Spring RTS Engine

Caydr wrote:I never change numbers randomly or for the sake of it.

How many versions has AA been through again?

It's stupid the amount of things that have been changed from one to another then back again.

For god's sake make a Design Document and stick with it! That's all any of us really want. Design the game, and stick to it! I've said this for damn near a year now yet every version of AA you put out is basically a gameplay change. The truth is that you really have no specific idea in mind for what you want AA to be. That's why people scoff at AA, especially when compared to something like BA.

BA actually has a direction whereas AA wanders aimlessly, occasionally stumbles on the Gem that was 1.43 (minus the op bladewings) and promptly loses it again!

Design Document!
Design Document!
Design Document!

I've played TA for over 8 years... I'm not completely without experience Just a little rusty at times...

It's too bad it's user-based. If there's no way for the modder to set a default, there's no sense in me working on it.

Go away forboding.

Most of the BA testing, if I recall, is done publicly. There haven't been any closed betas the last few versions.

Yeah, Fang felt the same way about the GUI. If I remember correctly, he had a very good one for E&E, but changes to the lobby took GUI manipulation out of the hands of modders.

If I'm not mistaken, a lot of the player abse ahs already accepted BA 4.1 as AA 2.3 and seen the succession of AA versions as:

AA 2.22
AA 2.23
BA 4.1
BA 4.2
etc....

rather than BA as a fork.


Another thign caydr is that in your absence, the unhealthy mod monopoly system we had collapsed and gave way to 3 major mdos and a 4th minor, namely BA, XTA, and AA 2.23, have roughly shared 70% of all games between them yoyo-ing between eachother. A slew of AA updates would tear the whole thing apart and return us to an AA only domination.

Do realize that having one single mod variant at 60%+ is bad for modders, but its bad for other areas of spring development too. It isnt just players of other mods who dont want AA dominance.

But a streamlining of AA would be useful. For one I never understood the reasoning behind having con engineer units and then rezz units that did the same thing but without a buildmenu and a ressurection ability. And then ontop of that why you took the fark and turned it into a pure rezz bot then gave a 3rd party unit the farks original intended role as a counter intuitive surprise for OTA converts. IIRC you made the fark physically bigger too.

I'd also bring llt's to note. A player had built a wall of 4 llt's on altored and I walked my commander into them and as soon as they started firing I turned them around but then they carried on firing and 3-4 seconds later there as a large bang. My commander never had a chance once those llts started firing, and this is a very worrying thing for me as I dont see it in any of the other TA based mods save the AA variants, and they should have stopped firing once the com was out of their LOS, so maybe making the two firing range and LOS range identical?

And imo keeping AA and Abolition seperate are a mistake. Have Abolition as some AA 2.5 and work on that. If people dont like it then they can just not play the other races.

Caydr wrote:I've played TA for over 8 years... I'm not completely without experience Just a little rusty at times...

It's too bad it's user-based. If there's no way for the modder to set a default, there's no sense in me working on it.

Go away forboding.

You could always install the GUI files when the mod is installed, any installer would be able to do that.

You should play me 1v1 sometime Caydr, I'm curious to know how good you are.

AF, don't be so sure people will immediately return to the main branch.

I've set LLTs and all other defenses do 2x damage versus commanders, and this is widely regarded as a good thing. It keeps Commanders from walking through enemy bases. I'll check that LoS/Range stuff though.

You make an interesting point about farks, rezzers, and combat engineers. Farks and Rectors, at least, could be merged if it was agreed upon by a majority to be a good idea.

Anyway, regarding AA dominance, there's not really anything I can do about that. Believe me, I've tried...

~~~

Matt, I might take you up on that sometime, but not until I've got the next version polished.

[rage]
GOD FUCKING DAMMIT I JUST MADE A HUGE POST AND IT FAILED TO POST NOW ITS ALL GONE!!!!!!!!?!?!
[/rage]

I'm just pointing out that everytime there's a short time period of AA dev slowdown, mod diversity comes back and continualy gains strength and then starts falling back into AA dominance once caydr gets better/comes home from holiday/regains motivation/finishes number crunching/gets a new spring feaure.

Basically what the post said was:

I personally think there is no substitute for real ingame experience for balancing a mod

Whoah, thats two topics in a row we agree in matt! Times are changing I tell yah...

Approach to mod development:

BA development has collaboration and discussion with some other experienced players in the community over key balance issues and changes. A general consensus is for the most part taken and changes are well justified and considered.

The general community is involved through the forums, usually where game-to-game issues arise which could involve future changes in the mod.

Day/NoiZe and the players they discuss things with are highly experienced, active and well respected members of the community who understand the finest details of the mod and how it plays, and can discuss in detail even the smallest of balance issues in the mod, to make informed decisions from experience of how the mod plays.

Difference with you (Caydr) is that you seem to want to do everything on your own, without prior discussion and make changes that are not well tested, and perhaps not well considered (no public opinion is asked). It's much easier, much quicker, and much safer to collaborate and discuss things with other people - particular people and general community - whilst developing the mod. It all depends on what you want from the mod I guess.

If you want self satisfaction, considering AA as a hobby where the player base doesnt really matter - continue as you have been.

If you want a big player base - consider how the community will react to big changes and involve the player base in key balance issues.

If you want a stable, well balanced mod - do something like Noize and Day are - Have a direction - a PLAN Consider the opinions of experienced, high level players. Discuss issues in detail before implementing them. Test them once implemented, collaborate with other people and ask the opinion of others with respect to changes that have been made AND are going to be made.

^ What he said ^

without prior discussion

See previous 4 AA topics containing in excess of 3,000 posts which have worked in line with. I frequently add my own changes and only rarely veto things that a large number of people agree with.

My plan is to continue delivering the best mod I can by following community direction, logic, mathematics, and my own instincts, as I have always done.

AA/BA hasn't gotten where it is through random changes.

Ah but you see, the four previous AA topics are non-specific.

They don't ask particular questions or opinions on certain changes, new things, etc. Basically those threads turn into a massive collection of mainly off topic content and flamebait between disagreeing individuals. Those topics are also filled with posts from people that barely play the mod and just complain based on what happens in any particular game.

e.g.

Player gets killed by brawlers at 20 mins
Player is pissed off
Player goes onto TA:Spring forums
Player notices AA thread
Player states that air is massively overpowered and "needs fixed"

Player 2,3,4 are in same game and same team as player 1.
Player 2,3,4 also die to brawlers

Player 2,3,4 get linked to AA thread and all add "+1" or long winded post about how brawlers are too good.

Player 1,2,3,4 are all reasonably inexperienced, never made ANY anti air, but decided air is overpowered because 12 brawlers somehow managed to kill them all off, god knows why when they had no anti-air.

Just to keep this post trimmed i'll refrain from making countless other examples, but this is what happens, and if you base a lot of your decision making, balance issues, and changes from posts in these generalised AA threads with no specific topic, you will not get very far.

A better approach is chat to experienced players, and in the forums make specific topics for your threads, asking single questions, perhaps with a poll. You'll get a much better response, and it will be much easier to determine the general consensus. Asking you to give more weight to opinions of experienced players is controversial, but I personally think experienced players have a more considered viewpoint on balanced based issues. Certainly they dont want to see the mod unbalanced, having played so many hours, and they tend to know just a little bit more about how things play out over a lot of games:)

An example of a specific thread is there right now: NoiZe's topic about beam/non-beam lasers for BA.

The AA threads overflow with RAGE remarks from players that literally just lost a game and want to bitch and make excuses as to why they lose - "air is overpowered WTF?!?" "NUKE IS UNFAIR!!" "OMG FLASH IS OVERPOWERED I GOT SWARMED BY 42 FLASH TANKS AND THEY KILLED MY COMM!!! WTF UNBALANCED!!!!!!" - and of course random forum wars and off topic jargon that's found on large threads everywhere. Personally I dont see how you can even make sense of what is worth changing in the AA thread. Course there are some constructive posts also, but mainly consumed amongst the countless others.

AA/BA hasn't gotten where it is through random changes.

Which take up 90% of the AA threads. Most of an AA thread if side flaming, pointless arguement between players over a feature or change that is disputed, or over something that should be added or removed.

May I suggest we discuss procedure on the other forums?

In reply to Lordmatt.

I even decreased the space used, and most units have all the stuff on one page!




I use this ctrlpanel.txt

http://www.unknown-files.net/noize/ctrl ... lpanel.txt


NO lua file used.

It's good to see aa being worked on again, that mod domination stuff is crap though, whats the gain of having 30% playing ba and 30% 2.23 as opposed to 60% new aa, it's a mock diversity.

I would suggest using BA as a base, as everyone else does I think, since besides some nice balance changes it also fixed a lot of strange build times and such.
The change logs aren't that specific but I'm sure day and noize wouldn't mind explaining them

Machiosabre wrote:It's good to see aa being worked on again, that mod domination stuff is crap though, whats the gain of having 30% playing ba and 30% 2.23 as opposed to 60% new aa, it's a mock diversity.

More like 40% play BA, 30% play AA because obviously one LLT stops any weasel rush, 20% play XTA, more than half of which is because it's the only mod that comes with Spring, 5% play hover commanders or another mod accidentally and quickly rehost or maybe sit idle with another mod while nobody joins and the final 5% play other mods.

It's mostly true. You also have to replace most of the "play" with "games are" to make it make sense.

Caydr, do you do this for the attention or do you really just not know any better?

Yeah, XTA community = Knox, Mong, colourblind, Lfing hosting a big game several times a night which is filled 50% by regulars and 50% by people that get spanked.

Heheh, I've been tempted to just make a version of TA where the FBI/BOS files are open for public editing. Releases are issued on random dates (average one a month). Just settle the "community-driven TA" issue. Of course, it would be a web-development nightmare since you'd have to deal with all the protection issues of an open website plus the issues of compiling TA mods automatically.

Just make two sites - one for "invitational" in which only hardcores can edit values, and one for "public". Release the mod stamped with a date and which fork it came from. OpenAnnihilation-Invitiational-2006-12-27.

I've thought this through way too much.