person getting shot at. Either way you have micro.

True. But for me the moving would be easier than the calculating where to shoot. But you should have the possibility to shot at your desired points on the maps (but I think that's implemented anyway).

Ok, calm down gruenerapfel, there will be Micromanagement. just not Starcraft II levels of Micro. All units in PA (with minor exceptions) will be able to fire on the move.

In something like Starcraft II this is actually the reverse and there are no units to my knowledge that can move and fire. Micro in SC is about getting that perfect stop-fire-move-stop-fire Staggered Retreat or getting "The Surround".

Micro in PA will be about using your Specialised Units to best effectiveness in a chaotic scramble, overriding the usual AI to pick out what you deem to be the highest priority targets, rather than just letting the AI split fire for you. It will be about hiding your indirect fire units behind the rocky outcrop, about moving to intercept when your opponent does the same. It's not about "The Surround" or the "Staggered Retreat", it's about not trusting the AI to do all the work for you.

Well but its nearly like "no" Micro... more about the macro and big army movements. If you add scripts, you dont care about focus firing unit targets. Just about positioning and movement.

Is "missing" micro really such a bad thing? I mean in this game it can happen, that you have to manage fight on several plants at the same time. At best against multiple players.
I'm sure there are some players who can handle micro in this situation. But in terms of fun most players would be more than glad, that their units can handle some situations themselves.