Enable/Disable Allies Sharing Technology

[AromaRhyme]

It seems that one player's research will benefit all its allies.
When there are different numbers of players on each side, this could be a huge (dis)advantage.
If we can have an option to enable/disable tech sharing, things will be better (I think =_=).
At least, this improvement will do nothing bad= =.
And, this option will make a 3v5, 2v6 victories more possible. ( though they exist now)

[Per]

I agree. I think having research sharing in the game was a mistake.

[Iluvalar]

Play in map / mod that control the price of research in such a way that the 5 labs could not be filled easily. A map where the 3 players can fill 5 labs and the 5 players can only afford to fill 3 is totally fair. Say 6 power south and 10 power north.

However I also agree with you. Disabling research sharing could make interesting games and dont look so hard to implement for a Dev. Sound like a "&& game.shareTech" somewhere in the code and a button in the lobby.

Am I right Per ?

[effigy]

Hmm, that's an interesting proposal. My only complaint thus far about research sharing is that more than 1 team member is allowed to research the same item, each spending power on the item, and putting your team at a power disadvantage by doing that. It's possible to collectively spend 4x(or however many players are on a team) the cost on a research item this way.

This may have been a better way to go in Master instead of increasing structure and unit limits.

I'm not sure I'm in favor of this, but it's something I'll be thinking about Everything makes a good additional option anyway. That way you don't have to commit to making drastic changes

edit: --> just wanted to put out a reminder that in Master you can see your team mates progress on each res item in their team color via the research menu

[Per]

@Iluvalar It is not hard to do.

However, I do not like adding additional buttons. Our interface is too complex as it is. I think we should just decide one way or the other.

[stiv]

Turning the feature off seems a reasonable choice

[Shadow Wolf TJC]

It should be a toggleable feature though, so that both people who want this feature to stay and people who want this feature to go would be satisfied.

[Per]

Our mission is not to satisfy everyone - but to make the best possible game.

That said, I would certainly be interested in hearing from people who like this feature. So far none has spoken up for it.

[Jorzi]

Well, I think it's kind of a nice feature, but I realize that it will undeniably give the larger team an even bigger advantage.

[effigy]

I think it would force players to focus more on research, and influence team members into choosing so called "factions." Instead of the current pre-research chatter including "rockets + mg?" or "mg + cannon?" it'll become "you do cannon, I'll do mg?" ...it would be a huge change to team play.

The best thing I can say about how this might possibly improve the game is that team games will play more like 1v1 and FFA, and that would bring some balance continuity across the game types.

I haven't decided how this would impact weapon/body balance, but I think it's safe to say we would be seeing much less of the T3 weapons if the change was added to the game as-is.

[vexed]

@Iluvalar It is not hard to do.

However, I do not like adding additional buttons. Our interface is too complex as it is. I think we should just decide one way or the other.

There are valid uses for research sharing, like when you have n00bs on your team, and trying to help them understand how the game works.
I don't think it should go, and I guess a toggle is the best thing, but as the interface is currently limited, it is a bit harder to find a good location for the sharing resources symbol.

[Reg312]

pro teams will make some series of destructing/rebuilding teammate's power generator for chance to get technologies for free

[NoQ]

I don't like the idea of adding more choices. The rules of the game should be as specific as possible, for the beauty of the game itself to rise. In fact, i'm not using most of the game mode buttons, always sitting on "no fog of war, no scavengers, locked teams, high power levels, no bases". Other modes are sometimes good for skirmish/compstomp challenge scenarios though, but not for multiplayer competitions we're talking about.

I don't like the idea of 3x5 etc battles either. The idea of "the game rules were fair, so whoever played better won" is crisp and clear. But on the other hand, the idea of a handicup like "the game rules were balanced in such a way that the teams were supposed to be fair" is almost impossible to implement, because there will always be less game rule balances available than the amount of possible player combinations involved. On the other hand, the idea of handicup is successfully used in the "Go" game, where one's ranking is traditionally based on how much initial handicap you can give your enemy. Warzone is probably capable of this too. But i'm getting away from the topic now. Well, this does make a bit of sense, but much less than fair matches.

[Iluvalar]

Our mission is not to satisfy everyone - but to make the best possible game.

That said, I would certainly be interested in hearing from people who like this feature. So far none has spoken up for it.

Nooooo ! One player gives all his power and trucks and then quit. The remaining player have twice as much budget for the research. then his opponents and it's a sure win .

You just can't make that de default .

[Per]

@Reg312 and - I'm not sure if you are serious or not. Of course we'd have to make some minor adjustments to make sure things like that won't happen.
@Iluvalar - That is an important objection. Would you be in favour though, if we found a neat way to solve it?