Units preview. Why it should be back...

[Iluvalar]

Here is another graphical representation of the problem. Please note that the balance of luck in the game is hardcoded deep into the stats and the game mechanic and it is a part of the game that you just can't change that much without breaking it.

[Cyp]

Here's the previous graph, with a sign error fixed.

[JDW]

The *only* way previews should be back is, if that is tied to the CRC or something along those lines, since that structure doesn't really do much, and hardly anyone builds commanders for MP games.

I would also add a range to that.

If you're thinking about adding the preview feature back in the game, I think you should at least make the players work for it. Ever since the game has had unit previews, no one has ever bothered scouting. The only time units are sent early to the opponent's base is to truck rush a bunch of HMG towers/bunkers.

Why not add a turret/cyborg just for the purpose of scouting? I'm sure this has been discussed before, I've searched the forums with keywords like "spy", or "scout".

What I'm suggesting is,

• 1) A scout turret that is available at start, just like the truck turret.
  2) Should also come as a stock scout cyborg and even a vtol scout turret (in case the opponent has walled himself in)
  3) The HP of this unit needs to be quite high and/or have a speed faster than that of any other unit
  4) Possibly give the unit the advantage of dodging most projectiles, the scout shouldn't be too dumb and be a martyr every time. But maybe a good HP level and faster speed can make this requirement redundant.
  5) In addition to what vexed suggested, players should build a CRC if they want to view what their allies have scouted. If they don't , then they only get to see enemy units that their own scout units have discovered.

The purpose of this suggestion is to try and make scouting a tactical advantage. And for anyone who wants to learn more about scouting , here's an interesting link Scouting

[Iluvalar]

Here's the previous graph, with a sign error fixed.

Stop being a [INAPPROPRIATE CONTENT REMOVED]

[Shadow Wolf TJC]

As a draw back, rockets need an extra lab to research and take the more time of T1 weapons, they have comparatively less damage for the same stats and their progression is deceiving until you hit the ROF mk2. You truck stay longer in the base and you are vulnerable against more pushy strategy (Machine guns and probably flamers). As a blind rocket researcher in 3.1 you will have not any clue that you opponent is mass producing and is coming with a rush until his units hit your base and you discover that you have lost.

First of all, the reason why I even thought about proposing focusing on the Rockets line and improving the durability of vehicles over cyborgs in the 1st place was as a possible solution to what I thought was your dilemma, namely that so-called randomness factor whatchyamacallit that you've been talking about, that arises when players are playing, on version 3.1, which supposedly lacks unit previews, on a map with so little oil that they'd pretty much HAVE to focus on just one weapon line to research. In order to help minimize the chances that your opponent was researching a weapon-vehicle combo that could counter yours, especially on a low-oil map, and thus, in order to reduce this randomness factor, I came to the conclusion that you'd need to focus on a more jack-of-all-trades line of weapons and unit types, and since it seemed cheaper to focus on the Rockets line than on the Machinegun and Cannon lines combined, and since it seemed as if improving Cyborg survivability was less beneficial in general (since it only applies to Cyborgs) than improving vehicle survivability, that's why I'm proposing that players focus on those lines, just to be safe.

When going for such a versatile jack-of-all-trades weapon line/unit type combo, there'd be little reason to change focus towards a different weapon line, with or without the ability to preview your opponent's units. There'd also be little need to scout out what weapons the opponent is focusing their research on since you'd likely already have the technology needed to counter them. Rather, scouting would be reserved for trying to find out what units the opponent is producing en-masse, and to help detect enemy attacks in advance (such as through the usage of proxy watchtowers). From there, all you'd need to do is to produce sufficient amounts of a proper counter for the opponent's units.

However, I estimate that the total amount of power that's needed for researching MRLs, along with all of the prerequisites, would be $298, and the amount of time taken would be about 7 minutes at the earliest (according to the tech tree on this website). That's about half-a-minute earlier than the minimum amount of time that you'd expect the opponent to research Medium Cannons (which would itself require 2 or more Research Labs to get in that quick a time), and about half-a-minute later than the minimum amount of time that you'd expect the opponent to research Heavy Machineguns.

Until you're able to research MRLs, you'd need to depend upon Machineguns for protection against Cyborgs. Half-Tracked and Tracked vehicles would be less vulnerable to an opponent that focuses on Machineguns, though against an opponent that focuses on Cannons, if you're also focusing on improving vehicle durability, then you'd probably be researching Cyborg Factories as a prerequisite anyways, so you could build 1 or 2 Cyborg Factories and have them pump out Cyborg Machinegunners to counter the enemy's Cyborg Heavy Gunners, while your Mini-Rocket tanks deal with the enemy's own Machinegun tanks. (You won't have anything to hard-counter the opponent's Cannon tanks until you've researched Lancers though.) Finally, against an opponent that focuses on Flamers (and I've already mentioned this before many times now ), the best way to deal with units armed with such powerful-yet-short ranged weapons is to keep them from getting close to you while you whittle them away with longer-ranged weapons.

Finally, it is true that Lancers do require Synaptic Link Data Analysis as one of their prerequisites, though chances are that you'd want to do some research along that line sooner or later anyways in order to eventually research such things as Hyper-Velocity Cannons, Composite Alloys, Bombards, and Python Bodies to name a few. However, if you feel as if you can't afford to research both lines at the same time, which would likely be true on low-oil maps, then you could always opt to postpone research on the less-immediately-useful of the 2 lines, such as the Synaptic Link Data Analysis line, until you either secure more Oil Derricks, or you've run out of things to research in the Rockets line.

..., Lancers, Ripple Rockets, and MRAs are prone to overkill when used in groups, thus requiring large amounts of micromanagement to use effectively), ...

What do you mean? Does this seem like a large amount of micromanagement? http://wz2100.net/~cyp/recording-20120203165116.mp4

Sorry Cyp, but I'm afraid that I'm unable to listen/watch your video. It might be corrupted.

If you're thinking about adding the preview feature back in the game, I think you should at least make the players work for it. Ever since the game has had unit previews, no one has ever bothered scouting. The only time units are sent early to the opponent's base is to truck rush a bunch of HMG towers/bunkers.

You present a nice point, one that I'd have to agree with.

The purpose of this suggestion is to try and make scouting a tactical advantage. And for anyone who wants to learn more about scouting , here's an interesting link Scouting

Perhaps it would be better if players had the ability to scan a small area of their choosing (somewhere between 5 to 8 tiles in radius should do) every 2 or 3 minutes. Such an ability would be more reliable than sending in some scouting units that could be killed off, though perhaps, for the sake of balance, it would need to be researched (possibly requiring, say, the Research Module or Command Relay Center technologies as a prerequisite), and then built, with a build limit of just 1, either as a standalone building or as a module for, say, the Command Center. (Think of the Scanner Sweep support power granted with the ComSat Station addon for Starcraft's Command Centers, and it's replacement (the Orbital Command Center upgrade) in Starcraft 2, or the various scanner support powers seen throughout the more recent Command & Conquer games from Generals and onwards.)

[Iluvalar]

@Shadow Wolf TJC, I understand what you say about rockets but that doesn't matter, even so the rockets involve a bit more skill and could retain a bit more skill involved in 3.1, it still suffer greatly from that change.

Edit : Since I found more my words to describe it, I edited my first post with a new section.

[Shadow Wolf TJC]

@Shadow Wolf TJC, I understand what you say about rockets but that doesn't matter, even so the rockets involve a bit more skill and could retain a bit more skill involved in 3.1, it still suffer greatly from that change.

Still, if I had no choice but to focus on only 1 weapon line due to lack of oil, then I'd probably have to choose the surprisingly versatile, if somewhat micro-intensive, Rockets line. Although they're personally not my favorite weapon line to focus on (especially since, given their combination of high shot damage and poor rate-of-fire, Lancers, Ripple Rockets, and MRAs are prone to overkill when used in groups, thus requiring large amounts of micromanagement to use effectively), I've chosen them since, in addition to granting access to many anti-tank weapons such as Mini-Rocket Pods and Lancers, they also grant access to a few artillery weapons to choose from, most notably the Mini-Rocket Array, a short-ranged Tier 1 weapon that happens to be pretty effective against the very Cyborgs that are so resistant to anti-tank weaponry.

So I guess that we can both agree that using Rockets to their fullest potential is more difficult than using Machineguns or Cannons to their fullest potential, eh?

Anyways, low-oil maps seem to present themselves with a different set of challenges to overcome than medium-oil maps (where players would be able to afford focusing their research on 2 or more weapon lines at a time, like Machineguns and Cannons, which, by the way, is one of my personal favorite weapon line combos to focus research on) or high-oil maps (where players would be able to field large numbers of otherwise expensive units and structures, such as masses of Ripple Rockets, which I believe is a common sight on those high-oil maps that many of the... uh... more casual players like to play on). In the case of low-oil maps, I believe that the challenge was to be able to make the most out of your limited supplies of oil, which would mean fewer factories, smaller armies, fewer more-expensive units being fielded, fewer research labs, and fewer research opportunities (which would, in turn, lead to fewer research lines being taken, which would, in turn, lead to a higher randomness factor). The same could be said about terrain that contains many bottlenecks, winding turns, and chokepoints, or terrain that is more open; they challenge players to make the most out of it.

However, I sometimes feel as if finding ways to overcome these kinds of challenges that different maps present to players as part of the fun of the game. In fact, I'd often like to design maps that are based around these kinds of challenges, to see if players could find ways to overcome them. My old Options map, for example, was designed to encourage players to use Hovercraft and Cyborg Transports in order to explore new frontiers to expand to (since I did place some oil resources in places that were only accessible through Hovercraft or VTOLs), though it still allowed players to rush their opponents early-game.

[Iluvalar]

New turrets, dmg, rof, accuracy, propulsions, bodies, armor, thermal armor, research upgrade, power upgrade, some minimal defensive structure, repair centre and such.

I believe we can easily fill 10 labs without really touching to an alt weapon and we'd need at least 50 oil. So, 2p in high oil or 4p in low to medium oil would still be affected by what i describe. You are actually thinking that having an alt is a good idea, because in 2.3, you just had the time to switch it. But in 3.1, you'll get the information later and you will need a suicidal unit budget to get it. You will react 2 minutes later and the opponent will hit just during the transition where both your weapons are late by 1-2 research.

When players will understand that their change to adapt in time dropped seriously unless you are a extreme pro scout. They'll stop to adapt, they'll stop to invest in an emergency alt and they will stop to scout since it's useless by now. They will now play a do or die in a sort of crystallized research path. They will give up all chances they have to survive to the baddest odd in start research, in exchange of hitting harder and reducing other's chances to adapt. Then... even the pro scouters will have to play a rock-paper-scissor kind of game.

It's just a matter of time before players stop mimicking the now defective research adaptation part of the game...

[zany]

download/file.php?id=10062&mode=view

this graph makes no sense. you say there is no skill in 3.1 since it don't have previews but 2.3 has skill since it has previews. lol bassawkards man!
download/file.php?id=10063&mode=view


iluvalar you can make the graph do whatever you want it don't make it true

[zany]

This is how he creates graphs

[Iluvalar]

this graph makes no sense. you say there is no skill in 3.1 since it don't have previews but 2.3 has skill since it has previews. lol bassawkards man!

grrrrr, listen up.

The game IS ACTUALY DESIGNED to punish your for reacting slowly from the units the opponent first produce.
Since your first unit will now be a scout a 5. the game UNCHANGED mechanic, will penalize you from that 5:00 for not detecting right away the millitary unit of your opponent in his base (that he will only build at 5:30 because he need a scout as well). The unlucky player that have the bad research path will be severly penalized because he dont take a quick action.

In other words, unless you are a pro playing versus a big noob, by the time your scout will inform you of what is going on. The "timing" for a good counter reaction will already be over, and your chance to win, even if you play a godlike game, will now be close to 0. By the time you will scout, your faith will be sealed. Because none of the devs tough about giving the players any extra time to scout.

As a result it's exactly like exploding all the pgens and the laboratory of one of the player randomly. And then you say to him :HEY good job ! you scouted right so i'll save your factories ! Have fun .

Your idea is probably to reward a good scouting, but effectively this just penalize him a bit less. I hope, you will understand... I'd like to reward scouting, but we'd need to review the game mechanic with it...

[aubergine]

But surely this will affect all players so no particular player has an advantage?

[Shadow Wolf TJC]

Aw, come on guys. Don't be mean to him. Iluvalar's just offering his own opinions on how, according to him, the removal of unit previews for the latest Master version made matches in low-oil maps (Is it low-oil maps? Please correct me if I'm wrong.) more akin to a rock-paper-scissors match, where the research-adaptation part seems to have been made, for the most part, meaningless (at least for countering an opposing player's research focus, as adapting research for different terrain still seems important, though that's just my opinion). He's also trying to convince others as to why unit previewing should be brought back, and it was his decision to determine how he would back up his claims, namely through calculations (something that I did for determining whether or not certain weapons are worth researching, what weapons to mount on what vehicles for cost-efficiency purposes, etc.). There's nothing wrong with that. Heck, he has every right to do so, as do we have the right to decide whether or not to agree with him.

However, even though I don't exactly agree with him in terms of needing to bring back unit previewing (though I do agree with his opinion in that the removal of unit previewing has made low-oil matches more of a rock-paper-scissors game), what you guys seem to be doing is not only disagreeing with him, but flat out mocking him as well, and that's not cool guys. Instead, you should be offering more constructive criticism, like what I'm about to do, and try not to upset him.

Iluvalar, although I do agree with you on some parts, but not others, perhaps you should consider performing some real in-game tests to verify whether or not those calculations of yours have some merit. For now, they seem to amount to no more than a mere hypothesis. If they do hold merit, then we can discuss ways to fix this, ok? (I'm personally hoping that players would gain the ability to conduct surveillance sweeps of small areas every couple minutes, and that it would be researchable early in a T1 match.)

Edit:

grrrrr, listen up.

The game IS ACTUALY DESIGNED to punish your for reacting slowly from the units the opponent first produce.
Since your first unit will now be a scout a 5. the game UNCHANGED mechanic, will penalize you from that 5:00 for not detecting right away the millitary unit of your opponent in his base (that he will only build at 5:30 because he need a scout as well). The unlucky player that have the bad research path will be severly penalized because he dont take a quick action.

I agree. This also seems to apply for the Command & Conquer series, and (to a lesser extent) Starcraft 2, where players are likewise penalized for trying to do battle with an opponent's units using units that are poor matchups (such as trying to attack tanks armed with miniguns with simple soldiers armed with submachineguns), and Warzone 2100's system is no different. Sure, you can continue to upgrade your weapon lines' power, or unit types' survivability, but that won't change the fact that anti-tank weapons will always deal 30% of their damage (before applying armor reduction) towards Cyborgs, and 120% damage towards Tracked vehicles, or that weapons with higher shot damage, but a low rate-of-fire (such as, say, a Hyper-Velocity Cannon), would usually have better dps (damage-per-second) against heavily-armored targets, but less dps against lightly-armored targets, than weapons of a similar tier, though with lower shot damage, but a higher rate-of-fire (such as an Assault Cannon).

[Iluvalar]

There is one of the player (random for what it matter) that should discover in the game, that his inital research path should need some adjustement,. Basically he discover that the opponent research the counter to his own counter. Unless they research the exact same path... Even with the same path, there is as well a degree of agressivity that count. One might discover that he is too much or not enough aggressive.

In any game, one player will have a lucky start and the other will need to take an action. The faster the better. By delaying the relevant informations to the player, we just increase that part of pure luck in the game. As far as I know, the window for a reaction is quite small already.

[NoQ]

I'm surprised to see that almost nobody managed to understand Iluvalar's statements.

• Removing unit preview promotes risky strategies that sometimes randomly win over general ones that are able to adapt to different situations. The whole idea of adaptation suffers.
• Scouting might have helped, but it doesn't deny the effect completely; in fact, it would decrease the effect very slightly.
• I agree that unit preview is bad and sort of cheating etc, so i'd really like to have an alternative, but removing the preview completely actually does make the game theory poorer, which is something i don't like.
• Turning command center into something similar to comsat station in starcraft could be one good idea.

Also, Iluvalar: try not to feed the trolls, don't reply to simple "this all is wrong" posts (: