OpenRA

The last few months of playing OpenRA has inspired a desire in me to write up a type of "Rules of Engagement" in response to tactics that make the game, uhm, un-enjoyable. I'm not sure if anything like this has already been done or if it would even be widely adopted. Gotta ask though, right?

Anybody have a pet peeve they want to share? I'm down with doing with surveys on here and putting something together.

Zoidberg

In my experience a list of "rules" or such like that only incites more anger when someone doesn't agree to play by them (examples: "backdooring" in dota or "camping" in fps games). I am of the opinion that if its possible in the game its a fair tactic, and labelling it otherwise hurts the community. But I'm open to persuasive argument.

That said, if something totally un-fun is possible maybe that's something that should be fixed. What kind of tactics are you talking about, specifically?

We try to fix bugs or find ways to workaround gameplay problems that can be considered as an exploit. The vehicle husk blocking refineries, factory or barracks problem was one we fixed in the recent playtests.

Cheat/exploit:
1: Color that does not show in minimap or on the ground (this should be fixed, for me its a cheat when I cannot see buildings, arties on the ground or minimap)
2: Not returning chromo's, when the mammuths stay (fixed in new release???)
3: Hidden nuke that cannot be attacked

Annoying:
1: when subs do not autofire
2: pro players that "lure" units away, like with spy plane, jeep etc...
3: when you sometime cannot target units, like on some parts of a bridge
4: when someone changes the rules without you knowing (build of ally)
5: when turrets target wrong units


Boring, but ok:
1: Rush in the start
2: arty/basewalk aa combo <- impossible to stop
3: newbie rushing
4: mines
5: walls blocking movement -> lagging game

Cool:
1: kamikaze choppers/planes
2: demo trucks
3: units in apc
4: chrono enemies

zypres1 wrote: ↑Cheat/exploit:
1: Color that does not show in minimap or on the ground (this should be fixed, for me its a cheat when I cannot see buildings, arties on the ground or minimap)

See https://github.com/OpenRA/OpenRA/issues/4599

zypres1 wrote: ↑Cheat/exploit:

2: Not returning chromo's, when the mammuths stay

Really? How does that work?

3: Hidden nuke that cannot be attacked

You mean putting them above a power station?

Annoying:
1: when subs do not autofire

Yes

2: pro players that "lure" units away, like with spy plane, jeep etc...

Yes. I wish you could turn off that feature for your units.

Well you can already using https://github.com/OpenRA/OpenRA/wiki/Controls#stances

1: Rush in the start

While boring it is still a strategy. I am actualy in the works of testing the rush start strategies with a variety of units to see if it needs tweaking for balance or not.

zinc wrote: ↑

zypres1 wrote: ↑Cheat/exploit:

2: Not returning chromo's, when the mammuths stay

Really? How does that work?

3: Hidden nuke that cannot be attacked

You mean putting them above a power station?

Annoying:
1: when subs do not autofire

Yes

2: pro players that "lure" units away, like with spy plane, jeep etc...

Yes. I wish you could turn off that feature for your units.

You can. change their stance with Z to a more defensive stance if you don't want them chasing enemy units down.

Cmd. Matt wrote: ↑Well you can already using https://github.com/OpenRA/OpenRA/wiki/Controls#stances

you will never have time to do that to all your subs.. It's soo annoying to see players loosing all their subs, and constantly ask them to press z on the subs....

zinc wrote: ↑

zypres1 wrote: ↑Cheat/exploit:

2: Not returning chromo's, when the mammuths stay

Really? How does that work?

( I GUESS THIS IS FIXED?)

3: Hidden nuke that cannot be attacked

You mean putting them above a power station?

Yes, I hate that. Some times no way to attack them...

2: pro players that "lure" units away, like with spy plane, jeep etc...

-Yes. I wish you could turn off that feature for your units.

-You can. change their stance with Z to a more defensive stance if you don't want them chasing enemy units down.

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No time to do that, and its not the biggest problem with me, but with more players. Mammuths follow one inf into 4 teslas is kinda stupid.

maybe it would be worth a discussion whether or not to change a few default stances for certain units that are especially prone to this issue of unintenionally following enemy units.

arty's following enemy harvesters into the enemy base is an example. I remember i tried assigning Initial stance defence to Arty in my game (but it didn't work for some reason)

now artillery by nature would be a unit you place at a strategic point from where it mostly fires. It isn't meant to chase enemy harvesters or the like IMHO.

I agree. I always immediately put my artillery units on defence, would be nice if it were default or at least an option to set it to default.
Actually there could be an argument made that this should always be the default on every unit. I never want my units moving of their own accord to chase enemy units, because if I want to give chase I will tell them to do so myself. I'm fairly sure no modern RTS has auto-chasing units (except maybe melee units like dogs, which makes sense) because it breaks the player's carefully constructed formation.

[EDIT]
Actually, what if there was a chase distance, where units will follow until a certain distance and then return to where they were ordered to be? Could either be fixed, equal to (or derived from) the unit's view distance, or set for each unit. Thoughts?

That is already configurable per unit with https://github.com/OpenRA/OpenRA/wiki/Traits#autotarget

yeah, that's what i've done with some Units, but for example with Artys it didn't work for me.

gonna have to try it once more in the yaml.


Still, maybe it can be discussed whether or not initialstance attackanything should be the Default autotarget value or not.

which Units do generally benefit from that Default stance?

This should be fixed already https://github.com/OpenRA/OpenRA/issues/3285