Spring RTS Engine

I've been playing a bit, and I suck. As someone who sucks, I end up in spectator mode a lot. One thing I've noticed - on high-resource maps, the game always decays into one guy throwing Krogoths at an endless line of annihilators. Now, with a healthy use of nano-towers, those annis are pretty much invincible. Combine that with powerful anti-air (and the anni's can help in AA) and it pretty much leaves artillery and nukes for base-cracking. Especially in AA where the anti-air arsenal is incredibly powerful.

Now, in OTA, all of the previous statements were still true - with enough flak and AA missiles, enough annihilators, and enough anti-nukes, you could make a base prettywell invincible - however, anti-nukes weren't as good, and solid AA was short-ranged. And there was no defense against artillery.

But now, you can make a base impervious. Impenetrable. With super-fusion powered Annis, Keepers, and anti-nukes, an Arm base can hold back anything. Usually the only reason the base gets cracked ever is because of somebody making a stupid mistake - I've never seen the defense overwhelmed by anything.

I think in TA, the idea of berthas and the like was this: you get them in position and they start destroying the base. It's not supposed to be an attack that has a defense, the idea was that while they exist, a base is being destroyed and the game is ending. I think the whole intent of these units was to have there be one undefendable tactic that meant that the game could not be dragged out perpetually. Which, of course, is why the super-large and high-resource maps that dominate Spring weren't really viable in OTA.

But I suck, so I might not know what I'm talking about.

That's why high resource maps suck..

but that can really happen in any game with "anti" systems.

Try using snipers or skuttles to kill the annihilators. And artillery, at least in my mind, is designed specifically for destroying an entrenched opponent like the one you describe.

You might also try overwhelming your opponent's bertha shield by attacking it with your best mobile artillery. Remember, for every single shell it is repelling, that is 4,000 energy per tick being drained. Meanwhile your bertha can fire with impunity.

Since you talk a lot about AA in this post, I'll tell you what I'm planning for the next version. Rather than costing an equal amount to deflect a bertha shell as to fire one (as it is now), I will be setting it to cost 2x the amount to deflect.

Your solution to the problem is to make it so that Berthas are the do-all, end-all weapon that breaks a stalemate. But: what stops a player from just porcing to hell and doing this? So now, instead of the ultimate weapon being level 4 and largely unaccessible in a map that doesn't suck (IMO just about every map in existence made with terragen SUCKS for playability) it is at level 2 and easily accessible to anyone who can manage to get to L2 on these CRAPTASTIC maps people have made with +two thousand million billion metal from 3 extractors..

I'm considering starting a map review site for Spring. The problem is, save for Small Divide and a handful of others, I'm going to be saying one thing on every damn review: ooh, very pretty. Gameplay sucks my ass, though. Never download. Mock the jackass who made this.

Alright, fine, it's decided then. I'm starting work on a map review site RIGHT NOW.

My frustration with organizing Cube maps and mods led me to start something similar based on the Drupal engine. http://cube.snieb.com - of course, I'm a lazy admin so I don't take as good care of it as I could. Of course, nobody does much in the way of reviews - but at least the comments are usually informative.

I think the problem is that the only thing that outranges annihilators is LRPCs and nukes (not even mobile nukes - just the static kind). Now that both nukes and LRPCs have counters, there is nothing that can outrange a well-defended annihilator, so the only thing to do is to try and sneak in (the stuff you suggested) or try and overpower it with Krogs. And after the cloak strategy works and takes out a few annihilators, if the player survives they'll probably have the good sense to lay down a tonne of dragons eyes to make the stealth approach unviable.

ooh, very pretty. Gameplay sucks my ass, though. Never download. Mock the jackass who made this.

AGREED
(bar almost every OTA map and a select few new ones)

Caydr wrote:Alright, fine, it's decided then. I'm starting work on a map review site RIGHT NOW.

I'd sign up as a reveiwer for XTA play.

thats easy! simply go to the replays tag and give each rep a rating and a commentry! make sure u save ur changes though :)

Well, I would like to take this opportunity and restate my opinion; Mapmakers need gameplay comments about their maps, but we don't actually get any, so what is the matter? You can do some small scale testing yourself, but how it actually plays is only revealed by large scale testing (that is, after it is actually released). But once you've released it, you usually don't hear anything about if afterwards.

So, in short, I agree that some maps hand out large amounts of metal, but I also claim that this might partly be because mapmakers simply doesn't get enough gameplay comments about their maps (constructive criticism then).

SecurE wrote:mapmakers simply doesn't get enough gameplay comments about their maps (constructive criticism then).

You know what we need? Stats in the lobby to see how much each map is being played, and a comment system in the lobby that allows players to comment on the map and rate it right after the game - or whenever they see fit.

FileUniverse already has a forum and hosts the maps - with a little script saying how much it has been downloaded. Would it be too much to ask that these be linked together, such that each map a topic in a forum and a forum link at it's download site? Not as convenient as in-game reviewing or as concerted as a proper reviewing site. Anybody in contact with the site developer of FileUniverse?

Edit: on closer inspection, you can do that already if you log in. How about we bum-rush Fileuniverse with bad reviews and comments?

Brazillian Battlefield is very playble, you have plenty of space to expand yet not have too much opertunities to employ super defenses.

I don't think I added that much resources either

what maps in particular have too much resources? I know those castle maps have way too much....

4 skulls, castles, star shaped island thingey, all metal maps (duh), wide open combat, clear a ditch, windswept desert (high ground should have the higher m value and vice versa)
fortess is thoroughly imabalanced and so is the river dale for top vs btm

Min3mat wrote:4 skulls, castles, star shaped island thingey, all metal maps (duh), wide open combat, clear a ditch, windswept desert (high ground should have the higher m value and vice versa)
fortess is thoroughly imabalanced and so is the river dale for top vs btm

Whoever designed 4 skulls as a 4 player map is a lunatic. That map is e-freakin-normous and empty. With those resources and scale, it could easily support twice that.

Min3mat: Could you explain further about the imbalance of River Dale in the maps forum where I released it? Because that one was actually a shot in the dark, mainly because it is assymetric both in metal distribution and layout. It is never "balanced" as such, because one side always have the advantage in metal income from their patches, but who actually has the advantage varies between which stage of the game it is in. That's also the reason to why there isn't any central metal to fight over, because I'd have to get a large amount of testing to see that nobody would have the terrain advantage from their side.

I have played riverdale a lot recently and I think it is very well balanced.

It really depends on who can take control of the pass in the middle. If the top takes it, the bottom is screwed because the top has way more metal and space. If the bottom takes it, the top has a slight disadvantage and will try to build up a big army, but will fail if the bottom is agressive enough. But it is easier for the bottom to control it, so it balances out.

It is also hard for the bottom to mop up when the top is shattered, but it is really easy for the top to mop up when the bottom is shattered.

done

GrOuNd_ZeRo wrote:Brazillian Battlefield ...
I don't think I added ...

Is that map your's? That is a good map. Beautifull, interesstingly diferent gameplay with all the hills, and has a proper amount of metal (at least for XTA).

Number of download does not tell how balanced is a map. A well advertised with pretty screenshots map will be downloaded more than a discretly released map with unnattractive minimap, regardless of balance.

So no, you can't subsitute real discussion about map balancing with FileUniverse stats.