Forged Alliance Forever

Re: Possibly reducing the lengthiness of large games?

2013-03-09T19:51:28+02:00

Eukanuba wrote:
I'd be slightly more measured in my criticism than Flynn, but anyone who doesn't like Open Palms doesn't like FA.

uhm, no

Statistics: Posted by ColonelSheppard — 09 Mar 2013, 19:51

Re: Possibly reducing the lengthiness of large games?

2013-03-09T19:48:46+02:00

I'd be slightly more measured in my criticism than Flynn, but anyone who doesn't like Open Palms doesn't like FA.

T1 spam is a stepping stone to the higher levels, if you get massively out eco'd then you lose, but on an even match of Open Palms you will see insane numbers of units all the way up to T3 and occasionally even XPs. Pretty much every non-naval FA tactic (bar holding chokepoints) is valid at some point on Open Palms, and it's a more guaranteed adrenaline rush than any other map I can think of.

Statistics: Posted by Eukanuba — 09 Mar 2013, 19:48

Re: Possibly reducing the lengthiness of large games?

2013-03-09T17:49:05+02:00

HyperNova wrote:
SEGA? That's awesome.

So when do we get our 5x5 ladder and our 10x10/20x20 ladder? Hell, put in a an 81x81 ladder too (joking). Big maps have a totally different playing style from small ones. Different map size ladders will bring me back to ranked. Some people have a lot of time, others don't. I know some 5x5 map battles can take a lot of time when it's an even fight. But 10x10 or 20x20 are never fast. I rather just quit.

Personally I rather fight than tech up, and do nothing for 20 minutes. It's better to constantly fight, and try to tech up at the same time. To be honest the game just feels like spamming. Maps like 'open palms' make me wanna spit. Vale of Isis, Haven Reef and Winter duel are great maps. Non spamming/ more strategic maps are needed. RTS = means Real Time Spamming for this game (sadly).

Nice piece of ignorance there At T1 there is a lot of strategy. You need to move legions of units about the map, if it were really a case of just "spamming" all you would need to do would be to set your factories waypoints to the enemy's base and forget about it. Which admittedly could be done if the skill differential was high enough.

Statistics: Posted by Flynn — 09 Mar 2013, 17:49

Re: Possibly reducing the lengthiness of large games?

2013-03-09T16:54:55+02:00

5x5 ladders etc would be ace but we don't have enough players for 1v1 ladder at the moment, least of all if we split it up into multiple divisions.

Statistics: Posted by ZaphodX — 09 Mar 2013, 16:54

Re: Possibly reducing the lengthiness of large games?

2013-03-09T16:53:00+02:00

SEGA? That's awesome.

So when do we get our 5x5 ladder and our 10x10/20x20 ladder? Hell, put in a an 81x81 ladder too (joking). Big maps have a totally different playing style from small ones. Different map size ladders will bring me back to ranked. Some people have a lot of time, others don't. I know some 5x5 map battles can take a lot of time when it's an even fight. But 10x10 or 20x20 are never fast. I rather just quit.

Personally I rather fight than tech up, and do nothing for 20 minutes. It's better to constantly fight, and try to tech up at the same time. To be honest the game just feels like spamming. Maps like 'open palms' make me wanna spit. Vale of Isis, Haven Reef and Winter duel are great maps. Non spamming/ more strategic maps are needed. RTS = means Real Time Spamming for this game (sadly).

Statistics: Posted by HyperNova — 09 Mar 2013, 16:53

Re: Possibly reducing the lengthiness of large games?

2013-03-09T15:45:52+02:00

Sega currently have the "licensing publishing rights" to FA. Rumour has it that they picked it up amongst other IP during the firesale at THQ. I have been looking into the feasibility of acquiring said rights.

Statistics: Posted by Anaryl — 09 Mar 2013, 15:45

Re: Possibly reducing the lengthiness of large games?

2013-03-08T18:15:46+02:00

They can't release FA as freeware. They don't own the publishing rights (nobody does for now).

They could decide to release the core of the engine (without the units, sounds, LUA, ....).
But there is a BIG problem with that :
- The networking was done by quazal.
- The audio part is a third party API.
- The video codec is licensed too.
And probably some other parts (I don't have the FA license on my hands). Meaning that they can't release these part of the code, and you have to buy the license yourself. So it probably can't happen that easily.

Statistics: Posted by Ze_PilOt — 08 Mar 2013, 18:15

Re: Possibly reducing the lengthiness of large games?

2013-03-08T18:11:11+02:00

MushrooMars wrote:
Umm, yeah, totally. I'll just walk up to GPG in their economically crippled state,

Yes?

"Hey guys! How's it goin'? So, I was wondering if you could like, give me the full source code for every iteration of the moho engine on like a flash drive or something? I don't have any experience or anything, I just wanted to make a few changes which I think would be beneficial to your outdated game which doesn't make any money for you anymore. It's not like you're using the moho engine anymore, right?"

It worked for me few times. The most important part is to know they are fans of games, and they will do a lot because they are fans. It doesn't work on office ladies, but it tends to work for people who have long experience in the industry. Remember the most important requirement for an employee was (and still is) passion.

The first required step is a permission from author, not current copyright owner. A lot of stuff is much simpler when you have author's permission in your pocket.

The second step is to force them to release source code, and preferably also release the whole supCom FA as a freeware. Repaired supCom FA is quite useful as a tournament game, isn't it? They might bite into Blizzard's pie (a little), which might be quite interesting for the relevant department. The most important part is: it's for all purposes nearly abandonware, and the relevant company should feel they wouldn't make money on that anyway (at least directly), and you are basically not asking anything which would violate theirs interests.

I don't think large maps are actually unnecessary long, or "game ender" is required for victory. In fact if a "game ender" would be real game ender, it would be counterproductive, some end game tactic require preparation, and a game ender might simply force opponent to use his plan against game ender instead.

It's more like some people are not used to slightly different tactics on large maps. or are bad at tactics in the end game phase. When people are accustomed to spam, and they tends to win shortly after T1, they might have problems when both sides have experimentals and are entrenched behind multiple lines of defense.

In fact, decreasing reclaim amount, removing naval reclaim in deep water, and applying air crash damage to aircraft wreck, would enforce offensive tactic.

Statistics: Posted by Raghar — 08 Mar 2013, 18:11

Re: Possibly reducing the lengthiness of large games?

2013-03-08T17:26:17+02:00

Firestarter wrote:
How about reducing the buildtime (not cost) of all T3 units? IE T3 mass army battles become more common (replicates the fun part of t1/t2) and reduces the incentive to sit back and use only experimentals.

EDIT: might be worth trying this as a mod, then balance testing from there?

The engy redesign mod does this already by promoting the use of several t2 and t3 factories, meaning you get to play with at least 2 times the current, average number of t2 and t3 units.

Statistics: Posted by pip — 08 Mar 2013, 17:26

Re: Possibly reducing the lengthiness of large games?

2013-03-08T16:17:16+02:00

How about reducing the buildtime (not cost) of all T3 units? IE T3 mass army battles become more common (replicates the fun part of t1/t2) and reduces the incentive to sit back and use only experimentals.

EDIT: might be worth trying this as a mod, then balance testing from there?

Statistics: Posted by Firestarter — 08 Mar 2013, 16:17

Re: Possibly reducing the lengthiness of large games?

2013-03-08T12:59:03+02:00

if i understood everything right mohoengine/source code is now owned by war games...
so CT cant do anything

Statistics: Posted by ColonelSheppard — 08 Mar 2013, 12:59

Re: Possibly reducing the lengthiness of large games?

2013-03-08T09:31:23+02:00

The first problem, and the biggest one, is indeed sim speed. Only the source code can be used to improve this. One can always hope that Chris Taylor, who is really close to the community, can at some point release the FA source code (not Supcom 2).

The second problem is that specific units exist to help finish a game off, but they are so expensive, take so long to build, that since the sim speed is slowed to begin with, it's nearly impossible to build game enders in 90% of normal games (without x2 resources). The game enders should be adjusted, like the Scathis was adjusted, so that they are buildable / affordable on a more regular basis.

I made a suggestion for t3 arties and game enders costs and in the balance patch thread but sadly, it seems that since the guy who submitted the idea of reduced costs for t3 arties didn't propose values, no such change will make it into 3622.

Statistics: Posted by pip — 08 Mar 2013, 09:31

Re: Possibly reducing the lengthiness of large games?

2013-03-08T03:00:25+02:00

Raghar wrote:
As for your question. Yes get source files and modify it to use better and faster algorithms, and remove LUA processing. It will be MUCH faster, but you'd need to force the original developer to release it as a noncommercial freeware and release source files for both supcom FA and supcom 2 as well.

Umm, yeah, totally. I'll just walk up to GPG in their economically crippled state,

"Hey guys! How's it goin'? So, I was wondering if you could like, give me the full source code for every iteration of the moho engine on like a flash drive or something? I don't have any experience or anything, I just wanted to make a few changes which I think would be beneficial to your outdated game which doesn't make any money for you anymore. It's not like you're using the moho engine anymore, right?"

Statistics: Posted by MushrooMars — 08 Mar 2013, 03:00

Re: Possibly reducing the lengthiness of large games?

2013-03-08T02:45:56+02:00

Wakke wrote:
I seem to recall a mod that allowed to save multiplayer games?

Sadly, it is not very user friendly... and there's the problem of getting the same exactly 8 people showing up. (Although this is not required... 8 new players can resume the game of 8 other previous players, hah!)

Statistics: Posted by FunkOff — 08 Mar 2013, 02:45

Re: Possibly reducing the lengthiness of large games?

2013-03-08T01:19:17+02:00

You can't have 10 ASF and T3 AA on a map that has 8 mx outside of base, as long as base has 4 or less, you'd be have hard pressed to have one T2 mobile AA. (Do you remember that famous video when Voodoo loaded himself into T2 transport and combombed enemy base, because his opponent by an accident build a CG just before Voodoo arrived. That happened much faster than his opponent would be able to even get T3) Few mass extractors are actually encouraging tactical gameplay.

As for your question. Yes get source files and modify it to use better and faster algorithms, and remove LUA processing. It will be MUCH faster, but you'd need to force the original developer to release it as a noncommercial freeware and release source files for both supcom FA and supcom 2 as well.

Statistics: Posted by Raghar — 08 Mar 2013, 01:19