My thoughts on the new play test

squirrel · Post by **squirrel** » Mon Apr 06, 2015 5:17 am

Hi guys, Squirrel here. Glad to see all the feedback by this awesome community. Here is my humble opinion:

I would like to see the "Parabomb" upgraded to a Tiberian Dawn-esque type of bombing... or maybe nerfing the -timer-?

About the balancing of the incoming patch for Red Alert...

- NO Fake Nukes or Chronos, that would result in total chaos and as PersianImmortal said, this would be like a "guessing game" or something like that.
- All fake buildings (fake warfactory, radar, conyard...) should be limited to only 2 per player, that would make the game interesting, but still it wouldn´t lose the "strategy" in "RTS".
- No "Advanced Gap Generators" or "Super Chrono" for France and Germany, that is OP I think (Come on, 6 artys and 3 tanks between them is OP)
- Would be fun to see implemented the "Chrono Distortion", that took place in RA95 when there was "too much" chronos used in-game.
- Russia (as said by the dudes here) should be "tesla" oriented, and Ukraine should be the "demolition" guy.
- England super spy is OK. France should have the "phase transport", Germany the "chrono tank", Russia the "tesla tank" and/or "tesla trooper" and Ukraine a -heavier armored- version of the "demo truck" as unique units. I think the "demo truck" is essential for both factions of soviets.
- If we keep the Allies and Soviets vanilla factions (like C&C Generals Zero Hour did it) we should keep them with all their units, but with a little nerfing in them

gg.

PS: "sonar pulse" is missing... what happened to it? will be implemented in future release?

JOo · Post by **JOo** » Mon Apr 06, 2015 3:58 pm

scotts changes for the next playtest :

PersianImmortal · Post by **PersianImmortal** » Tue Apr 07, 2015 12:03 am

I'm glad to see some positive changes, I still think we should get rid of fake structures all together but if they're going to be limited to France only and nerfed to hell like they are now. I think I and the rest of the community could live with that and after some feedback (when the test goes live and we play games with them) we can convene once again to debate and discuss their future.
Glad to see the sniper removed, Nuke'm did an amazing job with the art work but the unit was a bit overpowered and this is coming from someone who loved using them. The buffed tesla trooper is a nice replacement.
The Tesla tank still needs to find its niche as we still have no incentive to construct them over the mammoth tank.

Squirrel had a great idea with the Ukraine faction, the bombers could be more TD like. Buff their speed and armor so they can survive AA until guided airstrikes can be implemented.

scorp · Post by **scorp** » Tue Apr 07, 2015 10:48 am

i would have preferred had the subfactions be removed instead of the main factions, giving broad options to players of each faction instead as to which units to build and use, but oh well.

personally, i like the tesla tank. It is fast, agile, zaps certain otherwise annoying units such as arties or all types of infantry with a single shot that always hits and isn't obstructed by walls or such.

Why on earth Russia "has to be more tesla themed"... well, creative freedom of the devs i suppose but Ukraine is still kinda soviet for the poor. Meh subfactions. I guess you can Balance them back and fourth for Ages and i'd still not like them

Kencka_Plus · Post by **Kencka_Plus** » Tue Apr 07, 2015 2:56 pm

scorp wrote: ↑i would have preferred had the subfactions be removed instead of the main factions, giving broad options to players of each faction instead as to which units to build and use, but oh well.

personally, i like the tesla tank. It is fast, agile, zaps certain otherwise annoying units such as arties or all types of infantry with a single shot that always hits and isn't obstructed by walls or such.

Why on earth Russia "has to be more tesla themed"... well, creative freedom of the devs i suppose but Ukraine is still kinda soviet for the poor. Meh subfactions. I guess you can Balance them back and fourth for Ages and i'd still not like them

Well. I think the answer to this is to create different game modes. One with only two factions and other with countries instead (sub factions). I personally find the sub factions more appealing, turning the game even more complex, but still I would like to have this option.

raymundo · Post by **raymundo** » Tue Apr 07, 2015 3:55 pm

From my understanding the tesla tank should be on same tier level as the chrono tank (they even cost the same). Chrono tank seems like a superior unit, so maybe tesla tank could receive some buff? What about a 1-5% chance with every shot to short circuit a vehicle or building for 5-8 seconds?

Cthulhuu · Post by **Cthulhuu** » Wed Apr 08, 2015 9:45 am

Great job on the new release.

Im glad to see the devs had the same idea as me

: A limitation on the fake buildings could bring balance.

Sniper gone..... as persianimortal said i also enjoy using them but their use was more of a way to spam fuck somebody.

I think it is getting somewhere, or at least close to a release

Time to play the Sh%# out of the playtest now.

Great job guys!!!

{{Cthulhuu}}

noobmapmaker · Post by **noobmapmaker** » Thu Apr 09, 2015 7:13 am

yes, I will switch to the playtest as well. Developing without testing is pointless. So test we must!

raymundo · Post by **raymundo** » Thu Apr 09, 2015 3:37 pm

First off, I am incredibly grateful for all the work being put into this! I just tried out the 0408 playtest. My comment is only discussing the faction balances.

Nice job on the parabombs, they are much more powerful now, and a six minute cooldown seems appropriate. Question: will this be the same parabomb that comes in a crate now?

The german chronosphere seems too strong. Why not have different cooldowns? 4 minutes for advanced, 2 minute for normal, using either will reset both counters. So in 12 minutes you could use 3 advanced, or 2 advanced and 2 normal, 6 normal, etc.

So,

Germany loses phase transport, and mobile gap generator, but gains advance chronosphere, a huge asset.
France loses chrono tank, and phase transport, but gains fake buildings.
Britain loses chrono tank, and mobile gap generator, but gets cheaper and quicker build of spies.

Ukraine loses tesla tanks, and shock troopers, but gains parabombs.
Russia loses demo truck, but gains nothing, just able to hold on to units?

Why not give them the tank drop?I see Russia is getting 2 special units, but shock troopers really aren't anything special. I like the idea of tesla theme, but is this aesthetics vs. balancing?

Soviets definitely seem worse off.

Maybe I am slightly biased because I like to play soviets, but I am trying to be objective and balance all sides.

Post by **Scott_NZ** » Fri Apr 10, 2015 1:06 am

Shock troopers had a considerable buff. I suggest revisiting them.

noobmapmaker · Post by **noobmapmaker** » Fri Apr 10, 2015 6:43 pm

It's a shame that the playtest and current release don't go together so well. After waiting for a game for some time I quit the playtest and then have to reinstall the current release all over.

Or am I doing something wrong?

Im starting to like the factions more and more, btw!

squirrel · Post by **squirrel** » Tue Apr 14, 2015 1:38 am

The next release seems very promising eh... Hope for the best.

I was thinking about (faaar)future releases... is it possible to release an OpenRa version with spanish language support?? I would love to translate it (it´s my main language of course). The spanish talking community is big, and it could bring more players. It could be my little support for all the great job of the developers.

noobmapmaker · Post by **noobmapmaker** » Tue Apr 14, 2015 5:40 am

Good idea! Enough Dutch and Germany people here to translate as well! Chinese would also add a large crowd. But that does pose the problem that we will get our asses kicked by Asian 5 yr olds.

Post by **abcdefg30** » Tue Apr 14, 2015 3:24 pm

See also https://github.com/OpenRA/OpenRA/wiki/Translation

squirrel · Post by **squirrel** » Fri Apr 17, 2015 6:31 am

That´s cool, I would love to help to translate it to full spanish.

---

BTW, I read that shock troopers are the only unsquishable infantry unit in the game, and also when Tesla Tanks attack an enemy radar, it gets jammed by few seconds (that´s in vanilla RA98) Not too useful but interesting in some way I think.

Is this working fine?

My thoughts on the new play test

:O