Forged Alliance Forever

Re: Can we finally ban ecomanager?

2020-06-18T15:44:14+02:00

That sounds terrible for teamgames, I don’t want my E going to random idiot getting t2 upgrade and stalling 700 e lol

Statistics: Posted by FtXCommando — 18 Jun 2020, 15:44

Re: Can we finally ban ecomanager?

2020-06-18T15:40:28+02:00

The real problem with ECOmanager isn't the pausing and stuff...

Its the fact that if several people have it on the same team, it will dynamically move mass and energy around to keep players flowing above stall.... This alone turns any team of players in to a perfectly balanced force, that instantly turns their best player into god.

Its similar to when in TA you could set a lower threshold of when to share eco.

It takes those weaker players that let mass and E build up and puts it to the use where its needed....

For example... lets say 4 people in a game have it, and the front guy is doing a Com fight, spaming his overcharge.... Now instead of having to ask for E, or wait till people are full to get over flow, His dire need for E since he is the lowest is feed by the 3 other players that have high levels of E.....

Its utter BS, because the same thing happens when said team starts a game ender....

TLDR: its ECO Sharing on steriods

Statistics: Posted by Typo91 — 18 Jun 2020, 15:40

Re: Can we finally ban ecomanager?

2020-06-08T08:54:40+02:00

gnatinator wrote:
Supreme Scoreboard is fine, the problem is when an AI starts contributing actions to your game.

And which UI mod do you think is an AI contributing actions to your game? Because that is, quite explicitly, banned.

Statistics: Posted by RedX — 08 Jun 2020, 08:54

Re: Can we finally ban ecomanager?

2020-06-08T06:46:50+02:00

Supreme Scoreboard is fine, the problem is when an AI starts contributing actions to your game.

Statistics: Posted by gnatinator — 08 Jun 2020, 06:46

Re: Can we finally ban ecomanager?

2020-06-08T06:16:33+02:00

How is the skill ceiling ruined by being able to tell your arty to target pgens as they run away from tanks? How is the game depth lower?

The only UI mods that I would consider a necessity are Supreme Scoreboard for watching replays and having quick metrics to assist in analyzing the game with and Additional Camera Mod for build range circles on units that can build. Advanced Target Priority has the most important aspects integrated (target units/target acu/etc) and the rest are more QOL.

The rationale was that it would be too many options for new players to consider, particularly since there is no new player losing games because he lacked the ability to "target battleships" with target priority. If you're 1600 and want some extra tools, then the mod exists for you.

The rest of the mods I use are QOL. I don't even use Ecomanager, think I play with like 1 dude regularly that even touches it.

Statistics: Posted by FtXCommando — 08 Jun 2020, 06:16

Re: Can we finally ban ecomanager?

2020-06-08T06:07:14+02:00

UI mods have always been a chain around the communities neck for player retention. Once people find out UI mods exist they usually are forced to adpot them or simply quit the game.

Simple solution is to either make Ecomanger standard or be banned. Same with the auto-targeting UI mod people sometimes use, which completely ruins the skill ceiling and depth of the gameplay.

Statistics: Posted by gnatinator — 08 Jun 2020, 06:07

Re: Can we finally ban ecomanager?

2020-05-12T11:39:08+02:00

mr_blastman wrote:
I know this isn't a popular topic because it seems half the higher ranked players use ecomanager, but let's face it, we have a tool/macro/script that is saving players inputs so they can focus their attention elsewhere, optimizing mex and engie pausing/restarting to keep the mass and power flowing. To me, this is allowing the computer to play part of the game for someone, thus should be considered an exploit or a cheat.

I know removing ecomanager from play will require players to manually manage their eco again like the rest of us, but at least players of equal rank with one another will be on a level footing again because both will have to focus equal attention and apm resources on eco along with everything else. Higher ranked players will adapt like they always do and continue to kick ass.

RTS games were and have always been about the commander telling their army and economy what to do. Ecomanager removes a layer of this. Yes, there are other tools such as advanced targeting priorities, but I think a solid argument can be made that advanced targeting priorities makes sense as something intended in the spirit of the game, whereas ecomanager is not.

If you want and like to click a mouse much, then you need to play in DOTA or something like their clones. Supreme Commander was created not for shooter like style, but for thinking about "what i can do in that situation...".

Statistics: Posted by ArtVC — 12 May 2020, 11:39

Re: Can we finally ban ecomanager?

2019-09-14T00:02:20+02:00

Steel_Panther wrote:
UnorthodoxBox wrote:In all of the setons game so far, I have seen various (horrible) things from 1500+ players that use eco manager. Certain things include:

-Ctrl k-ing t2 mexes to make t3 mexes, and a -200 or less power stall causes the engineers to pause, which makes ctrl k-ing t2 mexex absolutely trash, since it just becomes a waste of mass.

If the mod is gonna be banned, it should be because it is utter garbage, not because it is strong.

Particularly for that example, which has happened to me before (SHAME!), I noticed it was typically because i was upgrading another t3 mex at the same time. My understanding was that the mod would calculate and figure out the most efficient order to use your buildpower to upgrade mexes, so if it paused one upgrade while you had the upgrade queued it was because it decided it was better to finish off the other mex first?

Then, it shows you were inefficient and wrong in starting the second mex upgrade so soon, but wouldn't the mod still be helping you do it more efficiently than you were going to be doing it anyway? I'm not 100% sure how it operates though. (I have seen this happen when mass stalling rather than e stalling, but I think it would operate the same either way, that it just tries to maximize mass output?)

The absolute worst, though, is when it pauses engies building t1 mexes...

Pretty sure the mod doesn't know what it is pausing. It just pause stuff that takes a lot of e to make mexx work at 100% all the time.

Statistics: Posted by keyser — 14 Sep 2019, 00:02

Re: Can we finally ban ecomanager?

2019-09-13T18:01:41+02:00

UnorthodoxBox wrote:
In all of the setons game so far, I have seen various (horrible) things from 1500+ players that use eco manager. Certain things include:

-Ctrl k-ing t2 mexes to make t3 mexes, and a -200 or less power stall causes the engineers to pause, which makes ctrl k-ing t2 mexex absolutely trash, since it just becomes a waste of mass.

If the mod is gonna be banned, it should be because it is utter garbage, not because it is strong.

Particularly for that example, which has happened to me before (SHAME!), I noticed it was typically because i was upgrading another t3 mex at the same time. My understanding was that the mod would calculate and figure out the most efficient order to use your buildpower to upgrade mexes, so if it paused one upgrade while you had the upgrade queued it was because it decided it was better to finish off the other mex first?

Then, it shows you were inefficient and wrong in starting the second mex upgrade so soon, but wouldn't the mod still be helping you do it more efficiently than you were going to be doing it anyway? I'm not 100% sure how it operates though. (I have seen this happen when mass stalling rather than e stalling, but I think it would operate the same either way, that it just tries to maximize mass output?)

The absolute worst, though, is when it pauses engies building t1 mexes...

Statistics: Posted by Steel_Panther — 13 Sep 2019, 18:01

Re: Can we finally ban ecomanager?

2019-09-13T16:44:19+02:00

Only thing the throttling is actually good for IMO is pausing mass fabs when you are about to run out of energy. Besides that I'm usually too lazy to turn the throttling off and suffer of the points Box mentioned previously among some others, imagine your ACU NEEDS to make a PD immediately, but instead gets paused...

I'd simply state that using the throttling function doesn't make you a better player and EcoManager is not the reason why you lost to player X, period.
It is not productive trying to shift the blame of player's own shortcomings to some UI mods that have some fantasy-like imagined hypermega advantage which is in reality close to nonexistent

Only real benefit using EM to me is the various UI elements it provides, auto unpause mex on assist, overlays and such.

EDIT:
I just recalled when playing around in the 600-1000 rating range, EM had some close to "cult" status dripping down to lower rated players from the 1000-1200 rated guys, that "EM" is magic and you get much better by using it. In reality this is just false and eventually when players improve they also realize this.

Statistics: Posted by Viba — 13 Sep 2019, 16:44

Re: Can we finally ban ecomanager?

2019-09-13T10:29:26+02:00

speed2 wrote:
This topic again...

Statistics: Posted by biass — 13 Sep 2019, 10:29

Re: Can we finally ban ecomanager?

2019-09-13T01:46:49+02:00

In all of the setons game so far, I have seen various (horrible) things from 1500+ players that use eco manager. Certain things include:

-Dropping 6 engineers for a proxy, and the engineers are constantly paused by the mod because of a -60 power stall, so they don't even finish a single factory before a bomber kills them 40 seconds after they landed.
-Rushing a nuke defense (silo construction) after finding an enemy nuke, and the power stall causes the silo to take anywhere from an extra 30 seconds to 2 minutes to complete, depending on how fast it would have been built without the engies pausing.
-Someone making teleporter as a last-ditch effort, but even with everything paused, they have no power, so the mod just pauses and unpauses the acu, even though nothing else (but mexes) are using power.
-Ctrl k-ing t2 mexes to make t3 mexes, and a -200 or less power stall causes the engineers to pause, which makes ctrl k-ing t2 mexex absolutely trash, since it just becomes a waste of mass.
-(as thau said) Air factories being paused when the thing that is needed the most is more interceptors/asf.

If the mod is gonna be banned, it should be because it is utter garbage, not because it is strong.

Statistics: Posted by UnorthodoxBox — 13 Sep 2019, 01:46

Re: Can we finally ban ecomanager?

2019-09-12T20:53:35+02:00

This topic again...

Statistics: Posted by speed2 — 12 Sep 2019, 20:53

Re: Can we finally ban ecomanager?

2019-09-12T15:22:15+02:00

I agree that the mod has some pros and cons, as have been noted already, but I use it since I think it provides an overall a net benefit. The negative part is that you cannot control which production is throttled. I'll never know why it decided to prioritize my acu upgrade over pgen production, but for that type of reason you end up fighting the mod and doing the exact same thing you would have anyway, as Thau said.

Yes, if you just learned to balance your eco better then you would be better off anyway. However, in team games especially it is a lot easier to have the throttling automatic because there is often a significant amount of energy overflow, which also can fluctuate a lot. So you don't have to keep going back and pausing various amounts of production based on how much overflow is changing. In the late game it makes using mass fabs so much better.

So I would just say that it gives a small advantage overall, but is just a nice convenience. Maybe not worth banning, but I can see the argument why it is unfair as well.

Statistics: Posted by Steel_Panther — 12 Sep 2019, 15:22

Re: Can we finally ban ecomanager?

2019-09-12T12:43:37+02:00

I know that guy is cheating because i'm cheating and he beat me!

Statistics: Posted by Cuddles — 12 Sep 2019, 12:43