Backwards-compatibility! D:Per wrote:We could easily do something about that.
So what is the problem then? You have 1 missile line for every occasion, except that you have 2 lines that are strong against vehicles (especially heavies) and 0 lines that are strong against cyborgs. Just move the one extra anti vehicles missile (pod rockets) over to be focused against cyborgs instead and it is mission accomplished. Symmetry, intuitiveness, balance.Zarel wrote: We only have 6 types. The only other type I can replace is bunker buster, and I don't think I should. And rockets/missiles are diverse, they include MRL, a very good anti-hardcrete, bunker buster, a very good long range anti-bunker, SAMs, very good anti-air. They don't come with any good anti-cyborg defenses, but they have everything else covered, and they're already way more diverse than most other subclass progressions.
I don't understand where this is coming from, but I am talking about missiles as a group, I never said one single missile weapon should be powerful against everything.And as we learned, having a long range high damage weapon is simply too overpowered without specialization. And taking away the high damage aspect of rocket/missiles? No way.
I am not sure you understanding specifically what I mean- you would still have to research, say, a hyper velocity cannon to use it, but you wouldn't have to research like 6-12 individual upgrades for it, it would just come with static stats. This would bring research time for a game down from something like 6 hours (for a player without a research partner who is diverting resources for actually building and losing weapons in combat as well) down to maybe 1 hour. Then you just make it take twice as long to research each new technology and you are back to something sane like 2 hours, or make it take 3 times as long to research a new technology and you can have the tech tree in 3 hours.No. There is no "useless research fodder". Everything you research has a purpose other than just being a prerequisite for other research. Granted, few people ever use Command Relay Post, but it does serve a purpose.In any case, upgrades are very important, and researching them is an important part of Warzone strategy, and removing them would change Warzone far too much, and for the worse.
It isn't so much that there is anything wrong with where it is now, it just would be better and make more sense for it to be available immediately. There's nothing about cyborgs that should make them even a little bit more late game than vehicles, if anything it would make more sense if the situation was reversed, because cyborgs don't require modular designing, they are cheap, they are fast to build and they are cut down by the starting weapons- they are as basic as it gets.I'm considering a number of methods to prevent the early game from being a mindless truck rush, but I think moving borg factory up to the top would be a bit too much. It's fine where it is right now. Remember, Machinegunner no longer has to be separately researched, either.
Cool.I probably will at some point.
I never thought I would be the one saying this to someone, but you sir, are a casual gamer.ThomasCarstein wrote:PLEASE consider, that not all players are hellbent on finishing the game in under 15 minutes with 1 truck rush
Me & my friends actually ENJOY researching stuff for more than 1 hour before we start whacking eachother with advanced weaponry, so at least leave players like us the fun of the original full game and make a minimal skinny version mod if you wish to play like that...
Having two separate research branches is a good thing, and what you mention of vehicle requirements for borg branch should be fixed, instead of simply merging them.3drts wrote:Can we get rid of separate vehicle/cyborg armor upgrades?
Right now the vehicle upgrades unlock the cyborg upgrades.... so if you concentrate on cyborgs, you still have to research the useless (for your play style) vehicle upgrades, and then the cyb upgrades, which is expensive, so I just ditch the cyborg upgrades and stick with vehicles, and spend the money I could have spent on cyborg armor on weapon upgrades and such instead.
0 lines that are strong against cyborgs?Deus Siddis wrote:So what is the problem then? You have 1 missile line for every occasion, except that you have 2 lines that are strong against vehicles (especially heavies) and 0 lines that are strong against cyborgs. Just move the one extra anti vehicles missile (pod rockets) over to be focused against cyborgs instead and it is mission accomplished. Symmetry, intuitiveness, balance.
Again, this would change Warzone too much. The current way seems good enough to me.Deus Siddis wrote:I am not sure you understanding specifically what I mean- you would still have to research, say, a hyper velocity cannon to use it, but you wouldn't have to research like 6-12 individual upgrades for it, it would just come with static stats. This would bring research time for a game down from something like 6 hours (for a player without a research partner who is diverting resources for actually building and losing weapons in combat as well) down to maybe 1 hour. Then you just make it take twice as long to research each new technology and you are back to something sane like 2 hours, or make it take 3 times as long to research a new technology and you can have the tech tree in 3 hours.
Because who realistically has 6 hours to play at once?
And who can realistically fight battles in 3 hotspots around a large map, while microing vtols, AND constantly be reloading the research facilities with a constant stream of more of the near endless supply of upgrades for the weapons he has already had to research, so that he doesn't get behind in the arms race? That is just too much damn micro, imo.
Again, the main problem is that it would change the game too much. I've been considering starting with cyborgs many times. It's an interesting idea, but it's not feasible enough.Deus Siddis wrote:It isn't so much that there is anything wrong with where it is now, it just would be better and make more sense for it to be available immediately. There's nothing about cyborgs that should make them even a little bit more late game than vehicles, if anything it would make more sense if the situation was reversed, because cyborgs don't require modular designing, they are cheap, they are fast to build and they are cut down by the starting weapons- they are as basic as it gets.
You misinterpret. There are no vehicle requirements for borg branch. He's arguing that researching vehicle upgrades doesn't give him cyborg upgrades.Per wrote:Having two separate research branches is a good thing, and what you mention of vehicle requirements for borg branch should be fixed, instead of simply merging them.
You're not playing the right games. Borgs are very popular in the Rebalance games I've played. I should really downgrade them a bit more, if anything.3drts wrote:I rarely see borgs being used....
Deus Siddis wrote:I am not sure you understanding specifically what I mean- you would still have to research, say, a hyper velocity cannon to use it, but you wouldn't have to research like 6-12 individual upgrades for it, it would just come with static stats. This would bring research time for a game down from something like 6 hours (for a player without a research partner who is diverting resources for actually building and losing weapons in combat as well) down to maybe 1 hour. Then you just make it take twice as long to research each new technology and you are back to something sane like 2 hours, or make it take 3 times as long to research a new technology and you can have the tech tree in 3 hours.
Because who realistically has 6 hours to play at once?
And who can realistically fight battles in 3 hot spots around a large map, while microing vtols, AND constantly be reloading the research facilities with a constant stream of more of the near endless supply of upgrades for the weapons he has already had to research, so that he doesn't get behind in the arms race? That is just too much damn micro, imo.
- Hmmm, interesting. Too bad Skrim did not release his implementation mod. Proof is in the pudding - as in most cases, much MP play-testing.. Anything less is like a leap of faith or just plain personal taste which is fine if attested to as such.Zarel wrote:Again, this would change Warzone too much. The current way seems good enough to me.
Well, it's not just that it would be different. It's that MG Viper Wheels are weaker than MG cyborgs, so they should clearly go earlier in the tech tree.Zarel wrote:- Hmmm, interesting. Too bad Skrim did not release his implementation mod. Proof is in the pudding - as in most cases, much MP play-testing.. Anything less is like a leap of faith or just plain personal taste which is fine if attested to as such.
That's interesting, though. What did they take out because 1000+ players didn't like it??Zarel wrote:- There were many major changes WZ under went between v.1.0 retail and the last Pumpkin patch v.1.10 that substantively impacted game play in Ski and MP because that was Pumpkin's fundamental mantra of game play evolution. Like for example, the Troop transport... wasn't in the original game and was not even on any Pumpkin mind till fan Toricat suggested it and viola Pumpkin put it in.. other examples like that over the course of the 10 patches (another like this would be "Build Queuing"). WZ was an acknowledged unfinished game across the board when Pumpkin was forced to abandon its development ... Heck, Pumpkin put stuff in WZ that they loved but then took out because a 1000+ MPers didn't like it. But that was a capitalist model of doing business which is quite different than FOSS.
Hm, you're right about starting the game in T3; we have played with a T2 starting base mostly (realized it just now, sorry about that :rolleyes: ), so i guess that if you start with T3, the gameplay gets faster anyway. As for using different strategies, I have found out during my playing, that players, who DON'T HAVE an extensive knowledge about the existing research options, requirements, body types, propulsions, structures and weapons, tend to make different types of vehicles, bases, defenses etc. depending on their structures (more on this a bit later), their sequence of research, and so on; so for instance one player had fully upgraded & very tough base structures but only medium body vehicles with medium weapons, while another one had weak base structures and only the basic bunkers built while he had heavy body VTOL bombers... But once the players go PRO, they probably study the research & build tree extensively and then they all go for the same basic sequences, which have proven the most sucessful (build this, then that, to get this for doing that).Zarel wrote:...although this is just excessive. You do realize you can start games in T3, right? Turtling and researching up isn't very fun unless you have to defend against people who use different strategies. If everyone does it, it's just a waste of time.
Unless you play with very limited oil, so you have to be careful in choosing what to research. But too many people I see who want to play with build times above half an hour also play on maps with tons of oil, defeating the whole point.
I'm very happy to hear this; in this way players who would like to play the "vanilla" version of Warzone (for whatever reason), will get their chance & wish; that's a great idea IMO.Zarel wrote:One of these days, I'll make an "original 1.10 balance" mod.
THIS is exactly the thing i talked about earlier: players who literally "don't know what's waiting around the corner" and don't have an extensive knowledge of the game mechanics, will build & research different stuff at different stages in different ways and so get different configurations and results.Zarel wrote:Regardless, why do you want structure requirements in the game? They're confusing for newcomers, since the research tree doesn't seem to be based on any prerequisites other than other research. Some of the developers only learned that technologies can have structure requirements when they read the changelog for Rebalance. This makes it so some players never find some technologies, if they never bother to build the corresponding structure. And some of these technologies are fun, and those players might never be able to experience the wonder of, say, Cyborg Transport.
Could you explain what exactly you like about structure prerequisites? I don't want to remove them if there's a good reason they should stay, and I would greatly appreciate if you could give me one.
That is also why multiplayer games are mostly named differently: "newbie" for new players and "pro" for pros, also "rush" for rushers. The only thing any new player has to do, is FIRST do the tutorial (that's why it's here for), then play & finish the CAMPAIGN (where you learn ALL most important things, sequences and strategies), then you can go play multiplayer against a computer oponent to try out strategies etc. in real time under pressure, only then you go play against another human opponent; at least i think most people start to play games in this way.Well, I don't have an extensive knowledge of the different weapons and vehicles in the game, but like i said earlier, i THINK that Pumpkin also thought of the "newbie" and "mediocre" players as much as they thought about the "profesionals", that is probably why they enabled so many different variations of design, base building and vehicles: so that the ones who like to research different ways and options can do so; the profesionals will surely find out the most sucessful builds by themselves and use them against eachother, but in the end not everybody who will play the game has a desire or plan to become a pro or play like one, some will always play it just for the fun and exitment of trying out different configurations.Zarel wrote:Many times, when I think about "fixing" one of the "broken" aspects of the balance, I ask myself, "Why did Pumpkin do it this way?" or "Why did Troman do it this way?" and "Is my way really better?" and a lot of the time, I don't have a good answer.
I mean, sometimes, it was an obvious mistake they made - such as Pumpkin misspelling "Incendiary" or Troman never getting around to balancing T3 weapons or some later cyborgs (which can get pretty amusing - look at the 2.1 stats: Assault Gunner is weaker than Machinegunner). Other times, I don't know - such as Pumpkin pricing HPV hardpoint research at 3x the price of HPV research, or Troman reducing the price of all bodies so they're roughly equal - and when I change them, there's always some kind of doubt in my mind about whether I'm really doing the right thing.
So if you have ideas about why Pumpkin or Troman didn't do it "my way", I'd very much like to hear them.
Well yes, but players who "don't know what's waiting around the corner" know that research topics have prerequisites, but they don't know that there are structure prerequisites. Players who play casually generally want to figure things out on their own, and obscure mechanics like structure prerequisites actively hamper that. While trying to figure out what the prerequisites of something are, they might come to strange incorrect conclusions based on lack of knowledge of the structure prereq mechanic, and that would frustrate them.ThomasCarstein wrote:THIS is exactly the thing i talked about earlier: players who literally "don't know what's waiting around the corner" and don't have an extensive knowledge of the game mechanics, will build & research different stuff at different stages in different ways and so get different configurations and results.
I realise that you may think that this is unfair for some players (especially new ones), as they lost just becouse they didn't build one structure and so didn't get some other upgrade. But hey, that's the point of playing a game with 4000 + different possibilities xD You have to get so intrigued by the question "Hm, I wonder what I could build or do if i had made THIS before/after/instead of THAT?", so that in the next game you go: "Ok, i made this stuff in the last game, now I'll do THIS instead of THAT and see what happens and how i can use it!" That is also in my opinion one of the reasons that structure requirements were implemented in the first place.
Many of my changes are aimed at players at every experience level. I can't even think of a change that would be good for hardcore players but bad for casual players, and we definitely would not implement it if someone were to think of it.ThomasCarstein wrote:Well, I don't have an extensive knowledge of the different weapons and vehicles in the game, but like i said earlier, i THINK that Pumpkin also thought of the "newbie" and "mediocre" players as much as they thought about the "profesionals", that is probably why they enabled so many different variations of design, base building and vehicles: so that the ones who like to research different ways and options can do so; the profesionals will surely find out the most sucessful builds by themselves and use them against eachother, but in the end not everybody who will play the game has a desire or plan to become a pro, some will always play it just for the fun and exitment of different configurations.
I am one of the latter ones and as such I would like to have the option to play the whole upgraded game (NOT some mod) in a way which enables me to have fun my way - becouse i know, that the pros, who want to beat all opponents as fast and efficient as possible, aldready KNOW how to do it and will do it regardless of me having fun exploring all the other stuff. I have to finish writing now (some stuff to do), I'd just like to say that you guys are developing and remaking the WHOLE game which will be played by MOST people regardless of their expirience level; if you want to make a game that is easier for pro's, then please think of implementing a mod or different branch, don't redisign the whole BASIC game to fit only one segment of the players (take a look at all the different PRO-mods for Quake arena and lots of other games - they all just change the game after the player enables/implements the mod, otherwise it is the same game).
Hmmm, just checked....You misinterpret. There are no vehicle requirements for borg branch. He's arguing that researching vehicle upgrades doesn't give him cyborg upgrades.
No, 0 lines of missile weapons that are strong against cyborgs. There is a missile line specialized against every kind of target except cyborgs. I am only talking about missiles right now.Zarel wrote: 0 lines that are strong against cyborgs?
Have you forgot about machinegun? Laser? Mortar? Even MRL is pretty decent against cyborgs.
Well that is a good reason to make cyborgs available immediately or modify MG or towers stats or place on the tech tree, but I don't see how it relates to missiles.The biggest reason why cyborgs are so underutilized most of the time is because of machinegun. Everyone spams MG towers, so cyborgs are mostly powerless against them.
Well how about changing it less then by only removing the "MK" upgrades? So for each weapon line you have one range upgrade, one refire upgrade, one damage upgrade and one refire upgrade. That is one upgrade per category instead of three, that reduces research from 12 upgrades to 4 upgrades per weapon, while preserving the strategic decision making behind choosing which kinds of upgrade you want to buy for which individual technology.Again, this would change Warzone too much. The current way seems good enough to me.
Has that always been the case or did cyborgs become stronger than light vehicles after the commercial release?Also, cyborgs are not as basic as it gets. Viper Wheels tanks are cheaper, and have lower armor and HP, than cyborgs.
Hm, that's true... actually the more i think about it, I can't see the point in requiring a hardpoint research to get something totaly different, either. That's the nice thing of a conversation: getting new views & ideasZarel wrote:Well yes, but players who "don't know what's waiting around the corner" know that research topics have prerequisites, but they don't know that there are structure prerequisites. Players who play casually generally want to figure things out on their own, and obscure mechanics like structure prerequisites actively hamper that. While trying to figure out what the prerequisites of something are, they might come to strange incorrect conclusions based on lack of knowledge of the structure prereq mechanic, and that would frustrate them.
Hehe, yeah, i know and i like it this wayDeus Siddis wrote:I never thought I would be the one saying this to someone, but you sir, are a casual gamer.
I mostly play games for the fun of playing and not to win/finish as fast as possible