How do you rate the new RA release?

Discussion about the game and its default mods.

How do you rate the new RA release

1 (love it)
18
38%
2
7
15%
3 (no change for me)
4
9%
4
9
19%
5 (hate it)
9
19%
 
Total votes: 47

kazu.
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Post by kazu. »

Weird. There are seven votes for "4" and we have four people explaining why they voted "4". There are eleven votes for "1"... can`t find a comment that points out why the new release deserves their love.
I`d love to hear those, not because i want to flame them for that, but because they probably experienced something in the new release i didn`t ... i`d be happy to hear what i missed !

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SoScared
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Post by SoScared »

I'm not sure it is so weird really. Generally I believe people are more motivated to explain their low rating and dissatisfaction compared to someone who is happy with a product. The numbers also seem to reflect netnazgul's poll with the first playtest.

kazu.
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Post by kazu. »

"i love it" is pretty strong as far as my understanding of the english language goes, which means, to me, it would be super easy to point out why you "love" something.
I`d go as far to say that you, if you love something, you`d be happy to point out why you do so and in addition you literally wouldn`t be able to stop cheering for it.

The absence of any such statements is weird to me.
Last edited by kazu. on Wed Oct 25, 2017 8:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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SoScared
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Post by SoScared »

@FRenzy: No need for apologizing, your opinion is as valid as anyone else's.

As I see it the risk of splitting up your armies involved strategy as to what unit types you send out where, how many etc. The better you were at anticipating your opponent's strategy/intent or understanding how to take advantage of the battlefield, the better outcome of your battles. Together you get multiple fronts, with unique unit groupings fighting with different strength and often counter the opponent with his own army groups.

The risk of leaving your base undefended increased as well as the meta progressed throughout the previous release cycle.

So already you had this trend moving in the right direction, especially compared to release1019 -> 0527. The balance changes with this release was a big boost for the army oriented player, enhancing the strength of army movements and sped up the gameplay in addition to making more of RA's units available for a wider range of army compositions.

The building stances is a huge reset button on two levels from the points made above - army groupings in general and layered on top of that, diverse army compositions. Armies are generalized and gravitates towards chunks as the build-up and reinforcements happens within players bases instead of on the battlefield.

The strength of the artillery is then natural within this picture, also perhaps because of its new set of damage values, however the issue stems more from it benefiting from the safe haven of being surrounded by inflated army blobs and staying home playing defense while the player builds up his unit count.

As for micro/scouting you will benefit greatly by having a well practiced micro and vigilance with both scenarios, however one focuses on the ability to handle a wide range of different skirmishes, the other does not.
Last edited by SoScared on Wed Oct 25, 2017 3:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.

.1
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Post by .1 »

netnazgul wrote:
SoScared wrote: In midst of this I decided the feature wasn't worth it given simply the split of opinion and the fact that this feature was wholly untested but as I learned this wasn't up to me anymore. This feature was going in whatever the consequences and despite the whole circus was upheld by just a handful of players new to OpenRA the entire RA playing community and pro community was labeled toxic – pchote stated he'd either see the no-building feature going in or cut loose the RA mod from the OpenRA project which prompted me to quit.
The whole debate around the autotargeting looks like Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy quote:
- But Mister Dent the plans have been available in the planning office for the last nine months!
- Yes! I went round to find them yesterday afternoon. You’d hadn’t exactly gone out of your way to pull much attention to them have you? I mean, like actually telling anybody or anything.
- The plans were on display.
- Ah! And how many members of the public are in the habit of casually dropping around the local planning office of an evening?
- Er - ah!
- It’s not exactly a noted social venue is it? And even if you had popped in on the off chance that some raving bureaucrat wanted to knock your house down, the plans weren’t immediately obvious to the eye were they?
- That depends where you were looking.
- I eventually had to go down to the cellar!
- That’s the display department.
Jokes aside, what I see the problem here is about is that this feature was planned long ago and postponed only to emerge 3 years or so after. But by this time pretty much the whole community changed and the most part of RA meta was already built around the then current mechanics, making the introduction of new autotargeting if not a major problem then a major upheaval. And there wasn't enough public discussion (if any at all) on whether it is actually viable to "return to the original mechanics" (which, speaking frankly, was pretty much the only voiced reason from devteam to implement it).
I think if it was re-discussed thoroughly before implementation then it would have been possible to aleviate the storm it produced, because now it was dropped as a raw feature itself for the sake of it not honouring the balance structure already present in the game; the next release cycle will anyway be targeted to do all that, but with all the emotions in both the community and the devteam which could have been not the case if it was the other way around.

I think everyone forgets that as the devs, they are free to do what they want, they don't have to care what anyone thinks. If Pchote( or any of the other devs, Im not sure how the dev tech tree works, maybe Pchote is the tanya of it) decide to take the game in a direction, we are powerless to stop them.

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SoScared
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Post by SoScared »

[15:54:16] <pchote> and to be honest, I just can't trust soscareds opinion on this stuff anymore
[15:55:01] <pchote> he has said on multiple occasions that he thinks that the desires of the competative scene override our goal of being faithful to the original series

I'd never thought I'd see the day.

@pchote: You're going to have to source that claim. If this is the reason why you've come to distrust my input then I feel I deserve nothing less than a clear display of this attitude. And I don't wanna hear some vague interpretation of a statement or comment that I've made.

Your comment seem to leave little room for interpretation. Seem like one of us has to be in a pretty deep memory hole.

eskimo
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Post by eskimo »

I voted 3.

The way i see it is that balance, variety of map design, variety of builds, ingame variety as a game progresses, stability, UI, and all other contributing factors to personally score a game on enjoyment hasn't effected me currently as it's still early days imo AND aren't 100% perfect anyway nor i expect then to ever reach that level.

Also, while there are things in this game i don't like, (arty, basepushing) it's not enough to drive me away as there are plenty of other positives.

What i can say truly about this release is it's different. So that keeps it fresh anyway at the moment.

However i would love to see more yaml work from guys and more UI work from the devs as it's always good to see/play fresh stuff being worked on.



On another note, after seeing many of my loved franchises go down the pan (Duke, FF, Halo, to name only a few), i have full confidence in this game/engine will always be progressive due to it's tasty open sauce.


TLDR
My point is, yeah, 3 *shrugs*
Some betterness.
Some worseness.

Gatekeeper
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Post by Gatekeeper »

Greetings Commanders, let me also give my 2 cents on the topic. I don't do forums that often as I mostly find them to much talk, not enough action.

Also Voted 4 because the game hasnt ended up being an actual disgrace, but still having gone slightly backwards because of the changes etc.

I personally dislike the stance changes as it makes the game more easy to play with a single A-move command, while you need way less focusfire or micro when besieging a defended position. From an attackers perspective it has made the game way easier to play.

More over it is horrible from a defenders perspective; Once your opponent has broken through your defensive line and/or army there is no longer an option to panic defend. In previous releases you could kick an enemy blob out of your base again with lets say 10-20% of his army size and a few well placed buildings. Now once your opponent is in your base and has the army size advantage, its gg. Your opponent will simply farm whatever comes out of your rax/WF and oneshot your newly placed defenses. Without even having to give orders for it, his army will auto target the units/defenses as soon as they spot them, shooting them down from across buildings standing between them... No micro needed, simply an army present.

In previous releases even though your opponent had a larger and superior army, you could still beat it back with panic defending: good positioning of scarce amount of units, preferably behind newly placed buildings to buy time. Now you are simply at a loss because you lack army size, you wont even be able to come close to damaging the enemy army...

And also: Units standing idle next to enemy buildings. It just feels wrong....

Summary: 1017 decreases the need for Micro, and increases the passive potential of army size. Great for the attacker, horrible for the defender. 1017 imo only decreases gamebalance.

mechANIC
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Post by mechANIC »

I voted 4.
I don't really care about stances or basepushing but splitting ORA to 3 different binaries makes a mod switching A LOT slower and this creates some disturbance in me.

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Orb
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Post by Orb »

Someone was asking for people who voted 1 to comment, so here I am.

The main reason I didn't comment here is because I've stated my opinions before when it was in the playtest, and not much has changed between here and there. Also, with all this negativity (some ridiculously blown out of proportions and some not), it's kind of hard to wedge your way into the echo chamber. It's like wearing a "I love Obama" t-shirt to a KKK convention.

Though, I might as well chip in at this point since I'm already writing this. I am probably heavily biased because I play an aggressive, tech based style, so take my opinion as you will.

I haven't had a bad game yet on the new release. I've lost some games, sure, but nothing frustrating or plain boring. Even the team games I usually snooze through have been a blast. I never feel like I don't have options anymore. Someone can't deflect my push with 2 barracks producing rockets out of it with pillboxes being spammed. I can do risky plays and make something work. Combine this with the vehicle scaling, and gameplay feels so much more dynamic and mobile. I've been playing exclusively Russia on this patch and it feels great. They now have assets that compete with the raw power of demo trucks.

What confuses me is how people are having trouble defending. Defenses in RA are still extremely cost effective. When I think of games like Starcraft, or even TD, RA defenses are still much more effective and do work. They might require a bit more thought, maybe. For example, if you know the exact vector an army will come in...rather than creating a line of pillboxes in the way that will easily get smashed aside, take advantage of their range. Make two lines of pillboxes on two sides that create a killing field in the middle. Maybe stick some barracks in the middle. Now you got a defense that will take a long time to take out, or cause massive casualties.

If you allow me to make a conjecture here, having so many changes at once has cause players to retreat to "safe" plays, artillery and blobbing. Though, honestly this release punishes blobbing, so I don't know why that's happening. Maybe players that normally blobbed felt free to attack with no worry, and now that they may require to split their armies, just never attack at all and only defend, maybe.

Overall, I've been really enjoying the release and coming up with lots of new builds and strategies to complement the shifting meta. However, I am not oblivious enough to be unaware that there's a huge problem with my whole assessment. I only play Soviets. Allies v Allies has always had boring gameplay and I can imagine this release has made it worse. But, reverting these changes will not fix it, we'll just have the old problems again. I would love to see someone shake up Allies v Allies gameplay with some experimental mods rather than going back to the status quo.

If you want an example, watch my games vs Smitty in RAGL Master's. They were quite a lot fun.

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netnazgul
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Post by netnazgul »

More over it is horrible from a defenders perspective; Once your opponent has broken through your defensive line and/or army there is no longer an option to panic defend. In previous releases you could kick an enemy blob out of your base again with lets say 10-20% of his army size and a few well placed buildings. Now once your opponent is in your base and has the army size advantage, its gg. Your opponent will simply farm whatever comes out of your rax/WF and oneshot your newly placed defenses. Without even having to give orders for it, his army will auto target the units/defenses as soon as they spot them, shooting them down from across buildings standing between them... No micro needed, simply an army present.
I saw something like this several times already and I think there should be a counter-comment on it.
So, your opponent has made an effort to come to your base (thats time disadvantage), killing your army and/or your base defences. And after that you still want it to be possible to defend that same base with 20% assets count? How's that justified?
I'd say the change actually evens out the odds between attacker and defender from "defender always wins because barracks in your face" to a reasonable but small defender's advantage. Now you can't not build any defences and just split forces between all expansions knowing that you are able to build enough to repell any incoming assault on one of them. Fortified positions (and not just a wall of pillboxes) and scouting have greater value now.

As for the arty spam everyone says is OP now - well, artillery was as much OP before the new release, so in my point of view that should be the direction of balancing during the current cycle (as well as some good naval patches around).

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Materianer
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Post by Materianer »

kazu. wrote: Weird. There are seven votes for "4" and we have four people explaining why they voted "4". There are eleven votes for "1"... can`t find a comment that points out why the new release deserves their love.
I`d love to hear those, not because i want to flame them for that, but because they probably experienced something in the new release i didn`t ... i`d be happy to hear what i missed !
Okay i'm one of the 1 voters and here are some reasons why i voted that way.
I like the new taskbar for stances because you can now easylie find all important unit related things.
Without this i wouldn't be able to masschrono my chronotannks anymore ( my alt button seems to be broken ).
That shift has been taken out for this is the only thing that pisses me a bit but that is just because my keyboard is broken and with this new buttons it's working also well.
The balance changes Soscared made are also well done, even if i think the medium tank helth should also have been increased a bit, because increasing Heavy Tank, Chrono Tank and Tesla Tank's health boosts all races but france and england get nothing.
Together with the reduced building times for chronotanks and teslatanks ( wich seem to be a bit op now but needs more testings ) it extends the strength between the races.
But all in all the balances are good i especially like the reduced war factory producing times.
netnazgul wrote:
As for the arty spam everyone says is OP now - well, artillery was as much OP before the new release, so in my point of view that should be the direction of balancing during the current cycle (as well as some good naval patches around).
I don't understand comments like these artys are alredy nerfed a bit, maybe you didn't notice but the shoot more inaccurate now.
Artyspam is for noobs it was before the release and it is still the case.
Of course as an allied player you will always need soma artys to protect your base against infantry blobs and turtle your base.
There are some maps like doubles wich seem to typically arty maps but even on these maps with balanced teams its not good to spam arty all the time.
Btw yaks are a bit better than before now against artys because of the new targeting rules, they are targeting now more often them if you let em fly with a-move into the enemys base.
Wich leads me to the targeting rules, it is good now for my opinion because of the new strenght for attaicking players.
That it is easyier for new players to rush a base is only one of the good sideeffects of this feature., i'm a but unsure if defense structures should have this stance but its okay for now.

Every time a new release comes out the complainers coming out of they'r caves and crying around the more drastic the changes the louder they cry. Let them cry i also do a bit so its okay for me hehe.

Gatekeeper
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Post by Gatekeeper »

netnazgul wrote: So, your opponent has made an effort to come to your base (thats time disadvantage), killing your army and/or your base defenses. And after that you still want it to be possible to defend that same base with 20% assets count? How's that justified?
Take it to the other extreem, play Barf, get Barfed on in one of your expansions, or maybe even your main. Now you are at an army size disadvantage. After this shouldn't you be allowed to get back into the game and halt your opponents steamroll? I mean Time disadvantage(30 secs tops?) One thing, but getting attacked by a Full army while yours is split defensively over your own multiple bases, whole diff thing....

Imo the balance between Attacker with the initiative to choose the fight and Defender having defenders advantage was actually pretty well balanced before.

My point isn't that "Barracks in your face" Should be the holy answer to everything, but that the changes made attacking easier, decreasing the window of comebacks in the game. It's just remarkably harder now to turn the tide of the game once the blob has been pushed in. Unless you want people to rush go straight into defensive arty to negate any possible enemy attack. So... All hail the mighty arty-AA stalemate games??

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netnazgul
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Post by netnazgul »

Materianer wrote: I don't understand comments like these artys are already nerfed a bit, maybe you didn't notice but the shoot more inaccurate now.
Artyspam is for noobs it was before the release and it is still the case.
I'm well aware about artillery's increased inaccuracy because I did some help for SoScared's balance patch to tweak artillery values so that they resemble the previous release (note: yes, artillery now does less damage to buildings than it did before, especially mid range, because of new hitshapes and reduced vs Wood damage because of it; however it doesn't help in overall situation).

Problem is if something works for noobs then it works even better in capable hands. That is the case with Allies T2 currently - there is just no viable option to push through the artillery/pillbox/AA/Hind defense which can also span across the whole map. This leads to stale mid-games and endgames, where once the map is evenly split, game just results in trench wars for half an hour, occasionally being interrupted by chronospheres and atom bombs.
You can't move through air because AA guns make the territory a no-air zone. You can't move armies because it instantly gets harassed by hinds and then gets covered by artillery fire. You can't kill enemy artillery because it has the longest range out of all units and fast units that are supposed to kill artillery (light tanks or flak trucks) die easily to any base defense or rocket soldiers. All this gets amplified even more when maphack GPS comes online, because you can't even do back-line harassment as your enemy sees everything.

Good example of what I'm talking about was shown on Lorrydriver's stream in his game against Happy (second game on this vod). Lorrydriver still won because well he's Lorry, and also Happy admitted doing several mistakes, but overall this Soviet against Allies play looked like running with your legs tied to additional weight that is being released every 2 minutes for 20 seconds.

.1
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Post by .1 »

I rated a 5. Although I do like some of the changes, I feel the bad changes outweigh the good changes. I do not like how the game now forces you into a playstyle. For example, in previous releases, you could counter t2 with aggressive base pushing. If someone was spamming v2 or arty, you could push barracks and pills in their face, with the idea of holding them off so you can either mass an army, or tech up as well. Since that is no longer an option, the game turns into an arty/v2 fest.

I don't feel like the game, as with a map, should force you into a playstyle. I like being able to have the freedom to act, and not react.

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