Moderator: Moderators
Wrong. Its long periods of boredom, short periods of terror, then permenant periods of being dead.Zoombie wrote:Its fun, and in my opinion I would rather have an unrealistic fun game then a realistic boring as all hell game.
War is really just long periods of bordom interspaced with moments of horrific, bowel clenching terror.
And later in the thread, I clarify a few points:I just sunk my teeth into COH this evening.
I must say, there are some things that SupCom can learn from it, both in successes and failures.
It is a good game, there is no doubt about that. It manages to simulate quite well a number of WWII strategies and tactics. The use of terrain and cover is excellent.
However, there are some major pitfalls with the design, in my opinion.
The pace is simply far too quick. Not simply for my tastes, but for the game itself. This is primarily because you as the player are spending far more time jumping around and ensuring your units are using their special abilities, and not doing anything stupid, then commanding your forces to perform various maneuvers.
I think this is a very important lesson for SupCom. Because of lots of little overlooked AI-farts, as well as a general game-design in favour of upgrades and special abilities, the result is a system where the "big picture" is very much lost in favour of small (and what should be insignificant) details.
To give some examples.
AI-farts: Units will not automatically capture a point (the Z ripped system is otherwise good), but will loaf around letting the enemy earn resources until you order them to capture a point. This means that you are perpetually jumping around ensuring that your units are capturing points.
Units will not attempt to vacate a building that is about to collapse, meaning that during a heavy firefight, you have to be jumping around if you decide to occupy buildings, so that they don't get caught in collapses.
Unintuitive Game Design: Basic infantry will have a number of special abilities available to them, such as tossing grenades or explosive satchels. These abilities make these units quite formidable, as it means they are capable of dealing large splash damage, assuming they can get close enough, or are able to deal with vehicles or structures, which they are otherwise useless at. However, these abilities will not be activated automatically if the unit's have the opportunity (ie: if there is a tank massacring them, they will not throw a satchel charge unless ordered too. If there are several infantry within range, they will not toss a grenade. Furthermore, upon being instructed to toss said devices, they will not get out of the way (nor will other friendly troops), unless ordered too). This essentially means that you have to be rushing around ensuring that your units are always throwing grenades, or using satchel charges if they run into a vehicle. You are concentrating on what is essentially an insignificant detail that should be automatic (or, optionally automatic). Instead of thinking "Should I flank? Should I hold the line? Should I retreat?" You think "are my units throwing their grenades?".
Similar issues exist with other troops with special "powers" which give them the ability to deal with certain units that they would otherwise be unable to deal with. For example, armour piercing bullets which allow an MG to deal with light armour (or armour piercing shells allowing a light AT gun to deal damage to heavier armour). Though these units have the ability to deal with these enemy classes, they will not use them, and will rather fire using their ineffectual alternative fire, until you give the specific order for them to use the special firing mode.
Again, this means that you are jumping about like a lunatic trying to ensure that all your units are firing appropriate ammunition.
Unit Upgrading: Unit upgrading is such that every time you put out a unit, you have a plethora of options available to you. This means that beyond making the original decision at the "factory", you have heaps of further decisions to make once that unit is produced. During an extended firefight, this is immensely frustrating, as it means that you are having to click three or four times (with reasonable waits in between) before your unit is ready to operate the way you want it too. During lulls in combat, it means that every unit you produce has to be mused over three or four times before you are ready to roll. You have to go through this process every time you want to build a new unit.
There are other issues, but I won't go into them. Again, the above are some criticisms which are relevant to supcom. COH is still a very good game, and is quite fun to play (though at times frustrating). It gets away to some extent with much of the above given the smaller scale of it's engagements, too.
Points which I draw from these for SupCom:
1) Focus must always be maintained on the bigger picture, so that we can make grand strategic decisions without being bogged down to much in detail. If we want to immerse ourselves in detail, this should be available (almost necessary for the better players). But at no point should the game be forcing you to fiddle about on the small scale or risk catastrophic punishment if you don't. In a sense, it must be intuitive.
2) It is essential that at no point should we have to tie the shoelaces of our own troops. They need to find the balance between not having enough automation and doing stupid things (ie: sitting about while they are being shot at, or sitting about while a comrade nearby is being shot at), and having too much automation [the microsoft word syndrome], and doing stupid things (ie: charging rambo into heavy enemy entrenchments on their own). Offering plenty of automation, and then giving the player the ability to strip these back, and adjust these through unit stances is an effective way of accomplishing this.
3) Individual unit upgrades have no place in SupCom. The only place I want to see individual unit upgrades is on the Commander, and that's only ok because you only get one of those. Even in COH, where unit numbers are infinitesimal compared to SupCom, the player is completely overwhelmed with the need to constantly upgrade his forces, either through making "decision" upgrades (where an upgrade decision forks a unit type), or "inevitable" upgrades (where an upgrade is an inevitable bonus for that unit, and the only restriction is time and money). Furthermore, this design concept is inferior to the simple TA-style system. If I want an anti-tank unit, I'll build an anti-tank unit. If I want a machine gunner, I'll build a machine gunner. It's one click, it means I can que exactly what I want, and it means I don't have to muck about with units once they come out. It doesn't mean that I have to build a "Generic Infantryman", and then decide from there whether I want him to have the anti-tank upgrade, or the machine-gun upgrade, etc.
4) User-Activated special abilities should not exist in SupCom, for all save the experimentals and the commanders. Where they do exist, it is essential that the units are intelligent enough to utilise these by themselves (make this an optional automation, if need be).
I believe a little while ago there was discussion regarding Cybran tanks, which appeared to be firing both machine-gun fire and continuous-beam fire. I really hope that this is not a user activated switch which somehow changes the ability of the unit.
Eh, if it reads a bit strange, it's because I made my statements, reread it, and realised they were too strong, and then put in some modifiers to soften them up a bit
Still, I think that what I said makes sense. Automation should be present, and should be intelligent. However, for players who desire it, there should be a way for this to be stripped back.
To give a clear example, most of the time I want my units to engage the enemy at will if they encounter them, as well as maneuvre to make themselves more difficult to hit/find a better firing position. I want them to help comrades nearby if they come under fire. Basically, I want to be confident that if I'm not watching them at every moment, they will be able to hold their own. However, say I want my units to hold their fire, or to hold position - these are stances that quite clearly conflict with the above automation. Hence, buttons should be present to allow the player to edit this, so that the unit knows "ok, he wants me to hold this position, so I won't stray far from here."
That is what I meant by unit automation that can be altered by players.
To explain what I meant with regards to special abilities and micromanagement, here is a direct example. Here is how I would have dealt with the grenade/exp-pack equipped infantry.
Infantry would automatically throw grenades at clumps of infantry, or buildings, and would automatically throw exp-packs at buildings and tanks, when they are in range.
The 'grenade' button would still exist, and this allows players to give their units specific orders to use grenades on targets that our outside their range. It is also useful in conjunction with the next point.
Given that grenades cost 'munitions' to throw (not a clever game design feature, IMO), perhaps you are trying to conserve your munitions, and don't want your troops throwing grenades whenever they feel like it. Thus, a button should exist, showing whether units may 'use special abilities at will', or not. This would be useful in instances where you are perhaps charging with a mass of infantry, and you don't want your troops grenading friendlies.
In the above example, you have the automation available to you, and this would be the default stance which your units would use for the majority of the game. Things like this are designed to remove the onerous chore type gameplay elements, allowing you to focus on the bigger picture.
However (And this is where the 'better players will micro more' stuff comes in), in certain instances, you may not want your units to use their automated behaviour. You may want to strip it back a little. Stripping it back effectively gives you more and more control over your units, which you would use for special engagements. Most of the time, your units will perform intelligently, at about 80-90% of their power (for reference, I'd say unmicromanaged infantry in COH operate at about 40-50% of their power), meaning that you can be confident leaving them on their own. For that 10-20% of power, or for very precise tasks, you can strip back their automation (or simply override it using the grenade button), and micromanage them yourself. This is where the better players would shine.
Does that clear it up a bit? I think it's important that unit's left on their own will perform fine without you having to babysit them; however, to prevent the MSWord syndrome, where units go off and do whatever they like, as well as to give the better playes more control over their units, you would give the player options for stripping back unit's automation (or altering the rules of their automation, such as 'hold position').
and they overrid the runaway tactic.
Was this your idea? Sounds interesting.Zoombie wrote:Also...someone needs to make a Worldwar mod for this. Worldwar, in a nut shell, is "Halfway through WWII...and BAMPH! Aliens invade, forcing humanity to band together against them. So its Jew with Nazi, American with Japanese, German with Russian, all against a bunch of Lizards with helicopters, assault rifles, nuclear weapons, jet airplanes, spaceships, advanced radar, moder computer chips, and modern tanks"
What about that doesn't sound cool? I mean...its WWII...but different!
