Of course, we could always give commanders options! You know, the ability to choose for themselves which strategies they're going to take for their particular faction, rather than trying to make those decisions for us by cheesing up particular things so that they're the only viable choices for that faction! Once upon a time, there was somewhat more to commanding than "pick your faction and techpath, stack the settings, check to see if the other comm is notorious enough to be utterly predictable, and carry out one of the three or four strategies that are simple and familiar enough that the gaggle of idiots some would deign to refer to as your 'team' only need to be yelled at a little bit".
I came in at the very tail end of that era, so the only "different" strategies I remember were all-or-nothing gambits that don't work at all in small games, but the fact of the matter is that the samey-ness of modern games has nothing to do with core balance or core changes. It has to do with the fact that there's only really two kinds of comms nowadays - the total newbie comms who don't yet have the confidence to break away from standard play, and the ubervets who nobody pays attention to because too many players just assume that they don't have to pay attention because they joined the right team and therefore Spidey or Night will win the game for them. And there's nobody in-between those two groups because most comms get tired of thanklessly dealing with the utter stupidity of the average PUG team - the new comms haven't commed enough to get sick of you @#$%@#s yet, while the ubervets are masochists who love watching their carefully laid plans be shredded by you dumb animals. The ubervets do "innovative" things like building carriers or going Dreg Sup (which is perfectly $#@!ing viable, and anybody who disagrees needs to be dragged out back and shot) but nobody notices because your attention spans are only slightly bigger than your flea-sized goddamn brains. The new comms, meanwhile, are largely too green to risk thinking for themselves.
The solution to that problem has nothing to do with core balance and everything to do with running ACS more often.
CC team, please have mercy!
This has finally devolved enough to be moved to rants, thanks to Jimen.
Running ACS more or less frequently doesn’t help. Usually comms burn out during ACS and after graduation are sick and tired of commanding a bunch of PuG morons. But that’s a completely different topic. To that end, either step up and comm or stfu and fly. There’s also a great ‘mutiny’ feature available.
Spin:
“Well, there's this little thing call game theory: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_theory”
- Really? Academic hubbub is now the measurement of fun?
I’d like a special math model that calculates the penetration angle of my penis, friction frequency and relative position to the labia, so i can follow this equation to the letter every time i have sex, thus ensuring achievement of theoretical maximum of fun factor.
- Science is fun, but fun is not scientifically quantifiable.
“If a specific faction has a clear advantage with a specific path, the enemy can expect it will be used and he must take advantage of it.
...
So the advantage is not only negated, it can effectively prevent the tech path from being used to it's fullest.”
- That makes my point for me. At least there would be a choice going with what the enemy expects and messing around with reverse psychology etc...
Spunk:
“Now, if there are geniuses out there who can actually have uber cheesy tech scattered around and somehow manage to balance it all out, please please please make your own core and show us all how it is done You are obviously far more talented than the original Alleg devs and pretty much everyone else who followed including myself, Noir or Viru.”
- This is as good an opinion as any, especially if CC wasn’t the mainstream.
CC advocates are encouraging us to fly it and other cores do not get updates(textures, models, tech tree sanitizing), so a lot of us are left with ship models/colors for a faction choice.
Want to have an uber balanced gameplay? Make a faction choice for both teams belong to GC, so that whatever is chosen would be flown by both sides.
Get another type of game setting, called Balanced Conquest, where every faction stats become exactly the same.
Running ACS more or less frequently doesn’t help. Usually comms burn out during ACS and after graduation are sick and tired of commanding a bunch of PuG morons. But that’s a completely different topic. To that end, either step up and comm or stfu and fly. There’s also a great ‘mutiny’ feature available.
Spin:
“Well, there's this little thing call game theory: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_theory”
- Really? Academic hubbub is now the measurement of fun?
I’d like a special math model that calculates the penetration angle of my penis, friction frequency and relative position to the labia, so i can follow this equation to the letter every time i have sex, thus ensuring achievement of theoretical maximum of fun factor.
- Science is fun, but fun is not scientifically quantifiable.
“If a specific faction has a clear advantage with a specific path, the enemy can expect it will be used and he must take advantage of it.
...
So the advantage is not only negated, it can effectively prevent the tech path from being used to it's fullest.”
- That makes my point for me. At least there would be a choice going with what the enemy expects and messing around with reverse psychology etc...
Spunk:
“Now, if there are geniuses out there who can actually have uber cheesy tech scattered around and somehow manage to balance it all out, please please please make your own core and show us all how it is done You are obviously far more talented than the original Alleg devs and pretty much everyone else who followed including myself, Noir or Viru.”
- This is as good an opinion as any, especially if CC wasn’t the mainstream.
CC advocates are encouraging us to fly it and other cores do not get updates(textures, models, tech tree sanitizing), so a lot of us are left with ship models/colors for a faction choice.
Want to have an uber balanced gameplay? Make a faction choice for both teams belong to GC, so that whatever is chosen would be flown by both sides.
Get another type of game setting, called Balanced Conquest, where every faction stats become exactly the same.
I'm sorry Voobscout, but you're making a populist hyperbole argument here.voobscout wrote:QUOTE (voobscout @ Mar 6 2011, 02:49 PM) Want to have an uber balanced gameplay? Make a faction choice for both teams belong to GC, so that whatever is chosen would be flown by both sides.
Get another type of game setting, called Balanced Conquest, where every faction stats become exactly the same.
Nobody is advocating making every faction the same. What is the goal though, is that all the factions are viable, and one tech path isn't the clearly dominant one.
I realise you started playing in the DN era, but the factions have always had significant differences, and they will continue to have them. Having the the strengths and weaknesses rougly balanced means there is varied gameplay.
<bp|> Maybe when I grow up I can be a troll like PsycH
<bp|> or an obsessive compulsive paladin of law like Adept
Actually, if you go back to the original four factions (IC, Bios, Giga and Belts if you don't know your history) they all use the same tech trees and yet each has a very unique style of play and strengths. Adding different tech for new factions is, imo, a symptom of too many factions (and I'm not aiming that as a criticism of anyone here because MS started it with Rix) to have genuinely varied gameplay whilst using the same techtrees.
Each time you add a new faction it's more and more likely to be Faction X with a bit of Faction Y and chuck in some unique tech. There's only so many possibilities for tech in Alleg so the unique tech becomes less and less unique over time and the factions do too even the original ones.
If you honestly want to make one techpath better than the others for any given faction then what do you do if you get screwed on rocks? If there is a preferred tech that's fine, a com can always improvise and go sup instead of exp if needed, but if sup and tac suck then they might as well resign after getting beaten not by the other side but by the map randomiser. That's not a great idea imo.
Each time you add a new faction it's more and more likely to be Faction X with a bit of Faction Y and chuck in some unique tech. There's only so many possibilities for tech in Alleg so the unique tech becomes less and less unique over time and the factions do too even the original ones.
If you honestly want to make one techpath better than the others for any given faction then what do you do if you get screwed on rocks? If there is a preferred tech that's fine, a com can always improvise and go sup instead of exp if needed, but if sup and tac suck then they might as well resign after getting beaten not by the other side but by the map randomiser. That's not a great idea imo.
Spidey: Can't think of a reason I'd need to know anything
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badpazzword
- Posts: 3627
- Joined: Thu Jan 12, 2006 8:00 am
- Contact:
The problem with adding über tech at the end of the tech tree is that uneven games may prolong unnecessarily with the lower handed team stuck in base waiting for the enemy to get each player a rack of those 16× Mk6 XRM AoE AB Ultra Quickfire Of Desperation™ Exotic's to go with their Ultra Xtreme-and-then-some-Range Mach 1000 Lazers Shootin™ Base Turrents mounted on the Xtreme Ultimate++ Mk5 That's No Moon™ Mothership Mobile Supyard From Hell.
There should still be an incentive to have games end ASAP.
There should still be an incentive to have games end ASAP.
Last edited by badpazzword on Sun Mar 06, 2011 2:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Have gaming questions? Get expert answers! 
The HTT mass perk worked pretty nicely for that when it comes to exp games IMO. Int bombing and AC2 / AB2 bombing can do the trick on the enh tech level for an aggressive team. I suppose the tac equivalent is killing all the enemy miners early so they resign.badp wrote:QUOTE (badp @ Mar 6 2011, 04:25 PM) There should still be an incentive to have games end ASAP.
Raveen makes an excellent point.
<bp|> Maybe when I grow up I can be a troll like PsycH
<bp|> or an obsessive compulsive paladin of law like Adept
The gist of this is:
Having people like me, starting to appear in gameplay related / core dev threads should ring a whole bunch of alarms, it's a wakeup call.Having a few renown vets publically agree with me is the big kick in the labrum, just in case the red alert klaxon wasn't loud enough.
I have silently watched over the past years as my fun was slowly, consistently and meticulously taken away from me.
I can stand this no longer.
I do not have an inclination to create my own core, neither do i think it's necessary, since DN460 was everything i wanted a core to be.
My only recourse is to make my complaint heard and acted upon or uninstall, the latter becomes more and more appealing.
- Consider how much ire did i have to work up to actually start a thread in CC dev.
- Not once have i been known for trolling or stirring up trouble just for the sake of drama, if i'm here, having this discussion, it means there's something fundamentally wrong with the universe.
- Voobs like me aren't supposed to be backed up by the likes of Bacon, Shiz, Brood etc...!
As for calling my argument a populist hyperbole, i mean really? What differences we have now among factions (+/- 10% of this or that) can be scientifically chucked up to random lag spike, mouse jitter, packet loss etc...
Viru was spot on advising me to check CC changelogs, before i start proposing something constructive and I am in the process of doing just that.
But even without going into details i can say this - Bring the tech tree sanity and bug fixes into DN and don't touch anything else there.
DN is pretty awesome as it is, people who made it, really knew what they were doing. Stop fixing that which is not broken.
Having people like me, starting to appear in gameplay related / core dev threads should ring a whole bunch of alarms, it's a wakeup call.Having a few renown vets publically agree with me is the big kick in the labrum, just in case the red alert klaxon wasn't loud enough.
I have silently watched over the past years as my fun was slowly, consistently and meticulously taken away from me.
I can stand this no longer.
I do not have an inclination to create my own core, neither do i think it's necessary, since DN460 was everything i wanted a core to be.
My only recourse is to make my complaint heard and acted upon or uninstall, the latter becomes more and more appealing.
- Consider how much ire did i have to work up to actually start a thread in CC dev.
- Not once have i been known for trolling or stirring up trouble just for the sake of drama, if i'm here, having this discussion, it means there's something fundamentally wrong with the universe.
- Voobs like me aren't supposed to be backed up by the likes of Bacon, Shiz, Brood etc...!
As for calling my argument a populist hyperbole, i mean really? What differences we have now among factions (+/- 10% of this or that) can be scientifically chucked up to random lag spike, mouse jitter, packet loss etc...
Viru was spot on advising me to check CC changelogs, before i start proposing something constructive and I am in the process of doing just that.
But even without going into details i can say this - Bring the tech tree sanity and bug fixes into DN and don't touch anything else there.
DN is pretty awesome as it is, people who made it, really knew what they were doing. Stop fixing that which is not broken.
I think the difference is that you started playin in the DN era, so that is your "standard".voobscout wrote:QUOTE (voobscout @ Mar 6 2011, 04:52 PM) But even without going into details i can say this - Bring the tech tree sanity and bug fixes into DN and don't touch anything else there.
DN is pretty awesome as it is, people who made it, really knew what they were doing. Stop fixing that which is not broken.
<bp|> Maybe when I grow up I can be a troll like PsycH
<bp|> or an obsessive compulsive paladin of law like Adept
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NightRychune
- Posts: 3065
- Joined: Tue Feb 17, 2004 8:00 am
voob, i concur that CC is in a pretty sorry state and that there are a lot of people involved with it that probably shouldn't be anywhere near trying to balance anything
however, the notion that the last version of DN was perfect and a "complete" work is far from true. as good as it was in many ways, there were so many more things planned for future DN releases, and as I look back on it now, having been heavily involved with it then, there were so many outstanding balance and gameplay issues that could have been adjusted and improved upon.
There have always been outstanding gameplay issues in Allegiance, and always improvements that could be made to the way things are designed or implemented. DN made many strides in that regard, and I think there are many things that could be done to preserve the core of Allegiance gameplay as everyone has known it for the past 10 years while expanding on the variety of strategies available to a commander and team and just making things more fun to fly in many situations. Unfortunately, there hasn't been much accomplished in that regard for four years now, and I think it's about time things start progressing again.
however, the notion that the last version of DN was perfect and a "complete" work is far from true. as good as it was in many ways, there were so many more things planned for future DN releases, and as I look back on it now, having been heavily involved with it then, there were so many outstanding balance and gameplay issues that could have been adjusted and improved upon.
There have always been outstanding gameplay issues in Allegiance, and always improvements that could be made to the way things are designed or implemented. DN made many strides in that regard, and I think there are many things that could be done to preserve the core of Allegiance gameplay as everyone has known it for the past 10 years while expanding on the variety of strategies available to a commander and team and just making things more fun to fly in many situations. Unfortunately, there hasn't been much accomplished in that regard for four years now, and I think it's about time things start progressing again.
Adept, correct me if i'm wrong, but didn't you start with DN as well? Which brings another valid question - Why are you a voice in CC in a first place? If anything, the core development should be relegated to vets, not voobs like me or you...
perhaps this came out wrong somehow, there was no intent to slander my good buddy Adept in any way or belittle his knowledge of the game, but still i think i raise valid concerns. CC dev is no place for voobs, period.
perhaps this came out wrong somehow, there was no intent to slander my good buddy Adept in any way or belittle his knowledge of the game, but still i think i raise valid concerns. CC dev is no place for voobs, period.