Planetary Annihilation (Incoming Moon Drops!)

[AF]

They've released long youtube videos that are them talking while one of them plays a game against team members on screen, there's easily hours of footage of core devs playing full games....

[klapmongool]

They've released long youtube videos that are them talking while one of them plays a game against team members on screen, there's easily hours of footage of core devs playing full games....

True. I'v also played 'full' games in PA. Still there are only a few units per lab and alot of things are still missing or buggy. A lot of work is needed to make it into a finished game.

[BaNa]

The videos are bloody boring and their voice-overs annoy the fuck out of me. To clarify, I meant I played half a game vs ai. It was interesting and on the whole I think it will have a positive effect on spring/BAR.

[Google_Frog]

I've been following this game for a while and recently bought early access. It looked pretty, seemed like it took a lot of ideas from TA, and it was "on sale", so why not?

At present, PA is not a game I'd recommend buying early access for. I'm confident the developers have their hearts in the right place and certainly there are some things I find impressive (at least on a technical level) but in my opinion the core game design is broken, maybe beyond the point of salvaging. There's a very good reason that the only videos they've released are montages of explosions and weaponized asteroids: the game falls apart once you're actually playing it, and the problems are related to its core mechanics rather than things that could be tweaked easily or even modded post-release.

All of that said, in light of their recent announcement that they're delaying the game's release date "until it's done", I'm cautiously hopeful they might make some great strides in the months ahead and, if not a successor to TA, at least put together a solid game. But judging by their progress so far, if this game is TA's successor then Smoth is a magical girl and I'm her unborn lovechild with the Pope.

Nice avatar, thanks for reminding us why AA went down the toilet.

Also, the "problems related to its core mechanics" are that they have none. It's basically a techdemo of working planet generator + asteroids, there are no weapon or unit physics.

I somewhat agree with Caydr. The problem is not a lack of core mechanics because they have implemented some mechanics which are just wrong. The economy system is an example of a wrong mechanic, it is a micro sink implemented in the name of making the game more accessible.

Given how rapidly they implemented the mechanics they are probably able to try something else when a few of the current ones don't work. Although to do that they need to listen to good feedback and the forum has gone downhill since about a year ago. There were a reasonable number of good people to talk to and flesh out ideas with but they appear to be a bit disillusioned. Now the forum is mostly hordes of people saying irrelevant things.

[scifi]

I've been following this game for a while and recently bought early access. It looked pretty, seemed like it took a lot of ideas from TA, and it was "on sale", so why not?

At present, PA is not a game I'd recommend buying early access for. I'm confident the developers have their hearts in the right place and certainly there are some things I find impressive (at least on a technical level) but in my opinion the core game design is broken, maybe beyond the point of salvaging. There's a very good reason that the only videos they've released are montages of explosions and weaponized asteroids: the game falls apart once you're actually playing it, and the problems are related to its core mechanics rather than things that could be tweaked easily or even modded post-release.

All of that said, in light of their recent announcement that they're delaying the game's release date "until it's done", I'm cautiously hopeful they might make some great strides in the months ahead and, if not a successor to TA, at least put together a solid game. But judging by their progress so far, if this game is TA's successor then Smoth is a magical girl and I'm her unborn lovechild with the Pope.

Nice avatar, thanks for reminding us why AA went down the toilet.

Also, the "problems related to its core mechanics" are that they have none. It's basically a techdemo of working planet generator + asteroids, there are no weapon or unit physics.

I somewhat agree with Caydr. The problem is not a lack of core mechanics because they have implemented some mechanics which are just wrong. The economy system is an example of a wrong mechanic, it is a micro sink implemented in the name of making the game more accessible.

Given how rapidly they implemented the mechanics they are probably able to try something else when a few of the current ones don't work. Although to do that they need to listen to good feedback and the forum has gone downhill since about a year ago. There were a reasonable number of good people to talk to and flesh out ideas with but they appear to be a bit disillusioned. Now the forum is mostly hordes of people saying irrelevant things.

I migth be wrong but thats what hapens when your development team is made of coders/programmers not experienced or versed in RTS gaming trying to design a competitive RTS game.

However with that said, theres still time and money to change, because its mostly a tech demo at this stage. And we migth get lucky, ive seen unexperienced people make great things so who knows.

[PepeAmpere]

There were a reasonable number of good people to talk to and flesh out ideas with but they appear to be a bit disillusioned. Now the forum is mostly hordes of people saying irrelevant things.

Yeah, we all remember times of gold (mirror)

[Super Mario]

I migth be wrong

Your wrong. The core programer and designer aren't rookies when it comes to rts game making.

[klapmongool]

With the latest patch a lot of things improved. Some things I'm particularly happy about below.

They still have a long long way to go. But at least they are putting in things that, finally, add to unit control.

Area Attack: With unit(s) selected (bombers particularly are great), click and drag on an area you want to attack. All selected units will proceed to attack all available units in the area. If you don’t have recon on it, it will simply act as an attack move until it gets vision and will start to area attack.

Area Build: Currently two types of drag build commands exist. Circle for things like power, and line for things like defenses, factories, etc.

Area Reclaim: Unit(s) will find all reclaimable wreckage in the area until all wreckage is gone.

Area Repair: Unit(s) will find all repairable units in the area to repair until nothing needs repairing.

[Forboding Angel]

I migth be wrong

Your wrong.

[scifi]

I migth be wrong

Your wrong. The core programer and designer aren't rookies when it comes to rts game making.

well that scares me even more.

With the latest patch a lot of things improved. Some things I'm particularly happy about below.

Well im glad to see those features added in, but man wheres the gameplay, the game was to be released this winter. I know it got delayed and all that but still...

[Super Mario]

I migth be wrong

Your wrong.

Deal with it.

[AF]

Perhaps he was grammatically correct initially?

So what was it about his wrong exactly? You didn't finish the sentence and left us all in suspense, and where can I buy these 'wrongs'? It may be handy to buy a few and hand them out to not very nice people in advance of an argument

[KingRaptor]

you're mom

(for extra fun say this in a maternity ward)

[Caydr]

I see PA's on sale again.

Also, the "problems related to its core mechanics" are that they have none. It's basically a techdemo of working planet generator + asteroids, there are no weapon or unit physics.

Weapon and unit physics aren't a make-or-break feature, look at Starcraft.

I'm much more concerned with the things that seem to be inherent in the design of a game where the battlefield is on such a large and seemingly unmanageable scale. If there's one thing Supreme Commander taught us, it's that larger maps aren't automatically better. PA's developers seem to have not picked up on this and it's too late now for them to change the game's concept.

It's not just a matter of scale, either. Even an excellent RTS won't be fun to play if the maps aren't designed to facilitate strategic gameplay. Look at Altored Divide, I made it to mesh perfectly with AA's gameplay. There are choke points, narrow passes, wide open areas, areas that reward aggressive gameplay and areas that reward smart defense positioning. Bertha walls (mountains) provide protection for bases but relying on them makes you vulnerable to bombers; the ample base-building areas allow players to choose for themselves whether it's a better idea to widely distribute their critical infrastructure to ensure they don't have a single point of failure or alternatively build in a tight formation to harden their defenses. There are choke points but always ways to bypass them. The map is large enough that it's possible to catch your opponent off guard by attacking them from an unexpected direction but small enough that it's not impossible for a well-balanced player to respond to attacks. Perhaps most importantly, it has corners.

I have only limited experience with PA and I recognize that it's still in beta, but I can only judge it based on what I've seen. PA doesn't appear to use any of these concepts, and it doesn't seem likely to me that they can be added - in fact, at this point there's no way to custom-design planets for playability, you can only suggest how they should be randomly generated. Here's a look at typical resource distribution in PA:

resources.jpg

(173.45 KiB) Not downloaded yet

That's one hemisphere of one planet. The green dots are metal spots. When you can be attacked from any direction and any location, how is this manageable? And again, this is one planet. But forget about defending these metal deposits for a second - think about building them in the first place. If you want to be competitive in resource production you'd need a dozen constructors, each given orders to build on a dozen metal spots. And you should probably put up some defenses... It's exhausting to think about. So much pointless micro.

This is something they could fix by scaling back the number of metal spots and putting them in tight clusters, it seems like an obvious fix... why hasn't it been done at this late stage of development? PA was supposed to be finished by the end of 2013. I don't care about it being delayed, in fact I'm glad it has been because it needs it. My concern is the number of glaring issues that persist to this point in development.

Another sore spot is the game's visual design. It's nightmarish, bad to the point that it detracts from gameplay. Units, structures, anything you need to look at should be visually distinct but everything's so bland and samey. You should be able to tell at a glance exactly what you're looking at, a unit/structure's role should be obvious. TA did this: you got energy from solar collectors which looked like solar collectors, you got metal from mines which made big obvious movements, metal storage were big bulky squarish structures, energy storage glowed the color of the energy bar, short-range tanks had short thin barrels, artillery had long thick barrels, missile tanks had big obvious missile batteries, and so on. Everything you needed to know was communicated just by simply looking; at a glance you could tell exactly what you needed to know about pretty much anything. Between PA's bland design and massive scale, you can't make out anything at a glance.

I'm still hoping they're going to pull off a miracle but I haven't seen any meaningful improvements since my last post; PA remains a trainwreck.

[smoth]

yeah, I suspect their plan was less about making a good game and instead about hyping people enough to sell copies/raise money.

I dunno what their issue is man.

What you been up to caydr?

[Caydr]

What've I been up to... I suppose the overarching theme would be "trying to be less of an abrasive jerk", I suppose. Real-life stuff. Job. Nothing too exciting really.

[smoth]

Bummer, well stay safe out there, maybe one day you'll have time to come play spring stuff again

[AC-mister]

Well it's here.

http://www.uberent.com/pa/2014/09/05/pl ... -launched/

So yeah, I was one of those suckers who sent $90 towards this project, expecting an improved Total Annihilation. Soon enough I can write a proper verdict (if I feel like it).

[scifi]

Well after 4 months of playing PA and on "PA stats 1v1 community ladder" for the past 2 days, im rank 5 on 1on1 ladder.

I can say the game is interesting and it can be fun, but it doesnt even compare to what spring has to offer, its way too simple in design and the balance isnt good, even though a lot of people think it is.

From raiding to tech tiers i feel the good old XTA has a lot more to offer in terms of fun, and even graphics mostly particle effects. Spring games are way more detailed poly wise.

The maps in spring are also way more complicated interesting and balanced due to symetry.

There are no walkable cliffs in PA, everything gets one shot, so its a macro/expantion game, naval plain sucks ass, even what BA or XTA offer in terms of naval is 500% better than what PA has atm.

Tech tiers are somewhat decent with some cool air units, and its kinda make Tier1 with tier2 as support and eventualy slowly replace all T1 with T2, Orbital is cool, but ultimatly it is a support tier.

The planets were interesting at first but they dont provide much added novelty, its a nice feature to have and i for one love the fact you must use 2 minimaps to controll your stuff properly but find it an interesting feature. But the meat and core of the game is land based, even if you make teleporters and go orbital, your going to depend on land to win.

The only issue is i cant find a competitive 1v1 playerbase on spring, and sadly there is one in PA, thats the only reason i play that game. And even though there arent official ladders and official tournaments the community is way more active and competitive.

EDIT: rank 4 now

[Google_Frog]

I thought I recognized your name in the ladder. I am to have a go at getting decent at 1v1 although the UI is a bit of a hurdle. They lack custom formations.