Unlocks and experienced players

[Godde]

Com upgrades are rather expensive. For the same cost you can usually get units with the same abilities as the comupgrade.

Not the same, because normally artillery units or shield generators are slow and easy to kill if you can get into firing range with them. Having all those powers bundled into a single god-unit means you can't just kill the weak-spot because comms don't *have* a weak spot.

Being a single or being many targets can both be advantageous in different situations. Skuttles, spies and such are good vs 1 target. Roach, ticks and such are good against many targets.
Now coms are rather slow aswell.

[Blackdutchie]

Not to mention that every single lab has a valid way of dealing with comms.
Feel free to correct me on that though.

[smoth]

I don't have the time to make my full reply due to work

I am pro for the unlocks being there
I think having all the options open right away is bewildering
The list may need tweaking but I like the idea
You don't need all units and having extras are really cool.
Please give me a unlock to allow for golden morty and similar units like that!

So yeah

[sillynanny]

Well since we can ask for unlocks, I'd like one of a factory that pumps out kroggs with the speed and cost of peewees.

[Licho]

Original design goals I had in mind were:

* to give something to look for - important both early on and for long term players
* to hide expensive team wrecking stuff from newbies players temporarily
* to reward active players and reward victory more
* to give feeling of identification with commander and self improvement

I think it worked as designed.

[sillynanny]

people with previous CA experience have no need for unlocks.

What does this mean? Are they such good players they don't ever need the extra units?

Can someone please answer this question?

[scifi]

people with previous CA experience have no need for unlocks.

Awsering the previous question -> ofc we all know the basics , we played CA maybe stuff is diferent but the basis is the same, we know that metal and energy is shared equaly between all players and so on. We know how each factory influences the game.

Its not that we play that GODLIKE, but we have been around for decent amount of time to know how the game plays itself. And unlocking stuff isnt hard.

Now about unlockables:
TBH you can play fine at level 0 -> without any unlocks.

Sure it doesnt allow you to make some stuff, but "CA" errrrrrr ZK always had a flat 0 tech tree.

Everything is kinda usefull. For a starting player i dont see that big of a handicap.
Ok so:
Jumpjet/Specialist Plant
Athena
Heavy Tank Factory
Airplane Plant
Shield Bot Factory

These are the most specialized factories later ingame i dont see the need for a starting player to meddle with these at the very start, it will in fact make the new player learn the mechanics better off.

And watch other more experienced players play with the specialized facs.

I kinda agree with the unlockables, makes you wanna play and experience diferent levels.

Only chalenge now is make the game progress like smoths double morty thing and tweking the existing list.

OFC its stupid to have lockables for people that already know how to play the game ->SPRING PEOPLE. But for new people coming to spring its prety mutch a positive change.

[luckywaldo7]

people with previous CA experience have no need for unlocks.

What does this mean? Are they such good players they don't ever need the extra units?

Can someone please answer this question?

Mostly meaning what the op complained about, which is that experienced players don't need to be spoon-fed the unit set.

But tbh, even with a lot of the units blocked, good players still have everything they need to win.

[sillynanny]

But tbh, even with a lot of the units blocked, good players still have everything they need to win.

Very true! It's the noobs like me that I worry about. Anyway that graph suggests the player numbers are going up so yeah, good luck with your noobtrap.

[sillynanny]

Oh this is the old CA? Well that makes it three times I've tried to start playing your game.

[smoth]

Why are you so mad and rude to the devs?

[sillynanny]

Because I honestly think grinding is the worst thing that ever happened to computer games. And because this project has a lot of value that I think is hindered by the grinding. And there are other good things about this, personal preferences like my love of open-source, passionate volunteer work, that kind of thing. I hate that it is, in my view, wasted.

The devs disagree with me, and so I won't really be saying anything else here unless I am addressed directly.

[smoth]

It is open source and you can fork it. Rather than rage pick up your hands and offer a solution.

Isn't there a mod option that disables locks? Why not use that?

[MidKnight]

Because I honestly think grinding is the worst thing that ever happened to computer games.

Well, that's, like, your opinion, man.

Grinding may be unpopular with a few players, but there's no mistaking the numbers: games with unlock mechanics retain more players. We want to gain more new players, so ZK's integrated an unlock mechanic that's been designed to be:

1: A way to prevent new players from falling into "noobtraps," eg. building a Detriment as their first unit because "It looks big and string!!!"

2: As accommodating for our pro players as possible. If units like the Singularity Reactor are a big part of your strategies, I'm seriously going to have to ask how you play. Most units unlock fairly quickly.

And because this project has a lot of value that I think is hindered by the grinding. And there are other good things about this, personal preferences like my love of open-source, passionate volunteer work, that kind of thing. I hate that it is, in my view, wasted.

We're flattered that you think the project has value, but ZK wasn't custom-made specifically for you. We need new players, badly, and it seems fair to say that features like unlocks do wonders for that. While some of us feel like unlocks take away from the traditional RTS experience of the game, we believe that it's better to sacrifice a little bit of that to ease the learning curve and get some fresh blood, because, to be perfectly honest, even the most awesome RTS is no fun if there isn't anybody to play with.

I hope that answered some of your questions. If you still have a problem with Zero-K's grinding mechanic, then you can (as Smoth suggested) either disable it in the modoptions or fork your own version with no unlocks.

[luckywaldo7]

To disable unlocks in an autohost the command is "!setoptions unlocks=0". In case this is not clear enough sillynanny, this means all players will have access to all units, like a standard RTS.

Don't think that you are the only RTS player here. Everyone knew when the idea was first proposed that this kind of thing would cause a lot of drama. That's why, when I had over 1200 games recorded on Springie, and some other devs and players even more, we all restarted with 0 'xp' to play the game from the bottom, and why Google Frog and King Raptor spent a lot of time to try to balance the unlock system to be meaningful and without being grindy. All the regular players and devs were the first guinea pigs to the system (and the first ones to bitch about it :D). So being as non-grindy as possible has already been taken into consideration.

If anything, currently unlocks probably come too fast for new players. Each factory's set of units is itself about the size of an entire faction of units in some other RTS games (~12 units), and most units are quite varied and unique. It takes much much longer to master a factory than it take to unlock new ones. The intent I think though is that the unlocks be tied to a campaign mode, which would give people a chance to leisurely explore the game and unlock their units before going online.

At any rate, if nothing else it currently seems to be an improvement for people new to spring.

[smoth]

To disable unlocks in an autohost the command is "!setoptions unlocks=0".

/thread.

[MergeNine]

The unlocks do seem to have brought more activity to the zero K game rooms, and I like the idea behind the com upgrades.
However there are one or 2 of them that I think turn the tide of the game a little bit too easily - the high powered artillery being one of the main ones.

I think subtle upgrades that effect units within a certain range of the commander might be a better way to go. It would have less of the one man army effect and also encourage players to mix units with their commander in new ways.
The area cloak is a good example, how about something else like an anti-missile laser to protect closely clustered units against the lycho, or a slight speed increase to raiders near the com?

[CarRepairer]

I'm a casual player, I don't play every day and I had unlocked most of the units sooner than I expected. I am one of those who thought it was a crazy idea at first too but now I actually enjoy it! It makes every battle more special. You don't just play to beat the enemy robots, you're gaining new tech for future (large) games. Note these techs are mostly unnecessary for most games.

I would be real sad if experienced players got all the unlocks to start. We'd miss out on all the fun! I just hope we'll come up with a solution for people who have unlocked everything and the fun is over for them. I liked Licho's proposal of exchanging all your unlocks for a special visual award like some sort of indcator or effect on your commander perhaps. Then you get to start again.

[smoth]

Golden morty

[knorke]

I'm a casual player

No, casual players are not for years involved with making the game

Also what is with the "oh, you do not need every unit anyway.", what happend to
ZK, where every unit is essential! ?