Next BA update and sequel?

[==Troy==]

I really see no difference between your mod Nixa and all other attempts at replicating OTA, why should it be yours that will get the BA name, and not, say, GOTA's? there were times when he tried to hijack the mod even. And SA seems to be played a lot more than any other "my way of doing BA" mods.

[Nixa]

I don't see any difference between my mod either, mainly because a) I don't have one yet (exclude BA2 which is BA with gfx changes) and b) we are discussing the name and future of BA here not one specific mod. If your wondering why we are fighting for it you haven't really read the previous 60 odd posts, but rather than make you do that I'll put it simple - we will work for the community (both present of which most don't get their say and future growth), not ourselves.

Clearly I wouldn't make a good political leader because I find myself repeating the same thing in 100 different ways

[UAF]

I honestly don't know how a game ever get over the initial lack of players, as said lack is the reason more players won't be too happy to join (they want a game NOW, not waiting).

Do I think removing the DSD only autohosts would help? Yes, a little bit.
They are making the problem worse. They make Spring a one mod, one map game.

This is why I said you should switch server. Have one without those one map autohosts. Get a decent site and get a new playerbase.

I agree that the game should be based around large teams (4v4 and even 8v8 teams). This is defiantly one of Spring's major advantages. I can only get 4v4 in StarCraft 2.

I play Spring because I want epic huge battles.
If what you call skill is micromanaging units, then that's exactly what I don't want.
I want the game to be based around strategic decisions - what to build, when to build it, where to attack from, where to build defenses.

Anyway, I think I'll just repeat myself because I think that's the important bottom line - leave Spring.
Get your own site, your own forum, your own server, your own installer and your own name. Get spazzy new graphics, and go.
That way you avoid those DSD only hosts, the confusing install procedure, the too many mods, and the grumpy players that only like to bash noobs.

(If it wasn't clear, when I said leave Spring I didn't mean don't use the engine or parts of the BA mod. I meant leaving the site, server etc. as I said above).

[Nixa]

Thanks for voicing your opinions UAF, need more doing this.

[UAF]

Hopefully most silent users agree with me.

I'll take the opportunity to mention another important fact.
Sometimes what people *think* they want, is not what they'll really enjoy. This goes pretty much for anything in life, BTW.

Perhaps those DSD autohosts are an example of that.
Whoever made them did it because they wanted (or listened to others who wanted) to play DSD all day long.
I agree that DSD is a very well made map.

However, only DSD all day long probably did eventually get people so bored they left.

(Also, I guess I am partially convinced that DSD only hosts are killing Spring. But I still maintain that they wouldn't be a problem if there were enough players so that 2 DSD hosts wouldn't draw all the players into them.
BTW, isn't it possible to remove those hosts and be done with it?)

[hoijui]

as i said earlier, new models and game logic changes should be two different projects. first, you make a new mod, with a new name with the exact same game logic like BA, but new models. that is the most likely way to get players to switch to your mod, if you advertise it exactly as this "BA with much nicer models!!!!111". do not forget: it is possible, as there was AA before BA.
when you have the players, you can start doing logic changes. in fact, you can do the logic changes in parallel to the new models, just keep them separate, and integrate them into your mod (the released one, the one that people play) after you have the players.
this approach really only has benefits (more then i outlines here), and ... to me it is really just stupid to not do it this way. it is also not even immoral to "trick" the users into using your mod, cause someone could still maintain a copy of your mod with only the model changes, without doing logic ones.

[pintle]

Cosmetic changes really do not interest me at all. Fixing some of the hugely broken, long standing, issues in the current game that gets most play on the engine would really appeal to me. A new models project would imo not draw the users.

I am beyond exasberated in trying to deal with the current intellectual climate/dev proccess on BA in that regard: People parrot the same Noize crap that the mod is balanced and complete and I fucking love t2bomber/stumpy spam, oh yeah lets add t1 rezbots, why can't my amphib mechs fight ships?

I would *hugely* support the "core" BA gamplay being patched up to something vaguely sensible to match the current state of the meta game. I don't think the "conserving current perfect balance" argument has ever had a leg to stand on, changelogs will back me up on this.

Problem is I really do not care enough about BA to follow through on this.

[Gota]

Nixa i appreciate the time you put in but aside from the promise of having a more open development I see no reason why BA should be replaced with BA 2.
One one hand you say you want to somehow improve gameplay while on the other hand you say that BA is balanced based on 1v1 which is completely untrue.
A mod that is balanced for 1v1 would not leave out 80% of all the mod's arsenal out of 99% of all games.
That is called unbalanced and it is indeed unbalanced for 1v1.It IS balanced for team games which is partially why 8v8s on cramped maps are so popular.

I remember some of your changes (unless you made very different changed after your initial big post and big list of changes back than)
And they in no way made the mod more balanced for 1v1 in terms of amount of used units.
BA's 1v1 BA balance failure steamed from the fact most units were unused in 1v1s on most available maps.
There was hardly ever any t2 or t2 and most games ended with t1, making most of the arsenal unusable.
In fact, one might say that if You wanted to integrate BA t2 into 1v1 gameplay you'd need to drastically reduce the amount of units to make it truly fun.
I think BA's arsenal is just way too big for 1v1 games.
BA's huge arsenal works well with players who just wanna toy around with huge amounts of units as oppose to being streamlined for 1v1 games.
I dont understand how a person who says he can improve balance and gameplay can say BA is balanced for 1v1 games.


Like i wrote the only advantage to BA 2 , IMO, is the fact you promise to include models made in the community and promise a more open development, but, you dont say how it will be open...
Are you gonna have votes?
are you gonna just listen to people you like or play with a lot?
You offer no system of making balance or gameplay decisions.
ATM it seems you just made some changes YOU think are good and that is in no way a more "democratic" way of devving(or do you mean that its not democratic now cause YOU offered some balance changes and they were not accepted or implemented by TFC?).

If you want democratic devving to be a staple of BA 2 than put some thought into it?
If all it promises is the balance changes you decide on with a few of your friends,than for all its worth i personally dont see how its more relevant than BA 1.

On the other hand i dont really care if the most played mod is BA or BA2,again for the above reasons.

Though one thing about TFC is that we know for sure he is civil and cool headed.

[knorke]

(If it wasn't clear, when I said leave Spring I didn't mean don't use the engine or parts of the BA mod. I meant leaving the site, server etc. as I said above).

Players could maybe be arsed to run a second lobby to connect to a second spring server if the game hosted there is really really good.
But for another *a mod, no. So current spring players would not change and I do not see why a different server would attract more new players?

The *a market is already over saturated, does not need another
solar cost +4%
flash -15%
commander slope tolerance +1%
mod.
I just do not care to learn all the small differences between games that are basically all the same.

[Johannes]

I still don't see what's the advantage of this new game of yours, over BA. I personally didn't like the changes in your previous forks, didn't really address any core issues I think BA has. Even if I never got around to play them.

How exactly will this new fork be something community-saving, smaller games promoting, backing opinions of the silent majority of (clueless) players? I think I read the whole thread but still couldn't find answers to this.

Oh and I don't think models really affect peoples interest, if it's TA models or TA remakes (or majority of them, some are pretty sweet). If you demand top graphics you simply won't get that from either.

[Nixa]

Well I wanted to keep the how's out of this thread and discuss the why's. This is simply because you simply cannot determine how to do things until they're tried.

I did suggest a system back in one of my earlier threads (I think) for the balance change discussion. Unfortunitly people seem to think that this mod WILL ONLY be balance changes (or at least argue only about balance), and because of that I can't be bothered with this thread much anymore.

@ Gota: The previous mods were just trial stuff to let the community decide if they liked or not (as some were rather large changes ie/ economy). I think that's pretty democratic, and it gives people hands on experience rather than read a raft of negativity that floats threw this forum. There will always be Johannes's out there that refuse to try anything on the merit that it's different. With that said, this is not a continuation of previously testing forks I've done so don't compare them

And no, I do not think BA is balanced for 1v1 currently but that has always been the argument for its balance. I also won't discuss balance changes here. What's the point? noone here actually plays BA much anymore

[UAF]

Players could maybe be arsed to run a second lobby to connect to a second spring server if the game hosted there is really really good.
But for another *a mod, no. So current spring players would not change and I do not see why a different server would attract more new players?

The *a market is already over saturated, does not need another
solar cost +4%
flash -15%
commander slope tolerance +1%
mod.
I just do not care to learn all the small differences between games that are basically all the same.

What I'm saying is make a new mod, even if it is similar to BA (because personally I like most parts of BA). And promote it as a whole new game. Don't even try to appeal to the Spring community. Sure, mention it on the forums and have a link on the Spring site, maybe people would move, but that's not the point.

Have a whole new ans seperate site, new everything and get NEW players. People will try it the same people will stumble upon and try any other open source projects out there. The same way the stumbled upon Spring. Heck, advertise of Facebook and Twitter and some blogs, its a good idea.

The new graphics will then be important. It'll be important because if random guy downloads a game and doesn't like the graphics, there's a good chance he won't continue playing.
Spring is choking itself with one server, too many mods, and about 100 players. You don't really want the BA playerbase. Woohoo, 100 players, yey!

There are millions of potential players out there, and that's your target audiance. And they don't know the name BA, so BA2 will actually be a BAD name. "Super groovy war game" would be better.

As for democracy - democracy is not for game development. Listening to the crowd is good, but you must have a top guy that have the one vote that counts.

tl;dr:
This entire discussion is unneeded. You don't want BA2, you want a whole new game which is as separated from the current Spring as possible, even if 90% of the units are the same.

Actually, I think this is something every mod here should do regardless. BA is perhaps the only mod that can stay with the same server, but it still needs a website, an installer, and some advertising.

[Licho]

Are you talking about CA UAF?
Because we are nearly there. Started as "BA with nicer graphics" 3 years ago, now it's open source game close to be independently released.

[albator]

So why are we so keen on the name? Prior trials show that it is extremely hard for a new mod to take off, you saw it yourself in eternal annihilation, while players are very quick to update to new versions of 'Balanced Annihilation'. It is the difficulty in having a new mod take off that dissuades us from putting in all the initial effort required just to have it flop.

Bingo! The popularity of a spring game isn't based on its own merits as much as it is based on brand recognition.

Which is precisely why TFC is so keen to keep it, and you guys are so keen to take it.

In the end though the only thing you guys can really do what everyone else does about the (un)popularity of their mod, which is "deal with it". Considering how many people around here have been doing tons of work for years, you are not likely to get too much sympathy.

+1

That is the reason why I dont want Nixa call it BA-something

@Nixa The main reason I dont want you to use this name is becasue I dont like the changes you made. You talk about democratic way, but the forom has nothing of democratic actually. Here, it looks like only the nummber of post matter and that posting argument does not matter.

An exemple: issue with baldes: most of the pople on the thread related to that found they were OP, they made wilde talk about their oppeness, then I responded point by point using number here :
http://springrts.com/phpbb/viewtopic.ph ... &start=100


And what did I get ?

No answer cause of course poeple that are talking balanced usually does not know a shit about playing, and that is understandable because player that like to play usually spend more time to play than to post.
And even then, some players that actaully does know to play make on purpose the game unba on one side to play their way: an example among other : jascash that flam so much about blades never talked about draggon flee that could emp one t2 flak, nap it, then nap a goliat, and still, it cost less than a flak... Well some players are just like that, not all but quite a lot on this forom. He never talk about raider costing so much more bp and energy than stumpy and still be faster, more maneovrable, and win 1v1 against raider cause of faster speed...

So Nixa, if you want to use the democatic way to balance, you obiously gonna make a shitty balance.

@TFC : I did not agree with all your modifications but you got the one big achievement (except maintenance ofc ): it is actually to keep BA the most stable as possible so it can be play in a balance way, YES, i weigh my word, did you poeple ever play a 8v8 game that was so much balanced ??? When you thing about it, BA is a really fast game (damage dealth per sec over hp ratio is pretty huge and lot of unit are able to go accross the map quite fast), still on a really small map like dsd, game can last amost one hour. Actually with you panther and croc change, panther are now the t2 stumpy on ffa... same for croc on kbot map


@ gota : Also, you must ask yourself if a balanced game is a game where you use 99% of the unit all the time. You obiously right that only T1 is used on map with a hight metal density and that are not to big, now see this as a problem is not considered to be true by everyone,

@ Nixa:
I definitly agree game could be more balanceed, but using your democratic way will be a faillure. One thing that could actually work better than a democratic way would be to gather a bunch of poeple each one belonging to a category, like you suggest before:
- small game
- team game
- ffa
- porcing/eco game (dsd)
- .. whatever

Except each one has a designated side (arm or core) and is well known to play decently its side, and changes can only be applied if everyone agree (everyone has a VETO). In this way, you might not totally fail.



One last think @ poeple that say they dont want to play a game based on tactical decisions: every RTS is like that; in everygame, if you are attacked with air , you make AA, with raider, you make anti swarm, riot unit... Also those poeple should know not only BA is a really tactical game but a very intensive mico game: if you dont belive so that mean you never pay 1v1. For exmple, in stactaft, when a unit fire on another, it will heat 100% of the time with 100% damage. In BA, the way you move you unit prevent you to be armed. You can also protect youself for janus by building llt with com, etc...

Look like as usual lot (not all of course) of poeple that are here on the forom does not know a lot about the game, that is the reason why

DEMOCRACTIE WILL BE A FAILURE

[Wombat]

ye democractie will fail for sure.

for me its just another 'pro annihilation'

[Gota]

You can make a system of voting and suggesting changes that respects veterancy, playing skills and popularity.
So if you have been playing long well and people see your honestly trying to give constructive suggestions instead of just raging at balance cause u lost a fe wgames your votes would hold more power.

take playing time from lobby plus ratings of people about each players skill and honesty and you get a way to have democratic(with some getting mor e votes than others) voting and balance discussion.

suggestion is placed than anyone can vote but some get more than one vote based on their stats...

[Johannes]

There will always be Johannes's out there that refuse to try anything on the merit that it's different.

Because I'm sceptical of your game obviously it means I hate anything new?
I just want changes that I fully like, it's that simple. Well I don't know exactly what you have in mind, but based on your previous titles unfortunately I'm not too hopeful of the quality.

And judging from 1st post, this thread doesn't look too much like it was meant to be a cool discussion of the whys...

But well, go on and cut the crap, make your mod, including all that non-balance stuff, pick a cool name, play it, and see how it goes.

[Hackfresser]

he guys, check "the cursed"! its gonna be super-cool once its ready!

[UAF]

Do CA and PURE have their own servers?

Also, I'd like to add to the list of reasons new people don't stay in Spring the fact that when you join a battle, its noobs VS veterans.
And we can only get our ass kicked so many times before we give up on the game.

[Licho]

Do CA and PURE have their own servers?

Yes CA has springrts.com

It has been infested by BA lately though :)