Absolute Annihilation 2.11

LathanStanley · Post by **LathanStanley** » 16 Aug 2006, 03:42

Yes, its "BALANCED".. both sides CAN win...

but there are two types of balance on RTS games

1- Unit vs. unit balance

2- general consensus balance

in the first scenario.. all the units are compareably priced to their damage, no unit has a specific goal, they all just have "types" of ammo, "types" of defense, and sometimes, slightly a "type" of attack method. This causes units to be built specifically to counter outer units to win, its balanced only to the aspect that you can win when you counter your opponent correctly. Simmilar games to this: Starcraft, Warcraft, Warhammer 40k.

In the second scenario, units are designed as a "type" of unit, offense, defense, scouting, etc. and they have tailored abilities to do so, defensive units are tougher, and slower, offensive have either reduced range with increased speed and armor, or increased range, with drastically reduced armor. Unit costs are balanced according to a units effectiveness, with a general "cheaper" trend towards defensive units. There really are no "specific" weapons that are better at beating "specific" other units... so what happens is a good balance of units and good TACTICAL strategy to win. simmilar games are Command & Conquer, Generals, KKnD, and some of the smaller "not-so-popular" RTS games...

What this means? It takes more skill and micromanegement to play Type 1, its harder to beat a good player in type 1, its harder to be creative in type 1, and its easier to memorize a "build order" in type 1. Most of these are good things in an RTS, morons can't beat the wiser, etc. But in type 2, you aren't gonna have to be as nit-pickey with which units are used against which individual units, but rather have to consider attack and defense methods, rather than knowing "what works best" you have to "out strategize" your opponent to win. And a RTS that requires STRATEGY to win over expierence... is more fun in my book.

I've just been trying to get people to push towards option 2, you, as a skilled player in its current state, option 1, are rejecting the change because, YES it is a big change, you'll have to think differently, hell.. think at all... not just "know what to do." Darn if I am trying to make everyone think TACTICALLY.

thats all I have to say for awhile.

Egarwaen · Post by **Egarwaen** » 16 Aug 2006, 05:14

LathanStanley wrote:In the second scenario, units are designed as a "type" of unit, offense, defense, scouting, etc. and they have tailored abilities to do so, defensive units are tougher, and slower, offensive have either reduced range with increased speed and armor, or increased range, with drastically reduced armor. Unit costs are balanced according to a units effectiveness, with a general "cheaper" trend towards defensive units. There really are no "specific" weapons that are better at beating "specific" other units... so what happens is a good balance of units and good TACTICAL strategy to win. simmilar games are Command & Conquer, Generals, KKnD, and some of the smaller "not-so-popular" RTS games...

If you think this doesn't describe AA, you've obviously never played AA. There are no "specific counters" of the kind you describe. Units counter other units because of incidental factors. To pull out a favourite example, pop-up blasters "counter" Doomsday machines because they outrange them. MERLs "counter" Doomsday machines because they have enough armor to take a BLoD shot and still get off a missile or two.

Go play AA and then post in the thread.

LathanStanley · Post by **LathanStanley** » 16 Aug 2006, 05:35

"COUNTER!"

counter, counter, counter, counter, counter, counter, counter, counter, counter, counter, counter, counter, counter, counter, counter, counter, counter, counter, counter, counter, counter, counter, counter, counter, counter, counter, counter, counter, counter, counter, counter, counter, counter, counter, counter, counter, counter, counter, counter, counter, counter, counter, counter, counter, counter, counter, counter, counter,

THATS ALL YOU CAN SAY! thats TYPE 1 STRATEGY! A UNIT COUNTER UNIT GAME!...

ignorant son of a ...
damn....

LISTEN TO YOURSELF!

Egarwaen · Post by **Egarwaen** » 16 Aug 2006, 06:31

LathanStanley wrote:THATS ALL YOU CAN SAY! thats TYPE 1 STRATEGY! A UNIT COUNTER UNIT GAME!...

No, it's not. The units do not counter other units because they have a damage bonus or any of the other Type 1 features. They "counter" them in that they're a good choice to use against them - their characteristics, such as range, cost, health, damage, blast radius, accuracy, whatever - exploit the target unit's weaknesses. It's not a "counter" in the sense of "Vulture Bikes do bonus damage to Infantry", it's a "counter" in the sense of "a fast-firing, accurate weapon counters fast-moving targets better than a slow-firing inaccurate one".

This is relevant because most of the "imbalances" people claim to have identified stem from excessive spamming of a single unit or small family of units, for which they claim there is no adequate/cost-effective reaction/prevention/precaution. These cases are extreme cases and are dealt with by fairly direct "counters".

All games have counters. Any given strategy will have strengths and weaknesses. If your opponent makes one unit the centerpoint of his strategy, deploying units that take advantage of that unit's weaknesses is a counter. If his strategy's more complicated (as is the case with a mixed unit strategy in AA), your counters become more complicated and the game becomes more about how you use your units.

But maybe if you actually played AA, or watched some high-level replays, you'd realize this... As it's still quite obvious that you're trying to fix the game without ever having played it or understood it.

(As an aside, doesn't C&C have an absurd amount of "special damage rules"? I seem to remember that it was very heavy on specific counters and had much more in common with Warcraft and Starcraft than OTA...)

LathanStanley · Post by **LathanStanley** » 16 Aug 2006, 07:16

/me ignores Egarwaen for him being ignorant....

I don't deal well with ignorance. Say whatever you will, I will not bother with you anymore.

Forboding Angel · Post by **Forboding Angel** » 16 Aug 2006, 07:19

Egar, you are contradicting yourself with your own statements. Everything in AA is a Counter for something else. THat's how OTA was, that's how AA is. It was built fundamentally into the gameplay.

Play EE, Gundam or ffs nanoblobs, to my knowledge there are NO specific counters to particular units in any of these mods.

Counter games aren't really fun, actually they aren't fun at all.

@ lathan, 20 bucks says that if Caydr posted a massive gameplay changelog ppl would bitch for exactly 2 days, then get used to the idea and all of a sudden he's god again. It's happened 3 times so far by my count.

Dragon45 · Post by **Dragon45** » 16 Aug 2006, 07:20

I honestly dont give a flying horseshit about change. I will adapt and practice and be good regardless of whatever stuff happens.

But

1) I dont see anything seriously wrong with curent land balance.

2) Sea balance is completely, utterly, fucked up.

3) people have to realize that their arguments in a lot of cases are map centric, and skill centric. its easy to kill something with XYZ stuff if you know how to play. Of course, the whole thing aobut playin in the first place hinges upon you thinking that a counter exists, that the game is fun, etc.

And a lot of that depends on who you play first, to get an impression of the mod.

Lathan, who did you play first?

and forboding, i really thin kthat games can be as fun as you want to make them. Whats happened is that with more time, people have gotten better; than rage of skill has increased, and so has stratification in temrs of skill - equally skilled games from an avergage player up are really really fun. The problem is that people play maps that just suck for intense gameplay. Altored, F.ex.

This is why i advocate making small maps official. They freaking rock for fast gameplay :D

Forboding Angel · Post by **Forboding Angel** » 16 Aug 2006, 07:21

Edit: No longer congruent

Zoombie · Post by **Zoombie** » 16 Aug 2006, 07:25

Type slower, Dragon. Your points will seem all the better (for I agree with the whole taking change in stride. If you don't like it...make your own damn mod!)

LathanStanley · Post by **LathanStanley** » 16 Aug 2006, 07:31

Dragon.. I honestly don't remember the first time I played AA, it was 7 years ago... on spring, it was a good ole friend of mine Ted, went by k796812...

I've probably played AA about 600 times in the last 2 years...

but yeah, I'm just gonna hold my viewpoint, try to raise some attention to it now and again... I don't hate AA, I don't "not like" AA... I actually still enjoy it...

I'm just trying to offer some advice to improve it...

but yeah... I just don't care anymore...

MR.D · Post by **MR.D** » 16 Aug 2006, 08:18

Really getting tired of listening to you guys bitch about stupid shit.

This entire thread for the last 4 pages has been nothing but a flame war about who's right and who's wrong, and what the definition of COUNTER is, bleh. STFU

KDR_11k · Post by **KDR_11k** » 16 Aug 2006, 08:44

I think you haven't played Command and Conquer (at least the later games) because your description is totally wrong. C&C is about having units that are strong against your enemy's units and I've never seen a defense unit in C&C.

All games have counters, what other method is there? Making all units equally good against each other and telling the player to outmass the other guy if he wants to win a battle?

Real Life has counters/units that can deal with specific targets more cost effectively (e.g. tank hunters, IFVs, AA). If a type of weapon had no weaknesses, why would we deploy anything else?

Comp1337 · Post by **Comp1337** » 16 Aug 2006, 10:42

Forb and Lathan, you thought of making a balancemod that would be what you are talking about; strategic, weak towers etc?

And im not trying to be smart or anything, i would just want to play TA your way..

jellyman · Post by **jellyman** » 16 Aug 2006, 11:20

Min3mat wrote:
e: oh and at jelli man, SeLF PwnT lOL O.o
seriously, you said that AA is balanced for 1v1 / 2v2 and so it is and so it should be

I didn't say it was balanced for 1v1/2v2 generally, but for eliteplay at 1v1/2v2.

How many players are elite? I have played for long enough to be a star for more than half my total time on TA spring, and I think I am just barely getting to the point where I can play with enough skill where the balance is making sense. And I played a bunch of single player OTA, and some other RTS, so I wasn't starting from zilch as I learned spring.

And yes I've been told before that TA spring should be balanced for elite players not average or newbies.

But that assumes that it can only be balanced for one or the other, but not for both. How do you know we can't improve balance for less skilled players, and for larger team games, without making it worse for elite small team play. After all most games are between non elite players with more than 3 players a team. And if we want the community to grow, we need to have a game that is as fun as possible for begginers, average joes and elite players to play. Some of today's less skilled players will be tomorrow's elite players, and coders, modders, map makers etc....

Neddie · Post by **Neddie** » 16 Aug 2006, 11:23

Stop arguing for a moment and look at your own points

I simply am too busy to read all of the points and as I personally would disagree in some way with every single one of the active posters in this argument, it probably would be prudent to redirect this mire of text.

You are as a group having an infantile argument at this point. And you need to stop now.

Lathan proposed some points, some of which were good and others of which would involve alterations to AA which I consider foolish or poorly concieved. C'est la vie. The fact is, he made some very good points, as did the rest of the contributors, for the first few pages.

AA is not perfect, no game is perfect. As AA is in a state of living development in which Caydr continues to add to it we will continue to have major issues with the direction of development. That is normal. It is not, however, something to brow-beat each other about.

I personally have an agenda for my current statements on AA. I want the L3 units both differentiated and strengthened to make them useful and different. I want a corrected sea balance. I have a tremendous number of ideas for AA (As well as FF and a few others) which I would love to introduce to Caydr for possible use. I also want to iron out any air/land balance.

You know how I work these points? By listening and working with the other people here - not by attacking them or their views outright.

So.

Be civil and try to stick to the mod. Learn from each other.

A few points to address:

1. Starting with vehicles is not suicide, but it does require more effort and play knowledge. Scouting is a premium due to the terrain limitations of your units, and microing components of your force is needed. I have, however, found that Core fares better with a vehicle start than Arm. Forboding, you do have a point. Vehicles might be a little more user-friendly. The issues are mobility and versatility...

2. I do see more porcing midgame than elsewhere, but I think Egarwaen hit the cause on the head - this could call for a whole level force redistribution, as E&E keeps L1 viable throughout, or it could simply be dealt with by an accelerated mid-game economy. I don't want to go into depth on this because somebody will lose no matter what is done here. I'm alright with it as is.

3. L1 defensive structures. They're not all they are cracked up to be. You can run a hard defense, but on most maps, people can circumvent them. You can run a soft defense, but a mobile force will break through at any one point. If you do form an impenetrable defense, somebody wasn't playing - and still is not. The HLT is dead to L2, and even much of L1. The Guardian is easily mobbed. Think about it, the most powerful L1 defensive structure may just be the Anti-Bomber Turret.

4. I find AA balanced from 1v1 to 5v5. It's balanced for 1v1, but the difference with more players is in multiplayer dependency. We can differentiate and worry about less each, but formulate more ambitious tactics. Or we can be forced to support weaker players. The balance difference isn't in the mod, it's in the players. Most games are stacked... I mean, get a [WarC] or [XHC] group against players not in a clan, like myself! It's not necessarily stacked because of individual ability, but because they're a clan, a team, with closer relations and trust than my side. And you know what? There is nothing wrong with that! If I can be a part of a no-name group that tosses over say a [NR] team, then we have overcome the multiplayer dependency gap. All the more to us. And if we lose against a majority [XHC] group, we still learn so much, fighting for our skins valiantly.

espylaub · Post by **espylaub** » 16 Aug 2006, 11:42

I'm happy with AA land and air. Absolutely happy. Navy is borked completely, so I avoid maps with water.

Seriously, when was the last time you lost because an opponent exploited an imbalance? I can't remember, tbh.

ginekolog · Post by **ginekolog** » 16 Aug 2006, 11:54

BigSteve wrote:
Acidd_UK wrote:Just to put my oar in - I think AA is great as it is at the moment.The only thing that needs a major overhaul is the naval warfare imho , and Cadyr has said he's looking it this. Pll the want to radically change AA should just make their own mod and then see if they can get ppl to play it...
QFAT

(absolute truth)

+2

I actually like autoheal as it rewards microing damaged units out of battle. (u still have to repair them many times tbh, autoheal is sooo slow)

LathanStanley · Post by **LathanStanley** » 16 Aug 2006, 12:07

if auto-heal was a % of hitpoints... I'd be ok with it...
or even BETTER, a set % dependant on the type and or level of unit...
say level 1's get 5% per min, level 2 get 4% per min, and level 3 get 2% per min...

meaning level 1 units take ~ 20 mins outside battle to heal (without help)
level 2 take ~ 25 mins to heal (without help)
and level 3 take 50 mins to heal (without help)

REGARDLESS of what kind of unit it is...

but the fact it helps level 1 units sooooo damn much namely the itty bitty rushing mo-fo's... it ruins it.

thats my whine on that one..

ginekolog · Post by **ginekolog** » 16 Aug 2006, 12:40

sorry to say this LathanStanley, but your 90% ideas are horrible(like other ppl told u too)

20min to heal my rambo pewe?

Ishach · Post by **Ishach** » 16 Aug 2006, 12:44

your ideas are horrible

Spring RTS Engine

Absolute Annihilation 2.11