who is currently maintaining BA? - Page 2

who is currently maintaining BA?

Classic game design, maintained to please you...

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Lord Juzza
Posts: 60
Joined: 20 Jan 2009, 11:50

Re: who is currently maintaining BA?

Post by Lord Juzza »

The BA Devs think BA is finished and only needs little tweaks. But as this is the major mod played and there are SO many amazing mechanics and variety you can implement in spring by even just modifying unit stats it's such a shame that they just sit around passively letting it stagnate.

On top of that there might as well be no maintains because do you know what maintainers do, they maintain a mod, they fix bugs they refine things. In the last two and half months BA has undergone four changes two of which affected the game at all. And those changes consisted of a few lines of code and moving some files one directory to another. Obviously the back breaking burden of maintaining BA is just too much for some even when people offer to fix shit for them.

BA does have certain game play tropes that people enjoy, like teching for 15 minutes and rushing powerful units. Which they want to keep, which is fine, that's what they want seemingly. But the utter lack of updates, bug fixes and new additions to the game proves that the devs don't give two shits about BA or making it better in anyway.

As for Senna, I'd wager the changes you make to BA will make little affect on game play because what dictates games more then anything else is the way eco works. Especially on the shit storm map that is DSD, which seems to be your focus. However changes like Guardians costing less will only encourage people to tech rather then fighting.

Also there's no percentage of players that think anything in particular and unless you've made polls or have some statics to prove what you're saying stop saying 75% of players or 80% of players think this and that when they are arbitrary numbers you've pulled out of your ass.
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Johannes
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Joined: 17 Sep 2010, 15:49

Re: who is currently maintaining BA?

Post by Johannes »

Everyone likes balance tweaks, but only if they go in the exact direction they personally want.

It's kinda bullshit to say experienced players are more averse to change (have not almost all major suggestions to change BA come from veterans?).
And it's easier for a veteran to relearn the game too, who understands more of how the game works and how changes affect the game, than for a mediocre player who mostly copies the veteran or just does something random.

Many things are pretty universally considered flawed too but nothing gets done when people can't agree on a fix to it. But in such situation maintaining status quo is usually the best, since it allows for the problem to possibly fix itself due to strategic/tactic evolution, or somebody coming up with a brilliant idea that pleases (almost) everyone.
And if a problem is with a specific map, just change the map of course.
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very_bad_soldier
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Joined: 20 Feb 2007, 01:10

Re: who is currently maintaining BA?

Post by very_bad_soldier »

Johannes wrote:Everyone likes balance tweaks, but only if they go in the exact direction they personally want.

It's kinda bullshit to say experienced players are more averse to change (have not almost all major suggestions to change BA come from veterans?).
Good to know thats bullshit, thanks for letting me know... while still supporting my point :P Yes, only vets care for balance tweaks, thats why only they propose them. But everyone proposes a different set of changes and leaves the community if another set gets implemented.

So how many casual players do you see here or in the lobby that baaawww about balance changes and want to leave because of some tweaks? How comes I see the same ~15 names complaining everytime it comes to balance tweaks?
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Beherith
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Joined: 26 Oct 2007, 16:21

Re: who is currently maintaining BA?

Post by Beherith »

very_bad_soldier wrote: Good to know thats bullshit, thanks for letting me know... while still supporting my point :P Yes, only vets care for balance tweaks, thats why only they propose them. But everyone proposes a different set of changes and leaves the community if another set gets implemented.

So how many casual players do you see here or in the lobby that baaawww about balance changes and want to leave because of some tweaks? How comes I see the same ~15 names complaining everytime it comes to balance tweaks?
QFT.

Juzza: I didnt notice that, thanks for calling my attention to it, added to SVN.
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sillynanny
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Joined: 20 Jun 2008, 14:26

Re: who is currently maintaining BA?

Post by sillynanny »

jamerlan wrote:
sillynanny wrote:BA is not supposed to evolve.
Senna made lot's of interesting changes like 50% cheaper punisher or guardian.
Look, I'll give you one thing, that line you wrote is fucking hillarious. It shows you know nothing about how BA works, or how balance changes affect gameplay.

But look, that doesn't matter. You are not expected to know these things.

What you need to learn is respect and humbleness.

BA (AA, TA) has been worked on by a lot of very talented people for over a DECADE. Have you even been alive a decade?

A decade of game designers, gamers, artists and just people with interesting opinions constantly working to improve the game. And then you arrive and claim BA should change to make some defensive unit stronger so you can tech and not fight T1. T1 is part of BA.

When you have a very complex, fine-tuned system that has been worked on for this long, you can't just arrive with ignorance and good intentions and improve it.

In fact, you can't improve BA unless you have played it and its ancestors for a decade, I'd say.

BA is open-source and as such it is subject to natural selection. How about you and your friends make the changes you like and release it? You can, its legal and if others join you you could kill BA in favour of your version with cheap guardians playing tennis forever. Ah wait, many have tried and failed. Did you even know that?
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jamerlan
Balanced Annihilation Developer
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Joined: 20 Oct 2009, 13:04

Re: who is currently maintaining BA?

Post by jamerlan »

sillynanny wrote:...
And then you arrive and claim BA should change to make some defensive unit stronger so you can tech and not fight T1. T1 is part of BA.
...
Looks like you misunderstand me. I mean that Senna made many units more useful. Punisher and guardian were called "noob cannon" or something like that because it cost incredible amount of metal and it was not effective in most cases. Cheaper guardians - was just example :-D Senna made many other changes that helps to break such defensive structures and made game more dynamic.

For example, Senna made "DSD Remix" map and I played it many times. And many times game was ended before anyone go t3.
sillynanny wrote: How about you and your friends make the changes you like and release it? You can, its legal and if others join you you could kill BA in favour of your version with cheap guardians playing tennis forever.
BA needs maintainer and we discussing it. I like BA and want to see it alive. So I propose Senna for this role.

P.S. I am not friend of Senna because I don't know him. But I like that he has many good ideas, experience and enthusiasm to work on BA and make it better!
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Licho
Zero-K Developer
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Joined: 19 May 2006, 19:13

Re: who is currently maintaining BA?

Post by Licho »

Well ZK is BA on the next level :) After 4 years of intense development..
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SirArtturi
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Joined: 23 Jan 2008, 18:29

Re: who is currently maintaining BA?

Post by SirArtturi »

very_bad_soldier sure those things are currently much more important than balance tweaks, but on the other hand, while nobody is not going to do anything about them, you can do balance tweaks meantime.

BA is a working game, no doubt, but it could be a lot better, thats what bothers me. There are still flaws, there are uselesss units, and you could do something about it.

I'm very happy that commander napping situation got fixed at last, but is the game ready now?

When people call BA developer a maintainer it's reasonable to ask this question: are we done now?

I'd like to see BA developed, not maintained.
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SirArtturi
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Joined: 23 Jan 2008, 18:29

Re: who is currently maintaining BA?

Post by SirArtturi »

sillynanny:

How profane! Don't come here desecrate our holy temple! Ancestors!

No offense but who is being silly here? :P

You have a point, but it's as one-dimensional as jamerlan's.

The guardian cost reduction is at least something. The unit is useless, not worth of it, and a total noob trap. So why not trying to fix the situation?

But yes, ofc there would be other ways...
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AF
AI Developer
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Joined: 14 Sep 2004, 11:32

Re: who is currently maintaining BA?

Post by AF »

If such a large number of people don't like the changes in a BA release, they should just keep playing the previous release, mass ragequiting is just stupid.
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sillynanny
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Joined: 20 Jun 2008, 14:26

Re: who is currently maintaining BA?

Post by sillynanny »

The guardian is not useless. It is only a noob trap because it is a defensive structure and noobs play too defensively.

The guardian buys you time, because you can make it at t1 and it can be expensive to kill with t1, if it is combined with more defense. In many situations, buying time is more important than economic cost. Now if your enemy sees you making a guardian, he will know that you are not assembling an attack and he can tech safely, using that same time to his advantage, gaining the advantage of T2 over your T1 with guardian.

Paper, meet scissors.

There is a reason things are as they are, and just because you don't understand it you shouldn't be pushing for changes.

As for Senna, I have nothing against or in favour. I wish him the best of luck, but the job of BA maintainer is a job of keeping the status quo, which means you have to understand, respect and love that status quo.

You can make other games. ZK is full of new stuff and keeps pushing the engine to the limits.
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sillynanny
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Re: who is currently maintaining BA?

Post by sillynanny »

SirArtturi wrote:sillynanny:

How profane! Don't come here desecrate our holy temple! Ancestors!

No offense but who is being silly here? :P
It wasn't me who said that.
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very_bad_soldier
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Joined: 20 Feb 2007, 01:10

Re: who is currently maintaining BA?

Post by very_bad_soldier »

sillynanny wrote:There is a reason things are as they are, and just because you don't understand it you shouldn't be pushing for changes.
sillynanny wrote:The guardian is not useless. It is only a noob trap because it is a defensive structure and noobs play too defensively.

The guardian buys you time, because you can make it at t1 and it can be expensive to kill with t1, if it is combined with more defense. In many situations, buying time is more important than economic cost. Now if your enemy sees you making a guardian, he will know that you are not assembling an attack and he can tech safely, using that same time to his advantage, gaining the advantage of T2 over your T1 with guardian.
You are seriously saying the guardian is a defensive structure? The first time you mentioned it I thought you were kidding.
The guardian is a noob trap because it only APPEARS to be a defensive structure. In fact its proc breaker meant to actually prepare an attack. At least thats my understanding of it...
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knorke
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Re: who is currently maintaining BA?

Post by knorke »

...and to work the guardian itself gets surrounded with porc.
So think of Justin Bieber doing an anti-Rebecca Black song.
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Johannes
Posts: 1265
Joined: 17 Sep 2010, 15:49

Re: who is currently maintaining BA?

Post by Johannes »

Guardian already is good in the right circumstances, and I don't think the game would benefit from seeing more guardians. In the end artillery creep is just not that fun if it's too common/easy.
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sillynanny
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Re: who is currently maintaining BA?

Post by sillynanny »

very_bad_soldier wrote: You are seriously saying the guardian is a defensive structure? The first time you mentioned it I thought you were kidding.
The guardian is a noob trap because it only APPEARS to be a defensive structure. In fact its proc breaker meant to actually prepare an attack. At least thats my understanding of it...
The noobs use it defensively, which is what was talked about. Its better to break porc with something that will move with you on to their next porc.

If you break porc by spending more metal in static buildings than they did, are you really winning?
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MidKnight
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Joined: 10 Sep 2008, 03:11

Re: who is currently maintaining BA?

Post by MidKnight »

Guys.

Guys you're all doing it wrong.

What BA needs is a magnetic version.
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smoth
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Re: who is currently maintaining BA?

Post by smoth »

not enough japanese cartoon robots.
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Johannes
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Joined: 17 Sep 2010, 15:49

Re: who is currently maintaining BA?

Post by Johannes »

sillynanny wrote:If you break porc by spending more metal in static buildings than they did, are you really winning?
Sometimes very much yes. The guardian gives you a big zone of control, valuable in itself since it turns the initiative over to you, and in a good situation you get to reclaim the wrecks of those turrets, and still have the option to reclaim your own guardian too if it later turns obsolete.

And someone using a unit in a bad way is hardly a concern, since that's definitely not limited to guardians.
luckywaldo7
Posts: 1398
Joined: 17 Sep 2008, 04:36

Re: who is currently maintaining BA?

Post by luckywaldo7 »

very_bad_soldier wrote:I argue that 75% of the player base is not that keen on balance tweaks as some people here seem to think. You guys forget that 75% (roughly estimated) are casual gamers that just want to have some fun games who dont care if a flash tank costs 120m or 130m if they have their fun.

I am not saying they totally dont care but I guess there are lots of points that would have a higher priority on their list: a proper UI, Save/Load-support, a BA website (including player forum, unit stats, replays), a proper installer etc etc. All that is stuff that a BA maintainer could put work into to take BA to the next level. There is sooo much more to do about BA than just tweaking some balance stats :/
What BA needs is VBS already nailed it. ^
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