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Beyond All Reason (Free Total Annihilation Inspired RTS)

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

#331

Post by goodmythical »

mannanj wrote: post #314
goodmythical wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know, I won a friendly Super Smash Bros tournament circa ~2011 with kirby spamming down b with what was it, the c-stick? Whatever it was where you could do the super move or whatever automatically instead of having to choose how much power you wanted and just generally clicking random buttons. The friends who all played vastly more often than I did and had all their techniques and edge jumps and recoveries an…

yeah I could have left politics out of this, I didn't think much before writing that. /insert joke about token limits being reached or reasoning effort being too low I personally can feel that analogy about you winning in a way that made others feel wronged or offended or have their models about the game broken, and see it connect to the theme of the thread. Which is that people forget and mistake games for serious v…

I figure it's kind of always been that way, no? Online games inheritted it from local games. I've never tried to win a game of poker, and every game I have won if from tilting "pros" off their game because "I don't bet right".

You can even see it in tabletop roleplaying. Where you're "not supposed to meta-game" or "you can't have a lawful good lich (who's ultimate goal is to live long enough to save the town from evil collegues)" or "someone's got to play healer" or whatever. I always like subverting norms to see what happens. A group of clerics on a quest for an ancient tomb might need to convince/coerce some local muscle. The lawful good lich lets everyone play with themes of racism and prejudices. A group without a healer is kind of just playing on hard mode because there's no safety net.

But lots of groups won't go for those kinds of things, or will only allow them occasionally.

I just play for fun. I win by having fun. The score is somewhat irrelevant.

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

#332

Post by estearum »

im3w1l wrote: post #329
estearum wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct, and if 100% of the people who beat you are using all the same "meta" then that suggests it's not a skill variation that explains it. That makes the game extremely boring. > You should quickly pick up on what they were doing and learn to counter it. If you can't then how can you claim to be better than they are? You must not be familiar with what "meta" means. Modern video games seem to all have an across-the…

Many games operate on a rock-paper-scissor system though, and even if rock is perhaps a bit stronger than it should be, what that actually means is that it wins more against scissor than it loses to paper, but it still loses against paper.

This is how games are meant to operate. But the balance space is now so incredibly high-dimensionality that it turns out there is almost always a meta-optimal strategy. There is a Rock that beats both Scissors and Paper at greater frequency than expected.

Just go read the changelogs for any major game to see them trying to balance and rebalance and adjust and constantly failing to actually achieve what you describe.

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

#333

Post by Apocryphon »

Volshok wrote: post #324
Apocryphon wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for clarifying. I recognize that the advent of LLMs have caused a sort of paranoid hypersensitivity towards what or what might not have been human-generated. And so it was little things in Glossary such as this bit in The Mantle > To take the Mantle is to bear responsibility for every decision, failure, and life affected by one’s authority, without deflection to subordinates, systems, or machines. By this phil…

Yeah that's fair, I have the same reaction to a ton of writing, especially for the "not X, but Y" and anytime I see an em dash. You can see the foundations for Legion Lore from planets in the Galaxy Map, but that's coming much later and involves the campaign.

Looking forward to it!

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

#334

Post by mannanj »

parineum wrote: post #317
mannanj wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Anything that depersonalizes is going to be toxic and that is inherent in the online space. In the smaller communities you can actually get to know people and have some kind of reputation but as the community size grows, the consequences of bad behavior fade because nobody can remember. Do you think or have noticed that bad behavior is less likely to occur in smaller communities, or is simply swept under the rug or…

Two main examples came into my mind when I was writing that. I used to play a lot of counterstrike on private servers and I played some ultima online as well. With counter strike, I frequented one server and got to know the players on it a bit. You'd chat a bit after you died but, mostly, I'd just see the same names most of the time. There was usually an admin online and bad behavior (mostly not game related but soci…

seems like an example of change of game design rewarding play time over community or socializing. or might be hard to connect those two together. for me, to relate to your experience, I played a army shooter sim called Americas Army in the 2000's and its community also allowed me a similar community effect + positive behavior incentives, and we had open chat too.

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

#335

Post by mannanj »

goodmythical wrote: post #331
mannanj wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yeah I could have left politics out of this, I didn't think much before writing that. /insert joke about token limits being reached or reasoning effort being too low I personally can feel that analogy about you winning in a way that made others feel wronged or offended or have their models about the game broken, and see it connect to the theme of the thread. Which is that people forget and mistake games for serious v…

I figure it's kind of always been that way, no? Online games inheritted it from local games. I've never tried to win a game of poker, and every game I have won if from tilting "pros" off their game because "I don't bet right". You can even see it in tabletop roleplaying. Where you're "not supposed to meta-game" or "you can't have a lawful good lich (who's ultimate goal is to live long enough to save the town from evi…

Sounds like you and I both like rebelling and challenging cultural norms, and being counter culture? I also love understanding people and find these ways of playing and being fun. If I'm not having fun, I lose interest in winning.

I found my groups and communities in odd, niche areas like mindfulness communities and men's groups therapy - maybe you relate? Are you also selective with groups and friends, and keep a smaller circle perhaps?

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

#336

Post by parineum »

mannanj wrote: post #334
parineum wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two main examples came into my mind when I was writing that. I used to play a lot of counterstrike on private servers and I played some ultima online as well. With counter strike, I frequented one server and got to know the players on it a bit. You'd chat a bit after you died but, mostly, I'd just see the same names most of the time. There was usually an admin online and bad behavior (mostly not game related but soci…

seems like an example of change of game design rewarding play time over community or socializing. or might be hard to connect those two together. for me, to relate to your experience, I played a army shooter sim called Americas Army in the 2000's and its community also allowed me a similar community effect + positive behavior incentives, and we had open chat too.

> seems like an example of change of game design rewarding play time over community or socializing.

I agree completely but I'd also add that those changes weren't always intentional, I think. MMO changes, in particular, have greatly stifled the social aspect of their games, not intentionally, but through adding convenience.

The advent of fast travel across the world (for cost), auction houses, mailing items at no or little cost, etc. In UO, you'd walk into a town and find a blacksmith to repair your gear because they were just pasting in an advertisement over and over. Each hub would have different prices based on who was on because travel wasn't painless. I remember making a deal with someone to buy ore I mined at a specific price. It was below market value but it took away the burden of finding buyers all the time so I did it. And just like that, a casual friendship was formed.

Now, an mmo without a global (or even cross server!) auction house would be unthinkable.

Giving into the conveniences that players ask for ruins the social aspect of the game. It's cool that I can jump online and queue for an instance with a bunch of randoms in 10 minutes but it's at the expense of me actually communicating with the people and that's a shame.

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

#337

Post by Panzer04 »

aetherspawn wrote: post #28
Panzer04 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This very much depends on the lobby. I don't think this is unique to BAR either - it's just that 8v8 is the most popular mode. Lots of players mean more chances to get a toxic guy who doesn't recognise their own faults and blames others. I actually just don't really agree about the assertion on player slots. If anything, the better players get the more likely they are to play a front slot, because they have an outsid…

My OS floated around 10-15 and I virtually always ended up having to go front in every lobby, which is the position I hate the most because I don’t like playing my strategy game like an RPG - that is, micro-ing just a dozen of units and optimising every rocket or bullet hit or whatever, which is kind of what front is like. Front has zero opportunity or resources available to build any kind of economy, and once the T2…

Paying for T2 means the whole team gets faster T2s. Giving them resources lets them build them faster because their own resource generation is less than that of the team.

T2s are so good this is an objectively good tradeoff. It's not about compensating the eco player (though that does happen by extension) its about getting your whole team faster T2 mexes.

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

#338

Post by jansan »

jon-wood wrote: post #170
jansan wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had the most intense battles with my brother, even well into our 30s when we only met a few times a year. It is sad that there never really was a successor that was as good. They could have lifted the 255 units limit, made the game more balanced, added a few more maps and units (but not too many), enhace the graphics (but keep it 2.5D, I do not want 3D in this kind of games) and make connectivity easier. Cavedog re…

Supreme Commander was that follow up. Basically the same team as worked on TA, making more or less the same game but with larger maps and higher unit counts.

I remember trying that and did not like it. They did that 3D view that I just do not like in RTS games. 2.5D is the way to go IMO.

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

#339

Post by ghosty141 »

aetherspawn wrote: post #275
ghosty141 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My OS floated around 10-15 and I virtually always ended up having to go front in every lobby, which is the position I hate the most because I don’t like playing my strategy game like an RPG So the truth is, "Front" is the absolute standard. There are only two other "types" of positions which are tech and air. And a good tech player usually also plays that role more like a front player just with more time in the ear…

I just want to say that I have a friend that floats around OS 25-30 and he tells me exactly what’s required to reach that level. I’m 100% aware that most high OS players on Front are using interface mods to manage their units and send back hurt units automatically to get healed. In fact, he’s not even that much better than me. We still do 2v2 lobbies together, and we have good and bad games and carry each other. I kn…

> I’m 100% aware that most high OS players on Front are using interface mods to manage their units and send back hurt units automatically to get healed.

Uhhhh no? This is just micro and people do that manually. No mods are used. In tournaments etc. the widget that disallows such mods is always active. Also this widget is commonly active in the high OS lobbies so that's not possible either.

AND high OS streamers like HellsHound do this where you can clearly see them clicking the units. I'd be curious who exactly you think is doing this. I've never seen this widget used in high os play.

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