Game project. Code name : Evolvere

[CarRepairer]

haha, I'm being misunderstood.

When I said I want that to be relatively close to BA, I meant I want something closer to any TA games/mods than Commander&Conquer, warcraft, starcraft or even aoe :D.
I like the overall economic system of TA and how the tiers works, and I want to keep that, that's all. I really don't want to make another A* mod, in fact the gameplay will be probably pretty far from TA.

Perhaps you should have said "TA style economy" then. Saying "Generally speaking, I want it to be relatively close to Balanced Annihilation" has a strong meaning around here, like you want to make a BA fork.

[Pxtl]

Either way, TA-style economy makes me lose interest. I'm sick of metal makers. Good for one game, but I don't need to play a dozen games with that mechanic. Nothing wrong with your game - I'm sure others will like it. I'm just done with the whole metal-maker thing.

[smoth]

on the other hand pxtl, if he strays from ota he better expect a lot of flak. The community here is not fond of change.

[knorke]

on the other hand pxtl, if he strays from ota he better expect a lot of flak. The community here is not fond of change.

To me it looks more like most people are actually sick of seeing ota in all kind of different forms.

Otherwise sad to see you're basing it of of BA, but nice to see it'll have all new models.

Sigh, don't base it off of BA's stats, that is an epic mistake.

well I do not know why you make another *a mod

people will just play BA and it would be a shame to have a wasted project.

Basically dont copy BA .

Either way, TA-style economy makes me lose interest. I'm sick of metal makers. Good for one game, but I don't need to play a dozen games with that mechanic.

[smoth]

these are not the aforementioned people that would bitch.

[Johannes]

It might look like that if you read people on these forums, now go ask the majority in lobby

TA-style economy is fucking good, there's so many subtle ways to change your build, you can always learn more of it so it keeps your interest.

And pxtl if you played BA for example, you rarely have to build metalmakers, it's too aggressive game for that.

Oh and 1 thing that I didn't say earlier: Starting with a specialised commander might not be a good idea, rather make them upgradable from the research or otherwise. Because when you have it at start already, it's not as interesting choice - since to some extent you should be playing to the strengths of the commander you have.
So if you have a "compush commander", your enemy can know that you probably will be compushing even without scouting. imo, it's more interesting if all options are open at the start of the game and you will make the strategic choice only after that. Well it's not black and white, but something to think about :D

[Pxtl]

The thing is the people in the forum are modders and design enthusiasts more than players. The players just want what's familiar - they want to stick to what they already know, so they can re-use their existing skills.

@Johannes - I play BA when there's nothing else to do. With BA, you get two choices:
1) 1v1 that is pure high-speed rape. I can hold my own on kbot maps, but vehicle maps are just too frantic for me. I can't micro a base and intercept jeffies at the same time - if I'm pulling ahead in the micro-game, then my base spam is too slow. If I do the reverse, then my army is dead and a bunch of jeffies pour in the rear and eat me.

2) The alternate option is massive games on porc maps, which are the exact opposite - a fun period of fighting over the midfield until the lines harden, then porc and eco-spam until somebody can put together a bomber swarm.

To me, following the TA-economy produces one of those two options... if you buff the defense, you get (2). If you nerf the defense, you get (1). Either of them I don't enjoy. CA produces a nice balance despite having faster gameplay since its economy forces you to expand (making (2) impossible) and its overpowered LLTs prevent you from facing (1).

[smoth]

I am sorry, please ignore my post, was just a passing thought. DO NO DISCOURAGE THE CREMUSS!

[Google_Frog]

But with new models and sounds he will be able to advertise outside Spring's playerbase.

To me TA economy doesn't mean anything is specific as what it means to Pxtl. TA econ has 2 main, separable, points:

• Constant income and expense
• 2 Incomes; spread out territorial and investment based

I much prefer the constant income and expense to the alternatives as it is much easier to manage army composition. To use most of Spring's metalmaps there will need to be a territorial resource. An investment resource acts as a good stopper to rampart expansion and can provide escalation if there is any way to use it to increase your territorial resource income.

[Wombat]

conclusion - do whatever u like Cemuss, its ur game ;P

nice tanks btw, cant wait to see them textured ( imma hacker and ill find everything :D)

[Pxtl]

@Frog - yes, but from the buildings it looks like Cremuss will be literally following the *A economy model of Energy and Metal with makers to convert E to M. Makers are what I cringe at - micro-intensive geometric growth, combined with the buildpower-as-resource that only increases said micro.

I'm sorry Cremuss, if you're reading this I really don't want to discourage you - I want to make it clear that this is just a personal thing. I'm not saying you aren't making a fantastic game. It's just one following a pattern I'm kind of bored of. It may be the best TA derivative ever, and if so I will recommend it to anyone curious about why TA is so awesome.

[Saktoth]

Wow, a lot of your design goals sound really close to CA, Cremuss!

Generally speaking, I want it to be relatively close to Balanced Annihilation but a few things really annoys me in BA : mainly comdrops, teching and porcing. What I'd like is a ÔÇ£simplifiedÔÇØ gameplay where teching and constructing your base is a little bit less important. Porcing will just be impossible considering the different type and amount of defensive turrets available (I'm even thinking of removing them completely )

We've removed combombing entirely, and teching. You no longer tech upwards, you tech sideways, unlocking more and different, rather than better, units. We've added a lot more mobile units in a wider variety of roles, to make mobile warfare more diverse and interesting, and downplayed the role of static defense (especially because artillery can come at any time, rather than just after a long tech). We removed a lot of the incentive to porc by removing metalmakers, you have to contest territory to get resources.

We also have a range of commanders in the ZK (1faction, which is the IP-free future of the game) fork, which you can see here. Morphs, unlockable upgrades and abilities are all in planning.



We have a lot more factories though. Shield bots, cloaker bots, spiders, jumpers, hovers, vehicles, tanks, gunships, planes, ships and mechs. Each has a very different unit setup, unique abilities and weapons. Each really replaces the factions, so we get 11 factions instead of 2, and you can mix and match a few at a time (but you will -never- use all of them and can only start with 1 at any time).

I'd like to make tiers in a way that the player will still build T1 units in an advanced game. I mean I don't want T2 units to be just T1 units with bigger guns but I'd like them to offer different gameplay and weapons. I know that it's pretty hard to do in term of balancing and all that but well, it's something I seriously think about.

This was precisely our motivation for removing techs! Tanks are good, for breaking open porc (heavy HP assault units and artillery) but not as good early game, when you want fast, light mobile units. But they arent 'better'.

So in design ideals, its very close. Of course, you've taken different paths: almost removed defence entirely, still have techs and mm's, and your Super Powers are quite out there considering what we have for our commander abilities (no free t3 units for 20 seconds- more things like buffs and special weapons). But very similiar philosophically.

[1v0ry_k1ng]

suddenly I want to play this mod

[Cremuss]

CarRepairer > yep I've not been very clear on my intention but I think everyone got it now

Johannes > hmm, interesting, i'll have to think about that more seriously :)

Pxtl > no problem, I understand your point of view but I personnaly don't have any problems with TA economy, I think it's just good so yeah, hopefully I hope the rest of game will make you forget the economy part and enjoying the game :D

Saktoth > ah, that sounds like bad news too me. I didn't even look at your design goals to be honest so I'm a bit unlucky on this. But the fact that we had the same ideas probably means they are good ideas More seriously, even if we plan to do basicly the same things with commanders, it seems that we are taken some different paths so hopefully the gameplay will be very different :)
I'd try to stay away from your design goals anyway :)

I think I'm going for Final Outcome, the same name I had for my old game project. Sounds good to me and sum up a bit what's going on on the game. Google code project creation in progress.

cya

[Pxtl]

img snipped

suddenly I want to play this mod

Those selectable comms are ready-to-play in CA-1Fac right now. Tried them in the last game... but I played the Battle Comm, which is prettymuch the BA comm.

/end threadjack.

[Johannes]

It's pretty easy to differ from CA, just have a more complex economy (that costs aren't 1-1-1 ratios between all resources) and more linear teching paths.
Keeping the usefulness of (most) t1 units in late game too shouldn't be too hard with playtesting, high tier units can be specialised enough in use or cost (e/bt intensive) to force the same t1 stuff be the main army component thrughout the game.

Even in BA t1 units never really lose their usefulness (on most maps), at least before TFC decided to buff t2 tanks to hell.

[Gota]

How did this cool thread get hijacked by CA fans?

Pxtl can you please identify yourself as a rabid CA fan already so anytime you get into a thread about TA/non TA topic people would know what they are dealing with...

We get it...you don't like metal maker economy and think CA is the best.
We also get you present an intentionally skewed portrayal of BA economy relying on the fact the majority plays 8v8 DSD with BA.
Despite the fact a lot play 8v8 DSD with BA(an extremely overcrowded setup that makes metal makers more effective than usual),Smaller BA teams games that are not played on DSD are still much more common than any type of CA games and you hardly see any metal makers in those games,maybe once in a while.
Enough with the nonsensical metal maker economy mambo jambo every time BA is mentioned in some thread.
There are many points where you can criticize BA much like most RTS games but metal maker spam is not one of them.

TA economy is a top tier economy system within the PC RTS world(imo the best).
If someone wants to use it or something similar its already a big plus for that game(as oppose to using red alert eco for example).

[Pxtl]

Gota - I'm not a CA fanboy. I also enjoyed EE, KP, and I've been trying to get into Gundam. CA is simply the non-TA-economy game that gets the most play on the Spring server, so it's the one I have the most experience with.

And metal-makers are only the single most visible problem I have with BA. There's also the brutally unforgiving scouting game and the single-unit-swarm gameplay of the midgame.

[Gota]

Gota - I'm not a CA fanboy. I also enjoyed EE, KP, and I've been trying to get into Gundam. CA is simply the non-TA-economy game that gets the most play on the Spring server, so it's the one I have the most experience with.

And metal-makers are only the single most visible problem I have with BA. There's also the brutally unforgiving scouting game and the single-unit-swarm gameplay of the midgame.

When you say your not a CA fanboy but than keep on talking about how shit you think BA is(stating things you see as problems and that are done differently in CA where they are in your opinion solved) it make it hard to accept your claim.

I think having to worry 99% of the time if your producing the right ratios of your 6 types mix of units in your repeat cycle is not good gameplay.
I think not having the ability to increase your home base's generation of resources to counter a player who grabbed more land is bad gameplay.
I think having facplop 1-1-1 ratios of resources and out of the blue things like boost is not good design.
I think the idea that if you simplify everything, and make your numbers fit well and pretty on paper it will draw players in is a silly idea.

maybe talk about those points and gameplay design and why they are problematic.
If your not a CA fanboy im sure you'v noticed them.

Im not saying CA doesnt have good points but enough indirectly pointing at it constantly like it's the alpha and omega of rts game design every time BA is mentioned...

[smoth]

when you say your not a CA fanboy but than keep on talking about how shit you think BA is(stating things you see as problems and that are done differently in CA where they are in your opinion solved) it make it hard to accept your claim.

I don't care for the way either game does some things but from the outside looking in basic(look I gave you a new name) it looks like he is saying ca has a different approach to a problem with ba. NOT that it IS the solution. Just a different approach.