Forged Alliance Forever

Re: Testing Times balance discussions

2014-12-19T20:04:20+02:00

Yes but patrol takes at most 3 clicks. I'd probably click 10+ times around trees with ground reclaim as moreclicks =more reclaim whereas not the same can be said for more clicks for patrol route.

Statistics: Posted by Coffee nut — 19 Dec 2014, 20:04

Re: Testing Times balance discussions

2014-12-19T19:58:59+02:00

Coffee nut wrote:
Can't as I won't be near my computer any time soon but it is easy enough to test. To be clear I prefer the attack move. The ground reclaim really is very mindlessclicking though. This is because I know that as long as I spam click near reclaim it'll reclaim everything nearby; I don't even need to be precise.

Same as patrolling is mindlessly defining an area without clicking on all possible points within the defined zone :p

If you mindlessly click reclaim on an empty zone , it won't do much and you'll lose the time of an engineer. So you still need to decide where to send engies for reclaiming, except now you don't Need to have the precision and speed of a counter strike player to reclaim rocks

Statistics: Posted by Zoram — 19 Dec 2014, 19:58

Re: Testing Times balance discussions

2014-12-19T19:59:28+02:00

Can't as I won't be near my computer any time soon but it is easy enough to test. To be clear I prefer the attack move. The ground reclaim really is very mindlessclicking though. This is because I know that as long as I spam click near reclaim it'll reclaim everything nearby; I don't even need to be precise.

Ofc if bugs are sorted out and attack move stayed I'd reevaluate my preferences. (I'm not 100% anti it)

Statistics: Posted by Coffee nut — 19 Dec 2014, 19:51

Re: Testing Times balance discussions

2014-12-19T18:07:25+02:00

Vee told you so about that.

Statistics: Posted by keyser — 19 Dec 2014, 18:07

Re: Testing Times balance discussions

2014-12-19T15:18:12+02:00

Crotalus comments on the forum are always amusing.

Statistics: Posted by galacticfear — 19 Dec 2014, 15:18

Re: Testing Times balance discussions

2014-12-19T15:08:30+02:00

Sounds a little like the mod is bugged (well, it's definitely bugged atm), the next balance patch shouldn't be removing factory attack reclaim. Post a replay Coffee nut?

Statistics: Posted by Sir Prize — 19 Dec 2014, 15:08

Re: Testing Times balance discussions

2014-12-19T12:27:52+02:00

Interesting twist of events, this means that the pro APM-crowd have to support Reclaim Ground and the "less-APM" ones have to support the current move-attack way of reclaiming.

Statistics: Posted by Crotalus — 19 Dec 2014, 12:27

Re: Testing Times balance discussions

2014-12-19T09:36:26+02:00

So I tried out the balance patch, and felt like in general the reclaim adjustments required more apm .... I had to continually tell my engies to ground reclaim

Attack move from factory didn't work any more and patrolling engies didn't seem to pick up half the unit weecks (maybe bug?) So I found myself doing a lot more clicking for reclaim than before. Comparing that with the status quo, I prefer the latter (less clicking, and more direct control when wanted)

Statistics: Posted by Coffee nut — 19 Dec 2014, 09:36

Re: Testing Times balance discussions

2014-12-17T17:58:01+02:00

"cliking on rocks" is "use of the terrain"

Statistics: Posted by keyser — 17 Dec 2014, 17:58

Re: Testing Times balance discussions

2014-12-17T16:02:39+02:00

no, wanted to try the move order...but didn't find it in the key-bindings.

Statistics: Posted by Hascins — 17 Dec 2014, 16:02

Re: Testing Times balance discussions

2014-12-17T12:27:51+02:00

I hope everyone giving their opinions here will be in the next testing tourney. Arguably the only real evidence for or against the ground reclaim was games by a noob.

I challenge the guys to come up with some imba BO's using the mod to show a clear advantage. We can gauge the effectiveness in the tourney.

Something I never did was splitting move commands, did anyone else try it?

Statistics: Posted by Cuddles — 17 Dec 2014, 12:27

Re: Testing Times balance discussions

2014-12-16T17:40:10+02:00

Hawkei wrote:
Chess, I'll have you know, is an awesome game. If SupCom were to more closely emulate Chess than it would be increased in my estimation. Your mistake is in differentiating decision making from motor actions and calling the latter "skill". I would tend to associate the former with skill, not the latter.

The true capability of a player ought not to be measured by their Actions Per Minute (APM). But rather by their Decisions Per Minute (DPM). For a decision to take place one requires Observation, Orientation, Decision making and Action. Something which military minds call the "OODA loop". This over emphasis on actions (without thinking) is detrimental to the game. If that's what you want, go play StarCraft.

The perfection of Sup Com, ever since it's creation by Chris Taylor, has been about the minimisation of those mundane micro management activities which are not central to the strategic decision making process. That is to say that some micro is desirable. Like troop placement, and movement, use of terrain, special abilities, build power and energy management. But other things, like "clicking on rocks" is not.

The whole idea is that within my mind there is a perfect understanding of what I want my troops to be doing within the current tactical and strategic context. But the conveying of that plan to my troops (or units) requires the manipulation of an imperfect user interface (UI). SupCom has always been about simplifying and perfecting that UI such that the actions of my units within the game will much more closely resemble the plans within my mind. With the minimum of effort required on my part. The less mental effort required to manipulate the UI means more mental energy can be devoted to OODA.

That was the most concise, perfect mirroring of my own thoughts on the matter I have ever seen. Brilliant.

Statistics: Posted by IceDreamer — 16 Dec 2014, 17:40

Re: Testing Times balance discussions

2014-12-16T13:05:09+02:00

Thanks for the info, now I understand the problem better I have a few more thoughts on this.

I think most people would expect attack-move (whether originated from factory or not) to work exactly the same as a patrol that doesn't repeat. So if it could be made to work that way then perhaps that might be a good idea. I do though already have a slight issue with engineer patrol as it currently works.

To increase the resilience of a formation or base I somethimes like to order 1 or 2 engineers to patrol it so they can rep up anything that gets damaged. It doesn't work as well as I would like though because the extent to which the engineers are willing to deviate from the defined patrol route in order to reclaim mass is so great that they often leave the formation or base completely. For example if I set a couple of engineers to patrol just behind a 3 unit deep formation in the hope that they'll rep any damaged units, then quite often I'll switch back to monitor that formation when it comes under attack from enemy forces only to discover the engineers reclaiming far out in front of the formation whereupon they promptly get destroyed.

I think what I might like would be for patrol/attack-move to just repair/reclaim anything within a reasonably tight margin of the specified route, the route should be tight enough that you can order an engineer to patrol a 3 unit deep formation without it going off reclaiming the battlefield and getting killed, and this would also work well enough for most initial mass reclaim routes too, since initial mass is commonly distributed in lines along the edge of hills and such.

In the case where mass is spread over an area as opposed to along a line then personally I don't mind using a zigzag 'attack move' to handle that, but if there is to be an additional 'reclaim ground' order for that purpose then it would be really good if you could 'shift queue' that order the same as all other orders, so that you could queue several of them to reclaim a battleground and then have the engineer return to a safe location.

Statistics: Posted by Neutrino — 16 Dec 2014, 13:05

Re: Testing Times balance discussions

2014-12-16T12:17:01+02:00

Cheva wrote:
Thanks for personally attacking me I appreciate it.

You want a game purely based on strategy and tactics ? That game is called Chess and it's a board game with no micro required. Here you go.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess

Chevalier

Chess, I'll have you know, is an awesome game. If SupCom were to more closely emulate Chess than it would be increased in my estimation. Your mistake is in differentiating decision making from motor actions and calling the latter "skill". I would tend to associate the former with skill, not the latter.

The true capability of a player ought not to be measured by their Actions Per Minute (APM). But rather by their Decisions Per Minute (DPM). For a decision to take place one requires Observation, Orientation, Decision making and Action. Something which military minds call the "OODA loop". This over emphasis on actions (without thinking) is detrimental to the game. If that's what you want, go play StarCraft.

The perfection of Sup Com, ever since it's creation by Chris Taylor, has been about the minimisation of those mundane micro management activities which are not central to the strategic decision making process. That is to say that some micro is desirable. Like troop placement, and movement, use of terrain, special abilities, build power and energy management. But other things, like "clicking on rocks" is not.

The whole idea is that within my mind there is a perfect understanding of what I want my troops to be doing within the current tactical and strategic context. But the conveying of that plan to my troops (or units) requires the manipulation of an imperfect user interface (UI). SupCom has always been about simplifying and perfecting that UI such that the actions of my units within the game will much more closely resemble the plans within my mind. With the minimum of effort required on my part. The less mental effort required to manipulate the UI means more mental energy can be devoted to OODA.

Statistics: Posted by Hawkei — 16 Dec 2014, 12:17

Re: Testing Times balance discussions

2014-12-16T01:47:15+02:00

It's great people are willing to write so much about this, and it's really tempting to respond to it all, but I won't because there's only so many hours in the day. Again, can I suggest downloading this mod (currently called 3637 preview V6) and hosting some games? At least then we don't have to spend so much time figuring out what will happen and can debate whether what happens is good or bad.

As far as the next tournament goes, I'm waiting for the FA patch to be bugfixed because that is quite rightly the priority atm, then we'll update the mod (it has some minor glitches). I suspect this means it will actually be in the new year given everyone will be too busy to play after next weekend with Christmas stuff. I generally pm Sheeo or Crotalus every time I log in to FAF (sorry guys) to find out how their mad coding workload is going and to figure out when we can run it. Hopefully soon .

Statistics: Posted by Sir Prize — 16 Dec 2014, 01:47