OpenRA

From what I've seen so far, most of the openRA games biggest change is how fast units can be accumulated. And while this speeds up the game's, it can also be bad for the gameplay.

One of my biggest gripes is how Real Time strategies often focus less on strategies with units and more on the skill of memorizing build queue's, clickspeed and micro-management.

One of the first ways to elevate some of my gripes, is making sure players don't have to divide their attention too much. To do this players should be capable of queueing their buildings, down to their placement. That way a player can already have queue'd half his base and the placement and put his attention somewhere else.

Then there's unit importance.
If you can build 10 units per minute you can quickly rebuild armies, throwing more units at it is more important than unit placement and micro-management is king.
If you can build 1 unit per minute you need a lot of time to recover from battles, getting veteran units and cutting your losses when a fight goes bad become more important and the unit composition you use becomes key in winning a battle over micro-management.

So making sure the players can build armies at higher speeds can easily decrease the value of the gameplay if it's too high. Every new triple-A game already has a high speed of army building, but a game like TS, at least for me, still ranks high and often trumps the newer RTS's that I want to play because of the slower army builds.

Keep in mind that games don't necessarily have to be longer just because you can build armies slower, players will have an army they'll find large enough at a similar pace only the armies would be smaller.

Demigan wrote: ↑ From what I've seen so far, most of the openRA games biggest change is how fast units can be accumulated.

Fair observation, thats probably the biggest change and was made to stop OpenRA being a spamfest like the original games.

Demigan wrote: ↑ One of my biggest gripes is how Real Time strategies often focus less on strategies with units and more on the skill of memorizing build queue's, clickspeed and micro-management.

Well build orders (memorization of build queues) are just a method of getting the units you want out on the field, they are memorized and refined because there always exists an optimal method of getting as many of whatever units are in your army composition as possible. Any interaction with armies and units is defined as tactics, not strategy, unless the army's action makes a difference over the course of the whole game (a timing attack for example). Its the execution of a player's build order (strategy) combined with their army tactics (micromanagement) that makes a good player. and removal of build orders makes a Real Time Strategy game into a Real Time Tactics game.

Demigan wrote: ↑ One of the first ways to elevate some of my gripes, is making sure players don't have to divide their attention too much. To do this players should be capable of queueing their buildings, down to their placement. That way a player can already have queue'd half his base and the placement and put his attention somewhere else.

Not sure this would make much difference to the game since scouting can usually reveal things that the enemy is doing that means you have to change some of the buildings you build which makes your system cumbersome to use if you constantly need to adapt. But i may be wrong, it really depends on how such a feature would be implemented and it would be great if you could expand on this.

Demigan wrote: ↑ Then there's unit importance.
If you can build 10 units per minute you can quickly rebuild armies, throwing more units at it is more important than unit placement and micro-management is king.
If you can build 1 unit per minute you need a lot of time to recover from battles, getting veteran units and cutting your losses when a fight goes bad become more important and the unit composition you use becomes key in winning a battle over micro-management.

Actually the more units you have the less important micro management becomes since each unit has a smaller impact on an engagement. Micro becomes far more important when you are encouraged to save units since you don't have as many. Also, micromanagement during a battle makes quite a small difference compared to how the army is positioned before the battle begins.

Demigan wrote: ↑ So making sure the players can build armies at higher speeds can easily decrease the value of the gameplay if it's too high. Every new triple-A game already has a high speed of army building, but a game like TS, at least for me, still ranks high and often trumps the newer RTS's that I want to play because of the slower army builds.

Keep in mind that games don't necessarily have to be longer just because you can build armies slower, players will have an army they'll find large enough at a similar pace only the armies would be smaller.

Its really hard to see what side of the fence you are on here. You talk about slow army building being bad but at the time saying that fast army building is bad. OpenRA already accounts for a middle ground where production buildings have a smaller increment in unit production so it doesn't spiral out of control like in the original games so its hard to see what you're trying to convey here.

Murto the Ray wrote: ↑Fair observation, thats probably the biggest change and was made to stop OpenRA being a spamfest like the original games.

I'm having trouble with this one. The biggest change is that units and armies are build faster... And this prevents spam? Isn't the point of spam building as much as fast as possible, and spamming is sooo much easier if you can build units at high speed?

Murto the Ray wrote: ↑Well build orders (memorization of build queues) are just a method of getting the units you want out on the field, they are memorized and refined because there always exists an optimal method of getting as many of whatever units are in your army composition as possible. Any interaction with armies and units is defined as tactics, not strategy, unless the army's action makes a difference over the course of the whole game (a timing attack for example). Its the execution of a player's build order (strategy) combined with their army tactics (micromanagement) that makes a good player. and removal of build orders makes a Real Time Strategy game into a Real Time Tactics game.

I think you misunderstood me.
Let's draw a comparison to some of the simplest of turn-based games as an example: Chess for instance. In chess there's no managing a queue, there's no micro management. Purely the placement of the units to gain an advantage. More developed turn-based games also focus on the placement, use of the environment and management of the abilities and capabilities of your characters. We even see it in lots of shooters, where rather than managing things it's your placement combined with use of the environment that can make or break you.

But in just about any RTS it's less about commanding units, using the environment and positioning, most RTS's are about looking for mathematical advantages by moving damaged units beyond enemy reach so either the enemy spends time moving and not shooting or your damaged unit stays alive longer and keeps your DPS higher for a longer time. And that's basically 80% of the 'micromanagement' right there! The remaining 20% is focus-firing on units to prevent that type of micromanagement from happening.
That's not what I see want out of RTS's! Some mathematical advantages to be gained is important for the gameplay without question and shouldn't be removed from the RTS at any point, but it's so important that you can ignore unit positioning and use of the environment in most games and basically just command a bunch of units to attack and purely win based on better just the mathematical advantage of your units, rather than micromanaging their position and abilities for an advantage.

In short: A part of the game's battles and build phases should be about management of queue's and getting mathematical advantages, but an equally large part (or even a greater part!) can be taken by actual strategy.
There's no reason why a battle (or entire games) should be decided by the one who can micromanage the fastest. There's massive amounts of room for battles to be determined by the player with the most strategy and tactics. I would much rather fight battles where every player only needs to give commands two or three times rather than 300 commands, as long as the timing and effect of those commands each have a huge effect on the battle.

Murto the Ray wrote: ↑Not sure this would make much difference to the game since scouting can usually reveal things that the enemy is doing that means you have to change some of the buildings you build which makes your system cumbersome to use if you constantly need to adapt. But i may be wrong, it really depends on how such a feature would be implemented and it would be great if you could expand on this.

Consider how most RTS's play out currently. You have to divide your time across a bunch of game elements, from managing scouting to keeping up-to-date with all parts of the area you control to managing queue's and building/unit placement. Most tactics for building a base are basically "dump powerplants/special building at the back of your base, dump production facilities wherever they fit and the defensive structures somewhere along the entrances of your base". There's barely any time (or uses) for planning your base ahead of time, placing things in ways to avoid certain attacks or strengthen yourself against a type of unit, while possibly leaving you open to another unit type or attack. That also makes 'scouting' more about 'finding a weakness' rather than just 'oh there's his base, that's some of his units I'll have to counter'.

There are already games that have similar idea's as I propose, although not as I would envision it. Supreme Commander (or Total Annihilation) allow you to have a different queue for each and every build unit, no matter if it's repairing, reclaiming resources, building structures or helping another unit out with a structure. This allows the player to first focus on building a base, and when combat begins he'll be certain his units won't be doing nothing when they finish but will continue to build what and how he wants. Reprogramming them, despite the volume of units with different queue's you can get in these game's, isn't that tough because it's easy and quick to queue a host of commands.

So... Why not for openRA games? They already are streamlining things, so why not try to make the game more about tactics and strategy rather than management of queue's which should be secondary to the game? The choice of what you queue is still yours, but you shouldn't have to pay a lot of attention to the queue's themselves for fear of your industry falling apart.

Murto the Ray wrote: ↑Actually the more units you have the less important micro management becomes since each unit has a smaller impact on an engagement. Micro becomes far more important when you are encouraged to save units since you don't have as many. Also, micromanagement during a battle makes quite a small difference compared to how the army is positioned before the battle begins.

Hmm yes, micromanagement becomes less important. Still, the mass and make-up of the army starts prevailing then, and any strategy or tactics is mostly based on "I'll have them run through a chokepoint".

Walls are a great example of what could be. Walls have an effect on the battle, and a noticeable one. Only specific units can fire over the wall, while others need to first penetrate it. This gives more choice in what units to bring with more depth than the rock-paper-scissors gameplay most RTS's seem to prefer. You can build units that can shoot over walls... These are usually artillery like units with weaker armor. Enemies can either meet that challengs and bring their own, or try to breach the walls quick enough to defeat the advantage.
But that's a tactic that can only happen in RTS's with walls, and only at player bases. Where's the environmental factors? Where's abusing mud to slow down units? Where's using tree's to become less visible and spring flanking attacks or keep your weaker units safe while they use friendly vision to fire? Where's using urban combat beyond "hey now I can dump some units into a building"? These elements aren't strange to RTS's, each and every single one has been part of some RTS, but rarely ever in a capacity that players could get a strong advantage out of being the best in maneuvering his units through tight urban environments or using environmental tree's and slower roads to beat your enemy.

Maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree here and want to change TS to something it's not just because I have gripes with RTS's in general, but still, some of it will definitely improve the gameplay.

Murto the Ray wrote: ↑Its really hard to see what side of the fence you are on here. You talk about slow army building being bad but at the time saying that fast army building is bad. OpenRA already accounts for a middle ground where production buildings have a smaller increment in unit production so it doesn't spiral out of control like in the original games so its hard to see what you're trying to convey here.

What i mean is:
Too slow games, especially in todays industry, are bad. Having too high a pace to unit building makes units and strategy unimportant as managing queue's and throwing more units against the problem becomes the deciding factor, which is also bad. A middle ground needs to be found. From the playtests I saw and how I played the current openRA games the unit production speed was amped up a lot, and I think perhaps too much. If there really is a way to stop it from spiralling out of control: Nice, great! Then everything I've said (and I know that's a lot already) about the production speed can be ignored.

The following examples I use comes from TD.

Murto the Ray wrote: ↑Fair observation, thats probably the biggest change and was made to stop OpenRA being a spamfest like the original games.

Demigan wrote: ↑I'm having trouble with this one. The biggest change is that units and armies are build faster... And this prevents spam? Isn't the point of spam building as much as fast as possible, and spamming is sooo much easier if you can build units at high speed?

Depends on the unit being built. If you build an army of infantry then you can build a single flametank/arty and demolish the army really quickly. If you build an army of buggies, then a few tanks can demolish them really quickly. Despite just making masses of an army you still need a counter army to fight against this. It isn't about just raw numbers which comes into the importance of structure building.

Murto the Ray wrote: ↑Well build orders (memorization of build queues) are just a method of getting the units you want out on the field, they are memorized and refined because there always exists an optimal method of getting as many of whatever units are in your army composition as possible. Any interaction with armies and units is defined as tactics, not strategy, unless the army's action makes a difference over the course of the whole game (a timing attack for example). Its the execution of a player's build order (strategy) combined with their army tactics (micromanagement) that makes a good player. and removal of build orders makes a Real Time Strategy game into a Real Time Tactics game.

Demigan wrote: ↑I think you misunderstood me.
Let's draw a comparison to some of the simplest of turn-based games as an example: Chess for instance. In chess there's no managing a queue, there's no micro management. Purely the placement of the units to gain an advantage. More developed turn-based games also focus on the placement, use of the environment and management of the abilities and capabilities of your characters. We even see it in lots of shooters, where rather than managing things it's your placement combined with use of the environment that can make or break you.

But in just about any RTS it's less about commanding units, using the environment and positioning, most RTS's are about looking for mathematical advantages by moving damaged units beyond enemy reach so either the enemy spends time moving and not shooting or your damaged unit stays alive longer and keeps your DPS higher for a longer time. And that's basically 80% of the 'micromanagement' right there! The remaining 20% is focus-firing on units to prevent that type of micromanagement from happening.
That's not what I see want out of RTS's! Some mathematical advantages to be gained is important for the gameplay without question and shouldn't be removed from the RTS at any point, but it's so important that you can ignore unit positioning and use of the environment in most games and basically just command a bunch of units to attack and purely win based on better just the mathematical advantage of your units, rather than micromanaging their position and abilities for an advantage.

In short: A part of the game's battles and build phases should be about management of queue's and getting mathematical advantages, but an equally large part (or even a greater part!) can be taken by actual strategy.
There's no reason why a battle (or entire games) should be decided by the one who can micromanage the fastest. There's massive amounts of room for battles to be determined by the player with the most strategy and tactics. I would much rather fight battles where every player only needs to give commands two or three times rather than 300 commands, as long as the timing and effect of those commands each have a huge effect on the battle.

In TD I actually have the slowest APM out of many players. The game doesn't require a lot of clicking or management on units. However, keeping your damaged units alive has been there since 1995. Hence the repair pad which also becomes an important base building strategy. "I can get an early repair pad which gets me repaired units! Ooorr... maybe I should spend it on an extra barracks for infantry? Or maybe I should get a defense structure because I can repair structures!"

In Chess the main goal is to get checkmate. That is its only goal in Chess. While in many RTS games its about winning. How do you want to win? Do you want to starve your opponent? Do you want to try and snipe his MCV? Will sniping his MCV cost you your units and possibly lose the game to a counter attack?

In Turn based games its about critical thinking and in many cases RNG. You can send an arty to barrage a road, or on the mountian pass. But the game can roll the dice and say "Well you missed and hit the broad side of a barn instead" (Reference takened from Amiga 500 Perfect General) Want to know what I hate most about Turn based? A tank standing next to each other and missing with a 90% chance of a hit fire.

Murto the Ray wrote: ↑Not sure this would make much difference to the game since scouting can usually reveal things that the enemy is doing that means you have to change some of the buildings you build which makes your system cumbersome to use if you constantly need to adapt. But i may be wrong, it really depends on how such a feature would be implemented and it would be great if you could expand on this.

Demigan wrote: ↑Consider how most RTS's play out currently. You have to divide your time across a bunch of game elements, from managing scouting to keeping up-to-date with all parts of the area you control to managing queue's and building/unit placement. Most tactics for building a base are basically "dump powerplants/special building at the back of your base, dump production facilities wherever they fit and the defensive structures somewhere along the entrances of your base". There's barely any time (or uses) for planning your base ahead of time, placing things in ways to avoid certain attacks or strengthen yourself against a type of unit, while possibly leaving you open to another unit type or attack. That also makes 'scouting' more about 'finding a weakness' rather than just 'oh there's his base, that's some of his units I'll have to counter'.

There are already games that have similar idea's as I propose, although not as I would envision it. Supreme Commander (or Total Annihilation) allow you to have a different queue for each and every build unit, no matter if it's repairing, reclaiming resources, building structures or helping another unit out with a structure. This allows the player to first focus on building a base, and when combat begins he'll be certain his units won't be doing nothing when they finish but will continue to build what and how he wants. Reprogramming them, despite the volume of units with different queue's you can get in these game's, isn't that tough because it's easy and quick to queue a host of commands.

So... Why not for openRA games? They already are streamlining things, so why not try to make the game more about tactics and strategy rather than management of queue's which should be secondary to the game? The choice of what you queue is still yours, but you shouldn't have to pay a lot of attention to the queue's themselves for fear of your industry falling apart.

In TA (Total Annihilation) You can build super power plants really early and get a 10k+ in power output which can fund a lot of your armies. The game also allows multiple nukes to be built at the same time for mass firing once you have docked about 80+ nukes. TA also has the super weapon of the buzzsaw (Can't remember the name of the ARMS canon) That can fire a little over halfway on some of the games biggest maps. If you play on a smaller scaled 1v1 map you HAVE to stop the buzzsaw. Or you are screwed. When you see the experimental Kbot being built you have to figure out a way to either kill the building or face death. TA Also has elements that made and break the game as well.

As for base placement, you can actually place your buildings down depending on the map and what your opponent is doing. Is your opponent rushing infantry? Awesome. Build your base into a tight square so your Guard Towers can cover fire for the buildings. How about high tech/possibly a nuke? spread your important tech buildings out so they don't get nuked/ioned. Should I go for a three barracks play? No because he has four barracks. I will go for two airstrips so one can make arty and the other can make flametanks or a mix with buggies for support fire of the arty. Should I make a refinery? Or build an extra harvester?

TA is about a management of queues as well. As like many of the RTS. However, in C&C95 queues did not exist. You would end up spending 95% of your time at your tab just to keep things produced. In ORA it made things that much simpler to focus on the battlefield and make strategic choices.

Murto the Ray wrote: ↑Actually the more units you have the less important micro management becomes since each unit has a smaller impact on an engagement. Micro becomes far more important when you are encouraged to save units since you don't have as many. Also, micromanagement during a battle makes quite a small difference compared to how the army is positioned before the battle begins.

Demigan wrote: ↑Hmm yes, micromanagement becomes less important. Still, the mass and make-up of the army starts prevailing then, and any strategy or tactics is mostly based on "I'll have them run through a chokepoint".

Walls are a great example of what could be. Walls have an effect on the battle, and a noticeable one. Only specific units can fire over the wall, while others need to first penetrate it. This gives more choice in what units to bring with more depth than the rock-paper-scissors gameplay most RTS's seem to prefer. You can build units that can shoot over walls... These are usually artillery like units with weaker armor. Enemies can either meet that challengs and bring their own, or try to breach the walls quick enough to defeat the advantage.
But that's a tactic that can only happen in RTS's with walls, and only at player bases. Where's the environmental factors? Where's abusing mud to slow down units? Where's using tree's to become less visible and spring flanking attacks or keep your weaker units safe while they use friendly vision to fire? Where's using urban combat beyond "hey now I can dump some units into a building"? These elements aren't strange to RTS's, each and every single one has been part of some RTS, but rarely ever in a capacity that players could get a strong advantage out of being the best in maneuvering his units through tight urban environments or using environmental tree's and slower roads to beat your enemy.

Maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree here and want to change TS to something it's not just because I have gripes with RTS's in general, but still, some of it will definitely improve the gameplay.

This already exists in both TD and RA. However in TD nobody really does this. Perhaps you should try this strategy yourself and incorporate it?

AKA about your building placements: Try using walls around your defense structures. ACM used to use a lot of walls. The problem was he used it to much.

Chokepoints also exist. You just need to use walls for that such as next to a cliff or a pack of trees. But in some locations depending on a map you need an expansion/move your MCV to so such. Which requires... strategic involvement. Should I move my MCV now? Or will he attack? Should I go for a second MCV? Or get a few extra units up and make sure he won't attack soon.

As for the mass make up of an army it is always counterable. Mass Mammoth armies used to be unstoppable. However, if you use the right combinations they turn into junk metal.

Murto the Ray wrote: ↑Its really hard to see what side of the fence you are on here. You talk about slow army building being bad but at the time saying that fast army building is bad. OpenRA already accounts for a middle ground where production buildings have a smaller increment in unit production so it doesn't spiral out of control like in the original games so its hard to see what you're trying to convey here.

Demigan wrote: ↑What i mean is:
Too slow games, especially in todays industry, are bad. Having too high a pace to unit building makes units and strategy unimportant as managing queue's and throwing more units against the problem becomes the deciding factor, which is also bad. A middle ground needs to be found. From the playtests I saw and how I played the current openRA games the unit production speed was amped up a lot, and I think perhaps too much. If there really is a way to stop it from spiralling out of control: Nice, great! Then everything I've said (and I know that's a lot already) about the production speed can be ignored.

The main problem that is in TS right now is unit balancing. The speeds and production isn't the main focus problem at the moment. (While some tweaks can be handled). Noticing from the stream my bikes ran circles around the map sniping units off. Which created a bit of a spam problem due to a unit being way to strong. Once the unit balances are in effect timing and speed of such can be tweaked and altered. Some of the biggest problems in TS:

Obelisks are to weak
Wolverines are to weak
Bikes are way to strong
Grenadiers need a reduction in mass explosion (Countering rocket infantry of Nod)
Tick Tanks move to fast (Crushing mechanic issue)
GDI RPG Towers can't hit the broadside of a barn
Harvesters generate a little to much money.
To much tiberium is left after each harvest.

Just a few examples. Appreciate the feedback and points of view though as the speeds of a game is always looked at and debated. Even in current games its still being talked about. IE:

Obelisks taking a tad bit to long to being built and looking for discussion of ideas in TD.

You'll forgive me because I'm new to these forums and it may take a bit for me to figure out how to do things.

Demigan wrote: ↑Consider how most RTS's play out currently. You have to divide your time across a bunch of game elements, from managing scouting to keeping up-to-date with all parts of the area you control to managing queue's and building/unit placement.

Yes this is the real time part.

Demigan wrote: ↑Most tactics for building a base are basically "dump powerplants/special building at the back of your base, dump production facilities wherever they fit and the defensive structures somewhere along the entrances of your base". There's barely any time (or uses) for planning your base ahead of time, placing things in ways to avoid certain attacks or strengthen yourself against a type of unit, while possibly leaving you open to another unit type or attack.

You contradicted yourself between sentences. The reason powerplants/ special buildings get placed usually in the back to avoid certain attacks that can cripple you. Defensive structures are placed at entrances to strengthen yourself against certain attacks but leave you open to others as well.

Maps heavily dictated the planning of your base and you should know going into the game what base you are going to build. You could place a powerplant, a barracks, and finally a ref down to get that ref the closest to the ore/tib but that leaves your con yard exposed. You could drop your ref closer and protect it with a defensive structure, but that is hurting your economy.

Demigan wrote: ↑That also makes 'scouting' more about 'finding a weakness' rather than just 'oh there's his base, that's some of his units I'll have to counter'.

But that is the point of scouting. If all scouting did was tell you that his base was there it would be worthless. In a 1v1 you know where his base is. Scouting is also used to find proxy bases as well, which in the same way, is exposing a weakness as proxy bases tend to be far away from support. The bold part of your quote is you with another contradiction. Countering something is using that units weakness against them.

Demigan wrote: ↑So... Why not for openRA games? They already are streamlining things, so why not try to make the game more about tactics and strategy rather than management of queue's which should be secondary to the game? The choice of what you queue is still yours, but you shouldn't have to pay a lot of attention to the queue's themselves for fear of your industry falling apart.

Queues are secondary to the game. The only thing you have to worry about is that you are building the appropriate units and that you aren't outspending your income.

Demigan wrote: ↑any strategy or tactics is mostly based on "I'll have them run through a chokepoint".

To an extent, replace chokepoint with obstacle and I'd agree with you. Trees, shroud, buildings, mud, all of that would be obstacles that you would try to force your opponent to use or avoid. This stuff should absolutely be part of the game as it certainly adds strategy but it is often very hard to balance,

Demigan wrote: ↑This gives more choice in what units to bring with more depth than the rock-paper-scissors gameplay most RTS's seem to prefer.

I feel like you are understating the rock-paper-scissors aspect. You have real time which means you can throw rock and scissors at the same time or some combination. You could throw rock, your opponent counter with paper, and you could have scissors right behind your rock. Building walls(rock)is countered by artillery(paper)which is countered by air/fast moving units(scissors)

It sounds to me like a lot of what you want out of a game I found in Kane's Wrath (RIP). KW had tons and tons of strategies. Building placement was important, environmental factors were important, unit composition was important. Unit abilities were important. There were lots of subtle things that affected the gameplay. The Tiberian sun mod could incorporate a lot of that to make it a dynamic game but I'm sure some things are going to be limited in that capacity. I also get the impression that maybe you don't use what's available to you in these games to give you a strategic edge, but I could be completely wrong on that. Like I said I'm new to this scene and for all I know I could be talking to one of the best players here.

AoAGeneral1 wrote: ↑looking for discussion of ideas in TD

Where's a good place to suggest some possible quality of life improvements for TD or maybe get some insight onto why some things are the way the are?

@ Blackened: http://www.sleipnirstuff.com/forum/view ... &start=105

Talking about TS balance at this point is quite stupid though. TS is still a WIP and more of a technical presentation than actual beta.

Too many variables from the WW game are off. Think D2k before last year's balance revamp.

However this can be used as records to look back once TS is done however. Much like the TD Balance Thread it can be used to collect numerous ideas and later once development is finished can be used as ideas and references.