On January 20 2024 02:09 _Spartak_ wrote: A lot of mechanics haven't been implemented yet. There will be high-ground advantage in some form in the final game.
It's odd they haven't shown, or probably decided, on how they're doing this.
I can see vision like in sc2 being an issue because they don't have many air units, and have said they want air units to be weaker. In sc2 all races get air units fairly quick so high ground vision isn't too powerful.
Maybe a flat damage reduction? or a range reduction?
In BW there is a chance to miss uphill. For the longest time I was in favour of a flat damage reduction, like you mentioned, instead because I dislike luck-based mechanics in competitive games. However, I have somewhat changed my mind on that in recent years. The advantage of a "x% chance of missing" over "x% damage reduction" is that it is less calculable. This will make players play more conservatively when attacking from low ground which strengthens high ground beyond raw numbers. Now, I'm not entirely opposed to damage reduction but I prefer chance to miss in this instance.
The luck based low to highground interaction of BW was absolutely horrible. One bunker could hold the highground vs a ridiculous amount of low attacks speed units like Dragoons
Isn't that what you'd want out of highground advantage?
In general, that is okay. Mind you I did say could. It also could have gone the other way. Built in Chance/ luck does not belong into competitive esport. It's okay to have mine drag shots like in SC2 for example because there is skill behind it. But thats just my humble opinion
I disagree, I think small elements of luck like this adds a lot of skill expression in terms of managing risk, both in determining when it's worth it to expose yourself to a dice roll and being prepared for the range of possible outcomes when you do so. But to each their own, of course.
On January 20 2024 02:09 _Spartak_ wrote: A lot of mechanics haven't been implemented yet. There will be high-ground advantage in some form in the final game.
It's odd they haven't shown, or probably decided, on how they're doing this.
I can see vision like in sc2 being an issue because they don't have many air units, and have said they want air units to be weaker. In sc2 all races get air units fairly quick so high ground vision isn't too powerful.
Maybe a flat damage reduction? or a range reduction?
In BW there is a chance to miss uphill. For the longest time I was in favour of a flat damage reduction, like you mentioned, instead because I dislike luck-based mechanics in competitive games. However, I have somewhat changed my mind on that in recent years. The advantage of a "x% chance of missing" over "x% damage reduction" is that it is less calculable. This will make players play more conservatively when attacking from low ground which strengthens high ground beyond raw numbers. Now, I'm not entirely opposed to damage reduction but I prefer chance to miss in this instance.
The luck based low to highground interaction of BW was absolutely horrible. One bunker could hold the highground vs a ridiculous amount of low attacks speed units like Dragoons
Isn't that what you'd want out of highground advantage?
In general, that is okay. Mind you I did say could. It also could have gone the other way. Built in Chance/ luck does not belong into competitive esport. It's okay to have mine drag shots like in SC2 for example because there is skill behind it. But thats just my humble opinion
I disagree, I think small elements of luck like this adds a lot of skill expression in terms of managing risk, both in determining when it's worth it to expose yourself to a dice roll and being prepared for the range of possible outcomes when you do so. But to each their own, of course.
to add to your point...
Games like Texas Hold'em are popular partially because a far worse player can very occasionally defeat a far better player. This possibility arises in part due to elements of luck built into the game.
Baseball's popularity is partially because a far worse team can defeat a far better team. In baseball, a BO7 is almost meaningless.
I think in Stormgate's case, given that units take about twice as long to die than in sc2, chance to miss isn't that bad. With how many hits it takes to actually kill things, the shots would consistently fall towards the average.
Plus, the early game units so far as mostly melee, with the exception of the turret bunkers. In larger fights the chance-to-miss becomes less random unless you have really slow firing units (they do have those tanks I guess, although they do aoe damage so surely can't miss ?)
If you really hate randomness, units can just miss every second shot or something.
Randomness throws a wrench into risk/reward decision-making which is more interesting and shouldn't be removed from games outright. But it can be managed by adding systems so it reverts to the mean (as Fango mentions), or pseudo-randomness so the distribution is more even than true randomness.
On January 26 2024 09:55 JimmyJRaynor wrote: Baseball's popularity is partially because a far worse team can defeat a far better team. In baseball, a BO7 is almost meaningless.
Yeah I think this is where opinions differ. This sounds horrible
On January 26 2024 16:24 LunarC wrote: Randomness throws a wrench into risk/reward decision-making which is more interesting and shouldn't be removed from games outright. But it can be managed by adding systems so it reverts to the mean (as Fango mentions), or pseudo-randomness so the distribution is more even than true randomness.
I don’t mind visible randomness so much as more opaque randomness.
A spawn location, or in WC3 your item drops/your opponents are random, but you can see the results once they’re rolled and those mechanisms can lead to interesting dynamic decisions. You may need to alter your gameplan on item drops, and it makes that game less BO vs BO, I know not everyone likes that.
Less so something like chance to miss, I think, we all make errors gauging an engagement, but roughly being able to make decisions on semi-predictable outcomes on which comp will likely win is a huge part of making RTS games fun.
‘Can I bust this ramp with what I’ve got and what I’m facing?’ is quite important, defender’s advantage should feature in some form on some terrain, but equally being able to assess if you can punch through a potential weak point is critical to keep gameplay being stodgy and defensive.
A flat damage reduction, or a range reduction when fighting up a high ground is similar functionally than % miss chance, but more predictable. If you’re trying to gauge armies, then gauge ‘what if the RNG gods hate me’ there’s just added mental calculation and will inhibit engagements unless the attacker has overwhelming force, and I don’t think thats really what we want.
Whereas a stats debuff is something we can keep a more intuitive eye on, we’ve been able to factor in attack/armour upgrades pretty accurately for years in other RTS games and they’re broadly equivalent
As others have said higher numbers do somewhat mitigate this.
Been a while since i posted on TL, I joined the discord channel but its mostly memes and useless chatter, is there a place where meta data has been analyzed?
I know there is a secret discord channel with builds, economy math breakdown, etc. Is there any way to get access to this information?
Im aware the balance will change, but some basic information could be useful (IE the expansions needing to be 90 degree angle from mineral patches)
Been a while since i posted on TL, I joined the discord channel but its mostly memes and useless chatter, is there a place where meta data has been analyzed?
I know there is a secret discord channel with builds, economy math breakdown, etc. Is there any way to get access to this information?
Im aware the balance will change, but some basic information could be useful (IE the expansions needing to be 90 degree angle from mineral patches)
I don't think those can be fully discussed outside the NDA so it d be on the beta discord channel
On January 26 2024 16:24 LunarC wrote: Randomness throws a wrench into risk/reward decision-making which is more interesting and shouldn't be removed from games outright. But it can be managed by adding systems so it reverts to the mean (as Fango mentions), or pseudo-randomness so the distribution is more even than true randomness.
I don’t mind visible randomness so much as more opaque randomness.
On January 26 2024 09:55 JimmyJRaynor wrote: Baseball's popularity is partially because a far worse team can defeat a far better team. In baseball, a BO7 is almost meaningless.
Yeah I think this is where opinions differ. This sounds horrible
when the competition structure determines a winner after 162 games it works great. baseball is , by far, the most attended sport in the USA and in Canada the team used to set attendance records higher than any team in the USA when all the emphasis was on the 162 game season.
Within a Properly structured competition the randomness element can be just fine.
On January 19 2024 23:50 _Spartak_ wrote: You don't have vision of high ground until a unit attacks you from high ground, in which case you can attack back. Nothing else is implemented yet but they previously talked about how they wanted to make high ground important.
A really good option would have been to create a new engine with a 3D field "kind of looks like to an isometric (with 6 faces)" but with 8 faces (with an appeareance smooth of course), because it would have been interessant to take slope in account and give advantage to units that are on a higher position even if it s a close combat.
I would have been really interested if the game would have 25% strategy building and decision making, 50 % skill and 25% strategy concerning ground control. Today SC2 looks like to 10 % strategy building, 10% strategy control and 80% skill and speed... But it s good to know that the developpement of the game is more focus on ground.
On January 19 2024 23:50 _Spartak_ wrote: You don't have vision of high ground until a unit attacks you from high ground, in which case you can attack back. Nothing else is implemented yet but they previously talked about how they wanted to make high ground important.
A really good option would have been to create a new engine with a 3D field "kind of looks like to an isometric (with 6 faces)" but with 8 faces (with an appeareance smooth of course), because it would have been interessant to take slope in account and give advantage to units that are on a higher position even if it s a close combat.
This would melt your computer doing all the calculations, especially in larger team games.
On January 19 2024 23:50 _Spartak_ wrote: You don't have vision of high ground until a unit attacks you from high ground, in which case you can attack back. Nothing else is implemented yet but they previously talked about how they wanted to make high ground important.
A really good option would have been to create a new engine with a 3D field "kind of looks like to an isometric (with 6 faces)" but with 8 faces (with an appeareance smooth of course), because it would have been interessant to take slope in account and give advantage to units that are on a higher position even if it s a close combat.
This would melt your computer doing all the calculations, especially in larger team games.
Really? I'm no computer scientist, but the amount of calculations we can shove through a GPU or CPU at this point are insane. The dude's talking about eight distinct layers of height and some damage calculation based on the difference between attacker and target, I hardly think that would even be a minor strain in active calculations.
I don't think it's a good idea from a design perspective, but I don't think it's a computational issue. More likely it's an issue of design clarity, and it looks like Stormgate is leaning more towards "Fun RTS battle stomp" and not "Realistic battle simulator". Granular slopes and calculations for them feels like a thing more at home in a Total War game or something.
Age and TA games do a great job with conventional slope, something which has not been incorporated at all into Blizzard-like titles. Blizzard-like RTS games instead have discrete levels of elevation. I too would like to see the former brought in but it's probably a bit too unexpected at this point for a Blizzard spiritual successor title.
On January 29 2024 06:39 VelRa_G wrote: Age and TA games do a great job with conventional slope, something which has not been incorporated at all into Blizzard-like titles. Blizzard-like RTS games instead have discrete levels of elevation. I too would like to see the former brought in but it's probably a bit too unexpected at this point for a Blizzard spiritual successor title.
How did that work out of interest? I enjoyed a casual bit of TA as a kid but never really got into the nitty gritty of how various mechanics worked
On January 29 2024 06:39 VelRa_G wrote: Age and TA games do a great job with conventional slope, something which has not been incorporated at all into Blizzard-like titles. Blizzard-like RTS games instead have discrete levels of elevation. I too would like to see the former brought in but it's probably a bit too unexpected at this point for a Blizzard spiritual successor title.
How did that work out of interest? I enjoyed a casual bit of TA as a kid but never really got into the nitty gritty of how various mechanics worked
One of the main things with TA elevation and its successors (SupCom etc) is that projectiles are physicalized, thus hills can obstruct projectile trajectories. Units also move slower uphill and faster downhill, with some distinction here between bots and tracked vehicles where bots suffer less penalties going uphill. Elevation could also increase vision and attack range.
In general it's a set of mechanics which maybe feels a bit too out of place in the core of Stormgate, but it surely would be nice to see supported for Arcade.
On January 29 2024 06:39 VelRa_G wrote: Age and TA games do a great job with conventional slope, something which has not been incorporated at all into Blizzard-like titles. Blizzard-like RTS games instead have discrete levels of elevation. I too would like to see the former brought in but it's probably a bit too unexpected at this point for a Blizzard spiritual successor title.
How did that work out of interest? I enjoyed a casual bit of TA as a kid but never really got into the nitty gritty of how various mechanics worked
One of the main things with TA elevation and its successors (SupCom etc) is that projectiles are physicalized, thus hills can obstruct projectile trajectories. Units also move slower uphill and faster downhill, with some distinction here between bots and tracked vehicles where bots suffer less penalties going uphill. Elevation could also increase vision and attack range.
In general it's a set of mechanics which maybe feels a bit too out of place in the core of Stormgate, but it surely would be nice to see supported for Arcade.
That all makes more sense to me than direct modifiers to damage. Homeworld : Deserts of Kharak had a lot of 'high ground' play, basically all centered around physical projectiles and line of sight - you'd want to pop over the hill, fire, then retreat behind it. I like all that stuff, and think ultimately in the case of Stormgate it comes down to Stormgate's identity - is it meant to be a blizzard-like RTS or not.
On January 29 2024 06:39 VelRa_G wrote: Age and TA games do a great job with conventional slope, something which has not been incorporated at all into Blizzard-like titles. Blizzard-like RTS games instead have discrete levels of elevation. I too would like to see the former brought in but it's probably a bit too unexpected at this point for a Blizzard spiritual successor title.
How did that work out of interest? I enjoyed a casual bit of TA as a kid but never really got into the nitty gritty of how various mechanics worked
One of the main things with TA elevation and its successors (SupCom etc) is that projectiles are physicalized, thus hills can obstruct projectile trajectories. Units also move slower uphill and faster downhill, with some distinction here between bots and tracked vehicles where bots suffer less penalties going uphill. Elevation could also increase vision and attack range.
In general it's a set of mechanics which maybe feels a bit too out of place in the core of Stormgate, but it surely would be nice to see supported for Arcade.
That all makes more sense to me than direct modifiers to damage. Homeworld : Deserts of Kharak had a lot of 'high ground' play, basically all centered around physical projectiles and line of sight - you'd want to pop over the hill, fire, then retreat behind it. I like all that stuff, and think ultimately in the case of Stormgate it comes down to Stormgate's identity - is it meant to be a blizzard-like RTS or not.
Stormgate is very arcade'ish (Blizzard'ish) and I think that is what they aim for. It doesn't want to be a realistic battle simulator like Total War. For example I can see games like Tempest Rising having a lot more of those "realisic" attributes than a games like Stormgate, because it already has somewhat realisitc units, unit movement and projectile movement.
EPT
