Controlling Damaged/Promoted Units

[joresnik55]

Subject:
Add better control of damaged and promoted units

Description:
I find it very frustrating when I move a heavily damaged unit to the back of the attack force, only to have it go right to the front when I move the army. I would like to see an option where the players can automatically keep units at full health at the front of the force, and damaged units to the rear. The same frustration happens with fully promoted units. They keep ending up at the front, and keep my other units from getting promoted. It would be great if I could keep them at the rear as well.

Positive Effect:
Protect heavily damaged units easier, and help get other units promoted

Negative Effect:
At times, it may be difficult to tell what is the 'front' and what is the 'rear' of the army.

[Harrrr]

I would be hesitant to include such a thing, as being able to manage and position one's army in the heat of battle is a skill separator for players. The best players are able to to manage damaged and Vet/heroic units via their micro skillsets. I think if you simply eliminate that that feature you eliminate another opportunity for a player to out position and micro his opponent.

I don't think automatic would be the way to go. I would support something like a priority or ranking system where players have to choose which units are priority front or back, beacause you are still forcing choices on skilled decisions.

[Borreh]

I would argue about this, considering the pros and cons, and how to enable some minimal automation while still keeping the player busy.

But then, at one point of another, CrazyGDIfan will join this thread and criticise everything along the lines of "oh my gawd how do you dare to think about taking away the most important gameplay element that is the inabillity of my units to not die because the game is cnc and balanced that way!!!!!!!!11one btw Borreh I was thinking about your idea of using a pedal under the PC to generate electricity for the power plants and I really like it it ads a lot of depth to the game".

.. However, I will say that this is a bit risky. This may have sense if the game would have SupCom2-like automatic unit formations, but I think C&C is player on a far too small level for such thing to have sense.

[Golan2781]

How do you suppose this system actually works? Whether to keep damaged/vet units at the front, moreover where to keep them in a formation is an important tactical decision. This seems to be a very important part of gameplay and more importantly something that simply cannot be automated, as the decision cannot realistically be made by a simple function on the regular unit AI level.
Would this work like some kind of specialized formation move? That one is at least bad enough to not be used much in high level gaming other then for forcing units to move as a group, i.e. it makes things somewhat easier for n00bs while being more of an additional control element to master for experienced players.

@Borreh
You could at least allow him to actually voice his opinion (or choose not to) before ridiculing him.
The formation move actually already does what SupCom does... well, it's meant to do.

[Borreh]

You could at least allow him to actually voice his opinion (or choose not to) before ridiculing him.
The formation move actually already does what SupCom does... well, it's meant to do.

I for 90% already know his opinion. Besides, I do not forbid him from posting, I like him as a person, just his ultraconvervative stance puzzles me. I always thought that the best way to deal with conflicts was being humorous and ironic.

Anyhow, the difference is that the SupCom order does it, while the C&C one doesn't.

The second one: in SupCom2 the order is automatic, and each time you select a group of units they always move in a formation. That's also a difference.

[CrazyGDIfan123`]

@tomegaborreh

im not being ultraconservative - as ive already said in the other discussion, im only pointing out what constitutes the 'fun' part of the current cnc games

little things like positioning your vet or damaged units dont even win games by themselves, but eventually add up to create skill separators between top players - and thats pretty important to have in rts

and again, your pedalling analogy isnt relevant at all... these arent mindless tasks, but involve tactical decision making and careful timing


and @original poster, heavily damaged units fall behind other units anyway because theyre slower (in recent cnc's)... so cant even see how its that big a deal

formation move does make them all move at the same speed though and prevents that low/full hp unit separation, but tbh i wouldnt be using formation move all that much if the regular move command had decent pathfinding (unlike current cnc's where its unimaginably horrible, so youre just forced to use formation move by default)

as for veterancy, thats precisely why the recent cnc's have a pretty intuitive and easy way of xp awards - only the final blow gets the complete xp award... so its actually not hard to selectively rank up your units even if you have veteran units around

[GeneralSGJist]

I agree with CGF, & Harr,
This is a skill divider, micro is an important skill, robing players of that strategic thinking is one step closer to a game that plays it self.

[joresnik55]

I do agree with what a lot of your points. Maybe this isn't an issue with newer C&C games, but to be honest, I disliked most of the newer games, so I haven't spent much time playing any beyond Kane's Wrath. The issue I always ran into is I'd select a damaged unit and move him to the back of the attack force. And with the next move I made, the damaged unit would almost always end up at the front of the pack, almost as though it was intentional.

I guess my original post might've been a bit much. I don't want the game to automatically sort your army, but when I send a unit to the back of the army, I just want it to remain there and not roam to the front right away.

[foofightersrule]

This is the worst idea I've seen since "smart defenses."

[CrazyGDIfan123`]

I do agree with what a lot of your points. Maybe this isn't an issue with newer C&C games, but to be honest, I disliked most of the newer games, so I haven't spent much time playing any beyond Kane's Wrath. The issue I always ran into is I'd select a damaged unit and move him to the back of the attack force. And with the next move I made, the damaged unit would almost always end up at the front of the pack, almost as though it was intentional.

I guess my original post might've been a bit much. I don't want the game to automatically sort your army, but when I send a unit to the back of the army, I just want it to remain there and not roam to the front right away.

now thats a fair suggestion i agree with - having your units behave intuitively and predictably is always key