Rumour speculation desperation - generals 2

[johndabeast]

This is a forum for C&C games including C&C4. If I post that I like C&C4 then I feel that it should not matter if others like C&C4 or not.

There are some who do not like Generals and who think it's NOT a C&C game. What would be your reply to them if they posted in a topic something like you did, but in regards to Generals.

Maybe we all should be tolerant in what others may like in a C&C game.

Okay, last time I want to derail this;
I wasn't attacking you, I was merely making an observation, since I've been gone for a long time.


more on topic, how long do you think Victory games will make us wait for Generals 2 to be released? Surely they don't want to compete with SC2 Attacking of the Zerglings expansion?

[Mooff]

But if we're talking about multiplayer:

1. Then we need a pay-up-front system so that players who don't pay attention to their base operations at least a TINY bit are punished, offering a skill differentiator.

2. Builder/worker system to create more build order variety and strategic depth, as well as promote early game interaction and harassment (e.g. sniping builders/dozers so they can't build anymore).

3. A gated income model that limits the income to about $3,000 - $4,000/minute so that units remain relatively expensive, and thus have inherent value, and must be carefully managed and controlled. It doesn't have to be Generals supply system, but it has to be gated/limited in some way.

The above points cannot be compromised on. Multiplayer depth depends on them.

It does not depend on it.

Point 1:
Pay-as-you-go is not nowhere as skillless as you make it to be. Technique gave you a lot of good examples of it's advantages, you just choose to ignore them everytime they come up. Pay-up-front on the other hand is a shallow interfacelimitation which does add nothing, but instead takes time away from the player (which somehow you call strategy). And of course pay-as-you-go doesn't take away the decision what to build when, so you still have to pay attention. That doesn't hold true for cnc3 obviously, but its not like pay-up-front would be an improvement in that game. Instead of ordering 99 seekers at once you would order 99 seekers one at a time. How is that any better?

Point 2:
Builder/worker system also adds potential towerrushs, mind the gla tunnel thing we had going on?. Build everywhere is not always an advantage. It does take away some mapdesign/gamedesign options. Especially in regards to gateing the economy in the early game. In the MCV system you can have the second supply (or field) near your base, but the gate is that water/rocks/hills/trees block the crawlspace so you cannot expand there. In the worker system you always can. In the MCV system you can even go as far and place the first expansion near a tech building and capturing that tech gives you ground controll and buildspace there. These are great map and gamedesign option which go away in the worker system simply because the worker can walk there anytime he wants.
Those systems are different. Both need a great gamedesign behind them. Both can be horrible flawed. None of them is better.
Problem with turretcrawling in TW was turrets beeing to strong, crawling to fast and all maps beeing flat. A good mcv-design can overcome that. For once turrents in the mcv system can't be as strong as you can make them in the worker system due to the insta-deploy nature, doesn't mean the insta-deploy itself is flawed. It can be very valueable in giving the defending player an advantage. Advantages and game situations which won't arise in the worker system simply because noone is stupid enough to run into a fully standing base defense.

Point 3:
It needs to be gated somehow. The ra2 system was gated and loads better than the generals one. Goldmines have the issue that they are not only gated but one also do reach that gate almost immediately and they limit the options one has in regards to map design. Play generals 1on1 on a 8 player map. That's such a horrible spamfeast.
One thing speaks for a goldmine system though: It's very easy to balance cause it is this shallow.

[CrazyGDIfan123`]

gameplay-wise all gens2 would need to be cnc in my books is-

1) 'better' UI and less of 'fighting the interface', eg being able to manage multiple queues on the side/bottom bar, being able to jump quickly to production buildings, queueing up multiple units and paying upfront only for the one being built, selecting/deselecting selected units via the UI etc
2) regrowing resource fields

rest of the mechanics can be plain borrowed from generals and id be totally fine with calling it a cnc

[Borreh]

gameplay-wise all gens2 would need to be cnc in my books is-

1) 'better' UI and less of 'fighting the interface', eg being able to manage multiple queues on the side/bottom bar, being able to jump quickly to production buildings, queueing up multiple units and paying upfront only for the one being built, selecting/deselecting selected units via the UI etc
2) regrowing resource fields

rest of the mechanics can be plain borrowed from generals and id be totally fine with calling it a cnc

Totally agreed.

I think that Gens is one of the best C&C games, just needs some reworking of the UI.

[EA_Agm]

Point 1:
Pay-as-you-go is not nowhere as skillless as you make it to be. Technique gave you a lot of good examples of it's advantages, you just choose to ignore them everytime they come up.

He did not illustrate any inherent advantages. He simply pointed out that it worked ok in RA2 because RA2 only had one build queue for ground units, and thus interface fumbling from 5-6 factory queues we see in C&C 3, was not an issue. But he did not establish any actual advantages that pay-as-you go inherently creates.

Pay-up-front on the other hand is a shallow interfacelimitation which does add nothing, but instead takes time away from the player (which somehow you call strategy).

It is strategy. In fact an entire multimillion dollar esports industry is derived from this strategy. Millions of screaming Korean girls wouldn't give a **** about SC gameplay if just anyone could produce units as easily as you can in pay-as-you-go systems. If anyone can do it, it's not special. Meanwhile there are strong macro players, and there are strong micro players. The game affords both play styles. It also punishes those who spend too much time doing one over the other, as it should.

That doesn't hold true for cnc3 obviously, but its not like pay-up-front would be an improvement in that game. Instead of ordering 99 seekers at once you would order 99 seekers one at a time. How is that any better?

Because then weak players would be floating cash, instead of being given a crutch that allows them to compete with people who are actually good at the game.

Builder/worker system also adds potential towerrushs, mind the gla tunnel thing we had going on?

Due to a BUG.... It's no different than if the movement speed of MCVs was 6x higher than it was meant to be, and you could get your MCV into your opponent's base to build a barracks and engineer right away. Tower rushing in builder systems is a non issue with even a trivial amount of balancing. Not even WC3 suffered from tower rushing as badly as RA3 or C&C 3/KW have, without bugs.

Build everywhere is not always an advantage.

It is when you want players to have the choice to do proxy build orders, or if you want something as innovative, fun, and clever as the GLA tunnel system to exist at all..

Especially in regards to gateing the economy in the early game. In the MCV system you can have the second supply (or field) near your base, but the gate is that water/rocks/hills/trees block the crawlspace so you cannot expand there

Irrelevant if the game lets you build 923473928473243249392743924 refineries/harvesters around your main field. The only thing expanding does in classic C&C games is give you access to more resources in total, not to increase your income rate. There are tons of problems with allowing players to dry up a resource field quickly. It limits harassment options. Meanwhile in WC3, SC/SC2, and Generals, the resources in a given area last a long time, offering lots of harassment potential. In C&C 3 for example, the blue field on Tournament Arena could be harvested dry in just a couple of minutes, completely eliminating any sort of long-term harassment potential.

These are great map and gamedesign option which go away in the worker system simply because the worker can walk there anytime he wants.

Or you could get creative and simply block off access to certain resource points until you're able to build transports, or remove destructible elements. SC2 accomplished this just fine: rocks would block access to certain "safe" expansions, while the riskier expansions were left open, offering players a choice will gating off the economy from any safe + easy options.

None of them is better.

No, that is not true. Matches of CCG/ZH are more entertaining and more engaging in early parts of the game when you have interactions like a builder constructing a tunnel near their opponent's base, and their opponent trying to run it over with a dozer, and the worker running around building the tunnel a couple of % points at a time until it's finished. Or a GLA player building a tunnel near another GLA player's base, and that GLA player building a demo trap to kill the enemy worker, while sacrificing his own, or using a dozer to get in the way of a gatt tank to slow it down, buying you time to move something in place to counter it, or dropping a dozer behind your opponent's base to build something, or taking the risk of selling off your command center and then your opponent going after your dozers etc. The amount of gameplay interaction that emerges as a result of builder units ****ing ANNIHILATES THE **** out of the comparatively static and boring MCV system. To say "none is better" is to take a cowardly stance regarding game design, rather than have a conviction that one is indeed better than the other in a very fundamental way.

However, you are correct that the builder system does not guarantee success. BFME 2 had a builder system, and it was so poorly implemented, it might as well have reverted back to BFME's build plot system. But the MCV system, as implemented in classic C&C games, is the best you can implement the MCV system, and it's far shallower than builder systems like CCG/ZH, WC3, and SC/SC2.

[Kodaemon.]

Starcraft ripoff mechanics and generic Modern Battlefield Warfare settings make Kane cry.

That is all.

[Mooff]

He did not illustrate any inherent advantages. He simply pointed out that it worked ok in RA2 because RA2 only had one build queue for ground units, and thus interface fumbling from 5-6 factory queues we see in C&C 3, was not an issue. But he did not establish any actual advantages that pay-as-you go inherently creates.

Of course he did. He mentioned managing his queues specifically for different buildorders in high level play in order to optimize them. Ra2 and TW.

It is strategy. In fact an entire multimillion dollar esports industry is derived from this strategy.

just cause the sky in starcraft II is pink doesn't mean that pink sky is the base of the starcraft II success. Neither is pop-cap the strategy factor which makes sc2 great.

Because then weak players would be floating cash, instead of being given a crutch that allows them to compete with people who are actually good at the game.

So we make the game harder for casuals just to spite them, force good players to perform an annoying task with no gain. And for what? So that some guys who think of themselves as "actually good" for doing an annoying repetitive task can beat weak players.
I'm really sorry, but i do no need that to crush weak players into oblivion. Simply cause of the fact that my warfactory is done when they start building theirs, regardless of the build system. They are weak, they lack speed anyway, no need to force some ridiculous skill bumps on them.

Irrelevant if the game lets you build 923473928473243249392743924 refineries/harvesters around your main field. The only thing expanding does in classic C&C games is give you access to more resources in total, not to increase your income rate. There are tons of problems with allowing players to dry up a resource field quickly. It limits harassment options. Meanwhile in WC3, SC/SC2, and Generals, the resources in a given area last a long time, offering lots of harassment potential. In C&C 3 for example, the blue field on Tournament Arena could be harvested dry in just a couple of minutes, completely eliminating any sort of long-term harassment potential.

You are mixing field system and the mcv system now. Leave the field argument out and maybe you will see the advantages i'm pointing out.

And lol at the generals goldmines having more harass potential than a field system. That's just so wrong. And yeah, that aside, you can gate a field.

Or you could get creative and simply block off access to certain resource points until you're able to build transports, or remove destructible elements. SC2 accomplished this just fine: rocks would block access to certain "safe" expansions, while the riskier expansions were left open, offering players a choice will gating off the economy from any safe + easy options.

Until you are able to transport. How long does that transport take in the generals world? Like with USA?
And i'm talking about having more options here, instead of rocks with ramps the supply can be completely open, allowing more harass later on. By having trees and small hills, rocks, waterpatches around it which do slow crawling down, but not your nor the enemy tanks.

To say "none is better" is to take a cowardly stance regarding game design, rather than have a conviction that one is indeed better than the other in a very fundamental way.

The same can be said about your way of a discussion. Cowardly blocking out all good arguments the other one make, getting loud and screaming fact in order to drive your opinion through. It takes courage admitting the other option isn't horrible, it's way easier just to ramble about the own preference beeing the best thing ever.

[CrazyGDIfan123`]

Irrelevant if the game lets you build 923473928473243249392743924 refineries/harvesters around your main field. The only thing expanding does in classic C&C games is give you access to more resources in total, not to increase your income rate. There are tons of problems with allowing players to dry up a resource field quickly. It limits harassment options. Meanwhile in WC3, SC/SC2, and Generals, the resources in a given area last a long time, offering lots of harassment potential. In C&C 3 for example, the blue field on Tournament Arena could be harvested dry in just a couple of minutes, completely eliminating any sort of long-term harassment potential.

what you are saying here is ecoboom via 'vertical' economy scaling is extremely dominant and pretty much THE way to play in cnc3.
this is not true, and its just a matter of balancing the resource fields correctly - particularly the field size and growth rate.
there is nothing fundamentally flawed with the economy model.

cnc does not need resource caps or gated economies, for the same reasons it doesnt need a population cap --- its all regulated naturally.


in TW the resource fields and income rates are scaled rather poorly + harvs are quite resistant to harass so its easy to spam lots of refs/harvs and suck a field dry quickly, after which the income curve goes pretty flat.
BUT there is STILL a limit to how many harvs/refs you can spam because the 'ecoboom vs aggression' equation still exists.
spend too much on harvs/refs and youll get punished by a well-timed push of pred/rockets.

granted, in TW its a particularly narrow window of opportunity to punish an ecoboomer, but it DOES exist.


in KW again there is a well-known 'optimum ratio' of harvs/refs -- ask anyone familiar with the basics of KW and youll hear about 2/5 or 2/6 economy. theres a reason you NEVER see anyone decent going 3 refs or even 7 harvs on a single field -- most fields in KW are optimally balanced so as to support only X harv/refs.

theres also a reason you NEVER see anyone build 3 warfactories off just their first field, UNLESS its an mcv-sell all-in rush --- the income rate off that 1 field simply does not support that many build queues.

but 3 warfactory/barracks/airfield builds frequently come into play AFTER the player has expanded to a 2nd field -- this clearly shows 'horizontal' economy scaling DOES have a very direct impact on the income gradient, and not just total resources.

there are ofcourse exceptions, but are all 100% to do with map design or gameplay balance.
Tournament Decision is a prime example of the map where the start field is huge, allowing players to easily ecoboom with 3 ref/8-9 harvs, and heavily turtle up on that field --- but this isnt simply because of bad field sizing; theres a number of unit imbalances that muddy the waters.

nod/scrin factions are particularly conducive to such 1-field ecoboom/camp play on Decision because their lategame is insanely rewarding (hexapod-teleport or redeemer/spec/obelisk laming) and allows them to easily push someone who goes for a quick expansion at the south of the map.

gdi factions however can go 2 ref/5-6 harv builds + fast aggression, and can exploit that window of opportunity vs the ecoboomer.
This once again demonstrates the potential for choice between ecobooming and non-ecoboom builds --- balance the factions right, and youll get BOTH ecoboom and non-ecoboom builds to be equally viable.

the resource/field/economy model does NOT inhibit these options whatsoever.

[Kyang]

Starcraft ripoff mechanics and generic Modern Battlefield Warfare settings make Kane cry.

That is all.

Then Kane can leave.

...Actually, he already left. .

[Golan2781]

It's lovely to see how a single implementation is used as an argument to decry all possible implementations of a system. Yes, the TW implementation had its flaws, guess what you can get rid of these. Uh, I forgot, changes are only allowed for the winning system, the other one is supposed to run by the rules established in the middle ages.

Fully agree with Moof, CY vs. worker is not a question of which one is better, it's a question of what gameplay you desire. To say one is better is taking the cowardly stance of promoting only a single gameplay approach rather then creating diverse and memorable gameplay experiences. Go on sitting in your ivory tower and wonder why noone cares.

Nice one for claiming pay-as-you-go is noobish, by the way - they abandoned it for SupCom2 precisely because the initial system required "too much" skill to efficiently juggle and time the variable drain of several construction efforts at the same time. Oh sorry, I forgot that the limitations introduced by PUF are AWESOME while the freedom of PAYG are NOT AWESOME because the AWESOME FREEDOM medal is already owned by the worker system and there can be only one! Also no minor changes to improve any system, because it SUCKS! Waste of time. They should probably just use Frostbyte 2 for economy.