Thoughts on veterancy

[-_V_-]

Losing it to the XP is not punishing enough ? You have to give him health or do a stupid move for a RTS on top of it ?

I tend to say no it's not enough and here's why :

There's losing , cause well one loses from time to time for whatever reason, and there's losing for playing like a retard (which is not polite, I know, but fits the extreme situation where one spammed t1 against a t4).

Look at it this way, the better you played, the smaller your loss will be and the smaller the vet you gave away to your enemy, even if you happen to lose. Overall it makes perfect sense.

A few simple situations to illustrate this:

- your team mate built shields and t2 pd to counter a t4, the t4 wins still , but it's still quite damaged and gained limited vet
Another player can just finish the job for little cost, the teams gets the wrecks, etc.. The attacking team is probably in its loss wasting mass.

- same teams, same situation except that instead of t2 pd and shields, the guy built massive selen army ( ). The t4 wins and actually utterly rapes because of the super bad counter. Your team is in huge trouble. you probably lose because of a very bad play.

To me that makes sense and is only fair. The point is that winning or losing is one factor, but *HOW* you tried to counter is another important factor that needs to be punished as well.

This element TOO makes FA a great game. You simply don't throw a t4 at any type of army, you think it through, analyze the potential risks and gains. This is greatly emphasized by the TYPE of counter your opponent chose to build, thus resulting in epic bash or epic win ( a bit binary , but you get the idea).

It would be very wrong for t1 armies, in opposition to t3 armies, to provide the same damage and to induce the same loss (including the vet given away), this wether you lost or won the confrontation.



BTW can we seriously stop thinking of any other games except the lineage of TA/SC/FA to amend/balance OUR RTS ?

[Ze_PilOt]

But what other game ? I'm not speaking of a feature of any other RTS, but it doesn't exists in any other RTS (and probably for a good reason).

So you can take TA as an exemple of RTS where you never have to kill your own units.

[-_V_-]

It's absolutely unintuitive to have to ctrl+k your units or you lose the game.

How stupid are the players really ?

That's absolutely NOT unintuitive. You only need a few games to realize how bad it is to vet a t4. And on that note, the new vet system worsens the situation.

At least before when you lost t3s to a t4 (thus trying to stop it with a relatively decent counter) you wouldn't be double punished. Now you do. Nice one

[-_V_-]

But what other game ? I'm not speaking of a feature of any other RTS, but it doesn't exists in any other RTS (and probably for a good reason).

Seriously : "SO ?".

That's HARDLY a good argumentation to change THIS rts system.

We shouldn't check what's not being done in other games (generally speaking) to castrate FA's interest even further.

[Ze_PilOt]

Yeah, killing your army is really what FA is about.

I will stop this discussion here because it's not the place. If you have concern, post replays on the other section, with a small analysis.

[-_V_-]

Playing well using your brain, observing/scouting and anticipate, getting raped for being stupid is part of FA though.

Nice excuse with the "replays" as usual, but there, it's not really suitable. Anyway cheers.

[Ze_PilOt]

You mean that you don't have a replay where someone try to counter an XP with 500 selen ?

What usually happens, in team game, is someone pushing as hard as he can, probably, on many map, with a lot of T1, while someone on the opposite team will tech up and make an XP.
The pushing player must now destroy his own army, and it's plain stupid : He did what he was supposed to, probably scout too, his own "back" player make an XP or whatever to counter, but it cannot just magically stop making units (or he will die to someone else). So he must push as long as he can, then ctrl-k his own army. That's stupid.

He should be able, as pip said, to give a little advantage with his army to his team as he was doing his job correctly (taking more land), holding his position, being annoying to the other team).

Your examples are twisted and not representing anything you can find in any replay (and that's probably why you are not able to provide a single one) : People don't try to counter XP by making T1, people have ALREADY a t1 army and must ctrl-k it when XP come in play.

NOBODY in FA history was punished because he has made T1 to counter an XP. Never.

So you are actually arguing about something that is supposed to be good in FA, but has NEVER happened in real games.

[SpinDrah]

Yeah, killing your army is really what FA is about.

No, FA is about whatever you say its about now.

[Ze_PilOt]

Yeah, killing your army is really what FA is about.

No, FA is about whatever you say its about now.

No, it's about what people with real arguments, analysis, good understanding of the game and testing. You know, people who do exactly the opposite of what you just did with that post : Being constructive.

[Vmcsnekke]

Let me give you some arguments:

- you said "NOBODY in FA history was punished because he has made T1 to counter an XP. Never."
that's not true.

- I'm not sure I agree with your example about "the pushing player already has a T1 army and
must now kill his own units" which you say is stupid. If the team continues pushing it makes a T4
in front or at least as soon as the opposite team. It can continue pushing then.
If the opposite team rushes a T4 and can severely damage the T1 rushing player, who's the
better rusher then ?
It would be good if you have some replays of what problem you try to fix.

- The T4 rush strategy should be beneficial enough. If it can be delayed/scratched with a
T1 land army it can be countered too easily. It can already be countered with air or
a (good) T2 firebase.

- Let's not try to balance everything. Mistakes should not be fixed by even more balancing. If a
player has a large T1 army while the opponent has a T4 close by that player probably made a mistake.
It should have made a t2 army (with shields) or a T2 firebase or withdraw.

- killing your own units and possibly get 81% resources back in return to convert it to a better
type army is an ability of this game that many people like.
Of course killing your own units is not what FA is all about. It is possible though and
sometimes necessary. You cannot avoid it by making a T1 army usefull against a T4, there are
many more situations in where it's usefull.

- Making a T1 army hurt/delay/scratch a T4 will be impossible without making too fundamental
changes to either the veterancy system, T1 or T4.