P.U.R.E. 0.55 - Page 40

P.U.R.E. 0.55

WolfeGames and projects headed by Argh.

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1v0ry_k1ng
Posts: 4656
Joined: 10 Mar 2006, 10:24

Re: P.U.R.E. 0.55

Post by 1v0ry_k1ng »

I just started playing this, and while I love the models and effects the gameplay and economy itself seems a bit meh. why are all the numbers so big?
you could divide HP and dps by 100, divide M cost and M output by 10- and then the player ends up with a much better feel for the raw statistics that run the game.
why not create a greater divide between units? make the basic shell much weaker and be built in batches of 5, for example? and the assault mech, it just looks wrong having those spinny miniguns that fire a tiny burst then spin idle for 10 seconds, why not just lower the damage and make them constant fire? miniguns are cool.
you should play with sizes more too, its cool to have little scuttly units and hulking slow ones; all the pure units are basicly the same size.
all the ranges are pretty similar too- around 500-1100, and this does make the gameplay feel a little 2d. the speeds are also similar. the units just dont feel.. diffrent enough? in appearance i mean they look nice but how they function or are used, just dosnt feel that inspired.

Im only pointing out the negatives here because youve made such a polished project that its probably more helpful than being "its liek reel gd" because this is a brilliant project and the artwork is awesome

right now im just hoping the resistance faction has somthing like little men built in batches for all the big stompy robots to mush :D
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Argh
Posts: 10920
Joined: 21 Feb 2005, 03:38

Re: P.U.R.E. 0.55

Post by Argh »

Meh, I'll take the comment about stats into consideration, if for no other reason than psychological ones- I've read that people can't handle big numbers in their heads very well, and while making them smaller won't make the real relationships any less complex (and they're very, very complex)... it may make people feel like they understand things better. Actually understand? No. Feel like they do? Sure.

I've kept them this way, though, because they're easier for me to work with, because I make fewer typos. That, and I'm incredibly dubious about the amount people actually understand about how things work. If I lower the values to things people actually relate to, I'm going to have to grit my teeth, and ignore incredibly ignorant posts about DPS, etc.

The only way to actually understand the stats is to sit down with a calculator, and even then, it gets really difficult(If a Tank fires at 1100 range, the resulting shell moves 800/s. If firing at a target moving at 1/s at an angle of 30 degrees from parallel. If the target is 16 elmos in radius, how big does the CollisionSize need to be, for a hit to always happen? If that tank hits, and does a base damage of 8000 to this armor type, and the target's FlankingBonusMin is 0.25, how much damage is it doing? Welcome to game design.).

As for the rest of it... man, keep playing a bit, and use all of the units. You sound like you built a Soldier, a Heavy, and a Sniper, dicked around for a minute, and then stopped trying stuff out, after concluding they're all the same size (which they aren't) and do the same stuff (which they really, really don't) and have the same ranges (which they really, really, really don't).

You don't even mention using aircraft, or the static defenses... or the !*@#*!8! MortarTank, which is probably the single-most important weapon system in the Overmind's late-game arsenal, which people seem to have a bloody hard time getting around to using.

All that makes me think you played for maybe 5 minutes, and you didn't play with enough AIs to give you a feeling for how a human player would pressure and raid you. Seriously... try it with 3 KAIK, on Comet... then come back, and tell me how one-dimensional the game design is ;) There are lots of balance flaws and rough edges, to be sure, but man, I don't think you even scratched the surface.
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1v0ry_k1ng
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Re: P.U.R.E. 0.55

Post by 1v0ry_k1ng »

I played for about an hour vs 2x KAIK on comet catcher, they give a better game when the factory gaurd lua is turned off but they arent bad for an AI. I do realise there are bigger and smaller units, im just saying even the weakest unit is pretty big and the biggest unit isnt that big. I didnt comment about dfens and planes and balance because it takes more than a few games to get the feel of a mod- i was just putting my thoughts out there
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clericvash
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Joined: 05 Oct 2004, 01:05

Re: P.U.R.E. 0.55

Post by clericvash »

The speeds are similair, dude the units have very different speed.

I think the game is fine really, although the build pictures really do need work it is hard to differentiate on a lot of the build pics for what is what.
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Argh
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Joined: 21 Feb 2005, 03:38

Re: P.U.R.E. 0.55

Post by Argh »

I'm working on the build pictures, they'll get cleaned up between the last Alpha, whenever that is (still waiting on music support to work) and Beta. If they still have problems, I'm sure beta-testers will let me know.

Cool screen of the moment:
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I was messing about with some testing, decided that this view was too pretty to throw away...
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Forboding Angel
Evolution RTS Developer
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Joined: 17 Nov 2005, 02:43

Re: P.U.R.E. 0.55

Post by Forboding Angel »

1v0ry_k1ng wrote:I played for about an hour vs 2x KAIK on comet catcher, they give a better game when the factory gaurd lua is turned off but they arent bad for an AI. I do realise there are bigger and smaller units, im just saying even the weakest unit is pretty big and the biggest unit isnt that big. I didnt comment about dfens and planes and balance because it takes more than a few games to get the feel of a mod- i was just putting my thoughts out there

AI's aren't even aware that lua exists, and as such, are not influenced by it.
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Argh
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Re: P.U.R.E. 0.55

Post by Argh »

The Overmind uses no Lua, at all, to ensure complete compatibility, in 0.55, and that will not be changing in the beta release. The chief problems AIs have in playing Overmind come from the units that present current AIs with challenges they're not really equipped to deal with, such as putting a MortarTank on Hold Fire and hitting Stop to force it to start maneuvering again, in a tactical situation where you need it closer to available targets. KAIK does an adequate job of rushing, taking metal and spamming hordes, though. AAI, once configured, will build fairly nasty defenses.

The Resistance, unfortunately from that perspective, uses quite a lot of Lua, and will be DOA for AIs to play, until the day arrives that AIs can be programmed to make use of Lua. It's not like it can't be done, it's more that nobody's done it yet.
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Argh
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Re: P.U.R.E. 0.55

Post by Argh »

Reworked all of the Overmind's skins, revamped their specularity / reflectionmaps, changed their teamcolor to use the new glow system...

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I'm still waiting on a fix for the music, but meh, it's allowing me to get this kind of grind-work done, which results in better final polish, so I guess I should be happy about it :P
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clericvash
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Re: P.U.R.E. 0.55

Post by clericvash »

Looking awesome Argh, i seriously can't wait to start kicking ass on it, screw the music, make it a later add on :P
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Das Bruce
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Joined: 23 Nov 2005, 06:16

Re: P.U.R.E. 0.55

Post by Das Bruce »

Base decal on metal extractor?
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Snipawolf
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Joined: 12 Dec 2005, 01:49

Re: P.U.R.E. 0.55

Post by Snipawolf »

Uhh, yeah, looks like ya missed something there :P
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Argh
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Re: P.U.R.E. 0.55

Post by Argh »

Not happening, I don't care for them.
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clericvash
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Re: P.U.R.E. 0.55

Post by clericvash »

Argh wrote:Not happening, I don't care for them.
Thank god bases really bug me they don't ever look good either
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Argh
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Joined: 21 Feb 2005, 03:38

Re: P.U.R.E. 0.55

Post by Argh »

The only way they ever look good is if you allow buildings to terraform. Otherwise, they clip the terrain and look terrible.

I don't allow buildings to terraform, because anybody who's actually good at an RTS will know where the crucial first buildings are, by watching where the ground's been flattened. IOW, it's practically a cheat, if you know what to look for. Considering it's just for looks, but to get it to do that job affects gameplay, in a bad way... screw that.
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KDR_11k
Game Developer
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Re: P.U.R.E. 0.55

Post by KDR_11k »

Ground decals, man!
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Argh
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Re: P.U.R.E. 0.55

Post by Argh »

No. Renders far too slowly, occasionally z-fights with terrain and will always z-fight with other groundflashes nearby, and it would look stupid if the mesh is lumpy. Tried it, it was pretty bad.

Besides which, the buildings fall from orbit, it'd be silly for them to instantly build concrete somehow, underneath where they're going to land. It'd be a lot more realistic if I used Lua to dig little craters in the terrain around them, frankly, but that'd be hell on gameplay.
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Argh
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Re: P.U.R.E. 0.55

Post by Argh »

Er, I should clarify, I'm not waiting on music to get done- I have the music ready. There's a silly bug in Spring that makes it so that music plays just fine, when the mod's in .SDD (er, raw folders) but not when in .SDZ...

IOW, I can't put it out in a standard release format, with working music. This isn't on my end, it's a Spring bug. Lurker said he'd get to it, so I assume that means that he'll get to it, it's just a matter of when.
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Erom
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Re: P.U.R.E. 0.55

Post by Erom »

Glow teamcolor looks really nice, but still a little pastel/washed out.
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Argh
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Re: P.U.R.E. 0.55

Post by Argh »

Yeah, it's not perfect, and I had to adjust it down a bit, for the Overmind version, since it's usually "glowing" over off-white, which causes problems due to the way it works. I may darken it a little bit more, but I need to clean up the build-menu pictures first.
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clericvash
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Re: P.U.R.E. 0.55

Post by clericvash »

Argh wrote:Yeah, it's not perfect, and I had to adjust it down a bit, for the Overmind version, since it's usually "glowing" over off-white, which causes problems due to the way it works. I may darken it a little bit more, but I need to clean up the build-menu pictures first.
Wooo build menu updates, what else is left until you will do a first release? I really am wetting myself to play it (lol)
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