What do you want to see more of in CA? - Page 8

What do you want to see more of in CA?

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Saktoth
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Re: What do you want to see more of in CA?

Post by Saktoth »

knorke wrote:well, stop idling in battlerooms imo.
say someone wants to play ca and he finally finds a game with 3 players.
"oh, cool 2v2!" he thinks.
but everybody is afk/doesnt want to play.
gay.
that happens a few times and well, yeah...

other way around its bad too.
someone willing to play joins an autohost but everybody think he ist just afk anyway.
Whats better, to have 3 players idling waiting for a game at some point in the future, or to have no players at all? For CA players, who are generally patient, it is the former.

If you are impatient, you must simply play the mod with the most players- BA. This is obvious and self-perpetuating, and us having empty autohosts (as opposed to idle ones) wont help that.
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knorke
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Re: What do you want to see more of in CA?

Post by knorke »

not sure.
someone willing to play might not join because "game will start in 1h"
and he might not join an empty host to wait himself either, because other players will think he just idles.
its a circle...
Saktoth
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Re: What do you want to see more of in CA?

Post by Saktoth »

Not having players is the circle.

Having to wait an hour is the reality of what you have to do if you want to play a CA game, and when we get enough players to get momentum and have a few games in a row, then the taggers-on join and we increase our playerbase.

Its the people willing to wait an hour for a game who keep this thing going. Kudos to those brave, noble few, those idlers and specs, who will sit in a game for hours on end and then when it gets to 4 players, 6 more join up and suddenly you have a big game. Its those first 4 who make the difference. Its those first 4 that keep CA going.
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Mav
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Re: What do you want to see more of in CA?

Post by Mav »

My point is not that there are not enough players. I don't need an 8v8 DSD porcfest to have fun; a 2v2 or 3v3 are pretty fun too =)

The specific case I was talking about was that there were, at the time I was in the room, 6 people listed as players, and a few specs. Sounds like a good 3v3, right? It had nothing to do with a large or small player base. If the same thing had happened with a BA game I would have been just as pissed. Like I said, just because you can play with a lot of people doesn't mean you should.

How to fix it? I'd encourage the CA crowd to ready up faster. I like the mod, I like the gameplay, I've been speccing in games and even participating in a few, but by and far my biggest complaint is that I want to play a freaking video game. If I wanted to chat, I wouldn't need buggy-as-hell Springlobby/TAS to do it.

/rant off
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knorke
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Re: What do you want to see more of in CA?

Post by knorke »

i agree with mav.
also i hate, when you join an autohost and the game is in progress and more players join too, everybody justs wants to wait for the game to finish.
while the waiting players could do their own 2v2 just as good now.
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knorke
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Re: What do you want to see more of in CA?

Post by knorke »

wow the widgetstuff just reached a whole new level of suck.
at least include a widgetlist that sort is like a table and not a list so you do not have to scroll all the time.
also it should have categories.
like one that is called "stuff no one gives a shit about" which includes 90% and those are all turned off.
also descriptions please.
SirMaverick
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Re: What do you want to see more of in CA?

Post by SirMaverick »

knorke wrote:while the waiting players could do their own 2v2 just as good now.
Host your own game. Or use the fi autohost.

You can't expect a running game to stopped because players are waiting.
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knorke
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Re: What do you want to see more of in CA?

Post by knorke »

[05:00:35] <Kerr> alll players who aren't nubs, go to CA!
[05:01:37] <knorke> all the players who actually want to play, join the "come play ca" relay host and not the gay chatroom that is the other game
[05:01:57] <knorke> not sure if this relay host stuff works but i think yes
[05:03:06] <[0K]Licho> game is over now knorke, new one will start
still waiting so far...

other autohost have different versions, unlikely someone will ever join there.
SirMaverick
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Re: What do you want to see more of in CA?

Post by SirMaverick »

knorke wrote:wow the widgetstuff just reached a whole new level of suck.
No it always has been that level.
also it should have categories.
Crudemenu (enabled by default) has a list with categories.
also descriptions please.
Hover over and you get the tooltip.

"But I want to see the description directly" vs "OMG wall of text"
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knorke
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Re: What do you want to see more of in CA?

Post by knorke »

i thought crudemenu is that thing that lets you click 3 buttons instead of typing /shadows 1 or /info

with descriptions i mean a little more text and not shows stuff
SirMaverick
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Re: What do you want to see more of in CA?

Post by SirMaverick »

knorke wrote:
[05:00:35] <Kerr> alll players who aren't nubs, go to CA!
[05:01:37] <knorke> all the players who actually want to play, join the "come play ca" relay host and not the gay chatroom that is the other game
[05:01:57] <knorke> not sure if this relay host stuff works but i think yes
[05:03:06] <[0K]Licho> game is over now knorke, new one will start
still waiting so far...
For the last 9 hours (Maybe longer, i didn't join earlier.), there were 19 games played with breaks usually 5-10 minutes. Longer breaks due to players need to download maps.
other autohost have different versions, unlikely someone will ever join there.
Contact their admins to update. I don't who that is.
SirMaverick
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Re: What do you want to see more of in CA?

Post by SirMaverick »

knorke wrote:i thought crudemenu is that thing that lets you click 3 buttons instead of typing /shadows 1 or /info
Crudemenu has a own widget list (f11).
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JohannesH
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Re: What do you want to see more of in CA?

Post by JohannesH »

If you dont want to play right now, spec. In my (limited) experience people who play BA get this but in CA and XTA people seem to have trouble understanding that.
SirMaverick
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Re: What do you want to see more of in CA?

Post by SirMaverick »

JohannesH wrote:If you dont want to play right now, spec. In my (limited) experience people who play BA get this but in CA and XTA people seem to have trouble understanding that.
!ring (but don't spam) and !manage solve that.
Fri13
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Re: What do you want to see more of in CA?

Post by Fri13 »

I want to tip first that I skipped from page 2 to page 6 because there started to be agressive discussion. And in the end, the discussion seemed to be related only littlebit about that what topic say.

These are my and my friends opinions. So take them as such. Wishes and others are lots of more. Maybe so much that new game should be done. ;)

I like to play CA sometimes, usually with friends and sometimes against AI as CO-OP. But what I wait to see more in CA, is more complex micromagement what you can do, but you can make them automatic for simple / easy players. But then they would not gain the advantage what micromanagers can get.

What I mean might be someway limited by Spring itself.

1) Make strategies to be the keypoint of the CA. That means you need to gain a leverage when you flank or when you attack behind. Those who just want to click few times to get builded automatically army from one factory and send it to attack should play other games than RTS.

2) Unbalance the units. Make every unit someway special. Not Jack of all trades -units. Like assault ships what has gigantic radar, fair AA, good long range ballistic and anti-submarine features, they just ruins the game.

It is true that spring does not allow good formations to get builded. Maybe because units has no control to speed, other than min <> max and acceleration and brake forces. Fast unit can not move same speed as slower unit without going around it. In real life, even fighterjets can fly at same speed as avarage car and stay in the air. They can fly same speed as bombers. Their advantage is the speed, but not just the max speed, but that they can fly faster than bombers if needed. But they need to protected them by flying next to them.

3) Make the defence buildings MUCH easier to get destroyed. It is true that you can limit the amount of units what gets builded. (I come back to this topic) but it is someway rare that basic units gets limited in public games.

When you can spam the defence full of all kind defence buildings what all protects attack from ground, water, air and even from missiles and long range attacks. The game comes boring. You need to add more powerfull weapons to game what like one what drags meteors from orbit or one what shoots laser. You do not have anything AGAINST those if you get them protected behind already well done defence line where one is turtled.

Original TA (with expansions) did add some experimental units like krogoth for Core. But it was still possible to destroy and pretty easily as well in the end.

So what is the point? Make the defence buildings as secondary, a assistance defence. And force players to have the defence build by the units. Where every unit would have their great weakness.

4) This is not about CA typically but the lobby itself. But it would need to be supported byr CA as well.
If there is set limitations of units and their amounts in lobby. Show that in the build menu. When we build units, there is bottom right corner a number +n about how many is going to get build. Add to top right corner a number how many such buildings can be build, like 4/4. Or tell it someway on tooltip or info next the build menu when you hover them.

5) Limit the unit speeds. I just yesterday installed the original TA (and all patches and addons). And I only noticed that all units moved so slowly. Their turrets got turned so slowly that level 2 tank could not aim to level 1 tank if it was over 30 degree from it's aim and in its range. It depended its own armor and firepower. The speed of ammos were as well slow. It was so fun when you attached to the unit when it gained the experience and you did not want to get it destroyed.

Same thing is not in any of Spring mods. They are all too fast and simple. The slow speed made Ta so great. Even today it is just so great. Forget the reality that MBT gets destroyed with single 3rd generation AT missile easily. It is not fun when you have amount of heavy tanks and they get destroyed with few shots long before they even get to range of fire. This can be avoided if defence buildings are not so tough, just assisting the defence, not being the defence. (and those who want to suggest something about BA or XTA, they can go somewhere else, these are just suggestions based opinion, not orders)

If units would be slower, their turret turns would be slower, I would give them bigger range. Where the damage could be less if shooting to long range. Like level 1 artillery could shoot about 800-1000 by range, but optimal would be 300-600. Slow ballistic with fair accuracy. And slow shooting, like on case of light artillary, about 10 RPM.

6) The newest CA has the buildings to link energy and metal. Factories and generators etc. That is something what I had in my mind about year ago. And it is very nice that such thing has invented by CA devs as well. There is just few things what I miss.

a) Make them smaller. Make them easy to get destroyed. Make them to be the weakpoint of the base if tried to get everywhere too fast.

b) Make them to be build and get connected by player itself. So player can arrage the connections how they should connect.

c) Make them to need a line of sight (someway they now need). But make them taller and thinner. Like phonelines. Height as the heavy laser tower but thin like light laser tower, mayby even thinner.

d) make them use connections what would have a electricity on them. Like what Tesla tried to get, a wireless electricity.

e) Expand their functions. Just like you need to power the mines and have enough electricity for long range / large amount of mines. Make all the factories use such as well. So if you want to have factory powered enough, you need to connect multiple energy sources to it. More like the SupCom has. Every building and generator has the range what it connects to each other.

That could need some remodeling for factories, storates, generators to have a antenna top of them where the joint would be done. And you could always scout by those to find if someone is made connection to distance base and not separate it.

7) Have somekind units to move the metal between mines and the storates. Make the storates as the thing where the electricity and iron is got to factories. Not need to be like on Red Alert 2. More like the aircraft carrier has its own fighters. Very small independednt units what would be possible get more from airplane plant. And make every mine to need such what moves to storage.

8) BIG opinion what I really would like see. Is the units difference in sizes. I really would like to see that level 1 units are much smaller than now. And when comparing Level 1 tank and Level 2 tank, you could get 2:1 ration on that.
That was one thing what I liked in the SupCom, level 1 units are so small when compared to higher level units. You could easily see why the higher leve unit was so much harder to build and could take so much hits.

9) Make the commander bigger. It should be one of the strongest and biggest units. Slowest as well. But it really should be such that when it comes to front of you and you have just level 1 units 10-20, you are in deep !"#¤!". But it should still be someway easy to get commander down.


10) As already said, CA is RTS game. We need radar jammers, movable shields, AA etc. But no army is nothing without transportation. The Core Confidental addon for original TA brought hovercrafts. They were very nasty because you needed to build defence to places where no one else could earlier come. Hovercrafts almost ruined the whole game. Littlebit same thing is amphious units what should have great weakness for such power feature to move under water to other places without transportation.

What CA could try more, is the use of transport VTOLS. Flying units have a gas, same thing for ground units. You would need to refuel them someway. Mayby small nanoturret stations like the 4x airpads for airplanes. But like bigger units what is heavily armored, slow and made just to fuel other units.

That would make the strategies even more important. It would be important to do the airdrop for tanks than drive them from factory to fight.

11) (Almost last suggestion). About defence buildings. 1944 game allows (by morphing) units to have limited shooting arch. Make same by default for such. If you have short range weapons like light laser or EMP turret. They can shoot every directory. But bigger tha range, narrowed the arch. Big berthas should have just something 20 degree arch. So you need to think where you actually place it. Plasma batteries etc can be avoided when flanked. So you need to have units supporting even them to make counter flanking. Like the medium plasma battery would have about 90 degree arch. You just need to plan them builded so they give good cross fire. limited arch + slow turn rate + slower RPM would make strategies more intresting and that would make the winner, who has best strategies. Not that who just has biggest resource management or more units.


12) Make airfighting a own element. This case check the reality. That one who owns the air, has great leverage over gound and sea fight.

Make three levels of flighting. Ranging from 100 (level 1) to 600 (level 3)

Level 1 AA can shoot only to level 1 units. (Chaingun, light missiles, lasers)
Level 2 AA can shoot only level 2 units (Flak, lasers, medium missiles)
Level 3 AA can shoot only level 3 units. (Heavy missiles only)

Level 1 flight level units are builders, ground attack units (Gunships, mine bombers, EMP bombers) scouts (fast) and builders.

Level 2 flight level units are all fighers (from 300 to 400 range so they fly different height still), carbet and basic bombers and sonar.

Level 3 flight level units are radar, spy, heavy strategy bombers and nuclear bombers.

tip: Air Superioty fighters fly at level 2, but those attack against normal fighters and bombers on level 2 but can fly to level 3 to fight against heavy strategy bombers.


13) Make the AA flak shooting more vertical than horisontal.

14) Main defence on air are the fighters, not the ground/water units. Make the long range missiles (like mercury) to shoot very long range, but missile to fly slow and make it turn slowly so it has possibility to miss the target if target turns 90 degree when missile is midflight. And missiles should have very small smoketrail after them. Not big, more like the defender has.

15) make most visual effects littlebit smaller. But some others could be much bigger. Like the nuclear expolsion should be about 2-3 times bigger and the effect area as well (and make the anti-nuke range smaller and possibile to get it saturated with nuke, or make it slow to load and nukes very expensive and slow to build. And give somekind nice warning for players that someone has nuke so they can be afraid about it...)

16) Maybe the biggest wish what I have heard from friends, is big development tree. Like Unit level 4 or even level 5. Tech tree would be awesome. Maybe someway do it by morphing the existing units and it would lock down the other morphing options.
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Pxtl
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Re: What do you want to see more of in CA?

Post by Pxtl »

@Fri13 - I don't want to sound like a hater, but I think I disagree with every single one of those. That whole giant wall of text.... no no no no no.

Either way, my current CA wish:

make the unit sizes representative of the unit's cost and power. The Can is widely derided as OP by Arm players who don't realize the darned thing costs over 600 metal. The damned thing should be the size of a Mumbo.
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Re: What do you want to see more of in CA?

Post by Google_Frog »

I don't like most of those suggestions and the rest are already implemented.

1) Flanking is good and making an army and just sending at the enemy is a bad idea. If the map is too small for player count flanking will become worse.

2) There are already very few jack of all trades units.

If you want to control unit speed hold Ctrl when moving, units will move at the slowest speed of the group. Alternately:

Code: Select all

spGiveOrderToUnit(unit, CMD_REMOVE, {1}, {"alt"} )
spGiveOrderToUnit(unit, CMD_INSERT, {1, CMD.SET_WANTED_MAX_SPEED, CMD.OPT_RIGHT, maxVel }, {"alt"} )
3) Defence is reasonably easy to destroy. Any 'level 2' arty will make short work of it, especially tremor. Defence is also better on small maps with many people which is what is normally played.

Meteor tower and Laser are not defence units or any other kind of unit. They are FFA strats. I don't see that more of these units are needed as we've already got 2. For a lighter version use BB. For lighter and mobile the Mech Arty works. For general Arty there are some good options around 1k cost.

4) Why would you want to limit units?

5) That's a massive gameplay rewrite. Lowering speed and increasing HP is not exactly a bad idea but would take a lot of work as a simple game-wide ratio would break balance. If you don't care about balance there is a speedmult and HP mult modoption.

I don't see the point of changing speed and range at the same time. Range is like the inverse of speed. Increased range would generally make the models look silly.

6)
a) They are relatively easy to destroy. They could have a slight health nerf but too much would be ridiculous.

b) No point, it just adds pointless micromanagement. It is impossible to have a building overlapped by 2 different grids as the pylons have (pylon connection range) = 2*(everything else connection range)

c) LOS would be good but may introduce slowdown. It would take work to implement and there doesn't seem to be a need. It would also be a little annoying when placing them in a lumpy area.

d) What?

e) Adding factories would be a pain. At the start of the game the factory would not be able to run as most of the energy is from the comm. Past that point it is trivial so to power a factory that there is no point.

7) Metal transport infrastructure creates an entire new game. Good idea but not CA. There is nothing stopping you from learning lua, taking a handful of CA's models and creating a minimod around energy and metal supply lines. It would be interesting and pylon code could easily be modified for it.

Aircraft carriers had personal fighters last time I looked.

8) Generally more expensive units are larger. A unit twice as expensive won't be twice as tall due to the extra volume. Also size is part of balance, small units are harder to hit and easier to clump. This partially answers Pxtl about the Can. If the Can was a lot larger it would not be able to surround things with as many cans or jump to as many places.

9) No, CA has been moving towards a game about armies of units instead of a game about dancing your comms around the battle. No stronger comm.

10) I am a little confused here. CA has VTOL transports and they are reasonably cheap. The maps people play with the number of people reduce need for transports. On larger maps they will defiantly be good if the enemy has not fighter cover in that area.

If you want to repair 'on the field' you can just make a nano turret bring some cons.

11) Limited arcs on statics would require more interface ect.. which is too much feature creep. The only unit I would want to apply it to is BB. BB already has very slow turn speed which acts as a deterrent to changing firing direction.

12) We're generally against target categories for units as it can be unintuitive and absolute counters. I agree that air needs a bit of redoing.

13) I don't see how this can happen. The only way to affect it is aircraft flying height which is not being changed just for flak.

14) Some think fighters should be the best AA but I don't. This makes the only way to beat air is with other air. Fighters also cover a massive area due to their speed.

15) GFX or AOE? I don't like large common GFX as it is intrusive, the current level in CA is reasonably intrusive.

16) Tech trees are not CA. One of the core aims is to make every unit have a unique role such that all units have the potential to be useful. Their use is based on the situation so in some ways some units are replaced by others as the game progresses. The important thing is that the replacement is caused by a change in situation rather than unlocking a unit that is in every way better. I doubt 5 techs could be created with unit sets as full as what you probably call the 2 techs we have at the moment without creating units that render early units utterly useless. Anyway if more fun units are created why restrict the use of them to the few games that reach later techs? There is also the extra models required for more techs.
Saktoth
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Re: What do you want to see more of in CA?

Post by Saktoth »

Pxtl wrote:@Fri13 - I don't want to sound like a hater, but I think I disagree with every single one of those. That whole giant wall of text.... no no no no no.

Either way, my current CA wish:

make the unit sizes representative of the unit's cost and power. The Can is widely derided as OP by Arm players who don't realize the darned thing costs over 600 metal. The damned thing should be the size of a Mumbo.
Agree absolutely, people are so easily fooled by a units size and think that cost = firepower.

In the case of the can though, i think we should just make it a big hulking beast with massive shoulders and big claws. Its footprint doesnt need to be increased that much, but it would be less compact and more vertical.

Something like ticks, though, would be compromising the units role somewhat. Google is right that it is a balance attribute like any other, like turret turn rate or acceleration.
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Pxtl
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Re: What do you want to see more of in CA?

Post by Pxtl »

Then add special effects to make the power visible - make the Tick constantly radiate energy or something.
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PicassoCT
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Re: What do you want to see more of in CA?

Post by PicassoCT »

I want to join ongoing games, replacing bots init...
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