Eternal Annihilation (v1.04)

[momfreeek]

But pxtl suggestion isn't about changing the balance, its about unit behaviour, gameplay, fun. Game designers also beta test their games on many new players to see how they like playing it. This is important as new players point out annoyances that the old players have long gotten used to.

Obviously proficient players are much more useful for fine balance discussion. Still, does this give them the right to insult people less proficient than themselves and shout down any suggestion just because it might require some subsequent rebalancing?

[Gota]

changing how units behave is changing the balance.
He didnt insult him dont be so melodramatic.

[Johannes]

If you want to convince others that something would make the game more fun overall, maybe "I dont like it" is still a pretty empty argument by itself...

For someone who doesn't like complex games, a BA derivative still probably won't appeal even if you change some few things to be easier to control.

[momfreeek]

changing how units behave is changing the balance.

A suggestion to make the game more fun that has the side affect of changing balance is not a balance suggestion. You can't just discard the suggestion as a balance change while ignoring the stated reason for the change.

He didnt insult him dont be so melodramatic.

Ok. I thought johannes was unnecessarily rude. I don't really see much difference.

If you want to convince others that something would make the game more fun overall, maybe "I dont like it" is still a pretty empty argument by itself...

thats all you read? the arty behaviour that pxtl did not like was described and a suggestion made for improvement. Perhaps you should let others decide for themselves what will convince them before you tell someone they are not qualified to speak?

[Johannes]

If you want to convince others that something would make the game more fun overall, maybe "I dont like it" is still a pretty empty argument by itself...

thats all you read? the arty behaviour that pxtl did not like was described and a suggestion made for improvement. Perhaps you should let others decide for themselves what will convince them before you tell someone they are not qualified to speak?

Yes he described what he doesnt like, and made a suggestion for it... But as I said, he didn't provide any argument to support his suggestion than his own preference.

[momfreeek]

and I suppose your response of "I like it" was, in contrast, a brilliant counter-argument? Still, enough of that sillyness, we both know there was far more reasoning made by both sides.

I mean, really, how is not liking something and suggesting how it could be changed not a valid opinion? Why can others not agree with it?

[Wombat]

You DEGRADE the balance by listening to newbies that just want to change something they don't yet master or people who hardly play and are trying to make the game into something completely different.

if self-called pros ideas were good, we would play 'pro annihilation' now, but we dont, coz changes sucked and it was crap rly. in spring community only thing u can do is to aim for a as big audience as possible, not to get around 10 'good' players. also, u should seriously stfu johan, u put ur nose in every possible subforum, saying 'ur ideas sux' to everyone and then give worthless suggestions urself, which nobody even take into consideration. kkthxbai

[Pxtl]

*sigh* - I've been playing OTA/AA/BA/whatever since the '90s. I just have, y'know, a life, so I never get the time required to put in to get as good as the pros at BA.

I played BA until I felt that better things had come along, and now I've stopped playing BA unless it's the only option... and believe me, that's a pretty common case.

I'm not arguing about balance. Balance comes second. Balance comes *after* you make the game fun to play, then you tweak it to make sure you keep the depth of play.

The point of this project is to make the kind of breaking changes that shouldn't be done in BA. Like finding a way to make l1 artillery more fun to use. Nobody's saying "the L-arty's short range exists for a good reason". All anybody's saying is "you are not as good a player as me, therefore your experiences of being annoyed with the L-arty's gameplay are invalid". I could understand the argument "the L-arty is meant to be a fiddly, difficult unit because we want to discourage artillery-oriented play and encourage moar stumpeh". That makes sense. But nobody's said that.

[Niobium]

Things being annoying and fiddly is not a good method to "balance" units.

The problem with arty is that while it outranges HLT according to the stats, in practice it ends up getting hit, a lot, and dies quickly. Now the reason for this is due to both constant and random mechanics.

The constant mechanics are; Hitsphere too large, hitsphere larger than model would lead you to believe (see wolverine), laser weapon overshoot, and arty over-driving into range. All these mechanics can be averted by a skilled player, albeit with some purely tedious micro (i.e. getting arty perfectly into range vs attack order)

Now, while I could start an argument how tediousness is not a good replacement for skill, I'll skip that and go to the true problem, the random mechanics. Basically the problem lies in radar dots and radar dot drift. The radar dot drifting up or down causes over and under shoot, while the radar dot drifting back and forward causes moving in and out of range of the HLT.

As a player, no matter how skilled you are, you cannot tell the position of the radar dot of each of your units. What this means is that when it comes to using arty, you can never be sure if your arty will be safely out of range with the dot hanging back, or will the dot be forward and cause the hlt to shoot? And if it is forward, will it be up high enough to cause the overshoot required? This problem is exacerbated by the artys large hitspheres and low HP, making any misjudgment of this unpredictable mechanic very costly very quickly, and it only gets worse as you add more artillery units, each with their own random radar dot.

But hey, maybe you want to argue that random mechanics that the player can't see are good for the game, I don't think they are, especially for any high-skill game.

The solution to this is of course to shrink the hitspheres and possibly buff the range a little, such that an attack command on an HLT is sufficient to not gamble the life of the unit on a randomly moving radar dot you cannot see.

Edit: Hitspheres have actually been fixed

[Johannes]

At first you definitely gave the impression that you think arty is too weak instead of too annoying, or gave no argument why your change would be good. So I gave info on how to use it, that was not good enough cause you don't want to play like that cause it's too tedious. Myself I don't find it annoying or very hard to use unit, compared to using most other units... Imo it's just good that arty needs at least some micro, otherwise it would be really dull unit to use, just right-click and wait.

Arty hitsphere definitely isn't too big, you mightve gotten the impression in previous BA/EA versions when all hitspheres were bugged. They wont ever get hit by hlt if shooting from max range, not on flat ground at least. There is a unit with that problem though, Fido.

And pxtl are you implying that people can't both have a life and be good at BA? XD

[momfreeek]

And pxtl are you implying that people can't both have a life and be good at BA? XD

Seriously, why not lay off the personals and stick to discussing the game? Why should he tell his life story to avoid being rudely denounced by you?

[Gota]

And pxtl are you implying that people can't both have a life and be good at BA? XD

Seriously, why not lay off the personals and stick to discussing the game? Why should he tell his life story to avoid being rudely denounced by you?

why dont u actually be objective if u wanna mediate?
Pxtl threw an indirect attack there,codnamn that,white knight.

[momfreeek]

lol, yeah right, johannes is just a sweet innocent family man who never insulted anyone. "I never started it, honest "

[Hobo Joe]

Its one thing to talk about general game design and its another thing to offer balance changes for a game you hardly play and even if you do, not in games that actually stress test the balance.

Here is a good rule of thumb.If you suck in 1v1 stay out of balance discussions.
All game balancers in commercial games play the game they are balancing and are proficient in it and also are attentive to the best players.
That's how you achieve good balance...
You DEGRADE the balance by listening to newbies that just want to change something they don't yet master or people who hardly play and are trying to make the game into something completely different.

Johan has an excellent point cause Pxtl keeps giving balance advices yet hardly plays BA and is not at all proficient at it and same here since the changes in EA are changes to BA to supposedly solve balance issues(at least partially for that reason).

QFMFT


pxtl, I'm glad you enjoy the discussion so much but please go play the game for a while before making more uninformed statements.



Balance is about listening to the best players. ALWAYS. If you listen to the lower-tier and balance according to their suggestions it will turn out bad. Always.

[Hobo Joe]

Internet fail double post

[Wombat]

u are both totally stupid. first of all, he meant that 'he had no time to play ba/w/e to become actually 'pro''. u got strange definition of 'attacking' someone. secondly, read his post again, he is not talking about balance but having fun.

spring retards ftw

[momfreeek]

i think T1 arty should be tweaked.
the range should be increased a little. microing vs hlts is just bothersome right now.

Arty gets pushed into hlt range only if you suck.

Johannes, I know you love tediously microing every single action of every single unit, but if I wanted that i'd play StarCraft.

Actually I'm much more an economic player than someone to micro my units very carefully. I just hate the mindset that something that requires care and attention to use is bad and enough reason to change balance.

I'm not arguing about balance. Balance comes second. Balance comes *after* you make the game fun to play, then you tweak it to make sure you keep the depth of play.

Balance is about listening to the best players. ALWAYS. If you listen to the lower-tier and balance according to their suggestions it will turn out bad. Always.

Seriously, what is with this ridiculous attitude of assuming that every suggestion is a balance suggestion. Top level balance is not the only consideration in game design and it is perfectly valid to gather feedback and ideas from non-top-level players. This is NOT BA!

Niobium has dissected the issue very thoroughly and johannes did then add something useful to the discussion (that hitsphere's have been fixed).

[Hobo Joe]

momfreek: There is no problem with making changes to make the game more fun. But there is a problem with making those changes without also considering the balance implications.


I'm not sure why you're so set on defending pxtl's honor. Everyone on these forums feeds on the insults of others, except you apparently.



Anyway, in response to the discussion, while arty is basically built to counter HLT, it does a bad job because it's move speed and damage are so low, that by the time you get enough arty's in position to deal with an hlt, the player who built the hlt has had plenty of time to build one or three more, plus llt/beamer/mobile units etc, and hlt can basically be repaired indefinitely by a com or 2 cons/nano's unless there are 4 or more arty, which if your factory is set back a little ways could easily have taken 3 or more minutes to get set up.

HLT is built for range, not for its damage output, which is actually pretty small considering its cost and build time, and unless it has heavy support it can be taken down much quicker and easier with a few flash/stumpy.


Basically what I'm saying is that arty is borderline useless. It's annoying to be harassed by them, but they actually have very little effect on any front that is well-supported.

[KaiserJ]

no shut up

[Hobo Joe]

no u