Gameplay issues - Page 3

Gameplay issues

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Neddie
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Re: Gameplay issues

Post by Neddie »

Regret wrote:
neddiedrow wrote:I know a few map makers, myself included, who knew exactly what we were doing when we set our gravity values.
I bet you totally knew that someday would come a balance change for impulse to be x value in y mod so you precisely knew what to set the gravity to.
Sadly, I cannot predict what will happen without an immense amount of information to analyze and time to invest. I intentionally set some maps up to make ballistics less viable, and others to make them more viable, this was a general decision for all mods and games to use my maps - just as my texturing is intended to provide a setting for particular sorts of titles, my metal and energy values are intended to influence what can be placed viably, and where, and the design/heights are intended to set up combat and economic zones for an intended number of players.

Nice targeting though.
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CarRepairer
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Re: Gameplay issues

Post by CarRepairer »

Gota wrote:I think the idea that was brought up by carrepairer about boost being unable to boost the construction of units but able to boost turrets and regular buildings is excellent.
No, that was your idea. My idea (currently implemented as Limited Boost but currently broken and I'll fix shortly) is boost applies to anything without a weapon.
Windmill, mex, constructor = boosted.
Glaive, LLT, MT = built with regular nano.
Google_Frog wrote:There are a lot of consequences of removing unit boost. Firstly it will prevent the most effective and extreme rushes, pw, rocko, bd etc... I'm not sure if this is a good idea because 1v1s have shown that a reasonably normal start can counter these rushes. Secondly this means that a commander can assist a factory without using up boost. The only thing boost can now be spent on is turrets and economy, this means that turret rush will be much more viable.
I believe Limited Boost would still work in the spirit of what boost was meant to do. It is not for rushing better, it is for "fast motion starts" that let you speed through the boring start of building your initial crucial buildings (mexes, E and factory) and not open up new venues for lame strategies that no one likes such as walking your comm at your enemy and plopping an LLT and HLT, or plopping out some brawlers.
Regret
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Re: Gameplay issues

Post by Regret »

CarRepairer wrote:and not open up new venues for lame strategies that no one likes such as walking your comm at your enemy and plopping an LLT and HLT, or plopping out some brawlers.
Those are fun strategies that add depth to the game. Of course CA is all about removing depth, dumbing down and adding boring RPS automated gameplay. Carry on.
SirMaverick
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Re: Gameplay issues

Post by SirMaverick »

Gota wrote:You don't have to counter my points I was just telling you what i dislike as a player when playing CA.
And I was telling you my point of view.
Google_Frog wrote:I think 100% reclaim in general is a problem. Don't build storage, build fusions. Fusions with 100% reclaim store metal and they create metal with overdrive. It also allows you to reclaim an army once the enemy has hardcounters to it with the best example being aircraft. We could drop the reclaim down to 75% to keep fast unit switching open as an option but not without it's metal costs. I know that currently switching has E costs but that's not quite enough.
If you decide to switch, reclaim factory and reclaim units, you need E and BP (you reclaim at build rate). So you need some time. Lowering under 100% punishes the player even more. If the enemy has hardcounters and you can't switch fast enough the game is already over.
lurker wrote:Why can't planetwars avoid it? There aren't enough big maps?
The maps are set in advance. You don't know the team size that will play on that map. Maybe two different sized maps should be defined on each planet and it should automatically set depending on team sizes.
Gota wrote:That coupled with a larger diversity at the beginning of the game means a double blow vs predictability and the effectiveness of scouting.

If you have a larger amount of options at the beginning you can counter that by allowing boost to only work with turrets and regular structures.
This will make it easier to have longer starts or much easier to defend positions at the beginning when you still dont know what to expect.
2 things CA tried to avoid.
Limit boost is an option. But might lead to more porc.
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CarRepairer
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Re: Gameplay issues

Post by CarRepairer »

Regret wrote:
CarRepairer wrote:and not open up new venues for lame strategies that no one likes such as walking your comm at your enemy and plopping an LLT and HLT, or plopping out some brawlers.
Those are fun strategies that add depth to the game. Of course CA is all about removing depth, dumbing down and adding boring RPS automated gameplay. Carry on.
Oh excuse us for making an RTS where you have to build an army and base and have epic battles. A strategy that short circuits this and wins you the game at the start is not "fun." Go back to that other game where you commbomb people.
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Neddie
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Re: Gameplay issues

Post by Neddie »

Way to oversimplify, both of you.
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Pxtl
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Re: Gameplay issues

Post by Pxtl »

neddiedrow wrote:Way to oversimplify, both of you.
Umm, I thought Car was pretty spot on. We play RTS games so we can have a little base and build some troops and have them fight another guys' base and some troops and whatnot. These strategies that stop that before it even starts aren't fun.

You want to hurt a guy in the first moment of gameplay? Build Jeffies. That's what they're there for.
Regret
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Re: Gameplay issues

Post by Regret »

Pxtl wrote:Umm, I thought Car was pretty spot on. We play RTS games so we can have a little base and build some troops and have them fight another guys' base and some troops and whatnot. These strategies that stop that before it even starts aren't fun.
You fail at skilled play. Enjoy your simcity games.

Part of what CA dev team does not seem to comprehend is that all the stuff that they automate/dumb down and all the 'lame' strategies they remove is what makes games fun.
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Pxtl
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Re: Gameplay issues

Post by Pxtl »

Keep in mind that you're the most famous exploiter of those tactics, so your perspective may be different from other players. What you enjoy as a good gameplay feature may annoy the next ten guys, who would find the game to be better and more fun without it.

Not saying your perspective is wrong, just that it's the minority.

Personally, I would think a mod focussing on cheese tactics and tight tricks with small numbers of units would be neat. I just don't think that game should be CA.
Regret
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Re: Gameplay issues

Post by Regret »

Pxtl wrote:Keep in mind that you're the most famous exploiter of those tactics, so your perspective may be different from other players. What you enjoy as a good gameplay feature may annoy the next ten guys, who would find the game to be better and more fun without it.

Not saying your perspective is wrong, just that it's the minority.

Personally, I would think a mod focussing on cheese tactics and tight tricks with small numbers of units would be neat. I just don't think that game should be CA.
When 10 newbies/idiots find x strategy annoying, should it be removed?
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Neddie
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Re: Gameplay issues

Post by Neddie »

I think some of the changes are positive, but others, particularly the lua-based unit behavior automation widgets, simply cut away sections of import. I don't think Regret's perspective is the minority either, as somebody between extremes I see a large number of people who are either silent or unwilling to affiliate themselves with him who agree with him on many particulars.
SirMaverick
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Re: Gameplay issues

Post by SirMaverick »

Pxtl wrote:You want to hurt a guy in the first moment of gameplay? Build Jeffies. That's what they're there for.
Cheap defense stops Jeffies. They won't hurt anyone.
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Gota
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Re: Gameplay issues

Post by Gota »

IMO,CA guys,you are using automation in the improper places...
Why not leave automation for when the player actually can't handle the game?
What i mean is,make automation appear when the game becomes too much to handle.
As the unit number and economy power rises more automation should get turned on.
No matter how good you are at some point if your playing on a big map with a lot of metal you will be unable to handle everything as good as you could at the beginning.

Instead of bogging gameplay at the start with what seems to be pointless automation add the automation to enable players to play bigger games.
Like if 2 players want to play moon quartat,a20x20 map,and they want to play a 1v1.
This map is massive,it's huge and no player,playing CA,can handle the map and will definitely feel overwhelmed by the lack of tool to handle the amount of micro that slowly appears as both players take more metal spots and space and build more units.

Leave the small scale gameplay without automation but construct a scheme to enable automation and tools to handle larger scaled battles on a macro scale.

write AIs to handle all sorts of things from managing big group micro easier to handling the economy or expansion and base building.

In short,there is no point in fixing what is not broken.
Instead,elaborate and expand.
Google_Frog
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Re: Gameplay issues

Post by Google_Frog »

Licho wrote:I now consider disabling boost assist on allies and slowing it down a bit (20%) ..
In team games on cramped maps (typical for planetwars), this gives both team some chance to scout.
You have to make a factory to make scouts. This means that once you scout your factory choice is 'locked in'. Reducing boost will not give anyone any extra chance to scout. Exactly which part and stage of scouting do you think CA lacks? I think there is plenty of opportunity to scout everything except factory choice.

Removing boost on allies is a bad idea. It doesn't change how possible strategies are instead it makes them harder to execute. Remove share and people will share factories, disable that somehow and people will boostrush nanos and reclaim boost. This all just gets in the way of playing the game.

The basic issue is that people are playing maps which support less factories than players.
Google_Frog
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Re: Gameplay issues

Post by Google_Frog »

neddiedrow wrote: I know a few map makers, myself included, who knew exactly what we were doing when we set our gravity values. Different values don't make impulse impossible to balance, they make play slightly different on different maps, which is why you would have different maps to begin with. A flat override is foolish and lazy, a override with a controlled range of values is less so but still such.

You build your balance around a normative planet type, and a normative player count, then you expand the model to encompass a range covering a supermajority of planet types and player counts. From there, if people wish to experience greatly different balance through using a non-standard planet type or player distribution that is entirely their concern. It is not your responsibility as a developer to limit the range of possibility to some generic standard, it is your responsibility to establish a standard baseline.
You may have known exactly what you were doing for the games of the time. The current impulse is not particularly unbalanced between maps. The problem is that if we want to use more impulse weapons and higher values the maps will unbalance everything. For example currently the Newton balance varies widely between maps. An UP unit is much better for gameplay than an OP unit so the Newton is UP on most maps. With these gravity fluctuations we can't use gravity guns on serious units (not t3) as they are impossible to balance.
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Licho
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Re: Gameplay issues

Post by Licho »

Removing ally boost gives you chance to scout.
Without ally boost it would take more time to build say sumo or 3 brawlers, relative to speed of units.

With 3 brawlers after 15 seconds, there is no chance.

This is what happens to planetwars, people are more willing to cooperate there. Sadly you dont play them.
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Licho
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Re: Gameplay issues

Post by Licho »

Gota, what automation are you talking about?

There are just 2 kinds of automation in CA:
- mex overdrive (same as metal makers AI)
- autoskirm/autoswarm - enabled only when you give manual attack order on unit or fight command.
Saktoth
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Re: Gameplay issues

Post by Saktoth »

To correct Google (I'll leave Regret and Gota alone to fume silently, which is good advice for everyone), fuel was added for gameplay reasons. The toss was just a side-effect.

Previously air must be massed up over a large period until you have enough to make a break through their AA, and it all dies in the attempt and you must mass up again. If you suceed, you are inside his base and it is essentially dead if he has any significant fusions etc. Equally for AA, it spends all of a few seconds firing and you must mostly guess how much air he has. With refueling, bombers are allowed to be given more survivability, without them becoming base-dominating hovering eagles of death, since once inside a base they only get to do so much damage, meaning they are prescision weapons. For a penetrating attack, bombers must run the whole line of his AA twice to survive. This encourages strategic strikes throughout the game, and smaller level suicide attacks against specific targets. It also encourages you to use bombers on or closer to the frontline, since they do not need to run as much AA. Finally it adds a logistical component to air use, making pads closer to the bombing site means more bombs can be dropped.

Its a big improvement to bomber behaviour.
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1v0ry_k1ng
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Re: Gameplay issues

Post by 1v0ry_k1ng »

agree with sak
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Gota
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Re: Gameplay issues

Post by Gota »

Heh.
This way you just mark a spot for an airstrike.
The fun part is microing units,unit control,not choosing when to use them,but...who can argue with the "guru".
It's not an improvement its just different and IMO less fun.

I think the most fun part is microing units plus side dishes.
The only true attempt iv seen of concentrating on macro is Supcom and It is indeed very macro but is far from begin as fun as Spring OTA mods.
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