I do miss the old SJ XTA. It was a pretty interesting mod for its time.SwiftSpear wrote:Gameplay wise, BA is the most solid mod in spring right now, not counting old SJ versions of XTA that can no longer be found, let alone played on.
As a noob
Moderator: Moderators
Re: As a noob
Re: As a noob
Noize/SJ balanced XTA was very badly balanced in many many ways. Your evaluation is coloured heavily by nostalgia methinks.SwiftSpear wrote:Gameplay wise, BA is the most solid mod in spring right now, not counting old SJ versions of XTA that can no longer be found, let alone played on.
If you want to win with nothing but spider/pyro/aa ship spam, never make t1 veh, make only mini/mobile fusions etc etc etc then by all means play the old versions of xta. After all they have vastly superior balance and graphics.
-
SwiftSpear
- Classic Community Lead
- Posts: 7287
- Joined: 12 Aug 2005, 09:29
Re: As a noob
The whole point of XTA was that you could choose to skip T1 entirely. It basically gave you a plethora of strats to pull right at step 1 and that was the whole game.pintle wrote:Noize/SJ balanced XTA was very badly balanced in many many ways. Your evaluation is coloured heavily by nostalgia methinks.SwiftSpear wrote:Gameplay wise, BA is the most solid mod in spring right now, not counting old SJ versions of XTA that can no longer be found, let alone played on.
If you want to win with nothing but spider/pyro/aa ship spam, never make t1 veh, make only mini/mobile fusions etc etc etc then by all means play the old versions of xta. After all they have vastly superior balance and graphics.
It's not at all like OTA or the current *A mods, where T1 is one battle, and then at around 15 minutes T2 starts with an entirely new battle, and then around 25 T3. It didn't really scale at all, right away you invested into whatever strat you were going to run, and there was very little side tracking. It was a game of countering your opponents strategy, and executing your own strategy as perfectly as possible. There was some adaption if I saw my opponent using X strat, but it was mostly a game with one initial stratigic choice, and the rest relying completely on tactics.
It was fun. Especially if you had a mind for building build orders, or great APM.
Re: As a noob
The only way you could skip t1 is if 2 people lab pile, and even then it was/is for extremely specific "gimmick" rushes, which will fail on anything beyond a quite tight range of map scale (too big to be insta-pwnt by pw/ak rush, too small to be completely out-expanded by t1 eco) The lack of mex builders and t1 energy eco completely crippled t2 with no t1 eco to underpin it.
Pre V9 Competitive XTA basically was AA line compush micro, and hlt pushing (as arm, their hlt had longer range: GG) with an eye to either tek2pyro or tek2spidar as they were the most obviously OP units. Oh and epic t1 gunship spam. Mobfus/minifus were the best t2 eco, cloak/heavy fus were random nubtraps. The sole variation was zipper rush or not (freaker was very up compared to op zipper). Any other strat would fail vs a half decent opponent spamming AA.
T2 AA ships also dominated all other sea units.
Please don't take this as a personal attack Swift, the reason I get so frustrated with people smack talking XTA is that the majority of people who speak negatively about it seem to have significant misperceptions of how it currently plays, let alone how it used to, or how it has developed over the past few years.
Pre V9 Competitive XTA basically was AA line compush micro, and hlt pushing (as arm, their hlt had longer range: GG) with an eye to either tek2pyro or tek2spidar as they were the most obviously OP units. Oh and epic t1 gunship spam. Mobfus/minifus were the best t2 eco, cloak/heavy fus were random nubtraps. The sole variation was zipper rush or not (freaker was very up compared to op zipper). Any other strat would fail vs a half decent opponent spamming AA.
T2 AA ships also dominated all other sea units.
Please don't take this as a personal attack Swift, the reason I get so frustrated with people smack talking XTA is that the majority of people who speak negatively about it seem to have significant misperceptions of how it currently plays, let alone how it used to, or how it has developed over the past few years.
Re: As a noob
We didn't like that aspect of *A mods, so in CA, every factory is buildable by the commander, and many are viable start factories. There are no real tech levels.It's not at all like OTA or the current *A mods, where T1 is one battle, and then at around 15 minutes T2 starts with an entirely new battle, and then around 25 T3.
Re: As a noob
If you played Com dies --> game ends (as at least I did pretty much exclusively back then), there wouldn't be com pushing... . Also I think alot of the statements you made are relatively map dependant. I agree that the lvl 1 gunships were not too bad, but they were also pretty expensive in my memory (and could be taken down by AA with not too great a difficulty). I didn't ever play sea maps, so I can't judge that aspect.
But I can assure you that on maps like Mars (say 4-6 players), you wouldn't be doing very well HLT pushing if your opponent(s) were any good. Yes defenses were very strong, but also expensive and if you invested heavily in them you were asking for a hole to be punched through in one place and your defenceless backyard to be torn up.
-Sean
P.S. Be happy to have you a game of it, if it still runs :)
But I can assure you that on maps like Mars (say 4-6 players), you wouldn't be doing very well HLT pushing if your opponent(s) were any good. Yes defenses were very strong, but also expensive and if you invested heavily in them you were asking for a hole to be punched through in one place and your defenceless backyard to be torn up.
-Sean
P.S. Be happy to have you a game of it, if it still runs :)
Re: As a noob
Even in com dies games you still AA push: better to meet your foe in the field than let your troops die vs his troops+com, AA units really were that op.
Gunships were definitely OP. They have been nerfed and are still better dps and hp for cost than brawlies or rapiers (much more vunerable to aoe (flak, fighters, and mt) and totally fail at skirmishing over hostile aa/repairing (land at 60 anyone?)
Map size was irrelevant: spiders and pyros are some of the fastest units anyway, so they functioned well on large maps. Not to say that panther spam was not completely OP as well...
Yes HLT crawling was less efficient on larger maps with less chokepoints, but the fact that it was not a catch-all gauranteed win strategy does not mean it was not very op, particularly in the case of the arm range advantage.
Taking this thread way too far off topic anyway, suffice to say, Modern XTA>>>>Old XTA
but you will all still play BA and complain XTA is too slow, despite mod options for movement speed, build speed and hp
Gunships were definitely OP. They have been nerfed and are still better dps and hp for cost than brawlies or rapiers (much more vunerable to aoe (flak, fighters, and mt) and totally fail at skirmishing over hostile aa/repairing (land at 60 anyone?)
Map size was irrelevant: spiders and pyros are some of the fastest units anyway, so they functioned well on large maps. Not to say that panther spam was not completely OP as well...
Yes HLT crawling was less efficient on larger maps with less chokepoints, but the fact that it was not a catch-all gauranteed win strategy does not mean it was not very op, particularly in the case of the arm range advantage.
Taking this thread way too far off topic anyway, suffice to say, Modern XTA>>>>Old XTA
but you will all still play BA and complain XTA is too slow, despite mod options for movement speed, build speed and hp
Re: As a noob
Seeing that this thread is derailed beyond all hope, I just wanted to note that I don't play BA, and that I didn't want to make a judgement on current XTA (I haven't played for so long I couldn't). I just wanted to make the point that (in my opinion anyway) XTA was pretty good actually.
-
SwiftSpear
- Classic Community Lead
- Posts: 7287
- Joined: 12 Aug 2005, 09:29
Re: As a noob
I haven't followed XTA since SJ left it.pintle wrote:The only way you could skip t1 is if 2 people lab pile, and even then it was/is for extremely specific "gimmick" rushes, which will fail on anything beyond a quite tight range of map scale (too big to be insta-pwnt by pw/ak rush, too small to be completely out-expanded by t1 eco) The lack of mex builders and t1 energy eco completely crippled t2 with no t1 eco to underpin it.
Pre V9 Competitive XTA basically was AA line compush micro, and hlt pushing (as arm, their hlt had longer range: GG) with an eye to either tek2pyro or tek2spidar as they were the most obviously OP units. Oh and epic t1 gunship spam. Mobfus/minifus were the best t2 eco, cloak/heavy fus were random nubtraps. The sole variation was zipper rush or not (freaker was very up compared to op zipper). Any other strat would fail vs a half decent opponent spamming AA.
T2 AA ships also dominated all other sea units.
Please don't take this as a personal attack Swift, the reason I get so frustrated with people smack talking XTA is that the majority of people who speak negatively about it seem to have significant misperceptions of how it currently plays, let alone how it used to, or how it has developed over the past few years.
I could have sworn mobile fusions were AA, not XTA.
Re: As a noob
No, pintle is right, mobile Fusions were a staple of ARM advanced Economy.
Re: As a noob
Starcraft might be well balanced, but I find it repetitive and uninteresting... the units are too few and too similar. I know simple units allow for complex strategies: that works well for turn based games then you have lots of time to think, but not for an RTS :)Gota wrote:Best advice:play Starcraft for your rts needs.
Its close to free and is getting a major update soon.
Also sports,arguable,the best balance of any rts game,ever.
Molded by 10 years of constant playing and refining.
And you can be sure it will be supported for another 10 years unless blizzard goes under.
I have never played a mod that really felt like TA, although I have heard that there are similar ones, these must be very impopular because then there are no games of a mod I like I am whilling to join I usually give a shot at a mod I dont know that has a game open.
A tip: usually you are only espected to be a decent player in BA, CA and maybe XTA... other mods are so hard and slow to get a game going that most people on then are noobs with a few vets, so you wont get yelled at for being a noob :) Off course you should have a basic idea of how the mod is, you can get a basic idea by running the mod directly with the spring program and toying around with the units and econ.
Re: As a noob
just an observation, but since BA is the most played mod, and seems to draw the highest number of new players simply because they are always likely to be able to find a game of it in the works, it may be the best choice for a newbie just because you'll be more likely to play against other newbies.
don't get me wrong, every mod has its good and bad... but the smaller mods with groups of dedicated players are a bit more tricky to learn just because you're more likely to be facing someone with hundreds or thousands of games of that mod under their belt (with the exception of KP, which i found very easy to pick up and play against someone who had already played a ton of it)
don't get me wrong, every mod has its good and bad... but the smaller mods with groups of dedicated players are a bit more tricky to learn just because you're more likely to be facing someone with hundreds or thousands of games of that mod under their belt (with the exception of KP, which i found very easy to pick up and play against someone who had already played a ton of it)
Re: As a noob
That is true, Spring is somewhat lacking in easy-to-master mods :)
-
Sucky_Lord
- Posts: 531
- Joined: 22 Aug 2008, 16:29
Re: As a noob
Do you have any data or figures or proof to support that bold statement?Ugly; players (in average) are least helpful in spring community; is fairly easy to make major gameplay mistakes
I dont like this idea that people have of BA players being unhelpful and rude. If any newbs have any questions on the game or want to learn some strats, ask me and ill help.
Re: As a noob
don't take it personal he is saying in general. I find that in general BA players are rude, then again I think most players are in any game not just ba. Just because you are an exception to a generalization doesn't mean he is talking about you, feel glad you are not the norm in the statement. Love the avatar btw, one of the best games in a long time.
Re: As a noob
Smoth,is your avatar a Gundam shaped like a dog?
Re: As a noob
The most played mod is, for now, BA.
Because it's simple to understand.
The second is CA.
CA is in a more "rushing" game. There is no way you can defend when outnumbered (or, at least, no in the extend of BA), then the games can be very shorts. Take more metal patches than the ennemies or die.
There is also some "l33t" spirit in his players. CA "exclusive" players like to think they are more mature and all others mods are "bads".
After that, there is XTA. Rarely play this one, then i can't give advice.
The fourth is NOTA.
Interresting mod. Slower than the others, very well balanced even if all the statics cons (the com is a building, for example) are a little confusing in what each can do.
The better navy of all the "big" mods, easily. But when you dominate the sea, there is no way you can lose the game.
1944 is a game about WW2. More sides than others mods (but only in the anglo-saxon view of the war : Russians, English, Americans and Germany - The fact Japan is not here is probably from the fact the japanese ground army was effective only in some terrains, as moutain islands).
No statics defenses.
After that, there is very few mod played openly (in passworded battlerooms, it's probably another thing, but still).
Because it's simple to understand.
The second is CA.
CA is in a more "rushing" game. There is no way you can defend when outnumbered (or, at least, no in the extend of BA), then the games can be very shorts. Take more metal patches than the ennemies or die.
There is also some "l33t" spirit in his players. CA "exclusive" players like to think they are more mature and all others mods are "bads".
After that, there is XTA. Rarely play this one, then i can't give advice.
The fourth is NOTA.
Interresting mod. Slower than the others, very well balanced even if all the statics cons (the com is a building, for example) are a little confusing in what each can do.
The better navy of all the "big" mods, easily. But when you dominate the sea, there is no way you can lose the game.
1944 is a game about WW2. More sides than others mods (but only in the anglo-saxon view of the war : Russians, English, Americans and Germany - The fact Japan is not here is probably from the fact the japanese ground army was effective only in some terrains, as moutain islands).
No statics defenses.
After that, there is very few mod played openly (in passworded battlerooms, it's probably another thing, but still).
Re: As a noob
Hold on a minute.vampi2 wrote:The second is CA.
CA is in a more "rushing" game. There is no way you can defend when outnumbered (or, at least, no in the extend of BA), then the games can be very shorts. Take more metal patches than the ennemies or die.
There is also some "l33t" spirit in his players. CA "exclusive" players like to think they are more mature and all others mods are "bads".
Don't label all of the CA players with Otherside's rabid fanboy elitism. I do think the CA player base is more tolerant and helpful to new players, due to not being the most popular mod. Most CA players are open to other mods, we just prefer CA, the way anyone in spring has a mod they like the most. In addition to CA I also play Kernal Panic, and once in a while I'll play Spring: 1944.
Re: As a noob
too much conjecture in this thread. The OP of the thread probably has already played the mods in question by now.