Are Immortals hero units? In short, no. Rather than controlling them as persistent units, Immortals instead act as godlike commanders of your forces, only appearing on the battlefield themselves to use their powerful abilities. Each Immortal also replaces two units with unique Vanguard units to emphasize a particular playstyle.
If this is Free-to-Play, how will you be making money after release? There are a couple of methods we have in mind, but very it’s important to us that our monetization meets two goals: There are no bottomless or paid loot boxes and gambling mechanics We absolutely do NOT want purchases that will undermine competitive play—no pay-to-win!
With that in mind, players will be able to purchase additional Immortals for infinite access! That doesn’t lock our factions behind a paywall, however: Immortals will be on a free rotation so you’ll always be able to play at least one Immortal from any of our existing factions!
In addition, players will be able to purchase skins for their units and Immortals and access to our “Sagas” system: a bundle allowing access to new equipment through (usually) a PvE-focused narrative, and permanent access to co-op maps! Even when they go out of rotation, you’ll always be able to go back and play them again with your friends!
If Immortals can be purchased, how will you avoid Pay-to-Win? The team will be working to balance existing Immortals so that none stand above the rest. As we release new Immortals, they will first be in a testing environment and will be balanced with our internal testing team. Then it will enter a PTR realm where a bigger chunk of the player population will be able to test them out. Afterwards, it enters the quick play and variety modes before it finally enters ranked play, with balancing occurring through the whole process.
I’m not a competitive person. What about single-player content? The world of Immortal is vast and we absolutely want to bring it to life through interesting single-player modes and campaigns. Exactly what we are able to do depends on the budget we have to work with, but we expect to have standalone single-player and co-op experiences as early as Beta.
What makes IMMORTAL more accessible than other RTS games? There are a number of ways we attack this problem. Many of these solutions come from the same guiding principle: “opt-in complexity.”
We love the crazy and intricate little things that make RTS not just fun, but deeply competitive. We want to keep all of the cool unit interactions, control tricks, and neat optimizations we can, without it being a requirement to have fun. This lets new players enjoy the promise of RTS: building a big army and smashing it into another big army.
We achieve this balance through less-than-optimal automation: your workers will be built automatically, for example, but advanced players may want to stop their production to hit a particular research timing. The automation makes it so you can only be so bad at this part of the RTS. Skilled players, however, can easily take over and optimize. Additionally, this lets players focus more on the parts of the game they enjoy the most, be it macro, micro, engineering builds, or reacting to the enemy.
There are other avenues we take as well, like working to make sure that the consequences of missteps and mistakes don’t feel excessively punishing, allowing for cool comeback mechanics, and more! You can read more about our process and ideas here.
I thought the Pylon interview was a little rough around the edges, I kinda wanted them to talk more about their game but they prefaced most things by referencing starcraft. They had a fair bit of interesting stuff to say, and I liked how dedicated they seem to be to the idea of longer engagements, split map situations, but still keeping attrition a real thing. Just felt overall the talk meandered more than it should have and made it hard to follow some of the topics.
Overall seems to have potential, time will tell of course. Alpha seems to be slated for later this year so should be able to see sooner than later.
On March 19 2021 05:57 Tictock wrote: Feeble troll attempts aside...
I thought the Pylon interview was a little rough around the edges, I kinda wanted them to talk more about their game but they prefaced most things by referencing starcraft. They had a fair bit of interesting stuff to say, and I liked how dedicated they seem to be to the idea of longer engagements, split map situations, but still keeping attrition a real thing. Just felt overall the talk meandered more than it should have and made it hard to follow some of the topics.
Overall seems to have potential, time will tell of course. Alpha seems to be slated for later this year so should be able to see sooner than later.
Trolling? How? In what world are those kickstarter games any good?
darkest dungeon, hyper light drifter, superhot, shovel knight, banner saga, pillars of eternity... need more?
Doesn't seems to have a dedicated single player campaign, which might be a bit too much for a kickstarter game. Solo play might be standard play vs AI with some twist, which I'm not sure how they can make it interesting
On March 19 2021 12:46 Alpharius wrote: Doesn't seems to have a dedicated single player campaign, which might be a bit too much for a kickstarter game. Solo play might be standard play vs AI with some twist, which I'm not sure how they can make it interesting
The developers said there will be single player and co-op missions - as far as how much content and how fleshed out it is has yet to be seen. Right now I think they are focused on getting eyes on the project and have passionate play-testers give feedback on the gameplay loop before releasing any information on single-player content.
As for the game, I'm eager to see more. I wasn't blown away by the battle report posted on their YouTube page, and I cannot tell whether there is one race with variable units, or if there are multiple races with variable units. I hope it's not the former because then the game is going to turn into mirror matches with slight differences here and there. Watching the battle report had situations that reminded me of boring roach/hydra mirrors where players are jockeying for position but getting nothing done. Also I hope that with more time testing and improving, the movement and microability of units becomes smoother and cleaner because right now it is looking a little dated on that front. Not hard to draw comparisons to WC3 micro/movement, but in 2021 units should be responsive and move without much problem.
It also seems like pyre resource locations are going to be what drives map control and movement. I also cannot tell whether units are automatically produced at times or if they are manually queued up.
Don't mean to sound overly critical with this post, because I am intrigued about the project and what could happen with it, but I'll need to see more going forward to make an honest interpretation of the game.
I don't really foresee this making a splash in the RTS scene.
If you're going to make an RTS is today's world you really need to start at the unit interaction / tug of war phases then look into systems. Combat looks very bland and uninteresting. I'd like to see something being outplayed, outmaneuvered, or just being owned.
A big picture approach is just going to result in running into the wall of constantly having to give X resource/building/etc a purpose.
Description and goals seem more in-line with a mobile game, might be a better direction to steer it.
Their plans/vision for the game sound interesting. The actual game footage has shown the same weaknesses of many other mid/low-tier RTS games, but this is pre-alpha and there was only one race. Personally I am really excited for the game and would love to try it out. I think it is too early for predictions
On March 19 2021 12:46 Alpharius wrote: Doesn't seems to have a dedicated single player campaign, which might be a bit too much for a kickstarter game. Solo play might be standard play vs AI with some twist, which I'm not sure how they can make it interesting
The developers said there will be single player and co-op missions - as far as how much content and how fleshed out it is has yet to be seen. Right now I think they are focused on getting eyes on the project and have passionate play-testers give feedback on the gameplay loop before releasing any information on single-player content.
As for the game, I'm eager to see more. I wasn't blown away by the battle report posted on their YouTube page, and I cannot tell whether there is one race with variable units, or if there are multiple races with variable units. I hope it's not the former because then the game is going to turn into mirror matches with slight differences here and there. Watching the battle report had situations that reminded me of boring roach/hydra mirrors where players are jockeying for position but getting nothing done. Also I hope that with more time testing and improving, the movement and microability of units becomes smoother and cleaner because right now it is looking a little dated on that front. Not hard to draw comparisons to WC3 micro/movement, but in 2021 units should be responsive and move without much problem.
It also seems like pyre resource locations are going to be what drives map control and movement. I also cannot tell whether units are automatically produced at times or if they are manually queued up.
Don't mean to sound overly critical with this post, because I am intrigued about the project and what could happen with it, but I'll need to see more going forward to make an honest interpretation of the game.
I've been following the game for almost a year now, so I can explain some details about the game.
The game is currently designed to release with five factions at launch, each with 3 immortals. The immortals work similar to SC2 co-op commanders in that they have a set of actives/passives. In addition, two base units of the faction are replaced with unique units called vanguards, which only that immortal has. In the game's current pre-alpha state, there's one faction at the moment (Q'rath), and two immortals to choose from, which is why the games are always mirror matches. However, each faction is designed to be fully different from each other, both in aesthetics and gameplay, so when the next factions and subsequent immortals are implemented, you will see a lot more variety. Also, army units are manually queued up, while workers are auto-produced, though the intention is that this can be toggled off if the player wishes since the automation is made kinda dumb on purpose.
As for the gameplay itself, the devs have expressed Brood War as their biggest inspiration, and LaLush's "Depth of Micro" post as a primary guide to design their units around, so in the final design, the game is fully intended to encourage players to micro their units to the fullest and pull off all sorts of crazy plays. The main reason why you probably don't see that level of play in the battle report is because the game's pre-alpha state is still very much a work in-progress. At the time that Battle Report was released:
- There were no control groups, so deep micro was ridiculously hard to pull off since you pretty much had to keep everything in one hotkey - Pathing was buggy at the time. There's still work to be done as their goal is to make pathing more spread-out ala BW but without the sheer clunkiness of it - No damage/armor types existed, so the meta hugely shifted to dervish-heavy armies (the ranged unit with a blink) - Animations and control were much clunkier. This was just recently smoothed out a few days ago, but of course there's still more polish to be done since it's still early in the dev cycle - Balance wasn't a high priority, and that still remains true today since the core systems need to be built. Tech trees didn't exist in the build that Battle Report was recorded on for example, so that led to a lot of "mass late-game units in the first few minutes and A-move to win"
Some of these were fixed, while others are being worked on still. The team is working to get a lot of core features in so that they have more footage to show off, since it's pretty difficult to show off the crazy micro the team hypes up while the game isn't currently in a state to express it, so the skepticism is understandable. But I definitely encourage you and others to keep on eye on this game as it starts implementing more factions and core features in, because then we'll really see all that it has to offer.
On March 19 2021 12:46 Alpharius wrote: Doesn't seems to have a dedicated single player campaign, which might be a bit too much for a kickstarter game. Solo play might be standard play vs AI with some twist, which I'm not sure how they can make it interesting
Don't expect some Starcraft/ C&C level movie awing cinematics and stuff but there will definitely be a campaign. They also said they have a ton of lore already.
The idea is that everyone can play like they want kinda. So if you are a silver leaguer you can focus on micro while macro (auto build workers and other stuff) will not get you too far behind. We'll see how it turns out
I like the general idea this game has. Imagine a third ressource in SC2 which you need for your spellcasters ( Vipers, HT's, Ghost,...) Means you can't turtle up and go into lategame because you don't have casters then. There have to be constant fights for this third ressource. Sounds pretty awesome if you ask me. Someone make a Sc2 mod for this
On March 19 2021 12:46 Alpharius wrote: Doesn't seems to have a dedicated single player campaign, which might be a bit too much for a kickstarter game. Solo play might be standard play vs AI with some twist, which I'm not sure how they can make it interesting
Don't expect some Starcraft/ C&C level movie awing cinematics and stuff but there will definitely be a campaign. They also said they have a ton of lore already.
The idea is that everyone can play like they want kinda. So if you are a silver leaguer you can focus on micro while macro (auto build workers and other stuff) will not get you too far behind. We'll see how it turns out
I like the general idea this game has. Imagine a third ressource in SC2 which you need for your spellcasters ( Vipers, HT's, Ghost,...) Means you can't turtle up and go into lategame because you don't have casters then. There have to be constant fights for this third ressource. Sounds pretty awesome if you ask me. Someone make a Sc2 mod for this
Well, I don't expect a high quality cinematic or deep lore/story campaign. I only wished they can come up with cool designs and mechanic like Firewall of doom or support your champion with unit in SC2 campaigns, instead of a standard multiplayer map with some story behind it. But considering the big number of faction/sub-faction, that might be impractical to cover everyone. So I believe they will do something like Dawn of War: Dark Crusade, standard maps, combine with some hand-design mission.
On March 19 2021 19:27 Alpharius wrote: Well, I don't expect a high quality cinematic or deep lore/story campaign. I only wished they can come up with cool designs and mechanic like Firewall of doom or support your champion with unit in SC2 campaigns, instead of a standard multiplayer map with some story behind it. But considering the big number of faction/sub-faction, that might be impractical to cover everyone. So I believe they will do something like Dawn of War: Dark Crusade, standard maps, combine with some hand-design mission.
That brings up a thought: Who actually prefers the BW, resp. the SC2 campaign? I played both and I think they both have their strengths and weaknesses, but I actually slightly prefer the BW one. In SC2 they tried to distance themselves quite a lot from standard multiplayer and invented a lot of stuff, that in my opinion did not really fit into the game, but just made it more complex (too much fan service imo). I personally like the minimalistic and more macro based approach of BW, it just would need more refinement. I totally get though why someone would prefer the modern version, because the BW campaign story was barely told by the mission itself and more by the sparse dialogs around them, so it is was hard to really engage in/emphasize with the story.
Been familiar with this for a while, crossing my fingers for these guys.
From the trailers, I find it a bit hard to intuit what the different units are about. In SC, you can sort of guess how tough a unit is, how quick it is, whether it's ranged or melee, whether it's a spellcaster, etc. - just by how the unit is designed visually (most of the time, at least). I wonder if that's a concern of theirs.
On March 19 2021 19:27 Alpharius wrote: Well, I don't expect a high quality cinematic or deep lore/story campaign. I only wished they can come up with cool designs and mechanic like Firewall of doom or support your champion with unit in SC2 campaigns, instead of a standard multiplayer map with some story behind it. But considering the big number of faction/sub-faction, that might be impractical to cover everyone. So I believe they will do something like Dawn of War: Dark Crusade, standard maps, combine with some hand-design mission.
That brings up a thought: Who actually prefers the BW, resp. the SC2 campaign? I played both and I think they both have their strengths and weaknesses, but I actually slightly prefer the BW one. In SC2 they tried to distance themselves quite a lot from standard multiplayer and invented a lot of stuff, that in my opinion did not really fit into the game, but just made it more complex (too much fan service imo). I personally like the minimalistic and more macro based approach of BW, it just would need more refinement. I totally get though why someone would prefer the modern version, because the BW campaign story was barely told by the mission itself and more by the sparse dialogs around them, so it is was hard to really engage in/emphasize with the story.
Wings of Liberty has my favourite campaign, although I should note that I've never used the Mercenaries functionality even once. The custom upgrades for your units was interesting enough without completely altering the way the game functions. Heart of the Swarm is the one I hated most, the entire game being focused on hero Kerrigan made it super one-dimensional. The fact that post Wings campaigns have no transports or Nydus Worms is massively telling.
That's why I like Wings and SC1 over the two SC2 expansions, the reason I like Wings over SC1 is mostly the increased pressure. Almost every mission in SC1 operates on the basis of turtling until you have the army you want, then running over everything. SC2 missions force you to make more decisions and earlier, which I found very satisfying.
On March 19 2021 12:46 Alpharius wrote: Doesn't seems to have a dedicated single player campaign, which might be a bit too much for a kickstarter game. Solo play might be standard play vs AI with some twist, which I'm not sure how they can make it interesting
The developers said there will be single player and co-op missions - as far as how much content and how fleshed out it is has yet to be seen. Right now I think they are focused on getting eyes on the project and have passionate play-testers give feedback on the gameplay loop before releasing any information on single-player content.
As for the game, I'm eager to see more. I wasn't blown away by the battle report posted on their YouTube page, and I cannot tell whether there is one race with variable units, or if there are multiple races with variable units. I hope it's not the former because then the game is going to turn into mirror matches with slight differences here and there. Watching the battle report had situations that reminded me of boring roach/hydra mirrors where players are jockeying for position but getting nothing done. Also I hope that with more time testing and improving, the movement and microability of units becomes smoother and cleaner because right now it is looking a little dated on that front. Not hard to draw comparisons to WC3 micro/movement, but in 2021 units should be responsive and move without much problem.
It also seems like pyre resource locations are going to be what drives map control and movement. I also cannot tell whether units are automatically produced at times or if they are manually queued up.
Don't mean to sound overly critical with this post, because I am intrigued about the project and what could happen with it, but I'll need to see more going forward to make an honest interpretation of the game.
I've been following the game for almost a year now, so I can explain some details about the game.
- There were no control groups, so deep micro was ridiculously hard to pull off since you pretty much had to keep everything in one hotkey - Pathing was buggy at the time. There's still work to be done as their goal is to make pathing more spread-out ala BW but without the sheer clunkiness of it - No damage/armor types existed, so the meta hugely shifted to dervish-heavy armies (the ranged unit with a blink) - Animations and control were much clunkier. This was just recently smoothed out a few days ago, but of course there's still more polish to be done since it's still early in the dev cycle - Balance wasn't a high priority, and that still remains true today since the core systems need to be built. Tech trees didn't exist in the build that Battle Report was recorded on for example, so that led to a lot of "mass late-game units in the first few minutes and A-move to win"
I agree with vult here in that there isn't anything in the battle report that makes me excited.
From your comments above, it's my interpretation that they haven't really yet figured out how to make units feel smooth and responsive. In the frost Giant interview the devs expressed that what they felt was core to blizzard-rts was responsive units (i guess they are mostly thinking of sc2 here).
Beside that they didn't say anything that I thought was interesting whereas I could agree with almost all the other design decisions made in Gates of Pyre. But they are secondary to getting the feeling of controlling units right.
It leaves me quite worried about the priorities that they after 3-4 years have experimented with all types of different of mechanics - but still is far inferior to Starcraft 2 when it comes to the most important one.
On a different note, is it just me or does the unit movement speed in general feel quite slow? Like around 30% slower than both starcraft 1 and 2?
The team is working to get a lot of core features in so that they have more footage to show off, since it's pretty difficult to show off the crazy micro the team hypes up while the game isn't currently in a state to express it, s
I still don't understand why that is the case and frankly reasons like control groups or "balance" are irrelevant here. The very first thing you should do in a prototype is to nail micro. You can have the best interface, best lore, best ressource-collection/base building/expanding gameplay. But it will be a failed game if microing units doesn't feel awesome + has an infinitive steady skill curve.
If all you can do is just make long talks about depth of micro but cannot actually implement good micro interactions after 3+years of development time something has just gone wrong. Kickstarter money will be given when I see the micro.
@speed: The game is intentionally more forgiving that sc2, so they intentionally slowed down dps and probably speed too to give players more time to react.
On March 20 2021 01:41 mindjames wrote: Been familiar with this for a while, crossing my fingers for these guys.
From the trailers, I find it a bit hard to intuit what the different units are about. In SC, you can sort of guess how tough a unit is, how quick it is, whether it's ranged or melee, whether it's a spellcaster, etc. - just by how the unit is designed visually (most of the time, at least). I wonder if that's a concern of theirs.
From talking to them yes, unit recognisability is a concern of them. I mentioned to them that I have trouble keeping their infantry apart and they told me that they got similar feedback from playtesters and are working on it.
I don’t think slowing down is a bad thing for micro potential, but we’ll see how it develops.
SC2 controls like a dream but big fights are borderline impossible to impact outside of basic positioning given how quickly they go down.
Broad brushing but some sort of medium between the really elongated fights of WC3 with its high HP values and whatnot and SC2’s great unit control but ‘terrible terrible damage’ would probably be optimal if anyone could deliver it.
On March 20 2021 04:09 Fanatic-Templar wrote:That brings up a thought: Who actually prefers the BW, resp. the SC2 campaign? I played both and I think they both have their strengths and weaknesses, but I actually slightly prefer the BW one. In SC2 they tried to distance themselves quite a lot from standard multiplayer and invented a lot of stuff, that in my opinion did not really fit into the game, but just made it more complex (too much fan service imo). I personally like the minimalistic and more macro based approach of BW, it just would need more refinement. I totally get though why someone would prefer the modern version, because the BW campaign story was barely told by the mission itself and more by the sparse dialogs around them, so it is was hard to really engage in/emphasize with the story.
I think the main purpose of those unusual mechanic and unit in some mission is to have more variety in PvE content, which of course many can't be applied to PvP because of balance. I also think traditional BW macro mission has its own appeal, and it would be the best to have a balance between 2 types of missions. So as I stated before, something like Dark Crusade campaign is probably something developer will go for.
On March 19 2021 20:53 DevilDriver wrote: Wings of Liberty has my favourite campaign, although I should note that I've never used the Mercenaries functionality even once. The custom upgrades for your units was interesting enough without completely altering the way the game functions. Heart of the Swarm is the one I hated most, the entire game being focused on hero Kerrigan made it super one-dimensional. The fact that post Wings campaigns have no transports or Nydus Worms is massively telling.
That's why I like Wings and SC1 over the two SC2 expansions, the reason I like Wings over SC1 is mostly the increased pressure. Almost every mission in SC1 operates on the basis of turtling until you have the army you want, then running over everything. SC2 missions force you to make more decisions and earlier, which I found very satisfying.
The pressure in SC2 campaign is why they are so enjoyable to play, some are very interesting, like the firewall, some are very rigid, like a fixed timer slapped on the screen. But all of them are used to pressured player to do something, instead of sit back and macro, and most important of all to prevent the mission going on too long, pretty much all SC2 missions are around 22 minutes, and almost never go pass 30 minutes, while some big mission in SC1 might even go beyond 50 minutes, which is very tiring toward the end. About the Nydus worms and transport you mention, I think it's because they can be used to cheese the mission, so Blizzard don't want player to have access to them.
My thought on the SC2 and expansions: Wings of Liberty is really good, I think is because of the versatility of the Terran army offer much more freedom in mission design. Heart of the Swarm focus way too much on Hero unit (Kerrigan), and I tried to play not using her, but it's also kinda boring. I honestly not sure how Blizz can design unique mission for a very macro-oriented race like Zerg, so I won't be too harsh on this. Legacy of the Void, is ok, they have mostly macro mission and some of them are repetitive, but the idea of customized unit is cool.
On March 19 2021 12:46 Alpharius wrote: Doesn't seems to have a dedicated single player campaign, which might be a bit too much for a kickstarter game. Solo play might be standard play vs AI with some twist, which I'm not sure how they can make it interesting
Don't expect some Starcraft/ C&C level movie awing cinematics and stuff but there will definitely be a campaign. They also said they have a ton of lore already.
The idea is that everyone can play like they want kinda. So if you are a silver leaguer you can focus on micro while macro (auto build workers and other stuff) will not get you too far behind. We'll see how it turns out
I like the general idea this game has. Imagine a third ressource in SC2 which you need for your spellcasters ( Vipers, HT's, Ghost,...) Means you can't turtle up and go into lategame because you don't have casters then. There have to be constant fights for this third ressource. Sounds pretty awesome if you ask me. Someone make a Sc2 mod for this
They actually did early tests in the sc2 arcade. If you look up vanguard then it is basically an earlier version of this.
Unimpressed (to say the least). Questionable style, slow pace, obvious rip-offs from sc (like mineral patches economy). Nothing exciting about gameplay. A futile attempt to attract slowpokes/moba players with simplified controls. Overall looks shallow. On top of this the trailer starts with "we are gonna redefine the RTS genre" bla bla bla.
Like some already pointed out before, I somehow fail to see how this game will bring die-hard competitive RTS fans and a broader, maybe more casual-oriented audience together.
Personally not a fan of the art direction, the lore seems pretty boring and it looks like they have further bastardized C&C and SC gameplay, which isn't really resonating with me as well, as SC2 basically already took all the good things from C&C (unlimited unit selection).
Sorry, this approach really doesn't ring my bell as there's really nothing for me to stand out and make this interesting aside from trying to cater towards the RTS community by... being an RTS.
@speed: The game is intentionally more forgiving that sc2, so they intentionally slowed down dps and probably speed too to give players more time to react.
Imagine playing Sc2 in normal speed - would experienced players prefer that game-mode?
The devs talked a lot about how they want to maintain the high skillcap of Sc1 and Sc2 while reducing the skill floor. However, this significantly reduces skill cap as well.
In the end a lot of their changes make the game more Wc3 like - however Wc3's skillcap came from having to control multiple heroes. Where does Gates of Pyre skillcap come from?
SC2 controls like a dream but big fights are borderline impossible to impact outside of basic positioning given how quickly they go down.
TvZ micro looks fine to me.
As I see it, alot of the micro reward comes by reacting to the opponent casting abilities. Take storm as an example: You reposition your units to avoid the AOE damage. As Sc2 is now the quicker you react the less damage you take. If you give players more time you reduce the skill-cap.
People will mention that "but if you get hit by one big AOE or one misclick it's GG". However, that is not necessarily related to the micro interaction itself, rather it's related to the snowballness of the game/lack of defenders advantage. If those things are solved, the game will feel more forgiving.
In my opinion I prefer the high-speed micro interactions you see in an Sc2 TvZ over the Wc3 slowmotion micro (or anything in-between).
My focus would instead be to make everything else easier such as macromechanics, interface, knowledge-barriers etc. so even low-apm players can spend all their time controlling their units.
You don't want to make micro easy. What you want is to design abilities that are fun to use and feel fun to play against for a 60 APM player as well as a 350 APM player. If you cannot obtain both, then the game is unlikely to succeed and that is why the initial prototype should have been focused on ensuring that micro feels great - because everything else is secondary to that.
On March 20 2021 19:28 Hider wrote: My focus would instead be to make everything else easier such as macromechanics, interface, knowledge-barriers etc. so even low-apm players can spend all their time controlling their units.
The problem I see with lowering the skill-ceiling with regards to anything macro related is that it further limits options to distinguish oneself as a player and form 'an identity' - like being a super cheese-oriented player that relies on perfect build execution/building placement/stellar micro OR a macro machine that excels at unit production and strategic choices, but maybe lacks in the micro department.
The more choices I have available for diverse playstyles, the better, otherwise it will just come down to who uses unit X or Y better.
@speed: The game is intentionally more forgiving that sc2, so they intentionally slowed down dps and probably speed too to give players more time to react.
Imagine playing Sc2 in normal speed - would experienced players prefer that game-mode?
The devs talked a lot about how they want to maintain the high skillcap of Sc1 and Sc2 while reducing the skill floor. However, this significantly reduces skill cap as well.
In the end a lot of their changes make the game more Wc3 like - however Wc3's skillcap came from having to control multiple heroes. Where does Gates of Pyre skillcap come from?
SC2 controls like a dream but big fights are borderline impossible to impact outside of basic positioning given how quickly they go down.
TvZ micro looks fine to me.
As I see it, alot of the micro reward comes by reacting to the opponent casting abilities. Take storm as an example: You reposition your units to avoid the AOE damage. As Sc2 is now the quicker you react the less damage you take. If you give players more time you reduce the skill-cap.
People will mention that "but if you get hit by one big AOE or one misclick it's GG". However, that is not necessarily related to the micro interaction itself, rather it's related to the snowballness of the game/lack of defenders advantage. If those things are solved, the game will feel more forgiving.
In my opinion I prefer the high-speed micro interactions you see in an Sc2 TvZ over the Wc3 slowmotion micro (or anything in-between).
My focus would instead be to make everything else easier such as macromechanics, interface, knowledge-barriers etc. so even low-apm players can spend all their time controlling their units.
You don't want to make micro easy. What you want is to design abilities that are fun to use and feel fun to play against for a 60 APM player as well as a 350 APM player. If you cannot obtain both, then the game is unlikely to succeed and that is why the initial prototype should have been focused on ensuring that micro feels great - because everything else is secondary to that.
If you slow it down, not necessarily by making the game speed slower you give more opportunities for micro giving benefits over A-moving.
A high level player will crush a considerably worse one in a small supply skirmish in SC2, far more so than in a max v max scenario (depending on unit composition).
Even at the very highest level there’s so much micro the pros can’t execute given max v max scenarios, for example manually targeting with Collosi, or tanks to maximise their effectiveness.
As I said SC2 is generally pretty good for micro it just doesn’t scale particularly well, damage output vs unit hp is just so high.
TvZ has plenty of great micro but a lot of that is in the constant smaller skirmishes and probably because it’s not a matchup where you build to one 200 v 200 big fight.
On March 20 2021 19:28 Hider wrote: My focus would instead be to make everything else easier such as macromechanics, interface, knowledge-barriers etc. so even low-apm players can spend all their time controlling their units.
The problem I see with lowering the skill-ceiling with regards to anything macro related is that it further limits options to distinguish oneself as a player and form 'an identity' - like being a super cheese-oriented player that relies on perfect build execution/building placement/stellar micro OR a macro machine that excels at unit production and strategic choices, but maybe lacks in the micro department.
The more choices I have available for diverse playstyles, the better, otherwise it will just come down to who uses unit X or Y better.
I think of it this way: If you make some parts of the game significantly easier, you need to ensure that you add depth/variation and proper skillcap in other parts of the game.
I think that is possible to obtain; e.g. you can have players that rely on aggressive timings, defensive playstyles or multitask-based harass playstyles.
If you slow it down, not necessarily by making the game speed slower you give more opportunities for micro giving benefits over A-moving.
If we are talking about movement-based micro e.g. banelings move towards your marines and you need to split them/kite back. What matters for the "reward of micro" is whether your marines will react fast to your commands. If units react sluggishly it barely pays off trying to move them back. Instead you are forced to pre-split.
The overall speed of the game doesn't impact whether there is an incentive or not to split. What matters is whether the movement speed + reaction time of the unit is fast enough in relation to the penalty of not moving.
If you increase HP + reduce movement speed the "incentive"/reward of micro is likely to stay unchanged but you reduce the skillcap. All else being equal unstimmed marines have a much lower incentive to do micro as stimmed marines because the movement speed is significantly less.
The more time you get players to do the same commands the lower the skillcap is. Think about aiming in an FPS, if you give players 10 seconds to aim at an opponent everyone can do a headshot. However, the best players are the ones who can do an instant flick.
It's the same logic in an RTS. The best players are the ones who can do the most accurate clicks in the least amount of time. If you give players more time to do the same clicks you reduce the skillcap.
Another component is that it also appears to me that army sizes are smaller than in Starcraft. That's another factor that leads to a lower skillcap. It's simply easier to control 15 units than 30 units.
On March 20 2021 19:28 Hider wrote: My focus would instead be to make everything else easier such as macromechanics, interface, knowledge-barriers etc. so even low-apm players can spend all their time controlling their units.
The problem I see with lowering the skill-ceiling with regards to anything macro related is that it further limits options to distinguish oneself as a player and form 'an identity' - like being a super cheese-oriented player that relies on perfect build execution/building placement/stellar micro OR a macro machine that excels at unit production and strategic choices, but maybe lacks in the micro department.
The more choices I have available for diverse playstyles, the better, otherwise it will just come down to who uses unit X or Y better.
I think of it this way: If you make some parts of the game significantly easier, you need to ensure that you add depth/variation and proper skillcap in other parts of the game.
I think that is possible to obtain; e.g. you can have players that rely on aggressive timings, defensive playstyles or multitask-based harass playstyles.
If you slow it down, not necessarily by making the game speed slower you give more opportunities for micro giving benefits over A-moving.
If we are talking about movement-based micro e.g. banelings move towards your marines and you need to split them/kite back. What matters for the "reward of micro" is whether your marines will react fast to your commands. If units react sluggishly it barely pays off trying to move them back. Instead you are forced to pre-split.
The overall speed of the game doesn't impact whether there is an incentive or not to split. What matters is whether the movement speed + reaction time of the unit is fast enough in relation to the penalty of not moving.
If you increase HP + reduce movement speed the "incentive"/reward of micro is likely to stay unchanged but you reduce the skillcap. All else being equal unstimmed marines have a much lower incentive to do micro as stimmed marines because the movement speed is significantly less.
The more time you get players to do the same commands the lower the skillcap is. Think about aiming in an FPS, if you give players 10 seconds to aim at an opponent everyone can do a headshot. However, the best players are the ones who can do an instant flick.
It's the same logic in an RTS. The best players are the ones who can accurate click in the least amount of time. If you give players more time to do the same clicks you reduce the skillcap.
Another component is that it also appears to me that army sizes are smaller than in Starcraft. That's another factor that leads to a lower skillcap. It's simply easier control 15 units than 30 units.
I don’t think that necessarily follows, SC2’s unit responsiveness and general microability of units is top notch, probably the smoothest I’ve experienced, that aspect is great. It’s that it’s later hugely negated by the design philosophy of ‘terrible terrible damage’.
By slower I don’t mean slow, should have said had longer engagements, which could be accomplished in a number of ways. Let’s say a hypothetical slower PvT where it was possible/desirable to target Collosus fire, make sure Immortals weren’t wasting shots on marines instead of marauders, and Terran players splitting bio against Collosus fire, plus the usual duels, some warp prism pickup shenanigans.
Let’s say via whatever means that’s doable, the Marus, Partings of the world probably open up bigger gaps vs their opponents than they would now. If the game was super slow then yes, there could be a contraction between the skill floor and ceiling for sure.
Especially given that this game is going to be less macro intensive nailing the micro aspect in big battles is going to be that much more critical.
at skill floor vs ceiling: the way they are approaching it is that you can automate a lot of stuff, but it'll be better if you do it manually. Which I think gives players more space to specialize in areas, because the area they are bad in is failing less badly. It also means that if you screw up it's not that bad and both sides can screw up a few times before the game ends, so this helps noobs and allows them to play the game without immediately dying.
I don't think that a higher skill generating less crass rewards reduces the skill ceiling. After all if you continuously generate advantages you still get ahead. According to them former sc2 pros crushed their other testers even with a very incomplete understanding of the game mechanics, so the ceiling is definitely there.
Or to put it slightly differently: In a system that's a bit more forgiving the player who makes less mistakes and optimizes more elements is more likely to win.
It’s that it’s later hugely negated by the design philosophy of ‘terrible terrible damage’.
What are we talking about here? Colossus? The reason this unit sucks is because it isn't micro-friendly as it is too slow to properly move around and particularly responsive. Anyway if they wanted to increase HP a bit in order to add a bit extra duration to battles - that's reasonable. Reducing movement speed though is much more problematic.
Are you also implying that Sc2 in normal game speed doesn't have a much lower skillcap?
Let’s say a hypothetical slower PvT where it was possible/desirable to target Collosus fire, make sure Immortals weren’t wasting shots on marines instead of marauders, and Terran players splitting bio against Collosus fire, plus the usual duels, some warp prism pickup shenanigans.
If they are more practical to do in a much slower paced game then you can still do them today. The more likely reason we are not seeing target fire on Maurauders by Immortals is because its not efficient micro to target fire in a lot of cases due to having to walk in range before you can attac and if the maurauders are microed back you will keep chasing the units instead of auto-attacking.
Colossus target firing though is often times very practical and hence you see this very frequently. TLDR being that the practicality of target firing is related to the unit-design interactions - not the general gamespeed.
Let’s say via whatever means that’s doable, the Marus, Partings of the world probably open up bigger gaps vs their opponents than they would now. If the game was super slow then yes,
If what differentiates the Marus from the average GM terran players is some type of new target-firing that they theoretically could do today but just don't have the required 700 APM to do and thus opts not to do it then that implies that the skill-cap has been reduced. They are now doing less important micro --> reduction in the slope of the skill curve.
If your design philosophy is that everyone should be able to do the type of micro that only the best players in Sc1 and Sc2 today are possible to do, then yes you will succeed in obtaining that by significantly reducing the speed of the game.
As I see it the only way you can somewhat mitigate the reduction in skillcap is by creating several new micro-interactions that are heavily rewarded (so even the 10th highest micro-priority you do in a battle has almost the same importance as the most important type of micro). If you succeed in that the reduction in speed will only be equal to a minor reduction in skill-cap.
However, that's quite difficult do design and not something I think is gonna be the case in Gates of Pyre. What's more likely is that after a couple of hundred APMS during a battle, everyone beyond that has significantly less value.
It’s that it’s later hugely negated by the design philosophy of ‘terrible terrible damage’.
What are we talking about here? Colossus? The reason this unit sucks is because it isn't micro-friendly as it is too slow to properly move around and particularly responsive. Anyway if they wanted to increase HP a bit in order to add a bit extra duration to battles - that's reasonable. Reducing movement speed though is much more problematic.
Are you also implying that Sc2 in normal game speed doesn't have a much lower skillcap?
Let’s say a hypothetical slower PvT where it was possible/desirable to target Collosus fire, make sure Immortals weren’t wasting shots on marines instead of marauders, and Terran players splitting bio against Collosus fire, plus the usual duels, some warp prism pickup shenanigans.
If they are more practical to do in a much slower paced game then you can still do them today. The more likely reason we are not seeing target fire on Maurauders by Immortals is because its not efficient micro to target fire in a lot of cases due to having to walk in range before you can attack.
Colossus target firing though is often times very practical and hence you see this very frequently.
The idea that slower paced games results in certain type of micro being much more rewarded is simply wrong. It doesn't change the reward. What will happen though is that more bad players can do the same type of micro that only good players could do before. (and top players will do certain types of less important micro that they didn't prioritize beforehand).
If your design philosophy is that everyone should be able to do the type of micro that only the best players in Sc1 and Sc2 today are possible to do, then yes you will succeed in obtaining that by significantly reducing the speed of the game.
As I see it the only way you can somewhat mitigate the reduction in skillcap is to create several new micro-interactions that are heavily rewarded (so even the 10th highest micro-priority you do in a battle has almost the same importance as the most important type of micro). If you succeed in that the reduction in speed will only be equal to a minor reduction in skill-cap.
However, that's quite difficult do design and not something I think is gonna be the case in Gates of Pyre. What's more likely is that after a couple of hundred APMS during a battle, everyone beyond that has significantly less value.
The (ideal) for me is that the crazy micro shenanigans SC2’s finest exponents can pull off in smaller engagements would be something they could vaguely come close to even trying in larger scale.
Yeah I didn’t word earlier posts well, by ‘fast’ and ‘slowing down’ I was more referring to how short big engagements are. Bad choice of words. How one does this is another matter entirely of course!
I’m arguing for that philosophy and the game’s micro scaling with larger armies (ideally) for the opposite reason, it would raise the achievable skill ceiling and give the best players more room to flex.
If I was to make a hypothetical UMS where you get a representative setup and play the same lategame engagement across different games vs top players. WC3 vs Happy say, BW against Flash and SC2 against a top pro, basically nobody on this forum is going above 0% no matter how many repeats you do, SC2 I reckon quite a few could take a set or two without having to play that many.
Being A-move friendly is fine IMO but the more stuff a human can do in an engagement to make additional gains the better to keep a high skill ceiling.
There’s a whole tonne of potential in the genre with different kinds of micro, so hopefully this game can incorporate as much of it as possible.
On March 21 2021 01:55 Archeon wrote: at skill floor vs ceiling: the way they are approaching it is that you can automate a lot of stuff, but it'll be better if you do it manually. Which I think gives players more space to specialize in areas, because the area they are bad in is failing less badly. It also means that if you screw up it's not that bad and both sides can screw up a few times before the game ends, so this helps noobs and allows them to play the game without immediately dying.
.
This appears to be more related to making macro-mechanics and interface easier which I think is necessarily as well. Parts of game-design is about prioritizing what you think is important in the game.
And I think it is important to give bad players the required time focus on microing their units during a battle and rewarding them for attempting multipronged attacks even if they only have 60 APM. I think that will lead to a more enjoyable experience for most players. Everything Jakatak says about the new player experience is something I agree 100% with.
However, it is important to ensure that there is a significant difference in the the efficiency of micro between 60 vs 120, 120 cs 180, 180 cs 240 and 240 vs 300, 300 vs 360 etc. APM. If that's not the case the skill-cap is too low.
I would be genuinely interested in hearing from play-testers of this Gates of Pyre who are 4.5K MMR or higher in Sc2 as to what their thoughts is on the skillcap/skillcurve.
it would raise the achievable skill ceiling and give the best players more room to flex.
What I will give you is that you will see different types of micro as players will be doing less important types of micro that isn't prioritized high enough today.
That said, I suggest you reconsider the idea it raises the skill-ceilings. If less important micro tricks is what differentiates players that is by definition equal to a lower skill-cap.
That said it's a fine belief if that's what you prefer (a lot of game-design is subjective preferences afterall). However, I think a high game-speed creates a "guarantee" of a high enough skill-cap always existing in every single battle whereas a lower game-speed requires that you have many different micro-interactions are properly rewarded.
That's much harder from a design perspective to obtain - in that regard Gates of Pyre devs are playing game-design on hard-mode.
it would raise the achievable skill ceiling and give the best players more room to flex.
What I will give you is that you will see different types of micro as players will be doing less important types of micro that isn't prioritized high enough today.
That said, I suggest you reconsider the idea it raises the skill-ceilings. If less important micro tricks is what differentiates players that is by definition equal to a lower skill-cap.
That said it's a fine belief if that's what you prefer (a lot of game-design is subjective preferences afterall). However, I think a high game-speed creates a "guarantee" of a high enough skill-cap always existing in every single battle whereas a lower game-speed requires that you have many different micro-interactions are properly rewarded.
That's much harder from a design perspective to obtain - in that regard Gates of Pyre devs are playing game-design on hard-mode.
Brood War isn’t particularly slower than SC2 in terms of the pace of the game, but battles are considerably elongated given how the game operates in other areas. Likewise WC3 units are plenty responsive and fluid to control, but a much higher HP to damage ratio stretches engagements out a lot.
SC2’s issue isn’t the speed of the game or the fluidity of control (it’s the best I’ve played in that regard), it’s how it deals with scaling.
I’d be interested to see what others think, purely talking about micro and not the rest of the game’s mechanics. When it comes to the intensity of early 4 gate wars, or weird and wonky low eco situations I’m microing my ass off and enjoying the challenge, when I’ve had a solid game all-round and hit that 200/200 engagement and just roll it and it’s over in 10-15 seconds it’s a very ‘meh’ feeling to me.
If that engagement was a minute long duel to the death with more I could realistically do and more my opponent could do in countering and jousting that would be pretty tasty
Taken to extremis if someone made an RTS where the average max v max engagement lasted a second doesn’t really matter if you’re a scrub like me or Maru, you don’t physically have the time to let your skills shine
I dont the like art and looks in general but will keep an eye on this. Outside of attracting new players to the genre, I would like to see what would make me play this as an alternative to SC2 and BW. I myself have a hard time imagining how would you innovate RTS genre in a meaningful way without turning it into something else like moba.
it would raise the achievable skill ceiling and give the best players more room to flex.
What I will give you is that you will see different types of micro as players will be doing less important types of micro that isn't prioritized high enough today.
That said, I suggest you reconsider the idea it raises the skill-ceilings. If less important micro tricks is what differentiates players that is by definition equal to a lower skill-cap.
That said it's a fine belief if that's what you prefer (a lot of game-design is subjective preferences afterall). However, I think a high game-speed creates a "guarantee" of a high enough skill-cap always existing in every single battle whereas a lower game-speed requires that you have many different micro-interactions are properly rewarded.
That's much harder from a design perspective to obtain - in that regard Gates of Pyre devs are playing game-design on hard-mode.
SC2’s issue isn’t the speed of the game or the fluidity of control (it’s the best I’ve played in that regard), it’s how it deals with scaling.
I’d be interested to see what others think, purely talking about micro and not the rest of the game’s mechanics. When it comes to the intensity of early 4 gate wars, or weird and wonky low eco situations I’m microing my ass off and enjoying the challenge, when I’ve had a solid game all-round and hit that 200/200 engagement and just roll it and it’s over in 10-15 seconds it’s a very ‘meh’ feeling to me.
This is more to do with the specific unit-design. E.g. Immortals, Colossus, Archons and Zealots are simply not micro-friendly units. You do not have the same issue at all with terran. For terran the micro-skillcap increases significantly with army size.
Imagine this though:
1. The Colossus/Immortal received faster movement speed + 0 damage point (which means it can move instantly after attacking like a maurauder) and less HP to compensate 2. Strong AOE abilities could be used by the opponents on those units to incentivize the protoss player to micro his units to mitigate the effect of the AOE.
That way you generate some type of micro and there are different types of abilities you can create in order to reward different type of micro from the opponent (it doesn't have to just be damage).
The essential part here is that units react and move fast though. When that's the case you can add skillbased counters that reward players for movement-based micro and punishes them for blindly a-moving in a blob.
Also note that if you incentivize multitask-based gameplay you will always have small skirmishes around the map. Thus, you don't need to specifically design the game to have very slow production-pace or a low max supply limit to generate that type of gameplay.
One of the ways you reward multitask-based gameplay is to have units fast enough to retreat. You know which units are not fast enough to retreat? Immortals/Colossus.
it would raise the achievable skill ceiling and give the best players more room to flex.
What I will give you is that you will see different types of micro as players will be doing less important types of micro that isn't prioritized high enough today.
That said, I suggest you reconsider the idea it raises the skill-ceilings. If less important micro tricks is what differentiates players that is by definition equal to a lower skill-cap.
That said it's a fine belief if that's what you prefer (a lot of game-design is subjective preferences afterall). However, I think a high game-speed creates a "guarantee" of a high enough skill-cap always existing in every single battle whereas a lower game-speed requires that you have many different micro-interactions are properly rewarded.
That's much harder from a design perspective to obtain - in that regard Gates of Pyre devs are playing game-design on hard-mode.
SC2’s issue isn’t the speed of the game or the fluidity of control (it’s the best I’ve played in that regard), it’s how it deals with scaling.
I’d be interested to see what others think, purely talking about micro and not the rest of the game’s mechanics. When it comes to the intensity of early 4 gate wars, or weird and wonky low eco situations I’m microing my ass off and enjoying the challenge, when I’ve had a solid game all-round and hit that 200/200 engagement and just roll it and it’s over in 10-15 seconds it’s a very ‘meh’ feeling to me.
This is more to do with the specific unit-design. E.g. Immortals, Colossus, Archons and Zealots are simply not micro-friendly units. You do not have the same issue at all with terran. For terran the micro-skillcap increases significantly with army size.
Imagine this though:
1. The Colossus/Immortal received faster movement speed + 0 damage point (which means it can move instantly after attacking like a maurauder) and less HP to compensate 2. Strong AOE abilities could be used by the opponents on those units to incentivize the protoss player to micro his units to mitigate the effect of the AOE.
That way you generate some type of micro and there are different types of abilities you can create in order to reward different type of micro from the opponent (it doesn't have to just be damage).
The essential part here is that units react and move fast though. When that's the case you can add skillbased counters that reward players for movement-based micro and punishes them for blindly a-moving in a blob.
Also note that if you incentivize multitask-based gameplay you will always have small skirmishes around the map. Thus, you don't need to specifically design the game to have very slow production-pace or a low max supply limit to generate that type of gameplay.
One of the ways you reward multitask-based gameplay is to have units fast enough to retreat. You know which units are not fast enough to retreat? Immortals/Colossus.
I’d prefer units in general, especially the Collosus to move slower, although if they turn quicker and have a quicker damage point they’d be more fun to use. On the polar opposite of that extreme you could have a more powerful Collosus that had to be manually oriented with its cone of fire and be quite lumbering, kind of like how you use gun emplacements in RTT games.
Not singling the much maligned Collosus out here, far too much stuff in the game moves at basically the same speed, makes deathballs almost inevitable. You’d create some potential avenues for exploitation as an A-moved blob would naturally spread out more, but a diligent player could reposition to plug gaps, just adds
Some of the tweaks to Immortals and siege tanks in this regard are nice, easy to forget now but try playing the WoL campaign and they’re far nicer to use.
I’m not bashing SC2 here, still love the game but hey we’re spitballing general RTS things for future titles!
My unpopular opinion, having zero idea of the chronology of development is that a ton of the game’s flaws are due to Terran design decisions.
Asymmetric design is what made Starcraft the series it is, methinks giving one race tons of unforgiving but insanely microable glass cannons kind of hamstrings you in giving the other races reliable ways to deal with them that are equally as fun and challenging.
I’d prefer units in general, especially the Collosus to move slower, although if they turn quicker and have a quicker damage point they’d be more fun to use. On the polar opposite of that extreme you could have a more powerful Collosus that had to be manually oriented with its cone of fire and be quite lumbering, kind of like how you use gun emplacements in RTT games.
From having spent hundreds of hours in the unit-tester experimenting with different tweaks of unit-tests these are my findings:
A) Either you make units fast and responsive (the movement speed that is between speed-hydras and stimmed bio) or B) You have units that are strong in a zone control, e.g. siege tanks, lurkers, liberators.
Sc2's biggest mistake imo was to have units that are in between these 2 for "lore"-purposes. E.g. a Thor is so big so for lore-puposes it should move slowly, turn and attack and slowly.
Inbetween units end up becoming unmicroable and being impossible to do split up as they are not cost effective when not in a ball.
Protoss especially got several of these inbetween units which is the biggest reason for why it has a lower skillcap than terran/protoss. Protoss also suffers a bit from not having any real zone-control units (although too some extent HT and Disruptors function that way) but that's a different topic.
far too much stuff in the game moves at basically the same speed, makes deathballs almost inevitable.
It's completely the other way around. It's exactly the fact that we have certain units that are somewhat slower and can't escape from the opponent that causes deathballs.
The only type of units that can be significantly faster than other units are units like hellions that are very cost-ineffective against every other unit that it is faster than. However, when 20 roaches beats 3 colossus in a straight up fight in the middle of the map you have a design problem.
When mobility is more similar you can move around more freely. Note ofc that the mobility doesn't need to just come through movement speed. E.g. muta/bling has higher movement speed than bio but this is offset somewhat by speed-medivacs and the general cost-efficiency of marine/medivacs.
Also be careful about just saying "deathball" = bad. Deathball is not per se bad, big battles can be fun, it's about the micro-interactions within each. Colossus and Immortals are both unmicroable deathball unitsbut you can have other unit design that thrive together with other units and generally are fun and skillful to use. So we should make a careful distinction here.
The reason you tend see the correlation between deathball and a-move is due to the the fact that low-movement speed causes both deathballyness + disincentives micro. But there isn't always a causation here.
I think a lot of your opinions come from playing protoss here and making some correlation/causation errors which you would easily be able to dismiss if you observed how terran and zerg functioned.
There’s nothing more intimidating to go into than a properly sieged up position against Flash probably in all of competitive gaming, although that’s more a wall of death than a ball of death, and the siege tank is rightly regarded as one of the GOAT units in RTS, not just for a spine chilling sound effect occurring through the fog of war, but all the cool counter measures available plus the clear drawbacks of having to deploy and redeploy.
So yeah you’re right a ball of death isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I suppose my own personal utilisation of the term is a comp you can saunter about with in one clump, and in a-moving so much of the damage is output so quickly that there’s little room to do much.
The nadir of PvP Collosus wars being a good example.
You make a good point with the ‘in between’ units, kind of articulated my feelings on many Protoss units. Marine/tank is a composition of pretty extreme contrast, or muta/ling/bling is pretty much min/maxing durability for speed and manoeuvrability.
Protoss rolled the ‘tanky’ card, which compares pretty favourably with the other two races early doors but falls off a lot and necessitates power units and ‘balling. Their most beloved/despised all-ins are all about unit retention and wearing the opponent down over damage output and killing things quickly (thinking blink all-ins, or soul train immortal/prism shenanigans). Which I don’t mind as a bit of contrast, but it does illustrate this aspect of Protoss.
I’m biased rather as a person locked into playing Protoss after I fell in love with the mouthless scamps in BW but on a rather masochistic way given I dislike how they play in SC2, but have played about 40% as much as T.
I think you’re pretty on the money as pertains SC2, I’m more spitballing on what I think works/isn’t ideal that other RTS games could learn from.
Games vs. other players won't start, no way to play against the AI, no way to practice or enter into a game to tinker or learn the basics. Maybe I'll try again in a few hours to see if I can spectate or play in a game, but right now nothing works for me.
On July 30 2024 22:57 WombaT wrote: I feel this game lost a hell of a lot of momentum, and that’s really hard to regain.
Which is a pity as actually that trailer does look like a big step hope. Hope they can pull it off
Part of me is starting to think that the formula to be the "spiritual successor" to Starcraft 2 is surviving long enough to properly polish the game. And the formula for that may be to prudent with spending - unlike Stormgate - which probably goes broke before reaching that stage.
If the game is polished enough, it becomes much easier to get people interested in it by observing streamers playing it and it will gain exposure.
According to Winter, the game will continued to be working under closed doors for the next 2½ years. I think that shows a lot of promise.
On August 03 2024 01:05 Hider wrote: According to Winter, the game will continued to be working under closed doors for the next 2½ years. I think that shows a lot of promise.
You mean Immortal won't be properly released until late 2026?
On August 03 2024 01:05 Hider wrote: According to Winter, the game will continued to be working under closed doors for the next 2½ years. I think that shows a lot of promise.
You mean Immortal won't be properly released until late 2026?
I guess 2027 perhaps? But that was what winter said at the end of the stream.
I assume they pitched investors they need those $5M for another 3-4 years of pre-revenuef development? Which means they spend around $1.4M per year? In contrast to Frostgiants 12M per year. Turns out you actually can develop a game without being located in LA.
Very fun for me personally. The auto build assistant is OP as hell though. Won a ton of games with just macro and massing units. Managed to do an insane runby, sniping off all workers while defending a push. Felt great to kite units as well.
I like the third resource system and map objectives a lot, such a great design
Ok I have like 15hrs into the alpha, I can see this replacing starcraft 2 for me and I played since the very first day of wol.
1. The pyre system and the map objectives leads to really dynamic map control. It's not overly forced, but build up key strategic area. 2. The immortal create sub factions of the race. Very interesting how same race can feel quite different-ish in playstyles but also thematically make sense. 3. The lethality rate is extremely good. It doesn't have those ultra momentum based combat like marine mines. It almost feel like broodwar type of slow methodical engagements. 4. The free scout is pretty interesting, it cannot attack workers or units but can attack other scout. And it also gives small amount of pyre. 5. The production building also work as a supply building simplify macro in a great way. 6. The units are fun to control imo. Some moves differently like a small hop, and so the shutter stepping feels pretty unique. 7. The unit number in a faction feels perfect. The immortal you pick swap out two of the units in the faction, so there's more unit variety than you'd think.
And the games just feel different everytime because of the pyre system, and trying to win map control here and there. So far it's only 2 factions and 4 immortal total.
I can't praise it any higher, really hope it comes out with a bang. But even if it doesn't, I am more than happy with a small community.
The one that will be controversial is hotkey. It feels very organic once you get used to it, but some are hardwired in my brain. There's no double click to select all army of that type. It's control click. Attack move is just A and where your mouse is pointing. Control group is sort of hard to grasp as well, it's space + number. But d for all army except those already have a control group.
On August 05 2024 11:30 SoleSteeler wrote: Watching Winter stream it - it does look good! I like the sound design a lot.
Oh yeah I played against him. First time I thought I had it in the bag, super close game. Second time he's already quite a bit better than me, proper tech units to counter mine, setting up towers etc.
But both were really fun. I faced a few who really knew what they were doing. I was essentially doing a blink stalkers +1 attack timing throughout the whole alpha but it doesn't work too too well.
Fav thing about this game is the designs/concepts/art style for the units (the execution is a bit hit or miss). Gives me Endless Legend vibes, which is a good thing since I quite enjoyed Endless Legend.
I’m not sure how accurate this is given I haven’t played either, I heard it said that Immortals nails a lot look wise, but the controls etc aren’t nearly as tight as say, SC2’s. Whereas Stormgate really whiffs on the aesthetic side of things, but does control really well.
As I said not something I can touch for ‘feel’ wise, but just looking at the two the aesthetics part seems bang on.
On August 05 2024 15:48 WombaT wrote: I’m not sure how accurate this is given I haven’t played either, I heard it said that Immortals nails a lot look wise, but the controls etc aren’t nearly as tight as say, SC2’s. Whereas Stormgate really whiffs on the aesthetic side of things, but does control really well.
As I said not something I can touch for ‘feel’ wise, but just looking at the two the aesthetics part seems bang on.
I think it doesn't feel as responsive as stormgate but at the same time I think stormgate doesnt even need that extreme responsiveness.
The lethality in the game is great, engagements can last for minutes with constant back and forth. There's very few skills that stop you from disengaging as well.
And another thing game does really well is the units abilities, a lot for them are positional based.
E.g. you can "siege" a unit to do an AOE heal. there's an air unit that siege to block off air projectiles. There's an unit that leap and heal the units nearby in landing. You have units with blink, a throwable AOE shield.
Pyre can be offensively used or building fortress to secure area etc. And there's fixed locations where you build fortress so you can't spam it. (Other than one immortal)
This is honestly close to my most ideal modern RTS concept ever.
Finished watching most of the videos online and I just really hope this game goes into public beta sooner or later:
the games in this video really showcase how great the core mechanics are, and the pacing of the whole game.
The pyre economy pushes you to be out on the map, and the pyre icon sort of indicate where both army positions are. and you also have free scouts.
Where the game gets more interesting is how every immortals affect what pyre is used for, Xol can use it to summon their champion that stays in a fight for a while and level up over time. You have Ajari that can resurrect dead units in an area, but also targetable by enemies to end it early.
there are so much design space with sub faction and the pyre system. A lot of strategic decisions and positions and skill expression.
How's the PVE content now? I kinda tuned out but the beta ETA on kickstarter is Jun 2022 lol
Whereas Stormgate really whiffs on the aesthetic side of things, but does control really well.
Drag scroll doesn't really work, hotkeys are weird and can't be remapped and there are some pretty big issues with pathing and cancelling attack animations with normal commands that mean that you have to put far more effort into interfacing with the game than you do in SC2 in order to be effective. Still too many pain points there IMO
For whatever small amount of goodwill they built with their last playtest I guess you can write all of that off now, they've decided they need to get in on the ponzi scheme that has mostly already died off years ago. I hope the money was worth it!
For whatever small amount of goodwill they built with their last playtest I guess you can write all of that off now, they've decided they need to get in on the ponzi scheme that has mostly already died off years ago. I hope the money was worth it!
What is the TLDR in laymens term? I don't deal with blockchain and NFTs, I just wanna play games
For whatever small amount of goodwill they built with their last playtest I guess you can write all of that off now, they've decided they need to get in on the ponzi scheme that has mostly already died off years ago. I hope the money was worth it!
What is the TLDR in laymens term? I don't deal with blockchain and NFTs, I just wanna play games
Then no change for you and me.
Essentially they are gonna treat the cosmetic stuff as nft. Meaning you can see the mint date, the record of it like how rare it is, trade history, how many units it killed etc.
It's just like cs go market place and that's about it I believe. They can denote the currency value in anything and you pay in normal USD or whatever format if that makes it look less NFT presentation. There are service that let you convert into your local currency and pay it that way without touching your nft wallet.
For whatever small amount of goodwill they built with their last playtest I guess you can write all of that off now, they've decided they need to get in on the ponzi scheme that has mostly already died off years ago. I hope the money was worth it!
Sorry guys, it's my fault. I backed it on kickstarter
For whatever small amount of goodwill they built with their last playtest I guess you can write all of that off now, they've decided they need to get in on the ponzi scheme that has mostly already died off years ago. I hope the money was worth it!
What is the TLDR in laymens term? I don't deal with blockchain and NFTs, I just wanna play games
Then no change for you and me.
Essentially they are gonna treat the cosmetic stuff as nft. Meaning you can see the mint date, the record of it like how rare it is, trade history, how many units it killed etc.
It's just like cs go market place and that's about it I believe. They can denote the currency value in anything and you pay in normal USD or whatever format if that makes it look less NFT presentation. There are service that let you convert into your local currency and pay it that way without touching your nft wallet.
That sounds rather optional then? So I can gamble but I don't have to? Would be fine by me
Well if it's just to make skin tradable by players, what's the downside other than people hating on web3/nft. What makes non tradable skin like league of legends better.
The only downside I can see if they would need to run another client that has no web3 stuff to be on steam
Well if it's just to make skin tradable by players [..] What makes non tradable skin like league of legends better.
That's easy without this junk, so it's not a benefit for us. It makes development longer and more complex, not easier. Skins aren't tradeable in LoL because the developers don't want them to be as part of the business model design, it has nothing to do with any technical limitation and so isn't a meaningful part of the discussion. It's just a red herring, a hook to trick people who don't know any better into thinking that they are recieving some benefit, but they're not. In that context, what is it doing for YOU? That is a difficult question and not one that anyone is able to provide a good answer for.
Flip it around - what is it doing for the developer and sponsor? It's there because it maliciously drains money from players and gives it to devs and their sponsors, directly or indirectly, in easier, earlier and larger amounts (sometimes) than creating an actually valuable product. It's as simple as that, and nobody trying to sell or push it has your interests in mind. The developer got paid by the sponsor and that sponsor expects to make more money than they spent via scamming the game players and backers - why else would they pay for access to the playerbase? Follow the money.
There is a graveyard piled high with dead games and scammed players wherever this business model goes. Sometimes devs and sponsors make bank, sometimes they lose it all, but the players lost every single time. This is why it's outright banned on Steam, and they're trying to bend over backwards to circumvent those regulations while still scamming players.
Sunspear fucked over all of their kickstarter backers in an attempt to do this, and from taking a look at how discussion around the topic is being handled (lied about and also deleted instantly on every channel that the devs control.. for example they made a quarantine channel for it on discord before making the announcement, deleted any discussion outside of that channel, and then later deleted the channel itself for an easy purge of all of the protests and information) i am sure beyond a reasonable doubt that they knew beforehand that it would be extremely unpopular to the point of sinking whatever is left of the game and community. They act to make it as difficult as possible for the remnants of the hooked people to realise that they got scammed.
If it were on the kickstarter, it wouldn't have been backed.
They (JaKaTaK and his team) got paid big to throw us and the game under the bus post-kickstarter, and they did. Remember their names.
Well that sucks. Taking the CS/DotA route for tradeable cosmetics wouldn't make me feel one way or the other but doing anything with blockchain/NFT/web3 even without a Kickstarter instantly turns it into "avoid at all costs" for me.
Before it felt like "yet another cool-but-probably doomed RTS" and now it's flashing with red lights and sirens.
Actually a huge bummer. I wrote some short fiction and played a little tabletop RPG adventure in the setting a whole back whole waiting to see news about a big update or something. Now I'm mentally throwing it in the trash.
Well if it's just to make skin tradable by players [..] What makes non tradable skin like league of legends better.
The developer got paid by the sponsor and that sponsor expects to make more money than they spent via scamming the game players and backers - why else would they pay for access to the playerbase? Follow the money.
...So what makes it a scam? If it's functionally just some silly layer of blockchain tech to enable tradeable collectables, what's the big deal? Players will buy cosmetic items if they like them, and they won't by them if they don't. And if a tiny # of players who still believe in NFT's/whatever want to buy collectibles speculatively, then more power to them
Well if it's just to make skin tradable by players [..] What makes non tradable skin like league of legends better.
The developer got paid by the sponsor and that sponsor expects to make more money than they spent via scamming the game players and backers - why else would they pay for access to the playerbase? Follow the money.
...So what makes it a scam? If it's functionally just some silly layer of blockchain tech to enable tradeable collectables, what's the big deal? Players will buy cosmetic items if they like them, and they won't by them if they don't. And if a tiny # of players who still believe in NFT's/whatever want to buy collectibles speculatively, then more power to them
It's a scam because toxic monetisation (e.g. unregulated gambling, stealing and pump-and-dump schemes) is the only advantage that this "web3" stuff has over normal game store and trading systems which are much easier to create and much more popular (for good reasons). Due to that, nobody uses "web3" unless abusing said toxic advantages are the express intent of the feature and sponsorship - especially given the mountain of skeletons in its closet from these prior abuses.. which, by the way, were almost all sold in this exact way. It's 2024 and while some people took the fall in the first round, we know better now.
Well if it's just to make skin tradable by players [..] What makes non tradable skin like league of legends better.
That's easy without this junk, so it's not a benefit for us. It makes development longer and more complex, not easier. Skins aren't tradeable in LoL because the developers don't want them to be as part of the business model design, it has nothing to do with any technical limitation and so isn't a meaningful part of the discussion. It's just a red herring, a hook to trick people who don't know any better into thinking that they are recieving some benefit, but they're not. In that context, what is it doing for YOU? That is a difficult question and not one that anyone is able to provide a good answer for.
Flip it around - what is it doing for the developer and sponsor? It's there because it maliciously drains money from players and gives it to devs and their sponsors, directly or indirectly, in easier, earlier and larger amounts (sometimes) than creating an actually valuable product. It's as simple as that, and nobody trying to sell or push it has your interests in mind. The developer got paid by the sponsor and that sponsor expects to make more money than they spent via scamming the game players and backers - why else would they pay for access to the playerbase? Follow the money.
There is a graveyard piled high with dead games and scammed players wherever this business model goes. Sometimes devs and sponsors make bank, sometimes they lose it all, but the players lost every single time. This is why it's outright banned on Steam, and they're trying to bend over backwards to circumvent those regulations while still scamming players.
Sunspear fucked over all of their kickstarter backers in an attempt to do this, and from taking a look at how discussion around the topic is being handled (lied about and also deleted instantly on every channel that the devs control.. for example they made a quarantine channel for it on discord before making the announcement, deleted any discussion outside of that channel, and then later deleted the channel itself for an easy purge of all of the protests and information) i am sure beyond a reasonable doubt that they knew beforehand that it would be extremely unpopular to the point of sinking whatever is left of the game and community. They act to make it as difficult as possible for the remnants of the hooked people to realise that they got scammed.
If it were on the kickstarter, it wouldn't have been backed.
They (JaKaTaK and his team) got paid big to throw us and the game under the bus post-kickstarter, and they did. Remember their names.
You have written a lot but didn't exactly explain why it's a scam?
No one asks about how information and assets are stored, which cloud server provider etc. Sure it MAY add to development cost, but...they are literally getting money to develop the game which includes this extra work.
I honestly have yet to see any legit argument, the game is good, and you can buy skin. You can pay for the skin and don't trade it, just like any other games. You don't want skin then don't buy the skin.
What it allows is players who want to trade can trade. I don't intend to trade but intend to buy skin. Doesn't mean I wouldn't want to in the future. Can YOU trade your league of legend skin?
If they don't implement it and the game doesn't get the funding it needs, then it sure is a good option other than non objective hatred against nft.
And of course yes, payable content should and will always be money going to the company and its sponsors. Where should that money go otherwise?
I am just confused what's the controversy all about. Kickstarter backers getting their skin and able to trade essentially. Like they got what would have been a one time purchase into a collectible.
Well if it's just to make skin tradable by players [..] What makes non tradable skin like league of legends better.
The developer got paid by the sponsor and that sponsor expects to make more money than they spent via scamming the game players and backers - why else would they pay for access to the playerbase? Follow the money.
...So what makes it a scam? If it's functionally just some silly layer of blockchain tech to enable tradeable collectables, what's the big deal? Players will buy cosmetic items if they like them, and they won't by them if they don't. And if a tiny # of players who still believe in NFT's/whatever want to buy collectibles speculatively, then more power to them
It's a scam because toxic monetisation (e.g. unregulated gambling, stealing and pump-and-dump schemes) is the only advantage that this "web3" stuff has over normal game store and trading systems which are much easier to create and much more popular (for good reasons). Due to that, nobody uses "web3" unless abusing said toxic advantages are the express intent of the feature and sponsorship - especially given the mountain of skeletons in its closet from these prior abuses.. which, by the way, were almost all sold in this exact way. It's 2024 and while some people took the fall in the first round, we know better now.
So you mean like a collectible market? Literally you turn a one time purchased skin to a tradable one. Even if it dumps 99.999% you are matching what a normal system is. How's anyone supposed to get taken advantaged from here?
Whether they’re correct or logical about it or not, gamers tend to hate this Web3 stuff. So purely from a goodwill perspective it’s wise to steer well clear
As Cyro points out there’s no technical limitation preventing trading of assets that requires the use of NFTs to resolve. So why use them?
On September 20 2024 20:13 WombaT wrote: Whether they’re correct or logical about it or not, gamers tend to hate this Web3 stuff. So purely from a goodwill perspective it’s wise to steer well clear
As Cyro points out there’s no technical limitation preventing trading of assets that requires the use of NFTs to resolve. So why use them?
Sure but that's not the problem of the tech but perception of it. There is technical limitations to sell skin in a common market place that doesn't only sell your skin. Eg it is selling on a more open market.
On September 20 2024 20:13 WombaT wrote: Whether they’re correct or logical about it or not, gamers tend to hate this Web3 stuff. So purely from a goodwill perspective it’s wise to steer well clear
As Cyro points out there’s no technical limitation preventing trading of assets that requires the use of NFTs to resolve. So why use them?
Sure but that's not the problem of the tech but perception of it. There is technical limitations to sell skin in a common market place that doesn't only sell your skin. Eg it is selling on a more open market.
Not to get into a fundamental discussion but if the tech is not the problem, what issues that were existent did Crypto solve exactly and why is it beneficial for users?
On September 20 2024 20:13 WombaT wrote: Whether they’re correct or logical about it or not, gamers tend to hate this Web3 stuff. So purely from a goodwill perspective it’s wise to steer well clear
As Cyro points out there’s no technical limitation preventing trading of assets that requires the use of NFTs to resolve. So why use them?
Sure but that's not the problem of the tech but perception of it. There is technical limitations to sell skin in a common market place that doesn't only sell your skin. Eg it is selling on a more open market.
Not to get into a fundamental discussion but if the tech is not the problem, what issues that were existent did Crypto solve exactly and why is it beneficial for users?
You are able to sell on an open market. has there even been any games that have a market that sell skins with cross platform/cross game on a non gaming platform? probably can be done without crypto, but there's a reason why it has always been only a dedicated platform for one game.
On September 20 2024 20:13 WombaT wrote: Whether they’re correct or logical about it or not, gamers tend to hate this Web3 stuff. So purely from a goodwill perspective it’s wise to steer well clear
As Cyro points out there’s no technical limitation preventing trading of assets that requires the use of NFTs to resolve. So why use them?
Sure but that's not the problem of the tech but perception of it. There is technical limitations to sell skin in a common market place that doesn't only sell your skin. Eg it is selling on a more open market.
Not to get into a fundamental discussion but if the tech is not the problem, what issues that were existent did Crypto solve exactly and why is it beneficial for users?
You are able to sell on an open market. has there even been any games that have a market that sell skins with cross platform/cross game on a non gaming platform? probably can be done without crypto, but there's a reason why it has always been only a dedicated platform for one game.
Is it a feature people interested in this particular game would be interested in? It just doesn’t seem a great fit
On September 20 2024 20:13 WombaT wrote: Whether they’re correct or logical about it or not, gamers tend to hate this Web3 stuff. So purely from a goodwill perspective it’s wise to steer well clear
As Cyro points out there’s no technical limitation preventing trading of assets that requires the use of NFTs to resolve. So why use them?
Sure but that's not the problem of the tech but perception of it. There is technical limitations to sell skin in a common market place that doesn't only sell your skin. Eg it is selling on a more open market.
Not to get into a fundamental discussion but if the tech is not the problem, what issues that were existent did Crypto solve exactly and why is it beneficial for users?
You are able to sell on an open market. has there even been any games that have a market that sell skins with cross platform/cross game on a non gaming platform? probably can be done without crypto, but there's a reason why it has always been only a dedicated platform for one game.
Is it a feature people interested in this particular game would be interested in? It just doesn’t seem a great fit
Like I said, depends how it is implemented. If there's a store to buy the skin then what's the difference? Magic the gathering or Pokemon trading cards were never meant to have a market for collector yet here we are.
EPT
