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

Agree with him.
Tired of micro all time and misclicks ^^

You can't strip out all the Micro, or your skill cap is set too low to attract those players who practice Micro all day, every day

They're part of the RTS crowd and you have to give them something to do! :lol:

I agree in principle, Micro was never my strong suit...
But for some people it is and they'll want to express it. You can't deprive them of a chance to do what they do best or you run the risk of losing quite possibly a fair few sales because your RTS is mechanically "too casual".

If someone can Micro across several planets at the same time it does put them at a high advantage when it comes to swarming... and is a replay I'd love to see!

I get your point. You need to satisfy your hardcore micro-RTS-specialists (who represent part of the core gamers of such games) while you have to make it easy enough for casual-RTS-players (attention: I really mean casual RTS gamers and not casual gamers, I think they aren't the target group for such games). It's like balancing units, just this time you have to balance the gameplay experience for specific groups of players.

I dont have problem with micro at all(i would say mine is fairly good, even i dont like it that much) BUT for TA and supcom u need only VERY little(to no) micro especially because there is 500ms delay. If you search for "micromanagement" you will see threads where micro is kinda "hated" furthermore i repeat, own micro bots are ALLOWED!!
Additionaly micro is not needed to make an good game... a game DONT need to be attractive to ALL people, imo a game for all people is more like an "casual" game.

That is so sad, but true.

Don't forget guys, a strategy game should focus on strategy. A good strategy game, with all forms of micro removed can still be as deep and complex as one with extensive micro. (More so, in fact since the player can devote more time to the complexities.) See: the Close Combat series.

That's not true at all for TA. There is a lot of micromanagement and if you try to remove it, you'll get flamed by all the people that still play it seriously.

I think we're forgetting the difference between TA micro and Starcraft micro.

Thats exacly my opinion!
@torrasque I think we both talk about different types of "Micro" what you mean is more like "macro" or "positioning" for me.

gruenerapfel, you made some assumptions about me last page so let me address those. You are wrong in every conceivable way a person can be wrong. There addressed.

Now onto actual relevant matters, when considering any addition or change in game mechanics it is important to consider what effect that will have on the game. What i said was illustrating how the addition of the armour mechanic would either add mandatory (as opposed to optional) micro to the game or if it was compensated for would add an invisible layer of math to the game. Neither are things that would add to the game. Therefore it should probably not be added to the game.

Now as people have been saying not all micromanagement is necessarily bad, but there are some areas where it is a lot more 'fun' than others. In PA this is mostly going to come down to low level resource allocation, ie: assigning additional engineers. The more things you just claim are micro though and therefore should be automated leads to a game where you just sit down and watch the AI play. Although i suppose you could micro that by tweaking the ai... but that sounds more like a software engineering course rather than playing a game.

kinda thought so to, but if you want to do so you are allowed to...
But you forgot something.... the most important in a game like PA.... strategy :O
My suggestion for Armor/Armorpen, was not to add more micromanagement. My Idea was an easy way to make unit counters. Another Idea would be "missing shots" but i think if PA should become competitive, it must be not luck reliant, therefore the shots shouldnt completly miss, but deal less dmg.(something that can be calculated with math)

Why not both?

Why not zoidberg?

Units already have innate counters brought about by their weapon behaviours, something that has been adored by all since TA. This brought about the ability for heavy tanks at the front to take the brunt of damage and things behind them to be safe without all the incoming shots being punished for not being anti tank shells. Implicitly allowing flanking and a series of soft counters. Adding another system of counters instead of this seems silly. For more information please reference this thread.

I already red the thread, and i like the ideas(i red alot in the forums :O).
http://forums.uberent.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=44706(you already know it) is kinda similar to this thread.
We are just discussing about new Ideas, games change there are still possible improvements. if you want more realism or complexity, i do think armor is somehow fits.

Yeah, I like penetration.
But I might be biased because I played Spring 1944 on the Spring engine where tanks had different armor values on different sides.
Preferable you should get them up close and from behind as you can get best penetration from there.

It certainly adds realism and complexity, but what benefit does it actually give the players as they play the game?

Directional armor? It's plenty of fun.
Also you can get interesting tactics with trying to bring the correct gun to the fight.
A heavily armored unit might require you to bring a weapon that can penetrate its' armor to effectively counter it.
Lesser units might also be able to penetrate the heavy armor if they can get close or flank it.

Those things sound good when you are controlling armies of less than 30 units, instead of armies of 500 units.

Essentialy in battle it gives advantage to people who micromanage more effectively as well as punishing the concept of retreat.

Bringing the right gun to the fight as well isn't necessarily a new thing to the game, as it already exists in the current soft counters or weapon effects. It merely means that bringing the wrong unit composition wont cause a horrific disaster. Obviously this could be balanced out but then whats really the point of adding on a mathematical benefit as well as a physical one?

Ok. I see SO much micro hate on these forums. It's getting ridiculous! Micro is PART of a strategy game. You have an army, simply telling them where to go is micro. We cannot ignore the fact that micro is a part of these games.

Think of a game without micro, it would be terrible. You would have a menu full of pictures like "build economy" or "build army" and you just alternate hitting those two buttons and win...

But in all seriousness, units shouldn't auto target the most efficient thing, they shouldn't automatically all target the same guy. They should do what every other RTS unit does and target closest enemy. With the exception of AA, which should target air. I could get behind units having a menu with things like "Target artillery" "Target armor" "Target air". So you could set certain parts of your strike force to auto target certain parts of theirs.

But we need some micro in the game. You should have a reason to be watching and interacting with battles. Without micro, you just send deathballs at each other and hope yours is bigger. That's not fun, even for noobs. A decent amount of micro is healthy for everyone.

No we don't need Starcraft micro with the running and stopping and shooting, but we need to be forced to control our units. They shouldn't always do the best thing automatically.

Directional armor doesn't need to bring that much additional micro. If units turn against the closest target and you maintain the line it is fairly simple to manage. It is when the line is braking that it all gets interesting or you get attacked from several directions.
So what if retreat is harder to perform? Players have the option to stand ground and fight or retreat with or without directional armor and the decision is best made before you are committed to the fight in both cases.

What do you mean by mathematical benefit versus physical benefit?
Penetration is "more" physical than it is math.

I'd love to see some heavy tanks driving through some light bots being pretty much unscathed.
But yeah I am biased of having played with this type of armor system for years in Spring 1944.