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Weeble
Starscape Jedi
Joined: 25 Apr 2003
Posts: 1139
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
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 Posted: Wed Aug 04, 2004 6:30 am Post subject: |
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Hint: Use burrow. Double click a unit to select 12 of its type, hotkey them and then burrow them. Repeat. It's a lot quicker than dragging and selecting and separating that many units.
Of course, with flying units or ultralisks this isn't so easy. I also find that maintaining a zerg airforce is a nightmare - the bulk will be mutalisks, and they're very fragile. It's a right pain to have to regroup your hotkeys when they start dying. Scourge (small, cheap, weak and use a powerful suicide attack) are very necessary against certain enemy units, but they either eat up loads of hotkeys (grouped in 3s or 6s) or you risk wasting them in overkill. And since they kill themselves in the process, you need to waste more time resetting your hotkeys. Except for wraiths, all the other races arial units are more durable and easy to control. |
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Poo Bear
Pod Team
Joined: 14 Oct 2002
Posts: 4107
Location: Sheffield, UK
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| Posted: Wed Aug 04, 2004 10:41 am Post subject: |
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| Dunbar wrote: | | I'd just like to add that I'm not sure how much we can compare Battlescape to other RTS games. |
Yeh! Woo! I hope more people hook into the fact that Battlescape (hopefully) wont be like other RTS games. Frankly that is a GOOD thing, the standard build RTS has been done to death by people with almost infinitely larger resources than us so I don't want to compete with them.
| Dunbar wrote: | | Battlescape just gives you a set number of units and you fight it out. |
It will be up to you to select what you feel are the ideal mix of units for the mission and how those units are configured. I think the concept of reinforcements could add a lot of strategy i.e. save some of your battlepoints and use a smaller force to scout out the enemy then bring in appropriate reinforcements. Add to that things like field repair units (engineers and medics) and supply vehicles, plus special objectives that might release more reinforcements.
| Dunbar wrote: | | One big difference is there is really no such thing as rushing. |
Why not? You could choose to leave your engineers, scouts, medics, supply vehicles, artillery, etc behind. Then spend all your battlepoints on tanks and shock troops, as long as you keep the element of surprise, attack quickly and the opponent is unprepared then you stand a good chance of an early victory. Of course if your opponent has played the map before, quickly gets his artillery setup on high ground and has cheap LAW missile wielding troops hiding in the trees then the outcome could be an embarrassing defeat. (sounds exactly the same to me).
| Dunbar wrote: | | If terrain is a big factor (and it should be), I can see battles turning into stalemates where both sides seek higher ground and are unwilling to attack the other side at a disadvantage. |
There will almost certainly be other factors acting to push players into decisive action i.e. achieving goals within a certain time limit, having objectives other than just wiping each other out, etc. Stalemates are a big problem in BuildRTS games too, a lot more so than in Battlescape (I hope). The number of times i've played SC or C&C with my friends (evenly matched) and we all sit there covering all the resources taking the odd pot shot at each other, it goes on for hours until someone goes for it.
| Dunbar wrote: | | In RTS games, you can defeat an opponent by taking out his army or by taking out his base and thus hurting his supply lines. In battlescape, your only choice is to take out your opponent's units. |
If by "take out your opponents units" you mean your only option is to engage the enemy head on then I say not true. Nearly all the same building blocks of a BuildRTS are still there, supplies, repair, artillery support, sensors (radar if you like). They are just presented differently.
It should still be valid to seek out vulnerable units before taking on the main force, explore the map with your scouts, find the supply vehicles, the radar trucks, the artillery, the commanders and the medics - take them out first. Locate the reinforcement drop zone(s) and put down an artillery barrage therefore preventing him calling in reinforcements.
| Dunbar wrote: | | Frankly, I think straight up skirmishes in Battlescape won't work really well. |
I think the above points prove they do. If your only objective was to wipe out the enemy, there was no time limit and you had no access to reinforcements or other strategic options then you would be right. Luckily I thought of that already 
| Dunbar wrote: | | A better way to go would be themed maps, where both sides attempt to achieve an objective. |
You hit the nail on the head there! As mentioned above there should be more than enough scope in the basic game to have good simple fight to the death. However, that should be a small part of a larger game built around specific maps and heavily constrained interesting missions. With "mission" being the keyword, "Last man standing" is obviously one valid mission type, but hopefully there will be a lot more. In fact if I remember rightly there are 17 in the design document, but I doubt we will have the time to get anything like that number into the game 
One big difference in missions without reinforcements and/or small battle points limits is the speed of a game. It should be possible to have a quick 10 minute game that is all about fighting. I think that should be quite refreshing compared to an average SC/C&C match lasting 1-2 hours. Not that a long drawn out match is a bad thing, far from it, just be nice for people wanting a quick game over a lunch break. Plus if matches are quite quick then it lets you try out more configurations of your army and experiment with different strategies more easily. |
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BluePhoenix
Joined: 08 Jun 2004
Posts: 96
Location: Between Georgia and Cuba
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| Posted: Fri Aug 06, 2004 4:47 pm Post subject: |
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| Blood Viper998 wrote: | | i happen to know alot about the Zerg, they are my favorite race in SC, and i know how to get those "Groups of 24 or more" you have to produce a buch of units, click and drag around as many as you can, (this will select 12) assign them to group 1,2,3, ect. and move them away. (repeat untill all units are grouped) |
I too love the Zerg, that is why I am so aware of their inherent weaknesses to Terrans, though, I admit Blizzard did try...they really needed to weaken irradiate. Hotkeying the squads is okay but really, you want to move all your mutalisks and hydralisk at once, with one button. Have to deal with 10 squads of units can get hectic.
Ideally Battlescape will have a variety of units with varying functions that never become obsolete, like starcraft. |
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Dunbar
Joined: 22 Sep 2003
Posts: 21
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| Posted: Thu Aug 12, 2004 5:13 pm Post subject: |
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| Poo Bear wrote: | | Dunbar wrote: | | I'd just like to add that I'm not sure how much we can compare Battlescape to other RTS games. |
Yeh! Woo! I hope more people hook into the fact that Battlescape (hopefully) wont be like other RTS games. Frankly that is a GOOD thing, the standard build RTS has been done to death by people with almost infinitely larger resources than us so I don't want to compete with them. |
Sound good to me; I've played a lot of RTS games and after a while they all seem alike. Gather all the resources you can and send wave after wave of men at the enemy. While they are a bit more complicated than that, in the end most of them boil down to resource management. i.e. whoever can best manage his economy wins. Like in starcraft, it really doesn't matter if you micromanage your units and kill more units on the field if in the meantime your opponent is getting more expansions and out-producing you 2 to 1.
One thing I like about battlescape is that it focuses on the actual battles, rather than on economy building.
| Quote: | | Dunbar wrote: | | Battlescape just gives you a set number of units and you fight it out. |
It will be up to you to select what you feel are the ideal mix of units for the mission and how those units are configured. I think the concept of reinforcements could add a lot of strategy i.e. save some of your battlepoints and use a smaller force to scout out the enemy then bring in appropriate reinforcements. Add to that things like field repair units (engineers and medics) and supply vehicles, plus special objectives that might release more reinforcements. |
Ah. I did know that you can pick your units, but I did not know that you would be able to pick reinforcements after the game has begun. That actually opens up a whole new avenue of play...though it might be problematic as well. Assuming that many units are designed with a rock-paper-scissors mentality (such as tanks defeat small arms infantry, small arms infantry defeat anti-tank gun infantry, which in turn defeat tanks), then the best strategy would seem to be to always reserve your units and pick them after battle has begun.
It would probably be best to penalize this in some way...such as, say you could get 10 tanks or 10 artillery along with your scouts, but decide to wait until after the battle begins. You scout your opponent and decide tanks would be better, but now you can only afford to get 8 of them, as it costs more battlepoints to get them after the battle has begun. So you pay a price for being able to choose the right units for the job.
Also, what will supply vehicles be for?
| Quote: | | Dunbar wrote: | | One big difference is there is really no such thing as rushing. |
Why not? You could choose to leave your engineers, scouts, medics, supply vehicles, artillery, etc behind. Then spend all your battlepoints on tanks and shock troops, as long as you keep the element of surprise, attack quickly and the opponent is unprepared then you stand a good chance of an early victory. Of course if your opponent has played the map before, quickly gets his artillery setup on high ground and has cheap LAW missile wielding troops hiding in the trees then the outcome could be an embarrassing defeat. (sounds exactly the same to me). |
I think I meant rushing in a more traditional RTS sense...building up units very quickly to assault your opponent. The classic case was the zerg rush, where the zerg would only build 1 drone and a lot of zerglings and attack 2 minutes into the game before your opponent has any real defence. In battlescape this isn't possible, as your opponent will have just as many battlepoints as you have in units to defend, unless he's saving points for reinforcements.
So yeah, you can just take tanks and such and go charging in, but I would think you should generally lose. The first thing your opponent should be doing is getting into defensive positions, making such an attack follhardy I would think.
What I am saying is that it's not the same at all. In most RTS games, rushing is about several things. First, in an all out rush, you sacrifice your long-term economy in order to get more units than your opponent in the hopes of taking them down. Such a tactic isn't possible in battlescape. Or, in a more conventional rush, you are trying to disrupt your opponent's economy be destroying workers. This serves a secondary purpose of keeping your opponent from teching up or expanding too quickly, as he has to have units to defend himself. I don't see how this is possible in battlescape either.
It is possible, I guess, to stomp newbies by taking strong and fast units and rushing them from the outset before they get into defensive positions. So in as far as newbies will hate rushes, that will probably be the same. But other than that, rushing is a totally different animal between traditional RTS games and battelscape, because in battlescape it isn't possible to out-build your opponent, nor is it necessary to stop them from climbing the technology tree.
| Quote: | | Dunbar wrote: | | If terrain is a big factor (and it should be), I can see battles turning into stalemates where both sides seek higher ground and are unwilling to attack the other side at a disadvantage. |
There will almost certainly be other factors acting to push players into decisive action i.e. achieving goals within a certain time limit, having objectives other than just wiping each other out, etc. Stalemates are a big problem in BuildRTS games too, a lot more so than in Battlescape (I hope). The number of times i've played SC or C&C with my friends (evenly matched) and we all sit there covering all the resources taking the odd pot shot at each other, it goes on for hours until someone goes for it. |
I've never really seen stalemate be a problem in SC unless it's in a big free-for-all. In general, late game units can take out turtlers with few losses. In a 1 on 1 scenario, it just doesn't happen IMX. But maybe my experience is atypical.
But in battlescape, where you only have a certain number of units and losing any of them can be really painful, attacking a well-defended position isn't a good idea. I guess what I'm saying is that if both sides are equal (that is, made of the same number of battlepoints) and both sides have entrenched in defensive positions, neither side has any incentive to attack, since the attacker should be at a disadvantage. In SC, you have to attack since you have to expand...if you turtle in and go all defensive, sure I'll take greater losses than you will if I attack. But I also have 2x or 3x your resources and can easily afford the losses.
So in battlescape, outside of some other pressure on opponents to attack (such as, say, retaking that fortified hill means you get a bunch of reinforcements), attacking is generally going to be a bad idea.
| Quote: | | Dunbar wrote: | | In RTS games, you can defeat an opponent by taking out his army or by taking out his base and thus hurting his supply lines. In battlescape, your only choice is to take out your opponent's units. |
If by "take out your opponents units" you mean your only option is to engage the enemy head on then I say not true. Nearly all the same building blocks of a BuildRTS are still there, supplies, repair, artillery support, sensors (radar if you like). They are just presented differently.
It should still be valid to seek out vulnerable units before taking on the main force, explore the map with your scouts, find the supply vehicles, the radar trucks, the artillery, the commanders and the medics - take them out first. Locate the reinforcement drop zone(s) and put down an artillery barrage therefore preventing him calling in reinforcements. |
I'm not sure what supplies will be; is that like gathered resources? So can your units mine or whatever to get more battlepoints to get more units? If so, aren't we back to being a normal RTS game? With workers, an economy, etc. So I assume supplies means something different.
Will there be regular reinforcements? So if you control drop zones, does that mean you get more reinforcements? I could see each side getting X battlepoints per minute, say...and getting more than that depending on how many key positions (like drop zones) he controls. Thus being able to get more reinforcements. Now we are back to having an economy of sorts, but without worker units or buildings and such.
| Quote: | | Dunbar wrote: | | Frankly, I think straight up skirmishes in Battlescape won't work really well. |
I think the above points prove they do. If your only objective was to wipe out the enemy, there was no time limit and you had no access to reinforcements or other strategic options then you would be right. Luckily I thought of that already |
Heh, yeah, that was more or less how I thought it was. With a static number of units and equal power on either side, there is no incentive to attack, and it seems we agree on that. Which leads us to:
| Quote: | | Dunbar wrote: | | A better way to go would be themed maps, where both sides attempt to achieve an objective. |
You hit the nail on the head there! As mentioned above there should be more than enough scope in the basic game to have good simple fight to the death. However, that should be a small part of a larger game built around specific maps and heavily constrained interesting missions. With "mission" being the keyword, "Last man standing" is obviously one valid mission type, but hopefully there will be a lot more. In fact if I remember rightly there are 17 in the design document, but I doubt we will have the time to get anything like that number into the game
One big difference in missions without reinforcements and/or small battle points limits is the speed of a game. It should be possible to have a quick 10 minute game that is all about fighting. I think that should be quite refreshing compared to an average SC/C&C match lasting 1-2 hours. Not that a long drawn out match is a bad thing, far from it, just be nice for people wanting a quick game over a lunch break. Plus if matches are quite quick then it lets you try out more configurations of your army and experiment with different strategies more easily. |
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I think themed skirmish maps will be awesome and a lot of fun. Will it be possible to have people create maps? I think a map-creation utility would be very powerful and do a lot to expand the game. Plus those that play and love the game can create maps and cover any of the 17 game scenarios you don't have the time to make yourselves 
I think the different scenarios cover for most of my concerns. Mostly I was worried about 1 on 1 battles drawing out into stalemates; but it seems that such skirmishes to the death are only a small part of the game, as there are going to be many themed maps, which is a good thing and also helps differentiate you from the rest of the RTS world. And it seems that even the problem of 1 on 1 battles to the death is addressed through some form of gathering reinforcements. All in all I can't wait to see the game in action! Should be a lot of fun. |
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Poo Bear
Pod Team
Joined: 14 Oct 2002
Posts: 4107
Location: Sheffield, UK
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| Posted: Fri Aug 13, 2004 11:18 am Post subject: |
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| Dunbar wrote: | | I did not know that you would be able to pick reinforcements after the game has begun. That actually opens up a whole new avenue of play...though it might be problematic as well. It would probably be best to penalize this in some way...such as, say you could get 10 tanks or 10 artillery along with your scouts, but decide to wait until after the battle begins. You scout your opponent and decide tanks would be better, but now you can only afford to get 8 of them, as it costs more battlepoints to get them after the battle has begun. So you pay a price for being able to choose the right units for the job. |
That is indeed what I had in mind. 
| Dunbar wrote: | | Also, what will supply vehicles be for? I'm not sure what supplies will be; is that like gathered resources? So can your units mine or whatever to get more battlepoints to get more units? If so, aren't we back to being a normal RTS game? With workers, an economy, etc. So I assume supplies means something different. |
Yes, I specifically do not want to create economic resource management research type gameplay. There is nothing wrong with it though, in fact it is fantastic. It's just been done to death in a million other RTS's and if BS is too close to Warcraft3, C&CGenerals or any of the other RTS superstars then we wont sell any copies
Supply vehicles enhance some of the stats of other squads in the battlefield and allow certain units to repair themselves. They also cause a huge negative morale effect if they get destroyed, but who could resist taking them if each logistics squad increases your fire rate by 10% and heals 1 point of damage per second. It should encourage people to make bases i.e. find a nice hill and stick your artillery, radar trucks, supply trucks and missile defences on it. So some people will go for a small strong mobile force, others for a large weak mobile force but backed up by their little base.
| Dunbar wrote: | | One big difference is there is really no such thing as rushing. I think I meant rushing in a more traditional RTS sense. |
Well yes, there wont be the economic issues so yes it would be different. No more building a ton of units, flinging them at the enemy, rinse and repeat.
| Dunbar wrote: | | What I am saying is that it's not the same at all. In most RTS games, rushing is about several things. First, in an all out rush, you sacrifice your long-term economy in order to get more units than your opponent in the hopes of taking them down. Such a tactic isn't possible in battlescape. |
The tactic is there, but the reasoning is different. Rushing in BS means not using reinforcements and buying everything you can in a pure assault mode. So you have sacrificed the flexibility of your detachment (they are all tanks or whatever) and you have limited your strategic choices because you can't call any reinforcements in. Seems very similar to the way people choose an artificaly narrow set of buildings in an RTS (to get zerglings out quick or whatever) and then sacrifice their entire resource stock to make as many as they can as fast as they can.
| Dunbar wrote: | | Or, in a more conventional rush, you are trying to disrupt your opponent's economy be destroying workers. This serves a secondary purpose of keeping your opponent from teching up or expanding too quickly, as he has to have units to defend himself. I don't see how this is possible in battlescape either. |
The same possibility exists, use your scouts to locate his supply vehicles, artillery and/or reinforcement drop zones and take them out first in a mad rush of suicide troops. There is a chance he wont be using reinforcements or supply vehicles but a good player scouting the area should be able to work that out i.e. if your scouts run into an armoured detachment of 20 tanks then you are probably safe to assume he is using a brute force approach and respond accordingly. If your scouts only see 1 or 2 squads but are shelled immediately then you know he is using artillery and can respond accordingly.
| Dunbar wrote: | | But in battlescape, where you only have a certain number of units and losing any of them can be really painful, attacking a well-defended position isn't a good idea. I guess what I'm saying is that if both sides are equal (that is, made of the same number of battlepoints) and both sides have entrenched in defensive positions, neither side has any incentive to attack, since the attacker should be at a disadvantage. So in battlescape, outside of some other pressure on opponents to attack (such as, say, retaking that fortified hill means you get a bunch of reinforcements), attacking is generally going to be a bad idea. |
Yes, if all things are equal nobody in their right mind would attack a well defended position. The point is the situation should really be avoided because it isn't any fun. Unless of course the mission has specifically asked you to do just that, a heroic attack against superior forces, if the whole point is to try and win against all the odds (as part of the story) then that is fair enough every now and again. There will always be other pressures at work related to the mission at hand that compel forces to act and avoid stalemate.
| Dunbar wrote: | | Will there be regular reinforcements? So if you control drop zones, does that mean you get more reinforcements? I could see each side getting X battlepoints per minute, say...and getting more than that depending on how many key positions (like drop zones) he controls. Thus being able to get more reinforcements. Now we are back to having an economy of sorts, but without worker units or buildings and such. |
No, economy based play is to be avoided, too similar to everything else on the market. The odd situation where some valiant act might be rewarded with some reinforcements is ok (tied into the story and mission). The idea of leaving some of your battlepoints and using them for late reinforcements is ok (if the mission allows that). Having territory proportional to reinforcement rate is not ok, this does mean games should generally be quicker than other RTS's but I don't see a problem with that, I want it to be quite fast.
| Dunbar wrote: | | I think themed skirmish maps will be awesome and a lot of fun. Will it be possible to have people create maps? I think a map-creation utility would be very powerful and do a lot to expand the game. Plus those that play and love the game can create maps and cover any of the 17 game scenarios you don't have the time to make yourselves |
Hopefully you will be able to make new maps and we will expose as much control over mission rules and units as possible. You wont be able to implement completely new mission types though sadly, that would require very sophisticated editor/programming support which is beyond the scope of this game. If everything works out as intended though then more mission types and units should soon follow from us. It would be nice if people could create their own campaigns i.e. string missions together into a story with appropriate tweaks to rules and available units. |
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Stormlock
Joined: 18 Aug 2003
Posts: 15
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| Posted: Fri Aug 13, 2004 1:12 pm Post subject: |
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I happen to know nearly every last thing about the combat mechanics of starcraft (Did you know firebats get extra hits on large units so they don't do the expected 25% damage?) On that note, Mutalisks tend to be quite durable, because they are Small typed, and take half damage from nearly everything one uses to fight off air units: Goliaths, Turrets, Wraiths, Scouts, Dragoons, etc. all do 50% damage. And you can effectively (a little TOO effectively perhaps, a good psi storm will make you wish this didn't work so well) attack with them en masse by having them all follow 1 mutalisk (or better yet a scourge) They'll do nothing but follow, but when the leader unit dies, their momentum carriers them to it's last position, where all 24+ mutalisks start firing at once. Quite deadly. As for Ultralisks, if you need to select more than 12, you could have them take 30 minutes to get into the fight and produce the same effect, heh.
The real problem I have with controls in Starcraft is the horrid control of spell type things. Having 10 queens to use broodling is all well and nice, but using 1500 energy to instakill the same unit 10 times isn't very useful, and individually selecting them (when you don't even know what their energy is at) and casting that way takes so long they'll get murdered. Cloning can get around that, but you need to be attacking from very far away. Warcraft 3 has a much better system for spells, using autocast for weak defensive type spells, and smart casting with offensive spells. Moreover, far less units are involved, so you probably don't even need to cast one spell 12 times in a single fight. In starcraft I find myself wishing I could switch to Slowest speed for a minute and Lockdown all 36 enemy Dragoons.
I'm curious as to whether or not there we be anything of this type in Battlescape? Perhaps special ammunition of some kind, or artillery you target by hand because the ammo is limited/long reload times? Perhaps switching units between different 'modes' that don't affect AI, such as a defensive mode where sight is increased and recovery is faster, but movement is slower. Or Self Destruct. Everyone loves a tank with a big nasty 3 second self destruct countdown. 10 seconds is even better. Toss in an audible "Massive Time Bomb Detected" warning to all players too.
Also, with battles being much quicker in Battlescape (the resource gathering/preparing stage in most RTS games is more than 3/4 of the battle because the enemy base is so fortified you need to max out your tech and army size to break through) will the story be over quite quickly? Running through the entire single player campaign in 4 hours would be a little disappointing. Unless there was a large supply of alternate campaigns as well. Starcraft has a lot of campaigns and mods. My favourite has this ship in it that could literally take out 36 battle cruisers, 36 carriers, and 100 mutalisks all at once. Of course, your enemies have much better units than that to fight with. http://www.campaigncreations.org/starcraft/fdestiny/ is the link to the campaign and modpack if you feel like trying it out.
The point is, having a great customization aspect is half of what keeps SC alive after so long. There are literally tens of thousands of custom maps to be played (I've downloaded a few thousand of them myself) many of which are so unique you wouldn't know the core game was a RTS if nobody told you. I'd really like to see things like that in Battlescape. Allow even the most insane alterations (infantry firing massive artillery rounds and machinegun rates, etc.) and people can and will make some amazing things for you. |
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Poo Bear
Pod Team
Joined: 14 Oct 2002
Posts: 4107
Location: Sheffield, UK
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| Posted: Fri Aug 13, 2004 1:50 pm Post subject: |
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Listening to you (and some others here ) talk about Starcraft scares me I thought I was into it but you guys are well beyond me. Those RTS superstars (WC, C&C, AofE, TA, SC) are so well put together and deep that people can get an enormous amount out of them. We cannot get close to that (neither can all the other mainstream pretenders), we just don't have the time or resources. This is why Battlescape is trying to do something different, I don't want to play "Starcraft Lite" i'd rather just play the real thing. I would'nt mind playing something different though, I can excuse quite a lot if the journey is new (especially if it is a bit cheaper too ).
| Stormlock wrote: | | I'm curious as to whether or not there we be anything of this type in Battlescape? Perhaps special ammunition of some kind, or artillery you target by hand because the ammo is limited/long reload times? Perhaps switching units between different 'modes' that don't affect AI, such as a defensive mode where sight is increased and recovery is faster, but movement is slower. |
What about a missile truck that only carries one missile so it has to be targeted by hand to make sure it isn't wasted - the plus side being the missile is a nuke  .
Switching units into "dug in" mode to extend their range and defence, but they cannot move.
| Stormlock wrote: | | Also, with battles being much quicker in Battlescape (the resource gathering/preparing stage in most RTS games is more than 3/4 of the battle because the enemy base is so fortified you need to max out your tech and army size to break through) will the story be over quite quickly? Running through the entire single player campaign in 4 hours would be a little disappointing. Unless there was a large supply of alternate campaigns as well. |
We don't have the resources or the desire to make a game that lasts more than ~10 hours, I think somewhere around 8 is fine. I'm sure you wont agree but like everyone else on this forum we are hardcore nutters who play games far too much 90% of players don't have that much time to put into a game and it is quite unfair that they cannot finish it in a reasonable time. Making the game a lot cheaper than a mainstream title, letting people make their own maps and missions, releasing a few free updates (new maps and units) and the odd $15 expansion pack (new campaigns, maps, mission types and units) hopefully keeps everybody happy. |
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Darth Dallas
Joined: 18 Oct 2003
Posts: 411
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| Posted: Fri Aug 13, 2004 6:11 pm Post subject: |
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I too like the idea of players being able to edit and make their own maps, perhaps stringing them together for their own campaigns. In this respect at any rate, it ties us gamers over til we see some more official stuff outta the dev team's offerings. Course I do not know from a programming perspective what would be the hardest thing to impliment tool-wise.
i.e. if its harder to design campaign tools over map making, I'd prefer being able to get the map stuff before anything else.
Speaking of map making, I was playing Sim City not too long ago, and rather like their interface for creating terrain types of various sorts and saving them. Course I've no idea again about the pathfinding issues with regard to units traversing it if this were a Battlescape utility. Perhaps besides being able to manipulate the look of the terrain, we could also specify how units could move through it (like a waypointish thing in the utility its self). |
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jollyreaper
Joined: 20 Jun 2003
Posts: 181
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| Posted: Sat Aug 14, 2004 5:23 am Post subject: |
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What would probably go a long way towards establishing an affection for this style of play is personalizing the troops. In all the previous games you mentioned, the units were cannon fodder. There was no attachment because for every unit you lost, you could built a dozen more. Heck, you had to build a dozen more, the enemy is rushing you!
Give the units unique names drawn from a name file. It could be as simple as "tank 27," it could be "Armored Trooper Janok Kinneshi," the point is that this will be a unit you begin to identify with. It's combat abilities improve with each passing battle, its' kill records grow, and you begin to take a direct and personal interest in this unit. Hey, the enemy isn't attacking just any random tank spat out in droves by your numberless factories, this tank is named Hector and I've had him for the last twenty missions! I'm keeping him!
Now I'm sure the game will have a research tree and there's the distinct possibility that the early units will be made obsolete by the new ones. Well, that would be a certainty if the new units were completely new designs, fresh off the drawing boards. But if the new units are just going to be the old units with enhanced technology, then you can keep those first units of yours with you through the entire game by upgrading them. As I recall in Starscape, you never really obsoleted a hull, you could just add on all the new goodies to an old desgin. |
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BluePhoenix
Joined: 08 Jun 2004
Posts: 96
Location: Between Georgia and Cuba
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| Posted: Mon Aug 16, 2004 10:29 pm Post subject: |
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| Poo Bear wrote: | | Making the game a lot cheaper than a mainstream title, letting people make their own maps and missions, releasing a few free updates (new maps and units) and the odd $15 expansion pack (new campaigns, maps, mission types and units) hopefully keeps everybody happy. |
Sounds good to me. Frankly I get kinda annoyed by Blizzard's contastant Expansion pack schemes. You KNOW that they're going to have an expansion pack, and the expansion pack is going to cost as much the base game for less playablity. ($40 for a mere expansion pack is rediculous) |
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TrueLore
Joined: 22 Aug 2004
Posts: 9
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| Posted: Sun Aug 22, 2004 5:33 am Post subject: |
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SC has a ton of bad things, and im Beta Testing Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War right now.. so ill just compare the 2...
Fog of war
SC: everywhere youve never discovered in BLACK, which is annoying. If something shoots you from outside your vew like a seige tank, you see teh tank and anything touching it
DoW: everything you havent seen has a greyish tint, if something shoots you (like a artillery tank) from outside your vision, you can see the tank, but you dont actully get vision of the area
Resources
SC: Minerals, gas, send workers and get those things. Spend half your time on economy
DoW: Instead of minerals or gas, you capture Strategic points, these are areas on tha map taht are strategic to hold, like.. your starting base. Or you could capture Critical points, which give slightly more resources, a criticl point would be at the bridge that seperates your base from your opponents. Economy is at a minimum, you use these resoruces to create troops to fight off the enemy 
Rushing
SC: Rushing is king in SC, you rush you win, that simple, ive MASTERED the zerg rush.
DoW: Because rushing is frowned apon by todays gamers, this has been fought back. because there is no economy, it is very easy to fight back a rush, the palyer who ignored all the strategic points and just sends troops to kill the opponent will be fought back, army gone, and no strategic points. So rushing is bad.
Creating Troops
SC: click marine, you get a marine after X secondes
DoW: Click Marine (yes there are marines  ), you get a squad of mariens after X secondes, you may add on to this squad by clicking the "Reinforce button" in there menu, you can also give them special weopons to help them kill different types of units (Flamethrower, heavy boltgun, plasma gun, or rocketlauncher)
Mission objective
SC: It usually (and almost always) involves destroying your opponents base
DoW: In the average game, Take and Hold is the objective, where you must control over half the map (via Strategic points) for 7 mintues to win, this is done by getting a squad up to teh point and putting a flag iontop it (which takes time), and your opponent can foil your plans by tearing down your flag (which takes time, less time, but still time)
Stratagey (Close Combat, or CC)
SC: if a zergling gets up to your marine on a 1v1, marine dies. But if like.. 10 marines shoot at the zergling, zergling dies almost instantly
DoW: There is actually a CC in this game unlike SC, if a marine squad with missle launchers are taking down your tanks, you can send some CC specialists in tot ake care of them. while a squad is in CC they can NOT use ranged weopons, and are unable to blow up your lovable tanks.
Tanks
SC: Seige tanks shoot things, things die. If a marine shoots the tank long enough, tank dies
DoW: DoW tanks have much more of a World War 2 feel to them, if a tank comes from around the corner and all you have is a bunch of sticks (rifles), what do you do? no you dont shoot at it like on SC, you RUN LIKE HELL. In DoW, normal weopons simply can not take out a tank, you must use specialist anti vehicle weopons, like missle launchers, or Melta Bombs (gernades designed to take down tanks)
Stratagey (in general)
SC: the rusher usually wins, if the other player survives the rush, nothing much happens, they still have a equal chance (unless the rusher killed somethign important)
DoW: You dont win the game by rushing, sure you CAN rush, but unless your opponent is a newb and isnt smart enough to build a base around the strategic point or put down a cheap turret (that can easily take down teir 1 units), you wont win. If you slowly spread out and grab all tehs trategic points, soon it becoems a battle for the middle, for the person who controles the most locations will get more resoruices, and more troops, and more of a chance to win.
Artillery
SC: Seige tanks are the only artillery i know of, they go into seige mode and shoot things, things die
DoW: Every race has a artillery weopon, its inaccurate fire is dangerous, but its highly usefull if your enemy in entrenched into a position. When a squad is hit by a artillery shell, they go FLYING in all directions, and lsoe moral, in DoW when a squad loses moral, they start dealing less damage. and die faster.
Races
SC: Zerg, a alien race that destroys thing and infests them. Protoss, whith alot of technology and stuff. Terrans, humans... yup
DoW: Space Marines, The Emporeres finest, these are humanities elite specialists in teh wars. Chaos Space Marines, these are humans that went... bad.. They summon demons and things to aid them. Eldar, very much like protoss, but are selfesh and only care about themselves. Orks, greenskins who like to fight a little too much, they are much like zerg, in numbers, but not much else (o and every single one of their buildings secodnes as a turret)
Incase anyone is wondering, Warhammer 40k is what SC is based off of, not gameplay but the races are based off them, Observe
Space Marines = Terrans
Eldar = Protoss
Tyranids = Zerg
(Tyranids are anotehr race in the warhammer universe, but are not fetured in DoW, both races are VERY similiar) |
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Stormlock
Joined: 18 Aug 2003
Posts: 15
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| Posted: Mon Aug 23, 2004 5:39 am Post subject: |
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As for marines beating zerglings in large numbers, this is only true for VERY large groups (like 60 marines in very tight formation) or at chokepoints. Otherwise zerglings can beat marines with superior numbers, as long as they don't rush in single file. You need to attack from multiple directions simultaneusly. This is true of pretty much any melee in SC, you need to make sure they all begin attacking at once. It's like in kung-fu movies: you always lose if you send one guy at a time.
Tanks aren't the only artillery in SC (although they do have 50% more range than the next highest ranged units). Reavers and Guardians both have a range of 8, while static defenses have a range of 7. So every race has effective artillery. Moreover, spells are often superior to artillery for base destruction. Seige tanks can take out defenses, but quite slowly, and they need a lot of backup. And their damage/second is rather low, first tier units destroy things much faster once the defenses are gone. Spells are far better though. Yamato Cannon deals 260 damage to a target with a range of 11. Plague deals just under 300 damage over time (enough to start nearly any terran building on fire). Carriers also have a range of 8, although the interceptors can be shot down they are expendable. Lastly, Corsairs can cast a spell that prevents anything on the ground in a small area from doing anything but moveing, which makes defenses quite useless. So SC has some effective artillery. |
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Coin-Op Gigolo
Joined: 26 Aug 2004
Posts: 2
Location: California
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| Posted: Sat Aug 28, 2004 9:14 am Post subject: |
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| TrueLore wrote: |
DoW: Instead of minerals or gas, you capture Strategic points, these are areas on tha map taht are strategic to hold, like.. your starting base. Or you could capture Critical points, which give slightly more resources, a criticl point would be at the bridge that seperates your base from your opponents. Economy is at a minimum, you use these resoruces to create troops to fight off the enemy
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I totally dig that about Dawn of War. I think what makes strategic point capturing really exciting is that it allows for comeback victories. From what I've seen in my previous experiences with RTS games, most notably Warcraft 3, is that a single skirmish can determine the outcome of a game. It's quite a buzzkill when your opponent quits the game promptly after his level 2 hero dies in the opening five minutes. Or worse, hunting down rogue farms. There is rarely, if ever, any come from behind wins from what I've witnessed.
So the way I figure it, what's awesome about having to control strategic/critical points is that it keeps the wise player wary, even if he or she has dominance. For instance, an underpowered opponent may outmanuever a superior force and end up taking said superior force's poorly defended critical point. Thus, the upper hand exchanges. This is what keeps games interesting. Victory is all the more sweet if you had to work against the odds to achieve. At least in theory anyway. I haven't been lucky enough to play the Dawn of War beta yet. Hopefully, though, TrueLore will be able to vouch for this.
| TrueLore wrote: |
DoW tanks have much more of a World War 2 feel to them
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Completely tangential but I always thought the Imperial Guard (A Warhammer 40,000 faction which was not deemed fit to be included in the game. I got two words for that: Boo-urns!) had the more WWII feel to their tanks. |
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Poo Bear
Pod Team
Joined: 14 Oct 2002
Posts: 4107
Location: Sheffield, UK
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| Posted: Sat Aug 28, 2004 1:29 pm Post subject: |
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I've played the "Dawn Of War" beta and I wasn't that impressed, only tried single player so far though. I was expecting/hoping for something similar to the tabletop warhammer40k game, but it seems a thinly disguised Command&Conquer clone sadly. Place all your buildings, upgrade them to the max, build as many units as possible and drag them round the map. Add to that that only the space marines will be playable in single player, presumably so they can make you pay for another 5 expansions (one for each race). Some of the voice overs are very dubious too.
It might be the hype that turned me off, I'm really wary of over hyped games after being burnt so often in the past. All the screen shots, preview vids and commentary focused on the in your face cinematics of the game i.e. highly detailed units, crazy animations of commanders wielding hammers and chaos marines being thrown left and right. I didn't really know what to expect from the game but was quite excited, how was such close up action controlled, did you just have just one squad, was it 3rd person, could you record a battle and then watch replays of it even? None of the above, it was all hyped, the game has a standard rts camera and requires you to view the battlefield from way back to actually play. Ground Control 2 did the same thing, they use features not available to the player to record close up exciting game footage that bears no similarity to the actual game! Sure you can zoom in if you want, but you can't play from that close - Bah !! Sorry for the rant, but I really love warhammer40k and there have been so many games made and none have actually delivered.
One game that I was very suspicious of the hype recently is Rome:total war and this time i'm glad to say it wasn't hype at all. They have been posting screenshots and videos of epic battles with thousands of units all in glorious 3D and again with really close in angles and lots of hand to hand action. They weren't kidding, they are using a lot of clever tricks to get huge numbers of units on screen at very reasonable frame rates (on my Athlon1700 w.GeForce4 anyway). The pace of the game is such that you actually can view the action up close and still play, the camera controls work very well to let you get in close. You can also speed up and slow down time which also helps make sure you don't miss the bigger picture when your watching your elephants battering the Romans. Battles actually take time so you can think and have a look around, there is also a real need for strategy.
Check out the free demo to see for yourself:
http://www.fileplanet.com/files/140000/144640.shtml
If only these people could get a Warhammer40k license.
p.s. I understand your comment about fileplanet. There was a time when surfing was free and easy, then people realised they had homes to buy and kids to feed. Now you either have to sign up, use download managers and get fed a huge number of adverts or bite the bullet and pay for a subscription. Currently i'm going for the adverts option. It is annoying when they get early demos or special beta access to super hyped games like "World of Warcraft" and then only let their paying subscribers in. However, I can understand why they do it, everything costs money these days (even in Russia ).
If you can't stomach fileplanet give gamespot a try, although I don't see any difference really.
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/rometotalwar/index.html?q=total+war+rome
Last edited by Poo Bear on Sat Aug 28, 2004 1:43 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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TrueLore
Joined: 22 Aug 2004
Posts: 9
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| Posted: Wed Sep 01, 2004 11:36 pm Post subject: |
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Heh, im sorry but i cant help myself but defend DoW 
| Quote: | | I've played the "Dawn Of War" beta and I wasn't that impressed, only tried single player so far though. I was expecting/hoping for something similar to the tabletop warhammer40k game, but it seems a thinly disguised Command&Conquer clone sadly. Place all your buildings, upgrade them to the max, build as many units as possible and drag them round the map. Add to that that only the space marines will be playable in single player, presumably so they can make you pay for another 5 expansions (one for each race). Some of the voice overs are very dubious too. |
1. You only tried singleplayer on the beta, AKA "Tutorial", the AI has Easy difficulty settings, and can be defeated easily in most players sleep.
2. There is a stratagey to the game, massing units and dragging them around that map is not a very good one though
3. Sadly yes, Space marines are the only race that can be played in the single player campaign. But, sense i am myself a Space Marine player... i dont really care
4. Most, if not all of the voices are to be changed on the final release.
| Quote: | | Completely tangential but I always thought the Imperial Guard (A Warhammer 40,000 faction which was not deemed fit to be included in the game. I got two words for that: Boo-urns!) had the more WWII feel to their tanks. |
Imperial guard shall be showing a camio appearance in the Single Player Campaign.
| Quote: | | It might be the hype that turned me off, I'm really wary of over hyped games after being burnt so often in the past. All the screen shots, preview vids and commentary focused on the in your face cinematics of the game i.e. highly detailed units, crazy animations of commanders wielding hammers and chaos marines being thrown left and right. I didn't really know what to expect from the game but was quite excited, how was such close up action controlled, did you just have just one squad, was it 3rd person, could you record a battle and then watch replays of it even? None of the above, it was all hyped, the game has a standard rts camera and requires you to view the battlefield from way back to actually play. Ground Control 2 did the same thing, they use features not available to the player to record close up exciting game footage that bears no similarity to the actual game! Sure you can zoom in if you want, but you can't play from that close - Bah !! Sorry for the rant, but I really love warhammer40k and there have been so many games made and none have actually delivered. |
It took me a while to figure out that you CAN infact move the camera around like in the pictures and prefeiws. Hold Alt, move mouse around
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Well, i subscribe to fileplanet, it doesnt cost much and i get downloads much faster and i can get into all the neat beta's first |
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