Okay, I will try and answer everyone, but I'm in a bit of a rush. Apologies if I am a bit brisk.
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SJ: Thanks for finally providing some thought on the opposing side (well, along with 10053r). I feel that the primary conflict in opinions here is (hopefully) a misunderstanding.
These AI's are fine, on two conditions:
1) They cannot be better than a human (you point this out, but I can see it becoming the opposite). Any time I set an AI to do something for me, it should make things easier - but when I look after it on my own, it should be infinitely better.
2) AI's should be built into the game, rather than having people have their own AI's. If someone thinks they have a good AI, they should submit it to you, rather than simply sticking it in their directories. I think it should cause desynch errors if people have different AI's.
The reason I say this is for similar reasons that Storm blew up for (that's a hot temper man - I understand your frustration, but we can't convince them by yelling at them). If everyone can program their own AI, it becomes less about who is the most skilled player, and more about who is the best programmer, or who has the best AI.
You may think that "AI's will never lead to that", but I disagree. If people can program their own AI's, and pit them at their foes, it is simply a matter of time before they are exploiting minor engine bugs (you'll never get all of them). What happens if I program a peeper with an AI that tells it to fly circles around a guardian, so that it wipes out its own base?
What's more, the sheer evolution of AI's would slowly force the player out. It would become less and less about how well you play, and more about the sort of AI you had. Surely, if I can program an AI that will calculate and run my start production (that is, the first few structures of a game), then the program would work it out so fine that I could get that freedom fighter out in the absolute minimum amount of time? I could even program that freedom fighter with an AI that makes it hit the unit that the enemy factory is building? The only way someone could beat me in such a game would be if they had the exact same AI, or a "counter AI".
The unavoidable extension of AI's leads to the exploitiation of engine weaknesses, as well as squeezing out decision making processes from the player.
As I said earlier, when playing a game, the only variable should be the player. Thus, in any game, if you are defeated, the invariable conclusion is "you are better than me." What happens, then, in Spring, if you make the game itself the variable, so that it is no longer "you are better than me", but "You had a better AI than me."
Now to answer some of your direct points:
As I see it there is two main sorts of fun in a RTS game, one more action based and not needing much deep thought such as clicking radar dots and another more strategic.
Perhaps, SJ, but while you move towards making greater steps in allowing strategic gameplay, you seem to be going at it somewhat blind (no intended offense), without a clear vision. For example, while you make all units target radar dots which reduces the micromanagement required, you also bring in a massive change in strategy itself, which I have argued consistently is not for the better (briefly: massive power to defensive players, radar required just to attack, aircraft become useless, etc).
Will this lead to gameplay close to TA ? Probably not.
I am not afraid of not seeing TA in Spring. Just as with the HitchHikers Guide movie, I am a diehard fan of the original, but I can see that to progress, a carbon copy just won't do.
But at the same time, there are numerous things that the original
got right the first time, which I feel is rather a shame to give up on.
(Just like with the HHGttG movie, I think that while Spring is good fun, and beautiful, it is somewhat missing the point that made the original so magical)
Will this completly remove the first sort of fun? Probably not, there will always be time critical stuff in a rts world that need doing and that AI creators havent thought of.
Like what? I'm sorry, I do not intend to be aggressive at all - but this further tends to the impression that you do not have a clear idea of which direction you are going in. If you want to make such monumental changes, you really have to sit down and work it out, rather than hoping that things will sort themselves out when you get there. Because from where I am sitting, it doesn't look like they will.
If someone really want to do all the micromanagment he/she can add an option to turn off the helper features but it wont be me.
The concern is not that micromanagement will be gone with no option to use it again - the concern is that if I were to control every facet of my game, which presumably would be an indication of skill (assuming I can do it well
), I would be at a
disadvantage to a player using an AI. Surely I, who has put in the time and effort to becoming good at Spring so as to control every nuance of my gameplay (trust me, I'm really bad. This is entirely hypothetical!
) to its utmost, should be the one better off?
It is a similar line of argument to steroids in sport.
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Kixxe, I will point out that I have not flamed you, nor anyone else. If you look at my posts, I have taken special precaution not to personally attack anyone - as it only degrades my argument, not anyone elses. Every time I have asked people to put a bit of effort into their communication, I have done so politely, and attempted to be as non-offensive as possible. If I have become less polite as we go on, it is because I am getting increasingly frustrated with the fact that you (I mean generally) are ignoring me.
At both Kixxe and aGorm, the reason why I want people to put a bit of effort into their posts is because
you are trying to convey an opinion to
me. I should not have to decipher a post because it is poorly written to work out what someone has said.
And if it were minor issues, then I wouldn't have mentioned anything. But it isn't. Every second word is misspelled - often misunderstandibly so.
It is the equivalent of someone trying to explain what they think of gameplay changes in a drunken slur. You aren't going to listen to them, or take them seriously, you are just going to skip over them and go to the person who is talking in a way I can understand. Irrelevant of what they are actually saying, I will listen to the person who talks understandibly, rather than the person who talks in a drawl.
For example (and I don't mean to offend anyone here), aGorm and Zoombie regularly have very good ideas, and useful things to add to the discussion. But it is common that they write horribly, so that it is impossible to understand them. Alantai on the other hand, I am usually at odds with what he has to say. I don't think he has the best ideas - but he writes logically (mostly
) and understandibly. Therefore I take what he says more seriously.
This isn't IRC, and conversation isn't constantly ongoing. Therefore you can type things out like "because" and "though". Its a matter of common decency, and it something which you are extending to me as a way of showing that you want me [me as a collective, not personal] want me to take your ideas seriously.
And it isn't "cool" to type a w instead of a u. It is 5 keys away, and it stops you sounding like a 12 year old schoolgirl.
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And I have offered my suggested solution
several times. It is my opinion that radar dots should be kept as they are, but units should not auto-target them unless a target facility has been built. This suggestion keeps the game-screen dots, which makes it far easier to autotarget then when using the radar (reducing micro), but it balances the radar, and makes it so that radar coverage is no longer
do or die. It makes attacking easier, and it makes aircraft less useless.
