If hinds were returned to soviet...

Discussion about the game and its default mods.
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avalach21
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Post by avalach21 »

zinc wrote: For the "two different Longbows" idea...

Image

this looks dopee.. if anything I really wouldnt mind this option.. simple and effective.

barf_openra
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Post by barf_openra »

This is the epitome of an inconsequential "issue" and nothing is broken here.

Any type of air swap/change/re-balance is a can of worms and I can only imagine what a shit-show of months long testing and arguing that would ensue.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

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Clockwork
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Post by Clockwork »

barf_openra wrote: This is the epitome of an inconsequential "issue" and nothing is broken here.

Any type of air swap/change/re-balance is a can of worms and I can only imagine what a shit-show of months long testing and arguing that would ensue.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Barf is completely right. Here are 2 threads from the last time the pls give soviets hinds back bandwagon happened (seriously it's becoming an annual event - near the same time of the year too let's make it an RA holiday.)
http://www.sleipnirstuff.com/forum/view ... t=mortecha
http://www.sleipnirstuff.com/forum/view ... t=mortecha

As you can see even with just 2 threads there was already fierce debate and caused a lot of fighting. And that was just to change the model and name of the hind! Imagine once you throw balancing on top of that.
avalach21 wrote:
zinc wrote: For the "two different Longbows" idea...

Image

this looks dopee.. if anything I really wouldnt mind this option.. simple and effective.
The problem with this solution is these 2 longbows are basically identical. If I'm playing against allies how can I make a split second decision to send my air in when I cannot differentiate if these particular longbows are gonna destroy my fleet. A large part of being pacey in this game is the split second correct decision making. There's a white dot on top next to the propellers. There's also an identical white dot for the cockpit which can confuse. If I quickly look at the longbows, see a white dot which is actually the cockpit and decide not send my yaks in and then lose the game from it is going to be throwing stuff at the wall.

This was mine and many others primary concerns of the Irqouis gunship that was being debated. It looked pretty much like a longbow. With the hind, you know the detailed shorter helicopter is your longbow and the black cigar thing is the Hind.

And to finalise here is a quote from smitty from the linked threads on why doing this change is a big massive ball ache (you can replace cobra with all these new helicopter models being thrown about) and as Barf said: dont fix what isnt broken. There's a lot of broken things that need attention more than this and I linked a few of these issues in the wishlist thread

Also a quote from 5Aces I completely agree with. Seriously these 2 threads are a gold mine of why not to do this change.
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Clockwork
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Post by Clockwork »

some extra quotes. The overruling opinion mostly is it screws with balance too much and that ties into my point of if you want this change then you got to hard reset everything. OpenRA is a mixed up mesh of counters and units and it's not so easy to take a section out and put it somewhere else without collapsing the web.
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Matt
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Post by Matt »

barf_openra wrote: If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
I agree.

For everyone else there is https://github.com/OpenRA/raclassic now.

zinc
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Post by zinc »

For what was quoted from Smitty:

(A) I don't think it will make too much of a difference to balance, assuming you give a replacement to Allies
(B) So you could change it visually also to match the name change
(C) You will not remove the Hind from the game, if it is being switched over to Soviets. Will you, however, be taking the game away from the original? That depends on what you see as worse-- having the Hind as an Allies unit, and not available to Soviet; or just having an extra non-original unit for balance. Either way could be seen as "non-original".

For what was said by FiveAces, yes, if you switched without a replacement, it would presumably create balance issues. But if you do give a replacement however, then that doesn't really apply. As for "the Hind and Yak would overlap way too much in their role", you could give the Hind as a replacement for Yaks for a particular Soviet faction. Or even let's say a particular Soviet faction was given both; well you could decide what to build. Maybe you want to build some Hinds and some Yaks, and that will work for you. It's an extra option--maybe a bit of an advantage--if you pick that faction.

As for balance, again, if you give a replacement to Allies, I'm not thinking it will be a big deal. I'm not thinking you will need to do X, Y, and Z to compensate or you will have messed up the game. I doubt that a Soviet faction, even if they had the option of building both, would suddenly become ultra-powerful because of it.

With the video of the Apache and Longbow being very close in design, OK, maybe you could have a bit more of a difference to them.

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Clockwork
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Post by Clockwork »

zinc wrote: For what was quoted from Smitty:
(A) I don't think it will make too much of a difference to balance, assuming you give a replacement to Allies
Here's an example how the hinds army deleting power.
https://clips.twitch.tv/TastyTangentialPeppermintOSfrog
Here is an example of a game being won due to hinds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnIF2EkizJw&t=1527s

how can you balance giving Soviets the crowd control unit as well as having the yak and migs which are great aerial sniper units? Keep in mind Russia is probably agreed upon as the current strongest faction atm, however, takes the most skill to use correctly. I feel there's a strong naivety here I think you need to watch some high tier players use hinds to truly understand what they're capable of when in the hands of a good player.
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avalach21
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Post by avalach21 »

zinc wrote: For what was quoted from Smitty:

(A) I don't think it will make too much of a difference to balance, assuming you give a replacement to Allies
(B) So you could change it visually also to match the name change
(C) You will not remove the Hind from the game, if it is being switched over to Soviets. Will you, however, be taking the game away from the original? That depends on what you see as worse-- having the Hind as an Allies unit, and not available to Soviet; or just having an extra non-original unit for balance. Either way could be seen as "non-original".

For what was said by FiveAces, yes, if you switched without a replacement, it would presumably create balance issues. But if you do give a replacement however, then that doesn't really apply. As for "the Hind and Yak would overlap way too much in their role", you could give the Hind as a replacement for Yaks for a particular Soviet faction. Or even let's say a particular Soviet faction was given both; well you could decide what to build. Maybe you want to build some Hinds and some Yaks, and that will work for you. It's an extra option--maybe a bit of an advantage--if you pick that faction.

As for balance, again, if you give a replacement to Allies, I'm not thinking it will be a big deal. I'm not thinking you will need to do X, Y, and Z to compensate or you will have messed up the game. I doubt that a Soviet faction, even if they had the option of building both, would suddenly become ultra-powerful because of it.

With the video of the Apache and Longbow being very close in design, OK, maybe you could have a bit more of a difference to them.

Exactly... I don't get the huge deal... lol

The hind and yak fill similar roles. Not a huge issue at all for them to have both.. If the soviets have both then so what who cares? The aircraft queue can only pump out so many units so it's not like they will be able to pump out yaks and hinds simultaneously, so it's up to the soviet player to decide if they want to build an airfield and get yaks and migs, or if they would rather get a helipad and get hinds (and maybe transport copters). Or eventually they could get both and mix and match.

Obviously the Allies would then get an apache with chain gun to fill the hind's role.. or give them the Iroquois gunship, or a cobra or whatever who cares, as long as it isn't a hind which is the most soviet looking helicopter imaginable.

I really don't think it's that hard to distinguish between the units with that huge dome on top but im sure that even a bit more could be done to clearly differentiate them

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avalach21
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Post by avalach21 »

Happy wrote:
zinc wrote: For what was quoted from Smitty:
(A) I don't think it will make too much of a difference to balance, assuming you give a replacement to Allies
Here's an example how the hinds army deleting power.
https://clips.twitch.tv/TastyTangentialPeppermintOSfrog
Here is an example of a game being won due to hinds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnIF2EkizJw&t=1527s

how can you balance giving Soviets the crowd control unit as well as having the yak and migs which are great aerial sniper units? Keep in mind Russia is probably agreed upon as the current strongest faction atm, however, takes the most skill to use correctly. I feel there's a strong naivety here I think you need to watch some high tier players use hinds to truly understand what they're capable of when in the hands of a good player.
Can you clearly say why having both a yak and a hind on the Soviets is going to so drastically throw balance out of whack? Yes hinds are great useful units... what's your point? Allied players already have to deal with them in Allied vs Allied matchups and Soviets already have to deal with them in Soviet vs Allied match ups. All the same counters will still apply. What's the big deal? It's not like countering a yak and countering a hind are extravagantly different practices.

Of course the Allies will get an appropriate replacement in their arsenal which will not effect their lineup of units whatsoever.

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Clockwork
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Post by Clockwork »

Gonna put my final post here. In the past, all balance changes no matter what took extensive testing. OMnom is the shining example of the work he put into tab edit in this regard.

Think of a solution to the huge balance problem. Create a modded map with your change. Log 100 hours with it and present the evidence to show it is possible to balance it. Then discussions on hinds to soviets can be done.

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Clockwork
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Post by Clockwork »

avalach21 wrote:
Happy wrote:
zinc wrote: For what was quoted from Smitty:
(A) I don't think it will make too much of a difference to balance, assuming you give a replacement to Allies
Here's an example how the hinds army deleting power.
https://clips.twitch.tv/TastyTangentialPeppermintOSfrog
Here is an example of a game being won due to hinds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnIF2EkizJw&t=1527s

how can you balance giving Soviets the crowd control unit as well as having the yak and migs which are great aerial sniper units? Keep in mind Russia is probably agreed upon as the current strongest faction atm, however, takes the most skill to use correctly. I feel there's a strong naivety here I think you need to watch some high tier players use hinds to truly understand what they're capable of when in the hands of a good player.
Can you clearly say why having both a yak and a hind on the Soviets is going to so drastically throw balance out of whack? Yes hinds are great useful units... what's your point? Allied players already have to deal with them in Allied vs Allied matchups and Soviets already have to deal with them in Soviet vs Allied match ups. All the same counters will still apply. What's the big deal? It's not like countering a yak and countering a hind are extravagantly different practices.

Of course the Allies will get an appropriate replacement in their arsenal which will not effect their lineup of units whatsoever.
You're giving the Soviets the crowd control unit and the sniping units and leaving the allies with the crowd control unit. Therefore its already unbalanced do I need to say more? Let's give soviets artillery and v2 and allies can just have arty - it's the same principle except doesn't have the nostalgia argument to try and justify it. If you then go about editing the values on then it just becomes an absolute mess or as Barf calls it a can of worms. The current thing works why are we trying to break it when there are things broken already (unit micro).

barf_openra
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Post by barf_openra »

The fact that people here think that Hinds and Yaks fill similar roles is all the proof you need that this discussion is nonsensical.

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avalach21
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Post by avalach21 »

barf_openra wrote: The fact that people here think that Hinds and Yaks fill similar roles is all the proof you need that this discussion is nonsensical.
instead of making a snarky comment why don't you illustrate your point? I understand that as Happy said, the Hind is better at "crowd control" and a yak is better at "sniping." They are both countered pretty much the exact same way..

I agree, it would require testing, hours of testing, maybe 100s of hours. It wouldn't be a quick change that we can throw into the next release right now.

If the discussion keeps coming up year after year and the owner of this forum and one of the leads on the project sees it as a priority then maybe we should address it. Apparently many people see it as plain stupid having the Hind on the Allies. The goal of the OpenRA project is to have an enhanced version of the original while staying as true to the original as possible. It's not impossible to balance the game with the Hind on the soviets.. it's a challenge but it can be overcome with discussion, testing, and delicate adjusting...

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Clockwork
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Post by Clockwork »

Also I want to add this quote directly from PChote from the old thread. Moving hinds to allies was a fix for the original RA's air balance. So I am completely bewildered how you can fix such a serious balance issue that required the hinds going to allies in the first place. I don't see any way to fix it.
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barf_openra
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Post by barf_openra »

If you don't get that the two units are completely different in their roles, use, and relative importance to their factions theres nothing I can say to make you understand.

Log 1000+ hours of competitive gameplay over the next three years and then let me know if still need me to walk you through an illustration of the difference between a Soviet Yak and and Allied Hind.

"Because Muh OrinigalRA" and "Because Muh Artwork" are two really bad reasons to spend the next six months of your life trying to balance moving the Hind from allies to soviets.

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