Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Beyond All Reason (Free Total Annihilation Inspired RTS)

beyondallreason.info

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 339 posts

Re: Beyond All Reason (Free Total Annihilation Inspired RTS)

#211

Post by tm-guimaraes »

estearum wrote: post #25
aetherspawn wrote: post #14

Great game, technically impressive, but the community can be quite mean and toxic. I played for around a year after having played other TA Spring RTS for a few years prior, and if you don’t follow the exact meta of the month (whatever that might be) in terms of build order and things, people can get really aggro and your team can vote to kick you and take your units. Also, one particularly aggravating part of the com…

It's amazing the degree to which streaming/online communities around video games have destroyed the games themselves. Every update to every game launches a large scale effort to find the "meta" which is then instantly disseminated to the most try-hard assholes on the Internet. Anyone who dares to develop their own strategy/style/loadout is up against hordes of people (a growing proportion every day) who just copy wha…

I think more than meta chasing, the problem comes from laxk of actual community due to the crazy effectiveness of online matchmaking. When all you had where community servers and rooms, toxicity was more manageable. With other players all being nameless folks you will never play with again, the worst side of people can more easily come out.

Re: Beyond All Reason (Free Total Annihilation Inspired RTS)

#212

Post by Melatonic »

aetherspawn wrote: post #14

Great game, technically impressive, but the community can be quite mean and toxic. I played for around a year after having played other TA Spring RTS for a few years prior, and if you don’t follow the exact meta of the month (whatever that might be) in terms of build order and things, people can get really aggro and your team can vote to kick you and take your units. Also, one particularly aggravating part of the com…

Sounds awful - do you have to play as a team ?

Re: Beyond All Reason (Free Total Annihilation Inspired RTS)

#213

Post by jadbox »

tobinfekkes wrote: post #87

This is amazing to see TA on HN. I grew up playing Total Annihilation in the 90s because my cousin worked for Cavedog and got us a CD for free. It is still one of my favorite games to this day. So many great memories with that game, countless hours playing with my brothers, getting up early to play before school, asking my parents for extra chores to earn more computer time. Games aren't the same anymore. I still hav…

I once reported a bug to Cavedog and stated I didn't have Internet access out in the country to download a patch. They were kind and sent me the patch with the fix via floppy in the mail!

Re: Beyond All Reason (Free Total Annihilation Inspired RTS)

#214

Post by energy123 »

InsomniacL wrote: post #198

BAR is amazing but there's a hurdle for new players. If you download it, don't join the first lobby you see. My advice is to watch some videos on youtube, play some games solo, then look for new player lobbies or create your own and set restrictions on it. It only takes one player on the enemy team who regularly plays the game and you'll get stream rolled. Or you'll join a game of regular players, can't hold your lan…

You do need to lose a few games to be rated properly then you'll be stacked with the best players (relative to average skill in the lobby). Good players will eat the whole map for you.

Re: Beyond All Reason (Free Total Annihilation Inspired RTS)

#215

Post by whartung »

moffkalast wrote: post #130
whartung wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TA is the only game I consciously went out to buy a faster machine to play. Upgrading from my 133MHz to a 400MHz so I could run more units in TA. I rarely played TA vs other people. It was always either the PvE scenarios, or skirmishes. Against multiple AIs I would strive to take out several of them, leaving one time to build up. Then the game would quickly devolve into "hose on hose" combat where my automatic produc…

You know, just the other day I dropped back into RA3 for a few hours and left wondering why they set every map up so that everyone runs out of resources 15 minutes in as the collectors go empty, so nobody can really do much. Makes for battles that are really limited in scope for seemingly no reason. Hose vs. hose sounds epic af.

Al (most?) of the other RTS games are very resource constrained. So, you have to focus on tight unit mixes, concentrate on individual battles, doing micro, and running about.

TA is more a game of raw tonnage, not of finesse and subtlety.

As the same time, original TA is notorious for not being finely tuned or balanced. And I'm sure that's much more important in PvP.

But in PvE flinging two industrial powerhouses against each other, where subtlety is replaced by 100, throwaway, Flash tanks, it's just a different play experience.

Re: Beyond All Reason (Free Total Annihilation Inspired RTS)

#216

Post by icexuick »

adammarples wrote: post #205
mholm wrote: post #118

As someone who loved Supreme Commander, I really wanted to like BAR, but I found it felt like death by a thousand cuts. I last played more than a year ago, so things might be different, but the QoL felt really lacking.

There are so many qol things in bar that I would love to see in faf. Area mex build, for example. Sticky unit grouping, draw unit formation is essential. Reclaim/repair area. Unit and command queue jumping. That said there are a few faf ones I would like to see in bar too.

Guessing this would be: Good Transport mechanics? BAR is working on this.

Re: Beyond All Reason (Free Total Annihilation Inspired RTS)

#217

Post by bar2 »

Best RTS ever made, in my subjective opinion, but incredibly toxic player base despite active moderation.

I think it's a numbers issue with 16 players in a standard game, and if you play five games in a session, with all chat enabled, you're going to run into a small handful of truly nasty people, which is souring of the experience and why I put the game down in the end.

I know the standard advice is to ignore it but it's just not fun to be constantly exposed to aggressive and unhappy people.

Re: Beyond All Reason (Free Total Annihilation Inspired RTS)

#218

Post by s1artibartfast »

Apocryphon wrote: post #156
mannanj wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems people in general have started to project their lifes disappointments, stresses, and greater human needs onto a digital dimension like video games. Growing up they used to be about fun. I have endless memories as a child playing Mario N64 and it not needing to be about playing a particular way; only as a I got older and competition and disappointments being human as an adult added up did I notice this shift you…

Games have also become more like work, bloated Hollywood blockbuster budgets lead to endless busywork content that pad out playtime.

kinda funny sentiment to express in a thread about a completely community built free game without adds. You should play it!

Re: Beyond All Reason (Free Total Annihilation Inspired RTS)

#219

Post by Apocryphon »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #218
Apocryphon wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Games have also become more like work, bloated Hollywood blockbuster budgets lead to endless busywork content that pad out playtime.

kinda funny sentiment to express in a thread about a completely community built free game without adds. You should play it!

I’m talking about AAA games in general, it’s not commentary about this title, which my computer likely can’t run.

Re: Beyond All Reason (Free Total Annihilation Inspired RTS)

#220

Post by CrzyLngPwd »

What is singel player vs computer/bot experience?

I'd love to wile away some time on a single player, short adventure/mission, game from time to time. I have enjoyed lots of fun times with game like cmomand and conquer in the past so something like that wouldf be amazing.

Is this game it?

Post reply on HN