Planetwars

[Acidd_UK]

In the absence of any other threads.... Lets talk about Planetwars!

http://planet-wars.eu/

I like the idea of your rank having a positive effect in-game. This helps to reduce the desire to smurf, however it endangers new players from getting pounded by experienced players who also start with a potentially nasty army or eco boost. What so people think? Maybe the extra stuff could be somehow limited if one team were going to get lots and the other wasn't? Or the other teams gets some extra?

Edit: Oh yeah, Pleanetwars is a great idea btw

[Otherside]

i was waiting to get some more info b4 making a proper PW's thread that was informative with links etc :/

[El Capitano]

I'm really dubious about the concept of what is essentially grind. Your enemy starting with free T2 units can have a large impact on the game. There's also the serious flaw that one faction can literally zerg another out of the game. 12v4, anyone?

[lurker]

Everyone in the game now gets roughly the same amount of free units, going up over time as the game progresses. And you don't have to play 12v4 , but you do get extra commanders to help when things are almost balanced, say, 4v5.

[El Capitano]

Everyone in the game now gets roughly the same amount of free units, going up over time as the game progresses. And you don't have to play 12v4 , but you do get extra commanders to help when things are almost balanced, say, 4v5.

Of course you don't have to play 12v4, but take last night. A whole bunch of ARM were hammering on a massive 4 CORE. All of us wanted to play, so nobody was willing to spec, so the choice was either "don't play", or "play a game that ARM will definitely win". The autohost needs some sort of auto-balancer and even then, tying the game to the one host causes issues as we had 16 players and another 15-20 specs, many of which wanted to play.

[YHCIR]

It seems like a really cool idea, but it's nothing more than a novelty IMO.
As already said, the 12v4 game took ages to start, then ended pretty quickly.
After that we had a 9v7? game that core won, then immediately after the game finished, all but a couple of ARM left the lobby which left 6-7 core and 2-3 ARM waiting for a new game.

Unfair advantages in an RTS game does not make sense really, the stronger will just keep getting stronger.

[lurker]

But there is a major advantage to being on the losing side. Any battles on your home planets let you deploy buildings, for much more usefulness per build power than mobile units. There are just a couple bugs in it to get worked out; it should have been available before, and balance will change quite a bit from it. Remember, this is still early beta.

[El Capitano]

But there is a major advantage to being on the losing side. Any battles on your home planets let you deploy buildings, for much more usefulness per build power than mobile units. There are just a couple bugs in it to get worked out; it should have been available before, and balance will change quite a bit from it. Remember, this is still early beta.

So the good players get a really strong in-game early advantage whereas the weaker players effectively get penalised. It's a positive feedback loop, I find it hard to see how you can claim that'll be balanced. After all, a single armed transport can kill a normal comm, yet alone the weakened version in PW.

Edit: Sorry, I misread. How exactly do you get the free units now? Is it games played, or games won?

[Otherside]

this is why i wanted to make an official post

People seem to forget its still beta and very early implementation

everything is up in the air and up for discussion atm the final planetwars product will probably be way different than its current implementation (and way better)

all the problems that people have mentioned are already being tackled

[Google_Frog]

Giving players starting units will always end up with one side having an advantage from the start of the game(unless they are exactly the same unit). This might result in a stomp or the advantage being small enough that it only affects the outcome later on.

It depends of you want to play a string of CA games which are nicely balance with each side having equal chance or if you want to play PW which is a string of CA games with starting disadvantages given to one side or the other.

[Acidd_UK]

I definately like the idea of some sort of in-game effects from the campaign, but I am also wary of things that clearly imbalance the game - eg a lab, an adv fusion and cons at start vs someone with nothing. Perhaps as the defenders get pushed back towards a homeworld or lose more planets, their spawned defences could get buffed, as they dig in for a last stand?

Again, you need ot be careful that the attacked can still win, but maybe balancing against the winning faction a small amount would help even things a little...

[lurker]

There are some points for having a higher rank or your side having more planets, but the largest influence is how far into the game things are. Right now we're at somewhere past turn 80, the game could have ended a while ago, and every single player has a bloated 16+ buildpower just from that. That means if the defender has a lab and advanced fusion, you have enough points for a strike force.
Currently being considered is locking building upgrades to a planet until the enemy retakes it, which would have the escalating power only when sorely losing that acidd mentioned. It would also bring some nice strategy into attack choices. And yeah, mobile units are probably OP right now; balance is slowly coming. (A couple days is slowly? Oh internet time.)

[Tribulexrenamed]

What is planet wars

[thesleepless]

What is planet wars

+1

also +?

[Acidd_UK]

Main site:
http://planet-wars.eu/

Development/help site:
http://planet-wars.eu:8080/trac

[Pxtl]

What is planet wars

In short? Boneyards Galactic War for Complete Annihilation.

question: is Planetwars open-source such that, if I wanted, I could roll myself a different metagame?

[lurker]

No. We must shield from BA.

[Pxtl]

No. We must shield from BA.

kthx. To be clear, I didn't have BA in mind.

[lurker]

Feel free to sweet-talk in #pw.

[Pendrokar]

Is there a history feature? To see how did everything come to what it is now? Not just by looking at events. Something like in Civilization 4.