Unofficial pre-playtest 20190203

Discussion about the game and its default mods.
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Sleipnir
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Unofficial pre-playtest 20190203

Post by Sleipnir »

An updated 20190203 build is now available. Changes are listed in red below.

The next playtest will include big changes that may cause unexpected bugs or player riots, so i'd like to get some pre-release feedback from forum-goers so that we have a chance to adjust things before the official second playtest in a week or two's time.

The important changes compared with Playtest 20190106 include:
  • Refinements to the sidebar audio when building things, cash ticks, and game music
  • Reduced Hijacker speed and Engineer capture delay
  • (even more) Fixes for the campaign missions
  • A complete overhaul to the way units track and follow targets that disappear under the fog of war - now including engineers, spies, and transports
  • Force firing artillery-style units targets the ground instead of units (they won't stop if you lose visibility)
  • Turreted units now automatically acquire and fire on targets while moving
  • Fixes for several gameplay crashes in playtest-20190106 and pkgtest-20190127
This last point is potentially the biggest gameplay change since the autotargeting overhaul in 2017, but so far the reaction to the idea has been very positive everywhere I have seen it mentioned.

We had a productive weekend merging PRs, so this build is directly based on the current state for the next playtest, with no other changes.

Test builds can be downloaded from this GitHub milestone, which will self-destruct when the next playtest comes out. The previous test build can be found here if needed.

lawANDorder
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Re: Unofficial pre-playtest 20180127

Post by lawANDorder »

Would be great if someone from the community could set up a server with this build for RA and TD for multiplayer testing (if not done yet).

eskimo
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Re: Unofficial pre-playtest 20180127

Post by eskimo »

I feel the sound changes are less refined, regarding "building". Having no feedback on when youve clicked or pressed a hot key renders the sound confirmation near useless from a tactical perspective (if you like).

Out of all the controversial changes ORA has seen, this one is the only one i'm fully against. All the others i've just been of the view, wait and see how it turns out. I'd rather see Hind to Soviets than this.

I feel the 'queue next' ctrl click is nice, and makes the controversial macros thing at less of an advantage. However the sound change i believe is another encouragement to the macro.

Other changes i'm neutral on.

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Sleipnir
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Re: Unofficial pre-playtest 20180127

Post by Sleipnir »

eskimo wrote:
Mon Jan 28, 2019 7:17 pm
Having no feedback on when youve clicked or pressed a hot key renders the sound confirmation near useless from a tactical perspective (if you like).
Hmm, but there is feedback...? (The standard button click sound)

eskimo
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Re: Unofficial pre-playtest 20180127

Post by eskimo »

It's not direct feedback in sync. My APM isn't high, but not having reliable sound feedback (like the cash tick), is quite a concern.

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Sleipnir
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Re: Unofficial pre-playtest 20180127

Post by Sleipnir »

Just to be sure, you are talking about the new behaviour in this pre-playtest, and not the buggy behaviour in playtest-20190106? The refinement mentioned was restoring direct feedback, like the cash ticks.

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Materianer
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Re: Unofficial pre-playtest 20180127

Post by Materianer »

I must say i enjoyed my testgame without all these useless speechfeedbacks.
Wanting them back sounds a bit like masochism to me.

The sightchanges are also good for me, even if i'm a bit unsure if the long range units are a bit too strong now with sattelite.
Nice that you can hit any cell with forcefire now.

Also the thief could still be a bit too strong that should maybe be tested against real players, is it right that the vehicle that being captured stops shooting?

The engie changes seem fine to me, nice that you can choose between the 2 different behaviors and they have different capture times then, thats a great work to me. ( notice maybe the captureblinking should be disabled while the engie is walking into the building? )

I catched a bug, i parabombed an ai and he shot one of my planes while they dropped the bombs, one of them outcome and flew away.
The camera then didn't disappear and i had a permanent sight on my enemy.
I can upload the replay if this helps you.
Last edited by Materianer on Mon Jan 28, 2019 10:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.

eskimo
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Re: Unofficial pre-playtest 20180127

Post by eskimo »

Sleipnir wrote:
Mon Jan 28, 2019 7:35 pm
Just to be sure, you are talking about the new behaviour in this pre-playtest, and not the buggy behaviour in playtest-20190106? The refinement mentioned was restoring direct feedback, like the cash ticks.
Ah, yeah, some confusion going on here maybe?

I'm talking about current released playtest. Unknown version as not at my PC right now.
Haven't tried the build you've listed. Had presumed the current behaviour was the new norm and was intended.
The "refinement" is the new volume slider or something i guess?

Will need to try this tomorrow and report back.

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Sleipnir
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Re: Unofficial pre-playtest 20180127

Post by Sleipnir »

I edited the first post to change "The important changes from Playtest 20190106" to "The important changes compared with Playtest 20190106" to make it clear that these are all new changes, not just copied over from the last changelog.

It was established quite quickly after the playtest release that the sidebar audio wasn't behaving as intended, so it was fixed.

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ZxGanon
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Re: Unofficial pre-playtest 20180127

Post by ZxGanon »

Turreted units now automatically acquire and fire on targets while moving
Awesome!

eskimo
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Re: Unofficial pre-playtest 20180127

Post by eskimo »

Had a few goes with an AI on that build, thanks for the installer, saves messing about.

Noticed a targeting issue with the engineer on top right oil of A Nuclear Winter. Engineers can't target Construction Yards through Fog of War, unless you have a unit there who is in view of it at the time of the Engineer clicking the Con Yard. I presume this is just because of the new Fog of War targeting vs MCV/ConYard code.

Regarding artillery firing. They can't be shift queued as normal (in this). With GPS launch, buildings still can't be shift queued. However, one scout through the base then move away so fog of war appears over enemy's base as normal, you can then shift queue everything that you scouted.

Spies get followed when cloaked by the enemy AI, i think that's previous same behaviour as they always did?

Those were just some things i noticed and potentially not relevant and/or intended.




Regarding the sounds. We still have "unit ready" x100, and now "tock, tock, tock". Cancelling orders behaves differently to "tock, tock, tock". You do not get "building or training" if you have a voice over currently playing, unlike "cancelled", which plays simultaneously to other voice overs. To nitpick, i would consider this non streamlined, as it's all different. Personally the middle ground in my opinion would be the opposers lowering volume of "voice and ambient commands/sounds" via a UI slider. I currently have many of the C&C music files in AUD because i like the standard we have right now of RA sounds. So i'm still of the opinion all sounds don't require changing, but another volume slider relating to certain sounds (if possible) would be of the most benefit. I'll probably have to volume raise the cash tick if the new one goes through as i like it at it's current volume. I'm of the opinion it doesn't solve the problem. This is the first time i heard that people thought "b-b-b-b-b-building" needed a "fix".
But then again, you could also use macros to reduce the noise significantly.

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netnazgul
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Re: Unofficial pre-playtest 20180127

Post by netnazgul »

I'm planning to give it a go tomorrow, Wednesday 18:00UTC+0 on stream here: http://www.twitch.tv/netnazgul
Will also launch two servers to completent the playtesting.

Everyone is invited to accompany me at testing this build.

@eskimo wrt sounds: it IS better than before (I have some other issues though), and "b-b-building" was discussed a lot in the past, so it's a step into correct direction. We still have the sound clue for ordering in the likes of a click, so it's ok that there is less noise pollution, just needs to get accustomed to it.

eskimo
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Re: Unofficial pre-playtest 20180127

Post by eskimo »

No it isn't better than before, it's the same as before. This is purely personal preference. If there is a reoccuring sound that is deemed annoying, then another reoccuring sound will be deemed annoying from another party. Whether person A likes a 'tock' and person B like a B-B-B is their own preference.

A volume limiter is middle ground and best for everyone imo, just like the engineer and killbounties checkboxes.

lawANDorder
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Re: Unofficial pre-playtest 20180127

Post by lawANDorder »

eskimo wrote:
Tue Jan 29, 2019 6:46 pm
Had a few goes with an AI on that build, thanks for the installer, saves messing about.

Noticed a targeting issue with the engineer on top right oil of A Nuclear Winter. Engineers can't target Construction Yards through Fog of War, unless you have a unit there who is in view of it at the time of the Engineer clicking the Con Yard. I presume this is just because of the new Fog of War targeting vs MCV/ConYard code.

Regarding artillery firing. They can't be shift queued as normal (in this). With GPS launch, buildings still can't be shift queued. However, one scout through the base then move away so fog of war appears over enemy's base as normal, you can then shift queue everything that you scouted.
I filed 16139 on your behalf regarding the engineer issue. Artillery behaves as expected from what I can say: If you shift-queue targets under fog of war, they will keep shooting at the first target even if it is destroyed until you reveal that it is destroyed. This is the expected behavior after 15866. You probably revealed that the first queued structure was destroyed when scouting so your artillery units continued with the next target after that.

Deathpoint
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Re: Unofficial pre-playtest 20180127

Post by Deathpoint »

I completly like it :)
played a game, I like the behavior of V2 - looks like before... it's funny

Clicks are completly ok

Hijackers are still little buggy with movement when capturing

thnx 4 that :)

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