Sovereignty of Units, or when Dgunning allies is acceptable.

[KDR_11k]

If *A is simple, what is complex?

[manored]

I think *A are among the most insanely hard to learn games ever made :) Maybe putting something in the homepage telling people that most mods are very hard to learn and that they shouldnt give up merely for losing their first ten games?

[LordMatt]

I think *A are among the most insanely hard to learn games ever made :)

+1, and to actually get good at BA, rather than just know how to not get immediately pwnt takes much longer.

[the-middleman]

I disagree. I dont play spring for too long but I found it easy to learn. Just play with bots.

Sure it takes very long to get good at multiplayer games but that is the same for ALL online games.

If you could play solitaire against another human it would also be difficult. Not because of the game, but because of the opponent.

[manored]

Sure it takes very long to get good at multiplayer games but that is the same for ALL online games.

Not really... just started playing Battle for wesnoth and im already kicking ass :) I think the issue might be that not only *A games are hard to master, but also since they are very diferent from usual rts you cant use much previous experience (Previous experience is the reason I am already kicking ass on wesnoth).

[Acidd_UK]

I was told that on the Cavedog planet TA thing, where Arm and Core battled for planets in a massive multiplayer campaign, the rank system had built in support / requirements for playing with and teaching new players. So as you get more experienced, maybe you should be forced to teach newer players the ropes. I can enviage a noob 1v1, with each noob having a teamspeccing experienced player, using ally chat to suggest what he should do, and give other advice.... Maybe this would be better than a tutorial because it would work for all mods...

[the-middleman]

I allready do that. Well kind of. I play with noobs and let them attack, give hints, tips etc

[KDR_11k]

I think *A are among the most insanely hard to learn games ever made :) Maybe putting something in the homepage telling people that most mods are very hard to learn and that they shouldnt give up merely for losing their first ten games?

How about directing them at games that don't make them want to give up that fast instead?

[manored]

I think *A are among the most insanely hard to learn games ever made :) Maybe putting something in the homepage telling people that most mods are very hard to learn and that they shouldnt give up merely for losing their first ten games?

How about directing them at games that don't make them want to give up that fast instead?

That would require us to have enough player base to have enough noobs for noobs to play against each other, what we dont have, and any vet will crush a noob in any strategy game. Also I dont think we have any easy to master games around here (easy to master means noobs getting almost as good as vets fast)... least not as strategy, what is the focus of spring.

[Day]

Yes, but people make very little efford to actually get good in this game, compared to others. Its the same thing in Supreme Commander:FA, must be the type of game or something...

[KDR_11k]

Perhaps because TA was sold mostly as "HUGE battles HUGE mechs OMG" and Spring was mostly sold as "TA in 3d"?

[TradeMark]

Yes, but people make very little efford to actually get good in this game, compared to others. Its the same thing in Supreme Commander:FA, must be the type of game or something...

Why is that.... maybe its because in BA:

<semi joke>
1) one error makes you pretty much lose the game. (thats why many people ragequits a lot, they just knows it.)
2) if you let enemy porc, your only chance is to build bertha (or have hope with nuke) and maybe air bombs. just hope the map isnt hilly, or youre pretty much dead with bertha.
3) if you attack too much without actually making effect with your attacks, youre dead. and if you wait for bigger attacks, youre still dead because enemy had more time to porc and hes just building pitbulls for defense (the ultimate impenetrable defense).
4) if enemy builds something like airbombs and you dont have air def, youre pretty much dead because there is no air defense unit which have so long range it could defend against bombers, so you must build fucking many air airdefs (fighters) and thats why youre dead.
5) if you try to win with airbombs, enemy has built awesome air def while porcing -> youre dead again.
6) if you build airdef youre dead because enemy didnt, and used that metal into tanks and is right at the moment coming into your base with them.
</semi joke>

building airscouts is a joke (the ultimate pros always suggests this), you cant spam them so much you could see enemy all the time. unless thats the only thing youre using your resources and you have multiple air labs.

This is why I suggest we get permanent LOS (see everything), that would reduce the amount of ragequits because they knows what the enemy is doing and cant ragequit because they think they have a chance in winning while they see more tactics than just one "porc faster than enemy or die".

This game is impossible. if you want to defend every possible possibility, youre dead. if you could see everything, you wouldnt need to waste time/metal in defenses which you dont need. and you could react to enemy attacks instantly.

Or we could just disable team games, and then people might learn to play. But then that would reduce the playerbase a lot.

[LordMatt]

This game is impossible. if you want to defend every possible possibility, youre dead.

That's right. If you instead focus on a strategy to win the game, forcing your opponent to "defend every possible possibility" you win.

[Crayfish]

Yes, I remember that on Boneyards... to rank up you had to have a certain amount of playtime, but also a certain amount of teaching time where you trained a lower rank...

Possibly the top ranks may have required a certain win/loss record too, I don't quite remember.

We need Boneyards two, tbh.

[Pxtl]

@TradeMark

I know KDR has made a few "permanent LOS" gadgets for his mods - Fibre being one. You could probably roll those into a modoption for BA, making an exception for cloaked/submerged units. Then go through the buildlists and strip-out any radar/jammer units in unitdefs_post.lua. Dunno about projectiles though... I know cegs can be alwaysvisible, but dunno how you'd batch-override that in Lua, but I'm not sure that'd cover all cases (wreckage?)

[Scratch]

This game is impossible. if you want to defend every possible possibility, youre dead.

That's right. If you instead focus on a strategy to win the game, forcing your opponent to "defend every possible possibility" you win.

Once you know the game enough you'll know what your opponent can afford based on what he's thrown at you, and thus measure your defense expenditures against that.

I suppose it depends mostly on the map at that point say on DSD you have fully engaged the enemy at front south, there is no way he can afford air unless it is strictly measured, and even then easy to defend against. A few defenders well placed can stop most bombers & watching your com placement as well.

Probably one of the most important DEFENSIVE strategies is to have flexibility - a couple critical variable are distance & time. Since people don't often scout and assuming noobs don't, you must be able to scrounge up something when you realize you are in trouble.

An example might be realizing the enemy has prepared a horde of bombers and you have next to nothing for AA. This is when you must calculate your ability to produce a sufficient number of fighters within enough time, or have to manually build AA all over the map which is highly undesirable, but might save you till you can get your fighters up.

That's my strat when I don't feel like coming up with a really good attack. Against good players it doesn't work well unless finely tuned. This usually pushes the game into lag fest.

[Scratch]

I guess the best skill to have in this case would be management, if you have to disrupt all your build queues for AA, you have then created alot of work for yourself in re-queuing that shit when done. Assuming you didn't die.

Not to derail the topic I guess, wat we need is tutorials to show noobs how to do this kind of thing:

In a minimum of time:

- Build a fighter cover
- Get anti nuke up
- UPGRADE MEXES
- Get a fusion.

The tutorials should babysit them so they are conscious of priorities. Next thing you know when somebody says 'A: TEY HAVE NUKEZ!' then the noob is first to get anti up.

You guys need to come up with a way to use LUA to make a mission creator, b/c I believe we have unused LUA coding HP based on the amount of unused scripts there are in the Spring engine.

[Tired]

I trained a player in all of that ingame two nights ago, Scratch. Told him to post the replay if he wanted to share. All of the core principles are simple, as are individual roles within a given team strategy. Anyone who wants training's free to ask, and they'll get it; almost no one asks.

Anyone who wants to learn's free to observe, for that matter. Most are too dumb to observe, or even begin to piece the pieces together if they do. There's a significant language barrier for many players. Most new players don't make use of the #newbies channel to ask questions. I've joined that room on occassions and asked the little bastards to ask questions. If offering advice unsolicated, newbie moron punks will argue with you, disregarding greater playtime and demonstrably better performance.

If ranting at the little screwups for not wanting to learn, you're labelled as "unpleasant." If you, as a result, say screw the team, and go on to win the game solo, you're bitched at for "not helping." What the fuck does not helping mean if you're the team's only shot at winning a match? Isn't that the point?

Most players aren't. Aren't gamers. Aren't communicative. Aren't adaptive. Aren't interested in learning a slightly more complex form of number shifting than Starcraft. Aren't worth the time, and never will be.

Damned simple game, and the only competition is casual, since nobody uses spreadsheets, and there's only a tiny competitive player base.

So, free help to anyone who wants it. =)

P.S. to KDR - Stars! is complex.

[very_bad_soldier]

Tired, I hope no newbie will read your post ever. We should not wonder why new players lose interest in spring very quickly and are not keen on joining this community in a serious way. I think you cant get a worse welcome in any other community.

[Tired]

You've apparently never been welcomed to another community. =P

Protip: Most new players don't read the forum, durr, and the ones who do know how to learn have no reason to be offended. There just aren't many.