Game Design Philosophy: Micromanagement

[Badsearcher]

So, what do you guys think of micro in the context of game design and forced alliance?

Personally, I think micro is fine to a very limited degree (like using ACU overcharge early game if that can help you hold the line) but it's not something that should be expected of players to make up for a deficiency in features. (For example, SAM's overkill targets and it's unfair and unreasonable to expect everyone to just micro their 10+ sam's and click on all of the fast moving targets in a crowded sky all because GPG didn't program AA to target aircraft rationally.)

Fundamentally, I think the strength of Forged Alliance and Supreme Commander that allowed it to be the largest scale strategy game in existence (definitely at time of release and even combat games with hundreds of units divvy those units up into groups) is the fact that the player doesn't have to babysit their units. There are a lot of intuitive features to save as much of the commander's time as possible so that they have more time to look at the big picture. This is great because fundamentally you're not just pumping out units but you're building systems, just like in reality.

So personally, I think every effort should be made to minimize the necessity of micro as much as possible in Forged Alliance and every strategy game (alot of RTS aren't strategy games but tactics games. In tactical games, more micro is acceptable.).

[ColonelSheppard]

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3120

[Flynn]

That thread is arguing about FA getting more micro intensive the more competitive it gets, which could be countered by features to cut down the amount of micro required in the game. If you disable the usefulness of something then it won't be used anymore, that would be an effective counter to the game becoming too micro intensive. By the way Badsearcher, I think your analogy of building systems is a very good way of describing the overall strategy in a game Like setting up factories in vital chokepoints, that is in effect building a "system" so to speak.

[Poch]

@Sheppard : not sure the 2 threads are bout the same subject. At least i suppose author does not think like this, as the linked thread is very visible in the forum and i suppose badsearcher saw it before posting.

One thing i can say about FA is that, at first sight, naturally id does not need any micro. Almost zero unit has special habilities to be used, to the difference of games like Dawn Of War or Starcraft where almost every single good unit has to be baby-sitted during battle to use its special habilities.

However, a LOT of units have "builtin" special habilities and some lack of "assisting AI" will make you fail if you do not micro. For example, if you build a bunch of bricks, t2 uef mobile shields and mobile stealth devices and decide to just throm them at a the other side of the map, they will always fail. The brick speed is 2 while the shields/stealth are 4.

You could use formation move, but it is not very efficient at pathfinding and will slow down the group for some unknow reason.

IMO, this is some form of micro too. I think FA needs a lot of micro considering this. In fact, almost every micro i can think of in FA is related to unit movements : ASF, engineers, cruisers, units movements, dodging...

It makes sense, because a great "part" of the tactical aspect of any conflict is about unit placement, and movement.

Supreme Commander 2 tried to remove some of the formation micro and i think they did it very well, with really nice unit grouping and pathfinding.

The only kind of micro that really annoys me is when it is due to poor UI, lack of intelligence of the game when it comes to interpreting my intention, or just pathfinding stupidity, game bugs or exploits, etc.

I'm fine with the rest ^^

[ColonelSheppard]

i linked it because we discussed quite a lot about microing there, and i think most of the viable points where said

[AdmiralZeech]

From this thread:
http://forums.gaspowered.com/viewtopic. ... 7&start=25

"I guess ultimately, part of game design is to decide what types of skill you want to allow in the game.

Sometimes in fighting games, people complain about the difficult combos and special moves, saying that they get in the way of the tactics/strategy of the game and reward pure muscle memory and practice.

But it's obviously a design choice that technical skill at executing combos etc be an integral part of the game, seperate to tactics/mindgames/strategy.

For an RTS, even one as supposedly strategic as SupCom, I think there is an element of action/reflexes/micro/speed that needs to be retained.

So, I think a good balance can be struck by having some gameplay which is done best from a zoomed out perspective, (like overall strategy) and some elements which are done most efficiently from a zoomed in perspective (ACU overcharge, and add some more ways to micro your armies to make them perform better).

I once said that "the only truly limited resource in the game is the player's attention".

Being zoomed in and microing some stuff is a way of spending a lot of attention for some sort of benefit. I think they should carefully add some gameplay where spending some micro attention can yield good rewards.


Some examples might include:
- Some sort of TML or SML which you guide to the target, so you get to see the impact. Perhaps it has vision, thus allowing you to fire at an unscouted area and then choose a target as you approach impact.
- Give experimentals a special ability that you manually activate. Or, perhaps, by manually activating you can use it more effectively than leaving it to the unit's AI. (eg. using a slow firing AOE attack on clumps of units, or using a high damage attack on expensive units, etc.)
- Transport drops are inherently micro heavy.
- Making the formation / positioning / layering of your army more important to its success.



So yeah, SupCom is a game that should involve both macro and micro skills. They should carefully design where micro skills are needed, to ensure that these take place in gameplay where the best atmosphere and aesthetics are located (ie. give us a reason to zoom in to battles, experimentals, explosions, etc)"

Not quite related to the topic exactly, but we were discussing how being zoomed-out all the way tends to damage SupCom's aesthetics and atmosphere.

But the concept of using Attention as a resource, that a player can choose to spend in order to gain some sort of effect, is a relevant one I think.

[Wakke]

Not quite related to the topic exactly, but we were discussing how being zoomed-out all the way tends to damage SupCom's aesthetics and atmosphere.
.

I feel this way as well, the importance of awesome combat/explosions cannot be underestimated, and it is lacking in FA atm. But it's a very touchy subject. The moment you mention it, people see it as an attack on the zoom-feature, which it is not.

I'm all for creating incentive to zoom regularly.

One such incentive I see is making repair more viable. Make it cost way less than the current 100%. Since you can only see units life bars when zoomed in, zooming in on battles then has the added benifit you can order damaged troops to fall back in order to be repaired.