A lot of peopel seem to enjoy playign speed meta. why should they not.
why doe everyoen feel playign "their way" is the only way and the other ways to play shoudl be ruined or destroyed. it's it better to leave the option to play in as many ways as you can. so peopel can choose how THEY want to play.
otherwise you end up with only one viable way to play the game, and then you might as well remove the majority of the work ont he mod, as you only need thse lvl1 unitsl, these buildings and those lvl 2 units.
It's bad enoguh when the players go at eachother flamign each other for playign a different way.
but it get's really bad when game and mod designers start siding with one side and makes it so the game can only be played their preferred way.
as a mod and game designers you should make the mod as open ended as possible, while balanced of course, not limited tot he one tru way to play the game, In your opinion.
Imagine if the spring devs started thinkging like this and decided, "hey SpeedMetal is cool" (too look at it formt he other side) and started limiting or removign any fetaurs in the game not related to speed metal. like hey.. we coudl save tons of texture memory by removing the metal map and just make the maps a uniform metal value...
so instead of oturight makign it impossible to play speedmetal why not try to focus on desigign stuff so it's more itnerestign and fun to play non speedmetal. the speedmetal fans won't care if you do this change, and a modified version of the mod without the speedmetal limitation would be released shortly anyway.
And for all the anti porcers, the same thing goes there. Porcing while you may not likeit, IS a strategy, and porcing, true, shoudln't be a better startegy than any other. BUT it should be equally as viable as rushing or a balance dmix between rushign and porcing.
If porcing is allways a loosing strategy, then the mod is in essence unbalanced, a good porcers shoudl be abel to 50% of the tiem beat a good player choosing another startegy.
Absolute Annihilation 2.11
Moderator: Moderators
Because it's outside of the mod's design parameters and is an insult to all the time Caydr's spent carefully balancing things for play on normal maps?HawkMan wrote:A lot of peopel seem to enjoy playign speed meta. why should they not.
It's unbalanced by design. Porcing leads to boring games, thus we want to discourage it.If porcing is allways a loosing strategy, then the mod is in essence unbalanced, a good porcers shoudl be abel to 50% of the tiem beat a good player choosing another startegy.
1: erm i assume you mean the t2 transports? yeah that can be great fun :)my list of current game issues:
Pro's
#1 MASS airlifting/dropping !!! LEET!!
#2 ALL the spring engine graphic and gameplay improvements...
#3 the droves of fun mines!.. this I like!
#4 heavier laser batteries for defense... FUN! (too much range though.. get used as offense too easy)
#5 moho geothermal!... love em
#6 screamer anti-air missles! big shot, big hit, drops a plane like life, slow refire.. works for me!
Con's
#1 Auto-repair on everything, everywhere. ONLY THE COMMANDER should do this, ever.
#2 The EXTEREMETIES units get to.. I mean c'mon, a level 3 k-bot, capable of annihiliting an ENTIRE BASE... BY ITSELF!! that can scale near vertical walls?? who cares what it costs, its unstoppable..
#3 The ... ZERO reclaim time on any kinda fortification wall, and the inability to simply blow them up with artillery...
#4 The uberduper omfg!roxorz leet rage of ALL construction units... namely nano-towers... They were limited on range in the old game to somewhat limit the "stackable" builders on a single factory... and planes, were ALOT more expensive and built, ALOT slower....
#5 Commander + any rubble anywhere after death, rubble = bad.
#6 effectiveness of some amphibious units.... they are a wildcard to catch people by suprise, not a main assault.
#7 Artillery? on a plane? gimmie a break... YES! SABOT ROUNDS ARE ARTILERY!
#8 Too easy to porc, towers have TOOO much range, the damage to cost ratio is good... but they simply start doing damage TOOO far out overall..
#9 ORCONES!.... what happened to CORE being the being the gun/atrillery holder on a tracked tank, and ARM being a big lazer holder on a faster mech? I mean, I KNOW kroggy is damn good... DAMN good... but core ALWAYS had the bigger tanks/units... ARM was just more powerful in the hands of a better player.... but to keep the same simillar units for the most part, and give the ARM the biggest unit in the game? sigh... flashtank fanboys...
#10 moveable bertha... on land, and sea.. if a stationary one isn't bad enough, lets make one CHEAPER THAT MOVES!!!
#11 the abundance of "easy to get metal" and "tightly crammed energy" from JUST BUILDINGS!! -resource factories(+150 metal), metal generators (+1 metal regardless?), cloakable metak makers... twice the metal of a moho metal maker, smaller size, and it cloaks for only about 2.2x the cost?!!?! why would anyone EVER make good ole regular mohos? alien bla bla bla uber nuke reactor +5000 energy etc.. what happened to solar plant, farms with scattered nuke reactors... ?? made you HAVE TO GET BIGGER TO GET MORE POWER!, and FIND MORE METAL TO GET MORE METAL! not to mention that the WHOLE REASON WARS ARE FOUGHT IS OVER RESOURCES! and well... if resources are free... then, the war is pointless...
#12 the fact that #11 buildings are SOOOO tough, they can all survive multiple nukes... a nuke USED to be bad news if it hit a nuke reactor... now its laughable...
#13 sumo's as offense... lol, thats funny... but... you made them VERY FRAKKAN! FAST!... its well.. a bit obsurd... sumos had their place as defense around the heart of the base... where there weren't many "fast" arm tanks that could penetrate the core defensive line, and the sumos could guard the factories without clogging them up... and make quick work of the few mortys and few bulldogs that did break through and outrun the slow ass goliaths.....
#14 "alien tech radar"... what happened to the strategy of forward radar posts? defending your forward posts? etc? why bother, build 2 or three of these, and you have radar for life...
#15 alien tech anything...
#16 tired of listing bad things... I'll name more later....
2: you know it ^^
3: mmm yes but remember the minelayer is currently a 'level 1 fark' @.@
4: defense creeping with HLT's can be effective, but guardians clearly outrange them. Besides its very interesting gameplay wise. I love HLT balance atm
5: ^_^ hell yeah
6: yup they are so awesome, as someone said if they would still explode when tracking flares that would be awesome (not sure if they do atm, dont pay much attention to em :))
on the cons
1: no lol its slow and its great, encourages micro and makes t2 units even better
2: i agree i HATE the all-terrain bots, the rest of them are fine IMO tho, they have hard counters, especially the BLoDs
3: i quite like it, forces you to take cons for the ride if your opponent is heavily entrenched and you can always reclaim wrecks on the way :D
4: well for once i will jump on the STFU AND GO AWAI YUO OTA0R bandwagon. The ability to realistically guard factories and to have guarded builders actually DOING it is awesome.
5: can't really understand this. you want the com splosion to toast wreckage? or you don't want the com leaving a corpse?
i think the com corpse should be a _bit_ less lucrative so you actually get to use it at some point :)
6: well if you spend all that on a amphib force and your opponent buys like...2 depthcharge launchers...amphibs are fine IMO
7: christ this isn't real life, will renaming a unit do shit? no it won't...
would be nice if they got a 10% bonus or so against vehicles though
8:Nah. Porcing is viable but counterable and this is good. Defenses are useful and not OP
9: a bigger unit is a easier target anyway. who cares...
10: factor in the cost of the plant and see if its cheaper. also realise that that t3 plant time could have been used to make smaller mechs whilst a t2 buildgroup got a bertha
11: erm yeah...good luck on that.
MGs are extortionately expensive and long BT
cloakable metak makers :- wtf??? claokable metal EXTRACTOR you mean?
resource factories(+150 metal) :- wtf??? beats me ^^
agreed the alien ones really should go
12: Not so laughable if your defenses on the front are blown to crap or that army you sent got smashed to smithereens. Nukes may not do as much damage to some buildings but they are still very potent.
13: yeah sumos are a bit...meh. I wish they could cloak again :<
14: its OK IMO, besides adv radar has insane range and i dont hear you bitching about that
15: mmm the signal jammers and the fusions take the piss. And the adv adv radar could probably do with a remodel to make it fit in somewhat
16: bring it on
edgar
first define porcing
and then see that it is easily viable in AA and certainly midgame.
it is a strategy and as such is viable. it is fun to play against especially if the porcer is sending out regular raids it turns into a crazy fight. I mean you have most of the map but you just keep getting battered on all fronts because your lines are spread so thing whilst your opponent romps through your stuff and techs himself. can be a very even game as long as you dont do something stupid like throw units at a heavy defense line (T1 vehicle arty can be really really evil against porcers)
"It's unbalanced by design. Porcing leads to boring games, thus we want to discourage it."
As I said, Porcing is a strategy.
if playing heavily defensively as porcing is. is unbalanced. then he may as well recode the entire mod to not have any defenses and all the super units and long range attacks weapons may as well go.
sometimes I wonder if Spring instead of havign been inherited by former TA players who knew startegy and startegic playing has been invaded by Starcrafters, who's only thought in mind is "10 minute rush game to victory"
most of the comments in this thread doesn't even seem to involve balancing, it's more abotu "How can I win faster, the other guy isn't loosing fast enough".
Playing defensively isn't unbalanced by design, UNLESS the mod is unbalanced to begin with. you dont' cut away the problem, imagien if doctors cut away parts everytime you had a problem with it. "oh your arm is broken, well time to cut it off then".
instead of outright removign porcing, fix it, balance it. make it possible to break through the defense IF the players are EQUALLY good. BUT also remember it shoudl never be impossible for the porc to win.
THAT is unbalanced by design. you seem to have that term confused with something else.
As I said, Porcing is a strategy.
if playing heavily defensively as porcing is. is unbalanced. then he may as well recode the entire mod to not have any defenses and all the super units and long range attacks weapons may as well go.
sometimes I wonder if Spring instead of havign been inherited by former TA players who knew startegy and startegic playing has been invaded by Starcrafters, who's only thought in mind is "10 minute rush game to victory"
most of the comments in this thread doesn't even seem to involve balancing, it's more abotu "How can I win faster, the other guy isn't loosing fast enough".
Playing defensively isn't unbalanced by design, UNLESS the mod is unbalanced to begin with. you dont' cut away the problem, imagien if doctors cut away parts everytime you had a problem with it. "oh your arm is broken, well time to cut it off then".
instead of outright removign porcing, fix it, balance it. make it possible to break through the defense IF the players are EQUALLY good. BUT also remember it shoudl never be impossible for the porc to win.
THAT is unbalanced by design. you seem to have that term confused with something else.
I think it is fine, something if firmly planted in the ground, so it can take more of a beating, and dish out more thanks to the tolerance and recoil going onto the ground...
I think its fine, I haven't played a game in a month or so, but it shouldn't be this BIG of a deal with arty and other stuff!
I think its fine, I haven't played a game in a month or so, but it shouldn't be this BIG of a deal with arty and other stuff!
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Forboding Angel
- Evolution RTS Developer
- Posts: 14673
- Joined: 17 Nov 2005, 02:43
This is really good to hear. A while back AA simply pwned, but as it started changing it got not so fun anymore. EE will always remain my true love, but if I can happily have a bastard child with AA, that wouldn't hurt my feelings any ;pCaydr wrote:However, later on LathanStanley starts to make sense. It's true, AA has really gone on the wrong track lately. I've been working so hard to take advantage of new tricks in Spring that my original goal is being lost. I'm going to take steps to move AA back to its roots, starting by eliminating "escalation" as much as I can help.
For instance, Bertha > bertha shield > vulcan ... no, this isn't how it's supposed to be. It's supposed to be Bertha > build your own bertha/attack him with all you've got/kiss your ass goodbye.
There will have to be many adjustments made, and probably quite a few things removed or changed in major ways, but I think in the end the mod will be better for it.
Furthermore, I'm going to destroy speedmetal. It's not what this game's meant to be played on. As of 2.2, it will be impossible to play AA on speedmetal or its variants. If you want to play on that nonsense, play a different mod. And from this there will be no revert.
Porcing's what it always has been - not just playing defensively, or playing defensively for part of the game, but playing purely defensively. Spamming static defensive structures, building very few combat units, and usually trying to build up to some kind of super-weapon. Bertha-rushing is the classic "porc" strategy, though "HLT + BLoD creep" is a close second. (Note that both of these can be used as part of a "normal" strategy, but a "porc" focuses on them to the exclusion of all else) "Krog rushing" and "gunship swarm rushing" can also count, but they're absolutely horrible now.Min3mat wrote:first define porcing
and then see that it is easily viable in AA and certainly midgame.
it is a strategy and as such is viable. it is fun to play against especially if the porcer is sending out regular raids it turns into a crazy fight. I mean you have most of the map but you just keep getting battered on all fronts because your lines are spread so thing whilst your opponent romps through your stuff and techs himself. can be a very even game as long as you dont do something stupid like throw units at a heavy defense line (T1 vehicle arty can be really really evil against porcers)
The term, I believe, originated with the OTA devs to describe a base-building style that resulted in a base "like a porcupine", with a heavy layer of "prickly" defences around the edge and a soft center.
(As an aside, a single Bertha, or even a small battery of them, should not be a game-ending weapon. Berthas are fine now. One or two are annoying but not fatal.
Brilliant news. I hate escalation as well. With something like XTA you can get to level 2 nice and quickly, and get a really strong economy knocking out tons of level 2 attack units so the game is decided relatively quickly, rather than turning into a static porc fest.Forboding Angel wrote:This is really good to hear. A while back AA simply pwned, but as it started changing it got not so fun anymore. EE will always remain my true love, but if I can happily have a bastard child with AA, that wouldn't hurt my feelings any ;pCaydr wrote:However, later on LathanStanley starts to make sense. It's true, AA has really gone on the wrong track lately. I've been working so hard to take advantage of new tricks in Spring that my original goal is being lost. I'm going to take steps to move AA back to its roots, starting by eliminating "escalation" as much as I can help.
For instance, Bertha > bertha shield > vulcan ... no, this isn't how it's supposed to be. It's supposed to be Bertha > build your own bertha/attack him with all you've got/kiss your ass goodbye.
There will have to be many adjustments made, and probably quite a few things removed or changed in major ways, but I think in the end the mod will be better for it.
Furthermore, I'm going to destroy speedmetal. It's not what this game's meant to be played on. As of 2.2, it will be impossible to play AA on speedmetal or its variants. If you want to play on that nonsense, play a different mod. And from this there will be no revert.
With AA at the moment it takes so long to advance through the tech levels (because the adv economy is so nerfed as well) that it takes an eternity to break deadlocks in evenly matched games, or on porcy maps (which spring people tend to favour). It's fine in 1vs1's but in team games things turn into an awful slog.
Flattening the tech levels a bit and removing the escalation would be a godsend. I'm also inclined to think implimenting friendly fire would really help matters, but might require you to rebalance everything again, so that's perhaps best left to another mod.
Well, the whole reason, if i remember correctly, that level2 was made more difficult to get to was to allow level1 battles to continue for longer, if you can get to level2 easily then level1 will become obsolete more quickly,Molloy wrote:Brilliant news. I hate escalation as well. With something like XTA you can get to level 2 nice and quickly, and get a really strong economy knocking out tons of level 2 attack units so the game is decided relatively quickly, rather than turning into a static porc fest.Forboding Angel wrote:This is really good to hear. A while back AA simply pwned, but as it started changing it got not so fun anymore. EE will always remain my true love, but if I can happily have a bastard child with AA, that wouldn't hurt my feelings any ;pCaydr wrote:However, later on LathanStanley starts to make sense. It's true, AA has really gone on the wrong track lately. I've been working so hard to take advantage of new tricks in Spring that my original goal is being lost. I'm going to take steps to move AA back to its roots, starting by eliminating "escalation" as much as I can help.
For instance, Bertha > bertha shield > vulcan ... no, this isn't how it's supposed to be. It's supposed to be Bertha > build your own bertha/attack him with all you've got/kiss your ass goodbye.
There will have to be many adjustments made, and probably quite a few things removed or changed in major ways, but I think in the end the mod will be better for it.
Furthermore, I'm going to destroy speedmetal. It's not what this game's meant to be played on. As of 2.2, it will be impossible to play AA on speedmetal or its variants. If you want to play on that nonsense, play a different mod. And from this there will be no revert.
With AA at the moment it takes so long to advance through the tech levels (because the adv economy is so nerfed as well) that it takes an eternity to break deadlocks in evenly matched games, or on porcy maps (which spring people tend to favour). It's fine in 1vs1's but in team games things turn into an awful slog.
Flattening the tech levels a bit and removing the escalation would be a godsend. I'm also inclined to think implimenting friendly fire would really help matters, but might require you to rebalance everything again, so that's perhaps best left to another mod.
At the moment the balance is great, you can choose to slow down a little and tech up, or keep the pressure on with level1 and push through while your opponent is teching, or both duke it out with loads of level1.
Making level2 much easier to get to will be a bad move if you want to see cool level1 battles in aa, i think this will just mean you HAVE to tech to win, at the moment you dont, I know because I just got pwned by level1 while I was trying to tech in a game vs day.
Caydr, why are you changing the resource model? Upgrading mexxes is a HASSLE, a lot of micro, and alot of resources expende to do it (in terms of time especially). adding a 1.5 tech mex will not help the situation.
Also, I dont think you shoudl kill L2 sea in next release. ITs unbalanced, fine - but its still there. Making no L2 sea is just as bad as having unbalanced L2 sea (which it is now).
Also, I think using Seismic wouldnt be such a hot idea; there's no known Jammer-type for seismic; so uing hyper-radar would effectively kill the usefulness of jammers. Hyperradar needs to be chepae=ned somewhat beuase its not as useful asit shoudl be for cost; however, there are situations where it is useful.
Also - i say kill the bertha shield entirely. IT is not useful in seirous games; generalkly there is far too much area to cover for it to be useful anyway - fusions, metal makers, moho mines, whatever important stuctures are scattered across a pretty large area, so its not very useful - and since the water does not have a bertha shield, that means that on certain maps (GoW2) fex with a lot of land but little sea, land can kill sea without sea having a chance to fire back if you put some bertha shields up on land.
Don't destroy speedmetal. I don't like it; a lot of "elite" players dont like it; but it is liked by tohers; there is no reason why it should be taken away. Besides, there's plenty of other fun maps (CPIA) that have a lot of metal in certain spots (albeit not as high as speedmetal).
Also - why is escalation a bad thing?
And yes - tech balance is peachy and <3. Dont change it!
Also, I dont think you shoudl kill L2 sea in next release. ITs unbalanced, fine - but its still there. Making no L2 sea is just as bad as having unbalanced L2 sea (which it is now).
Also, I think using Seismic wouldnt be such a hot idea; there's no known Jammer-type for seismic; so uing hyper-radar would effectively kill the usefulness of jammers. Hyperradar needs to be chepae=ned somewhat beuase its not as useful asit shoudl be for cost; however, there are situations where it is useful.
Also - i say kill the bertha shield entirely. IT is not useful in seirous games; generalkly there is far too much area to cover for it to be useful anyway - fusions, metal makers, moho mines, whatever important stuctures are scattered across a pretty large area, so its not very useful - and since the water does not have a bertha shield, that means that on certain maps (GoW2) fex with a lot of land but little sea, land can kill sea without sea having a chance to fire back if you put some bertha shields up on land.
Don't destroy speedmetal. I don't like it; a lot of "elite" players dont like it; but it is liked by tohers; there is no reason why it should be taken away. Besides, there's plenty of other fun maps (CPIA) that have a lot of metal in certain spots (albeit not as high as speedmetal).
Also - why is escalation a bad thing?
And yes - tech balance is peachy and <3. Dont change it!
Do you think there is some gameplay advantage to this or is it just a way to destroy SpeedMetal? Is this the mod maker's version of taking your ball and going home? That's just pathetic.Caydr wrote: Well, no, actually they'll be instantly self-destructing if their rotating arm goes faster than the speed it goes at roughly somewhere between 3 and 5 metal per tick (haven't decided yet). But you were close.
He's tired of seeing his basketball used as a football, so yes, he is going home. Rather that then continue watching it used like that.det wrote: Do you think there is some gameplay advantage to this or is it just a way to destroy SpeedMetal? Is this the mod maker's version of taking your ball and going home? That's just pathetic.
Except he's makign a mod.
so the proper metafor would be that he's taking away the court :p
personally I think that anyoen who think that those who enjoy playign SM shoudln't be allowed to play that way and go out of their way to flame peopel who play that or even limit their ability to play that way are narrow minded.
it may not be how "he" itnended the mod to be played, or how "you" like to play...
but THEY do like to play like that, so why can't they? it remionds me of the spoiled brat who gets pissed when his friends doesn't want to do what he does.
becaus eyou stop peopel from playign speed metal won't give you any more peopel playign non speed metal, so the whole thing is pointless. it's a minor change that int he end wil only make the mod less popular.
as allthe peopel who play SM will stop using it, and all the poeple who dont' regularly play SM but will occasionally relax with a quick distracitonary SM game for a little change will drop it... and you're left with a small core of the so called "elite". those who think they are better than others because they play the "right" way.
so the proper metafor would be that he's taking away the court :p
personally I think that anyoen who think that those who enjoy playign SM shoudln't be allowed to play that way and go out of their way to flame peopel who play that or even limit their ability to play that way are narrow minded.
it may not be how "he" itnended the mod to be played, or how "you" like to play...
but THEY do like to play like that, so why can't they? it remionds me of the spoiled brat who gets pissed when his friends doesn't want to do what he does.
becaus eyou stop peopel from playign speed metal won't give you any more peopel playign non speed metal, so the whole thing is pointless. it's a minor change that int he end wil only make the mod less popular.
as allthe peopel who play SM will stop using it, and all the poeple who dont' regularly play SM but will occasionally relax with a quick distracitonary SM game for a little change will drop it... and you're left with a small core of the so called "elite". those who think they are better than others because they play the "right" way.