Forged Alliance Forever

Re: FAF 2 - the sequel of your dreams

2017-01-20T07:49:01+02:00

Put divisions back and fix the ladder rating already, I'll spend all the money just to get it out of the way.

...well maybe I'd do something about advertising, and a little more love for the seraphim's t4 units.

Statistics: Posted by Ze Dogfather — 20 Jan 2017, 07:49

Re: FAF 2 - the sequel of your dreams

2017-01-20T01:14:26+02:00

This

rtc wrote:
when it comes to game design and balance, [...] i would leave it exactly as it is

and this

rtc wrote:
-improve unit pathfinding so units won't get stuck, block or bump into each other anymore.

are mutually exclusive, though.

Statistics: Posted by angus000 — 20 Jan 2017, 01:14

Re: FAF 2 - the sequel of your dreams

2017-01-20T00:52:04+02:00

i think when it comes to game design and balance, FA(F) is very close to perfection already. certainly the best RTS that currently exists.
i would leave it exactly as it is, and only focus on technical improvements:
-remake the game in a new multi-threaded engine so it can finally make proper use of multi core systems.
-improve unit pathfinding so units won't get stuck, block or bump into each other anymore.
-improve unit targeting so they don't keep trying to shoot something when their line of fire is blocked, make them prioritize targets that they can actually hit over targets that are behind terrain or other obstacles.

Statistics: Posted by rtc — 20 Jan 2017, 00:52

Re: FAF 2 - the sequel of your dreams

2016-09-23T15:10:53+02:00

AdmiralZeech wrote:
Hah. Let's say I suddenly inherited $50 billion USD from a dead oil magnate grandfather or something. With part of the money, I decide to buy the all the rights and source code to everything SupCom 1 and FAF related. I then hire a crack team of programmers to work on the project.

Of course, all the obvious tech and infrastructure stuff will be fixed. 64bit, cross platform, DX12 / Vulcan, online functionality etc etc. More importantly, let's talk about balance and gameplay.

- I've made the executive decision, no new factions. No new units "just for fun", there has to be a balance purpose.
- For some reason, I've appointed you, YES YOU, as the head of gameplay and balance. You have virtually unlimited budget (well, a couple billion anyways).

----------

What would you choose to do?
Do you think existing FAF is almost perfect, and you'll just tweak some stuff, fix some problems?
Or would you scrap everything and start it all from scratch?
Or just officially implement Equilibrium mod?

i like the way you think

Statistics: Posted by tatsu — 23 Sep 2016, 15:10

Re: FAF 2 - the sequel of your dreams

2016-09-22T11:20:24+02:00

Not new units only for fun....... BUT We can have packs with special units for Naval war,an Overlord pack,based in a improved Asdrubalvect landing one way individual boats , an armoured pack for huge tank battles etc Let our imagination fly

Statistics: Posted by vongratz — 22 Sep 2016, 11:20

Re: FAF 2 - the sequel of your dreams

2016-09-22T00:26:08+02:00

I always get a 2nd HQ just for backup whenever I save up enough resources. Engy mod does not need fixing, although it would be convenient to allow support factories to upgrade into HQs at the cost of HQ - Support fac.

Statistics: Posted by Lieutenant Lich — 22 Sep 2016, 00:26

Re: FAF 2 - the sequel of your dreams

2016-08-22T12:29:28+02:00

AdmiralZeech wrote:
Will the Billy not exploding bug be fixed soon?

https://github.com/Ithilis/Equilibrium/commit/3020609b6e45a50aaa859864f83df2eb29025837

fixed (equilibrium) in equilibirum : )
sorry for the slow response, i got black from holiday this morning so yeah

as always, if you have any more thoughts/suggestions/complaints/rage we would be happy to discuss them with you < 3

Statistics: Posted by Exotic_Retard — 22 Aug 2016, 12:29

Re: FAF 2 - the sequel of your dreams

2016-08-14T08:21:41+02:00

Make game use all the cores instead of one, would help poor people with i9 processors or super-poor poop

Statistics: Posted by Masyaka — 14 Aug 2016, 08:21

Re: FAF 2 - the sequel of your dreams

2016-08-13T08:02:06+02:00

Exotic_Retard wrote:
what balance related thread would be complete without some terrorism?

You mean like this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yJCNNwHUOE
object

Statistics: Posted by Hawkei — 13 Aug 2016, 08:02

Re: FAF 2 - the sequel of your dreams

2016-08-13T06:15:46+02:00

Exotic_Retard wrote:
what balance related thread would be complete without some terrorism?

tldr - what we are doing now, but more

enjoy, we know you want it <3

Will the Billy not exploding bug be fixed soon?

Statistics: Posted by AdmiralZeech — 13 Aug 2016, 06:15

Re: FAF 2 - the sequel of your dreams

2016-08-12T21:43:58+02:00

It may be a completely different game at this point but w/e:

Warzone 2100 on steroids meets FAF.
You have a large list of components and you slap them together to create a unit, much more in-depth than Warzone though. Engines, chassis, additional armor, locomotion systems, weapons, additional components like radar or stealth, AIs thatcan be programmed via a simple to understand graphical environment and command and communication modules to have higher tier AI module equipped units lead a bunch of dumb slave units.
More and better stuff leads to higher costs, possibly locking the unit to t2, 3 or even exp status.

You also have a limited amount of unit slots (similar to FAF) so you can't slap every kind of unit and the kitchen sink on your "unit deck"
Once in combat units cannot be altered so remember to not overspecialize.

But it will never happen.

Statistics: Posted by zeroAPM — 12 Aug 2016, 21:43

Re: FAF 2 - the sequel of your dreams

2016-08-12T19:43:37+02:00

what balance related thread would be complete without some terrorism?

eh, you knew this was coming anyway <3

http://equilibrium.x10host.com/changelog/

what would we do differently from what im doing now?

-well, first there would be even more testing,
-then we would start implementing things that fix buggy stuff like intel blips
-pathfinding would be improved, which would actually need a serious rebalance of units
-even more tech level compression (check out range rework branch on our github)
-most units would get some unique feature and whatnot, so each one really is different
-perfect english.

tldr - what we are doing now, but more

enjoy, we know you want it <3

Statistics: Posted by Exotic_Retard — 12 Aug 2016, 19:43

Re: FAF 2 - the sequel of your dreams

2016-08-12T18:39:58+02:00

Personally for me i think FAF is mostly fine the way it is.

If it were me some of the items i would focus on are.
A. optimization for higher end hardware such as multi threaded performance and SLI support.
B. A graphical update that allows you to have a beautiful game on the highest settings, but a playable and visually decent looking game on the lower settings.
C. Some new experimental obviously.
D. An upgrade system apart from the tech system. Where you spend resources researching "upgrades" that add to existing units. Similar to sup com 2, but there would still be a tiered tech system.
E. Mercenaries- Some maps would have Mercs you could hire. They would have a combination of unique units that aren't available from any of the factions; while also having standard faction units that have been "enhanced".
F. Transports that are more intuitive and don't take forever to load.

That's about all i can think of at this moment.

Statistics: Posted by Armed_&_Overclocked — 12 Aug 2016, 18:39

Re: FAF 2 - the sequel of your dreams

2016-08-12T14:12:23+02:00

Hawkei wrote:
Well the HQ system works perfectly until the HQ gets sniped. As most players prefer to save resources and often don't have inbuilt redundancy to deal with this scenario. The problem exists when I have already upgraded all the available factories down the support factory path and they are incapable of upgrading into a HQ. So it is required to build an engineer (if I don't have one), build a T1 factory, and then take right through the HQ upgrades. What I'd like to do instead is have the option to select the nearest support factory, and tell it to upgrade into it's HQ equivalent.

The penalty in game for loosing a HQ is very high. Such that I am often tempted to have a T3 HQ in addition to the T3 HQ. Simply so that I can recover from the HQ snipe faster.

As for the Build Power upgrade concept. With T2B2, T3B2, and T3B3 factories. The idea is simply to internalise the assisting engineers within the factory as a single unit. Disadvantage is that you are still paying for the Tech every time you build a factory - and this is necessary because every factory is self contained for tech access. But with the BP upgrades it would work out to be mass effective. As every T3B3 factory would be equivalent to having a T3 HQ and 30 T1 engineers assisting it. Saving unit camp, and making games easier on computer resources. Not to mention providing powerful adjacency bonuses as well.

You think of it as a negative, but I think that's the beauty of the HQ system - it should be painful to lose your HQ, and it should be tempting to have a backup in place. Having difficult choices like this is a good thing.

As for builtin engineers, an old idea I had was the ability to "dock" engineers into factories, just like planes can dock into carriers. The engineer assists the factory it's docked into, but also takes some damage if the factory is attacked.

Rather than build power being built into the factory, a modular system like this means to can adjust your buildpower between factories if required.

Statistics: Posted by AdmiralZeech — 12 Aug 2016, 14:12

Re: FAF 2 - the sequel of your dreams

2016-08-12T14:05:26+02:00

Zock wrote:
That was the original implementation of engy mod too, but too many people did not like it. Maybe now where people understand and like the concept more, it's possible to give it another go, but everyone is used to the hq system now and the tech buildings are more clear and Intuitive in in my opinion but don't provide any great advantage otherwise.

HQs are just a tech building with an built in factory after all.

I can do a poll at some point if there is more support for tech buildings now than before, since people could see that a tech uilding does not mean it's gonna be like supcom 2

Ah k. I guess the difference to me is, that a Tech Building can be expensive and fragile, and have a unique appearance.

Whereas a Factory HQ intuitively needs to be as tough or tougher than a slave factory, since it's like a more expensive "super factory."

But if everyone is used to the current system, I don't see a huge need to change it.

More important to me, is the relationship between tech tiers and unit roles etc.

If I had those billions of dollars, I'd flatten the entire balance between the techs, to make things less exponential.

T1 = Light raiding, early attack.
T2 = Main combat. The majority of the game stays in this phase.
T3 = Specialised units. These aren't necessarily stronger than T2, they just have something unique.
T4 = Game enders.

For example, for air, each tier has equivalent HP and costs, but unique roles:

T1 Interceptor = Intercepts. Fast, good firepower against slow targets due to short range high DPS cannon.
T2 F/B = Jack of all trades.
T2 Swiftwinds = Dunno, give them a special power or something. Or just make them into a F/B.
T3 ASF = Supremacy, Area Denial. Slow, but has long range homing missiles that can kill other air safely. Weak against ground AA.

Statistics: Posted by AdmiralZeech — 12 Aug 2016, 14:05