Weiner Rushing

[Kixxe]

Everything was balenced and even, Spring should have been exactly like OTA from the start, and XTA should have been a mod and not the basis for all of TAspring's balences as the released project.

Penterators was to slow to be usefull.
Krogoths costed immensly, but was to weak for the cost.
Ambient tanks where JUNK.
Level one fighters had trouble taking down bombers.
Having to build level 1 plants to build level 2.

I don't play OTA, so i don't know how much more is unblanced.

No, the cause of this ''Bull shit'', is that 1. Pepole think that spring is just like any other startegy game, where rusing is a ''nooby'' tatic. Not the case, we all know. And 2. The small unblanced units of XTA. Look, we are trying to fix it, and work is going forward. Stop complaning like that ''OMFG OTA > XTA LOLZ, GOLIATHS ARE POWERD STUFF LIKE LOL!''.

OTA is FAR from perfect. It's unbalanced. Many units are renderd useless. Yes, almost no units are overpowerd, witch is the cuase of this ''bullshit''. OTA has useless units, XTA has overpowerd ones. Still, all units in XTA do damage, do something NOT useless, and you can acully use em to win.

In Ota, Jeffies could not compete vs light tanks, brawlers were not invincable, Penetrators/Doomsdays were not constant beam weapons but a built up burst PUNCH weapon, heavy Kbots were not Blitzkreig high speed units, and Immolators were not long range artillery, and these are just a few of the poor decisions.

'

Jeffys are not longer scouts, they are ''fast attack vechiles''. They do damage, yes, but a tank army is stronger. Much more stronger. Jeffys also cost 3 times as much as a flash so...
Brawlers are pretty fraglie, it's that we don't have suffient ways of killing em FAST. We need an all pwning brawler defence. Really good AA, that is.

Abot penetrators... is beam wepons a bad thing? They are very usefull for taking out heavy units and defences. You need sevral of em, but heck, they are very usefull.

Warriors are not ''heavy'' anymore. They have lower hp, and are faster. NEW purpose, deal with it.

OTA made ARM and CORE equals through diversity, and it worked because Cavedog knew wtf they were doing, and once they had everything where they wanted it, THEY LEFT IT ALONE.

HAHAHAHHAHAHHAAHAHahahah hehehheheheh.... oh man....

You... are kidding, right?
Firstly, Cavedog made sevral balance fixes as the game went on, realising new units to touch up the balance.

So yes, they are doing excakly as the SY's are doing now. Trying to make a game work while fixing the balance between the units.

So, when cavedog had everything where they wanted it, they left it alone?
Well, guess what? THE SY'S ARENT FINISHED! *SHOCK*

This game, is STILL a BETA! WOW! NEW'S FLASH! They arent done, therefore, there are still bug's, there are still unbalanced unit's ect.


OTA is still gonna stay where it always been. Stop whining, go play the game. SPRING is not OTA. It supports OTA, so if you want to play it, do so. Im gonna go play XTA now, the best mod of them all.


(i hope i did'nt repeat myself, im kinda tired...)

[SwiftSpear]

I disapprove of all rushing.
This is a STRATEGY game, not a game of one or two quick tactics. A strategy consits of numerous tactical decisions, not one decision to attack your opponent as quickly as possible. You should win or lose a game based on how overall good of a player you are, not whether you made one quick decision to rush or failed to make one quick decision to have enough defenses early on.

When this game is popular enough online, I will host/find no rush games. In the meantime I can only really play it with my friends that agree with me.

In TA, your version of strategy means "whoever makes more metal and energy wins".

In games like starcraft and C&C, you have limited resources and it you take forever or build too much, you lose. TA should never be about how many resources you have and how much you are porcing. It should be about battles and base assaults.

You're advocating something you don't support yourself. The only way you can remove a "more res = gaurenteed win" from a game is either by placing massive importance on micromanagement in battle, or stratiegicly attacking your opponents weakness, which only really works with a paper rock scissors balance system. You constantly advocate UH which effectively breaks the paper rock scissor balance system and has INCREADIBLY strong reliance on res control, since the largest generic army in the end of the day wins the game in that game. XTA you don't like which has strong and effective paper rock scissors balanace, and since you're largely playing TA games I also assume you don't advocate strong micromanagement systems, otherwize you would hate this game and still be playing starcraft.

Contrary to popular belive OTA did not have the perfect balance system. It was cavedog policy to never acctually tweak units signifgantly and only to add units as counter as thier balance system. Consequently they only ever made all of one balance tweak in the several years they managed that game for. In comparison, starcraft has had hundreds of balance tweaks applied to it in the years it has been under released moderation... but then again, starcraft is hailed as one of the most balanced RTS games of all time, and TA is not.

[Lindir The Green]

yeah, I think it is amazing that starcraft is as balanced as it is, even though it has 3 completely different sides. I suppopse it doesn't have many units , though.

[IMSabbel]

Thats the whole point.

If you have only 8 or 9 fighting units per side, you can effectively balance stuff by just brute forcing every possible combinations and optimising the output.

But few people forget remember how unstoppable Aircraft really were when TA was released.


Even the current version of Xta is nothing against the completely flak-less TA version 1.0

Not to mention that the core cobra was release quite a few weeks after the arm flak, so back than people were seriously bitching because arm had a flak against (the weaker to begin with) core gunships while brawlers laught at missile towers...

[tanelorn]

No point arguing that "The first OTA was crap". Use the final version of OTA as an example only. It is what Cavedog intended as the finished version of OTA. These arguments are like saying "Well the cars back in 1910 were crap, they backfired and got crappy mileage" is a good argument against driving cars.

As far as balance, Starcraft had its problems too. Both XTA and Starcraft suffer from "build a gigantic glob of air units and throw them at the enemy" tactic.

XTA has some terribly high hitpoint imbalanced units that allows you to porc, build a big glob of them, and throw them at the enemy because with their high HP they can't be stopped. Brawlers, Goliaths, Krogs, even the Bulldogs are like that. It takes away from strategy and tactics when you can simply win the game by mass producing one single unit and just issue a huge move order to the enemy base.

I totally agree with MR. D that TA Spring should come with OTA as the default game and XTA as an optional mod. I'd like to argue point by point against Kixxe but I'm not going to spend that much time when the forum is so full of flamers that all points posted here wether good or bad / true or false, they are argued against or dismissed.

The simple fact is that XTA has units that are so uber, people play with the sole intention of mass producing one particular unit and throwing tons of them at the enemy, which the enemy can not defend against.

He says OTA has many units that are rendered useless. Well, XTA is even worse, far worse! It has lvl2 tanks and kbots that are so far beyond lvl1 vehicles that nobody uses lvl1 once they get an advanced plant. In OTA the difference was significant but not tremendous.

I still say that UH is the best mod out there. Lvl1 kbots and tanks are not worthless compared to lvl2, and lvl2 are not godly. To win you need a good mix and your units must compliment eachother. That's what makes a good strategy / tactics game. And between OTA, UH, and XTA, XTA is the lowest on the ladder in that regard.

[Torrasque]

tanelorn, if fact, each mod fit to a style of game.

Certainly, if you play no rush 20 min, lvl 1 xta units become useless.
Of course, if each player porc, you can easly make mass goliath or brawler.

But ihmo, XTA is really good on medium-small map, where fight begin at 3 min and don't stop until the end, where your Hlt is always pilloned by guardian etc...
And under these condition, XTA show all his potential.

[NOiZE]

I still say that UH is the best mod out there. Lvl1 kbots and tanks are not worthless compared to lvl2, and lvl2 are not godly. To win you need a good mix and your units must compliment eachother. That's what makes a good strategy / tactics game. And between OTA, UH, and XTA, XTA is the lowest on the ladder in that regard.

Well please stop whining about XTA then go play the mod u like!!!!!!!

[Kixxe]

I'd like to argue point by point against Kixxe but I'm not going to spend that much time when the forum is so full of flamers that all points posted here wether good or bad / true or false, they are argued against or dismissed.

Well please stop whining about XTA then go play the mod u like!!!!!!!

I get what you mean, tanelorn...

He says OTA has many units that are rendered useless. Well, XTA is even worse, far worse! It has lvl2 tanks and kbots that are so far beyond lvl1 vehicles that nobody uses lvl1 once they get an advanced plant. In OTA the difference was significant but not tremendous.

Once someone got an advanced plant, Lvl 1 units get very bad and are, yes, almost renderd useless. This would comply to the fact that they are LEVEL 2! Let's compare to AoE shall we? In this game, each age has a diffrent set of units, each set strong then the preivius one. You can just upgrade to the next age ASAP, but then you will proably get owend bye the enemy's first attack forces. Same with XTA...

Diffrence is that you can still use the plants/barracs even after you go up an age. And they have some uses. Svarming, decoys, scouts, subs, transports ect.



Maybe the main reson here is that some pepole can't grasp the fact that OTA, UH and XTA are TOTALY diffrent games! The unit's act diffrently, the unit's stats are diffrent, and the amount and kind's of unit's vary to.

Let's just stop this whole XTA vs OTA vs UH nonsense and get to the point. We all love diffrent mod's. My money is on XTA, and that's all i have to stay. Let's drop the flames and the ''smart'' remarks, and start discussing what this treadh is about...

Oh wait, this treadh is just a random complaint that got owend bye rushing loving pepole.

Well, it might be best to stop this nonsense before it goes any furter, would't it?

[SwiftSpear]

Tanelorn: Massive swarms of air units are not a balance issue. Your not even arguing balance any more, your arguing unit usefulness. So far as I can see I have seen every unit in XTA usefull, and every unit in XTA responsable for a win before. You are arguing that every unit should have generic usefulness, but that just isn't the case. XTA is a paper rock scissor balance mod, and probably one of the most balanced TA mods ever to boot. Every unit does not have generic usefullness because the NATURE of the mod, different units are used in different situations to counter different opposing stratigies. If XTA was not a paper rock scissor mod then it would be entirely relyant on controlling and holding the largest ammount of resourse space the way UH is. A gameplay situation which I personally don't admire in any way. There is really only two hard options, and I like the way XTA is turning out.

The argument that OTA should be the original package to come with spring is interesting, but misses a couple important facts. Firstly, OTA is not balanced for spring. The engine mechanics are very different, the unit pathing is very different, it's an entirely different game engine. OTA units are balanced accounting for the fact that thier projectiles do not collide with friendly units, and thier collision spheres are managed totally different then spring currently does. For OTA to truely work for spring the way it worked for TA it needs a total retweaking to account for all the physics collision and pathing changes that spring made out of nessesity in converting a largely 2D engine to a fully 3D engine. Secondly, the SYs created spring, and they have every right to support thier own balance mod in highest priority on it. If cavedog created the spring engine I would find it very strange if they attempted to push a balance mod for thier own game, but that is not the case, and probably all the better, as if it were you and I would have payed for TAS by now. SYs aren't under obligation to appease the old TA fans in any way, let alone make that thier highest priority. XTA is a good balance mod, and too be honest your assassination campaign is getting pretty frigging old.

In one of the other online gaming communities I regular a very common phrase you hear when talking about balance is "Adapt or die". The best TA players or both other mods and XTA will tell you that XTA is getting close to effective balance. If you're losing alot, maby it's time you stopped blaming balance, stopped blaming gameplay mechanics and stratigies different from OTA, and started adapting.

[Lindir The Green]

People already covered most of my points, but I would also like to add these:

It takes away from strategy and tactics when you can simply win the game by mass producing one single unit and just issue a huge move order to the enemy base ... The simple fact is that XTA has units that are so uber, people play with the sole intention of mass producing one particular unit and throwing tons of them at the enemy, which the enemy can not defend against.

And of course, OTA didn't have any units like that, especially not Sampsons, Slashers, Rockos, lvl2 fighters, lvl 1 missle ships, and cruisers.

It has lvl2 tanks and kbots that are so far beyond lvl1 vehicles that nobody uses lvl1 once they get an advanced plant.

It's funny, because this is the same thread that people are complaining that lvl 1 is too powerful at rushing. That's what lvl 1 is for! It's not for making massive swarms like in every other mod. And that adds to XTA's strategical depth, because if you go advanced too early you will be killed by lvl 1 units and if you go advanced too late you will be killed by lvl 2 units.

Somebody joining Spring are hopefully looking for a complicated strategy game like XTA, not a simple unbalanced one like OTA. And XTA will continue getting better, while OTA will stay the same. Uberhack is OK, but it has nowhere near the strategic depth of XTA.

Oh, also, about the rock paper scissors thing. Any non rock paper scissors game will just be about knowing the game mechanics better that the other player and being better at skirmishes than the other player. For a game to have strategy it has to be about trying to outguess your opponent, and the only way to have that is to make it an extremely complex rock paper scissors game. Otherwise it will just become like a fps.

[SwiftSpear]

Oh, also, about the rock paper scissors thing. Any non rock paper scissors game will just be about knowing the game mechanics better that the other player and being better at skirmishes than the other player. For a game to have strategy it has to be about trying to outguess your opponent, and the only way to have that is to make it an extremely complex rock paper scissors game. Otherwise it will just become like a fps.

Exactly. You can build an RTS without RPS gameplay, but it lacks the deeper stratigey of needing to scout your opponent and developing a counter opposition offencive. Without RPS balance all you need to do is build the bigger generic swarm and control it properly for the win.

[FizWizz]

...Let's just stop this whole XTA vs OTA vs UH nonsense and get to the point. We all love diffrent mod's. My money is on XTA, and that's all i have to stay. Let's drop the flames and the ''smart'' remarks, and start discussing what this treadh is about...

Oh wait, this treadh is just a random complaint that got owend bye rushing loving pepole.

Well, it might be best to stop this nonsense before it goes any furter, would't it?

at 39-to-3, the Spring community has resounding support for the rush as a legitimate tactic. I think it's case closed as far as the original thread topic goes.

[edit]wee, This makes post #10,000 in General Discussion[/edit]

[cain]

what is the real definition of a rush?

if I'm a slow player, almost anyone will rush me, soon or later.
so, if after 5 minutes is not a rush, what is on 4:59 min? and going back,
what really is a rush? player starts with almost same units, so or the first attak is always a rush, or it is never.

said this, I prefer game where defenses are slighty powerful than units, for some reason:

are slower to build and cannot be replaced by other moving target.
can't dodge, nor escape.
you can put a limited amount of them in a single area, while units can be moved from the back of the army to replaces one.

[SwiftSpear]

what is the real definition of a rush?

if I'm a slow player, almost anyone will rush me, soon or later.
so, if after 5 minutes is not a rush, what is on 4:59 min? and going back,
what really is a rush? player starts with almost same units, so or the first attak is always a rush, or it is never.

said this, I prefer game where defenses are slighty powerful than units, for some reason:

are slower to build and cannot be replaced by other moving target.
can't dodge, nor escape.
you can put a limited amount of them in a single area, while units can be moved from the back of the army to replaces one.

I define a rush as any build that sacrifices a reasonable ammout of early economy (weather it's commander building time or acctual early game res) in order to have an offencive force. You can play a game and build a small defencive force while still holding an extreamly rapid and constantly progressing mex expansion build. If a player doesn't do that he is either porcing or rushing... if the former he will lose, while the latter gives him a good chance at winning if his opponent hasn't developed a solid block or counter.

Any time you build a L1 aircraft plant first you are rushing, any time you build a L2 anything first you are teching (and probably losing).

[IMSabbel]

I dont agree that building a l1 aircraft plant first is always rushing. During that phase, it can build construction planes completely from the commanders energy, so a initial boost of 3-4 constr airplanes can on some maps allow a quick sizing of area and ressources. (its a good choice for example on shore to shore)

[SwiftSpear]

I dont agree that building a l1 aircraft plant first is always rushing. During that phase, it can build construction planes completely from the commanders energy, so a initial boost of 3-4 constr airplanes can on some maps allow a quick sizing of area and ressources. (its a good choice for example on shore to shore)

Shore to shore isn't really a compeditive map so much... It's much more of a fun map. Generally you cripple your early build if you build L1 air first, const aircraft cost more then all the alternitive builders, and they build at a fraction of the speed. If you don't have too you don't really want to have more then one L1 unit plant, so you really need to choose something that covers your bases effectively. It can be done well with airplants, but it requires building a couple gunships to severly hassle your enemies expansion attempts and pick off his comm if he starts going to rambo with it and pushing it outside of air defence radiuses. But I would personally define that as rushing... If you're a GOOD player then L1 air first is always rushing.

So in summary: Airplants cripple your early res expansion due to expensive slow building construction aircraft, but at the same time they force your opponent to stay within much smaller radiuses in the early game in fear of losing things to seaplane fighters or light gunships. Also gunships own at weenie rush countering, because they can start killing things WAY before they reach your mex or base defences.