Pretty much every RTS has RPS gameplay in many aspects. Apart from just unit vs unit stuff, theres also RPS balance in overall strategy; attack vs defense vs econ. Ofc in some games the RPS relations are just more complex, more obfuscated or softer than in others, doesnt mean that they dont exist.

You're partly right. But there's a difference between an organic system where units naturally are more or less effective versus other types of units, and a system that was deliberately designed to be as simple as possible. If I go into detail on this it'll be a textwall nobody'll read.


I guess it's something that comes with experience. Sort of like the way that someone might get bored of playing FPS after playing through the entire Doom, Quake, Unreal, Halo (lol), etc nonstop. I play a lot of RTS games, they're my favorite genre, and I'm sick and tired of people not even realizing what a sham many of the games' balance schemes are.

An example is Rise of Nations. Its gameplay is excellent and very well-designed, but its balance system came out of a children's coloring book. There's three types of infantry just so they can make it into an RPS mechanic. There's three types of vehicle so they can do RPS. It's shameless and insulting. They trick people into thinking the game is more complex than it is. In reality, the gameplay would be identical if you built only one type of infantry, one type of vehicle, one type of aircraft, etc. What's worse is that people actually fall for it. It makes my head spin.

I've been doing balance-only modding as my main hobby pretty much my whole life since I was 12. I have an eye for this kind of thing. Don't delude yourself into thinking that because you've seen someone drive a car, you're a mechanic. RPS is a copout for developers that don't want to be bothered trying.

AA 2.23 Weasel

/thread

You're doing it again otherside. Perhaps you should sit down and be quiet before you get banned from another subforum (not that anyone would miss you).

Nobody's getting banned... I don't mind criticism, especially on a topic like this.

In case it interests anyone, I just did some experimenting. Tried to be as accurate as I could, I'd say I was probably accurate to within a half second.

Arm Commander walking the length of 24 solar generators:

OTA: 52.5 seconds @ maxvelocity 1.2
AA:Spring: 51.0 seconds @ maxvelocity 1.25
XTA 9.55: maxvelocity 1.2

Based solely on my above measurement, XTA is actually closer to the proper value of approximately 1.214 for commander movement speed to accurately represent OTA. XTA's commander movement speed has not changed since at least 8.1. Based on my experience with movement speeds, it would be almost impossible to tell the difference between XTA and AA's comm movement speed without seeing them side-by-side.

Maybe XTA had slower movement in the past but it looks like that's not the case anymore.

if by RPS you mean hard unit counters, then I cant think of a single RTS without them. Anti air killing air, ground killing anti air, air killing ground?
hell, BA is chock full of these relationships.

you havnt really explained how AA is going to going to be diffrent yet;
slower, more porc, more porc busting and tougher coms are all weve got out of you so far

Doing what again ??

Stating facts that RPS no matter how big or small is a key part of any succesful rts with good gameplay (yes including OTA)

and im not banned from BA subforum btw.

i to played AA back in the day and the only thing it has is a little bit of nostalgia and enjoyment(i enjoyed AA way more than when i played BA), I would definately give a new version a try because i do not bash/critique without reason, id welcome a new iteration of a OTA remake because CA's gone way past that route and diverged into something new and the other *A mods dont do it for me.

I actually hope Caydr prooves me wrong im just not very concvinced because of his attitude towards balance/game mechanics.

Evo doesn't use rps and it does just fine...

Of course aa towers and the like, but that's to be expected. Talking unit rps here. It's not a difficult concept and you're splitting hairs.

For example, in OTA the leveler was a flash counter = RPS
Along the same vein, in AA the leveler might simply be a good all-purpose aoe damage tool (of course it would probably work really well vs flashes, but that wouldn't be it's only use, unlike in OTA).

AA was in some aspects more RPS than CA ...

AA and BA have special damages and similar things to encourage "strong counters" - like llt beating commander and similar things.

CA has no special damages. Not even versus air..

CA has RPS of raider > riot >skirmisher > that runs throughout

one com is faster than the other, but i dunno which one it is (arm or core)

< raider < riot < skirmisher, not raider > riot > skirmisher

arm comm is faster, and comms get faster with morph

Anti-air needs to exist because there are no other weapons that are effective at targeting air, by necessity. If more weapons, or let's say, all weapons were capable of targeting aircraft effectively, it would mean that all missile weapons have good tracking and all ballistic weapons move extremely fast and all lasers have no inaccuracy. It would take away one of the most important tools a developer has to balance the game with, accuracy.

Incidentally, this isn't the case with a lot of other games, starcraft for example. It's been a while since I've played it, but IIRC with starcraft, all weapons hit instantly and accurately, so I am more prone to call it "RPS".

I will be explaining more about how AA will be different from BA in the coming days, I don't want to say anything specific yet since nothing's set in stone.

Isn't this thread premature? You cannot know how it is different until it is played, it is not played as of yet because it has not been relaunched.

I don't think so. I don't want to give away anything really specific, but here are some general goals:

- Increase the difference between Arm and Core without taking away the OTA feel too much

- Make kbots and vehicles more evenly balanced

- Make units with no clearly defined roles more useful, if only in rare situations

- Remove units which are no longer needed or whose abilities do not justify their existence

- Clean up old code with standardized, or at least less random statistics

- Make the game easier to learn

- Slow down the early part of the game a bit so it's not a rushfest, but don't let it get boring; Nobody likes simbase

- Try to restore the earlier feel of AA, where L1 units were not inherently inferior to L2

- Implement new engine features

- Remove or correct game design weaknesses

- Make commanders a more long-term unit that doesn't just get drafted into nuke duty at some point

- Reduce air transport cheese

- Expand on different strategic options that were never completed

- Make hovers more useful

- Improve naval unit balance

- More ossumer

That's a start

all youve said is what CA did to BA

minus the slowing down of the game

Indeed, it really sounds like CA changes description :)
Except for few minor things.

I agree, this sounds like CA's balance scheme.

So, Caydr... why not sit down with CA, which basically took BA's balance and attempted to achieve those goals?

CA's potentially a lot more interesting than BA is, frankly. It's not as interesting as it could be, largely because the coders working on it aren't game designers per se, and aren't really seeing the potential of the stuff they build, or see it but aren't interested in using it.

But they have built a lot of really cool gameplay toys, and working with them, or at least in their space, would be a way to offset your current ignorance coding-wise. I mean... no disrespect, but yet-another OTA remake where you still don't even learn BOS, let alone Lua, after all these years, and don't offer any gameplay that isn't just stock engine behavior... doesn't interest me at all.

And it's an Open Source project, so while they may complain, they're more likely to seriously consider your changeset if it seems to actually be more fun.

If the Second Coming of AA is just your attempt to catch up with all of the balance refinement of BA's current gameplay, it's pretty pointless as a project. Moreover... after all those years... why not do something new? CA offers a good solution- you don't need to be a coder, it's still (vaguely) OTA gameplay... and they'd probably welcome your changes if they really improved the feel.

I'd play a CA rebalanced for speedier, more micro-oriented play and more sharp distinctions between unit types, though. It has the graphics and enough interesting toys, and I'll bet that if you got going in that direction, you'd fire up the CA team as well, whether or not they liked you personally. I've been thinking for quite some time that one of CA's real needs is to have a real, live game designer trying to create interest for them, though, not just a coder collective competing to make the next toy. Why not put your considerable skills as a booster and energetic pitch-man in service with the one group that has been able to consistently offer a real alternative to BA to the hardcore online play community here?

Or... meh... work on this giant changelog, and at best you'll make BA 2.0... but probably not, as you're still so far behind in terms of what Lua can do that I really have a lot of doubts as to how you're supposed to catch up without some coders in your corner.

*spreads around a few petrol barrels*