issues and suggestions

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Bethrezen
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Joined: 25 Sep 2009, 02:05

issues and suggestions

Post by Bethrezen »

Hi all

So been playing WZ again recently still running the old master warzone2100-master-20180204-051309-ab17b9b.exe and there are a couple of other things I picked up on that have been irritating me and I'm not sure if these where ever fixed.

first off group assignments when I set a group of units to say group 1 and then attach said group of units to a commander the group assignment is incorrectly removed this doesn't happen when I assign a group of mortars to say group 3 and then attach them to a scanner, so I believe this may well be a bug, I'm pretty sure I mentioned this one before but I'm not sure if it was ever dealt with.

Although to be fair commanders in general need an over haul because they exhibit some pretty twitchy and annoying behaviour or perhaps more accurately the units attached to commanders display some twitchy and annoying behaviour.

For example direct fire units attached to a commander move in what I can only describe as follow mode, this sort of behaviour is fine if the commander is controlling a group of mobile artillery units since you want those units to hang back but this follow mode behaviour is annoying when the commander is controlling direct fire units like lancers especially if the units attached to the commander are set to retreat for repair.

Due to the horrible pathing algorithm retreating units often get stuck and you have to move your non damaged units out the way to let them pass since the retreating units are to stupid to go around your other units while this isn’t an issue when then those units are unattached because I can just select said units and order them to move, however the follow mode behaviour of attached units makes this troublesome especially in light of the fact the group assignments are removed upon being attached to a commander because I select said units tell them to move and only the commander moves and only when the commander gets a few tiles away will the attached units move, this I think needs to be fixed and direct fire units attached to a commander should continue to move as though they are unattached, that is to say when I tell them to move they should move immediately and not wait for the commander to get a few tiles way before moving only artillery units should use the follow mode behaviour.

Another annoying bug I have encounters is when I select say 3 commanders and I then set say hold fire the hold fire order is only set on 1 commander despite the fact that I had all 3 selected this is definitely a bug if I have more then one commander selected and I then change there orders the change in orders should be applied to ALL SELECTED Commanders not just 1 I shouldn’t have to set the change in orders to each commander individually, again I think I have mentioned this before but not sure if it was ever addressed.

Talking of retreating units on more then one occasion I have had units destroyed because the computer constantly overrides my control, what usually happens is I have units set to retreat units get damaged and then try to go back to base for repair the issue is that they keep trying to to go back for repair through the enemy defences resulting in them getting killed, I try to order them to go back for repair via the path I have just cleared but then the unit gets shot again and starts heading back into enemy fire while this isn't really a bug per say its is incredible annoying and can make it incredibly difficult to get damage units out of the enemies firing range due to the fact that the retreating units is simply taking the quickest path back instead of taking the safest path back this I think needs to be addressed my suggestion for this is 2 fold first if I select a retreating units and tell it to move in a different direction the order to retreat when damage should probable be turned off automatically to stop the computer from overriding the players control and second the code that controls which path retreating units will take back to the repair bay needs to be looked at and retreating units should always take the safest path back for repair not the quickest unless of course the quickest path is the safest path this way retreating units should stop retreating into enemy fire and should retreat along the path that has already been cleared by the player

Also when it comes to research there are a bunch of prerequisites then don’t really make sense for example

On Alpha 06 I believe it is when you acquire rocket tech you have to research mini-rockets before you can research lancers this makes little sense you should be able to research mini rockets lancers and bunker busters at the same time, and I feel like removing some of these unnecessary and stupid prerequisites could make research faster and less tedious of course I already eluded to some of these as we where going through the campaign but I think what is needed here is to go through level by level and look at the research and its prerequisites and see what does and what doesn't make sense so for example having to research mini rockets before you can research lancers and bunker busters is stupid and makes no sense where as something like damage / armour upgrades that come in levels like level 1 level 2 level 3 should continue to require the previous level

also I know adding some of the tech from the multi player campaign has been talked about before and while I would general agree its probable not possible to add all of the tech from the multi player tech tree to the campaign I do think there are a few items which could be added at various points we already see this with the addition of the bombard technically you shouldn't be able to get this in campaign mode at least you don't get this in the original game, I would also argue that at the same point you currently get the bombard you should probably also get the pepper pot I know there is some opposition to this but the issue I have is that you get the pepper-pot far to late and by the time you do get it its completely useless because you already have ripple rockets and howitzers which are considerable superior and I would argue the point at which you currently get the pepper pot you should actual be getting the hellstorm howitzer and actually I would say you should probably get it earlier then that around the same time that rotary tech becomes available, there is no reason to make the player wait till the start of gamma to get the the hellstorm howitzer if you already have all the necessary prerequisites.

Anyway I digress a couple of example of tech from the multi player tech tree could be feasible added to the campaign are auto repair this could be added in gamma campaign after all nexus has this tech so it should be possible for the player to obtain it also, although for the sake of quality of life I would probably eliminate the repair turret and simply replace it with auto repair again know there is opposition to this since this seems like something that is to advance to have at the start of the game but this is one of those areas where reality and fantasy collied on the one hand I understand the argument but on the other I can't help but feel that this would be a helpful quality of life improvement even though it kind of conflicts with the games narrative.

the wide spectrum scanned is another that could be added after getting all of the individual scanners although to be fair I would be tempted to just eliminate the other scanners and make the wide spectrum scanner the default scanner its not like you are really going to gain any advantage from it anyway since you don't have any long range artillery or vtols till mid beta anyway so even though the wide spectrum scanner is an all in one tower you really can't take advantage of those other abilities till much later in the game anyway so really the only advantage you would gain having it from the start of the game is that it has a larger scanning range but that's is easy to adjust.

I suppose another way you could go is instead of having the various other towers the abilities of those individual towers should simply be combined into a single tower and then those abilities should be slowly unlocked as you play through he game either way we don't need half a dozen scanners its unnecessary bloat which should probably be pruned and the same applies to a lot of the tech in warzone and doing this would make the tech tree smaller less unwieldy and easier to balance.
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