Command & Conquer Generals 2: Improvements or ideas?

[sammycho]

Command Conquer Generals 2 (Awesome I know)

There are a couple things I would like to suggest about the game and possible ideas that may help in its development (I'm assuming that the game isn't completely finished yet).

Please feel free to critisize, constructive critisicim is very...VERY welcome

Campaign - Cause & Effect

This was a new idea I was thinking whilst I was playing Mass Effect 2, I thought "Hey maybe If I fail this mission, then the mission I'm going to get next is different to the mission I was going to get If I had won the mission"

Have you ever had that thought.... just maybe, just on how you command your forces influences the story? I mean it means your really PLAYING the game, since you are a part of it. Its not the fact that your being told the story but you are also a part that influence how the story will follow.

Therefore in accordance, if a main character were to somehow die, the next mission should have that character missing (I know this is obvious, just wanted to point it out).

Another one is the following the example. If you play the campaign, then start off as faction A (Lets say America), you win, accumlate resources, certain researches, particular unit types, characters chosen and etc etc. The next faction, faction B (lets say hypothetically China) is to go against the faction A - It should be that, when playing as faction B, it would be you facing yourself entirely (not really since its an AI). The better the player, the harder the campaign, since the only enemy is really you. I'm not saying rule out your basic AI's that do the predictable stuff over and over again, all I'm saying it will be interesting to see a twist in the story.

The AI system when playing should have a particular behavourial pattern too, depending on what kind of behaviour, should have a impact on how a player performs. AI should learn to adapt to human psychological behaviours - example:

If a player were to build many economic structures and units, its obvious (once found out) that during late games he will switch to production mode and swipe off the game in the end. So the AI adapts by constantly sending harrassing units to deter that method.

If a player were to produce massive quantities of soldiers, then the AI would adapt by playing defensively.

These are some of the thing I'd like to point out, but I have so many more ideas which I wish to write down, yet I don't have time because I have an assignment due hahaha.

Campaign - Choices & Characters

There should be a system where difficult choices should be consider that really entreat the human psychic - choices that may affect a player emotionally. I found this quite apparent in the Modernwarfare series - Ghost died (I was SOOO pissed), Sandman? (NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO *cries*) and don't get me started on Soap... :*(

Disregarding that, the game should have characters/storyline that will leave the player breathless, heartbroken and emotionally affected. (It felt so good when I got to see Markarov dead ehhehhheheh ).

It should give more than two choices when deciding on moral/economic/militaristic/etc...as I have found it more difficult for which one to choose when it was just "Destory nation" "Free Nation". Every single thing should have a condition to it to - example destroy nation results in increased media attention, unhappiness increases yet gains land, more production and etc etc. There should be roughly three choices or more to everything.

"Oh my god this game is boring, always two choices - the same, Hey whats this? Deus Ex huh? woah...WOAH, FARRRRRR this game is DAH SH!T, (At a difficult scene) ohhh what do I choose, dammit! Wait that might get her killed but this one can't really, arrrrgh, stupid ni##a woman" - My own brother playing Deus Ex Human Revolution

Choices encaptivates us and sucks us in. Deus Ex is a superb example. The only game I found to be so captivating in storyline and choices. It serves a good example, for those who have no idea what it is, go out and buy it - seriously I got pissed, happy, mysterfied, curious - its an emotional rollarcoaster. .

I don't know... this is all my personal opinion, this is (yes) uneducated lash of idea being spouted but I hope you get the message. EA should play their own games, other companies games and take the best attributes from others.

If you got any ideas please share below

[slavlee]

Hi Bioware,

not sure if its mentioned already somewhere else in this forum, but it can't hurt to repeat it in this thread. The most important part is the multiplayer to me and my wishes are:

No stats or at least available to hide to other players:
Why? Because on Generals 1 nobody wants to play people with stats with much more wins than loss. I saw people joining and quiting my game. This is no fun at all.

No hero units:
Please, get rid of the hero unit system of Generals 2. This is not C&C like thats just a cheap copy of Warcraft 3. Keep the key characteristics of C&C and balance that. There is really no reason for any innovational things that revolute the industry. Just look at Starcraft 1/2. You get only the fans of C&C, when you keep the basics. (thats my opinion)

Debug the connection issue perfectly:
I say this because on Generals it was almost impossible to get a game running. And all EA RTS games i played have similar problems. In Generals i had to wait sometimes 1 hour to get a game running. This is no fun at all. In other games i dont have ever had any problems, so the problem must be the games of EA in the past.

Native ladder:
Please, make a native ladder in the game. No gamespy or other webservices or at least no equal implementation of Generals 1 or the other EA RTS games....They are bullshit to be honest. I dont want to leave the game to see the ladder or setting up matches etc. You could create something similar to Starcraft 2 or make it just as simple as in Yuris Revenge. That was the perfect ladder to me. Its fucking simple and it worked smoothly.

[Plrsvek]

No stats or at least available to hide to other players:
Why? Because on Generals 1 nobody wants to play people with stats with much more wins than loss. I saw people joining and quiting my game. This is no fun at all.

People were always able to view stats, atleast from my Warcraft 3 experience, by just typing ''/stats <name>''. It comes with some positive and negative sides, but some people simply prefer to either fight with noobs or pro's. Looking at someone's stats is one way to judge how good the player is, altrough its not always accurate. But there's currently, as far as I know, not a better solution to find out how good random people are. I guess I'll have to be neutral with this.

No hero units:
Please, get rid of the hero unit system of Generals 2. This is not C&C like thats just a cheap copy of Warcraft 3. Keep the key characteristics of C&C and balance that. There is really no reason for any innovational things that revolute the industry. Just look at Starcraft 1/2. You get only the fans of C&C, when you keep the basics. (thats my opinion)

There's a difference between hero units and epic units. Hero units were made very early in the game, while epic units are very expensive and can only be made in Tier 3. I don't recall ever see'ing hero units in C&C, but epic units have been in the games most of the time. Epic units can be Tanya, Boris, Yuriko, Yuri Prime. But they can also be MARV, Redeemer etc. But I don't think Generals 2 needs to have hero or epic units. In my opinion hero units kinda ruins the gameplay. I don't mind epic units trough, that goes for superweapons aswell.

Debug the connection issue perfectly:
I say this because on Generals it was almost impossible to get a game running. And all EA RTS games i played have similar problems. In Generals i had to wait sometimes 1 hour to get a game running. This is no fun at all. In other games i dont have ever had any problems, so the problem must be the games of EA in the past.

This is easily something they should avoid. In my experience I also had some trouble trying to get a game running, they should be able to fix it by now.

Native ladder:
Please, make a native ladder in the game. No gamespy or other webservices or at least no equal implementation of Generals 1 or the other EA RTS games....They are bullshit to be honest. I dont want to leave the game to see the ladder or setting up matches etc. You could create something similar to Starcraft 2 or make it just as simple as in Yuris Revenge. That was the perfect ladder to me. Its fucking simple and it worked smoothly.

I totally agree with this. Its pretty annoying to play in Gamespy, I've had so many trouble with it in RA3, getting my connection often lost aswell. I see Generals to become a very competive multiplayer game, so they'd better make work of it.

My (idiotic) contribution is in red

[=LEVIATHEN=]

There's a difference between hero units and epic units. Hero units were made very early in the game, while epic units are very expensive and can only be made in Tier 3. I don't recall ever see'ing hero units in C&C, but epic units have been in the games most of the time. Epic units can be Tanya, Boris, Yuriko, Yuri Prime. But they can also be MARV, Redeemer etc. But I don't think Generals 2 needs to have hero or epic units. In my opinion hero units kinda ruins the gameplay. I don't mind epic units trough, that goes for superweapons aswell.

So would units like Colonel Burton, Jarmen Kell, and Black Lotus count as hero units, or epic units? I would like to see some variation of those soldiers in the game.